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U.S. bishops: Human trafficking is ‘rejection of the God-given dignity of every human being’
Posted on 02/7/2025 20:30 PM (CNA Daily News)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 7, 2025 / 17:30 pm (CNA).
The U.S. bishops’ conference drew attention to the global crisis of “modern-day slavery” in a statement on the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking.
The day is annually observed by Catholics on Feb. 8 — the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita, patron saint of human trafficking victims.
Chairman of the bishops’ migration committee Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, cited the Holy Father in calling attention to the gravity of the issue.
“Human trafficking is not only a serious crime — it is a rejection of the God-given dignity of every human being. It is, as Pope Francis has said, an open wound on the body of Christ and on the body of all humanity, demanding an ongoing, united response,” Seitz said.
“The Catholic Church in the United States has long been at the forefront of the fight against human trafficking, and the U.S. bishops stand firmly alongside our Holy Father in his consistent efforts to shed light on this global injustice,” the statement continued.
Seitz urged Catholics to be vigilant, warning of the consequences of failing to protect the most vulnerable.
“For if we close our eyes and ears, if we become complacent, we will be held to account at the Last Judgment. As Catholics, we are called to face this issue with both courage and compassion, to initiate hard conversations, and to confront the harsh realities of trafficking and exploitation,” he said.
“At the same time, we will continue urging policymakers at all levels of government to pursue meaningful responses to this moral outrage — to bolster existing protections and expand services for survivors, including those made possible by the landmark Trafficking Victims Protection Act.”
Seitz criticized “proposals currently being discussed” that he said would “weaken or eliminate decades of bipartisan progress on this issue.”
“We must reject policies that lead to expanded opportunities for bad actors to prey on the vulnerable, whether within or beyond our country’s borders,” he said.
Last month, Seitz and USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio released a statement critical of the Trump administration’s plans to curb immigration.
“Preventing any access to asylum and other protections will only endanger those who are most vulnerable and deserving of relief while empowering gangs and other predators to exploit them,” the bishops said at the time.
The bishops ask St. Josephine to intercede “as we pray for an end to human trafficking and for the healing, protection, and safety of all victims and survivors alike, especially for children and those in our society who are afraid to seek help because they are marginalized.”
St. Josephine, who became a nun after being freed from slavery, is “a reminder that the fight against human trafficking is not just a social issue but a spiritual mission,” and her transformation is “a powerful testament to hope, healing, and unyielding resilience.”
“On her feast day, all are encouraged to pray for an end to modern slavery and recommit to building a world where every person’s dignity is respected and protected, from conception to natural death,” the statement said.
Pope Francis’ astronomer shares ‘A Jesuit’s Guide to the Stars’
Posted on 02/7/2025 20:00 PM (CNA Daily News)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 7, 2025 / 17:00 pm (CNA).
Brother Guy Consolmagno, SJ, has spent the last 30 years staring at the sky. As the director of the Vatican Observatory, known informally as “the pope’s astronomer,” he has just published his 13th book — “A Jesuit’s Guide to the Stars: Exploring Wonder, Beauty, and Science,” which he said he wrote at the suggestion of Loyola Press.
“I pulled together a lot of ideas, some of my own experience and some of the history of the Jesuits working on science,” he told “EWTN News Nightly” on Feb. 5.
Consolmagno has been the director of the Vatican Observatory since 2015. He told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol that the observatory was officially established in 1891 to “show the world that the Church supports science. And we have been doing that ever since,” he said, adding that “we’re doing cutting-edge research, as we’re also carrying forth the message of how the heavens proclaim the glory of God.”
In his book, Consolmagno disputes the idea that we can’t study science and also be people of faith.
“If we believe that God created this universe, and if we believe that God so loved it that he sent his Son to become a part of it, then science becomes an act of growing closer to the Creator. In that way, it becomes an act of prayer,” he said.
Consolmagno’s book explores how deeply involved the Jesuits are in astronomy and the history of that involvement.
“There are about 60 craters on the moon or asteroids named for Jesuit scientists,” he told Sabol. “The Jesuits have been involved in our understanding the universe. It’s part of our Jesuit charism to find God in all things. What’s more ‘all things’ than the universe?”
“We do science because we’re curious about the universe and who we are, and our place in the universe. And when I say ‘we,’ I mean anyone who is a human being.”
He added: “If you think of the seven days of creation, what’s the goal of the seventh day? The day when we spend the time to contemplate the things that God has created. Being an astronomer, talking about the stars — that’s part of our mission as human beings in love with God.”
Journey to the Vatican Observatory
In a subsequent interview with CNA, Consolmagno said he started off his mission as an astronomer as an ordinary kid from Detroit. He said he grew in his love for science at an early age, describing his young self as a “Sputnik kid.” He finished high school when people landed on the moon. It was a time he felt anything was possible.
Consolmagno’s original plan was to be a journalist, but he joked that he didn’t like the idea of having to call up strangers for a story. So he pivoted and went to Massachusetts Institute of Technology to study planetary science. He said he chose his field of study because “planets are places people have adventures.”
Consolmagno told CNA that he had contemplated becoming a Jesuit priest when he was in high school but felt God was saying no. It wasn’t until decades later that God pulled him to the Society of Jesus. He was working at Lafayette College as an assistant professor of physics when he said, “I do not have a vocation to be a priest but rather a vocation to be a brother.”
When asked if he understood why he was meant to be a brother and not a priest, he said: “It was that simple. I didn’t understand it then, and it has taken me 30 years to appreciate the difference.”
“Jesuit priests are called to be available, and my skills are deep, but limited. Unlike most Jesuits, I have had the same job for 30 years.”
He further explained the Catholic Church’s history in science goes back to before Galileo.
Many Jesuits served as astronomers at the Roman College from the 17th to the 19th centuries. They worked alongside Galileo before his condemnation. Some of these Jesuit astronomers actually disagreed with him on certain scientific matters, which led Galileo to blame “Jesuit hostility” as a cause for his infamous downfall, according to the Vatican Observatory.
Consolmagno said that “while some believe that all science stopped when Galileo was condemned, that’s not true.” Priests and brothers were involved then and still are now, he said, “because of our spirituality to find God in the universe.”
Consolmagno referenced Paul’s letter to the Romans while explaining to CNA the connection between faith and the universe, which says: “For since the creation of the world, God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse” (Rom 1:20).
Jesuits have played a large role in developments in astronomy, Consolmagno said. Even St. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus, believed “the greatest consolation that he received was from gazing at the sky and stars, and this he often did and for quite a long time.”
While the work of Jesuits in astronomy has greatly expanded scientific knowledge, Consolmagno told EWTN during a visit to the Vatican Observatory in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, that science can’t explain God. “The deep thing is, you’re not going to prove God with science. God is bigger than science. God proves that science works, not the other way around.”
Consolmagno believes that studying science and furthering one’s understanding of God’s universe is actually a way to strengthen our relationship with him.
“My scientific work has made me recognize the joy that comes from being close to God. My scientific work has made me recognize the necessity of Church. I can’t just find God on my own,” he said.
Consolmagno’s book looks deeper into the Jesuit’s past in astronomy and closely at the connection of faith and science.
“I hope this book will bring a smile to people who look through it, even if they don’t get past the pretty pictures, because joy is where we find God and you find joy in the stars,” Consolmagno told CNA.
Watch the full “EWTN News Nightly” interview with Consolmagno below.
Archbishop Naumann weighs in on need to solve current immigration, refugee challenges
Posted on 02/7/2025 19:30 PM (CNA Daily News)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 7, 2025 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kansas, is the latest among prelates throughout the country who are weighing in with Catholic perspectives on setting aright the country’s dysfunctional immigration system.
In a Feb. 7 op-ed published in his archdiocesan newspaper, Naumann began by echoing the commitment he and his fellow bishops in Kansas made in a joint Nov. 28, 2024, statement to serve migrants in the state “no matter what the future holds.”
Naumann noted that “the Church does not have the authority or the responsibility to determine the legal status of those living in the United States” but does have “an obligation to care for every person with respect and love, no matter their citizenship status.”
At the same time, the Kansas City archbishop offered a full-throated endorsement of prioritizing public safety threats in immigration enforcement.
“Allowing violent gangs, individuals with serious criminal histories, dealers of lethal illegal drugs, human traffickers, and those who pose threats to our national security to enter our country and harm U.S. citizens is a serious dereliction of duty by our elected leaders,” Naumann said. “I commend President [Donald] Trump and those in his administration for addressing this serious, national threat.”
Naumann went on to fault the Biden administration for its handling of the unprecedented wave of unaccompanied minors it allowed to enter the country.
“It is inconceivable that our previous administration either did not know or care about the location or the circumstances of approximately 300,000 children and youth who entered the United States during the past four years,” Naumann declared. “I salute President Trump and his administration for making it a priority to find these lost children and youth.”
“At the same time, the vast majority of those who entered our country illegally are not gang members, criminals, drug dealers, human traffickers, or terrorists posing a threat to our national security,“ Naumann continued.
The archbishop suggested that with strong border security, provisions should be made for “the millions who entered our country illegally but have not committed any other crime and are working hard, raising families, and contributing to the welfare of society.”
“If President Trump is able to shut down the border successfully, making illegal entry into our country virtually impossible, does it not make more sense to create a pathway for the undocumented to be able to earn legal status?” the archbishop argued. “If those who entered the nation illegally paid significant fines in reparation, why not allow them to receive at least a type of legal status? If not citizenship, perhaps work permits?”
Naumannn also made the case for beginning immigration reform with “Dreamers,” adults who as children were brought to the United States by their parents. “Maybe providing lasting, legal status for the Dreamers could be the place to begin the reform of our immigration policy,” he specified.
In closing, Naumann said: “I would love to have the opportunity to have a conversation with President Trump and/or Vice President [JD] Vance about immigration and refugee resettlement policies.”
“I would treasure the opportunity to make the case for how generous policies for worker permits and legal immigration could be important ingredients in helping make America great again!” he said.
Catholic bishops praise Trump’s executive order barring men from women’s sports
Posted on 02/7/2025 19:00 PM (CNA Daily News)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 7, 2025 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
Two committees of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) expressed their approval of President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans biological men from competing in women’s sports.
“We welcome the president’s executive order that protects opportunities for women and girls to compete in sports safely and fairly,” Diocese of Winona–Rochester, Minnesota, Bishop Robert Barron and Bishop David M. O’Connell of Trenton, New Jersey, said in a joint statement.
Barron is the chairman of the USCCB Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth and O’Connell is the chairman of the Committee on Catholic Education.
“Consistent with the Catholic Church’s clear teaching on the equality of men and women, we reaffirm that, in education and in sports as elsewhere, policies must uphold human dignity,” the statement added. “This includes equal treatment between women and men and affirmation of the goodness of a person’s body, which is genetically and biologically female or male.”
Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 5 that prohibits any K–12 school, college, or university that receives federal funds from allowing biological men to compete in women’s sports or use women’s locker rooms. Any educational institution that violates the rule would lose federal funding.
On Feb. 6, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) banned biological men from competing on women’s teams to comply with the order. The NCAA is the largest college athletic association and governs the athletic policies for the highest levels of college sports.
“Athletics not only provide valuable educational opportunities, fostering discipline, teamwork, and personal growth, but they also serve as a celebration of the human body as a gift from God,” the bishops said.
The bishops cited Catholic teaching on human sexuality as expressed in the catechism: “Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. ‘Being man’ or ‘being woman’ is a reality which is good and willed by God.”
Additionally, the bishops noted that in accordance with respect to the dignity of every human person, the Church also “stands firmly against all unjust discrimination, including against those who experience gender discordance, who are equally loved by God.”
“Students who experience gender dysphoria bear the full measure of human dignity, and they therefore must be treated with kindness and respect,” the statement added. “Similar to their peers, those students must be assured the right to participate in or try out for co-educational activities in accord with their biological sex.”
Virginia McCaskey, Chicago Bears owner and pro-life Catholic, dies at 102
Posted on 02/7/2025 18:30 PM (CNA Daily News)

CNA Staff, Feb 7, 2025 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Virginia McCaskey, principal owner of the Chicago Bears football team and a committed pro-life Catholic, died Thursday at age 102.
“While we are sad, we are comforted knowing Virginia Halas McCaskey lived a long, full, faith-filled life and is now with the love of her life on earth,” her family said in a statement as reported by the Chicago Tribune.
A deeply dedicated Catholic and mother of 11 who was referred to as “The First Lady of the NFL,” McCaskey for over four decades quietly guided the team that her father, George “Papa Bear” Halas, founded. Halas, a legendary coach, was also a co-founder of the NFL and lends his name to the NFC Championship trophy.
After her only sibling and the team’s original heir, George “Mugs” Halas Jr., died unexpectedly in 1979, McCaskey reluctantly inherited ownership of the Bears when her father died in 1983. Three years later, the Bears won their first Super Bowl.
Though the team has yet to hoist the Vince Lombardi trophy since then and various Bears executives have attracted fans’ ire over the years, McCaskey herself was “always was respected and admired in Chicago and NFL circles alike,” a Tribune columnist noted.
McCaskey’s husband of over 60 years, Ed, died in 2003. She is survived by nine of her 11 children — six boys and three girls, two sons having died of cancer — as well as 21 grandchildren, 40 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren, the Chicago Tribune reported.
“Faith, family, and football — in that order — were her north stars and she lived by the simple adage to always ‘do the right thing,’” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a Thursday statement.
“The Bears that her father started meant the world to her, and he would be proud of the way she continued the family business with such dedication and passion.”
Faith journey
Virginia Marion Halas McCaskey was born on Jan. 5, 1923. Her father, George, wrote in his autobiography that he was so certain she would be a boy that he and his wife “didn’t even have a name for a girl.”
Her parents were both children of immigrants, her mother being a German Lutheran and her father a Czech Catholic, McCaskey explained in a 2015 interview posted to YouTube.
McCaskey’s paternal grandmother, who lived with them for part of every year, prayed the rosary every day, and McCaskey later realized many of her grandmother’s prayers “must have been for me and my brother.” Later in life, McCaskey’s mother converted to Catholicism.
The young McCaskey was educated by Benedictine sisters at St. Hillary's elementary school for eighth grade and Chicago’s now-shuttered St. Scholastica High School before attending college at Drexel Institute, now Drexel University, in Philadelphia.
Through a Bible study class in the early 1970s, McCaskey said she got connected to the devotional group World Apostolate of Fatima, formerly the Blue Army of Our Lady of Fatima. She also became acquainted with mothers of girls attending Willows Academy, a local all-girls school under the care of the Catholic personal prelature Opus Dei. McCaskey later became a cooperator to support the work of Opus Dei.
McCaskey said over the years she cultivated spiritual practices such as attending early morning daily Mass, taking time for praying the rosary and personal prayer, listening to Relevant Radio, and reading spiritual books. In her later life, she would often offer Nativity sets as gifts to families to help them celebrate the Advent and Christmas seasons.
She added that she and her husband tried to raise their large family “God’s way.” The family gathered to pray the rosary almost every night after dinner.
Pat McCaskey, Ed and Virginia’s fourth child and a Bears vice president and board member, expressed appreciation for the strong faith his mother and father passed on to him and his family in an interview with the National Catholic Register in 2018.
A frequent speaker at the March for Life Chicago, the younger McCaskey co-founded Sports Faith International, an organization that honors “people who are successful in sports while leading exemplary lives.”
“For our family, being Catholic is not incidental … Being a good Catholic is more important than winning, but that doesn’t mean you can’t win as a good Catholic. Ideally, the two go together,” Pat McCaskey told the Register.
‘Countless lives have been saved’
American Life League (ALL), a Virginia-based national pro-life group, praised McCaskey on Thursday as one of the group’s “dearest supporters.”
“Through the work and tireless support of the McCaskey family, there is no doubt that countless lives have been saved,” ALL said Thursday.
Speaking to ALL’s magazine in 2020, McCaskey related the story of how in the early days of her marriage, she and her husband learned that an abortion facility would soon open directly across the street from their local hospital.
“It felt like a personal attack on our values and our neighborhood,” McCaskey recalled.
“We knew we needed to do something more than write letters and write a few small checks to different organizations,” she continued, saying she soon after learned about the pro-life advocacy work of ALL and remained a strong supporter of the organization for the rest of her life.
“These people were going all out for what they believed in. They were giving more than just lip service to the cause,” McCaskey said of ALL.
She told the magazine she was particularly thankful to God for the invention of the sonogram because a mother “can face the reality that this is a living child,” not a blob of tissue.
In 2009, McCaskey received a “People of Life” award from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-life Activities. The People of Life award is presented to individuals who have “demonstrated their lifetime commitment to the pro-life movement, to promoting respect for the dignity of the human person, and to advocacy for an end to the culture of death in this nation.”
“I accept this on behalf of all the little old ladies who … write checks, and pray rosaries, and listen to Relevant Radio and who usually struggle to get to daily Mass … I salute you,” McCaskey said in accepting the honor at the time.
Nearly 2 dozen bishops visit remote community of ‘banished’ Catholics in eastern India
Posted on 02/7/2025 18:00 PM (CNA Daily News)

Bangalore, India, Feb 7, 2025 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
Dozens of Catholic families of the Nandagiri settlement in the remote Kandhamal district of eastern Odisha state in India said on Feb. 5 they were “thrilled” when 23 Catholic bishops from across the country visited and prayed with them.
Christians performed traditional animist dances with men wearing buffalo horns while women in colorful dresses offered flower bouquets to each bishop and young dancers led the bishops into the church.

As Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Archbishop John Barwa introduced each bishop, the 300 Catholics in attendance offered loud applause.
“We have heard so much about your faith and perseverance. We are all happy to come here and meet you,” Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore told the gathering, speaking on behalf of the two dozen bishops who visited troubled Kandhamal after the weeklong assembly of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI).
The bishops had their first stop in Kandhamal after more than five hours of traveling by bus from the Odisha capital of Bhubaneswar.
“We are thrilled as the visit of so many bishops is recognition of our suffering and witness,” Chrisanto Mallick, one of the seniors in the Nandagiri Catholic community, told CNA.
Catholics driven out of homes, put on government land
The travails of the 54 Catholic families of Beticola began in August 2008 when they were banished from the village of Beticola and transplanted by the government to Nandagiri during a wave of anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal district, 150-250 miles southwest of Bhubaneswar.
The persecution followed the murder of Hindu nationalist monk Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati in Kandhamal. Leaders touted the Aug. 23 murder as a “Christian conspiracy” and called for revenge on Christians.

Hindu nationalist outfits banned Christianity in Kandhamal and Christians were ordered into Hindu temples to recant their faith in Christ. Christians who defied the order were even burnt alive, buried alive, and dismembered.
Nearly 100 Christians were killed, while over 300 churches and 6,000 houses were plundered, rendering 56,000 homeless.
During the widespread violence, the Catholics of Beticola fled while their dwellings were looted and destroyed and their church, built in 1956, was razed to the ground.
When the violence subsided, the Catholics tried to return to the village. But they were chased out, with their persecutors vowing never to let them return. The government subsequently put them up in tents on a remote government strip of land on a mountain slope.
Each family was granted plots on which small houses were built for them.
“My family had 20 acres of land and were living comfortably from a farming income when we had to leave Beticola without anything,” Sunil Mallick told CNA.
“Here, we had to restart life from zero and I used to go for work as a daily wager for survival,” said Mallick, who also served as the catechist at the community church.
“The Church extended great support to take care of our needs, arranging admissions in hostel schools even in other dioceses,” said Mallick, whose three children, including his blind daughter, are pursuing higher studies.
Thomas Mallick, another Catholic of Nandagiri, also had to struggle to get work as a daily laborer to take care of his family after being cast out from Beticola.
“But luckily, for us, the Church arranged hostel schooling for our children,” he said. “Not only for my family — all the families here are happy as their children have come up with an education.”
“That would not have happened in Beticola,” he argued. “That way, it has been a blessing for us.”
Allegations of abuse: Paris public prosecutor’s office will not investigate Abbé Pierre
Posted on 02/7/2025 17:30 PM (CNA Daily News)

CNA Deutsch, Feb 7, 2025 / 14:30 pm (CNA).
The Paris public prosecutor’s office has announced that, despite serious allegations of abuse, it will not investigate Abbé Pierre because he is no longer alive. No investigations are possible against other people who may have covered up abuse due to the statute of limitations.
“The Paris public prosecutor’s office announced that the priest could no longer be investigated even after his death in 2007,” ORF reported. “The crime of ‘failure to report’ is time-barred, so no investigations are possible here either.”
Previously, the French bishops formally requested that prosecutors open a criminal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against Abbé Pierre.
The move followed nine new allegations in a new report released Jan. 13. Archbishop Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, the head of the French bishops’ conference, announced the formal request in a radio interview on Jan. 17, stressing the need to uncover more victims.
Abbé Pierre founded the Emmaus Movement in Paris in 1949. Before the allegations that he sexually abused a number of people, he was considered one of the most popular and well-known figures in the Catholic Church of France. He was best known for advocating for the homeless in France and for introducing the Trève Hivernale (Winter Rest) law in the 1950s, which still protects tenants from evictions during the winter months.
The allegations against the priest first came to light in 2023, when Emmaus France received the testimony of a woman who accused Abbé Pierre of sexual abuse. Further testimony was published in an independent report commissioned by Emmaus in July 2024. The documented allegations span several decades, from the 1950s to the 2000s, and the victims include Emmaus employees, volunteers, and young women close to Abbé Pierre.
The French bishops released the files on Abbé Pierre in September 2023. These documents would normally have remained sealed in the National Archives Center of the Church of France until 2082. But it is now acknowledged that from a legal point of view, the French state cannot do anything about the matter.
This story was first published by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, and has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Trump task force on anti-Christian bias will review policies of FBI, DOJ, other agencies
Posted on 02/7/2025 17:00 PM (CNA Daily News)

Washington D.C., Feb 7, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday evening to create a task force to eradicate anti-Christian bias within the federal government.
The Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias will review policies in federal departments and agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). It will be led by Attorney General Pam Bondi, who was confirmed by the Senate on Tuesday. The heads of other departments will also serve on the task force.
According to the order, the task force will review policies in every department to “identify any unlawful anti-Christian policies, practices, or conduct” and recommend agency heads to end them. The task force, which will conclude in two years, will also submit reports to the president 120 days from its creation, one year after its creation, and a final report when it finishes its work.
The executive order directs the Department of Justice (DOJ) to provide the task force with funding and administrative and technical support.
Trump announced his intention to create the task force Feb. 6 at the National Prayer Breakfast.
Combat targeting of Catholics, Christians, pro-life Americans
Trump’s executive order laid out numerous examples of anti-Christian bias as a reference point for the types of policies the task force was created to root out, including a 2023 Richmond FBI memo that established a plan to investigate traditionalist Catholics.
“[The memo] asserted that ‘radical-traditionalist’ Catholics were domestic-terrorism threats and suggested infiltrating Catholic churches as ‘threat mitigation,’” the executive order states. “This later-retracted FBI memorandum cited as support evidence propaganda from highly partisan sources.”
In the memo, FBI officials detailed an investigation into supposed ties between what it called “radical-traditionalist” Catholics and “the far-right white nationalist movement.” It recommended “trip wire or source development” within parishes that offer the Latin Mass and within online communities it deemed “radical-traditionalist.”
The FBI relied on the Southern Poverty Law Center to designate “radical-traditionalist” Catholics in the memo. The FBI rescinded the memo after it was leaked to the public.
Certain regulatory actions were also listed as examples of anti-Christian bias, including rules to prohibit “discrimination” based on a person’s self-asserted “gender identity.”
This includes a rule issued by President Joe Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services that could have forced Catholic hospitals to perform transgender surgeries on patients, including minors. The regulation would have required religious organizations to cover such surgeries in their insurance plans.
Trump’s executive order also listed the DOJ’s prosecution of pro-life activists under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and the comparative lack of prosecutions for attacks on Catholic churches, charities, and pro-life pregnancy resource centers as another example of bias. Trump pardoned the pro-life activists prosecuted under Biden’s DOJ.
“My administration will not tolerate anti-Christian weaponization of government or unlawful conduct targeting Christians,” the executive order states.
“The law protects the freedom of Americans and groups of Americans to practice their faith in peace, and my administration will enforce the law and protect these freedoms,” it adds. “My administration will ensure that any unlawful and improper conduct, policies, or practices that target Christians are identified, terminated, and rectified.”
Tommy Valentine, the Catholic accountability project director for CatholicVote, said the executive order is “truly welcome news for Catholics, who have seen our churches attacked to the tune of nearly 500 acts of violence and vandalism in the last five years.”
“Let nobody be confused as to whether Joe Biden or Donald Trump was a greater friend to Christians while in the White House,” Valentine said in a statement.
“Our second Catholic president facilitated the persecution and prosecution of Christians who disagreed with his anti-Christian agenda, while the current president stands strong for the safety and religious freedom of Christians everywhere,” he added. “We thank the Trump administration for this order and look forward to the fruit it will bear.”
Maryland Supreme Court upholds law ending statute of limitations on child sex abuse lawsuits
Posted on 02/7/2025 16:30 PM (CNA Daily News)

CNA Staff, Feb 7, 2025 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
The Maryland Supreme Court this week found that the state Child Victims Act (CVA) of 2023 did not violate the state constitution, allowing victims to file civil lawsuits against alleged abusers — including Catholic officials — regardless of when the abuse occurred.
The high court this week upheld the 2023 law, which had abolished a 20-year statute of limitations for civil child abuse suits, ruling against three plaintiffs including the archbishop of Washington, D.C.
The 2023 law, which passed the state Legislature that year with near-unanimous support and was signed by state Gov. Wes Moore, effectively repealed a “statute of repose” that had been established in 2017 and that limited the timeline for filing child abuse claims in the state to 20 years after the alleged victim became an adult.
A statute of repose is similar to a statute of limitations, though it is usually stricter in enforcing a timeline by which individuals can bring lawsuits.
The plaintiffs had argued at the high court that the statute of repose established by the 2017 law had created a right to be “free of liability,” shielding them from lawsuits subsequently brought under the 2023 statute.
The state Supreme Court, however, ruled that the 2017 law established a statute of limitations rather than repose, and thus the law “did not give rise to a vested right to be free of liability” after the 2023 law repealed the statute.
The court ruled 4-3 in favor of the CVA. In a dissent, Justice Jonathan Biran said the court’s majority “fails to interpret the 2017 act as the General Assembly wrote it.”
“It is difficult to imagine how the General Assembly could more plainly state that [the law established] a statute of repose,” Biran said, pointing to the explicit use of the term in the law.
The high court’s Feb. 3 ruling incorporated three separate cases brought by plaintiffs who had been sued for abuse under the 2023 law and were challenging its constitutionality.
Among the plaintiffs was the archbishop of Washington, who was sued in Prince George’s County in 2024 “for alleged sexual and emotional abuse by clergy.”
The other plaintiffs were the Harford County Board of Education and the Annapolis-based Key School.
Pope Francis: Keep the hope that it is possible to eradicate human trafficking
Posted on 02/7/2025 16:00 PM (CNA Daily News)

Vatican City, Feb 7, 2025 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
In his message for the 11th International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, Pope Francis on Friday encouraged the world to not lose hope in the belief that it is possible to eradicate the scourge of modern slavery.
“With the help of God, we can avoid becoming accustomed to injustice and ward off the temptation to think that certain phenomena cannot be eradicated,” he said in the message, released a day ahead of the Feb. 8 commemoration.
“The Spirit of the risen Lord sustains us in promoting, with courage and effectiveness, targeted initiatives to weaken and oppose the economic and criminal mechanisms that profit from trafficking and exploitation,” he continued.
The International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking coincides with the feast day of St. Josephine Bakhita, a woman kidnapped from her home country of Sudan and sold into slavery by Arab slave traders at the age of 7.
While in slavery, Bakhita endured beatings and torture. In her early 20s, she discovered Christ and the Church, and after she was freed from slavery was baptized into the Catholic faith. She later joined the Canossian Sisters in Italy.
In his message for the Vatican-supported day of prayer against trafficking, Pope Francis emphasized the importance of staying hopeful even in the face of the darkness of millions of people being trapped in modern slavery around the world.
“Where do we get new impetus to combat the trade in human organs and tissues, the sexual exploitation of children and girls, forced labor, including prostitution, drug, and arms trafficking? How do we experience all this in the world and not lose hope?” he said. “It is only by lifting our eyes to Christ, our hope, that we can find the strength for a renewed commitment.”
The pope added that the commitment against human trafficking and exploitation can “ignite flames of light, which together can illuminate the night until the dawn breaks.”
On the occasion of the International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking, Francis met with members of Talitha Kum, an international network of consecrated women devoted to helping victims of trafficking.
Speaking at his Santa Marta residence, the pope said all forms of human trafficking and sexual exploitation “are a disgrace and a very serious violation of fundamental human rights.”
He thanked Talitha Kum for its service, encouraging the organizations and individuals in the network “to continue to work together, making victims and survivors your primary concern, listening to their stories, caring for their wounds and enabling them to make their voices heard in society at large.”
“That is what it means to be ambassadors of hope, and it is my hope that during this jubilee year many others will follow your example,” he said.
In his message to the world, Pope Francis listed the many contributing factors to the complex phenomenon of trafficking, including wars, conflicts, famine, and climate change.
It requires a global response, strengthened by prayer, he said. “Together — trusting in the intercession of St. Bakhita — we can make a great effort and create the conditions for trafficking and exploitation to be banned and for respect for fundamental human rights to prevail, in fraternal recognition of common humanity.”