A green and red aurora streams across Earth’s horizon above the city lights of Europe in this Jan. 19, 2026, photograph, which looks north across Italy toward Germany. The International Space Station was orbiting 262 miles above the Mediterranean Sea at approximately 10:02 p.m. local time when the image was captured.
Read More![Pro-life movement has mixed reaction after Trump’s first year of second term #Catholic
Participants in a pro-life rally hold signs in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on June 24, 2023, at a rally marking the first anniversary of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. | Credit: Joseph Portolano/EWTN News
Jan 20, 2026 / 14:37 pm (CNA).
Members of the pro-life movement have mixed thoughts on the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, noting many wins early into his presidency but a number of shortfalls as time has gone by.Some wins include defunding Planned Parenthood, walking back some of President Joe Biden’s initiatives, and removing foreign aid funding for organizations that promote abortion. However, a lack of action on chemical abortions and weakened rhetoric surrounding taxpayer-funded abortions are causing concern.A notable pro-life win was included in the tax overhaul bill signed by Trump in July, which cut off all Medicaid reimbursements for organizations that provide a large number of abortions, such as Planned Parenthood.Amid funding cuts, nearly 70 Planned Parenthood affiliates shut down. The administration also initially cut off Title X family planning grants from the abortion giant, but those have resumed.The president pardoned pro-life protesters convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and blocked foreign aid from supporting organizations that promote abortion. He rescinded several policies from the Biden administration, including one that paid Pentagon workers to travel for abortions. He also established strong conscience protections for pro-life doctors.“Right out the gate, we saw some progress on the pro-life issue,” Kelsey Pritchard, a spokesperson for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), told EWTN.Yet, she cautioned: “We have also not seen progress in the one area that matters the most — and that’s on abortion drugs.”Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a study into the safety of the abortion pill mifepristone in September 2025, but so far no action has been taken to curtail the drug. Rather, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) went in the opposite direction, approving a generic version of mifepristone later that same month.Pritchard said that move was “the opposite of what they should have done,” and referred to the generic mifepristone as “a new kill pill to increase the number of abortions that are done in this country.”She said Kennedy’s promised study has “absolutely been moving too slow” and added that there is no confirmation it even began or is taking place. SBA called for FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to be fired following allegations he was “slow-walking the report for political reasons,” she said.Trump has said abortion should be regulated by the states, but Pritchard warned “those [pro-life] laws can’t be in effect at all, really, when mail-order abortion happens with the abortion drugs.”“They’re allowing [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom and [New York Gov.] Kathy Hochul and their blue state friends to completely nullify the pro-life laws in states like Texas and Florida,” she said.Joseph Meaney, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, similarly said “the delay in the promised review of the rushed process in which mifepristone was approved as an abortion drug by the FDA has frustrated pro-lifers.”“When the FDA approved a second generic version of mifepristone, … it highlighted the lack of progress in fighting the leading means of doing abortions in the [United States],” he said.Trump also began to waver on taxpayer-funded abortions early in 2026, asking Republicans to be “flexible” on the Hyde Amendment amid negotiations on extending health care subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Trump later unveiled “The Great Healthcare Plan” and said the White House intends to negotiate with Congress to ensure pro-life protections.Pritchard called taxpayer-funded abortion “a very basic red line” and said it’s “concerning to see Republicans back away from something so basic.”She warned Republicans to not take pro-life voters for granted in the upcoming midterms, saying “you’ll lose the elections and we won’t have the majority of Congress” without pro-life voters.“You must remain the pro-life party or you will lose the midterms if you decide to bow to the pro-death Democrat agenda,” Pritchard said.Meaney said there is “a widespread feeling that the second Trump administration has seemed to deprioritize issues important to the pro-life community,” adding he has “seen calls for pro-life groups to ‘flex their muscles’ and show that they cannot be taken for granted.”However, he said the shortfalls “should not obscure the fact that the Trump administration has rolled back the Biden-era pro-abortion measures internationally and domestically.”“It even achieved a temporary defunding of Planned Parenthood domestically in legislation,” he said. “The federal government no longer funds research on fetal tissues and defends the conscience rights of health care professionals and others robustly.”Trump also signed an executive order that directed departments and agencies to boost access to and reduce the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Catholic Church opposes IVF, which results in the destruction of human embryos, ending human lives.](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/pro-life-movement-has-mixed-reaction-after-trumps-first-year-of-second-term-catholic-participants-in-a-pro-life-rally-hold-signs-in-front-of-the-lincoln-memorial-in-washington-d-c-on-scaled.jpg)
Jan 20, 2026 / 14:37 pm (CNA).
Members of the pro-life movement have mixed thoughts on the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, noting many wins early into his presidency but a number of shortfalls as time has gone by.
Some wins include defunding Planned Parenthood, walking back some of President Joe Biden’s initiatives, and removing foreign aid funding for organizations that promote abortion. However, a lack of action on chemical abortions and weakened rhetoric surrounding taxpayer-funded abortions are causing concern.
A notable pro-life win was included in the tax overhaul bill signed by Trump in July, which cut off all Medicaid reimbursements for organizations that provide a large number of abortions, such as Planned Parenthood.
Amid funding cuts, nearly 70 Planned Parenthood affiliates shut down. The administration also initially cut off Title X family planning grants from the abortion giant, but those have resumed.
The president pardoned pro-life protesters convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and blocked foreign aid from supporting organizations that promote abortion. He rescinded several policies from the Biden administration, including one that paid Pentagon workers to travel for abortions. He also established strong conscience protections for pro-life doctors.
“Right out the gate, we saw some progress on the pro-life issue,” Kelsey Pritchard, a spokesperson for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), told EWTN.
Yet, she cautioned: “We have also not seen progress in the one area that matters the most — and that’s on abortion drugs.”
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched a study into the safety of the abortion pill mifepristone in September 2025, but so far no action has been taken to curtail the drug. Rather, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) went in the opposite direction, approving a generic version of mifepristone later that same month.
Pritchard said that move was “the opposite of what they should have done,” and referred to the generic mifepristone as “a new kill pill to increase the number of abortions that are done in this country.”
She said Kennedy’s promised study has “absolutely been moving too slow” and added that there is no confirmation it even began or is taking place. SBA called for FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to be fired following allegations he was “slow-walking the report for political reasons,” she said.
Trump has said abortion should be regulated by the states, but Pritchard warned “those [pro-life] laws can’t be in effect at all, really, when mail-order abortion happens with the abortion drugs.”
“They’re allowing [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom and [New York Gov.] Kathy Hochul and their blue state friends to completely nullify the pro-life laws in states like Texas and Florida,” she said.
Joseph Meaney, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, similarly said “the delay in the promised review of the rushed process in which mifepristone was approved as an abortion drug by the FDA has frustrated pro-lifers.”
“When the FDA approved a second generic version of mifepristone, … it highlighted the lack of progress in fighting the leading means of doing abortions in the [United States],” he said.
Trump also began to waver on taxpayer-funded abortions early in 2026, asking Republicans to be “flexible” on the Hyde Amendment amid negotiations on extending health care subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. Trump later unveiled “The Great Healthcare Plan” and said the White House intends to negotiate with Congress to ensure pro-life protections.
Pritchard called taxpayer-funded abortion “a very basic red line” and said it’s “concerning to see Republicans back away from something so basic.”
She warned Republicans to not take pro-life voters for granted in the upcoming midterms, saying “you’ll lose the elections and we won’t have the majority of Congress” without pro-life voters.
“You must remain the pro-life party or you will lose the midterms if you decide to bow to the pro-death Democrat agenda,” Pritchard said.
Meaney said there is “a widespread feeling that the second Trump administration has seemed to deprioritize issues important to the pro-life community,” adding he has “seen calls for pro-life groups to ‘flex their muscles’ and show that they cannot be taken for granted.”
However, he said the shortfalls “should not obscure the fact that the Trump administration has rolled back the Biden-era pro-abortion measures internationally and domestically.”
“It even achieved a temporary defunding of Planned Parenthood domestically in legislation,” he said. “The federal government no longer funds research on fetal tissues and defends the conscience rights of health care professionals and others robustly.”
Trump also signed an executive order that directed departments and agencies to boost access to and reduce the cost of in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Catholic Church opposes IVF, which results in the destruction of human embryos, ending human lives.
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Images depicting NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket are projected onto the Washington Monument as part of an event to kick off the nation’s 250th birthday year, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025, in Washington.
Read More![Michael Reagan, Catholic son of U.S. President Ronald Reagan, dies at 80 #Catholic
Republican strategist Michael Reagan speaks at a get-out-the-vote rally for U.S. Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle featuring U.S. Sen. John McCain at the Orleans, Friday, Oct. 29, 2010, in Las Vegas. | Credit: Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Jan 7, 2026 / 10:07 am (CNA).
Michael Reagan, the adopted son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and a longtime conservative activist who spoke publicly about his Catholic faith, died on Jan. 4 at 80 years old.Reagan’s family announced his death on Jan. 6 via Young America’s Foundation, which operates out of the “Reagan Ranch” near Santa Barbara, California. The announcement said Reagan died in Los Angeles “surrounded by his entire family.”“Michael was and will always remain a beloved husband, father, and grandpa,” the statement said, with the family expressing grief over “the loss of a man who meant so much to all who knew and loved him.”He is survived by his wife, Colleen, his son Cameron and his daughter Ashley. Born March 18, 1945, Reagan was adopted by Ronald Reagan and his then-wife Jane Wyman shortly thereafter. He was known throughout the 2000s as the host of “The Michael Reagan Show,” a nationwide radio program. Reagan was a Catholic through Wyman, a legendary movie star who herself was a third order Dominican. In a 2024 interview with EWTN News’ ChurchPOP, he pointed out that “a lot of people don’t know” of Wyman’s Catholic background. Joking when comparing his father’s Protestant beliefs with his mother’s Catholic faith, Reagan said: “When you get [to heaven], if you see my dad, look three floors above him [to see my mother].”Reagan told ChurchPOP Editor Jacqueline Burkepile that a large part of his family is Catholic. “My whole family is [Catholic],” he said. “My wife, Colleen, converted to Catholicism a few years ago. My son Cameron, his wife, Susanna, my daughter Ashley [are all Catholic].” His grandchildren have been baptized in the Church as well, he said.“So we got everybody on the planet,” he joked. In a Jan. 6 reflection, Reagan Ranch Director Andrew Coffin said Reagan “worked alongside Young America’s Foundation to share his father’s legacy and ideas with new generations.”In a separate statement, Young America’s Foundation President Scott Walker said that Reagan “was such a wonderful inspiration to so many of us.” Walker said that though Reagan had been optimistic about overcoming his recent health challenges, “unfortunately for all of us, the Good Lord decided to call him home sooner.” “That said, he and I also discussed his faith and devotion to Jesus,” Walker said. “That should give us all comfort during this difficult time as he is with the Lord.”](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/michael-reagan-catholic-son-of-u-s-president-ronald-reagan-dies-at-80-catholic-republican-strategist-michael-reagan-speaks-at-a-get-out-the-vote-rally-for-u-s-republican-senate-candidate-shar-scaled.jpg)
Jan 7, 2026 / 10:07 am (CNA).
Michael Reagan, the adopted son of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and a longtime conservative activist who spoke publicly about his Catholic faith, died on Jan. 4 at 80 years old.
Reagan’s family announced his death on Jan. 6 via Young America’s Foundation, which operates out of the “Reagan Ranch” near Santa Barbara, California. The announcement said Reagan died in Los Angeles “surrounded by his entire family.”
“Michael was and will always remain a beloved husband, father, and grandpa,” the statement said, with the family expressing grief over “the loss of a man who meant so much to all who knew and loved him.”
He is survived by his wife, Colleen, his son Cameron and his daughter Ashley.
Born March 18, 1945, Reagan was adopted by Ronald Reagan and his then-wife Jane Wyman shortly thereafter. He was known throughout the 2000s as the host of “The Michael Reagan Show,” a nationwide radio program.
Reagan was a Catholic through Wyman, a legendary movie star who herself was a third order Dominican. In a 2024 interview with EWTN News’ ChurchPOP, he pointed out that “a lot of people don’t know” of Wyman’s Catholic background.
Joking when comparing his father’s Protestant beliefs with his mother’s Catholic faith, Reagan said: “When you get [to heaven], if you see my dad, look three floors above him [to see my mother].”
Reagan told ChurchPOP Editor Jacqueline Burkepile that a large part of his family is Catholic.
“My whole family is [Catholic],” he said. “My wife, Colleen, converted to Catholicism a few years ago. My son Cameron, his wife, Susanna, my daughter Ashley [are all Catholic].” His grandchildren have been baptized in the Church as well, he said.
“So we got everybody on the planet,” he joked.
In a Jan. 6 reflection, Reagan Ranch Director Andrew Coffin said Reagan “worked alongside Young America’s Foundation to share his father’s legacy and ideas with new generations.”
In a separate statement, Young America’s Foundation President Scott Walker said that Reagan “was such a wonderful inspiration to so many of us.”
Walker said that though Reagan had been optimistic about overcoming his recent health challenges, “unfortunately for all of us, the Good Lord decided to call him home sooner.”
“That said, he and I also discussed his faith and devotion to Jesus,” Walker said. “That should give us all comfort during this difficult time as he is with the Lord.”
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Dec 31, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The past year has seen several notable Catholics pass away — from public officials to the vicar of Christ himself.
Here’s a rundown of some prominent Catholics around the world who left us in 2025:
The Holy Father, Pope Francis, passed away at 7:35 a.m. on Easter Monday, April 21, at his residence in the Vatican’s Casa Santa Marta. The 88-year-old pontiff led the Catholic Church for a little more than 12 years.
The first Latin American pope in history as well as the first Jesuit pope, Francis led the Church through significant canonical and catechetical reforms, urging the faithful to reach out and minister to those on the margins of society while preaching the mercy of God.
Upon his death he left the legacy of what Cardinal Kevin Farrell said was a life “dedicated to the service of God and his Church,” one that urged the faithful to “live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially for the poorest and most marginalized.”
Pope Francis was succeeded in the chair of St. Peter by Pope Leo XIV on May 8.
Mabel Landry Staton, a trailblazing athlete who briefly set an Olympic record at the 1952 Summer Olympics, died on Feb. 20 at age 92.
Representing the United States at the Olympic games in Helsinki in 1952, Staton — known as “Dolly” after a nickname from her father — set a record in the long jump category at 19 feet 3.25 inches. Though the record only lasted for several minutes before New Zealand athlete Yvette Williams bested it, Staton would go on to win medals in the 1955 Pan American Games.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Staton served as a Eucharistic minister at St. Thomas More Church in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, as well as on the board of the Black Catholic Ministry of the Diocese of Camden.
According to the Inquirer, Staton “could still outsprint some of the local high school boys in her 70s.”
Alasdair MacIntyre, a towering figure in moral philosophy and a Catholic convert credited with reviving the discipline of virtue ethics, died on May 21 at age 96.
His seminal 1981 work “After Virtue” reshaped contemporary moral and political philosophy, emphasizing virtue over utilitarian or deontological frameworks.
Known by many as “the most important” modern Catholic philosopher, MacIntyre’s intellectual and spiritual journey spanned atheism, Marxism, Anglicanism, and ultimately Roman Catholicism.
James Hitchcock — a noted historian of the Catholic Church, popular author, and longtime college professor — died on July 14 at age 87.
Hitchcock was remembered by friends and colleagues as a man of prophetic insight who defended Church teaching and helped to make the Catholic intellectual tradition accessible for his students and readers.
Hitchcock taught history at Saint Louis University from the late 1960s until 2013. Some of the most popular of the dozen books he wrote include his one-volume “History of the Catholic Church: From the Apostolic Age to the Third Millennium,” published in 2012 by Ignatius Press.
Frank Caprio, who served as a Providence, Rhode Island, municipal court judge for nearly 40 years and came to be known as “America’s nicest judge,” passed away on Aug. 20 from pancreatic cancer.
Caprio gained worldwide fame for a lenient judicial style that blended justice, extreme empathy, and mercy when his courtroom was televised in a program called “Caught in Providence.”
The program began in 1999 and went viral in 2017, achieving hundreds of millions of views since then. The show was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in 2021 and has a YouTube channel with nearly 3 million subscribers.
Caprio told EWTN News in February that he always kept in mind something his father, a hardworking Italian immigrant with a fifth-grade education, had impressed upon him: “What might seem like a small fine to some was something that many couldn’t afford.”
“Your case is dismissed” became Caprio’s signature phrase.
Thomas A. Nelson, the founder of TAN Books — a Catholic publishing house known for its books promoting traditional Catholicism in the post-Vatican II era — died Aug. 16 at age 88.
Nelson, who had previously worked as a teacher, founded TAN Books and Publishers Inc. in Rockford, Illinois, in 1967 and an accompanying printing plant in 1978. In addition to being Nelson’s initials, TAN is an acronym for the Latin phrase “Tuum Adoramus Nomen” (“Let Us Adore Thy Name”).
Under Nelson’s ownership, TAN became known for publishing orthodox Catholic books, including reprints of classic Catholic works on theology, Scripture, traditional devotions, the Traditional Latin Mass, and the lives of the saints as well as new titles on these subjects by contemporary authors.
The Duchess of Kent, who became the first senior British royal to be received into the Catholic Church since the 17th century, died on Sept. 4 at the age of 92.
Renowned for her natural charm, compassion for the sick and downtrodden, and commitment to serving others, the duchess was a much-loved and hardworking British royal whose popularity was enhanced by her own personal suffering and self-effacing nature.
She was received into the Church in January 1994 by Cardinal Basil Hume. Up until then, no senior royal had publicly been received into the Church since 1685.
Katharine spoke favorably of the Church’s moral precepts. “I do love guidelines and the Catholic Church offers you guidelines,” she once told the BBC. “I have always wanted that in my life. I like to know what’s expected of me.”
Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, the beloved Catholic nun who became known across the country at the age of 98 as the chaplain of the Loyola University Chicago men’s basketball team, died Oct. 9 at the age of 106.
Sister Jean was born Dolores Bertha Schmidt on Aug. 21, 1919, to Joseph and Bertha Schmidt. She was raised in a devout Catholic home in San Francisco’s Castro District.
In 1937, she joined the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and took the name Sister Jean Dolores. In 1991, she joined the staff at Loyola Chicago and three years later became part of the basketball team, first as an academic adviser before transitioning to chaplain.
Sister Jean led the team in prayer before each game — praying for her players to be safe, for the referees to be fair, and for God’s assistance during the game.
She also admitted to praying for the opposing team, though “not as hard.”
Sister Mary Michael of the Eucharistic Heart of Jesus, PCPA, died on Nov. 10 at age 94 after roughly three-quarters of a century of religious life.
Sister Mary Michael was the last of the original five nuns who, along with EWTN foundress Mother Angelica, began the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama.
Born Evelyn Shinosky on Feb. 25, 1931, to Joseph and Helen Shinosky, she entered Sancta Clara Monastery in Canton, Ohio, on Aug. 15, 1951, and received the habit and her new name the following May.
Her passing marked the end of an era at EWTN and at the monastery — one that saw both the launch of the global Catholic network and the expansion of the religious community to include the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery.
Paul Badde, author of many well-known books such as “Benedict Up Close,” “The Face of God,” and “The True Icon,” died on Nov. 10 at the age of 77 after a long illness. Badde was also a veteran contributor to EWTN and CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
Born in Schaag, Germany — a small village on the Lower Rhine — he studied philosophy and sociology in Freiburg as well as art history, history, and political science in Frankfurt. Before embarking on a journalistic career, Badde worked as a teacher for several years.
A founding editor of Vatican Magazine, Paul and his wife, Ellen, had five children.
Longtime immigrant rights advocate Sister JoAnn Persch died on Nov. 14 at age 91.
Two weeks before her death, Persch attempted to bring Communion to detainees at the Broadview, Illinois, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility where for decades the Sisters of Mercy ministered to migrants and refugees. Officials denied her entry.
Persch and Sister Pat Murphy were founding members of the Su Casa Catholic Worker House in Chicago, serving refugees from Central America who were survivors of war, torture, and political persecution.
May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Read More![Jonathan Roumie tells Father Mike Schmitz: ‘Everything in my life has prepared me for this role’ #Catholic
Actor Jonathan Roumie, known for his role as Jesus in “The Chosen,” and Father Mike Schmitz, known for the “Bible in a Year” podcast, sit down for an in-depth interview. Credit: Ascension Presents
Dec 29, 2025 / 17:21 pm (CNA).
In a new sit-down interview with Father Mike Schmitz, who is best known for the “Bible in a Year” podcast and YouTube videos on Ascension Presents, actor Jonathan Roumie spoke in depth about his role portraying Jesus in the hit series “The Chosen.”“Everything in my life has prepared me for this role,” Roumie told Schmitz in the 43-minute-long interview, which aired Dec. 28 on the Ascension Presents YouTube channel.Looking back at his childhood, Roumie recalled a couple of moments and experiences that deeply impacted him and his own portrayal of Jesus. He said at 12 years old he reenacted Christ’s passion and crucifixion in his backyard after watching Robert Powell’s portrayal of Jesus in “Jesus of Nazareth.”“I had 2-by-8 planks that I found and I hammered them together and I hammered the nails where the hands would go and I painted the blood and the same thing with the feet,” he recalled. “And then I grabbed like a bush, a piece of a branch of a bush, and made my own crown of thorns and I painted blood on it and everything and I processed around to the side of my garage.”Roumie also opened up about his experience being bullied as a child and how it led him to offer up his past trauma to God as he was reenacting the Crucifixion during filming of Season 6 of “The Chosen,” which focuses on Jesus’ passion and crucifixion.“I was bullied as a kid a lot and I had to kind of look at what Jesus went through as a righteous man and a peaceful man and meek and humble and see just the level of devastation and terrorized bullying that he received to the point of death,” he said. “So for me, I think, and I’ll go back and look at all those experiences I had as a kid, which might have been part of the reason that led me to reenact the Passion, as something that I could relate to and I think all of that prepared me for this role.”He added: “I understand it now a bit more, at least I think, in my own sort of human ignorance and pride… Of course I don’t know exactly what all of this is about but it feels authentic. Like, ‘Well, I went through that as a kid and my compassion increased and my empathy increased and now I’m playing the most compassionate, empathetic human being that was God in the universe for all time.’ So I can lend that experience in his suffering and in his empathy even in wanting to forgive his enemies, which I had to do.”“I was beaten pretty bad. So, I had to offer up all of my past trauma to him as I was recreating it, knowing that that was part of my own personal sacrifice — was my own offering for him on behalf of what he suffered for humanity.”The actor shared that before beginning the filming of Season 6, he asked God in prayer that “if it were his will to allow me a fraction of a fraction of what he went through.”Before traveling to Matera, Italy — the location where the Crucifixion was filmed — Roumie injured his right shoulder after falling while filming a scene. An X-ray and MRI showed that he had separated a bit of his AC joint from the clavicle, causing sharp pain.“It was the right shoulder, so the shoulder that was carrying the beam [of the cross] on and it was extremely painful,” Roumie said. “And that was just one of many things.”Roumie added that while filming the Crucifixion “certain adjustments” also had to be made due to pain being felt by the metal and real nails being used during filming.“He [God] gave me exactly what I asked for — just a glimpse, just a glimpse,” he said. “And I think the thing that I got was that I got to enter into it in a way that I had never entered into it before.”Schmitz asked Roumie how his experience portraying Jesus’ passion and crucifixion has impacted the way he attends or prays at Mass. Roumie shared that in the past year he began to feel “convicted to give more reverence to Christ in the Eucharist.”“I started receiving on my knees and on the tongue, which I hadn’t before,” he said, adding that it was slightly “disorienting at first.”He recalled an experience at Mass where he kneeled to receive the Eucharist but the priest asked him to stand up. He hesitated but rose and continued on with the Mass. Afterward, he asked his spiritual director if that was permissible, to which he responded that a priest “shouldn’t do that but it happens.”After this experience, Roumie shared that he “doubled down on it and now I’m prepared to just wait as long as I need to until somebody concedes because I’m not going anywhere.”Returning to his time portraying Jesus in the series, Schmitz told Roumie that “the show is called ‘The Chosen’ in the sense that it’s also about those who were chosen, but you were chosen and there’s something in that that has changed you. You being chosen to not only portray Jesus, but to be his disciple, an imitator of him, as St. Paul says, and that’s changed you.”“That’s something I’m trying to wrap my head around and identify with,” Roumie responded. “It wasn’t somebody else. He picked me. And I, of course, said yes, because I needed the work initially. I didn’t know what it was going to do to me internally.”Once the final season of “The Chosen” airs, it will have been a span of 10 years that Roumie will have been portraying Jesus. He said that this experience is something that might take “the rest of my life to unpack.”There was an error serializing the imagefile_get_contents(https://iframe.ly/api/iframely/oembed?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DtLHZ1qYhph0&api_key=): Failed to open stream: HTTP request failed! HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found
“So, I have to give myself a little bit of grace, but it’s something that I think I will always live with. And in fact, I don’t know that I want to let it go because it keeps me connected to him, especially when the show ends.”](https://unitedyam.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/jonathan-roumie-tells-father-mike-schmitz-everything-in-my-life-has-prepared-me-for-this-role-catholic-actor-jonathan-roumie-known-for-his-role-as-jesus-in-the-chosen.png)
Dec 29, 2025 / 17:21 pm (CNA).
In a new sit-down interview with Father Mike Schmitz, who is best known for the “Bible in a Year” podcast and YouTube videos on Ascension Presents, actor Jonathan Roumie spoke in depth about his role portraying Jesus in the hit series “The Chosen.”
“Everything in my life has prepared me for this role,” Roumie told Schmitz in the 43-minute-long interview, which aired Dec. 28 on the Ascension Presents YouTube channel.
Looking back at his childhood, Roumie recalled a couple of moments and experiences that deeply impacted him and his own portrayal of Jesus. He said at 12 years old he reenacted Christ’s passion and crucifixion in his backyard after watching Robert Powell’s portrayal of Jesus in “Jesus of Nazareth.”
“I had 2-by-8 planks that I found and I hammered them together and I hammered the nails where the hands would go and I painted the blood and the same thing with the feet,” he recalled. “And then I grabbed like a bush, a piece of a branch of a bush, and made my own crown of thorns and I painted blood on it and everything and I processed around to the side of my garage.”
Roumie also opened up about his experience being bullied as a child and how it led him to offer up his past trauma to God as he was reenacting the Crucifixion during filming of Season 6 of “The Chosen,” which focuses on Jesus’ passion and crucifixion.
“I was bullied as a kid a lot and I had to kind of look at what Jesus went through as a righteous man and a peaceful man and meek and humble and see just the level of devastation and terrorized bullying that he received to the point of death,” he said.
“So for me, I think, and I’ll go back and look at all those experiences I had as a kid, which might have been part of the reason that led me to reenact the Passion, as something that I could relate to and I think all of that prepared me for this role.”
He added: “I understand it now a bit more, at least I think, in my own sort of human ignorance and pride… Of course I don’t know exactly what all of this is about but it feels authentic. Like, ‘Well, I went through that as a kid and my compassion increased and my empathy increased and now I’m playing the most compassionate, empathetic human being that was God in the universe for all time.’ So I can lend that experience in his suffering and in his empathy even in wanting to forgive his enemies, which I had to do.”
“I was beaten pretty bad. So, I had to offer up all of my past trauma to him as I was recreating it, knowing that that was part of my own personal sacrifice — was my own offering for him on behalf of what he suffered for humanity.”
The actor shared that before beginning the filming of Season 6, he asked God in prayer that “if it were his will to allow me a fraction of a fraction of what he went through.”
Before traveling to Matera, Italy — the location where the Crucifixion was filmed — Roumie injured his right shoulder after falling while filming a scene. An X-ray and MRI showed that he had separated a bit of his AC joint from the clavicle, causing sharp pain.
“It was the right shoulder, so the shoulder that was carrying the beam [of the cross] on and it was extremely painful,” Roumie said. “And that was just one of many things.”
Roumie added that while filming the Crucifixion “certain adjustments” also had to be made due to pain being felt by the metal and real nails being used during filming.
“He [God] gave me exactly what I asked for — just a glimpse, just a glimpse,” he said. “And I think the thing that I got was that I got to enter into it in a way that I had never entered into it before.”
Schmitz asked Roumie how his experience portraying Jesus’ passion and crucifixion has impacted the way he attends or prays at Mass. Roumie shared that in the past year he began to feel “convicted to give more reverence to Christ in the Eucharist.”
“I started receiving on my knees and on the tongue, which I hadn’t before,” he said, adding that it was slightly “disorienting at first.”
He recalled an experience at Mass where he kneeled to receive the Eucharist but the priest asked him to stand up. He hesitated but rose and continued on with the Mass. Afterward, he asked his spiritual director if that was permissible, to which he responded that a priest “shouldn’t do that but it happens.”
After this experience, Roumie shared that he “doubled down on it and now I’m prepared to just wait as long as I need to until somebody concedes because I’m not going anywhere.”
Returning to his time portraying Jesus in the series, Schmitz told Roumie that “the show is called ‘The Chosen’ in the sense that it’s also about those who were chosen, but you were chosen and there’s something in that that has changed you. You being chosen to not only portray Jesus, but to be his disciple, an imitator of him, as St. Paul says, and that’s changed you.”
“That’s something I’m trying to wrap my head around and identify with,” Roumie responded. “It wasn’t somebody else. He picked me. And I, of course, said yes, because I needed the work initially. I didn’t know what it was going to do to me internally.”
Once the final season of “The Chosen” airs, it will have been a span of 10 years that Roumie will have been portraying Jesus. He said that this experience is something that might take “the rest of my life to unpack.”
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“So, I have to give myself a little bit of grace, but it’s something that I think I will always live with. And in fact, I don’t know that I want to let it go because it keeps me connected to him, especially when the show ends.”
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Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Dec 23, 2025 / 14:55 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV appealed to Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to veto a bill legalizing assisted suicide during a Vatican meeting last month, the pope told reporters Tuesday.
The pope, responding to a question from Rudolf Gehrig of EWTN News, said he made his opposition to the bill clear in the November conversation with the governor.
Leo told Pritzker it was important to defend the value of life and that every life is sacred, the pope told reporters outside the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo before his return to Rome.
The Vatican had not earlier provided details of the meeting.
Pritzker signed the assisted suicide measure, ardently opposed by Catholic leaders, into law Dec. 12.
“I spoke very explicitly with Gov. Pritzker about that,” the pope said, and he said Cardinal Blase Cupich also expressed his views. “But we were very clear about the necessity to respect the sacredness of life from the very beginning to the very end. And unfortunately, for different reasons, he decided to sign that bill. Very disappointed about that.”
People should use Christmastime to think about the value of life, the pope added.
“I would invite all people, especially in this Christmas feast days, to reflect upon the nature of human life, the goodness of human life. God became human like us to show us what it means really to live human life. And I hope and pray that the respect for life will once again grow in all moments of human existence, from conception to natural death,” the pope said.
Catholic bishops had objected to the Illinois law.
“This law ignores the very real failures in access to quality care that drive vulnerable people to despair,” according to the Catholic Conference of Illinois. “It does nothing to ensure patients are offered services, protected from coercion, or surrounded by loved ones when they kill themselves.”
Several states and countries also have advanced legislation to expand access to physician-assisted suicide besides Illinois.
Other U.S. jurisdictions with assisted suicide laws include California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and the District of Columbia.
British lawmakers in the House of Commons passed a bill in June to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in England and Wales. Legislators in Uruguay passed a bill in August to legalize euthanasia in the country.
A Canadian law allowing medical assistance in dying led to disproportionately high rates of premature deaths among vulnerable groups, a report showed.
Rudolf Gehrig contributed to this story.
This story was updated at 3:15 p.m. ET on Dec. 23, 2025, with the quotations from the pope.
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CNA Staff, Dec 20, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Fifteen years ago, Vicente Del Real felt called to create a way to reach out to young Hispanic Catholics in the U.S. and provide them with a space to encounter God and use their gifts and talents for the Church. He went on to found Iskali, a nonprofit based in Chicago that promotes the leadership and holistic development of Latino youth, helping them flourish spiritually, personally, academically, and socially.
Inspired by Our Lady of Guadalupe’s role in the Americas as “the star of the new evangelization,” Iskali works to form, empower, and equip young Latinos to become transformative leaders and to invigorate the Catholic Church.
The name “Iskali” comes from the Nahuatl, or Aztec, language symbolizing growth, resurgence, and new beginnings. This was also the language Our Lady of Guadalupe spoke when she appeared to Juan Diego. Despite Juan Diego being from the Chichimeca people, and not an Aztec, the two groups of people shared the same language.
Del Real told CNA in an interview that he felt the need to “respond to the urgent need to walk with young Hispanics as they navigate the questions of life, the struggles of life, and to be able to provide to them what the Church has to say and has to offer.”
He added that “at the heart of Iskali is the work of evangelization.” This is done through providing young Latinos with an “adequate formation so they can understand the faith,” which will hopefully lead them to have a “personal encounter with God.”
Iskali is founded on four pillars: faith and community, mentorship and scholarship, sports and wellness, and service to the poor.
The pillar of faith and community involves members coming together each week for fellowship. Anywhere from five to 600 young adults gather to spend time getting to know one another and learning more about God and the Catholic faith.
Through Iskali’s mentorship program, individuals are matched with a Latino professional who serves as a mentor and helps them with professional development. Iskali also provides scholarships for young people to attend colleges and trade schools, and works with parishes to set up a variety of sports leagues to help young people build relationships, provide another form of faith formation, and stay active.
Additionally, once a month, Iskali communities serve those most in need — the homeless, people in hospitals, nursing homes, and immigrant families who have been affected by detentions or deportations.
Several recent studies show that the Latino population is the fastest-growing demographic in the Catholic Church. Del Real said he believes this is because “Latino young people are very attentive to the faith.”
“They have seen their faith lived in their families, our home, with their grandmas, with their mothers. Faith is kind of embedded in our culture,” he added.
In response to this growth being seen among Latinos in parishes, Iskali is launching a missionary program where a full-time missionary will be assigned to a parish that has a Hispanic population of over 50% to work in Hispanic ministry.
“We are very, very excited … this is the first missionary program that helps to serve the Latino Church in the U.S., and we hope that this missionary program will bear the fruits of vocations to marriage, vocation to priesthood in the Hispanic community,” Del Real shared.
Del Real said he also hopes that those who are a part of Iskali leave the formation knowing that they “are beloved, know that God is seeking intimacy with you, and know that he wants you to flourish as a person.”
“We always say that we hope the people flourish,” he said. “God is a God of love and he wants to see us flourish. If we are a flower in his garden, he wants us to bloom.”
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NASA astronaut Nick Hague watches as Robert Schmidle Pitts Aerobatics perform, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025, during the Joint Base Andrews Air Show at Joint Base Andrews in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Hague spent 171 days aboard the International Space Station as part of Expedition 72.
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Audi Sport quattro concept at Frankfurt Motor Show 2013 in Frankfurt, Germany. The company was founded on this day 116 years ago.
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