Author: Eric Deabill

FOREST CITY – Hamburgers, hot dogs, games, and face painting helped bring families together before the start of the new school year on Aug. 22, 2026, as Ascension Parish hosted a Family Fun Day at Saint Joseph Church in Forest City.

The gathering welcomed children and families from Ascension Parish, Saint Katharine Drexel Parish, and the surrounding community for an afternoon of food, fellowship and fun.

“We are very excited for the whole parish to see the children of our parishes and community and to bring them together to share joy and fun before they go to school,” Father Arun Lakra, Pastor, explained.

In addition to games and free food, school supplies and other necessities were distributed to help local students prepare for the year ahead.
Parishioner Kathryn Pavlovich said the event also provided an opportunity for neighbors to get to know one another.

“There are a lot of people that really don’t know each other in the community, and I think a gathering (like this) will help them communicate with each other,” she said.

Madison Franckowiac, a young parishioner who was volunteering to get community service hours for the National Junior Honor Society, helped to distribute hygiene supplies to those needing them.

“It was a nice fun day before school starts,” she said. “It’s a get together for the community.”

Parishioner Jennifer Pearson said the event reflected the parish’s desire to support local families while strengthening connections between generations.

“We want to bring more young people into our community,” Pearson said. “I like to see the connections between the kids and the adults.”

(OSV News) – The much-anticipated beatification of Venerable Fulton J. Sheen is set for Sept. 24 in St. Louis, marking a historic moment for the Catholic Church in the United States. Not only is Sheen the first television host to be formally recognized by the Church as “blessed,” but he also will become the first American-born bishop to be beatified.

For many of the nation’s bishops, however, Sheen’s beatification is about more than historical firsts. In interviews with OSV News, several bishops described a man whose influence as an evangelist and communicator flowed from a deeply rooted life of prayer and sacrifice — and whose example remains relevant to the Church’s mission today.

An auxiliary bishop of New York from 1951 to 1966, Sheen left an indelible mark on the Church in the United States and beyond. Yet when he arrived in New York, he was no stranger to the city. For two decades, while teaching at The Catholic University of America in Washington, he had traveled regularly to NBC studios to broadcast his popular weekly radio program. As an auxiliary bishop in New York, he also directed the Society for the Propagation of the Faith (one of The Pontifical Mission Societies), connecting American Catholics to the Church’s missionary work throughout the world.

For New York Archbishop Ronald A. Hicks, who said he is “filled with joy” at Sheen’s impending beatification, Sheen’s ministry offers a lesson the Church still needs today: evangelization must lead people into the mission of the Church.

“He was able to connect evangelization with mission,” Archbishop Hicks said. “We oftentimes focus only on his efforts to be on the radio or in front of television, and he did an extraordinary job at all of that. And at the same time, he used that platform to connect people to the mission of the Church, helping us to go deeper in our journey to know, love and serve Jesus.”

Sheen’s extraordinary public ministry, Archbishop Hicks stressed, flowed from the depth of his own Catholic life.

“I love his devotion to the Eucharist, to the Word, to the Rosary. I mean, it was all there — the Catholic life he embraced and he amplified and magnified.”

Sheen was “always making sure that we were never a self-referential Church, a self-serving Church, but a Church always on mission,” Archbishop Hicks said. Through his leadership of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, Sheen devoted considerable energy to supporting young churches throughout the world.

But what inspires Archbishop Hicks most is Sheen’s willingness to serve wherever he was needed.

“Sheen always answered with a ‘Yes, send me where you need me, Lord,’ and I will go and I will respond and I will give it my best,” he said. “And his example inspires me.”

Rockville Centre Bishop John O. Barres finds in Sheen a similar connection between holiness and mission, calling him “our American St. Paul.” Citing Pope St. John Paul II’s insight that every saint is both deeply contemplative and deeply missionary, Bishop Barres said Sheen demonstrates how prayer and sacrifice bear fruit in evangelization.

“The more Catholics in the United States and everywhere are praying, sacrificing, carrying crosses on behalf of Catholic global worldwide mission in every continent,” he said, “the better we evangelize our families, our parishes, our secular networks and secular workplaces.”

Bishop Barres, who serves as chairman of the board of The Pontifical Mission Societies — the successor organization to the one Sheen directed — also was baptized by Sheen. He sees the beatification as an opportunity not only to remember Sheen’s accomplishments in supporting the missions, but “to move it forward in the 21st century.”

He points to Sheen’s gifts as a teacher and model for bishops, particularly his conviction “that the truth claims of the Catholic Church are liberating to all human beings because they are objectively true for all human beings.”

For Denver Archbishop James R. Golka, Sheen’s legacy as a teacher of the faith is equally compelling.

“When I picture him, one of the images that I have is of him as a bishop standing with his chalkboard teaching the whole world about Jesus and the Catholic faith,” Archbishop Golka said. “And for me that’s what we all ought to be doing. It’s kind of like a commission to do the same — not just teach our own flock, but the whole world.”

Sheen’s “clear, unambiguous teachings,” Archbishop Golka said, demonstrate how “truth leads to beauty and to wonder and to love.” In a culture increasingly marked by division and anxiety, he sees Sheen’s insistence on putting Christ at the center of everything as an enduring message.

“Our culture and world are divided and anxious, and we know the only remedy to that is Christ,” he said.

Bishop Steven J. Maekawa, O.P., of Fairbanks similarly sees Sheen’s ability to speak to ordinary human experience as central to his enduring appeal. Sheen could speak, Bishop Maekawa said, to “the regularity of the cross” in people’s lives and awaken within them a recognition of their deepest hunger.

“He’s trying to draw out that hunger and say that, you know, this is meant for you to have,” Bishop Maekawa said. “God wants you to have this.”

Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Sheen’s example is especially relevant to the bishops’ priority of evangelization and inviting others into an encounter with Jesus Christ. Calling Sheen “one of the premier evangelists in our nation’s history,” Archbishop Coakley sees his example as “prophetic and profound.”

“He was, in a certain sense, all things to all people in his day,” Archbishop Coakley said. “I think that’s going to be his lasting legacy as an evangelist, really.”

Sheen’s witness will also continue to inspire future generations of priests, Bishop Barres believes. Through his life, intercession and writings on the priesthood, “Sheen’s going to be an instrument of a rich harvest of vocations for the priesthood,” he said.

Among a younger generation of clerics particularly inspired by Sheen is the soon-to-be-blessed’s own successor in Rochester, Bishop John S. Bonnici. Installed earlier this year, Bishop Bonnici has spoken with priests who served under Sheen during his brief tenure as bishop of Rochester from 1966 to 1969 and discovered another dimension of the famous television personality.

“The priests that I’ve spoken to speak of how his love for the poor always stood out, which is not what you necessarily would glean from his TV appearances,” Bishop Bonnici said.

Sheen was deeply concerned about Rochester’s housing problems and the beginnings of homelessness, Bishop Bonnici noted, and he was willing to challenge powerful interests on behalf of those in need.

One priest recalled to Bishop Bonnici how he was accompanying Sheen when a beggar with a reputation approached Sheen for money. As Sheen reached into his pocket, the priest warned him, “He’s taking you for a ride.” But Sheen stopped him. “I never want to make the mistake of turning someone away that just might be Jesus,” he said before giving the man his money.

Bishop Bonnici also admires Sheen’s humility in accepting his appointment to Rochester despite his international reputation and lack of experience leading a diocese.

“A man of his stature and popularity and fame still acknowledged that he, despite his age, needed a lot of learning,” Bishop Bonnici said. “So I think that’s inspirational and sobering.”

As Bishop Bonnici travels throughout the Rochester diocese, he has begun using Sheen’s crosier. When people recognize it from old photographs, he said, “they’re just drawn to it. They want to touch it. They want to hear about it.”

Several of the bishops also point to Sheen’s own prayer life — particularly his commitment to a daily Holy Hour for nearly six decades — as an inspiration to bishops and laity alike.

“Clearly you don’t do that unless there’s a huge love and personal hunger for God,” Bishop Maekawa said.

Bishop Bonnici observed that “a lot of young people today are grasping and appreciating” Sheen’s hallmark spiritual practice.

“What most young people today, I think, are seeking is a pause from the craziness of the technical world that they live in,” he said. “And I think that’s drawing them to prayer. So what better person than Sheen to not only nurture that in their lives, but also offer them guidance and insight on how to move forward?”

Archbishop Coakley sees Sheen’s continued relevance as multifaceted. He recalled that “one of my first ways of coming to reverence and recognize him was as a champion for life,” having prayed for decades a pro-life prayer attributed to Sheen.

For Archbishop Coakley, Sheen’s beatification is also “a source of pride” for the U.S. bishops “that the Church has recognized this man who is such a great evangelist, such a great figure in American Catholic Church history.”

But the significance goes beyond historical significance. For bishops who appreciate Sheen’s legacy as missionary, teacher and evangelist, attentive to the poor and grounded in prayer, his beatification offers a model of episcopal ministry rooted in personal holiness.

Sheen’s life also demonstrates that his greatest legacy was not his achievements or fame, but the way he made use of it all to point beyond himself — toward Christ, the Church and the needs of others. Sheen’s witness shows that evangelization flows from prayer, fidelity to Christ leads outward in mission, and ordained ministry must remain grounded in holiness.

That, Archbishop Coakley suggested, gives Sheen’s beatification significance for the entire U.S. episcopate.

“In a certain sense, Sheen’s beatification is evidence that the Church in the United States is coming of age and maturing in many ways,” he said. “The full flowering of our baptismal grace is a life of holiness, and to have some of our ecclesiastical figures, priests and bishops, who are being acknowledged and recognized by the Church for their holiness is, I think, a sign of great hope.”

Archbishop Coakley stressed that “we all have much to learn from him” and sees Sheen’s beatification as “a certain affirmation to the U.S. bishops.”

“To have one of our own beatified, the first member of this conference who’s ever been beatified,” he said, “it is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?”

(OSV News) – Amid recent calls from several artificial intelligence leaders for a slowdown in the technology’s development, the nation’s Catholic bishops are engaging tech leaders and lawmakers to address concerns over AI and online child safety.

The bishops have also formed a task force to safeguard human dignity as AI rapidly evolves, echoing Pope Leo XIV’s urgent message in his encyclical on AI, “Magnifica Humanitas.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced the developments in a Sept. 16 press release, saying its Administrative Committee had met at the USCCB’s Washington headquarters with “representatives from a variety of tech firms and specialists” in AI earlier that day.

The committee, led by USCCB president Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, serves as the conference’s board of directors. Members include the USCCB’s officers, standing committee chairs and a representative from each of the nation’s 15 episcopal regions, including the Eastern Catholic Churches.

In its press release, the USCCB said Bishop Oscar Cantú of San Jose, California — home to Silicon Valley and the hub of AI development — will chair its Bishops’ Task Force on Preserving Human Dignity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.

In a Sept. 16 phone call following the committee meeting, Bishop Cantú told OSV News that the task force had been unanimously approved, with a goal of carrying out “the vision of Pope Leo” expressed in “Magnifica Humanitas.”

Bishop Cantú explained that Pope Leo has “given the Church marching orders” to remind the world that technology can be beneficial “when it’s able to assist humanity in the work that we do” while “supporting our dignity as individuals and families and helping us to build healthy societies.”

“Time is of the essence” in ensuring creating awareness of and meaningful dialogue at all levels regarding AI, said Bishop Cantú.

He stressed that the Church is “concerned about how this (AI) affects the individual, human dignity, the family, society and particularly the most vulnerable.”

Following the Administrative Committee meeting, the USCCB said in its release, more than a dozen bishops headed to Capitol Hill “to meet with members of Congress urging for the enactment of meaningful safety guardrails on Artificial Intelligence and to support legislation to protect children online.”

U.S. President Donald Trump has dismissed alarms over AI dangers, calling the issue a “hoax” in an onstage phone call to NVIDIA chief Jensen Huang during Huang’s talk at a Sept. 14 conference in Los Angeles.

In the press release, USCCB executive director of public affairs Chieko Noguchi said the dialogue with AI experts had “focused on ways to keep any system of artificial intelligence at the service of humanity.”

The exchange also stressed “the urgent need to address the real and present dangers such technology present,” said Noguchi.

“Recent events have only emphasized the great need for action by everyone involved,” she said.

In a Sept. 12 essay, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei declared that “we must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.”

Amodei, whose company was on hand for the unveiling of Pope Leo’s AI encyclical, cited two key reasons for his warning.

The first, he said, is AI’s “growing ability to build the next generation” of itself, with such recursive self-improvement becoming industry-wide.

“Left unchecked, it could outrun our ability to understand and control these systems, and so must be pursued very carefully, if at all,” said Amodei.

A second red flag was an incident involving OpenAI and Hugging Face (recently acquired by tech giant NVIDIA), where AI agents conducted a rogue attack outside the scope of a test.

Amodei said while “it’s easy to dismiss this incident because no one was hurt and the economic damage was minimal,” a “swarm” of AI agents possessing “greater capabilities but a similar level of misalignment” with human values “could have caused catastrophic damage.”

Fellow Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark has also called for an AI downshift, as have OpenAI’s Sam Altman and xAI’s Elon Musk.

Noguchi said the bishops hoped their Sept. 16 meeting with tech experts would “help to identify ways the Church can contribute to the moral foundation of AI models,” as well as “steps the companies can take to protect against misuse of their inventions and to guarantee human oversight of the technology.”

The discussion also explored “how the Church and industry can work together toward the goal of ensuring that technology is used in ways that keep it human-centered, respecting the dignity of each person, and benefiting all — poor and rich alike,” said Noguchi.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – While overwhelming sorrow at the memory of the dead from 9/11 comes easily, the continuing challenge for Catholics is forgiveness and reconciliation in a fractured world, Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio said in his Sept. 11 homily.

Archbishop Broglio, head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, called for “reconciliation, dialogue, and rebuilding a sense of our common humanity.”

The afternoon Mass celebrated by the military archbishop in the Crypt Church of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was a quiet, reflective end to a day filled with somber and emotional 25th anniversary commemorations in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, marking when al-Qaida terrorists hijacked and crashed four planes on Sept. 11, 2001 killing 2,977, including first responders. Thousands have died in years since from 9/11-related illnesses, adding to the death toll.

Masses were held by bishops around all three locations to commemorate 9/11, including a vigil Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York on Sept. 10, and a Red, White & Blue Mass at the Cathedral of St. Catherine of Siena in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11 that began at 8:46 a.m. That marked the moment American Airlines Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center’s North Tower in New York. United Airlines Flight 175 would strike the South Tower within 20 minutes at 9:03 a.m. The Allentown Diocese includes Shanksville, where United Airlines Flight 93 went down at 10:03 a.m. after passengers mounted a valiant fight to take back the hijacked plane.

Masses celebrated to commemorate 9/11 included a vigil Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York the evening of Sept. 10 and a Red, White & Blue Mass at the Cathedral of St. Catharine of Siena in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 11 that began at 8:46 a.m. That marked the moment American Airlines Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center’s North Tower in New York. United Airlines Flight 175 would strike the South Tower within 20 minutes at 9:03 a.m.

United Airlines Flight 93 went down at 10:03 a.m. in a field near Shanksville after passengers mounted a valiant fight to take back the hijacked plane. Shanksville is in the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, whose bishop, Bishop Mark L. Bartchak, participated with other faith leaders in a Sept. 11 commemoration at the Flight 93 National Memorial near Shanksville.

Prior to the Mass in Washington with the military archbishop, the national shrine tolled its largest bell, the Mary Bell, 25 times at 9:37 a.m. on Sept. 11, commemorating when American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon just 5 miles away.

“We raise up to God the nearly 3,000 lives who were lost; we pay tribute to the first responders; and we will never forget the day that shook our nation to its very core,” said Msgr. Walter R. Rossi, the basilica’s rector.

In his homily, Archbishop Broglio compared the abiding memories of 9/11 to the memories of those old enough to remember where they were when President John F. Kennedy, the first Catholic president of the U.S., was assassinated Nov. 22, 1963.

With the suddenness of the deliberate plane crashes on that clear morning, “in a very real sense, the whole world felt the impact of the attack,” he said.

He added, “No one really prepares for a tragedy of that dimension. Certainly, the first responders train, follow procedures and imagine emergencies; but the magnitude of the events of that September day took the world by surprise.”

“So many of the police and firefighters who rushed into that situation died in the catastrophe,” he said, adding, “At this celebration, we pray for their eternal repose.”

Referring to the Gospel of John, in which Jesus reminds his disciples that there is no greater love than laying down one’s life for one’s friends, Archbishop Broglio reflected: “Is not that the application that these men and women made to care for others? Did they not set aside all of the considerations that would make someone go away from these scenes, and instead do what they could?”

He remembered that “some still suffer the ill effects of the toxic air they breathed in the moments of immediate response. Others experienced trauma as they so quickly responded. We pray for them as well. They will carry those effects with them for a lifetime, perhaps even a shorter one than expected.”

Of the grieving families, he said, “We beg the Lord to shower healing and serenity upon them.”

St. Paul, he said, “reminds us that preaching the Gospel is an obligation, not an option,” and that his advice was “be persistent, whether it is convenient or inconvenient.”

Recalling the horrors of 9/11, Archbishop Broglio acknowledged the search for retribution and justice for the crimes committed against the dignity of the human person.

“We find it difficult to forgive, and more difficult to work for reconciliation. We find challenging the notion that I cannot change another, or his or her perceptions,” he reflected.

“But I can change mine,” he said. “I can adjust my approach. Drawing on divine grace, I can be an instrument of reconciliation.”

ROME (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV visited the Vatican Library for the first time as pope on his birthday, Sept. 14, and announced plans for the construction of a new modern building in Vatican City to house the holdings of the library and the Vatican Apostolic Archive.

The pope said it seemed providential to celebrate his 71st birthday at the Vatican Library because his mother was a librarian.

On the day of his visit, the pope also issued a decree ordering the construction of a new building in Vatican City State on the site of what is now a parking lot. The facility, to be shared by the Vatican Library and the Vatican archives, will be built “according to the most modern architectural and technological principles.”

It was one of two papal decrees published by the Vatican on the pope’s birthday. The other repealed provisions introduced by Pope Francis in March 2021 that reduced the salaries of cardinals and Vatican employees as a cost-saving measure during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The library decree also reverses a prior decision by Pope Francis. Citing a lack of space in the Vatican Library, Pope Francis had decided that excess library holdings would be housed outside Vatican City State at the Pontifical Roman Major Seminary. In the Sept. 14 decree, Pope Leo wrote that using space within Vatican City is “undoubtedly preferable for many reasons to the solution already identified.”

The seminary space designated by Pope Francis in 2022 will continue to store excess library and archive holdings until the new Vatican City facility is completed.

The Vatican Apostolic Library, formally founded in the 15th century, houses a collection of 2 million books, 100,000 archival documents, and hundreds of thousands of coins, medals, and graphic works.

During his visit to the library, the pope had the opportunity to examine some of the library’s historic books and coins and formally inaugurated a new exhibition, “AQVA: Catastrophe and Wonder.” The exhibit will be open to the public from Sept. 25 to May 14, 2027, and features, among other works, a massive wave installation mounted on scaffolding outside the library. Pope Leo also spent time celebrating his birthday with library staff over cake.

The pope recalled the pivotal moment in the conversion of St. Augustine when he heard the voice of a child singing, “Take and read, take and read,” leading the future fifth-century bishop and doctor of the Church to read St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. St. Augustine later wrote in “The Confessions” that the passage “penetrated his heart,” dispelling the darkness of doubt.

The Augustinian pope added that St. Augustine’s “doubt was dispelled, but not his desire — which, in fact, grew stronger, driving him to explore the full breadth and depth of the Holy Scriptures.”

“He himself speaks of this on several occasions, when he says that he studied carefully — bent over like a question mark — various manuscripts of the Biblical books in order to determine the best text,” the pope said. “The book of Scripture that came into Augustine’s hands is the very one that opened his spirit wide.”

“Dearest friends, all of you, by preserving, studying, and making the books of Peter’s successor available to scholars, you help the Church and humanity to rise to the depth of that desire,” the pope said. “Without it, everything drifts away from the living God, the source of truth and love.”

ROME (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV commemorated the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in his Sunday Angelus address, praying for “those who continue to bear the wounds of that tragic day.”

Speaking from the window of the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace Sept. 13, the first U.S.-born pope said, “Two days ago marked the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the United States of America.”

“I renew my prayers for those who lost their lives and for those who continue to bear the wounds of that tragic day,” he said. “At a time when conflict and violence afflict so many of our brothers and sisters, I invite everyone to pray that the Lord will bestow his gift of peace upon the world.”

Switching from English to Italian, the pope added that the memory of the tragic events of 9/11 “prompts us to renew our commitment to peace, first and foremost through prayer, which we entrust to the intercession of the Virgin Mary.”

Pope Leo, then-Father Robert Prevost, was 45 years old and in Rome taking part in the Augustinian Order’s ordinary general chapter, on the date of the 9/11 attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead that day, with thousands more dying of related illnesses in the aftermath. Just days later, on Sept. 14, 2001, his 46th birthday, he was elected prior general of the worldwide order.

As the newly elected head of the Augustinian Order, Father Prevost reflected on “the tragic events that shook the United States on Sept. 11” in his homily for the closing Mass of the order’s meeting Sept. 21, 2001.

“The violence that the world witnessed last week in the United States is a tragic expression of a series of problems that are becoming increasingly acute everywhere. Hatred and violence will continue to grow as long as so many people are forced to live in extreme poverty and are oppressed by so many forms of injustice,” Father Prevost said in his homily in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, according to Vatican News.

“While many seek revenge,” he said, “Augustinians must bear witness to the Gospel and to its values of unity, dialogue, peace, and reconciliation.”

PARIS (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV will put Europe and peace in the spotlight on Sept. 28, when he visits Metz as part of his trip to France from Sept. 25 to 28.

Metz is located in northeastern France, close to the German border. It is the capital of Moselle, the French department in the Lorraine region that, along with Alsace, was annexed by the German Empire between 1871 and 1918. This subsequently led to conflicts between France and Germany during the two World Wars.

The city of Metz is closely associated with Robert Schuman. A French statesman — though German by birth and thoroughly bicultural — he worked as a lawyer in Metz when the city belonged to Germany, and remained there after it returned to French control. He then entered politics in the service of France. He served several times as a minister and as head of government.

Schuman was a devout Catholic, so much so that his sainthood cause is currently underway,

Father Bernard Ardura, a French historian, former president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, is the postulator of his cause. The diocesan process was concluded in 2004, and Pope Francis declared Schuman venerable on June 19, 2021.

For Father Ardura, Schuman is “a model of a Christian engaged in politics.” “He was a statesman passionate about the common good,” he told OSV News. “The whole meaning of his life can be summed up in that. His view was that commitment to public service was a royal path to charity. He devoted himself entirely to the common good.”

Schuman worked his entire life toward Franco-German reconciliation and the founding of a united Europe.

For Father Ardura, Schuman was also “a hard worker, respectful of others and generous, deeply humble and modest.” “His political action was rooted in prayer,” he said. “He attended Mass every day and prayed the rosary and the liturgy of the hours.”

Schuman spent his last years three miles from Metz, in the small town of Scy-Chazelles, where he was buried in 1963. “His house is open to visitors,” Father Ardura said. “It is very modest, and very close to the church he attended every day. He really lived like a monk. He remained single his entire life. He used to say he was ‘married to politics.'”

He was minister of foreign affairs when he delivered the declaration known throughout Europe as the Schuman Declaration on May 9, 1950. In it, he proposed the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community. His goal was to foster economic growth while establishing lasting peace between France and Germany.

“At that time, coal and steel fueled the industry that produced weapons,” Father Ardura underlined. “Building ties rather than resorting to arms — that is what Schuman wanted.” In 1958, Schuman became the first president of the new European Parliament, then known as the “Parliamentary Assembly.”

On Sept. 28, Pope Leo will speak in Metz about Europe and peace.

“He views Europe in a much more positive light than Pope Francis did before him,” Father Ardura emphasized. “Pope Francis viewed Europe with a rather pessimistic outlook and often highlighted its negative aspects.”

Father Ardura referred to remarks made by Pope Francis on Nov. 25, 2014, during his brief visit to Strasbourg, France — where the parliament and the Council of Europe are headquartered.

Pope Francis described Europe as “‘grandmother,’ no longer fertile and vibrant,” in his speech — “and he often reused that expression afterward,” Father Ardura said.

For the postulator, Pope Leo XIV’s vision is quite different. “He traveled extensively outside his country,” he noted. “He lived in Rome and knows Europe well. He sees that it is bogged down by a cumbersome and pervasive bureaucracy in many areas that are not always essential and over which it does not always have jurisdiction. He sees that it struggles to carry weight on the international stage,” he added.

“But Pope Leo XIV also perceives that Europe actually represents a significant entity whose history is rooted in an intuition regarding the concrete possibility of building peace,” Father Ardura continued. “He would like to encourage Europe to find new momentum in this direction.”

For Father Ardura, “this is where the reference to Schuman is interesting.”

“The Europe that Schuman knew has changed a great deal since then,” he said. “Since 1950, the communist regime has collapsed almost everywhere.”

But Schuman’s vision, he said, remains relevant today.

“He saw Europe as a solidly constructed entity based on shared economic interests, one that ensured member countries would work together rather than wage war against one another. And at the same time, he wanted it to be open to others and to further collaboration.”

Today, every month, a Mass for Europe is celebrated in Scy-Chazelle in memory of Schuman.

For Archbishop Philippe Ballot of Metz, the Mass that the pope will celebrate at Saint-Étienne Cathedral in Metz on Sept. 28 will be an opportunity to reflect on Schuman’s “message of peace.”

“Thanks to architects of reconciliation such as the Venerable Robert Schuman, the Moselle region offers a precious testimony showing that hatred does not have the last word, but that, on the contrary, yesterday’s enemies can become brothers,” he wrote on Aug. 20 in his official announcement of the pope’s visit.

“This message of peace echoes the Holy Father’s call for ‘a disarmed and disarming peace’ at the heart of our divided world.”

For Archbishop Ballot, Schuman is a “figure of reconciliation,” who “can, even today, inspire in everyone’s heart — especially among young people — the desire to see brotherhood grow in Europe and beyond.”

(OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV returned Sept. 7 to the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel, where he asked the Virgin Mary for aid to bring God’s word to light through “courageous and wise decisions.”

The pope traveled to Genazzano, a small town about 35 miles east of Rome, to celebrate an evening Mass at the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel on the vigil of the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The visit was the second he has made to the basilica since becoming pope. Pope Leo recalled how he previously made a surprise visit to the shrine just days after his election in the May 2025 conclave to pray before the image of the Virgin Mary to whom he has long been devoted.

“As you may remember, ‘in the early days of my pontificate, I felt the duty and a deep desire to visit Genazzano, the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Counsel, who has accompanied me throughout my life with her maternal presence, her wisdom and the example of her love for her Son, who is always the center of my faith,'” the pope said at the start of his homily, quoting words he wrote in the shrine’s guest book on his first visit.

Reflecting on the birth of the Virgin Mary, which the Church celebrates on Sept. 8, the pope said that “Mary is the dawn of a new day, of our world finally freed from evil.”

“Let us ask her for her Good Counsel, so that we may welcome the divine Word, keep it within us, and bring it to light through courageous and wise decisions, decisions of authentic conversion,” he said.

The shrine holds special significance for Pope Leo, who visited many times prior to his election as pope. The Augustinian Province of Chicago, where then-Robert Prevost entered religious life, was dedicated to Our Lady of Good Counsel, and he has visited the Genazzano sanctuary for decades since his first visit while studying in Rome in the early 1980s.

His pilgrimages to pray before the image continued throughout his time as prior general of the Augustinians, bishop of Chiclayo, Peru, and later as a cardinal.

The shrine, entrusted to the Augustinians since the 14th century, has drawn many pilgrims over the centuries, among them several popes, including Urban VIII, Pius IX, John XXIII and John Paul II, who are depicted in frescoes on the walls of the basilica.

Pope Leo arrived in Genazzano shortly after 5 p.m. and greeted pilgrims gathered outside and inside the basilica who enthusiastically kissed his ring. He first knelt in prayer before the main altar and then visited the chapel containing the revered image of Our Lady of Good Counsel, where he prayed silently and presented a golden rose, a traditional papal gift.

Before Mass, a new fresco on the wall of the basilica was unveiled depicting the current Augustinian pope kneeling before the Marian image.

In his homily for the Church’s celebration of Mary’s birth, Pope Leo invited prayerful contemplation of the virtues of the Virgin Mary.

“We celebrate the birth of a little girl called to become the Mother of her Creator, the Mother of God who saves,” he said. “And yet, she is born simply a child, like the daughters and granddaughters we hold in our arms.”

The pope quoted St. Thomas of Villanova, a 16th-century Augustinian bishop and theologian, who pondered why the Gospels did not provide more details about Mary’s life, describing this as an invitation to contemplate her holiness and virtues.

Pope Leo commented that “St. Thomas invites us to engage in this wonderful exercise of the imagination,” adding that contemplative prayer is especially important today “in times of destruction and uncertainty.”

St. Thomas of Villanova wrote, “Let your imagination run wild … paint in the depths of your soul a young woman who is most pure, most prudent, most beautiful, most devout, most humble, most gentle, full of every grace, rich in sanctity, adorned with all the virtues, embellished with all the charisms, absolutely pleasing to God.”

(OSV News) – Joseph Connor had his back turned to the large window of his 36th floor office when he “suddenly more felt than heard” the massive impact of a commercial jet slamming into the north tower of the World Trade Center a third of a mile away on Sept. 11, 2001.

As Connor watched pages and pages of office paper slowly rain down from the burning skyscraper against the clear sunny sky, the realization hit that his cousin Steven Schlag, a bond trader at the brokerage firm Cantor Fitzgerald, worked high up in one of the towers.

The banker suspected the number of lives lost was quickly rising as he frantically tried to call his cousin, a very close relative. Then, the middle of the second tower burst into a fiery ball, struck by a second jet. For Connor, this confirmed a terrorist attack.

“How could this happen again?” he remembers asking himself. “(Steven) had a wife — a foreign-born wife, like my mom was — and three kids. My mom had two. But why, God? What? How did you let this happen?”

He knew well the anguish of a young widow left with young children. It was the story of his mother on the day she lost her husband to a terrorist bombing 26 years earlier, at a historic tavern near his Wall Street office.

Connor, 60, recently described to OSV News the devastation that unfolded before his eyes in New York on Sept. 11, 2001, as the United States prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The al-Qaida-led attacks in New York and Washington, with a thwarted attempt failing in Pennsylvania, left close to 3,000 people dead.

Connor said he questioned God after seeing “specks jumping” from the blazing towers to their deaths on 9/11.

“How are people left to make a choice: whether to burn or drop 1,000 feet?” Connor asked. “So, that’s something I had struggled with. But I think over time, my faith has gotten much stronger, and certainly in the last decade or so, I think it has even gotten more so.”

Connor, a regular Massgoer, credits his stronger faith after the losses in part to his son, an Augustinian friar studying for the priesthood. He said his son’s faith has helped him to “become more introspective … and understand what it means to be Catholic … to really embrace God and embrace Jesus.”

Now a New Jersey-based anti-terrorism advocate, Connor lost his father days after his ninth birthday. On Jan. 24, 1975, 33-year-old Frank Connor was at lunch at Fraunces Tavern in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district when he and three other men were killed, and nearly 60 were injured in a bombing. The Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN), a Puerto Rican separatist group, claimed responsibility.

Connor said he has had no inclination to walk away from God, unlike some others he knew who lost loved ones on 9/11. The experience, he said, of losing his father and being raised by a mother and grandmother who were devout, Irish women kept him grounded and better able to handle the loss of his close cousin, whom he described as tough and funny.

“We went to church and all those things, but Grandma Connor always instilled in us never to be raised with hate,” said Connor.

His cousin Jean Schlag Nebbia of Naples, Florida, also clung to her faith shortly after her older brother Steven, who was 41, died in the attack.

“I never blamed God for 9/11. I felt that you’re given the gift of life, and then you’re given the gift of choice. And sometimes there’s bad people and they make bad choices, and other people are hurt through bad choices,” Nebbia, a former special needs teacher’s aide, told OSV News.

Three months after the attacks, she came to a realization.

Nebbia, 63, described watching news footage of the burning towers obsessively, trying to find her brother among those jumping out of the buildings. On the third month of non-stop viewing, her husband gave her some advice a Christian coworker had given him: “to say ‘I’m going to put this in God’s hands.'”

“The moment he said that to me is the moment I started to live … giving up my worries and giving up the unknown,” Nebbia told OSV News. “You know, ‘God, I need a good night’s sleep. I’m going to put this in your hands.’ That, to me, was a turning point. And I don’t know if I could have done that if I didn’t have my Catholic base.”

Nebbia said her 12 years of Catholic education and growing up as a regular Massgoer gave her a solid grounding in faith in God’s providence. She said she goes to God in prayer for almost every aspect of her life because “he has my back” just like her older brother, whom she was very close to, “always did.”

Vera Murphy Trayner also leaned heavily on her faith after losing her husband, Patrick Murphy.

On the morning of the attack, Trayner prayed the rosary fervently as she rushed home from her son’s nursery school while pushing him in his stroller. Murphy, 36 and the vice president for technology at the resource and management consulting firm Marsh McLennan, was on the 97th floor of the first tower that was hit three floors below. His department had moved there just months prior.

Trayner’s go-to devotion “always” came through for her with prayers answered.

“I prayed and prayed and prayed that Patrick would find a way out. He was so smart … and athletic and young … and it was the first prayer that I made that was not answered,” Trayner told OSV News.

She said she “was disappointed” but also held firm to the belief that her husband’s death “happened for a reason” and she “had to accept it.”

“Well, it’s free will. The terrorists, obviously they’re guided by evil and they were able to do such an evil act,” Trayner said. “I don’t want to feel sorry for myself because all through history, there have been traumas, wars. There’s death. There’s fires.”

Now 60, Trayner said her studies at Jesuit-run Boston College opened her up further to the faith during difficulties.

“I was able to ask questions and being a woman in the Catholic faith, being a widow in the Catholic faith, being a mother, I read quite a bit of different books … answering my own questions and talking with people,” she said.

Trayner, a Tampa-based college counselor who remarried in 2006, has relied on the Holy Spirit “to give me the right words,” the Blessed Mother to intercede in raising her children, and the saints, especially Joan of Arc, to guide her through every major challenge.

Still, she said, as she described breaking into a sweat while speaking to OSV News, she remains haunted by the thought of how her first husband must have suffered as the north tower became engulfed in an inferno and collapsed.

Nebbia admitted that as a Catholic, in recent weeks she has begun to struggle with forgiving the terrorists.

“I just feel like I don’t need to forgive them. That’s not my job. So now I’m questioning myself, like, ‘Alright, how do I go about forgiving these people, how?’ That was their goal. They achieved their goal. Now, I question that part of me,” she said.

Connor said he has come to accept his family’s tragic losses.

“Maybe I didn’t understand the reason, and maybe I don’t understand the reason why Steve was killed and the other 3,000 people, but I do feel that God does have a reason for it,” he said.

ARLINGTON, Va. (OSV News) – At 9:37 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington killing 184 people — 125 people inside the Pentagon and 53 passengers and six crew members aboard the plane.

Twenty-five years later, the repaired facade of the Pentagon still looks a little brighter and the area outside that part of the building is now the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial. There is no central statue. Instead, there are 184 stainless-steel benches, one for each person who lost their life there.

Each bench has the name and age of the victim with a shallow pool of water underneath. There are trees, gravel and dramatic lighting best seen at night.

Interestingly, each bench was placed according to where the victim was — those representing the Pentagon victims are oriented toward the building, while the plane victims are remembered with benches placed in the direction the plane approached the building.

That plane was one of four hijacked commercial airliners that attacked the U.S. that day, killing 2,977 people and injuring thousands more.

In New York, 2,753 people died in the Twin Towers collapse, brought down by two of the planes. Forty people died in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers and crew fought back against hijackers on the fourth airliner, forcing it to crash in a field near Shanksville.

Officials believe the fourth plane was headed for the U.S. Capitol or the White House.

Inside the Pentagon, a new chapel, built on the impact site of the attack, has a 9/11 etched glass memorial piece and is adjacent to a memorial area with a list of the Pentagon victims’ names etched in stone. Small pieces of paper and pencils are available for visitors to do a rubbing of the names. There is also a reflection room nearby.

Twenty-five years ago, Father Daniel Mode, an Arlington diocesan priest, was a U.S. Navy Reserve lieutenant serving reserve duty at the Pentagon as a staff officer for the chief of chaplains in the Navy Annex.

He would have been in that exact area of the Pentagon on 9/11, having frequent meetings there. Instead, he was at his parish, Queen of Apostles in Alexandria.

He heard about the attacks, and he stayed with the parish children waiting for their parents who worked in the Pentagon to pick them up. He celebrated an impromptu Mass. And then he received a phone call. There was a list of people who could’ve been in that part of the building and calls were being made to account for everyone.

“It quickly came home to me,” he told the Arlington Catholic Herald, the diocesan news outlet.

Much has changed in the past quarter-century — barricades around Washington memorials and government buildings; Transportation Security Administration enforcement at airports; and an underlying sense of “could it happen again” for many.

Steven Jarvis, who retired from the U.S. Air Force and now works in support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the Pentagon “now has a chapel and the Eucharist is present 24/7 — a testament to how God can turn bad to good, in many ways.”

He said in the 1990s, Catholic Mass was celebrated in a big auditorium with the altar on a stage.

“After the plane hit, they made an indoor memorial and a chapel with a sacristy and the tabernacle,” he said. The Pentagon Memorial Chapel opened on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

“In the morning, I kneel down outside the door because I know the Lord is in there, and at the end of the day,” said Jarvis, a parishioner of St. Michael in Annandale. “The chapel is always open.”

Jarvis is volunteer coordinator for the Pentagon Catholic Community, working with “a dedicated and devout team” of Catholic volunteers, both military and civilian.

There are 175 members with an average of 25 to 35 people attending daily Mass. It peaks on first Fridays, and they move back to the auditorium for Ash Wednesday and holy days of obligation, he said.

“The chapel is multi-denomination,” Jarvis said, “but we are the big players because we are here every day.” Catholic Masses are celebrated at 11:30 a.m. on weekdays and confession is offered before and after Mass.

Two religious orders offer the daily Mass. Dominican priests are responsible for Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception celebrate Mass on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Dominican Father Vincent Ferrer Bagan, director of music for both the diocese and the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington, has been on the rotation for four years.

“It is quite moving,” he said. Coming from a rural town in Minnesota and having been in high school on 9/11, he said he never would have imagined he would be at the Pentagon someday. “It’s a privilege to interact with Catholics who serve in that building, many who are in parishes in our diocese,” he said.

“We always have each Mass offered with a pointed intention but having the chapel in that location is a good reminder for the priest and lay faithful … to remember to pray for those who lost their lives that day and all of the military personnel who have lost their lives all these years,” he said.

In the outside corridor near the chapel, Father Mode said a spot of black soot is still visible on the wall from the flames on 9/11. Perhaps it is a reminder of what was lost and what remains.