St. Mary Our Lady of the Rosary

Moms for America President Kimberly Fletcher. / Credit: Courtesy of CPAC/Screenshot

Washington D.C., Feb 22, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Speakers at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to root gender ideology out of the American public education system and expressed high hopes for the major expansion of school choice in the country.

“The public education system in America has literally failed the American people,” Erika Donalds, who serves on the boards of Moms for Liberty and the Independent Women’s Forum, said during a panel discussion at CPAC on Friday.

“It hasn’t lived up to the promise where we parents were told if you send your child to this school for eight hours a day, we’re going to teach them to read and do math and achieve their own American dream — that was a lie,” said Donalds, who is the wife of Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Florida.

Jack Brewer, a former NFL player and official in the first Trump administration, said on the same panel that the American education system was not created to “indoctrinate [children] to make them believe they could be transgender and be any gender they wanted to choose.”

He credited Trump for standing for “biblical truth” through his executive orders, adding: “God created man and woman and that’s it.” 

Shortly after his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump signed an executive order that prohibits K–12 schools that receive federal funds from helping facilitate the gender transition of a child. This includes actions like using pronouns inconsistent with his or her biological sex or permitting a child to use a restroom or locker room inconsistent with his or her sex.

Trump also signed an executive order that prohibits biological boys and men from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

“Everything that we asked for, we’re getting,” Kimberly Fletcher, the president of Moms for America, said in a separate speech later that afternoon.

Fletcher said mothers who have religious faith should be more active in the political process “if we want to continue to win” and warned “there’s a real threat to our country and it’s not going away.”

“Do not think that the devil sleeps,” Fletcher said. “They have just gone back underground. And this is our opportunity to make sure that ground never opens up again.”

The speakers also urged stronger school choice in the country, including Brewer, who said it was important for churches to run more schools and day cares and to empower organizations that support school choice.

Sviatoslav Shevchuk is major archbishop of Kyiv-Galicia and primate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. / Credit: Screenshot/EWTN News Nightly

Washington D.C., Feb 22, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church during a visit to Washington, D.C., this week advocated for a lasting peace in Ukraine “that does not appease dictators” as the U.S. begins negotiations with Russia.

“Putin’s objectives are clear: He wants to erase Ukraine, its people, and its church,” Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk stated during a panel discussion at the Hudson Institute on Thursday.

“If Russia succeeds in occupying Ukraine, our church will not survive. For us, it’s a matter of life and death,” Shevchuk said. 

He continued: “History teaches us that whenever Russia takes control of territories with Eastern Catholics, it enforces them into the Russian Orthodox Church, drives them into exile, or sends them to perish in prison camps.”

Shevchuk’s visit comes as the Trump administration begins to open diplomatic channels to Russia in an attempt to end the Ukraine war. Top U.S. and Russian diplomats met in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, marking the first major communication between Washington and Moscow since the start of the war three years ago. Ukrainian diplomats were notably excluded from the meeting. 

During the discussion, which also included the metropolitan archbishop of Philadelphia, Borys Gudziak, and Archpriest Marc Morozovich, Shevchuk warned of the danger to Ukraine and to other nations if Ukraine is occupied by Russia.

“We seek a just peace, not a temporary ceasefire that lets the aggressor return stronger,” Shevchuk said during the discussion. 

He further asserted that the Baltic countries, Poland, Georgia, Armenia, and other central Asian countries would also soon be in danger of occupation should Russia prevail over Ukraine. “Putin wants to rebuild the Russian Empire — if Ukraine falls, others will be next,” Shevchuk said.

“We cannot afford to be naive,” he continued. “As the Apostle Paul warns, ‘While people are saying peace and security, then sudden disaster comes upon them.’” 

President Donald Trump recently signaled his administration’s intention to definitively pull back U.S. support for Ukraine. In a social media post on Wednesday, he said that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whom he described as a “modestly successful comedian” had manipulated the U.S. into spending $350 billion “to go into a war that couldn’t be won.” 

Trump further shifted blame for the conflict’s duration and its death toll on Zelenskyy, asserting that the Ukrainian president “has done a terrible job,” leaving his country “shattered.”

Shevchuk expressed that he believed Trump’s statements mirrored “Russian propaganda talking points” and that Ukraine’s future, and that of the church, depends on a lasting peace. 

He cited the example of how in December 2022, Russian authorities declared the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church illegal, outlawing Caritas Ukraine and the Knights of Columbus. He also spoke of two Ukrainian priests who suffered “brutal torture” over the course of 18 months of Russian captivity. Their release, he said, was “thanks to the special effort and mediation of the Holy See.” 

“But at least 10 others, Protestants, pastors, are in the same condition and they are tortured right now, at this moment. We have to remember them and speak up on behalf of their release,” he noted. 

“Despite Russian propaganda that falsely claims Ukraine suppresses religious freedom, the truth is quite the opposite,” Shevchuk continued. “Ukraine guarantees religious liberty, allowing all faiths to practice freely. Meanwhile, in Russian-occupied territories, religious groups not aligned with the Russian Orthodox Church are persecuted.”

Shevchuk described the forced deportation of Ukrainian children as “one of the most horrifying crimes of this war.” 

“Thousands have been taken from occupied territories and placed in Russian families, orphanages, or so-called reeducation camps,” he said. “These children are forced to forget their Ukrainian identity; many aren’t even back from Russia. Many are even given new names.”

“Each deported child represents another family torn apart by war,” Shevchuk reflected. 

To end the war in Ukraine, he said, Ukraine “must have a clear strategy for peace, one that does not appease dictators.” 

The Ukrainian patriarch likened the Russian political concept “Ruskiy Mir,” or “Russian World,” to that of radical Islamism. “The ideology of the ‘Russian world’ is Russian jihadism,” he said. “The whole ideology of the war is to come back to the times of the Soviet Union.”

For this to occur, Shevchuk said, would be for Ukrainians to return “back to the catacombs.”

null / Credit: alexkich/Shutterstock

Rome Newsroom, Feb 22, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

The theme of the 2025 Jubilee Year is “Pilgrims of Hope.” For those who wish to embark on a spiritual pilgrimage through reading and prayer during the Lenten season — or anytime during this sacred year — here is a list of recommended books, essays, and encyclicals that explore the theme of Christian hope.

Spes Salvi (Saved in Hope) by Pope Benedict XVI

This encyclical beautifully explores the Christian understanding of hope as rooted in the promise of eternal life. Benedict XVI writes: “The one who has hope lives differently; the one who hopes has been granted the gift of a new life.”

Spes Non Confundit (Hope Does Not Disappoint) by Pope Francis

The papal bull for the 2025 Jubilee Year begins: “To all who read this letter, may hope fill your hearts.”

“Crossing the Threshold of Hope” by Pope John Paul II

In this book-length interview, John Paul II addresses the challenges and questions of the modern world in a deeply personal and philosophical conversation on faith and hope.

“Faith, Hope, Love” by Josef Pieper

A classic meditation on the theological virtues, the treatise on hope was written in 1934 in response to the general feeling of despair he perceived at that time.

“Hope” by Alice von Hildebrand

A chapter in the book called “The Art of Living” was co-authored with her husband, Dietrich von Hildebrand. The book has been praised by Peter Kreeft as “a masterpiece” of spiritual wisdom.

“The Portal of the Mystery of Hope” by Charles Péguy

Theology professor Jennifer Newsome Martin called this narrative poem on the theological virtue of hope a “book that changed my life.”

“Prayers of Hope” by Venerable Cardinal Francis-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận

Benedict XVI described this work by the late Vietnamese cardinal who was imprisoned for 13 years as “a precious little book.”

“Life Everlasting and the Immensity of the Soul” by Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange

This profound theological treatise on the four last things — death, judgment, heaven, and hell — offers a contemplative perspective on our ultimate hope.

“Advent of the Heart: Seasonal Sermons and Prison Writings” by Father Alfred Delp

The writings of a German Jesuit priest who was imprisoned and martyred in a Nazis camp in 1945 reflect on our journey toward a meeting and dialogue with God. 

“Summa Theologiae” by St. Thomas Aquinas (II-IIae, Questions 17-18)

These questions in the Secunda Secundae deal with the theological virtue of hope.

“End of Time: Meditations Towards a Philosophy of History” by Josef Pieper

This philosophical exploration of what Christians truly hope for in the end times distinguishes authentic eschatological hope.

“An Act of Hope” by Father Jacques Philippe

A short meditation on hope and prayer found in the book “Prayer: Oxygen for the Soul.”

“Is It Possible to Live This Way? An Unusual Approach to Christian Existence: Hope” by Luigi Giussani

This work is dialogue on what it means to live with authentic Christian hope in everyday life.

Pope Francis prays during his Wednesday general audience on Feb. 5, 2025, in the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Feb 22, 2025 / 05:02 am (CNA).

Pope Francis was admitted to Rome’s Gemelli Hospital on Friday, Feb. 14, to undergo testing and treatment for bronchitis, the Vatican said. On Tuesday he was diagnosed with double pneumonia but on Wednesday and Thursday showed “slight improvement,” according to the Vatican. However, the Vatican confirmed it is likely Pope Francis will not recite the Sunday Angelus this weekend.

Follow here for the latest news on Pope Francis’ health and hospitalization:

American Principles Project President Terry Schilling. / Credit: Courtesy of CPAC/Screenshot

Washington D.C., Feb 21, 2025 / 19:50 pm (CNA).

In the wake of the 2024 election and with Republicans in full control of the White House, Senate, and House of Representatives, social conservatives gathering at the 2025 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) said they are relishing the opportunity to switch from a defensive to offensive posture on several policy fronts.

Mercedes Schlapp, a senior fellow at the American Conservative Union (ACU) Foundation and wife of ACU chairman and CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp, told CNA Friday she believes that specifically, “the death of wokeism and gender ideology has been a crucial part of President [Donald] Trump’s victory and the Republicans’ victory.” 

“[Trump] talks about the revolution of common sense when he’s talking about two genders,” said Schlapp, who is Catholic. Schlapp said Trump’s focus on gender ideology “really hit home for parents,” including Catholic and other Christian parents, and their desire to “protect their children.” 

“I think it really hit home to so many Catholic families who are teaching their children Catholic values,” she said. “And that’s why you saw this shift, I think, where more Catholics ended up voting for Donald Trump.”

“The Democrats lost the common sense — and their loss is our gain,” Michael Knowles, a Catholic political commentator for The Daily Wire, declared during a Thursday afternoon speech at the event.

Knowles emphasized the importance of Trump winning the popular vote, which he did not win in his first presidential victory in 2016, calling the election “a mandate for common sense.”

During the campaign, Trump leaned heavily into criticisms of gender ideology, including transgender surgeries for children, biological men in women’s sports, and regulations that imposed “gender identity” constructs in public life. Since taking office, he has initiated executive actions to end all those federal policies.

Pope Francis has referred to gender ideology as “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” in the world today.

Knowles said that until recent years, “transgenderism did not exist in public life at all,” arguing that “LGBT gender-bending ideology” was “forced upon us” and ultimately rejected by voters.

He said American society has historically been based on God and referred to the current secularist trends as an “aberration and a national scandal [that] needs to be reversed.” He noted God is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, on American money, and in the full version of the national anthem.

“Religion is not just some private privilege,” Knowles said. “Religion is a public right. Our very country is predicated on the idea that God exists and we are made in his image.”

An emboldened social conservatism

During a CPAC panel titled “Culture Warriors: Take Your Truce and Shove It,” American Principles Project President Terry Schilling, who is Catholic, called Trump the “most pro-family president” in American history for signing executive orders to “protect our children and families.”

Speaking on the same panel as Schilling, Concerned Women for America President Penny Nance pointed out that although Trump’s executive actions against gender ideology are welcome, the United States Congress still needs to pass laws to enact the same policies to prevent a future administration from reversing Trump’s orders.

“We cannot give up until we are actually able to codify this policy,” said Nance, who is an evangelical Christian. 

Some speakers also went further than Trump has on other cultural issues.

Knowles, for example, criticized the federal sanctioning of homosexual marriage, noting that most Democrats were against it until the 2000s. He said marriage “is a natural institution” of a man and a woman and there’s “nothing bigoted about that observation.”

“That is the only definition of marriage that distinguishes it from other types of relationships,” Knowles said. 

Schilling and Nance both criticized cultural norms leading to a decline in marriage and having children. 

“Being a father — it’s the most amazing thing,” said Schilling, who has seven children. 

Specifically, Schilling criticized the prevalence of pornography and the popularity of marijuana among other cultural vices, which he said distract from “important things like getting married.”

Nance also expressed concern over falling fertility rates in the United States, saying: “We’re not at replacement rate for our children, for our families.” She said that although not everyone can get married, “it’s OK to realize and to state that it’s the ideal.”

“I would suggest there’s some real systemic causes of [the declining marriage and fertility rates] that we have to deal with,” Nance added.

Schlapp told CNA that society will “prosper” and “thrive” when “you have families who pray to God and have a religion,” adding: “It is how you can have a stable community, and quite frankly, a stable society and a stable nation.”

“We always believe that at CPAC, it is a spiritual warfare because we’re fighting against evil,” she added.

“We are fighting against diabolical influences,” she said. “And when you’re dealing with … taking down the communists and … taking down the globalists, these are people who do not believe in God and they hate the Catholic Church, and they hate Christian values.”

EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo interviews Father Tad Pacholczyk, senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, about the moral concerns inherent in IVF on Feb. 20, 2025.  / Credit: EWTN News/The World Over

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 21, 2025 / 17:45 pm (CNA).

Father Tad Pacholczyk, senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), discussed on EWTN this week the moral concerns and risks of in vitro fertilization (IVF) following the Trump administration executive order promoting access to the treatment.

In a Feb. 20 interview on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo,” Pacholczyk said IVF is “called a pro-life, pro-family technology, but at its core, it’s not.”

“I think it’s good to start out and emphasize that it’s good to hear the president seeing the importance of family formation,” Pacholczyk said. However, he continued, “there are a number of concerns that arise in the wake of this technology … that has just galloped forward largely driven by commercial concerns.”

IVF concerns

Pacholczyk detailed numerous moral concerns with IVF that do not align with Catholic teaching.

“There is this propensity to produce extra embryos, many of whom will either be discarded or frozen. Sometimes they get caught in stasis for literally decades or forever,” he said. “They’re never rescued out of that freezing situation.”

“You’ve certainly heard of the situations when people are implanted with three or four embryos,” Pacholczyk continued.

“What happens if they all take? Well, then you have to have what’s called selective reduction, and they go in and destroy one or two of the growing babies in that case to help with the pregnancy for the remaining two babies,” he said.

Pacholczyk has previously addressed this concern in his NCBC column “Making Sense of Bioethics,” where he referred to discarded or frozen embryos as the “collateral damage” of IVF.

In the interview, Packolczyk also highlighted the moral issues involved when families opt for sex selection of embryos during the IVF process.

“Do you want a boy? Do you want a girl? There’s this quality control, which is, of course, just a fancy word for eugenics that is part and parcel of this entire technology.”

The priest called IVF a “two-edged sword.” He said: “There’s a death-dealing edge to the sword that pops up throughout the entire practice of in vitro fertilization.”

Pacholczyk also said there are risks to surviving embryos. 

“There is known to be a higher risk of birth defects in the babies that are born this way,” he said.

Pacholczyk said that even in cases where women adopt embryos from other couples and implant them in their own wombs, it is still morally wrong. He explained that embryo adoption contributes to the commercialization of human life by creating a demand for embryos.

“So you actually feed into the cycle of cooperation in evil by promoting something like this,” he said. 

Pacholczyk added that the Alabama Supreme Court law that ruled embryos created via IVF are children under state law brought “some coherence to this issue.”

“We’ve been in this situation where we’re calling the embryo different things depending on what it is we want. I think the Alabama decision cut through that and said: ‘No, we can’t do that. We’ve got to be consistent and coherent here,’” he said.

Suggested regulations

Pacholczyk told Arroyo that if he were advising the Trump administration on IVF policies he would urge “regulation” rather than “cooperation or encouragement of this practice.”

He suggested drafting regulations that limit the number of embryos that can be created and require that all of them must be implanted in the mother. He said he would urge the administration to set up a system similar to the Human Fetal Tissue Ethics Advisory Board that was in effect during Trump’s first term.  

Pacholczyk, who was a member of the board, said: “We made decisions about funding for experiments that used fetal tissue. It was amazing the work that they did. We need some more advisory commissions like that.”

Pacholczyk emphasized funding and developing treatments for infertility must take priority over IVF to figure out the “underlying causes” of why couples are unable to have babies. 

“That whole approach gets sidelined. As soon as you offer the IVF industry to couples, they go down that road almost immediately,” Pacholczyk said. 

The offices of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Farragutful, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Feb 21, 2025 / 17:05 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis appointed Father Gregg Caggianelli, an Air Force veteran and Florida priest, as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, on Friday.

Caggianelli, 56, has served on active duty and in the reserves for more than 30 years. He currently works at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado, as a mobilization assistant to the Air Force Academy chaplain.

Caggianelli is a priest of the Diocese of Venice, Florida, and has served as vice rector of a Florida seminary since 2013. Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., announced his appointment on Feb. 21. 

Caggianelli shared that he was both “humbled and grateful” for the appointment. 

“After the initial shock and disbelief, and much time begging for God’s mercy, I was filled with true praise and thanksgiving to God,” he said in a Feb. 21 statement. 

Caggianelli said he has had a lifelong desire to serve as a priest and in the military.

“Since I was a little boy, there have only been two things I have wanted to do in life,” Caggianelli said. “At age 11, I started thinking of being a priest and at age 14 I had a great desire to serve in the military.” 

Caggianelli was born on Aug. 2, 1968, in Kingston, New York. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan in 1990 and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Dayton four years later. Caggianelli was ordained to the priesthood on Oct. 25, 2002.

Caggianelli said his time “wearing the uniform in one capacity or the other, and as a priest, serving as a chaplain in the Air Force Reserve” has been joy-filled. 

“All of this has been a life-giving experience that has been filled with joy,” he said. 

Caggianelli was commissioned in 1990 as an Air Force line officer, serving at the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio. He left active duty in 1996 to study to become a priest at St. Vincent de Paul Regional Seminary in Boynton Beach, Florida, where he later became vice rector in 2013. 

“Throughout the Scriptures, for some reason, God chooses the most unlikely of people,” Caggianelli reflected. “Jesus called a motley lot of fishermen, tax collectors, and sinners as his disciples. He simply asked them to follow him. God continues to call each of us to follow him in a unique way, and we trust in his promise to remain with us always.”

After his ordination in 2002, Caggianelli served as a parochial vicar at Incarnation Parish in Sarasota until 2010. He also headed the vocations and seminary formation for the Diocese of Venice as associate director from 2006 to 2007 and director from 2007 to 2010. He later became the administrator of St. Francis Xavier Parish in Fort Myers from 2010–2013. 

Caggianelli shared his excitement to serve those in the military. 

“As I begin this new journey, I look forward to assisting Archbishop [Timothy] Broglio and the other bishops, chaplains, and good people who serve the Archdiocese for the Military Services,” Caggianelli said. “Most of all, I look forward to giving my life in service of Our Lord in the care of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, coastguardsmen, guardians, veterans, and diplomats throughout the world.”

The Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, was founded by Pope John Paul II to serve Catholics in the U.S. military and government employment outside the United States. Based in Washington, D.C., the archdiocese serves an estimated 1.8 million Catholics. 

Statue of St. Peter in front of St. Peter's Basilica. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Feb 21, 2025 / 16:30 pm (CNA).

A ruling by the High Court of England and Wales published Feb. 21 has confirmed that the Vatican Secretariat of State was deceived by Italian financier Raffaele Mincione in the irregular purchase of a London building.

For this transaction that ended in fraud Mincione was sentenced in December 2023 by a Vatican lower court to five years and six months in prison for financial crimes related to the case.

In addition, he was ordered to forfeit 200.5 million euros (about $210 million), one of the largest financial penalties ever imposed in the Vatican courts.

In that trial, Cardinal Angelo Becciu was also sentenced to five and a half years in prison for embezzlement of public funds.

According to the ruling, Becciu arranged the acquisition of property located on Sloane Avenue when he was deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2018.

To do so, he used a third of the reserved funds of the Secretariat of State: that is, $200 million that was paid between 2013 and 2014 at the request of Becciu.

This amount was used to buy shares through a fund managed by the Italian intermediary Mincione, who was also convicted along with Becciu by the Vatican lower court for money laundering, embezzlement, and corruption.

Following the sentence, Mincione filed a lawsuit against the Vatican Secretariat of State in British court in June 2020, and the court published its ruling Feb. 21.

The Italian financier’s aim was to obtain a series of legal declarations in his favor regarding his handling of the buying and selling of the Sloane Avenue building.

Mincione argued that his conduct in the transaction had been transparent and in accordance with the standards of good faith. However, the British court rejected his allegations, confirming that the Vatican had reasons to consider itself the victim of a damaging financial scheme.

According to Judge Robin Knowles’ 50-page ruling, Mincione and his companies withheld key information and misrepresented the value of the London property, causing significant harm to the Vatican.

The court found that Mincione made “unrealistic” statements, inflating the price of the property and taking advantage of the Vatican’s lack of experience in such investments.

Much of the lengthy summary of the verdict focuses on the reconstruction of the irregular transaction.The British court made it clear that the Vatican Secretariat of State was deceived, which coincides with the primary thesis of the Vatican court, which had previously convicted Mincione of money laundering, embezzlement, and corruption.

As a lower court ruling, Mincione has the possibility of appealing the decision.

For the Vatican, the ruling “has important implications not only for Mincione but also for future cases involving the financial operations of the Holy See,” according to a Vatican News editorial on the subject.

According to Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli, the ruling “establishes an important precedent by recognizing that the Vatican was the victim of financial fraud in one of its most important real estate investments.”

He also confirmed that according to the Vatican “the lack of transparency and ethics with which Mincione and his entourage operated could influence other ongoing judicial proceedings.”

The sentence reinforces, Tornielli said, “the conclusions of the Vatican tribunal, which had already convicted Mincione for crimes related to fraudulent investments of funds of the Holy See.”

Tornielli also referenced a statement by the Vatican promoter of justice, Alessandro Diddi, expressing his satisfaction with the British court’s ruling against Mincione.

“The British judges have shared the view of the Vatican tribunal and have confirmed that Raffaele Mincione did not act in good faith as required in this type of transaction. With this ruling, it is clear that the Vatican court acted correctly in its assessment of the case,” Diddi said.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Kobe Bryant with the United States Olympic basketball team in 2012. Bryant, who died in a plane crash in 2020, will be among those included in a proposed “National Garden of American Heroes.” / Credit: Christopher Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, Feb 21, 2025 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

Statues of dozens of prominent American Catholics — including numerous saints and popular figures such as the late basketball star Kobe Bryant — will be among those included in a proposed “National Garden of American Heroes,” a project President Donald Trump unveiled during his first term and revived following his inauguration last month.

During a Black History Month gathering at the White House on Thursday, Trump promised to honor a number of African American figures in the proposed garden, the final site for which is being picked “now,” he said. Trump said the garden will “honor hundreds of our greatest Americans to ever live.”

The list of honorees, first announced during Trump’s previous term, includes several Catholic saints: St. Junípero Serra, St. John Neumann, St. Katharine Drexel, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, and St. Kateri Tekakwitha, as well as several Catholics whose sainthood causes are ongoing: Venerable Fulton Sheen, Venerable Augustus Tolton, and Servant of God Dorothy Day.

Also included is the popular spiritual writer Father Thomas Merton; March for Life founder Nellie Gray; and John P. Washington, a Catholic priest and one of the “Four Chaplains” — a band of men of different faiths who all sacrificed their lives to save others on a torpedoed ship during World War II. 

Political figures on the list include John F. Kennedy, the nation’s first Catholic president; Antonin Scalia, a longtime Supreme Court justice; 20th-century playwright and Congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce; William F. Buckley Jr., conservative commentator and writer; and Archbishop John Carroll, SJ, the first Catholic archbishop in the United States, and his cousin Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence. 

In the world of popular culture and sports, the list includes Catholics such as film director Frank Capra, who directed “It’s a Wonderful Life”; wild west entertainer William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody; football coach Vince Lombardi; “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek; and Bryant, who died in a January 2020 helicopter crash in Southern California along with his 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, and seven other people.

Trump’s original order, issued Jan. 18, 2021, in the very last days of his previous term, outlined plans for building the National Garden of American Heroes. Building upon a previous order to establish a statuary park that honors figures throughout American history who embody the “American spirit,” the order expressed concern over what it describes as “anti-American extremism” seeking to dismantle the country’s history.

The plan for the garden aims to counteract this by creating a space where citizens can “renew their vision of greatness” through the stories and statues of selected American heroes, the order said. President Joe Biden nixed Trump’s original order shortly after he took office, canceling the project. 

Trump revived the garden plan on Jan. 29, directing that the assistant to the president for domestic policy shall “recommend to the president additional historically significant Americans for inclusion in the National Garden of American Heroes, to bring the total number of heroes to 250.”

While the place where these new statues will be is yet to be determined, there are already a number of existing statues honoring Catholics with important roles in American history located in Washington, D.C. Most notably, the U.S. Capitol’s statuary hall includes images of St. Damien of Molokai, Mother Mary Joseph Pariseau, Father Jaques Marquette, and Serra, among others.

Dr. Sergio Alfieri (right) and Dr. Luigi Carbone give a press conference at Gemelli Hospital in Rome, where Pope Francis is hospitalized for tests and treatment for bronchitis, on Feb. 21, 2025. Alfieri said the pope asked him to say hat he has “the mind of a a 50-year-old man.” / Credit: ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images

Vatican City, Feb 21, 2025 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis is “not out of danger” due to his age and fragile health, his medical team told journalists on Friday. 

During a Vatican press conference at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, both Dr. Sergio Alfieri, head of Gemelli Hospital’s medical team, and Dr. Luigi Carbone, the pope’s referring doctor at the Vatican, said the 88-year-old Holy Father must remain in the hospital for “enhanced” treatment.

“The hospitalization will be as long as it takes for him to return safely to Santa Marta [his Vatican residence],” Alfieri told journalists on Friday. “He will stay here at least all next week. He is better, but the situation may change. Here at Gemelli, he is a very good patient.” 

The Holy Father, according to Alfieri, asked him “to say that he is an old man with chronic diseases with the mind of a 50-year-old man” who wishes to continue his work caring for the universal Church.

“At 88 he is leading the Church and not sparing himself; he has become fatigued,” Alfieri said. “It has been possible to isolate microorganisms; there are viruses, myocytes, and bacteria [and] there are chronic diseases that can be contained.”

The Gemelli medical team head confirmed that the pope continues to read, work, and sign documents while at the hospital.

Elaborating on the specific details of the Holy Father’s medical condition, Alfieri said: “He had pus with a respiratory tract infection … At first there was no pneumonia [but] in the following days we noticed with a CT scan a bilateral pneumonia that is still there.” 

Though the pope is “not attached to machines,” he occasionally uses oxygen support to assist his breathing. Alfieri added: “He knows he is in danger, the risk can be that of sepsis, that is, germs passing into the blood. But today there is no such situation.” 

At Gemelli, the pope’s medical reports are written by Alfieri, Carbone, and a team of infectiologists, gastroenterologists, cardiologists, and pulmonologists.

Carbone, the pope’s doctor at the Vatican, told journalists on Friday that the Holy Father “is fragile and not out of danger [as] it takes very little to have imbalances.” 

“The pope has chronicities, such as asthmatic bronchitis, that can flare up,” he said. “The pope responds to the therapies that have been enhanced and not changed.”

“The pope is not a quitter,” Carbone told journalists toward the end of the press conference. 

Since Feb. 14, the Holy Father has undergone a series of daily diagnostic tests and complex cortisone antibiotic therapies to treat his respiratory infections and pneumonia alongside his other chronic illnesses.