Sacred Heart Catholic Church

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he hosts the annual Easter Egg Roll on the South Lawn of the White House on April 21, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Apr 29, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

U.S. President Donald Trump’s approval ratings are significantly higher among Christians than among the religiously unaffiliated, according to a poll by Pew Research released to coincide with Trump’s first 100 days in office. 

Trump’s approval rating continues to be highest among white evangelical Protestants, while Catholics are almost split at 42%, according to the poll.

Across the board, Christians gave Trump a higher approval rating than nonaffiliated Americans by more than 20 percentage points (48% versus 26%, respectively). 

The approval rating for President Donald Trump among Christians is also 8 points higher than among U.S. adults overall.

Among Christians, white evangelical Protestants had the highest approval rating of Trump at 72%. Black Protestants had the lowest approval rating of the current president at 10%.  

Trump’s overall approval rating with white Catholics was significantly higher than with Hispanic Catholics, standing at 52% and 26%, respectively. 

Pew surveyed more than 3,500 U.S. adults from April 7–13 for the poll. 

Policies and ethics  

Forty-three percent of Christians found the Trump administration’s ethical standards were “excellent” or “good.”

When asked about the ethical standards of top Trump administration officials, about 7 in 10 white evangelicals rated them as “excellent” or “good.” Nearly half of white Catholics and a quarter of Hispanic Catholics agreed. 

About half of Christians approved of the Trump administration’s action to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies and its budget cuts to federal departments, while 46% approved of the substantially increased tariffs on imports.

For these various Trump administration policies, approval rating points among Catholics sit in the 40s. 

Overall, 43% of Catholics approved of the Trump administration’s anti-DEI action; 47% approved of federal department funding cuts; and 41% approved of increased tariffs.

More than half of white Catholics surveyed (54%) said they approved of the anti-DEI initiative, while a large majority of Hispanic Catholics (69%) disapproved. 

In addition, 55% of white Catholics approved of cuts to federal departments and agencies while 65% of Hispanic Catholics disapproved. 

Another 70% of Hispanic Catholics disapproved of the increased tariffs, while 49% of white Catholics approved.

Across the various categories, Catholics do not vary from U.S. adults by more than 3 percentage points.

Trend now downward

This month Trump’s approval ratings dropped by 7% among U.S. adults overall, according to Pew. 

The drop comes in the wake of the Trump administration implementing a surge of tariffs on various foreign imports.  

Trump’s approval ratings dropped by 1 percentage point more among white Catholics than it did among the religiously nonaffiliated. 

The president’s approval rating declined within several categories among Christians. Among white Catholics and Black Protestants, his approval ratings had an 8-point drop. Among white evangelicals and the religiously nonaffiliated, it dropped by 6 and 7 points, respectively.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 28, 2025 / 16:52 pm (CNA).

A first-of-its-kind study that delves into public health insurance records found that more than 1 in 10 women who take the abortion pill mifepristone to complete a chemical abortion will suffer a serious health complication during the process.

The study of 865,727 patients between 2017 and 2023, which was published by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) on April 28, discovered that 10.93% of women suffer at least one “serious adverse event” within 45 days of taking mifepristone for an abortion.

“This isn’t idle speculation; this is based on the largest data set that we know of,” Ryan T. Anderson, the president of EPPC and one of the study’s authors, told EWTN.

More than 4.7% were forced to visit an emergency room related to the abortion, more than 3.3% suffered hemorrhaging, and more than 1.3% got an infection. Thousands were hospitalized, more than 1,000 needed blood transfusions, and hundreds suffered from sepsis. Nearly 2,000 had a different life-threatening adverse event.

In 2.84% of cases, the chemical abortion was unsuccessful and was subsequently completed through a surgical abortion. In a few thousand cases, an ectopic pregnancy went undetected.

The EPPC study is the most comprehensive research on the subject to date and suggests that the controlled environment of prior clinical trials — some of which reported the rate of adverse events to be as low as 0.5% — may not reflect the real-world consequences of the widespread use of the abortion pill in an increasingly deregulated market.

As the study notes, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) deregulated mifepristone in 2016 under President Barack Obama’s administration and again in 2023 under President Joe Biden’s administration.

The FDA lowered the number of in-person doctor visits to obtain mifepristone from three to one in 2016 and then to zero in 2023. In 2016, the FDA also removed requirements that the drugs be dispensed by a physician and taken in an office and got rid of the follow-up appointment rule and the mandatory reporting of adverse events. In 2023, the FDA opened up mail delivery for the drugs by ending the rule that they must be dispersed in a doctor’s office.

Prior to the 2016 changes, mifepristone could only be used through the first seven weeks of pregnancy. The revision under Obama changed that to the first 10 weeks.

More than half of all abortions nationwide are now conducted with mifepristone. 

“Now, because of Obama and Biden, abortion pills are taken alone, at home, via mail order,” Anderson said in a joint statement with co-researcher Jamie Bryan Hall, the director of data analysis at EPPC.

“The abortion industry tells women that the abortion pill is as safe as Tylenol,” they said. “That is fundamentally false, and women deserve the truth. Because most women are denied the truth about the abortion drugs, they are terribly unprepared for subsequent complications.”

A British study from late last year confirmed that this was the case, with many women reporting that they were unprepared for the pain they experienced from the chemical abortion. Nearly half of them experienced more pain than they expected and some warned that the pain levels were “washed over,” “downplayed,” or “sugarcoated” during consultations.

Christina Francis, a practicing OB-GYN and the CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs, told CNA that EPPC’s data “confirms what we’re seeing in the real world” and that “even just based on my own clinical practice,” she knows “these drugs are not safe.”

Francis spoke about a patient she treated recently “who had ordered these drugs online.” The woman requested the abortion pill when she was nine weeks pregnant, but when she took them, she was “much further along … [than] when she first ordered the drugs” and suffered several health complications that required surgery.

She also discussed a colleague who treated a patient whose unborn child was expelled when the body was the “size of the palm of her hand,” which suggests the chemical abortion occurred past “the legal limit.”

“She saw her baby and it was very, very traumatic for her,” Francis said. “... This is happening in emergency rooms across the country.”

Father Tad Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), told CNA that the report “reminds us again how these toxic agents do not even belong in the field of medicine, which at its core is a healing ministry, since they directly target the life of unborn human patients.”

“Rather than being left to their own devices, when overwhelming evidence indicates that this powerful pharmaceutical has a high probability of causing sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or other life-threatening outcomes, women are entitled to more restrictive regulation over those distributing these drugs, improved follow-up and surveillance in the aftermath of their self-administration,” Pacholczyk added.

EPPC urges Trump administration review

The researchers at EPPC encouraged President Donald Trump’s administration to review the current regulations and reimplement the safeguards that existed prior to the deregulation of the Obama and Biden administrations.

This would require three in-person doctor visits and confirmation that the woman’s pregnancy is still within the first seven weeks, as was originally required by the FDA. It would also require that the drug be prescribed by a physician and administered in person. It would also reestablish the mandatory reporting of adverse events.

“We’re hopeful the Trump administration will do the right thing,” Anderson told EWTN News.

Trump has promised that he would not ban the abortion pill but did not rule out regulating the drugs. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said earlier this year that he planned to investigate safety concerns related to mifepristone.

“Even pro-choice citizens should want to make sure that women make an informed choice, based on all the facts, and that any drugs they take are safe,” Anderson and Hall said in their joint statement provided to CNA.

Christina Francis agreed, emphasizing: “We cannot place abortion access above patient care and patient safety.”

“[This] should be something that all of us can agree on and come together on,” she said.

San Antonio is the state’s second most populous city. Texas is short roughly 660,000 affordable rental units for its lowest‑income residents, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. / Credit: f11photo/Shutterstock

Seattle, Wash., Apr 28, 2025 / 13:56 pm (CNA).

Texas lawmakers are weighing whether parish parking lots, ballfields, and spare acreage could help ease the state’s housing crunch.

House Bill 3172 — the so‑called Yes in God’s Backyard, or YIGBY, bill — would let churches and other faith institutions build mixed‑income housing on land they already own without running a gauntlet of rezoning hearings, provided at least half the units stay affordable.

Jennifer Carr Allmon, executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, backs the proposal.

“Catholics believe that housing is a human right, and governments, the private sector, and the Church share responsibility to make sure people have a stable place to live,” she said in an interview with CNA. YIGBY, she added, “gives parishes a chance to rethink their campuses so they can create affordable homes and keep their ministries thriving.”

Allmon pointed to a century‑old parish that turned about an acre of underused land into a project that rebuilt its aging school and carved out deeply discounted apartments for seniors. She sees similar deals sprouting across the state once zoning barriers fall. Her stance draws on “The Right to a Decent Home,” a 1988 pastoral letter from the nation’s bishops urging Catholic entities to inventory property “and examine how it might better be put at the service of those who lack adequate shelter.”

Rep. Gary Gates, the bill’s House author, chairs the Land and Resource Management Committee. A Catholic lobbyist flagged the idea, he recalled in an interview: “Vacant church land was a great thought. Some churches — Catholic, evangelical, you name it — have a lot of land that’s just sitting there.” Gates drafted the bill soon after.

The measure would let congregations develop parcels they’ve held for at least five years, up to five acres at a time, without a full zoning change. Projects must stay under nonprofit control and meet affordability targets. 

Gates said the acreage cap is meant to stop massive master‑planned enclaves from claiming a religious exemption. The Senate passed its companion in March; the House version awaits a committee vote while Gov. Greg Abbott’s policy team reviews it. “Our session ends in five weeks,” Gates said. “Either we do this now or we wait a year and a half.”

The need is clear enough. Texas is short roughly 660,000 affordable rental units for its lowest‑income residents, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition. In San Antonio alone, a 2024 nonprofit survey counted about 3,000 acres of underused church land inside city limits. 

Financing structures will vary, said Maddie Johnson, program director of the Church Properties Initiative at the University of Notre Dame, but ground leases “are a natural option in a YIGBY context because the emphasis is on the church remaining the landowner.”

Equity splits expose parishes to development risk that can be hard to understand, she cautioned. Community pushback is inevitable whenever density lands in a low‑rise neighborhood, yet church campuses may have an edge because they already break the single‑family pattern.

“Any kind of density introduced into a low‑density neighborhood is going to be opposed,” Johnson said, but the scale of most church sites “is already an interruption to that texture.”

Gates argues that unlocking church land tackles cost at its root. “Thirty percent of the cost of a house is the land,” he said. “Opening church land widens the supply overnight.” Homeowner groups in well‑heeled enclaves worry that subsidized apartments will dent property values, but Allmon believes real‑world examples calm fears.

“When people see a parish partner with a developer to add affordable housing and expand ministry, the objections fade,” she said.

If the House clears the bill, parishes could break ground as early as 2026. Catholic conferences in Colorado, Georgia, and Florida are pushing similar bills. 

“Vacant acreage can sit idle or serve the Gospel,” Allmon said. “This legislation lets us choose the latter.”

Judy Henderson spent 36 years in prison for a crime she did not commit. Now she works with Catholic Charities helping women, children, and families in need. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Judy Henderson

CNA Staff, Apr 27, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

Judy Henderson spent 36 years in prison for a crime she did not commit, leaving her 3-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter behind while she was behind bars. Despite the hardship, Henderson never lost hope. Written above the sink in her cell was the Bible verse Jeremiah 29:11, which served as her daily reminder that God had plans for her future.

She didn’t wait around for that future to unfold, however; instead, she got to work helping other incarcerated mothers and still serves in this capacity today. Currently an administrative assistant for Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joseph, Henderson continues to assist mothers and families in need.

She has also written a book called “When the Light Finds Us: From a Life Sentence to a Life Transformed,” released on April 15, in which she shares her inspiring story from wrongful conviction to redemption.

Raised in a Christian household, Henderson was the oldest of eight. She grew up, got married, and had her daughter, Angel, and then her son, Chip, nine years later. Her marriage, which was physically and emotionally abusive, ended after 12 years.

Henderson, along with her children, then moved back to her hometown of Springfield, Missouri, to be closer to her parents and for a fresh start. However, within months of the move Henderson was charmed by a new man. 

“He was very suave and debonair and wore a three-piece suit and had been in the ministry and a real estate broker and just everything that you would think a woman would want,” she told CNA in an interview. 

Henderson shared that even her parents loved him because they “thought he was a good Christian.” 

One day he showed up at Henderson’s home with suitcases and told her he was moving in. Henderson was taken aback and told him she wasn’t going to live with a man she wasn’t married to, especially with her children living with her.

When questioned as to why he felt the need to move in, Henderson recalled him telling her: “‘I think you need me. I want to love you and take care of you and the children and for us to be a happy family.’”

“As a battered woman, our thinking and the way we view things aren’t from a healthy lens,” she explained. “And so I was already kind of like Pavlov’s dogs, conditioned, and to be a ‘yes,’ ‘yes sir,’ ‘I want to take care of you’ kind of woman. Never thinking that there was any side to him that was not just good. And I did not see any of the signs. I didn’t even know what to look for because back then we didn’t have the battered women syndrome. We didn’t know the definition of the different stages that battered women go through.”

Soon after, Henderson began to see his bad side, which included dealing cocaine. Unbeknownst to Henderson, her boyfriend planned to rob a jeweler in Springfield, Missouri. However, the robbery turned deadly when the jeweler refused to hand over the valuables. Henderson’s boyfriend fired his gun several times, killing the jeweler and leaving Henderson injured.

Both were charged with murder, but only Henderson was sentenced to life without parole for 50 years for capital murder. A major issue in her trial, which was later deemed unconstitutional, was that both Henderson and her boyfriend shared the same attorney. 

“The only reason he had him [the attorney] along with me is to make sure the strategy did not include him or nothing [was] being said bad about him or me taking the stand against him. It was another manipulating tool that he wanted to control,” Henderson said.

Henderson entered prison and admitted that she “was very angry with God.” 

The mother of two was able to see her daughter throughout the years; however, her ex-husband did not allow Henderson to see her son from the age of 5 until 16, causing her more anger.

“There’s two things you can do with anger — you can get bitter or you can get better. And I chose better because nobody cared that I was angry in prison. Everybody was angry in prison,” she shared.

So Henderson started to deal with her anger and “started fighting those emotions that Satan loves for us to feel.”

“I stood on the fact that I was going home because God’s promises are always ‘yes’ and ‘amen,’ and he promised in Jeremiah 29:11, ‘I know the plans I have for you,’ ‘a future,’ and my future was not prison. That’s not what God gave me.”

While in prison, Henderson became a certified paralegal and mentor for others who were incarcerated. She also worked toward legislative reform and led efforts to ensure that battered women could use their histories of abuse as legal defense. Her work in this area led to a landmark decision in Missouri that recognized battered women’s syndrome as legal defense. 

She also pioneered the PATCH (Parents and Their Children) Program, which creates a safer, less traumatic experience for children visiting their incarcerated mothers. A trailer is used outside the prison and is decorated to look like a home with a TV, kitchen, and living room, and children never see handcuffs or guards, only volunteers who escort the children to their mothers. 

“I kept very, very busy being productive,” she recalled. “I thought either you can do the time or the time can do you. And so I did the time. I got educated in every program they had to offer me.”

One program that deeply touched Henderson and brought her back to Christ was Residents Encounter Christ, a Catholic ministry that offered “lifers” — those with a life sentence — a chance at a three-day retreat to encounter Christ, which Henderson said helped her to “understand what the love of God was really about.”

On Dec. 20, 2017, Henderson received an unexpected visitor — then-Gov. Eric Greitens of Missouri. At the sight of him she dropped to her knees crying. He approached her, took her by the shoulders, and said, “I want to apologize for the state of Missouri for not looking at your case sooner, and for you having to spend 36 years of your life locked away. I’m going to, on this day, commute your sentence to life with parole to time served,” she recalled. 

“He opened the door and my daughter came running to me and my son and other family members and two of my attorneys … we were overjoyed, everybody crying.”

Today Henderson works with Catholic Charities of Kansas City-St. Joseph and uses her skills and talents across departments to help veterans, women, children, and families in need.

“To see those women and those babies, and even the men, come in and be lifted up because of the work that we do is such a blessing and so inspiring for us to be able to be such great instruments for God,” she said.

Henderson recalled how she always saw God’s hand at work in her life and how “God does things in pieces, like a puzzle,” bringing people and events into your life just at the right time “if you follow his lead and let him guide you.”

“I was blessed enough to find my purpose and finding joy inside a dark, horrible, painful place. And so God is everywhere to shine his light … He shines a light for you to follow, and that’s what I did and I was blessed to be able to listen to his voice and to do what I what he created me to do. This was my purpose.”

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CNA Staff, Apr 26, 2025 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Federal agents arrested a Wisconsin judge and former Catholic Charities director this week over allegations that she sheltered an illegal immigrant from being arrested by law enforcement earlier this month.

A criminal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, alleges that Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan helped hide Mexican national Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, who was present illegally in the United states and who had been charged in Milwaukee with domestic battery.

Police showed up at the Milwaukee County Courthouse on April 18 planning to arrest Flores-Ruiz after a hearing in his criminal case. The hearing was scheduled to take place in Dugan’s courtroom, according to the complaint.

Upon learning of the looming arrest, Dugan reportedly became “visibly angry” and subsequently confronted the federal agents over their plans. Afterward, according to the complaint, she “escorted Flores-Ruiz and his counsel out of the courtroom” through a “jury door” and to a “nonpublic area of the courthouse.” Flores-Ruiz’s case was reportedly adjourned shortly thereafter.

Agents ultimately arrested the suspect outside of the courthouse after he allegedly attempted to flee on foot.

The complaint charges Dugan with “obstructing or impeding a proceeding” of a U.S. agency as well as “concealing an individual to prevent his discovery and arrest.”

Prior to becoming a judge, Dugan had served for nearly three years as executive director of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, resigning in 2009, according to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

The judge’s LinkedIn profile lists her as having led the Catholic charity “through board restructuring and services reorganization.”

Prior to her election to the Milwaukee circuit court, Dugan served as a civil law attorney in Milwaukee.

Dugan’s lawyer this week said during a hearing in federal court that the judge “wholeheartedly regrets and protests her arrest.”

“It was not made in the interest of public safety,” he argued.

Providence Bishop-elect Bruce Lewandowski. / Credit: The Diocese of Providence

CNA Staff, Apr 26, 2025 / 10:30 am (CNA).

The Vatican on April 8 announced that Pope Francis had appointed Baltimore Auxiliary Bishop Bruce Lewandowski as the new head of the Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island.

Less than two weeks later, Pope Francis passed away, leaving behind what Lewandowski — one of the last bishops in the world appointed by the late pontiff — said is a legacy of “closeness” and missionary evangelization. 

Lewandowski told CNA he was “saddened by the pope’s death” and “caught by surprise” when he woke up on April 21 and learned of the Holy Father’s passing. 

“On Easter Sunday we could tell he wasn’t feeling well, but it looked like he was rebounding, to be able to go around in the popemobile,” the bishop said. “It was a surprise to wake up to that news on Monday morning.”

The bishop, who will be installed in Providence on May 20, said he felt a particular closeness to Francis, having met him twice, once during the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia in 2015 and once when training to be a bishop in Rome. 

An auxiliary bishop of Baltimore since 2020, Lewandowski said it was “really a surprise” to be appointed to the Rhode Island Diocese. 

“I had just finished a Mass at a scouting camp, out in what I call ‘the wilds’ of Maryland,” the prelate recalled with a laugh. “I didn’t really have good cellphone reception. The phone rang, and I saw it was [Papal Nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre], and I pulled over and answered the phone.”

Lewandowski said he has been “very invested” in Baltimore, having served in various ministries there for a decade. 

“But I’m a missionary and Redemptorist,” he said. “And that’s part of our lives, we move from one place to another. When the call came, I said I was willing and ready to do my best for the people of Providence. I’m looking forward to serving them.”

Asked for his thoughts on Francis’ legacy, the bishop said the pope taught the Church how to do missionary work for the world. He said that Francis continued the work done by his two predecessors.

“Pope John Paul II highlighted the missionary charism of the Church by his many travels,” Lewandowski said. “He highlighted evangelization and mission by his many travels.” Pope Benedict XVI, meanwhile, “taught what it meant to be a missionary disciple.” 

But Pope Francis “showed us how,” he said. 

“The word I’ve used over and over again to describe Francis is closeness,” he said. “He called us again and again to get close to each other, to have listening hearts, to listen to each other, and to listen to the Holy Spirit.” 

“He taught us how to evangelize. It’s through relationships. Through coming to know Jesus in a deep and meaningful way.” 

The bishop pointed out that the poor and homeless of Rome have taken part in mourning and remembrance of the late pontiff. 

“That’s telling,” he said. “He had close friends among the poor. I use the term ‘Gospel friendship’ for that. Human friendship is great, but this is an elevated type of friendship that leads us to a greater relationship with Christ and the Church.”

The Holy Father lived out the Gospel, Lewandowski said, “by being close to the poor, close to people who feel far from other people, far from the Church, and far from Jesus. He showed they could experience the closeness of the Lord through him.”

“We’ve talked a lot about evangelization and new evangelization for decades,” the bishop said. “He showed us how to do it.”

Cardinal Christophe Pierre speaks to EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado in Rome on Friday, April 25, 2025. / Credit: EWTN News

CNA Staff, Apr 25, 2025 / 19:36 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis asked us “to be a Church which announces the good news of Christ,” Cardinal Christophe Pierre said on Friday, one of the many fruits of the Holy Spirit’s having selected the late Argentine prelate to be the supreme pontiff.

Pierre, who has served as apostolic nuncio in various countries over several decades and who has served as nuncio to the United States under Francis, told EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado that as he sees it, Francis’ election in 2013 was the fruit of a process that arose out of the 2007 Aparecida conference of Latin American and Caribbean bishops in Brazil. 

Then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio headed up the committee that produced the conference’s final document. The bishops at that conference were “inspired [and] helped” by the future pope, Pierre said. 

“Then, six years later, Pope Francis was elected pope,” Pierre said, describing the selection as providential. “The Holy Spirit chose him so that he could be an instrument of Christ in today’s world,” the cardinal said. 

He further pointed to Francis’ regular contention — articulated first in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium — that “realities are more important than ideas.”

“Today in the world, we are all tempted to transform reality into ideas,” Pierre told Alvarado. “And when you transform reality, it’s in abstractions. And ideas become ideology, and they become instruments of power, of war, of dispute between ourselves. And it is impossible to achieve peace as Christ asks us to do.”

“Even in the Church, at times we are tempted to defend our ideas,” the cardinal said. “But what Christ wants us to be is simply like him, and like Pope Francis has been.”

Asked about what the Catholic Church needs in the wake of Francis’ death, Pierre said it “needs first and foremost to be close to the people, to be attentive to the real needs of the people, especially the poor.”

He further urged Catholics to “remember that Jesus met you and changed your life.” He encouraged the faithful to “be a witness of Jesus for the world today.”

“I met Jesus, and this has transformed my life,” the prelate said. “And because Jesus transformed my life, I cannot do anything else but to announce his presence through my witness of life, but also through the way I live [and the way] I see the world.”

The archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, speaks to EWTN News on Friday, April 25, 2025, in Rome. / Crdit: EWTN News/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Apr 25, 2025 / 19:16 pm (CNA).

The late Pope Francis was “a man of the heart” who preached tenderness and mercy to the global Church, New York archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan said on Friday. 

Dolan spoke to EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado at the Papal Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls on Friday. The cardinal is one of 10 from the United States who will vote in the upcoming conclave to elect the next pope. 

Reflecting on the three most recent popes — St. John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Francis — the cardinal archbishop said John Paul II “reinvigorated the soul of the world” that was weary from “lies” and “atrocities.” Benedict XVI, meanwhile, was known for uniting “the mind, faith, and reason.”

“And Pope Francis, I thought, spoke very much about the heart,” Dolan said. 

“I remember his first time at the window after his election, I guess we were all thinking there would be some theologically erudite talk,” Dolan said. “And [instead] he spoke about tenderness, tenderness.” 

“We have a God who’s tender with us, and we have a God who wants us to be tender with one another,” Dolan continued.

The prelate said it was “magnificent” that Francis’ final encyclical, Dilexit Nos, was a call for Catholics worldwide to rediscover the love and compassion found in the heart of Jesus Christ. 

“Remember when he was in the hospital for so long,” Dolan said of Francis’ hospitalization earlier this year prior to his death. “When we got the medical bulletins [the] doctors would say, ‘Ah, but his heart is strong.’ And I said, ‘You bet it is.’ He was a man of the heart.”

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 25, 2025 / 18:16 pm (CNA).

A Maryland district court judge this week ordered Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to pay a former employee $60,000 for its refusal to provide spousal health care benefits to the man’s civilly married “husband.”

The union is recognized under Maryland state law and federal law but is not recognized by the Catholic Church. The Church teaches that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman and does not recognize homosexual civil “marriages” between two men or between two women.

In an April 21 ruling, U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin ruled that CRS violated state and federal laws that prohibit discrimination based on a person’s sex and his or her sexual orientation. The judge rejected CRS’ argument that the organization was covered under state and federal religious exemptions to the discrimination laws.

Rubin also rejected CRS’ argument that enforcing the antidiscrimination laws against the religious charity in this instance would violate the First Amendment’s protection of the free exercise of religion.

The dispute came down to the court’s interpretation of the “ministerial exception,” which is a legal doctrine in the United States that exempts religious entities from some antidiscrimination laws. 

It allows exemptions when an employee works in a position that furthers the religious mission of the entity in cases when the antidiscrimination provision would hamper its religious mission.

According to the ruling, the former employee, who is named “John Doe” in the lawsuit, worked as a program data adviser; a data quality and analytics adviser; a global monitoring, evaluation, accountability, and learning adviser; a program manager; and a gateway manager.

The judge ruled that these positions were not integral to advancing the religious mission of CRS and therefore did not qualify for a religious exemption under federal law or the Maryland Fair Employment Practices Act.

“Doe did not directly further a CRS core mission in any of his five positions held during his employment by CRS,” the ruling states.

“Because the court concludes that none of Doe’s five full-time positions with CRS directly furthered a CRS mission and that each of his positions was one or more steps removed from taking the actions that affect CRS goals, the court … concludes that CRS has not met its burden to show that [the state’s] religious entity exemption applies here,” the ruling adds. 

A spokesperson for CRS told CNA on Friday that the organization did not have a comment at the time and is currently “reviewing the judge’s ruling.”

The former employee issued a statement through his lawyers at Gilbert Employment Law in which he said he was “very happy with Judge Rubin’s ruling.” 

“[I] am honored to be part of such a precedent-setting case that has helped clarify, for employers and employees alike, the legal protections Maryland law provides, especially for LGBTQ+ workers,” the plaintiff said.

Ryan Tucker, who serves as senior counsel at the legal group Alliance Defending Freedom, expressed concern about the judge’s ruling in a statement to CNA. 

“Now and always, every religious organization has the right to hire people who share its faith,” he said. “The government should never penalize a religious nonprofit just because it’s religious. This ruling, however, is deeply concerning due to the implications it may have for the First Amendment rights of religious organizations and employers.”

CRS primarily provides humanitarian aid around the world. According to its mission statement, the organization is “motivated by the Gospel of Jesus Christ to cherish, preserve, and uphold the sacredness and dignity of all human life, foster charity and justice, and embody Catholic social and moral teaching.”

Father Brian Thomas Beckett Mullady, OP, speaks to Father Mitch Pacwa on “EWTN Live,” Wednesday, July 31, 2019. / Credit: EWTN

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 25, 2025 / 17:16 pm (CNA).

EWTN television and radio show host, author, and devoted teacher Father Brian Thomas Becket Mullady, OP, passed away on the evening of Tuesday, April 22, following health complications. He was 78.

Mullady will be remembered for his strong media presence teaching the Catholic faith in an understandable and relatable manner. Throughout his career he hosted seven television series on EWTN and published seven books with EWTN Publishing. 

The priest hosted several programs centered on Christ and the Church, including “God’s Blueprint for a Happy Life” with Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers. The show was created to “provide a step-by-step guide for getting the most out of the Ten Commandments and to show how faithfully following them leads to a rich and rewarding life in Christ.”

Mullady’s many articles and books explored a wide range of topics and theological questions, from “Grace Explained: How to Receive — and Retain — God’s Most Potent Gift” to “St. Thomas Aquinas Rescues Modern Psychology.”

The priest also personally connected with everyday people to spread the Catholic mission on his popular EWTN radio show “Open Line Thursday with Fr. Brian Mullady.” During the program, people called in to ask Mullady faith-related questions and he would answer and discuss the topics in real time.

Prior to his media work, Mullady was committed to several other jobs including working as a parish priest, high school teacher, retreat master, mission preacher, and professor at colleges and seminaries. He entered the Dominican order in 1966 and was ordained in 1972.

“Father Mullady was one of my favorite hosts when I used to watch EWTN before coming to work here, and I was very proud of the fact that I brought him back to do additional TV and radio programs for us,” EWTN President and COO Doug Keck wrote on social media.

“He had a marvelous gift of conveying the faith in an interesting and understandable way and had a great sense of humor. He will be greatly missed,” Keck said.

EWTN Chaplain Father John Paul Mary, MFVA, reflected on a retreat Mullady held that he attended prior to becoming a priest. He said he remembers and appreciates how Mullady discussed the topic of grace.

He said Mullady “really wanted to know what grace does when we cooperate with God’s grace. That grace can transform us. It transforms in nature when we live the virtues.”

“For me, as a priest and as a friar,” Father John Paul said, Mullady “influenced the way that I think about God’s grace, how I experience it, and how I want to live according to the grace of God.”

“Throughout nearly my entire 20 years at the Register, it was a blessing and privilege to know Father Mullady, who I consider one of the foremost authorities on the documents of the Second Vatican Council and their implementation,” Tom Wehner, the print editor for CNA’s sister news partner, the National Catholic Register, told CNA.

Wehner described Mullady as “a straight shooter” and said he “didn’t sugarcoat his remarks about the hits and misses on the implementation of the council.”

“And those who were the recipients of his wisdom during the many Lenten missions and retreats he gave received an immeasurable gift.”

“On a personal note,” Wehner added, “when we would share a meal during his semesters at nearby Holy Apostles College and Seminary, our long conversations were just as formative as they were a dialogue between friends.”