Beloved Disciple Parish

Pope Leo XIV meets with Catholicos Karekin II, the patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church, at Villa Barberini, the papal residence overlooking Lake Albano in Castel Gandolfo, Italy on Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Sep 16, 2025 / 13:06 pm (CNA).

The head of the Armenian Apostolic Church during a meeting Tuesday at the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo invited Pope Leo XIV to visit Armenia.

Catholicos Karekin II, the patriarch of the Armenian Apostolic Church, met Pope Leo for the first time at Villa Barberini, the papal summer residence overlooking Lake Albano. Leo has recently begun spending Tuesdays, the pope’s traditional day off, in Castel Gandolfo while the Apostolic Palace in Vatican City undergoes renovations.

The two discussed the need for a peace based on justice, according to Archbishop Khajag Barsamian, the Armenian Church’s representative to the Holy See, in comments to the Armenian-language edition of Vatican Media.

The invitation would mark a continuation of ecumenical dialogue and papal outreach to Armenia, the first state to adopt Christianity as its state religion in A.D. 301. Karekin II has previously traveled to the Vatican for meetings with John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis.

John Paul II became the first pope to set foot on Armenian soil in 2001, visiting for celebrations of the 1,700th anniversary of the country’s Christian heritage. Pope Francis followed with a three-day trip to Armenia in 2016.

The Armenian Apostolic Church, sometimes known as the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church, is the national church of Armenia and part of the family of Oriental Orthodox Churches.

It is distinct from the much smaller Armenian Catholic Church, which is in full communion with Rome. The Armenian Church formally broke with Rome after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, though relations have deepened in recent decades. In 1996, John Paul II and then-Patriarch Karekin I signed a declaration affirming their shared Christian origins.

In addition to his audience with the pope, Karekin II met in Rome with Cardinal Kurt Koch, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity, and Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education. He also prayed at the Basilica of St. Mary Major before the tomb of Pope Francis and the Marian icon of Salus Populi Romani.

Karekin II’s first visit to Rome dates back to November 2000, when, newly elected, he was received by John Paul II during celebrations for the jubilee of 2000. On that occasion, John Paul presented him with relics of St. Gregory the Illuminator, the patron saint credited with converting Armenia’s king to Christianity in the fourth century.

Armenians worldwide maintain strong ties to their church, shaped in part by the 1915 genocide, known in Armenia as the Medz Yeghern (“Great Evil Crime”). Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, according to the Associated Press. Pope Francis in 2015 called it the “first genocide of the 20th century,” drawing a strong protest from Turkey.

The Vatican has yet to announce any international trips for the new pope, although many expect his first journey abroad will be ecumenical in nature, a trip to Turkey to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. / Credit: President.gov.ua/Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

CNA Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 12:24 pm (CNA).

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople met with President Donald Trump this week during a visit to the United States, with the leaders discussing world affairs including ongoing strife in the Middle East and Ukraine.

A press release on the patriarch’s website said Bartholomew, considered the first among equals in the Orthodox Church, met with Trump in a “very cordial atmosphere” and congratulated the U.S. leader “on his initiatives and overall efforts to promote peace in the world, and particularly in Ukraine.”

The leaders “also discussed the situation of Christians in the Middle East.”

Also present at the meeting were numerous other Orthodox leaders as well as U.S. Vice President JD Vance. Bartholomew’s office said the patriarch also “offered his condolences to [Trump] for the murder of his friend and colleague Charlie Kirk.”

Kirk, a prominent conservative activist, was shot and killed by an assassin on Sept. 10. Trump has publicly mourned Kirk’s death.

In his first visit to the U.S. in about four years, the patriarch will stay for nearly two weeks.  

Bartholomew’s tenure, which began in 1991, has been marked by overtures of reconciliation between the Eastern church and Rome on several centuries-old disputes. 

In March of this year the patriarch offered a hopeful historical assessment of the traditional 1054 date for the “Great Schism” between Rome and Constantinople, suggesting that those tensions developed gradually over time and “are not insurmountable.”

During a meeting with Orthodox leaders in June, Pope Leo XIV stated his intention to “persevere in the effort to reestablish full visible communion between [the] churches.” 

The Holy Father said that goal can only be achieved “with God’s help, through a continued commitment to respectful listening and fraternal dialogue.”

Amid numerous visits scheduled for his trip in the U.S. this month, Bartholomew is scheduled to receive the Templeton Prize on Sept. 24. 

The John Templeton Foundation said in April that the patriarch was being awarded the prestigious recognition “for his pioneering efforts to bridge scientific and spiritual understandings of humanity’s relationship with the natural world, bringing together people of different faiths to heed a call for stewardship of creation.”

Bartholomew has been hailed as the “Green Patriarch” for his promotion of environmental values and causes. The leader has called for the faithful to “protect life on earth from the worst consequences of human recklessness.”

A display promotes the cause for canonization for the founder of the Knights of Columbus, Blessed Michael McGivney, on Sept. 14, 2025. / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 11:54 am (CNA).

The canonization of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in 1975 not only marked the establishment of the first American-born saint but also opened the door for other American Catholics to be honored for embodying the universal call to holiness.

“What made her canonization remarkable was that after 200 years of history in the country, it was the first time that a native-born American was declared a saint of the universal Church,” Rob Judge, executive director of the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Maryland, told CNA. “It was this validation, that you can come from these lands and obtain holiness.”

Today there are 87 American Catholics on their way to sainthood. To recognize these men and women, the shrine put together the “Saints on Their Way Village” to help share the stories of Americans deemed blessed, venerable, and servants of God. 

The “Saints on Their Way Village” was displayed on Sept. 14 — the 50-year anniversary of Seton’s canonization — and was made up of ​​nearly two dozen guilds, each dedicated to advancing the cause of an American on the path to sainthood. They gathered on the shrine’s grounds, where Mother Seton lived and worshipped, to host tables with information and to sign petitions to help advance their causes.

“St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and those on the path to joining her all share one thing in common: They each lived lives of love and service that embody the universal call to holiness,” Judge said. 

Dorothy Day

In 2000, Dorothy Day became a servant of God after her cause for sainthood was officially opened by the Church. Members of the Dorothy Day Guild attended the event to highlight her “steadfastness” and “relatability.”

Day worked as an activist and journalist, focused on social justice and aiding the poor. She influenced 20th-century American Catholicism by demonstrating the “preferential option for the poor,” which integrated faith and action.

“What I find hopeful is that she stayed the course her whole lifetime,” guild member Carolyn Zablotny told CNA. “There were times where I’m sure she had her doubts and she wrote so openly about her struggles. She’s not a cookie-cutter kind of person, she failed at times, but she persevered.”

Day is a “sign of hope,” Zablotny said. “She’s a radical alternative to militarism, racism, and the selfishness that we’re all suffering from. I think she’s a real model for a different kind of holiness.”

Blessed Solanus Casey

Members of the Father Solanus Guild shared the message of Blessed Solanus Casey and provided a prayer for the Capuchin’s canonization. Fellow friar and guild member Brother Daniel, who did not wish to share his full name, told CNA that Casey’s “main goal” was to “thank God ahead of time” as a way to recognize what he is already doing in our lives. 

Casey grew up on a farm in Wisconsin and was known as a “simple man” who dedicated his ministry to the sick and troubled. While the Catholic Church has only officially attributed one miracle to Casey, many people have shared stories of unexplained healing after asking for his intercession. 

“One of our brothers in the order, his family is connected with Father Solanus,” Brother Daniel said. “He got in an accident and the doctor wanted to amputate his legs. So his mother and father came to Solanus and told him ‘the doctors are going to amputate the leg of my son.’ Solanus said: ‘Nothing is going to happen. Don’t worry.’ The doctors, the next morning, said they could do [another] treatment and not amputate his legs.”

“When people come to [Solanus], he may not get rid of all the problems,” Brother Daniel said. “But when they go from him, they feel peace. They feel that someone is there to comfort them.” 

Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos 

Francis Xavier Seelos was born in Germany in 1819 but moved to the United States and lived much of his life in New Orleans. Now the city houses the National Shrine of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, where people come daily “to ask for the blessing of Blessed Francis,” Father Steve, a priest advocating for his canonization who did not wish to give his full name, told CNA.

Seelos was known “as a wonderful man,” he said. “He was totally self-giving — the type of person that makes a saint. When people were sick, he didn’t think about himself at all. He went to bless them and ended up getting sick himself, which is how he died.”

Blessed Francis served as a priest during a time where judgment was often passed, but he “was very kind and gentle in confession,” Father Steve said. “His confession line was always longer than anybody else’s because he was willing to listen and give absolution without making people feel bad.”

Mother Mary Lange

Mother Mary Lange was an American religious sister who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first African American religious congregation in the United States. In 1829, she founded the order despite the trials she knew she would endure. She believed that “if you put your faith in God, it’ll be OK,” Phyllis Johnson, a member of the Mother Mary Lange Guild, told CNA.

The guild is advocating for her canonization because “she loved all people,” Johnson said. “Even the people who treated her shabbily, she still cared for them. She’s a saint for everyone. She took care of everyone. She didn’t discriminate … So if anybody should be a saint, it’s the person who says ‘all people are God’s people.’”

Blessed Michael J. McGivney 

Several employees of the Knights of Columbus, the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization, talked with attendees to share the cause for canonization of the organization’s founder, Father Michael J. McGivney. 

“He’s a powerful intercessor,” Alicia Mucha, manager of events at the Knights of Columbus, told CNA. “He loves to answer prayers for unemployment, family conflict, and any substance abuse.”

In 1882, McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus “to give men a better community, something that was rooted in their faith that would keep them away from drinking,” Mucha said. The organization started in Connecticut “to provide benefits for women and children, in case anything happened to the men. He would ensure that women and orphans were taken care of.”

In 2020, McGivney was beatified after the Vatican recognized a miracle attributed to his intercession.

Judge said that McGivney and the other potential American saints show “us that we, too, can draw closer to God and achieve great things.”

Vice President JD Vance hosts a podcast episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Sept. 15, 2025, in Washington, D.C., following the assassination of the show’s namesake on Sept. 10. / Credit: Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images

National Catholic Register, Sep 16, 2025 / 10:21 am (CNA).

While serving as the guest host of Charlie Kirk’s podcast Monday, Vice President JD Vance vowed that the Trump administration will seek to “dismantle” left-wing organizations that he said promoted the violence that led to the conservative activist’s assassination last week.

“Charlie was gunned down in broad daylight, and well-funded institutions of the Left lied about what he said so as to justify his murder. This is soulless and evil,” Vance said.

The two-hour broadcast of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” produced by the organization Kirk founded, Turning Point USA, was livestreamed from Vance’s ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. It featured appearances from White House aides and administration officials as well as friends of Kirk. 

Vance specifically cited an article in The Nation magazine that he said falsely stated that Kirk had made racist statements. The author, he said, had also expressed “glee over a young husband and young father’s death.”

“Did you know that the George Soros Open Society Foundation and the Ford Foundation — the groups who funded that disgusting article justifying Charlie’s death — do you know they benefit from generous tax treatment?” Vance said.

“They are literally subsidized by you and me, the American taxpayer, and how do they reward us? By setting fire to the house built by the American family over 250 years,” he said.

The Trump administration, Vance said, will be working in the coming months to shut down organizations that facilitate politically motivated violence.

“We’re not always going to get it right. We will sometimes move more slowly than you would like. We will sometimes move more slowly than I want us to. But I promise you that we will explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don’t like what they say,” Vance said.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, a guest on the program, told Vance that Kirk was a “treasured friend” of 10 years. He also vowed to go after those who may have aided and abetted Kirk’s killer, calling it “a vast domestic terror movement.”

Miller described a coordinated movement to incite violence in the United States.

“The organized doxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses, combining that with messaging that’s designed to trigger inside violence and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence,” he said.

“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name,” Miller said.

Vance, during the program, said that polling has shown that liberals are more likely than conservatives to “be happy about the death of a political opponent” and to say that political violence is sometimes justified.

“The data is clear. People on the left are much likelier to defend and celebrate political violence,” Vance said.

“That problem has terrible consequences. The leader of our party, Donald J. Trump, escaped an assassin’s bullet by less than an inch. Our House majority leader, Steven Scalise, came within seconds of death by an assassin himself. Now, the most influential conservative activist in generations, our friend Charlie, has been murdered,” he said.

Tributes for Kirk

The vice president, in paying tribute to Kirk, remembered his friend as a faithful Christian and political visionary. He recalled Kirk as a man of great faith who inspired others to be bold in sharing their views.

“On a podcast a couple of months back, Charlie was asked about how he’d want to be remembered if he died. His answer: ‘I want to be remembered for courage, for my faith,’” Vance said.

“In this dark moment for our country, I think that’s the greatest lesson any of us can take from Charlie, to have faith, to have faith in the Lord and to be bold in how we glorify him, to be bold in our pursuits as Charlie was in his,” he said.

When asked by Vance to share something about Kirk, conservative podcast host Tucker Carlson spoke of the role that faith played in Kirk’s life. 

“His Christianity was sincere, and his commitment to Jesus was totally sincere. It sometimes isn’t, especially in public figures who throw out Bible verses they don’t understand and stuff like that,” Carlson said.

“But in his case … it informed every single part of his life, from his marriage, to the way he treated his children, to the way he treated his staff, to the way he approached disagreement, to the way he thought of other people, which was always primarily as people first,” he said.

Vance, in his concluding remarks, said Kirk was a man “who told the truth in every place, in every environment.”

“The most important truth Charlie told is this: that long ago, a man begotten, not made, came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit, was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man. For our sake, he was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and suffered death, and was buried, and rose again on the third day,” Vance said.

“Charlie believed, as I do, that all the truth he told flowed from that fundamental principle, he said. “I really do believe that we can come together in this country. I believe we must. But unity, real unity, can be found only after climbing the mountain of truth,” he said.

Vance said that after speaking with Kirk’s widow, Erika, and the rest of the Kirk family, he was struck by the example his friend set, as a husband who “was never cross or mean-spirited” to his wife.

“Maybe the best way that I can contribute and the best way that I could honor my dear friend is to be the best husband that I can be, to be the husband to my wife that he was to his,” Vance said.

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

A group of students at Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family in Lisle, Illinois, in 2024. The Chesterton School Network is a network of “joyfully Catholic classical high schools where students grow in faith, virtue, and friendship.” / Credit: Photo courtesy of Chesterton Academy of the Holy Family, Lisle, Illinois

CNA Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 09:20 am (CNA).

In a suburb of Minneapolis in 2008, a small school named after the Catholic author G.K. Chesterton opened its doors.

Seventeen years later, the school has grown into the wide-reaching Chesterton Schools Network, with schools sprinkled across the United States. And this school year, the network is going international.

The president of the Chesterton Schools Network said there is no other word for it but “miraculous.”

“The growth has been simply astounding,” said Dale Ahlquist, who is also president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, which operates the network.

But why are the schools a hit? Ahlquist credits the Holy Spirit.

“The real driver of this movement has been the Holy Spirit working to enliven the Church, beginning with the domestic Church,” he told CNA. 

At Chesterton schools, “faith in Christ is at the center, with daily Mass and a vigorous moral and spiritual formation program,” he said. 

“The Chesterton model is both faithfully Catholic and fully classical, presenting the true, the good, and the beautiful as united transcendental aspects of all learning,” Ahlquist added. 

In the U.S., Chesterton schools operate in 31 states and 76 dioceses. 

Parents love it and students thrive in it, according to Ahlquist.  

“The Chesterton model has a proven track record of success now, and people are taking notice,” he said. 

“People saw what we were doing here in the U.S., saw the curriculum, witnessed the fruits of the great formation Chesterton Academies provide, and they said, ‘We want that, too.’” 

Growing around the world 

Starting new schools across the world has been “challenging, but exciting,” Ahlquist said. 

“Every country presents its own unique regulatory and cultural complexities,” he said. “But the love parents have for their kids and the desire they have to fulfill their vocations as their children’s primary educators and catechists — that’s the same everywhere.”

With seven new schools in the U.S. and another three around the world opened this Fall, Ahlquist said “we only expect demand to grow worldwide.”

Ahlquist said both internationally and in the U.S., the Chesterton schools all follow the same pattern.

“It sprang up organically, from the grassroots,” Ahlquist said of the international launch.

Student life 

“The hallmark of our model is an integrated curriculum that unites the truths learned in disparate subjects and shows their interconnectedness and interdependency, all united around one great truth: the Incarnation,” Ahlquist said.

“Christ is at the center, the ultimate end not just of our spiritual formation but of character and intellectual formation as well,” Ahlquist said.

“Ultimately, the Catholic faith isn’t something extra, something tacked on arbitrarily to what they’re learning in all the various classes. It’s the undergirding principle, the ‘why’ behind all the other pursuits,” Ahlquist said.

Chesterton schools use the Socratic method, which Ahlquist said “encourages students to take ownership of their learning, to probe with questions, and start seeing the connections that are everywhere.”

“They learn the humanities, including philosophy and theology, and are formed in how to think about God and the universe,” Ahlquist said. “In math and science, they see the handiwork of a creator and an active providence over the natural world. In music, visual arts, and theater, they appreciate the incarnational and sacramental way that beauty attests to the truth and goodness of a God who loves them.”

“From the science lab to the sports field to the chapel, students are oriented toward Christ as their friend, model, and ultimate goal. And they get it. This is what parents notice most, and why the network keeps growing,” he said.

Chesterton’s impact continues into adult life, according to Ahlquist.

After graduation, Chesterton alumni “discern vocations in priestly ministry and consecrated life” and marry earlier in life “than their secular peers,” Ahlquist noted.

“Students really enter into this approach and make it their own,” he said. “Others can see the transformation that takes place in these kids’ lives as they grow into faithful, ethical, confident young adults, ready to live out and share their faith while also excelling in their vocational and career pursuits.”

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts. / Credit: Jack Haskins/EWTN News

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 08:20 am (CNA).

Exactly one week before the assassination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk, CNA interviewed Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts for its new “CNA Newsmaker Interview” series, which will feature periodic in-depth interviews with Catholic leaders in diverse fields.

In the wake of the attack, Roberts wrote in a social media post that “we must never, never, never, never, never, never stop fighting to build the America that [Charlie Kirk] helped make possible.”

Kirk, he said, “restored optimism about the American future for millions of Americans.”

This same optimism for the future of America, alongside an equally shared passion with Kirk for the restoration of family life across the country, is central to Roberts’ work at Heritage. 

America, according to Roberts, has “arrived at that moment” where it has reached “an understanding in the broader culture that there is something greater than ourselves that defines us as Americans.” 

Roberts credited many Catholic leaders in Washington, including Ethics and Public Policy Center President Ryan Anderson, for contributing to the country’s arrival to this moment. 

These leaders, Roberts told CNA, “are firm about what they believe. They’re cheerful. They remember the big picture. And when there are times for disagreement, sometimes with major elected officials in our country, they’re temporary, they’re private, they’re virtuous, and they map to not just the right end in this life but the right end of the next moment.”

America’s No. 1 challenge

In a Sept. 12 address to the nation, Erika Kirk emphasized her late husband’s devotion to revitalizing the family, telling those watching: “Charlie always said that if he ever ran for office ... his top priority would be to revive the American family.” 

In his own book, “Dawn’s Early Light: Taking Back Washington to Save America,” Roberts expressed the same conviction: “The No. 1 challenge Americans face in the 21st century is the crisis of family formation.” 

Ultimately, family policy is upstream of most Heritage Foundation policy efforts and is what Roberts considers the focal point of the new conservative movement — which he told CNA “refers to a shift in tactics and composition of American conservatism” rather than a shift in principles. 

While the old conservative movement tended to primarily revolve around economic issues, he observed, the new conservative movement recognizes “that goods like the free market flow out of more important things: family [and] a healthy civil society.” 

“It’s a real emphasis on those institutions in life that are upstream of what the conservative movement for a generation was fixated on,” he said. 

One of the more controversial family life issues Heritage Foundation scholars have worked with the administration on is in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Catholic Church teaches that IVF is unacceptable due to ethical concerns surrounding the practice, including the millions of human embryos killed through the procedure.

“We have a lot of private conversations with a lot of elected officials in this country and others about these issues,” Roberts said regarding IVF. “We’ve seen some real improvement in the rhetoric from the administration, and we look forward to seeing even more.”

“We’re grateful for what we’ve seen and also have reason to believe that in terms of substance, in terms of policy from the administration, that they are doing a good job of balancing all the competing interests” in the country, he continued, noting that the administration is “trying to keep together a governing coalition” on the sensitive topic. 

An educator at heart

Before Roberts entered the public policy sphere, which included his previous leadership of the nation’s largest state-based think tank, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Roberts enjoyed a successful career in education. First, as a tenure-track college history professor and founding headmaster of a K–12 Catholic school in Louisiana, followed by the presidency of Wyoming Catholic College, where under his leadership, the small institution bucked public funding and was celebrated for its “cowboy-style Catholicism.” 

Of all these endeavors, Roberts attributes a key source of his optimistic outlook to the time he spent as headmaster of John Paul the Great Academy in Lafayette, Louisiana. “It wasn’t until going through the arduous journey of keeping a new Catholic K–12 school afloat that I became so optimistic,” he told CNA. 

“When I realized six, seven, eight years in that the school was not only going to make it, but it was going to become a model,” he recalled, “I realized that as a conservative, politics and policy are important, but institutions are most important.” Roberts said he believes it will be through these institutions that America will be “revitalized.”

The lifelong educator further observed that “the institutional renewal happening in education is disproportionately classical,” noting that even his doctoral alma mater, the University of Texas, has begun accepting the Classical Learning Test (CLT). “I never thought I would say that,” he mused. 

“America’s golden age will be sustained in part because of our politics and in part because of our policy,” Roberts continued, “but most of all because of good decisions that Americans are making,” including by “sending their kids to classical schools.” 

Faith in the public square

According to Roberts, who leads one of the most influential think tanks in the nation’s capital, there is no conflict between being fully Catholic and fully American — two aspects, which he recalls in his book, that were also never in conflict for his Cajun forebears in his native Louisiana. 

Known for spearheading the Heritage Foundation’s presidential transition initiative Project 2025, Roberts has been accused by some of aiming to impose Christian nationalism on the U.S. — an assertion Roberts said is “100% ignorant understanding of Church teaching.” 

“We are free people,” he said of his approach to public policy as an American Catholic. “We of course are bound by morality, an understanding of morality not just from Scripture but from the magisterium, from the tradition of the Church.” At the same time, this does not prevent Catholics from disagreeing with Church pronouncements on prudential matters, citing his own past disagreements with the energy and environmental policy prescriptions of the late Pope Francis.

“Catholics have total freedom to disagree with the pope when he is not speaking ex cathedra,” he explained.

“As a lay Catholic, I’m totally free to say that Pope Francis spent way too much time engaging in conversations he was ignorant about and should have stayed out of,” Roberts added.

As for Pope Leo XIV, Roberts said he is “optimistic,” citing the Chicago-born pontiff’s choice of name and restoration of several papal traditions as positive signs for the Church at large.

On lesson learned from Project 2025

Reflecting on the controversy around Project 2025, Roberts told CNA it was Heritage’s “moral obligation” as a leading policy center to provide a “menu of options that ultimately the president would choose to select or not.”

“The lesson we’ve learned — and the buck stops on my desk — is we’ll never, ever let the American left define our work for six weeks without responding,” he added.

“They picked a fight, but we finished it. And when they pick it the next time, we’ll finish it twice,” said Roberts, who revealed that work is already underway on updating the project in advance of the 2028 presidential election.

Overcoming childhood adversity

Though a cradle Catholic, Roberts’ faith “became unshakable,” according to his book, amid extreme adversity in his family life at a very early age. Roberts had experienced the divorce of his parents at age 4 and the death of his older brother by suicide when he was just 9. 

“The only way to overcome all of the disadvantages of divorce, including spiritual, economic, educational, etc., is to know and love Jesus Christ,” he told CNA. For Catholics, he said, that means staying “very close to the sacraments,” including regular Mass attendance, praying the rosary, and frequent confession.

In addition, Roberts advised children of divorced parents “to not allow the decisions and behaviors of our respective parents to get in the way of recognizing that we are called to a vocation.” 

“Always, every day, operate in forgiveness, not just toward our family members, our parents, but to everyone we interact with,” he continued. “Don’t hold grudges. Don’t have a chip on your shoulder. Be cheerful, because not only are we Christians, but we’re Americans. We have no reason to be pessimistic.”

What does ‘America first’ mean?

Apart from its re-centering on family life issues, Roberts also defined the new conservative movement as a “real corrective” to neoconservative interventionism in national security and foreign policy.

“The American people understand that we’re too much in debt,” he pointed out. “We have too many domestic problems to be engaged in all these far-flung, never-ending wars.” 

While America must maintain its status as having the most lethal military in the world, Roberts indicated, “the new conservative movement understands that we, in fact, do worry about Americans first.”

For Roberts, this same principle applies to immigration policy.

While the country’s bishops advocate legalization for millions of people who are currently in the country without legal status, Roberts and the Heritage Foundation maintain a principled no amnesty position. 

“They broke the law,” Roberts stated. “Until we correct the breaking of the law, it is a slippery slope… We can’t have the conversation until we correct a much greater injustice. And that is that we have over a hundred municipalities, cities and counties, states that describe themselves as sanctuary cities and counties and states.”

“We not only need to end that,” he continued, “but we need Catholic bishops in those places to say that must be ended, because the continuation of those sanctuary cities prevents ICE and all the interior enforcement from actually focusing on the 268,322 felons we know among the 22 million illegal aliens.”

Renewed attention to America’s cities

Roberts noted the Heritage Foundation’s newest project will focus specifically on revitalizing American cities and local governments that have been “forgotten” by conservatives. “The issue of conservatives initiating urban renewal has not been taken up by anyone,” he pointed out, “so we are.”

Heritage will be hiring a policy scholar and campaign manager, he said, revealing that a separate political arm, Heritage Action, aims to gain a conservative policy foothold in more American cities.

“I look at this as someone who believes that I want any American of any political stripe, religious affiliation, to feel like they can live in an American city,” he concluded. “Because if we fail at that, we have failed at the American project.”

Tyler Robinson, 22, (pictured on Sept. 12, 2025) the alleged killer of Charlie Kirk, conservative Christian political activist. / Credit: Handout/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 15, 2025 / 18:01 pm (CNA).

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox confirmed that the man accused of killing Christian conservative activist Charlie Kirk lived with a transgender partner who is cooperating with authorities in the ongoing investigation.

The suspected assassin is 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, a resident of St. George, Utah, which is about a three-and-a-half-hour drive south of Utah Valley University, where the shooting occurred. Formal charges are expected Tuesday, Sept. 16.

Although Robinson has exercised his right to remain silent while in custody and has not spoken to authorities, his live-in transgender partner and members of his family are cooperating with the investigation. He was arrested Thursday night, Sept. 11, the day after the shooting.

In an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Sept. 14, Cox said the roommate of the alleged shooter “is a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female.” He said the roommate “has been very cooperative with authorities.”

“This person did not have any knowledge [and] was shocked … when he found out about it,” the governor said. “The suspect has not been cooperating so far, and so we’re getting all of this information from family members, again, people around the suspect, and then the forensic information that we have, which is confirming everything and more than what we were able to share in that initial press conference.”

In a previous news conference, Cox said the roommate showed investigators messages that Robinson allegedly sent, which discussed engraving bullets, needing to retrieve a rifle from a drop point, leaving a rifle in a bush, and wrapping a rifle in a towel.

Kirk was shot while answering a question about transgenderism and gun violence. Kirk said he supported an effort to ban transgender people from owning firearms in light of the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minnesota last month, which was carried out by a man who identified as a transgender person.

Throughout his career as a conservative activist, Kirk had been a critic of gender ideology, opposing allowing biological males in women’s sports, transgender surgeries and drugs for children, and the promotion of transgenderism and homosexuality in K–12 schools.

FBI investigates suspect’s communications

Cox said Robinson came “from a conservative family, but his ideology was very different” from his family’s, and “there clearly was a leftist ideology with this [alleged] assassin.”

“The ‘why’ behind this, again, we’re all drawing lots of conclusions on how someone like this could be radicalized,” he said. 

FBI Director Kash Patel told “Fox & Friends” on Monday, Sept. 15, the agency will not “politicize this investigation.” Rather, he said, “we are looking at the facts and that is why we are releasing the facts in record fashion.”

“My job as FBI director is not to speak to motive; it’s to speak to the facts, and that’s what I’m going to do,” he said.

“His family has collectively told investigators that he subscribed to left-wing ideology, and even more so in these last couple of years,” Patel continued. “And [the suspect] had a text message exchange … with another individual in which he claimed that he had an opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and he was going to do it because of his hatred for what Charlie stood for.”

Markings on bullet casings found by investigators included the phrase “Hey, fascist. Catch!” and lyrics to the Italian anti-fascist song “Bella Ciao.”

Patel said the FBI has evidence of a since-destroyed note written before the assassination in which the suspect wrote that he had the opportunity to “take out” Kirk and planned to do so. He said “even though it has been destroyed, we have found forensic evidence of the note, and we have confirmed what … it says because of our aggressive interview posture.” He said the FBI also has DNA evidence to link the suspect to the shooting.

According to Patel, the FBI is also investigating the suspect’s conversations in chatrooms on the online messaging application Discord, and investigators will interview people with whom he conversed there.

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” on Monday that the agency has evidence that the suspect may have communicated that “his target was obviously going to be Charlie [Kirk] and that people knew in advance.”

Bongino said he does not “want anyone to jump to conclusions on this,” noting this is a question of whether people knew in advance and kept it quiet or whether they thought “it was some type of joke.”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out now,” he said. “But I promise you, if there’s a larger network here, we’re going to get that out to the public as soon as we can.”

The New York Times reported that in one Discord chat, friends of Robinson noted that he looked similar to the shooter. Robinson allegedly said the shooter was a “doppelganger” who was trying to “get me in trouble.”

According to the Times, much of the communications appeared to be joking. After Robinson’s arrest, the report noted that members were in disbelief with one saying: “I truly cannot distinguish if this is for real.”

The Washington Post reported on a separate Discord chat in which Robinson was allegedly involved, which showed members expressing concern about the shooting with one saying Kirk “didn’t deserve to go out like that.”

Robinson allegedly told this chat: “I have bad news for you all,” adding: “It was me at UVU yesterday. [I’m] sorry for all of this.”

One friend reportedly urged the group to “pray for Tyler [Robinson] and his repentance” after the arrest.

Bongino said the FBI is looking into the man who asked the question about transgenderism and gun violence just before Kirk was shot at the event, but noted Kirk “was known to speak out about these issues” and that it is “not terribly uncommon for him to get questions like that.”

The man who asked the question gave an interview to “Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan” late last week and denounced the assassination and political violence.

Bongino said the assassination was “an ideologically motivated attack” on a conservative.

“Family members said he’d become more political, leading us to believe that this ideology had infected him and had taken over,” Bongino said.

St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. / Credit: Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Sep 15, 2025 / 17:31 pm (CNA).

In what some are calling “the Charlie Kirk effect,” people across the nation, including many college students who are not ordinarily churchgoers, have decided to go to church since the assassination last week of the conservative Christian political activist Charlie Kirk.

Matt Zerrusen, co-founder of Newman Ministry, a Catholic nonprofit that operates on about 250 campuses nationwide, told CNA he has spoken with Catholic college ministry leaders throughout the country over the last few days, and “every one of them told me they’ve seen bigger crowds” at Masses and lots of people “they’ve never seen before.”

“I have not talked to anyone who has not seen an increase in Mass attendance,” Zerrusen said. “Some schools are reporting increases of 15%.”

He told CNA that many more college students are also asking for spiritual direction. “So many people are asking ‘What do I do?’ What is evil? How does God allow this?” Zerrusen said. “They are asking so many basic questions.”

One priest at a large state school in the Northeast told Zerrusen he spoke over the weekend with 15 young men he had never seen before who sought him out for faith advice. 

Zerrusen said the spiritual “revival” Kirk’s death has amplified comes amid one he has been observing for months.

He pointed out that more than 400 students at Texas A&M University in College Station are attending the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) class at St. Mary’s Catholic Center near campus.

Social media users say Kirk inspired them to go to church

Since Kirk’s death on Sept. 10, social media platforms X, TikTok, and Instagram have been flooded with posts from users saying they plan to go to church for the first time or to return to church, thanks to Kirk’s influence.

With more than half a million followers, X user @TONYxTWO posted a TikTok video on Sunday showing a young man saying he had to park “five blocks away from church because everyone wants to come now! Amen. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Charlie.”

Another X user who calls herself a “Devout Aggie” and “Catholic” who has nearly 15,000 followers said her son, who “is not a churchgoer,” asked her to go to Mass with him over the weekend, attributing it to “the Charlie Kirk effect.” 

The vicar general for the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City, Father John Evans, said on Monday that he had noticed a “slight increase” in Mass attendance over the weekend, but what was more unusual was what happened in the days immediately after Kirk’s assassination.

“People were coming together before Sunday, praying privately, some in groups, praying the rosary, and different prayers of different sorts,” Evans told KSL-TV in Utah.

A plane drops food aid over Rafah, in southern Gaza, in August 2025. / Credit: Anas-Mohammed/Shutterstock

Gaza City, Sep 15, 2025 / 17:01 pm (CNA).

Under the slogan “Christ died in Gaza,” a network called “Priests Against Genocide” says it sees “in the exhausted people of Gaza and in the Palestinian people living under occupation the presence of Christ himself who identifies with the poor, the hungry, the thirsty, and the stranger, as written in Matthew 25 of the Gospel.”

The network was founded in Italy by Catholic priests.

At an online press conference on Sept. 15, the group stated its purpose is to “pray and bear witness to a peace that is ‘disarmed and disarming’; support Christian communities in the Holy Land; denounce every war crime and every form of genocide — such as the one currently being committed against the Palestinians — and promote a culture of reconciliation and accountability.”

More than 550 priests from 21 countries — the majority of them Italian — have signed on to the initiative. Seven bishops from around the world, including the archbishop of Rabat, Morocco, Cardinal Cristóbal López Romero, have also joined.

Not ‘against anyone’

Speaking on behalf of the network, Father Pietro Rossini, an Xaverian missionary, said: “We cannot remain silent in the face of the tragedy affecting the Palestinian population in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. We do not speak as politicians but as pastors, as leaders of communities who believe in the Gospel and in the dignity of every human life. We do not represent only ourselves but also the communities entrusted to our care as shepherds in the Catholic Church.”

Rossini added: “Our message is not ‘against’ anyone but in favor of life and peace. We condemn the logic of war and violence wherever it occurs, and we call for respect of international law, United Nations resolutions, and the rulings of the International Criminal Court against those who oppress and extinguish innocent human life.”

Condemning Hamas and Israel

The priest continued: “For this reason, with the same strength with which we condemn the massacre of Oct. 7 [2023], the killings and kidnappings carried out by Hamas terrorists, we condemn even more strongly the disproportionate response, the violence, the killing of innocent people unjustifiably excused as ‘unintentional errors’ (as even the Italian president of the Republic has stated), the bombings of sovereign third countries, the war crimes, ethnic cleansing, the use of starvation as a weapon of extermination, and the genocide being carried out by the State of Israel against the Palestinian population.”

Rossini said the priests “feel the urgency to give voice to those who have none, to the innocent victims who cry out for justice.”

A call to commitment

At the conference, Father Rito Maresca from the Diocese of Sorrento-Castellammare said he felt compelled to join the initiative, describing its founders as “David against the Goliath of violence.” Father Nicola Colasuonno, rector of the Shrine of St. Guido Conforti in Parma, said he could no longer bear to see the violence and bombings.

Father Massimo Nevola, superior of the Jesuit house of St. Ignatius in Rome, said he immediately joined the network, already aware of the situation in the Holy Land. He said the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference did not officially endorse the initiative, since he represents all bishops, but neither did he oppose it.

Prayer in Rome next week

The network adopted a logo created by artist Gianluca Costantini, bearing the English phrase: “Christ died in Gaza.” The drawing is inspired by a real image of a Palestinian mother mourning her deceased son, Mohammed Zakaria.

The first public event of the network is scheduled for Sept. 22 in Rome, on the eve of the closing session of the United Nations General Assembly. A prayer will be held in the Church of St. Andrew on the Quirinal followed by a march with several stops where testimonies of Palestinian lives will be read, ending at Montecitorio, where the Chamber of Italian Deputies is located. 

During the march, prayers will be recited, including the Our Father in Arabic. About 50 priests are expected to participate in the first gathering.

The Catholic University of America has announced that Taylor Black, director of artificial intelligence at Microsoft, will lead a new institute on emerging technologies and AI at the Washington, D.C.-based university. / Credit: The Catholic University of America

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 15, 2025 / 15:36 pm (CNA).

The Catholic University of America (CUA) announced that Taylor Black, director of artificial intelligence (AI) at Microsoft, will lead a new institute on emerging technologies and AI at the Washington, D.C.-based university. 

At the technology conglomerate, Black serves as the director of AI and venture ecosystems in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. In the role, he designs and leads cross-company initiatives that integrate innovation, product development, and community engagement to foster the next generation of technologies. He will remain in the position but plans to travel regularly to CUA’s campus.

“Taylor’s background in innovation, AI, and entrepreneurship; studies in philosophy and law; and his formation as a deacon candidate make him the ideal person for this new venture,” H. Joseph Yost, senior vice provost of research for CUA, said in a statement. “From our first conversation, we knew he was the person we wanted to lead Catholic University’s expansion of AI programs and innovation.” 

Black received an undergraduate degree in philosophy and classics from Gonzaga University and a master’s degree in philosophy and a law degree from Boston College. His career took off after he created a successful web development business while still in school. He went on to hold consulting, business development, and venture positions before joining Microsoft in 2021. 

While working in the technology field, Black said he has noticed an increase in questions related to human dignity from his secular colleagues. The new institute will work to tackle some of the concerns by pursuing innovation in AI and engaging in dialogue about human issues central to the Catholic Church.

“The Church has been trying to get people to ask the question ‘What does it mean to be human?’ for a very long time. Now a bunch of people are asking it unprompted,” Black said in an interview with CUA. “This lends itself to addressing the gaping hole in understanding what people should know about what it means to be human in a deeper way.”

“Universities are for the formation of human persons. If you’re well-formed, you generally do a better job in the workplace,” Black said. He is interested in “how we reinvigorate the heart of what the university is — its human formation roots — while still providing the tools and training necessary from an entrepreneurial perspective to take this new economic paradigm in stride.”

The new AI initiative will bring faculty together from multiple departments including engineering, business, science, art, philosophy, and theology to engage collaboration within as well as outside the university.

The new institute follows a number of other advances at CUA. Earlier this year, the university achieved R1 status, which placed it among the top 5% of universities nationwide in terms of research funding and doctorates.