As Christmas approaches and we bid farewell to 2025, I feel a deep need to write to you with an open, grateful heart filled with hope. This has been an extraordinary year for the Academy: a year of rebuilding, of grace, of tireless work, and above all, of communion. I want these lines to be an embrace for each of you, because nothing we have lived would have been possible without the faith, dedication, and trust you have placed in this shared mission.
When we began the year, many of us were in a time of searching. We were coming from complex moments, with institutional challenges that demanded discernment, prudence, and great spiritual strength. But the Lord—who never abandons those who seek to serve Him with humility—granted us something decisive: the certainty that “hope does not disappoint.” And with that hope, which is not naïveté but evangelical conviction, we rebuilt the pillars of the Academy together, step by step.
The year 2025 was a year of rebirth. The International Governing Council was strengthened through the closeness of our cardinals, academics, and leaders in public life who, from different countries, brought light to every decision. The International Academic Council consolidated its mission of safeguarding the formative quality of our programs, and the Catholic Leaders’ Schools, now present in so many corners of the continent, experienced an admirable flourishing: encounters, seminars, missions, study cycles, and hundreds of young people discovering that the Church needs them as builders of the future. To every director, every bishop who accompanies this path, every formator, and every volunteer, thank you for keeping the flame alive.
It was also a year of expansion. We inaugurated new schools, strengthened alliances with universities, dioceses, and sister organizations, and took firm steps to consolidate our international presence. More than 2,800 people passed through our programs, bringing with them their questions, talents, and dreams. They are the deepest reason for everything we do, and seeing them grow in evangelical leadership is one of the greatest gifts this year has given us.
Perhaps most beautiful of all is that 2025 coincided with the Jubilee Year, a time of grace that invites us to return to the heart of the Gospel, to allow God to renew what seemed worn, and to open spaces for mercy, reconciliation, and the pure joy of encounter. In every activity, every dialogue, and every institutional decision, we felt this jubilee spirit accompanying us, reminding us that true strength comes from Him and that our task is to proclaim a world in which no one is left behind.
Today, as the year comes to a close, I want to thank you on behalf of the entire Academy for your fidelity. To the members of the Governing Council and the Academic Council, for your wisdom and trust; to the school directors and the bishops who sustain us pastorally; to the professors, collaborators, and volunteers, for your quiet dedication; and above all, to our beloved students and alumni, who are living testimony that Christian leadership continues to have an irreplaceable place in the world.
May 2026 find us united, creative, courageous, and confident in that hope which never fails. And may Mary, Star of Evangelization, take us by the hand so that we may continue to joyfully proclaim that which changes lives: Christ is alive and walks with us.
With immense gratitude and prayers for each one of you,
Lara Bersano
Executive Director