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In Ireland, a new study says attitudes towards the Church are “deeply divided” in the once deeply Catholic country.

Military parades and civilian march pasts marked the 53rd edition of Cameroon’s National Day on May 20.

Archbishop-elect John Sherrington, the head of Life Issues for the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, says the proposed Bill legalizing assisted suicide in Britain will cause “irreversible harm.”

A new British policy on immigration is downplaying the important contribution made to the country by “low-wage, low-skilled” immigrants, says an English bishop.

Pope Leo XIV renews his appeal for "dignified humanitarian aid" to enter Gaza, calling for a cessation of hostilities "whose price is paid by children, the elderly, and the sick."

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Pope Leo XIV holds his first Wednesday General Audience and reflects on Jesus' parable of the sower, stressing that God “does not wait for us to become the best soil.”

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CNA Staff, May 20, 2025 / 17:58 pm (CNA).

A new biography of Pope Leo XIV, the first pope from the United States, will be available May 21 from EWTN and is now available for preorder. 

“Leo XIV: Portrait of the First American Pope,” written by Matthew Bunson, vice president and editorial director at EWTN News, is the first authoritative biographical portrait of Cardinal Robert Prevost, 69, who was elected the new Holy Father on May 8. 

The book will be officially launched at a May 22 event set to be held at the Vatican’s Campo Santo Teutonico in the Aula Benedict XVI at 5:30 p.m. local time.

The biography provides an “assessment of his three fundamental roles as a successor to the apostles: his sanctifying role as a priest, his governing role as a bishop, and his prophetic role as a teacher and missionary,” EWTN said. 

Michael Warsaw, EWTN’s CEO and chairman of the board, told CNA that he is “excited that EWTN Publishing is releasing this biography of Pope Leo XIV so soon after his election.”

“As the leading Catholic media platform, our aim is to share the Holy Father’s story with the world, starting with his early life, to help people connect with the man now serving as the vicar of Christ,” Warsaw said.

“EWTN is uniquely positioned to publish this biography of the first pope born in the United States and the second pope from the Americas. Like Pope Leo, the EWTN family is global, but our roots are American.”

Bunson, a longtime Vatican journalist and Church expert who has written over 50 books, said he hopes to help to inform readers about the importance of Pope Leo’s membership in the venerable Order of St. Augustine and the fact that he is both a mathematician and canon lawyer, and how those credentials will help him address the Vatican’s financial woes. 

Bunson will also discuss the significance of the choice of the name “Leo” and what that says about the pope’s vision for his pontificate. 

“He has also taken the name Leo XIV in honor of Leo XIII, the great pope from 1878 to 1903, who is like Pope Leo XIV taken up profoundly with the concerns of the encounter between the Church and modernity,” Bunson said May 15, speaking to “EWTN News Nightly.” 

“We had the great industrial revolution at the end of the 19th century; [Leo XIV] is very concerned about the technological and digital revolutions that are taking place right now in the 21st century. So he’s a man very much of his times but somebody who understands the importance of the perennial aspects of Church teaching, to apply them to all the modern situations that we can find ourselves in.”

Additionally, Bunson’s book touches on some of the moral and theological issues currently being debated in the Church and public arena, offering the “informed, balanced, accurate picture of our new Holy Father that the world has been waiting for.”

“We saw that with Pope Benedict XVI [elected] in 2005 and Pope Francis in 2013, many of the things that you read or watch in secular media either weren’t accurate or were sort of a deliberate misrepresentation,” Bunson said.

“So what we want to do with this book is to offer a first portrait of the life, formation, and journey of Robert Francis Prevost from Chicago all the way to Rome, and now, of course, as Pope Leo XIV.”

The future Pope Leo XIV was born on Sept. 14, 1955, in Chicago. He studied at an Augustinian minor seminary in Michigan and later earned a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from Villanova University in Pennsylvania. He joined the Order of St. Augustine, taking solemn vows in 1981, and was ordained to the priesthood in June 1982 after studying theology at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago.

After being ordained, Leo earned a doctorate in canon law from Rome’s Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (also known as the Angelicum) in 1987. He spent over a decade ministering in South America before being called back to the U.S. to head the Midwest Augustinians and was later elected prior general of the Augustinian order, serving in that role for a dozen years. 

He returned to South America after Pope Francis in 2014 appointed him bishop in Chiclayo, Peru. Francis later called him to Rome in 2023 to head the highly influential Dicastery for Bishops.

The book about Leo’s life is available for preorder on EWTN Religious Catalogue.

Denver, Colo., May 20, 2025 / 17:28 pm (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Denver launched a vocations campaign this weekend to connect young men who may be interested in pursuing the priesthood with the archdiocese.

The “Called By Name” campaign invites parishioners across the archdiocese to nominate young men ages 15 to 35 who they think may have the qualities to become a priest.

The archdiocese is one of nine dioceses currently collaborating with Vianney Vocations, an organization founded in 2009 that helps support vocations efforts in Catholic dioceses around the U.S.

Men who are nominated by their fellow parishioners will receive a letter from the archbishop congratulating them for being recognized.

The letter encourages them to be open to God’s call in their lives and invites them to connect with Father Jason Wallace, the archdiocesan director of vocations, who will send a weekly message about discernment to nominees. Nominees are also invited to attend the small discernment groups led by priests or deacons trained by Vianney Vocations.

While Denver is one of the leading dioceses in the U.S. for vocations by size, according to a 2025 report, Denver Archbishop Samuel Aquila has in recent years expressed his hope to see more seminarians in the growing archdiocese. 

“Denver is good soil, so we’re really hopeful that there’ll be a lot of fruit from this,” Chris Kreslins, senior client manager for Vianney Vocations, told CNA. 

Rather than recruiting abroad, many bishops are moving toward encouraging “homegrown guys” to discern and apply for seminary, Kreslins noted.

“The hope and the goal is that there will be more men applying for seminary,” Kreslins said. 

With more priests, “parishes will have the priests they need to minister to the people of God” and priests will not be “so thinly stretched,” he noted. 

These vocation campaigns across the country come amid a decadeslong decline in men pursuing the priesthood. Globally, the number of priests has been decreasing in recent years, except in Africa and Asia, where vocations to the priesthood are on the rise.  

To kick off the campaign in Denver on Sunday, priests across the archdiocese shared their vocation stories in their homilies and invited parishioners to nominate young men to consider discerning. 

“Some men may need to hear from others that their faith is recognized and that they possess the qualities of a good priest,” Kreslins explained. “Sometimes, we need another person to lead us to Jesus.” 

Father Brian Larkin, pastor of Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Englewood, Colorado, shared his own experience discerning the priesthood in a homily on Sunday.

“When I was wrestling with if God was calling me, my first question wasn’t necessarily the office of priesthood,” Larkin said. “My question was, ‘God, are you calling me to give you everything?’”

“I felt this pull on my heart that God was calling me to give up my hopes and my dreams,” Larkin said. “What I saw at first was just a price tag.”  

“Maybe some of you are called to the priesthood. Maybe some of you are called to a consecrated life. I don’t know,” Larkin said to an array of parishioners. “You are called to a radical love, and I do know that. Every single one of us [is].”

“We’ve seen tremendous growth in the faith and the number of Catholics. But then we also have a need when we see that growth, to serve all those people,” Wallace told the Denver Catholic. “The Archdiocese of Denver is in need of many more vocations.”

In his homily, Larkin prayed for more priests who are “on fire” for God.  

“Jesus, we pray for more priests — not just any priests,” Larkin said. “Only priests [who] will be on fire with the love of God. Not men who are perfect, not men who have no mistakes, not men who know everything, but men whose hearts have been transformed.” 

Vatican City, May 20, 2025 / 16:58 pm (CNA).

Monsignor Humberto González is a member of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America (PCAL, by its Spanish acronym), where he served alongside Cardinal Robert Prevost — now Pope Leo XIV — who was president of the organization since 2023.

The PCAL was created by Pope Pius XII in 1958 with the aim of studying issues related to the life and development of the particular Churches in the region.

The commission works in coordination with the dicasteries, which it advises and supports, including through financial resources. It is also tasked with promoting relations between ecclesiastical institutions — both international and national — working in Latin America and the organizations within the Roman Curia.

With the apostolic constitution Praedicate Evangelium, Pope Francis decreed that the Pontifical Commission for Latin America be integrated within the Dicastery for Bishops. This means that the prefect of that dicastery — a position then-Cardinal Prevost assumed two years ago — will also be the president of the commission.

From St. Peter’s Square, at the end of the Mass inaugurating the Holy Father's pontificate, González, born in Colombia, spoke with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, about the close relationship he had with the now pontiff at PCAL headquarters, located in Piazza di San Calisto in the Trastevere neighborhood in central Rome.

“My relationship with him was one of great trust and affection, because he came to Rome two years ago as president of the commission,” said González, who has worked at PCAL for almost two decades.

Due to his experience within the commission, González maintained close collaboration with then-Cardinal Prevost, especially upon his arrival in Rome, to “bring him up to date on some matters.”

‘A shepherd always knows his sheep’

During this time, the two met at least twice a month. “Since I manage the administration, I had to present the various reports and accounts to him,” he explained.

From his days working with the Holy Father, González particularly highlighted his “enormous capacity for listening and attention.”

“In fact, he passed by today in the popemobile, and I called out his name. When he recognized my voice, he turned to look at me, smiled, and greeted me. A shepherd always knows his sheep,” he added, visibly moved.

For González, Pope Leo XIV is also “a close, affectionate, joyful voice, one who listens and knows how to discern.”

In this regard, he emphasized that the pontiff has a great capacity for reflection and “does not make hasty decisions.”

“He takes his time and undertakes a very important task for the good of the Church. We give thanks for his presence,” he told ACI Prensa.

Pope Leo XIV has not yet announced who will take his place at the head of the Dicastery for Bishops and the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, an entity that also works with the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops’ Council (CELAM, by its Spanish acronym) and the Latin American Council of Religious.

“We also seek to establish relations with the Latin American embassies to the Holy See, with the Latin American schools that have students here in Rome, so as to forge bonds of communion between the Curia and Latin America,” the PCAL official explained.

The commission’s president is also assisted by two secretaries and the commission’s officials as well as by the members and councilors elected to “assist, accompany, and advise at the meetings where subsidies for the well-being and communion of all the countries of Latin America are planned.”

Altogether, Pope Leo XIV lived nearly 20 years in Peru, including eight years as bishop of Chiclayo, which allowed him to acquire a profound understanding of the ecclesial and social reality of Latin America.

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

CNA Staff, May 20, 2025 / 16:28 pm (CNA).

The Catholic University of America (CUA) announced Monday that it has eliminated 7% of its workforce in its final step to address the university’s structural deficit.

According to CUA — one of two pontifical universities in the U.S. and the only institution of higher education founded by the U.S. bishops — 66 active staff positions were eliminated as an unfortunate but “essential” part of the university’s efforts to balance its budget, which the university announced last year was at a deficit of $30 million. 

The Washington, D.C.-based institution took several steps to reduce its annual operating budget — cutting operational costs, launching several new “revenue-generating” academic programs, offering voluntary separation packages to some faculty, and eliminating some staff positions, according to the Monday announcement by university president Peter Kilpatrick.

At the end of 2024, the university president had announced that due to rising costs and declining enrollment revenue, the university’s annual budget faced a $30 million deficit and needed to be cut by 10%.

In a statement shared with CNA, the university said the cuts were the final part of the plan to balance the budget, which could not be done “without also eliminating staff positions.”

“Originally announced last October, the plan required adjusting the university’s operating budget by approximately 10% ($30 million), which included operational budget reductions, the launch of several new revenue-generating academic programs, and staffing adjustments,” the statement continued.

Completing the “comprehensive financial resiliency plan” places the university “on solid financial footing for the first time in years,” according to the statement. 

The university said it is prioritizing “supporting affected employees” through “enhanced severance packages and outplacement services.” 

Staff members whose positions were cut will have a monthlong paid leave with full benefits.

“For our departing colleagues, we are providing comprehensive transition support, which includes an enhanced severance package made possible in part through the compassionate support of our dedicated donors,” Kilpatrick said in the announcement.

“Each person affected has helped shape our institution and contributed to our mission in meaningful ways,” he continued.

Kilpatrick noted that “this news affects our entire community” and pledged to provide support.

“For those directly affected, this represents a significant personal and professional change. For remaining faculty and staff, this may bring feelings of uncertainty and concern for colleagues,” Kilpatrick said. “Please know that we are committed to providing support for all members of our university family during this challenging time.”

Amid these challenges, Kilpatrick is looking ahead to prioritize the university’s mission while “on solid financial ground.”

“Now we can channel our energy toward strengthening our academic programs, enhancing the student experience, and fulfilling our founding mission to give to the nation, the Church, and the world its very best citizens — our graduates.”