St. James the Less Catholic Parish

The Texas State Capitol in Austin. / Credit: Gang Liu/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 9, 2025 / 16:06 pm (CNA).

A federal judge has overturned the long-standing “Texas Dream Act” in a move the state’s Catholic bishops say undermines “just” immigration reform efforts. 

After the U.S. Department of Justice sued the state of Texas over the matter last week, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor blocked the law, which had enabled some noncitizens living illegally in Texas to qualify for in-state tuition at the state’s public universities and colleges.

Reed ruled that the law was “unconstitutional and invalid” because it applied to those who were “not lawfully present in the United States.”

Enacted in 2001, the law made in-state tuition available for noncitizen students who graduated from a local high school and had lived in Texas for at least three years prior to graduation, including those who weren’t in the country legally. The law required that students pledge to apply for permanent residency at the earliest opportunity.

Most public colleges across the U.S. offer more affordable in-state tuition for students who have lived in that state for a certain length of time, as their families have paid tax dollars to the state over the years. Meanwhile, students coming from out of state pay higher tuition rates to attend the same schools. 

Following the federal lawsuit, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said his office would not contest it and filed a motion in support of the federal government’s position, asking the court to rule that the law was unconstitutional. 

In a statement, Paxton called the law “discriminatory and un-American,” saying that it “allows an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States to qualify for in-state tuition based on residence within the state while explicitly denying resident-based tuition rates to U.S. citizens that do not qualify as Texas residents.”

Federal law requires that no residency-based higher education benefits can be provided to noncitizens that are not also offered to all U.S. citizens, according to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.

Texas legislators recently considered changing the Texas Dream Act though the bill died as the Texas legislative session ended on June 2.

The Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops decried the overturning of the Texas Dream Act, saying it “propels our society further away from just and reasonable immigration reform that would foster human flourishing based in the tranquility of order and human dignity.”

“These eligible students were youth who were brought into the United States by their parents as young children and through no fault of their own,” the bishops said in a statement. “Texas became their home.”

“In the years following their entry, they became proficient in English, were educated in Texas schools, were taught Texas values, and became responsible, hardworking members of our local communities,” the bishops stated.  

“Nearly 57,000 undocumented students are currently enrolled in higher education in Texas, and each year, 18,000 undocumented students graduate from Texas high schools,” the bishops continued. “With access to higher education, these students contribute in-demand skills to our state’s workforce and become leaders in their chosen fields.”

In-state tuition in Texas sits at about $12,000 a year, while out-of-state tuition is about $43,000 as of the 2024-2025 school year.

The law’s overturn, the bishops said, “is a move away from the development of an educated workforce required for economic and social stability.”

The bishops expressed concern that the action limits the growth of Texas’ “skilled workforce,” “blocks opportunities” for immigrant students, and “undermines” long-term economic growth “by placing higher education out of financial reach for many low-income students in whom Texas has already invested in educating through high school.”

More than 20 states and Washington, D.C., have similar programs that provide in-state tuition for students who are in the country illegally.

U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi said the U.S. Justice Department will continue to combat these sorts of laws.

“Other states should take note that we will continue filing affirmative litigation to remedy unconstitutional state laws that discriminate against American citizens,” Bondi said.

Brothers Father Joseph Wahlmeier (pictured on the left) and newly-ordained Father Isaac Wahlmeier (on the right), with their parents and Bishop James D. Conley after the ordination Mass May 24, 2025. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Diocese of Lincoln

Lincoln, Neb., Jun 9, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

For parents, having the opportunity to see their children embrace the vocation to which God has called them marks the culmination of years of prayer and sacrifice. While most will see their children married, a smaller group will get to celebrate calls to the priesthood and religious life. 

Even more rare, though, is the opportunity to celebrate multiple ordinations from the same family, let alone among siblings. But as of Saturday, May 24, with the ordination of Father Isaac Wahlmeier, six families in the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, can celebrate such a blessing.

These sets of brothers include Father Isaac Wahlmeier and his brother Father Joseph Wahlmeier, ordained in 2020, and Fathers Matthew and Jeffrey Eickhoff, who were ordained in 1989 and 1995, respectively,

For Father Isaac Wahlmeier, the opportunity to see his brother begin his journey to the priesthood was a major factor in discerning his own vocation. He said that visiting his brother Joseph when he was attending St. Gregory the Great Seminary in Seward, Nebraska, brought the seminary that much closer to his purview, and getting to visit Joseph while he studied in Rome was a huge “trust booster” for him. 

Likening it to the communion of saints, Father Isaac said: “Where you see the witness of one person, it’s an instrument for God to increase the trust in your own life, and the confidence you have in his will and his love for you.” 

Father Joseph was studying as a seminarian in Rome when he first heard his brother Isaac planned to enter into the seminary as well. He described his reaction to the news as being “both surprised, and not” at the same time. 

“It kind of felt like my own vocation,” he said. “I didn’t really think about being a priest, especially until college, but when the call came, it just made so much sense.”

Looking back, the brothers can see how the example that their parents, Patrick and Debbie, set for them led them to where they are today.

Married more than 45 years, Patrick and Debbie Wahlmeier are parents to 15 children and grandparents to 29 grandchildren. When Debbie donned her wedding dress all those years ago, she didn’t know that one day her son Isaac would have lace from her dress included in the albs that he would wear for his diaconate and priestly ordinations. 

“It makes me feel like a part of his dad and I will be with him at every Mass,” Debbie said. “As he does the Lord’s work, we can be with him.” 

Debbie said she’s been asked if she knew that her sons had a calling to the priesthood when they were young. Her response is that she didn’t know what God’s plan was for any of her children, but she prayed that they would find it.

As for the prayer she would pray as the mother of a seminarian? Simply this: “May God’s will be done.” 

“I don’t think a parent has the power to make a vocation or make it happen, whatever that vocation is, but let it happen. Let God make it clear to your children,” she said. 

Reflecting on Isaac’s ordination, Debbie said that she and her husband feel very blessed and see it as an affirmation of the power of the sacrament of marriage, how God blesses it and can make so much good come out of it. 

This is something that Father Isaac said he can see play out in the lives of his siblings who are married and embracing their own vocation of self-giving love. 

“That goodness that my parents have is manifested in them too, and it multiplies. By giving themselves away to their children and their families, they just become more of who they are, more of who they’re meant to be,” he said.

Father Joseph said that growing up, his parents “put him and his siblings in the near occasion of virtue,” praying the rosary together often and challenging them to serve the Lord in different ways — whether through volunteer time, attending Sky Camp, or serving at Mass, which taught them to always be ready to give of themselves. 

“I think that probably lends itself to growing in the ability to answer the call to a vocation, to hear it and know that ‘I’ll be able to give of myself in this way as well,’” he said. 

The Eickhoff brothers

This family involvement in the Church was something that Fathers Matthew and Jeffrey Eickhoff experienced growing up as well. 

The sons of Larry and Joan Eickhoff, Fathers Matthew and Jeffrey grew up members of Holy Cross Parish in Omaha. The two have an older brother who passed away three years ago and two sisters who are married with children.

“My parents were very involved in the parish and involved us kids as much as was feasible when we were small,” Father Matthew said. Sometimes that meant answering the phone at the rectory for a dollar an hour or serving as substitutes for the priest’s cook. The family always attended Mass, participated in Stations of the Cross, parish missions and retreats, and prayed the rosary together regularly. 

In addition to their shared childhood experiences and priesthood, Fathers Matthew and Jeffrey share some unique skills and interests as well. The two have a music and juggling act that they’ve performed in 20 of the diocese’s schools over the years, and they’re known for their six-course gourmet Italian meals, which have brought in thousands of dollars at auctions for Catholic institutions over the years. 

The two had the opportunity to study in Rome, where they walked to class together once a week, and they have shared in travels throughout Italy. 

Both celebrate the anniversary of their ordination on the same day, May 27, and Father Matthew said he enjoys getting to share the simple joys of the priesthood with someone as close as a brother. 

“We’ve really enjoyed sharing all of the family Catholic celebrations, like the sacraments,” Father Matthew said. “We’ve taken turns baptizing our nephews and our niece, we’ve been to their first Communions, confirmations, Catholic weddings, anniversary celebrations of our aunts and uncles, and celebrated funerals.”

Their experience might give them a glimpse of what the Wahlmeiers will experience for themselves as they live out their lives as priests and brothers.

“There’s definitely a brotherhood of priests in our diocese,” Father Joseph Wahlmeier said. “The priests are especially close… so to join that with a brother priest I think makes it all the more special. And I think it only helps grow the brotherhood of our presbyterate.”

Additional sets of brothers who have become priests in the diocese are Fathers Andrew and Christian Schwenka, ordained in 2019 and 2022; Monsignor Daniel and Fathers Mark and Leo Seiker ordained in 1987, 1984, and 1991; Fathers Evan and Dominic Winter ordained in 2016 and 2022; and Fathers Matthew and Michael Zimmer, ordained in 2011 and 2012. 

This story was first published by The Southern Nebraska Register, has been adapted by CNA, and is reprinted here with permission. 

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat speaks to “EWTN News in Depth” anchor Catherine Hadro on Friday, June 6, 2025. / Credit: “EWTN News in Depth”

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Americans could be on the cusp of a religious revival, according to Ross Douthat, an author, Catholic convert, and New York Times columnist. 

Douthat, who often writes on the intersection of faith, culture, and public life in his column, shared his thoughts on all things American and Catholic — from Pope Leo XIV to Vice President JD Vance to the American religious landscape — in an interview with anchor Catherine Hadro on “EWTN News in Depth” on Friday, June 6.

Douthat described the U.S. religious situation as a “a very unsettled but curious landscape,” particularly after a yearslong decline in religious interest that plateaued during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It’s not that America is having a religious revival. It’s more that we’re considering whether to have a religious revival,” he said.

Interest in religion has moved beyond the hardline atheism of the early 2000s characterized by figures like Richard Dawkins, Douthat said. He observed that there has been “a surge of interest in religion,” especially among Generation Z. 

Sometimes the interest is traditional, as reflected in rising numbers of converts to Catholicism in some dioceses, from Los Angeles to Dublin. Other times it takes on an alternative tone.

“You have a surge of interest in religion, and some of that shows up in traditional faith. Some of it shows up in anything from UFOs to psychedelics,” Douthat said.

Atheism, he indicated, has failed to keep its promises. In the early 2000s “there was a sense that once we get rid of these hidebound Bronze Age superstitions, everyone will get along better: Politics will be less polarized, science will be held in higher esteem, and sociologically people will be happier. Kids won’t be afraid of going to hell, things like that.”

“And obviously none of that has happened.”

Douthat cited rising division, polarization, and “existential angst” in the nation in recent years as setting the groundwork for a resurgence of religion.

“You have a lot of people, some of whom are coming into the Church, others who are exploring around the edges, who are reacting to that environment,” he said.

First impressions of Pope Leo: A unifying figure

When asked to describe the new pope, Douthat called him “unifying,” “charming,” and “mildly inscrutable.”

Douthat said inscrutability is “part of the reason he was elected pope in the first place.”

“There is still a hint of mystery to who the pope definitively is and what he definitively thinks,” he said. “And there may be a long period of time where that mystery gradually unfolds in the life of the Church.”

Douthat noted that Leo was a “dark horse” figure “who’s very good at making different groups of people feel heard and understood.”

Leo’s episcopal motto is one of unity: “In Illo Uno Unum,” meaning “in the One, we are one.” Douthat said he hopes Leo will bring about this unity. 

“Obviously there were a lot of conservative and traditionalist Catholics who were frustrated or anxious at various moments in the era of Pope Francis,” he said.

“[Leo] hasn’t really done all that much — it’s been one month — but there’s so far this sense of just sort of relief at a feeling of kind of stability and normalcy in the papal office,” Douthat said.  

Pope Leo XIV chose his name because the last pope with that name, Pope Leo XIII, “was pope at a time of huge industrial and technological transformation and offered a distinctively Catholic witness for that age,” Douthat noted. 

“There is this landscape that people live in online, disconnected or connected in new ways,” he said. “That is, I think, clearly perilous to the soul in various ways.” 

The digital and AI realms have “deep effects on family and marriage and community,” especially for parents raising kids in this environment. 

“There are fundamental questions of morality and spirituality that are bound up in how you relate to your phone,” he continued. “And I think it is really important for the Church to figure out what to say about it.”

JD Vance interview

Douthat recently interviewed Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic convert, about how faith shaped his politics among other topics.

Reflecting back on a part of the interview where he asked Vance about the Church’s teachings on immigration, Douthat said he was “pressing” the vice president because he believed there were “real tensions” in the dispute, citing deportations by the Trump administration.

Vance and Pope Francis had publicly disagreed on politics earlier in the year. In February, Pope Francis sent a pastoral letter to the U.S. bishops calling for the recognition of the dignity of immigrants after Vance, a Catholic convert, publicly advocated applying “ordo amoris,” or “rightly-ordered love,” to the immigration debate.

“[A]s an American leader, but also just as an American citizen, your compassion belongs first to your fellow citizens,” Vance said at the time, while acknowledging that the principle “doesn’t mean you hate people from outside of your own borders.”

In the letter, Francis tacitly rebuked Vance’s remarks, arguing in part that “the act of deporting people who in many cases have left their own land for reasons of extreme poverty, insecurity, exploitation, persecution, or serious deterioration of the environment damages the dignity of many men and women.”

Douthat noted that Vance’s situation is a “tremendous challenge,” especially because he is vice president, not president.

“There’s always a certain kind of tension between being an elected politician in a pluralist, non-Catholic society and trying to be faithful to the teachings of the Church,” he said.

Sam Brownback. / Credit: Albert H. Teich/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In a recent interview with the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians in Europe (OIDAC Europe), former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback discussed how Christian organizations are increasingly being deplatformed and debanked when engaging in public debate and offered ways to address these challenges and uphold religious freedom. 

“The typical technique in the West is a suffocation technique on religion,” Brownback told OIDAC Europe Executive Director Anja Hoffmann in an interview released June 4. OIDAC Europe is a nongovernmental organization that researches, analyzes, documents, and reports on cases of intolerance and discrimination against Christians in Europe. 

According to Brownback, examples of this technique include pro-life pregnancy centers being dropped by their insurance companies and organizations being taken off of social media platforms. 

Brownback’s own National Committee for Religious Freedom had its bank account canceled without explanation by Chase Bank in 2022 after 45 days of it being opened. 

“You see these techniques and it’s all a suffocation effort. We’re not going to throw you in jail — we can’t throw you in jail — but we can try to strangle you as much as possible so that you can’t operate as a group. And that’s why we’ve got to push back against it in the West more and more,” he said.

In 2018, Brownback — who previously served as a U.S. Senator from Kansas from 1996–2011 and as the 46th governor of Kansas from 2011–2018 —  was sworn in as the U.S. ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom during President Donald Trump’s first term in office. He became the first Catholic to serve in the role.

During his tenure, he promoted religious freedom as a means of promoting individual and economic flourishing and reducing religion-related violence. He also highlighted China’s persecution of Uyghurs and strongly condemned the Xinjiang internment camps. At the 2020 Ministerial to Advance Freedom of Religion or Belief in Poland, Brownback also spoke about the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on religious freedom.

In the interview, Brownback pointed out that now with the use of social media, issues of religious persecution happening around the world have become more visible and need to continue to be brought to light.

“We’re not powerless now … we used to be just dependent upon the media to surface and to get these things out and for us in the United States; if it didn’t get on CBS, NBC, or ABC it didn’t happen, we didn’t know about it,” he explained. “That’s not the case now. You’ve got all these social media outlets that are out there … and you can put it out there and you need to get it out there.”

Brownback also encouraged individuals to not only share content about the issues taking place but also to include ways that individuals can help. He said he thinks many might be surprised to see how much people actually care about these issues once they find out they’re happening.

“You’re seeing more support for religious freedom in the United States and other places and a lot of it has been a long-term awareness building. These things are going on and then as people look at them and say, ‘Is that really happening?’ you say, ‘Yes, that’s really happening.’”

He added: “Changes rarely happen until people actually have to smell and feel something and see that something actually is going on here that’s wrong.” 

Psychologist Greg Bottaro, who once discerned a religious vcocation with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, founded the Integrated Daily Dialogic Mentorship program to give a new take on traditional therapy. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Greg Bottaro

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

After years of therapy with certain patients, Catholic psychologist Greg Bottaro felt “stuck.” 

“I had poured myself into them for seven or eight years, but despite all that effort, we weren’t reaching real breakthroughs,” Bottaro explained. “Deep down, I knew there had to be a better way.”

During a subsequent sabbatical, Bottaro had an idea: therapy inspired by Christ’s “model of accompaniment.” It wouldn’t be a week-to-week check-in, where Bottaro said clients often forgot the problems they meant to ask about, or run up against the session time constraints. 

Instead, Bottaro’s vision involved 24-hour access to a therapist — not through paragraph-long texts or late-night phone calls but through voice messages.

After testing the process out with some clients using a voice message app, Bottaro found that “within weeks, we started seeing breakthroughs.” So he launched a program called Integrated Daily Dialogic Mentorship to provide a new take on traditional therapy. 

“This is how Jesus actually accompanied people,” Bottaro explained. “He walked with his disciples daily, immersed in their lives and available.”

Mental health and Catholicism 

As a psychologist himself, Bottaro sees an opportunity to bring the Catholic understanding of the human person into the realm of mental health. 

“The mental health space is crying out for a deeper vision of the human person — and Catholics are uniquely positioned to offer it,” he said. 

“We have a tradition that sees every person as made in the image of God, created with reason, will, emotion, and the capacity for communion,” he continued.

He noted that the field of psychology “often reduces people to diagnoses or data.” In this atmosphere, Catholic anthropology is “desperately needed.” 

Bottaro sees a deep connection between Catholicism and mental health. 

Catholics are “called to love,” Bottaro said simply. “Love means presence. It means walking with people in their pain, not from a place of superiority but from solidarity,” he said.

Mentorship is only possible with this “accompaniment.”

Bottaro said he hopes the app “draws people into deeper connection with God, with others, and with themselves.”

“My hope for this app — and this movement — is that it becomes a bridge,” he said. “A bridge between faith and psychology. Between suffering and healing. Between isolation and relationship.”

“I hope it raises the standard — not just for mental health care but for what it means to truly care for the human person,” he added.

Inspiration from Francsican friars

Bottaro spent four years discerning with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. He credits the experience for giving him the strength to launch the program.

Living with the friars trained Bottaro in “daily practice of trustful surrender to divine providence,” he said.

“There is no food unless God provides it through the generosity of another person. That’s hard,” Bottaro said.

The friars take a vow of poverty and work closely with the impoverished and the homeless of New York City. Living with them helped Bottaro “to leap with a faith that all things work for the good of those who love the Lord.”

“There is no way I would have taken the leap and launched a whole new method of accompaniment without that trust,” he said. 

The Integrated Daily Dialogic Mentorship program is more than just 24-hour access to a therapist. Therapists are formed and trained through Bottaro’s mentorship program, which has roots in his own “deeply ingrained” Franciscan spirituality.

Central to that worldview is “reverence for the individual human person and a love for the suffering soul,” Bottaro said. 

Most of all, Bottaro credits the “life, teaching, and friendship” of the late Father Benedict Groeschel, the Franciscan friar who mentored him.

As part of the certification process, soon-to-be mentors read Groeschel’s book “Spiritual Passages.”

“My students get to read his brilliant way of communicating the integration of spirituality and psychology, its importance, and how it can lead to human flourishing,” Bottaro said.

Centered on relationship 

With the rising use of AI chatbots for everything from grocery lists to therapy, Bottaro said it’s important to remain centered on “human connection.” 

Many are turning to AI chatbots when they need help, using it as a journal or treating it like a therapist. But Bottaro noted that AI lacks the essential human element of relationship.  

“AI can simulate answers — it can’t simulate relationship,” Bottaro said. “It can’t know you, hear the inflection in your voice, or pray with you. It can’t love.” 

Through the app, Bottaro hopes to provide that element of relationship.

“It’s a community of people who are formed together, who grow together, and who are invited to heal together,” Bottaro said.

“Everything we do is about building real human connection — rooted in faith, formed by truth, and carried out through relationships,” he added.  

Bottaro’s ministry, CatholicPsych Institute, will host its second annual conference this month, gathering together spirituality and mental health experts to discuss a Catholic response to the mental health crisis. Keynote talks will be led by various experts, including Francsican Friar of the Renewal Father Columba Jordan, at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, from June 20–22. 

“In a world increasingly tempted to turn to algorithms for meaning and direction, we are trying to offer something radically countercultural,” Bottaro said. “Real people, trained and formed in the truth about the human person, who show up to walk with you toward healing, growth, and purpose.”

Seven Dominican brothers were ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP, who leads the Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia. The newest Dominican priests are Louis Mary Bethea, Gregory Marie Santy, Bertrand Marie Hebert, Basil Mary Burroughs, Titus Mary Sanchez, Nicodemus Maria Thomas, and Linus Mary Martz, pictured here with the archbishop at their ordination at the the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., on June 4, 2025. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 6, 2025 / 17:57 pm (CNA).

On Wednesday at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., seven Dominican brothers were ordained to the priesthood by Archbishop Anthony Fisher, OP, who leads the Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia.

“We are overjoyed at the ordination of seven of our brothers to the priesthood of Jesus Christ,”  Father Allen Moran, OP, prior provincial of the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph, told CNA.

“I, and all the friars of the Province of St. Joseph, look forward to the good work that God will do through them in our parishes, campus ministries, intellectual apostolates, hospital chaplaincies, and digital evangelization efforts.”

The newest Dominicans joining the community as priests are Louis Mary Bethea, Gregory Marie Santy, Bertrand Marie Hebert, Basil Mary Burroughs, Titus Mary Sanchez, Nicodemus Maria Thomas, and Linus Mary Martz.

“May God bring the good work he has begun to completion,” Moran said at the June 4 ordination. “Thanks be to God for the gift of these seven new priests!"

Fisher ordained the priests in a three-hour-long Mass and ordination ceremony. “Now seven of Dominic’s sons will become the fantastic seven,” Fisher said. “All part of a team of 400,000 priest presbyters sanctifying our world.”

Fisher served as the ordaining bishop and was joined by Archbishop James Green, who ordained Pope Leo XIV a bishop in 2014. 

Auxiliary Bishop Evelio Menjivar-Ayala of Washington and Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the metropolitan archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, also concelebrated the Mass.

At the end of the liturgy, Fisher asked for “a word of thanks” for all “who have influenced and supported the priests on their vocational journeys” and those “who have helped them in discernment and formation.”

“Seven is a very Catholic number,” Fisher continued.

“Not just for clergy but for sacraments, virtues, hills of Rome, and deadly sins,” he joked.

“You can work out which of our new priests is best identified as Father Baptism or Father Confession, and the rest. And who is Father Prudence, or Father Temperance, Father Hope. Which is more aventine or escaline. But of course none of them would be Father Gluttony or Father Sloth,” he continued.

“Dominican Province of St. Joseph and the Church universal rings out with joy today; the Church has seven new priests,” Fisher said. “Yet the flock of Jesus Christ needs many new shepherds if we are to fulfill Christ’s injunction to lead the sheep and nurture the lambs. So I ask you all to pray for more like these.”

Fisher offered a message to the young men of America: “People are crying out for words of life and sacraments of grace to transfigure their hearts and lives. You might be the very one by God’s grace to offer them this as a Dominican priest.”

“May our new priests inspire you to give yourself over to God’s plan for you,” Fisher said. 

null / Credit: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 6, 2025 / 17:27 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Department of State (DOS) plans to destroy a reserve of artificial contraceptives that was previously set aside for distribution in developing countries through foreign aid programs.

The stockpile, including birth control pills, condoms, and long-term implantable contraceptives, is worth more than $12 million.

A senior State Department official confirmed to CNA that officials had concerns that some of the nongovernmental organizations previously contracted to distribute contraceptives may have participated in programs that performed coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.

According to the official, the DOS is destroying the products to comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order to reinstate the Mexico City Policy, which bans taxpayer funding of organizations that promote abortion and forced sterilization abroad.

Destroying the products will cost DOS about $167,000, but rebranding the products to resell them would have cost taxpayers several million dollars, according to the official.

“There is no reason that U.S. taxpayers should be footing the bill for contraception domestically or abroad,” the official added.

Rebecca Oas, the director of research for the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) told CNA that funding of “the international family planning movement” has been “inextricably tied to the abortion lobby” ever since the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) formed the Office of Population in 1969.

“There are a lot of reasons why we should want to support global maternal health separately from family planning in order to ensure a pro-life foreign policy,” said Oas, whose organization lobbies for pro-life policies in the United States’ international relations.

Oas said the movement has also had a “coercion” problem for the last half-century even though current advocates of international contraception funding “insist that contraceptive use must be voluntary.”

“Their metrics unfortunately lay the groundwork for potential coercion by regarding contraceptive uptake and continuation as an unfettered good by falsely conflating a purported ‘need’ for contraceptives with lack of access, and by regarding things like concern about side effects, openness to having more children, and religious and moral objections as ‘barriers’ to increased contraceptive use,” Oas added. “Family planning groups will admit that their problem is not a lack of supply but a lack of demand.”

In one recent example of coercion, Oas noted that several Rohingya Muslim women who are refugees in Bangladesh reported they were forced to get long-term contraceptive implantations if they wanted to receive food rations for their newborn children. These accounts were reported by The New Humanitarian last month, which also cited sources complaining that such coercion against refugees is widespread throughout the country.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, referred to the prior U.S.-backed international family planning programs as “pro-abortion and anti-family imperialism.”

“If those countries want to obtain contraceptives, let their own governments set up contracts directly with the manufacturers of these morally-problematic items and drugs, and pay for them on their own,” he told CNA. “The U.S., and U.S. aid agencies, should not be serving as middle men, underwriters, or imperialist brokers for any of this.”

The moral problems of contraception

Although the Trump administration is preventing tax money from funding contraceptives abroad, it has not taken any actions to discourage or restrict contraceptive use. The administration, along with an overwhelming majority of Americans across the ideological spectrum, support access to contraception.

The Catholic Church, however, opposes artificial contraception when used to prevent pregnancy as intrinsically immoral. Pacholczyk said contraceptives do not “heal or restore any broken system of the human body” but rather break the reproductive system “often by means of disrupting the delicate balance of hormonal cycles regulating a woman’s reproductive well-being and fecundity.”

“Unspoken ideological agendas which propagate permissiveness and various other false notions regarding our human sexuality should not be allowed to undermine the duty to exercise moral responsibility and to develop the discipline needed to live in a state of sexual restraint and order,” Pacholczyk added.

In the 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, St. Paul VI notes that “each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life,” adding that one cannot take “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse is specifically intended to prevent procreation.”

“The fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life — and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman,” the Holy Father wrote. “And if each of these essential qualities, the unitive and the procreative, is preserved, the use of marriage fully retains its sense of true mutual love and its ordination to the supreme responsibility of parenthood to which man is called.”

The Church permits natural family planning (NFP), which uses the body’s natural cycle to know when the wife will be fertile and when she will not be fertile, which can assist a married couple in family planning.

Cardinal Robert McElroy gives his first homily as the shepherd of the Archdiocese of Washington at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on March 11, 2025. / Credit: Patrick Ruddy/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 6, 2025 / 16:30 pm (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Washington has announced plans to “cut spending, reduce its workforce, and restructure departments” to combat “crippling economic challenges.”

In a June 5 letter sent to archdiocesan staff members, Cardinal Robert McElroy indicated that the archdiocese has had an annual operating deficit of $10 million for the past five years, leading the archdiocese “to draw from financial reserves to cover shortfalls.”

The cardinal archbishop of Washington said “our situation has only been exacerbated by the present economic uncertainty that is impacting so many, both locally and globally.” 

“I have come to the painful realization that the only way forward is to take drastic measures to achieve a balanced budget by July 1 of this year,” McElroy wrote. “This means that the archdiocese will need to cut spending, reduce its workforce, and restructure departments to accommodate a more streamlined pastoral center.”

McElroy explained that “the financial impacts of the pandemic and the fallout of the [former cardinal and leader of the archdiocese Theodore] McCarrick scandal, coupled with an extended period of inflation and volatile financial markets” are among the causes of the “crippling economic challenges” facing the archdiocese.

“The most difficult decision that I have had to make in order to achieve a balanced budget was to authorize a reduction in force to eliminate approximately 30 positions of pastoral center staff. Several vacant positions will be left unfilled, and a number of dedicated, hardworking employees will lose their jobs,” McElroy wrote. 

“I apologize profoundly to those who will be losing their jobs,” McElroy wrote. “This process is not a reflection on the quality or importance of your work.” 

The majority of layoffs will be from the archdiocese’ pastoral center in Hyattsville, Maryland. Prior to the layoffs approximately 120 people worked in the building, but the restructuring plans will reduce the staff by about one-fourth.

“I am sensitive to the reality that there are many people and families who will be impacted by this process — whether it be a devoted employee who loses his or her job, a remaining co-worker who must take on additional responsibilities, or the ripple effect on the many who are served by an important ministry that can no longer be funded at past levels.”

McElroy said the archdiocese will be “offering severance, extended benefits, and outplacement services” to the eliminated employees. 

“I pray the Lord will accompany all of you in these days, understanding that it is God’s service that unites all of us who work for the archdiocese, and your commitment to God’s service that makes our current situation all the more difficult,” McElroy said.

Pope Leo XIV meets with delegates to the annual meeting of moderators of associations of the faithful, ecclesial movements, and new communities on June 6, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 6, 2025 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Christians must not attempt to live out the promises of Christ alone, Pope Leo XIV told a delegation of 250 people in Rome for the Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations, and New Communities.

Organized by the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, the annual meeting of moderators of associations of the faithful, ecclesial movements, and new communities comes as more than 70,000 pilgrims are expected to arrive in Rome for the jubilee this weekend, June 7–8.

“The Christian life is not lived in isolation,” the Holy Father said in his Friday address to the delegation, representatives of several lay associations and ecclesial movements. “It is lived with others, in a group and in community, because the risen Christ is present wherever disciples gather in his name.”

Confirmed movements and associations set to attend this weekend are the Neocatechumenal Way, Catholic Action, Communion and Liberation, the Shalom Community, Charis International, Sant’Egidio, Focolare, Rinnovamento nello Spirito Santo, Opera di Maria, and the Parish Cells of Evangelization, according to the Dicastery for Evangelization.

Pope Leo received Neocatechumenal Way founder Kiko Argüello in a private audience on Thursday.

In his Friday address, the Holy Father noted the presence of institutional groups “founded to carry out a common apostolic, charitable, or liturgical project, or to support Christian witness in specific social settings,” and of those born out of “charismatic inspiration.” 

“All are important to the Church,” Pope Leo said, citing a passage from the Second Vatican Council, which stated that with ecclesial movements, “a much richer harvest can be hoped for from them than if each member were to act on his or her own.” 

Pope Leo said such groups should be understood in reference to grace. “Without charisms, there is a risk that Christ’s grace, offered in abundance, may not find good soil to receive it,” he continued. “That is the reason why God raises up charisms: to awaken in hearts a desire to encounter Christ and a thirst for the divine life that he offers us.” 

‘Leaven of unity’

Unity and mission are essential to the life of the Church and of the Petrine ministry, the pope emphasized to the delegation, urging them to be “a leaven of unity” and to always keep “missionary zeal” alive among themselves.

“​​We have one Head, one grace that fills us, we live on one Bread, we walk on one path and we live in the same house... We are one, in both the spirit and the body of the Lord. If we separate ourselves from that One, we become nothing,” Pope Leo said, quoting a letter from St. Paulinus of Nola to St. Augustine. 

Recalling his own experience as a missionary priest in Peru, Leo noted that the Church’s mission has “shaped my spiritual life.” He further urged those gathered to place their talents in service of the Church “in order to reach those who, albeit distant, are often waiting, without being aware of it, to hear God’s word of life.”

In his concluding remarks, the pope encouraged the delegation to “always keep the Lord Jesus at the center!” 

This, he said, is the essential purpose of charisms. 

“All of us are called to imitate Christ, who emptied himself to enrich us,” he said, concluding: “Those who join with others in pursuing an apostolic goal and those who enjoy a charism are called alike to enrich others through the emptying of self. It is a source of freedom and great joy.”

Stills from a video shared with EWTN News and taken by the pilgrims on May 30, 2025, while the procession was in the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma, show Catholic participants in the procession walking and singing while a young man on the sidelines, speaking through a bullhorn and walking alongside the crowd, deplores Eucharistic devotion as “idolatry.” / Credit: Photos courtesy of Jason Shanks

National Catholic Register, Jun 6, 2025 / 14:15 pm (CNA).

After disruption by anti-Catholic protesters in Oklahoma and Texas in recent days, organizers of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage say they fully expect that the group of protesters, organized principally by a Protestant church in Texas, will continue to follow and attempt to disrupt the cross-country Eucharistic procession for the remainder of its route to Los Angeles. 

“I’m calling on all Catholics to show up for Jesus. This is our opportunity to step out in faith, to step out in witness, and to witness to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist,” said Jason Shanks, president of the National Eucharistic Congress, at a June 5 press conference. 

The pilgrimage, which began in mid-May in Indianapolis, is a 3,300-mile, 10-state trek that has already brought a group of eight young Catholic “Perpetual Pilgrims” to the heart of Texas with the Eucharist, and it will conclude in Los Angeles in late June. 

The goal of the pilgrimage, which is a continuation of the unprecedented four national pilgrimages that took place last summer, is to bear public witness to the Church’s teaching that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist and to invite members of the public to join the processions and celebrate their belief in the Eucharist as well.

Videos shared with EWTN News and taken by the pilgrims on May 30, while the procession was in the Diocese of Tulsa, Oklahoma, show Catholic participants in the procession walking and singing while a young man on the sidelines, speaking through a bullhorn and walking alongside the crowd, deplores Eucharistic devotion as “idolatry.” 

More recently, on June 4 in Dallas, the pilgrims encountered small groups of protesters walking with bullhorns and holding signs with anti-Catholic messages. Videos show large numbers of Catholics processing down a suburban street with the Eucharist while singing hymns in Spanish. Some of the protesters, including those holding anti-Catholic signs, appeared to be families with small children. 

Shanks described the protests as “unexpected,” given that the pilgrimages last year did not engender pushback of this kind. He said the protests, which have swelled in recent days to some 40 to 50 “well-organized” people, are being principally organized by the Church of Wells, a Protestant congregation based in a small town about three hours southeast of Dallas. 

The website of the Church of Wells, a small but influential and controversial congregation, includes numerous diatribes against Catholic belief, including belief in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

The idea that the Catholic view of the Eucharist would be subject to debate, and even to ridicule, is “not new for Catholics,” Shanks noted, and dates back all the way to the Bread of Life discourse in John’s Gospel.

Still, Shanks said the shouting and the debates taking place amid the pilgrimage have been a source of “interior suffering” for the pilgrims, and he called on all Catholics to respond not by engaging with protesters directly but rather with a “silent witness” to the truth of the Catholic faith with a spirit of “charity and humility.”

“We’re asking Catholics to come and evangelize through their silent witness, and their walk, because these protesters are focused on antagonizing, trying to get into debates, so they can put it online … because that’s how they raise money,” he continued.

Shanks said pilgrimage organizers have been engaged behind the scenes with law enforcement and security personnel to make sure the pilgrimage is a safe experience for all involved, though there is no reason to believe at this time that the protests will become violent, he added.

He also expressed appreciation and pride for the Perpetual Pilgrims, who have had to deal with the vocal protesters day after day, and urged Catholics to keep the pilgrims in their prayers. 

“I’m so proud of how they’ve been representing us as a Church. … We need to be, as a Church, united in solidarity with them,” Shanks said. 

At the Thursday press conference, several of the pilgrims spoke directly about the challenges of encountering the protests and the solace they’ve received through constant prayer. 

Ace Acuña spoke about how the experience has led him to a deeper understanding and appreciation of Jesus’ assurances about the reality of persecution for those who follow him. Biblical passages about enduring persecution have never come “more alive” for him than during this time, Acuña said.

“I honestly feel like my prayer has never been more fervent in my life,” he said, adding, quoting Acts 5:41, that it remains “a joy to suffer insults for the sake of the Name.”

Johnny Silvino Hernandez-Jose, another pilgrim, spoke about how important it has been for him to remember the reason why they are doing the pilgrimage and “not let it be overshadowed by something so little, compared to Jesus Christ.”

For Leslie Reyes-Hernandez, although the words of the protesters sting, she said she sees this challenge as a deeper calling from the Lord — an invitation to “hear all of the things that he was hearing on his way to the cross.”

Reyes-Hernandez said: “There were people that were in support of him being crucified, but also people who were mourning, like Our Lady, which is an image we can continue to resemble.” 

“We get the blessing to be with Our Lord [at] the cross every day, and it’s drawing my faith even closer and closer to him.”

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA's sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.