Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish

Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, speaks with EWTN News during an interview at the Vatican on Dec. 11, 2024. / Credit: EWTN News

CNA Newsroom, Dec 23, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).

The head of the Vatican’s office for Eastern Catholic Churches offered a stark assessment of the situation facing Christians in the Holy Land and Syria, warning of increasing instability and humanitarian challenges across the region.

“They need everything and we cannot give anything,” Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, told EWTN Vatican Bureau Chief Andreas Thonhauser in a recent interview. 

“Look at the Gaza Strip. Who is entering when the bombs are falling? People are starving.”

The Italian cardinal, who maintains daily contact with bishops in the region, expressed particular concern about Syria’s future amid shifting political dynamics following the ousting of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

“Assad has of course created numerous problems. However, he was open to working with minorities,” Gugerotti said. “We will see in the coming months what is going to happen.”

The cardinal noted that new power groups emerging in Syria include former members of Al-Qaeda and ISIS. However, he highlighted how local Church leaders are working to establish a dialogue with these groups, particularly through Bishop Hanna Jallouf in Aleppo.

“He understands these new groups in power quite well. He has become a kind of bridge between the Church and these groups, and some of them accepted to go and speak to him about their intentions toward the Catholics,” the cardinal told EWTN News.

Gugerotti warned that without international cooperation, the situation could deteriorate further. “If the United States, Russia, Iran, Israel, and all the others, Turkey in particular, if they cannot find a common language or at least share some basic principles, we will see further division, further destruction.”

The ongoing instability has accelerated the exodus of Christians from the region, according to the cardinal. He explained that Christians, who often have higher education and international connections, can more easily integrate into Western societies.

“It is a problem for us because they lose their own identity,” he said. The dicastery is working with Latin-rite bishops to preserve these communities’ Eastern Catholic identity in the diaspora, he said, hoping they might eventually return to their homelands.

The cardinal also expressed concern about broader regional destabilization, suggesting conflicts could spread beyond their current boundaries. “If a bomb falls outside the war zone, it could mean that the day after everyone will be involved,” he warned.

Despite these challenges, Gugerotti highlighted the Eastern Churches’ strong religious identity as a positive element. “Wherever they go, they are a model, an example for everybody, for all the other Christians, because they are very solid in their faith,” he said.

The Dicastery for the Eastern Churches oversees the Catholic Churches of the Eastern traditions in communion with Rome, including those in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and North Africa. The office also administers the annual worldwide Good Friday Collection for the Holy Land.

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center on Dec. 22, 2024, in Phoenix. / Credit: Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 23, 2024 / 16:15 pm (CNA).

President-elect Donald Trump during a speech on Sunday, Dec. 22, vowed to sign executive orders to end transgender surgeries for children, to prevent biological men from playing in women’s sports, and to end the promotion of gender ideology in schools and the military. 

“With the stroke of my pen, on Day 1, we’re going to stop the transgender lunacy,” Trump said at Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest in Phoenix. 

“Under the Trump administration, it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders: male and female,” he added. “Doesn’t sound too complicated, does it?” 

Trump’s comments over the weekend echo the president-elect’s promises during his 2024 presidential campaign. His statements suggest immediate changes to federal policy when he is sworn in as president in less than a month on Jan. 20, 2025.

Joseph Meaney, a bioethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA: “It is good to hear that President-elect Trump has pledged to make male and female the only genders recognized by the U.S. federal government.” 

“This will reverse the radical agenda that the Biden administration attempted to implement in favor of the transgender ideology,” Meaney said. 

The president-elect said his first-day executive orders will include an end to “child sexual mutilation” in the United States, which is in reference to the transgender surgeries being performed on children in about half of the country. 

Irreversible transgender surgeries — which include genital surgeries to make them appear more similar to the genitals of the opposite sex, chest surgeries to remove a girl’s healthy breasts or implant prosthetic breasts on boys, and other aesthetic surgeries — are still legal for children in 24 states in the country. 

According to a report from the medical watchdog Do No Harm, at least 5,747 children received transgender surgeries between 2019 and 2023. This number is based on publicly available data, but the researchers believe the number is likely higher. 

President Joe Biden’s administration has supported doctors providing transgender surgeries to children. The current Department of Justice, along with families represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit against Tennessee’s prohibition on the procedures. The case is currently in front of the United States Supreme Court.

Theresa Farnan, a fellow for the Person and Identity Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told CNA that Trump’s statements “reflect the mood of the country, where parents know intuitively that ‘gender transition’ medical interventions are harmful.”

“It is good to see that political leaders are finally courageous enough to represent the common sense of the vast majority of parents,” Farnan said.

Farnan, however, noted that Catholic bishops have consistently taught that these surgeries and other transgender procedures are inherently unethical, and not just unethical when administered on minors, “as they alter the natural order and finality of the body.”

“As Catholics, we must regard any executive orders that the Trump administration issues banning gender transitions for minors as a good start, while recognizing that our work is not done — the protection from medical exploitation and medicalized self harm should be extended to all vulnerable persons, not just minors,” Farnan said.

Trump also said: “We will keep men out of women’s sports,” in reference to biological males being permitted to play in women’s and girls’ sports in about half of the country. He also said he would get transgenderism “out of our elementary schools and middle schools and high schools.” 

This would also be a reversal of the Biden administration’s policies. The Biden Department of Education revised its interpretation of Title IX regulations to apply all bans on sex discrimination to include a ban on discriminating against someone’s self-asserted “gender identity.” These discrimination rules apply to K–12 schools, colleges, and other educational institutions. 

Enforcement of the Biden administration rules, however, has been halted by judges for 26 states after state attorneys general filed legal challenges, arguing that the executive branch lacks the authority to redefine “sex” discrimination to be inclusive of “gender identity” discrimination. Legal scholars warned that the new regulation would overrule state-level policies that restrict women’s and girls’ sports, locker rooms, bathrooms, and dormitories to only biological women and girls.

Biden administration officials had been working on new regulations that would have explicitly prohibited state-level laws that restrict girls’ and women’s sports to only biological girls and women. However, the administration withdrew that proposal on Friday, Dec. 20.

Trump also vowed to get transgenderism “out of the military.” Under Biden’s administration, the Department of Defense has used taxpayer-funded programs to pay for gender transitions for members of the military and their families. During Trump’s first term, he prohibited the military from allowing most people with gender dysphoria to serve in the military, citing concerns about mental health and military readiness. 

“Hollywood Priest: The Story Of Father ‘Bud’ Kieser,” is scheduled to air on PBS World at 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday, Dec. 25, and is also available on demand for subscribers to PBS Passport. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Paulist Productions.

CNA Staff, Dec 23, 2024 / 15:40 pm (CNA).

Father Bud Kieser stood 6 feet 7 inches tall and had a tendency to lean forward over people, especially when he wanted to get his way. 

He often did, which is how he managed to make religious-themed content for television with well-known actors (paid little or no money,) through a production company he founded under the aegis of his religious order, the Paulist Fathers. 

Once he popped the question, it was hard for the stars to turn him down. 

“He never said it in so many words. But you kind of knew if you didn’t, you were going to hell,” is how Bob Newhart, who died in July, described it in a documentary about Kieser. 

That documentary, “Hollywood Priest: The Story of Father ‘Bud’ Kieser,” is scheduled to air on PBS World at 5 a.m. and 11 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday, Dec. 25, and is also available on demand for subscribers to PBS Passport. 

The fast-moving 55-minute film features interviews with prominent actors (Newhart, Martin Sheen, John Amos, Tim Matheson, Ed Begley Jr., Lee Purcell) who performed in episodes of “Insight,” a weekly dramatic anthology series that Kieser (1929–2000) produced from 1960 to 1983. 

Getting them to give interviews on camera was easy, said Father Tom Gibbons, a Paulist priest who produced the documentary. 

“Everybody wanted to talk about Father Bud,” Gibbons told CNA. 

The actors said they were drawn to Paulist Productions projects by quality scripts and the opportunity to perform roles they couldn’t normally do — and by Kieser (whose last name sounds like “kaiser”), who was hard to resist. 

The pay was paltry. But even that would often evaporate. Kieser liked to present a paycheck in person — and to hold onto it even while he seemed to be giving it. 

“Usually, as you know, when you’re doing a documentary or an interview of any kind, you have like preset questions that you’re going to ask,” Gibbons told CNA. “And one of the questions we were going to ask is: ‘Did Father Bud let you keep the check?’ And every single person brought up Father Bud keeping the check without us bringing it up. It was like the first thing out of their mouths. They were all like, ‘Oh yeah, Father Bud, he never let us get the check.’”

Honest about struggles

In an interview with CNA last week, Gibbons said he got the idea for the documentary when he read Kieser’s autobiography during a 30-day Ignatian retreat in 2015.

“It was a really honest, forthright book. It was just — he was very honest about his journey,” Gibbons said.

That includes the time Kieser fell in love with a nun who wrote scripts for his shows. (The relationship was intellectual and emotional, not physical, according to Kieser’s account. He eventually ended it after she left religious life, though they remained friends.) 

Gibbons was assigned to St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Los Angeles. A parishioner there, Maria-Elena Pineda, is a documentarian who had heard Kieser preach. Gibbons suggested making a documentary about him, and she agreed. 

One of the most memorable interviews, which may resonate with readers of a certain age, was with Marion Ross, whom Pineda described as “a genuinely lovely person” best known for playing Marion Cunningham, the mom on the 1970s and ‘80s television show “Happy Days” — whom the major character, Fonzie, often calls “Mrs. C” on the show. 

Ross greeted the film crew at the door of her house in a friendly fashion. 

“And we start setting up in the living room for the shoot. And meanwhile, Marion and her friend are in the kitchen preparing something,” Pineda told CNA. “And all of a sudden, we hear from the kitchen, ‘Children, come to the breakfast table for your pastries and coffee.’ And Father Tom and I look at each other, we’re like, ‘Mrs. C is calling us to the dinner table.’” 

Another was with Martin Sheen, who spoke at some length (not included in the documentary) about his reversion to the Catholic faith during the 1970s. 

Sheen described talking to Kieser about coming back to the Church. 

“And he just said, ‘You know, I’m really back in the Church now and I’m just happy as a clam.’ And Father Kieser says to him, ‘Well, I hope you enjoy the honeymoon.’ And then Martin says, ‘Boy, how right that guy was,’” Gibbons said. 

“I think it’s a great story about Father Kieser just being a great spiritual guide for people.” 

Human condition

Father Ellwood “Bud” Kieser grew up in Philadelphia during the 1930s and 1940s. In 1950, after graduating from college, he joined the Paulists. 

He was influenced by Venerable Fulton Sheen, a priest and later bishop and archbishop who managed to hold down a prime-time slot on national television during the 1950s. 

Kieser began his television work with half-hour lectures before moving to dramatic stories meant to convey religious principles indirectly. 

He was able to get “Insight” on television because local stations were required by the federal government to provide noncommercial programming. But during the late 1970s, he started feeling pressure from televangelists, who were willing to pay for the same time slots the priest had been getting free of charge. That helped end “Insight” in 1983. 

As his regular television work waned, Kieser turned to other things, including working with the poor in Africa through Catholic Relief Services. 

In 1989 Kieser made the movie “Romero,” about St. Óscar Romero, the El Salvador archbishop murdered in 1980 whom Pope Francis canonized in 2018. In 1996 he produced “Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story.” 

Kieser was the founder of the Humanitas Prize, which honors screenwriters “whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced and meaningful way.” 

The documentary emphasizes Kieser’s prayer life, including his many hours before the tabernacle. It also describes how he moved easily among non-Catholics and nonbelievers. 

“When you go before the judgment seat of God, whether you’re an atheist or not, he’s going to ask one big question: Did you love?” Kieser said in an interview clip. “And we challenge people to love in this industry, and they responded.”

Gibbons spoke about Kieser’s life on “EWTN News Nightly” on Dec. 18:

null / Credit: AstaforovE/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Dec 23, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis expressed his appreciation for the ball sport of bocce during an audience with representatives of the Italian Bowling Federation on Dec. 20, praising its social aspects and emphasizing that, unlike other sports dominated by billionaire stars, bocce allows “normal people” to excel.

“I admit that I am fond of the game of bowls, for two reasons: the first, because it is a ‘poor’ sport, compared to those of the ‘stars’ with billionaire contracts, who always fill the media. I think that bowling champions are people who work as clerks, or teachers, or plumbers,” the pope said.

“In short, normal people who have a passion for this game that is perhaps a little unfashionable, but so rich in humanity,” the pope explained.

The Holy Father recalled the popularity of the sport in rural villages in the past and its tendency to help foster a sense of community.

“It is a sport that I associate with a certain type of sociality, of social friendship… It used to be very widespread in villages, in the rural world. There were bowling greens everywhere, even in the parishes. It was a way of being together, of passing the time in company, a healthy and calm entertainment,” Pope Francis said.

He also applauded the organization for making the sport, which was once dominated by older men, more inclusive.  

“Society has changed, and so has the sport of bowls: Women and young people also play it; many people with disabilities practice it, and I congratulate you on all this,” he said. 

The Italian sport of bocce, in which players take turns rolling heavy balls toward a smaller target “palinno” ball, has its origins in ancient Rome by way of Greece. It is similar to other outdoor bowling games, such as boules in France, and the Provençal game of pétanque. Today, an estimated 25 million people play the sport around the world. 

Recent years have witnessed a surge in the popularity of bocce with the formation of numerous clubs around the United States. A recent article in the Los Angeles Times suggested that the pastime has supplanted pickleball as the hot sport for wealthy retirees.  

In the pope’s native Argentina, a game called “tejo” in which players throw metal discs toward a target placed on a sand-filled field is similar to the Italian bocce. 

Credit: Casimiro PT/Shutterstock

Vatican City, Dec 23, 2024 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

The Knights of Columbus have donated a state-of-the-art mobile broadcasting van to the Vatican, just in time for the start of the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year. 

The new vehicle, unveiled on Dec. 21, was blessed by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, in a ceremony attended by Paolo Ruffini, the prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, and Patrick Kelly, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus.

Ruffini expressed his gratitude for the donation, which he said makes it possible “to broadcast the images from the Vatican, the heart of our Catholic Church,” and to “share the images of the jubilee, to narrate our pilgrimage of hope,” according to Vatican News.

“It really is an honor for us to be able to do this, to provide a van like this, which is top-notch technology and really is able to reach so many people who may never have the chance to come to Rome,” Kelly said in an interview with Vatican Radio. 

“We are so pleased, as Knights, to partner with the Church on something that is so important to get the message of Christ to the world,” he said.

This is the fourth broadcasting van donated to the Vatican by the Knights of Columbus in the 60 years of collaboration between the Knights and the Vatican’s communication office.

“It’s been a tremendously beneficial collaboration that has brought the message of the Church, the message of the vicar of Christ, and the message of Christ to the world,” Kelly said.

The Knights’ support of the Vatican is not limited to broadcasting technology. The organization also funded a significant restoration in St. Peter’s Basilica of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s baldacchino and the Cathedra of St. Peter, a project originally valued at more than $760,000. 

With over 2 million members, the Knights of Columbus is the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization and a powerful force for charitable work.

“We always say, ‘Where there’s a need, there’s a Knight,” Kelly said.

As Supreme Knight, Kelly recently had a private audience with Pope Francis on Dec. 20, which he described as “a very warm meeting.”

“The Holy Father was in very good spirits,” Kelly said. “[We] talked about the worldwide reach of the charitable side of the Knights of Columbus, what we do for charity around the world.”

“Since our very founding by Blessed Michael McGivney, we’ve always been in solidarity with our bishops and priests, and we’ve always enjoyed a very strong union with the Holy Father, the vicar of Christ on earth,” he added.

Looking ahead, Kelly expressed excitement for the 2025 Jubilee Year, which begins on Christmas Eve and is expected to draw more than 30 million pilgrims to Rome. 

He expressed hope that the new restorations in St. Peter’s Basilica will “really inspire pilgrims who come here to see the beauty of the Church and to lift their hearts and their spirits to the Lord in this great Jubilee of Hope.”

“Because hope is our anchor. And I think at this point in our culture, in our history, we could all use some hope,” Kelly said.

Papal preacher Father Roberto Pasolini on Dec. 20, 2024, urged Church leaders to embrace the quality of “littleness” ahead of the Christmas holiday, calling on the faithful to imitate Christ and arguing against the need to feel “important in the eyes of others.”  / Credit: Courtesy of Festival Bíblico

CNA Staff, Dec 23, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

Papal preacher Father Roberto Pasolini urged Church leaders to embrace the quality of “littleness” ahead of the Christmas holiday, calling on the faithful to imitate Christ and arguing against the need to feel “important in the eyes of others.” 

Pasolini, who was appointed to the role of papal preacher last month, told members of the Roman Curia on Dec. 20 that God “sees littleness not as a limitation but as a precious resource.”

He cited the teachings of Christ, who stipulated clearly that “only those who make themselves small, like little children, will enter the kingdom of God,” reported Catholic News Service (CNS), the news agency of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. 

The preacher’s remarks came as part of Advent reflections given in the Vatican’s Paul VI Audience Hall. The Capuchin priest has given similar remarks regularly throughout the Advent season, with Friday’s address the last before Christmas on Dec. 25.

Pasolini pointed to the example of St. Francis of Assisi — from whom Pope Francis drew his pontifical name — as one who “took seriously this destiny of littleness.”

The earlier Francis “understood that the primary task of the Church was not just to do good for others but to allow others to do good for us,” Pasolini said, according to CNS. 

Pride, the priest said, “has created a discomfort toward our littleness.” 

“At first, we were all naked and unashamed, but now this littleness has become a source of embarrassment,” he said. 

“The fear and shame of not being enough, of not being capable, drive us to assume roles and actions to feel important in the eyes of others.”

Pasolini urged leaders to “take the liberty to present ourselves with a little less fear and without the unnecessary shame of being smaller than what we once were, or perhaps even than what we thought we should be, to manifest ourselves as witnesses of the Gospel.”

“In Christ Jesus, we can present ourselves to one another and to God in one spirit, to share the same inheritance and to be partakers in the same promise through the Gospel,” he said.

King Baudouin salutes during the playing of the Belgian national anthem on March 31, 1981. / Credit: Marcel Antonisse/Anefo, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Dec 23, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

The Vatican this month officially opened the beatification process of King Baudouin of Belgium, remembered as the humble leader willing to abdicate his throne rather than approve the decriminalization of abortion in his country.

“The Holy Father Francis, during his recent apostolic journey to Belgium, announced the opening of the cause of beatification and canonization of Baudouin, king of the Belgians,” said a Dec. 21 statement released by the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.

The dicastery established a historical commission Dec. 17, composed of experts “in archival research and in the history of Belgium,” tasked with collecting and evaluating documentation regarding the life and virtues of the late king.

Baudouin, who witnessed a Belgium transformed by periods of social upheaval and growing secularism, was publicly recognized as a devout Catholic committed to both the Church and his country throughout his more than 40 years on the throne from 1951–1993.

Up until his death in July 1993 at the age of 63, Baudouin had reigned continuously for 42 years except for 36 hours in April 1990, when he refused to sign a law decriminalizing abortion in Belgium and was subsequently deposed from the throne with his consent.

However, due to his enormous popularity, the Belgian Parliament returned the crown to him just 36 hours later.

Remembered as a humble leader and a defender of the most vulnerable, especially unborn children, St. John Paul II described the fifth king of Belgium as a “great guardian of the rights of the human conscience.”

“[He was] ready to defend the commandments, and especially the Fifth Commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill,’” especially with regard to the protection of the life of unborn children,” John Paul II said during a 1995 general audience.

During his apostolic visit to Belgium in September, Pope Francis visited Baudoin’s tomb in the royal crypt at Our Lady of Laeken in Brussels and praised him for the courage to choose to “leave his place as king in order not to sign a murderous law,” Vatican News reported.

According to Baudoin’s relatives, the late king’s “whole life was a testimony to the living Christ,” whose life of prayer and kindness particularly struck those who knew him. 

“It was his life of prayer, his spiritual maturity, and his love for God, which prepared him, without knowing it, to make such a decision [to abdicate his throne]. It was not something sudden,” they shared with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

“As he said, what we have to aspire to is to be saints. So he really wanted that and he tried to live that holiness throughout his life,” one of Baudoin’s relatives added.

President Joe Biden on Monday, Dec. 23, 2024, commuted the death row sentences of more than three dozen federal prisoners, ordering that the formerly condemned inmates serve out life sentences instead of being executed by the government. / Credit: Maxim Elramsisy/Shutterstock

CNA Newsroom, Dec 23, 2024 / 09:40 am (CNA).

President Joe Biden on Monday commuted the death row sentences of more than three dozen federal prisoners, ordering that the formerly condemned inmates serve out life sentences instead of being executed by the government. 

The White House announced the clemencies on Monday morning, stating that the president was “commuting the sentences of 37 individuals on federal death row.”

“Those individuals will have their sentences reclassified from execution to life without the possibility of parole,” the White House said. 

The White House noted that the order leaves in place the death sentences of three federal prisoners guilty of “terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder.” Those sentences apply to Robert Bowers, who committed the 2018 Tree of Life Synagogue massacre; Dylann Roof, who in 2015 killed nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the perpetrators of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. 

The commutations come after significant campaigns from Catholic advocates who urged the president to issue broad clemency in the waning days of his administration. 

Pope Francis earlier this month called for the death sentences of U.S. prisoners to be thrown out, praying that “their sentences may be commuted or changed.”

Also this month, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) launched a campaign urging Catholics to contact Biden and ask him to commute the federal death sentences, describing the proposal as “an extraordinary opportunity to advance the cause of human dignity.”

In November, meanwhile, the anti-death penalty group Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN) similarly urged Biden to commute the sentences, with the group pointing to the looming 2025 Jubilee Year and describing it as “fitting that [Biden] should act on his faith and do what is squarely within his constitutional authority to do.”

In a statement on Monday, CMN Executive Director Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy said Biden’s order “advances the cause of human dignity and underscores the sacred value of every human life.”

“The system of capital punishment anywhere leaves in its wake ripples of suffering in families, in communities, and in our social systems,” Murphy said. “Indeed the death penalty’s very existence epitomizes a throwaway culture.”

The group noted that, though more than three dozen inmates were spared execution by the order, the measure “places the remaining three men on federal death row … at risk of execution in the future.”

“While we celebrate the distinctive progress that today’s commutation action brings, we will continue to pray fervently that President Biden’s bold move will spur legislative action that ultimately leads to the abolition of the death penalty at every level of government throughout the United States,” Murphy said.

Father Juan Manuel Gutiérrez in interview with “EWTN Noticias” anchor Nathalí Paredes on Dec. 19, 2024. / Credit: EWTN Noticias/Screenshot

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 23, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Juan Manuel Gutiérrez is a Mexican priest who now serves in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest and probably the most diverse in the United States. His name is now forever linked to the young Italian Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died at the age of 24 and who next year, during the 2025 Jubilee, will be declared a saint thanks to the miracle the 38-year-old priest experienced through his intercession.

On Nov. 25, Pope Francis approved the decree of the miracle Gutiérrez received through the intercession of Frassati.

‘I declared myself an atheist’

“My Mexican family was Catholic, my mother was a very Catholic woman; she belonged to the group of women at the church devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe … I received my sacraments as a child, my first Communion, baptism, confirmation, but at the age of 14 or so I began to separate myself from the Church to the point that I stopped attending Mass, I stopped praying,” the priest recounted in an interview with EWTN Noticias, the Spanish-language evening news program of EWTN News.

“I even began to believe that God didn’t exist, that he was a human invention that, as some philosophers say, was like a drug for the masses to control them. And I distanced myself from the Church. For many years I didn’t go to Mass and I declared myself an atheist, that I did not believe in God,” he continued.

His parents separated when he was just 2 years old. His mother stayed in Texcoco, northeast of Mexico City, and his father moved to Omaha, Nebraska. At 19, he decided to join his father and, while there, “by God’s providence, someone also invited me to a retreat, which I didn’t want to go to, but I ended up going and that’s where my return to the Church began.”

He wanted to be convinced in the faith and began to study the history of the Church and about Jesus, and discovered that “there is a lot of historical evidence, even non-Catholic, nonreligious, that gives reasons to believe that Jesus walked the Earth.”

“And what convinced me to remain Catholic is the reality that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, which even with the research of Eucharistic miracles has been scientifically proven. When I began to find all this evidence, all my objections against faith and religion fell one after another.”

Entering the seminary after ‘fighting with [the Lord] for a long time’

According to Angelus News, Gutiérrez began his formation for the priesthood when he was 26 years old, in 2013, at the Juan Diego House of Formation of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

He graduated in 2017 and together with his classmates went on to St. John’s Seminary to continue their priestly formation. He was ordained in June 2022.

“It was a very long fight with the Lord, because I had other plans, good plans in my opinion, Catholic, to have my family, to have my children, to dedicate myself to the ministry or any opportunity I had, but it never crossed my mind to be a priest,” he shared with EWTN News.

It was not until “by the providence of God, those questions came to me from different directions, priests who knew me, people from the parish who saw me go to Mass every day, being involved in different activities of my church.”

“Even in prayer the Lord began to present the proposal of a vocation to the priesthood and after fighting with him for a long time, as Jeremiah said, ‘Lord, you have seduced me,’ and I let myself be seduced, I decided to give myself the opportunity to enter the seminary,” he recalled.

The heat, the Holy Spirit, and the miracle by Pier Giorgio Frassati

In October 2017, while playing basketball with other seminarians, Gutiérrez tore his Achilles tendon. An MRI on Oct. 31 confirmed the injury, and on Nov. 1, the solemnity of All Saints, he decided to pray a novena to Blessed Frassati to ask for help with his ailment.

“I was inspired to pray to Pier Giorgio Frassati, and that same day I began [the novena]. A few days after beginning my novena, I went to pray in the seminary chapel. I was alone, there was no one else, and I knelt down to pray. And while I was praying, I began to feel a sensation of heat in the area of ​​my injured heel.”

“I initially thought it was due to a fire, that maybe an electrical outlet was on fire, and since we have books under the pews, I thought maybe the fire was due to that. But when I checked, there was no sign of fire, there was no burning smell, and I began to notice that the sensation of heat was in the area of ​​my injury, of the tear,” the priest continued.

“And I began to remember that in many Catholic spiritualities, such as the charismatic, people described that when the Holy Spirit is doing a healing in a person, the person describes the sensation of heat.”

The priest confessed that he didn’t believe it was possible that he was healing, “not because God didn’t have the power to do so, but because I believed that I didn’t have the faith for such a thing, and that moved me deeply, and moved me to tears. And after I finished praying that day, I continued with my normal activities.”

The doctor’s surprise: ‘Someone up there is taking care of you’

Since he suffered the injury, Gutiérrez had been wearing an ankle brace, but he stopped wearing it after what happened in the chapel. On Nov. 15, six days after finishing his novena, he went to see the surgeon who was going to operate on him.

The priest said the surgeon looked at the images of the injury on the computer, did the Thompson test on him, which checks for a tear, but found nothing and, in addition, the then-seminarian simply felt no pain in the area that had been affected.

The doctor then told him that surgery didn’t seem to be necessary. “And I asked him why and he told me that when he examined me, when he tried to touch the place of the fissure with his finger, he should be able to touch the hole, the fissure that the tear leaves, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t find it. And since he knew that I was a seminarian, I only remember that he told me ‘there must be someone up there who is taking care of you.’”

“And when he told me that, I felt like a shiver that ran through my entire body because at that moment I remembered the event in the chapel where I had the sensation of heat in the area of ​​my injury, of the tear. And I remembered my novena to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.”

The doctor told him that the MRI was correct, that on Oct. 31 a tear in the Achilles tendon was seen, that these types of injuries did not heal on their own but, on the contrary, worsen over time. Then, at the request of the then-31-year-old seminarian, the doctor gave him the medical documents of the case because he simply did not require any medical attention.

“I returned to the seminary. It gave me great joy, I felt a lot of emotion, but at the same time I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I tried to keep it as secret as possible.” In fact, he didn’t even mention it to his family, only to a few people.

His relationship with Frassati: ‘A friendship that cannot be described’

The priest recalled that when he prayed the novena “I wasn’t asking for healing, I was asking for God’s help with my injury. And I initially thought of doing it to all the saints, because it occurred to me, ‘Well, today is the day of the solemnity of All Saints and I need all the help I can get.’ But then I received this inspiration that said to me, why don’t you do the novena to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati? And I was a little surprised, but it seemed like a good idea, and that’s why I did it to him.”

“I thought that this secret, so to speak, I was going to take with me to the grave. I did promise during my novena that if something unusual happened, I would report it to whoever I needed to report it, [but] I never imagined that this would become the miracle that the Vatican would accept for the canonization of Pier Giorgio.”

One of the people with whom he shared what had happened was a professor of his, who then took the case to the Vatican. Then it was decided to open a formal investigation.

After pointing out that the investigation being conducted by the Vatican, in which one of his professors at the seminary participated, is “extremely rigorous,” Gutiérrez commented that “the Lord is the one who chose to give me this connection, this friendship with Pier Giorgio. And it was the Lord who planned that of all the miracles and graces that people have received around the world through Pier Giorgio’s intercession, this would be the event that would lead to his canonization.”

Regarding his relationship with the future Italian saint, the priest said that “it’s like a friendship that cannot be described. One has human friendships, good ones and so on, but this is something different. It’s something that fills me with joy, that fills me with peace, that also challenges me now as a priest to be a better witness of being a Christian.”

The Mexican priest also highlighted that “Pier Giorgio was very fond of mountain climbing, of going on hikes in the mountains. And it was not a quality that I thought I had much, but it is something that little by little I am embracing a little more and I feel, when I have done it and I have gone to the mountains to walk, I even feel his closeness.”

“Also to be brave: that the Christianity that one lives also comes to manifest itself in social areas of life, because that’s something that he did a lot. At his young age, in his youth, he knew that his Christianity was not just to stay within the walls of the church. In his social life, in the context of society, of politics, of his country, he knew that the values ​​of the Gospel, of Christianity, had to influence those areas of human life,” Gutiérrez emphasized.

Speaking about the canonization during the 2025 Jubilee, the priest from Los Angeles affirmed that “once again, providence, the hand of the Lord that writes our history is everywhere, because next year also marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Pier Giorgio.” It’s “a gift of God’s providence that is amazing,” he added.

“I am hoping to go, this is my hope, to be able to go,” he said.

Who was Blessed Pier Gorgio Frassati?

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born on Holy Saturday, April 6, 1901. He was the son of the founder and director of the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

At the age of 17, he joined the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and devoted much of his free time to caring for the poor, the homeless, and the sick, as well as veterans returning from World War I.

Frassati was also involved in the Apostleship of Prayer and Catholic Action. He was a daily communicant.

Frassati died of polio on July 4, 1925, a disease he apparently contracted while caring for the sick. He was only 24 years old.

St. John Paul II, who beatified Frassati in 1990, called him “a man of the Eight Beatitudes,” describing him as “totally immersed in the mystery of God and totally dedicated to the constant service of his neighbor.”

Pope Francis praised Frassati for sharing Jesus’ love with the poor in a talk on June 24: “Pier Giorgio was from a well-off upper-middle-class family, but he didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury, he didn’t get lost in the ‘good life,’ because inside him there was the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit, there was love for Jesus and for his brothers.”

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

Daniel Turek, left, and Noah Mullins are two Detroit-area students studying at Grand Valley State University who design and sell Kingdom Kneelers, foam kneeling pads for prayer. Mullins came up with the idea for Kingdom Kneelers after attending the 2024 SEEK Conference in St. Louis. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Kingdom Kneelers

Detroit, Mich., Dec 23, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Noah Mullins’ experience at the 2024 SEEK Conference cemented his reversion back to the Catholic faith.

It also sparked a business venture that can heal souls and perhaps save some pain on kneecaps.

The Grand Valley State University student and University of Detroit Jesuit High School alum was at the 2024 SEEK Conference in St. Louis, invited by the Catholic campus ministry in Allendale in west Michigan.

Mullins grew up at St. Joseph Parish in Trenton, Michigan, and drifted away from Catholicism after high school but started visiting the Catholic campus ministry — initially to disprove the tenets of the faith but later to learn more about Catholicism through a mature lens.

It was the third night of SEEK, and after a few encouraging lectures and prayers surrounding Eucharistic adoration, Mullins was slowly coming around to discover (or rather rediscover) Christ’s true presence in the Eucharist.

“We had this time for conference-wide adoration in the stadium,” Mullins told Detroit Catholic. “We had this time for adoration, and many people were getting so emotional as the priest carried the Eucharist in the monstrance throughout the stadium. Many people, myself included, were kneeling, but the stadium had concrete-cement flooring, so it was getting very difficult to kneel.”

It was a powerful moment for Mullins. His heart was on fire for the Lord, but his knees were aching. 

The solution presented itself right away.

“On my way out of adoration, I noticed FOCUS [the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, who organize the SEEK Conference] had provided some kneeling pads,” Mullins said. “I took a kneeler because I wanted one for my dorm back at Grand Valley. When I got back to my hotel that night, it dawned on me: These could be personalized or customized with a general design — maybe have better quality, a larger pad for a wider kneeling stance. Perhaps some Catholic imagery, since FOCUS kneelers just had their logo.”

That night in the hotel room, Mullins kicked around with fellow students the idea of customized foam kneelers for Catholics on the go who wanted to pray and save themselves from joint pain.

Mullins enlisted the help of fellow Grand Valley State student Daniel Turek, a Detroit Catholic Central alum and parishioner of St. William in Walled Lake, Michigan, whom Mullins met at St. Luke University Parish located right off the GVSU campus.

Mullins and Turek would talk about the faith and various beliefs in the Church, and the occasional sparring turned into accompaniment, as Mullins was warming back up to the idea of rejoining the Church.

The two agreed to meet at Wolfgang’s Restaurant, a popular breakfast destination in Grand Rapids’ Eastown Neighborhood, where Mullins and Turek, a senior marketing major, began discussing what Kingdom Kneelers would look like and to whom they could market them.

“We had much debate on what we wanted to do for these kneeling pads,” Turek said. “Noah and I talked to over 10 different priests from the Diocese of Grand Rapids and the Archdiocese of Detroit, consulting with them on what would be a proper image. We wanted them to be good, Christian images, but we didn’t want anything that would be disrespectful to kneel on.”

The two settled on three designs: a ram caught in a thicket, a rosary wrapped around hands in prayer, and a Crusader.

Each kneeler features the Kingdom Kneelers logo — which features the Sacred Heart — in the bottom-right corner and a Bible verse in the top-left corner.

“We wanted to hit two elements in the design right away, that being Christ, of course, and the Blessed Mother,” Mullins said. “We knew going into making the designs we wanted to have those two elements. Then we decided on the Crusader, as we wanted to appeal to Catholic men who might want a more masculine image as well.”

The foam kneelers have a neoprene surface that is smooth for kneeling, are approximately 6 1/2 by 13 inches, and are just under a pound in weight.

Mullins and Turek first introduced the kneelers to friends on campus and received a positive reception. They have begun marketing the kneelers to people at campus ministry, parish gift shops, and conferences in the Grand Rapids area.

“Our best reception came a week ago at the Grand Rapids diocesan Council of Catholic Women event — the Ablaze Conference — where we sold 15 kneelers to attendees of the event,” Mullins said. “People were saying they wish they had something like this at the National Eucharistic Congress or would have loved to have them at home. Many of the women were thinking they could be great gifts for their grandsons or granddaughters to help them stay in the faith as they grow older and leave home.”

Coming full circle, Kingdom Kneelers will have an exhibition table at the SEEK 2025 conference in Salt Like City on Jan. 1–5.

“We think these will be a big hit at SEEK, but also being used at home to pray in corners because many people want to have a traditional kneeler at home,” Mullins said. “We see it being used on pilgrimages as we are going into the jubilee year, and people are traveling to visitation sites and worship sites in Europe and around the world. We see Kingdom Kneelers for companies who put on pilgrimage tours to add to their attendees’ packages.”

Kingdom Kneelers are available to purchase online for $19.99.

Mullins and Turek hope the kneelers will help people enter into a more intentional — if not more comfortable — state of prayer. 

“Our goal here is to bring a lot more comfort within prayer,” Turek said. “Allow more people to dive deeper into prayer life. My knees start to ache when I’m on them for too long, particularly when the ground or floor is so hard. Providing something that brings comfort that will bring people into prayer with Our Lord longer; that’s our goal.”

This story was first published by Detroit Catholic and is reprinted here with permission.