We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

CNA Staff, Jul 31, 2025 / 16:35 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is investigating potential “unfair or deceptive trade practices” regarding transgender surgeries and drugs.

The launch of the federal inquiry is designed to “gauge the harms consumers may be experiencing” from “false or unsupported claims” about transgender treatment, according to a press release. The inquiry focuses on affected minors but is also open to adults who have been affected.

The agency’s investigation comes after President Donald Trump pledged to end federal support for transition drugs and surgeries in an executive order he issued at the outset of his administration this year.

The Federal Trade Commission, a federal agency that promotes marketplace competition and consumer education, will investigate whether practitioners have violated a long-standing law against deception in the marketplace.

The investigation falls under the purview of the agency as the primary enforcer of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, a federal law that, among other things, prohibits deception and false advertising in the marketplace. The agency will investigate if practitioners have gone against Sections 5 and 12 of the act, which ban “unfair or deceptive acts” and false advertising, respectively. 

The commission “is uniquely positioned to investigate this potentially unlawful activity,” the agency stated, noting that the organization “has a long history of bringing enforcement actions” in health care. 

The agency “encourages members of the public to comment on any issues or concerns that are relevant to the FTC’s consideration of this topic, including by submitting any written data, advertisements, social media posts, disclosures, or empirical research,” the press release read. 

U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, commended the agency “for investigating the horrific scheme to target minors with barbaric gender procedures.” 

“Everyone involved — including the ‘doctors’ — should face massive liability for the damage they did to vulnerable children,” Cotton said in a post on X.

This is not the commission’s first look at the transgender issue. Earlier this month, the agency hosted a workshop in Washington, D.C., to investigate “unfair or deceptive trade practices” within transgender treatment. 

The workshop brought in doctors, medical ethicists, detransitioners and their parents, and whistleblowers to share their testimonies. 

Andrew Ferguson, a Catholic Virginian who chairs the commission, told detransitioners and survivors that the agency “hears you, we hear all of you, and we want to understand how the law is being broken,” according to a report by Daily Wire. 

At the workshop, the U.S. Justice Department’s Chief of Staff Chad Mizelle announced that the department had issued more than 20 subpoenas against medical clinics as part of an investigation for fraud and false statements, National Review reported. 

The deadline for the public to submit comments is Sept. 26. Comments will be posted to Regulations.gov, while another forum is available for confidential comments.

ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 31, 2025 / 16:05 pm (CNA).

Uruguay’s  Chamber of Deputies (lower house) is scheduled to vote on a euthanasia bill, titled as “death with dignity,” on Aug. 5. Just days before legislators cast their votes, Catholic Church leaders and professionals from various fields are weighing in against the measure. 

An article published by the Archdiocese of Montevideo titled “Euthanasia: A ‘Right’ That Violates Other Rights” compiles testimonies, beginning with Dutch bioethics expert and professor Theo Boer, who was one of the advocates and activists for the legalization of euthanasia two decades ago. After reviewing thousands of cases, he warned of the sustained growth in requests and, fundamentally, the reasons for each case.

Recognizing his mistake, Boer has traveled the world — and visited Uruguay — to warn about the risks of enabling “assisted suicide,” pointing out that “what began as an exception has become a common practice,” violating the rights of the most disadvantaged.

The Catholic Church in Montevideo stated that the euthanasia law is “an initiative that appears to offer more rights to citizens but ultimately does not provide the guarantees it promises.”

Dr. Agustina da Silveira, who belongs to Prudencia Uruguay, a citizen initiative that opposes euthanasia, warns that according to the draft law, the report by which a lethal injection is requested due to “a chronic, incurable disease or an irreversible health condition that causes suffering considered unbearable” is submitted by the same doctor who will carry out the euthanasia. This means that the person making the decision will also validate his or her own actions, thus becoming both “judge and jury,” so that “if there was an error, it will be irreparable.”

The Archdiocese of Montevideo also points to the Uruguayan Constitution, which in Chapter 1, Article 7 “establishes the importance of the fundamental right to life, a condition that is also recognized and protected through various constitutional provisions and within the framework of various international agreements.”

Another shortcoming noted is that a palliative care law has been in place in Uruguay since August 2023, but its application only reaches 74% of people. Therefore, “legalizing euthanasia without guaranteeing access to palliative care will also be an additional problem,” the archdiocese noted.

If the palliative care law were fully implemented, Da Silveira observed, patients would not reach the stage of “unbearable” suffering proposed by the bill, because “if palliative care is guaranteed, there is no reason for a patient to suffer unbearably,” she explained.

By opening the door to euthanasia, the state ceases to protect life at the moment it becomes most fragile, which violates the law governing the Uruguayan Medical Association.

“It is the duty of physicians, as health professionals, to adhere to the following fundamental principles and values: to respect the life, dignity, autonomy, and freedom of every human being and to seek, as an end, to benefit their physical, mental, and social health,” states Article 3 of the code on medical ethics of the referenced association.

Euthanasia “is presented as an individual right, but it ends up creating a category of people whose right to life is relativized,” said Miguel Pastorino, who holds a doctorate in philosophy and is also a member of Prudencia Uruguay.

“Even if they are not forced to die, they are socially placed in that position: that of lives that are worth less,” he warned.

“Today we have medical tools that allow patients to go through the end of their lives without pain. No one should die suffering,” Da Silveira said, listing three key aspects: the right to refuse treatment, advance directives, and palliative sedation (which allows pain relief without hastening death).

“We are about to legalize euthanasia without having guaranteed relief [from pain]. Not everyone has access to palliative care, and for many, it is impossible to choose to live when they are suffering. It is a great injustice,” the doctor pointed out.

Regarding this point, Pastorino noted: “Palliative care is not an alternative to euthanasia but rather a right that must be guaranteed with or without euthanasia. However, the bill does not require the patient to undergo palliative care first.”

If pain is not adequately managed, “how can we ensure that the decision to die is free? Many people ask to die because they don’t want to be a burden, because they feel abandoned. Is that freedom or is it desperation?” he asked.

“The question is not whether that desire [to end one’s life] exists, but whether society’s response to that desire should be to institutionalize death as a health service,” Pastorino explained.

The perspective of faith

In addition to the legal and medical foundations, the perspective of faith also emerges in the debate, as it “raises a question of meaning: What do we do as a society with human suffering? Do we respond by hastening death or do we accompany others in a dignified manner and avoid pain?”

Last week, in an appearance on his radio program, “The Joy of the Gospel,” Cardinal Daniel Sturla, archbishop of Montevideo, stated: “What we categorically reject is to intentionally cause the death of a person. Life is a gift from God, of which we are stewards, not masters.”

The cardinal also highlighted the many humane reasons for opposing the legislation. Among them is the risk of transforming medicine into a practice that facilitates death rather than helping those who suffer.

The Catholic Church in Uruguay rejects all “therapeutic cruelty” toward patients, while “promoting palliative care and sedation as a way to relieve pain, even in cases where treatment could hasten death as an undesired effect.”

“This is an essential difference, because in palliative sedation the intention is to alleviate suffering. In euthanasia, on the other hand, the objective is directly to cause death,” the cardinal explained, expressing his position against the “throwaway mentality,” which tends to “classify certain lives as disposable.”

“That is opening a floodgate to evil,” he warned.

Uruguayan society is on the verge of legislating on the right to live or not to live. “What is urgent,” many say, “is not to legislate death but to guarantee a dignified life until the end. A life cared for, accompanied, without pain or loneliness,” the Archdiocese of Montevideo stated.

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

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2025 / 15:35 pm (CNA).

Bishop Robert Barron in Rome this week urged young people to follow God and reject worldly goods, calling on youth to “find their mission” and pursue the Lord “into the depths.”

“God has an idea of the saint you were meant to be,” Barron said during the keynote address at the Jubilee of Youth’s National U.S. Pilgrim Gathering on July 30.

Barron, the bishop of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, and founder of the Word on Fire ministry, emphasized that modern culture promotes individualism at the expense of God’s journey with us.

Throughout his speech, Barron referenced biblical figures — including Peter, Abraham, Jacob, and Jonah — to highlight the challenges and rewards of answering God’s call.

There’s nothing more important in our lives than discerning our mission, Barron told the crowd.

He suggested that anyone discerning their mission should start by asking the questions “Whom do you worship? What voice do you listen to? And what’s the mission that voice is giving to you?”

A true mission, Barron said, leads a person to greater self-gift. “Listen to the voice … and accept the mission,” he told the crowd of young people.

Struggling with a small podium and his prepared speech, Barron opted to ad lib about his journey in Rome.

Juxtaposing the ruins of Rome with the present Catholic Church, Barron said: “Don’t believe them when they tell you religion’s in decline. … What’s in us is greater than anything in the world.” 

“Where are the mighty signs of Roman power? Think of the Colosseum. Think of the Forum. Think of the Palatine Hill. Think of the Circus Maximus. What are they? They’re ruins.” 

“But where’s the great empire that was announced by Peter the Apostle?” he continued. “It’s all over the world, on every continent. It’s alive. And where is the successor of Peter who was put to death in the Circus of Nero and buried away on the Vatican Hill? Where’s his successor?”

“I saw him last night, didn’t you? Riding around St. Peter’s Square,” the bishop said to thunderous applause. 

Barron warned against living in “the little shallows” of material desires and urged attendees to pursue a higher calling.

He paraphrased Abraham’s journey as our own: “Leave the country of who you are now. Leave that boring space of the old self, preoccupied with its own freedom, and go to the land I will show you. What’s the land? It’s the saint you’re meant to be.”

Diving into the etymology of the word worship — which descends from an older English word, worth ship — Barron said that what we hold the highest is what’s worshipped. 

He warned the assembly not to worship money, status, or family. “If I make them my central preoccupation, I will fall apart on the inside — I will disintegrate and I will sow disintegration around me.”

“You become what you worship,” Barron said.

He also suggested that those struggling with mental health might reflect on what they worship.

Jacob also wrestled with an angel, embodying the fortitude of God’s desire to be with us. “We can’t fathom the meaning of our suffering. Don’t give up. Wrestle,” Barron said.

“We know the call to radical love,” Barron said. “But we tend to go the other way.” Ignoring that call, he warned, leads to internal and external storms. “Refusing your mission is bad for you and the people around you.”

Barron posed and answered the question “What happens when we accept the mission?” He replied with a quote from the theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar: “You don’t know who you are until you find your mission.”

He concluded by linking the lives of Peter, Paul, and Jesus, each of whom embraced self-sacrifice for the good of others. 

“That’s the same call they’re giving to all of you,” Barron said.

CNA Staff, Jul 31, 2025 / 15:05 pm (CNA).

A lawsuit filed in Massachusetts alleges that a Catholic student in a medical education program was dismissed from the school after she objected to having been forced to witness an abortion as part of her clinical studies.

The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in state court, alleges that Alina Thopurathu was taking part in Springfield College’s physician assistant program when, during clinical rotations, she was scheduled to see a dilation and evacuation, or D&E, a procedure commonly used for later-term abortions.

Thopurathu, identified in the filing as a practicing Catholic, wrote in evaluations that she had assumed the procedure was intended for a miscarriage and that she was “overwhelmed” at witnessing an actual abortion.

“In the future, I believe students should be asked if they are comfortable with seeing a D&E rather than being assigned the procedure without patient information,” she wrote in the evaluation.

The lawsuit says that after this write-up, faculty evaluations of Thopurathu “changed tone,” with advisers accusing her of negative performance in the program, though she had received praise beforehand.

Eventually her academic advisers presented her with a “remediation contract” placing her under academic probation, according to the suit; the school also designated her work in the OB-GYN rotation as “incomplete.” 

Thopurathu said she was “coerced” to sign the contract, the terms of which allegedly went beyond what was required in the student handbook. The school eventually dismissed her from the program, citing her alleged negative performance.

The suit claims that following her negative response to being forced to witness an abortion, the college “sought to dismiss [Thopurathu] for having personal values incompatible with those of the [school].” 

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages from the school, including $500,000 for “mental anguish, emotional distress,” and other injuries. 

Springfield College did not immediately return a request for comment on the suit on Thursday. 

The suit has drawn national support from pro-life advocates. Students for Life of America spokesman Michael Allers told the College Fix this week that the group “stands with all Catholics in the academic space that are discriminated against by the secular elite.”

Vatican City, Jul 31, 2025 / 12:11 pm (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday appointed astronomer Father Richard Anthony D’Souza, SJ, as the new director of the Vatican Observatory.

D’Souza, who has worked at the Vatican’s astronomical research and educational institution since 2016, will start his new position on Sept. 19, according to the Holy See Press Office statement.

The Indian priest succeeds Brother Guy J. Consolmagno, SJ, whose 10-year mandate ends next month, as head of the observatory. Consolmagno will remain at the scientific institution as a staff astronomer.

Born in Goa in 1978, D’Souza joined the Society of Jesus in 1996 and was ordained a priest in 2011 after completing studies at the Jnana Deepa Institute of Philosophy and Theology in India.

He obtained a bachelor’s degree in physics from St. Xavier’s College, University of Mumbai, India, in 2002 and was awarded a master’s degree in physics by the University of Heidelberg, Germany, in 2005.

In 2016, he completed his doctorate in astronomy at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, before moving to Italy to work with the Vatican Observatory in the same year. 

According to the Vatican Observatory website, D’Souza, whose area of specialized research is the formation and evolution of galaxies, is also the superior of the Jesuit community attached to the observatory in Castel Gandolfo, Italy. 

In 1891, Leo XIII issued the motu proprio Ut Mysticam (“As Mystical”) authorizing the construction of a new modernized observatory in Castel Gandolfo, approximately 15 miles southeast of Rome. 

The Church’s first observatory was founded in 1579 by Pope Gregory XIII, who entrusted the institution to the Society of Jesus.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2025 / 11:41 am (CNA).

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, (CBCEW) said he is “delighted and thrilled” that Pope Leo XIV has announced that he will declare St. John Henry Newman to be a doctor of the Church.

Joining Nichols in a statement from the conference following Thursday’s announcement by the Holy See Press Office, Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham said of Newman that “it is remarkable that his writings, first as an Anglican and then as a Roman Catholic, but considered as one entire corpus of written work, have led to him being declared a doctor of the Church.” 

“This recognition that the writings of St. John Henry Newman are a true expression of the faith of the Church is of huge encouragement to all who appreciate not only his great learning but also his heroic sanctity in following the call of God in his journey of faith,” Nichols added.

Longley, who also serves as vice president of the CBCEW, said he is “immensely grateful to Pope Leo for declaring St. John Henry Newman as a doctor of the Church” and pointed out that Newman is “the third Englishman to be afforded this title,” after St. Bede the Venerable and St. Anselm of Canterbury.

Nichols noted that the request to recognize Newman as a doctor of the Church had been before the Holy See “for some time” and has been widely supported across the globe, especially by the bishops of the Church in England.

“This moment brings back vivid memories of thepapal visit in 2010 of Pope Benedict XVI to these countries when he declared the beatification of John Henry Newman,” Nichols continued. “That moment now reaches its fulfillment and gives great joy to all who strive to follow Christ today.”

The announcement by the Holy See Press Office stated that the decision was made during a July 31 meeting between Pope Leo and the Vatican’s prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Marcello Sameraro.

Oratorian Father Ignatius Harrison, co-actor of the Newman cause, joined in the celebration of the announcement, declaring: “The fathers and brothers of the Birmingham Oratory give praise and thanks to God that the Holy Father Pope Leo has today confirmed that the title ‘doctor of the Church’ will soon be bestowed on St. John Henry.” 

Harrison emphasized that “Newman’s wisdom and spiritual vision will now be of even greater relevance to the universal Church and indeed to all people of goodwill who seek God’s truth.”

Gavin Ashenden, a former Anglican bishop who was received into the Catholic Church in 2019, reacted with similar ebullience to the announcement, writing in a post on X: “This is the most wonderful news.”

40,000 young Italians gather in St. Peter’s Square for the Jubilee event “You are Peter”, dedicated to peacemaking. They hear from Cardinal Zuppi and the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa.

Read all

 

Vatican City, Jul 31, 2025 / 10:41 am (CNA).

The Vatican has seen a boom in requests for blessings from the new pope, with at least a 30% increase during Leo XIV’s first month reflecting enthusiasm over the start of a new pontificate — and highlighting a traditional practice that combines devotion with fundraising for charitable works.

In June, the Vatican granted 20,000 papal blessing requests — up from the 12,000 to 15,000 parchments distributed in a typical month — something that “has never happened in history,” Cardinal Konrad Krajewski told CNA in an interview this week.

The Polish cardinal, who is responsible for the Vatican’s charitable activities and the granting of blessing certificates, said when the office reopened its doors in May after the papal interregnum and Leo’s election, a line formed a 10th of a mile long, winding out the building, down the street, and almost beyond the Vatican’s Sant’Anna Gate.

The papal charities office had to close online orders for around two weeks in June because they couldn’t keep up with requests, he noted. “Everyone wanted the blessing of the new pope.”

He added that the start of the new pontificate coincided with a popular time of year to receive sacraments, including confirmation, first holy Communion, and priestly ordination, contributing to the rise in demand.

The meaning of a blessing

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, blessings — of people, meals, objects, and places — praise God and pray for his gifts.

“In Christ, Christians are blessed by God the Father ‘with every spiritual blessing.’ This is why the Church imparts blessings by invoking the name of Jesus, usually while making the holy sign of the cross of Christ,” the catechism says.

For Catholics, Krajewski said, the blessing of the pope can hold a special significance, since he is their spiritual father.

“We want to ask for the blessing of the pope, which we hang in our home and which helps us to live through difficult times,” he said. It helps us to know “that there is someone who bears the name of Jesus, who comes under my roof and blesses me; this is something normal, something very human.”

People can receive the pope’s blessing during an in-person encounter or now, even through social media or the television. But having his apostolic blessing on paper, hanging in their home, helps people to feel “strongly united with the pontiff, who represents Our Lord,” the cardinal said.

He likened a blessing to a mother’s kiss on her child’s hurt knee: It does not necessarily take away the pain of suffering, but the expression of the pope’s closeness can give a lot of comfort as people are trying to live the Christian life.

How a blessing gets made

Since the late 19th century, the Vatican has granted signed and stamped certificates bestowing apostolic blessings on Catholics, usually for a special occasion such as a baptism, marriage, wedding anniversary, first holy Communion, or milestone birthday.

For a period, the Vatican authorized some souvenir and bookstores close to St. Peter’s Basilica to also sell the blessings, but that practice ended in 2014, and now, the only way to request the apostolic blessing parchment is online or in person at the papal charities office in Vatican City.

While online orders of blessings must fall under one of a limited set of categories and require only a personal declaration of eligibility, Krajewski explained that people can also make in-person requests for blessings for other reasons, such as illness. In these cases, the papal charities office requires a parish priest or an apostolic nuncio (the pope’s ambassador to a country) to pronounce on the suitability of granting the blessing.

The cardinal said this was to avoid any possibility that someone might try to acquire a blessing certificate for a scandalous purpose, such as for display in a hospital where abortions are performed. The doctors at that hospital need blessings and prayers, Krajewski underlined, but an apostolic blessing on the wall, with a photo of the pope, could falsely give an impression of papal approbation.

After a request for a blessing is received, it takes between two and three weeks to process the order, to create the “parchment” (actually thick paper), and to prepare it either to be picked up or to be mailed.

Part of the preparation includes hand-lettering the certificates — for which the office employs 11 calligraphers.

Krajewski said a few of the blessing parchments are still made by request entirely in calligraphy but that most people today desire the more legible print produced by a computer. But all of the papers contain some hand-drawn elements, such as the ornate first letter of certain words.

Where the proceeds go

The Vatican charges around $23 to $35 for each blessing certificate it distributes — but clearly states that the cost is a suggested donation, and every cent of the proceeds goes directly to aid people struggling from poverty, war, or disaster.

“We say that the real blessing is the alms,” Krajewski said. “Because every [donation] obtained from the blessings goes to the poor.”

Krajewski, who was appointed papal almoner by Pope Francis in 2013, emphasized the enormous help donations for blessings make to the charitable works his office carries out. He declined to provide exact figures, but said in 2024, most of the $8 million that his office spent on aid around the world came from the blessings.

“We are Pope Leo’s first aid,” he said. “When something happens in the world [we are the] first aid … the ambulance that runs to help.”

A recent project financed by the donations, he said, was support for those affected by the typhoon in Taiwan. Through the apostolic nuncio the Vatican is able to send money to a country in need sometimes in a matter of hours.

“The Holy Father reminds us that it is not enough to say ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘I’m united with you,’ but [we need to also] send concrete aid.”

Another recent gift from the Vatican’s charitable arm was a bread oven for the war-torn city of Kharkiv, Ukraine. Throughout the war, the Vatican has given food, medical aid, and even cash to people struggling in Ukraine, often delivered in a truck driven by the 61-year-old Krajewski himself.

“Pope Francis once told me if this money does not go to the poor, I will end up in hell,” the cardinal said. “Pope Francis was very, very direct. And then, he would always ask if our bank account was empty, because if our bank account was empty, it meant that we had helped a lot of people.”

“But the blessings help us to be sure of having resources to help and this is a beautiful thing,” he added.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2025 / 10:06 am (CNA).

A recent “multiverse analysis” by Cornell sociologists Cristobal Young and Erin Cumberworth demonstrated the accuracy of a controversial 2012 study that showed children of gay parents do worse than children who grow up with a married mother and father.

In a chapter of their book titled “Multiverse Analysis: Computational Methods for Robust Results,” Young and Cumberworth applied their multiverse analysis — by which they examined all the possible ways results of a study may produce varying outcomes depending on methodological choices — to a 2012 study by Mark Regnerus, a University of Texas at Austin sociology professor and president of the Austin Institute for the Study of Family and Culture.

In his study, “How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships?” Regnerus found that the children of same-sex-attracted parents were worse off socio-developmentally than those raised by their intact, biological families.

Young and Cumberworth noted that Regnerus’ article “is one of the most hotly-contested studies in 21st-century sociology.”

In a July 13 article in the Public Discourse, Father Paul Sullins, a senior research associate at the Ruth Institute, described the findings as “new vindication” for Regnerus, who Sullins said had faced an almost immediate “firestorm of ideological denunciation, personal vituperation, and political pressure” following the release of his study.

“We were surprised by the robustness of the Regnerus finding,” Young and Cumberworth wrote in their conclusion. “Prior to examining the data directly, we accepted the conclusions written by the critics and expected that a comprehensive multiverse analysis would drive their point home in a powerfully conclusive way.”

Regnerus expressed gratitude to Young and Cumberworth for their analysis of his study and its critics, telling CNA in an email statement: “I am not at all surprised by its results. What the multiverse analysis has done is demonstrate that unpopular research is not the same as erroneous research.”

He continued: “Unfortunately, the scholarly world has not seen such a wide and comprehensive look at outcomes in this domain since then, even while data quality and sample sizes continue to increase. The topic remains rife with intimidation.”

“This new analysis completely vindicates Dr. Regnerus,” Jennifer Roback Morse, founder and president of the Ruth Institute, told CNA. “In my opinion, however, he never needed ‘vindication.’ There was never anything wrong with his study. It was the best and most thorough of its type, during an era that was jammed with junk science.”

“The studies that claimed ‘no difference’ between same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents made sweeping universal claims based on unrepresentative samples,” she continued. “Dr. Regnerus collected his own data that was by far the most representative dataset anyone had used up until that time. He also survived multiple ideologically-motivated ‘investigations.’ In fact, the University of Texas ultimately promoted him to full professor.”

Ultimately, said Morse, who founded the Ruth Institute in 2008 as a means to defend traditional Christian sexual ethics, “the saddest thing about this whole ideologically distorted debate is that ordinary people are making life-altering decisions based on junk science.”

“Ordinary women are concluding that having children with another woman will be the same sort of experience as having children with a husband. When they figure out from experience that this is not really the case, it is too late to change course,” she said, adding: “They already have a child who really truly does need a father, which she is in no position to provide.”

Vatican City, Jul 31, 2025 / 09:36 am (CNA).

Pope Leo XIV on Thursday approved the decision to declare St. John Henry Newman the 38th doctor of the universal Church.

The decision to confer the title upon the 19th-century English saint — a former Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism — was confirmed during the pope’s morning meeting with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints. 

According to the Holy See Press Office, the Holy Father accepted the “affirmative opinion” of dicastery members and the plenary session of cardinals and bishops regarding the founder of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in England.  

In the Church’s 2,000-year history, only 37 other saints, including four women, have been given the title of doctor. The title is granted in recognition of an already canonized saint’s significant contribution to advancing the Church’s knowledge of doctrine, theology, or spirituality.   

The Vatican has not yet confirmed the date of Newman’s formal proclamation as a doctor of the Church.

Born in London and baptized into the Church of England in 1801, Newman was a popular and respected Anglican priest, theologian, and writer among his peers prior to his conversion to Catholicism.

In 1845, Newman asked his friend Blessed Dominic Barberi, an Italian Passionist priest living in England, to receive him into the Catholic Church.

He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1847 and later made a cardinal by Pope Leo XIII in 1879. He chose the motto “Cor ad cor loquitur” (“Heart speaks to heart”) as an expression of his conversion in his own heart, through the heart of God.    

As a Catholic, Newman deepened and contributed to the Church’s teaching, thanks to his broad knowledge of theology and his keen insight into modern times, grounded in the Gospel.

His body of work includes 40 books and more than 20,000 letters.

Newman died in Edgbaston, England, in 1890. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on Sept. 19, 2010, and canonized by Pope Francis on Oct. 13, 2019.