Supreme Court turns down porn group's plea to block Texas age-verification law

null / Credit: ShutterstockCNA Staff, May 1, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined a request from the porn industry to block a Texas age-verification rule, allowing the law to stand and temporarily derailing the efforts of porn creators to see the new safety measure scuttled. The court said in an unsigned order without comment that it was denying a request from the Free Speech Coalition to issue a stay on the law. The Free Speech Coalition includes a porn trade association and several pornography creators. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has defended the law, HB 1181, since its passage last summer. The measure requires porn websites to institute "reasonable age-verification methods" to ensure minors are not accessing explicit sexual content on their sites. The attorney general has sued multiple pornography companies in order to enforce the age-verification law. He argued earlier this year that pornography...

Pope Francis: We need to 'welcome God into our daily lives' and pray for 'real peace'

Pope Francis delivers a message during his general audience on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, in Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican MediaVatican City, May 1, 2024 / 09:45 am (CNA).On Wednesday, May 1, Pope Francis addressed an international audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican and reiterated the importance of faith in the Christian life as well as the need to continually pray for "real peace" for the whole world.The Holy Father also deplored war profiteering, decrying the actions of those "making money off death" through huge investments in the production of weapons.Speaking to thousands of people gathered inside Vatican City on an overcast morning on the feast day of St. Joseph the Worker, the Holy Father spoke about the three theological virtues, beginning with faith, as part of his ongoing catechesis series on vices and virtues.Pope Francis greets pilgrims attending his weekly general audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall on May 1, 2024. Credit: Elizabeth Alva/CN...

St. Pius V, safeguard of the faith

Palma il Giovane (1550-1628), "Portrait of Pope Pius V." / Credit: Public DomainNational Catholic Register, Apr 30, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).Michele Ghislieri, later St. Pius V, was born in Bosco, northern Italy, in 1504 and ordained a Dominican priest in 1528. Recognizing his holiness and learning, his community elected him prior four times.During Pius' lifetime, the Protestant ideas of Luther and Calvin were dissolving Catholic unity throughout Europe. In 1542, Pope Paul IV reorganized the Roman Inquisition to combat them and named Pius an inquisitor. In 1555, the newly elected Pope Pius IV made Pius bishop and later cardinal of Nepi and Sutri, a diocese near Rome, and general inquisitor of all Christendom (with authority over all other inquisitors).Throughout his life, Pius devoted much time to prayer and practiced severe personal penances. He disliked public life and involvement in the governance of the Church, preferring the peace of the cloister, but relented when he saw tha...

Pope Francis to Regnum Christi: May the Spirit help you to make 'mystery of Christ' present

Pope Francis prays during his Wednesday general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on April 24, 2024. / Credit: Vatican MediaACI Prensa Staff, Apr 30, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).On the occasion of its first general convention taking place in Rome this week, Pope Francis has addressed a message to the Regnum Christi Federation. In his message, the Holy Father encouraged the organization's membership to discern "how to make present in our days the mystery of Christ," in keeping with the particular vocation of each individual.The convention, the first to be held since the approval of the new statutes in 2019, is taking place after a long process of listening and purification that came in the wake of multiple abuses committed by various members, including the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, the late Mexican priest Father Marcial Maciel.In the letter, sent to Father John Lane Connor, LC, president of the federation's general board of directors, the Holy Father asks "the ...

Hong Kong criticizes U.S. bill to rename street in honor of imprisoned human rights defender

Jimmy Lai at a Hong Kong protest / Courtesy of the Acton InstituteCNA Staff, Apr 30, 2024 / 18:10 pm (CNA).An unnamed Hong Kong government spokesperson criticized a bill proposed by two U.S. congressmen that would rename the address of the Hong Kong Economic Trade Office in Washington, D.C. "Jimmy Lai Way," honoring a 75-year-old democracy advocate who has been incarcerated in Hong Kong since 2020.The spokesperson called on the U.S. to  "stop maliciously interfering" in Hong Kong affairs, according to a Tuesday report by the Hong Kong Free Press.Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ) and Tom Suozzi (D-NY) proposed the bill last week. Jimmy Lai, a pro-democracy businessman and convert to Catholicism, was arrested on several charges under the controversial national security law, which was passed by China's communist-controlled government in 2020. His newspaper, Apple Daily, published pro-democracy content and was often critical of the Chinese Communist Party. Rep. Chris Smi...

Chaplains in public schools? Florida's Catholic bishops 'pleased' by new law

null / Credit: ShutterstockCNA Newsroom, Apr 30, 2024 / 17:45 pm (CNA).Florida's bishops are welcoming a new law that allows public schools in the state to have volunteer chaplains.The Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, which represents bishops in the state's seven dioceses on public policy matters, did not take a position on the bill while legislators debated it earlier this year."However, we recognize the good that chaplains can do in schools by helping students to address their spiritual and emotional needs. We are pleased that parents will determine the services their children will receive in districts that choose to establish chaplaincy programs," said Michelle Taylor, associate director of communications for the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops, in an email message to CNA on Tuesday.The measure, which takes effect July 1, requires public schools and charter schools that establish such a program to publish on their websites a list of volunteer school chaplains a...

Pope Francis to visit Verona for a trip centered on peace and justice

The Verona Arena is illuminated at night on Aug. 3, 2018, in Verona, Italy. The Holy See Press Office on Monday, April 29, 2024, released the pope's schedule for a one-day trip to the city scheduled for May 18, 2024, on the vigil of Pentecost.  / Credit: Athanasios Gioumpasis/Getty ImagesRome Newsroom, Apr 29, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).After completing a one-day trip to Venice, Pope Francis is set to return to northern Italy in late May for a visit to the city of Verona, where he will attend events focused on peace and justice while also meeting with clergy, laity, and inmates. The Holy See Press Office on Monday released the pope's schedule for the one-day trip scheduled for May 18 on the vigil of Pentecost. Located in the Veneto region, approximately 75 miles from Venice, the city is renowned for its trove of Roman antiquities, medieval architecture, and as the setting of Shakespeare's tragedy "Romeo and Juliet."Pope Francis will leave the Vatican by helicopter at 6:30 ...

Archbishop: Minister to trans-identified people while stressing 'goodness of human creation'

Archbishop Christopher J. Coyne. / Credit: Diocese of Burlington, VermontCNA Staff, Apr 29, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).A New England prelate is urging Catholics to both minister to transgender-identifying individuals in the Catholic Church while still continuously affirming "the goodness of human creation" as male and female.Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne of Hartford, Connecticut, told CNA last week that he would make it a point not to challenge a transgender-identifying man or woman when they present as the opposite sex.Coyne appeared on Connecticut Public Radio earlier this month arguing against the basic claim of gender ideology, which argues that men and women who "identify" as the opposite sex should be treated as such."Biology is biology. You're either XX or XY. That's a scientific fact. You can't un-prove that fact," the bishop told public radio. But, he argued, the LGBT debate has "pulled me more into a place of understanding and care," including regarding trans...

Cardinal Grech opens world meeting of priests: 'Our stories are human stories'

Landscape view of Sacrofano, Italy, north of Rome. / Credit: Dmitry Taranets/ShutterstockRome Newsroom, Apr 29, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The World Meeting of Parish Priests for the Synod opened on Monday to discuss "how to be a synodal local Church in mission," allowing priests from around the world to discuss questions raised during the ongoing synod and share their personal pastoral experiences. The four-day meeting, which is taking place from April 29 to May 2 at the Fraterna Domus retreat house in Sacrofano, Italy, just north of Rome, is attended by about 300 priests from around the globe and is divided into several sessions, taking cues from different themes and questions raised in the synod's synthesis report. "The parish priest is a man of the people and for the people. Like Jesus, he is open to the crowd, constantly open to the crowd, to help each and every one understand that they are a letter from Christ," said Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Gen...

Former Anglican vicar becomes first bishop of UK ordinariate

Father David Waller will become the first bishop Ordinary of the Ordinariate. / Credit: Courtesy photo / Bishop's Conference of England and WalesNational Catholic Register, Apr 29, 2024 / 18:45 pm (CNA).The Vatican has announced a new leader of the ordinariate in Great Britain.Father David Waller, 62, a parish priest and vicar general of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, will replace Monsignor Keith Newton, 72, who is retiring after serving over 13 years as the ordinary of the ecclesiastical structure for former Anglicans.In a statement, Newton called the Vatican's April 29 announcement "momentous" given that Waller, who is a celibate, will become the first bishop ordinary of the ordinariate. As someone who was already married as an Anglican clergyman before entering the Church through the ordinariate, Newton was not allowed episcopal consecration.Established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 through his 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the ordin...