We Are Our Mother of Perpetual Help Parish

CNA Staff, Jul 31, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).

State attorneys general across the country are banding together to oppose “abortion shield laws” that they say enable abortionists to bypass pro-life state laws.

A July 29 letter to Congress signed by 16 Republican attorneys general described the shield laws as “blatant attempts to interfere with states’ ability to enforce criminal laws within their borders.”

At least 18 states and Washington, D.C., have enacted abortion shield laws, which vary in kind but are all designed to protect abortionists against pro-life laws in other states. Generally, states with abortion shield laws will refuse to extradite abortionists and won’t enforce judgments or penalties from another state.

Recently, abortion shield laws have clashed with pro-life laws that protect unborn children from chemical abortions in Texas, where a judge ordered a New York abortion provider to stop prescribing abortion pills to Texas residents. Because of New York’s shield laws, the abortion provider dodged the lawsuit and the $100,000 fine.

Addressed to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the letter, signed by attorneys general of Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, and other pro-life states, said that shield laws “raise serious constitutional concerns.”

In the letter, the attorneys general noted that since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and returned abortion legislation to the states, “different states passed laws purporting to ‘shield’ abortion providers from liability and prosecution for performing or aiding in abortions in other states.”

“By encouraging medical professionals in pro-abortion states to violate pro-life states’ abortion laws, shield laws are antithetical to the spirit of federalism and the Dobbs decision by not allowing each state to regulate abortion as it sees fit,” the letter read.

Kelsey Pritchard, political communications director for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, praised the signees for “spreading awareness on unconstitutional shield laws.”

“These laws violate the state sovereignty of the 22 states that protect life at 12 weeks or sooner by protecting abortion pill mills over women and girls in this country,” Pritchard told CNA. “Blue states have no right to shield abortion drug distributors when they break the laws, harm women, and kill unborn children in pro-life states.”

Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said his state and others “have faced a problem of abortion pills such as mifepristone, which are taken to induce chemical abortions, being shipped into our state illegally.”

“The law is very clear on this issue, and regardless of how one feels about the law, it is vital that the law be upheld,” Griffin said in a post on X.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 31, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

A former county clerk in Kentucky who made national headlines in 2015 for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples is again asking the United States Supreme Court to hear her case 10 years later.

Kim Davis, who was the Rowan County clerk from 2015 through 2019, has petitioned the country’s highest court to reconsider the 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which legalized same-sex civil marriages nationally. 

That year, the court’s 5-4 decision found that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to legally recognized marriages under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

Davis’ filing also asks the court to consider her request to use a First Amendment defense against civil lawsuits that stemmed from her refusal to issue those marriage licenses. She was found liable for violating the constitutional rights of same-sex couples whose marriage licenses she refused to certify and ordered to pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

At the time, Davis had requested a religious accommodation that would have allowed her to continue her job without issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Gov. Matt Bevin, who assumed office in December of that year, signed an executive order accommodating Davis, which allowed clerks to remove their names from marriage licenses issued by the office.

Still, because Davis was denied civil immunity and denied the ability to use a First Amendment defense in court, she remains liable for those damages. She is represented in court by Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal nonprofit.

Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver said in a statement that Davis’ ongoing case shows why the country’s Supreme Court “should overturn the wrongly decided … opinion” on same-sex marriage. He argued that the ruling “threatens the religious liberty of Americans who believe that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman.” 

“A person cannot stand before the court utterly defenseless while facing claims of emotional distress for her views on marriage,” Staver said.

“Yet, that is the result of Obergefell, which led these courts to strip Davis of any personal First Amendment defense,” he continued. “Obergefell cannot just push the First Amendment aside to punish individuals for their beliefs about marriage. The First Amendment precludes making the choice between your faith and your livelihood. The high court now has the opportunity to finally overturn this egregious opinion from 2015.”

The lawsuit argues that in the same way the First Amendment “provides a defense to private business owners … for refusing to violate their religious convictions” regarding same-sex civil marriages, the Supreme Court should recognize it “likewise provides an individual a defense to application of state laws that require her to speak a message concerning same-sex marriage that is inconsistent with her religious beliefs.”

It adds that there is “no sound constitutional basis” to treat a public official acting in his or her individual capacity any differently than a nonpublic official: “To do so would mean government officials surrender certain constitutional rights at their swearing-in ceremonies. That cannot be right.”

Although same-sex marriage has been the law of the land for the past decade, there have been some recent efforts to push back on the ruling. 

Just this year, lawmakers in at least five states introduced resolutions that called on the court to overturn its same-sex marriage ruling. Two resolutions passed their state’s lower chamber but did not get through their state’s senate. The other three failed earlier in the process. Lawmakers in at least four states introduced proposals to create a new category of a “covenant marriage,” which is reserved for one man and one woman.

A May Gallup poll found that 68% of Americans support same-sex civil marriages. This is down from a height of 71% in 2022 and 2023 after there was a slight decrease two years in a row. Only 41% of Republicans support same-sex civil marriages, which is down from highs of 55% in 2021 and 2022.

A Two-State Solution, based on secure and internationally recognized borders, is the “only viable and equitable path toward a just and lasting peace” in the Holy Land, according to the Vatican.

Vatican City, Jul 31, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Mikhail Ajjan fled war-torn Syria and the terrors of ISIS with his family when he was 10. Now a university student in Sweden, the 21-year-old Catholic faces a vastly different challenge of living his faith in a secular environment and is honing his media skills to help spread the Gospel.

Ajjan is one of more than 40 young Catholics from 23 countries who have come together to train in the 2025 EWTN Summer Academy in Rome, an intensive program in religious journalism and digital storytelling, which coincides this year with the Catholic Church’s Jubilee of Youth.

Several of the academy participants come from places where Catholics live their faith amid severe adversity — from war zones to countries where cartel violence or religious persecution threaten Christian communities.

Among them is Nicolawos Hazboun, a multimedia officer from Bethlehem who works closely with Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa documenting life in the Holy Land for the Latin Catholic Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

On a recent afternoon, Hazboun, 26, paused to reflect on the current situation facing Palestinian Catholics in Bethlehem.

“It’s a blessing for us to be in the same place where Jesus was born,” he said. “My family is one of the biggest Christian families in Bethlehem. … We are in Bethlehem for more than 500 years … And we want to stay.”

But staying isn’t easy. “Nowadays we have a bad situation because of the war,” Hazboun said. “We don’t have any pilgrimage … groups from outside. The people of Bethlehem … depend on the tourists. We don’t have any income.”

Many Christian families in Bethlehem, he added, are leaving for Europe or North America. “We want the Christians of Bethlehem to grow and to increase in numbers, but unfortunately, the numbers of Christians in Bethlehem are getting low because of the situation.”

Hazboun hopes to bring the skills he learns at the EWTN Summer Academy back to Bethlehem and Jerusalem to help him better communicate the experience of Christians in the Holy Land. 

“People are always surprised that there are … Palestinian Christians,” Hazboun said. “I want them to know that we are a strong community.”

“There are still Christians in Bethlehem. … Not all Palestinians are Muslim.”

The EWTN Summer Academy, organized by the global Catholic media network EWTN, CNA’s parent company, is now in its fourth year of training aspiring communicators in skills ranging from video editing to narrative reporting. The academy is held at the Pontifical Urban University’s CIAM center with a panoramic view of Rome and the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and is offered at no cost to participants.

“I feel close to heaven,” said Sister Mary Iyadunni Adeniyi, 27, a Nigerian member of the Congregation of Sisters of St. Michael the Archangel making her first pilgrimage to Rome to take part in the academy.

She recalls vividly the 2022 Pentecost massacre at St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, Nigeria, where dozens of Catholics were killed.

“It feels bad that you just go out and you could get killed,” she said. “We pray that God will help our faith and God could restore peace in our country.”

Even so, Sister Mary remains committed to building a hopeful future. “The charism of my congregation is evangelization through inculturation,” she explained.

“Now, it’s a digital world … so we also have to use that for evangelization.” She edits videos, designs graphics, and believes strongly in the potential of online platforms to reach young hearts.  

“Where can you find the young people in the 21st century? In the media,” the sister said. 

In Vietnam, Tâm Nguyên Bùi, 31, works with the Vietnamese bishops’ conference and also volunteers for the local archdiocese in Saigon.

“Even though we are a minority in the population — about 7% of 100 million people in the country — we have profound experiences in family life… and devotion in the churches,” Nguyên said. 

“In the EWTN Summer Academy 2025, we are alongside 43 communicators from 23 countries. We come from different backgrounds, different experiences of faith also. I really learn when I speak with others about how they live their faith in their country. For some, it is freely and it’s very enjoyable, but sometimes with difficulties,” he said. 

Nguyên has translated some of the writings of St. John Paul II into Vietnamese and is a veteran of Catholic youth gatherings across Asia. He said that Catholics in Vietnam are hoping that Pope Leo XIV will visit Vietnam soon. “We try to pray that the relationship between Vietnam and the Holy See is better and gets better.”

For Ajjan, the Jubilee of Youth will be a continuation of the rewarding experience that he had at the last World Youth Day.

“I’ve been to the World Youth Days in Portugal and I got hooked. So I was like, ‘I’m going to the jubilee. I’m going to South Korea,” he said referring to the 2027 World Youth Day in Seoul. 

Ajjan has also found a way to serve his local Catholic community. With EWTN Sweden, he helps a young priest to produce a weekly homily video series.  

“In our city, we have a very good youth pastor,” he explained. “And we started to film a Sunday homily series with him. So each Wednesday we filmed the series, edited it, and then put it out on Sunday morning. … It was really, really fun.”

From Lebanon, Marguerita Kallassy is a trilingual journalist for ACI MENA, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, also owned by EWTN. She has covered everything from street protests to massive religious processions. But her heart lies in telling Catholic stories.

“It was so magical to bring that part of the East that still believes … that still has a place for Jesus in their lives,” she said.

She wants to correct the common misperception that Christianity is all but vanished from the Middle East. 

“People never realize the scale [of Christianity] in the East. … They thought we have only Muslim community in Lebanon so I really need to tell people that this is the birthplace of Jesus. I mean — Jesus is not from New Jersey, you know?” she joked.

“My work with the EWTN inspired me so that I applied to the Sorbonne … in media studies,” she said. Kallassy will start her graduate studies in Paris in the fall.

Daniela Sánchez y Sánchez, 21, grew up in Puebla, Mexico, and is now studying journalism in Spain.

“Since I was a little kid, I always wanted to know … everything about everything,” she said. She began working with Radio María and the Archdiocese of Puebla to report the news of the local Church and bring a message of faith to a country torn by drug violence. 

The Church’s response, she said, has always been prayer — even for those committing violence. “[We] pray for all the victims, for all the priests who have been affected by this, and pray for those people … who are bad and want to do bad to our community,” she said. “We all need to have mercy and pray for them.”

Seated in view of St. Peter’s, Sánchez marveled at the experience. “If you’re into spreading God’s message throughout the world and journalism, this is the best opportunity God has given us.”

As England and Wales face the looming possibility of the legalization of assisted suicide, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre has launched its “Advance Decisions and Ethical Choices” Project.

To mark the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, "Care for Aging Sisters Association Kenya" (CASAK) paid a heartfelt visit to the elderly sisters of the Assumption Sisters congregation in Nairobi’s Lang’ata.

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CNA Staff, Jul 31, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

EWTN Studios and Catholic actor David Henrie, known for his role as Justin Russo on Disney’s “Wizards of Waverly Place,” have partnered to bring a first-of-its-kind adventure documentary series that explores culture, architecture, food, art, and music that aims to point viewers to the beautiful — and ultimately to the divine.

“Seeking Beauty” is scheduled to be released in December.

The docuseries follows Henrie’s journey into the heart of Italy to explore what makes Italian culture one of the most beautiful in the world. It not only looks at the physical beauty of the country but also the spiritual richness of it as well. 

In a recent interview with EWTN News President Montse Alvarado, Henrie shared that he’s a big fan of travel shows and always wanted to take part in one, but one where “you kind of flip the script. Where it starts with what you don’t expect.”

“We want an experience, right? So we put the format on its head. We have someone who’s not an expert — which is me — inviting the audience to go on a journey with me and have fun,” he explained. “So, we go all over Italy and we meet with the experts, and I’m sitting down asking questions that maybe you at home would want to ask if you were sitting in front of this person and as I’m blown away, hopefully, you’ll be blown away, too, because we had some beautiful experiences.”

The actor emphasized that the common theme throughout the series is “that beauty has a capital B — that beauty is ultimately the language of the divine and a reflection of God.”

One moment that stood out for Henrie while filming the series was getting to watch an old Caravaggio painting be restored. He recalled being shown by artists doing the restoration some of the mistakes made in the painting that are only noticeable up close. Henrie called this experience “humanizing.”

“When you think of great artists before you, they’re almost so high that it’s like unreachable … and to get to see their works up close with a restorer was so cool to go, ‘Oh, this person was human. He completely painted over what he did. There was something he tried that didn’t work at all,’” he shared. “That was really cool to me to learn how human these artists were and that they were struggling with the same things that I struggle with, just in a different medium.”

Henrie’s production company, Novo Inspire Studios, aims to create entertaining, timeless, and meaningful content that the whole family can enjoy. The company’s work was recently nominated by the Television Critics Association Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Family Programming, which Henrie called a “massive honor.”

EWTN Studios was recently launched by EWTN as part of its new organizational restructuring, contininuing the media organization’s legacy of creating impactful content in the Catholic sphere in a way that reflects the changing nature of media and evolving technologies.

British Saint John Henry Newman will soon be declared a Doctor of the Universal Church, the Vatican announced on Thursday.

Against the backdrop of Martyrs Day, Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio urged South Sudan to seize the crisis as a "sacred place where the nation chooses healing over hatred."

National Catholic Register, Jul 31, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

When Ignatius of Loyola found himself bedridden with a shattered leg, all of his big dreams and plans disappeared. Arrogant, stubborn, and hot-tempered, Ignatius was a soldier to his core, and he excelled on the battlefield.

Until now, his life as a soldier of Spain had stretched before him: simple, straightforward, and glorious. But this time, a flying cannonball had torn one of his legs to shreds. His glorious military career was over. Ignatius was at a dead end.

This was only the first of many dead ends, but they were ultimately part and parcel of the making of a saint.

Sometimes it’s easy to imagine that the saints’ paths to holiness were uncomplicated, that whatever they may have suffered from sickness or temptation, they at least knew clearly what God’s will was for them. But for nearly 20 years after his conversion, Ignatius had very little idea what he was doing. He dealt with failure, disappointment, sickness, and severe spiritual darkness. His journey gives us a battle plan for navigating our own dead ends.

A sudden end can be a new beginning

Many know the basic story of Ignatius’ famous sickbed conversion: Bored and restless, he asked for novels of romance and chivalry, but he was given the “Lives of Christ and the Saints.” That soldierly fervor that had previously fed on knights errant and battles glorious found new energy in the selfless zeal of the saints. Ignatius unconditionally offered his life to Christ. What had initially seemed like the end of all his dreams suddenly became the door to a totally new life.

Inspired by the fervor of the saints, Ignatius immediately began an intense regimen of prayer, sacrifice, and poverty. But his prayer was plagued by scruples and depression. Ignatius was so tormented that he was tempted to take his life, according to New Advent/Catholic Encyclopedia.

Although overwhelmed by this darkness, Ignatius clung to the knowledge that any tendency to anxiety and despair was not from God. No doubt the knowledge offered little comfort at first, but Ignatius was slowly granted relief. By perseverance in prayer and total trust in the loving goodness of God, he had walked through what must have been the darkest nights of his life and come out the other end.

Great holiness is forged in daily sacrifice

Ignatius never lost his love for prayer and sacrifice, and the insights he gained in contemplation became his famous “Spiritual Exercises.” The Jesuit order began as a group of university friends whom he gathered together to pray these “spiritual exercises.”

Through prayer, sacrifice, and patient suffering, Ignatius had formed his own soul in virtue, and through his spiritual insights, he was able to lead many of the brightest young minds in Europe to a life dedicated to the Church.

Our talents are gifts from God

From the beginning, Ignatius had longed to be a missionary. He was a natural leader and a soldier, with all the dynamism, conviction, courage, and stamina necessary for the difficult missionary life. He dreamed of converting the Turks in the Holy Land. But this plan failed when he was denied entry to Jerusalem by the Franciscans charged with watching over the Christians there, according to Warren Carroll’s “The Cleaving of Christendom.”

Disappointed, Ignatius went back to Spain to preach and teach in his native land, but he was arrested by the Inquisition, who feared that an uneducated teacher might inadvertently spread heresy.

Yet his missionary fire was not quenched. And the Church desperately needed missionaries — just not in the way that Ignatius had imagined. Europe was reeling in the chaos of the Protestant Reformation. The people needed clear teaching and ardent examples of holiness to bring them back to the Church.

Ignatius had no education. He was hardly the man to found an order of teachers, and he certainly had no grand dreams of confronting the problems of Christendom. But he saw at least that if he was to be an effective missionary in the current culture, he must be well educated, and he certainly had the zeal and stubbornness necessary to take on the daunting task. So for the next 11 years, he went to school, beginning in grammar school with schoolboys and proceeding to the study of philosophy and theology in Spain and France’s best universities.

It was during his years in university that the “Society of Jesus” was formed. These men were attracted to Ignatius’ zeal and holiness, and they came to him for advice and encouragement. He gathered them together, and soon a brotherhood was born. The friends were ordained priests and offered themselves in humble service to the pope.

The Jesuits were sent on missions to teach and preach throughout Europe and in the new missionary lands in the Far East. Ignatius, however, was left alone in Rome to manage the business of the order. But he had always possessed a talent for leadership, and he instructed, encouraged, and organized from afar.

Within a few years, the Jesuits were in demand everywhere. Ignatius had wanted to be a missionary in foreign lands, but he allowed the Lord to lead him back to his native Spain, to the arduous task of education, and to ultimately use his talents of conviction and charisma to become one of the leaders of the Catholic Reformation in Europe.

A patron saint for difficult times

St. Ignatius is a great patron for people facing difficult times. Whether making hard choices, recovering from unexpected events, going through physical sickness or spiritual darkness, Ignatius of Loyola faced similar situations.

During the period of his life when he should have been settling into a steady career, earning money and honor, and preparing for comfortable retirement, Ignatius was reassessing his entire worldview. Not only did he do an about-face when he converted from soldier of Spain to soldier of Christ, but he then confronted many tribulations of sickness, persecution, doubt, and failure. Ignatius gave his life totally to Christ, but this did not mean his vocation was clear.

In the end, it was through prayer, sacrifice, and study that Ignatius became the saintly founder of the Jesuit order. Without any expectation of greatness, Ignatius dedicated himself to doing for the Lord what he did best. He formed his own soul in virtue, and with his inborn passion and flair for leadership, he began gathering and leading his friends in the same life of holiness. Almost by accident (and yet of course, by no accident at all), the group found themselves with a mission to serve the Church at a time when the Church desperately needed them.

Little did Ignatius know on that long-ago day when his leg was shot out from beneath him that, in the same year, the Church’s four-year attempt to reconcile with Martin Luther had come to a climax. Unable to persuade Luther to recant his heresy, the Church formally excommunicated him. The spiritual battle for Europe had begun.

At this moment in history, God needed a missionary and reformer with the courage, zeal, and practical experience to confront the confusion and chaos of Europe and to bring the faith into newly discovered lands. He chose Ignatius of Loyola.

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