St. Andrew Catholic Church

Visiting pilgrims to the Vatican Gardens at Castel Gandolfo during the 2025 Jubilee Year will have the opportunity to taste the produce of Borgo Laudato Si’s organic farm, where olive oil will be pressed from the estate’s 1,000 olive trees and a vineyard will produce wine using advanced, pesticide-free techniques. / Credit: Courtney Mares/CNA

CNA Staff, Sep 7, 2025 / 14:56 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV announced a historic partnership between the Vatican and two famous Chicago restaurateurs, Art Smith and Phil Stefani, to open a restaurant at , a 135-acre “zero environmental impact” complex in Castel Gandolfo, Italy. 

Pope Leo XIV inaugurated the project during a live-streamed ceremony on Sept. 5, viewed at a Chicago watch party attended by Stefani, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and other prominent figures.

The new restaurant will be located within the historic Papal Villas, a 17th-century summer residence for popes. The site promotes Pope Francis’ teachings on environmental stewardship.

At the inauguration of Borgo Laudato Si' village on Friday, the pope said it “is one of the Church’s initiatives aimed at realizing the ‘vocation to be custodians of God’s handiwork.’”

Earlier this year, a committee led by the late Pope Francis selected Smith and Stefani to oversee the unprecedented project, which will debut in spring 2026 as the estate’s sole restaurant and caterer, serving breakfast and lunch, and will include a small market.

The restaurant will serve Italian fare made from fresh, locally-sourced food with international influences, blending Chicago and Peruvian flavors in honor of Pope Leo XIV. 

Ingredients will come from a solar-powered greenhouse within Borgo Laudato Si’, which is modeled after St. Peter’s Square’s colonnade, and other local sources. The complex, which includes gardens, farmland, vineyards, and training programs in organic farming, pesticide-free winemaking and olive harvesting, will also offer retreats for business leaders and ecology education programs.

The ecological complex also includes state-of-the-art insulation, photovoltaic, and circular water management systems.

Smith, a James Beard Award winner and former personal chef to Oprah Winfrey, is celebrated for his work with Common Threads, a non-profit, and currently runs Reunion and Blue Door Kitchen & Garden in Chicago. 

Stefani, whose Italian restaurant empire began in 1980 with Stefani’s, operates the Stefani Restaurant Group, running Tavern on Rush, Stefani Prime, Tuscany, Castaways Beach Club, Stefani’s Bottega Italiana, and Broken English Taco Pub. 

“As a Catholic and Italian, this project is a dream for my family and me,” Stefani said. “To be part of a culinary experience on Vatican property is deeply meaningful to us. But we also share this honor with the city of Chicago. We have the unique opportunity to bring a taste of home, some of that unique Chicago spirit, to a global audience.” 

Mayor Johnson called Smith and Stefani “true Chicago legends” and the partnership a “striking and serendipitous win” for the city.

Another Chicago tie is Rev. Manuel Dorantes, appointed administrative-management director of the Laudato Si’ Center for Higher Education in October. Previously pastor of St. Mary of the Lake-Our Lady of Lourdes Parish on Chicago’s North Side, Dorantes joined Pope Leo XIV at Friday’s ceremony.

Blessed Carlo Acutis (left) and Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati. / Credit: Diocese of Assisi/Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Vatican City, Sep 7, 2025 / 06:49 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV proclaimed the Italians Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis as saints of the Church on Sunday.

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Pope Leo canonizes Saints Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Sunday, September 7. / Vatican Media

Vatican City, Sep 7, 2025 / 06:37 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV proclaimed the Italians Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis as saints of the Church on Sunday, decreeing their veneration among the Catholic faithful.

The canonizations of the two men, promulgated before an estimated 70,000 people in St. Peter's Square, were the first of Leo's pontificate.

The congregation, which included the family of Acutis, applauded after Pope Leo pronounced the rite of canonization and declared the two patrons of young people as the Church’s newest saints.

In his homily, the Holy Father reflected on a passage from the Book of Wisdom, which was read by Acutis’s younger brother Michele, during the Mass celebration.

“[Lord], who has learned your counsel, unless you have given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high?” Leo said, quoting the Old Testament passage. “This question comes after two young blesseds, Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis, were proclaimed saints.”

“This is providential because in the Book of Wisdom, this question is attributed to a young man like them: King Solomon. Upon the death of his father David, he realized that he had many things: power, wealth, health, youth, beauty, and the entire kingdom,” he continued.

Leo spoke extensively about the two new saints in his homily, departing from his predecessor’s practice. Pope Francis normally said little on such occasions about the people he had just canonized.

Like Solomon, Leo said, the new Saints Carlo and Pier Giorgio understood that friendship with Jesus and faithfully following “God’s plans” is greater than any other worldly pursuits.

God “calls us to abandon ourselves without hesitation to the adventure that he offers us with the intelligence and strength that comes from his Spirit,” Leo said Sunday.

“We can receive to the extent that we empty ourselves of the things and ideas to which we are attached, in order to listen to his word,” he continued.

The Holy Father also spoke of other young saints throughout history, including St. Francis of Assisi, who saw it was wise to prefer the love of God and others over riches.

“Today we look to Saint Pier Giorgio Frassati and Saint 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,” he said.

“Dear friends, Saints 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.

Describing their “winning formula” for holiness, the Holy Father spoke about the ordinary circumstances through which they dedicated their lives to God.

“Pier Giorgio encountered the Lord through school and church groups — Catholic Action, the Conferences of Saint Vincent, the FUCI (Italian Catholic University Federation), the Dominican Third Order — and he bore witness to God with his joy of living and of being a Christian in prayer, friendship and charity,” he said.

“Carlo, for his part, encountered Jesus in his family, thanks to his parents, Andrea and Antonia — who are here today with his two siblings, Francesca and Michele — and then at school, and above all in the sacraments celebrated in the parish community,” he added.

According to the pope, the two Italian saints cultivated their love for God and for their brothers and sisters through “simple acts” of “daily Mass, prayer, and especially Eucharistic Adoration,” which are available to every Catholic.

At the end of the Mass, which he concelebrated with approximately 2,000 other priests, Pope Leo invoked the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary for peace, “especially in the Holy Land and in Ukraine and in every other land that is facing blood.”

“I invite all the authorities to listen and to put down the weapons that lead to destruction and death … they never bring peace and security,” he said.

“God does not want war. God wants peace. God sustains those who fight for peace and who follow the path of dialogue,” he added, before leading the congregation in praying the Angelus.

Leo closed out the event by making a circuit of the Square in his popemobile, waving at the crowd and stopping frequently to bless babies handed to him by his bodyguards.

One pilgrim present in the Square, Australian Caroline Khouri, told CNA the celebration was one she would “remember forever.”

“The joy in the atmosphere here is incredible,” she said.

The Maronite bishops gather for their monthly meeting at the Patriarchal Summer Residence in Dimane, Lebanon, where they issued a statement that Lebanon must seize available regional and international opportunities to restore full sovereignty over its territory and unite around constitutional institutions. / Credit: Maronite Patriarchate

ACI MENA, Sep 7, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Lebanon must seize available regional and international opportunities to restore full sovereignty over its territory and unite around constitutional institutions, the Maronite bishops stressed in a recent statement. They emphasized that full sovereignty is essential for achieving the state’s reform agenda and for leading Lebanon out of its ongoing crisis.

The bishops’ statement came during their monthly gathering on Sept. 3, held at the patriarchal summer residence in Dimane, a mountainous village in the North Governorate of Lebanon, under the leadership of Patriarch Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi and with the participation of the superiors general of the Maronite religious orders.

The bishops welcomed the international consensus to extend the mandate of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon in the south for one more year. They expressed hope that the mission would receive the support it needs so that this extension can mark the final phase of its mandate, in coordination with the Lebanese Army and security forces, in service of Lebanon’s stability.

They also praised the ongoing efforts of the Lebanese military to fulfill its government-assigned mission of collecting illegal weapons across the country.

The bishops further expressed their hope for careful preparation of communication and dialogue between Beirut and Damascus — whether regarding border demarcation and security, the case of Syrian prisoners in Lebanon and missing Lebanese in Syria, or bilateral relations in general. The bishops said they view the convergence of the two capitals on common interests as an important step toward resolving the conflict with Israel and restoring vitality to southern Lebanon.

The bishops also commended the dedication of educators in both public and private sectors, who are striving to ensure that Lebanon’s youth can continue their studies despite difficult security and economic conditions. They encouraged leaders of Catholic schools to act with transparency and responsibility in financial management, always under the law, to ensure fair distribution of educational burdens and to safeguard the best interests of students.

On the occasion of the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross on Sept. 14, the bishops called on the faithful to mark the day with prayer and works of charity, lifting their petitions to Christ the Redeemer so that love and peace may dwell in their hearts and in their homeland.

This story was first published by ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, and has been translated for and adapted by CNA.

The Church of the Gesù, where a Mass and prayer vigil for LGBT Christians took place on Sept. 6, 2025, in Rome during the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope. / Credit: essevu/Shutterstock

Vatican City, Sep 6, 2025 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

Bishop Francesco Savino, vice president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, celebrated Mass at the Church of the Gesù on Saturday for LGBT pilgrims in Rome for the Jubilee of Hope.

An Italian lay association organized the international pilgrimage, which included a morning Mass celebration inside the mother church of the Society of Jesus in Rome and a St. Peter’s Basilica Holy Door pilgrimage in the afternoon.

More than 1,000 pilgrims from around the world attended the Mass concelebrated by approximately 30 priests, including American Father James Martin, SJ, who had met with Pope Leo XIV in a Sept. 1 private audience at the Vatican.

Several people, including religious brothers and sisters, waved rainbow-colored fans to keep cool inside the packed church and some wore shirts with a phrase from 1 John 4:18, “nell’amore non c’e timore” (“there is no fear in love”), during the Mass.

In his homily, Savino underscored the inherent dignity of every person and the need to “restore dignity to those who had been denied it.” 

“We are all a pilgrim people of hope and we want to leave this celebration more joyful and hopeful than ever,” Savino said during his homily. “We have to go forward, convinced that God loves us [with] a unique and unrepeatable love … unconditional love.”

“In that awareness there is the foundation of all hope,” he said.

Reflecting on the selected Mass readings and Gospel for the day, Savino said St. Paul’s writings in the New Testament teach us that “a small step” in the midst of great human limitations may be “more pleasing to God than the outwardly correct life” of those who do not experience trials in life.

“We all have to convert, that is, we turn, we look in the opposite direction than before. The Acts of the Apostles documents this experience as defining and definitive,” he said. 

“Truly I am realizing that each of us, you here present, your family members, your brothers and sisters, we pastors and disciples of the Lord — each of us has had in our lives to accept or to reject a living truth,” he added.

Asking the Lord to “deliver us freely from any polemical or ideological temptation, from any preconceived temptation based on prejudice,” the Italian bishop spoke of the need for “Peter and the Apostolic College to put living truth before dead truth,” a reference to the pope and bishops today.

The Sept. 6 Mass concluded with rounds of loud applause and great emotion. Family members and friends sang the recessional hymn and hugged each other as the bishop and concelebrating priests processed out of the main part of the basilica, led by a pilgrim holding a rainbow-colored cross.    

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, people with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies … must be treated with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.” 

The catechism also states that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered” and “under no circumstances can they be approved.”

Carlo Acutis. / Credit: carloacutis.com

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 6, 2025 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Domenico Sorrentino, the bishop of Assisi, Italy, where the remains of Blessed Carlo Acutis rest, sent a message of encouragement to young people just prior to Pope Leo XIV’s declaring Acutis a saint of the Catholic Church along with another young Italian, Pier Giorgio Frassati.

“Dear faithful and most beloved young people, let yourselves be guided by Carlo, follow his example, follow in his footsteps, walk his path, because it is the right path, the one that leads to Jesus and, therefore, to love and joy,” the Italian prelate said in a message published Sept. 5.

The bishop of Assisi sent his message just two days before the canonization of Acutis, who will be declared a saint alongside Frassati on Sunday, Sept. 7, at a Mass celebrated by Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican at 10 a.m. local time.

Sorrentino also said that “today more than ever we need positive examples, exemplary life stories that will help our children not to be carried away by uncomfortable images, violent examples, and passing fads that leave nothing to be desired.”

“Carlo, on the other hand, teaches us to live a normal life, putting Jesus at the center. You, parents, also help your children discover Carlo’s holiness so that they can live a life full of joy, full of Jesus,” he emphasized.

Born on May 3, 1991, Acutis was a young Italian who from a very early age experienced a profound love for God, with a special devotion to Eucharistic miracles, which he compiled in a digital exhibition that he shared online.

Suffering from leukemia, Carlo died on Oct. 12, 2006, at the age of 15. He was beatified on Oct. 10, 2020.

The Diocese of Assisi also reported that some 800 pilgrims will arrive in Rome from Assisi on a special train arranged by the diocese. Twelve volunteers will be on board to distribute backpacks, scarves, and hats, and several priests and religious, led by the rector of the Shrine of the Spogliazione (Dispossession), Father Marco Gaballo, will be in charge of the group.

The Shrine of Spogliazione is the place where Carlo Acutis wanted to be buried, so Assisi welcomes both him and St. Francis.

Relics of the soon-to-be-canonized St. Carlo Acutis at the canonization

The Diocese of Assisi also announced that the relic of the heart of the young man who will become the first millennial saint will be brought to St. Peter’s Square in Rome. It was also announced that another relic of Carlo Acutis will be brought as a gift to Pope Leo XIV.

On Monday, Sept. 8, the day after the canonization, a Mass of thanksgiving will be celebrated in Assisi at St. Mary Major Church by Sorrentino. Carlo Acutis’ parents; Valeria, the young Costa Rican woman who received the miracle leading to Acutis’ canonization; and several civil authorities will be present.

The Diocese of Assisi also reported that, so far this year, some 630,000 pilgrims have come to the Shrine of the Spogliazione to venerate Acutis, with an average of up to 4,000 per day. In 2024, there were almost 1 million visitors.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Timothée Croux, a young seminarian from the French Diocese of Meaux, has written a book about Pier Giorgio Frassati. / Credit: Victoria Cardiel/EWTN News

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 6, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

Timothée Croux, a young seminarian from the French Diocese of Meaux in the Île-de-France region of the country, says the example of Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati played a decisive role in his vocational discernment.

Croux said he discovered Frassati, who was from Turin, Italy, and who died in 1925, through scouting and shares many personal affinities with the soon-to-be saint. 

“I delved deeper into Frassati’s personality during my preparatory year, before entering the seminary,” he said. “I discovered that there were many things in his biography that resembled mine. For example, we both have a passion for the mountains.”

“We both sought an authentic vocation, although in the end he decided not to become a priest in order to serve the poor in the mines, studying engineering to better help the miners,” Croux told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.

An adventurer with a true appetite for life

Croux noted that this young man from Turin, set to be canonized Sept. 7 alongside Blessed Carlo Acutis, is highly regarded among French scouts “because he was an adventurer with a true appetite for life.”

Croux, 23, is preparing for the priesthood through his ecclesiastical studies at the Pontifical French Seminary in Rome. In collaboration with Belgian priest Emmanuel de Ruyver, he has published in France and Italy the book “An Adventurer in Paradise,” a spiritual biography of Pier Giorgio Frassati designed especially for young people and students.

“It has a biographical section with many stories about Frassati. At the end of each chapter, there is a meditation on a beatitude, reflection questions, a Gospel excerpt, and a short prayer,” Croux explained.

“By knowing him better, we can give young people the desire for holiness. Being a saint was a daily pursuit for him. Frassati was not a priest and did not die a martyr. But from his most tender years as a child, he strove to live the Gospel consistently and with a disconcerting freedom,” the seminarian emphasized.

Croux also maintains close contact with Frassati’s family, particularly with Wanda Gawronska, the blessed’s niece, who wrote the book’s preface and is scheduled to be present during Sunday’s canonization.

He died young like Acutis

The young man from Turin died at age 24, one week after contracting fulminant poliomyelitis while visiting the poor in their homes. His premature death is a characteristic he shares with Acutis, who died of leukemia at the age of 15.

“Young people may think that you have to die young to be a saint, but that’s not true. The important thing is to live faithfulness, charity, and hope throughout your life,” the French seminarian emphasized.

The poor and most vulnerable always held a special place in Frassati’s heart. When he was just a child, after a poor mother and her barefoot son knocked at his family’s door, he gave them his shoes, asking them to leave quickly before his family found out. Until shortly before his death, he worked to get money or medicine to those in need.

“He said he saw through them a light that we don’t have: the light of Christ. And he understood it deeply, as in Matthew 25: ‘If you visit the poor, the prisoners, the naked, it is I you visit.’ He had understood it. That’s why he calls us not to be afraid to go to the peripheries and visit the poorest,” Croux said.

The Frassati family was very wealthy. His father, Alfredo Frassati, was a senator, ambassador, and director of the Italian newspaper La Stampa. The future saint grew up in the Catholic upper-class environment of Turin. But “it was perfunctory Catholicism, and it wasn’t his parents who encouraged him to serve the poor. They only discovered the scope of his action after his death, when thousands of people wanted to pay tribute to him,” Croux explained.

Love for the poor, rooted in the Gospel

His passion for the poor was rooted above all in his love for the Eucharist, another characteristic he shares with Acutis. At the age of 13, he obtained permission from his mother to go to Mass every day.

“He used to say: ‘Jesus visits me every day in Communion, and I humbly return that visit by going to see the poor.’ He had understood that the Eucharist was the sacrament of charity,” Croux explained.

Frassati’s daily life, marked by faith, service, and evangelical consistency, made him — as St. John Paul II said, when he was still a cardinal in Krakow in 1977 — “the man of the eight beatitudes.”

“He saw in him a model of complete holiness, living every beatitude in his short life,” Croux noted.

Frassati received a strict education. He was not a great student, and his father was very severe with him, expecting him to take over as director of La Stampa. However, the young Frassati directed his life toward the study of engineering so he could be closer to the people working in terrible conditions underground in the mines.

Peace and social commitment

Another essential feature of Frassati’s life was his moral firmness in the face of the totalitarian threat.

Frassati was associated with the Italian Popular Party, inspired by a priest and based on principles of Christian democracy. But he left it when the movement made a pact with the Fascists in 1922. He also resigned from a Catholic student group, Cesare Balbo, after discovering that it had honored Mussolini during his visit to Turin.

“For Pier Giorgio, politics was a service, especially to the poorest, and he could not accept a movement that exalted force,” Croux explained.

His brief but intense life explains why today, 100 years later, Frassati continues to speak to thousands of young people. According to Croux, Frassati’s message to the youth of the 21st century can be summed up in three points: prayer and charity, friendship, and the pursuit of peace.

“He made a connection between the daily Eucharist and charity toward the poorest. Every morning he went to Mass and then visited needy families, offering food, clothing, and a smile,” the young seminarian noted.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Jason Adkins, the executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, speaks to “EWTN News In Depth” anchor Catherine Hadro on the shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, Friday, Sept. 5, 2025. “Almost everyone ... in our Catholic community has a connection to Annunciation,” he said. / Credit: “EWTN News In Depth.”/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Sep 6, 2025 / 11:30 am (CNA).

A leading Catholic advocate in Minnesota is calling for an “all-of-the-above” approach to school safety and security in the wake of the Aug. 27 mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis that claimed the lives of two children and injured more than 20 children and adults.

Jason Adkins, the executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, told “EWTN News In Depth” anchor Catherine Hadro on Friday that “nonpublic school students” should have access to the same levels of security as those in public schools.

“We’ve been consistent advocates for [security] policies that include, and are nondiscriminatory against, nonpublic school students,” he said.

“We think that when the state makes a commitment to protecting students and to promote public safety, [that it’s] a basic public safety issue that should be available to all students, irrespective of where they go to school,” he argued further.

Adkins noted that Minnesota Catholic leaders in the past have implored state lawmakers to provide security funding for local nonpublic schools, though those calls went unheeded prior to the Aug. 27 shooting. “People have noticed that,” he said.

“Looking at school safety programs, nonprofit security grants, all these things — we have to take an all-of-the-above approach to looking at public policy solutions that limit gun violence in our communities,” he said.

Focusing just on guns will ‘fall short’

The Annunciation shooting once again touched off what is a regular debate in U.S. politics regarding school safety and gun crime. Some advocates have called for broad new gun control laws, while others have argued for arming teachers in classrooms.

In a statement this week amid a special session of the Minnesota Legislature, Adkins acknowledged that “continued discussion is warranted about access to certain weapons and high-capacity magazines.”

“At the same time, a special session that focuses only on gun regulations will fall short, as the issue runs deeper than firearm access,” he argued, calling for a focus on school security measures “that ensure the safety of all students.”

Adkins told Hadro, meanwhile, that policymakers and leaders “have to have honest conversations and take a look at every facet of this problem and explore creative solutions.”

In addressing the problem, meanwhile, he said those seeking solutions “have to see with the eyes of Christ.”

“Ultimately, there’s no political solution to what’s a theological and spiritual problem,” he said. “The answer to all these problems and challenges is ultimately the call to holiness.”

Pope Leo XIV addresses a crowd during a jubilee audience in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, Saturday, Sept. 6, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Sep 6, 2025 / 10:45 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Saturday resumed special jubilee audiences, begun by Pope Francis after the opening of the Church’s Year of Hope, telling Christians that the cross of Christ is a great treasure and source of hope.

Before delivering his morning catechesis on Chapter 4 of St. Mark’s Gospel, the Holy Father greeted hundreds of pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square from his popemobile, blessing several babies and accepting various gifts from people from different countries.

In his Gospel reflection, the pope said hope and happiness is rekindled when people “break through the crust of reality” and “go beneath the surface,” like the man in the parable who sold all his possessions to buy the field with a hidden treasure.

Leo described the holy cross of Jesus as the “greatest discovery of life” and expressed his high esteem for Helena, the mother of the first Christian Roman Emperor Constantine, who found the treasure of the wooden cross in Jerusalem and brought it to Rome.

“Helena always remained a woman searching,” he said in his Sept. 6 catechesis. “She had decided to become a Christian. She always practiced charity, never forgetting the humble people from whom she herself had come.”

“Such dignity and faithfulness to conscience, dear brothers and sisters, still change the world today,” he continued. “They bring us closer to the treasure.”

Encouraging Christians to cultivate their own heart through humility, Leo said one is able to draw closer to the Lord “who stripped himself to become like us.”

“His cross lies beneath the crust of our earth. We can walk proudly, heedlessly, trampling upon the treasure that is beneath our feet,” he said.

“But, instead, if we become like children, we will come to know another kingdom, another strength,” he continued. 

“God is always beneath us in order to raise us up on high,” he said at the end of the catechesis.

Bishop José Ignacio Munilla during his presentation on evangelization in the Diocese of Santa Marta, Colombia. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Diocese of Santa Marta

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 6, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

There are five indicators to keep in mind to know whether you’re evangelizing or falling into proselytism, a behavior far from authentic apostolic zeal, Bishop José Ignacio Munilla explained during an event in Colombia.

The bishop of Orihuela-Alicante in Spain is currently in Santa Marta, Colombia, participating in Evangelization Week, organized by the local diocese to mark the city’s 500th anniversary.

“What are the nuances of the negative meaning of the term proselytism? What indicators, what clues could we observe to determine what proselytism is in order to distinguish it from apostolic zeal?” the prelate asked.

The Spanish bishop asked these questions noting that Pope Francis had said that being a missionary is not the same as being a proselytizer and that Pope Benedict XVI taught that the Church grows through witness, not through proselytism.

Below are the five indicators Munilla pointed out:

1. Evangelizing respects where the person whom one is talking to is at. The bishop explained that “we must not overwhelm a person” but rather wait for the time of grace that the Lord has for him or her, because “there is a time of grace that God has for us, for our conversion.”

Munilla said that by not taking this into account, the proselytizer lacks the ability to accompany the other person, to listen to his or her concerns, and lead the person to an encounter with Jesus.

2. Proselytism often doesn’t place any importance on witnessing. Munilla explained that the proselytizer focuses more on his or her presentation than on bearing witness that the encounter with God changed his or her life. “I, at the same time that I’m telling you this, am a witness that what I am telling you has become my life experience,” he advised.

3. Proselytism believes more in the efficacy of one’s own reasoning than in the action of the Holy Spirit. Munilla explained that while the experience of evangelization teaches that it’s important to prepare, the proselytizer “isn’t quite convinced that it is the Spirit who moves hearts” and “that the fruit of evangelization is a gift from the Holy Spirit.”

“Therefore, you must be praying at the same time you’re evangelizing. Proselytism forgets this,” he noted.

4. Proselytism does not sufficiently respect freedom. The proselytizer “seeks to impose rather than propose,” despite the fact that Jesus “is infinitely respectful: ‘Behold, I knock at the door. If you hear my voice, if you open the door, I will come in, and we will dine together.’”

5. Proselytism will only help the person who is part of his or her flock. The prelate explained that sometimes proselytizers tend to condition their offer to help a person out on adherence to the message of faith, when “true evangelization, true witness, is to love freely,” without asking: “Do you belong to our group or not?”

The Spanish prelate invited Catholics to reflect on whether any of these attitudes are contaminating the apostolate because, as the declaration Dignitatis Humanae points out, “the Church severely forbids anyone to be forced, induced, or enticed by indiscreet means to embrace the faith. She also vigorously vindicates the right to have no one turned away from it by unjust harassment.”

Munilla shares a conversion story

Addressing the second point, Munilla shared an anecdote that happened to him a few months ago in Alicante and that illustrates the importance of the witness of one’s life.

He recounted that on one occasion he was invited to participate in a debate with an atheist philosopher about the existence of God. “And as you can imagine, I said yes [God exists], and the other person said no he doesn’t. And we used our apologetic arguments. And I tried to reason and spoke about the order of the universe, about conscience; and the man answered… Well, we did what we could.”

The bishop said then a conversation ensued, but as it was about to end, a man in the back raised his hand and said: “I have listened attentively to your arguments. You have developed them very well. You have said this and that and so on and so on. But I have an argument, and I am going to say it.”

The man then recounted that throughout his life he had suffered from a severe addiction that had kept him enslaved for many years.

He struggled with this addiction several times and even turned to psychologists and therapists, but he experienced powerlessness, “and I had thrown in the towel.”

“Then,” the bishop recounted, “he said that one year Holy Week came around and he was invited to attend the Easter Vigil. That famous liturgy, the mother of all liturgies, the Easter Vigil, in which we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And he said that he attended.”

“And, well, it wasn’t that it was a particularly devout celebration that he got emotional about. No, no, nothing like that. He attended, it was over, and he left.”

But after leaving, “that addiction never came back. He never experienced it. It’s as if it had never existed in his life.”

The man then concluded by telling the audience: “I only know that I was once an addict, and after that celebration of the resurrection of Christ, I am free. I have no more arguments, you see? I have no more questions, gentlemen.”

Munilla explained that with this man, the story of the man born blind was repeated. When people began to ask him, ”Who opened your eyes?” he only responded: ”I only know that I once was blind, and now I see.”

In that sense, he said the man’s story ”was a testimony to what God had done in him. And that is very powerful.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.