Sacred Heart Catholic Church

“The Knight” — which airs at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025, on EWTN — highlights three historical events that had a decisive impact on the life of St. Maximilian Kolbe. / Credit: EWTN

Birmingham, Ala., Aug 22, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Most people think of St. Maximilian Kolbe as the heroic martyr who traded places with another prisoner in Auschwitz, resulting in a painful death by starvation, but there is much more of the story to tell. What would give someone the courage to do such a thing, and why was this sacrifice not the reason he was canonized? 

These are but a couple of the questions answered in “The Knight,” which airs at 2 p.m. ET on Saturday, Aug. 23, on EWTN.

This special program highlights three historical events that had a decisive impact on Kolbe’s life and his responses, which speak to us even today.

The first event was the 200th anniversary of Freemasonry. During the so-called celebration, “[t]he Vatican was besieged by thousands of people carrying banners depicting Satan knocking down Michelangelo and the inscription ‘Satan must reign in the Vatican, and the pope will be his servant.’”

What could a college student studying to become a Franciscan priest do? Kolbe asked his college rector’s permission to form an organization called the Knights of the Immaculata. Kolbe, who had been deeply impacted by the apparitions of Our Lady to St. Catherine Laboure, tasked his members with distributing Miraculous Medals, which Our Lady promised St. Catherine Laboure would transform the lives of those who wore them.

Kolbe said: “Distribute her medallion wherever you can to children, so that they always wear it around their necks, and to the elderly, and young people in particular, so that under her protection they have enough strength to fend off so many temptations and snares lurking in our times, and to those who do not go to the church, or who are afraid to go to confession, who scoff at religious practices, who laugh at the truths of the faith, who are bogged in moral mud, or who are outside the Church in heresy. To these, it is necessary to offer the medal … ask them to … wear it, and … earnestly implore the Immaculata for their conversion.”

The second event, which deeply impacted Kolbe, was the Soviet invasion of Poland. But for the Miracle on the Vistula, the Bolshevik army would have invaded Warsaw in August 1920. The battle helped now-Father Kolbe understand that “for Christian Europe, communism was a serious, if not more serious, threat than the Freemasons.”

Kolbe used the monasteries he built in Poland to deliver an inexpensive newspaper to a largely uneducated and poor audience for whom printed materials were a luxury. His newspaper did not attack communism. Knight of the Immaculata, as it was known, presented a different vision of life — the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The newspaper helped readers discover the beauty they already had in their lives, whether they knew it or not. 

“Man’s heart is too big to be filled with money, sensuality, or the deceptive, though intoxicating, mist of fame,” he wrote. “It yearns for a higher good, boundless and everlasting, and such a good is only God.”

The first issue reached 70,000 people. A sister publication in Japan would be extremely significant after the Americans dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

Kolbe’s plans to broadcast the first Catholic radio program and to launch a television station were interrupted by the third and most well-known historic event in his life: World War II. During the war, 6 million Poles were murdered, and 3,500 were displaced. Kolbe brought aid and food to those in need and was allowed to publish one more issue of the Knight.

He wrote: “Happiness … founded not on truth, cannot be, like untruth itself, lasting. Only truth can be, and is, the unbreakable foundation of happiness for both individual people and humanity as a whole.”

Viewers of “The Knight” will learn that this is what probably got Kolbe arrested and sent to a variety of concentration camps along with 100,000 others. It was in Auschwitz that Kolbe traded his life for a man with a wife and children. The effect his action had on other prisoners and on those who learned of it was incalculable — and it continues to resonate with all who hear it.

As Pope John Paul II would say when canonizing his fellow Pole: “In this place of terrible suffering, Father Maximilian Kolbe won a spiritual victory, similar to that of Christ, voluntarily giving himself up to die in a starvation cell for his brother.”

Yet the pope did not canonize Kolbe for this courageous sacrifice but because he lived a life of heroic virtue. His voluntary death in the concentration camp was but the culmination of a life of sacrifice and walking with the Immaculata, who helped him know the will of God.

Marta Petrosillo, editor-in-chief of the Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Religious Freedom Report. / Credit: Gael Kerbaol/Secours Catholique

CNA Staff, Aug 22, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Aug. 22 marks the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief, an annual day of awareness to draw attention to human rights related to freedom of religion.

To mark the day, Marta Petrosillo, editor-in-chief of the Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) Religious Freedom Report highlighted the current challenges Christians around the world face.

While the idea of facing persecution for one’s beliefs may seem impossible to some, Petrosillo emphasized in a press release that “it is a reality for hundreds of millions of people all over the world.” She said having days that put a spotlight on people who have experienced violence because of their religion or beliefs is important because “there’s sometimes a tendency to overlook this phenomenon.”

Petrosillo explained that there are three different kinds of religious persecution: persecution perpetuated by the state, persecution caused by religious extremism — such as jihadist groups — and persecution caused by ethno-religious nationalism.

Currently, the continent Petrosillo sees as a main concern is Africa, where in recent years religious persecution has skyrocketed.

“We see many jihadist groups perpetrating more attacks, including in countries where interfaith relations were not a problem,” she said. “Take the Democratic Republic of Congo, for instance. Historically, there have not been problems between faith communities, and it is majority Christian, but we just witnessed a major attack on Christian faithful.”

She added: “This is definitely something that is spreading in many parts of Africa, and it tends to spread from one country to another.”

Petrosillo also pointed out the situation in Burkina Faso: Where 10 years ago it was not among the countries of concern, “nowadays, it is unfortunately one of the places in the world where more jihadist attacks happen.”

Other areas with worsening situations include Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America. Petrosillo also sees concerns with religious freedoms being violated in the West.

“During the past years we saw an increase of attacks against some faith groups, vandalism against churches, and an increase of antisemitic and anti-Islamic episodes because of the war in Gaza,” she said.

“Then there is an effort to exclude religion from the public square, including what Pope Francis called ‘polite persecution.’ We are also concerned about disrespect for conscientious objections of people working in the health sector.”

Every two years ACN releases its Religious Freedom Report (RFR), which first began in 1999 with the aim of raising awareness and to report on violations of religious freedom. 

“What makes it special is that the RFR is the only report produced by an NGO [nongovernmental organization] that covers the situation in all the countries in the world and for all faith groups, because if religious freedom is denied for one group, sooner or later, it will also be denied to others,” Petrosillo explained. “And for ACN, it is important that religious freedom is granted equally to all.”

This year’s report, according to Petrosillo, continues to show the worsening trend of religious freedom violations in countries around the world. However, she said she remains hopeful, as she sees “improvements in the increasing awareness, both from civil society and some governments, of what is happening.”

“This can be the game changer in order to act against the violation of religious freedom,” she said.

ACN’s most recent Religious Freedom Report, issued in June 2023, can be found here. The new report will be out Oct. 21.

Mary. Artist Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Museu da Casa Brasileira. / Credit: Giovanni Battista Gaulli, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Mundelein, Ill., Aug 22, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

The Catholic Church annually celebrates the feast of the Queenship of Mary on Aug. 22. Most people, upon hearing of this celebration, would think of it as something rather sweet and sentimental, a quaint devotion for grandmothers with a taste for saccharine spirituality. But when we examine this feast as we should, through biblical eyes, a very different picture emerges.

The clearest scriptural indication that Mary of Nazareth is a queen is a remarkable passage in the 12th chapter of the Book of Revelation. The visionary author sees an extraordinary sign in the sky: a woman clothed with the sun, the moon at her feet, and a coronet of 12 stars on her head.

Twelve, of course, is a designation of the tribes of Israel, and the crown is a rather unambiguous indication that we are dealing with a royal figure. It soon becomes clear that this woman is not only a queen but, more precisely, a queen mother, for we hear that she is laboring to give birth to a king, one who is “destined to rule the nations with an iron rod.”

Both the queen mother and the infant king are involved in a terrible struggle. The visionary tells us that a fearsome dragon is poised to devour the baby as soon as it comes forth. But God sweeps the child up and brings him to the safety of the divine throne, while the mother flees to the desert where she finds refuge. In the wake of this, a war breaks out between “Michael and his angels” and the dragon and his angelic supporters. This image is, of course, symbolically rich and multivalent, but at the very least it indicates that the queen and her kingly son are protagonists in a spiritual warfare of some magnitude. They are, in a word, warriors.

Just before this passage, at the very end of Chapter 11 of the Book of Revelation (and remember that the chapter designations came many centuries after this text was originally composed), we find the vision of the heavenly temple. Amid flashes of lightning, peals of thunder, and a mighty hailstorm, the seer spies the Ark of the Covenant within the temple.

The ark, we recall, was the container of the remnants of the Ten Commandments, and hence the most sacred object for ancient Israel. Placed within the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple, the ark was understood to be the link between heaven and earth, the definitive bearer of the divine presence.

When King David brought the ark into the Holy City, he danced before it with reckless abandon. Moreover, at various points throughout its history, Israel brought the ark into battle, most notably when the priests marched with it seven times around the walls of Jericho, before those battlements came tumbling down.

Now the juxtaposition of the vision of the ark in the heavenly temple and the vision of the queen mother clothed with the sun cannot have been accidental. The author of the Book of Revelation is telling us that Mary, the bearer of the Word of God made flesh, was the Ark of the Covenant par excellence.

Indeed, when she visited her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with the unborn John the Baptist, he leapt in his mother’s womb for joy, a beautiful infant imitation of the dance of David before the true ark. Both ark and queen are associated with spiritual warfare.

In her Magnificat prayer, recorded in the Gospel of Luke, Mary speaks of the God “who has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” Like her Son, Mary does not fight with the puny weapons of the world but rather with the weapons of love, forgiveness, compassion, and provocative nonviolence.

Those who have experienced a Jesuit retreat based upon the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius will recognize the “two standards” meditation. Ignatius asks the retreatant to imagine a great field of battle. Arrayed on one side, under the standard of the Church, is the army of Christ; and on the other, under the standard of Satan, is the army of the dark powers. Then Ignatius compels the retreatant to make a decision, indeed the most fundamental and important choice imaginable, the election that will determine everything else he will say and do for the rest of his life: Which army will you join?

Bob Dylan posed the same stark spiritual option in his 1979 song “Gotta Serve Somebody:” (“It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.”) In other areas of life, a fair amount of nuance and subtlety is called for, but at the most basic level, where one determines the fundamental orientation of one’s life, things actually become quite simple and clear.

The feast of the Queenship of Mary has to do with this choice: Where do you stand in the great spiritual struggle? With whose army do you fight? Do you march under the banner of the Queen Mother and her Son, or with their enemies? Do you go out with the Ark of the Covenant or against it? Say what you want about those questions, but they are neither sweet nor sentimental.

This story was first published on CNA on Sept. 11, 2012, and has been updated.

null / Credit: Amy Lutz/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Aug 21, 2025 / 19:07 pm (CNA).

Villanova University confirmed Thursday that reports of an active shooter on campus that interrupted an opening Mass for new students and their families was a “cruel hoax.” 

Local police began investigating reports of an active shooter on campus late Thursday afternoon. The Augustinian Catholic institution in Philadelphia is the alma mater of Pope Leo XIV.

Students received an alert about an active shooting incident at 4:35 p.m. ET during the opening Mass at Rowen Campus Green — a welcome Mass set to be followed by a family picnic. 

Families and students were rushed into campus buildings, interrupting the annual orientation Mass. Across campus and in neighboring areas, law enforcement instructed families, students, and residents to shelter in place.

Shortly after 6 p.m. ET, the university’s president, Father Peter Donohue, confirmed that “no one was injured” and that “there was no active shooter” in an email to the Villanova Community in which he called the incident “a cruel hoax.” 

The university president apologized to first-year students, saying “this is not the introduction to Villanova that I had hoped for you.” 

One freshman at Villanova posted during the lockdown. 

“Hi guys I’m a freshman at Villanova. Active shooter alert during the middle of opening Mass for students. Everyone is hiding. Please just keep me in your thoughts. I’m very scared,” she shared in a post on X. 

“I am not Catholic, nor am I religious at all,” she said in a post later. “Most of us attend the opening Mass anyway because it is a part of orientation and is said to be a very beautiful and moving ceremony.”

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said in a post on X that the reports were “products of a cruel swatting incident — when someone calls in a fake threat to induce panic.”

“I know today was every parent’s nightmare, and every student’s biggest fear,” Shapiro said. “I’m profoundly grateful no one was hurt, and thankful to all members of law enforcement who ran towards reports of danger to keep Pennsylvanians safe.”

“We all join in prayerful gratitude at the most recent news from Villanova University that no one was injured this afternoon and that the situation on campus was resolved,” Philadelphia Archbishops Nelson Perez said in a statement Thursday evening. “We continue to pray for all those who feared for their safety today and give thanks to the law enforcement personnel and first responders who stand at the ready each day to protect and serve our communities.”

In his email, Donohue shared a prayer that he said he prays at the close of orientation Mass every year. 

“May God bless you and protect you,” Donohue wrote. “May your heart and mind be united in faith so that you may be able to love wisely, work creatively, laugh heartily, and live honestly.”

“May you use your education to bring justice and peace to the world, for the benefit of our human family and all of God’s creation,” he continued. “And may you always know that you are loved.”

This story was updated Aug. 21, 2025, at 7:34 p.m. ET with the statement from Archbishop Perez.

The Shrine of the Sacred Heart in Washington D.C. / Credit: Madalaine Elhabbal/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 21, 2025 / 18:18 pm (CNA).

Catholic churches that serve Spanish-speaking communities in the Archdiocese of Washington have reported anxiety as encounters with immigration enforcement continue to function as a major aspect of the Trump administration’s crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital. 

Sacred Heart Shrine in Columbia Heights reported that six of its parishioners were detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in recent weeks, including an usher who was on his way to evening Mass. Other parishes in the archdiocese have also expressed concern amid the current situation in the District.

This comes after the Trump administration announced Aug. 11 the deployment of federal agents and the National Guard in order to crack down on widespread crime in D.C.

Following an executive order from Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith, D.C. police officers have been permitted to notify ICE agents of encounters with undocumented migrants, resulting in tight collaboration between the two law enforcement agencies in the city. 

Sacred Heart Shrine’s pastor, Father Emilio Biosca Agüero, OFM Cap, told Religion News Service that one of the parishioners detained by ICE was a man in marriage preparation, while another was in a confirmation class. 

Some of the detainees, the pastor noted, were stopped by immigration officials while on their way to the shrine for catechetical classes over the past several weeks. Bisoco estimated in the report that Mass attendance at his parish has dropped about 20% from 2,500 to less than 2,000 people.

The priest also said the parish WhatsApp chats “have been filled with immigration agent sightings and warnings to parish members.”

Biosca Agüero declined to comment to CNA on the story.

Last month, an ICE spokesperson told CNA: “While ICE is not subject to previous restrictions on immigration operations at sensitive locations, to include schools, churches, and courthouses, ICE does not indiscriminately take enforcement actions at these locations.”

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests aliens who commit crimes and other individuals who have violated our nation’s immigration laws,” the spokesperson noted, adding: “All aliens in violation of U.S. immigration law may be subject to arrest, detention, and, if found removable by final order, removed from the United States.”

According to the RNS report, attendance at St. Gabriel Catholic Church in the Petworth neighborhood of D.C. has also gone down. 

The communications director at Our Lady Queen of the Americas parish, Kevin Arevalo, told CNA that “the parishioners that we have had coming to Sunday Mass have expressed concerns and fears over the situation here in D.C.”

Arevalo said there have not been any detentions on church grounds and that he is not aware of any parishioners being detained on their way to attend Mass at the parish or nearby. 

However, he noted several detentions he has heard of have taken place in neighborhoods like Columbia Heights and Mount Pleasant, and many parishioners of Our Lady Queen of the Americas “have to go through those areas to get to our parish.” 

As such, Arevalo and the parish’s administrator, Father James Morrison, are currently preparing alternative ways to reach the community amid rising fears regarding immigration enforcement. 

“I know that most of them live pretty far and go out of their way to come here for our Masses and activities,” he said, “so we’re looking at using digital media and our channels, our online channels, to reach out to them and serve them in whatever best way possible we can.”

He concluded: “We definitely won’t stay quiet about this because our parish, the majority, is Hispanic-Latino community. So you want to make sure that we’re listening to them and we’re attentive to what they’re going through.”

At the time of publication, the Archdiocese of Washington has not responded to requests for comment. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) declined to comment.

Syrian Minister of Culture Mohammed Saleh with Islamic chanter Al-Mu’tasim Billah Al-Assali inside St. Ananias Orthodix Church in Damascus, Syria. Billah Al-Assali performed an Islamic hymn with lyrics that directly contradict Christian beliefs. / Credit: Screenshot from Muhammad Moaz Zakaria’s Facebook page

CNA Staff, Aug 21, 2025 / 17:56 pm (CNA).

Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:

Syrian minister of culture sparks controversy with Islamic chant in Orthodox church

Syrian Culture Minister Mohammed Saleh was criticized this week after a video surfaced showing him at a historic Orthodox church with Islamic chanter Al-Mu’tasim Billah Al-Assali, who performed an Islamic hymn with lyrics that directly contradict Christian beliefs.

According to ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, the video was filmed inside the Church of St. Ananias in Damascus, a Greek Orthodox landmark built in 1815. It shows Saleh with Billah Al-Assali, who performed a chant that calls Christ “a creation” and says that he came “bearing good news of Mohammad.”

The footage sparked a backlash on social media, drawing criticism from Christians as well as Muslims who voiced disapproval and described it as a “provocation.”

Desecrated church in Philippines reopens 

More than a thousand people participated in a Mass held at the newly reopened St. John the Baptist Church in the town of Jimenez in Misamis Occidental province in the Philippines on Aug. 16, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines’ (CBCP) news service reported.

The 19th-century church in the Philippines was temporarily closed after Christine Medalla, a 28-year-old vlogger, allegedly spat into the font, an action Ozamiz’s Archbishop Martin Jumoad described as a “grave act of sacrilege.” According to Crux, Medalla denied the allegation.

Jumoad presided at the Mass and the rite of reopening and reconciliation. “With hearts full of faith, the parishioners … gathered in thanksgiving as our beloved parish church was reopened and reconsecrated,” the church said in its statement.

Korean bishop remembered for humility, love for the poor dies at 63

An auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Seoul, Korea, known for his humility, frugality, and love for the poor, died on Aug. 15 at 63 of bile duct cancer, UCA News reported.

As head of the archdiocesan social service ministry, Yu led the Church’s outreach to those in need and spent time on the front lines feeding the poor and ministering to their needs. He frequently visited the Church’s social welfare facilities, listening to stories of suffering, and visited Catholics who were homeless, bringing them the sacraments and praying the rosary with them on the streets. 

Before his death, Yu said: “There were many things I wanted to do for the poor, but I am heartbroken that I cannot be there.”

Yu, who wrote three books, was born in Seoul in 1962 and graduated from the Catholic University of Korea. After studying at the University of Wurzburg, Germany, and completing his military service, he was ordained a priest in 1992 in Seoul and earned a doctorate in theology from the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt, Germany. Pope Francis appointed him auxiliary bishop of the Seoul Archdiocese in 2013. Known for his modest lifestyle, Yu kept a low profile and reportedly drove the same small, old car for decades.

African press group calls for development of ethical guidelines for use of AI

A meeting of the Union of the African Catholic Press (UCAP) ended with a call for media institutions in Africa to develop ethical guidelines for the use of artificial intelligence (AI).

According to ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, over 100 Catholic journalists, speakers, and content creators gathered at the UCAP congress in Accra, Ghana, Aug. 10–17 from more than 19 African nations to reflect on the theme “Balancing Technological Progress and the Preservation of Human Values in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).”

A series of resolutions and recommendations were shared with ACI Africa on Aug. 20 in which UCAP members “emphasized that technological progress must never take precedence over the human person and that the Church and media professionals alike have a responsibility to ensure that AI serves the common good.”

Police called to Catholic college in Bangladesh due to fear of protesting teachers

Administrators of a Catholic college in the Mymensigh Diocese in Bangladesh sought police protection last week when teachers and students threatened a public demonstration on campus.

Father Thadius Hembram, head of Notre Dame College, run by the priests of Holy Cross Congregation, told UCA News on Aug. 18 that he wrote to the district police chief saying: “We fear harm to life and property of the college. Therefore, we are requesting you to help us maintain law and order until the situation normalizes.”

In July, a group of 11 teachers issued a statement announcing a boycott of classes until demands were met. The college reportedly promised to fulfill the demands but the issues have not been resolved. One college official has blamed “pro-Islamist” teachers who are targeting the institution. Bangladesh is a majority-Muslim country. 

Although protestors postponed their planned Aug. 17 event, Hembram said the ongoing situation has been “chaotic and tense” and was “disrupting the academic environment of the institute.” He also said a committee has been formed to investigate the situation and next steps will be decided based on the committee’s recommendations. 

Bishop: Attacks on Ireland’s Indian community are shameful, betray ‘true irish welcome’

Bishop Brendan Leahy of Limerick in Ireland has called recent attacks on the Indian community in Ireland “shameful” and a “dreadful misrepresentation of the true Irish welcome.” 

Leahy made the comments at a recent retreat for the Syro-Malabar community in which hundreds of people traveled to Limerick from across the country, according to the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference. 

The bishop also expressed his admiration for the Syro-Malabar Church in Ireland. “I always admire your wonderful commitment to gathering together for a time of prayer and reflection, supporting and encouraging one another in the company of your beautiful families and friends. And there are always so many of you,” he said.

James Dobson during an event marking the National Day of Prayer in the East Room of the White House on May 1, 2008, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Aug 21, 2025 / 15:19 pm (CNA).

James Dobson, the evangelical Christian psychologist, author, and founder of Focus on the Family, an influential family counseling ministry, passed away on Aug. 21. He was 89 years old.

Dobson advised five U.S. presidents on family policy, most recently as a member of President Donald Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory board. He was considered a leading light in the American conservative movement’s fight for traditional family values, including a focus on defending the institution of marriage as between one man and one woman for life, biblical sexual ethics and gender roles, and innocent life through opposition to abortion.

“James Dobson was the indispensable man,” Peter Wolfgang, president of Family Institute of Connecticut Action, an affiliate of the Family Policy Councils that Dobson helped start, told CNA. “Just as I don’t think the Soviet Union would have collapsed without Pope John Paul II, I don’t think we’d be where we are in the culture wars without him. He was a builder of institutions.”

In 1977, after leaving nearly two decades in academia and private practice in California, Dobson began Focus on the Family, which produced a daily radio program that provided parenting advice as well as encouraged Christians to advocate for biblical values in schools and the wider culture. The radio program was carried by more than 7,000 radio stations around the world and had hundreds of millions of listeners.

“Focus on the Family is the mothership; it is where it all began,” Wolfgang noted. The organization, which by the 1990s had a budget that exceeded $100 million and produced, in addition to its radio programs, print publications, video projects, and camps, was the first of several ministries and organizations Dobson started. 

Key role in founding Alliance Defending Freedom

Dobson also helped found the Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defense Fund, now known as Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), in 1994, as well as the Washington-based political advocacy group Family Research Council. He was also involved in the founding of ecumenical, state-based Family Policy Councils, which exist in about 40 states. 

In 1986 Dobson served on the U.S. Attorney General’s Commission on Pornography, where he met Alan Sears, who became CEO, president, and general counsel of ADF for 26 years. 

“I am sad to learn of the passing of my ally and friend, Dr. James Dobson,” Sears said in a press release. “He gave us the greatest gift any person can give: his name and reputation. It was an incredible trust and turned out to be a gift that changed the world.”

He continued: “It was through Focus on the Family that the ADF theme verse, John 15:5, was adopted, which acknowledges that ‘without Christ, we can do nothing.’ This has been the cornerstone of everything ADF has accomplished, and Dobson’s legacy will continue on through the many ministries he envisioned and led.”

Current ADF CEO and Chief Counsel Kristen Waggoner said: “Dobson’s bold leadership and commitment to the Gospel shaped the lives of so many and will continue to do so many years after his passing.”

Dobson’s leadership in the ‘culture wars’ 

According to Wolfgang, “James Dobson did more than any other single individual” to bring about the “turning of the tide” in the “culture wars,” as evidenced by the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the collapse of the transgender movement.

“He is the man who gave us the tools to do it,” Wolfgang said. 

In the beginning years of the contemporary pro-family movement in the U.S., “the larger movement was mostly evangelical,” Wolfgang said, noting, however, that “it was ecumenical. It was Catholic-friendly.”

“I’m just so grateful for what Dobson did,” Wolfgang continued. “I love the Catholic faith, we have the fullness of the truth, but in the late 20th century, we didn’t build the institutions to fight back like he did. We’re just now starting to do that. It was really Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council — all of that universe that began with Dobson — that really gave pro-life and pro-family Christians the tools.”

“The Protestant scene, like the Values Voter Summit, was the nuts and bolts on how to turn culture around. ‘How do we win on the state and federal level?’” Wolfgang continued.

He said it was not just Dobson’s advocacy for the family that helped but his ability to fight for it in the public realm.

“We’re living at a time now where a lot of our sturdy evangelical allies have started to go a little wobbly on the biggest cultural issues of the day,” he continued.

“Focus on the Family never lost its focus. It never strayed from the vision of its founder. It is like how religious orders in the Catholic Church who follow the vision of their founder flourished. They never lost their focus,” Wolfgang said.

Praise of the Catholic Church

In an historic moment in 2000, Dobson and Chuck Colson, another prominent evangelical leader, along with other Protestant and Catholic advocates for a Christian view of sexuality and the family, met with Pope John Paul II at a three-day conference in Rome.

Though the theological divides between Catholics and Protestants separated the Christian groups, they united over the “breakdown of the family and the deterioration of the respect for human life,” Russell Hittinger, a law professor at The Catholic University of America, said at the time.

Dobson himself said that “when it comes to the family, there is far more agreement than disagreement, and with regard to moral issues from abortion to premarital sex, safe-sex ideology and homosexuality, I find more in common with Catholics than with some of my evangelical brothers and sisters.”

Paul McCusker, who worked with Dobson at Focus on the Family for almost 20 years as a writer and director for the “Adventures in Odyssey” audio series, told CNA: “Dr. James Dobson was a man of Godly integrity, dedication, and immense love for the family. He was a help and guide to millions of people, offering wisdom and advice to couples, parents, and kids in all conditions.”  

A convert to Catholicism, McCusker is currently a senior content creator for the Augustine Institute. 

“He was a leading voice where families needed one. His creative vision allowed for efforts like ‘Adventures in Odyssey’ and so many other programs that have inspired the past couple of generations,” he continued. “Personally, I am grieved, even while celebrating Dr. Dobson’s greatest of homecomings.”

Early life and career

Born in 1936 in Louisiana, Dobson came from generations of Christian faith. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were all pastors in the Church of the Nazarene. 

Dobson studied psychology as an undergraduate and received his doctorate in psychology in 1967 from the University of Southern California.

He worked as a professor of pediatrics at the University of Southern California School of Medicine for 14 years and spent 17 years in the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles Division of Child Development and Medical Genetics, leaving both positions in 1976.

He published his first book and most famous parenting tome, “Dare to Discipline,” in 1970 in response to the disintegration of the family he encountered in his clinical practice. In the book, he encouraged parents to assert their authority over their children, advocating for restrained but principled corporal punishment.

He went on to publish nearly 70 books on parenting, discipline, traditional values, and marriage.

Dobson is survived by his wife of nearly 65 years, Shirley, and two children, daughter Danae and son Ryan, along with daughter-in-law Laura and two grandchildren.

Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, speaks with “EWTN News Nightly” on March 4, 2025. / Credit: “EWTN News Nightly”/Screenshot

ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 21, 2025 / 14:15 pm (CNA).

Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota and founder of the Catholic ministry Word on Fire recently warned about the proliferation of fake videos created with artificial intelligence (AI) circulating on social media impersonating him.

“The presence online of these videos generated by artificial intelligence that purport to be from me and that are not from me” is a problem that is becoming “increasingly difficult,” the prelate warned in a message posted Aug. 20 on his official social media.

Barron recounted that a few months ago, a woman told him that she felt so bad about an altercation he supposedly got into in a restaurant in Chicago, which was actually a fake video.

“I said I’ve not been in a restaurant in Chicago for about five years. Well, it was one of these AI-generated silly videos,” he explained.

He also recalled another case in which he was supposedly summoned to Rome by Pope Leo XIV for “high-level discussions.” The bishop clarified: “I’ve met Pope Leo once — it happened a couple of weeks ago in Rome; we put it up on our social media. I shook his hand and he smiled at me. That’s my one contact with him. I’m not being summoned to Rome for high-level discussions.”

A video even circulated in which he supposedly gave recommendations on how to “remove demons from your toilet.”

“My point,” Barron said, is “this is all ridiculous. And I think if you spend just a moment, you can tell the difference between an authentic video from me and one of these fakes.”

The bishop warned that this phenomenon is not harmless: “These are fraudsters. What they’re doing is making money off these things because they monetize them through ads … So it’s not just harmless fun people are having. It’s doing damage to my reputation, but it’s also doing damage to people who are being defrauded.”

In response, he urged the faithful not to be fooled: “Don’t take these silly things seriously. Don’t watch them. And what you look for is something on my YouTube channel, something on the official Word on Fire channel, and there’s a blue check you can see next to my name, the profile name. Look for that: That’s the sign that it’s a video from me.”

Finally, he called for common sense: “When you see these goofy images that are obviously generated by a computer and you hear me talking about some wild thing, I hope you have the sense to know ‘Look, that’s not really Bishop Barron speaking.’”

“It’s becoming increasingly a problem and I want you to know about it and do what you can to battle it. And God bless you,” he concluded.

Leo XIV’s concern for the ethical use of AI

Since the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has expressed particular concern about the ethical use of AI. On June 7, the pontiff underscored the “urgent need” for “serious reflection and ongoing discussion on the inherently ethical dimension of AI as well as its responsible governance.”

A month later, in his message to participants at the AI ​​for Good 2025 summit held in Geneva, Switzerland, he recalled that “although responsibility for the ethical use of AI systems begins with those who develop, manage, and oversee them, those who use them also share in this responsibility.”

In his letter, the pope urged the promotion of “regulatory frameworks centered on the human person” and “proper ethical management” of AI technologies at both the local and global levels.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

The Ten Commandments outside the Texas Capitol. / Credit: BLundin via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

CNA Staff, Aug 21, 2025 / 12:12 pm (CNA).

A federal judge has partially blocked the state of Texas from enforcing its law ordering the display of the Ten Commandments in public schools. 

In a colorful ruling replete with off-the-cuff observances on topics ranging from Greta Garbo to the speed of Earth’s orbit, District Judge Fred Biery said the Texas law — signed by Gov. Greg Abbott earlier this year — could pressure children into “religious observance” in violation of the U.S. Constitution. 

The state government did not establish a “compelling interest” in imposing such a burden on students, Biery said, and further it failed to make the law “narrowly tailored” enough to pass constitutional muster. 

“There are ways in which students could be taught any relevant history of the Ten Commandments without the state selecting an official version of Scripture, approving it in state law, and then displaying it in every classroom on a permanent basis,” he wrote. 

The judge suggested that the state Legislature could alternately require schools to display moral lessons not directly connected to religious practice, such as quotes from Unitarian minister Robert Fulghum’s book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” 

The ruling applies to nearly a dozen school districts, including the independent school districts of Houston and Fort Bend. The suit had been brought by a coalition of parents on behalf of their children. 

State Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement to media that his office will “absolutely be appealing this flawed decision.” 

“The Ten Commandments are a cornerstone of our moral and legal heritage, and their presence in classrooms serves as a reminder of the values that guide responsible citizenship,” he said. 

This is not the first setback over the past year for advocates of displaying the Ten Commandments in schools. 

In November 2024 a federal judge in Louisiana blocked that state’s Ten Commandments law, calling it “coercive” and “unconstitutional.” 

Elsewhere, in June 2024 the state of Oklahoma directed school districts to incorporate the Bible into middle school and high school curricula, with the state superintendent citing its historical and cultural significance in helping “contextualize” the present-day United States. 

One poll in June showed that a majority of U.S. adults support allowing Christian prayer in schools, though other polling showed a larger number believing the practice shouldn’t be mandatory, with more than half opposing teachers being allowed to lead classes in prayer.

A child who lost his left hand in the June 2025 Yelewata massacre is treated at Nigeria’s Benue State University Teaching Hospital. / Credit: Courtesy of Ekani Olikita/Truth Nigeria

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 21, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Nigeria is the deadliest country in the world for Christians, according to the new chair of the U.S. Commission on International Freedom (USCIRF).

Vicky Hartzler, a Republican who represented Missouri in the U.S. House of Representatives for 12 years, became chair of the commission in June. In an interview with CNA, she said of her new mission: “We want to make a difference. We want to save lives.”

Hartzler’s top priority is Nigeria. Citing statistics from Open Doors, an international organization dedicated to helping persecuted Christians, Hartzler said 69% of Christians killed worldwide in 2023 died in Nigeria, with more than 50,000 killed since 2009. The violence includes mass killings of worshippers, such as the June attack on a Catholic mission where more than 200 people were slaughtered.

Hartzler is calling on the U.S. State Department to designate Nigeria a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) and pressure its government to better protect citizens and prosecute those committing crimes against religion.

Iran and China remain major focuses. In Iran, Hartzler said more than 900 executions took place in 2024, and 96 Christians received sentences totaling more than 260 years in prison.

China, meanwhile, continues its so-called sinicization campaign, especially against Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region, requiring mosques and churches to display portraits of leader Xi Jinping and replace traditional worship with Chinese Communist Party propaganda. Hartzler said these examples not only represent repression but also are systematic attempts to erase authentic religious practice.

Stephen Schneck, who served as chair of the USCIRF under President Joe Biden and is a former director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America, equates USCIRF’s work within a Catholic tradition of defending religious liberty, tracing back to the Second Vatican Council’s declaration of religious freedom Dignitatis Humanae.

He warned of “a historic uptick in the persecution of religion around the world” and highlighted two genocides in Asia: against Uyghur Muslims in China and the Rohingya in Myanmar. For Schneck, it is vital not only to document these atrocities but also ensure they remain in international focus.

Fellow Commissioner Maureen Ferguson, a former senior fellow at The Catholic Association and EWTN radio host, wants to draw attention to Nicaragua, where President Daniel Ortega’s regime has targeted the Catholic Church by arresting priests, expelling nuns, and even monitoring homilies.

“When they kick out the nuns, what are the nuns doing?” Ferguson asked. “They take care of the street girls, the elderly poor who are dying. Who’s taking care of them now? The government is certainly not taking care of these people.”

Ferguson also pointed to Cuba’s ongoing repression of churches and independent religious voices as another regional priority for USCIRF. 

She framed international religious freedom as part of a broader defense of human dignity. “The right to practice your faith is one of the most fundamental human rights,” Ferguson said, linking it with conscience rights and the sanctity of life. 

Schneck said USCIRF’s bipartisan structure adds weight to its recommendations. But he cautioned that designations such as CPC or the Special Watch List are not enough without enforcement.

“Too often these designations come with no sanctions, or sanctions are waived,” he said.

Hartzler and her fellow commissioners also highlighted USCIRF’s Victims List, which features individuals imprisoned or tortured for their beliefs. By publicizing their names and stories, the commission seeks to pressure governments into releasing them and to remind the world that religious persecution is not abstract but lived by real people.

The commissioners all agree that Americans have a role to play. Hartzler urged people not just to pray but also to act: calling elected officials, pressing the White House and State Department, and demanding that religious freedom be a core element of U.S. foreign policy.

Ferguson called for the confirmation of President Donald Trump’s nominee for ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom, former Congressman Mark Walker, to strengthen U.S. diplomatic efforts.

The U.S. State Department is expected to release the annual International Religious Freedom report soon.

USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan legislative branch agency created by the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act, as amended. The commission monitors the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad; makes policy recommendations to the president, secretary of state, and Congress; and tracks the implementation of these recommendations.