Actor William Shatner has spoken out to “correct” reports that he experienced a medical emergency and was rushed to the hospital.
The post Legendary ‘Star Trek’ Actor William Shatner Addresses Hospitalization Reports appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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Back in 1975, a radical leftist from San Francisco named Sara Jane Moore tried to shoot Republican President Gerald Ford.
The post HISTORY: The Radical Leftist Who Tried to Assassinate Republican President Gerald Ford 50 Years Ago, Died This Week at Age 95 appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
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The New Jersey gubernatorial race is currently a dead heat, according to the latest Emerson poll.
The post EMERSON POLL: Republican Jack Ciattarelli Tied With Democrat Mikie Sherril in New Jersey Governor’s Race — Scott Presler Rallies The Grassroots! appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.
Read MoreThe priest delegated by the Ordinary to perform this office should first go to confession or at least elicit an act of contrition, and, if convenient, offer the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and implore God’s help in other fervent prayers. He vests in surplice and purple stole. Having before him the person possessed (who should be bound if there is any danger), he traces the sign of the cross over him, over himself, and the bystanders, and then sprinkles all of them with holy water. After this he …
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CNA Staff, Sep 25, 2025 / 18:23 pm (CNA).
A $1.8 billion lawsuit brought by an anonymous activist and the state of Texas is seeking to recover money they say Planned Parenthood illegally took from Medicaid.
The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments Thursday in the case, Doe v. Planned Parenthood.
When Planned Parenthood was exposed for selling fetal tissue and organs, Louisiana and Texas quickly moved to revoke the organization’s Medicaid eligibility. Court orders delayed the revocation.
As the courts debated Planned Parenthood’s eligibility, the group continued to make Medicaid reimbursement claims despite the uncertain status until 2020, when the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the states.
In a lawsuit filed in 2021, a whistleblower sued Planned Parenthood under the False Claims Act. Designed to protect taxpayer dollars from fraudulent actors, the False Claims Act requires that “any person who knowingly submits, or causes to submit, false claims to the government is liable for three times the government’s damages plus a penalty that is linked to inflation,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice website.
Pro-life leader and legal expert Jennie Bradley Lichter called the case an “existential threat” to Planned Parenthood in an opinion piece for The Hill.
Lichter, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, wrote that “under the False Claims Act, money obtained from the government while ineligible — even if collected under a court order that is later overturned — must be repaid in full.”
Susan Baker Manning, general counsel for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, denied that the legal theory has any merit.
“This theory is yet another effort to weaponize the law to attack Planned Parenthood,” Manning said in a statement on Wednesday. “This case has one goal: to shut down Planned Parenthood and deny patients access to sexual and reproductive health care.”
Katie Glenn Daniel, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America’s director of legal affairs, said Planned Parenthood “had no right” to the taxpayer money.
“The whistleblower in this case, Doe, is suing on behalf of the people to recover taxpayer dollars Planned Parenthood had no right to take and still has not voluntarily paid back, plus fees and interest,” Glenn Daniel told CNA.
“The nation’s largest abortion business felt so entitled to taxpayer money, it spent years billing Medicaid after being disqualified by Texas and Louisiana — a direct result of their disregard for human life exposed by David Daleiden’s undercover videos showing their role in the sale of baby body parts,” Glenn Daniel said.
As part of a recently enacted tax package, the federal government cut Planned Parenthood funding. More than 40 locations are closing this year. The New York Times reported alleged medical negligence at New York-based Planned Parenthood locations earlier this year.
“Despite reports of medical negligence, declines in actual health services, and record political spending, Planned Parenthood demands the taxpayer faucet stay flowing forever,” Glenn Daniel said.
Read MoreA reading from the Book of Haggai
2:1-9
In the second year of King Darius,
on the twenty-first day of the seventh month,
the word of the LORD came through the prophet Haggai:
Tell this to the governor of Judah,
Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel,
and to the high priest Joshua, son of Jehozadak,
and to the remnant of the people:
Who is left among you
that saw this house in its former glory?
And how do you see it now?
Does it not seem like nothing in your eyes?
But now take courage, Zerubbabel, says the LORD,
and take courage, Joshua, high priest, son of Jehozadak,
And take courage, all you people of the land,
says the LORD, and work!
For I am with you, says the LORD of hosts.
This is the pact that I made with you
when you came out of Egypt,
And my spirit continues in your midst;
do not fear!
For thus says the LORD of hosts:
One moment yet, a little while,
and I will shake the heavens and the earth,
the sea and the dry land.
I will shake all the nations,
and the treasures of all the nations will come in,
And I will fill this house with glory,
says the LORD of hosts.
Mine is the silver and mine the gold,
says the LORD of hosts.
Greater will be the future glory of this house
than the former, says the LORD of hosts;
And in this place I will give you peace,
says the LORD of hosts!
From the Gospel according to Luke
9:18-22
Once when Jesus was praying in solitude,
and the disciples were with him,
he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am?”
They said in reply, “John the Baptist; others, Elijah;
still others, ‘One of the ancient prophets has arisen.’”
Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”
Peter said in reply, “The Christ of God.”
He rebuked them and directed them not to tell this to anyone.
He said, “The Son of Man must suffer greatly
and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.”
In the Synoptic Gospels Peter’s confession is always followed by Jesus’ announcement of his imminent Passion. Peter reacted to this announcement because he was not yet able to understand. Nonetheless, this was a fundamental element on which Jesus strongly insisted. Indeed, the titles attributed to him by Peter – you are "the Christ", "the Christ of God", "the Son of the living God" – can only be properly understood in light of the mystery of his death and Resurrection. And the opposite is also true: the event of the Cross reveals its full meaning only if "this man" who suffered and died on the Cross "truly was the Son of God", to use the words uttered by the centurion as he stood before the Crucified Christ (cf. Mk 15: 39). These texts clearly say that the integrity of the Christian faith stems from the confession of Peter, illumined by the teaching of Jesus on his "way" toward glory, that is, on his absolutely unique way, being the Messiah and the Son of God. It was a narrow "way", a shocking "manner" for the disciples of every age, who are inevitably led to think according to men rather than according to God (cf. Mt 16: 23). Today too, as in Jesus’ day, it does not suffice to possess the proper confession of faith: it is always necessary to learn anew from the Lord the actual way in which he is Saviour and the path on which we must follow him. (Pope Benedict XVI, Solemnity of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, 29 June 2007)
Read MoreMark Johnston from Scottsdale, Arizona This vortex of plasma above the Sun is caused by the twisting of our star’s magnetic field, along which hot glowing plasma forms. The imager captured this with a 6-inch scope and Hα etalon filter.
The post Solar vortex appeared first on Astronomy Magazine.
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Sussex County Knights’ record donut sale benefits vocations efforts – 
With 147 dozen donuts sold, the Marquette Council 588 of Sussex County achieved a 20 percent increase in proceeds from their annual Krispy Kreme Fundraiser this year, surpassing last year’s totals and marking its second consecutive year of success. The proceeds and cash donations will benefit future priests through the Paterson Diocesan Vocations Office. The council also celebrated its local heroes by distributing 18 boxes of donuts to police and fire departments, ambulance squads, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Click here to subscribe to our weekly newsletter.
NEW YORK — Trump’s Tuesday speech at the United Nations Headquarters in Midtown Manhattan will officially be his last as he has announced plans to demolish the building and replace it with a tremendous UFC Arena.
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People are always asking us: how do the writers at the Bee stay so hot and youthful? We decided to do the world a favor and give everyone a few tips on how you too can instantly become more attractive:
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Paterson cathedral welcomes Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma – 
The fifth- to eighth-grade girls are intrigued by the striking simplicity of Sister Mary Mia Menke’s floor-length habit and black veil. These junior high girls, who attend the Compostela after-school program at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Paterson, N.J., also enjoy asking her probing questions, such as “How did you know you wanted to be a religious sister?” The students’ questions are part of the efforts of the entire St. John’s community to get acquainted with — and welcome — Sister Menke and three of her fellow Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma, Mich., who arrived in
Pope: Catholic media should help readers understand, advocate, act – 
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — To call itself “Catholic,” a magazine must try to look at the world the way Christ does and give witness to his saving love and power, Pope Leo XIV said. The pope met the writers and staff of the Italian Jesuit magazine, “La Civiltà Cattolica,” at the Vatican Sept. 25 as part of journal’s 175th anniversary celebrations. Father Arturo Sosa, superior general of the Jesuits, also attended the audience. The magazine, published monthly, is reviewed in the Vatican Secretariat of State before publication, and covers Italian and international politics, theology and spirituality, science and technology and
Vatican City, Sep 25, 2025 / 09:57 am (CNA).
Did you hear what Pope Leo XIV said about Charlie Kirk or President Donald Trump? What about his thoughts on the Rapture or whether it’s OK to be cremated?
These are just a few of the topics the pontiff has appeared to speak about at length in videos popping up every day on social media. The problem is the videos are not real, and the Vatican is struggling to fight their spread.
The Vatican’s communications team said it has reported hundreds of accounts, mostly on YouTube, posting fake, AI-created videos — called deepfakes — of Pope Leo since the start of his pontificate. But it’s an uphill battle with new accounts, videos, and images appearing as quickly as others are removed.
“We are witnessing the exponential proliferation of a series of YouTube channels with fake videos, all similar to one another, some speaking in the voice of Leo XIV, others in that of his translators, still others in the third person. All use artificial intelligence to make the pope say things he never said,” the Dicastery for Communication said in a statement to CNA.
A search for “Pope Leo” on YouTube turned up dozens of fake videos of the Holy Father purportedly making statements that range from the plausible, such as reflections on the Eucharist, to the unlikely, such as the announcement of his resignation.
Most of the videos have received no more than a few hundred views, but some of the deepfakes have started to go viral. A 25-minute video claiming the pope has broken his silence on Charlie Kirk’s murder garnered over 445,000 views in the first seven days after it was posted.
One of the first fake videos to go viral after Leo’s election appeared to show the pope reading a statement denouncing colonialism and praising Burkina Faso’s interim president, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, a military leader who came to power in a 2022 coup. CNA and the official Vatican News outlet ran fact-checking articles to warn readers about the false information. The 36-minute video, posted shortly after the pope’s election in May, received at least a million views before YouTube terminated the account that posted it.
The term “deepfake,” coined less than a decade ago, refers to videos, photos, or audio recordings altered to show people doing or saying things they have never said or done.
Leo, of course, is not the first pope to have his likeness altered in videos. In 2015, the TV host Ellen Degeneres shared a video on her show of Pope Francis pulling a white cloth out from under the candles on an altar. A still image of Francis sporting a longline white puffer coat went viral in 2023.
With technology quickly advancing to produce ever more realistic images, innocent viewers can be forgiven for mistaking fiction for fact.
Pope Leo himself recently noted an example of such confusion. In an interview with journalist Elise Ann Allen, the pope recalled his surprise when an acquaintance asked him with concern if he was all right. AI-generated photographs of the pope appearing to fall down a flight of stairs outside St. Peter’s Basilica had circulated on the internet in June. The images, which caught the attention of the fact-checking website Snopes, were “so good that they thought it was me,” Leo said.
The Vatican’s communications team warned about the proliferation of deepfakes in its monthly email newsletter in August and invited readers to report suspicious posts and videos to the dicastery.
“Unfortunately, our dicastery receives dozens of reports every day about fake accounts that use the pope’s image and voice in a very realistic way, increasingly using artificial intelligence to make the pope say words he never uttered, to portray him in situations he never actually found himself in,” the newsletter said.
“Much of our time is spent reporting, silencing, and requesting the removal of these accounts,” the message continued. “Given the sheer volume of fake material, it is impossible to publicly refute each and every one of them.”
The dicastery’s statement to CNA said that the Vatican is not only reporting fake accounts to their platforms but also is “working to raise our audience’s awareness of this new phenomenon. We believe it is essential to invest in media literacy.”
The Vatican also reminded readers to rely on official sources, such as the Vatican’s own websites, to check quotes: “If it is not there, it is most probably a fake.”
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Morristown parish celebrates the Virgin of the Swan devotion – 
St. Margaret of Scotland Parish in Morristown observed The Virgin of the Swan, or La Virgen del Cisne, a Marian Catholic devotion from Ecuador, on Sept. 21 during a Field Mass in Spanish celebrated by Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney in the parking lot. The feast day in Ecuador is on Aug. 15. Many congregants wore ethnic clothing and carried roses during the Mass, which featured a procession of an image of The Virgin of the Swan, which sat next to the altar. Bishop Sweeney later censed the image. Father Duberney Villamizar, pastor of St. Margaret’s and the Paterson Diocesan vicar
NASA astronaut Nick Hague watches as Robert Schmidle Pitts Aerobatics perform, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, during the Joint Base Andrews Air Show at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Hague spent 171 days aboard the International Space Station as part of Expedition 72.
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CNA Staff, Sep 25, 2025 / 09:27 am (CNA).
The University of Notre Dame said this week that it had commissioned an external investigation into allegations that the head of a campus residence hall engaged in sexual misconduct years ago.
The allegations concern Father Thomas King, CSC, who was rector of the school’s Zahm Hall dorm from 1980 to 1997.
The school in a Sept. 24 press release did not reveal when and how it learned of the allegations against King, the details of which it did not provide.
But it said it was commissioning a “special committee to oversee an external investigation” into the abuse claims.
The inquiry will be led by lawyer Helen Cantwell at the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton. Cantwell is “highly experienced in this important and sensitive work,” the school said.
“We are saddened that there are members of our community who may have suffered abuse while here and may not have received the support, care, and love they deserve,” the school said in the release, authored by university president Father Robert Dowd, CSC, and board of trustees chair John Veihmeyer.
“Our hope is that this external investigation will provide those who may have been affected with the opportunity to be heard,” the statement said.
School officials did not immediately respond to an inquiry on Thursday regarding King’s current status, including if he is still ministering in any capacity.
Though it’s unclear how the university became aware of the allegations, at least one Notre Dame alumnus had spoken out about King’s alleged sexual misconduct ahead of the school’s announcement.
David Tybor, a professor at Tufts University School of Medicine and a 1998 graduate of Notre Dame, said in a Facebook post earlier this month that he was “leading a group of Notre Dame guys who were hazed, harassed, raped, and assaulted” by King while at Zahm Hall.
“We’ve collected scores of stories and are curious to hear more,” Tybor wrote on Sept. 8.
The professor also alleged that King was influential in a program for young men who wished to transfer from nearby Holy Cross College to Notre Dame. In another post he alleged that officials “knew about the abuse as early as 1995/96.”
Tybor did not immediately respond to a query on Sept. 25 regarding the allegations. In a comment on Sept. 19, however, he thanked “everyone who has contributed to this effort” to shine light on the alleged abuse.
“Keep talking, justice is coming,” he wrote.
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Diocese represented at vet memorial visit in Woodland Park – 
Veterans Services of the Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Paterson in New Jersey and Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney participated in a memorial service on Sept. 20 to honor the brave men and women who served to defend the United States at the traveling Veterans and Athletes United Fallen Heroes Memorial, which visited Passaic County at Rifle Camp Park in Woodland Park, N.J. from Sept. 19 to 23. Bishop Sweeney delivered an opening prayer and made comments to the crowd in front of the memorial, which has been honoring the fallen heroes in the War on Terrorism as well as
Washington, D.C., Sep 25, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
The Catholic University of America (CUA) hosted a panel this week to discuss how Christians should think about the developing technology surrounding artificial intelligence (AI).
The Sept. 23 panel was hosted by CUA’s Institute for Human Ecology, which works to identify the economic, cultural, and social conditions vital for human flourishing. The group discussed the threats posed by AI, the future of the technology, and the Church’s place in the conversation.
Ross Douthat, media fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology, led the discussion between Father Michael Baggot, LC, professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome; Will Wilson, CEO of AI company Antithesis; and Brian J.A. Boyd, director for the Center for Ethics and Economic Justice at Loyola University New Orleans.
Douthat asked the panelists what they each believe to be the greatest threat of the emerging technology as it poses new challenges to the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.
According to Boyd, the potential loss of human connection is the most prominent threat of AI. He said: “To be human is to be created in and for relationships of love — by love of God. Our nature is made to be receptive to grace.”
AI becomes an issue if “our main relationship and reference point is talking to a computer rather than to humans,” Boyd said. “I think that is an existential threat, and something worth discussing.”
“If we’re habituated to look at the screen before we look at our neighbor … and AI is [the] constant reference point, it will make habits of prayer much more difficult to include. It will make it harder to learn to listen to the voice of God, because the answer is always in your pocket.”
Baggot said his greatest concern is that “artificial intimacy is going to distract us from, and deter us from, the deep interpersonal bonds that are central to our happiness and our flourishing.”
“Companies now grip not only our minds but also are capturing our affections,” Baggot said. “We can all read about these tragic cases of exploitation and manipulation that are only going to continue unless we put proper guardrails in place and also provide the information that allows us to have the kind of deep interpersonal relationships we were made for.”
While many people worry that AI could create “mass unemployment,” Wilson said he disagrees: “I think that this is a very silly fear because human desires and human wants are infinite, and therefore, we always find new things for people to do.”
Rather, Wilson shared his concern that humans will no longer create their own ideas and will lose their intelligence and knowledge.
“The trouble with AI is even if it’s not actually intelligent, it does a very good simulacrum of intelligence, and it’s very tempting to use it to substitute for human intelligence,” Wilson said. “It’s very possible that we’re entering a world where very soon any cognitive labor, any reason, [or] any thought will be a luxury.”
While there are dangers to AI, Baggot addressed the positive aspects the tool can offer, highlighting the benefits of Catholic AI companies.
“I’ve been privileged to work on the Scholarly Advisory Board of Magisterium AI, which is basically a Catholic answer engine that’s very narrowly trained on reliable documents, magisterial documents, [and] theological texts,” Baggot said.
Magisterium AI is a “system designed to give people reliable responses to their questions about the Catholic faith,” Baggot explained. “This is appealing to Catholics who want to go deeper, but it’s also quite appealing to people who have never really had the chance, or aren’t quite ready, to speak to another human person about their curiosities regarding Catholicism.”
Baggot explained that creators of the technology work hard to keep it from being “anthropomorphic” to avoid users confusing the AI with actual connection. He said: “We do not want people having an intimate relationship with it.”
While Magisterium AI can provide useful information, Baggot acknowledged that it is not a tool for spiritual direction. He said: “Spiritual direction … should be with another living, breathing human being who actually has insight into human experience [and] who can develop a relationship of real empathy and real compassion.”
The panelists had differing viewpoints about the Church’s place in AI and how Christians should approach it. Wilson said he believes “the conversation about where the technology is going and what we’re going to do with it is happening among people who do not care … what any Christian church has to say on the topic.”
“It’s actually a little hard to blame them because Christians have basically sacrificed their place at the forefront of science and technology, which is where we were in centuries past,” Wilson said.
“Control goes to those who can deploy the most capital, and capital gets allocated very fast to people who are able to deploy very efficiently. And by and large, those people are not Christians because Christians aren’t really trying.”
Baggot said that while AI does pose dangers, the Church “has a lot of insight and wisdom” that can help guide the conversation. “The Church is in a privileged position to leverage its incredible patrimony, its reflection on the human person, [and] human flourishing.”
“The Church has reflected a lot about the meaning and value of work, the subjective value of work. It’s not just about economic efficiency, but it’s about how I use my own God-given talents to grow as a person and then also to serve others in intrinsically valuable activities.”
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 25, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The overwhelming majority of bishops and vocation directors expressed satisfaction with formation programs, according to a study analyzing how seminaries and dioceses screen candidates for holy orders.
However, the study found gaps in evaluations related to learning disabilities and assessing tendencies toward “activity or inclination towards sexual activity with a minor or other trait that might indicate the person could be a harm to minors.”
The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University (CARA) conducted the study in collaboration with the McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame. It includes responses from 103 U.S. bishops plus roughly 33% of vocation directors, 59% of seminary rectors, 11 formators, and 59 mental health specialists.
The June report, “Evaluating the Church’s Practices in Assessing the Suitability of Candidates for Holy Orders,” asked bishops and vocation directors to give their confidence levels about 28 “distinct areas” of formation at their seminaries. All categories of respondents said they believed psychological evaluations do not sufficiently screen for learning or developmental disorders or disabilities.
According to the report, bishops and vocation directors expressed the most certainty in “seminarians’ openness to growing spiritually,” with 55% to 59% expressing they were “very confident” in this area. Nearly 40% to 50% of bishops and vocation directors also expressed confidence in seminarians’ “regular engagement in self-reflection.”
Bishops and vocation directors were least likely to say they have great confidence areas related to physical and mental health. Only 19% to 21% expressed confidence in “seminarians’ healthy management of one’s neuroses or minor pathologies.” Similarly, only 17% expressed confidence in “healthy living with medical concerns or physical limitations” among candidates for the priesthood.
Across the board, concern among bishops and vocation directors regarding how seminaries screen for learning disabilities is high, with only 16% to 17% of bishops and vocation directors expressing confidence in this area.
Rectors, formators, and mental health specialists likewise expressed confidence in areas of formation such as growing spiritually and regular self-reflection. About 32% to 43% expressed confidence in seminarians’ ability to seek treatment for mental health issues such as anxiety or depression, and the same percentage expressed confidence in seminarians’ ability to form healthy relationships with others.
Only 8% to 22% of rectors, formators, and mental health specialists expressed confidence in formation among seminarians regarding “growth in understanding one’s sexual orientation,” and only 4% to 22% expressed confidence in formation regarding “healthy management of one’s unhealthy or addictive behaviors.”
While 100% of rectors and 94% of formators and spiritual directors expressed belief that initial psychological evaluations were necessary to assess a candidate’s suitability for seminary formation, fewer than 3 in 5 bishops said these evaluations could predict how well a candidate might later function as a priest.
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