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Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City Missouri. / Credit: eurobanks/ShutterstockSt. Louis, Mo., May 20, 2025 / 12:32 pm (CNA).Republican lawmakers in Missouri approved a new referendum last week that, if passed by voters, could reinstate many of the state's pro-life laws, largely undoing a previous statewide referendum that expanded abortion rights a few months ago. The ballot measure, HJR73, would ask voters if they want to allow abortion only in the case of a medical emergency, fetal abnormality, or rape or incest. It also would ban public funding for any abortions not done because of medical emergency or rape or incest. In addition, the referendum would allow the state General Assembly to enact laws that regulate the provision of abortions, abortion facilities, and abortion providers to ensure the health and safety of pregnant mothers.The measure would also constitutionally ban hormones, puberty blockers, and surgeries for "gender transition" for minors. Missour...
Planned Parenthood gets millions of dollars in federal support each year. / Credit: Ken Wolter/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 20, 2025 / 14:50 pm (CNA).Two American Catholic bishops are hailing a Republican-led legislative effort to end certain taxpayer funds for abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood as well as an attempt to block funding for transgender drugs and surgeries for children.Proposed budget language currently being considered in the U.S. House of Representatives would prevent Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from receiving Medicaid reimbursements for any services. It would also end all reimbursements for transgender drugs or surgeries that doctors prescribe for children."Americans should not be forced to subsidize abortions and 'gender transition' services with their tax dollars," Toledo, Ohio, Bishop Daniel Thomas and Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, said in a joint statement on Monday from the U.S. Conference ...
The city of Baltimore. / Credit: Sean Pavone/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 20, 2025 / 15:20 pm (CNA).The Archdiocese of Baltimore has been accused of defying a Vatican order after allegedly refusing to reopen a Maryland parish despite a letter from the Holy See halting its closure. In the spring of 2024 Archbishop William Lori announced the "difficult" decision to merge parishes in Baltimore and surrounding suburbs as part of the archdiocesan "Seek the City to Come" initiative. Among the parishes slated for closure was St. Clare in Essex.Several St. Clare parishioners who disagreed with the plan sought assistance from Save Rome of the West, an organization that offers consulting services "to aid in the preservation and maintenance of Catholic churches and parishes."Group co-founders Jason Bolte and Brody Hale helped parishioner Barbara Pivonski write and send a formal letter to the Vatican in October 2024 appealing Lori's plan and requesting that the church re...
Pope Leo XIV and St. Nicholas of Tolentine. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/EWTN News; Province of Our Mother of Good Counsel of the Augustinian OrderLima Newsroom, May 20, 2025 / 09:21 am (CNA).Perhaps many Catholics wonder who Pope Leo XIV's favorite saint is. A Peruvian missionary priest who is a close friend and confidant of the pontiff said he knows the answer in this little-known devotion of the Holy Father, who used to pray to this saint on his knees in a small chapel near Chiclayo in northern Peru."St. Nicholas of Tolentine is, without a doubt, his favorite saint. He is the protector of his perpetual vows, his great devotion within Augustinian spirituality," said Peruvian priest Father David Farfán Guerrero, whom the Holy Father met in 1985 in Chulucanas in the Piura district of the country.Farfán, who has served as pastor of St. Turibius of Mogrovejo Parish for about 10 years, welcomed ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner, to San Nicolás, a small settlement loc...
Italian Cardinal Baldassare Reina was created a cardinal by Pope Francis during the consistory at St. Peter's Basilica on Dec. 7, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNAVatican City, May 20, 2025 / 10:43 am (CNA).Pope Leo XIV, in one of his first personnel appointments, on Monday named Cardinal Baldassare Reina grand chancellor of the Pontifical Theological Institute John Paul II for Marriage and the Family, replacing Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who turned 80 on April 20.Reina, 54, is vicar general of the Diocese of Rome since 2024. As part of that role, he is also grand chancellor of the Pontifical Lateran University, the home of the John Paul II Institute.Pope Leo's May 19 appointment of Reina as grand chancellor appears to be a return to the former practice of linking the leadership of the institute to the vicar general of Rome. This practice had been changed under Pope Francis, who named Paglia to the role in 2016.The following year, in 2017, Francis made the controversial decisi...
Cardinal William Goh speaks to EWTN News Vice President Matthew Bunson in Rome on Monday, April 19, 2025. / Credit: EWTN NewsVatican City, May 20, 2025 / 11:20 am (CNA).Singapore's Cardinal William Goh believes Pope Leo XIV will build a greater unity within the Church, particularly for Catholic faithful often divided on matters of Church doctrine and morality.Calling the new pontiff a "gift of God" in an interview with EWTN News Vice President Matthew Bunson, Goh said the Holy Father is the "right person" to lead the Church toward synodality and explain the balance between "orthodoxy and being progressive.""Being traditional is not wrong [and] going back to the orthodoxy of the Church is not wrong," he said. "But, at the same time, we are not just asking our Church to be too legalistic about our moral doctrines in terms of practice."Describing the new pontiff as an active listener who is "very attentive to the concerns and sharings of the cardinals," Goh said the Holy Father's ...
null / Credit: KieferPix/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 19, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).Catholic Charities in Youngstown, Ohio, will join a new pilot study, Lifting Moms Out of Poverty (LMOP), a program developed by Catholic Charities USA, in a bid to offer aid to mothers with small children."The intent of the program from Catholic Charities USA is to evaluate the effectiveness of programs that support young families with kiddos under 3 years of age," Rick Squier, the executive director of the Catholic Charities serving Portage and Stark counties, told CNA."I'm excited that we have the opportunity to do this," Squier said. "We're going to be able to quantify the results of the program and say that when we do our financial literacy program with young families over the course of 18 months, they see dramatic increases in their ability to overcome when life happens." "And then we have the opportunity to go out and write grants" based on the successful results, he said.Th...
U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, seated in places of honor usually reserved for heads of state, meet with Pope Leo XIV in the papal library on May 19, 2025. / Credit: Vatican MediaVatican City, May 19, 2025 / 06:52 am (CNA).Pope Leo XIV held a private meeting with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in the papal library on Monday morning.Details of the meeting were not released, but the Americans later spoke with a top Vatican diplomat about U.S. and international issues. The 45-minute papal audience began with a one-on-one between Vance and the pope, with Rubio joining afterward. Second Lady Usha Vance, Rubio's wife Jeanette Dousdebes Rubio, and the larger U.S. delegation joined for the final part of the meeting, which included the customary exchange of gifts.In a photo of the encounter released by the Vatican, Vance appears to have given the pontiff a Chicago Bears jersey with "Pope Leo XIV" printed on the ...
Archbishop Charles C. Thompson elevates the Eucharist during the Opening Mass at St. John the Evangelist Church in Indianapolis, marking the official launch of the St. Katharine Drexel Route. May 18, 2025. / Credit: Jeffrey BrunoCNA Newsroom, May 18, 2025 / 18:00 pm (CNA).The 2025 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage kicked off Sunday, May 18, with an opening Mass in downtown Indianapolis where an estimated 1,000 people, including many young families, joined Archbishop Charles C. Thompson to officially launch this year's pilgrimage.Archbishop Charles C. Thompson blesses a cross that was made from wood from the most recent fires in California and will accompany pilgrims on the St. Katharine Drexel Route. May 18, 2025. Credit: Jeffrey Bruno"Our faith is not something to be lived just within the walls of the Church. The Mass ends with being sent out," the archbishop told EWTN News before the Mass began at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church. "The Eucharist is transforming. And it t...
Pope Leo XIV acknowledged divisions among the faithful with a call for fraternal communion and unity in the homily at his inaugural Mass in St. Peter's Square on May 18, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNAVatican City, May 18, 2025 / 10:00 am (CNA).Pope Leo XIV delivered the following homily at the Mass for the Initiation of the Petrine Ministry in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, May 18, after being elected the 266th successor of St. Peter on May 8.Dear Brother Cardinals,Brother Bishops and Priests,Distinguished Authorities and Members of the Diplomatic Corps,Greetings to the pilgrims who came on the occasion of the Jubilee of the Confraternities!Brothers and Sisters, I greet all of you with a heart full of gratitude at the beginning of the ministry that has been entrusted to me. St. Augustine wrote: "Lord, you have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you" (Confessions, I: 1,1).In these days, we have experienced intense emotions. The death of Pope Fran...
