The Catholic Church in East Saint James Parish

Members of The Catholic University of America Office of Campus Ministry receive their RISE Award from the Associates of St. John Bosco. / Credit: Photo courtesy of The Cartiedas

CNA Staff, Aug 10, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

As more efforts are placed on reaching young adults on college campuses, one organization is encouraging Catholic campus ministries to think outside the box when it comes to helping students grow in faith and reach those who are unfamiliar with the Gospel message.

As part of its campaign to inspire new and creative outreach efforts on college campuses, the Associates of St. John Bosco (ASJB) recently announced its first-ever winners of the RISE Awards (Renewal of Innovative Student Evangelization) on Aug. 6. The ASJB is a nonprofit whose purpose is to help college students keep and grow in their Catholic faith.

This year’s winners include George Mason University, The Catholic University of America (CUA), and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). The three Catholic campus ministries have been selected to receive a total of $25,000 in funding for their standout evangelization plans, which aim to engage students with the Catholic faith.

Currently the awards are only eligible to college campuses in Washington, D.C.; Maryland; and Virginia, but the ASJB hopes to expand its reach.

According to the press release, George Mason University’s Catholic campus ministry won for its new approach to outreach that brings together student athletes from different sports who are interested in creating a community rooted in Christ. From there, these students will become “ambassadors,” wearing GMUCCM (George Mason University Catholic Campus Ministry) gear to attract fellow athletes to the small group and the ministry at large.

CUA’s campus ministry’s new innovative approach includes outdoor Eucharistic adoration on campus with praise and worship music and confession on the first Saturday of students’ return to campus as well as during Family Weekend in the fall. The goal is to cast a wide net to students and families in the hope that more will encounter Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. 

Finally, Virginia Tech’s Catholic campus ministry received an award for its “Pour Into Others” program through a new coffee shop for students. The cafe will be open once a week at the same time Eucharistic adoration is taking place in the Newman Center. The goal is to bring students to the coffee shop and invite them to experience Eucharistic adoration as well as encourage them to attend other events being hosted by campus ministry.

Danielle Zuccaro, executive director of ASJB, told CNA “the response has been unbelievable” to their new campaign and the RISE Awards. 

Zuccaro has been working with ASJB for the past 15 years. She explained that the inspiration came from its founder, Father Christopher Vaccaro, who was previously a college chaplain at the University of Mary Washington for nine years. 

“[He] really noticed that campus ministries were often strapped for funds and also, sometimes lacking in creativity,” Zuccaro shared. “So, we thought that creativity could be generated by incentivizing campus ministries to come up with creative evangelization projects and we would award them money to help fund those projects.”

“This year we were awarding $25,000. So, if schools had always wanted to do a certain project but never had the money, they could apply for a specific amount that they needed,” she added. “But, it had to be a creative project that was outside of the box and would serve a specific demographic on their campus.

The winning ministries are also required to submit a video showcasing how they carried out their project as well as a project plan, which will then be housed on the ASJB website so that any college campus in the U.S. could use the same project plan and execute the evangelization projects on their own campuses.

Zuccaro said she hopes “that the widest net is cast to reach as many students as possible.” 

“That’s always what we say in our organization, that we want to reach as far and wide as possible,” she said, “and the hope is that these campus ministries are casting a wide net as well and that they’re ministering to students that they may not have otherwise reached.”

Father Mike Schmitz before his show in Vail, Colorado, as part of his Parables Tour. / Credit: Daniel Milchev

CNA Staff, Aug 10, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

While many know him best for his popular “Bible in a Year” podcast, Ascension videos, and inspiring talks he gives across the country, Father Mike Schmitz is first and foremost the chaplain at the Newman Center at the University of Minnesota, Duluth (UMD). 

This fall Schmitz will mark his 21st year working in campus ministry, which he called “the best of both worlds” in a recent sit-down interview with CNA in Vail, Colorado, during his Parables Tour. The tour is part of Schmitz’s Seeds of Faith Campaign, which is raising funds for a new Newman Center to be built on the UMD campus.

The 50-year-old priest explained that while he has loved working in both parish and campus settings, each is unique. While college kids can tend to be “fickle” in their faith, he said, they also have a beautiful openness to change that he didn’t experience at a parish.

“College ministry is unique because you have this openness … It is that place where so many people are asking the big questions in life and we just see so many conversions happening when we’re there,” he said.

The Newman Center at UMD has seen a flourishing of vocations. According to Bulldog Catholic, the name of the university’s campus ministry, 400 couples have gone through marriage preparation classes, eight women have entered religious life, and over 16 men have entered seminary, with seven ordained as priests.

“One of my favorite things to do is marriage prep; it just really brings me so much life,” Schmitz said. “I just love even being able to present to couples who are discerning marriage like, no you’re actually discerning how God is asking you, calling you, to be his disciple in your life. That’s the big question. That’s one of the reasons why we get married in churches is because this is a sacrament of discipleship.”

As for those who have discerned religious life, Schmitz called it “a great grace” to walk with these individuals in their vocations.

He highlighted the alarming statistic of nearly 85% of Catholic young adults falling away from the Church while in college and emphasized that at UMD “we want to put a stop to that. So I love being able to even do our little part in Duluth to help that.”

He also pointed out the hope he believes Pope Leo XIV’s papacy could bring to young Catholics.

“I think something about Pope Leo coming from America … I think what it does is, or can do, is it can once again make it real in the sense of bringing it closer to my own home and closer to my life of saying, ‘The pope isn’t just some person from far far off, but Chicago, and here’s the picture of him at the White Sox game.’ And you’re like, ‘Oh, OK. So, God is closer than we think.’”

He added: “[T]here’s been this resurgence in people asking the question, ‘How do we become Catholic?’ Why? Because, I don’t know, maybe something as simple as that — that having a pope who came from this country reminds us that God is closer than we think.”

Advice for others in campus ministry 

For others working in campus ministry, Schmitz gave three suggestions to grow involvement: Offer daily Mass and confession, start engaging Bible studies, and host retreats often.

He emphasized that these events in which people are brought together, such as Bible studies and retreats, help grow involvement because “as Catholics we worship in rows, but we grow in circles.”

Adding to this idea of growing in circles, Schmitz said individuals “need to actually walk with people — not just kind of anonymously go to Mass, anonymously pray at Mass, anonymously leave, but to be able to also say, ‘There’s someone here who knows me.’ And so we need to do small groups.”

Lastly, he urged the need for retreats because “the world is so loud that we need the opportunity for students to be able to just leave, even for a weekend, encounter the Lord in a way that again he’s real, he’s good, he does have a plan for their lives, so that then they can come back to the world [and] go back to campus with that.”

As for what he hopes the students at UMD take away from their time at the Newman Center, he explained that it’s not just about accompanying the students through college so that they become “slightly more devout or pious … no, we’re here to prepare you to be martyrs. And what I mean by that is to be witnesses to your faith in every situation, in every season, wherever you’re called, no matter what it costs.”

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. / Credit: Public domain

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 9, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

On Aug. 9 the Catholic Church remembers St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, also known as Edith Stein. St. Teresa converted from Judaism to Catholicism in the course of her work as a philosopher and later entered the Carmelite order. She died in the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz in 1942.

Stein was born on Oct. 12, 1891 — a date that coincided with her family’s celebration of Yom Kippur, the Jewish “day of atonement.” Stein’s father died when she was just 2 years old, and she gave up the practice of her Jewish faith as an adolescent.

As a young woman with profound intellectual gifts, Stein gravitated toward the study of philosophy and became a pupil of the renowned professor Edmund Husserl in 1913. Through her studies, the nonreligious Stein met several Christians whose intellectual and spiritual lives she admired.

After earning her degree with the highest honors from Gottingen University in 1915, she served as a nurse in an Austrian field hospital during World War I. She returned to academic work in 1916, earning her doctorate after writing a highly-regarded thesis on the phenomenon of empathy. She remained interested in the idea of religious commitment but had not yet made such a commitment herself.

In 1921, while visiting friends, Stein spent an entire night reading the autobiography of the 16th-century Carmelite nun St. Teresa of Ávila. “When I had finished the book,” she later recalled, “I said to myself: This is the truth.” She was baptized into the Catholic Church on the first day of January, 1922.

Stein intended to join the Carmelites immediately after her conversion but would ultimately have to wait another 11 years before taking this step. Instead, she taught at a Dominican school and gave numerous public lectures on women’s issues. She spent 1931 writing a study of St. Thomas Aquinas and took a university teaching position in 1932.

In 1933, the rise of Nazism, combined with her Jewish ethnicity, put an end to her teaching career. After a painful parting with her mother, who did not understand her Christian conversion, she entered a Carmelite convent in 1934, taking the name “Teresa Benedicta of the Cross” as a symbol of her acceptance of suffering.

“I felt,” she wrote, “that those who understood the cross of Christ should take upon themselves on everybody’s behalf.” She saw it as her vocation “to intercede with God for everyone,” but she prayed especially for the Jews of Germany whose tragic fate was becoming clear.

“I ask the Lord to accept my life and my death,” she wrote in 1939, “so that the Lord will be accepted by his people and that his kingdom may come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world.”

After completing her final work, a study of St. John of the Cross titled “The Science of the Cross,” Teresa Benedicta was arrested along with her sister Rosa (who had also become a Catholic) and the members of her religious community on Aug. 7, 1942. The arrests came in retaliation against a protest letter by the Dutch bishops decrying the Nazi treatment of Jews.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross died in the concentration camp at Auschwitz on Aug. 9, 1942. Pope John Paul II canonized her in 1998 and proclaimed her a co-patroness of Europe the next year.

This story was first published on Aug. 9, 2011, and has been updated.

President Donald Trump answers questions during a signing ceremony with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (left) and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (right) in the State Dining Room of the White House on Aug. 8, 2025, in Washington, D.C. The agreement signed during the ceremony is intended to bring an end to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijani that has lasted for decades. / Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 8, 2025 / 18:23 pm (CNA).

Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:

Armenian and Azerbaijan presidents sign historic peace deal at White House

After decades of conflict over the ethnically Armenian-Christian Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a peace deal on Friday, Aug. 8. 

Pashinyan hailed the moment as “opening a chapter of peace” and “laying foundations to a better story than the one we had in the past.” Aliyev rejoined that the nations were “writing a great new history.”

The peace deal cemented by U.S. President Donald Trump includes a trade deal that will create a transit corridor between the two countries, to be named the “Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity.”

USCIRF releases report on religious freedom in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has released a report on religious freedom in Houthi-controlled areas of northern Yemen, stating that attacks on religious groups including Baha’is, Christians, Jews, and Ahmadiyya Muslims have escalated since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. 

The Houthis have escalated their systematic and egregious violations of religious freedom affecting a range of groups,” the USCIRF stated in an Aug. 6 press release. “By advancing its religious ideology across sectors ... the Houthis are severely restricting religious freedom in a country with a millennia-long history of religious diversity.” The statement noted that the “few remaining members of minority faith communities” have gone into hiding to avoid Houthi threats and intimidation. 

Nearly 100 Russian Catholics gather in solidarity with Rome pilgrims for Jubilee of Youth

A group of 90 young Russian Catholics unable to travel to Rome for the July 28 to Aug. 3 Jubilee of Youth gathered together in Moscow for their own event in solidarity with pilgrims in the Eternal City, according to a report from Fides news agency. 

“We, too, were able to feel like pilgrims of hope and part of the universal Church. When we return home, we will take this spark of hope back to our parishes and to the entire country,” said Roman Andreev, the Moscow Archdiocese head of youth ministry. 

Young people gathered from cities across the archdiocese, as well as the suffragan dioceses of St. Clement and St. Joseph, and were accompanied by Moscow Auxiliary Bishop Nikolaj Dubinin. The young Russian pilgrims processed through the city, visiting its various Catholic churches, and met in the evening at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. 

Austrian bishop criticizes sculpture of Trump crucified: ‘Simply abnormal’ 

Bishop Hermann Glettler of Innsbruck, Austria, in an interview with Swiss outlet kath.ch on Wednesday decried a sculpture depicting U.S. President Donald Trump crucified, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. 

The bishop condemned the work for portraying Trump, whom he described as “an egomaniac dealmaker from Washington,” on the cross, which is a “central Christian symbol.”

The life-size sculpture shows Trump in orange prison clothing strapped to a white cross, and its estimated price is around 20,000 euros (about $23,300).

“I find the work of the British [artist] Mason Storm, which was supposedly already shown in Vienna, simply abnormal,” Glettler said. “There is simply nothing to be seen in this that would somehow make sense.”

Third Pan African Congress on theology, society, and pastoral life kicks off in Ivory Coast

Participants in the third Pan African Catholic Congress on Theology, Society, and Pastoral Life have called for “spiritual and structural reawakening” in Africa, along with their commitment to confront issues affecting the continent during the five-day event, reported ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa. 

Organized by the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN) on the theme “Journeying Together in Hope as God’s Family,” the third Pan-African Catholic Congress has been described as a call for the people of God in Africa to rediscover their shared vocation as Christians and members of the universal body of Christ.

Pope Leo calls on Malawi to make its first Eucharistic congress a time of ‘profound grace’

Pope Leo XIV has called upon the people of God in Malawi to make their first-ever national Eucharistic congress a time of “profound grace” and an opportunity to rekindle missionary zeal in their country, ACI Africa reported. 

In a message read by the apostolic nuncio to Malawi and Zambia, Archbishop Gian Luca Perici, Leo expressed his solidarity to the faithful gathered for the official opening of the Congress and conveyed his prayer that the event would be “a moment to deepen the love for the most holy Eucharist, strengthen the bonds of communion among the people of God, and inspire a renewed missionary zeal in every diocese, parish, and family.”

Conceived in 1994, Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was born in 2025. / Credit: Courtesy of Lindsey Pierce

CNA Staff, Aug 8, 2025 / 16:23 pm (CNA).

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

Baby born from 30-year-old embryo through embryo adoption 

Thaddeus Daniel Pierce is the world’s oldest baby, born more than 30 years after he was conceived in a laboratory as an embryo. 

Born July 26, Thaddeus had been stored as an embryo since the 1990s. His biological mother, 62-year-old Linda Archerd, donated her three remaining embryos long after she underwent in vitro fertilization in May 1994.

She and her husband gave birth to a child through IVF but later went through a divorce. Archerd won custody of the embryos and paid for the expensive storage each year, hoping to one day implant the three children. Archerd, a Christian, did not want to destroy the embryos or give them up for scientific experimentation. But when she became too old to carry them, Archerd reached out to an embryo adoption agency.

Many embryo adoption agencies will not take older embryos. These unborn children may be less likely to survive or develop, and the thawing process can be dangerous. But Archerd found a program at the Nightlight Christian Adoptions Agency in which parents accept older embryos at the chance that they will survive.

Lindsey and Tim Pierce had been trying for a baby for seven years. The Pierces adopted Thaddeus as an embryo through the agency’s “Open Hearts” program for embryos that are “hard to place.”

Of Archerd’s three remaining embryos, Thaddeus was the only one to survive.

Investigative report finds Virginia school office bypassed parents, funded students’ abortions

A Virginia public school allegedly arranged and paid for the abortions of two pregnant high school students, bypassing their parents, according to an investigative report.

The report by Walter Curt Dispatch Investigations found that Centreville High School staff arranged abortions for two pregnant high school girls in 2021.

One of the girls had the abortion at 17, while the other girl, who was five months pregnant, ran from the clinic after a social worker allegedly told her she “had no other choice.” The girls say that the school principal knew and funded the abortions.

The local abortion clinic, Falls Church Healthcare Center, has a metal bolt across the entrance, and neighbors say it is always locked, according to Walter Curt’s report.  

The school district, Fairfax County Public Schools, said in a statement that it is “launching an immediate and comprehensive investigation” into the reports.

Louisiana Planned Parenthood locations close due to lack of funding 

Two Planned Parenthood locations in Louisiana will close due to lack of federal funding, a move pro-life advocates applaud.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry called the closures “a major win,” noting that “abortion should NEVER be considered health care.” Louisiana protects life through all stages of pregnancy, with a few exceptions.

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast President Melaney Linton in a statement blamed “political warfare” and noted that as many as 200 Planned Parenthood locations could close as a result of the loss of funding.

Benjamin Clapper, the executive director of Louisiana Right to Life, reaffirmed the pro-life movement’s commitment to “always love and serve both mom and baby.”

New Massachusetts law protects abortionists, requires ‘emergency abortions’

Massachusetts this week passed a law to protect abortionists who prescribe and ship abortion drugs to places where abortion is illegal or restricted.

Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Thursday signed the abortion shield law, which also mandates so-called “emergency abortions” to be performed by every acute care hospital in the state.

The new law also prevents disclosure of an abortionist’s name and requires local authorities to not cooperate with federal or out-of-state investigations into “abortion care.”

Judge Yvette M. Bryant handed down Patrick Brice’s sentence after he was found guilty of assaulting then-84-year-old Richard Schaefer and then-73-year-old Mark Crosby on May 26, 2023, when the two were providing sidewalk counseling in which they encouraged potential Planned Parenthood clients in Baltimore to choose life instead of getting an abortion. / Credit: Eric Stocklin/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 8, 2025 / 15:23 pm (CNA).

A 28-year-old man was found guilty of assaulting two elderly pro-life activists in front of the Planned Parenthood facility in Baltimore but was sentenced to just one year of home detention and avoided any jail time.

Judge Yvette M. Bryant handed down Patrick Brice’s sentence after he was found guilty of assaulting then-84-year-old Richard Schaefer and then-73-year-old Mark Crosby on May 26, 2023, when the two were providing sidewalk counseling in which they encouraged potential Planned Parenthood clients to choose life instead of getting an abortion.

The Baltimore Banner reported that Brice told the judge: “I just snapped one day” during the sentencing hearing and apologized to the victims. The outlet reported that Crosby shouted “What about my rights and well-being?” at Bryant after she delivered the lenient sentence.

Prosecutors had hoped to put Brice behind bars for 10 years, and the Thomas More Society condemned the sentence as “disgraceful.”

“One of the victims was knocked unconscious. The other suffered broken facial bones and a lifelong eye impairment,” said Tom Brejcha, the president and chief counsel for the Thomas More Society, which provided Crosby with victim’s counsel after the attack.

“This was an act of cowardice and cruelty, and sheer mayhem,” Brejcha continued. “This crime deserves far more serious consequences than a ‘get out of jail free’ card and a one-year home detention that amounts to nothing more than a slap on the wrist.”

CNA interviewed both Schaefer and Crosby after the attack in 2023. They both kept up their pro-life activism outside of the Baltimore Planned Parenthood in spite of their injuries.

At the time, Schaefer said he had a brief discussion with Brice that was “kind of cordial” before the attack. When he turned around and bent down to replenish some of the pro-life material he was handing out, Brice knocked him into a plate-glass window and then kicked him after he had fallen to the ground.

When Crosby rushed over to help, Brice hit him in the face and then kicked him after he hit the ground.

Crosby suffered a severe concussion, fractured fingers, and a lifelong eye impairment. At the time, he had internal bleeding in one of his eyes and temporarily lost sight in that eye. Schafer did not go to the hospital immediately but saw a doctor later, after he realized he was bleeding from his head. He said Crosby’s intervention likely saved him from more serious injuries.

Brejcha said the light sentence “sends a dangerous message that pro-lifers can be attacked with impunity” and warned that it “not only jeopardizes the safety of peaceful demonstrators, but it undermines the rule of law and the right to free speech.”

“No one should fear being beaten on the sidewalk for simply standing up for the most vulnerable among us,” Brejcha said. “Violence must never be tolerated, excused, or minimized, especially when it’s politically motivated. Justice was not served in this case, and we must continue to fight until all peaceful pro-life voices are protected.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks with EWTN News anchor Raymond Arroyo on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on Aug. 7, 2025. / Credit: “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo”/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 8, 2025 / 14:08 pm (CNA).

As the 100th day of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate approaches, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the United States and the Vatican have a “good relationship, but it’s new.” He explained: “A new papacy” brings “a new direction.”

In a Thursday interview with EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo,” Rubio explained the first American pope can benefit U.S. and Vatican relations because the pope can understand Americans’ “history, our politics, our culture, [and] what’s going on here.”

Rubio discussed that when previously interacting with leaders of the Catholic Church, they were “almost invariably from some other country.” So when in Rome for Pope Leo XIV’s installation, Rubio said it was “almost surreal” to “interact with an American.” 

“Right now it’s new and the papacy has only been there for less than 100 days,” Rubio said. But there has already been “good communication” between the nation and the Vatican, specifically about the Catholic church attacked in Gaza, he said. Following the bombing, Rubio indicated, the U.S. spoke with the Church “extensively about Gaza” and “to facilitate visits.”

“I’m speculating … but I think one of the things that the cardinals probably chose is someone that could provide a period of stability and consistency as the Church faces a myriad of challenges around the world,” America’s top diplomat said. Someone who can “reach out to areas where the Church is growing but also reinvigorate the Church in some places where perhaps it’s struggling.”

“I know they’re deeply concerned, for example, that the Church is being heavily persecuted in Nicaragua,” Rubio explained. “They’re always concerned about the Church in China, which has been a point of friction with the U.S. government in the past.”

“I think the Vatican can play a very key role in many parts of the world. They’re actually very skilled diplomatically. In the end, their No. 1 goal has to be … the Church and its presence in different places.” 

The Vatican has “offered to get involved in any way [it] can” when it comes to “bringing about peace as a forum or as a facilitator,” Rubio said.

null / Credit: felipe caparros/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Aug 8, 2025 / 13:38 pm (CNA).

Just before the state of Florida executed Edward Zakrzewski on July 31, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB) called for a novena asking the faithful to pray for an end to Florida’s death penalty.

The novena began Aug. 6 and concludes Aug. 14, the memorial of St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Catholic priest executed in Auschwitz in 1941.

Zakrzewski’s execution marks the state’s ninth this year and sets a record for the most executions in a state in a single year since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976. Nationally, there has been a total of 28 executions in the first seven months of 2025, the highest in a decade.

The Florida bishops wrote that capital punishment is “harmful and unnecessary,” saying that “state-sanctioned killing further distorts society’s understanding of the sacredness of all human life, diminishing the recognition of our own inherent dignity and that of others.”

“We are called to mercy and compassion, not violence and vengeance,” the bishops continued. “With mercy towards the offenders, who themselves have often been victimized in life, and compassion for the victims of violence and their families, whose grief is not eliminated by the taking of another life, justice can be better served.”

Zakrzewski, convicted of the 1994 killing by machete of his wife and two children, was put to death by lethal injection at Florida State Prison. Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed 11 death warrants in 2025. The two remaining scheduled executions are for Kayle Bates on Aug. 19 for the 1982 murder of a woman in Bay County, and Curtis Windom on Aug. 28 for the 1992 killings of three people in Orange County.

The pace of these scheduled executions has drawn sharp criticism from Florida’s bishops as well as other advocates nationwide, who argue that capital punishment violates the sanctity of human life and is no longer necessary to safeguard society.

“Our ability to protect society by incarcerating the offender for life eliminates the need for executions, making every execution an act of revenge that outweighs any possible good to society,” the FCCB wrote.

Michael Sheedy, FCCB executive director, has repeatedly written to DeSantis on the bishops’ behalf. In his most recent letter on July 22, he called Zakrzewski’s crimes “especially heinous” but asked the governor to stay the execution and commute his sentence to life imprisonment without parole.

“Every human life, given by God, is sacred,” Sheedy wrote. “There is a way to punish without ending another human life: Lifelong incarceration without the possibility of parole is a severe yet more humane punishment that ensures societal safety, allows the guilty the possibility of redemption, and offers finality to court processes.”

While the Catholic Church has historically allowed the death penalty under strict conditions and where no other means could protect society, in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II said it should only be permitted in cases of “absolute necessity.”

In 2018, Pope Francis went further and had the Catechism of the Catholic Church revised to reflect the death penalty’s inadmissibility.

While acknowledging the Church had long considered the death penalty an “acceptable, albeit extreme, means of safeguarding the common good,” the revised catechism now states that “the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes” and the death penalty attacks the “inviolability and dignity of the person.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has long advocated for the abolition of capital punishment, publishing a statement calling for its cessation in 2005.

Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska (pictured in St. Peter’s Square in 2019) criticized the University of Nebraska for allowing a student to mock the Mass in a drag show. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

CNA Staff, Aug 8, 2025 / 13:08 pm (CNA).

The University of Nebraska has officially apologized for sanctioning a profane “drag” performance that mocked the Catholic Mass earlier this year, with the school undertaking an investigation into the incident after Catholic outcry against it. 

Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, publicly criticized the so-called “drag Mass” in June, calling it “a blatant public display of faith-based discrimination.”  

The event was put on in April by music doctoral student Joseph Willette, who claimed the performance was meant to “bridge the gap between queerness and spirituality.”

The demonstration “imitated various parts of the Mass, including the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei.”

On Aug. 8 the bishop said in a public statement that he had met with University of Nebraska President Jeffrey Gold and other leaders of the university after the incident. The university told the prelate that an “investigation into the matter was already underway.”

Conley wrote that University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Chancellor Rodney Bennett subsequently sent a follow-up letter in which the administrator told the bishop: “We regret deeply that the matter we met to discuss has caused disruption, and we sincerely apologize.”

The university will “fully embrace the opportunity this incident has prompted to consider carefully how we educate members of our community about the impact individual acts may have on people and communities — both positively and negatively, and whether intended or inadvertent,” Bennett wrote, according to Conley.

In his Aug. 8 letter Conley said the school was also establishing a university advisory group meant to reduce the likelihood of such incidents occurring in the future. 

It is unclear if the university has concluded its investigation into the event or if the inquiry is still ongoing. The school did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Aug. 8. 

The school’s President’s Advisory Roundtable on Community Engagement will help advise the school on “addressing sensitive and often emotional matters for which there are strong convictions.”

Representatives from the local Catholic community will be included on the panel, Conley said. 

In addition to backlash from the bishop’s office, state lawmakers also reportedly criticized the performance. 

Nebraska Sen. Dan Lonowski told the higher education news website the College Fix that he and a dozen colleagues wrote to the university condemning the display. 

Lonowski, a Catholic, told the Fix that the performance “[did] not appear to advance music nor faith in any manner.” Lonowski said the university confirmed that it was undertaking an investigation.

Conley, meanwhile, expressed hope that the school was apologizing not just for the controversy surrounding the incident but “for the substance of the incident itself.”

“On behalf of Catholics and all people of faith, I would like to see a more concrete commitment from the university to provide training and education on why this behavior is offensive to Catholics,” the bishop wrote. 

Mocking the Eucharist, Conley said, “should never be an action that is rewarded with a degree, but instead should be condemned for its ignorance and evil.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is seen here during his Aug. 7, 2025 interview on the EWTN News program “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.” / Credit: "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo"/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 8, 2025 / 12:38 pm (CNA).

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is “committed” to fixing an ongoing backlog in religious worker visas.

“We’ll have a plan to fix it,” Rubio said in an Aug. 7 interview with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN News’ “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.”

The interview comes after U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services released a report showing widespread fraud in its permanent residence program for unaccompanied minors, which led to the backlog in issuance of visas to migrant priests and religious.

Rubio said the administration is currently working to create a “standalone process” for religious workers, separate from other competing applicants — such as from the juvenile program — to the employment-based fourth preference (EB-4) category of visas. 

“​​In many cases, what you were finding is you had [a certain] number of people you were going to allow a year, [and] you prioritized people that were coming here from a different migration [background] and it came at the price of some of these others,” he said of the category.

“I’ve been in touch with a number of our cardinals here in the United States and bishops about that as well,” Rubio continued, “and it’s not only the Catholic Church — I mean there are other places that are being impacted, but we’re trying to streamline that process.”

Each year, Congress decides how many green cards — visas that grant permanent residence in the U.S. — may be made available per year. 

These green cards are divided into categories based on various factors, including employment or relationship status to U.S. citizens. The EB-4 category can distribute approximately 7.1% of all employment-based visas. 

Typically, religious workers enter the U.S. on R-1 visas, which have a five-year limit. In the meantime, religious workers hoping to stay in the U.S. apply for visas in the EB-4 category. 

Since juveniles were added to the category in 2023, the wait time for green card applications has been extended to at least five years and seven months, meaning some religious workers face the possibility of having to return to their home country before their application is processed. 

When asked whether he would be in favor of extending R-1 visas for religious workers while their green card applications are pending, Rubio said the administration is “looking at every option.” 

“We don’t want to read headlines that some Catholic church had to close because it couldn’t get their priests here or some order closed because some nun couldn’t get here,” he said. “We’re not interested in that, and that’s not really the aim here.” 

“We know it’s an issue and we’re committed to fixing it,” he concluded. 

Federal lawmakers have introduced a bipartisan bill, the Religious Workforce Protection Act, to prevent U.S.-based priests from being forced to leave the country. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has urged the government to pass the bill. 

USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio described the measure as “desperately needed to ensure communities across our nation can continue to enjoy the essential contributions of foreign-born religious workers who lawfully entered the United States on a nonimmigrant religious worker (R-1) visa.”