By Thomas Gallatin, Patriot Post – Is it better for a candidate to challenge election laws before or after the election takes place? That was, in essence, the question in the case of Bost v. Illinois Board of Elections, on which the U.S. Supreme Court has handed down a decision… The case was brought by Republican Representative Michael Bost, who filed a lawsuit challenging Illinois’s mail-in ballot law. However, the justices weren’t really ruling on the merits of Bost’s case, but rather on whether a candidate has standing to challenge an election law prior to an election.

By Jonah McKeown, National Catholic Register – On the question of political affiliation — Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative — how do American Catholics compare with other religious denominations? And what could it mean for the country as a whole when people start choosing churches based on politics instead of faith?… Ryan Burge, a widely-cited researcher of religion and religious trends and a former Protestant pastor in the American Baptist Church, explores these questions and more in his new book, “The Vanishing Church: How the Hollowing Out of Moderate Congregations Is Hurting Democracy, Faith, and Us”. 

By Newsmax Wires, Newsmax – President Donald Trump on Thursday urged Congress to pass what the White House is calling the “Great Healthcare Plan,” a sweeping proposal aimed at lowering healthcare costs, reducing prescription drug prices, and cutting insurance premiums… “This proposal locks in the massive discount on prescription drugs that my administration is achieving through our most-favored-nations drug pricing agreement,” Trump said in the release. “It’ll bring down drug prices 80, 90% in some cases.”

By Elise Winland, Catholic Vote – Why did HHS release the funds?… Explaining the administration’s decision, CatholicVote Director of Government Affairs Tom McClusky said federal officials were forced to choose between restoring the money or risking a court loss that could undermine broader efforts to defund Planned Parenthood… “The administration had two choices before them,” McClusky told CatholicVote: “Give up the money and be able to stop any future grants, or fight it out in the courts, where they would lose and also tie up other efforts to defund the abortion giant as a lawsuit went forward.”

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture – This week’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court, in cases involving state laws that ban boys from girls’ sports, may prove to be a decisive turning point in the surreal political struggle over gender ideology. The battle is not won, but the momentum has shifted… Credit Justice Samuel Alito with the question that fully exposed the absurdity of the argument before the court. When a lawyer representing a “transgender” student declined to define what it means to be male or female, Alito asked: “How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex, without knowing what sex means?”

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – Mark 2:1-12 – 1 And when he returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. 2 And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room for them, not even about the door; and he was preaching the word to them. 3 And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. 4 And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; ….

By Mark Hemingway, The Federalist – A simple, but deeply unfair and manipulative, narrative about ICE’s enforcement of immigration law congealed as soon as Trump took office: ICE enforcement amounts to egregious military-style raids in otherwise peaceful communities, and as such, ICE is responsible for any unfortunate violence that accompanies their enforcement activities… Obviously, that narrative has gone into overdrive since the unfortunate killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis last week. ….

By Eduardo Berdejo, EWTN News – The Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, called for finding peaceful solutions to the events unfolding in Iran, where he sees the population’s yearning to live in “peace, justice, and dignity.”… On Dec. 28, 2025, protests erupted in the capital, Tehran, as Iranians demonstrated against rising prices of basic goods such as chicken and cooking oil, due to inflation. In the following days, the demonstrations spread to more than 180 cities… These protests are considered the most severe that the Islamic Republic has faced since it came to power in 1979.

By T. S. Flanders, St. Paul the First Hermit, Editor, OnePeterFive – Two days ago Diane Montagna revealed that “one of four texts distributed to the cardinals” at the consistory last week was on the liturgy, penned by Cardinal Roche. You may recall that four topics were on the agenda: evangelisation, the Roman Curia, the Synod and synodality, and the liturgy. However the Cardinals voted to focus only on synodality and evangelisation, and the liturgy was not a focus… Meanwhile, yesterday Bishop Schneider revealed that he had personally appealed to His Holiness to “do a more solemn document, not just a Motu Proprio as Benedict XVI did and then the anti-Motu Proprio of Pope Francis Traditionis Custodes.”

By Bishop Michael F. Burbidge, LifeNews – (Bishop Michael F. Burbidge) This year, because of the looming threat of an extreme abortion amendment to our state constitution, the Gospel of Life and our call to witness are particularly imperative. The Virginia General Assembly convenes from January 14 through March 15. During this session, we face serious legislative proposals that threaten the dignity of human life at its most vulnerable stages. Among these is the resolution to amend the state constitution in a way that will enshrine abortion up to the very moment of birth, along with the potential removal of parental involvement in minors’ decisions …

By Craig Bannister, MRC Newsbusters – States that have sanctuary cities protecting illegal aliens and their dangerous criminal element as of February 1 will no longer receive any form of federal funding, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday during an address at the Detroit Economic Club… The U.S. simply can’t afford to subsidize the millions of illegal aliens currently in the U.S. – especially since many of them are a threat to American citizens, Trump warned …..

By Franciscan Media, January 16 – Preaching the gospel is often dangerous work. Leaving one’s homeland and adjusting to new cultures, governments and languages is difficult enough; but martyrdom caps all the other sacrifices… In 1219, with the blessing of Saint Francis, Berard left Italy with Peter, Adjute, Accurs, Odo and Vitalis to preach in Morocco. En route in Spain, Vitalis became sick and commanded the other friars to continue their mission without him.

By Jack Rigert, Crisis Magazine – In The City of God, Augustine defends rulers who protect their people, arguing that legitimate authority restrains chaos and shields the innocent (XIX.17). A society that abandons self-defense does not become more charitable; it becomes more fragile, inviting disorder that ultimately harms the weak most of all. Hospitality that corrodes order does not elevate mercy—it undermines it… St. Thomas Aquinas sharpens this insight with characteristic precision… Prudence, Aquinas teaches, is right reason applied to action—the virtue that governs how universal principles such as charity and justice are embodied in concrete circumstances ….

By Matt Archbold, National Catholic Register – In the bustling, hustling chaos of the modern world, there is a truth as ancient as the stones beneath us: The lions come. That is the raw, unadorned reality etched into the marrow of Christian history. The lions come — silent predators lurking behind the veneer of civility, behind the gleam of modernity, behind the hypocritical smiles of those preaching for tolerance and civility… Throughout time, we’ve seen that the worst thing the world can unleash on the Church, on Christ’s flock, is what it eventually unleashes: its fury, its hatred, its savage hunger. It did this to Christ, pierced by nails and crowned with thorns, abandoned by friends, mocked by foes, and left to bleed in the dust.

By Breccan F. Thies, The Federalist – Far-left agitators in the press and in elected office peddled numerous lies about the confrontation, but the agent’s injuries add further proof that he was acting in self-defense… ICE agent whom Renee Good apparently tried to run over with her car in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Jan. 7, suffered internal bleeding, a DHS official confirmed to The Federalist… Good was ultimately fatally shot by agent Jonathan Ross. Video evidence indicates that Ross acted in self-defense …