Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish

American Principles Project President Terry Schilling. / Credit: Courtesy of CPAC/Screenshot

Washington D.C., Feb 21, 2025 / 19:50 pm (CNA).

In the wake of the 2024 election and with Republicans in full control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, social conservatives gathering at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) said they are relishing the opportunity to switch from a defensive to offensive posture on several policy fronts.

Mercedes Schlapp, a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union (ACU) Foundation and wife of ACU chairman and CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp, told CNA Friday she believes that specifically, “the death of wokeism and gender ideology has been a crucial part of President [Donald] Trump’s victory and the Republicans’ victory.” 

“[Trump] talks about the revolution of common sense when he’s talking about two genders,” said Schlapp, who is Catholic. Schlapp said Trump’s focus on gender ideology “really hit home for parents,” including Catholic and other Christian parents, and their desire to “protect their children.” 

“I think it really hit home to so many Catholic families who are teaching their children Catholic values,” she said. “And that’s why you saw this shift, I think, where more Catholics ended up voting for Donald Trump.”

“The Democrats lost the common sense — and their loss is our gain,” Michael Knowles, a Catholic political commentator for The Daily Wire, declared during a Thursday afternoon speech at the event.

Knowles emphasized the importance of Trump winning the popular vote, which he did not win in his first presidential victory in 2016, calling the election “a mandate for common sense.”

During the campaign, Trump leaned heavily into criticisms of gender ideology, including transgender surgeries for children, biological men in women’s sports, and regulations that imposed “gender identity” constructs in public life. Since taking office, he has initiated executive actions to end all those federal policies.

Pope Francis has referred to gender ideology as “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” in the world today.

Knowles said that until recent years, “transgenderism did not exist in public life at all,” arguing that “LGBT gender-bending ideology” was “forced upon us” and ultimately rejected by voters.

He said American society has historically been based on God and referred to the current secularist trends as an “aberration and a national scandal [that] needs to be reversed.” He noted God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, on American money, and in the full version of the national anthem.

“Religion is not just some private privilege,” Knowles said. “Religion is a public right. Our very country is predicated on the idea that God exists and we are made in his image.”

An emboldened social conservatism

During a CPAC panel titled “Culture Warriors: Take Your Truce and Shove It,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling, who is Catholic, called Trump the “most pro-family president” in American history for signing executive orders to “protect our children and families.”

Speaking on the same panel as Schilling, Concerned Women for America President Penny Nance pointed out that although Trump’s executive actions against gender ideology are welcome, the United States Congress still needs to pass laws to enact the same policies to prevent a future administration from reversing Trump’s orders.

“We cannot give up until we are actually able to codify this policy,” said Nance, who is an evangelical Christian. 

Some speakers also went further than Trump has on other cultural issues.

Knowles, for example, criticized the federal sanctioning of homosexual marriage, noting that most Democrats were against it until the 2000s. He said marriage “is a natural institution” of a man and a woman and there’s “nothing bigoted about that observation.”

“That is the only definition of marriage that distinguishes it from other types of relationships,” Knowles said. 

Schilling and Nance both criticized cultural norms leading to a decline in marriage and having children. 

“Being a father — it’s the most amazing thing,” said Schilling, who has seven children. 

Specifically, Schilling criticized the prevalence of pornography and the popularity of marijuana among other cultural vices, which he said distract from “important things like getting married.”

Nance also expressed concern over falling fertility rates in the United States, saying: “We’re not at replacement rate for our children, for our families.” She said that although not everyone can get married, “it’s OK to realize and to state that it’s the ideal.”

“I would suggest there’s some real systemic causes of [the declining marriage and fertility rates] that we have to deal with,” Nance added.

Schlapp told CNA that society will “prosper” and “thrive” when “you have families who pray to God and have a religion,” adding: “It is how you can have a stable community, and quite frankly, a stable society and a stable nation.”

“We always believe that at CPAC, it is a spiritual warfare because we’re fighting against evil,” she added.

“We are fighting against diabolical influences,” she said. “And when you’re dealing with … taking down the communists and … taking down the globalists, these are people who do not believe in God and they hate the Catholic Church, and they hate Christian values.”

EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo interviews Father Tad Pacholczyk, senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, about the moral concerns inherent in IVF on Feb. 20, 2025.  / Credit: EWTN News/The World Over

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2025 / 17:45 pm (CNA).

Father Tad Pacholczyk, senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), discussed on EWTN this week the moral concerns and risks of in vitro fertilization (IVF) following the Trump administration executive order promoting access to the treatment.

In a Feb. 20 interview on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo,” Pacholczyk said IVF is “called a pro-life, pro-family technology, but at its core, it’s not.”

“I think it’s good to start out and emphasize that it’s good to hear the president seeing the importance of family formation,” Pacholczyk said. However, he continued, “there are a number of concerns that arise in the wake of this technology … that has just galloped forward largely driven by commercial concerns.”

IVF concerns

Pacholczyk detailed numerous moral concerns with IVF that do not align with Catholic teaching.

“There is this propensity to produce extra embryos, many of whom will either be discarded or frozen. Sometimes they get caught in stasis for literally decades or forever,” he said. “They’re never rescued out of that freezing situation.”

“You’ve certainly heard of the situations when people are implanted with three or four embryos,” Pacholczyk continued.

“What happens if they all take? Well, then you have to have what’s called selective reduction, and they go in and destroy one or two of the growing babies in that case to help with the pregnancy for the remaining two babies,” he said.

Pacholczyk has previously addressed this concern in his NCBC column “Making Sense of Bioethics,” where he referred to discarded or frozen embryos as the “collateral damage” of IVF.

In the interview, Packolczyk also highlighted the moral issues involved when families opt for sex selection of embryos during the IVF process.

“Do you want a boy? Do you want a girl? There’s this quality control, which is, of course, just a fancy word for eugenics that is part and parcel of this entire technology.”

The priest called IVF a “two-edged sword.” He said: “There’s a death-dealing edge to the sword that pops up throughout the entire practice of in vitro fertilization.”

Pacholczyk also said there are risks to surviving embryos. 

“There is known to be a higher risk of birth defects in the babies that are born this way,” he said.

Pacholczyk said that even in cases where women adopt embryos from other couples and implant them in their own wombs, it is still morally wrong. He explained that embryo adoption contributes to the commercialization of human life by creating a demand for embryos.

“So you actually feed into the cycle of cooperation in evil by promoting something like this,” he said. 

Pacholczyk added that the Alabama Supreme Court law that ruled embryos created via IVF are children under state law brought “some coherence to this issue.”

“We’ve been in this situation where we’re calling the embryo different things depending on what it is we want. I think the Alabama decision cut through that and said: ‘No, we can’t do that. We’ve got to be consistent and coherent here,’” he said.

Suggested regulations

Pacholczyk told Arroyo that if he were advising the Trump administration on IVF policies he would urge “regulation” rather than “cooperation or encouragement of this practice.”

He suggested drafting regulations that limit the number of embryos that can be created and require that all of them must be implanted in the mother. He said he would urge the administration to set up a system similar to the Human Fetal Tissue Ethics Advisory Board that was in effect during Trump’s first term.  

Pacholczyk, who was a member of the board, said: “We made decisions about funding for experiments that used fetal tissue. It was amazing the work that they did. We need some more advisory commissions like that.”

Pacholczyk emphasized funding and developing treatments for infertility must take priority over IVF to figure out the “underlying causes” of why couples are unable to have babies. 

“That whole approach gets sidelined. As soon as you offer the IVF industry to couples, they go down that road almost immediately,” Pacholczyk said. 

The offices of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Farragutful, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Feb 21, 2025 / 17:05 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis appointed Father Gregg Caggianelli, an Air Force veteran and Florida priest, as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, on Friday.

Caggianelli, 56, has served on active duty and in the reserves for more than 30 years. He currently works at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as a mobilization assistant to the Air Force Academy chaplain.

Caggianelli is a priest of the Diocese of Venice, Florida, and has served as vice rector of a Florida seminary since 2013. Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., announced his appointment on Feb. 21. 

Caggianelli shared that he was both “humbled and grateful” for the appointment. 

“After the initial shock and disbelief, and much time begging for God’s mercy, I was filled with true praise and thanksgiving to God,” he said in a Feb. 21 statement. 

Caggianelli said he has had a lifelong desire to serve as a priest and in the military.

“Since I was a little boy, there have only been two things I have wanted to do in life,” Caggianelli said. “At age 11, I started thinking of being a priest and at age 14 I had a great desire to serve in the military.” 

Caggianelli was born on Aug. 2, 1968, in Kingston, New York. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 1990 and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Dayton four years later. Caggianelli was ordained to the priesthood on Oct. 25, 2002.

Caggianelli said his time “wearing the uniform in one capacity or the other, and as a priest, serving as a chaplain in the Air Force Reserve” has been joy-filled. 

“All of this has been a life-giving experience that has been filled with joy,” he said. 

Caggianelli was commissioned in 1990 as an Air Force line officer, serving at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio. He left active duty in 1996 to study to become a priest at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida, where he later became vice rector in 2013. 

“Throughout the Scriptures, for some reason, God chooses the most unlikely of people,” Caggianelli reflected. “Jesus called a motley lot of fishermen, tax collectors, and sinners as his disciples. He simply asked them to follow him. God continues to call each of us to follow him in a unique way, and we trust in his promise to remain with us always.”

After his ordination in 2002, Caggianelli served as a parochial vicar at Incarnation Parish in Sarasota until 2010. He also headed the vocations and seminary formation for the Diocese of Venice as associate director from 2006 to 2007 and director from 2007 to 2010. He later became the administrator of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Fort Myers from 2010–2013. 

Caggianelli shared his excitement to serve those in the military. 

“As I begin this new journey, I look forward to assisting Archbishop [Timothy] Broglio and the other bishops, chaplains, and good people who serve the Archdiocese for the Military Services,” Caggianelli said. “Most of all, I look forward to giving my life in service of Our Lord in the care of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, coastguardsmen, guardians, veterans, and diplomats throughout the world.”

The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, was founded by Pope John Paul II to serve Catholics in the U.S. military and government employment outside the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the archdiocese serves an estimated 1.8 million Catholics. 

Statue of St. Peter in front of St. Peter's Basilica. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Feb 21, 2025 / 16:30 pm (CNA).

A ruling by the High Court of England and Wales published Feb. 21 has confirmed that the Vatican Secretariat of State was deceived by Italian financier Raffaele Mincione in the irregular purchase of a London building.

For this transaction that ended in fraud Mincione was sentenced in December 2023 by a Vatican lower court to five years and six months in prison for financial crimes related to the case.

In addition, he was ordered to forfeit 200.5 million euros (about $210 million), one of the largest financial penalties ever imposed in the Vatican courts.

In that trial, Cardinal Angelo Becciu was also sentenced to five and a half years in prison for embezzlement of public funds.

According to the ruling, Becciu arranged the acquisition of property located on Sloane Avenue when he was deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2018.

To do so, he used a third of the reserved funds of the Secretariat of State: that is, $200 million that was paid between 2013 and 2014 at the request of Becciu.

This amount was used to buy shares through a fund managed by the Italian intermediary Mincione, who was also convicted along with Becciu by the Vatican lower court for money laundering, embezzlement, and corruption.

Following the sentence, Mincione filed a lawsuit against the Vatican Secretariat of State in British court in June 2020, and the court published its ruling Feb. 21.

The Italian financier’s aim was to obtain a series of legal declarations in his favor regarding his handling of the buying and selling of the Sloane Avenue building.

Mincione argued that his conduct in the transaction had been transparent and in accordance with the standards of good faith. However, the British court rejected his allegations, confirming that the Vatican had reasons to consider itself the victim of a damaging financial scheme.

According to Judge Robin Knowles’ 50-page ruling, Mincione and his companies withheld key information and misrepresented the value of the London property, causing significant harm to the Vatican.

The court found that Mincione made “unrealistic” statements, inflating the price of the property and taking advantage of the Vatican’s lack of experience in such investments.

Much of the lengthy summary of the verdict focuses on the reconstruction of the irregular transaction.The British court made it clear that the Vatican Secretariat of State was deceived, which coincides with the primary thesis of the Vatican court, which had previously convicted Mincione of money laundering, embezzlement, and corruption.

As a lower court ruling, Mincione has the possibility of appealing the decision.

For the Vatican, the ruling “has important implications not only for Mincione but also for future cases involving the financial operations of the Holy See,” according to a Vatican News editorial on the subject.

According to Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli, the ruling “establishes an important precedent by recognizing that the Vatican was the victim of financial fraud in one of its most important real estate investments.”

He also confirmed that according to the Vatican “the lack of transparency and ethics with which Mincione and his entourage operated could influence other ongoing judicial proceedings.”

The sentence reinforces, Tornielli said, “the conclusions of the Vatican tribunal, which had already convicted Mincione for crimes related to fraudulent investments of funds of the Holy See.”

Tornielli also referenced a statement by the Vatican promoter of justice, Alessandro Diddi, expressing his satisfaction with the British court’s ruling against Mincione.

“The British judges have shared the view of the Vatican tribunal and have confirmed that Raffaele Mincione did not act in good faith as required in this type of transaction. With this ruling, it is clear that the Vatican court acted correctly in its assessment of the case,” Diddi said.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Kobe Bryant with the United States Olympic basketball team in 2012. Bryant, who died in a plane crash in 2020, will be among those included in a proposed “National Garden of American Heroes.” / Credit: Christopher Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Feb 21, 2025 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

Statues of dozens of prominent American Catholics — including numerous saints and popular figures such as the late basketball star Kobe Bryant — will be among those included in a proposed “National Garden of American Heroes,” a project President Donald Trump unveiled during his first term and revived following his inauguration last month.

During a Black History Month gathering at the White House on Thursday, Trump promised to honor a number of African American figures in the proposed garden, the final site for which is being picked “now,” he said. Trump said the garden will “honor hundreds of our greatest Americans to ever live.”

The list of honorees, first announced during Trump’s previous term, includes several Catholic saints: St. Junípero Serra, St. John Neumann, St. Katharine Drexel, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha, as well as several Catholics whose sainthood causes are ongoing: Venerable Fulton Sheen, Venerable Augustus Tolton, and Servant of God Dorothy Day.

Also included is the popular spiritual writer Father Thomas Merton; March for Life founder Nellie Gray; and John P. Washington, a Catholic priest and one of the “Four Chaplains” — a band of men of different faiths who all sacrificed their lives to save others on a torpedoed ship during World War II. 

Political figures on the list include John F. Kennedy, the nation’s first Catholic president; Antonin Scalia, a longtime Supreme Court justice; 20th-century playwright and Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce; William F. Buckley Jr., conservative commentator and writer; and Archbishop John Carroll, SJ, the first Catholic archbishop in the United States, and his cousin Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. 

In the world of popular culture and sports, the list includes Catholics such as film director Frank Capra, who directed “It’s a Wonderful Life”; wild west entertainer William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody; football coach Vince Lombardi; “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek; and Bryant, who died in a January 2020 helicopter crash in Southern California along with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven other people.

Trump’s original order, issued Jan. 18, 2021, in the very last days of his previous term, outlined plans for building the National Garden of American Heroes. Building upon a previous order to establish a statuary park that honors figures throughout American history who embody the “American spirit,” the order expressed concern over what it describes as “anti-American extremism” seeking to dismantle the country’s history.

The plan for the garden aims to counteract this by creating a space where citizens can “renew their vision of greatness” through the stories and statues of selected American heroes, the order said. President Joe Biden nixed Trump’s original order shortly after he took office, canceling the project. 

Trump revived the garden plan on Jan. 29, directing that the assistant to the president for domestic policy shall “recommend to the president additional historically significant Americans for inclusion in the National Garden of American Heroes, to bring the total number of heroes to 250.”

While the place where these new statues will be is yet to be determined, there are already a number of existing statues honoring Catholics with important roles in American history located in Washington, D.C. Most notably, the U.S. Capitol’s statuary hall includes images of St. Damien of Molokai, Mother Mary Joseph Pariseau, Father Jaques Marquette, and Serra, among others.

Dr. Sergio Alfieri (right) and Dr. Luigi Carbone give a press conference at Gemelli Hospital in Rome, where Pope Francis is hospitalized for tests and treatment for bronchitis, on Feb. 21, 2025. Alfieri said the pope asked him to say hat he has “the mind of a a 50-year-old man.” / Credit: ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images

Vatican City, Feb 21, 2025 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis is “not out of danger” due to his age and fragile health, his medical team told journalists on Friday. 

During a Vatican press conference at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, both Dr. Sergio Alfieri, head of Gemelli Hospital’s medical team, and Dr. Luigi Carbone, the pope’s referring doctor at the Vatican, said the 88-year-old Holy Father must remain in the hospital for “enhanced” treatment.

“The hospitalization will be as long as it takes for him to return safely to Santa Marta [his Vatican residence],” Alfieri told journalists on Friday. “He will stay here at least all next week. He is better, but the situation may change. Here at Gemelli, he is a very good patient.” 

The Holy Father, according to Alfieri, asked him “to say that he is an old man with chronic diseases with the mind of a 50-year-old man” who wishes to continue his work caring for the universal Church.

“At 88 he is leading the Church and not sparing himself; he has become fatigued,” Alfieri said. “It has been possible to isolate microorganisms; there are viruses, myocytes, and bacteria [and] there are chronic diseases that can be contained.”

The Gemelli medical team head confirmed that the pope continues to read, work, and sign documents while at the hospital.

Elaborating on the specific details of the Holy Father’s medical condition, Alfieri said: “He had pus with a respiratory tract infection … At first there was no pneumonia [but] in the following days we noticed with a CT scan a bilateral pneumonia that is still there.” 

Though the pope is “not attached to machines,” he occasionally uses oxygen support to assist his breathing. Alfieri added: “He knows he is in danger, the risk can be that of sepsis, that is, germs passing into the blood. But today there is no such situation.” 

At Gemelli, the pope’s medical reports are written by Alfieri, Carbone, and a team of infectiologists, gastroenterologists, cardiologists, and pulmonologists.

Carbone, the pope’s doctor at the Vatican, told journalists on Friday that the Holy Father “is fragile and not out of danger [as] it takes very little to have imbalances.” 

“The pope has chronicities, such as asthmatic bronchitis, that can flare up,” he said. “The pope responds to the therapies that have been enhanced and not changed.”

“The pope is not a quitter,” Carbone told journalists toward the end of the press conference. 

Since Feb. 14, the Holy Father has undergone a series of daily diagnostic tests and complex cortisone antibiotic therapies to treat his respiratory infections and pneumonia alongside his other chronic illnesses.

The outside of the Planned Parenthood Reproductive Health Services Center in St. Louis is seen on March 8, 2022. / Credit: Neeta Satam for The Washington Post via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Feb 21, 2025 / 14:40 pm (CNA).

Here is a roundup of recent pro-life and abortion-related news.

Planned Parenthood offers abortions in Missouri

Planned Parenthood is once again offering abortions in Missouri following the passage of a referendum in November that enshrined a right to abortion in the Missouri Constitution.

Voters passed Amendment 3 in November establishing a right to “reproductive freedom,” but Planned Parenthood initially held off on offering abortions in the state. Abortion became illegal in the state, except in cases of emergency, after the state’s 2019 “trigger law” went into effect following the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The decision to resume offering abortions comes after Jackson County circuit judge Jerri Zhang temporarily blocked abortion restrictions on Feb. 14. Zhang wrote in the three-page ruling that the regulations were unnecessary and the licensing requirement for abortion clinics was discriminatory. 

Planned Parenthood CEO Margot Riphagen celebrated the decision, calling the state licensing requirements “another politically motivated barrier to prevent patients seeking abortion from getting the care they need.”

But Susan Klein, executive director of Missouri Right to Life, called the decision a “tragic day for Missouri mothers and unborn children” in a Feb. 17 statement, where she highlighted the potential dangers of limited regulations.

The regulations that were ruled unconstitutional under Amendment 3 include a requirement that only doctors perform abortions as well as an examination requirement to determine the unborn child’s gestational age and any preexisting conditions. Regulations requiring the sterilization of surgical instruments and the ready availability of emergency equipment during the procedure were also ruled unconstitutional. 

Pro-life group criticizes Trump plans for IVF expansion 

A pro-life group criticized the Trump administration’s expansion of access to in vitro fertilization (IVF), saying the cost of life is higher than abortion. 

IVF is a fertility treatment opposed by the Catholic Church in which doctors fuse sperm and eggs to create human embryos and implant them in the mother’s womb. To maximize efficiency, doctors create excess human embryos and routinely destroy undesired embryos.

The pro-life group American Life League (ALL) voiced opposition to the IVF expansion, saying in a Wednesday statement that “it is not a pro-life decision.”

“The reality is that more babies die from IVF than abortion. This fact is continuously ignored by our lawmakers, who obliviously call IVF a pro-life action, or celebrate ‘more babies,’” said ALL National Director Katie Brown. “This blatant ignorance will cost millions of innocent lives.”

Brown urged President Donald Trump “to take time to fully understand what IVF is” and to reverse the decision.

Delaware pregnancy centers defend free speech 

A nonprofit religious network of pregnancy care centers filed a federal lawsuit against the state of Delaware last week challenging a recent state Senate bill requiring pregnancy centers to post disclaimers in their facilities and advertising.

The bill requires pregnancy centers to post disclaimers stating that they don’t have a licensed medical provider directly overseeing services and are not licensed as medical facilities. 

In the lawsuit, argued by law firms Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) and Simms Showers, the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates (NIFLA) maintained that the disclaimers are unnecessary and misleading — and that they constitute compelled speech. 

Anne O’Connor, vice president of legal affairs at NIFLA, said in a Feb. 13 statement that the bill “is clearly unconstitutional as it destroys the free speech of pregnancy centers solely because they are pro-life and help women who are facing unplanned pregnancies.”

ADF Senior Counsel Kevin Theriot cited Roe v. Wade’s overturn as a starting point after which “state attorneys general have ramped up their efforts to silence, censor, and shut down pregnancy care centers across the country.” 

Lawsuit against abortion time off revived 

A U.S. appeals court reopened a lawsuit by 17 states that challenged a federal rule requiring employers to give employees who have abortions the same benefits as mothers who are pregnant or recently gave birth.

The three-judge panel found that the states led by Tennessee had legal standing to sue because they are employers who must comply with it.

This decision by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a judge’s dismissal of the lawsuit last year after the rule was enacted last April by the Biden administration.

The 2024 rule — enacted by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) — required employers to grant sick leave or time off for employees who had abortions.

The rule was designed to implement the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), a law passed in 2022 with bipartisan support. The PWFA was enacted to accommodate workers who were pregnant or had pregnancy-related conditions by granting them sick leave or time off to see doctors, but the EEOC rule extended those related conditions to include getting an abortion or using contraception.

The states argued that the rule went beyond the purview of the PWFA and violated the First Amendment, according to court documents.

The rule applies to all public and private employers with 15 or more workers and is contingent on the accommodations not presenting an “undue hardship on the operation of the business of the covered entity.”

The Reichstag building in Berlin, where the Bundestag meets. / Credit: jan zeschky via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0)

CNA Newsroom, Feb 21, 2025 / 14:10 pm (CNA).

As German voters prepare for federal elections on Feb. 23, the country’s Catholics find themselves navigating unprecedented divisions on issues that cut to the heart of Church teaching, from migration policy to gender ideology and the protection of life.

The elections come at a time when traditional party allegiances are being questioned and multiple Catholic voices are speaking with markedly different emphasis on key moral and social issues.

What do the current polls show?

Recent polls place the Christian Democratic Union (CDU/CSU) at around 30%, followed by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) at approximately 20%. The Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens are polling around 15% each, with the SPD holding a slight advantage. Other parties, including the FDP, the Left Party, and BSW face uncertainty about clearing the 5% threshold required for parliamentary representation.

How have Catholic organizations responded to party positions?

The Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK) — the country’s most prominent lay Catholic organization — has strongly criticized the CDU’s recent “paradigm shift” on migration policy.

According to an analysis by the Catholic newspaper Die Tagespost using artificial intelligence tools, the ZdK’s political expectations show the strongest alignment with Green Party positions, particularly on “climate protection” and “social justice.”

While taking a more nuanced view, the ZdK’s positioning has drawn sharp criticism from prominent Catholic politician and former defense minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU), who left the ZdK over its approach to migration policy and its tone in debates about the CDU’s proposed changes.

“One holds one’s own position as the only correct one,” Kramp-Karrenbauer told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung, criticizing what she called an “apodictic and condemnatory” tone taken by the ZdK.

“When our society becomes increasingly polarized until people face each other irreconcilably, extremist forces have an easy game,” she warned.

What is the bishops’ position?

In an ecumenical statement released this month, Bishop Georg Bätzing, chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference, along with Protestant and Orthodox leaders called on voters to support parties “committed to our democracy.” The statement explicitly warned that “extremism and especially ethnic nationalism are incompatible with Christianity,” reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.

The German bishops’ conference has previously declared the AfD “unelectable” for Christians, citing the party’s “ethnic nationalism” ideology — a finding the party has categorically rejected, according to CNA Deutsch.

What are the key issues for Catholic voters?

Three major areas have emerged as particularly contentious:

Migration: CDU leader Friedrich Merz advocates for stronger border controls, while the bishops’ conference warns against compromising humanitarian obligations. A motion Merz introduced with AfD support has been called an “unforgivable mistake” by Chancellor Olaf Scholz of SPD. Meanwhile, the AfD calls for mass deportation of migrants.

Life issues: The CDU maintains support for Germany’s current abortion regulations as a “hard-won societal compromise,” while the SPD and Greens advocate for legalization. Germany currently permits abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with mandatory counseling at a state-approved center. The AfD calls for a “welcoming culture for children” while criticizing current policies.

Gender policy: Addressing a conference in Germany this week, just before the election, the Vatican’s doctrine chief delivered a pointed critique of gender ideology at a theological conference in Germany. The SPD and Greens support “gender mainstreaming” and changing family law to give various living arrangements and partnerships equal status. The CDU states it supports “diversity of sexual orientations” but rejects “gender as an ideological concept.”

The AfD says it wants to stop all subsidies for “research based on gender ideology.”

After receiving assistance from the Catholic Charities RGV Humanitarian Respite Center, migrant families from Mexico and Central America who have been granted asylum in the United States are processed for their transport to various destinations across the United States at the Central Station Bus Terminal on June 19, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. / Credit: Jahi Chikwendiu/The Washington Post via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Feb 21, 2025 / 13:40 pm (CNA).

A federal judge has denied a request from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) to block a federal funding freeze that the bishops say will greatly harm refugee aid efforts in the United States. 

The USCCB sued the Trump administration earlier this week over what the bishops said was an unlawful suspension of funding for refugee resettlement and aid programs. The suspension came via one of several executive orders President Donald Trump issued shortly after taking office. 

The results of the suspension have been “devastating,” the bishops said, with the prelates reporting “millions of dollars in pending, unpaid reimbursements for services already rendered to refugees” along with “millions more each week.”

In their suit the bishops had asked for a temporary restraining order against the White House. In a decision on Thursday, U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden denied that request.

McFadden in the decision said restraining orders are “an extraordinary remedy.” Courts only grant them, he said, when plaintiffs show “likely success on the merits, likely irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, a balance of the equities in its favor, and accord with the public interest.”

“The court finds that plaintiff has not made the requisite showing and will thus deny plaintiff’s motion to the extent that it requests a temporary restraining order,” McFadden ruled.  

The bishops had requested a “preliminary injunction” in addition to the restraining order. In his ruling McFadden said the court would set “an expedited schedule for additional briefing” to consider the injunction request, though the order did not say when the next briefing would occur. 

The U.S. bishops have been warning for several weeks on the potential fallout surrounding the Trump funding freeze, which has impacted numerous programs both domestically and internationally. 

In January they asked Catholics to reach out to their members of Congress and request the resumption of foreign aid funding following the White House’s freeze. 

The pause “will be detrimental to millions of our sisters and brothers who need access to lifesaving humanitarian, health, and development assistance,” the bishops said at the time.

Earlier this week, following the filing of the lawsuit, USCCB spokeswoman Chieko Noguchi said the bishops have for years partnered with the U.S. government and “helped nearly a million individuals find safety and build their lives in the United States.”

“We are urging the government to uphold its legal and moral obligations to refugees and to restore the necessary funding to ensure that faith-based and community organizations can continue this vital work that reflects our nation’s values of compassion, justice, and hospitality,” she said. 

The Justice and Peace Commission of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference has called for “racial reconciliation” in response to ongoing land reform disputes between South Africa and the United States government. / Credit Photos courtesy of SACBC

ACI Africa, Feb 21, 2025 / 11:50 am (CNA).

The Justice and Peace Commission of the Southern African Catholic Bishops’ Conference (SACBC) has called for “racial reconciliation” in response to ongoing land reform disputes causing tension between South Africa and the United States government.

In early February, South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa reportedly signed the Expropriation Act into law, permitting the government there to seize land without compensation. This policy aims to address historical land disparities favoring the country’s white minority.

President Donald Trump criticized the move, stating: “South Africa is confiscating land and treating certain classes of people very badly.” In response, he issued an executive order suspending all aid to South Africa, citing concerns over alleged discrimination against white Afrikaners.

In an interview with the SACBC communication office, the director of the SACBC Justice and Peace Commission, Father Stan Muyebe, OP, said the recent dispute between the two governments has reopened the wounds of land injustices during the apartheid era in the southern African nation.

He said that South Africa is still trying to recover from its “painful past of apartheid, painful history for a lot of people.”

The development in South Africa concerning land, he said, “is a very complex and very sensitive issue that calls for genuine reconciliation.”

“Racial reconciliation in South Africa cannot be comprehensive if the land matter is not handled properly,” Muyebe said in a Feb. 17 interview. He decried what he described as the “manufacturing of facts and misrepresentation” surrounding South Africa’s post-apartheid land reform, calling it a highly sensitive issue that has been “unfortunately exploited by recent developments in global geopolitics.”

“Hearing what has been presented by the United States, but also in the media, there are some aspects that are facts, but there’s also manufacturing of facts, misrepresentation,” he said.

Muyebe made reference to the country’s constitution and explained that any land restitution should not undermine food security or economic productivity.

He said further in reference to the constitution: “Although the government has introduced new legislation to accelerate land redistribution, controversy remains regarding the extent and manner of compensation.”

“We are confident that this matter will be addressed when the legislation is taken for review at the constitutional court, which will most likely happen,” the priest said.

Muyebe expressed optimism that the planned national dialogue on land reforms in South Africa would provide a collective solution to land issues and other areas of contention in the country.

According to a Reuters report, the U.S. administration’s disapproval of South Africa’s land reform policies has jeopardized the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), a trade agreement allowing South African agricultural products tariff-free access to U.S. markets.

According to the report, the potential revocation of AGOA benefits could adversely affect South African industries, including wine and citrus producers. Some U.S. lawmakers advocate for terminating AGOA benefits due to South Africa’s land policies, arguing that the reforms discriminate against white farmers.

In the Feb. 17 interview with the SACBC communications office, Muyebe also weighed in on the suspension of U.S. foreign aid to South Africa, describing the move as a wake-up call to African leaders to address “dependency” and “find a way in which critical programs that we have in Africa should be funded internally.”

This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.