Actor David Henrie in the new series “Seeking Beauty,” which airs on EWTN+. | Credit: EWTN Studios
Jan 22, 2026 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Catholic figures gathered in Los Angeles on Jan. 16 for the premiere of “Seeking Beauty,” the first original series from EWTN Studios airing exclusively on the network’s brand-new streaming platform, EWTN+.
Here are five things to know about the new series and its host, actor David Henrie.
What is ‘Seeking Beauty’?
“Seeking Beauty” is a first-of-its-kind adventure documentary series that explores culture, architecture, food, art, and music, and aims to point viewers to the beautiful — and ultimately to the divine.
The series follows Henrie’s journey into the heart of Italy to explore what makes Italian culture one of the most beautiful in the world. It not only looks at the physical beauty of the country but also its spiritual richness.
Where can I watch it?
“Seeking Beauty” is available to watch exclusively on EWTN+, a free digital streaming platform that offers faith-based content. EWTN+ is available on RokuTV, GoogleTV, AppleTV, AmazonFireTV, and on EWTN.com.
Where does ‘Seeking Beauty’ take place?
The first season of “Seeking Beauty” takes place in several cities across Italy including Vatican City, Rome, Milan, Florence, and Venice.
Who is David Henrie?
Henrie is best known for his breakout role as Justin Russo on Disney Channel’s “Wizards of Waverly Place.” He grew up in a Catholic household with Italian heritage; however, Henrie’s early adult years were marked by what he has described as a relativistic and agnostic period. He has also spoken about how the successes of early fame left him feeling unfulfilled and searching for deeper meaning.
Henrie’s return to the Catholic faith was a profound personal transformation that he says began around age 21 or 22.
A significant influence came while working on the movie “Little Boy,” where conversations with Catholic cast members Kevin James and Eduardo Verástegui, as well as a visit to St. Michael Abbey in Orange County, California — including his first confession since childhood — played a pivotal role in rediscovering his faith.
Since then, Henrie has embraced his faith publicly and personally, integrating his beliefs into his family life, creative projects, and charity work, including serving as a brand ambassador for Cross Catholic Outreach and participating in mission trips that reflect his commitment to living out his faith. He is married and has three children.
Will there be another season of ‘Seeking Beauty’?
Yes! The second season of the series was filmed in Spain and is scheduled to premiere this fall.
University of Notre Dame professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings. Credit: Ken Oliver-Méndez/CNA
Jan 10, 2026 / 10:12 am (CNA).
Assessing the impact of the Catholic Church's first American pope was front and center at the 106th annual meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association (ACHA), which met in Pope Leo XIV's hometown of Chicago from Jan. 8-11.
During a panel on the subject, Catholic scholars noted some of the historic caricatures of what an American papacy would be like and compared that to the first eight months of Leo's actual papacy.
American Catholic History Association panelists (from left to right) Brian Flanagan, Colleen Dulle, Miguel Diaz and Kathleen Sprows Cummings. Credit: Ken Oliver-Méndez/CNA
At the outset of the panel, University of Notre Dame history professor Kathleen Sprows Cummings referenced the 1894 Puck magazine cartoon titled “ The American Pope,” which depicts the first apostolic delegate to the United States, Cardinal Francesco Satolli, sitting atop a church labeled the “American headquarters” and casting a shadow of then Pope Leo XIII over the entire country.
Sprows Cummings noted the cartoon illustrates “fears about papal intervention in the United States” at a time when the country was receiving waves of Catholic immigrants from countries such as Ireland and Italy.
As Catholics became more settled in American society in the subsequent decades, she said some of those prejudices began to lessen and pointed to the 1918 election of Catholic Democrat Al Smith as New York’s governor. By this point, Catholics had become “much more confident about their place in American culture.”
During the same early 20th century period, the United States also began to rise as a superpower. Sprows Cummings noted that predominant concerns about an American pope shifted to Vatican concerns over the “Americanization of the Catholic Church.”
America magazine's Vatican correspondent, Colleen Dulle, said some of those concerns were evidently mitigated in the person of then Cardinal Robert Prevost, whose service to the Church included many years as a missionary and bishop in Peru as well as in Rome as the head of a global religious order, the Augustinians.
Sprows Cummings said the College of Cardinals clearly saw in Cardinal Prevost the "pastoral presence, administrative savvy and global vision" that the Church needed at this time and that he was “not elected in some flex of American power.”
Miguel Diaz, the John Courtney Murray, S.J. Chair in Public Service at Loyola University Chicago, noted that some of Leo’s actions have actually amounted to the opposite of flexing American power, such as his focus on the dignity of migrants, which he contrasted to the policies of the Trump administration.
Former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Miguel Diaz. Credit: Ken Oliver-Méndez/CNA
Diaz, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See under former President Barack Obama, said Leo is “a different symbol, from America first to America cares.”
He emphasized that having an American pope is significant amid the country’s political debates because “he can say things and he will be listened to.”
The panelists also discussed what Leo’s papacy may look like moving forward, with Dulle noting that only this year are there clear signs of him charting his own programmatic course, as the events and itinerary of the 2025 Jubilee were primarily developed for Pope Francis.
Up until now, she said, he has been mostly “continuing the Francis initiatives in a different style.”
She noted Pope Leo's management of this week's consistory — a meeting between the pope and the College of Cardinals — where the pontiff gave them four topics to choose from, which were all in line with Francis’s priorities: synodality, evangelization, reform of the curia, and the liturgy. The cardinals chose synodality and evangelization.
Dulle said Leo is seen as "a consensus builder” who aims to build consensus around the Church's priorities. She noted Pope Leo's announcement this week of a regular schedule of consistories, with the next one set for this June. This approach is emerging as a "hallmark of how he governs the Church" Dulle said.
Brian Flanagan, the John Cardinal Cody Chair of Catholic Theology at Loyola University Chicago, also emphasized Leo’s strong appeal to the cardinals and bishops in efforts to reach consensus, in keeping with the Pope's role as a preserver of unity.
Flanagan said he sees Leo exercising the papacy as not so much "at the top of the pyramid, but as at the center of conversation.” He said this is likely influenced by Leo's past as leader of a religious order — the Order of Saint Augustine — rather than a diocese because the orders are “global, diverse, and somewhat fractious.”
“You can’t govern a global religious community without getting people on board,” he said.
St. Joseph Cathedral, Buffalo. | Credit: CiEll/Shutterstock
Jan 10, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Catholics in the U.S. were witness to a rare Church decision in 2023 when Pope Francis elevated the Diocese of Las Vegas to a metropolitan archdiocese. Las Vegas had previously been a suffragan diocese of San Francisco, having been created by Pope John Paul II in 1995.
A suffragan diocese operates within an ecclesiastical province subordinate to a larger archdiocese and is led by a suffragan bishop who has the authority to lead his own diocese but works under the metropolitan archbishop.
In September 2025, Pope Leo XIV created a new Catholic diocese in northern China; though it goes by the same name as one established decades ago by Beijing without Vatican approval — a product of ongoing tensions between China and the Holy See — the move demonstrated the Holy See’s authority in creating local Church jurisdictions.
Outside of one’s own parish, a diocese or archdiocese is arguably the average Catholic’s most common point of interaction with the Church. These jurisdictions manage local Church life and administration, with bishops and archbishops offering both spiritual and temporal guidance and authority to Catholics under their care.
But how does the Catholic Church decide what becomes a diocese or an archdiocese? What are the roots of this ancient practice, and how does it function today?
Exclusively a papal right
Monsignor William King, JCD, KCHS, an assistant professor at the school of canon law at The Catholic University of America, told CNA that the right to erect (or suppress) a diocese “belongs exclusively to the successor of Peter, the bishop of Rome,” that is, the pope.
“Historically, secular rulers have intruded into the process and the autonomy of the Church in this action has been hard-won,” he said, pointing out that “even today in certain parts of the world, secular or civil rulers wish to have input into matters such as this.”
The pope never makes decisions regarding dioceses and archdioceses “without considerable study and consultation,” King said.
The history of diocesan administration stretches back to the earliest years of the Church, he said. In those days a diocese consisted of “a city larger than the surrounding cities and towns,” often a place of commerce or a center of government.
Throughout the centuries, including after the imperial legalization of the Church by Constantine, Church leaders refined the diocesan structure of “pastoral ministry and governance” in order to facilitate “communication and decision-making” throughout Christendom.
“This became increasingly important as the Church grew and encountered different systems of law, philosophy, and religious practice,” King said. Roman models of government structure proved useful and sufficient for Church governance; King noted that the Church structure even today more closely resembles a government than a corporation.
The process by determining which jurisdictions counted as archdioceses likely arose in earlier centuries organically, King said, with Church leaders identifying major centers of “culture, education, commerce, government, and transportation” as particularly significant jurisdictions.
The procedure for elevating a diocese to an archdiocese, meanwhile — as Pope Francis did to Las Vegas in 2023 — requires “significant study, discussion, and decision-making,” King said.
The Holy See conducts such reviews in part through a diocese’s “quinquennial report,” a detailed rundown of the diocese’s activities and administration. Such a report may indicate to the Holy See that a particular region is growing and could benefit from elevation to an archdiocese.
Local suffragan bishops will participate in discussions to that effect, King said, and the Roman Curia will work with bishops’ conferences as well as the local apostolic nuncio.
“The ultimate decision is that of the Roman pontiff, the bishop of Rome,” King said, “but is always done with his awareness of the conversations and consultations already conducted at every level.”
The priest pointed out that not every local jurisdiction of the Church is a diocese or archdiocese. At times, he said, the pope may establish a less common ecclesiastical administration “for a variety of reasons that relate to culture, legal acceptance or opposition, small numbers, and the like.”
Such jurisdictions include apostolic prefectures, apostolic vicariates, ordinariates, and other designations. Such areas may be governed by a bishop or a priest named by the pope, King said.
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.
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.
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.
Pope Leo XIV approaches Tor Vergata in Rome by helicopter on Saturday, Aug. 2, 2025. | Credit: Vatican Media
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.
People attend a vigil at Lynnhurst Park to mourn the dead and pray for the wounded after a gunman opened fire on students at Annunciation Catholic School on Aug. 27, 2025, in Minneapolis. | Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images
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.
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.
On All Saints’ Day 2025, St. John Henry Newman was proclaimed a doctor of the Church by Pope Leo XIV. | Credit: Vatican Media
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.
Pope Leo XIV visits the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, also known as the “Blue Mosque,” in Istanbul, Turkey, on Nov. 29, 2025. Credit: Vatican Media
Empty wheelchairs used during the Nov. 4, 2025, anti-assisted suicide event in Rome. / Credit: Courtesy of ProVita & Famiglia
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 28, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Despite opposition from advocacy groups and Catholic leaders, multiple states and countries advanced legislation in 2025 to expand access to physician-assisted suicide.
Delaware
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer signed a bill in May legalizing physician-assisted suicidefor terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live. The law will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026, allowing patients to self-administer lethal medication.
After the bill was signed, several disability and patient advocacy groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Delaware on Dec. 8 alleging that the law discriminates against people with disabilities.
Illinois
The House passed a bill in May to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Illinois, and it stalled in the Senate during the regular session. After it was taken up during the fall veto session, senators passed it on Oct. 31.
The bill, which allows doctors to give terminally ill patients life-ending drugs if they request them, was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker on Dec. 12. The law “ignores the very real failures in access to quality care that drive vulnerable people to despair,” according to the Catholic Conference of Illinois.
Illinois joined states that permit the practice including California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.
New York
The New York State Assembly advanced an assisted suicide measure in May, which Cardinal Timothy Dolan called “a disaster waiting to happen.” Despite calls from Catholic bishops, the New York Legislature passed the “Medical Aid in Dying Act” in June.
Assisted suicide has been legal in Colorado since 2016. In June 2025, a coalition of advocacy groups sued the state over its assisted suicide law, claiming the statute is unconstitutional for allegedly discriminating against those who suffer from disabilities.
The suit was filed on June 30 in U.S. district court by organizations including Not Dead Yet and the Institute for Patients’ Rights. It calls Colorado’s assisted suicide regime “a deadly and discriminatory system that steers people with life-threatening disabilities away from necessary lifesaving and preserving mental health care.”
France
The National Assembly approved a bill in May that would allow certain terminally ill adults to receive lethal medication. The bill passed with 305 votes in favor and 199 against.
In a statement released after the vote, the French Bishops’ Conference expressed its “deep concern” over the so-called “right to assistance in dying.”
United Kingdom
British lawmakers in the House of Commons passed a bill in June to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in England and Wales.
In order to become law, the bill must pass the second chamber of Parliament, the unelected House of Lords. The Lords can amend legislation, but because the bill has the support of the Commons, it is likely to pass.
Uruguay
Legislators in Uruguay passed a bill in August to legalize euthanasia in the country. In October, Uruguay’s Parliament approved the “Dignified Death Bill,” making the bill law and allowing adults in the terminal stage of a disease to request euthanasia.
Canada
A Cardus Health report released in September found the legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada led to disproportionately high rates of premature deaths among vulnerable groups.
MAID passed in 2012 with safeguards and provisions that the report said Canada has not upheld. It said: “Those who died from MAID were more likely to have been living with a disability than those who did not die from MAID, even though both groups had similar medical conditions and experienced diminished capability.”
People suffering from mental illness are also dying by assisted suicide at disproportionate rates, the report said.
Pope Leo meets with Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker in November 2025. / Credit: Courtesy of the Office of Gov. JB Pritzker
Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Dec 23, 2025 / 14:55 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV appealed to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to veto a bill legalizing assisted suicide during a Vatican meeting last month, the pope told reporters Tuesday.
The pope, responding to a question from Rudolf Gehrig of EWTN News, said he made his opposition to the bill clear in the November conversation with the governor.
Leo told Pritzker it was important to defend the value of life and that every life is sacred, the pope told reporters outside the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo before his return to Rome.
The Vatican had not earlier provided details of the meeting.
Pritzker signed the assisted suicide measure, ardently opposed by Catholic leaders, into law Dec. 12.
“I spoke very explicitly with Gov. Pritzker about that,” the pope said, and he said Cardinal Blase Cupich also expressed his views. “But we were very clear about the necessity to respect the sacredness of life from the very beginning to the very end. And unfortunately, for different reasons, he decided to sign that bill. Very disappointed about that.”
People should use Christmastime to think about the value of life, the pope added.
“I would invite all people, especially in this Christmas feast days, to reflect upon the nature of human life, the goodness of human life. God became human like us to show us what it means really to live human life. And I hope and pray that the respect for life will once again grow in all moments of human existence, from conception to natural death,” the pope said.
Catholic bishops had objected to the Illinois law.
“This law ignores the very real failures in access to quality care that drive vulnerable people to despair,” according to the Catholic Conference of Illinois. “It does nothing to ensure patients are offered services, protected from coercion, or surrounded by loved ones when they kill themselves.”
Several states and countries also have advanced legislation to expand access to physician-assisted suicide besides Illinois.
Other U.S. jurisdictions with assisted suicide laws include California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
Pope Leo XIV tells reporters Dec. 23, 2025, that he appealed to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzer to veto a bill legalizing assisted suicide during a Vatican meeting in November. Credit: EWTN News
British lawmakers in the House of Commons passed a bill in June to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in England and Wales. Legislators in Uruguay passed a bill in August to legalize euthanasia in the country.
A Canadian law allowing medical assistance in dying led to disproportionately high rates of premature deaths among vulnerable groups, a report showed.
Rudolf Gehrig contributed to this story.
This story was updated at 3:15 p.m. ET on Dec. 23, 2025, with the quotations from the pope.
Palm Beach Bishop-designate Manuel de Jesus Rodriguez. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Diocese of Palm Beach
CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2025 / 07:30 am (CNA).
The Holy See said on Dec. 19 that Pope Leo XIV had made two new episcopal appointments in the United States, with the Vatican announcing a new bishop for the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida, as well as an auxiliary bishop for the Diocese of Phoenix.
Father Manuel de Jesus Rodriguez will lead the Palm Beach Diocese after the resignation of Bishop Gerald Barbarito, the Vatican said. At 75, Barbarito has reached the customary age at which bishops retire.
Bishop-designate Rodriguez is currently a priest in the Diocese of Brooklyn, where he serves at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Queens.
Born Jan. 15, 1974, in the Dominican Republic, Rodriguez studied at the Pontifical University Madre y Maestra in that country, receiving philosophy and law degrees there before obtaining several other degrees and certificates, including a doctorate in legal studies from the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome and a licentiate in canon law from The Catholic University of America.
Admitted to the Salesians of Don Bosco in 1993, he made his final profession to that religious order in 2002 and was ordained on July 3, 2004. He was incardinated in the Diocese of Brooklyn in 2012.
Rodriguez became a U.S. citizen in 2018. He has served multiple roles in Brooklyn, including as pastor and administrator of several churches as well as defender of the bond at the diocesan tribunal. The bishop-designate speaks English, Spanish, Italian, and French.
Outgoing Palm Beach Bishop Barbarito said in a Dec. 19 statement that the diocese will be ”greatly blessed” by Rodriguez’s ministry and that he has “shown himself to be a deeply spiritual and exceptional priest.”
Vicar for clergy appointed auxiliary bishop in Phoenix
The Holy See also announced on Dec. 19 that Pope Leo XIV has appointed Monsignor Peter Dai Bui as an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix.
Bishop-designate Bui is currently the diocesan vicar for clergy for the Phoenix Diocese. A native of Vietnam, he entered the Legion of Christ novitiate in 1989 and made his first profession in 1991. He attended the Pontifical Athenaeum in Rome, where he earned degrees in philosophy and theology and a licentiate in philosophy.
He was ultimately ordained for the Legionaries of Christ on Dec. 24, 2003.
Bui served for several years as the chaplain of a private Catholic school in Venezuela, where he organized international mission trips. Incardinated in the Phoenix Diocese in 2009, he has served as pastor at multiple parishes and since 2022 as the vicar for clergy.
The bishop-designate speaks English, Vietnamese, Spanish, Italian, and German.
Bui said in a Dec. 19 statement that he was “honestly in shock” when Apostolic Nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre called him with the news.
“I even forgot he couldn’t see me nodding through the phone!” he joked. He expressed a “profound gratitude to God” for the appointment.
“I just want to be a good priest, now called to serve in a new way,” he said.
Phoenix Bishop John Dolan, meanwhile, said he was “deeply grateful” to the pope for the appointment.
“As one of the largest and most rapidly growing dioceses in the nation, Phoenix faces increasing pastoral and administrative complexity, and Bishop-elect Bui’s experience in governance, his deep care for priests, and his commitment to accompaniment will be invaluable,” the bishop said.
The archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, speaks to EWTN News on Friday, April 25, 2025, at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. / Credit: Screenshot/EWTN News
“I’ll always keep working,” Dolan told Father Dave Dwyer, a Paulist priest, executive director of Busted Halo Ministries, and cohost of “Conversation with Cardinal Dolan,” during a discussion of his retirement plans earlier this year.
“For a priest, your life is your work,” he said, indicating that he hopes to continue preaching retreats, which he said he loves, and teaching.
“But I won’t have an appointment. I won’t have administrative duties. Yippee!” Dolan quipped.
The cardinal said he is looking forward to having “more choices, instead of waking up in the morning and being handed a schedule.”
“Should I read? Should I take a longer walk than usual? Should I spend a longer time in my prayer?” he mused.
Dolan said his brother bishops told him years ago to “make sure you have hobbies you can engage in on a day off,” and that advice has helped and will continue to help him in retirement.
The cardinal told Dwyer whatever he does, he will have to ask the permission of his successor. “I’ll be one of his priests,” Dolan said, laughing. “I will ask him: ‘Your Excellency, would it be OK if I…?”
In addition, in an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business this week Dolan revealed that he has received requests to teach at universities, to write a book, and to help with a documentary on the Catholic Church in the United States.
“I’m going to appreciate the chance to set my own schedule,” said Dolan, who has led the Archdiocese of New York since 2009.
Fall of the Rebel Angels is a fresco by Giacinto Brandi adorning the central vault of Sant’Ambrogio e Carlo al Corso basilica in Rome. It depicts Michael the Archangel’s victory in battle over fallen angels. Today is Michaelmas.
This painting on the ceiling in Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini, a church on Via Veneto in Rome, depicts the Virgin Mary being assumed body and soul into heaven. Today is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary in much of Western Christianity or the Dormition of the Mother of God in Eastern Christianity.
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