St. James Roman Catholic Church

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem (pictured) and Cardinal Dominique Mathieu of the Archdiocese of Tehran–Isfahan in Iran asked for prayers on June 16, 2025, as the conflict between Iran and Israel escalated. / Credit: Courtesy of Custos of the Holy Land

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 16, 2025 / 18:40 pm (CNA).

Catholic leaders in both Iran and Israel are praying for peace as violence between the two nations continues to escalate following Israel’s assassinations of Iranian military officials and nuclear scientists and Israeli airstrikes against Iranian military facilities and nuclear sites.

Israel launched its initial attack on June 13, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stating Israel’s goal is to halt Iran’s nuclear program. In response, Iran has launched hundreds of ballistic missiles, the majority of which Israel has successfully shot down. More than 200 Iranians and at least 24 Israelis have been killed.

Cardinal Dominique Mathieu of the Archdiocese of Tehran–Isfahan in Iran as well as Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem in Israel, are both praying for peace at a time when many worry that the military conflict could expand.

In an interview with AsiaNews, Mathieu said hours after the initial attack that “it is with regret that we observe … once again that peace is sought through preventive attacks instead of committing to dialogue around the negotiating table.”

“We pray that peace through dialogue based on a consensus will prevail,” he said. “May the Holy Spirit guide this process.”

The Patriarchate of Jerusalem posted a prayer “for a just peace” on its official X account just hours after the initial attack.

“O God of peace, ‘You are the same yesterday, today, and forever’ (Heb 13:8),” the prayer reads. “You have said: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid’ (Jn 14:27).”

“We lift our weary hearts to you, Lord, longing for your light amid the shadows of fear and unrest,” the prayer continues. “Teach us to be peacemakers, for ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God’ (Mt 5:9). Sow in us the seeds of reconciliation, and make us instruments of your peace in a wounded world.”

“Grant us the grace to live as you have commanded: ‘If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all’ (Rom 12:18). Let there be in our cities and lands: ‘Peace within your walls and security within your towers’ (Ps 122:7). In the midst of trouble, we proclaim: ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation: Whom shall I fear?’ (Ps 27:1). ‘I will both lie down and sleep in peace; for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety’ (Ps 4:8).”

“We trust in your everlasting promise: ‘Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age’ (Mt 28:20). Amen.”

Pope Leo XIV also spoke about the escalating violence over the weekend, saying “the situation in Iran and Israel has seriously deteriorated” and appealed to “responsibility and reason.”

“Our commitment to building a safer world free from the nuclear threat must be pursued through respectful encounters and sincere dialogue,” Leo said.

It is the “duty of all countries” to pursue “paths of reconciliation” and promote solutions that are grounded in justice, fraternity, and the common good to build lasting peace and security in the region, the pontiff said.

Israel’s attack came amid ongoing dialogue between the U.S. and Iran concerning a nuclear deal that would avoid military conflict. American and Iranian officials were scheduled to meet on June 15 in Oman, but Iran canceled the talks after the attack.

Cardinal Bechara Boutros Raï. / Credit: Courtesy of Aid to the Church in Need

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 16, 2025 / 18:10 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Bechara Boutros Raï, patriarch of the Maronite Church in Lebanon, lamented the decline of the Christian population in the Middle East, noting that the Christian presence in the region exerts a moderating influence on Islam.

“If this Middle East is emptied of Christians, then Muslims will lose their moderation,” the cardinal warned in an interview with the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

“Many have had to leave Syria, because no one can live under war, under bombardment,” the patriarch stated from the episcopal see of the Maronite Catholic Patriarchate of Antioch in Lebanon.

In Syria, the economic, financial, and security situation combined with war has caused a large Christian exodus. “The positive side is that they have been able to restart their lives and have taken their faith around the world. The negative side is that the country is emptying of Christians,” said Raï, who called on states to change their perspective and take measures to stop this from taking place.

“It’s not about looking at the number of Christians but rather at the value that the presence of Christians brings,” he pointed out.

In Lebanon — the only country in the region where the Christian community is not a small minority — Christians have become a beacon of hope for believers in the Middle East, unlike Iraq, Jordan, and Syria, where Christians are considered second-class citizens.

“There are Christians and Muslims all over the world, but in Lebanon their presence is guaranteed by the constitution, and if a government were to act against this coexistence it would be outside the law. The Lebanese constitution guarantees a Christian presence,” the cardinal explained.

The prelate expressed his hope for this kind of coexistence in Syria and Iraq, “because this life together creates Muslim moderation,” he said.

According to ACN, in Lebanon, many Muslim families send their children to Catholic schools, “because they are models of coexistence.” Raï noted that in southern Lebanon, all the students in Catholic schools are Muslim, which represents an opportunity “to contribute the value of communal life, the value of moderation.”

“These schools are doing everything possible to remain open, especially in the mountains, for the good of the citizens,” the Maronite patriarch added.

The hard reality of Lebanese Christians

ACN noted that in May 2024, the World Bank warned that poverty in Lebanon went from 12% to 44% in 2022 across surveyed areas. The cardinal said the consequences of this reality are suffered equally by Christians and Muslims.

“Muslims get help from other Muslim countries, but the Christians in Lebanon can only count on the Church,” which has far fewer resources, and “that’s why they are destitute,” he lamented. “The Christians are poor, and that affects issues such as access to food, medication, and hospital care,” he added.

Despite the difficulties, the Maronite patriarch said that “our people are a people of prayer, a God-fearing people. Our churches are full of youth, of people who pray, and thanks to this prayer, Lebanon can rise again.”

“The Christians of the Middle East have a mission in the Middle East, to bear witness to Christianity in the Middle East, along with the Muslims, for this martyred Middle East. This is where our mission is, and this is where we will stay,” the patriarch affirmed.

Finally, he pointed out that Middle Eastern Christians are guardians “of the roots of Christianity in the Holy Land” and that the first communities to adopt the Christian faith are found in the region. “We should help them to remain and not leave,” he emphasized.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

A makeshift memorial for Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, is seen at the Minnesota State Capitol building on June 16, 2025, in St. Paul, Minnesota. / Credit: Steven Garcia/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Jun 16, 2025 / 17:40 pm (CNA).

A suspected shooter faces federal charges after he was arrested for the murders of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman — a Catholic who once taught Sunday school — and her husband, Mark, in their home this weekend.  

After a two-day manhunt involving more than 20 different SWAT teams, authorities apprehended the suspect, 57-year-old Vance Boelter, on June 15 in Sibley County. Boelter now faces federal murder charges, which could allow for the death penalty, federal officials announced Monday. 

Boelter is also suspected of shooting state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, in their home the same day before he murdered the Hortmans. Yvette Hoffman said in a statement that they are “incredibly lucky to be alive” after she was shot eight times and he nine. 

Melissa Hortman, a well-known politician in the state, had served as Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House for six years. 

She and her husband “had been a part of the St. Timothy Parish community,” according to Father Joe Whalen, the pastor of the Blaine, Minnesota, parish, who shared the community’s grief in a statement over the weekend.

“Our parish community feels deeply this loss and we offer our prayerful support and condolences to the Hortman and Hoffman families,” Whalen said on June 14. 

Melissa Hortman had volunteered in the parish children’s faith formation program, according to Whalen. 

“This attack on dedicated public servants deeply wounds our entire community,” the priest continued. “Those who dedicate themselves to public service should be acknowledged for their generosity and commitment to service.”

Both politicians also met regularly with the local Catholic bishops, according to Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul and Minneapolis, as previously reported by CNA. 

Bishop Robert Barron of the Diocese of Winona–Rochester, Minnesota, recalled meeting both Hortman and Hoffman at the state capitol a few months ago during a meeting of bishops with state leaders.

“I was deeply impressed by both,” he said in a statement. “Rep. Hortman listened to us with sharp intelligence and acute attention.” 

Barron also recalled having a “wonderful conversation” with Hoffman — an alum of St. Mary’s University, a Catholic university in Barron’s diocese — during which the senator “shared his passion for Catholic social teaching.”

Barron urged people to pray for the recovery of Hoffman and his wife as well as for the souls of Hortman and her husband.

“God knows we are a divided society, but our political differences must never, ever give rise to violence,” Barron said. 

As previously reported by CNA, Hebda called Hortman “an honorable public servant” and recalled that though the two “disagreed on some issues, we worked collaboratively to find common ground.”

He also praised Hoffman as “a strong advocate for the most vulnerable” and urged people to pray for the recovery of him and his wife. Hoffman represents Minnesota Senate District 34 as a Democrat. 

At the time of his arrest, Boelter had a list of 70 potential targets including public officials, top business leaders, and abortion businesses. 

Multiple agencies banded together on foot and in a helicopter to apprehend the suspect in what Brooklyn Park Police Department Chief Mark Bruley described as the “largest manhunt in the state’s history.” 

The first shooting took place at the Hoffmans’ residence in the early hours of Saturday in the suburbs of Minneapolis. According to Minnesota authorities, Boelter dressed in police-style tactical gear and wore a rubber mask, announcing himself as a police officer to gain entrance to the victims’ homes. Yvette Hoffman reportedly shielded her adult daughter from the shooter, protecting her from harm. Her daughter alerted the authorities. 

When the Brooklyn Park Police learned that the first shooting had targeted a politician, they went to check on the Hortmans, who lived nearby. When they arrived at 3:35 a.m., officers witnessed Boelter shooting Hortman and her husband through the open front door. He fired at authorities before escaping on foot, according to the authorities. 

Boelter was taken into custody late Sunday evening. Authorities said they found no evidence that he was working with anyone else. Inside Boelter’s vehicle, authorities found a list of names and addresses of other public officials along with three AK-47 assault rifles and a 9mm handgun. His bail was set at $5 million.

Over 200 Christians were murdered by Islamist militants in Nigeria on June, 13, 2025. / Credit: Red Confidential/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 16, 2025 / 17:01 pm (CNA).

Islamist Fulani militants swooped into the town of Yelewata in Nigeria’s Benue state and killed up to 200 Nigerian Christians on Friday in what international aid organizations are calling the “worst killing spree” in the region yet.

The attackers targeted Christians living as internally displaced people in the June 13 attack, setting fire to buildings where families were taking shelter and assaulting with machetes anyone who attempted to flee, according to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

“Militants stormed in, shouting ‘Allahu Akhbar’ (‘God is great’), before killing people at will,” ACN reported, adding that the attackers “used fuel to set fire to the doors of the displaced people’s accommodation before opening fire in an area where more than 500 people were asleep.”

“What I saw was truly gruesome. People were slaughtered. Corpses were scattered everywhere,” Father Ukuma Jonathan Angbianbee, a local parish priest, told ACN shortly after the attack.

The priest, along with several other witnesses, affirmed that the Fulani herdsmen were behind the massacre. The militants attacked the town from several angles and used heavy rain as cover, he noted.

Angbianbee narrowly escaped being killed himself, dropping to the floor when the militants began firing shots. “When we heard the shots and saw the militants, we committed our lives to God,” he continued. “This morning, I thank God I am alive.”

The militants attempted first to attack a local parish, St. Joseph’s Church in Yelewata, where 700 displaced people were being sheltered earlier in the evening. However, after local law enforcement fought off the initial attack, the militants moved on to the town’s market square, where they carried out the brutal assault on several buildings that had been repurposed into housing for displaced people.

Although initial reports estimated nearly 100 deaths, data collected by the Diocese of Makurdi Foundation for Justice, Development, and Peace found that a total of 200 people were killed.

“The death toll makes it the single-worst atrocity in the region, where there has been a sudden upsurge in attacks and increasing signs that a concerted militant assault is underway to force an entire community to leave,” ACN stated.

Another clergy member, identified as a leading priest in the Diocese of Makurdi, criticized Nigerian law enforcement for failing to arrive on the scene until the next morning. “Where were they the previous evening when we needed them?” he asked, adding: “This is by far [the] worst atrocity we have seen. There has been nothing even close.”

“Some 200 people were murdered, with extraordinary cruelty,” Pope Leo XIV said during his Angelus address on Sunday.

“Most of the victims were internal refugees who were hosted by a local Catholic mission,” he lamented, adding that he would be praying for “security, peace, and justice,” especially for “rural Christian communities of the Benue state who have been relentless victims of violence.”

During Lent and Holy Week, Fulani herdsmen killed more than 170 Christians in Nigeria’s Middle Belt region, with 72 of the deaths reported in the Benue state alone during the Easter Triduum between April 18–20.

The ongoing attacks continue to raise serious concerns about religious persecution and government inaction in the West African nation.

Cardinal Raymond Burke gives the final blessing during the Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage Mass in Rome on Oct. 25, 2014. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Jun 16, 2025 / 16:31 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Raymond Burke said he has asked Pope Leo XIV to remove measures restricting the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) in dioceses. 

Burke spoke at a London conference organized by The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, telling attendees that he hopes the new pontiff will “put an end to the persecution” of Catholic faithful who want to celebrate Mass using the “more ancient usage” — “usus antiquior”  — of the Roman liturgy. 

The prefect emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura and former patron of the Order of Malta was one of seven guest panelists invited to speak at the faith and culture conference held on June 14. 

Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Astana, Kazakhstan, who has written extensively on the Eucharist and Church tradition, also spoke at the weekend conference held to mark the 60th anniversary of the U.K.-based society. 

“I certainly have already had occasion to express that to the Holy Father,” Burke said via video link. “It is my hope that he will, as soon as is reasonably possible, take up the study of this question.”

After the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI promulgated the Novus Ordo Missae in 1969. This liturgy, celebrated in the vernacular, largely replaced the TLM in dioceses worldwide.

During the conference, Burke expressed his desire for Pope Leo to overturn Francis’ 2021 Traditionis Custodes moto proprio and restore Benedict XVI’s 2007 Summorum Pontificum, the Catholic Herald reported.

“It is my hope,” Burke said at the conference, “[Leo will] even continue to develop what Pope Benedict XVI had so wisely and lovingly legislated for the Church.”

Besides criticisms leveled against Traditionis Custodes, the U.S. cardinal has been publicly critical of other initiatives led by Pope Francis.

In 2016, Burke and three other cardinals submitted “dubia” — formal requests for clarification — regarding interpretations of the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

The prelate also criticized the 2019 Synod on the Pan-Amazon Region convened by Pope Francis, saying parts of the agenda appeared “contrary” to Catholic teaching.

null / Credit: Wolfgang Schaller|Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 16, 2025 / 14:19 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court has ordered the New York Court of Appeals to revisit Diocese of Albany v. Harris, a case challenging a 2017 New York state mandate requiring employers to cover abortions in health insurance plans.

The order follows the court’s unanimous ruling on June 5 in Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor and Industry Review Commission, which upheld First Amendment protections for religious organizations.

A coalition of religious groups, including the Dioceses of Albany and Ogdensburg, the Sisterhood of St. Mary (Anglican/Episcopal nuns), First Bible Baptist Church, and Catholic Charities, sued New York state in 2017, arguing the mandate forces them to violate their belief in the sanctity of life by forcing them to fund abortions.

In 2017, the New York State Department of Financial Services mandated that employer health plans cover “medically necessary” abortions. Initially, the state proposed exempting employers with religious objections, but abortion activists pressured the state for a narrower exemption that would apply only to religious groups that primarily teach religion and serve or employ only those of their own faith. 

This excluded many faith-based ministries that serve all people regardless of religious affiliation like the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm who run Teresian Nursing Home for all elderly and dying, and Catholic Charities, which offers adoption and maternity services.

Without relief, the groups face millions in fines or will have to eliminate employee health plans. 

In 2017, represented by religious liberty law group Becket and law firm Jones Day, the coalition challenged New York’s mandate. After state courts upheld it, the Supreme Court in 2021 reversed those rulings, citing Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, a Becket victory protecting Catholic foster care agencies.

However, New York’s Court of Appeals reaffirmed the mandate in May 2024, claiming Fulton was inapplicable and ignoring the Supreme Court’s ruling. At the time, Dennis Poust of the New York State Catholic Conference called the mandate “unconstitutional and unjust.” Becket and Jones Day appealed again on Sept. 17, 2024.

In the Catholic Charities ruling in early June, the Supreme Court rejected Wisconsin’s denial of a tax exemption to Catholic Charities for serving all without proselytizing, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor calling it a “textbook” First Amendment violation of the free exercise and establishment clauses, as it favored certain religious practices over others.

“New York wants to browbeat nuns into paying for abortions for serving all in need,” said Eric Baxter, Becket’s vice president. “For the second time in four years, the Supreme Court has made clear that bully tactics like these have no place in our nation or our law. We are confident that these religious groups will finally be able to care for the most vulnerable consistent with their beliefs.”

Noel J. Francisco of Jones Day added: “Religious groups in the Empire State should not be forced to provide insurance coverage that violates their deeply held religious beliefs.”

The case mirrors the Little Sisters of the Poor’s fight against a 2011 federal contraceptive mandate, where the Supreme Court ruled three times that religious groups cannot be forced to facilitate practices against their beliefs.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has defended the mandate as essential for women’s health care, labeling the plaintiffs “extremists.”

null / Credit: angellodeco/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 16, 2025 / 13:49 pm (CNA).

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles will close its Center for Transyouth Health and Development and its transgender surgical program in July, citing federal and state-level funding pressures.

The hospital told families in an email that there was “no viable alternative” to closing the clinic, one of the nation’s largest, citing “the increasingly severe impacts of federal administrative actions and proposed policies,” including an executive order issued by President Donald Trump earlier in the year.

The center’s last day of operation will be July 22, according to the email, which was signed by clinic leaders including Paul Viviano and Kelly Johnson.

Earlier this year several hospitals in the United States suspended their child transgender programs after Trump’s order “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation,” which moved to halt the “maiming and sterilizing [of] a growing number of impressionable children” due to transgender ideology.

The executive order directed that medical institutions that receive federal research or education grants must not participate in the “chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”

The clinic leaders in their letter this week further cited directives from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and inquiries from federal authorities regarding quality standards at the children’s hospital as well as a May review on medical protocols from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Those factors, along with the FBI’s solicitation of tips to report hospitals performing transgender procedures on children, “strongly signal this administration’s intent to take swift and decisive action, both criminal and civil, against any entity it views as being in violation of the executive order,” the letter states.

The leaders said they would be hosting meetings in the coming days to discuss the looming closure.

According to a CDC study published last year, 3.3% of all U.S. high schoolers “identify as transgender,” with a further 2.2% of high schoolers “questioning” their “gender identity.”

Numerous U.S. states have moved lately to limit transgender procedures for minors, including surgical procedures and chemical prescriptions such as puberty blockers.

Last December the United Kingdom similarly made permanent its ban on children receiving puberty-blocking drugs meant to facilitate “gender transition.”

Smoke billows from an explosion in southwest Tehran on June 16, 2025. Iran’s state broadcaster was briefly knocked off the air by an Israeli strike and explosions rang out across Tehran on June 16 after a barrage of Iranian missiles killed 11 people in Israel on the fourth day of an escalating air war. / Credit: ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

Vatican City, Jun 16, 2025 / 13:19 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV renewed the Church’s calls for nuclear disarmament and peaceful dialogue one day after Israel launched missile strikes on Iran.

The Holy Father spoke of his growing concerns for the Middle East on Saturday, shortly after delivering a catechesis to pilgrims attending the June 14–15 Jubilee of Sport.

“The situation in Iran and Israel has seriously deteriorated,” the pope told pilgrims inside St. Peter’s Basilica. “At such a delicate moment, I wish to strongly renew an appeal to responsibility and reason.”

“Our commitment to building a safer world free from the nuclear threat must be pursued through respectful encounters and sincere dialogue,” he insisted. 

Leo XIV said it is the “duty of all countries” to initiate “paths of reconciliation” and promote solutions — founded on justice, fraternity, and the common good — to build lasting peace and security in the region.

“No one should ever threaten another’s existence,” he said. 

Open warfare between the two Middle East nations entered its fourth day on Monday after Israel launched the initial deadly attack on June 13, just hours after Iran announced plans to activate its third nuclear facility, the Associated Press reported.

Both religious and political leaders have urged Israel and Iran to end the increasing military violence, impacting thousands of civilians, and enter into dialogue. 

Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, echoed Pope Leo’s calls for peaceful solutions in the region. 

“We urge the United States and the broader international community to exert every effort to renew a multilateral diplomatic engagement for the attainment of a durable peace between Israel and Iran,” Zaidan said on Monday.

“The further proliferation of nuclear weapons in the Middle East, as well as this escalation of violence, imperils the fragile stability remaining in the region,” he added.

In May, the U.N. censured Iran for not complying with nonproliferation obligations after the International Atomic Energy Agency warned the nations had increased its nuclear stockpile in its latest report.

António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations, said on X on Saturday: “Israeli bombardment of Iranian nuclear sites. Iranian missile strikes in Tel Aviv. Enough escalation. Time to stop. Peace and diplomacy must prevail.”

The number of deaths, injuries, and the displaced in Iran and Iraq are expected to rise as both countries continue to launch ongoing missile strikes and retaliatory attacks.

Archbishop Georg Gänswein has been the Vatican’s nuncio to the Baltic states since 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Jun 16, 2025 / 12:49 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the Vatican’s nuncio to the Baltic states since 2024, said the region has been disappointed with the current U.S. administration’s approach to the conflict in Ukraine.

Speaking about the Russia-Ukraine war, Pope Benedict XVI’s former secretary said: “The major powers play a major role here, and the Baltic states are somewhat disappointed with the attitude of the current U.S. administration. They expected something different.”

Gänswein spoke about his role as a nuncio and the Holy See’s peace efforts in a June 13 interview with Rudolf Gehrig of EWTN News and CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. The archbishop took up his post in the nunciature in Vilnius, Lithuania, last year after 17 years as the personal secretary of Pope Benedict XVI and 11 years as prefect of the Papal Household.

In the interview, he said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is strongly felt in the capital of Lithuania, which is just over 370 miles from Kyiv, the capital city of Ukraine. He said a nuncio — the pope’s representative to a country — “can’t do anything specifically. … It always goes through the Holy See, rightly so.”

“The Holy See is,” he continued, “a bridge builder — this was one of the new pope’s first words: peace. ‘Peace be with you!’” 

Playing off of Pope Leo XIV’s love of tennis, Gänswein called the pope’s first words after his election “a first serve of his pontificate.”

“A lot is being done,” he noted, but “it’s impossible to say now how successful it is. A constant drip wears away the stone.”

Overall, a “mistrust of the Russians, especially [President Vladimir] Putin,” can be felt among the population, the archbishop said. This goes back to the influence of the communist dictatorship at the time of the Iron Curtain.

“There is an atmospheric presence of war,” said Gänswein, who added: “It is important to see reality, to accept it, but also to take it seriously. We must continue to live life normally. And as Christians, we have the great gift of having clear hope and a clear mission in our faith.”

Ecumenism in times of ‘fratricidal war’

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has also made ecumenism with the Orthodox churches more difficult, Gänswein explained. The Orthodox Church in the Baltic countries, which was initially under the Patriarchate of Moscow, turned away from the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Cyril I, who even tried to legitimize the war in religious terms.

“How can the patriarch support the war — it is actually a fratricidal war, i.e. Orthodox fighting Orthodox; how can he support it,” Gänswein said. “This is a new bone of contention, so it’s important not to cut the strings — these are no longer bridges — but to hold them.”

While Lithuania is 80% Catholic, the balance of power between Catholics and Orthodox Christians in Latvia is almost evenly distributed at 20% each. In Estonia, on the other hand, as much as a fifth of the population is of Russian origin, a noticeable influence, the nuncio said.

Shortly after the start of the Russian invasion, Cyril I and Pope Francis met for a video call on March 16, 2022, at the patriarch’s request. The Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch, who was present at the meeting, later reported in an interview with EWTN News that “the pope spoke very clearly when he said to the patriarch: ‘We are not state clerics, we are shepherds of the people. And therefore it must be our task to end this war.’”

Meanwhile, Gänswein emphasized that the Vatican is still needed in its role as mediator. 

Rift with Pope Francis?

In the interview, the archbishop also responded to media claims that there had been a major rift between him and Pope Francis.

“It wasn’t always easy,” he said, but “not everything was as the press reported, that it was a big ‘falling out.’ So that’s not true.”

“There were certain difficulties, certain tensions, but they were resolved in January 2024” when he had an audience with Pope Francis, he explained, calling that the beginning of the easing of tension between them: “The fact that I was subsequently appointed nuncio in the Baltic countries is certainly one of the fruits of this.”

Gänswein was suspended from his post as prefect of the Papal Household at the beginning of 2020. After Pope Benedict XVI’s death on Dec. 31, 2022, Pope Francis sent the archbishop back to his home diocese in Freiburg, Germany. Just under a year later, in June 2024, Pope Francis appointed him apostolic nuncio of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia.

“It wasn’t the case that we parted on bad terms,” Gänswein affirmed. 

Looking back, he said the meetings with Pope Francis in early January 2024, the appointment as nuncio in June 2024, and another audience as nuncio in November 2024 “gave him inner peace again.”

A recent visit to Francis’ tomb to pray for the deceased pope “completed the reconciliation,” the archbishop said.

In 1965, at the close of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI gave Jacques Maritain a message directed to “men of thought and science.” / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Jun 16, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The Vatican Museums inaugurated June 12 the exhibition “Paul VI and Jacques Maritain: The Renewal of Sacred Art Between France and Italy (1945–1973),” a tribute to the friendship between the celebrated French philosopher and the pope who succeeded John XXIII and concluded the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

The project focuses on Maritain (1882–1973), a neo-Thomist thinker and key figure in the dialogue between faith, culture, and art in the 20th century. 

Appointed ambassador to the Holy See by French President Charles de Gaulle after the Second World War, Maritain lived in Rome from 1945 to 1948. During that time, his friendship with Giovanni Battista Montini (the future Pope Paul VI), whom he had met in Paris in 1924, was strengthened. 

Maritain’s thinking influenced the fundamental concepts underlying the Second Vatican Council, particularly his idea of ​​an “integral humanism” in which Christian faith, human dignity, and artistic expression converge.

Along with his wife, Raïssa Oumansoff, with whom he converted to Catholicism in 1906, Maritain was at the center of an international intellectual elite that included poets, philosophers, artists, and mystics such as Charles Péguy, Léon Bloy, Paul Claudel, Jean Cocteau, and Georges Rouault, the latter considered by Maritain to be one of his closest artistic interpreters.

The exhibition, which is part of the 2025 Jubilee and will be open throughout the summer, commemorates several significant events: the 80th anniversary of Jacques Maritain’s appointment as French ambassador to the Holy See in 1945 and the almost simultaneous founding of the French Institute-St. Louis Center in Rome by Maritain; the 60th anniversary of the closing of the Second Vatican Council in December 1965; and the inauguration of the Modern Religious Art Collection, promoted by Paul VI in June 1973.

For the director of the Vatican Museums, Barbara Jatta, these anniversaries “make clear the wealth of historical inspiration that this project offers to the public from the papal museums.”

The exhibition — through photographs, documents, and paintings that create a dialogue between spirituality, Christian thought, and avant-garde art — traces the spiritual and intellectual bond between the French philosopher and then-Monsignor Giovanni Battista Montini.

“The relationship with the pontiff lasted well beyond the diplomatic experience and was quite intense during the Second Vatican Council, to whose development Maritain’s neo-Thomist thought contributed,” Jatta noted.

The museum director also noted that Maritain and his wife, Raïssa, of Russian origin, formed a highly influential international cultural circle throughout the 20th century, bringing together artists, thinkers, and religious figures. In fact, the couple also gathered together a significant collection of works of art, many of which became part of the initial holdings of the Vatican Museums’ Collection of Modern Religious Art.

“They spent significant time together in the early days of the Vatican Collection, because in addition to reaffirming the uninterrupted and mutual esteem between Montini and Maritain, it underscores how the latter immediately understood the scope of Paul VI’s project, of which the philosopher himself was one of the theoretical driving forces,” Jatta explained.

This project took on a public and official form with the famous address to artists delivered by Paul VI in the Sistine Chapel on May 7, 1964, in which he called for healing the “divorce between the Church and contemporary art.”

Indeed, this request culminated with the opening of the collection on June 23, 1973, “in the historic heart of the Vatican Museums, between the Borgia Apartments with its various rooms leading to the Sistine Chapel.”

The exhibition brings together paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, period volumes, and material objects that document an intense network of friendship and collaboration between thinkers and artists committed to the spiritual renewal of art.

Prominent artists include Maurice Denis, Émile Bernard, Gino Severini (with works for Swiss churches promoted by Cardinal Charles Journet), Georges Rouault (perhaps the artist closest to Maritain), and Marc Chagall, a close friend of Raïssa, whose visual narratives reveal a unique sensibility inspired by Jewish folklore. 

The exhibit also includes works by Henri Matisse, with his famous Vence Chapel, and the American William Congdon, an artist of strong mystical inspiration, known to Maritain in the years leading up to the council.

Also featured is the Dominican priest Marie-Alain Couturier, another great innovator of sacred art in France. His perspective, more progressive and different from Maritain’s, is integrated into the exhibition as a sign of Paul VI’s openness to multiple currents within contemporary Catholic thought.

Curated by Micol Forti, head of the Vatican Museums’ modern and contemporary art collection, the display is located at the heart of the exhibition dedicated to present-day art, between the Raphael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel.

The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Vatican Museums and various cultural institutions, including the French Embassy to the Holy See, the French Institute-St. Louis Center, and the Strasbourg National and University Library.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.