Category: 2025 News

SCRANTON – Catholic Schools Week 2025 is now underway in the Diocese of Scranton through Saturday, Feb. 3.

The annual celebration provides an opportunity to honor the contributions of Catholic schools across the country, highlight their role in shaping students’ academic, spiritual, and moral development, and express gratitude for the educators, students, and families who are part of these vital communities. 

The week is celebrated in the Diocese of Scranton’s 15 elementary schools and 4 high schools with a variety of events and activities, including Masses, open houses, service projects, and community outreach programs.

“We are excited to celebrate Catholic Schools Week because it is always an opportunity to honor the incredible work of our schools, teachers, administrators, and families,” Kristen Donohue, Diocesan Secretary of Catholic Education/Superintendent of Schools, explained. “Our mission is to provide a Catholic education that is spiritually sound, academically excellent, and prepares our students to be faith-filled leaders and life-long learners dedicated to serving the church and society.”

This year, in a very special way, the Diocese of Scranton is focusing on the achievements and contributions that Catholic school students can make, while also celebrating their academic and spiritual growth.

On Jan. 27, the Diocese of Scranton launched its inaugural “Living the STREAM” event. Catholic school students in grades 6-8 were invited to put their imagination into action and share a “big idea” that they think would meet a community, national, or global need.

As part of the “Living the STREAM” event, students were invited to work in teams and film a short video describing their project and how it could make for a better world. They were encouraged to include all aspects of STREAM (Science, Technology, Religion, Engineering, Art and Mathematics).

More than 40 videos, featuring nearly 200 Catholic school students, have been submitted – with students researching varying topics including homelessness, pollution, food waste – and offering their thoughts on how to tackle these issues.

As part of the “Living the STREAM” event, the community will be able to support the students and vote for their favorite, or the most creative video, on the Diocese of Scranton website (dioceseofscranton.org). Public voting – and a panel of community judges – will help to award prizes to several student projects in April.

Catholic Schools Week is not only a celebration of academic excellence, but also the values that define Catholic education, including faith, service, community and charity. There are currently more than 6,000 Catholic schools in the United States, serving roughly 1.5 million students.

Established by the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) in 1974, Catholic Schools Week aims to recognize the positive impact Catholic schools have on students, families, and communities.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Nations should put people affected by poverty, illness, migration and other marginalized groups at the heart of social and economic considerations during the Holy Year 2025, Pope Francis said.

“The poor and the sick, the young and the elderly, the migrants and the displaced, even those deprived of their freedom, must be at the center of our considerations, so that no one is excluded and everyone’s human dignity is respected,” the pope told participants in a conference on peace and dialogue in Havana, Cuba.

The conference, titled “For World Balance,” gathered writers, artists, politicians, academics and religious and social leaders to explore avenues toward promoting global solidarity.

In his message, released by the Vatican Jan. 28, Pope Francis said that the Holy Year must be a time when people can overcome the obstacles that prevent them from looking to the future with hope.

The Jubilee offers a unique opportunity for humanity to focus on “all that is good in the world so as to not be tempted to consider ourselves overcome by evil and violence,” he said, citing his bull of indiction formally proclaiming the Holy Year.

Pope Francis called for the Holy Year to be a time for people to work courageously to turn hope into a tangible and lasting peace through dialogue and diplomacy.

Such an objective is not possible, he said, if people are “prevented from opening up to life with enthusiasm by the frenetic pace of life, by fears about the future, by the lack of job guarantees and adequate social protection (or) by social models whose agenda is dictated by the search for profit rather than by the care of relationships.”

The pope praised initiatives and volunteers working to restore people’s confidence in themselves and in society, and he said that all people, including those without a religious identity, are called to live in selfless fraternity since “everything we do for others has repercussions for us as individuals and as a society.”

He urged everyone to cultivate hope by building a society rooted in solidarity — one that shares generously with the poor and embraces the stranger — “so that we may know how to contribute with what we are and what we have to the common good.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – When a holy day of obligation falls on a Sunday and so is transferred to another day, the Catholic faithful are encouraged to attend Mass, but they are not obliged to do so, the Vatican said.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary Dec. 8 fell on the Second Sunday of Advent in 2024 and so, in most dioceses around the world, the feast was transferred to Monday, Dec. 9.

Some bishops in the United States insisted the faithful still had a moral obligation to attend Mass on the feast day while others issued a formal dispensation from the obligation.

The Dicastery for Legislative Texts, in a September letter to Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, had said, “the feast must be observed as a day of obligation on the day to which it is transferred.”

But in a formal note dated Jan. 23, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said it had consulted with the legislative texts office and determined that “in the event of the occasional transfer of a holy day of obligation, the obligation to attend Mass is not transferred.”

Every Sunday is a holy day of obligation because it is a commemoration of the death and resurrection of the Lord. The additional holy days when Catholics have a moral obligation to attend Mass are: Christmas; the feast of Mary, Mother of God; Epiphany; the Ascension; the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ; the Assumption; the feast of St. Joseph; the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul; and the feast of All Saints.

Because the church’s liturgical calendar includes fixed feasts, like the Dec. 8 celebration of the Immaculate Conception, and “moveable feasts” like Pentecost, Easter or even the Sundays of Advent or Lent, occasionally two feasts will fall on the same day, the dicastery said.

In that case, the one that holds “the highest rank according to the Table of Liturgical Days is observed,” and the other feast is transferred to the closest available day, the note said. In December, the Second Sunday of Advent had a higher rank than the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

The issue is not addressed in the Code of Canon Law, the dicastery said, so the church follows “a well-established practice according to which, in the event of the transfer of a holy day of obligation, the obligation to attend Mass is not transferred.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – While the Holy Year 2025 refrain, “Hope does not disappoint,” can be difficult for those suffering from illness to embrace, Christians are called to recognize God’s closeness even in moments of weakness or despair, Pope Francis said.

Sickness “becomes an occasion for a transformative encounter” when one is open to God, he wrote in his message for the 33rd World Day of the Sick, observed by the church Feb. 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.

In addition, the Vatican will host the Jubilee of the Sick and Health Care Workers April 5-6, an event that will close with a papal Mass celebrated in St. Peter’s Square.

“Suffering always brings with it a mysterious promise of salvation, for it makes us experience the closeness and reality of God’s consoling presence,” the pope wrote in the message released Jan. 27.

Despite the frailty felt “on the physical, psychological and spiritual levels” during times of illness, “we also experience the closeness and compassion of God, who, in Jesus, shared in our human suffering,” Pope Francis wrote. “God does not abandon us and often amazes us by granting us a strength that we never expected and would never have found on our own.”

Pope Francis said that suffering can also be accepted by Christians as a gift, for it “makes us aware that hope comes from the Lord.”

“Indeed, only in Christ’s resurrection does our own life and destiny find its place within the infinite horizon of eternity,” he wrote.

The pope compared the journey of the ill to that of the disciples on the road to Emmaus, who, by sharing their anxieties and disappointments with Jesus, came to recognize his presence, enabling them to “sense that ‘greater reality’ which, by drawing near to us, restores our courage and confidence.”

Suffering, Pope Francis added, develops a profound sense of sharing and encounter. Those who tend to the sick realize that they are “angels of hope and messengers of God for one another,” be it at home or at a clinic, nursing home or hospital.

“We need to learn how to appreciate the beauty and significance of these grace-filled encounters,” he wrote. “We need to learn how to cherish the gentle smile of a nurse, the gratitude and trust of a patient, the caring face of a doctor or volunteer, or the anxious and expectant look of a spouse, a child, a grandchild or a dear friend.”

Such gestures are “rays of light to be treasured,” the pope said, which even amid adversity “give us strength, while at the same time teaching us the deeper meaning of life in love and closeness.”

Those who care for the sick during the Jubilee year “play an especially important part,” the pope said in his message. Their dedication has an impact “far beyond the rooms and beds of health facilities” in promoting charity and are “capable of bringing light and warmth wherever they are most needed.”

“The whole church thanks you for this!” he wrote. “I do as well, and I remember you always in my prayers.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis has formally recognized that five Franciscan missionaries ministering in what is now the U.S. state of Georgia were killed for their faith.

By signing the decree in the sainthood cause of the Georgia martyrs Jan. 27, the pope cleared the way for their beatification, although a date for the ceremony was not announced immediately.

The Spanish Franciscans Pedro de Corpa, Blas Rodríguez de Cuacos, Miguel de Añón, Antonio de Badajoz and Francisco de Veráscola were killed between Sept. 14 and Sept. 17, 1597, after Father de Corpa told a young Indigenous man, Juanillo, who was heir to a Guale chiefdom, that as a baptized Christian he could not take a second wife.

Juanillo and a band of his men killed the priest with a stone hatchet at the Mission of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Tolomato, which is near modern-day Eulonia, Georgia. They then went after the other Franciscan missionaries living and ministering along the Georgia coast.

Recounting the story of the Georgia martyrs on its website, the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, said Father de Corpa not only “reprimanded” Juanillo for taking a second wife, but also “told him that he would oppose his succession as village chief if he persisted in his polygamous choice.”

Bishop Stephen D. Parkes of Savannah, the diocese that includes the missions where the five friars were martyred, thanked all the people who worked to promote their sainthood cause for more than 40 years.

“May Venerable Friar Pedro de Corpa and Companions intercede for families everywhere, and inspire husbands and wives around the world to live out the sacrament of marriage with love, truth, and fidelity,” the bishop wrote in a statement Jan. 27.

The first proof of the five Franciscans’ readiness to give their lives for the Lord was their choice “to leave Spain and set out as missionaries to a land and among peoples still partly unknown. The five were aware of the risks and dangers associated with their apostolate also in relation to their safety,” the dicastery said.

“Moved by a genuine spirit of love for Christ and service to the church, they accepted to be sent on mission to the North American territory,” it said.

Pope Francis signed other decrees Jan. 27 as well, including recognizing:

— The miracle needed for the canonization of Italian Blessed Vincenza Maria Poloni, founder of the Sisters of Mercy of Verona; she lived from 1802-1855.

— The martyrdom of Swiss Marist Brother François Benjamin May, also known as Brother Lycarion, who was shot in Barcelona, Spain, in 1909 during an anarchist rebellion.

— The heroic virtues of Mother Riccarda Beauchamp Hambrough, a longtime assistant to and later successor of St. Mary Elizabeth Hesselblad, who refounded the Bridgettine Sisters; the two hid persecuted Jews, Communists and Poles from the Nazis in Rome during World War II.

— The heroic virtues of Italian Father Quintino Sicuro, a diocesan priest and hermit, who lived 1920-1968.

— The heroic virtues of Italian laywoman Luigia Sinapi, who lived 1916-1978. The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints said that she experienced “numerous supernatural gifts such as precognition of events and situations, bilocation, discernment of spirits and, above all, mystical union with the Lord Jesus, lived in an atmosphere of modesty, humility and service. Many people, including priests, high prelates, politicians and ordinary people came to her for spiritual comfort.”

(OSV News) – Vice President JD Vance questioned the motives of the U.S. bishops’ criticism of President Donald Trump’s new immigration policies in a Jan. 26 interview — including raids on churches and schools — asking if they are actually concerned about receiving federal resettlement funding and “their bottom line.”

“I think the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has, frankly, not been a good partner in commonsense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for, and I hope, again, as a devout Catholic, that they’ll do better,” Vance said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

In Vance’s first interview since becoming vice president, host Margaret Brennan noted that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops “condemned” Trump’s immigration-related executive orders, and asked Vance, “Do you personally support the idea of conducting a raid or enforcement action in a church service, at a school?”

“Of course, if you have a person who is convicted of a violent crime, whether they’re an illegal immigrant or a non-illegal immigrant, you have to go and get that person to protect the public safety. That’s not unique to immigration,” he said.

“But let me just address this particular issue,” he continued. “Because as a practicing Catholic, I was actually heartbroken by that statement. And I think that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops needs to actually look in the mirror a little bit and recognize that when they receive over $100 million to help resettle illegal immigrants, are they worried about humanitarian concerns? Or are they actually worried about their bottom line? We’re going to enforce immigration law. We’re going to protect the American people.”

The USCCB is one of 10 national resettlement agencies that receive federal funding and partner with local organizations to assist refugee populations that qualify for federal assistance. Those populations include people resettled via the U.S. refugee admissions program, certain groups of vulnerable noncitizen children, and certain other groups such as victims of human trafficking and torture.

Vance said that if the USCCB is “worried about the humanitarian costs of immigration enforcement, let them talk about the children who have been sex trafficked because of the wide-open border of Joe Biden … who are brutally murdered. I support us doing law enforcement against violent criminals, whether they’re illegal immigrants or anybody else, in a way that keeps us safe.”

Vance said that Trump’s change to federal regulation allowing law enforcement to go into schools and churches “empowered law enforcement to enforce the law everywhere, to protect Americans.”

The Trump administration announced Jan. 21 it would rescind a long-standing policy preventing Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from making arrests at what are seen as sensitive locations, including houses of worship, schools and hospitals under most conditions. However, the previous policy had exceptions that allowed ICE arrests for national security or terror issues, the arrest of dangerous felons, and other special criminal considerations.

When Brennan suggested that such a change has “a chilling effect … to people to not send their kids to school,” Vance replied, “I desperately hope it has a chilling effect … on illegal immigrants coming into our country.”

Brennan asked Vance whether he thought the USCCB is “actively hiding criminals from law enforcement?” Vance did not answer the question directly, but said the USCCB has “not been a good partner in commonsense immigration enforcement that the American people voted for.”

In a statement Jan. 26 regarding its work with the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, which did not name Vance, the USCCB said, “Faithful to the teaching of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church has a long history of serving refugees.”

“In 1980, the bishops of the United States began partnering with the federal government to carry out this service when Congress created the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP),” the statement said. “Every person resettled through USRAP is vetted and approved for the program by the federal government while outside of the United States. In our agreements with the government, the USCCB receives funds to do this work; however, these funds are not sufficient to cover the entire cost of these programs. Nonetheless, this remains a work of mercy and ministry of the Church.”

While the funds the USCCB receives are limited to assistance for qualifying refugee populations, and therefore immigrants in the U.S. lawfully, Vance’s accusation that the funds are used to “resettle illegal immigrants” appears to mirror previous rhetoric he used. While campaigning, Vance indicated that he does not recognize the legal status of certain immigrant groups the Biden administration deemed eligible to receive temporary protected status, or TPS.

However, TPS recipients are not eligible for the federal funding received by the USCCB for refugee resettlement. Other immigrant populations not eligible for federal assistance received by the USCCB include migrants seeking asylum, humanitarian parolees, employment-based immigrants, family-based immigrants, DACA recipients, and people who are stateless.

Immigration was one of an array of issues Brennan covered with Vance six days after he and Trump took the oath of office. Trump’s first week included a flurry of executive orders, several of which fulfilled campaign promises to deter illegal immigration and deport undocumented immigrants living in the United States.

Ahead of Inauguration Day, Catholic bishops and other leaders expressed concerns about Trump’s plans to allow immigration enforcement access to sensitive locations. On Jan. 22, USCCB president Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services said in a statement that some of Trump’s executive orders, including those related to immigration, “are deeply troubling and will have negative consequences, many of which will harm the most vulnerable among us.”

In a separate Jan. 22 statement, Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Migration, specifically addressed Trump’s orders on immigration.

“The Catholic Church is committed to defending the sanctity of every human life and the God-given dignity of each person, regardless of nationality or immigration status. Church teaching recognizes a country’s right and responsibility to promote public order, safety, and security through well-regulated borders and just limits on immigration,” he said.

“However, as shepherds, we cannot abide injustice, and we stress that national self-interest does not justify policies with consequences that are contrary to the moral law,” he continued. “The use of sweeping generalizations to denigrate any group, such as describing all undocumented immigrants as ‘criminals’ or ‘invaders,’ to deprive them of protection under the law, is an affront to God, who has created each of us in his own image.”

Bishop Seitz said that he welcomed Trump’s “emphasis on anti-trafficking,” but that the president’s executive orders “are specifically intended to eviscerate humanitarian protections enshrined in federal law and undermine due process, subjecting vulnerable families and children to grave danger.”

“We urge President Trump to pivot from these enforcement-only policies to just and merciful solutions, working in good faith with members of Congress to achieve meaningful, bipartisan immigration reform that furthers the common good with an effective, orderly immigration system,” Bishop Seitz said. “My brother bishops and I will support this in any way we can, while continuing to accompany our immigrant brothers and sisters in accordance with the Gospel of Life.”

Bishop Seitz also co-signed a Jan. 23 statement with Sister Mary Haddad, a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and president and CEO of Catholic Health Association of the United States, and Kerry Alys Robinson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, decrying Trump’s orders allowing immigration arrests in “sensitive locations.”

“We recognize the need for just immigration enforcement and affirm the government’s obligation to carry it out in a targeted, proportional, and humane way,” they said. “However, non-emergency immigration enforcement in schools, places of worship, social service agencies, healthcare facilities, or other sensitive settings where people receive essential services would be contrary to the common good.”

According to the USCCB, its Migration and Refugee Services “is the largest refugee resettlement agency in the world.” Audited financial statements show that the USCCB received about $122.6 million in 2022 and about $129.6 million in 2023 in funding from government agencies for refugee-related services. The group’s website states that, in partnership with its affiliates, “the United States Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services department resettles approximately 18% of the refugees that arrive in the U.S. each year.”

The financial statements explain that since 1975, the USCCB has entered into agreements with the U.S. government to assist refugee resettlement and “and to provide specialized services to particularly vulnerable migrants, such as unaccompanied minors and victims of human trafficking.” The funds are particularly provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. State Department under the Immigration and Nationality Act.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, Pope Francis reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s willingness to accept a proposal for a common date for celebrating Easter in the West and the East.

Noting that in 2025 the date coincides on the West’s Gregorian calendar and the East’s Julian calendar, Pope Francis said that “I renew my appeal that this coincidence may serve as an appeal to all Christians to take a decisive step forward toward unity around a common date for Easter.”

“The Catholic Church is open to accepting the date that everyone wants: a date of unity,” he said Jan. 25 during an ecumenical evening prayer service at Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.

The service marked the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, which focused on this year’s celebration of the 1,700th anniversary of the Council of Nicaea, which gave Christians a common Creed and a formula for determining a common date for the celebration of Easter.

Before the Council of Nicaea in 325, different Christian communities celebrated Easter on different dates; the council decided that for the unity of the Christian community and its witness, Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.

But the Julian calendar, which is what Christians used in the fourth century, was increasingly out of sync with the actual solar year, so March 21 — generally assumed to be the date of the Northern Hemisphere’s spring equinox — gradually “drifted” away from the actual equinox.

In 1582, Pope Gregory XIII reformed the calendar, dropping 10 days and making the equinox fall on March 21 again. Most Eastern Christians did not adopt the new calendar, leading to a situation where Easter occasionally is on the same day, but Eastern Christians’ celebration can be as much as four weeks later.

Pope Francis has reaffirmed on several occasions the position officially taken by St. Paul VI in the 1960s that if Eastern Christians agree on a way to determine a common date for Easter, the Catholic Church would accept it.

The ecumenical prayer service began with Pope Francis praying before the tomb of St. Paul. He was joined by Orthodox Metropolitan Polykarpos of Italy and Malta and by Anglican Archbishop Ian Ernest, director of the Anglican Center in Rome. The Orthodox and Anglican bishops also joined the pope at the end of the liturgy in giving their blessing to the crowd.

The theme of the 2025 week of prayer was Jesus’ question to Martha of Bethany: “Do you believe this?”

In the Gospel of John, Martha tells Jesus that if he had been there, her brother Lazarus would not have died. Jesus tells Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life; whoever believes in me, even if he dies, will live,” and then he asks if she believes. Martha responds with a declaration of faith: “Yes, Lord. I have come to believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

Pope Francis said, “This tender encounter between Jesus and Martha from the Gospel teaches us that even in times of desolation, we are not alone, and we can continue to hope. Jesus gives life even when it seems that all hope has vanished.”

“Hope can falter following difficult experiences such as a painful loss, an illness, a bitter disappointment or a sudden betrayal,” the pope said. “Although each of us may experience moments of despair or know people who have lost hope, the Gospel tells us that Jesus always restores hope because he raises us up from the ashes of death.”

Sometimes, the pope said, people may feel like the search for Christian unity has reached a dead end or that ecumenical dialogue is “doomed to failure.”

“All of this makes us experience the same anguish as Martha, but the Lord comes to us,” he said. “Do we believe this? Do we believe that he is the resurrection and the life? That he rewards our efforts and always gives us the grace to continue our journey together? Do we believe this?”

The anniversary of the Council of Nicaea is “a year of grace, an opportunity for all Christians who recite the same Creed and believe in the same God,” the pope said. “Let us rediscover the common roots of the faith; let us preserve unity! Let us always move forward! May the unity we all are searching for be found.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – President Donald Trump on Jan. 24 used executive authority to block taxpayer funds from paying for elective abortion procedures both in the U.S. and abroad.

Trump reinstated a policy, commonly referred to as the Mexico City Policy, which bars taxpayer funds from going to nongovernmental organizations abroad that perform or promote abortions. He also signed an executive order to further enforce a ban on federal funding for abortion known as the Hyde Amendment.

The Mexico City Policy, referred to as the “global gag rule” by opponents, was first enacted by former President Ronald Reagan in 1984. Each Republican president since that time has authorized it, and each Democratic president has rescinded the policy. In 2021, the Trump administration expanded the policy’s family-planning scope to cover most federal global health assistance, renaming it the “Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance” policy.

Trump’s executive order to enforce the Hyde Amendment alleged that “the previous administration embedded federal funding of elective abortion in a wide variety of government programs.” It rescinded some executive orders issued by former President Joe Biden including one directing strict enforcement of the Federal Access to Clinic Entrances Act, or FACE Act, which prohibits actions including obstructing the entrance to an abortion clinic, and another defining abortion as “healthcare.”

The order said federal statutes “protecting access to emergency medical care for pregnant women under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) and protecting personal health information under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) remain in full effect.”

RealClear Politics first reported that he did so while aboard Air Force One, just hours after delivering a virtual, prerecorded message to the Jan. 24 March for Life earlier the same day.

Neither Trump nor Vice President JD Vance, who addressed the national March for Life in person, mentioned his plans to do so in their comments to the annual pro-life demonstration in Washington.

Mini Timmaraju, president and CEO of Reproductive Freedom for All, formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America, argued in a statement that as a candidate, “Trump tried to downplay his role in overturning Roe v. Wade. And now he has spent his first week in office handing down anti-abortion directives gutting federal protections.”

“These policies inflict harm on those who need access to reproductive health care, including abortion, in our country, and around the world — and we will fight back,” Timmaraju said.

But Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which works to elect pro-life candidates to public office, praised the orders in a statement, arguing, “With this action the president is getting American taxpayers out of the abortion business and restoring sanity to the federal government.”

“This is a big win for babies and mothers, and it reflects the will of the majority of Americans who strongly oppose bankrolling the abortion industry at home and abroad,” Dannenfelser said. “On behalf of pro-life Americans and the moms and babies that will be saved from the tragedy of abortion, thank you, President Trump.”

In a Jan. 26 statement, Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities, praised the actions, saying, “A significant majority of Americans oppose being forced to support abortion through their tax dollars. I am grateful for the strengthening of policies that protect us from being compelled to participate in a culture of death, and that help us to restore a culture of life at home and abroad.”

The Catholic Church teaches that all human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and as such, opposes direct abortion.

After the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022, church officials in the U.S. have reiterated the church’s concern for both mother and child and called to strengthen available support for those living in poverty or other causes that can push women toward having an abortion.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Communication is something divine with the power “to build — build communities, build up the church,” Pope Francis told thousands of journalists and people working in media and communication.

“To know how to communicate displays great wisdom,” he said in brief remarks during an audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall Jan. 25.

He encouraged participants in the Jan. 24-26 Jubilee of the World of Communications to remember that it is not enough to communicate the truth, they also must be true and authentic people in their hearts and in the way they live their lives.

The midday encounter came after thousands of the pilgrims walked through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica and made the profession of faith at the tomb of St. Peter, and after the pope had had a full morning of meetings.

The pope held up his written speech and said, “I have in my hands a nine-page speech” and “at this time of day when the stomach starts rumbling, to read nine pages would be torture.”

He gave the prepared text to Paolo Ruffini, prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, to be distributed and published.

In his text, the pope made an urgent appeal for the release of unjustly imprisoned journalists, which, according to Reporters without Borders in 2024, numbered more than 500 people.

“The freedom of journalists increases the freedom of us all,” he wrote, asking those with the power to do so to release during the Jubilee Year those who were detained merely “for wanting to see with their own eyes and for trying to report what they have seen.”

Freedom of the press and freedom of thought must be “defended and safeguarded along with the fundamental right to be informed,” the pope wrote.

Without “free, responsible and correct information,” he wrote, “we risk no longer distinguishing truth from lies; without this, we expose ourselves to growing prejudices and polarizations that destroy the bonds of civil coexistence and prevent fraternity from being rebuilt.”

“We need media literacy,” his text said, “to educate ourselves and to educate others in critical thought, the patience of discernment necessary for knowledge, and to promote the personal growth and active participation of every one of us in the future of our own communities.”

“We need courageous entrepreneurs, courageous information engineers, so that the beauty of communication is not corrupted,” he wrote. “Great change cannot be the result of a multitude of sleeping minds but rather begins with the communion of enlightened hearts.”

“Not all stories are good, and yet these too must be told,” he wrote. “Evil must be seen in order to be redeemed, but it is necessary to be told well so as not to wear out the fragile threads of cohabitation.”

The pope’s text also reflected on the talks given before his arrival by Maria Ressa, a Filipino-American journalist who was awarded the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with a Russian journalist for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, and Colum McCann, an Irish writer and co-founder and president of Narrative 4, an international educational NGO. The two speakers had both been given loud, long applause and a standing ovation for their talks.

“This Jubilee comes at a time when the world is upside down: when what’s right is wrong; and what’s wrong is right,” Ressa said in her speech.

An MIT study showed in 2018 that “lies spread six times faster on social media,” and if a lie is told enough times, “it becomes a fact. If you make people believe lies are facts, then you can control them,” she said.

“Without facts, you can’t have truth. Without truth, you can’t have trust. Without these three, we don’t have a shared reality” and “we can’t have journalism; we can’t have democracy,” much less “solve existential problems like climate change,” she added.

“Information warfare,” Ressa said, is a “geopolitical power play (that) is exploiting these platforms’ design. Remember, the goal is not to make you believe one thing; it’s to make you doubt everything, so you’re paralyzed.”

Religion and faith are more important than ever for fighting back because of what they hold in common with the golden rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” she said.

There are four things people in the world of media and communication can do, she said: collaborate; speak truth with moral clarity; protect the most vulnerable and prevent the normalization of hate; and “recognize your power” driven by love.

“Hope is not passive; it’s active, relentless and strategic. Our faith traditions carry centuries of resilience; we need to share those stories of transformation,” she said.

McCann said in his speech that “stories matter. They can change the course of history. They can rescue us. Stories are the glue that hold us together: we are nothing if we can’t communicate.”

When people share who they are and then listen generously in turn, it reminds everyone of their shared humanity, he said.

“The crux of our contemporary dilemma is not so much silence, as it is the act of silencing,” which happens “when we refuse to listen to the stories of others, or more poignantly, when we refuse to let others tell their stories at all” or “annihilate” their stories, he said.

A refusal to hear the stories of “those who don’t look like us, or sound like us, or vote like us, is at the core of our possible doom,” he said.

McCann encouraged teachers and journalists to use storytelling, “not something designed to win an argument, but something that stirs the soul,” as a path to repair what is broken in the world.

“Young people soon realize — through personal storytelling — that we are so much more alike than we are different” and “we recognize one another’s common humanity.”

Just being interested in one another is a triumph, he said. “Imagine how many triumphs come about when we learn to understand, or even like, or maybe even love, one another.”

Storytelling and story listening may or may not save the world, he said, but it will let in “a ray of light and understanding” to pierce the darkness.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – On the eve of the national March for Life rally in Washington, President Donald Trump announced Jan. 23 he was issuing pardons for 23 protesters arrested for violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinics (FACE) Act.

Trump signed the pardons in the Oval Office.

“They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them are elderly people,” he told reporters. “This is a great honor to sign this.”

The Thomas More Society, the Chicago-based public interest law firm, had earlier in January announced it had submitted formal requests to pardon 21 pro-life activists convicted under the FACE Act. They included Joan Bell, Coleman Boyd, Joel Curry, Jonathan Darnel, Eva Edl, Chester Gallagher, William Goodman, Dennis Green, Lauren Handy, Paulette Harlow, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, Jean Marshall, Father Fidelis Moscinski, Justin Phillips, Paul Place, Paul Vaughn, Bevelyn Beatty Williams, Calvin Zastrow, Eva Zastrow, and James Zastrow.

The two other convicted pro-life activists pardoned by Trump are Herb Geraghty of Pennsylvania and Jay Smith of New York.

Many are still incarcerated. Lauren Handy, a Catholic convicted for her participation in a 2020 abortion clinic blockade in Washington, has been serving the longest sentence: 57 months.

According to a list maintained by Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, Handy is currently in a federal prison in Florida. Idoni is incarcerated in Florida; Marshall and Goodman in Connecticut; Darnel and Calvin Zastrow in Illinois; Hinshaw in Massachusetts; Geraghty in Pennsylvania; and Williams, who was arrested for protesting outside an abortion clinic in New York City, in Alabama.

“Today, freedom rings in our great nation,” said Steve Crampton, senior counsel for the Thomas More Society. “The heroic peaceful pro-lifers unjustly imprisoned by Biden’s Justice Department will now be freed and able to return home to their families, eat a family meal, and enjoy the freedom that should have never been taken from them in the first place.”

Father Fidelis, a member of the Franciscan Fathers of the Renewal, issued his own statement expressing gratitude to President Trump for the pardons.

“The pardons corrected the injustice of our prosecutions and incarceration but the daily and horrific injustice of abortion continues,” he said. “And it must be stopped.”

At the same time, the Catholic priest leveled criticism at the president over his position that the states should decide abortion policy.

“Although it might be politically expedient to say that each state should make its own laws about abortion, this position is morally incoherent,” he said. “We invite President Trump to abandon this incoherence and show himself to be a president of all Americans — born and unborn.”