August 19, 2025 // National

News Briefs: August 24, 2025

OSV NEWS

People of Life Awards Honor Four Pro-Life Advocates

WASHINGTON, D.C. (OSV News) – The four pro-life advocates honored on Monday, August 11, at the annual People of Life Awards built legacies for their work protesting outside abortion clinics, encouraging Black Catholic leaders for a culture of life, and opposing euthanasia and assisted suicide. The awards were part of the Diocesan Pro-Life Leadership Conference sponsored by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Honored were Valerie Washington of Baltimore, executive director of the National Black Catholic Congress; Judy Haag of Eden Valley, Minnesota, a long-term care nurse for 30 years and chairperson of the New Ulm Diocesan Council of Catholic Women Reverence for Life Committee; and the late Rita and Mike Marker of Steubenville, Ohio, of the now-dissolved anti-euthanasia Patients Rights Council. Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, Ohio, chair of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities, and Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, presided at the private awards dinner, attended by approximately 100 pro-life leaders and guests. Since 2007, the People of Life Awards have recognized 47 Catholics who have answered the call outlined by St. John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”) by dedicating themselves to pro-life activities and promoting respect for the dignity of the human person.

Judge Blocks Religious Exemption for Little Sisters of the Poor

WASHINGTON, D.C. (OSV News) – A federal district court in Philadelphia on Wednesday, August 13, struck down a religious conscience rule implemented by the first Trump administration exempting employers with religious or moral concerns from having to provide their employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives and other drugs or procedures to which they have an objection. The Little Sisters of the Poor, defendants in the suit, are expected to appeal. U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in Philadelphia found the rules, which expanded the parameters for the types of nonprofits that could use the exception, were not necessary to protect the conscience rights of religious employers. Becket, the religious liberty law firm representing the Little Sisters of the Poor in their ongoing legal efforts regarding their objections to paying for abortifacient drugs, sterilizations, and contraceptives in their employee health plans, said the nuns would appeal the ruling “in the coming weeks.” “The district court blessed an out-of-control effort by Pennsylvania and New Jersey to attack the Little Sisters and religious liberty,” Mark Rienzi, president of Becket and lead attorney for the Little Sisters, argued in a statement.

Pope Encourages People to Look to Mary with Hope

CASTEL GANDOLFO, Italy (CNS) – Mary’s “yes” to God, to life, and to love continues “in the martyrs of our time, in witnesses of faith and justice, of gentleness and peace,” Pope Leo XIV said as he celebrated Mass on the feast of Mary’s Assumption into heaven. In the small parish Church of St. Thomas of Villanova on the main square of Castel Gandolfo, the pope celebrated the Mass on Friday, August 15, before going to the doorway of the nearby papal summer villa to lead the recitation of the Angelus prayer. After reciting the Angelus, Pope Leo told an estimated 2,500 people in the square: “Today we want to entrust to the intercession of the Virgin Mary, assumed into heaven, our prayer for peace. She, as a mother, suffers for the evils that afflict her children, especially the little ones and the weak.”

Archbishop: Trump-Putin Summit Fails to Advance Peace, Justice

PHILADELPHIA (OSV News) – The Alaska summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin held on Friday, August 15, ultimately failed to address the “fundamental moral and geopolitical questions” of Russia’s multiyear war on Ukraine, said Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia. The archbishop shared his thoughts by phone with OSV News and in a statement posted to his Facebook page shortly after the two leaders met for some three hours at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska. Although “the worst did not happen” and “those standing for freedom and the innocent citizens of Ukraine were not sold out” by any announced concessions of Ukrainian territory, “the cause of freedom, justice, and peace was not advanced” as a result of the meeting, said Archbishop Gudziak. At the same time, he said, “The fundamental moral and geopolitical questions are not yet being faced squarely neither by Russia nor the West.” And, Archbishop Gudziak added, “Until they do, Ukrainians will be paying the ultimate price.”

Vatican Hospital Welcomes Young Patients from Gaza

ROME (CNS) – As the Israeli-Hamas conflict continues, three more children arrived in Italy on a military transport plane late August 13 for treatment at the Vatican-owned Bambino Gesù pediatric hospital. A 6-month-old baby boy, who already had undergone an amputation, was admitted to the Rome hospital’s general surgery ward; a 13-year-old boy was placed under the care of the neurology department for a brain injury; and a 2-year-old girl, who has celiac disease, was admitted to general pediatrics for treatment of malnutrition, hospital officials said in a statement on Thursday, August 14. The new arrivals bring to 20 the number of children from Gaza who have been treated at the pediatric hospital since the conflict began in October of 2023. With medical care and supplies lacking in Gaza, the first patients arrived in Italy in January of 2024 thanks to lobbying efforts by the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land and negotiations involving the governments of Italy, Israel, Palestine, and Egypt.

Petition Seeks to Overturn Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

WASHINGTON, D.C. (OSV News) – About a decade after the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, the justices have been directly asked to overturn that ruling in a case they will have to decide whether or not to take up in the fall. Kim Davis, the former Kentucky county clerk who sparked a national controversy in the wake of that ruling in 2015 when she declined to issue marriage licenses to a same-sex couple on religious grounds, sought to appeal a federal jury’s decision that she should pay $100,000 in damages – and $260,000 for attorney fees – to a couple to whom she denied a marriage license. In a petition for writ of certiorari filed in July, Davis and her attorneys argued the First Amendment should protect Davis from personal liability for denying marriage licenses, since the suit was filed in her personal rather than official capacity. But Rick Garnett, a professor of law at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, told OSV News, “It is very unlikely that the court is going to review a jury’s damages verdict in a case with these facts.” If the Obergefell ruling were to be overturned, it would not render void existing marriage licenses due to the 2022 Respect for Marriage Act.

Pope Leo XIV poses with children after a luncheon with people assisted by the Albano diocesan Caritas agency at the Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Aug. 17, 2025. (CNS photo/Vatican Media)