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Brooklyn bishop calls on faithful to lobby against New York assisted suicide legislation
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Brooklyn bishop calls on faithful to lobby against New York assisted suicide legislation

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Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan carries the thurible around the altar inside Louis Armstrong Stadium on April 20, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 30, 2025 / 17:32 pm (CNA).

Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan is calling on the faithful to contact New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to oppose the assisted suicide legislation that currently awaits her signature.

“Our fight against assisted suicide is not over,” Brennan said in a post on the social media platform X.

Assisted suicide is not yet legal in New York, but the Medical Aid in Dying Act was passed by the state Legislature in June and will become legal upon Hochul’s signature. The law will allow terminally ill New York residents who are over 18 to request medically assisted death.

“Gov. Hochul, we know difficult decisions weigh heavily on leaders and you carefully consider the impact of every decision on New Yorkers,” Brennan wrote. “As you review the assisted suicide legislation, we respectfully urge you to veto it.”

“Assisted suicide targets the poor, the vulnerable, and especially individuals suffering with mental illness. There are better ways to support those facing end-of-life challenges, through improved palliative care, pain management, and compassionate support systems.”

In a video to the faithful, Brennan addressed Hochul and said: “You championed New York’s suicide prevention program and invested millions of dollars to, as you said, ‘ensure New Yorkers are aware of this critical resource.’ That groundbreaking program has worked to provide the right training and crisis intervention measures to prevent suicides.”

Hochul has previously launched several campaigns to bring New York suicide rates down including a crisis hotline and initiatives to help schools, hospitals, first responders, and veterans. She has also helped develop and fund a number of youth suicide prevention programs.

The programs offer “hope to those who are most in need,” Brennan said. He added: “But now you are being asked to sign a bill that contradicts your efforts and targets high-risk populations. How can we justify preventing suicide for some while helping others to die?”

In support of the New York State Catholic Conference’s mission to “work with the government to shape laws and policies that pursue social justice, respect for life, and the common good,” Brennan asked the faithful to message the governor directly with a pre-written email to stop the legislation.

“I urge Catholics to reach out to Gov. Hochul now and to ask her to stay consistent on this issue,” Brennan said. “Let us continue to pray for the respect of all life and the human dignity of all people.”

Lobbying against the legislation is ‘critical’ 

Catholic bioethicist Father Tad Pacholczyk told CNA that “it’s critical” that New Yorkers “respond to the bishop’s call for action.” 

“The push of anti-life forces has continued unabated for many years, and the incessant turning of the wheels of their finely-tuned propaganda machine has managed to gradually draw more and more of us into a perspective of complacency when it comes to physician-assisted suicide,” he said.

Pacholczyk added: “Combined with a tendency to substitute emotion for ethical reasoning, prevalent in much of the media and society, I think we stand on the edge of a well-greased slope, poised to hurl down headlong.”

The bioethicist highlighted that if assisted suiside “is not outlawed and strong protections for vulnerable patients are not enacted,” the U.S is likely to replicate the repercussions seen in Canada, which is experiencing disproportionately high rates of premature deaths among vulnerable groups.

“We need to do what we can to light a fire and raise heightened awareness of the rights of patients not to be pressured in this manner,” Pacholczyk said. “We also need to take steps to offer real support and accompaniment to our loved ones as they pass through one of the most important stretches of their lives, so their journey can be indelibly imprinted by a genuinely good and holy death.”

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Abortion pill complications are underreported, report finds  
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Abortion pill complications are underreported, report finds  

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Credit: Ivanko80/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 24, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Abortion pill complications go underreported in abortion industry studies and mainstream media, according to a recent report by the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC).

Abortion industry studies claim that serious complications are incredibly rare — occurring in less than half a percent of cases, according to the report “Missed, Misclassified, and Minimized: Why Abortion Pill Complications Are Underreported.”

But a study last year found that more than 1 in 10 women who took the abortion pill experienced serious complications such as hemorrhaging, infection, failed abortions, and surgical follow-up.

The author of the report, Randall O’Bannon, set out to investigate the discrepancy.

O’Bannon, director of education and research for the National Right to Life, found several factors contributing to the discrepancies. For one, he found that abortion providers often encourage women to conceal negative side effects and tell doctors they are symptoms of a miscarriage. O’Bannon also observed what he called a “contemptible lack of curiosity in the media” toward stories of women hurt by abortion drugs. Finally, serious complications are often categorized as “minor,” O’Bannon found.

O’Bannon said the “flawed or slanted industry studies” are “not good enough.”

“The public — and policymakers — deserve accurate, transparent reporting on the dangers of chemical abortion,” he said in a statement.

Dr. Ingrid Skop, vice president and director of medical affairs for Charlotte Lozier Institute and a board-certified OB-GYN, said she has encountered these medical complications in her own career as a medical provider.

“I have cared for dozens of women presenting to the ER with abortion drug complications, and they are told by abortion advocates there’s no need to report the use of abortion drugs,” she told CNA.

“When I see a woman in the ER with continued pain and bleeding sometimes weeks or even months after taking abortion drugs, she usually has retained pregnancy tissue and/or the dead baby, which the drugs have failed to expel,” Skop continued. “An unaware ER doctor is likely to give her more of the drugs that already failed rather than expediting the surgical aspiration she needs.”

“As a researcher and practicing OB-GYN, I can attest that the lived experience for many women reflects the data documented in this report,” Skop said.

“So where are all the women some of these later reports and studies say have been injured and abused by these drugs and their prescribers?” O’Bannon asked. “Once again, we see that they have been silenced and minimized, told their pain and blood and trauma are ‘minor complications’ that somehow just don’t rise to the level worthy of being noticed. But they suffer and bleed just the same.”

Looking at the numbers  

Michael New, assistant professor of practice at the Busch School of Business for The Catholic University of America, noted that “the FDA’s own data shows that there are a number of health risks involved with chemical abortions.”

“Since the FDA approved the chemical abortion pill in 2000, the FDA’s own data indicates that there have been 32 deaths, 4,218 adverse events, 1,049 hospitalizations, 604 cases of blood loss requiring a transfusion, 418 infections, and 75 severe infections,” New, a senior associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told CNA. 

The FDA figures “are underreported” due to a change in the reporting requirements implemented nearly a decade ago, according to New.

“In 2016, the FDA quit requiring that health care professionals report complications from chemical abortion drugs,” New said. “Since 2016, the reporting of complications has been voluntary.” 

In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the FDA removed the requirement for women to have an in-person medical exam before being prescribed chemical abortion drugs.

Since then, “the number of complications has almost certainly increased,” New said.

Without a medical exam, abortion providers may unwittingly provide abortion drugs to women whose pregnancies are further along than is recommended for chemical abortions, as well as women who have ectopic pregnancies (a life-threatening condition where the embryo implants outside the uterus). 

Trump administration continues to implement ‘unwise policy’

“The Biden administration FDA and thus far the Trump administration FDA have continued with this unwise policy,” New said. 

Chemical abortions are sometimes falsely advertised as “safer than Tylenol.” But a chemical abortion is far less safe than even a surgical abortion, Skop noted. 

“Complications occur at least four times as frequently following drug-induced abortions compared to surgical abortions, causing at least 1 in 15 women to require emergency care when the drugs are used as the FDA recommends,” Skop said. “Even more women suffer when they are taken at advanced gestational ages.” 

“The abortion pill is being sold as safe, but independent data tell another story,” Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, said in a statement. “Women are being harmed, and the dangers are being ignored or hidden.” 

“Abortion industry spin makes mifepristone abortions sound easy, but the truth is each abortion takes the life of a living preborn child and places the woman in danger,” Tobias said.

How can policymakers respond?

New noted that public officials could take several steps “to protect mothers and children” from these dangers, including requiring that “medical professionals report complications that arise from chemical abortions.” 

In addition, the FDA “could require that women obtaining chemical abortions first have an in-person medical exam,” a change that New said the Trump administration could make “right away.” 

“Thus far, it is disappointing that the Trump administration has not prioritized keeping women safe from unregulated chemical abortion drugs,” New said. 

Skop added that “policymakers need better abortion data.” 

“Extensive deficiencies affect abortion data collection in the U.S., including a lack of anonymized national reporting requirements,” Skop said. 

“Women also need to know the true risk of abortion and potential complications, which are both physical and mental,” she continued. 

Skop noted that “the majority of women with a history of abortion would have preferred to give birth if they had the necessary support.” 

“Women also should know there are 2,750 pregnancy resource centers that want to walk alongside women facing an unintended pregnancy to provide any support they need,” Skop said. 

Nonprofit organizations across the country exist to provide pregnant women and mothers with support — from baby clothes to ultrasounds to parenting classes. 

“The abortion industry’s goal is to promote all-trimester abortion on demand,” Skop noted. “And lawmakers, the public, and most importantly, women considering abortion, must understand abortion advocates will mislead them to achieve that goal.”

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Students for Life’s Kristan Hawkins: Charlie Kirk ‘died a martyr’
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Students for Life’s Kristan Hawkins: Charlie Kirk ‘died a martyr’

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Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins. / Credit: “EWTN News in Depth”/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 13, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

In the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10 at a Utah college campus, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action and a close friend of Kirk’s, said: “His death will be a turning point.”

In an interview with “EWTN News In Depth,” Hawkins called Kirk “a joyful warrior.” She pointed out: “He was a man of God and just moments before he was assassinated, he had proclaimed that Jesus Christ is his Lord and Savior. And he never shirked away from that, just like he never shirked away from any of the other political debates … I believe with my whole heart, he died a martyr.”

Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA and campus activist, “truly enjoyed having conversations with those who disagreed with him and having the opportunity to change their minds,” Hawkins said. “He was a huge learning advocate … He was always wanting to find out the best ways to save our country and to advance our faith.”

“We work symbiotically on campuses to spread the good news of the Gospel, but then also spread the voice of reason, which Pope Benedict was very clear [about]. He wrote about how reason is God’s gift and when reason is abandoned, violence becomes the only remaining path … When people stop talking, when they disagree with each other, it only leads to violence.”

Hawkins highlighted Kirk’s mission to protect human life. Students for Life honored him in January at the National Pro-Life Summit with the Defender of Life Award “for his advocacy for life on college campuses.” 

Turning Point, Students for Life, and similar organizations that work to defend life “have become increasingly effective [in] winning back students,” Hawkins said, especially because of Kirk’s “ability to reach young men.” 

While the pro-life organizations have been “effective and things have started to shift in our country, it hasn’t shifted enough,” Hawkins said. “We still have a culture of death.” 

Manifestation of the ‘culture of death’

The day of Kirk’s death, Hawkins was speaking to students at the University of Montana. “I was on campus for two hours before Charlie was shot and every argument from the 150 pro-choice students who surrounded me … was: ‘Maybe it is a baby, maybe it is human, but I can still kill it because I want to. That’s a culture of death.”

“When I announced to them that my friend had been shot and we were trying to find updates on Charlie’s condition … they laughed.” 

“This is what a culture of death breeds. When you say it’s OK to kill innocent babies and that there should be no recourse [for] killing innocent, helpless babies who are the most innocent among us, this is what it leads to. This is why we say it’s a culture of death that must be defeated and this is why we can’t abandon the campuses right now,” Hawkins said. “Do we abandon violence or accept reason?”

Despite this tragedy, Hawkins said: “We have to stay on campuses, because we have to teach this generation, Gen Z, that violence isn’t acceptable.” She shared that her organizations will be going to “160 campuses this semester talking about [their] fall theme, which is ‘every human life matters.’ Charlie Kirk’s life matters.”

“We have to go now harder and louder than ever before because God’s gift of reason must prevail. That is the only way our mission survives this.”

Hawkins also asked people to pray for Kirk’s wife, Erika, and their young children. “I can’t even imagine the pain that Erika is going through,” Hawkins said. “To lose the love of her life, the father of her children, her rock, one that she loves so dearly, and Erika loves so fiercely. But she also loves the Lord.” 

“And so my prayer for her right now is that her faith prevails, and her faith carries her through this moment, and God grants her strength. She is strong enough to endure this. I would ask folks every morning when you wake up, pray for Erika. Pray for those two young children.”

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Priest shares his hopes for the Church in Nicaragua and describes his life in exile
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Priest shares his hopes for the Church in Nicaragua and describes his life in exile

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Father Edwin Román (left) with Bishop Silvio Báez. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Father Edwin Román

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 5, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Father Edwin Román talked about his life in exile in an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, expressing his hopes for the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which is suffering persecution at the hands of the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.

The priest, who is now parochial vicar at St. Agatha Parish in Miami, noted that Aug. 3 marked four years since he left Nicaragua to go into exile for being critical of the dictatorship.

“My plane ticket was for 10 days [abroad], but due to direct threats from Rosario Murillo and a pro-government journalist threatening to imprison me  — and after being the victim of much harassment — traffic stops on the highway — and efforts to defame me, I decided to stay and apply for asylum,” he said.

“Since then, I’ve been at St. Agatha Parish, welcomed by the pastor, Father Marcos Somarriba, and the community. I’ve also been supporting neighboring parishes,” said the 65-year-old priest, who was ordained Dec. 12, 1990, for the Archdiocese of Managua.

Somarriba recently spoke with the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and expressed his concerns about the persecution of Catholics in Nicaragua and the Trump administration announcing it will deport thousands of his fellow Nicaraguans who have been in the United States for decades.

“My people, the Nicaraguan people, are dumbfounded. They don’t know where to go, what to do, and I think the regime is not going to be open to this. They disappear people; they put people in jail; they exile people and don’t let them come back into the country,” the priest said.

Parochial vicar at St. Agatha’s

On Aug. 17, Román thanked Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami on X for appointing him as parochial vicar of St. Agatha, the church where Bishop Silvio Báez, auxiliary bishop of Managua who went into exile in 2019, also celebrates Mass.

As parochial vicar, Román explained, he supports “evangelization with parish groups and lay leadership, celebrates the sacraments, assists in caring for the faithful in the office, and visits the sick.”

“It has been very difficult to adapt. The pain remains of not having said goodbye to my parish, nor the faithful to me, their pastor. Thank God, we have found priests and bishops who have opened the doors of their parishes to us. Bishops who, like good shepherds, have listened to us and opened their hearts, as Archbishop Thomas Wenski did for me,” the priest shared.

The persecuted Catholic Church in Nicaragua

When asked what he knows about the current persecution of the Catholic Church in his homeland by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, Román emphasized that “the Catholic faithful haven’t stopped going to Mass, filling their churches during Holy Week, the feast day of [the parish’s] patron saint, and Sundays. People continue to pray and have not lost hope for better times.”

All of this continues, the priest pointed out, despite “the harassment, parishes being infiltrated, prohibitions against the Prayer of the Faithful at Mass, and requirements that priests send their homilies to police stations for review. Processions and prayer group meetings in homes are also prohibited.”

The dictatorship of Ortega and Murillo in Nicaragua has banned more than 16,500 processions and acts of piety in recent years and has perpetrated 1,010 attacks against the Catholic Church.

This is all detailed in the seventh installment of the report “Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church” by exiled lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina, which was released on Aug. 27.

Pope Leo XIV and Nicaragua

Pope Leo XIV received on Aug. 23 at the Vatican three Nicaraguan bishops in exile: Báez; Bishop Isidoro Mora of Siuna; and Bishop Carlos Herrera of Jinotega, president of the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference.

Báez recounted on X that he, his brother bishops, and Pope Leo XIV spoke “at length about Nicaragua and the situation of the Church in particular.”

The Holy Father, the prelate said, encouraged him “to continue with my episcopal ministry and confirmed me as auxiliary bishop of Managua. I sincerely thank him for his fraternal welcome and his encouraging words.”

Regarding the meeting between the bishops and Leo XIV, Román told ACI Prensa that “the pope expressed his closeness to the Nicaraguan people and to the Church. This visit has undoubtedly been a very encouraging one for us.”

“The pope is familiar with our Latin American reality” considering his many years as a missionary and bishop in Peru, Román said.

How can the faithful help the Church in Nicaragua

Román told ACI Prensa that “one day someone told me: ‘Find a benevolent bishop.’ I have already found that bishop” in the archbishop of Miami, who has also warmly welcomed Báez.

“I thank the many Nicaraguans and people of other nationalities who have welcomed me and made me part of their families,” the priest added.

Asked how the faithful can help Catholics in his homeland, the priest responded: “By praying for this pilgrim Church in Nicaragua, including us in the prayers of the faithful in all parishes, and that Catholic and fair-minded media continue to denounce the injustice experienced by the Nicaraguan people and the persecution of the Church.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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The Catholic Church has a lot to say about Labor Day — why?
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The Catholic Church has a lot to say about Labor Day — why?

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null / Credit: mikeledray/Shutterstock

Denver, Colo., Sep 1, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

As the U.S. celebrates Labor Day, Catholics have a wealth of resources in biblical interpretation, Church teaching, and social thought that address the nature of work and the place of the worker in society and in God’s creation.

But are Catholics, and others, aware of these resources?

One Catholic leader considering such questions is Father Sinclair Oubre, a priest of the Diocese of Beaumont, Texas. He is the spiritual moderator of the Catholic Labor Network, a Catholic association that promotes Catholic teaching about work and labor unions. It also supports labor organizing.

“All work, no matter what the work is, is essential,” Oubre likes to say. In his view, if a woman in janitorial work at a major software company does not show up to clean the toilets and empty the trash, all production in the office will nosedive.

Centuries of Catholic teaching about labor can be found compiled in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published in 2004 by the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace. It dedicates its entire sixth chapter to human work and labor, its place in God’s plan, its role in society, and the rights and duties of workers.

“The Compendium gathers together in one place those rights that are found in Catholic social teaching, whether it’s Rerum Novarum or Quadragesimo Anno, or Centesimus Annus, and synthesizes them,” Oubre told CNA, referring to the respective encyclicals of popes Leo XIII, Pius XI, and John Paul II.

“It’s a beautiful reflection on human work in the world and a very mature and in-depth discussion of the place of work, the place of labor, and the communal nature of it,” Oubre said.

Labor, politics, and spirituality

Oubre said Catholic teaching is a challenge regardless of people’s political views.

“It’s a challenge to the right, but it’s also a challenge to the left,” he said. Catholicism encourages those on the political right not simply to pray novenas and commit themselves to spiritual actions. It is a challenge not to leave other questions about work and labor to the market.

For the political left, Catholic social teaching “means you have to enter into a more intimate relationship with your Church and your relationship with Jesus and not just be as a social justice person by throwing a couple of little quotes around. It requires you to enter into that deeper spiritual relationship.”

Oubre stressed the importance of starting from the view of Catholic spirituality, not only social justice, because if we don’t, our approach “becomes ideological and polemic.” The spiritual approach “brings us closer to Jesus Christ.”

“No matter how dirty, how uncomfortable, how awful the job is, we are participating in God’s ongoing creation. It’s important that we do that job in a way that gives glory to God,” Oubre said.

God and man at work

The Compendium’s reflection on work begins with its biblical aspects: There is a human duty to “cultivate and care for the earth” and other good things created by God, it says. Work existed before the fall of Adam and Eve, and it is not a punishment or curse until the break with God transforms it into “toil and pain.” However, God’s rest on the seventh day of creation is the sign of the “fuller freedom” of the “eternal Sabbath.”

The life of Jesus Christ is a mission of work, from his early life helping St. Joseph in the work of a carpenter to his ministry of preaching and healing, and most of all in his redemptive labors on the cross.

The Compendium presents human labor as a way of supporting oneself and one’s loved ones, but also a way to serve the needy. Work is a way to make God’s creation more beautiful, since humankind shares in God’s art and wisdom.

“Human work, directed to charity as its final goal, becomes an occasion for contemplation, it becomes devout prayer, vigilantly rising towards and in anxious hope of the day that will not end,” the Compendium says.

The rights of labor

God’s rest on the seventh day of creation, the Compendium says, means men and women must enjoy “sufficient rest and free time that will allow them to tend to their family, cultural, social, and religious life.”

The Compendium outlines and explains the many rights of workers: the right to rest from work; the right to a working environment that is not harmful to a worker’s health or moral integrity; the right to unemployment protections; the right to a pension and insurance for old age, disability, and work-related accidents; the right to social security for working mothers; and the right to assemble and form associations; the right to just wages and remuneration; and the right to strike.

Labor unions play a “fundamental role” in serving the common good and promoting social order and solidarity, though they must not abuse their role in society or become simply arms of a political party.

“The recognition of workers’ rights has always been a difficult problem to resolve because this recognition takes place within complex historical and institutional processes, and still today it remains incomplete,” the Compendium says. “This makes the practice of authentic solidarity among workers more fitting and necessary than ever.”

A challenge for Catholics and institutions

Catholic teaching has a lengthy paper record. But as in other areas, there is a challenge to practice it.

“What I find over and over again that the Church — our Church — gives us wonderful documents of guidance… and we never go back and read them,” Oubre told CNA.

He cited the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1996 pastoral letter “Economic Justice for All,” which says the Church should be a model for labor rights and treating workers justly.

However, Oubre said that in his experience Catholic parishes often neglect to provide unemployment insurance to employees if the law allows them to opt out. Catholic institutions often act as “at-will” employers in which management can fire employees for any reason. They may show preferences for nonunion labor over unionized labor when planning and funding construction projects.

“You’re going to undercut the guy who has actually followed the Church’s teachings in regards to work by hiring somebody who may be not offering medical insurance for his employees,” the priest lamented.

For Labor Day, Oubre encouraged parishes, dioceses, and other institutions to make sure to adopt policies that put Catholic labor teaching into practice.

This story was first published on Sept. 4, 2023, and has been updated.

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GoFundMe campaigns raise more than .2 million for victims of Catholic school shooting
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GoFundMe campaigns raise more than $1.2 million for victims of Catholic school shooting

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Over $1 million has been raised through a GoFundMe campaign for victims of the shooting at the Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025. / Credit: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Aug 29, 2025 / 12:21 pm (CNA).

Numerous online fundraising campaigns have raised well over $1 million to help support victims of the Minneapolis Catholic school shooting that claimed the lives of two children and injured approximately 20 people. 

Verified GoFundMe fundraisers showed over $1.2 million raised as of the morning of Aug. 29, with the funds supporting those injured in the shooting as well as the family of one of the deceased children. 

The mass shooting took place on Aug. 27 when a gunman opened fire on the parochial school Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. The killer subsequently took his own life. 

The GoFundMe campaigns created in response to the tragedy include one in support of the Moyski-Flavin family, whose 10-year-old daughter, Harper, was one of the two children killed in the shooting. The other victim has been identified as 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel. 

The GoFundMe for Harper’s family says the funds will “be utilized by the family in honor of Harper’s memory with a portion donated in Harper’s honor to a nonprofit to be identified at a later date.” As of Friday morning it had raised about $80,000 of its $100,000 goal.

The largest campaign had raised roughly $530,000 of a $620,000 goal as of Friday morning to help support 12-year-old Sophia Forchas, who the fund said was “in critical condition in the ICU” after being shot during the attack.

The funds for that campaign will contribute to Sophia’s medical care, trauma counseling for her and her brother, family support services, and lost wages.

Other campaigns include fundraisers for 9-year-old Vivian St. Clair, 11-year-old Genevieve Bisek, and 13-year-old Endre Gunter.

‘Give your kids an extra hug’

In the hours after the shooting, family members of Harper Moyski and Fletcher Merkel identified them as the two children killed in the incident, which the FBI is investigating as a possible hate crime against Catholics.

“Because of [the shooter’s] actions, we will never be allowed to hold [Fletcher], talk to him, play with him, and watch him grow into the wonderful young man he was on the path to becoming,” the Merkel family said after the shooting.

“Please remember Fletcher for the person he was and not the act that ended his life,” the statement said. “Give your kids an extra hug and kiss today. We love you. Fletcher, you’ll always be with us.”

The Moyski-Flavin family, meanwhile, said they were “shattered, and words cannot capture the depth of our pain.” 

“No family should ever have to endure this kind of pain,” they said. “We urge our leaders and communities to take meaningful steps to address gun violence and the mental health crisis in this country.”

The other victims of the shooting are expected to survive, authorities have said, though several remain in serious condition.

Prior to carrying out the murders, the killer, identified as 23-year-old Robin Westman, a man who struggled with his sexual identity, indicated anti-Christian motivation for the murders and an affinity for mass shooters, Satanism, antisemitism, and racism.

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Alone at Mass, she found her calling to help others face addiction
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Alone at Mass, she found her calling to help others face addiction

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null / Credit: Srdjan Randjelovic/Shutterstock

Philadelphia, Pa., Aug 24, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Nina Marie Corona thought she was just checking the box like any good cradle Catholic when she sat down in a pew over a decade ago. From her perspective at the time, she wasn’t there for anything dramatic — just the usual holy day of obligation Christmas Mass. Her heart wasn’t in it though. Addiction had crept into her family’s life, and her entire world felt like it was falling apart. So, while others sang and smiled and shook hands at the sign of peace, she wept quietly.

Alone. A stranger. In a church filled with people.

“I remember looking and thinking, you know, why does nobody know that I’m going through this?” she said. “Like, I need you people, you know? Where else do I turn?”

Already immersed in theology classes triggered by a retreat she had attended, Corona — who once ran a successful food manufacturing business — turned to an educational pursuit that sought to weave her spirituality with her social conscience.

In the years that followed, that moment of personal desperation developed into a multipronged outreach titled Afire and launched an international multimedia ministry called “We Thirst: Christian Reflections on Addiction,” which is now in university and seminary libraries, including Trinity College Dublin, and has been shown in churches across the United States and beyond.

The five-part parish-based series is part catechesis, part communal healing, blending Catholic spirituality with the biological, psychological, and social realities of addiction. People have watched it in living rooms, church halls, and classrooms. It’s been used by priests, parents, social workers, and people recovering from addiction. It has freed people to talk about addiction, to open up, to stop hiding.

“They drop the armor,” she said. “They receive the gift of courage to face reality. That’s when healing can begin.”

The way it works is simple. You watch the series as a group — maybe over five weeks, maybe as a weekend retreat, and then you talk — not about solutions or strategies at first, but about what’s real: fear, guilt, grief, love, hope. Each session incorporates comprehensive educational presentations with prayer, music for reflection, and imagery to enlighten and inspire.” On the final night of each series, attendees are encouraged to discern next steps in their own communities.

“I initially didn’t know what they should do, but over time I realized those things that were helpful to me and my family,” she explained. “So, we eventually created kits with leader and member manuals to help guide groups through a discernment process. The leader’s manual has been granted an imprimatur.”

Each parish group is given space to listen to one another, assess the specific needs in their community, and create a plan — whether that’s hosting prayer gatherings, offering support to families affected by addiction, starting recovery ministries, or assembling care packages for local recovery homes. The work is deeply local and highly personal, but its spiritual and emotional resonance is what fuels a broader growth.

Among the programs now offered by Afire Ministries are weekly Vespers via Zoom, an online Advent Prayer Calendar, and Set Hearts AFIRE — an evangelization resource designed to equip both experienced ministers and everyday Catholics to share the Gospel. The program provides everything needed to present the material, including fully developed scripts, music, media, and opportunities for personal witness.

Also forthcoming is Graced Collaboration, an innovative faith-based recovery program developed by Corona during her doctoral studies. It integrates evidence-based scientific approaches with the spiritual wisdom of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

“I can’t do this alone,” Corona said. “We need more people stepping up.”

One of the newest groups has formed at St. Isidore in Quakertown, where Sharon Butler is a parishioner. “My daughter has been battling addiction for a very long time,” she said. “My husband and I… we’ve always had each other, but I never went to anything. People would suggest Al-Anon or different groups, but I just didn’t go.”

This was different, she said. Right from the start. “It was very inspiring,” Butler said. “I couldn’t wait for the next week. Each session gave me something to think about. It all just spoke to me.”

The formula is repeated throughout Afire’s various programs, Corona said. And, she believes, God’s fingerprints are all over it.

“I didn’t know how to listen for God’s voice at first, but once I did, he didn’t stop,” she said. “I know the resistance. The shame. You think you’ve heard it all — another addiction talk, more statistics, more blame. But this is different. This is about healing hearts, not just solving problems. It’s about rediscovering our humanity and God’s love for us in the middle of pain.”

She continued: “I believe strongly that God wants to work this way through every person. So many of us are asleep. We’re distracted, numb. But if we just pause — listen — we’ll hear him. And he’ll move. That’s what happened to me. I just finally stopped long enough to listen.”

This story was first published by Catholic Philly and has been reprinted with permission. It is part of the Face of Hope, a series of stories and videos “highlighting the work of those who make the Catholic Church in Philadelphia the greatest force for good in the region.” 

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