Catholic Nutshell News: Monday 4/14/25
Topics include: ‘New phase’ of Francis papacy, 3,500 gather for Colorado March for Life, Jesus taught about Hell, & Basilica architect Gaudí named ‘venerable’
“Worth your weight in walnuts”
Today's sources are Catholic News Agency, Crux, Graphs about Religion, OSV, Aleteia, Fides, National Catholic Register, & The Catholic Thing. (Catholic Nutshell is a subscription service for faithful, hopeful, & curious Catholics willing to exercise the Catholic News Muscle)
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CRUX
‘New phase’ of Francis papacy is slowly taking shape
By Elise Ann Allen, April 14, 2025
When Pope Francis was discharged from the hospital three weeks ago, officials broadly said that a new era of his papacy was being ushered in after a harrowing 38-day battle with double pneumonia. Several daily appearances from Pope Francis indicate not only that his treatment is working and that he is feeling better as his recovery continues, but they could also indicate what to expect in the near future. For the past two years, Francis has increasingly relied on cardinals to celebrate the major papal liturgies at the altar, while he presides from a chair off to the side, due to difficulties standing for the entire ceremony. He has also taken to having aides read his prepared speeches due to breathlessness or respiratory strain. At 88, Francis suffers from various maladies and has had several health crises in recent years. He might delegate Masses to cardinals entirely and show up at the end of the liturgy to give a blessing.
National Catholic Register
More than 3,500 gather for Colorado March for Life
By Kate Quiñones/CNA, April 11, 2025
The Colorado March for Life is one of 19 state marches run by the March for Life taking place this year. Colorado’s was organized jointly by the March for Life and Pro-Life Colorado. Colorado — historically one of the most pro-abortion states in the country — just passed an abortion-funding bill. If signed by the governor, $1.5 million in public funding would go to abortion annually for a program proponents say would save the government money by “averting births.” During her speech, Tamra Axworthy, head of ACPC Life Services and Women’s Clinic, called the bill “eugenics disguised as public policy.” Instead of supporting mothers and valuing life, “our lawmakers have decided that the cheaper option is to eliminate children before their first breath,” she said. “That is not compassion. That is not justice.”
Catholic Exchange
What does Jesus say about Hell?
By Dan Burke and Patrick O’Hearn, April 14, 2025
Jesus does not mince words regarding sin and our eternal fate. Our King wears a crown of thorns to show us that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23)—eternal death. And Christ the King will return to separate the sheep from the goats. The goats, the unrighteous, “will go away into eternal punishment,” and the sheep, the righteous, “into eternal life” (Mt. 25:46). Throughout Scripture, Jesus is direct, clear, and stern when it comes to Hell. This sternness is not what we see in the grumpy old guy who threatens kids for running on his lawn. It is more akin to the mother who cries out with full voice at her small child as he is about to wander into traffic. He came with compassion and mercy, not “to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Lk. 5:32).
Catholic News Agency
Francis names Sagrada Familia basilica architect Gaudí ‘venerable’
By Courtney Mares, April 14, 2025
Today, Pope Francis declared Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí “venerable,” bringing the designer of Barcelona’s iconic Sagrada Familia basilica one step closer to sainthood, formally recognizing Gaudí’s “heroic virtue,” a key step in the canonization process. Two miracles attributed to Gaudí’s intercession are now required for his canonization. Known as “God’s architect,” Gaudí died in 1926 at age 73. A leading figure in modernist and naturalist architecture, he is best known for designing the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia, a massive basilica still under construction more than 140 years after work began. One of the most visited churches in the world, it was consecrated as a minor basilica by Pope Benedict XVI in 2010.
Related: ‘God’s architect’ - Will Antoni Gaudí be beatified? - The PILLAR - Fionn Shiner, April 11, 2025
Graphs about Religion
To which religion do converted non-religious choose?
By Ryan Burge, April 10, 2025
There’s this huge disconnect between what religious people want and what social science can provide. It’s one of the biggest frustrations of the type of work I do. I know there’s no way to accurately answer such a query using anything resembling rigorous social science methods. I think there are two primary reasons for this. First, the things academics are concerned with are not the same as what folks in the pews think about daily. The other problem is that the average person has no concept of what kinds of questions are answerable based on the type of data we have access to. For those who identified as atheist, agnostic, or nothing in particular in 2020, 88% didn’t change their answer two years later. Where did the 12% who did switch end up? Half of them chose Protestant Christianity. Only 1% became Catholics.
Aleteia
Conditions for inner peace according to a Spanish mystic
By Patricia Navas González, April 14, 2025
We are made to experience tranquility of the soul, a state that presupposes all the virtues, says Spanish mystic St. Miguel de los Santos, born in Valladolid, Spain, in 1591. In his Breve tratado de la tranquilidad del alma (“Brief treatise on tranquility of the soul”), he presents five conditions for someone to attain inner peace.
Detachment from all things, even oneself
To be without any desire or preference
That tranquillity of the soul entails “being hated by others”
If you’re afraid of losing your soul, “you’re already attached to it.”
Experiencing that the one who lives in us is not ourselves but God.
St. Miguel de los Santos summarizes what the tranquility of the soul means: wanting what God wants you to want.
The Pillar
Peruvian bishops: Cipriani has ‘every right to assert innocence’
By The Pillar, April 9, 2025
In the latest of a back-and-forth exchange between Peru’s bishops and a cardinal accused of abuse, the country’s bishops’ conference said on Monday that Cardinal Juan Cipriani has not been found guilty in a canonical procedure, and that the cardinal has the right to assert his innocence. Cipriani accused the Peruvian bishops of lying about him last week, charging that it was a “lie” and a “grave mistake” for the bishops’ conference to say his 2019 resignation as Lima’s archbishop was connected to abuse allegations against him, and asking the conference to rectify its statement. Cipriani has insisted the allegations that came into the public this year have never been investigated, and that he has never been allowed to defend himself in a canonical process.
CatholicVote
Kansas fourth state to mandate prenatal development education
By Elise DeGeeter, April 11, 2025
Kansas lawmakers voted Thursday to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s vetoes of two pro-life bills, making the state the fourth in the nation to require public school education on prenatal human development. Under House Bill 2382, now law, public school classes covering human growth, development, or sexuality must include ultrasound or animated footage that shows the development of a prenatal human. While the bill does not name specific content, Live Action’s “Baby Olivia” video is one option that meets the requirement. “Kansas is now the 4th state to require public school students to learn about prenatal human development—using content like Live Action’s Baby Olivia video,” Live Action founder Lila Rose celebrated the win Friday.
Agenzia Fides
Catholic Church in Chin State destroyed by airstrike
By Agenzia Fides, April 11, 2025
Airstrikes by the Burmese army have destroyed the Catholic Church of Christ the King in the town of Falam, in the Diocese of Hakha, part of the Burmese state of Chin, in northwestern Myanmar. According to Fides sources in the Diocese of Hakha, in an area where electricity and telephone lines are down or interrupted, the roof of the church and its interior are devastated, while the walls of the building are still standing. The church was a new structure built with painstaking effort and sacrifice in recent years to meet the needs of the area's approximately 1,000 faithful Catholic community. According to the Human Rights Organization of Chin State, at least 107 religious buildings, including 67 churches, were destroyed in Chin State in 2021 by army bombing during the civil war.
From CNA to Agenzia, plus Satire for 4/14/25
Catholic News Agency
CNA’s top headlines — April 14, 2025
Catholic News Agency provides reliable, free, up-to-the-minute news affecting the Universal Church, emphasizing the words of the Holy Father and happenings of the Holy See to anyone with access to the internet.
Surge in adults entering Church in England this Easter prompted by internet, tradition - Apr 14, 2025 - By Heather Tomlinson - Anecdotal evidence reveals an increase in young men, who say their interest was sparked initially by Catholic apologists on social media and also by the traditional heritage of Catholicism.
Vatican updates rules for Mass intentions, permits collective offerings under strict conditions - Apr 13, 2025 - By AC Wimmer - Pope Francis approved the document — published so far only in Italian — on Palm Sunday, April 13.
Armenian Patriarchate takes legal action to halt Jerusalem’s tax foreclosure - Apr 13, 2025 - By Marinella Bandini - The Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem have issued a statement expressing “great concern” and voicing their solidarity.
Agenzia Fides
News of the Pontifical Mission Societies for 4/14/25
Fides has become an excellent center for collecting and producing material information on the missionary world through current news, photographs, mission studies, and missionary work.
VATICAN - Palm Sunday, the Pope: like Simon of Cyrene, he who carries the cross of Christ shares his redemptive love - Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) – "Faced with the appalling injustice of evil, we never carry the cross of Christ in vain; on the contrary, it is the most tangible way for us to share in his redemptive love."
ASIA/INDIA - Erection of the ecclesiastical province of Calicut, India, and appointment of first metropolitan archbishop - Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - The Holy Father has erected the ecclesiastical province of Calicut, India, elevating the see of Calicut to a metropolitan Church and assigning to it as suffragans the diocese of Kannur
AFRICA/SUDAN - First hearing before the International Criminal Court on allegations of genocide in Darfur - Khartoum (Agenzia Fides) – The government of the United Arab Emirates described as a "campaign of lies and slander" the accusations made yesterday, April 10, by the Sudanese government at the first hearing
Babylon Bee’s SATIRE News
Donkey Entering Jerusalem Glad To Be Finally Getting Recognition He Deserves
By Scripture Staff, April 13, 2025
As crowds waved palm branches and laid down their cloaks for him to walk on, a local donkey was thankful to be getting the recognition he always felt he deserved, finally. "It's about time," said the donkey, according to donkey whisperer Levi He Haw Hoofjaw, as hundreds cheered his triumphal entrance into the city. "It's nice to see the people showing me the appreciation I've earned. I've worked in the shadows for so long, with everyone calling me 'Little Colt.' Not that I minded, of course. Honestly, this is even a bit much for me, everyone singing 'Hosanna' and all. But it feels good." The donkey did feel the crowd had gone a bit overboard shouting, "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord."
DIDN’T RUN THIS ONE, because we don’t like to pick on companies, but it’s just too funny: Life Hack: Get Real Starbucks Taste At Home By Dumping Hot Water Over Cigarette Ashes
Nutshell reflections for 4/14/25:
USCCB Daily Reflection AUDIO & VIDEO - April 14, 2025
Monday of Holy Week
National Catholic Register
McCarrick scandal underscores need for greater lay involvement
By Tim Busch, April 13, 2025
The April 3 death of Theodore McCarrick ends an unfortunate chapter in the recent history of the Catholic Church. The former cardinal became the face of the sexual abuse of minors and young men, leading Pope Francis to remove him from the priesthood and rescind his position in the College of Cardinals. McCarrick is gone but the need for reform remains. The faithful were shocked to learn that senior Church officials knew about McCarrick’s sins and crimes, yet covered for him during his meteoric rise. The investigative barrier was the Church’s governing structure. As the McCarrick scandals made clear, greater involvement from lay Catholics in oversight is needed not only in matters of sexual abuse of minors. A similar process should be developed to address financial mismanagement and abuse of power by priests and Church leaders, drawing on the expertise of relevant lay leaders.
Bishop Barron Reflections
Beware of fussy moralizing
By Bishop Robert Barron, April 14, 2025
Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus’ feet with perfumed oil, preparing him for burial. This gesture—wasting something as expensive as an entire jar of perfume—is sniffed at by Judas, who complains that, at the very least, the nard could have been sold and the money given to the poor. Why does John use this tale to preface his telling of the Passion? Why does he allow the odor of this woman’s perfume to waft, as it were, over the whole of the story? It is because, I believe, this extravagant gesture shows forth the meaning of what Jesus is about to do: the radical giving away of self. Nothing is calculating, careful, or conservative about the woman’s action. Flowing from the deepest place in the heart, religion resists the strictures set for it by a fussily moralizing reason (on full display in those who complain about the woman’s extravagance).
Our Sunday Visitor
Capitol Hill office will ‘anchor’ Society of St. Vincent de Paul
By Mark Zimmermann, April 13, 2025
As the “face of the poor” in the U.S. changes and their needs evolve, a new office on Capitol Hill in Washington for the Society of St. Vincent de Paul will “anchor” the organization’s advocacy on behalf of the poor and homeless, said John A. Berry, national president of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul’s National Council of the United States. “Seniors, women, single parents, and the displaced middle class have become a larger part of the more than 5 million people SVdP USA serves yearly. As the world evolves, so do the needs of the poor,” said Berry. He commented at the ribbon-cutting and blessing of the organization’s new national office near the U.S. Capitol. Its headquarters are in St. Louis. The Society works in 4,428 parish-based conferences nationwide, with almost 90,000 Vincentian volunteers serving their communities.
The Catholic Thing
The Christian revolution has touched virtually everything
By Robert Royal, April 14, 2025
Most Christians, though far from all, in the current decay of education of all kinds, including religious education, know that the events we commemorate this week have had the most wide-ranging effects of anything that has happened in the entire history of the human race. And beyond, into the next world. Anyone, Christian or not, who looks back in time without a jaundiced eye has to recognize that the Christian revolution has touched virtually everything. And this has been a blessing and not a curse, but an obstacle in recent times to appreciating how great a change God-become-man introduced into the world. As we remember His Last Supper, Death, and Resurrection this week, we will re-affirm and re-experience precisely that.
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