The Edicule, the traditional site of Jesus' burial and resurrection, is seen at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. (CNS photo/Debbie Hill)
CNA Staff, Apr 17, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).
While Easter dates usually differ between Eastern and Western Christians, this year both Easter celebrations land on the same day — a coincidence that could be an opportunity for progress in ecumenical dialogue.
This year’s Easter falls in the 1,700th anniversary year of the Council of Nicaea — the first ecumenical council that was held in the fourth century. Most known for defending the divinity of Christ against the heresy of Arianism, the council also established a universal formula for calculating the date of Easter.
Nicaea decreed that Easter should be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. The Julian calendar, which was the standard at the time, had a fixed date for the spring equinox. The fixed Easter date, based on the Julian calendar, was gradually implemented.
Centuries after the council, Western churches switched to the Gregorian calendar due to inaccuracies in the Julian calendar, while the Eastern Church has continued to use the Julian calendar for religious feast days. Both East and West follow the council, but they have different starting points and therefore different Easter dates.
Why has the Easter date been different?
In 46 B.C., Julius Caesar established the Julian calendar. While similar to the now-standard Gregorian calendar, the Julian calendar had its flaws.
Minute inaccuracies in the Julian calendar caused worlds of confusion centuries afterward, affecting agriculture and planting, shipping navigation, and even the celebration of holy days.
While a year is colloquially known to be 365 days, it takes the earth precisely 365.24219 days to travel around the sun. The Julian calendar intended to account for that extra bit of time by establishing a leap year every four years. But that meant that the Julian calendar had 365.25 days — just beyond of the precise revolution of the earth around the sun.
Because the Julian calendar had 365 and quarter, the calendar was 11 minutes and 14 seconds off every year. More than a millennium later, those superfluous minutes had added up to 10 extra days.
In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII decided to address the season offset by removing an occasional leap year in the future and cutting the 10 extra days from the calendar. People went to bed on Oct. 4 and woke up on Oct. 15. Bad luck for early October birthdays that year.
At the time, this put a 10-day gap between the Gregorian calendar and the Julian calendar. Now, in 2025, the Julian calendar is 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar and by 2100, it will be 14 days behind.
For religious feast days like Easter, both East and West follow the universal formula established by Nicaea — but the Eastern churches base their holiday calculations off of the Julian calendar, while Western churches use the Gregorian calendar.
One Easter again?
On April 20, 2025, Easter will land on the same day for both the East and the West.
In light of this and the Nicaea anniversary, both Pope Francis and the Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew of Constantinople have expressed hopes that the shared date of Easter this year could be the beginning of something more.
Last April, the Eastern Orthodox patriarch of Constantinople, Patriarch Bartholomew, expressed a desire that Christians in the East and West celebrate Easter on a “unified date.”
Bartholomew hoped that the shared date would “not merely be a fortuitous occurrence but rather the beginning of a unified date for its observance by both Eastern and Western Christianity.”
At the beginning of 2025 during an ecumenical event, Pope Francis renewed his appeal that Christians might take “a decisive step forward toward unity around a common date for Easter.”
It’s an opportunity to, in the Holy Father’s words, “live the anniversary of the Council of Nicaea as a call to persevere on the path toward unity.”
But April 20, 2025, isn’t the only opportunity for a shared Easter date. In just a few years, Easter will fall on April 16, 2028, for both the East and the West, and again on April 13, 2031, and April 9, 2034.
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Vatican City, Nov 20, 2019 / 09:40 am (CNA).- The Holy See on Wednesday reaffirmed its support of a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, after recent shifts in U.S. policy threatened to derail hopes of an agreement.
Pallbearers carry the wooden coffin of Pope Francis, marked with a cross, into St. Peter’s Square for the funeral Mass on April 26, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Vatican City, Apr 26, 2025 / 05:03 am (CNA).
More than 200,000 people filled St. Peter’s Square for the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday as the world said goodbye to the first Latin American pope who led the Catholic Church for the past 12 years.
Under the bright Roman sun and amid crowds extending down the Via della Conciliazione, the funeral Mass unfolded within the great colonnade of St. Peter’s Basilica. Heads of state, religious leaders, and pilgrims from across the globe gathered for the historic farewell.
An aerial view of St. Peter’s Square filled with thousands of mourners, clergy, and dignitaries gathered for Pope Francis’s funeral Mass under clear blue skies in Vatican City on April 26, 2025.`. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, presided over the Mass, delivering a homily that paid tribute to Francis’ missionary vision, human warmth, spontaneity, witness to mercy, and “charisma of welcome and listening.”
“Evangelization was the guiding principle of his pontificate,” Re said.
Pope Francis “often used the image of the Church as a ‘field hospital’ after a battle in which many were wounded; a Church determined to take care of the problems of people and the great anxieties that tear the contemporary world apart; a Church capable of bending down to every person, regardless of their beliefs or condition, and healing their wounds.”
As bells tolled solemnly, the funeral rite began with the intonation of the entrance antiphon: “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him.”
The late pope’s closed plain wooden coffin lay in front of the altar throughout the Mass.
A view of the coffin of Pope Francis resting before the altar at the funeral Mass on St. Peter’s Square, April 26, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
“In this majestic Saint Peter’s Square, where Pope Francis celebrated the Eucharist so many times and presided over great gatherings over the past twelve years, we are gathered with sad hearts in prayer around his mortal remains,” Re said.
“With our prayers, we now entrust the soul of our beloved Pontiff to God, that he may grant him eternal happiness in the bright and glorious gaze of his immense love,” he added.
View of St. Peter’s Basilica during the Funeral Mass of Pope Francis on April 26, 2025. Peter Gagnon / EWTN
Among the more than 50 heads of state present were U.S. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, alongside former President Joe Biden. Also in attendance were Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Argentine President Javier Milei, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva joined the throng of international dignitaries along with representatives of religious traditions from around the world.
Royal families also paid their respects, with Prince William representing King Charles III and Spanish King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia seated near the altar.
Pilgrims arrived before sunrise to claim their spots in St. Peter’s Square for the Mass with the first in line camping out the night before.
The funeral followed the Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis, the official liturgical order for papal funerals, which was updated at Pope Francis’ own request in 2024. Scripture readings included Acts 10:34-43, Philippians 3:20–4:1, Psalm 22, and the Gospel of John 21:15-19 — a passage in which the risen Christ tells Peter: “Feed my sheep.”
More than 200 cardinals and 750 bishops and priests concelebrated the funeral Mass. More than 4,000 journalists representing 1,800 media outlets reported on the event. All told, the Holy See said more than 250,000 mourners attended.
In his homily, Cardinal Re reflected on key moments in Pope Francis’ pontificate from his risk-defying trip to Iraq to visit Christians communities persecuted by the Islamic State to his Mass on the border between Mexico and the United States during his journey to Mexico.
“Faced with the raging wars of recent years, with their inhuman horrors and countless deaths and destruction, Pope Francis incessantly raised his voice imploring peace and calling for reason and honest negotiation to find possible solutions,” the cardinal said, causing the crowd to erupt in spontaneous applause.
Pope Francis’ coffin lies in St. Peter’s Square during the papal funeral Mass on Saturday, April 26, 2025. Credit: EWTN News
“Pope Francis always placed the Gospel of mercy at the center, repeatedly emphasizing that God never tires of forgiving us. He forgives, whatever the situation might be of the person who asks for forgiveness and returns to the right path,” Re reflected. “Mercy and the joy of the Gospel are two key words for Pope Francis.”
The cardinal presided over the final commendation and farewell for Pope Francis, praying: “Dear brothers and sisters, let us commend to God’s tender mercy the soul of Pope Francis, bishop of the Catholic Church, who confirmed his brothers and sisters in the faith of the resurrection.”
“Let us pray to God our Father through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit; may he deliver him from death, welcome him to eternal peace and raise up him on the last day,” he said.
After the crowd chanted the Litany of Saints in Latin, Cardinal Baldassare Reina, vicar general of the Diocese of Rome, offered a final prayer: “O God, faithful rewarder of souls, grant that your departed servant and our bishop, Pope Francis, whom you made successor of Peter and shepherd of your Church, may happily enjoy forever in your presence in heaven the mysteries of your grace and compassion, which he faithfully ministered on earth.”
A poignant moment followed as Eastern Catholic patriarchs, major archbishops, and metropolitans from the “sui iuris” Churches approached the coffin while a choir chanted a Greek prayer from the Byzantine Funeral Office.
Re blessed the coffin with holy water and incense as the choir sang in Latin: “I know that my Redeemer lives: on the last day I shall rise again.”
At the end of the Mass, the traditional antiphon “In Paradisum” was sung in Latin, asking for the angels to guide the pope’s soul to heaven.
“May the angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs come and welcome you and take you to the holy city, the new and eternal Jerusalem. May choirs of angels welcome you and with Lazarus, who is poor no longer, may you have eternal rest.”
In keeping with his wishes, Pope Francis will not be buried in the Vatican grottoes alongside his predecessors. Instead, his body will be taken in procession through the streets of Rome in a vehicle to the Basilica of St. Mary Major, a church he visited over 100 times in his lifetime to pray before an icon of the Virgin Mary, “Salus Populi Romani,” particularly before and after his papal journeys.
Pope Francis’ wooden coffin is transported on the popemobile through the streets of Rome as crowds of faithful line the procession route from St. Peter’s Basilica to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, April 26, 2025. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
In Rome’s most important Marian basilica, Pope Francis will be laid to rest in a simple tomb marked with a single word: Franciscus.
Remembering Pope Francis
Jorge Mario Bergoglio was born on Dec. 17, 1936, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and entered the Society of Jesus at age 21. Following his ordination in 1969, he served as a Jesuit provincial, seminary rector, and professor before St. John Paul II appointed him auxiliary bishop of Buenos Aires in 1992. He became archbishop of the Argentine capital in 1998 and was created cardinal in 2001.
The surprise election of Cardinal Bergoglio on March 13, 2013, at age 76 marked several historic firsts: He became the first Jesuit pope, the first from the Americas, and the first to choose the name Francis, inspired by St. Francis of Assisi’s devotion to poverty, peace, and creation.
His 12-year pontificate was characterized by a focus on mercy, care for creation, and attention to what he called the “peripheries” of both the Church and society. He made 47 apostolic journeys outside Italy, though he never visited his native Argentina.
During his tenure, Pope Francis canonized 942 saints — more than any other pope in history — including his predecessors John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II. He published four encyclicals and seven apostolic exhortations while promulgating 75 motu proprio documents.
Throughout his papacy, Francis significantly reshaped the College of Cardinals through 10 consistories, creating 163 new cardinals. His appointments reflected his vision of a global Church, elevating prelates from the peripheries and creating cardinals in places that had never before had one, including Mongolia and South Sudan.
Health challenges marked the pope’s final years. He underwent surgery in July 2021 and in June 2023. In November 2023, he suffered from pulmonary inflammation, and in February 2025, he was hospitalized at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital for bronchitis and a respiratory infection.
His papacy faced unprecedented challenges, including the global COVID-19 pandemic, during which he offered historic moments of prayer for humanity, notably the extraordinary urbi et orbi blessing in an empty St. Peter’s Square in March 2020. He also repeatedly called for peace amid conflicts in Ukraine and the Holy Land.
Francis convoked four synods, including the Synod on Synodality, whose second session concluded in October 2024. He implemented significant reforms of the Roman Curia and took several steps to address the clergy abuse crisis, including the 2019 motu proprio Vos Estis Lux Mundi.
Pope Francis’ funeral marks the first day in the Catholic Church’s traditional nine-day mourning period that will include nine days of requiem Masses to be offered for the repose of his soul.
“Pope Francis used to conclude his speeches and meetings by saying, ‘Do not forget to pray for me,’ Re recalled at the end of his homily.
“Dear Pope Francis, we now ask you to pray for us. May you bless the Church, bless Rome, and bless the whole world from heaven as you did last Sunday from the balcony of this Basilica in a final embrace with all the people of God, but also embrace humanity that seeks the truth with a sincere heart and holds high the torch of hope.”
Pope Benedict XVI on June 15, 2005 in Vatican City. / L’Osservatore Romano.
Vatican City, Apr 14, 2022 / 02:00 am (CNA).
Catholics around the world are being invited to congratulate Pope emeritus Benedict XVI on his 95th birthday.
The Tagespost Foundation for Catholic Journalism has created a website to collect the messages, which will then be shown to Benedict XVI.
“I know he is very happy about it,” said Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the private secretary of the pope emeritus, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
Benedict XVI will celebrate his 95th birthday on April 16, Holy Saturday. He was born Joseph Alois Ratzinger in 1927 in Marktl am Inn, a small Bavarian town not far from Austria, also on a Holy Saturday.
Looking back to his birth in his memoir, published before his election as pope, he wrote: “The fact that the birthday was the last day of Holy Week and the eve of Easter was always noted in the family history, because it was connected with the fact that I was baptized right on the morning of my birthday with the water that had just been consecrated in the ‘Easter Vigil’ celebrated at that time in the morning. To be the first baptized with the new water was considered a significant providential event.”
He continued: “The fact that my life was thus immersed in the Paschal Mystery from the beginning in this way has always filled me with gratitude, for this could only be a sign of blessing.”
“Admittedly — it had not been Easter Sunday, but only Holy Saturday. But the longer I think about it, the more it seems to me to be in keeping with the essence of our human life, which is still waiting for Easter, not yet in full light, but nevertheless confidently moving toward it.”
“I thank God for giving us Joseph Ratzinger on Holy Saturday 1927 as a fine man, profoundly devout Christian, outstanding theologian, and kind bishop and pope. And I thank Pope emeritus Benedict XVI for his lifelong witness to the love of God and for his compelling life’s work in theology,” he said.
“For his birthday, which the honoree will again celebrate on a Holy Saturday, I wish that it be for him a day of joy and appreciation, that he — despite all the hostility from the outside, which unfortunately occurs again and again — can look back gratefully on his life and on his episcopal and theological work, and that on his last earthly pilgrimage he can walk with confidence toward the final encounter with Jesus Christ, whose face he sought throughout his life and brought close to us.”
On behalf of the faithful of his diocese, Bishop Wolfgang Ipolt of Görlitz, eastern Germany, congratulated the pope emeritus.
He wrote: “I gladly remember our meeting at the seminary in Erfurt on the occasion of your visit to eastern Germany shortly after my episcopal ordination in September 2011. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all that you have given to the Church in your writings. I am sure that you have helped many people to find God and to know and love Christ more deeply. May the Lord reward you for this effort one day in His glory!”
Father Karl Wallner O. Cist., a monk from Heiligenkreuz Abbey, which is dear to Benedict’s heart, wrote: “From the bottom of my heart I offer my congratulations, also in my current capacity as national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in Austria. In the Church in the Global South, I experience every day, there is a very, very great gratitude for your pontificate and your theological work.”
“It is beautiful that your birthday this year coincides with Holy Saturday, the day on which you also received your baptism at the early Easter Vigil,” said Father Maximilian Heim O. Cist., the abbot of Heiligenkreuz.
“You give us a living example of how we ourselves should live from the mystery of the Paschal Mystery. For this, we thank you and rejoice in your attachment to our monastery and its various tasks, not least to our university, which may bear your name.”
When the 10 days were cut, there were riots in the streets with people demanding to have back the 10 days they’d lost from their lives.
Much earlier, long before the councils, dating back to apostolic days, the dates of Easter differred between east and west, the eastern churches followed the traditions of John and celebrated Easter generally by the Jewish calendar, which put Easter often on weekdays, while western churches generally followed traditions established by Peter and Paul and insisted Easter must be on a Sunday…and too many other variations to mention among the assorted ancient churches.
The Nicaea council was the first time everyone got on the same page at all.
Personally, I’d like us to follow the same calendar used at the time of Jesus, that way all of Christianity and the Jewish people would celebrate their holiest of days at the same time.
Amidst all the Kumbaya talk with the Orthodox the elephant in the room is that the Julian calendar is bogus and the Gregorian calendar accurately reflects reality. Let’s see if these clerics can settle on reality instead of continued foolishness.
Many years ago, Pope Paul VI suggested the Catholics and Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter on the second Sunday in April. It was a good idea then and it is a good idea now.
Thanks to Marinella Bandini of CNA for this clear and concise explanation of the calculations determining Easter’s celebration. Certainly seems divinely ordained this year with triple significance for Catholics. Seems that Jesus Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church needs a unified calendar to celebrate His Highest Glorious Feast to honor Him worldwide. (It is Satan who divides).Maybe we His Body it depends upon to show sacrificial love through fasting and prayer for humble graceful hearts to prevail in this human choice. And now with a new Pope, alongside the unified East West calendar, we pray Traditional doctrine can be unified (as Confraternity of Christian Doctrine), Mai’s oui?
When the 10 days were cut, there were riots in the streets with people demanding to have back the 10 days they’d lost from their lives.
Much earlier, long before the councils, dating back to apostolic days, the dates of Easter differred between east and west, the eastern churches followed the traditions of John and celebrated Easter generally by the Jewish calendar, which put Easter often on weekdays, while western churches generally followed traditions established by Peter and Paul and insisted Easter must be on a Sunday…and too many other variations to mention among the assorted ancient churches.
The Nicaea council was the first time everyone got on the same page at all.
Personally, I’d like us to follow the same calendar used at the time of Jesus, that way all of Christianity and the Jewish people would celebrate their holiest of days at the same time.
Oui il serait Grant temps d unifier orient et occident pour montrer l’exemple aux juif et aux arabes de stopper la haine !!!!!
Amidst all the Kumbaya talk with the Orthodox the elephant in the room is that the Julian calendar is bogus and the Gregorian calendar accurately reflects reality. Let’s see if these clerics can settle on reality instead of continued foolishness.
Many years ago, Pope Paul VI suggested the Catholics and Orthodox Christians celebrate Easter on the second Sunday in April. It was a good idea then and it is a good idea now.
Thanks to Marinella Bandini of CNA for this clear and concise explanation of the calculations determining Easter’s celebration. Certainly seems divinely ordained this year with triple significance for Catholics. Seems that Jesus Christ’s One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church needs a unified calendar to celebrate His Highest Glorious Feast to honor Him worldwide. (It is Satan who divides).Maybe we His Body it depends upon to show sacrificial love through fasting and prayer for humble graceful hearts to prevail in this human choice. And now with a new Pope, alongside the unified East West calendar, we pray Traditional doctrine can be unified (as Confraternity of Christian Doctrine), Mai’s oui?