Rubio was asked by a reporter during a news conference on May 5 whether the May 7 meeting is an attempt to “smooth things over” with Leo after Trump called him “weak on crime” and “weak on nuclear weapons” and falsely accused him of wanting Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.

The secretary said this is not the reason for the meeting, but instead it is “a trip we had planned from before.” He acknowledged “we had some stuff that happened” but said there is “a lot to talk about with the Vatican.”

“The pope just returned from a trip to Africa, where the Church is growing very vibrantly, and we have shared concerns about religious freedom in different parts of the world,” Rubio said. “We’d love to talk to them about that.”

Rubio added that the U.S. gave $6 million of humanitarian aid to Cuba, which was distributed by the Church, and “we’d like to do more” with that partnership.

“We’re willing to give more humanitarian aid to Cuba, by the way, distributed through the Church, but the Cuban regime has to allow us to do it,” he said.

A reporter also asked Rubio about Trump’s more recent comment about Leo on May 4. On “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” the president again accused Leo of holding the view that “it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon” and added: “I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people.”

In response, Rubio said the president’s position is that “Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon because they would use it against places that have a lot of Catholics, including Christians and others for that matter.”

“[Trump] doesn’t understand why anybody — leave aside the pope — the president, and I for that matter, I think most people, I cannot understand why anyone would think that it’s a good idea for Iran to ever have a nuclear weapon,” Rubio said.

Although Leo has urged diplomacy in Iran as opposed to war, the Holy Father has not said he supports Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. Rather, the pope has spoken out strongly against nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.

Rubio accused Iran of “holding the whole world hostage” by refusing to let ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran threatened to block all ships from passing through the strait without express permission from its government following the American and Israeli attack. The U.S. is now blockading every ship that coordinates with Iran.

“What do you think they would do if they had a nuclear weapon?” Rubio said. “They would hold the world hostage with that nuclear weapon.”

Rubio was also asked about the upcoming papal visit by an Italian journalist. He similarly said he plans to discuss “the destruction of religious liberty, the persecution of Christian minorities, and also the challenges that are being faced by Christians in Africa, where the pope just recently visited.”

“So we have a lot to talk about with them and I engage with them quite a bit on that front, so the trip is really not tied to anything other than the fact that it would be normal for us to engage with them and other secretaries of state have done that in the past,” he said.

“The pope is obviously the vicar of Christ … but he’s also the head of a nation-state and it’s an organization that has a presence in over a hundred-something countries around the world and we engage with the Vatican quite a bit because they’re present in many different places,” Rubio said.

In a May 4 letter to Congress, Bishop Daniel Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, who heads the Committee on Pro-Life Activities for the U.S. bishops, urged Congress “to advance appropriations that respect and affirm the dignity of all human life, from conception to natural death.”

Addressed to the chairs and vice chairs for the committees on appropriations of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate, Thomas in the letter voiced support for policies that support women and children, defund abortion providers, and support restorative reproductive medicine.

“We continue to call for policies that put children and families first,” he said. “Funding priorities, aligned in this way, must respond to mothers in need and their babies, born and preborn alike.”

Thomas urged Congress to invest in maternal and child health as well as fully fund the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

“In addition to such assistance, pro-family policies ought to support husbands and wives and the integrity of the family itself,” he continued.

Thomas noted that the bishops' priorities, such as “support for the poor, migrants and refugees, foreign assistance, environmental protection, health care, housing, nutrition, and more,” are founded in the “dignity and flourishing of the human person” through “the protection of innocent, preborn lives.”

Thomas urged Congress to continue upholding the Hyde Amendment, which protects taxpayer funding from being used for abortions, and to “oppose any bill that expands taxpayer funding of elective abortion.”

He also called for an extension of “last year’s historic, one-year defunding of the abortion industry in Medicaid within the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’ (H.R.1),” which expires in July.

“We urge Congress not only to extend this prohibition of funding in the budget reconciliation process but complement this effort through other appropriations packages, such as by defunding major abortion providers in the Title X family planning program,” Thomas said.

“Congress should do all it can to defund this enterprise and, instead, ensure greater support for authentic, life-affirming health care providers who truly serve mothers and their children in need,” he continued.

Planned Parenthood performed an all-time high of 434,450 abortions of unborn babies in 2023-2024, according to the organizationʼs most recent annual report. Almost half of Planned Parenthood’s revenue came from taxpayer dollars, even as abortion services increased and other services dwindled, according to the groupʼs 2024-2025 annual report.

Thomas also voiced support for restorative reproductive medicine to help couples experiencing infertility have families.

“We support funding and access to resources, such as training or research, for holistic and comprehensive restorative reproductive medicine, to help identify and treat underlying causes for those experiencing infertility,” he said.

The bishop voiced opposition to in vitro fertilization (IVF), a fertility treatment opposed by the Catholic Church in which doctors fuse sperm and eggs to create human embryos and implant them in the mother’s womb. To maximize efficiency, doctors create excess human embryos and routinely destroy undesired embryos.

“IVF represents an underregulated industry that creates hundreds of thousands or even millions of preborn children who will be interminably frozen, lost in attempts to implant them within a mother, or discarded and killed (often in a selective, eugenic manner),” Thomas said.

“By turning the conception of children into a lucrative manufacturing process, IVF also violates their rights and treats them like property,” he continued.

Nevertheless, he said, “no one has any less worth because of being conceived through IVF. Every person has infinite, inherent dignity, which must be upheld through every stage and circumstance of life.”

“Society must make it easier to welcome and raise a new child and should promote life and hope for preborn children and their mothers and fathers,” Thomas said.

The long-lived prelate, who was ordained in 1959 and appointed a bishop by Pope Paul VI in 1971, was the bishop emeritus of Corpus Christi since his retirement in 1997. He was appointed to that diocese in 1983 and had previously served as the bishop of Pensacola-Tallahassee, Florida, and as an auxiliary bishop of Miami.

Born in New Orleans on June 9, 1923, Gracida said that as a young man he was captivated by the depiction of Jesuit martyrs in James Fenimore Cooperʼs 1826 novel "The Last of the Mohicans."

He told the journalist Jim Graves in 2016 that upon entering the Benedictine monastery he took the name of the Jesuit martyr Rene Goupil, who was tortured and martyred by Iroquois in 1642.

Among the dwindling number of World War II veterans still alive, Gracida served with distinction in the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying multiple missions over Nazi-occupied Europe. In one mission over the Ruhr Valley his airplane lost two engines, leading him to nearly bail out over enemy territory before the craft recovered.

His flying career did not end after World War II. He told Graves that following a stint in the hospital in 1972 after he drove across Southern Florida performing dozens of confirmations, he acquired a pilotʼs license and a small aircraft, which allowed him to fly around the archdiocese rather than spend long hours on the road.

In several instances, he said, he blacked out during intense thunderstorms, waking up at different altitudes than when he lost consciousness. “It’s another example of God preserving my life,” he said.

Gracida said that he considered EWTN foundress Mother Angelica a friend. In his 2005 biography of Mother Angelica, Raymond Arroyo noted that when the U.S. bishops debated the extent of their collaboration with EWTN in 1988, Gracida “cinched the deal” by proposing that the bishops adhere to a secret ballot when voting on any disputes.

Gracida was among the signatories of the Aug. 11, 2017, “filial correction” addressed to then-Pope Francis over the Holy Fatherʼs apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia.

In his later years he was known for expressing a number of controversial views, including a claim that Pope Benedict XVIʼs 2013 resignation was invalid. He was a vocal supporter of the Traditional Latin Mass.

In announcing his death, the Diocese of Corpus Christi said that under his leadership it developed its communications arm and expanded ministries throughout the diocese.

A trained architect, the bishop reportedly reviewed all diocesan building proposals before they were sent to construction. The bishop in his retirement “remained active and was an avid hunter and fisher,” the diocese said.

Earlier this year, in a statement to the advocacy group Catholics for Catholics, he exhorted listeners to “keep the faith.”

“As long as your faith is a motivating factor in your life, guiding what you do, youʼre on the right track,” he said.

He told Graves in 2016 that his many brushes with death — including a near-fatal case of pneumonia in the 1950s — led him to believe that he was kept alive for a purpose.

“I have no doubt that the only reason I’m alive today ... is because God has work for me to do,” he said at the time. “I have a message to deliver; God has kept me alive to deliver it.”

“I know that I am not capable of this big responsibility,” Vaquilar said. "But being chosen for this big responsibility, I am hoping for all the help from God, for I know he will guide me as a pastor,” the bishop-designate said after David William Antonio, archbishop of Nueva Segovia — the jurisdiction in which Vaquilar had served until now — announced his appointment.

“Your presence is a blessing, and we look forward to journeying together in faith, hope, and service. Thank you for saying ‘yes’ to this new ministry. The local Church of Urdaneta is blessed to have you as our new shepherd,” the Diocese of Urdaneta posted on Facebook.

Vaquilar succeeds Bishop Jacinto A. José, who led the diocese for over 20 years and whose resignation the pope accepted after the prelate reached the age of 75, the retirement age for bishops in the Catholic Church.

Who is the new bishop of Urdaneta?

Born on May 3, 1970, in the town of Cabugao in Ilocos Sur province, Vaquilar studied philosophy at the San Pablo University Seminary in Baguio and theology at the Immaculate Conception School of Theology in Vigan. He earned a licentiate in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome and a doctorate in biblical theology from the Loyola School of Theology in Quezon City.

He was ordained a priest on May 5, 1997, for the Archdiocese of Nueva Segovia.

He has held the following positions, among others: parochial vicar of the Metropolitan Cathedral of St. Paul in Vigan (1997–2000, 2004); professor and resident formator at the Immaculate Conception School of Theology in Vigan (2000–2001, 2005–2009); and rector of the Immaculate Conception School of Theology in Vigan (2009–2011, and subsequently, since 2015).

He has also served as parish priest at St. Nicholas of Tolentine in Sinait (2013–2014) and as director of the Archdiocesan Biblical Apostolate since 2018.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Speaking anonymously to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, a priest in active service in Nicaragua revealed the exact mechanisms by which the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo, control, surveil, and silence the Catholic Church in the country.

The Nicaraguan dictatorship intensified its persecution of the Church in 2018 after bishops and priests offered to mediate between the regime and civil society in the wake of popular protests. Documented attacks against Catholics in the country now total over 1,030, and 149 priests have been expelled or exiled.

The priest said the population “has grown accustomed to the situation and no longer says anything. I sense a calm atmosphere, yet the restrictions, which are always present, persist, because there is no freedom.”

Every Sunday, 'the police arrive to take my photograph’

Speaking about how the police monitor priests and bishops, the priest recounted: “Whenever there are liturgical services, we have to report what they are and where they are being held; we have to report when we leave our parish boundaries, and we have to state how long we intend to remain at any location outside of it.”

“And the police arrive to take my photograph, always, every Sunday. It’s a way of verifying that we are where we said we would be. Police superiors require their officers to provide evidence of the visits they conduct, and thatʼs how they maintain control,” he added.

“If you fail to give notice,” the priest continued, “sometimes nothing happens; but other times when they realize that youʼre outside the parish and didn’t give prior notice, they make a call. There have been times when it simply slipped my mind to let them know.”

Regarding the bishops, he said he believes that “yes, they are monitored, they are kept under surveillance. And the police are constantly asking about this or that meeting: where it’s going to take place and whether the bishop will be there.” It also appears the police do in fact “have some person along with his vehicle assigned to” follow the bishops.

Political or social issues avoided in homilies

The priest explained that no priest can speak about social or political topics; otherwise, he risks being considered an opponent to the regime and it could cost him one of two things: “imprisonment or exile.”

“If we speak about a social problem or something currently taking place, they may view us as opponents, as if we were delivering a speech inciting rebellion. And so, they keep watch. They listen whether in person or via broadcasts, and they record us and file reports,” he said.

Any criticism of the dictatorship, he added, “they interpret as political discourse or an act of insurrection. And so that can have consequences.”

The priest recounted that whenever he learns of a fellow priest being imprisoned, there is “total silence. You can’t visit them; you can’t speak with them.”

Pressure on the bishops

ACI Prensa asked the priest why the bishops of Nicaragua do not typically speak about the situation in the country or criticize the dictatorship.

“First, perhaps, out of fear of being expelled. I believe thatʼs the primary factor. And there is the fear of leaving a large population of believers [without a bishop] as happened in Matagalpa, Estelí, or Jinotega” where the bishops are in exile, the priest noted.

The four dioceses currently without a bishop present in the country are Jinotega, whose bishop, Carlos Herrera, serves as president of the bishops' conference; Siuna, Matagalpa, and Estelí. The latter two are headed by Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who was exiled to Rome in January 2024.

The priest noted that “in the dioceses where the bishops are absent, there are no priestly ordinations, primarily because the bishops are not there.”

“They [the police] are specifically keeping those dioceses under surveillance,” he added, explaining that a bishop from another diocese is also not permitted to ordain priests who fall outside his own jurisdiction.

In a diocese where the bishop is still present, he continued, “ordinations do take place, but they are conducted with great prudence and caution; they are not given much publicity or promoted in the media, so as to avoid any difficulties.”

The priest noted that there has been a decline in the number of priests due to expulsions, and that the most affected diocese is Matagalpa, with nearly half of its clergy now outside the country — a reprisal against Álvarez, who “in his homilies never sugarcoated” the situation in Nicaragua.

Processions banned in Nicaragua

The priest said that while most processions are banned, “there are some, traditionally massive in scale, that have been permitted,” such as those for St. Jerome or the Virgin of Mercy; “but more for their cultural and tourism value and not because it might be an opening toward the faith which they [the police] have otherwise closed.”

The priest recalled when he requested permission from the police to hold a procession and an officer told him that they could imprison him if he proceeded with it.

How does the Church get by day to day?

In 2023, the dictatorship banned the inflow of foreign funds to the Catholic Church after accusing it of “money laundering,” an accusation deemed “ridiculous” at the time by Félix Maradiaga, president of the Freedom for Nicaragua Foundation, while simultaneously freezing the bank accounts of the country’s parishes and dioceses in an attempt to further curtail their activities.

“There are no [parish] vehicles, and it’s impossible to purchase them using the offertory funds because the people are poor. So I have to go around asking people to give me a ride,” he recounted.

Among the many institutions whose legal status was revoked by the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship — meaning they cease to function and their assets are transferred to the regime — is Caritas Nicaragua, the charitable arm of the Catholic Church, which was dissolved by the dictatorship in March 2023.

“We no longer have access to Caritas or foreign aid, because all of that has been banned. Consequently, here, assistance is provided by the population itself amid their poverty,” the priest emphasized.

Without the assistance of Caritas, “it’s the community itself that takes it upon itself to help us. We rely on divine providence, and thatʼs how we carry on.”

“If we survive, it’s because of the help of the people themselves. The people pay for the electricity and the water. These costs are not paid with the collection or offerings. The same goes for food; the people pitch in to help me. Without that, it would not be sustainable,” he explained.

“We collaborate with the people; we help, we deliver food, provisions to certain people. I haven’t had any issues with the police in that regard, but I do it publicly; I don’t do it in secret,” he explained.

According to an April World Bank report, 2.8 million people in Nicaragua live in poverty.

Are there vocations in Nicaragua?

The Nicaraguan priest highlighted that, despite everything, there still are vocations. “It’s true that there was a decline in vocations after 2018. There was significant attrition and a decrease in numbers, and many young people left the country; however, vocations are currently on the rise.”

The year 2018 marked a turning point in the persecution against the Church. Protests against the dictatorship prompted the regime to intensify its multifaceted attacks against Catholics. Nicaraguan lawyer and activist Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report ”Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church,” provides a detailed account of these attacks.

“Today, vocations are once again beginning to resurge in the seminaries. Before last year there were few, but today the number of seminarians has already risen,” the priest added.

Despite the tribulations, the Church in Nicaragua ‘walks with hope’

The priest said “a characteristic of Nicaraguans is their love for the pope, because he [represents human] dignity and the Church, it’s something that characterizes the Nicaraguan Catholic.”

Bolstered by the pope’s encouragement expressed to the exiled Nicaraguan bishops in August 2025 and despite all the difficulties facing Nicaragua, the priest said there are reasons for hope, such as those newly baptized at Easter.

“I believe that the Church in Nicaragua is a suffering Church; yet, above all that suffering, we press onward. We are spurred on and find hope in the knowledge of what Easter has given us: the resurrection of Christ, that Christ is alive, that Christ is with us, and that he walks in our midst,” he said.

“Even amid these tribulations,” he affirmed, “the Church in Nicaragua moves forward with confidence; it moves forward with hope. We’re not sorrowful; we are joyful. We simply hope to receive the solidarity and attention of the world, and that, one day, we may be able to live out our faith in complete freedom.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

In his homily, Doran addressed the relationship between science, faith, and human dignity, centering his message on the truth regarding the human embryo and the child in the mother’s womb.

He reminded the congregation that there is no conflict between the truth of science and the truth of faith, and clarified that the starting point of faith “is the revealed word of God, which, for us Christians, comes to its completeness in the person and teaching of Jesus.”

Along these lines, he emphasized that scientific advancements have made it possible to confirm that the genetic identity of a new individual “is already established once fertilization has occurred,” noting that “what happens after that is an amazing process of growth and development.”

Based on this, the theologian and bioethicist further stated that anyone who denies the essential continuity between the embryo and the baby born nine months later “is flying in the face of truth.”

Referencing Greek philosophers such as Aristotle, Socrates, and Plato, he noted that “in every living thing there must be a first principle of life which explained and governed all its action.”

“Human action,” he continued, “includes complex reasoning and the formation of concepts, which are beyond the limits of the material world.”

This, according to Doran, led many of these thinkers to conclude “that the first principle of life in human beings must be a spiritual soul.”

The bishop pointed out that “once there is a living body, even one as small as an embryo, there must be a soul which explains and directs all its growth and development and its action throughout the cycle of life.”

He also emphasized that “everything in the universe is not only created by God but finds its purpose and meaning in an order established by God,” underscoring that “there is an intelligent plan, and we mess with nature at our peril.”

Abortion not only kills babies but also wounds women

In light of these considerations, the bishop noted that abortion “not only kills babies, it also wounds women in the depth of their being” and does “untold moral and spiritual damage to all who promote it or who participate in it, precisely because it flies in the face of truth.”

In connection with the introduction of a new bill to expand the availability of abortion in the country, he questioned the reasons why some legislators seem determined “to ignore the truth or to deny it entirely.”

In this regard, he appealed to the responsibility of Catholics to know the Gospel of Life “in all its dimensions, and to confidently bear witness to it, both in our private lives and in the public space.”

“We need to find new ways of offering life-affirming support to women who are in crisis during pregnancy or after the birth of a child,” he emphasized.

Doran recalled the invitation of Pope Leo XIV: “The Church is called to reach all peoples, not by imposing itself but by bearing witness to the truth in charity.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

The American president has repeatedly said he doesn’t want a pope who thinks Iran should have a nuclear weapon, even though the pope has never endorsed that view and has consistently spoken against nuclear arms.

Pope Leo XIV said May 5: “I have already spoken from the very first moment of being elected, and now we are close to the anniversary. I said, ‘Peace be with you,’ and the Church’s mission is to preach the Gospel, to preach peace. If someone wants to criticize me for proclaiming the Gospel, let them do so truthfully.”

“The Church has spoken for years against all nuclear weapons, so there is no doubt there. And so I simply hope to be listened to for the value of God’s words,” Leo said to the press outside the papal villa of Castel Gandolfo before returning to Rome after a daylong stay there, two days before a scheduled meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Trump said May 4 on the "The Hugh Hewitt Show": “The pope would rather talk about the fact that it’s OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think that’s very good. I think he’s endangering a lot of Catholics and a lot of people, but I guess if it’s up to the pope, he thinks it’s just fine for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.”

“I donʼt want a pope who thinks itʼs OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on April 12.

Leo has never said that Iran should have nuclear weapons, and he has spoken specifically against nuclear weapons:

• “May the nuclear threat never again dictate the future of humanity," he said in a March 5 video message.
• In June 2025, he called for a world free from nuclear threat in appealing for peace between Iran and Israel.

Pope Leo answered an EWTN reporter’s question about whether his statement that “God does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war” applies to all who take up arms, even in self-defense, or only to unjust aggressors.

“Self-defense has traditionally always been allowed by the Church,” Pope Leo XIV said.

“To talk about just war today, itʼs a very complex problem. You have to analyze it on many levels, but ever since the entrance into the nuclear age, the whole concept of war has to be reevaluated with terms today,” Leo said.

“I always believe that itʼs much better to enter into dialogue than to look for arms and to support the arms industry, which gains billions and billions of dollars each year, instead of sitting down at the table solving our problems and using money to solve humanitarian issues, hunger in the world, et cetera,” he said.

For a war to be justified, according to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it must be waged to fight against a grave evil, the damage caused by waging the war cannot be graver than the evil it is meant to eliminate, there must be a serious prospect of success, and all alternatives to war must have already been tried. The decision to go to war must be made by a lawful authority responsible for the common good. All criteria must be met to qualify as a just war.

Meeting with Rubio

The pope’s meeting with Rubio this week follows a period of tension between the Holy See and the Trump administration. In April, Trump attacked the pontiff on social media, calling him “weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy” in response to the pontiffʼs appeals for peace amid the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. The pope told reporters he “perhaps” may comment on the meeting with Rubio afterward.

Brian Burch, U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, was asked May 5 about the state of the U.S.-Vatican relationship.

“I donʼt accept the idea that somehow thereʼs some deep rift,” Burch said. “I think nations have disagreements and I think one of the ways that you work through those is, as the Holy See says, is through fraternity and authentic dialogue. I think the secretary is coming here in that spirit, to have a frank conversation about U.S. policy, to engage in dialogue, to better understand each other and to work through — if there are differences — certainly to talk through that.”

The meeting will focus on “Middle East policy and our efforts there to bring about a more peaceful world,” Burch said, areas of “deep cooperation, shared interests, and in many ways, I think, shared goals.”

Burch said Rubioʼs visit “speaks to our deep desire to engage in exactly what the Holy See has called for: fraternity and authentic dialogue.”

The Church’s stance toward war is that it must be avoided. The Church has long held concerns about war to be a moral subject, with St. Augustine writing extensively about it in the early fifth century and popes and theologians both commenting on just war doctrine generally and speaking out about specific wars for centuries.

Popes seldom issue blanket rulings but Pope Benedict XV made clear World War I lacked moral legitimacy given its scale, civilian toll, and lack of proportionate ends. Pope John Paul II warned the Gulf War did not meet just war criteria. And the Vatican formally stated in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq failed just‑war standards.

In his Easter Sunday urbi et orbi message, Leo asked people of goodwill to search always for peace and not violence. He again asked people April 7 “to reject war, especially a war which many people have said is an unjust war, which is continuing to escalate and is not resolving anything,” the pope said. “We have a worldwide economic crisis, energy crisis, situation in the Middle East of great instability, which is only provoking more hatred throughout the world.”

Pope Leo XIV in his Easter homily called for peace throughout the world, urging Christians to carry the hope of the Resurrection into a world wounded by war, violence, and injustice.

Javier Romero and Brian Schumacher contributed to this story.

The patriarch described the digital attack on him as “a war of words, not freedom of opinion, but a worrying decline in the standards of language and values, and a violation of human dignity that no one has the right to infringe upon, regardless of its source or form.”

The digital attack involved the circulation of altered images portraying the patriarch in mocking and degrading ways.

Jowelle M. Howayeck, a Lebanese civic activist and 2022 parliamentary candidate, argued that the campaign is neither spontaneous nor ambiguous in its intent. “It is both intimidation and sectarian provocation, and it is deliberate,” she said.

For Howayeck, the timing is not accidental. She links the campaign to a broader political context in which Hezbollah is “losing political ground,” prompting what she describes as a predictable shift in strategy: “Divert attention from the core issue and construct a new confrontation that can be framed as a symbolic victory.”

In her view, “this is not political engagement. It is crisis management through fear, distraction, and division.”

The campaign, she added, also reflects a deepening rupture between Hezbollah and the Christian community.

Digital confrontations of this kind are not new in Lebanon’s political landscape, but they carry particular risks in a country built on a fragile and strained social contract.

The patriarch himself has been targeted before "because the patriarch represents a form of authority that cannot be coerced or absorbed: moral legitimacy anchored in national identity," Howayeck said. "Whenever his positions align with state sovereignty, they expose a structural contradiction within the opposing project.”

Yarounʼs mayor, Adib Ajaka, rejected claims by the Israeli army that it did not know the buildings were religious places, and the Council of Melkite Greek Catholic Bishops in Lebanon urged the Lebanese government and the United Nations “to protect the property of civilians and religious institutions, citing in particular the village of Yaroun,” according to the Associated Press.

Speaking to ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, Ajaka clarified that some media outlets have been recirculating images of a destroyed church as if they were from the latest incident, but the church itself had already been targeted multiple times since 2024. He stressed that the most recent incident concerns the demolition of the monastery and the school.

Responding to the Israeli army’s claim that “there were no indications that it was a religious building,” Ajaqa rejected the statement as unconvincing, noting that the site was clearly identifiable, bearing a cross and a statue of the Virgin Mary.

He also pointed out that the church had been targeted previously and that footage from 2024 showed the deliberate destruction of a statue of St. George.

Ajaka said images published by Israel showing the diocese and a nearby clinic were used to suggest that the monastery had not been destroyed, but in reality they referred to a separate building housing a clinic run by the Order of Malta. He suggested that the presence of the organization’s flag may have contributed to it being spared so far.

According to Ajaka, the bulldozing operations took place after the ceasefire came into effect. At first, residents did not grasp the scale of what was happening, as they remained in contact with nearby towns such as Rmeish and Ain Ebel, where no strikes or shelling had been reported from Yaroun. This created the impression that the village had not been directly targeted. It later became clear, however, that what had taken place was not bombardment but the widespread bulldozing of homes.

Yaroun is home to about 60 Melkite Catholic families — all of whom fled at the outbreak of the war in 2024. Seventeen families returned during the initial ceasefire period, but many others were unable to do so due to the destruction of their homes. Today, residents remain unable to return, scattered between rented accommodations, monasteries, and relatives’ homes, while some have relocated to nearby Christian villages in the south.

Ajaka noted that assistance to residents has so far been limited, emphasizing that the most urgent need is direct financial support to help cover rent. At the same time, he expressed gratitude for the support provided by the Vatican and for the continued efforts of the apostolic nuncio through regular visits and follow-up on the situation of displaced families.

He also recalled that during the pope’s visit to Lebanon in December 2025, a historic stone from the village church dating back to 1872, engraved with an image of St. George, was presented to him in the hope of drawing attention to Yaroun and its people.

Today, the fate of this stone remains unknown, as the church has been destroyed and residents are unable to return to see what remains. Ajaka stressed that the destroyed homes of the Catholic families there are over a century old and are purely civilian properties.

Church vandalism across Lebanon

The alleged demolitions in Yaroun come amid recent and varied incidents of church vandalism in Lebanon, with multiple places of worship targeted and their contents deliberately damaged.

Among them, the Church of Mar Shalita in Qobeiyat was stormed and vandalized. And in Ajaltoun, the Church of Our Lady was targeted, with intruders stealing items, destroying furniture, and leaving bullets scattered on the floor.

Taken together, these incidents reflect a broader climate in which Lebanese Christians increasingly feel under pressure, facing different forms of intimidation and attack from multiple actors.

This story was first published by ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, and has been adapted by EWTN News English.

They were pioneers in publishing the cases of their abusive priests — an unprecedented step in consecrated life — and in submitting 80 years of a dark history to public scrutiny. Today, they are an ecclesial reference point for transparency. Now, Father Carlos Gutiérrez López, 51, the new general director elected in February, speaks with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, about the road that still lies ahead.

It is a path of expiation that began in 2006 but reached a turning point in 2019 with the publication of the “1941–2019 Report,” the first of its kind to include all cases from the congregation’s founding to the present day and throughout the world. Since then, it has been updated each year through the “Truth, Justice, and Healing” reports.

“Since we began facing this reality, although it was very painful, it also opened our eyes: There was a lot of work to do,” Gutiérrez López said. “In recent years we have been working hard to meet standards, following the documents issued by the Church, collaborating with canonical and civil authorities. We have been putting a certain order in place so we can attend to and respond to the needs of victims and provide comprehensive care in different areas.”

His priestly vocation, marked by the wound left by Maciel

His own vocational story was marked by the scandal that shook the congregation because of its founder, Mexican priest Marcial Maciel, who was responsible for extremely serious sexual abuse. Gutiérrez López was ordained a priest in 2009, just as the magnitude of Maciel’s crimes was coming to light: Maciel had sexually abused dozens of minors over several decades and had lived, as the Vatican confirmed in 2010, “a life devoid of scruples and genuine religious sentiment.”

“It was definitely something very strong, something that left all of us very perplexed, frightened, and also disillusioned,” he said in an interview with ACI Prensa. “And that meant for me a very deep process of reflection in which I had to ask why I was giving my life to God and also the question: Why remain here?”

Maciel died in 2008 without acknowledging his crimes or asking for forgiveness, even though a Vatican investigative commission had already revealed his criminal activity beyond any doubt.

After the scandal, Gutiérrez López explained, the figure of the founder ceased to be a reference point: “Definitely, the founder is no longer a spiritual reference point, a moral reference point for us. And for me, that reference point, I saw, had always been Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we seek to imitate and with whom we also seek to have that personal relationship.”

Benedict XVI saw the light that was in them

Despite all the evil committed by the founder, Benedict XVI never failed to recognize in the Legionaries of Christ “a healthy community” made up of “young people who want to serve the faith with enthusiasm,” as the pontiff himself emphasized in the book-length interview with Peter Seewald “Light of the World.”

From the beginning, the Vatican established that the congregation’s review should be built around three fundamental axes: the redefinition of its charism or spirituality; the review of the exercise of authority — whose abusive control of consciences allowed Maciel to live a double life for years — and the guarantee of adequate formation for seminarians and priests. In addition, to complete the long process of purification, a constant dialogue was opened with victims inside and outside the Legion.

“The Church accompanied us throughout a whole process of renewal. We reviewed constitutions, we reviewed many of the norms we had been living in the congregation, the style of apostolate we carried out — in short, it was an entire review that lasted many years,” Gutiérrez López said.

For many Legionary seminarians and priests, the support of the Church was decisive; like a “mother,” the Church “showed the way,” he emphasized.

“Seeing how the Legion was responding, I said: Well, I also want to help the Church with my priesthood to move this congregation forward, because the congregation can also contribute and give much to the Church in evangelization. In the end, we are here to serve God Our Lord, in the Church, and in this call that he made to me. As I have gone step by step, I have felt very happy, and that has also been my experience,” he said.

First meeting with Pope Leo XIV

During the audience the Legionaries had with Pope Leo XIV in February, the pontiff returned to several key points of the deep renewal they have carried out in fidelity to the Church. For example, he emphasized to them that authority in the Church must be lived as fraternal and spiritual service, not as a form of domination.

For the Mexican priest, this is a demanding but profoundly evangelical ideal.

“Yes, I really liked that part of the audience,” Gutiérrez López said.

He especially highlighted the moment when the pope invited the Legionaries to approach people “with a respectful and compassionate gaze,” aware that every encounter means entering “a sacred space.”

Drawing on his own experience as a superior and as territorial director in northern Mexico and Colombia, Gutiérrez López said he has always been clear that authority is above all a service: “For my brothers, I am offering them a service. … What they share with me is something sacred, and I have to respect that sacredness,” he said.

Gutiérrez López is not naive. He knows well that many people may wonder how it is possible to separate the deplorable actions of the founder, who was responsible for so many crimes, from the charism that the Legionaries of Christ embody today.

“It is a valid question,” he said.

In this regard, he noted that it was the Church herself that “from the beginning,” when she asked the Legionaries to “review our constitutions,” placed the fundamental question before them: “What is your charism? What is the charism and the contribution that the Legion makes?”

“The charism, I believe, is something we have been discovering, and it is nothing other than forming apostles to transmit the love of Christ, to form apostles and also send them to evangelize the world and help the Church in this evangelization,” he said.

According to the congregation’s statistics, updated as of Dec. 31, 2025, the Legionaries of Christ have 1,327 members worldwide, including 52 religious with perpetual vows and 151 with temporary vows.

Despite the wounds of the past, they continue to attract vocations: Currently, 250 minor seminarians are being formed in vocational centers, reflecting the continued weight of initial formation within the congregation.

The Legionaries of Christ belong to Regnum Christi, which also includes the Consecrated Women of Regnum Christi, with 479 consecrated women in 53 communities around the world; the Lay Consecrated Men of Regnum Christi, with 47 lay consecrated men in eight communities; and lay members: 21,712 lay young people and adults older than 16 and 14,353 lay members younger than 16.

In Regnum Christi’s educational work — 139 schools and 14 universities — 153,219 students are being educated.

The new general director explained that one of the keys to eradicating abuse from within the congregation has been swiftly applying standards for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults in the 23 countries where it is present.

“In recent years we have been very strict in applying these standards and in perfecting them so they can be lived well. In each of the countries where we are working, we have sought to have the necessary teams that can respond, made up of professionals. These are things that we priests cannot do alone. We need specialists — psychologists, lawyers, and so on — to help us truly be very serious in complying with these standards,” he said.

An engineer-priest with broad international experience

Affable and approachable, Gutiérrez López is used to moving in international settings. He studied philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum as well as industrial and systems engineering at the Monterrey Institute of Technology. He also holds a master’s degree in psychology from Divine Mercy University in the United States.

He has carried out his ministry in Chile, Italy, Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexico.

“It has been a great richness to have that experience, to be in contact with different cultures, to know the needs of each country, to learn to listen, to adapt to what a society and a culture are like, to understand them in order to offer and bring them the message that leads to the Church, which is knowing Christ and living one’s faith,” he said.

“I believe that has also been personally enriching, now that my Legionary brothers have elected me to this role, so that I can respond and accompany the different territories,” he added.

Until his election as general director, he served as territorial director of northern Mexico, a region deeply wounded by violence, poverty, organized crime, and migration flows toward the United States. The Legionaries also try to be a balm for migrants — many of them deportees — amid their suffering.

“The whole situation of migrants and organized crime truly causes suffering for many families affected by this reality. What we seek, above all, is to form young people and families, to instill values in them, precisely so they can begin to change their social environment,” he said.

In this context, he explained that alongside the private schools the congregation operates in cities in northern Mexico, there are also the Mano Amiga schools, intended for families with limited resources and supported through subsidies and scholarships.

The goal is to offer these children an education that will allow them to enter a profession and pursue university studies — “a way to change the destiny of their lives, open horizons for them, and, above all, form them in values so they can transform their environment.”

With his election at the most recent general chapter, the Legionaries of Christ have entrusted Gutiérrez López with the task of continuing the congregation’s process of renewal and strengthening its evangelizing service, with special attention to the existential peripheries.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

The reactions followed a May 2 ceremony by the provincial Department of Endowments, Hajj, Religious and Minority Affairs, which distributed checks to 37 victims from minority communities affected by terrorism in the province bordering Afghanistan.

The beneficiaries included 11 widows, 24 orphaned children, and two persons with disabilities, who received payments ranging from 1 million to 2 million rupees ($3,588 to $7,175).

Some recipients were linked to All Saints Church, where at least 96 people were killed and more than 150 injured in twin suicide bombings on Sept. 22, 2013.

Among them was Zubair Zafar, who lost his father in the attack claimed by a faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

Now working as an office assistant at the civil secretariat, Zafar said he plans to use the 2 million rupees to support his siblings' education and arrange his younger sisterʼs marriage.

“I wanted to join the military, but I could not leave my family as the eldest of five children,” he said. “I started working after my grade 12 exams to support my mother, who works as a kitchen in-charge at an orphanage run by the Peshawar Diocese of the Church of Pakistan.”

He said government officials, in their speeches, promised laptops, scholarships, and profit-sharing from minority funds for widows and orphans. “Given the pace, we have little hope,” he added.

Delayed disbursements

While provincial governments in Sindh and Punjab provided compensation ranging from 200,000 to 500,000 rupees to victims soon after the attack, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government delayed disbursements despite court interventions and repeated appeals.

Frustration deepened after the Provincial Disaster Management Authority and the Auqaf Department converted an earlier 200 million rupee compensation package earmarked for Christian victims into a broader endowment fund for minorities, a move families say diluted targeted relief.

On April 1, Chief Minister Sohail Afridi approved increasing the fundʼs allocation from 200 million to 400 million rupees and directed authorities to expedite payments.

But survivors say the process remains opaque and slow.

Khuram Yaqoob Sahotra, who lost his right eye in the blast, returned from the distribution ceremony disheartened.

“I was told the compensation would be given before July 1. I expected the checks the same day. Now we are told to wait again for approval,” he said.

The 40-year-old father of three, a former school clerk who lost his job during the COVID-19 pandemic, still carries ball bearings lodged in his spine.

“Doctors have advised me against lifting heavy objects. I cannot sit or stand for long periods,” he said, adding that his extended family now supports him.

He continues to undergo treatment for complications related to his artificial eye. “Initially, support came from across the country, but it later dried up. Now there is no clear plan. There is no transparency,” he said.

Habib Khan, additional secretary of the Auqaf Department in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said at least 100 more minority victims would receive compensation this month.

“The data is being verified. Those with incomplete documents are being contacted. No one will be left out,” he said, declining to comment on the prolonged delay.

‘A mockery of justice’

Rights advocates say the payments come too late for many families.

The Cecil and Iris Chaudhry Foundation, a Catholic charity that provided vocational training to 80 orphaned girls and widowed mothers after the attack, said many victims died over the years due to inadequate medical care and financial hardship.

“More than a decade has passed, during which many injured victims lost their lives and families lost their sole breadwinners,” said Michelle Chaudhry, president of the foundation. “Disbursing funds in installments now amounts to a mockery of justice.”

She urged the government to release full compensation in a single payment “with dignity and respect.”

All Saints Church

Built in 1883 inside Peshawarʼs Kohati Gate, All Saints Church is widely regarded as Pakistanʼs only church designed in a mosque-inspired architectural style, with domes, minaret-like towers, and Persian and Pashto biblical inscriptions. The Christian community rebuilt it at a cost of 4 million rupees ($14,349) without government support.

Peshawar remains on the front line of militancy in Pakistan.

In 2022, Church of Pakistan lay pastor William Siraj, 70, was shot dead and another pastor injured after Sunday prayers at Shaheedan (Martyrs)-e-All Saints Church in Peshawar.

In 2016, security forces foiled a suicide attack on a Christian neighborhood in the cityʼs Warsak area after four suicide bombers attempted to enter the colony.

The text presents political participation as a legitimate expression of Christian responsibility while encouraging the faithful to be informed, take part in public life, and vote in line with the principles of Catholic social teaching.

Distinguishing between moral absolutes and matters of prudence

The documentʼs approach rests on a crucial distinction between two categories of values. On matters of “practical wisdom,” including policy issues such as the economy, climate, crime, and migration, the document acknowledges legitimate disagreement among believers. Democracy, it explains, functions as “not a community of opinion but a system for the peaceful resolution of conflicts of values.” On these contested issues, Catholics are encouraged to apply principles such as solidarity, subsidiarity, and the common good while ultimately retaining freedom of judgment.

However, the document takes a different stance on what it identifies as nonnegotiable moral issues. It asserts that “every human beingʼs right to life from conception to natural death” constitutes a foundational “absolute value,” describing abortion and euthanasia as “serious violations of human dignity.”

The timing of this moral clarity is significant. In Sweden, several political parties have proposed a constitutional amendment to guarantee access to abortion. Because constitutional changes in Sweden require approval by two successive parliaments with a general election in between, the proposalʼs future depends on whether the next Riksdag maintains support. If adopted, the amendment could take effect on Jan. 1, 2027. Simultaneously, the government is modernizing the nationʼs abortion framework by updating its language, adding advances in abortion procedures, and expanding access to at-home chemical abortion.

While acknowledging that abortion enjoys broad political support across parties, the document frames euthanasia as a still contested issue, positioning it as part of a wider cultural struggle against what Church teaching describes as a “culture of death.”

A careful balance between conviction and pluralism

Despite these firm moral positions, the document concludes with a call for restraint and pluralism among believers. It cautions against equating any particular political stance with Catholicism itself, noting that “two equally good Catholics, who have allowed their practical wisdom to be guided equally by faith, may and can therefore arrive at entirely different party-political conclusions in all fields of practical wisdom.” This nuanced approach reflects an attempt to guide conscience without dictating votes.

EWTN News spoke to Father Thomas Idergard, SJ, chairman of the commission. He framed the document as a response to a recurring pastoral need rather than a political intervention. “With elections approaching, the faithful request some guidance on how to apply faith in their choices as voters,” he explained. Beyond pastoral concern, he noted a broader social rationale: Christians must be equipped with the “necessary tools to participate in public life,” doing so in a way that employs “secular language and secular arguments for universality” while remaining transparent about faith as a “driving force.”

Idergard said the documentʼs framework for discernment operates in two stages. “The first step considers the effect my vote will have on legislation in matters regarding absolute values,” particularly those concerning life and death, “where faith binds the conscience.” The second step, he added, “considers all issues for practical wisdom where faith informs,” while allowing room for personal and secular judgment.

Within this framework, Idergard identified euthanasia as the primary pro-life issue where voters may have tangible impact in the next parliamentary term, noting that “there are different positions among the political parties” across the spectrum that could influence legislation. Regarding abortion, by contrast, “all are on the same line,” he observed, a reality that highlights the documentʼs significance in a political landscape where the issue has achieved unusual consensus.

Idergard said the document does not signal a new direction for the Catholic Church in Sweden but rather reflects an ongoing commitment. “The Catholic Church in Sweden has always been visibly active on pro-life issues,” he noted, citing initiatives such as the annual “Respect for Life Sunday.”

A bold voice in secular Sweden

Benedicta Lindberg, secretary-general of Respekt, the pro-life organization of the Catholic Diocese of Stockholm, described her reaction to the document as reflecting “a significant and, in the Swedish context, a rather bold step.” She pointed to the countryʼs political and cultural landscape, where abortion is widely regarded as a settled matter beyond political contestation.

Lindberg noted that Swedish Cardinal Anders Arborelius had observed in 2024 that no parliamentary parties currently seek to challenge what is commonly referred to as a “right” to abortion in any substantial way. This consensus, she suggested, has contributed to hesitation among Swedish Catholics to engage visibly in party politics.

“Issuing such a document in an election year is meaningful because it makes a distinctly Catholic voice more visible in public debate,” Lindberg said. She added that the guidance “could help encourage a more visible pro-life presence, although probably not a mass political movement in the short term.”

The documentʼs release arrives as Swedish society confronts fundamental questions about the scope of abortion access and the legal status of euthanasia. By grounding its argument in Catholic social teaching while respecting democratic pluralism, the Diocese of Stockholm has attempted to offer guidance that is both morally clear and pastorally sensitive, a balance that may prove instructive for Catholic communities navigating secular political contexts elsewhere in Europe and beyond.

Iran is a country with a population of over 90 million inhabitants, where only “between 10% and 15% support the current regime or government” amid the current war, the specialist stated in an interview with “EWTN Noticias,” the Spanish-language broadcast edition of EWTN News.

“Perhaps half of them are true believers — religious fanatics or even extremists — while the other half are people who depend on the regime for their livelihoods, their children’s schools, hospitals, pensions, etc.; they depend on the government and the regime,” he observed.

In his view, another 30% “are politically neutral,” and their “primary interest is the safety of their children and families.” The remaining 50% or 60%, he estimated, “oppose the regime and would like to live under a free, liberal, secular, and Westernized government.”

Life for each of these groups is different, the expert explained.

“In the current war, those who support the regime are in the streets; they support the war, they support the fight against the United States, the continuation of nuclear programs, etc.,” while opponents of the government “mostly fear speaking out because in doing so they are brutally repressed and even killed by the regime,” much like the thousands of people who died in the January demonstrations.

Prisons in Iran

The Iranian political scientist said the country’s prisons fall “somewhere in between” those in Europe and those in some parts of Asia where everything “is very dangerous, there are no medical facilities, and there is no access to the rule of law.”

“The problem in Iran is that there are no civil rights; there’s no access to lawyers. I lived in a cell barely 6 feet across, perhaps 2 meters by 3 meters [about 6 inches by 10 inches] for over a year in solitary confinement,” he recounted.

Tajbakhsh pointed out that if one is in prison for “peaceful political activism” as happened to him, what happens is that “you don’t have access to a lawyer until very, very late in the process. They interrogate you for many, many hours for many months.” Consequently, “the biggest problem is that in Iran there is no fair judicial system for political prisoners.”

Hope for Iran

The expert commented that since 1979, “the majority of the Iranian people have attempted to reform the government by transforming it into a freer, more liberal, and democratic government that respects all religious values, religious freedom, as well as political and social freedom.”

“While it is deeply tragic that war and conflict are part of this process, I fear that it is the government of Iran that is waging a war not only against Americans and Israelis, but also against the majority of its own people, who long to live in a freer society,” he said.

“Islam,” he concluded, “is imposed as the state religion, and so my hope for the future of Iran is political, social, and religious freedom.”

Edy Rodríguez Morel de la Prada contributed to this story.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

In an April letter to the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Archbishop Shelton Fabre of Louisville, Kentucky, and Bishop Brendan Cahill of Victoria, Texas, expressed their support for the legislation (S. 2241 / H.R. 4307) on behalf of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development and Committee on Migration.

The bill, which the House passed in March, would require the Department of Labor to train its employees to detect human trafficking, identify suspected victims, and refer potential cases to the Department of Justice or other appropriate authorities.

“The Catholic Church is a steadfast voice against human trafficking and other forms of exploitation, as well as a longtime provider of services and pastoral care to victims of these crimes,” the bishops wrote.

Under the bill sponsored by Rep. Tim Walberg, R-Michigan, the Labor secretary would tailor training for the departmentʼs Wage and Hour Division by taking into account the needs of those operating in states where oppressive child labor has recently surged. Sen. Jon Husted, R-Ohio, who is Catholic, introduced the Senate version of the measure with one cosponsor, Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Michigan. No committee action is scheduled.

“We urge the committee to report the bill favorably to the full Senate and for the chamber to join with the House in passing this measure to bolster the U.S. Department of Labor’s important role in combatting human trafficking,” the bishops said.

“We appreciate the bill’s specific mention of the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, which plays such an instrumental role in detection and thwarting labor exploitation by unscrupulous employers, especially for children,” the bishops said.

As Congress has begun the appropriations process for fiscal 2027 and funding for the Department of Labor, “we renew our previous calls for the long underfunded agency to receive increased support to address its pervasive staffing and resource shortages, particularly given its role in thwarting child labor exploitation, as S. 2241 acknowledges,” they wrote.

Further support

The bishops also recently voiced support for H.R. 1144, a bill introduced by Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, that would reauthorize a 2000 anti-trafficking bill.

“This is another important, bipartisan anti-trafficking measure that warrants immediate action as a further step to counter the scourge of human trafficking in our country and beyond,” the bishops wrote in a March letter to U.S. representatives.

The bill would update elements of the federal framework to prevent international trafficking, and establish and reauthorize anti-trafficking programs across the State Department, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Among other actions, the bill would authorize HHS to carry out a program to help victims of trafficking integrate or reintegrate into society. It also would require the Department of Stateʼs Trafficking in Persons Report to include information about trafficking for the purposes of organ removal.

“I … want to recognize and thank the amazing, heroic, and extraordinarily compassionate survivor-leaders who helped write this bill,” Smith said at a press conference on April 23. “Their courage, strength, tenacity, wisdom, and, above all, their love for the vulnerable not only inspires but helped us get it right.”

“This legislation is of, by, and for them — to help heal, restore, and empower,” said Smith, who is Catholic.

Reauthorizing the bill “is essential to sustaining a comprehensive, prevention-focused response to human trafficking,” Katie Boller Gosewisch, executive director of the Alliance to End Human Trafficking, an anti-trafficking organization founded and supported by U.S. Catholic sisters, told EWTN News.

“The bill strengthens the systems that protect those most at risk while ensuring survivors have access to the services and support needed for long-term stability and healing. The Alliance to End Human Trafficking urges Congress to act without delay to move this legislation forward in both the House and Senate and ensure its swift passage.”

“As people of faith, we are committed to policies rooted in justice and grounded in the promise of redemption,” the May 4 letter said.

“While we come from varied backgrounds and political stances, we stand together against state-sanctioned murder,” it said. “Instead, we are motivated by the restorative power of empathy and investments in transformation.”

The letter, led by the single-issue organization Ohioans to Stop Executions (OTSE), comes as Ohioans await a statement on the death penalty by Republican Gov. Mike DeWine. Last month, the governor said he would issue a statement in the week after the primary election, which is May 5.

DeWine, a Catholic, has delayed several executions as Ohio has had difficulty in obtaining the drugs needed to administer lethal injection.

In the letter, the faith leaders state that “now is the time for Ohio to rid itself of its outdated and immoral death penalty.”

“As people who are motivated by faith and sparked by profound love for the common good, we are calling on you to endorse the bipartisan, multi-faith effort to abolish the death penalty in Ohio,” they said.

The faith leaders affirmed they “hold deep care and respect for victims and co-victims of crime, and we most certainly are not opposed to accountability for rightfully convicted persons,” however: “We believe that the death penalty serves no moral purpose.”

“Instead, it is a hollow instrument of death that offers no redemption, no closure, and no transformation for anyone involved,” the letter said. “The death penalty monopolizes human and financial resources that would be better spent if applied to the co-victims whose glaring list of needs often goes unmet.“

The signatories included parish priests, Protestant pastors, and Catholic religious sisters. It also includes non-Christians, such as rabbis, Muslims, Zoroastrian, and unitarian universalists.

Marsha Forson, associate director of Social Concerns at the Catholic Conference of Ohio, spoke during a news conference to announce the letter, noting the continued celebration of the Easter season.

“What does this mystery grant us but the hope of life — life eternal,” she said. “Hope that one day all things will be placed in proper order by justice and peaceful reign and every tear will be wiped from our eyes.”

Forson said “each person’s fundamental identity and value is renewed not in the good or evil [that the person] has done but in the invaluable self-sacrificing love of one.” She said “there is no longer any value that can be placed on a human life other than the inestimable price of Christ’s sacrifice.”

The bishops did not sign onto the OTSE letter but instead sent their own separate letter in late March, which also urged Ohio lawmakers to abolish the death penalty.

Brian Hickey, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Ohio, said in a statement to EWTN News that lawmakers have “the unique opportunity” with House Bill 72, under consideration in a House committee.

That bill, he explained, would “end state-sanctioned death in Ohio by abolishing the death penalty while also ensuring state funds will not pay for abortion or assisted suicide.”

“We are actively meeting with Ohio legislators and urging them to stand against the culture of death and defend the sanctity of life in all stages and circumstances, as Pope Leo XIV continues to urge Catholics and all people of goodwill to do,” he said.

On April 24, Leo provided a message to activists at DePaul University celebrating the 15th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois, in which the Holy Father offered his “support to those who advocate for the abolition of the death penalty in the United States of America and around the world.”

“I pray that your efforts will lead to a greater acknowledgement of the dignity of every person and will inspire others to work for the same just cause,” Leo said.

The letter is signed by the prefect of the dicastery, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, and addressed to Stephan Ackermann, bishop of Trier, and through him to the entire German episcopate.

In the letter, dated Nov. 18, 2024, Rome issued a categorical rejection of a text proposing the implementation of blessings with a prescribed ritual form.

The DDF in the letter responds to a “vademecum” (an authoritative handbook or reference guide) drafted by the German episcopate in October 2024 as a guide for priests. Written in German and Italian, it was intended to serve as a practical aid for “Blessings for Couples Who Love Each Other” and was presented as an application of the declaration Fiducia Supplicans to the “pastoral reality” in Germany.

The background: Fiducia Supplicans

In 2023, the DDF published the document Fiducia Supplicans, which opened the possibility of blessing couples “in irregular situations” or of the same sex, without equating them to marriage. The text specified that such blessings could not be performed with a precise ritual nor with signs characteristic of a wedding.

The Church in Africa subsequently expressed its unanimous rejection of the document and requested clarifications from Pope Francis. Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said the document did not apply to the Eastern Catholic Churches.

In the November 2024 letter, which it has published on its website, the DDF recalled that Fiducia Supplicans clearly establishes that the “Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when this, in any way, might offer a form of moral legitimation to a union that purports to be a marriage or to an extramarital sexual practice,” nor to those who claim “the legitimation of their own status.”

In light of this, Fernández’s letter notes that the German “vademecum” “speaks of a union and of an ‘official regulation’ on the part of pastors of couples who love one another outside of marriage” and even of an “acclamation,” a “gesture normally prescribed in the marriage rite.” In this regard, the Vatican states that such an act legitimizes “the status of such couples, in a manner contrary to what was affirmed by Fiducia Supplicans.”

Why the Vatican is publishing it now

The November 2024 letter began circulating widely on the internet this week, causing confusion as it was presented as if it were a recent pronouncement.

“The Holy Father stated on the return flight from Africa that the Holy See had already sent a response regarding this matter to the German bishops, and many were asking where that response was or what it said. For that reason, we decided to make it public,” Fernández explained in a statement to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News.

The Holy See ‘does not agree’

During his return flight to Rome following an 11-day tour of Africa, Pope Leo XIV stated to journalists on April 23 that the Holy See “does not agree with the formal blessing of homosexual couples.”

The pontiff was responding to a question from a journalist regarding a directive issued by German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, who had urged priests and pastoral workers to offer blessings in a uniform manner to same-sex couples or to divorced and remarried individuals within his archdiocese.

Before responding directly, Leo XIV emphasized that “the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters” and lamented the tendency to reduce Christian morality solely to that area. “In reality, I believe there are much greater and more important issues, such as justice, the equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue,” he stated.

Nevertheless, the pope noted that “the Holy See has already addressed the German bishops and has made it clear that it does not agree with the formal blessing of same-sex couples.”

“When a priest gives the blessing at the end of Mass, or when the pope gives a blessing at the end of a great celebration, like the one we had today, there are blessings for all people,” he noted, recalling the famous expression of his predecessor, Francis: “Tutti, tutti, tutti” ("everyone, everyone, everyone”).

Going beyond this, Leo XIV warned, “can cause more disunity than unity.” “Everyone is invited to follow Jesus, and everyone is invited to seek conversion in their own lives,” he explained.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

The abbot said the Christian faithful in the region, particularly in the heart of Jerusalem, have been severely affected by war, economic crisis, and all manner of hardships.

“If you think this is an Eldorado [utopia] of Christianity, the reality is different,” he said. “All Christians together are less than 2%. For us, dreaming of reaching 5% or 6% would already be a lot,” Schnabel noted in an interview with the pontifical foundation Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

“If you think of the most secularized regions in Europe like the Czech Republic or the former East Germany, even there Christians are many times more numerous than here,” he remarked.

“My fear is that the Holy Land could become a kind of ‘Christian Disneyland,’” he warned. “The holy places will remain, with monks and priests. But there may be no Christian families, no young Christians, no ordinary Christian life,” Schnabel warned.

In 1948, the year the state of Israel was created, Christians constituted 20% of the local population of the Holy Land.

The reality of the Latin Church

The abbot addressed the reality of the Latin-rite Church, which is composed of Arabic-speaking Palestinian Catholics, Hebrew-speaking Catholics, and migrants and asylum-seekers.

The first group includes those Catholics “who live in Israel with citizenship” as well as those without political rights in addition to Christians in the West Bank and the small community of believers in Gaza. This group of Catholics lives under oppression, subjected to the violence of war and the Hamas regime, a situation that Schnabel characterizes as a “double occupation.”

The second group is “a small but growing community, composed of mixed (for example Catholic-Orthodox or Catholic-Jewish) families and integrated into Israeli society.” This reality — being both Israeli and Catholic — is “a new phenomenon,” the monk noted.

Schnabel explained that the migrant group is the largest, comprising “more than 100,000 Catholics” hailing from countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Americas. “They are, in many ways, the most vulnerable,” he noted, due to the precarious working conditions to which they are subjected. “They often have the feeling that it doesn’t matter whether they are there or not."

The economic survival of Christians

He noted that improving housing and employment opportunities would be an important step toward helping these Christian families remain in the region.

“Around 60% of Arabic-speaking Christians depend on tourism. And the last good year was 2019. This is the biggest challenge,“ he explained. ”People leave because they don’t see a future.”

"Pray that there is a future for Christians here,” he urged.

The abbot emphasized that the Church is “neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestine, but pro-human.” The Church is present “on all sides,” he said.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, ruled on Friday that the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) current policy undermined Louisiana state law. The court reinstated in-person dispensation for abortion pills, a restoration of FDA requirements revoked during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Two mifepristone manufacturers, Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro, asked the Supreme Court to pause the lower court ruling, calling it “unprecedented” in their emergency request over the weekend.

In response, Justice Samuel Alito issued an administrative stay, putting the lower court order on hold, and temporarily restoring mail-order abortion drugs while the justices consider the companies’ request. The temporary stay will expire May 11 at 5 p.m. ET.

Alito instructed the FDA and Louisiana to respond by 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 7.

Chemical abortions, which rely on mifepristone and misoprostol, accounted for 63% of U.S. abortions in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The number of actual abortions might be higher due to underreporting, according to the organization, which was affiliated with Planned Parenthood until 2007.

In 2024, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to mifepristone’s availability, declining to rule on the legality of relaxed regulations under the Obama and Biden administrations.

Activists, lawmakers, and state attorneys general have been calling on the FDA to do a safety review of the drug, citing severe risks to women’s health.

A recent study by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) found that the removal of in-person visit requirements led to an increase in adverse effects for women having chemical abortions. This study is one among several pointing to a higher rate of serious problems.

Multiple other studies have shown high rates of hospitalizations for women taking the abortion pill. Chemical abortion has a complication rate four times that of surgical abortion, according to one study. Another report found that abortion pill complications are often underreported or misclassified.

SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, who celebrated the initial ruling pausing abortion drug shipments, called the current situation a “five-alarm crisis for the pro-life movement and for the GOP.”

“The ‘states-only’ strategy, promoted out of fear after Dobbs, is an abject failure in the face of blue states brazenly violating state sovereignty and nullifying hard-won pro-life gains,” Dannenfelser said in a statement shared with EWTN News.

“The GOP cannot win without its base and simply will not get the enthusiasm that drives turnout without leadership from the top,” Dannenfelser said. “With one-third of the most engaged primary voters sidelined and unheard, the Trump administration’s inaction puts lives and voter morale at risk every day it goes on.”

Dannenfelser also called for FDA Commissioner Marty Makary to be “fired immediately,” citing recent comments he made about mifepristone.

“Abortions are up, not down after Dobbs, with at least 1.1 million deaths a year,” Dannenfelser said. “More than 90,000 abortions occur each year just in states that protect babies in the law throughout all nine months of pregnancy — a direct result of Biden’s COVID-era mail-order abortion drug rule, which the Trump administration inexplicably allows to continue.”

“Without basic in-person medical supervision, male buyers have a frighteningly easy tool to abuse women, like abortion drug coercion survivor Rosalie Markezich, and their children,” Dannenfelser continued. “The Supreme Court will now decide whether this injustice ends here or whether it raises its ugly head over and over again.”

Students for Life Action President Kristan Hawkins called the situation “moral insanity.”

“The tragedy of chemical abortion pill distribution is that preborn babies die while we argue about how the abortion lobby and Big Pharma might be hurt,” she said in a statement shared with EWTN News.

“Enforcement of the Comstock Act is Step 1 for Trump administration’s Department of Justice, but we certainly hope they will fight more fiercely as Trump’s Food and Drug Administration has slow-walked a real review of deadly chemical abortion pills,” Hawkins said.

The American Association of Pro Life OB-GYNs (AAPLOG) expressed concerns for the safety of women and unborn children.

“Just when women and preborn children were about to receive bare minimum safety regulations, abortion manufacturers jumped in to save their bottom line,” the organization said in a statement shared with EWTN News.

“Women deserve real medicine, not a mail-order workaround that benefits only the abortion industry,” AAPLOG continued. “‘Telehealth distribution’ of mifepristone would actually provide medical oversight — instead there is none. No exam, no ultrasound, no screening for coercion and no doctor accountable when patients are harmed."

“This is a transaction, it’s not a medical interaction. Women and their preborn children deserve better,” AAPLOG stated. “The Supreme Court must allow the 5th Circuitʼs ruling to stand."

The conference held April 30 and May 1 was titled “Pope Leo XIV: From the Americas, For the World." It was the 17th annual World Catholicism Week conference organized by DePaul Universityʼs Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology in the popeʼs hometown.

Jesuit Father Philip Larrey, an associate professor of theology at Boston College and past dean of the philosophy department at the Vatican’s Pontifical Lateran University, said Pope Leo has a “fresh” and “humane” take on AI.

“Pope Leo XIV took his name because of Pope Leo XIII, who in the 19th century did for the Church in the industrial revolution what Pope Leo XIV wants to do for the Church and the world ... in what he calls the digital revolution,” Larrey said in his talk, “Pope Leo and the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence.”

Larrey, author of "Artificial Humanity: An Essay on the Philosophy of Artificial Intelligence,” has collaborated with industry leaders, Vatican scholars, and the United Nations about the intersection of ethics and digital advancements.

The pope has a unique perspective as he is “very American, but heʼs also very Latin American,” Larrey said. “Heʼs very Peruvian. He loved his time as a missionary there.“

“Remember, Pope Leo is very, very savvy. He was the head of bishop[s] under Pope Francis, and so he knows a lot about politics within the Church,“ Larrey said. ”He knows a lot about … where the Church needs to go.”

“Heʼs a very complex person,” Larry said. In “his first message ... the day after he was elected pope, he says, ‘I want to help the world in this transition of artificial intelligence.’”

Then during the summer he wrote a series of messages, "when he referred to AI as ‘soulless machine,'" Larrey said. "It really conveys a profound message: ‘These machines do not have soul.’”

The matter of the soul

Larrey discussed the “urgent concerns” of AI replacing human interactions. As a professor on a college campus, he said “a lot of students have difficulties forming relationships.” They turn to AI rather than human connection.

“With an AI, itʼs artificial, itʼs not real,” Larrey said. Ultimately, it “does not have a soul.”

The Catholic Church “uses Aristotleʼs vision of the creation of a soul,” Larrey said. "Now I have to specify ... Aristotle, of course, was brought into the Catholic Church by Thomas Aquinas.”

“Now, Aristotle also believed that the man and the woman were not sufficient to cause a human being. You needed another principle, and that principle was the sun,” he said. “In ancient Greece, the sun was a divine entity. Look at how cool that translates into the Catholic theology, where you have the mother and the father, and then God.”

“Only God can be responsible for the creation of the soul,” Larrey said.

God “infuses the soul” in a new being, “and that is what distinguishes human beings from all other beings,” he said. “Aristotle said that all living beings have souls, but only the human being has an immortal soul.”

“Pope Leo has said machines can never have a soul,” Larrey said. At the World Day of Communications Pope Leo said: “If we fail in this task of preservation … digital technology threatens to alter radically some of the fundamental pillars of human civilization that at times are taken for granted.”

“By simulating human voices and faces … wisdom and knowledge, consciousness and responsibility, empathy and friendship — the systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with information ecosystems but also encroach upon the deepest level of communication, that of human relation.”

Consciousness and immortality

Larry detailed two matters Pope Leo has talked about “that are philosophical, but have profound ramifications in the area of AI” — consciousness and immortality.

With consciousness, “human beings are self-aware, which means that we know that we know,“ Larrey said. ”Other living animals are conscious, but theyʼre not self-conscious, which means they donʼt know that they know.”

“Now, some in … the tech industry are talking about consciousness with these machines. They are getting very good at simulating what we understand as conscious behavior,” he said.

“When a machine exhibits behavior we associate with consciousness, we will attribute consciousness to the machine,” he said. “That doesnʼt mean the machine is conscious. It just means that we will probably attribute consciousness to that machine.”

“The more sophisticated and the more complex these machines get, the more likely that is to happen,” he said.

Another issue is that there are many people who “are spending a lot of money for the search for immortality.”

Death “is part of life,” Larrey said. “Death is a meaningful part of it. And if you take that away… I think weʼre gonna lose a lot of meaning and purpose.”

Other panels at the DePaul conference discussed Pope Leoʼs connections across the globe, the future of the Church under his leadership, his recent papal trip to Africa, and his missionary work in Peru. Numerous speakers spoke about his perspective as the first American pope and a member of the Augustinian order.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order in April directing federal agencies to accelerate research, regulatory review, and limited patient access to psychedelic drugs as potential treatments for serious mental illnesses, including depression, PTSD, and other treatment-resistant conditions.

Titled “Accelerating Medical Treatments for Serious Mental Illness,” the executive order defines serious mental illness as “having a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder that substantially interferes with a person’s life and ability to function.”

“Despite massive federal investment into researching potential advancements in mental health care and treatment, our medical research system has yet to produce approved therapies that promote enduring improvements in the mental health condition” of the most complex patients, the order says.

“Innovative methods are needed to find long-term solutions for these Americans beyond existing prescription medications.”

The order promotes research into psychedelics such as ibogaine, a naturally occurring psychoactive alkaloid derived primarily from the root bark of an African shrub. It has shown promise in treating opioid addiction (by reducing withdrawal and cravings), as well as PTSD, depression, and traumatic brain injury in treatment-resistant cases.

In addition to ibogaine, most classic psychedelics — including psilocybin (magic mushrooms), LSD, DMT, and mescaline — remain illegal at the federal level. They are classified as Schedule I substances, meaning they have a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use according to the Controlled Substances Act.

However, psychedelics are not known to produce the physical dependence, compulsive drug-seeking behavior or withdrawal syndromes seen with drugs like opioids, alcohol, stimulants, or nicotine. The potential for abuse comes from the recreational use of the drugs for their psychoactive effects.

Psychedelics like LSD and psilocybin work mainly by activating certain serotonin receptors in the brain’s cortex, which can create chaotic, highly connected brain activity — producing vivid altered states, emotional breakthroughs, and ego dissolution. The experience is followed by days of heightened neuroplasticity that can rewire thinking patterns.

Ibogaine works through multiple brain systems at once. It affects glutamate, opioid, serotonin, and dopamine pathways while promoting brain repair in reward centers. This produces long dreamlike visions and a profound neurological “reset” that can dramatically reduce addiction cravings and withdrawal symptoms.

The Catholic response

Greg Bottaro, a psychologist and founder of the CatholicPsych Institute and creator of the CatholicPsych Model of Applied Personalism, told EWTN News he is “glad” the Trump administration is “bringing the conversation to the table.”

Bottaro has researched psychedelic drugs for a decade, has four years of professional training with psychedelics, and has a natural medicine license in Colorado, which along with Oregon is one of two states where some of the drugs are legal. He said he believes the therapeutic use of the drugs could make “real healing possible for people with deep suffering.”

Bottaro said he has seen “things are getting worse in many ways for some mental illnesses.”

The executive order notes that more than 14 million American adults now suffer from serious mental illness, a large rise from a decade ago, and suicide rates have rebounded after declining during Trump’s first term. Veterans are disproportionately affected, with a suicide rate more than double that of non-veteran adults.

Bottaro acknowledged, however, that new interventions such as psychedelics can be “dangerous if mishandled.”

“The world of the subconscious and interior life and psyche is uncharted territory,” he said. “Psychedelic drugs can activate neural pathways that give unqualified ‘certainty’ about a spiritual insight that isn’t measured against a person’s actual worldview.”

“You don’t want someone being treated to realize ‘love is all that matters’ and then leave his wife,” Bottaro said.

“A lot of protective factors need to be in place” to ensure “a Catholic anthropology” guides those treating patients.

Trump’s executive order instructs the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue priority funding to psychedelic drugs that have received Breakthrough Therapy designation, speeding up reviews that could otherwise take months. The order says the FDA and the Drug Enforcement Administration must create a pathway for eligible patients to access investigational psychedelics under the Right to Try Act once basic safety requirements are met.

If any psychedelic drug completes Phase 3 trials and wins FDA approval, the attorney general must promptly review it for possible rescheduling under the Controlled Substances Act.

Justin Hendricks, a Catholic psychiatrist, told EWTN News that while he thinks Catholics can use drugs to treat serious mental illness, more research and time is needed regarding psychedelics. “Haste is not the best idea,” he said regarding pushing through FDA approvals. He said rushing to treat patients without more and thorough testing would be like “playing with fire.”

These drugs can “rewire” neural pathways affected by trauma, he said. “How do you standardize that? It’s tricky. We have to be careful. What are we ‘rewiring’ the brain to do?”

Terry Braciszewski, the president-elect of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association, agreed, telling EWTN News he supports the careful use of psychedelics but cautions against speeding up reviews or clinical trials.

“If a neurochemical substance can help a person, I’m all for it,” he said. “But slowing things down so we can establish appropriate safety measures and controls is important.”

Ibogaine can cause serious side effects, including cardiac arrhythmias (heart rhythm problems), which have led to fatalities in unsupervised settings.

Still, he sees potential in the use of psychedelics such as ibogaine, citing a 2024 Stanford study showing a reduction in symptoms from traumatic brain injuries in veterans, which he called “very promising.”

“When we think of being created in the image and likeness of God, it is remarkable that everything is produced by neurochemistry,” he said.

“We know from Catholic theology, whatever we can do to maintain the temple of our body is an act of stewardship over our life, our health, involvement with loved ones, and our contribution to the greater body of the Church," he said.

“Sometimes when we think about mental health, and there could be a stigma, there could be fear, there could be shame in addressing wounds that we have, illnesses that we have,” Chylinski said in an April 30 video message on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to mark Mental Health Awareness Month, observed in May.

“But itʼs so important that God loves the whole person,” Chylinski said. “He loves us body and soul. And so, itʼs so important for us as members of the Church to reach out to those who are suffering, who are struggling, and to know that there is a great hope in the Lord.”

Know that no matter what you’re going through, no matter what you’re suffering, that in Christ there is always hope. You are never alone.”

Auxiliary Bishop Keith Chylinski

Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Chylinski, who studied clinical psychology as a priest, praised advances in medical science and psychotherapy over the past 50 years. He also encouraged those struggling with mental health challenges to seek resources offered by the Church.

“There is no shame in asking for help,” he said. “Because the Lord wants us to be healthy, mind, body, and soul, and the way that we live our spiritual lives affects us physically and vice versa, the way that we take care of our bodies, of our minds, affects us spiritually.”

“Know that no matter what youʼre going through, no matter what youʼre suffering, that in Christ there is always hope,” he concluded. “You are never alone.”

The Order of St. Augustine and the Vatican Publishing House have published a book by Pope Leo XIV titled “Free Under Grace: Writings and Meditations 2001–2013,” a collection of texts written during his years as prior general of the Augustinian order.

The volume includes for the first time speeches, homilies, letters, messages, and meditations written during the more than 10 years in which Robert Francis Prevost led the Order of St. Augustine. According to a statement, the book offers readers a “closer look at his spirituality,” deeply marked by the Augustinian tradition.

The first copy of the Italian edition, which arrived in bookstores Monday — four days before the first anniversary of Leo XIV’s pontificate — was presented to Pope Leo XIV by Father Joseph Lawrence Farrell, OSA, the current prior general of the Order of St. Augustine and promoter of the publication.

Also taking part in the presentation were Father Rocco Ronzani, OSA, prefect of the Vatican Apostolic Archive and one of the book’s editors, and Lorenzo Fazzini, editorial director of the Vatican Publishing House.

In addition to Ronzani, the book was edited by Augustinian Fathers Miguel Ángel Martín Juárez and Michael Di Gregorio. The official presentation of the volume took place last October during the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany, though its commercial distribution in Italy began Monday.

The Vatican Publishing House confirmed to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, that the text will be published in the coming months in several languages, including Spanish and English, and is currently being translated in nearly 30 countries.

“The book, which compiles many of the communications of then-Prior General Robert Francis Prevost, OSA, offers an overview of some of the important themes developed during his years at the head of the Order of St. Augustine,” Farrell said.

The pages include spiritual reflections, meditations, and homilies that anticipate central aspects of the thought and spirituality of the man who is now Pope Leo XIV.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

In a message sent to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International, a Catholic charity foundation that supports the suffering Church all over the world, on May 1, Bishop António Juliasse Ferreira Sandramo said the parish in Meza, northern Mozambique, was completely burned down during an attack carried out by insurgents on April 30.

“The terrorists arrived around 4 p.m. and entered the parish of St. Louis of Montfort, a symbol, since 1946, of the Catholic presence in the region,” the bishop said.

He added: “The parish was attacked and completely burned down by the insurgents. The scene was one of terror: Houses and infrastructure destroyed, the historic parish reduced to rubble.”

According to Sandramo, civilians were captured during the attack and forced to listen to hate speeches delivered by the assailants.

The Cameroonian missionaries serving the parish were not present at the time of the attack and are safe.

“The missionaries are safe, but the community remains in shock,” the bishop said.

The Catholic Church leader appealed for international solidarity with the victims of violence in Cabo Delgado, where Islamist insurgency has persisted for nearly nine years.

“We ask for attention and solidarity with the victims of Meza. For almost nine years now, chapels and churches have been burned in the Diocese of Pemba,” the bishop said.

Despite the destruction, he expressed hope and resilience among the Christian faithful.

“But the faith of this people of God will never be burned; it is rebuilt daily!” he emphasized.

According to ACN, the church building, which dates back to colonial times, was vandalized and reduced to ashes. The attack is the latest in a series of assaults attributed to militants linked to the Islamic State in Mozambique.

During a December 2025 visit to Mozambique by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Sandramo shared the extent of the devastation caused by the insurgency in Cabo Delgado.

“More than 300 Catholics were killed, most by decapitation,” the bishop said at the time, referring to catechists, parish animators, and ordinary faithful.

He also reported that since the insurgency began in October 2017, at least 117 churches and chapels had been destroyed in the Pemba Diocese, including 23 in 2025 alone. The destruction of St. Louis de Montfort Parish adds to that toll.

Parolin visited Cabo Delgado during his Dec. 5–10 trip to Mozambique, where he met victims and heard testimonies from communities affected by the violence.

This story was first published by ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, and has been adapted by EWTN News.

“There are some things you just don’t talk about to some people,” said Father Larry Holland, who has completed studies in healthcare chaplaincy in addition to serving at numerous parishes in the Archdiocese of Vancouver.

He described his reaction when a doctor brought up the option of medical aid in dying (MAID) should his condition deteriorate. “I think I was very shocked,” he said. “It is such a sensitive subject.”

Holland, 79, is currently convalescing at VGH after suffering a hip fracture from a fall in his bathroom on Christmas Day. He spoke to The B.C. Catholic about the offers of MAID from two healthcare professionals, despite their knowing he was a Catholic priest.

Holland said he wasn’t dying then or now and that the doctor’s mention of MAID left him “kind of silent” for a moment. The doctor then raised the subject again, saying it’s “something they have to discuss with someone who’s been given a terminal diagnosis.”

Holland recalled telling the doctor he was morally opposed to euthanasia. The doctor explained that “he just wanted to make sure that, if a [terminal] diagnosis came up or not ... I knew of the different services I had access to.”

Weeks later, a second offer of MAID came from a nurse who the priest said seemed uncomfortable raising the topic and was likely doing so out of compassion because of the pain he was enduring.

“It’s a false compassion, really,” he said.

A spokesman for Vancouver Coastal Health, which operates VGH, told The B.C. Catholic in an email that “staff may consider bringing up MAID based on their clinical judgment, provided they possess the necessary knowledge and skills to do so.”

Staff are also “responsible for answering questions when patients bring up the topic of MAID,” the spokesman said.

The two incidents arise as Canada approaches 100,000 assisted dying deaths.

Father Larry Lynn, the archdiocese’s pro-life chaplain, said he was shocked to hear about Holland’s case.

“This must surely be among the most appalling examples of Canada’s coercive and insensitive euthanasia regime,” Lynn said in an interview.

He said it’s disturbing that a healthcare provider suggests euthanasia with any patient, and particularly when the patient is a consecrated religious known to be morally opposed. “It places the medical practitioner into the role of the devil, tempting a vulnerable person into mortal sin.”

He’s equally troubled that Canadian euthanasia providers aren’t ruling out initiating discussions with Roman Catholics about MAID. In a document titled “Bringing up Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) as a Clinical Care Option,” the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers recommends against assuming patients oppose MAID because of their faith.

The document says: “Healthcare professionals may draw incorrect assumptions about a person’s views on MAID; e.g., they may assume that a patient objects to MAID because she is a Roman Catholic nun, and yet Roman Catholic nuns and others dedicated to a faith-based way of life have requested MAID.” The booklet does not provide a source for the information.

An updated version published in March removes the Catholic reference but gives the same advice regarding people of a “faith community” and even those of “strong faith.”

Lynn called it “diabolical” to use a nun as an example for overcoming a patient’s moral objections.

The booklet reflects a recent trend of encouraging healthcare personnel to initiate MAID discussions with patients. In November 2025, The B.C. Catholic reported on a little-known 2023 Health Canada document urging health authorities and professional bodies to adopt “practice standards” requiring doctors and nurse practitioners to raise MAID with certain patients.

The MAID assessors and providers document similarly says physicians and nurse practitioners involved in care planning and consent processes “have a professional obligation to initiate a discussion about MAID if a patient might be eligible for MAID.” However, Health Canada does not have the authority to require provinces or health authorities to adopt such guidelines and The B.C. Catholic found no evidence of any public agency or professional body in British Columbia doing so.

Amanda Achtman, creator of the anti-euthanasia project Dying to Meet You and ethics director of Canadian Physicians for Life, said initiating MAID discussions in a medical setting is a form of coercion that attacks patients’ deepest convictions when they’re vulnerable. To “torment” someone who has deeply held beliefs with an offer of MAID is “an attack on their identity,” Achtman said.

Holland admitted he was in so much pain that he could “feel the temptation” to accept MAID. “It’s a human reaction. We always look for the easy way out.”

Conservative member of Parliament Garnett Genuis has introduced Bill C-260, An Act to Prevent Coercion of Persons Not Seeking Medical Assistance in Dying, which would prohibit federal employees from proactively offering or recommending MAID. The bill resulted from incidents of bureaucrats such as veterans counselors trying to steer vulnerable people toward assisted dying.

The Alberta government introduced legislation in March that would restrict regulated health professionals from providing information about MAID to their patients unless the patient brings it up. The Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act would also restrict the public display of MAID information, such as posters, within healthcare facilities.

The bill is worth supporting, said Achtman, who lives in Calgary. “Simply being offered euthanasia already kills the person, because it defeats and deflates their sense of self-worth and value.”

The unwanted initiation of MAID discussions in Canada made international headlines in March after Achtman shared the story of an 84-year-old woman, Miriam Lancaster, who went to VGH last year for severe back pain. She said the first doctor she spoke with in the emergency room raised MAID before any diagnostic work had been done. Lancaster’s daughter was present and confirmed the incident, adding her mother eventually responded to rehabilitation and rest.

The Catholic chaplain at VGH, Father Ronald Sequeira, said it’s a constant struggle to help suffering patients not lose hope. He said he tries to offer them “some kind of encouragement and comfort,” but many give up.

“The moment you lose hope, the devil comes in, in different personalities, and says, ‘Do you want MAID? I don’t want people to suffer.’”

Patients often don’t realize that suffering is redemptive, he said. “God makes us more pure, more strong, through the suffering when we offer it up,” Sequeira said. “So we give hope — help them not to lose hope.”

Holland said turning down an offer of death opens one to new experiences. Even enduring pain “can encourage growth,” he said. “It can motivate you, it can open up new worlds, new vistas, new opportunities,” including enriched relationships.

He said he is sharing his story in the hope it will help others. “I went through it; you can go through it, too.”

This story was first published in The B.C. Catholic and is reprinted here with permission and adaptations.

The meeting follows a period of tension between the Holy See and U.S. President Donald Trump. In April, Trump publicly attacked the pontiff on social media, calling him “weak on crime and terrible for foreign policy” in response to the pontiffʼs appeals for peace amid the U.S.-Israel war on Iran.

Rubio “will meet with Holy See leadership to discuss the situation in the Middle East and mutual interests in the Western Hemisphere,” State Department spokesman Thomas “Tommy” Pigott said in a May 4 statement. Rubioʼs meetings with Italian counterparts May 6–8 will be focused on security interests and strategic alignment, the statement said.

Leo XIV has called repeatedly for a peaceful resolution to the armed conflict in the Middle East. In April, he described Trumpʼs threats against Iranian civilization as "not acceptable."

Trump criticized Leo, stating that he did not “want a pope who thinks itʼs OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” Leo responded that he had “no fear of the Trump administration” but a few days later said he had no interest in debating the president.

As originally reported by Vatican News, Rubio will meet the pope at 11:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 7. It will be their second meeting, following their previous meeting after the popeʼs Mass of installation on May 18, 2025. U.S. Vice President JD Vance was also in attendance at that meeting.

Also on the morning of May 7, Leo will meet with the prime minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, at 9 a.m.

This story was updated at 2:25 p.m. ET on May 4, 2026, to include a statement from the U.S. State Department.

In his address to the board of directors during a private audience, the pontiff expressed gratitude for their work with the less fortunate in the United States and noted the current funding difficulties the organization and similar organizations face from the United States government.

“As was the case with the apostles and with the early Church, the proclamation of the Gospel through caring for the poor and for those most in need will always present certain difficulties on both the personal and the institutional levels,” Leo said. “I am fully aware that the Catholic Charities agencies in the United States of America are by no means immune from these challenges that continue to manifest themselves in our own day. Yet it is precisely when we are confronted with such obstacles that we must learn to hear Jesus’ voice saying to us once again, ‘I am with you always!’”

Kerry Robinson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, described the audience with Leo as encouraging for their work in helping disadvantaged people. In a press briefing after the audience, she discussed her organizationʼs recent funding cuts from the U.S. government, citing policy differences on migration and donor skepticism following cases of abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church.

“Agencies that have had decades-long relationships with the USCCB to resettle refugees continue to care for the people in their charge, even in light of across-the-board federal cuts,” Robinson told EWTN News. “Catholic Charities USA at the national level is almost entirely privately funded, so we did not see direct cuts. For 20 years, we have been working to usher in a culture of contemporary best practices, accountability, and financial transparency to restore trust in the Church. Because of the hard work of the last two decades, we do not see that crisis negatively affecting Catholic Charities' fundraising today.”

During the audience, Robinson gave the pope a book detailing the “People of Hope: Faith-Filled Stories of Neighbors Helping Neighbors” initiative in which a museum of hope, outfitted in a car, will embark on a three-year nationwide tour, encouraging visitors to the car museum to look for ways to help the less fortunate.

Robinson described the initiative as not merely making a difference in oneʼs life but as a cause to “actually end generational cycles of violence and poverty.”

Over this period, the faith and religious practice of Spanish society have undergone significant changes. Ahead of the popeʼs upcoming visit in June, two experts reflected on this development and the spiritual reality that Leo XIV will encounter upon his arrival in Spain.

A less religious society

Rafael Ruiz Andrés, a professor who holds a doctorate in sociology from the Complutense University of Madrid, explained to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, that Benedict XVI arrived in Spain during what he called “the third wave of secularization” since the beginning of the 21st century.

He noted that in today’s society and especially among young people, this secularization has accelerated and intensified: “Undoubtedly, we are in a less religious society,” he stated.

According to the latest data released by the Pluralism and Coexistence Foundation in its 2025 Barometer on Religion and Beliefs in Spain, nearly half of all Spaniards (42%) no longer identify with any religion, while the percentage of religious individuals — predominantly Catholic — stands at around 50% to 56%.

Ruiz noted that just a few decades ago, the majority of the Spanish population identified as Catholic, a fact that in his view also underscores “our sense of secularization.” Nevertheless, he emphasized that half the population still represents a significant number of people.

Catholic youth in 2011 and today

Though there are currently fewer young Catholics than in 2011, Ruiz emphasized that among the youth of 2026, there are signs "that Catholicism once again interests and challenges them.”

Reflecting this trend are the findings of the “Young Spaniards 2026” report by the SM Foundation, which reveals an increase in the importance young people attach to religion: 38.4% state that it is “quite or very important” in their lives.

The number of young people who identify as Catholic has also grown notably: In 2020, it stood at 31.6%, and by 2025, it had risen to 45%.

Bishop Emeritus César Augusto Franco Martínez of Segovia was responsible for coordinating Pope Benedict XVI’s World Youth Day as well as writing the lyrics for the hymn “Firmes en la Fe” (“Firm in the Faith”), which was composed for the event.

The prelate noted the similarities between the two generations. “They are young people who wish to live happily, who desire to achieve the goals they may have set for themselves, and who possess faith,” he said in a conversation with ACI Prensa.

Reflecting on young people’s faith, the prelate alluded to World Youth Day (WYD) in Lisbon in 2023: “There, I thought that even though time has passed, it seems that young people have not changed.”

“In Lisbon, too, there were a million and a half young people, and their conduct, their dedication, generosity, and joy was truly spectacular,” he said.

Young people living out their faith without inhibitions

Ruiz said the Catholic youth of 15 years ago were marked by polarization surrounding debates on sexual and reproductive rights, abortion, or same-sex marriage legislation. “One could say that at that time the Church had a more marginalized position with respect to young people.”

“I believe that the young person of 2026 is, generally speaking, less inhibited when discussing their faith and religiosity with their peers. The current generation takes being Catholic more naturally. It has become more normalized and, consequently, is also more visible,” he noted.

He also emphasized that the phenomena of youth apostolates such as Hakuna, Effetá, and their extensive impact on social media “point to that increased visibility in 2026 compared to 2011.”

Ultimately, he stated that although the number of young Catholics in 2026 is lower than in 2011, “a new dialogue is now opening up between the Catholic Church and Spanish youth, one that moves beyond those polarizations and is in fact fostered by the very context of secularity.”

Ruiz emphasized that religion continues to be “a very important issue” in Spain as well as tradition, culture, spirituality, and the search for meaning — elements that have not disappeared despite secularization.

The professor also said that secularization in Spain “is not an inevitable destiny.”

Catholic ‘awakening’ needs maturity and depth

According to the bishop emeritus of Segovia, today’s youth are marked by a “tsunami” culture; that is, “they seek to live somewhat through their senses, through whatever impacts them immediately, enjoying the present day without harboring many expectations for tomorrow, even though the future also worries them.”

“Faith,” he added, “is not a fleeting sentiment that is here today and gone tomorrow; faith is something far more profound; it is entering into a relationship with Christ in a vital, existential way. This requires depth, requires personal engagement, requires prayer, requires living in community, and not letting oneself be carried away solely by trends that may end up being more or less passing.”

He said that many young people express their religious yearnings, even if they do not know how to articulate them or put them into practice. “We also live in a multicultural and multireligious society ... many say they believe in God, yet they also believe in reincarnation and in other trends coming from Asia.”

The prelate emphasized that man “is a religious being by nature, even if he denies it, because imprinted within his very being is a yearning for transcendence that only God could have put there: a yearning for the infinite, for boundless happiness, for beauty, and for truth; and that’s something that young people have.”

He also pointed to the increase in adult baptisms: “It’s a phenomenon that must be examined closely, without allowing oneself to be carried away by facile slogans.”

A message of hope for Spanish youth

Ruiz emphasized that Pope Leo XIV’s visit to Spain could serve as a “compass for Catholicism in Spain.” He highlighted in particular the pope’s trip to the Canary Islands as a gesture of solidarity with the migration situation in the country: “The social dimension is one of the challenges facing certain sectors of the Church,” he noted.

He emphasized that the pope’s dialogue with contemporary society will differ from the one maintained by Benedict XVI. “I believe it will be post-secular in nature, that of a religious leader belonging to a denomination of immense significance in our country, yet one who speaks to a diverse, pluralistic society and who offers a vital message capable of being heard by audiences wider than the Church itself."

He said he hopes his visit will “encourage young people and everyone to follow Christ with fidelity and to love the Church without prejudice, despite the failings that we Christians may have.”

“For me, this is a trip filled with hope, and I am certain that it will encourage us to be better Christians and to live in today’s world as witnesses to the Gospel,” he added.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Several hundred supporters of this uniquely ecumenical think tank, which explicitly engages on pressing public policy questions within the context of the country’s historic Judeo-Christian moral framework, celebrated the milestone at an April 30 gala at the cavernous National Building Museum.

The event was headlined by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, a Catholic, as keynote speaker. In an interview with EWTN News just prior to the event, Douthat credited the EPPC for both its success and resilience in “maintaining a place for a serious religious conservativism in American political discourse.”

Douthat contrasted the influence of EPPC’s scholars and the American experience with that of Western Europe, which he said suffers severely from a “suffocating secular-liberal, social and cultural liberal consensus in which religious arguments don’t find any purchase and in which ethical norms are all basically utilitarian, in which abortion and increasingly euthanasia are sort of taken for granted.”

For his part, EPPC President Ryan Anderson, also a Catholic, told EWTN News the think tank is part of the “secret sauce” of a country whose founders, such as President John Adams, firmly held that “our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

Citing the U.S. Declaration of Independence during his speech to the assembly, Anderson said EPPC stands for “the proposition that all men are created equal, that we’re endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights, and that amongst these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“Our guiding lights 50 years ago remain the same today: the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, the natural law tradition, Western Civilization in general, and the American constitutional order in particular,” Anderson said.

Anderson pointed out that as the country celebrates its 250th and EPPC its 50th, “EPPC is needed now more than ever, to bear witness to the truth about the human person.”

He said EPPC conducts its work in an “intentionally ecumenical way” as a community of Jewish, Protestant, and Catholic scholars “developing and deploying the Jewish and Christian traditions to contemporary questions of law, culture, and politics.”

As they do in the country at large, Catholic scholars and related initiatives play a major role in the EPPC’s work. The institution runs ongoing programs in fields including bioethics, technology and human flourishing, and Catholic studies, and runs the Catholic Women’s Forum, the Person and Identity Project, and the Life and Family Initiative, among others.

In addition to Anderson, Catholic scholars who continue to occupy leadership roles at the EPPC include two of the institution’s former presidents, George Weigel and Ed Whelan, along with Mary Hasson, Stephen White, O. Carter Snead, Noelle Mering, Aaron Kheriaty, Theresa Farnan, Mary FioRito, Francis Maier, Jennifer Bryson, and Clare Morell, among others.

Speaking after the May 3 Regina Coeli in St. Peter’s Square, the pope noted that the day marked World Press Freedom Day, promoted by UNESCO.

“Unfortunately, this right is often violated — sometimes blatantly, sometimes in more subtle ways,” Pope Leo said. “Let us remember the many journalists and reporters who have fallen victim to wars and violence.”

The pope’s appeal came as press freedom faces growing pressure worldwide. According to the 2026 World Press Freedom Index from Reporters Without Borders, global press freedom has deteriorated to its lowest point in at least 25 years, with more than half of the world’s countries now classified as being in a “difficult” or “very serious” situation for journalism.

The organization has warned that journalists face mounting economic pressure, direct violence, legal threats, and other restrictions that compromise the independence of the media.

The pope also marked the beginning of May, a month traditionally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, inviting Catholics to pray the rosary.

“The month of May has begun: Throughout the Church, the joy of gathering in the name of Mary, our mother, is renewed, especially by praying the rosary together,” he said.

Leo entrusted his intentions to Mary, “particularly for communion within the Church and for peace in the world.”

Earlier, in his catechesis before the Marian prayer, the pope reflected on Sunday’s Gospel from the Last Supper, in which Jesus tells his disciples: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

Leo said this promise “involves us from this moment onwards in the mystery of his Resurrection” and reveals that “God has a place for everyone.”

“Even now, faced with death, Jesus speaks of a home, but this time a very large one,” he said. “It is the house of his Father and our Father, where there is room for all.”

The pope contrasted the world’s attraction to exclusive places and privileges with the new world opened by the risen Christ.

“In the new world into which the risen One leads us, however, what is most valuable is within everyone’s reach,” he said. “Gratitude takes the place of competition; welcome overcomes exclusion; and abundance no longer entails inequality.”

Leo said faith frees the heart “from the anxiety of possessing and acquiring” and from the illusion that human worth depends on prestige.

“Each person already has infinite worth in the mystery of God, which is the true reality,” he said.

By living Christ’s new commandment of love, the pope said, Christians already “anticipate heaven on earth.”

“By loving one another as Jesus has loved us, we impart this awareness to one another,” he said. “This is the new commandment; in this way, we anticipate heaven on earth and reveal to all that fraternity and peace are our calling.”

The pope concluded by asking Catholics to pray to Mary Most Holy, Mother of the Church, “that every Christian community may be a home open to all and attentive to each person.”

After the Regina Coeli, Leo greeted pilgrims from Rome and many countries, including Spain, the United States, Malaysia, and Peru. He also thanked the Meter Association, which for 30 years has worked to defend minors from abuse, support victims, and promote prevention.

“Thank you for your service!” the pope said.

This story was first published in two parts by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated, combined, and adapted by EWTN News English.

Within this time crowded with memory, the restoration of Syrian icons emerges as an act of safeguarding identity. It repairs the fractures of time and restores to sacred figures the radiance of a history that runs deep, declaring that protecting this heritage is not a cultural luxury but a struggle for survival carried out quietly by Syrian hands.

In this context, visual artist and restorer Lia Snayej shared with ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, the path that led her into this delicate field. She said that seeing icons burned, damaged by gunfire, or covered with layers of black residue while participating in an exhibition was a shocking experience. That moment pushed her to explore restoration more deeply, before she later specialized in the field academically through a master’s degree in Russia.

Snayej said restoration brings together history, chemistry, and art, adding that protecting an icon is, at its core, protecting history.

Regarding the restoration process, she emphasized that documentation is the most important step and accompanies every stage of the work. Every detail is recorded in a special file that remains with the icon, almost like its “personal identity card.”

She explained that the work begins with studying the history of the piece and its artistic background before preparing a precise restoration plan. Not every icon, she noted, needs restoration; some require only preservation and measures to stop further deterioration. Each icon has its own condition, making restoration similar to medical treatment, with each case requiring a different diagnosis.

Snayej said the main stages of restoration include stabilizing the paint layer using special materials such as “Japanese paper,” followed by cleaning and sterilization. She described this as a very delicate stage, since a mistake could lead to the loss of color. The process then continues with retouching and the addition of a new protective layer.

Assessing the current state of icons, Snayej said the greatest danger is the lack of attention they receive. Many historic icons, she said, are sold outside Syria for very low prices, while original icons are rarely found in homes, where printed reproductions are more common.

She also criticized the neglect of some churches when it comes to restoring their icons. She recalled an incident in Lebanon, where she found two historic icons stored in poor conditions inside a damp warehouse before she took on their restoration.

Snayej also warned against daily practices that damage icons, such as placing candles directly beneath them or cleaning them with materials not intended for that purpose.

Despite the challenges — including the difficulty of obtaining restoration materials and their high cost — Snayej said she remains committed to this path. Her passion, she explained, sometimes leads her to work free of charge in order to preserve a threatened work of art.

Last month, she participated in an exhibition organized by the Greek Orthodox Church in Damascus, where she displayed two historic icons she had restored. One was a Russian icon of St. Nicholas, while the other consisted of four parts depicting the Virgin Mary, with the crucified Jesus at the center.

Snayej said what surprised her most at the event was not the exhibition itself but the level of interest shown by visitors and the number of questions they asked about the history of icons and restoration techniques. For her, this reflected a striking and genuine desire among people to rediscover this heritage.

She concluded by saying that the icon has taught her to respect artistic work and serious research, and that it has transformed her specialization into a personal commitment that goes beyond the limits of a profession.

This story was first published by ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Toward the end of 2025, the diocese received the vehicle from Cody Coughlin, a drag racing and stock car driver from Delaware, Ohio. The race car driver “reverted” to the Catholic faith and entered into full communion with the Church a few years back at St. Paul the Apostle in Westerville, Ohio, and was eager to give back to the community.

“I’m deeply humbled and moved to be able to donate a vehicle to help nourish those in need throughout the Catholic Diocese of Columbus,” Coughlin said in the Catholic Times. “It’s a small way to support a mission that truly changes lives, and I’m grateful to be part of something that helps bring food and hope to families who need it most.”

From there, the diocese worked to come up with a plan on how the van could be properly used.

Deacon Dave Bezuko, director for Catholic Charities in the area and a permanent deacon at Our Lady of Lourdes in Marysville, Ohio, told EWTN News in an interview that they wanted it to be “something that would be useful for the parishes because … we didnʼt want to step on the toes of any of our established diocesan charities and our goal here was twofold: No. 1 letʼs equip parishes with something that they could use to support existing ministries, and [No. 2] take ministry off campus.”

Bezuko shared that it was important that the van also be covered in Catholic imagery so that it “could be like a rolling billboard of Catholicism and a sign of the Churchʼs presence out in the community, a sign of Christ’s presence in the community, a sign of hope.”

The van now features an image of Jesus at the feeding of the 5,000, an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the divine mercy image, a portrait of Mother Teresa, and the words from Matthew 25:40: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”

The mobile outreach van was then blessed by Bishop Earl Fernandes on March 8 outside of the Basilica of St. Mary of the Assumption in Lancaster, Ohio.

In its first couple months of service, the van has been used for a trip to support Mary’s Mission, which serves the needs of the homeless population, and transported approximately 6,000 food items collected by Fisher Catholic High School in Lancaster and the Basilica of St. Mary of the Assumption. The van was also used to transport furniture donated through a furniture ministry run by a deacon at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Logan, Ohio.

The diocese also hopes to use the van as an evangelization tool by taking it to the local Fourth of July parade, high school football games, visits to nursing homes, the annual county fair, and more.

“Thereʼs so many different opportunities to be an evangelization tool as well,” Bezuko said.

As for what he hopes the impact on the community will be, Bezuko said: “The hope on the impact of the community is No. 1, again, to share that Christ is present in our communities and not just where we have our churches and our schools and our properties.”

He added: “One of those things that happens at the end of Mass, the deacon says ‘Go forth, the Mass has ended.’ Weʼre sent out into the community to be the hands and feet of Christ in the world and to be his presence and to take that elsewhere. So, this is a literal opportunity to take Christ, to take our Church, to take that love, that compassion on the road and express it.”

The deacon said he hopes this mobile outreach ministry will continue to grow and that one day they will have a “whole fleet of these running around here before too long.”

Since its founding, the Papal Foundation has served the Catholic Church with collaboration of laity, clergy, and hierarchy. The United States-based organization is dedicated to fulfilling the requests of the Holy Father for the needs of the Church in developing countries.

The foundation has distributed more than $270 million in grants, scholarships, and humanitarian aid to more than 2,700 projects selected by Pope Leo XIV, Pope Francis, Pope Benedict XVI, and St. John Paul II.

During his recent papal trip to Africa April 13–23, Pope Leo prayed at the Basilica of St. Augustine in Annaba, Algeria, and he visited the restored Church of Notre Dame dʼAfrique. Both sites were restored through the generosity of The Papal Foundation, with investments of $90,000 each from the foundation in 2008.

This year, The Papal Foundation’s board of trustees approved $15 million, including $12,502,765 in current grants and an additional $3 million to be distributed in 2026 to further new projects.

The grants will fund initiatives across the globe including the construction and renovation of Catholic schools, classrooms, monasteries, orphanages, and medical clinics in numerous countries including Tanzania, the Central African Republic, and the Philippines.

“This year’s grants are a powerful testament to what can be accomplished through faithful stewardship and shared mission,” said Ward Fitzgerald, president of The Papal Foundation board of trustees, in a press release announcing the grants.

“Each project represents hope, meeting urgent needs and strengthening the resolve of the Catholic Church community in developing nations,” he said.

In Tanzania, the grant will aid the creation of a dormitory to rescue girls from early marriage, trafficking, and sexual abuse, and boys from school dropout. In India, a safe school for marginalized tribal children will be built.

The grants will fund the creation of a library and technology center in the Central African Republic and professional IT training for vulnerable women in the Philippines. Also, in the Republic of Guinea, a well and water tower will be built for the community.

“Supporting these life-changing grants is the core of the mission of The Papal Foundation,” Fitzgerald said. “The impact we have on the poor and most vulnerable is the organization’s gift to the Church and the Catholic Church’s gift to its people around the world.”

Requests for the grants come in from developing nations after local bishops identify the most urgent needs. They are then advanced by apostolic nuncios to the foundation’s grants committee.

The requests are then reviewed through the assessor’s office at the Vatican, led by its current assessor for general affairs of the secretariat Monsignor Anthony Onyemuche Ekpo.

Members of the foundation’s grants committee met with Ekpo this week to review proposals and begin building a working relationship.

“It was encouraging to meet Monsignor Ekpo at the start of his tenure and to hear his focus on expanding impact while strengthening efficiency and accountability,” Fitzgerald told EWTN News.

“Those are principles we take seriously. Our goal is to be the most highly disciplined and transparent steward of funds, and the most effective means to get resources to the most in need.”

Fitzgerald noted Ekpo’s work in Nigeria and in Australia, which he said has proven to be strength allowing him to bring "a clear understanding of the realities facing developing countries, along with firsthand experience in more advanced economies.”

“That perspective allows us to evaluate requests more effectively and align our resources with the priorities identified by the Holy Father,” Fitzgerald said.

Growing engagement

The Holy Father met with members of the Papal Foundation in an audience at the Vatican on May 2, where he said he was “deeply grateful” for the work of the foundation “to assist the Successor of Peter in his mission to care for the needs of the universal Church.”

“Your generosity has allowed countless people to experience in a concrete fashion the goodness and kindness of God in their own communities,” the pope said.

He pointed out that the charity workers “will probably never meet everyone who has benefitted from your kindness, so in their name I express heartfelt appreciation.”

The 2026 grants are the result of an evaluation process led by the foundation’s grants committee, chaired by Dr. Tammy Tenaglia of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, with assistance from the foundation’s mission fund committee.

The work of The Papal Foundation has been accomplished with the help of the foundation’s Stewards of Saint Peter, which is made up of North American Catholic philanthropists committed to bringing the love of Christ to those most in need.

Since Pope Leo’s election, the community of Stewards of Saint Peter has welcomed 25 new families committed to supporting the Holy Father’s mission to serve the poor.

“The growth we’re seeing is incredibly encouraging, as it reflects a shared commitment to serve, to give, and to bring the Church’s mission to life in meaningful ways across the globe,” said David Savage, executive director of The Papal Foundation.

The foundation’s annual pilgrimage to Rome the week of April 27 brought together 56 of the Steward families. Led by The Papal Foundation’s chairman, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the trip included a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica and an audience with Pope Leo XIV on Saturday, May 2.

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“Immediately following the incident, the Israel Police opened an investigation, and the suspect was arrested last night,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in an X post on Wednesday, condemning the attack that has circulated online and extending “sincere sympathies” to the nun who was attacked.

“He remains in custody, underscoring Israel’s firm policy against violence and its determination to bring offenders to justice swiftly,” the post said.

Bishops of England and Wales elect new president

Archbishop Richard Moth of Westminster in London will serve as the next president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales.

“It’s a real privilege to be in this position and I really pray that, with my brother bishops, I’ll be able to serve the Catholic Church in England and Wales,” Moth said in a press release Friday. “We look at the challenges in the world around us and that very often shapes our priorities. But it’s not just about being reactive, it’s about having a real consciousness that the Gospel message is an eternal message, the fact of God’s love for us all. That’s something that’s unchanging, and it’s about bringing that message into the world.”

Moth succeeds Cardinal Vincent Nichols, who has served as president since April 2009.

Polish TikToker surpasses Guinness World Record for charity livestreaming

A 23-year-old Polish TikTok influencer, Patryk “Łatwogang” Garkowski, has landed in the Guinness World Records for the longest charitable livestream, which he ended on Sunday, April 26, at 21:37, the time of Pope John Paul IIʼs death on April 2, 2005.

The nine-day livestream raised over 251 million zlotys (around $63 million) for a children’s cancer charity, according to a report Monday from EWTN News Poland, which noted the symbolic ending of the livestream and was “a moving testimony of unity, solidarity, and hope.”

Kuwait cathedral hosts interchurch prayer for peace

Holy Family Cathedral in Kuwait hosted an interchurch prayer gathering for peace in Kuwait and the wider Middle East, bringing together Church leaders, diplomats, Christian and Muslim worshippers, and members of several national communities, ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, reported Wednesday.

Bishop Aldo Berardi, apostolic vicar of Northern Arabia, led the prayer in the presence of Archbishop Eugene Nugent, the apostolic nuncio. In his remarks, Berardi urged those present not merely to speak about peace but to become active peacemakers, choosing dialogue amid division and hope amid despair.

The gathering concluded with representatives of different churches lighting candles and offering prayers in several languages for the safety and peace of Kuwait, known locally as “Dira al-Khair.”

South Sudan bishop mourns 14 killed in plane crash, calls for aviation safety

Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of South Sudan’s Catholic Diocese of Tombura-Yambio has expressed deep sorrow following a tragic April 27 plane crash along the Yei-Juba route in South Sudan, claiming the lives of all 14 people on board.

“We stand in prayer and solidarity with the bereaved families, the government of South Sudan, the aviation company, and the entire nation during this painful moment,” Kussala said according to a report from ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, on Tuesday.

“To the families, may God console your hearts and grant eternal rest to the departed. To the nation, may this tragedy renew our commitment to protecting human life,” he said. “We strongly appeal for serious scrutiny, strict safety measures, and accountability to prevent such loss in the future, especially as air travel remains a vital means in our context.”

Egypt moves toward advancing historic Christian personal status law

Egypt is moving closer to approving what could become the first unified personal status law for Christians, after the Council of Ministers approved a draft bill and prepared to send it to Parliament, ACI MENA reported Tuesday.

The measure, decades in the making, reflects Article 3 of Egypt’s constitution, which recognizes the principles of Christian and Jewish religious laws as the main source for their personal status matters.

The draft personal status law for Christians is the result of consensus among six Egyptian churches and would address engagement, marriage, divorce or annulment, custody, visitation, inheritance, and family dispute settlement.

For the Catholic Church in Egypt, spokesman Bishop Hani Nassif Wasef Bakhoum Kiroulos said the Church helped shape the text while preserving its doctrinal autonomy, especially on marriage impediments, annulment, consent, and the form of celebration.

Nigerian archdiocese announces prayers of reparation after chapel vandalized

The Archdiocese of Owerri, Nigeria, has directed a week of prayer in reparation following the desecration of a chapel in the archdiocese by unknown assailants.

The archdiocese announced with “great sadness” in an April 30 statement the desecration of the adoration chapel of St. Mulumba Parish and renewed calls for stricter adherence to Eucharistic norms, ACI Africa reported Thursday.

The statement comes after an unknown assailant broke into the adoration chapel of the parish and stole the monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. Describing the act as a grave irreverence, Archbishop Lucius Iwejuru Ugorji directed that all parishioners of St. Mulumba Parish observe a week of prayer in reparation.

Hundreds of Catholic schools in England to join ‘academies’

The Archdiocese of Liverpool in England has announced that all of its Catholic schools will be asked to join three Catholic Multi Academy Trusts as part of its plan “A Family in Christ: Our Future Together,” which aims to “secure and enhance” education in the archdiocese.

“The proposal to build the academy framework is a means of protecting our schools for the future to ensure that we can continue to offer excellent Catholic education to the future generations,” Archbishop John Sherrington of Liverpool said in a statement Thursday.

The archdiocese has a network of nearly 230 schools, according to its website. Schools belonging to religious orders may decide whether to join academies.

“I believe we are better together, working together to serve the mission, having greater support for staff and keeping control of our educational system for the future generations of Catholic children and others,” Sherrington said.

The 2026 conference, “Restoring the Covenant: Catholic Social Teaching as Common Social Ground,” will take place on Saturday, May 30, at De La Salle Oaklands College in Toronto.

The gathering is rooted in Catholic social doctrine and inspired by Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, in which he says: “Since the end of society is to make people better, the chief good that society can possess is virtue,” said Matthew Marquardt, executive director of Catholic Conscience.

Open to Catholics and all people of goodwill, the aim is to offer Catholic social teaching as a roadmap for renewing public life, Marquardt said.

The conference is meant to be a place where young professionals, potential volunteers, and benefactors can begin to match their skills and resources to the Church’s most pressing projects.

The day will combine liturgy and prayer with plenary talks and themed breakout sessions, all framed by Catholic social teaching’s vision of human dignity and the common good.

Speakers include Bishop Mark Hagemoen of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Saskatoon; Peter Copeland of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute; Tucker Sigourney, a John and Daria Barry postdoctoral fellow at Harvard; Moira McQueen, a prominent lawyer and consultant in moral theology who until recently served as executive director of the Canadian Catholic Bioethics Institute; and Kathleen Muggeridge of Young Professional Catholics of Toronto and the Office of Social Action of the Archdiocese of Montreal.

In an education session, Catholic Register publisher Peter Stockland will host a discussion examining the influence of news and media in shaping social values.

In a world marked by radical individualism, moral relativism, and what organizers describe as “a culture indifferent to the dignity of life,” the conference proposes Catholic social teaching as a unifying framework for rebuilding the bonds that make us a true covenant people.

For example, Catholic social teaching offers a Catholic lens for evaluating and interpreting governmental wellness indexes, such as the Quality of Life Framework recently adopted by the government of Canada.

“Our social covenant is broken and needs to be restored, said Marquardt, who is also president of Canadian Catholic News. “And the responsibility for doing that is on every one of us. We belong to one another and each have a role to play in society.”

The conference grew out of months of discussions about the fragile state of Catholic apostolates in Canada and the surprising appetite among young Catholics for serious engagement, he said.

“If you go to church in Toronto since the pandemic, attendance is up a lot,” Marquardt said. “The difference is a lot of young people who are very ardent. They say they want things to do.”

Organizers say the event is intended to:

• Advance civic conversation on restoring a shared social covenant grounded in common principles and values, as an alternative to the social currents pulling people away from God and one another.
• Bring together Canadian Catholic social and civic initiatives — along with other groups of goodwill — to increase awareness and promote cooperation among them.
• Promote volunteer, employment, and fundraising opportunities for these initiatives, helping them find the skills and support they need to survive and grow.

The vision goes beyond theory. In recent years, small Catholic organizations such as Catholic Insight, Catholic Conscience, and Canadian Catholic News have struggled with increasingly complex regulatory demands, especially those affecting interactions with agencies such as the Canada Revenue Agency, and the practical burden of running lean operations with minimal staff.

This story was first published by The B.C. Catholic and is reprinted here with permission.

The Walk to Mary is an annual pilgrimage held on the first Saturday of May. The first walk took place in 2013 and over the years thousands of Catholics from around the world have participated. The 22-mile pilgrimage starts at the National Shrine of St. Joseph and ends at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, which is the only approved Marian apparition site in the United States, in which the Blessed Mother appeared to Adele Brise in 1859.

For Kym Allex, a Catholic home schooling mother; her husband, Preston; and their eight children — ranging in age from 17 to 4 — the pilgrimage has become an annual tradition.

The “Allex tribe” — as they’re referred to by their community — first participated in the Walk to Mary when the eldest child was only 8 years old. At the time, there were seven children in the family and they all took part in the two-mile version of the pilgrimage for their first several walks.

The pilgrimage includes several “join in” points along the route that allow participants unable to walk the entire distance the ability to participate.

“For that childrenʼs walk — the little two-miler — it was so great to have seven kids just tromping around, excited to walk for Mary,” Allex told EWTN News in an interview.

She added: “It didnʼt seem like a very long walk to be able to have a 2-year-old in a backpack or my 5-year-old running as fast as he could because he wanted to catch up to Mary, which I donʼt think he ever did, but it was just a beautiful experience for our family for the first time and every year after.”

After their first couple of years participating in the two-mile version of the walk, the Allexes began to expand on the length they completed. This year, for the first time, they plan to walk the entire 22-mile route. And it wasn’t mom and dad who made this decision — it was the two eldest children.

“My 17-year-old daughter and my 16-year-old son came to my husband and [me] after last yearʼs 14-mile and they said, ‘Next year we have some big prayer intentions,’” she shared. “Theyʼre on the cusp of looking at colleges and figuring out where they want to go and where the Lord is calling them and so theyʼve stated, ‘Mom, Iʼm going to do the 22 miles if youʼre OK with it. Iʼd like for our whole family to join.’”

The Allexes then sat down as a family to discern what God was calling them to do and what goals they needed to reach in order for everyone to feel comfortable doing the entire pilgrimage. With this in mind, the entire family has been preparing physically and spiritually for this event.

“Even our little 4-year-old has been walking and biking in the neighborhood every day that she can to be able to get her sweet little legs ready for this beautiful opportunity,” Allex said.

She added that it is her oldest children who want to make sure that taking part in the Walk to Mary is always a part of the family’s culture.

“They take off of work, theyʼve told their sports coaches, ‘We wonʼt be able to go and do this race’ … because our family really wants to keep this part of our family tradition,” Allex said. “And itʼs great that itʼs my teenagers who are the ones that want to continue to pass this on. Thereʼs no fight because weʼve grown into this together.”

Allex admitted that she was hesitant when her children first brought up the idea of doing the full pilgrimage.

“I will tell you, this 22-miler makes me a little nervous and yet my kids are the ones who are like, ‘We can do this mom. Weʼve done 18 miles at Disney. So we can do 22 miles for Mary.’ Iʼm like, ‘That is such a beautiful thought, right? If I can do this for pleasure, I can surely do this for Mary, for my faith,’” she shared.

When reflecting on how her familyʼs faith has been impacted by taking part in the Walk to Mary, Allex shared that it has reminded them that “the Blessed Mother is such an incredible spiritual mom for all of us.”

She added: “Especially for me as a mom in this world today, I can get lost sometimes in the worry, the anxiety, the stress of life. And so to know that our Blessed Mother will wrap me like a swaddling blanket into her mantle and bring me to Jesus is so consoling.”

“The fact that my kids have seen that I go to the Blessed Mother when Iʼm struggling and ask for her help to get closer to her son, then they see the humanness of their own mom and theyʼre like, ‘Wow, mom might not have it all together, but she knows someone who does and sheʼs going to lean in on that.’”

The Catholic mother pointed out that the pilgrimage has also taught her children how to pray for others. She recalled an instance when one of her sons went up to a man during the walk and asked him if he had an intention he could lift in prayer for him. The man was from Brazil and was walking the pilgrimage asking for healing for his wife.

“My hope is that they feel inspired to be those missionary disciples … and that theyʼre cultivating hearts of missionary discipleship — walking with people, being inspired to go and pray with people,” she said.

Allex added that each member of the family has a prayer journal and the children have already been “collecting peopleʼs prayers and theyʼve already been wrapping them in our nightly rosary that we do every night.”

When the Blessed Mother appeared to Brise in the woods of Champion, Wisconsin, one of the messages she gave the young woman was to “gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation.”

This is something that has deeply impacted Allex’s faith and a message she carries daily in her vocation of motherhood.

“Iʼve memorized it [the message] because that right there, that is the role for us as parents,” Allex said. “I think every one of our homes can feel like a wild country, you walk in and … for me sometimes it feels that way. It feels like a wild country. But if I can continue to gather my kids and teach them what they should know — I might not be preparing them for Harvard. Iʼm going to prepare them for heaven.”

Summarizing her experiences taking part in the Walk to Mary and how it has impacted the entire family, Allex concluded that “this walk truly is this pilgrimage of graces.”

Last year marked the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which was convened during the pontificate of Pope Sylvester I in 325.

St. Athanasius was born to Christian parents living in the Egyptian city of Alexandria in 296. His parents took great care to have their son educated, and his talents came to the attention of a local priest who was later canonized — St. Alexander of Alexandria. The priest and future saint tutored Athanasius in theology and eventually appointed him as an assistant.

Around the age of 19, Athanasius spent a formative period in the Egyptian desert as a disciple of St. Anthony in his monastic community. Returning to Alexandria, he was ordained a deacon in 319 and resumed his assistance to Alexander, who had become a bishop. The Catholic Church, newly recognized by the Roman Empire, was already encountering a new series of dangers from within.

The most serious threat to the fourth-century Church came from a priest named Arius, who taught that Jesus could not have existed eternally as God prior to his historical incarnation as a man. According to Arius, Jesus was the highest of created beings and could be considered “divine” only by analogy. Arians professed a belief in Jesus’ “divinity” but meant only that he was Godʼs greatest creature.

Opponents of Arianism brought forth numerous Scriptures that taught Christ’s eternal preexistence and his identity as God. Nonetheless, many Greek-speaking Christians found it intellectually easier to believe in Jesus as a created demigod than to accept the mystery of a Father-Son relationship within the Godhead. By 325, the controversy was dividing the Church and unsettling the Roman Empire.

Nicaea

In that year, Athanasius attended the First Ecumenical Council, held at Nicaea to examine and judge Arius’ doctrine in light of apostolic tradition. It reaffirmed the Church’s perennial teaching on Christ’s full deity and established the Nicene Creed as an authoritative statement of faith. The remainder of Athanasius’ life was a constant struggle to uphold the council’s teaching about Christ.

Near the end of St. Alexander’s life, he insisted that Athanasius succeed him as the bishop of Alexandria. Athanasius took on the position just as Emperor Constantine, despite having convoked the Council of Nicaea, decided to relax its condemnation of Arius and his supporters. Athanasius continually refused to admit Arius to Communion, however, despite the urgings of the emperor.

A number of Arians spent the next several decades attempting to manipulate bishops, emperors, and popes to move against Athanasius — particularly through the use of false accusations. Athanasius was accused of theft, murder, assault, and even of causing a famine by interfering with food shipments.

Arius became ill and died in 336, but his heresy continued to live. Under the rule of the three emperors that followed Constantine, and particularly under the rule of the strongly Arian Constantius, Athanasius was driven into exile at least five times for insisting on the Nicene Creed as the Church’s authoritative rule of faith.

Athanasius received the support of several popes and spent a portion of his exile in Rome. However, the Emperor Constantius did succeed in coercing one pope, Liberius, into condemning Athanasius by having him kidnapped, threatened with death, and sent away from Rome for two years. The pope eventually managed to return to Rome, where he again proclaimed Athanasius’ orthodoxy.

Constantius went so far as to send troops to attack his clergy and congregations. Neither these measures nor direct attempts to assassinate the bishop succeeded in silencing him. However, they frequently made it difficult for him to remain in his diocese. He enjoyed some respite after Constantius’ death in 361 but was later persecuted by Emperor Julian the Apostate, who sought to revive paganism.

In 369, Athanasius managed to convene an assembly of 90 bishops in Alexandria for the sake of warning the Church in Africa against the continuing threat of Arianism. He died in 373 and was vindicated by a more comprehensive rejection of Arianism at the Second Ecumenical Council, held in 381 at Constantinople.

St. Gregory Nazianzen, who presided over part of that council, described St. Athanasius as “the true pillar of the Church” whose “life and conduct were the rule of bishops and his doctrine the rule of the orthodox faith.”

This story was last published on May 2, 2025, and has been updated.

The panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, based in New Orleans, will require in-person distribution of the mifipristone at clinics.

The ruling found that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulation that allows prescriptions of the medication that blocks progesterone without meeting with a physician “undermines” the state of Louisiana. In Louisiana, the state considers unborn children to be human beings from the moment of conception and legal persons.

Medication abortions, which rely on mifepristone and misoprostol, accounted for 63% of U.S. abortions in 2023, according to the Guttmacher Institute. The number of actual abortions might be higher due to underreporting, according to the organization, which was affiliated with Planned Parenthood until 2007.

Activists, lawmakers, and state attorneys general have been calling on the FDA to do a safety review of the drug, citing severe risks to women’s health.

A recent study by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) found that the removal of in-person visit requirements led to an increase in adverse effects for women having drug-induced abortions. This study is one among several pointing to a higher rate of serious problems.

Multiple other studies have shown high rates of hospitalizations for women taking the abortion pill. “Chemical abortion has a complication rate four times greater than surgical abortion,” according to one study. Another report found that medication abortion complications are often underreported or misclassified.

The Holy Father offered these comments April 23 after he received a letter from parents of girls who died in the strike. More than 150 people were killed in the Feb. 28 strike, which the Defense Department says it is investigating.

“I have just seen a letter from families of children who were killed on the first day of the attack,” Leo said while speaking to journalists on a flight back to Rome after visiting four countries in Africa, according to the Vatican-run Vatican News.

“They speak about how they have lost their children, who died in that event,” he said. “The issue is not whether there is regime change or not; the issue is how to promote the values we believe in without the death of so many innocent people.”

Leo called the situation in Iran “complex” amid the ongoing ceasefire, stating that “one day Iran says yes and the United States says no, and vice versa.” The pope warned: “We do not know where things are heading.”

“This chaotic, critical situation for the global economy has been created, but there is also an entire population in Iran of innocent people suffering because of this war,” he said. “So, on regime change, yes or no: It is not even clear what regime currently exists after the first days of attacks by Israel and the United States on Iran.”

“Rather, I would encourage the continuation of dialogue for peace, that all sides make every effort to promote peace, remove the threat of war, and respect international law,” he said. “It is very important that innocent people are protected, as has not happened in several places.”

The letter from the parents of the victims was published in full by a reporter for Press TV, which is operated by the Iranian government. The letter is written in Farsi.

According to a partial English translation on Press TV, the parents said the pontiff’s consistent advocacy for peace “offered a healing touch to our broken hearts.”

“Today, instead of feeling the warmth of our children’s embrace, we are left to hold onto their charred bags and bloody journals,” the letter said, according to the translation.

“Our children will never return home to build a brighter future, but it is the prayer of us grieving parents that your message to ‘lay down the weapons’ be heard, at a time when the United States and the Israeli regime fuel the flames of these atrocities with their excessive demands,” it added.

When asked for comment, the Defense Department pointed EWTN News to comments made by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on April 24 when asked about the pope’s comment on Iran.

“We know what our mission is,” he said. “We know what authority we have. Weʼre very clear about that. We follow the orders of the president.”

“Weʼve got lawyers all over the place, looking at what weʼre doing and why weʼre doing it, and giving us every authority necessary under the Constitution and under our laws to execute it,” he added. “So we feel very confident across the spectrum about what weʼre doing and why weʼre doing it, and the legal justification that weʼre following in order to do it.”

A Defense Department official told EWTN News that the strike on the school in Minab “is currently under investigation” and “more details will be provided [when] they become available.” The Pentagon has not claimed responsibility for the strike.

Joseph Cooney and Molly Gaston, career prosecutors at the Justice Department rather than political appointees, played a role in prosecuting President Donald Trump during former President Joe Biden’s administration. Both were fired shortly after Trump became president a second time and are legal partners at Gaston & Cooney PLLC. Cooney is running for Congress in Virginia.

While texting on government-issued devices, Gaston wrote about a photo published by The New York Times from Trump’s "Stop the Steal” rally, which preceded the Jan. 6 attack, saying: “I just noticed for the first time the nuns near the oathkeepers in one of the NYT photographs.”

Cooney said, “I know!” to which Gaston replied: “I would like to take a special assignment of finding and prosecuting them.”

Cooney, who worked in the Justice Departmentʼs Public Integrity Section, responded to her comments about prosecuting the women by saying “I’m with you” and adding: “Although Iʼd like to prosecute any nun who still wears the head habit.” Gaston, who was a lead prosecutor in the special counsel’s Jan. 6-related case involving allegations of efforts to overturn the 2020 election, replied to the message with “hahaha.”

The photo shows three women wearing traditional habits standing on the National Mall near the stage for the rally and does not show them trying to breach restricted areas or enter the U.S. Capitol. The women appear to be associated with a convent that is not in communion with the Roman Catholic Church and does not have canonical standing with the Diocese of Lansing, Michigan, where they are located.

Another photo of the women at the rally published by The Conversation also does not show anyone trying to enter restricted areas or the Capitol. EWTN News could not reach the women in the photos.

The text messages also show Gaston saying “people are insane” for wanting priests to deny Communion to Biden. The two also discussed the COVID-19-era restrictions on the Mass, with Gaston saying she has been “really bad about [tuning into] video Mass” and Cooney saying “video Mass is really hard.”

Nearly all Catholic sisters and nuns wore habits prior to the Second Vatican Council, although the practice since then often depends on the religious community to which the person belongs or can come down to personal choice.

The Carmelite Sisters of the Most Sacred Heart of Los Angeles explain on their website that a habit is “economical, simple, modest, and above all a sign, a symbol, of God and his love for each of us.”

“Our habit calls out silently to people we meet or even pass by in the street, the store, even the beach,” the website states. “It says, ‘Look up; for greater things you were born.’ It says, ‘Hold on, this too shall pass, and God is with you always leading you in the way you are to go.’ It says, ‘I am a symbol, a reminder, of God’s presence in our world. You can’t actually see him, but in seeing me you are reminded of him.’”

The Dominican Sisters of Mary Immaculate Province state on their website that their habit is “a sign of our consecration to God and witness to poverty.”

“We are vested with a white tunic, a black belt with a rosary attached, a white scapular, a veil, and cappa,” it states. “Symbolically, black reminds us that we have been called from the death valley of sin toward a life of intensified grace in Christ (white). The visible habit furthermore reflects the simplicity of life, innocence, renunciation, penance, and mortification, a hidden life in Christ.”

‘I was appalled’

EWTN News received copies of the text exchange, first reported by the Daily Wire, from the office of Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa. EWTN News contacted Cooney’s campaign and the law firm where both are partners to request a comment and did not receive a response.

The messages were provided to Grassley’s office by the Justice Department in relation to a Senate Judiciary Committee investigation into federal efforts to prosecute Trump during Biden’s presidency.

“Freedom of religion is a cherished First Amendment right enshrined in our Constitution by the Founding Fathers,” Grassley, chair of the Judiciary Committee, said in a statement provided to EWTN News.

“I was appalled, but sadly not surprised, to discover evidence of Biden DOJ prosecutors threatening to use the power of the federal justice system to target people of faith,” he said. “Time and again, my oversight has shown the Biden Justice Department, including these prosecutors who went on to advance Jack Smith’s Arctic Frost investigation, showed total disdain for equal justice.”

Nearly 1,600 people were prosecuted in Jan. 6 cases for a range of offenses connected to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including unlawful entry, assault, property destruction, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy, with President Trump later granting clemency to about 1,500 of them.

It does not appear the photographed women faced prosecution, although some Catholic sisters have fended off federal encroachment into their religious activities in recent years.

Most famously, the Little Sisters of the Poor won a U.S. Supreme Court case in 2020 following a nine-year-long battle against the mandate to cover contraception in their insurance plans, per rules in the Affordable Care Act. In spite of that victory, the sisters are still fighting federal contraception rules in court.

In New York, the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, who provide care to terminally ill people, faced a warning from the state Department of Health for “refusing to assign a room to a resident other than in accordance with the resident’s gender identity.” They are also fighting the rules in court.

On April 30, Trump’s DOJ published a report on “anti-Christian bias” it alleges plagued the federal government under Biden’s presidency. It documents rules and regulations that damaged religious liberty related to abortion, contraception, and gender policies. It alleges weaponization of the government against Christians, including pro-life protesters.

Catholic Relief Services (CRS), which had urged lawmakers ahead of the vote to preserve and strengthen global food aid programs, said in an emailed statement to EWTN News that it was “encouraged that key international food security and nutrition programs were protected.”

“Several steps remain in the process,” it continued, “and we look forward to continuing to work with both parties to lift up these essential programs as conversations move forward.”

The bill’s passage marks a step forward in a farm bill process that has stalled in recent years since the 2018 reauthorization. Senate consideration is next, where lawmakers are expected to consider revisions amid ongoing debate over how the federal government should structure food assistance at home and abroad.

At the center of the international provisions is Food for Peace, the U.S. flagship global hunger program that provides food assistance to countries facing war, natural disasters, or severe economic instability, often serving as a key source of emergency food aid worldwide.

Under the House-passed bill, Food for Peace would be permanently transferred from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), a shift long debated by policymakers. USAID has been largely dismantled under the Trump administration, with most of its programs absorbed into the U.S. Department of State.

The legislation also would require that at least 50% of Food for Peace funding be used to purchase and transport U.S.-grown agricultural commodities. Additionally, the bill includes a $200 million earmark for ready-to-use therapeutic foods (RUTF), nutrient-dense products used to treat severe malnutrition in children.

Supporters argue the changes would strengthen ties between U.S. farmers and international aid programs, while humanitarian groups have raised concerns that they could reduce flexibility in responding to emergencies.

The House Agriculture Committee has defended the changes as strengthening the connection between U.S. agriculture and international food assistance while maintaining the program’s humanitarian purpose.

The House-passed bill also would reauthorize the McGovern-Dole Food for Education program, which supports efforts to reduce hunger and improve literacy in low-income countries. Organizations such as Save the Children and Bread for the World, a Christian advocacy group focused on reducing global hunger, praised the provision, framing it as consistent with broader humanitarian goals.

Hunger as a ‘moral issue’

Catholic organizations have consistently framed international food assistance as part of a broader moral responsibility toward vulnerable populations, a theme reflected in recent joint advocacy from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), CRS, and other Catholic agencies.

In earlier outreach to Congress ahead of the vote, CRS warned that limiting flexibility or resources could weaken the ability of the United States to respond quickly when families face hunger driven by forces beyond their control.

“Programs like Food for Peace have a long track record of saving lives, and it’s critical they remain well funded and able to adapt to complex emergencies,” CRS said in a statement, describing hunger as not just a policy issue “but a moral one.”

Much of the broader House debate also centered on domestic nutrition policy, particularly the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), as lawmakers considered amendments addressing eligibility rules and restrictions on certain food purchases like rotisserie chickens.

Debate on the bill also included contentious provisions related to pesticide regulation and other agricultural policy issues, reflecting broader divisions over the direction of federal farm policy.

Lawmakers considered more than 300 amendments during the process, with roughly 49 ultimately adopted or incorporated into the final package.

U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas; Marsh Blackburn, R-Tennessee; Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana; and others introduced the Title X Abortion Provider Prohibition Act, which would ban Title X family planning grants from going to any group that provides abortion or funds abortion providers.

The bill makes exceptions for Medicaid coverage in cases of rape, incest, or situations that threaten the life of the mother. The prohibition also does not apply to hospitals, as long as the hospitals don’t fund clinics that provide abortions.

“Organizations that perform abortions should not receive any taxpayer dollars,” Cruz said in a statement. “I have long fought to end federal funding for Planned Parenthood and to ensure that Title X family planning grants are not awarded to entities that perform abortions or fund abortion providers.”

EPA to test drinking water for drug used in chemical abortions

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will test drinking water for misoprostol, a pill used in chemical abortions.

The move to test the water for the drug follows recent efforts by activists and lawmakers to protect the environment from chemical abortion pill drugs, given the increase in their use.

In December 2025, Students for Life of America called on the EPA to add the abortion drug mifepristone to a list of drinking water contaminants tracked by public utilities.

Legislators in several states are introducing bills restricting abortion pills, citing concerns about water contamination. New legislation in Arizona, Idaho, Maine, West Virginia, and Wyoming would require abortion providers to have their patients collect expelled medical waste from at-home abortions.

Chemical abortions now make up 63% of all abortions in the United States, according to 2023 data by the Guttmacher Institute, in a more than 50% increase since 2020.

Poll finds slight decrease in support for abortion legality

A recent poll on abortion found a slight decrease in pro-abortion support.

From 2024 to 2025, the percent of people who say abortion should be legal in most or all cases fell slightly, by two points, according to the recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute.

The institute surveyed more than 21,000 adults between February and December 2025.

According to the poll, 6 in 10 Americans said abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

The poll also found that Americans who attend religious services with some frequency are more likely to oppose abortion. Of Americans who attend services weekly or more, only 32% supported abortion. Of those who rarely or never attend religious services, 76% supported abortion.

Since 2010, there has been an overall upward trend toward supporting abortion. For instance, the percent of Americans who say abortion should always be illegal has dropped from 15% in 2010 to 8% in 2025, according to the institute’s poll.

CVS denies ‘partnership’ with New York Planned Parenthood

CVS is denying a strategic partnership with Planned Parenthood of Greater New York after the abortion provider referenced a partnership between the two organizations.

Planned Parenthood of Greater New York said it had a “strategic partnership” with CVS for abortion pill access, language that has since been removed from the abortion provider’s website.

CVS said it does not have a formal partnership with Planned Parenthood, though it does fill prescriptions for chemical abortions.

“We don’t have a partnership with Planned Parenthood,” CVS said in a statement to EWTN News. “As we do for all physicians, we dispense medicines as prescribed and consistent with the law.”

Wyoming judge blocks heartbeat law

A judge in Wyoming blocked a “heartbeat” law that protects unborn children throughout most of pregnancy, beginning when their heartbeats are detectable.

In January the state Supreme Court struck down protections for unborn children, finding the laws violated the state constitution.

Natrona County District Judge Dan Forgey granted a temporary restraining order against the law, saying the law would likely be struck down for similar reasons.

Wyoming — the least populated state in the United States with just under 600,000 residents — has one abortion clinic.

Four states have heartbeat laws to protect unborn children when cardiac activity can be detected, usually at about six weeks’ gestation.

Of these reports, 73 were linked to accounts held at the Institute for the Works of Religion — known as the Vatican Bank — four originated from various entities of the Holy See and the Vatican City State, while one pertained to another unspecified organization.

The annual report, presented April 30, underscores, according to the Vatican, “the robustness” of its own oversight system regarding “the prevention of and fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.”

According to the report, there has also been “a strengthening” of relations with counterpart agencies and key international bodies, as part of its commitment to international standards in the field of financial oversight.

In 2024, the Vatican’s financial watchdog received 79 reports of suspicious activity, representing a 36% decrease compared with 2023, when 123 cases were identified.

Compared with the previous year, the report notes a lower incidence of communications related to the use of cash, a phenomenon that, according to the official statement, would be linked to a reduction in financial flows passing through Vatican City State. In 2024, these flows totaled 27,866,033 euros ($32.6 million), whereas last year the figure was 18,770,783 euros ($22 million).

This trend is also reflected in the statistics regarding declarations of cross-border cash transport.

The report also indicates that a financial transaction valued at approximately 522,000 euros ($611,883) was suspended as a preventive measure in light of potential illegality, although the report does not specify the date or the intended purpose of said amount.

Despite this, the qualitative level of the communications received by the ASIF remains stable, as evidenced by both the volume of exchanges with other authorities and the preventive measures adopted. Financial intelligence continues to be a key element in the conduct of subsequent investigative activities.

Throughout 2025, the ASIF sent 16 reports to the Office of the Promoter of Justice, the body that exercises prosecutorial functions, a figure slightly higher than that of the previous year, when 11 cases were referred.

Internally, the report specifically highlights the strengthening of collaboration between the authorities of the Holy See and those of Vatican City State.

The flow of communications with key domestic counterparts saw a notable increase compared with the previous year, with a 65% rise in incoming communications and a 31% rise in outgoing ones — a figure that, according to the document, reflects an increasingly integrated and cohesive system.

Likewise, international cooperation activities have been strengthened, with the participation of the Holy See in Moneyval, the Council of Europe body tasked with assessing systems for the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, among other forums.

The report concludes by highlighting the close and constant cooperation with the Vatican Gendarmerie Corps, which has established itself as a central interlocutor in the work carried out by ASIF.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

Introduced by Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Florida, along with Pro-Life Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Bob Onder, R-Missouri, on April 30, the Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act of 2026 would prohibit dilation and evacuation (D&E) abortion procedures in the United States.

The bill protects women from being prosecuted, as only abortionists would be prosecuted under the act and not women who have abortions. Abortionists who knowingly perform these abortions would face fines and/or imprisonment for up to two years, according to the legislation. Women who experienced trauma from these abortions would also have legal recourse to seek damages.

The 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is the only federal law that prohibits a specific abortion procedure, leaving every other procedure unregulated. Lawmakers introduced similar legislation to ban dismemberment abortion in 2023.

Cammack, who is also mother to a newborn, described dismemberment abortion as “inhuman.”

“Under our current system, abortion procedures exist in a legal gray area with no federal standards and no accountability,” Cammack said. “Providers can perform inhumane extraction methods and face zero consequences. That ends now.”

Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, who is introducing companion legislation in the Senate, described dismemberment abortions as “among the most brutal methods of abortion, accounting for around 80% of second-trimester abortions.”

“Our legislation would make performing a dismemberment abortion a criminal offense, with the doctor or healthcare provider who performs it liable to fines and up to two years in prison,” Rounds stated.

Supporters of the bill point out that unborn children in the second trimester can often feel pain.

“The fact that this horrifying procedure is still being done to children who can feel pain in the womb is why we need to enact the Dismemberment Abortion Ban Act,” said Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Mississippi, who introduced the companion legislation with Rounds.

Studies vary on exactly when unborn children can feel pain. There is some evidence suggesting they can feel pain as early as 12 weeks’ gestation, before the second trimester even begins, while babies delivered preterm as early as 21 weeks’ gestation have been documented to react to pain.

Jennie Bradley Lichter, president of March for Life Action and a practicing Catholic, voiced her support for the bill.

“March for Life Action thanks Rep. Cammack for this important piece of legislation that would stop the barbaric practice of tearing preborn babies apart limb from limb — which is often performed at a point in pregnancy when babies have the capacity to feel pain,” Lichter stated.

Hon. Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, called the practice “barbaric,” noting that it “takes the lives of 60,000 to 70,000 developed babies every year.”

“Dismemberment abortions, the most common second trimester abortion method, ends the life of an unborn baby by tearing off her arms and legs, removing her torso, then crushing her tiny head,” Musgrave said.

Rep. Andy Harris, R-Maryland, co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus and a medical doctor who formerly worked at Johns Hopkins Hospital, said the practice “violates both medical ethics and human dignity.”

“As a physician, I believe the practice of medicine requires a commitment to protect and preserve human life, never to take it,” Harris said. “This legislation defends the sanctity of unborn life, holds providers who perform this procedure accountable, and recognizes rare medical emergencies in which a physician must intervene to save the life of the mother.”

Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Indiana, pointed out that the bill would “allow women to receive compensation for the harms done to them.”

“Medical providers that cause the slow, painful death of an unborn child ought to be held criminally responsible,” Stutzman said. “In addition, this bill allows women to seek damages for physical and psychological harm that often accompanies these horrific procedures.”

A 2026 peer-reviewed study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute documented the trauma that women often experience because of abortion. According to the study, nearly 25% of women who had abortions reported high levels of grief, depression, and regret; they also said they frequently thought of their aborted child.

Another recent study found that nearly 40% of women who suffer pregnancy loss from abortion or miscarriage experience persistent grief for about 20 years after.

Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus along with Harris, said the law “exposes the reality of abortion practices and protects unborn babies from the excruciating pain of being dismembered alive.”

“The truth is that unborn babies are society’s youngest patients: They deserve respect, love, and access to healing, life-affirming medical care and interventions,” he said.

During her tour of Mexico to promote the book, which was released in February, Tapia spoke on April 28 with ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, saying that the pro-life cause is a matter of “a commitment to civilization,” one that means opposing “any form of human extermination — be it abortion, the death penalty, or eugenics.”

She addressed a draft ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Mexico’s highest judicial body, which “seeks the decriminalization of abortion and, consequently, the permission to perform abortions throughout the entire nine months of gestation.”

The ruling concerns a 2024 constitutional challenge to a state law protecting life from conception in which the court states that “removing abortion from penal codes is fundamental to precluding criminal proceedings and eradicating social criminalization and that which occurs within healthcare services.”

Defending life: ‘A commitment to civilization’

Given the current legal and cultural juncture Mexico is facing, she explained, “we have [selected] the 20 best arguments from a nonreligious perspective to come to the defense of life and seek to dismantle, because they are either false or flawed, the 20 most popular excuses we always hear to promote the decriminalization of abortion.”

“Defending life is not something proprietary to Catholics,” she pointed out, although she highlighted that “Catholics have been doing so for 2,000 years, and doing it very well.”

“We human beings are the ones who create the state and governments in any era and in any country,” she emphasized; therefore, “we must radically oppose any branch of the government of a state arrogating to itself or assigning to itself the authority to decide which humans live and which humans die.”

The discussion regarding the draft ruling at the Mexican Supreme Court was scheduled for early January but has since been postponed indefinitely.

A legal expert, Tapia served as a distinguished professor of Roman law and civil law at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico and currently teaches electoral law in the master’s program in constitutional law at Pan-American University.

She has also advised the John Paul II Institute and Red Familia (Family Network), among others, on issues such as surrogacy, palliative care, abortion, advance directives, and conscientious objection. She is a member of the Interdisciplinary Family Studies Group at Pan-American University.

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Keys to the ‘cultural battle’

In the “cultural battle” to defend life, she stated, “it’s essential to correctly choose the terrain, to correctly choose one’s weapons.”

“If you defend life based on your religious position and you go before a court seeking to defend life using faith-based arguments, it is highly probable that you will fail; for constitutional or constitutional-procedural language entails certain requirements that are incompatible with the language you are employing, or want to employ,” she explained.

She even warned that “it is highly probable that you will be stigmatized and dismissed right from the start,” which is why it is important to avoid — to borrow a war analogy — ‘bringing horses to a naval battle.’"

“That is why this set of arguments serves a practical purpose,” she emphasized, for it “compiles the 20 best, truly splendid arguments for defending human life without any religious basis.”

“Every Life Matters: Bulletproof Arguments,” published by Ediciones MUAC, is now available for sale in Mexico in Spanish, and will be available for purchase through Amazon in the coming weeks. English and French versions are currently in the works.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

In a video released on X, the Holy Father asked the faithful: “What do you feel about 318 million people experiencing acute hunger every day?”

“We need to act, but without prayer we will remain powerless,” he said. “This May, I invite you to join me in prayer that we may seriously commit to avoiding food waste and to ensuring that everyone has access to quality food every day.”

In the full video shared on the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network website, Pope Leo recites an original prayer written specifically for this month’s prayer intention.

Here is the pope’s full prayer:

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Lord of creation,

You gave us the fertile earth and, with it, our daily bread,

as a sign of your love and providence.

Today we recognize with sorrow

that millions of brothers and sisters continue to suffer from hunger,

while so many goods are wasted at our tables.

Awaken in us a new awareness:

that we learn to thank for every food,

to consume simply,

to share with joy,

and to care for the fruits of the earth as a gift from you,

destined for all, not just a few.

Good Father,

make us capable of transforming the logic of selfish consumption

into a culture of solidarity.

May our communities promote concrete gestures:

awareness campaigns, food banks,

and a sober and responsible lifestyle.

You who sent us your beloved Son Jesus,

broken bread for the life of the world,

give us a new heart, hungry for justice and thirsty for fraternity.

May no one be excluded from the common table,

and may your Spirit teach us to see bread

not as an object of consumption,

but as a sign of communion and care.

Amen.

“Pray with the Pope” is accessible on the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network website and its digital platforms.

German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt is expected to come, too. The gathering is titled “All Life Is Meeting.”

A reconciliation Mass will be celebrated at the Brno Exhibition Centre as part of the gathering.

Ulrike Scharf, Bavarian state minister for family, labor, and social affairs, told EWTN News that the event “shows that we are reconciled, that we have become friends.”

Scharf, whose agenda includes Sudeten Germans in Bavaria, stressed that reconciliation is “the essence of Europe.” In this “wonderful” European community, “it is crucial that we meet in friendship,” the politician explained.

Yet the decision created a polemic in Czechia, with public figures weighing in and a series of protests, one of which was attended by the speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Tomio Okamura. Rather than reconciliation, they see the gathering as a provocation and relativization of history.

The critique came also from Miloš Zeman and Václav Klaus, who served as presidents as well as prime ministers of Czechia. “We have nothing to reconcile with the Germans,” Klaus said, clarifying that he does “not feel not reconciled” with them.

“We did not trigger two world wars” and “are not the cause of tens of millions of victims” of World War II, Klaus explained, arguing that as prime minister in 1997, he signed, together with German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the Czech-German Declaration on Mutual Relations and Their Future Development.

Wounds that remain

However, the bishop of Brno, Pavel Konzbul, welcomed “every initiative that leads to the meeting of people, to dialogue, and to overcoming historical injustices,” he underscored for EWTN News.

"Reconciliation between nations and individuals," the prelate continued, "does not happen by denying or simplifying the past but by "talking about it truthfully and with respect."

Thus, he sees “the presence of the descendants of the Sudeten Germans” in his diocese “primarily as an opportunity for such a meeting,” provided “it takes place in a spirit of respect, without mutual accusations or spreading false slander, and with openness to the other.”

The local bishop appealed to participants, residents, and critics to act with “calm, respect, and to a willingness to look for what can unite us.”

Only “such attitudes are the basis of true and lasting peace,” the bishop underlined.

When the new archbishop of Prague, Stanislav Přibyl, was the bishop of Litoměřice a few months ago, he proclaimed 2026 a Year of Reconciliation to address wounds that remain from World War II and its aftermath.

Nazi Germany annexed the Sudetenland, the majority-German region in Czechoslovakia, in 1938 and later established the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia in the country. Following Germanyʼs defeat, Czechoslovakia expelled approximately 3 million ethnic Germans.

Officers raided the area on the night of April 30 and detained the suspects, according to Tanvir Ahmed, deputy commissioner of the Dhaka Metropolitan Police. Ahmed said the men had prior robbery cases against them and that police were continuing to investigate.

“The Christian community was celebrating Easter Sunday a month ago and the robbers thought the father had extra money, so they committed this robbery,” Ahmed told EWTN News.

According to police, the men arrived at the church on a rickshaw; the driver kept watch outside while two others scaled the perimeter wall, cut through a grille, and entered the priestʼs bedroom.

The predawn assault

The arrests follow an attack at around 2:30 a.m. on April 28 on Father Subash Pulok Gomes, OMI, 51, an Oblate missionary who lives in the compound of De Mazenod Catholic Church in Baridhara, Dhakaʼs diplomatic enclave.

The intruders made off with cash, the priestʼs passport, and other documents, according to the police account. Gomes is currently undergoing treatment.

“They beat me and tortured me and tied me up and then fought with me, and my nose and face were injured,” Gomes said.

A day after the incident, the priest filed a general diary with police describing the assault.

“When I was crying, they covered my face with a cloth and beat me,” he said in his statement. “Two unidentified people beat me and took 250,000 [taka; $2,037] and other valuable papers including my passport that were kept in the cupboard in the room.”

According to the statement, one of the assailants called the other “Mizan” — a name commonly used among Muslim men in Bangladesh — and tried to calm the priest before the men left with the cash and documents.

Following the incident, the priests, in consultation with their superior and other Church authorities, filed only the general diary rather than pursuing a formal criminal case.

“For religious and spiritual reasons, I and the Church authorities will not file any case regarding the incident. I request that the incident be recorded in the general diary for future reference,” Gomes said.

A priest told EWTN News that Gomes is now undergoing mental trauma. A second robbery occurred at a Catholic residence on the same night, lay leaders and Church authorities said, expressing concern over the incidents.

A pattern of attacks

The De Mazenod Church has been targeted before. On May 4, 2022, police arrested a 26-year-old Muslim man, Mohammad Nahid Sheikh, for hurling bricks at the church and damaging an image of the Virgin Mary.

In April of that year, a young man attacked a Catholic church in Joypurhat in northern Bangladesh and destroyed statues of Jesus, Mary, and St. Teresa of Calcutta.

More recently, attackers detonated a homemade bomb outside St. Maryʼs Cathedral in Dhaka on Nov. 7, 2025; hours later, another device exploded inside the compound of St. Josephʼs Higher Secondary School and College in the Mohammadpur neighborhood. About a month earlier, on Oct. 8, 2025, a similar device was detonated at the gate of Holy Rosary Catholic Church, founded by Portuguese missionaries in 1677 and one of the oldest Catholic institutions in the country.

In 2001, 10 Catholics were killed and dozens injured in a bomb blast during a Sunday Mass in Gopalganj, in southern Bangladesh, but the incident is still being investigated.

Christians account for less than 0.5% of the population of Bangladesh, and religious minorities together make up around 8% of the more than 180 million people in the Muslim-majority South Asian nation.

Christian leaders demand investigation

Christian leaders are calling for justice. After the latest robbery, representatives of the Bangladesh Christian Association met with priests at De Mazenod Church and demanded a government investigation.

The associationʼs president, Nirmal Rozario, said the incident was very unfortunate and posed grave risks to religious life in the country.

“We condemn this incident and demand a fair investigation from the government into this incident and all the incidents that have happened to Christian minority communities in the past,” Rozario told EWTN News.

The New York-based law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates said in a press release on May 1 that the archdiocese had agreed with an abuse victims' committee to recommend a settlement of $800 million, which would be paid “into a trust for approximately 1,300 survivors who have brought sexual abuse claims” under the stateʼs Child Victims Act.

The proposal will still be subject to “full survivor agreement” before it can be finalized, the law firm said.

The firm said the amount, if confirmed, would be paid in two installments of $615 million and $185 million within 15 months.

The archdiocese, meanwhile, will be required “to maintain their list of credibly accused clergy on their website and continue to update it with any new, substantiated abuse claims.”

The agreement also would result in a “temporary stoppage” of litigation against the diocese regarding alleged abuse.

Attorney Jeff Anderson described the proposal as “a transcendent triumph of courage by the survivors who have endured so much for so long.”

“It is far from full accountability, but it is a measure of responsibility and required transparency by the archdiocese that also requires the release of documents pertaining to sexual offenders,” he said.

In a statement on May 1, meanwhile, New York Archbishop Ronald Hicks said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the proposal.

“It cannot be denied that this has been a painful process — most significantly so for the victim-survivors and their families and loved ones who have suffered, in most cases, for decades,” the prelate said.

“I pray that all of us, as the family of God, will come together to support and affirm these individuals and take these next steps to bring about some healing and peace,” he added.

The nearly $1 billion payout would be among the largest in U.S. Church history. In October 2024 the Archdiocese of Los Angeles agreed to a slightly larger $880 million settlement.

The New York proposal, meanwhile, is considerably larger than an earlier reported proposed settlement of $300 million the diocese was said to be considering in December 2025.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan said at the time that the archdiocese had made “a series of very difficult financial decisions” to help fund the settlement, including staff layoffs and a 10% reduction in the archdioceseʼs operating budget.

The New York Archdiocese also has been engaged in a bitter dispute with its longtime insurer Chubb over payouts to victims. In February of this year, the archdiocese accused Chubb of running a “shadow campaign” against it by posing as a victims' rights group.

The archdiocese in 2024 launched a lawsuit against Chubb, claiming the insurer was “attempting to evade their legal and moral contractual obligation” to pay out claims to abuse victims.

On May 1 lawyers for abuse victims said the proposed settlement also would allow victims “an opportunity to pursue recoveries from the Archdiocese of New Yorkʼs insurance companies.”

The Child Marriage Restraint Bill 2026, passed on April 27, sets 18 years as the minimum legal age of marriage for both boys and girls. Previously, the minimum age stood at 18 for males and 16 for females in Punjab, home to Pakistanʼs largest Christian community.

The House also adopted an amendment directing courts not to treat the mere statement or purported consent of a child to reside with or accompany an adult contracting party as determinative in custody, residence, or protective orders.

Agreement on child protection

Moved by Ijaz Masih, a Christian member of the Punjab Assembly and former provincial minister for human rights and minority affairs, and co-sponsored by 13 members across party lines, the amendment was described as a rare instance of consensus on child protection.

Church representatives linked the law to ongoing concerns over how consent is assessed in cases involving alleged forced conversion and marriage of minority girls.

“In Pakistanʼs forced conversion cases of Christian and Hindu families, the statement recorded before a magistrate is often crucial because it provides a girlʼs testimony under judicial oversight,” Masih told EWTN News, adding that proposals to annul such marriages remain under consideration.

The bill was passed amid renewed concern in Christian circles after the Federal Constitutional Court on March 25 upheld the marriage of a 13-year-old Christian girl, Maria Bibi, to a 30-year-old Muslim man.

Speaking at an April 30 Bible study session organized by the Ecumenical Commission for Human Development at St. Francis Catholic Church in Kamalpur village in the Faisalabad Diocese, Father Obaid Matthais, dean of studies at St. Thomas the Apostle Minor Seminary, questioned the effectiveness of the reform.

“How can the new law prevent forced conversion when the Muslim nikah [marriage] remains valid?” he said, warning that minority girls studying or working away from home remain at risk.

He added that such rulings “hang like a sword” over vulnerable Christian girls, particularly domestic workers and students in urban centers.

Christian leaders, including Archbishop Khalid Rehmat of Lahore, have also expressed concern that court decisions in such cases risk legitimizing disputed marriages involving minors allegedly abducted and forcibly converted, especially in the absence of updated personal laws governing Christian marriage and family life.

The proposed reform of the Christian Marriage Act of 1872 seeks to raise the minimum marriage age for Christian boys and girls to 18 and require both parties to be Christian for a marriage to be solemnized under the law, replacing current provisions that allow interfaith marriages.

Rehmat has announced the formation of a church committee to draft amendments following an ecumenical consultation held in Lahore on April 24–25.

Qamar Iqbal, assistant professor of political science, described the Child Marriage Restraint Bill as a “protective mechanism,” saying it could strengthen legal safeguards if implemented effectively.

In a joint statement issued on April 29, Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad, president of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops' Conference and chairperson of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), together with Father Bernard Emmanuel, NCJP national director, and Naeem Yousaf Gill, NCJP executive director, described the legislation as a “defining move” to safeguard childhood and uphold human dignity.

While welcoming the law, they stressed that legislation alone is not sufficient to end child marriage and called for strict enforcement. “Union councils, nikah registrars, and police must be held accountable, and courts must enforce the law without exception,” the statement said.

They urged institutions and families not to bypass the law under the guise of custom or tradition.

“The problem remains due to dual legal systems [constitutional and Sharia]. Judges are often influenced in cases involving minorities,” Gill told EWTN News, adding that equal and consistent implementation could turn the law into a “cornerstone for lasting change.”

Report findings

The NCJPʼs position aligns with findings from its April 11 report, “Captive Souls: The Untold Story of Pakistanʼs Minority Girls,” which documented multiple cases of alleged forced conversion and highlighted recurring issues such as social exclusion, abuse, financial exploitation, and weak legal documentation.

The report recommends a state-regulated conversion process overseen by magistrates, a ban on clerics and madrassas issuing independent conversion certificates, and strict enforcement of a minimum age of 18 for both marriage and religious conversion.

It notes that Pakistan currently has no legal minimum age for religious conversion, leaving a critical protection gap.

Matthais, however, remains skeptical about prospects for reform. “Itʼs tough. The majority will resist such changes,” he said, arguing that proposed safeguards for religious minorities often face ideological opposition.

Iqbal said work on regulating conversion practices must continue, though progress remains slow due to “sensitive majority sentiments” that require careful engagement and dialogue.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a press release that Father John Gomez was appointed bishop-designate of the Diocese of Laredo, Texas, upon the retirement of Bishop James Tamayo from the position.

Tamayo has served in that role for more than a quarter-century, having been appointed to the post in 2000 by Pope John Paul II. At 76, he has reached the customary age of retirement for bishops.

Gomez was born in Colombia on Dec. 15, 1975. He received a master of divinity degree from the University of St. Thomas in Houston and was ordained in the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, on May 23, 2009.

He has served at multiple parishes in Tyler and in multiple roles for the diocese itself, including as judicial vicar and on the diocesan review board. He also served as vicar general and moderator of the curia for the Tyler Diocese from 2015 to 2023 and again from 2025.

West Virginia diocese gets new bishop; 2 new auxiliary bishops for Washington

In West Virginia, Wheeling-Charleston Bishop Mark Brennan will retire to be replaced by Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala, who currently serves as an auxiliary bishop of Washington. Brennan, 79, is four years past the customary retirement age; he was installed at his present post in 2019.

Menjivar-Ayala, born Aug. 14, 1970, is a native of El Salvador; he is the first Salvadoran bishop in the history of the United States.

A graduate of St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami, he attended the Pontifical North American College in Rome before receiving a masterʼs degree in theology from the Angelicum. Ordained in the Archdiocese of Washington on May 29, 2004, he has served as parochial vicar and pastor at several parishes.

He was named vicar general of the archdiocese in 2023 and has served on the priest personnel board and the priest council. He was ordained as an auxiliary bishop there on Feb. 21, 2023.

With Menjivar-Ayalaʼs departure from Washington, meanwhile — and as archdiocesan Auxiliary Bishop Roy Campbell Jr. retires — the archdiocese will receive two new auxiliary bishops: Father Gary Studniewski and Father Robert Boxie III.

Bishop-designate Studniewski is presently a priest of the archdiocese, where he serves as pastor at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in the District of Columbia. He was ordained on June 24, 1995, in the archdiocese and served as a military chaplain for nearly a decade.

Bishop-designate Boxie is also a priest in the diocese, currently serving as a chaplain at Howard University. He received engineering and law degrees from Vanderbilt University and Harvard, respectively, before studying at the pontifical universities in Rome. He was ordained on June 25, 2016.

He served at several Maryland parishes before his appointment at Howard and has also taught at the archdiocesan permanent diaconate program.

At a press conference in Washington on May 1, Studniewski said he “fell in love with” the local Church in D.C. when he was first stationed there in the U.S. Army prior to his ordination.

“I was blessed to encounter the diversity of the Church in Washington,” he said, describing the community as  “tremendous” and “exciting.”

Also at the press conference, Boxie — who was at times visibly emotional — described himself as “both overwhelmed and deeply humbled” to be appointed to the post.

“Godʼs plans are not always our plans,” he said, describing the popeʼs decision as “unexpected.” He praised the archdiocese for its “vibrancy,” “diversity” and “vitality.”

Speaking directly to the students he has served at Howard, meanwhile, he told them: “You made your chaplain a bishop, and Holy Mother Church thanks you.”

This story was updated at 12:20 p.m. ET on May 1, 2026, with details from a press conference in the Archdiocese of Washington.