January 24, 2026 // National

News Briefs: January 25, 2026

OSV NEWS

Washington Cardinal Robert W. McElroy speaks during a Jan. 18, 2026, Mass at the Shrine of St. Jude Catholic Church in Rockville, Md., that was offered in remembrance of the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. More than 500 people attended the annual celebration of the legacy of the late Civil Rights leader. (OSV News photo/Mihoko Owada, Catholic Standard)

Pope Leo Warns Against Chasing Approval

VATICAN CITY (OSV News) – Pope Leo XIV warned against the modern obsession with approval, public consensus, and visibility during his January 18 Angelus address, saying those pursuits often replace authentic happiness and leave people divided, disappointed, and spiritually restless. Speaking to the faithful, the pope said the constant search for success or recognition can shape how people think and live – but ultimately leads to fragile relationships and personal suffering. True fulfillment, he said, comes not from fame or achievements but from knowing each person is loved and wanted by God. Pointing to Jesus and St. John the Baptist, Pope Leo emphasized a God who does not seek attention through spectacle but instead enters human struggles and shares people’s burdens, revealing every person’s dignity. The pope urged believers to resist superficial goals and cultivate simplicity, sincerity, and prayerful silence, making time each day to “withdraw into the desert” to encounter the Lord. After the Angelus, he marked the start of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity and called for peace and justice worldwide, offering prayers for those displaced by violence in Congo and the region.

U.S. Bishops Praise DHS Policy Change on Religious Worker Visas

WASHINGTON, D.C. (OSV News) – The Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday, January 14, it issued an interim final rule reducing wait times for religious worker visas. Catholic advocates were among those who pushed the Trump administration to address the backlog in their visa category. DHS officials said its regulation change would eliminate the one-year minimum wait time applicants are required to remain outside the U.S. before reapplying for the nonimmigrant religious worker R-1 visa. A spokesperson for DHS said in a statement the department “is committed to protecting and preserving freedom and expression of religion” and was taking the necessary steps to ensure religious organizations can continue their mission that is “essential to the social and moral fabric of this country.” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Bishop Brendan J. Cahill of Victoria, Texas, chairman of the USCCB’s migration committee, said they “are tremendously grateful for the administration’s work to address certain challenges facing foreign-born religious workers, their employers, and the American communities they serve.” It’s a “significant step” that will “help facilitate essential religious services for Catholics and other people of faith” in the U.S.

Vatican Foreign Minister SaysSurrogacy Reduces Children to Products for Sale

ROME (OSV News) – The Vatican’s top diplomat is renewing calls for a global ban on surrogacy, warning that the practice violates human dignity by turning children and women into commodities. Speaking on Tuesday, January 13, at an event hosted by the Italian Embassy to the Holy See, Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher said surrogacy “translates into the sale of a child” and exploits women by reducing pregnancy to a negotiable service. Archbishop Gallagher said the Church’s opposition centers on what he called the commodification of the human person, noting that some surrogacy contracts even specify conditions if a child is not healthy. He cited international law defining the sale of children, arguing surrogacy fits that description. The archbishop recalled recent condemnations by Pope Leo XIV and Pope Francis, stressing continuity in Church teaching. In his speech, Archbishop Gallagher recalled Pope Leo’s January 9 address to diplomats accredited to the Holy See, in which the pope said: “By transforming gestation into a negotiable service, this violates the dignity both of the child, who is reduced to a ‘product,’ and of the mother, exploiting her body and the generative process, and distorting the original relational calling of the family.”

Report: More than 388 Million Christians Face ‘High Levels’ of Persecution

SANTA ANA, California (OSV News) – More than 388 million Christians – or 1 in 7 believers worldwide – face “high levels of persecution and discrimination for their faith,” according to a new report. Open Doors International, a global advocacy organization for persecuted Christians, released the figure as part of its “World Watch List 2026” report, an annual overview that measures the severity of Christian persecution in some 50 countries. For the 24th consecutive year, North Korea remains the harshest country in which to practice the Christian faith, due to a national policy that bans worship of any other entity beside the ruling Kim regime, said the report. Somalia, Yemen, Sudan, Eritrea, Syria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Libya, and Iran also have “extreme” levels of Christian persecution, said Open Doors. A number of factors – including conflict, lawlessness, criminality, authoritarianism, and nationalism – drive persecution, said organization officials. Yet “perhaps the most potent and powerful reason for persecution is the faith of the church itself,” said Open Doors in its report, adding that in all of the countries it surveyed, “the church is still present and alive,” and “even growing” in some places.

Planned Parenthood Sees Title X Funding Restored

WASHINGTON, D.C. (OSV News) – The Trump administration “quietly released” Title X family planning funds to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, prompting the American Civil Liberties Union to drop its lawsuit that sought to restore the funds, Politico reported on Tuesday, January 13. The Trump administration previously froze about $27.5 million in federal family planning grants to groups including Planned Parenthood as part of its probe into diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, sometimes referred to as DEI, within federal agencies. But those Title X funds were just a fraction of the taxpayer funds Planned Parenthood receives annually. The group’s 2023-24 annual report showed it received more than $700 million in taxpayer funds for the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2024. Planned Parenthood affiliates in states including Utah saw their Title X funds cut in response to the freeze. But on Monday, January 12, the Planned Parenthood Association of Utah announced it was once again able to resume its participation in the program.

U.S. Cardinals Call for ‘Genuinely Moral Foreign Policy for Our Nation’

NEWARK, New Jersey (OSV News) – Three U.S. cardinals have issued a joint statement urging the creation of a “genuinely moral foreign policy for our nation,” as the U.S. faces “the most profound and searing debate about the moral foundation for America’s actions in the world since the end of the Cold War.” Cardinal Blase J. Cupich of Chicago, Cardinal Robert W. McElroy of Washington, D.C., and Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark released the statement on Monday, January 19, focusing on the “enduring ethical compass” for foreign policy that Pope Leo XIV provided in his January 9 address to members of the diplomatic corps accredited the Holy See. In their statement, the cardinals pointed to “events in Venezuela, Ukraine, and Greenland” that “have raised basic questions about the use of military force and the meaning of peace.” They stressed that Pope Leo’s address to diplomats “has given us the prism through which to raise” U.S. foreign policy “to a much higher level,” they said. “We will preach, teach, and advocate in the coming months to make that higher level possible.”