Ban

Microsoft says it will not discriminate against religious groups after investor criticism #Catholic null / Credit: OlegRi/Shutterstock CNA Staff, Nov 20, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA). After pushback from investors, Microsoft has signed a statement agreeing not to discriminate against religious or conservative nonprofit groups seeking a discount the tech giant offers to other nonprofits.On Oct. 10, Microsoft and Boyer Research, a group of shareholders represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian legal group, signed the agreement. News of the agreement was published on Nov. 14.The shareholders had planned to put forth a proposal asking Microsoft on Dec. 5 at its annual meeting for a report on the company’s discounting practices, according to Bloomberg News.   The shareholders agreed not to move forward with the proposal after Microsoft signed the agreement, which stated that nonprofits no longer needed to affirm a nondiscrimination attestation. The company also said a categorical ban on pregnancy centers would be removed.In a statement to CNA on Nov. 19, Microsoft said: “The broad and diverse array of nonprofits is one of America’s great strengths, and the purpose of this nonprofit program is to provide discounts to a broad group of organizations that qualify as nonprofits under the federal tax code. We don’t think it’s desirable to pick and choose among these organizations based on ideological orientation. In this instance, we found that a small number of organizations that should have been eligible for these discounts were not receiving them. We’ve fixed this and those organizations are now eligible.”ADF attorney Alexandra Gaiser, who represented the shareholders, told CNA that the legal group and some pregnancy centers they represent are now in “wait-and-see mode.”She said since the agreement was signed, one pregnancy center has applied for the discount and been denied, but “a couple have received the nonprofit discount.”“We are looking forward to seeing more nonprofits get the discount,” Gaiser said.Microsoft is not the only corporation alleged to have discriminatory practices against faith-based or conservative groups that ADF has contended with.ADF filed two federal lawsuits this year, one against California-based software company Asana and the other against OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT, who both agreed in settlements to give previously withheld nonprofit discounts to Holy Sexuality, a Christian nonprofit group that makes videos and courses that teach about biblical principles on human sexuality.In the settlements, both tech companies said they would remove barriers to the discounts for religious organizations, according to ADF.Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier shared a letter he sent to Microsoft on social media on Nov. 3 in which he said the state might take legal action against the company if discriminatory practices against religious groups continued.
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Microsoft says it will not discriminate against religious groups after investor criticism #Catholic null / Credit: OlegRi/Shutterstock CNA Staff, Nov 20, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA). After pushback from investors, Microsoft has signed a statement agreeing not to discriminate against religious or conservative nonprofit groups seeking a discount the tech giant offers to other nonprofits.On Oct. 10, Microsoft and Boyer Research, a group of shareholders represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian legal group, signed the agreement. News of the agreement was published on Nov. 14.The shareholders had planned to put forth a proposal asking Microsoft on Dec. 5 at its annual meeting for a report on the company’s discounting practices, according to Bloomberg News.   The shareholders agreed not to move forward with the proposal after Microsoft signed the agreement, which stated that nonprofits no longer needed to affirm a nondiscrimination attestation. The company also said a categorical ban on pregnancy centers would be removed.In a statement to CNA on Nov. 19, Microsoft said: “The broad and diverse array of nonprofits is one of America’s great strengths, and the purpose of this nonprofit program is to provide discounts to a broad group of organizations that qualify as nonprofits under the federal tax code. We don’t think it’s desirable to pick and choose among these organizations based on ideological orientation. In this instance, we found that a small number of organizations that should have been eligible for these discounts were not receiving them. We’ve fixed this and those organizations are now eligible.”ADF attorney Alexandra Gaiser, who represented the shareholders, told CNA that the legal group and some pregnancy centers they represent are now in “wait-and-see mode.”She said since the agreement was signed, one pregnancy center has applied for the discount and been denied, but “a couple have received the nonprofit discount.”“We are looking forward to seeing more nonprofits get the discount,” Gaiser said.Microsoft is not the only corporation alleged to have discriminatory practices against faith-based or conservative groups that ADF has contended with.ADF filed two federal lawsuits this year, one against California-based software company Asana and the other against OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT, who both agreed in settlements to give previously withheld nonprofit discounts to Holy Sexuality, a Christian nonprofit group that makes videos and courses that teach about biblical principles on human sexuality.In the settlements, both tech companies said they would remove barriers to the discounts for religious organizations, according to ADF.Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier shared a letter he sent to Microsoft on social media on Nov. 3 in which he said the state might take legal action against the company if discriminatory practices against religious groups continued.

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null / Credit: OlegRi/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Nov 20, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

After pushback from investors, Microsoft has signed a statement agreeing not to discriminate against religious or conservative nonprofit groups seeking a discount the tech giant offers to other nonprofits.

On Oct. 10, Microsoft and Boyer Research, a group of shareholders represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a Christian legal group, signed the agreement. News of the agreement was published on Nov. 14.

The shareholders had planned to put forth a proposal asking Microsoft on Dec. 5 at its annual meeting for a report on the company’s discounting practices, according to Bloomberg News.   

The shareholders agreed not to move forward with the proposal after Microsoft signed the agreement, which stated that nonprofits no longer needed to affirm a nondiscrimination attestation. The company also said a categorical ban on pregnancy centers would be removed.

In a statement to CNA on Nov. 19, Microsoft said: “The broad and diverse array of nonprofits is one of America’s great strengths, and the purpose of this nonprofit program is to provide discounts to a broad group of organizations that qualify as nonprofits under the federal tax code. We don’t think it’s desirable to pick and choose among these organizations based on ideological orientation. In this instance, we found that a small number of organizations that should have been eligible for these discounts were not receiving them. We’ve fixed this and those organizations are now eligible.”

ADF attorney Alexandra Gaiser, who represented the shareholders, told CNA that the legal group and some pregnancy centers they represent are now in “wait-and-see mode.”

She said since the agreement was signed, one pregnancy center has applied for the discount and been denied, but “a couple have received the nonprofit discount.”

“We are looking forward to seeing more nonprofits get the discount,” Gaiser said.

Microsoft is not the only corporation alleged to have discriminatory practices against faith-based or conservative groups that ADF has contended with.

ADF filed two federal lawsuits this year, one against California-based software company Asana and the other against OpenAI, makers of ChatGPT, who both agreed in settlements to give previously withheld nonprofit discounts to Holy Sexuality, a Christian nonprofit group that makes videos and courses that teach about biblical principles on human sexuality.

In the settlements, both tech companies said they would remove barriers to the discounts for religious organizations, according to ADF.

Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier shared a letter he sent to Microsoft on social media on Nov. 3 in which he said the state might take legal action against the company if discriminatory practices against religious groups continued.

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Texas private school bans social media, sees students thrive with parent support #Catholic Faustina Academy, a K–12 private school in Irving, Texas, bans social media use among its students, and parents have been totally supportive. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy CNA Staff, Oct 30, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA). As the harmful effects of smartphone use on children become more well known, one school in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is partnering with parents to enforce a no-social-media policy and witnessing students flourish as a result.Faustina Academy, a K–12 private, independent Catholic school in Irving, Texas, asks parents to formally commit to a school policy of keeping their kids socia-media-free while enrolled. In addition to asking families to commit to prohibiting TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and CapCut, Faustina students have never been permitted to have phones with them during school hours. Student drivers must leave their phones in their cars during the school day and younger high school students who need phones for after-school activities turn them in to the office in the morning and pick them up after school and can only take them out once they are off campus.In the school’s early days, years before the smartphone’s launch, Christina Mehaffey, principal since the school’s founding in 2003, told CNA she paid attention to technology trends, researching MySpace and other early social-networking sites available on desktop or laptop computers.She concluded the sites “opened doors to inappropriate material” such as pornography and violence and “tweaked the tech policy to be more restrictive” over the years by informally asking parents to keep their children off devices at home (they were never allowed to have phones during the school day). She also asked parents to limit their children’s video game time.In 2017, after seeing the effects of years of smartphone use and social media apps on the children, Mehaffey began asking parents to prohibit social media use among students. She held two weeks of mandatory parent meetings for every grade level, discussing the harms of popular smartphone apps that were “drawing kids away from reality” and exposing them to “horrifying” content that was “right at their fingertips.” Mehaffey brought in an IT expert to explain to both parents and students that the app and smartphone creators “intentionally” made the devices and apps addictive because “they knew kids don’t have self-control; all for the sake of making money.”The expert told parents that kids could easily access content so harmful it was “far beyond what anyone could even imagine,” Mehaffey said.  “Parents were amazed” at what they learned, she said, and 100% were willing to verbally commit to keeping their children off social media. Mehaffey said it was necessary that every parent “get on board” in order to address the “collective action problem, the fear of missing out” that would be present among the students if every family did not have the same policy at home.Speaking of the overwhelming support of the parents, Mehaffey told CNA that many parents even “asked me to just make a school-wide policy prohibiting social media so they would be relieved of the burden of having to enforce the rules. A few parents said: ‘Our lives will be easier if the school makes it a policy.’”So, in 2022, the school’s official policy became “no social media use by Faustina students.” “Every single parent signed on,” Mehaffey said. Heidi Maher, whose family has been at Faustina since 2020, told CNA her family already had a no-social-media policy, but when Mehaffey took the no-phone policy in school a step further and banned social media, “it was a huge blessing to me as a parent. It took that battle off the table. We have enough battles as parents. If no one else has social media, I don’t have to battle with my children.” At previous schools her children attended, Maher said “they weren’t willing to lay down the law on more controversial social issues and they weren’t being direct enough about what being Catholic means.”Faustina Academy students attended the March for Life in Washington, D.C., in 2022 and plan to go again this coming January. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy“Kids are catechized on the playground,” Maher said. “Their peers, and what their peers’ families are doing, affect them, regardless of what their teachers say.”“My kids have grown up in one of the most liberal neighborhoods in Dallas. But when it came to education, we wanted an orthodox Catholic school,” she said.Since the policy change, Maher said she now sees a level of innocence in her children and their friends that she has not seen in a long time.The Dominicans visit the school once a week to read, answer questions, or give a talk to the students at Faustina Academy. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina AcademyJane Petres, who has two daughters at the school, agreed, telling CNA she appreciates raising her family among “mostly like-minded families” and school staff whom she can trust.“The other parents here seem very ‘with it’ and proactive,” she said of Faustina. “You can ban everything in the world, but unless the parents are enforcing it, kids are still going to be exposed to harmful things.”She said that at a previous school, an eighth-grade girl became involved with a 45-year-old man (who she thought was a teenage boy) through social media, and rather than recognizing the dangers and changing their policies, the school hushed it up. Every year, Faustina hosts parent orientations where Mehaffey tells them that “our purpose on earth is to get people to heaven. It has to be in everything we do; in our choices, friendships, our technology use, everything.”Faustina students attend Mass. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy“We want a school where everyone is on the same page, but we’re open to all,” Mehaffey said. “If someone comes in who isn’t Catholic, they have to commit to doing things the way the school does. Not only the technology policy but also prayers, the Mass, all of it. We’re going to teach the truth.”
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Texas private school bans social media, sees students thrive with parent support #Catholic Faustina Academy, a K–12 private school in Irving, Texas, bans social media use among its students, and parents have been totally supportive. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy CNA Staff, Oct 30, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA). As the harmful effects of smartphone use on children become more well known, one school in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is partnering with parents to enforce a no-social-media policy and witnessing students flourish as a result.Faustina Academy, a K–12 private, independent Catholic school in Irving, Texas, asks parents to formally commit to a school policy of keeping their kids socia-media-free while enrolled. In addition to asking families to commit to prohibiting TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and CapCut, Faustina students have never been permitted to have phones with them during school hours. Student drivers must leave their phones in their cars during the school day and younger high school students who need phones for after-school activities turn them in to the office in the morning and pick them up after school and can only take them out once they are off campus.In the school’s early days, years before the smartphone’s launch, Christina Mehaffey, principal since the school’s founding in 2003, told CNA she paid attention to technology trends, researching MySpace and other early social-networking sites available on desktop or laptop computers.She concluded the sites “opened doors to inappropriate material” such as pornography and violence and “tweaked the tech policy to be more restrictive” over the years by informally asking parents to keep their children off devices at home (they were never allowed to have phones during the school day). She also asked parents to limit their children’s video game time.In 2017, after seeing the effects of years of smartphone use and social media apps on the children, Mehaffey began asking parents to prohibit social media use among students. She held two weeks of mandatory parent meetings for every grade level, discussing the harms of popular smartphone apps that were “drawing kids away from reality” and exposing them to “horrifying” content that was “right at their fingertips.” Mehaffey brought in an IT expert to explain to both parents and students that the app and smartphone creators “intentionally” made the devices and apps addictive because “they knew kids don’t have self-control; all for the sake of making money.”The expert told parents that kids could easily access content so harmful it was “far beyond what anyone could even imagine,” Mehaffey said.  “Parents were amazed” at what they learned, she said, and 100% were willing to verbally commit to keeping their children off social media. Mehaffey said it was necessary that every parent “get on board” in order to address the “collective action problem, the fear of missing out” that would be present among the students if every family did not have the same policy at home.Speaking of the overwhelming support of the parents, Mehaffey told CNA that many parents even “asked me to just make a school-wide policy prohibiting social media so they would be relieved of the burden of having to enforce the rules. A few parents said: ‘Our lives will be easier if the school makes it a policy.’”So, in 2022, the school’s official policy became “no social media use by Faustina students.” “Every single parent signed on,” Mehaffey said. Heidi Maher, whose family has been at Faustina since 2020, told CNA her family already had a no-social-media policy, but when Mehaffey took the no-phone policy in school a step further and banned social media, “it was a huge blessing to me as a parent. It took that battle off the table. We have enough battles as parents. If no one else has social media, I don’t have to battle with my children.” At previous schools her children attended, Maher said “they weren’t willing to lay down the law on more controversial social issues and they weren’t being direct enough about what being Catholic means.”Faustina Academy students attended the March for Life in Washington, D.C., in 2022 and plan to go again this coming January. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy“Kids are catechized on the playground,” Maher said. “Their peers, and what their peers’ families are doing, affect them, regardless of what their teachers say.”“My kids have grown up in one of the most liberal neighborhoods in Dallas. But when it came to education, we wanted an orthodox Catholic school,” she said.Since the policy change, Maher said she now sees a level of innocence in her children and their friends that she has not seen in a long time.The Dominicans visit the school once a week to read, answer questions, or give a talk to the students at Faustina Academy. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina AcademyJane Petres, who has two daughters at the school, agreed, telling CNA she appreciates raising her family among “mostly like-minded families” and school staff whom she can trust.“The other parents here seem very ‘with it’ and proactive,” she said of Faustina. “You can ban everything in the world, but unless the parents are enforcing it, kids are still going to be exposed to harmful things.”She said that at a previous school, an eighth-grade girl became involved with a 45-year-old man (who she thought was a teenage boy) through social media, and rather than recognizing the dangers and changing their policies, the school hushed it up. Every year, Faustina hosts parent orientations where Mehaffey tells them that “our purpose on earth is to get people to heaven. It has to be in everything we do; in our choices, friendships, our technology use, everything.”Faustina students attend Mass. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy“We want a school where everyone is on the same page, but we’re open to all,” Mehaffey said. “If someone comes in who isn’t Catholic, they have to commit to doing things the way the school does. Not only the technology policy but also prayers, the Mass, all of it. We’re going to teach the truth.”

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Faustina Academy, a K–12 private school in Irving, Texas, bans social media use among its students, and parents have been totally supportive. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy

CNA Staff, Oct 30, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

As the harmful effects of smartphone use on children become more well known, one school in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is partnering with parents to enforce a no-social-media policy and witnessing students flourish as a result.

Faustina Academy, a K–12 private, independent Catholic school in Irving, Texas, asks parents to formally commit to a school policy of keeping their kids socia-media-free while enrolled. 

In addition to asking families to commit to prohibiting TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and CapCut, Faustina students have never been permitted to have phones with them during school hours. 

Student drivers must leave their phones in their cars during the school day and younger high school students who need phones for after-school activities turn them in to the office in the morning and pick them up after school and can only take them out once they are off campus.

In the school’s early days, years before the smartphone’s launch, Christina Mehaffey, principal since the school’s founding in 2003, told CNA she paid attention to technology trends, researching MySpace and other early social-networking sites available on desktop or laptop computers.

She concluded the sites “opened doors to inappropriate material” such as pornography and violence and “tweaked the tech policy to be more restrictive” over the years by informally asking parents to keep their children off devices at home (they were never allowed to have phones during the school day). She also asked parents to limit their children’s video game time.

In 2017, after seeing the effects of years of smartphone use and social media apps on the children, Mehaffey began asking parents to prohibit social media use among students. 

She held two weeks of mandatory parent meetings for every grade level, discussing the harms of popular smartphone apps that were “drawing kids away from reality” and exposing them to “horrifying” content that was “right at their fingertips.” 

Mehaffey brought in an IT expert to explain to both parents and students that the app and smartphone creators “intentionally” made the devices and apps addictive because “they knew kids don’t have self-control; all for the sake of making money.”

The expert told parents that kids could easily access content so harmful it was “far beyond what anyone could even imagine,” Mehaffey said.  

“Parents were amazed” at what they learned, she said, and 100% were willing to verbally commit to keeping their children off social media. 

Mehaffey said it was necessary that every parent “get on board” in order to address the “collective action problem, the fear of missing out” that would be present among the students if every family did not have the same policy at home.

Speaking of the overwhelming support of the parents, Mehaffey told CNA that many parents even “asked me to just make a school-wide policy prohibiting social media so they would be relieved of the burden of having to enforce the rules. A few parents said: ‘Our lives will be easier if the school makes it a policy.’”

So, in 2022, the school’s official policy became “no social media use by Faustina students.”

“Every single parent signed on,” Mehaffey said. 

Heidi Maher, whose family has been at Faustina since 2020, told CNA her family already had a no-social-media policy, but when Mehaffey took the no-phone policy in school a step further and banned social media, “it was a huge blessing to me as a parent. It took that battle off the table. We have enough battles as parents. If no one else has social media, I don’t have to battle with my children.” 

At previous schools her children attended, Maher said “they weren’t willing to lay down the law on more controversial social issues and they weren’t being direct enough about what being Catholic means.”

Faustina Academy students attended the March for Life in Washington, D.C., in 2022 and plan to go again this coming January. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy
Faustina Academy students attended the March for Life in Washington, D.C., in 2022 and plan to go again this coming January. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy

“Kids are catechized on the playground,” Maher said. “Their peers, and what their peers’ families are doing, affect them, regardless of what their teachers say.”

“My kids have grown up in one of the most liberal neighborhoods in Dallas. But when it came to education, we wanted an orthodox Catholic school,” she said.

Since the policy change, Maher said she now sees a level of innocence in her children and their friends that she has not seen in a long time.

The Dominicans visit the school once a week to read, answer questions, or give a talk to the students at Faustina Academy. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy
The Dominicans visit the school once a week to read, answer questions, or give a talk to the students at Faustina Academy. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy

Jane Petres, who has two daughters at the school, agreed, telling CNA she appreciates raising her family among “mostly like-minded families” and school staff whom she can trust.

“The other parents here seem very ‘with it’ and proactive,” she said of Faustina. “You can ban everything in the world, but unless the parents are enforcing it, kids are still going to be exposed to harmful things.”

She said that at a previous school, an eighth-grade girl became involved with a 45-year-old man (who she thought was a teenage boy) through social media, and rather than recognizing the dangers and changing their policies, the school hushed it up. 

Every year, Faustina hosts parent orientations where Mehaffey tells them that “our purpose on earth is to get people to heaven. It has to be in everything we do; in our choices, friendships, our technology use, everything.”

Faustina students attend Mass. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy
Faustina students attend Mass. Credit: Photo courtesy of Faustina Academy

“We want a school where everyone is on the same page, but we’re open to all,” Mehaffey said. “If someone comes in who isn’t Catholic, they have to commit to doing things the way the school does. Not only the technology policy but also prayers, the Mass, all of it. We’re going to teach the truth.”

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‘Every execution should be stopped’: How U.S. bishops work to save prisoners on death row #Catholic null / Credit: txking/Shutterstock CNA Staff, Oct 25, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA). Bishops in multiple U.S. states are leading efforts to spare the lives of condemned prisoners facing execution — urging clemency in line with the Catholic Church’s relatively recent but unambiguous declaration that the death penalty is not permissible and should be abolished. Executions in the United States have been increasingly less common for years. Following the death penalty’s re-legalization by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, executions peaked in the country around the turn of the century before beginning a gradual decline.Still, more than 1,600 prisoners have been executed since the late 1970s. The largest number of those executions has been carried out in Texas, which has killed 596 prisoners over that time period.As with other states, the Catholic bishops of Texas regularly petition the state government to issue clemency to prisoners facing death. Jennifer Allmon, the executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, told CNA that the state’s bishops regularly urge officials to commute death penalty sentences to life in prison. “We refer to it as the Mercy Project,” she said. Though popular perception holds that the governor of a state is the ultimate arbiter of a condemned prisoner’s fate, Allmon said in Texas that’s not the case. “The state Board of Pardons and Paroles has the ultimate authority,” she said. “The governor is only allowed to issue a 30-day stay on an execution one time. He doesn’t actually have the power to grant a permanent clemency.” “We don’t encourage phone calls to the governor because it’s not going to be a meaningful order,” she pointed out. “The board has a lot more authority.”Allmon said the bishops advocate on behalf of every condemned prisoner in the state. “We send a letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and copy the governor for every single execution during the time period when the board is reviewing clemency applications,” she said. “Typically they hold reviews about 21 days before the execution. We time our letters to arrive shortly before that.” “We research every single case,” she said. “We speak to the defendant’s legal counsel for additional information. We personalize each letter to urge prayer for the victims and their families, we mention them by name, and we share any mitigating circumstances or reason in particular that the execution is unjust, while always acknowledging that every execution should be stopped.”Some offenders, Allmon said, want to be executed. “We do a letter anyway. We think it’s important that on principle we speak out for every execution.”In Missouri, meanwhile, the state’s Catholic bishops similarly advocate for every prisoner facing execution by the government. Missouri has been among the most prolific executors of condemned prisoners since 1976. More than half of the 102 people executed there over the last 50 years have been under Democratic governors; then-Gov. Mel Carnahan oversaw 38 state executions from 1993 to 2000 alone. Jamie Morris, the executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, told CNA that the state bishops “send a clemency request for every prisoner set to be executed, either through a letter from the Missouri Catholic Conference or through a joint letter of the bishops.”“We also highlight every upcoming execution through our MCC publications and encourage our network to contact the governor to ask for clemency,” he said. Individual dioceses, meanwhile, carry out education and outreach to inform the faithful of the Church’s teaching on the death penalty. What does the Church actually teach?The Vatican in 2018 revised its teaching on the death penalty, holding that though capital punishment was “long considered an appropriate response” to some crimes, evolving standards and more effective methods of imprisonment and detention mean the death penalty is now “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”The Church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the revision of which was approved by Pope Francis. The Church’s revision came after years of increasing opposition to the death penalty by popes in the modern era. Then-Pope John Paul II in 1997 revised the catechism to reflect what he acknowledged was a “growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that [the death penalty] be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely.”The Death Penalty Information Center says that 23 states and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment. Morris told CNA that bills to abolish the death penalty are filed “every year” in Missouri, though he said those measures have “not been heard in a legislative committee” during his time at the Catholic conference. Bishops have thus focused their legislative efforts on advocating against a provision in the Missouri code that allows a judge to sentence an individual to death when a jury cannot reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty. Brett Farley, who heads the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, said the state’s bishops have been active in opposing capital punishment there after a six-year moratorium on the death penalty lapsed in 2021 and executions resumed. Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley and Tulsa Bishop David Konderla “have been very outspoken both in calling for clemency of death row inmates and, generally, calling for an end to the death penalty,” Farley said. The prelates have called for abolition via Catholic publications and in op-eds, he said.The state’s bishops through the Tulsa Diocese and Oklahoma City Archdiocese have also instituted programs in which clergy and laity both minister to the condemned and their families, Farley said. The state Catholic conference, meanwhile, has led the effort to pass a proposed legislative ban on the death penalty. That measure has moved out of committee in both chambers of the state Legislature, Farley said. “We have also commissioned recent polls that show overwhelming support for moratorium among Oklahoma voters, which demonstrate as many as 78% agreeing that ‘a pause’ on executions is appropriate to ensure we do not execute innocent people,” he said. Catholics across the United States have regularly led efforts to abolish the death penalty. The Washington, D.C.-based group Catholic Mobilizing Network, for instance, arose out of the U.S. bishops’ 2005 Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty. The group urges activists to take part in anti-death penalty campaigns in numerous states, including petitioning the federal government to end the death penalty, using a “three-tiered approach of education, advocacy, and prayer.”Catholics have also worked to end the death penalty at the federal level. Sixteen people have been executed by the federal government since 1976. Executions in the states have increased over the last few years, though they have not come near the highs of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Allmon said Texas is seeing “fewer executions in general” relative to earlier years. The number of executions was very high under Gov. Rick Perry, she said; the Republican governor ultimately witnessed the carrying out of 279 death sentences over his 15 years as governor. Since 2015, current Gov. Greg Abbott has presided over a comparatively smaller 78 executions. “It still shouldn’t happen,” she said, “but it’s a huge reduction.”
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‘Every execution should be stopped’: How U.S. bishops work to save prisoners on death row #Catholic null / Credit: txking/Shutterstock CNA Staff, Oct 25, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA). Bishops in multiple U.S. states are leading efforts to spare the lives of condemned prisoners facing execution — urging clemency in line with the Catholic Church’s relatively recent but unambiguous declaration that the death penalty is not permissible and should be abolished. Executions in the United States have been increasingly less common for years. Following the death penalty’s re-legalization by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, executions peaked in the country around the turn of the century before beginning a gradual decline.Still, more than 1,600 prisoners have been executed since the late 1970s. The largest number of those executions has been carried out in Texas, which has killed 596 prisoners over that time period.As with other states, the Catholic bishops of Texas regularly petition the state government to issue clemency to prisoners facing death. Jennifer Allmon, the executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, told CNA that the state’s bishops regularly urge officials to commute death penalty sentences to life in prison. “We refer to it as the Mercy Project,” she said. Though popular perception holds that the governor of a state is the ultimate arbiter of a condemned prisoner’s fate, Allmon said in Texas that’s not the case. “The state Board of Pardons and Paroles has the ultimate authority,” she said. “The governor is only allowed to issue a 30-day stay on an execution one time. He doesn’t actually have the power to grant a permanent clemency.” “We don’t encourage phone calls to the governor because it’s not going to be a meaningful order,” she pointed out. “The board has a lot more authority.”Allmon said the bishops advocate on behalf of every condemned prisoner in the state. “We send a letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and copy the governor for every single execution during the time period when the board is reviewing clemency applications,” she said. “Typically they hold reviews about 21 days before the execution. We time our letters to arrive shortly before that.” “We research every single case,” she said. “We speak to the defendant’s legal counsel for additional information. We personalize each letter to urge prayer for the victims and their families, we mention them by name, and we share any mitigating circumstances or reason in particular that the execution is unjust, while always acknowledging that every execution should be stopped.”Some offenders, Allmon said, want to be executed. “We do a letter anyway. We think it’s important that on principle we speak out for every execution.”In Missouri, meanwhile, the state’s Catholic bishops similarly advocate for every prisoner facing execution by the government. Missouri has been among the most prolific executors of condemned prisoners since 1976. More than half of the 102 people executed there over the last 50 years have been under Democratic governors; then-Gov. Mel Carnahan oversaw 38 state executions from 1993 to 2000 alone. Jamie Morris, the executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, told CNA that the state bishops “send a clemency request for every prisoner set to be executed, either through a letter from the Missouri Catholic Conference or through a joint letter of the bishops.”“We also highlight every upcoming execution through our MCC publications and encourage our network to contact the governor to ask for clemency,” he said. Individual dioceses, meanwhile, carry out education and outreach to inform the faithful of the Church’s teaching on the death penalty. What does the Church actually teach?The Vatican in 2018 revised its teaching on the death penalty, holding that though capital punishment was “long considered an appropriate response” to some crimes, evolving standards and more effective methods of imprisonment and detention mean the death penalty is now “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”The Church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the revision of which was approved by Pope Francis. The Church’s revision came after years of increasing opposition to the death penalty by popes in the modern era. Then-Pope John Paul II in 1997 revised the catechism to reflect what he acknowledged was a “growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that [the death penalty] be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely.”The Death Penalty Information Center says that 23 states and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment. Morris told CNA that bills to abolish the death penalty are filed “every year” in Missouri, though he said those measures have “not been heard in a legislative committee” during his time at the Catholic conference. Bishops have thus focused their legislative efforts on advocating against a provision in the Missouri code that allows a judge to sentence an individual to death when a jury cannot reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty. Brett Farley, who heads the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, said the state’s bishops have been active in opposing capital punishment there after a six-year moratorium on the death penalty lapsed in 2021 and executions resumed. Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley and Tulsa Bishop David Konderla “have been very outspoken both in calling for clemency of death row inmates and, generally, calling for an end to the death penalty,” Farley said. The prelates have called for abolition via Catholic publications and in op-eds, he said.The state’s bishops through the Tulsa Diocese and Oklahoma City Archdiocese have also instituted programs in which clergy and laity both minister to the condemned and their families, Farley said. The state Catholic conference, meanwhile, has led the effort to pass a proposed legislative ban on the death penalty. That measure has moved out of committee in both chambers of the state Legislature, Farley said. “We have also commissioned recent polls that show overwhelming support for moratorium among Oklahoma voters, which demonstrate as many as 78% agreeing that ‘a pause’ on executions is appropriate to ensure we do not execute innocent people,” he said. Catholics across the United States have regularly led efforts to abolish the death penalty. The Washington, D.C.-based group Catholic Mobilizing Network, for instance, arose out of the U.S. bishops’ 2005 Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty. The group urges activists to take part in anti-death penalty campaigns in numerous states, including petitioning the federal government to end the death penalty, using a “three-tiered approach of education, advocacy, and prayer.”Catholics have also worked to end the death penalty at the federal level. Sixteen people have been executed by the federal government since 1976. Executions in the states have increased over the last few years, though they have not come near the highs of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Allmon said Texas is seeing “fewer executions in general” relative to earlier years. The number of executions was very high under Gov. Rick Perry, she said; the Republican governor ultimately witnessed the carrying out of 279 death sentences over his 15 years as governor. Since 2015, current Gov. Greg Abbott has presided over a comparatively smaller 78 executions. “It still shouldn’t happen,” she said, “but it’s a huge reduction.”

unitedyam

null / Credit: txking/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Oct 25, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Bishops in multiple U.S. states are leading efforts to spare the lives of condemned prisoners facing execution — urging clemency in line with the Catholic Church’s relatively recent but unambiguous declaration that the death penalty is not permissible and should be abolished. 

Executions in the United States have been increasingly less common for years. Following the death penalty’s re-legalization by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, executions peaked in the country around the turn of the century before beginning a gradual decline.

Still, more than 1,600 prisoners have been executed since the late 1970s. The largest number of those executions has been carried out in Texas, which has killed 596 prisoners over that time period.

As with other states, the Catholic bishops of Texas regularly petition the state government to issue clemency to prisoners facing death. Jennifer Allmon, the executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, told CNA that the state’s bishops regularly urge officials to commute death penalty sentences to life in prison. 

“We refer to it as the Mercy Project,” she said. 

Though popular perception holds that the governor of a state is the ultimate arbiter of a condemned prisoner’s fate, Allmon said in Texas that’s not the case. 

“The state Board of Pardons and Paroles has the ultimate authority,” she said. “The governor is only allowed to issue a 30-day stay on an execution one time. He doesn’t actually have the power to grant a permanent clemency.” 

“We don’t encourage phone calls to the governor because it’s not going to be a meaningful order,” she pointed out. “The board has a lot more authority.”

Allmon said the bishops advocate on behalf of every condemned prisoner in the state. 

“We send a letter to the Board of Pardons and Paroles and copy the governor for every single execution during the time period when the board is reviewing clemency applications,” she said. “Typically they hold reviews about 21 days before the execution. We time our letters to arrive shortly before that.” 

“We research every single case,” she said. “We speak to the defendant’s legal counsel for additional information. We personalize each letter to urge prayer for the victims and their families, we mention them by name, and we share any mitigating circumstances or reason in particular that the execution is unjust, while always acknowledging that every execution should be stopped.”

Some offenders, Allmon said, want to be executed. “We do a letter anyway. We think it’s important that on principle we speak out for every execution.”

In Missouri, meanwhile, the state’s Catholic bishops similarly advocate for every prisoner facing execution by the government. 

Missouri has been among the most prolific executors of condemned prisoners since 1976. More than half of the 102 people executed there over the last 50 years have been under Democratic governors; then-Gov. Mel Carnahan oversaw 38 state executions from 1993 to 2000 alone. 

Jamie Morris, the executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, told CNA that the state bishops “send a clemency request for every prisoner set to be executed, either through a letter from the Missouri Catholic Conference or through a joint letter of the bishops.”

“We also highlight every upcoming execution through our MCC publications and encourage our network to contact the governor to ask for clemency,” he said. Individual dioceses, meanwhile, carry out education and outreach to inform the faithful of the Church’s teaching on the death penalty. 

What does the Church actually teach?

The Vatican in 2018 revised its teaching on the death penalty, holding that though capital punishment was “long considered an appropriate response” to some crimes, evolving standards and more effective methods of imprisonment and detention mean the death penalty is now “inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

The Church “works with determination for its abolition worldwide,” says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the revision of which was approved by Pope Francis. 

The Church’s revision came after years of increasing opposition to the death penalty by popes in the modern era. Then-Pope John Paul II in 1997 revised the catechism to reflect what he acknowledged was a “growing tendency, both in the Church and in civil society, to demand that [the death penalty] be applied in a very limited way or even that it be abolished completely.”

The Death Penalty Information Center says that 23 states and the District of Columbia have abolished capital punishment. Morris told CNA that bills to abolish the death penalty are filed “every year” in Missouri, though he said those measures have “not been heard in a legislative committee” during his time at the Catholic conference. 

Bishops have thus focused their legislative efforts on advocating against a provision in the Missouri code that allows a judge to sentence an individual to death when a jury cannot reach a unanimous decision on the death penalty. 

Brett Farley, who heads the Catholic Conference of Oklahoma, said the state’s bishops have been active in opposing capital punishment there after a six-year moratorium on the death penalty lapsed in 2021 and executions resumed. 

Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley and Tulsa Bishop David Konderla “have been very outspoken both in calling for clemency of death row inmates and, generally, calling for an end to the death penalty,” Farley said. The prelates have called for abolition via Catholic publications and in op-eds, he said.

The state’s bishops through the Tulsa Diocese and Oklahoma City Archdiocese have also instituted programs in which clergy and laity both minister to the condemned and their families, Farley said. 

The state Catholic conference, meanwhile, has led the effort to pass a proposed legislative ban on the death penalty. That measure has moved out of committee in both chambers of the state Legislature, Farley said. 

“We have also commissioned recent polls that show overwhelming support for moratorium among Oklahoma voters, which demonstrate as many as 78% agreeing that ‘a pause’ on executions is appropriate to ensure we do not execute innocent people,” he said. 

Catholics across the United States have regularly led efforts to abolish the death penalty. The Washington, D.C.-based group Catholic Mobilizing Network, for instance, arose out of the U.S. bishops’ 2005 Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty. 

The group urges activists to take part in anti-death penalty campaigns in numerous states, including petitioning the federal government to end the death penalty, using a “three-tiered approach of education, advocacy, and prayer.”

Catholics have also worked to end the death penalty at the federal level. Sixteen people have been executed by the federal government since 1976. 

Executions in the states have increased over the last few years, though they have not come near the highs of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Allmon said Texas is seeing “fewer executions in general” relative to earlier years. 

The number of executions was very high under Gov. Rick Perry, she said; the Republican governor ultimately witnessed the carrying out of 279 death sentences over his 15 years as governor. Since 2015, current Gov. Greg Abbott has presided over a comparatively smaller 78 executions. 

“It still shouldn’t happen,” she said, “but it’s a huge reduction.”

Read More
Instagram revamps restrictions on teen accounts #Catholic null / Credit: Antonio Salaverry/Shutterstock Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA). Instagram updated restrictions on teen accounts to be guided by PG-13 movie ratings to prevent teenage users from accessing mature and inappropriate content.In 2024, Instagram introduced Teen Accounts to place teens automatically in built-in protections on the app. Last week, the social media platform announced additional updates to the accounts to only show teenagers content “similar to what they’d see in a PG-13 movie.”Teens under 18 will be automatically placed into the updated setting and will not be allowed to opt out without a parent’s permission. The new restrictions ban users from searching inappropriate words and from following or messaging accounts with mature content.Father Michael Baggot, LC, professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, said “any change to help empower parents, protect their children, and restrict age-inappropriate content from them is a positive step forward.”“However, I am concerned because there is quite a difference between static content like a movie that can be thoroughly reviewed by a committee and very dynamic conduct that is performed in social media,” Baggot said in an Oct. 20 interview on “EWTN News Nightly.” Social media platforms include forms of cyberbullying, online predators, and artificial intelligence (AI) companions. “Those kinds of dynamic relationships are not necessarily regulated fully with a mere label,” Baggot said.The updates follow feedback from thousands of parents worldwide who shared their suggestions with Instagram. After hearing from parents, Instagram also added an additional setting that offers even stricter guidelines if parents want more extensive limitations. “Parents have a unique responsibility in constantly monitoring and discussing with their children and with other vulnerable people the type of interactions they’re having,” Baggot said. “But I think we can’t put an undue burden on parents.”Baggot suggested additional laws that hold companies accountable for “exploitative behavior or design techniques,” because they can “become addictive and really mislead guidance and mislead people.”AI in social media Since Instagram recently introduced AI chatbots to the app, it also added preventions on messages sent from AI. The social media platform reported that “AIs should not give age-inappropriate responses that would feel out of place in a PG-13 movie.”AI on Instagram must be handled with “great vigilance and critical discernment,” Baggot said. AI platforms “can be tools of research and assistance, but they can also really promote toxic relationships when left unregulated.”Measures to restrict AI and online content are opportunities for parents and users “to step back and look critically at the digitally-mediated relationships that we constantly have” and to “look at the potentially dangerous and harmful content or relationships that can take place there.”“There should be healthy detachment from these platforms,” Baggot said. “We need healthy friendships. We need strong families. We need supportive communities. Anytime we see a form of social media-related interaction replacing, distracting, or discouraging in-personal contact, that should be an … alarm that something needs to change and that we need to return to the richness of interpersonal exchange and not retreat to an alternative digital world.”
Read More

Instagram revamps restrictions on teen accounts #Catholic null / Credit: Antonio Salaverry/Shutterstock Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA). Instagram updated restrictions on teen accounts to be guided by PG-13 movie ratings to prevent teenage users from accessing mature and inappropriate content.In 2024, Instagram introduced Teen Accounts to place teens automatically in built-in protections on the app. Last week, the social media platform announced additional updates to the accounts to only show teenagers content “similar to what they’d see in a PG-13 movie.”Teens under 18 will be automatically placed into the updated setting and will not be allowed to opt out without a parent’s permission. The new restrictions ban users from searching inappropriate words and from following or messaging accounts with mature content.Father Michael Baggot, LC, professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, said “any change to help empower parents, protect their children, and restrict age-inappropriate content from them is a positive step forward.”“However, I am concerned because there is quite a difference between static content like a movie that can be thoroughly reviewed by a committee and very dynamic conduct that is performed in social media,” Baggot said in an Oct. 20 interview on “EWTN News Nightly.” Social media platforms include forms of cyberbullying, online predators, and artificial intelligence (AI) companions. “Those kinds of dynamic relationships are not necessarily regulated fully with a mere label,” Baggot said.The updates follow feedback from thousands of parents worldwide who shared their suggestions with Instagram. After hearing from parents, Instagram also added an additional setting that offers even stricter guidelines if parents want more extensive limitations. “Parents have a unique responsibility in constantly monitoring and discussing with their children and with other vulnerable people the type of interactions they’re having,” Baggot said. “But I think we can’t put an undue burden on parents.”Baggot suggested additional laws that hold companies accountable for “exploitative behavior or design techniques,” because they can “become addictive and really mislead guidance and mislead people.”AI in social media Since Instagram recently introduced AI chatbots to the app, it also added preventions on messages sent from AI. The social media platform reported that “AIs should not give age-inappropriate responses that would feel out of place in a PG-13 movie.”AI on Instagram must be handled with “great vigilance and critical discernment,” Baggot said. AI platforms “can be tools of research and assistance, but they can also really promote toxic relationships when left unregulated.”Measures to restrict AI and online content are opportunities for parents and users “to step back and look critically at the digitally-mediated relationships that we constantly have” and to “look at the potentially dangerous and harmful content or relationships that can take place there.”“There should be healthy detachment from these platforms,” Baggot said. “We need healthy friendships. We need strong families. We need supportive communities. Anytime we see a form of social media-related interaction replacing, distracting, or discouraging in-personal contact, that should be an … alarm that something needs to change and that we need to return to the richness of interpersonal exchange and not retreat to an alternative digital world.”

unitedyam

null / Credit: Antonio Salaverry/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).

Instagram updated restrictions on teen accounts to be guided by PG-13 movie ratings to prevent teenage users from accessing mature and inappropriate content.

In 2024, Instagram introduced Teen Accounts to place teens automatically in built-in protections on the app. Last week, the social media platform announced additional updates to the accounts to only show teenagers content “similar to what they’d see in a PG-13 movie.”

Teens under 18 will be automatically placed into the updated setting and will not be allowed to opt out without a parent’s permission. The new restrictions ban users from searching inappropriate words and from following or messaging accounts with mature content.

Father Michael Baggot, LC, professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum in Rome, said “any change to help empower parents, protect their children, and restrict age-inappropriate content from them is a positive step forward.”

“However, I am concerned because there is quite a difference between static content like a movie that can be thoroughly reviewed by a committee and very dynamic conduct that is performed in social media,” Baggot said in an Oct. 20 interview on “EWTN News Nightly.” 

Social media platforms include forms of cyberbullying, online predators, and artificial intelligence (AI) companions. “Those kinds of dynamic relationships are not necessarily regulated fully with a mere label,” Baggot said.

The updates follow feedback from thousands of parents worldwide who shared their suggestions with Instagram. After hearing from parents, Instagram also added an additional setting that offers even stricter guidelines if parents want more extensive limitations. 

“Parents have a unique responsibility in constantly monitoring and discussing with their children and with other vulnerable people the type of interactions they’re having,” Baggot said. “But I think we can’t put an undue burden on parents.”

Baggot suggested additional laws that hold companies accountable for “exploitative behavior or design techniques,” because they can “become addictive and really mislead guidance and mislead people.”

AI in social media 

Since Instagram recently introduced AI chatbots to the app, it also added preventions on messages sent from AI. The social media platform reported that “AIs should not give age-inappropriate responses that would feel out of place in a PG-13 movie.”

AI on Instagram must be handled with “great vigilance and critical discernment,” Baggot said. AI platforms “can be tools of research and assistance, but they can also really promote toxic relationships when left unregulated.”

Measures to restrict AI and online content are opportunities for parents and users “to step back and look critically at the digitally-mediated relationships that we constantly have” and to “look at the potentially dangerous and harmful content or relationships that can take place there.”

“There should be healthy detachment from these platforms,” Baggot said. “We need healthy friendships. We need strong families. We need supportive communities. Anytime we see a form of social media-related interaction replacing, distracting, or discouraging in-personal contact, that should be an … alarm that something needs to change and that we need to return to the richness of interpersonal exchange and not retreat to an alternative digital world.”

Read More
Catholic music debate: Should certain hymns be banned? #Catholic Scene from the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana. / Credit: EWTN News in Depth/Screenshot Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 18, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA). Several hymns were temporarily banned last year in the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri after being found “to be insufficient in sound doctrine,” with the action raising questions about what music is allowed at the Holy Mass.In a special report for the Oct. 17, 2025 edition of “EWTN News In Depth,” correspondent Mark Irons explored the subject. Archbishop Shawn McKnight, who implemented the brief ban, told Irons: “I would hope everybody else learns from my mistake.”McKnight, who was the bishop of Jefferson City at the time, now serves as the archbishop of Kansas City. The controversial ban in question encompassed 12 songs in total, including the popular hymns “I am the Bread of Life” and “All Are Welcome.” McKnight said the decree was implemented too quickly and without enough discussion among Catholics in the diocese. Currently, no particular hymns are excluded in the Diocese of Jefferson City, but parishes are required to evaluate Mass music using guidelines that were provided for archdioceses and dioceses across the nation by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).The USCCB’s 2020 “Catholic Hymnody at the Service of the Church: An Aid for Evaluating Hymn Lyrics” was created to make sure Mass hymns are in conformity with Catholic doctrine. The bishops list a number of specific concerns regarding hymns, including ones with “deficiencies in the presentation of Eucharistic doctrine,” those “with a view of the Church that sees Her as essentially a human construction,” or songs with “an inadequate sense of a distinctively Christian anthropology.”Kevin Callahan, who serves as the music director at Sacred Heart Parish in Glyndon, Maryland, told Irons: “We believe…the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ is here at the Mass, in the Eucharist. The songs, of course, should reflect that.” Callhan explained that he understands why the bishops would create the aid. The bishops “want the right thing to be said in Church, they don’t want the wrong idea to get tossed around.” Callahan said he does believe there are certain hymns that could be misleading. The ‘pride of place” of Gregorian chantOver time, Callahan said, Gregorian chant has earned pride of place within the liturgy of the Mass.This was reflected in the Second Vatican Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium, which explains: “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy.” Sara Pecknold, a professor of liturgical music at Christendom College, noted that “Gregorian chant, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was developed with and for the liturgy.” “The Second Vatican council teaches us that the more closely tied the music is to the liturgical action…the more sacred it is,” she pointed out.RecommendationsIf Gregorian chant is unfamiliar to a parish, Pecknold recommends small steps that could be taken. She said: “I would first start with the very simplest chant melodies, for the ordinaries of the Mass.”Beyond Gregorian chant, the Second Vatican Council decided that the Church approves “of all forms of true art having the needed qualities, and admits them into divine worship.” Pecknold explained: “Liturgical music should glorify God and it should sanctify and edify all of us who are present at this great sacrifice.”Welcoming a diversity of stylesDave Moore, the music director at the 2024 U.S. National Eucharistic Congress, was in charge of bringing together a wide variety of Catholic musicians from across the country for the event.Moore said the musical goal of the Congress was to create a unity rooted in Christ, through different styles of music.”I don’t know how you find unity without diversity,” Moore said. “There’s a lot of people who do things differently than we’re used to, but what we’re looking for is the heart, like are you pursuing the heart of God?”Archbishop McKnight also noted the need for variety. “Catholicity means there’s a universality to who we are, that we’re not of just one kind or one culture, but there’s a diversity of charisms and a diversity of styles,” he said. “The fact that there are different ways of entering into the mystery of Christ, actually increases the unity we have, otherwise we’re just a church of some, and not the Church of all.”Music is “often associated with memories and emotions, too,” he said. “That’s a part of our celebration of the Eucharist. It’s not just a thing of the mind. It’s not just a doctrinal assent. It’s also a movement of the heart and ultimately it’s active prayer.”“Hymns that are liked by the people are a good choice, but it’s also important that they convey the Catholic faith,” McKnight said. “It’s about discernment of the will of God and what the Holy Spirit wants.”
Read More

Catholic music debate: Should certain hymns be banned? #Catholic Scene from the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana. / Credit: EWTN News in Depth/Screenshot Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 18, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA). Several hymns were temporarily banned last year in the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri after being found “to be insufficient in sound doctrine,” with the action raising questions about what music is allowed at the Holy Mass.In a special report for the Oct. 17, 2025 edition of “EWTN News In Depth,” correspondent Mark Irons explored the subject. Archbishop Shawn McKnight, who implemented the brief ban, told Irons: “I would hope everybody else learns from my mistake.”McKnight, who was the bishop of Jefferson City at the time, now serves as the archbishop of Kansas City. The controversial ban in question encompassed 12 songs in total, including the popular hymns “I am the Bread of Life” and “All Are Welcome.” McKnight said the decree was implemented too quickly and without enough discussion among Catholics in the diocese. Currently, no particular hymns are excluded in the Diocese of Jefferson City, but parishes are required to evaluate Mass music using guidelines that were provided for archdioceses and dioceses across the nation by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).The USCCB’s 2020 “Catholic Hymnody at the Service of the Church: An Aid for Evaluating Hymn Lyrics” was created to make sure Mass hymns are in conformity with Catholic doctrine. The bishops list a number of specific concerns regarding hymns, including ones with “deficiencies in the presentation of Eucharistic doctrine,” those “with a view of the Church that sees Her as essentially a human construction,” or songs with “an inadequate sense of a distinctively Christian anthropology.”Kevin Callahan, who serves as the music director at Sacred Heart Parish in Glyndon, Maryland, told Irons: “We believe…the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ is here at the Mass, in the Eucharist. The songs, of course, should reflect that.” Callhan explained that he understands why the bishops would create the aid. The bishops “want the right thing to be said in Church, they don’t want the wrong idea to get tossed around.” Callahan said he does believe there are certain hymns that could be misleading. The ‘pride of place” of Gregorian chantOver time, Callahan said, Gregorian chant has earned pride of place within the liturgy of the Mass.This was reflected in the Second Vatican Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium, which explains: “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy.” Sara Pecknold, a professor of liturgical music at Christendom College, noted that “Gregorian chant, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was developed with and for the liturgy.” “The Second Vatican council teaches us that the more closely tied the music is to the liturgical action…the more sacred it is,” she pointed out.RecommendationsIf Gregorian chant is unfamiliar to a parish, Pecknold recommends small steps that could be taken. She said: “I would first start with the very simplest chant melodies, for the ordinaries of the Mass.”Beyond Gregorian chant, the Second Vatican Council decided that the Church approves “of all forms of true art having the needed qualities, and admits them into divine worship.” Pecknold explained: “Liturgical music should glorify God and it should sanctify and edify all of us who are present at this great sacrifice.”Welcoming a diversity of stylesDave Moore, the music director at the 2024 U.S. National Eucharistic Congress, was in charge of bringing together a wide variety of Catholic musicians from across the country for the event.Moore said the musical goal of the Congress was to create a unity rooted in Christ, through different styles of music.”I don’t know how you find unity without diversity,” Moore said. “There’s a lot of people who do things differently than we’re used to, but what we’re looking for is the heart, like are you pursuing the heart of God?”Archbishop McKnight also noted the need for variety. “Catholicity means there’s a universality to who we are, that we’re not of just one kind or one culture, but there’s a diversity of charisms and a diversity of styles,” he said. “The fact that there are different ways of entering into the mystery of Christ, actually increases the unity we have, otherwise we’re just a church of some, and not the Church of all.”Music is “often associated with memories and emotions, too,” he said. “That’s a part of our celebration of the Eucharist. It’s not just a thing of the mind. It’s not just a doctrinal assent. It’s also a movement of the heart and ultimately it’s active prayer.”“Hymns that are liked by the people are a good choice, but it’s also important that they convey the Catholic faith,” McKnight said. “It’s about discernment of the will of God and what the Holy Spirit wants.”

unitedyam

Scene from the 2024 National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, Indiana. / Credit: EWTN News in Depth/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 18, 2025 / 12:00 pm (CNA).

Several hymns were temporarily banned last year in the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri after being found “to be insufficient in sound doctrine,” with the action raising questions about what music is allowed at the Holy Mass.

In a special report for the Oct. 17, 2025 edition of “EWTN News In Depth,” correspondent Mark Irons explored the subject. Archbishop Shawn McKnight, who implemented the brief ban, told Irons: “I would hope everybody else learns from my mistake.”

McKnight, who was the bishop of Jefferson City at the time, now serves as the archbishop of Kansas City. The controversial ban in question encompassed 12 songs in total, including the popular hymns “I am the Bread of Life” and “All Are Welcome.”

McKnight said the decree was implemented too quickly and without enough discussion among Catholics in the diocese. 

Currently, no particular hymns are excluded in the Diocese of Jefferson City, but parishes are required to evaluate Mass music using guidelines that were provided for archdioceses and dioceses across the nation by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

The USCCB’s 2020 “Catholic Hymnody at the Service of the Church: An Aid for Evaluating Hymn Lyrics” was created to make sure Mass hymns are in conformity with Catholic doctrine. The bishops list a number of specific concerns regarding hymns, including ones with “deficiencies in the presentation of Eucharistic doctrine,” those “with a view of the Church that sees Her as essentially a human construction,” or songs with “an inadequate sense of a distinctively Christian anthropology.”

Kevin Callahan, who serves as the music director at Sacred Heart Parish in Glyndon, Maryland, told Irons: “We believe…the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ is here at the Mass, in the Eucharist. The songs, of course, should reflect that.” 

Callhan explained that he understands why the bishops would create the aid. The bishops “want the right thing to be said in Church, they don’t want the wrong idea to get tossed around.” Callahan said he does believe there are certain hymns that could be misleading. 

The ‘pride of place” of Gregorian chant

Over time, Callahan said, Gregorian chant has earned pride of place within the liturgy of the Mass.

This was reflected in the Second Vatican Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium, which explains: “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy.” 

Sara Pecknold, a professor of liturgical music at Christendom College, noted that “Gregorian chant, beyond a shadow of a doubt, was developed with and for the liturgy.”

“The Second Vatican council teaches us that the more closely tied the music is to the liturgical action…the more sacred it is,” she pointed out.

Recommendations

If Gregorian chant is unfamiliar to a parish, Pecknold recommends small steps that could be taken. She said: “I would first start with the very simplest chant melodies, for the ordinaries of the Mass.”

Beyond Gregorian chant, the Second Vatican Council decided that the Church approves “of all forms of true art having the needed qualities, and admits them into divine worship.”

Pecknold explained: “Liturgical music should glorify God and it should sanctify and edify all of us who are present at this great sacrifice.”

Welcoming a diversity of styles

Dave Moore, the music director at the 2024 U.S. National Eucharistic Congress, was in charge of bringing together a wide variety of Catholic musicians from across the country for the event.

Moore said the musical goal of the Congress was to create a unity rooted in Christ, through different styles of music.

“I don’t know how you find unity without diversity,” Moore said. “There’s a lot of people who do things differently than we’re used to, but what we’re looking for is the heart, like are you pursuing the heart of God?”

Archbishop McKnight also noted the need for variety.

“Catholicity means there’s a universality to who we are, that we’re not of just one kind or one culture, but there’s a diversity of charisms and a diversity of styles,” he said. “The fact that there are different ways of entering into the mystery of Christ, actually increases the unity we have, otherwise we’re just a church of some, and not the Church of all.”

Music is “often associated with memories and emotions, too,” he said. “That’s a part of our celebration of the Eucharist. It’s not just a thing of the mind. It’s not just a doctrinal assent. It’s also a movement of the heart and ultimately it’s active prayer.”

“Hymns that are liked by the people are a good choice, but it’s also important that they convey the Catholic faith,” McKnight said. “It’s about discernment of the will of God and what the Holy Spirit wants.”

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