The Vatican’s doctrine chief warned that blogs and online commentators increasingly claim a theological authority they do not possess, narrowing the church’s ability to holistically engage faith and reality. 

Opening the plenary assembly of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith on Jan. 27, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, dicastery prefect, said theologians risk “losing the breath of our perspective” when their work becomes narrowly focused on isolated topics.

“But the issue is even more serious since today, on any blog, anyone — even without having studied much theology — can express his or her opinion and condemn others as if speaking ex cathedra,” or with infallibility, he said. 

Fernández framed the problem as a failure to recognize the limits of human knowledge. “The more science and technology advance, the more we must keep alive the awareness of our limits and our need for God, so as not to fall into a terrible deception,” he said. “Indeed, the very same one that led to the excesses of the Inquisition, the world wars, the Shoah, and the massacres in Gaza: all of which rely on fallacious arguments for their justification.”

Fernández, who has often been a target of Catholic blogs since his appointment as prefect in 2023, urged dicastery members to acknowledge those limits, invoke God’s guidance in illuminating them and remain open to the perspectives of others.

The cardinal cited Pope Leo XIV’s October homily for the Jubilee of Synodal Teams and Participatory Bodies, in which the pope called for “a church that does not close in on itself, but remains attentive to God so that it can similarly listen to everyone.”

Several Catholic blogs have been sharply critical of synodality, the shift toward a more participatory and listening church championed by Pope Francis, often arguing that it risks drifting from Catholic doctrine and blurring distinctions between clergy and laity in church decision-making.

Fernández’s call for the dicastery members to “reflect, think, and analyze reality, but while also listening to others” echoed the language of synodality promoted by the pope.

Memory must not turn into a ritual or a “lesson to be checked off,” speakers stressed during the anniversary commemorations at Auschwitz-Birkenau, the former German Nazi concentration camp. Survivor Bernard Offen appealed: “Let memory not be a burden. Let it become a light that will guide us in the darkness,” while Auschwitz Museum Director Piotr Cywiński spoke of memory and experience as “treasures” and “signposts” in a time when the global order is fracturing.  

Although the main ceremony with Survivors, state officials, and the diplomatic corps took place on the afternoon of January 27, the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau was commemorated throughout the day on the grounds of the former camp. In the morning, around 20 former prisoners laid wreaths and candles at the Death Wall at the former Auschwitz I. This was the opening act of the observances marking the 81st anniversary of the camp’s liberation.

The main address during the ceremony, held in a former camp intake building, was delivered by Holocaust survivor Bernard Offen, born in Kraków in 1929. He recalled a childhood cut short by war, the murder of his mother and sister in Bełżec, and the moment he was separated from his father in Auschwitz. “My father was sent to the left, toward death. I was sent to the right. I remember that moment. Our eyes met, and there was the feeling that we were seeing each other for the last time,” he said.

He stressed that he survived thanks to others: “I survived because other people helped me. I call them my angels.” After decades of living in the United States, Offen decided to return to Poland. He spoke of Kraków as the place where he found a home and a sense of safety again. He appealed to those present: “I ask you today—let memory not be a burden. Let it become a light that will guide us in the darkness. We, the witnesses, will soon be gone, but I believe that this light will remain with you.”

By January 27, 1945—the day approximately 7,000 prisoners still in the camp were liberated by soldiers of the Red Army—German Nazis had murdered about 1.1 million people in Auschwitz, primarily Jews, as well as Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, and people of other nationalities. Today, Auschwitz stands as a global symbol of the Holocaust and the atrocities of World War II. In 2005, the United Nations designated January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

In Bethlehem, everything is ready to begin the restoration works of the Grotto of the Nativity, occurring for the first time in 600 years. The announcement was made jointly by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the Custody of the Holy Land. They expressed their joy at the initiative, which also involves the cooperation of the Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Patriarchate and is carried out under the auspices of the Presidency of the State of Palestine.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had referred to the restoration works while visiting Rome in November 2025, both during his meeting with Pope Leo XIV and at the inauguration of the exhibition “Bethlehem Reborn.” He said that the renovation of the place where Christ was born was “a sign of great hope and rebirth for the whole Holy Land.”

Thus, in compliance with the presidential decree on the restoration of the site already issued in 2024, and with the historic status quo governing the holy places, the Grotto—venerated across Christian faiths—will finally receive the care it needs.

The works will be carried out by an Italian company from Prato, which only two years ago restored the Basilica of the Nativity, according to a major and meticulous rehabilitation project.

The choice is based on the need to ensure continuity of method, craftsmanship, and artistic sensitivity toward a site of unparalleled sacred value. According to the Custody’s website, the preliminary preparations have been completed, and the works are now about to begin.

In addition to interventions in the Grotto itself—on the bare rock, the marble floors, columns and decorations, and the star marking the exact spot where Jesus was born—the project includes technical reinforcement measures in adjacent sections. This reflects both the architectural unity of the sanctuary and the spirit of cooperation that preserves it for all humanity.

“The Church remains credible not because of power, numbers, or strategies, but when faith becomes a lived witness, expressed and translated into concrete acts of liberation, justice, and mercy that restore dignity and open paths to true freedom.” Cardinal Pietro Parolin made this statement when presiding over Mass on January 25, at the Cathedral of Copenhagen as the Papal Legate for the celebrations of the 12th centenary of Saint Ansgar’s mission in Denmark.

The Secretary of State recalled that it was in the 9th century when the Benedictine monk arrived in Northern Europe for a mission founded not on “strategies or success, but on fidelity to Jesus,” and that the first thing he did was redeem the freedom of some slaves. Importantly, Cardinal Parolin pointed out, his action, in a world “wounded by new forms of slavery—economic, cultural, spiritual—and marked by exclusion and indifference,” speaks today with “renewed relevance.”

The Cardinal emphasized the strength of a bond forged in the past and the ongoing presence of pastoral care and the evangelical zeal that animated Ansgar’s mission twelve centuries ago. A mission that arose from an “extraordinary experience of liberation” in his own life, Cardinal Parolin said.

Drawing from the reading of Isaiah (52:7-10), he observed, that it is not so much about the message but about the messenger, whose feet “are beautiful not for the ideas or explanations they bring, but because they bring the good news, capable of saving people by transforming the hearts of those who listen and making them free.”

In the same way, he continued, Ansgar had experienced the joy of being forgiven by God and desired to “share that joy with others,” because that was “the good news he carried with him.”

Against a backdrop of escalating conflict and a renewed reliance on the “logic of brute force,” the Holy See’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Geneva, led by Archbishop Ettore Balestrero, Apostolic Nuncio and Permanent Observer of the Holy See, hosted its 17th Annual Interreligious Service for Peace on 28 January, bringing together around 300 diplomats, ambassadors, and religious leaders. Held at the Church of St. Nicolas de Flüe and co-organised with the Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva, and Fribourg, the service centred on Pope Leo XIV’s 2026 World Day of Peace Message, “Peace be with you all: Towards an ‘unarmed and disarming’ peace.”

In his welcoming remarks, Archbishop Balestrero described the service as a counter-narrative to the logic of violence and conflict. “An ‘unarmed and disarming’ peace conquers without conquest, and trains not for battle, but for reconciliation and cooperation,” he said, urging diplomats to resist the “weaponisation” of thoughts and words and calling believers to “refute these forms of blasphemy” in which faith is manipulated to justify violence.

Arriving from Jerusalem, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, urged the international community to resist resignation in the face of violence. “Giving up on peace would mean accepting war as the ‘normal language’ in human and international relations,” he said. “To welcome Pope Leo XIV’s message is not naïve optimism, but a demanding hope.” Reflecting on the Holy Land, he stressed that ceasefires alone are insufficient: “There is no lasting peace without justice, but there is no real justice unless the other is recognised as a person, not a tool or an obstacle.”

More Christians were killed in Nigeria last year than any-where else in the world combined, a new report has found, placing the country at the centre of a growing global persecution crisis. Of the 4,849 Christians killed for their faith worldwide, 3,490 were in Nigeria, according to Open Doors’ World Watch List 2026.

Open Doors is a Netherlands-based international Christian mission that tracks global perse-cution and supports persecuted Christians worldwide. The orga-nization’s annual World Watch List ranks 50 countries by the severity of persecution faced by active Christians.

The new report also shows a global increase of 8 million Christians facing high levels of persecution and discrimination between October 2024 and September 2025, bringing the total to 388 million.

Speaking at the report’s launch, Henrietta Blyth, CEO at Open Doors UK & Ireland, said: “Nigeria is in sub-Saharan Africa, a region that represents a death trap for Christians,” while expre-ssing relief that people are finally talking about what’s going on in the country.

In recent months the situation in Nigeria has been back in the spotlight after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to go “guns a-blazing” into the country and subsequently launched strikes on militants linked to the Islamic State group in the northwest of the country.

While both the U.S. and Nigerian governments cooperated on the strikes, Trump has accused the Nigerian government of failing to protect Christians from jihadist attacks, with some allies and campaign figures describing the situation as a “genocide.”

The Nigerian government is reluctant to address the religious aspect for fear of being designated a “country of particular concern,” which could “enable the Trump administration and other international governments to take measures including an embargo,” according to John Samuel, an expert on sub-Saharan Africa for Open Doors.

Pope Leo XIV addressed the Nigeria crisis in November 2025, acknowledging that “Christians and Muslims have been slaughtered” in the country. He told journalists at Castel Gandolfo that “many Christians have died” and called on the government to “promote authentic religious freedom.” The pope’s comments came after Trump designated Nigeria a country of particular concern for religious freedom violations.

The increasing number of people who do not see the Gospel as a fundamental resource for their life should inspire — not discourage — Catholics in rediscovering the joy of evangelization, Pope Leo XIV said. The transmission of the faith is “a topic of great urgency,” the pope said in remarks to members and officials of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and others participating in its plenary session at the Vatican Jan. 27-29.

Meeting with the group at the Vatican Jan. 29, Leo praised the dicastery for its “valuable service” of helping the pope and the world’s bishops proclaim the Gospel by promoting and safeguarding the integrity of Catholic teaching on faith and morals. “It does this by drawing upon the deposit of faith and seeking an ever deeper understanding of it in the face of new questions,” he said, citing Pope Francis’ apostolic constitution on the reform of the Roman Curia, Praedicate Evangelium (“Preach the Gospel”).

Of great importance today, he said, is the “transmission of the faith,” a topic discussed during the dicastery’s plenary. “We cannot ignore the fact that, in recent decades, there has been a breakdown in the way Catholics pass down the Christian faith” from generation to generation, he said, and that “there is an increasing number of people who no longer perceive the Gospel as a fundamental resource for their life, especially among the younger generations.”

In fact, he added, many young men and women “live without any reference to God and the Church, and while this causes us believers pain, it must also lead us to rediscover the ‘delightful and comforting joy of evangelizing,’ which is at the very heart of the life and mission” of the Catholic Church.

Reiterating his appeal during his extraordinary consistory with the College of Cardinals in early January, Leo said, the Catholic Church wants to be a missionary Church “that looks beyond itself, at others” and that proclaims the Gospel, “above all through the power of attraction,” reminding them that “it is not the Church that attracts, but Christ.”