Ss. Cyril and Methodius Ukrainian Catholic Church

Credit: Photo courtesy of March for Life

Jan 20, 2026 / 13:37 pm (CNA).

Thousands will gather for the 53rd National March for Life in the nation’s capital on Friday, Jan. 23.

Every January, tens of thousands of people march on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., for “the largest annual human rights demonstration in the world,” according to the March for Life website. The event’s 2026 theme is “Life Is a Gift,” which invites “all people to rediscover the beauty, goodness, and joy of life itself.”

The theme emphasizes “what lies at the heart of the pro-life movement — an unshakeable conviction that life is very good and worthy of protection, no matter the circumstances,” according to the event’s website. “‘Life Is a Gift’ invites everyone to embrace life as something to be cherished and celebrated from the very beginning.”

The first March for Life was on Jan. 22, 1974, in Washington, D.C. It took place one year after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion nationwide. While the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision returned the matter to the states in 2022, the organization continues its mission to protect life at the state and federal levels.

“The March for Life is not just a protest … It is a celebration of each and every life, from the moment of conception,” organizers of the event reported. “We envision a world where every life is celebrated, valued, and protected. We envision a world where these moments are celebrated, valued, and protected by everybody — both in the private sector and in the public sphere.”

Schedule

The day is more than just the walk on Capitol Hill; it offers numerous other opportunities to celebrate life.

The festivities will kick off with a pre-rally concert at 11 a.m. on the National Mall by Sanctus Real, a Grammy-nominated and Dove Award-winning Christian band.

Then the rally will kick off at noon and will feature a number of special guests including a national anthem performance by Friends of Club 21 Choir, a chorus of young adults with Down syndrome, and a lineup of speakers.

The crowd will depart from the National Mall at 1 p.m. for the march and will make its way to the ending point at the Supreme Court building.

Speakers

The leaders set to speak at the rally include a number of pro-life advocates who will share testimonials and encouragement ahead of the march.

JD Vance will speak for the second time at the annual event as vice president of the United States. He will be joined by other U.S. leaders including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and U.S. Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey.

Jennie Bradley Lichter, March for Life president, will address the crowd at her first march as president. Lichter has served as deputy general counsel at The Catholic University of America and in the White House during the first Trump administration.

Sarah Hurm will share her testimony about how the experience of starting a chemical abortion and reversing it changed her perspective and led her to pro-life advocacy.

Elizabeth Pillsbury Oliver, president of Georgetown University Right to Life and a Catholic convert, will offer a pro-life student’s perspective and about how her faith gives her courage to defend life.

Other pro-life leaders and ministry workers from across the nation will also take the stage at the National Mall ahead of the march.

Additional events

The March for Life is just one of the ways pro-lifers can celebrate life the weekend of Jan. 23.

The National Prayer Vigil for Life:

The weekend will start with The National Prayer Vigil for Life, which is hosted annually by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. The vigil takes place on the eve of the March for Life, marking the date of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

The National Prayer Vigil for Life will begin on Jan. 22 with an opening Mass at 5 p.m. in the Great Upper Church of the basilica. Following Mass, the National Holy Hour for Life will be at 7 p.m. in the Crypt Church. The National Prayer Vigil will conclude with a closing Mass celebrated by Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley, OFM Cap, archbishop emeritus of Boston, at 8 a.m. on Jan. 23 in the Great Upper Church.

Overnight seminarian-led Holy Hours will also take place from 9 p.m. on Jan. 22 until 8 a.m. on Jan. 23.

Life Fest

The Knights of Columbus and Sisters of Life will host Life Fest at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Doors open at 6 a.m. on the morning of Friday, Jan. 23, before the march. Life Fest will kick off with live music from the Sisters of Life’s band All the Living, with Father Isaiah, CFR, Damascus Worship, followed by a Eucharistic procession and Mass.

The event will also include opportunities for confession, first-class relic veneration, and powerful witnesses, including pro-life advocate and founder of Live Action Lila Rose.

Cardinal O’Connor Conference:

Named in honor of Cardinal John O’Connor, who committed himself to advocate for the unborn, the annual Cardinal O’Connor Conference on Life works to promote intellectual “discourse on the sanctity of human life as well as build a culture of life both within and beyond the Georgetown community,” the conference’s website reported.

Started by Georgetown students in 2000, the conference has become the largest student-run, pro-life conference in the U.S. The Jan. 24 conference will feature a Holy Hour, a number of speakers, breakout sessions, a panel discussion, and a Mass for life.

Cardinals meet with Pope Leo XIV in the third session of the consistory on Jan. 8, 2025, at the Vatican. | Credit: Vatican Media

Jan 20, 2026 / 13:07 pm (CNA).

Three U.S.-based cardinals issued a statement this week renouncing war as “an instrument for narrow national interests” and calling for the U.S. to engage in military action “as a last resort in extreme situations, not a normal instrument of national policy.”

Chicago archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich; Washington, D.C., archbishop Cardinal Robert McElroy; and Newark, New Jersey, archbishop Cardinal Joseph Tobin, CSsR, issued a joint statement discussing U.S. foreign policy in comparison to the principles set forth by Pope Leo XIV in his Jan. 9 address to members of the diplomatic corps.

Following the capture of Venezuela’s leader Nicolas Maduro and signaling from President Donald Trump that he wants to annex Greenland in some form, the cardinals said the country’s “moral role in confronting evil around the world, sustaining the right to life and human dignity, and supporting religious liberty are all under examination.”

In the Jan. 19 statement they urged a U.S. foreign policy that “respects and advances the right to human life, religious liberty, and the enhancement of human dignity throughout the world, especially through economic assistance.”

“The sovereign rights of nations to self-determination appear all too fragile in a world of ever greater conflagrations,” the cardinals said. “The balancing of national interest with the common good is being framed within starkly polarized terms.”

“In 2026, the United States has entered into the most profound and searing debate about the moral foundation for America’s actions in the world since the end of the Cold War,” the cardinals wrote. “The events in Venezuela, Ukraine, and Greenland have raised basic questions about the use of military force and the meaning of peace.”

They added: “The building of just and sustainable peace, so crucial to humanity’s well-being now and in the future, is being reduced to partisan categories that encourage polarization and destructive policies.”

Pope Leo’s word as a ‘compass’ for foreign policy

Pope Leo’s Jan. 9 comments on foreign policy have “provided us an enduring ethical compass for establishing the pathway for American foreign policy in the coming years,” the cardinals said.

“In our time, the weakness of multilateralism is a particular cause for concern at the international level,” the pope said to members of the diplomatic corps. “War is back in vogue and a zeal for war is spreading.”

“Peace is no longer sought as a gift and desirable good in itself, or in pursuit of ‘the establishment of the ordered universe willed by God with a more perfect form of justice among men and women.’ Instead, peace is sought through weapons as a condition for asserting one’s own dominion,” the Holy Father said.

The cardinals stressed Pope Leo’s reiteration of Catholic teaching that “the protection of the right to life constitutes the indispensable foundation for every other human right.”

The pope “points to the need for international aid to safeguard the most central elements of human dignity, which are under assault because of the movement by wealthy nations to reduce or eliminate their contributions to humanitarian foreign assistance programs.”

The Holy Father “points to the increasing violations of conscience and religious freedom in the name of an ideological or religious purity that crushes freedom itself,” the cardinals said.

“As pastors and citizens, we embrace this vision for the establishment of a genuinely moral foreign policy for our nation. We seek to build a truly just and lasting peace, that peace which Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel.”

“Pope Leo has given us the prism through which to raise it to a much higher level. We will preach, teach, and advocate in the coming months to make that higher level possible,” they said.

With Speaker of the House Mike Johnson by his side, President Donald Trump speaks to the press following a House Republican meeting at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025, in Washington, D.C. | Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

Jan 20, 2026 / 12:21 pm (CNA).

Catholics are offering mixed reactions to the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, which included domestic policy actions that align with U.S. bishops on gender-related issues, and also tensions over immigration, expansion of the death penalty, and reduced funding for organizations that provide food and basic support to people in need.

Trump secured his electoral victory in 2024 with the help of Catholics, who supported him by a double-digit margin, according to exit polls. A Pew Research Center report found that nearly a quarter of Trump’s voters in 2024 were Catholic.

Throughout his first year, Trump — who calls himself a nondenominational Christian — has invoked Christianity and created a White House Faith Office. He created a Religious Liberty Commission by executive order in May 2025 and became the first president to issue a proclamation honoring the Catholic feast of the Immaculate Conception in December.

Last year, the president also launched the “America Prays” initiative, which encouraged people to dedicate one hour of prayer for the United States and its people in preparation for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 2026.

Immigration, poverty, and NGOs

John White, professor of politics at The Catholic University of America, said the first year of Trump’s second term “challenged Catholics on many levels.”

“The brutality of ICE has caused the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to issue an extraordinary statement at the prompting of Pope Leo XIV,” White said, referring to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) issued a special message in November opposing indiscriminate mass deportations, calling for humane treatment, urging meaningful reform, and affirming the compatibility of national security with human dignity.

The Trump administration, with JD Vance, the second Catholic vice president in U.S. history, cut billions of dollars in funding to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), which financially damaged several Catholic nonprofits that had received funding. Trump also signed into law historic cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“The cuts to NGO funding, SNAP, and Medicaid benefits, alongside the huge increases in health care costs, have hurt the poor and middle class at home and around the world,” he said. “Instead of being the good Samaritan, Trump has challenged our Catholic values and narrowed our vision of who we are and what we believe. JD Vance’s interpretation of ‘Ordo Amoris’ of a hierarchy to those whom we love rather than a universal love is a case in point and has been repudiated by Pope Francis and Pope Leo XIV,” he said.

The cuts aligned federal policy with the administration’s agenda, which included strict immigration enforcement, mass deportations of immigrants who are in the country illegally, and less foreign aid support.

Catholic Charities USA was previously receiving more than $100 million annually for migrant services, and the Trump administration cut off those funds. In response, the organization scaled back its services.

Since Trump took office, the administration said it has deported more than 600,000 people.

Karen Sullivan, director of advocacy for the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), which provides legal services to migrants, said she is “very concerned about the way that immigration enforcement has been carried out,” adding her organization is “very concerned that human dignity of all persons [needs to] be respected.”

Sullivan said the administration is “enabling their officers to use excessive force as they are taking people into custody” and “denying access to oversight at their detention centers.” She also expressed concern about the administration increasing fees for asylum applications and giving agents more leeway to conduct immigration enforcement at sensitive locations, such as churches, schools, and hospitals.

She said the large number of deportations and the increase in expedited removals has “been a strain” on organizations that seek to provide legal help to migrants.

CLINIC affiliates receive inquiries from people who are facing deportation and also those who fear they may be deported. She said: “The worry and the fear among those people [who may face deportation] makes them seek out assistance and advice even more often.”

“The pace of the changes that have been happening in the past year have been very difficult to manage,” she said. “We are having to respond very quickly to changes."

Executive actions on gender

Susan Hanssen, a history professor at the University of Dallas (a Catholic institution), viewed the first year of Trump’s second term in mostly successful terms.

“As Catholics we know that the law educates, and during Trump’s first year in office we witnessed an actual shift in public opinion on the LGBT/transgender ideology due to his asserting the scientific and natural common sense that there are only male and female,” Hanssen said.

Trump took executive action to prohibit what he called the “chemical and surgical mutilation” of children, such as hormone therapy and surgical transition. He signed a policy restricting participation of transgender athletes in women’s sports. He legally recognized only two genders, determined by biology: male and female.

“His strong executive action on this essential point — domestically in making the executive branch remove its trans-affirming language, the executive department of education stop subverting parental rights over their children, and women’s rights in sports, and (importantly) putting an end to USAID’s [U.S. Agency for International Development] pushing this gender agenda on the countries who need our economic assistance,” she said.

“This has led to a genuine public shift, with fewer independent corporations choosing to enforce June as LGBT Pride month on their customer base, fewer DEI programs pushing the gender agenda on hiring, and a shift (especially among young men) towards disapproval of gender transitioning children and even towards disapproval of the legalization of so-called same sex ‘marriage,’” she added. “We will need to see how these executive branch victories will affect judicial and legislative action moving forward.”

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, had a similar view of some of the social changes.

“The current administration has focused significant energy on the important task of ‘putting folks on notice,’ so it’s hard to deny, for example, that the misguided medico-pharmaceutical industry that has profited handsomely from exploiting vulnerable youth and other gender dysphoric individuals can no longer miss the loud indicators that these practices will not be able to continue unabated,” he said.

Death penalty

Trump signaled a renewed and more aggressive federal capital-punishment policy in 2025, in opposition to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which teaches that the death penalty is “inadmissible.”

Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office directing the Justice Department to actively pursue the federal death penalty for serious crimes. He also directed federal prosecutors to seek death sentences in Washington, D.C., homicide cases. His administration lifted a moratorium on executions, reversing a pause in federal executions and following President Joe Biden’s commutations of federal death sentences.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, then-president of the USCCB, in a Jan. 22, 2025, statement called Trump’s support for expanding the federal death penalty “deeply troubling.” Newly elected USCCB president Archbishop Paul Coakley likewise called for the abolition of the death penalty.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated CLINIC receives inquiries from people facing deportation.It has been corrected to say that CLINIC affiliates receive the inquiries. (Published 10:10 a.m. Jan. 21, 2026).

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles will present its 12th annual OneLife LA event on Saturday, Jan. 24, 2026. In 2025 there was no walk, only a aathedral event indoors, because of heavy smoke in the air from the L.A. wildfires. | Credit: Photo courtesy of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles

Jan 20, 2026 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles will present its 12th annual OneLife LA event on Saturday, Jan. 24, beginning at 1:30 p.m. in the plaza of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in downtown Los Angeles. The day will highlight a variety of life and family issues, including advocating for the protection of the unborn. 

The event includes a roster of speakers and performers beginning at 2 p.m. followed by a Walk for Life at 3 p.m. and a Requiem Mass for the unborn celebrated by Los Angeles Archbishop José Gómez at 5 p.m.

In addition to Gómez, each of the auxiliary bishops in the archdiocese’s five pastoral regions typically attend, as well as bishops in neighboring dioceses.

In a statement, Gómez said: “Every life is precious and must be loved and protected, from conception until natural death — as children of God made in his image, every person has a sanctity and dignity that cannot be diminished.”

Speakers for the event include Gómez; El Paso,Texas, Bishop Mark Seitz; pro-life and prenatal health advocate Nora Yesenia; Sofía Alatorre González, who will discuss a life-changing accident she had at age 8; archdiocesan priest Father Matt Wheeler; Daniela Verástegui, a mother who speaks on family life issues and sister of actor Eduardo Verástegui; and Ken Rose of the Knights of Columbus.

As part of the event, Rose will receive a $10,000 Dr. Tirso del Junco grant on behalf of the Knights, which will be distributed to 20 local pregnancy centers along with matching funding from the Supreme Knight.

Rose has been a regular attendee at OneLife LA as well as other pro-life walks throughout the state of California and said he was “honored” to receive the grant on behalf of the Knights, an annual grant that has been made since 2020. He said: “It’s an awesome event, and I’ve been surprised at the turnout, especially considering the challenges they’ve had in recent years.”

The challenges he referenced include heavy rain in frequently sunny Southern California in 2024, and in 2025, due to heavy smoke caused by L.A.’s Eaton and Palisades wildfires, participants remained indoors at the cathedral. (The 2026 forecast so far is partly cloudy, no rain, with mild temperatures.) The 2025 event included testimonials from local residents who had lost their homes in the fires, as well as the display of the tabernacle of Corpus Christi Parish in Pacific Palisades, which was rescued from the ruins of the church after it had burned down.

In previous years, Rose has been impressed with a large number of young people who turned out for the walk, including teens as well as young adults. He also noted that it drew a large number of his fellow Knights (some in official regalia), as “we are Catholic gentlemen who are asked to step up on behalf of people who are less fortunate than us.”

Rose said in his remarks he plans to tell those in attendance “that life is special in all its stages. We must protect it, from birth to natural death. It’s what we believe as Catholics.”

Isaac Cuevas of the archdiocesan Office of Life, Justice, and Peace, said he believes the Knights to be a worthy grant recipient, as the Knights “exemplify service rooted in faith and respect for the dignity of every person. Their work strengthens families, supports those in need, and builds a culture that honors life at every stage.”

In addition to the Knights, other key participating organizations include 40 Days for Life, NET Ministries, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ, Catholic Charities Los Angeles, Sofesa, Depaul USA, Program for Tortured Victims, Order of Malta, Options United, and Care for Creation. The event also draws groups from Catholic parishes and schools as well as local religious.

Like-minded individuals

Other repeat participants include Ann Sanders, who began participating 12 years ago as part of the Order of Malta and today is an event organizer with the archdiocesan Office of Life, Justice, and Peace. 

“I’ve always enjoyed participating because it is an opportunity to be around like-minded individuals who desire to protect the beauty and dignity of human life,” she said. “People come together to support the life-affirming work that is being done throughout the archdiocese.”

Previous years have drawn 5,000 or more participants, she continued, and the archdiocese is hoping for strong attendance again in 2026.

Tim Shannon, who is also a member of the Order of Malta and is president of the Order of Malta Mobile Ministries, will also attend again in 2026. His group distributes food to Southern Californians in need; at OneLife LA members distribute supplies such as sunscreen and water, offer basic medical care, and provide seating where older or disabled walkers can rest. Donations for items come from the Order of Malta.

He, like Rose, noted the participation of large numbers of young people, “which is refreshing. They’re our future,” he said.

In addition to speakers, performers at the event include Francis Cabildo, worship leader and songwriter, and Miriam Solis, a Mexican singer from Guadalajara. Companion events to OneLife LA include a OneLife LA Holy Hour on Friday, Jan. 23, from 7 to 8 p.m. at Christ the King Parish in Los Angeles.

Series of pro-life walks

OneLife LA is one of a series of pro-life walks offered throughout the state of California hosted by Catholic dioceses or often organized by Catholics. The second-largest pro-life walk in the country, Walk for Live West Coast, will be held in San Francisco on the same day, with San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone playing a prominent role, as well as a San Diego Walk for Life sponsored by the Diocese of San Diego with San Diego Bishop Michael Pham participating. 

On Jan. 23 at Oakland City Hall, there will be the Standing Up 4Life rally and walk featuring many speakers from the Black pro-life community. The National March for Life in Washington, D.C., also occurs on Jan. 23; March for Life will hold a rally and march at the California state capitol in Sacramento on March 16.

OneLife LA is free to attend, but participants are asked to register online at www.onelifela.org.

We March with Selma event. | Credit: Via Flickr CC BY NC 2.0

Jan 19, 2026 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Sister Mary Antona Ebo was the only Black Catholic nun who marched with civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.

“I’m here because I’m a Negro, a nun, a Catholic, and because I want to bear witness,” Ebo said to fellow demonstrators at a March 10, 1965, protest attended by King.

The protest took place three days after the “Bloody Sunday” clash, where police attacked several hundred voting rights demonstrators with clubs and tear gas, causing severe injuries among the nonviolent marchers.

Sister Mary Antona Ebo died Nov. 11, 2017, in Bridgeton, Missouri, at the age of 93, the St. Louis Review reported at the time.

After the “Bloody Sunday” attacks, King had called on church leaders from around the country to go to Selma. Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter of St. Louis asked his archdiocese’s human rights commission to send representatives, Ebo recounted to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2015.

Ebo’s supervisor, also a religious sister, asked her whether she would join a 50-member delegation of laymen, Protestant ministers, rabbis, priests, and five white nuns.

Just before she left for Alabama, she heard that a white minister who had traveled to Selma, James Reeb, had been severely attacked after he left a restaurant and later died from his injuries.

At the time, Ebo said, she wondered: “If they would beat a white minister to death on the streets of Selma, what are they going to do when I show up?”

In Selma on March 10, Ebo went to Brown Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, joining local leaders and the demonstrators who had been injured in the clash.

“They had bandages on their heads, teeth were knocked out, crutches, casts on their arms. You could tell that they were freshly injured,” she told the Post-Dispatch. “They had already been through the battleground, and they were still wanting to go back and finish the job.”

Many of the injured were treated at Good Samaritan Hospital, run by Edmundite priests and the Sisters of St. Joseph, the only Selma hospital that served Blacks. Since their arrival in 1937, the Edmundites had faced intimidation and threats from local officials, other whites, and even the Ku Klux Klan, CNN reported.

The injured demonstrators and their supporters left the Selma church, with Ebo in front. They marched toward the courthouse, then were blocked by state troopers in riot gear. She and other demonstrators knelt to pray the Our Father before they agreed to turn around.

Despite the violent interruption, the 57-mile march drew 25,000 participants. It concluded on the steps of the state capitol in Montgomery with King’s famous March 25 speech against racial prejudice.

“How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” King said.

King would be dead within three years. On a fateful April 4, 1968, he was shot by an assassin at a Memphis hotel.

He had asked to be taken to a Catholic hospital should anything happen to him, and he was taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Memphis. At the time, it was a nursing school combined with a 400-bed hospital.

There, too, Catholic religious sisters played a role.

Sister Jane Marie Klein and Sister Anna Marie Hofmeyer recounted their story to The Paper of Montgomery County Online in January 2017.

The Franciscan nuns were walking around the hospital grounds when they heard the sirens of an ambulance. One of the sisters was paged three times, and they discovered that King had been shot and taken to their hospital.

The National Guard and local police locked down the hospital for security reasons as doctors tried to save King.

“We were obviously not allowed to go in when they were working with him because they were feverishly working with him,” Klein said. “But after they pronounced him dead we did go back into the ER. There was a gentleman as big as the door guarding the door and he looked at us and said, ‘You want in?’ We said yes, we’d like to go pray with him. So he let the three of us in, closed the door behind us, and gave us our time.”

Hofmeyer recounted the scene in the hospital room. “He had no chance,” she said.

Klein said authorities delayed the announcement of King’s death to prepare for riots they knew would result.

Three decades later, Klein met with King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, at a meeting of the Catholic Health Association Board in Atlanta where King was a keynote speaker. The Franciscan sister and the widow of the civil rights leader told each other how they had spent that night.

Klein said being present that night in 1968 was “indescribable.”

“You do what you got to do,” she said. “What’s the right thing to do? Hindsight? It was a privilege to be able to take care of him that night and to pray with him. Who would have ever thought that we would be that privileged?”

She said King’s life shows “to some extent one person can make a difference.” She wondered “how anybody could listen to Dr. King and not be moved to work toward breaking down these barriers.”

Klein would serve as chairperson of the Franciscan Alliance Board of Trustees, overseeing support for health care. Hofmeyer would work in the alliance’s archives. In 2021, both were living at the Provinciate at St. Francis Convent in Mishawaka, Indiana.

For her part, after Selma, Ebo would go on to serve as a hospital administrator and a chaplain.

In 1968 she helped found the National Black Sisters’ Conference. The woman who had been rejected from several Catholic nursing schools because of her race would serve in her congregation’s leadership as it reunited with another Franciscan order, and she served as a director of social concerns for the Missouri Catholic Conference.

She frequently spoke on civil rights topics. When controversy erupted over a Ferguson, Missouri, police officer’s killing of Michael Brown, a Black man, she led a prayer vigil. She thought the Ferguson protests were comparable to those of Selma.

“I mean, after all, if Mike Brown really did swipe the box of cigars, it’s not the policeman’s place to shoot him dead,” she said.

Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis presided at her requiem Mass in November 2021, saying in a statement: “We will miss her living example of working for justice in the context of our Catholic faith.”

A previous version of this story was first published on Catholic News Agency on Jan. 17, 2022.

Keynote speakers at “The Beauty of Truth: Navigating Society Today as a Catholic Woman” conference, held Jan. 9-10, 2026, in Houston (left to right): Erika Bachiochi, Mary Eberstadt, Angela Franks, Pia de Solenni, and Leah Sargeant. | Credit: Photo courtesy of the University of St. Thomas

Jan 18, 2026 / 10:26 am (CNA).

This past week, nearly a quarter of U.S. states sued the federal government for defining biological sex as binary, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for and against legally allowing males to compete against females in sports, and a Vatican official called surrogacy a “new form of colonialism” that commodifies women and their children.

These are just the latest legal and cultural effects of a “mass cultural confusion” surrounding the meaning and purpose of the human body, and particularly women’s bodies, according to Leah Jacobson, program coordinator of the Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

On Jan. 9–10, the program sponsored a symposium titled “The Beauty of Truth: Navigating Society Today as a Catholic Woman,” which brought together a group of Catholic women who have used their gifts of intellect and faith to serve as what Jacobson calls an “antidote” to the “chaos and confusion” of the cultural moment.

The speakers presented on a wide range of topics concerned with the beauty, truth, and necessity of the Church’s teachings on human sexuality, while also acknowledging how difficult living according to those teachings can sometimes be.

‘Each of these acts is an act of human subtraction’

In one of the first talks, writer Mary Eberstadt argued that the question “Who am I?” became harder to answer due to the widespread use of the birth control pill, which has led to huge increases in abortion, divorce, fatherlessness, single parenthood, and childlessness.

“Each of these acts is an act of human subtraction,” Eberstadt said. “I’m not trying to make a point about morality, but arithmetic.”

“The number of people we can call our own” became smaller, she said.

While she acknowledged that not everyone has been affected equally, “members of our species share a collective environment. Just as toxic waste affects everyone," she said, the reduction in the number of human connections “amounts to a massive disturbance to the human ecosystem,” leading to a crisis of human identity.

This reduction in the number of people in an individual's life, she argued, resulted in widespread confusion over gender identity and the meaning and purpose of the body.

Eberstadt also attributed the decline in religiosity to the smaller number of human connections modern people have.

“The sexual revolution subtracted the number of role models,” she said. “Many children have no siblings, no cousins, no aunts or uncles, no father; yet that is how humans conduct social learning.”

“Without children, adults are less likely to go to church,” she said. “Without birth, we lose knowledge of the transcendent. Without an earthly father, it is hard to grasp the paradigm of a heavenly father.”

‘A love deficit’

“Living without God is not liberating people,” she continued. “It’s tearing some individuals apart, making people miserable and lonely.”

When the sexual revolution made sex "recreational and not procreative, what it produced above all is a love deficit,” Eberstadt said.

At the same time, secularization produced “troubled, disconnected souls drifting through society without gravity, shattering the ability to answer ‘Who am I?’”

“The Church is the answer to the love deficit because Church teachings about who we are and what we’re here for are true,” she said.

She concluded with a final note on hope, saying “it is easy to feel embattled, but we must never lose sight of the faces of the sexual revolution’s victims,” she said, “who are sending up primal screams for a world more ordered than many of today’s people now know; more ordered to mercy, to community and redemption.”

The Church’s teachings were ’truly beautiful’ but 'very, very hard to live'

Erika Bachiochi, a legal scholar and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who has taught a class for the graduate program, shared her experience as a mother of seven who tried to live according to the Church’s “difficult” teachings.

As her children began to arrive at “a breakneck pace” and each pregnancy was “a bit of a crucible,” Bachiochi said being a mother was “very hard” for her, partly due to wounds from her youth (among other troubles, her own mother had been married and divorced three times), and partly because of a lack of community.

Echoing Eberstadt’s “arithmetic” problem, Bachiochi described having very few examples of Catholic family life and a very small support system.

Bachiochi said she believes God heals us from our wounds through our “particular vocations,” however.

Of motherhood, she said: “I think God really healed me through being faithful to teachings that I found quite hard, but truly beautiful. I was intellectually convinced by them and found them spiritually beautiful, but found them to be very, very hard to live.”

“Motherhood has served to heal me profoundly," she said, encouraging young mothers to have faith that though it might be difficult now, there is an “amazing future” awaiting them.

“It’s really an incredible gift that Church has given me ... the gift of obedience,” she said.

She also said by God’s grace, she was given an “excellent husband” and has found that “just as the Church promises, that leaning into motherhood, into the little things, the daily needs, the constant requests for my attention, has truly been a school of virtue.”

The Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies Program is a new part of the Nesti Center for Faith and Culture at the University of St. Thomas, a recognized Catholic cultural center of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education.

Keynote speakers at “The Beauty of Truth: Navigating Society Today as a Catholic Woman” conference, held Jan. 9-10, 2026, in Houston (left to right): Erika Bachiochi, Mary Eberstadt, Angela Franks, Pia de Solenni, and Leah Sargeant. | Credit: Photo courtesy of the University of St. Thomas

Jan 18, 2026 / 10:26 am (CNA).

This past week, nearly a quarter of U.S. states sued the federal government for defining biological sex as binary, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments for and against legally allowing males to compete against females in sports, and a Vatican official called surrogacy a “new form of colonialism” that commodifies women and their children.

These are just the latest legal and cultural effects of a “mass cultural confusion” surrounding the meaning and purpose of the human body, and particularly women’s bodies, according to Leah Jacobson, program coordinator of the Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

On Jan. 9–10, the program sponsored a symposium titled “The Beauty of Truth: Navigating Society Today as a Catholic Woman,” which brought together a group of Catholic women who have used their gifts of intellect and faith to serve as what Jacobson calls an “antidote” to the “chaos and confusion” of the cultural moment.

The speakers presented on a wide range of topics concerned with the beauty, truth, and necessity of the Church’s teachings on human sexuality, while also acknowledging how difficult living according to those teachings can sometimes be.

‘Each of these acts is an act of human subtraction’

In one of the first talks, writer Mary Eberstadt argued that the question “Who am I?” became harder to answer due to the widespread use of the birth control pill, which has led to huge increases in abortion, divorce, fatherlessness, single parenthood, and childlessness.

“Each of these acts is an act of human subtraction,” Eberstadt said. “I’m not trying to make a point about morality, but arithmetic.”

“The number of people we can call our own” became smaller, she said.

While she acknowledged that not everyone has been affected equally, “members of our species share a collective environment. Just as toxic waste affects everyone," she said, the reduction in the number of human connections “amounts to a massive disturbance to the human ecosystem,” leading to a crisis of human identity.

This reduction in the number of people in an individual's life, she argued, resulted in widespread confusion over gender identity and the meaning and purpose of the body.

Eberstadt also attributed the decline in religiosity to the smaller number of human connections modern people have.

“The sexual revolution subtracted the number of role models,” she said. “Many children have no siblings, no cousins, no aunts or uncles, no father; yet that is how humans conduct social learning.”

“Without children, adults are less likely to go to church,” she said. “Without birth, we lose knowledge of the transcendent. Without an earthly father, it is hard to grasp the paradigm of a heavenly father.”

‘A love deficit’

“Living without God is not liberating people,” she continued. “It’s tearing some individuals apart, making people miserable and lonely.”

When the sexual revolution made sex "recreational and not procreative, what it produced above all is a love deficit,” Eberstadt said.

At the same time, secularization produced “troubled, disconnected souls drifting through society without gravity, shattering the ability to answer ‘Who am I?’”

“The Church is the answer to the love deficit because Church teachings about who we are and what we’re here for are true,” she said.

She concluded with a final note on hope, saying “it is easy to feel embattled, but we must never lose sight of the faces of the sexual revolution’s victims,” she said, “who are sending up primal screams for a world more ordered than many of today’s people now know; more ordered to mercy, to community and redemption.”

The Church’s teachings were ’truly beautiful’ but 'very, very hard to live'

Erika Bachiochi, a legal scholar and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center who has taught a class for the graduate program, shared her experience as a mother of seven who tried to live according to the Church’s “difficult” teachings.

As her children began to arrive at “a breakneck pace” and each pregnancy was “a bit of a crucible,” Bachiochi said being a mother was “very hard” for her, partly due to wounds from her youth (among other troubles, her own mother had been married and divorced three times), and partly because of a lack of community.

Echoing Eberstadt’s “arithmetic” problem, Bachiochi described having very few examples of Catholic family life and a very small support system.

Bachiochi said she believes God heals us from our wounds through our “particular vocations,” however.

Of motherhood, she said: “I think God really healed me through being faithful to teachings that I found quite hard, but truly beautiful. I was intellectually convinced by them and found them spiritually beautiful, but found them to be very, very hard to live.”

“Motherhood has served to heal me profoundly," she said, encouraging young mothers to have faith that though it might be difficult now, there is an “amazing future” awaiting them.

“It’s really an incredible gift that Church has given me ... the gift of obedience,” she said.

She also said by God’s grace, she was given an “excellent husband” and has found that “just as the Church promises, that leaning into motherhood, into the little things, the daily needs, the constant requests for my attention, has truly been a school of virtue.”

The Catholic Women’s and Gender Studies Program is a new part of the Nesti Center for Faith and Culture at the University of St. Thomas, a recognized Catholic cultural center of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education.

Pope Leo XIV waves to crowds in St. Peter's Square after praying the Angelus on Jan. 18, 2026. | Credit: Vatican Media

Jan 18, 2026 / 09:44 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Sunday urged prayers for peace in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as violence in the country’s east continues to drive families from their homes and across borders.

“Many have been forced to flee their country – especially to Burundi – due to violence, and they are facing a serious humanitarian crisis,” the pope said after praying the Angelus in St. Peter’s Square on Jan. 18. “Let us pray that dialogue for reconciliation and peace may always prevail among the parties in conflict.”

Leo also assured those affected by severe flooding in southern Africa of his prayers.

The pope also marked the start of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

“During these days, I invite all Catholic communities to deepen their prayers for the full, visible unity of all Christians,” Leo said, recalling that “the origins of this initiative date back two centuries,” and noting that Pope Leo XIII “greatly encouraged it.”

The theme for this year’s observance is drawn from St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling” (4:4). The prayers and reflections, the pope said, were prepared by “an ecumenical group coordinated by the Armenian Apostolic Church’s Department of Interchurch Relations.”

In his reflection before praying the Angelus, Leo connected the call to peace and unity with a warning against what he described as a culture of appearances, urging the faithful to follow the example of St. John the Baptist, who stepped aside once he had pointed others to Christ.

The day’s Gospel reading (Jn 1:29-34), the pope noted, shows John identifying Jesus as the Messiah: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (v. 29). John’s humility remains a needed witness, Leo said, because “approval, consensus and visibility are often given excessive importance, to the point of shaping people’s ideas, behaviors and even their inner lives.”

“This causes suffering and division, and gives rise to lifestyles and relationships that are fragile, disappointing and imprisoning,” the pope said.

Instead of chasing what he called “substitutes for happiness,” Leo said Christians should remember that “our joy and greatness are not founded on passing illusions of success or fame, but on knowing ourselves to be loved and wanted by our heavenly Father.”

Leo emphasized that God’s love is not about spectacle but about closeness and compassion: “The love of which Jesus speaks is the love of a God who even today comes among us, not to dazzle us with spectacular displays, but to share in our struggles and to take our burdens upon himself.”

He concluded by urging believers to resist distractions and cultivate prayer and simplicity: “Let us not waste our time and energies chasing after appearances,” he said, encouraging Catholics to make time each day, when possible, for silence and prayer — “to withdraw into the desert,” in order to meet the Lord.

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

Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond. | Credit: Katie Yoder/EWTN News; photo courtesy of the Archdiocese of Washington

Jan 18, 2026 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The Virginia Catholic bishops on Friday spoke out against an abortion amendment that would remove state protections for unborn children, calling the measure “extreme.”

The Virginia General Assembly passed a proposed amendment that would add a fundamental right to abortion to Virginia’s constitution, if voters approve it this November.

The proposed abortion amendment would establish a “fundamental right to reproductive freedom, including the ability to make and carry out decisions relating to one’s own prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, abortion care, miscarriage management, and fertility care.”

Bishops Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Barry Knestout of Richmond called the move “shocking to the conscience,” noting that lawmakers quickly moved the proposed amendment through both chambers in the early days of its 60-day session.

“The extreme abortion amendment, which will proceed to a referendum for voters to decide later this year, would go far beyond even what Roe v. Wade previously allowed,” the bishops said in the Jan. 16 statement. “It would enshrine virtually unlimited abortion at any stage of pregnancy, with no age restriction.”

The bishops cautioned that the amendment would “severely jeopardize Virginia’s parental consent law, health and safety standards for women, conscience protections for health care providers, and restrictions on taxpayer-funded abortions.”

“Most tragically of all, the extreme abortion amendment provides no protections whatsoever for preborn children,” the bishops continued.

“Most importantly, human life is sacred,” the bishops said. “The lives of vulnerable mothers and their preborn children must always be welcomed, cared for, and protected.”

“Parental rights and the health and well-being of minors must be defended,” the bishops said. “So too must religious liberty. No one should ever be forced to pay for or participate in an abortion. Health and safety should be enhanced, not diminished.”

In addition, the bishops urged Virginia voters to oppose a measure that would repeal a 2006 provision defining marriage as between one man and one woman. The bishops also expressed support for a measure that would restore voting rights to those who have completed prison sentences.

“We will be deeply engaged in the work of helping to educate voters on these proposed amendments and will fight the extreme abortion amendment with maximum determination,” the bishops concluded.

The joint statement followed a statement by Burbidge, who on Jan. 15 urged Catholics to “to pray, fast, and advocate for the cause of life” amid the “looming threat” of the abortion amendment.

“Prayer opens our hearts to God’s wisdom and strengthens us to act with courage and charity,” Burbidge wrote. “Fasting makes reparation for sin and reminds us that true freedom is found not in self-indulgence but in self-gift. Advocacy allows us to bring our convictions into the public square with respect, clarity, and perseverance.”

“Our response as Catholics — and as citizens committed to justice — must be rooted in faith, truth, and love,” he continued.

Burbidge also reminded Catholics of the mercy of the Church. 

“It is essential to reaffirm a truth that lies at the very center of the Church’s pro-life mission: The Church is a loving mother,” Burbidge continued. “To any man or woman who carries the pain, regret, or sorrow of participation in abortion, know this clearly — you are not alone, and God awaits you with love and mercy. The Church desires to walk with you on a journey of healing and hope.”

“May we together pray fervently, act courageously, and serve generously,” Burbidge said. “May our witness help build a culture in Virginia — and beyond — that recognizes every human life as sacred, every person as beloved, and every moment as an opportunity to choose life.”

A woman receives a baby shower at her local church through Embrace Grace. | Credit: Embrace Grace

Jan 18, 2026 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Amy Ford was 19 years old when she found herself with an unplanned pregnancy. Scared and thinking her life and dreams were over, she attempted to get an abortion but was unable to go through with it.

Ford and the baby’s father turned to their church for support and received none. The experience led her to create Embrace Grace, a nonprofit that provides support and community through local churches for pregnant mothers in need.

The story behind the ministry

Ford told EWTN News that she thought “my life was over, my dreams were over, that my parents were going to hate me.” She said she thought she would end up homeless.

“The father of the baby felt the same way and we just thought we could have an abortion and maybe that’s a quick fix and we’ll just deal with the consequences of a broken heart later. And even though we grew up knowing abortion was wrong, we just kind of went into this mode of trying not to feel anything,” Ford recalled.

So, she went to an abortion clinic. As the nurses explained what they were going to do during the procedure, Ford began to hyperventilate and passed out. She was told she was “too emotionally distraught” to make a decision and that she could go back to the abortion clinic another day.

As she walked into the waiting room, she told the baby’s father that she was still pregnant. At that moment, the two decided they would keep the child. The high school sweethearts knew they wanted to get married one day; they just didn’t expect to have a child before marriage.

The two went to an evangelical pastor whom they knew personally to ask him if he could marry them.

“He said, ‘No, I’m sorry, because you sinned I will not bless this marriage,’” Ford shared.

The couple found another pastor to marry them and got married when Ford was 16 weeks pregnant. They tried going back to their church after that but it was “the elephant in the room” — others changed how they interacted with them and they decided to stop attending church for a period of time.

Ford and her husband welcomed their son — who is now 27 years old and also works in the pro-life movement — and have been married for 27 years, welcoming three more children after their firstborn.

Helping women

Looking back at her experience, Ford felt called to help women who found themselves in these situations, not sure where to go, and weren’t aware of the resources available to them. So she started a small group at her church for women who were experiencing an unexpected pregnancy.

Ford admitted that back then she didn’t know what a pregnancy center was or what the pro-life movement was.

“If someone would have said, ‘I work in the pro-life movement,’ I would have assumed that meant picketing because that’s the only thing the media shows,” she admitted. “I didn’t know what a pregnancy center was even when I started Embrace Grace, the group. I didn’t know anything about it. So, I never thought, ‘I’m starting a pro-life group.’ That wasn’t even on my mind. I just wanted to start a small group for women that have unexpected pregnancies.”

In 2008 Ford hosted her first group, which was made up of three women who met at a local church in the Dallas-Forth Worth area. After meeting for 12 weeks as a group, “they didn’t even seem like the same person by the end of it,” Ford recalled.

“They had completely transformed. They were empowered as women to be the moms that God created them to be.”

After the first group, Ford held another Embrace Grace session, and another and another. With each passing session, more and more young women were attending and slowly more and more churches were getting involved.

Today, Embrace Grace is in over 1,200 churches across the country — mostly in evangelical, Baptist, and Catholic churches.

A woman who joins an Embrace Grace group goes through a 12-week curriculum that aims to help her experience healing and remind her of who God made her to be as a daughter of God and a mother. Additionally, the church hosting the group throws each woman a baby shower.

Embrace Grace also has two other programs: Embrace Life and Embrace Legacy.

Embrace Life is a 20-week program that teaches the women more practical skills in terms of parenting, the newborn phase and postpartum, how to manage finances, and more. Embrace Legacy is a 12-week program aimed at new or single fathers.

Ford hopes that Embrace Grace serves as a tool of “courage and the bridge to get them actually going to church and raising their kids in the church and being a part of a spiritual family.”

The nondenominational nonprofit also works in partnership with local pregnancy centers that are within a 30-mile radius of a church that hosts an Embrace Grace group by giving them what they call “Love Boxes” to give women who find out they are pregnant and are seeking support. The Love Box contains a onesie with the words “Best Gift Ever,” a book called “A Bump in Life” — which contains 20 testimonies from women who chose life — a journal, a handwritten letter encouraging a new mother, and an invitation to join the local Embrace Grace group.

“Because most pregnancy centers have sonogram machines, that means they’re medical, which means they have HIPAA laws that they have to abide by. So, they can’t just give the church the girl’s name,” Ford explained. “So these Love Boxes are kind of a way, another touch, for the mom to find out more … and that there’s a church that wants to walk alongside you.”

Embrace Grace recently reached a milestone by giving out 150,000 Love Boxes since its launch in 2018.

Looking ahead, Ford’s goal is to be in 23,400 churches. If that number sounds specific, that’s because it is. By using different tools, Ford and her team concluded that if they want every woman who finds herself in an unplanned pregnancy to be able to turn to a church for support, Embrace Grace needs to be in “23,400 churches strategically placed around the United States … so that no mom would ever have to walk alone.”

“We are just putting it out there, trying to partner with as many churches as possible, so that we can make that happen,” she said. “That is our big dream. That that’s what the world would look like — that no mom would have to walk alone and that she would have a church to turn to in her local area.”

“I believe in leading Embrace Grace, we have front-row seats to miracles.”