September 29, 2025 // Bishop
Christ is the Antidote to ‘Crisis of Hopelessness,’ Noted at Jubilee Mass
Bishop Rhoades continued his tour of the designated Jubilee Year of Hope parishes on Wednesday, September 24, at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame. That evening, Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, joined Bishop Rhoades in the celebration of Mass.
During his homily, Bishop Rhoades lamented the “crisis of hopelessness” in the world and its effects on culture, citing the push for physician-assisted suicide and plummeting birthrates in the West as some of the negative effects of the crisis.
“We see this crisis of hope in skyrocketing addictions to drugs, pornography, and other escapes,” Bishop Rhoades said. “And evidence also shows a connection between excessive use of cellphones and social media and the increase of anxiety and depression.”
This crisis, he continued, comes from a crisis of thinking: It comes from our society shunning God.
Photos by Nick Meyer
At a Jubilee Mass celebrated at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart on the campus of the University of Notre Dame on Wednesday, September 24, Bishop Rhoades said in his homily that the world is in “a crisis of hope” because people are living without God. He said that sharing the hope of Christ to the world would bring light to those living in hopelessness, as St. Peter wrote.
“We’re called to be witnesses of hope in this age of increasing hopelessness,” Bishop Rhoades said. “We have the greatest message of hope to share with others. That hope is a person: Jesus Christ, our savior.”
Holy Cross Father Brian Ching, rector of the basilica, told Today’s Catholic that the crisis of hopelessness does not manifest itself like a “traditional” crisis. Rather, for students, it manifests itself as anxiety and worry about the future.
“All of those things suggest that the thing that is going to save us is ourselves,” he said, noting perfectionism in students’ career ambitions as a common anxiety exacerbating the crisis.
Attendees listen to Bishop Rhoades’ homily during the Jubilee Mass on Wednesday September 24.
He continued that this unhealthy perfectionism and the proliferation of self-reliance “betrays the fact that our salvation is not up to us. It has been gifted to us already by His death and resurrection on the cross.”
The abundant liturgical life on campus, he said, is key to the restoration of hope because the sacraments root people in Christ.
In setting this firm foundation of hope in Christ, Father Ching believes that students can bring hope to the hopeless by engaging important conversations professionally and confidently “from a place of faith and as a person of faith.”
Joshua Schipper is the digital content producer for the Secretariat for Communications for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.
Bishop Rhoades and other members of the clergy exit the Basilica of the Sacred Heart following the Jubilee Mass on Wednesday, September 24.
The best news. Delivered to your inbox.
Subscribe to our mailing list today.