Month: July 2025

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Almost four years after Pope Francis opened the Catholic Church’s path toward synodality — a term many in the church had never heard before — his successor has thrown his support behind the last leg of the church’s synodal journey.

The Synod of Bishops, which admitted women, lay and other non-bishop voting members among its ranks during its two universal assemblies in October 2023 and 2024, “naturally retains its institutional profile and at the same time is enriched by the mature fruits of this season,” Pope Leo XIV told the ordinary council of the synod June 26. “You are the body appointed to reap these fruits and make a prospective reflection.”

Over two days, the council convened to approve a document for the synod’s final implementation stage intended to improve dialogue between local churches and the Vatican synod office, the General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops said in a statement June 30. The document will be released July 7 at www.synod.va.

The council also discussed the work of study groups instituted by Pope Francis to deal with hot-button topics — such as women’s ordination and changes to priestly formation.

The study groups were scheduled to present interim reports on their findings in June 2025, but the synod office noted that “due to the death of Pope Francis and the election of Pope Leo XIV, there have been delays.” In agreement with Pope Leo, the deadline to submit the final reports was extended to Dec. 31, 2025, and the interim reports will be published on the synod office’s website as they are received, it said.

According to the apostolic constitution “Universi Dominici Gregis,” which governs procedures when the papacy is vacant, a council or Synod of Bishops is immediately suspended when a pope dies or resigns. All meetings, decisions and promulgations must cease until a new pope explicitly orders their continuation, or they are considered null.

The late pope launched the diocesan phase of the worldwide synodal process in October 2021, and it was originally scheduled to culminate with an in-person assembly in Rome in October 2023. Another assembly was held after a year of listening in October 2024, and in March, Pope Francis launched a three-year implementation phase of the synod that will culminate in an ecclesial assembly at the Vatican in October 2028.

Pope Leo told the synod’s ordinary council June 26, “I encourage you in this work, I pray that it may be fruitful and as of now I am grateful.”

The General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops said that the expected document, titled “Pathways for the Implementation Phase of the Synod,” is a practical and theological guide for diocesan bishops and synodal teams as they apply the synod’s final proposals locally.

The synod office noted that this phase of the synodal process “belongs above all to the local Churches,” which are tasked with translating the synod assembly’s “authoritative proposals” into concrete pastoral practices within their respective contexts. At the same time, the synod office said the guidelines were developed to respond to questions raised by bishops and diocesan leaders in recent months and are intended to support, not replace, local discernment.

Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, acknowledged in his opening remarks of the council’s meeting that “difficulties and resistance” to the synodal process remain. He said that while some dioceses have already begun the implementation phase with enthusiasm, others are awaiting the forthcoming guidelines “with trepidation.”

“These contrary positions must not be overlooked,” he said. “Rather, I would say they must challenge us deeply.”

Cardinal Grech proposed establishing a permanent forum, which he called a “Table of Synodality,” to foster ongoing theological and canonical reflection on synodality and encouraged greater investment in formation programs. He also said that new partnerships with academic institutions and the continued support of young theologians would help cultivate a synodal “mentality” across the church.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Senate Republicans on July 1 passed their version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would enact key provisions of President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda on taxes and immigration, without any Democratic support and losing three members of their ranks.

The House would need to approve the Senate’s changes to the bill before it could reach the president’s desk for his signature. Trump has sought to do so by Independence Day, July 4.

Catholic leaders have alternately praised and criticized various provisions in the legislation.

A June 26 letter to senators from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops praised the provision that would strip funds from Planned Parenthood — now limited to just one year — while opposing others that they said would raise taxes “on the working poor while simultaneously giving large tax cuts to the wealthiest.” The letter added, “Because of this, millions of poor families will not be able to afford life-saving healthcare and will struggle to buy food for their children. Some rural hospitals will likely close.” The bishops called these provisions “unconscionable and unacceptable.”

The same day 20 U.S. Catholic bishops signed onto an interfaith effort urging the Senate to reject the bill, citing cuts to nutrition assistance and Medicaid, and its impact on immigrants among other concerns, calling it “draconian” and a “moral failure.”

The Senate worked through the previous weekend as Republican leadership sought to meet Trump’s deadline and secure enough support from their members, while Democrats used a Senate procedure to require the bill to be read in its entirety out loud by the clerk in the chamber, a process that took nearly 16 hours.

Sens. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, broke with other members of their party to reject the bill, meaning that Vice President JD Vance had to break the tie, resulting in a 51-50 vote. Its passage came after Republicans secured the vote of Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, a late holdout.

“The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The OBBB fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass,” Vance, a Catholic, argued on X prior to the bill’s passage, adding, “Everything else — the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy — is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions.”

Tillis, one of the Republicans who voted against proceeding to debate on the bill, said in comments on the Senate floor that he opposed the legislation because it “will betray the very promise” the president made when he pledged not to cut Medicaid benefits.

“I did my homework on behalf of North Carolinians, and I cannot support this bill in its current form,” Tillis added in a statement. “It would result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina, including our hospitals and rural communities. This will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population, and even reducing critical services for those in the traditional Medicaid population.”

Trump suggested on social media that he would seek a primary challenge to Tillis over his vote, but Tillis announced his intention to retire from the upper chamber. He reportedly told Trump of his decision before the primary threat. The North Carolina Senate race next year will be a key battleground state as Republicans seek to maintain their majority.

At a June 30 press briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tillis is “just wrong” and “the president and the vast majority of Republicans who are supportive of this legislation are right.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters after the vote, “This vote will haunt our Republican colleagues for years to come.”

“This bill is so irredeemable that one Republican literally chose to retire rather than vote ‘yes’ and decimate his own state,” Schumer said in apparent reference to Tillis.

Collins said in a July 1 statement shared on X that while she supports some provisions in the bill like “extending the tax relief for families and small businesses.” But she said her vote against the bill “stems primarily from the harmful impact it will have on Medicaid, affecting low-income families and rural health care providers like our hospitals and nursing homes.”

“The Medicaid program has been an important health care safety net for nearly 60 years that has helped people in difficult financial circumstances, including people with disabilities, children, seniors, and low-income families,” Collins said. “Approximately 400,000 Mainers — nearly a third of the state’s population — depend on this program.”

Mercy Sister Mary Haddad, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, said in a statement that the legislation was a moral failure, citing its cuts to safety-net programs like Medicaid and SNAP.

“As a nation, we have a moral responsibility to care for those in need — especially our children, the elderly, and people living in poverty,” Sister Haddad said. “It is shameful that Congress has once again prioritized the interests of the wealthy over the needs of millions of vulnerable Americans.”

“Let’s be clear: no amount of tinkering changes the underlying, fundamental flaws of H.R. 1 and its devastating impact,” she added. “This bill inflicts deep harm on essential community health and social safety-net programs, threatening the survival of rural hospitals and long-term care facilities. It places additional financial strain on already overburdened health care providers and state budgets. By protecting the most vulnerable among us, we build a healthier, more just society for all. This bill does the opposite.”

A provision in the Senate’s version of the bill would eliminate funds to health providers who also perform abortions — but just for one year.

“Republicans gave the green light to defund Planned Parenthood — a cruel, backdoor abortion ban,” Schumer wrote on X. “We forced Senate Republicans to drop their defund Planned Parenthood provision from ten years down to just one, but this will still wreak havoc on health care for millions.”

But Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement, “Congress took a major step toward ending the forced taxpayer funding of the Big Abortion industry — a crucial victory in the fight against abortion, America’s leading cause of death, and an industry that endangers women and girls.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the day before the bill’s Senate passage that the bill would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034.

A provision that would have blocked states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade was defeated 99-1. The issue of AI, and its regulation for the common good, is a significant social concern raised by Pope Leo XIV.

House Republican leadership — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and Conference Chairwoman Lisa McClain, R-Mich. — said in a joint statement they were eager to meet Trump’s July 4 deadline.

“The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay,” they said in a statement. “Republicans were elected to do exactly what this bill achieves: secure the border, make tax cuts permanent, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength, cut wasteful spending, and return to a government that puts Americans first. This bill is President Trump’s agenda, and we are making it law. House Republicans are ready to finish the job and put the One Big Beautiful Bill on President Trump’s desk in time for Independence Day.”

Johnson will have a small margin to secure enough support from his members to send the bill to the president’s desk. Some members of his party have been critical of changes the Senate made to their version of the bill.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 26 that there is not a private right to bring a lawsuit challenging South Carolina’s decision to end Planned Parenthood’s participation in the state’s Medicaid program. The ruling will likely allow other states to remove Planned Parenthood from their Medicaid programs.

Federal law generally prohibits the use of Medicaid funds for abortion. Supporters of allowing Planned Parenthood to receive Medicaid funds point to that group’s involvement in cancer screening and prevention services — such as pap tests and HPV vaccinations — but critics argue the funds are fungible and could be used to facilitate abortion.

Efforts to strip Planned Parenthood of these or other taxpayer funds are sometimes called “defunding.”

The case concerned a 2018 executive order signed by Gov. Henry McMaster, R-S.C., stripping two Planned Parenthood clinics in the state of Medicaid funds, a federal program for health care for people with low incomes that is administered by the states.

In response, a Planned Parenthood affiliate in South Carolina and its Medicaid patient, Julie Edwards, argued that any patients eligible for Medicaid should be able to obtain health care from any qualified provider.

That challenge prompted a key question: whether or not Medicaid recipients have the ability to sue to maintain their chosen provider. Writing for the majority, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that they do not.

“Medicaid offers States ‘a bargain,'” Gorsuch argued, adding, “In return for federal funds, States agree ‘to spend them in accordance with congressionally imposed conditions.'”

In a dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued the court’s majority ruling was “stymying one of the country’s great civil rights laws” the Reconstruction-era Civil Rights Act of 1871.

“In this latest chapter, South Carolina urges our Court to adopt a narrow and ahistorical reading of the 1871 Act’s first section,” she argued, adding, “That venerable provision permits any citizen to obtain redress in federal court for ‘the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws’ of the United States. South Carolina asks us to hollow out that provision so that the State can evade liability for violating the rights of its Medicaid recipients to choose their own doctors. The Court abides South Carolina’s request. I would not. For that reason, I respectfully dissent.”

Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, welcomed the decision in a statement, saying, “South Carolina was right to deny Planned Parenthood taxpayer dollars. A group dedicated to ending children’s lives deserves no public support.”

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

“Abortion is not health care,” Bishop Thomas added, “and lives will be saved because South Carolina has chosen to not fund clinics that pretend it is. Publicly funded programs like Medicaid should only support authentic, life-affirming options for mothers and children in need.”

Katie Daniel, director of legal affairs and policy counsel for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, celebrated the ruling in a statement, arguing, “By rejecting Planned Parenthood’s lawfare, the Court not only saves countless unborn babies from a violent death and their mothers from dangerously shoddy ‘care,’ it also protects Medicaid from exposure to thousands of lawsuits from unqualified providers that would jeopardize the entire program.”

“Pro-life Republican leaders are eliminating government waste and prioritizing Medicaid for those who need it most — women, children, the poor, people with disabilities,” Daniel said. “Planned Parenthood was rightly disqualified. Multi-billion-dollar abortion businesses are not entitled to an unending money grab that forces taxpayers to fund America’s #1 cause of death: abortion.”

The ruling came just after the third anniversary of the high court’s ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, which was issued June 24, 2022.

(OSV News) – Limited access to mental health care, rising substance use disorders and increasing income inequality are three likely reasons that young women and mothers are reporting declining mental health. But another reason for worsening mental health struggles that’s widely cited by studies and mental health experts alike is the growing, societal-wide social isolation.

“We expect everybody to be able to handle everything by themselves,” said Daniel Roberson, a Catholic mental health counselor based in Arlington, Washington. “Women are more relational … (so) isolation is always going to affect women more than it’s going to affect men, and I think isolation could be the word of the decade.”

A March 13 Gallup poll found that from 2020 to 2024, just 15% of women aged 18-29 polled said they have excellent mental health, down 33 points from 2010-2014. A May 27 study from the JAMA Network found that self-reported mental health was found to have significantly declined for mothers of minor children.

The Gallup poll notes that some of this reported decline in mental health is due to a growing awareness of mental issues.

“The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have been a turning point in Americans’ perceptions of their mental and physical health, compounding declines already underway,” the survey notes. “The shift in how people perceive their mental health could reflect several dynamics: heightened anxiety brought on by the COVID-19 crisis; heightened public and medical attention to mental health during this period; and a lessening of the stigma around admitting mental health challenges.”

In his clinical experience, Roberson believes there is both an increased personal awareness of mental health struggles as well as a decline in mental health. Among his clients who are mothers, especially stay-at-home mothers, he sees a tendency to give and give that leads to burnout.

“There’s a risk where the woman starts to think that it’s her job to pour out everything until she has nothing left,” said Roberson, who is also part of the Catholic Psychotherapy Association. He helps clients to see that taking care of themselves ultimately allows them to take better care of their family and friends.

At her practice, The Perinatal & Reproductive Wellness Group, Becky Morrison Gleed works with women and mothers struggling with mental health issues. She echoed the findings of the studies.

“This is matching what I see,” said Morrison Gleed, who is based in Falls Church, Virginia. “It’s a bit stark (and) sad.”

She feels mothers are expected to do more with fewer resources, in addition to other problems including medical birth-related traumas or difficulties with partners, if they have partners.

“This is a new generation where we have more dual-working parents and so gone are the days of the stay-at-home mom who has the village in her cul-de-sac,” she said. “The expectations have not necessarily shifted to catch up with demands on mothers in terms of roles, mental load, working responsibilities and childcare.”

Morrison Gleed said she encourages people to check in on their mom friends and family members, especially postpartum moms.

“The biggest risk factor that we know is if the person is not sleeping. If they’ve gone multiple days with no or minimal sleep, that should be considered an emergency,” she said.

She also advises against giving unsolicited advice.

“Try to listen to what she’s telling you,” said Morrison Gleed. “Then she might share a little bit more and before you know it, you have a better idea of what she might need to feel supported and thrive as a mom.”

The JAMA Network study noted that the self-reported physical and mental health status was significantly lower among mothers who were U.S. born, single parents, less educated, and those with publicly insured or uninsured children. Countless Catholic ministries reach out to the underserved through food banks, rental assistance and free medical clinics. But there’s also special outreach to struggling pregnant women through parish-based ministries such as the Gabriel Project and Walking with Moms in Need.

Kat Talalas, assistant director of pro-life communications for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is working to expand Walking with Moms in Needs so that every parish is equipped to serve struggling families. So far, at least 60 U.S. dioceses — approximately one in three — have a Walking with Moms in Need presence. Talalas sees the ministry as answering St. John Paul II’s call to “radical solidarity” with mothers.

“We are meant to welcome children into a community and have that community be a secure place to raise a family,” she said. “It’s really important to increase opportunities for women to know they’re not alone, to have people who are willing to help them both practically and emotionally with all the changes that come with motherhood. Community and friendship can be a huge benefit to women’s mental health.”

In one archdiocese, just advertising the program has made a big difference, said Talalas.

“Women who are struggling with an unplanned pregnancy, maybe they’re a single mother — they might think that the church doesn’t want to help them because they’re a single mother,” she said. “By advertising, it helps reconnect women to the church, where they find that God loves them and they have people around them who are going to support them in welcoming new life.”

Other parishes and dioceses support flourishing mental health through Catholic Charities’ counseling services or through mental health ministries. Numerous parishes and dioceses are part of the International Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers, including the Diocese of Boise, Idaho, which recently launched a diocesan mental health team. They’ve held retreats for parish staffers, an outreach event in a community impacted by suicide, and some “Catholic Mental Health 101” sessions.

“Many people suffer from this, sometimes silently,” said Jay Wonacott, director of Marriage and Family Life at the Boise Diocese. “There’s still a great stigma around mental health issues and I think the purpose of the church is to allay that mental health stigma and help people understand the psychological, the medical and the spiritual dynamics.”

Separately, the diocese also has a ministry for women suffering from miscarriage.

“Especially when there’s a loss, there can be depression and there can be anxiety,” he said.

On an institutional level, Roberson believes the Catholic Church can better serve women’s mental health by helping them form and keep healthy marriages, and by making mothers feel welcome in church, even when their babies are crying.

“A lot of the single mothers that I work with and a lot of women with children simply don’t feel like they can go to church, simply don’t feel like they can engage in society until the children are grown up,” he said. “And by then they’ve formed a habit through their life of staying on the outskirts.”

On an individual level, Catholics must commit to accompaniment. Roberson thinks of a friend who is currently accompanying a woman going through a mental health crisis.

“That’s painful and messy for him and his family, and it takes a lot of his time,” said Roberson.

While it’s tempting for his friend to go back to his job and family and leave the struggling woman by herself, he knows that’s not right.

“I think we can talk about all the financial or societal supports that we need — and they’re good and true — but it begins at the heart,” Roberson said. “Do I individually make space for the people around me to talk to me about the things that are hurting them, and do I allow that to actually hurt me?”