Archbishop Edward J. Weisenburger of Detroit offered prayers and “profound sorrow” for the Jewish community after an attack on Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield, Michigan.
“We stand in solidarity with our Jewish brothers and sisters, holding in prayer all those affected by this act of violence, especially those who are wounded, grieving, or shaken, including the congregation, first responders, and the greater community,” Weisenburger said in a statement.
On March 12, an attacker drove a vehicle into Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, near Detroit, and opened fire.
“An attack on one faith community wounds us all,” Weisenburger said. “As details continue to emerge, we remain united with our partners in faith, particularly our Jewish friends and neighbors.”
“Together, we pray for an end to violence and for deeper peace in our world. May God’s abundant love and mercy guide us toward compassion, justice, and peace,” he said.
Synagogue attack
Jennifer Runyan, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Detroit field office, said in a statement the FBI “forensically confirmed the assailant responsible” was 41-year-old Ayman Mohamad Ghazali of Dearborn Heights, Michigan. He “has no previous criminal history and registered weapons. He also has never been the subject of an FBI investigation.”
In a timeline released by Runyan, the FBI reported Ghazali drove his vehicle into the synagogue building, injuring a security officer in the process. Ghazali then began firing a gun, starting a gunfight between him and security guards, the FBI said.
Ghazali’s vehicle’s engine compartment caught fire and at some point during the gunfire, Ghazali suffered “a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Runyan said.
In the bed of his truck, law enforcement found “a large quantity of commercial grade fireworks and several jugs filled with a flammable liquid we believe to be gasoline, some of which was consumed in the fire,” she said.
The FBI confirmed the suspect is deceased, but “thankfully, the brave officers and security personnel who protected the Temple … are recovering, and we continue to pray for their speedy healing,” Runyan said.
As the only doctor at a hospital serving more than 2 million people, Dr. Tom Catena works seven days a week and is on call every night — and still makes time for morning Mass.
An American Catholic missionary and the only surgeon at Mother of Mercy Hospital in the remote Nuba Mountains of Gidel, Sudan, Catena has spent more than two decades in Sudan in spite of civil war and conflict.
Catena told EWTN News that Sudan is “home to one of the worst humanitarian crises. The United Nations has described the civil war, which began in April 2023, as the most devastating humanitarian crisis, killing more than 150,000 people and displacing another 12 million people. In the region, the mother and infant mortality rate for maternity care is among the highest in the world.
“There really is no such thing as an average day here, and that’s part of what makes this work so demanding,” Catena said. “At Mother of Mercy Hospital, we are the only major medical facility serving more than 2 million people in the Nuba Mountains, so the volume and variety of what we see is staggering.”
“On any given day, I might be performing emergency surgery on a trauma victim from a bombing or drone strike, then turning around to treat a child with malaria or malnutrition and then delivering a baby,” he said.
The Sudanese army reportedly killed 48 people, mostly children and students, in a December 2025 drone strike that was the deadliest attack on civilians in the Nuba Mountains since the civil war began in April 2023.
“The crisis in Sudan is not new but continues to make delivering humanitarian and medical aid exponentially harder,” Catena said. “Supply lines are disrupted, so we are perpetually short on medications, surgical supplies, and even basic necessities like clean water and food for patients.”
The crisis is aggravated by blockades that in some areas prevent humanitarian teams and supplies from entering. In addition, the humanitarian response only has about 5% of the funding it needs to address the famine, according to Action Against Hunger.
“We lose people that we shouldn’t lose simply because we don’t have the resources,” Catena said. “That is the most heartbreaking part of this work — knowing that lives are being lost not because medicine doesn’t exist to save them but because it cannot reach us.”
“Despite all of this, we keep going because if we stop, there is no one else,” he said. “The people here have no other option, and neither do I.”
Sudan ‘receives a fraction’ of attention, resources
“What I wish people understood is that Sudan is home to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world right now, and yet it receives a fraction of the attention and resources that other conflicts do,” Catena said.
The Nuba Mountains are considered one of the most remote places in the world. Spanning 30,000 square miles, the region relies on dirt roads and is further isolated due to blockades.
Catena said that local humanitarian groups and grassroots efforts are “critical.”
“Large international organizations often cannot access places like the Nuba Mountains due to the conflict and logistical barriers,” he continued. “It is the people on the ground who keep things running when no one else can get in.”
“The people of the Nuba Mountains have been suffering for years — from bombings, from displacement, from starvation,” he said. “These are real people, families, children, who deserve the same dignity and care as anyone else on this planet.”
From 1989 to 2019, Sudan faced 30 years of political upheaval and violence, including the Darfur genocide in the early 2000s. In 2023, violence erupted again between the government’s army, the Sudanese Armed Forces, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces — both of which have been accused of war crimes.
Catena called the hospital “a symbol of hope.”
“Mother of Mercy Hospital is the only major referral hospital for more than 2 million people in this region,” Catena said. “We provide surgical care, maternal health services, treatment for infectious diseases, malnutrition programs — everything that a community needs to survive.”
“But beyond the medical work, the hospital has become a symbol of hope and stability for the people here,” Catena said. “It tells them that they have not been forgotten, that someone cares enough to stay.”
Faith in the Nuba Mountains: ‘Called to serve’
“My faith is really the foundation of everything I do here,” Catena said. “It’s what brought me to the Nuba Mountains in the first place, and it’s what keeps me here when things get incredibly difficult.”
Catena founded the hospital and has been providing care there since 2008 as the only surgeon permanently in the region.
“I am a Catholic, and I believe deeply that we are called to serve the most vulnerable among us,” Catena said. “This belief motivates me through each day in the operating room, at the bedside, in the chaos of mass casualty events.”
When asked about Catholic social teaching on solidarity, Catena said that solidarity “demands action.”
“Solidarity is not just a theological concept for me — it is something I live every single day,” he said. “Solidarity means more than feeling sympathy from a distance. It means being present with people in their suffering, standing alongside them, and refusing to leave even when the situation becomes challenging.”
Dr. Tom Catena at the Aurora Prize Ceremony on May 28, 2017, in Yerevan, Armenia. | Credit: Aurora Humanitarian Initiative
“True solidarity demands more than thoughts and prayers — it demands action,” Catena continued. “It demands that people advocate for the forgotten, that resources flow to the places where they are needed most, and that we refuse to accept a world where millions of people are left to suffer in silence.”
Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, a nonprofit founded on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide, exemplifies this solidarity, according to Catena.
“Aurora embodies the principle of solidarity in a tangible way by identifying and supporting humanitarians who are on the ground, doing the difficult and often invisible work of saving lives,” he said. “They recognize that solidarity is not charity from above, it is showing up and staying.”
Alongside his work in Sudan, Catena has chaired Aurora’s advisory board since 2018.
“Aurora’s mission is to support humanitarians working at the grassroots level, people who are embedded in their communities and who will remain long after the cameras leave,” Catena said. “That model of empowering local actors is not just effective, it is essential.”
“The people of the Nuba Mountains deserve nothing less than our full solidarity, and I will continue to call on the world to provide it,” he said.
Catena stressed the “critical importance of getting resources directly to the humanitarians working on the ground in crisis zones like this one.”
“There are local health workers and small organizations operating in some of the most dangerous and forgotten places on earth, doing extraordinary things with almost nothing,” Catena said.
Amid the countless daily challenges the hospital faces, Catena is inspired by the faith that surrounds him.
“I find that in the midst of suffering, God’s presence becomes even more real,” Catena continued. “The people here have an extraordinary faith themselves, and that inspires me tremendously.”
“We carry each other through the darkest moments, and I believe that is the Holy Spirit at work among us,” he said.
Ave Maria University in Florida is setting out to make its students a fixture in the historically Catholic community surrounding Mount Melleray Abbey in County Waterford, Ireland.
“We are not here to give our students a cultural exchange; we’re here to have a campus that is steeped both in our culture and the tradition of Ireland,” Daniel Schreck, chief strategy officer for Ave Maria University, told EWTN News.
“That means understanding the people of Ireland, County Waterford, the town of Cappoquin, and the Cistercian order,” he said. “I think that’s how you really make this a permanent home and not just a building we’re coming to once a semester with our given cohort of students.”
Ave Maria University acquired the abbey after it closed in January 2025, prompted by dwindling numbers among the Cistercian community, which announced its plans to consolidate with monks from St. Joseph Abbey in Roscrea and Mellifont Abbey in Louth in December 2024.
Ave Maria plans to bring its first cohort of 100 students to the abbey for the fall 2026 semester. The university had a launch event for the campus earlier this year, which Schreck said was attended by roughly 500 students, and saw 300 applications to the program. The university has accepted 150 so far and hopes one day to accept Irish students as well.
An American liberal arts encounter with Irish tradition
“The program will be a sort of encounter between the charisms and liberal arts curriculum at Ave Maria University, and the practices and charisms of the Cistercian community,” Mount Melleray Campus Executive Director Samuel Shephard told EWTN News.
Students who participate in the program will take classes from Ave Maria’s liberal arts core curriculum of theology, philosophy, and science, as well as Ireland-specific courses, including Irish language courses, Irish Church history, and a course on Irish saints and their holy places.
Aerial image of County Waterford, Ireland. | Credit: Photo courtesy of Ave Maria University
In addition to their studies, Shephard said, students will live the Cistercian tradition of not only study but also work and prayer. The university is planning to rehabilitate the monastery’s farm so students can work on it. Shephard said he hopes to have animals on the land again and restore the abbey’s workshops.
The campus will have a live-in priest, either from the university or the local diocese, and students will have access to two Masses per day as well as adoration, confession, and hopefully, Shephard said, Cistercian chant.
“One thing I find so wonderful is [the Cistercians] make a vow of stability,” Shephard said. “They’re really focused on this rhythm of life in a particular place. So that’s one of the things we love to jump into, is that real sense of place, and history, and prayer.”
Maintaining a local ‘beacon of faith’
Shephard, who is originally from Ireland, emphasized the monastery’s historic importance as “a beacon of faith” to the town of Cappoquin. “It was very sad for them [when] the monks moved out,” he said of the local community. “Now that they know another authentic Catholic institution is coming back, and that we’re going to embrace that history, they seem to be generally very excited about the project.”
The abbey was first established in 1832 by a group of Cistercian monks who were expelled from France during the French Revolution. “The townspeople of Cappoquin built Mount Melleray by hand, and so did the Cistercians,” Schreck said. “So, it’s important for the people of Ireland and our students who go there and for Americans reading this article to realize we’re part of that continuity of the faith that’s happened there in that county in Ireland.”
Shephard also noted the shop, café, and pilgrim’s hostel located on the campus will remain open to those traveling along the Declan’s Way pilgrimage that runs through the property. “For us is very symbolic that there’s still this very public statement and purpose of Mount Melleray, even well beyond our students studying there,” he said regarding the pilgrimage.
“We’re going to keep those open, but not in a proselytizing manner, just in the quiet friendship, ‘come and see’ type of quiet,” he said: “Come and see what we’re doing, come and meet the students, come and go to Mass. Just keep that Cistercian tradition of welcome.”
A hope for vocations
One aspect Schreck said is close to the hearts of Ave Maria University President Mark Middendorf and the university’s founder and chancellor, Tom Monaghan, is vocational discernment.
Schreck emphasized that students will be encouraged to discern their vocations more clearly while studying at the Ireland campus, with limited Wi-Fi access, opportunities for silent retreats, and a prohibition on inter-visitation between men and women’s dorms.
Ultimately, he said, “we hope this benefits the Cistercians because part of the reason the Cistercians have now moved from Mount Melleray is because there weren’t enough vocations.”
“We feel like bringing 200 students per year, and in their case, 100 young men per year that believe in the Catholic Church and are happy and are smart, I’m sure we’ll get a few vocations for them each year,” Shephard said.
A new biblical series will depict the Book of Genesis through the eyes of the book’s most well-known women. “The Faithful: Women of the Bible” follows the stories of Sarah, Hagar, Rebekah, Leah, and Rachel and how each of these women, and their descendants, shaped the story of salvation.
The three-week event will begin airing on March 22 on Fox and end on Easter Sunday, April 5.
René Echevarria, executive producer and showrunner of the series, told EWTN News that the creators “set out to try to tell these stories in an emotionally grounded way and really try to understand what their lives were like — what their emotional lives were like.”
“One thing that emerges is that all of the three stories that we chose to tell … all of these women stumble,” he said. “They’re trying to figure out how to proceed in life against different complicated circumstances — sometimes encounters with the divine that are asking them to do difficult things — and so that was our sort of North Star, was always to try to understand them on an emotional level.”
The filmmaker highlighted the idea of the relatability behind these stories and how they resonate with modern audiences, especially that of Sarah and Abraham, who were unable to conceive a child for decades.
Echevarria shared that he and his wife struggled with infertility for several years. They realized they needed to place their trust in God’s plan for them. Eventually, they were blessed with three children.
Actress Minnie Driver as Sarah in Fox’s “The Faithful: Women of the Bible.” | Credit: Fox Broadcasting Company
He also pointed out the importance he and his team placed on staying true to Scripture.
“Our guiding principle was that if we were going to dramatize some part of the story, a scene, let’s call it, that’s described in the Bible, then we’re going to dramatize it the way it’s described and including dialogue if there is some,” he explained.
“If we choose not to show something from the Bible, we wanted to make sure that there was nothing that we didn’t present that would make those sort of off-camera scenes impossible to have had occurred,” Echevarria added. “And then the rest was filling in the blanks. The Bible can be very specific, but it can also be profound in its silences … We need to do the research to find out about life at that time to fill in those gaps.”
Echevarria said he hopes viewers are reminded that the men and women in these stories were “flawed, strong, people dealing with extraordinary circumstances and sometimes they made mistakes and yet God always made a good work of it.”
Reflecting on the release of the series being during Lent and the start of Easter, Echevarria said: “We’re coming out of a time for many of us, a time of fasting, a time of reflection.”
“We all love Christmas but Easter is the heart of our faith, isn’t it? So to be able to present these stories, which are the beginning of the Easter story in a sense, the beginning of God’s unfolding story, and his love for his children, and how he set it all in motion 4,000 years ago through Sarah and Abraham.”
Here is a roundup of Catholic world news from the past week that you might have missed:
Scotland bishops on assisted suicide legislation: ‘Safeguards do not work’
The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Scotland is urging Catholics to express opposition to the latest assisted suicide legislation proposed in the country to their representatives in Parliament.
“One of the most serious concerns about assisted suicide legislation is this: Safeguards do not work,” the bishops wrote in a March 6 statement.
“We only have to look at countries that have already introduced these laws. In places such as Holland, Belgium, and Canada, what began with strict limits has steadily expanded. Boundaries shift. Protections weaken. And the most vulnerable are placed at risk.”
The bishops’ latest statement comes ahead of a final vote on March 17 for the bill that would give terminally ill adults access to assisted suicide.
Italian Church calls for day of prayer and fasting for peace
Italy’s bishops designated Friday, March 13, as a national day of prayer and fasting for peace, responding to growing alarm over widening conflict in the Middle East and the risk of broader international destabilization.
The bishops said war cannot become a solution and insisted that diplomacy, dialogue, and the pursuit of the common good remain the only serious path forward.
Parishes and Catholic communities across the country were invited to mark the day through special liturgical intentions, the Stations of the Cross offered for the Middle East, and acts of fasting in solidarity with those enduring war, displacement, and deprivation.
The Church in Italy is also urging prayers for world leaders, refugees, the wounded, and grieving families, while calling the faithful to recover charity as the true foundation of peace.
Diocese of Hong Kong anticipates thousands of baptisms this Easter
The Diocese of Hong Kong is preparing for 2,500 baptisms at Easter, according to a report from Fides News Agency.
The new members of the Church in China include 1,600 adults and 900 infants, according to a recent diocesan bulletin cited in the report, which said this year’s numbers were comparable to those in 2025.
Cardinal Stephen Chow Sau-yan celebrated the rite of scrutiny with catechumens in the diocese at Christ the King Church on March 8 and instructed the future members of the Church to “be bearers of hope.”
Syria feeling fallout of Iranian war despite lack of involvement
Syria is once again absorbing the shockwaves of regional war, as Iranian missiles and drones headed toward Israel pass through its airspace, with projectiles frequently falling inside southern Syria and areas with a Christian presence, ACI MENA reported March 9.
Along the Syrian-Lebanese border, the city of Damascus has increased its military deployment, describing the move as defensive and aimed at border control, anti-smuggling efforts, and preventing infiltration as fighting intensifies inside Lebanon.
The war has also deepened Syria’s humanitarian and economic strain: Thousands of Syrians have returned from Lebanon to escape Israeli strikes, fuel stations have seen panic buying, cooking gas has become harder to obtain, and electricity shortages have worsened amid reduced natural gas flows.
Ethiopian bishops call for investigations into Christian killings
Catholic bishops in Ethiopia have expressed “profound sorrow and unequivocal condemnation” of the recent killings of innocent civilians across the country, including the brutal attacks in the Arsi Zone, a major administrative division within the Oromia Region, located in the southeastern highlands.
“The deliberate taking of innocent human life is a grave sin before God and a violation of the sacred dignity bestowed upon every person created in the image of God,” the bishops said in a statement to ACI Africa, the sister service of EWTN News in Africa, on March 10.
“Such violence against defenseless civilians can never be justified by religion, ethnicity, or political interest. We call upon the responsible authorities to undertake investigations and to ensure that those responsible for these crimes are brought to justice.”
Tanzanian bishop condemns police use of tear gas at cathedral
Bishop Michael George Msongazila of Tanzania’s Diocese of Musoma has condemned what he described as “the excessive use of force” by the Tanzania Police Force after officers reportedly hurled tear gas canisters at Holy Mother of God Cathedral.
“I condemn this act of police using force at the headquarters of the Catholic Diocese of Musoma,” Msongazila said in a statement on March 10, ACI Africa reported.
In his statement, Msongazila recounted that a group of women reportedly affiliated with an opposition political party joined other faithful for Mass on March 8 at the cathedral and that, as they were leaving, police officers threw tear gas canisters into the cathedral compound.
The bishop further described the police action as “an act of oppression and cruelty,” insisting that such conduct undermines public trust and calls for urgent reform within the country’s law enforcement structures.
Catholic Church in Philippines to establish mission on island disputed with China
Apostolic Vicar Socrates Calamba Mesiona of Puerto Princesa in the Philippines is establishing a Catholic presence on Pag-asa Island, part of the Philippines-occupied Spratly Islands in the South China Sea.
The islands are a strategic and contested archipelago in the South China Sea and a source of tension between China and the Philippines due to its natural resources, according to Asia News.
Mesiona met with government officials to discuss building a church on the island. The bishop said he expected to complete initial preparations for the mission by the end of March. A groundbreaking ceremony is also expected to take place by the end of the month. A parish name and patron saint have yet to be announced, the report said.
Psychologist Dr. Paul McHugh spoke with “EWTN News In Depth” about his decades-long career, detailing how sexual reassignment surgeries are not the answer for transgender individuals.
McHugh is a 94-year-old American psychiatrist and educator. He is a distinguished service professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was previously the Henry Phipps professor and psychiatrist-in-chief from 1975 to 2001.
McHugh has conducted years of research on sexual reassignment surgeries, which are medical procedures that alter a person’s physical sex characteristics such as the chest, genitals, or facial features. McHugh found they do not resolve underlying psychological issues. While some may believe McHugh’s view on the surgeries comes from his faith as a Catholic, he said it is also based in research.
“I am Catholic, and I can’t tell in what way my faith influences any of the things I do. I’m sure it’s important in everything I do. So I can’t deny that it may play a role,” he said. “But … I try to use the information that everybody else uses in determining the fixity or the ‘born that way’ idea.”
McHugh’s career
McHugh is known for many actions in his career, including a move to shut down Johns Hopkins Gender Identity Clinic in 1979 that was performing sex reassignment operations.
When McHugh started to work at Johns Hopkins, the treatment had been going on for about 10 years at the clinic. There were some faculty members following up on the cases to decide if the patients were getting better or worse.
While “most of the patients at the time felt that they had done the right thing when they subjected themselves to the surgery,” all of the issues that they were told would be corrected “didn’t improve,” he said.
“Their difficulties in interpersonal relationships, their difficulties in their jobs. They had difficulty with their families, which was the whole reason for doing it. They were not better,” he said.
“So it didn’t seem to me that this experiment was working out,” McHugh said, noting that it was in fact “an experiment,” because “it wasn’t that they knew perfectly well that these patients would benefit from it.”
“And when they weren’t benefiting … I thought: ‘Well, why do it? Let’s find another way of helping them.’” The clinic was then shut down because of “the evidence,” McHugh said. “I didn’t think at the time that we had enough experience to be able to justify such a radical procedure.”
At the time, McHugh’s colleagues at Johns Hopkins took out an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun with pushback on his views. “I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised because the truth of the matter is many people want to know the answer to a question, but they don’t want to have an answer that they don’t like,” McHugh said.
“And if you start asking, just asking the question, it causes them anxiety because they want a particular answer. So I wasn’t particularly surprised that it didn’t go down easily. But I just think we ought to continue asking the question because it’s a very important question,” he said.
Transgender movement today
McHugh has been “astonished” by the momentum from 1979 to today of the transgender movement, the social and political effort advocating for the rights and inclusion of people whose say their gender identity differs from their biological sex.
By closing the clinic, “it didn’t seem to me that we were doing anything terribly radical,” McHugh said. “But gradually, the idea became that somehow or another we were denying these people their honest sex. And I kept saying, ‘Look, we have two things here. We have the facts of the body, and we got the ideas of the patient.’”
Instead of the program building upon “facts,” it was “generating more concern about the ideas and giving the ideas primary focus,” McHugh said. “And I thought that was one of the kinds of things where psychiatry has gone wrong in the past and could go wrong again — imagining things rather than knowing things.”
“We don’t know enough” about the psychiatric impact, especially on children who undergo these operations, “because we’re not spending enough time studying them,” McHugh said.
“The whole idea of doing this to children to … presumably get them to think more about what they’re experiencing has been a track towards … persuading them and has not been a good idea,” he said.
“I’ve, after all, seen a lot of young people … especially young girls, being persuaded that there are some aspects of themselves, in their body, that needs correction,” he said. “It’s really the foundation of anorexia nervosa and things of that sort.”
Children need to be “encouraged to just grow up and let their body take it,” McHugh said. “It turns out that 85% to 90% of them drop off of this. So if you don’t treat them with so-called gender affirming treatments, hormones, or surgery, they gradually give it up.”
Puberty is “a very vulnerable time … all kinds of things are changing in your body and in your mind,” McHugh said. “Once you get through puberty, a new kind of person comes to think about what life is going to be like, what they would commit themselves to.”
“Human beings are different from animals,” he said. “Animals, when they go through puberty, just become what they were from the start. Human beings have a rebirth after puberty as they think in terms of who they are, and what they would like to do. And those ideas would be best appreciated, and filled out, if you were what God made you, as it were.”
“But if you are changed, then you have to spend your life committed to this change, and defending it, rather than moving forward,” he said.
‘Many more lawsuits’ to come
McHugh has stated publicly over the years that he thought it would be lawsuits that ultimately cease the surgeries for minors.
In February, a New York jury awarded $2 million to a woman who underwent a double mastectomy at age 16 in what is believed to be the first U.S. malpractice case of its kind to reach a trial verdict.
Following the first malpractice suit, “it should be” the end of transgender surgeries for minors, McHugh said. “But there are going to be many more lawsuits coming down the pike now, as I predicted it would come.”
The “$2 million is a small thing,” McHugh said. “It’s going to be a lot higher as more and more people come to realize, and they’re going to be mostly women in their mid-20s.”
Next steps
At 94, McHugh said “I’m not retiring yet.” He added: “I’m going to see if I can go a bit further. God got me this far. Maybe he’ll carry me on another while. I’ve got wonderful grandchildren I want to see more of and see how they flourish.”
While he has no plans to retire yet, when that day comes he spoke to what he hopes his legacy is. He said: “I want people to think … that I was part of my times and that I didn’t shy away from the things that occupied the attention of my fellow Americans.”
“I think it’s really important to see that the role you have calls for certain kinds of courage. And if you don’t have that, you shouldn’t have that role. And I had some adventures. And it turns out I was right about a lot of things — that’s the fun part.”
A conservative government watchdog group has filed a lawsuit against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, claiming his office failed to respond to a public-records request seeking documents on school security funding and whether nonpublic schools were considered for state safety programs.
Judicial Watch submitted the request to the governor’s office on Aug. 28, 2025, — one day after a gunman killed two children and wounded 17 others during an all-school Mass at Annunciation Catholic Church and School in Minneapolis. The March 4 complaint seeks communications from January 2022 through August 2025 concerning proposals to extend the state’s Safe Schools funding and a proposed $50 million Building and Cyber Security Grant Program to private schools.
Minnesota’s Safe Schools funding, including a 2019 supplemental appropriation, supports security improvements, emergency preparedness, mental health services, and violence-prevention initiatives in public and charter schools but does not cover roughly 72,000 students in private schools, including Catholic institutions. Judicial Watch says the lawsuit highlights repeated appeals from Minnesota Catholic Conference leaders and other school officials following major U.S. school shootings in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022 and Nashville, Tennessee, in 2023, which they say were ignored by the governor.
The Minnesota Catholic Conference told EWTN News it had not engaged Judicial Watch and was disappointed the group used its name without consultation. The conference noted that 2026 legislative proposals aim to expand Safe Schools funding for all students. Walz’s office did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
Faculty at Thomas Aquinas College launch podcast
Thomas Aquinas College announced professors Christopher Decaen and John Finley will co-host a podcast, “Great Books and First Principles.”
“For a long time, I have heard from many of our alumni and friends that we should start a TAC podcast,” Thomas Aquinas College Vice President and Dean Emeritus John J. Goyette said in a press release. “Well, it’s finally happening!”
“In these episodes, we are having a serious but unscripted conversation about some of the greatest works of the greatest minds of Western civilization, discussing, wondering about, and sometimes critiquing the insights contained in these works,” Decaen said.
Mirroring the curriculum at the college, the podcast hosts will discuss works of literature, philosophy, theology, natural science, and mathematics. The show will occasionally feature guests and college alumni.
The first four episodes of the podcast focus on Karl Marx’s “Communist Manifesto,” Aristotle’s “Nicomachean Ethics,” Ptolemy’s “Almagest,” and Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “The Brothers Karamazov.”
The episodes are available on podcasting platforms including Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Catholic Benedictine college in New Hampshire announces next president
St. Anselm College announced Michael Lewis, provost and chief officer at Saint Louis University, has been named its 12th president.
Lewis will assume the position at the Manchester, New Hampshire, school on July 1, according to a March 9 university press release. The statement said the university conducted a nationwide search for a candidate to replace its president, Joseph A. Favazza, who will retire June 30.
“The mission of Saint Anselm College is not simply a heritage to preserve — it is a responsibility to carry forward. In a world searching for truth, stability, community, and hope, this college has an indispensable role to play,” Lewis said.
Lewis holds a chemistry degree from St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Missouri-Columbia. He has been a faculty member at Saint Louis University since 2004 and has been provost there since 2020.
“Among his many impressive attributes, Dr. Lewis is a strong listener who builds deep relationships with others, he has made difficult decisions with the mission as the guide, and he and his wife view serving in Catholic higher education as their vocation and life calling,” Saint Anselm Board of Trustees Chair Jeb Lavelle said.
Florida’s oldest Catholic university starts Benedictine Society expanding college access
Saint Leo University in Pasco County, Florida, has launched a leadership program aimed at removing financial barriers for “talented Catholic high school students” to attend the university.
The Benedictine Society will provide four-year full tuition scholarships for “high-achieving high school students with demonstrated financial need,” according to a university press release.
Jim Burkee, president of Saint Leo University, announced the Benedictine Society during a March 7 alumni event.
“Across the country, there are thousands of remarkable students graduating from Catholic high schools who have the talent, discipline, and values to thrive at Saint Leo but don’t have the resources necessarily to afford a Saint Leo education,” Burkee said at the event.
The program also will provide opportunities for academic support, spiritual formation, and leadership development.
In a virtual panel hosted by the conservative Federalist Society on Friday, three lawyers questioned the constitutionality of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and discussed the alleged selective enforcement against pro-life activists.
The FACE Act, which became law in 1994, imposes federal criminal penalties on people who use physical force or intimidation to interfere with access to abortion clinics, pro-life pregnancy centers, and houses of worship.
Under former President Joe Biden’s administration, enforcement focused mostly on pro-life advocates, who were later pardoned by President Donald Trump. Under Trump, it has been used more sparingly, but it was invoked to charge people who staged protests and a church and a synagogue.
Matthew Cavedon, director of the Project on Criminal Justice at the libertarian Cato Institute, argued that the FACE Act is unnecessary and unconstitutional. He said “most police powers are exercised at the state level — not the federal level,” which is where he thinks the enforcement of those violations should be handled.
“States can absolutely respond to that with criminal charges, and it often is appropriate to do so,” he said, noting that every state has laws that protect private property rights and enforce criminal trespass violations.
Cavedon said the federal government “can step in in order to enforce people’s rights” if states are failing to protect them. However, without proof of such failures at the state level, he argued “this is not something the federal government can proactively step in and federalize.”
“I don’t think it’s constitutional because I don’t see what enumerated power of Congress justifies it,” he said.
Congress justifies the law based on its right to regulate interstate commerce, which lawmakers often cite to justify federal intervention. Cavedon called the reasoning “absolutely bonkers” and cautioned against such a broad interpretation of the commerce clause.
Erin Hawley, who serves as counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom and has argued cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, also said she has “serious constitutional concerns with the FACE Act.”
In addition to the concerns raised by Cavedon, she said it should be evaluated for its “selective’ enforcement against pro-life advocates and courts should determine “whether this statute has been evenly applied.”
“It has been dramatically targeted at pro-life individuals who have been protesting, most of them peacefully, at abortion clinics,” Hawley said.
She specifically cited the prosecution of Eva Edl, a survivor of a Soviet-run concentration camp, who was sentenced to three years of probation at the age of 87. Other pro-life advocates were given prison sentences that ranged from a few months to several years.
“If it’s going to be enforced, it should … [be] enforced equally,” Hawley said.
Jeremy Dys, senior counsel for First Liberty, acknowledged the constitutional concerns but said federal courts have consistently upheld the constitutionality of the law and he doubts Congress would repeal it, saying: “The question’s probably completely off the political table.”
If the law remains in place, he said enforcement should “stop being dis-equal” and prosecutors should enforce it in a balanced way.
Dys cited the Trump administration’s enforcement of the FACE Act against protesters who entered a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, which prompted charges against protesters and journalist Don Lemon. Dys said the video shows protesters were “agitating through intimidation or interference,” which is a proper justification for bringing charges.
“The law has not been faithfully applied,” he said.
In 2025, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, introduced a bill to repeal the FACE Act. The bill failed to get a full vote on the floor of the House of Representatives. Other legislative attempts have also had little success.
The Cuban government announced that it will release 51 people from prison because of its “smooth” relations with the Vatican — a move that coincides with the upcoming observance of Holy Week.
“In the spirit of goodwill, and of the close and smooth relations between the Cuban state and the Vatican — with which communication regarding processes for the review and release of persons deprived of liberty has historically been maintained — the government of Cuba has decided to release, in the coming days, 51 individuals sentenced to deprivation of liberty [prison],” the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported in a March 12 statement.
The director of the Holy See Press Office, Matteo Bruni, confirmed to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News, on March 13 that “conversations regarding the release of prisoners have recently taken place.”
The statement from the Cuban ministry notes that all these individuals “have served a significant portion of their sentences and have maintained good conduct in prison”; however, it does not indicate whether the group includes political prisoners.
The communist regime states that since 2010, it “has granted pardons to 9,905 inmates, while — over the last three years, as part of Cuban practice and pursuant to the provisions of our legislation — another 10,000 individuals sentenced to deprivation of liberty were released based on certain conditions.”
This announcement comes amid renewed tensions between Cuba and the United States, which began in January, and the recent meetings that representatives from both countries have held with Vatican officials.
On Feb. 20, the U.S. chief of mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, held a meeting at the Vatican with Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s secretary for relations with states.
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin stated on March 9 that the Holy See has taken “the necessary steps” regarding the situation in Cuba, “always with a view to a solution to the existing problems through dialogue.”
In January 2025, the Cuban regime also announced the release of 553 prisoners following mediation by Pope Francis and “in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of 2025.”
Victoria Cardiel, EWTN News correspondent in Rome, contributed to this report.
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.
Bill to safeguard women from chemical abortion introduced by Sen. Josh Hawley
U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, on March 11 announced legislation to ban the chemical abortion drug mifepristone, citing safety concerns for women.
The Safeguarding Women from Chemical Abortion Act, which is widely supported by life-affirming groups, would withdraw FDA approval for the use of mifepristone for chemical abortions as well as establishing a federal tort “for harm to women caused by chemical abortion drugs.” This would allow women who have been harmed by the drug to make claims against the U.S. government in relation to mifepristone. Mifepristone is also used to manage early miscarriages, which the bill would not ban.
A recent study by the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) found that the removal of in-person visit requirements led to an increase in adverse effects for women having chemical abortions. This study is one among several pointing to a higher rate of serious problems.
Multiple other studies have shown high rates of hospitalizations for women taking the abortion pill. Chemical abortion has a complication rate four times that of surgical abortion, according to one study. Another report found that abortion pill complications are often underreported or misclassified.
The legislation comes after the Trump administration pledged to investigate the safety of the drug but later approved a generic version of the abortion pill in October 2025.
“The science is clear: The chemical abortion drug is inherently dangerous to women and prone to abuse. Yet major companies like Danco Laboratories are making billions off it,” Hawley said in a statement.
American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists director Dr. Christina Francis, a board-certified OB-GYN who works as an OB hospitalist in Indiana, spoke at the press conference on March 11 about her experience with women experiencing complications like “severe bleeding, severe infections that require multiple IV antibiotics, and even emergency surgery.”
“I work in the state of Indiana where abortion is largely illegal, and yet I and my colleagues regularly are called down to the emergency room to care for women … that are suffering severe complications,” she said. “I’ll tell you who isn’t taking care of them in the emergency room — the profit-driven pill pushers that sent them those pills either online, through the mail, or even in an abortion facility.”
“The purpose of medicine is health, healing, and wholeness, and dangerous abortion drugs are the exact opposite of this,” Francis said. “So it’s time for the FDA to do its job and protect American women and children from the harms of mifepristone.”
Abortion pill company to remove ads following South Dakota lawsuit
New York-based abortion drug distributor Mayday Health has agreed to remove “deceptive and unlawful” advertisements after a settlement with South Dakota, according to the state Attorney General Marty Jackley.
According to the limited release agreement, the group “targeted” South Dakota with abortion pill advertisements even though abortion pills are illegal in the state. In December 2025, Jackley sent a cease-and-desist letter to Mayday Health over its advertising practices.
In the settlement, Mayday Health agreed to remove advertisements that “aid, abet, or solicit illegal conduct” in South Dakota.
“Mayday Health targeted women and young girls encouraging them to take abortion pills while misleading them about the physical risks,” Jackley said. “My position has been clear and unwavering: South Dakota law governs, and the misleading advertisements must be, and are, stopped.”
