Category: 2025 News

EDITOR NOTE: Updates, resources, and ways to help those impacted by the fires can be found from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles by clicking here.

 

LOS ANGELES (OSV News) – A church in Pacific Palisades appeared to be destroyed and more than 60 Catholic schools were closed as several major fires in the Los Angeles area burned overnight into Jan.8.

Images shared with Angelus, the news outlet of the LA Archdiocese, showed only the frame of the Corpus Christi Catholic Church structure remaining as of the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 8. There were also unverified reports of damage to Corpus Christi’s parish school.

In addition, at least 65 Catholic schools were closed that morning as a result of several fires burning in the LA area, including the Eaton Fire near Altadena and the Hurst Fire in the northern San Fernando Valley.

Catholic school superintendent Paul Escala told Angelus that his department was weighing several factors when deciding which schools should close due to the fires, including proximity to fire, poor air quality and wind damage, staffing challenges and nearby power outages.

“We did not call for a systemwide closure because the area of our district is enormous,” encompassing three counties, Escala said.

In some communities where the impact of the fires was less, “the safest place for kids to be during this kind of emergency is school,” explained Escala.

“School provides the kind of routine and consistency in care that children need during moments of crisis and trauma,” he said.

Escala’s department has asked schools that remained in session Wednesday to avoid outdoor activities in areas with poor air quality and to consider canceling after-school programs.

The church that was destroyed, Corpus Christi, is located in the heart of Pacific Palisades, an affluent neighborhood between Santa Monica and Malibu on the west side of Los Angeles. It was built in the 1950s and has long been home to several Hollywood celebrities, sports stars and other famous Angelenos.

As the fire spread westward toward Malibu, at least 11,000 acres had burned and an estimated 1,000 structures — most of them homes — had been destroyed in the Palisades Fire, according to a morning news conference Jan. 8 with LA city and county officials.

While no deaths from the Palisades Fire have been reported, there were “a high number of significant injuries to residents who did not evacuate” the fire zone.

It was reported that two people had been killed and an estimated 100 structures destroyed by the Eaton Fire, which had burned more than 2,200 acres. One parish and school, St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Altadena, was in the Eaton Fire’s mandatory evacuation zone and under close watch by fire officials.

The Hurst Fire, burning around Sylmar in the northern San Fernando Valley, burned more than 500 acres since starting late the night of Jan. 7.

The fires in the area spread quickly due to Southern California’s extremely dry “Santa Ana winds,” which led to increased fire danger after several months of virtually no rain in the LA area.

“Please keep praying for all those suffering in the wildfires sweeping through Southern California,” Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez posted on social media. “My heart goes out to our neighbors who have lost their homes and livelihoods. Let’s pray for them and let’s pray for our firefighters and first responders. May God keep all of our brothers and sisters safe and bring an end to these fires.”

By mid-afternoon Jan. 8, LA County Fire Chief Anthony C. Marrone said at a news conference that all the fires remained at zero percent containment. He said 29 separate fire departments in LA County are battling the fires. He expressed gratitude “for our first responders, our boots on the ground,” who “will remain on the frontline until we reach full containment, and we ask that you keep all of Los Angeles County in your thoughts and prayers.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – More than half a million pilgrims crossed the threshold of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in the first two weeks after Pope Francis opened it.

From Dec. 24, when the pope inaugurated the Holy Year, to Jan. 7, the Vatican said, 545,532 people from around the world have made the journey along the lengthy boulevard leading to St. Peter’s Square and crossed through the basilica’s Holy Door.

“This is a very significant beginning,” Archbishop Rino Fisichella, the chief Vatican organizer of the Jubilee Year, said in a statement. “The groups crowding Via della Conciliazione are giving an important testimony, and this is also a sign of the great perception of safety and security that pilgrims experience in the city of Rome and around the four papal basilicas.”

A tunnel diverting vehicle traffic underground at the beginning of Via Della Conciliazione — the street leading to the Vatican — was completed just before the start of the Holy Year. A pathway extending from the new pedestrian square at the start of the street to the Holy Door also was set up exclusively for pilgrims walking individually or in groups to St. Peter’s Basilica.

Archbishop Fisichella acknowledged, however, that there were some “difficulties” in managing the flow of pilgrims and tourists through St. Peter’s Basilica, a problem that would be studied.

The city of Rome has estimated that more than 30 million people will travel to the city during the Jubilee.

Based on the number of pilgrims that crossed the Holy Door in the first days of the Holy Year, “a steady increase in pilgrim turnout is expected,” the Vatican said in its statement, noting also the many children, youth, adults and elderly who participated in Jubilee celebrations at the diocesan level Dec. 29.

The Vatican said that the “great desire to participate in the Jubilee was also visible in the thousands of people who filled the four papal basilicas on the days celebrating the opening of the Holy Doors, often filling the squares in front of them.”

While Pope Francis opened the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica and another at a Rome prison complex, he did not attend the opening of the holy doors at the other three papal basilicas in Rome: St. Mary Major, St. John Lateran and St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The first major event of the Holy Year is the Jubilee of the World of Communications Jan. 24-26, which will bring to Rome “thousands of journalists, experts and communications workers from all over the world,” the Vatican said.

(OSV News) – Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of San Diego has been appointed the next archbishop of the Archdiocese of Washington, following Pope Francis’ acceptance of the resignation of Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, the first African American cardinal, the Vatican announced Jan. 6.

The see city is home to the White House, Congress, Supreme Court and a multitude of embassies, nonprofits, think tanks and lobbying groups seeking to sway the levers of American power.

Canon law required Cardinal Gregory, 77, to submit his resignation to the pope when the cardinal turned 75, which was Dec. 7, 2022. The Vatican announced the news of Cardinal Gregory’s retirement and Cardinal McElroy’s appointment two weeks before the second inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump in Washington.

Cardinal McElroy will be installed as Washington’s eighth archbishop on March 11 at 2 p.m. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

The 70-year-old Cardinal McElroy — a San Francisco native who pursued degrees at Harvard and Stanford before his 1980 priestly ordination — was appointed as bishop of the San Diego Diocese in 2015. Pope Francis named him a cardinal in 2022. He is also a member of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life and Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The cardinal has championed Pope Francis’ call to embrace synodality in the Catholic Church. During his time in San Diego, the cardinal convened three synods — the most recent began a process to implement synodal decision-making in the local church. Cardinal McElroy was also a participant in the global Synod on Synodality, which produced a final document on synodality in October that Pope Francis promulgated as magisterial.

As a prelate, Cardinal McElroy has urged the healing of deep polarization in society and in the church. Pastorally, he has called for greater inclusion of those who are marginalized, among them African American and Native Americans, people suffering poverty, migrants lacking legal status, refugees, clergy abuse victims, the incarcerated, and persons who identify as LGBTQ+.

The cardinal has emphasized that a synodal style is key to renewing the church’s missionary spirit and overcoming its internal divisions.

“A culture of synodality is the most promising pathway available today to lead us out of this polarization in our church,” wrote Cardinal McElroy in a Jan. 24, 2023, column for America Magazine. “Such a culture can help to relativize these divisions and ideological prisms by emphasizing the call of God to seek first and foremost the pathway that we are being called to in unity and grace.”

During the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ most recent annual fall meeting in November, Cardinal McElroy proposed a task force to help implement synodality within the conference. The U.S. bishops approved his proposal in a voice vote.

Cardinal McElroy has also led the San Diego Diocese through a second bankruptcy, for which it filed in June to settle approximately 450 claims. In 2007, prior to his appointment, the diocese paid $198 million to settle claims.

In a June 13 letter announcing the Chapter 11 filing, Cardinal McElroy said, “It is essential that we all keep in mind that it was the moral failure of those who directly abused children and teenagers, and the equally great moral failure of those who reassigned them or were not vigilant, that led to the psychological and spiritual wounds that still crush the hearts and souls of so many men and women in our midst.”

He added, “May God never let this shame pass from our sight, and may God’s tenderness envelop the innocent children and teenagers who were victimized.”

During the 2023 ordination of two auxiliary bishops for his diocese, Cardinal McElroy shared his thoughts on what makes a good bishop. “To be a good bishop,” he said, “you must truly journey with God’s flock as Pope Francis has urged us: walking sometimes at the front to lead; walking sometimes in the middle of the flock to experience the realities of daily life; and walking sometimes at the rear to embrace and walk with those who are struggling to keep up.”

Cardinal McElroy also succeeds a prelate in Washington who leaves an impressive legacy marked by a great many “firsts.”

Throughout his decades of service to the Catholic Church, Cardinal Gregory has been a pioneering prelate. He converted to the Catholic faith in sixth grade while attending St. Carthage Catholic School in his hometown of Chicago, and was ordained a priest of that archdiocese in 1973.

He became the youngest Catholic bishop in the U.S. at age 34 when he was ordained an auxiliary bishop of Chicago in 1983. In 1994, he was ordained bishop of Belleville, Illinois.

In 2005, he became the third African American to serve as archbishop of Atlanta, an archdiocese that during his tenure grew to some 1.2 million Catholics across 69 counties.

In 2019, he was appointed the first African American archbishop of Washington. Pope Francis elevated him to cardinal in 2020.

During his time in Washington, Cardinal Gregory navigated difficult situations, particularly where faith and politics intersected. The cardinal rejected calls to deny holy Communion to President Joe Biden, the second Catholic to hold the office, despite Biden’s endorsement of abortion, a stance at odds with church teaching. He emphasized the importance of effective dialogue and seeking common ground.

But he also spoke clearly to the president’s shortcomings. In April on CBS News’ “Face the Nation,” Cardinal Gregory said that while he believed that Biden was sincere about Catholicism, “like a number of Catholics, he picks and chooses dimensions of the faith to highlight while ignoring or even contradicting other parts.” He added, “I would say there are things, especially in terms of the life issues, there are things that he chooses to ignore.”

At the same time, Cardinal Gregory — who has consistently spoken out against capital punishment and euthanasia — commended Biden’s recent commutation of most federal death row sentences. In a Dec. 23 statement, the cardinal called the death penalty “one more link in the awful loss of public respect for human life itself.”

Cardinal Gregory was also the first African American elected as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, serving from 2001-2004. Prior to that, he had been elected vice president of the conference (known from 1966 until 2001 as the National Conference of Catholic Bishops) in 1998.

His tenure as USCCB president coincided with the explosive clerical sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston. The crisis — while not the first known sex abuse scandal of the Catholic Church in the U.S. — provided the impetus, along with other emerging diocesan abuse scandals at the time, for the U.S. bishops to develop and adopt their “Charter for the Protection for Children and Young People.”

The watershed document that then-Bishop Gregory helped shepherd the U.S. bishops to develop in Dallas June 13-15, 2002 — commonly called the Dallas Charter — lays out a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The charter also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability and prevention of abuse.

As the charter neared its 20th anniversary, Cardinal Gregory told Catholic News Service in a June 2022 interview that the charter marked a “pivotal moment” in the history of the Catholic Church in the U.S. But he said the task of confronting sexual abuse in the church “is not complete.”

“We’ve gone through some rocky patches,” the cardinal admitted. “With every sordid revelation (of sexual abuse or improper response by a bishop), the task becomes more difficult, the climb becomes steeper.”

The cardinal told CNS the Dallas Charter’s impact had at times been undermined by ongoing discoveries of the scope of the decades-long crisis.

“Certainly 20 years ago when the charter was first enacted and ratified, I think the people of God breathed a sigh of relief that finally the bishops were taking action together that would address the issue,” he said. “But … with each revelation that involved a bishop not taking appropriate action, with each revelation that a bishop himself was engaged in this terrible criminal behavior, the progress that was made over months and years was weakened.”

During the Mass for his 2019 installation as archbishop of the nation’s capital, he alluded to another crucial inflection point in the abuse crisis — the lurid abuse and cover-up scandal surrounding Theodore McCarrick, former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, who had been laicized by the Vatican in February 2019 — saying, “We stand at a defining moment for this local faith community.”

Candor, blended with hope, has been characteristic of Cardinal Gregory’s approach to a range of issues within the church.

As a liturgical expert — having earned his doctorate in liturgy from the Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anselm in Rome in 1980 — the cardinal has written extensively over the years on liturgical challenges and opportunities for growth in the worthy celebration of the liturgy.

In a 2016 journal article, then-Archbishop Gregory noted that “Catholic preaching has often lagged far behind its counterparts in other Christian denominations.” He pointed out that Catholic faithful “seek true inspiration, edification, and sound pastoral direction from the homily at the Eucharistic celebration.”

Writing as a Chicago auxiliary bishop in 1988, he also affirmed that “the cultural accommodation … between the Roman Rite and the Black American cultural heritage” is not “an impossible task” in the realization of an authentic Black Catholic liturgical tradition.

In 1999, then-Bishop Gregory, in his role as vice president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, also publicly apologized to Eastern Catholics, who had historically endured discrimination by some Roman Catholics in North America over their traditions, such as the ordination of married men to the priesthood.

With the start of the 2025 Jubilee Year, Cardinal Gregory expressed the need for both contemplation and hope.

Celebrating a Jan. 1 Mass for the Haitian Catholic community — with the liturgy celebrating the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God, while also commemorating Haiti’s Independence Day — the cardinal pointed to Mary as a model for faithful in the journey ahead, especially since she meditated profoundly upon the mysteries of Christ.

“Pondering helps us all prepare to grasp the really important events in life and see their deepest meaning,” Cardinal Gregory said. “We should all reflect more deeply, more frequently during the new year.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has appointed Consolata Missionary Sister Simona Brambilla to be the first woman to lead a Vatican dicastery, naming her prefect of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

The 59-year-old Italian sister had served as secretary of the dicastery since October 2023.

The announcement of her appointment Jan. 6 also said Pope Francis named as pro-prefect of the dicastery Spanish Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, 64, the former rector general of the Salesians.

The Vatican press office did not reply to requests to explain why the cardinal was given the title pro-prefect or how his role would be different from that of a dicastery secretary.

The dicastery, according to the apostolic constitution on the Roman Curia, is called “to promote, encourage and regulate the practice of the evangelical counsels, how they are lived out in the approved forms of consecrated life and all matters concerning the life and activity of Societies of Apostolic Life throughout the Latin Church.”

According to Vatican statistics, there are close to 600,000 professed women religious in the Catholic Church. The number of religious-order priests is about 128,500 and the number of religious brothers is close to 50,000.

When a vowed member of a religious order asks to leave or is asked by the community to leave, the decision must be approved by the dicastery.

It approves the establishment of new religious orders, approves the drafting or updating of the orders’ constitutions, oversees the merger or suppression of religious orders and the formation of unions of superiors general.

Sister Brambilla succeeds 77-year-old Brazilian Cardinal João Bráz de Aviz, who has led the dicastery since 2011.

She is one of two women Pope Francis appointed in early December to be members of the Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, the committee that oversees the implementation of the most recent synod and prepares the next assembly.

Born in Monza, Italy, March 27, 1965, she earned a degree in nursing before entering the Consolata order in 1988. She studied psychology at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, and in 1999, after taking her final vows, she went to Mozambique where she did youth ministry before returning to Rome in 2002, earning her doctorate in psychology from the Gregorian University in 2008.

She served two terms as superior of the Consolata Missionary Sisters, leading the congregation from 2011 to May 2023.

Cardinal Fernández Artime has been awaiting an assignment from the pope since August when his term as superior of the Salesians ended.

Born Aug. 21, 1960, in Gozón-Luanco, Spain, he entered the Salesians at the age of 18 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1987. He holds a degree in pastoral theology, a licentiate in philosophy and pedagogy, and, as a priest, he worked in Salesian schools both in teaching and administration.

After serving in Spain, he was appointed provincial superior of southern Argentina in 2009. Working in Buenos Aires, Cardinal-designate Fernández Artime got to know and work personally with then-Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, who would become Pope Francis four years later.

In 2014, he was elected rector major of the Salesians and the 10th successor of St. John Bosco; he was re-elected in 2020. Pope Francis made him a cardinal in September 2023 and allowed him to continue as the Salesian superior until a chapter meeting and election could be held.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Just as the star over Bethlehem called to and welcomed everyone to encounter the newborn Jesus, God today calls on the faithful to welcome everyone, creating safe, open spaces to find warmth and shelter, Pope Francis said.

The star is in the sky not to remain distant and inaccessible, he said, “but so that its light may be visible to all, that it may reach every home and overcome every barrier, bringing hope to the most remote and forgotten corners of the planet,” he said.

“It is in the sky so that it can tell everyone, by its generous light, that God does not refuse or forget anyone,” the pope said Jan. 6, celebrating Mass on the feast of the Epiphany in St. Peter’s Basilica.

“God does not reveal himself to exclusive groups or to a privileged few, but offers his companionship and guidance to those who seek him with a sincere heart,” he said in his homily. “God seeks everyone, always.”

“We do well to meditate on this today, in a world in which individuals and nations are equipped with ever more powerful means of communication, and yet seem to have become less willing to understand, accept and encounter others in their diversity!” he said.

This is why many Nativity scenes portray the Magi “with the features of all ages and races” to characterize the many different people on earth, Pope Francis said.

“God calls us to reject anything that discriminates, excludes or discards people, and instead to promote, in our communities and neighborhoods, a strong culture of welcome, in which the narrow places of fear and denunciation are replaced by open spaces of encounter, integration and sharing of life; safe spaces where everyone can find warmth and shelter,” he said.

God rejects and forgets no one because “he is a father whose greatest joy is to see his children returning home,” he said, “building bridges, clearing paths, searching for those who are lost and carrying on their shoulders those who struggle to walk so that no one is left behind and all may share in the joy of the father’s house.”

“The star speaks to us of God’s dream that men and women everywhere in all their rich variety will together form one family that can live harmoniously in prosperity and peace,” he said.

The star of Bethlehem is the light of God’s love, he said, and “it is the only light that will make us happy.”

“This light likewise calls us to give ourselves for one another, becoming, with his help, a mutual sign of hope, even in the darkest nights of our lives,” he said.

“Let us ask the Lord that we might be bright lights that can lead one another to an encounter with him,” he said.

Speaking about the current Holy Year and the Jubilee practice of making a pilgrimage, the pope said, “The light of the star invites us to undertake an interior journey that, as St. John Paul II wrote (for the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000), frees our hearts from all that is not charity, in order to ‘encounter Christ fully, professing our faith in him and receiving the abundance of his mercy.'”

While Pope Francis and thousands of people were at Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, thousands more lined the main boulevard leading to St. Peter’s Square for the traditional, folkloric Epiphany celebration. Marching bands and people in Renaissance costumes paraded up the street behind the Three Kings on horseback.

Before reciting the Angelus at midday in the square, the pope said, “Let us ask the Virgin Mary to help us so that, imitating the shepherds and the Magi, we are able to recognize Jesus close to us, in the Eucharist, in the poor, in the abandoned, in our brothers and sisters,” he said.

ROME (CNS) – During the Holy Year 2025, Catholics are called not only to grow in the virtue of hope, but also to share it with others, said U.S. Cardinal James M. Harvey, archpriest of Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

Pope Francis’ call to the whole church during the Jubilee Year is “both pressing and challenging. It is a call not to be satisfied just with having hope, but to radiate hope, to be sowers of hope,” the cardinal said at Mass Jan. 5 after opening the basilica’s Holy Door.

The golden bronze door, installed for the Holy Year 2000, was the last of the Holy Doors at the papal basilicas of Rome to be opened for pilgrims.

With the theme, “Pilgrims of Hope,” Pope Francis inaugurated the Holy Year Dec. 24 by opening the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, and he opened a Holy Door Dec. 26 at Rome’s Rebibbia prison. The archpriest of the Basilica of St. John Lateran opened the Holy Door there Dec. 29, and the coadjutor archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major opened the Holy Door at the Marian basilica Jan. 1.

In his homily at St. Paul Outside the Walls, Cardinal Harvey said hope “is certainly the most beautiful gift the church can give humanity, especially at this moment in history.”

The opening of the Holy Door, particularly during the Christmas season, he said, “marks the salvific passage opened by Christ with his incarnation, death and resurrection, calling all members of the church to reconcile with God and with their neighbor.”

Cardinal Harvey told the congregation of close to 3,000 people that the words, “Spes Unica,” meaning “our only hope,” are written at the base of the cross on top of the basilica.

During the Jubilee Year, he said, Christians in Rome and around the world are called to hold tight to the cross and set off as pilgrims, journeying together, supporting one another and sharing with all people the hope for eternal salvation accomplished in Christ.

Quoting the Letter to the Romans of the Apostle Paul, whose tomb is under the basilica’s main altar, Cardinal Harvey said his Holy Year prayer is: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

ROME (CNS) – Opening the Holy Door of the oldest Marian shrine in the Western world, Cardinal Rolando Makrickas prayed that the world would entrust itself to Mary, “the door to heaven.”

“Let us offer our prayer to the Father so that, like Mary, we may be pilgrims of hope who bring Christ into the world,” said the cardinal, coadjutor archpriest of the Basilica of St. Mary Major in Rome, before pushing open its bronze door Jan. 1.

As the bells rang out from the summit of Rome’s Esquiline hill, Cardinal Makrickas became the first pilgrim to cross the door’s threshold during the Holy Year 2025.

Among the pealing bells was one originally placed in the basilica’s bell tower — the highest point in the center of Rome — which was used to announce the Catholic Church’s first Jubilee in 1300 and had been housed in the Vatican Museums since 1884; it was returned to St. Mary Major last year ahead of the Jubilee.

Celebrating Mass on the feast of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, Cardinal Makrickas reflected on the mystery of Jesus’ incarnation in Mary’s womb, calling it the “fullness of time” as it united earthly time with eternity.

Today, the cardinal said, humanity often seeks to “perfect time” by saving or enriching it through technology, but “every effort results in its loss.”

“One cannot, however, ever feel lost, wasted or tired from time spent with God,” he said. “It will not be ideas or technology that give us comfort or hope, but the face of the Mother of God.”

Cardinal Makrickas also spoke about the significance of the relics of Jesus’ crib housed in the basilica, “the first, humble, poor home of Jesus,” from which humanity began to mark time itself.

Each pilgrim entering the basilica during the Jubilee and praying before the icon of the Marian icon “Salus Populi Romani” (“health of the Roman people”) — which Pope Francis visits before and after each of his international trips — and the Holy Crib “will not be able to leave here without a deep and particular feeling, a feeling and certainty that the heavenly Mother is with him,” the cardinal said.

“Each person will go from here with the assurance of being accompanied by the grace, the protection, the care and motherly tenderness of Mary,” he said.

St. Mary Major is especially significant to Pope Francis. He has said that he often visited the basilica when traveling to Rome as a cardinal and, breaking with recent tradition, has said he will be buried there rather than in the Vatican after his death. Six popes are buried in the basilica, and the last pope interred there was Pope Clement IX in 1669.