Ss. Cyril and Methodius Ukrainian Catholic Church

The 52nd annual March for Life will have as its theme “Every Life: Why We March.” / Credit: Photo courtesy of March for Life

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 10, 2025 / 13:50 pm (CNA).

The March for Life Education and Defense Fund this week unveiled its speaker list for the 2025 March for Life on Friday, Jan. 24, with the lineup including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Rep. Chris Smith from New Jersey, and Live Action President Lila Rose.

Toledo Bishop Daniel Thomas, the chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, will also speak at the event. 

“We are overjoyed to welcome these inspiring pro-life leaders at this year’s 52nd March for Life,” Jeanne Mancini, the president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, said in a Jan. 9 statement. 

“For the past 52 years, the March for Life has powerfully witnessed to the tragedy of abortion while calling for stronger protections for women and the unborn,” Mancini said. 

“This year’s speakers will address the 2025 theme — ‘Life: Why We March,’ which reminds us of the basic truth that every life has inherent human dignity from the start.”

The rally will begin at noon and the march at 1 p.m.

DeSantis, who is Catholic, signed legislation in April 2023 to prohibit abortion in Florida once the unborn child’s heartbeat can be detected, which occurs at about six weeks into pregnancy. 

The state had a referendum in 2024 to establish a legal right to abortion in the state constitution. The measure failed to reach the 60% threshold needed to pass. DeSantis campaigned strongly against the proposal. 

Smith, who is also Catholic, co-chairs the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus and has an A+ rating from Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America for votes in defense of the unborn. 

Rose, another Catholic, founded the pro-life nonprofit Live Action in 2003 when she was 15 years old.

Other speakers include Bethany Hamilton, who is a professional surfer, mother, and pro-life advocate; Josiah Presley, an abortion survivor; and Dr. Catherine Wheeler, a former abortionist who is now a pro-life obstetrician.

Also speaking will be Beverly Jacobson, CEO of Mama Bear Care; the Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison, president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod; Jennie Bradley Lichter, president-elect of the March for Life; and Hannah Lape, a student and president for the Wheaton College Voice for Life.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the March for Life at this pivotal moment, and I couldn’t be more excited to share the stage this year with dedicated elected officials, pro-life leaders, and other great Americans who will share their testimonies about why they fight for Life,” Lichter said in a statement. 

“There is nothing else like the March for Life, and this year’s lineup is a reminder of the enduring strength of our movement.”

The Christian rock band Unspoken will perform before the rally. Julie Stone, who owns Sopranojam Music Studio in Mountville, Pennsylvania, will perform the national anthem.

President Joe Biden speaks to the media on the federal response to the Los Angeles wildfires at the White House on Jan. 9, 2025, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Jan 10, 2025 / 12:05 pm (CNA).

President Joe Biden has canceled his upcoming visit to Italy — what would have been the final diplomatic trip of his presidency and which included a planned meeting with Pope Francis — in order to address the ongoing deadly wildfires in Southern California.

Biden was set to travel to Rome from Jan. 9–12 at Pope Francis’ invitation. His audience with the Holy Father was set for Jan. 10.

In a statement this week, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that after returning from Los Angeles where he met with officials fighting the ongoing blazes, Biden “made the decision to cancel his upcoming trip to Italy.”

The president canceled the trip “to remain focused on directing the full federal response in the days ahead,” Jean-Pierre said.

The president’s planned meeting with the pope was set to focus on efforts to advance peace around the world. Biden was also scheduled to meet with Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Biden last met with Pope Francis in June of last year where the two discussed foreign policy in Israel, Gaza, and the Ukraine as well as climate change.

During a private audience at the G7 Summit in Apulia, Italy, the two leaders “emphasized the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire and a hostage deal” in Gaza and the need to “address the critical humanitarian crisis,” according to the White House.

Los Angeles archdiocesan officials and local Church leaders have been working this week to shelter and assist victims of the wildfires as the blazes consume entire neighborhoods and lay waste to significant portions of the suburban area.

One of the fires destroyed Corpus Christi Catholic Church and has forced the closure of dozens of Catholic schools. Numerous other churches in the area have also been destroyed.

Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez in a social media post urged the faithful to “keep praying for all those suffering” in the wildfires.

“My heart goes out to our neighbors who have lost their homes and livelihoods,” the prelate said. “Let’s pray for them and let’s pray for our firefighters and first responders. May God keep all of our brothers and sisters safe and bring [an] end to these fires!”

From left to right, front row: U.S. President Joe Biden, First Lady Lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamla Harris, Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff. Second row: former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President George W. Bush, his wife Laura Bush, former President Barack Obama, President-elect Donald Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, attend the state funeral service for former U.S. President Jimmy Carter at the Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 9, 2025. / Credit: Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 9, 2025 / 18:20 pm (CNA).

U.S. President Joe Biden praised former President Jimmy Carter’s character and referred to him as a “good and faithful servant of God” in his eulogy of the country’s 39th president during a funeral service at Washington National Cathedral on Thursday, Jan. 9. 

“The man had character,” Biden said during the service, which was attended by every living former U.S. president, numerous lawmakers, six Supreme Court justices, several celebrities, and Carter’s family. 

“Jimmy held a deep Christian faith in God,” Biden said. “Faith founded on commandments of Scripture: Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy mind and all thy soul and love thy neighbor as thyself. Easy to say, but very, very difficult to do.”

Biden, the nation’s second Catholic president, was one of several people to eulogize Carter, a lifelong Baptist. Various speakers referenced Carter’s legacy both in and out of public office, his peace and humanitarian efforts, and his faith in Christ.

Three of Carter’s grandchildren spoke at the service, as did Steven Ford, the son of former President Gerald Ford; and Ted Mondale, the son of former Vice President Walter Mondale, who both read eulogies drafted by their fathers, both of whom died before Carter.

Biden, who was one of the first elected officials outside of Georgia to endorse Carter’s 1976 presidential campaign, said that endorsement was based on “Jimmy Carter’s enduring attribute: character, character, character.”

“Through it all, he showed us how character and faith start with ourselves and then flow to others,” Biden said. “At our best, we share the better parts of ourselves: joy, solidarity, love, commitment. Not for reward, but in reverence to the incredible gift of life we’ve all been granted to make every minute of our time here on Earth count. That’s the definition of a good life — the life Jimmy Carter lived in his 100 years.”

'Imagine' seen as incoherent

The service included Christian hymns such as “Amazing Grace,” “Be Still My Soul,” and “Eternal Father, Strong to Save.” The service also included the song “Imagine” by John Lennon, which is not a Christian song but rather includes the lyrics “imagine there’s no heaven” and “no religion too.” 

Although Carter had spoken positively of the song during his lifetime, to many observers, such as Bishop Robert Barron, the selection struck a discordant note.

“Vested ministers sat patiently while a hymn to atheistic humanism was sung,” Barron said in a post on X. “This was not only an insult to the memory of a devoutly believing Christian but also an indicator of the spinelessness of too much of established religion in our country.”

Carter’s grandson, James Carter, offered the Gospel reading from Matthew 5:1-16, which includes the Beatitudes.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,” he read in part. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. … Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

One of Carter’s other grandsons, Josh Carter, read verses from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, which he said was the bedrock of his grandfather’s faith. 

“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because through Christ Jesus the law has set me free from the law of sin and death,” he read from Romans 8:1-18. “For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin and sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the spirit.”

As a national figure, President Carter was known for speaking often about his Christian faith and spent much of his life engaged in humanitarian work. However, he also supported legal abortion and later in life expressed his support for homosexual marriage.

Family, friends remember Carter’s legacy and faith

In addition to reading from Romans, grandson Josh Carter spoke at length about his grandfather’s many decades of humanitarian work and teaching Sunday school, which he described as a central part of his life.

“My grandfather spent the entire time I’ve known him helping those in need,” Josh Carter said. “He built houses for people in need of homes. He eliminated diseases in forgotten places. He waged peace anywhere in the world, wherever he saw a chance. He loved people. And whenever he told these stories in Sunday school, he always said he did it for one simple reason: He worshipped the Prince of Peace.”

Steven Ford, the son of former President Gerald Ford, read the eulogy for Carter that his father wrote before his own death. Carter defeated Ford in the 1976 election and the eulogy noted the formerly fierce competition between the two but also “one of my deepest and most enduring friendships.”

“It was because of our shared values that Jimmy and I respected each other as adversaries, even before we cherished one another as dear friends,” the eulogy read. “... Jimmy learned early on that it was not enough merely to bear witness in a pew on a Sunday morning. Inspired by his faith, he pursued brotherhood across boundaries of nationhood, across boundaries of tradition, across boundaries of caste. In America’s urban neighborhoods and in rural villages around the world, he reminded us that Christ had been a carpenter.” 

Ted Mondale, the son of former Vice President Walter Mondale who served under Carter, also read his father’s eulogy, which focused on the 39th president’s Christian faith and his support for human rights globally. 

“Carter was a devout Christian who grew up in a small town and was active in his faith for almost every moment of his life,” the eulogy read. “I was also a small-town kid who grew up in a Methodist church where my dad was the preacher and our faith was core to me, as Carter’s faith was core to him. That common commitment to our faith created a bond between us that allowed us to understand each other and find ways to work together.”

null / Credit: GBJSTOCK|Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jan 9, 2025 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

Pro-life groups are criticizing a burgeoning effort to expand use of the abortion pill through pharmacist prescriptions, slamming what one advocate called an effort at “chipping away at medical standards for women.”

A pilot program launched this month in Washington state has trained pharmacists to prescribe the abortion-drug combo mifepristone and misoprostol to women seeking abortions. 

The initiative — launched by the pro-abortion group Uplift International and dubbed the “Pharmacist Abortion Access Project” — uses the online pharmacy Honeybee Health to distribute the drugs. Uplift said it plans to eventually expand the program in “brick-and-mortar pharmacies” as well.

The program “is expected to be tried in other states where abortion remains legal,” the New York Times reported this week. 

Michael Hogue, the chief executive of the American Pharmacists Association, told the newspaper: “I think it is going to expand, and it is expanding.”

Abortions done via medication, also called chemical abortions, currently account for about half of the abortions that are done in the United States every year. Abortion drugs are used to end the life of an unborn child up to about 10 weeks into a pregnancy.

‘Women’s lives and future fertility are at risk’

Kristi Hamrick, the vice president of media and policy at the pro-life Students for Life Action, told CNA that pharmacists “should be horrified” at the effort to “co-opt their businesses into the abortion network.”

“The abortion lobby’s interest in expanding the number of people risking women’s lives and ending the lives of babies in the womb knows no limits,” she said. “Death is their intention.” 

Beth Rivin, the president and CEO of Uplift International, said this week that research “confirms that medication abortion can be prescribed through telehealth just as safely as in person.” Hamrick disputed the claim.

“Without proper screening for blood type or by ultrasound, women’s lives and future fertility are at risk,” she said. “Without in-person verification, abusers can get chemical abortion pills to use against women without their knowledge or consent. Pharmacists are not set up for that.”

She also raised the possibility of “future pharmacists who are working to distribute life-affirming care and instead may be forced to deliberately end precious lives.”

Dr. Ingrid Skop, an obstetrician and the vice president and director of medical affairs at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, told CNA that “pharmacists, who do not receive clinical training, should not be distributing these dangerous drugs.”

“By pushing these medically unsupervised abortions, the FDA and abortion advocates continue down the slippery slope of chipping away at medical standards for women seeking abortion,” she said. “This is not health care.”

The effort comes as lawmakers have been pushing to restrict abortion, including abortion pills, in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s repeal in June 2022. 

Many states restrict the use of abortion pills, specifically the first drug in the two-drug regimen, mifepristone. 

Several states have banned the pills entirely while others have passed restrictions on abortion pills designed to protect women, including requirements that only physicians may dispense them. The pills are broadly available in 21 states.

The Supreme Court last June unanimously ruled against a physician-led challenge to the drugs, rejecting an attempt by advocates to impose stricter regulations by claiming that they lacked standing to bring the suit. 

Three states picked up the lawsuit in October, arguing that “women should have the in-person care of a doctor when taking high-risk drugs.” The lawsuit said abortion drugs were “flooding” the plaintiff state and “sending women … to the emergency room.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against an abortionist in New York in December, alleging that she illegally provided abortion drugs to a woman in Texas, which killed the unborn child and caused serious health complications for the mother.

Hamrick said the pharmacy initiative raises numerous risks, including dangers to women’s lives and future fertility.

“This is a terrible idea that benefits only the industry profiting from pill pushing,” she said.

The U.S. Department of Education building in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Justin Kozemchak/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 9, 2025 / 13:45 pm (CNA).

A Department of Education rule to ban discrimination against a person’s self-asserted “gender identity” in K–12 schools and colleges was blocked nationwide by a federal court in Kentucky on Thursday, Jan. 9.

The court’s decision to strike down the rule is being hailed as a major victory by opponents of the regulation. With President-elect Donald Trump heading into office in less than two weeks, an appeal from the federal government is highly unlikely, essentially rendering the rule dead.

The rule, implemented by President Joe Biden’s administration, reinterprets the Title IX ban on “sex” discrimination to include a ban on “gender identity” discrimination even though the phrase “gender identity” does not appear anywhere in the 1972 law.

Judge Danny C. Reeves of the District Court of the Eastern District of Kentucky ruled that the department “exceeded its statutory authority” in implementing the rule and found that the rule itself violates the United States Constitution because it would “chill speech” related to gender ideology and because it is “vague and overbroad” in how it is written.

The lawsuit against the Biden administration’s Title IX rule change was brought by attorneys general in six states: West Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia. State officials warned the rule would override state laws that separate athletics, bathrooms, locker rooms, and dormitories on the basis of biological sex.

“This is a victory not only for the rule of law, but also for common sense and the safety of every student,” West Virginia Attorney General and Governor-elect Patrick Morrisey said in a statement.

“The Biden administration’s Title IX revisions would have ended sex-based protections for biological women in all aspects of education, and this would have marked a retreat from the progress women have made,” he added.

Reeves wrote in his ruling that the Title IX prohibition on sex discrimination is “abundantly clear” that the law refers to discrimination “on the basis of being male or female.” He wrote that “there is nothing in the text or statutory design of Title IX to suggest that discrimination ‘on the basis of sex’ means anything other than it has since Title IX’s inception.”

“The entire point of Title IX is to prevent discrimination based on sex — throwing gender identity into the mix eviscerates the statute and renders it largely meaningless,” the court order read.

According to Reeves, if the department interpreted Title IX’s ban on sex-based harassment to include “gender identity,” it would “chill speech or compel affirmance of a belief with which the speaker disagrees” in regard to speech related to the use of certain pronouns or about other aspects of gender ideology. He found that this violates the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. 

“The plaintiffs reasonably fear that teachers’ (and others’) speech concerning gender issues or their failure to use gender-identity-based pronouns would constitute harassment under the final rule,” the court order read.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) President and General Counsel Kristen Waggoner called the court order “a colossal win for women and girls across the country” in a statement. ADF is representing a West Virginia high-school female athlete and Christian Educators Association International in the lawsuit.

“This ruling provides enormous relief for students across the country, including our client who has already suffered harassment by a male student in the locker room and on her sports team,” Waggoner said. 

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti called the court order a “massive win for [Tennessee] and the country” in a post on X. 

“The court’s order is [a] resounding victory for the protection of girls’ privacy in locker rooms and showers, and for the freedom to speak biologically-accurate pronouns,” he said.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares wrote in a post on X: “All of America is now safe from Biden’s attempt to undermine half a century of landmark protections for women.”

Prior to this ruling, the enforcement of the Biden administration’s Title IX rule was already halted in more than half of the country. Numerous state attorneys general and athletic associations had challenged the rule across the country.

Trump has promised to reverse the Biden administration’s promotion of gender ideology in federal regulations, vowing to “stop the transgender lunacy” on his first day in office.

A large sycamore tree and a chimney are seen at the remains of the home of parishioners from St. Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica, California, on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2025. / Credit: Photo courtesy of St. Monica Catholic Church

CNA Staff, Jan 9, 2025 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

Archdiocesan officials and local Church leaders in Los Angeles are working to shelter and assist victims of the ongoing wildfires there as the blaze consumes entire neighborhoods and lays waste to significant portions of the suburban area. 

The fires began on Tuesday, Jan. 7, and quickly spread via dry conditions and hurricane-force Santa Ana winds blowing in from the east. As of Thursday morning multiple fires were raging unchecked across thousands of acres as firefighters worked to get the blazes under control. 

One of the fires has destroyed Corpus Christi Catholic Church and has forced the closure of 65 Catholic schools, according to archdiocesan officials. Numerous other churches in the area have also been destroyed. 

Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez in a social media post urged the faithful to “keep praying for all those suffering” in the wildfires. 

“My heart goes out to our neighbors who have lost their homes and livelihoods,” the prelate said. “Let’s pray for them and let’s pray for our firefighters and first responders. May God keep all of our brothers and sisters safe and bring [an] end to these fires!”

‘Dozens and dozens of parishioners and school families who have lost everything’

Church leaders and officials in the area were scrambling through the week to address the growing humanitarian crisis caused by the fires. 

Multiple local parishes “opened their doors to families evacuated from their homes,” Angelus News, the magazine of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, reported on Wednesday.

St. Monica Catholic Church in Santa Monica offered residents refreshments and charging stations for their phones late into the night on Tuesday, Angelus reported. 

Merrick Siebenaler, the director of parish life, told the news outlet the church was seeing “dozens and dozens of parishioners and school families who have lost everything.”

By Wednesday the parish was forced to close amid advancing wildfires. Sacred Heart Church in nearby Lincoln Heights, meanwhile, offered the city its auditorium as a resource center for evacuees. 

“We’re here to help out,” Father Tesfaldet Asghedom, the pastor at Sacred Heart, told Angelus. 

Dozens of Catholic schools in the region were closed on Thursday due to “proximity to fire, poor air quality and wind damage, staffing challenges, and nearby power outages.” 

One of the schools, Mayfield Senior in Pasadena, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday: “Our hearts are broken at the damage and destruction caused by the fires currently raging in our area.” 

The school “has not been directly impacted by the fire,” but “the campus is strewn with debris and downed tree limbs and will need a major cleanup,” the post said.

The school “will respond to this crisis as a community of faith and compassion grounded in our Holy Child mission, helping one another during this difficult time.”

Another, La Salle College Preparatory also in Pasadena, said on its website that the school would be closed until Monday, at which point it would be open “for students who need to be dropped off due to parent/guardian work obligations.” Classes would not resume until Tuesday at the earliest, it said. 

“Please know that the safety and well-being of our entire school community is our top priority,” the school said. It invited community members to either share if they had been impacted by the fires or offer support to those who had been. 

On X, Colorado-based Father David Nix said in a post that he had spoken to a friend in Los Angeles whose neighborhood had suffered terrible devastation from the fires. 

“Many of the homes around him burned down, but his home had the purple scapular and they doused the home in holy water (and that family lives a very holy life),” the priest said. 

“Miraculously, their home is fine. Pray for all the others in the area (and them too),” he wrote. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday declared a state of emergency over the fires. On Wednesday he wrote on X that “more than 7,500 firefighting personnel are on the ground working with local and federal partners” to respond to the crisis.

“Southern California residents — please remain vigilant tonight,” the governor said.
“Listen to local officials and be ready to evacuate if you’re near impacted areas.”

In Pasadena, meanwhile, St. Andrew School Principal Jae Kim told Angelus: “Every hour, I’m getting a phone call from another family who’s lost everything.”

“You can hug them, pray with them, listen to them as best you can,” Kim told the outlet. “What else is there to do?”

Sister Tonia of the Heart of Jesus Borsellino at the booth for the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament at SEEK25 in Salt Lake City on Jan. 3, 2025. / Credit: Kate Quiñones/CNA

CNA Staff, Jan 9, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Before Sister Tonia of the Heart of Jesus Borsellino became a religious sister of the Mercedarians of the Blessed Sacrament, she was an intern for Catholic News Agency (CNA).

Sister Tonia shared her discernment story with CNA last week at SEEK25 in Salt Lake City — one of many SEEK conferences she has attended, both as a student and as a religious sister. 

In 2017, when Sister Tonia was in the midst of her discernment process, she attended a SEEK conference — not as a participant but as a reporter for CNA. It was at that conference that she had an experience that confirmed her call to her vocation. 

In December 2016, she had visited the Mercedarian Sisters for a “Come and See,” shortly before she left for SEEK 2017 in San Antonio. At the event, Sister Tonia sought spiritual direction and decided to apply to the community — but she still wasn’t sure she was called to be a sister.

“I was unsure — was this the right answer?” she recalled thinking. 

This internal dilemma played out in her mind while she interviewed a Catholic speaker for CNA. 

“I was interviewing this Catholic speaker, and at the end, he just looked at me and said, ‘I just need to tell you something’ and that the Holy Spirit was telling him to tell me how much God loves me,” she said.

“I just got emotional and I knew that the Lord was saying, ‘I’m confirming and leading you to be my bride,’” Sister Tonia said.

Years later, Sister Tonia has returned to SEEK as a religious sister. When asked how it feels to return as a fully professed sister, she said: “It’s amazing.”

“There’s a lot of awe of how the Lord works and how his hand is on everything,” Sister Tonia said.

“To be here at SEEK and to see I was there as one of these students and that the Lord has done so much since then — there’s just a lot of pondering in my heart, like Mary, of how the Lord works, how his love is so much more than I could have thought.”

Sister Tonia shared her gratitude that SEEK provides this opportunity “to encounter Jesus and to learn more about our faith and to have these opportunities to meet different religious communities.”

Along with keynote talks, breakout sessions, and prayer opportunities, SEEK gathers apostolates, religious orders, and other Catholic organizations together in “Mission Way,” a large area of booths that SEEK attendees can visit.

It was actually at SEEK where a couple of Sister Tonia’s college friends — who later went on to become sisters in the same order — first encountered the Mercedarian sisters.

Sister Tonia — who was studying at University of Florida in Gainesville at the time — was deeply involved in campus ministry with several friends. While at SEEK, members of the campus ministry invited the Mercedarians to join a retreat they were hosting on campus. 

Several of Sister Tonia’s friends from campus ministry then went on to join the Mercedarians after college, which was how Sister Tonia first got to know her community.

“My friends were entering with the community, and I saw them and how they became more fully themselves,” Sister Tonia recalled. “I got to know the community a little bit through them.”

The Mercedarian sisters in Sister Tonia’s junior year of college started a community in Gainesville, Florida, to minister to the University of Florida.

“I got to see their day-to-day life and really get to know them,” Sister Tonia recalled.

When she graduated from the University of Florida in 2017, Sister Tonia joined the Mercedarian Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and professed her final vows on April 3, 2024.

Sister Tonia said she had considered other communities for their apostolates, looking for something related to communications. But her vocation director advised her to “look at the spirituality of the community.”

“The spirituality, the charism never changes,” Sister Tonia said. “Our charism is about the Eucharist and redemption through the Eucharist — spreading the love of the Eucharist through education and evangelization of children and youth.” 

“And that was my heart,” she continued. “Desiring to bring people to know Jesus in the Eucharist felt like home, and the sisters felt like family. So the Lord was slowly prompting my heart to see that this was where he was leading me.” 

The community is contemplative and active, meaning they pray for more than four hours every day in addition to serving their apostolates. On top of this, the sisters have a silent hour of Eucharistic adoration.

“Our day starts with the Eucharist, then we go out then to our apostolates,” Sister Tonia explained. She serves in campus ministry three days a week and runs the communications for the community at the regional house in Baton Rouge, where she has been for the past four years.

The Mercedarian sisters have more than 400 religious sisters in 12 different countries — and the community is growing in the U.S. They recently opened a new house of formation in Baton Rouge in addition to the community of professed sisters there.

“It’s incredible to see how the Lord works,” Sister Tonia said. “Now I get to use all these gifts and talents that I’ve studied or just learned along the way, and I get to bring that to continue to build the Eucharistic kingdom for our community.” 

A connection to EWTN 

While she was personally discerning religious life, Sister Tonia was a guest on EWTN’s “Life on the Rock” where she shared about the campus ministry work she was involved in at University of Florida. She was telling a story about how the campus ministry would reach out to students to invite them to light a candle and pray before Jesus in Eucharistic adoration. 

“As I’m explaining this on the show, I’m getting really passionate, and the host of the show says, ‘Well, forget about communications; just go be a sister,’” Sister Tonia recalled.

She said the comment by co-host Doug Barry “caught me very off guard.”

“My face turned super red because I was thinking about religious life. All these thoughts were in my prayer, and I was not expecting him to say that,” Sister Tonia recalled. “It was a little way of the Lord speaking through it.”

When asked what her advice would be to others who are discerning, Sister Tonia said to “ask the Lord to lead.”

“Our vocations are not something for us to figure out. They’re not a puzzle,” she said. “It’s through our relationship with the Lord that he leads us to our vocation.”

She noted that “our primary vocation is holiness.”

“So what does your prayer life look like? How are you in communion with the Lord?” she asked.

She advised those who are discerning to focus on “building that relationship with him, spending time in adoration, just receiving his love, and then following where he leads.”

“It’s all in him,” Sister Tonia added.

Sister Tonia’s archival story on SEEK 2017 in San Antonio can be found here.

Firefighters run as a brush fire burns in Pacific Palisades, California, on Jan. 7, 2025. A fast-moving brushfire in a Los Angeles suburb burned buildings and sparked evacuations as “life-threatening” winds whipped the region. / Credit: David Swanson/AFP via Getty Images

Seattle, Wash., Jan 8, 2025 / 21:58 pm (CNA).

A raging wildfire in the Pacific Palisades sector of Los Angeles has destroyed Corpus Christi Catholic Church and forced the closure of 65 Catholic schools, archdiocesan officials said. 

An image shared by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles shows the church reduced to a steel frame. Announcing the “terrible sad news of our church” on Corpus Christi’s website, Father Liam Kidney indicated that “the priests are safe with family and friends.”

Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez urged prayers on social media, writing: “Please keep praying for all those suffering in the wildfires sweeping through Southern California. My heart goes out to our neighbors who have lost their homes and livelihoods.”

In addition to Corpus Christi, there may be about four more parishes that are threatened and are either under an evacuation order or warning, Father Andrew Hedstrom, associate pastor at St. Linus Catholic Church in Norwalk, California, wrote on X.

Paul Escala, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Los Angeles Archdiocese, attributed the string of school closures to evacuation orders, power outages, poor air quality, and staff displacement. “We are in nearly every neighborhood across all three counties,” he told CNA. 

“Some neighborhoods have been completely wiped out, and yet we have really only one parish church that has reported catastrophic loss,” he said. Escala identified that site as Corpus Christi, a 1950s-era church in an affluent neighborhood between Santa Monica and Malibu.

The status of the parish school remains unclear. “Buildings, including the library and gymnasium, have been reported to have suffered significant damage,” Escala said. “But the school itself, we have not verified that it has been a complete loss.” 

Access is restricted to first responders and select media. “It’s too early to know,” Escala added. “Law enforcement has restricted entry, and once it’s declared safe, we’ll be able to assess the extent of the damage.”

Escala stressed that the archdiocese is working to support displaced families. “Our focus is on our families and our parishioners,” he said. “We’re going to work very closely with those families of students and our staff to identify alternative schools if the area is not deemed safe for use and/or the buildings are no longer functional.”

Pablo Kay, editor in chief of Angelus, the official news outlet of the archdiocese, said the neighborhood “has been close to being wiped out” according to fire crews and local news reports. 

“So what we know is that the church burned,” he noted. “Whether anything was spared in the sanctuary — we probably won’t know for several days.” Kay added that reports of damage to a classroom or other parts of the school remain unconfirmed.

The Los Angeles Fire Department estimates the blaze at nearly 16,000 acres, with around 300 structures destroyed. As of Wednesday evening, the Palisades Fire, Eaton Fire, and Hurst Fire were at zero percent containment.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, New Jersey. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/ACI Prensa

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 8, 2025 / 18:20 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, in a letter addressed to clergy, religious, and faithful announced the launch of a multiyear “pastoral conversion” plan for the archdiocese based on the framework proposed by the final document produced by the Synod on Synodality.

“Pastoral conversion requires nothing more or less than our willingness to be open to what God’s word is saying to us and to listen to one another,” Tobin wrote, adding: “The term that best describes the journey that we are traveling together now is ‘synodality.’”

Following a multiyear process of the Synod on Synodality, which began in 2021, Pope Francis adopted the final document, “For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission,” in October 2024.

The 52-page document, approved by 355 synod members in attendance, outlines substantial proposals for Church renewal, including expansion of women’s leadership roles, greater lay participation in decision-making, and significant structural reforms, including strengthening pastoral councils at parish and diocesan levels.

“Synodal leadership affirms the fact that every baptized person has the right and the responsibility to participate in the Church’s life and ministry,” Tobin wrote.

“The same is true of our ecclesial structures,” the archbishop said of Newark’s parishes, schools, institutions, and ministries.

Quoting the Holy Father’s first apostolic exhortation in 2013, which states “We cannot leave things as they presently are,” Tobin declared: “We must allow the Holy Spirit to renew us, as individuals and as communities, so that we can effectively carry the joy of the Gospel to others here at home and to the ends of the earth.”

Following the directive of the final document, the initiative, titled “We Are His Witnesses,” proposes a series of recommendations for structural changes to be implemented across the archdiocese in the coming years.

In the first place, Tobin revealed that he has instructed all parishes across the archdiocese to establish “fully functioning pastoral and finance councils” by July. At this time, the archbishop also said he expects all parish leaders to have completed training in “the synodal style of leadership with a missionary outlook.”

Tobin also shared that pastors have been asked to find ways to lead their congregations in “reflecting on what it means to be a ‘shared parish’” through small groups “based on the word of God,” while parishes across the archdiocese have been asked to “be open to new alliances with other parishes,” regardless of size or location.

“I want to make it clear that We Are His Witnesses is not a project with a hidden agenda for closing or consolidating parishes, schools, or other institutions,” Tobin noted in the letter. “We have something very different in mind, namely the pastoral conversion of our hearts and minds to prepare us, as an archdiocese, for the work of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ now and in the future.”

The initiative has been entrusted to auxiliary Bishop Michael Saporito, who is expected to lead the newly-founded Commission on Pastoral Planning, a group of lay faithful, clergy, and religious, in presenting a comprehensive pastoral plan for Newark by the summer of 2026.

Students at St. Dominic Academy in Auburn, Maine. / Credit: Courtesy of Becket

CNA Staff, Jan 8, 2025 / 18:00 pm (CNA).

Catholic parents who live in rural Maine — far from any public schools — are challenging a state law that excludes most faith-based schools from Maine’s rural tuition assistance program.  

Maine’s tuition assistance program — the second-oldest in the nation — is designed to help rural families attend private school in areas that do not have public schools. In 1982, Maine began excluding faith-based private schools, leading to a Supreme Court case that struck down the exclusion as religious discrimination in 2022.

Though the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision Carson v. Makin affirmed that the “sectarian exclusion” violates the free exercise clause because it excludes schools on the basis of their religious exercise, Maine state officials quickly passed a law that in effect excluded most religious schools. This law most directly affects the rural families that are now unable to use the tuition program to send their children to local Catholic schools.

Catholic parents Kevin and Valori Radonis, along with the local Catholic school St. Dominic Academy, are challenging the state law in federal appeals court. Another couple, Daniel and Nancy Cronin, live in an area without a public school and want their son, who has dyslexia, to attend St. Dominic’s so he can receive necessary academic support.

The Radonises believe the state is “cheating” them out of the choice to send their children to Catholic school “by cutting faith-based schools out of Maine’s tuition program.”

“As Catholics, we want to raise our children in an environment that teaches them to put their faith at the heart of everything they do,” they said in a statement. “We pray the court puts an end to this exclusion once and for all.” 

The latest legal challenge against the Maine law highlights a concern that for participating schools, Maine’s new law would give the Maine Human Rights Commission the final word on admissions, conduct speech, and policies about Catholic beliefs on marriage, gender, and family life. This effectively prevents Catholic schools from being able to participate in the program.  

“Three years ago in the Carson case, the Supreme Court ordered Maine to stop leaving families like the Radonises out in the cold,” Adèle Keim, senior counsel at Becket, said in a press release. “But Maine wouldn’t listen. Now Maine wants to have bureaucrats in Augusta tell St. Dominic how Catholic it can be.”

The tuition program has been embroiled in legal challenges in recent years as the state continues to exclude most faith-based schools, preventing rural families who cannot access public schools. 

In an appeal last year against the new law, lawyers called it a “poison pill” law and alleged that it targeted religious schools. Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey — a proponent of the law — said in 2022 that he intended to “ensure that public money is not used to promote discrimination, intolerance, and bigotry.”

Notably, the law applies to in-state private schools but not to out-of-state boarding schools that receive Maine funds from the same program. 

“Maine should drop its newest effort to ‘end run’ the Supreme Court and let St. Dominic get back to serving the Maine families that need it most,” Keim said.

A ruling from the court is expected early this year.