Saint Paul Catholic Parish, Athens

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 30, 2025 / 16:18 pm (CNA).

New polling from the Associated Press (AP) NORC Center for Public Affairs Research has found that U.S. adults hold “nuanced views about the role of religion in public schools.”

While the majority of adults, about 58%, say they support religious chaplains providing services in public schools, only 40% say they believe teachers should be allowed to lead a class in prayer, according to data from the survey conducted June 5–9.

The survey contained polling of 1,158 U.S. adults in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

“More people oppose than support policies that would allow religious schools to become tax-funded public charter schools, but there is about equal support and opposition for a policy that would allow school vouchers to be used at private or religious schools,” the survey found.

Results for the AP-NORC polling come after Pew Research Center found that 52% of U.S. adults support allowing Chrisian prayer in public schools as debates about the issue continue across the country.

Though the majority supports designated religious chaplains serving in public schools, 55% of U.S. adults in the AP survey said they did not believe teachers should be allowed to lead a public school class in prayer. 

Sixty percent said public schools should not be allowed to hold mandatory private prayer and religious reading. 

The survey found that regardless of partisan alignment, “attitudes about the role of religion in school are often shared across religious groups, especially white evangelical Christians and non-white Protestants.” 

“White evangelical Christians, non-white Protestants, and Catholics are all more likely than those who are not affiliated with a religion to approve of religious chaplains providing support services, teachers leading prayer in class, and mandatory periods for private prayer and religious reading at public schools,” the report stated, noting that mainline Protestants responded similarly to those without religious affiliation about prayer periods and religious chaplains in public schools. 

Overall, the survey said that “roughly a quarter to a third of the public lack firm opinions” about additional issues regarding religion and public education, including taxpayer-funded vouchers and vaccines.

While polling was less conclusive on these matters because nearly one-third of polled Americans had no opinion, of those who expressed opinions, more respondents said they oppose religious exemptions for childhood vaccines required for public schools. More respondents also said they oppose allowing religious schools to become taxpayer-funded charter schools. 

“People are roughly split on their support or opposition to tax-funded vouchers that help parents pay for tuition for their children to attend private or religious schools instead of public schools,” the report said, noting that Catholics are among the religious groups that were more likely to support taxpayer-funded vouchers, religious exemptions, and religious charter schools.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 30, 2025 / 15:47 pm (CNA).

A coalition of 20 American Catholic bishops and religious leaders from other faiths has signed on to a letter urging lawmakers to vote against a proposed budget bill because of provisions to increase funding for immigration enforcement.

“From our various faith perspectives, the moral test of a nation is how it treats those most in need of support,” the letter read. “In our view, this legislation will harm the poor and vulnerable in our nation, to the detriment of the common good.”

The letter’s signatories included Cardinal Robert McElroy of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., and Cardinal Joseph Tobin of the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey. Phoenix Bishop John Dolan, Seattle Archbishop Paul Etienne, St. Louis Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski, and Sacramento, California, Bishop Jaime Soto were also among those who signed.

In addition to the bishops, other signatories to the letter included the leadership team of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. Some Lutheran, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Muslim, and Jewish faith leaders also signed the letter.

“Our faith organizations have long favored the creation of legal avenues for migration and a legalization program for immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for years and contributed their hard work to our economy,” the letter stated. “We believe the adoption of these policies, instead of the implementation of a mass deportation campaign, would not only benefit immigrant workers and their families but be in the best interest of our nation.”

The budget reconciliation bill, called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” includes a funding hike for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection. The proposal includes money earmarked for deportations, hiring more ICE and border patrol agents, the construction of a border wall, and various other immigration enforcement measures.

An earlier version of the bill would have penalized states for offering Medicaid benefits to immigrants who are in the country illegally, but this was removed from the current Senate version under consideration. Other proposed Medicaid changes, including work requirements for able-bodied recipients, remain in the proposal.

“We believe that the changes made by the U.S. Senate to the legislation are insufficient and do not significantly mitigate its adverse effects,” the letter read.

The letter criticized funding for “a mass deportation campaign,” which they said “will separate U.S. families, harm U.S.-citizen and immigrant children, and sow chaos in local communities.” It warned of “immigration raids across the nation,” which authors said would harm “hardworking immigrant families essential to our economy.”

According to the letter, the funding boost could also harm faith communities. The authors noted that the government “has removed places of worship from its sensitive locations list, allowing ICE agents to enter them for enforcement purposes.”

“We have already witnessed a reduction in attendance at many of our religious services in our denominations, as the threat of enforcement has deterred many families from practicing their faith,” the letter attested.

Additionally, the letter expressed concerns about the proposed border wall between the United States and Mexico, which the authors wrote “will drive migrants into the most remote regions of the border and lead to an increase in migrant deaths. It also would hurt the local environment along the border and force desperate asylum-seekers seeking safety to increasingly rely on human smugglers.”

The authors of the letter also criticized proposed reforms to Medicaid and food assistance programs, saying they would harm “low-income citizens and legal residents, including asylum-seekers and refugees, driving them deeper into poverty.”

Andrew Arthur, a former immigration judge and current fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), criticized the interfaith letter in an interview with CNA. He said the letter supports “amnesty” for immigrants who are in the country illegally.

CIS labels itself as a “low-immigration, pro-immigrant” think tank. The group is aligned with many of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.

“They don’t want any immigration enforcement because they want to legalize the status of everyone in the country illegally,” Arthur, who is Catholic, told CNA.

Arthur also balked at the suggestion of immigration raids at places of worship, saying: “They never actually reference any real enforcement actions taking place in any Catholic churches.” He said it’s possible that a dangerous criminal could be targeted for enforcement at a church but that “it’s not like they’re going to sweep through Sunday Mass looking for people.”

On the subject of the border wall, Arthur said a barrier would “deter people from coming into the United States illegally.” He noted the high rates of migrants who already hire smugglers, saying they “put their lives and safety in the hands of criminals” and that a border wall makes it “less likely that people are going to come” illegally with this method or any other method.

Chad Pecknold, a professor of theology at The Catholic University of America, expressed dissatisfaction with the letter as well, noting that it does not mention the teaching in the catechism that a country has a right to regulate its borders.

“Broad, religiously ecumenical statements which oppose the policies of a democratically elected government are curious things,” Pecknold said. “The authors are clearly aligned with one political party and not another. They make spurious claims about how the bill will separate families, and they seem to disregard entirely that nations have a right [to] defend their borders and a duty to uphold their laws.”

Bethany and Daniel Meola, a married couple with a special heart for adult children of divorce, created the Life-Giving Wounds apostolate, currently celebrating its five-year anniversary in 2025. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Life-Giving Wounds

Miami, Fla., Jun 30, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Kendra Beigel was 14 years old when her family life took a turn for the worse. In her small-town Minnesota home, she was used to her parents arguing, but her family situation further disintegrated when her mother intervened in her father’s alcohol issues and her parents went to court.

“It was like the whole town decided to take a side and get involved in our family business,” recalled Beigel, who was raised Catholic. “I had to grow up quickly… Each stage of the initial separation and how it comes out of the blue, then the divorce and everything that it brings, and then the subsequent annulment; each brought its own hurts and difficulties and it never was easier.”

Now an adult, Beigel remembers thinking back then, “How can you just be a kid anymore?” Navigating child custody routines, “you [the child] have to be the one to pack the suitcase and to move and uproot your life.”

“I threw myself into academics and extracurriculars,” she said. “No one on the outside could tell how much I was hurting because I was excelling externally… You start to really put a lot of blame and guilt on yourself when you have no one to talk to, no one thinks to bring it up with you, and you’re really just trying to run away.”

When ingrained fears caused her to struggle with family dynamics, friendships, and dating in college, Beigel knew the past had left its mark. In October 2022, she joined a Life-Giving Wounds retreat for adult children of divorce (ACODs) near her home in Denver.

Celebrating its five-year milestone in 2025, Life-Giving Wounds — back then just a two-year-old apostolate — was already making a big impact. 

The beginnings 

The ministry was created in 2020 by Daniel and Bethany Meola, a married couple with a special heart for adult children of divorce. Beginning with online retreats during the COVID-19 pandemic, Life-Giving Wounds now hosts events both online and in-person, with a presence in almost 40 dioceses throughout the United States in addition to the Archdiocese of Toronto, Canada.

Himself an ACOD, Daniel Meola explained: “The more I dug into it in college and post-college, I realized there are lot of ministries for divorcees but not as much for adult children of divorce.”

Since a high school retreat had turned his life around after his parents’ divorce, he recognized that “there needs to be an intentional ministry and community for others like me. Jesus’ heart desires this.”

In addition to retreats, Life-Giving Wounds offers a blog with topics ranging from “Book and Media Reviews” to “Relationship Advice”; a book published in 2023; and even a summer 2025 Online Reading Group and support group using Victor Hugo’s “Les Misérables” as a springboard.

The retreat helped Beigel break through the bubble she had found herself in after her parents’ divorce.

“Going in, you’re just thinking, none of my friends have gone through divorce. This is something that feels like such an isolating cross,” she said. “But as soon as I walked in, I saw everyone at my parish who I had no idea was in ‘the secret club that no one wants to be a part of,’ as they joked.”

The retreat was transformative. “I really appreciated that they had a whole retreat manual to follow,” she noted. “It really invited you to take a leap of faith and invite the Divine Physician into these ugly areas of your heart.”

Unbeknownst to her, a young man who had participated in a Maryland retreat earlier that year in August 2022 was Beigel’s future husband, Joe Beigel. The fact that they were both Life-Giving Wounds alumni would bring them together. Joe said the friend who introduced them “got my attention” by commenting that Kendra had attended Life-Giving Wounds and had been featured on the podcast “Restored.”

Chuckling, Kendra recounted Joe’s approach: “[He said,] ‘You can go ahead and delete that Catholic Match profile — you won’t need it now that you met me!’ And it worked!”

Joe and Kendra Beigel were married on Jan. 18, 2025.

To other ACODs, Joe’s message is: “You’re not doomed to repeat your parents’ mistakes and to not get married or to settle for less in a marriage, because God wants so much more for you.”

Kendra agreed. “The thing that shifted with marriage, it’s not that you are done working on the wounds from your parents’ divorce, you just have someone you are working on it with, because that’s what marriage is. You’re working together first and foremost, helping each other along.”

Craig Soto II and Sidney Soto, another Life-Giving Wounds alumni couple from Kansas, are preparing to welcome a baby into the world. Craig Soto said of Life-Giving Wounds’ anniversary: “Truly, what five years means to me is hope.” 

“When we did the full-body scan to make sure the baby was healthy, I remember the sonogram technician said everything was normal,” Soto said. The simple phrase hit him hard. 

“That’s a beautiful gift for me, for somebody who’s lived a very abnormal life. I got so used to it that ‘the normal’ actually became confusing and strange to me,” said Soto, a retreat leader. “To hear that our child is ‘normal’... To me, a normal life is all I’ve ever really wanted. That’s why I say that there’s hope, because I have hope for a normal life.”

Those called to the vocation of marriage aren’t the only ones who have benefited from Life-Giving Wounds. In fact, retreat alumnus Father Ryan Martiré of the Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, helped bring Life-Giving Wounds to seminarians.

Martiré participated in one of the first online retreats as a seminarian, later joining an in-person retreat while studying at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary in St. Louis. 

The seminary’s rector “saw a tremendous need in the seminary and asked if I would introduce this ministry to more people in the seminary,” said Martiré, who was ordained on June 11, 2024. “Not only healing for themselves, but to be fathers who can provide this healing for others.”

Kenrick-Glennon Seminary held its first retreat in spring 2022 and has the honor of being Life-Giving Wounds’ first seminary chapter.

“The wound of divorce can be very attached to a father wound,” Martiré explained. “When a seminarian receives healing there, it can have a serious spiritual impact, that he receives confidence to be a father.”

“One of the things that struck me when I was studying wounds of divorce is that so many children with parents who have divorced did not experience a word of accompaniment from their pastor or priest: ‘I’m so sorry that happened,’” he added. “A child who’s starting to self-protect and live hyper-independently because of their parents’ divorce needs a spiritual father or a spiritual mother to comfort them and to acknowledge that they’re hurting in their perfectionism, or in whatever way they’re coping.”

Brady Hershberger, a young adult Life-Giving Wounds alumnus from Ohio, said: “I think Life-Giving Wounds is making the ACOD population feel seen, and like we don’t have to keep sweeping this wound under the rug as if it weren’t seriously a wound… It gives me a sense of hope that people like me will be seen and loved and heard.”

Indeed, Martiré said he believes Life-Giving Wounds has a special connection to the 2025 Jubilee, with its theme of hope.

“What struck me my first time at the retreat was seeing really stable, healed, holy people giving the presentations. People who are coming from a dark path with very divided families, and you see that they’re not living defined by their wounds,” he said. “That’s very hopeful that, as Christians, we don’t need to live in the past. We can become transformed by Christ if we let him into our suffering, our dark and imprisoned places.”

Life-Giving Wounds co-founder Bethany Meola said she is excited for what’s to come. The ministry has projects focused on engaged and married couples in the works, and they also look to increase outreach to college students, Hispanic ministry, seminaries and religious, and more.

“This anniversary is an opportunity to look back and see where God has taken us so far,” she said. “Obviously we have objective numbers to see how the ministry has grown from local to all around the country, from just a few retreats to more and more every year, which has been so beautiful. But more than the numbers, we’re reflecting on the people we’ve been privileged to encounter — more and more people all the time whom Life-Giving Wounds can hopefully lend some support to.”

Catholic speaker and author Kim Zember (left) and Zember on the set of her new podcast on EWTN, “Here I AM Stories,” with guest Angel Colon. / Credit: Photos courtesy of Kim Zember

CNA Staff, Jun 29, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

During her senior year of high school, Catholic speaker and author Kim Zember realized she had a sexual attraction to women. She went on to live a hidden life for years — dating men publicly but dating women secretly. Eventually, she ended up solely in relationships with women.

A decade later she found herself increasingly unhappy and one day she threw up her hands and asked God to enter her life. Now, 11 years after experiencing transformation, she’s sharing her conversations with other people who have dealt with sexual identity and gender confusion in a new podcast on EWTN called “Here I AM Stories.”

“In the tenderness of God, I just felt like he said, ‘I want you to share other people’s stories. You’re not the only one,’” Zember told CNA.

According to EWTN, the podcast “highlights raw voices, radical lives, and real stories of those who left LGBT identities for a greater eternal purpose.” It airs weekly on Mondays during the month of June and then beginning in July, two episodes will be aired every month. 

“These are people who have been walking it out,” Zember said. “This is not stories of perfection.”

Four episodes of the podcast have already been released. One particularly powerful episode was a conversation with Jessica Rose, who identified as a male for seven years, battled depression, and attempted suicide until she gave her life to Christ. 

Another episode features the story of Angel Colon, who survived the 2016 Pulse Nightclub shooting where 49 lives were lost. Despite being shot multiple times, he survived and credits the miracle to God, changing his way of life.

Zember’s own story follows a similar pattern as the guests she speaks with in her podcast. She grew up in what she says was a “normal” Catholic household with two older brothers and parents who were high school sweethearts. She received all her sacraments but admitted that she grew up without having a relationship with Jesus.

She shared that she saw God like a “cop that kind of just kept tally of all the things I was doing, good or bad, and was kind of calculating everything. So that was kind of challenging because I heard all the time like, ‘God loves you,’ ‘God’s for you,’ but I didn’t experience that.”

Despite having a decent childhood, Zember said she did not have a “good, tender father” and did not trust men. As a senior in high school, she longed for a relationship and acted upon her attraction to women.

“My senior year in high school I was like, ‘You know what? I don’t feel safe with men, but I feel safe with women and I’m attracted and I don’t know what that means, but I’m going to take a step,’” she recalled. “And [in] my senior year in high school I acted on these desires towards women with one of my best friends and that changed everything for me.”

From there she began dating women in private. Believing that what she was doing was wrong, she sought a Catholic counselor at age 18 and was affirmed in her homosexual identity. From there, she came out publicly and no longer hid the fact that she was dating women. It wasn’t until Oct. 17, 2014 — after a decade of living a gay lifestyle — that she “cried out to the Lord and said, ‘I can’t do this.’”

She recalled telling God: “‘I’ve heard about you my whole life. I’ve read about you my whole life but I need to experience you now. And so I need you to show up.’ And it might sound horrible but I was like, ‘I need you to show up and I need you to show up now because if you don’t show up and show me that you’re good, I will go to someone or something else, like I have my entire life. So, I’m giving you your one shot, God.’” 

“And I’m telling you, he showed up. He showed up that evening in a way that I will never forget,” Zember shared. “Oct. 17 feels sometimes like my birthday — though I was born on Dec. 22 — that encounter I had with God marked me in a way … that I’ve never been the same.”

In that moment Zember said she experienced the “tangible love of God” and “he has been faithful every day since then.”

“Also in revealing his character and nature, he has shown me that he’s the one my heart has been searching for. He has shown me that he is the one, that God himself, that made man in Jesus Christ, that he is the love of my life that I’ve desired.”

Zember now lives in freedom from her struggle with same-sex attraction and helps others who face similar battles to find their true identity in Christ. 

When asked what the Church can do to better minister to those struggling with gender and sexual identity issues, she said: “I think as a Church, we need to recognize again our own unworthiness; no matter what Jesus has already saved us from, we still need him.”

“If we’d recognize our own brokenness and our own need for Jesus, I think we’d be able to receive other people in their need for him, too. We’d stop trying to fix people, and we’d actually try to walk with one another,” she added. “We’d try to walk with one another in our brokenness to Christ, the only one who can heal, deliver, make whole, and set free.”

As for her hopes for the new podcast, she said she hopes it would show people “that we have a good Father” and “that people would give Jesus a try — a real one.”

“My hope is that people will say, ‘Wait a minute, if Jesus was that good in their life, maybe he wants to be that good in mine too’ — in whatever it is. It doesn’t have to be homosexuality or identity confusion. It could be you holding on too tightly to something. It could be you needing a career and if you don’t get it, you don’t know who you are. It’s all the longings of our heart to be seen, known, loved, chosen, and desired, and how we try to go to the things of this world to fill those when it’s actually the very one who created us that wants to fill those.”

Pro-life demonstrators take part in a rally calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded in Denton, Texas, on Saturday, June 28, 2025. / Credit: Carole Novielli/Live Action

CNA Staff, Jun 28, 2025 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Thousands of pro-life advocates rallied at hundreds of locations across the United States on Saturday while taking part in a “single, coordinated day of demonstration” urging Congress to defund the abortion giant Planned Parenthood.

The pro-life group Live Action spearheaded the nationwide “Defund Day” event. Group founder Lila Rose told CNA it was the “largest grassroots effort” yet to call for stripping federal funds from Planned Parenthood, which received approximately $800 million in taxpayer dollars during its most recent fiscal year.

“We’re spearheading an effort with over 200 peaceful rallies across the country in all 48 states where there are Planned Parenthoods,” she said. “This is a national call to defund the biggest abortion chain.”

Citing Planned Parenthood’s hundreds of thousands of abortions per year, as well as other extreme services such as providing cross-sex hormones to minors, Rose said: “Congress has an opportunity to defund. They need to seize it.”

Photos and videos flooded social media on Saturday showing demonstrations taking place around the country, including in states such as California, Texas, Kentucky, and Georgia, with protesters displaying signs and banners calling for Planned Parenthood to be blocked from federal funds.

Rose told CNA that pro-life advocates are “closer than ever” to defunding the abortion chain.

“We have the opportunity with the [Republican] majority in the House and the Senate, and with an administration that has indicated it would defund,” she said.

Rose said there are still “significant challenges” to the defunding goal, including the possibility of a filibuster in the Senate blocking any bill to that effect, though she noted that the budget reconciliation process could be used to bypass that obstacle.

If defunding is ultimately accomplished, Rose said, “we need to ensure that it sticks,” not just for one budget year but permanently.

Looking forward, she said, “we have to abolish abortion.”

“Defunding will weaken abortion, but the main goal is the complete legal protection for the preborn.”

“We’re building a groundswell [to abolish abortion],” she added. “It’s going to take time to develop the political infrastructure. But I believe we’ll do it within a decade.”

Chase Crouse, founder of Hypuro Fit. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Chase Crouse

CNA Staff, Jun 28, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In 2019, Chase Crouse was working two jobs — in ministry at the Archdiocese of New York and as a personal trainer. He quickly realized that while he loved working with people at the gym, he hated not being able to talk about Jesus with them. So he decided to combine both of his passions and create a Catholic fitness and personal training apostolate called Hypuro Fit.

Hypuro Fit’s programing is rooted in St. John Paul II’s theology of the body, encouraging its members to trade the mentality of needing to achieve the perfect “beach body” for the goal of living as a gift for others through self-discipline, self-mastery, and honoring the bodies God gave them.

After Crouse, a graduate of John Paul the Great Catholic University in San Diego who holds a master’s degree in biblical theology, began working with people as a trainer, he began to notice that anytime he asked people why they wanted to work out, their answers would always be along the lines of wanting to look a certain way and have others find them attractive. Crouse began to reflect on this and turned to John Paul II’s theology of the body.

“I read it with this question in mind and sure enough, really early on, he talks about this law of gift, from Gaudium et Spes, that man finds himself through a gift of himself, but what he adds in audience 15, which is kind of my lightbulb moment, is this idea that self-donation is impossible without self-mastery,” he explained.

In addition to being the founder of Hypuro Fit, Crouse is one of 10 coaches who work with individuals who join their programs.

The fitness apostolate offers two different options for users: one-on-one training or following a workout program through the app.

One-on-one training is done remotely through the use of Zoom and phone calls and allows the individual to work with a coach to build a custom workout plan, nutrition goals, and helps provide accountability.

The app is filled with a variety of different programs that include a library of workouts for people in every walk of life and with differing time constraints. The programs in the app also include educational content, technique tutorials, recipes, and articles for spiritual formation.

Hypuro Fit also has specialty programs such as “Breaking the Chains” for those experiencing an addiction to lust as well as a postpartum program for moms.

“What we like to say with both approaches [we offer] is that we’re authentically Catholic but we’re technically excellent, meaning that we are going to base all of our exercise routines, our nutrition protocols, based on the latest science and studies we have at our disposal,” Crouse explained. “But at the same time, we’re also authentically Catholic, meaning that for our one-on-one clients, we’re going to pray with them and for them. But then even for our subscribers in our app, we’re bringing them back to our why, which is this idea of self-mastery for self-gift.”

Crouse said the majority of the apostolate’s clients are between the ages of 30 and 60, so “they’re people in their vocation and they’re really busy.” 

Additionally, about one-third of clients are priests and religious, who receive access to the programming for free. Due to this, Hypuro Fit is aiming to show them that you don’t have to work out like you did in high school, you don’t even have to work out every day, you just need to show up and do something that is reasonable for your lifestyle.

“Ultimately we’re doing this to better give of ourselves and find that why and put everything in light of Christ and his resurrection,” he said.

Crouse added that the main goal of the ministry’s work is to help individuals “be more present and to live out their vocation to the best of their ability.”

“If we can help priests to be better priests, have more energy, give better, religious to be better brothers and sisters, husbands and wives to conquer themselves in order to give themselves to be more present — that’s the goal, that’s the dream.”

null / Credit: MIA Studio/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2025 / 15:52 pm (CNA).

A new survey has found the majority of adults in the U.S. support allowing Christian prayer in public schools, shedding light on how Americans approach the ongoing debate surrounding religious expression in educational settings. 

According to Pew Research Center, 52% of adults support allowing public school teachers to lead their classes in prayers that refer to Jesus, with 27% saying they strongly support it and 26% saying they favor it. 

“Renewed debates are happening across the United States about the place of religion — especially Christianity — in public schools,” the report stated, citing the recent Supreme Court even-split ruling regarding Oklahoma Catholic charter schools, among other legal debates across the country. 

The June 23 report also comes just two days after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law requiring public schools there to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom at the start of the 2025-2026 school year. 

The legislation requires that a “durable poster or framed copy of the Ten Commandments” be hung in each Texas public elementary or secondary school classroom.

Pew’s report is based on data from its 2023-2024 Religious Landscape Study, which surveyed 36,908 U.S. adults from July 17, 2023, to March 4, 2024. 

Overall, 46% of American adults oppose Christian prayer in public schools, with 22% strongly opposing. While Pew’s report indicates the majority of adults support Christian prayer in public schools, it notes that support varies widely from state to state. 

The majority of adults in 22 states across the southern and Midwestern parts of the country including Mississippi, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kentucky, South and North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, and Michigan said they supported the practice. 

The majority of adults in 12 states — California, Oregon, Washington, Vermont, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Minnesota, Colorado, and Illinois — and the District of Columbia said they opposed Christian prayer in public schools. 

Data in the remaining 16 states is divided, with roughly half of adults in states including Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Idaho, Arizona, and Maryland saying they favor allowing Christian prayer. 

“Once the survey’s margins of error are accounted for, support for teacher-led Christian prayer in these states is not significantly different from opposition,” the report states. 

The report also found that “a slightly larger share of Americans say they favor allowing teacher-led prayers referencing God (57%) than favor allowing teacher-led prayers specifically referencing Jesus (52%).”

null / Credit: New Africa/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2025 / 15:22 pm (CNA).

A Texas law that requires porn sites to verify that its users are at least 18 years old can remain in effect after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Friday, June 27, that the law does not violate the Constitution.

In a 6-3 decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas, the court’s majority found that Texas is within its authority “to shield children from sexually explicit content” and that this authority “necessarily includes the power to require proof of age” to access pornographic material.

“Unlike a store clerk, a website operator cannot look at its visitors and estimate their ages,” the opinion continued. “Without a requirement to submit proof of age, even clearly underage minors would be able to access sexual content undetected.”

Texas is one of 24 states that has enacted age verification laws to access pornography on the internet in recent years. The ruling sets nationwide precedent for lower courts reviewing legal challenges to laws in other states.

According to Texas law, a website must verify the ages of all users if “more than one-third of [the website’s content] is sexual material harmful to minors.” The law allows parents to sue websites if their child accesses pornographic material when the website was not complying with the age verification law. The law does not permit pornographers to retain personal information after the verification is complete.

The law also imposes fines of up to $10,000 per day on websites in violation of the law and an additional $250,000 fine if a child is exposed to pornographic content because the website was not verifying the ages of its users. 

“This is a major victory for children, parents, and the ability of states to protect minors from the damaging effects of online pornography,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement.

“Companies have no right to expose children to pornography and must institute reasonable age verification measures,” he added. “I will continue to enforce the law against any organization that refuses to take the necessary steps to protect minors from explicit materials.”

Pornographers sued Texas in 2023 shortly after the state enacted the law, asserting that the age verification rule places a burden on adults who are trying to access pornographic material and violates their First Amendment right to access speech. The pornographers, through their trade association called the Free Speech Coalition, have been engaged in lawsuits against other states that require age verification.

In a statement on X after the ruling, Free Speech Coalition Executive Director Alison Boden called the Supreme Court’s ruling “the canary in the coal mine of free expression.” She called the decision “disastrous for Texans and for anyone who cares about freedom of speech and privacy online.”

The court was not convinced by that argument. 

In the opinion, Thomas wrote that the law “is simply to prevent minors” from accessing content — not adults. The ruling acknowledges that the law creates a burden on adults but calls the burden “incidental” and found that “adults have no First Amendment right to avoid age verification.”

“An age-verification requirement is an ordinary and appropriate means of enforcing an age limit, as is evident both from all other contexts where the law draws lines based on age and from the long, widespread, and unchallenged practice of requiring age verification for in-person sales of material that is obscene to minors,” the opinion read.

Dani Pinter, who serves as senior legal counsel for the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE), told CNA that the free speech argument “defied common sense,” noting that identity and age verification are regular parts of most people’s lives.

Prior to states passing age verification laws, Pinter said very few pornographic websites had any type of age verification. She said “many don’t do anything at all” and some simply ask a user to “click a box that says you’re 18 or older.”

“Virtually no pornography website restricts minors,” she said.

Even in states that have adopted age verification laws, Pinter warned most websites “have not been compliant” but that some websites have “just withdrawn from the states” altogether. She said she hopes the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the constitutionality of the law will bolster compliance and lead to more states — or even the federal government — passing similar laws to protect children online.

The ruling, Pinter said, is “very historic” and “spells a new era where there is now a path forward to protect kids online.”

USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio speaks at the bishops’ spring meeting, Thursday, June 13, 2024. / Credit: USCCB

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 27, 2025 / 13:31 pm (CNA).

As the Senate considers provisions for the “One Big Beautiful Bill” budget reconciliation, U.S bishops are asking lawmakers to protect vulnerable groups. 

“The bishops are grateful that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act includes provisions that promote the dignity of human life and support parental choice in education,” Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), said in a statement. 

“These are commendable provisions that are important priorities for the bishops.”

“Still, Congress must be consistent in protecting human life and dignity and make drastic changes to the bill to protect those most in need,” Broglio said. 

“As Pope Leo XIV recently stated, it is the responsibility of politicians to promote and protect the common good, including by working to overcome great wealth inequality,” he continued. “This bill does not answer this call. It takes from the poor to give to the wealthy.”

In a letter sent to senators signed by Archbishop Borys Gudziak and Bishops Robert Barron, Kevin Rhoades, Mark Seitz, David O’Connell, and Daniel Thomas, the bishops detailed their stance on certain bill provisions.

Broglio said: “I underscore what my brother bishops said in their recent letter to find a better way forward and urge senators to think and act with courage and creativity to protect human dignity for all, to uphold the common good, and to change provisions that undermine these fundamental values.”

In the letter, the bishops said they “strongly support” the bill’s plan to end “taxpayer subsidization of major abortion and ‘gender transition’ providers such as Planned Parenthood” and the bill’s support for “parental choice in education.”

The bishops also stated their agreement with “the inclusion of a $1,000 ‘above-the-line’ charitable deduction in the Senate bill” and said it is “a very positive step in the right direction.”

However, the bishops are not in support of cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). They urged senators to protect these programs, adding that “the changes to SNAP will cause millions of people to go hungry.”

The bishops also disagree with “the unprecedented increase in funding for immigration enforcement and detention,” which they said “would disproportionately impact immigrant and mixed-status families with strong ties to American communities.”

They added that cuts “to clean energy incentives and the repeal of environmental programs and energy efficient loans … will lead to increased pollution that harms children and the unborn, stifles economic opportunity, and decreases resilience against extreme weather.”

In agreement with the letter, Broglio said the bill “provides tax breaks for some while undermining the social safety net for others through major cuts to nutrition assistance and Medicaid.”

“It fails to protect families and children by promoting an enforcement-only approach to immigration and eroding access to legal protections,” he said. “It harms God’s creation and future generations through cuts to clean energy incentives and environmental programs.”

The U.S. Supreme Court on June 27, 2025, ruled Maryland parents can opt out of LGBT-themed lessons in public schools, upholding their right to the free exercise of their respective religions. / Credit: PT Hamilton/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jun 27, 2025 / 12:26 pm (CNA).

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a group of Maryland parents who had sued a school district over its refusal to allow families to opt their children out of LGBT-focused lessons. 

In a 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the court ruled on June 27 that the parents — who included Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims — were “entitled to a preliminary injunction” against the Montgomery County Board of Education, one that will allow them to excuse their children from the controversial lessons while the case is remanded to lower courts for further proceedings. 

The parents “are likely to succeed on their claim that the board’s policies unconstitutionally burden their religious exercise,” the court said. 

The reading materials, the Supreme Court said — which include promotions of same-sex “marriages” — are “designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated, and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.”

The materials go beyond mere “exposure,” the justices said, and “burdens the parents’ right to the free exercise of religion.”

Under the district’s policy, the school board only permitted opt-outs in narrow circumstances, mostly related to sexual education in health class. It did not permit opt-outs for coursework that endorsed the views that there are more than two “genders,” that a boy can become a girl, or that homosexual marriages are moral.

Some of the coursework initially introduced in the curriculum was designed to promote these concepts to children as young as 3 years old in preschool.

One book involved in the dispute, called “Pride Puppy,” taught preschool children the alphabet with a story about a homosexual pride parade, which introduced children to words like “drag queen,” “leather,” and “zipper.”

It also introduced young children to Marsha B. Johnson, a drag queen, gay rights activist, and prostitute.

Lawyers with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty represented the parents in their lawsuit. On Friday, Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, called the ruling “a historic victory for parental rights in Maryland and across America.”

“Kids shouldn’t be forced into conversations about drag queens, pride parades, or gender transitions without their parents’ permission,” he said. “Today, the court restored common sense and made clear that parents — not government — have the final say in how their children are raised.”

In a Friday statement, meanwhile, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops hailed the Supreme Court for upholding parental rights to directing their children's educations.

"Public schools in our diverse country include families from many communities with a variety of deep-seated convictions about faith and morals," Bishop Kevin Rhoades, the chairman of the bishops' religious liberty committee, said in the statement.

"When these schools address issues that touch on these matters, they ought to respect all families," Rhoades said. "Parents do not forfeit their rights as primary educators of their children when they send their kids to public schools."

Stressing that children "should not be learning that their personal identity as male or female can be separated from their bodies," the bishop said in cases where a school teaches this ideology, "it ought to respect those who choose not to participate."

The lawsuit against the school district, located just north of Washington, D.C., was filed in May 2023. 

The Supreme Court took up the controversial case in January of this year after two lower courts ruled against a group of parents who sued the Montgomery County board over the school district’s having provided LGBT-themed lessons and reading materials to their children. 

Both the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against the parents, claiming they had no right to be notified or opt their kids out of the sexuality-themed literature. 

The school district initially allowed the parents to opt out but changed its policy less than a year later. It removed the LGBT puppy book and another book from the program curriculum last year, though the books were still available at school libraries.

During oral arguments in April, most of the justices on the high court appeared sympathetic toward the parents in their lawsuit. 

In a dissent to the Friday ruling, Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed the decision could usher in “chaos” for public schools around the country.

Sotomayor suggested that the LGBT materials in the dispute represented merely “a range of concepts and views” and “new ideas.”

“Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,” she alleged.

This story was updated on Friday, June 27, 2025 at 4:00 p.m. with a statement from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.