![American Catholics launch crowdfunding effort to gift Pope Leo XIV papal tiara #Catholic A newly established nonprofit launched a crowdfunding effort to construct a papal tiara that will contain Catholic and American symbolism, with the plan to offer it to Pope Leo XIV as a gift from American Catholics for the first pontiff from the United States.“Historically, the majority of papal tiaras are gifts, usually from the home diocese of the pope or from religious [communities] they may be affiliated with,” Isaac Smith, a convert to Catholicism and the founder of Amici Vaticani, told EWTN News.Smith said he was motivated to launch the project to provide Leo with a papal tiara based on the desire for “us, as Americans, to continue that tradition.” He said the first American pope is “such a historical milestone” for Catholicism in the United States.The history of papal crowns dates back to at least the eighth century with the word “tiara” first used in the 12th century. A second crown was added to the tiara in the 13th century to symbolize that the pope holds authority in both spiritual and temporal matters.A three-crown tiara first appeared in the 14th century. One interpretation of the three crowns is that they represent the threefold office of Christ: priest, prophet, and king. Another suggests it represents the militant, the suffering, and the triumphant Church.The proposed tiara commissioned by Amici Vaticani maintains the 14th-century tradition of three crowns. The tiara will be constructed with sterling silver and the crowns will be gold-plated.Because the gift is meant to honor Leo’s American heritage, the tiara will have red, white, and blue stones, which represent the colors of the American flag. It will incorporate other American symbols: oak leaves, representing the national tree; and corn stalks, representing the national crop.Some of the symbols included in the tiara have dual meanings relevant to both the papacy and the United States. It will incorporate roses, which is a symbol of the Virgin Mary and the national flower; and it will incorporate olives, which is a symbol of the pontiff’s commitment to peace and appears on the Great Seal of the United States.A buttony cross will sit atop the crown as a symbol of American Catholicism. The cross is used in the coat of arms for the Archdiocese of Baltimore, the country’s first Catholic diocese, and is featured on the flag of Maryland, which is the location of the first English Catholic colonies.The design, Smith explained, is meant to be “elegant and traditional” to honor the office of the papacy but is also meant to “incorporate distinctively American elements” to honor the pope’s American heritage.
Maltese jeweler Gabriel Farrugia works on a project. | Credit: Photo courtesy of Gabriel Farrugia
Smith said he hopes to fund the project through small donations from the American Catholic faithful so the pontiff can see “this was a group effort” and a gift from Catholics in his home country. This project, he said, provides “a tangible way for people to connect with the successor of Peter.”He also said he plans to compile the names of every person who donates more than $20 into a book, which would be presented to the Holy Father along with the crown and would say on the cover: “Holy Father, please pray for these people.”Smith said his intention is that the tiara can “hopefully [be] put on display in a place of honor” after it is constructed “and presented to the pope when he visits.” When Leo met Vice President JD Vance, the pontiff said he would travel to the United States at some point, although the Holy Father does not have any specific publicly announced plans to visit as of yet.The tiara will be constructed by a Maltese jeweler and artist named Gabriel Farrugia, who has a background in creating religious art, including an Our Lady of Fátima crown, which was used in a coronation ceremony in Guardamangia, Malta. He has also been commissioned by Catholic churches for artistic projects.“Making sacred art is a type of thanksgiving to the One who created us,” Farrugia told EWTN News.“For the God that created us and gave us life, I think we should give him something,” he said, adding that sacred art provides “something that will be left there for ages” and something for “people to admire, to enjoy, and to reflect [upon].”The construction of the crown has not yet begun, as Amici Vaticani is still in the early stages of the crowdfunding effort.Amici Vaticani was launched in 2025 for the purpose of constructing the tiara. According to its website, the nonprofit also seeks to build up “the awakening of a Catholic spirit in the United States.”“Our country, once defined by its Protestant heritage, is now witnessing a boon of conversions,” the website notes. “Men and women rediscovering the depth, beauty, and authority of the Catholic faith.”](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/american-catholics-launch-crowdfunding-effort-to-gift-pope-leo-xiv-papal-tiara-catholic-a-newly-established-nonprofit-launched-a-crowdfunding-effort-to-construct-a-papal-tiara-that-will-contain-catho.jpg)
A nonprofit hopes to generate enough small donations to construct a papal tiara for Pope Leo XIV as a gift from American Catholics.
![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)
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 NGOs
John 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 gender
Susan 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 penalty
Trump 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.
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U.S. Vice President JD Vance. | Credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Jan 16, 2026 / 16:40 pm (CNA).
Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to speak at the 2026 March for Life Rally in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 23.
Vance, who is the nation’s second Catholic vice president, will join Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, among other speakers at the 53rd annual pro-life event, organizers said.
“Vice President Vance is grateful to the tens of thousands of Americans who travel to the National Mall each year to speak out in support of life and looks forward to joining them for the second consecutive year,” a spokesperson for the vice president told EWTN News.
Vance will be attending and speaking at the event for the second time as vice president. He spoke at the March for Life in 2025 where he delivered his first public remarks in the leadership position.
Addressing the crowd at the 2025 march, Vance said becoming a father helped to solidify his convictions that “an unborn life is worthy of protection.”
“You remind us that the March for Life is not a single event that takes place on a frigid January day,” he said to the crowd. “The March for Life is the work of the pro-life movement every day from this point forward,” he said.
“We will be back next year,” he said.
While President Donald Trump will not be attending the 2026 March for Life in person, he told EWTN News’ White House correspondent Owen Jensen on Jan. 16 he will address the crowd through a “beautiful” prerecorded message.
“And they’re going to play it,” he said. “And those are great people. I want to tell you they’re great people,” Trump said about attendees.
While the president will deliver the virtual message, the Trump administration is receiving backlash from pro-life activists following his claim that Republicans need to be “ flexible” with the Hyde Amendment and the reinstatement of funds to Planned Parenthood.
When asked about the Hyde Amendment, Trump said “you’re going to hear about it” in the message.
Vance is set to deliver his remarks at the pre-march rally at 11 a.m. on Jan. 23. The March for Life is scheduled to begin after the rally.
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