Bishop Edward Scarfenberger. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Diocese of Albany
National Catholic Register, Dec 19, 2025 / 12:24 pm (CNA).
A retired New York bishop has filed for personal bankruptcy protection in federal court after a state jury verdict found him, along with other officials, personally liable for the collapse of a Catholic hospital pension fund that left about 1,100 retirees without the lifetime monthly payments they were expecting.
It’s not clear whether a Catholic bishop in the United States has ever previously filed for personal bankruptcy protection.
Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, 77, who served as bishop of Albany from April 2014 until his retirement in October, is seeking protection from creditors for his assets valued at between $100,001 and $500,000, according to a filing Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York.
The seven-page filing does not list the bishop’s assets but states that he has between 100 and 199 creditors and debts totaling between $1,000,001 and $10 million.
Last week, a jury found Scharfenberger 10% liable in a $54.2 million judgment in a civil lawsuit over the failed pension plan once provided by St. Clare’s Hospital in Schenectady, a Catholic hospital that operated from 1949 until 2008, according to The Evangelist, the diocese’s newspaper.
The verdict and judgment, issued Dec. 12, cover compensatory damages — the amount a court finds is owed to plaintiffs for harm they have suffered — but not punitive damages, which may be added in cases of recklessness, malice, or fraud. The bankruptcy filings by the bishop and another defendant in the state lawsuit over the pension plan failure forced a pause in a punitive damages hearing earlier this week, according to WNYT Channel 13 in Albany.
The National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, was unable to reach Scharfenberger before the publication of this story. A lawyer representing the bishop acknowledged a request for comment Dec. 17 but did not immediately provide one.
A rare personal bankruptcy
In recent decades, bankruptcies have occurred regularly in the Catholic Church in the United States. Between 2004 and November 2025, 39 of the country’s dioceses have filed for bankruptcy, almost all to protect assets from clergy sex-abuse lawsuits, as the Register reported last month. One of those is the Diocese of Albany, which filed for bankruptcy in March 2023.
But those diocesan cases were filed under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, which allows a corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship to reorganize and continue operating while developing a court-approved plan to repay creditors.
Scharfenberger filed under Chapter 13, which allows an individual with regular income who cannot pay debts to keep certain assets while working out a repayment plan.
“The rules in Chapter 13 permit a debtor to keep property and confirm a plan with payments to creditors based on the debtor’s ‘disposable income,’” said Marie Reilly, a bankruptcy expert and law professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, in an email. “If the debtor commits his disposable income to paying creditors for the term of a three- to five-year plan, he gets a discharge (forgiveness) of the unpaid balance.”
Reilly, who has researched several dozen diocesan bankruptcies for The Catholic Project, a lay initiative of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., told the Register that the bankruptcy filing does not necessarily solve all of the bishop’s money problems.
“There are exceptions — some debts don’t get discharged. Creditors can object to the plan if it does not meet the statutory requirements,” Reilly said. “And, it is possible that the pension fund creditor may move to dismiss the bishop’s Chapter 13 case as having been filed ‘in bad faith.’”
$50 million shortfall
St. Clare’s Hospital was originally run by the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. The Diocese of Albany maintains that it never owned the hospital and that the bishop of Albany merely provided “canonical oversight” to make sure the hospital met “its mission to serve all in accord with Catholic moral standards,” according to an August 2025 statement from the diocese.
Last week, the jury found that the Diocese of Albany has no liability for the pension failure, instead holding the hospital corporation and certain officers and board members accountable.
In addition to Scharfenberger, the jury found two deceased employees of the diocese liable, according to The Evangelist: Former Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard (1938–2023), who led the diocese from 1977 to 2014, was found 20% liable; and Father David LeFort, a former vicar general of the diocese who died in August 2023, was found 5% liable.
Also found liable were St. Clare’s Corporation (20%), St. Clare’s president Joseph Pofit (25%), and former St. Clare’s president Robert Perry (20%), according to The Evangelist.
The judgments stem from a pension plan that operated for about 60 years.
In 1959, the hospital began offering employees a defined-benefit plan that provided a lifetime monthly pension after retirement.
Church plan exempt from ERISA
Like most plans operated by Catholic institutions, the pension plan had a religious exemption from the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (known as ERISA), which sets minimum funding requirements for most nonreligious pension plans and also enables the federal government to step in and make payments to retirees of failed plans, using a fund financed by covered pension plans.
When the hospital closed in 2008, the officers of St. Clare’s “determined that the corporation would continue to exist for purposes of administering the pension plan,” according to a complaint filed in state court in Schenectady County by the New York attorney general’s office in May 2022.
“They also chose to continue treating the pension plan as a ‘Church plan’ — which it could do only if the corporation’s former employees and pensioners were designated as employees of the Church. This was all in order to avoid the contribution and insurance requirements of ERISA, and the duties imposed by ERISA upon corporation directors and trustees as fiduciaries,” the complaint states.
The bishop of Albany was automatically a member of the hospital’s board and served as its honorary chairman, and had authority to appoint most of the directors on the board, according to the state attorney general’s complaint.
The attorney general’s office alleged that St. Clare’s Corporation failed to make contributions to the pension fund “for all but three years from 2001 to 2019” and concealed from retirees “the insolvency of the pension plan.”
In 2018, the St. Clare’s board terminated the pension plan effective Feb. 1, 2019, because of an approximately $50 million shortfall. More than 1,100 employees lost retirement benefits, including about 650 who lost all pension payments and about 450 who received a lump-sum payment “equal to 70% of the value of their vested pension,” the complaint states. The retired employees include “nurses, lab technicians, social workers, EMTs, orderlies, housekeepers, and other essential workers” who worked at the hospital “between 10 and 50 years,” the complaint states.
Testimony and reaction
On Dec. 9 during the civil trial, Scharfenberger testified that during his tenure no boards he sat on ever discussed the hospital’s pension plan, according to The Times-Union of Albany.
In a written statement issued in August, when Scharfenberger still led the Diocese of Albany, the diocese said the bishop “has actively sought ways to help the pensioners” while denying that the diocese ever “exercised any control over St. Clare’s Hospital operations or its pension.”
“He hosted a listening session with pensioners at Siena College to identify issues and consider ways to help those in need. He also reached out to the Mother Cabrini Foundation to try to secure funding for the pensioners, but that effort was unable to move forward once the pensioners filed the lawsuit,” the statement said.
“The diocese is eager to see the case move forward and promptly resolved,” the August statement continued. “Our prayers continue for all who are struggling in any way, and as we stated previously, our offer to connect those in need with services that can help, stands. No one should walk alone.”
His successor, Bishop Mark O’Connell, who was installed as bishop of Albany on Dec. 5, told reporters shortly before the verdict was announced last week: “I care deeply about their hurt [and] not having their pensions,” according to The Evangelist.
During the Dec. 12 press conference, when a reporter asked O’Connell what the diocese would do if the jury found the diocese liable for the pension fund collapse, the bishop noted that the diocese is already in the midst of a bankruptcy process.
“If we are liable, then we’ll do what we can to make amends, given that they are one creditor as a group among many people accusing the Diocese of Albany,” O’Connell said, according to WAMC Northeast Public Radio. “And that’s what bankruptcy process is. We obviously cannot pay a billion dollars. Right? So that’s what Chapter 11 is all about, to figure out what’s fair. And since you have a bankruptcy judge and mediators, it’s not up to us.”
Later that day, the jury found the diocese not liable in the pension fund collapse lawsuit. The diocese issued a written statement, according to The Evangelist, that said: “As grateful as we are for the jury’s informed decision, we are still very much aware of the hurt felt by the St. Clare’s pensioners who cared for the sick and the poor throughout the long history of St. Clare’s Hospital. This does not mean that we will turn our backs to the pensioners, for as Bishop O’Connell has noted, they are a part of our flock; they are still in need of healing.”
That same day, lead plaintiff Mary Hartshorne, who worked in the hospital’s radiology department for about 28 years, told WNYT Channel 13 in Albany that she and other hospital retirees were pleased with the jury’s verdict but did not feel they would be made whole.
“We’ve been playing this game for seven and a half years, and I think my question I ask everybody is: How do you get that back? You don’t,” she said.
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.
Read More
![Pro-life movement has mixed reaction after Trump’s first year of second term #Catholic
Participants in a pro-life rally hold signs in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023, at a rally marking the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. | Credit: Joseph Portolano/EWTN News
Jan 20, 2026 / 14:37 pm (CNA).
Members of the pro-life movement have mixed thoughts on the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, noting many wins early into his presidency but a number of shortfalls as time has gone by.Some wins include defunding Planned Parenthood, walking back some of President Joe Biden’s initiatives, and removing foreign aid funding for organizations that promote abortion. However, a lack of action on chemical abortions and weakened rhetoric surrounding taxpayer-funded abortions are causing concern.A notable pro-life win was included in the tax overhaul bill signed by Trump in July, which cut off all Medicaid reimbursements for organizations that provide a large number of abortions, such as Planned Parenthood.Amid funding cuts, nearly 70 Planned Parenthood affiliates shut down. The administration also initially cut off Title X family planning grants from the abortion giant, but those have resumed.The president pardoned pro-life protesters convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and blocked foreign aid from supporting organizations that promote abortion. He rescinded several policies from the Biden administration, including one that paid Pentagon workers to travel for abortions. He also established strong conscience protections for pro-life doctors.“Right out the gate, we saw some progress on the pro-life issue,” Kelsey Pritchard, a spokesperson for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), told EWTN.Yet, she cautioned: “We have also not seen progress in the one area that matters the most — and that’s on abortion drugs.”Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a study into the safety of the abortion pill mifepristone in September 2025, but so far no action has been taken to curtail the drug. Rather, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) went in the opposite direction, approving a generic version of mifepristone later that same month.Pritchard said that move was “the opposite of what they should have done,” and referred to the generic mifepristone as “a new kill pill to increase the number of abortions that are done in this country.”She said Kennedy’s promised study has “absolutely been moving too slow” and added that there is no confirmation it even began or is taking place. SBA called for FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to be fired following allegations he was “slow-walking the report for political reasons,” she said.Trump has said abortion should be regulated by the states, but Pritchard warned “those [pro-life] laws can’t be in effect at all, really, when mail-order abortion happens with the abortion drugs.”“They’re allowing [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom and [New York Gov.] Kathy Hochul and their blue state friends to completely nullify the pro-life laws in states like Texas and Florida,” she said.Joseph Meaney, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, similarly said “the delay in the promised review of the rushed process in which mifepristone was approved as an abortion drug by the FDA has frustrated pro-lifers.”“When the FDA approved a second generic version of mifepristone, … it highlighted the lack of progress in fighting the leading means of doing abortions in the [United States],” he said.Trump also began to waver on taxpayer-funded abortions early in 2026, asking Republicans to be “flexible” on the Hyde Amendment amid negotiations on extending health care subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Trump later unveiled “The Great Healthcare Plan” and said the White House intends to negotiate with Congress to ensure pro-life protections.Pritchard called taxpayer-funded abortion “a very basic red line” and said it’s “concerning to see Republicans back away from something so basic.”She warned Republicans to not take pro-life voters for granted in the upcoming midterms, saying “you’ll lose the elections and we won’t have the majority of Congress” without pro-life voters.“You must remain the pro-life party or you will lose the midterms if you decide to bow to the pro-death Democrat agenda,” Pritchard said.Meaney said there is “a widespread feeling that the second Trump administration has seemed to deprioritize issues important to the pro-life community,” adding he has “seen calls for pro-life groups to ‘flex their muscles’ and show that they cannot be taken for granted.”However, he said the shortfalls “should not obscure the fact that the Trump administration has rolled back the Biden-era pro-abortion measures internationally and domestically.”“It even achieved a temporary defunding of Planned Parenthood domestically in legislation,” he said. “The federal government no longer funds research on fetal tissues and defends the conscience rights of health care professionals and others robustly.”Trump also signed an executive order that directed departments and agencies to boost access to and reduce the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Catholic Church opposes IVF, which results in the destruction of human embryos, ending human lives.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/pro-life-movement-has-mixed-reaction-after-trumps-first-year-of-second-term-catholic-participants-in-a-pro-life-rally-hold-signs-in-front-of-the-lincoln-memorial-in-washington-d-c-on-scaled.jpg)
![Catholics express mixed views on first year of Trump’s second term #Catholic
With Speaker of the House Mike Johnson by his side, President Donald Trump speaks to the press following a House Republican meeting at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. | Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
Jan 20, 2026 / 12:21 pm (CNA).
Catholics are offering mixed reactions to the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, which included domestic policy actions that align with U.S. bishops on gender-related issues, and also tensions over immigration, expansion of the death penalty, and reduced funding for organizations that provide food and basic support to people in need.Trump secured his electoral victory in 2024 with the help of Catholics, who supported him by a double-digit margin, according to exit polls. A Pew Research Center report found that nearly a quarter of Trump’s voters in 2024 were Catholic.Throughout his first year, Trump — who calls himself a nondenominational Christian — has invoked Christianity and created a White House Faith Office. He created a Religious Liberty Commission by executive order in May 2025 and became the first president to issue a proclamation honoring the Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception in December.Last year, the president also launched the “America Prays” initiative, which encouraged people to dedicate one hour of prayer for the United States and its people in preparation for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026.Immigration, poverty, and NGOsJohn White, professor of politics at The Catholic University of America, said the first year of Trump’s second term “challenged Catholics on many levels.”“The brutality of ICE has caused the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to issue an extraordinary statement at the prompting of Pope Leo XIV,” White said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a special message in November opposing indiscriminate mass deportations, calling for humane treatment, urging meaningful reform, and affirming the compatibility of national security with human dignity.The Trump administration, with JD Vance, the second Catholic vice president in U.S. history, cut billions of dollars in funding to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which financially damaged several Catholic nonprofits that had received funding. Trump also signed into law historic cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.“The cuts to NGO funding, SNAP, and Medicaid benefits, alongside the huge increases in health care costs, have hurt the poor and middle class at home and around the world,” he said. “Instead of being the good Samaritan, Trump has challenged our Catholic values and narrowed our vision of who we are and what we believe. JD Vance’s interpretation of ‘Ordo Amoris’ of a hierarchy to those whom we love rather than a universal love is a case in point and has been repudiated by Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV,” he said.The cuts aligned federal policy with the administration’s agenda, which included strict immigration enforcement, mass deportations of immigrants who are in the country illegally, and less foreign aid support.Catholic Charities USA was previously receiving more than $100 million annually for migrant services, and the Trump administration cut off those funds. In response, the organization scaled back its services.Since Trump took office, the administration said it has deported more than 600,000 people.Karen Sullivan, director of advocacy for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), which provides legal services to migrants, said she is “very concerned about the way that immigration enforcement has been carried out,” adding her organization is “very concerned that human dignity of all persons [needs to] be respected.”Sullivan said the administration is “enabling their officers to use excessive force as they are taking people into custody” and “denying access to oversight at their detention centers.” She also expressed concern about the administration increasing fees for asylum applications and giving agents more leeway to conduct immigration enforcement at sensitive locations, such as churches, schools, and hospitals.She said the large number of deportations and the increase in expedited removals has “been a strain” on organizations that seek to provide legal help to migrants.CLINIC receives inquiries from people who are facing deportation and also those who fear they may be deported. She said: “The worry and the fear among those people [who may face deportation] makes them seek out assistance and advice even more often.”“The pace of the changes that have been happening in the past year have been very difficult to manage,” she said. “We are having to respond very quickly to changes."Executive actions on genderSusan Hanssen, a history professor at the University of Dallas (a Catholic institution), viewed the first year of Trump’s second term in mostly successful terms.“As Catholics we know that the law educates, and during Trump’s first year in office we witnessed an actual shift in public opinion on the LGBT/transgender ideology due to his asserting the scientific and natural common sense that there are only male and female,” Hanssen said.Trump took executive action to prohibit what he called the “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children, such as hormone therapy and surgical transition. He signed a policy restricting participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports. He legally recognized only two genders, determined by biology: male and female.“His strong executive action on this essential point — domestically in making the executive branch remove its trans-affirming language, the executive department of education stop subverting parental rights over their children, and women’s rights in sports, and (importantly) putting an end to USAID’s [U.S. Agency for International Development] pushing this gender agenda on the countries who need our economic assistance,” she said.“This has led to a genuine public shift, with fewer independent corporations choosing to enforce June as LGBT Pride month on their customer base, fewer DEI programs pushing the gender agenda on hiring, and a shift (especially among young men) towards disapproval of gender transitioning children and even towards disapproval of the legalization of so-called same sex ‘marriage,’” she added. “We will need to see how these executive branch victories will affect judicial and legislative action moving forward.”Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, had a similar view of some of the social changes.“The current administration has focused significant energy on the important task of ‘putting folks on notice,’ so it’s hard to deny, for example, that the misguided medico-pharmaceutical industry that has profited handsomely from exploiting vulnerable youth and other gender dysphoric individuals can no longer miss the loud indicators that these practices will not be able to continue unabated,” he said.Death penaltyTrump signaled a renewed and more aggressive federal capital-punishment policy in 2025, in opposition to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which teaches that the death penalty is “inadmissible.”Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office directing the Justice Department to actively pursue the federal death penalty for serious crimes. He also directed federal prosecutors to seek death sentences in Washington, D.C., homicide cases. His administration lifted a moratorium on executions, reversing a pause in federal executions and following President Joe Biden’s commutations of federal death sentences.Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, then-president of the USCCB, in a Jan. 22, 2025, statement called Trump’s support for expanding the federal death penalty “deeply troubling.” Newly elected USCCB president Archbishop Paul Coakley likewise called for the abolition of the death penalty.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/catholics-express-mixed-views-on-first-year-of-trumps-second-term-catholic-with-speaker-of-the-house-mike-johnson-by-his-side-president-donald-trump-speaks-to-the-press-following-a-hous.jpg)
![Trump urges Republican ‘flexibility’ on taxpayer-funded abortions #Catholic
President Donald Trump talks to Republicans about their stance on the Hyde Amendment on Jan. 6, 2026. | Credit: Mandel NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Jan 6, 2026 / 18:10 pm (CNA).
President Donald Trump is asking congressional Republicans to be more flexible on taxpayer funding for abortions as lawmakers continue to negotiate an extension to health care subsidies related to the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.Some federal subsidies that lowered premiums for those enrolled in the Affordable Care Act expired in December. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that the average increase to premiums for people who lost the subsidies will be about 114%, from $888 in 2025 to $1,904 in 2026. The exact costs will be different, depending on specific plans.Trump has encouraged his party to work on extending those subsidies and is asking them to be “flexible” on a provision that could affect tax-funded abortion. Democrats have proposed ending the restrictions of the Hyde Amendment, which bans direct federal funding for abortions in most cases.“Let the money go directly to the people,” Trump said at the House Republican Conference retreat at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Jan. 6.“Now you have to be a little flexible on Hyde,” the president said. “You know that you got to be a little flexible. You got to work something [out]. You got to use ingenuity. You got to work. We’re all big fans of everything, but you got to be flexible. You have to have flexibility.”The Hyde Amendment began as a bipartisan provision in funding bills that prohibited the use of federal funds for more than 45 years. Lawmakers have reauthorized the prohibition every year since it was first introduced in 1976.A study from the Charlotte Lozier Institute estimates that the Hyde Amendment has saved more than 2.6 million lives. According to a poll conducted by the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, which was commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, nearly 6 in 10 Americans oppose tax funding for abortions.However, in recent years, many Democratic politicians have tried to keep the rule out of spending bills. Former President Joe Biden abandoned the Hyde Amendment in budget proposals, but it was ultimately included in the final compromise versions that became law.Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, criticized Trump for urging flexibility on the provision, calling its support “an unshakeable bedrock principle and a minimum standard in the Republican Party.”Dannenfelser said Republicans “are sure to lose this November” if they abandon Hyde: “The voters sent a [Republican] trifecta to Washington and they expect it to govern like one.”“Giving in to Democrat demands that our tax dollars are used to fund plans that cover abortion on demand until birth would be a massive betrayal,” she said.Dannenfelser also noted that, before these comments, Trump has consistently supported the Hyde Amendment. The president issued an executive order in January on enforcing the Hyde Amendment that accused Biden’s administration of disregarding this “commonsense policy.”“For nearly five decades, the Congress has annually enacted the Hyde Amendment and similar laws that prevent federal funding of elective abortion, reflecting a long-standing consensus that American taxpayers should not be forced to pay for that practice,” the executive order reads.“It is the policy of the United States, consistent with the Hyde Amendment, to end the forced use of federal taxpayer dollars to fund or promote elective abortion,” it adds.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/trump-urges-republican-flexibility-on-taxpayer-funded-abortions-catholic-president-donald-trump-talks-to-republicans-about-their-stance-on-the-hyde-amendment-on-jan-6-2026.jpg)
![Food assistance, housing top Catholic Charities’ policy wish list in 2026 #Catholic
Credit: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock
Jan 2, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Many people who receive assistance through anti-poverty programs faced disruptions in 2025, and Catholic Charities’ wish list for 2026 includes government support for food assistance and housing.The largest disruption came in October when food stamps received through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were delayed amid the government shutdown. Funding for rental and heating assistance were also disrupted.Confusion about how to implement a memo in January from the Office of Management and Budget calling for a grant freeze also caused delays in funding related to health care, housing affordability, and food assistance.Luz Tavarez, vice president of government relations at Catholic Charities USA, said “people get nervous and scared” amid disruptions.Many Catholic Charities affiliates saw an influx in clients, especially during the shutdown, but Tavarez said there are “very poor people who rely on SNAP subsidies for their meals” and who “can’t get to a Catholic Charities [affiliate] or other food pantry for assistance” when it happens.Long-term eligibility and funding changes to SNAP were also approved in the tax overhaul signed into law in July. Previous rules only included a work requirement up to age 54, but the law extended those requirements up to age 64. It added stricter and more frequent checks for verifying the work requirements.It also shifted some funding responsibilities away from the federal government and to the states.Tavarez expressed concern about some of the SNAP changes as well, saying the government should end “burdensome requirements for individuals and states.”Under the new law, there are stricter rules for verifying a person’s immigration status for benefits. It also limited which noncitizens could receive SNAP benefits, which excluded some refugees and people granted asylum. Tavarez expressed concern about such SNAP changes, encouraging the government to permit “humanitarian-based noncitizens” to receive those benefits.Overall the 2025 tax law gave the biggest boost to the richest families while poorer families might get a little less help than before, according to the Congressional Budget Office.The bill added a work requirement for Medicaid recipients, and this will not take effect until 2027. Under the previous law, there was no work requirement for this benefit. It also shifts some Medicaid funding requirements onto the states.Tavarez said Catholic Charities has “concerns with how [work requirements are] implemented” moving forward but does not oppose the idea outright: “There’s dignity in work so the Church isn’t necessarily opposed to people working as long as there’s some opportunities for people to do other things and other issues are taken into consideration.”She also expressed concerns about funding shifts: “We know that not every state views things like SNAP and Medicaid as a good thing. We don’t know how states are going to balance their budget and prioritize these programs.”2026 wish listLooking forward to 2026, Tavarez said Catholic Charities hopes the government will restore full funding to the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program for food banks and bulk food distribution programs and ensure that funding is protected for school meals and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) made policy changes in November that would focus its homelessness funding on “transitional” housing instead of “permanent” housing. This move is facing legal challenges.President Donald Trump’s administration initially sought to cut federal housing assistance and shift much of those costs to states, but this was ultimately not included in the final version of the 2025 tax law.In December, Trump promised an “aggressive” housing reform plan that focuses on reducing costs. At this time, the specifics of that proposal have not been announced. The increased cost to buy a new home has outpaced the growth in wages for decades.Tavarez said Catholic Charities is focused on housing affordability in 2026 and that the solution must be multifaceted. This includes “building and developing affordable housing,” “a tax credit for developers,” “more affordable housing units,” and subsidies and Section 8 vouchers for low-income Americans, she said.“We recognize that there’s a real crisis — I think everybody does in a bipartisan way — but there needs to be a real bipartisan approach and it’s going to require money,” Tavarez said.Tax credits and economic trendsSome changes to the tax code included in the 2025 tax law are geared toward helping low-income Americans.Specifically, the law reduced taxes taken from tips and overtime work. It also increased the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,200 and tied the credit to inflation, meaning that it will increase each year based on the rate of inflation.Tavarez characterized the changes to the child tax credit as a “win” and hopes it can be expanded further.The economy has been a mixed bag, with November unemployment numbers showing a 4.6% rate. In November of last year, it was slightly lower at 4.2%.Inflation has gone down a little, with the annual rate being around 2.7%. In 2024, it was around 2.9%. The average wage for workers also outpaced inflation, with hourly wages increasing by 3.5%, which shows a modest inflation-adjusted increase of 0.8%.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/food-assistance-housing-top-catholic-charities-policy-wish-list-in-2026-catholic-credit-jonathan-weiss-shutterstockjan-2-2026-0700-am-cna-many-people-who-receive-assistance-th-1.jpg)
![Food assistance, housing top Catholic Charities’ policy wish list in 2026 #Catholic
Credit: Jonathan Weiss/Shutterstock
Jan 2, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Many people who receive assistance through anti-poverty programs faced disruptions in 2025, and Catholic Charities’ wish list for 2026 includes government support for food assistance and housing.The largest disruption came in October when food stamps received through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) were delayed amid the government shutdown. Funding for rental and heating assistance were also disrupted.Confusion about how to implement a memo in January from the Office of Management and Budget calling for a grant freeze also caused delays in funding related to health care, housing affordability, and food assistance.Luz Tavarez, vice president of government relations at Catholic Charities USA, said “people get nervous and scared” amid disruptions.Many Catholic Charities affiliates saw an influx in clients, especially during the shutdown, but Tavarez said there are “very poor people who rely on SNAP subsidies for their meals” and who “can’t get to a Catholic Charities [affiliate] or other food pantry for assistance” when it happens.Long-term eligibility and funding changes to SNAP were also approved in the tax overhaul signed into law in July. Previous rules only included a work requirement up to age 54, but the law extended those requirements up to age 64. It added stricter and more frequent checks for verifying the work requirements.It also shifted some funding responsibilities away from the federal government and to the states.Tavarez expressed concern about some of the SNAP changes as well, saying the government should end “burdensome requirements for individuals and states.”Under the new law, there are stricter rules for verifying a person’s immigration status for benefits. It also limited which noncitizens could receive SNAP benefits, which excluded some refugees and people granted asylum. Tavarez expressed concern about such SNAP changes, encouraging the government to permit “humanitarian-based noncitizens” to receive those benefits.Overall the 2025 tax law gave the biggest boost to the richest families while poorer families might get a little less help than before, according to the Congressional Budget Office.The bill added a work requirement for Medicaid recipients, and this will not take effect until 2027. Under the previous law, there was no work requirement for this benefit. It also shifts some Medicaid funding requirements onto the states.Tavarez said Catholic Charities has “concerns with how [work requirements are] implemented” moving forward but does not oppose the idea outright: “There’s dignity in work so the Church isn’t necessarily opposed to people working as long as there’s some opportunities for people to do other things and other issues are taken into consideration.”She also expressed concerns about funding shifts: “We know that not every state views things like SNAP and Medicaid as a good thing. We don’t know how states are going to balance their budget and prioritize these programs.”2026 wish listLooking forward to 2026, Tavarez said Catholic Charities hopes the government will restore full funding to the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program for food banks and bulk food distribution programs and ensure that funding is protected for school meals and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children.The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) made policy changes in November that would focus its homelessness funding on “transitional” housing instead of “permanent” housing. This move is facing legal challenges.President Donald Trump’s administration initially sought to cut federal housing assistance and shift much of those costs to states, but this was ultimately not included in the final version of the 2025 tax law.In December, Trump promised an “aggressive” housing reform plan that focuses on reducing costs. At this time, the specifics of that proposal have not been announced. The increased cost to buy a new home has outpaced the growth in wages for decades.Tavarez said Catholic Charities is focused on housing affordability in 2026 and that the solution must be multifaceted. This includes “building and developing affordable housing,” “a tax credit for developers,” “more affordable housing units,” and subsidies and Section 8 vouchers for low-income Americans, she said.“We recognize that there’s a real crisis — I think everybody does in a bipartisan way — but there needs to be a real bipartisan approach and it’s going to require money,” Tavarez said.Tax credits and economic trendsSome changes to the tax code included in the 2025 tax law are geared toward helping low-income Americans.Specifically, the law reduced taxes taken from tips and overtime work. It also increased the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,200 and tied the credit to inflation, meaning that it will increase each year based on the rate of inflation.Tavarez characterized the changes to the child tax credit as a “win” and hopes it can be expanded further.The economy has been a mixed bag, with November unemployment numbers showing a 4.6% rate. In November of last year, it was slightly lower at 4.2%.Inflation has gone down a little, with the annual rate being around 2.7%. In 2024, it was around 2.9%. The average wage for workers also outpaced inflation, with hourly wages increasing by 3.5%, which shows a modest inflation-adjusted increase of 0.8%.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/food-assistance-housing-top-catholic-charities-policy-wish-list-in-2026-catholic-credit-jonathan-weiss-shutterstockjan-2-2026-0700-am-cna-many-people-who-receive-assistance-th.jpg)
![Federal judge strikes down rules allowing schools to hide gender ‘transitions’ from parents #Catholic
null / Credit: sergign/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Dec 23, 2025 / 10:07 am (CNA).
A federal judge in California this week issued a permanent block against the state’s “gender secrecy policies” that have allowed schools to hide children’s so-called “gender transitions” from their parents.U.S. District Court Judge Roger Benitez issued the ruling in the class action lawsuit on Dec. 22, holding that parents “have a right” to the “gender information” of their children, while teachers themselves also possess the right to provide parents with that information. The order strikes down secretive policies in school districts across California that allowed schools to conceal when a child began identifying as the opposite sex or another LGBT-related identity. Benitez had allowed the legal dispute to proceed as a class action lawsuit in October. School districts in California “are ultimately state agents under state control,” the judge said at the time, and the issue of settling “statewide policy” meant the class action structure would be “superior to numerous individual actions by individual parents and teachers.” The case, Benitez said on Dec. 22, concerns “a parent’s rights to information … against a public school’s policy of secrecy when it comes to a student’s gender identification.” Parents, he said, have a right to such information on grounds of the 14th and First Amendments, he said, while teachers can assert similar First Amendment rights in sharing that information with parents. Teachers have historically informed parents of “physical injuries or questions about a student’s health and well-being,” the judge pointed out, yet lawmakers in California have enacted policies “prohibiting public school teachers from informing parents” when their child claims to have an LGBT identity. “Even if [the government] could demonstrate that excluding parents was good policy on some level, such a policy cannot be implemented at the expense of parents’ constitutional rights,” Benitez wrote. The Thomas More Society, a religious liberty legal group, said in a press release that the decision “protects all California parents, students, and teachers” and “restores sanity and common sense.”School officials in California who work to conceal “gender identity” decisions from parents “should cease all enforcement or face severe legal consequences,” attorney Paul Jonna said in the release. Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, the Christian teachers who originally brought the suit, said they were “profoundly grateful” for the decision. “This victory is not just ours. It is a win for honesty, transparency, and the fundamental rights of teachers and parents,” they said. The Thomas More Society said on Dec. 22 that California officials had gone to “extreme lengths” to “evade responsibility” for their policies, up to and including claiming that the gender secrecy rules were no longer enforced even as they were allegedly continuing to require them. Gender- and LGBT-related school policies have come under fire over the past year from the White House. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in August directed U.S. states to remove gender ideology material from their curricula or else face the loss of federal funding. In February the Department of Education launched an investigation into several Virginia school districts to determine if they violated federal orders forbidding schools from supporting the so-called “transition” of children. In December, meanwhile, a Catholic school student in Virginia forced a school district to concede a lawsuit she brought alleging that her constitutional rights had been violated when the school subjected her to “extreme social pressure” to affirm transgender ideology.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/federal-judge-strikes-down-rules-allowing-schools-to-hide-gender-transitions-from-parents-catholic-null-credit-sergign-shutterstockcna-staff-dec-23-2025-1007-am-cna.webp)
![Albany’s retired bishop files for personal bankruptcy #Catholic
Bishop Edward Scarfenberger. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Diocese of Albany
National Catholic Register, Dec 19, 2025 / 12:24 pm (CNA).
A retired New York bishop has filed for personal bankruptcy protection in federal court after a state jury verdict found him, along with other officials, personally liable for the collapse of a Catholic hospital pension fund that left about 1,100 retirees without the lifetime monthly payments they were expecting.It’s not clear whether a Catholic bishop in the United States has ever previously filed for personal bankruptcy protection.Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, 77, who served as bishop of Albany from April 2014 until his retirement in October, is seeking protection from creditors for his assets valued at between $100,001 and $500,000, according to a filing Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York.The seven-page filing does not list the bishop’s assets but states that he has between 100 and 199 creditors and debts totaling between $1,000,001 and $10 million.Last week, a jury found Scharfenberger 10% liable in a $54.2 million judgment in a civil lawsuit over the failed pension plan once provided by St. Clare’s Hospital in Schenectady, a Catholic hospital that operated from 1949 until 2008, according to The Evangelist, the diocese’s newspaper.The verdict and judgment, issued Dec. 12, cover compensatory damages — the amount a court finds is owed to plaintiffs for harm they have suffered — but not punitive damages, which may be added in cases of recklessness, malice, or fraud. The bankruptcy filings by the bishop and another defendant in the state lawsuit over the pension plan failure forced a pause in a punitive damages hearing earlier this week, according to WNYT Channel 13 in Albany.The National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, was unable to reach Scharfenberger before the publication of this story. A lawyer representing the bishop acknowledged a request for comment Dec. 17 but did not immediately provide one.A rare personal bankruptcyIn recent decades, bankruptcies have occurred regularly in the Catholic Church in the United States. Between 2004 and November 2025, 39 of the country’s dioceses have filed for bankruptcy, almost all to protect assets from clergy sex-abuse lawsuits, as the Register reported last month. One of those is the Diocese of Albany, which filed for bankruptcy in March 2023. But those diocesan cases were filed under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, which allows a corporation, partnership, or sole proprietorship to reorganize and continue operating while developing a court-approved plan to repay creditors.Scharfenberger filed under Chapter 13, which allows an individual with regular income who cannot pay debts to keep certain assets while working out a repayment plan. “The rules in Chapter 13 permit a debtor to keep property and confirm a plan with payments to creditors based on the debtor’s ‘disposable income,’” said Marie Reilly, a bankruptcy expert and law professor at Penn State Dickinson Law, in an email. “If the debtor commits his disposable income to paying creditors for the term of a three- to five-year plan, he gets a discharge (forgiveness) of the unpaid balance.”Reilly, who has researched several dozen diocesan bankruptcies for The Catholic Project, a lay initiative of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., told the Register that the bankruptcy filing does not necessarily solve all of the bishop’s money problems.“There are exceptions — some debts don’t get discharged. Creditors can object to the plan if it does not meet the statutory requirements,” Reilly said. “And, it is possible that the pension fund creditor may move to dismiss the bishop’s Chapter 13 case as having been filed ‘in bad faith.’”$50 million shortfall St. Clare’s Hospital was originally run by the Franciscan Sisters of the Poor. The Diocese of Albany maintains that it never owned the hospital and that the bishop of Albany merely provided “canonical oversight” to make sure the hospital met “its mission to serve all in accord with Catholic moral standards,” according to an August 2025 statement from the diocese.Last week, the jury found that the Diocese of Albany has no liability for the pension failure, instead holding the hospital corporation and certain officers and board members accountable. In addition to Scharfenberger, the jury found two deceased employees of the diocese liable, according to The Evangelist: Former Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard (1938–2023), who led the diocese from 1977 to 2014, was found 20% liable; and Father David LeFort, a former vicar general of the diocese who died in August 2023, was found 5% liable. Also found liable were St. Clare’s Corporation (20%), St. Clare’s president Joseph Pofit (25%), and former St. Clare’s president Robert Perry (20%), according to The Evangelist.The judgments stem from a pension plan that operated for about 60 years. In 1959, the hospital began offering employees a defined-benefit plan that provided a lifetime monthly pension after retirement.Church plan exempt from ERISALike most plans operated by Catholic institutions, the pension plan had a religious exemption from the federal Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (known as ERISA), which sets minimum funding requirements for most nonreligious pension plans and also enables the federal government to step in and make payments to retirees of failed plans, using a fund financed by covered pension plans.When the hospital closed in 2008, the officers of St. Clare’s “determined that the corporation would continue to exist for purposes of administering the pension plan,” according to a complaint filed in state court in Schenectady County by the New York attorney general’s office in May 2022. “They also chose to continue treating the pension plan as a ‘Church plan’ — which it could do only if the corporation’s former employees and pensioners were designated as employees of the Church. This was all in order to avoid the contribution and insurance requirements of ERISA, and the duties imposed by ERISA upon corporation directors and trustees as fiduciaries,” the complaint states.The bishop of Albany was automatically a member of the hospital’s board and served as its honorary chairman, and had authority to appoint most of the directors on the board, according to the state attorney general’s complaint.The attorney general’s office alleged that St. Clare’s Corporation failed to make contributions to the pension fund “for all but three years from 2001 to 2019” and concealed from retirees “the insolvency of the pension plan.”In 2018, the St. Clare’s board terminated the pension plan effective Feb. 1, 2019, because of an approximately $50 million shortfall. More than 1,100 employees lost retirement benefits, including about 650 who lost all pension payments and about 450 who received a lump-sum payment “equal to 70% of the value of their vested pension,” the complaint states. The retired employees include “nurses, lab technicians, social workers, EMTs, orderlies, housekeepers, and other essential workers” who worked at the hospital “between 10 and 50 years,” the complaint states.Testimony and reactionOn Dec. 9 during the civil trial, Scharfenberger testified that during his tenure no boards he sat on ever discussed the hospital’s pension plan, according to The Times-Union of Albany. In a written statement issued in August, when Scharfenberger still led the Diocese of Albany, the diocese said the bishop “has actively sought ways to help the pensioners” while denying that the diocese ever “exercised any control over St. Clare’s Hospital operations or its pension.” “He hosted a listening session with pensioners at Siena College to identify issues and consider ways to help those in need. He also reached out to the Mother Cabrini Foundation to try to secure funding for the pensioners, but that effort was unable to move forward once the pensioners filed the lawsuit,” the statement said. “The diocese is eager to see the case move forward and promptly resolved,” the August statement continued. “Our prayers continue for all who are struggling in any way, and as we stated previously, our offer to connect those in need with services that can help, stands. No one should walk alone.”His successor, Bishop Mark O’Connell, who was installed as bishop of Albany on Dec. 5, told reporters shortly before the verdict was announced last week: “I care deeply about their hurt [and] not having their pensions,” according to The Evangelist.During the Dec. 12 press conference, when a reporter asked O’Connell what the diocese would do if the jury found the diocese liable for the pension fund collapse, the bishop noted that the diocese is already in the midst of a bankruptcy process.“If we are liable, then we’ll do what we can to make amends, given that they are one creditor as a group among many people accusing the Diocese of Albany,” O’Connell said, according to WAMC Northeast Public Radio. “And that’s what bankruptcy process is. We obviously cannot pay a billion dollars. Right? So that’s what Chapter 11 is all about, to figure out what’s fair. And since you have a bankruptcy judge and mediators, it’s not up to us.”Later that day, the jury found the diocese not liable in the pension fund collapse lawsuit. The diocese issued a written statement, according to The Evangelist, that said: “As grateful as we are for the jury’s informed decision, we are still very much aware of the hurt felt by the St. Clare’s pensioners who cared for the sick and the poor throughout the long history of St. Clare’s Hospital. This does not mean that we will turn our backs to the pensioners, for as Bishop O’Connell has noted, they are a part of our flock; they are still in need of healing.”That same day, lead plaintiff Mary Hartshorne, who worked in the hospital’s radiology department for about 28 years, told WNYT Channel 13 in Albany that she and other hospital retirees were pleased with the jury’s verdict but did not feel they would be made whole.“We’ve been playing this game for seven and a half years, and I think my question I ask everybody is: How do you get that back? You don’t,” she said.This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/albanys-retired-bishop-files-for-personal-bankruptcy-catholic-bishop-edward-scarfenberger-credit-photo-courtesy-of-the-diocese-of-albanynational-catholic-register-dec-19-2025-1.webp)
![HHS announces actions to restrict ‘sex-rejecting procedures’ on minors #Catholic
President Donald J. Trump watches as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Health and Human Services Secretary, speaks after being sworn in on Thursday, Feb. 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 18, 2025 / 13:31 pm (CNA).
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed regulations today that would seek to end “sex-rejecting procedures” on anyone younger than 18 years old, which includes restrictions on hospitals and retailers.Under one proposal, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would withhold all funding through Medicare and Medicaid to any hospital that offers surgeries or drugs to minors as a means to make them resemble the opposite sex. The proposed rules would prohibit federal Medicaid funding for “sex-rejecting procedures” on anyone under 18 and prohibit federal Children’s Health Insurance program (CHIP) funding for the procedures on anyone under 19.This includes surgical operations, such as the removal of healthy genitals to replace them with artificial genitals that resemble the opposite sex and chest procedures that remove the healthy breasts on girls or implant prosthetic breasts on boys.It also includes hormone treatments that attempt to masculinize girls with testosterone and feminize boys with estrogen and puberty blockers, which delay a child’s natural developments during puberty.HHS also announced that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is issuing warning letters to 12 manufacturers and retailers that they accuse of illegally marketing “breast binders” to girls under the age of 18 as a treatment for gender dysphoria. Breast binders compress breasts as a means to flatten them under their clothing.The news release said breast binders are Class 1 medical devices meant to help recover from cancer-related mastectomies, and the warning letters will “formally notify the companies of their significant regulatory violations and how they should take prompt corrective action.”Additionally, HHS is working to clarify the definition of a “disability” in civil rights regulations to exclude “gender dysphoria” that does not result from physical impairments. This ensures that discrimination laws are not interpreted in a way that would require “sex-rejecting procedures,” the statement said.HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a news conference that “sex-rejecting procedures” on minors are “endangering the very lives that [doctors] are sworn to safeguard.”“So-called gender-affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people,” he said. “This is not medicine — it is malpractice.” The proposals would conform HHS regulations to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 28 executive order to prohibit the “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children. The order instructed HHS to propose regulations to prevent these procedures on minors.In a news release, HHS repeatedly referred to the medical interventions as “sex-rejecting procedures” and warned they “cause irreversible damage, including infertility, impaired sexual function, diminished bone density, altered brain development, and other irreversible physiological effects.”HHS cited its own report from May, which found “deep uncertainty about the purported benefits of these interventions” for treating a minor with gender dysphoria. The report found that “these interventions carry risk of significant harms,” which can include infertility, sexual dysfunction, underdeveloped bone mass, cardiovascular disease, metabolic disorders, psychiatric disorders, and adverse cognitive impacts, among other complications.Stanley Goldfarb, chairman of Do No Harm, a medical advocacy group, said in a statement that the proposed regulation on hospitals is “another critical step to protect children from harmful gender ideology” and said he supports rules that ensure “American taxpayer dollars do not fund sex-change operations on minors.”“Many so-called gender clinics have already begun to close as the truth about the risks and long-term harms about these drugs and surgeries on minors have been exposed,” he said. “Now, hospitals that receive taxpayer funds from these federal programs must follow suit.”Mary Rice Hasson, director of the Person and Identity Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC), said she sees the proposed restriction on hospitals as “excellent.”“This proposed rule sends a powerful message to states and health care providers: It’s time to stop these unethical and dangerous procedures,” Hasson said. “Puberty is not a disease to be medicated away. All children have the right to grow and develop normally.”“Sex-rejecting procedures promise the impossible: that a child can escape the reality of being male or female,” she added. “In reality, these sex-rejecting procedures provide only the illusion of ‘changing sex’ by disabling healthy functions and altering the child’s healthy body through drugs and surgery that will cause lifelong harm.”In January, Bishop Robert Barron, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, welcomed Trump’s executive action on these procedures, warning that they are “based on a false understanding of human nature, attempt to change a child’s sex.”“So many young people who have been victims of this ideological crusade have profound regrets over its life-altering consequences, such as infertility and lifelong dependence on costly hormone therapies that have significant side effects,” Barron said. “It is unacceptable that our children are encouraged to undergo destructive medical interventions instead of receiving access to authentic and bodily-unitive care.”](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/hhs-announces-actions-to-restrict-sex-rejecting-procedures-on-minors-catholic-president-donald-j-trump-watches-as-robert-f-kennedy-jr-health-and-human-services-secretary-sp.webp)
