Catholic Nutshell News: Thursday 10/2/25
Topics include: No Catholic preschools in Colorado's school choice program; Guardian Angels; Christians in Gaza face agonizing decision; & Parenting test for Greenland’s mothers
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Today's sources include Aleteia, CNA, National Catholic Register, The Pillar, CatholicVote, John Eldredge, and ChurchPOP. (Catholic Nutshell is a subscription service for faithful, hopeful, & curious Catholics willing to exercise the Catholic News Muscle)
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Catholic News Agency
Colorado court: No Catholic preschools in school choice program
By Kate Quiñones, October 1, 2025
After years of court battles over the Colorado government’s exclusion of two Catholic preschools from its Universal Preschool Program, a U.S. appeals court ruled against the parishes on Tuesday. The U.S. Court of Appeals of the 10th Circuit, in a 54-page decision, ruled that Colorado may continue to exclude the Catholic preschools because of their religious beliefs. Becket, a law firm that defends religious freedom, first filed a lawsuit on behalf of two Catholic parish preschools of the Archdiocese of Denver in August 2023. A federal court in June 2024 ruled that Colorado state discriminated against the Catholic preschools, but ultimately the courts upheld the state’s exclusion of them. The preschools then appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
Aleteia
Can you prove the existence of Guardian Angels?
By Philip Kosloski, October 2, 2025
Immaterial things are much more difficult to “prove” from a sensory standpoint. You cannot point in a specific direction and show someone their Guardian Angel. Angels by their nature do not have a physical body and so exist in a realm that is invisible to our senses. The existence of angels hinges on the existence of a spiritual being we call God. Peter Kreeft spends an entire chapter exploring this concept in his book, Angels (and Demons), explaining why it makes rational sense that angels exist: “If you can prove the existence of the supernatural, then there is a “place” for angels, a category for them to inhabit. If there is a God, why not angels? If there is an infinite spirit, why can’t there be finite spirits?” Kreeft then points to C.S. Lewis’ book Miracles as a good starting place for anyone questioning the existence of the supernatural. In the Catholic Church, we have a firm belief in angels, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, “From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession” (CCC 336).
National Catholic Reporter
Our Sunday Visitor magazine to cease publishing
By Renée K. Gadouaw, August 15, 2025
Two and a half years after taking over Catholic News Service’s U.S.-based operations, longtime Catholic publisher Our Sunday Visitor Inc. has announced it will sunset almost all its periodical operations by December, including its flagship title, Our Sunday Visitor magazine. OSV’s plans continue a trend in Catholic media as many U.S. diocesan newspapers have ceased print editions and begun relying more on websites and social media. U.S. Catholic newspapers numbered 196 with 6.5 million in circulation in 2006, according to figures from the Catholic Media Association, which serves Catholic journalists in the U.S. and Canada. In 2020, the number of newspapers had dropped 40%, to 118 with 3.8 million in circulation. Among OSV’s discontinued publications are OSV Kids, The Priest, The Deacon and Our Sunday Visitor magazine. OSV will also continue to publish the English edition of L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s newspaper.
CatholicVote
‘Last opportunity’: Christians in Gaza face agonizing decision
By Mary Stroka, October 1, 2025
Israel warned residents in Gaza to flee or become military targets. Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz said Oct. 1 that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had surrounded Gaza City. Anyone leaving southward will be “required to pass through the IDF’s inspection checkpoints,” Katz warned, adding: “This is the last opportunity for Gaza residents who wish to do so to move south and leave Hamas terrorists isolated in Gaza City itself, facing the IDF’s ongoing operations at full force. Those who remain in Gaza will be considered terrorists and terror supporters.” Gaza City’s Christian clergy and nuns said Aug. 26, that they would stay in compounds of Saint Porphyrius (Orthodox) and Holy Family Church (Catholic) to care for people who can’t flee. “The heroic Missionaries of Charity are among those who have stayed behind to care for those too elderly or sick to travel,” CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt stated. “In today’s day and age, it is possible to identify this community of Christians and guarantee their safety even in an area of war.
Crux
Pope grabs third rail of US, Catholic politics with both hands
By Christopher R. Altieri, October 2, 2025
Pope Leo XIV, earlier this week, decided to take a question in English from EWTN’s Valentina Di Donato, after answering queries from other reporters in an informal and spur-of-the-moment gathering. He had already fielded questions on several major issues. He addressed the 20-point Trump-Netanyahu peace proposal for Gaza unveiled this week, to name one, calling it “realistic” and saying, “We hope Hamas accepts within the established timeframe.” He said, “I would ask, first and foremost, that there be greater respect for one another and that we search together, both as human beings, in that case as American citizens or citizens of the state of Illinois, as well as Catholics, to say we need to really look closely at all of these ethical issues [abortion, immigration, and the death penalty] and to find the way forward as Church. Church teaching on each one of those issues is very clear,” Leo said.
National Catholic Register
Greenland’s mothers must pass a parenting test
By Luke Larson, October 1, 2025
Recent media coverage of Ivana Bronlund, an 18-year-old woman, lost Greenland’s legal battle to regain custody of her baby after the child was taken from her by government authorities just an hour after birth. It has cast a light on the long-standing use of state-mandated parenting tests to determine whether the parent is fit to raise their child. Should a parent fail the test — which includes math problems and geography questions — the government can forcibly remove the child. Protests in Denmark and Greenland this summer called for Bronlund to be reunited with her daughter, born Aug. 11. For Catholics, the tests raise questions about parental rights and the relationship between the state and the family. The test includes questions like “What is glass made of?” and “What is the name of the big staircase in Rome?” Designed to determine personality, cognitive abilities, intelligence, and psychological health, it takes 15 to 20 hours to complete and is conducted over several months.
The Pillar
Jerusalem tax dispute is part of campaign against Churches
By Edgar Beltrán, October 1, 2025
The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem has suffered another legal blow, as local authorities have said its municipal tax case will be resolved in court, rather than by a special committee, as authorities had promised in February. The abrupt change of course is the latest development in a months-long dispute between the patriarchate and local authorities, in a case that is being monitored attentively by other Christian communities in the region, who fear they could face similar demands for tax payments. As part of the Armenian Apostolic Church, an Oriental Orthodox Church, and the largest religion in Armenia, the Patriarchate accounts for 97% of the population. The Armenian Patriarchate of Jerusalem owes an arnona debt accrued since 1994. The patriarchate has described the debt as “astronomical and illegal.” Observers allege it is part of a pattern of such demands leveled against churches in the city.
UCA News
Kashmir’s apple growers fight losing battle against climate change
By Umar Manzoor Shah, October 1, 2025
For the poor of Jammu and Kashmir, climate change is not a distant threat. It is a lived reality that arrives as rainstorms, highway blockades, floods, landslides, and soaring freight charges. The Jammu-Srinagar National Highway, Kashmir’s only all-weather road link to the outside world, had remained shut for weeks following landslides triggered by incessant rains since August. Hundreds of fruit-laden trucks were left stranded in Qazigund, Pulwama, and Anantnag. Farmers’ unions in Shopian and Sopore made efforts to persuade the state-owned Road Transport Corporation (RTC) to deploy trucks. Growers in Pulwama pooled money to hire private cold storage trucks when government help failed. Apples are not just a fruit in Kashmir. They are the backbone of the region’s economy, sustaining nearly 3.5 million people and contributing millions of dollars to it annually. For generations, families in Shopian, Pulwama, Sopore, and Baramulla have lived in harmony with the rhythm of the apple seasons. But climate volatility is turning this rhythm into chaos.
CatholicVote, CNA & ChurchPOP for 10/2/25
CatholicVote - The Loop
Read daily news and political impact stories at the “LOOP”
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ISRAEL SURROUNDS GAZA CITY, TARGETS CIVILIANS - Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz yesterday announced that the Israel Defense Forces had surrounded Gaza City and will treat all residents who remain there as “terrorists and terror supporters.” The city is home to Gaza’s Catholic and Orthodox churches, whose clergy and religious have vowed to stay put and care for the wounded and elderly who cannot travel.
CATHOLIC LEADERS WEIGH IN ON DURBIN AWARD - Several Catholic leaders, including the bishop of Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin’s home diocese, have responded approvingly to the pro-abortion politician’s decision to decline a controversial lifetime achievement award from the Archdiocese of Chicago.
DETRANSITIONER TELLS HIS STORY: ‘I TRIED TO STOP THEM’ - In an exclusive CatholicVote interview, a detransitioner reveals how doctors rushed him into hormones and surgeries he begged them to stop. Now, he’s suing for malpractice — determined to expose the industry’s lies.
Catholic News Agency
CNA’s top headlines — October 2, 2025
The Catholic News Agency provides reliable, free, and up-to-the-minute news affecting the Universal Church, emphasizing the words of the Holy Father and the happenings of the Holy See to anyone with internet access.
Cardinal Sturla defends life as Uruguay debates euthanasia - Oct 2, 2025 - By Julieta Villar - The archbishop of Montevideo, Cardinal Daniel Sturla, testified before a Sept. 30 hearing of the Uruguay Senate’s health committee.
Catholic University in Erbil celebrates fifth graduating class - Oct 2, 2025 - By Georgena Habbaba - This week, Catholic University in Erbil, Iraq, graduated 114 students amid a strong church and diplomatic presence.
Utah Catholic church offers Mass for repose of soul of late LDS president - Oct 1, 2025 - By Tyler Arnold - A small Catholic church in Heber City, Utah will offer a Mass for the repose of the soul of Russell M. Nelson, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS), who died on Sept. 27 at the age of 101.
ChurchPOP Trending
ChurchPOP provides fun, informative, and authentically Catholic news and culture - October 2, 2025
We publish inspiring daily stories, fun and shareable faith-centered infographics, prayers, Church history, and more.
Saint Thérèse’s Miraculous Prayers Converted a Hardened Criminal: The Story of Henri Pranzini - For Thérèse, this was the sign she had begged for: her “first son” had turned back to God at the very last moment.
A Marriage Story: The Heart-Healing, Transformative Power of the Litany of Humility - “And then I felt a little nudge in my heart, ‘Pray the Litany of Humility.’”
Struggle with Anger? Turn to Saint Jerome, the Hot-Head Who Still Made it to Heaven - Do you struggle with a hot temper? Turn to Saint Jerome!
Nutshell reflections for 10/2/25:
USCCB Daily Reflection - AUDIO - October 2, 2025
Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels
Church Life Journal
Allegorical interpretations fade away in modernity
By Ryan Hurd, October 2, 2023
It is a notable fact that the practice of interpreting Holy Scripture allegorically diminishes in proportion to the advance of modernity—until we reach our present time, when allegorizing has been almost entirely abandoned. We face an immediate problem: allegory has many definitions. Worse, some of those definitions are overlapping—covering the same terrain, but mapping it in different ways. The so-called spiritual sense (taken from signifying realities, not letters/words) is housed under allegory, together with the metaphorical literal sense. There can be tension in dividing between ad litteram/literal versus allegorical interpretations. Allegorizing is the disciplined practice of understanding other than what the letters say—and I underline the disciplined practice, not the unhinged. One knows from St. Augustine that anger is not in God, or from St. Thomas that such is far from him. We must acquire scientia about God being impassible (i.e., without passions—anger, regret, etc.), for only from this principle can we understand the scriptural propositions of God being angered.
Imaginative Conservative
St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s two very different biographies
By Robert Lazu Kmita, October 23, 2025
Thérèse of Lisieux made the first record of her life. That record, written in obedience to her Carmelite superior, is the primary source of the saint’s latest biographers, Dominican Fr. Bernard Bro and bestselling author Kathryn Harrison. Published in French two years after Thérèse’s untimely death, her Historie d’une Âme has passed through 89 editions and been translated into 60 languages. The subject of Bro’s and Harrison’s Saint Thérèse of Lisieux was the last child of Louis and Zélie Martin. Louise and Zélie, both of whom the Church has canonized, initiated their marriage with a naïve vow of celibacy. After several months, a priest corrected their misunderstanding of what God expected of their shared vocation. The lesson was well learned, for at length the Martins produced nine children. On the Martin sisters, says Bro, was bestowed the vocation denied their mother. Leaving Thérèse and Céline at home to care for their declining father, the two other sisters soon followed Pauline’s lead. Marie added another Martin to the local Carmel; Léonie joined the Poor Clares.
Crisis Magazine
Why are English Christian leaders condemning Christian symbols?
By Steven Tucker, October 2, 2025
Suddenly, crosses were everywhere on the streets of Great Britain. And the automatic response of the Christian church in that country was to complain. Apparently, the problem is that those carrying the crosses are the “wrong kind” of Christians: patriotic ones, who actually believe in Christianity and don’t want to hand the whole country over on a plate to Islam. A rally, called “Unite the Kingdom,” was organized by the prominent British anti-Islam campaigner Tommy Robinson. This coincided with the weekend on which the annual Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross took place. Tommy recently converted to Christianity while serving a prison sentence. He saw that the widespread lack of the traditional European religion across his homeland had created a spiritual and civilizational void into which Islam was gleefully flooding via uncontrolled mass immigration. Not all those acting like this were full-believing Christians themselves— simply adopting the cross as a symbol to encapsulate the contemporary struggle against imported Islam.
Wild at Heart
Face the truth about our lives
By John Eldredge, October 2, 2025
The world does become too complicated, too overwhelming, too filled with pain so much of the time. As children, we don’t have the capacity to make sense of it, let alone process it. If our lives become too filled with trauma, a part of us disappears. We push down what we can’t understand or resolve and instead go looking for greener grass to distract us from the ache. But that doesn’t really work, at least not in the long term. We need to stop running. We need to tend our hearts. One of the best ways we can do that is by honoring the story of our lives, by letting that part of us and our past that has been tamped down rise back to the surface, and then inviting Jesus into it. We need to face the truth about our lives with merciful honesty and choose to linger in it long enough for the Holy Spirit to do His gentle yet persistent redemptive work. The more honest we are about our lives, the more healing and fulfilling we will know life to be.
Image of peanuts by Nicole Köhler, from Pixabay
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