St. Clement Catholic Parish

Father Juan Manuel Gutiérrez in interview with “EWTN Noticias” anchor Nathalí Paredes on Dec. 19, 2024. / Credit: EWTN Noticias/Screenshot

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 23, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Juan Manuel Gutiérrez is a Mexican priest who now serves in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest and probably the most diverse in the United States. His name is now forever linked to the young Italian Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati, who died at the age of 24 and who next year, during the 2025 Jubilee, will be declared a saint thanks to the miracle the 38-year-old priest experienced through his intercession.

On Nov. 25, Pope Francis approved the decree of the miracle Gutiérrez received through the intercession of Frassati.

‘I declared myself an atheist’

“My Mexican family was Catholic, my mother was a very Catholic woman; she belonged to the group of women at the church devoted to Our Lady of Guadalupe … I received my sacraments as a child, my first Communion, baptism, confirmation, but at the age of 14 or so I began to separate myself from the Church to the point that I stopped attending Mass, I stopped praying,” the priest recounted in an interview with EWTN Noticias, the Spanish-language evening news program of EWTN News.

“I even began to believe that God didn’t exist, that he was a human invention that, as some philosophers say, was like a drug for the masses to control them. And I distanced myself from the Church. For many years I didn’t go to Mass and I declared myself an atheist, that I did not believe in God,” he continued.

His parents separated when he was just 2 years old. His mother stayed in Texcoco, northeast of Mexico City, and his father moved to Omaha, Nebraska. At 19, he decided to join his father and, while there, “by God’s providence, someone also invited me to a retreat, which I didn’t want to go to, but I ended up going and that’s where my return to the Church began.”

He wanted to be convinced in the faith and began to study the history of the Church and about Jesus, and discovered that “there is a lot of historical evidence, even non-Catholic, nonreligious, that gives reasons to believe that Jesus walked the Earth.”

“And what convinced me to remain Catholic is the reality that Jesus is present in the Eucharist, which even with the research of Eucharistic miracles has been scientifically proven. When I began to find all this evidence, all my objections against faith and religion fell one after another.”

Entering the seminary after ‘fighting with [the Lord] for a long time’

According to Angelus News, Gutiérrez began his formation for the priesthood when he was 26 years old, in 2013, at the Juan Diego House of Formation of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. 

He graduated in 2017 and together with his classmates went on to St. John’s Seminary to continue their priestly formation. He was ordained in June 2022.

“It was a very long fight with the Lord, because I had other plans, good plans in my opinion, Catholic, to have my family, to have my children, to dedicate myself to the ministry or any opportunity I had, but it never crossed my mind to be a priest,” he shared with EWTN News.

It was not until “by the providence of God, those questions came to me from different directions, priests who knew me, people from the parish who saw me go to Mass every day, being involved in different activities of my church.”

“Even in prayer the Lord began to present the proposal of a vocation to the priesthood and after fighting with him for a long time, as Jeremiah said, ‘Lord, you have seduced me,’ and I let myself be seduced, I decided to give myself the opportunity to enter the seminary,” he recalled.

The heat, the Holy Spirit, and the miracle by Pier Giorgio Frassati

In October 2017, while playing basketball with other seminarians, Gutiérrez tore his Achilles tendon. An MRI on Oct. 31 confirmed the injury, and on Nov. 1, the solemnity of All Saints, he decided to pray a novena to Blessed Frassati to ask for help with his ailment.

“I was inspired to pray to Pier Giorgio Frassati, and that same day I began [the novena]. A few days after beginning my novena, I went to pray in the seminary chapel. I was alone, there was no one else, and I knelt down to pray. And while I was praying, I began to feel a sensation of heat in the area of ​​my injured heel.”

“I initially thought it was due to a fire, that maybe an electrical outlet was on fire, and since we have books under the pews, I thought maybe the fire was due to that. But when I checked, there was no sign of fire, there was no burning smell, and I began to notice that the sensation of heat was in the area of ​​my injury, of the tear,” the priest continued.

“And I began to remember that in many Catholic spiritualities, such as the charismatic, people described that when the Holy Spirit is doing a healing in a person, the person describes the sensation of heat.”

The priest confessed that he didn’t believe it was possible that he was healing, “not because God didn’t have the power to do so, but because I believed that I didn’t have the faith for such a thing, and that moved me deeply, and moved me to tears. And after I finished praying that day, I continued with my normal activities.”

The doctor’s surprise: ‘Someone up there is taking care of you’

Since he suffered the injury, Gutiérrez had been wearing an ankle brace, but he stopped wearing it after what happened in the chapel. On Nov. 15, six days after finishing his novena, he went to see the surgeon who was going to operate on him.

The priest said the surgeon looked at the images of the injury on the computer, did the Thompson test on him, which checks for a tear, but found nothing and, in addition, the then-seminarian simply felt no pain in the area that had been affected.

The doctor then told him that surgery didn’t seem to be necessary. “And I asked him why and he told me that when he examined me, when he tried to touch the place of the fissure with his finger, he should be able to touch the hole, the fissure that the tear leaves, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t find it. And since he knew that I was a seminarian, I only remember that he told me ‘there must be someone up there who is taking care of you.’”

“And when he told me that, I felt like a shiver that ran through my entire body because at that moment I remembered the event in the chapel where I had the sensation of heat in the area of ​​my injury, of the tear. And I remembered my novena to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati.”

The doctor told him that the MRI was correct, that on Oct. 31 a tear in the Achilles tendon was seen, that these types of injuries did not heal on their own but, on the contrary, worsen over time. Then, at the request of the then-31-year-old seminarian, the doctor gave him the medical documents of the case because he simply did not require any medical attention.

“I returned to the seminary. It gave me great joy, I felt a lot of emotion, but at the same time I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I tried to keep it as secret as possible.” In fact, he didn’t even mention it to his family, only to a few people.

His relationship with Frassati: ‘A friendship that cannot be described’

The priest recalled that when he prayed the novena “I wasn’t asking for healing, I was asking for God’s help with my injury. And I initially thought of doing it to all the saints, because it occurred to me, ‘Well, today is the day of the solemnity of All Saints and I need all the help I can get.’ But then I received this inspiration that said to me, why don’t you do the novena to Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati? And I was a little surprised, but it seemed like a good idea, and that’s why I did it to him.”

“I thought that this secret, so to speak, I was going to take with me to the grave. I did promise during my novena that if something unusual happened, I would report it to whoever I needed to report it, [but] I never imagined that this would become the miracle that the Vatican would accept for the canonization of Pier Giorgio.”

One of the people with whom he shared what had happened was a professor of his, who then took the case to the Vatican. Then it was decided to open a formal investigation.

After pointing out that the investigation being conducted by the Vatican, in which one of his professors at the seminary participated, is “extremely rigorous,” Gutiérrez commented that “the Lord is the one who chose to give me this connection, this friendship with Pier Giorgio. And it was the Lord who planned that of all the miracles and graces that people have received around the world through Pier Giorgio’s intercession, this would be the event that would lead to his canonization.”

Regarding his relationship with the future Italian saint, the priest said that “it’s like a friendship that cannot be described. One has human friendships, good ones and so on, but this is something different. It’s something that fills me with joy, that fills me with peace, that also challenges me now as a priest to be a better witness of being a Christian.”

The Mexican priest also highlighted that “Pier Giorgio was very fond of mountain climbing, of going on hikes in the mountains. And it was not a quality that I thought I had much, but it is something that little by little I am embracing a little more and I feel, when I have done it and I have gone to the mountains to walk, I even feel his closeness.”

“Also to be brave: that the Christianity that one lives also comes to manifest itself in social areas of life, because that’s something that he did a lot. At his young age, in his youth, he knew that his Christianity was not just to stay within the walls of the church. In his social life, in the context of society, of politics, of his country, he knew that the values ​​of the Gospel, of Christianity, had to influence those areas of human life,” Gutiérrez emphasized.

Speaking about the canonization during the 2025 Jubilee, the priest from Los Angeles affirmed that “once again, providence, the hand of the Lord that writes our history is everywhere, because next year also marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Pier Giorgio.” It’s “a gift of God’s providence that is amazing,” he added.

“I am hoping to go, this is my hope, to be able to go,” he said.

Who was Blessed Pier Gorgio Frassati?

Pier Giorgio Frassati was born on Holy Saturday, April 6, 1901. He was the son of the founder and director of the Italian newspaper La Stampa.

At the age of 17, he joined the Society of St. Vincent de Paul and devoted much of his free time to caring for the poor, the homeless, and the sick, as well as veterans returning from World War I.

Frassati was also involved in the Apostleship of Prayer and Catholic Action. He was a daily communicant.

Frassati died of polio on July 4, 1925, a disease he apparently contracted while caring for the sick. He was only 24 years old.

St. John Paul II, who beatified Frassati in 1990, called him “a man of the Eight Beatitudes,” describing him as “totally immersed in the mystery of God and totally dedicated to the constant service of his neighbor.”

Pope Francis praised Frassati for sharing Jesus’ love with the poor in a talk on June 24: “Pier Giorgio was from a well-off upper-middle-class family, but he didn’t grow up in the lap of luxury, he didn’t get lost in the ‘good life,’ because inside him there was the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit, there was love for Jesus and for his brothers.”

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

Daniel Turek, left, and Noah Mullins are two Detroit-area students studying at Grand Valley State University who design and sell Kingdom Kneelers, foam kneeling pads for prayer. Mullins came up with the idea for Kingdom Kneelers after attending the 2024 SEEK Conference in St. Louis. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Kingdom Kneelers

Detroit, Mich., Dec 23, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Noah Mullins’ experience at the 2024 SEEK Conference cemented his reversion back to the Catholic faith.

It also sparked a business venture that can heal souls and perhaps save some pain on kneecaps.

The Grand Valley State University student and University of Detroit Jesuit High School alum was at the 2024 SEEK Conference in St. Louis, invited by the Catholic campus ministry in Allendale in west Michigan.

Mullins grew up at St. Joseph Parish in Trenton, Michigan, and drifted away from Catholicism after high school but started visiting the Catholic campus ministry — initially to disprove the tenets of the faith but later to learn more about Catholicism through a mature lens.

It was the third night of SEEK, and after a few encouraging lectures and prayers surrounding Eucharistic adoration, Mullins was slowly coming around to discover (or rather rediscover) Christ’s true presence in the Eucharist.

“We had this time for conference-wide adoration in the stadium,” Mullins told Detroit Catholic. “We had this time for adoration, and many people were getting so emotional as the priest carried the Eucharist in the monstrance throughout the stadium. Many people, myself included, were kneeling, but the stadium had concrete-cement flooring, so it was getting very difficult to kneel.”

It was a powerful moment for Mullins. His heart was on fire for the Lord, but his knees were aching. 

The solution presented itself right away.

“On my way out of adoration, I noticed FOCUS [the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, who organize the SEEK Conference] had provided some kneeling pads,” Mullins said. “I took a kneeler because I wanted one for my dorm back at Grand Valley. When I got back to my hotel that night, it dawned on me: These could be personalized or customized with a general design — maybe have better quality, a larger pad for a wider kneeling stance. Perhaps some Catholic imagery, since FOCUS kneelers just had their logo.”

That night in the hotel room, Mullins kicked around with fellow students the idea of customized foam kneelers for Catholics on the go who wanted to pray and save themselves from joint pain.

Mullins enlisted the help of fellow Grand Valley State student Daniel Turek, a Detroit Catholic Central alum and parishioner of St. William in Walled Lake, Michigan, whom Mullins met at St. Luke University Parish located right off the GVSU campus.

Mullins and Turek would talk about the faith and various beliefs in the Church, and the occasional sparring turned into accompaniment, as Mullins was warming back up to the idea of rejoining the Church.

The two agreed to meet at Wolfgang’s Restaurant, a popular breakfast destination in Grand Rapids’ Eastown Neighborhood, where Mullins and Turek, a senior marketing major, began discussing what Kingdom Kneelers would look like and to whom they could market them.

“We had much debate on what we wanted to do for these kneeling pads,” Turek said. “Noah and I talked to over 10 different priests from the Diocese of Grand Rapids and the Archdiocese of Detroit, consulting with them on what would be a proper image. We wanted them to be good, Christian images, but we didn’t want anything that would be disrespectful to kneel on.”

The two settled on three designs: a ram caught in a thicket, a rosary wrapped around hands in prayer, and a Crusader.

Each kneeler features the Kingdom Kneelers logo — which features the Sacred Heart — in the bottom-right corner and a Bible verse in the top-left corner.

“We wanted to hit two elements in the design right away, that being Christ, of course, and the Blessed Mother,” Mullins said. “We knew going into making the designs we wanted to have those two elements. Then we decided on the Crusader, as we wanted to appeal to Catholic men who might want a more masculine image as well.”

The foam kneelers have a neoprene surface that is smooth for kneeling, are approximately 6 1/2 by 13 inches, and are just under a pound in weight.

Mullins and Turek first introduced the kneelers to friends on campus and received a positive reception. They have begun marketing the kneelers to people at campus ministry, parish gift shops, and conferences in the Grand Rapids area.

“Our best reception came a week ago at the Grand Rapids diocesan Council of Catholic Women event — the Ablaze Conference — where we sold 15 kneelers to attendees of the event,” Mullins said. “People were saying they wish they had something like this at the National Eucharistic Congress or would have loved to have them at home. Many of the women were thinking they could be great gifts for their grandsons or granddaughters to help them stay in the faith as they grow older and leave home.”

Coming full circle, Kingdom Kneelers will have an exhibition table at the SEEK 2025 conference in Salt Like City on Jan. 1–5.

“We think these will be a big hit at SEEK, but also being used at home to pray in corners because many people want to have a traditional kneeler at home,” Mullins said. “We see it being used on pilgrimages as we are going into the jubilee year, and people are traveling to visitation sites and worship sites in Europe and around the world. We see Kingdom Kneelers for companies who put on pilgrimage tours to add to their attendees’ packages.”

Kingdom Kneelers are available to purchase online for $19.99.

Mullins and Turek hope the kneelers will help people enter into a more intentional — if not more comfortable — state of prayer. 

“Our goal here is to bring a lot more comfort within prayer,” Turek said. “Allow more people to dive deeper into prayer life. My knees start to ache when I’m on them for too long, particularly when the ground or floor is so hard. Providing something that brings comfort that will bring people into prayer with Our Lord longer; that’s our goal.”

This story was first published by Detroit Catholic and is reprinted here with permission.

Widows who are members of the Widows of Prayer gather together in community in various parts of the country. The group is headquartered in the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, and has grown since its founding in 1994 from five widows to 60, with eight candidates currently in discernment. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Widows of Prayer

CNA Staff, Dec 22, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

After Cecilia Cortes-Peck lost both her husband and her son, she wanted to dedicate her life to something. She felt called to devote her life to prayer by making promises to the “Ordo Viduarum,” or Order of Widows — and to not remarry. 

But there was one small problem. There was no group of widowed women where she lived in Ohio for her to join. So, Cortes-Peck appealed to the bishop in a letter in 2022 and in October, the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, approved the establishment of an Order of Widows, which is not a religious order or an association but a special group similar to the Order of Virgins.

Cortes-Peck is now one of six widows in formation as part of the newly established group.

The newly-formed order in Columbus is not the only group of faithful widows in the U.S., however. Carlotta Stricker, assistant servant leader for the Widows of Prayer, spoke with CNA about the daily life of a Widow of Prayer.

The Widows of Prayer is based in the Diocese of Green Bay, Wisconsin, has grown since its founding in 1994. It began with five widows and has since grown to 60, with eight candidates in discernment. The apostolate remembers in their prayers an additional 83 members who have passed away.

Daily life as a Widow of Prayer

“As a Widow of Prayer, we live our lives with God as our focus,” Stricker explained. “Responsibilities include: daily Mass, Eucharist, rosary, adoration, Liturgy of the Hours (morning and evening), and Divine Mercy Chaplet. All other forms of prayers and spiritual reading are encouraged. We find that most of the widows coming to us are already practicing these prayerful activities.”

The widows don’t live in community the way many Catholic religious sisters and brothers do.

“Most of our widows live in their own homes — some in nursing homes — but no matter the age or health, we are able to pray,” Stricker said. “We have some widows who still have a job. In spite of our promise and vows, we are still mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers and still have an active role in our families lives.”

The Widows of Prayer has hubs in various dioceses as well as “remote” members of the community. Once there are three or more members in an area, they can become a new community.

“For those Widows of Prayer who have a community close to them, they are able to [gather] in person,” Stricker explained. “For those Widows of Prayer who are remote, they join meetings and prayer sessions via Zoom. We are fortunate that this can be done because of the age and health of our widows.”

“This allows us to feel connected and part of the whole apostolate; we are truly sisters in Christ Jesus!” she added.

Stricker explained that the Widows of Prayer takes inspiration from Mary.

“We call Our Blessed Mother the first Widow of Prayer,” she said. “Vatican archives do not indicate who started the Order of Widows, but it is assumed that it was Our Blessed Mother who was herself a widow and the only one to receive instruction in the Temple as a child. She has asked humanity to pray for her son’s priests and his Church.”

Stricker feels that her vocation honors both God and her late husband.

“It is a privilege to dedicate the remainder of our lives to God!” she said. “I also feel that I am honoring my husband and my marriage by doing this. I chose not to remarry and focus on heaven, and every day is a blessing!”

Becoming a Widow of Prayer

Those interested in becoming a Widow of Prayer go through a process of formation and promises over several years. 

“For those Catholic widows who are looking for a religious life, they begin their first year of formation and discernment once their application has been approved and accepted,” Stricker explained. “At the end of the first year they are invited to profess their first promise. A year later they make their second promise and the third is their final and permanent promise.” 

The third promise includes a profession of private vows of consecration: simplicity, chastity, and obedience, Stricker explained. Widows of Prayer members make their promises after the homily at a Mass with the assistance of the priest and the general servant leader of the Widows of Prayer. 

“Our foundress, Mary Reardon, WP, was hoping for approval of the name Order of Widows, which was listed in the Vatican archives and was established while Jesus was on earth,” Stricker said. “Aside from the name difference, we function as the same order by dedicating our lives to Our Lord and his Church, in which we pray for priests, Church leaders, the Catholic Church. These prayers include seminarians and deacons.”

Stricker said the “formation and building” of the apostolate is challenging and “takes great time and work.” Reardon developed statutes, bylaws, and formation materials that were later approved by the bishop. 

“Now we have the ability to have religious communities throughout the world with the approval of the bishop in that diocese,” Stricker noted. 

Catholic actor David Henrie and his wife, Maria, with children during their mission trip to Guatemala with Cross Catholic Outreach. / Credit: Benjamin Rusnak

CNA Staff, Dec 21, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

Cross Catholic Outreach’s Box of Joy ministry has officially reached its 10th anniversary and marked the occasion with a trip by Catholic actor David Henrie to Guatemala to deliver boxes to children there.

Henrie, who serves as brand ambassador for the nonprofit, flew to Guatemala with his wife, Maria, to hand-deliver the “Boxes of Joy” to children living in extreme poverty.

Founded in 2001, Cross Catholic Outreach is a Vatican-endorsed nonprofit that works to provide aid, such as food, medicine, and shelter, to those suffering from poverty in more than 90 countries. It has also recently been named by Forbes as one of America’s Top 100 charities, ranking at No. 42 on the list.

The organization’s Box of Joy ministry began in 2014. The boxes are given at Christmas to children in need, many of whom have never received a Christmas gift before. The boxes are filled with toys, clothing, school supplies, a rosary, and a booklet in the language of the children telling the story of Jesus.

Two years ago, Henrie — best known for his role as Justin Russo in the Disney series “Wizards of Waverly Place” — teamed up with Cross Catholic Outreach and its Box of Joy ministry. 

“It had been on my heart to try to align with a Catholic charity, but I wanted to be very selective and find something that could appeal to my fanbase, because there’s millions of people who follow me and a lot of them have very diverse backgrounds and not necessarily the same faith, so I wanted to work with a charity whose mission is just universal and broadly appealing and authentically Catholic,” he told CNA in an interview.

He added that it has been a “true honor” working specifically with the Box of Joy ministry and helping bring more awareness to that cause. 

From Nov. 19–22, Henrie and his wife visited the Diocese of Santa Rosa de Lima in Guatemala, which faces extreme poverty with many struggling to provide the basics of food and clean water to their families. Henrie called the experience a “perspective check,” especially for his wife, who had never visited a developing country. He said the experience taught them lessons they are now implementing in their own home with their children, such as simplicity and humility.

The couple was very impressed with “how much these people do with so little and also with how strong family values are in their community.”

Henrie recalled that when many of the kids received their gift, they would instantly turn to their sibling and give it to them. 

“It’s almost like they didn’t even think of themselves,” he said. “Or if they got a piece of candy or something, they would turn to their sibling and give it to their sibling or they would come right back to me and go, ‘Do you want to split this?’”

“That culture is just very beautiful and giving and charitable and you see it all over the place there.”

While there, the Henries met a mother and her children who had just been given a home by Cross Catholic Outreach. Prior to being given a home, the family only had one bed they slept on and when it rained they would pull a big plastic blanket over their bed to protect themselves from the rain. The family was filled with joy as they took Henrie around their 250-square-foot home made of a concrete floor, cinder blocks, and a tin roof. 

“They took us in their home that was just built and the joy in these people’s faces — they were so grateful and they felt so wealthy,” he shared. “And it was such a reality check for me and for my wife … I think a lot of Americans root their happiness and achievements or success in tangible items. That’s not where happiness really is. This is the happiest family on earth and they’re happy that they just have a floor that rain doesn’t get in.”

Henrie added that the trip left an impact on him personally by making him think about “where happiness is really rooted.”

“I saw it in these people and I saw it in what they had — where is happiness rooted — and it’s not rooted in material things, it’s rooted in ultimately your relationship with God and your character, your virtue ... It really isn’t dependent upon your external circumstances, it’s entirely dependent on your internal circumstances.”

Speaking to the importance of giving back, especially as Catholics, Henrie said: “Well, if you take the Bible seriously, then there’s a lot of mention of helping the poor in the Bible.”

“I think one of the beautiful things about the Catholic faith is it is the most charitable organization on the planet and always has been since its inception,” he added. “So, why is that? I think fundamentally it’s because Catholics recognize human dignity as something sacred and they see the human person as something infinitely valuable.”

He also highlighted the “unicity” of the Catholic Church.

“One, holy, Catholic, apostolic — unicity. We are all one,” he explained. “So all of the members of the Church need to be healthy and we need to help those who aren’t to help the body function in a more powerful way and healthy way.”

Vandalism at a Heartbeat of Miami pregnancy center in Hialeah, Florida, July 3, 2022. / Credit: Heartbeat of Miami

CNA Staff, Dec 20, 2024 / 17:30 pm (CNA).

A Florida woman was convicted on Thursday for conspiracy targeting pro-life pregnancy resource centers, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on Friday. 

Gabriella Oropesa was convicted “for her role in a conspiracy to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate employees of pro-life pregnancy help centers in the free exercise of the right to provide and seek to provide reproductive health services,” read the Dec. 20 DOJ press release. 

Oropesa was convicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, which has been used in the past to allegedly target pro-life activists for blocking clinic entrances. The FACE Act prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.” 

Many pro-life activists have been sentenced under the FACE Act in recent years, including several elderly people, a young mother, and a Catholic priest. House Republican lawmakers discussed repealing the FACE Act earlier this week after hearing testimony alleging the law has been weaponized against pro-life protesters.

Oropesa and three co-conspirators had vandalized pregnancy health centers that provided alternatives to abortion with threatening messages. Caleb Freestone, Amber Stewart-Smith, and Annarella Rivera previously pleaded guilty for their involvement.

The four had vandalized a series of pro-life pregnancy help centers in Florida, spray-painting threatening messages such as “If abortions aren’t safe than niether [sic] are you,” “YOUR TIME IS UP!!”, “WE’RE COMING for U,” and “We are everywhere.” 

“The Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act is clear: No one should have to face threats and intimidation just for doing their job,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a statement. 

“The Justice Department will continue to ensure access to the full spectrum of reproductive health services afforded to the public, whether those services include abortion or counseling on alternatives to abortion,” Clarke continued. 

U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg for the Middle District of Florida reiterated that reproductive health clinic access is protected by federal law.  

“Federal law protects providers who render reproductive health care and those who seek their services,” Handberg said in a statement. “Threats of violence against pregnancy resource centers or those exercising their rights to care will not be tolerated.”

A sentence hearing is scheduled for March 19, 2025. Oropesa will face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison for the conspiracy charge, according to the DOJ. 

The case involved investigation from the FBI’s Tampa field office as well as local police departments.  

At one pregnancy center in Hialeah, Florida, Heartbeat of Miami, the vandalism resulted in thousands of dollars in damages. The Archdiocese of Miami’s Hollywood pregnancy center and the South Broward Pregnancy Help Center, located just north of Miami, were also targeted. At South Broward, the words “Jane’s revenge” and an anarchist symbol were also graffitied on the property.

President-elect Donald Trump announced on Dec. 20,2024 that he has chosen CatholicVote president, Brian Burch, to be his ambassador to the Holy See. / Credit: Photo courtesy of CRC Advisors

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 20, 2024 / 15:05 pm (CNA).

President-elect Donald Trump selected CatholicVote president and co-founder Brian Burch to serve as the United States ambassador to the Holy See, he announced on Truth Social Friday afternoon.

“Brian is a devout Catholic, a father of nine, and president of CatholicVote,” Trump wrote in the Dec. 20 post. “He has received numerous awards and demonstrated exceptional leadership, helping build one of the largest Catholic advocacy groups in the country.”

CatholicVote is a political advocacy group that endorsed Trump in January and ran advertisements in support the president-elect during his campaign. According to CatholicVote, the organization spent over $10 million on the 2024 elections.

Some of CatholicVote’s ads, running in key swing states, accused Vice President Kamala Harris of supporting taxpayer-funded transgender surgeries for minors.

“[Burch] represented me well during the last election, having garnered more Catholic votes than any presidential candidate in history!” Trump wrote. “Brian loves his Church and the United States — he will make us all proud. Congratulations to Brian, his wife, Sara, and their incredible family!”

According to a Washington Post exit poll, Trump won the Catholic vote by a 15-point margin this year — a 10-point swing in his favor from the previous election. Exit polls also showed Trump winning the majority of Catholic voters in vital swing states.

Burch wrote in a post on X that he is “deeply honored and humbled to have been nominated” for the position.

“The Catholic Church is the largest and most important religious institution in the world, and its relationship to the United States is of vital importance,” he wrote. “I am committed to working with leaders inside the Vatican and the new administration to promote the dignity of all people and the common good.”

Burch wrote that he looks forward to “the opportunity to continue to serve my country and the Church.” He thanked his colleagues and his family, including his father, “who passed to eternal life this past June, who taught me to love the Church and the blessings and responsibilities of being a citizen of the U.S.”

“To God be the glory,” Burch wrote.

Burch, who lives in the Chicago suburbs, is a graduate of the University of Dallas, a private Catholic school. In 2020, he wrote a book called “A New Catholic Moment: Donald Trump and the Politics of the Common Good.” 

According to his biography on CatholicVote, Burch has received the Cardinal O’Connor Defender of the Faith Award from Legatus International and the St. Thomas More Award for Catholic Citizenship by Catholic Citizens of Illinois.

As ambassador, Burch will represent the United States in diplomatic relations with the Holy See. The United States first established formal diplomatic relations with the Holy See in 1984, under the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

During Trump’s first term, he selected Callista Gingrich — the president of Gingrich Productions, wife of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and a Catholic — to serve as ambassador. She stepped down in 2021. President Joe Biden selected former Sen. Joe Donnelly, who is Catholic, as ambassador to the Holy See during his term. He stepped down earlier this year.

Pope Francis with Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago on Sept. 2, 2015. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Dec 20, 2024 / 14:35 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis has appointed five new auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Chicago and assigned each bishop-elect a titular see in the Middle East and North Africa region, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, announced Dec. 20.

Archbishop of Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich expressed his gratitude to the Holy Father on Friday for the appointments of bishops-elect Father Timothy J. O’Malley, Father Lawrence J. Sullivan, Father José Maria Garcia Maldonado, Father Robert Fedek, and Father John S. Siemianowski.

“These fine archdiocesan priests reflect the people of this particular Church and the many talents of our local presbyterate,” Cupich shared in a Dec. 20 news release.

“Each has a solid and notable record of pastoral service rooted in their shared fidelity to the Gospel and their generosity in using their unique gifts for the good of the Church and society,” he added.

While each of the five bishops-elect will “remain in their present assignments for the time being,” according to the Archdiocese of Chicago release, the Vatican’s announcement states Pope Francis has also assigned each a titular see outside of the U.S.

To titular sees in Algeria, the Holy Father appointed O’Malley, parish priest of Most Blessed Trinity in Waukegan, Illinois, to the see of Numida; Sullivan, parish priest of Christ the King in Chicago, to the see of Lambhua; Maldonado, parish priest of San José Sanchez del Rio in Chicago, to the see of Fallaba; and Siemianowski, parish priest of St. Juliana in Chicago, to the see of Gratianopolis.

The Holy Father assigned Fedek, personal secretary to Cupich in the Chicago Archdiocese, the titular see of Dardano in Turkey. The last titular bishop of Dardano was Bishop Nicolas Coëffeteau, OP, who held the seat over 400 years ago from 1617–1621.

All five bishops-elect attended Mundelein Seminary in Illinois before being assigned to parishes in the Chicago Archdiocese. 

The episcopal ordination of the five bishops-elect will take place at Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral in early 2025.

Bishop Gregory Kelly. / Credit: Scott Wagner Photo LLC, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Dec 20, 2024 / 12:45 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis has appointed a new bishop to lead the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, more than a year after the Holy See removed its Bishop Joseph Strickland amid questions over management of the diocese. 

Dallas Auxiliary Bishop J. Gregory Kelly will lead the Tyler Diocese, apostolic nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre said on Friday. 

He will take over diocesan leadership from Austin Bishop Joe Vásquez, who has served as apostolic administrator in Tyler since last year. 

Pope Francis relieved Strickland from the Tyler bishopric last November after an apostolic visitation concluded it was “not feasible” for Strickland to remain in that position. Strickland had days earlier refused to submit his resignation voluntarily.

Strickland, 65, had served as bishop of Tyler since 2012. The widely popular though polarizing Texas bishop had faced criticism for his firebrand social media posts, including a tweet last year that suggested Pope Francis was “undermining the deposit of faith.” 

‘I am grateful for this new responsibility’

The Texas Catholic, the newspaper for the Diocese of Dallas, said on Friday that Kelly will be installed in Tyler on Feb. 24, 2025. 

“I am grateful for this new responsibility and will do my best to serve the priests, deacons, religious, and faithful of the Diocese of Tyler,” the paper quoted Kelly as saying. 

The bishop-elect was born on Feb. 15, 1956, in Le Mars, Iowa. He received a degree in philosophy from the University of Dallas while in priestly formation at Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving, Texas. He later received a master of divinity from the university. 

He was ordained in the Dallas Diocese on May 15, 1982, by Bishop Thomas Tschoepe. He served in numerous roles throughout the diocese, including as pastor at multiple churches and as the chaplain at the University of Dallas. From 2008 to 2016 he served as the vicar of clergy for the Dallas Diocese.

In 2016 he was ordained an auxiliary bishop of the diocese, where he has served since. He also serves as the vicar general and moderator of the curia. 

His other responsibilities have included serving as the diocesan vocations director and as a member of the diocesan review board. He also served as apostolic administrator there from 2016–2017. 

Dallas Bishop Edward Burns said on Friday that the pope “has chosen a loyal and committed bishop to serve in the Diocese of Tyler,“ though he said that “our beloved brother will be missed here in the Diocese of Dallas.”

“We acknowledge that Pope Francis has chosen a man who possesses the heart of the Good Shepherd and will serve the people of God in the Diocese of Tyler well,” Burns said. 

Pope Francis meets with U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday, June 14, 2024, after a session at the G7 summit, which is being held June 13–15 in the southern Italian region of Puglia. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2024 / 19:45 pm (CNA).

U.S. President Joe Biden accepted an invitation to visit Pope Francis next month and discuss efforts to advance peace, the White House announced on Thursday. 

Biden, the country’s second Catholic president, is set to travel to Rome from Jan. 9–12 at Pope Francis’ invitation. His audience with Pope Francis is set for Jan. 10 and will focus on efforts to advance peace around the world.

The trip announcement came following a Thursday telephone conversation between Pope Francis and Biden, during which the two leaders discussed “efforts to advance peace around the world during the holiday season,” according to a Dec. 19 statement from the White House. 

“The president thanked the pope for his continued advocacy to alleviate global suffering, including his work to advance human rights and protect religious freedoms,” the statement read. “President Biden also graciously accepted His Holiness Pope Francis’ invitation to visit the Vatican next month.”

Biden is also set to meet with Italy’s president, Sergio Mattarella, and Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni during his visit. The White House noted that Biden will thank Meloni for her leadership of the G7 over the past year. The G7 Summit is an annual meeting of government leaders from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy.

Overseas visits this late in a U.S. presidency are rare. The most recent overseas visit in the last month of a president’s term was more than 30 years ago, when outgoing president George H.W. Bush visited Moscow to sign a nuclear treaty and Paris for talks with the French president about the Bosnian war. 

Biden last met with Pope Francis in June of this year where the two discussed foreign policy in Israel, Gaza, and the Ukraine as well as climate change. During a private audience at the G7 Summit in Apulia, Italy, the two leaders “emphasized the urgent need for an immediate ceasefire and a hostage deal” in Gaza and the need to “address the critical humanitarian crisis,” according to the White House. 

At the time, Biden also thanked Pope Francis for the Vatican’s work to address the humanitarian concerns in Ukraine and for his efforts to address climate change.

The two have consistently discussed the Israel-Hamas war since October 2023, when they spoke over the phone about preventing escalation and working toward peace in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in which Hamas killed more than 1,200 men, women, and children. 

Biden previously met with Pope Francis in October 2021 for about 75 minutes to discuss poverty, climate change, and other issues. That was Biden’s first in-person meeting with the pontiff as president, but the two leaders also spoke on the phone shortly after the presidential election. Biden had met Pope Francis three times before becoming president. 

Pope Francis has criticized Biden in the past for his promotion of legal abortion as a Catholic, calling it an “incoherence” in a 2022 interview. Pope Francis said: “Let [Biden] talk to his pastor about that incoherence.” 

The Holy Father also recently called for an end to production and use of anti-personnel explosives in November, just a week after Biden approved Ukraine’s use of American land mines in the Russia-Ukraine war. 

During the past four years of Biden’s administration, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has been consistently at odds with the Biden administration over issues related to abortion and gender ideology.

An FBI agent stands outside the Houck residence in Kintnersville, Pennsylvania, on Sept. 23, 2022. Mark Houck was arrested that day and charged with assaulting a Planned Parenthood escort outside an Philadelphia abortion clinic on Oct. 13, 2021. / Credit: Photo courtesy of the Houck family

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 19, 2024 / 17:35 pm (CNA).

House Republican lawmakers discussed repealing the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act on Wednesday after hearing testimony alleging the law has been weaponized against pro-life protesters.

The FACE Act, which has been federal law for 30 years, imposes harsher prison sentences for people who obstruct access to abortion clinics or pro-life pregnancy resource centers. However, under President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ), the law has almost exclusively been used to convict pro-life demonstrators.

Rep. Chip Roy introduced legislation to repeal the FACE Act in 2023, but the bill failed to make it out of the Judiciary Committee. If a repeal effort were to pass the House, it would need to overcome the filibuster in the Senate by garnering support from seven Democrats in the upcoming session. The effort has not gotten support from any Democratic lawmakers.

On Wednesday, Dec. 18, lawmakers heard testimony about the alleged targeting of pro-life activists in a House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government hearing.

Unequal enforcement against pro-life advocates

Roy, who chairs the subcommittee, noted during the hearing that the Biden DOJ brought 25 FACE Act cases against more than 50 offenders.

Only two of those cases were against pro-abortion activists who vandalized pro-life pregnancy resource centers despite the numerous attacks following the Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade. The remainder have been invoked against pro-life demonstrators. 

More than a dozen pro-life activists, several of whom are elderly and in poor health, are either in prison or awaiting sentencing for FACE Act violations. 

Lauren Handy, 31, who was given the longest sentence, is serving four years and nine months in prison. Other activists serving at least two years include 75-year-old Paulette Harlow and 74-year-old Jean Marshall. The oldest activist convicted under Biden’s tenure is 89-year-old Eva Edl, who is a survivor of a communist concentration camp in the former Yugoslavia and is currently awaiting sentencing.  

“Unequal application of the law is not truly law,” Roy said. “It is tyranny imposed on those who didn’t have the power by those who do have it. That’s contrary to everything we believe as Americans.”

Paul Vaughn, who was convicted of violating the FACE Act for his role in a March 2021 protest at an abortion clinic in Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, testified at the hearing that he peacefully prayed but never personally blocked anyone from entering the clinic. Others at the demonstration engaged in a nonviolent sit-in in front of the clinic doors and were also convicted. 

“I did nothing that was outside my constitutionally protected free speech and religious freedom,” Vaughn said. “I did nothing that day that I’ve not done many times since [the FACE Act] was passed in 1994. I did not sit in, I broke no laws, federal or local, and I was not arrested the day of the event.” 

Although local police did not arrest him, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) raided his home in October 2022 to arrest him under FACE Act charges, nearly a year and a half later. 

“My house was assaulted, my wife and children were terrorized, and I was kidnapped at gunpoint by four armed men,” he said. “I had just sent three of my children to the car so I could take them to school when the house began to shake from a loud banging near the front door. I heard men shouting on my porch, ‘Open up, FBI!’”

“I opened the door and stepped out onto the porch, staring down the barrels of both a pistol and an automatic weapon pointed at my head,” he added.

Vaughn did not get prison time but was given three years of supervised release. He testified that for him, “all this process is [still] a punishment.” 

“There are those who are in jail today while we are discussing this abuse, some of them for over a year at this point,” Vaughn said. 

Republicans and Democrats disagree

During the hearing, Roy reiterated his call to repeal the FACE Act and urged President-elect Donald Trump to pardon or commute the sentences of pro-life activists convicted under the law — something that Trump has said he intends to do. 

Rep. Dan Bishop, one of the Republican members of the committee, said during the hearing that “it just seems to me troubling.” 

“You got guns drawn and pointed at a man’s head and [you have] his children … stopped at the side,” Bishop said, adding that “we’re in an environment where we’re always talking about [how] police officers should deescalate [situations].” 

Republican Rep. Harriet Hageman said the “abuse of the FACE Act is an attempt to criminalize the free thought and the ability for people to … peacefully protest.”

“It’s a sad day in America when someone who is praying … [to] be arrested years later for that behavior,” she added.

Republican Rep. Tom McClintock added that the FACE Act is “being administered by people with political biases” and questioned whether there was a way to prevent weaponization without repealing the entirety of the law. 

Democrats, however, disagreed that the law has been weaponized and stressed that lawmakers should keep the FACE Act rules in place. 

“[Republicans] are really just giving themselves another opportunity to signal their support to the extremists plotting to criminalize or block access to abortion across the country,” Democratic Rep. Mary Scanlon said.

Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler said: “Republicans have found no — zero — credible or direct evidence that supports their specious claims regarding what they alleged is the Department of Justice’s uneven enforcement of the FACE Act.”

“Anti-abortion extremists continue to use violence, threats, and disruption to curb access to abortion,” Nadler said. “So Republicans want to repeal the law that explicitly protects patients, providers, and facilities that provide reproductive health services from these ongoing threats.”

FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland have denied that the FBI or DOJ have been targeting pro-life activists with FACE Act prosecutions.