St. Clement Catholic Parish

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 26, 2025 / 17:45 pm (CNA).

Several pro-life organizations are praising President Donald Trump’s administration for plans to freeze tens of millions of dollars in federal taxpayer money that was intended in part for the country’s largest abortion supplier, Planned Parenthood.

Officials are mulling an immediate freeze of $27.5 million from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Title X Family Planning Services Program for Planned Parenthood and other organizations that are yet to be named.

Congress allocated more than $286 million for funding of the Title X program for the current fiscal year. The expected freeze would block about $20 million that was expected to support Planned Parenthood affiliates, according to a Tuesday report from the Wall Street Journal.

Federal law prohibits direct federal taxpayer funding for most abortions but allows funds for abortion clinics if the money is spent on other services.

This move would not end all of the federal taxpayer money Planned Parenthood receives. The organization and its affiliates get hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer funding annually. 

Planned Parenthood received more than $1.75 billion in federal tax money from a variety of sources between 2019 and 2021, according to a 2023 Government Accountability Office report.

Pro-life groups signal support

The news prompted positive feedback from several pro-life organizations.

Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life Action, told CNA the move is a “great step forward in defunding Planned Parenthood.

“Rather than helping people with families, Planned Parenthood sells never having one and abuses Title X funds to market their real product — abortion,” Hawkins said. “... The Pro-Life Generation supports every effort that tells Planned Parenthood to go fund themselves.”

Joseph Meaney, a senior fellow at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA that the report is “wonderful news” and said it is “scandalous that Planned Parenthood managed to obtain hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding annually for many years.”

“That organization has from its inception trampled on the human dignity of its ‘clients’ and violated the natural moral law regarding sexual morality and the right to life,” Meaney added.

Carol Tobias, the president of National Right to Life, told CNA the group is “extremely grateful” that the administration plans to cut funding for an organization that performs hundreds of thousands of abortions annually. 

“Americans do not want their money being used to end the lives of innocent preborn children,” she said.

“We are also very encouraged that the president has said he will look into Planned Parenthood as an alleged supplier of aborted baby parts,” Tobias said. “Abortion is gruesome and the government should not be using taxpayer funds to prop up a business involved in performing abortions and promoting the deaths of preborn babies.”

Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America published a series of posts on X praising the plan, saying that “abortion is not family planning” and criticizing the standards of care at Planned Parenthood facilities.

Planned Parenthood Federation of America did not respond to a request for comment from CNA. However, the organization’s president, Alexis McGill, told the Journal that this plan is allegedly part of an effort to shut down its abortion clinics.

“The Trump-Vance-Musk administration wants to shut down Planned Parenthood health centers by any means necessary, and they’ll end people’s access to birth control, cancer screenings, STI testing and treatment, and more to do it,” McGill claimed. 

The pro-life movement has had a hot-and-cold relationship with Trump over the course of his political career.

Trump has delivered several wins for the pro-life movement, including the nomination of three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, along with several pardons of pro-life activists who were previously in prison.

However, Trump has opposed new federal restrictions on abortion, he has been reluctant to use executive power to restrict access to the abortion pill mifepristone, and he signed an executive order that begins the process of lowering costs for in vitro fertilization (IVF) — all of which have frustrated many pro-life advocates.

Cuts are part of broader diversity targeting

According to the Wall Street Journal, the administration’s expected funding freeze for family planning grants is part of the president’s efforts to prevent tax money from funding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.

On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order to halt all federal DEI programs, which he called “illegal and immoral discrimination programs.” The executive order also directs departments and agencies to align its contracts and grant funding with the administration’s position on DEI.

“Americans deserve a government committed to serving every person with equal dignity and respect, and to expending precious taxpayer resources only on making America great,” the executive order read.

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CNA Staff, Mar 26, 2025 / 16:45 pm (CNA).

The Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, is promoting a “Diocesan Day of Unplugging” — intentionally eliminating screen time or time spent consuming digital media — on March 28 as a Lenten fasting discipline to encourage Catholics to spend more time with God as opposed to spending time on their smart devices.

Noting that fasting is a “practice of self-discipline with a penitential focus,” the diocese, which is led by Bishop Michael Burbidge, called “unplugging” from the addicting influence of the internet, phones, and social media a “worthwhile and challenging type of fasting.”

Citing studies suggesting most people spend more than two hours a day on social media, the diocese said such statistics beg the questions: Are we spending more time with our devices than with God? And are we investing more time on social media than on nurturing in-person relationships within our communities?

“When we fast from food or luxuries, we create space for God. Our fast reminds us of our need for God and brings us back into relationship with him. Fasting also invites us to renew our relationships with one another in our communities,” the diocesan announcement says.

As suggestions for alternative activities to engage in rather than screen time on March 28, the diocese suggested numerous prayerful activities including attending daily Mass; making a Holy Hour or even a holy “five minutes”; praying a rosary or Divine Mercy chaplet for a loved one or the souls in purgatory; reading Scripture, the catechism, or a classic spiritual book; walking in nature; journaling; or attending the Stations of the Cross.

Works of charity would also be a good idea, the announcement says, suggesting Catholics take advantage of volunteer opportunities at their parish or local Catholic Charities, spend fellowship time with their community, or offer to grocery shop for an ill, elderly, or pregnant neighbor.

The Catholic day of “unplugging” was inspired by the Global Day of Unplugging promoted March 7–8 by the nonprofit Unplug Collective.

Pope Francis is promoting screen time fasts this year as part of the ongoing Jubilee Year of Hope. As part of the special year, by the pope’s decree, Catholics worldwide can obtain an indulgence through various acts of penance. Francis’ decree specifically mentions as an option for obtaining a plenary indulgence “abstaining for at least one day a week from ‘futile distractions,’ such as social media or television.”

Actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson. / Credit: Georges Biard, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Mar 26, 2025 / 16:15 pm (CNA).

Mel Gibson’s sequel to “The Passion of the Christ” — “The Resurrection of the Christ” — is set to begin production in Italy this August, according to Manuela Cacciamani, CEO of Rome’s Cinecittà Studios. 

“I can confirm that the next film directed by Mel Gibson, produced by Icon Productions, ‘The Resurrection of Christ,’ will be shot entirely in Cinecittà starting in August and requires many theaters and stage constructions,” she said in an interview with Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore.

In an interview with podcast host Joe Rogan, Gibson said the film is “very ambitious” and the story follows “the fall of the angels to the death of the last apostle.”

“I think in order to really tell the story properly you have to really start with the fall of the angels, which means you’re in another place, you’re in another realm. You need to go to hell. You need to go to Sheol,” he added. 

“It’s about finding the way in that’s not cheesy or too obvious. I think I have ideas about how to do that and how to evoke things and emotions in people from the way you depict it and the way you shoot it. So I’ve been thinking about it for a long time,” he said. “It’s not going to be easy, and it’s going to require a lot of planning and I’m not wholly sure I can pull it off; to tell you the truth, it’s super ambitious. But I’ll take a crack at it because that’s what you’ve got to do, right, walk up to the plate, right?” 

Gibson shared that he plans to recast Jim Caviezel as Jesus and will have to use “a few techniques,” such as CGI de-aging, on Caviezel due to the fact that over 20 years have passed since the first movie was released. 

“The Passion of the Christ” was released in 2004 and, despite controversies surrounding the film, it garnered a profit of $370 million domestically with many crediting it as the movie that opened the door to faith-based media in Hollywood. 

Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago. / Credit: Edlane De Mattos/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Mar 26, 2025 / 11:20 am (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Chicago this week filed a lawsuit alleging a “racketeering enterprise” among a group of individuals who reportedly filed false abuse claims against a former priest to receive compensation from the Church there. 

The archdiocese said in a Monday statement that it had filed a lawsuit in Cook County circuit court “seeking injunctive relief and damages from participants of a wide-ranging racketeering scheme” that reportedly involved “more than a dozen” fraudulent abuse claims against disgraced former priest Daniel McCormack, who spent more than a decade in prison after pleading guilty to abusing young children.

Lawyers for the diocese did not respond to requests for comment and for a copy of the lawsuit on Wednesday morning. The diocese said in its press release that some of the participants in the alleged scheme are “convicted felons and known gang members,” including allegedly one convicted murderer.

The alleged fraudulent claimants are “associated by gang affiliation, friendship, or family,” the archdiocese said, with the conspirators reportedly working together to determine “what to say, how to pursue a false claim, how to embellish purported injuries, and how to reach attorneys.”

Some of the alleged fraudsters reportedly discussed the scams on prison phone calls. One of the defendants reportedly told a fellow conspirator that he did not go to MCormack’s church and “wasn’t even in” any programs involved with him, and yet he he still received compensation. 

The Cook County circuit court has already ruled on two other fraudulent abuse cases, the archdiocese said. The filing “reflects the breadth of the fraud and seeks to expose the conspiracy that has become a criminal enterprise for those involved,” the statement said. 

“False claims make it necessary to investigate all claims more aggressively, which places a greater burden on true survivors,” archdiocesan attorney James Geoly said. 

“Our attention is directed toward survivors, not fraudsters seeking to gain financially from others’ pain and suffering,” he added. 

McCormack pleaded guilty in 2007 to multiple abuse charges. He served a sentence in prison and was then remanded to a state facility for sex offenders. 

He was released from custody in 2021 and currently lives in Chicago, where he is registered as a sex offender. The Illinois attorney general’s office described him as “one of the most infamous child abusers anywhere in Illinois.”

“It has been disappointing to see how seldom a CPC designation has resulted in real consequences for those responsible for religious freedom violations,” U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Chairman Stephen Schneck told CNA. / Credit: U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Public Hearing/Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 26, 2025 / 09:30 am (CNA).

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is urging President Donald Trump to ensure that religious freedom violations by foreign governments result in severe consequences, such as sanctions, for the aggressors.

The USCIRF, which is a federal commission tasked with providing policy recommendations on advancing religious liberty abroad, conveyed those recommendations in its 2025 Annual Report published on March 25.

“Make appropriate policy changes to demonstrate meaningful consequences and encourage positive change,” the report recommends.

The report urges the Trump administration to impose consequences on countries that the U.S. Department of State currently designates as countries of particular concern (CPCs), which is the label given to countries with “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” religious freedom violations.

The State Department designates 12 countries as CPCs, including China, Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. The report recommends renewing these designations and adding four other countries to the CPC list: Afghanistan, India, Nigeria, and Vietnam.

During the last year of Trump’s first term in office, the department designated Nigeria as a CPC, but that designation was not renewed by former President Joe Biden. The USCIRF repeatedly urged the previous administration to include Nigeria on the list during Biden’s time in office.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in ethnic and religious violence in Nigeria over the past few years. Christians were 6.5 times more likely to be killed and 5.1 times more likely to be victims of abduction. However, Muslims and other religious groups have also been victims of the violence.

“Religious freedom conditions in Nigeria [have] remained poor,” the report notes. “Federal and state governments continued to tolerate attacks or fail to respond to violent actions by nonstate actors who justify their violence on religious grounds.”

The report further noted that “in 2024, religious freedom conditions in Nicaragua remained abysmal.” Nicaragua President Daniel Ortega has expelled religious sisters, shut down Catholic schools and media outlets, and imprisoned dozens of Catholic clergy who oppose his socialist government. His regime has also targeted other Christian denominations. 

“Religious communities in Nicaragua have continued to show remarkable resilience in the face of such threats,” the report notes. “Their members meet discreetly — sometimes in the middle of the night — to exercise their freedom of religion or belief. They continue to provide aid to each other while meeting communal spiritual needs, although the Nicaraguan government views each of these modest acts as deplorable.”

Although federal law requires that administrations take action against CPC designees, a report published by USCIRF last September found that since 1998 some 164 CPC designations have only led to three new sanctions and one “binding agreement” entered into with the United States. It found that American presidents have frequently found workarounds to taking action, such as appealing to existing sanctions to justify no new action or simply waiving the requirement.

In its 2025 report, the USCIRF is urging the new administration to change that approach by reviewing its policies toward CPC countries in which waivers are in place. It also urges Trump officials to consider lifting existing waivers and to not issue waivers for future CPC designees.

The recommendations include targeted sanctions on the Taliban in Afghanistan, the military junta in Myanmar, certain Chinese Communist Party (CCP) entities and officials, and Eritrean government officials. It also encourages targeted sanctions in Iran, Nicaragua, and India for individuals and entities violating religious liberty.

Additionally, the commission urges Trump to nominate or appoint individuals to fill key roles that are relevant to religious freedom abroad.

The report also encourages the Trump administration to resettle refugees fleeing religious persecution through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program — a program that Trump has paused. It also requests that the administration establish a plan to fully comply with asylum laws.

USCIRF commissioners are appointed to two-year terms. Three are chosen by the president and the others are chosen by House and Senate leadership. Most of the terms of current members end in May 2026, although one term for one of Biden’s appointees will expire in May 2025.

Thousands particpate in a Eucharistic procession sponsored by the Napa Institute through the streets of Manhattan in New York City on Oct. 15, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 26, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Catholic nonprofit organization Napa Institute is pushing for more collaboration among Catholic and Protestant leaders to promote cultural values and aims that are common to both communities.

Earlier this month, Napa Institute Board Chairman Tim Busch hosted a meeting among 15 Catholic and Protestant faith leaders for the organization’s first Ecumenical Forum in New York City, according to a news release.

The Napa Institute works to promote the re-evangelization of the United States and the defense of Catholicism in the public square.

While recognizing the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, Busch emphasized that there is shared agreement on many central tenets of the faith, such as in the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. Certain goals, he noted, could be better accomplished to the extent that both groups work together.

The two groups, Busch stated, “share a profound concern about rising cultural hostility to core Christian teachings and truths.”

“We all believe in the sanctity and right understanding of marriage,” he said. “We are all committed to defending the unborn and vulnerable mothers. And we know that religious liberty is a fundamental right that must be protected in modern society.”

The attendees agreed to establish a steering committee to host more ecumenical gatherings and to develop more partnerships. Busch also indicated that he would involve “a limited number of Protestants” at Napa’s summer conference.

In an interview with CNA, Busch said some of the legal and political shifts that are of common concern include the arrests of pro-life advocates protesting abortion clinics, the promotion of abortion, and the embrace of same-sex marriage and gender ideology.

Essentially, Busch said there is a “dilution of biblical teachings” in public life. He further said the American embrace of “wokeism” is “really just a form of pagan religion that promises utopia on Earth … [that] fails to recognize it’s not a free-for-all. There are certain principles all of us need to follow.”

“The devil’s really the enemy, but the devil working through people has made an abomination of God’s teaching within our society,” he told CNA.

Busch added that many Protestants no longer view the Catholic Church in a hostile way, in spite of historical anti-Catholicism within some elements of American society. He said “the hatred of Catholics [has been] significantly mitigated” in recent decades, adding there is “an opportunity today that did not exist before to collaborate.” 

Catholics at the meeting included Father Ambrose Criste, a priest at St. Michael’s Abbey in California, and Bishop Steven Lopes, a bishop in the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. Protestant leaders in attendance included executives from Christianity Today and the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.

In Napa’s news release on the meeting, Busch indicated that every attendee agreed to work together to promote common values in American culture and law and acknowledge that “spiritual warfare is real and worsening.” He added that “the path forward depends on prayer and our shared faith in Jesus Christ” as a means to advance the common good in the United States.

Busch added that his intention when he began the Napa Institute was to prepare Catholics for what Philadelphia Archbishop Emeritus Charles Chaput called the “next America.” The “next America” refers to a United States in which Christian views and Christianity are viewed in a hostile way.

“The next America has arrived, and as we confront the challenges ahead, it will help us to work with Protestants to defend our faith and the truth,” Busch wrote. “I hope this ecumenical forum is the start of many such collaborations. It may be the first time we’ve done this, but it won’t be the last.”

Zachary Liberto, 30, was arrested March 22, 2025, and charged with commissioning an act of terrorism for allegedly sending an email to a member of the staff at St. Louis Catholic Church in Memphis, Tennessee, expressing his intent to “butcher” Catholics with a machete. / Credit: Shelby County Sheriff’s Office

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 25, 2025 / 16:45 pm (CNA).

The Memphis Police Department (MPD) last week arrested a 30-year-old man who is accused of sending a threatening email to a local Catholic parish expressing his intent to “butcher” Catholics with a machete.

Zachary Liberto, who lives in Memphis, was charged with commissioning an act of terrorism for allegedly sending the email to a member of the staff at St. Louis Catholic Church, which is on the eastern side of the city. If convicted, he could face between 15 and 60 years in prison.

According to a police report provided to CNA, Liberto is accused of sending an email to the parish’s music director on March 20 containing the threat against parishioners.

Liberto had reportedly requested video footage of an unrelated incident as part of the threat. “I need a video of [the unnamed person] getting slapped by you in 24 hours before I butcher people in that church with a machete,” the email sent to the music director read, according to the MPD report.

The music director forwarded the email to the unnamed person mentioned within it, who subsequently filed a complaint with the MPD.

According to the report, the complainant said Liberto is known to have a machete, which he allegedly nicknamed “chete.” The complainant also claimed Liberto has mentioned in the past that he owns a firearm.

The person who filed the complaint told police that Liberto lives in a homeless encampment in the city. The complainant and the music director both told police that Liberto has an unknown mental illness.

According to the police report, the music director said he and Liberto had communicated by email before. It also stated that neither the music director nor the unnamed person know what prompted Liberto to allegedly send the threatening email.

The suspect has a mental evaluation hearing scheduled for the morning of April 7, according to police.

Rick Ouellette, a spokesman for the Diocese of Memphis, told CNA that the parish also found garbage placed in the baptismal font on the same day as the threatening email. Both of these incidents combined prompted the parish to alert the authorities immediately.

Ouellette said Liberto was known to some members of the parish staff and that he had come to the church before.

“Our St. Louis staff notified authorities immediately of the incident,” Ouellette added. “The parish thanks the authorities for their quick response in apprehending a suspect. The incident is also a reminder to everyone that our St. Louis parish has a solid safety and security plan in place as does our 46 parishes and 13 schools in West Tennessee.” 

Ouellette said there were not any physical or verbal confrontations between Liberto and parish staff or parishioners.

“We’re praying for everybody involved,” Ouellette added.

null / Credit: Cassiohabib/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 25, 2025 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

Catholic nurse practitioner Gudrun Kristofersdottir recently agreed to a settlement in a religious discrimination case against CVS, her lawyers have announced. 

Kristofersdottir initially filed a lawsuit in 2024 following her termination from a Florida CVS MinuteClinic after she refused to prescribe contraceptives or drugs that could cause abortions.

The nurse practitioner was originally granted a religious accommodation from 2014 to 2022 that allowed her to refuse to prescribe contraceptives and abortifacients.

First Liberty Institute, which represented Kristofersdottir in the suit, said that when patients sought out contraceptives from Kristofersdottir, she would simply refer them to a different provider who would prescribe the medication. 

In 2021, CVS announced it would revoke all such religious accommodations. Kristofersdottir was subsequently fired in April 2022. 

Upon filing the lawsuit, First Liberty Institute attorney Stephanie Taub described it as “illegal to issue a blanket revocation of all religious accommodations when CVS can accommodate its employees.”

“CVS is sending a message that religious health care workers are not welcome and need not apply,” Taub said at the time.

The pharmacy “could have accommodated Ms. Kristofersdottir in several ways,” the suit argued, including by “transferring her to a virtual position, a larger clinic, an education or training position, or a location specializing in COVID-19, or continuing to honor the religious accommodation that worked successfully for years.”

In her lawsuit, Kristofersdottir said she believes the teachings of the Church regarding human dignity and marriage, and therefore that “the procreative potential of intercourse may not be subverted by device or procedure.” 

“Further, Ms. Kristofersdottir believes that abortion constitutes a moral evil in violation of humanity’s obligation to protect life with the utmost care from the moment of conception,” the suit said.

On March 21, First Liberty announced a settlement between the two parties. “We are happy to announce that we were able to reach a resolution of the case,” Taub said. 

The details of the agreement have not been made public, but Taub said Kristofersdottir “is pleased with the settlement.”

This is not the only instance of a medical official suing CVS over religious accommodations. Robyn Strader, a Texas-based nurse, sued CVS in 2023 after losing her religious exemption from prescribing contraceptives or abortion-causing drugs.

Similar to Kristofersdottir, Strader also had a long-standing accommodation that was honored for more than six years before the company dismantled it. Her case was settled with CVS in 2024.

Bishop Mark Seitz speaks at a rally for immigrants and refugees at the Diocese of El Paso, Texas, on Monday, March 24, 2025. / Credit: Father Miguel Briseño, OFM Conv

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 25, 2025 / 13:45 pm (CNA).

The Diocese of El Paso, Texas, held a march and vigil in solidarity with migrants and refugees in the city center on Monday evening, with Bishop Mark Seitz criticizing the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement as a “war on the poor.” 

“I am very grateful that we have come together this evening as a borderland community,” Seitz said during remarks delivered at the vigil. “How wonderful it is to have moments when we can celebrate and recommit to who we are, and to do so in the presence of God.” 

The event fell on the 45th anniversary of the killing of St. Oscar Romero, an El Salvadoran bishop who was assassinated at a hospital chapel in 1980 amid a civil war between leftist guerrillas and the right-wing government that eventually left about 75,000 dead.

“We place ourselves and our community under [Romero’s] protection this night,” said Seitz, who also serves as the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration.

Several bishops from across the country and from Mexico and Canada attended the march and vigil, including Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Las Cruces, New Mexico; Bishop Emeritus Noel Simard of Valleyfield, Quebec, Canada; Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio; Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky; and Cardinal Fabio Baggio, undersecretary for the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development. Faith leaders of various other traditions were also present.

In his remarks, Seitz reflected on what he described as Romero’s Christ-like disposition of sacrifice for his country, quoting an interview the saint gave before his death, during which he said: “If they kill me, I will rise again in the people of El Salvador. If they manage to carry out their threats, as of now, I offer my blood for the redemption of El Salvador.” 

“We are here tonight to celebrate our community. Community is an exchange of gifts, where we gift our lives to one another, for the benefit of one another; we grow together, and we bear one another’s burdens,” Seitz said. “Jesus offered his life in sacrifice for that body. Romero offered his life in sacrifice for that body.”

“When we look around the world right now, it is that sense of community for which Jesus and Romero gave their lives that is under attack,” the bishop continued. “This is what the denial of asylum and the threat of mass deportations represent. A fundamental attack on human community. On the body. On Jesus’ vision of a fully reconciled humanity.”

The bishop went on to describe the Trump administration’s border closure as a “war on the poor” and mass deportation efforts as “another tool to keep people afraid, to keep people divided, to extinguish the charity and love that keep a people alive.” 

“To my people here tonight and to all across our country who live in fear of deportation and family separation: know of our love and commitment, which like the love of Jesus, goes all the way down, to the limits. The Church stands with you in this hour of darkness,” he said. 

“And to those in a position of responsibility for our country, who steward our common good, I make this urgent plea: Stop the asylum ban! Stop the deportations!” 

Additional participating organizations and community leaders included the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande; Iglesia Delta; Trinity First United Methodist Church; Abara; Auxiliary Bishop Anthony Celino of the Diocese of El Paso; Ruben Garcia of Annunciation House; Melissa Lopez of Estrella del Paso; and other faith and civic leaders from El Paso.

A poster of “polysexual” flags is displayed at Upper Elementary School in North Hanover Township, New Jersey, and is plaintiff Angela Reading’s exhibit attached to the complaint of a now-federal lawsuit. / Credit: Screenshot/Thomas More Society

National Catholic Register, Mar 25, 2025 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

A New Jersey woman who complained about student-made posters with flags labeled “polysexual,” “pansexual,” “nonbinary,” and “genderqueer” at a public elementary school is suing state and federal agencies, saying they are punishing her by making it harder for her to travel by airplane. 

Angela Reading of North Hanover Township, New Jersey, said she lost her “trusted traveler status” that allowed her to avoid certain aspects of security screening at airports and that on seven domestic flights in 2023 and 2024, she was “subjected to repeated and unusual requests by TSA agents for additional identification and photographing.”

Reading, whose lawyers describe her as a devout Christian, said the agencies and certain individuals violated her First Amendment rights to free speech and free exercise of religion because she publicly opposed what she considers inappropriate material at the school. 

Her opponents say her actions undermined the safety of students and families by exposing them to what one called “right wing extremists.” 

Reading says in court papers that her problems began in November 2022 when she posted on a Facebook group page about posters she saw displayed on the wall. 

“Last night, I attended an elementary ‘Math Night.’ My 7 YO daughter, while reading posters at the school’s main entrance, asked me what ‘polysexual’ means. To say the least, I was livid,” Reading wrote in the Facebook post. “Why are elementary schools promoting/allowing elementary KIDS to research topics of sexuality and create posters? This is not in the state elementary standards (law) nor in the BOE [board of education]-approved curriculum. It’s perverse and should be illegal to expose my kids to sexual content.” 

The superintendent of schools confirmed the content in a December 2022 message to parents, saying that students made posters as part of grades 4–6 Upper Elementary School’s “Week of Respect” and that “some included content that was supportive of the LGBTQ+ community.” 

“On a couple of the posters, this included flags that were labeled for various groups like transsexual, bisexual, lesbian, pansexual, polysexual, etc., along with messages that all people were accepted at their school,” wrote Helen Payne, superintendent of North Hanover Township School District, according to court papers. 

At the time, Reading was an elected member of the Northern Burlington County Board of Education, which has oversight over a grades 7–12 regional school district that includes North Hanover Township, while her husband was an elected member of the local school board that has oversight over the elementary school. 

Both school districts include parents and children associated with a military facility known as Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. Email messages included as exhibits in Reading’s complaint show that officials who work at the base contacted local and federal authorities about Reading. The first was Maj. Christopher Schilling, a member of the United States Army Reserve, who said in one online post that Reading’s Facebook posts complaining about the posters had “caused safety concerns for many families.”  

“The Joint Base Security Forces are working with multiple law enforcement agencies to monitor the situation to ensure the continued safety of the entire community,” Schilling wrote in an undated online post included among the exhibits with Reading’s complaint. 

His efforts had an effect. 

In one email message dated Nov. 30, 2022, the local police chief, Robert Duff, said he contacted the administrator of a Facebook group page with “concerns about the post” from Reading and that the administrator “respectfully removed the post from Facebook” — after, according to court papers, he told the administrator of the page “that students could die if she did not remove the post, drawing parallels to the devastating incidents at Uvalde Elementary School and the Colorado Springs nightclub,” mass shootings that occurred in May 2022 in Texas and in November 2022 in Colorado, respectively. 

The same day as the police chief’s email message, the anti-terrorism program manager of the 87th Security Forces Squadron at the military base, Joe Vazquez, sent an email message saying he was contacting “our partners with N.J. Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness as well as the N.J. State Police Regional Operations Intelligence Center,” explaining:  “Both agencies’ analysts keep an eye on far-right/hate groups.”

Reading resigned from the regional school board Dec. 7, 2022, during the uproar over her online posts about the posters. Her husband also resigned from the local school board. 

In March 2023, lawyers from the Thomas More Society, a conservative public interest law firm in Chicago, filed a lawsuit on behalf of Reading in U.S. District Court in New Jersey claiming civil rights violations and naming as defendants the township, the superintendent, the police chief, six officers at the base, and a civilian U.S. Air Force employee. 

Earlier this month, on March 12, Reading’s lawyers filed an amended complaint bringing federal agencies into the case. The newly named defendants, sued in their official capacity, are U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem; Adam Stahl, the senior official performing the duties of administrator of the federal Transportation Security Administration; and Laurie Doran, director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness. 

The National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, on Friday contacted spokesmen for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the federal Transportation Security Administration, and the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness but did not hear back by publication of this story. 

Lawyers for the other defendants — including Schelling, Vazquez, Payne, and Duff — also did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday. 

The lawsuit is pending. In December 2024, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit rejected Reading’s request for a preliminary injunction against several government officials to prevent them from censoring her speech but found that “much of the government actors’ behavior was beyond the pale.” 

“Reading’s allegations are serious and raise important questions under the free speech clause of the First Amendment,” the panel said in its decision. “Reading expressed concern about whether her 7-year-old daughter was being exposed to sexual topics that have no place in an elementary school. Regardless of whether one agrees with Reading’s concern, the record suggests that defendants’ response to her blog post was, to put it mildly, disproportionate.”

This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA's sister news partner, on March 24, 2025, and has been adapted by CNA.