Catholic doctors say both Eastern and Western spirituality are required to heal the whole person
For the first time in its nearly 100-year history, the Catholic Medical Association is focusing on how the Eastern Catholic Church’s emphasis on mystery, united with the Western Church’s emphasis on reason, can give a more comprehensive view of human identity and help Western medicine promote human flourishing.
The group’s 95th annual educational conference, held in Phoenix Sept. 10–12, emphasized the early Church Fathers, whose influence was strongest in the East, in order to “promote a more comprehensive view and more respect for the mysteries of human health and disease,” said conference chair Dr. Mary Keen-Kirchoff.
“We’re embodied spirits, not just physical bodies,” she said at the opening. Healing, she added, “is a return to humanity’s original creation in the image and likeness of God.”
The conference theme was “Mysteries and Miracles: Restoring the Practice of Medicine to Heal the Whole Person.” Setting the tone, Father Andriy Chirovsky, a theologian and priest of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church in full communion with Rome, and psychiatrist Dr. Donna C. Dobrowolsky shared the first plenary.
They moved between theology and clinical practice, saying they hoped to help medical professionals recover a holistic understanding of “the whole person, because thatʼs who all of us care about.” Theology without clinical reality stays abstract, they said; clinical work without a complete Christian anthropology becomes fragmented.
“If the human person is misunderstood, then healing will also be misunderstood and therefore less effective,” Chirovsky said. “Healing requires a true anthropology.”
He quoted Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, in which the pontiff wrote: “We Christians lift our eyes to the Incarnate God, knowing that it is ‘only the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear.’”
Why the East, and why now?
Chirovsky cited St. John Paul II’s 1995 encyclical Ut Unum Sint (That They May Be One), in which the pope, referring to the Eastern and Western Catholic churches, wrote that “the Church must breathe with her two lungs!”
Dobrowolsky noted that what the West calls sacraments, the East calls mysteries: rites “not fully comprehensible by human reason, but revealed by God.”
Chirovsky said Eastern spirituality and practice “preserve certain habits of thought that are especially needed at this moment in history.”
He was not arguing against the West, he said. Any strength can become distorted when it loses its complement. The East offers “a needed medicine for some of the pathologies of modern culture,” especially the idea that a person is the center of the universe, “self-defining,” and “the ground of truth.”
“We require revelation to understand our own selves,” he said.
“If the person is not self-explaining,” Dobrowolsky said, medicine has to be careful because lab values and symptom clusters aren’t enough to explain a person. They’re important, but they don’t tell us everything about who a human person is.”
The Catholic Church needs both the East and the West in the same way a healthy person must think with both hemispheres of the brain, the priest said, quoting neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist’s book “The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World.”
In his book, McGilchrist notes that the left side of the brain is analytical and narrow, while the right side focuses more on the big picture, and pathology results when the two sides don’t work together and one side dominates.
Chirovsky compared modern medicine’s laser focus on the analytical and quantifiable, using hyperspecialization in the medical field as an example, to a pathology with too much dependence on the left brain.
“The analytic mode is powerful, but when it dominates unchecked, the person becomes legible as data but less visible as mystery and as a person,” he said.
“Any practice of medicine that loses sight of the whole person as revealed in the incarnate Son of God is going to run into lots of trouble,” he added. “Modern medicine is doing exactly that.”
Dobrowolsky agreed, adding that “in medicine, that imbalance isn’t theoretical, we see it every day.”
Seeing the human being as mystery does not mean the person is unintelligible, she said. “We’re saying this human person is not exhausted by reductionist accounts. And that the deepest truth of the human person is disclosed in relation to Christ.”
“If a person is reduced to a collection of functions, risks, and measurable outputs, their care becomes reduced as well,” she continued, saying that while practitioners may “retain technical brilliance … the patient may begin to disappear beneath the technique.”
Indeed, the conference’s breakout sessions touched upon the necessity for a Christian anthropology informed by a Church “breathing with both lungs," with talks titled “Healing Is Not the Same as Curing: Patristic Anthropology and the Limits of Modern Medicine,” “The Neglected Soul: Ancient Monastic Teachings on Depression in the Modern World,” and “Psychedelics, AI, Spirituality, and More: Ancient Wisdom for Reenchanting Medicine.”
“My prayer before the conference was that all attendees receive abundant graces of understanding and hope for the future,” Keen-Kirchoff told EWTN News. “I am so grateful that the Holy Spirit was so present … and trust that attendees are more in tune with who we are in Christ and who we are to become in Christ.”
Bishop James D. Conley of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, won the CMA’s annual Evangelium Vitae award for his pastoral efforts surrounding mental health.
In May 2024, Conley published a pastoral letter titled “A Future with Hope,” concerning the Catholic response to mental health struggles. The honor sits close to the conference’s theme: care that views the person as a whole, in the mystery of body and spirit.
Pope Leo XIV names Newark auxiliary bishop to lead Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey
Pope Leo XIV has appointed Newark, New Jersey, auxiliary bishop Michael Saporito as the new bishop of the Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey.
The Vatican announced his appointment on Sept. 15, ending a nearly one-year wait for a new bishop of the diocese. The diocese was previously led by then-Bishop James Checchio from 2016 to 2025, after he served as rector of the Pontifical North American College in Rome. Checchio became the archbishop of New Orleans in 2026 after a brief period as its coadjutor archbishop.
The pope has also accepted the resignation of Bishop Francis Malone of Shreveport, Louisiana. Malone, 76, has led the diocese since 2019. Bishops are required to submit their resignations to the pope at the age of 75.
According to the Vatican announcement, Saporito was born in Newark on May 3, 1962. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Newark on May 30, 1992.
He also earned an accounting degree from Rutgers University and studied at Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology in South Orange, New Jersey, for several years before his ordination.
After his ordination, Saporito served as a parish priest at several parish churches throughout the archdiocese: St. Peter the Apostle in River Edge (1994–1999), Our Lady of Visitation in Paramus (1999–2001), St. Elizabeth in Wyckoff (2001–2004), St. Joseph in Maplewood (2004–2011), and St. Helen in Westfield (2011–2020).
In February 2020, Pope Francis appointed Saporito as an auxiliary bishop of Newark. He received his episcopal consecration on June 30 of the same year from Cardinal Joseph Tobin, CSsR, who has served as archbishop of Newark since 2016.
Daughter of imprisoned Christian Syrian urges Trump to intervene
The family of Suleiman Khalil, a former mayor in Sadad, Syria, is urging U.S. officials to intervene after he spent 19 months in detention without charges under the Syrian transitional government.
Khalil was arrested and detained Feb. 8, 2025. His daughter and advocacy group Christian Solidarity International (CSI) have urged U.S. governmental intervention.
Veronica Dudo, “EWTN News Nightly” anchor, interviewed Khalil’s daughter, Natalie Khalil, and Joel Veldkamp, CSI director for public advocacy, on Sept. 14 about the detention, the state of U.S.-Syrian relations, and Natalie’s recent letter to President Donald Trump appealing for help.
“It’s been 19 months since they got him. We don’t know why they got him. They didn’t claim that they have any charges against him. We weren’t allowed to get a lawyer. They came to our house and said, ‘He was wanted,’” she said.
Khalil, known for his Christian faith, gained wide respect in 2015 when he organized the defense of Sadad during an ISIS assault, an effort credited with saving more than 9,000 residents.
Veldkamp said: “Suleiman Khalil is very well known in Syria for saving the town.”
He received an early warning that ISIS, a violent extremist organization responsible for mass atrocities across Syria and Iraq, was approaching, Veldkamp said.
Khalil was not aligned with the former regime but was an independent Christian political figure who acted out of necessity to protect his community, Veldkamp said.
Veldkamp said it appears Khalil is being punished for those actions, a move that sends a stark warning to Christians across Syria about their place in the country. Veldkamp said such treatment threatens the survival of the Christian community in one of the world’s oldest centers of Christianity. The treatment of Khalil, Veldkamp said, undercuts the government’s own assurances to Washington.
“For the new Syrian government, which has only been in power for about two years, to tell the United States that they’re joining their fight against terrorism, and then to put a man like this in prison, it sends a very confusing message to the U.S. It sends a terrible message to Christians in Syria who are really uncertain about their future under this new government,” Veldkamp said.
“The new Syrian government is very dependent on the U.S. government — on the Trump administration. The Trump administration has high hopes for Syria,” Veldkamp said.
‘We weren’t allowed to be Christians’
Natalie Khalil said the family faced strict limits during their visits, including rules that barred them from expressing their Christian identity.
“Even when we went to visit, we weren’t allowed to be ourselves,” she said. “We were asked to wear hijab to cover the head and hair. We were to cover the whole body. Yet, my brother went wearing a necklace with a cross — they took it off his neck. We weren’t allowed to be Christians in that place.”
She added: “I wasn’t able to get him a Bible inside to the prison.”
In a letter to Trump, Natalie expressed her plea for justice.
“My story is not unique. I don’t need special treatment; I just need the justice for my father’s case,” Natalie said.
Church documents 304 martyrs in Latin America so far this century
The Catholic Church has documented 304 martyrs in Latin America so far this century. These are men and women killed not only for professing their faith but also for defending the poor, confronting organized crime, and protecting creation.
Their stories are part of a global catalog of martyrs promoted by the Vatican that already exceeds 1,700 documented cases.
“Many were murdered for reasons related to drug trafficking, deforestation, or for opposing the exploitation of natural resources,” explained Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints.
The cardinal noted that while many were missionaries, the group also included lay faithful who gave their lives defending the Gospel and denouncing drug traffickers, protecting Indigenous territories from deforestation, or fighting the illegal exploitation of natural resources.
As he explained, the common thread in these cases is that these individuals became “inconvenient” to those controlling illicit activities. Their Gospel witness clashed directly with economic interests and criminal structures.
A conference to reflect on the new martyrs
Semeraro offered these reflections while presenting the international conference “The 21st Century: A New Era of Martyrs?” at the Vatican, a day of study and reflection dedicated to exploring the witness of Christians who have lost their lives for the sake of the Gospel in various parts of the world.
The gathering, organized by the Commission for New Martyrs — Witnesses to the Faith, was scheduled to take place Sept. 15 at the Pontifical Augustinianum Institute in Rome.
The international congress will bring together some of the most prominent voices from the Church, academia, and journalism in Rome to reflect on Christian witness in the contemporary world.
Participants include Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, archbishop of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo; Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem; and Andrea Riccardi, founder of the Community of Sant’Egidio. Experts will also speak, such as Archbishop Fabio Fabene, president of the Commission for New Martyrs; journalist Lucia Capuzzi; historian Father Roberto Regoli; and South Sudanese religious sister Alice Jurugo Drajea, who will share about Christian life amid the war ravaging her country.
The initiative comes a year after the commemoration of the martyrs and witnesses of the faith of the 21st century, presided over on Sept. 14, 2025, by Pope Leo XIV together with representatives of other Christian churches and communities at the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls.
The commission continues to gather testimonies and information regarding Christians killed for their faith, aiming to preserve their memory and document the various forms of persecution and Christian witness in contemporary times.
According to data released by the organization last year, 1,624 martyrs worldwide had been documented between 2000 and 2025. Of these, 304 were from the Americas, a figure that reflects the specific nature of martyrdom in this region today.
The commission also noted that the record now exceeds 1,700 documented cases and that between 100 and 150 new testimonies were added in the last year alone, confirming that the phenomenon remains very much ongoing.
Holiness goes beyond canonization
In his remarks, Semeraro emphasized that holiness in the Church is not limited to those officially canonized.
“The grace of holiness in the Church is represented by canonization, but it is not exhausted by them. Obviously, this does not rule out the possibility that, provided the necessary conditions are met, the corresponding processes of beatification and canonization could be initiated for some of those listed in the catalogue,” he noted.
This is the case, for example, of Floribert Bwana Chui, a young Congolese man from the Community of Sant’Egidio who was murdered in 2007 for refusing to accept bribes and who was beatified in 2025.
However, he noted that the primary goal is to highlight the “high standard of ordinary Christian living” spoken of by St. John Paul II in Novo Millennio Ineunte, which Pope Francis later referred to as that of “the saints next door.”
The anthropological value of holiness
The cardinal also highlighted the deeply human dimension of Christian holiness.
“We need witnesses, martyrs, who have given themselves completely to demonstrate this to us day after day. We need them so that, even in the small choices of daily life, we may choose the good over comfort, knowing that this is precisely how we truly live life,” he explained, citing Pope Benedict XVI’s encyclical Spe Salvi.
Semeraro also highlighted the ecumenical value of this project, a characteristic that he noted St. John Paul II had sought to instill in the commission from its very inception.
Martyrdom continues to grow in the 21st century
During the presentation of the conference, historian Riccardi, vice chair of the commission, maintained that the Church is truly experiencing a “new era of martyrdom.”
He recalled that St. John Paul II promoted the gathering of testimonies from 20th-century martyrs for the jubilee of the year 2000, an initiative deeply shaped by his personal experience under the Nazi and communist regimes. In Riccardi’s view, that insight has proven even more relevant today.
For this reason, he explained, Pope Francis decided to reactivate and consolidate the Commission for New Martyrs, convinced that “the time of martyrdom continues.”
The Churchʼs response has been extensive. Dioceses, religious congregations, lay movements, episcopal conferences, and apostolic nunciatures have sent hundreds of testimonies to the Vatican.
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.
‘Daniel and the Fiery Furnace’ brings biblical story of faith under pressure to big screen
A new biblical drama is bringing the story of the prophet Daniel to the big screen, depicting his rise in the Babylonian Empire and the faith of three men who chose death rather than bow to a king who demanded they worship him.
“Daniel and the Fiery Furnace” stars Mena Massoud, best known for his role playing Aladdin in the live action version of the film, as Daniel and Elijah Alexander, known for his role playing Atticus in the series “The Chosen,” as King Nebuchadnezzar.
Co-directed and produced by brothers Matthew and Daniel Kooman, “Daniel and the Fiery Furnace" became one of the most successful recent faith-based crowdfunding campaigns. It raised $1.2 million in order to fund its production.
The movie will be released in theaters on Sept. 18.
EWTN News spoke to the stars of the movie and the Kooman brothers about the inspiration behind the film and what they hope audiences will take away from it.
Daniel Kooman explained that the inspiration for the film came from the “timeless relevance of the story.”
“It really felt like coming to it as an origin story of Daniel and his friends being young men at the time of the Jewish exile was something that hadnʼt been depicted — that weʼve seen — in [a] story before,” he said. “So imagining it, these young men coming up against intense and immense challenges coming into Babylon, which was the heart of the world … and seeing how they stood up under temptation, how they stood for their convictions, and their faith was something that inspired us so much as storytellers.”
When it came to making the movie, Matthew Kooman emphasized the importance placed on relying on Scripture to tell the story. While some creative liberties were still taken, he said that anytime Scripture was being spoken or used “we didnʼt stray from it.”
“The first three chapters that weʼre telling in this movie are really based on a lot of research about time and the world that they were living in and when things happened in sequence,” Matthew added. “But then when youʼre sharing the scriptural moments that everybody knows — that are accurate and what everybody has memorized or learned as kids — without straying from those things, making it interesting with kind of filling in some of the gaps that we donʼt know.”
As for the actors, both had always hoped to portray biblical figures.
Massoud, a Coptic Orthodox Christian, shared that he grew up taking part in church plays and played Jesus in the Stations of the Cross in elementary school, so he has wanted to take part in a faith-based project in his professional career for some time.
“I really wanted to get involved with a biblical, faith-based project and Daniel just seemed like the perfect fit,” he said.
He added: “A lot of biblical stories, I think, get the reputation of being older characters, older messages, but I think this is a story thatʼs really about young people taking charge of not only their own lives, but taking charge of their faith, of their relationship with God, and leading by example, which is, I think, the most powerful thing about Daniel and the kingʼs relationship is that they both lead by example and they both challenge each other in action as well.”
Alexander, who was born and raised Jewish, said he has wanted to portray an Old Testament figure since Hebrew school.
“Ever since Hebrew school when I was first introduced to the stories of the five books of Moses … I was fascinated by these remarkable stories, these huge epic stories of men and women who changed the course of history,” Alexander said.
“They were stories of particular and personal relationships with God,” he added. “And I was always inspired by that, by the idea of being close friends with God.”
A particularly powerful line from the movie — which the filmmakers call the theme of the film — is: “God does not put you through the fire to test you, he puts you through it to refine you.”
“One of the things that the Bible later tells us is that God disciplines those he loves and the one that he calls as a son or a daughter, he will actually refine you, he will make your life come more in line with his will and his ways,” Daniel Kooman said. “And that was something that Daniel and his friends actually embraced.”
“The furnace was literally seven times hotter, which is the temperature that can refine and purify gold. So these men walked in and they burned hotter than the flames. And they actually saw the refinement of their lives and their hearts and they submitted humbly to God,” he added. “They said in incredible reverence to the Almighty, ‘Even if God doesnʼt deliver us, because heʼs the Almighty, he can do what he wants, weʼre still going to follow him. We still choose Yahweh.’ And thatʼs just such an incredibly powerful theme. And they were refined by the flames.”
Massoud — who speaks the line in the film — said: “Young people and old people, people of any age, we often ask the question, ‘Why is this happening to me? Why is God putting me through this? Why am I being tested?’ And I think it is important to keep in mind that God doesnʼt throw anything at you that he knows you canʼt handle. He is not looking to defeat people. He is not looking to have people surrender to life, though, he is looking for people to surrender to him.”
“God is throwing things at you, challenges in your life, obstacles in your life, to help you become a better, stronger version of yourself,” he emphasized.
As for what they hope audiences take away from the film, Matthew Kooman said that “thereʼs a refining fire that we can walk through, we can be a part of, and that itʼs worth standing for your faith.”
Study: Doctors don’t screen for abortion coercion — and it hurts women
A recent study found that women who are pressured to undergo unwanted abortions are at highest risk of negative outcomes and harm from abortion.
The study, published in the Journal of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine (JAHM), found that physicians rarely screen for coercion and pressure to abort, even though it is the highest predictive risk factor for negative outcomes.
The authors, David C. Reardon, Dr. Martha W. Shuping, and Dr. Patricia K. Giebink, called the failure to screen for this “medical negligence.”
“Women considering abortions should be evaluated for risk factors predictive of negative outcomes,” the study read. “The failure to screen for these risk factors is medical negligence. Screening and informing women of their personal risk factors as required by ethical and legal standards may lead to consideration of alternatives to abortion by women who consider the risks unacceptable.”
Michael New, a senior associate scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, a pro-life group that does abortion-related research, said it was a “methodologically strong study,” noting that 1,000 women were surveyed, 226 of whom had an abortion in the past.
“Pro-lifers and the medical community should learn several important lessons from this study,” New told EWTN News. “First, coerced abortions are not uncommon. Secondly, … this study adds to a body of research that finds that a substantial percentage of abortions are unwanted or are inconsistent with the values of the woman seeking the abortion.”
“Third, even though supporters of legal abortion claim that women obtaining abortions report low levels of mental health problems, they should acknowledge that mental health risks are substantially higher among the subset of women who are emotionally conflicted or who would prefer not to have the abortion,” he continued.
Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at The National Catholic Bioethics Center, urged physicians “to provide full disclosure of the risks and side effects to their patients.”
“The long list of bad mental, emotional, and health effects that regularly arise in the wake of an induced abortion should give pause to anyone seeking, or counseling, abortion, especially when it comes to medical professionals who themselves need to be fully informed regarding the seriousness of these risks,” Pacholczyk told EWTN News.
“I think it’s fair to say that a key duty of the physician or healthcare professional, in seeking to ‘do no harm,’ would be to try to dissuade their patients from acting on any desire to procure a direct abortion,” he continued. “And a candid discussion about the broad range of potential bad outcomes from the procedure provides an excellent starting point for dialoguing with their patients in a moment of crisis.”
Pacholczyk urged medical professionals to have references for pre-abortion counseling for women considering abortion.
“While medical professionals may not be able themselves to provide all the support a young woman requires when confronted with an unexpected pregnancy, they should be able to recommend or refer the woman to obtain additional helpful pre-abortion counseling so she can ponder, and bring to the surface, her own motives and fears, and by doing so, hopefully strengthen her to steer clear of the pseudo-remedy of abortion and instead address her situation with a heightened awareness of the care, accompaniment, and support coming from those around her,” Pacholczyk said.
Though difficult to enforce, legislation to require medical professionals to screen for coercion may enable victims of coercion to sue abortion clinics, if put into effect, according to New.
“It is unsurprising that physicians performing abortions rarely screen for coercion,” New said. “Many abortion are done in high-volume clinics where abortion doctors spend very little time with women seeking abortions.”
Kelsey Pritchard, a spokeswoman for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said the abortion industry doesn’t prioritize women.
“The abortion industry prioritizes profit — not women’s well-being, informed consent, or health, the overwhelming evidence shows,” Pritchard said.
“Previous peer-reviewed research by Charlotte Lozier Institute scholars indicates most women who’ve had abortions would have preferred not to if they had more support, with nearly a quarter describing their abortions as unwanted or coerced,” Pritchard continued.
She voiced concerns about the ease of abortion coercion due to mail-order abortion.
“Since Democrats made it as easy as ordering an Amazon package for anyone anywhere to buy and ship dangerous abortion drugs, even to states with pro-life laws, this hidden epidemic has gone from bad to worse, with alarming cases of women assaulted and poisoned across the country,” Pritchard said.
“Women pressured, coerced, or forced to abort go on to report higher levels of mental health and quality-of-life difficulties, which they all too often endure silently as they can face significant hurdles to coming forward,” Pritchard said.
“The loudest pro-abortion voices refuse to acknowledge the truth behind their narrative of ‘freedom’ and ‘choice,’” Pritchard said.
Sainthood cause for Virginia farmer who saved his son moves forward
The sainthood cause of Tom Vander Woude is moving forward, according to his home diocese of Arlington, Virginia. Vander Woude, a father of seven sons, died saving the life of his youngest son, Joseph, who has Down syndrome.
The diocese will begin gathering information — a key initial stage in the Catholic Church’s process of determining sainthood.
When Joseph, a teenager at the time, fell into a septic tank, Tom climbed into the tank with him, pushing him up toward the surface, away from the toxic fumes, saving his son’s life. Tom, 66, died on Sept. 8, 2008, in the accident, leaving behind his wife and seven sons.
His legacy didn’t end there, however. Because of his self-sacrificial act, a group of Catholics, formally called the Tom Vander Woude Guild, began to advocate for his cause.
“His final act of self-sacrificial love was widely regarded as the culmination of a Christian life marked by faith, charity, humility, fortitude, and generous service to others,” read Arlington Bishop Michael Burbidge’s edict, also signed by Monsignor Paul deLadurantaye, the chancellor of the diocese.
After receiving a formal petition from the cause’s postulator, Waldery Hilgeman, the diocese is asking for all information that could affect the cause to be brought forward. The bishop is also collecting any writings by Vander Woude and any documents about him.
“We see in the life and death of Thomas Vander Woude a sincere response to the Christian call to sainthood,” Burbidge said. “As heroic as were the circumstances of Thomas Vander Woude’s death, this husband and father showed in a profound way that sanctity is to be sought first and foremost through personal faithfulness in daily life and to a consistent and sincere yes to God in the circumstances of one’s vocation and responsibilities.”
Burbidge spoke about the cause in a podcast on Sept. 10, describing Vander Woude as “a holy, faithful, selfless, sacrificial man who serves as an inspiration for us.”
“That’s what saints do,” he continued. “They show us that we, who are ordinary and flawed, can live heroic and holy lives."
“When you move forward in this cause, itʼs not just because of that one heroic event, but also the day-to-day faithfulness as a husband, as a father, as a citizen, as a man of God,” Burbidge said.
Chris Vander Woude, a son of Tom Vander Woude who is advocating for his cause, expressed his excitement at the progress.
“I am grateful to the Diocese of Arlington and Bishop Burbidge for taking this step in the investigative process; it is truly exciting and incredibly humbling at the same time,” Chris Vander Woude told EWTN News.
“Not a day goes by without missing Dad, but witnessing how his story continues to inspire so many is a consolation,” he said. “I think his commitment to his daily vocation as a husband and father, culminating in his sacrifice for my brother, resonates with all sorts of people — especially parents. We continue to pray that Godʼs will be done in this process.”
Report flags weak funding and low completion in natural family planning programs
A report by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) found diocesan natural family planning (NFP) programs across the country are experiencing continued low course completion among couples.
In January 2025, 196 dioceses were invited to take part in the annual Diocesan Natural Family Planning Ministry National 2025 Profile Report by the USCCB. Of the dioceses, 61 completed the questionnaire.
Similarly to past years, there is a wide gap between the numbers of couples who enroll in an introductory NFP education program and those who follow up with a full course.
The report found that a total of 18,211 individuals received some information or instruction on NFP across dioceses in 2025. In comparison, there were only 7,518 individuals who attended a full course in NFP.
The report noted that further research must be done among dioceses to understand the disparities and adjust NFP efforts to combat them.
It is important to strengthen NFP programs for many reasons but especially for the overall health of women, according to Dr. Annevay Conlee, vice president of the Women’s Health Service Line at OSF HealthCare, an integrated health system founded by the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis.
“When looking at the overall health of the couple, but also the woman in particular, fertility awareness-based methods (FABMs) are better than artificial contraceptive methods when looking at the wellness aspect and monitoring health, recognizing abnormalities, and being able to help in a restorative way sustain and support health,” Conlee told EWTN News.
“It does not cause the side effects and long-term potential consequences that contraception does,” she said.
To best ensure that couples continue the NFP learning process, Conlee suggested dioceses and other NFP providers ensure that they offer different types of options to “fit the needs and time commitment of the couple,” she said.
Also, they should be “making sure that there is awareness of not only the ability to achieve and avoid pregnancy with this but also monitor health and wellness,” she said.
Report reveals few employees and low budget
The 2025 report also found that employment for NFP programs differs among dioceses.
Of the 2025 respondents, 30% reported they rely on paid part-time staff and volunteers, and 16% have a full-time paid NFP coordinator.
Most instructors are volunteers (58%) who do not receive any stipend, while some are volunteers who do receive a stipend (16%) to cover expenses.
Steve Mattern, senior vice president of mission services at OSF HealthCare, noted high levels of volunteers may contribute to some of the low numbers.
“It seems like volunteers staff much of the demands of this work and while some … pre-marriage work does involve expectation of education and training, many dioceses do not expect this nor have the ability to serve it if they did expect it,” Mattern said.
“Still, there are some wonderful things happening where the next generations of Catholics are stepping up to give witness talks, to help give orientation, and to support education,” he said.
Along with employees, the survey also found that limited funding continues to be a significant issue for NFP programs. Of dioceses surveyed, 68% budgeted less than $5,000 for NFP programs.
Most diocesan NFP programs rely on indirect funding from other sources including donations from parishes, grants from local Knights of Columbus councils, a fee for course instruction, and follow-up fees, according to the report.
Next steps for the Church
“We hear anecdotally in healthcare that fewer couples are coming to seek marriage in the Catholic Church,” Mattern said.
As “more people are living together and may be seeking marriage outside the Church when they do marry,” there is more of a question around what “needs to be in the required marriage prep pathway,” he said.
“Should the couple go through a course of their choosing within a range of offered methodologies for NFP, and should the diocese offer a coupon or resource for them to do this?”
“This has been tried and it does work; many do go on to take a course offering,” he said. “However, other dioceses may seek to do a very basic course … and may not really get to NFP or may make only a brief mention of it.”
“It seems like a strong and effective communication approach and partnership across both the diocese and the Catholic healthcare ministry, and its professionals can bring a stronger approach for life and for the good of these couples and their family life,” Mattern said.
Overall, “people still need basic awareness of what the fertility awareness-based methodologies offer and provide and so this work is ongoing and invites our creativity, hope, and imagination,” he said.
While discussion around NFP is usually in regard to pregnancy, “it is so much more important to start forming our minds and hearts when we are young and in the context of our families,” Sister M. Mikela Meidl, FSGM, president of OSF HealthCare, said.
“Learning about modesty, purity, and the beauty of our bodies as we grow and develop helps create an openness to understand ourselves long before we marry,” she said.
“Supporting and helping parents to hold these conversations without embarrassment and full of confidence and attentive listening will go a long way in making people desire what is true and good,” she said.
Nearly 700 young Christians gather in Iraq for Baghdeda Youth Festival
The sixth Baghdeda Youth Festival concluded Saturday, Sept. 12, with a large faith procession that brought together nearly 700 young men and women, led by Bishop Benedictus Younan Hanno of the Syriac Catholic Diocese of Mosul and its dependencies, along with former diocesan bishops Yohanna Boutros Moshe and Georges al-Qass Moussa, priests, religious men and women, and thousands of faithful.
The procession, which organizers called the “Hosanna Procession,” began at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Baghdeda, also widely known as Qaraqosh — a predominantly Christian town on Iraq’s Nineveh Plains. Participants followed the traditional Palm Sunday procession route toward St. John Church.
Along the way, young people and other faithful prayed, sang hymns, and chanted while carrying olive branches as a symbol of peace. The procession concluded with the “Service of the Cross — Teshmeshta,” a prayer service from the Syriac tradition, followed by the lighting of the festival torch.
Before setting out from the cathedral, participants attended a spiritual conference titled “St. Francis: A Living Model for Our Young People in Living Hope,” presented by Dominican Father Nuwairan Nasser. He encouraged the young people to follow the example of St. Francis of Assisi, seeking to embody his spiritual values in their daily lives and to live more deeply the meaning of the festival’s theme.
‘In the footsteps of St. Francis’
The festival began Thursday under the theme “In the Footsteps of St. Francis.” The opening program included a spiritual reflection by Hanno titled “Leave Everything That Makes You Lose Yourself.”
The bishop stressed the importance of understanding Christian freedom as a free response of obedience to God rather than as freedom without accountability or responsibility. His reflection drew on the festival’s theme and the life of St. Francis.
Participants then divided into groups for pilgrimages and prayer at several churches in Baghdeda, including St. Ephrem the Syriac Church, Sts. Behnam and Sarah Church, St. James the Mutilated Church, St. John the Baptist Church, and St. Joseph Church.
Mosul welcomes Baghdeda’s young Christians
The festival’s second day included visits to restored churches belonging to the diocese in Mosul, a city where the Christian community suffered severe persecution and displacement during the occupation of the Islamic State group.
The young people began at St. Thomas Church and continued to the Church of the Immaculate Conception, both in Mosul’s Old City, before concluding at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church on the city’s eastern side.
Residents greeted the crowds of young Christians and welcomed what organizers described as “the renewed Christian presence in the community’s historic homeland.”
The day also featured a spiritual conference titled “Forgive So That You May Be Free,” presented by Chorbishop Emmanuel Kallo, the bishop’s special vicar and official responsible for the Syriac Catholic churches in Mosul.
Kallo reflected on the Christian understanding of forgiveness and explained how forgiving others can help free a person from the burden and pain caused by wrongdoing.
The young people also participated in Eucharistic adoration at Our Lady of the Annunciation Church.
This story was first published by ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
UN asked to recognize surrogate motherhood as a new form of slavery
The Casablanca group of experts and the French nongovernmental organization Juristes Pour l’Enfance (Legal Professionals for Children) have asked the United Nations to officially recognize surrogacy as “a new form of slavery involving women and children.”
The request was submitted to the U.N. special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery and human trafficking, Katarina Schwarz, to mark the centennial of the 1926 Slavery Convention and the upcoming Human Rights Council session dedicated to the occasion, “the agenda of which includes, among other issues, new forms of slavery.”
The request is based on the argument that surrogacy reduces the child in utero to an object of disposal, which corresponds to the definition of slavery set forth in the 1926 Geneva Convention, namely, the exercise of the attributes of the right of ownership.
In the case of the woman carrying the baby, her body is subjected to the will of third parties, which includes control over her diet and medical care as well as, potentially, embryo reduction or abortion, the statement explains.
The Casablanca Declaration experts and Juristes Pour l’Enfance point out that "at the international level, several United Nations bodies have already characterized surrogacy as the sale of children, including the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children in 2018 and the Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2019."
Furthermore, in her July 2025 report, the special rapporteur on violence against women and girls called for the eradication of all forms of surrogacy and the adoption of a binding international instrument to abolish this practice. Finally, a June 22 joint statement by states calls for a moratorium with a view to the universal abolition of surrogacy.
In their statement, the Casablanca Group of Experts and Juristes Pour l’Enfance also called on Schwarz to urge states to put an end to this practice within their territories and to commit to its universal abolition.
The Catholic Church also condemns the practice of surrogacy.
In his 2024 address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, Pope Francis described the practice of so-called surrogacy as "deplorable," noting that it is "a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs. A child is always a gift and never the basis of a commercial contract.”
The Holy Father urged the international community “to prohibit this practice universally,” as “human life must be preserved and defended” at every stage of its existence.
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.