Author: Eric Deabill

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trump signed the pardons in the Oval Office.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(OSV News) – Several Catholic leaders are speaking out against the Trump administration’s reversal of a longstanding policy limiting where immigration officials could make arrests.

On Jan. 21, the Department of Homeland Security announced that previously designated “sensitive locations” such as churches and schools would no longer be off-limits for such arrests. The agency said in a statement that “criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches” to evade law enforcement.

The move followed several executive orders on immigration issued by President Donald Trump hours after his Jan. 20 inauguration, based on campaign pledges to tighten border security and ensure mass deportations of undocumented migrants.

But allowing for immigration arrests at houses of worship and other previously protected locations threatens human dignity, religious liberty and society itself, said several Catholic leaders in a joint statement issued Jan. 23 by Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration; Sister Mary Haddad, a member of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas and president and CEO of Catholic Health Association of the United States; and Kerry Alys Robinson, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA.

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

The three said that they were “already witnessing reticence among immigrants to engage in daily life, including sending children to school and attending religious services.”

“All people have a right to fulfill their duty to God without fear,” they said.

According to Pew Research Center, Christians “are the largest religious group in the world among both migrants and nonmigrants,” and are “overrepresented among international migrants, accounting for 30% of the world’s overall population and 47% of all people living outside their country of birth, as of 2020.”

In their statement, Bishop Seitz, Sister Mary and Robinson said, “Through our parishes, shelters, hospitals, schools, and other Church institutions, we recognize that this dignity is not dependent on a person’s citizenship or immigration status.”

“Catholic health care, Catholic Charities agencies, and the Church’s other social service ministries work daily to feed, house, heal, educate, and meet people’s needs in communities across our nation,” they said. “Through these ministries — together with the Church’s responsibility to proclaim the Gospel and celebrate the sacraments — we uphold the belief that all people are conceived with inherent dignity, reflecting the image of God.”

“The charitable services we provide are fundamental to who we are as Christians,” they added, quoting Pope Benedict XVI’s 2005 encyclical, “Deus Caritas Est”: “For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity which could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.”

The policy of “turning places of care, healing, and solace into places of fear and uncertainty for those in need, while endangering the trust between pastors, providers, educators and the people they serve, will not make our communities safer,” they said.

“Our organizations stand ready to work on a better path forward that protects the dignity of all those we serve, upholds the sacred duty of our providers, and ensures our borders and immigration system are governed with mercy and justice,” they said.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Whether one needs a fresh start or simply time for “recalculating the route,” the Holy Year 2025 is an opportunity for all Christians to set off on a pilgrimage, Pope Francis said.

“The destination is not just any goal, but a place of as much sharing, fraternity and joy as possible in this world with its lights and its trials,” and where people are “open to the ultimate happiness in the company of Jesus, Mary and all the saints,” the pope told members of the Italian Automobile Club.

Pope Francis focused on the meaning of jubilee pilgrimages in his meeting with the club members Jan. 23 and in audiences that day with the Italian police who patrol the area around the Vatican and with leaders of the foundation that supports the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

On the pilgrimage through life, he told the auto club, people do risk “taking the wrong road – it’s true – or of finding oneself in difficulty or feeling lost.”

Especially in those situations, he said, “the Jubilee can be an opportunity to start again, to recalculate the route of one’s life, identifying the landmarks that should not be missed and those that might instead become obstacles to reaching the goal.”

Even worse than getting lost, though, is not moving at all, he said. “We were not made to stand still.”

“Do not get discouraged, but always start again,” the pope told them.

In his meeting with the Italian national police unit responsible for the area around the Vatican, Pope Francis thanked them for guaranteeing his safety and that of his collaborators and the pilgrims and tourists who visit the Vatican.

But he also encouraged them to take advantage of the Jubilee and the holy doors opened in St. Peter’s Basilica and the basilicas of St. Mary Major, St. John Lateran and St. Paul Outside the Walls.

“Going through the Holy Door is not a magical act — no, it is not — it is a symbol, a Christian symbol; Jesus himself says, ‘I am the door,'” the pope told them, quoting the Gospel of John.

Making a pilgrimage and crossing the threshold of the Holy Door is “a sign that expresses the desire to begin again,” the pope said. A wise person recognizes the need “to begin again. Always going one step forward. The desire to be renewed, and to let God find you.”

Pope Francis prayed that even “those who may not recognize that they have the gift of faith, let them equally take advantage of this Jubilee Year to go forward.”

The Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, a longtime Jesuit ministry that shares the pope’s monthly prayer intentions, has a more obvious Jubilee connection since pilgrims must pray for the pope’s intentions, go to confession and receive the Eucharist to receive a Holy Year indulgence.

The pope told the group that the network also can contribute to the Jubilee by “helping individuals and communities to live the spirit of the Holy Year as a journey in which prayer and compassion, prayer and closeness to the least among us, prayer and works of mercy are inseparably combined.”

(OSV News) – “Let me say very simply: I want more babies in the United States of America,” Vice President JD Vance told a cheering crowd at the 52nd National March for Life Jan. 24.

“I want more happy children in our country, and I want beautiful young men and women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them,” he said. “And it is the task of our government to make it easier for young moms and dads to afford to have kids, to bring them into the world, and to welcome them as the blessings that we know they are, here at the March for Life.”

In his first public appearance following Inauguration Day, Vance was the final speaker at the annual march’s two-hour rally preceding attendees’ walk from the Washington Monument grounds to the U.S. Supreme Court Building. Other speakers included Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. It is the first time both leaders of Congress’s chambers attended a March for Life.

While most speakers — policymakers and pro-life advocates — spoke specifically about making abortion “illegal and unthinkable” in post-Dobbs America, Vance championed a pro-family vision that not only rejected abortion, but also supported raising children.

Noting his own three young children, Vance, who is Catholic, said, “The task of our movement is to protect innocent life. It’s to defend the unborn; and it’s also to be pro-family and pro-life in the fullest sense of that word possible.”

As in years past, the march drew tens of thousands, many of them young adults. Some traveled more than a day on buses, missing high school and college classes to join others along the National Mall in the mid-Atlantic cold. They held signs reading “Love them Both,” “Life is our Revolution” and “Defund Planned Parenthood,” the largest U.S. abortion provider.

The 2025 march also commemorated a leadership change for the event’s organization, with longtime president Jeanne Mancini handing off her role to March for Life’s incoming president, Jennie Bradley Lichter. While Mancini emceed the 2025 march, both women spoke, with Bradley Lichter also introducing Vance.

The march was founded to protest Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in all 50 states. That decision was overturned in 2022 with the court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision, thus returning abortion policy to lawmakers. At the rally, March for Life leaders addressed the march’s role in the changed abortion landscape, with abortion laws now varying widely by state. The march, they insisted, must continue.

“Today we affirm that the pro-life generation will not rest until every single abortion facility in our nation closes its door for good. We will march until every child is protected by federal law, until abortion is unthinkable, and until every pregnant woman receives excellent prenatal care,” said Hannah Lape, president of Wheaton College Voice for Life. Her group carried the 2025 march’s iconic banner.

“With the new administration and the fall of Roe v. Wade, the next four years of America’s history will be defined either by courage or by cowardice,” she said. “Abortion is not a state’s rights issue to be ignored. It is a fundamental human rights crisis weighing on America’s shoulders. Our country cannot be great until the preborn are protected, and are protected (with) the right to life.”

The march came four days after President Donald Trump was sworn in for his second term, following a campaign that disappointed many pro-life advocates in certain respects. Trump was hailed for pro-life actions during his first term. Since then, he reversed support for a federal abortion ban, stating he believes U.S. states should determine their own abortion laws. He also posted on social media positively about “reproductive rights,” and indicated he would not restrict access to mifepristone. The drug, while it is prescribed in some miscarriage care protocols, is widely used for nearly two-thirds of abortions in the U.S.

How Trump’s campaign statements on abortion affect policy-making remain to be seen. But many pro-life leaders appear optimistic about the new administration. The day before the March for Life, Trump pardoned 23 pro-life activists convicted of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinics (FACE) Act. The activists, many of whom Trump said were elderly, had been convicted for blocking access to abortion clinics. An executive order on gender Trump issued earlier in the week also defined life as beginning at conception, a point House Speaker Johnson noted at the march rally.

Johnson was among House members who passed the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act Jan. 23, the day after Democrats blocked a companion bill in the Senate.

In a video played at the march, Trump touted his pro-life record and said that in his second term “we will again stand proudly for families and for life.”

“We will protect the historic gains we have made and stop the radical Democrat push for a federal right to unlimited abortion on demand, up to the moment of birth and even after birth,” he said.

A majority of Americans support some legal limits on abortion, while keeping the practice largely intact, according to a Knights of Columbus-Marist poll released Jan. 23. The annual survey found that 83% of Americans supported pregnancy resource centers and 67% of Americans support some legal limits for abortion. But 60% support limiting abortions to the first three months of pregnancy — a limit that would leave most abortions legal as nine out of 10 abortions occur in the first trimester.

“All of you here — all of you — have the power to change minds,” Lila Rose, a Catholic and longtime pro-life advocate, told the crowd during the march rally. “You are the voice for those who have no voice. Remember, science is on our side. The truth is on our side. We must simply have the courage to speak the truth with love.”

The March for Life was preceded by two large-scale events: Life Fest 2025 at EagleBank Arena in Fairfax, Virginia, held the evening before and the morning of the march; and the National Prayer Vigil for Life at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.

The Sisters of Life, the Knights of Columbus and the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, united to present the two-day Life Fest event, which drew almost 8,000. At the national shrine, Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, was the main celebrant and homilist at the prayer vigil’s opening Mass Jan. 23, with Bishop Robert J. Brennan of Brooklyn, New York, the main celebrant of the closing liturgy Jan. 24. Archbishop Naumann also gave an opening prayer at the March for Life.

Marcela Rojas, who lives in the Archdiocese of New York, said that she attended the march with a group of 75 people, many of them mothers who brought their small children.

“Within our being, in our womb, there is a life,” she said of pregnant mothers. “It is a life that we cannot choose for. It is already another life that does not belong to us, and we are not the ones to decide whether it lives or not.”

SCRANTON – The Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will celebrate Mass for the 33rd World Day of the Sick on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, at 12:10 p.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton.

The commemoration of the World Day of the Sick not only provides an opportunity to devote special attention to those who are ill, but is also a celebration of God’s works of mercy, especially through those who work tirelessly in the healthcare field.

The World Day of the Sick Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Peter will feature the Liturgy of the Anointing. Any person who wishes to receive the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick will be invited to approach the bishop/priest with their hands open and palms facing up. The bishop/priest will anoint both the forehead and hands of the sick person.

Last year, Pope Francis reminded all faithful that the sacrament of the anointing of the sick is not just for those who are nearing the end of their life.

“Let us remember that the anointing of the sick is one of the ‘sacraments of healing,’ of ‘restoration,’ that heals the spirit,” the pope said in a video message released in July by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

For the month of July 2024, the pope dedicated his prayer intention to the pastoral care of the sick.

“The anointing of the sick is not a sacrament only for those who are at the point of death,” the pope said, emphasizing “it is important that this is clear.”

Having a priest or bishop give the sacrament does not necessarily mean saying “goodbye to life,” he said. “Thinking this way means giving up every hope.”

“When a person is very ill, it’s advisable to give them the anointing of the sick. And when someone is elderly, it’s good that they receive the anointing of the sick,” Pope Francis said, underlining how there is no need to wait until a person experiencing a serious illness is at the point of death to receive the sacrament.

“Let us pray that the sacrament of the anointing of the sick grant the Lord’s strength to those who receive it and to their loved ones, and that it may become for everyone an ever more visible sign of compassion and hope,” he said.

CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton will provide a live broadcast of the Mass for those unable to attend.

SCRANTON – In advance of National Disability Awareness Month in March, the Diocese of Scranton will hold its annual Mass for Persons with Disabilities on Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025, at 10 a.m. at the Cathedral of Saint Peter in Scranton.

All people, including those with special abilities, have gifts to contribute to the life of the Church. The Diocese of Scranton embraces and welcomes the talents of all individuals in building up the Kingdom of God.

The Most Reverend Joseph C. Bambera, Bishop of Scranton, will serve as principal celebrant and homilist at this special Mass.

The Mass is open to everyone. It will be broadcast live on CTV: Catholic Television of the Diocese of Scranton. The Mass will also be livestream on the Diocese of Scranton website, YouTube channel and links will be provided on all Diocesan social media platforms.

A lite reception will be held following the Mass at the Diocesan Pastoral Center, 330 Wyoming Avenue, Scranton.

Partners in the annual Mass for Persons with Disabilities include Saint Joseph’s Center in Scranton and the Order of the Alhambra. For more information, visit dioceseofscranton.org.