FAITH IN EDUCATION By Joni House As I reflect on the first semester, I am grateful for the time spent simply being present in our schools and early learning centers. There is something powerful about walking into a classroom, standing in a hallway, or sharing a brief conversation, moments that quietly remind you why Catholic education matters so deeply.
These experiences have reinforced an important truth: the heart of our schools cannot be understood from a distance. It is found in the daily faithfulness of faculty and staff, the curiosity of students, and the steady leadership of those who serve our communities with care and conviction. Presence allows us to see, to listen, and to appreciate the quiet work that so often goes unnoticed.
Being in our schools has also deepened my understanding of our shared culture. While each community is unique, all are united by a common mission to foster disciples and pursue excellence in a Christ-centered environment. That mission is strengthened when we walk together, supporting one another through both moments of joy and seasons of challenge.
Our early learning centers, in particular, remind us that Catholic education begins long before a child enters a traditional classroom. These spaces are where trust is built, faith is gently introduced, and the foundation for lifelong learning is formed.
Christ led by walking with His people, meeting them where they were. In that same spirit, I remain committed to being present, listening with intention, and accompanying our school communities.
As we continue the school year, I return often to our theme rooted in John 10:27: “My sheep hear my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” Being present in our schools has reminded me that listening comes first. When we take the time to truly hear one another, to know our students, our educators, and our communities, we lead with greater clarity, compassion and purpose. It is through this listening and accompaniment that the culture of Catholic education is strengthened and our mission continues to unfold.
(Joni House is the executive director of Catholic Schools for the Diocese of Jackson.)
(OSV News) — Since 2022, there has been a steady flow of harrowing images and videos of killings, war and destruction from the Holy Land, beginning with the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, followed by Israel’s war on Gaza.
That, coupled with reported attacks on Christians in the West Bank by Jewish settlers, has led the land known as “The Fifth Gospel” to be nearly empty of pilgrims over the last two years.
Although a ceasefire agreement has been in place since October, Israel launched a deadly strike on Gaza Jan. 31 that killed over 30 people, threatening an already shaky detente.
On Feb. 3, only a handful of sick and wounded Palestinians from Gaza were allowed to cross to Egypt after the Rafah border crossing reopened for the movement of people — it was closed in May 2024.
Nevertheless, in early January, Franciscan Father Francesco Ielpo, custos of the Holy Land, urged pilgrims to return not only as an opportunity to be where Christ was, but also as a sign of solidarity with Christians in the area whose livelihoods depend on pilgrims.
Meeting with pilgrims from Rome Jan. 7 at the Franciscan headquarters in Jerusalem, Father Ielpo said the presence of Christians from around the world visiting the Holy Land “generates hope and strengthens the reason for coming here — not to see a museum, but to encounter a living Church.”
Father Ielpo said he is often asked by many how “to help this land and these peoples.”
The most helpful thing, he said, according to Vatican News, was to “return as pilgrims to this land.”
Pilgrimages are “one of the principal sources of economic support, primarily — but not only — for the local Christian community,” he added.
For Michael Kelly, director of public affairs for Aid to the Church in Need Ireland, pilgrims should consider Father Ielpo’s appeal because he, like many men and women religious in the Holy Land, understands “the reality on the ground, and they would not invite pilgrims there if the situation was unsafe.”
While the ceasefire in Gaza is fragile, “around Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee the situation is safe,” Kelly said in a Jan. 28 email to OSV News.
Kelly, who said he has led dozens of group pilgrimages to the Holy Land over the past 20 years, urged pilgrims on the fence about visiting to “leave the hesitation at the door, because it is not outsiders telling people to come, it is the people who live the reality every single day who are asking pilgrims to come.”
“Even before the current war, people had a perception that the Holy Land is unsafe,” he said. “I used to say to people, take the words of Jesus to heart ‘come and see’ — and I can tell you honestly, of the 6,000 or so pilgrims I have brought to the Holy Land, not one said they were concerned or worried once they were there.”
With religious tourism slowing to a trickle, he lamented, Christians in Bethlehem and Jerusalem are reaching a breaking point, both economically and mentally.
“They are suffering isolation and hardship because pilgrims have not come in over two years,” he told OSV News. “They want people to come back, but not just for their material benefit (which is important) but because they want to share their lives of faith with Christians from all over the world.”
“Many of the workers in the hotels and restaurants are Christians, and by patronising these businesses we are helping Christians to survive,” he added.
According to a report by the U.S. State Department, Christian clergy and pilgrims are facing increased harassment, including incidents of spitting and verbal assault by ultra-Orthodox extremists.
Asked how one reconciles the spiritual call to return with the physical reality of rising hostility on the streets, Kelly acknowledged that authorities in Jerusalem must do more to ensure that pilgrims “do not have negative experiences.”
“Jerusalem is a holy city for Jews, Christians and Muslims. All of these believers must be allowed to be free to exercise their faith in the city,” he said, noting that rabbis in Jerusalem denounced Jewish extremists for their harassment, which is “not in keeping with authentic Judaism.”
“I have to say, any time I have witnessed an incident and I have reported it to the Israeli police, they took action immediately,” he said. “This hostility on the streets comes from a very small but vocal faction, and it is necessary for Israeli leaders and politicians to denounce it.”
Kelly also told OSV News that when such incidents occur on pilgrimages he has led, he tells pilgrims, “This is how it was. The Lord did not have a sanitized walk to Calvary; try to enter more deeply into his passion with this very small experience of adversity.'”
“The streets of Jerusalem were hostile on that first Good Friday, when the Lord carried his cross,” he said. “Who are we to expect anything less?”
Nevertheless, the images of war and death remain the biggest hurdle in convincing pilgrims to return.
“People are rightly greatly troubled by the huge loss of life and the intensity of the violence,” Kelly said. While noting that major pilgrimage stops, such as Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, the Sea of Galilee, Capernaum and the Jordan River are safe, he urged pilgrims to overcome their fear by visiting the Holy Land, deepening their faith, and supporting the local Christian community.
“Many Christians are leaving — they see little hope,” he said. “They have not seen Christians from other parts of the world in over two years, (and) they begin to think that they are forgotten about.”
“We have to help Catholics around the world understand that the importance of the Holy Land lies not just in the ancient sites there, but in the life of the local Christians descended from the first followers of Jesus,” Kelly told OSV News.
“My hope is that every Catholic parish in the world will give serious consideration to organizing a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, not only to see the holy sites associated with Jesus, but to be with the local Christian community — to show them that they are really part of the body of Christ, and we will support them,” he said.
(Junno Arocho Esteves is an international correspondent for OSV News. Follow him on X @jae_journalist.)
(OSV News) — At first glance, the official photo of Venerable Augusto Ramírez Monasterio — known simply as “Fray Augusto” — shows a smiling Franciscan friar standing in a small garden, hands clasped and slightly hidden within the sleeves of his brown habit.
Yet the joyful and peaceful demeanor of the friar masked the horrors he was subjected to before his 1983 martyrdom, which was recognized by Pope Leo XIV Jan. 22.
The photo, in fact, was taken in June 1983, moments after he endured hours of torture at the hands of the military.
Venerable Augusto Ramírez Monasterio is seen in a photo taken within moments of his release after he endured hours of torture at the hands of the military in June 1983. His torturers forced him to sign a document stating he had been “treated well,” the vice postulator of his cause said. Pope Leo XIV recognized Fray Augusto’s martyrdom Jan. 22, 2026. (OSV News photo/courtesy Franciscan Father Edwin Alvarado Segura)
In an interview with OSV News Jan. 29, Franciscan Father Edwin Alvarado, vice postulator of Father Augusto’s sainthood cause, said that before his release, his torturers forced him to sign a document stating he had been “treated well” and “only interviewed.”
The official photo “was taken after his torture,” Father Alvarado said. “They wanted to take some photos of him, so he went and placed his hands in his habit so as not to see the burns on his hands.”
The vice postulator told OSV News that he came across the photo and its origin while gathering information on Father Augusto’s life. He immediately sent it to Franciscan Father Giovangiuseppe Califano, the postulator general who oversees the causes of beatification and canonization within the Franciscan order.
Upon receiving the photo, Father Califano said, “There is no better photo than that one, which shows what had happened,” Father Alvarado recalled.
At that time, Guatemala was in the grip of a brutal internal conflict where the Catholic Church frequently became a target of state-sponsored violence, especially under Guatemalan President Efraín Ríos Montt.
Upon seizing power in a 1982 military coup, Ríos Montt oversaw, in his brief one-year tenure, the killing of the Indigenous Mayan population. Catholic priests and nuns were also targeted for their support of the Mayan people.
Father Alvarado, who hails from Costa Rica, recalled his arrival in Guatemala in November 1983 as a postulant, or a candidate for the Franciscan order.
“When I arrived at the airport — I was 17 years old, just a kid — the man who opened my suitcase saw the religious habit and said, ‘Here, you pay for this with your life.’ I didn’t understand because my country, Costa Rica, didn’t have this sort of hostility,” he told OSV News.
It was just a few days later, on Nov. 7, when he heard the news that a priest had been killed. “I didn’t know him … and it was the 13th one they had killed.”
It was Father Augusto.
Born Nov. 5, 1937, in Guatemala City, the would-be Franciscan studied in Nicaragua and Spain, where he was ordained in 1967. He returned to Guatemala to serve as the parish priest of San Francisco el Grande in Antigua Guatemala, dedicating his ministry to youth and the poor during the country’s brutal 36-year civil war.
According to Father Alvarado, witnesses at the time remember “Fray Augusto” as a joyful man who was tirelessly dedicated to the youth and the suffering in Guatemala. As a talented musician, he taught “Solfa,” a singing technique, which allowed him to connect with young people through music.
Father Alvarado told OSV News that those in the parish of San Francisco El Grande, especially members of the church choir, remembered the Franciscan priest’s jovial demeanor and his penchant for making jokes.
“There’s a story about one member of the choir who would always bother people. His name was Francisco but everybody called him (by his nickname) Paco. And Father Augusto called him ‘Paco Satanas,’ (Paco Satan or Paco the devil),” the vice postulator recalled.
“That man still remembers it to this day, saying; ‘That’s the nickname the father (Father Augusto) gave me. He used to say that I was the only Satan that worked in the Church,'” Father Alvarado said.
However, he wasn’t just known for his cheeky sense of humor. The fondest memories many witnesses told Father Alvarado were of how the Franciscan priest would visit the sick at their homes or at the hospital at all hours.
But what he was best known for was the time he spent at the confessional, sometimes for hours, attending to those seeking the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
“Recently, I found the testimony of one friar who said Father Augusto would do everything in pastoral ministry: as a pastor, as a superior, but where he spent the most time was seated at the confessional,” Father Alvarado said, adding that in Guatemala, especially on Sundays, confessions would begin at 6:30 in the morning, and aside from bathroom or lunch breaks, priests would stay until late in the day in confession.
Sadly, Father Alvarado told OSV News Father Augusto’s torture and subsequent martyrdom were not because of his charitable works or youth ministry, but specifically because of his fidelity to the seal of the confessional.
The events leading to his death began in June 1983, when a former guerrilla leader, who was hoping to accept a government amnesty offer went to Father Augusto for confession. Wanting to help the man reintegrate into society, the Franciscan priest accompanied him to the municipality to obtain an identification card.
However, authorities at the municipality recognized the man from past activities and alerted police, who then arrived and arrested Father Augusto, the man, and his three children, who were accompanying him. They were then handed over to the military, Father Alvarado recounted.
Despite the man’s pleas for the soldiers to release his children and Father Augusto, the soldiers took the priest to a separate room, blindfolded him and had his hands tied.
“It was there that he was tortured to ‘tell the truth’ and say that the man belonged to a paramilitary group,” Father Alvarado said. “Father Augusto told them, ‘It was a confession, I cannot speak about it.’ Then they tortured him; they burned his hands, the soles of his feet and other parts of his body.”
Although he was released after posing for the photo and signing the document assuring he was treated well, from that moment, Father Augusto was marked for death by the government.
He was followed by the Guatemalan government for months and received death threats, and on Nov. 7, 1983, Fray Augusto was kidnapped, tortured and, in an attempted escape, was shot dead by police officers loyal to the government.
For Father Alvarado, that moment in June when Father Augusto refused to divulge the man’s confession is at the heart of his martyrdom: his willingness to suffer physical torture rather than violate the spiritual safety of a penitent.
“For us priests, for the people, it says a lot about how a priest can guard one’s confession to the point of giving his life,” Father Alvarado told OSV News. “This only reinforces the sacrament of confession.”
Through his torture and death, he said, “Fray Augusto has told us that it must be this way; that is what the seal of confession is worth.”
With his beatification confirmed, Father Alvarado told OSV News that he was surprised by a providential coincidence while discussions on possible dates were ongoing between the Archdiocese of Santiago de Guatemala, the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, and the Franciscan general postulator.
“For these celebrations, they usually ask that it be a Saturday, not Sunday, so that the majority of the clergy can attend,” he said. However, Father Alvarado noted that the calendar was already filled with other ecclesial events, including beatifications in the United States and Italy.
Upon reviewing the dates available in the year, Father Alvarado was surprised to discover that the only Saturday available was Nov. 7, the same day of Father Augusto’s martyrdom.
“I don’t know how it happened, but it is a Saturday. So we confirmed the date with (Archbishop Gonzalo de Villa y Vásquez),” which will be the 43rd anniversary of his martyrdom, Father Edwin said.
The advancement of Fray Augusto’s cause came as the universal Church celebrated the World Day for Consecrated Life on Feb. 2.
In a letter sent Jan. 29 to religious men and women, the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life encouraged those in consecrated life, noting that they are called to be a “presence that remains” alongside wounded peoples and individuals, in places where the Gospel is often lived in conditions of fragility and trial.”
(Junno Arocho Esteves is an international correspondent for OSV News. Follow him on X @jae_journalist.)
ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) — A bishop’s golden crosier, or hooked staff symbolizing his office, found in a Minnesota scrapyard has drawn the man who discovered it into a journey back to the Catholic Church of his youth.
“If I’m the lost sheep, it literally took a shepherd’s staff put right in my path” to seriously pursue the faith, Jeff Helgeson, 62, of New Richmond, Wisconsin, told The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda accepted the crosier when Helgeson told him about it May 30 at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul. The archbishop carried the crosier at the closing Mass June 7 of the Archdiocesan Synod Assembly 2025 at the Cathedral of St. Paul, and he told the story of its being found as part of his homily.
Jeff Helgeson poses with Bernard Hebda, who is holding the crosier Helgeson found in a scrapyard, during their May 30, 2025, meeting at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul. Finding the crosier has drawn Helgeson into a journey back to the Catholic Church of his youth. (OSV News photo/courtesy Paul Lovino)
“We don’t know whose crosier it was,” the archbishop said in his homily. “But how magnificent that in the midst of that scrapyard — maybe like that field of dry bones (in the biblical story found in Ezekiel) that there was that sign of hope, that glimmer of hope, that we can celebrate this evening.”
“We hope, my brothers and sisters, that we might be like that gentleman who found this crosier in the scrapyard,” the archbishop said. “That we might be able to recognize the treasure that God has in our midst.”
Asked recently to tell his story, Helgeson — who routinely drives scrap metal to St. Paul from the electric motor manufacturer he works for in Woodville, Wisconsin — said he found the crosier while dropping a load off in March and following his usual routine of looking around the yard.
“There’s quite a menagerie of scrap metal,” he said. “You’d be surprised at what people throw out. So, I was walking around and that’s when I spotted the crosier sticking out.”
The bright gold staff with its hook holding an ornately fashioned cross protruded from the flatter color of brass items that surrounded it, Helgeson said.
It also appeared to be something that should go back to the church, he said, as it reminded him of the crosier he saw while serving at Masses as a Catholic school youth in Fargo, North Dakota, when the late Bishop Justin A. Driscoll (1920-1984) presided.
“As soon as I saw it, I said, ‘This doesn’t belong here,'” Helgeson said. “There’s no way this was scrap metal.”
Helgeson asked workers in the yard if he could purchase the crosier, and they promised to ask their manager. About a month later, the manager was in the scrapyard and gave him the crosier free of charge, Helgeson said.
“He said, ‘Do the right thing,'” Helgeson said. “He said, ‘We’re not taking a thing for it.’ Businesses don’t usually do that. And I would have paid whatever they asked.”
Intent on finding the rightful owner, Helgeson scoured the internet for similarly fashioned crosiers and finally found one in the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois. Officials in that diocese weren’t aware of similar crosiers and suggested that Helgeson call closer to home, where the crosier was found: the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
That’s when Helgeson spoke with Paul Iovino, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Ministerial Standards and Safe Environment, who checked with law enforcement agencies and could find no reports of the crosier having been stolen. Helgeson said he asked Iovino if the archdiocese might take the crosier. Iovino said he was glad to receive the offer, and Archbishop Hebda was interested in talking about that.
Meanwhile, Helgeson said his interest in the church and a desire for a deeper spiritual life had been renewed as he read about Pope Francis, who died April 21, and Pope Leo XIV, who was elected May 8. Finding the crosier seemed like another invitation to go deeper in his faith, Helgeson said. Meeting with Archbishop Hebda on May 30 was still another invitation, he said.
“It couldn’t have been a better meeting,” Helgeson said. “I think I was slotted to have like, 15 or 20 minutes with him. But he made it feel like I could be there all day if I wanted to be.”
First, the archbishop asked about him, Helgeson said, “before we even got to the crosier. You can tell when someone really is listening. The archbishop listened.”
Jeff Helgeson found this crosier in a scrapyard and presented it to Archbishop Bernard Hebda during their May 30, 2025, meeting at the Archdiocesan Catholic Center in St. Paul. Finding the crosier has drawn Helgeson into a journey back to the Catholic Church of his youth. (OSV News photo/courtesy Jeff Helgeson)
Helgeson said he explained that he had been away from the church for 40 years — but he knew what the crosier was when he saw it, and that it had to be returned to the church.
“I handed it to him,” Helgeson said of the crosier. “I was very relieved to do that.”
At the end of the conversation, the archbishop told him, “You can always come back” to the church, Helgeson said. “That, like a lightning bolt, hit me right then.”
Helgeson said he had disengaged from the church after a case of clergy sexual abuse that involved a friend who later committed suicide. “Anger kept me away, and eventually my pride and shame kept me away,” he said.
Helgeson served in the Army from 1982 to 1993, then worked for a railroad company and now is a partially retired truck driver who does long and short hauls for the electric motor manufacturer. Married with two children, he never lost his desire to be close to God.
“I’ve always had a certain spirituality,” Helgeson said, and finding the crosier “has kind of opened up a way back.”
The journey has continued with reading aloud to himself from a Bible he purchased, Helgeson said, to better comprehend it. He reads in the evenings after a long drive for work “or just kind of whenever the mood hits me,” Helgeson said.
In August, he returned to weekly Mass, but did not then receive Communion because he had yet to go to confession, Helgeson said.
“Sometimes you don’t know how hungry you are until you’ve had a little something to eat,” Helgeson said. “I really miss the church.”
At the archdiocese’s Dec. 28 celebration marking the close of the Jubilee Year of Hope, Archbishop Hebda told Catholics gathered at the Cathedral of St. Paul that the promise of the 2025 Jubilee of Hope did not disappoint, as the church focused on mercy and conversion.
He pointed to the crosier Helgeson recovered, and which he held, newly refurbished, calling it “an icon for all of us … of what it is that we hope to experience in the Jubilee Year, in that we find we have this opportunity to experience the treasures of the Catholic Church, and we’re given that opportunity for renewal.”
He said, “The hope, brothers and sisters, is that throughout this year we’ve had the opportunity to really engage in conversion, to come before the Lord, to recognize our sinfulness, to recognize our neediness, and to seek the Lord’s extraordinary mercy.”
(Joe Ruff is editor in chief of The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper serving the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis. This story first ran in The Catholic Spirit and is distributed in partnership with OSV News with additional reporting from OSV News senior writer Maria Wiering.)
By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The powerful and violent cannot control, suppress or commodify God’s grace, friendship and will to usher in a new dawn, Pope Leo XIV said.
“Around us, a distorted economy tries to profit from everything. We see how the marketplace can turn human yearnings of seeking, traveling and beginning again into a mere business,” he said, celebrating Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany, and officially closing the celebration of the Holy Year dedicated to hope.
“Let us ask ourselves: has the Jubilee taught us to flee from this type of efficiency that reduces everything to a product and human beings to consumers?” he asked. “After this year, will we be better able to recognize a pilgrim in the visitor, a seeker in the stranger, a neighbor in the foreigner and fellow travelers in those who are different?”
Before the Mass, the pope, cardinals and bishops present in Rome, gathered in the atrium of the basilica and gave thanks to God for the gifts received during the Holy Year. Dozens of the world’s cardinals were in Rome to attend the pope’s first extraordinary consistory Jan. 7-8, to pray, support and advise the pope on the life and mission of the church.
Pope Leo went to the threshold of the Holy Door and pulled each side shut. The door will be sealed until the next Holy Year, which is likely to be 2033, the 2000th anniversary of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Pope Leo XIV closes the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica Jan. 6, 2026, at the Vatican, marking the official end of the Jubilee Year. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
While the last of the Holy Doors in the city was closing, “the gate” of God’s mercy will never be shut, Pope Leo said before shutting the door. God “will always sustain the weary, raise up those who have fallen” and offer “good things” to those who place their trust in him. In his homily, Pope Leo compared the millions of men and women who came to Rome on pilgrimage to modern-day Magi, “who left palace and temple behind” in search of a new “king,” which they found in the baby Jesus in a humble grotto in Bethlehem.
“Yes, the Magi still exist today. They are the people who sense the need to go out and search, accepting the risks associated with their journey, especially in a troubled world like ours that may be unpleasant and dangerous in many ways,” he said.
However, Pope Leo cautioned, today’s seekers must encounter in today’s churches and sacred places the same humble source of life, hope and joy that the Magi encountered in Bethlehem.
“How important it is that those who pass through the doors of the church perceive therein that the Messiah has just been born, that a community gathers in which hope springs forth and that a story of life is unfolding!” he said.
“Jesus encountered and allowed himself to be approached by all people,” he said, because “the Lord wants his presence to grow among us as God-with-us.”
“No one can sell this to us. The child whom the Magi adore is a priceless and immeasurable good,” the pope said, criticizing “a distorted economy,” which even tries to exploit and commodify the human desire for freedom and true fulfillment.
God revealing himself to humanity as man is “a gift,” Pope Leo said. “He reveals himself and lets himself be found.”
“His ways are not our ways, and the violent do not succeed in controlling them, nor can the powers of the world block them,” he said, recalling the great joy the Magi felt upon finding the Messiah and despite Herod’s efforts to destroy what had been promised.
The fear and violence unleashed by King Herod “make us think of the many conflicts by which people resist and even damage the new things that God has in store for everyone,” he said. “Loving and seeking peace means protecting what is holy and, consequently, that which is newly born like a small, vulnerable, fragile baby.”
“God challenges the existing order,” the pope said. “God is determined to rescue us from both old and new forms of slavery. He involves young and old, poor and rich, men and women, saints and sinners in his works of mercy and in the wonders of his justice.”
“Let us ask ourselves: is there life in our church? Is there space for something new to be born? Do we love and proclaim a God who sets us on a journey?” Pope Leo asked.
“Fear does indeed blind us. Conversely, the joy of the Gospel liberates us. It makes us prudent, yes, but also bold, attentive and creative; it beckons us along ways that are different from those already traveled,” he said.
“It is wonderful to become pilgrims of hope,” who journey together and are amazed by God’s faithfulness, he said.
“If we do not reduce our churches to monuments, if our communities are homes, if we stand united and resist the flattery and seduction of those in power, then we will be the generation of a new dawn,” he said. In Jesus, “we will contemplate and serve an extraordinary humanity, transformed not by the delusions of the all-powerful, but by God who became flesh out of love.”
Outside on a cold, rainy winter morning, St. Peter’s Square was filled with thousands of people watching the Mass on big screens and awaiting the pope to recite the Angelus at noon.
Hundreds of people dressed in traditional and festive costumes took part in an annual folkloric Epiphany procession along the main boulevard in front of the basilica. Marching bands and people in Renaissance costumes paraded up the street behind the Three Kings on horseback.
Before reciting the Angelus from the balcony of the basilica’s loggia, the pope prayed that God’s words “come to fulfillment in us, may strangers and enemies become brothers and sisters.”
“In the place of inequality, may there be fairness, and may the industry of war be replaced by the craft of peace,” he said. “As weavers of hope, let us journey together toward the future by another road.”
By Maria Wiering (OSV News) – The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage is back for 2026 with a special route that will travel the East Coast from St. Augustine, Florida, to Portland, Maine, ending in Philadelphia, organizers announced Jan. 8.
The pilgrimage – the third of its kind – will begin in May on Memorial Day weekend and end July 5. This year’s pilgrimage celebrates America’s 250th anniversary with the theme “One Nation Under God,” and its route incorporates key sites in the history of the country and its Catholics.
Organizers described the pilgrimage as “a nationwide call to renewal, unity and mission rooted in the Eucharist.”
In a Jan. 8 media release announcing the route, organizers noted that 2026 marked the 75th anniversary of the lobbying campaign, led by the Knights of Columbus, to add the phrase “One nation under God” to the nation’s Pledge of Allegiance.
A graphic depicts the 2026 route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, which begins in St. Augustine, Fla., and ends in Philadelphia. (OSV News graphic/National Eucharistic Congress)
“One Nation Under God is not a borrowed slogan; rather, it is an invitation to realign our lives, our communities, and our country under the sovereignty of Jesus Christ,” said Jason Shanks, president of the National Eucharistic Congress, in the media release.
“Our hope is that Catholics will come together on this significant anniversary to give thanks for our country and to pray for our future,” said Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, who serves as chairman of the National Eucharistic Congress, in the statement. “We want all Catholics to be inspired with missionary zeal to bring revival through the light and love of Jesus Christ.”
The pilgrimage has been placed under the patronage of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian-American immigrant and the first U.S. citizen to be canonized a saint. It will also take place in solidarity with the U.S. bishops’ call to consecrate the United States to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The pilgrimage will launch Memorial Day weekend with Mass at Our Lady of La Leche Shrine in St. Augustine, the site of the first Mass celebrated on American soil in 1565. It will also include commemorations of the Georgia Martyrs, five Franciscan missionaries who were killed for their faith in 1597, whose path for beatification Pope Francis cleared in January 2025; the celebration of the feast of Corpus Christi in the Archdiocese of Washington and the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia; and stops in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the nation’s first Catholic diocese.
The pilgrimage will pass through most of the original 13 colonies, with stops in 18 dioceses and archdioceses.
NATCHEZ – A Cathedral School student pauses at the Nativity scene during a special school Mass at St. Mary Basilica on Jan. 7. (Photo by Brandi Boles)CLINTON – Holy Savior Parish children portray the Nativity during a Christmas program presented at Mass. (Photo by Janeth Mazy)COLUMBUS – Annunciation Catholic School second-grader Boone Morgan works on a watercolor project. Students later added biblical affirmations to their artwork as reminders of God’s love. (Photo by Jacque Hince)
By Gina Christian (OSV News) – Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond of New Orleans has issued a formal apology to abuse survivors in that archdiocese, following last month’s court approval of a $230 million settlement in the five-year-long bankruptcy case.
“With this letter, I express on behalf of the clergy, religious, and laity of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, my predecessors, and myself, profound regret over the tragic and inexcusable harm you have suffered at the hands of your abusers,” said Archbishop Aymond in a widely distributed Dec. 26 letter addressed “to all child abuse claimants” in the archdiocese.
The seventh amended plan for the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 filing – dating to 2020, and prompted by some 500 abuse claims – was approved by Judge Meredith S. Grabill on Dec. 8.
The archdiocese advised the court on Dec. 29 that “all conditions” required for the plan’s taking effect had been satisfied as of Dec. 26.
Archbishop Aymond’s apology letter was posted to the archdiocesan website and that of the Clarion Herald, the archdiocesan newspaper, the print edition of which will also include the message. Bayou Catholic, the official paper of the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Louisiana, will include the text in its upcoming February edition.
In a Jan. 3 press release, the Archdiocese of New Orleans announced that Archbishop Aymond’s letter, posted to the archdiocesan website, would also be printed in full “throughout the upcoming days and weeks in the various media markets.” The “extensive media outreach” – which includes some two dozen secular outlets in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas – is part of the archdiocese’s “commitment to the nonmonetary provisions laid out in its Chapter 11 settlement plan,” said the press release. In his letter, Archbishop apologized to the victims “for the trauma caused to you and to those close to you as a survivor of sexual abuse perpetrated by a member of the clergy, a religious sister or brother, or a lay employee or volunteer working within the Catholic Church.
“Sexual abuse is an inexcusable evil, and I am ashamed that you or anyone should have been sexually abused by someone working within the Catholic Church,” he said. “Please know that you are not to blame for the abuse perpetrated on you. You were and are completely innocent and did nothing to deserve the pain you have suffered because of the hideous crime of sexual abuse of a minor.”
He said the archdiocese “takes responsibility for the abuse you have suffered and pledges to keep children and all vulnerable people safe in our ministry.” He added, “It is my fervent hope that as we bring these Chapter 11 proceedings to a close, you will achieve some sense of peace, justice, and healing.” The closing hearings of the case in early December included testimony from 23 survivors, with Judge Grabill addressing them through tears ahead of her final ruling.
One survivor filed a handwritten letter to Judge Grabill, thanking her for her empathy and saying the court decision “will give children a voice … who have been silenced for so long.”
The survivor – noting a lifelong inability to “shake the stigma of the abuse” – said the decision to come forward “was very powerful for my own healing and to help move the Catholic Church to a safer environment.”
With the proceedings also involving 157 affiliated Catholic organizations – including parishes, schools, Catholic Charities organizations, and other ministries – the $230 million settlement will require parishes to contribute a total of some $60 million. A possible $75 million may be supplied by insurance funds. According to Fox 8 New Orleans, Archbishop Aymond declined to specify how much each parish would be expected to pay toward the settlement.
OSV News previously confirmed with the archdiocese that its legal fees in the case totaled approximately $50 million as of November.
The arduous bankruptcy proceedings appeared to stall even in their final months, with one group of bond investors calling for further discussion of the archdiocese’s Chapter 11 reorganization plan, then in its fifth version, despite an overwhelming vote of approval of the plan by a committee of survivors and additional creditors.
Grabill appeared to lose patience with the case in April 2025, issuing an order on a potential dismissal of the “particularly contentious” suit, which had failed to reach a reorganization plan after five years of litigation.
Along with the wranglings over bankruptcy and survivor compensation, the archdiocese’s battle to resolve sex abuse claims has also included:
-The recusal of a previous judge in the Chapter 11 case. -The guilty plea and life sentence of Msgr. Lawrence Hecker for rape and other crimes committed in 1975-1976. -An investigation by the Louisiana State Police and the FBI – with a search warrant issued in May 2024 – to determine if archdiocesan officials covered up child sex trafficking by clergy over several decades, with some alleged victims reportedly taken out of state to be abused and marked for further exploitation among clergy.
OSV News has found that from 2004 to 2024, U.S. Catholic dioceses collectively paid a total of more than $5 billion to settle abuse claims.
In September, Pope Leo XIV appointed Bishop James F. Checchio of Metuchen, N.J., as coadjutor archbishop of New Orleans. Archbishop Checcio will assist Archbishop Aymond until the latter’s canonically required resignation, submitted upon reaching the age of 75, is accepted by the pope.
(Gina Christian is a multimedia reporter for OSV News. Follow her on X @GinaJesseReina.)
Editor’s note: Bishop Joseph Kopacz serves on the International Justice and Peace committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He and others will be traveling to the Holy Land this month. Please pray for peace in our world and take a moment to read the full text of Pope Leo XIV’s message for World Day of Peace at https://bit.ly/49piqTt.
Pope Leo XIV, formerly Cardinal Robert F. Prevost, smiles as he appears at the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican following his election as pope May 8, 2025. The new pope was born in Chicago. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)
By Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The “confrontational” tone dominating both global and national politics is “deepening instability and unpredictability day by day,” Pope Leo XIV wrote in his message for World Peace Day.
“It is no coincidence that repeated calls to increase military spending, and the choices that follow, are presented by many government leaders as a justified response to external threats,” he wrote in the message for the Jan. 1 observance.
But peace must be protected and cultivated, Pope Leo said. “Even when it is endangered within us and around us, like a small flame threatened by a storm, we must protect it.” Throughout the coming year, Pope Leo will give visiting heads of state signed copies of his message, which was released by the Vatican Dec. 18, and Vatican ambassadors will distribute it to government leaders in the countries where they serve.
(Read the entirety of Pope Leo XIV’s message for World Day of Peace at https://bit.ly/49piqTt)
By Carol Glatz VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The world is not saved by threatening violence or by judging, oppressing or getting rid of others, Pope Leo XIV said.
“Rather, it is saved by tirelessly striving to understand, forgive, liberate and welcome everyone, without calculation and without fear,” the pope said during Mass on Jan. 1 in St. Peter’s Basilica for the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and World Peace Day.
Therefore, at the beginning of a new year with “new and unique days that await us, let us ask the Lord to help us experience at every moment, around us and upon us, the warmth of his fatherly embrace and the light of his benevolent gaze,” he said in his homily.
The Mass marked the 59th World Day of Peace celebrated by the church. The pope’s message for the world day, published in December, was dedicated to the humble, “unarmed and disarming” peace of the risen Christ who loves unconditionally.
Thousands of people were present in the basilica for the celebration on New Year’s Day, including young people dressed as the three kings who visited Jesus. A figurine of the infant Jesus was before the altar, in keeping with the Christmas season of celebration, and an image of Our Lady of Hope was to the side of the main altar as a sign of the Jubilee of hope, which will end Jan. 6.
In his homily, Pope Leo reflected on the mystery of Mary’s divine motherhood, which “helped give a human face to the source of all mercy and benevolence: the face of Jesus.”
By being born of Mary in a grotto, he said, “God presents himself to us ‘unarmed and disarming,’ as naked and defenseless as a newborn in a cradle.”
Pope Leo XIV receives the offertory gifts from children dressed as the Magi during Mass for the feast of Mary, Mother of God, and World Peace Day in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Jan. 1, 2026. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)
“He does this to teach us that the world is not saved by sharpening swords, nor by judging, oppressing or eliminating our brothers and sisters,” he said. Rather, the world is saved by seeking to understand, forgive, free and welcome everyone with love.
“Thus, at the dawn of the new year, the liturgy reminds us that for each of us, every day can be the beginning of a new life, thanks to God’s generous love, his mercy and the response of our freedom,” Pope Leo said. “It is beautiful to view the coming year in this way: as an open journey to be discovered.”
“Indeed, through grace, we can venture forth on this journey with confidence – free and bearers of freedom, forgiven and bringers of forgiveness, trusting in the closeness and goodness of the Lord who accompanies us always,” he said.
Overlooking St. Peter’s Square after Mass, Pope Leo urged Christians to help usher in “an era of peace and friendship among all peoples.”
“The Jubilee … has taught us how to cultivate hope for a new world. We do this by converting our hearts to God, so as to transform wrongs into forgiveness, pain into consolation, and resolutions of virtue into good works,” he said.
The Son of God also illuminates “the consciences of people of goodwill, so that we can build the future as a welcoming home for every man and woman who comes into the world,” he said.
“The heart of Jesus, therefore, beats for every man and woman; for those who are ready to welcome him, like the shepherds, and for those who do not want him, like Herod,” he said.
“His heart is not indifferent to those who have no heart for their neighbor: it beats for the righteous, so that they may persevere in their dedication, as well as for the unrighteous, so that they may change their lives and find peace,” Pope Leo said.
