St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church and Divine Infant of Prague Mission

A sign outside the Internal Revenue Service building in downtown Washington, D.C. / Credit: Rob Crandall/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Apr 11, 2025 / 16:23 pm (CNA).

A federal bill proposed this week would affirm that nonprofits and charities are not receiving federal “financial assistance” simply by being granted a tax-exempt status.

The Safeguarding Charity Act, introduced by Florida Rep. Greg Steube, would order that the term “federal financial assistance” in the U.S. code “shall not include any exemption from federal income tax.’’

The two-page bill would further direct that the government could not retroactively deem nonprofit groups as having received federal “assistance” prior to the bill’s passage.

Steube in a press release said the measure “is about protecting churches, religious schools, and charities from federal overreach.”

Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford introduced a companion bill in the U.S. Senate on Thursday. Lankford argued that tax-exempt organizations “should not live in fear of federal control every day because courts want to redefine the meaning of tax-exempt status.”

“We should be focused on enabling the work of these organizations — not burdening them with unnecessary and costly federal requirements,” he said.

The bill was previously introduced last year, though it ultimately stalled without passage.

Greg Baylor, a lawyer with the religious liberty law firm Alliance Defending Freedom, pointed to two recent district court rulings — Buettner-Hartsoe v. Baltimore Lutheran High School and E.H. v. Valley Christian Academy — that held that private schools were subject to federal Title IX regulations because of their tax-exempt status.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ultimately overturned the ruling in the Lutheran school case. “Incorporating the plain meaning of that phrase, does tax-exempt status constitute accepting federal financial aid, help, or support? We think not,” the court ruled at the time.

ADF had last year filed a brief in support of the school, arguing that defining tax exemption as federal assistance would have “significant ramifications for private nonprofit institutions across the country.”

“If tax-exempt status itself constituted federal financial assistance, then churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and other houses of worship across the country would automatically be swept into a host of new regulatory obligations because of their tax-exempt status, whether or not they request that status,” ADF said in its briefing.

Baylor pointed out that “no federal agency has ever attempted to force an organization to comply with a statute triggered by the receipt of federal financial assistance on the ground that it was tax exempt.”

Still, he said, if the “financial assistance” interpretation were widely embraced, “hundreds of thousands of tax-exempt organizations will be unexpectedly subject to burdensome federal statutes and regulations.”

These organizations would “incur substantial compliance costs and could potentially lose their tax-exempt status if they are found to have violated any of the relevant statutes,” he said.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 11, 2025 / 15:52 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and Jubilee USA Network this week sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to pursue global debt relief initiatives that will economically serve both developing countries and the United States. 

In the letter, Bishop Abdallah Elias Zaidan, the chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on International Justice and Peace, and Eric LeCompte, the executive director at Jubilee USA Network, argued that “building on the successes” of relief initiatives introduced by Trump during his first term could lower global debt. 

The letter stated the president previously “expanded and introduced new global debt relief initiatives … while also leading the world in creating crisis response policies that ameliorated the suffering of billions of people in the United States and around the world.”

“As you know, debt relief and restructuring make effective economic and security policies, strengthening our country’s global moral leadership,” the leaders wrote. “These policies, which cost us little, contribute significantly to the stability of our trading partners, reduce food and fuel prices here at home, and support American jobs and exports.”

The statement follows the start of Turn Debt into Hope, a campaign initiated at the beginning of 2025 by Jubilee USA and international aid organizations with the aim of continuing St. John Paul II’s 2000 Jubilee mission of debt relief for the world’s poorest countries. 

Zaidan and LeCompte quoted Pope Francis, who in December wrote that he “urge[d] the international community to work toward forgiving foreign [debt] existing between the North and South of this world. This is an appeal for solidarity, but above all for justice.”

The letter reported that developing nations spend on average more than 40% of their revenue on debt payments. The leaders also highlighted that nearly 800 million people worldwide face hunger and 700 million live in “extreme poverty.” 

In order to help find a solution, Zaidan and LeCompte said their organizations “stand ready to work” with the president on the central priorities of U.S. policy: “debt crises, ensuring global market stability, and fostering efforts to strengthen our country’s trade access, safety, and prosperity.”

Zaidan and LeCompte said with the president’s help they “can maximize global trade dynamics that will benefit U.S. businesses and workers by restructuring global debt … by creating the debt reduction processes that Pope Francis is promoting for Jubilee 2025.” 

They said this process “can cut debts to sustainable levels and thus allow developing countries to reduce poverty.”

“To effectively do this, developing countries’ debt payments should be suspended while debt reduction schemes are developed,” they said, arguing that the move would not only benefit “the 73 poorest countries” but also “middle income countries,” including America’s trading partners, allies, and U.S. product consumers.

The statement said these efforts will “cost the U.S. taxpayer very little yet maximize global American leadership.”

“Simply stated, the world needs strong American leadership on debt relief and financial architecture reform.”

“This will foster the global stability that enhances America’s trade partnerships — bolstering U.S. imports and exports in the developing world, protecting our taxpayers, pension savings, and consumers, and making America safer, wealthier, and stronger,” the leaders said.

The state capitol building of Yucatán, Mexico. / Credit: J. Magno, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Puebla, Mexico, Apr 11, 2025 / 15:20 pm (CNA).

Mexico’s Yucatán state Congress has approved the decriminalization of abortion up to 12 weeks of gestation, amending the penal code, although the state constitution continues to protect life from the moment of fertilization.

The April 9 legislative action passed with 22 votes in favor and 13 against. According to a statement from the local congress, the deputies approved “the right of women and pregnant persons to decide up to 12 weeks.”

In addition, the penalties for a forced abortion were increased from three to eight years in prison to five and 10 years, and in the case of forced abortion with violence, the penalties increased from six to nine years to nine to 15 years in prison.

Nonetheless, the protection of life remains in force in the Yucatán Constitution, which “recognizes, protects, and guarantees the right to life of every human being, expressly stating that from the moment of fertilization, the person enters under the protection of the law and is deemed to have been born for all corresponding legal purposes.”

Regarding this issue, legislators attempted to amend the constitution, but the proposal was not approved by a qualified majority. With 22 votes in favor and 13 against, the ruling of the Constitutional Affairs Committee failed to be ratified, so it will be referred back to the committee for analysis.

Abortion in Mexico

With its action, Yucatán became the 22nd Mexican state to have pro-abortion legislation.

Since Claudia Sheinbaum assumed the country’s  presidency in October 2024, with majority control by her MORENA party, various local congresses have approved similar measures. During the first seven months of her term, the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, the state of Mexico, Chiapas, Nayarit, Chihuahua, and Campeche have all decriminalized abortion.

Meanwhile, Yucatán Archbishop Gustavo Rodríguez Vega expressed his disagreement with the legislators’ decision.

In statements to the media, he recalled that “God created us to care for our lives and the lives of all others, and within all others is the human being who lives in the mother’s womb from the first moment.”

Furthermore, Rodríguez Vega called for us to be “servants of life, of the barely conceived, but of human life as long as the human being lives until his or her final moment of natural death.”

He also asked pregnant women in vulnerable situations “not to despair.” The prelate emphasized that “a decision about her body, about her person,” as is often repeated in these cases, does not involve the “human being who already lives in her womb.”

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

null / Credit: Tati9/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Apr 11, 2025 / 14:11 pm (CNA).

A baby born in the United Kingdom is being called “a little miracle” for being the first child in the country to be born to a mother using a donated womb.

The baby’s mother, Grace Davidson, was born without a functioning uterus and underwent a womb transplant in 2023 in which she received her sister’s uterus. At the time, it was the U.K.’s only successful womb transplant. Two years later, Davidson gave birth to her and her husband’s first child using in vitro fertilization (IVF).

While the Catholic Church encourages certain fertility treatments — specifically the use of NaPro technology — the use of IVF is contrary to Church teaching. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (No. 2377) states that IVF is “morally unacceptable” because it separates the marriage act from procreation and establishes “the domination of technology” over human life.

The Church also opposes methods like womb donation since IVF is the only means with which a woman can become pregnant.

In an interview with EWTN News President Montse Alvarado on “EWTN News Nightly,” Joseph Meaney, past president and senior fellow at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, discussed the ethical concerns surrounding thepractice of womb donation and its relationship to IVF.

“Organ transplantation requires a number of things to be ethical,” he told Alvarado during the April 9 interview. “One is that the procedure is proportionate in terms of the risks and the benefits. And the womb transplants actually are quite dangerous.”

“The other problem, and I would say the major ethical problem with uterine transplantation, is that they are forced to use IVF to achieve pregnancy. They’re not able to achieve a natural pregnancy. They actually have to produce embryos in a lab in order to achieve these pregnancies.”

Another potential concern of these surgeries is that they may lead to transgender surgeries — where a uterus could be transplanted into a biological male. While this has yet to be done, Meaney said that “there are people discussing it.”

“It’s at the theoretical stage, but I think there are some people who would like to do that, which of course would be tremendously unethical as well,” he added.

Meaney pointed out that “since 2014 there have been 100 cases of children who’ve been born through transplanted wombs.”

The practice, he explained, started in Sweden but is now being done in the United States.

“This is definitely picking up speed and it’s being done more in different parts of the world,” he said.

As the Trump administration works to make IVF more accessible, Meaney said he believes we could see an uptick in the procedure.

“This is something that is kind of part of that whole IVF industry. [It] is not only using surrogate women but also using surrogate wombs in the sense of doing these organ transplants. So, that I think is part of the agenda out there in terms of treating infertility in ways that are highly unethical,” Meaney said.

Watch the full “EWTN News Nightly” interview with Meaney below.

null / Credit: lazyllama/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 11, 2025 / 12:22 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) urged Congress in a letter on Thursday to support the recently introduced Religious Workforce Protection Act (RWPA) in order to prevent U.S.-based priests from being forced to leave the country and remain away for years. 

The bill “is desperately needed to ensure communities across our nation can continue to enjoy the essential contributions of foreign-born religious workers who lawfully entered the United States on a nonimmigrant religious worker (R-1) visa,” wrote USCCB President Archbishop Timothy Broglio and Migration Committee Chairman Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso, Texas. 

Workers with an R-1 visa are generally required to return home after five years in the U.S. Many religious workers apply for an EB-4 visa during that time to allow them to stay in the country longer.  

But a 2023 change to U.S. visa rules created a significant backlog for EB-4 applications, raising fears that priests could be forced to return to their home countries and then wait years to come back to the U.S.

‘Significant hardships’

The proposed bill, which is just three pages long, would offer a “targeted fix” to the looming R-1 crisis “by granting the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] secretary the authority to extend temporary R-1 nonimmigrant status for religious workers past five years until they receive a decision on their permanent residence application.”

“Beneficiaries of the Religious Worker Visa Program provide a range of services and play a pivotal role in advancing the religious exercise of everyday Americans,” the bishops said this week. “In the Catholic context, these workers include priests, men and women in religious orders and congregations, and other laypersons serving in a wide range of ministries.”

Often, they explained, these religious workers provide their services to parishes in rural or isolated areas that would not have regular access to the sacraments without them. In addition, the bishops pointed out the crucial role that foreign-born religious workers play in serving dioceses with large immigrant populations. 

The backlog crisis could create “significant hardship for the workers, their employers, and the people they serve,” Broglio and Seitz stated. 

“We would not be able to serve our diverse flocks, which reflect the rich tapestry of our society overall, without the faithful men and women who come to serve through the Religious Worker Visa Program,” the letter stated, adding: “Simply put, an increasing number of American families will be unable to practice the basic tenets of their faith if this situation is not addressed soon.” 

“Likewise, hospitals will go without chaplains, schools will go without teachers, and seminaries will go without instructors.”

“We are deeply grateful to and commend the original co-sponsors of this bill,” they concluded. “We now ask for you to join them in supporting the RWPA and passing this much-needed source of relief.”

Introduced by a bipartisan group of U.S. senators including Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine and Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, the bill drew support from multiple U.S. bishops earlier this week. 

Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, said the Richmond Diocese has “relied on missionary priests from around the world” since its founding in 1820.

“The loss of a trusted clergy member due to impractical immigration-related restrictions, compounded by significant visa backlogs, deeply impact[s] our parishioners’ free exercise of religious life,” Knestout said, hailing the proposed legislation’s help in “easing the burden on our parishioners, our churches, and the entire Diocese of Richmond.”

Columbus, Ohio, Bishop Earl Fernandes and Portland, Maine, Bishop James Ruggieri similarly praised the legislation. Ruggieri called the measure “critically needed” while Fernandes said it will allow “many of our religious priests and sisters to continue to serve the people of God and our local communities through their ministry.”

Similar legislation has also been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Pope Francis appears at St. Peter’s Basilica absent his usual papal attire on Thursday, April 10, 2025. / Credit: EWTN News/screenshot

Vatican City, Apr 11, 2025 / 09:38 am (CNA).

A day after Pope Francis surprised pilgrims by appearing inside St. Peter’s Basilica in a wheelchair, draped in a blanket and wearing a white undershirt and black pants instead of his usual white cassock and zucchetto, the Vatican on Friday offered a brief update on the 88-year-old pontiff’s ongoing recovery.

The pope, who has been largely absent from public life since being released from Rome’s Gemelli Hospital nearly three weeks ago, was seen in the basilica Thursday with nasal tubes delivering oxygen, escorted by his personal nurse and health aides.

A Vatican spokesman told journalists Friday morning that the pope had simply wanted to get some air and then spontaneously decided to extend his time outside of his Vatican residence by going to the basilica “as he was” to pray at the tomb of Pope Pius X and before the Chair of St. Peter.

The Holy See Press Office confirmed that Francis continues to receive supplemental oxygen, especially at night, but that he is now able to go for “prolonged periods” without it.

The appearance marked the third unexpected move by the pope this week, following the release of photographs from a private audience with Britain’s King Charles III on Wednesday and a brief greeting to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square during the Vatican’s Jubilee of the Sick on Sunday.

According to the Vatican, the pope’s convalescence is progressing steadily. Pope Francis is undergoing respiratory and motor physiotherapy and is using oxygen “therapeutically” but with decreasing frequency. 

The pope has also begun receiving visitors again, including senior Vatican officials such as Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, the sostituto for the Secretariat of State; Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the secretary for relations with states; and Monsignor Luciano Russo, who oversees diplomatic personnel.

Still, questions remain about the full extent of the pope’s condition. Though tests reportedly show gradual improvement, the underlying infection has not been completely resolved. The Vatican described Pope Francis as under “constant” medical supervision at his residence in Casa Santa Marta.

According to officials, the pope showed “slight improvements in voice and mobility” this week and continues to concelebrate daily Mass privately. 

As Holy Week approaches, uncertainty still surrounds the pope’s potential participation in the liturgies. 

Argentine Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, vice dean of the College of Cardinals, is set to preside over Palm Sunday Mass as Pope Francis’ delegate. 

Vatican officials have indicated that a decision about the pope’s role in the Easter Triduum will be made at the last minute with an update expected early next week.

At a leper colony in the Kon Tum area in Vietnam, Pontifical Missions Society USA President Monsignor Roger Landry celebrated Mass, brought Communion to people, and distributed food and sandals. / Credit: The Pontifical Mission Societies/Margaret Murray

CNA Staff, Apr 11, 2025 / 09:08 am (CNA).

In the Vietnamese highlands lives a colony of people suffering from a chronic infectious disease that often leads to a loss of sense of touch and pain, physical deformities, and life-altering social prejudice — leprosy. 

But when Monsignor Roger Landry — director of the Pontifical Mission Societies USA — visited the colony this week, he said it was an honor. 

At a leper colony in the Kon Tum area in Vietnam, Landry celebrated Mass, brought Communion to people, and distributed food and sandals, working with St. Joseph’s Mission Charity. 

In one striking video he shared on social media, Landry helped create a cast of one man’s foot so that it could be made into a perfectly fitting sandal. 

“Jesus anointed the feet of his beloved Apostles at the upper room, and he sent us out to do the same,” Landry said. “It’s one of the great honors of my life to be able to do this.”

“Each sandal needs to be sculpted to each foot,” he explained in the April 7 post. “They are so grateful. If their feet bleed, the[y] could pass on the disease to others.” 

Despite being relatively treatable now, at least 250,000 people suffer from leprosy across the world — and many still experience social isolation, as they did in the time of Christ.  

Landry was visibly touched by the “great faith” of the people of the leper colony. 

After Mass at “a beautifully packed” church at 5 in the morning, Landry recalled Communion visits to various people with leprosy who were physically unable to come to Mass. 

“The first leper whom we visited with great hunger looked up to the Lord through watery eyes and received the Lord on his tongue because he no longer had hands,” Landry said.

“He received with great faith.”

Another woman, unable to walk, crawled forward to receive Jesus “and then received him with great love,” Landry said.  

“She was so excited to be able to receive the Lord Jesus,” Landry recalled. 

The purpose of the Pontifical Mission Societies, Landry added, is this: “bringing Jesus, the light of the world, to people — no matter what they’re suffering.”

“I have heard some great sermons throughout my life on truth and on goodness, [but] not enough on beauty yet,” says the celebrated Scottish composer Sir James MacMillan, shown here conducting The Catholic University of America Chamber Choir on April 9, 2025. / Credit: Jem Sullivan/The Catholic University of America

Washington D.C., Apr 11, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Renowned composer Sir James MacMillan sat down with the director of choral activities at The Catholic University of America (CUA), Peter Kadeli, to discuss how music “helps carry the prayers of the ordinary people to God.”

MacMillan, one of today’s most successful composers, has gathered inspiration from his Scottish heritage and Catholic faith to create his music. He visited CUA as part of the Welcoming Children in Worship project, an initiative focused on encouraging Catholics to explore and utilize different worship resources, including sacred music.

MacMillan began by sharing that music has long been an integral part of his life, even as a young boy. “I began to realize that even in our local Catholic life, music was an important ingredient,” he said. “It wasn’t just added on as an extra. It was actually at the core of our liturgical life.”

MacMillan explained his belief that music must be a part of the Catholic Mass and composers should be encouraged to write liturgical music.

“When a composer writes music for the choir,” he said, “it’s not written as an act of egotism or narcissism. It’s a great responsibility for the composer when he or she writes the liturgy … you are writing to carry the thoughts and prayers and meditations of the people of God, to the altar of God.”

“The Church has to be aware … that music is part of the liturgy,” he continued. “It’s not an add-on for aesthetic values. It’s an absolute central core part of what it means to be a creative Church.”

Addressing the idea of beauty and how it also connects to music and faith, MacMillan posed the question: “What is beauty?”

“To a Catholic, to the Church,” he answered, “beauty is God.”

He continued: “God is beauty. God is also truth and goodness. And these three attributes, the three attributes that are closely connected, cannot be dissolved and divided. You must have truth, you must have goodness, and you must have beauty.”

“They’re all attending and serving each other. I have heard some great sermons throughout my life on truth and on goodness, [but] not enough on beauty yet. So maybe the Church needs to address that, to inculcate a love of beauty, a search for beauty amongst people of God.”

MacMillan explained how cultural art, in this case music, is “an important part of the search for God.”

“Music is intrinsically a spiritual art form. I don’t say that just as a Catholic believer,” he said.

MacMilliam said music is even called a spiritual art form by “skeptic and agnostic and atheistic music lovers.”

“They also mean something about it, and they’re acknowledging a truth about the very nature of this art form,” he said.

“So there’s something in the music itself that seems to connect to the infinite, that opens a door or a window [to] the divine, to the numinous,” MacMillan concluded.

Santiago de Catalunya Complex in Venice. / Credit: Courtesy of the Dicastery for Education and Culture

Vatican City, Apr 11, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).

For the third consecutive year, the Holy See will have its own pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy, one of the most emblematic and representative contemporary art events worldwide, to be held in the Italian city May 10 through Nov. 23. Last year, Pope Francis became the first pontiff to visit the event in its nearly 130-year history.

The project, which was presented at the Vatican press office on Thursday, April 9, will involve the restoration of the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice (Our Lady Help of Christians) building. It will also be used to host cultural events — primarily concerts — and will also include a space dedicated to solidarity projects and even a soup kitchen.

Visitors to the major exhibition in Venice will be able to see firsthand the restoration work on the Santa Maria Ausiliatrice complex, which was built in the 12th century to provide shelter for pilgrims on their way to Rome and was a monastery for Salesian nuns until the beginning of the 21st century.

In fact, it is designed to involve all the citizens of Venice and, specifically, organizations committed to the environmental sustainability of the iconic Italian city, which has been suffering for years from the effects of mass tourism. Visitors to the Holy See pavilion will be able to participate in the restoration work and climb the scaffolding to observe the progress up close.

As explained at the Vatican presentation by the prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, the pavilion, titled “Opera Aperta” (“Open Work”), was inspired by Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si’, published in 2015.

“It is a pavilion to stop and see, a work in progress, an ongoing process in which everyone is invited to collaborate: architects, thinkers, neighborhood residents, associations, and even the Biennale’s visitors themselves,” the prelate stated, highlighting the idea the pontiff emphasizes in the magisterial document that “everything is closely connected.”

As the prefect explained, the goal is for the pavilion presented this year by the Holy See to be “a concrete expression, in the field of architecture, of the prophetic intuitions contained in Laudato Si’ and to become an active laboratory of collective human intelligence, uniting reason and emotion, professionalism and conviviality, research and ordinary life.”

In this way, according to the Portuguese cardinal, through the renovation of the former oratory of Our Lady Help of Christians, “a parable will be told because, while the walls and architectural details of the building are being repaired, neighborly relations and intergenerational hospitality will also be healed, thus simultaneously rebuilding the physical and social space.”

The prelate said Pope Francis “continues to deeply inspire the Catholic Church” despite this period of illness he’s going through. “Today we need weavers of relationships, who believe in the value of repairing and caring,” he said, after noting that the Holy See’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale is a concrete example of this interaction.

Thus the Holy See’s pavilion is not a finished construction but rather a kind of open and innovative project, as its title indicates, in which the aspects of “repairing” and “caring” are very important, according to Mendoça.

Architect Tatiana Bilbao, born in 1972 in Mexico City, and Spanish architect Anna Puigjaner of the MAIO Architects group participated in this project.

Michele Coppola, executive director of arts, culture, and historical heritage at the Intesa Sanpaolo banking group, one of the main sponsors of the Holy See, also spoke at the presentation.

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

Parliament House, Canberra, Australia. / Credit: Dan Breckwoldt/Shutterstock

Hobart, Australia, Apr 11, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).

When Australians head to the polls on May 3 for the nation’s federal election, they will face a distinctive choice in the nation’s political history: two major party leaders who both identify as Catholic, though with notably different relationships to their faith.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of the Labor Party and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton of the Liberal-National Coalition both come from Catholic backgrounds, setting up what journalist Michael Cook describes in The Catholic Weekly as “a unique contest between two Catholics” in Australian politics.

Albanese, seeking a second term as prime minister, has described himself as a “flawed Catholic” whose values were shaped by his Catholic upbringing with his single mother in public housing in Sydney.

“I regard myself as a flawed Catholic, but it’s a part of my values,” Albanese told journalist Troy Bramston in an interview before his first election victory in 2022. “I go to church occasionally just by myself.”

Dutton, meanwhile, grew up in a mixed-faith home with a Catholic father and a Protestant mother. He attended an Anglican school but has stated that he identifies with the Catholic Church even if he does not attend church regularly.

Reconciling the irreconcilable?

The phenomenon of political leaders who claim Catholic identity while maintaining distance from Church teaching and practice has become increasingly common in Western democracies.

Catholic author and writer at the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, Joseph Pearce, who will be touring Australia in May, reflected on this trend.

“It’s always best to listen to the words of Christ who reminds us that we cannot serve both God and mammon,” Pearce told CNA.

“A Catholic politician must be animated in all he does by the love of God and the love of neighbor. Any political pressure and tension which seeks to ‘reconcile’ God and mammon is seeking to reconcile the irreconcilable.”

The upcoming election heavily focuses on economic issues, with the cost of living, housing affordability, and immigration among the key campaign discussions. 

Religious identity, however, remains a factor in how candidates present themselves to voters in a country where approximately 20% of the population identifies as Catholic.

As The Catholic Leader reported when Albanese first took office in 2022, the prime minister has used his Catholic background strategically during campaigning, including visiting Catholic schools and meeting with Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher.

However he raised eyebrows when he chose to be sworn in without a Bible or reference to God. 

At the same time, Sight Magazine noted through interviews with political analysts that Albanese’s Catholic roots have influenced his approach to social justice issues, with author Roy Williams suggesting “the basic idea is that because all human beings are made in the image of God, all are equal in the sight of God.”

Pearce, whose own journey includes a conversion to Catholicism, suggested that identifying with a faith community while distancing oneself from its core teachings can create tensions that politicians must personally reconcile.

Australia’s political history includes a variety of notable Catholic figures, including former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, the activist and intellectual Bob Santamaria, and Sen. Brian Harradine, who was known for his unwavering commitment to life issues.

Pearce’s perfectly timed Australian tour, which begins May 5, includes lectures on “Power, Corruption, and the Triumph of the Human Spirit” and “How Catholic Culture Rescued Me From Hatred” — themes that resonate in a political environment marked by varying degrees of religious commitment.

The Australian federal election will be held on Saturday, May 3, with all 150 seats in the House of Representatives and 40 of the 76 Senate seats being contested.