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Kansas Capitol. / Credit: Gino Santa Maria/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 8, 2025 / 16:12 pm (CNA).Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly on Monday vetoed legislation that would have protected the religious liberty of adoptive parents and faith-based adoption centers on issues related to gender identity and sexual orientation.The bill, which passed the state Senate 31-9 and the House 84-38, would have prohibited the Kansas Department for Children and Families from enacting policies that require a prospective adoptive parent or foster parent to first affirm support for gender ideology and homosexuality if they want to qualify to adopt or foster children.The vetoed bill would have ensured a person could not be denied a license to adopt or foster children and could not be refused selection for adopting or fostering children because he or she holds "sincerely held religious or moral beliefs" that conflict with the state government's ideology on those subjects.The bill would have still...
The British Parliament building in London. / Credit: Marinesea/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 8, 2025 / 16:42 pm (CNA).The U.K. Catholic Medical Association (CMA) is warning against a bill seeking to legalize assisted suicide, arguing the measure will cause patients to "fear for their safety" in the medical system.In an April 7 statement, the CMA indicated that it is "committed to upholding the moral teachings of the Catholic Church as applied to the field of health care" and is "therefore fundamentally opposed to the legislation proposed in [member of U.K. Parliament] Kim Leadbeater's Assisted Dying Bill."The group argued that it is "always wrong to make a direct attack on innocent human life."Leadbeater is sponsoring the controversial Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill that would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales to choose to end their own lives with the help of a doctor. The bill is currently facing a delay in its implementation that could la...
Father Arul Carasala served as a pastor in the Archdiocese of Kansas City, Kansas for over 20 years. / Credit: Courtesy of Archdiocese of Kansas CityCNA Staff, Apr 8, 2025 / 17:12 pm (CNA).The accused killer of a Kansas Catholic priest shot the clergyman last week "intentionally" and with "premeditation," a prosecutor has said. Gary Hermesch was taken into custody last week at the Nemaha County Jail and charged with first-degree murder in the shooting of Father Arul Carasala, the Nemaha County Sheriff's Office said. Carasala was shot at Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Seneca on April 3. The priest later died from his injuries at Nemaha Valley Community Hospital.Nemaha County Attorney Brad Lippert's office said in a press release that the murder was planned beforehand. Hermesch is being held on a $1 million bond at the county jail. The exact motive of the shooting remains unclear, though local news outlet KSNT reported that Hermesch had previously written l...
National Institutes of Health building in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Mark Van Scyoc/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 7, 2025 / 16:22 pm (CNA).The Trump administration has directed the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) to begin a research initiative to study "regret" among individuals who undergo so-called gender transition treatments.In March, the White House canceled multiple NIH grants involving gender identity along with diversity, equity, and inclusion. Now, the administration is ordering the NIH to resume some transgender research but with the goal of examining the potential negative consequences the hormonal and surgical treatments can have.Theresa Farnan, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, discussed with CNA why this research is needed to help individuals who experience regret after transitioning treatments.Farnan said many people who report negative consequences after medical gender transitions were already struggling with a mental health ...
Loyola High School alumni, students, and school benefactors gather in the new St. Peter Claver Chapel on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. The chapel features sacred items donated from various churches in the Archdiocese of Detroit. / Credit: Valaurian Waller/Detroit CatholicCNA Staff, Apr 7, 2025 / 16:47 pm (CNA).A shooting in northwest Detroit on Monday morning resulted in a stray bullet breaching the newly dedicated Catholic chapel at Loyola High School, reportedly while about 40 students were inside.Police said the bullet entered St. Peter Claver Chapel at around 7:50 a.m. on April 7. There were no reported injuries, and police are canvassing the neighborhood seeking information on what led to the shooting and who was involved.CNA reached out to the Detroit Police Department for further information, inquiring as to whether there are any suspects in the shooting, but did not receive a response by publication time.The Catholic boys high school in Detroit, which is under the care of t...
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks at the USCCB fall plenary assembly Nov. 14, 2023. / Credit: USCCB videoWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 7, 2025 / 17:29 pm (CNA).The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has made what it is calling the "difficult decision" to not renew cooperative agreements with the federal government amid policy changes from President Donald Trump's administration to cut funding from refugee programs."While this marks a painful end to a life-sustaining partnership with our government that has spanned decades across administrations of both political parties, it offers every Catholic an opportunity to search our hearts for new ways to assist," USCCB President Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio said in an April 7 statement.The archbishop wrote that the funding cut "forces us to reconsider the best way to serve the needs of our brothers and sisters seeking safe harbor from violence and persecution."F...
Pope Francis blesses an ambulance that he donated to to treat the wounded in Ukraine's Ternopil region in 2024. / Credit: Dicastery for the Service of CharityVatican City, Apr 7, 2025 / 18:01 pm (CNA).Pope Francis has donated to Ukraine four ambulances that will be deployed in hardest-hit areas in a concrete gesture of his closeness and concern for those suffering the devastating effects of the war there. The vehicles bear the Vatican's coat of arms.According to the Dicastery for the Service of Charity on Monday, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner, will be responsible for delivering the ambulances, which are in addition to the medical equipment that has been donated in the past.On other occasions, the pope has blessed the ambulances before the trip, but the Holy See press office did not specify if he did so this time."The Holy Father has decided to send his eminence to Ukraine again to donate four ambulances, equipped with all the necessary medical equipment to save lives...
"The foolishness of divine condescension urges that we lay aside our educated conceit in approaching the biblical words. It calls for intellectual humility in which the mind bows before the mystery," Hahn indicated during his April 4, 2025, address. / Credit: Screenshot courtesy of Harvard Catholic ForumCambridge, Massachusetts, Apr 7, 2025 / 13:01 pm (CNA).Professor Scott Hahn on Friday, April 4, spoke to Harvard's Catholic Church, St. Paul's, about the saving truth of Scripture. Hahn, one of today's most well-known American Catholic scholars, has authored over 40 books on theology and apologetics. He is founder and president of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and is devoted to equipping Catholics with a deeper understanding of Scripture and Catholic doctrine.Returning to Boston for the event hosted by the Harvard Catholic Forum, Hahn noted the city "still feels like a second home" to him after attending Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and previously living ...
Bishop Robert Barron is the founder of Word on Fire, a media apostolate focused on evangelization. / Credit: Courtesy of Word on FireCNA Staff, Apr 7, 2025 / 15:22 pm (CNA).The Catholic University of America (CUA) has announced that Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, is set to speak at its 2025 commencement ceremony. Barron, a university alumnus, is known for his work evangelizing digital media through his nonprofit global media apostolate Word on Fire and his YouTube channel, which has reached nearly 2 million subscribers.With its campus in the nation's capital of Washington, D.C., CUA is the national university of the Catholic Church in the United States.Barron will receive an honorary degree alongside five others: U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith; former March for Life president Jeanne Mancini; Archbishop Vicken Aykazian of the Eastern Diocese of the Armenian Church of America; Monsignor John Enzler, former president of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese...
Pope Francis at the Jubilee of the Sick in St. Peter's Square on Sunday, April 6, 2025, wearing nasal cannulas for supplemental oxygen as he continues recovering from bilateral pneumonia. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/EWTN NewsCNA Newsroom, Apr 6, 2025 / 07:32 am (CNA).Still recovering from bilateral pneumonia that hospitalized him for nearly 40 days, Pope Francis made a surprise appearance in St. Peter's Square on Sunday for the Jubilee of the Sick, sharing profound reflections on suffering, care, and the transformative power of illness.Wearing nasal cannulas that provide supplemental oxygen, Pope Francis arrived in a wheelchair accompanied by a nurse. Pope Francis blesses the faithful at the Jubilee of the Sick in St. Peter's Square, Vatican City, on April 6, 2025, as his personal nurse, Massimo Strappetti, assists him in the wheelchair. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNAHundreds of faithful gathered in St. Peter's Square on April 6, receiving him enthusiastically around 11:45 a.m. loc...
