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Catholic schools fare better in states with voucher programs #Catholic null / Credit: RasyidArt, Shutterstock CNA Staff, Nov 4, 2025 / 06:30 am (CNA). Catholic schools are faring much better in dioceses in which state-funded voucher programs are available for parents to use to pay school tuition, one researcher has found, though enrollment is still declining in most places.John F. Quinn, a historian at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island, examined six Catholic dioceses over the last 16 years — three in states with voucher programs and three in states without them — and found that parochial schools are benefiting from vouchers.He presented his research at the Society of Catholic Social Scientists’ annual conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, in October.Quinn found that since 2009, the dioceses of Providence, Rhode Island; Fall River, Massachusetts; and Rockford, Illinois — none of which are located in states with voucher programs — have seen school closures and drops, some very large, in their parochial school enrollment.Providence schools have seen a two-thirds drop, from 16,000 students in 2009 to about 10,000 in 2025, according to the historian. The Diocese of Fall River, meanwhile, saw a 36% drop in enrollment, going from 7,800 students in 2009 to 5,000 in 2025. Rockford’s diocese saw a precipitous 52% drop, with 15,500 students in 2009 and 7,400 today. All three dioceses also saw multiple parochial school closures.The numbers are very different in the dioceses in states that have voucher programs.According to Quinn, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis only saw its enrollment numbers drop 3% since 2009. Nearly 23,000 were enrolled in its parochial schools in 2009, and the number stands at 22,300 today. The overall population of the archdiocese has also dropped 5% over the same time period, he noted.  Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program was launched in 2011 and expanded to nearly all residents in 2025.Two other dioceses, Orlando and Venice, are both in Florida, a state that approved its voucher program in 1999 and expanded it significantly in 2023.The Diocese of Orlando has seen a 13% drop, going from 14,500 students in 2009 to 12,750 in 2025.The Diocese of Venice, a relatively new one established in 1984, has seen a 52% increase in parish school enrollment since 2009 and growth in its number of parochial schools. In 2009, 4,400 students attended three high schools and 10 elementary schools, and today there are four high schools and 12 elementary schools with an enrollment of 6,800.Quinn acknowledged that Florida has a growing population but said even taking that into account, the voucher programs have indisputably aided the Catholic schools there.“We are full up with nearly every school at capacity,” Father John Belmonte, SJ, Diocese of Venice Superintendent of Catholic Education, said in September.History of parochial schooling“America’s Catholic leaders have long seen parochial schools as critical to the well-being of the Church in America,” Quinn noted. He recalled the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884, at which the bishops “called for every parish to have a school and for all Catholic parents to send their children” to them.Quinn noted that pastors would sometimes build a parish school first before completing the church building.In 1965, the high point of parochial school enrollment, 52% of American Catholic children, or 5.2 million students, were enrolled at 13,000 Catholic grammar and high schools. Quinn cited the National Catholic Educational Association’s annual report, released in the spring, that showed just under 1.7 million students are currently enrolled in the nation’s current 8,500 parochial schools.In 1965, nearly 70% of all parochial school teachers, or 115,607, were religious sisters, priests, or brothers, according to the Cardinal Newman Society. By 1990, only 2.5% of parochial school faculty were priests or religious, and that number remains the same today.Quinn said costs started rising as more lay teachers replaced religious and priests in the classroom.
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Catholic schools fare better in states with voucher programs #Catholic null / Credit: RasyidArt, Shutterstock CNA Staff, Nov 4, 2025 / 06:30 am (CNA). Catholic schools are faring much better in dioceses in which state-funded voucher programs are available for parents to use to pay school tuition, one researcher has found, though enrollment is still declining in most places.John F. Quinn, a historian at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island, examined six Catholic dioceses over the last 16 years — three in states with voucher programs and three in states without them — and found that parochial schools are benefiting from vouchers.He presented his research at the Society of Catholic Social Scientists’ annual conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, in October.Quinn found that since 2009, the dioceses of Providence, Rhode Island; Fall River, Massachusetts; and Rockford, Illinois — none of which are located in states with voucher programs — have seen school closures and drops, some very large, in their parochial school enrollment.Providence schools have seen a two-thirds drop, from 16,000 students in 2009 to about 10,000 in 2025, according to the historian. The Diocese of Fall River, meanwhile, saw a 36% drop in enrollment, going from 7,800 students in 2009 to 5,000 in 2025. Rockford’s diocese saw a precipitous 52% drop, with 15,500 students in 2009 and 7,400 today. All three dioceses also saw multiple parochial school closures.The numbers are very different in the dioceses in states that have voucher programs.According to Quinn, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis only saw its enrollment numbers drop 3% since 2009. Nearly 23,000 were enrolled in its parochial schools in 2009, and the number stands at 22,300 today. The overall population of the archdiocese has also dropped 5% over the same time period, he noted.  Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program was launched in 2011 and expanded to nearly all residents in 2025.Two other dioceses, Orlando and Venice, are both in Florida, a state that approved its voucher program in 1999 and expanded it significantly in 2023.The Diocese of Orlando has seen a 13% drop, going from 14,500 students in 2009 to 12,750 in 2025.The Diocese of Venice, a relatively new one established in 1984, has seen a 52% increase in parish school enrollment since 2009 and growth in its number of parochial schools. In 2009, 4,400 students attended three high schools and 10 elementary schools, and today there are four high schools and 12 elementary schools with an enrollment of 6,800.Quinn acknowledged that Florida has a growing population but said even taking that into account, the voucher programs have indisputably aided the Catholic schools there.“We are full up with nearly every school at capacity,” Father John Belmonte, SJ, Diocese of Venice Superintendent of Catholic Education, said in September.History of parochial schooling“America’s Catholic leaders have long seen parochial schools as critical to the well-being of the Church in America,” Quinn noted. He recalled the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884, at which the bishops “called for every parish to have a school and for all Catholic parents to send their children” to them.Quinn noted that pastors would sometimes build a parish school first before completing the church building.In 1965, the high point of parochial school enrollment, 52% of American Catholic children, or 5.2 million students, were enrolled at 13,000 Catholic grammar and high schools. Quinn cited the National Catholic Educational Association’s annual report, released in the spring, that showed just under 1.7 million students are currently enrolled in the nation’s current 8,500 parochial schools.In 1965, nearly 70% of all parochial school teachers, or 115,607, were religious sisters, priests, or brothers, according to the Cardinal Newman Society. By 1990, only 2.5% of parochial school faculty were priests or religious, and that number remains the same today.Quinn said costs started rising as more lay teachers replaced religious and priests in the classroom.

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null / Credit: RasyidArt, Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Nov 4, 2025 / 06:30 am (CNA).

Catholic schools are faring much better in dioceses in which state-funded voucher programs are available for parents to use to pay school tuition, one researcher has found, though enrollment is still declining in most places.

John F. Quinn, a historian at Salve Regina University in Rhode Island, examined six Catholic dioceses over the last 16 years — three in states with voucher programs and three in states without them — and found that parochial schools are benefiting from vouchers.

He presented his research at the Society of Catholic Social Scientists’ annual conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, in October.

Quinn found that since 2009, the dioceses of Providence, Rhode Island; Fall River, Massachusetts; and Rockford, Illinois — none of which are located in states with voucher programs — have seen school closures and drops, some very large, in their parochial school enrollment.

Providence schools have seen a two-thirds drop, from 16,000 students in 2009 to about 10,000 in 2025, according to the historian. 

The Diocese of Fall River, meanwhile, saw a 36% drop in enrollment, going from 7,800 students in 2009 to 5,000 in 2025. Rockford’s diocese saw a precipitous 52% drop, with 15,500 students in 2009 and 7,400 today. All three dioceses also saw multiple parochial school closures.

The numbers are very different in the dioceses in states that have voucher programs.

According to Quinn, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis only saw its enrollment numbers drop 3% since 2009. Nearly 23,000 were enrolled in its parochial schools in 2009, and the number stands at 22,300 today. The overall population of the archdiocese has also dropped 5% over the same time period, he noted.  

Indiana’s Choice Scholarship Program was launched in 2011 and expanded to nearly all residents in 2025.

Two other dioceses, Orlando and Venice, are both in Florida, a state that approved its voucher program in 1999 and expanded it significantly in 2023.

The Diocese of Orlando has seen a 13% drop, going from 14,500 students in 2009 to 12,750 in 2025.

The Diocese of Venice, a relatively new one established in 1984, has seen a 52% increase in parish school enrollment since 2009 and growth in its number of parochial schools. In 2009, 4,400 students attended three high schools and 10 elementary schools, and today there are four high schools and 12 elementary schools with an enrollment of 6,800.

Quinn acknowledged that Florida has a growing population but said even taking that into account, the voucher programs have indisputably aided the Catholic schools there.

“We are full up with nearly every school at capacity,” Father John Belmonte, SJ, Diocese of Venice Superintendent of Catholic Education, said in September.

History of parochial schooling

“America’s Catholic leaders have long seen parochial schools as critical to the well-being of the Church in America,” Quinn noted. 

He recalled the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1884, at which the bishops “called for every parish to have a school and for all Catholic parents to send their children” to them.

Quinn noted that pastors would sometimes build a parish school first before completing the church building.

In 1965, the high point of parochial school enrollment, 52% of American Catholic children, or 5.2 million students, were enrolled at 13,000 Catholic grammar and high schools. 

Quinn cited the National Catholic Educational Association’s annual report, released in the spring, that showed just under 1.7 million students are currently enrolled in the nation’s current 8,500 parochial schools.

In 1965, nearly 70% of all parochial school teachers, or 115,607, were religious sisters, priests, or brothers, according to the Cardinal Newman Society. 

By 1990, only 2.5% of parochial school faculty were priests or religious, and that number remains the same today.

Quinn said costs started rising as more lay teachers replaced religious and priests in the classroom.

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Illinois Senate passes assisted suicide measure #Catholic null / Credit: Shutterstock Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 31, 2025 / 14:53 pm (CNA). The Illinois State Senate passed a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state. The legislation (SB 1950), known as the “End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act,” would authorize medical aid in dying for terminally ill adults in Illinois if signed into law by Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker.The House passed the bill in May 2025, and it stalled in the Senate during the regular session. It was taken up during the Fall veto session, and senators passed it early in the morning of Oct. 31. Pritzker will have 60 days to decide whether to sign or veto the bill before it automatically becomes law.The bill would allow individuals to request and self-administer medication to end their lives. According to the bill, anyone requesting medically assisted suicide must be at least 18 years old, a resident of Illinois, and have a terminal disease with a prognosis of six months or less to live.The bill also requires two verbal requests for the medication from the patient, with a five-day waiting period between the first and second request. The death certificates of individuals using physican-assisted suicide in the state would list the terminal disease as the cause of death, not suicide. “Please continue to pray for vulnerable populations and for those who feel hopeless and are near end-of-life,” the Catholic Conference of Illinois, the public policy voice of the Catholic Church in the state, wrote in a post to the social media platform X.”It is quite fitting that the forces of the culture of death in the Illinois General Assembly passed physician-assisted suicide on October 31—a day that, culturally, has become synonymous with glorifying death and evil,” said Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield in a statement. “It’s also ironic that these pro-death legislators did it under the cloud of darkness at 2:54 a.m.”“Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Now, they can prescribe death. There are documented cases of patients being denied treatment and instead offered life-ending drugs,” Paprocki said. “Individuals could also be coerced into taking the lethal drug.”The bishop called for prayers for Pritzker to reject the legislation as “physician assisted suicide undermines the value of each person, especially the vulnerable, the poor, and those with disabilities.”The anti-assisted suicide group Patients Rights Action Fund called on Pritzker to veto the legislation. “We encourage lawmakers to instead prioritize expanding access to mental health services, hospice care, and palliative support,” the advocacy group said in a statement. “Every patient deserves compassionate care and a full spectrum of options to live with dignity. The passage of SB 1950 introducing the use of lethal drugs in Illinois compromises that fundamental right. “Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, strongly criticized the bill in May after it passed the House.“I speak to this topic not only as a religious leader but also as one who has seen a parent die from a debilitating illness,” Cupich said, recalling his father’s death. Cupich urged Illinois to promote “compassionate care,” not assisted suicide. “There is a way to both honor the dignity of human life and provide compassionate care to those experiencing life-ending illness,” Cupich said. “Surely the Illinois Legislature should explore those options before making suicide one of the avenues available to the ill and distressed.” The Catholic Conference of Illinois also asked the governor to veto the bill and improve palliative care programs “that offer expert assessment and management of pain and other symptoms.”“The Illinois General Assembly has put our state on a slippery path that jeopardizes the well-being of the poor and marginalized, especially those in the disability community and have foreseeable tragic consequences,” the conference said in a statement. 
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Illinois Senate passes assisted suicide measure #Catholic null / Credit: Shutterstock Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 31, 2025 / 14:53 pm (CNA). The Illinois State Senate passed a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state. The legislation (SB 1950), known as the “End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act,” would authorize medical aid in dying for terminally ill adults in Illinois if signed into law by Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker.The House passed the bill in May 2025, and it stalled in the Senate during the regular session. It was taken up during the Fall veto session, and senators passed it early in the morning of Oct. 31. Pritzker will have 60 days to decide whether to sign or veto the bill before it automatically becomes law.The bill would allow individuals to request and self-administer medication to end their lives. According to the bill, anyone requesting medically assisted suicide must be at least 18 years old, a resident of Illinois, and have a terminal disease with a prognosis of six months or less to live.The bill also requires two verbal requests for the medication from the patient, with a five-day waiting period between the first and second request. The death certificates of individuals using physican-assisted suicide in the state would list the terminal disease as the cause of death, not suicide. “Please continue to pray for vulnerable populations and for those who feel hopeless and are near end-of-life,” the Catholic Conference of Illinois, the public policy voice of the Catholic Church in the state, wrote in a post to the social media platform X.”It is quite fitting that the forces of the culture of death in the Illinois General Assembly passed physician-assisted suicide on October 31—a day that, culturally, has become synonymous with glorifying death and evil,” said Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield in a statement. “It’s also ironic that these pro-death legislators did it under the cloud of darkness at 2:54 a.m.”“Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Now, they can prescribe death. There are documented cases of patients being denied treatment and instead offered life-ending drugs,” Paprocki said. “Individuals could also be coerced into taking the lethal drug.”The bishop called for prayers for Pritzker to reject the legislation as “physician assisted suicide undermines the value of each person, especially the vulnerable, the poor, and those with disabilities.”The anti-assisted suicide group Patients Rights Action Fund called on Pritzker to veto the legislation. “We encourage lawmakers to instead prioritize expanding access to mental health services, hospice care, and palliative support,” the advocacy group said in a statement. “Every patient deserves compassionate care and a full spectrum of options to live with dignity. The passage of SB 1950 introducing the use of lethal drugs in Illinois compromises that fundamental right. “Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, strongly criticized the bill in May after it passed the House.“I speak to this topic not only as a religious leader but also as one who has seen a parent die from a debilitating illness,” Cupich said, recalling his father’s death. Cupich urged Illinois to promote “compassionate care,” not assisted suicide. “There is a way to both honor the dignity of human life and provide compassionate care to those experiencing life-ending illness,” Cupich said. “Surely the Illinois Legislature should explore those options before making suicide one of the avenues available to the ill and distressed.” The Catholic Conference of Illinois also asked the governor to veto the bill and improve palliative care programs “that offer expert assessment and management of pain and other symptoms.”“The Illinois General Assembly has put our state on a slippery path that jeopardizes the well-being of the poor and marginalized, especially those in the disability community and have foreseeable tragic consequences,” the conference said in a statement. 

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null / Credit: Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 31, 2025 / 14:53 pm (CNA).

The Illinois State Senate passed a bill to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the state. 

The legislation (SB 1950), known as the “End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act,” would authorize medical aid in dying for terminally ill adults in Illinois if signed into law by Democrat Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

The House passed the bill in May 2025, and it stalled in the Senate during the regular session. It was taken up during the Fall veto session, and senators passed it early in the morning of Oct. 31. Pritzker will have 60 days to decide whether to sign or veto the bill before it automatically becomes law.

The bill would allow individuals to request and self-administer medication to end their lives. According to the bill, anyone requesting medically assisted suicide must be at least 18 years old, a resident of Illinois, and have a terminal disease with a prognosis of six months or less to live.

The bill also requires two verbal requests for the medication from the patient, with a five-day waiting period between the first and second request. The death certificates of individuals using physican-assisted suicide in the state would list the terminal disease as the cause of death, not suicide. 

“Please continue to pray for vulnerable populations and for those who feel hopeless and are near end-of-life,” the Catholic Conference of Illinois, the public policy voice of the Catholic Church in the state, wrote in a post to the social media platform X.

“It is quite fitting that the forces of the culture of death in the Illinois General Assembly passed physician-assisted suicide on October 31—a day that, culturally, has become synonymous with glorifying death and evil,” said Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of the Diocese of Springfield in a statement. “It’s also ironic that these pro-death legislators did it under the cloud of darkness at 2:54 a.m.”

“Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Now, they can prescribe death. There are documented cases of patients being denied treatment and instead offered life-ending drugs,” Paprocki said. “Individuals could also be coerced into taking the lethal drug.”

The bishop called for prayers for Pritzker to reject the legislation as “physician assisted suicide undermines the value of each person, especially the vulnerable, the poor, and those with disabilities.”

The anti-assisted suicide group Patients Rights Action Fund called on Pritzker to veto the legislation. 

“We encourage lawmakers to instead prioritize expanding access to mental health services, hospice care, and palliative support,” the advocacy group said in a statement. “Every patient deserves compassionate care and a full spectrum of options to live with dignity. The passage of SB 1950 introducing the use of lethal drugs in Illinois compromises that fundamental right. “

Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago, strongly criticized the bill in May after it passed the House.

“I speak to this topic not only as a religious leader but also as one who has seen a parent die from a debilitating illness,” Cupich said, recalling his father’s death. Cupich urged Illinois to promote “compassionate care,” not assisted suicide. 

“There is a way to both honor the dignity of human life and provide compassionate care to those experiencing life-ending illness,” Cupich said. “Surely the Illinois Legislature should explore those options before making suicide one of the avenues available to the ill and distressed.” 

The Catholic Conference of Illinois also asked the governor to veto the bill and improve palliative care programs “that offer expert assessment and management of pain and other symptoms.”

“The Illinois General Assembly has put our state on a slippery path that jeopardizes the well-being of the poor and marginalized, especially those in the disability community and have foreseeable tragic consequences,” the conference said in a statement. 

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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.”

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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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Military archdiocese: Army’s response to canceled religious contracts ‘inadequate’ #Catholic Archbishop Timothy Broglio speaks at Mass on Dec. 3, 2023. / Credit: The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 22, 2025 / 18:04 pm (CNA). The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, expressed concern that the U.S. Army is not adequately addressing its discontent with canceled religious contracts, which the archdiocese said is straining its ability to minister to Catholics in the armed forces.This month, the Army canceled all contracts for three roles: coordinators of religious education (CRE), Catholic pastoral life coordinators (CPLC), and musicians. The contract terminations affected Catholics and those of other faiths.CREs served as catechists trained by the archdiocese to assist the priests in religious education in the military chapels. The archdiocese also trained CPLCs who offered administrative support such as liturgy coordination, assistance with sacramental record documentation, and weekly bulletin preparation. Contracts also included musicians, usually pianists who played music during Mass.Military Services Archbishop Timothy Broglio sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 17 saying Army officials assured him that religious affairs specialists (RAS) and directors of religious education (DREs) — federal employees — would accommodate the needs of the archdiocese amid the canceled contracts but that he believes this is not possible.Neither an RAS nor a DRE is a trained catechist, he explained, and neither are properly trained or qualified to perform the roles of people who served in the canceled contracts. There is no requirement for a DRE to be Catholic or for an RAS to have any faith.In response to the archdiocesan complaint, an Army spokesperson told CNA it would reexamine its contract support for RASs and DREs “to mitigate any potential impact during this period.“Archdiocese: Response is ‘wholly inadequate’Elizabeth A. Tomlin, a lawyer for the archdiocese, told CNA that the Army’s response is “wholly inadequate” and “demonstrates the spokesperson’s total lack of understanding of the issue.”“Merely eight DREs across the entire Army are Catholics, so most DREs are not qualified to direct Catholic religious education,” Tomlin said.“[RASs] are soldiers, [usually] anywhere from private first class to staff sergeant in rank,” she explained. “There is no requirement whatsoever for RASs to be Catholic or have any training in catechesis or catechetical methodology that could possibly equip them to coordinate religious education.”Tomlin rejected the Army’s assertion that people in these positions could fulfill the work of the CREs, CPLCs, or musicians.“Without meeting the basic requirement of a catechist, namely, to be a confirmed Catholic, these people are not qualified to be involved in Catholic religious education programs whatsoever,” she said.Tomlin said the only way to have music during Mass is if someone volunteers.“It is factually inaccurate that DREs or RASs are fulfilling the duties of CREs, CPLCs, or liturgical musicians,” Tomlin said.‘No knowledge of our faith’Jena Swanson — who worked as a Catholic CRE at Fort Drum from August 2024 until her contract was canceled on March 31, 2025 — told CNA she agrees with the archdiocese’s assessment that those employees cannot fulfill the roles of those whose contracts were canceled.She said she helped facilitate religious education classes, Bible studies, sacrament preparation classes, and retreats, and collected sacramental records, among a variety of other tasks. She said she mostly worked independently of the DRE because that employee did not have much knowledge about the Catholic faith.“The DRE is not guaranteed to be Catholic depending on the installation military families are stationed at,” Swanson said. “In our 13 years of military family life (my husband is active duty Army), we’ve experienced one Catholic DRE and only for two years.”She said in her experience, RASs “are as helpful as they can be” but often “have no knowledge of our faith.”Swanson said the Catholic community at Fort Drum “was thrown into a bit of chaos” once her contract ended. Some weeks there were no teachers for religious education, families did not know whom to direct questions to, and weekly Mass attendance dropped about 50%.“Our families want answers and want to continue coming to our parish, but if these options are not open it will drastically affect attendance and faith formation,” Swanson said.
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Military archdiocese: Army’s response to canceled religious contracts ‘inadequate’ #Catholic Archbishop Timothy Broglio speaks at Mass on Dec. 3, 2023. / Credit: The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 22, 2025 / 18:04 pm (CNA). The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, expressed concern that the U.S. Army is not adequately addressing its discontent with canceled religious contracts, which the archdiocese said is straining its ability to minister to Catholics in the armed forces.This month, the Army canceled all contracts for three roles: coordinators of religious education (CRE), Catholic pastoral life coordinators (CPLC), and musicians. The contract terminations affected Catholics and those of other faiths.CREs served as catechists trained by the archdiocese to assist the priests in religious education in the military chapels. The archdiocese also trained CPLCs who offered administrative support such as liturgy coordination, assistance with sacramental record documentation, and weekly bulletin preparation. Contracts also included musicians, usually pianists who played music during Mass.Military Services Archbishop Timothy Broglio sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 17 saying Army officials assured him that religious affairs specialists (RAS) and directors of religious education (DREs) — federal employees — would accommodate the needs of the archdiocese amid the canceled contracts but that he believes this is not possible.Neither an RAS nor a DRE is a trained catechist, he explained, and neither are properly trained or qualified to perform the roles of people who served in the canceled contracts. There is no requirement for a DRE to be Catholic or for an RAS to have any faith.In response to the archdiocesan complaint, an Army spokesperson told CNA it would reexamine its contract support for RASs and DREs “to mitigate any potential impact during this period.“Archdiocese: Response is ‘wholly inadequate’Elizabeth A. Tomlin, a lawyer for the archdiocese, told CNA that the Army’s response is “wholly inadequate” and “demonstrates the spokesperson’s total lack of understanding of the issue.”“Merely eight DREs across the entire Army are Catholics, so most DREs are not qualified to direct Catholic religious education,” Tomlin said.“[RASs] are soldiers, [usually] anywhere from private first class to staff sergeant in rank,” she explained. “There is no requirement whatsoever for RASs to be Catholic or have any training in catechesis or catechetical methodology that could possibly equip them to coordinate religious education.”Tomlin rejected the Army’s assertion that people in these positions could fulfill the work of the CREs, CPLCs, or musicians.“Without meeting the basic requirement of a catechist, namely, to be a confirmed Catholic, these people are not qualified to be involved in Catholic religious education programs whatsoever,” she said.Tomlin said the only way to have music during Mass is if someone volunteers.“It is factually inaccurate that DREs or RASs are fulfilling the duties of CREs, CPLCs, or liturgical musicians,” Tomlin said.‘No knowledge of our faith’Jena Swanson — who worked as a Catholic CRE at Fort Drum from August 2024 until her contract was canceled on March 31, 2025 — told CNA she agrees with the archdiocese’s assessment that those employees cannot fulfill the roles of those whose contracts were canceled.She said she helped facilitate religious education classes, Bible studies, sacrament preparation classes, and retreats, and collected sacramental records, among a variety of other tasks. She said she mostly worked independently of the DRE because that employee did not have much knowledge about the Catholic faith.“The DRE is not guaranteed to be Catholic depending on the installation military families are stationed at,” Swanson said. “In our 13 years of military family life (my husband is active duty Army), we’ve experienced one Catholic DRE and only for two years.”She said in her experience, RASs “are as helpful as they can be” but often “have no knowledge of our faith.”Swanson said the Catholic community at Fort Drum “was thrown into a bit of chaos” once her contract ended. Some weeks there were no teachers for religious education, families did not know whom to direct questions to, and weekly Mass attendance dropped about 50%.“Our families want answers and want to continue coming to our parish, but if these options are not open it will drastically affect attendance and faith formation,” Swanson said.

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Archbishop Timothy Broglio speaks at Mass on Dec. 3, 2023. / Credit: The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 22, 2025 / 18:04 pm (CNA).

The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, expressed concern that the U.S. Army is not adequately addressing its discontent with canceled religious contracts, which the archdiocese said is straining its ability to minister to Catholics in the armed forces.

This month, the Army canceled all contracts for three roles: coordinators of religious education (CRE), Catholic pastoral life coordinators (CPLC), and musicians. The contract terminations affected Catholics and those of other faiths.

CREs served as catechists trained by the archdiocese to assist the priests in religious education in the military chapels. The archdiocese also trained CPLCs who offered administrative support such as liturgy coordination, assistance with sacramental record documentation, and weekly bulletin preparation. Contracts also included musicians, usually pianists who played music during Mass.

Military Services Archbishop Timothy Broglio sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 17 saying Army officials assured him that religious affairs specialists (RAS) and directors of religious education (DREs) — federal employees — would accommodate the needs of the archdiocese amid the canceled contracts but that he believes this is not possible.

Neither an RAS nor a DRE is a trained catechist, he explained, and neither are properly trained or qualified to perform the roles of people who served in the canceled contracts. There is no requirement for a DRE to be Catholic or for an RAS to have any faith.

In response to the archdiocesan complaint, an Army spokesperson told CNA it would reexamine its contract support for RASs and DREs “to mitigate any potential impact during this period.“

Archdiocese: Response is ‘wholly inadequate’

Elizabeth A. Tomlin, a lawyer for the archdiocese, told CNA that the Army’s response is “wholly inadequate” and “demonstrates the spokesperson’s total lack of understanding of the issue.”

“Merely eight DREs across the entire Army are Catholics, so most DREs are not qualified to direct Catholic religious education,” Tomlin said.

“[RASs] are soldiers, [usually] anywhere from private first class to staff sergeant in rank,” she explained. “There is no requirement whatsoever for RASs to be Catholic or have any training in catechesis or catechetical methodology that could possibly equip them to coordinate religious education.”

Tomlin rejected the Army’s assertion that people in these positions could fulfill the work of the CREs, CPLCs, or musicians.

“Without meeting the basic requirement of a catechist, namely, to be a confirmed Catholic, these people are not qualified to be involved in Catholic religious education programs whatsoever,” she said.

Tomlin said the only way to have music during Mass is if someone volunteers.

“It is factually inaccurate that DREs or RASs are fulfilling the duties of CREs, CPLCs, or liturgical musicians,” Tomlin said.

‘No knowledge of our faith’

Jena Swanson — who worked as a Catholic CRE at Fort Drum from August 2024 until her contract was canceled on March 31, 2025 — told CNA she agrees with the archdiocese’s assessment that those employees cannot fulfill the roles of those whose contracts were canceled.

She said she helped facilitate religious education classes, Bible studies, sacrament preparation classes, and retreats, and collected sacramental records, among a variety of other tasks. She said she mostly worked independently of the DRE because that employee did not have much knowledge about the Catholic faith.

“The DRE is not guaranteed to be Catholic depending on the installation military families are stationed at,” Swanson said. “In our 13 years of military family life (my husband is active duty Army), we’ve experienced one Catholic DRE and only for two years.”

She said in her experience, RASs “are as helpful as they can be” but often “have no knowledge of our faith.”

Swanson said the Catholic community at Fort Drum “was thrown into a bit of chaos” once her contract ended. Some weeks there were no teachers for religious education, families did not know whom to direct questions to, and weekly Mass attendance dropped about 50%.

“Our families want answers and want to continue coming to our parish, but if these options are not open it will drastically affect attendance and faith formation,” Swanson said.

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New Jersey jury awards man million for clergy sexual assault in 1976 #Catholic A jury awarded million to a New Jersey man who said he was sexually abused in a Catholic school in 1976. / Credit: corgarashu/Shutterstock CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2025 / 11:14 am (CNA). A jury in New Jersey has awarded a man million in damages for a sexual assault that occurred at a Catholic school there nearly 50 years ago. The Morris County jury ruled unanimously that the plaintiff, a man in his 60s identified as “T.M.,” was entitled to the damages. It held that Father Richard Lott, who at trial last month denied the allegations, was 35% liable for the assault, while the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey was found 65% liable. The million represents compensatory damages in the case. The jury will decide on Oct. 14 whether or not the Benedictine order will pay punitive damages, according to local news reports. In a statement on Oct. 8, Headmaster Father Michael Tidd, OSB, of the Delbarton School, which is run by the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, said the institution was “extremely disappointed in the verdict.” The statement was cosigned by Administrator Abbot Jonathan Licari of St. Mary’s Abbey, which is also run by the Benedictine monks.“While the communities of St. Mary’s Abbey and Delbarton School have genuine compassion for any victim of abuse, we do not believe that the damages awarded in this case are either fair or reasonable, and our legal representatives are considering all legal options,” the statement said.“The alleged incident in question in this trial occurred 50 years ago, when modern safeguards did not exist at secular or religious schools or other youth-serving institutions,” the leaders said. “That fact cannot be an excuse for abuse of any kind, but it is a truth that must be reflected in the verdict.”The historic ruling comes several years after hundreds of sex abuse lawsuits were filed against New Jersey Catholic priests and leaders.The flood of suits came during a two-year period New Jersey provided under the 2019 Child Victims Act to allow victims who otherwise would have been barred by the state’s statute of limitation to file lawsuits.Thirty-six lawsuits were filed against the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, which faced the highest number of lawsuits among the state’s religious orders.Disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was named in 10 lawsuits. McCarrick died in April.Earlier this year the New Jersey Supreme Court said the state government would be allowed to assemble a grand jury to investigate allegations of clergy sexual abuse. The Camden Diocese had been embroiled in a yearslong fight with the state over the potential grand jury empanelment, arguing that the state lacked the authority to convene an investigatory panel. Shortly after being installed on March 17, however, Camden Bishop Joseph Williams indicated that the diocese would back away from challenging the state, vowing to “do the right thing” by abuse survivors. Delbarton School traces its roots to the early 20th century; it officially opened in 1939.
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New Jersey jury awards man $5 million for clergy sexual assault in 1976 #Catholic A jury awarded $5 million to a New Jersey man who said he was sexually abused in a Catholic school in 1976. / Credit: corgarashu/Shutterstock CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2025 / 11:14 am (CNA). A jury in New Jersey has awarded a man $5 million in damages for a sexual assault that occurred at a Catholic school there nearly 50 years ago. The Morris County jury ruled unanimously that the plaintiff, a man in his 60s identified as “T.M.,” was entitled to the damages. It held that Father Richard Lott, who at trial last month denied the allegations, was 35% liable for the assault, while the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey was found 65% liable. The $5 million represents compensatory damages in the case. The jury will decide on Oct. 14 whether or not the Benedictine order will pay punitive damages, according to local news reports. In a statement on Oct. 8, Headmaster Father Michael Tidd, OSB, of the Delbarton School, which is run by the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, said the institution was “extremely disappointed in the verdict.” The statement was cosigned by Administrator Abbot Jonathan Licari of St. Mary’s Abbey, which is also run by the Benedictine monks.“While the communities of St. Mary’s Abbey and Delbarton School have genuine compassion for any victim of abuse, we do not believe that the damages awarded in this case are either fair or reasonable, and our legal representatives are considering all legal options,” the statement said.“The alleged incident in question in this trial occurred 50 years ago, when modern safeguards did not exist at secular or religious schools or other youth-serving institutions,” the leaders said. “That fact cannot be an excuse for abuse of any kind, but it is a truth that must be reflected in the verdict.”The historic ruling comes several years after hundreds of sex abuse lawsuits were filed against New Jersey Catholic priests and leaders.The flood of suits came during a two-year period New Jersey provided under the 2019 Child Victims Act to allow victims who otherwise would have been barred by the state’s statute of limitation to file lawsuits.Thirty-six lawsuits were filed against the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, which faced the highest number of lawsuits among the state’s religious orders.Disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was named in 10 lawsuits. McCarrick died in April.Earlier this year the New Jersey Supreme Court said the state government would be allowed to assemble a grand jury to investigate allegations of clergy sexual abuse. The Camden Diocese had been embroiled in a yearslong fight with the state over the potential grand jury empanelment, arguing that the state lacked the authority to convene an investigatory panel. Shortly after being installed on March 17, however, Camden Bishop Joseph Williams indicated that the diocese would back away from challenging the state, vowing to “do the right thing” by abuse survivors. Delbarton School traces its roots to the early 20th century; it officially opened in 1939.

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A jury awarded $5 million to a New Jersey man who said he was sexually abused in a Catholic school in 1976. / Credit: corgarashu/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2025 / 11:14 am (CNA).

A jury in New Jersey has awarded a man $5 million in damages for a sexual assault that occurred at a Catholic school there nearly 50 years ago. 

The Morris County jury ruled unanimously that the plaintiff, a man in his 60s identified as “T.M.,” was entitled to the damages. It held that Father Richard Lott, who at trial last month denied the allegations, was 35% liable for the assault, while the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey was found 65% liable. 

The $5 million represents compensatory damages in the case. The jury will decide on Oct. 14 whether or not the Benedictine order will pay punitive damages, according to local news reports. 

In a statement on Oct. 8, Headmaster Father Michael Tidd, OSB, of the Delbarton School, which is run by the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, said the institution was “extremely disappointed in the verdict.” The statement was cosigned by Administrator Abbot Jonathan Licari of St. Mary’s Abbey, which is also run by the Benedictine monks.

“While the communities of St. Mary’s Abbey and Delbarton School have genuine compassion for any victim of abuse, we do not believe that the damages awarded in this case are either fair or reasonable, and our legal representatives are considering all legal options,” the statement said.

“The alleged incident in question in this trial occurred 50 years ago, when modern safeguards did not exist at secular or religious schools or other youth-serving institutions,” the leaders said. “That fact cannot be an excuse for abuse of any kind, but it is a truth that must be reflected in the verdict.”

The historic ruling comes several years after hundreds of sex abuse lawsuits were filed against New Jersey Catholic priests and leaders.

The flood of suits came during a two-year period New Jersey provided under the 2019 Child Victims Act to allow victims who otherwise would have been barred by the state’s statute of limitation to file lawsuits.

Thirty-six lawsuits were filed against the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, which faced the highest number of lawsuits among the state’s religious orders.

Disgraced former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was named in 10 lawsuits. McCarrick died in April.

Earlier this year the New Jersey Supreme Court said the state government would be allowed to assemble a grand jury to investigate allegations of clergy sexual abuse. 

The Camden Diocese had been embroiled in a yearslong fight with the state over the potential grand jury empanelment, arguing that the state lacked the authority to convene an investigatory panel. 

Shortly after being installed on March 17, however, Camden Bishop Joseph Williams indicated that the diocese would back away from challenging the state, vowing to “do the right thing” by abuse survivors. 

Delbarton School traces its roots to the early 20th century; it officially opened in 1939.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Funding and operations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Success and benefits

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

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

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

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

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

Church support

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Abortion declines even in states where it is still legal

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Virginia bishop speaks out against potential ‘abortion rights’ amendment

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Planned Parenthood closes its only 2 clinics in Louisiana

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

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

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

Louisiana authorities issue arrest warrant for California abortionist 

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

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

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

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Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte charged with murder
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Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte charged with murder

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

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

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

Former Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte charged with murder

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

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

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

Syriac Catholic bishop discusses role of Christians in rebuilding Syria

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chair of Philippines Bishops’ Conference speaks out against corruption 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Australian bishop returned to public ministry after abuse allegation dismissed

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

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

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

Bangladesh Catholics fear Muslim extremist persecution as elections loom

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

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

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

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

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

Angolan bishop speaks out against deforestation, poaching

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

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

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

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Bishop Checchio to join troubled Archdiocese of New Orleans as coadjutor
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Bishop Checchio to join troubled Archdiocese of New Orleans as coadjutor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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null / Credit: nito/Shutterstock

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

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

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

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

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

States attempting expansions to assisted suicide laws

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proposed legislation to legalize assisted suicide 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Brief Outburst
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A Brief Outburst

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The Sun blew out a coronal mass ejection along with part of a solar filament over a three-hour period on Feb. 24, 2015. While some of the strands fell back into the Sun, a substantial part raced into space in a bright cloud of particles (as observed by the NASA-ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft). Because this occurred way over near the edge of the Sun, it was unlikely to have any effect on Earth.

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Picture of the day (purge this page’s cache) Barn swallow juvenile (Hirundo rustica rustica) at the Ormož Basins nature reserve, Slovenia. Taken during a period when the storm Boris blocked migration routes, and low temperatures left the swallows struggling to find prey and stay warm in that area. This one was visibly weak, nevertheless, it had just caught a moth, with remains visible around the beak, and its scales on the face. #ImageOfTheDay
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Picture of the day (purge this page’s cache) Barn swallow juvenile (Hirundo rustica rustica) at the Ormož Basins nature reserve, Slovenia. Taken during a period when the storm Boris blocked migration routes, and low temperatures left the swallows struggling to find prey and stay warm in that area. This one was visibly weak, nevertheless, it had just caught a moth, with remains visible around the beak, and its scales on the face. #ImageOfTheDay

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Picture of the day
(purge this page’s cache)
Barn swallow juvenile (Hirundo rustica rustica) at the Ormož Basins nature reserve, Slovenia. Taken during a period when the storm Boris blocked migration routes, and low temperatures left the swallows struggling to find prey and stay warm in that area. This one was visibly weak, nevertheless, it had just caught a moth, with remains visible around the beak, and its scales on the face.
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