St. Mary's Church

El presidente de la Conferencia Episcopal Argentina, Mons. Marcelo Colombo, advirtió sobre el “mensaje violento” de Javier Milei, una preocupación que la Iglesia ya había expresado antes de la reciente represión a manifestantes.

CNA Staff, Mar 18, 2025 / 15:10 pm (CNA).

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament kicks off March 18 and this year’s tournament includes eight Catholic universities competing for the championship title. They are: Creighton University, Gonzaga University, Marquette University, Xavier University, St. John’s University, Saint Mary’s College, Saint Francis University, and Mount St. Mary’s University.

Several of these Catholic institutions are making history with their participation in the tournament this year. 

The Red Flash from Saint Francis University in Loretto, Pennsylvania, clinched their spot in the big dance when they beat the top team in their conference, Central Connecticut State University (CCSU), 46-43 on March 11. This victory earned them their first NCAA Tournament in 34 years.

During a crucial moment in the final seconds of the conference title game, Red Flash coach Rob Krimmel turned to his faith. 

According to CBS Sports, Krimmel had written on his play card three phrases: “audience of one,” “surrender,” and “thy will be done.” So, when CCSU tied the game with 17 seconds left, instead of calling for a timeout, Krimmel reminded himself of the phrases on his play card, encouraging his team to go make the plays they needed to make.

The Saint Francis Red Flash will be playing their first game of the tournament against the Alabama State Red Hornets on March 18.

Another team making history with their participation in March Madness is St. John’s University from New York. St. John’s Red Storm won the Big East Tournament title on March 15 for the first time in 25 years when the team beat Creighton University 82-66. 

Their first game in the tournament will be against the University of Nebraska-Omaha on March 20.

The Marquette Golden Eagles received their fourth consecutive invite to the big dance during the NCAA’s Selection Sunday on March 16. Senior guard Stevie Mitchell, who is preparing to play in his fourth March Madness, sees basketball as a tool to inspire the next generation and leave a lasting impact. Last summer, Mitchell hosted a free youth basketball camp at his high school in Pennsylvania. 

“To see how grateful they are for us, it really puts life into perspective. They don’t care how the game went,” he told the NCAA. “The kids who look up to us, they obviously want us to win, but they don’t really care how the game goes, they just see inspiration in us. And as long as we can live up to that night in and night out, we’ll be proud of whatever we do, whatever outcome may be, because it’s so much bigger than basketball.”

He continued: “The more time we spend in the community, the more we realize that and the more we’re just able to help give back and just make the place around us a better place. I think that’s the greatest thing you can do as a basketball player, or anybody really, is just make the world around you a better place,” he added. 

Marquette will face the University of New Mexico in their first-round game on March 21. 

The games for the other Catholic universities competing are: Creighton University will face the University of Louisville on March 20; Gongzaga will play the University of Georgia Bulldogs on March 20; the Xavier Musketeers will face off against the University of Texas Longhorns on March 19; Mount St. Mary’s will face American University on March 19; and the Saint Mary’s Gaels will compete against Vanderbilt on March 21.  

La Oficina de Prensa de la Santa Sede informó este martes que la situación clínica del Papa Francisco “es estable, en un cuadro que sigue siendo complejo”, si bien constató que se han registrado “leves mejoras respiratorias y motoras”.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 18, 2025 / 14:40 pm (CNA).

Catholic Relief Services (CRS) is urging the Trump administration to reverse the cancellation of USAID’s “lifesaving and life-giving assistance” following the official announcement that the majority of its programs have been cut. 

In a March 10 statement posted to X, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reported the completion of the International Humanitarian Assistance evaluation. “After a six-week review we are officially canceling 83% of the programs at USAID,” he said.

“The 5,200 contracts that are now canceled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve (and in some cases even harmed) the core national interests of the United States,” he continued.

“In consultation with Congress, we intend for the remaining 18% of programs we are keeping (approximately 1,000) to now be administered more effectively under the State Department,” Rubio concluded.

In response, CRS in a March 17 press release stated: “As part of the Catholic Church, Catholic Relief Services believes that human life is a precious gift from God that must be protected and nurtured.”

The nongovernmental organization, which carries out the commitment of the U.S. bishops to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas, explained that during the six-week review, it had to halt its “U.S. government-supported work due to the lack of payments.”

The CRS statement said that “food in warehouses could not be distributed to the hungry and women and children could not get vital health and nutrition services.”

“In addition,” the statement said, “last week’s termination of dozens of CRS’ lifesaving projects will permanently cut off critical aid to more than 20 million people worldwide. Eleven of these terminated projects had received humanitarian waivers.”

“These programs do more than save lives. They help lift communities and countries out of poverty. They support local faith-based and church partners that provide services and stability to their communities and to their countries.”

“In the holy season of Lent in this special jubilee year, Pope Francis invites Catholics and all people to become artisans of hope by building communities rooted in solidarity.”

The statement highlighted that the United States has a responsibility to global aid.

“CRS programs attend to the needs of very poor communities. As the most powerful and wealthy country in the world, our government also has a moral responsibility to assist the most vulnerable. As Pope Paul VI said in his encyclical Populorum Progressio: ‘It is a very important duty of the advanced nations to help the developing nations.’”

“By ending these lifesaving programs, our government is not only neglecting our nation’s responsibility but also weakening the very foundations of peace, stability, and prosperity.”

“We urge the administration to reverse these terminations and issue prompt payments to continue this lifesaving and life-giving assistance,” CRS concluded.

Mediante inteligencia artificial (IA), escaneo 3D y el análisis de más de 400.000 fotografías, se ha creado una réplica digital de la basílica de San Pedro que respeta su arquitectura original, pero con el característico estilo pixelado de Minecraft, similar a bloques de LEGO.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 18, 2025 / 14:10 pm (CNA).

When Beverly Jacobson first learned that her unborn daughter Verity would be born with the rare genetic condition trisomy 18, she “was filled with fear and anxiety” — but just three weeks ago the family was able to celebrate Verity’s eighth year of “lots of smiles and giggles and pure joy.”

“Just a happy little girl,” Jacobson told CNA. “We love her.”

Verity turned 8 years old on Feb. 28, less than three weeks ahead of Trisomy 18 Awareness Day, which is celebrated nationally on March 18. Her condition, also called Edwards syndrome, occurs when a person has an extra chromosome 18.

Her name, Jacobson said, derives from the Latin word “veritas,” which means “truth.” She and her husband had considered the name before the diagnosis, but Jacobson said the name choice “was just solidified once we knew that she had this condition” because they wanted her name to “speak truth to the value of all human life.”

“She also is made in the image of God just like every human being, and she’s worthy of life,” Jacobson said.

Some complications often caused by trisomy 18 include growth deficiency, eating difficulties, breathing difficulties, heart defects, facial malformations, skeletal deformities, and intellectual development delays, according to the National Organization for Rare Disorders.

In Verity’s case, she is nonverbal, has developmental delays, cannot feed herself on her own enough to sustain herself, and needs help to move around. Yet, as Jacobson puts it, “she’s really thriving in her own special way.”

Although Verity is nonverbal, Jacobson said this “does not mean noncommunicative” and that it is easy to tell when she is happy or irritated. Like other children, she has her favorite toys, enjoys music, and “has a sense of humor,” Jacobson explained. 

“She loves being outside, she loves the wind in her face,” Jacobson said. “It’s so cute.” 

Verity also “loves having people in her face — the people she knows,” Jacobson added. She also recounted stories about how children at Verity’s school play with her and “completely accept her,” saying it’s good to know “she is a part of their lives.”

Jacobson noted her relationship with her daughter also helped provide a better understanding of God’s sacrificial love for humanity, noting that Verity is “never going to be able to serve someone else in that physical way and yet we love her so completely.”

“Going from that state of fear … and just depression to where I am today — it’s 100% God’s work in my life through Verity,” Jacobson said. “Verity is his vessel to teach me more about the gift to lay down your life and sacrifice for someone else.”

“I feel by far the joys and the blessings outweigh the difficulties because now we’ve grown and we’re all stronger,” Jacobson said. “We’re used to a new normal.”

She said her message to families faced with this type of diagnosis is to let them know “they’re not alone” and that their child “is not a mistake” and that finding “a community that can help you is so, so important.”

Jacobson also launched the nonprofit Mama Bear Care to provide a community for families whose children are diagnosed with rare genetic disorders. The organization also helps the families connect with doctors and other resources to ensure those children receive necessary care.

“This baby is a gift and not a mistake,” she said. “I really think that Verity’s life has so much value and serves a greater purpose. … I’m selfishly grateful that I get to be her mom.”

Countercultural advocacy for recognition of human dignity

When Jacobson was still pregnant with Verity, a common phrase she heard from doctors was that trisomy 18 was “incompatible with life” and that if she did not die in the womb, they “just indicated she would pass away within five to 15 days,” Jacobson told CNA.

“[Verity is] very compatible with life,” Jacobson said, despite the doctors’ warnings. “Living a great life.”

A large percentage of unborn children diagnosed with trisomy 18 die in the womb, and the ones who survive to birth only have about a 5% to 10% survival rate after their first year. Tragically, many of the children who would be born are not given the opportunity to fight for their lives because the post-diagnosis abortion rate is higher than 85%, according to a 2012 study published in the Orphanet Journal of Rare Diseases.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA that doctors should stop using phrases like “lethal diagnosis” and “incompatible with life,” calling those terms “disparaging” and saying they are “incredibly difficult for the newborn’s parents to hear and process.”

“Medical professionals should not view such a child as ‘less of a person’ because of his or her disability,” Pacholczyk said. “They need to remain resolute about treating such children with the same dignity and respect as any other child. It’s a travesty when some parents have to contend with a doctor who will not even address their child with a disability by his or her name.”

Jacobson said, like with other genetic conditions, “there’s often a spectrum” for how trisomy 18 will affect a child, adding that doctors “don’t know how this is going to present.”

Despite this, Jacobson said the doctor who provided the diagnosis for Verity “was very clinical” when explaining the condition and “referred to [Verity as] ‘the fetus’ and ‘it,’ instead of ‘the baby’ and ‘she.’” The family then met with a specialty doctor who told Jacobson and her husband that Verity would have a “futile life” and would be a “drain on the family” financially and emotionally.

“It took away from the humanity of my growing daughter who was kicking and very much alive inside of me,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson noted the specialty doctor callously referred to her daughter as “retarded,” which she said “was very hurtful,” adding: “I cried.” Yet, she said the coldness from the doctors motivated her to fight harder for Verity and give her “every opportunity to live.”

“When I heard those words, it was like mama bear woke up and I felt this fierce protectiveness that Verity’s life matters,” she added.

Pacholczyk said that many parents who face these diagnoses “quickly figure out they will have to become vigorous advocates for their children with disabilities.” 

“Parents in these situations rejoice when they can link up with an exceptional team of physicians who are hopeful and positive about their disabled child’s life and possibilities,” he said.

Conditions like trisomy 18 have also been used by pro-abortion activists to justify expansions to the procedure in states that have enacted pro-life protections for unborn children, including ones with genetic conditions. 

In December 2023, a woman named Kate Cox sued Texas because state law would not allow her to abort her preborn child who was diagnosed with trisomy 18 in the womb. She ultimately left the state to obtain an abortion elsewhere. Much of the media coverage at the time similarly portrayed the diagnosis as “incompatible with life.”

Jacobson said she feels “so much compassion for Cox,” adding: “I’m sure she’s experiencing a lot of emotional trauma and she’s not going to be able to talk about it honestly” because of how pro-abortion activists and the media used her story.

“Many families are experiencing that pressure to abort appointment after appointment,” she added.

Pacholczyk said that “discrimination against those with disabilities should never be allowed to gain a foothold in the medical profession, nor be allowed to guide public policy.” 

“The true measure of the greatness of a society will always be in terms of how it treats its weakest members, and the authenticity of our own love will be measured by our compassion and acceptance of the disabled and the powerless,” Pacholczyk said. 

“God seems to send us children with disabilities to help us grow, to remind us that every soul is of greater importance than its frail body, and to teach us how man’s highest calling is found in his God-like possibility of sharing unconditional love.”

La médico peruana Liliana Hurtado colaboró este fin de semana en un festival a beneficio de las Misioneras de la Caridad exhibiendo en Lima sus pinturas, que reflejan diferentes aspectos de la espiritualidad de la Madre Teresa de Calcuta.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 18, 2025 / 12:35 pm (CNA).

Though Congress extended the visa program used by religious sisters ahead of its deadline last Friday evening, they and other “non-minister religious workers” still face unprecedented challenges in immigrating or remaining in the U.S. to serve their communities.

Concern for the future of the visa program used by nuns and religious workers to immigrate to the U.S. grew earlier this month, as extension of the program hinged on whether a deeply divided Congress would pass its appropriations bill.

Since Congress passed the bill late last Friday, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown, the “sunset date” assigned to the non-minister visa program has been extended another year, thereby allowing workers in this category to begin or continue the process of immigrating to the U.S.

However, as Miguel Naranjo, director of religious immigration services at the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), explained to CNA, the employment-based fourth preference (EB-4) visa category, which contains the Religious Worker Residence Program, is experiencing an unprecedented “backlog.”

“The process to obtain permanent residence status, to get the permanent residency, which a couple of years ago could probably be done somewhere between 12 to 24 months, now is going to take significantly longer,” he told CNA in an interview. 

The EB-4 “special immigrant” category can distribute up to 7.1% of all available immigration visas, the second-lowest of any category, and contains not only programs for religious workers but also individuals such as former employees of the U.S. government overseas, broadcasters, and unaccompanied minors. 

“There’s a huge demand in the EB-4 category,” Naranjo continued. “The irony of this is that the group that’s really in the queue really applying is unaccompanied minors, so juvenile immigrants.” 

Naranjo said religious workers had not been previously affected by the surge in unaccompanied minors until the past year and a half, after the State Department designated the whole category as “subject to backlog” due to the sheer rise in demand across the category. 

Furthermore, the State Department announced late last month that it has distributed all available visas in the EB-4 category for the fiscal year and will not issue any more until Oct. 1. 

Essentially, according to Naranjo, the “good news” is that religious sisters and others in this category can “certainly start the process” of applying for permanent residence. The issue is that the process could exceed the five years they have on their Religious Worker (R1) temporary visa through which they are able to enter the U.S.

“Several years ago, a religious worker could usually, while they’re here in R1 status, be able to get their permanent residency during that period, right before their five years ran out,” Naranjo said. “But now, because of this backlog, what’s happening is five years is not enough, and religious workers don’t have many good options to remain in the United States beyond their five-year stay, so many religious workers are having to leave.” 

Religious sisters and other non-minister religious workers who are unable to obtain their visas within five years have to leave the U.S. for at least one year before they are able to return — though they are able to continue their permanent residence application process in the meantime.

“It can be very disruptive to the communities they serve,” Naranjo reflected. “Religious workers are involved in all kinds of different ministries, social ministries, working with the elderly, working with those in need, working with children.” Ultimately, he said, churches will be increasingly forced to find replacements for religious workers. 

The only way for this problem to get fixed, according to Naranjo, is if Congress votes to increase the percentage of visas in the EB-4 category.

CNA Staff, Mar 18, 2025 / 12:05 pm (CNA).

The Trump administration has paid out $47 million in grants to a Texas Catholic Charities group amid ongoing lawsuits over frozen federal funds.

Catholic Charities Fort Worth earlier this month sued the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services over the freezing of tens of millions of dollars in federal grants for refugee services in the state.

The federal government had said last week that it was conducting a “program integrity review” of Catholic Charities Fort Worth. On Friday the government said the review had been completed.

In a Monday “joint status report,” both the charity group and the federal government said Catholic Charities Fort Worth had filed $47,426,180.17 in “advance payment requests.” The government authorized the payments on Monday, the filing said.

Catholic Charities Fort Worth confirmed in the filing that the deposit had been posted in its account. On Monday the charity group requested nearly $270,000 more in funds, the filing said.

A further joint status report will be filed on Wednesday, according to the document.

On its website, Catholic Charities Fort Worth says it offers legal defense for immigrants facing removal from the U.S. as well as application assistance and consultations.

The Catholic charity group’s blocked funds were among the billions of dollars frozen by broad executive orders issued by President Donald Trump shortly after he took office in January.

The funding freeze touched off a series of lawsuits from nonprofits and aid groups that say the White House engaged in an overreach of its executive power in ending large amounts of federal payouts.

The funding freezes have affected numerous Catholic groups. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) sued the Trump administration in February over what the bishops said was an unlawful suspension of funding for refugee programs in the United States.

The State Department earlier this month canceled two multimillion-dollar refugee resettlement contracts with the USCCB, directing the bishops to “stop all work on the program[s] and not incur any new costs” and “cancel as many outstanding obligations as possible.”

The bishops have continued to contest the matter in federal court.

Multiple Catholic charity groups, meanwhile, have announced layoffs related to the funding freezes.

El P. Gabriel Romanelli, párroco de la iglesia de la Sacra Familia en Gaza, denunció que tras la ruptura de la tregua acordada con Hamás, el ejército de Israel ha lanzado nuevos ataques muy cerca de su parroquia.