Holy Trinity Catholic Church

Rosary beads and tributes are placed on the sculpture of St. John Paul II on March 13, 2025, at the main entrance of Gemelli Hospital in Rome, where Pope Francis is being cared for. Today marks the 28th day since Pope Francis was hospitalized in Rome on Feb. 14 and also 12 years since Jorge Mario Bergoglio became Pope Francis. / Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Vatican City, Mar 13, 2025 / 16:10 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis marked the 12th anniversary of his pontificate on Thursday from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where he has been receiving treatment for pneumonia for nearly a month.

Hospital staff commemorated the occasion by presenting the 88-year-old pope with a cake decorated with candles. Additionally, he received hundreds of drawings, messages, and letters from children and well-wishers worldwide.

The Holy See Press Office told journalists that Pope Francis continued his medication regimen, motor physiotherapy, and high-flow oxygen therapy on Thursday morning. He participated in spiritual exercises and prayed in the hospital chapel.

In the afternoon, he followed the Roman Curia’s spiritual exercises via video link to the Paul VI Hall and continued respiratory therapy. His clinical condition remains stable yet complex, according to the Vatican, with ongoing “noninvasive mechanical ventilation” at night and high-flow oxygenation during the day.

Friday will mark one month since the pope’s hospitalization. During his hospital stay, the pope has experienced multiple episodes of acute respiratory failure in which his situation appeared critical. After weeks of treatment, the pope’s doctors indicated on Tuesday that the Holy Father is “no longer in immediate danger from the respiratory infection.”

A chest X-ray earlier this week indicated “a slight improvement” in Pope Francis’ lungs. The Vatican is currently not providing an estimate for when the pope may be discharged from the hospital.

At the age of 76, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected the 266th successor of St. Peter on March 13, 2013, taking the name Pope Francis in honor of St. Francis of Assisi. He is the first Latin American pope and the first from the Jesuit order.

To mark the 12th anniversary of Francis’ pontificate, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin will offer a Mass for the pope on Friday morning in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace, attended by members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See. The liturgy will be broadcast live via Vatican Media at 10:30 a.m. local time.

Catholics are invited to gather in St. Peter’s Square on Friday evening at 7:30 p.m. to pray the rosary for the pope’s recovery.

Highlands El Encinar School in Madrid. / Credit: Courtesy of Highlands School

Madrid, Spain, Mar 13, 2025 / 15:35 pm (CNA).

Regnum Christi has announced that it will review the safe environments protocols it has in place in Spain following five allegations of sexual abuse against the former secretary of Marcial Maciel, Legionary priest Marcelino de Andrés Núñez, who worked at the Highlands El Encinar school in that country.

Maciel, the founder of the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi, was found to have sexually abused at least 60 minors, most between the ages of 11 and 16, according to a report issued by the Legionaries of Christ in December 2019. 

The measure was announced in a letter to the students’ parents dated March 11 listing a series of “public commitments” that were reportedly conveyed to the students’ parents in an in-person meeting held Monday.

The section on reviewing processes and protocols begins with the decision to “select and hire an external auditing firm to review existing safe environment protocols and to identify and implement areas for improvement.”

Additionally, the current protocols and codes of conduct as well as the hiring process for all school staff will be examined, and it will be verified that all persons in contact with minors “have an updated Sexual Offenses Certificate.”

In addition, a one-month period has been established for the governing board of Regnum Christi schools to review whether the school’s principal, Father Jesús María Delgado, LC, should remain in his position.

Previous protests by parents

Upon learning of the priest’s arrest, Regnum Christi acknowledged through a FAQ section on its website that some parents had protested the priest’s hiring in 2023.

“They asked that he not continue at the school, and their opposition had to do with the fact that the priest had been Marcial Maciel’s secretary, not because they had perceived inappropriate behavior with minors,” the website states.

This situation had already occurred in 2015 at another school in Madrid, Highlands Los Fresnos, where Maciel’s former secretary had worked since 2011. Due to the protests, “it was then requested that he take a secretarial job in Rome, and he did not remain at the school.”

Support for victims

Among the announced commitments, Regnum Christi offers families who report abuse to listen and attend to their needs, “whether or not they are in school,” as well as “independent and specialized services from experts in listening and comprehensive care.”

In addition, Regnum Christi will provide “psychological counseling sessions in specialized private centers” for all families at the school, helping them address the issue in a conversation at home.

Two additional complaints

In a new statement dated March 13, the sixth since the priest’s arrest, the school’s administration said that it is seeking “official confirmation” from the police about two additional complaints against the priest, which were reported on by a popular television program in Spain.

“We have not received information from the police regarding this development, but we wanted to share it with all of you while we seek official confirmation,” the statement explained.

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

Google offices in Chelsea, Manhattan, New York. / Credit: MNAphotography/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 13, 2025 / 14:50 pm (CNA).

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is demanding answers from Google over concerns that its YouTube TV streaming service might be discriminating against faith-based channels in its programming decisions. 

The allegations stem from YouTube TV’s refusal to permit faith-based television network Great American Family, which is owned by Great American Media, to stream on its platform. The channel, which seeks to promote family-friendly Christian values in its shows, is available on cable and satellite television providers and many other streaming services. 

“These concerning allegations come at a time when American public discourse has experienced an unprecedented — and unacceptable — surge in censorship,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, who was appointed by President Donald Trump to lead the agency, said in a post on X. 

“I’m asking Google for answers,” he added. 

Carr’s March 7 letter to Google and its parent company, Alphabet, states that YouTube TV “does not appear to have a public-facing policy against such programs.” But, he wrote, “I want to determine whether your company engages in this form of discrimination in practice.”

“Concerns have been raised alleging that your company has a policy (secret or otherwise) that discriminates against faith-based programming,” the letter adds. “As an example, Great American Media wrote a letter to me in which they claim that YouTube TV deliberately marginalizes faith-based and family-friendly content.” 

Carr wrote that the Great American Family network “is the second-fastest-growing channel in cable television,” yet “YouTube TV refuses to carry them.” He expressed concerns about technology companies “silenc[ing] individuals for doing nothing more than expressing themselves online and in the digital town square.”

“Understanding the nature of carriage policies … can help inform the FCC’s approach to the broader set of regulatory issues that the FCC has been called on to address,” Carr’s letter states.

Carr asked Google to brief the FCC on the role of multichannel video programming distribution in the media marketplace and to inform the agency about YouTube TV’s carriage negotiation process and the potential role of viewpoint-based discrimination.

Great American Media has been trying to make its Great American Family network available on YouTube TV for at least several months. In November 2024, Great American Family President and CEO Bill Abbott told the Washington Examiner that he has tried “every conceivable way” to get a deal with YouTube TV.

“Well, we’ve offered YouTube TV every conceivable way to get carriage on the platform, including free, and that has not been accepted to this point, and we’ll see,” Abbott said at the time. 

“We’re hopeful that they recognize the value of the audience and the strength and quality of content and the premise of being on the pillars of family, faith, and country, but we don’t know where that will go.”

Google did not respond to a request for comment from CNA.

Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz gives a talk during his July 2024 visit to Santiago, Chile. / Credit: Courtesy of Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus De/Flickr

Madrid, Spain, Mar 13, 2025 / 14:20 pm (CNA).

In his latest pastoral letter, the prelate of Opus Dei, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, reflected on how Christians should live joyfully in the context of “difficult times.”

“Joy, in general, is the effect of the possession and experience of something good. Depending on the type of goodness, joy has a greater or lesser intensity and permanence. When joy is not the consequence of some particular experience of a good, but the consequence of one’s whole existence, it is usually called happiness,” explained the successor of St. Josemaría Escrivá.

The prelate, who noted that “these are difficult times in the world and in the Church (and the [apostolate] is a small part of the Church),” also reminded that “always and in every circumstance, we can and should be happy.”

In this regard, he recalled how St. Josemaría was happy during his final years, despite the difficulties: “All of us who saw and heard our [spiritual] father in Villa Tevere during the last seven or eight years of his life saw that he was truly content and happy, even though he suffered greatly during these years, both physically and, above all, because of the serious difficulties in the life of the Church.”

Ocáriz also addressed the question of Christian joy in relation to the theological virtues: faith, hope, and charity.

Regarding faith, he noted: “Our natural joy, elevated by grace, is found especially in union with God’s plans” and is related to being aware of God’s paternal love and so “it is good to renew the conviction of our faith in God’s love.”

The prelate pointed out that “faith in God’s love for us brings with it great hope” that “has as its specific object a future and possible good,” which fundamentally consists of “full happiness and joy in definitive union with God in glory.”

In the realm of charity, Ocáriz said that “love for God and for others is linked, along with joy, to faith and to hope.” Thus, the shared essence of the different expressions of love is “desiring — and to the extent possible, seeking — the good of the person who is loved, along with the consequent joy that comes from knowing that this good is finally present.”

Thus, the prelate continued, “love, as a source of joy, is manifested in a special way in giving ourselves to others,” and when it consists of taking up the cross for love of God, “is a source of happiness,” and this joy “has its roots in the shape of the cross.”

Invoking Mary as “the cause of our joy,” the prelate concluded with an invitation to “always be happy and to be sowers of peace and joy in all the circumstances of our lives. We ask her for this in a special way now in this Jubilee Year of Hope, closely united to the suffering of Pope Francis.”

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

Normally busy streets in Manhattan are deserted April 10, 2020, after officials imposed a COVID-19 lockdown. / Credit: George Wirt/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 13, 2025 / 13:50 pm (CNA).

The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic five years ago this week, on March 11, 2020. 

Every diocese in the U.S. curtailed public Masses in some way during the ensuing lockdowns, many in response to state or local laws. Secular authorities varied widely in their treatment of houses of worship during the pandemic, with some imposing harsher rules on churches than on other entities deemed “essential.”

Legal protections afforded to churches have evolved considerably since the start of the pandemic, however. Many states have since passed explicit protections for houses of worship, ensuring either that they will not be forced to shutter again amid a future health emergency — or, at the least, that they will not be treated more harshly than other “essential services” allowed to remain open.

CNA compiled data on which states now protect houses of worship as “essential” and which do not. Peruse the map below and see where your state falls.

The Supreme Court ruled in late November 2020 that New York state restrictions, which included restrictions on the number of attendees at worship services during the coronavirus pandemic, constituted a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free religious exercise.

This means there is now legal precedent at the federal level suggesting that states may never shut down worship entirely again and can limit indoor capacity at houses of worship to, at most, 25% of normal. 

Some bishops lifted the dispensations they had issued as early as late 2020, while a few held out until 2022 before lifting the dispensation and inviting Catholics back to Mass in person.

After years of uncertainty over whether in-person Mass attendance numbers would ever rebound after plummeting during the COVID-era lockdowns, recent data has suggested that Mass attendance levels — at least nationally — have quietly returned to 2019 levels.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, a premier Catholic research organization, found that between May 2023 and the first week of 2025 attendance has averaged an estimated 24% nationwide. 

By comparison, weekly Mass attendance in the U.S. averaged 24.4% prior to the pandemic in 2019.

Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik, S.J., with the official image of the 10th World Meeting of Families in Rome. / Screenshot from Diocesi di Roma YouTube channel.

Rome Newsroom, Mar 13, 2025 / 13:20 pm (CNA).

Media reports say the Vatican may be getting closer to making a decision in the case of Father Marko Rupnik, the artist and former Jesuit who has been accused of the sexual and spiritual abuse of women under his spiritual care.

Pope Francis lifted the statute of limitations on the case on Oct. 27, 2023, allowing it to be tried by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).

More than 500 days later, reports say Rupnik continues to travel while reportedly living in a monastery an hour outside of Rome — and will be tried under the canonical crime of “spiritual abuse.”

The head of the DDF, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, said in an interview at the end of January that the dicastery had finished gathering information in the case, had conducted a first review, and was working to put together an independent tribunal for the penal judicial procedure.

A lawyer for some of Rupnik’s victims released a book in March detailing the accusations of three women against the priest. Laura Sgrò told EWTN News she is looking forward to receiving updates in the case.

Here’s a timeline of known facts about the Rupnik case, including the knowledge and response of the Jesuits and the Vatican: 

2018

October: Jesuit Father Juan Antonio Guerrero Alves, Rupnik’s superior, receives allegations of sexual misconduct on the part of Rupnik and an allegation that Rupnik gave absolution in confession to an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment. A preliminary investigation is set up.

2019

May: The 2018 allegations are deemed credible; a file is sent to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF).

June: Precautionary restrictions are imposed on Rupnik by his superior, Guerrero. What the specific restrictions were is unknown.

July: The CDF asks Father Arturo Sosa, the Jesuits’ superior general, to set up a penal administrative process for the Rupnik accusations. Sosa appoints a delegate and two assessors who are not part of the order.

2020

January: The delegate and assessors assembled by Sosa unanimously find that Rupnik did commit the canonical crime of absolution of an accomplice. The order knows that Rupnik had incurred an automatic excommunication for that crime.

May: The CDF also formally declares the excommunicable act (the absolution of an accomplice in a sin against the Sixth Commandment) happened and that Rupnik is in an excommunicated status. The excommunication is lifted by CDF decree later the same month. Rupnik ceases to be director of the art and theological center he founded in Rome, the Centro Aletti, and administrative restrictions are imposed for three years.

October: Bishop Daniele Libanori, SJ, an auxiliary bishop of Rome, is appointed extraordinary commissioner of the Loyola Community following a canonical visit that identified governance problems in the religious institute. 

2021

Libanori, in conversations with current and former members of the Loyola Community in early 2021, uncovers allegations of abuse against Rupnik, who had split from the institute in 1993 after co-founding the community with current head Sister Ivanka Hosta in the late 1980s. Libanori, according to the Associated Press, urges the women to file their complaints with the Vatican.

June: The CDF contacts the Jesuit general curia about allegations concerning Rupnik and some members of the Loyola Community.

July: Sosa asks Father Johan Verschueren, who succeeded Guerrero in January 2020 as Rupnik’s superior, to set up a preliminary investigation into the allegations with a person outside the Jesuits.

2022

January: An investigation concludes that there was enough evidence for a case; the results are sent to the CDF with a recommendation for a penal process. Pope Francis has a meeting with Rupnik at the Vatican on Jan. 3.

February: Verschueren imposes new, unspecified restrictions on Rupnik’s ministry.

October: The CDF (now called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) says the statute of limitations has expired on the alleged criminal acts and there can be no trial. Rupnik’s ministry continues to be under restrictions.

December: Sometime during this month, Verschueren imposes new restrictions on Rupnik. On Dec. 18, the Jesuits publish a statement asking anyone who has suffered abuse to contact them to lodge a new complaint or to further discuss any complaints that were already made. The statement also includes a basic timeline of when the Jesuits learned of accusations against Rupnik and what actions were taken.

On Dec. 17, Verschueren tells the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, that Rupnik’s early restrictions were to “avoid private, in-depth spiritual contacts with persons, forbidden to confess women, and to give spiritual direction to women specifically in the context of Centro Aletti. In 2020, these restrictions were widened geographically to include anywhere.” In further comments to the Register on Dec. 20, Verchueren says Rupnik had been able to continue certain public activities while under restrictions because “a few exceptions” were made for him. “The local superior had the right to allow exceptions,” Verschueren said, and “could judge whether they were opportune or not.” He added: “I admit that this did not work well. We made these rules ‘absolute’ after complaints reached my ears.”

2023

January: In statements to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Verschueren says he asked Rupnik to not leave Lazio, the Italian region where Rome is located, during ongoing preliminary investigations. 

February: The Society of Jesus says it will open a new internal procedure on Rupnik after receiving 15 abuse accusations with a “very high” degree of credibility.

A more detailed timeline of the developments in the Rupnik case, including notes on his public activities while under restrictions, can be read here.

June: Rupnik is dismissed from the Jesuits due to his “stubborn refusal to observe the vow of obedience.” 

“Faced with Marko Rupnik’s repeated refusal to obey this mandate, we were unfortunately left with only one solution: dismissal from the Society of Jesus,” the order says in a June 15 statement.

August: Rupnik is accepted for priestly ministry in the Diocese of Koper in his native Slovenia.

October: In a statement to CNA on Oct. 25, the Diocese of Koper confirms that Rupnik is now incardinated there and says the local bishop accepted Rupnik’s request to be received into the diocese “on the basis of the decree on Rupnik’s dismissal from the Jesuit order” and “and on the basis of the fact that no judicial sentence had been passed on Rupnik.”

Two days later, on Oct. 27, the Vatican announces that Pope Francis has waived the statute of limitations, allowing the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to open a disciplinary case against Rupnik.

2024

February: Two former religious sisters, ex-members of the Loyola Community Rupnik co-founded, share their testimony and identities publicly for the first time at a press conference in Rome.

October: A year after the Vatican case against Rupnik was opened, a person working in the disciplinary section of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), who asked not to be named, tells CNA the DDF does not usually comment on open cases but is looking at the merits of Rupnik’s case and examining the procedural steps that can be taken and “the mechanism by which justice can be served.” 

2025

January: The head of the DDF, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, reveals in an interview that the dicastery had finished gathering information in the case, had conducted a first review, and was working to put together an independent tribunal for the penal judicial procedure.

March: A media report says a decision in Rupnik’s case could come “in the not too distant future,” as other reports say he is living in a monastery an hour outside Rome and continuing to travel internationally for his work. Rupnik does not respond to questions from an Italian journalist who confronts him at a Rome airport.

This story was first published on Feb. 26, 2023, and updated on Oct. 26, 2023, and March 13, 2025.

Massacre in Plateau, Nigeria, on Dec. 24, 2023. / Credit: Aid to the Church in Need

ACI Africa, Mar 13, 2025 / 12:50 pm (CNA).

Nearly 150 Catholic priests have been kidnapped in Nigeria over the past 10 years, a new report has indicated, unearthing the growing persecution of Christians in the West African country.

The report published March 12 by the information service Agenzia Fides shows that of the 145 Catholic priests kidnapped in Nigeria between 2015 and 2025, 11 have been killed and the whereabouts of four others remain unknown.

In the report, the highest numbers of abductions were in the provinces of Owerri and Onitsha in the southern part of the country and Kaduna in the northwest.

With 47 cases of kidnapping, Owerri was the most affected in Nigeria in the mentioned period, which, according to Agenzia Fides, indicates “a high-risk region for clergy.”

“Despite the high number, all but two priests were released safely, suggesting effective rescue efforts or ransom payments,” Agenzia Fides reported.

Onitsha province comes second with 30 cases of priest kidnappings. One of the kidnapped priests was killed, according to the report. This, Agenzia Fides said, “suggests a pattern of abductions primarily for ransom rather than targeted killings.”

In Kaduna, the report indicates that a total of 24 priests were kidnapped and that seven of them were killed.

Kaduna Province had the highest number of deaths of priests in the whole of Nigeria, which, according to Agenzia Fides, “could be due to terrorist activity, insurgent influence, or heightened religious tensions in northern Nigeria.”

“Kaduna represents the most dangerous province, where kidnappings frequently end in fatalities,” Agenzia Fides said, adding that the trend “suggests that kidnappers in this region are more aggressive, politically motivated, or less interested in ransom negotiations.”

Other provinces with the highest death tolls in the reported period of time include Abuja, where two priests were killed; Benin, where one priest was killed; and Onitsha, where one priest was killed.

On Abuja, Agenzia Fides said: “The Federal Capital region is also affected, showing that even security-presumed areas are not immune.”

The report also lists Nigerian provinces where kidnapped priests are still missing. These include Kaduna, Benin, and Owerri.

The less-affected provinces in terms of kidnappings and murder of priests, which have been described as “low-risk,” include Ibadan with two cases of kidnapping, all of them released; Calabar with all the four kidnapped priests released; and Lagos, which didn’t have any cases of kidnapping.

Agenzia Fides noted that Lagos, Nigeria’s economic hub, appears to be the safest province for Catholic clergy.

“This could be due to better policing, urban security measures, or lower religious militancy in the region,” Agenzia Fides said.

Insecurity is rife in Nigeria, where kidnappings, murder, and other forms of persecution against Christians remain rampant in many parts of the West African country, especially in the north.

According to Catholic pontifical and charity foundation Aid to the Church in Need International, a total of 13 Catholic priests were kidnapped in Nigeria in 2024 alone.

Members of the Regional Episcopal Conference of West Africa (RECOWA) have condemned the incessant kidnapping and assassination of Catholic priests and religious in the West African region, describing the trend as an “abnormality.”

In a statement shared with ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, on March 11, RECOWA members described the violence meted against Catholic clergy in the entire West African region as “an evil that is gradually gaining ground,” noting that the trend is unacceptable.

In Nigeria in particular, RECOWA members noted that not a month passes by without news of the kidnapping of a priest or religious and a call for prayer made by the local ordinaries and superiors for their release. 

They appealed to Catholic priests ministering in hostile regions to remain committed to serving the poor and the marginalized without giving way to fear.

This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA's news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.

null / Credit: Syda Productions/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Mar 13, 2025 / 12:20 pm (CNA).

An Ohio Catholic hospital has resolved a legal dispute in which it alleged that city authorities violated its constitutional rights in attempting to force it to perform a drug search on a patient.

Mercy Health, the city of Lorain, and Lorain County have reached “a fair and mutually satisfactory resolution of recent state and federal legal matters between them,” the three parties said this week, with the resolution coming after the hospital filed a lawsuit in January against the city.

The suit had alleged that police in August brought a “detainee” to the hospital’s emergency room and requested that doctors “perform a body cavity search” to determine if the suspect was in possession of drugs.

Doctors at the hospital refused, citing what they said was “an unjustifiably high risk of serious bodily injury or death” to the patient, specifically the risk that the search would release drugs into the patient’s system.

The police subsequently terminated an agreement with the hospital to provide policing services to its campus. In its suit, the hospital said the alleged retaliation violated its First Amendment rights, as the doctors had refused to risk the patient’s life in accordance with the hospital’s ethical and religious directives.

In their Wednesday joint statement, the hospital and government officials said the new agreements “establish a new policy that governs body cavity searches and the execution of search warrants as well as a new memorandum of understanding with the Lorain Police Chief, which allows the Mercy Health Police Department to employ commissioned police officers to perform police duties.”

The agreement “resolves all of the recent state and federal legal matters,” a hospital official told CNA. 

The hospital was founded in 1986 by the Sisters of Mercy. It has been sponsored at various times by the ​​Grey Nuns, the Sisters of the Humility of Mary, and the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor.

On its website, the hospital cites the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, which stipulates that Catholic health facilities must be “rooted in a commitment to promote and defend human dignity.”

The “first right of the human person, the right to life, entails a right to the means for the proper development of life, such as adequate health care,” the bishops say. 

Father Marko Rupnik. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Diocese of Rome

Vatican City, Mar 13, 2025 / 11:50 am (CNA).

A media report says the Vatican’s doctrine office could be close to a decision in the case of the ex-Jesuit Father Marko Rupnik.

According to OSV News, a “sentence is expected in the not too distant future” in the canonical trial of the priest-artist accused of the sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse of dozens of religious sisters under his spiritual care.

OSV News also said Rupnik would be tried for the crime of “spiritual abuse.” Last November, the head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, said a Vatican working group was studying the possibility of making “spiritual abuse” a formalized crime in Church law rather than merely an aggravating circumstance of other crimes.

The report was published as some of Rupnik’s alleged victims shared their stories on the Italian television program “Le Iene” (“The Hyenas”), which aired on March 9. In the program, Italian journalist Roberta Rei confronted Rupnik at a Rome airport baggage claim but received no response to her questions about whether the abuse claims against him were true.

Bishop Jurij Bizjak, who retired Nov. 29, 2024, from the Diocese of Koper, told OSV News in January that Rupnik continues to travel internationally as part of his artistic career. Another recent media report said he is living in a religious convent about an hour’s drive from Rome called the Convent of Montefiolo, with some of his collaborators from the Centro Aletti art and theological center he founded in Rome.

In August 2023, Rupnik was accepted for priestly ministry in the Diocese of Koper, in his native Slovenia, after he was expelled from the Jesuit order for disobedience. In an October 2023 press release the Diocese of Koper stated that “as long as Rev. Rupnik has not been found guilty in a public trial in court, he enjoys all the rights and duties of diocesan priests.”

Regarding Rupnik’s case in the DDF, Fernández said in an interview at the end of January that the dicastery had finished gathering information, had conducted a first review, and was working to put together an independent tribunal for the penal judicial procedure.

CNA contacted officials of the DDF and others close to the case but received no answer by the time of publication.

In October 2024, one year after Pope Francis waived the statute of limitations, thus allowing the Vatican to investigate and try Rupnik’s case, a person working inside the disciplinary section of the DDF told CNA that they were examining the procedural steps that could be taken in the Rupnik case and “the mechanism by which justice can be served.” 

Rupnik, internationally recognized for his religious artistic works, has been accused of abusing adult women who were under his spiritual care as part of a religious community he helped found in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some of these accusations became public through the media in early December 2022, although the priest’s superiors and officials at the Vatican were aware even several years earlier.

St. Thomas University announced on Feb. 27, 2025, its plans for a 99,000-square-foot nursing college building. / Credit: Photo courtesy of St. Thomas University

CNA Staff, Mar 13, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).

Amid Florida’s nursing shortage, a Catholic university in the Archdiocese of Miami is expanding its nursing department following top test scores by its students.

St. Thomas University announced on Feb. 27 its plans for a 99,000-square-foot nursing college building. The archdiocesan-run university is seeking $3.5 million from the Florida Legislature to jump-start the project, which would eventually accommodate the 2,000 nursing students STU expects to have in 2026.

The university is expanding its nursing program amid Florida’s nursing gap. In 2024, Florida had the lowest scores in the nation on the National Council Licensure Examination — but in the same year, 100% of St. Thomas University’s nurses passed the exam. This was the second year in a row that the nursing program had a 100% pass rate.

The building will be home to the university’s newly created College of Nursing and College of Health Sciences and Technology, all part of an effort to close Florida’s widening nursing gap. 

Nashat Abualhaija, the dean of STU’s nursing college, noted that the project will help the state of Florida.

“Our future nursing education building and new nursing degrees will go a long way toward plugging the state’s nursing gap,” Abualhaija said in a statement. 

Henry Mack, STU’s vice president of strategy and innovation, said STU is asking the Florida Legislature for $3.5 million for operational costs to launch the nursing and STEM building.

“Legislative investments to improve private colleges benefit everyone because public universities alone can’t plug widening state and national labor gaps in critical health and STEM fields,” Mack told CNA. 

Florida’s nursing shortfall is expected to continue to worsen, according to projections by the Florida Hospital Association. But STU has projected that 2,000 students will be involved in the nursing program by spring 2026. 

Abualhaija highlighted elements of the nursing program that make it so successful.  

“St. Thomas University is leading Florida in the recruitment, retention, and professional readiness of nursing students, with a one-on-one nursing student coaching program, preparatory exit course, and higher GPA requirements for science prerequisites,” Abualhaija said in a statement. 

Abualhaija joined St. Thomas University in March 2024 and was instrumental in elevating STU’s nursing program from a department to a College of Nursing. 

The projection would make the university third in the state in terms of enrollment counts for nursing programs, after University of Central Florida College of Nursing and Galen College of Nursing. 

For Mack, $3.5 million is a great investment for Florida to make. 

“The ROI [return on investment] is obvious — a construction project potentially worth 16 times STU’s requested state appropriation, plus millions in future tax revenue and thousands of much-needed, good-paying nursing jobs for Floridians,” Mack said.

STU currently offers a bachelor of science degree in nursing (BSN) with two tracks as well as a bachelor’s degree in natural science. The university also provides five graduate degrees and four post-master’s degree certificates to further training for practitioners. The university has a total of 6,500 undergraduate, graduate, and dual-enrollment students.

In the upcoming fall semester, STU plans to debut an online BSN to doctor of nursing practice (DNP) degree track. The program enables students with a nursing bachelor’s degree to complete a master’s degree in nursing and a doctor of nursing practice in two and a half years.

STU will also launch an 18-month master of science in nursing with a nurse executive leadership track that focuses on human resources, budgeting, and health care outcomes.

The university is currently engaged in an intentional plan for growth, designed to make STU “the great Catholic university of the South.” The university’s president, David Armstrong, views the nursing program as an integral part of this plan.

“STU’s nursing program is a model for the university’s new ‘Pursue Excellence’ strategic vision,” Armstrong said in a statement. 

“St. Thomas University is fast becoming the South’s premier Catholic university as we prepare to celebrate our 65th anniversary next year,” Armstrong said.