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Candles with Pope Francis' image on them stand outside Gemelli Hospital in Rome on Feb. 21, 2025. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNACNA Staff, Mar 22, 2025 / 14:09 pm (CNA).Pope Francis will be discharged from Rome's Gemelli Hospital on Sunday, the Vatican said on Saturday afternoon, with the Holy Father leaving the facility after spending more than a month there amid a health crisis. Hospital officials said on Saturday that the pope will continue convalescing at his apartment in Casa Santa Marta for at least two months.Francis first entered the hospital on Feb. 14, more than a month ago. He was treated for several conditions while there including bilateral pneumonia. Sergio Alfieri, the director of the department of medical and surgical sciences at the hospital, said at a Saturday press conference that Francis would undergo a "protected discharge" and that he will "still have to carry out" treatment "for a long time." The pope will continue to receive oxygen during his ongoing c...
Volunteers pray at a vigil at an abortion clinic in Ealing, West London, the site of the first "buffer zone" in the U.K. They are restricted by law from being closer than 500 meters (about 1,600 feet) to the clinic, more than the 150 meters (500 feet) imposed by the nationwide law in October 2024. / Credit: Photo courtesy of 40 Days for Life InternationalLondon, England, Mar 22, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).Across the United Kingdom this Lent, vigils outside abortion clinics have continued despite government attempts to stop their work of prayer for the unborn and offering of support to women with a crisis pregnancy.A total of 11 vigils in 10 cities across the United Kingdom are going ahead throughout Lent through the 40 Days for Life campaign, a similar number to what have taken place annually since the first U.K. vigil was held in 2009. This year they stretch from Glasgow in Scotland to Bournemouth on the southern coast of England.Volunteers for the campaign now agree to stay outsid...
A previous class of St. Kateri Rosary Walk interns. / Credit: Courtesy of St. Kateri Rosary WalkAnn Arbor, Michigan, Mar 22, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).A New Mexico diocese is offering a unique opportunity for young men to affirm their faith and literally build up the Church in the American Southwest.Until March 31, the Diocese of Gallup is accepting applications for the 2025 St. Kateri Rosary Walk internship program. Started in 2019, the program is finishing its building project and seeks to complete an outdoor plaza and chapel in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the saint known as the Lily of the Mohawks, St. Kateri Tekakwitha.The internship is available to young men 18 and over and runs from May until Aug. 1. The missionaries will receive free housing, meals, travel to various local sites, and a stipend of $5,000.William McCarthy, CEO of the Southwest Indian Foundation, which is cooperating with the program, told CNA that the program "provides intense leadership training to enc...
Bishop Markus Büchel of the Diocese of St. Gallen in Switzerland. / Credit: Aurelius1717, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 21, 2025 / 15:45 pm (CNA).Here are some of the major stories about the Church from around the world that you may have missed this week:Swiss bishop issues call on podcast for ordination of womenBishop Markus Büchel of the Swiss Diocese of St. Gallen spoke out in favor of women's ordination during a podcast appearance for a German-language online news outlet, kath.ch, CNA Deutsch, CNA's German-language news partner, reported Tuesday. The bishop argued his position stating that the Church has a "consecration emergency" due to the fact that only celebate men may enter the priesthood.German director of Münster academy defends award honoring Bishop Barron Following backlash over what some have called Bishop Robert Barron's "conservative" theological and political views, the director of the Münster Academy Franz-Hitze-Haus, J...
South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden. / Credit: U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Dustin Jordan, Public domain, via Wikimedia CommonsWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 21, 2025 / 16:30 pm (CNA).South Dakota Gov. Larry Rhoden signed three bills into law on Friday that he indicated reflect the values of the state, including one law that will prevent males from entering girls' restrooms or locker rooms in any public school or public building.Another law restricts access to obscene materials for minors in public libraries and public school libraries. The third clarifies the rights and obligations of the father of a child born to a mother to whom he is not married."South Dakota is a place where commonsense values remain common, and these bills reinforce that fact," Rhoden, a Republican, said in a statement. "These bills promote strong families, safety in education, and freedom from the 'woke' agenda like what has happened in too many other places."The new law related to the sex-based sep...
null / Credit: Gts/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 21, 2025 / 13:30 pm (CNA).Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves has signed into law a bill that bans biological males from entering women's spaces in the state's prisons and jails.The legislation, dubbed the Dignity and Safety for Incarcerated Women's Act, prohibits men who self-identify as transgender women from accessing women's changing rooms, restrooms, showers, sleeping quarters, and other facilities.Under the law, all jails and prisons operated by the state's Department of Corrections that house inmates of both sexes must provide separate facilities for men and for women. The law defines men and women on the basis of biological characteristics, as opposed to self-asserted "gender identity."The new law goes into effect on July 1.Sara Beth Nolan, who works as legal counsel for the conservative Alliance Defending Freedom, said in a statement that "states have a duty to protect the privacy, safety, and dignity of women.""Le...
Idaho Capitol in Boise. / Credit: Through the Lens of Life/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 21, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).Idaho Gov. Brad Little this week signed legislation that bolsters religious freedom protections for doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals when they object to performing certain procedures or providing certain services.The new law, signed on Wednesday, amends the Medical Ethics Defense Act to clearly establish that Idaho recognizes "that the right of conscience is a fundamental and inalienable right" whether one's conscience "is informed by religious, moral, or ethical beliefs or principles."Under the law, no health care professional, health care institution, or health care payer can be forced to participate in or pay for any medical procedure, treatment, or service to which he or she objects as a matter of conscience.The law also prevents employers from retaliating or punishing an employee based on his or her conscience objections to any med...
null / Credit: Sora Shimazaki/PexelsCNA Staff, Mar 21, 2025 / 14:30 pm (CNA).Here is a roundup of recent pro-life and abortion-related news.Embryos aren't property, Virginia judge rulesA Virginia judge this week ruled that embryos aren't property in a lawsuit between two ex-spouses over their two IVF-produced embryos.Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge Dontae Bugg dismissed Honeyhline Heidemann's case against her ex-husband, Jason Heidemann, for access to embryos produced during their marriage.In 2019, Honeyhline Heidemann, a breast cancer survivor, requested permission to use the embryos, but her ex-husband refused, and so she sued her former spouse.In the bench trial, Heidemann testified that the embryos were her last chance to have another biological child due to her cancer treatment and that she would agree to her husband not being involved in raising the new children.The husband is currently the primary custodian of the couple's born daughter and maintained that he did not ...
Young men attending the encounter with youth with Pope Francis at the Sir John Guise Stadium, Papua New Guinea, Sept. 9, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNAVatican City, Mar 21, 2025 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The "2025 Annuario Pontificio" and the "2023 Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae" have been released, providing a detailed analysis of the life of the Catholic Church globally. Both reports, prepared by the Vatican's Central Office for Church Statistics, reveal a notable growth of the Catholic population worldwide during the two-year period 2022-2023. Concretely, there has been a 1.15% increase in the global Catholic population, going from approximately 1.39 billion Catholics in 2022 to 1.406 billion in 2023.Africa has registered the greatest growth, with the Catholic population on the continent increasing by 3.31%, from 272 million in 2022 to 281 million in 2023. This growth is particularly dynamic, with countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, which leads the region wit...
Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas. / Credit: "EWTN Pro-Life Weekly" screenshotCNA Staff, Mar 21, 2025 / 11:30 am (CNA).Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, on Thursday settled a lawsuit against the leaders of a Kansas Satanist group after the defendants testified under oath that the hosts and wine they plan to desecrate in a Satanic ritual are not "Catholic in origin."Naumann had on March 14 filed a lawsuit in Leavenworth County District Court seeking an order to secure the safe return of the Eucharist from the co-founder of the Satanist group, who had allegedly boasted online of possessing a "consecrated host" that the group intends to desecrate during an upcoming "black mass."The defendants in the suit were Michael T. Stewart and Travis L. Roberts, both Kansas residents who, according to the suit, are co-founders of the Satanic Grotto, also known as the Grotto Society, which is a nonprofit registered in Linwood, Kansas.In the suit, Naumann alleg...
