St. Clement Catholic Parish

Left to right: Cathleen Davey, president, Holy Name Foundation; Jeffrey A. Brown, acting commissioner for the New Jersey Department of Health; Joan Noble, Douglas M. Noble Family Foundation; Michael Maron, president and CEO of Holy Name Medical Center; U.S. Rep. Nellie Pou; New Jersey state Sen. Paul A. Sarlo; and New Jersey state Sen. Joseph A. Lagana. / Credit: Holy Name

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 29, 2025 / 17:29 pm (CNA).

Holy Name Medical Center, the only independent Catholic health system in New Jersey, announced it has received a $75 million gift, the largest-ever donation to a U.S.-based Catholic health system. 

“This transformational gift is not just about its remarkable size; it’s about the profound impact it will have on Holy Name’s ability to tackle some of the most critical health care challenges facing our community in the decades to come,” the hospital’s president and CEO, Michael Maron, said in a press release on Monday in which he announced the sizable donation from the Douglas M. Noble Family Foundation.

Holy Name Medical Center, located in Teaneck, New Jersey, hosted a special event to celebrate the gift and honor the legacy of the late Dr. Doug Noble, an accomplished neuroradiologist who passed away in 2019. His mother, Joan Noble, made the donation to the hospital on its 100th anniversary in honor of her son.

“My son was a very special person. Not only to me, as his mother, but also to the people in his world of medicine. Doug was an intelligent, dynamic individual sharing so much — energetically and with integrity and love,” Noble said at the event. “It became clear to me in order to make Doug’s legacy endure beyond any one individual’s or organization’s memory, including my own, I needed to give the gift that was Doug’s to a place that would appreciate it — and him; one that would turn his compassionate vision into reality in a way that he would endorse.”

“It was a challenging journey,” she added, “but through Father Roy Regaspi and prayer, I was blessed to be introduced to the people and mission of Holy Name. It is here at Holy Name where I found Doug’s legacy would live on.”

“In deciding where to bestow the funds of the Douglas M. Noble Family Foundation, the fact that Holy Name is a faith-based Catholic health organization entered strongly into Joan Noble’s decision,” Cathleen Davey, president of the Holy Name Foundation, told CNA. “Mrs. Noble told us she had prayed on the question for some time and that her prayers were answered with Holy Name.”

“Doug was a person of faith, and we learned that his desire to emulate Jesus as a healer was something very close to his heart,” Davey said. “Where could these funds promote the kind of medical competence and compassionate care that Doug himself delivered? Where could young physicians be trained as Doug himself taught — not only in the knowledge and skills of doctoring but in the concept of servant leadership?”

“So in getting to know Holy Name, it became apparent to Mrs. Noble that ours was the kind of health system Doug would have appreciated and endorsed,” Davey continued.

The historic gift will be used to expand the hospital’s specialized care units, according to Maron, including the hospital’s Level III neonatal intensive care unit as well as a new neuroendovascular institute.

The funds will also help launch the hospital’s graduate medical education program to help counter ongoing physician shortages.

“The potential impact is limitless — enhancing patient care, fueling medical innovation, attracting the best physician talent, and allowing us to continuously grow and adapt in line with our core values of compassion and healing,” Maron said.

New Jersey Democrat state Sen. Paul Sarlo, who is Catholic, also attended the event.

“Congratulations to Holy Name and God bless the Noble Family Foundation for this donation,” Sarlo said at the event, adding: “This does not happen in a vacuum. This family doesn’t make this contribution to any institution. It made it to Holy Name because when you walk into this place you feel like you belong. You are rooted in that Catholic mission. This gift is a compliment to each and every individual in this hospital. The work you do, day in and day out, ensures folks receive the care they need with gifts like this.”

U.S. Rep. Nellie Pou and state Sens. Joseph Lagana and Gordon Johnson were also present.

Notre Dame Catholic Church in Kerrville, Texas. / Credit: Sophie Abuzeid

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 29, 2025 / 16:59 pm (CNA).

A coalition of Protestant denominations filed a lawsuit on July 28 to challenge a policy from U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration that makes it easier for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to arrest suspects at churches and other sensitive locations.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in January rescinded the previous administration’s guidelines that had prevented ICE agents from conducting immigration arrests at churches and other sensitive locations unless there is approval from a supervisor or there is an urgent need to take enforcement action, such as an imminent threat.

The lawsuit brought by the Protestant coalition argues that the change in policy violates the First Amendment’s right to the free exercise of religion and two federal laws: the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the Administrative Procedure Act.

Churches suing the administration over the policy include several synods of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America along with Quaker churches, Baptist churches, and community churches. The nonprofit Democracy Forward is serving as co-counsel in the lawsuit.

“Raids in churches and sacred spaces violate decades of norms in both Democratic and Republican administrations, core constitutional protections, and basic human decency,” Democracy Forward President and CEO Skye Perryman said in a statement.

“Faith communities should not have to choose between their spiritual commitments and the safety of their congregants,” Perryman said. “Democracy Forward is honored to be alongside these religious leaders in court. We will not give up until this unlawful and dangerous policy is struck down.”

Under the current rules, the formerly “sensitive” locations — such as churches, other houses of worship, schools, hospitals, shelters, and playgrounds — do not receive the special protections they had under the previous administration.

Yet a memo from DHS at the time instructed ICE agents to still maintain discretion and “balance a variety of interests” including the degree to which enforcement actions should be taken in one of those locations. It tells agents to use “a healthy dose of common sense.”

DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin countered the lawsuit’s narrative in a statement provided to CNA, saying that any enforcement in houses of worship would be “extremely rare.”

“Our officers use discretion,” she said. “Officers would need secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in locations such as a church or a school.”

The lawsuit contends it is not enough that the discretion is “guided only by ‘common sense’” and said the policy “does not require any internal process before agents may carry out enforcement at these locations” and “does not require that exigent circumstances exist before agents enter.”

Effects of the DHS policy change

The lawsuit alleges that the policy change causes people to “reasonably fear attending houses of worship” and that some churches represented in the lawsuit “have seen both attendance and financial giving plummet.” It states that this impugns the free exercise of religion and argues that the new policy is not the least restrictive way to further the government’s interest of immigration enforcement.

“Congregations whose faith compels them to worship with open doors and open arms have suddenly had to lock those doors and train their staff how to respond to immigration raids,” the lawsuit contests. “In many places of faith across the United States, the open joy and spiritual restoration of communal worship has been replaced by isolation, concealment, and fear.”

Similar concerns have also been raised by Catholic dioceses. For example, the Diocese of San Bernardino, California, issued a Sunday Mass dispensation for those fearing deportation. Los Angeles Archbishop José Gómez said people are missing Mass amid such fears.

The lawsuit further states that the administration’s policy change has also “led to a growing number of immigration enforcement actions at or near these formerly protected areas.”

Although there are no allegations of targeted raids in churches, the lawsuit cites examples of immigration arrests on or near church properties.

It references two arrests in the San Bernardino Diocese: one in which men were chased into a church parking lot and another in which a man was doing landscaping work. It also references two arrests near churches in Los Angeles and the arrest of a man near a church in Oregon.

“The present threat of surveillance, interrogation, or arrest at their houses of worship means, among other things, fewer congregants participating in communal worship; a diminished ability to provide or participate in religious ministries; and interference with their ability to fulfill their religious mandates, including their obligations to welcome all comers to worship and not to put any person in harm’s way,” the lawsuit states.

McLaughlin, however, disputed these claims, saying that the policy change “gives our law enforcement the ability to do their jobs.”

“We are protecting our schools [and] places of worship by preventing criminal aliens and gang members from exploiting these locations and taking safe haven there because these criminals knew law enforcement couldn’t go inside under the Biden administration,” she said.

Other religious groups have brought similar lawsuits against the DHS following the policy shift.

Canon law professor Edward Peters had taught at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit since 2005. / Credit: Photo courtesy of CanonLaw.info

National Catholic Register, Jul 29, 2025 / 15:59 pm (CNA).

Canon law professor Edward Peters is the third faculty member at Detroit’s seminary to announce that he has been fired by Archbishop Edward Weisenburger in recent days.

Peters, 68, had taught at Sacred Heart Major Seminary since 2005.

“My Sacred Heart Major Seminary teaching contract was terminated by Abp. Weisenburger this week. I have retained counsel,” Peters wrote in a social media post Friday night.

“Except to offer my prayers for those affected by this news and to ask for theirs in return, I have no further comment at this time,” Peters said.

A representative of the Archdiocese of Detroit declined to comment Monday, telling the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, by email on Monday that “the Archdiocese of Detroit does not comment on archdiocesan or seminary personnel matters.”

Peters is an adviser to the Apostolic Signatura, which is the Holy See’s highest administrative tribunal. He was appointed by Pope Benedict XVI to that position in May 2010, “becoming the first layman so appointed since the reconstitution of Signatura over 100 years ago,” according to an online biography.

Peters earned a doctorate in canon law from The Catholic University of America in 1991.

He published an English translation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law in 2001 and a textual history of the 1983 Code of Canon Law in 2005.

Two theologians — Ralph Martin, 82, and Eduardo Echeverria, 74 — were fired from Detroit’s seminary on July 23, they told the Register last week.

Martin told the Register the firing was “a shock” and that he didn’t get a full explanation for it.

“When I asked him for an explanation, he said he didn’t think it would be helpful to give any specifics but mentioned something about having concerns about my theological perspectives,” Martin said in a written statement, as the Register reported last week.

One thing all three now-former faculty members have in common is that they criticized Pope Francis publicly during the late pope’s pontificate.

In Peters’ case, he chided Pope Francis in his canon law blog, called “In Light of the Law.”

In April 2016, he described what he called “writing flaws” in Pope Francis’ encyclical Amoris Laetitia, keying in on Francis’ interest in allowing divorced and civilly remarried Catholics “in certain cases” to have “the help of the sacraments,” including the Eucharist.

Peters wrote that the encyclical makes what he called “a serious misuse of a conciliar teaching” of Vatican II when it conflates the periodic abstinence from sexual intercourse that a married couple may make with what he called “the angst” that “public adulterers experience when they cease engaging in illicit sexual intercourse.”

In August 2018, Peters criticized Pope Francis’ statements condemning the death penalty, referring to what he called “serious magisterial issues that I think Francis’ novel formulation has engendered” and saying he had “grave concerns” about Pope Francis’ “alteration” of the Catechism of the Catholic Church on that issue.

Weisenburger, who was installed March 18 as archbishop of Detroit after serving as bishop of Tucson, Arizona, for a little more than seven years, is an admirer of Pope Francis, as he made clear during a press conference on April 21, the day Pope Francis died. The archbishop called Francis “the perfect man at the right time” and suggested he was “a saint,” as the Register reported last week.

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

The Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima, Japan. / Credit: Oilstreet via Wikimedia (CC BY 2.5)

CNA Staff, Jul 29, 2025 / 15:29 pm (CNA).

Eighty years after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, several Catholic cardinals and archbishops will visit Japan for a pilgrimage of peace this August.

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago; Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C.; Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle; and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, will be part of the pilgrimage coordinated by the Partnership for a World Without Nuclear Weapons (PWNW).

Throughout the five-day visit, the clergy, along with a delegation of pilgrims, will celebrate Mass, participate in dialogue on Catholic ethics and nuclear weapons, and visit historical sites and museums. The delegation will include staff and students from several U.S. universities.

The pilgrimage will begin by bringing together Catholic bishops from Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. alongside “hibakusha,” or atomic bomb survivors, for a panel discussion at the World Peace Memorial Cathedral in Hiroshima on Aug. 5. On Aug. 10, the pilgrimage will conclude with an ecumenical dialogue and academic symposium at Urakami Cathedral in Nagasaki.

The pilgrimage — a joint effort between Japanese and U.S. bishops as well as various Catholic universities — centers on the theme of the Catholic Church’s jubilee year: “Pilgrims of Hope.”

“We are pilgrims of peace and hope, crossing continents and histories to remember the past and transform the future,” Wester said in a press release. “This journey to Hiroshima and Nagasaki is not only a remembrance but a recommitment to the Gospel call for nonviolence and the abolition of nuclear weapons.” 

Archbishop Peter Michiaki Nakamura of Nagasaki and Bishop Alexis Mitsuru Shirahama of Hiroshima worked with the Santa Fe and Seattle archdioceses to sponsor the pilgrimage. The archdioceses of Chicago and Washington are also supporting the pilgrimage, along with the U.S.-based Catholic universities of Georgetown University, Loyola University Chicago, and University of Notre Dame, as well as the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities in North America and the Japanese universities of Nagasaki Junshin Catholic University and Sophia University, Tokyo.

Views on nuclear warfare

Views on nuclear weapons are still mixed in the U.S., though approval for the bombings has dropped since 1945. A 2025 Pew Research Survey found that 35% of Americans say the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were justified, while 31% say that they were not; another 33% say they are unsure. But the bishops and cardinals who are heading to the pilgrimage in August are outspoken against nuclear warfare.

Cupich —  a leading Catholic voice on disarmament — recently wrote a column in the Chicago Catholic reflecting on the bombings where he noted that “the Church has a special responsibility in helping people resist ideas of retribution, hatred, ethnocentrism, and nationalism and in clearly presenting to the world an ethic of solidarity which gives priority to peace-building.”

“Politicians and the military have their roles in building peace, but so do all citizens,” Cupich wrote. “The entire population must be engaged in discussing and agreeing on the limits to warfare with a commitment that acts of intentionally killing innocents is unthinkable and never to be regarded as a regrettable but useful way to shorten a war.”

An estimated 150,000 to 250,000 people died in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Many of the deaths were instantaneous, while others died years later due to the radiation. 

Etienne of Seattle, who will be attending the pilgrimage for the second time, has worked with other leaders to promote the PWNW and its mission. The partnership is united around one purpose: “to protect all life and the environment” from nuclear harm. 

Wester, who will be making the pilgrimage for the third time, is also a vocal advocate for nuclear disarmament. Wester, whose Archdiocese of Santa Fe is home to the nuclear weapons facilities of Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, penned a pastoral letter in 2022 advocating for nuclear disarmament.

Wester also commemorated the anniversary of the testing of the first nuclear bomb in his home state of New Mexico. On July 16 — the anniversary of the detonation of the first nuclear bomb at the Trinity Test Site in the Jornada del Muerto desert — Catholic churches rang their bells at 5:29 a.m., the exact time of the first atomic explosion, as a call to prayer for peace.

Marian Days procession and closing Mass in 2023 in Carthage, Missouri. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Mother of the Redeemer Photography Group

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 29, 2025 / 12:43 pm (CNA).

Every summer, the small city of Carthage, Missouri, becomes a booming landmark of religion and culture as tens of thousands of pilgrims gather to celebrate family and faith, honor the Blessed Mother, and share in Vietnamese traditions.

The Marian Days (Ngày thánh Mẫu) pilgrimage originated as a way to create unity among Catholic immigrants after the Vietnam War. Nearly five decades later, the annual gathering continues to expand as more pilgrims return each year.

This year, the 46th Marian Days pilgrimage will be July 31 to Aug. 3 on the campus of the Congregation of the Mother of the Redeemer (CRM) in Carthage. Thousands of Catholics will take over the city to celebrate with daily Mass, processions, religious workshops, and Vietnamese culture.

Congregation of the Mother of the Redeemer 

The pilgrimage is organized by the CRM order, which is known for serving the Vietnamese community through ministry, evangelization, and its devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The order was originally founded in Vietnam in 1953 before establishing an unexpectedly strong presence in Carthage. Following the Vietnam War, when the country reunified as a socialist state under the Communist Party, 185 clergy members of the CRM fled with a number of others known as “the boat people.”

“In 1975, the wars had gone and our community left,” Father John Paul Tran, provincial minister of CMR, told CNA.

The priests and brothers left after struggling to preach the word of God under a communist regime. During their travels to America the members looked to Mary for guidance, prompting the order’s lasting devotion to her.

“Almost 200 members left Vietnam and [were] scattered around all the refugee camps in the United States,” Tran said. “There happened to be a big group of us in Fort Chaffee,” a resettlement center for Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees in Arkansas. 

A chaplain at the base connected the group with then-Bishop Bernard Law of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Missouri. “The bishop … [found] out about us and he sponsored us into his diocese.” The group then moved to Missouri to stay at the vacant Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) Seminary. 

“They were about to close it up,” Tran said of the OMI seminary. “So the bishop … asked them to rent it to us. So he brought every one of us back to this place in Carthage, [where] we live right now.”

Eventually, “we bought the place over from the OMI,” and the order turned the old seminary grounds into the CMR campus. “Then Marian Days started in 1978,” Tran said.

Pilgrimage to Carthage 

“Marian Days started … as a small gathering for the Vietnamese people, ‘the boat people,’ to gather, to give thanks, and to celebrate [and] march together. And just to encourage each other,”  Tran said. 

The first celebration was only one day with about 1,500 people. Today, the event lasts three days and welcomes so many that they have “stopped counting” how many join, but the priest said the city estimates “around 60,000 to 70,000 people.” 

Although the event is primarily organized and attended by the Vietnamese community, many locals and other groups also participate. Carthage has a population of about 15,600 people, but the event brings in almost five times the number of residents. Tran said that over the three days, “the city is packed.” 

Hundreds volunteer to help it go smoothly, including religious men and women from a number of Vietnamese orders, including sisters of the Congregation of Mary Queen. Sister Janine Tran, CRM, told CNA they “have been volunteering at Marian Days for over 40 years.” [Editor’s note: Sister Janine Tran is no known relation to Father John Paul Tran.]

In order to house the thousands, the CRM campus welcomes people to camp on the grounds. “We have 60 acres,” Father Tran explained. “It’s first come first served [of] any open space. They can put their tent and park their car there.”

“But then the city, they open up. Everybody who [has] a yard, they let the pilgrims [camp] on their yards and sometimes stay in their houses.” Some Vietnamese pilgrims have stayed with the same Carthage families for decades.

Marian Days 

Marian Days is “a big culture gathering, a family gathering, too. It’s religious, but then there’s a culture and a celebration to it,” Tran said. He explained that many pilgrims use the annual celebration as their family reunion and to unite with long-distance friends. 

Over the three days, pilgrims attend Mass, receive the sacraments, and deepen their faith at workshops and conferences “for [the] Vietnamese-speaking, for the English-speaking, and for the youth,” Tran said. 

On Saturday, pilgrims participate in a large procession with a statue of Our Lady of Fátima. The pilgrims process around the city as they pray the rosary, and many wear traditional Vietnamese attire while holding signs that indicate where they traveled from. 

The pilgrims get a strong sense of Vietnamese culture as hundreds of tents and booths are set up around the city with people selling traditional cuisine and people spreading the faith in “vocation booths.” This year, Sister Janine Tran said there is expected to be “10-12 religious communities” set up in the tents “to help promote the consecrated life.” 

In the evenings there are performances by attendees and even well-known entertainers to celebrate and honor Vietnamese heritage. Sister Janine shared that “this year, six of [the] sisters along with six young women from the Springfield Vietnamese Catholic community are doing a dance for Friday night’s entertainment to promote religious life as well as the Jubilee Year of Hope.”

After the festivities, the event will “end on Sunday morning with the closing Mass,” Father Tran said. Following the Mass, the pilgrims pack up and leave the small city behind for another year.

U.S. Office of Personnel Management headquarters building in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Another Believer, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 29, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has issued new guidance to safeguard the right of federal employees to express religion in the workplace, including the display of religious imagery on desks, voluntary conversations, and prayer.

The new guidelines, issued by U.S. Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor, were sent to the heads of all federal departments and agencies on Monday, July 28. The guidance is meant to clarify the religious liberty protections guaranteed in the First Amendment and already enshrined in federal law.

“Federal employees should never have to choose between their faith and their career,” Kupor said in a statement. “This guidance ensures the federal workplace is not just compliant with the law but welcoming to Americans of all faiths. Under President Trump’s leadership, we are restoring constitutional freedoms and making government a place where people of faith are respected, not sidelined.”

Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Michael Ross praised the memo in a statement to CNA, saying that “no American should have to check their faith at the door when they walk into the workplace.”

“We’re grateful for President Trump’s leadership in reaffirming every federal employee’s right to exercise their religious beliefs at work to the fullest extent permitted by law,” he said. “This is a critical step in restoring a workplace culture that respects and promotes religious freedom for every American.”

Protected religious expressions

The federal guidance clarifies religious liberty protections in five specific categories: display and use of items for religious purposes, expressions by groups of federal employees, conversations between federal employees, expressions directed at members of the public, and expressions in areas accessible to the public.

For the first category, the guidance states that employees can display and use religious items at their desks, on their person, and in assigned workplaces. This applies to a variety of items, such as Bibles, rosaries, jewelry, artwork, crosses, and mezuzahs.

The second category guarantees that federal employees can “engage in individual or communal religious expressions in both formal and informal settings alone or with fellow employees” when the employees are not on duty.

On the subject of conversations between employees, the guidance states that a person “may engage in conversations regarding religious topics.” This includes voluntary conversations that seek to “persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views” as long as it is not harassing in nature.

The protection of religious conversations also extends to an employee encouraging a co-worker to participate in prayer or other expressions of faith “to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage co-workers [to] participate in other personal activities.” An employee cannot be disciplined in any way for not wanting to participate.

When engaging with members of the public as a private person — as long as the employee is not making a statement as part of his official duties — his or her religious expression must “not be suppressed,” according to the guidance. It states that constitutional rights “are not limited by the venue or the hearer.”

Additionally, the guidance states religious expressions, when done in an employee’s personal capacity, are permitted “in areas accessible to the public.” It states such religious expressions must “be treated in the same manner as if those expressions are made in areas inaccessible to the public.”

Examples of protected activities

The guidelines offer the heads of federal departments and agencies several examples of religious expressions that are protected.

In one example, it notes that an employee could keep a Bible on his or her desk to read during breaks or an employee could keep a rosary at his or her desk to pray during breaks. Employees can wear crosses or other clothing that displays a religious message.

The guidelines explain that a group of employees could form a prayer group or a group to study the Bible or other religious texts at the office, as long as they are not on duty. Employees should be allowed to use empty conference rooms for such activities, according to the guidance.

An employee is allowed to engage in a “polite discussion of why his faith is correct and why the non-adherent should rethink his religious beliefs,” invite a member to church, or post a bulletin that advertises a religious service. Yet, conversations must be voluntary. If a co-worker does not want to continue the conversation, “the employee should honor the request.”

Other protected activities listed include a park ranger leading a tour through a national park joining a group in prayer or a doctor praying over his or her patient for recovery. It would also permit a security guard to display a crucifix, among many other protected activities.

null / Credit: sergign/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 28, 2025 / 18:03 pm (CNA).

A federal judge blocked a provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was aimed at defunding Planned Parenthood and ordered the federal government to resume Medicaid reimbursements to the abortion giant while litigation over the law continues.

The legislation, signed by President Donald Trump on July 4, included a one-year freeze on some abortion facilities receiving Medicaid reimbursements for non-abortive services. Judge Indira Talwani ruled on Monday, July 28, that the provision likely targets Planned Parenthood, which violates the Constitution.

Per the order, federal agencies and employees must “take all steps necessary” to ensure that Planned Parenthood facilities receive Medicaid reimbursements “in the customary manner and time frames.” Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against the federal government is still ongoing, but the ruling is meant to prevent “irreparable harm” to the abortion giant while the matter is under review in court.

In her ruling, Talwani found that even though the bill does not mention Planned Parenthood “by name,” it is written in a way to ensure that the defunding provision only affects facilities that are affiliated with Planned Parenthood while leaving other entities untouched.

The ruling states the defunding provision is likely in violation of the bill of attainder clause in the Constitution, which prohibits Congress from writing bills that single out entities for punishment. It also found the rule likely violates the equal protection clause and the First Amendment right to freedom of association.

“This order … prevents [the government] from targeting a specific group of entities — Planned Parenthood Federation members — for exclusion from reimbursements under the Medicaid program where [Planned Parenthood has] established a substantial likelihood that they will succeed in establishing that such targeted exclusion violates the United States Constitution,” Talwani ruled.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America President and CEO Alexis McGill praised the ruling in a statement Monday.

“As this case continues, patients across the country can still go to their trusted Planned Parenthood provider for care using Medicaid,” she said. “We will keep fighting this cruel law so that everyone can get birth control, STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings, and other critical health care, no matter their insurance.”

White House spokesperson Harrison Fields criticized the ruling in a statement provided to CNA, saying the bill was “legally passed by both chambers of the legislative branch and signed into law by the chief executive.”

“The judge’s decision to grant the injunction on the basis that defunding an entity is an unconstitutional criminal punishment is not only absurd but illogical and incorrect,” he said. “It is orders like these that underscore the audacity of the lower courts as well as the chaos within the judicial branch. We look forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a statement provided to CNA that “we strongly disagree with the court’s decision.”

“States should not be forced to fund organizations that have chosen political advocacy over patient care,” the spokesperson added. “This ruling undermines state flexibility and disregards long-standing concerns about accountability.”

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), which has long urged the government to defund Planned Parenthood, condemned the ruling and referred to Talwani as “an activist judge.”

“Every day this order stands, Planned Parenthood continues to rake in millions of our tax dollars, fueling thousands of unborn lives ended daily and putting women at unacceptable risk of serious harm and even death,” SBA President Marjorie Dannenfelser said.

“Women have better and more comprehensive alternatives with community health centers outnumbering Planned Parenthood facilities 15 to 1,” she said. “We look forward to the Trump administration swiftly stopping this lawfare and restoring the historic victory secured through the One Big Beautiful Bill.”

In recent months, more than two dozen Planned Parenthood facilities across the country announced they would shut down amid funding concerns. Several facilities made announcements earlier this year in anticipation of the defunding effort. Last week, another five northern California facilities announced they would shut down. On July 28, the organization announced the closure of two of its six clinics in the Houston area, including its Prevention Park location, which was known as the largest abortion facility in the Western Hemisphere.

On July 1, ahead of the bill’s passage, Planned Parenthood Federation of America claimed the defunding provision could force 200 clinics — about 60% of its facilities — to close.

Planned Parenthood facilities take in hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer money every year, a large portion of which stems from Medicaid reimbursements. According to Planned Parenthood’s annual report for July 2023 through June 2024, about 40% of its revenue came from taxpayer funds, which accounted for nearly $800 million.

Long-standing federal law prohibits taxpayer funding for most abortions. Yet, until the One Big Beautiful Bill Act was signed into law, Medicaid funds could broadly cover non-abortive services at abortion facilities.

Prevention Park in Houston was at one time the largest Planned Parenthood administrative and medical facility in the United States. / Credit: Hourick, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Houston, Texas, Jul 28, 2025 / 17:03 pm (CNA).

Planned Parenthood has announced the closure of two of its six clinics in the Houston area, including its Prevention Park location, which was known as the largest abortion facility in the Western Hemisphere until the state’s near-total abortion ban in 2022.

Texas Right to Life President Dr. John Seago in an interview with CNA called the Prevention Park location’s closure an “unmitigated victory for life.”

At its peak, this center aborted 10,000 babies a year, up until 24 weeks of pregnancy, according to Shawn Carney, founder and CEO of the pro-life group 40 Days for Life, whose headquarters in Bryan, Texas, are located in a former abortion clinic near Texas A&M University.

“There just hasn’t been a more exciting time to be pro-life,” Carney told CNA, saying the clinic’s closure is one of “the greatest victories” in the history of the pro-life movement.

Seago called the 78,000-square-foot structure, which he said resembles a Central American pyramid where human sacrifices took place, a “symbol of Planned Parenthood’s height of power and influence.”

Carney said volunteers would get “overwhelmed” and “depressed” when they saw how big the abortion clinic was, sometimes feeling like “all hope was lost.”

“If you go from that moment to seeing the building closing, it is unbelievable,” he said.

Located alongside the busy Gulf Freeway in Houston’s East End, a Hispanic neighborhood near the University of Houston, which has 50,000 students, the Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s Prevention Park location also houses the Gulf Coast administrative offices.

“The thousands of pro-lifers that have prayed outside of it” over the years “are celebrating,” Carney said.

“For so long the Church has been taught its teachings were archaic,” he said, but these closures show that the culture is finally waking up to “the teachings of natural law.”

The closure of the abortion giant’s largest clinic, which both Seago and Carney called “symbolic,” follows more than two dozen other Planned Parenthood clinic closures in recent months.

The latest closure comes after years of funding cuts by the Texas Legislature, which slashed funding for Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers in 2011, leading to 82 clinic closures statewide, and barred Planned Parenthood from its Medicaid program in 2021 after a legal battle.

In 2019, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 22 prohibiting local governments from contracting with Planned Parenthood for any services, including non-abortion care.

The Trump administration’s recent signature legislative victory, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, includes a provision that ends Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood. A federal judge blocked the provision on July 28, however, after issuing a partial preliminary injunction last week. 

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast President and CEO Melaney Linton said in a statement to the Houston Chronicle that “having to reduce [Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast’s] staffing and future footprint in Houston is heartbreaking, infuriating, and the direct result of these sustained political attacks.”

Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, which has been operating in the Houston area for more than 90 years, operates six clinics in Greater Houston and two in Louisiana. It will close its Prevention Park and Southwest clinics on Sept. 30. The four remaining Houston clinics will be acquired by affiliate Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas.

Once the four remaining clinics in Houston are acquired, Planned Parenthood Greater Texas will operate 22 clinics in the state. Seven other clinics in the San Antonio area are operated by Planned Parenthood South Texas.

The clinics rely on donor support now that so much of their funding has been cut, according to a spokesperson for the Gulf Coast affiliate.

Mollie Keen and her baby, Nash, the world’s youngest premature baby. Nash was born more than four months early and celebrated his first birthday this month. / Credit: University of Iowa Health Care

CNA Staff, Jul 28, 2025 / 16:33 pm (CNA).

The world’s youngest premature baby, who was born more than four months early, celebrated his first birthday this month.

Nash Keen’s first birthday was much like any other baby’s — cake with extra whipped cream, a gathering of family and friends, and stacks of gifts — except that his birthday made him the holder of the Guinness World Record for the most premature baby to survive.

Nash was born at 21 weeks’ gestation, 133 days early. At only about 10 ounces, he weighed less than grapefruit and was a little over eight inches long. He was so lightweight that when his mother, Mollie Keen, held him, she could barely feel his weight. 

The impossibly small baby was born July 5, 2024, at the University of Iowa Health Care Stead Family Children’s Hospital — one of the most advanced in the nation for neonatal care.

There was effectively no chance of survival for Nash as no one born this young had survived.

‘I never lost hope’ 

His parents, Mollie and Randall Keen, were terrified when they discovered that due to a condition Mollie had, Nash would be born early. 

At a 20-week scan for the baby, the doctor found that Mollie was already two centimeters dilated. Mollie had felt that something was wrong and had asked for the closer examination. 

The couple had already lost a baby. Their first baby, a girl named McKinley, was born at 18 weeks’ gestation about two years before Nash’s birth. 

They were terrified they would lose another child. 

“We were devastated. We thought we were going through the exact same thing, and we thought we were going to lose this baby,” Mollie said in the hospital press release. 

Mollie had been diagnosed with cervical incompetence, a condition where the cervix begins to open too early, often leading to premature birth or miscarriage. To further complicate things, she has polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) — a relatively common condition that can make it difficult to conceive a child due to inconsistent ovulation.

“At that point, I didn’t know what I could do to turn things around,” Mollie said.

In spite of the odds, the couple pursued all the treatment they could find for their unborn baby. 

“I never lost hope for Nash,” Mollie said.

That same evening, after her 20-week scan, Mollie had already begun to feel mild cramping. The couple rushed to the emergency room, where Mollie was told to go on bed rest and try to delay labor.

If the baby could hold out to the 21-week mark, the hospital would have the resources to treat him. 

While different NICUs (neonatal intensive care units) have different levels of care they are able to offer premature babies, the University of Iowa NICU has recently begun offering lifesaving care for babies born at 21 weeks’ gestation. According to the hospital, its own NICU was one of only a “few places in the world equipped to potentially save Nash.” 

In the early hours of the morning, Mollie and Randall rushed to Iowa City. Mollie’s water broke, increasing the chances of complications, and the hospital tried to delay labor. After two days — just hours after the 21-week mark — Mollie’s delivery began. Less than 10 hours later, Nash was born. 

The first hours and days after delivery have the highest jeopardy, according to Dr. Amy Stanford, the neonatologist who supervised Nash’s resuscitation. Extremely premature babies need care around the clock.

The baby’s size can determine if he or she will live or die. If the baby is too small, even the smallest tubes won’t be able to fit.

“Sometimes babies born at 21 weeks are just too small for even our tiniest breathing tubes and intravenous lines,” Stanford said. 

But Nash was lucky — he was just big enough for the tubes. After Stanford placed the breathing tube, his condition began to stabilize.

During the 189 days that Nash was in the hospital, a team of more than 30 staff members cared for him. Doctors watched Nash closely, using hemodynamics, an ultrasound-based technique to check on the baby’s blood flow and heart function. 

“Around the one-month mark, we all began to breathe a little easier,” Stanford said. “While we knew Nash still had a long journey ahead, that was the point when we started to feel more confident that he had a real chance of going home.” 

But Nash still had more challenges. His vital signs dropped for several nights because of his immature lungs and heart, and he underwent a surgery for a perforated bowel that had a 30%-40% mortality rate. 

“He can be doing well for several days and then have one to two bad days in between, but I’m starting to understand that’s part of the journey that most NICU parents go through and that we’re not alone,” Mollie wrote online during Nash’s NICU stay, according to the hospital press release.

After 189 days in the hospital, at the beginning of 2025, Nash went home.

Going home: A ‘victory’

In Ankeny, Iowa, the Keen family celebrated Nash’s first birthday with a small gathering of family and close friends, who showered the birthday boy with presents — 70 new outfits as well as plenty of toys and diapers. 

The doctors gave the 1-year-old a special dispensation — he could have birthday cake for the special occasion. 

The couple has nicknamed their son “Nash Potato” and they describe him as “determined, curious, and the happiest baby you’ll meet,” according to the Guinness World Records press release. 

Mollie described the last year as “surreal.” 

“A year ago, we weren’t sure what the future would look like, and now we’ve celebrated his first birthday,” she said. “It’s emotional in so many ways: pride, gratitude, even some grief for how different his journey has been. But above all, it feels like a victory.”

Nash still has ongoing health issues, including a minor heart defect, but his doctors say the defect should resolve as he gets older. While he has been delayed in reaching typical baby milestones, Nash didn’t experience any brain bleeds while in the NICU, so doctors hope his cognitive function won’t be affected. 

Mollie said she hopes Nash will “see his story as a source of strength.”  

“I just hope that Nash realizes just how loved he is and how many people have cheered him on from the very beginning,” she said. “I want him to grow up and be healthy, happy, and confident in who he is.”

null / Credit: Deemerwha studio/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 28, 2025 / 13:40 pm (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has invited Americans to participate in a daily prayer to St. Joseph, defender of life, to stop federal funding of the abortion industry.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the USCCB, and Bishop Daniel Thomas, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, wrote in a joint statement: “History was recently made when Planned Parenthood and other big abortion businesses were banned from receiving federal Medicaid dollars for one year.”

The passing of the Trump administration’s controversial One Big Beautiful Bill Act halted tax dollars from going to organizations that perform abortions. But, the bishops noted in their statement, “Planned Parenthood immediately sued in a federal court and the judge swiftly granted part of a preliminary injunction, requiring the abortion giant’s taxpayer funding to continue.”

The ruling will allow the organization to continue to operate with millions of taxpayer funds as the case progresses. “Otherwise, children’s lives could be saved every day,” the bishops wrote.  

Broglio and Thomas are now “inviting Catholics to join a focused effort of prayer to stop taxpayer funding of the abortion industry.” The prayer invoking the intercession of St. Joseph should be prayed until Oct. 1, the beginning of Respect Life Month. 

“Americans should not be forced to pay for the killing of preborn children or fund the clinics that kill them,” the bishops said. “We ask Catholics to offer this prayer daily” to protect “innocent children and their vulnerable mothers from the evil of abortion.”

Prayer to St. Joseph

Dearest St. Joseph, at the word of an angel, you lovingly took Mary into your home. As God’s humble servant, you guided the Holy Family on the road to Bethlehem, welcomed Jesus as your own son in the shelter of a manger, and fled far from your homeland for the safety of both Mother and Child. We praise God that as their faithful protector, you never hesitated to sacrifice for those entrusted to you.

May your example inspire us also to welcome, cherish, and safeguard God’s most precious gift of life. Help us to faithfully commit ourselves to the service and defense of human life — especially where it is vulnerable or threatened. Obtain for us the grace to do the will of God in all things. Amen.