Have you ever wondered why people pray? Prayer and meditation have an important place in all of the major world religions, but why? Does God need our prayers? If the...
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 31, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) recently sent a letter to federal senators and representatives urging them to defund Planned Parenthood and stop taxpayer money from funding services such as abortions and transgender procedures that “gravely violate human dignity.”
Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, Bishop Robert Barron and Toledo, Ohio, Bishop Daniel Thomas, the chairmen of the USCCB’s marriage and pro-life committees, respectively, wrote the letter last Thursday to “affirm our support for stopping taxpayer funding of the abortion and ‘gender transition’ industries.”
The letter was sent following the announcement that the Trump administration plans to freeze millions of taxpayer dollars from subsidizing abortion services via the federal Title X program.
The bishops addressed the senators on the same day hundreds of pro-life advocates went to Capitol Hill to urge Congress to cut the “funding of the abortion industry in the budget reconciliation process,” the prelates said.
“Necessary, long-standing, and historically bipartisan policies like the Hyde Amendment help prevent public funding for elective abortions themselves,” the bishops said, citing the decades-old rule that forbids federal funding of most abortions.
“Yet Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the U.S. at over 390,000 preborn children killed per year (about 40% of the total), still receives nearly $700 million annually — about a third of its revenue — from taxpayers,” they noted.
The letter further argued that federal funds to Planned Parenthood must be cut not just to limit abortion but also the gender ideology the organization promotes.
Planned Parenthood is “the nation’s ‘second-largest provider of hormone therapy’ for patients attempting ‘gender transition,’” the bishops said.
“The off-label use of hormones and puberty blockers has proven to be a lucrative billion-dollar business in an ever-growing market,” they wrote. “Planned Parenthood offers ‘gender transition’ services at nearly 450 clinics across the nation, surpassing the number of its locations that perform abortions.”
Planned Parenthood itself has admitted that most of these patients leave their first visit with a hormone prescription, the bishops noted.
“As the rate of these destructive services has dramatically increased, so too has government funding,” the bishops said. They asked Congress to put the money toward supporting families in need rather than helping harmful services be carried out.
“As you consider how to best steward taxpayer resources in the weeks ahead, we call upon you to stop funding abortion and ‘gender transition’ industries that gravely violate human dignity. Instead, we urge you to prioritize the needs of struggling families so they can flourish,” the bishops said.
Christian families displaced by the violence in India's Odisha state in 2008. / Credit: Aid to the Church in Need
Bangalore, India, Mar 31, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
A team of half a dozen Catholic nuns and lawyers have warned of increasing incidents of opposition to Christian funerals and hate campaigns against the Christian community in an eastern Indian state.
The group sounded the alarm after making a fact-finding visit to several remote areas under the Balasore Diocese in the state of Odisha.
“What we heard from the people in the villages was shocking to us,” Sister Clara D’Souza, a member of the Handmaid of Mary Congregation, told CNA on March 27.
“Our fact-finding report has details of incidents of tribal Hindu groups protesting and objecting to Christian funeral services and even Sunday Mass, starting [before Christmas],” she said.
“As we released the fact-finding report, a third case of a Christian funeral obstruction happened on March 22,” D’Souza added.
Father Ajay Singh, a member of the fact-finding team, said the trouble for Christians in the Hatigarh area began on Dec. 18, 2024, when Hindu tribal activists demonstrated against the funeral service for a local Catholic, claiming that Christian funeral rites and prayers are against “tribal tradition.”
“However, the timely intervention of the police helped the conduct of the funeral,” said Singh, the former director of the social forum of the local Church.
Later, the Hindu group — called Mahji Pragaon — created a commotion during a Sunday Mass and the police had to intervene to disperse the aggressors, who alleged that “new people are being converted” when prayer services were held in the church.
The recent fact-finding study found the Hindu group alleged in local newspapers that local Christians were “destroying the traditional culture by embracing and practicing the Christian faith.”
“This group did not even attend the meeting government officials called to address the issue,” Singh pointed out.
Meanwhile, he said, the anti-Christian campaign spread to the village of Siunaguda in the neighboring Nabarangpur district.
When 70-year-old Kesab Santa, an evangelical tribal Christian, died on March 2, the Hindu villagers insisted that they would allow “only tribal burial” and that “no Christian funeral [would] be held.”
Singh said mourners were “unable to take the body for burial in a remote Christian village” and elected to bury the deceased “in the village in tribal tradition.”
When Siban Murmu, a 55-year-old Baptist of Rangmatia, died during a hospital stay on March 20, the body was brought to the village house the next day in the Catholic parish area of Hatigarh.
“Soon a local Hindu group arrived and started protesting against holding a funeral service for Murmu within the village,” D’Souza said. “They said that Murmu had been practicing the Christian religion and therefore should not be buried in the village.”
“Even after senior government officials arrived, the Hindu group did not relent and the dead body remained in the courtyard of the house for two days,” she said. “Finally, officials suggested taking the body to the Baptist church cemetery” about 10 miles away.
The report warned that recent elections in Odisha have “escalated further vulnerable situations of the Christians.”
Singh pointed out that “the sudden spurt in unprecedented anti-Christian propaganda is very much rooted” in the Hindu nationalist BJP winning the state election in Odisha last June.
“Maybe they are trying to create a Kandhamal-like situation by spreading hatred against Christians,” Singh said, a reference to the Kandhamal district, which saw orchestrated anti-Christian violence in 2008 when dozens of Christians were killed, over 300 churches destroyed, and 6,000 Christian houses plundered and torched, rendering 56,000 Christians homeless.
“We are now living in fear in this area, which had perfect harmony among Hindus and Christians until recently,” Father Francis Kannampuzha, vicar of St. Paul’s Parish in Hatigarh, told CNA.
“There is certainly a clear conspiracy to create trouble and divide among the people on religious lines,” Kannampuzha said.
Islamists slumming as faculty who owe their appointments to successfully brainwashing students and spreading lies about Israel will now have to find more suitable establishments to ply their trades.
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Priests designated as "Missionaries of Mercy" gather for a special Mass in Rome on March 30, 2025. To date, approximately 1,250 priests have been commissioned by the Vatican to embrace the call in Misericordiae Vultus to be “living signs of the Father’s readiness to welcome those in search of his pardon.” / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
Rome Newsroom, Mar 30, 2025 / 16:11 pm (CNA).
The Holy Mass for the Jubilee of Priests instituted as Missionaries of Mercy was celebrated on Sunday at the Basilica of Sant'Andrea della Valle in Rome.
Hundreds of “Missionaries of Mercy” — priests with the authority to “pardon sins reserved to the Holy See” (Misericordiae Vultus, 18) — gathered in Rome’s basilica dedicated to St. Andrew the Apostle to concelebrate Mass with Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization.
In his homily, Fisichella reminded missionaries of mercy priests that they are “special instruments of reconciliation” who offer God’s great love to those who come to the sacrament of confession in search of forgiveness for their sins.
Fisichella encouraged the priests to be confessors who open their hearts and minds to “welcome those who approach us" but to also go out in search of those who are still far from the Church.
Recalling the example of the merciful father who restores dignity to his prodigal son in St. Luke’s Gospel, Fisichella said: “Love forgets sin, and forgiveness forces us to look directly to the future.”
The number of Missionaries of Mercy priests continues to grow worldwide. To date, approximately 1,250 priests have been commissioned by the Vatican to embrace the call in Misericordiae Vultus to be “living signs of the Father’s readiness to welcome those in search of his pardon.”
Approximately 500 priests from around the world — commissioned as missionaries of mercy during the 2016 Jubilee of Mercy — participated in a variety of spiritual and cultural activities as part of the 2025 holy year dedicated to hope, including training sessions held inside the Vatican and a pilgrimage through the holy door of St. Peter’s Basilica.
The March 28-30 special jubilee concluded Sunday with a free symphonic concert of “Missa Papae Francisci,” composed by Enni Morricone, in Rome’s Basilica of Sts. Ambrose and Charles on the Corso.
Pope Francis prays during his Wednesday general audience on Feb. 5, 2025, in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Mar 30, 2025 / 09:18 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Sunday encouraged Christians to continue their Lenten journey as a time of healing and faith in Jesus Christ.
The Vatican released the Holy Father’s Sunday Angelus message while the 88-year-old pontiff continues his convalescence in his Casa Santa Marta home after being discharged from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital a week ago.
In his written reflection on the parable of the merciful father with two sons recorded in St. Luke’s Gospel, the Holy Father said the Pharisees were “scandalized” by Jesus and would “murmur behind his back” because he welcomed sinners.
“Jesus reveals the heart of God: He is always merciful towards all; he heals our wounds so that we can love each other as brothers,” he wrote in his March 30 message.
Encouraging Christians — who are united in God as brothers and sisters — the Holy Father said people should especially “live this Lent as a time of healing” in the Jubilee Year of Hope, adding: “I too am experiencing it this way, in my soul and in my body.”
“Frailty and illness are experiences we all have in common; all the more, however, we are brothers in the salvation Christ has given us,” he wrote.
In his message, released on the March 28-30 weekend of the special Jubilee of Missionaries of Mercy, the pope also expressed his heartfelt thanks to all who reflect the “image of the Savior” and work as “instruments of healing” through their prayers and action.
The Holy Father concluded his Angelus address with petitions for peace in Ukraine, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Sudan.
“Trusting in the mercy of God the Father, we continue to pray for peace,” he wrote.
Speaking about his concern about the political unrest in South Sudan and Sudan, the Holy Father insisted that the international community work together to bring about peace in the two African nations.
“Only in this way will it be possible to alleviate the suffering of the beloved South Sudanese people and to build a future of peace and stability,” he said.
“And in Sudan, the war continues to claim innocent victims, I urge the parties concerned in the conflict to put the safeguarding of the lives of their civilian brothers and sisters first,” he continued.
Turning to “positive events” in Central Asia, the Holy Father thanked God for the ratification of the March 13 country border agreement between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, describing the deal as “an excellent diplomatic achievement.”
The Holy Father concluded his message with a prayer asking the Blessed Virgin Mary — the “Mother of Mercy” — to “help the human family to be reconciled in peace.”
A monumental cross towers above the Valley of the Fallen complex. / Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Madrid, Spain, Mar 30, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).
In a statement published by the Archdiocese of Madrid, Cardinal José Cobo defended his role as an interlocutor between the Vatican and the Spanish government in the process of resignifying the Valley of the Fallen, a massive monument dedicated to both sides of the Spanish Civil War.
The statement, issued after the recent change of the prior of the Benedictine community at the historic site, seeks to clarify the agreements reached and the scope of the planned modifications to the monument.
Released just after 10:30 p.m. local time on March 26, the Archdiocese of Madrid’s statement regretted “the leak and dissemination of some recently published information about the resignification of the Valley of the Fallen, within an open process of dialogue.”
The concept of “resignification,” in the case of historical or symbolic spaces such as the Valley of the Fallen, seeks to reinterpret or redefine their meaning in order to adapt them to new contexts, perspectives, or purposes.
The statement from the Archdiocese of Madrid specifies that “to date, the only definitive agreement has been the permanence of the Benedictine community and the non-desacralization of the basilica, as well as respect for all religious elements located outside it.”
However, the statement admits that some type of modification to the church has been agreed upon, but it has not been specified: “Regarding any alterations within the church, they will be studied respecting the liturgical criteria and the purpose for which the basilica was built, guaranteeing independent access.”
The archdiocese also emphasized that “any other aspect related to the resignification is the exclusive responsibility of the Holy See and the government, which are the parties that conducted the negotiations.”
Furthermore, the statement emphasizes that the Spanish cardinal “has participated in this process as a designated interlocutor within an ecclesiastical commission,” which has entailed “an exchange of private notes on how to articulate the resignification of the Valley of the Fallen, always ensuring respect for the religious elements and the permanence of worship in the basilica.”
Finally, the Archdiocese of Madrid emphasized that, “beyond pastoral activity,” Cobo’s role is one of “accompaniment, but without having jurisdiction over the basilica or the religious community residing there.”
The statement came just hours after El Diario published that an agreement had been reached between the Vatican and the Spanish government to achieve the intended political “resignification” of the monument.
This agreement, in whose process Cobo allegedly participated, was reportedly finalized in a meeting between Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin and Minister of the Presidency Félix Bolaños on Feb. 25 in Rome.
In response to this statement, numerous X subscribers responded with accusations of treason and other forms of accusations against Cobo.
The recent replacement of the prior at the Benedictine community, confirmed March 25, is reportedly part of the agreement reached. In addition, it is not ruled out that both the previous prior, Santiago Cantera, and one other monk may be transferred from the community because the Spanish government disapproves of them.
According to the same information, only the altar and pews are expected to remain untouched, but changes may be made to the dome, vestibule, atrium, and nave, which are part of the Pontifical Basilica of the Holy Cross.
The Valley of the Fallen, inaugurated in 1959, is a monumental complex built after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and is located about 30 miles from Madrid. It consists of a basilica situated underground in an excavated space in the mountain, an imposing cross, a Benedictine monastery, a school, and a monumental Stations of the Cross.
Among the monument’s founding purposes are “to pray to God for the souls of those who died in the National Crusade, to implore the blessings of the Almighty for Spain, and to work for the understanding and establishment of peace among men, based on Christian social justice.”
The complex was commissioned by Gen. Francisco Franco, Spain’s longtime head of state and leader of the winning Nationalist side in the bloody conflict with leftist Republican forces.
The controversy over the monument is colored by the fact that Franco supported the Catholic Church, which was caught in the middle and was being severely persecuted by elements of the Republicans.
Between 33,000 and 50,000 Spaniards from both sides are interred there. In 1975, King Juan Carlos decided that Franco should be buried there. José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the founder of the Spanish Falange political party, who was executed for sedition in the early months of the war, was also buried there.
Since 2007, the government led by Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE, by its Spanish acronym) implemented a series of measures to resignify the site, which leftist parties decry as a monument to Franco and his dictatorship.
These measures have been reinforced since 2018 when Pedro Sánchez, also of the PSOE, took office as prime minister in a coalition with communist and separatist parties and heirs of terrorist groups.
In October 2019, the government ordered Franco’s remains to be exhumed and moved to another cemetery, an event broadcast live on public television.
In 2023, the same procedure was followed with Primo de Rivera’s remains, but at the family’s request and in a discreet manner in anticipation of the government’s wishes.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.