
ARENA FEROX — As his opponent once again successfully dodged his attack, Captain Falcon began to wonder if shouting "FALCON PUNCH!!" before punching people might be telegraphing his moves.
Read MoreARENA FEROX — As his opponent once again successfully dodged his attack, Captain Falcon began to wonder if shouting "FALCON PUNCH!!" before punching people might be telegraphing his moves.
Read MoreU.S. — MSNBC reported today that Abraham Lincoln has been shot by a Union soldier who was just firing his rifle in celebration.
Read MoreO God, by Your mighty power You made all things out of nothing. First, You set the beginnings of the universe in order. Then, You made man in Your image, and appointed woman to be his inseparable helpmate. Thus You made woman’s body from the flesh of man, thereby teaching that what You have been pleased to institute from one principle might never lawfully be put asunder. O God, You have sanctified marriage by a mystery so excellent that in the marriage union You foreshadowed the union of Christ …
Read MoreA reading from the Book of the prophet Amos
8:4-7
Hear this, you who trample upon the needy
and destroy the poor of the land!
"When will the new moon be over," you ask,
"that we may sell our grain,
and the sabbath, that we may display the wheat?
We will diminish the ephah,
add to the shekel,
and fix our scales for cheating!
We will buy the lowly for silver,
and the poor for a pair of sandals;
even the refuse of the wheat we will sell!"
The LORD has sworn by the pride of Jacob:
Never will I forget a thing they have done!
A reading from the First Letter to Timothy
2:1-8
Beloved:
First of all, I ask that supplications, prayers,
petitions, and thanksgivings be offered for everyone,
for kings and for all in authority,
that we may lead a quiet and tranquil life
in all devotion and dignity.
This is good and pleasing to God our savior,
who wills everyone to be saved
and to come to knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God.
There is also one mediator between God and men,
the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself as ransom for all.
This was the testimony at the proper time.
For this I was appointed preacher and apostle
— I am speaking the truth, I am not lying —,
teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
It is my wish, then, that in every place the men should pray,
lifting up holy hands, without anger or argument.
From the Gospel according to Luke
16:1-13
Jesus said to his disciples,
"A rich man had a steward
who was reported to him for squandering his property.
He summoned him and said,
‘What is this I hear about you?
Prepare a full account of your stewardship,
because you can no longer be my steward.’
The steward said to himself, ‘What shall I do,
now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me?
I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.
I know what I shall do so that,
when I am removed from the stewardship,
they may welcome me into their homes.’
He called in his master’s debtors one by one.
To the first he said,
‘How much do you owe my master?’
He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’
He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note.
Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’
Then to another the steward said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’
He replied, ‘One hundred kors of wheat.’
The steward said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note;
write one for eighty.’
And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.
"For the children of this world
are more prudent in dealing with their own generation
than are the children of light.
I tell you, make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth,
so that when it fails, you will be welcomed into eternal dwellings.
The person who is trustworthy in very small matters
is also trustworthy in great ones;
and the person who is dishonest in very small matters
is also dishonest in great ones.
If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth,
who will trust you with true wealth?
If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another,
who will give you what is yours?
No servant can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and mammon."
If the logic of profit prevails, it widens the gap between the poor and the rich, as well as increasing the ruinous exploitation of the planet. On the other hand, when the logic of sharing and solidarity prevails, it is possible to correct the course and direct it to a fair development for the common good of all. Basically, it is a matter of choosing between selfishness and love, between justice and dishonesty and ultimately, between God and Satan. (…) Today, as yesterday, Christian life demands the courage to go against the tide, to love like Jesus, who even went so far as to sacrifice himself on the Cross. We could then say, paraphrasing one of St Augustine’s thoughts, that through earthly riches we must procure for ourselves those true and eternal riches: indeed, if people exist who are prepared to resort to every type of dishonesty to assure themselves an always unpredictable material well-being, how much more concerned we Christians must be to provide for our eternal happiness with the goods of this earth. (Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, Suburbicarian Diocese of Velletri-Segni, 23 September 2007)
Read MoreCNA Staff, Sep 20, 2025 / 15:20 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on Saturday commended U.S. advocates marching in support of those suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), praising those in Chicago seeking a cure for the disease while walking with those afflicted by it.
The pope gave the video address to marchers at the Les Turner ALS Foundation’s annual ALS Walk for Life. Described as “the biggest ALS gathering in the Midwest,” the foundation says it is “building teams, raising funds for essential care and research, and turning the tide in the fight” against ALS, which affects motor neurons and leads to muscle weakness, paralysis and death.
Leo in his address expressed “admiration and gratefulness” to the scientists in the gathering, who he said have spent “countless hours” studying the disease in a bid to find a cure.
“In the last 10 years — using all your knowledge and compassion to understand motor neuron diseases and to alleviate the sufferings those diseases cause — you have made remarkable progress,” he said. “I, like everyone here, am deeply grateful to you.”
He also praised caregivers in the crowd, including doctors and physical therapists, describing them as “angels” who offer “inspiration to me and to all people.”
“You show us the best of humanity,” he said.
Further addressing those who suffer from ALS — also known as Lou Gherig’s disease — the pope assured them that they occupy a “special place in my thoughts and prayers.”
“You have been given a very difficult burden to bear. I wish it [were] otherwise,” Leo said. “Your sufferings, however, offer you an opportunity to discover and affirm a profound truth: The quality of human life is not dependent on achievement.”
“The quality of our lives is dependent on love,” he continued. “In your suffering, you can experience a depth of human love previously unknown. You can grow in gratefulness for all that has been given and for all the people who are caring for you now. You can develop a profound sense of the beauty of creation, of life in this world and of the mystery of love.”
“I pray for you,” he added. “I pray that rather than being possessed by frustration or hopelessness or despair, you surrender yourself to the mystery of human existence, to the love of your caregivers and to the embrace of the Divine One.”
Pope Leo also comforted those mourning loved ones who have passed from ALS.
“You have not forgotten them. And, in fact, your love has been purified by your service and then by your mourning,” he said. “You have learned and are every day entering more deeply into the most profound of mysteries — death is not the final word.”
“Love conquers death,” he said, repeating it twice more: “Love conquers death. Love conquers death.”
The Les Turner ALS Foundation’s annual walk was launched in 2002. The foundation was founded by, and named after, Chicago businessman Les Turner in 1976.
The organization has raised tens of millions of dollars in support of finding a cure to ALS since its founding.
Read MoreOn Sept. 20, 2016, Victor Buso was testing a new camera in his rooftop observatory. Buso, an amateur astronomer from Rosario, Argentina, shot a series of images of spiral galaxy NGC 613, which is about 70 million to 80 million light-years away in Sculptor. Checking to see how the new camera had worked, Buso reviewedContinue reading “Sept. 20, 2016: Spotting a supernova shock breakout”
The post Sept. 20, 2016: Spotting a supernova shock breakout appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.
Read MoreWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 20, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed.
The Irish Army bomb squad blocked off part of Dublin city center this week after David Quinn, CEO of the Iona Institute, received a letter in the mail containing a white powdery substance purporting to be anthrax. In a post on social media, Quinn wrote: “Received this in the post today. Nice,” sharing an image of a letter containing the white substance, which read: “Happy anthrax.”
Received in the post today. Nice. pic.twitter.com/PsEfUTV4OY
— David Quinn (@DavQuinn) September 16, 2025
“I opened up the thing about 1 o’clock and all this powder comes out,” Quinn told the Irish Independent. “It was just addressed ‘Iona Institute,’ so it’s basically targeting me and Breda O’Brien,” he continued, adding: “I can only imagine that it’s somebody with a hang-up about the Catholic Church.”
The Capuchin Fathers monastery in Corfu, Greece, has been shut down after nearly 400 years due to a “lack of vocations,” according to the Greek Reporter.
A final Mass at the monastery was celebrated by the Catholic archbishop of Corfu, Georgios Altouvas, this week, the report said, noting that “worshippers who had long turned to the friars for guidance and support wept as they bid farewell to the last brothers.” The order reportedly said they could no longer find friars to continue running the monastery’s operations.
Mass attendance in Austria has gone up, according to statistics reported by the Pillar on Sept. 17, and the number of individuals filing for formal disaffiliation from the Church has gone down in the past year.
In addition to the positive attendance trend, the annual statistics also found a rise in Church tax revenue. According to the Pillar, the data reflects a rise from 309,000 worshippers in the spring of 2022 to 378,797 in the fall of 2024. “Attendance rose in the Sankt Pölten Diocese, led by Bishop Alois Schwarz, from 40,193 and 42,652 in 2023 to 63,520 and 46,179 in 2024. In the Vienna Archdiocese, the increase was from 56,906 and 63,157 in 2023 to 78,806 and 84,621 in 2024,” the Pillar reported.
The apostolic administrator of the Vicariate of Nepal, Father Silas Bogati, has signaled approval of the new interim government led by former Chief Justice Sushila Karki amid ongoing anti-corruption protests that have left at least 72 dead, according to UCA news.
“We as a Catholic community have confidence in Sushila Karki, who, among other things, in the past, when she was still a lawyer, defended one of our priests and some religious sisters who had been wrongly accused in several court cases,” Bogati said of the country’s new interim leader. “We have a good opinion of her and trust in her work in the coming months to act in accordance with the rule of law and the democratic principles of justice and legality.”
The National Episcopal Conference of Congo has condemned the new wave of deadly attacks in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, decrying what they describe as the growing trivialization of human life in the Central African nation, according to ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa.
In a Sept. 16 statement shared with ACI Africa, the bishops highlighted recent attacks and expressed concern about the “evolution of the security situation, particularly in the eastern part of the country, which continues to suffer enormous loss of human life as a result of various forms of violence.” The deadliest incident, the Church leaders said, occurred Sept. 8 when at least 102 people were killed in Ntoyo village, Lubero Territory.
Bishop Martin Adjou Moumouni of the Diocese of N’Dali in the West African country of Benin is speaking out after jihadists carried out an attack on a local village, targeting its police station, looting homes, and taking at least six hostages, according to statements the prelate made to Fides News Agency.
“Nigerian Jihadists have long been spreading terror in our diocese, especially in rural areas,” the bishop said. “We were forced to suspend pastoral activities in the villages, and even in the city, I asked the priests of my diocese to hold services only during daylight hours, as insecurity increases with nightfall.”
The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, has signed a joint statement with Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and other church leaders from England and Ireland, pushing for an end to the war in Gaza.
“We fear that the unfolding assault on Gaza City will only intensify the human suffering and misery as already malnourished and traumatized families are forced, yet again, to flee the horrors of this war,” the statement reads. “This deadly escalation is futile and must stop.” The statement comes ahead of the United Nations’ International Day of Peace on Sept. 21, for which many Christian leaders have organized a day of prayer and public witness.
Syria’s Ministry of the Interior has tightened security measures around churches by deploying armed guards at their entrances following the St. Elias Church bombing in June, according to a Sept. 16 report from ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner.
“Many believe that the guards give them a sense of comfort and reassurance during prayer, as it provides a layer of protection,” said Joseph Kneifati, a deacon in the Melkite Greek Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo. “But on the other hand, the church is our second home, sometimes even our first.”
“When we enter and are asked where we’re going, it feels less natural,” he added. “Since childhood, we’ve been accustomed to attending church freely and simply. The presence of armed personnel at the doors has erased that spirit.”
Read MoreCNA Staff, Sep 20, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
A documentary on Father Marko Rupnik’s alleged abuse of consecrated women, the personal fallout for two of his alleged victims, and what happened when the claims became public decades later premiered at the Toronto Film Festival earlier this month.
“Nuns vs. The Vatican” includes the detailed stories of Gloria Branciani, Mirjam Kovac, and Klara (identified only by her first name), three former members of the Loyola Community in Slovenia in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Rupnik, a co-founder of the community, is accused of having committed sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse against dozens of women religious.
Through the stories of Branciani and Klara, the film, which premiered Sept. 6, argues that Rupnik’s alleged abuse was inextricably linked to his religious art. It also claims he was protected in the Catholic Church, in which he shot to stardom in the 1990s, and interviews experts who say the Vatican’s response has been inadequate.
Branciani was part of the Ignatius Loyola Community in Slovenia, which was co-founded by Rupnik in the 1980s. In the documentary, she recalls how Rupnik allegedly groomed and then sexually and psychologically abused her in the early ’90s and how the abuse was intricately connected with the creation of his art.
According to Branciani, her complaints about Rupnik went unanswered, she was punished by the community’s mother superior at the time, Ivanka Hosta, and forced out of religious life by Father Tomáš Špidlík, a Czech cardinal and Jesuit who died in 2010. Špidlík, who was close to Rupnik and the priest’s art and spirituality center in Rome, the Centro Aletti, allegedly wrote the resignation letter on her behalf.
In addition to testimony from the alleged victims and their lawyer, it includes the voices of journalists, psychologists, and other abuse experts, including Barbara Dorris, a former director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), who was sexually abused by a priest between the ages of 6 and 13.
Dorris and Laura Sgrò, a lawyer for some of Rupnik’s alleged victims, are highly critical of the Church hierarchy’s response to clerical sexual abuse throughout the documentary.
No one from the Vatican participated in the documentary. The film said requests for comment from Rupnik and the former head of the Loyola Community, Hosta, were ignored.
Sarah Pearson, a spokesperson for SNAP, said in a statement to CNA that “SNAP is proud of the legacy of Barbara Dorris, a longtime leader and tireless advocate for the 1 in 3 nuns who experience sexual abuse by priests.”
Pearson continued: “The case of Jesuit priest Father Marko Rupnik illustrates this catastrophe with tragic clarity. Despite overwhelming reports of abuse, Rupnik was shielded for years — kept in ministry through the Vatican’s intervention under Pope Francis. Only after prolonged public outrage was he finally subjected to a canonical process.”
Italian Lorena Luciano directed the film. It was produced by Filippo Piscopo. “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” star Mariska Hargitay is among the documentary’s executive producers.
A spokesperson for “Nuns vs. The Vatican” told CNA the documentary will continue to be shown at film festivals in North America, and they are working on getting a screening at the Vatican.
“We are also waiting to see whether Pope Leo will push for the ecclesiastical trial against Rupnik to happen in the fall,” a spokesperson for the production company added.
Earlier this year, the Vatican removed artwork by Rupnik from its official websites. Digital images of the Slovenian priest’s sacred art, which were frequently used by Vatican News to illustrate articles of the Church’s liturgical feast days, are no longer found on the digital news service.
The changes to the Vatican News and the Dicastery for Communication websites came soon after Pope Leo XIV met with members of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on June 5.
Read MoreCNA Staff, Sep 20, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
In 2023, Minnesota passed a law, signed by Gov. Tim Walz, that prohibits clinical mental health counselors from practicing “conversion therapy” with minors, effectively barring them from offering any guidance that does not affirm a child’s struggles with sexual orientation or gender identity.
This ban, enacted under House File 16 and effective Aug. 1, 2023, complicates access to tailored mental health resources for minors struggling with these issues, especially when a minor seeks to change his or her identity.
David Kirby, a clinical mental health counselor in Minnesota, told CNA that the law created a new minority: young people with same-sex attraction (SSA) who do not want it.
“There are people who find their gay attraction ego dystonic,” Kirby said. “They don’t want it. Maybe some were born with a propensity to SSA, but they know it’s not how they were created to be.”
The American Psychological Association (APA) opposes conversion therapy, or what it refers to as “sexual orientation change efforts,” because it says such efforts do not meet its definition of therapy, which is a “remediation of a physical, mental, or behavioral disorder or disease.”
“Same-sex sexual and romantic attractions, feelings, and behaviors are normal and positive variations of human sexuality regardless of sexual orientation identity,” according to the APA, and “efforts to change sexual orientation are unlikely to be successful and involve risk of harm.”
Opponents of conversion therapy often cite the use of shock therapy, which was a derivative of behavioral techniques popular in the mid-20th century. The practice has not been used in the U.S. for decades, however, according to the APA. Shock therapy peaked between the 1940s and 1970s, aligning with the APA’s classification of homosexuality as a sociopathic personality disturbance in 1952 until its declassification as a mental disorder in 1973.
The APA acknowledges that over the last several decades, however, conversion therapy in the U.S. entails only cognitive behavioral and other forms of psychotherapy.
Numerous studies, including those from the APA and the National Institute of Mental Health, indicate that struggles with sexual orientation and gender identity often co-occur with other mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, and borderline personality disorder.
According to the Minnesota law’s opponents, the ban on psychotherapy that does not affirm sexual orientation and gender identity can discourage therapists, fearing legal or licensing repercussions, from addressing other underlying psychological issues — such as trauma or other mental health conditions — that could contribute to someone not wanting to be gay or transgender.
Kirby said he and others who testified in the state Legislature against the bill in 2018 and again in 2023 have been “heckled,” and some faced “extreme verbal abuse.”
Kirby said the law has had a chilling effect on Christian counselors, some of whom are afraid that if they say anything in therapy sessions that is not gay- or transgender-affirming, they could face some kind of consequence.
He said he and other counselors also have a “fear that people are coming into therapy posing as clients to spy out the therapist.”
So far, however, he said he has not run into any consequences or “pseudo-clients” himself, nor has he heard of anyone else having done so.
The fear and anxiety remain, nevertheless.
“The bill was superfluous,” Kirby said.
Two of the negative consequences of the law, in Kirby’s opinion, are that it locks people with SSA or gender identity issues into thinking “I can’t change who I am” even if they might want to. It also creates a false presumption of homophobia or transphobia. The idea that “anyone who disagrees with me is afraid of me” is just not accurate, he said.
These things are “really, really deceptive and sad for” people with SSA or gender dysphoria, he said.
“What are therapists for, anyway?” he asked. “We’re here to listen to what the client wants. We’re not here to further our agenda. We all learned that in graduate school. We listen to what the client wants, and if we feel we cannot help them, we tell them so.”
The District of Columbia and 23 states have laws that prohibit mental health counselors from practicing conversion therapy, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBT think tank. Four other states and Puerto Rico restrict but do not prohibit the practice.
The journal of Robin Westman, the 23-year-old man who killed two children and injured at least 20 people at a Catholic school in Minneapolis in August, showed in a video on YouTube before the attack that he wrote: “I know I am not a woman but I definitely don’t feel like a man.”
“Westman wasn’t clear on who he was,” Kirby observed. “He said he regretted his ‘brainwashing,’” referring to his transgender identity.
When asked how he or other Christian counselors would have responded if Westman had come to them for help, Kirby said: “He would have found people who are nonjudgmental; people who would have loved him, met him where he was at.”
He would have received “loving attention, to hear his story; hear his confusion; walk with him,” Kirby continued.
No one would have “hoisted any agenda on him,” he said. “He would have been met by people who were full of compassion, to help him find the pain.”
“In the end, it’s not about changing our gender. It’s not the solution,” Kirby said. “It is to find the deepest pain. At the core of our identity, who we are in God’s eyes, in our own eyes. People resort to turning to gender but it’s not the solution. It’s just a distraction from the deepest pain in the heart.”
Read MoreFrom moose to Milky Way views and even aurora sightings, this park packs a big punch—with few crowds.
Read More