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1.3M pilgrims pass through St. Peter’s Holy Door in Jubilee’s first month
Posted on 02/13/2025 11:30 AM (CNA Daily News)

CNA Newsroom, Feb 13, 2025 / 07:30 am (CNA).
Since Pope Francis marked the beginning of the 2025 Jubilee year, 1.3 million people have passed through the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, according to Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect for the New Evangelization section of the Dicastery for Evangelization.
Fisichella made the announcement at a Feb. 7 press conference for the Jubilee of the Armed Forces. The archbishop pointed out, however, that the numbers of pilgrims “are not a criterion of validity for the success of the Jubilee. What counts is what is in the hearts of people.”
Holy doors are usually only designated in the four papal basilicas in Rome — St. Peter's in the Vatican, St. John Lateran, St. Mary Major and St. Paul Outside the Walls. But this year, Pope Franics also opened another location at Rebibbia prison in Rome.
Besides the Holy Doors, other factors have contributed to the high number of people visiting Rome and other parts of Italy to take part in this year's celebration.
“The Jubilee is one of the major reasons we're seeing the increased crowds. But also recent surveys show that Italy in general remains among the most popular travel destinations in the world,” Teresa Tomeo, an Italy travel expert and founder of the website, “T’s Italy, told CNA.
“A survey found that travelers want more than just a Roman or Italian holiday. They're looking for ‘transformative’ travel,” Tomeo said. “What better place than Italy given all of the incredible and important religious sites, not to mention the natural beauty, for change or transformation to occur?”

Tomeo, a best-selling author who has led multiple Italian tours and visited the country on more than 60 occasions, said these pilgrimages have the power to strengthen a traveler’s faith.
“On our last pilgrimage in October of 2024, we had three of our pilgrims privately tell us that they were so moved or ‘transformed’ by what they experienced in Italy, that they were coming back into the Church,” she said.
Since the Jubilee has begun with such large crowds, locals and travelers should expect the high volume to continue.
“Easter time and the summer months are always the busiest times of year in Italy and especially Rome,” said Tomeo. “I don't think it will be any different this year. The canonizations of Blessed Carlo Acutis and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati fall within those time periods and those special events are expected to draw even larger crowds.”
Tomeo encourages visitors to fully immerse themselves in their Jubilee travels.
“Turin is where Blessed Frassati is from and is buried and it has so much to offer pilgrims in terms of other saints,” she said. “The church, St. John the Baptist, which houses his tomb, is also home to the chapel of the Shroud of Turin. Although the Shroud is not available for viewing and veneration during the Jubilee year, the church is breathtaking and Turino is home to another popular saint — St. John Bosco.”
“And then of course the medieval and unspoiled town of Assisi and the tomb of Carlo Acutis is a place that deserves more than just a day trip from Rome. Not to mention the surrounding area of Assisi in Umbria and other nearby saints such as St. Rita of Cascia, St. Clare of the Cross in Montefalco, and St. Angela of Foligno,” Tomeo said.
The Jubilee will continue until Jan. 6. 2026 and it is anticipated that more than 30 million pilgrims will make the religious journey to Rome during the holy year.
‘Sexlessness’ is on the rise. Can the Church use this moment to promote marriage?
Posted on 02/13/2025 10:00 AM (CNA Daily News)

CNA Staff, Feb 13, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Increasing numbers of young adults in the United States are reporting a lack of sexual activity — dubbed “sexlessness” — a trend experts say presents “a huge opportunity for evangelization” for advocates of marriage.
The most recent data from the National Survey of Family Growth, which has been periodically administered since 1973 by the National Center for Health Statistics, shows that, between 2013 and 2023, “all measures of sexlessness rose for both young adult males and females,” according to an analysis from the Institute for Family Studies (IFS).
For young adult males, “sexlessness has roughly doubled across all measures over the last 10 years or so,” while for young adult females, “it has risen by roughly 50%.”
Though the data could in theory be construed as encouraging, at least for those who oppose extramarital sex, IFS fellow Lyman Stone noted that one of the biggest drivers in the collapse of sex is “the decline in marriage.”
“Married people have more sex, and for most young adults, marriage is occurring later or not at all,” he wrote. “As a result, sex is declining.”
Society is ‘starved’ for real relationships
Experts say these trends, though dispiriting for marriage advocates, represent an opportunity for Catholics to evangelize on the truths around marriage and sexuality.
J.P. De Gance, the founder and president of the marriage and relationship ministry Communio, told CNA that the data represent “a huge opportunity for evangelization.”
Part of the crisis, he argued, lies in the fact that, increasingly, “few [people] form healthy dating relationships and few form any meaningful friendships ‘in real life.’”
“In 1990, 70% of men had five or more close friends. By 2021, just 40% had that many,” he said. “This is all part of the epidemic of loneliness.”
“The age of smartphones and other high-tech distractions has worsened this cultural moment where few meet, fewer marry, and even fewer have kids,” he said.
Communio, De Gance said, helps parishes develop ways to facilitate “in-real-life” relationships. Those relationships, he said, have “always been the necessary ingredient to make disciples, and society is starved for it.”
Catechesis, he argued, can only occur if you first form a relationship with someone.
Mary Rose and Ryan Verret, a husband-and-wife team who founded the marriage renewal and preparation initiative Witness to Love, echoed De Gance’s assessment. Ryan Verret told CNA that Witness to Love “is meant to renew the Church for relationships, recognizing that human beings only grow first and foremost through relationships.”
“For young people in general today, there’s a deprivation of authentic friendships and relationships,” he said, which leads to a shakier foundation and hesitancy in forming intimate relationships and ultimately marriage.
High rates of divorce and unmarried cohabitation, Mary Rose Verret argued, have led many young people to hold a distorted vision of marriage.
“If you haven’t lived in an intimate, intact, thriving family, where you have the ability to bond and communicate, and you get to see your parents and how marriage is lived out — if you don’t have that experience, then No. 1, marriage is not attractive. So you don’t get married,” she said.
Marriage is “about more than sex,” Mary Rose acknowledged, and a comprehensive marriage ministry will talk to young people about all aspects of the vocation.
“What we need to be able to do is talk about marriage with the majority of kids in Catholic schools — and even in public schools,” she said. “We need to talk about the gift it is to society, and talk about sexuality in that context.”
Both Ryan and Mary Rose pointed to contraception and pornography as significant drivers in the crisis. “Because of birth control and contraception, in people’s minds, kids are separated from sex,” Mary Rose said. “And now sex is separated from marriage. And now [with pornography] it’s gotten so that sex is separated from people.”
“When a person leaves God and the natural order, you think you’re becoming free,” Ryan argued, “but the first thing that goes when you leave God is your freedom.”
The Verrets noted that one thing Catholic families can do is model successful marriages for young people.
“Invite young people to be around you,” Mary Rose said. “Get them in a place where they can see marriage lived out. If they don’t know what it looks like, they won’t desire it.”
De Gance, meanwhile, pointed to parish efforts to “build fun platforms to form real relationships.”
One parish partner in Florida, he said, held an annual dance that was originally for older members of the church, but young adults began attending it, finding it “a safe and fun spot where members of the opposite sex can meet.”
The dance now occurs monthly, he said, and is run by the parish marriage ministry and feeds into the church’s singles’ and couples’ ministries.
“My parents met in 1964 at a parish dance at St. Coleman’s in Fort Lauderdale,” he pointed out. “Believe it or not, that dance was held weekly during the school year.”
“We need to find ways to bring this sort of parish life — combined with sound relationship skills formation — back into existence,” he said.
New film on Carlo Acutis to be released on his canonization date
Posted on 02/13/2025 09:00 AM (CNA Daily News)

CNA Staff, Feb 13, 2025 / 05:00 am (CNA).
“Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality,” the highly anticipated documentary on the life of the soon-to-be saint, will be released in theaters nationwide for a limited time from April 27-29. The release date coincides with Pope Francis’ canonization of Carlo Actuis, the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint, on April 27.
Castletown Media, in association with Catholic filmmaker Jim Wahlberg, made the announcement on Feb. 12.
Castletown Media is producing the film and Fathom Events will distribute it. The two media companies recently experienced success with another joint film project called, "Jesus Thirsts: The Miracle of the Eucharist,” which became Fathom Events’ highest-grossing documentary of 2024.
“Roadmap to Reality” explores the life of Acutis and the lessons he offers young people regarding the challenges of the digital world. The documentary blends live action, animation, and documentary-style interviews with Acutis’ family, friends, tech experts, and scholars to tackle urgent questions about artificial intelligence and the technological world we live in.
The film also follows the journey of a group of high school students who embark on a two week pilgrimage from North Dakota to Italy to visit Acutis’ tomb. One of the requirements for the pilgrimage was for the young people to disengage from technology and leave their phones at home.
Additionally, the documentary features Acutis’ family and friends sharing their firsthand experiences of Acutis and his impact on their lives, in addition to well-known voices in the Catholic Church and technology experts who offer a model for young people to engage in the digital world.
"Fathom Entertainment is very pleased to join forces once again with Tim, Jim, and the passionate team at Castletown Media to bring this heartfelt and uplifting documentary film to the big screen,"said Ray Nutt, Chief Executive Officer at Fathom Entertainment in a press release. "This captivating real-life, modern-day story is sure to resonate with audiences of all faiths and backgrounds, leaving a lasting impact and inspiring countless hearts."
“One of the themes in the film is that he [Acutis] was online to lead people offline. He was online to lead people back to the Eucharist, back to real encounters,” Tim Moriarty, director of the new Acutis film and founder of Castletown Media, told CNA.
Moriarty believes that a film about this young soon-to-be saint is needed because “Carlo’s life provides a road map away from the distractions of the virtual world to the real world, especially through his devotion to the Eucharist — his ‘highway to heaven.’”
Moriarty called the release of the documentary “providential.”
On Nov. 20, Pope Francis announced the canonization date of Blessed Carlo Acutis, which will take place during the Church’s Jubilee of Teenagers. Acutis’ canonization Mass is expected to take place on Sunday, April 27, at 10:30 a.m. local time in St. Peter’s Square, according to the Diocese of Assisi.
Acutis, an Italian computer-coding teenager who died of cancer in 2006, is known for his great devotion to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. Born in 1991, he was the first millennial to be beatified by the Catholic Church and will now be the first millennial to be canonized.
The Francis Effect podcast: USAID; Vance's theology; interview with Pax Christi director
Posted on 02/13/2025 08:00 AM (National Catholic Reporter)
Cardinal Michael Czerny: Don't be afraid to walk with migrants
Posted on 02/13/2025 08:00 AM (National Catholic Reporter)
Trump's Catholic Cabinet: How will their faith shape their work?
Posted on 02/13/2025 08:00 AM (National Catholic Reporter)
Francis, the comic strip: St. Valentine
Posted on 02/13/2025 08:00 AM (National Catholic Reporter)
Mass attendance rises in the UK, though still far below pre-pandemic levels
Posted on 02/12/2025 20:30 PM (CNA Daily News)

CNA Staff, Feb 12, 2025 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
Though not yet near pre-pandemic levels, Mass attendance numbers are on the rise in England and Wales, according to figures from the national bishops’ conference.
In 2023, an estimated nearly 555,000 people attended Sunday Mass in England and Wales, a roughly 50,000-person increase over 2022, a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales told CNA via email.
The spokesman described the figure as “not a full return to pre-COVID levels, but it is an improvement on recent years.” He also noted that the figure may be a “slight underestimation as some parishes may not have given their figures when their diocese requested them.”
Stephen Bullivant, director of the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St. Mary’s University in Twickenham, London, told CNA he is “tentatively hopeful that this trend for modest (re)growth will continue in subsequent years.”
He pointed to a 2024 article he wrote for the Tablet in which he noted that while Mass attendance in the U.K. has significantly decreased over the past several decades — leading to projections of a near-extinction of Catholicism — such dire projections seem unlikely due to signs of growth in some areas of U.K. Catholic life.
That said, Mass attendance stood at roughly 829,000 across England, Wales, and Scotland on a “typical Sunday” in 2019, Bullivant wrote, meaning attendance still has a long way to climb before it reaches pre-pandemic levels, if ever.
In addition, a late 2024 study showed that the sexual abuse crisis deeply affected Catholics in Britain, with a third of Mass-goers saying they have reduced their Mass attendance because of concerns about the child sexual abuse crisis.
In his article, however, Bullivant pointed to signs of renewed vigor and new growth in some areas in the Church in the U.K., such as anecdotal reports of increased attendance at Easter services and relatively large numbers of adult converts, thriving university chaplaincies, and vibrant diasporic and immigrant communities, suggesting that while secularization has deeply impacted the Church, it is unlikely to result in complete disappearance.
“To put it frankly, rumors of the Church’s death — albeit four decades hence — have been very greatly exaggerated. There’s a big difference between ‘not dying out’ and ‘bursting with new life,’ however,” Bullivant wrote. “British Catholicism might be the former, but that needn’t mean it’s anything close to the latter.”
The news from the U.K. comes following recent estimates suggesting that Mass attendance numbers in the United States have recovered fully following the pandemic’s disruptions — though U.S. weekly attendance still stands at only 24%.
The new analysis by the U.S.-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) used national surveys and Google Trends data to estimate attendance, which also revealed that attendance for important holy days like Easter and Christmas has recovered from the COVID crisis.
Marc Fogel’s family: Rosary and faith sustained them through his detainment in Russia
Posted on 02/12/2025 20:00 PM (CNA Daily News)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 12, 2025 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
The family of Marc Fogel, an American schoolteacher who returned to the U.S. after being detained in Russia for more than three years, has shared with EWTN how devotion to the Holy Rosary sustained them throughout his imprisonment.
“We tried to coordinate it so we could be praying at the same time,” Fogel’s 95-year-old mother, Malphine, said in an interview with EWTN News Nightly’s Tracy Sabol. “I did the same thing with my sisters, so at 9:30 at night we always prayed the Rosary simultaneously, and I think it helped all of us, and I think particularly Marc.”
Malphine Fogel, who fought relentlessly for her son’s release — even filing a lawsuit against the U.S. government — also revealed that Fogel, a devout Catholic, had access to a chapel during his detainment, which she said he visited every day.
“Our faith has really helped us through this whole ordeal,” she said, “and we thank God for that.”
“This is not the end of the road,” Sasha Phillips, Fogel's family lawyer, told Sabol.
“Marc will have to go through a fairly long rehabilitation process,” she said and appealed for continued prayers from EWTN viewers. “We need to hold Marc up, we need to tell him that he is loved and that God is on his side.”
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz announced Fogel’s release on Tuesday, stating that President Donald Trump, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and the president’s advisors had negotiated a prisoner exchange to procure Fogel’s return.
Waltz further described the exchange as “a show of food faith from the Russians and a sign we are moving in the right direction to end the brutal and terrible war in Ukraine.”
Trump had promised on the campaign trail that, if elected, he would bring about Fogel’s release. Malphine, a resident of Butler, Pennsylvania, told EWTN News Nightly that she had met with Trump on July 13, 2024, just before he took the stage at the now-infamous rally in her hometown, and that he had assured her of his promise.
Prior to the assassination attempt that took place that day, Malphine had been slated to appear with Trump on-stage to speak about her son.
“[Trump] remembered Marc Fogel’s name, and Marc is on his way home, and into Malphine’s arms today,” said Phillips.
Fogel was detained at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport after trying to enter the country with 0.6 oz of marijuana in his bag, which he had been using to treat chronic back pain. He had been traveling back to Moscow from the U.S. for his teaching job at the Anglo-American school of Moscow. Russian prosecutors charged Fogel with drug possession and accused him of intending to sell to his students. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
This small diocese is leading the country in vocations to the priesthood
Posted on 02/12/2025 19:30 PM (CNA Daily News)

CNA Staff, Feb 12, 2025 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
The small Midwestern diocese of Wichita, Kansas, continues to lead the nation in many metrics related to priestly vocations, according to a new report from Vocation Ministry, a Texas nonprofit that supports vocations programs in parishes and schools.
The report, which serves as an update to a major 2023 study conducted by the same ministry, concludes that smaller, more connected dioceses seem to have an edge when it comes to fostering local vocations.
“The challenges of priestly ministry — whether serving small, tight-knit communities or large, diverse parishes — highlight the importance of intentional engagement, pastoral adaptability, and resource allocation,” the report reads.
“The richness of immigrant communities, the dedication of religious and extern priests, and the creative energy of priests committed to youth ministry all serve as reminders that the Church possesses the tools to meet these challenges,” it says.
“However, addressing the realities of declining vocations and overburdened clergy will require innovative approaches and a renewed commitment to building environments where all vocations can flourish.”
The report classifies dioceses by population into four tiers. Tier 1 dioceses have more than 750,000 Catholics; Tier 2 dioceses have 350,000 to 750,000 Catholics; Tier 3 dioceses have 100,000 to 350,000 Catholics; and Tier 4 dioceses have fewer than 100,000 Catholics.
The Tier 4 dioceses with a small Catholic population had the largest ratio of priests to parishioners — and also the highest rate of men entering the priesthood. In contrast, the dioceses with the largest Catholic populations fared the worst, with the lowest ratio of priests to parishioners, and also the lowest vocation rate.
Not a single Tier 1 diocese has enough seminarians to maintain current priest levels, the 2025 report says.
Vocation Ministry listed the “top four” dioceses in each tier for the number of men entering seminary between 2014-2023, as well as the number of ordinations each year, ranking the dioceses by the percentage of priests it ordains in a typical year compared with the number needed to maintain its priestly ranks.
In the biggest category, Tier 1, the top dioceses for seminarians were Dallas, which reached 69% of the rate needed to maintain current priestly numbers, followed by Philadelphia, Newark, and Atlanta — though the latter three had percentages only in the 50s.
In Tier 2, two Ohio dioceses — Cincinnati and Columbus — took the top spots, while Denver and Washington D.C. were not far behind. All were over 85%.
In Tier 3, Wichita greatly exceeded every other diocese with a rate of 195%, but all of the top four dioceses in this section showed stellar figures: Nashville, Kansas City-St. Joseph, and Grand Rapids had 111%, 106%, and 104% respectively.
In the smallest tier of dioceses, all the top dioceses for seminarians were located in the Great Plains: Bismarck and Fargo in North Dakota, along with Lincoln and Tulsa.
Vocation Ministry also laid out the 16 dioceses that ordain priests at the highest rates, relative to the number of priests needed in the diocese — since not all men who enter the seminary are ordained priests.
Wichita again took the top spot overall, ordaining to the priesthood on average 255% of the necessary number of men to maintain its own ranks.
Joining Wichita among the ranks of dioceses that ordain more men than they need were Paterson, New Jersey and Arlington, Virginia, along with Nashville, Springfield in Illinois, and Grand Rapids, among several others.
Using a metric called the Priestly Availability Index (PAI), which measures how accessible priests are to potential seminary candidates, the report notes that priests who are spread thin, as many are in larger dioceses, are less likely to be able to take the time to make themselves available to invest in young men who may be interested in the priesthood.
“Priests serving smaller communities often have the unique opportunity to build close, personal relationships with parishioners, fostering a deeper sense of trust and connection. However, the challenges of such ministry can be significant,” the report says.
“With limited or no staff support for administrative or liturgical tasks, these priests must rely heavily on volunteers, adding to their responsibilities. Additionally, many Tier 4 priests travel long distances to administer sacraments across multiple parishes, which can strain their time and energy, making it difficult to sustain those vital personal connections that are so integral to effective pastoral care.”
Discussing the characteristics of dioceses seeing growth in vocations, the report highlights a strong emphasis on parish-level promotion of vocations among dioceses seeing growth.
Parishes find success in inviting seminarians to share their stories, organizing “Come and See” weekends to encourage men to visit the seminary, targeted youth and young adult programs aimed at demystifying vocations, and service opportunities for youth.
The report also says recognizing the family as the "seedbed of vocations” (quoting Pope St. John Paul II) and promoting Catholic marriages and education are key, as strengthening one kind of Catholic vocation tends to help all the others too.
“Priests play a pivotal role in nurturing vocations within their parishes, but this effort requires the collaboration of families, educators, and the broader Catholic community,” it says.
‘This is the greatest factor’
In a Feb. 6 column, Wichita Bishop Carl Kemme highlighted the diocese’s prominent place in Vocation Ministry’s study and said he thinks the diocese can attribute some of its vocations success to “a closeness of the priests to our people. Our people, by and large, appreciate their priests and express their love and support of them.”
The diocese holds an annual retreat for prospective seminarians, and has a “multifaceted vocation promotion program” that includes outreach on university campuses throughout the state, Kemme noted.
Kemme also highlighted the diocese’s active and dedicated Serra Clubs, which help support priestly vocations through scholarships and prayer, strong Catholic schools and homeschools that emphasize Catholic identity, an “unusually high” Sunday Mass attendance in the diocese; and the example of many young priests.
Above all, Kemme said the vocation boom can be attributed to Christ in the Eucharist, devotion to whom has been promoted within the diocese for decades.
“Adoration chapels abound in our diocese, with many of them offering perpetual adoration, inviting everyone — regardless of age — to consider adoration as a time to encounter the Risen Christ in the Eucharist,” the bishop said.
“This has been in place now for more than 40 years. I sincerely believe this is the greatest factor in our recruiting efforts. Many young men have told me that they heard the Lord speak to them about a vocation to the priesthood in adoration.”