Holy Trinity Catholic Church

Venezualans celebate their country’s two new saints during the canonization ceremony on Oct. 19, 2025, in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News

Vatican City, Oct 20, 2025 / 14:23 pm (CNA).

Underlying political tensions have surfaced among Venezuelans in Rome celebrating the recent canonization of the country’s first two saints, José Gregorio Hernández and Mother Carmen Rendiles Martínez.

A Venezuelan government delegation led by Carmen Meléndez, mayor of Caracas, and hundreds of pilgrims from the Latin American nation were among the 70,000 people who attended the Oct. 19 canonization ceremony led by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square.

However, in the days prior to Venezuelans converging at the Vatican to celebrate their country’s newly-proclaimed saints, reports of evident discord between government officials and citizens regarding President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian regime have also emerged.

Over the weekend, activists connected to the opposition political movement Vente Venezuela, led by 2025 Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, shared posts on Instagram highlighting their cause to free hundreds of men and women political prisoners.

The activists carried posters with photos of men and women detained by Maduro’s government with the slogan “Release All Political Prisoners” at an Oct. 18 protest in Piazza Venezia, a public square near the Vatican, and at the Oct. 19 canonization ceremony held in St. Peter’s Square. 

The Venezuelan government’s political agenda in Rome had also been called into question by the media in the days preceding the canonizations of the country’s first saints, with critics implying their presence at the Vatican is an attempt to project a positive image of national pride and unity under the Maduro regime.

Last week, a scuffle broke out between Venezuelan Vatican journalist Edgar Beltrán and  Venezuelan businessman Ricardo Cisneros, a member of the Venezuelan government delegation present at the canonization, at an event held at the Lateran University of Rome to honor the two new saints.

During the Oct. 17 event, Beltrán’s interview with the Vatican’s substitute for the Secretariat of State, Archbishop Edgar Robinson Peña Parra, was interrupted by Cisneros after the prelate was asked about the Maduro government’s “apparent politicization” of the canonizations, according to Catholic news outlet The Pillar.

Undemocratic measures and human rights violations in Venezuela have continued to garner increasing international attention, particularly since January when Maduro was sworn in for a third term after contested presidential election results.

Meanwhile, earlier this month opposition leader Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her tireless work in “promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela” and for “her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”   

On Monday, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin in a Mass of thanksgiving for the two saints held inside St. Peter’s Basilica urged Venezuelans to respect human rights and “create spaces for encounter and democratic coexistence.”

“Only in this way, dear Venezuela, will you be able to respond to your calling for peace, if you build it on the foundations of justice, truth, freedom, and love,” the cardinal said in his Oct. 20 homily.

null / Credit: Rohane Hamilton/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 20, 2025 / 13:53 pm (CNA).

U.S. Catholic bishops are criticizing President Donald Trump’s effort to expand access to in vitro fertilization (IVF) — a fertility treatment contrary to Church teaching that routinely discards human embryos.

Trump announced on Oct. 16 that the government entered an agreement with a pharmaceutical company to lower the cost of some IVF drugs and that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is working to expedite the review of a new drug.

IVF is a fertility treatment in which doctors fuse sperm and eggs in a laboratory to create human embryos to implant in the mother’s womb. Millions of excess embryos not implanted have been destroyed or used in scientific research. Some are indefinitely frozen.

“We strongly reject the promotion of procedures like IVF that … freeze or destroy precious human beings and treat them like property,” three bishops said in a joint statement released by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

“Every human life, born and preborn, is sacred and loved by God,” they continued. “Without diminishing the dignity of people born through IVF, we must recognize that children have a right to be born of a natural and exclusive act of married love rather than a business’ technological intervention. And harmful government action to expand access to IVF must not also push people of faith to be complicit in its evils.”

The bishops added: “We will continue to review these new policies and look forward to engaging further with the administration and Congress, always proclaiming the sanctity of life and of marriage.”

The statement was signed by Bishop Robert Barron, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth; Bishop Kevin Rhoades, chairman of the Committee for Religious Liberty; and Bishop Daniel Thomas, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, also released a statement criticizing the effort to expand IVF, calling such treatments “unethical and unjust.”

“God authors and blesses the life of every child born of IVF even as he wills the true good and thriving of all persons,” said Burbidge, who previously chaired the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

“The stark reality, however, is that IVF subverts the dignity of parents as well as the lives of unborn children,” he said. “Every child born by means of IVF will one day learn he or she has many missing brothers and sisters, who, although equal in dignity and rights, were conceived but deliberately denied their right to life. This is because many of the embryonic children brought about by every IVF process will either be discarded, having been deemed undesirable, or frozen, having been deemed unnecessary. By its nature, IVF both creates and destroys human lives.”

Pro-life fertility treatments also included

Regulators are also working to expand options for employers to offer fertility coverage for both IVF and treatments “that address the root causes of infertility.” 

Although IVF is contrary to Church teaching, some of the latter treatments may include options compatible with Catholic teaching, such as natural procreative technology and fertility education and medical management.

In the joint USCCB statement, the bishops wrote that they are “grateful” the administration included non-IVF fertility treatments that provide “comprehensive and holistic restorative reproductive medicine, which can help ethically to address infertility and its underlying causes.”

Similarly, Burbidge called the inclusion “a welcome opportunity for all employers, and especially for the Church and its apostolates, to enhance their health care coverage by offering new or expanded coverage for ethical fertility care.”

“It is my hope that, by God’s grace and with time, all Christians and people of goodwill, especially including our civil authorities, will come to encourage and favor ethical and life-affirming fertility care that is conducive to the true health and flourishing of American families,” Burbidge wrote.

Cardinal Edoardo Menichelli, archbishop emeritus of Ancona-Osimo, in the northern Italian region of Marche, has died at the age of 86 after a long illness. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/EWTN News

ACI Stampa, Oct 20, 2025 / 13:23 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Edoardo Menichelli, archbishop emeritus of Ancona-Osimo in the northern Italian region of Marche, has died at the age of 86 after a long illness.

“It is with great sadness that I learned that our Cardinal Edoardo Menichelli has returned to the Father’s house. Let us raise our prayers to the good Lord, rich in mercy, that he may welcome his beautiful soul into paradise,” Archbishop Angelo Spina of Ancona-Osimo said on the archdiocese’s website.

“Sick for some time, he faced his illness and heavy treatments with courage, revealing the indomitable spirit that characterized his temperament and his desire to live his consecration to the Lord with unshakeable faith until the end,” said Archbishop Francesco Massara of the nearby Diocese of Camerino-San Severino Marche.

Menichelli was born in Serripola di San Severino Marche on Oct. 14, 1939.

After studying at the Pius XI Regional Pontifical Seminary in Fano, he moved to Rome, where he obtained a licentiate in theology from the Pontifical Lateran University.

Ordained a priest in 1965, he was called to Rome in 1968 to work at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Church’s Supreme Court. He remained there until 1991, when he was transferred to the Congregation for Eastern Churches.

On June 10, 1994, Pope John Paul II appointed him archbishop of Chieti-Vasto in the region of Abruzzo. He was consecrated by Cardinal Achille Silvestrini.

On Jan. 8, 2004, Menichelli was named archbishop of Ancona-Osimo. Pope Francis appointed him a member of the two Synods of Bishops on the Family in 2014 and 2015.

Pope Francis made Menichelli cardinal in the consistory of February 2015, assigning him the titular church of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in Tor Fiorenza. 

Menichelli resigned in July 2017 upon reaching the age limit for bishops.

The funeral service for the late cardinal will take place at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 22, in the Madonna dei Lumi Sanctuary in San Severino Marche and will be presided over by Bishop Nazzareno Marconi of Macerata, president of the episcopal conference of the Marche region. 

At the end of the funeral, the coffin will be taken to Ancona and, according to the cardinal’s will, he will be buried in the Cathedral of San Ciriaco. 

The funeral chapel has been set up at the Madonna dei Lumi Sanctuary and will remain open from 5 p.m. to midnight Oct. 20 and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Oct. 21.

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

Iranian women walk in front of a relief sculpture of the Virgin Mary at the newly-opened Maryam Moghaddas (Virgin Mary) metro station near the Sarkis Cathedral of the Armenians in Tehran on Oct. 18, 2025. / Credit: ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

ACI MENA, Oct 20, 2025 / 12:51 pm (CNA).

This past week, social media was flooded with images showing a new metro station in Tehran called the “Virgin Mary” station. The photos went viral, sparking widespread debate among those who hail it as a rare gesture of openness, those who dismiss it as a staged act to polish the regime’s image, and others who simply wonder if it even exists.

According to the posts circulating online, the “Virgin Mary” station is located on Line 6 of the Tehran metro near the St. Sarkis Armenian Cathedral.

According to France 24, the station has been under construction for 10 years. Its arched concourse and dome feature religious frescoes and artwork honoring the Virgin Mary alongside what appears to be a church, presumably the cathedral.

For many, the idea of a metro station in Iran named after the mother of Jesus is a surprise. Others see it as consistent with Shiite culture, which also venerates the Virgin Mary. Still others interpret it as an attempt to highlight the country’s religious diversity.

Many argue that such a move does not align with the Islamic Republic’s record in dealing with religious minorities, and some dismiss it as propaganda designed to project a more tolerant image of the regime to international audiences.

The official X account of the Iranian Embassy in Yerevan weighed in, describing the station as “a beautiful sign of coexistence between Iranians and the Armenian community.” 

In reality, however, this “coexistence” falls far short of international standards on religious freedom and human rights.

Iranian law, for instance, prohibits evangelizing or conversion from Islam to Christianity and enforces strict religious and social codes. During the month of Ramadan, no person of any faith is permitted to eat in public, and during Muharram, followers of all religions are barred from holding weddings or celebrations. 

In addition, the compulsory hijab remains strictly enforced for women, and religious minorities are largely excluded from government employment, leaving communities such as Armenian Christians often feeling like second-class citizens.

Even if the metro station is a symbolic gesture toward Christians, particularly Armenian Christians, it serves as a reminder of a harsher reality: Christians in Iran continue to face arrest, torture, and imprisonment for their faith. In February 2024, an Iranian judge sentenced Hakop Gochumyan to prison for engaging in what authorities described as “illegal Christian activities.” 

According to the 2024 annual report by Article18, a London-based nonprofit advocating for persecuted Iranian Christians, 166 believers were arrested in 2023, a third of them simply for owning more than one copy of the Bible.

Yet despite this climate of persecution, Christianity continues to grow in Iran. In 2021, Open Doors estimated that nearly 800,000 Iranians had converted from Islam to Christianity — a remarkable trend that persists in secrecy and silence.

This story was first published by ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, and has been translated for and adapted by CNA.

Ending Clergy Abuse board members and survivors hold a press conference after meeting with Pope Leo XIV on Oct. 20, 2025 in Rome. / Credit: Simone Padovani/Getty Images

Vatican City, Oct 20, 2025 / 12:21 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Monday met with members of an international organization of clergy abuse survivors and advocates at the Vatican.

Four victims and two advocates from Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) — a coalition representing clergy sexual abuse survivors from more than 30 countries — had an hourlong conversation with Leo on Oct. 20. According to participants, it was the first time during his pontificate that the pope met with survivors of abuse.

Gemma Hickey, ECA board president and survivor of clergy abuse, said that “this was a deeply meaningful conversation. Today we all felt heard.”

The group said it was invited to the Vatican after sending a letter to the newly-elected pontiff. 

“We came not only to raise our concerns but also to explore how we might work together to ensure the protection of children and vulnerable adults around the world. We believe collaboration is possible — and necessary,” said Janet Aguti, the ECA board’s vice president.

“The Church has a moral responsibility to support survivors and prevent future harm,” added Tim Law, ECA co-founder and board member from the U.S. “Our goal is not confrontation but accountability, transparency, and a willingness to walk together toward solutions.”

The Vatican’s Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors last week released its second annual report on the Church’s safeguarding policies and procedures in which it urged heightened awareness of abuse and the need to offer reparations to victims.

In an interview with Crux in July, Pope Leo said how to respond to the Church’s abuse crisis — including how to balance justice for victims with the rights of the accused — is “one of the many challenges that I’m trying to find a way to deal with.”

“An authentic and deep sensitivity and compassion to the pain, the suffering that people have endured at the hands of Church ministers, whether that be priests or bishops, laity, religious men or women, catechists, etc. That’s an issue that is with us, and I think it needs to be treated with deep respect,” he said.

A view of the French Senate in Paris on Feb. 1, 2023. / Credit: Victor Velter/Shutterstock

Paris, France, Oct 20, 2025 / 11:51 am (CNA).

In an unprecedented initiative, 86 French senators have signed a public appeal denouncing the alarming rise of anti-Christian acts in France and urging the government to take concrete measures to protect believers and places of worship.

The statement, led by Sen. Sylviane Noël of Haute-Savoie (southeastern France) and published on the conservative website “Boulevard Voltaire,” paints a grave picture of growing violence against churches and Christians across the country — and of what the signatories describe as a culpable indifference from public authorities.

“Not a week goes by without the regional daily press or social media informing us of these attacks, ranging from desecration and arson to physical assault,” the appeal warns.

According to data cited in the text, 322 anti-Christian acts were recorded in the first five months of 2025 alone — a 13% increase from the same period in 2024. The theft of liturgical objects has also surged by more than 20% in two years, with 820 cases reported in 2024 compared with 633 in 2022.

The appeal briefly cites a few emblematic incidents to illustrate this alarming trend. In the Landes region, at least 27 churches have been vandalized or desecrated in a matter of weeks, while in Nice, the defilement of a cross on Boulevard de la Madeleine has shocked the local population. 

The most emblematic case in recent months was the murder of Ashur Sarnaya, a 45-year-old Assyro-Chaldean Christian refugee from Iraq with a disability, while livestreaming on social media Sept. 10. His story became a symbol of both Christian endurance and the tragic vulnerability of believers in today’s France.

“He had fled Iraq and persecution to find refuge in our country,” the senators note, underlining the human cost and moral urgency of these acts of violence. 

They also recall the tragic 2016 killing of Father Jacques Hamel, who was murdered at the altar by a radicalized Muslim while celebrating Mass.

The senators denounce political and media circles for their indifference toward Christians. They observe that incidents involving other faiths often trigger immediate official reactions and extensive media coverage, while attacks on Christian sites frequently pass unnoticed.

To illustrate this imbalance, they compare the public outrage provoked by pig heads left outside several Paris mosques last month with the near silence following the burning of a Virgin Mary statue in Guingamp during a Mass for the feast of the Nativity of Mary on Sept. 8. 

While France has established reporting platforms and support systems for victims of antisemitic and anti-Muslim acts, no equivalent mechanism exists for anti-Christian incidents. 

“Today, we solemnly call on the government to act without delay,” the senators declare in the statement. “It is urgent to establish a national reporting and support system for victims of anti-Christian acts, accessible to the general public, clear, and effective.” 

“This disparity fosters among many believers the impression that some victims of religious violence are treated as less worthy of attention,” the appeal continues. “Amid this undeniable surge of hostility, many Christians in France feel increasingly abandoned.” 

The appeal insists that France’s motto — liberty, equality, and fraternity — must be applied equally to all believers.

“Liberty requires that every citizen be able to practice his or her faith without fear of threats or desecrations,” it says. “Equality demands that the state, at its highest level, deploy the same means of protection for all. Fraternity, finally, obliges us to consider that when a believer is wounded, it is the entire national community that is affected.” 

Without seeking to pit communities against one another, the senators conclude that protecting Christians is part of a broader effort to defend France’s unity.

“When a synagogue is desecrated, when a mosque is targeted, when a church is vandalized, it is always the same essential freedom that is threatened,” they write. “No hatred will ever be tolerated, no violence against a believer will ever be relativized.” 

This broader debate on the respect due to Christians in France has also been reignited by the controversy surrounding the film “Sacré Cœur,” which tells the story of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that began 350 years ago in Paray-le-Monial. Before its release, the film’s promotional posters were refused by national railway companies, citing “laïcité” (state secularism) and opposition to “proselytism.”

The decision sparked widespread backlash and underscored what many observers describe as a deeper hostility toward Christianity — an attitude that seeks to marginalize Christian presence and expression in the public sphere, even as faith continues to shape France’s moral and cultural identity. 

Bishop Mark O’Connell. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Archdiocese of Boston

Vatican City, Oct 20, 2025 / 09:44 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Monday named Bishop Mark O’Connell, an auxiliary bishop of Boston, the next bishop of the Diocese of Albany, New York.

O’Connell, a canon lawyer, succeeds the 77-year-old Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger, who has been bishop of Albany since 2014 and whose resignation was accepted by Pope Leo on Oct. 20.

The 61-year-old O’Connell has served the Archdiocese of Boston as an auxiliary bishop since 2016. He has also been vicar general and moderator of the curia since December 2022. 

The Diocese of Albany serves approximately 300,000 Catholics in the capital city of New York state and the surrounding area.

Scharfenberger announced earlier this year that the diocese will undergo a planning initiative in response to a “financial and maintenance crisis” that could result in the closure of up to one-third of its 126 parishes.

O’Connell was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, on June 25, 1964, to American parents. His family moved back to the United States when he was 12. He earned a bachelor’s degree in English and philosophy from Boston College before studying for the priesthood.

He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Boston in 1990. In 2002, he was awarded a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome. Upon returning to Boston, he became part of the canonical affairs staff of the archdiocese. From 2007 to 2018 he was judicial vicar.

He also served as a senior consulter to the Canon Law Society of America from 2009 to 2012 and was part of the faculty of St. John’s Seminary and the Pope St. John XXIII National Seminary in Weston, Massachusetts. 

O’Connell also has experience in radio. As a priest, he was the co-host of a daily radio program, “The Good Catholic Life,” broadcast in Boston from 2011 to 2014.

In 2021, O’Connell voted against a motion of the U.S. bishops’ conference to begin drafting a teaching document on the Eucharist.

He revealed in a July 25, 2025, statement that he believed the Eucharistic document would lead to greater polarization. O’Connell published his statement in the bulletin of St. Theresa Parish in North Reading, Massachusetts, as a response to a parishioner’s question about denying Communion to pro-abortion politicians. 

In written responses to CNA’s questions after the publication of his letter, O’Connell said he saw the discussion of denial of Communion to certain public figures as focusing too heavily on abortion, to the detriment of other issues.

Rachael Isaac speaks to student athletes at Franciscan University of Steubenville, hosted by Franciscan University Athletic’s Athlete Center for Excellence (ACE), in October 2024. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Catholic Counselors

CNA Staff, Oct 20, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

As a competitive figure skater growing up, Rachael Popcak Isaac experienced firsthand the pressure that comes with competitive sports. Now as a devout Catholic and a professional counselor she has launched a new program for athletes inspired by St. John Paul II’s theology of the body.

The Faith-Based Success and Performance Coaching Program is offered by CatholicCounselors.com, where Isaac is chief operating officer.

In an interview with CNA, Isaac shared about her Catholic approach to the sports counseling program, which will offer resources such as tele-counseling, group workshops, and performance coaching.

CNA: What does sports therapy from a Catholic perspective look like? How does your approach differ from a traditional secular sports psychologist?

Rachael Popcak Isaac: From a Catholic perspective, sports therapy isn’t just about performance — it’s about the whole person: mind, body, and soul. Traditional sports psychology often focuses only on mental skills to improve performance. Those tools are valuable, but they can feel incomplete.

My approach integrates the science of performance with the truth of our identity being rooted in God and who God created us to be. That means I don’t just help athletes manage nerves or sharpen focus — I help them see their sport as part of their vocation, a way to glorify God and grow in virtue.

We work on confidence, resilience, and discipline, yes — but we root it in the deeper purpose of becoming the person God is calling them to be, on and off the field.

What inspired you to go into counseling and develop a Catholic-based coaching program? Will you tell us a bit about yourself and what led you to this work?

My background is twofold. I grew up as a dancer and competitive figure skater. So I saw the pressures, perfectionism, and anxiety that comes with sports, performance, competing, etc. I lived it. But I did the work to grow my skills and tools to manage stress and build my confidence in healthy ways and even learned to love performing rather than being afraid of it.

Likewise, I’ve always been fascinated by what helps people flourish. I studied psychology, became a licensed clinical social worker, and worked with individuals and families in traditional counseling. But I also saw the hunger people had for guidance that went deeper than just coping skills.

My own Catholic faith has always shaped how I see the human person — that we are created in the image of God, with dignity and purpose. CatholicCounselors.com integrates the best of psychology and performance science with the richness of our Catholic faith. 

I want people — athletes, professionals, parents — to know that they can build confidence and resilience not by becoming “perfect” but by living fully as the person God created them to be.

How do you integrate St. John Paul II’s theology of the body into your sessions? Why are these teachings so important in your work?

The theology of the body reminds us that our bodies matter — they are not separate from who we are but integral to our identity. In performance work, this truth is huge. So often people live in their heads, battling anxiety, doubt, or perfectionism. 

I help clients reconnect with their bodies, not as machines to be pushed harder but as gifts to be honored and trained in a way that reflects their dignity. Whether it’s an athlete learning to regulate their nervous system before competition or a professional learning to manage stress in their body during a high-stakes presentation, we use the body as a pathway to healing and growth. 

St. John Paul II’s teaching gives language to the deeper meaning of this work: that our body reveals our call to relationship, to love, and to living fully alive.

What are the most common struggles that your clients face, and how does a Catholic approach help with these struggles? What would you tell Catholics facing similar struggles?

Most of my clients struggle with confidence, anxiety, and perfectionism. They’re often high-achievers who feel the weight of expectations — from themselves, others, or culture.

The Catholic approach helps because it grounds their worth in something unshakable: They are loved by God, regardless of wins, losses, or mistakes. That shift changes everything. Instead of seeing failure as proof they’re not enough, they can see it as part of the growth process — even as a way God is forming them.

I tell Catholics facing these struggles: Your confidence doesn’t come from never falling but from knowing who you are and who walks with you. Every challenge can be a chance to grow in resilience and trust.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins hosts a USDA all-staff meeting on May 23, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Rollins announced the termination of household food insecurity reports in September 2025. / Credit: USDAgov, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 20, 2025 / 05:20 am (CNA).

The Trump administration’s recent decision to cease publishing an annual U.S. Department of Agriculture report on household food insecurity is being met with strong criticism by the Catholic Health Association of the United States, anti-hunger activists, and academics.

The last USDA food insecurity report, covering 2024 data, is set for release Oct. 22. On Sept. 20, the USDA, led by Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, announced the termination of future “Household Food Security Reports,” which were first published in 1995 during the administration of then-President Bill Clinton.

“These redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous studies do nothing more than fearmonger,” the USDA said in a published statement.

The USDA questioned the legitimacy of the annual reports, saying food insecurity trends have remained virtually unchanged since 1995, “regardless of an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019–2023.”

SNAP is an acronym for “Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program,” which according to the USDA “provides food benefits to low-income families to enhance their grocery budget so they can afford the nutritious food essential to health and well-being.” SNAP was formerly known as the “Food Stamp Program.”

The Trump administration explained its decision for discontinuing the reports, saying: “For 30 years, this study — initially created by the Clinton administration as a means to support the increase of SNAP eligibility and benefit allotments — failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder.”

Responses to terminating the report

“I don’t think collecting data about food insecurity across the country is ‘liberal fodder,’” said Lisa Smith, vice president of advocacy and public policy for the Catholic Health Association of the United States, which generally aligns with Church teaching but has clashed with the U.S. bishops in the past on health care issues, such as the Affordable Care Act. “When you don’t have the data, it makes it more difficult to know where the keys areas of need are.”

The end of the annual food security report “is going to impact the health of low-income communities,” Smith said. Smith’s concerns were echoed by Colleen Heflin, a professor of public administration and international affairs at Syracuse University and co-author of “Food for Thought: Understanding Older Adult Food Insecurity,” a book published last month along with Madonna Harrington Meyer, a sociology professor at Syracuse.

“Without national data from the Current Population Survey on food insecurity, it will no longer be possible to track year-to-year variation in food insecurity due to changing economic and policy conditions,” Heflin said. “This lack of data will make it harder for Catholic charities and other community-based organizations to effectively address food insecurity without a consistent and comprehensive understanding of how food insecurity is changing for different demographic and geographic communities.”

Like Smith, Heflin dismissed the Trump administration’s claim that the reports were little more than liberal, redundant fearmongering.

“Food insecurity data collection has been a bipartisan issue since the Reagan administration,” since the 1980s, Heflin said. Referring to the Trump administration’s plan to end the annual report, Heflin said she found “both the decision and the justification provided quite shocking and without merit.”

James Ziliak, a professor of microeconomics and founding director of the Center for Poverty Research at the University of Kentucky, told CNA that eliminating the USDA household food security reports could reduce public and policy awareness of hunger needs and hinder private-sector responses, such as those by Catholic health and social service organizations.

“This report was one of the most widely watched barometers of economic well-being among low- and moderate-income households in the U.S. and provided key information for policymakers, charitable organizations, and researchers,” Ziliak said in an email.

Like Smith and Heflin, Ziliak said he did not accept the Trump administration’s explanation for ending publication of the annual report.

“This is absolutely not justified, and the timing is especially harmful to public policy as the economy slows down and major cuts are being implemented in the largest federal food assistance program,” he said, referring to SNAP.

A Venezuelan priest who concelebrated the canonization Mass with Pope Leo XIV celebrates his country’s first saints in St. Peter’s Square on Oct. 19, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN

Vatican City, Oct 19, 2025 / 08:15 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV proclaimed seven new saints on Sunday before an estimated 70,000 people in St. Peter’s Square, including the first saints from Venezuela and Papua New Guinea and a former Satanist who underwent a dramatic conversion to become an “apostle of the rosary.”

“Today we have before us seven witnesses, the new saints, who with God’s grace kept the lamp of faith burning,” Pope Leo XIV said in his homily on Oct. 19. “Indeed, they themselves became lamps capable of spreading the light of Christ.”

“May their intercession assist us in our trials and their example inspire us in our shared vocation to holiness,” he said.

The canonization Mass unfolded under a bright Roman sun, with Venezuelan flags waving across the square as the pope declared two of the country’s beloved figures saints: St. José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros, known as “the doctor of the poor,” and St. María del Carmen Rendiles Martínez, a religious sister born without her left arm who went on to found the Servants of Jesus in Caracas in 1965.

Among the new saints were also two martyrs. St. Peter To Rot, a lay catechist martyred in Papua New Guinea during the Japanese occupation in World War II, became the country’s first saint. To Rot defied Japanese authorities who permitted polygamy, defending Christian marriage until his death.

St. Ignatius Maloyan, an Armenian Catholic archbishop, was executed during the Armenian genocide after refusing to convert to Islam. “I consider the shedding of my blood for my faith to be the sweetest desire of my heart,” Maloyan said before his death. “If I am tortured for the love of him who died for me, I will be among those who will have joy and bliss, and I will have obtained to see my Lord and my God.”

After the crowd prayed the Litany of the Saints, Pope Leo XIV pronounced the canonization formula in Latin, greeted by enthusiastic cheers.

Among the most well known of the new saints is St. Bartolo Longo, a 19th-century Italian lawyer who abandoned his Catholic faith for Satanism before returning to the Church with zeal. After his conversion, Longo dedicated his life to promoting the rosary and built the Shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary in Pompeii, now one of Italy’s most beloved Marian pilgrimage sites.

In his homily, Pope Leo XIV said that “what is most precious in the Lord’s eyes” is “faith, namely, the bond of love between God and man.”

“Our relationship with God is of the utmost importance because at the beginning of time he created all things out of nothing and, at the end of time, he will save mortal beings from nothingness,” the pope said. “A world without faith, then, would be populated by children living without a Father, that is, by creatures without salvation.”

Three women were also declared saints. In addition to Venezuela’s St. María del Carmen Rendiles Martínez, the Italian foundress St. Vincenza Maria Poloni was also canonized. Poloni founded the Sisters of Mercy of Verona and is remembered for her tireless service to the poor, including at the risk of her life during the cholera epidemic of 1836.

Pope Leo also canonized St. Maria Troncatti, an Italian Salesian sister who spent 44 years as a missionary among the Indigenous Shuar people in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest. Known affectionately as “Madrecita,” or “little mother,” she served as a nurse, surgeon, and catechist with missionary zeal.

The canonization coincided with World Mission Sunday. Before praying the Angelus, Pope Leo XIV, who was once an Augustinian missionary himself in Peru, urged the faithful to pray for today’s missionaries.

“The Church is entirely missionary, but today we pray especially for those men and women who left everything to bring the Gospel to those who do not know it. They are missionaries of hope among the people. May the Lord bless them,” he said.

The pope also made a heartfelt plea for peace, expressing sorrow over renewed violence in Myanmar.

“The news coming from Myanmar is sadly distressing,” he said. “I renew my heartfelt appeal for an immediate and effective ceasefire. May the instruments of war give way to those of peace through inclusive and constructive dialogue.”

Pope Leo XIV entrusted his prayer for peace to the intercession of the new saints, praying in particular for the Holy Land, Ukraine, and other places of conflict.

“May God grant all leaders wisdom and perseverance to advance in the search for a just and lasting peace,” he said.