conscience – United Yam

unitedyam November 28, 2025

Co-founder Bob Hogan (left) and CEO and co-founder Daniel Cruz (right) are launching a pro-life health insurance plan that is in line with Catholic morality. / Credit: Courtesy of Presidio Healthcare

CNA Staff, Nov 28, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Two Texas pro-lifers are launching a health care plan that embraces Catholic life ethics, creating an ethical option for Christians.

Health insurance companies often cover things that are in tension with Catholic Church teaching or a Christian pro-life ethic, such as abortion, contraceptives, or assisted suicide.

Daniel Cruz and Bob Hogan founded the FortressPlan by Presidio Healthcare because they wanted a pro-life, Christian alternative.

“FortressPlan,” which launched in November, does not cover any health care offerings that go against Catholic teaching.

While making a start in Texas, the co-founders hope to expand across the U.S.

Hogan, co-founder of Presidio and an alum of Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio, said that health care sharing ministries “are largely unregulated and are not legally required to pay families’ medical bills,” which can “cause tremendous financial stress for families.”

As a more realistic alternative, he and Cruz “set out to create a real insurance company,” Hogan said in a statement shared with CNA.

Cruz spoke with CNA about the Catholic values behind the FortressPlan.

CNA: What makes Presidio Healthcare’s FortressPlan unique among insurance options in the U.S.?

Daniel Cruz: The FortressPlan stands out as the only health insurance plan that aligns with the culture of life. Unlike other insurers, it does not cover abortifacients, contraception, transgender treatments or surgeries, euthanasia, in vitro fertilization, or similar practices.

What makes the Fortress Plan pro-life and Christian? What inspired you to align the plan with the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services”?

Presidio Healthcare Insurance Company is the first health insurer in the United States to be filed as a Catholic entity. Designed to respect the dignity of every person, the FortressPlan aligns with the “Ethical and Religious Directives [ERDs] for Catholic Health Care Services.”

The ERDs represent a formally recognized expression of Catholic moral doctrine, protected under federal conscience and religious-freedom laws, which allows us to operate in the private market with an authentically Catholic health plan. A major element of our mission is to promote life-affirming physicians and services, and the ERDs serve as a concrete guide to help us accomplish that aim.

What inspired you to launch the pro-life Christian health insurance option, the FortressPlan? What challenges have you faced in launching it?

I was approached by a former client to estimate the cost of an abortion for their health plan. This request ignited a passion to apply my skills as an actuary in a different direction.

After discovering that no insurance companies were entirely pro-life or that sharing ministries fell short of offering true financial protection for families, I decided to establish the first pro-life Christian insurance company.

What are your future goals for the FortressPlan and this movement toward pro-life, Christian insurance? How do you hope it will impact people?

Our future objectives include expanding nationwide and entering both the ACA [Affordable Care Act] and employer markets, building a well-recognized brand that represents Christian health care.

CatholicVote report examines moral implications of immigration enforcement #Catholic A person detained is taken to a parking lot on the far north side of the city before being transferred to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Chicago on Oct. 31, 2025. / Credit: Jamie Kelter Davis/Getty Images Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 13, 2025 / 18:26 pm (CNA). The Catholic advocacy organization CatholicVote has released a report examining the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts, concluding Christians must balance charity toward the immigrant with the common good of the receiving state.The report, titled “Immigration Enforcement and the Christian Conscience,” comes on the heels of the special message on immigration released by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) at its fall plenary meeting this past week. “A faithful Catholic approach to immigration begins not with politics but with people. Compassion, hospitality, and solidarity with the poor are not optional virtues,” CatholicVote President and CEO Kelsey Reinhardt said in a press release accompanying the report. “They are at the center of the Gospel,” she added. “Yet, mercy and justice travel together. One without the other distorts both.”The report by author Benjamin Mann labels the Biden administration’s border policies as “reckless” and credits them for resulting in human trafficking, sexual exploitation of immigrants without legal status, and rampant drug cartels. “Catholics who advocate strong but humane immigration enforcement are sometimes accused of disobeying their bishops or the pope, and even violating Church teaching,” the report states. “Properly speaking, there is no such thing as an official ‘Catholic position’ on the practical details of immigration policy.”The report says that “despite what some Church leaders in America have indicated, a faithful Catholic can support strong and humane immigration law enforcement — by means such as physical barriers, detention, and deportation — without violating the teaching of the Church.” The report asserts that Catholic teaching on immigration has been distorted by “an ideological immigration lobby” within the Church that “has sought to present amnesty, minimal law enforcement, and more legal immigration as the only acceptable position for Catholics.” “This is not an act of disobedience or disrespect toward the Church hierarchy but a legitimate difference of opinion according to magisterial teaching,” the report says. “The truth is that faithful Catholics can certainly disagree with the anti-enforcement position — even if some bishops happen to share the policy preferences of these activists. Such disagreement is not a dissent from Church teaching,” the document continues, citing “recent popes” as having said the Catholic Church “has no ‘official position’ on the practical details of issues like immigration policy.” “Rather, our faith teaches a set of broad moral principles about immigration, and their application in public life is a matter of practical judgment for laypersons,” the report said.The CatholicVote document further argues that “it is actually immoral in the eyes of the Church for a country to accept immigrants to the detriment of its own citizens,” citing paragraph 1903 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states: “Authority is exercised legitimately only when it seeks the common good of the group concerned and if it employs morally licit means to attain it. If rulers were to enact unjust laws or take measures contrary to the moral order, such arrangements would not be binding in conscience. In such a case, ‘authority breaks down completely and results in shameful abuse.’”