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Live updates from the 2025 March for Life

Demonstrators participate in the March For Life Washington, D.C. on Jan. 19, 2024. / Credit: ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images

Washington D.C., Jan 24, 2025 / 12:32 pm (CNA).

The 52nd annual March for Life is taking place in Washington, D.C., on Friday, Jan. 24. Thousands of pro-lifers are coming together in our nation’s capitol to march in defense of the unborn.

Follow along here for live updates on the march. All times are in U.S. Eastern Standard Time:

U.S. government abortion website shut down

Department of Health and Human Services at the Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building. / Credit: Mark Van Scyoc/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Jan 24, 2025 / 09:45 am (CNA).

Here is a roundup of recent abortion- and pro-life-related news:

U.S. government reproductive rights website shut down 

A federal government website promoting abortion has been taken down following the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

Reproductiverights.gov, launched in 2022 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, went offline around the time of the inauguration on Jan. 20. Based on archived pages, the site was available just days before Trump’s inauguration. 

The website formerly detailed information about accessing abortion and birth control via insurance providers. 

Pro-life physicians support challenge to FDA abortion pill safeguards 

A coalition of pro-life physicians shared its support of a recent decision granting three states access to challenge the FDA’s chemical abortion policies.

A federal judge in Texas ruled on Jan. 17  that three other states — Idaho, Kansas, and Missouri — can join a case challenging online prescriptions of the abortion pill mifepristone.

Dr. Christina Francis, board-certified OB-GYN and CEO of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists (AAPLOG), criticized the FDA’s lack of safeguards in a statement shared with CNA.

“For years the FDA has failed to provide basic protections for women and girls to lessen the serious health risks of abortion drugs,” Francis said. “The physicians of AAPLOG believe that women deserve better care than this. Reinstating the original safeguards, including requiring in-person medical care, is a step towards protecting women from these dangerous drugs.”

Virginia Senate backs abortion 

The Virginia Senate passed a constitutional amendment Tuesday to establish a right to abortion in the Virginia Constitution.

The Senate vote followed the House of Delegates, which passed its own version of the resolution. This is among the beginning steps of a long legislative process to put the constitutional amendment on the ballot in Virginia. The legislation must pass in both the House and Senate twice in two years, with an intervening election before the two sessions. Following this, the referendum can be put on the ballot for voters to decide. 

Both the Virginia Senate and House have a slim Democratic majority, while Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin is a staunch Republican. 

Republicans warned that the amendment could undermine current abortion-related laws in Virginia, including Virginia’s parental consent laws for minors seeking abortions. Abortion is currently legal in Virginia for the first and second trimesters of pregnancy as well as in the third trimester if the mother’s life or health is at serious risk, as verified by three physicians.

The Virginia Senate also passed a resolution to repeal a now-defunct law defining marriage as between a man and a woman. 

Texas defendant pleads guilty after vandalizing pregnancy clinic 

A Texan man who vandalized two pregnancy resource clinics in May 2022 recently pleaded guilty to a violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. 

Ethan Skorick, 23, vandalized two Texas pregnancy resource centers with spray paint shortly after the leak of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. The two clinics, the Loreto House and Woman to Woman, serve pregnant women in need in Denton, Texas. According to court documents, Skorick defaced the clinics with graffitied phrases including “NOT A CLINIC,” “FORCED BIRTH IS MURDER,” and “PRO BIRTH [does not equal] PRO LIFE.” 

Skorick pleaded guilty to a violation of the FACE Act, which has been used in the past to allegedly target pro-life activists for blocking clinic entrances. The FACE Act prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.”

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said in a Jan. 16 statement that the DOJ “will enforce the FACE Act to protect all providers of reproductive health services and their patients.”

Birth rate in South Korea rises for first time in 9 years

South Korea has the world’s lowest recorded fertility rates, but the birth rate in that country has risen for the first time in nine years.

The number of newborns from January 2024 to November 2024 rose 3% from a year earlier, according to monthly government data. South Korea’s government last year encouraged young people to get married and have children. The now-impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol declared a “national demographic crisis” and put forth a plan to create a new ministry to address low birth rates.

Pope Francis tells journalists to build communion, ‘give reasons for hope’

Pope Francis speaks to journalists aboard the papal plane during an in-flight press conference on Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, on his return from his nearly two-week tour of Southeast Asia. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Jan 24, 2025 / 09:15 am (CNA).

In his message for the 59th World Day of Social Communications on Friday, Pope Francis encouraged journalists to build communion in the world through sharing stories of goodness and hope.

“I dream of a communication that does not peddle illusions or fears but is able to give reasons for hope,” the pope said. “I encourage you to discover and make known the many stories of goodness hidden in the folds of the news, imitating those gold-prospectors who tirelessly sift the sand in search of a tiny nugget. It is good to seek out such seeds of hope and make them known.”

The Church celebrates the World Day of Social Communications every year on Jan. 24, the feast of St. Francis de Sales, patron saint of journalists and writers.

In 2025, the World Day of Social Communications is also taking place during three days of events in Rome for a Jubilee of the World of Communications, part of the yearlong Church-wide Jubilee of Hope.

In his message, Pope Francis urged those who work in media and communications to “tell stories steeped in hope,” especially during these “troubled times,” and pointed to the special graces available during the 2025 Jubilee of Hope as a support to this work.

The pontiff said a good communicator “ensures that those who listen, read, or watch can be involved, can draw close, can get in touch with the best part of themselves and enter with these attitudes into the stories told.”

By sharing stories of goodness and hope, media professionals help the world to be a little less closed off and a little less indifferent to others, he noted. 

“May you always find those glimmers of goodness that inspire us to hope. This kind of communication can help to build communion, to make us feel less alone, to rediscover the importance of walking together,” he said.

Francis also had advice for journalists’ prayer lives.

“In the face of the astonishing achievements of technology, I encourage you to care for your heart, your interior life,” he said.

Some practical ways to do that, he advised, are to “be meek and never forget the faces of other people; speak to the hearts of the women and men whom you serve in carrying out your work.”

“To do this, though, we must be healed of our ‘diseases’ of self-promotion and self-absorption, and avoid the risk of shouting over others in order to make our voices heard,” he warned.

Pope Francis taps travel agent Cardinal Koovakad to lead Interreligious Dialogue dicastery

Indian Cardinal George Jacob Koovakad of the Syro-Malabar Church, official of the Secretariat of State and organizer of papal trips, was created a cardinal by Pope Francis during the consistory at St. Peter’s Basilica on Dec. 7, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Jan 24, 2025 / 07:10 am (CNA).

Pope Francis has appointed his personal travel agent and new cardinal, George Jacob Koovakad, to lead the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue, following the death last year of Cardinal Miguel Ángel Ayuso Guixot.

Ayuso, a Spanish-born prelate and respected expert in Islam, died on Nov. 25, 2024, after a long illness. He was 72.

The 51-year-old Koovakad, originally from the southern Indian state of Kerala, was elevated to the College of Cardinals by Pope Francis in December.

Since late 2021, the Vatican diplomat has been the coordinator for papal travels, working in the section for general affairs of the Secretariat of State to arrange Francis’ trips. He also has a doctorate in canon law. 

Koovakad, who was in the diplomatic service of the Holy See for 14 years, is part of the Syro-Malabar Church, one of the Catholic faith’s Eastern-rite Churches. He was the first Syro-Malabar priest to be elevated to cardinal directly from the priesthood, according to a spokesperson for the Church.

The Vatican’s Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue was created during the Second Vatican Council as the Church took a new, formal approach to dialogue with other religions, as expressed in the declaration Nostra Aetate.

Interreligious dialogue has been a priority of Pope Francis’ pontificate, as demonstrated by his trips to non-Christian majority countries and the “Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together,” signed in Abu Dhabi in 2019.

Koovakad helped organize several of Pope Francis’ religious dialogue-focused trips, including to Kazakhstan and Bahrain in 2022, to Mongolia in 2023, and to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and Singapore in September 2024.

Vatican issues guide on richness of Eastern Catholic Churches

The Melkite Greek Basilica of St. Paul in Harissa, Lebanon. / Credit: Kevin Jones/CNA

Vatican City, Jan 24, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The Dicastery for the Eastern Churches has prepared a pastoral guide for the 2025 Jubilee of the Eastern Churches, to be celebrated May 12–14, in order to make known the richness of the Christian traditions of the Eastern world.

According to Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, this is a tool designed to “integrate a new dimension to the Roman experience of pilgrimage” that will adapt the identity of the Eastern Churches “according to the spirituality of each one.”

In an interview with Vatican News, the cardinal specified that this document is addressed to the Eastern Churches, “indicating to them that there are specific riches in their traditions that the jubilee can bring out clearly … above all, in this moment of grave difficulties for all the Eastern Churches — Middle East, Ukraine, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea.”

The guide — which can be found on the website of the dicastery — also includes part of the history of Rome during the reign of the Eastern Roman Empire, which culminated with the fall of Constantinople and the conquest of the rest of the Byzantine territories by the Ottoman Turks in the 15th century.

From this part of the document it is clear that the Church of Rome “has been strongly inhabited by Eastern communities that have long retained their own specificity.” In particular, Gugerotti provided interesting data such as the fact that there were “11 Greek popes and almost a dozen Syriacs,” which proves that “it was not a marginal presence.”

“Rome, ‘caput mundi’ (the capital of the world), was also a city in which the Easterners identified themselves as integrated into their structure and not simply as small migrant communities,” he explained.

The pastoral guide also contains specific guidelines for the Eastern Churches to live this time of grace “with awareness and courage and thus be credible witnesses of hope,” Gugerotti said.

He emphasized that the document is also useful for Westerners to “understand that there are very ancient forms of expression of Christianity, from the time of Christ himself … that constitute the unity in diversity of Christian identity.”

In this way, he emphasized that Christianity is not a “monolithic” reality.

“We also saw this in the recent synod [of bishops], a plural reality in which we may not even understand each other, not out of ill will but because of different roots. Being together, exchanging each other’s peculiarities, was one of the great discoveries of the synod,” he said.

In his opinion, the artistic and cultural heritage of the Eastern Churches is not sufficiently known.

“Decades ago, a document from the then-Congregation for Catholic Education prescribed that all Latin seminaries should teach about the Eastern Churches. But it is probably one of the most ignored documents of the many that the Holy See has produced,” he noted.

To make up for this lack of knowledge, the new pastoral guide proposes pilgrimage itineraries to better understand the traces of the Eastern presence in Rome.

He thus proposed a list of the most significant Eastern holy places, such as the Church of St. Mary in Cosmedin, which is run by the Greek-Melkite Church and where the liturgy is in Greek and some small parts in Arabic.

Gugerotti pointed out that although they are little known, there are “numerous colleges attended by Eastern seminarians — for Romanians, Ukrainians, Byzantines in general, Greeks, Armenians, Syro-Malabars and Syro-Malankars, [and] Maronites.”

On the other hand, he explained that a special college was created a few years ago for the Eastern nuns who study in Rome. “Afterward, various places of worship were entrusted to or built for Eastern Catholics and also for Eastern Orthodox,” he said.

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

‘Chosen’ actress Elizabeth Tabish reflects on new role in ‘Between Borders’

Actress Elizabeth Tabish as Violetta Petrosyan in the new film "Between Borders." / Credit: Between Borders movie

CNA Staff, Jan 24, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

“Between Borders,” a new film that will hit theaters Jan. 26–28, is based on the true story of an Armenian family who was forced to flee their home in Baku, Azerbaijan, during the anti-Armenian massacre that took place in the late 1980s. 

Experiencing discrimination in their home country and then in Russia, the country to which they fled, the Petrosyans — made up of husband and wife Ivan and Violetta and their two daughters, Olga and Julia — eventually found hope in a church established by American missionaries. There they became Christians and were helped to seek refuge in the United States.

Actress Elizabeth Tabish, known for her role as Mary Magdalene in the hit series “The Chosen,” portrays Violetta Petrosyan in the film. She spoke to CNA in an interview and shared how she was impacted by the role and what she hopes people will take away from the film.

Being part Armenian herself, Tabish was initially interested in the role due to the fact that there aren’t many movies telling the stories of Armenians. Once she read the script, she “fell in love with the characters and their hearts and I was just very eager to be a part of it,” she said.

While Tabish is familiar with portraying true stories, she told CNA that, typically, “there’s no direct personal feedback from the experience.” However, while filming “Between Borders,” the actress was able to meet the real-life Petrosyans, watch their home videos, and come to know the woman she was portraying in the movie.

“When I met Violetta, she’s just all love, she’s so much love, and she’s so strong,” she said. “So I think I was just trying to match the essence of that.” 

“We see this transformation throughout the story of her going from someone who’s relatively secure … and we see them lose everything and in the midst of that loss, we see her find faith and start learning about Jesus and how that can transform everything … So, when I finally got to meet her and get to know her, it’s so clear and that is so much a part of her,” Tabish recalled. 

The actress also touched on her hopes that this film will shed light on the many wars and political tensions taking place around the world right now. She shared that America has always been “a place of refuge for so many people.”

“So many of us come from immigrant parents, or grandparents, or great-grandparents — most of us are immigrants here in some capacity and the film really highlights this. In a beautiful moment [the film references] the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty that America is supposed to be a refuge for people and it is one of the most, I think, Christian elements of America,” she said.

“I know there’s a separation of church and state, but in terms of philosophy, and in terms of concept, taking care of people who have to flee their homes because of racism, because of threats, because of danger, is one of the most Christian things we can do as a country.”

She added: “It’s one of those elements that I’m so proud of America for is opening its arms to those who have nowhere else to go and this film really highlights what that can do for people … Just by knowing the Petrosyans, of what America has done for them — and also what they have done for America now and their communities, and their church communities, and the work that they do at their school — they’ve given back so much of their hearts and love.”

Tabish shared that taking part in the film personally impacted her in many ways and left her feeling “proud to be Armenian and American.”

“It made me really think about my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and great-great grandparents and the struggles that they’ve all gone through in their own ways,” she said. “It makes you appreciate family and it makes you really appreciate what they’ve done for us.”

She pointed out that it also “inspires this sense of faith.”

“We have a home in God, we have a home in the Father in a way that this life can shift so dramatically and change so quickly, and politics and wars and things can happen so quickly, and that to have your safety and your peace and your home in God — that can’t be taken away.”

Tabish said she hopes the movie will inspire a “sort of synthesis between being from other countries and being American,” adding: “This is a melting pot; this country is about lots of different cultures coming together and making something beautiful from those differences.”

Additionally, the actress said she hopes viewers will “cling to their families and really appreciate their families and really appreciate their ancestors and those who came before them, [who] have done really difficult things and challenging things to give them, to give us new generations, better lives.”

Check theater listings near you for “Between Borders” showtimes.

How St. Francis de Sales overcame his temper to become a saint of kindness

Mosaic of Sales on the exterior of St. Francis de Sales Oratory in St. Louis. / Credit: RickMorais/Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ACI Prensa Staff, Jan 24, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).

Every Jan. 24, the Catholic Church celebrates St. Francis de Sales, bishop of Geneva and doctor of the Church, known as “the saint of kindness.” He reportedly had a bad temper, but he relied on divine grace and the maternal care of the Virgin Mary to temper that vice and become a man of virtue.

St. Francis de Sales is also the patron saint of the Catholic press, journalists, and writers. He is considered a spiritual master, inspiring saints such as St. John Bosco and St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus.

‘A bad temper’

Francis was born in 1567 in the castle of Sales, duchy of Savoy (then part of the Holy Roman Empire). He was the eldest of six siblings. He had a restless and playful character, to the point that his mother and his wet nurse had to redouble their efforts to take care of him and be attentive to his wanderings.

As a child, Francis had an irascible temperament. His biographers tell that one day a Calvinist visited the castle in which he lived and little Francis, when he heard about it, took a stick and went running around the chickens shouting: “Heretics out, we don’t want heretics.”

His father, on the other hand, wanting Francis to grow up well disciplined, chose a priest named Father Deage, a demanding man, as his tutor. The priest gave Francis a hard time, but, as Francis himself later acknowledged, it helped him in his human and Christian formation.

Nevertheless, Francis’ bad temper would continue to play tricks on him. Sometimes his blunders or outbursts made him the object of ridicule and humiliation, and his soul had to bear the weight of resentment and a desire for revenge. As an educated man of manners, he would control himself to the point that many had no idea of his bad temper. 

In spite of this, over time bad experiences accumulated in his heart and Francis suffered a lot. At one point he even thought he feared he would be condemned to hell forever. The mere possibility of such a thing happening tormented him for a long time, and he lost his appetite and began to have difficulty sleeping.

The path of charity

One day Francis said to God in prayer: “I don’t care if you send me all the tortures you want, as long as you allow me to continue loving you always.” Determined to find a way out of his predicament, he began to frequent churches and to pray. One day, in the Church of St. Stephen in Paris, kneeling before the image of the Virgin Mary, he pronounced the famous prayer of St. Bernard: “Remember, O most pious Virgin Mary...”

And for the first time in a long time, Francis found some of the peace for which he longed.

This experience cured much of the pride that had tormented him for so long. Francis could better understand the people around him and he realized how imperative it was to treat them with kindness. He went to study law in Padua, as was his father’s wish, but he also enrolled to study theology. In his heart had sprung up the desire to know the things of God more deeply.

At the age of 24, already with a doctorate, he returned to his family to live the ordinary life of a young man of nobility. His father wanted him to marry and obtain an important position, but Francis possessed the desire to consecrate his life totally to the service of God. He confessed to his father his desire to become a priest. At first he was met with stiff resistance, but finally his father agreed. Francis renounced the lordship of Villaroger, which was his birthright, and was ordained a priest on May 10, 1593. 

He first served as canon of Annecy, but upon the death of the dean of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Geneva, a group of influential people (including his cousin, Canon Louis de Sales), interceded and asked the pope to grant the vacant position to Francis.

Concern for those whose faith is weak

Despite the initiative of his friends, Francis, as soon as he could, presented himself to the pontiff as a volunteer to go to the region of Chablais (Savoy), where Calvinism had become dominant and Catholics were being harassed.

He began to write and publish his homilies, which he put together in pamphlet form. In them he expounded the doctrine of the Church and refuted the Calvinist positions. These writings would later form part of his famous text called “Controversies.”

However, what people admired most about Francis was the patience with which he endured the difficulties and pains that his office caused him. 

The pope confirmed Francis as coadjutor of Geneva and the future saint returned to his diocese to work with redoubled commitment. Then, on the death of the bishop, Francis succeeded him and took up residence in Annecy.

During this period, Francis had a disciple named Jane de Chantal, with whom he founded the Congregation of the Visitation in 1610. The spiritual instruction and direction he gave to de Chantal, who was also later canonized a saint, became his famous “Introduction to the Devout Life” — his best-known work. 

In 1622, the duke of Savoy invited Francis to join him in Avignon. The bishop accepted the invitation, concerned for the welfare of the French part of his diocese. The trip, however, was risky because of the harsh winter and his declining health. After meeting with the duke, Francis began his return journey. 

That journey would be his last. 

Francis stopped in Lyon and stayed in the gardener’s cottage of the Visitation convent. From there he attended to the nuns spiritually for a whole month. It was during this time that he spoke and wrote about humility. 

He continued his journey preaching and administering the sacraments until his strength left him. Francis de Sales died on Dec. 28, 1622, at the age of 56.

Legacy

One day after Francis’ death, the entire city of Lyon paraded in front of the humble house where he had died. Known for his holiness, his coffin was opened in 1632 and his body was in good condition: He looked like he was in a peaceful sleep.

Francis de Sales was canonized a saint in 1665. In 1878 Pope Pius IX declared him a doctor of the Church. Not long after that, John Bosco would make him the patron of his newly founded congregation — the Pious Society of St. Francis de Sales — and make Francis a model for the service of his spiritual sons, the “Salesians.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, and was published on CNA on Jan. 24, 2024. It has been updated.

Pro-life activist Paul Vaughn ‘rejoices’ over Trump pardon after 2-year-long ordeal

Paul Vaughn with his wife, Bethany, told CNA that “it’s great to see a president like Donald Trump who understands the injustice that has gone on” after Trump pardoned him and other pro-life activists prosecuted under the Biden administration. / Credit: Madalaine Elhabbal/CNA

Washington D.C., Jan 23, 2025 / 20:30 pm (CNA).

Pro-life activist Paul Vaughn received the news that President Donald Trump had pardoned him, along with 22 other pro-life demonstrators, on Thursday in the middle of a press conference with his lawyers at the Thomas More Society.

“I have a lot of thoughts,” he told CNA. “It’s a big ordeal, and it’s been a long time going through all this.”

The pardon put an end to the Biden administration’s prosecution of Vaughn and his fellow pro-life activists, among whom were several elderly and infirm women who were serving time in prison for peacefully protesting abortion.

Vaughn was one of 11 pro-life activists convicted of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for a demonstration outside of a Tennessee abortion clinic in March 2021. 

Prosecutors had unsuccessfully sought a one-year prison sentence for him, but he was ultimately sentenced to three years of supervised release in July 2024. Prior to the pardon, Vaughn’s case was on appeal. 

Vaughn had been taking part in the conference about free speech and the abortion pill reversal process alongside several senior members of the religious liberty law firm when Steve Crampton, senior counsel with the Thomas More Society, interrupted the discussion.

Crampton read aloud a social media post announcing that Trump had signed pardons for the 23 convicted pro-life activists. Those gathered for the event rose to their feet and erupted in applause, while Vaughn and his legal team shook hands joyfully.

“On one side, it’s great to see a president like Donald Trump who understands the injustice that has gone on,” Vaughn later told CNA. “On the other side of the coin, it doesn’t erase the injustice that my family and the other 22 pro-lifers have endured for the last two years at Biden’s DOJ.” 

“We won’t get that back,” he added. 

Calling the pardon “a mixed bag,” Vaughn said he is both “rejoicing” with his family and co-defendants and hoping that “we do better as a nation going forward.” 

“Lord willing,” he said of the jailed pro-life activists who were among those that received a pardon, “[they] will be eating dinner with their families tonight and not in the federal pen, with, you know, bologna sandwiches and whatever.” 

Vaughn’s wife, Bethany, told CNA that while she is happy about the pardon, she hopes her husband will pursue his appeals case and ultimately win so that future prosecutions may be prevented from happening. 

A video posted on social media shows Trump signing the pardons on Thursday afternoon after telling the press: “Twenty-three people were prosecuted. They should not have been prosecuted. Many of them were elderly people.” 

“It’s a great honor to sign this,” the president said as he signed the order. 

Last week, the Thomas More Society petitioned the incoming president to issue 21 individual pardons for pro-life advocates who were arrested for violating the FACE Act, including several who were elderly and in poor health. 

“These peaceful pro-life Americans mistreated by [President Joe] Biden include grandparents, pastors, a Holocaust survivor, and a Catholic priest — all are selfless, sincere patriots,” the petition stated. 

New wildfire threatens communities north of Los Angeles

A Ventura County Fire Department Firehawk on the helispot installed on the campus of Thomas Aquinas College outside Santa Paula, California. / Credit: Photo courtesy Thomas Aquinas College

CNA Staff, Jan 23, 2025 / 17:10 pm (CNA).

As a series of massive and destructive wildfires in the Los Angeles area continue to burn, a new fire that sparked Wednesday north of the city, near Castaic Lake reservoir, has quickly burned more than 10,000 acres and as of Thursday is only about one-quarter contained. 

The Hughes Fire has forced the evacuation of 31,000 people and more than 14,000 structures are threatened, according to Los Angeles County’s Coordinated Joint Information Center.

Father Vaughn Winters, the pastor at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Catholic Church in nearby Santa Clarita, told CNA by email that “yesterday was very stressful, but the immediate danger seems to be past.” 

He said “a couple hundred” St. Kateri parishioners living near where the fire is spreading were forced to evacuate, as evacuation warnings bordered the city of Santa Clarita, which is about 30 miles north of Los Angeles and home to 220,000 people.

“Our parishioners from the community of Castaic near the fire were evacuated. The evacuation warning zone came near to the actual church and our parishioners in Santa Clarita, but we did not have to evacuate,” the priest told CNA.

“Seeing all the plumes of smoke all day was very worrying and of course everyone has been on edge because of the terrible fires two weeks ago.”

Winters said the parish is willing to extend assistance to anyone who needs it through a special fire assistance fund that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles set up in early January.

The Hughes Fire, which at its height engaged about 4,000 firefighters, is about 30 miles as the crow flies from Thomas Aquinas College (TAC), a prominent Catholic institution of higher education located in Santa Paula that has been threatened by wildfire before. 

The 2017 Thomas Fire, named for its proximity to the school, sparked in early December less than a mile from campus and burned nearly 300,000 acres, including hundreds of residences in the town of Ventura. It was the largest wildfire in state history up to that point, but the college survived the fire without the loss of any major structures.

The school in 2021 opened a concrete helipad designed to accommodate the needs of a Firehawk helicopter in an effort to assist local firefighters by giving them a location to refill the craft’s water tanks. 

Christopher Weinkopf, a TAC spokesman, told CNA that “thanks be to God” the school isn’t threatened by the Hughes Fire but that they were “seeing a lot of smoke on campus yesterday.” 

He added that firefighters are not currently using the TAC helipad in their efforts to fight the Hughes Fire.

Trump pardons 23 pro-life activists 

Pro-life activists protest the incarceration of nine activists charged with FACE Act violations. / Credit: Tyler Arnold/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 23, 2025 / 16:35 pm (CNA).

President Donald Trump issued pardons for 23 pro-life activists on Thursday, fulfilling a promise he made during the presidential campaign.

Trump signed the pardons on Thursday in the Oval Office of the White House on the day before the March for Life to be held in Washington, D.C., according to the Thomas More Society.

Last week, the religious liberty law firm petitioned the incoming president to issue 21 individual pardons for pro-life advocates who were arrested for violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and “Conspiracy Against Rights” statute while peacefully engaging in protests at abortion clinics.

Several of those convicted and imprisoned were elderly and in poor health.

At least two times during his 2024 campaign for the presidency, Trump said he intended to release pro-life activists who are currently imprisoned.

“These peaceful pro-life Americans mistreated by [President Joe] Biden include grandparents, pastors, a Holocaust survivor, and a Catholic priest — all are selfless, sincere patriots,” the petition from the Chicago-based law firm reads.

During Biden’s four years in office, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) brought charges against more than 30 people who took part in pro-life demonstrations under the FACE Act, which was legislation in the 1990s to increase penalties for people who obstruct access to abortion clinics or pregnancy resource centers.

Although the FACE Act’s higher sentences also apply to people who obstruct or damage pro-life pregnancy centers, Biden’s DOJ only brought charges in two cases regarding attacks on those facilities despite more than 100 incidents occurring under his tenure.

“While Biden’s prosecutors almost entirely ignored the firebombing and vandalism of hundreds of pro-life churches and pregnancy centers, they viciously pursued pro-life Americans,” the petition adds.

The longest sentence was given last year to Lauren Handy, who received four years and nine months in prison for her role in a protest at an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C. The second longest was also given last year to Bevelyn Beatty Williams, who received three years and five months in prison for a protest inside an abortion clinic in New York City. 

Several pro-life activists in their mid-to-late 70s also received multiyear sentences for their protests.

“These 21 peaceful pro-lifers, many of whom are currently imprisoned for bravely standing up for unborn life, are upstanding citizens and pillars of their communities,” Steve Crampton, who works as senior counsel for the Thomas More Society, said in a statement.

This is a developing story.