St. James Roman Catholic Church

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.

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.

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.

WASHINGTON – “As your shepherds, your fear echoes in our hearts and we make your pain our own. Count on the commitment of all of us to stand with you in this challenging hour,” said Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), addressing the surge in immigration enforcement actions. He offered a reflection on behalf of the bishops of the United States and acknowledged that while law enforcement actions to preserve order and ensure community security are necessary for the common good, we cannot turn a deaf ear to the anxiety and fear in communities. 

Archbishop Broglio’s reflection follows:

Just before the opening of the special assembly of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, it seems appropriate to give voice to a profound concern in the hearts of the Shepherds of the Church in our Country.

When he spoke to the young people of Chicago this past weekend, Pope Leo XIV reminded us that at the heart of the Christian faith is an invitation to share in the communion of life and love of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the first community and based completely on love. The Holy Father also challenged us to be a sign of hope by making the world a better place.

Considering Pope Leo’s message, no one can turn a deaf ear to the palpable cries of anxiety and fear heard in communities throughout the country in the wake of a surge in immigration enforcement actions. 

Law enforcement actions aimed at preserving order and ensuring community security are necessary for the common good. However, the current efforts go well beyond those with criminal histories. In the context of a gravely deficient immigration system, the mass arrest and removal of our neighbors, friends and family members on the basis of immigration status alone, particularly in ways that are arbitrary or without due process, represent a profound social crisis before which no person of good will can remain silent. The situation is far from the communion of life and love to which this nation of immigrants should strive. 

The many actions of protest throughout the country reflect the moral sentiments of many Americans that enforcement alone cannot be the solution to addressing our nation’s immigration challenges. While protest and dissent can be a legitimate expression of democratic participation, violence is never acceptable. At the same time, it is good to remember Pope Francis’ admonition that ‘without equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode’ (Evangelii gaudium, 59). 

The chronic lack of opportunities for legal status for our immigrant brothers and sisters, together with the growing denial of due process to them, is injurious to human dignity and is a considerable factor in the breakdown of the rule of law. Likewise, unfounded accusations against Catholic service providers, who every day endeavor to provide critical support and care to the most vulnerable, contribute to societal tensions and a growing climate of fear. 

On behalf of my brother bishops, I want to assure all of those affected by actions which tear at the fabric of our communities of the solidarity of your pastors. As your shepherds, your fear echoes in our hearts and we make your pain our own. Count on the commitment of all of us to stand with you in this challenging hour. 

I acknowledge those in our Catholic service and community organizations working to promote the common good by binding up the wounds of the afflicted. Let those motivated by the urgency of the current moment to work for just and humane solutions to these immigration challenges know of the cooperation and goodwill of the Catholic Bishops of our country.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Scientific discovery and knowledge are meant to benefit all of humanity, Pope Leo XIV told young astronomers.

"Be generous in sharing what you learn and what you experience, as best you can and however you can," he told them during an audience at the Vatican June 16.

The pope spoke to dozens of young astronomy students and scholars who were taking part in a monthlong summer school sponsored by the Vatican Observatory and held at the observatory's headquarters in Castel Gandolfo, outside of Rome.

The summer program in astronomy and astrophysics, held every two years, accepts a small group of promising university and graduate students, mostly from developing nations, who are specializing in astronomical sciences. 

This year's program was focusing on exploring the universe with data from the James Webb Space Telescope, and the telescope's contributions to the study of the birth of stars, the formation and evolution of galaxies, and the origin of life in planetary systems. 

Speaking to the international group in English, Pope Leo told them to "not hesitate to share the joy and the amazement born of your contemplation of the 'seeds' that, in the words of St. Augustine, God has sown in the harmony of the universe."

"The more joy you share, the more joy you create, and in this way, through your pursuit of knowledge, each of you can contribute to building a more peaceful and just world," he said.

The James Webb telescope is a "truly remarkable instrument," he said. "For the first time, we are able to peer deeply into the atmosphere of exoplanets where life may be developing and study the nebulae where planetary systems themselves are forming" as well as trace "the ancient light of distant galaxies, which speaks of the very beginning of our universe."

"The authors of sacred Scripture, writing so many centuries ago, did not have the benefit of this privilege," the pope said. "Yet their poetic and religious imagination pondered what the moment of creation must have been like," speaking of the newly created stars rejoicing, honoring their creator.

"In our own day, do not the James Webb images also fill us with wonder, and indeed a mysterious joy, as we contemplate their sublime beauty?" he asked the students.

The pope highlighted the generosity of making the space telescope's images available to the general public.

He reminded the students they, too, have been given "the knowledge and training that can enable you to use this amazing instrument in order to expand our knowledge of the cosmos of which we are a tiny but meaningful part." 

"Each of you is part of a much greater community," which includes those who spent the past 30 years working to build the telescope and "develop the scientific ideas that it was designed to test," he said.

"Along with the contribution of your fellow scientists, engineers and mathematicians, it was also with the support of your families and so many of your friends that you have been able to appreciate and take part in this wonderful enterprise, which has enabled us to see the world around us in a new way," he said.

"Never forget, then, that what you are doing is meant to benefit all of us," he added.

WASHINGTON – “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,” said Bishop A. Elias Zaidan, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace.  

As tension and hostilities between Israel and Iran increase, he urged the U.S government to continue exerting its influence in favor of restraint and dialogue, saying: 

“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. 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. 

“In the midst of this escalation, Pope Leo XIV has reminded us that ‘It is the duty of all countries to support the cause of peace by initiating paths of reconciliation and promoting solutions that guarantee security and dignity for all.’ I join with Cardinal Dominique Joseph Mathieu, Archbishop of Tehran-Ispahan of the Latins, in his recent exhortation when he said, ‘We pray that peace through dialogue based on a consensus will prevail. May the Holy Spirit guide this process.’ In that same spirit, I call on Catholics and all men and women of goodwill in the United States and around the world to ardently pray for an end to hostilities in the Middle East. May the Prince of Peace move the hearts and illumine the minds of all for the attainment of peace in the region.”  

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Reading 1 2 Corinthians 6:1-10

Responsorial Psalm Psalm 98:1, 2b, 3ab, 3cd-4

Alleluia Psalm 119:105

Gospel Matthew 5:38-42

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Lectionary for Mass for Use in the Dioceses of the United States, second typical edition, Copyright © 2001, 1998, 1997, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine; Psalm refrain © 1968, 1981, 1997, International Committee on English in the Liturgy, Inc. All rights reserved. Neither this work nor any part of it may be reproduced, distributed, performed or displayed in any medium, including electronic or digital, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

WASHINGTON- “I urge all Catholics to engage their elected officials on all issues that threaten the gift of human life, in particular the threat of abortion,” said Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities. On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion in all 50 states. In advance of the anniversary of the Court’s landmark decision, Bishop Thomas encouraged the faithful to advocate for greater protections for preborn children:

“The Dobbs decision not only gave states the freedom to protect preborn children but also paved the way for pro-life victories nationally. The federal government is now closer than ever to defunding Planned Parenthood and other organizations whose abortion profiteering harms women and babies,” Bishop Thomas said.

“At the same time, we know that several states have enacted extreme pro-abortion policies, overriding existing pro-life safeguards, with some states leaving children vulnerable to abortion even up to birth,” Bishop Thomas explained. “Despite the good that Dobbs decision accomplished, the battle for life is far from over.”

Read Bishop Thomas’s full statement here.  

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Vatican City, Jun 15, 2025 / 11:46 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV presided over the solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity in St. Peter’s Basilica on Sunday and invited Catholics to enter the “dynamism of God’s inner life” and be open to encounter with others.

Celebrating the solemnity, which coincided with the June 14–15 Jubilee of Sport, in the Vatican on the morning of June 15, the Holy Father asked pilgrims who belong to sports teams and associations to glorify God through their daily training.

“Dear athletes, the Church entrusts you with a beautiful mission: to reflect in all your activities the love of the Triune God, for your own good and for that of your brothers and sisters,” the Holy Father said in his Sunday homily.  

Though the “juxtaposition” of celebrating the Trinity and sport may seem “somewhat unusual” at first, Leo said the relationship between the two reveals God’s infinite beauty is reflected in “every good and worthwhile human activity.”

“For God is not immobile and closed in on himself, but activity, communion, a dynamic relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which opens up to humanity and to the world,” he said. 

“Sport can thus help us to encounter the Triune God, because it challenges us to relate to others and with others, not only outwardly but also, and above all, interiorly,” he explained.

Sport as a school of virtue, encounter, and sanctity

According to the Holy Father, in a society marked by solitude, digital communications, and competition, sports are “a precious means for training in human and Christian virtues.”

He said families, communities, schools, and workplaces can be places where genuine encounters among people can take place. 

“Where radical individualism has shifted the emphasis from ‘us’ to ‘me,’ resulting in a deficit of real concern for others, sport — especially team sports — teaches the value of cooperating, working together, and sharing,” Leo said. 

“These, as we said, are at the very heart of God’s own life,” he added. 

Comparing healthy and unhealthy attitudes toward sport, the Holy Father emphasized that sport is more than an “empty competition of inflated egos” and is also a means of sanctification and evangelization. 

“St. John Paul II hit the mark when he said that Jesus is ‘the true athlete of God’ because he defeated the world not by strength but by the fidelity of love,” he said.

“It is no coincidence that sport has played a significant role in the lives of many saints in our day,” he continued. 

Reflecting on the life of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, the patron saint of athletes who will be canonized on Sept. 7 alongside Blessed Carlo Acutis, Leo told the congregation — several of whom belong to sport teams and associations — “just as no one is born a champion, no one is born a saint.” 

“It is daily training in love that brings us closer to final victory and enables us to contribute to the building of a new world,” he said.  

First Angelus address

In spite of 95-degree summer heat, thousands of pilgrims spilled into St. Peter’s Square after Mass to listen to Leo’s first Angelus address delivered in front of the basilica.

Continuing his message of sports as a means to foster a “culture of encounter and fraternity,” the Holy Father emphasized the “great need” for peace and an end to “all forms of violence and aggression” in the world.

The Holy Father asked for the intercession of Our Lady Queen of Peace before praying his first Angelus in the square in Latin and urging his listeners to pray for the end of conflicts in different parts of the world.

Calling for the end of conflicts in countries including Myanmar, Ukraine, and the Middle East, the Holy Father gave particular attention to the persecution of Christians in the African countries.

“Some 200 people were murdered, with extraordinary cruelty,” the pope said, referring to a massacre that took place in the village of Yelwata in Nigeria overnight.

“Most of the victims were internal refugees who were hosted by a local Catholic mission,” he lamented.

The Holy Father also appealed for the end to the civil war in Sudan, which began in 2023 and has since claimed thousands of lives, including the life of parish priest Father Luke Jumu, who died from his wounds after a bomb attack in El Fasher.

“I call on the international community to intensify efforts to provide at least basic assistance to the people affected by the grave humanitarian crisis,” he continued.

CNA Staff, Jun 15, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

At 8 years old, Minnesota native Joe Masek was exposed to pornography for the first time and went on to struggle with an addiction to it for 23 years. Through a series of actions he finally gained freedom and after experiencing a calling to help other men, he founded a ministry called The Freedom Group in 2023.

About 100 men have gone through the ministry’s program each year since then. The group uses  a 12-month training system as well as additional courses and retreats to help men break free from porn addiction.

The Porn Free training system includes weekly coaching calls with a Freedom Coach, group coaching calls, performance and mindset coaching, simple daily habits to build discipline and rhythm, access to an app to connect and track progress, and more. There are also several courses that help individuals understand the neurological aspect of addiction and how to rewire the brain.

Based in the Twin Cities, The Freedom Group also offers individuals the opportunity to attend nature retreats, where they are encouraged to encounter God and themselves in a deeper way. Through guided reflections, group sessions, time alone, and physical adventure, participants learn how to live free from their addiction and become grounded in their true purpose. 

Masek, now 32, said he was first exposed to porn while using Limewire, an audio file downloading program used during the early 2000s. Believing he was downloading a music file, he ended up downloading a video file that contained pornographic images.

Around the same time, Masek was also sexually abused by an older peer. 

“​As a young 7-, 8-year-old kid, I experienced all the symptoms [that] now that I understand and we understand as adults trying to help other people in that same sort of way — a lot of sort of disconnection in my own experience of who am I and feeling dirty and worthless, but also looking for it and starting to have seeking behavior,” he told CNA in an interview.

He shared that the rest of his upbringing was “really good.” He grew up in a middle-class family who attended church every Sunday and he was very involved in youth group. But as he got older, he began to experience an “ever-increasing sort of dichotomy through faith life and this hidden life.”

It wasn’t until college that Masek found himself in a men’s group that was addressing sexual issues and was able to share his story in depth, releasing the “10,000-pound gorilla off my back.”

“So this was my first introduction to shame flowing out the front door of the house of my heart and it was massive for me,” he recalled. 

Soon afterward he went on a retreat and had his first confession in years, which he said was “a powerful experience.”

However, Masek continued to struggle — experiencing periods of sobriety and then turning back to his addiction. After years of trying everything he could, he started to piece together everything he was learning and experiencing into what is now the approach used in The Freedom Group. 

“In a three-month span, I went from basically a two- to three-week cycle where I felt like I hit a wall and couldn’t keep going to the point where I didn’t even have an inclination to use anymore when familiar triggers would come,” he said.

He then began leading a national marriage and family ministry and the more time he spent with young husbands and fathers, the more he saw this as a “core issue” and decided to leave that ministry to start The Freedom Group.

Masek shared that roughly 85% of the men his group works with are believers — either Catholic or evangelical. Therefore, faith does play a role in the program but “is really lived out in the experience.”

He explained that “any addiction is an intimacy disorder.” So The Freedom Group talks about intimacy in four dimensions: me and God, me and myself, me and others, and me and nature, or creation. These connections of intimacy then begin to shift as the brain begins to shift.

Masek gave the example of one man that he worked with who “had lived the model Christian life.” He worked in campus ministry, got married young, and had a family. However, he was suffering from anxiety, was disconnected from himself, and was not experiencing connections in any of the four dimensions of intimacy. Three months into the process, this man shared with Masek that he had gone for a walk and sat down for 30 minutes in total stillness and felt God’s presence.

“To me, that’s like the greatest testimony I could ever get because I know the difference between ‘I’m trying to do the right thing, go to church, or participate in the life of the church, and try to pray,’ and to just be frazzled and out of control, and anxious, and avoidant through all of it. And then I know what it feels like to know how to slow down and to calm myself, to center myself, and connect to the living God. And I know how much that can change the way you show up then to your family, to others, the way that you see yourself then out of that connection.”

A motto of The Freedom Group is “Pain is the path. Discomfort is your teacher.” Masek explained how this highlights that life is hard but we are called to pick up our crosses.

“We only experience the Resurrection on the other end of our embrace of the suffering that’s handed to us uniquely, and that’s the invitation of our life — to be able to,” he said. 

He added that true healing and transformation begins to be made visible when the individual also embraces the suffering he has been given and sees the good in it.

“That’s our desire for this whole process is for men to, at the end of their journey with us, however long that they spend time with us, is to get to that point in their own lives. It goes from attraction or desire for something disordered to the point where they want to choose the good in good times and in bad,” he said.

“I always tell guys, this is the worst possible year — if you’re in our coaching process — to have the best year of your life because you won’t learn very much,” Masek added. “The goal is to have hard things happen to you and to stay in them and to welcome them as purposeful and see what happens because Jesus said, ‘Pick up your cross and follow me.’ And he promised that it would change us and even that it would bring us to freedom.”