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Feskekôrka (meaning “fish church”) is a historic building in Gothenburg, Sweden that formerly housed an indoor fish market. Its name is based on the building’s resemblance to a neo-Gothic church.
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The premiere of “Triumph of the Heart” in Dallas on Sept. 8, 2025. / Credit: Nicole Marie Richards
CNA Staff, Sep 12, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
A new film called “Triumph of the Heart” depicts St. Maximilian Kolbe’s last days on earth in a starvation bunker in the German death camp of Auschwitz. The film will be released in theaters on Sept. 12.
St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan friar and priest who volunteered to die in place of another man in Auschwitz. He spent the last 14 days of his life in a starvation bunker alongside nine other men.
At the film’s Sept. 8 premiere in Dallas, where over 1,000 people gathered at the Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building on the University of Texas at Dallas campus to show their support and watch the film, writer and director Anthony D’Ambrosio told CNA on the red carpet that it was “surreal” to see the magnitude of the premiere.
He explained that it was originally meant to be a more intimate gathering with roughly 200 people in attendance but “God, of course, had other plans,” D’Ambrosio said. “I think that what I’m seeing is that God keeps on growing our vision for where he wants to take the film, where he wants to take this story.”
The current rise in faith-based media
Actors who also spoke on the red carpet discussed the resurgence of faith-based media being seen in today’s culture.
Michael Iskander, who portrays King David in Prime Video’s “House of David” and served as the master of ceremonies for the premiere, said he believes “Christ is pouring his heart out to all of us in every way possible and media is one of those frontiers that hasn’t really been touched yet.”
He credited the hit series “The Chosen” for “paving the path for so much faith-based filmmaking and showing people that this is a market that people want to see.”
A recent convert to Catholicism, Iskander shared that St. Maximilian Kolbe was one of the first saints he learned about from the Catholic Church. He highlighted the saint’s use of media to spread the Gospel message to the masses and said it is “fitting that this film and this rise in Christianity, especially in filmmaking, had to do with St. Kolbe.”
Jeff Schiefelbein, co-host of the podcast “The Beatidudes” and an investor in “Triumph of the Heart,” said he believes there is a resurgence in faith-based media because people are “sick of all the fake stuff.”
“We’re being told to compare ourselves to things that aren’t even important. The materialism has swung so far that the pendulum is making its way back,” he said. “… I think there’s going to be this resurgence … of young people, Gen Xers, old people coming back and saying, ‘Wait, we want what’s real, what’s true, what’s good, and what’s beautiful’ and so it is rooted in the Gospel when we go and seek those.”
Marcellino D’Ambrosio, a well-known author, Catholic commentator, and executive producer of the film — also the father of Anthony D’Ambrosio — called this moment we’re seeing in faith-based media “a Holy Spirit moment.”
“Human beings always need God but I think something really special is going on right now,” he said.
“St. Augustine said it well: Our hearts are restless until we rest in him. And success in the culture — this is a fascinating thing that actually goes back even to the successful cultures in Rome — there’s an emptiness when you have a certain amount of success and you have leisure; nothing satisfies but God,” he added. “So it oftentimes leads people to that restlessness that St. Augustine talks about — to look for him, to be open to him, and I think that’s what’s going on in our culture right now.”
A film that inspires hope
As for what those involved in the film hope viewers take away from it, the major theme they mentioned was their wish that it fills the audience with hope.
“I hope they will take away hope,” Marcellino D’Ambrosio said. “I hope that everyone realizes that God is real; I have a future, no matter how bad the present looks … he’s with me in the present and he has something in store for me that’s greater than my wildest dreams.”
Rowan Polonski, the actor who portrays Albert in the film — one of the men in the starvation bunker alongside Kolbe — told CNA his hope is for the audience to be “pleasantly surprised in the way that they’re moved.”
“Entering into this movie, you could quite easily walk in thinking it’s going to be a pretty dark and heavy write, but what I want them to walk out with is a sense of joy and catharsis,” he added. “And a sense that no matter how dark times can get, how low one can feel, there’s always a way out, there’s always a crack of light somewhere that you can cling onto and follow through and it’s normally in the form of love.”
Producer Cecilia Stevenson added: “I really want people to feel love when they watch this movie and specifically to feel the love of Our Lord and how he enters into our suffering with us, just like Kolbe did for those men in that film. Our movie, Kolbe’s story, it’s a modern-day example that ultimately points us to Christ, and I really hope people feel that love and I hope it gives them hope, that there is meaning in life and that suffering itself can have meaning.”
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null / Credit: mikeledray/Shutterstock
Denver, Colo., Sep 1, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).
As the U.S. celebrates Labor Day, Catholics have a wealth of resources in biblical interpretation, Church teaching, and social thought that address the nature of work and the place of the worker in society and in God’s creation.
But are Catholics, and others, aware of these resources?
One Catholic leader considering such questions is Father Sinclair Oubre, a priest of the Diocese of Beaumont, Texas. He is the spiritual moderator of the Catholic Labor Network, a Catholic association that promotes Catholic teaching about work and labor unions. It also supports labor organizing.
“All work, no matter what the work is, is essential,” Oubre likes to say. In his view, if a woman in janitorial work at a major software company does not show up to clean the toilets and empty the trash, all production in the office will nosedive.
Centuries of Catholic teaching about labor can be found compiled in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published in 2004 by the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace. It dedicates its entire sixth chapter to human work and labor, its place in God’s plan, its role in society, and the rights and duties of workers.
“The Compendium gathers together in one place those rights that are found in Catholic social teaching, whether it’s Rerum Novarum or Quadragesimo Anno, or Centesimus Annus, and synthesizes them,” Oubre told CNA, referring to the respective encyclicals of popes Leo XIII, Pius XI, and John Paul II.
“It’s a beautiful reflection on human work in the world and a very mature and in-depth discussion of the place of work, the place of labor, and the communal nature of it,” Oubre said.
Labor, politics, and spirituality
Oubre said Catholic teaching is a challenge regardless of people’s political views.
“It’s a challenge to the right, but it’s also a challenge to the left,” he said. Catholicism encourages those on the political right not simply to pray novenas and commit themselves to spiritual actions. It is a challenge not to leave other questions about work and labor to the market.
For the political left, Catholic social teaching “means you have to enter into a more intimate relationship with your Church and your relationship with Jesus and not just be as a social justice person by throwing a couple of little quotes around. It requires you to enter into that deeper spiritual relationship.”
Oubre stressed the importance of starting from the view of Catholic spirituality, not only social justice, because if we don’t, our approach “becomes ideological and polemic.” The spiritual approach “brings us closer to Jesus Christ.”
“No matter how dirty, how uncomfortable, how awful the job is, we are participating in God’s ongoing creation. It’s important that we do that job in a way that gives glory to God,” Oubre said.
God and man at work
The Compendium’s reflection on work begins with its biblical aspects: There is a human duty to “cultivate and care for the earth” and other good things created by God, it says. Work existed before the fall of Adam and Eve, and it is not a punishment or curse until the break with God transforms it into “toil and pain.” However, God’s rest on the seventh day of creation is the sign of the “fuller freedom” of the “eternal Sabbath.”
The life of Jesus Christ is a mission of work, from his early life helping St. Joseph in the work of a carpenter to his ministry of preaching and healing, and most of all in his redemptive labors on the cross.
The Compendium presents human labor as a way of supporting oneself and one’s loved ones, but also a way to serve the needy. Work is a way to make God’s creation more beautiful, since humankind shares in God’s art and wisdom.
“Human work, directed to charity as its final goal, becomes an occasion for contemplation, it becomes devout prayer, vigilantly rising towards and in anxious hope of the day that will not end,” the Compendium says.
The rights of labor
God’s rest on the seventh day of creation, the Compendium says, means men and women must enjoy “sufficient rest and free time that will allow them to tend to their family, cultural, social, and religious life.”
The Compendium outlines and explains the many rights of workers: the right to rest from work; the right to a working environment that is not harmful to a worker’s health or moral integrity; the right to unemployment protections; the right to a pension and insurance for old age, disability, and work-related accidents; the right to social security for working mothers; and the right to assemble and form associations; the right to just wages and remuneration; and the right to strike.
Labor unions play a “fundamental role” in serving the common good and promoting social order and solidarity, though they must not abuse their role in society or become simply arms of a political party.
“The recognition of workers’ rights has always been a difficult problem to resolve because this recognition takes place within complex historical and institutional processes, and still today it remains incomplete,” the Compendium says. “This makes the practice of authentic solidarity among workers more fitting and necessary than ever.”
A challenge for Catholics and institutions
Catholic teaching has a lengthy paper record. But as in other areas, there is a challenge to practice it.
“What I find over and over again that the Church — our Church — gives us wonderful documents of guidance… and we never go back and read them,” Oubre told CNA.
He cited the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1996 pastoral letter “Economic Justice for All,” which says the Church should be a model for labor rights and treating workers justly.
However, Oubre said that in his experience Catholic parishes often neglect to provide unemployment insurance to employees if the law allows them to opt out. Catholic institutions often act as “at-will” employers in which management can fire employees for any reason. They may show preferences for nonunion labor over unionized labor when planning and funding construction projects.
“You’re going to undercut the guy who has actually followed the Church’s teachings in regards to work by hiring somebody who may be not offering medical insurance for his employees,” the priest lamented.
For Labor Day, Oubre encouraged parishes, dioceses, and other institutions to make sure to adopt policies that put Catholic labor teaching into practice.
This story was first published on Sept. 4, 2023, and has been updated.
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Time Magazine named Pope Leo XIV (pictured in the Paul VI Audience Hall) one of its Top 100 most influential thinkers concerning AI on Aug. 28, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 29, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).
Time Magazine included Pope Leo XIV in its 2025 list of the “World’s Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence” on Thursday, Aug. 28, praising the pontiff’s focus on the ethical concerns related to the emerging technology.
The magazine listed the top 100 influential people in artificial intelligence (AI) in four categories: Leaders, Innovators, Shapers, and Thinkers. Leo XIV is among the 25 most influential thinkers in the field, according to Time.
In a profile included in the magazine, Time technology correspondent Andrew Chow noted that Leo XIV chose his papal name, in part, based on the need for the Church to address ethical matters related to AI and wrote that the Holy Father is “already making good on his vow.”
When the pontiff met with the College of Cardinals two days after he assumed the papacy, he said he took the name in honor of Pope Leo XIII, who had “addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.”
Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878 until 1903, published the encyclical Rerum Novarum, which discussed the needs of the working class amid the industrial revolution. The text eschewed both socialism and unrestrained market power, opting for cooperation between competing interests that is centered on the dignity of the human person.
The current pope, Leo XIV, said he took the name because of the “developments in the field of artificial intelligence,” which he noted pose “new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.”
Time’s profile noted that the Vatican hosted the Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Corporate Governance in June, and stated: “Leo XIV’s keynote speech underlined AI’s potential as a force for good, particularly in health care and scientific discovery.”
“But AI ‘raises troubling questions on its possible repercussions on humanity’s openness to truth and beauty, on our distinctive ability to grasp and process reality,’ he added,” the profile stated, quoting the Holy Father. “And he warned that the technology could be misused for ‘selfish gain at the expense of others, or worse, to foment conflict and aggression.’”
Other figures on Time’s list include xAI founder Elon Musk, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, and Sen. Chris Murphy.
This is the third annual list published by Time focusing on the most influential people in AI.
“We launched this list in 2023, in the wake of OpenAI’s release of ChatGPT, the moment many became aware of AI’s potential to compete with and exceed the capabilities of humans,” Time Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs wrote regarding the publication of the list.
“Our aim was to show how the direction AI travels will be determined not by machines but by people — innovators, advocates, artists, and everyone with a stake in the future of this technology,” he added. “… This year’s list further confirms our focus on people.”
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Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has emerged as a strong competitor, causing a major sell-off in US tech stocks. Nvidia witnessed a dramatic 17.95% drop. DeepSeek’s R1 model, which matches US-developed AI systems at a lower cost, has raised investor concerns about the future of AI investments. Accusations of secret access to NVIDIA’s chips add to the controversy.
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