San Diego Bishop Michael Pham condemned the “senseless act of violence” at a local Islamic mosque on May 18, an attack that left five people dead — three victims and two teenage suspects who died by suicide.
The city government said police responded to the shooting at the Islamic Center of San Diego just before noon on May 18. Three adult victims, including a security guard, were found dead outside of the center, while the two suspects — aged 17 and 19 — were found dead several blocks away with self-inflicted gunshot wounds.
The FBI is helping with the investigation, the city said. The shooting is being investigated as a hate crime.
In a statement released on May 18, Pham said the local Catholic community “stand[s] united in solidarity and prayer with the Muslim community” in San Diego.
Decrying the “senseless act of violence” at the mosque, Pham said the Islamic Center of San Diego “has been a longtime partner in our collaborative work for justice, especially in accompanying immigrants.”
“Houses of worship must always be sanctuaries of peace, safety, and prayer,” the bishop said. “An attack on one faith community is an attack on the sacred dignity of all human life.”
The bishop offered his "deepest condolences, solidarity, and fervent prayers to the families of the victims and the entire Muslim community.”
As of the morning of May 19 police had not yet released information about the suspects in the shooting; their names were being withheld “pending notifications,” according to the city government.
In a statement on its Facebook page, the Islamic Center said it had lost “three pillars of our community,” including the security guard, who “gave his life protecting the children and community members” of the facility.
The three men who were killed “put themselves on the line for our [mosque] and our community,” the center said, describing them as “men of courage, sacrifice, and faith.”
In another post the mosque said it had established a victim support fund for those impacted by the tragedy.
On its website the center said it was “closed until further notice.” The facility opened in 1989 and is the largest mosque in San Diego County.
The mosque was the target of a bomb attack in 1991 when an explosive device was found in a bathroom there. The device did not explode and nobody was injured in the incident.
A Catholic priest forced by Israel to leave the West Bank said farewell to his parishioners with a message of obedience, sorrow, and faith, saying he was returning to Jordan after serving the Christian community near Bethlehem.
“I have left Palestine, the land I loved, to return to my beloved homeland, Jordan, continuing the mission of the Gospel and justice,” Father Louis Salman wrote in a farewell message to the faithful.
Salman had served in Beit Sahour, at the Shepherds’ Field near Bethlehem, where he had become a much-loved figure among local Christians.
“In a spirit of priestly obedience, I accept all divine will and wisdom with hope and faith despite the deep pain,” the priest said in a message shared by the Bethlehem Institute for Peace and Justice. “I knew that speaking the truth is costly, and here I am paying the price. Not with regret, but with great love, like my crucified Christ.”
The priest described Jesus as his “example and teacher” and concluded his farewell by recalling the words of the Gospel: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
Father Louis Salman. | Credit: Photo courtesy of Father Louis Salman
Young priest with great pastoral potential
In comments to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, Bishop William Shomali, vicar general of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said Salman’s visa “was not renewed because he had made some political statements on Facebook that were considered by Israel to be incitement.”
“The Church did everything possible to resolve the situation, but Shabak [Israel’s internal security service] did not give a positive response,” Shomali said. “The Christian community in general — especially his parish and the young people he served as spiritual director — was deeply affected, especially during the farewell gathering they organized for him.”
Shomali clarified that Salman “was not physically expelled.”
“However, since his visa was not renewed, he was asked to leave discreetly to avoid any further tension,” the bishop said. “That is how the situation unfolded.”
Shomali said the priest’s future has already been arranged, adding that Salman will “soon receive a new assignment in one of our dioceses, since he is a good young priest with great pastoral potential.”
Interrogation and departure
According to sources familiar with the case cited by The Pillar in late April, the priest underwent an unusually lengthy interrogation.
Afterward, authorities of the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem reportedly advised Salman to leave Palestine for his own safety. He later received official notification that his visa would not be renewed, with no formal justification provided. The deadline for him to leave was May 11.
According to The Pillar, Jerusalem sources who requested anonymity said the case may mark the first time Israel has intervened so directly in internal Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem personnel decisions.
The same sources said the patriarchate does not plan to make public statements for the time being as it prepares for a possible legal battle expected to be long and complex.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
SUNAMGANJ, Bangladesh — As Catholics around the world mark Laudato Si‘ Week, a Caritas Bangladesh project in the countryʼs remote northeastern wetlands is offering a quiet, concrete example of what the late Pope Francis’ encyclical on care for creation looks like in practice.
In the Jamalganj area of Sunamganj district, about 4,000 families — roughly 20,000 people — are learning to grow food year-round on previously unused land in their backyards, raise poultry without chemical pesticides, and produce organic fertilizer from earthworms and cow dung.
The project, formally known as the Livelihood Diversification and Climate Resilience Project for the Haor Region, is run by Caritas Bangladesh, the charitable arm of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Bangladesh. It began in July 2023 and is scheduled to run through January 2027.
‘The taste of the food is better now’
Rubina Begum, 30, is one of the beneficiaries. On a small patch of uncultivated land beside her home, she grows gourds, eggplant, beans, and leafy greens — all without chemical pesticides or fertilizers.
“Caritas gave me earthworms and I am preparing fertilizer by releasing them into the cow dung. I am applying that fertilizer to the vegetable garden. I am using a kind of trap to kill the insects; I am using stove ash to kill insects. I am not using any kind of chemical pesticides or fertilizers,” Begum told EWTN News.
Before joining the program a year and a half ago, she used conventional farming methods. The difference, she said, is tangible.
“When we used to farm earlier, the yield was low and the taste of the food is also better now than before. We are also selling vegetables in the market to meet the needs of our family. With this, we can do other household purchases,” Begum, a mother of three, said. “At the same time, I am farming ducks and chickens at home, but earlier, due to the use of pesticides, I could not farm ducks and chickens at home; they would die.”
Rubina Begum, 30, sorts leafy greens with a neighbor outside her home in Jamalganj, Bangladesh, on March 16, 2025. | Credit: Stephan Uttom Rozario/EWTN News
Her husband, Samraj Miah, 40, is a day laborer. The Jamalganj area sits in Bangladeshʼs haor region — a basin of tectonic wetlands that floods for roughly four months each year, leaving families like theirs without work or income for extended stretches.
“I am grateful to Caritas. Because we are now able to live fairly comfortably by using the methods Caritas have taught us about vegetable cultivation and poultry farming,” Miah told EWTN News.
He added that a cow or two would allow them to produce their own dung for fertilizer rather than sourcing it from neighbors, while also supplying milk for the familyʼs nutritional needs.
A region where 90% live in poverty
According to the 2022 national census, the population of Jamalganj subdistrict is about 185,866 across an area of roughly 309 square kilometers. About 90% of the population lives below the poverty line, according to local government estimates.
Agriculture is the areaʼs primary livelihood, but climate change has made it increasingly precarious. Seasonal flooding eliminates crop production for four months each year, with an additional two months of knock-on disruption — meaning families can face six months without reliable income.
Caritas Bangladeshʼs response extends beyond kitchen gardening. The project also provides sewing machines and training, seed funding for small businesses, support for traditional handicraft workers, and tree-planting initiatives.
Aruna Debnath, 72, and his wife received about 5,500 taka (about $45) in startup assistance from Caritas. With the money, they buy bamboo and other materials and now earn about 2,500 taka (about $20) per week making baskets, pots, and chicken nets from home.
“We used to work as daily wage laborers, but as we get older, it becomes very difficult to work as day laborers, and many times they donʼt even want to hire us. But after receiving financial assistance from Caritas, we are working from home,” Debnath told EWTN News.
“I work at home on my own terms, take a break when itʼs hard, and then work again. With the income we earn, our family is living well,” he said.
The couple acknowledged, however, that the rise of cheap plastic alternatives has undercut the market for their biodegradable bamboo products.
'A part of Laudato Si' and environmental conservation'
Swapan Nayek, the project supervisor, told EWTN News that Caritas Bangladesh is incorporating the teachings of Laudato Si', the late Pope Francis' 2015 encyclical on the environment and human development, into every project.
“Among our various activities, we focus more on kitchen gardening so that they can produce something throughout the year on the fallow land in their backyards to meet their familyʼs needs and earn some income,” Nayek said.
Tree planting and greening are central to the haor project, he added, calling vegetable cultivation and annual tree planting "a part of Laudato Si' and environmental conservation."
But Nayek was candid about the scale of the challenges. Beyond food insecurity, the haor region faces acute problems with sanitation, healthcare, and access to clean drinking water.
“In the haor, there is not only a problem of food but also problems of sanitation, healthcare, drinking water, and these places are big challenges for us. We are providing services on a small scale, which is insufficient,” Nayek told EWTN News. He said more funding and vocational training are needed to expand the projectʼs reach.
Passengers board a ferry to cross the Surma River near Jamalganj in Bangladeshʼs Sunamganj district. | Credit: Stephan Uttom Rozario/EWTN News
The project also partners with the Bangladesh governmentʼs Department of Agriculture. Suman Kumar Saha, the agriculture officer for Jamalganj, praised the collaboration.
“Caritas‘ field-level farmer selection and the technology and resources they have are, in a word, extraordinary. Since Caritas is working for the socio-economic development of women here, this is also very commendable,” Saha told EWTN News. “The people of the haor are in great distress, and Caritas’ training and education are working very well to help them overcome that distress.”
For Begum, the aspirations are simpler and closer to home.
“I hope to make my children if not doctors, engineers or anything else, at least ideal farmers,” she said.
Catholic political and social thought, one of the foundational intellectual traditions of Western civilization, is poised for renewal as a new international initiative seeks to bring it back into conversation with new generations and decision-makers of tomorrow.
CatholicPOST, the Association for the Renewal of Catholic Political and Social Thought, was born from the conviction — shared by a group of European scholars during the COVID-19 lockdowns — that the health crisis had exposed not only the fragility of modern Western societies but also a deeper anthropological confusion threatening their social foundations.
That vision took concrete form at the inaugural conference of the association, titled “The Renaissance of Catholic Social Teaching,” held March 9–10 at the Ludovika University of Public Service in Budapest and attended by international academics and Vatican and Hungarian Catholic Church officials.
“COVID was a tragic moment in contemporary history, and it required thinking back again on the basics of social life,” Professor Ferenc Hörcher — a Hungarian professor of political philosophy, historian of ideas, and the association’s president — told EWTN News. “And that is something you can do best on the grounds of the Catholic tradition, pointing back to Aristotle and forward to the social teaching of the Church.”
For Hörcher — also director of the Research Institute for Politics and Government at Ludovika — the timing has only gained relevance with the election of Pope Leo XIV, whose choice of name evokes Pope Leo XIII, author of the landmark 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, widely regarded as the founding text of modern Catholic social teaching.
Neglected intellectual inheritance
One of CatholicPOST’s most urgent tasks is to restore Catholic social doctrine to its rightful place in intellectual life and academic discussion — a place it has progressively lost over the past century.
Secularization, according to the association’s founders, has pushed Catholic intellectual traditions to the margins of public discourse. Even conservative academic circles, in their view, have often drawn more from Anglo-Saxon traditions with Protestant roots than from Catholic social thought.
“Catholicism finds itself in the second row,” Hörcher said, “despite the fact that our modern and postmodern civilization is essentially built on it.”
The association presents itself as a scholarly, nonpartisan platform, open not only to Catholics but also to thinkers willing to engage seriously with the tradition.
“The Church cannot enter directly into political debate — that is not its mission,” Hörcher said. “But we, as Catholic intellectuals and practitioners in our own professions, can take that on.”
Deeper stakes
The initiative of the group, consisting of, among others, American, Swedish, Maltese, and Hungarian scholars, emerges at a moment of mounting polarization across Western societies, as clashes over gender identity, family, bioethics, and the very understanding of the human person grow increasingly confrontational — and, at times, violent.
For Hörcher, this is precisely why a recovery of serious Catholic political and social thought matters. CatholicPOST, he said, aims to reconnect contemporary debates with an intellectual tradition capable of addressing questions of philosophical anthropology that go far beyond basic politics.
That ambition also helps explain the caliber of thinkers already orbiting the initiative, from French political philosopher Pierre Manent, a leading contemporary thinker on natural law and the moral foundations of political life, to scholars at the University of Notre Dame, home to the natural law tradition developed by John Finnis, and Princeton’s James Madison Program, led by natural law theorist Robert George — a circle Hörcher is set to join for a year as a visiting scholar to Princeton’s Department of Politics.
The initiative has also attracted attention in Rome. In his keynote speech at the Budapest conference, Father Avelino Chico, head of office at the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, presented Catholic social teaching as a living intellectual tradition still evolving in response to the “new things” of each age — from industrial modernity in the time of Rerum Novarum to contemporary social challenges such as artificial intelligence, migration, ecological crisis, and widening inequality.
Chico portrayed Pope Leo XIV as continuing that trajectory, seeking to integrate the legacy of Leo XIII and Pope Francis through the lens of integral human development — an approach that takes seriously not only economic realities but also the spiritual, cultural, and political dimensions of human life.
Supporting new generations
The association is already planning a second conference in Kraków, a deliberate choice honoring Poland’s enduring Catholic intellectual tradition and the legacy of St. John Paul II.
Registration in the U.S. is also underway, as CatholicPOST has roots in American educational institutions like Christendom College, as a result of its aim to strengthen its international footprint and deepen transatlantic academic ties.
For Hörcher, however, the deeper hope is not merely institutional growth but helping provide intellectual substance to what he sees as a broader spiritual movement among younger Westerners rediscovering Christianity. “We hope to give munition,” he said, “intellectual support for those young people.”
He sees CatholicPOST as part of a recurring pattern in Catholic history. “Each century brought a revival of Catholic political thought,” he said, citing the neo-scholastic revival of 16th- to 17th-century Spain, the Holy Alliance of the post-Napoleonic Age, the social teaching inaugurated by Leo XIII, and the contribution of Catholic thinkers such as Jacques Maritain to the postwar rise of the human rights framework.
“These historical precedents help us envision what a new renaissance might look like — and why it is needed now."
In an interview with ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, on May 12, Sister Maria Chinaemerem Igwe said the incident has strengthened the faith of many Catholics and drawn Christians from other denominations to the hospital to pray and witness what she described as an extraordinary occurrence.
“As I was coming, I saw flames going above the roof. Everybody around, nurses, workers, and students, had gathered trying to pour water through the windows because the fire had already broken the glass,” Sister Maria recounted, noting that the fire destroyed the reception area, administrative offices, the CCTV control room, the doctors’ lounge, and part of the children’s ward before firefighters from the Enugu State Fire Service contained the blaze.
“Everything in the secretary’s office was burnt to ashes — computers, printers, scanners, and documents. The CCTV room also got destroyed. The doctors’ lounge, which included chairs, tables, televisions, and refrigerators, was burned,” the hospital administrator said.
Sister Maria attributed the incident to a possible power surge linked to unstable electricity supply.
“The light was coming and going within seconds, and we suspected there was a surge that triggered the fire,” she said.
Amid the destruction, however, the Marian statue beside the administrator’s office door was left undamaged, despite nearby objects being affected by the flames.
“The water dispenser beside the statue melted, and the CCTV wire dropped and got burnt in front of Mother Mary, but the statue remained intact; even the tablecloth and flowers around it were untouched,” Sister Maria told ACI Africa on May 12.
She explained that the statue forms part of a devotional practice at the hospital, in which departments host the Marian image for prayer every three months before passing it to another section.
“It happened that Mother Mary was staying in our department during this period,” Sister Maria said, adding: “The fire started from our department, but she blocked it from entering the administrator’s office, where we keep all the major hospital records and documents.”
She further recalled that her personal office showed no evidence of fire damage. “My office was just normal. No smell of smoke, no flame, nothing,” she said. “I started shouting, crying, and singing because I realized this was a great miracle.”
According to Sister Maria, residents, worshippers, and curious visitors have continued to come to the hospital following the incident.
“Some of them said they saw it on Facebook and wanted to confirm whether it was true,” she said.
“One lady from another denomination told me honestly that Catholics have Mother Mary and that Mother Mary is very powerful," Sister Maria recounted, saying that “their faith has increased. If it was 50% before, some people are now at 80% or 90%.”
Reflecting on the incident, the Nigerian religious sister encouraged Christians to deepen devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
“Those who did not believe in the intercession of Mary should know that she is still interceding for us. If you have true devotion to her, she will never allow you to be ashamed,” she said.
Sister Maria further said that the Catholic hospital, founded in 1957 and named after the Mother of Christ, has a long history of having the Blessed Virgin Mary as its patroness.
“This hospital is her house; anywhere the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary is, we believe she is present there,” the hospital administrator said, adding that the event has renewed faith among staff, patients, and visitors.
She continued: “Many non-Catholics are now coming here to pray and touch the place; this miracle has the capacity to convert people because they can see that the intercession of Mary is real.”
No casualties were reported in the fire, but Sister Maria said the hospital suffered extensive financial losses.
“We lost 23 new HP desktop computers, printers, air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions, and many other items. But my greatest joy is that no life was lost because no amount of money is greater than human life,” she said.
Sister Maria estimated that the destroyed equipment was worth more than 25 million naira ($18,253), while reconstruction of affected structures could cost approximately 1 billion naira ($738,000).
Appealing for support, she called on government agencies, nongovernmental organizations, benefactors, and former patients to assist the hospital’s rebuilding efforts.
“Mother of Christ [Hospital] has served people for more than 70 years. We are calling on everyone, especially those born in this hospital, to come and assist us. No amount is too small,” she said.
This story was first published by ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, and has been adapted by EWTN News.
UDAIPUR, India — Nine Catholics have been behind bars for more than two weeks after parishioners chased out more than a dozen people who barged into a village church during Mass, shouting accusations of conversion, in a remote village in Indiaʼs desert state of Rajasthan.
“We feel frustrated that our people were denied bail a second time today on the false allegation of conversion,” Bishop Devprasad John Ganawa of Udaipur, a Divine Word missionary, told EWTN News on May 12.
“When the hooligans disrupted the Mass on May 1 shouting ‘conversion,’ our people forced them out. Instead of registering a criminal case against the intruders, the police have charged our people with ‘conversion and attempt to murder’ and arrested nine Catholics of Bandaria Parish,” Ganawa explained.
‘They took out a knife’
“I was saying the evening Mass at the substation of my parish at Kalinjara village when the incident happened,” Father Arvind Amliyar recounted to EWTN News.
“During the Communion time over a dozen people stormed into the church, shouted ‘conversion,’ and started filming with cameras. When one of them took out a knife, our people snatched it and chased them out,” Amliyar said.
“Soon police came and what happened then shocked me. Instead of finding out what had happened, they arrested four Catholics the same night,” the priest said.
A Hindu mob then staged a protest outside the police station and demanded action against the parishioners, according to Amliyar. Police turned away Catholics who went to them twice, including at midnight the same day and the next day, refusing to register their complaint.
Police came knocking on May 4 at 2:30 a.m. and arrested five more parishioners, including Anil Rawat, 70, a retired headmaster of a government school who now runs a private school in the village.
Bail denied twice
The local magistrate court rejected the parishioners' bail application the next day, as they were charged with “serious crimes”: conversion and attempted murder. Church lawyers then moved the case to the Banswara district court, which denied bail again on May 12.
“Now, we have to go to the High Court with senior lawyers,” Amliyar said of the challenging situation facing the village church, which serves about 70 Catholic families. About 70 people were attending Mass when the intruders stormed in.
“I cannot understand what is going on. The police bluntly refused to register the complaint of our people and have filed a serious charge of conversion against our people and imprisoned them,” Ganawa said of the first case of alleged conversion in Udaipur Diocese, where he has served as bishop for 13 years.
Anti-conversion laws ‘reduced to a tool to harass minorities’
“This is another typical case of the widespread abuse of anti-conversion laws against Christians in several states, most of them ruled by the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party],” A.C. Michael, a Catholic and national coordinator of the United Christian Forum, which monitors atrocities against Christians, told EWTN News from New Delhi.
Under the Indian criminal system, the burden of proof lies with the prosecution. However, under recently enacted or amended anti-conversion laws, Michael said, the burden of disproving the charge of conversion is shifted to the accused, making it difficult for defendants to secure bail from trial courts quickly, even in fraudulent cases.
Under the Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, enacted in 2025, the burden of disproving the allegation of conversion falls on the accused.
As a result, Michael said, hundreds of Christians are languishing in jails in BJP-ruled states while protracted legal challenges drag on in higher courts.
“The shocking reality is that there has been hardly any conviction in so-called conversion cases. That is why the churches and Christian groups have moved the Supreme Court for abolishing the anti-conversion laws that have been reduced to a tool to harass minorities,” Michael said.
He noted that the Supreme Court in May 2024 observed that certain provisions in anti-conversion laws may be in violation of Article 25 of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate oneʼs religion.
The Feb. 4–10 biennial assembly of more than 200 bishops in India in Bangalore also reiterated this concern in its final statement: “As many innocent individuals are incarcerated based on unfounded allegations of forceful religious conversions, we strongly demand the repealing of legislations which are inconsistent with religious freedom and right to privacy.”
“After consultations with the national epidemic response task force and religious leaders, we have decided to postpone the Martyrs' Day to a later date, which will be communicated,” Museveni said in the two-page press release by Uganda State House.
The Ugandan president explained that the decision to postpone the annual celebration “was made because Uganda receives thousands of pilgrims annually from eastern Congo, which is currently experiencing an Ebola outbreak.”
“To safeguard everyoneʼs lives, it is essential that this important event be postponed,” he added.
The Ugandan president, who was sworn in for his seventh consecutive term on May 12, expressed regret to pilgrims who had already begun journeys to the Namugongo Martyrs’ Shrine in Kampala, saying that “the protection of life must come first.”
“I encourage those who have begun their journey to return home, continue observing the precautionary measures, report anyone who is sick, and encourage those who are ill to seek medical care,” Museveni said.
The DRC is facing a fresh Ebola outbreak linked to the rare Bundibugyo strain of the virus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak on May 15 after several deaths were reported in the Ituri province. Health officials say investigations and contact tracing are ongoing, and there is currently no licensed vaccine specifically approved for the Bundibugyo strain.
On May 16, WHO declared the outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, citing risks associated with cross-border movement, delayed case detection, weak health systems, and insecurity in eastern Congo.
The outbreak has heightened fears of cross-border transmission because eastern DRC shares major movement corridors with Uganda and South Sudan.
Preparations for the annual Martyrs' Day pilgrimage had already begun. A May 15 report indicated that Bishop Francis Kibira of Uganda’s Kasese Catholic Diocese had officially set off from Kabuyiri Shrine to receive pilgrims arriving by foot from DRC.
Uganda Martyrs’ Day commemorates 45 Christian converts aged between 14 and 50 who were killed between 1885 and 1887 because of their faith during the early years of Christianity in Uganda.
Among them were 22 Catholics who were beatified in 1920 and canonized in 1964. Their witness continues to shape Catholic life in Uganda and has become a significant symbol of Catholic identity and missionary faith worldwide.
The postponement forms part of Uganda’s heightened surveillance measures aimed at preventing the spread of Ebola into the country amid regular movement of pilgrims and travelers across the border.
Earlier in February, the Uganda Episcopal Conference entrusted the Diocese of Kasese with organizing the 2026 celebrations.
In a Feb. 11 update, officials from the diocese’s communications department said cooperation between the diocese and Kasese District Local Government reflected “a shared commitment” to ensuring “a well and spiritually uplifting event.”
“The joint effort underscores unity, faith, and service as both institutions prepare to represent Kasese with dedication and pride at this significant national religious event,” the officials said.
“Through coordinated planning and support,“ they added, ”the district leadership is working closely with Church authorities to mobilize resources, facilitate logistics, and encourage community participation.”
This story was first published by ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, and has been adapted by EWTN News.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is set to reestablish a civil rights division focused on religious liberty and conscience protections that was initially created during President Donald Trump’s first administration.
The move, announced May 18, restructures HHS’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) with three divisions: the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division, the Civil Rights Division, and the Health Information Privacy, Data, and Cybersecurity Division.
“This reorganization … strengthens the [OCR’s] ability to defend religious liberty, enforce conscience protections, and combat unlawful discrimination,” HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement.
“Under President Trump’s leadership, HHS will defend these rights with clarity, accountability, and resolve,” he said.
During Trump’s first administration in 2018, HHS established the office, but it was dissolved in 2023 under former President Joe Biden’s administration. According to an HHS news release, the restoration is meant to ensure HHS can better prioritize religious freedom and conscience rights enforcement.
According to the news release, the restoration is meant to build on Trump’s stated effort to eradicate “anti-Christian bias.”
On April 30, the Department of Justice issued a report on eradicating anti-Christian bias, which accused HHS under previous leadership of imposing rules for providers to offer what it called “gender-affirming care for minors.” The report stated that providers interpreted the rules as having “limited or no religious exemptions,” as exemptions were reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Under Biden, HHS also removed some conscience protections for doctors and interpreted the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) as imposing a requirement on hospitals and emergency rooms to offer abortion in “emergency” situations, which prompted lawsuits by Catholic organizations.
“This reorganization reinstitutes a structure that rightly prioritizes civil rights and conscience and religious freedom alongside health information privacy and security,” HHS OCR Director Paula M. Stannard said in a statement. “All three areas are deserving of subject-matter expertise and distinct senior executive leadership for OCR to best serve the American people.”
In March, HHS’s OCR launched investigations into 13 states for allegedly violating federal conscience protections for those who hold moral or religious objections to abortion.
A White House official in President Donald Trump’s administration expressed a desire to work more closely with churches and faith-based leaders in efforts to confront both drug and human trafficking and assist in recovery.
Victor Avila, assistant director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), made the comments during a panel discussion on border security and immigration enforcement hosted by the America First Policy Institute’s (AFPI) Hispanic Leadership Coalition in Washington, D.C., on May 14.
“We need to get the church involved,” he said, referencing a ONDCP report that emphasizes the importance of faith-based partners.
The report, issued this month, details the administration’s drug control strategy and states the office will ensure access to evidence-based prevention and recovery programs that are faith-based. It lists faith leaders as important partners and advocates and encourages them to use their role to promote a social norm that is opposed to using drugs and supportive of treatment for addicts.
Avila told EWTN News after the panel that he hopes churches can also assist in the realm of human trafficking, noting that much of it “happens in plain sight.”
Both the Vatican and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have been outspoken on the issue of human trafficking in recent years, with the Vatican hosting an international conference last year on the issue and the U.S. bishops running programs and promoting policies to combat human trafficking.
Illicit drugs, human trafficking, and border policies
The discussion of drug control and human trafficking was part of a broader conversation about border security and immigration enforcement in the country.
While the U.S. bishops support border security, they have been at odds with the administration over various immigration enforcement policies.
During the panel, Avila indicated that the work to secure the border has been essential to the “drop in drugs coming in” and noted “the illegal alien rate [is] almost at zero.” He specifically noted significant drops in poisonings related to fentanyl, which he also credited to dramatically improved border security during the current administration.
Alfonso Aguilar, AFPI director of Hispanic engagement, similarly noted humanitarian concerns that overlap with border security, noting people making journeys to cross the border unlawfully often face “violence, exploitation, and even death along the way” with many women and girls being victimized through “rape and sexual assault.”
“That’s not a humane system,” he said, emphasizing that migration should be “effective, lawful, and humane.”
America First Policy Institute’s Alfonso Aguilar speaks at a May 14, 2026, forum on U.S. immigration enforcement and border security. | Credit: Ken Oliver-Méndez/EWTN News
Panelists, including Avila and Aguilar, defended the administration’s mass deportation agenda, arguing that those policies are required for safety. Although a low percentage of migrants facing deportation have committed violent crimes, panelists claimed that a majority have some form of criminal history.
Aguilar said that number is 70% — the same number reported by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This number includes people convicted of crimes and those who face charges but have no convictions. It includes both felonies and misdemeanors.
Speaking to EWTN News, Aguilar said some nonviolent crimes are serious: “Child pornography is not a violent crime. It is a serious crime. Those are being detained as well.” During the panel, he noted other nonviolent crimes that put people at risk, such as driving while intoxicated.
“There is a 30% who are collateral arrests, but they are arrested when thereʼs an enforcement operation going after a criminal,” he told EWTN News.
Michael Garcia, a former Republican congressman from California, said during the panel that it’s important to “hold the criminals accountable first,” calling enforcement “common sense.”
During the panel, Emilio González, former director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, also noted that he is an immigrant, but he considers illegal immigration to be the greatest threat to legal immigration.
“It should be legal, it should be safe, it should be orderly,” he said.
Family separation, mass deportations
Before the panel began, Aguilar, a Catholic, quoted the concerns Cardinal Robert Sarah has expressed about large-scale migration, in which the cardinal noted that people come to Europe “penniless, without work, without dignity.”
“The Church cannot cooperate with this new form of slavery that has become mass migration,” Sarah said.
At the same time, Pope Leo XIV has encouraged support for migrants. In addition, the USCCB overwhelmingly backed a November 2025 joint statement to oppose “the indiscriminate mass deportation of people” and unnecessary separation of families.
A Brookings Institution report this week estimated that more than 100,000 children have been separated from their families as part of deportation proceedings.
A DHS spokesperson said in a statement to EWTN News that immigration enforcement “does not separate families,” adding: “Parents are asked if they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates. This is consistent with past administrations’ immigration enforcement.”
Avila, who had a career in federal law enforcement before joining the Trump administration, told EWTN News it’s “not a good feeling for us as police officers” to separate families, but that if someone in the country unlawfully has children who are citizens, then they have an option for the children to remain in the country or leave with the parent.
“They think that if my kid is a U.S. citizen that I get to somehow stay here,” he said, adding that this situation does not justify remaining in the country unlawfully.
“I arrested countless people in my career,” Avila said of his law enforcement experience. “One hundred percent of the time, I separated families.”
He said immigration enforcement has “separated families all the time” including when Avila worked for DHS under former President Barack Obama. He alleged a “double standard” in rhetoric from “the [political] left.”
DHS reported more than 675,000 deportations in Trump’s first year in office and has estimated more than 2.2 million self-deportations in that time period. Some organizations, including the Center for Migration Studies, have questioned the asserted self-deportation numbers.
Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, has strongly urged the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to stop expanding production of plutonium pits, the triggers used in nuclear weapons.
In a written statement, read by a priest on Wester’s behalf at a public hearing on May 14, the archbishop described nuclear weapons as “immoral” and “genocidal.” The priest who read the statement is from Hiroshima, Japan, where the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb in 1945.
The hearing, the fourth of five scheduled this month, drew more than 130 people in person and roughly 100 online, with the vast majority expressing opposition to the agency’s draft environmental impact statement, in which it lays out its plan to ramp up plutonium pit production.
Wester directly challenged the position of the NNSA that increased pit production complies with the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). He argued that the treaty’s core bargain requires nuclear-armed states to work toward disarmament, a commitment he said has not been fulfilled.
“The essential bargain of the NPT was that the nuclear weapons states try to negotiate nuclear disarmament,” Westerʼs statement said. “The nuclear weapons powers have never upheld that part of the bargain.”
The NNSA proposal calls for at least 80 pits per year by 2030, as required by the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, potentially split between Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
Between the two locations, they could produce around 200 pits per year.
The current number of pits being produced annually is “classified,” according to Toni Chiri, a spokesperson for the NNSA’s Los Alamos field office.
Chiri stated that the agency values public input and will consider comments as it prepares a final environmental impact statement.
‘Peace through atomic strength’
Nevertheless, Chiri emphasized the NNSA’s mission. “We make weapons that deter our adversaries. Atomic strength is essential for U.S. nuclear deterrence and national security.”
During the hearing, a screen displayed the NNSA’s slogan: “Peace through atomic strength.” The NNSA is housed within the U.S. Department of Energy.
The prelate’s intervention carried particular weight coming from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, which has lived for decades with the legacy of nuclear weapons development at Los Alamos in northern New Mexico.
Wester’s message aligns with consistent Church teaching that the use of nuclear weapons is incompatible with peace and human dignity.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church explicitly condemns “indiscriminate destruction of whole cities or vast areas with their inhabitants,” calling them “a crime against God and man.”
It does not, however, explicitly declare the possession of nuclear weapons immoral. That stronger language has come more recently from Pope Francis.
In 2022, Francis wrote: “I wish to reaffirm that the use of nuclear weapons, as well as their mere possession, is immoral,” in a letter to Ambassador Alexander Kmentt, president of the First Meeting of States Parties, regarding the U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
During his year-old pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has made multiple calls for peace. He has also warned of the dangers of modern warfare, including the threat of nuclear escalation at a time when global tensions remain high, and he has called for renewed international efforts toward disarmament and de-escalation.
Comments on the draft environmental impact statement will be accepted until July 16. The NNSA expects to issue a final decision early next year, though some commenters noted that as the agency is required by law to manufacture the pits, public hearings are useless.
Chiri said, however, that “NNSA does listen; we take the comments — especially those that actually address the document — and consider those as we work towards our final document.”
“Based on the turnout tonight, it’s clear that the public is paying attention and wants to provide its input,” she said.
Many attendees at the hearing also raised concerns about environmental impacts, water usage, waste disposal, and the health of workers and surrounding communities. Several speakers also questioned why a genuine “no-action” alternative — meaning no new pit production — was not seriously considered.
