In an aerial view, the cargo ship Dali sits in the water after running into and collapsing the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, in Baltimore. / Credit: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images

ACI Prensa Staff, May 5, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

Bishop Brendan Cahill of Victoria, Texas, is inviting Catholics throughout the United States to join the May 22 “National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for Sailors and People of the Sea,” which this year will include a special prayer in memory of those affected by the catastrophic March 26 Baltimore bridge collapse. 

“Each year, we pray for those who work on the high seas and the ports. In a special way this year, we remember those who have been impacted by the collapse of the Key Bridge, particularly the six construction workers who perished in the bridge collapse, and for their families as they mourn the loss of their loved ones,” Cahill said.

On March 26, the container ship Dali suffered a power failure and collided with one of the bridge pillars, causing the collapse of most of the bridge while a group of eight construction workers were doing maintenance work on the structure. The six fatalities were immigrants to the United States from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala.

Immediately following the tragedy, the Stella Maris network of port chaplains and volunteers mobilized to provide pastoral care and support to crew members of the Dali and for crew members of other vessels in the Port of Baltimore.

Cahill, who is also the bishop promoter of the Apostleship of the Sea “Stella Maris,” solicited prayers “for the captain and crew of the cargo ship and for the countless people who have been working in the aftermath of the tragedy.” He also remembered the longshoremen and those who depend on the Port of Baltimore to make a living.

Around the world, Cahill noted, “there are countless men and women who labor on the high seas for their livelihood. Let us seek the intercession of Our Lady, Stella Maris, that she protect and guide us,” he emphasized.

As part of this commemoration, a Mass will be celebrated on May 18 at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., at 12:10 p.m. local time.

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

Mother Marla Marie stands on the front porch of the sisters’ Mother of the Light convent in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. / Credit: Joe Bukuras/CNA

Boston, Mass., May 4, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

It was 1983, in the last years of the Cold War, when 21-year-old Marla Lucas’ eyes filled with tears at the sight of a political cartoon prepared to be printed in the Washington Post criticizing then-Pope John Paul II during his activism against communism in Poland.

Lucas, who is now known as Mother Marla, was fresh out of college at the time and had recently experienced a reversion to her Catholic faith and was “on fire” for Christ, she told CNA on April 22.

What hurt Mother Marla the most about the drawing was her own perceived involvement in its creation. She was a research assistant for the cartoonist who drew it, three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and “unrepentant liberal,” the late Herbert Block, commonly known as “Herblock.”

“I felt like an accomplice,” she said.

It wasn’t only Block’s criticism of Pope John Paul II that bothered Mother Marla, it was also his cartoons in support of abortion. 

“I wanted to be a journalist to spread the truth. Mr. Block was a kind person and personable, but I just felt like this was against my faith,” she said.

Before the cartoon of the pope, Mother Marla had been discerning religious life and spent a day visiting the Daughters of St. Paul at their convent in Alexandria, Virginia.

After that day, her decision was made. She was going to apply.

But a short time following the application process, Mother Marla received news that she was not admitted by the Daughters of St. Paul because she is deaf in one ear. 

“The provincial’s reasoning was that she didn’t want to jeopardize my good ear with the work that I would be doing,” Mother Marla said.

A friend then suggested Mother Marla look into the Parish Visitors of Mary Immaculate where, months later, she would say goodbye to her position at the Post and enter religious life in December 1983.

Recounting her last days at the newspaper in the fall of that year, Mother Marla said she went to her boss, Block, and his assistant and said she had some news to share. 

Mother Marla recounted their response: “‘You’re getting married?’” 

“Well...” Mother Marla said back to them. “Sort of. I’m marrying Jesus.”

She said both of their jaws “dropped open” and they looked at her with “almost horror and disbelief.”

“And that last month at the Post was agony because all of a sudden, whatever they had against the Catholic Church, I was absorbing it. They didn’t throw me a going away party,” she said with a chuckle.

She made her first vows in 1986 and her final vows in 1993. 

Mother Marla “loved the life” in her religious community and had several assignments on the East Coast including in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Washington, D.C. The Parish Visitors are a New York-based congregation that has the charism of being contemplative-missionaries to the home.

But it was during her time in Pennsylvania she began deepening her awareness and affection for her Lebanese heritage as a Maronite Catholic.

Mother Marla was always aware of her Maronite roots. Her mother was from Lebanon and her father’s parents were from Lebanon. There wasn’t a Maronite church near her childhood home in Poughkeepsie, New York, so her family attended a Latin-rite parish. But a Maronite priest would make his way up to the Lebanese community there a few times a year to minister to them. 

During her assignment in Pennsylvania, Mother Marla attended a series of Lenten talks in Scranton at a Maronite church. The speaker for the week was Maronite priest Father Gregory Mansour.

“I was very impressed with his spiritual teachings and I said, ‘This is a man of prayer. This man really practices his priesthood.’ And we struck up a friendship that God used,” she said.

The two would occasionally cross paths and keep in touch over the years. Mother Marla sent Mansour a note of congratulations in 2004 when Pope John Paul II appointed him as bishop for the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn.

Mother Marla and Mansour wouldn’t reconnect again until a few years later, in Washington, D.C., where Mother Marla spent a year taking classes at the Dominican House of Studies. 

Twenty-four years a nun at this point, Mother Marla was not on an assignment at a particular parish, so she chose to attend Mass at the Maronite church in the city, Our Lady of Lebanon Parish.

The priest at the parish approached Mother Marla and asked her if she would head the parish’s religious education program. In her previous assignment, she served as a director of religious education for several years.

“And I said, ‘Oh Father, I’m here for other reasons.’”

But the priest insisted, so Mother Marla took it to prayer, and with the permission of her superior, discerned that God was asking her to head the program. 

She then asked the rector of the Our Lady of Lebanon Maronite Seminary, adjacent to the parish, if she could take some classes to learn more about Maronite spirituality and liturgy to help her with catechesis.

He agreed.

Just a few weeks after she accepted the position, Mother Marla again crossed paths with Bishop Mansour while the prelate was visiting the parish. 

Mansour was happy to hear that Mother Marla was heading the program. But the next thing he said to her would change the course of her life forever.

“He said to me, ‘Sister Marla Marie, would you help me found a Maronite congregation of sisters for our Church?”

“And it was just like that. He just said, ‘Hello, it’s nice to see you. How are you?’ And then the next thing was, ‘Would you found a religious community?’”

Mother Marla was “startled.” But at the same time, she felt “a deep abiding peace.”  

“It was the same peace I had 25 years prior, when I realized my call to be a religious,” she said.

Mother Marla told Mansour she would take his request to prayer and discernment. In time, she agreed and requested leave from her congregation to pursue this vocation.

On June 1, 2008, Sister Marla became Mother Marla Marie, foundress of the Maronite Servants of Christ the Light.

The sisters were founded to “radiate Christ’s love and light to our people,” Mother Marla said. “Our life is rooted in Eucharistic prayer and devotion to the Mother of God."

Fast approaching the community’s 16-year anniversary — or “sweet 16” as Mother Marla calls it — the sisters are involved in a variety of ministries including facilitating conferences and parish missions, teaching catechism classes, leading youth and young adult ministry, bringing solace and prayer to those with grief, and accompanying those passing to the next life.

Sister Therese Touma, 40, joined the congregation in 2010 and Sister Emily Lattouf, 29, joined in 2019.

The sisters encounter and serve more than 1,000 people each year, including hundreds of children and young adults in their several ministries, Mother Marla said. Last year the sisters visited 10 parishes for missions across the Maronite Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn, which spans from Maine to Florida. 

Sister Emily, who took her first vows in 2023, said that “Mother Marla Marie is an amazing and courageous woman.”

“I admire her courage to leave the world she knew in her previous community to begin this new foundation. I am blessed to have her as a mother-servant, friend, and formator,” she said.

The Maronite Servants are now located in suburban Dartmouth, Massachusetts, located in close proximity to several Maronite parishes and dozens of Roman Catholic parishes where they serve in ministry.

“I keep looking at my life and thinking, ‘Wow, that happened to me?’ Isn’t it amazing how God works? And he does that in your life too, and in everybody’s life. If people stop to look and be attentive, we can see that the Holy Spirit is always acting. We just have to give him room,” Mother Marla said.

Father Roger Landry, Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, discusses the protests at Columbia University in New York City on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” on May 2, 2024. / Credit: EWTN News The World Over / Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 3, 2024 / 17:05 pm (CNA).

Father Roger Landry, a Catholic chaplain at Columbia University, said on Thursday that the protests making national headlines at the New York City school are being organized in part by “explicitly communist” outside forces. 

“There is an instrumentalization of what’s going on in Gaza to advance an agenda,” he said. “And that is to deconstruct our present world order at which the United States is considered the top of that order.”

Speaking on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo,” Landry said that he had been walking through the encampment nearly daily, conversing with student protesters and other “outside agitators.” 

While he said he believes that many of the protesters were genuinely concerned for Gazan civilians, there was a sizable percentage of whom were “explicitly in favor of Hamas” and “definitely antisemitic by their language and their actions.” 

What is going on at Columbia?

The Columbia demonstration began on April 17 when a large group of students set up dozens of tents to occupy the university’s main quad. Protesters at the encampment said they were standing against Israel’s “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza. 

Many videos circulated online of protesters shouting antisemitic chants and calling for the destruction of Israel, and some Jewish students have reported being threatened by protesters. 

Clad in riot gear, officers from the New York City Police Department cleared the encampment in a Wednesday raid that resulted in several hundred arrests. 

Similar protests and encampments on campuses across the country, many of which are still ongoing, have taken place since the demonstration at Columbia began. 

Marxist ideology at heart of protest

According to Landry, nearly half of the approximately 300 protesters arrested were non-student activists. 

He said these outside forces are “explicitly communist groups” who have been distributing Marxist materials attacking the state of Israel since the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. 

Landry said that these materials attempt to justify the Hamas attack “out of this neo-Marxist, ‘oppressor versus oppressed’ ideology that says whatever somebody in the category of ‘oppressed’ wants to do against a so-called ‘oppressor’ is justified, even killing way more than a thousand innocent people at a party.” 

“This divide and conquer class warfare that comes from Marx and Lenin is the exact antithesis of what Jesus Christ himself taught,” he continued. “So, I try to get the Catholic students aware of that problem so at least they’re inoculated to that intellectual virus.” 

Catholic students act as peacemakers 

Landry said he was proud of the many Catholic students who have “stepped up” to be peacemakers amid all the hatred on campus.   

He said that student Mass attendance has increased on campus. A Catholic student group sent symbolic olive plants to both Jewish and Muslim leaders at Columbia to show the “solidarity and peace of Christ,” he said. 

“Transcending the moment but also incarnating ourselves in the moment, [we] are trying to bring the peace we have received from Christ that our world and our campus very much need,” he said.

Watch the full interview with Landry on “The World Over” below.

President Joe Biden presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jesuit Father Greg Boyle on May 3, 2024. / Screenshot/public domain

CNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

The White House on Friday announced that Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, the founder of a prominent ministry dedicated to rehabilitating gang-affiliated youth, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside 18 other recipients this afternoon. 

Boyle, ordained a priest in 1984, founded Homeboy Industries in 1992 while pastor of Dolores Mission, a Catholic church and school in an area that at one time had one of the highest concentrations of gang activity in Los Angeles. 

Today, Homeboy Industries claims to be the largest gang-intervention program in the United States.

The successful ministry, which now operates nationwide, offers training and job skills to those formerly involved in gangs or in jail, as well as case management, tattoo removal, mental health and legal services, and GED completion.

While the group has said it is “not affiliated with any particular religion,” it also notes that many of its works are “in line with the Jesuit practice of social justice,” and Boyle has said that the organization does not seek to “downplay” its Catholic identity.

Boyle described the ministry several years ago to CNA as “soaked with the Gospel.”

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, is presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private endeavors, the White House says.

In announcing this year’s recipients, the White House noted that the honorees “built teams, coalitions, movements, organizations, and businesses that shaped America for the better.”

“They are the pinnacle of leadership in their fields. They consistently demonstrated over their careers the power of community, hard work, and service,” the announcement says. 

Biden, who is Catholic, announced that among the honorees is former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of State John Kerry, both fellow Catholics known for their pro-abortion advocacy.

Other honorees this year include former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Vice President Al Gore, Olympian Katie Ledecky, and actress Michelle Yeoh.

In 2020, Boyle was one of several hundred religious leaders who signed an endorsement of Biden’s campaign. The priest has called for the Church to “include with more compassion our LGBTQ sisters and brothers.”

In 2021, meanwhile, Homeboy Industries received $20 million in grants from prominent progressive backers Mackenzie Scott and Dan Jewett.

Martyred by the Nazis, Dutch St. Titus Brandsma was a journalist who gave his life so that the truths of the faith would not be silenced. / Credit: Wikimedia Commons

CNA Newsroom, May 3, 2024 / 13:45 pm (CNA).

World Press Freedom Day is celebrated every May 3, drawing attention to the importance of free and independent news media. 

Among modern-day saints, there is a journalist-priest who suffered martyrdom by the Nazis for his work in Catholic media: St. Titus Brandsma.

St. Titus (1881–1942), canonized by Pope Francis in 2022, was a Carmelite priest and native of the Netherlands. During the Nazi occupation of that country, the Nazi public relations bureau informed Dutch newspapers that they had to accept advertisements and press releases emanating from official sources.

The cardinal-archbishop of Ultrecht, Johannes de Jong, commissioned Brandsma, in his capacity as a journalist and spiritual director of the country’s Catholic journalists, to convey the hierarchy’s response to the Nazis’ mandate to all the Catholic editors in the country.

Brandsma concluded each visit to the editors with remarks along these lines: “We have reached our limit. We cannot serve them. It will be our duty to refuse Nazi propaganda definitely if we wish to remain Catholic newspapers. Even if they threaten us with severe penalties, suspension, or discontinuance of our newspapers, we cannot conform with their orders.”

Brandsma visited 14 editors before the Gestapo arrested him. He was arrested and taken to the Amersfoort penal camp, where he was made to work in inhumane conditions. Later, he ended up in the terrifying Dachau concentration camp in Germany, where the regime carried out experiments on prisoners. He was ultimately killed with a lethal injection of carbolic acid.

Before dying, he gave his rosary to the nurse who injected him with the deadly substance. She told him that she did not know how to pray, and he replied that she should only say: “Pray for us sinners.” Some time later the young woman converted and was a witness in the canonization process of Brandsma.

His body was never found and it is believed that he was cremated in the ovens of the Nazi extermination center. St. John Paul II approved the decree recognizing his martyrdom, and he was beatified in 1985. Pope Francis canonized him on May 22, 2022.

According to the Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad, dozens of international journalists and the 520-member German Association of Catholic Journalists signed a letter to Pope Francis asking him to name St. Titus Brandsma as patron of journalism.

For their part, the Carmelites indicate that the saint wrote a special prayer between Feb. 12–13, 1942, when he was in prison titled “Before an Image of Christ”:

O Jesus, when I gaze on you

Once more alive, that I love you

And that your heart loves me too

Moreover as your special friend.

Although that calls me to suffer more

Oh, for me all suffering is good,

For in this way I resemble you

And this is the way to your kingdom.

I am blissful in my suffering

For I know it no more as sorrow

But the most ultimate elected lot

That unites me with you, O God.

O, just leave me here silently alone,

The chill and cold around me

And let no people be with me

Here alone I grow not weary.

For thou, O Jesus, art with me

I have never been so close to you.

Stay with me, with me, Jesus sweet,

Your presence makes all things good for me.

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

null / Gutzemberg / Shutterstock

CNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

A priest in Chicago last month blessed a same-sex couple, saying that the Vatican’s recent document Fiducia Supplicans authorized such blessings. 

Father Joseph Williams, the pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Parish near downtown Chicago, is seen in an April 22 video shared on Instagram by Kelli Knight, a Methodist minister and self-identified “queer” community organizer. 

In the video, Williams is seen in the parish with Kelli and Myah Knight. “Myah always wanted to get married at the chapel of her alma mater, so I surprised her with a blessing of our marriage!” Kelli wrote in the post. The parish is affiliated with the Catholic DePaul University in Chicago. 

In the video, Williams can be seen asking the couple: “Kelli and Myah, do you freely recommit yourselves to love each other as holy spouses and to live in peace and harmony together forever?” The two women respond, “I do.”

“Loving God, increase and consecrate the love which Kelly and Myah have for one another,” the pastor then says. “The rings that they have exchanged are the sign of their fidelity and commitment.” 

“May they continue to prosper in your grace and blessing,” he added. 

“May God’s blessing be yours, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen,” the priest finished. 

Neither the priest nor the Archdiocese of Chicago immediately responded to requests for comment from CNA on Friday morning. The pastor told OSV News that his understanding of Fiducia Supplicans is that “same-sex couples can be blessed as long as it does not reflect a marriage situation … as long as it’s clear that it’s not a marriage.”

He reportedly told Knight when she first inquired about the blessing: “Please understand that this is not in any way a marriage, a wedding, anything like that. This is just simply a blessing of persons.”

Fiducia Supplicans has generated global controversy since it was first promulgated last December. The Vatican at the time directed that Catholic priests can bless same-sex couples as an expression of pastoral closeness without condoning their sexual relations. 

Bishops around the world in the subsequent months have been deeply divided over the declaration. Some prelates have responded warmly to the directive, while others have said they will not implement the practice.

null / Credit: Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 18:20 pm (CNA).

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) released a pair of emergency rules that it said are aimed at combating “misinformation” and a “deeply dishonest scare campaign” by the Biden administration about the state’s new six-week pro-life law. 

The rules, published on May 1, establish guidance for lifesaving measures and clarify that certain procedures, including treatment for ectopic pregnancies, are not considered abortion and remain legal under the Florida Heartbeat Protection Act, which went into effect on Wednesday.  

This comes amid significant criticism over the state’s pro-life law that prohibits abortions on women after six weeks of pregnancy except for in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger. The new AHCA rules further clarify those exceptions. 

“The agency finds there is an immediate danger to the health, safety, and welfare of pregnant women and babies due to a deeply dishonest scare campaign and disinformation being perpetuated by the media, the Biden administration, and advocacy groups to misrepresent the Heartbeat Protection Act and the state’s efforts to protect life, moms, and families,” the AHCA wrote in both rules. “The agency is initiating rulemaking to safeguard against any immediate harm that could come to pregnant women due to disinformation.” 

“This rulemaking,” the AHCA goes on, “will ensure health care providers establish medical records procedures that will adequately protect the care and safety of both mothers and their unborn babies during medical emergencies.”

The rules state that “regardless of gestational age,” treatment for ectopic pregnancies, premature rupture of membranes, trophoblastic tumors, and “other life-threatening conditions” is “not to be considered an abortion and shall not be reported [as such]” even if those procedures inadvertently result in the death of the unborn child. 

In a “Myth vs. Fact” sheet published the same day, the AHCA also clarified that “Florida law does not prohibit the removal of the pregnancy for women who experience a miscarriage in any circumstance.” 

The Biden administration has been outspoken about its opposition to Florida’s six-week law. Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech in Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday in which she condemned the Florida pro-life law as “extreme” and dangerous for the health and safety of women. 

President Joe Biden also attacked Florida’s six-week law in a campaign speech in Tampa on April 23. He blamed former President Donald Trump and Republicans for unleashing a “nightmare” on American women. 

Florida state Sen. Lauren Book said that “women and girls will die” because of the law.  

AHCA Secretary Jason Weida issued a statement the same as the rule in which he said: “The pro-abortion left is lying for political gain. The attempts to demonize standard health care for women make a physician’s job more difficult and can put a pregnant woman’s life at risk. The Heartbeat Protection Act protects women from life-threatening complications while protecting the life of the unborn.” 

Fertility rose at the end of the Depression and the end of World War II with the baby boom, to more than 3.5 births for every woman by 1960 — then plummeted immediately thereafter. / Credit: Glenn|Wikimedia|CC BY-SA 2.0

Washington D.C., May 2, 2024 / 17:55 pm (CNA).

The record-low fertility rates in the United States and the decline in fertility globally are driven by both social and economic factors, according to Catholic panelists speaking at an event hosted by the Institute for Human Ecology (IHE).

According to provisional data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, the 2023 American fertility rate fell to 54.4 births per 1,000 women, which is the lowest in recorded history. The total fertility rate, which estimates how many children the average woman will have over her lifetime, fell to just over 1.6 — well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

The panel, titled “The Population Bust,” took place at the Catholic University of America. The institute is affiliated with the university’s Department of Politics. The panel was moderated by Catholic New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.

How fertility began to trend downward

In 1800, the fertility rate was more than four times the current rate, standing strong at more than seven births for every woman over her lifetime. 

The rate steadily decreased to just over three births for every woman in 1925, until taking a large dip to 2.06 during the Great Depression. Fertility rose again at the end of the Depression and the end of World War II with the baby boom, to more than 3.5 births for every woman by 1960 — then plummeted immediately thereafter. 

Apart from a few small short-term bumps, the country’s fertility rate has never recovered from the post-1960 downward trajectory. 

Catherine Pakaluk, an IHE scholar, mother of eight, and author of the recently published book “Hannah’s Children,” said the gradual decline since 1800 was primarily a result of industrialization. When the country was more agrarian, children were an economic necessity to help with work and to provide care for their parents as they aged. But industrialization and the social safety nets ended that incentive. 

Before industrialization, Pakaluk noted, the mindset was, “You’re going to do this really hard thing because it’s the sort of thing you need to do.”

Yet fertility had mostly remained above the 2.1 replacement rate until the 1960s when there were significant shifts in the culture. In 1960, just before birth rates began to plummet again, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first birth control pill and the women’s liberation movement began to take hold of the country.

When the “contraceptive revolution” occurred, along with a rise in feminism, Pakaluk said many women still wanted to have children but began to prioritize professional goals instead. 

“They also want to have jobs and careers,” Pakaluk added. “Literally, that’s the problem. They want to have two things that are in conflict. … Women’s large-scale entry into the paid workforce is the thing that’s in tension with having the children they want to have.”

Timothy Carney, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, father of eight, and author of the recently published book “Family Unfriendly,” said the United States has become “a contraceptive society.” He lamented the social view that children are simply “your individual deliberate choice,” which he said emboldens the mindset that this “freed up everybody else from having to help out.”

“Our society is failing to make people want to have kids,” Carney said. “Our society is falling short in all these ways. … It is our culture that is family-unfriendly.”

Carney said that having children used to simply be a part of life, but now people postpone and agonize over the decision. He criticized “helicopter parenting” as one of the reasons people are afraid to have more children.

“Millennials were more helicoptered as kids, and so their view of what parenting is was much more daunting than [Generation] X, where it was ‘come home when the street lights turn on’ when we were little,” Carney said.

“It’s our culture’s values that are off,” Carney added. “And it’s all tied to the overparenting [and] the strange new mating and dating norms, which [are based on] a belief in hyper-individualism.”

Complexities in fixing these trends

For her recent book, Pakaluk interviewed women who have defied these trends and built large families with their husbands. The reasons that those women decided to have large families, she noted, were rooted in religious faith.

According to Pakaluk, these women believed that “children are blessings from God, expressions of God’s goodness and the purpose of my marriage.”

“Churches and religious people are actually holding the one thing that can make the biggest difference because it’s either true or it’s not true that children are blessings [and] that they’re always valuable,” Pakaluk said. “... If it’s true, it’s not propaganda to say it. … If it’s true and it’s not propaganda, people can begin to believe this.”

Pakaluk said the central assertion of Christianity is that “God became Man as a human infant and that reality is supposed to color the way we see the value of human infancy.” Although the women she spoke to have goals and responsibilities apart from their roles as mothers, she said the faith component ensures that they prioritize building a family first.

“To get more children, you have to find some way … to argue that this particular good — the ‘children’ good — is of greater value or more importance,” Pakaluk added.

Carney suggested that some of the cultural difficulties could be mitigated through economic incentives. He criticized the failure to pass a child tax credit and rebuked the mindset that society has no role in supporting families. 

“People have less community support,” he said.

Still, Carney cited the importance of a resurgence in faith as a fundamental component of raising fertility rates. 

“The secular story — the godless story — ends up being too sad to want to continue the human race,” Carney said.

null / Credit: Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 15:26 pm (CNA).

Former President Donald Trump is polling more than 10 points ahead of President Joe Biden among Catholic voters, thanks in part to increasing support from Hispanic Catholic voters, according to a recent Pew survey.

Overall, Pew has Trump leading by only 1% among the general voter population. His support among the Catholic demographic, however, shows noteworthy signs of growth compared with 2020.

According to the latest Pew Research Center poll, which was taken April 8–14, Trump leads Biden among Catholics 55% to 43%. The 12% lead is a significant increase from 2020, when Catholics voted in favor of Trump by just 1%, 50% to 49%. 

Chad Pecknold, a theology professor at the Catholic University of America and an expert on the American Church, told CNA the Hispanic Catholic shift is what stands out most in Pew’s latest poll. 

Hispanic Catholics, who make up approximately 40% of the U.S. Church, continue to favor Biden, but at a much smaller margin, 49% to 47%. This is a serious decline in Hispanic Catholic support for Biden. A similar Pew poll taken a month before the 2020 election showed Hispanics favored Biden by an overwhelming margin of 67% to 26%. 

This comes as Pew projects Hispanics to make up a record-high 14.7% of all eligible U.S. voters this election season. 

“Democrats are experts at harvesting ‘identities’ for votes, so it’s important to pay close attention when they fail,” Pecknold said. 

“They [Hispanic Catholics] were once reliable votes for Democrats, but they are now splitting down the middle. What this suggests is that, despite their best attempts at buying their votes through political favors, Democrats are losing one of the identity groups they’ve worked hardest at keeping.” 

Meanwhile, Trump’s lead among White Catholics has also grown, currently at 61% in favor of Trump to 38% for Biden, compared with 57% to 42% in 2020. 

Nevertheless, both Biden and Trump currently hold high unfavorability ratings among Catholics. According to Pew, only 35% of Catholics hold a favorable view of Biden while 64% have an unfavorable view. Trump, meanwhile, is also viewed unfavorably by a majority of Catholics (57%) and favorably by 42%. 

Though he is the second Catholic president in U.S. history, Biden has sparked outrage among many Catholics for invoking his Catholic faith to support abortion. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, D.C., recently criticized Biden on national television, saying he “picks and chooses” elements of the Catholic faith to follow.

Pew’s data reveals a marked difference in political affiliation between Catholics who attend Mass at least monthly or more and those who do not.

Regardless of ethnicity, among all Catholics who attend Mass monthly or more often, 61% identify with the Republican Party or lean Republican. This includes a majority (67%) of both white Catholics and Hispanic Catholics (52%).

Biden’s most significant polling lead is among atheist voters, a demographic he leads by 76 percentage points, 87% to 11%. He also holds very large leads among Black Protestants (77% to 18%) and agnostics (82% to 17%). Biden leads among religiously unaffiliated voters 69% to 28%, which is very similar to his support in this demographic in 2020.  

Thousands of pilgrims come together each year to take part in the annual Walk to Mary, which takes place on the first Saturday of May in Wisconsin. The 21-mile pilgrimage starts at the National Shrine of St. Joseph in De Pere, Wisconsin, and ends at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion, Wisconsin. / Credit: The Shrine of Our Lady of Champion

CNA Staff, May 2, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Thousands of pilgrims come together each year to take part in the annual Walk to Mary, which takes place on the first Saturday of May in Wisconsin. The 21-mile pilgrimage starts at the National Shrine of St. Joseph in De Pere, Wisconsin, and ends at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion, Wisconsin.

The Walk to Mary will take place on May 4 this year and includes several “join in” points along the route that offer participants unable to walk the entire distance to participate. These locations shorten the pilgrimage length, allowing pilgrims of all ages to take part in what is a spiritual and physical test in perseverance.

This year’s pilgrimage is particularly special as the participants will be walking similar stretches that the perpetual pilgrims and Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament on the Marian Route will be walking during the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage this June.

The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage will be making a stop at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion on June 16, where there will be a Mass celebrated and a large Eucharistic rosary procession.

Father Joseph Aytona, CPM, rector of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, told CNA in an interview that the Marian Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage was actually named in honor of Our Lady of Champion.

“It is an honor to pray over this path during the Walk to Mary and, in a real way, ‘prepare the way of the Lord and make straight his paths’ for when he arrives in June through the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage,” he said.

Since 2023, a segment of the Walk to Mary has been designed to accommodate children, families, and anyone who wants to participate in the pilgrimage but is challenged by the longer distances. This 1.7-mile route, called “The Walk With the Children,” merges into the last half a mile of the longer route.

Aytona shared that they are expecting more than 6,000 pilgrims from around the world to attend this year’s Walk to Mary. 

“Participants walk down everyday streets and trails through the Green Bay area, led by a carried statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” he explained. “They pray the rosary, sing hymns, and silently reflect on the intentions they are walking for. It’s always a beautiful display of faith for the world to see.”

Aytona compared the walk to a “mini-version of the Camino de Santiago in Europe,” adding that “the Walk to Mary draws people to the heart of pilgrimage — the opportunity for one to draw closer to the Lord and for him to draw closer to you — but all through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph.”

The final destination of the walk is also particularly special as the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion is the first and only approved Marian apparition in the United States. 

On Oct. 9, 1859, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a young Belgian woman named Adele Brise in the woods near present-day Champion, Wisconsin. Seeing the beautiful lady dressed in dazzling white with a crown of stars around her head, Brise asked the woman who she was.

The lady replied: “I am the Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same.”

The Blessed Mother then told the young girl to “gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation. Teach them their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the cross, and how to approach the sacraments; that is what I wish you to do.”

The apparition was approved by Bishop David Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay in 2010. 

Karmen Lemke, executive director of Catholic Charities at the Diocese of Green Bay, called the 21-mile pilgrimage “absolutely life-changing.”

This year marks Lemke’s third time participating in the Walk to Mary; however, her first two experiences hold a special place in her heart. 

“My first walk, the full 21 miles, was in 2022, and my inspiration for participating was to join my friend Doris Lamers, who was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer,” Lemke shared with CNA in an interview. 

“The Blessed Mother has been an important person in her life and the Walk to Mary was something she really wanted to do. A few days before I asked again if she wanted to walk, even if we did the short version, and she quickly replied: ‘I want to walk and I want to do the whole thing,’” she recalled.

Lemke said that will be a day she will “forever treasure.”

“The weather was perfect, but our conversations along the walk were priceless,” she said. “We prayed the rosary and talked about life in general. We met so many wonderful people along the way, sharing stories of why they walk.”

In 2023, Lemke and Lamers participated in the walk again, along with Lamers’ sister and niece; however, due to the progression of the cancer, Lemke pushed Lamers in a wheelchair for the last seven miles of the walk.

“Upon our arrival at the shrine, Doris received a special blessing from Father Joseph [Aytona]. It was wonderful. I know that Doris knew exactly what was going on and was grateful for the day.”

Lamers passed away on Sept. 20, 2023.

“This year will hold a different meaning for us,” Lemke said. “We know that Doris will be with us and she’ll be saying, ‘Come on girls, you can do the whole route!’”

As for what Lemke has taken away from participating in the Walk to Mary, she said she has come to see “that anyone can do it with a little encouragement and not a lot of necessary training. I was moved by the number of people and their love for Mary and the love for their faith. It was a true sense of community.”

Aytona said he hopes that participants “are led to a deeper devotion to Our Lord Jesus.”

“True devotion to Mary always brings us to Jesus, and when people step foot on the grounds where Mary appeared, I hope they have an encounter with her that ultimately leads them to profound encounters with the merciful and divine love of Christ,” he added.