World Religions News

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Catholic Church leaders in Africa remember Pope Francis as a pontiff who kept the continent close to his heart, advocating for its poor and the marginalized. As Catholics’ attention around the world turns from Francis’ funeral to the election of his successor at the Vatican, bishops and priests in Africa express hope that the next pope will continue Francis’ concern.

Francis’ death is being widely mourned on the continent, where many people felt he was “their” pope.

“I think even as cardinals pray and reflect during these congregations, we need a moral global leader, in an increasingly divided world — someone who will follow up on the agenda or legacy of Pope Francis,” said the Rev. Marcel Uwineza, a Rwandan Jesuit priest who is president of Hekima University College in Nairobi.

“A leader who can be a global figure, a prophet of our time in an increasingly divided world,” he added. 

The priest, who attended Boston College and is a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, approved of a homily by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s secretary of state, on Sunday (April 27) that urged the church to continue outreach to the marginalized, care for the Earth and interfaith dialogue.

Francis visited Africa five times in the 12 years of his pontificate. The trips took him to 10 African countries, including the war-torn Central African Republic and Congo. From Cairo to Kinshasa, he called for peace and reconciliation, compassion and mercy, care of creation, and attention to refugees and migrants.

The number of Catholics dramatically increased during his papacy. Seven million people in Africa converted to Catholicism in the last year of Francis’ pontificate, according to the Vatican, and more than 270 million people, or a third of the world’s Catholics, now reside in Africa.

According to Uwineza, the concerns Francis addressed, from migration to the question of bad governance, are especially important to young people. “The message to young people in an increasingly growing world, where the majority of Africans are in their mid-20s, encouraging young people not to lose hope, is certainly fitting in the jubilee year of hope,” he said. 

The African Catholic hierarchy is regarded as being focused on the traditional moral and doctrinal stances of the previous two popes, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. If the African church has a serious chance of seeing one of its own named pope, it is thought to be Cardinal Robert Sarah, a hard-liner when it comes to doctrine. 

But the Rev. Joachim Omolo Ouko, a priest of the Apostle of Jesus order in the Archdiocese of Kisumu, said Pope John Paul II, like Francis, is much treasured among African Catholics for his concern for the marginalized. 

“The two popes are remembered for that legacy, because they felt that people in the developing countries, mainly in Africa, did not have a voice. So, they made it their focus. This is what we expect of another pope,” said the priest in a telephone interview.

According to Ouko, Francis was heavily criticized after he released “Fiducia Supplicans” in 2023, which allowed Catholic priests to offer pastoral blessings to same-sex couples, but Ouko said the pope was speaking for the rejected and dejected.

“His idea was not a bad one. He was saying (LGBTQ people) should not be rejected. They should not be condemned but should be given a chance to reform or to repent,” said Ouko, adding that the misunderstanding that resulted, forcing the Vatican to clarify that the blessings were not liturgical rites akin to marriage, meant that “the next pope may want to avoid this issue.”

Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of the Tombura-Yambio Diocese in South Sudan, told news outlets this week that his favored profile of a new pope would be one who would share Francis’ inclusiveness, humility and missionary zeal. “The church needs a shepherd who could listen deeply, unite the faithful globally, and continue to bring the church to the margins,” said Kussala in a widely reported statement.

If it’s God’s will, the pope will be an African, the bishop said, observing that Africa is vibrant in faith and youthful in spirit. “A pope from Africa could bring fresh perspectives rooted in the realities of the Global South, but ultimately, we trust the Holy Spirit to guide the church in choosing the shepherd we need now,” he said. 

Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja, Nigeria, told the BBC that the African cardinals at the conclave have the same chance as anyone from America and Europe. 

“So, it’s possible that an African would be pope, but what we are praying for is not an African pope, a Black pope, an American pope, an Asian pope. No, we are praying for a good and holy pope,” said the archbishop.

Pilgrims visit Rome for the Jubilee of People with Disabilities on Monday, April 28, 2025. / Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA

Vatican City, Apr 29, 2025 / 16:49 pm (CNA).

Thousands of people from more than 90 countries gathered in Rome this week to celebrate the Catholic Church’s Jubilee of People with Disabilities. 

Wheelchairs rolled across cobblestones and walking aids clicked on the marble floors of St. Peter’s Basilica as people with disabilities passed through the Holy Door for the Jubilee of Hope, entrusting their prayers to the Lord. 

“I pray for a better world, I pray for a world where inclusion becomes a normality,” 18-year-old Anna Maria Gargiulo from Perugia, Italy, told CNA. 

“I am blind from birth, but for me this is not a problem,” she added. “I experience it rather as a possibility, because I look at the world with different eyes.” 

More than 10,000 participants registered to take part in the April 28–29 event at the Vatican, which included an opportunity to have confessions heard by priests specifically trained to work with people with disabilities and time to adore the Lord in Eucharistic adoration. 

Among those who traveled to the jubilee was Davide Andreoli, 32, from Ferrara, Italy. Living with cerebral palsy, he made his pilgrimage with his family and spoke with joy about the experience: “It’s beautiful! You can see the jubilee, Piazza del Popolo, Rome, the Colosseum.” 

Andreoli shared how he made a confession before passing through the Holy Door offering a prayer for the late Pope Francis. 

“I pray to God. For our pope, Pope Francis,” he said. 

In St. Peter’s Square, families shared how faith helps them face life’s trials. Wanda Martena’s oldest son has special needs. She said: “Our family is a very close family, and we love each other very much and are happy. I have two children who are our jewels.” 

“We face everything with a smile,” her son, Alessandro, added. 

Michael Busuioc, a Romanian man with Parkinson’s disease, lives in the Vatican’s homeless shelter founded by Pope Francis. He recalled a powerful encounter with the pope last year during the World Day of the Poor.

“Pope Francis prayed for me. … I tell him, ‘Pray for me because I have a disease, Parkinson.’ He put the hand on my head and he prayed,” Busuioc recalled, showing a photo of him with the pope.  

Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who is spearheading the Church’s jubilee year, offered Mass in the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls for the jubilee participants. He prayed that the late Pope Francis’ legacy would inspire mercy and inclusion to continue to flourish in the Church. 

Corina Ciunae, also from Romania, came to Rome with her scouting group. Passionate about communication, she emphasized the importance of visibility and dignity for people with disabilities. 

“The most important thing is that we are people like everyone and we do the same things — but yes, we need the a little bit of help. We need to be helped,” she said. 

“But together we can do all of the things we want to do and nothing is impossible. If you want to be somewhere to do something you can do, and the disability can’t stop you,” she said. 

In that one idea, Elon Gold captured a key mistake the Jewish world makes when fighting antisemitism: We don’t aim high enough. We settle for playing defense. Instead of aiming for the moon, we stay in the mud.

The post Why the World Should Thank Israel appeared first on Jewish Journal.

(RNS) — Two years ago, Pope Francis denounced what he called “a very strong, organized, reactionary attitude” within the American Catholic church. To his successor, and anyone who wants to understand how this attitude has shaped the church, I recommend “Catholic Fundamentalism in America,” a new book by the Rev. Mark S. Massa.

Massa is a Jesuit priest who teaches American religious history and runs the Boisi Center for Religion & American Public Life at Boston College. (Full disclosure: I’m on the board of advisers.) He does not use the term fundamentalist as a loose pejorative. In his analysis, Catholic fundamentalism mirrors the Protestant fundamentalism of a century ago in its primitivism and sectarianism.

That’s to say, Catholic fundamentalists, like their Protestant forebears, see themselves as restoring an old-time religion in opposition to the liberal tendencies of the leaders of their tradition, whom they disdain. Like the Protestant fundamentalists, too, they are culture warriors who use apocalyptic rhetoric to assail liberal trends in society at large.

Massa traces this strain in American Catholicism back to what’s been called the “comic opera heresy” of a fellow Jesuit, Leonard Feeney.

After World War II, Feeney became the leader of a Catholic student center a block from Harvard Yard in Cambridge, Massachusetts. A charismatic speaker, he attracted converts from the university, which he took to denouncing as an engine of secularism and corrupt social values. He also took to denouncing the Archdiocese of Boston, which in his eyes had given up on the ancient principle of “no salvation outside the church.”

After being excommunicated and kicked out of his order, he established his followers — styled as “The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary” — as an irregular Catholic commune 30 miles west of Cambridge.

As minor a role as the Feeneyites played in postwar American Catholicism, their adversarial stance toward the church hierarchy and the world (as well as the celebrity they enjoyed in their heyday) provides Massa with a template for identifying subsequent fundamentalist Catholic undertakings. These include Gommar DePauw‘s Catholic Traditionalist Movement of the post-Vatican II years, dedicated to restoring the Latin Mass; EWTN (the Eternal World Television Network), which Mother Angelica founded in the early 1980s and made into a sharp critic of progressive church leaders; and the community of St. Marys in Kansas, associated with the schismatic Society of St. Pius X, which grew up at the same time.

Also: Christendom College in Virginia, whose educational program is dedicated to fostering the ideal of America as a Catholic-led country; ChurchMilitant.com, whose mission was to denounce the gay subculture in the church and in American society generally; and Crisis magazine, a onetime journal of sophisticated Catholic opinion that became an apocalyptic assailant of Pope Francis.

Disparate these undertakings may be, but Massa makes a strong case that, by meeting his fundamentalist criteria, they deserve to be grouped into a single movement — some devoted to creating a separate Catholic subculture, others to transforming the United States into one nation under their church. The religion they idealize predates the Second Vatican Council — in some cases, the urban Catholicism of the early 20th century; in others, the Western Christianity of the High Middle Ages.

All have been arrayed against one or another of the reforms of Vatican II, be it liturgy in the vernacular or acknowledgment of other faiths or acceptance of church-state separation. It is above all the sectarianism implicit in their rejection of Vatican II, as well as the post-Vatican II papal magisterium that, for Massa, earns them the fundamentalist label.

This, more than anything else, sets them apart from the Protestant fundamentalists of yore. Because Protestantism has from the beginning been all about establishing your own religious institutions, Protestant fundamentalists simply created churches and denominations to replace those they couldn’t take over. For Catholic fundamentalists, to break faith with the church hierarchy is to break faith with, well, the faith.

A few separate from the church, either voluntarily or by ecclesiastical edict, but most stay in. And because one or more of their passions has resonated in the wider, conservative Catholic world, they’ve always had their fellow travelers, their secret and not-so-secret supporters, their intellectual co-conspirators. While Massa is careful to avoid broad accusations, he does not hesitate to name some names.

These include big funders like Timothy Busch, neo-integralist professors like Patrick Deneen and Adrian Vermeule, and hierarchs such as Cardinal Raymond Burke and Archbishop Charles Chaput. Call them traditionalists if you like, but they toll the bell of Catholic fundamentalism. And on websites like ChurchMilitant and on the hugely popular EWTN, they display it to a wider Catholic public.

To be sure, the conservative attitude animating the American church draws on nonfundamentalist sources. But Massa’s book goes a long way toward explaining the fundamentalist strain that, once delineated for the reader, will never seem anything but obvious.

Pope Francis with Missionaries of Charity in Astana, Kazakhstan, on Sept. 15, 2022. / Credit: Pavel Mikheyev/Shutterstock

Lima Newsroom, Apr 29, 2025 / 16:19 pm (CNA).

Since his time as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Pope Francis was already known for his humility, closeness to the poor, and an austere lifestyle that spoke louder than words.

In the 2013 documentary “Pope Francis: A Man of His Word,” the pontiff recalled that “Jesus, in the Gospel, tells us that we cannot serve two masters: Either we serve God or we serve riches. And the great temptation that Christians, humankind, and the Church have always faced throughout history has been that of riches.”

The following are some of the gestures of austerity and charity toward the most needy made by Pope Francis during his 12 years as pontiff.

1. He lived at St. Martha’s House.

Instead of moving into the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, as is customary for pontiffs, Pope Francis decided to reside in Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse — where he stayed during the March 2013 conclave — because he wanted to maintain a simple lifestyle close to the people.

In a handwritten letter to an Argentine priest, he explained: “I’m out where people can see and live a normal life: public Mass in the morning, eating in the dining room with everyone, etc. This is good for me and prevents me from becoming isolated.”

The pontiff also confessed that he didn’t want to live in the Apostolic Palace because he wished to maintain the same way of being he had as archbishop in Buenos Aires.

During a June 7, 2013, meeting with children in Paul VI Hall, a little girl named Sofía asked him directly why he didn’t live in the Apostolic Palace. The pontiff’s response was simple and convincing: “We all have to think about becoming a little poorer: We should all do it. We should ask ourselves: How can I become a little poorer to be more like Jesus, who was the poor teacher?”

2. He visited the sick in the hospital.

Pope Francis regularly visited children, parents, and doctors at the Bambino Gesù Children’s Hospital in Rome. He also visited the children’s section of Gemelli Polyclinic, the same hospital where he himself received medical treatment.

An example of this was on March 19, 2022, when, in the context of the war in Ukraine, the pope visited Ukrainian children hospitalized at Bambino Gesù, expressing his closeness and solidarity with the victims of the conflict.

A year earlier, while recovering from surgery, Francis visited children with cancer in the pediatric oncology department of the same hospital. The visit was prompted by the letters and drawings the children sent him wishing him a speedy recovery.

3. He opted for a simple iron pectoral cross and a silver-gilt fisherman’s ring.

After being elected pope, Francis didn’t want to wear the gilded crucifix with precious stones as his predecessors had done and instead opted to wear a simpler iron pectoral cross, known as the “Cross of the Good Shepherd,” that he had worn since 1998 as archbishop of Buenos Aires. 

Likewise, the “fisherman’s ring,” a symbol of the pontificate that Francis wore starting with inaugural Mass on March 19, 2013, was not made of gold but of gilded silver. The design depicted St. Peter with his keys and was created by the Italian artist Enrico Manfrini. The choice of this model, among three options presented, once again reflected Pope Francis’ simplicity.

4. He wore his predecessor’s vestments as archbishop of Buenos Aires.

In a recent statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Marcelo Pivato, a close friend of Pope Francis, shared an anecdote that illustrates the pontiff’s humility. The story takes place during the time when Cardinal Antonio Quarracino was the archbishop of Buenos Aires.

Pivato fondly recalled that, at the time, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, coadjutor archbishop of Buenos Aires, was known for his simplicity and austere lifestyle. He then recounted how, after Quarracino’s death, a curious incident arose involving vestments.

“When Cardinal Quarracino died, he was a robust, heavy man, and Pope Francis was very thin. During the Corpus Christi celebrations, the nuns who were serving at the archdiocesan office told him that he would need a vestment for the occasion, and Quarracino’s was the one that was left, but it was very large. So he said, ‘Well, bring me an estimate so they can make it.’ When he saw the figure, he asked the nuns, ‘Who knows how to sew?’ And some of them did. Then he told them, ‘Well, make Cardinal Quarracino’s vestment smaller for me.’”

5. Pope Francis always carried his black briefcase.

The image of Pope Francis with his signature black briefcase caught the eye on his first papal trip, during World Youth Day in Rio 2013, although a friend assured he had been using it since he was a priest.

That year, the Holy Father told reporters on the return flight to Rome that he has always carried his own briefcase. “When I travel, I take it with me. Inside, I carry my razor, my breviary, my date book, a book to read. I carry one about St. Thérèse, to whom I am devoted.”

Pivato recalled with humor and admiration the pontiff’s attachment to that briefcase since he was a priest in Buenos Aires.

“You’ll remember that he always carried a leather suitcase. The little black one. So one day I gave him a new one. I said, ‘Here, Father, I brought you a new suitcase, so you can get rid of the one that was used by a door-to-door linens collector in my grandmother’s time.’ Because, in truth, sheets were collected in installments before, and those little suitcases were used. Well, he never used it. He stuck with that one,” he told ACI Prensa.

6. He organized lunches to feed the poorest.

Pope Francis instituted the World Day of the Poor on Nov. 21, 2016, through his apostolic letter Misericordia et Misera at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy. With this initiative, he called all Christians to live in concrete solidarity with those who suffer most, especially by feeding the hungry and sharing one’s table with the poorest.

Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has provided a concrete example of this mandate. Between the establishment of the World Day of the Poor and the end of 2024, he shared lunch with thousands of people in need on several occasions in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican.

7. He wore his usual black shoes instead of the traditional red shoes.

True to his simple style, Pope Francis wore his usual black shoes made in Buenos Aires throughout his 12-year pontificate, abandoning the traditional red shoes of his predecessors and continuing to wear modest loafers.

In a phone call to his longtime shoemaker, Carlos Samaria, he asked him not to do anything new or flashy for the start of his pontificate: “No red shoes, just black as usual.”

Samaria, who made his shoes for 40 years, described the shoes the pope wore as having “a simple cut, made of black calfskin, with a smooth upper, no frills. If you pick up one of the pope’s shoes, it looks like a galosh, unadorned but with laces.”

8. ‘I was in prison and you visited me’: He was close to the incarcerated.

From opening a Holy Door in a prison to visiting prisons on his apostolic trips, Pope Francis has made accompanying prisoners a regular gesture.

During his first Holy Week after being elected pontiff, in 2013, he went to a prison to wash the feet of prisoners, a gesture he repeated every year until his final Holy Thursday, four days before his death, when he visited the inmates of Regina Caeli prison. That day, Francis personally greeted each of the inmates. Afterward, he addressed them “to pray the Lord’s Prayer together and impart his blessing.”

Another memorable moment was when the pope inaugurated the 2025 Jubilee of Hope and, two days later, on Dec. 26, visited the Rebibbia prison, where he opened a second Holy Door as a gesture of grace toward those deprived of their freedom, incorporating them in a special way into this jubilee year, despite the fact that, according to tradition, Holy Doors are found only in the four papal basilicas in Rome.

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

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — In a College of Cardinals that is the most geographically diverse in centuries, name tags help, said cardinals gathering to begin the process of electing a successor to Pope Francis.

The cardinals who will be sequestered in a conclave beginning May 7 said the first step to reaching a consensus of two-thirds of the group is to get to know one another and learn where they stand on the future of the church.

Europeans remain the largest geographical group represented at this week’s general congregations, where cardinals are meeting ahead of the conclave, with Italians leading within the continent. The Americas, north and south, come second with 37 cardinals. According to the Vatican, 23 cardinals are Asian and 18 are from Africa. Four are from Oceania.

In this conclave of strangers there is a “plurality of opinions, convergences and differences,” said Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, a nonvoting prelate due to his age, on Tuesday (April 29).

At Tuesday’s sixth meeting of the general congregations, the cardinals who spoke to RNS said no names were raised as favorites to become the next pope, but those gathered have started to trace the qualities of who that man might be.

“There is a great discussion surrounding diversity,” Versaldi said, using a word that has been attached to the views of cardinals who wish to continue in Francis’ footsteps of an inclusive church. But Versaldi said this group doesn’t want to simply repeat what has been done before. “Those who look back are not reflecting the right spirit of the church,” he added.

Versaldi was echoed by Cardinal Ángel Sixto Rossi, the archbishop of Cordoba, Argentina, who told RNS that the next pope “doesn’t need to be the same as Pope Francis, but someone who has the courage to continue the journey (he) started,” he said.

That someone, the cardinals say, does not yet correspond to a particular individual. “We all agree on continuity, but we are missing the name and the style of the successor,” said Cardinal Gregorio Rosa Chávez, the first cardinal from El Salvador and a close friend of St. Oscar Romero, who was killed 45 years ago after urging soldiers to defy the military government’s orders, which he said violated basic human rights.

Of the 183 cardinals present at Tuesday’s general congregations, 124 of whom were electors, about 20 cardinals addressed their fellow prelates, the Vatican announced.

The Vatican also announced that two unnamed cardinals will not take part in the conclave due to health issues. The meeting also coincided with the Vatican’s announcement that Cardinal Angelo Becciu, convicted for embezzlement and fraud by a Vatican criminal court in 2022, had decided to not take part in the conclave, removing a thorny issue that had weighed on the initial meetings.

Those absences put the number of cardinals who will vote at the conclave, who must be under the age of 80, at 133, and the number of votes a candidate needs to be elected pope at 89.

The meeting began with a reflection by the Rev. Donato Ogliari, abbot of St. Paul Outside the Walls, a papal basilica in Rome, who emphasized the need for Catholics to “distance themselves from arrogant, harsh and authoritarian attitudes” and instead foster “welcoming, compassion and availability toward forgiveness and service.”

Discussions surrounding “papabile” — a likely candidate to the papacy, in Italian — are buzzing in every bar, café and alley in the neighborhood around the Vatican. While some of the usual suspects continue to be mentioned, especially the Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a close adviser to Francis who is the Vatican’s secretary of state, some begin to wonder if the diverse cast of cardinals might not favor a surprise candidate.

Vatican prognosticators are not underestimating the impact that Asia and Africa, countries where the number of Catholic faithful is booming and vocations are growing, will have in this conclave.

“As Scripture says: Salvation will come from the East. We now see the East as a protagonist that teaches the old continent not to despair,” Versaldi said.

Leading candidates from Asia include Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle, a charismatic leader who is best known for his outreach to young people by every means possible — including karaoke. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith from Sri Lanka offers a conservative option for cardinals seeking an Asian pope who will put an emphasis on doctrine while maintaining Francis’ outreach toward migrants and his emphasis on the environment.

But Versaldi warned against paying too much heed to the “sure things” among the papabile, citing the Italian saying: “Those who enter the conclaves as pope often leave as cardinals.”

Refugees from Mexico. / Credit: David Peinado Romero/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 29, 2025 / 15:49 pm (CNA).

Utah’s Catholic Community Services will continue to operate its refugee support programs despite federal funding cuts after receiving well over $1 million in donations.

In early April, the group, which is based in Salt Lake City, announced that its refugee resettlement program was “winding down” and would eventually close amid major federal funding cuts. The program normally provides “hundreds of refugees the assistance they need to recover from lives dismantled by persecution, war, or violence.”

The organization reported that it lost more than $2.5 million of annual aid and “could not sustain the program” without it.

In a statement on Monday, however, the group said that, following the announcement, “something remarkable happened. Our community rallied.”

The organization said it will no longer be forced to close the refugee program or end its support for Utah-based immigrant families.

“Thanks to a generous lead gift and an outpouring of support from individuals, foundations, and partners, CCS will continue offering resettlement services through a new, privately funded model,” the group said.

Catholic Community Services said it has raised $1.5 million to use over the next four years and said it will continue its work “on a smaller scale.” The majority of the funds came from one donor who wishes to remain anonymous.

The Catholic organization is now asking for another $1 million from “the broader community.” It stated that without this additional money, the organization “will be forced to scale back services and make further cuts to the program.”

The funds will help “refugee clients” by focusing on “six key pillars”: extended case management, housing assistance, employment readiness, youth education support, mental health services, and volunteer coordination and community engagement.

“These services aim to address the most urgent needs of refugee families and foster long-term self-sufficiency,” the organization said.

“While the program will operate at a reduced capacity, its core services — and the impact on the lives of those we serve — remain as vital as ever. This transformation ensures we can uphold our mission while adapting to a changing national landscape.”