WASHINGTON - With broad support from multiple committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), a number of bishop-chairmen have written a letter to the U.S. Congress offering ethical principles and policy recommendations on artificial intelligence. Grounded in the Church’s concern for human dignity and the common good, the letter outlines how AI development and uses should serve all of humanity.

“Artificial intelligence is rapidly shaping the future of our society,” said Bishop William D. Byrne, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Communications. “As pastors entrusted with the care of human life and dignity, we urge lawmakers to heed the call of our Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, to help ensure that AI is developed with responsibility and discernment so that it may truly benefit every person.”

The bishops’ letter addresses a wide range of policy considerations, including the impact of AI on family life, labor and the economy, healthcare, education, political and civic life, warfare, energy, and the environment. The letter invites lawmakers to an ongoing dialogue about how to responsibly harness emerging technologies, in ways that uphold moral and social values.

The full text of the USCCB’s letter, Artificial Intelligence: Principles and Priorities, is available here.

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VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- In a world marked by wars and where people are disconnected and numb with indifference, Pope Leo XIV prayed that the Holy Spirit would "open borders, break down walls" and dissolve hatred so everyone can live as children of one human family.

"The Spirit breaks down barriers and tears down the walls of indifference and hatred" because he teaches and encourages "the commandment of love that the Lord has made the center and summit of everything," he said.

"Where there is love, there is no room for prejudice, for 'security' zones separating us from our neighbors, for the exclusionary mindset that, tragically, we now see emerging also in political nationalisms," Pope Leo said in his homily for Pentecost Mass in St. Peter's Square June 8. 

The pope also spoke out against "an unhealthy desire for domination" and violence in relationships as well as the "numerous recent cases of femicide" in Italy.

As of June 7, three women had been killed in 48 hours by a husband or partner. At least 22 women have been killed since the start of the year, 10 of whom were killed by a partner or ex-partner, the newspaper La Stampa reported June 6. An average of 100 women were killed between 2022 and 2024 in cases of voluntary manslaughter involving family members, according to the Italian government, and an average of 62 women were killed by their partner or ex-partner each year during the same timeframe.

"The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, brings to maturity within us the fruits that enable us to cultivate good and healthy relationships," Pope Leo said.

In his homily, the pope reflected on the Holy Spirit's gift of opening borders, building on an image of Pentecost described by Pope Benedict XVI in his homily on the feast day in 2005.

"The Spirit opens borders, first of all, in our hearts," then in one's relationships with others and, finally, between peoples, Pope Leo said.

"He is the gift that opens our lives to love" by breaking down "our hardness of heart, our narrowness of mind, our selfishness, the fears that enchain us and the narcissism that makes us think only of ourselves," the pope said.

"The Holy Spirit comes to challenge us, to make us confront the possibility that our lives are shriveling up, trapped in the vortex of individualism," he said. "Sadly, oddly enough, in a world of burgeoning 'social' media, we risk being ever more alone. Constantly connected, yet incapable of 'networking."' 

The Spirit "put us in touch with our inmost self, beneath all the masks we wear. He leads us to an encounter with the Lord by teaching us to experience the joy that is his gift" and to have one's life become a place "of welcome and refreshment."

The Holy Spirit also "broadens the borders of our relationships and opens us to the joy of fraternity," which is "also a critical yardstick for the church," he said.

To truly be a church of the Lord, he said, there must be "no borders or divisions among us." The faithful must be able to "dialogue and accept one another in the church and to reconcile our diversities," becoming "a welcoming and hospitable place for all."

The Holy Spirit "also opens borders between peoples," the pope said, by uniting people's hearts and making "us view others as our brothers and sisters." This is how "differences no longer become an occasion for division and conflict but rather a shared patrimony from which we can all draw."

Recalling Pope Francis' homily on Pentecost in 2023, Pope Leo lamented the continued discord and division in the world.

"The wars plaguing our world are a tragic sign of this. Let us invoke the Spirit of love and peace, that he may open borders, break down walls, dispel hatred and help us to live as children of our one Father who is in heaven," he said.

The pope also prayed for the gift of peace to dwell in people's hearts, before reciting the Regina Caeli after the Mass.

"For only a peaceful heart can spread peace in the family, society and international relations," he said. "May the Spirit of the risen Christ open paths of reconciliation wherever there is war; may he enlighten those who govern and give them the courage to make gestures of de-escalation and dialogue." 

The Mass marked the conclusion of the Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations and New Communities. The Jubilee included an evening prayer vigil in the square June 7 led by Pope Leo with an estimated 70,000 people.

Before praying the Regina Caeli June 8, the pope thanked all the representatives of Catholic lay associations, movements and communities who took part in the Jubilee, encouraging them to "set out renewed" with the strength of the Holy Spirit. "Go and bring the hope of the Lord Jesus to everyone!"

Pope Leo: Holy Spirit opens borders

On the Feast of Pentecost, Pope Leo said the Holy Spirit breaks down barriers—in our hearts, between people, and between nations. In his homily on June 8th, he repeatedly used the phrase “opens borders,” underscoring the Spirit’s power to unite what is...

Lois McLatchie Miller and Chris Elston were arrested by Belgian police June 5, 2025, while advocating for child protection from transgender medical treatments. / Credit: ADF International

CNA Staff, Jun 7, 2025 / 11:00 am (CNA).

The demonstrators were surrounded by an angry mob as they held signs that read “Children are never born in the wrong body” and “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.”

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.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- On the eve of Pentecost, Pope Leo XIV prayed that the Holy Spirit would help Catholic lay associations, movements and communities live the Gospel before trying to preach it and would be a force for unity in the church and in the world.

"In a divided and troubled world, the Holy Spirit teaches us to walk together in unity," the pope said as he joined an estimated 70,000 people for an evening prayer vigil in St. Peter's Square June 7.

"Evangelization, dear brothers and sisters, is not our attempt to conquer the world, but the infinite grace that radiates from lives transformed by the Kingdom of God," he said. Evangelization requires walking together on "the way of the Beatitudes," being people who are "hungering and thirsting for justice, poor in spirit, merciful, meek, pure of heart, men and women of peace."

"Jesus himself chose this path," Pope Leo insisted. "To follow it, we have no need of powerful patrons, worldly compromises, or emotional strategies." 

The vigil was part of the Jubilee of Ecclesial Movements, Associations and New Communities. The program began about 90 minutes before Pope Leo arrived in the popemobile. The Focolare movement's international Gen Verde choir and band performed; and members of the Sant'Egidio Community, the Neocatechumenal Way, Nuovi Orizzonti and Communion and Liberation gave testimonies about how the groups helped them grow closer to Jesus and motivated them to help others.

The program was punctuated with video clips of St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XIV and Pope Francis addressing similar Pentecost vigils with the groups.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit, given to build up the unity of the church and inspire its efforts to help others, was the common theme of the clips.

In his address, Pope Leo said "synodality" is "a word that aptly expresses how the Spirit shapes the Church." 

At Pentecost, Mary and the disciples "received a Spirit of unity, which forever grounded in the one Lord Jesus Christ all their diversity," he said. "Theirs were not multiple missions, but a single mission. They were no longer introverted and quarrelling with one another, but outgoing and radiant with joy."

"Dear friends, God created the world so that we might all live as one. 'Synodality' is the ecclesial name for this," the pope said. "It demands that we each recognize our own poverty and our riches, that we feel part of a greater whole, apart from which everything withers, even the most original and unique of charisms."

"Think about it," he told the crowd. "All creation exists solely in the form of coexistence, sometimes dangerous, yet always interconnected."

"The opposite is lethal, but sadly, we are witnessing this daily," the pope said. "May your meetings and your communities, then, be training grounds of fraternity and sharing, not merely meeting places, but centers of spirituality." 

The Holy Spirit can change the world because it can change human hearts, he said. "The Spirit inspires the contemplative dimension of life that rejects self-assertion, complaining, rivalry and the temptation to control consciences and resources."

Celebrating Pentecost during a Jubilee Year, he said, is a special time to recognize the importance of walking together and showing the world the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

"The earth will rest, justice will prevail, the poor will rejoice, and peace will return, once we no longer act as predators but as pilgrims," the pope said. "No longer each of us for ourselves, but walking alongside one another. Not greedily exploiting this world, but cultivating it and protecting it, as the Encyclical Laudato Si' has taught us."

If the groups are united among themselves and with their local parishes and dioceses, he said, "all of us will then work together harmoniously as one. The challenges facing humanity will be less frightening, the future will be less dark, and discernment will be less complicated -- if together we obey the Holy Spirit!"
 

Pope Leo's vision of evangelization

Pope Leo XIV celebrated the Vigil of Pentecost with the Jubilee of Movements, Associations, and New Communities on June 7 in St. Peter’s Square. In his homily, the pope outlined his vision for the church’s mission of evangelization, emphasizing that it...

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.