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LA pastor on hunger strike to protest ICE’s detainment of Iranian Christians

WASHINGTON (RNS) — About a month ago, Pastor Ara Torosian received a frantic call from one of his congregants in Los Angeles. Armed authorities were at her door and trying to arrest her and her husband. He quickly rushed over to a scene that he described as akin to incidents in his native Iran.

The armed police were not the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps but United States Border Patrol federal agents. The congregants had fled Iran for the U.S., escaping persecution due to their Christian faith.

Now, the pastor of Cornerstone Church West LA — a multiethnic Protestant church that holds services in English, Spanish and Farsi — is protesting outside the White House, advocating not just for the five members of his own congregation who are still detained, but an estimated 200 Iranian Christians he said are currently in U.S. custody, according to his firsthand reports from detained immigrants. For three days, Torosian is refraining from eating solid food, drinking only water to draw attention to the issue.

“I decided last week to come and to be a voice for voiceless people,” Torosian told RNS on Wednesday (July 23), adding he’s met with lawmakers and policy leaders during his visit. “There are lots of Iranian Christian people detained and they are in danger of deportation back to Iran. I came here to be their voice in front of the White House. … I just want people to hear what is in my heart, what’s happened to us and tell them to see it.”

Torosian’s congregants were detained in a wave of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests that targeted Iranian immigrants shortly after a ceasefire was declared between Israel and Iran after a 12-day war in June. The same week as Torosian’s congregants were taken by Border Patrol, at least 11 other Iranians were arrested across the country, according to a DHS statement.

Torosian said his congregants came as asylum-seekers under a Biden administration policy, followed all legal protocols and received work permits. One family, a couple and their 3-year-old daughter, was arrested during a scheduled immigration court appearance, while the couple he captured on video was at their home.

In the video Torosian recorded of the arrests, police can be heard saying CBP One, the mobile app the family used to legally come to the U.S. under the Biden administration, “is no longer valid anymore.” During the incident, the woman had a panic attack and was wrestled to the ground by police, which was captured on video.

“When I saw that scene, it triggered something inside of me, and I thought, ‘Where am I? Am I in LA or in the streets of Tehran?’” Torosian said.

The wife was later taken to the hospital, where Torosian said he was blocked by federal agents from praying with her, and then to an ICE detention center.

A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes Border Patrol, said the couple were considered “subjects of national security interest” and were “unlawfully present” in the U.S., RNS previously reported.

Iran has so far refused to take deportees from the U.S.; however, last month the Supreme Court allowed the administration to deport migrants to countries that are not their homelands.

Were they to be deported back to Iran, they could face religious persecution. Open Doors International, an evangelical organization covering Christian persecution, in a January report listed Iran in the top 10 countries known for government oppression and persecution of Christians.

Despite being less than 1% of the population, Christians make up the largest non-Muslim religious minority in the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to Open Doors. Iranian state recognition has largely been restricted to historic ethnic churches such as the Armenian Apostolic Church, Assyrian Church of the East and Chaldean and Aramean churches. Christian worship in Farsi has been outlawed, and churches that cater to the historically Muslim, ethnically Persian majority are suppressed. Proselytizing and conversion are punishable by fines, corporal punishment, jail time and potentially the death penalty under Iranian law.

After facing threats, Torosian fled Iran in 2010 and is now an American citizen.

“I was caught smuggling Bibles in Iran, and (the police) said, ‘You are a spy of Israel, you’re a spy of America,’” Torosian recalled. “There’s long-term prison sentences, they kill our pastors and even in America, I got threatened by (the Iranian government) many times.”

He said that since the video of his congregants’ arrests went viral, their family members in Iran have been questioned by national security services. Since the ceasefire with Israel, Iran has expanded its arrests of dissidents — disproportionately those from religious minorities — under the claim of rooting out Israeli spies.

In a statement to RNS last month, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “Any foreign citizen who fears persecution — including Iranians — are able to request asylum and have their claims adjudicated.”

The persecution of Christian communities in the Muslim world was a significant talking point for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and among Republican leaders. As Torosian’s congregants sit in detention, GOP lawmakers are pushing a resolution in the Senate to denounce the treatment of Christians in Muslim-majority countries.

“Our country was founded on religious liberty,” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who introduced the resolution, said in a statement Monday. “We cannot sit on the sidelines as Christians around the world are being persecuted for declaring Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. We must condemn these heinous crimes.”

The disconnect between such public claims and the actual treatment of Iranian Christian refugees has been deeply disappointing to Torosian and his community, he said.

“We feel trapped as Iranian refugee Christians,” Torosian said, holding a sign reading, “Mr. President: Iranian Christians believed you would protect them,” and “President Trump: Keep your promise to persecuted Christians.”

While Christian humanitarian organizations such as World Relief, which works with refugees worldwide, have supported Torosian and his community, other evangelical leaders have backed the Trump administration’s immigration policy.

“I have received big support from some Christian organizations, and other people, they don’t like me,” he said. “They believe that our people are illegal here. Some Christians have told me that I need to ‘go back to my country.’ I am a U.S. citizen. My children were born here.

“When you are calling yourself an evangelical church and Christian, you need to follow God’s word,” Torosian added. “I usually say to them, ‘Go read your Bible.’ … Jesus sat down with everybody — vulnerable people who were never loved by their community, prostitutes and other hated people. Jesus himself was a refugee.”

HHS investigation exposes ‘horrifying’ ethical failures in organ transplant system

Consultant Surgeon Andrew Ready and his team conduct a live donor kidney transplant at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham on June 9, 2006, in Birmingham, England. / Credit: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Jul 23, 2025 / 18:17 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced a sweeping reform initiative of the nation’s organ transplant system after a four-year investigation by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) uncovered systemic ethical and safety violations.

The violations discovered during the investigation, outlined July 21 in an HHS press release, showed “that hospitals allowed the organ procurement process to begin when patients showed signs of life,” said HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who called this “horrifying.”

“The organ procurement organizations that coordinate access to transplants will be held accountable,” Kennedy continued. “The entire system must be fixed to ensure that every potential donor’s life is treated with the sanctity it deserves.”

The investigation identified major problems with organ procurement processes, including poor neurologic assessments, inadequate coordination with medical teams, questionable consent practices, and misclassification of causes of death, particularly in overdose cases. Smaller and rural hospitals were found to be especially vulnerable.

Joseph Meaney, former president of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, said on “EWTN News Nightly” on July 22 that these problems are “extremely concerning” and that organ procurement processes have had “persistent flaws.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that organ donation after death “is a noble and meritorious act and is to be encouraged as an expression of generous solidarity.”

The donor or a proxy must consent, however, and organs cannot be removed until there is “moral certitude” a person is dead, Meaney said. “The Uniform Determination of Death Act says there has to be zero functioning in the brain to be able to declare a person brain dead … before any kind of vital organ donation process is initiated.”

The HRSA investigation was prompted by the troubling case of Anthony Thomas Hoover II. According to the New York Times, Hoover, now 36, was hospitalized four years ago in Kentucky for a drug overdose.

He was unresponsive for two days, and his family agreed to remove life support so his organs could be harvested.

A federally funded organ procurement organization (OPO) called Network for Hope (formerly known as Kentucky Organ Donor Affiliates) began the process of procuring his organs even though he allegedly seemed to be improving. According to the Times, he was “thrashing on the bed” and subsequently sedated.

Hospital staff became “uncomfortable with the amount of reflexes” the patient was exhibiting, and some began to call his organ procurement procedure “euthanasia,” though representatives of the procurement group told them it was not.

A physician refused to withdraw life support and continue with the organ procurement, despite pressure from the procurers. Hoover survived, though he suffers from neurological impairment.

The HRSA’s investigation of Network for Hope revealed 351 instances where organ donation was authorized but not completed. The results were alarming: 103 cases (29.3%) showed cause for concern, including 73 patients with neurological signs incompatible with organ donation.

Most disturbingly, at least 28 patients may not have been deceased when organ procurement began.

Network for Hope CEO Barry Massa said in a statement to CNA on July 22 that “patient safety is our top priority. Network for Hope looks forward to working collaboratively with HHS and HRSA and encourages the development of policies that support the betterment of the organ transplant system as a whole.”

Every state is served by one or more nonprofit organ procurement organizations (OPOs) that work with hospitals to manage organ donations.

HRSA has directed the implicated OPO to strengthen its patient safeguards and has mandated rigorous corrective actions. These include a root cause analysis of its failure to follow protocols, such as the five-minute observation rule post-death, and the development of clear donor eligibility criteria.

The organ procurement organization must also establish a procedure allowing staff to halt donation if safety concerns arise. Failure to comply risks decertification, a move Kennedy has vowed to enforce.

Father Tad Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at the NCBC, applauded the new procedure to halt the process due to safety concerns, telling CNA that it is “a very sensible safeguard.”

Brain death vs. circulatory death

The HHS investigation revealed that some OPOs actively seek cardiac, or circulatory, death donors rather than brain death ones.

The majority of organ donations come from patients who are determined to have suffered death by neurologic criteria, or brain death, and whose bodies are being sustained mechanically to preserve organ viability. Organ donation following circulatory death, however, has seen significant growth, driven in part by the increased demand for organ transplants and federal pressure on procurement groups.

Unlike brain death, where patients are determined to be in an irreversible state with no brain activity, circulatory death involves patients who are typically comatose and on life support.

These individuals retain some brain function but are deemed unlikely to recover based on medical assessments, which can involve the subjective judgment of the doctors.

Meaney said there are “question marks” surrounding organ donations that result from the determination of circulatory death, or what he called “cardiac determination,” telling EWTN there is no uniform time clinicians must wait after the heart stops. Hospitals establish the amount of time that can pass before clinicians can determine someone has circulatory death, generally around five minutes.

In some of these cases, Meaney said “the extraction of the organs is actually the cause of death” for the patient.

About 20,000 organs last year were procured after a patient was said to have undergone circulatory death, representing one-third of all donations in the U.S, according to the New York Times. This figure is three times higher than it was five years ago, reflecting a rising reliance on this method.

When families consent to organ donation, once the transplant teams have arrived, the hospital discontinues life support and monitors the patient in the operating room until his or her heart stops. While hospitals oversee patient care until death, once there is cessation of cardiac activity for a sufficient amount of time, specialized surgical teams affiliated with the OPOs are often brought in to proceed with organ retrieval, which must occur quickly to ensure organs remain suitable for transplantation.

One neurointensivist who spoke to CNA on the condition of anonymity described OPOs as “vultures” who, after they are informed by the hospital that a patient is moribund and may become a potential organ donor, “set up shop” in a hospital.

The HRSA investigation found that OPOs sometimes pressure families and medical staff to expedite the organ retrieval process.

The HRSA’s proposed reforms are critical to maintaining public trust in organ donation.

About 170 million Americans are currently listed as organ donors, but the number may go down as trust declines.

Pacholczyk told CNA: “Many of us would like to become organ donors, but we have questions, even doubts, about whether we can ‘trust the system.’ One of the more widely articulated concerns is whether organs will be taken before patients are properly determined to be deceased, leading many individuals to decide against checking the box on their driver’s license.”

“Given the significant internal and external pressures to procure organs for transplantation today, and given the fact that our society no longer fully esteems the value of every human life, our organ procurement organizations must be subjected to a process of transparent and independent review,” Pacholczyk said.

Table for Five: Matot-Masei

Long Strange Trip

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Bishop prohibits Catholic influencer from Church activities amid ‘grooming’ allegations

Catholic influencer Alex Jurado, who runs the social media ministry Voice of Reason (right), and Bishop Artur Bubnevych of the Holy Protection of Mary Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Alexandro Jurado; photo courtesy of Father Artur Bubnevych

CNA Staff, Jul 23, 2025 / 17:43 pm (CNA).

A popular Catholic influencer has been barred from public events in his local Church amid investigations into allegations of sexual misconduct.

Bishop Artur Bubnevych of the Holy Protection of Mary Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix issued a statement prohibiting Catholic personality Alex Jurado — who runs the social media ministry Voice of Reason — from public events while he is under investigation for allegations of sexually grooming an underage teenage girl when he was 21 years old.

CNA first reported on the allegations against Jurado on July 15. The Protestant website Protestia published a report alleging that “whistleblowers within the Catholic community” had revealed sexually explicit texts Jurado allegedly sent to a girl possibly as young as 14 years old when he himself was 21.

The popular Catholic apologist has sharply denied allegations. The influencer said in a statement on his Instagram page that the claims were untrue and that he is “voluntarily cooperating in an investigation that will allow the truth to come to light.”

“[T]he accusation that I was having an inappropriate relationship with a 14-year-old girl is a complete fabrication,” he said.

He added that he is “prepared to undergo legal action against those who have defamed me,” describing the allegations as an “awful and vicious rumor.”

On July 16, meanwhile, Bubnevych issued a statement to the clergy of his eparchy stating that Jurado, “a regular attendee at one of our parishes,” is prohibited from “any activity or involvement … occurring in any facilities of or events being sponsored by the Eparchy of Phoenix until further notice.”

“We will cooperate fully with any authorized investigations which may occur in this matter,” the bishop wrote in his statement, a copy of which was obtained by CNA.

“We wish also to stress that our Safe Environment policies, which address the safeguarding and dignity of all persons, are taken most seriously and, with that in mind, I believe the action being taken is therefore warranted,” the bishop said.

Amid the controversy, Catholic Answers, an apologetics nonprofit that produces the Catholic Answers Live radio show, removed a page featuring Jurado from its website.

Jon Sorensen, chief operating officer at Catholic Answers, told CNA in an email that Jurado “has never been a staff member of Catholic Answers. He was an occasional guest on our radio program, ‘Catholic Answers Live,’ and, like all our radio guests, he had a profile page on Catholic.com.”

He added: “In light of the recent serious allegations about Alex, we have removed this profile from Catholic.com. We pray that the full truth may come to light, we pray for Alex, and we pray for everyone who may have been victimized, scandalized, or disedified by these reported events.”

Jurado has not responded to queries from CNA regarding the controversy.