February 4, 2025 // National
News Briefs: February 9, 2025
U.S. Bishops Call for Prayer after Deadly D.C. Air Collision
WASHINGTON, D.C. (OSV News) – U.S. Catholic bishops and other faith leaders, joined by Pope Francis, called for prayer following a deadly January 29 aviation disaster in the nation’s capital. Officials said there were no survivors after an American Eagle regional jet from Wichita, Kansas, operated by American Airlines, with a total of 64 passengers and crew, collided over the Potomac River with a U.S. Army helicopter with three on board. Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, the retired archbishop and current apostolic administrator of the Archdiocese of Washington, said on Thursday, January 30, that Catholics there “join men and women of goodwill here and around the world” in interceding for the souls lost. Bishop Carl A. Kemme of Wichita, Kansas, posted on Facebook that he was “praying for all involved” in the disaster involving the same route he and two other priests traveled on the way to Washington, D.C. for the national March for Life. In a January 30 telegram to President Donald Trump, Pope Francis expressed his “spiritual closeness” to victims and their families.
Trump Order against Youth Gender Transition Hailed
WASHINGTON, D.C. (OSV News) – In a move welcomed by the U.S. bishops’ point man on family life, President Donald Trump on Tuesday, January 28, signed an executive order stating his administration would seek to prohibit certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures for minors who identify as transgender. The order directed that the government “will not fund, sponsor, promote, assist, or support the so-called ‘transition’ of a child from one sex to another, and it will rigorously enforce all laws that prohibit or limit these destructive and life-altering procedures.” In a January 29 statement, Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, chair of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth, praised the president’s directive “prohibiting the promotion and federal funding of procedures that, based on a false understanding of human nature, attempt to change a child’s sex.” Referencing the Vatican teaching document “Dignitas Infinita,” he said, “Helping young people accept their bodies and their vocation as women and men is the true path of freedom and happiness.”
Claims of the Church Profiting from Refugee Work ‘Just Wrong’
WASHINGTON, D.C. (OSV News) – Claims that the U.S. bishops’ conference profits from its partnership with the government to assist refugee populations that qualify for federal assistance, as well as claims that the Catholic Church facilitates illegal immigration, are “just wrong,” William Canny, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, told OSV News in an interview on Thursday, January 30. Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, questioned the motives of the U.S. bishops’ criticism of President Donald Trump’s new immigration policies in a January 26 interview – including reducing restrictions on raids on churches and schools – asking if they are actually concerned about receiving federal resettlement funding and “their bottom line.” But audited financial statements by an outside firm show that the USCCB is not profiting from its work with refugees. In 2023, for example, the conference spent $134.2 million for such services but only received about $129.6 million in funding from government agencies. Canny said USCCB officials monitor and report back to the government how the organization spends the funds. He emphasized the Church cannot, and does not, run these programs without putting in private funds.
Pope to Prepare Papal Document on Children’s Rights
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Wrapping up a Vatican summit on the rights of children, Pope Francis announced he was going to publish a papal document dedicated to children. He called the February 3 summit venue in the frescoed halls of the Apostolic Palace a kind of “open observatory” in which speakers explored “the reality of childhood throughout the world, a childhood that is unfortunately often hurt, exploited, denied.” Some 50 experts and leaders from around the world, who shared their experience and compassion, he said, also “elaborated proposals for the protection of children’s rights, considering them not as numbers but as faces.” The pope said he planned to prepare a papal document “to give continuity to this commitment and promote it throughout the Church.” Those in attendance applauded the pope and his brief closing remarks and gave him a standing ovation. The one-day world leaders’ summit titled, “Love them and protect them,” discussed several topics of concern including a child’s right to food, health care, education, a family, free time, and the right to live free from violence and exploitation.
Illinois Lawmakers Aim to Legalize Assisted-Suicide
SPRINGFIELD, Illinois (OSV News) – Illinois lawmakers have introduced bills in the state House and Senate to legalize physician-assisted suicide, potentially making it the 12th U.S. jurisdiction to do so. The proposed “End-of-Life Options for Terminally Ill Patients Act” requires two doctors to confirm a patient has six months or less to live and to assess their mental state before authorizing the patient to take a lethal drug. The law would not classify such deaths as suicide or homicide and would specify the official cause of death be the patient’s original illness. Officials with the Catholic Conference of Illinois are strongly opposing the bill, advocating the state fund and expand palliative care instead. Supporters of legalizing physician-assisted suicide have argued it offers an alternative to dying in extreme suffering and cited polls showing strong public support. However, opponents have warned that when states or countries enact assisted suicide laws, they almost always expand them and relax the initial criteria to cover a greater number of people.
Vatican Clarifies Rules for Transferred Holy Days
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – When a holy day of obligation falls on a Sunday and so is transferred to another day, the Catholic faithful are encouraged to attend Mass on that day but they are not obliged to do so, Vatican officials said. The feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary on December 8 this past year fell on the Second Sunday of Advent, and so, in most dioceses around the world, the feast was transferred to Monday, December 9. Some bishops in the United States said the faithful still had a moral obligation to attend Mass on the feast day, while others issued a formal dispensation from the obligation. Officials with the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, in a September letter to Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, had said, “the feast must be observed as a day of obligation on the day to which it is transferred.” But in a formal note dated Thursday, January 23, officials with the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments said they had consulted with the legislative texts office and determined that “in the event of the occasional transfer of a holy day of obligation, the obligation to attend Mass is not transferred.”
Poverty, Chastity, Obedience Are Signs of Hope, Pope Says
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – The way consecrated women and men live their vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience can offer light and hope to a world looking for authentic relationships marked by love and self-giving, Pope Francis said. Celebrating vespers on Saturday, February 1, the eve of the feast of the Presentation of the Lord and also of the Catholic Church’s celebration of World Day for Consecrated Life, the pope thanked members of religious congregations for their witness, saying it is “leaven for the Church.” Pope Francis was joined by hundreds of sisters, brothers, consecrated virgins, and religious-order priests. Pope Francis said the obedience exercised in religious communities is “a prophetic sign for our society” because it is based on listening to one another and then acting, “even at the cost of setting aside our own tastes, plans and preferences.”

A woman has her throat blessed during a Spanish-language candlelit Mass on the eve of the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, also known as Candlemas, at St. Joseph Church in the Staten Island borough of New York Feb. 1, 2025. The blessing was imparted in advance of the Feb. 3 feast of St. Blaise, the fourth-century Armenian bishop and martyr credited with saving the life of a boy who was choking on a fish bone. (OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz)
The best news. Delivered to your inbox.
Subscribe to our mailing list today.