Catholic speaker and author Kim Zember (left) and Zember on the set of her new podcast on EWTN, “Here I AM Stories,” with guest Angel Colon. / Credit: Photos courtesy of Kim Zember

CNA Staff, Jun 29, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

During her senior year of high school, Catholic speaker and author Kim Zember realized she had a sexual attraction to women. She went on to live a hidden life for years — dating men publicly but dating women secretly. Eventually, she ended up solely in relationships with women.

A decade later she found herself increasingly unhappy and one day she threw up her hands and asked God to enter her life. Now, 11 years after experiencing transformation, she’s sharing her conversations with other people who have dealt with sexual identity and gender confusion in a new podcast on EWTN called “Here I AM Stories.”

“In the tenderness of God, I just felt like he said, ‘I want you to share other people’s stories. You’re not the only one,’” Zember told CNA.

According to EWTN, the podcast “highlights raw voices, radical lives, and real stories of those who left LGBT identities for a greater eternal purpose.” It airs weekly on Mondays during the month of June and then beginning in July, two episodes will be aired every month. 

“These are people who have been walking it out,” Zember said. “This is not stories of perfection.”

Four episodes of the podcast have already been released. One particularly powerful episode was a conversation with Jessica Rose, who identified as a male for seven years, battled depression, and attempted suicide until she gave her life to Christ. 

Another episode features the story of Angel Colon, who survived the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting where 49 lives were lost. Despite being shot multiple times, he survived and credits the miracle to God, changing his way of life.

Zember’s own story follows a similar pattern as the guests she speaks with in her podcast. She grew up in what she says was a “normal” Catholic household with two older brothers and parents who were high school sweethearts. She received all her sacraments but admitted that she grew up without having a relationship with Jesus.

She shared that she saw God like a “cop that kind of just kept tally of all the things I was doing, good or bad, and was kind of calculating everything. So that was kind of challenging because I heard all the time like, ‘God loves you,’ ‘God’s for you,’ but I didn’t experience that.”

Despite having a decent childhood, Zember said she did not have a “good, tender father” and did not trust men. As a senior in high school, she longed for a relationship and acted upon her attraction to women.

“My senior year in high school I was like, ‘You know what? I don’t feel safe with men, but I feel safe with women and I’m attracted and I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to take a step,’” she recalled. “And [in] my senior year in high school I acted on these desires towards women with one of my best friends and that changed everything for me.”

From there she began dating women in private. Believing that what she was doing was wrong, she sought a Catholic counselor at age 18 and was affirmed in her homosexual identity. From there, she came out publicly and no longer hid the fact that she was dating women. It wasn’t until Oct. 17, 2014 — after a decade of living a gay lifestyle — that she “cried out to the Lord and said, ‘I can’t do this.’”

She recalled telling God: “‘I’ve heard about you my whole life. I’ve read about you my whole life but I need to experience you now. And so I need you to show up.’ And it might sound horrible but I was like, ‘I need you to show up and I need you to show up now because if you don’t show up and show me that you’re good, I will go to someone or something else, like I have my entire life. So, I’m giving you your one shot, God.’” 

“And I’m telling you, he showed up. He showed up that evening in a way that I will never forget,” Zember shared. “Oct. 17 feels sometimes like my birthday — though I was born on Dec. 22 — that encounter I had with God marked me in a way … that I’ve never been the same.”

In that moment Zember said she experienced the “tangible love of God” and “he has been faithful every day since then.”

“Also in revealing his character and nature, he has shown me that he’s the one my heart has been searching for. He has shown me that he is the one, that God himself, that made man in Jesus Christ, that he is the love of my life that I’ve desired.”

Zember now lives in freedom from her struggle with same-sex attraction and helps others who face similar battles to find their true identity in Christ. 

When asked what the Church can do to better minister to those struggling with gender and sexual identity issues, she said: “I think as a Church, we need to recognize again our own unworthiness; no matter what Jesus has already saved us from, we still need him.”

“If we’d recognize our own brokenness and our own need for Jesus, I think we’d be able to receive other people in their need for him, too. We’d stop trying to fix people, and we’d actually try to walk with one another,” she added. “We’d try to walk with one another in our brokenness to Christ, the only one who can heal, deliver, make whole, and set free.”

As for her hopes for the new podcast, she said she hopes it would show people “that we have a good Father” and “that people would give Jesus a try — a real one.”

“My hope is that people will say, ‘Wait a minute, if Jesus was that good in their life, maybe he wants to be that good in mine too’ — in whatever it is. It doesn’t have to be homosexuality or identity confusion. It could be you holding on too tightly to something. It could be you needing a career and if you don’t get it, you don’t know who you are. It’s all the longings of our heart to be seen, known, loved, chosen, and desired, and how we try to go to the things of this world to fill those when it’s actually the very one who created us that wants to fill those.”

Pro-life demonstrators take part in a rally calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded in Denton, Texas, Saturday, June 28, 2025 / Credit: Carole Novielli/Live Action

CNA Newsroom, Jun 28, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Thousands of pro-life advocates rallied at hundreds of locations across the United States on Saturday while taking part in a "single, coordinated day of demonstration" urging Congress to defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood.

The pro-life group Live Action spearheaded the nationwide "Defund Day" event. Group founder Lila Rose told CNA it was the "largest grassroots effort" yet to call for stripping federal funds from Planned Parenthood, which received around $800 million in taxpayer dollars during its most recent fiscal year.

"We’re spearheading an effort with over 200 peaceful rallies across the country in all 48 states where there are Planned Parenthoods," she said. "This is a national call to defund the biggest abortion chain."

Citing Planned Parenthood's hundreds of thousands of abortions per year, as well as other extreme services such as providing cross-sex hormones to minors, Rose said: "Congress has an opportunity to defund. They need to seize it."

Photos and videos flooded social media on Saturday showing demonstrations taking place around the country, including in states such as California, Texas, Kentucky and Georgia, with protesters displaying signs and banners calling for Planned Parenthood to be blocked from federal funds.

Rose told CNA that pro-life advocates are "closer than ever" to defunding the abortion chain.

"We have the opportunity with the [Republican] majority in the House and the Senate, and with an administration that has indicated it would defund," she said.

Rose said that there are still "significant challenges" to the defunding goal, including the possibility of a filibuster in the Senate blocking any bill to that effect, though she noted that the budget reconciliation process could be used to bypass that obstacle.

If defunding is ultimately accomplished, Rose said, "we need to ensure that it sticks," not just for one budget year but permanently.

Looking forward, she said, "we have to abolish abortion."

"Defunding will weaken abortion, but the main goal is the complete legal protection for the preborn."

"We’re building a groundswell [to abolish abortion]," she added. "It’s going to take time to develop the political infrastructure. But I believe we’ll do it within a decade."

Chase Crouse, founder of Hypuro Fit. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Chase Crouse

CNA Staff, Jun 28, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In 2019, Chase Crouse was working two jobs — in ministry at the Archdiocese of New York and as a personal trainer. He quickly realized that while he loved working with people at the gym, he hated not being able to talk about Jesus with them. So he decided to combine both of his passions and create a Catholic fitness and personal training apostolate called Hypuro Fit.

Hypuro Fit’s programing is rooted in St. John Paul II’s theology of the body, encouraging its members to trade the mentality of needing to achieve the perfect “beach body” for the goal of living as a gift for others through self-discipline, self-mastery, and honoring the bodies God gave them.

After Crouse, a graduate of John Paul the Great Catholic University in San Diego who holds a master’s degree in biblical theology, began working with people as a trainer, he began to notice that anytime he asked people why they wanted to work out, their answers would always be along the lines of wanting to look a certain way and have others find them attractive. Crouse began to reflect on this and turned to John Paul II’s theology of the body.

“I read it with this question in mind and sure enough, really early on, he talks about this law of gift, from Gaudium et Spes, that man finds himself through a gift of himself, but what he adds in audience 15, which is kind of my lightbulb moment, is this idea that self-donation is impossible without self-mastery,” he explained.

In addition to being the founder of Hypuro Fit, Crouse is one of 10 coaches who work with individuals who join their programs.

The fitness apostolate offers two different options for users: one-on-one training or following a workout program through the app.

One-on-one training is done remotely through the use of Zoom and phone calls and allows the individual to work with a coach to build a custom workout plan, nutrition goals, and helps provide accountability.

The app is filled with a variety of different programs that include a library of workouts for people in every walk of life and with differing time constraints. The programs in the app also include educational content, technique tutorials, recipes, and articles for spiritual formation.

Hypuro Fit also has specialty programs such as “Breaking the Chains” for those experiencing an addiction to lust as well as a postpartum program for moms.

“What we like to say with both approaches [we offer] is that we’re authentically Catholic but we’re technically excellent, meaning that we are going to base all of our exercise routines, our nutrition protocols, based on the latest science and studies we have at our disposal,” Crouse explained. “But at the same time, we’re also authentically Catholic, meaning that for our one-on-one clients, we’re going to pray with them and for them. But then even for our subscribers in our app, we’re bringing them back to our why, which is this idea of self-mastery for self-gift.”

Crouse said the majority of the apostolate’s clients are between the ages of 30 and 60, so “they’re people in their vocation and they’re really busy.” 

Additionally, about one-third of clients are priests and religious, who receive access to the programming for free. Due to this, Hypuro Fit is aiming to show them that you don’t have to work out like you did in high school, you don’t even have to work out every day, you just need to show up and do something that is reasonable for your lifestyle.

“Ultimately we’re doing this to better give of ourselves and find that why and put everything in light of Christ and his resurrection,” he said.

Crouse added that the main goal of the ministry’s work is to help individuals “be more present and to live out their vocation to the best of their ability.”

“If we can help priests to be better priests, have more energy, give better, religious to be better brothers and sisters, husbands and wives to conquer themselves in order to give themselves to be more present — that’s the goal, that’s the dream.”

null / Credit: MIA Studio/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2025 / 15:52 pm (CNA).

A new survey has found the majority of adults in the U.S. support allowing Christian prayer in public schools, shedding light on how Americans approach the ongoing debate surrounding religious expression in educational settings. 

According to Pew Research Center, 52% of adults support allowing public school teachers to lead their classes in prayers that refer to Jesus, with 27% saying they strongly support it and 26% saying they favor it. 

“Renewed debates are happening across the United States about the place of religion — especially Christianity — in public schools,” the report stated, citing the recent Supreme Court even-split ruling regarding Oklahoma Catholic charter schools, among other legal debates across the country. 

The June 23 report also comes just two days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law requiring public schools there to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom at the start of the 2025-2026 school year. 

The legislation requires that a “durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments” be hung in each Texas public elementary or secondary school classroom.

Pew’s report is based on data from its 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study, which surveyed 36,908 U.S. adults from July 17, 2023, to March 4, 2024. 

Overall, 46% of American adults oppose Christian prayer in public schools, with 22% strongly opposing. While Pew’s report indicates the majority of adults support Christian prayer in public schools, it notes that support varies widely from state to state. 

The majority of adults in 22 states across the southern and Midwestern parts of the country including Mississippi, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, South and North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, and Michigan said they supported the practice. 

The majority of adults in 12 states — California, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Colorado, and Illinois — and the District of Columbia said they opposed Christian prayer in public schools. 

Data in the remaining 16 states is divided, with roughly half of adults in states including Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Arizona, and Maryland saying they favor allowing Christian prayer. 

“Once the survey’s margins of error are accounted for, support for teacher-led Christian prayer in these states is not significantly different from opposition,” the report states. 

The report also found that “a slightly larger share of Americans say they favor allowing teacher-led prayers referencing God (57%) than favor allowing teacher-led prayers specifically referencing Jesus (52%).”

null / Credit: New Africa/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2025 / 15:22 pm (CNA).

A Texas law that requires porn sites to verify that its users are at least 18 years old can remain in effect after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday, June 27, that the law does not violate the Constitution.

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s majority found that Texas is within its authority “to shield children from sexually explicit content” and that this authority “necessarily includes the power to require proof of age” to access pornographic material.

“Unlike a store clerk, a website operator cannot look at its visitors and estimate their ages,” the opinion continued. “Without a requirement to submit proof of age, even clearly underage minors would be able to access sexual content undetected.”

Texas is one of 24 states that has enacted age verification laws to access pornography on the internet in recent years. The ruling sets nationwide precedent for lower courts reviewing legal challenges to laws in other states.

According to Texas law, a website must verify the ages of all users if “more than one-third of [the website’s content] is sexual material harmful to minors.” The law allows parents to sue websites if their child accesses pornographic material when the website was not complying with the age verification law. The law does not permit pornographers to retain personal information after the verification is complete.

The law also imposes fines of up to $10,000 per day on websites in violation of the law and an additional $250,000 fine if a child is exposed to pornographic content because the website was not verifying the ages of its users. 

“This is a major victory for children, parents, and the ability of states to protect minors from the damaging effects of online pornography,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

“Companies have no right to expose children to pornography and must institute reasonable age verification measures,” he added. “I will continue to enforce the law against any organization that refuses to take the necessary steps to protect minors from explicit materials.”

Pornographers sued Texas in 2023 shortly after the state enacted the law, asserting that the age verification rule places a burden on adults who are trying to access pornographic material and violates their First Amendment right to access speech. The pornographers, through their trade association called the Free Speech Coalition, have been engaged in lawsuits against other states that require age verification.

In a statement on X after the ruling, Free Speech Coalition Executive Director Alison Boden called the Supreme Court’s ruling “the canary in the coal mine of free expression.” She called the decision “disastrous for Texans and for anyone who cares about freedom of speech and privacy online.”

The court was not convinced by that argument. 

In the opinion, Thomas wrote that the law “is simply to prevent minors” from accessing content — not adults. The ruling acknowledges that the law creates a burden on adults but calls the burden “incidental” and found that “adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification.”

“An age-verification requirement is an ordinary and appropriate means of enforcing an age limit, as is evident both from all other contexts where the law draws lines based on age and from the long, widespread, and unchallenged practice of requiring age verification for in-person sales of material that is obscene to minors,” the opinion read.

Dani Pinter, who serves as senior legal counsel for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), told CNA that the free speech argument “defied common sense,” noting that identity and age verification are regular parts of most people’s lives.

Prior to states passing age verification laws, Pinter said very few pornographic websites had any type of age verification. She said “many don’t do anything at all” and some simply ask a user to “click a box that says you’re 18 or older.”

“Virtually no pornography website restricts minors,” she said.

Even in states that have adopted age verification laws, Pinter warned most websites “have not been compliant” but that some websites have “just withdrawn from the states” altogether. She said she hopes the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the constitutionality of the law will bolster compliance and lead to more states — or even the federal government — passing similar laws to protect children online.

The ruling, Pinter said, is “very historic” and “spells a new era where there is now a path forward to protect kids online.”

USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio speaks at the bishops’ spring meeting, Thursday, June 13, 2024. / Credit: USCCB

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2025 / 13:31 pm (CNA).

As the Senate considers provisions for the “One Big Beautiful Bill” budget reconciliation, U.S bishops are asking lawmakers to protect vulnerable groups. 

“The bishops are grateful that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes provisions that promote the dignity of human life and support parental choice in education,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said in a statement. 

“These are commendable provisions that are important priorities for the bishops.”

“Still, Congress must be consistent in protecting human life and dignity and make drastic changes to the bill to protect those most in need,” Broglio said. 

“As Pope Leo XIV recently stated, it is the responsibility of politicians to promote and protect the common good, including by working to overcome great wealth inequality,” he continued. “This bill does not answer this call. It takes from the poor to give to the wealthy.”

In a letter sent to senators signed by Archbishop Borys Gudziak and Bishops Robert Barron, Kevin Rhoades, Mark Seitz, David O’Connell, and Daniel Thomas, the bishops detailed their stance on certain bill provisions.

Broglio said: “I underscore what my brother bishops said in their recent letter to find a better way forward and urge senators to think and act with courage and creativity to protect human dignity for all, to uphold the common good, and to change provisions that undermine these fundamental values.”

In the letter, the bishops said they “strongly support” the bill’s plan to end “taxpayer subsidization of major abortion and ‘gender transition’ providers such as Planned Parenthood” and the bill’s support for “parental choice in education.”

The bishops also stated their agreement with “the inclusion of a $1,000 ‘above-the-line’ charitable deduction in the Senate bill” and said it is “a very positive step in the right direction.”

However, the bishops are not in support of cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). They urged senators to protect these programs, adding that “the changes to SNAP will cause millions of people to go hungry.”

The bishops also disagree with “the unprecedented increase in funding for immigration enforcement and detention,” which they said “would disproportionately impact immigrant and mixed-status families with strong ties to American communities.”

They added that cuts “to clean energy incentives and the repeal of environmental programs and energy efficient loans … will lead to increased pollution that harms children and the unborn, stifles economic opportunity, and decreases resilience against extreme weather.”

In agreement with the letter, Broglio said the bill “provides tax breaks for some while undermining the social safety net for others through major cuts to nutrition assistance and Medicaid.”

“It fails to protect families and children by promoting an enforcement-only approach to immigration and eroding access to legal protections,” he said. “It harms God’s creation and future generations through cuts to clean energy incentives and environmental programs.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 27, 2025, ruled Maryland parents can opt out of LGBT-themed lessons in public schools, upholding their right to the free exercise of their respective religions. / Credit: PT Hamilton/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 27, 2025 / 12:26 pm (CNA).

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a group of Maryland parents who had sued a school district over its refusal to allow families to opt their children out of LGBT-focused lessons. 

In a 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the court ruled on June 27 that the parents — who included Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims — were “entitled to a preliminary injunction” against the Montgomery County Board of Education, one that will allow them to excuse their children from the controversial lessons while the case is remanded to lower courts for further proceedings. 

The parents “are likely to succeed on their claim that the board’s policies unconstitutionally burden their religious exercise,” the court said. 

The reading materials, the Supreme Court said — which include promotions of same-sex “marriages” — are “designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated, and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.”

The materials go beyond mere “exposure,” the justices said, and “burdens the parents’ right to the free exercise of religion.”

Under the district’s policy, the school board only permitted opt-outs in narrow circumstances, mostly related to sexual education in health class. It did not permit opt-outs for coursework that endorsed the views that there are more than two “genders,” that a boy can become a girl, or that homosexual marriages are moral.

Some of the coursework initially introduced in the curriculum was designed to promote these concepts to children as young as 3 years old in preschool.

One book involved in the dispute, called “Pride Puppy,” taught preschool children the alphabet with a story about a homosexual pride parade, which introduced children to words like “drag queen,” “leather,” and “zipper.”

It also introduced young children to Marsha B. Johnson, a drag queen, gay rights activist, and prostitute.

Lawyers with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represented the parents in their lawsuit. On Friday, Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, called the ruling “a historic victory for parental rights in Maryland and across America.”

“Kids shouldn’t be forced into conversations about drag queens, pride parades, or gender transitions without their parents’ permission,” he said. “Today, the court restored common sense and made clear that parents — not government — have the final say in how their children are raised.”

In a Friday statement, meanwhile, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops hailed the Supreme Court for upholding parental rights to directing their children's educations.

"Public schools in our diverse country include families from many communities with a variety of deep-seated convictions about faith and morals," Bishop Kevin Rhoades, the chairman of the bishops' religious liberty committee, said in the statement.

"When these schools address issues that touch on these matters, they ought to respect all families," Rhoades said. "Parents do not forfeit their rights as primary educators of their children when they send their kids to public schools."

Stressing that children "should not be learning that their personal identity as male or female can be separated from their bodies," the bishop said in cases where a school teaches this ideology, "it ought to respect those who choose not to participate."

The lawsuit against the school district, located just north of Washington, D.C., was filed in May 2023. 

The Supreme Court took up the controversial case in January of this year after two lower courts ruled against a group of parents who sued the Montgomery County board over the school district’s having provided LGBT-themed lessons and reading materials to their children. 

Both the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the parents, claiming they had no right to be notified or opt their kids out of the sexuality-themed literature. 

The school district initially allowed the parents to opt out but changed its policy less than a year later. It removed the LGBT puppy book and another book from the program curriculum last year, though the books were still available at school libraries.

During oral arguments in April, most of the justices on the high court appeared sympathetic toward the parents in their lawsuit. 

In a dissent to the Friday ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed the decision could usher in “chaos” for public schools around the country.

Sotomayor suggested that the LGBT materials in the dispute represented merely “a range of concepts and views” and “new ideas.”

“Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,” she alleged.

This story was updated on Friday, June 27, 2025 at 4:00 p.m. with a statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Pro-life activists participate in a Celebrate Life Day Rally at the Lincoln Memorial on June 24, 2023, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Anna Rose Layden/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2025 / 11:41 am (CNA).

This weekend six pro-life organizations will host a three-day-long event in Washington, D.C., to celebrate the third anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

After a successful 2024 event, the Celebrate Life Weekend returns June 27–29 for three days of events that mark the anniversary of the June 24, 2022, decision and encourage “the pro-life generation to fight for equal rights for all — born and preborn — through the 14th Amendment,” according to the Students for Life of America (SFLA) website.

“Last year, we mobilized the youth vote to celebrate Life after Roe v. Wade’s demise,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of SFLA, in a press release. “Now, we’re building on our momentum to create even more pro-life victories — calling on Congress to defund Planned Parenthood while also fighting for equal protections for preborn lives.”

The weekend will be hosted by SFLA, Students for Life Action, Vitae Foundation, Sidewalk Advocates for Life, And Then There Were None, and Pro Love Ministries.

The celebration kicks off Friday evening with a gala in downtown Washington, D.C. Athlete and advocate Riley Gaines will be the keynote speaker alongside other pro-life leaders who organizers say will “highlight the help available for mothers and their children, born and preborn.”

Other confirmed speakers at the gala include Hawkins; Dr. Abby Johnson, president of And Then There Were None and ProLove Ministries; Lauren Muzyka, president and CEO of Sidewalk Advocates for Life; and Brandy Meeks, president and CEO of Vitae Foundation.

On Saturday a diaper drive and rally will be held on Capitol Hill. The event will feature the confirmed speakers from the gala as well as additional guests who will speak about the pro-life movement and the push “to defund Planned Parenthood.”

According to Johnson in a Facebook media post, the event will be the “nation’s largest diaper drive.”

An expected 392,715 diapers will be donated to pregnancy care centers and families in the local community. Each diaper represents “a preborn life ended by Planned Parenthood last year.”

In addition to the two events, the National Celebrate Life Conference will hold other gatherings for registered attendees on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to “offer training and strategy to rally and educate the pro-life generation, as well as key legislators.”

The conference’s mission is to “unite pro-life women and men to celebrate, collaborate, and strategize for the protection of preborn children and to make abortion unthinkable in our culture.”

Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Church, speaks during a prayer vigil in 2014. / Credit: Bohumil Petrik/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2025 / 11:06 am (CNA).

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

Iraqi bishop says imposing Iran regime change ‘can only worsen the situation’

Cardinal Louis Raphael Sako, patriarch of the Chaldean Church, issued a stark criticism of calls for regime change in Iran following the U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. 

“Imposing another regime would only worsen the situation. Change must come from within, if the citizens deem it necessary,” Sako told Agenzia Fides. “Twenty-two years after the fall of the regime in Iraq, there is still no true citizenship, no law, no security, and no stability. Corruption and sectarianism persist.”

Damascus church bombing exposes deepening distrust and rising extremism

Following the deadly bombing at Mar Elias Orthodox Church in Damascus, tensions have grown not just over the attack itself but over who is responsible.

Greek Orthodox Patriarch John X Yazigi condemned the Syrian government in a powerful funeral homily, according to ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, for failing to protect its citizens, signaling an unusually bold rebuke.

Although Syrian authorities claimed ISIS was behind the attack and arrested several suspects, many locals remain skeptical, especially since the group has not publicly claimed responsibility. Amid these conflicting narratives, a lesser-known extremist group, “Saraya Ansar al-Sunna,” claimed the attack on Telegram, citing sectarian motivations. Observers suspect ties between the attackers and radical factions once part of larger militant coalitions.

Pakistani Christian convicted of blasphemy 23 years ago is freed

Pakistan’s Supreme Court has freed Anwar Kenneth, a Pakistani Christian man who was arrested in 2001 for writing letters that had allegedly “blasphemous” content about Muhammad and the Quran according to the Islamic country’s stringent laws. 

Despite Kenneth being diagnosed with a mental illness, a lower court sentenced him to death in 2002 and later upheld the sentence in 2014, according to a report from UCA News. His lawyer, Rana Abdul Hameed, said he will be released next week. “Although doctors had declared him insane at the time of the alleged offense, he kept confessing and pleading to be hanged, which complicated the trial,” she said. 

Indian police charge 9 Catholic priests with ‘unlawful assembly’ 

Police in India have charged nine Catholic priests for causing public disturbance through “unlawful assembly” for joining a protest in the coastal town of Chellanam in the communist-ruled Kerala state, according to UCA News. 

More than 150 priests and 5,000 mostly lay Catholics joined the protest against the government for “[failing] to protect around 500 homes from possible submergence in the Arabian Sea due to coastal erosion.”

Vice President of the Kerala Region Latin Catholic Council Joseph Jude was also charged. “This is totally a false case and we cannot be silenced with it,” he said, highlighting that the government’s failure to rebuild will impact “several thousand” mostly Catholic fishermen in the area, leaving them homeless.

Catholic bishops urge Kenyan government not to ignore police brutality 

Catholic bishops in Kenya have cautioned the government against denying police brutality and silent killings of innocent Kenyans, including peaceful protesters, ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, reported.

In a statement the bishops read out in turns at a June 24 press conference on the state of the nation, they declared that “the government must acknowledge the fact that there have been mysterious deaths under their watch and at least try to get to the perpetrators.” The bishops’ statement comes nationwide after the murder of Albert Ojwang, a teacher and blogger who was arrested and killed in police custody.

Caritas in Papua New Guinea works to end witchcraft accusations, violence

Caritas Papua New Guinea is working to end the widespread problem of violence provoked by false accusations of witchcraft in the province of Simbu, “one of the most affected provinces,” where hundreds of cases are recorded each year, according to an Agenzia Fides report.  

Bishop Paul Sundu of the Diocese of Kundiawa explained in the report that accusations of witchcraft in the region are a commonplace means “to get rid of enemies, block their success in business, education, or politics.” Witchcraft accusations have also been linked to gender-based violence against women, the report noted. 

Judy Gelua, diocesan coordinator of Caritas in the Diocese of Kundiawa, noted Caritas’ successful efforts to promote change by providing “guidance on human rights, peace-building, and the protection of minors, women, and vulnerable people,” resulting in the level of violence “slowly declining.”

Monsignor Vito Buonanno and Dee Steel pose before the Lego model of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., Tuesday, June 24, 2025. / Credit: Paris Apodaca/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., is offering specialized guided tours for deaf and blind visitors, giving immersive and sensory experiences to make the sacred site more accessible.

The Deaf and Blind Tour Initiative, which began holding tours in April, includes American Sign Language (ASL)-interpreted guides for those who are deaf and tactile stations for those who are blind, allowing participants to engage with statues, mosaics, and sacred art through touch and sight. 

These tours mark the first of their kind in the U.S., Monsignor Vito Buonanno, the director of pilgrimages for the shrine, told CNA.

The project idea was created by volunteer docent Marilyn Lasecki, ASL interpreter Katy Betker, and with the support of Monsignor Walter Rossi, the rector of the shrine.

Inspired by Vatican accessibility

The root of the idea took shape in 2021 when Lasecki decided to launch the project in honor of her late father, Leonard, who worked with deaf people when he was alive. In her research, she discovered that the Vatican Museums are recognized for their accommodations for deaf and blind visitors. Motivated by that model, the basilica’s staff began planning their own adaptation.

In March, Dee Steel, the director of the basilica’s Office of Visitor Services, traveled to Rome and met with the Vatican’s tour director to study their tactile systems firsthand.

“Both the Deaf and Blind communities are greatly underserved by museums and church communities,” Lasecki told CNA. “The Vatican Museums are at the top of the list for welcoming both the deaf and the blind, with specialized tours.” 

For deaf visitors, volunteer docents work alongside Betker to guide groups through the church. To improve accessibility, Betker helped adapt the docents’ scripts to better suit ASL grammar.

“There is not a word-for-word translation. It’s because they are two very different languages,” Betker said. Tour guides “have to not only change [the] word order around [but also] change a lot of the way that they speak and with their script for the tours.”

She also advised docents on subtle adjustments that enhance communication, like waiting for a deaf participant to finish observing a site before continuing with spoken commentary.

Steel recounted one docent’s realization during a tour: “When somebody is signing what you say, you have to make sure the people are looking at the signer.”

During one of the first tours, Father Michael Depcik — a deaf priest and chaplain from the Archdiocese of Baltimore — concelebrated Mass at the basilica. Depcik emphasized that having direct communication in ASL allowed deaf Catholics to fully experience the liturgy.

“Usually, they would go through an interpreter, but it’s not the same,” the priest told CNA. “The Deaf are finally able to connect directly for the full immersion into the experience with these assets.”

He also highlighted the importance of the sensory experience. “The Deaf are very visual,” he said. 

When asked about smells like incense, Depcik told CNA: “It’s like music for the eyes — the smells and the art, it’s all a very important part of the experience of the Deaf.”

The basilica also created tactile experiences for blind visitors with the help of Father Mike Joly, a blind priest from St. Joan of Arc Parish in Yorktown, Virginia. 

The tour for the blind features 15 hands-on stations, including the Founder’s Chapel, the Our Mother of Africa statue, and the Our Lady of Pompei Chapel.

This tour starts with a scale model of the basilica built from over 10,000 Lego bricks by artist John Davisson. It will be on display on the crypt level to help visitors visualize the structure’s layout and the scale of the building. 

Buonanno described Joly’s visit to the Founder’s Chapel. Staff removed ropes so he could explore the marble sarcophagus of Bishop Thomas Shahan by touch.

“[Joly] realized — he was blind at 7 years old, so he had seven years of seeing — but he never knew the feel of a miter, that it’s two sides,” Buonanno said.

In the Our Mother of Africa chapel, there are faces of the four Evangelists that people can touch as well as the statue of the Blessed Mother and the Christ Child. 

Joly helped staff reinterpret sacred artwork. “We always thought of Jesus as pointing toward another piece of artwork, but [Joly] felt the finger and said, ‘Jesus is giving a blessing,” Steel recalled.

“[Joly] saw more with his hands than we saw with our eyes,” Steel commented.

The priest “taught us things… that is the beautiful interaction with this,” Buonanno added. 

With the tours now underway, the basilica hopes to raise awareness and expand participation.

The facility wants to “expand [the initiative], make it more known,” Buonanno said. “It’s just so that more people can know that it exists.”