Month: October 2025

The Sisters of Christian Charity (SCC) have announced the election of Sister Mary Joseph Schultz, SCC, as the Congregation’s thirteenth Superior General. The election took place during the 25^th General Chapter, which was held from August 25 to September 14, 2025, in Paderborn, Germany.

Sister Mary Joseph was elected on September 8, 2025, and will now lead the international Congregation – with Sisters in North America, South America and Germany – succeeding Sister Maria del Rosario Castro, SCC.

The role of the Superior General is to provide spiritual and administrative leadership to the Sisters of Christian Charity globally, continuing the mission of their foundress, Blessed Pauline von Mallinckrodt.

During her 53 years as a Sister of Christian Charity, Sister Mary Joseph has held roles in education, pastoral ministry and leadership.

A native of Poughkeepsie, NY, Sister Mary Joseph earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Elementary Education from Felician University in Lodi, NJ, and a Master’s Degree in Pastoral Ministry, with a concentration in Youth Ministry, from Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ.

For seven years, Sister Mary Joseph served as the President of Assumption College for Sisters in Mendham (now in Denville), NJ. Her teaching career included assignments at:

• Elementary Schools: St. Nicholas (Jersey City, NJ); St. Joseph (Mendham, NJ); Holy Family (Florham Park, NJ); St. Patrick (Chatham, NJ); St. Cecilia (Rockaway, NJ); and St. Mary (Pittston, PA).
• High Schools: Delone Catholic High School (McSherrystown, PA); Bishop Hoban High School (Wilkes-Barre, PA); Central Catholic High School (Reading, PA); and Central Catholic High School (Allentown, PA).

Prior to her election as Councilor General from North America in 2019, Sister Mary Joseph served as a Pastoral Associate at Sts. Peter and Paul in Hoboken, NJ, and at the Church of Christ the King in New Vernon, NJ. She has also served at St. Paul Inside the Walls Center for Evangelization in Madison, NJ, and in Provincial Leadership in Mendham, NJ.

The General Chapter also elected new Councilors General on September 10, 2025: Sister Mary Amata Reifsnyder, SCC, (succeeding Sister Mary Joseph as North American Councilor General), Sister Clara Schmiegel (Germany), and Sister Maria Adriana Mateos (South America).

Sister Mary Amata is a graduate of Bethlehem Catholic High School in Bethlehem, PA, and earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Cedar Crest College in Allentown, PA.

A Sister of Christian Charity for thirteen years, Sister Mary Amata is a Registered Nurse, certified in Ambulatory Care, whose experience spans various healthcare settings, including:

• Holy Family Convent, Danville, PA.
• Sacred Heart Convent, Wilmette, IL.
• The SCC Motherhouse in Paderborn, Germany.
• North Hudson Community Action Corporation, Passaic, NJ.
• St. Joseph’s Health Paterson, both at DePaul Ambulatory Center and in the Palliative, Geriatric and Community Medicine department.

The Congregation of the Sisters of Christian Charity was founded by Blessed Pauline von Mallinckrodt in Paderborn, Germany, in 1849.  The sisters serve in education, healthcare, pastoral, social and retreat ministries in the United States, Germany, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. The Motherhouse of the SCC North American Province is in Mendham, NJ.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – A coalition of Catholic organizations held prayer vigils across the country on Oct. 22 for what organizers called “a national day of public witness for our immigrant brothers and sisters.”

The vigils came amid growing concern from some faith communities — including a Catholic parish in Chicago — about the impact of the Trump administration’s rollback of a policy that prohibited immigration enforcement in sensitive locations, such as churches, schools, and hospitals.

The “One Church, One Family: Catholic Public Witness for Immigrants,” vigils took place in multiple locations around the country on Oct. 22. A second series of events is scheduled for Nov. 13, the feast day of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, universal patroness of immigrants.

The grassroots initiative was spearheaded by the Jesuits West province, with additional sponsors including Jesuit Refugee Service USA, the Ignatian Solidarity Network, Maryknoll, Network Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, Pax Christi USA, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services and several orders of women religious.

The protest and prayer vigil in the nation’s capital took place in front of the headquarters for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as ICE employees entered the building and as rush-hour drivers occasionally honked at the group in apparent acknowledgment.

“We wanted to be a witness,” Judy Coode, communications director for Pax Christi USA told OSV News at the Washington vigil.

“Both as Catholics and also as U.S. citizens, we have a responsibility to bear witness to injustices that we see,” Coode said. “And so part of our tradition is to pray publicly. We have the right to do that, and so we take advantage of that, and we want to bear witness to those who are in power, who are making decisions. We want to call to their consciences, ask them to consider praying for another outcome, praying for another way to be.”

The day before the vigils, the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, objected on social media to a CBS News article about pastors expressing concern that fear of ICE raids is keeping some of their congregants away from church. In a post on X, DHS claimed it was “PROTECTING innocent people in our churches by preventing criminal illegal aliens and gang members from exploiting these places of worship.”

“DHS’s directive gives our law enforcement the ability to do their jobs. Our agents use discretion and have secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in locations such as a church or a school,” the post said.

In the CBS report, ICE Director Todd Lyons claimed that despite the rollback, houses of worship are not a target.

However, earlier in October, reports of ICE agents near St. Jerome Catholic Church in Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood prompted warnings of caution from its pastor, although a spokesperson for ICE denied the church was targeted, NBC Chicago reported.

The rollback of the sensitive locations policy is among the Trump administration’s immigration actions that have been met with criticism from the U.S. bishops. They recently offered their support to a lawsuit challenging the policy change, submitting an amicus brief, sometimes called a friend-of-the-court brief, to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

“The church is a sanctuary and refuge,” Art Laffin, a member of Dorothy Day Catholic Worker House, told OSV News at the Washington vigil.

Immigration enforcement actions in churches, he said, would be “a terrible sin and injustice, and so it really calls for all the people of God to stand together with those who are being targeted and criminalized, whether it’s in the sanctuary or whether it’s in the streets.”

Catholic social teaching on immigration also balances three interrelated principles — the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain their lives and those of their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and control immigration, and a nation’s duty to regulate its borders with justice and mercy.

Sister of St. Joseph Bethany Welch, part of the national planning team for “One Church, One Family,” told OSV News in a phone interview Oct. 22, “It’s essential that we stand in solidarity, particularly with our brothers and sisters who are being detained.”

Sister Bethany had attended the Oct. 12 binational pilgrimage led by Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Tucson, Arizona, as part of a mission to stand in solidarity with migrants. She said her participation in the “One Church, One Family” Oct. 22 vigil at an immigration detention center in Newark, New Jersey, was a continuation of that effort — and of “the Gospel call to be attentive to those who are being harmed or marginalized.”

While immigrants are often seen “as other,” she said, “in fact, they are part of our church.”

Across the U.S., Christians account for approximately 80% of all of those at risk of Trump’s mass deportation effort, with the single largest group of affected Christians being Catholics, according to a joint Catholic-Evangelical report published by World Relief. The report found one in six Catholics (18%) are either vulnerable to deportation or live with someone who is.

“The church in Philadelphia, the church in Newark, the church in D.C. has been built and sustained through various histories of migration, whether that be Irish immigrants or Latin American immigrants or African or Haitian, etc.,” said Sister Bethany. “So often, as we become more prosperous or have more advantage, we forget our origins and our own humble beginnings.”

She added that “lack of memory,” along with a “scarcity mindset” — which fails to see that God’s love, compassion and mercy are “enough for all of us” — lie at the core of anti-immigrant sentiment.

According to Pew Research Center data released in June, more than four out of 10 Catholics in the U.S. are immigrants (29%) or the children of immigrants (14%). Eight out of 10 Hispanic Catholics are either born outside the U.S. (58%) or are the children of an immigrant (22%), while 92% of Asian Catholics are either immigrants (78%) or are the children of an immigrant (14%). In contrast, the vast majority of white Catholics are three generations or more removed from the immigrant experience: just 6% were born outside the U.S., with another 9% born in the U.S. to at least one immigrant parent.

Sister Bethany said the “One Church, One Family” vigils are “an invitation to remind ourselves where we came from,” she said.

Several dozen participants at a “One Church, One Family” vigil in Philadelphia, which took place outside of that city’s ICE offices, reflected on Christ’s announcement of his earthly mission to the poor, the blind and the captive, as recounted in Luke 4:16-30.

“Who are the poor among us who need to hear the Gospel, and who are the blind who need to recover their sight?” asked Sister of St. Joseph Linda Lukiewski, one of the event’s speakers.

Sister Linda — whose longtime ministry has included assignments in Central America and among U.S.-based Latino communities — responded, “I believe that the poor among us who most need to hear the Gospel are those who lack a sense of compassion and a sense of justice, who suffer from poverty of right judgment, and who are deficient in the knowledge that we are all brothers and sisters, and that we all deserve respect and dignity. I believe the poor among us are those starving for power and domination.”

Peter Pedemonti, founding member and co-director of New Sanctuary Movement of Philadelphia — an immigrant advocacy nonprofit based on Catholic teaching — noted in his address that “we are standing in front of some captives right now.” He said “at least four people” had been arrested by ICE that morning and were in detention in the building behind vigil participants.

“Let us hold those people who are in holding cells behind us in our hearts, in our prayers,” said Pedemonti.

He also urged those present to “let our hearts break over and over again” so that such detentions do not become “normal.”

SCRANTON – Faithful from across the Diocese of Scranton are invited to participate in a joyful celebration as we honor the dedicated contributions of women and men in religious life during the annual Jubilee Mass for Women and Men Religious on Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025, at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton.

The Mass will begin at 12:15 p.m., with the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, serving as the principal celebrant.

This special liturgy offers an opportunity to give thanks for the invaluable witness, service, and commitment of those who have devoted their lives to God through religious vocations. From teaching in Catholic schools to providing hospital ministry, prayer and pastoral ministry, women and men religious have had a tremendous impact on the life of the Church and the communities they serve.

As we celebrate the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope, this Mass will also be a powerful reminder of the ongoing importance of vocations to religious life – and our shared responsibility to pray for and support those who answer God’s call in such generous and selfless ways.

CTV: Catholic Television will broadcast the Mass live and provide a livestream on Diocesan social media platforms.

2025 Jubilarians

SISTERS OF MERCY OF THE AMERICAS (R.S.M.)

75 Years
Sister Marie Genevieve Mannix, R.S.M.

70 Years
Sister Margaret Mary Donnelly, R.S.M.
Sister Leonita Duhoski, R.S.M.
Sister Mary Eleanor Thornton, R.S.M.

60 Years
Sister Mary Ellen Brody, R.S.M.
Sister Mary Ellen Fuhrman, R.S.M.
Sister Catherine McGroarty, R.S.M.
Sister Marie Parker, R.S.M.

50 Years
Sister Imelda Sherrett, R.S.M.

SISTERS, SERVANTS OF THE IMMACULATE HEART OF MARY (I.H.M.)

75 Years
Sister Kathleen McNulty, I.H.M.

70 Years
Sister M. Leonnette Bower, I.H.M.
Sister Kathleen Hassett, I.H.M.
Sister Cor Immaculatum Heffernan, I.H.M.
Sister M. Claudette Naylor, I.H.M.

60 Years
Sister Elizabeth Bullen, I.H.M.
Sister Ann Marie McDonnell, I.H.M.

50 Years
Sister Judith Ann Ziegler, I.H.M.

SISTERS OF SAINTS CYRIL AND METHODIUS (SS.C. M.)

60 Years
Sister Madonna Figura, SS.C.M.

SISTERS OF CHRISTIAN CHARITY (S.C.C.)

50 Years
Sister Mary Theresa Wojcicki, S.C.C.

OBLATES OF SAINT JOSEPH (O.S.J.)

60 Years
Father Joseph D. Sibilano, O.S.J.

THE CONGREGATION OF THE PASSION (C.P.)

60 Years
Father John Michael Lee, C.P.
Father Donald Ware, C.P.

25 Years
Father C. Lee Havey, C.P.

SCRANTON – In his more than 15 years as leader of the Diocese of Scranton, the Most Rev. Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, said he could not recall a local liturgy that more powerfully radiated the universality of the Catholic Church than the World Mission Sunday Mass celebrated on Oct. 19 at the Cathedral of Saint Peter.

“I don’t think I have ever experienced a Mass in this Cathedral in all of my years as Bishop that has reminded us of the fact that our hands reach across oceans and countries to one another as brothers and sisters in the Lord,” the Bishop said at the close of the liturgy. “May we continue to live in that spirit!”

The Mass, which drew a diverse crowd of religious sisters and lay faithful, featured both the Cathedral choir and a Congolese choir that sang in Swahili. Their voices highlighted the richness of the global Church – not just in song – but in shared mission.

While Bishop Bambera served as principal celebrant of the World Mission Sunday Mass, the homily was delivered by Bishop Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi, Bishop of Sunyani, Ghana – a longtime friend of the Scranton Diocese.

He called on the faithful to rekindle their missionary spirit and recognize their shared role in the Church’s global mission.

“This task of evangelization to all corners of the earth was given, not only to the pope or bishops and religious, but to all of us,” Bishop Gyamfi said.

He also reminded those in attendance that the Church’s mission is far from complete.

“There are still vast areas of the world where people have never heard the name of Jesus,” he shared. “I come from one such area. There are still children growing up without a church to worship in, a priest to baptize them, or a catechist to guide them.”

Bishop Gyamfi offered a powerful scriptural image from the first reading: Moses, whose arms were held up by Aaron and Hur, to ensure victory in battle. Likewise, he said, Bishops need their priests, and the Church needs every lay person, to sustain the mission.

“Working together, we win,” he said. “Each of us has a role to play.”

The impact of that shared mission is critically important for the Diocese of Sunyani.

In recent years, financial and spiritual support from Scranton has helped fund schools, health clinics, assisted with seminarian tuition, and assisted with chapel construction in some of the most remote corners of Ghana.

Bishop Gymafi recalled how Bishop Bambera, on visits to Sunyani in 2022 and 2023, saw firsthand the impact of that support.

“On behalf of our priests, clergy, religious, and the lay faithful of the Catholic Diocese of Sunyani, I express my sincerest gratitude and profound appreciation for helping us,” Bishop Gyamfi added. “You may never come there (Ghana), but your contributions go far and make an impact.”

There are currently eight priests from the Diocese of Sunyani serving as pastors, assistant pastors, or administrators in parishes throughout the Diocese of Scranton. These men are among more than 20 international priests currently serving locally.

As the celebration concluded, Bishop Bambera expressed his admiration for Bishop Gyamfi’s words and the profound reminder they offer.

“You are not only a dear friend and colleague to me, but your presence here reminds us of the great relationship that we have with the Diocese of Sunyani,” Bishop Bambera noted.

Shannon Kowalski, Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the Diocese of Scranton, said people often think missionaries are elsewhere spread across the globe – but there are missionaries right here in Scranton.

“Today’s Mass was a vibrant illustration of what World Mission Sunday is meant to be,” she said.

Kowalski hopes people will be inspired by Bishop Gyamfi’s final words of challenge.

“The Lord calls us to go to the corners of the world,” Bishop Gyamfi said. “What have you been doing? What can you do?”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Leo XIV will issue a document on Catholic education Oct. 28, marking the 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s declaration on education, a top Vatican official said.

Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, also told reporters Oct. 22 that in the document Pope Leo will name St. John Henry Newman “co-patron” of Catholic education.

St. Newman, whom Pope Leo will declare a “doctor of the church” Nov. 1, will join the current patron, St. Thomas Aquinas.

Cardinal Tolentino de Mendonça shared the news during a presentation about the Jubilee of the World of Education, which is scheduled for Oct. 27-Nov. 1. More than 20,000 people from 124 nations have signed up for the event celebrating the Catholic commitment to education from primary school through university, he said.

The Jubilee, the cardinal said, was planned to coincide with the anniversary of the Vatican II Declaration on Christian Education, often referred to by its Latin title, “Gravissimum Educationis.”

Promulgated Oct. 28, 1965, the declaration affirmed the right of parents to choose the type of education they want for their children, upheld the importance of Catholic schools and defended freedom of inquiry in Catholic colleges and universities.

The cardinal said the document affirmed “the universal right to education” and marked “a change in language — that is, in mentality — in speaking about schools not so much in terms of ‘institutions’ but rather as ‘educational communities.'”

Pope Leo’s document marking the anniversary, he said, insists the value of the Vatican II declaration “is not frozen in time: it is a compass that continues to point the way.”

“Rapid and profound changes are exposing children, adolescents and young people to unprecedented vulnerabilities,” the cardinal said, quoting the new document. “It is not enough to preserve; we must relaunch.”

In the new document, the cardinal said, Pope Leo asks “all educational institutions to inaugurate a new season that speaks to the hearts of the new generations, reconnecting knowledge and meaning, competence and responsibility, faith and life.”

ROME (CNS) – Religious freedom is not only a fundamental and essential human right, “it is also a pathway to truth and deeper communion with God and neighbor,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state.

However, religious freedom is severely restricted in 62 of the world’s 196 countries, affecting around 5.4 billion people; “in other words, almost two-thirds of the world’s population lives in countries where serious violations of religious freedom take place,” the cardinal said.

Cardinal Parolin was citing information contained in the 2025 Religious Freedom Report compiled by the papal foundation Aid to the Church in Need and released Oct. 21 during a conference at Rome’s Augustinianum Patristic Institute.

The fact that the 2025 report runs 1,248 pages, the largest in its 25-year history, “indicates that violations of religious freedom are increasing year on year,” the cardinal said.

The report, covering the period of Jan. 1, 2023, to Dec. 31, 2024, found that “grave and systemic violations, including violence, arrest and repression, affect more than 4.1 billion people in nations such as China, India, Nigeria and North Korea.”

Speaking to reporters after the event, Cardinal Parolin cautioned against considering all attacks on Christians in Nigeria as signs of religious persecution.

Citing local church sources, the cardinal said much of the violence in Nigeria “is not a religious conflict, it is more of a social conflict, for example between herders and farmers.”

And where Muslim extremists are attacking Christians, he said, they also attack Muslims who disagree with them. “These are extremist groups that make no distinctions in pursuing their goals. They use violence against anyone they consider an opponent.”

Aid to the Church in Need listed another 38 countries — including Egypt, Ethiopia, Mexico, Turkey and Vietnam — as nations where “religious discrimination” is common. The foundation said that in those countries “religious groups face systematic restrictions on worship, expression and legal equality. While not subject to violent repression, discrimination often results in marginalization and legal inequality.”

In Mexico, as well as in Haiti, the report said, “organized crime is a key driver of persecution or discrimination” with priests and other church workers being kidnapped or murdered and house of worship and sacred objects being desecrated in “an atmosphere of blatant impunity” as the government fails to stop the drug cartels and criminal gangs.

Speaking at the presentation of the report, Cardinal Parolin focused on the Catholic Church’s support for the religious freedom of all people, no matter their faith, and on the upcoming 60th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom.

The council’s support for religious liberty was “a call to action based on the council’s belief that God himself has made known to mankind the way in which men are to serve him and thus be saved in Christ,” the cardinal said.

And while all people have a “moral obligation” to seek the truth, Cardinal Parolin said, no one can be compelled to do so.

“One must and can only respond in one way: freely, that is to say, out of love, with love, not by force, because Christianity is love,” the cardinal said.

On a personal level, he said, religious freedom “protects the inner sanctuary of the conscience, the God-given compass that guides ethical and spiritual choices.”

And, he said, on a collective level “it fosters vibrant communities where people of different faiths can live together, contribute to society and engage in constructive dialogue without fear of persecution.”

The 2025 Religious Freedom report found that “religious nationalism is on the increase, fueling exclusion and repression of minorities. National identity is increasingly shaped by ethno-religious nationalism, eroding minority rights.”

“In India and Myanmar,” for example, it said, religious nationalism “drives persecution; in Palestine, Israel, Sri Lanka and Nepal, it fuels discrimination.”

The report also found that “religious persecution increasingly fuels forced migration and displacement,” with victims around the world fleeing “violence, discrimination and the absence of state protection.”

Aid to the Church in Need credited the Vatican’s 2018 provisional agreement with China’s communist government for “signs of improvement” for the country’s Christians but noted that improvement applied only to Christians belonging to government-recognized Christian organizations.

Catholic priests and bishops continued to be arrested or detained for not joining the Catholic Patriotic Association, and in many parts of China anyone under the age of 18 is prevented from attending church or a church-sponsored event, the report said.

With the arrest and exile of bishops and priests, the confiscation of church property and the banning of religious processions and other public celebrations, the situation in Nicaragua also is highlighted in the book.

“During the period under review, hostility toward churches intensified, severely violating the fundamental right to religious freedom,” it said.

Aid to the Church in Need also called attention in the report: to “a sharp rise in antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes,” including in Europe and North America; arson attacks on churches in Canada; and vandalism or desecration of churches in the United States.

(OSV News) – A new study indicates a growing number of U.S. adults see religion as gaining influence in public life – with more Americans saying religion has a positive impact on society.

In addition, an increasing number of the nation’s adults report feeling at odds with mainstream U.S. culture because of their religious beliefs.

The findings were released by Pew Research Center in an Oct. 20 report.

Data for the study was collected from two surveys of U.S. adults who are part of Pew’s American Trends Panel. Pew polled 9,544 panelists from Feb. 3-9 and another 8,937 from May 5-11.

While “most Americans continue to say that religion’s role in society is declining,” said Pew, “Americans’ views about religion in public life are shifting.”

The center noted that “the share of Americans expressing positive views of religion in 2024 and 2025 are up significantly from 2022 and 2019, indicating an overall shift toward more positive views about religion’s role in American life over the past five years or so.”

— A rise in religion’s influence on society, but still a minority view —

From February 2024 to February 2025, Pew found “a sharp rise” in the share of U.S. adults who hold that religion is becoming more significant in public life.

Back in February 2024, only 18% of U.S. adults — the lowest level recorded by Pew in over two decades — said religion was gaining traction in American life.

But one year later, that number had shot up to 31%, “the highest figure we’ve seen in 15 years,” said Pew in its report.

The rise has been detected “across several demographic groups,” with “gains of at least 10 percentage points among Democrats and Republicans, adults in every age category and in most large religious groups,” said Pew.

White evangelical Protestants (36%, up 20 points) and white non-evangelical Protestants (31%, up 19 points) were most likely to report gains in religion’s influence as of February 2025.

Catholics and the religiously unaffiliated (atheists, agnostics and those who list their religious affiliation as “nothing in particular”) both saw upticks of 12 points in their February 2025 responses, with 27% of Catholics and 31% of the religiously unaffiliated reporting a gain in religion’s influence.

The largest surge was among the Jewish community, which saw an increase of 23 points during the 12-month period, with 44% (up from 21% in February 2024) reporting that religion was gaining influence in U.S. society.

Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Indigenous and other faith communities were not separately analyzed in the report due to insufficient sample sizes, Pew communications manager Hannah Taber explained to OSV News in an email.

Republicans (32% as of February 2025) saw a greater 12-month jump in their view of religion’s influence, up 17 points from February 2024. Democrats, 30% of whom report an increase in religion’s influence, demonstrated a 10-point rise from February 2024.

The share of young adults (ages 18-29) who hold that religion has gained influence shot up 18 points, from 19% in February 2024 to 37% a year later.

At the same time, “most Americans continue to say that religion’s role in society is declining,” with 68% overall currently holding that view — although that number has decreased from 80% in 2024, said the report.

Almost three quarters of the nation’s Catholics (73%) said that religion was losing influence in U.S. society.

— Religion in society: Good or bad? —

Pew also asked survey participants to evaluate the shift, with researchers combining the questions to determine whether respondents ultimately viewed religion’s influence in society as positive or negative.

More than half (59%) of the nation’s adults viewed religion’s influence on American life as positive — either by stating with approval that religion’s influence is growing, or lamenting a decline in religion’s impact.

In contrast, 20% responded negatively, approving the waning of religious influence or expressing concern at its growth.

Another 21% provided “neutral or unclear views,” said Pew.

White evangelical Protestants (92%) were by far the most likely to express positive views, followed by Black Protestants (75%), Catholics (71%) and white non-evangelical Protestants (67%).

Responses among Jewish survey participants were more evenly split, with 36% positive, 38% negative and 26% neutral or unclear.

Pew found that “Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are about twice as likely as Democrats and Democratic leaners to have a positive view of religion,” at 78% vs. 40%.

In addition, “older Americans are more likely than young Americans to express a positive view of religion’s influence in public life,” Pew reported. For example, 71% of adults ages 65 and older express a positive view of religion, compared with 46% of 18- to 29-year-olds.

On balance, said Pew, “the share of Americans expressing positive views of religion in 2024 and 2025 are up significantly from 2022 and 2019, indicating an overall shift toward more positive views about religion’s role in American life over the past five years or so.”

— Christianity and American life —

In its May 2025 survey, Pew included a specific question about Christianity’s influence on American life. Just under half of the respondents (48%) said Christianity’s influence is decreasing, with 27% reporting an increase and 24% replying there has been no real change.

Pew clarified that these results “are not comparable to the question about religion’s changing influence,” since the question structure and response options differed.

At the same time, said Pew, “general patterns on these two questions are similar,” and “a larger share of Americans now say Christianity’s influence on American life is increasing (27%) than said this in 2020 (19%).”

Yet, said Pew, “it is still a minority view.”

— Religion and culture clash —

Notably, Pew reported that for the first time since 2020, “a majority of U.S. adults (58%) say they feel at least some conflict” between their religious beliefs and the nation’s mainstream culture” — up 10 points from February 2024 alone, and up 16 points from February 2020.

“This view is held by roughly half or more of Americans in both political parties and all age groups — and in every religious group analyzed, with the exception of those who say their religion is ‘nothing in particular,'” said Pew.

White evangelicals (80%) are “by far” the most likely to report some level of culture clash, with slightly more than half of Catholics (55%) indicating “some” (42%) or “a great deal” (13%) of tension between their beliefs and the culture, said Pew.

Republican and Republican-leaning respondents (62%) were more likely than their Democratic counterparts (55%) to say they feel such conflict.

Responses were more even among age groups, ranging from 59% for adults ages 18-29 and age 65 and older (57%).

— Loving God, loving country —

In its May 2025 survey, Pew also assessed respondents’ views of patriotism and faith, asking them to rank the importance of that relationship as well as other traits in overall religious identity.

Among Christians, 29% said that “loving your country” was “essential” to being Christian, with 47% ranking patriotism as “important but not essential” and 24% stating it was not important.

White evangelical Protestants (30%) and Catholics (30%) tied among Christians who named patriotism as essential to their identity as Christians.

Republican and Republican-leaning survey participants (33%) were more likely than their Democratic counterparts (23%) to cite patriotism as essential to Christian identity.

Attending religious services regularly was named as essential by 28%, important but not essential by 52% and not important by 20%.

In contrast, Christians were much more likely prioritize as “essential” being honest (86%), treating people with kindness (85%), believing in God (85%) having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ (76%) and helping those in need (66%).

Being part of a community (33%) and continuing family traditions (29%) were seen as less essential, although still named as “important but not essential” by 56% and 53% respectively.

— American belief in one true religion —

Data from Pew’s May 2025 survey showed just under half (48%) of U.S. adults hold that many religions may be true.

Just over one quarter (26%) of the nation’s adults believe only one religion is true, with 18% maintaining “there is little truth in any religion” and 6% stating “there is no truth in any religion,” said Pew.

The survey also found that “clear majorities of White nonevangelical Protestants (69%) and Catholics (65%) say many religions may be true,” while “most White evangelicals (62%) say only one religion is true.”

The Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council affirmed humankind’s innate search for God, stating in “Nostra Aetate” that the church “rejects nothing that is true and holy” in other religions while continuing to “proclaim Christ ‘the way, the truth, and the life’ (Jn 14:6), in whom men may find the fullness of religious life, in whom God has reconciled all things to Himself.”

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue promotes “respect, mutual understanding, and collaboration between Catholics and the followers of others religious traditions,” while the church’s relations with Judaism are specifically engaged through the Commission for Religious Relations with Jews and the International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee, both of which are overseen by the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Canonizing seven new saints on World Mission Sunday, Pope Leo XIV said God is present wherever the innocent suffer, and his form of justice is forgiveness.

“God grants justice to all, giving his life for all,” he said in his homily during a canonization Mass in St. Peter’s Square Oct. 19 — the second-to-last Sunday of October, when the church prays for missionaries and their efforts in evangelization, education, health care and other ministries.

“Indeed, it is this faith that sustains our commitment to justice, precisely because we believe that God saves the world out of love, freeing us from fatalism,” he said. “When we hear the cries of those in difficulty, let us ask ourselves, are we witnesses to the Father’s love, as Christ was to all?”

Jesus “is the humble one who calls the arrogant to conversion, the just one who makes us just,” he said.

During the second canonization ceremony of his pontificate, Pope Leo declared the sainthood of seven men and women from the 19th to the 21st centuries, including Venezuela’s first saints: St. Maria Rendiles Martínez and St. José Gregorio Hernández Cisneros.

St. Rendiles was the Venezuelan founder of the Congregation of the Servants of Jesus, who was born in Caracas in 1903 and died in 1977. St. Hernández was born in 1864 and became a Third Order Franciscan. A Venezuelan doctor, he became known as “the doctor of the poor,” and he was killed in an accident in 1919 on his way to helping a patient.

The pope also canonized:

— St. Ignatius Maloyan, the martyred Armenian Catholic archbishop of Mardin, which is in present-day Turkey; born in 1869, he was arrested, tortured and executed in Turkey in 1915.

— St. Peter To Rot, a martyred lay catechist, husband and father from Papua New Guinea. Born in 1912, he was arrested in 1945 during the Japanese occupation in World War II and was killed by lethal injection while in prison.

— St. Vincenza Maria Poloni, founder of the Sisters of Mercy of Verona, Italy; she lived from 1802-1855.

— St. Maria Troncatti, a Salesian sister born in Italy in 1883 who became a missionary in Ecuador in 1922. She died in a plane crash in 1969.

— St. Bartolo Longo, an Italian lawyer born in 1841. He had been a militant opponent of the church and involved in the occult, but converted, dedicating himself to charity and to building the Pontifical Shrine of the Blessed Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei. He died in 1926.

The pope called the new saints “faithful friends of Christ” who are “not heroes or champions of some ideal, but authentic men and women,” who were martyrs for their faith, evangelizers, missionaries, charismatic founders and “benefactors of humanity.”

Having faith on earth is what “sustains the hope for heaven,” the pope said in his homily.

In fact, Christ tells his disciples “to pray always” without becoming weary, he said. “Just as breathing sustains the life of the body, so prayer sustains the life of the soul: faith, in fact, is expressed in prayer, and authentic prayer lives on faith.”

In his parable of the persistent widow in the day’s Gospel reading (Lk. 18:1-8), Jesus asks his disciples if they believe God is a just judge toward everyone, and “if we believe that the Father always wants our good and the salvation of every person.”

It is important to ask because two temptations test this belief, the pope said. The first temptation “draws strength from the scandal of evil, leading us to think that God does not hear the cries of the oppressed and has no pity for the innocent who suffer.”

“The second temptation is the claim that God must act as we want him to: prayer then gives way to a command to God, to teach him how to be just and effective,” he said.

But Jesus “frees us from both temptations,” especially with his words during his passion, “Father, your will be done,” Pope Leo said.

“The cross of Christ reveals God’s justice, and God’s justice is forgiveness. He sees evil and redeems it by taking it upon himself,” he said. “When we are ‘crucified’ by pain and violence, by hatred and war, Christ is already there, on the cross for us and with us.”

“There is no cry that God does not console; there is no tear that is far from his heart,” he said. “The Lord listens to us, embraces us as we are, and transforms us as he is.”

“Those who reject God’s mercy, however, remain incapable of mercy toward their neighbor. Those who do not welcome peace as a gift will not know how to give peace,” he said.

Jesus invites the faithful “to hope and action,” and he asks, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith in God’s providence?” the pope said.

After the Mass and before praying the Angelus, Pope Leo thanked the leaders and dignitaries from different countries who attended the canonization Mass, including Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Lebanese President Joseph Khalil Aoun.

He told some 70,000 people present that “today is World Mission Day.”

While the entire church is missionary, “today we pray especially for those men and women who have left everything behind to bring the Gospel to those who do not know it,” he said. “They are missionaries of hope among all peoples.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Leo XIV traveled 23 miles by car to board the “Bel Espoir” sailboat and speak to the crew about peacemaking.

The boat, whose name means “beautiful hope,” had spent the previous eight months sailing to 30 Mediterranean ports where rotating crews of 25 young adults met their peers and talked about their faith and the challenges to peace.

Meeting the last crew Oct. 17 at the marina in Ostia, outside of Rome, Pope Leo told them the world needs “signs, witness, impressions that give hope.”

The name of the boat and, even more, the efforts of the young people “are indeed a sign of hope for the Mediterranean and the world,” he told them.

Living and working together on the boat, the pope said, has taught them the importance of dialogue.

“How important it is to learn to talk to one another, to sit down, to learn to listen, to express your own ideas and your own values with respect for one another” so that others also feel they were heard, he said.

Eight groups of 25 young adults from different Mediterranean countries and different religions each spent a month as part of the crew and held roundtable discussions on different themes with young adults in the 30 ports of call.

The experience, the pope said, should have reinforced for them the importance of “building bridges,” not literally, “but a bridge among all of us, peoples from many different nations.”

Pope Leo said he had asked each member of the crew where they were from, which made it obvious that despite big differences in language, faith and culture, the young adults still made life aboard work.

Living on a relatively small boat with a large group of people, he said, “you have to learn how to live with one another and how to respect one another, and how to work out the difficulties, and that too is a great experience for all of you as young people, but (also) something that you can teach all of us.”

Noting that the crew included several Palestinians, Pope Leo told the group that it is especially important to learn “to be promoters of peace in a world that more and more tends to go toward violence and hatred and separation and distance and polarization.”

The young people can show the world that “we can come together, even though we are from different countries, we have different languages, different cultures, different religions, and yet we are all human beings.”

“We all sons and daughters of the one God,” he said. “We are all living together on this world, and we all have a shared responsibility to together care for creation and care for one another and to promote peace throughout the world.”

Pope Leo also told the crew that he had been to Ostia many times as an Augustinian friar because of the port town’s close connection to the story of St. Augustine and, especially, his mother, St. Monica.

In fact, St. Monica died in Ostia in 387 while waiting for St. Augustine to join her for the return journey to North Africa. She was buried there, but her remains were moved to Rome in the 15th century.