null / Credit: Aykut Erdogdu/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 26, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

President Donald Trump’s administration has started to incorporate some elements of pro-life reproductive health care into its policy goals, which pro-life advocates argue are alternatives to in vitro fertilization (IVF) procedures meant to address fertility problems.

So far the inclusion of these efforts has been limited and the president has remained consistent in supporting IVF as the major solution to fertility issues. Yet some Catholics and others in the pro-life movement have been urging these alternative approaches amid ethical concerns surrounding IVF, such as the millions of human embryos killed through the procedure.

Life-affirming options tend to focus on curing the root causes of infertility. This health care, which many practitioners call “restorative reproductive medicine,” can include charting one’s menstrual cycle, lifestyle and diet changes, and diagnosing and treating underlying conditions that lead to fertility struggles.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is currently considering grant applicants for an “infertility training center,” which is the most concrete plan to date to incorporate pro-life fertility care options within the administration’s policy goals.

The potential $1.5 million grant would use federal Title X family planning funds to help the recipient “educate on the root causes of infertility and the broad range of holistic infertility treatments and referrals available.” The money would also help “expand and enhance root cause infertility testing, treatments, and referrals.”

When reached for comment, an HHS spokesperson told CNA the agency could not comment on “potential or future policy decisions.”

Restorative reproductive medicine was also discussed at a recent event hosted by the MAHA Institute, named after HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” slogan. The institute is run by Del Bigtree, who is Kennedy’s former communications director.

“Traditional women’s health and fertility care has relied heavily on Big Pharma Band-Aids and workarounds that circumvent a woman’s reproductive system rather than working in harmony with it and doing the work of deeper investigation to find and treat underlying causes of infertility,” Maureen Ferguson, a commissioner on the Commission on International Religious Freedom, said at the event.

Ferguson introduced a roundtable of doctors who practice restorative reproductive medicine.

“Restorative reproductive medicine is effective, affordable, it leads to healthier moms and babies, and it’s far preferred by couples, most of whom wish to conceive naturally,” Ferguson said.

Reproductive medicine policy opportunities

Emma Waters, a policy analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, told CNA there are several ways the government can promote restorative reproductive medicine.

“This needs to be a project that both states and the federal government prioritize,” she said.

Waters said current insurance coding “doesn’t account for the kinds of care that [restorative reproductive medicine] is offering” or “doesn’t cover each step.”

She noted that insurance will often cover surgeries to fix endometriosis, which often causes infertility, but will not cover the initial exploratory surgery needed to properly diagnose the condition.

She said this could be improved with broader coverage or a restorative reproductive medicine “bundle package for care,” similar to an OB-GYN bundle package for when a woman is pregnant, to “simplify the billing process.”

Additional policy options, Waters noted, include grant funding for research and training. 

Restorative reproductive medicine “is aiming to ensure that that man and woman’s body is the healthiest it can be for the pregnancy journey,” she said.

Waters noted that this health care “recognizes that infertility is not a disease but is a symptom of underlying conditions.” As opposed to IVF, restorative reproductive medicine focuses on “the root, rather than bypassing the body,” and helps ensure the body is healthy enough to “sustain that embryo through pregnancy and a live birth.”

Theresa Notare, who serves as the assistant director of the natural family planning program at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told CNA restorative reproductive medicine is often practiced in a way consistent with Catholic Church teaching, such as natural procreative technology and fertility education and medical management.

“You’re trying to basically healthfully address whatever problem a patient is having and you’re trying to restore them to the balance that they should have … to naturally conceive,” she said.

IVF alternatively violates Church teaching because it destroys human embryos and because “conception would be taking place outside of the marital embrace,” Notare said. 

She said marriage is a covenant in which “the man and the women are coming together in this one-flesh union.”

“That communion of persons — that environment — is where the Lord God gave husband and wife stewardship over the power of life and love,” Notare said.

The Catholic bishops are backing a suit by a coalition of Apache Stronghold, a coalition of Native Americans and their supporters, in their lawsuit against the federal government. The lawsuit argues that their freedom of religion was violated when the federal government announced its intention to sell formerly protected land in Arizona to a mining company. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Becket

CNA Staff, Aug 26, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

“Arbitrary government interference.”

That’s what the Knights of Columbus warned will befall religious believers in the U.S. if a copper mining company is allowed to take possession of, and destroy, a centuries-old Native American worship site in Arizona.

That site, Oak Flat, has been the subject of years of dispute and litigation, with a coalition group of activists known as Apache Stronghold leading an effort to prevent the government from surrendering the ancient religious location to private interests.

For decades the federal government protected the parcel from development in the Tonto National Forest. But the Obama administration in 2014 began the process of transferring the land to the multinational Resolution Copper, whose mining operations will dig a massive pit at the site and end its status as a center of worship.

The Native American activists have drawn support from a wide variety of religious advocates and stakeholders in the U.S., including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Knights of Columbus.

Apache Stronghold lost its bid at the Supreme Court earlier this year to halt the sale. This month, as part of a different legal challenge, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit paused the sale just hours before it was to take effect, giving Native advocates likely their last chance to head off the destruction of the site.

Religious Freedom Restoration Act weakened

At issue in the main legal dispute is the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a Clinton-era law that restricts how and under what conditions the U.S. government can impose burdens upon U.S. religious liberty.

RFRA states that laws “shall not substantially burden” an individual’s religion, ordering that the government must have both a compelling interest in burdening a religion and must achieve it via the least restrictive means. 

Joe Davis, an attorney with the religious liberty legal group Becket, told CNA that the law is what’s known as a “super statute,” one that “applies to all federal law and all federal actions under the law.” 

Becket has supported Apache Stronghold in its effort to halt the sale of the site. Davis said that Congress in passing RFRA aimed to ensure that “before the government really does anything, it’s supposed to think about the effects and implications on religion and religious practitioners.” 

“RFRA doesn’t actually stop the government from doing anything,” he said. “It just requires them to have a really good reason to do it.”

Prior to the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Apache Stronghold case, a lower court had decided that though RFRA generally prohibits the government’s “substantial burdening” of religion, that guidance does not apply in cases of “disposition of government real property,” as is the case with the Oak Flat parcel. 

Davis described that ruling as a “restrictive interpretation of RFRA.” The more narrow reading of the law, he said, “will filter down into other cases and be applied any time the government wants to avoid having to prove a burden on religious exercise.”

Indeed, the case has already had a demonstrable effect on religious liberty in the U.S., specifically involving a Knights of Columbus chapter in Virginia. 

The Knights Petersburg Council 694 had held a memorial Mass at Poplar Grove National Cemetery for decades, but the National Park Service in 2023 moved to bar the Knights from any further Masses, claiming it constituted a prohibited “demonstration” due to its religious character. 

The government eventually relented in the face of litigation. But Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing in dissent earlier this year over the high court’s refusal to hear the Apache case, pointed out that the government in banning the Knights had explicitly cited the new RFRA standard brought about by the Oak Flat case.

Davis noted the diverse religious concerns raised by the case, pointing to filings in support of the Native Americans from the U.S. bishops, the Knights, and numerous other major faith groups.

The injunction issued this month by the 9th Circuit concerns three separate cases, one of which involves environmental claims. Briefs in the case will be due starting Sept. 8. Whether or not the more restrictive interpretation of RFRA can be reversed in those cases is unclear.

Davis, meanwhile, stressed that the statute “protects all religions and religious practitioners in this country.”

The U.S. bishops agreed last year, writing with other Christian groups that changing the parameters of RFRA made the law “a dead letter when applied to obliteration of an Indigenous sacred site on federal land.”

“Beyond that catastrophic harm, this approach defies the statutory text, misreads precedent, and would produce other unjust results,” they wrote.

Davis, meanwhile, argued that the restrictive interpretation “is really bad for all religions in this country.”

“It’s bad for the Apaches, and it’s bad for all people of faith,” he said.

WASHINGTON – Pope Leo XIV has appointed Most Reverend Jose Arturo Cepeda as Auxiliary Bishop of San Antonio transferring him from the Office of Auxiliary Bishop of Detroit.

The appointment was publicized in Washington, D.C. on August 26, 2025, by Monsignor Većeslav Tumir, chargé d’ affaires, a.i., of the Apostolic Nunciature, in the temporary absence of Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States.

Bishop Cepeda’s biography may be found here.

The Archdiocese of San Antonio is comprised of 23,180 square miles in the State of Texas and has a total population of 2,798,718, of which 1,148,253, are Catholic.

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WASHINGTON – “As we mark the 20th anniversary of this tragedy, we remember those who were lost and displaced but also renew our commitment to racial equity and justice in every sector of public life,” said Bishop Roy E. Campbell, Jr., chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Subcommittee on African American Affairs, and Bishop Joseph N. Perry, chairman of the USCCB’s Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism in a statement marking the 20-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. 

The bishops reflected on the inequities revealed by the destruction of Hurricane Katrina, and how the Church has provided a powerful witness and response in the wake of the tragedy. “Over 1,800 people lost their lives and many more suffered traumatic experiences during the aftermath. Today, the impacts of ongoing mental and physical injuries remain and today the cost of the injuries is borne unequally,” said the bishops. “The powerful witness of the Catholic Church filled the gaps of an inadequate governmental response to the tragedy. It was people of faith, moved by their hearts, who assisted in resettlement efforts in new cities, and supported rebuilding when people attempted to return home.” 

Two decades later, the Church must continue to accompany the most vulnerable populations who still feel the effects of Hurricane Katrina: “As Church, let us be a lifeboat in the flood waters of injustice.” 

The full statement is available here.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Leo XIV will preside over his first canonization Mass Sept. 7, declaring the sainthood of two young Italians whose devotion to the Eucharist nourished a deep involvement in the cultures of their day.

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born April 6, 1901, in Turin and died there July 4, 1925, of polio at the age of 24. Carlo Acutis was born to Italian parents May 3, 1991, in London and died in Monza, Italy, Oct. 12, 2006, of leukemia at the age of 15.

Pope Francis had been scheduled to canonize Blessed Acutis in April during the Jubilee of Adolescents and to canonize Blessed Frassati in early August during the Jubilee of Young Adults.

While Christine Wohar, founder and executive director of FrassatiUSA, initially was disappointed that the canonizations were delayed, she told Catholic News Service that Pope Leo declaring them saints at a Mass apart from the jubilees also sends a message. 

Their lives "are not really a message for just teenagers or young adults. They are a message for every Catholic," she said. "You do not have to be 15 or 24, you just have to be somebody who is serious about living your Catholic faith."

For Father Primo Soldi, a Turin priest and author of a biography of Frassati, the two young men are united by "a deep faith firmly tied to real life who arrived at the perfection of Gospel living, that is, they lived faith, hope and charity and the other cardinal virtues in a heroic way."

"Just think about how both of them lived the ordeal of their illnesses and death -- like saints: Carlo with the joy and faith with which he faced his treatment and Pier Giorgio with the patience with which he endured the agony of those few days" between the onset of symptoms and his death, Father Soldi told CNS.

Frassati and Acutis both had a deep devotion to the Eucharist and went to Mass every day. 

In 1905, just four years after Frassati was born, St. Pius X published the decree "Sacra Tridentina Synodus," encouraging frequent, even daily reception of the sacrament at a time when many Catholics received only a few times a year.

One of his Jesuit high school teachers encouraged him to go to Mass each day, receive the Eucharist and spend time in adoration.

For Frassati, Father Soldi said, it was not simply Eucharistic devotion but the entryway into a real relationship with Jesus and, as Frassati himself said, one that became the nourishment he relied on as he helped the poor, discerned the path of his life and became involved in politics and the struggle against the growth of fascism in Italy.

The same could be said for Acutis, who is well known for the database on global Eucharistic miracles he complied as a young tech-savvy student.

Cardinal Agostino Vallini, Pope Francis' delegate at Acutis' beatification in 2000, said the young man's strength came from "having a personal, intimate and deep relationship with Jesus," one in which the Eucharist was "the loftiest moment." 

Acutis "never withdrew into himself but was able to understand the needs of people, in whom he saw the face of Christ," the cardinal said at his beatification. His was "a luminous life offered completely to others as Eucharistic bread."

Prayer and service to others went hand in hand for both Frassati and Acutis. Both also endured teasing and misunderstanding because of their devotion but gently challenged their peers to embrace faith.

Living a little bit longer and in the tumultuous period between World War I and the rise of fascism in Italy, Frassati had more time to prepare for his vocation -- he wanted to be a mining engineer and work with miners, who were among the poorest workers in the region.

He was born when Pope Leo XIII was pope and he studied "Rerum Novarum," the encyclical published in 1891 that launched Catholic social teaching and focused particularly on the rights of poor workers. And Frassati joined the Italian Popular Party, founded by Father Luigi Sturzo and based on Catholic social principles.

"What gave him a humanity that was so rich, alive, complete, full and happy ultimately was Jesus," Carlo Tabellini, a 38-year-old lawyer in Turin and member of the Pier Giorgio Frassati Cultural Center, told CNS.

When Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass with a million people attending the Jubilee of Young Adults Aug. 3, he urged them to follow Jesus and do something great with their lives, improving themselves and the world.

"Let us remain united to him, let us remain in his friendship, always, cultivating it through prayer, adoration, Eucharistic Communion, frequent confession and generous charity following the examples of Blessed Piergiorgio Frassati and Blessed Carlo Acutis who will soon be declared saints," the pope said.
 

Pope Leo's first saints: Carlo Acutis and Pier Giorgio Frassati

One month after a crowd of more than one million young people came to Rome for the 2025 Jubilee of Young Adults, the church’s mission to inspire the next generation is set to gain new momentum with the Sept. 7 canonizations of Carlo Acutis and Pier...

null / Credit: Ground Picture/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 25, 2025 / 18:27 pm (CNA).

In a bid to help strengthen marriages across the state, the California Catholic Conference (CCC) has launched its first-ever statewide partnership with Communio, a nonprofit organization that equips parishes to “evangelize through the renewal of healthy relationships, marriages, and families.”

News of the agreement follows the CCC’s efforts over the past year to promote marriage and family through its “Radiate Love” initiative, which is set to end on Sept. 26 with a marriage summit in Oakland, where the CCC’s partnership with Communio will officially launch.

“The goal is to quantifiably strengthen marriage, either by self-reported happiness in marriage, by rising marriage rates, or by encouraging people to marry,” Communio’s director of church growth, Damon Owens, told CNA.

Ordinarily, Communio partners on a diocesan and parish level to build out the most optimal version of its Full Circle Relationship Ministry® model to suit the needs of the community. Owens said he was inspired about a year and a half ago by the Radiate Love initiative to reach out to the conference about a partnership.

After speaking with California Catholic Conference Executive Director Kathleen Domingo for some months and traveling to California to deliver talks centered on the theology of the body and marriage and family issues, the partnership — which includes all 12 bishops and dioceses in the state — came to fruition.

The agreement, Owens said, marks the first time that every bishop across an entire state has bought in to bringing the program to every parish in his diocese.

“Every parish in California will now have access to Communio’s relationship ministry model, which is credited with a 24% drop in the divorce rate in Jacksonville, Florida,” the conference said in an Aug. 20 press release announcing the arrangement.

“I’ve been watching the progression of Communio over the years and hearing really great things from our marriage and family life directors, who have always told us that Communio is the gold standard,” Domingo said in the release.

She added: “If they could have any tool in their toolbox to help parishioners and parish families, it would be Communio.”

“In John 10:10, the Lord said that he came so that we would have life and have it more abundantly. We know that strong marriages and healthy families help us to have this abundant life, so we are excited to partner with Communio,” Auxiliary Bishop Timothy Freyer of the Diocese of Orange and executive officer for the CCC also said in the release.

Inside the data-driven effort to reach parishioners

“The core of what we offer is data insight to know what the problems are, but also access to technology and consulting that helps to build a plan of events and encounters where new people come to the parish and parishioners themselves want to come,” he explained.

“We have a unique technology that helps to do both the data gathering but also determining which programs are a good fit for them,” Owens continued. “So part of the consulting is literally going through almost like an Amazon page where you’re selecting facilitator-led programs or on your own or workbook or group or individual.”

Communio provides programs tailored to one of four areas: singles, marriage preparation, marriage enrichment, and marriage in crisis. They work with a team of five to six people in a parish to build a calendar of events for the year in a sequence that best helps “to draw people into the Church, but addresses the top needs first.”

“It’s a very customized way of making sure that they get the results that they want because people are telling us what their needs are through the surveys,” he said, noting that this addresses the “deepest concern” for pastors regarding the “specific needs that their people have.”

“California represents probably the whole spectrum of the type of parishes that we work around the country. You’ve got the poor rural, you’ve got the wealthy suburbs, you’ve got big cities, you’ve got mountains, you’ve got large parishes, small parishes,” Owens pointed out. 

“I think for each of those pastors, they want to know, is investing in Communio to invest in those marriages going to bring to them the success that we’ve been able to achieve around the country?” he said. “And that’s why we’re so confident and excited about it, because we know that we can.”

The Ten Commandments outside the Texas state capitol building. / Credit: BLundin via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Houston, Texas, Aug 25, 2025 / 17:57 pm (CNA).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has directed public schools across the state not enjoined by ongoing litigation to comply with Senate Bill 10 (SB 10), a new law requiring the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom. 

A federal court ruling last week temporarily blocked its enforcement in nearly a dozen independent school districts (ISDs) across the state.

“Schools not enjoined by ongoing litigation must abide by [SB 10] and display the Ten Commandments,” Paxton said in his directive, issued on Aug. 24.

On Aug. 20, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery issued a preliminary injunction after 16 families sued 11 Texas school districts, arguing the law violates the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. 

The federal ruling halts the law’s implementation, set to begin Sept. 1, in school districts in and around San Antonio, Austin, Houston, and the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex and includes Alamo Heights ISD, North East ISD, Lackland ISD, Northside ISD, Austin ISD, Lake Travis ISD, Dripping Springs ISD, Houston ISD, Fort Bend ISD, Cypress Fairbanks ISD, and Plano ISD. 

Paxton’s office filed an appeal on Aug. 21, asserting that the law reflects Texas’ historical and moral foundation.

“From the beginning, the Ten Commandments have been irrevocably intertwined with America’s legal, moral, and historical heritage,” Paxton said in an Aug. 25 press release. “The woke radicals seeking to erase our nation’s history will be defeated. I will not back down from defending the virtues and values that built this country.”

SB 10, signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on June 21, requires all public elementary and secondary schools to display a durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments, measuring at least 16 by 20 inches, in every classroom.

According to Paxton: “While no school is compelled to purchase Ten Commandments displays, schools may choose to do so. However, schools must accept and display any privately donated posters or copies that meet the requirements of SB 10.”

Supporters, including Republican state Sen. Phil King, who introduced the legislation along with state Sen. Mayes Middleton, have argued the law promotes values foundational to Texas and U.S. law.

“The Ten Commandments are part of our Texas and American story,” King said of the law earlier this year. “They are ingrained into who we are as a people and as a nation. Today, our students cry out for the moral clarity, for the statement of right and wrong that they represent. If our students don’t know the Ten Commandments, they will never understand the foundation for much of American history and law.”

Attorney Andrea Picciotti-Bayer, director of The Conscience Project, told CNA: “These laws requiring a passive display of the Ten Commandments do not violate either the establishment clause or the free exercise clause.”

Of the appeal filed by Paxton, Picciotti-Bayer said: “The 5th Circuit en banc should examine challenges against them, and if it does not, the U.S. Supreme Court will likely make clear that such modest acknowledgements of faith and the foundations of law pass judicial scrutiny.” 

The law’s opponents, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), contend it unconstitutionally favors Christianity.

Heather Weaver, an attorney with the ACLU’s Program on Freedom of Religion and Belief, who represented the plaintiffs, acknowledged that Biery’s ruling, “as a technical matter,” only “covers the school district defendants.” Despite this, she went on to say: “Every school district should heed it, even if they are not a defendant in the case.”

The 11 school districts affected by the temporary injunction have a combined enrollment of approximately 680,790 students. This represents about 12.38% of the total 5.5 million public school students in Texas for the 2024-2025 school year.

As of the 2024-2025 school year, Texas has 1,246 public school districts, according to the Texas Education Agency. This number includes 1,026 ISDs and 220 charter school districts.

The legal fight mirrors similar battles in Louisiana and Arkansas, where courts have also blocked Ten Commandments display laws. Paxton’s appeal could escalate the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Known as “the papal chef,” Salvo Lo Castro spent 10 years at the Vatican cooking meals for Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Now, he’s opened his first restaurant in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood called Casasalvo. / Credit: TheBrandoers, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Aug 25, 2025 / 17:27 pm (CNA).

Known as “the papal chef,” Salvo Lo Castro spent 10 years at the Vatican cooking meals for Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. Now, he’s opened his first restaurant in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood called Casasalvo. 

The new Italian restaurant opened in July and has quickly gained popularity, particularly for Lo Castro’s mother’s meatball recipe — which was also a big hit among the two popes he served. 

The 52-year-old Sicilian chef said that for those who eat at his new restaurant, it’s like eating a meal in his home.

“The restaurant is my home, and the people who dine with me aren’t clients — they’re guests who come to my home,” he said in an interview with the New York Post. 

During his time cooking for the two popes, he shared that in his eyes “every pope is a normal person,” and “[w]hile John Paul was very charismatic, for me the best was Benedict.”

He added that while during the last years of John Paul II’s life he had a very light diet, Benedict was a fan of his meatballs and schnitzel. 

“His eyes were magnetic, and his voice to me was God in the world,” Lo Castro said of Pope Benedict.

Lo Castro’s experience cooking meals for notable figures doesn’t end with popes. He’s cooked for Moammar Gadhafi, the Saudi royal family, and actors Tom Cruise and Robert De Niro, among others. He will soon welcome Leonardo DiCaprio and tennis champion Roger Federer into his new restaurant for an event with the brand Rolex.

“Normally, for other people, it is not normal, but for me, it doesn’t matter if I’m cooking for a pope, president, or ordinary person,” Lo Castro said. “Every man I cook for is a king, and every woman I cook for is a queen.”

The chef also pointed out that while he typically freely invents new dishes for his menu, during Church holidays his menu has the least amount of leeway.

“Every religious period for the Catholic Church, like Christmas, is very strict when it comes to what food to serve,” he said. “On Easter, for example, I’d prepare lamb and it’s all very traditional.”

As for the future, Lo Castro said he hopes to open more restaurants around the world.

“My biggest satisfaction is that I came from a small town, and now I’m cooking for the world,” he said. “But at the same time, I’m still a very normal man.”

null / Credit: Lighthunter/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Aug 25, 2025 / 14:36 pm (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Catholic Health Association have voiced their “strong support” for the Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act, a bipartisan bill reintroduced in the Senate last month by Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisconsin, and Shelley Moore Capito, R-West Virginia.

In a letter to Senate committee leaders, Archbishop Borys Gudziak, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; Bishop Daniel Thomas, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities; and Catholic Health Association President and CEO Sister Mary Haddad emphasized the legislation’s potential to address critical gaps in palliative care access while aligning with the Catholic Church’s moral teachings.

The bill aims to expand access to palliative care, a medical approach focused on improving quality of life for seriously ill patients near the end of life through pain and symptom management, emotional support, and care coordination.

The letter cited the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) Samaritanus Bonus (On the Care of Persons in the Critical and Terminal Phases of Life): “Palliative care is an authentic expression of the human and Christian activity of providing care, the tangible symbol of the compassionate ‘remaining’ at the side of the suffering person.”

In their letter, the Catholic leaders highlighted three major barriers to broader access to such care: a shortage of trained palliative care professionals, limited research funding for advancing best practices, and low awareness among both the public and health care providers about the role and timing of palliative care.

The Palliative Care and Hospice Education and Training Act seeks to address these challenges by funding training programs for health care professionals, supporting research to improve palliative care practices, and promoting public education campaigns. If passed, the legislation would allocate resources to expand the workforce of palliative care specialists and enhance care delivery for patients with chronic or terminal illnesses.

Gudziak, the archbishop of the Ukrainian Catholic Arechparchy of Philadelphia; Thomas, the Bishop of Toldeo, Ohio; and Haddad praised the bill’s inclusion of language ensuring compliance with the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997, which prohibits federal funds from being used for assisted suicide or euthanasia.

“Importantly, the bill includes essential language affirming that all supported programs must comply with the Assisted Suicide Funding Restriction Act of 1997 and may not be used to cause or assist in causing a patient’s death under any circumstance,” they wrote.

The bill’s endorsement comes amid growing national attention to end-of-life care, with Catholic leaders advocating for approaches that prioritize the compassion and dignity of palliative care without the moral offenses of euthanasia or assisted suicide.

The Church teaches that “human life is a sacred gift from God that must be protected and respected at every stage,” the letter said. The USCCB’s Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services and the CDF’s 1980 Declaration on Euthanasia teach that euthanasia is “an action or an omission” on the part of health care providers “which of itself or by intention causes death, in order that all suffering may in this way be eliminated.” Assisted suicide occurs when a health care provider assists a patient to end his or her own life. 

Oregon was the first state to legalize assisted suicide in 1997. The practice is now legal in 10 states and in Washington, D.C.

In another two states — Montana and New York — legislation that could legalize the practice is still pending. New York’s legislation awaits the signature of that state’s governor, while pro-life voices such as New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan are outspoken against the bill.

Originally introduced in 2022, when more than 50 groups endorsed it, the legislation is currently under review by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

On July 16, Reps. Earl “Buddy” Carter, R-Georgia, and Ami Bera, D-California, introduced an identical, companion bill in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The campus of Crown College in Minnesota. / Credit: Clappert, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 25, 2025 / 14:06 pm (CNA).

A federal judge has ruled that Christian colleges that require students to sign a statement of faith cannot be excluded from a Minnesota program that lets high school students take college courses for credit.

On Friday, Aug. 22, United States District Judge Nancy Brasel ruled that the law banning religious institutions from the Minnesota Postsecondary Enrollment Options (PSEO) program is an unconstitutional violation of religious freedom. 

The 40-year-old PSEO program has long served high schoolers in the state by promoting academic pursuits at both secular and religious colleges. It allows sophomore, junior, and senior high school students to take college courses at the school of their choosing and covers the cost of tuition and required classroom materials.

Religious colleges, including Crown College in St. Bonifacius and the University of Northwestern in Roseville, were banned because they require their students to pledge to follow school religious values and rules. They also do not allow students who are not Christian or who identify as LGBT.

Since 2019, the state’s Department of Education had sought to apply such a ban and eventually succeeded in 2023, when Democrats gained control of both houses of the Legislature. The ban on participation in the program by religious schools with faith statement requirements was enacted through a broader education funding bill signed by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

Subsequently, the two colleges and parents of high school students who wished to partake in the program at the Christian schools sued to overturn the law. The group was represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which argued the law violated religious freedom under the First Amendment.

After Becket filed the lawsuit, Minnesota promised not to enforce the law while the case was ongoing. More than two years after filing the suit, Brasel ruled in favor of the colleges and parents. 

Brasel said the court had to “venture into the delicate constitutional interplay of religion and publicly‐funded education.” She said the First Amendment “gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations,” and states can’t disqualify private schools “solely because they’re religious.”

Brasel also threw out a related nondiscrimination requirement that prohibited participating schools from basing admission to the program on gender, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs.