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Credit: ivanko80/ShutterstockCNA Staff, May 12, 2025 / 16:06 pm (CNA).California pregnancy centers filed an appeal last week asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to stop the state from censoring pro-life pregnancy centers that provide abortion pill reversals.The National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) and the SCV Pregnancy Center in Santa Clarita, California, are asking the court to stop the state of California from censoring pro-life pregnancy centers that provide information about abortion pill reversal. In 2023 California's attorney general, Rob Bonta, sued five pro-life pregnancy centers over their promotion of a drug that is meant to reverse chemical abortions. In the suit, Bonta accused the pregnancy centers of using fraudulent and misleading claims when advertising the abortion pill reversal drug. The lawsuit accused the pregnancy centers of violating California's False Advertising Law and Unfair Competition Law. The May 7 a...
Pope Leo XIV smiles as a jubilant crowd joins in prayer on Sunday, May 11, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNAWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 12, 2025 / 16:36 pm (CNA).As the world celebrates the election of the first pope born in the United States, the president of the only U.S.-based charitable organization dedicated to carrying out the Holy Father's humanitarian aid projects speculates that Leo XIV's papacy could increase charitable giving within the Church. "I do think that because Pope Leo is American, he will have a special rapport with Americans that it should lead to increased donation for his causes of the poor and the vulnerable and the marginalized," said Ward Fitzgerald, the Papal Foundation's board president. Funded by donations from its "Stewards of St. Peter," the Papal Foundation supports humanitarian aid projects designated by the pope and the continuing education of priests and religious. "Ninety to 95% of these benefactors are American," according to F...
Archbishop Julian Porteous. / Credit: Archdiocese of HobartWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 12, 2025 / 17:06 pm (CNA).A Catholic archbishop in Australia is calling attention to an ecumenical statement on human sexuality released last year as the group behind the project seeks to gain approval for the creed from "biblically orthodox leaders" worldwide.Archbishop Julian Porteous of Hobart is among some 6,000 initial signatories of the "Australian Creed for Sexual Integrity," a statement affirming fundamental Christian ethics on sex and gender that was drafted last October by a team of over 100 Christian faith leaders, including Catholic clergy.In a Catholic Weekly interview last week, Porteous explained his decision to back the initiative, saying: "I thought it was good ecumenically to show support. And from the Catholic point of view, I felt we had a lot to offer because we have been able to articulate a lot of this material through magisterial teaching, through the catechism and ...
U.S. Navy LSTs and other vessels unloading at low tide at Normandy, soon after the June 1944 invasion. USS LST-55 is in the center, behind the closest barrage balloon. USS LST-61 is at right. / Credit: Steck, U.S. Army Signal Corps, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 12, 2025 / 17:26 pm (CNA).Louis Marius Prevost, the father of Pope Leo XIV, served on a D-Day landing ship during World War II and was a junior lieutenant in the United States Navy.Since Pope Leo XIV became the new pontiff, the world has been eager to learn more about the first U.S.-born pope. The United States Department of Defense (DOD) released a statement about Pope Leo's late father and his role in the revered "greatest generation" that won World War II.Prevost was born on July 28, 1920, in Chicago. After he graduated from college, he joined the Navy in November 1943 when he was 23 years old. According to the Department of Defense, Prevost became the executive officer of a ...
Mikal Mahdi. / Credit: Federal Public Defenders (proof), Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 12, 2025 / 18:06 pm (CNA).Lawyers who represent the recently executed Mikal Mahdi are alleging that the South Carolina Department of Corrections (SCDC) "botched" their client's firing squad execution, which caused him to scream out in pain and remain conscious for nearly one minute until he eventually died.Mahdi, who was convicted of murdering a police officer and a convenience store worker, died on April 11 at age 42 in South Carolina's second firing squad execution in the state's history, both of which occurred this year just five weeks apart.Although firing squad executions in the United States are extremely rare, the state legalized this method of execution, along with executions by the electric chair, in 2021 amid shortages of the drugs needed for lethal injections. Death row inmates can now choose whether to die by firing squad, lethal injection, or ...
Pope Leo XIV speaks to journalists on May 12, 2025, in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Veronica Giacometti/EWTN NewsVatican City, May 12, 2025 / 09:22 am (CNA).In his first address to international media on Monday, Pope Leo XIV thanked journalists for their service to the truth and for communicating peace in difficult times."We are living in times that are both difficult to navigate and to recount. They present a challenge for all of us, but it is one that we should not run away from," Leo said in the Pope Paul VI Audience Hall on May 12. "On the contrary, they demand that each one of us, in our different roles and services, never give in to mediocrity.""Thank you, dear friends, for your service to the truth," he said, also underlining the importance of preserving free speech and the free press.In one of his first audiences, Pope Leo XIV met with several thousand members of the international press to thank them for their "long and tiring days" of work over t...
A burnt scooter on May 9, 2025, stands on the spot where twins Zian Khan and Urwa Fatima died on May 7 during Pakistani artillery shelling in the main town of Poonch district. / Credit: PUNIT PARANJPE/AFP via Getty ImagesBangalore, India, May 12, 2025 / 10:40 am (CNA).A Catholic school and convent in India came under shelling from Pakistan military forces last week, with three students killed in the town of Poonch close to the Pakistan border, as fighting between the two countries' militaries broke out before ending quickly over the weekend."One shell fell near our Christ School campus at Poonch, killing a twin brother and sister. The siblings were our students," Jammu Bishop Ivan Pereira told CNA. The Jammu Diocese covers the entire state of Jammu and Kashmir."Another shell fell over the convent of the Carmelites of Mary Congregation. But it damaged only the water tank and solar panels. The school has been closed and the nuns have been moved to a distant convent," Pereira said...
A Planned Parenthood facility in Indianapolis. / Credit: Jonathan Weiss/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, May 12, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).Pro-life organizations are stepping up their campaign to defund "big abortion" as the reconciliation bill is expected to come up for debate in the House Energy and Commerce Committee this week. On Wednesday, May 7, digital billboards with ads from pro-life organization Live Action lit up Times Square, urging passers-by to help defund Planned Parenthood.Since the Trump administration announced its plan to defund Planned Parenthood in March, pro-life leaders have been working with lawmakers and urging citizens to contact their representatives with the hope the reconciliation bill will defund federally defund the organization by Memorial Day. With that date only weeks away, activists are campaigning to make it happen."Although there are multiple reasons why Planned Parenthood deserves to be defunded," Live Action reported, "the bill...
Pope Leo XIV prays at the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy, Saturday, May 10, 2025 / Credit: Vatican MediaCNA Deutsch, May 10, 2025 / 13:42 pm (CNA).Pope Leo XIV on Saturday visited and prayed at a Marian shrine outside of Rome, greeting the community there and urging them to "be faithful to the Mother."The Holy Father visited the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano on Saturday afternoon. The sanctuary, located about an hour east of Rome, is run by the religious of the Order of St. Augustine and "houses an ancient image of the Virgin, dear to the Order and to the memory of Leo XIII," according to the Vatican.Pope Leo XIV visits the Shrine of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, Italy, Saturday, May 10, 2025. Credit: Vatican MediaThe pope greeted the religious at the shrine before praying at both the altar and the Marian image there, according to the Vatican. The Holy Father also prayed St. John Paul II's prayer to the Mother of Good Cou...
An activist protests on Capitol Hill July 22, 2015 in Washington, DC. Members of the San Carlos Apache Nation and other activists gathered to protest the a section of the National Defense Authorization Act that would turn over parts of Oak Flat that are sacred to the Apache to a foreign copper mining company. / Credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty ImagesCNA Newsroom, May 10, 2025 / 11:45 am (CNA).An effort backed by the U.S. bishops to protect a centuries-old Native American religious site from destruction scored a win in federal court on Friday when a district judge blocked the sale of the location while the matter is considered by the U.S. Supreme Court.U.S. District Judge Steven Logan said in the Friday order that the federal government would be prohibited from selling the Oak Flat site in Arizona while the coalition group Apache Stronghold waits for the Supreme Court to potentially consider its case.The federal government several years ago moved to transfer Oak Flat to ...
