will – United Yam

Brooklyn Diocese consolidates Latin Mass to 2 parishes amid priest shortage

unitedyam October 8, 2025

null / Credit: PIGAMA/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 8, 2025 / 11:00 am (CNA).

Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan is moving where the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) will take place in the diocese, and who will say it, as the diocese faces a clergy shortage following several priest deaths.

“Bishop Brennan very much wants to meet the needs of the people and has developed an approach that will be more sustainable,” diocesan spokesman John Quaglione told CNA.

At the end of September, TLM attendees at St. Cecilia Church in Brooklyn were informed the Mass will no longer be offered there after Oct. 12 but will continue to be offered about five miles away at Our Lady Queen of Peace in the Carroll Gardens section of Brooklyn and St. Josaphat’s in the Bayside area of Queens.

Quaglione told CNA that the weekly attendance at the Mass at St. Cecilia’s was averaging between 25 and 35 people and was being served by a rotation of priests that can no longer continue because of the declining numbers of parish priests in the diocese.

In order to address the priest shortage, Brennan is employing a “site model.” The official site in Brooklyn will be Our Lady Queen of Peace, which has celebrated the TLM for more than 25 years, and the official site in Queens will be at St. Josaphat’s, which has also celebrated the TLM for years and which will now be run by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest.

Priests will still rotate to say the Latin Mass at the Brooklyn site.

Quaglione told CNA that with the recent deaths of several priests in the Brooklyn Diocese, where priests already minister to two or three parishes each and where Masses have had to be cut as a result, “the bishop is taking the initiative here and seeing the writing on the wall. He does want to provide the TLM for the people.”

“By cutting the Mass at the St. Cecilia site, we’re actually bettering our ability to provide the TLM with this model, which addresses staffing concerns and gives the assurance of the continuation of the Mass,” he said.

Average weekly Mass attendance at St. Josaphat’s is around 240 people, and at Our Lady Queen of Peace, it averages about 65 attendees, according to Quaglione.

Neither the revised official Mass schedule nor the exact date of the Christ the King Institute takeover of St. Josaphat’s has been finalized, according to the Brooklyn Diocese.

The Christ the King Institute priests will establish an oratory at St. Josaphat Parish, which other orders in the diocese have already done, according to the press secretary.

According to its website, the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest “celebrates the classical Roman Liturgy, the ‘Latin Mass,’ in its traditional form according to the liturgical books promulgated in 1962 by Pope St. John XXIII.”

“During his pontificate, Pope St. John Paul II exhorted bishops to be generous in allowing its use. It was with his blessing that the Institute began to celebrate the Traditional Mass.”

The institute, based out of Chicago, did not respond to a request for comment.

California law allowing anonymous abortion pill prescriptions endangers women, experts say

unitedyam October 6, 2025

Members of Students for Liberty protest chemical abortions at March for Life, Jan. 24, 2025. / Credit: Tyler Arnold/CNA

CNA Staff, Oct 6, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill last week allowing doctors to anonymously prescribe abortion pills, a move ethicists and medical professionals say will endanger women.

The law, designed to protect abortionists, allows them to prescribe the pill anonymously, protecting them from any professional, legal, or ethical oversight and from lawsuits filed by other states.

California abortionists are already facing lawsuits for prescribing abortion drugs in states where they are illegal. In some cases, women maintain that they were coerced or deceived into taking the drugs by the father of their unborn child.

According to the new law, the doctor remains anonymous — even to the patient being prescribed the pill. His or her identity is only accessible via a subpoena within the state of California.

Even the pharmacists dispensing the abortion drug may do so without including their names, or the names of the patient or prescriber, on the bottle.

Abandoning women

Dolores Meehan, a nurse practitioner and the executive director of Bella Primary Care in San Francisco, said the law is “codifying a type of back-alley abortion.”

“There’s no safety oversight at all from the perspective of the patient,” she told CNA. “It’s such a violation of patients’ rights.”

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, called the policy “patient abandonment.”

Health care professionals “have a duty to provide careful medical supervision and oversight to patients who seek to obtain dangerous pharmaceuticals,” he told CNA.

“This oversight calls for significant patient scrutiny, medical testing, interviews, and in-person exams to assure that any prescribed medications will be appropriate for the specific medical situation of the patient,” Pacholczyk continued. “Such attentive oversight gets thrown to the wind when lawmakers and politicians like Gov. Newsom seek to pass unprincipled laws.”

Offering anonymous prescriptions, Pacholczyk said, “is a significant dereliction of duty.”

To do so implies “a willingness to look past important procedural requirements and duties, whether it’s health screening of the woman, obtaining her emergency contact information, or assuring follow-up care and support for her,” he continued.

The policy, Pacholczyk said, “works to corrode the very core of authentic medicine.”

Meehan expressed similar concerns about the anonymity of doctors prescribing abortion pills.

She noted that licenses exist to ensure that “individuals are clear of any malfeasance or any malpractice.”

“You can look up my license, and you can look up everything about me,” she said. “But if you don’t know my license, you don’t know who I am, you can’t.”

She noted that patients are turned into consumers but without any recourse should something go wrong.

“You might as well go on Craigslist,” Meehan said.

Not an informed choice

After he signed the bill, Newsom said that “California stands for a woman’s right to choose.”

But Meehan noted that women don’t always know what they are choosing when they take the abortion pills.

“It’s not about women’s rights, and it’s certainly not about women’s safety, and women’s health, and women’s choice,” Meehan said. “Because choice should always, always, always be accompanied by informed consent.”

“The gross misunderstanding about the abortion pill is that it’s somehow easy,” Meehan said. “But what so many women don’t understand is that they’re going to miscarry at home.”

They’ll go through this “loss,” she noted, “by themselves.”

“Women are really ill-prepared for what’s going to happen in their bodies. There’s the whole idea of women’s choice, but you’re not giving them informed choice,” she said.

Pacholczyk shared similar concerns for women undergoing chemical abortions, saying that self-administered chemical abortions are a “harsh reality.”

The abortion “often takes place in a bathroom, with psychological trauma experienced by a mother who may see her aborted baby floating in a toilet,” he said.

Chemical abortions can sometimes lead to “serious medical complications — including sepsis, hemorrhage, or a need for repeated attempts to expel the child’s body” — for 1 in 10 women within 45 days of taking the abortion pill, he added.

If a woman has an ectopic pregnancy, “administering the abortion pill could increase the risk of complications or delay urgently needed treatment,” he added.

“Rather than treating women as anonymous entities and forcing them into greater isolation … mothers deserve the supportive medical attention and active care of their health care team,” he said.

“Ideally, such attentive care should help them feel strengthened and empowered to carry their pregnancies to term rather than defaulting to a fear-driven and desperate attempt to end their child’s life,” he said.

Lower standard of care

Jordan Butler, spokesperson for pro-life advocacy group Students for Life of America, called the policy “reckless.”

“Eliminating requirements for identification and pregnancy verification creates dangerous loopholes that allow sexual abusers to evade accountability,” Butler said.

Through the policy, Newsom and the abortion industry are “exploiting vulnerable women and children for profit,” she said.

Pacholczyk and Meehan expressed similar concerns for the lower standard of care women — especially vulnerable women — would receive under the law.

For women and girls facing human trafficking or coercion, protections “don’t exist,” Meehan said.

“You could have your local pedophile, a sex offender, stockpiling them,” Meehan said.

“Politicians, the media, and many in the medical profession have decided that abortion deserves an entirely different and lower standard than the rest of medicine,” Pacholczyk said.

“We would never sanction such a loose approach with other potent pharmaceuticals like opioids or cancer medications,” Pacholczyk said.

Cash aid for moms: Michigan program cuts infant poverty, boosts families

unitedyam October 6, 2025

null / Credit: Tatiana Vdb via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 6, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

A Michigan-based program is providing thousands of dollars to expecting mothers to lessen poverty and improve babies’ health — and all that’s needed is an ultrasound and an ID.

The first community-wide and unconditional cash transfer program for new families in the United States called Rx Kids began with the mission to improve “health, hope, and opportunity.” The initiative began in January 2024 in Flint, Michigan, where enrolled mothers receive $1,500 during their pregnancies and an additional $500 a month for the first year of their child’s life.

In 2024, Dr. Mona Hanna, a pediatrician and the director of the Michigan State University-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative, launched the program with the help of Luke Shaefer, the inaugural director of Poverty Solutions, an initiative that partners with communities to find ways to alleviate poverty.

The city of Flint had been struggling with childhood poverty, “which is a major challenge and economic hardship, especially for new families,” Shaefer told CNA. In order to find ways to combat it, Hanna spoke directly with mothers. They shared how impactful the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit was, which provided parents funds to put toward necessities for their children.

The program had helped “child poverty plummet to the lowest level ever recorded,” Shaefer explained. He had worked on the program design himself, so he was brought in to help create Rx Kids with a similar goal.

The hope for Rx Kids was simply “to support expectant moms during pregnancy,” Shaefer said. Oftentimes, “the period of pregnancy and the first year of life is actually when families are the poorest,” he said. To combat this, the money helps fund food, rent, car seats, diapers, and other baby supplies and necessities.

Even families higher on “the economic ladder really struggle to make ends meet when they’re welcoming a new baby, which is really maddening because it’s such a critical period for the development of a child,” Shaefer said. “What happens in the womb, and then what happens in the first year of life, are fundamental to shaping the architecture for kids throughout the life course.”

Expecting mothers from all economic backgrounds can apply to the program. To enroll, women submit an ultrasound and identification to verify residency within the participating location. The only other qualification is that the mothers are at least 16 weeks along in their pregnancies or will have legal guardianship over the child after birth.

Funding and operations

Rx Kids is funded through a public-private partnership model that combines federal funds, often Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and private support from philanthropic foundations, local businesses, and health care systems.

Since it started, the program has provided nearly $11 million in cash transfers to the more than 2,000 enrolled mothers in Flint. There have also been 1,800 babies being born in the city within the program.

The cash transfers are sent through the nonprofit GiveDirectly, which solely administers cash payments to families through programs like Rx Kids to lessen global poverty. It currently has operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda, and the U.S.

After seeing success with Rx Kids mothers in Flint, the program expanded to help Michigan families in Kalamazoo, Eastern Upper Peninsula, Clare County, and Oakland County. It has now enrolled more than 3,500 mothers, provided nearly $15 million in funds, and contributed to more than 2,800 babies.

“Not unlike the support provided by the nearly 100 pregnancy resource centers in Michigan whose staff and volunteers walk alongside women providing material support, counseling, and parenting classes, the Rx Kids program aims to care for women and babies during the challenging time of pregnancy and infancy by providing a no-strings-attached cash program,” Genevieve Marnon, legislative director at Right to Life of Michigan, told CNA.

“The pro-life community has long recognized that when women are supported, respected, and valued, they are more likely to choose birth to abortion and experience better health outcomes,” Marnon said.

In a state where abortion is “considered a constitutional right, every effort to ensure women have the support they need to make a choice for life is something to applaud.”

Success and benefits

“Programs like [Rx Kids] lead to healthier birth weights, lower rates of postpartum depression, and an atmosphere that celebrates each and every woman and child,” Maron said. “The data speaks for itself.”

Recently, Rx Kids received back “the first line of research that is looking really positive,” Shaefer said. Researchers from Michigan State University and the University of Michigan conducted a study published by the American Journal of Public Health that analyzed more than 450,000 births across Michigan.

The researchers reported that after the program launched in 2024, Flint experienced an 18% drop in preterm births and a 27% reduction in low birth weight when compared with the previous year and similar Michigan cities.

There was also a reported 29% reduction in NICU admissions, which prevented nearly 60 hospitalizations annually. The outcomes were linked to behavioral changes of women during their pregnancies, including increased prenatal care.

“We’re not forcing anyone to go to prenatal care, but when we provide the economic resources, they go,” Schaefer explained.

Church support

The Catholic Church in Michigan has also been in favor of the program. Jacob Kanclerz, communications associate for the Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC), told CNA that it helps provide “mothers facing difficult circumstances with the resources they need to make a choice for life and avoid resorting to abortion.”

MCC, which serves as the public policy voice for the Church in the state, “supports the Rx Kids program because of its direct assistance to mothers and children in need in lower-income communities in Michigan.”

In line with the Church, the program works “to promote and protect human life as well as provide for the poor and vulnerable in society,” Kanclerz said. MCC has supported funding in the state budget for the Rx Kids program and has testified in support of the expansion of Senate Bill 309, which would incorporate the program officially into state law.

At a hearing for the bill, Tom Hickson, vice president for public policy and advocacy for MCC, said: “By helping mothers pay for critical prenatal and infant health care services and other expenses surrounding childbirth, Rx Kids can help mothers provide their babies the care they need while in the womb and after they are born.”

He added: “This program has been a wonderful help to expectant mothers and their babies who need extra support during this critical stage of life.”

Rx Kids is currently helping Michigan families, but it also offers a startup guide for other states and communities interested in modeling the program. Schaefer said there is “a ton of interest” from other states that hope to implement the program.

There are two versions of the Rx Kids model that areas can implement, depending on their funding availability and goals. One offers $1,500 during pregnancy and an additional $500 each month for six months following the child’s birth. Communities can also model the original version implemented in Flint, which offers a $1,500 cash transfer during pregnancy, and the additional monthly funds for a whole year.

To secure funding, Rx Kids encourages communities to utilize public sources, state or federal dollars, and private support from philanthropic organizations that want to contribute to the mission of alleviating poverty and supporting babies and their mothers.

For first time in U.S., Catholics will be able to venerate the habit of Padre Pio

unitedyam October 5, 2025

St. Pio of Pietrelcina, better known as Padre Pio. / Credit: After Elia Stelluto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Oct 5, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

For the first time in the United States, Catholics will have the opportunity to venerate the full-size habit worn by St. Pio of Pietrelcina, also known as Padre Pio.

The rare opportunity will take place from Oct. 11–14 at the National Centre for Padre Pio in Barto, Pennsylvania, in the Diocese of Allentown.

A group of Italian Capuchin friars from Padre Pio’s friary — the Our Lady of Grace Capuchin Friary in San Giovanni Rotondo in southern Italy — will bring the habit to be displayed at the national center, which has been designated a jubilee site within the Allentown Diocese.

“This unprecedented visit from the friars of San Giovanni Rotondo is an amazing opportunity for us to be able to share a rare and intimate relic of Padre Pio with his devotees,” Vera Marie Calandra, the vice president of the center, said on the group’s website.

“We expect to have pilgrims visiting from throughout the United States, and we will be ready to make their visit a special time of veneration, prayer, and reflection.”

The weekend of festivities will open on Saturday, Oct. 11, with Mass celebrated by the Capuchin friars from San Giovanni Rotondo. Following the Mass, there will be a procession honoring Padre Pio.

Mass will also be celebrated on Sunday, Oct. 12, with a procession following. On Oct. 13, Harrisburg Bishop Emeritus Ronald Gainer will celebrate Mass in English followed by a Mass celebrated in Italian by the friars.

Allentown Bishop Alfred Schlert will celebrate Mass on Oct. 14 followed by a Mass celebrated in Italian by the friars.

“We could not be more excited about having the opportunity to have Padre [Francesco] Dileo and other friars from Padre Pio’s Our Lady of Grace friary in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy, visit us with these rare and precious relics,” said Nick Gibboni, the executive director of the National Centre for Padre Pio.

“We continue to be enormously blessed to have a close relationship with Padre Pio’s brother friars, and we are excited about our continued relationship.”

In addition to the habit’s visit at the national center, the friars will also be taking the habit to the Padre Pio Foundation of America in Cromwell, Connecticut. The habit will be available for veneration at St. Pius X Church in Middletown, Connecticut, from Oct. 15–18.

Padre Pio was a Capuchin Franciscan friar, priest, and mystic of the 20th century. He is known for his deep wisdom about prayer and peace, having the stigmata, miraculous reports of his bilocation, being physically attacked by the devil, and mastering the spiritual life.

His tomb can be found in the Sanctuary of St. Mary Our Lady of Grace in San Giovanni Rotondo, Italy.

New film tells story of how broken Virgin Mary statue changed the life of a radio host

unitedyam October 4, 2025

The broken Virgin Mary statue Kevin Matthews found in a dumpster. / Credit: ODB Films

CNA Staff, Oct 4, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Kevin Matthews was at the top of his game as one of the most famous on-air radio personalities in Chicago in the 1980s and ’90s. He was partying with professional athletes and celebrities and posting 10 million listeners a week at the peak of his popularity.

All of that changed when he received a life-altering medical diagnosis. Yet the biggest change in his life happened when he found a broken Virgin Mary statue in the trash.

Kevin Matthews, former radio personality, speaks at a Catholic parish. His true story is told in the new documentary "Broken Mary: The Kevin Matthews Story." Credit: ODB Films — Kevin Matthews, former radio personality, speaks at a Catholic parish. His true story is told in the new documentary “Broken Mary: The Kevin Matthews Story.” Credit: ODB Films

“Broken Mary: The Kevin Matthews Story” is a new documentary recounting Matthews’ true story of fame, brokenness, and finding redemption in Jesus Christ thanks to his devotion to the Blessed Mother. The documentary will be in theaters for one night only on Oct. 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary.

Matthews was born and raised in Pontiac, Michigan, in a Catholic household. As a child he struggled to read and write, though it wasn’t until he was an adult that he discovered he was dyslexic.

In order to prevent himself from getting beaten up by both kids in his neighborhood and his physically abusive father, he used comedy and making others laugh as a shield he could hide behind.

Kevin Matthews, former radio personality, wheels "Broken Mary" into a Catholic parish. Credit: ODB Films — Kevin Matthews, former radio personality, wheels “Broken Mary” into a Catholic parish. Credit: ODB Films

In college Matthews was first introduced to radio through his roommate’s hosting of a show at the student station. In 1987, he began his career with “The Loop” AM 1000 in Chicago. It was here that he rose to fame and became known for his edgy humor, sharp wit, and comedic characters — the most popular being “Jim Shorts.”

Yet after years of mega-success, his life began to unravel when he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2008. It became more difficult to be on-air and new radio personalities were on the rise. But it wasn’t until 2011 that he had a life-changing experience.

Matthews told CNA in an interview that while driving on his way home from just having been fired from his job, he “heard the Holy Spirit say, ‘Go and get your wife some flowers.’” He pulled into a flower shop he happened to be passing at the time.

“I got out of my car and I’m starting to walk towards the door and over by the dumpster, I see a statue of the Virgin Mary,” he recalled. “I walked over to it and there she is on the ground broken in half. She’s looking up at me. Her hands are broken. She’s sunk in the mud, so she’s been there for a while, she’s got garbage on her.”

“And I’m a zombie Catholic at that point, I’m not religious,” he said, “but I knew at that moment, no one treats our Blessed Mother like that.”

“I just was appalled, but then I heard the voice of Christ say to me, ‘Will you deny me? Will you deny my mother?’ And I was like, ‘What do I do?’”

Matthews entered the store and told the store clerk that he wanted to buy the broken Mary statue out by the dumpster. Though the store clerk said it was not for sale, he recognized Matthews’ voice from the radio and allowed him to take the statue.

The statue weighed 73 pounds and due to his MS and a recent snowstorm, it took Matthews nearly an hour to get the broken Mary statue from out of the ground and into the back of his car.

“I remember I turned the heat up and I said, ‘Mary, I will take care of you for the rest of my life,’” Matthews shared.

He called a priest friend and told him about the broken statue. The priest told him about a sculptor who could fix her. Matthews took the broken Mary and was told that she could be completely restored.

“That was the first time I really cried in front of a total stranger and said, ‘Don’t you dare touch her.’ I said, ‘That is me.’ And I said, ‘She’s broken like me. Just keep her broken. Just put her together, keep her hands broken, don’t paint her — she’s broken Mary,” he said.

From then on, Matthews began to go back to Mass, he learned how to pray the rosary, and he completely left his life of luxury to instead take his broken statue of Mary to parishes across the country to share how his life was radically changed by the Blessed Mother.

Matthews said he hopes the film will show “that we’re all broken, but we’re loved by God and just go to him … I’ve never been happier in my life.”

Burned-out pastor builds global mental health resources for churches

unitedyam October 4, 2025

Young people listen to the stories of Christian youth with lived experience of mental health challenges as part of “The Sanctuary Youth Series” by Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries

CNA Staff, Oct 4, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Daniel Whitehead knew it was time for a change when his wife told him she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him smile. With the strain of constantly meeting with people who were struggling, the Christian pastor said he had “gone numb.”

“I realized in that moment, it had been well over a year that I’d felt any emotion,” he told CNA. “No laughter, no tears, just numbness.”

Then he discovered Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries. At the time, it was a small, local ecumenical group creating resources for mental health in pastoral ministry. Nine years later, Whitehead has become its leader and Sanctuary has become a large-scale resource operating across the world.

Daniel Whitehead is the CEO of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries. Credit: Photo courtesy of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries

Working through burnout “was really confusing,” Whitehead said of his own experience.

“I didn’t have language, or self-permission, or a framework to really understand what I was going through,” he said. “But how I would describe it was a feeling of fear, anxiety, and feeling trapped.”

Looking back at his challenges in ministry, Whitehead said he was experiencing “emotional overwhelm” from “moving from meeting to meeting, feeling the weight of people’s expectations, having to be there for people when they’re at their worst, and not really having an outlet to process that with.”

This experience helped him “realize the great need that exists in the church for support in this area,” he said.

“From that moment throughout my recovery journey I was looking for a cause to give myself to, and Sanctuary was that cause,” he said. “I very much felt called to the work.”

Reaching young people

Whitehead told CNA that amid an ongoing mental health crisis, the church can be a great resource.

“The church is so perfectly placed to offer hope, belonging, community, and purpose to people in crisis — all of which are vital components of a person’s recovery and all of which are areas that the church has a monopoly on,” Whitehead said.

In the United States, depression and anxiety rates rose by more than 50% from 2010 to 2019 and suicide rates for adolescents ages 10 to 19 rose 48%.

“It really is an opportunity for the church to step in and offer Christ’s hope to people in crisis,” Whitehead said.

Youth pilot "The Sanctuary Youth Series" at The Way Church’s youth ministry in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in summer 2024. Credit: Photo courtesy of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries — Youth pilot “The Sanctuary Youth Series” at The Way Church’s youth ministry in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in summer 2024. Credit: Photo courtesy of Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries

Sanctuary’s resources guide both the church and people struggling with mental health.

The ministry “creates high-quality resources that anyone anywhere can access,” which Whitehead said “makes us quite a unique proposition globally speaking.”

Resources include video courses designed to be taken in small-group settings.

Since its launch, more than 365,000 Christians in 102 countries have participated in the Sanctuary Course, according to the organization.

Sanctuary’s work “allows people who are experiencing crisis to feel seen and gives the church more confidence to know what its role is and what its role isn’t when walking with a person in crisis,” Whitehead explained.

This year, the organization is developing resources to reach young people.

It recently launched “The Sanctuary Youth Series,” which is all about starting “important conversations” with youth in youth ministry, explained Bryana Russell, Sanctuary’s director of engagement and interim director of development.

The series, Russell told CNA, “targets the pressing questions young people are asking about mental health” and is designed “to raise awareness and reduce stigma” about mental health.

“We know young people want to talk about the intersection of faith and mental health,” Russell said. “This series is one of the few resources available to help faith communities do so.”

“Our hope is that the next generation will experience the Church as a supportive place and that youth ministry leaders, parents and caregivers, and youth will all be equipped to have conversations about mental health,” Russell said.

Sanctuary Ambassador and Grammy nominated artist Matt Maher sings at an event hosted at the Archdiocese of Vancouver, where Sanctuary was presenting on mental health and faith on July 21, 2025. Credit: Nicholas Elbers/The BC Catholic

The series is “designed to be used in groups” to help “young people connect with trusted adults in their church or school community,” Russell said, noting that being in community helps mental health.

“Young people benefit from the support of trusted adults, but few are having the conversations they need to,” she said.

Working together

The ecumenicism of Sanctuary is what drew Whitehead to the group nine years ago.

“Our staff represent a range of church traditions, the majority of which are Protestant, but I would suggest that the spiritual practices that many of us draw from both individually and corporately are often more liturgical in nature,” Whitehead said.

“I think we all have a deep appreciation for the richness and vitality that different church traditions and denominations bring to the table,” Whitehead said.

Sanctuary works with various churches, including Catholic dioceses and parishes.

“Across the United States and Canada, many other dioceses are providing the leadership and support for mental health ministry,” Russell said.

Sanctuary’s course for Catholics — designed specifically for Catholic parishes and in use in parishes around the world — features Catholic voices including Archbishop J. Michael Miller of Vancouver and Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver.

“The Sanctuary Course for Catholics plays an important role in opening the conversation and equipping parishes to begin such a ministry,” Russell said.

This year, Sanctuary officially teamed up with the Archdiocese of Vancouver, which is formally launching a Mental Health Ministry with the help of Sanctuary.

“We are delighted that our resources will be a part of their designed reach to build this ministry of presence,” Russell said.

To kick off the event, Sanctuary and the archdiocese hosted Matt Maher, a Catholic contemporary Christian worship musician and Sanctuary’s ambassador.

Matt Maher and Bryana Russell (Sanctuary’s director of engagement and interim director of development) speak about Sanctuary, mental health, and faith at an event hosted at the Archdiocese of Vancouver on July 21, 2025. Credit: Nicholas Elbers/The BC Catholic

“Through stories, conversation, and song, themes of psychology, theology, and lived experience were introduced, offering an accessible and inspiring call to this ministry,” Russell said of the launch event.

“What makes Sanctuary unique is our ability to bring psychology and theology together to really validate and sanctify peoples’ stories,” Whitehead said. “Which means that in order to hold mental health well we have to really take each of these disciplines seriously.”

He added: “I’m inspired to continue this work when I look at the great need and also the great opportunity we have for the church to step into a gap that exists in society.”

Texas boys school establishes policy to destroy smartphones

unitedyam October 4, 2025

Boys swing on a rope during recess at Western Academy in Houston, Texas. / Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

Houston, Texas, Oct 4, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

After years of boys (and their parents) repeatedly ignoring the rules, a private boys school in Houston is taking a novel approach to its smartphone and digital device policy: Bring it to school, and “we will destroy it.”

Western Academy, an independent, liberal arts school that states its goal is to educate young men “in the good, the true, and the beautiful,” has never allowed students to bring electronic devices to school.

In the past, if a boy was caught with a phone or other device at the school or a school-sponsored event, faculty would confiscate the device, which would be returned to the parents only after they had met with headmaster Jason Hebert. He would explain the harms to boys caused by smartphone use and why parents “should not put the phone back into your son’s hands.”

Boys look for toads in a pond during recess. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

Under the new policy, which Hebert laid out in a four-page letter to parents last month, after the device is discovered and destroyed, the boy will be suspended. If it happens again, the boy will be automatically expelled.

Along with its singular smartphone policy, the school, which has 230 students in third through eighth grade, takes a unique approach to education. The boys are free to play throughout the park-like, rambling grounds, where they climb and swing from trees, build forts, shoot Nerf guns, and care for (or chase) chickens before and after school and multiple times throughout the school day.

The all-male faculty expects respect and responsibility from the boys at a young age, according to Hebert. The teachers have the boys rise when an adult visits a classroom and encourage parents to let their sons learn to endure hardship and experience natural consequences when they forget their homework or their lunch at home.

Jason Hebert, headmaster at Western Academy in Houston. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

A Catholic priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei serves as chaplain to the school, which was founded in 2010, and oversees the religious education program.

The model is popular: Even with middle-school tuition close to $28,000 a year, every grade has extensive waitlists, and the school may start wait-listing boys beginning as early as kindergarten.

At the beginning of each school year, the boys are sorted into one of four houses that compete throughout the year in games such as capture the flag and “The Hero’s Race,” where the boys in each house choose one boy to race across campus, climbing over obstacles and crawling through mud. There is also a poetry recitation competition known as “The Bard.” One mother, Stephanie Creech, told CNA her sons are so happy at the school they “beg to get to school early and to stay afterward to play.”

Hebert sat down with CNA and discussed what brought about the change in the smartphone policy, saying he chose the words in his letter very carefully.

Hebert speaks to the boys on the first day of school as the faculty looks on. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

Witnessing the damage

“Smartphones are causing significant, unimagined damage to the students who have them,” Hebert wrote in his letter to parents, “as well as to the sons of those parents who have chosen not to give phones to their sons.”

“The damage these phones have caused to our children,” he told CNA in the interview, “it literally has never been imagined.”

“It’s not just pornography,” Hebert continued. “YouTube actors and other characters just trying to get clicks perform the most shameless actions on video. They just have zero respect for the dignity of their bodies and for life, zero. And these boys want to emulate these people.”

Hebert said the last straw came after a mother called him complaining her son saw a graphic, violent video on a smartphone at a school event.

After that, Hebert said he and the other administrators agreed: “That’s it. We’re done.”

Asked why the school did not just consider automatic expulsion after the first offense rather than the destruction of the devices, Hebert said with a laugh: “To be perfectly candid, I want to destroy the phone. I want to give the boys an opportunity to have life without it.”

He ordered a metal grinder for the purpose.

“Look, I am not an alarmist. I am not reactionary. But the bottom line is this: These devices are not neutral. The research is definitive: They are bad for our kids. I have dealt with hundreds and hundreds of boys over two decades in education and I have yet to see an exception to this,” he said.

Hebert said that over the years, he has noticed a degradation in the quality of the boys’ conversation. “You can’t imagine the level of shamelessness” among some of the boys,” many of whom are generally considered “good kids.”

“This type of behavior is unprecedented in my tenure as an educator, and even as a professional athlete,” he said.

Boys cheer their teammates on as the houses compete in a game of "Thud," in which two boys throw a medicine ball at one another as hard as they can until one of them drops it or gives up. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy — Boys cheer their teammates on as the houses compete in a game of “Thud,” in which two boys throw a medicine ball at one another as hard as they can until one of them drops it or gives up. Credit: Courtesy of Western Academy

In the early 2000s, before beginning his teaching career, which included teaching at The Heights School in Maryland, he spent one year as a professional football player on practice squads for three NFL teams: the Chargers, the Titans, and the Raiders.

“I never played in a regular-season game. This is what I tell people: I made it to the NFL. I did not make it in the NFL,” he said, laughing.

“Let me make it clear: I was an athlete around some of the most earthy human beings on the planet,” he said. “These men were not ashamed to say anything in the locker room. Yet these same men would have blushed if they heard some of the things these boys talk about! This is so unimaginable. Yet it is becoming more common now, thanks to these devices.”

Parents on board

Asked if he was worried parents would leave over the school’s new policy, Hebert said if parents are not on board with the school’s values, it might be better if they left and one of the many others on the waitlist could take their spot.

In his letter to parents, Hebert wrote that the “school is a true partnership with parents. We say this not for poetic effect, but because it must be so for the authentic growth of your sons to become a reality.”

He told CNA parents should ask themselves: “How valuable is the phone to you? Are you willing to leave this place for it? This place where your son is so abundantly happy? Is your phone worth that? And if it is, well, it’s a mismatch of vision.”

Since the change in policy, however, Hebert said parental response has been “100% positive.”

After hearing about the school’s new policy, a mother whose son graduated from the school several years ago dropped off a financial donation at the front desk recently “for the phone grinder.”

“Everybody just knows it’s right. Parents might be frustrated because saying no to their sons makes their lives harder, but they know it’s right,” he said.

Hebert, a father of seven, said he and his wife do not allow their children to have smartphones or social media. “My children may not know a lot of the lingo or some of the jokes or about all the parties. They’re on the outside, to a degree.”

“And even though that’s a big deal,” he continued, “the alternative overrides that. It’s a bigger deal.”

“The alternative is not worth it,” he said.

“We all want the truth,” he said, “and the truth is these devices are severely hurting kids. I’m not a doomsday guy, but some day these kids will be in charge of society. Think about that.”

Report: Abortion declines even in states where it is still legal

unitedyam October 3, 2025

null / Credit: Mike Blackburn via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

CNA Staff, Oct 3, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).

Here is a roundup of recent pro-life and abortion-related news.

Abortion declines even in states where it is still legal

The number of abortions in clinics in pro-abortion states saw a decline in the first half of 2025, according to a recent report.

The report by the pro-abortion group Guttmacher found a 5% decrease in abortions provided by clinics from for the same period in 2024.

The review found declines in clinician-provided abortions in 22 states, all states that did not have “abortion bans.” The report also found an 8% decline in out-of-state travel for abortion to states with fewer protections for unborn children.

States with protections for unborn children at six weeks, such as Florida and Iowa, also saw a decline in abortions so far this year.

The report did not take mail-in or telehealth abortion pill numbers into account.

Michael New, a professor at the Busch School of Business at The Catholic University of America and a scholar at Charlotte Lozier Institute, called the report “good news” but noted that the survey wasn’t “comprehensive.”

“It does not appear that Guttmacher collects data on telehealth abortions from states where strong pro-life laws are in effect but abortion is not banned,” he told CNA. “Pro-lifers should take these figures with a grain of salt.”

In terms of mail-in, telehealth abortions, New noted that pro-lifers should “continue to push for more timely action to protect mothers and preborn children.”

“The Trump administration is within its power to halt telehealth abortions,” he said, noting that “Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently said the FDA would conduct a new review of abortion pills.”

Florida’s Heartbeat Act, which took effect in May 2024, played “a large role in this decline,” New said.

“The Heartbeat Act is protecting preborn children in Florida and is preventing women from other states from obtaining abortions in the Sunshine State,” he said. “Birth data from Florida shows that the Heartbeat Act is saving nearly 300 lives every month.”

Government takes action against Virginia school system following alleged abortions for students

The U.S. Department of Education has called on a Virginia public school system to investigate reports that high school staff facilitated abortions for students without their parents’ knowledge.

The department took action against Fairfax County Public Schools under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendments, according to a Sept. 29 press release.

The investigation follows reports that a Centreville High School social worker scheduled and paid for an abortion for a minor and pressured a second student to have an abortion. The federal agency is requiring that Fairfax investigate whether this practice has continued.

The Fairfax report “shocks the conscience,” the department’s acting general counsel, Candice Jackson, said in a statement.

“Children do not belong to the government — decisions touching deeply-held values should be made within loving families,” Jackson said. “It is both morally unconscionable and patently illegal for school officials to keep parents in the dark about such intimate, life-altering procedures pertaining to their children.”

Jackson said the Trump administration will “take swift and decisive action” to “restore parental authority.”

Virginia bishop speaks out against potential ‘abortion rights’ amendment

Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, this week spoke out against a proposed amendment to create a right to abortion in the Virginia Constitution.

“While the amendment is not yet on the ballot, the outcome of this fall’s elections will determine whether it advances or is halted,” he said in an October “Respect Life Month” message.

“If adopted, this amendment would embed in our state constitution a purported right to abortion through all nine months of pregnancy with no age limits,” he said.

He noted that Virginia has “some modest protections” for life, but “the proposed amendment would likely make it impossible … to pass similar protective laws in the future.”

Protections for unborn children, for parental consent, and for conscience rights “would be severely jeopardized under this amendment,” he added.

“Parents have the sacred right to be involved in the most serious decisions facing their daughters,” Burbidge said. “No one should ever be forced to participate in or pay for an abortion.”

“Most importantly, the lives of vulnerable women and their unborn children are sacred and must be welcomed and protected,” he said.

He called on Catholics to not “remain silent,” urging the faithful to inform themselves and others about “the devastating impact this amendment would have.”

“Our faith compels us to stand firmly for life, in prayer and witness, and also in advocacy and action,” he said.

“We must speak with clarity and compassion in the public square, reminding our legislators and neighbors that true justice is measured by how we treat the most defenseless among us,” he concluded.

Planned Parenthood closes its only 2 clinics in Louisiana

The only two Planned Parenthood locations in Louisiana closed this week following the Trump administration’s decision to halt federal funding for abortion providers for a year.

The president of Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast cited “political attacks” as the reason for the closures of the two facilities located in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

The closures follow a court ruling last month enforcing the Trump administration’s defunding of Planned Parenthood, which halted government funding for abortion providers.

Louisiana authorities issue arrest warrant for California abortionist

Louisiana authorities issued an arrest warrant for a California doctor for allegedly providing abortion drugs to a woman without consulting her.

The woman, Rosalie Markezich, said she felt coerced into the abortion by her boyfriend at the time, who arranged for an abortionist in California to prescribe drugs to induce a chemical abortion.

The same abortionist, Remy Coeytaux, has faced charges for telehealth abortions after the abortionist allegedly sent abortion pills to Texas, where they are illegal.

Christian photographer wins lawsuit against Louisville over same-sex discrimination rule

unitedyam October 3, 2025

Photographer holding camera against newlywed couple. / Credit: Vectorfusionart/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 3, 2025 / 09:30 am (CNA).

A federal court awarded nominal damages to a Christian photographer after the city government of Louisville, Kentucky, sought to enforce an anti-discrimination ordinance that could have forced her to provide photography services for same-sex civil weddings.

Judge Benjamin Beaton found that Louisville’s Fairness Ordinance contained “two provisions” that limited the expression of Christian wedding photographer Chelsey Nelson, who sought $1 in damages. The court awarded Nelson the requested damages.

According to the ruling, the ordinance prohibited “the denial of goods and services to members of protected classes,” which includes people with same-sex attraction.

The publication provision of the ordinance also prevented her “from writing and publishing any indication or explanation that she wouldn’t photograph same-sex weddings, or that otherwise causes someone to feel unwelcome or undesirable based on his or her sexual orientation or gender identity.”

Both provisions, Beaton ruled, “limit Nelson’s freedom to express her beliefs about marriage.”

The court stated Nelson “suffered a First Amendment injury” because she decided to limit the promotion of her business, ignore opportunities posted online, refrain from advertising to grow her business, and censored herself, which was done to avoid prosecution.

“The government can’t force Americans to say things they don’t believe, and state officials have paid and will continue to pay a price when they violate this foundational freedom,” Nelson said in a statement through her attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom following the ruling.

“The freedom to speak without fear of censorship is a God-given constitutionally guaranteed right,” she added.

In his ruling, Beaton noted the Supreme Court set nationwide precedent when it ruled on 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis. In that decision, the court ruled a Colorado law violated a web designer’s First Amendment rights because it would have forced him to design websites for same-sex civil weddings in spite of his religious beliefs.

Beaton wrote that in spite of the Supreme Court precedent, “Louisville apparently still ‘actively enforces’ the ordinance … [and] still won’t concede that the First Amendment protects Nelson from compelled expression.”

His ruling noted that the mayor publicly stated that he would keep enforcing the ordinance, including against Nelson, after the 303 Creative decision.

Although the city’s lawyers argued in court that the city did not intend to enforce the law against Nelson, Beaton wrote: “Nothing in Louisville’s informal disavowal would prevent the city from making good on that promise [to enforce the rule against Nelson] tomorrow.”

“Anyone who’s tussled with the city’s lawyers this long and who continues to do business in and around Louisville might reasonably look askance at the city’s assurances that enforcement is unlikely,” Beaton wrote in his ruling.

Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Bryan Neihart said in a statement that “free speech is for everyone” and the precedent set in 303 Creative ensures that Americans “have the freedom to express and create messages that align with their beliefs without fear of government punishment.”

“For over five years, Louisville officials said they could force Chelsey to promote views about marriage that violated her religious beliefs,” he said.

“But the First Amendment leaves decisions about what to say with the people, not the government. The district court’s decision rests on this bedrock First Amendment principle and builds on the victory in 303 Creative.”

Girl Scouts, Cincinnati Archdiocese announce ‘renewed’ partnership after LGBT dispute

unitedyam October 2, 2025

null / Credit: maximino/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Oct 2, 2025 / 09:41 am (CNA).

After cutting ties with the Girl Scouts over the group’s endorsement of gender ideology, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati said this week that it has struck up a renewed partnership with the more-than-century-old youth organization.

Last year, the archdiocese ended a 110-year relationship with Girl Scouts of the USA due to the group promoting gender ideology contrary to Catholic teaching.

The decision was spearheaded by then-Archbishop Dennis Schnurr, who now serves as archbishop emeritus. At the time, Schnurr endorsed a faith-based scouting group, American Heritage Girls, as an alternative.

Newly-instated Archbishop Robert Casey has since made an agreement with the local Girl Scouts of Western Ohio to maintain Church moral teaching while operating in Catholic parishes.

Girl Scouts groups are “welcome” on Catholic campuses, so long as they pledge not to promote anything counter to the Church’s teaching on faith and morals, according to an archdiocesan press release.

Casey said he is “proud” that the archdiocese and the Girl Scouts “focused on our shared desire for the flourishing of young women in virtue and faith, rather than being solely focused on our differences.”

“Girl Scouts is a secular organization, and as such, they do not share all of our views,” he said in a Sept. 30 statement. “As the Catholic Church we are called to uphold the Gospel and teach young people the truth of the Catholic faith.”

“Despite these differences, we have reached a mutual understanding that allows us to fulfill our mission as Church in the faithful formation of young girls while also accessing all that is best about Girl Scouting,” he continued.

Aimée Sproles, president and CEO of Girl Scouts of Western Ohio, said that organization hopes to encourage girls in their faith journey.

“At Girl Scouts, we believe that a part of girls’ healthy development is encouraging girls in their spiritual journey, through partnerships with their individual faith communities,” Sproles said in a statement.

“Girl Scouts of Western Ohio and the Archdiocese of Cincinnati have helped generations of girls to grow in their faith and develop the critical thinking and decision-making skills they need in order to act on the values of their faith in our complex world,” she said.

“This renewed partnership allows our Catholic Girl Scouts to have the support of their family and the Catholic community as they grow in courage, confidence, and character,” she added.

The agreement comes after “continued dialogue,” archdiocesan spokeswoman Jennifer Schack told CNA.

“While this announcement highlights the renewed partnership, there has been ongoing dialogue, given the two agencies share a common interest to strengthen and support girls in our communities,” Schack said.

The agreement specifies that the Girl Scouts cannot promote anything that goes against Catholic faith and moral teachings, according to documents shared with CNA.

Whether the renewal of the Girl Scouts will affect the archdiocese’s partnership with American Heritage Girls is unclear.

When asked about the effect of the partnership renewal, American Heritage Girls told CNA that it looks forward to “deepening its relationship” with the archdiocese.

The interdenominational group has programs and activities designed for its Catholic scouting groups that promote the Catholic faith, including troop-led Stations of the Cross and Eucharistic Revival patches.

“Catholic families in Cincinnati and beyond have embraced AHG as a trusted youth ministry option,” the organization stated. “AHG looks forward to deepening its relationship with the Archdiocese of Cincinnati as more Catholic families and parishes build communities where virtue and faith flourish.”

Schack affirmed that the recent announcement “has no impact on American Heritage Girls troops” in the archdiocese.

American Heritage Girls, which has been endorsed by Catholic dioceses across the country, features a National Catholic Committee headed by Bishop James Conley of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska.

The group forms “girls of integrity through Catholic Faith Awards, troop life, service, outdoor adventure, and leadership,” the group stated.

“American Heritage Girls is grateful for over 30 years of ministry rooted in a Christ-centered foundation, deeply aligned with the Catholic Church,” it added.

9 quotes from the saints about guardian angels

unitedyam October 2, 2025

null / Credit: Petra Homeier/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Oct 2, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

During the month of October, the Catholic Church celebrates guardian angels.

Guardian angels are instruments of providence who help protect their charges from suffering serious harm and assist them on the path of salvation.

It is a teaching of the Church that every one of the faithful has his or her own guardian angel, and it is the general teaching of theologians that everyone has a guardian angel from birth.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their [angels’] watchful care and intercession. ‘Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.’ Already here on earth, the Christian life shares by faith in the blessed company of angels and men united in God” (No. 336).

Several of our greatest saints have also shared their thoughts on guardian angels. Here’s what they had to say:

St. John Vianney

“Our guardian angels are our most faithful friends, because they are with us day and night, always and everywhere. We ought often to invoke them.”

St. John Bosco

“When tempted, invoke your angel. He is more eager to help you than you are to be helped. Ignore the devil and do not be afraid of him; he trembles and flees at the sight of your guardian angel.”

St. Jerome

“How great is the dignity of souls, that each person has from birth received an angel to protect it.”

St. Thérèse of Lisieux

“My holy Guardian Angel, cover me with your wing. With your fire light the road that I’m taking. Come, direct my steps… help me, I call upon you. Just for today.”

St. Basil the Great

“Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd, leading him to life.”

St. Bernard of Clairvaux

“We should show our affection for the angels, for one day they will be our co-heirs just as here below they are our guardians and trustees appointed and set over us by the Father.”

St. Francis de Sales

“Make yourself familiar with the angels, and behold them frequently in spirit. Without being seen, they are present with you.”

St. Josemaría Escrivá

“If you remembered the presence of your angel and the angels of your neighbors, you would avoid many of the foolish things which slip into your conversations.”

St. John Cassian

“Cherubim means knowledge in abundance. They provide an everlasting protection for that which appeases God, namely, the calm of your heart, and they will cast a shadow of protection against all the attacks of malign spirits.”

This story was first published on Oct. 2, 2022, and has been updated.

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

unitedyam September 30, 2025

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.”

Shooting at LDS church in Michigan prompts Catholic solidarity, prayers

unitedyam September 29, 2025

Nurses who are on strike hold signs in support of the community following a shooting and fire at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in front of Henry Ford Genesys Hospital on Sept. 29, 2025, in Grand Blanc, Michigan. / Credit: Emily Elconin/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Sep 29, 2025 / 21:45 pm (CNA).

Multiple U.S. Catholic bishops offered prayers and expressed their solidarity after a gunman attacked a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) chapel in Grand Blanc, Michigan, on Sept. 28, killing four people, injuring eight, and setting the building on fire. The incident occurred just before 10:30 a.m. during a Sunday service with hundreds in attendance.

The suspect, identified as 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford of Burton, Michigan, drove a pickup truck into the chapel’s entrance, entered with an assault-style rifle, and began shooting. Witnesses reported Sanford shouting anti-LDS slurs. He then used an accelerant to start a fire inside the building. Grand Blanc Township Police arrived within a minute of 911 calls, engaging Sanford in a shootout and killing him. Firefighters extinguished the blaze, but the chapel was destroyed.

The victims included two adults and one child found in the debris, and one person who died from gunshot wounds at the hospital. Eight others were injured, five with gunshot wounds and three with smoke inhalation.

In a statement, Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis promised prayers for the LDS community, saying the LDS church had recently ”extended their sincere condolences and prayers to the faithful of this archdiocese,” referring to the August shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, where two students were killed and over 20 people were injured.

”Please join me in praying for them and for an end to senseless violence around the globe,” Hebda said.

In a separate statement, Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing, Michigan, also offered his prayers for those killed at the church, while also “assuring those who mourn, and those who are injured, my solace and support.”

”Any place of worship should be a sanctuary of peace,” Boyea continued. “The violation of such a haven, especially upon a Sunday morning, makes yesterday’s act of mass violence even more shocking. I commend the first responders for heroically assisting at the scene and for working to safeguard other local places of worship.”

”Lastly, let us remember that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life,” he said. ”Hence, in this moment of tragedy, let us all draw closer to Jesus, prince of peace.”

Meanwhile, Detroit Archbishop Edward Weisenburger said he was “heartbroken” by the gun violence and arson in Grand Blanc. “In this time of immense sorrow, I ask that we stand in solidarity with the victims, their families, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints,” Weisenburger said.

”In an era marked by hostilities and division, let us all come together in faith and compassion, upholding the fundamental right to worship freely and without fear. May God’s infinite love and mercy embrace and heal us all.”

Bishop David Walkowiak of Grand Rapids, Michigan, also expressed his sorrow after the tragic attack, saying: “No one should ever fear for their safety while gathering to worship. The ability to pray, to assemble peacefully, and to express one’s faith is not only a constitutional right but a moral necessity for a compassionate society. My prayers are with the victims, their families, and the entire Latter-day Saints community as they grieve and seek healing in the face of this senseless violence.”

Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, prayed for healing in another post, saying: “May we be united in prayer for those who lost their lives in the tragic violence at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, Michigan. We pray for their eternal rest, for comfort to their families, and for healing and peace for the entire community.”

The attack came one day after the death of LDS Church President Russell M. Nelson on Saturday, Sept. 27, at age 101 in Salt Lake City.

President Donald Trump addressed the incident in a post on Truth Social, stating: “This appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America. The Trump administration will keep the public posted, as we always do. In the meantime, PRAY for the victims, and their families. THIS EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY MUST END, IMMEDIATELY!”

Vice President JD Vance also addressed the attack in a social media post: “Just an awful situation in Michigan. FBI is on the scene and the entire administration is monitoring things. Say a prayer for the victims and first responders.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also issued a statement expressing grief and gratitude for support: “We are deeply grateful for the outpouring of prayers and concern from so many people around the world. In moments of sorrow and uncertainty, we find strength and comfort through our faith in Jesus Christ. Places of worship are meant to be sanctuaries of peacemaking, prayer, and connection. We pray for peace and healing for all involved.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered flags lowered statewide, describing the incident as “unacceptable violence in a sanctuary” and pledging support for the investigation. Grand Blanc area schools, both Catholic and public, closed Sept. 29.

The FBI, with support from the ATF and Michigan State Police, is investigating the attack as targeted violence. Three unexploded devices were found at the scene. Sanford, a former Marine and truck driver, had no known ties to the church but expressed anti-LDS views, according to neighbors. His social media included posts about religious “deceptions.” The FBI is examining his motives.

Religious Liberty Commission hears from teachers, coaches, school leaders

unitedyam September 29, 2025

President Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission meets on Sept. 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNA

Washington, D.C., Sep 29, 2025 / 19:13 pm (CNA).

Teachers, coaches, and other public and private school leaders said their religious liberty was threatened in American schools at a hearing conducted by President Donald Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission on Sept. 29.

Speakers said there must be a fight for schools to bring back the “truth” to protect students and religious liberty. Joe Kennedy, a high school football coach; Monica Gill, a high school teacher; Marisol Arroyo-Castro, a seventh grade teacher; and Keisha Russell, a lawyer for First Liberty Institute, addressed the commission led by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

“There has to be a call to action,” commission member Dr. Phil McGraw said. “The most common way to lose power is to think you don’t have it to begin with. We do have power, and we need to rally with that power.”

Teachers and coaches describe experiences

Kennedy said he was suspended — and later fired — from his position as a football coach at Bremerton High School in Washington for praying a brief and quiet prayer after football games.

“After the game, I took a knee to say thanks,” Kennedy explained. “That’s all. If that could be turned into a national controversy, it says more about the confusion in our country than the conduct of the person performing it.”

Kennedy told the commission the law is “cloudy and muddy” and they “have the power to clarify it.” Kennedy also said some lawyers “need to be held accountable” for actions taken in religious liberty cases.

Kennedy said: “I don’t know a lot about law and liberty, but I know that you’re supposed to advise people on the truth and the facts, and they’re not. They have an agenda, and their agenda is well set and in place and is working very well, keeping prayer out of the public square. They’re still doing it. That needs to be exposed.”

“Being a teacher has been one of the greatest blessings of my life,” Gill said to the committee. “God really gave my heart a mission … to show all of my students every day that they are loved. No matter what they’re going through, no matter what their grades are, no matter what their status is with their peers, I love them.”

“But in the summer of 2021 … Loudoun County Public Schools adopted a policy that forced teachers to deny the foundational truth of what it means to be human, created as male and female,” Gill said.

“This policy forced teachers to affirm all transgender students,” Gill said. “My employer gave teachers a choice: deny truth or risk everything … I knew that I could not stand in front of my Father in heaven one day and say: ‘My pension plan was more important than your truth.’ I also knew that if I say that I love my students, the only right choice would be to stand in love and truth for them.”

To combat the policy, Gill joined a lawsuit by Alliance Defending Freedom after a fellow Virginia teacher was fired for speaking out against the same policy. The lawsuit “resulted in victory for all teachers to freely speak truth and love when Loudoun County finally agreed not to require teachers to use pronouns in accordance with the student’s sex,” Gill said.

Arroyo-Castro testified that she was punished for displaying a cross in her private workspace in her seventh grade classroom in a New Britain School District school in Connecticut.

“I share this with you to help you understand why the crucifix is so significant to me and why I will never hide it from anyone’s view,” Arroyo-Castro said. “The vice principal told me that the crucifix was of a religious nature, so against the Constitution of the United States, and that it had to be taken down by the end of the day.”

If she did not take it down it would be considered “insubordination and could lead to termination,” Arroyo-Castro said. She asked if she could have time to pray on it, and was told she could, but “it wouldn’t change anything.”

“I was later called to a meeting with the district chief of staff, the principal, the vice principal, [and a] union representative. The chief of staff suggested that I put the crucifix in a drawer. I knew I couldn’t do that since my grandmother has instilled in me the meaning of the crucifix and how it should be treated with respect. But the chief of staff said that the Constitution says that I had to take it down,” Arroyo-Castro said.

After she refused to remove it, Arroyo-Castro was released from school with an unpaid suspension. She was offered legal defense by lawyers at First Liberty, which sued the school for violating the Constitution. While the lawsuit is ongoing she works in the administrative building “far from the students.”

Arroyo-Castro said: “Every day, I wonder how they’re doing.”

“Please do what you can to educate the districts in American schools about the true meaning of the establishment clause and the free exercise clause,” Arroyo-Castro advised the commission members. “How can we do our jobs well when many education leaders today don’t understand the Constitution themselves? We must understand as Americans that freedom of religion is a right that benefits all Americans.”

Suggestions from faith leaders

Leaders at Jewish, Catholic, and Christian schools also recounted religious freedom issues facing faith-based schools across the nation and what the country can do.

The leaders highlighted the need to protect the financial aid faith-based institutions receive and stop any threats of losing money if certain values are not enforced. Todd J. Williams, provost at Cairn University, said: “Schools will begin to cave because they’re worried about the millions of dollars that will go out the door.”

Father Robert Sirico, a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Grand Rapids, Michigan, said he was recently affected by a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court that redefined sex to include sexual orientation and gender identity.

“While presented as a matter of fairness, this reinterpretation proposes grave dangers, grave risks for all religious institutions, even those like Sacred Heart that receive absolutely no public support,” he said.

Sacred Heart has filed a lawsuit to combat the issue, but Sirico said what needs to be done “exceeds the competency of [the] commission and the competency of this administration.”

“We have to think of this in existential terms, and we have to come at this project with the understanding that this is going to take years to transform. This is why religious people can transform the world: We believe in something that’s greater than our politics. We can reenvision.”

Philadelphia Archdiocese launches ‘missionary hubs’ to help bring faithful back to Church

unitedyam September 29, 2025

Archbishop of Philadelphia Nelson J. Perez speaks to members of his congregation at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Peter and St. Paul following a special Mass for Pope Francis on April 21, 2025, in Philadelphia. / Credit: Matthew Hatcher/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Sep 29, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson Pérez on Sept. 29 announced the designation of multiple “missionary hubs” throughout the Philadelphia Archdiocese, part of a broad effort to help bring lapsed Catholics back into the Church while highlighting the “deeply positive impact” the Church has had on the region.

The rollout comes after Pérez earlier this year revealed the 10-year plan meant to bring Catholics back to the pews. The archdiocese said in January that the effort would be “phased in” across the region.

A “standout feature” of the campaign, the archdiocese said on Monday, is the creation of five “missionary hubs” at parishes in the region’s four major counties of Delaware, Bucks, Montgomery, and Chester as well as Philadelphia County itself.

Those parishes will serve as “a new method of evangelization that will be instrumental in reaching out to Catholics who no longer attend Mass regularly and others seeking a spiritual connection in their lives and an outlet to serve those in need.”

“Following the example of Jesus Christ, we are moving to encounter all of our brothers and sisters where they are,” Pérez said in a press release. “I want everyone to know that they are not alone and that they will always have a home in the Catholic Church.”

The hubs will feature trained individuals under the leadership of the parish’s pastor, with teams working to “address the distinct needs and priorities of the people living within the neighborhoods of that parish and beyond.” The designation of the hubs came after “dozens of meetings” with hundreds of Catholics throughout the year.

The parishes will use pastoral, educational, and charitable ministries to “reach people who feel far from the Church,” according to the archdiocese.

‘Catholic. Every day’

In addition to the hub effort, the archdiocese will also be rolling out a marketing campaign, dubbed “Catholic. Every Day,” that will broadcast on local TV and radio stations. It will also be featured on displays such as billboards and bus shelters.

The archdiocese described the effort as an “extensive and privately funded marketing and advertising campaign covering Philadelphia and its suburbs.”

The donor-sponsored ads will feature “the many faces of Catholicism in the region” and will run in several phases through July 2026, coinciding with multiple major events in the region, including the FIFA World Cup and events marking the 250th anniversary of the founding of the U.S.

“This campaign will remind Catholics of their rich heritage of service to others in Philadelphia while introducing our message to new audiences in fresh and compelling ways,” Pérez said.

The archbishop said in the Monday press release that the Philadelphia Church “has 1.5 million Catholics, directly helps hundreds of thousands of people through our schools and charitable ministries, and has an economic impact of more than $1 billion a year.”

Organizers wanted to “highlight the broad scope of compassionate and dignified service we provide to people of faith traditions and diverse walks of life,” he said.

Archdiocesan spokesman Kenneth Gavin told CNA earlier this year that the entire effort will be funded primarily by “private philanthropic funding secured over time and hopefully endowed for long-term sustainability.”

“The archbishop recognizes the urgency of reaching out to the 83% of baptized Catholics not regularly practicing their faith while continuing to serve more effectively and efficiently the 17% who do attend Mass,” he said.

Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael: The 3 great archangels of the Bible

unitedyam September 29, 2025

A stained-glass window in St. Sulpice Church in Fougeres, France, depicts (from left to right) the archangels Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel. / Credit: Tiberiu Stan/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 29, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Many Catholics can, at the drop of a hat, recite the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel — the famous petition to that venerable saint to “defend us in battle” and “cast into hell Satan.”

In the culture of the Church, Michael is often accompanied by his two fellow archangels — Sts. Gabriel and Raphael — with the three forming a phalanx of protection, healing, and petition for those who ask for their intercession. The Church celebrates the three archangels with a joint feast day on Sept. 29.

St. Michael the Archangel

St. Michael the Archangel is hailed in the Book of Daniel as “the great prince who has charge of [God’s] people.”

Michael Aquilina, the executive vice president and trustee of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology in Steubenville, Ohio, described Michael among angels as “the one most often named — and most often invoked — and most often seen in history-changing apparitions.”

Devotion to Michael, Aquilina told CNA, “has been with the Church from the beginning. And Michael has been with God’s people since before the beginning of the Church.”

Michael’s history in the Bible is depicted through Daniel, in Jude (in which he battles Satan for possession of Moses’ body), and in Revelation as he “wag[es] war with the dragon” alongside his fellow angels.

Michael, Aquilina said, was “a supremely important character who was there from the beginning of the story.” Rabbinic tradition holds that Michael was at the center of many of the great biblical dramas even if not explicitly mentioned.

He was an early subject of veneration in the Church, though Aquilina noted that the Reformation led to a steep decline in devotion to the angels — until the end of the 19th century, when Michael began an “amazing comeback journey” in the life of the Church.

Following a vision of Satan “running riot” on the planet, “Pope Leo composed three prayers to St. Michael, ranging from short to long,” Aquilina said. “The brief one, he commanded, should be prayed at the end of every Mass.”

This was a regular feature of the Mass until the Vatican II era, after which it came to an end — though Pope John Paul II in 1994 urged Catholics to make the prayer a regular part of their lives.

“St. Michael is there for us in the day of battle, which is every day,” Aquilina said.

The St. Michael Prayer: St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil / May God rebuke him, we humbly pray / And do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the divine power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.

St. Gabriel the Archangel

Gabriel appears regularly in Scripture as a messenger of God’s word, both in the Old and New Testaments. Daniel identifies Gabriel as a “man” who came “to give [him] insight and understanding,” relaying prophetic answers to Daniel’s entreaties to God.

In the New Testament, Luke relays Gabriel’s appearances to both Zechariah and the Virgin Mary. At the former, he informs the priest that his wife, Elizabeth, will soon conceive a child; at the latter he informs Mary herself that she will do the same. The two children in question, of course, were respectively John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.

Christian tradition further associates Gabriel with the apostle Paul’s reference in his First Letter to the Thessalonians to the “archangel’s call” and “the sound of the trumpet of God.”

“Judgment will begin with the archangel’s call and the sound of the horn,” Aquilina told CNA. “Thus we hear often of Gabriel’s trumpet.”

Media workers in particular have “good professional reasons to go to Gabriel,” Aquilina said.

“Since he is the Bible’s great communicator — the great teller of good news — he is the natural patron of broadcasters and all those who work in electronic media,” he said.

“For the same reason, he’s the patron saint of preachers … but also of postal workers, diplomats, and messengers.”

The St. Gabriel Prayer: O Blessed Archangel Gabriel, we beseech thee, do thou intercede for us at the throne of divine mercy in our present necessities, that as thou didst announce to Mary the mystery of the Incarnation, so through thy prayers and patronage in heaven we may obtain the benefits of the same, and sing the praise of God forever in the land of the living. Amen.

St. Raphael the Archangel

Lesser-known among the three great archangels, Raphael’s mission from God “is not obvious to the casual reader” of the Bible, Aquilina said. Yet his story, depicted in the Book of Tobit, is “something unique in the whole Bible.” In other depictions of angels, they come to Earth only briefly, to deliver a message or to help God’s favored people in some way.

“Raphael is different,” Aquilina said. “He stays around for the whole story, and by the end he’s become something more than an angel … he’s become a friend.”

In Tobit, Raphael accompanies Tobias, the son of the book’s namesake, as he travels to retrieve money left by his father in another town, helping him along the way and arranging for his marriage to Sarah.

The biblical account “has in every generation provided insight and consolation to the devout,” Aquilina said.

Notably, Raphael deftly uses the natural world to work God’s miracles: “What we would ordinarily call catastrophes — blindness, multiple widowhood, destitution, estrangement — all these become providential channels of grace by the time the threads of the story are all wound up in the end.”

“Raphael is patron of many kinds of people,” Aquilina said. “Of course, he’s the patron of singles in search of a mate — and those in search of a friend. He is the patron of pharmacists because he provided the salve of healing. He is a patron for anyone in search of a cure.”

He is also the patron saint of blind people, travelers, sick people, and youth.

“Raphael’s story,” Aquilina said, “remains a model for those who would enjoy the friendship of the angels.”

Prayer to St. Raphael: St. Raphael, of the glorious seven who stand before the throne of him who lives and reigns, angel of health, the Lord has filled your hand with balm from heaven to soothe or cure our pains. Heal or cure the victim of disease. And guide our steps when doubtful of our ways. Amen.

This story was first published on Sept. 29, 2023, and has been updated.

Monumental censer at Christendom College chapel represents ‘grandeur of Christ the King’

unitedyam September 28, 2025

“Now people need not go as far away as Spain to see this beautiful thing,” said Christendom College President Emeritus Timothy O’Donnell of the school chapel’s monumental thurible. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Christendom College

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Sep 28, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A tradition dating from the 11th century has been brought to Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, extending an enduring symbol of faith and pilgrimage. A jumbo-sized thurible, commissioned by the college and made in Spain, now embellishes the college’s Christ the King chapel.

The connections between Christendom College and the Catholic culture of Spain date back to even before the college’s founding in 1977. Its first president and co-founder, Warren Carroll, took students to Spain on several visits to learn Spain’s history and experience life at El Escorial monastery near Madrid.

Among other works, Carroll, a historian, authored “Isabel of Spain: The Catholic Queen” and “The Last Crusade: Spain 1936” with an interest in defending Catholic faith and culture, said Timothy O’Donnell, the college’s president emeritus, in an interview with CNA.

Drone shot of Christendom College’s Christ the King Chapel in Front Royal, Virginia. Credit: Photo courtesy of Christendom College

Believed to be one of the largest thuribles or censers in the world, the famed Botafumeiro is a giant thurible used at the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in northern Spain, which has been a pilgrimage destination for centuries, rivaled only by Rome and Jerusalem.

According to tradition, it is the burial place of St. James the Greater, who evangelized the Iberian Peninsula. In a centuries-old tradition, the massive censer, which weighs hundreds of pounds, is swung from ropes when pulled by a team of eight men at the transept of the historic church on feast days. It weighs more than 176 pounds and is over 6 feet tall.

O’Donnell recalled that St. John Paul II said in a homily in 1982, as the first pilgrim pope to Santiago: “This place, so dear to Galicians and Spaniards alike, has in the past been a point of attraction and convergence for Europe and all of Christendom.”

According to O’Donnell: “I was so moved by that because that is the name of our college. So, on certain anniversaries, we would take pilgrimages to Santiago.”

Seeing the giant thurible there ultimately gave him the idea to reproduce such a symbol of faith. “I thought it would be awesome to have something like this in the new chapel.” He turned to Heritage Liturgical, which designed and realized the project.

Seeing the giant thurible at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela gave Timothy O'Donnell, speaking here at the chapel, the idea to reproduce such a symbol of faith in the college's chapel. Credit: Photo courtesy of Christendom College — Seeing the giant thurible at the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela gave Timothy O’Donnell, speaking here at the chapel, the idea to reproduce such a symbol of faith in the college’s chapel. Credit: Photo courtesy of Christendom College

“Now people need not go as far away as Spain to see this beautiful thing and incense going up to heaven like the prayers of the faithful and angels going to God on high,” he said. In a tradition dating back to the Old Testament, costly incense was a sacrifice; after the coming of Christ, it joins our prayers with his perfect prayer and sacrifice.

Instead of producing an exact reproduction of the Botafumeiro in Spain, Heritage Liturgical executed a censer that echoes the design of the chapel. Enzo Selvaggi, principal and creative director of Heritage Liturgical, told CNA that Christendom’s monumental thurible was “designed in a cogent and well-defined Gothic Revival mode to fit the architecture of the college’s Chapel of Christ the King.”

Emilio León, a silversmith of Córdoba, Spain, was selected for the project and helped restore the original Botafumeiro. Starting in 2021, León sculpted and chiseled for a year and a half to complete the work, which is silver-plated brass.

In an email to CNA, León wrote: “I incorporated my spiritual and religious values, just as I do in all my work, giving my best effort, knowing that it is for the glory of God.” León belongs to a royal fraternity that preserves Catholic traditions such as Holy Week processions and the dignity of sacred spaces.

León is also working on other projects for Heritage Liturgical to be installed in the U.S. For Catholics in Spain, he continued, the Botafumeiro represents “the grandeur of Christ the King and the apostle James.”

On feast days of the Church, Christendom's thurible is brought near the central altar where it is hoisted on chains and swung by senior students. Credit: Courtesy of Christendom College — On feast days of the Church, Christendom’s thurible is brought near the central altar where it is hoisted on chains and swung by senior students. Credit: Courtesy of Christendom College

Christendom’s thurible is normally displayed near the image of the Virgin Mary in the chapel. On feast days of the Church, it is brought near the central altar where it is hoisted on chains and swung by senior students, much in the tradition of Spain. The next feast day for swinging the grand censer will be the solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, on Nov. 23.

Selvaggi told CNA that in works produced by Heritage Liturgical, the Catholic principle of sacramentality applies at their conception so that designers and artists use matter, as do theologians, to “make a spiritual reality encounterable in the world.”

Both Selvaggi and León are working on other projects destined for the U.S., including helping to restore churches in Nebraska and Georgia, and designing mosaics for churches in Wisconsin. The message from the company affirmed that the new thurible at Christendom College is “captivating not only because of its size and beauty, but more importantly, because it reveals something that already exists: the love of God that causes us to send our prayers rising up to God.”

Possible U.S. government shutdown could disrupt military Masses, meals for preschoolers

unitedyam September 27, 2025

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Andrea Izzotti/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 27, 2025 / 08:30 am (CNA).

A looming U.S. government shutdown could affect Roman Catholic churches and Catholic institutions that depend on government funding.

The closure, which will come about if lawmakers cannot agree on a spending package to fund the federal government, could pause military members’ ability to attend Mass, interrupt subsidized meals for preschoolers in Catholic schools and limit assistance with church security. Congress so far lacks agreement on funding federal agencies when the budget year begins on Oct. 1.

A shutdown would mean housing, health and food programs for people in need could experience cascading delays, according to a Sept. 26 statement by Catholic Charities USA.

“A government shutdown would result in more people falling into poverty, and the recovery from such a setback could take several months or even years,” the statement said.

“One thing we can all agree on is that the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable in society should not suffer because lawmakers cannot come to an agreement.”

Besides Church-related programs, a shutdown would affect a range of other services, including education for at-risk preschoolers, scientific research, and grants to charitable organizations.

Many Catholic entities rely on federal funding from Head Start, an early childhood education program that offers health screenings and meals to families below the federal poverty level.

Military Masses, Church security

Military worship services could be affected in a lengthy shutdown. In an extended shutdown in 2013, the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA said it would lack a Catholic priest to celebrate Sunday Mass at chapels at some U.S. military installations where non-active-duty priests serve as government contractors.

A spokesperson for the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Federal efforts to “maintain safe and secure houses of worship” also could be degraded at the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency in a government shutdown. Two children died in August in a mass shooting at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The federal agency provides resources that assist houses of worship in securing physical and digital infrastructure. The department said in anticipation of a narrowly avoided government shutdown in 2023 that it “would also be forced to suspend both physical and cybersecurity assessments for government and industry partners.”

Federal agencies have not yet issued contingency plans for a potential shutdown, and the security agency did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Pro-life group pledges million to Georgia and Michigan Senate races

unitedyam September 26, 2025

null / Credit: Andy via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

CNA Staff, Sep 26, 2025 / 16:28 pm (CNA).

Here is a roundup of recent pro-life and abortion-related news:

Pro-life group pledges $9 million to Georgia and Michigan Senate races

A pro-life advocacy group is launching a massive $9 million campaign in the Senate races of Georgia and Michigan.

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America and its partner group, Women Speak Out PAC, are working to flip the U.S. Senate in Michigan, pouring $4.5 million into a field effort for the state’s open Senate seat.

Focused in Lansing, Detroit, and Grand Rapids, the pro-life groups aim to expand the U.S. Senate’s pro-life majority. In Michigan, four Planned Parenthoods have closed this year after Congress paused funding for abortion providers.

In Georgia, the same groups will pour $4.5 million into a field effort for Georgia’s U.S. Senate election. The campaign — aiming to defeat U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Georgia senator who has backed pro-abortion policies — will be focused in Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, and Chattanooga.

SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser said in a Sept. 24 statement that the group aims to “stop the abortion lobby from clawing back $500 million in annual Medicaid dollars for their own political machine.”

“No American should be forced to bankroll a brutal industry that kills over 1.1 million unborn children each year, harms women with substandard care, and funnels millions into partisan politics — especially when better, more accessible health care alternatives outnumber Planned Parenthood 15 to 1,” Dannenfelser said.

Pro-life groups celebrate as Google admits to political censorship

Pro-life groups that have experienced censorship in the past are celebrating after Google admitted to political censorship under the Biden administration.

The tech giant admitted the censorship to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan and said it was taking steps to open previously banned YouTube accounts.

Kelsey Pritchard, the political communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said companies like Google have a pattern of targeting pro-life advocacy groups.

“We are not at all surprised by Google’s admissions of censorship,” Pritchard told CNA.

“For years, tech giants have demonstrated a pattern of bias, actively undermining, suppressing, and censoring groups like Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who share the pro-life message in a highly effective way.”

In a timeline on its website, Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America detailed censorship and suppression of pro-life groups since 2015 by sites such as Facebook, Yelp, and Google.

For instance, in 2022, Google allegedly shadow banned an online educational resource by Life Issues Institute. In 2021, Google banned Live Action and Heartbeat International’s abortion pill reversal advertisements, including Live Action’s Baby Olivia video, detailing the growth of an unborn child.

SBA Pro-Life America also criticized the Biden administration for allegedly targeting pro-life activists with the law.

“The Biden administration, too, weaponized federal might to target pro-life Americans and even put peaceful activists in jail,” Pritchard said. “The right to voice one’s convictions is a foundational American value and the pro-life movement will always fight back against censorship.”

Students for Life of America spokesperson Jordan Butler, meanwhile, told CNA that the pro-life group “is no stranger to the challenges of free speech in the digital age.”

“While we’ve been fortunate to avoid censorship on platforms like YouTube and Google, TikTok has proven to be a battleground: banning our content 180 times in just 24 hours,” Butler said.

After outcry from pro-life advocates, Butler said the TikTok account, belonging to Lydia Taylor Davis, was restored.

She sees this as “proof that when we stand together, we can push back.”

“That’s why unity matters now more than ever in defending pro-life free speech across America,” Butler said.

“Abortion propaganda is everywhere online, saturating platforms from social media to search engines,” she continued. “Whether it’s digital censorship or campus pushback, we fight relentlessly to protect our voice and our values.”

‘Second-chance-at-life’ bill could protect unborn children across the nation

A group of U.S. congressmen is introducing a bill that could give unborn children a second chance at life even if a mother takes the first pill in the chemical abortion regimen.

U.S. Rep. August Pfluger, R-Texas, recently introduced the Second Chance at Life Act, which is designed to protect unborn children and mothers from the harms of abortion.

The act, co-sponsored by 16 representatives from 13 states, would establish federal informed consent requirements for abortion pills. This would require abortion providers to inform women seeking to terminate their pregnancies that a chemical abortion can be reversible after the first abortion pill is taken.

Pfluger said many women “are pressured into taking the abortion pill without being fully informed of all their options” and later “express deep regret as they come to terms with the loss of their unborn child.”

“It is unacceptable that so many women are never told by their provider that the effects of the first pill can be reversible,” Pfluger said in a Sept. 18 statement.

Pfluger said the legislation will “empower women to make fully informed choices at every stage of the process, protecting their right to know the full details” about the drugs.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, supported the bill in a statement, noting that women are often pressured into abortion.

“Many mothers regret their abortions and wish they had been told about abortion pill reversal before it was too late,” she said. “And too many women are exposed to the deadly pills by those who are coercing them.”

Senate investigates alleged abortion facilitation by Virginia school faculty

U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, is investigating allegations that school officials in Virginia facilitated an abortion for a minor and attempted to do the same for another student without notifying their parents.

Cassidy, who chairs the U.S. Senate Health Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, sent a letter to Superintendent Michelle Reid demanding answers after an investigative reporter broke the news that officials at Fairfax County’s Centreville High School reportedly pressured students to have abortions.

Missouri judge approves pro-life ballot measure, requires plainer language

A Cole County Circuit judge approved a ballot measure that would protect minors and unborn children from transgender surgeries and abortion, respectively, if passed by Missouri voters.

Because the ballot combines protections for minors against transgender surgeries and pro-life protections, activists challenged it in court. But Judge Daniel Green approved the combination in a Sept. 19 ruling, with the caveat that the ballot measure language must explicitly state that it would repeal a previous ballot measure.

The previous ballot measure, passed in 2024, created a right to abortion in the Missouri Constitution.

Wisconsin Planned Parenthood pauses abortions after federal funding cut

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin will stop scheduling abortions beginning Oct. 1 following federal funding cuts by the Trump administration.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin President and CEO Tanya Atkinson said the pause is meant to be temporary as the group deals with Medicaid funding cuts following the “Big Beautiful Bill.” The location will continue to operate and offer other services in the meantime.

The Trump administration temporarily paused any funding for abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood. At least 40 Planned Parenthoods are closing this year.

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte charged with murder

unitedyam September 26, 2025

Former Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte gives a speech during a campaign rally at Southorn Stadium on March 9, 2025, in Hong Kong, China. / Credit: Anthony Kwan/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 26, 2025 / 14:36 pm (CNA).

Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte charged with murder

After Filipino Catholic bishops welcomed the arrest of Rodrigo Duterte in March, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has now charged Duterte, the former president of the Philippines, with murder.

The three charges laid against Duterte, made public on Sept. 22, were dated back to July, according to the BBC. The first charge relates to Duterte’s involvement in the murder of 19 people in Davao City while he served as mayor from 2013 to 2016. The remaining charges relate to Duterte’s “war on drugs,” which saw the murder of 14 people across the country and the attempted murder of 45 others.

Caritas Philippines President Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo of Kidapawan called Duterte’s detention a critical step toward justice, Vatican News reported in March. “For years Duterte has claimed that he is ready to face the consequences of his actions. Now is the time for him to prove it,” the bishop said.

Syriac Catholic bishop discusses role of Christians in rebuilding Syria

In a meeting with the Levantine National Council, Syriac Catholic Bishop Hanna Jallouf discussed the role of Christians in public life as the country rebuilds after the fall of the Assad regime last winter.

According to a report from the Syriac Press, the meeting took place on Sept. 25 at the Monastery of St. Lazarus in Daramsuq (Damascus). “The meeting featured an in-depth discussion on the country’s current challenges, focusing on ways to enhance the role of Christians in public life while also addressing their concerns and fears amid ongoing instability,” the report said.

Jallouf reportedly advocated for “citizenship and pluralism as the foundation for Syria’s stability” and encouraged the council to continue its efforts “to preserve the Church’s witness and unity” amid a period marked by fear for Christians and other religious minorities in the country.

Christians in India suffer harassment, arrests at hands of Hindu groups

Police in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh arrested 14 Christians on Sept. 19 for allegedly violating the state’s stringent anti-conversion law and the national criminal code, according to UCA News.

The report also noted that a group of 19 girls accompanied by a Catholic nun and two staff members of a nongovernmental organization were also arrested Sept. 19 in Jharkhand, which borders Uttar Pradesh from the south, for violating the conversion law as well. The group was released the following day. According to Church sources cited in the report, the arrests were made after “allegations by some right-wing Hindu groups as the girls were traveling to attend a training program, and the nuns came to the railway station to welcome them.”

Chair of Philippines Bishops’ Conference speaks out against corruption

Bishop Broderick Pabillo of Taytay in Palawan, Philippines, chair of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Office on Stewardship, has published a pastoral letter condemning the normalization of corruption in the country.

“We must not accept corruption as the norm — it is stealing the people’s taxes,” he said in the letter, according to local reports, pointing out that government funds have been redirected away from critical services such as hospitals, clean water initiatives, safe roads, and electricity for political reasons. “If we want to reduce corruption, we must stop voting for relatives in power,” the bishop added.

Chaldean Catholics return to ancestral homeland in Turkey after nearly half a century

A Chaldean Catholic community from the southeast village of Köreli in the Şirnak Silopi district of Turkey returned to their ancestral homeland after nearly half a century, according to a local report on Sept. 25.

About 150 pilgrims, who traveled from across Turkey and abroad, participated in the 10-day visit and celebrated a “deeply symbolic Mass and offered prayers at the village cemetery.”

According to the report, Turkey’s Chaldean Catholic Archbishop Sabri Anar expressed gratitude to the government and for those who welcomed the group. “Our aim is to reconcile those who left this land with their past and show them that the region is safe,” he noted. “Each visit fills us with happiness. In the eyes of our people, we can see the longing for homeland, for soil, and for history.”

Australian bishop returned to public ministry after abuse allegation dismissed

Bishop Richard Umbers of the Archdiocese of Sydney has been reinstated to public ministry after an independent investigation determined abuse allegations lodged against him were “not sustained,” according to an internal email cited in a Sept. 24 report by the Pillar.

“The report from the independent investigator highlighted information given by the complainant that was inconsistent with other evidence obtained and therefore, the investigator could not be satisfied that the alleged conduct occurred,” the email by archdiocesan vicar general Father Samuel Lynch said.

The claim of historical abuse against the Opus Dei bishop had been made in early July, after which he stepped down in accordance with archdiocesan protocol.

Bangladesh Catholics fear Muslim extremist persecution as elections loom

The Catholic community in Bangladesh is “living in fear” of persecution as Islamic fundamentalism is on the rise and elections loom in the coming February, according to a Sept. 24 Crux report.

“We are afraid of the upcoming elections. Because, before and after the elections, we have been subjected to many injustices and this time there is a greater possibility of it. So, we are constantly praying to God to protect us,” Welcome Lamba, a leader of the Khasi Indigenous village of Pratappur Punjee, told Crux, which noted that there were over 1,000 cases of human rights violations against religious minorities in the country from 2023 to 2024.

Australia donates vehicles to Catholic Church Health Services in Papua New Guinea

After government officials in Papua New Guinea (PNG) announced in June a nationwide HIV emergence, the Australian government has now donated “a fleet of vehicles” to the Catholic Church Health Services in PNG to help aid efforts to expand access to treatment for HIV, according to a local report on Sept. 25.

“The vehicles will support outreach services that include community-based HIV testing, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, antiretroviral therapy adherence, and referrals to other clinics and social services,” the report stated.

Angolan bishop speaks out against deforestation, poaching

Bishop Martín Lasarte Topolansky in Lwena, Angola, spoke out this week against escalating environmental destruction in eastern Angola, particularly in border areas with Zambia, where illegal logging and poaching are severely impacting the population, ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, reported Thursday.

“It is with a heavy heart that I see the felling of precious trees and the disappearance of animals that are part of our environmental heritage. We are witnessing a true plunder of what belongs to the Angolan people,” Lasarte told ACI Africa, while recalling a recent pastoral visit to communities in Eastern Moxico.

The bishop also noted “illegal exploitation of our forests by foreign citizens crossing our border,” likely by Zambians taking advantage of weak local enforcement. He further called on the Angolan government to secure the country’s eastern border and establish stricter environmental laws. “This land is a gift from God, and we will be accountable for how we treat it,” he said.

unitedyam September 26, 2025

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying NASA’s IMAP (Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe), the agency’s Carruthers Geocorona Observatory, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Follow On–Lagrange 1 (SWFO-L1) spacecraft lifts off from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2025. The missions will each focus on different effects of the solar wind — the continuous stream of particles emitted by the Sun — and space weather — the changing conditions in space driven by the Sun — from their origins at the Sun to their farthest reaches billions of miles away at the edge of our solar system.

New York prosecutor drops charges against suspect in bloody assault on pro-life advocate

unitedyam September 26, 2025

Catholic pro-life activist Savannah Craven Antao was assaulted in New York City on Thursday, April 3, 2025, while conducting a video interview with a pro-abortion advocate. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Savannah Craven Antao

CNA Staff, Sep 26, 2025 / 10:37 am (CNA).

The suspect in the violent assault of a pro-life advocate in New York City earlier this year will not face charges after a prosecutor’s office dropped the case against the alleged assailant.

The Thomas More Society said this week it was launching a civil lawsuit against Brianna Rivers over her alleged assault of Savannah Craven Antao after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg dismissed the case.

Rivers struck Antao in the face and left her bloodied in the April assault in Manhattan. The assault, which was caught on camera, came as Antao was calmly interviewing Rivers and debating pro-life politics with her.

VIDEO OF THE ASSAULT OF PRO LIFE JOURNALIST BY PRO-ABORTION ADVOCATE IN NEW YORK

Savannah Craven was working with Live Action conducting man on the street interviews, asking “Do you know what Planned Parenthood does?” when she was attacked

She is at hospital now pic.twitter.com/oTOKATXsjp

— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) April 4, 2025

Antao told CNA in April that she “had absolutely no time to see that it was coming.”

“I regularly do street interviews for my YouTube channel and various other organizations,” she said at the time. “This isn’t something I’m not used to doing. It was just like any other day.”

Antao’s injuries required a trip to the hospital and stitches. The Thomas More Society this week said the hospital visit resulted in $3,000 worth of bills.

Christopher Ferrara, a senior lawyer with the Thomas More Society, said this week that Bragg’s dismissal of the charges “only works to undermine confidence in the system, especially when our political climate has become as fraught as it is now.”

“Failing to prosecute these clear-cut charges sets a dangerous standard for how our society responds to violence against those engaging in democratic dialogue,” he said.

Antao did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNA on Sept. 26. In the Thomas More Society’s press release, she criticized the prosecutor’s decision to “quietly let the charges fade away” in spite of the “indisputable evidence” of the recording of the assault.

“Political violence should never be tolerated or given a free pass,” she said. “When those in power refuse to hold accountable those who respond to free speech with violence, it threatens the very fabric of our civil society.”

Bragg’s office did not immediately respond to a phone call and email seeking comment.

Ferrara said the lawsuit will seek punitive damages for Antao.

“Savannah’s assailant may have been spared criminal consequences by the Manhattan DA’s failure, but we will see to it that she faces accountability,” he said.

Notre Dame announces investigation into alleged sexual misconduct by dorm hall priest

unitedyam September 25, 2025

University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. / Credit: Peter Zelasko/CNA

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.

Catholic University of America panel explores how Christians should think about AI

unitedyam September 25, 2025

From left: Ross Douthat, media fellow at the Institute for Human Ecology; Will Wilson, CEO of AI company Antithesis; Father Michael Baggot, LC, professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome; and Brian J.A. Boyd, director for the Center for Ethics and Economic Justice at Loyola University New Orleans discuss AI and the Church on Sept. 23, 2025, at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Tessa Gervasini/CNA

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.”

Catholic AI

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 Church’s place in AI

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.”

Bishop Checchio to join troubled Archdiocese of New Orleans as coadjutor

unitedyam September 24, 2025

Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen, New Jersey, on Sept. 24, 2025, was named coadjutor bishop of the Archdiocese of New Orleans. / Credit: Leo Song, Seminarian, Pontifical North American College

Rome Newsroom, Sep 24, 2025 / 06:25 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday named Bishop James Checchio coadjutor archbishop of New Orleans, positioning him to head an archdiocese facing bankruptcy and a costly clergy abuse settlement.

The 59-year-old Checchio — bishop of Metuchen, New Jersey, since 2016 — will assist Archbishop Gregory Aymond in the leadership of over half a million Catholics in southeastern Louisiana. Prior to becoming a bishop, Checchio was rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome from 2006 to 2016. He has a doctorate in canon law.

As coadjutor, Checchio will automatically succeed Aymond, who turned 75, the age when bishops are required to submit their resignation to the pope, last year. Aymond, a New Orleans native, has led the archdiocese since 2009.

Checchio joins the leadership of New Orleans as the archdiocese moves to resolve yearslong bankruptcy negotiations with a settlement for over 600 clergy sexual abuse claimants. Earlier this month, the archdiocese announced a $230 million settlement offer to clergy sexual abuse claimants, up from a previous offer of $180 million.

The settlement offer follows five years of negotiations in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, where the nation’s second-oldest Catholic archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in May 2020.

Aymond, who has served as chairman of the child protection commission for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said in May that the settlement gave him “great hope.”

The agreement “protects our parishes and begins to bring the proceedings to a close,” he said, adding: “I am grateful to God for all who have worked to reach this agreement and that we may look to the future towards a path to healing for survivors and for our local Church.”

Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans in Rome on Jan. 26, 2012. Credit: Alan Holdren/CNA

The settlement represents one of the largest sums in the U.S. paid out to victims of clergy sexual abuse.

Aymond was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of New Orleans in 1975. His priestly ministry focused on education — including serving as the president-rector of Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans from 1986 to 2000 — and missionary work in Mexico and Nicaragua.

In 1996, he was appointed auxiliary bishop of the archdiocese and given oversight over its Catholic schools.

Aymond came under fire in the late 1990s for allowing the coach at Sacred Heart of Jesus School in Norco, Brian Matherne, to remain in his role for several months after Aymond received information about alleged abuse of a minor boy by Matherne.

Matherne was later arrested and is now serving a 30-year sentence after pleading guilty to the molestation of 17 children over a 15-year period ending in 1999.

Aymond later admitted his mistake in keeping Matherne in his post and called the case a “painful experience — I will never forget it. It helped me to understand the complexity of pedophilia better.”

He was appointed coadjutor bishop of Austin, Texas, in June 2000 and succeeded Bishop John E. McCarthy as bishop of Austin in January 2021.

In that position, Aymond strengthened the diocese’s sex abuse policies, though clerical abuse activists from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) have criticized the archbishop’s record, claiming he only “postures as someone who takes clergy sex crimes seriously.”

Abortion pill complications are underreported, report finds

unitedyam September 24, 2025

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.”

Mothers urge lawmakers to ban assault weapons after Minneapolis Catholic school shooting

unitedyam September 22, 2025

Police gather at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis on Aug. 27, 2025, following a mass shooting that killed two children and injured 17 others, 14 of them children. / Credit: Chad Davis, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Sep 22, 2025 / 17:17 pm (CNA).

At a town hall meeting in Plymouth, Minnesota, over the weekend, three mothers whose children survived the school shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in August advocated for stricter gun laws.

Two children were killed and 21 people were injured after Robin Westman, 23, a man who identified as a woman, shot through the stained-glass windows of the church during a school Mass on Aug. 27.

Fletcher Merkel, 8, and Harper Moyski, 10, were killed in the attack.

Carla Maldonado, who has two children at Annunciation Catholic School, said “taking action” by tightening gun laws would honor the deaths of the two children and “all lives taken by gun violence.”

“We cannot accept a world where civilians have access to weapons designed for battlefields,” she said, referring to assault weapons and calling for their prohibition.

Another mother, Malia Kimbrell, who also supports an assault weapons ban, asked: “If the next mass shooting happens at your child’s school, what type of weapon are you comfortable with the shooter being armed with?”

Kimbrell, whose daughter Vivian, 9, is recovering after she was shot multiple times, advocated for “more mental health resources and safer gun storage and better background checks and detecting potential threats online and improved security measures.”

Stephanie Moscetti said her son “was an honorary pallbearer at his friend’s [Merkel’s] funeral; how is this our reality?”

“Our kids deserve safe schools, they deserve safe childhoods where they can play and learn,” she said.

Rep. Kelly Morrison, a Democrat who represents Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District, organized the town hall meeting, which focused on the prevention of gun violence.

Several of the mothers at the town hall also testified last week before a working group of state lawmakers who deliberated over proposed reforms dealing with gun violence.

At the hearing, Rob Doar, senior vice president of the Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus, asked lawmakers to strengthen the law surrounding mental health resources access, pointing out that none of the proposals put forward would have prevented the shooting because Westman legally purchased the weapons.

Westman used three firearms during the August attack: a rifle, a shotgun, and a pistol, all of which were purchased legally under existing state law. The rifle was likely an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, which is considered an assault weapon.

Laws limiting those with mental health disorders from gun possession

Though Westman struggled with his gender identity, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed “gender identity disorder” from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and replaced it with “gender dysphoria” in the revised version, known as the DSM-5, published in 2013.

This change marked a significant shift in how struggles with a person’s sexual identity are classified, with health care professionals no longer calling it a mental illness.

The new classification of gender dysphoria, though it is still in the APA’s manual of mental disorders, addresses the symptoms, or the distress, associated with gender incongruence and not the incongruence itself.

Minnesota, along with 29 other states, bars people with mental health issues who have been involuntarily committed or found to be a danger to self or others from possessing a gun.

This law did not come into play in the August shooting, however.

Gov. Tim Walz in early September called for a special session, which has yet to take place, that will focus on gun safety. He proposed banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazine clips as well as more safety regulations concerning storage and a stronger red flag law.

Minnesota’s current red flag law allows family or local and state officials to ask for an extreme risk protection order, or ERPO, which allows them to petition the court to have an at-risk person’s guns removed or to temporarily prohibit that person from buying a gun.

“We passed a red flag law. It was passed in 2023 and it was supposed to deal with a situation like this,” Minnesota House Republican leader Harry Niska said in early September after Walz proposed the special session. “So I hope everyone is asking serious questions about why — why did this incident not trigger either a background check flag or a red flag?”

Walz will need the support of Republican lawmakers in the special session, and they have different proposals. They want to make private school security eligible for state funding, something the Minnesota Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of Minnesota’s six Catholic dioceses, has asked for multiple times.

Republicans also want to allow doctors more discretion concerning transgender medical procedures, more funds for mental health facilities, and harsher penalties for certain gun crimes.

Ten states ban assault weapons, but the proposal in Minnesota failed to come up for a vote in 2023. Just over half of rural residents opposed an assault weapons ban in a 2022 MinnPost poll, while 69% of urban dwellers supported it. Overall, the poll found that nearly 54% supported it.

Minnesota already has one of the nation’s stronger gun regulation frameworks, according to Everytown Research, which ranks the state 14th in the country for gun safety policies.

The state requires universal background checks for all firearm sales, including private transfers, and domestic violence protections prohibit access for those under restraining orders or with misdemeanor convictions, among many other regulations.

Bomb squad called after Christian nonprofit in Ireland receives possible anthrax

unitedyam September 20, 2025

null / Credit: Andrius Zemaitis/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 20, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed.

Bomb squad called after Christian nonprofit CEO in Ireland receives anthrax

The Irish Army bomb squad blocked off part of Dublin city center this week after David Quinn, CEO of the Iona Institute, received a letter in the mail containing a white powdery substance purporting to be anthrax. In a post on social media, Quinn wrote: “Received this in the post today. Nice,” sharing an image of a letter containing the white substance, which read: “Happy anthrax.”

Received in the post today. Nice. pic.twitter.com/PsEfUTV4OY

— David Quinn (@DavQuinn) September 16, 2025

“I opened up the thing about 1 o’clock and all this powder comes out,” Quinn told the Irish Independent. “It was just addressed ‘Iona Institute,’ so it’s basically targeting me and Breda O’Brien,” he continued, adding: “I can only imagine that it’s somebody with a hang-up about the Catholic Church.”

Catholic monastery in Corfu closes after 381 years due to ‘lack of vocations’

The Capuchin Fathers monastery in Corfu, Greece, has been shut down after nearly 400 years due to a “lack of vocations,” according to the Greek Reporter.

A final Mass at the monastery was celebrated by the Catholic archbishop of Corfu, Georgios Altouvas, this week, the report said, noting that “worshippers who had long turned to the friars for guidance and support wept as they bid farewell to the last brothers.” The order reportedly said they could no longer find friars to continue running the monastery’s operations.

Mass attendance in Austria goes up, disaffiliation goes down

Mass attendance in Austria has gone up, according to statistics reported by the Pillar on Sept. 17, and the number of individuals filing for formal disaffiliation from the Church has gone down in the past year.

In addition to the positive attendance trend, the annual statistics also found a rise in Church tax revenue. According to the Pillar, the data reflects a rise from 309,000 worshippers in the spring of 2022 to 378,797 in the fall of 2024. “Attendance rose in the Sankt Pölten Diocese, led by Bishop Alois Schwarz, from 40,193 and 42,652 in 2023 to 63,520 and 46,179 in 2024. In the Vienna Archdiocese, the increase was from 56,906 and 63,157 in 2023 to 78,806 and 84,621 in 2024,” the Pillar reported.

Church in Nepal joins government in condemning unrest

The apostolic administrator of the Vicariate of Nepal, Father Silas Bogati, has signaled approval of the new interim government led by former Chief Justice Sushila Karki amid ongoing anti-corruption protests that have left at least 72 dead, according to UCA news.

“We as a Catholic community have confidence in Sushila Karki, who, among other things, in the past, when she was still a lawyer, defended one of our priests and some religious sisters who had been wrongly accused in several court cases,” Bogati said of the country’s new interim leader. “We have a good opinion of her and trust in her work in the coming months to act in accordance with the rule of law and the democratic principles of justice and legality.”

Democratic Republic of Congo bishops denounce latest killings

The National Episcopal Conference of Congo has condemned the new wave of deadly attacks in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo, decrying what they describe as the growing trivialization of human life in the Central African nation, according to ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa.

In a Sept. 16 statement shared with ACI Africa, the bishops highlighted recent attacks and expressed concern about the “evolution of the security situation, particularly in the eastern part of the country, which continues to suffer enormous loss of human life as a result of various forms of violence.” The deadliest incident, the Church leaders said, occurred Sept. 8 when at least 102 people were killed in Ntoyo village, Lubero Territory.

Benin bishop: Jihadist attacks ‘a constant threat to our pastoral activities’

Bishop Martin Adjou Moumouni of the Diocese of N’Dali in the West African country of Benin is speaking out after jihadists carried out an attack on a local village, targeting its police station, looting homes, and taking at least six hostages, according to statements the prelate made to Fides News Agency.

“Nigerian Jihadists have long been spreading terror in our diocese, especially in rural areas,” the bishop said. “We were forced to suspend pastoral activities in the villages, and even in the city, I asked the priests of my diocese to hold services only during daylight hours, as insecurity increases with nightfall.”

Cardinal Vincent Nichols signs joint statement to end war in Gaza

The president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, has signed a joint statement with Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and other church leaders from England and Ireland, pushing for an end to the war in Gaza.

“We fear that the unfolding assault on Gaza City will only intensify the human suffering and misery as already malnourished and traumatized families are forced, yet again, to flee the horrors of this war,” the statement reads. “This deadly escalation is futile and must stop.” The statement comes ahead of the United Nations’ International Day of Peace on Sept. 21, for which many Christian leaders have organized a day of prayer and public witness.

Christians in Syria divided over police presence at churches

Syria’s Ministry of the Interior has tightened security measures around churches by deploying armed guards at their entrances following the St. Elias Church bombing in June, according to a Sept. 16 report from ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner.

“Many believe that the guards give them a sense of comfort and reassurance during prayer, as it provides a layer of protection,” said Joseph Kneifati, a deacon in the Melkite Greek Catholic Archdiocese of Aleppo. “But on the other hand, the church is our second home, sometimes even our first.”

“When we enter and are asked where we’re going, it feels less natural,” he added. “Since childhood, we’ve been accustomed to attending church freely and simply. The presence of armed personnel at the doors has erased that spirit.”

Anti-assisted-suicide group says suicide laws expanding throughout U.S. in 2025

unitedyam September 19, 2025

null / Credit: nito/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 19, 2025 / 14:31 pm (CNA).

This week the Patients Rights Action Fund, which works to “end the dangerous and discriminatory public policy of assisted suicide,” provided an update on current assisted suicide legislation in the United States, revealing the deadly practice’s ongoing expansion throughout the country.

In a Sept. 18 webinar, group coalitions director Jessica Rodgers explained that most states that allow assisted suicide follow the “Oregon model,” based on Oregan’s assisted suicide criteria.

The model requires “the patient to be 18 years of age or older, have a terminal illness with six months or less to live, make two or more separate requests with a 15-day waiting period in between, and have two witnesses, which can include heirs to the estate or friends of heirs,” Rodgers said.

“The drugs must be self-administered and all states do require the falsification of the death certificate,” Rodgers said, meaning the states list the underlying condition that qualifies the patient as the cause of death rather than the prescribed drug that ends his or her life.

States attempting expansions to assisted suicide laws

In 2025, new legislation was proposed in a number of states where assisted suicide is legal to advance its polices and limit some of the “safeguards” in place.

A New Jersey bill was proposed that would remove the 15-day waiting period and the second request if the prescriber thinks death will occur within the time period. The bill is still in play and has not been passed yet.

In Maine, a 15-day waiting period was reduced to seven days in cases when it is “in the best interests of the patient” according to the judgment of the prescriber. The legislation was passed and signed by the governor after the original version was amended that would have allowed the whole waiting period to be waived.

A Delaware bill passed that allows for advanced practice nurses to prescribe the medication that kills the patients. The bill has no requirements for an in-person exam or a mental health evaluation.

California proposed a major change that reduced the 15-day waiting period for assisted suicide to only 48 hours. The bill also removes the sunset date, which will keep the End of Life Option Act from expiring. The bill passed last week and is awaiting a signature by the governor.

Some states proposed expansions, but the legislation did not advance. In Washington, D.C., there was a public hearing on a bill that would remove the waiting period in certain cases, but no action was taken.

An Oregon bill was also not advanced that proposed nurse practitioners and physician assistants could prescribe to patients seeking assisted suicide. It also pushed for the waiting period to be reduced from 15 days to 48 hours and would waive the period completely if death is “expected imminently.”

Proposed legislation to legalize assisted suicide

Assisted suicide is legal in 10 states and D.C., but a number of other states have active legislation to legalize it.

In New York a bill to legalize assisted suicide was approved and is awaiting signature by the governor, which she must sign by the end of the year. The bill does not require the patient to be a resident of the state, has no waiting period, and does not require an in-person exam or a mental health evaluation.

In Rhode Island assisting a suicide is a felony, but there is proposed legislation to legalize assisted suicide that would require an in-person evaluation. The bill requires a 15-day waiting period between requests and an additional 48-hour waiting period that begins after the patient submits his or her signed request for the medication.

Nevada does not authorize assisted suicide, but legislation pushing for it proposed advanced practice nurses to be allowed to prescribe the drugs, no in-person exam requirement, only one witness necessarily, and no requirement for the patient to be a resident of the state.

The Nevada legislation does detail that the prescribed drugs would be the cause of death on the certificate rather than the underlying condition.

Legislation in Maryland would not require a mental health evaluation and has a broad meaning for “terminal illness” that can include treatable conditions. The bill has provisions that allow a patient to communicate through someone else “familiar with the individual’s manner of communicating.”

Proposed legislation in Massachusetts also has a broad definition for “terminal illness” that can include treatable conditions. There was a public hearing in Massachusetts in the state Joint Public Health Committee, which then moved the bill to a second committee on the state House side where it is still active.

In New Hampshire, a bill is pushing for no residency requirement, no in-person examination requirement, a broad “terminal illness” definition, and no mental health evaluation. The legislation also proposed a 48-hour waiting period and would allow for advanced practice nurses and physician assistants to prescribe the drugs.

A Tennessee House bill pushing the legalization of assisted suicide primarily follows the Oregon model. It does have a broad meaning for “terminal illness” that can include treatable conditions. On March 4, the first committee hearing was held on the matter, but it was rejected.

In Illinois, a 2025 bill to legalize assisted suicide in the state stalled and will cross over to the 2026 session. The bill had a five-day waiting period, no requirement for mental health evaluation, and broad terminal diagnosis language.

As legislation continues to be proposed and advances in assisted suicide expand, Patients Rights Action Fund highlighted the lack of mental health evaluations across states and noted that waiting periods are being quickly reduced after the initial passing of legislation.

“Ultimately, assisted suicide laws are inherently discriminatory,” Rodgers said on Sept. 18.

“They take a segment of our neighbors and say: ‘You get a lower standard of care than everybody else,’” she said. “The patients that qualify for assisted suicide are already inherently in a more vulnerable state because of their diagnosis and because of the financial costs that they’re facing with health care and the cost of treatment.”

Report: Charlie Kirk was ‘this close’ to becoming Catholic just prior to his death

unitedyam September 19, 2025

Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk speaks at the Republican National Convention on July 15, 2024, in Milwaukee. / Credit: Maxim Elramsisy/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 19, 2025 / 12:02 pm (CNA).

Slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk was reportedly strongly considering becoming Catholic just prior to his assassination, according to a bishop who spoke to him shortly before his killing.

Robert Brennan, a Los Angeles-based writer and the brother of Fresno, California, Bishop Joseph Brennan, said in a Sept. 18 column in the Los Angeles archdiocesan newspaper Angelus that Kirk had a “personal exchange” with the California prelate about a week before Kirk’s murder at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.

The writer Brennan, who said Bishop Brennan gave him permission to share the story, wrote that Kirk had spoken to the prelate at a prayer breakfast in Visalia. The conservative activist “told the bishop about his Catholic wife and children and how he attended Mass with them.”

Bishop Joseph Brennan of the Diocese of Fresno in California. Credit: Thank You (22 Millions+) views from Los Angeles, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Kirk acknowledged “speculation” about his possible interest in becoming Catholic, Brennan wrote in Angelus; he subsequently told Bishop Brennan: “I’m this close” to converting.

In his Angelus column Brennan pointed to a recent video Kirk made in which he acknowledged some “big disagreements” with Catholicism but claimed that Protestants “under-value” the Blessed Mother.

“We don’t talk about Mary enough. We don’t venerate her enough,” Kirk said, arguing that Mary is “the solution” to “toxic feminism” in the U.S.

“[H]ow fitting one of Charlie Kirk’s last videos was about the preeminent mediatrix of all time and space,” Robert Brennan wrote in Angelus. “In his own way he was reaching out to her, and now, I am convinced, she is returning the favor.”

Kirk was fatally shot while taking questions from audience members during a stop at Utah Valley University as part of his “American Comeback Tour.” He is survived by his wife, Erika Frantzve, and their 3-year-old daughter and 1-year-old son.

Prominent Catholics around the world have joined in the chorus of voices mourning Kirk’s death in the days since he was killed. German Catholic Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller referred to Kirk this week as “a martyr for Jesus Christ” and condemned the “satanic celebration” of his death by some of his detractors.

Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America and Students for Life Action and a close friend of Kirk’s, said on Sept. 13 that the activist’s death “will be a turning point” for the country.

And Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts said Kirk’s activism “restored optimism about the American future for millions of Americans.”

Lila Rose delivers strong pro-life message in Yale debate with Frances Kissling

unitedyam September 19, 2025

Lila Rose (left) debates Frances Kissling on Sept. 16, 2025, at Yale University. / Credit: Live Action via YouTube screenshot

National Catholic Register, Sep 19, 2025 / 10:40 am (CNA).

The news that pro-life activist Lila Rose was declared the winner by students attending a debate earlier this week with an abortion activist at Yale University — a campus not particularly known for its pro-life sentiment — lit up the pro-life corners of the internet.

Rose, the founder and president of Live Action, posted on X following Tuesday night’s debate, which was hosted by the Yale Political Union. She said the event’s organizer was “shocked” after those in attendance voted in favor of the pro-life argument by a margin of 60-31.

Debate just ended.

We won. The room voted for the pro-life side.

Yale organizer was shocked.

Change is here.

Thank you for praying 🙏 pic.twitter.com/fLWtBO80e6

— Lila Rose (@LilaGraceRose) September 17, 2025

For defenders of the lives of unborn babies, it was heartening to see apparent evidence that arguments against abortion are making headway, even at one of the country’s most elite educational institutions.

Rose’s opponent, Frances Kissling, the former head of Catholics for Choice and founding president of the National Abortion Federation, laid bare the diabolical essence of the “pro-choice” argument. An unborn baby may be human, according to Kissling, but a woman should be able to decide whether the child lives or dies.

“We need to begin to think about abortion as a conflict of values. I tend to favor more or think more about the value of women’s lives,” Kissling said.

“I’m not talking about whether they’re going to die or not,” she said. “I’m talking about the fact that they have decisions to make about how they are going to live that life,” Kissling clarified.

Kissling, who is Catholic and had spent two years as a religious sister in a convent, went on to say that abortion should be condoned by what she said is an ever-evolving Catholic Church.

“The idea that Catholicism never changes is not true, even in very serious decisions,” she said. “I was thinking about this. Whatever happened to limbo?”

“I’m in the group of Catholics who look at the idea that even the Catholic Church can change. We learn new things,” she said.

Rose countered by describing what allowing “choice” to trump life really looks like, citing the recent case of a 21-year-old college student whose newborn baby was found dead, wrapped in a towel and stuffed in a closet.

“A child hidden in a closet, his humanity denied. If this does not grieve us, then what will? This is what choice over life looks like when the choice of adults is made supreme,” Rose said.

“What about the child’s choice? That has not been represented here yet tonight. And so let me ask the question here plainly: Should murder be legal? Of course not. Then why do we excuse abortion? Abortion is the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human being,” she said.

Rose called for more federal funding for pregnancy-resource centers, for government-funded cash credits for parents, and for making childbirth free.

“Instead of turning to violence against the most vulnerable as a solution to problems that we face, instead, we should be a society that uplifts, that makes life better for the vulnerable, that focuses our energy and our efforts and our organizations and our resources on supporting women and young families and children,” Rose said.

At the conclusion of the debate, Kissling revealed that at the heart of her position is a concession that an unborn child is, in fact, a human being.

Kissling then presented the argument put forward by adherents of utilitarian moral theory that an action can be justified if it leads to the “happiness” of the greatest number of people.

The abortion activist suggested considering a “thought experiment” involving a situation in which there is a fire in a building, and one is faced with deciding whether to rescue a poor family of six or a doctor who was about to come up with a cure for cancer.

“I’m asking you to think for yourself about how much you really believe and how much you act and how all our governments act within the principle of ‘every single life [has equal value],’” she said.

“The greatest good for the greatest number of people. Good principle. Do you save the family of six or do you save the doctor? That’s it,” she said.

Following the debate, Sabrina Soriano, a junior and art history major at Yale, said she thought Rose was the clear winner.

“I think Lila definitely just swept the floor and took the trophy prize because she came in with a sense of humility, and also with a deep sense of wanting to do justice to the Church in general, and also to the unborn.”

“I think regardless of if you were pro-choice, you understood that the argument [Kissling made] was weak, and it was based on more of a crowd-surfing or sentimentality rather than the facts,” said Soriano, who is Catholic and a member of the campus pro-life group, as were many students in attendance.

Kylyn Smith, a 19-year-old senior and double major in physics and economics, told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, that while there was a strong contingent of pro-life advocates in the audience, Rose bested Kissling in the debate fair and square.

“Lila Rose valiantly defended the pro-life position with a secular, logical argument centered on the humanity of the unborn child. It was incredible watching her speak just as incisively and coherently live and in person as on her videos,” Smith said.

“Passion from attendees of all opinions quite literally rang throughout the auditorium, from hissing in disagreement to stomping in support. Ms. Rose’s cogent reasoning stood in stark contrast to the often-contradictory statements of the other guest, solidifying Lila’s win.”

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

Federal government cancels grants for fetal human tissue research

unitedyam September 18, 2025

null / Credit: Alex_Traksel/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 18, 2025 / 16:03 pm (CNA).

Here’s a roundup of recent pro-life and abortion-related news.

National Institutes of Health refuses to renew fetal tissue grants

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is refusing to renew more than a dozen grants related to human fetal tissue research.

The federal agency told Breitbart News that multiple grants involving human fetal remains “will not be renewed.” The funding was originally launched under the Biden administration, the NIH told the conservative news outlet.

The agency revealed the decision shortly after a report from the watchdog group White Coat Waste exposed the ongoing funding.

The NIH told Breitbart that it is “guided by a commitment to valuing human life and ensuring that federally funded research is conducted responsibly and transparently.”

Lila Rose wins Yale debate on abortion with pro-choice leader

Lila Rose, the founder and president of Live Action, emerged the winner in a debate about abortion at Yale Political Union, the pro-life group said this week.

The Yale group describes itself as “the oldest and largest collegiate debate society in America” and “the central forum for political engagement and debate at Yale.” Attendees are permitted to vote to determine the winner of debates after speeches are given.

Live Action reported that Rose on Sept. 16 debated Frances Kissling, a former Catholics for Choice president and the founding president of the National Abortion Federation.

Kissling “argued that preborn children are not as valuable as other humans,” while Rose “defended their humanity and pointed out the injustices that occur when society dehumanizes certain human beings,” Live Action said.

Rose “came out ahead in a 60-31 vote,” the pro-life group said.

“We won. The room voted for the pro-life side,” Rose later wrote on X. “Yale organizer was shocked. Change is here. Thank you for praying.”

Assisted suicide activists go on trial in France as country debates euthanasia

Multiple elderly defendants are on trial in France for allegedly helping dozens of people purchase deadly drugs to end their own lives.

The trial of a dozen defendants, ranging from 74 to 89 years old, comes as the country debates legalizing assisted suicide. The French National Assembly approved an assisted dying measure earlier this year, with the bill now before the national senate.

Le Monde reported this week that the 12 defendants in the recently begun trial are accused of helping patients procure the drug pentobarbital, which is used in executions in the United States but is only legal to euthanize animals in France.

The defendants are reportedly members of Ultime Liberte (“Ultimate Freedom”), a pro-assisted-suicide group.

Texas governor signs bill allowing state residents to sue abortion pill manufacturers

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Sept. 17 signed into law a measure permitting state residents to sue manufacturers of abortion pills who circulate the deadly drugs in the state.

The law, passed by the state Legislature earlier this month, will allow plaintiffs to collect up to $100,000 in damages from those who bring abortion pills into the state or provide them to Texas residents.

Pregnant women who use the pills cannot be sued under the law.

Deacon in San Diego says he will self-deport after residency status revoked

unitedyam September 17, 2025

View of the San Diego skyline. / Credit: russellstreet, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Sep 17, 2025 / 13:19 pm (CNA).

A deacon in San Diego told parishioners last week that he will voluntarily deport himself after his residency status was revoked by the U.S. government.

The deacon reportedly made the announcement at St. Jude Shrine of the West during Masses on Sept. 14. Local media reported that the clergyman came to the U.S. when he was 13 and “served the St. Jude community for roughly four decades.” He will reportedly be returning to Tijuana, Mexico.

Local reports did not identify the deacon. A diocesan representative indicated to CNA that the news reports were accurate, but the diocese said it could not identify the deacon himself and that he was handling the matter privately.

Representatives at St. Jude Parish did not respond to queries regarding the announcement.

The deacon’s self-deportation comes amid a wave of heightened immigration enforcement around the country as the Trump administration works to ramp up deportations of immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

Catholic and Christian advocates have criticized the elevated enforcement. Prior to his death, Pope Francis in February told the U.S. bishops that amid the deportations, the faithful “are called upon to consider the legitimacy of norms and public policies in the light of the dignity of the person and his or her fundamental rights, not vice versa.”

In the spring, meanwhile, religious leaders including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the National Association of Evangelicals lamented the potential impacts of mass deportations on Christian families in the U.S.

A “significant share of the immigrants who are a part of our body are vulnerable to deportation, whether because they have no legal status or their legal protections could be withdrawn,” the leaders said.

In some cases priests have faced deportation or loss of legal status amid changing immigration rules. In Texas, a Mexican-born Catholic priest who served in the Diocese of Laredo, Texas, for nine years left the United States last month because his application for residency was denied and his religious worker visa was expiring.

Catholic advocates have repeatedly warned that changes to U.S. visa rules have brought about a looming crisis in which many U.S.-based priests will be forced to leave their ministries, return to their home countries, and remain there for lengthy wait times.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told EWTN News in August that the Trump administration is “committed” to addressing that issue.

“We’ll have a plan to fix it,” Rubio said. Details of that plan have yet to be released.

Appellate court protects Baptist association’s autonomy in internal dispute

unitedyam September 17, 2025

null / Credit: Zolnierek/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 17, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

An appellate court in Mississippi dismissed an employment-related lawsuit brought against an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention, ruling that a secular court cannot intervene in matters of religious governance.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi ruled 2-1 to dismiss Will McRaney’s lawsuit against the North American Mission Board (NAMB), which he first brought over eight years ago. The court cited the long-standing church autonomy doctrine.

McRaney was fired from his role in the Baptist Convention of Maryland/Delaware (BCMD) in 2015 based on a dispute about how to implement the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) between BCMD and NAMB.

According to the court ruling, McRaney was tasked with implementing the SPA’s evangelical objectives to spread the Baptist faith “through church planting and evangelism.” The ruling states the dispute was related to “missionary selection and funding, associational giving, and missionary work requirements.”

The BCMD ultimately voted 37-0 to fire him “because of his wretched leadership,” among other reasons, according to the court. Alternatively, McRaney alleged in his lawsuit that he was fired because NAMB defamed him by spreading “disparaging falsehoods.”

The three-judge panel did not rule on the merits of the dispute, but rather a majority found that resolving the claims would require the court “to decide matters of faith and doctrine,” which the courts do not have the authority to do because religious bodies have autonomy when handling such matters based on Supreme Court precedent related to the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.

“The church is constitutionally protected against all judicial intrusion into its ecclesiastical affairs — even brief and momentary ones,” the court ruled.

“Can a secular court determine whether NAMB’s conduct was the ‘proximate cause’ of BCMD’s decision to terminate McRaney, without unlawfully intruding on a religious organization’s internal management decisions?” the judges wrote.

“And can a secular court decide it was ‘false’ that McRaney’s leadership lacked Christlike character?” they continued. “To ask these questions is to answer them: no. The SPA is not a mere civil contract; it is ‘an inherently religious document’ that is ‘steeped in religious doctrine.’”

Hiram Sasser, the executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, which helped provide legal counsel to NAMB, said in a statement that the court’s ruling is consistent with the First Amendment.

“The First Amendment prohibits the government from interfering with the autonomy of religious organizations and the church,” Sasser said. “No court should be able to tell a church who it must hire to preach their beliefs, teach their faith, or carry out their mission.”

Judge Irma Carrillo Ramirez dissented from the court’s majority, stating: “His secular claims against a third-party organization do not implicate matters of church government or of faith and doctrine.”

McRaney told Baptist News Global that he intends to petition the court for an “en banc” hearing, which would require the entirety of the appellate court to be present for a hearing. He told the outlet that NAMB “fooled the courts” and said the Southern Baptist Convention is “not a church” and he wasn’t employed by NAMB, which means it is not an internal church matter.

In 2023, a Texas judge dismissed a civil lawsuit from a Carmelite monastery against Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson on similar grounds. The dispute was over a diocesan investigation into an alleged sexual affair between the monastery’s prioress and a priest.

The Carmelite Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington, Texas, in this case ultimately entered into a formal association with the Society of St. Pius X, which is not in full communion with the Catholic Church. The bishop called this a “scandalous” act that was “permeated with the odor of schism.” The Holy See suppressed the monastery.

Homilies across U.S. take stock of Charlie Kirk assassination

unitedyam September 16, 2025

Priests throughout the country have mentioned assassinated conservative Christian activisit Charlie Kirk in their homilies this week. / Credit: ChoeWatt/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 16, 2025 / 18:24 pm (CNA).

Catholic priests around the country have discussed the assassination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk during their homilies in the last week.

Kirk, 31, was shot during a campus event at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. The alleged shooter has since been apprehended and identified as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. Kirk is survived by his wife, Erika, and their two young children.

“So many times it seems almost surreal how the Gospel passage for the day fits … a situation that we face as Christians in our daily lives,” Father Chris Alar at the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, said during his homily on Sept. 11, referencing the day’s reading from the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus instructs his disciples to love their enemies.

“That is what Charlie Kirk did. I was watching some of his videos last night, and he was saying of murderers that they are still children of God, and he prayed for them,” the priest reflected, noting that though Kirk was political, he had not been a politician.

“When one side realizes they can’t defeat the truth, they turn to violence,” he said, citing the emperor Herod, who he said “realized that he couldn’t defeat the truth, so he turned to violence.”

Father John Hollowell at All Saints Parish in Indianapolis also reflected during his homily on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that he had felt “a great welling up in my heart” to join the military in the aftermath of the tragic event 24 years ago. Ultimately, he said, “I felt God telling me that the way that I was supposed to respond to the tragedy that I was seeing unfolding 24 years ago today was to become a diocesan priest.”

“Throughout the last 12 hours,” he said, “some of your young adult children and young adult family and friends are having that same urge to join the military, to join the police.”

He continued: “We need to just take a minute to just calmly ask ourselves: ‘Lord, what do you want me to do with my life? How can I lay down my life more perfectly for other people, for my country, for my community, for my parish?’ And God will let you know.”

“On Sept. 11, my prayers are with Charlie Kirk’s wife, with his children, but also in this tragic time in the United States of America,” said Father Jonathan Meyer, also of All Saints Parish. “My prayers are also with the family of the refugee from Charlotte, the families in Minnesota that … grieve and mourn, but also for those 24 years ago who, due to acts of hate, still don’t have their grandparents, their parents, their sons.”

“Just this week we were reminded once again of how fallen our world is with the murder of Charlie Kirk,” said Father Eric Ayers of St. Bede Catholic Church in Williamsburg, Virginia, during his Sunday homily. “He was the most recent in a long line in the last number of years of attempts at assassinations … [and] other acts of violence that occur in the political spheres.”

“These acts of violence of course are unconscionable and are a horrible tragedy for our nation,” he added.

The priest stated “before we blame one side or another, we need to remember that those actions don’t represent the vast majority of people for whom politics is important.”

Noting that “language over politics has gotten more extreme, more polarizing, more divisive,” Ayers concluded his reflections by advocating for self-sacrifice and the abandonment of “ego” as ways to foster civility in political discourse in the U.S.

In churches where Kirk’s death was not mentioned in the priest’s homily, prayers were offered for the repose of his soul, including on Sunday Mass at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C, and at St. Joseph’s on Capitol Hill.

Father John Evans of the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City told a local news outlet that people began gathering at the cathedral in the wake of Kirk’s assassination, with many coming to the church before Sunday Mass, “praying privately, some in groups, praying the rosary, and different prayers of different sorts.”

Several users on social media noted their priests offered homilies about Kirk’s death, with one account on X writing: “Today at my Catholic Mass the homily was about Charlie Kirk, what he stood for … It was about walking in Jesus’ shoes and bearing our cross.”

Today at my Catholic mass the Homily was about Charlie Kirk, what he stood for & the message his widow displayed on the way to the airport holding the Crucifix out of the window. It was about walking in Jesus’s shoes & bearing our cross. #ChristisKing

— GreenRooster (@GreneRooster) September 15, 2025

Another user reported that the homily at his parish centered on Kirk and said his church prayed a rosary for the late TPUSA founder after Mass.

My church had a great homily about Charlie Kirk. We also all prayed a collective Rosary for Charlie Kirk immediately after Mass.

— adam◽️ (@heavenappealer) September 15, 2025

Catholic social media influencer Sachin Jose also noted the church where he attended Mass in New York “remembered Charlie Kirk in the priest’s homily.”

The Catholic Church where I attended Mass today remembered Charlie Kirk in the priest’s homily. Masses are being offered across the country for the repose of his soul. Here is a Mass card from New York.

Image: @bronxilla pic.twitter.com/R0VhUIRshI

— Sachin Jose (@Sachinettiyil) September 12, 2025

Parents of Annunciation shooting victim say daughter’s progress is a ‘miracle’

unitedyam September 16, 2025

Flowers are seen on Sept. 3, 2025, outside the Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, where a shooter killed two children and injured 21 other people on Aug. 27, 2025. / Credit: Alex Wroblewski/Getty

CNA Staff, Sep 16, 2025 / 16:14 pm (CNA).

Less than three weeks after the Annunciation Catholic School shooting in Minnesota that killed two children and injured 21 during Mass, the parents of a 12-year-old girl who was shot in the head say her progress has been “miraculous.”

When Sophia Forchas arrived at the hospital with a critical gunshot wound in her head, the doctors warned her parents that her life was in the balance.

“Doctors warned us she was on the brink of death,” Forchas’ parents, Tom and Amy Forchas, said in a statement. “In that darkest hour, the world responded with faithful devotion and fervent prayer.”

As news of the shooting spread, people around the world offered prayers for the victims and the community in prayer services, online, and in the quiet of their own homes.

In the early days after the shooting, Forchas’ condition “was changing minute to minute,” according to a Sept. 5 update from her parents.

A GoFundMe page organized by Michelle Erickson on the Forchas’ behalf has raised more than $1 million for Sophia’s recovery and to support her family with counseling services.

Sophia’s younger brother was also inside the school during the shooting, according to Erickson. Sophia’s mother, a pediatric critical care nurse, “arrived at work to help during the tragedy, before knowing it was her children’s school that was attacked and that her daughter was critically injured,” according to the GoFundMe page.

Sophia’s parents asked the world for prayers — and the world responded. The Forchases say they have heard from people from Athens to Minneapolis who are praying for their daughter.

In the wake of the tragedy, the Forchas family said that “rays of hope emerged” last week.

Sophia’s doctor said she “was showing signs of resilience,” the family said. “Her progress to this point is being called miraculous. We are calling it a miracle.”

“We thank you for all the prayers, love, and unwavering support from across the globe,” the Forchas family said. “The road ahead for Sophia is steep, but she is climbing it with fierce determination.”

“She is fighting not just for herself, but for every soul who stood by her in prayer,” they continued. “Please continue to keep Sophia in your hearts and prayers. She is a warrior! And she is winning!!”

‘Shattered and heartbroken, but not lost’

This week, hundreds gathered to support the family of 10-year-old Harper Moyski, one of the two children killed in the shooting. Fletcher Merkel, 8, also died in the attack. Twenty-one other people, mostly children, were also injured.

Mike Moyski and Jackie Flavin, Harper’s parents, called her a “light” in their remarks at a celebration of life on Sept. 14 at Lake Harriet Bandshell in Minneapolis.

“She taught us something profound, that light doesn’t always mean being strong on your own,” Flavin said, according to a report by CBS News. “Sometimes it really means being soft enough to let love in.”

“Harper didn’t do anything halfway. She was extra in the very best way,” Flavin said. “She just packed so much joy and imagination into her short 10 years, and thank God. Thank God she made it all count.”

Harper’s mother said the last few weeks “have felt like being dropped at the bottom of the ocean, where it is pitch dark, and the pressure is crushing and no human is really meant to survive it.”

But in the midst of their suffering, Harper’s parents said they feel grateful for the support.

“There’s just so much love and support lighting our path that we haven’t felt lost,” Flavin said. “Shattered and heartbroken, but not lost.”

“You’ve lifted us up during the hardest days of our lives, and we are so grateful,” Moyski said.

Aftermath of a tragedy

Annunciation Catholic School students are returning to school with a modified schedule this week, according to an announcement by the school’s leaders. The school will have supportive activities as well as extra security and support staff.

The church where the shooting took place will have to be reconsecrated, according to the archdiocese.

Reconsecration is a Catholic ritual used to purify a sacred space after it has been desecrated.

Father Matthew Crane, a canon lawyer in Minnesota, explained that as part of the rite, “the sanctuary is stripped in a manner consistent with Good Friday.”

“After the procession, much like the rite for initially dedicating a church, the celebrant, usually a diocesan bishop, blesses holy water and then sprinkles the people and walls with it,” Crane said. “Penitential prayers are offered, and the altar is only dressed with cloth and candles after these rituals have concluded.”

Crane said the “spiritual effects” include “purification and reparation.”

Crane, who has attended a reconsecration in the past, said he “was surprised at how, by virtue of participating in that ritual, I felt connected to and comfortable in the building and place.”

“I would hope that in Annunciation, or any Catholic community, the ritual of reconsecration would grant the community a profound sense of being once again at home in a house of God,” he said.

CUA appoints Microsoft AI director to lead new institute on emerging technologies

unitedyam September 15, 2025

The Catholic University of America has announced that Taylor Black, director of artificial intelligence at Microsoft, will lead a new institute on emerging technologies and AI at the Washington, D.C.-based university. / Credit: The Catholic University of America

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 15, 2025 / 15:36 pm (CNA).

The Catholic University of America (CUA) announced that Taylor Black, director of artificial intelligence (AI) at Microsoft, will lead a new institute on emerging technologies and AI at the Washington, D.C.-based university.

At the technology conglomerate, Black serves as the director of AI and venture ecosystems in the Office of the Chief Technology Officer. In the role, he designs and leads cross-company initiatives that integrate innovation, product development, and community engagement to foster the next generation of technologies. He will remain in the position but plans to travel regularly to CUA’s campus.

“Taylor’s background in innovation, AI, and entrepreneurship; studies in philosophy and law; and his formation as a deacon candidate make him the ideal person for this new venture,” H. Joseph Yost, senior vice provost of research for CUA, said in a statement. “From our first conversation, we knew he was the person we wanted to lead Catholic University’s expansion of AI programs and innovation.”

Black received an undergraduate degree in philosophy and classics from Gonzaga University and a master’s degree in philosophy and a law degree from Boston College. His career took off after he created a successful web development business while still in school. He went on to hold consulting, business development, and venture positions before joining Microsoft in 2021.

While working in the technology field, Black said he has noticed an increase in questions related to human dignity from his secular colleagues. The new institute will work to tackle some of the concerns by pursuing innovation in AI and engaging in dialogue about human issues central to the Catholic Church.

“The Church has been trying to get people to ask the question ‘What does it mean to be human?’ for a very long time. Now a bunch of people are asking it unprompted,” Black said in an interview with CUA. “This lends itself to addressing the gaping hole in understanding what people should know about what it means to be human in a deeper way.”

“Universities are for the formation of human persons. If you’re well-formed, you generally do a better job in the workplace,” Black said. He is interested in “how we reinvigorate the heart of what the university is — its human formation roots — while still providing the tools and training necessary from an entrepreneurial perspective to take this new economic paradigm in stride.”

The new AI initiative will bring faculty together from multiple departments including engineering, business, science, art, philosophy, and theology to engage collaboration within as well as outside the university.

The new institute follows a number of other advances at CUA. Earlier this year, the university achieved R1 status, which placed it among the top 5% of universities nationwide in terms of research funding and doctorates.

Faith, family and God’s mercy: Highlights from Erika Kirk’s TV address

unitedyam September 13, 2025

Vice President JD Vance (R) second lady Usha Vance (C) and Erika Kirk deplane Air Force Two while escorting the body of Charlie Kirk on Sept. 11, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. / Credit: Kirk, Eric Thayer/Getty Images

CNA Newsroom, Sep 13, 2025 / 10:05 am (CNA).

Erika Kirk, the widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, vowed to continue her husband’s work Friday night during an impassioned and deeply personal televised address that focused on the importance of faith and family life.

Appearing on Fox News just two days after her husband was shot and killed by an assassin’s bullet, fired from a rooftop on the campus of Utah Valley University where he was holding an outdoor event, she spoke for more than 16 minutes, maintaining her composure as she stood at a podium in her husband’s podcast studio, beside his empty chair.

“I will never, ever have the words to describe the loss that I feel in my heart,” said Erika Kirk, the mother of two young children, ages 1 and 3.

“I honestly have no idea what any of this means,” she said. “I know that God does, but I don’t. But Charlie, baby, I know you do, too. So does our Lord.”

“The evildoers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done,” she said.

“They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God’s merciful love.”

Here are other highlights from her remarks:

She revealed that she had not yet told the couple’s 3-year-old daughter of her father’s death.

“When I got home last night, Gigi, our daughter, just ran into my arms. And I talked to her, and she said, ‘Mommy, I missed you.’ I said, ‘I missed you too, baby.’

“She goes, ‘Where’s daddy?’ She’s 3. I said, ‘Baby, daddy loves you so much. He’s on a work trip with Jesus, so he can afford your blueberry budget.'”

She talked about why her husband advocated so passionately for marriage and family life.

“Charlie always believed that God’s design for marriage in the family was absolutely amazing. And it is. It is. And it was the greatest joy of his life. And over and over, he would tell all these young people to come and find their future spouse, become wives and husbands and parents. And the reason why is because he wanted you all to experience what he had, and still has,” she said.

“He wanted everyone to bring heaven into this earth through love and joy that comes from raising a family. It’s beautiful. Charlie always said that if he ever ran for office —I know a lot of you asked if he ever was going to — but privately, he told me if he ever did run for office, that his top priority would be to revive the American family. That was his priority.

“One of Charlie’s favorite Bible verses was Ephesians 5 verse 25: ‘Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.’

“My husband laid down his life for me, for our nation, for our children. He showed the ultimate and true covenantal love,” she said.

Erika, who is a baptized Catholic, witnessed to the Christian faith she and her husband shared.

“Charlie always said that when he was gone, he, he wanted to be remembered for his courage and for his faith,” she said.

“And one of the final conversations that he had on this earth, my husband witnessed for his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now and for all eternity, he will stand at his Savior’s side, wearing the glorious crown of a martyr.”

During the broadcast, Erika Kirk urged others to make faith central to their lives, as her husband had done.

“But most important of all, if you aren’t a member of a church, I beg you to join one, a Bible-believing church,” she said.

“Our battle is not simply a political one above all. It is spiritual. It is spiritual. The spiritual warfare is palpable. Charlie loved his Savior with all of his heart, and he wanted every one of you to know him, too. He wanted everyone to know that if they confess, if they confess the Lord Jesus Christ who rose from the dead, then they will be saved.

“Hear me when I say this. Nobody is ever too young to know the gospel. Nobody. Nobody is ever too young to get involved with saving this beautiful country, this country my husband loved and still loves. And nobody is ever too old, either.”

She vowed to continue Charlie’s work with Turning Point USA, the conservativve advocacy organization he founded, and said the campus speaking tour he had just embarked on would go on.

“If you thought that my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you just have unleashed across this entire country and this world. You have no idea,” she said.

“You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife. The cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry.

“To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die,” she said. “It won’t. I refuse to let that happen. It will not die.”

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

unitedyam September 13, 2025

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 the callous response of pro-choice students at the University of Montana when I told them my friend Charlie Kirk had been shot.

It was horrific. I share this because evil must be exposed in our nation, now more than ever. We may be at one of the lowest points in our… pic.twitter.com/1QFpG754AX

— Kristan Hawkins (@KristanHawkins) September 11, 2025

“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.”

‘Surge of enthusiasm’ among Catholics in Asia after St. Carlo Acutis canonization

unitedyam September 13, 2025

Pilgrims at the canonization Mass for Sts. Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati in St. Peter’s Square on Sept. 7, 2025. / Credit: Vatican Media

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 13, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:

‘Surge of enthusiasm’ among Catholic in Asia after St. Carlo Acutis canonization

Young Catholics in Asia are “experiencing a surge of enthusiasm” around the life of the newly canonized St. Carlos Acutis, according to the testimony of Father Will Conquer, a Paris Foreign Missions Society priest stationed in Cambodia, according to a Sept. 8 UCA News report.

“In Asia, where digital culture is omnipresent, Carlo Acutis stands out as a ‘saint 2.0,’” said Conquer, who added that the young saint’s life “resonates particularly in this region where young people, connected and searching for meaning, find in him an accessible and inspiring role model.”

Catholic leaders in Jerusalem gather for conference on property tax laws

The Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land gathered at the Notre Dame Center in Jerusalem on Sept. 10 for a “high-level conference dedicated to the Arnona property tax issue,” the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said in a Sept. 12 press release.

The conference comes after the Jerusalem Municipality’s decision to impose the Arnona municipal property tax on church properties, breaking with the historic status quo that has exempted Christian churches in the Holy Land from paying property taxes since the Ottoman Empire.

According to the release, the conference opened with a keynote address by Latin Patriarch Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who “emphasized that the status quo regarding the Arnona tax has come to an end and that change is inevitable.” Pizzaballa further called for leaders among the assembly to unite and “for institutions to prepare themselves collectively and responsibly for the upcoming changes.”

Catholic charity delivers water to South Korean city plighted by drought

A charity organization called the Catholic Medical Angels has delivered 10 tons of water to the coastal city of Gangneung in South Korea, where rapidly declining water levels in the city’s Obong Reservoir has prompted a water crisis, according to a report from UCA News.

“Though it is a small effort, we hope it helps the citizens of Gangneung and that this severe drought is resolved as soon as possible,” said Min Chang-Ki, director of the Catholic Medical Center, which oversees the Catholic Medical Angels.

The delivery took place on Sept. 3 and was carried out at parishes across the local Chuncheon Diocese. The diminishing reservoir ordinarily supplies about 87% of the city’s tap and industrial water, the report said.

Filipino priest to receive Nobel Prize of Asia for opposition toward former president

Filipino priest Father Flavie Villanueva will receive the Ramon Magsaysay Award, often referred to as the “Nobel Prize of Asia,” for his work building shelters for Manila’s homeless population and “defending victims of extrajudicial killings” in former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug crackdown, according to Crux.

“I accept this on behalf of the thousands of homeless and those victims of social injustice, particularly the EJK victims, that they may have a face in this fast-changing world,” Villanueva said in a press conference on Wednesday. He will receive the award officially in a ceremony on Nov. 7.

Catholics in Nepal hoping for an end to violence amid corruption protests

Catholics in Nepal are hoping for an end to ongoing violence, according to Nepal priest Father Silas Bogati, after anti-corruption protests in the country escalated on Sept. 6, resulting in the deaths of at least 22 people, according to a Sept. 10 Crux report.

“Violence is never a solution to problems, and now we hope there will be peaceful transition and people can live in peace,” the priest said. “For the Catholic Church, we want to see the end of violence and arson attacks and get a peaceful solution to the ongoing problems.”

The priest’s words come after “a full curfew” was enacted following Saturday’s unrest, which was ignited by social media bans across the country.

Alveda King responds to Charlie Kirk’s assassination: ‘We’ve got to care again’

unitedyam September 12, 2025

Alveda King has suffered three assassinations in her family: that of her father, Rev. Alfred Daniel Williams King; her grandmother, Alberta King; and her renowned uncle, Martin Luther King Jr. / Credit: “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo”/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Sep 12, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

After the assassination of Charlie Kirk at a college campus on Wednesday, Alveda King, the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., encouraged people to pray.

“It broke my heart,” King said when asked about her reaction to learning of the assassination.

“I was so very startled when I got the news that Charlie had been shot, and my heart immediately went to him and his family, his beautiful wife, his little children,” she told Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.”

“Having experienced those kinds of occurrences in my own family, I immediately went into prayer,” she said.

King shared about her own experience with political assassinations in her family. Not only was her uncle, Dr. King, assassinated but her father, Rev. Alfred Daniel Williams King, was also assassinated as well as her grandmother, Alberta King.

“For me, I am a Christian. I still have the peace and the joy of the Lord, but it’s almost like a trauma or a trigger point when those things happen,” King said.

But amid the trauma, King encouraged listeners to “do what my uncle talked about,” encouraging people to have “regard for human dignity.”

“We’ve got to care again,” King said. “We’ve got to see human beings as human beings — from the womb to the tomb and beyond.”

“We’ve got to get back to a point of caring, of loving, of repenting, of forgiving,” she continued. “Therein lies the answer.”

The greatest of these is love

Calling Charlie Kirk a “man of faith,” King said she will remember him with a Scripture verse: 1 Corinthians 13:13.

“Now abides faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love,” she said. “That’s the way that I do remember Charlie.”

King said she believed that if Charlie Kirk, Dr. King, or President John F. Kennedy were still with us, they would encourage us to not “seek our answers in humanity.”

“We’re going to find not our heroes in humanity, but we’re going to have to look to Jesus at these times,” King said.

“We’re living in tumultuous times, and social media drives us to retaliate, to strike back,” she said. “I want to remind people that if you don’t agree with someone, you don’t shoot the person. You pray, you talk, and you consider your position. But this violence is just absolutely wrong.”

She noted that we are living in “a time of violence and anger and fear and frustration.”

“So that leads me to say to everyone: fear not, listen, love, communicate,” she said.

King encouraged listeners “to do something good for someone” in remembrance of Charlie Kirk and in memory of the victims of the violence on the 24th anniversary of 9/11.

“I would remind us to call for peace, to call for prayer,” she said. “And I know Charlie would want us to do that as well.”

New film on St. Maximilian Kolbe’s final days highlights hope amid darkness

unitedyam September 12, 2025

The premiere of “Triumph of the Heart” in Dallas on Sept. 8, 2025. / Credit: Nicole Marie Richards

CNA Staff, Sep 12, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

A new film called “Triumph of the Heart” depicts St. Maximilian Kolbe’s last days on earth in a starvation bunker in the German death camp of Auschwitz. The film will be released in theaters on Sept. 12.

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a Polish Franciscan friar and priest who volunteered to die in place of another man in Auschwitz. He spent the last 14 days of his life in a starvation bunker alongside nine other men.

The red carpet at the premiere of "Triumph of the Heart" in Dallas on Sept. 8, 2025. Credit: Nicole Marie Richards — The red carpet at the premiere of “Triumph of the Heart” in Dallas on Sept. 8, 2025. Credit: Nicole Marie Richards

At the film’s Sept. 8 premiere in Dallas, where over 1,000 people gathered at the Edith O’Donnell Arts and Technology Building on the University of Texas at Dallas campus to show their support and watch the film, writer and director Anthony D’Ambrosio told CNA on the red carpet that it was “surreal” to see the magnitude of the premiere.

He explained that it was originally meant to be a more intimate gathering with roughly 200 people in attendance but “God, of course, had other plans,” D’Ambrosio said. “I think that what I’m seeing is that God keeps on growing our vision for where he wants to take the film, where he wants to take this story.”

The current rise in faith-based media

Actors who also spoke on the red carpet discussed the resurgence of faith-based media being seen in today’s culture.

Michael Iskander, who portrays King David in Prime Video’s “House of David” and served as the master of ceremonies for the premiere, said he believes “Christ is pouring his heart out to all of us in every way possible and media is one of those frontiers that hasn’t really been touched yet.”

He credited the hit series “The Chosen” for “paving the path for so much faith-based filmmaking and showing people that this is a market that people want to see.”

Michael Iskander, the actor who portrays King David in Prime Video's "House of David," at the Sept. 8, 2025, premiere of "Triumph of the Heart." Credit: Nicole Marie Richards — Michael Iskander, the actor who portrays King David in Prime Video’s “House of David,” at the Sept. 8, 2025, premiere of “Triumph of the Heart.” Credit: Nicole Marie Richards

A recent convert to Catholicism, Iskander shared that St. Maximilian Kolbe was one of the first saints he learned about from the Catholic Church. He highlighted the saint’s use of media to spread the Gospel message to the masses and said it is “fitting that this film and this rise in Christianity, especially in filmmaking, had to do with St. Kolbe.”

Jeff Schiefelbein, co-host of the podcast “The Beatidudes” and an investor in “Triumph of the Heart,” said he believes there is a resurgence in faith-based media because people are “sick of all the fake stuff.”

“We’re being told to compare ourselves to things that aren’t even important. The materialism has swung so far that the pendulum is making its way back,” he said. “… I think there’s going to be this resurgence … of young people, Gen Xers, old people coming back and saying, ‘Wait, we want what’s real, what’s true, what’s good, and what’s beautiful’ and so it is rooted in the Gospel when we go and seek those.”

Marcellino D’Ambrosio, a well-known author, Catholic commentator, and executive producer of the film — also the father of Anthony D’Ambrosio — called this moment we’re seeing in faith-based media “a Holy Spirit moment.”

“Human beings always need God but I think something really special is going on right now,” he said.

“St. Augustine said it well: Our hearts are restless until we rest in him. And success in the culture — this is a fascinating thing that actually goes back even to the successful cultures in Rome — there’s an emptiness when you have a certain amount of success and you have leisure; nothing satisfies but God,” he added. “So it oftentimes leads people to that restlessness that St. Augustine talks about — to look for him, to be open to him, and I think that’s what’s going on in our culture right now.”

Actor Marcin Kwaśny as Maximilian Kolbe in “Triumph of the Heart.” Credit: Triumph of the Heart movie/Sherwood Fellows

A film that inspires hope

As for what those involved in the film hope viewers take away from it, the major theme they mentioned was their wish that it fills the audience with hope.

“I hope they will take away hope,” Marcellino D’Ambrosio said. “I hope that everyone realizes that God is real; I have a future, no matter how bad the present looks … he’s with me in the present and he has something in store for me that’s greater than my wildest dreams.”

Rowan Polonski, the actor who portrays Albert in the film — one of the men in the starvation bunker alongside Kolbe — told CNA his hope is for the audience to be “pleasantly surprised in the way that they’re moved.”

“Entering into this movie, you could quite easily walk in thinking it’s going to be a pretty dark and heavy write, but what I want them to walk out with is a sense of joy and catharsis,” he added. “And a sense that no matter how dark times can get, how low one can feel, there’s always a way out, there’s always a crack of light somewhere that you can cling onto and follow through and it’s normally in the form of love.”

Producer Cecilia Stevenson added: “I really want people to feel love when they watch this movie and specifically to feel the love of Our Lord and how he enters into our suffering with us, just like Kolbe did for those men in that film. Our movie, Kolbe’s story, it’s a modern-day example that ultimately points us to Christ, and I really hope people feel that love and I hope it gives them hope, that there is meaning in life and that suffering itself can have meaning.”

Catholic schools add security, including armed staff, after Minneapolis school shooting

unitedyam September 11, 2025

CNA Staff, Sep 11, 2025 / 17:27 pm (CNA).

After two children died and more than 20 people were injured by a transgender-identifying man in Minneapolis in August, Catholic schools around the country have been evaluating their security measures, with some hiring security guards and others allowing teachers and staff to be armed.

The Diocese of Buffalo this week announced it has hired armed security guards for the 29 Catholic elementary schools in its jurisdiction and has also engaged a “security consultant” to help create “comprehensive safety plans tailored to each school community.”

Catholic schools superintendent Joleen Dimitroff sent a letter to parents informing them of the decisions, which she said are “a reflection of our shared belief that the safety of our children is priceless and must be protected with the highest level of care.”

Parents’ reactions have been mixed. Marc Bruno, a longtime Buffalo public school teacher, called the move “a necessary step.”

“No one wants to see guns in the schools,” he told local ABC news station WKBW. However, he continued, “if you look at some of the previous shootings, principals have thrown their bodies at the gunman, and you know, our bodies don’t stand a chance against a bullet.”

One mother opposed the move, saying having armed security guards will put “children’s lives in danger.” She said she will not continue sending her child to school with armed guards present, emphasizing that her child “isn’t allowed to have peanut butter in his classroom to protect kids, but you want a stranger strolling the halls with a gun?”

Arming teachers

A less-talked-about solution among Catholic schools is the practice of arming school staff, including teachers.

In Ohio, nearly 100 public school districts — and even some private Christian schools — have anonymous armed staff this year, up from 67 the year before, according to a roster released by the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

Hametown Christian Academy, a private school in Norton, Ohio, allows armed staff.

Associate pastor and head of school safety at the school Rick Wright told the Akron Beacon Journal on Aug. 25 that the school board decided it was “prudent to arm teachers and staff members” due to the increase in school shootings in recent years.

“A gun is not evil,” Wright said. “It is a tool, and the fact that some of our staff may be armed is a deterrent.”

The names and numbers of teachers and other school staff carrying guns are not publicly available, nor are the total number of armed staff in each district. All armed staff are trained to use their weapons, according to Wright.

Schools post signs alerting visitors of the gun policy, hoping the knowledge that staff are armed will serve as “a deterrent,” Wright said.

If you “put up a no gun zone sign,” Wright said, “you’re telling somebody you can come in here and shoot all you want.”

“It works the opposite (of the intent); you’ve made yourself a soft target,” he said.

An independent Catholic school in the South that wishes to remain unnamed told CNA that after extensive discussion about campus security, administrators arrived at an “informal” security policy that involves armed staff.

“We’re pretty sure some of the teachers have guns in their cars,” an administrator told CNA.

When asked whether teachers were also carrying concealed weapons, the administrator said he does not know, and the school has “never said yes or no” to the practice.

Because of the “high quality of the teachers” at the school, the administrator said the leadership “came to the conclusion that the teachers would go after a guy with a gun rather than run away.” The school would “call the police and then the teachers with weapons would use … deadly force” if necessary to protect students.

“We’re willing to bet that would be a sufficient response,” he said.

Funding for security measures

Funding for the new security measures in the Buffalo Diocese for the 2025-2026 school year has been provided by the Foundation for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, according to Dimitroff. Tuition will increase in subsequent years to cover the cost, which might also be covered by public funding.

James Cultrara, the director for education for the New York State Catholic Conference, told CNA after the 2012 school shooting in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, that New York state lawmakers had instituted two funding streams to address school security: one for public schools and one for private schools.

The private school funding program has expanded tenfold, from $7 million initially to more than $70 million. Schools can use the funds to address anything related to “health, safety, and security.” Environmental hazard mitigation as well as security cameras, security guards, and remote door locks are covered by the funding, Cultrara said.

The Minnesota Catholic Conference released a statement on Sept. 5 saying it “welcomes a broader legislative discussion about preventing gun violence” and asking the state Legislature to address security funding disparities between public and private schools.

Jason Adkins, executive director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, noted that while the Catholic Church in Minnesota “has long supported commonsense gun regulations, such as protective orders and expanded background checks,” neither of those measures prevented “the Annunciation tragedy.”

Adkins noted that while “Americans have a right to possess firearms,” that right comes with responsibilities, including that of public officials to address the “deeper causes of violence — mental health struggles, family breakdown, and a growing despair often worsened by harmful ideologies, substance abuse, and the effects of the absence of God in people’s lives.”

Adkins urged the Legislature to reconsider recently-enacted laws that loosen restrictions on THC (a cannabis plant derivative) and “the widely debated treatment of young people experiencing gender dysphoria.”

A controversial Minnesota law prohibits mental health counselors from practicing so-called conversion therapy on LGBT youth, which in practice means that therapists who want to help people who do not want to embrace a LGBT identity are fearful of doing so, according to Christian therapist Dr. David Kirby, who testified against the legislation before it passed.

Catholic and U.S. leaders offer prayers on 24th anniversary of 9/11

unitedyam September 11, 2025

Memorial lights commemorate the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. / Credit: Brian E Kushner/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 11, 2025 / 13:34 pm (CNA).

On the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Catholic and U.S. leaders offered prayers and paid tribute to those who lost their lives that day and for all those who continue to grieve.

“Today we remember Sept. 11, 2001,” Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York wrote in a joint post to social media. “We continue to pray for the souls lost that day, the families who still mourn, the heroes who served, and all those who have since died from 9/11-related illnesses or continue to suffer.”

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Dolan’s post offered a prayer to be said on the anniversary: “Lord, on this Sept. 11, we remember all who died 24 years ago in our city and throughout the country. We hold in our hearts those who still carry loss and grief from that day.”

“Grant eternal rest to the departed, strength to survivors and their families, and protection for first responders and all who serve our communities with courage and dedication. Lord God, continue to watch over our city and country, and help us turn hearts toward compassion and peace. Amen.”

In a post to X, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) also offered a prayer in memory of the attack: “God of understanding, overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy, we seek your light and guidance as we confront such terrible events. Grant that those whose lives were spared may live so that the lives lost here may not have been lost in vain.”

“Comfort and console us, strengthen us in hope, and give us the wisdom and courage to work tirelessly for a world where true peace and love reign among nations and in the hearts of all.”

U.S. leaders also commemorated the day and paid tribute to the victims.

President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump attended an event at the Pentagon in Virginia on Thursday morning where prayers were offered for all the victims, first responders, those who continue to grieve, and U.S. active military members.

“To every family member that still feels a void every day of your lives, the First Lady and I unite with you in sorrow,” Trump said at the event. “And today, as one nation, we renew our sacred vow that we will never forget Sept. 11, 2001.”

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also spoke, asking the crowd to honor the memory of the victims and to acknowledge “the decades of courage that followed” the attack.

“We gather to pay tribute to the first responders who charged into the flames and up the stairs, to those trapped on planes fighting their final fight, and to the families whose lives were forever altered by that fateful day,” Hegseth said.

“I thank God for all of you and all of our fighters from that day, to today and beyond. May God bless our warriors as they ruthlessly seek out enemies on behalf of the fellow citizens they love.”

Politicians, faith leaders condemn political violence after Charlie Kirk assassination

unitedyam September 11, 2025

A makeshift memorial is seen at Timpanogos Regional Hospital in honor of political activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 11, 2025, in Orem, Utah. / Credit: George Frey/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 11, 2025 / 13:04 pm (CNA).

Faith leaders and political leaders are uniting their voices to condemn politically motivated violence following the assassination of Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk.

Following the confirmation of Kirk’s death by President Donald Trump, some hours after the TPUSA founder was shot at a Utah Valley University event on Wednesday afternoon, Sept. 10, countless faith and political leaders began to speak out against the scourge of political violence.

In a statement, Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, railed against the “vicious pattern of political and social disorder” of the past several weeks, citing the Annunciation Catholic school shooting, the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, “and now the political assassination of Charlie Kirk, known for his commitment to civil and rational discourse.”

As Americans, we are witnesses in just the past few weeks to a vicious pattern of political and social disorder. At Annunciation Catholic Parish in Minneapolis, the killings of Harper Moyski and Fletcher Merkel, two innocent children. In Charlotte, the murder of Ukrainian refugee…

— Bishop Burbidge (@BishopBurbidge) September 10, 2025

“What we see unfolding in our nation is a vicious pattern of hatreds rooted in the rejection of God, of the dignity of the human person, and the sanctity of the family,” the bishop observed.

“We are living through a perilous moment,” Burbridge continued. “Our challenge is not only one of partisan disagreement, law, and policy, but in a deeper way our challenge is to uphold the central goods of American political life: of faith, of families, and of a national commitment to live together in harmony as brothers and sisters.”

Kirk’s assasination hit Bishop Barron particularly hard

“I am devastated by the news of Charlie Kirk’s death,” Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, Bishop Robert Barron said after news of Kirk’s death was confirmed by President Donald Trump.

Barron went on to reveal that Kirk had been scheduled to appear on his show, “Bishop Barron Presents,” in 10 days. The founder of Word on Fire called Kirk “a great debater and also one of the best advocates in our country for civil discourse, but he was, first and last, a passionate Christian,” recalling that when they first met four years ago, “we didn’t talk much about politics. We talked about theology, in which he had a deep interest, and about Christ. I know I’m joining millions of people around the world in praying that he rests now in the peace of the Lord.”

Moral theologian on root of problem

“You have to be willfully blind not to see that the root of the problem is political hatred, and that that hatred is no more obvious than in those who cannot restrain themselves from badmouthing a man even when he lay dying,” said Edward Feser, a Catholic philosopher and professor at Pasadena City College.

I have nothing against reasonable gun control laws. But you have to be willfully blind not to see that the root of the problem is political hatred, and that that hatred is no more obvious than in those who cannot restrain themselves from badmouthing a man even when he lay dying.

— Edward Feser (@FeserEdward) September 10, 2025

In a joint post showcasing their shared perspective across ideological divides, Princeton legal scholar Robert George and Harvard theology and philosophy professor Cornel West said: “For our nation, this is a moment for deep healing and for bearing witness to the precious humanity of all our brothers and sisters — those with whom we agree and those with whom we disagree.” The pair had appeared together on Kirk’s show recently.

We join our fellow citizens of all faiths in praying for the repose of the soul of Charlie Kirk and for the comfort and consolation of his wife, two small children, and other loved ones.

We recently appeared as guests on Charlie’s podcast, where he engaged us with moral…

— Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) September 11, 2025

Meanwhile, CatholicVote President Kelsey Reinhardt said the tragic shooting “was not merely an assault on one man: It was an assault on the principles of free dialogue, civic order, and human dignity.”

It is with profound grief that I respond to the brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk during his “American Comeback” tour at Utah Valley University. Today, our nation mourns not only the loss of a bold voice for truth, but a husband and father who leaves behind a wife and two…

— Kelsey (Wicks) Reinhardt (@catholickelsey) September 10, 2025

“As Catholics, we affirm with unwavering conviction that every human life is sacred,” Reinhardt continued, offering prayers for the repose of Kirk’s soul. “I call upon every leader, regardless of party or persuasion, to condemn this murder unequivocally. To remain silent in the face of such evil is to be complicit in its advance. Let this tragedy awaken America to the urgent need to recover respect for life, civility in discourse, and courage in the pursuit of truth.”

Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts also weighed in, writing: “What a horrific day in American history.”

What a horrific day in American history.

To Charlie’s family, friends, and @TPUSA colleagues: we must never, never, never, never, never, never stop fighting to build the America that he helped make possible. He restored optimism about the American future for millions of… pic.twitter.com/VYP2WUaRiD

— Kevin Roberts (@KevinRobertsTX) September 10, 2025

“To Charlie’s family, friends, and @TPUSA colleagues: We must never, never, never, never, never, never stop fighting to build the America that he helped make possible,” Roberts added.

Netanyahu: Kirk ‘stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu joined world leaders in condemning Kirk’s assasination, writing: “Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking truth and defending freedom. A lion-hearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization.”

Charlie Kirk was murdered for speaking truth and defending freedom. A lion-hearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization. I spoke to him only two weeks ago and invited him to Israel. Sadly, that visit will not take place.
We lost an…

— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) September 10, 2025

Netanyahu revealed he had spoken to Kirk “only two weeks ago” and had invited the late TPUSA founder to visit Israel.

“Sadly, that visit will not take place,” the prime minister said. “We lost an incredible human being. His boundless pride in America and his valiant belief in free speech will leave a lasting impact.”

In another tribute, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who hosted Kirk as the first guest on his new podcast, said: “His senseless murder is a reminder of how important it is for all of us, across the political spectrum, to foster genuine discourse on issues that deeply affect us all without resorting to political violence.”

We should all feel a deep sense of grief and outrage at the terrible violence that took place in Utah today. Charlie Kirk’s murder is sick and reprehensible, and our thoughts are with his family, children, and loved ones.

I knew Charlie, and I admired his passion and commitment…

— Governor Gavin Newsom (@CAgovernor) September 10, 2025

“The best way to honor Charlie’s memory is to continue his work: Engage with each other, across ideology, through spirited discourse,” he continued. “In a democracy, ideas are tested through words and good-faith debate — never through violence.”

Newsom added: “Honest disagreement makes us stronger; violence only drives us further apart and corrodes the values at the heart of this nation.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden both took to social media as well, with Biden writing in a post: “There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.”

There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 10, 2025

“I am deeply disturbed by the shooting in Utah. Doug and I send our prayers to Charlie Kirk and his family,” Harris wrote, adding: “Let me be clear: Political violence has no place in America. I condemn this act, and we all must work together to ensure this does not lead to more violence.”

I am deeply disturbed by the shooting in Utah. Doug and I send our prayers to Charlie Kirk and his family.

Let me be clear: Political violence has no place in America. I condemn this act, and we all must work together to ensure this does not lead to more violence.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 10, 2025

‘God is with Nicaragua!’ exclaims first Nicaraguan consecrated bishop in the U.S.

unitedyam September 11, 2025

Bishop Pedro Bismarck Chau at his episcopal consecration Mass as the new auxiliary bishop of Newark, New Jersey, on Sept. 8, 2025. / Credit: Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart

ACI Prensa Staff, Sep 11, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

“Today, we Nicaraguans are making history again. Do not forget: God is with us and God is with Nicaragua!” said Pedro Bismarck Chau, the new auxiliary bishop of Newark, New Jersey, at the Sept. 8 Mass for his episcopal consecration, making him the first Nicaraguan-born bishop in the United States.

Amid a festive atmosphere and before a packed Sacred Heart Cathedral in Newark, where he had been rector since 2020, Chau received episcopal consecration through the laying on of hands by several bishops. The principal consecrator was Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark.

As part of the celebration, Cardinal Christoph Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, read the letter in which Pope Leo XIV officially appointed Chau as bishop and encouraged him to allow himself to be strengthened “by the grace of this jubilee year and you will have reason to be confident in the gift of hope, which does not disappoint. May God continue to bless you and may he bless the people of God in this archdiocese.”

The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep

In his homily in English and Spanish, Tobin encouraged the new bishop to remember that “you have been called from among the people of God and for the people of God. Not for yourself, but for the things that belong to God. Indeed, episcopacy is the name of a service, not an honor, for a bishop should strive to serve rather than rule.”

“According to the Master’s commandment, whoever wants to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of all … Be a faithful steward and dispenser of the mysteries of Christ. Always follow the example of the Good Shepherd, who knows his sheep and is known by them, and who did not hesitate to give his life for them.”

The cardinal then recalled that “Pope Francis never tired of repeating to bishops that there are three aspects to a bishop’s closeness to the people he serves: closeness to God in prayer, the first task; closeness to the priests and deacons of the Church; and closeness to the people of God. … Do not forget your roots, do not forget those who have passed on the faith to you.”

‘God is with Nicaragua!’

At the beginning of his address as a newly consecrated bishop, Chau thanked the Deaf community in sign language, recalling that for 17 years they have been a great support and encouragement in his ministry, offering them his prayers and concluding with a clear: “I love you!”

Speaking later in Spanish, he addressed his “dear Hispanic community: Thank you for the faith and devotion you possess. You are a great gift of life for the Church in the United States. Continue, brothers, to be a Church that goes out in search of the lost sheep.”

“I would also like to acknowledge the presence this afternoon,” Chau continued, “of a group of people here from a very small country but with a big and resilient heart that cries out with a phrase that no other country has: ‘Who causes so much joy? The conception of Mary. Mary of Nicaragua! Nicaragua of Mary!’”

The prelate addressed his family, especially his mother: “Thank you, my dearest mother, for everything and for praying so many rosaries for me, three, four, and five times a day that you pray for me. I need them, so don’t stop praying those rosaries for me. OK, Mommy?”

“I love you very much,” he told his family, “you know I love you with all my heart.”

The example of the Virgin Mary

Chau said he hopes to “follow the example of Mary, whose birthday we celebrate today. Happy birthday, Mary! She trusted in God’s plan even though she didn’t know what she was being called to or where it would take or lead her. She renounced all the dreams and aspirations that a young girl would have and put God’s will first.”

Then addressing all those assembled he said: “I humbly ask you to remember me in your prayers to the Lord and to ask the Virgin to watch over me and bring me closer to her son, Jesus, so that I may reflect for you the image of the Good Shepherd. Thank you, and may God bless you all!” he said.

Words of Bishop Silvio Báez

Following the Mass, Bishop Silvio Báez, the exiled auxiliary bishop of Managua, Nicaragua, who has been living in the U.S. since 2019, said the episcopal consecration of Chau was a “historic celebration. The first Nicaraguan, born in Nicaragua, to be ordained a bishop in the United States. He was baptized and took his first steps in the faith in Nicaragua.”

“This is a sign of the richness and fruitfulness of the Church of Nicaragua and a message of hope for all the people of God in our country. The fact that Bismarck came from Nicaragua and settled in the United States shows that it is possible to move forward despite the difficulties one may encounter,” he added.

When asked about his meeting with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican in August, along with two other exiled Nicaraguan bishops — Carlos Herrera and Isidoro Mora — the prelate said: “The interview with the Holy Father was a moment of grace, a moment of hope, seeing how deeply he holds Nicaragua in his heart as well as the situation the Nicaraguan people are experiencing at this time.”

Who is Bishop Pedro Bismarck Chau?

Pedro Bismarck Chau was born on June 28, 1967, in Managua, Nicaragua. He studied at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, earning a bachelor’s degree in psychology.

He completed his ecclesiastical studies at Immaculate Conception Seminary in South Orange and later earned a master’s degree in counseling from Seton Hall University.

He was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark on May 24, 2008.

He served as parochial vicar of Our Lady of Mount Virgin in Garfield, New Jersey, from 2008–2012; as director of vocations from 2012–2016; and as head of campus ministry at Rutgers University and the New Jersey Institute of Technology from 2015–2020.

He also served as pastor of the Pro-Cathedral of Sts. John and Patrick in Newark from 2015–2020 and rector of the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart since 2020.

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

Amid debate over arming teachers, what does the Catholic Church teach about self-defense?

unitedyam September 10, 2025

CNA Staff, Sep 10, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

“It would have to be studied.” That was President Donald Trump’s take on the proposal to arm teachers in schools in order to counteract mass shooters.

The president made those remarks on Sept. 2, nearly a week after the deadly mass shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis. That attack claimed the lives of two children, injured many others, and once again raised the question of whether or not teachers should be permitted to carry guns in schools.

Policymakers will likely debate the matter for some time. In some cases it has already been decided: A handful of states, including Florida, Idaho, and Texas, allow for public school teachers to carry guns in some circumstances.

Whether or not it will be adopted broadly in Catholic schools is another question. Although the debate is deeply, and at times bitterly, contentious, Catholic Church teaching would appear to allow it.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has never pronounced directly on the morality of carrying firearms, much less in a school environment. But the text does stipulate that “legitimate defense” can include the act of a “lethal blow,” though it must be done in defense of one’s life and not as an end to itself.

Perhaps most notably, the catechism stipulates that “legitimate defense” can “be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another’s life” (No. 2265).

“[T]hose holding legitimate authority have the right to repel by armed force aggressors against the civil community entrusted to their charge,” it states.

This would seem to at least allow for the possibility of arming teachers to counteract mass shooters. But whether or not this is a good or defensible idea is another matter.

“I’m not convinced we are in a social situation where arming teachers is justifiable,” Professor Jacob Kohlhaas told CNA.

Kohlhaas is a professor of moral theology at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa. He described himself as “not absolutely pacifist” but said the proposal to arm teachers is “profoundly misguided” and that it “utilizes some parts of the Catholic moral tradition while neglecting others.”

“I can actually imagine scenarios where armed teachers might be justifiable, but I can only imagine this in the context of widespread security issues or civil unrest,” he said.

“In a functioning democracy, increasing the capability for deadly response without questioning why such force is needed runs contrary to our obligations to the common good,” he said.

Kohlhaas said his own state has lately made gun ownership much more accessible, rendering it “more difficult to remove [firearms] from potentially violent individuals.”

“It is hard for me to imagine how a drastic response is justified when we are actively creating an environment that is more conducive to the underlying problem,” he said.

In contrast, Patrick Toner, a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University, has argued that it is “not a bad idea” to put guns in the hands of teachers.

Following the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, which claimed the lives of 19 students and two teachers, Toner wrote that laws prohibiting lawful gun carrying on school campuses means shooters can “generally assume that schools are truly gun-free zones,” making them “soft targets” for would-be killers.

“It’s unsettling to write about hardening up our schools. Don’t we wish there were no crazed murderers … looking to massacre harmless children?” Toner said. “And yet, in our depraved culture, unsurprisingly, we find no shortage of hopeful murderers.”

Toner told CNA that his beliefs on the matter “lie mainly in the realm of prudential judgment rather than in the direct application of any Church teachings.”

Still, he said, the Church does clearly state that Catholics “do indeed have a right to defend ourselves and a profound obligation to protect the helpless.”

Whether or not that obligation extends to carrying guns in schools is, of course, a matter of debate.

The catechism quotes St. Thomas Aquinas in saying that any self-defense that incorporates “more than necessary violence” is “unlawful” but that repelling an attack with “moderation” is appropriate (No. 2264).

Yet Aquinas further stipulates that in acts of self-defense it is not necessary to moderate one’s response solely “to avoid killing,” since “one is bound to take more care of one’s own life than of another’s.”

The saint further writes that those with “public authority” have more latitude to use lethal defense insofar as they “refer [the killing] to the public good.”

Though Church authorities in the U.S. have not explicitly weighed in on the question, some have expressed misgivings about the proposal to arm teachers.

Following the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement that the “idea of arming teachers seems to raise more concerns than it addresses.”

“We must always remember what is at stake as we take actions to safeguard our communities and honor human life,” the bishops said at the time.

Unsurprisingly, no pope has ever commented directly on the question, but popes have regularly spoken out against the proliferation of firearms.

Pope Francis was a consistent critic of the arms industry, though mostly in the context of war; following the Minneapolis shooting, meanwhile, Pope Leo XIV prayed for God “to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world.”

Kohlhaas, meanwhile, acknowledged that there are “people charged with protecting society who should possess and responsibly use firearms,” but he argued that “extending that to teachers without seriously asking why and how we got to this point is a problem.”

Gun violence, he said, is not inevitable, and humans have “an obligation to craft and adapt human products towards the common good.”

“[W]hen we simply give up and think that a particular form of violence that occurs in a very particular type of society is somehow beyond our control, we profoundly fail to acknowledge our responsibilities for assessing and reshaping that society,” he said.

Archdiocese of New Orleans offers 0 million to settle abuse claims

unitedyam September 9, 2025

St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. / Credit: travelview/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 9, 2025 / 14:53 pm (CNA).

After the Archdiocese of New Orleans increased its settlement offer to clergy sexual abuse claimants from $180 million to $230 million on Sept. 8, attorneys of the victims urged their clients to accept the deal.

The archdiocese was able to increase its initial offer, announced in May, after securing a buyer for the $50 million sale of Christopher Homes, a property that has provided affordable housing and assisted living to low-income and senior citizens in the Gulf Coast area for the last 50 years.

“We knew we could do better, and we have,” said attorneys Richard Trahant, Soren Gisleson, John Denenea, and several other attorneys who represent about 200 of the 660 claimants.

The attorneys, who said the initial settlement was “dead on arrival,” urged their clients to hold out for a better offer, saying that they deserved closer to $300 million, a figure similar to the $323 million paid out to about 600 claimants by the Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York in 2024.

In the Diocese of Rockville Centre bankruptcy settlement, attorneys reportedly collected about 30% of the $323 million, or approximately $96.9 million. Similarly, the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s $660 million settlement in 2007 saw attorneys receiving an estimated $165-$217.8 million, or 25%-33% of the payout.

Payout amounts to individual claimants in the New Orleans case will be determined by a point system negotiated by a committee of victims.

Administered by a trustee and an independent claims administrator appointed by the court, the point system is based on the type and nature of the alleged abuse. Additional points can be awarded for factors like participation in criminal prosecutions, pre-bankruptcy lawsuits, or leadership in victim efforts, while points may be reduced if the claimant was over 18 and consented to the contact. The impact of the alleged abuse on the victim’s behavior, academic achievement, mental health, faith, and family relationships can also adjust the score.

New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond said in a statement Monday that he is “very hopeful and committed to bringing this bankruptcy to a conclusion that benefits the survivors of abuse,” he said.

“I know there remains much work to be done, and I continue to hold this work in prayer. Please know that I pray for the survivors of abuse every day and look forward to the opportunity to meet with them to hear their stories firsthand.”

Two-thirds of the victims in the lawsuit will have to accept the offer by Oct. 29. If they do not, the case could be thrown out of bankruptcy, giving alleged victims a chance to pursue lawsuits individually.

A New Orleans man who filed a lawsuit in 2021 against a Catholic religious order unrelated to the New Orleans bankruptcy case recently won a $2.4 million jury verdict.

In 2021, the Louisiana Legislature eliminated the statute of limitations for civil actions related to the sexual abuse of minors. The new law allows victims to pursue civil damages indefinitely for abuse occurring on or after June 14, 1992, or where the victim was a minor as of June 14, 2021, with a three-year filing window (which ended June 14, 2024) for older cases.

The Diocese of Lafayette, along with the Archdiocese of New Orleans, the Diocese of Baton Rouge, the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux, Catholic Charities, the Diocese of Lake Charles, and several other entities challenged the law’s constitutionality, arguing it violated due process, but the Louisiana Supreme Court upheld it in June 2024 in a 4-3 decision.

Critics argued the retroactive nature of the law risks unfairness to defendants unable to defend against decades-old abuse claims due to lost evidence and highlighted the potentially devastating financial impact.

1,000-piece St. Carlo Acutis mosaic used to ‘convict the universal call to holiness’

unitedyam September 9, 2025

Artist Johnny Vrba presents the commissioned Carlo Acutis piece to kids at St. Carlo Acutis Parish in Chicago. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Chicago Catholic

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 9, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

As the faithful continue to celebrate the canonization of St. Carlo Acutis, a 1,000-piece mosaic portrait of the new saint made of toy soldiers, Pokémon, shoelaces, and other surprises hangs in Rome.

After artist Johnny Vrba heard about Acutis, he was inspired to create a portrait of the saint out of recognizable items that visually tell his story. Vrba has now crafted and presented two portraits of Acutis to help young Catholics learn about the first millennial saint.

“Every figure, every toy, every single thing that is glued on the piece has a meaning and a purpose,” Vrba told CNA. “It’s all on there for a reason. Every single one of them is numbered, just like Scripture says: ‘He hasn’t just counted them, because he’s numbered us. He’s numbered the hairs on our heads.’”

Johnny Vrba with his Carlo Acutis portrait in Assisi, Italy. Credit: Photo courtesy of Johnny Vrba

Discovering ‘an ordinary, but extraordinary, saint’

Vrba was raised Catholic but didn’t completely commit to his faith until an unexpected trip established his relationship with Christ.

In 2020, Vrba was on a study abroad trip sailing to Shanghai, China, when the COVID-19 virus broke out. “The voyage did not go as planned, but during that uncertain time I actually met the Lord for the first time in a really powerful way.”

After the experience, Vrba got involved in missionary work, was in school, and created a bit of art on the side. He had always enjoyed painting and building small toys and thought: “I wonder if there’s a way to combine drawing, painting, and this sculptural component.”

Vrba put faith and art together to create a couple portraits of Jesus with the Crown of Thorns. One is made of wine corks to represent Jesus’ miracle in Cana, and the other is crafted of toy soldiers. Then a friend of Vrba’s told him about Acutis, inspiring the next steps for the young artist.

“I’d never heard of Carlo Acutis. He was totally under my radar,” Vrba said. “Then I researched him and thought: ‘He has some very similar things to my own story and synchronicities.’ Like bringing his parents to the faith and bringing them to Mass. Then being into technology and filming and animals, like his dogs and cats. He’s just such an ordinary, but extraordinary, saint.”

The St. Carlo Acutis mosaic in the making. Credit: Photo courtesy of Johnny Vrba

“I started dreaming about what a piece could look like,” Vrba said. He decided his next sculpture would be an image Acutis made of toys, because “Carlo would have played with video game controllers, and played Pokémon and Mario.”

‘The First Millennial Saint’

Creating the mosaic was no simple task. Vrba had to track down thousands of quality soldiers and toys, paint them, and meticulously glue each one in place. The result was the 45-pound mosaic called “The First Millennial Saint.”

“Every toy has a meaning and a purpose,” Vrba said. Many of the soldiers are turned facing a figure of the crucifixion to represent “the culture of death.” They are “flaccid, boring, colored, gray, white, and black figures that are all pointing at the cross — pointing at Jesus.”

There are also colorful soldiers that are “outward-facing, evangelizing, and filled with the joy of the Gospel.” The 163 colorful figures represent Christians who are fighting against the culture of death and also the 163 Eucharistic miracles Acutis documented on his website.

The sculpture also has dozens of hidden “Easter eggs” that viewers might just miss, including a dolphin and various Pokémon characters hinting at Acutis’ favorite animal and favorite game. The background is even a soccer field to represent his love for the sport.

“People really gravitate towards the computer desk setup. It has a saxophone, the Bible, a world map, a little soda, and his dogs and cats around him where he would have worked at his little station. It blends right in with the piece, you would never even know, but when you turn your head sideways you can see it.”

“Then both of the miracles are incorporated,” Vrba said. The miracle of Mattheus, a young boy from Brazil who was healed from a birth defect that caused him difficulty eating is represented with small steak and french fry figurines, because it was the first meal he was able to consume after his mother asked Acutis to intercede for her son.

The sculpture includes a bicycle to represent the miracle that saved Valeria Valverde, a young Costa Rican woman who suffered a serious head injury from a bike accident in Florence. The toy bike is “placed on Carlo’s head where she cracked her head and suffered brain hemorrhaging.” After her mother prayed at Acutis’ tomb, she made a complete recovery.

Artist Johnny Vrba presents the commissioned Carlo Acutis piece to kids at St. Carlo Acutis Parish in Chicago. Credit: Photo courtesy of Chicago Catholic

A mission of more than just art

Vrba created the original mosaic for Acutis’ mother, which he planned to give to her during a meeting at Acutis’ canonization in April. After it was postponed due to Pope Francis’ death, the meeting was unfortunately canceled. Since the piece had already traveled to Italy, Vrba decided to take it to the church where Acutis is buried in Assisi.

The sculpture traveled around the city where Vrba showed it to pilgrims and placed it in spots Acutis once stood himself. After gaining traction on its journey, it was acquired by and placed in the Vatican’s youth center.

While in Assisi, Vrba also met a number of parishioners of St. Carlo Acutis Parish in Chicago — the only church in the United States named after Acutis. One parishioner commissioned a replica of the piece that Vrba created with even more details than the original.

Inspired by Acutis’ quote “We are all born originals, but many of us die photocopies,” Vrba ensures each work of art, even replicas, are different. “I want to make every piece unique, because every person is unique. Die as an original, not as a photocopy.”

Vrba presented the original during the Jubilee of Youth and the replica to kids at St. Carlo Acutis Parish. When kids see the sculpture Vrba loves that they realize “each figure on the piece has a special mission, and each one of us in the Church [has] a special mission. We are made for a purpose. We are the lifeblood of the Church.”

“I want to make art that people don’t just look at but look into. And it’s the greatest joy in my life when kids come up to it and they’re able to touch things, push buttons, and they can get their hands on it, interact with it. I love seeing them look into it.”

Vrba is currently working on four pieces that will be shown at Miami Art Week in December, including portraits of St. John Paul II and newly canonized St. Pier Giorgio Frassati. Vrba’s art will be one of the very few, if not the only, religious pieces at the mostly secular show.

“Then the goal would be to use those pieces at school parishes, stand-alone parishes, churches, and any Catholic missions to preach the lives of the saints.” He added: “The mission is to speak and evangelize, and especially, convict the universal call to holiness in an artistic way … using the commonplace household items and toys that people recognize.”

Seton Shrine to celebrate 50 years of America’s first native-born saint

unitedyam September 9, 2025

The National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg, Maryland, began a year of celebration on the saint’s canonization in 2025. / Credit: Seton Shrine

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 9, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

This week the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton will welcome hundreds of people to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the canonization of the first American-born saint and to recognize the 87 American Catholics on the path to sainthood now.

St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, a mother, convert to the Catholic faith, and founder of the Sisters of Charity, was canonized by Pope Paul VI on Sept. 14, 1975.

The Seton Shrine will commemorate the milestone of her canonization with a weekend-long event on its grounds in Emmitsburg, Maryland, honoring her legacy and her work of planting the seeds for Catholic education in the United States.

The weekend will also highlight other American saints and those who are blessed, venerable, or servants of God “who reveal that people from the U.S. can obtain holiness,” Rob Judge, executive director of the Seton Shrine, told CNA.

“We wanted to make the celebration about that possibility for all of us,” he said. “That God loves us, he’s destined all of us for heaven, and we can all obtain that through his grace.”

The event is expected to be one of the biggest events in the history of the shrine.

The celebration will kick off Friday, Sept. 12, with a concert by classically trained musicians from the Peabody Institute in Baltimore and The Juilliard School who will perform in the evening as the historic grounds are lit up with tea lights and candles. They will play hits from the 1970s to take attendees back the year Seton became a saint.

On Saturday, Sept. 13, the general superior of the Vincentian order, Father Tomaž Mavrič, will celebrate Mass; adoration and confession will also be available as well as the chance to learn more about Seton’s story through tours and exhibits.

Sunday, Sept. 14, marks the 50th anniversary and will include a Mass celebrated by Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore and Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Attendees will also hear “a message and an apostolic blessing from Pope Leo that will be read at the Mass by representatives of the nuncio’s office,” Judge said.

Since Seton’s canonization, 11 Americans have been canonized and 87 more have the potential to join them. The weekend’s special event called “Saints on Their Way Village” will welcome representatives from nearly two dozen guilds dedicated to advancing the cause of an American for canonization. Each guild will host a table to share information and answer questions.

Attendees can also explore the “Who’s Next?” exhibit in the shrine’s museum. The display features photos of potential saints including Dorothy Day, Blessed Solanus Casey, and Venerable Fulton Sheen.

Attendees might even catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirrors that hang alongside the pictures to show “we can all be saints, even if not declared saints,” Judge said.

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