cna

feature

commentary

cna

During their visit to Kathmandu, Nepal, the newlyweds shared a powerful witness of faith in a country where Hinduism is the dominant religion.

feature

WASHINGTON - On Ash Wednesday, February 18, Catholics in dioceses across the United States are invited to give to the annual Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, sponsored by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

This collection, which is in its 35th year, continues its mission of helping churches in nearly 30 countries recover from militantly atheist communist rule, including ministry and relief efforts related to the war against Ukraine.

Bishop Gerald L. Vincke of the Diocese of Salina, chairman of the USCCB’s Subcommittee on Aid to the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, witnessed the collection’s work in Ukraine last March. “I visited a shelter for families whose homes were destroyed and an orphanage for children whose parents were killed. Veterans I met with expressed their gratitude for therapy they have been able to receive for their post-traumatic stress,” he said.

“An elderly man who had survived a Siberian gulag told me, ‘What gives me hope is that, in the end, evil does not win.’ He is right – but that requires all of us to follow Christ’s call to build the kingdom of God. Pope John Paul II knew that in 1990 when he urged Catholics in the United States to join the great rebuilding effort in lands newly liberated from communist oppression – lands from which many of our families had immigrated,” continued Bishop Vincke.

The Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe was the U.S. bishops’ response to that call. Many dioceses take up this annual collection on Ash Wednesday, though some dioceses have different dates. The online giving site iGiveCatholic also accepts funds for the program.

In 2024, gifts to the collection funded 547 grants totaling more than $9.5 million. Examples of how donations are used include:

• In Kokshetau, Kazakhstan, sisters of the Community of the Beatitudes expanded their mission of evangelization by establishing a day center for preschool children with Down syndrome and their families.
• In the Slovak Republic, a multi-faceted outreach to vulnerable pregnant women provides material assistance, counseling, training in prevention of abuse, and “Evenings of Mercy” a gathering featuring Mass, confessions, and healing prayers.
• One of the many projects in Ukraine trains lay leaders in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Exarchate of Lutsk to develop new skills in pastoral and social ministry so they can help bring hope and comfort to people who have lost everything.
• A thousand-year-old Benedictine monastery in Hungary is helping clergy and laity discover the teachings of Vatican II on topics ranging from liturgy to interfaith relations.
• In Bulgaria, a village church has been able to engage in digital media evangelization and now offers a post-abortion healing ministry. They were also able to send young pilgrims to the Jubilee in Rome and financed English-immersion studies for a priest in order to reach non-Bulgarians.

“For 35 years, your contributions to the Collection for the Church in Central and Eastern Europe have made a profound difference. You have rebuilt cathedrals, renewed hope, healed the suffering and brought joy where there had been despair,” Bishop Vincke said. “As these churches continue to heal from old wounds and suffer new ones, it is my hope that you give generously and become part of our ongoing and loving response.”

Additional information on grants and impact is at www.usccb.org/ccee.

### 

Addressing the prelates of the Roman Rota on the occasion of the inauguration of the judicial year, Pope Leo XIV said today that “service to the truth in charity must shine out in all the work of the ecclesial tribunals.”

Warning against a “dangerous relativization of truth,” the Pontiff said that “misunderstood compassion, even if apparently motivated by pastoral zeal, risks obscuring the necessary dimension of ascertaining the truth proper to the judicial office.”

“On the other hand, there can at times be a cold and detached affirmation of the truth that does not take into account all that love for people requires, omitting those concerns dictated by respect and mercy, which must be present in all stages of a proceeding,” he added.

The Roman Rota’s responsibilities are described in the 2022 apostolic constitution on the Roman Curia, Praedicate Evangelium (nos. 200-204).

The former Prefect of the Papal Household private secretary of Pope Benedict XVI said that “normality is slowly returning” to the Vatican under Pope Leo.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, now the apostolic nuncio to Lithuania, told EWTN News that the new pope has brought a “whole new positive dimension ... When you read his catechesis or sermons, you can sense that this is a man who lives and proclaims the faith with an Augustinian spirit.”

Archbishop Gänswein also criticized the Synodal Way in his native Germany. While “no doubt there is indeed a need to change and reform certain things here and there,” the Synodal Way, he said, “is not about a return to a deepening of the faith but about a watering down of the faith.”

Six police officers have been arrested for allegedly assaulting a priest in Negombo, a Sri Lankan city, after the priest, riding on a motorcycle, reportedly failed to stop.

“The incident occurred on Saturday night when the officers ordered a motorcyclist travelling along the Kirindiwita-Udugampola Road to stop,” a leading Sri Lankan newspaper reported. “The motorcyclist reportedly failed to comply, prompting the officers to pursue and arrest him.”