Bishop Seitz endorses immigration bill to create legal protections 

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas, speaks with EWTN News on Oct. 9, 2025, at the Vatican. / Credit: EWTN NewsCNA Staff, Nov 11, 2025 / 11:10 am (CNA).Legislation that would provide protections for people lacking legal immigration status won endorsement from Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, who has served as chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Migration.The bill (HR 4393), which would not lay out a direct path to citizenship, would give people who lack legal status the chance to earn it through labor and financial penalties if they lack a criminal record. It would apply to people who entered the United States before 2021.The measure would authorize funding for border security and create centers for asylum seekers during consideration of their case. It would require asylum cases to be completed within 60 days.Rep. María Elvira Salazar, R-Florida, sponsored the measure, which she named the Dignity Act and first introduced in 2022. Rep. Veronica ...

Arizona man sentenced to prison after hoax bomb threats at Christian churches

null / Credit: Chodyra Mike 1/ShutterstockCNA Staff, Nov 11, 2025 / 11:40 am (CNA).An Arizona man will serve more than half a decade in prison after he carried out multiple hoax bomb threats at churches in the western U.S.The U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release that 46-year-old Phoenix resident Zimnako Salah would spend six years in prison after his 2025 conviction in the terror plot.From September to November 2023 Salah "traveled to four Christian churches in Arizona, California, and Colorado" with black backpacks, according to the Department of Justice. At two churches he was turned away by security, while at two others he "planted" the backpacks, causing congregants to believe they contained bombs, the Justice Department said.Though the planted backpacks were in fact hoaxes, Salah reportedly had "been building a bomb capable of fitting in a backpack," the department said. FBI investigators said they seized "component parts of an improvised explosive device" fr...

U.S. bishops elect Archbishop Paul S. Coakley as USCCB president

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley preaches during a Mass in the Oklahoma City cathedral in 2021. / Credit: Archdiocese of Oklahoma CityBaltimore, Maryland, Nov 11, 2025 / 12:15 pm (CNA).Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City was elected to serve as the next president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in a secret ballot on Nov. 11.Bishops chose Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas, to serve as vice president. Flores, who serves in the southernmost diocese in Texas, finished second in balloting for president. Coakley subsequently won a runoff.Coakley, who was previously secretary of the USCCB, will serve a three-year term as president, succeeding the former president, Archbishop Timothy Broglio. The bishops held the election at the Fall Plenary Assembly in Baltimore.He has a history of promoting a culture of life, opposing gender ideology, and supporting migrants.The archbishop, who turned 70 years old in May, became a bishop in 2004. He has served in t...

Tennessee Catholic bishops call for an end to the death penalty

null / Credit: felipe caparros/ShutterstockCNA Staff, Nov 11, 2025 / 13:44 pm (CNA).Tennessee's Catholic bishops issued a plea for mercy, calling for an immediate halt to the death penalty and its eventual abolition as the state prepares to execute Harold Wayne Nichols on Dec. 1.Tennessee's three bishops, Bishop J. Mark Spalding of Nashville, Bishop David P. Talley of Memphis, and Bishop Mark Beckman of Knoxville, as well as the Tennessee Catholic Conference issued a joint statement on Nov. 10 calling for an end to the death penalty in the state."The Catholic Church upholds the sacredness of every human life, even the life of one who is guilty of serious crimes," the bishops wrote. "To take a life in punishment denies the image of God in which every person is made. The Gospel calls not for vengeance but for mercy."The bishops acknowledged that the Church has historically recognized the state's right and duty to protect its citizens by sometimes employing the death penalty. Howe...

Apostolic nuncio to USCCB assembly: 'Where have we been and where are we going?'

Cardinal Christophe Pierre speaks to EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado in Rome on Friday, April 25, 2025. / Credit: EWTN NewsBaltimore, Maryland, Nov 11, 2025 / 14:26 pm (CNA).Apostolic Nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre told bishops at the 2025 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Fall Plenary Assembly that the Second Vatican Council is "the key to understanding what Church we are called to be today and the reference point for discerning where we are headed."The French-born prelate has served as the Vatican's nuncio, or chief diplomat, to the U.S. since 2016. He spoke Nov. 11 at the bishops' fall assembly in Baltimore highlighting the message of Vatican II and its mission of evangelization, education, and unity. In his address Pierre asked the bishops a two-part question: "Where have we been and where are we going?" Pope Leo XIV, in his new apostolic letter on education, asks the same question as he "urges education and communities to 'raise your...

Cardinal sounds alarm on 'unprecedented' crisis in Sudan, South Sudan

Cardinal Stephen Ameyu, president of the Sudan and South Sudan Catholic Bishops' Conference (SSS-CBC), urged Catholic leaders this week to strengthen unity, foster nonviolence, and reinforce pastoral structures as the Church responds to the plight of the people of God in Sudan and South Sudan. / Credit: Catholic Radio NetworkACI Africa, Nov 11, 2025 / 14:56 pm (CNA).The president of the Sudan and South Sudan Catholic Bishops' Conference (SSS-CBC) raised alarm over the deepening humanitarian crisis in the two neighboring countries of Sudan and South Sudan. In his opening remarks to SSS-CBC members in the Catholic Diocese of Malakal in South Sudan, Cardinal Stephen Ameyu urged Catholic leaders to strengthen unity, foster nonviolence, and reinforce pastoral structures as the Church responds to the plight of the people of God in Sudan and South Sudan.Ameyu described the meeting as "a sign of communion that binds us as the body of Christ; a communion that strengthens the bonds ...

Church in Mexico: Euthanasia can lead to 'totalitarian and eugenic ideologies'

null / Credit: Ariya J/ShutterstockPuebla, Mexico, Nov 11, 2025 / 15:34 pm (CNA).The Catholic Church in Mexico expressed its opposition to the attempt to legalize euthanasia and warned of the "risk of validating totalitarian and eugenic ideologies."In an editorial in its weekly publication Desde la fe ("From the Faith"), titled "A Good Death and the Myth of Euthanasia," the Archdiocese of Mexico City lamented that "a campaign to promote euthanasia has begun, taking it as a fact that euthanasia means the same thing as a good death."The editorial called it "a major error from an anthropological, legal, and human rights perspective" to believe that the Mexican Constitution "only protects a life with dignity," while "life that involves pain and suffering is considered unworthy" of the person.From this perspective, the archdiocese warned, "we would be at risk of validating totalitarian and eugenic ideologies that have existed throughout human history and have caused so much harm, di...

Catholic leader urges support for school choice, state aid amid voucher debate

Credit: Flamingo Images/shutterstockCNA Staff, Nov 11, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).Although school vouchers were not on any statewide ballot in recent elections, the legislative push for and implementation of voucher programs is growing throughout the country, particularly in Republican-led states.While the programs continue to receive pushback from Democrats and teachers unions, traditionally conservative groups like home-schoolers and rural residents have been increasingly voicing their disapproval.David Tamisiea, executive director for the North Dakota Catholic Conference, said in a recent presentation at the Society for Catholic Social Scientists conference at Franciscan University of Steubenville that he was surprised when he first encountered Catholic parents who opposed educational choice in the form of school vouchers.He defined educational choice as "the idea that parents should have the freedom to choose the educational setting best suited to their child" and said that "to ...

Scotland's bishops sound alarm as key safeguards rejected in assisted suicide bill

The Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. Scotland's Catholic bishops and pro-life groups have raised alarms about the effects a proposed assisted suicide bill may have upon disabled and vulnerable people after a number of key amendments were rejected. / Credit: Reinhold Möller, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia CommonsEdinburgh, Scotland, Nov 11, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).Scotland's Catholic bishops and pro-life groups have raised alarms about the effects a proposed assisted suicide bill may have upon disabled and vulnerable people after a number of key amendments were rejected.Assisted suicide is currently illegal in Scotland, but if Liam McArthur's Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill becomes law, terminally ill adults will be given assistance to end their own lives.After the committee considering the bill on Nov. 4 rejected several amendments to make the bill safer, the president of the Scottish bishops' conferenc...

Cardinal Müller calls for overcoming ideological divisions in the Church

Cardinal Gerhard Müller. / Credit: La Sacristía de la VendéeMadrid, Spain, Nov 11, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, called for overcoming ideological divisions within the Catholic Church in a Spanish-language interview on the "Sacristy of the Vendé" YouTube channel in which he reflects on the "instrumentalization" of abuse cases.Held last July, the interview was released this week after the coordinator of the priests' YouTube discussion group, Father Francisco José Delgado, was acquitted of charges of "inciting hatred" against the Holy See, interfering in the Vatican's investigation into the Sodality of Christian Life, and damaging the "good reputation" of layman José Enrique Escardó, one of the main proponents of the case against that apostolate.Müller stated that, since its inception, the Catholic Church has experienced divisions "because of these false doctrines, heresies, or pagan ideologies" ...