Pope Leo XIV to move into papal apartment of Apostolic Palace
Pope Leo XIV on March 14 took possession of the traditional papal apartment within the Apostolic Palace, moving into the quarters traditionally reserved for his predecessors.
The move was announced on March 14 by the Holy See Press Office, more than 10 months after Leo’s election.
The Holy Father had been staying at an apartment at the Palace of the Holy Office but will now reside in what has long served as the home of the reigning pontiff. The custom was discontinued in March 2013 by Pope Francis, who chose to reside at Casa Santa Marta from the beginning of his pontificate.
Pope Leo XIV has also reinstated the papal tradition of staying at the summer residence of Castel Gandolfo. In the summer of 2025 the pope stayed at Villa Barberini; subsequently, he decided to travel to Castel Gandolfo almost every week, staying from Monday evening until Tuesday evening.
The papal apartment has undergone a lengthy and meticulous restoration, having remained unoccupied since the conclusion of Pope Benedict XVI’s pontificate on Feb. 28, 2013.
The previous renovation dated back to the spring of 2005, following the death of Pope John Paul II and prior to Benedict XVI taking up residence in the quarters.
In addition to the bedrooms, the apartment comprises a private study for the pope — from the window of which he appears every Sunday to recite the Angelus — as well as a dining room and a private chapel, where pontiffs have traditionally celebrated Mass at the start of each day.
Residing alongside Pope Leo XIV in the papal apartment within the Apostolic Palace will likely be his two secretaries, Peruvian Monsignor Edgard Iván Rimaycuna Inga and Italian Father Marco Billeri.
This story was first published by ACI Stampa, the Italian-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
Psychiatrist Paul McHugh speaks about decades-long career, opposition to sex-reassignment surgeries
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.”
After years of further research, in 2016, McHugh released a special report in The New Atlantis, “Sexuality and Gender: Findings from the Biological and Psychological and Social Sciences.” Among other findings, the report detailed that there’s no scientific evidence to support that sexual orientation is biologically fixed.
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.”
Scotland bishops on assisted suicide legislation: ‘Safeguards do not work’
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 initiative, backed by the presidency of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, aligns with Pope Leo’s repeated warnings against allowing violence to spiral beyond control, ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News, reported Thursday.
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.
New biblical series depicts Book of Genesis through eyes of its best-known women
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.
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.”
‘God wants to cover us in robes of grace,’ Catholic fashion writer says
According to Catholic author Mary Harper, the way we dress can be a way to express faith, human dignity, and personal identity.
Harper, author of “The Liturgical Style Guide,” in which she explores how faith should influence how we dress, noted that the Bible shows the symbolic importance of clothing: “It’s actually pretty amazing how, throughout both the Old Testament and the New … clothing is mentioned over 100 times... The majority of times, it’s meant to be a sign of God’s mercy and providence.”
This symbolism appears from the very beginning of the Bible, she said in a recent interview posted by the Archdiocese of Miami.
After original sin, Adam and Eve tried to cover themselves by sewing together fig leaves, which Harper called “flimsy.”
“What does God do? He literally slaughters an animal, the first sacrifice in Scripture. He covers them in leather garments because he wants them to have something that’s worthy, something that’s good, something that’s actually going to protect them and be lasting,” she explained.
According to Harper, this biblical image helps us understand human dignity. “God wants to cover us in robes of grace,” she said, also recalling the parable of the prodigal son, when the father “puts a robe on him and a ring on him, as a reminder of his goodness and his dignity and his identity.”
That’s why even something as ordinary as getting dressed every day can have a spiritual dimension. “Even through something that we do every day — getting dressed for the day — the Lord is speaking his providence over you. He desires to lavish you in grace. Even getting dressed in the morning is a way to remember putting on Christ, putting on your baptismal garment again, remembering who you are and who you’re called to be in Christ,” she pointed out.
Harper grew up Catholic in New Orleans. She earned her master’s and bachelor’s degrees in theology from Ave Maria University and is the founder of LiturgicalStyle.com, a project dedicated to reflecting on the theological significance of clothing based on the Bible, the stories of the saints, and the liturgical calendar.
She also writes for litanynyc.com a Catholic made-to-measure clothing company that seeks to apply the Church’s social teaching in its production process.
Clothing as a form of Christian witness
“Whether I intend it or not, my clothing is going to communicate something. You wear a school uniform, it tells you what school you go to; priests put on vestments that tell you about the liturgical season. Well, there’s great power in that,” she said.
From that perspective, she added, clothing can become a form of Christian witness. “I have the capacity to communicate the Gospel through my very garments, through intentionality, creativity, and beauty.”
The author also cautioned that the Christian view of modesty avoids two extremes: absolute individualism and fear of the body.
“One extreme is, I can wear whatever I want, I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it. At the same time, we don’t want to get to the point of, ‘I don’t know how to dress myself well, and I’m so scared of doing the wrong thing … [and] nothing can show because my body is bad,’” she explained.
“The Church has never said that,” Harper added, noting that Christian teaching on the goodness of the human body is developed in depth in St. John Paul II’s theology of the body.
More than strict rules, she argued, the key lies in discerning: “What is it that I want to communicate through what I’m wearing?”
Harper also explained that modesty involves considering the context and the activity.
“It is my responsibility to wear something that makes sense for the activity at hand, for the environment that I’m in, and that allows me to be fully present. That’s a service to everyone around me and to myself,” she stated, citing as an example the impracticality of wearing flip flops to hike in the Rocky Mountains.
Drawing inspiration from the saints
Harper also proposed a creative idea for living out one’s faith in everyday life: finding inspiration in the saints when choosing what to wear.
This does not mean, she clarified, that we imitate them literally. “I’m not telling you to go around wearing a Carmelite habit,” she joked.
Rather, she suggested small symbolic gestures: “If you have Western boots, you can say you’re wearing them in honor of St. Teresa of the Andes,” who loved horseback riding. Or “when you wear jeans, you can think of her, because she just loved to be this great adventurer and going into the mountains” and “I’m going to ask her to pray for me."
Creativity and freedom in the Christian life
For Harper, the relationship between faith and clothing should not become a source of scrupulosity or pressure.
“Sometimes we can get so caught up saying, ‘If I’m a ‘real Catholic,’ then I’m going to dress in this particular way.’ I think it’s really easy to get kind of scrupulous when it comes to clothing,” she reflected.
Instead, she recommended bringing the matter to prayer and discernment with trusted individuals. “If you have any concern about, ‘Am I dressing in a way that is good?’, talk to someone who knows your heart,” she advised.
Finally, Harper encouraged living out Christian creativity in these everyday details as well: “The Holy Spirit is creative."
“When you get dressed for the day, if you just say, ‘Come, Holy Spirit,’ he’s going to show up. It’s going to be awesome and joyful, and it’ll be more fun.”
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.
Michigan teen starts Catholic online newspaper for other teens
Luis Nava, a high school freshman at the International Academy in Michigan, takes to heart that he wants to be ready to answer any questions from his peers but also to better understand his Catholic faith. He began an online newspaper called The Catholic Michigander, where he tackles some of those questions and more.
Nava is a parishioner at St. Joseph Parish in Lake Orion, Michigan, and spent his first few years attending school there. He recently spoke to students at the Catholic school about a project he started to help spread the Catholic faith among teens and to help young people understand what the faith is all about.
“A lot of the times, if I’m facing questions from classmates that don’t have the same beliefs as me, I want to know exactly what I believe and exactly why I believe it,” Nava said.
Learning about his faith became more of a quest after Nava attended a pro-life conference in 2024 at his parish. While he was there, Nava picked up a quote from William Wilberforce that he says inspired him to fulfill what he believes is his calling: “Let it not be said that I was silent when they needed me,” he said. The saying is posted above his desk. “I see it every day.”
Nava, who plans to study neuroscience, said he has always been passionate about writing and hoped to start a newspaper one day. After the conference, he felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit guiding him, and he got to work on a website.
“It all came from a project that I had when I was in middle school,” he said. “I was on the newspaper for my middle school in sixth grade, and then in seventh grade I took over as the editor.”
Nava takes ideas for content for the newspaper from his daily experiences and conversations with classmates. He also invites others to write with him.
The newspaper contains a wide variety of articles on different topics, from infertility and natural family planning to life issues and the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Nava said he writes “if a particular issue sparks my interest.” Father Jim Kean advises Nava on Catholic theology to ensure that all of the content adheres to Catholic teaching.
“There was a report that a huge amount of Catholics don’t know that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, so I thought topics like those would be good to address,” Nava said.
Each month, Nava writes and edits the copy and posts it to the website, featuring not only his writing but also that of some of his peers.
“A couple of them are parishioners here at St. Joseph Parish, but they were public school students,” said Doris Fornasiero, principal at St. Joseph School. “I think that’s also a remarkable piece, that he’s reaching and pulling in students from all over the public school, private school, but students who are passionate about their faith.”
Nava doesn’t just write about his faith, but he brings it to life, said Lindy Cubba, a middle school religion teacher at St. Joseph.
“As teachers and educators, listening to him, it was remarkable because he had captured this passion for faith and yet this way to inspire and nurture beliefs that people already have and bring them into the open,” Cubba said.
In addition to his work with the newspaper, Nava is also active in the youth group and as an athlete, where he encourages others to live their lives of faith. Recently he spoke to St. Joseph students about his project.
“He’s just an incredibly positive, strong influence in the right way,” Fornasiero said. “He inspired the kids and encouraged them to speak out, that they didn’t have to keep their beliefs and their feelings about their faith to themselves. He was giving them a safe place to voice their beliefs.”
Nava said he is grateful to the Holy Spirit, as well as mentors such as Fornasiero and Cubba, and said he wants to encourage other students to be courageous enough to do what they dream.
“Well, I try to be a model to imitate, but I mean it’s a work in progress,” he said.
“Like with everything, we’re all called to be saints, so I’m trying to walk down that road, as I’m sure everybody is,” Nava said. “I hope this can inspire other people to maybe take action and realize they can do anything. Hopefully, we can get all of the youth of today to really grow in their love for God.”
Nava believes his newspaper project and his interest in neuroscience are related.
“It’s really perfect, because neuroscience and religion and spirituality go hand in hand so well together,” Nava said. “We need God at the center of our lives if we want to have good mental health. I thought that would integrate very well with the writing and with religion.”
With three more years of high school ahead of him, Nava said he hopes he can continue the newspaper for several more years.
“I’m not sure how it’s going to evolve,” he said, “but I hope that we can continue to put out articles that teenagers can see and be inspired by.”
This story was first published by the Detroit Catholic and is reprinted here with permission.
Mathematicians can become ‘signs of hope for the world,’ Pope Leo XIV says
In a message conveyed through Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Pope Leo XIV on Friday said that mathematicians can become “signs of hope for the world,” particularly in a context marked by rapid technological advancements and challenges facing humanity.
The pope’s message was addressed to the Turkish mathematician and university professor Betül Tanbay, chair of the International Day of Mathematics, which was observed March 13.
Tanbay had informed the pontiff of a webinar dedicated to the theme “Mathematics and Hope.” In response, the pope sent a letter extending his cordial greetings and best wishes to all participants in the initiative.
In the text, Leo XIV invited reflection on the role that mathematics can play in the face of “the multiple challenges confronting the human family,” citing rapid technological development, with all its potential “for both good and evil.”
The pontiff encouraged participants to consider how mathematicians can offer a positive witness to society. “A particularly fruitful area of research is the use of algorithms, especially in the field of artificial intelligence,” he noted.
However, the pope emphasized that work in these fields demands something more than technical competence. As he pointed out, this task requires “not only intellectual effort and ingenuity but also the integral growth of the whole person,” capable of taking into account the moral dimension of emerging technologies.
Recalling his own experience as a mathematics and physics teacher, Leo XIV quoted words he addressed to students during the Jubilee of the World of Education, held on Oct. 30, 2025: “Possessing vast knowledge is not enough if we don’t know who we are or what the meaning of life is.”
Along these lines, the pontiff expressed his hope that participants would be attentive “to the profound spiritual needs of the human heart” and seek ways to humanize the digital realm so that it may become an opportunity for fraternity and creativity.
Likewise, he encouraged mathematicians to be “prophets of hope, truth, and goodness in the world.”
The message concluded with a prayer from the pope for all participants in the International Day of Mathematics, upon whom he invoked “abundant divine blessings of wisdom, joy, and peace.”
Pope Leo XIV’s mathematical background
Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV, graduated in 1977 from Villanova University in Pennsylvania, earning a bachelor of arts degree in mathematics alongside studies in philosophy. This preceded the beginning of his theological studies upon his formal entry into the Augustinian novitiate that same year.
During his time at the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Prevost combined his religious formation with teaching: He taught mathematics part time at Mendel Catholic High School in Chicago and worked occasionally as a substitute physics teacher at St. Rita of Cascia High School.
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.
Judicial Watch sues Minnesota governor over school security funding records
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.
Gigi Duncan contributed to this report.
Federalist Society panel questions constitutionality of FACE Act, targeting of pro-lifers
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.
‘Safeguards are ignored’ around assisted suicide, per new database
More than 14,000 Americans have died by assisted suicide since Oregon became the first state to legalize the practice in 1997, a recent report by Aging with Dignity found.
A group inspired by Mother Teresa, Aging with Dignity recently compiled all reported U.S. assisted suicide data from every state since 1997 in what it said was likely a first-of-its-kind report.
The report found that a recorded 14,446 Americans have died by assisted suicide since 1997 but that “the real number is likely much higher.” The group also reported troubling trends such as drug-related complications and assisted suicide for non-terminal illnesses.
New Mexico and Montana have never released a state report, while Vermont and Washington, D.C., have not released their most recent figures. Assisted suicide was also recently legalized in New York and Delaware.
The report found “utter laxity of state enforcement and reporting efforts, often in violation of state law,” wrote Aging with Dignity research associate Billy Barvick.
The report also found a concerning pattern of assisted suicide being used to treat conditions designated as “other.”
“Across America, non-terminal conditions like lupus, complications from a fall, anorexia, and diabetes all qualified people for suicide-affirming care, and there has been an explosion of people included in the ever-increasing but cryptic designation of ‘other,’” the report read.
Additionally, the group raised concerns about complications from drugs administered during assisted suicide. Only some states track these complications.
“In states like Oregon that track ‘known complication rates,’ i.e., severe complications like seizures and vomiting while ingesting these experimental, unregulated poisons, incidents have climbed as high as 14%,” the report read.
Jamie Towey, president of Aging with Dignity, told EWTN News that “the vulnerable are in danger from these laws.”
“Following Canada’s lead, suicide-affirming care is being normalized in parts of America as just another form of health care,” Towey said. “There is a growing expectation that people seen as a ‘burden’ on society have the duty to die.”
“Safeguards like psychiatric screenings are ignored — Oregon and Washington provide screenings in less than 1% of cases,” Towey said.
“The data we have is bad; the data we don’t have is likely worse,” Towey said. “New Mexico, for example, has never released a public report. In California, a state with over 1,000 deaths annually, hundreds of required forms are missing each year. And across all states, there has been ‘a steep rise in cases where approved terminal illnesses are designated as Other.’”
California has the most assisted suicide deaths of any state — more than 5,000 deaths in less than a decade, and surpassed 1,000 physician-assisted suicide deaths in one year.
“Our hope is that researchers, political commentators, and average Americans will use Aging with Dignity’s data to see for themselves that proponents of physician-assisted suicide aren’t protecting the vulnerable as safeguards fall and eligibility expands,” Towey said.
Matt Vallière, head of the Patients’ Rights Action Fund, a New York-based group that opposes assisted suicide as a form of discrimination, said the database shows “how little care is taken when assisted suicide becomes public policy.”
“Data reveal that assisted suicide in the U.S. has increased nearly 1,000% in the last 10 years,” he said. “Yet it grows unchecked with few Americans paying attention or understanding how few safeguards are in place.”
“With this new, powerful tool that organizes all reported information across the states, we need to tell our friends and neighbors what’s happening and encourage them to get involved in informing state lawmakers that assisted suicide is dangerous and removes liability and transparency from medical care,” Vallière continued.
“Meanwhile, given that perpetrating doctors are the only ones reporting this information and that there is a paucity of data on assisted suicide, we need to push for more transparency on this deadly and discriminatory public policy,” Vallière said.