Mois : octobre 2025

Pope Leo XIV’s recognition of St. John Henry Newman as a « doctor of the church » will be an ecumenical celebration, a sign of esteem for the excellence and ongoing relevance of his teaching, first as an Anglican and then as a Roman Catholic, said a key figure in preparing the declaration.

Anglican Archbishop Stephen Cottrell of York, currently the ranking prelate of the Church of England, was scheduled to lead an Anglican delegation to the formal proclamation Nov. 1 by Leo of St. Newman as a doctor of the church.

Fr. George Bowen, a priest of the London Oratory and postulator, or official promoter, of St. Newman being named a doctor of the church, spoke with journalists about the process and its implications Oct. 30.

Becoming only the 38th doctor of the church, Bowen said, « is not about being intelligent. It’s not about being bright. It’s about saying something timeless about the church’s teaching, putting into words something eminent, something that stands out. »

Bowen oversaw the compilation and submission to the Vatican of the 600-page « positio » or position paper outlining why St. Newman should be recognized as a doctor of the church. The process began almost immediately after St. Newman’s canonization in 2019 and includes letters of support from bishops’ conferences and individual bishops — including many Anglicans, the priest said.

St. Newman was born in London Feb. 21, 1801, was ordained an Anglican priest, became Catholic in 1845, was made a cardinal in 1879 by Pope Leo XIII. He died in 1890.

« Newman’s journey really began as a nominal Christian, baptized Christian who suddenly found faith in the Church of England through the influence of schoolteachers, » Bowen said. « For all of his life, he was very conscious that half his life was spent in the Church of England. And this was something that was immensely important to him, » and « he always recognized as a Catholic that he brought with him all that he had learned about Christ » as an Anglican.

« So, Newman is a big ecumenical figure in the sense that he owes his faith to his upbringing in the Church of England, » the priest said. In fact, later in life, St. Newman republished the works he had written as an Anglican with new prefaces and some notes, « but basically saying, ‘I’m proud of all this stuff.' »

Anglican Fr. William Lamb, vicar of the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Oxford, where St. Newman had served as vicar from 1828 to 1843, was at the Vatican for the saint’s canonization and returned for the proclamation as doctor of the church.

« No one can stand at the altar or preach from the pulpit from which he preached and be unaware of his legacy, » he told Catholic News Service Oct. 30.

« In recognizing St. John Henry Newman as a doctor of the universal church, » Lamb said, « Pope Leo has made a significant and gracious ecumenical gesture in acknowledging the influence of this Anglican patrimony. »

After the visit of Britain’s King Charles III, which included prayer with the pope in the Sistine Chapel, the Anglican priest said, « I continue to pray for positive ecumenical relations and an ever-greater commitment to seek the gift of unity in a world which is so often fractured and estranged. »

St. Newman and the « Oxford Movement » within Anglicanism « have shaped the life and spirituality of the University Church in many ways, » Lamb said. « Every Sunday when we celebrate the Eucharist, we use a chalice that Newman gave to St. Mary’s when he was the vicar. »

But the saint’s legacy also is broader and continues to impact the university, he said.

« Newman contributed to the reform of the tutorial system, one of the hallmarks of an Oxford education, when he was a tutor at Oriel College, » Lamb said. « We celebrate not only his legacy as a theologian but also his contribution to the world of higher education. His ‘Idea of a University’ remains a key point of reference for the debate about both the value and the future of higher education. »

Lucia Ortíz trudges through endless fields of cempasuchil flowers, the luminescent orange petals of which will soon cloak everything from city streets to cemeteries across Mexico.

Here, in the winding canals and farms on the fringes of Mexico City, the flower also known as the Mexican marigold has been farmed for generations, and takes the spotlight every year in the country’s Day of the Dead celebrations.

But as 50-year-old Ortíz and other farmers busily bundle clusters of the plant to sell in markets around the capital, they quietly wonder what will be left of their livelihood down the line.

That’s because cempasuchil growers say they’ve been left reeling by torrential rains, stretching drought and other impacts from climate change — caused by the burning of fuels like gas, oil and coal — that have grown increasingly common.

Farmers, who depend on the ebbs and flows of the weather to cultivate their crops, are on the front line on the climate crisis. This year alone, cempasuchil producers said they lost up to half their flower crop from heavy rains and flooding.

« This year, we lost a lot. We struggled to even grow the cempasuchil. There were moments in which we didn’t have the money to buy fertilizer we needed, » Ortíz said. « With the cempasuchil plants, we’ve sometimes been left with nothing. »

‘Flower of the dead’

The orange flower has become a symbol of the country’s celebrations that take place every Nov. 1 and 2. Also known as the « flower of the dead », the cempasuchil is believed to be a point of connection between the worlds of the dead and the living, with bright petals that light the path of dead souls to the altars set out by their family.

The flowers are also a crucial economic engine across Mexico, which commerce groups predict will rake in nearly 2.7 million dollars for farmers in 2025.

Ortíz and her family began growing the flower 30 years ago in their small plot of land in Xochimilco, a rural borough in the south of Mexico City where residents have continued to carry on ancient farming techniques using canals that wind through farmlands like a maze.

Every year, locals begin to plant the marigold seeds in July, and grow the plants as the rainy season winds down. But they say that they’ve been dealt a heavy blow for consecutive years as heavy rains, drought, floods and other climate shifts have made it increasingly difficult to keep their crops alive.

This year, torrential rains stretching on for months wiped out more than 37,000 acres of crops across the country, according to government figures. In a visit to cempasuchil fields earlier this month in Xochimilco, Mexico City Mayor Clara Brugada said that as many of 2 million marigold plants were put at risk. Despite that, she said that production this year simultaneously broke a record of 6 million plants as farmers ramp up to meet increasing demand even as growing the flower has become more precarious.

Ortíz said the excess of rain has brought on pests, diseases and rotted the roots of her plants. She estimates she lost at least 30% of her crop, while others say they’ve lost closer to 50%.

The family has been forced to drop money on insecticides, fertilizer and more to save their crops. As they have, razor thin profit margins have turned into losses, and they’ve had to cut back on basics like beef and sweets to make ends meet.

« If I were to take a hard look at all our losses, I’d be incredibly disillusioned and even not want to grow them anymore, » she said. « We’re just trying to push forward and make sure this keeps going on. »

Adapting to climate change

Just down the road from Ortíz’s farm, government scientists are searching for long-term solutions beyond the short-term economic relief provided by the local government. In a small seed bank known as Toxinachcal, men in white suits meticulously pick through sprouts in a lab dish.

The scientists have been at work for a year and a half saving up thousands of seed variants of native plant species, including 20 variants of cempasuchil, in jars lining giant freezers in the hopes that the storage facility will be a key tool in fighting the most adverse effects of climate change.

Biologist Clara Soto Cortés, head of the seed bank, said part of the reason that the crop has been devastated is because farmers in recent years have elected to use a hybrid marigold seed variant from the United States.

The seed produces a shorter, more uniform-looking plant that is easier to sell en-masse and in places like supermarkets.

But that means farmers have turned away from sturdier, native breeds, which have longer stocks and widely vary in color, size and texture. The genetic diversity of these Mexican breeds makes them more resilient to drastic climate shifts like the ones seen this year, Soto said.

« These native seeds have adapted to different geographies, in high altitudes and low, in places where there’s a lot of rain or there’s none at all, or where they need to be resistant to insects, » she said.

« The (hybrid) seeds have been bred for another purpose. It doesn’t have the genetic diversity needed to take on climate change. »

If more climate events, like the floods that roiled producers wipe out an entire crop, Soto said the bank will make seeds available to local producers to recover their crops – this time with a more resilient variant that their ancestors have been farming for centuries.

Carrying on an ancient tradition

Meanwhile, growers are scrambling to bounce back in the short term, saying the losses also represent a threat to the farming tradition their families have struggled to maintain on the edge of the dense city of 23 million people.

Carlos Jiménez, 61, has long worked the fields of Xochimilco, but began to grow the shorter marigold plants eight years ago when he noticed the hybrid was more marketable. As he’s lost more crops and gotten lower prices for the plants because of the mildew gathering at their roots, he said he’s begun considering ways to adapt, like building greenhouses.

« The plants get sick, they rot, and our business is snuffed out, » Jiménez said. « And with it goes our tradition because it’s our economy. »

Producers like Ortíz have considered the same. But their losses mean they have no money to build added infrastructure. Her family and other farmers have called on local authorities for help, but say they’ve received just pennies on the dollar of what they need to bounce back. Though the local government has said it continues to work to help offset the blow felt by farmers.

She said she’s begun to look at other crops she might be able to farm that are more resilient than the crinkled orange flowers.

Others like Jiménez said that while the roots of plants may rot around him, for now he’s holding strong.

« This plant has a deeper meaning to our lost loved ones, » he said. « These are traditions we carry down from our ancestors. They can’t just disappear. »

In a Home Depot parking lot beside a freeway on-ramp in this city northeast of Los Angeles, a woman sang to a small crowd in Spanish over her band’s rocking cumbia rhythm, « How I love my people, for being more than brave. »

Across the interstate ramp, under peach-colored clouds, a collection of tiny crosses memorialized the spot where Carlos Roberto Montoya Valdez, a day laborer who used to come to the Home Depot to find work, was struck and killed by an SUV as he ran from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

The crowd had come 40 days after Montoya’s death for an Oct. 10 vigil. Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, spoke about his childhood memories of the impact of Catholic Archbishop Óscar Romero’s role as the « moral voice » of El Salvador during the country’s military dictatorship and civil war. Romero, who was assassinated while celebrating Mass in 1980, became a Catholic saint in 2018.

Alvarado told the crowd, « I don’t know, but I don’t feel that that person exists in this moment in our country. We don’t have that strong of a moral voice. And we all know what happened to Bishop Romero. And in the absence of an individual like that, then who has to be that moral voice? »

But Christian leaders are working to strengthen this kind of moral voice, using Romero as a model. At Life Pacific University, in San Dimas, the Asociación para la Educación Teológica Hispana (Association for Hispanic Theological Education) was meeting at a preaching and migration conference from Oct. 9 to 11. Alma Tinoco Ruiz, assistant professor of homiletics and evangelism at Duke Divinity School, urged preachers to draw on Romero’s preaching to help their communities navigate trauma.

« What made Romero such a prophetic and pastoral preacher was his ability to clearly hear the voice of God both through Scripture and through the people who suffered and to let both illuminate each other with the light of Christ within them, » Tinoco Ruiz said in her Spanish-language keynote. 

The conference often took up the question of how best to preach and pastor congregations traumatized by President Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy. Tinoco Ruiz called on the 250 attendees to be « empathetic witnesses, to speak with tenderness and courage, naming the suffering but also the promises of God. »In one panel, Harold Segura, director of faith and development for World Vision in Latin America, urged preachers to take into account children who are listening to sermons, saying they can interpret teachings in a very literal way. That preaching can « end up adding more pain » to children’s pre-existing trauma, Segura said.He advised pastors to spare children violent theologies that depict a punishing God, as they might not know how to make sense of why they are suffering.

Tinoco Ruiz also told her keynote audience that homilies should be instruments of healing, not only for present-day harms but historical wounds from colonization, slavery, natural disasters and human conflict that scientific research says may be passed on genetically to following generations. « Hidden below the resilience, the wounds remain and healing continues to be necessary, » she said, but « the body will pass us the bill. »

She stressed the importance of not giving false promises of instantaneous change from devotion to Christ, as some preachers do, Tinoco Ruiz said. « Healing can take time, and sometimes it requires more than prayer. »

In a workshop on trauma and immigration, the Rev. Alexia Salvatierra, academic dean of Fuller Theological Seminary’s Centro Latino, said acknowledging the trauma of migration is crucial, saying in Spanish, « A lot of the time, undocumented people feel so much shame that they do not bring their migration situations to prayer networks.

« We need to give permission in sermons for them to do that, so that they know that there is no shame in breaking an unjust law, » Salvatierra said. « It is very important to remove the shame and speak about the grace of God. Every person makes mistakes and commits sins. »

Salvatierra advised churches to give threatened immigrants opportunities to participate in collective action and to take on responsibility. « We have to combat the feeling of being without power, without hope, without support. One essential way to combat this is the experience of agency, the experience of being an agent of God. »

An idea of what this may look like was presented at an Oct. 8 meeting of the Los Angeles chapter of the Fraternidad Teológica Latinoamericana (Latin American Theological Fraternity) held at La Fuente Ministries, a bilingual faith community in Pasadena. La Fuente maintains a fund for congregants who have experienced income disruption due to fear of ICE raids and for application fees for congregants working to adjust their immigration status. Church volunteers are also bringing groceries to people who are too afraid to leave their houses, the pastors said.

The church has also worked with the Clergy Community Coalition, a local faith-based organization, to plan family preparedness sessions, where families discuss what to do in case of a detention or deportation, and to participate in a rapid response network that addresses ICE activity.

« Our community, La Fuente Ministries, is navigating the devastating season of fire and ICE, » said the Rev. Marcos Canales, the community’s pastor, pointing to three people in the congregation who lost their homes in the Eaton Fire. Many others were evacuated or displaced, said Canales.

The fire, followed by immigration raids, he told Religion News Service, is « a double collective trauma. »

Canales’ wife, Andrea, a clinical psychologist, led the congregation in creating 12 stations of grief in the church, including art projects, a map showing the destruction, candles for community members detained by ICE and white trees where congregants hung white tags with some of their losses of the year.

Canales said that at La Fuente, preaching a theology of migration where « God the migrant relates to the migrant people of God » is an important part of Sunday morning.

In his presentation, Canales, who grew up moving around Latin America with his pastor parents before coming to the U.S. as a student, said migration is part of God’s plan. « The movement of all of the species and of creation itself reveals that it’s a design that responds to the divine law of interdependence and relationality, of communion and liberty, » he said in Spanish.

He also said that maintaining critical memory, which comes from a Biblical tradition, is an opportunity for repentance and drawing closer to God. It’s why he and the Clergy Community Coalition are working together to have a presence at the stream of vigils like the one for Montoya in the Home Depot parking lot.

It’s also why he’s preaching about Latin American history, including « the decades of U.S. intervention in the economies, governments and militarization of the whole continent. » 

Canales said in his lecture, « The movement of people isn’t an accident or a misfortune or a crisis. It’s a direct consequence of structural sins rooted in colonialism and extractivism. » Forgetting that history « creates physical and mental walls and borders, » he said.

Pope Leo XIV will pray at the site of the 2020 port blast in Beirut that killed over 200 people and compounded Lebanon’s economic and political crisis during his first foreign trip as pope next month that will also take him to Turkey to mark an important anniversary with Orthodox Christians.

The Vatican on Monday released the itinerary of Leo’s Nov. 27-Dec. 2 trip. It includes several moments for history’s first American pope to speak about interfaith and ecumenical relations, as well as the plight of Christians in the Middle East and regional tensions overall.

Pope Francis had planned to visit both countries but died earlier this year before he could. He had particularly long wanted to go to Lebanon, but the country’s economic and political crisis prevented a visit during his lifetime.

The main impetus for travelling to Turkey this year is to mark the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, Christianity’s first ecumenical council.

Leo made clear from the start of his pontificate that he would keep Francis’ commitment, and has several moments of prayer planned with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, Patriarch Bartholomew I.

Nicaea, today located in İznik on a lake southeast of Istanbul, is one of seven ecumenical councils that are recognized by the Eastern Orthodox. Leo will travel there by helicopter on Nov. 28 for a brief prayer near the archaeological excavations of the ancient Basilica of Saint Neophytos.

A visit to the Armenian cathedral in Istanbul

Another significant moment in Turkey is Leo’s Nov. 30 prayer at the Armenian apostolic cathedral in Istanbul. Francis didn’t go there during his 2014 trip, but a year later he angered Turkey when he declared the slaughter of Armenians by Ottoman Turks the « first genocide of the 20th century. »

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey, however, has insisted that the toll has been inflated, and that those killed were victims of civil war and unrest, not genocide. It has fiercely lobbied to prevent countries, including the Holy See, from officially recognizing the Armenian massacre as genocide.

Leo has tended to avoid polemics during his first six months as pope, so it will be telling if he repeats Francis’ characterization of the slaughter.

A prayer at site of Beirut port blast

In addition to the traditional protocol visits with Turkish and Lebanese leaders, meetings with Catholic clergy and liturgies, Leo’s visit to the site of the Aug. 4, 2020, Beirut port blast will likely be another stirring moment in his trip, coming on its final day.

The blast tore through the Lebanese capital after hundreds of tons of ammonium nitrate detonated in a warehouse. The gigantic explosion killed at least 218 people, according to an AP count, wounded more than 6,000 others and devastated large swaths of Beirut, causing billions of dollars in damages.

Lebanese citizens were enraged by the blast, which appeared to be the result of government negligence, coming on top of an economic crisis spurred by decades of corruption and financial crimes. But an investigation into the causes of the blast repeatedly stalled, and five years on, no official has been convicted.

While Leo will celebrate Mass on the Beirut waterfront and travel to some areas near the Lebanese capital, his itinerary is significant for where he is not going: He will not visit Lebanon’s south, battered by last year’s war between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Places left off itinerary in both Lebanon and Turkey

While the brunt of the destruction was concentrated in Shiite communities that form Hezbollah’s main base of support, Christian communities were also impacted by the conflict, with houses, agricultural land and even churches destroyed. Christians groups in southern Lebanon had lobbied for the pope to visit the area.

In Turkey, there are also no plans for Leo to visit the landmark Hagia Sophia monument in Istanbul as previous popes have done. The former Greek Orthodox patriarchal basilica, which was a mosque during Ottoman times, was a museum when Francis visited in 2014.

But in 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan‘s government changed its status from a museum back to a mosque and opened it up to Muslim worship. At the time, Francis said he was « deeply pained » by the decision.

Despite the renovations to preserve its historic domes, Hagia Sophia remains open to visitors and worshippers. Leo will visit the nearby Sultan Ahmed Mosque, popularly known as the Blue Mosque.

Come October, monks and nuns are busy harvesting olives at the Mount of Olives and the Gethsemane garden — where, according to the Gospel, Jesus spent the last night before being taken up the other side of the valley into Jerusalem to be crucified.

For two years, the Israel-Hamas war has cast a pall on the Holy Land. The hundreds of centuries-old olive trees here have shaken periodically in missile attacks targeting Israel.

But this year’s harvest happened as a ceasefire agreement was reached, spreading a tenuous hope for peace — peace that olive branches have symbolized since the biblical story of the dove that brought one back to Noah’s Ark to signify the end of the flood.

« The land is a gift and the sign of a divine presence, » said the Fr. Diego Dalla Gassa, a Franciscan in charge of the harvest in the hermitage next to Gethsemane. The word Gethsemane is derived from the ancient Aramaic’s and Hebrew’s « oil press. »

For Dalla Gassa and the other mostly Catholic congregations on the hill, harvesting olives to make preserves and oil is not a business or even primarily a source of sustenance for their communities. Rather, it’s a form of prayer and reverence.

« To be the custodian of holy sites doesn’t mean only to guard them, but to live them, physically but also spiritually, » he added. « It’s really the holy sites that guard us. »

Harvesting olives by hand on the Mount of Olives

Early on a recent morning, Dalla Gassa traded his habit for a T-shirt and shorts — albeit with an olive wood cross around his neck — and headed to the terraces facing Jerusalem’s Old City.

The bright sun shone off the golden dome of Al-Aqsa Mosque, visible above the walls encircling the Temple Mount — the holiest site in Judaism — alongside the bell towers of Christian churches.

Dalla Gassa and some volunteers, ranging from Israeli Jews to visiting Italian law enforcement officers, picked the black and green olives by hand and with tiny rakes, dropping them onto nets under the trees.

Once they filled a wheelbarrow, Dalla Gassa put on ear covers and got the loud, modern press humming. Soon, the fragrance of freshly pressed green oil filled the air. It takes up to 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of olives to make one liter (34 ounces) of extra-virgin oil.

Harvesting as a form of prayer

Up the hill from the Franciscan convent, Sr. Marie Benedicte walked among more olive trees cradling the adopted kitty she has named « Petit Chat, » little cat in French.

« It’s easy to pray while picking and nature is so beautiful, » she said later while starting her harvest. « It’s like a retreat time. »

For more than two decades, the French nun has been in the Benedictine monastery founded at the end of the 19th century atop the Mount of Olives. Only half a dozen sisters live there now, their day flowing in a 16-hour rhythm of work, contemplative walks in the garden, and prayer.

« It’s very quiet here, very simple, » said Sr. Colomba, who is from the Philippines and is in charge of ensuring there’s always enough olive oil in the church lamps to keep them burning by the tabernacle.

Olive trees are an essential crop in this desert region where they’ve grown for millennia. For decades they’ve been at the heart of sometimes-violent land disputes between Palestinians and some Jewish settlers in the West Bank. Israel occupied it in the 1967 war along with east Jerusalem, where the Mount of Olives is.

The congregations on the hill do not have commercial productions, dedicating the vast majority of the oil to their own use, both in the kitchen and for sacraments. Many Christians use oil, blessed by clergy during an annual Chrism Mass, for rituals ranging from anointing the sick to blessing the baptized and new altars.

« Only good when pressed »: Olives and religious symbolism

For the religious brothers and sisters living among these trees, the harvest itself is spiritual and full of symbolism.

« In picking the olives, we learn how we are picked. We go looking for that last olive — that’s what God does with us, even those who are a bit hard to reach, » said Dalla Gassa.

Squeezing a plump green olive between his fingers, he also spoke of the sacrifice that comes with fulfilling one’s vocation of love for God and neighbor.

« The olive is only good when pressed. It’s the same for us, » said Dalla Gassa.

The volunteers who’ve been harvesting this year share in the transcendent experience as much as in the dusty, hot working days.

« The garden is very special. It’s full of spirituality and holiness, » said Ilana Peer-Goldin, who on a recent morning was helping Dalla Gassa with the harvest. An Israeli raised in Jerusalem, she draws from Jewish, Catholic and Buddhist practices.

Teresa Penta, who is from Puglia, Italy — one of the Mediterranean area’s top olive-producing regions — has spent 13 years in the hermitage next to Gethsemane.

« This place has an eternal charm, » she said.

The modern olive press has been in place only a few years. She said it added special meaning, returning Gethsemane to its original function.

This year’s harvest has been meager because of drought and fierce springtime winds that damaged the blossoms. Still, other congregations have been sending their olives to be processed by the monastery of Latrun, about halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

Latrun’s Trappist monks also have olive trees and vines, though thousands of them were destroyed by a devastating fire this spring.

Walking to the olive press outside the abbey church in his black-and-white habit, Br. Athanase said the oil and wine production helps the friars earn their living. But the end goal is different for the contemplative religious.

« To create the empty space while working with repetitive gesture, to be completely available to our Lord, Jesus Christ, » he said. « It’s a life to be received completely. »