More than 200 terrorists attacked three villages in western Burkina Faso at the end of January, leaving at least 26 people dead, including at least six Christians. Houses were set ablaze by the attackers, forcing residents to flee. Less than a week later, further attacks led to more deaths. News of the terrorist assaults was relayed to Catholic aid organization “Aid to the Church in Need” by Fr. Jean-Pierre Keita, an ACN project partner, who lost his father and several other family members in the attacks. The attacks took place in the parish of Tansila, a regional centre in Banwa province in western Burkina Faso. The parish includes 37 villages, about a third of whose population is Christian.
On the same day as the first attack in Tansila, two catechists from the nearby Diocese of Dédougou in the western Burkina Faso province of Mouhoun were killed by bandits while returning from catechist training sessions. Aid to the Church in Need reported that sources told them four catechists from Ouakara parish were traveling together on two motorcycles when the group was attacked. The catechists on the first vehicle were able to escape into the forest, but their two companions were later found murdered.

Ahead of the 2025 Lenten season starting on March 5, Catholic Bishops in the East African nation have reminded Christians to journey together, bear one another’s burdens and be instruments that ignite transformation in society. The Church in Kenya has themed the 40-day journey of reflection: “The Kenya we desire.” “As we reflect on The Kenya We Desire, we are called to consider not only what we want for ourselves but also what we want for others. We are called to desire the good of all people, regardless of their background or status,” said the statement signed by Bishop Simon Peter Kamomoe, Chairman for the Catholic Justice and Peace Department (CJPD) at the Kenya Conference of Catholic Bishops (KCCB).
As Christians, the Bishop added, “we cannot be content with mere individual blessings while others suffer. The collective good is our responsibility, and we must desire a society that fosters equa-lity, justice, and compassion.”
Christ’s call to transforming the world requires each individual to uphold moral values, and advocate for the dignity of all people, which requires courage to stand against corruption, injustice, and inequality while actively working for positive change in families, communities, and workplaces. “The challenge is not just about a spiritual desire for transformation but a practical commitment to action,” said the bishops.
The bishops invited Kenyan Catholics to spend the five-week Lenten season with a focus on five key areas for reflection: family unity and its role in building a peaceful society; corruption and the need for accountability; the youth and their potential as the untapped resource of our nation; holistic education; and, caring for our common home.

Three years of war in Ukraine have left the country in a tragic humanitarian situation. Every day, millions of Ukrainian children, women, and men face immense difficulties in surviving: over 12.7 million people are in urgent need of assistance, while 6.8 million Ukrainian refugees have fled to neighbouring countries in search of a safe haven. Within Ukraine’s borders, more than 3.6 million people have been displaced, forced to abandon their homes and previous lives. One of the greatest challenges exacerbating this humanitarian disaster is the harsh winter, with temperatures plummeting below -20°C, while the loss of more than 60% of the national energy supply has left entire communities without heat-ing, electricity, and access to clean drinking water. Against this bleak backdrop the non-stop shelling and bombing from Russia have made it extremely difficult and dangerous for humanitarian organizations to reach out to those lacking basic needs such as food, clothes, shelter and health care.
Despite dangers and logistic difficulties, Church aid organiza-tions, alongside the Holy See and humanitarian organizations, have continued to provide a lifeline to those in greatest need and giving hope for a better future in Ukraine. Among them is Caritas, the global confederation of national Catholic relief and development agencies. Since the beginning of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 2022, the Ukrainian branches of Caritas (Caritas Spes and Caritas Ukraine) and its partner members have been at the fore-front, offering medical, psycho-logical, and social assistance, with a special focus on protecting the most vulnerable people, including children, disabled, elderly and women.
Also, on the frontline is the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). According to a statement released this week, over the past three years Pontifical foundation has allocated over € 25 million to various humanitarian and pastoral projects sustaining both the Greek Catholic and Latin Catholic Churches in the country. Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24th Feb. 2022, ACN has approved and funded nearly one thousand initiatives. A significant portion of this aid–approximately € 3.5 million–has been used to support priests through Mass stipends, ensuring their ability to continue their pastoral work in times of extreme difficulty.

A Holy See Press Office communiqué on Thursday Feb. 27 evening confirms that Pope Francis’ clinical condition continues to show improvement. Additional days of clinical stability are needed before the prognosis can be lifted. “The Holy Father’s clinical condition is confirmed to be improving again today. He alternated high-flow oxygen therapy with a Ventimask. Due to the complexity of the clinical picture, further days of clinical stability are needed to clarify the prognosis. In the morning, the Holy Father underwent respiratory physiotherapy, alternating it with rest. In the afternoon, after an additional physiotherapy session, he spent time in prayer in the chapel of his private apartment on the 10th floor, where he received the Eucharist. He then engaged in work activities.” This statement, provided by the Holy See Press Office on Feb. 27 evening, came as the Pope continues to be treated for bilateral pneumonia in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital. He was admitted on Friday, 14 February, following a bout of bronchitis. According to reports, the Pope has passed the most critical phase, but his condition remains complex. For this reason, the prognosis remains guarded. The commu-niqué to journalists on Thursday morning noted that the Pope had slept well, got out of bed, and continued treatment in his armchair. It said he remains in good spirits. In another statement on Thursday, the Press Office said the Jubilee Audience for Saturday, 1 March, has been cancelled.

Pope Francis addressed the bishops of the United States on Feb. 11 about the country’s ongoing mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants, urging Catholics to consider the justness of laws and policies in light of the dignity and rights of people.
In a letter published Feb. 11, the pope – while supporting a nation’s right to defend itself from people who have committed violent or serious crimes – said a “rightly formed conscience” would disagree with associating the illegal status of some migrants with cri-minality. “The act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploi-tation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women, and of entire families, and places them in a state of particular vulnerability and defenselessness,” he said. “All the Christian faithful and people of goodwill,” the pontiff continued, “are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa.”
Francis emphasized that immigration laws and policies should be subordinated to the dignified treatment of people, especially the most vulnerable. “This is not a minor issue: An authentic rule of law is verified precisely in the dignified treatment that all people deserve, especially the poorest and most marginalized,” he underlined. “The true common good is promoted when society and government, with creativity and strict respect for the rights of all – as I have affirmed on numerous occasions – welcomes, protects, promotes, and integrates the most fragile, unprotected, and vulnerable.”
He said the just treatment of immigrants does not impede the development of policies to regulate orderly and legal migration, but “what is built on the basis of force and not on the truth about the equal dignity of every human being begins badly and will end badly.”

Rwanda-backed M23 rebels who captured Goma, a major city in eastern Congo’s North Kivu province, are seeking to reassure its over 2 million residents, hold-ing a rally and promising safety and stability under their admini-stration. The rally on February 06 in Goma’s city stadium was part of the efforts by the rebel group to shore up public support amid growing international pre-ssure after reports have emerg-ed that almost 3,000 people were killed in clashes between the rebels and Congolese forces.
And despite the announcement of a unilateral ceasefire on humanitarian grounds after the capture of Goma last week, the rebels also took control of the mining town of Nyabibwe, not far from the capital of South Kivu, Bukavu.
The fighting has caused a severe humanitarian crisis which has also drawn the attention of the International Criminal Court. Apart from bodies reportedly left on the streets, the hospitals are overwhelmed and running out of supplies, while fears of the spread of diseases are fuelled by lack of electricity, clean water and ongo-ing outbreaks of mpox and cholera. Congolese authorities have announced they will present a motion to the UN Human Rights Council seeking an investigation into what they call “mass viola-tions” of rights in the city of Goma, which is also a hub for tens of thousands of people displaced by decades of unrest and violence in the region.
Concerned and horrified by the increasing levels of violence, local peace initiatives are multi-plying including one by the Catho-lic and Protestant churches in DRC who met with President Tshisekedi and presented a “crisis exit plan.” The General Secretary of the World Council of Churches also called for dialogue and said the WCC stands ready with its member churches to support all efforts to resume dialogue at a political level.

After years of uncertainty over whether in-person Mass attenda-nce numbers would ever rebound after plummeting during the COVID-era lockdowns, new data suggests that Mass attendance levels have quietly returned to 2019 levels nearly six years later. Despite the apparent uptick, however, a return to 2019 levels still means only a quarter of U.S. Catholics attend Mass weekly – despite weekly attendance being an obligatory part of Catholic life. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University, a premi-er Catholic research organization, recently used national surveys it conducted combined with Google Trends search volumes for Mass attendance-related terms to estimate weekly attendance across the United States.
In a Feb. 5 blog post, CARA explained that prior to the pandemic in 2019, weekly Mass attendance in the U.S. averaged 24.4%. Between May 2023 and the first week of 2025, meanwhile, attendance has averaged 24%, CARA estimated, representing an overall return to pre-pandemic levels. In addition, CARA said Mass attendance numbers for Easter and Ash Wednesday – the latter being one of the best-attended Mass days of the year, despite not being a holy day of obligation – actually returned to pre-pandemic levels in 2023. Christmas attendance numbers, meanwhile, finally rebounded to pre-pandemic levels in 2024.

Cardinals Giovanni Battista Re and Leonardo Sandri have had their appointments extended as Dean and Vice-Dean of the College of Cardinals, respectively. The decision was announced on February 6, by the Vatican Press Office in a statement noting that on January 7, the Pope had decided to defer the approval of the election of Cardinal Re, and that of Cardinal Sandri the following week, on January 14. Also Pope Francis determined that Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, O.S.A., Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, will become a member of the Order of Bishops within the College of Cardinals. The Pope assigned the Cardinal the title of the Suburbicarian Church of Albano.

A man desecrated the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican on February 07 by climbing on top of it and throwing six candelabras that were on the altar to the ground, according to the Italian news agen-cy ANSA. After throwing the candelabras, the man began to remove the altar cloth, as can be seen in a video posted on social media. The subject was then quickly detained by security agents.
According to ANSA, the suspect, of Romanian origin, was detained by the Vatican Police, after which he was identified and charged by agents of the Vatican Inspecto-rate. “This is an episode of a person with a serious mental disability, who has been detained by the Vatican Police and then placed at the disposal of the Italian authorities,” the director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, told ANSA.
According to the Spanish newspaper ABC, the man was arrested because the basilica’s alarm was activated when he stood on the altar. In 2023 a similar incident was recorded when a man climbed the high altar and undressed, after which he was also arrested. The Code of Canon Law, the law that regulates the Catholic Church, establishes in canon 1210 that “in a sacred place” such as St. Peter’s Basilica, “only those things which serve the exercise or promotion of worship, piety, or religion are permitted in a sacred place; anything not consonant with the holiness of the place is forbidden.”

Caritas Internationalis’ Secretary General, Alistair Dutton, has warned against the decision to close USAID-funded programmes and offices around the world, saying the sudden shutdown “will kill millions of people and condemn hundreds of millions more to lives of dehumanising poverty.” With an annual budget of over 40 billion dollars, USAID has funded humanitarian and development aid in some 120 countries, especially the world’s poorest.
In a statement issued on Monday 10 February, Alistair Dutton said the decision marks a grave threat “to people’s God-given human dignity” and “will cause immense suffering.” He also noted the result “presents massive challenges for all of us in the global humanitarian community, who will have to completely reassess whom we can continue to serve and how.” He further warns “the resulting harm to people, particularly the poorest, will be catastrophic, threatening the lives and dignity of millions.”
Contacted by telephone while in Burkina Faso, Alistair Dutton deplored the very real consequences of this suspension of aid that is causing “complete uncertainty for the humanitarian system worldwide.” He explained how “ships are arriving in ports with cargo, but we can’t pay to unload them, store their contents or transport them to the people who need them.”
In West Africa, for example, over six million people will not receive their medi-cines. The same applies to the 750,000 people facing starvation in Sudan or refugees in camps in Syria, where essential supplies of water are provided, without which “critical health problems immediately arise, which can kill millions of people…the people who need help are going to suffer enormously, if they don’t simply die.”
USAID has been an “essential partner” of Catholic relief efforts for over 60 years. Faced with this financial but also human deficit in meeting the massive humanitarian needs worldwide, Caritas Internationalis has appealed for a reconsideration of the cuts and for governments, international agencies, and stakeholders to work together to concretely reaffirm the “commitment to compassion and peace by supporting the most vulnerable people around the world.” Immediate efforts are underway to reduce the impact of the freeze and ensure continued support for as many vulnerable people as possible since, as Alistair Dutton says, ”the lives and dignity of millions hang in the balance.”