We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

CNA Staff, May 15, 2025 / 14:10 pm (CNA).

Catholics in Nashville, Tennessee, are calling for the release of a man arrested by immigration officials last week amid broad efforts by the federal government to curb illegal immigration. 

A petition started by Catholics there says Edgardo Campos was detained by a “joint operation” between Tennessee state troopers and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on May 9. 

Campos was “violently pulled out of his car by ICE agents and arrested,” the petition says, alleging that the detainment was part of an immigration operation carried out under the guise of “traffic violations.”

The petition calls Campos “a beloved, respected, and irreplaceable servant of our community.” 

“Edgardo Campos is more than just a name to us — he is the heart of our parish,” it states. “For years, he has faithfully served in multiple ministries, always the first to arrive and the last to leave. He is known by all for his tireless dedication, constantly running up and down our church halls, making sure everything is in order, welcoming others, and offering a helping hand wherever needed.” 

“Edgardo does not simply attend church — he lives his faith in both word and action, and his presence is essential to our spiritual life,” it reads. 

The petition calls the arrest an “injustice,” a “personal attack against Edgardo,” and “a strike against our shared values and the fabric of our church family.”

The document calls for Campos’ release. “The community will not be the same without him — and we will not rest until he is free,” it states. 

Though arrested in part by ICE, it is unclear what Campos’ immigration status is. Reached on Thursday, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said Campos remains in custody with them but that he has an immigration detainer on file, meaning he may be transferred to ICE custody at some point.

Rick Musacchio, a spokesman for the diocese and the executive director of the Tennessee Catholic Conference, told CNA that Campos reportedly attended Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in Nashville. 

That parish “is located in the area of the ICE enforcement action last week,” he said. 

“We are very concerned that the immigration enforcement activities in the Nashville area are going well beyond efforts to target individuals accused of serious and dangerous crimes, or those who have received final deportation orders through the immigration court system,” he said. 

“Concerns about the lack of due process under law for those picked up in the current environment are creating even greater fear within our communities, including the fear of being confronted or detained while attending Mass or other events at our parishes.”

Mass attendance at both Sagrado Corazon and Our Lady of Guadalupe, the two Spanish-peaking parishes in Nashville, “were both down about 50% this past weekend,” Musacchio said.

In December, Nashville Bishop J. Mark Spalding joined a statement with other bishops from Tennessee and Kentucky calling for “just and humane treatment of all migrants, including access to legal protections, and due process.” 

“The Church recognizes that basic human rights are based on the dignity of being created in the image and likeness of God,” the statement said. 

On May 13, meanwhile, the diocese on its website said that, due to the immigration enforcement activities in the area, “many of those in our diocese are concerned about possibly being confronted or detained while attending Mass or other parish events.”

As a result, “no Catholic is obligated to attend Mass on Sunday if doing so puts their safety at risk,” the diocese said. 

Vatican City, May 15, 2025 / 13:25 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV earned his doctorate in canon law from Rome’s Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas, where his thesis on the leadership of the Augustinian order may give insight into how the new pope will govern the Catholic Church, according to the university’s rector.

In an interview with EWTN News, Dominican Father Thomas Joseph White said he imagines that Leo XIV’s canon law formation will influence his governance as pope by providing “a balance between being consultative and making final decisions,” balance that would be familiar to Leo after 12 years of experience leading a religious order.

White, the university’s first American rector, also pointed out that both Pope John Paul II and Pope Leo XIV did their doctoral work at the Angelicum, as it’s commonly called: “For our university, it’s just an unspeakable honor that we’ve been involved in the formation of two of the last four popes.”

Leo studied for a canonical licentiate (the coursework for a doctorate) at the Angelicum from 1981 to 1983 after making his solemn vows in the Order of St. Augustine in August 1981. He was ordained a priest in June 1982, in the midst of his studies, and in 1985 he completed his doctorate with a thesis titled “The Role of the Local Prior in the Order of St. Augustine.”

According to White, Father Prevost’s thesis has a vision that could be extended beyond the Augustinian rule and the role of the order’s prior to be applied to the episcopacy, and even to the papacy.

“It’s a really mature work of a 30-year-old who’s extremely learned, very well read, and deeply thoughtful and spiritual,” the Dominican said.

The thesis, he explained, reflects “on obedience and authority in the Catholic Church and the communal nature of shared life, or communion of persons, the respect of conscience, the respect of the human persons, gifts, the talents of the brethren, and also the limitations or sufferings of the brethren, and how the prior is supposed to refer himself to Christ and to the rule, and cultivate a selfless way of life for the service of the common good of all.”

The pope’s doctoral writing also explores, according to White, how the superior of a religious order must respect the consciences of the order’s members, working with the freedom of each person while ultimately having “the responsibility to make final decisions and to assure the communion and unity of the group in question.”

Then-Father Prevost studied at the Angelicum during what White called “the golden age of our canon law faculty.” The university’s canon law professors in the early ’80s helped Pope John Paul II prepare and edit the 1983 Code of Canon Law, which is still in effect today.

He said what is evident from the future pope’s thesis is that he learned a theory of obedience where “obedience is something exerted through the life of the mind, open to the truth of the faith, the truth indicated by the rule of life, and the will is to consent freely by understanding a shared truth the community wants to live together.”

The rector called it a balanced but “demanding version of obedience,” very respectful of people in the context of a shared set of goals based on the truths of the Catholic faith.

“So his Dominican vision of obedience, if I could put it that way, and his study as a canonist in the Augustinian friars, that’s something that probably is really deep in him and probably very helpful,” White noted.

The topic of Pope Leo XIV’s thesis on the prior general of the Augustinians later became of greater practical significance when then-Father Prevost was himself elected prior general in 2001, leading the order until 2013.

“It’s really interesting,” White noted, “how God prepared him for this kind of task of being a leader in the Catholic Church who’s respectful of [everyone].”

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 15, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

When Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church on May 8, he chose the name Leo XIV in part, he said a few days later, to honor Leo XIII and his historical encyclical Rerum Novarum, a foundational document in Catholic social teaching that addressed the challenges of the industrial revolution. Now, the new pope says, it can help us, along with the full body of social teaching, to navigate the developments of artificial intelligence.

Today, on the 134th anniversary of the release of Rerum Novarum — published May 15, 1891 — CNA takes a look at the significance of this encylical.

As European society was grappling with the impact of the industrial revolution and the rise of socialist ideology in the late 1800s, Pope Leo XIII issued a papal encyclical that expressed empathy with the discontentment of laborers but outright condemnation of the socialist movements of the time.

The encyclical emphasizes a need for reforms to protect the dignity of the working class while maintaining a relationship with capital and the existence of private property.

The message was promulgated fewer than 50 years after Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published “The Communist Manifesto” in 1848 and after Pope Pius IX denounced both socialism and communism in his 1849 encyclical Nostis et Nobiscum.

Pope Leo XIII’s teachings can still help inform readers on the proper relationship between labor and capital.

Leo XIII writes of a “great mistake” embraced by the socialist-leaning labor movements, which is the notion that “class is naturally hostile to class” and “wealthy and the working men are intended by nature to live in mutual conflict.”

This view, he asserts, is “so false … that the direct contrary is the truth.”

“It [is] ordained by nature that these two classes should dwell in harmony and agreement, so as to maintain the balance of the body politic,” Leo XIII teaches. “Each needs the other: Capital cannot do without labor, nor labor without capital.”

The pontiff, who reigned from 1878 until his death in 1903, saw a need “in drawing the rich and the working class together” amid the strife brewing between these groups throughout the continent. 

This can be done, he said, by “reminding each of its duties to the other” and “of the obligations of justice.”

For the laborer, this includes a duty “fully and faithfully to perform the work which has been freely and equitably agreed upon” and to never destroy property, resort to violence, or riot to achieve a goal.

For the wealthy owner, this includes a duty to “respect in every man his dignity as a person ennobled by Christian character” and to never “misuse men as though they were things in the pursuit of gain or to value them solely for their physical powers.”

“The employer is bound to see that the worker has time for his religious duties; that he be not exposed to corrupting influences and dangerous occasions; and that he be not led away to neglect his home and family or to squander his earnings,” Leo XIII says.

Leo XIII contends that employers must pay workers the whole of their wages and workers must do all of the work to which they agreed. But, in the context of wages, he adds that this “is not complete” because workers must be able to support themselves and their families.

“Wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner,” Leo XIII writes. “... If a workman’s wages be sufficient to enable him comfortably to support himself, his wife, and his children, he will find it easy, if he be a sensible man, to practice thrift, and he will not fail, by cutting down expenses, to put by some little savings and thus secure a modest source of income.”

In certain cases, Leo XIII encourages the intervention of government, such as when “employers laid burdens upon their workmen which were unjust,” when “conditions [were] repugnant to their dignity as human beings,” and when “health were endangered by excessive labor.” He adds that such interventions should not “proceed further than [what] is required for the remedy of the evil.”

Leo XIII also expresses support for “societies for mutual help” and “workingmen’s unions” but also exerts caution against any associations that promote values contrary to Catholic teaching. He encourages the creation of associations that are rooted in Catholic teaching.

The pontiff says there is much agreement “that some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class.” Yet, he accuses socialists of “working on the poor man’s envy of the rich” to “do away with private property” and turn “individual possessions” into “the common property of all, to be administered by the state or by municipal bodies.”

“Their contentions are so clearly powerless to end the controversy that were they carried into effect the working man himself would be among the first to suffer,” Leo XIII says. “They are, moreover, emphatically unjust, for they would rob the lawful possessor, distort the functions of the state, and create utter confusion in the community.”

Using this remedy to resolve poor conditions for the laborer, the pontiff contends, “is manifestly against justice” because “every man has by nature the right to possess property as his own.” He further argues that government intrusion into the rights of property and the right to provide for one’s family is “a great and pernicious error.”

“That right to property … [must] belong to a man in his capacity of head of a family; nay, that right is all the stronger in proportion as the human person receives a wider extension in the family group,” Leo XIII says. “It is a most sacred law of nature that a father should provide food and all necessaries for those whom he has begotten; and, similarly, it is natural that he should wish that his children, who carry on, so to speak, and continue his personality, should be by him provided with all that is needful to enable them to keep themselves decently from want and misery amid the uncertainties of this mortal life.”

Rerum Novarum set the foundations of Catholic social teaching about labor. Other popes have since built on the teachings laid out in the encyclical, including Pope Pius XI’s 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno on the 40th anniversary of Leo XIII’s writing and Pope John Paul II’s 1981 encyclical Laborem Exercens on the 90th anniversary.

This story was first published on Sept. 2, 2024, and was updated on May 15, 2025.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 15, 2025 / 11:00 am (CNA).

A Christian summer camp network is suing the Colorado government over a state rule allowing males who identify as girls to be given access to girls’ showers, dressing areas, and sleeping facilities.

Camp IdRaHaJe — which separates private facilities on the basis of sex rather than self-asserted “gender identity” — filed the federal lawsuit against Colorado’s Department of Early Childhood on Monday.

The camp, which derives its name from the 1922 Christian hymn “I’d Rather Have Jesus,” is protesting a regulation that requires access to gender-separated showers, sleeping facilities, changing rooms, and bathrooms in all children’s resident camps on the basis of “an individual’s gender identity” even when the gender identity is different from his or her biological sex.

The lawsuit notes that the camps believe and teach that God “has immutably created each person as either male or female in his image” and that “the differentiation of the sexes, male and female, is part of the divine image in the human race.” 

It adds that the camps’ beliefs, including its beliefs on biological sex, are integrated into all of its programs and operations.

Camp IdRaHaJe requested an exemption from the state rule because it conflicts with its religious beliefs and mission, but the department denied the request. The department’s rules generally allow for individualized exemptions to “any rule or standard” if it poses “an undue hardship” on any camp, but the government determined the religious objection did not qualify.

If the camps do not comply with the rule, their licenses could be revoked or suspended and they could face fines. According to the lawsuit, the camps open on June 8 and will not operate in compliance with these rules. The camps also need to certify compliance with all departmental rules to have their licenses renewed in June, which the lawsuit asserts they will not be able to do.

The camp network is asking the federal judge to immediately prevent the department from enforcing the rule against its camps, arguing that any enforcement would violate the group’s First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. 

The lawsuit also contends that the rule infringes on the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause, which safeguards the rights of protected classes, including those defined by religion.

“Those regulations would require the camp to violate its religious beliefs by altering its policies and operations that are based on its religious beliefs about sexuality and gender,” states the lawsuit, which was filed on behalf of the camp by lawyers at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

Camp IdRaHaJe has operated since 1948 and was established for “the purpose of winning souls to Jesus Christ through the spreading of the Gospel,” the “edifying … of the believers through the preaching and teaching of the Word of God,” and the “evangelizing of campers through witnessing and missions,” according to its website.

The camp network serves children between the ages of 6 and 17. The camps are attended by about 2,500 to 3,000 children every summer.

Many families “choose to send their children to IdRaHaJe camps because of their Christian programs and education,” according to the lawsuit.

Andrea Dill, who serves as legal counsel for ADF, said in a statement that the government “has no place telling religious summer camps that it’s ‘lights out’ for upholding their religious beliefs about human sexuality.” 

“Camp IdRaHaJe exists to present the truth of the Gospel to children who are building character and lifelong memories,” Dill continued. 

“But the Colorado government is putting its dangerous agenda — that is losing popularity across the globe — ahead of its kids. We are urging the court to allow IdRaHaJe to operate as it has for over 75 years: as a Christian summer camp that accepts all campers without fear of being punished for its beliefs,” she said. 

Vatican City, May 15, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV is expected to move into the official papal residence, an apartment on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace, departing from the living arrangements used by Pope Francis for 12 years.

The papal apartment, which is a series of rooms wrapping around the Vatican’s Sixtus V Courtyard, was the traditional home of pontiffs for over a century before Pope Francis eschewed those living quarters for a suite in the Vatican’s guesthouse, the Casa Santa Marta.

Pope Francis explained his decision as “a need to live my life with others” in a 2013 interview. The late pope said the papal apartment is “old, tastefully decorated and large, but not luxurious.”

Francis’ choice of living space was commonly interpreted as a sign of his simplicity and rejection of papal pomp, though U.S. Jesuit Father James Martin said Leo’s expected move into the papal apartment was a prudent decision.

Martin called it understandable that Leo might move back into the Apostolic Palace, given the busy and crowded nature of the Vatican guesthouse compared with the privacy of the papal apartment.

“Leo’s move should not be taken as a sign either of a critique of Pope Francis (whom he has praised repeatedly and whose legacy he formally told the cardinals he wishes to continue) or as him not living ‘simply,’” the author wrote on X.

Pope Francis lived in a second-floor bedroom with a sitting room attached but would go frequently to the Apostolic Palace for meetings and audiences. Toward the end of his pontificate, he would also receive visitors in various meeting rooms of the guesthouse.

According to people who have been there, the Santa Marta guesthouse posed significant security challenges, and when the pope made it his official residence after his 2013 election, a section of the second floor was closed to guests for security.

The quarters in the Apostolic Palace include a chapel, bedroom and bathroom, papal study, office for the pope’s secretary, a living room, dining room, kitchen, and library for meetings. Since John Paul II’s pontificate, which ended in illness, the apartment has also included an outfitted medical suite that was later expanded to include dental equipment. There is also a roof garden and rooms for housekeeping staff.

The Apostolic Palace is a large building situated just to the northeast of St. Peter’s Basilica, inside Vatican City. One corner of the building overlooks St. Peter’s Square.

Besides the papal apartment, the Apostolic Palace — also sometimes called the Palace of Sixtus V for the pope who had most of it built — contains Vatican offices, the Vatican library, and some of the rooms now part of the Vatican Museums.

Several of the windows of the papal apartment overlook St. Peter’s Square, including the window at which recent popes, including Pope Francis, would appear weekly on Sundays and holy days to pray the Angelus or Regina Caeli and give a brief reflection. On May 11, Pope Leo sang the Regina Caeli from the central loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica for the first time.

Following recent convention, the papal apartment will likely undergo some renovations and customization prior to Leo’s move-in. Since his election, the pope has been continuing to sleep in the Vatican apartment he used as prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, which is in the Palazzo Sant’Uffizio, the building that also houses the offices of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 15, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

The global number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) around the world skyrocketed to a record high of 83.4 million in 2024, according to a report released Tuesday, marking a more than 100% increase in six years. 

“Conflicts and violence have left 73.5 million people displaced and [natural] disasters 9.8 million, in both cases the highest figures on record,” the latest edition of the Global Report on Internal Displacement (GRID) finds.

According to the UNHCR, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees agency, internally displaced persons are those who have been forced to flee their homes by conflict, violence, persecution, or disasters; however, unlike refugees, they remain within their own country. 

The total number of globally displaced people in 2023 was 75.9 million, while the first GRID in 2015 recorded 40.5 million.

Conducted by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian Refugee Council, this year’s report listed ongoing wars such as those in Sudan, Gaza, and Ukraine as well as natural disasters like hurricanes Helene and Milton as driving factors behind the record-breaking numbers of people forced to leave their homes.

Sudan recorded the highest number of displaced people in the world, at 11.6 million, followed by Syria at 7.4 million. In Gaza, the report estimates that more than 3.2 million displacements occurred in 2024 while in Ukraine it recorded about 3.7 million. For its part, the U.S. had more than 11 million displacements due to mass evacuations following hurricanes. 

“The ever-increasing number of IDPs results in part from the insufficient support [internally displaced people] receive to put an end to their displacement by returning home or making a new home elsewhere and addressing their related needs,” the report states, noting that the Democratic Republic of Congo and Yemen, where conflicts have been ongoing for years or even decades, recorded their highest-ever numbers of displacements. 

During a jubilee year audience on Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV urged thousands of Eastern-rite Catholics present from around the world, many of whom come from places experiencing violence, not to abandon their ancestral lands and assured them that he will do everything he can to bring peace there.

“I thank God for those Christians — Eastern and Latin alike — who, above all in the Middle East, persevere and remain in their homelands, resisting the temptation to abandon them,” he said. “Christians must be given the opportunity, and not just in words, to remain in their native lands with all the rights needed for a secure existence. Please, let us strive for this!” 

In 2020, the Vatican’s migrant and refugee office released guidelines on how the Church ought to respond to the problem of people who have been internally displaced within their own countries due to conflict or disaster.

The document, the “Pastoral Orientation on Internally Displaced People,” calls on Catholic dioceses and organizations to “welcome, protect, promote, and integrate” people who have been internally displaced.

The 47-page document quotes the late Pope Francis, who noted in his New Year address to the Holy See Diplomatic Corps in 2020 that because consistent protections for internally displaced people do not exist in the same way as they do for refugees, “the result is that internally displaced persons do not always receive the protection they deserve.”

CNA Staff, May 15, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

A new global streaming platform for faith-driven content will launch worldwide on May 28 and serve as the exclusive streaming home of “Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality,” the top-grossing faith-based documentary of the year at the box office.

CREDO, founded by Tim Moriarty, CEO and founder of Castletown Media, is also on track to stream Castletown’s newest project, “Leo XIV: A Pontiff’s Path,” later this year.

The platform will allow filmmakers to showcase their work, connect directly with audiences, and earn fair compensation while viewers enjoy on-demand, a la carte rentals with no subscriptions or recurring fees. Content will be able to be viewed on computers, mobile devices, and on smart TVs. 

Castletown Media’s newest project, “Leo XIV: A Pontiff’s Path,” will follow the journey of the new Holy Father — from his Chicago roots through his theological formation and missionary service. The film will weave together interviews with those who knew him and offer an immersive portrait of his missionary work in Peru, tracing his vocational journey from a humble Augustinian friar to the supreme pontiff.

The film invites viewers to meet the man behind the title — how his Chicago roots, Augustinian formation, and missionary zeal will shape his ministry as vicar of Christ, Moriarty told CNA in an exclusive interview.

“Within hours of his first appearance on the loggia, our cameras were rolling in Rome and Chicago, and this week our team is in Peru, uncovering the experiences that prepared him to shepherd the global Church,” he said.

On CREDO, starting on May 28, viewers will be able to watch “Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality,” which explores the life of Acutis and the lessons he offers young people regarding the challenges of the digital world. It features Acutis’ family and friends sharing their firsthand experiences of the soon-to-be saint and his impact on their lives, in addition to well-known voices in the Catholic Church and technology experts who offer a model for young people to engage in the digital world.

“Catholic audiences shouldn’t have to settle for anything less than artistic excellence,” Moriarty said. “With CREDO, rigorous curation meets state-of-the-art streaming, so families can hit play knowing they’ll experience beautifully crafted, spiritually sound films. It’s only fitting that our launch title is ‘Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality,’ which explores the life of the first millennial saint who used digital media to spread the Gospel. His story perfectly encapsulates everything CREDO stands for.”

The Major Archbishop of Kyiv expresses his gratitude to Pope Leo while meeting with him in a private audience on Thursday morning. The Archbishop gives him a painting entitled “Requiem Prayer” depicting the suffering of the Ukrainian people.

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Vatican City, May 15, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday briefly discussed the revision of Opus Dei’s statutes with the apostolate’s prelate, Monsignor Fernando Ocáriz, a revision that was postponed following the death of Pope Francis on April 21, two days before the convening of Opus Dei’s general congress, from which the revisions proposed for approval were to be issued.

According to the Opus Dei communications office in Rome, the May 14 encounter was “a brief meeting in which the pope expressed his closeness and affection.”

“In a familial atmosphere of trust, Leo XIV gave the prelate and the auxiliary vicar his paternal blessing” and, at the end of the audience, mentioned “the feasts of Our Lady celebrated on the day of his election,” the statement reads.

During the meeting, in which Ocáriz was accompanied by his auxiliary vicar, Monsignor Mariano Fazio, one of the topics discussed was the delayed statutory revisions.

“Among other topics, the Holy Father asked about the current study of the statutes of the prelature and listened with great interest to the explanations given to him,” the official statement noted.

Opus Dei had planned to revise its statutes to adapt them to Pope Francis’ motu proprio Ad Charisma Tuendum. In essence, the pope’s directive placed Opus Dei under the direction of the Dicastery for the Clergy rather than the Dicastery for Bishops and ended the practice of elevating the prelate of Opus Dei to the rank of bishop.

Pope Francis had also requested that Opus Dei revise its statutes to reflect this new structure, which was to be finalized during the general congress. This revision was to be presented as a proposal to the Holy See for approval following its adoption by the assembly.

However, the general congress ultimately focused solely on the tasks of choosing a new general council and central advisory board, positions that are selected every eight years.

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

Chinese Catholics see the inauguration of new churches in the nation's Hubei Province and Shanxi Province as concrete signs of perseverance on the path of faith.

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