The mother, identified in court papers as Jane Doe, wanted her son, C.F., to start at Waverly School in Eastchester this month and is seeking a religious exemption to required vaccines. New York dropped religious exemptions from school vaccine rules in 2019 after a measles outbreak, however, though medical exemptions remain.

Doe had asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction so C.F. could start school as the fight continues in court.

Two other courts had already denied her request for a temporary injunction. A federal judge in New York and then a three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit panel turned her down. The application was then presented to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the circuit justice for the 2nd Circuit, who referred it to the full Supreme Court, which denied it. Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted it.

The unsigned order does not address the case’s merits, and Doe’s underlying appeal remains pending in the 2nd Circuit.

State officials have said a religious carve-out would undercut efforts to keep disease from spreading among children, pointing to an earlier appeals court ruling that left the vaccine law in place.

Doe, who is Catholic, says the state policy puts her faith and her child’s schooling at odds. In an April statement she gave the school, she wrote that her beliefs now “require me to categorically refuse vaccination for myself and for my children.”

Referring to the abortions from which fetal cells were taken to produce the original vaccines, she said: “The taking of an innocent human life is a grave sin. My Catholic beliefs have always held this.” She said that for her and her son, vaccination would be “a genuine, serious sin.”

“I will not do it,” she stated.

She also expressed serious reservations about other aspects of vaccine development: “Defiling the blood by mixing it with the blood of animals, with the remains of aborted human beings, or with foreign biological material, violates God’s Word,” she said, according to her statement of religious beliefs filed in the case. “Vaccination injects biological material derived from unclean sources directly into the bloodstream. My faith forbids this.”

Church teaching on conscience and vaccination

While the Church does not teach that the use of biological materials from nonhuman animals is categorically wrong, it absolutely condemns abortion and the use of tissue from aborted fetuses used to create the original cell lines. It teaches that a parent may receive or give a child a vaccine developed with those cell lines when there is no alternative and there is a serious health reason. The vaccine recipient’s participation in the evil act of abortion, the Church teaches, is “remote,” and therefore permitted.

However, in the 2008 instruction Dignitas Personae, the Church said that Catholics utilizing vaccines have “a duty” to let drugmakers and their healthcare providers know they oppose the way the vaccines were developed and demand vaccines created without the use of aborted fetal cells.

A 2020 note from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith says vaccination “is not, as a rule, a moral obligation and that, therefore, it must be voluntary.” Those who refuse for reasons of conscience, it adds, should take other steps so they do not spread disease.

New York law has a provision that children unvaccinated for medical reasons must stay at home during outbreaks, and Doe agreed to abide by that if granted an exemption.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a person must not be forced to act against a conscience formed well through Scripture, reason, and Church teaching, even when others would make a different choice. Forcing one to act against his or her conscience could be a sin against charity, which calls for others to respect the consciences of others.

The catechism also teaches that “[m]an has the right to act in conscience and in freedom so as personally to make moral decisions. ‘He must not be forced to act contrary to his conscience. Nor must he be prevented from acting according to his conscience.’”

In a legal filing to the Supreme Court, the USCCB and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) argued that stronger due process protections would help uphold the human dignity of noncitizens and safeguard the common good, based on Catholic teaching.

The bishops sent the petition in relation to the ongoing case Genalo v. Keisy G.M., in which a U.S. permanent resident from the Dominican Republic argues that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process.

Keisy G.M., whose full name is not public, was detained for 21 months. Although he did appear before a judge, he did not receive a bond hearing to determine whether he could be released on bond.

In spite of his permanent residency status, he faced deportation proceedings after he was convicted of felonious assault. He was later pardoned by the State of New York, ending the threat of deportation.

Dignity of the human person

In their legal brief, the bishops argued that due process protections are consistent with the law, American tradition, and Catholic teaching, saying “executive detention has never been wholly insulated from judicial scrutiny,” adding that “this accords with Catholic social teaching, which recognizes both the legitimate authority of the state and the dignity of the individual.”

“Indefinite confinement without individualized review by a neutral tribunal is anathema to our constitutional system and the ordered liberty it enshrines,” the bishops said. “The consequences of abandoning that system are severe and concrete.”

“Prolonged detention can cost people their jobs, homes, health, and the ability to participate meaningfully in their own legal proceedings,” they said. “It can separate parents from children, destabilize entire families, and inflict harms that cannot be undone by eventual release. Although such detention may at times be necessary to further important state interests, such as ensuring public safety, it must be subject to justification before a neutral tribunal.”

In the court filing, they cited Pope John XXIII’s 1963 encyclical Pacem in Terris, which teaches that “the common good is best safeguarded when personal rights and duties are guaranteed.”

Quoting from the document, they said authorities must “ensure that these rights are recognized, respected, co-ordinated, defended and promoted, and that each individual is enabled to perform his duties more easily” because “safeguard[ing] the inviolable rights of the human person” and “facilitat[ing] the performance of his duties” is “the principal duty of every public authority.”

The bishops also quoted Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See’s secretary for relations with states, from his statement during the general debate at the opening of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly’s high‑level week.

In his statement, Gallagher said the “principles of equality before the law, accountability, the equitable application of the law, the separation of [four] powers, legal certainty, due process, the prevention of arbitrariness, as well as transparency in both procedural and legal matters, must always be observed.”

“Those principles,” the bishops continued, “are effectuated by procedures that require the government to justify significant deprivations of liberty based on individualized circumstances rather than categorical assumptions.”

Oral arguments for the case are scheduled for Oct. 13. Keisy G.M. is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other civil liberties organizations.

The case before the high court, Viramontes v. Cook County, concerns a regulation enacted by Cook County, Illinois, banning more than 100 types of semiautomatic weapons, including the popular AR-15 platform.

Two plaintiffs, Cutberto Viramontes and Christopher Khaya, sued to dispute the regulations under the Second and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit argues that the Supreme Court should rule on the case “to guarantee fundamental Second Amendment rights and to address the confusion in the lower courts” regarding Supreme Court precedent.

In their amicus brief regarding the legal dispute, the U.S. bishops urge the court to “[preserve] the traditional authority of political communities to regulate weapons.”

The “autonomy of local authority” is a significant part of “America’s historical tradition of federalism,” the bishops write, comparing it to the long-standing Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which holds that the authority closest to a local need is best suited to tackle the issue.

The principle of federalism does not allow for the wholesale redefinition of the Second Amendment, the bishops write. But, they argue, a “uniform constitutional standard need not require uniform firearm policy.”

Guns have historically been regulated differently throughout the U.S. depending on the locality, the bishops say, and the U.S. Constitution “does not require every community to exercise … its authority to regulate weapons identically.”

The prelates further argue that modern advances in weaponry mean firearms like AR-15s are “fundamentally dissimilar” from the standards of the 18th century; such weapons are “dangerous and unusual,” the bishops suggest, and are thus open to reasonable regulation.

Though the issue was brought to trial due to the local regulation, the ultimate question before the Supreme Court is whether the Second Amendment “guarantee[s] the right to possess [the] AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles.”

In the past 20 years the Supreme Court has significantly affirmed Second Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, including in the landmark 2008 case District of Columbia v. Heller, which upheld the right to own a firearm unconnected with service in a state militia.

Those rights were broadly expanded in subsequent Supreme Court rulings such as 2010’s McDonald v. Chicago and the 2022 decision NYSRPA v. Bruen. The latter decision upheld a constitutional right to carry firearms for self-defense.

In the 2024 decision United States v. Rahimi, on the other hand, the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment does allow for individuals to be disarmed if they have been found to pose a credible threat to the physical safety of someone else.

Diocesan officials learned in June that Father Alex Vargas was the subject of several “serious allegations,” Bishop Manuel de Jesús Rodríguez said in a Sept. 5 letter to the diocese.

The diocese reported the allegations to law enforcement, Rodríguez said, after which it launched its own independent investigation headed by an investigating agency.

That investigation was ultimately presented to the diocese’s adult allegation board; Rodríguez noted that there were no credible allegations leveled against Vargas regarding the abuse of minors.

The diocesan board determined it credible that Vargas had committed sexual misconduct, “financial malfeasance,” abuse of power, and several violations of the diocesan code of conduct.

Vargas has been deemed unsuitable for ministry “for the time being,” the bishop said; his ministerial faculties “shall continue to be withdrawn,” he noted.

The priest “remains innocent until proven guilty,” the prelate continued, adding that Vargas will be allowed to participate in a judicial process at a future date.

Another priest has been designated the administrator of St. Thomas More Parish where Vargas previously served, Rodriguez said, while members of the Diocesan Healing Intervention Team had already been sent to the parish “to offer support, answer questions, and provide a compassionate space for conversation and healing.”

Vargas had been installed as pastor of St. Thomas More Parish in July 2025. He had previously served as a parochial administrator and parochial vicar there.

Coakley, who serves as the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), wrote the letter due to his “deep pastoral concern in relation to the growing number of Haitians being forcibly repatriated to Haiti from the United States.”

The archbishop detailed the violence in Haiti, including a fatal attack that took place in the nationʼs capital of Port-au-Prince in August.

“Recently, at least 47 people were brutally murdered, more than 20 injured, and over 50 kidnapped in an unconscionable act of violence perpetrated by gang members in Port-au-Prince,” Coakley said.

“Perhaps worst of all, the victims were displaced families—young children among them—taking shelter at a church,” Coakley said.

Due to the attacks, and following the end of temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians living in the United States, Coakley urged Trump to exercise his authority under the Constitution to delay deportations for Haitians living and working in the United States.

“I very much wish this recent and tragic example of human life being extinguished, virtually with impunity, was an irregularity in Haiti. Unfortunately, it is not,” Coakley said.

“I implore you to avoid further endangering innocent human life by ceasing the deportation of large numbers of people to Haiti at this time, particularly while there is not an adequate system in place to provide for their safe and orderly reception and reintegration,” he said.

The archbishop echoed the words of Pope Leo XIV following the attacks.

Speaking to the press in Castel Gandolfo on Aug. 30, Pope Leo said: “I express my spiritual closeness to the victims and their families and call for the immediate release of all hostages.”

“I make a heartfelt appeal to all those in positions of authority to take concrete steps in order to ensure the safety of the population and put an end to all forms of violence,” the Holy Father added.

Call for ‘reform of our nation’s immigration laws’

“As citizens of this great country, we have been entrusted with a tremendous moral responsibility, and this is true most of all for you as our head of state, Mr. President,” Coakley said.

“To this end, I respectfully ask: What good is the immense wealth, prosperity, and influence with which we have been blessed as a nation if not used in service of our humanity?”

To this end, I respectfully ask: What good is the immense wealth, prosperity, and influence with which we have been blessed as a nation if not used in service of our humanity?”

Archbishop Paul Coakley

President, USCCB

While calling for a solution for Haitian nationals, Coakley said he understands “the importance of regulating immigration and enforcing federal immigration law.”

“I also acknowledge that the troubles in Haiti long precede your time in office, in addition to being complex and multifaceted,” he said.

The archbishop clarified that the call for ceased departures is for “Haitians peacefully residing in the United States,” and “individual Haitians could still be disqualified from this relief on a case-by-case basis, preserving your Administration’s ability to advance justice and public safety.”

“Beyond this short-term relief, you can be assured of the U.S. bishops’ abiding support and prayers for the long-overdue reform of our nation’s immigration laws,” Coakley said.

The U.S. bishops “pledge to continue working with your Administration and Congress to achieve this for the benefit of our country and all Americans,” Coakley said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The proposal is set out in “One Tilma, One Heart: Walking with Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Footsteps of Saint Juan Diego” and is part of the Intercontinental Guadalupe Novena’s 2025–2028 strategic plan, which aims at “a profound spiritual renewal and unity under the protection of Our Lady of Guadalupe.”

Bishops from Mexico, the U.S., and Canada each carried home tilma replicas after their historic meeting last week at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, vice president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB); Bishop Oscar Cantú of San José, California; Bishop Eugenio Lira Rugarcía of Matamoros, Mexico; and Bishop Pierre Goudreault of Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, Canada, president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, attended the meeting.

Under the plan, each diocese in the U.S. will receive a tilma for enthronement in its cathedral followed by two years of missionary activity including pilgrimages, service, and catechesis as the image travels to parishes beginning in 2027.

The original tilma, the cactus-fiber cloak on which Mary’s image miraculously appeared on Tepeyac Hill in Mexico in 1531, remains at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

The replicated images are printed on cloth similar to the original, and those touched to the original tilma will be treated as third-class relics.

The pastoral plan presents the tilma not only as an object of devotion but also as a “living catechetical witness” meant to make Catholics messengers of hope like St. Juan Diego.

Bishop Robert Brennan of Brooklyn, New York, said at the bishops’ June plenary that a tilma for each diocese could be ordered at a low cost and that images would be presented to ordinaries in Baltimore in November for veneration in cathedrals or other sites designated by the local bishop.

After enthronement, the image is to travel through parishes and what organizers call “contemporary Tepeyacs,” or places marked by suffering, exclusion, migration, and violence. Local missionaries known as Juandieguitos will accompany the image, listen to community concerns, and help establish “sacred little houses” as sites of welcome, reconciliation, and Guadalupan formation, according to the pastoral plan.

A bilingual Order of Enthronement of the Image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, originally prepared by the Mexican bishops’ liturgy commission, was also posted by the USCCB. The rite envisions a solemn diocesan Mass with procession, a prayer of consecration, and a blessing of the community “under the mantle of Mary.”

The bishops noted that the effort is in preparation both for the 2031 anniversary of Mary’s apparitions at Tepeyac and for the Great Jubilee of 2033, the Church’s planned extraordinary Holy Year of Redemption, marking 2,000 years since Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection.

Citing Pope Francis’ Dec. 12, 2022, homily at the beginning of the Guadalupan novena, hoped-for fruits of the effort include the “renewal of a Christocentric faith through Marian mediation,” reconciliation of polarized communities, strengthening of Hispanic cultural identity, and a network of Marian shrines as “privileged spaces for the rebirth of hope.”

Francis said in his 2022 homily on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe that “although this horizon seems bleak and disconcerting ... this too is a propitious time of salvation, in which the Lord, through the Virgin Mother, continues to give us his Son.”

A suggested timeline has dioceses naming Guadalupan ambassadors in late 2026, initial formation in January 2027, and diocesan enthronements from February through December 2027, with pastoral follow-up continuing through 2031.

Grow the Kingdom gym opened in 2025 in the former Augustine Institute building in Greenwood Village, Colorado. Founded by Jayce Rastrelli and Hayden Dalton, the gym aims to integrate faith and fitness, teach the importance of taking care of the body as a way to serve God and family, and equip individuals to be servants of God.

Rastrelli and Dalton, who are best friends, felt inspired to open the gym after experiences they had working out at a secular gym, where they were surrounded by music, conversations, and attire that they considered immodest and inappropriate.

“I realized I had been lifting in an environment that just wasnʼt beneficial to my faith,” Rastrelli told EWTN News in an interview. “It was like a battle ground.”

Each had a background in personal training and sports. After prayer and discernment, the two friends decided to open Grow the Kingdom as a “safe space to glorify God,” where individuals “get to lift with the right purpose and know that you couldnʼt do without God.”

The gym serves people of all ages and demographics — from preteens to older adults — and even local parish priests.

Rastrelli said the gym’s members all have the “understanding that God needs to be at the center of everything that you do.”

The gym incorporates faith into fitness in other tangible ways.

“The first thing you see is going to be Our Lord giving his body for us on the cross. And then youʼre going to get to come in here and work on your body for God,” Rastrelli said.

Across from the crucifix is a large whiteboard covered with people’s names. This is the gym’s prayer intentions board, where members are encouraged to write the names of individuals they’re offering their workouts for and are keeping in prayer.

“Having that [intentions board] up there is, I would argue, the best way to automatically take yourself out of it. Youʼre now doing it for someone else. Youʼre building someone else up,” Rastrelli explained. “Youʼre allowing God to take your workout and transform it into a prayer and send it back to someone in the form of grace. So, no more ego lifting. Youʼre not doing this for yourself. Youʼre doing it for the names on the board. Youʼre doing it for the person you put up there.”

The gym also enforces a modest dress code and plays “clean and appropriate” music.

A common obstacle many face when working out, according to Rastrelli, is falling into vanity and focusing too much on one’s ego. Rastrelli said he has seen this too and admitted that he has also struggled with it in his own fitness journey.

He said he uses Scripture to explain that people’s bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit and gifts from God, and that they work out to build those bodies and use them to their fullest potential.

With that in mind, Rastrelli said there are “going to be great bonuses that are going to come along with that,” and even if “aesthetic appearance” is part of those benefits, he suggested people ask themselves truthfully why they are training: “Is it just for that ego, that vanity? ‘I want to look big. I want to have this appearance.’ What are you going to use that for?”

While Rastrelli said he believes there’s nothing wrong with working out a specific muscle group, for example, but the danger “comes down to your intent.”

“Itʼs OK to want to look good for your spouse … but if your intent becomes too inwardly focused, thatʼs where the danger really comes,” he said. “‘I want to look good for my spouse.’ Thatʼs a beautiful thing. Know that itʼs from God that youʼre able to do that. Praise God that youʼre able to do that, that you have a body that is capable of pursuing difficult things.”

Rastrelli emphasized that the key is “refocusing people[’s minds] into ‘Your body is built to serve God.’”

He pointed out how this mindset can be beneficial in various aspects of a person’s life.

“To have results in the gym, to actually better your body, is going to take consistent work,” he explained. “When you’re not feeling it, you have to show up. You have to stay disciplined. So you start building on these routines and habits and they start forming into these great virtues.”

Rastrelli also noted how an understanding of delayed gratification is also developed through working out. “I think thatʼs a huge one for us in our current culture. Everyone wants something immediately — myself included. In the gym, thereʼs no immediate; itʼs consistently built,” he said.

“Itʼs the same thing when weʼre walking with God. We want that immediate fix. ‘Lord, just take this sin away from me right now. I donʼt want it anymore.’ Thatʼs not how itʼs going to work. You face that battle over and over, consistently, for you to build up those tools with God to then be able to deny it, say no to it, have that self-mastery. So I think the correlation is just so strong and it can be so evident that youʼre proving with Godʼs grace that you can do difficult things.”

Beyond the weight room

As the gym approaches its one-year anniversary, new programs are being planned to foster more growth among the community. Currently, the gym offers basic, open access as well as group training classes, which are split into an adults’ class and a class for 11- to 21-year-olds.

Soon, Rastrelli said, he will roll out eight different training programs he created, which members can access on an app. It will lead them through each exercise with a video demonstration as well as include numbers of sets and repetitions. In addition, Rastrelli will offer individualized programs created for members’ specific needs.

Grow the Kingdom will soon offer a mentorship program for 11- to 21-year-olds that will focus on “vice versus virtue training,” Rastrelli explained. The program will include a course that takes them through the four cardinal virtues as well as monthly Bible studies, virtue talks, Q&A sessions, saint studies, live seminars, and a 24/7 live community in their age group. The program will be offered to young men first until a female coach is hired.

The idea behind it is to “build this community — letʼs get them into the gym. Letʼs get this well-rounded mind, body, and soul all together and have them understand youʼre not walking this alone. Weʼre actually walking with you,” Rastrelli said.

Rastrelli said he hopes the gym will help its members “get to know their worth in Godʼs eyes.”

“I just think thereʼs so much in our culture right now that is … infiltrated with a lot of false narratives,” he said. “Coming in here, I would hope that they get to see how much God loves them. He … gave his body for us, so can we not do the same?”

The docudrama was filmed on location in Spain, Colombia, and Cape Verde and uses interviews and dramatizations to present the life of Claver, who tirelessly ministered to the spiritual and physical needs of African slaves in Cartagena, Colombia, for 40 years.

The film will air on EWTN TV and EWTN+ on Sept. 9 at 9:30 p.m. ET and re-air on Sept. 12 at 8 p.m. ET. At this time, the program will not air on YouTube.

Who was St. Peter Claver?

Born on June 26, 1580, in Catalonia, Spain, Claver grew up in a devout Catholic farming family. He attended the University of Barcelona and at age 20 joined the Jesuits.

During his studies as a novice, Claver met an older lay Jesuit brother, Alphonsus Rodriguez. It was Rodriguez who encouraged Claver to become a missionary in the Spanish colonies in the Americas.

In 1610, Claver traveled from Spain to Cartagena, Colombia, where he was ordained a priest five years later.

At that time, the African slave trade had been in place for several decades in the Americas, and Cartagena was one of the busiest slave ports in the Spanish empire.

While there, Claver witnessed the cruelty with which the slaves were treated firsthand, despite Pope Paul III’s repeated condemnations of slavery. It is estimated that tens of thousands of enslaved Africans passed through Cartagena during Claver’s ministry.

Moved by their suffering, Claver worked to bring both bodily and spiritual aid to the slaves. Despite his own health problems and the language barrier, he dedicated himself to his vocation.

Claver would meet slave ships upon arrival in the harbor and board them to care for the poorly treated passengers on board who had made the journey from Africa in diseased and cramped conditions over the course of several months. He would tend to the sick — bringing food, water, and medicine — and treat wounds and illnesses. He would immediately baptize babies and those near death.

After a slave was sold, Claver would continue to visit the individual, providing physical and spiritual support.

When it came to catechesis, due to the language barrier, Claver used pictorial representations of the Gospel stories he was teaching.

Throughout his ministry, Claver lived on small amounts of food and sleep. His lifestyle led to several miraculous occurrences, including when he healed the sick with the touch of his cloak or appeared surrounded by a supernatural light during his hospital visits.

After suffering for several years from poor health, Claver died on Sept. 8, 1654. He had baptized and taught the faith to more than 300,000 slaves during his 40 years in Colombia.

He was beatified by Pius IX on July 16, 1850, and canonized along with his friend St. Alphonsus Rodriguez on Jan. 15, 1888, by Pope Leo XIII.

Claver is the patron saint of enslaved peoples, African missions, and interracial justice, and one of several patron saints of Colombia.

California law does not allow school districts to adopt policies that require teachers and school administrators to tell parents when their child identifies as transgender and wants to be treated as the opposite sex. The law does not forbid voluntary notification by a teacher.

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court halted enforcement of the state law, warning it cuts parents out of the conversation. The 6-3 decision did not offer a final ruling on the constitutionality of the law but found that it likely violates constitutionally protected rights to freedom of religion and to direct the upbringing of one’s children, and sent the case back down to the lower courts.

A lower court’s permanent injunction that blocks the law indefinitely is in effect, and the case is in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

The parents, represented by the Catholic nonprofit legal group The Thomas More Society, are getting support from 17 state attorneys general, five senators, and dozens of organizations that filed legal briefs with the appellate court in their defense.

Paul M. Jonna, special counsel for Thomas More Society, said in a statement that the legal briefs “all converge on the same point,” which is that the law will not survive “strict scrutiny,” which is the highest standard of review, required in cases when constitutional rights are at risk.

“Parents, not school bureaucrats, have the right to raise their children and to direct their religious upbringing,” Jonna said. “That means a school may not facilitate a childʼs gender transition without their knowledge and consent.”

Legal briefs backing parents

Five Republican senators signed on to a joint brief supporting the parents: Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas; Sen. Mike Lee of Utah; Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota; Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas; and Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana.

“America’s history and tradition affirm that parents bear the primary responsibility for their children’s upbringing and have ‘natural bonds of affection’ with their children leading them to act in their children’s best interests,” the senators wrote.

“The state must presume that parents are fit to direct their children’s upbringing and education,” they wrote. “It follows that parents are also in the best position to help their children with life’s struggles. That includes mental health struggles like gender dysphoria. When children engage with their school for help regarding their gender dysphoria, the school must tell the parents.”

Republican attorneys general from 17 states also filed a brief: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia.

In the brief, they stated their intent is “to ensure that parents retain their fundamental right to direct the upbringing of their minor children.”

“The need for parental involvement and oversight is only more pressing when the ideology pushed by the state confuses innocent and impressionable children experiencing ‘gender dysphoria,’” they wrote.

A large coalition of more than 70 nongovernmental organizations, which includes Catholic and other Christian organizations, signed a separate brief. The signatories include Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.; the Christian Law Association; and the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, along with Catholic former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

“Parents, whether religious or not, have the responsibility as well as the right to monitor the ideas to which their children are exposed and to protect them from those ideas likely to confuse and harm them,” the brief said.

“When officious school officials use their access to children absent parental supervision to instill in those children ideas to which the parents are likely to object, they subvert the trust upon which family strength, and child wellbeing, depend,” it adds.

Three legal scholars also filed a legal brief with the court: Professors Robert P. George, Melissa Moschella, and Eric A. DeGroff. George and Moschella are Catholic.

“Anglo-American law has long recognized that parents — not the state — are the primary decision-makers for their children’s medical care,” the brief said. “This reflects a considered judgment that parents are best positioned to know their children’s needs, weigh risks and benefits in light of family values, and act in their children’s interests.”

“Our legal tradition has never treated parental authority as absolute,” it added. “But the limits history has placed on that authority reflect two principles that, properly understood, reinforce rather than diminish the primacy of parental decision-making.”

The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which secured a religious liberty and parental rights victory at the Supreme Court in Mahmoud v. Taylor, also filed a brief in defense of the parents, as did a parent represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, who is fighting against a similar school policy in Wisconsin.

Catholic parishioners, regardless of documentation, are permitted to miss Sunday Mass if they “reasonably fear being detained, separated from their families, or experience intimidation due to the increased immigration enforcement,” according to the decree, showing how the archdiocese is accompanying migrants.

The dispensation took effect Sept. 4 and runs through Sept. 30 unless extended. With Indianapolis added, dioceses that have issued similar decrees encompass about 3.5 million Catholics, according to the Official Catholic Directory 2025.

During the pandemic in 2020, all Catholic dioceses and archdioceses issued Mass dispensations. Canon 1245 allows a diocesan bishop or pastor to grant a dispensation from Mass obligation “for a just cause.”

“The decision to grant the dispensation at this time came as a response to requests from our pastors who work closely with our immigrant communities,” Sally Krause, the archdiocese’s director of communications, told EWTN. “They are experiencing fear and uncertainty due to an increase in immigration enforcement in Indianapolis and the surrounding areas. By granting the dispensation, we wished to express the Churchʼs solidarity and care for those who are afraid to leave their homes.”

Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis said the dispensation and his statement came after what he described as a “recent surge in immigration enforcement activity in Indiana,” which he said “has caused fear and uncertainty for many families, particularly when detention results in the sudden separation of parents and children.”

Thompson encouraged the faithful who use the dispensation to supplement with prayer, reading the Sunday readings, praying the rosary, and watching livestreamed Mass.

“Pastors and all those who minister to the faithful within the Archdiocese of Indianapolis are encouraged to attend to the spiritual care of those who must make use of this dispensation to the best of their ability, especially regarding the Sacraments of Penance and Anointing of the Sick, or the distribution of Holy Communion to the homebound,” he said.

Thompson said the dispensation applies to immigrant parishioners fearing detention, adding: “This applies even to those with proper legal documentation.”

“While recognizing the need for law enforcement to protect and defend, it is gravely concerning to witness families being torn apart,” Thompson said in the statement. “The family, the fabric of stability in our society, must be cherished and defended. The inherent dignity of being created in the image of God demands that every person be treated with dignity, compassion, and respect.”

Krause said: “It is our practice that dispensations have a specific time frame delineated for which they have legal force. One month is a measured amount of time for such a decree, and we knew that we would discern the situation again in a monthʼs time.”

Dispensations across the U.S.

The dispensation in Indianapolis marks the seventh such dispensation granted in the U.S. for migrants fearing deportation by immigration enforcement officers since the start of the Trump administration.

The Archdiocese of New Orleans and the dioceses of Columbus, Baton Rouge, Charlotte, San Bernardino, and Nashville have granted dispensations.

Archbishop Jeffrey Grob of Milwaukee has said he would consider granting dispensation from Mass obligations to migrants fearing deportation, should the situation in his archdiocese require it. No dispensation has been announced in Milwaukee to date.

Bishops in other dioceses along the border, including the Diocese of El Paso, the Diocese of Brownsville, and the Diocese of Tucson, have not granted dispensations but issued strong statements of condemnation over mass detentions and deportations of migrants in their respective communities.

The current number of Catholic lawmakers on Capitol Hill is slightly higher than the previous Congress, with Catholics accounting for more than 28% of the members of the United States House of Representatives and Senate. Of the Catholic members, 126 serve in the House and 24 in the Senate, according to a report from the Pew Research Center.

In this special report, EWTN News Capitol Hill correspondent Erik Rosales spoke with various Catholic members of Congress about their faith and how they live it in their work.

Sen. Eric Schmitt

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, grew up a cradle Catholic and said his parents instilled in him the importance of having a personal relationship with Christ at a young age.

“I grew up in St. Louis, which is a very Catholic town and has been referred to as the Rome of the West because per capita, very Catholic,” Schmitt told Rosales.

A “conversation back home, it might very easily start … ‘What parish are you at? or ‘What parish did you grow up in?’” Schmitt said.

At 17, Schmitt went to a Jesuit retreat house that had a profound impact on him. Later, when his son was born with a rare genetic condition, Schmitt would often return to the Jesuits for prayer.

It “was a seed that was planted … when I was confronted with this really kind of difficult situation. I went back there, and it was a profound experience,” he said. “I go back every year. Itʼs a … weekend silent retreat. And that keeps me very rooted.”

When working busy days on the Hill, Schmitt said he looks to prayer.

“Iʼll listen to a podcast by Bishop [Robert] Barron or Father Michael Schmitz,” he said. “I think technology now too has allowed a different avenue for people to … maintain their faith and grow their faith.”

Even “if itʼs five or 10 minutes, it really does help me kind of start the day right,” Schmitt said.

Rep. John Rutherford

Rep. John Rutherford, R-Florida, also spoke about leaning on his faith when working in a hectic position, often by attending Mass and saying the rosary.

“In Ephesians 2:10, it says, ‘for we are all Godʼs workmanship, created in the image of Christ Jesus to do good work,’ which he prepared … in advance for us to do,’” Rutherford said. “So heʼs got work out there that heʼs prepared for me to do,” he continued.

While Rutherford’s Catholic faith is incorporated into his day-to-day life, he shared that was not always the case. He grew up in the United Methodist Church, but at about 14 years old, “fell away from the church,” he said.

After becoming a police officer in Jacksonville, Florida, Rutherford’s perspective on faith changed. Witnessing crimes made him question his own mortality.

“So I went back to the Bible, and I read the Bible literally cover to cover, not once but twice,” he said.

Rutherford returned to the Methodist Church, while his wife and kids attended Catholic Mass. After reading about the Methodist Churchʼs seven principles, he realized he didnʼt agree with them.

“It was a long process, but I finally read a book by Pope John Paul II, ‘Crossing the Threshold of Hope,’ and that explained where the authority of the Church is,” Rutherford said. “And how itʼs passed down through the papacy.”

After his research, and inspired by the true Church and presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, Rutherford entered the Catholic Church.

Rep. Mark Messmer

Rep. Mark Messmer, R-Indiana, said he has spent his life putting God, family, and community first.

It was during his time as a state legislator that a colleague invited Messmer and his wife to attend a Cursillo, a retreat focused on showing Christian laity how to become effective leaders and how to use the Gospel in daily life.

“It ignited a passion and a love for Christ, and a love for the Eucharist that I always said I wanted. And then it gives you the tools [for] your prayer life, study life, and evangelization, how to live that out on a daily basis,” he said.

Messmer said he stays grounded with daily Mass and his Friday morning prayer group. He and his family also all join together for a weekly group call to catch up and join for “spiritual reinforcement.”

Rep. Stephanie Bice

Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Oklahoma, converted to Catholicism in college after she started going to Mass with her now husband.

Bice served six years in the Oklahoma Senate and later ran for U.S. Congress. She joined a number of women who have been elected over the past two cycles.

“Not every woman believes that … you should be able to terminate pregnancies up to birth,” Bice said. “So you had a groundswell of women consider running for congressional seats and Senate seats,” she said.

While serving on Capitol Hill, Bice said she turns to prayer and the comfort of the Blessed Mother.

“I stumbled across a group of staffers that actually pray the rosary on fly-in days in the morning,” she explained. “I said, ‘Hey, can a member come?’ And they were delighted that I would even ask.”

One highlight of her congressional career was meeting Pope Francis at the Vatican. The invitation came from Rep. James Langevin, a fellow Catholic and Democrat from Rhode Island.

Pope Francis “looked at my husband and I after blessing us both, and he said: ‘Will you pray for me?’ And that was pretty profound,” Bice said.

Rep. Robert Onder

“Really, my Catholic faith has motivated me my whole life, my whole career, and really motivated in many ways the direction my life has taken,” Rep. Robert Onder, R-Missouri, said.

Onder said his faith was present in his work trying to pass a religious liberty bill in the Missouri Senate and through his fight to protect the conscience rights of physicians who are forced to perform abortions.

As a medical doctor, Onder detailed the present problem in some states and hospitals, which “want to force physicians to participate in abortions, participate in vitro fertilization or artificial contraception, and, of course, more recently, participate in euthanasia.”

Onder said his political service has been motivated by love of God, family, and country. He said he stays rooted in faith by attending daily Mass. He said he also enjoys talking with other lawmakers about their love for Christ.

“Speaker [Mike] Johnson is absolutely a brother in the Christian faith and a very, very strong believer,” Onder said. “It does give me a lot hope and a lot of encouragement to serve with other people who really take their faith seriously.”

Rep. Riley Moore

Rep. Riley Moore, R-West Virginia, said his Catholic faith is “is the most important thing” in his life.

“It forms me — every decision I make, everything that I do here on the Hill, it is central to my life. Iʼm always praying to be able to deepen my faith, be a strong family man, and then also my service.”

“So itʼs my faith, my family, my service to my state, my country. But faith comes first.”

“Canʼt always be easy to discern Godʼs will, particularly in a place that is more about individual will and not Godʼs will,” Moore said. “Iʼm trying to re-center myself towards that. Thatʼs that gravitational pull for me that Iʼm always trying to get back to.”

Moore started as a Hill staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, working under the late Rep. Henry Hyde, R-Illinois. One of his priorities is drawing attention to the persecution of Christians around the world, especially in Nigeria.

While in Nigeria, “I met a woman who had had all five of her children murdered, murdered by Islamic terrorists,” Moore said. “I met another woman who had her two daughters and husband killed right in front of her, and then they killed her unborn child.”

“As we know and weʼve heard many times, and itʼs so true that there is salvation through suffering. I think that … their suffering offers us salvation as well by doing something here,” he said.

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer

Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives Tom Emmer discussed how his faith was largely inspired by his family, including his father, who attended daily Mass.

“The example that they set is, I believe, why I am who I am,” said Emmer, R-Minnesota.

Emmer also detailed the trials of his faith, including the loss of his sister Bridget, who died of breast cancer at 38 years old.

Emmer said he was angry at the Lord and had doubts about Godʼs will because of his sisterʼs suffering. A conversation with Bridget during her chemotherapy treatment was a pivotal moment for him and his faith.

“She looked at me and she said, ‘Tom, would I love to live forever? Absolutely. But Iʼm not going to,’” he explained. His sister added: “I have lived a good life. If God comes and calls me today, so be it.”

Emmer said her words brought him away from his own anger with the Lord. Now his message to others is to put God first while living each moment to the fullest.

But are Catholics, and others, aware of these resources?

One Catholic leader considering such questions is Father Sinclair Oubre, a priest of the Diocese of Beaumont, Texas. He is the spiritual moderator of the Catholic Labor Network, a Catholic association that promotes Catholic teaching about work and labor unions. It also supports labor organizing.

“All work, no matter what the work is, is essential,” Oubre likes to say. In his view, if a woman in janitorial work at a major software company does not show up to clean the toilets and empty the trash, all production in the office will nosedive.

Centuries of Catholic teaching about labor can be found compiled in the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church, published in 2004 by the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace. It dedicates its entire sixth chapter to human work and labor, its place in God’s plan, its role in society, and the rights and duties of workers.

“The Compendium gathers together in one place those rights that are found in Catholic social teaching, whether it’s Rerum Novarum, or Quadragesimo Anno, or Centesimus Annus, and synthesizes them,” Oubre told EWTN News, referring to the respective encyclicals of popes Leo XIII, Pius XI, and John Paul II.

“It’s a beautiful reflection on human work in the world and a very mature and in-depth discussion of the place of work, the place of labor, and the communal nature of it,” Oubre said.

Labor, politics, and spirituality

Oubre said Catholic teaching is a challenge regardless of people’s political views.

“It’s a challenge to the right, but it’s also a challenge to the left,” he said. Catholicism encourages those on the political right not simply to pray novenas and commit themselves to spiritual actions. It is a challenge not to leave other questions about work and labor to the market.

For the political left, Catholic social teaching “means you have to enter into a more intimate relationship with your Church and your relationship with Jesus and not just be as a social justice person by throwing a couple of little quotes around. It requires you to enter into that deeper spiritual relationship.”

Oubre stressed the importance of starting from the view of Catholic spirituality, not only social justice, because if we don’t, our approach “becomes ideological and polemic.” The spiritual approach “brings us closer to Jesus Christ.”

“No matter how dirty, how uncomfortable, how awful the job is, we are participating in God’s ongoing creation. It’s important that we do that job in a way that gives glory to God,” Oubre said.

God and man at work

The Compendium’s reflection on work begins with its biblical aspects: There is a human duty to “cultivate and care for the earth” and other good things created by God, it says. Work existed before the fall of Adam and Eve, and it is not a punishment or curse until the break with God transforms it into “toil and pain.” However, God’s rest on the seventh day of creation is the sign of the “fuller freedom” of the “eternal Sabbath.”

The life of Jesus Christ is a mission of work, from his early life helping St. Joseph in the work of a carpenter to his ministry of preaching and healing, and most of all in his redemptive labors on the cross.

The Compendium presents human labor as a way of supporting oneself and one’s loved ones but also a way to serve those in need. Work is a way to make God’s creation more beautiful, since humankind shares in God’s art and wisdom.

“Human work, directed to charity as its final goal, becomes an occasion for contemplation, it becomes devout prayer, vigilantly rising towards and in anxious hope of the day that will not end,” the Compendium says.

The rights of labor

God’s rest on the seventh day of creation, the Compendium says, means men and women must enjoy “sufficient rest and free time that will allow them to tend to their family, cultural, social, and religious life.”

The Compendium outlines and explains the many rights of workers: the right to rest from work; the right to a working environment that is not harmful to a worker’s health or moral integrity; the right to unemployment protections; the right to a pension and insurance for old age, disability, and work-related accidents; the right to social security for working mothers; and the right to assemble and form associations; the right to just wages and remuneration; and the right to strike.

Labor unions play a “fundamental role” in serving the common good and promoting social order and solidarity, though they must not abuse their role in society or become simply arms of a political party.

“The recognition of workers’ rights has always been a difficult problem to resolve because this recognition takes place within complex historical and institutional processes, and still today it remains incomplete,” the Compendium says. “This makes the practice of authentic solidarity among workers more fitting and necessary than ever.”

A challenge for Catholics and institutions

Catholic teaching has a lengthy paper record. But as in other areas, there is a challenge to practice it.

“What I find over and over again that the Church — our Church — gives us wonderful documents of guidance… and we never go back and read them,” Oubre told EWTN News.

He cited the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 1996 pastoral letter “Economic Justice for All,” which says the Church should be a model for labor rights and treating workers justly.

However, Oubre said that in his experience Catholic parishes often neglect to provide unemployment insurance to employees if the law allows them to opt out. Catholic institutions often act as “at-will” employers in which management can fire employees for any reason. They may show preferences for nonunion labor over unionized labor when planning and funding construction projects.

“You’re going to undercut the guy who has actually followed the Church’s teachings in regards to work by hiring somebody who may be not offering medical insurance for his employees,” the priest lamented.

For Labor Day, Oubre encouraged parishes, dioceses, and other institutions to make sure to adopt policies that put Catholic labor teaching into practice.

This story was first published on Sept. 4, 2023, and has been updated.

The march comes amid an ongoing debate over abortion law in England, Scotland and Wales, with pro-life campaigners calling for greater restrictions on abortion and opposing legislation establishing buffer zones around abortion clinics and hospitals.

March For Life organizer Ben Thatcher told EWTN News: “Every single human life is made in the image and likeness of God. Abortion ends that life, and when abortion does end that life, we are looking at a great, great tragedy — something that affects not just that person, but that family and the society and culture we live in.”

Under current law, abortions can generally be carried out up to 24 weeks’ gestation, subject to certain legal conditions. Buffer zones around abortion clinics and hospitals, meanwhile, restrict certain activities intended to influence, obstruct or harass people accessing abortion services.

“I feel thereʼs an absolute travesty that a human life thatʼs made in the image of God can be ended and can be dressed up in this slogan of ‘abortion is healthcare’,” Thatcher said.

The march was attended by 15 Catholic bishops, who also celebrated Mass at Westminster Cathedral in the morning before joining the main group.

Southwark Auxiliary Bishop Paul Hendricks told EWTN News: “I support life in all its stages. We have to stand up for our values. We have our principles and we follow Jesus.”

Southwark Archbishop John Wilson told EWTN News: “Iʼm here because I believe in the beauty and the dignity of human life. … Weʼre united together in a beautiful, peaceful, joyful spirit, to say that human life matters, that every life matters, from conception to natural death.”

“And in a challenging culture, when so many people, in a sense, see life as something more disposable, you just want to stand up and be a voice for the voiceless,” he said.

Attendees sang Christian hymns including “He’s got the whole world in his hands” and the Salve Regina while marching through the sunny streets of London, carrying banners reading: “Abortion hurts the family,” “Abortion Bans Save Lives” and “I’ve joined the fightback.”

“Iʼve come here today to support life from conception to natural death, within a culture where that seems not to be valued now… I think itʼs important to stand up and say that the human dignity of every person is that theyʼre made in the image of God, no matter how small,” Military Bishop Paul Mason told EWTN News.

Father Paul Grogan told EWTN News that abortion is “the most fundamental human rights issue of our time.”

“And I think itʼs an important part of living out our Catholic faith that we should witness to our belief in the beauty of human life, from the moment of conception to the moments of its natural ending,” he said.

Hundreds also attended a pro-choice counter-protest, chanting slogans including “abortion is a human right,” “not the church, not the state, we decide our own fate,” “Christian fascists go away,” and “keep your rosaries off our ovaries.”

Tilly Middlehurst, a pro-choice activist and a Cambridge student who became widely known online after a confrontation with the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk, told EWTN News that she had “come to safeguard our rights as women.”

“I want to bring as many people here as possible to demonstrate that [pro-life activists] are a minority, and they donʼt belong here,” she said, referring to the thousands of activists marching in the streets.

Before the march, pro-life activist Ruth Price was met with anger from counter-protesters outside the Emmanuel Centre after trying to hand out pro-life leaflets to the pro-choice advocates.

Price told EWTN News: “I wanted to speak to people who are murdering young children. … I certainly meant no harm to them. I work with adults with very profound learning difficulties and they have lives that are worthwhile. They are precious in the sight of God, and I want people to know that we respect the life of the mother.”

Last year the London March For Life was also attended by approximately 10,000 people, according to organizers who confirmed the same numbers for this year.

This article was updated on Sept. 7, 2026, to reflect an updated estimate of participants at this year’s march.

The Court of Justice of the European Union is currently hearing a case brought by the Brussels Court of Appeal regarding whether the Catholic Church is violating Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation by refusing to erase names from baptismal records when requested.

In a Sept. 2 position paper opposing the deletion policy, the Commission of the Bishops' Conferences of the European Union disputed claims that a baptismal register functions as a “list of members” of the Catholic Church. A register, the bishops said, serves instead as a “record of historical events.”

“The purpose of a baptismal register is not to bear witness to the faith of individual persons, to the fact that someone is affiliated to the Church or to his/her involvement in Church life,” the bishops said.

Rather, such registers function as a “fundamental evidentiary instrument” for “numerous matters relating to the internal life of the Church,” including whether or not a person has married, made a profession in a religious institute or been confirmed.

It would be “impossible” to verify vital records if they are removed from the register, the bishops said.

Requiring the baptismal deletions, the prelates argued, would mandate that the Church “adapt to [a person’s] feelings or opinions” in how the Church itself views baptismal records. This would require a shift in “theological reflection,” they said, which is “protected by Church autonomy.”

The erasures could further “mislead” both Catholics and non-believers into being convinced that the sacrament of baptism is “repeatable and optional.”

Such a policy would “constitute an infringement on the substance of the sacrament and not merely of the manner in which it is administered or carried out,” the paper said, and it would “seriously impede the proper functioning of the Church.”

Alessandro Calcagno, a lawyer and assistant general secretary for the European bishops, said last year that the proceedings were “not an initiative against the Church by the European Union” but rather “a response to clarifications requested at the national level.”

The issue arose in 2023 after an individual in the Diocese of Ghent in Belgium asked for all of their data to be completely removed from the local Church register. The Ghent Diocese opposed that request.

The European court’s ruling is expected by the end of 2026 or sometime in 2027.

Gary Hermesch was declared incompetent to stand trial in Nemaha County Court on Sept. 3. Hermesch had been charged with first-degree murder in the April 3, 2025 shooting death of Father Arul Carasala in the small city of Seneca.

A spokesman with the state attorney general’s office confirmed the court ruling to EWTN News. The spokesman added that the court “ordered involuntary commitment proceedings [to] be initiated.”

The suspect was arrested the day after the shooting. He reportedly turned himself in to authorities and confessed to the crime.

TKansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann said in a Facebook post after the shooting that Carasala “was a devoted and zealous pastor” who “faithfully served our archdiocese for over 20 years.”

“His love for Christ and his Church was evident in how he ministered to his people with great generosity and care,” the archbishop said.

Carasala’s obituary described him as a “beloved priest” who was “grounded, compassionate, and deeply community-oriented.” He was born in Kilacheri, Tamil Nadu, India, and attended seminary in Cuddapah, Vizag and Eluru; he was ordained to the priesthood on March 4, 1994.

He came to the Kansas City Archdiocese in 2004, becoming “a cornerstone of the local Catholic community.” He eventually became a U.S. citizen in 2011.

He is survived by a sister and brother-in-law as well as a niece and nephew.

The new podcast is designed for families with children ranging in age from 7 to 12. Using both video and audio, families will be guided through the story of salvation in 365 daily episodes using readings from Ascension’s upcoming “The Great Adventure Catholic Bible for Beginners."

The new podcast will follow a similar format as the original “The Bible in a Year” podcast. Each episode will include a Scripture reading, age-appropriate reflections from Johnson, time for prayer, and answers to a variety of Bible questions from children.

Johnson, a priest from the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told EWTN News that the inspiration for the podcast came from those involved the first time around who realized that many of the original listeners of the podcast were now having kids and becoming parents.

Johnson has been working with Ascension for over 12 years. A year ago his bishop asked him to found the Blessed Stanley Rother House of Formation in the Baton Rouge Diocese. Johnson stepped away from his work with Ascension in order to focus on the seminary, his parish, and his parish school. He said when he was approached to take part in the new podcast, he “took it to Jesus.”

While discerning whether or not to take part in the project, Johnson thought of all the children he works with personally at his school and in the community as well as their parents and the many gifts the podcast could bring them.

“We live in the inner city here in Baton Rouge. We serve a very impoverished low-income neighborhood. And so we have a lot of stuff we do for the teens in my neighborhood, but I was like, what if I could put this podcast, ‘Bible in a Year,’ in the hands of their parents to do it with them at home and this could be the reason why the parents would start coming to the sacraments,” Johnson explained.

He added: “Every time we visit our neighbors who need help with their groceries, we feed them and we give them groceries and we help with their bills, I could always leave this podcast and that way as a family, many of them who arenʼt even Catholic or Christian yet … they could also be exposed to the word of God. So all these really beautiful things I thought could be a gift.”

After praying and discerning, and receiving the approval of his bishop, Johnson took the plunge. He said he immediately felt an immense amount of peace after saying “yes” and that recording the podcast has been “the most intimate thing for me and Jesus.”

He shared that he reads Scripture all day in order to make the commentaries for each episode. After he records an episode, it takes about 15 minutes to upload the episode, so he goes to Eucharistic adoration in the chapel he has below his recording studio.

“After 15 minutes of adoration, I come upstairs, record another episode, come back downstairs, adore Jesus, come back upstairs,” he said. “So itʼs like a rhythm, almost like a monk. I get to proclaim the word of God and then pray in adoration, proclaim the word of God and pray in adoration. So it has honestly been one of the greatest gifts in this season of my priesthood.”

Johnson explained that while the family edition of the podcast is very similar to the original, one of the main differences is the use of video. If families choose to watch each episode on YouTube, then children will be able to see cartoon images of the given story they’re reading from the Bible that day. However, families can also choose to simply listen to the audio version.

He also pointed out that while there are many opportunities for parents and children to have encounters with God through conferences or retreats separately, there are few opportunities for children and their parents to have these experiences together.

“We want to bring families together. We want families to have conversations about the word of God,” Johnson said. “Families watch movies together, they watch TV shows together, they read books together — we want them to read the greatest book together.”

Johnson emphasized the importance of instilling a love for Scripture in children because “the Bible is the voice of God and God wants to speak to kids … God wants his voice to be heard by all of us, including kids.”

“Imagine if they learn the language of the Lord, which is Scripture, then as they go to high school and college and theyʼre tempted with the different temptations, the enemy that vies for their attention all day along with his many lies and accusations, theyʼre going to know thatʼs not the voice of God,” he added.

As for his main hope for the podcast, Johnson said: “I hope that families fall in love with God.”

“Jesus is love. It’s what we were created for. So my deepest desire is that families together fall in love with the word of God and desire and begin to learn, to hunger, and yearn for Godʼs word more than they yearn and hunger for social media or for their cellphones or for these passing pleasures.”

The “The Bible in a Year: Family Edition” will be available on the Ascension YouTube channel and on all major podcast platforms.

It comes about two months before the midterm elections, which will decide control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. It does not instruct people how to vote, but does note principles of Catholic teaching that should be considered when making that decision.

Faithful citizenship, the guide explains, embraces “the fullness of the Church’s teachings and is a way of living the Gospel in attending to specific duties in the public square, which sit alongside a wide array of other duties.” It emphasizes that faith must come before politics.

The guide, titled “Outlines for Clergy Formation on Faithful Citizenship,” offers sample outlines for clergy formation sessions, which includes the options of a a 3-5 hour session and a concise 1-hour session.

It was developed following internal dialogue among bishops after some had requested a guide on the subject. It focuses on Catholic Social Teaching, how it applies to modern politics in the U.S. and how to help priests communicate those teachings to their congregations.

“We are supposed to be agents of transformation of society according to the principles of the Gospel and the profound dignity and the life of every human person,” Archbishop Alexander Sample of the Archdiocese of Portland said in a video message that the USCCB provided to dioceses to accompany the guide.

“The church and the laity,” he said, “we need to have a seat at the table to help form a society where every individualʼs dignity is recognized and everybodyʼs right to life is recognized.”

The document includes five guiding principles of Catholic Social Teaching, which derive from Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas.

First, it points to the common good, noting the obligation for every person “to act in a manner that serves the whole of society” and be “a neighbor to all.” It cites the Second Vatican Council’s definition of the term: “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.”

Second, it points to the Universal Destination of Goods. It notes that God “created the world and entrusted it to the care of humanity.” It pointed to Pope Leo XIII’s teachings in Rerum Novarum, which defends the right to private property, but not one that is absolute. The right is “subordinate to the duty to ensure that all can live in dignity,” it explains.

It points to subsidiarity, which is the principle that “issues should be addressed at as local a level as possible.” It notes “natural justice forbids a government from intruding on the dignity of the family.”

The fourth principle is solidarity, which it explains “puts into practice our Lord’s vast definition of neighbor given in the Parable of the Good Samaritan.”

Fifth, the guide states, is social justice. It states the term is often “incorrectly perceived as ‘woke,’” but stems from the cardinal virtues. It cites Pope Leo XIV, who explained it as “looking beyond one-on-one relationships … to the structural elements that lead to injustice in society.”

Bishop Daniel Flores of the Diocese of Brownsville, Texas, said in the video message that Catholics are “called to be faithful, faithful citizens, faithful people in the building up of a society and a community that is somehow reflective of the very things that God Himself has shown us in Christ.”

“And the rest is in Godʼs hands,” he said. “I think as Catholics, our first role in political life and in social life is to give an authentic witness that we that we carry within ourselves, the person of Christ and all that that implies.”

The guide refers to faithful citizenship as “a way of life, not merely something exercised when marking a ballot.”

“Although it addresses specific moral issues — abortion, racial equality, economic inequities, criminal justice, euthanasia, family life, immigration, participation in the political process, war and peace, and many more — faithful citizenship fundamentally is a way of seeing the world in the light of the Gospel and allowing Gospel truth to point the way to prudential judgements and concrete decisions,” it explains.

The storefront launched on Sept. 4, putting “Catholic vendors front and center,” Cana founders told EWTN News.

Cana is a faith-focused wedding-planning platform designed for Catholic and Christian couples to build their websites. The Cana site helps engaged couples manage registries, guest lists, RSVPs, and it connects users with a diverse range of vendors.

It is intended to help couples plan a beautiful, reverent, and personalized wedding, the founders said. It is free of charge to the thousands of couples who use it.

Bringing Christ and ‘intentionality’ to wedding registries

“Up until this point, Cana essentially was just an affiliate partner for pretty much any online retailer. The most popular provider was Amazon, but also Target, Crate & Barrel, and Williams-Sonoma,” James Reichert, co-founder of Cana, told EWTN News.

“Then couples could take an individual link from a Catholic retailer and add that item to their registry. But we were essentially an affiliate partner for the big retailers,” he said.

Cana didnʼt want to be “a Catholic version” of the secular wedding websites, but rather “we wanted to be something truly, radically different,” Reichert said. “So we built our own registry storefront.”

The storefront puts “our Catholic vendors front and center,” Gabe Gessler, co-founder of Cana, added.

“We’ve partnered with big brands. Couples can add ultra high quality kitchenware and bedding items and they can create a full scale wedding registry through the service,” Reichert said.

Reichert said they also partnered with “incredible Catholic retailers: West Coast Catholic, The Little Catholic, The Catholic Company…,House of Joppa, and Darling & Divine.”

“For the first time, Catholic and Christian couples donʼt just have to register for their home goods, all the cookware, dinnerware, bedding things, that they would typically do on a regular wedding registry,” he said.

Now, “they can also register for sacred arts, sacred jewelry, beautiful wall mounts, and icons from all of these incredible brands that have been trusted for decades,” Reichert said.

Cana is hoping to be a “central point for all those different brands on one beautiful wedding registry experience,” he said.

“So many of our brides, they desire intentionality,” Gessler said. “They desire an intentional experience that points them towards the person that matters the most, which is Jesus Christ.”

To give couples a better experience, Cana is “placing forward, front and center, really high quality, what we truly believe are world-class companies, that are able to meet this intersection of commerce and the faith all in one,” Gessler said.

“We believe itʼs going to bless our partners more,” he said.

“Really what we want to do is help create this ecosystem where a Catholic bride doesnʼt need to go scour the internet for all these different partners, or these different registries. But actually she can just have it all in one place,” Gessler said.

“Then also she can come and support these incredible Catholic businesses,” Gessler said.

Cana

Launched in September 2025, “Cana really exists to help couples focus on Christ from their engagement to eternity,” Reichert said. “Our biggest desire is to just help create holy couples and holy marriages.”

“Weʼve now been around for a year,” Gessler said. “Weʼve had more than 8,000 brides join Cana.”

“Itʼs not just a registry experience. Itʼs a digital wedding planning experience that is totally holistic and centered around Christ and the sacrament of marriage rather than just …the excitement of the day,” Gessler said.

“When you get married to your spouse … itʼs an opportunity to enter into this new stage of your life and to place Christ at the center of it,” he said.

“We are praying for every single couple who uses us every day,” Reichert said. “To any couple who has the courage to use us to plan their wedding, we genuinely are so grateful for every single one.”

While the government doesn’t plan to change abortion law from 2026-2027, it intends to follow through with recommendations made by a pro-abortion advisory group and to fund late-stage abortion.

“Every unborn child is a unique human life deserving of protection, and every mother should be supported in ways that uphold her dignity and the dignity of her child,” Keenan said in a statement.

“I therefore make a direct appeal to all elected representatives who recognize the inherent dignity of every human life, to reject any further liberalization of abortion provisions in Scotland and to oppose measures that would remove essential safeguards or further weaken protection for unborn children.”

The advisory group “excluded prolife voices and … adopted a principle of ‘non-regression’ on abortion provision,” the bishop said, arguing that the group “lacks both legitimacy and credibility.”

“It has made radical recommendations to the Scottish Government which, if implemented, would effectively permit abortion up to birth for any reason and remove the current requirement for two doctors to approve abortions up to 24 weeks.”

“It is astonishing that the report also recommends that future legislation should make no reference to sex-selective abortion, paving the way for unborn babies to be aborted simply because they are deemed to be the wrong sex,” he said.

“The establishment of later-stage abortion provision in Scotland, alongside proposals to weaken existing legal safeguards, raises grave moral and social questions,” he said.

Canada doctors’ group voices support for infant euthanasia

The Quebec College of Physicians recently voiced support for euthanasia of newborn babies in some circumstances.

“The CMQ reiterates that medical assistance in dying may be an appropriate treatment for babies suffering from extreme pain that cannot be relieved and who have severe malformations or serious polysymptomatic syndromes that destroy any prospect of survival,” the group said in a statement to the Daily Mail.

“The CMQ believes that parents should have the opportunity to obtain this care for their infant under these well-defined circumstances,” the group continued.

Kentucky brings lawsuit against abortion nonprofit

The state of Kentucky has filed a civil lawsuit against an “activist organization” over its advertisements for abortion pills.

Mayday Health, a pro-abortion nonprofit, recently advertised abortion-inducing drugs via a banner flown by plane over the Kentucky State Fair.

Attorney General Russell Coleman in a post on X said: “It appears abortion activists are flying over Louisville advertising illegal drugs. They are breaking the law.”

“Since January, our Office has been investigating mail order abortion pills,” Coleman said. “We will not tolerate this illegal danger.”

Coleman’s office announced a civil suit against Mayday Health on Sept. 3, arguing that the “out of state activists” were breaking Kentucky law.

The Sept. 17 talk, titled “Catholic Family’s Guide to AI Safety,” will be given by Megan Garcia, a Catholic mother whose son took his own life while using an AI chatbot. Garcia’s talk will center on the “growing dangers of AI, chatbot risks, and protecting children at home.”

“After the heartbreaking loss of her 14-year-old son, Sewell Setzer III, following an intense relationship with an AI companion chatbot, Garcia transformed her grief into a mission to protect other children and families,” the diocese said in a Sept. 2 press release.

Garcia is an attorney and child safety advocate and serves as chair of the Blessed Mother Mary Foundation. She met with Pope Leo XIV in November 2025 during an audience with participants in a conference on child dignity and AI ethics.

DePaul University partners with Vatican Laudato si’ Center for Higher Education

DePaul University has announced it will serve as the Chicago-based partner for the Vatican’s Laudato si’ Center for Higher Education.

The university will also launch the DePaul Institute for a Sustainable Future “to drive the collaboration, expanding a shared commitment to advancing integral ecology and human development,” according to a Sept. 2 press release from the university.

“As a Catholic, Vincentian university, DePaul recognizes that caring for our common home is inseparable from caring for one another,“ Robert L. Manuel, president of DePaul University, said. ”The health of our planet directly affects the well-being of people and communities around the world, particularly those most vulnerable to a changing environment.”

The university will collaborate with more than 60 research and higher education institutions across 35 countries through its participation in the Global Alliance for Laudato si’, according to the release.

National Catholic Bioethics Center launches master’s degree with Catholic University of America

The National Catholic Bioethics Center has announced its partnership with the Catholic University of America for a master’s degree in moral theology and ethics.

Starting with the 2026-2027 academic year, “students who complete the NCBC’s National Catholic Certification Program in Health Care Ethics can transfer six credits toward CUA’s master’s degree in moral theology/ethics,” according to an Aug. 24 press release from the bioethics center.

“This is a great opportunity for our students to further their graduate education with a trusted, faithful institution of higher education following completion of our Certification Program,” Joe Zalot, director of education at the NCBC, said in the release. “CUA is now the sixth academic partner to which our students can transfer credits.” 

Graduates of Catholic colleges more prepared for AI, national study finds

A study carried out on behalf of the Center for Catholic Studies at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, has found that graduates of Catholic colleges report higher levels of preparedness in dealing with AI than graduates of secular institutions.

The findings came as part of the Center’s third Holistic Impact Report, carried out in partnership with YouGov, according to a Sept. 3 press release from the university.

About 44% of Catholic college graduates said they use AI at least daily, compared with 36% of secular college graduates, while 33% said their college moderately or better prepared them to use AI, compared with 23% of secular graduates, according to the study.

Catholic college graduates were also slightly more likely to use AI at all and more likely to view it as beneficial to society, with 36% expecting significant or transformative benefits compared with 28% of secular graduates.

“After three studies, we are seeing a remarkably consistent picture of what Catholic higher education contributes to graduates’ lives,” Jason King, Beirne chair and director of the Center for Catholic Studies at St. Mary’s University, said in the release.

“The findings on AI are particularly interesting because the greater confidence graduates of Catholic colleges express in engaging this new technology is accompanied by a stronger sense of meaning and purpose in their lives and work.”

The settlement was announced on Sept. 3 by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates. The law firm, which represents abuse victims around the country, said the settlement will apply to more than 145 survivors.

The Winona-Rochester Diocese filed for bankruptcy in November 2018 and settled with abuse victims there in 2021 for $28 million. The law firm said that settlement included contributions from two diocesan insurers — LMI and Interstate — but did not include a payout from the diocese’s largest insurance company, U.S. Fire.

A lawsuit against the insurer had been working through the courts, the Anderson law firm said, with the trial set to begin on Sept. 28 before the insurance company announced the settlement.

The Winona-Rochester Diocese did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Attorney Jeff Anderson, meanwhile, said in his law firm’s press release that the settlement “forges a new path forward to combat insurers denials and delays across the country.” He described the settlement as “a triumphant turn toward justice.”

Insurance payouts are one of the ways that dioceses in the U.S. pay for abuse settlements. Other income streams include contributions from parishes, real estate sales, and cash reserves.

Insurers have at times argued that they should not be liable to pay into abuse settlements. Church leaders in the Baltimore and New York archdioceses in recent years have sued their respective insurers to force them to pay into high-dollar payouts.

Those disputes have at times turned bitter. In February the Archdiocese of New York claimed that its longtime insurer Chubb had for several years been “secretly” posing as the “Church Accountability Project,” allegedly encouraging abuse victims to “pursue claims against the [archdiocese].”

In 2025, meanwhile, an advocacy group called the Coalition for Just and Compassionate Compensation launched an ad campaign urging Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to force insurance companies to pay millions of dollars in abuse claims.

“Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of participation in God’s creation,” Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre, chair of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, said in the statement.

The archbishop’s’ statement focuses on concerns about labor, such as stagnant wages, not enough opportunities for young people, affordability and other economic issues, and the ongoing growth of artificial intelligence (AI), which has sparked fears about job security.

“This year, we focus on young people and vulnerable communities who face uncertainty in today’s economy,” Fabre said. “Traditional economic indicators tell us the economy is growing, but hiring has slowed, especially for unemployed workers, and unemployment remains high for Black workers.”

The statement indicates that about one-fourth of workers make $35,000 annually or less, and nearly three-fourths of low-wage workers lack stable and secure jobs. It also cites data from a 2025 poll that showed that 70% of Americans  believed it was unaffordable to have children, 13 points higher than the previous year.

On AI, Fabre said, “there is widespread concern [it] will lead to higher unemployment and to fewer jobs that can support a family.” He said young people are “the most impacted so far and also experience the most anxiety” about AI.

“We must listen to the experiences of workers, families, young people, and communities of color as they struggle to find stability,” he said.

The archbishop referenced Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, which addresses AI concerns at length. The Holy Father warns humanity against creating “a new Tower of Babel” and pleads for society to instead “build the city in which God and humanity dwell together.”

The pope “notes that although AI presents new opportunities, it also risks normalizing a vision that is anti-human,” Fabre said.

“AI systems can imitate but never replace human intelligence,” he said. “AI cannot feel, love, discern, or receive God’s grace and wisdom. It is not morally neutral and risks creating ‘new forms of exclusion.’ AI must be carefully developed to ensure it serves the common good and humanity itself.”

Echoing the pontiff, Fabre warns against “de-skilling, surveillance, rigid and repetitive tasks, reduced agency and creativity, unemployment, job insecurity, concentrated power, and increased inequalities.”

“Furthermore, AI relies on low-wage workers, who are often hidden and who endure harsh conditions, caught in an exploitative supply chain,” he said. “Pope Leo calls us to work together to ‘design systems centered on the human person and not solely on performance’ and foster an economy that values the God given dignity of each person. Dignified work is not merely about productivity, but also participation in God’s creation. A just economy is not judged on profit alone, but on inclusive growth and protection for the most vulnerable.”

Although Fabre acknowledged that it “may seem daunting” to align AI development with the interests of workers, “we have been here before.” He referenced the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, authored by Pope Leo XIII amid the Industrial Revolution.

“The Church has brought the sacredness of the human person to the questions of work and labor for these last 135 years,” Fabre said. “We recognize that as we observe the 40th anniversary of Economic Justice for All, the U.S. bishops’ landmark document on the economy, much of the teaching of this document remains relevant for our shared project in the United States.”

The archbishop said everyone — including the Church, the government, labor unions, civil society groups, and corporations — have a shared responsibility “to protect the human person and the dignity of work.”

“As new technology reshapes our economy and our work, let us be ‘builders of communion,’ ensuring that innovation and development is for the benefit of all, not just a few, and that each person can contribute to the Kingdom of God through their work,” Fabre said.

The nun was world famous for having established a network of houses in some of the most destitute regions in the world, including her “home for the dying” in Kalighat, Calcutta.

That hospice center, which is still operating today, cares for those who have nowhere else to go, including many dying individuals, with the religious sisters there working to serve Jesus “hidden under the distressing disguise of the poorest of the poor,” as John Paul II put it.

Yet though Mother Teresa was hailed for her lifetime of sacrifice and her relentless commitment to caring for the poor, she has periodically come under fire by some critics who allege that she did not effectively minister to impoverished people, including by allegedly denying painkillers to those suffering greatly while dying in her care.

Those allegations were espoused most famously by Christopher Hitchens, the outspoken British atheist who visited the Kalighat house and later wrote critically about the standard of care provided there — including the claim that the sisters refused to provide anesthetics to suffering patients.

‘On the front line of alleviating pain and suffering’

Jim Towey, an American attorney who first met Mother Teresa in 1985 and who would go on to serve as legal counsel for her and the Missionaries of Charity for years, strongly disputed the claim that the nun was “indifferent to the pain of people.”

Towey, who detailed his years of service to Mother Teresa in his acclaimed 2022 book “To Love and Be Loved,” told EWTN News that she was “constantly on the front line of alleviating pain and suffering” across the world.

Hitchens’ widely-repeated criticism, Towey argued, was based off of accounts of a few ex-Missionaries of Charity as well as a visit Hitchens himself paid to the Kalighat facility in the early 1980s, which he wrote about years later.

Critics of the Kalighat home, Towey said, “have no idea what it was like on the streets [of Calcutta], where people were literally dying outside Mother Teresa’s doors.”

“She would bring them in and clean them and make them comfortable,” he said. “Half of them would die, half would eventually recover and leave.”

He said regional circumstances in eastern India in the early 1980s made strong painkillers almost impossible to get.

“There was no available morphine in Calcutta, even in the hospitals,” Towey said. “You couldn’t get anesthesia. The supply routes in and out of West Bengal, even into the 21st century, were terrible. They denied Western investment and trade was nonexistent.” Regional Soviet politics also constrained the exchange of goods, he said.

“There was no reliable stream of medical supplies,” Towey said. Yet “if [Mother Teresa] had them, she used them.”

The standards of care at the Kalighat facility have greatly improved in the decades since Hitchens visited, Towey pointed out. He said he most recently visited the home in May. “It’s changed dramatically. The quality of care, the medical care they provide, the pain relief they give to people [have all improved].”

Still, he cautioned against applying hospital standards to what is effectively a hospice home. “Mother was not running a hospital,” he said. Yet she was committed to alleviating the suffering of her charges to the greatest extent she could, he said. She herself regularly took medicine to manage instances of chronic back pain and numerous broken bones including a broken shoulder.

“This was a person whose life was immersed in suffering,” Towey said. “But when it became terrible she took pain medicine. She understood redemptive suffering, but she also knew the Church encourages people to manage pain.”

Towey, who did the first reading at Mother Teresa’s canonization Mass at the Vatican in 2016, said Mother Teresa “did what she could” and “used what she had” in order to alleviate the suffering of those in her care. And beyond that she worked to ensure that those suffering or dying in her facilities were loved and cared for.

“She tried to help people make sense of the pain if it wasn’t something she could alleviate,” he said.

And ultimately “she let people know they were loved, that they had God-given dignity, and that their suffering would not diminish that dignity.”

The decision from the high court upheld a lower court ruling in favor of Matthew Bradeen that found it was “psychologically unsafe” for Emily Bickford to take their daughter to Calvary Chapel in the Portland region.

The young girl reportedly suffered from panic attacks and psychological distress after attending the church; she reportedly became fixated on the rapture (an end-times belief held by some Christians) as well.

The Maine high court said in its ruling that at one point the church’s pastor openly prayed about the dispute between Bickford and Bradeen, including referencing both the parents and the child “by name almost 30 times.”

The court dismissed Bickford’s constitutional claims in the dispute. The father “is better suited to determine whether certain religious activities are in the child’s best interest,” it held.

In a press release, the legal group Liberty Counsel, which represented Bickford in the dispute, said it would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case. Mat Staver, the group’s chair, said the ruling “rejects the First Amendment right” of Bickford and goes against U.S. court precedent.

“Depriving one parent their right to instill their religious views into their child and granting sole authority to the other parent fails to give proper protection to parental rights and religious freedom under the First Amendment,” Staver argued.

He claimed that the ruling “pose[s] a serious threat to religious freedom” in the U.S.

The law, which was signed by Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker in December 2025, allows doctors in the state to prescribe lethal doses of medication to patients in order to help them end their own lives. Among other rules, patients must have a terminal illness in order to qualify for receiving help to kill themselves.

The rule has received strong criticism from Catholic bishops in the state.

On Sept. 3, meanwhile, the religious liberty law firm Becket announced that Cupich and two orders of religious sisters had filed a lawsuit against the state seeking to halt enforcement of the law against the Catholic plaintiffs.

The suit, filed in U.S. district court, argues that the sisters — who belong to the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm and the Little Sisters of the Poor — will be forced to either “abandon their religious beliefs regarding the sanctity of life or face significant fines and penalties” if they refuse to participate in the suicide regime.

The suit notes that by Sept. 12, healthcare providers in Illinois, including the sisters through their care homes, will have to proactively discuss the “option” to commit suicide with those in their care. Caregivers will also “have to allow patients to commit suicide in their facilities,” the suit says.

The suit argues that the First Amendment prohibits the state from requiring the Catholic caregivers to violate their faith by participating in the suicide regime.

In a statement announcing the filing, Cupich said the Catholic Church “oppose[s] efforts to undermine human dignity by pushing our brothers and sisters toward suicide.”

“We pray that the courts will protect our freedom to continue advocating and caring for the sick and dying as our faith demands,” he said.

Mother Mary Rose Heery, O. Carm., prioress general of the Carmelite Sisters for the Aged and Infirm, said patients in their care “come to us at one of the most vulnerable moments of their lives” and that the sisters have a vocation “to give witness to them, through everything we do, that their lives remain precious and that they will never be abandoned.”

“Illinois cannot ask us to replace that promise with help ending their lives,” she said.

Becket President Mark Rienzi described the suicide law’s provisions as “awful.”

“The state should stop trying to make Catholic nuns help patients kill themselves,” he said, arguing that sick patients “deserve the freedom to seek healing, hope, and accompaniment without the government forcing suicide into the conversation.”

This is not the first lawsuit filed against a state assisted suicide measure, nor the first in Illinois.

In August, Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki joined a Lutheran nursing home and a group of doctors to sue the state over the assisted suicide law, with the coalition arguing that the state’s suicide regime abandons “nearly two millennia of medical practice” while requiring objectors to participate in it.

The state agreed to a temporary block of the law later in the month, though the block only applied to the plaintiffs in that suit.

In July, meanwhile, Rockville Centre Bishop John Barres joined several communities of New York religious sisters in suing the state over its own assisted suicide law. Those plaintiffs also won a temporary block of the state’s suicide law.

Separately, groups of disability advocates have filed lawsuits against the suicide laws in New York and Illinois, as well as in Colorado and Delaware, alleging that those laws discriminate against people with disabilities.

On Sept. 3 the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation and Peoria Bishop Lou Tylka announced the list of speakers for the gala event, which will be held Sept. 25th at the Peoria Civic Center, the day after Sheen himself is beatified in St. Louis.

“We’re thrilled to bring the inaugural Sheen Awards to Peoria as we celebrate the beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen,” said Peoria diocese COO Royce Hood. He said the goal is to make the event an annual production “celebrating Sheen’s legacy and recognizing people who are using their platforms to promote the faith.”

Hailed during and after his life for his use of mass media to promote and explain the Catholic faith, Sheen has long been celebrated for his pioneering work in Catholic radio and television.

Barron, founder of the Word on Fire ministry and host of the popular documentary series “Catholicism,” is widely viewed as a leading successor to Sheen’s legacy; his evangelistic work led the Wall Street Journal to dub him the “bishop of Catholic social media.”

Roumie, meanwhile, has found global fame portraying Jesus Christ in the spectacularly successful series “The Chosen.”

In a press release Bishop Tylka expressed admiration for Roumie’s “deep Catholic faith” which the actor “practices each day and which influences his acting in bringing Jesus to life through the Chosen.”

Roumie told the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation that when he first began learning about Sheen, he immediately recognized how he could relate to the archbishop given Roumie’s own acting work.

“When you watch him, it’s no wonder he had such a gift for being evangelistically present on television, serving the people he was trying to reach,” Roumie said. “It continues to be an inspiration to me as to just how much work there is for me to do to try to aspire to the reach and impact he had on culture.”

Tylka also announced the participation of the Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Gabriel Caccia, at the awards ceremony. The nuncio’s presence “shows the importance of the beatification of Fulton Sheen for the Church in the United States and around the world,” the bishop said.

Other special guests include actor, producer and director David Henrie, host of the EWTN series “Seeking Beauty;” Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States Director Monsignor Roger Landry; Hallow CEO Alex Jones and Catholic author and media personality Katie Prejean McGrady.

Launching the same week that Archbishop Sheen will be beatified on Sept. 24,  the Sheen Awards are meant to “recognize individuals whose work in media, evangelization, mission, and liturgy continues his mission of bringing Christ to the world with creativity, conviction, and joy,” the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation emphasized.

The Foundation added that more details and ticket information can be found at sheenawards.com. Tickets are still available, but space is limited.

The event is scheduled to air on EWTN on Saturday, Oct. 3 at 8:00 p.m. ET.

That’s how Joe Schmid announced his conversion to Catholicism on his YouTube channel, “Majesty of Reason,” on Aug. 21.

Conversion is always a cause for celebration, but in Schmid’s case it was likely unexpected among his channel’s 55,000 subscribers.

For years, Schmid has used his YouTube channel to explore a broad variety of philosophical and naturalistic arguments and principles — and Schmid himself has openly identified as an agnostic for most of that time.

Schmid, who was raised Catholic, told EWTN News that he adopted atheism and then eventually agnosticism in high school. He said he was originally led to atheism because of “the problem of evolutionary animal suffering,” a well-known topic of philosophical and theological debate.

Philosophers such as Joshua Rasmussen and Alexander Pruss led him to consider “contingency arguments” in favor of God’s existence, he said, but his own “arduous conversion process” would ultimately last a decade.

Schmid launched his YouTube channel in April 2020. Broadly, “my videos focused primarily on philosophy of religion, and secondarily on other areas of philosophy like metaphysics, metaethics, and epistemology,” Schmid told EWTN News, and “criticizing arguments for God’s existence was one of my central focuses.”

To that end, he created a wide variety of videos, including interviews and debates with scholars, lengthy lectures, and episodes responding to other YouTube content, “primarily theist and Christian and Catholic creators.” 

Those videos have undergone a marked shift in recent weeks. Videos over the last year have included debates about whether Jesus rose from the dead and an extended case for veganism, among numerous other topics.

On Aug. 21, however, Schmid posted a nearly half-hour-long video revealing his conversion to Catholicism, and in the roughly two weeks since then his videos have focused on topics such as “the best-ever cumulative case for God” and “the best objections to Catholicism answered.”

Schmid, who is a a fourth-year doctoral candidate in philosophy at Princeton University, told EWTN News his return to the faith “wasnʼt my own making.”

“Conversion is a gift of Godʼs grace, and Iʼve seen its transformative impact in my life,” he said. “So God is ultimately what led me to Catholicism.”

Yet, he said a “huge confluence of factors” convinced him of the truth of the Catholic faith “on an intellectual level.” Chief among them are the “vindicatory miracles,” or “miracles wrought by God in confirmation of distinctive Catholic doctrines.”

He cited the charisms of Padre Pio, the healing miracles at Lourdes, the apparitions of Our Lady of Fátima, Eucharistic miracles, “and much more besides.”

“I converted after a long process of working through my many objections to Catholicism and appreciating the many powerful arguments in its favor,” he said. In his video he described the process as a “culmination” of “head factors and heart factors.”

“God is good,” he told his viewers.

The high-profile conversion was noted by the Aquinas Institute, the Catholic campus ministry at Princeton, which urged the Catholic community there to “pray for Joe as he continues to grow in his Catholic faith and begins this new chapter of his public work.”

Schmid also appeared recently in a two-hour-long interview with Catholic apologist Trent Horn, who described Schmid as “one of my smartest critics.” Horn praised Schmid’s rigorous approach to philosophical and theological debate even when Schmid himself was an agnostic.

“Iʼve learned a lot from you in your rebuttals, and it has helped in my own path and trying to grow as an apologist and a philosopher,” Horn told Schmid during the interview.

Speaking to his own viewers when announcing his conversion, Schmid said he has significant plans to continue his YouTube channel in service to Catholicism, and “we will see where the Lord takes me.”

“Debates and discussions will be continuing,” he said. He asked for patience from viewers during the transition.

“And I also ask for your prayers,” he added. “Know that I will be praying for you.”

The bishop announced the proposed settlement in an Aug. 25 letter to the diocese. The diocese had earlier announced a $45 million agreement in May.

A diocesan spokeswoman confirmed that the additional roughly $38 million would come from insurance contributions.

In his August letter, LaValley said the diocese was hoping to have the plan approved by the bankruptcy court “in the next few months.” The Ogdensburg Diocese filed for bankruptcy in July 2023, the sixth diocese in New York state to do so.

The bishop urged Catholics to pray for both abuse victims as well as the diocese itself. He described the reparation payments as a “moral obligation” on the part of the diocese.

‘Rapid pre-pack’ bankruptcy

In his letter, LaValley said the parishes in the diocese will undergo a notable bankruptcy proceeding called “rapid pre-pack Chapter 11,” one that will settle current abuse allegations while protecting parishes from future litigation.

“Each of our parishes will file a Chapter 11 case at the very last moment, after we know whether we have sufficient votes to confirm the plan,” the bishop said. Parishes are anticipated to be in bankruptcy for about 48 hours before emerging “quickly,” he said.

“The result is that the diocese and parishes will receive a bankruptcy discharge of all alleged abuse claims as of the date the parishʼs pre-packed bankruptcy is filed,” the bishop said. “Going forward, no abuse claims may be brought against parishes from prior to that date.”

The bishop said the unique strategy emerged after a June 2024 Supreme Court decision on bankruptcy, likely a reference to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that month in Harrington v. Purdue Pharma L.P.

That ruling on a complex provision of U.S. bankruptcy law meant that individual parishes and schools in diocesan abuse proceedings could be sued, greatly expanding the possibility of large numbers of expensive lawsuits against Catholic entities.

LaValley said the diocese had been advised that the “rapid” bankruptcy proceeding “is the only viable and realistic way to obtain comprehensive relief” for all diocesan entities there.

A similar strategy had been used in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, New York, and the Archdiocese of New Orleans, he said.

The diocesan partnership was conceived by Bishop Frank J. Caggiano with the goal of transforming the workplace with the help of His Way At Work, an international apostolate inspiring business owners to consecrate their companies to the Sacred Heart and place God at the center.

His Way At Work, a nonprofit organization, was founded in 2008 by Peter Freissle, an entrepreneur and CEO. His Way At Work reports that it has reached nearly 500,000 employees and their families. It also has aided more than 300 companies, serving in more than 12 countries. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco serves as the episcopal adviser to His Way At Work.

Caggiano said in a statement shared with EWTN News: “Most people spend the greater part of their waking hours at work, and God wants to be more present to them and through them there. The His Way at Work Guild is an invitation to business owners to consecrate their companies to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and to lead in a way that honors the dignity of every employee.”

“I would say to any business owner in Fairfield County who has ever wondered whether their faith belongs at work: it does, and you are not alone in asking the question. Come and see what this Guild is about,” Caggiano said.

By joining the association of consecrated companies, the Bridgeport Diocese said it hopes the owners will adopt a Catholic framework and encourage care for employees.

The guild will be entrusted to its patrons — Sts. Louis and Marie-Azélie Martin. The pair were two small business owners in 19th-century France. They were also the parents of five nuns, including the beloved St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and the first married couple to be canonized.

“His Way At Work aligned perfectly with the guild system the bishop established, and naming it after a canonized man and woman, who were successful and faithful business owners, seemed a perfect fit,” Deacon Patrick Toole, chancellor of the diocese, said in a diocesan announcement of the guild.

Caggiano established the Guilds of the Diocese of Bridgeport “to offer a unique way for the faithful to deepen their spiritual lives and grow in community through shared vocations and interests,” according to the diocese.

Each of the guilds serves a mission in the community, from fostering Eucharistic adoration to supporting healthcare. The initiative is expanding its reach with a guild focused on supporting business leaders.

“Our hope is that it creates a community of faith among business owners so they can support each other and grow closer spiritually and professionally,” Toole said.

“By consecrating their businesses to the Sacred Heart, their customers will realize there is something different and special about these businesses — something that sets them apart,” he said.

The announcement of the guild follows the dioceseʼs reconsecration to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which took place in June. The diocese joined the Catholic Church throughout the U.S. in “a great act of faith and love as our bishops consecrate our nation to the Sacred Heart,” Caggiano wrote in a message.

Next steps for companies hoping to add faith to their work

For interested businesses in the diocese, Caggiano will hold an informational session in conjunction with the His Way At Work team. It will be held on Oct. 22 at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Fairfield.

Business owners will receive a guidebook and pray a nine-day novena to the Sacred Heart. Members will receive certificates of consecration and be encouraged to take part in monthly formation meetings offered by the guild with His Way At Work.

The initiative will be funded by the diocese, which will provide members free access to formation materials.

The Diocese of Bridgeport joins numerous other diocesan communities who work alongside His Way At Work to bring God’s presence to the workplace.

The organization works in partnership with the Archdiocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Missouri, and the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina. It also operates internationally, aiding the Archdiocese of Mexico in Mexico City and the Archdiocese of Monterrey in northern Mexico.

This story was updated at 4:30 p.m. ET on Sept. 2, 2026, with comments from Bishop Frank J. Caggiano and a photograph of Sts. Louis and Marie-Azélie Martin.

“Religious‑freedom conditions in India continue to deteriorate as violence and incitement are increasingly used to target minority faith communities,” USCIRF Chair Asif Mahmood said in an Aug. 26 statement, issued after Mohan Bhagwat — chief of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a prominent Hindu nationalist volunteer organization accused of targeting Christians — visited the United States Aug. 25–29.

“We urge the U.S. government to consider targeted sanctions against RSS members and Indian officials complicit in religious freedom violations, including revoking the visa issued to Mohan Bhagwat and making him ineligible for future entry into the United States,” Mahmood said.

Bhagwat’s tour also extended to Canada and the United Kingdom, part of the RSS’ effort to strengthen ties with overseas Hindu communities during its centenary year.

“The U.S. government has an opportunity to hold India accountable and signal that the United States stands for religious freedom for the people of India,” Vice Chair CeCe Heil said in the release. “Without this accountability, religious freedom will only deteriorate further, as vigilante mobs continue to attack religious minorities and their houses of worship under the guise of enforcing anti-conversion laws and other harmful policies.”

In a May USCIRF briefing on Capitol Hill, witnesses called for U.S. intervention to end ongoing persecution of religious minorities in India amid warnings of escalating attacks against Christians in India, including mob violence and property destruction. The Catholic population in India is about 23 million, about 1.6% of the country’s population, according to the Vatican.

USCIRF recommended in its 2026 annual report that the U.S. State Department designate India as a country of particular concern.

Congressional support

Rep. Riley Moore, R‑West Virginia, told “EWTN News Nightly” on Sept. 2 he is concerned about “growing intolerance as it relates to Christianity in India” as India’s government considers changes to its Foreign Contributions Regulations Act that could restrict Catholic charities from receiving foreign aid.

“The Indian government does and should prevent foreign money from interfering in the day‑to‑day activities or the governance of their country,” Moore said, but he added that Catholic hospitals aren’t doing that and instead provide essential care to the communities they serve.

Moore said questions remain about how India treats its Christian population, noting the Catholic Church’s humanitarian work, including that of Mother Teresa and the Missionaries of Charity.

“Her feast day is coming up here on the fifth,” he said. “Itʼs just a reminder of why itʼs so important for us to raise our voice in concern when we see what I view as certainly an issue as it relates to Christian intolerance in certain parts of either the government or the country of India.”

This story was updated at 2:55 p.m. ET on Sept. 2, 2026, to include comments by Rep. Riley Moore, R-West Virginia.

Judge Reed O’Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas ordered that the lawsuit would be delayed until either Dec. 1 or the completion of the FDA’s safety review of mifepristone, whichever comes first.

In the lawsuit, Texas and Florida asked the court to revoke the FDA’s approval of the abortion-inducing pill, saying the agency didn’t adequately evaluate its safety when it approved the drug in 2000. The lawsuit also challenged mail-order distribution of the pill.

The FDA first announced it would review mifepristone in September 2025.

Pro-life group Live Action called on the FDA to protect women and unborn children from the abortion pill, citing studies that show dangerous side effects of the drug.

“The Food and Drug Administration and Health and Human Services officials must do their job to protect women and children from the dangerous abortion pill, which now accounts for 65% of all abortions in the United States and has led to the deaths of 7.5 million preborn children since its release,” Noah Brandt, spokesman for Live Action, told EWTN News.

“Both agencies have seen real-world data that show the harmful effects of the abortion pill,” Brandt said. “Within 45 days of a chemical abortion, 1 in 10 women experience serious adverse events from mifepristone, the first drug in the abortion pill regimen, such as sepsis, infection, or hemorrhaging.”

“This shift in timing for the lawsuit and their ‘promised’ review indicates that they are prioritizing politics over the safety of American women and children,” Brandt said.

“While they continue to brush off these critical issues, the abortion pill is recklessly being mailed across state lines via telehealth distribution, enabling coercion and abuse,” Brandt said. “It’s time deadly mail-order abortion ended once and for all and this lethal pill be removed from the market completely.”

Bishop Michael Olson of the Diocese of Fort Worth announced on Aug. 28 the opening of the church.

Ayariga was one of 21 Christian migrant workers in Libya kidnapped and then beheaded by the terrorist group ISIS on a beach near Sirte, Libya, on Feb. 15, 2015.

Originally from Ghana, Ayariga was the only Black African among the 21 men. The others were all Coptic Orthodox Christians from Egypt. When questioned about his faith by his kidnappers, he reportedly replied: “Their God is my God.”

The Coptic Orthodox Church canonized all 21 men as saints and martyrs on Feb. 21, 2015, under Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros II.

In an ecumenical sign of communion between the two churches, Pope Francis announced that the 21 martyrs would be inscribed in the Roman Martyrology on May 11, 2023, during a meeting at the Vatican with Pope Tawadros II. Francis described the men as baptized “not only in water and the Spirit, but also in blood.”

As the authority to create saints lies with the Apostolic See, the saints did not have to go through the usual multistep canonization process involving the opening of a cause, beatification, and confirmed miracles.

The martyrs’ feast day in both churches is Feb. 15.

Another first

The parish will also be the first Ghanaian Catholic parish in the U.S. and will serve the Ghanaian community in north Texas, which has met since 2007 at St. Joseph Church in Arlington.

“Saint Matthew Ayariga Catholic Church will provide a place for Ghanaian Catholics to come together in Christ as the Church to worship God, to assist their maintaining bonds with the Church in Ghana, and to strengthen their children sacramentally to grow as part of the local church here,” Olson told EWTN News in a statement.

He also said the church would serve as a place that would aid immigrants in their transition “to life as citizens and productive contributors to the common good of Texas and the United States.”

“We’ve had a growing Ghanaian presence in our diocese for a long time,” a spokesperson for the diocese told EWTN News. “Their community long envisioned having a parish to call their own.”

The community has been raising funds to establish its own parish for nearly 20 years, according to the spokesperson. “When they began raising funds, there was no name attached to the nonexistent parish. The name was only settled on recently, although I would guess that after his martyrdom, Matthew Ayariga’s name began to rise to the top of the list of parish names.”

Three Masses to dedicate the new church, a former Methodist church being renovated in south Arlington, are planned for the weekend of Jan. 29–31, 2027. The archbishop of Kumasi, Ghana, Gabriel Anokye, is expected to attend, along with dignitaries and other representatives of the Ghanaian community, bishops and cardinals from Texas and around the U.S., and other local officials.

Speaking to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, the organizationʼs founder and director, Zeira Becerra, said the new project will be presented during the “Vision and Hope Breakfast” on Saturday, Sept. 26.

Becerra said the initiative grew out of a promise she made to herself in New York in 1991, “when I was hired, without realizing it, by an abortion clinic.”

“There I witnessed a reality that changed my life forever: women arriving who felt they had no other way out, and lives just beginning to form being ended by abortion,” she recalled.

‘There has to be a place’

Becerra recalled a moment that she said particularly touched her heart: “I wanted to help a 14-year-old girl so she could continue with her baby’s life, but I discovered I had no safe place to take her. That was when I became certain that there has to be a place.”

That day, she said, “I made a promise to myself, a purpose for my life: I didn’t know how, but I had to create that place.”

“Many years had to pass,” she said, but eventually that promise “became Life in Mercy, a home where an expectant mother could find a welcome, support, and a real, loving, and merciful alternative to choose life.”

In its 10 years of work, Life in Mercy has supported “around 75 mothers and their babies in various ways,” she noted. “Each one represents a unique story and a life that deserved to be welcomed with hope.”

Becerra said Life in Mercy helps each mother “connect with the resources she needs, providing emotional and spiritual support and, above all, reminding her that she is not alone and that a difficult situation does not have to end her childʼs life.”

“In the end, we want more women who find themselves facing a difficult situation to be able to hear something very simple but decisive: ‘There is a place for you and your baby,’” she said.

‘A larger, newer, and better-situated house’

The organization is currently aiming to “acquire a larger, newer, and better-situated house that allows us to welcome more mothers and babies,” a move Becerra said she considers “a very important stage” for the initiative.

“We sold our previous house because we needed to take the next step. It was an old house, and our mission has grown,” she explained.

“And that is precisely one of the main reasons for this breakfast,” she noted: “We don’t simply want to reopen a house; we want to build a broader response to the need we are seeing in Houston.”

‘She arrived sad, scared, and unsure of what would become of her life’

During the breakfast, a woman who “came to us with a 6-year-old child and was in her first trimester of pregnancy” will share her testimony, Becerra said.

“She had been abandoned by her partner; she had no job, vehicle, or family in Houston, and as an immigrant, she was practically alone. In her desperation, she even considered ending her baby’s life as her only way out,” Becerra continued.

“By the grace of God, she first received care at a crisis center for women, where she was able to rediscover the value of her baby’s life and learn that there were people and resources ready to help her. That was when she found the strength to go on, and she subsequently came to our shelter,” she said.

The woman, she recalled, “arrived sad, frightened, and unsure of what would become of her life.”

“Over time, something beautiful happened,” Becerra said, as “she regained her self-confidence, had a beautiful baby girl, and was able to move forward.”

Becerra explained that the mission of Life in Mercy “does not end when the baby is born,” because “we want to walk with the mother so she can begin a new phase in life with her child — with dignity, hope, and the tools to move forward.”

Although Texas generally prohibits abortion with limited medical exceptions, Becerra pointed out that “the fact that abortion is no longer legal in Texas does not mean the problem is over, nor that we can let our guard down. On the contrary, we have an even greater responsibility to support mothers who choose life.”

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.

Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala — who became the bishop of the diocese that covers the entirety of West Virginia in July — announced the changes in a message to the faithful issued Aug. 28. Menjivar succeeded Bishop Mark E. Brennan, who retired.

“This is an initiative of Bishop Evelio to ensure that the spiritual needs of every part of his flock are attended to by priests of our diocese,” the announcement said.

According to the announcement, the bishop’s purpose is to foster “greater unity among Catholic faithful” and attend to “their diverse spiritual needs.”

Beginning Sept. 20, the TLM can be celebrated at the mission Our Lady of Seven Dolors in Triadelphia at 1:30 p.m. on Sundays. Previously, the mission only had a monthly celebration. Menjivar will add a TLM option in the Charleston area, but the location is yet to be determined.

The regular TLM will continue at St. John University Parish in Morgantown at 9 a.m. Saturdays and 1 p.m. Sundays.

Menjivar also attended a Latin Mass at the Priory of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Charles Town on Aug. 30. The priory offers the TLM daily, along with a Saturday vigil and three Sunday Masses. He delivered remarks to the congregation before the homily.

“In his mercy and providence, the Lord has sent me to serve as your shepherd,” the bishop said. “I want to reiterate to you, today, my sincere desire to serve the Lord faithfully and to care for the salvation of every soul entrusted to my pastoral care. I’m also here today to assure you, you personally, [of] my deep affection and esteem for each of you and for this particular community.”

Menjivar said: “Your fidelity to the sacred liturgy, your devotion, and your reverence for the mysteries of our faith enrich the life of the entire Church.”

“My desire is that everyone — everyone — finds a home in the Church and that in everything we do, we remain deeply united in Christ and in communion with the Holy Father, always seeking what strengthens our faith, builds up the body of Christ, and leads us together toward holiness,” he said.

Priestly appointments

The bishop appointed Father Timothy Grassi, pastor of St. James in Charles Town, to serve as the episcopal delegate for matters related to the “usus antiquior” for the diocese. The usus antiquior, which means “the ancient usage,” refers to the TLM, which was the standard form of the Mass prior to reforms that came after the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s.

Grassi will oversee celebrations of the TLM to ensure that every Mass is celebrated lawfully in accordance with restrictions imposed in Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, which remains in effect. He also will coordinate between the diocese and the four TLM congregations in West Virginia.

“In the exercise of his function, Father Grassi will ensure that these celebrations are legally authorized in accordance with the universal law of the Church and the dispositions of the Apostolic See,” the announcement said.

When reached by email, Grassi told EWTN News that the bishop is “simply trying to be a good shepherd to all of the faithful.” The greater availability ensures “those attracted to this form of the Mass have easier accessibility to it, just as he has concern for the Hispanics of the diocese to have a Spanish Mass,” he said.

“He is following all the guidelines that the Vatican has given and is simply trying to let the faithful know of his care for them,” Grassi added. “My role is to coordinate with the bishop in these matters and ensure that all of the guidelines are properly followed. Bishop Evelio is showing his deep pastoral care for the souls entrusted to him.”

The bishop also appointed regional usus antiquior delegates.

Father Justin M. Golna, pastor at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Wellsburg, is the delegate for the Wheeling area. Father Brian Crenwelge, pastor at St. John University Parish in Morgantown, will continue as the Morgantown area delegate. Father Phillip Szabo will stay as the delegate for the Charleston area.

His daughter Mary confirmed his passing via the New York Times. His cause of death was not immediately known; the Kentucky-born writer was 92 years old.

A writer of fiction, poetry, and essays, Berry was known for his advocacy of rural life, for urging readers to develop a close connection to farming and food, and for calling for the care of the environment.

His work united a broad cross-section of the American public from liberal environmentalists to Christian homesteaders to local food advocates to conservative conservationists.

Born in Louisville on Aug. 5, 1934, Berry studied English at the University of Kentucky and writing at Stanford University. He taught English at the University of Kentucky for several years and also taught at New York University.

From 1965 until his death he lived and worked at his farm, Lane’s Landing, in Henry County, Kentucky.

His politics were broad and diverse. He was famously critical of big business and corporations and was a fierce detractor of coal companies. He was opposed to the death penalty, at one point urging his home state to abolish it entirely.

Amid the racial and cultural disputes of 2020, he sued the University of Kentucky in order to prevent the removal of a purportedly racially offensive mural there — though he said he was pained by the knowledge that his ancestors “established themselves here by killing or driving out the original possessors” and that “people were once bought and sold here by my people.” Berry was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama in 2012.

Throughout his career he remained devoted to both the natural world and to the small farm — a philosophy, he said in 2002, that meant he had “spent [his] life on two losing sides.”

He urged advocates to reconcile both the need to preserve the natural world and the need to support the human beings that are an indelible part of the world. “The question we must deal with is not whether the domestic and the wild are separate or can be separated; it is how, in the human economy, their indissoluble and necessary connection can be properly maintained,” he wrote.

Baptized a Baptist, Berry remained distant from organized religion, calling himself at one point a “forest Christian.” Yet his work and his advocacy attracted large numbers of Christians, including Catholics.

Writing in America Magazine in 2017, the Catholic writer Anna Keating said that his unique philosophy “can prove helpful to Catholics, serving as an antidote to the many ills of our time.”

He also briefly partnered with the Catholic St. Catharine College in Springfield, Kentucky, to launch the Berry Farming Program, though the college closed in 2016.

He wrote that he “[took] literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world.”

“I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love,” he said.

Though well traveled and revered as a national American sage, Berry was a strong proponent of localism. He consistently called on Americans to turn to community and mutual help to address societal problems and conflicts.

He lamented the destruction of much of the rural way of life that he had seen take place over his lifetime, though he expressed optimism for its revitalization. Reflecting in 1988 on the potential “renewal of the rural communities” around the country, he wrote that such a renewal “would have to be a revival accomplished mainly by the community itself.”

“It would have to be done not from the outside by the instruction of visiting experts,” he wrote, “but from the inside by the ancient rule of neighborliness, by the love of precious things, and by the wish to be at home.”

When the sisters of the Carmel of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph realized they had outgrown their 1940s monastery in the Diocese of Harrisburg, they knew they wanted to build their next home “in a way that is designed to last,” that would speak to St. Teresa of Ávila’s vision for their charism, Catherine Bauer, the director of marketing and development for the sisters, told EWTN News. “And by that, they mean last a thousand years.”

Bucking modern architecture and building conventions, the Fairfield sisters have opted to build their monastery using old-world methods including traditional stonemasonry and timber framing. While the scale of the monastery “will be on the smaller side,” according to Bauer, “it’s more about the stonework, the authenticity of building from the ground up using no nails, no glue, [and] no electricity running through it.”

“They will also have old-world methods of plumbing and water systems,” she added.

The budget for the project, which began in 2013 and is about 20% complete, is $100 million. The sisters have raised about $22 million so far.

“The idea is that over the course of the next 12 or 15 years it takes to build this, once it’s completed, little or no maintenance will be required for this building for future generations,” Bauer said. “So essentially, they spend the money up front now and then in 50 years, you’re not replacing various systems and roofing and walls and all of that.”

While the up-front cost of their home may be steep, the sisters have proven resourceful not only in sourcing local materials such as stone and timber but also stained glass and an altar for their oratory.

The marble altar the sisters found had once served as the original altar at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary. Bishop Emeritus Ronald Gainer, who delivered the homily at the oratory’s dedication in 2024, revealed that he had said his first Mass at that altar decades prior, she noted.

“We’re trying to salvage a lot of these things and which is amazing, you know, giving these beautiful items a home,” Bauer said.

While the Carmelites themselves are hidden away, Bauer said, “the monastery is meant to be a beacon of light, a beacon on the hill for the community at large, for the faithful to come and visit, and to be an oasis for everyone, a source of grace and comfort and holiness.”

The public will be able to attend Mass and receive the sacraments and to pray with externs at the monastery.

Ultimately, Bauer said, the mission of the Carmelite order is to beat with the heart of the Church.

“The Carmelite charism is to pray for the priests,” she said. “That’s their whole mission, is to pray for priests and for the Church. And that’s how we’re going to survive. They are the heart of the Church. They’re the ones that keep the blood pumping through the rest of the body of the Church.”

Families in Fairfield County, including those in Danbury and Stamford, “have lived through moments of real fear as immigration enforcement activity has intensified in our area,” Caggiano said in a statement.

Caggiano urged federal officials to respect human dignity no matter one’s country of birth. Regardless of immigration status, each person “is made in the image and likeness of God and possesses a dignity that no earthly power may set aside,” he said.

The bishop’s Aug. 30 statement followed local reports of heightened immigration enforcement throughout local communities.

Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut released a statement in July about the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the state. It reported that there would be coordination with community organizations and advocates regarding increased ICE activity.

“Connecticut has some of the lowest crime rates in the country, thanks to the excellent work our state and local police do to keep violent criminals off our streets. Rounding up people at random to fill a quota does not lower crime. It traumatizes families and communities,” Lamont said.

Caggiano detailed some of the specific instances in the diocese.

“I have heard of husbands and fathers taken from their cars on the way to work, of spouses unable to find where a loved one has been brought, and of neighbors who no longer feel at ease walking to the store, dropping off a child at school, or simply going about the ordinary business of the day,” he said.

“Whatever one believes about the just enforcement of our nation’s laws, no person of faith can look upon this kind of suffering with indifference,” he said.

“I do not write to make a political statement, nor is it the place of a Bishop to dictate the particulars of civil policy that belong properly to lawmakers and to citizens acting according to their conscience,” he said.

“But I write as a pastor who cannot remain silent while members of our human family are suffering, while families are separated, and while fear has entered our schools, our workplaces, and our streets,” Caggiano said.

Local parishes are ‘places of welcome and refuge’

Caggiano called on parishes in the diocese to support immigrant families and anyone affected by enforcement actions.

“To our immigrant brothers and sisters throughout Fairfield County, whether or not you are Catholic, whether or not you have ever set foot in one of our parishes, please know that the Church stands with you,” he said.

“Our parishes, our Catholic Charities, and our Office of Hispanic Ministry remain, as they have always been, places of welcome and refuge, and no one need fear that the doors of our churches will ever be closed to them,” he said.

The bishop asked parishes to include a prayer for immigrant families and those affected “at every Mass in the days ahead.” He also urged the community to remember the words the Lord spoke in Scripture: “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”

“Fear is real, but it does not have the final word,” he said. “Christ walks with every suffering family in Fairfield County each day, and He asks each of us, as His Church, to walk with them as well.”

Caggiano called on Our Lady of Guadalupe, mother of the migrant and consolation of the afflicted, to “wrap her mantle around every family who suffers in this hour.”

Such restrictions on federal funding are made “without any compelling government interest,” the Justice Department said in an Aug. 25 memorandum opinion issued to the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Health and Human Services.

In its 2004 decision Locke v. Davey, the U.S. Supreme Court held that public authorities are free to withhold funding from programs and activities that are explicitly religious in nature.

In its memorandum, however, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel said restricting federal funding based on either the religious status of an organization or the use of funds for religious purposes is “not required” under the U.S. Constitution.

Such restrictions “discriminate based on anticipated religious use without any compelling governmental interest,” the memorandum said, and as a result they “violate the Free Exercise Clause.”

“Use-based religious restrictions on generally available federal funding programs are presumptively unconstitutional,” the document said.

The memorandum specifically addressed programs administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which controls billions of dollars in federal funding. It was not immediately clear if the directive applied to other federal departments. A spokesman for the Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The religious freedom legal group First Liberty, meanwhile, hailed the memorandum as “a major victory for religious liberty.”

Faith-based organizations and schools “can now apply for and utilize federal grants without scrubbing the religious aspects of their programs,” the group said.

First Liberty argued that opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel “serve as binding legal guidance for the executive branch,” meaning the memo “effectively instructs all federal agencies to rewrite their grant-making rules to align with this new standard.”

The group noted that one of its network attorneys is Joshua Davey, part of the namesake of the 2004 Supreme Court case that established the precedent of restricting federal funds for religious activities and groups.

That decision “has never been formally overturned,” First Liberty said, but “that could change in the very near future.”

The manufacturers are not fulfilling their obligation to oversee prescribers while making tens of millions of dollars each year, according to the report, released by U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana.

The investigation also found that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s “lack of guardrails ensuring a sufficient provider-patient relationship creates accountability gaps for a product that carries risks of significant adverse health outcomes,” according to the report.

Three companies, Danco Laboratories, GenBioPro, and Evita Solutions, reportedly did not provide details on how they followed existing federal regulations, according to the report.

Among its findings, the report cited an undercover investigation that found that a girl as young as 13 years old could buy abortion pills.

Cassidy, a doctor and the chairman of the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, headed the investigation.

“Abortion drug companies are putting mothers at risk through their failure to properly oversee the prescription and distribution of their products. We are seeing that the explosion in online sales of chemical abortion drugs has opened the door to coercion and abuse of women,” Cassidy said in a statement.

“FDA and the sponsors of these drugs have a responsibility to the American people to crack down on these prescribers that violate the prescribing requirements and reinstate the safeguards that keep mothers and babies safe,” he continued.

40 Days for Life says it will cover legal fees for arrests over New Jersey protest law

The pro-life group 40 Days for Life says it will cover legal fees if protesters are arrested under New Jersey’s new abortion clinic buffer zone law.

A new law signed by New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill on Aug. 20 could lead to legal crackdowns on protests near abortion clinics. The law criminalizes “interference” with “reproductive” or “gender-affirming” care.

The law further criminalizes inflicting “emotional harm” against those seeking or providing “reproductive health care services.” It also bans filming and sharing videos within 100 feet of an abortion clinic.

40 Days for Life, a group that organizes prayer vigils outside abortion clinics, has pledged to cover legal fees for peaceful protesters should the law be used to target them.

“If New Jersey — or anywhere else — targets a 40 Days for Life participant for peacefully and lawfully praying in public, our Institute of Law & Justice will have your back,” the group said on Aug. 28.

The group’s CEO Shawn Carney told the New York Post, meanwhile, that the services would be covered “at no cost.”

Catholic Virginians launch campaign against abortion ballot measure

Catholic leaders in Virginia are launching a campaign to oppose a ballot measure that would enshrine a right to abortion in the state.

The Protect Virginia 2026 campaign urges Catholics to vote against the state’s “Right to Reproductive Freedom” amendment, which will be on the ballot in November.

Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout voiced opposition against the “radical” amendment in a letter to Catholics in the state.

“Every life is sacred,” Knestout said. “The Church has always taught that abortion is an intrinsic evil. It takes one of God’s greatest gifts — a human life.”

“No law can ever make right what is intrinsically wrong,” he continued. “Let us pray for the courage to confront this evil that threatens to destroy life, to be persistent yet compassionate in our advocacy, and to vote so that we stand up for the great good that God has given us.”

“Let us commit ourselves to defending those who cannot speak for themselves and to witnessing to the Gospel of Life in both word and deed.”

The annual “Top Gun Father and Son” camping event welcomes dads and sons for a mission to grow closer, strengthen their relationships through challenges and reflections, and partake in faith-filled adventures.

Encounters, Convictions, and Your Decisions (ECYD), an international Catholic association of adolescents with the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi, hosts the annual weekend at Camp Castleton in Virginia for boys in fifth to eighth grade and their fathers.

The event is only one of the fruits of ECYD, which also carries out other youth clubs, camps, leadership trainings, and gatherings.

Father Vito Crincoli, LC, the director of the ECYD Leadership Training program in D.C., told EWTN News the ECYD ministry is “based on the spirituality of Jesus calling you to be his friend.”

“Itʼs an international movement,” he said. “In Washington, D.C., in particular, weʼve been putting a lot of emphasis on forming dads to be mentors for our clubs.”

“One is because we donʼt have as many priests as we would like to run the youth ministry. But also, above all, we want to create vibrant apostles, vibrant laypeople, to run youth work. And because men really want to be mentors.”

“Weʼve noticed in these past years of our ministry that thereʼs been such a desire for the men to want to be involved. And we saw that precisely through the father-son weekends we do. It awakens something in them.”

Men “want to do more,” Crincoli said. “They want to give more.”

Finding unexpected inspiration from film

While the camp grew out of the desire to minister to Catholic men, it was ultimately a fictional adventure film about U.S. Navy aviators that set the idea into motion.

After noticing a “father and son tone” in the 2022 film “Top Gun: Maverick,” Crincoli was inspired to bring together families for the event, which now welcomes anywhere from 20 to 40 fathers and sons.

Crincoli was inspired by the relationship between the film’s characters Pete Mitchell and Bradley Bradshaw, better known by their call signs “Maverick” and “Rooster.”

While the two Top Gun pilots are not related, Crincoli noticed a bond between them that is unique to a father and his son.

In the movie, “Maverick is trying to be the best dad he could be for Rooster. Experiencing his own limitations, but also just trying,” Crincoli explained. “And then Rooster is looking for the type of dad he wants: ‘I need a role model in my life. Someone who can guide me.’”

“Weʼre really trying to tell the dads: ‘Be a dad as a mission.’ Itʼs a mission of love. The whole idea of Top Gun Father and Son is that you and your son are a team. Youʼre preparing your son for life.”

“Thatʼs what Maverick was doing with Rooster. He was preparing him for battle.”

Top Gun Father and Son

While at the camp, the group has previously been joined by members of the U.S. Naval Academy, including a Catholic former Top Gun pilot who “gave a talk to the dads about learning to fly with your kids — learning to fly with them through life.”

A pivotal part is the “moment where the dads earn their wings,” he said. “We had somebody donate real Navy wings to us.”

“Itʼs a ceremony. Weʼll have the wings on the table, the flag, the dads line up and then … the dads become ‘Top Gun dads’” and “they get their wings.” It “begins the mission of the weekend.”

To help the participants live out the mission, the dads have “a training camp,” Crincoli said. “In that training camp we have different activities.”

The activities include anything from dodgeball and nighttime “missions” to quiet time in prayer. The weekend includes “different dynamics and different adventures” to create fellowship and teamwork between the fathers and sons.

During dodgeball, “itʼs the fathers and sons as teams against each other,” Crincoli explained. “But then, if their son gets hit with the ball, the dad has to go and rescue his son.”

“Thereʼs even a night mission that the son and the dad have to do together. There was one year that we did a mission where the dads and kids had to crack codes and to find the missing pilot. But they have to do it together — the son and dad.”

The event also includes father and sons giving each other their own call signs and explaining why they chose them for each other. Itʼs a “dynamic of ‘How well do you know your son, and how well does your son know you?’”

Along with the mission-center games, the group most importantly spends time in prayer throughout the weekend.

The “most beautiful” part of the event is when “we have the adoration — father-son adoration together,” Crincoli said. “The dad and his kid, they both come up to receive the blessing with the Blessed Sacrament. Itʼs a very intimate moment.”

“Then we have the finishing Mass. And after the Mass, the dads and the kids are together,” and “itʼs the award ceremony.”

Then, “the dads give their wings to their sons” and “as theyʼre pinning the wings to their son, theyʼre praying over their kids. Theyʼre blessing them. Theyʼre encouraging them.”

The many ‘lights’ that come from the event

The last day includes “a debriefing with the dads,” Crincoli said. “We sit down with the dads and we start asking them, ‘What has this weekend been for you?’”

“The dads begin to express different comments,” Crincoli said. He further reflected on some of the past insights he has heard from fathers. 

“The men say, ‘It is great to be with men that believe what I believe.’”

“Another, he goes, ‘Itʼs beautiful, itʼs great, to be with men who are strongly Catholic, who are bonded by their sons, and that we could be a community.’ One of the dads said, ‘I really want to be a mentor in this because ... this is an extension of my fatherhood.’”

After the weekend, “they come back,” Crincoli said. They come back as mentors for ECYD clubs or take part in its other camps.

“There are so many different lights that come from this,” he said.

The next annual Top Gun Father and Son will be held the weekend of Oct. 17–18. It will include the presence of members of the U.S. Naval Academy and a former Navy Seabee chief who will support the weekend with leadership and inspiration.

West was sued by the couple for not adhering to the terms of the surrogacy contract, which included a clause allowing them to request abortion of the baby if it were found to have fetal abnormalities.

The mother sought refuge in Texas and gave birth there to the baby, whom she named Gabriel; the state ordered a hospital system to provide the baby life-giving care.

The controversial case has generated significant commentary around gestational surrogacy, the practice in which a woman is paid to grow and birth a baby for the parents.

The Catholic Church explicitly opposes surrogacy, describing it as a comprehensively immoral practice that offends the dignity of everyone involved. But why specifically does the Church so strongly forbid this arrangement?

Practice is ‘contrary to the unity of marriage’ and of human dignity

Joseph Meaney, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, described surrogacy as an arrangement in which “a woman agrees to carry a child for another — either a couple or another individual — with the express purpose of giving that child to them.”

“Traditional” surrogacy involves using the birthing mother as the biological mother, Meaney said. One example of this, he said, can be found in the Bible, in the Book of Genesis’ account of Sarai allowing her servant Hagar to serve as a surrogate with the former’s husband, Abram.

The “modern version” of surrogacy, meanwhile, involves impregnating a surrogate using in vitro fertilization (IVF) either via a donor or using gametes from the “intending parents.”

The Catholic Church has condemned and prohibited this practice for decades.

Meaney pointed to the 1987 instruction from what was then the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith known as Donum Vitae, which describes surrogate motherhood as “contrary to the unity of marriage and to the dignity of the procreation of the human person.”

The practice of surrogacy, according to the instruction, “represents an objective failure to meet the obligations of maternal love, of conjugal fidelity, and of responsible motherhood; it offends the dignity and the right of the child to be conceived, carried in the womb, brought into the world and brought up by his own parents; [and] it sets up, to the detriment of families, a division between the physical, psychological, and moral elements which constitute those families.”

Meaney summed up the instruction’s claims on surrogacy as: “It’s bad, bad, really bad, worse than bad.”

Joe Zalot, the director of education at the Catholic bioethics center, told EWTN News that the dispute in Texas over baby Gabriel is a “textbook example” of what is wrong with surrogacy.

That case, he said, demonstrates “how commercial surrogacy denigrates the surrogate, seeking to reduce her to a subservient role viz-a-viz the genetic ‘parents,’ as well as how surrogacy contracts denigrate the dignity of the preborn child through the demand that it be killed if a prenatal anomaly is diagnosed.”

Catholic opposition to surrogacy has become more outspoken in recent years. Both Zalot and Meaney pointed to Pope Francis’ January 2024 address to the Holy See’s diplomatic corps; in those remarks Francis decried surrogacy as “deplorable.”

The practice “represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child,” the pope said. He expressed hope for an international ban on the procedure.

In the United States, meanwhile, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) says in its ethical guidance for Catholic healthcare that Catholic health providers may not participate in surrogacy arrangements.

The bishops in that directive cite “the dignity of the child and of marriage” as well as “the uniqueness of the mother-child relationship.”

In an August 2025 essay, Meaney further argued against “altruistic surrogacy” in which a woman agrees to carry a child for someone else with no monetary reimbursement.

The intentions of these women, he acknowledged, “seem … frequently generous” and compassionate. Yet such arrangements retain “most of the unethical qualities” of commercial surrogacy, he said.

He further noted that the biblical account of Sarai’s arrangement with Hagar functions as “a cautionary tale of how badly such arrangements can go,” insofar as Hagar and her child Ishmael “ended up banished and almost died in the wilderness.”

The practice is widely legal in the U.S. Only one state, Louisiana, outlaws commercial surrogacy entirely; more than a dozen states broadly allow it, while a majority of states are at least generally permissive of it.

Meaney said the matter “really does come down to ethics. There’s what can be done, and what should be done; there’s the technically possible, and the moral. And the two are not coterminous.”

“One’s reproductive capacity should be reserved for the sacred purpose of bringing a new life into the world, not a commercial contract with strangers,” he said.

The National Legal Foundation, Claybrook LLC, Troutman Pepper Locke, First Liberty Institute, and Alliance Defending Freedom filed the petition on Aug. 11. The filing follows a May 13 ruling by a 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel that rejected Hall’s attempt to sue Virginia officials for blocking her from using a $5,000 Virginia Tuition Assistance Grant for a youth ministries degree, citing the 2004 Supreme Court decision Locke v. Davey.

“It is odious to our Constitution for a state to fund a degree in music but refuse to fund a degree in music & worship,” Steven Fitschen of National Legal Foundation said in a press release announcing the petition. “The Free Exercise clause is meant to encourage and even prefer religion. But Virginia’s decision to deny funding based upon religious use is the type of hostility toward religion rejected by the First Amendment.”

Diocese of Scranton reopens St. Pius X Seminary after over 20 years

St. Pius X Seminary in the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, has been reestablished 22 years after its closure in 2004 due to a declining number of vocations to the priesthood.

Bishop Joseph Bambera presided over the seminary’s official opening on Aug. 23, welcoming four seminarians to the freshly renovated building that was formerly the Cathedral Convent building, according to a press release from the diocese.

“As we re-establish the ministry of Saint Pius X Seminary, what an incredible gift this is,” Bambera said during his homily at the seminary’s first Mass, according to the release. Bambera had been a seminarian at St. Pius X Seminary in Dalton 48 years ago.

The release noted that the decision to reestablish the seminary came from Bambera’s wish “to make the first stage of priestly formation more closely connected to the Diocese of Scranton and the people the seminarians may one day serve.”

“We are excited because it’s going to give these men, as they start seminary, an opportunity to get to know the Diocese better,” Father Alex Roche, diocesan secretary for clergy formation and rector of St. Pius X Seminary, said in the release. “It’s also going to give the people of the Diocese a chance to get to know our seminarians before they go elsewhere to continue their studies in theology.”

Justice Barrett to speak at Benedictine College’s library dedication

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett will deliver a speech at the upcoming dedication of Benedictine College’s Independence Hall-inspired library on Sept. 26.

“This is an exciting milestone for Benedictine College,” Benedictine College President Stephen D. Minnis said in a press release on Aug. 25. “The library will not only demonstrate our commitment to academic excellence and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition, but it will also be a symbol of our love for this great country of ours.”

“The college is pleased to have Justice Barrett as part of the dedication ceremony,” the press release said, noting that the dedication for the Moritz Library in D’Aniello Hall will be free and open to the public.

Barrett earned her bachelor’s degree from Rhodes College and her law degree from the University of Notre Dame.

Students revive 1982 robotic arm at Catholic University despite lost documentation

A group of students from The Catholic University of America have brought to life a robotic space arm built in 1982 after documentation for the piece of technology has been lost for years.

Originally developed by Engineering Dean Emeritus and Ordinary Professor Charles Cuong Nguyen, the arm had been part of a pioneering technological effort to build the International Space Station, according to the university’s press release on Aug. 12.

The project to revive the arm, which is capable of a wide range of precise movements within a thousandth of an inch, was carried out by three students, including a high school Da Vinci Scholar, and was led by Nguyen. 

The students included Saliha Kavafogolu, an undergraduate intern from Yale University; Nathan Arega, a high school Da Vinci Scholar; and Ha (Jessica) Ngo-Tang, a biomedical engineering doctoral candidate.

California parents ask Supreme Court to overturn ruling excluding them from state program

Three California parents have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to exclude them from a state program over the religious materials they chose to home-school their children.

“The Ninth Circuit declared the homes of these parents to be ‘public school programs’ in order to justify the state’s religious discrimination,” Hiram Sasser, executive general counsel for First Liberty Institute, said in an Aug. 20 press release. “Parents should not be punished for choosing quality religious curriculum meeting the state’s standard that they teach to their own children in their own home just because it’s religious.”

The state of California’s tuition-free charter schools allow parents to home-school their children and have access to state funds to purchase curriculum. However, the press release notes, parents “can’t select a religious curriculum, even if they purchase it with their own funds, and their children’s work samples are rejected if they include religious wording or derive from materials created by religious publishers.”

The petition states that “California’s policy singles out parents who wish to give their children a faith-based education and excludes them from homeschooling benefits and support extended to other California families.”

The proposed bill, AB 1709, is scheduled for its third reading in the state Senate on Aug. 28. The amended measure originally would have prohibited “anyone under the age of 16 from having a social media account,” as the conference’s action alert still asserted as of Aug. 28.

However, the bill was amended over the summer to simply restrict “addictive features” for youth under 16.

The Catholic conference wrote in its alert that studies “repeatedly show that social media is damaging to young kids.” The bishops said mental illness and self-harm have “skyrocketed” among youth since 2007, the year the iPhone was first released.

“Young people self-report feeling addicted, experiencing damaging messages to their body image and self-esteem from the comparisons and endless scrolling, receiving unwanted contact by strangers, and exposure to harmful content including eating disorders, suicidal ideation, violence, pornography, and drug use,” the conference wrote.

On Aug. 26, tech company Meta — the creator of Facebook and Instagram — agreed to pay up to $17.1 billion in a settlement after 29 states sued the company in a consolidated federal case. The settlement resolved claims that Meta’s platforms fueled addictive and harmful social media use among young people.

A much larger bipartisan coalition of 47 states, the District of Columbia, and several U.S. territories signed the settlement itself. Florida and New Mexico did not participate in the settlement.

“Children have a right to be children and to parental protection from harmful materials,” the California bishops said.

Apparently still referring to the original bill — which was introduced in February and would have banned social media outright for youth under age 16 — the alert continues: “Establishing the age of receiving a social media account at 16 helps preserve childrenʼs social and emotional development and parents' rights to safeguard their children from such harms.”

About 20 U.S. states have enacted social media and minor-safety laws, but so far enforcement is a patchwork: Some laws are in force, some are partly blocked, some are fully enjoined, and some have not taken effect yet.

Texas did not join the multistate Meta lawsuit. Instead, state Attorney General Ken Paxton announced a separate settlement the same day, under which Meta will pay the state more than $1 billion, or up to about $1.335 billion if YouTube and TikTok adopt similar teen-safety terms.

The Texas payout is larger than almost every other state’s share of the national deal; only California could receive more, up to $2.2 billion. The settlement is supposed to fund youth mental health services, crisis resources, digital literacy, after-school programs, and school grants in the state.

In addition to the payouts, both deals require Meta to verify users’ ages, cap most minors at two hours a day on Facebook and Instagram (with messaging exceptions), block overnight access and many nighttime notifications, set school-hour notification limits, hide likes and reactions by default, and restrict addictive features and inappropriate content for users under 18.

Parents will also have the option to permanently make their children’s Facebook news feeds “chronological” rather than algorithmic, meaning the feeds will simply display posts in chronological order rather than in an order selected by Facebook’s algorithm.

Australia became the first country to ban social media accounts for youth under 16 when the rule took effect in December 2025. France later became the first EU country to pass a similar ban, but for children under 15. The measure was approved in July and will be phased in beginning in September.

The DOJ and the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, a religious freedom advocacy group, held the meeting in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 27 to address the rise in attacks against houses of worship and faith-based communities.

Participants consisted of leaders from diverse faith backgrounds, including Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

The leaders spoke with Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general for civil rights at the DOJ, and Karen Schneier Dresbach, executive vice president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation — a coalition of business and religious leaders working worldwide on behalf of religious freedom, human rights, and the protection of houses of worship.

“No American should ever fear violence for simply practicing their faith," Dhillon said in a statement.

"The Department of Justiceʼs Civil Rights Division has zero tolerance for attacks on houses of worship, and we will continue to investigate and prosecute those who target Americans because of their religion,” Dhillon said.

The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division has zero tolerance for attacks on houses of worship, and we will continue to investigate and prosecute those who target Americans because of their religion.”

Harmeet Dhillon

assistant attorney general for civil rights for the Department of Justice

“Iʼm grateful to the Appeal of Conscience Foundation and the faith leaders gathered here today for their partnership in this work. Protecting religious liberty is a fundamental American value, and this Department will keep fighting to defend it,” Dhillon said in a statement.

The event also included a panel discussion among leaders and the presentation of a statement by participating groups read by Serbian Orthodox Bishop of Eastern America Irinej Dobrijevic and Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, according to a press release.

The statement called for stronger legislation to protect houses of worship and for the establishment of an ongoing body of religious leaders to monitor threats. The leaders asked that the DOJ work in tandem with the groups to help ensure that people of faith can worship safely.

The gathering comes amid rising concerns over attacks against houses of worship across the U.S. The meeting was held on Aug. 27, the first anniversary of the fatal shooting at Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis in which two children were killed.

Bishops’ concern about religiously motivated violence continues

In 2026, “the Committee for Religious Liberty continues to be concerned about politically and religiously motivated violence,” the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said.

The U.S. bishops previously laid out “areas of critical concern” in their 2026 religious liberty report, including threats of political and anti-religious violence.

“In recent years, the USCCB has expressed concern about politically motivated violence. The polarization that has long been the subject of commentary by religious leaders appears to be devolving into a cycle of attack and retribution,” the bishops said in the report.

“Polarization is not simply a phenomenon ‘out there.’ It names a tendency within many people to turn away from truth in order to remain loyal to their political tribe. But Catholics are called to be conformed to Christ, not to partisan political leaders, media personalities, and social media influencers,” they said.

The bishops called for expanded federal support for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, which funds security upgrades for houses of worship. They said funding is insufficient because fewer than half of applicants receive grants, despite rising threats.

“As we learn more about the devastating flashfloods in Nepal, I offer the prayers and solidarity of the Catholic community in the United States for our brothers and sisters impacted by this disaster,” Bishop Elias Zaidan said in an Aug. 27 statement. “I also encourage long-term efforts to help affected communities rebuild their homes, livelihoods, and critical infrastructure.”

The floods began after a glacier collapse triggered catastrophic flooding along the Nepal-Tibet border. The casualty count continues to rise, as hundreds of people remain missing.

Zaidan, chair of the USCCB Committee on International Justice and Peace, said Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. Church’s international aid agency, is tracking the situation closely and working with Caritas Nepal and other local partners to identify urgent needs and plan the most effective support.

“We appreciate the partnership of the U.S. government in supporting CRS’ essential work in these communities. We are also grateful to hear that the U.S. Department of State is closely monitoring the situation and deploying key personnel to support response efforts,” said Zaidan, Maronite Catholic bishop of the Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles.

The U.S. Department of State said it is sending disaster advisers to help with rescue and cleanup efforts. The government said it also would distribute $500,000 in assistance via Catholic Relief Services.

“I exhort the international community to mobilize greater humanitarian assistance support for vulnerable families and communities in Nepal,” Zaidan said. “May the Immaculate Heart of Mary provide consolation and shelter to all those affected by this disaster, and may she inspire the international community to work together, as one family, to address the urgent needs of the Nepalese people.”

The Justice Department on Aug. 28 released an extensive report on the memo, which was drafted out of the FBI’s Richmond, Virginia, field office and leaked in early 2023.

Upon its leak the memo drew immediate criticism from Catholics and religious liberty advocates around the country. The FBI quickly retracted the document after the leak, with the bureau claiming that it did “not meet our exacting standards.”

On Aug. 28 FBI Director Kash Patel described the contents of the memo as “unacceptable.” He said the release of information “about what occurred under [the Biden administration] is an important part of the process” of ongoing investigations into alleged government weaponization.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, meanwhile, described the memo as “a clear abuse of power,” one that targeted “conservative and religious beliefs disfavored by agents of government.”

Memo arose from 2020 investigation into violent extremist

The Aug. 28 report — released by the Department of Justice’s Weaponization Working Group — said the Catholic memo arose out of an FBI investigation that began in 2020 regarding an individual who moved to Virginia from New York and began writing “violent and racially-motivated” posts on the internet.

Richmond Domain Perspective Report

That individual was ultimately sentenced to two separate prison terms on vandalism and weapons charges. Prior to his second imprisonment, he reportedly began attending a Virginia chapel run by the Society of St. Pius X.

Federal agents began investigating the chapel and a priest associated with it; their investigation expanded to include another priest connected to the so-called SSPX Resistance, a breakaway group that the FBI alleged has neo-Nazi sympathies.

Based on those investigations, starting in late 2022 the Richmond field office began developing a “domain perspective” on the alleged “increasing intersection” of “radical-traditional Catholics” and “domestic violent extremists.”

Subsequent research turned up “only two additional cases,” the working group report said, and FBI investigators found “nothing linking Catholics or groups not in full communion with the Catholic Church to domestic extremism.”

The investigation progressed to the point where analysts were preparing to develop a high-level executive report of the inquiry to present to senior FBI officials. Yet after the leak of the memo on Feb. 8, 2023, that report was never developed.

The working group report described the FBI memo as using a “sweeping generalization” of “radical-traditionalist” Catholics. Internal FBI presentation materials obtained by EWTN News identify the “core ideology and beliefs” of such Catholics as including “conservative family values/roles” and a “tendency toward isolationism.”

The memo further identified such Catholics as believing in the “creation of a totalitarian, anti-pluralist Catholic nation” as well as the “rejection of religious neutrality and right to religious freedom.”

The document drew a distinction between “radical” Catholics and so-called “traditionalist Catholics” who prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II traditions yet do not adhere to “the more extremist ideological beliefs and violent rhetoric” of the “radical” group.

An internal review of the memo found no “constitutional concerns” related to the analysis, the working group report said. Yet the memo spawned “significant internal criticisms” in the FBI after its leak, the report said.

In particular, an agent with the bureau’s counterterrorism division said the unit found no “significant linkage” between violent extremists and “radical traditionalist” Catholics.

Bureau leadership ultimately ordered the deletion of the memo, though the working group report said the memo was still being worked on more than a month after that order came down.

Later in the year the bureau’s inspection division found that the drafters of the memo demonstrated a lack of “professional judgment” and that they “failed to adhere to FBI standards.” The division ordered “all individuals” involved in the memo’s production to be “admonished” and be subject to additional training.

The working group report noted that the personnel involved in the production of the memo “have been terminated from their positions.” It argued that “history” will “rightly judge the Richmond Catholic Memo as a grave failure of the FBI Richmond Field Office” to uphold First Amendment rights.

The controversial memo has generated sustained criticism from religious liberty advocates as well as numerous responses from lawmakers in Washington since it was leaked.

In March the conservative legal group Judicial Watch was in federal court arguing for the release of un-redacted files related to the memo. Attorney Meredith DiLiberto expressed disappointment at the time that heavy redaction practices had continued from the Biden administration to the Trump administration.

In December 2024 Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, warned the government to not destroy federal records including documents related to the FBI investigation. Hawley said at the time that he had received reports of employees “destroying records and other documents in an effort to conceal widespread misconduct that took place under the [Joe] Biden administration.”

The working group report released on Aug. 28 did not mention any reports of records destruction. But Attorney General Todd Blanche said the Justice Department “will not tolerate a weaponized bureaucracy that chills First Amendment activity.”

The working group’s investigations into alleged government weaponization “will continue,” Blanche said.

Five Catholic colleges and universities told EWTN News they are crafting classroom AI policies in light of the pope’s encyclical, as the University of Chicago moves — as first reported by the student newspaper The Chicago Maroon — to make social sciences classes fully analog this fall.

Belmont Abbey College

“The Chicago response in their core classes resonates strongly with where our thoughts are going, although theyʼre a bit ahead of us in formulating a general policy,” David Williams, dean of arts and sciences and professor of theology at Belmont Abbey College in Belmont, North Carolina, told EWTN News.

“Discussions on the pedagogical response to AI have been ongoing for some time now, with new impetus as we absorb Pope Leoʼs encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas,” Williams said. “There’s a significant contingent among the faculty who prefer the all-analog approach, at least in our core curriculum classes, and are teaching accordingly as a matter of individual choice.”

According to Williams, a faculty-led committee is expected to deliver a report to the university’s president and provost by the end of the fall 2026 semester.

“I wouldnʼt be surprised at all to see a recommendation similar to Chicagoʼs for all our core curriculum courses; the core here is a substantial part of the overall degree program, so that would be more than 40% of a graduateʼs coursework,” he said.

Ave Maria University

Daniel Davy, dean of faculty and associate professor of history at Ave Maria University in southwest Florida, told EWTN News that Pope Leo’s “concern for preserving genuine human formation, rather than outsourcing it to a machine, is at the heart of AMUʼs approach to teaching and learning” but noted that the university does not have plans to institute a university-wide AI ban.

“AMU approaches AI with what Pope Leo XIV calls in the encyclical a spirit of ‘prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace’ (par. 106), rather than either uncritical adoption or blanket prohibition,” Davy said in an email.

“AMU does not have a university-wide AI ban comparable to the University of Chicagoʼs Social Sciences Core policy; academic policy here is set at the course and department level, since pedagogical needs vary by discipline,” he continued, noting that the university’s academic honor code bans use of generative AI in any part of the writing process and in all freshmen- and sophomore-level courses.

“We are far less concerned with whether a student turns in a perfectly polished paper than with how the student grows through the act of trying to communicate an idea,” Davy said. “This is where generative AI poses its deepest danger, because it offloads the process of thinking onto a machine that cannot, in fact, think. Outsourcing that struggle diminishes a studentʼs own capacity to encounter truth more deeply in each discipline, and through that truth, ultimately, Christ, to whom every field of knowledge points.”

University of Mary

“Here at Mary, one of our charisms is Friendship with Truth,” David Echelbarger, vice president for academic affairs at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, told EWTN News. “Because we are made in the image of a Triune God who is himself a communion of Persons,” he said, “we are not made to arrive at the truth alone. We come to it through dialogue and conversation with other people.” 

“One concern with AI, then, is that it turns learning into an isolated, impersonal endeavor,” he said. “To counter that, many of our professors are incorporating into their courses activities that require hard and rigorous thinking together.”

Additionally, he said, all faculty members have been asked to place an AI policy on each of their assignments, clarifying the degree to which the technology is permitted for each individual assignment, “which is meant to help students understand when the use of AI is a hindrance to their intellectual formation and when it is a helpful learning tool.”

Benedictine College

Mariele Courtois, assistant professor of theology and director of the Center for Technology and Human Dignity at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, told EWTN News that the college’s “Academic Misconduct” statement was recently updated “to clearly state that AI cannot be used ‘in place of a student’s own effort,’ in order to respect the learning process and the special connection between students and their academic work, which should reveal the students’ own personalities and convictions.”

“While some classes, especially in the STEM fields, may utilize or learn about AI — including its function, risks, dangers, and potential promises — many professors choose to make their classes AI-free both in the lecture hall and for homework, especially in Theology and the humanities,” Courtois said in an email. “Benedictine College respects the prudential judgment of professors to make the pedagogical choices that are best suited to their particular class goals and the aims of their respective disciplines.”

Courtois noted the college’s Center for Technology and Human Dignity was recently founded “to help guide discussions about rising biomedical and digital technologies in light of Catholic moral teaching.”

In addition, she said, the theme of the college’s annual Symposium on Transforming Culture on Sept. 4–5 will be “The Church in an Algorithmic Age” and “will bring together intellectuals and students from many fields and business sectors to discuss the ethical questions and social implications for transformative technologies such as AI.”

University of St. Thomas

“With Pope Leo XIV, UST is alive both to the ways in which AI can serve the human and the ways in which the human can be made to serve the work of His hands,” Thomas Harmon, professor of theology and director of the University of St. Thomas’ honors program special projects, told EWTN News.

Harmon said the university, located in Houston, does not have a blanket ban on artificial intelligence but noted that many core courses prohibit screens and emphasize developing students’ own skills rather than relying on AI.

“We regard AI as an important and potentially very useful technology that needs to be utilized in ways that serve rather than replace human excellence, which requires training, formation, practice, and guidance by faculty mentors who themselves have already cultivated the habits we want our students to develop,” he said.

“Since it is so new, the ways in which it can be responsibly integrated into an excellent liberal education are not all clear yet, but we are confident that we will be able to integrate this new technology analogously to the ways in which we have integrated other useful technologies like books, pencils, white boards, and computers,” Harmon said.

“Iʼm very impressed with her credentials and her pro-life heart,” Dannenfelser said in an Aug. 26 interview with “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly” anchor Abigail Galván. “She, behind the scenes, was working very hard to make sure that the FDA was moving in the right direction on a new study to base further action on.”

The position became vacant after Dr. Marty Makary was fired and is currently filled by acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas, whom Dannenfelser also described as “a very strong pro-life person.”

“We’ve been extremely disappointed from the beginning of the administration with the direction of the FDA and the inaction from the Department of Justice, or the undermining of the pro-life priorities at the Department of Justice,” Dannenfelser said. “What I think is that her naming is an indication of the right direction that … this administration is now taking.”

Confirmation hearings will begin as soon as the Senate is back in session. Dannenfelser said she anticipates the hearings “will probably go pretty well.”

“Now, it doesnʼt mean that the hard questions shouldnʼt be asked,” she said. “They must be asked, and one of those questions would be the direction of the study: How long it will take? What do you see about preliminary findings come out that the court has ordered to be communicated in early October? And do you support the Department of Justice doing what it can to settle this case and get the drugs immediately out of the mail?”

“Because there is a challenge from the state of Louisiana, representing many states, that are saying what we all know: They have basically nullified those state laws,” she continued. “Theyʼve put a burden on states to help women that should never have been in a horrible situation. So while itʼs a question about the Department of Justice, one should not claim that the FDA is the only entity that can do something about fixing this horrific problem that is occurring for children and women in this nation.”

Dannenfelser called for a return to the first Trump administration policy on abortion drugs.

“Weʼve been battling for quite some time from the beginning of this administration to get these drugs out of the mail, and all weʼre hoping for, and what all any sane voter wants to see, is that on the at least on the Republican side, that we return to the first Trump administration policy on the distribution of these drugs, that only in a Biden administration that put on an emergency cloak around the distribution around the COVID moment,” she said.

“Itʼs time to restore the first Trump administration rules — no reason why we shouldnʼt,” she said. “The DOJ can act now and should.”

But unlike most people, she had another set of refrigerators to worry about — the commercial ones at the food pantry she coordinates at her parish, St. Mary of the Lake in Gary.

“I have two or three freezers full of meat. I have two refrigerators full of refrigerated items. Panic sets in, because I do not have a generator there,” Simon told the National Catholic Register, the sister partner of EWTN News.

Not having an alternative power source, Simon was able to secure alternative storage options for the food, allowing St. Mary’s to continue serving the poor as some in the region enter their third week without electricity.

The outages began on Aug. 11, when 100 mph wind gusts and heavy rain blew through northwest Indiana and east Chicago. Numerous municipalities in northern Indiana including Gary, Portage, Lake Station, and Munster suffered widespread power outages, with as many as 400,000 customers affected at the peak.

Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO) announced that power would be restored for nearly all of its customers in the area by Aug. 25. But more than 7,000 customers in Gary were without power for two weeks. The outages heavily affected the predominantly African American city of about 70,000 people, which has a poverty rate of about 33%, more than three times higher than the national average.

Indiana’s Republican governor, Mike Braun, called for an investigation into NIPSCO over the lengthy outages.

‘Trying to meet the need’

While conditions were extremely difficult, they also fostered solidarity.

When Simon was searching for alternative options for storing St. Mary’s perishable food pantry items, she started calling around to other ministries around Gary that the Catholic food bank works alongside. Many of them were also struggling due to the lack of electricity, but a nearby Christian church that still had power offered to keep 100 containers of milk cold, while the local secular food bank was able to keep the meat frozen.

Last Saturday, the volunteers at St. Mary’s loaded up their cars and distributed nonperishable food to 200 households in a local housing complex, including for several people with disabilities who were trapped with nonfunctioning elevators amid the blackout. Other parishes around Gary, along with local Knights of Columbus councils, also stepped up to offer food and other aid to their neighbors.

Bishop Robert McClory of the Diocese of Gary said in an Aug. 14 social media message that the trying times in the region are an “opportunity for us ... to be attentive to each other’s needs, to check in on your neighbors."

“I know many of us have already experienced a certain solidarity coming together with our neighbors during this time of need,” McClory continued. “Now is our opportunity to allow our Christian witness to shine forth. Know that you’ll all be in my prayers, and as we work together to navigate through this, we trust in the Lord, and we seek, as St. Paul says, to bear each other’s burdens.”

Terry Seljan, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Gary, told the Register that while roughly 99% of those who had lost power have now had it restored, significant needs remain among residents recovering from the recent storms.

Many people had to throw away food from refrigerators and freezers and are seeking assistance to restock their food, he explained. Others whose sump pumps stopped working during the heavy rain lost appliances, mattresses, and other belongings due to water damage. Additionally, some people who were unable to work while local businesses were shut down are seeking help with rent, while others need building supplies to make home repairs they cannot afford to address through insurance.

Seljan said the organization is focusing primarily on providing financial assistance and is asking those who want to help to donate through its website.

Prayers are ‘greatly appreciated’

With the help of roughly 60 regular volunteers, the St. Mary of the Lake pantry normally distributes mostly nonperishable food on the third Monday of each month. Normally at this time of year, the pantry serves about 155 households, or roughly 450 individuals.

Amid the power outages, St. Mary’s also donated some 1,400 pounds of fresh produce grown at a massive community garden associated with the parish to the local fire station for further distribution.

Father Jayababu Nuthulapati, rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Angels in Gary and pastor of two other parishes, including St. Mary of the Lake, told the Register that prayers for their community are greatly appreciated.

“[The storm] was very devastating,” he said, but “we never stopped feeding the poor.”

“We continue doing that even in the difficult moments, because we want to be out there for the people. And I’m very grateful for the volunteers,” Nuthulapati said.

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago and Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Gary have also been highly engaged, addressing the immediate and ongoing needs in the communities affected by the blackouts, including food, clothing, and housing assistance. 

On Aug. 22, the Chicago Bears announced a donation of $100,000 to the Chicago and Gary Catholic Charities to help them in this work. 

While St. Mary of the Lake’s pantry is managing with the help of the wider community, the church is currently seeking the donation of a backup generator to protect the investment of its food in the case of another emergency like this, Nuthulapati added.

For Simon, the experience has been a heartwarming show of community cooperation and a chance to practice gratitude.

“Thank God that we have what we have,” she said. “It could be worse. It could be a lot worse.”

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, the sister partner of EWTN News, and has been adapted by EWTN News.

“I am very sorry to hear of her passing, and I am praying for those who are mourning her loss,” said Bishop Mark Beckman of Knoxville in a statement. "She made a wonderful contribution to our world and our community, and she will be greatly missed.”

The artist passed away on Aug. 25 at the age of 80 following a brief battle with cancer. Parton is being remembered across the world for her work as a singer, songwriter, actress, businesswoman, and philanthropist whose career spanned over 60 years.

“East Tennessee knew Dolly Parton as more than a world-famous star. We knew her as one of our own,” the diocese said in a statement.

“She was shaped by these hills and these churches. Her life shows what can grow from faith, perseverance, imagination, and love for oneʼs neighbors — even from humble beginnings,” the statement said.

Parton, who was not Catholic, sang and spoke frequently about her Christian faith and love for Jesus. Some of her public views — including her support for same‑sex marriage — differed from Catholic teaching. She was publicly silent on her views about abortion.

“She first sang in a small Pentecostal church, long before the world knew her name,” the diocesan statement said. Parton included the Southern Gospel Music Hall of Fame in her Dollywood theme park.

“She never hid her faith. It showed up in the hymns she recorded across six decades, in how openly she talked about God, and in the millions of free books her Imagination Library has placed in childrenʼs hands,” the statement said.

Parton’s “life carried the spirit of our mountain home far beyond the Smokies,” the statement said.

“As Catholics, we entrust her to the mercy of Almighty God. We pray that Jesus, who is the resurrection and the life, will receive her into His eternal kingdom,” the statement said.

Remembering Parton’s ‘generosity’

Father Jim Sichko, a papal missionary of mercy who has repeatedly referred to Parton as a friend, also mourned the artist’s passing, calling her “a woman whose extraordinary gifts reached far beyond the stage.”

“As a Papal Missionary of Mercy, I will remember Dolly not simply as an icon of American music, but as a woman who understood that blessings are meant to be shared,” Sichko said in a statement.

Sichko, a priest of the Diocese of Lexington, said he “had the privilege of welcoming Dolly to my church on several occasions.” He added: “She generously used her presence and influence to help raise money to support my ministry and its work of mercy.”

Parton “never forgot where she came from, and she never seemed to forget the people who needed a helping hand,” Sichko said.

“Her faith, generosity, humor, and unmistakable spirit touched millions,” he said.

"My faith impacts everything that I do because I do believe that, through God, all things are possible,” Parton said in a 2023 interview with Fox News. “And so I always ask God to bless everything that I do and the people that I work with and to bring all the right things and right people into my life and to take the wrong ones out.”

“So, I try to just live through love as much as I can,” Parton said.