Pope Leo XIV greets a girl in a wheelchair during an audience with members of Italian Catholic Action on Dec. 19, 2025 at the Vatican. Credit: Vatican Media
Dec 31, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).
2025 was filled with impactful moments — from the death of Pope Francis to the election of the first American-born pope, Leo XIV, to hundreds of thousands of young people who gathered in Rome for the Jubilee of Youth to the canonization of the Church’s first millennial saint.
Here are some of the top Catholic moments of 2025:
Death of Pope Francis
The new year began with Catholics around the world uniting in prayer for Pope Francis’ health as he entered the hospital on Feb. 14. He was admitted to Gemelli Hospital in Rome due to a respiratory infection that progressed to bilateral pneumonia, requiring a prolonged hospitalization that lasted almost six weeks.
On March 23, Pope Francis was discharged from the hospital and gave a blessing from the hospital window to the faithful who were gathered.
Soon after, on March 29, the late pontiff was readmitted to the hospital with difficulty breathing. On April 21, the day after Easter, Pope Francis passed away at the age of 88 from a stroke, coma, and irreversible cardiovascular collapse, according to the death certificate published just over 12 hours after Francis’ death.
More than 400,000 people filled St. Peter’s Square for the funeral of Pope Francis on April 26 as the world said goodbye to the first Latin American pope, who led the Catholic Church for 12 years.
Conclave and election of Pope Leo XIV
On May 7, 133 cardinal electors gathered in the Sistine Chapel for the start of the conclave. After four ballots, Cardinal Robert Prevost was elected on May 8 as the 267th pope of the Catholic Church and took the name Pope Leo XIV. A Chicago native, he became the first American pope in Church history.
Thousands gathered in St. Peter’s Square erupted in cheers as the bells of the basilica began to toll, confirming the election of a new pontiff. The crowds gathered as word spread throughout Rome that a new pope had been chosen.
Jubilee of Youth
One of Pope Leo’s first major events was the Jubilee of Youth, which was held in Rome from July 28 to Aug. 3. Roughly 1 million young adults from around the world filled the streets of Rome as each day was filled with different opportunities and events for the young people to experience the richness of the Catholic faith.
On Aug. 2, Pope Leo XIV was greeted by the largest crowd he had addressed during his pontificate thus far for the evening vigil at Tor Vergata, an outdoor venue 10 miles east of Rome. An estimated 1 million people were in attendance. The Holy Father arrived by helicopter and then drove through the grounds on the popemobile, waving to the cheering young people before the prayer service began.
Minneapolis school shooting
The Catholic community was shaken when a school shooting took place on Aug. 27 at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. Two children were killed and 20 were injured. The shooter was identified as Robin Westman — who was born “Robert” and identified as a transgender woman — who died by suicide shortly after shooting through the windows of the church during a weekday school Mass.
The Holy Father sent his condolences and offered prayers for the victims. He described the event as an “extremely difficult” and “terrible” tragedy.
Canonization of Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati
On Sept. 7, two of the Church’s most beloved blesseds became saints: Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati. The canonizations of the two men, promulgated before an estimated 70,000 people in St. Peter’s Square, were the first of Leo XIV’s pontificate.
During his homily, the pope said: “Today we look to St. Pier Giorgio Frassati and St. Carlo Acutis: a young man from the early 20th century and a teenager from our own day, both in love with Jesus and ready to give everything for him.”
“Dear friends, Sts. Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis are an invitation to all of us, especially young people, not to squander our lives but to direct them upwards and make them masterpieces,” he added.
Newman made doctor of the Church
The Catholic Church gained a new doctor of the Church on Nov. 1 , when Pope Leo XIV declared St. John Henry Newman a doctor of the Church, recognizing the English cardinal and theologian — one of the most influential converts from Anglicanism — as a towering figure of faith and intellect in modern Catholicism.
“Newman’s impressive spiritual and cultural stature will surely serve as an inspiration to new generations whose hearts thirst for the infinite and who, through research and knowledge, are willing to undertake that journey which, as the ancients said, takes us ‘per aspera ad astra,’ through difficulties to the stars,” the pope said in his homily.
Pope Leo featured at NCYC
On Nov. 21, Pope Leo took part in his first digital encounter with American youth during the National Catholic Youth Conference, which took place Nov. 20–22 in Indianapolis.
The conference featured Catholic speakers, daily Mass and adoration, music and worship, breakout groups and workshops, and interactive exhibits with games, vendors, meetups, and live radio shows.
The main attraction of the conference was the hourlong live, virtual dialogue the pope had with those in attendance. Five young people were chosen to ask the Holy Father questions, which ranged from prayer to technology to friendships and the future of the Church. Pope Leo gave those gathered invaluable advice regarding the several different topics discussed.
First papal trip to Turkey and Lebanon
Pope Leo visited Turkey and Lebanon during his first papal trip from Nov. 27–Dec. 2. The wide-ranging international visit included historic ecumenical encounters, deeply symbolic gestures of prayer, and pastoral visits to Christian communities under pressure. The Holy Father highlighted the importance of unity, peace, and fraternity, and brought encouragement to a region marked by ancient faith and present suffering.
![Vice President Vance presents a Christian vision of politics #Catholic
U.S. Vice President JD Vance. / Credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
CNA Staff, Dec 23, 2025 / 14:27 pm (CNA).
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, America’s second Catholic vice president, laid out a distinctly Christian vision for American politics in a speech this week, declaring that “the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been and, by the grace of God, we always will be a Christian nation.”Speaking to more than 30,000 young conservatives at Turning Point USA’s AmFest 2025 some three months after the death of its founder Charlie Kirk, Vance called for a politics rooted in a Christian faith that honors the family, protects the weak, and rejects what he described as a decades-long “war” on Christianity in public life.The Christian faith has provided a “shared moral language” since the nation’s founding, the Yale-trained lawyer argued, which led to “our understanding of natural law and rights, our sense of duty to one’s neighbor, the conviction that the strong must protect the weak, and the belief in individual conscience.”“Christianity is America’s creed,” the vice president said to loud cheers, while acknowledging that not everyone needs to be a Christian and “we must respect each individual’s pathway” to God. Even so, he said, “even our famously American idea of religious liberty is a Christian concept.” Vance described how, over the past several decades, “freedom of religion transformed into freedom from religion” as a result of the cultural assault on Christian faith from those on “the left” who have “labored to push Christianity out of national life. They’ve kicked it out of the schools, out of the workplace, out of the fundamental parts of the public square.”He continued: “And in a public square devoid of God, we got a vacuum. And the ideas that filled that void preyed on the very worst of human nature rather than uplifting it.”Vance said cultural voices opposed to Christian faith “told us not that we were children of God, but children of this or that identity group. They replaced God’s beautiful design for the family that men and women could rely on … with the idea that men could turn into women so long as they bought the right bunch of pills from Big Pharma.” The former U.S. senator and Catholic convert credited President Donald Trump for ending the cultural “war that has been waged on Christians and Christianity in the United States of America,” touting the administration’s policy priorities as the fruit of Christian motivation.“We help older Americans in retirement, including by ending taxes on Social Security, because we believe in honoring your father and mother rather than shipping all of their money off to Ukraine,” he said. “We believe in taking care of the poor, which is why we have Medicaid, so that the least among us can afford their prescriptions or to take their kids to see a doctor.”Speaking of the despair he felt after the assassination of his friend Kirk, he said: “What saved me was realizing that the story of the Christian faith … is one of immense loss followed by even bigger victory. It’s a story of very dark nights followed by very bright dawns. What saved me was remembering the inherent goodness of God and that his grace overflows when we least expect it.”Of masculinity, Vance said: “The fruits of true Christianity are good husbands, patient fathers, builders of great things, and slayers of dragons. And yes, men who are willing to die for a principle if that’s what God asked them to do.”He described how he saw the fruits of Christian men living out their faith during a recent visit to a men’s ministry that aids those who struggle with addiction and homelessness: “They feed them. They clothe them. They give them shelter and financial advice. They live out the very best part of Christ’s commission.”After eating lunch with some of the men who were “all back on their feet” after receiving help, Vance said he saw that the answer to “What saved them?” was not “racial commonality or grievance … a DEI prep course” or “a welfare check.”“It was the fact that a carpenter died 2,000 years ago and changed the world in the process.” “A true Christian politics,” he said, “cannot just be about the protection of the unborn or the promotion of the family. As important as those things absolutely are, it must be at the heart of our full understanding of government.” On immigration policy, Vance has challenged U.S. bishops, popesThe vice president has publicly disagreed with the U.S. bishops on their reaction to the Trump administration’s immigration policies, as well as with Pope Leo XIV and the late Pope Francis, who seemed to criticize Vance in a letter the pontiff penned to the U.S. bishops last winter. In defense of the administration’s approach to immigration, Vance had in a late January interview invoked an “old school … Christian concept” he later identified as the “ordo amoris,” or “rightly ordered love.” He said that according to the concept, one’s “compassion belongs first” to one’s family and fellow citizens, “and then after that” to the rest of the world.After Pope Leo on Nov. 18 asked Americans to listen to U.S. bishops’ message opposing “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and urging the humane treatment of migrants, Vance countered: “Border security is not just good for American citizens. It is the humanitarian thing to do for the entire world.”Vance continued: “Open borders” do not promote “[human] dignity, even of the illegal migrants themselves,” citing drug and sex trafficking.“When you empower the cartels and when you empower the human traffickers, whether in the United States or anywhere else, you’re empowering the very worst people in the world,” Vance said.In this week’s AmFest speech, he touted the administration’s successes regarding immigration: “December marks seven months straight of zero releases at the southern border. More than 2.5 million illegal immigrants have left the United States. The first time in over 50 years that we have had negative net migration.”At the end of the speech, Vance told the thousands of young people that while “only God can promise you salvation in heaven” if they have faith in God, “I promise you closed borders and safe communities. I promise you good jobs and a dignified life … together, we can fulfill the promise of the greatest nation in the history of the earth.”](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/vice-president-vance-presents-a-christian-vision-of-politics-catholic-u-s-vice-president-jd-vance-credit-gage-skidmore-cc-by-sa-4-0-via-wikimedia-commonscna-staff-dec-23-2025-1427-p.webp)
