The number of executions around the globe in 2025 surged to the highest recorded figure in 44 years, a new Amnesty International report said.
Pro-life
The Catholic Church is the guardian of hope, whose members are called to speak clearly against all evil and in defense of human life, Pope Leo XIV said.
On Nov. 3, Virginia voters will face a referendum on an amendment that, if passed, would enshrine virtually unlimited access to abortion in the state constitution.
A Vatican diplomat in Geneva issued a call for greater commitment to the defense of the dignity and rights of people with Down syndrome, decrying the current “discriminatory and eugenic practices” related to prenatal screening.
While continuing to work to change laws to protect the unborn and support pregnant women in need, “we need to redouble our efforts to continue building, in the words of St. John Paul II, ‘a culture of life and a civilization of love,'” Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, said Jan. 22.
On the eve of the 2026 March for Life in Washington, Pope Leo XIV issued a message to participants, expressing his deep gratitude for their “eloquent public witness” and imparting his apostolic blessing.
Ahead of the French Senate debate on the “assisted dying” bill Jan. 20, French bishops reaffirmed their opposition to the projected law, saying, “We do not care for life by giving death.”
As the nation’s Catholics are set to remember unborn children in prayer, a U.S. bishop is stressing that amid several positive developments in safeguarding human life, “many challenges remain” in making abortion “unthinkable.”
Pope Leo XIV strongly defended the family, marriage, and unborn life during his first-ever New Year’s address to the diplomatic corps Jan. 9, telling the diplomats accredited to the Holy See that abortion “cuts short a growing life and refuses to welcome the gift of life.”
In the Smyth Pastoral Center of St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church, diapers pile high, onesies crowd clothing racks, and car seats, feeding chairs, and strollers are parked nearby. The space, stocked with a cornucopia of baby items, is home to the St. Mark Baby Shop, a volunteer-led ministry at the Plano parish that provides an array of materials for families in need.