By Fr. Shenan J. Boquet, Human Life International – On April 9, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its provisional birth data for 2025. The numbers are sobering… How Bad Is It?… To grasp just how serious this situation is, consider that earlier this year the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that, beginning in 2030 – just four years from now! – the annual number of deaths in the United States will exceed the annual number of births.

By Nick Hallett, European Conservative – Cardinal Reinhard Marx has moved decisively to normalise the blessing of same-sex couples in his Archdiocese of Munich and Freising—an intervention that lays bare the deepening doctrinal confusion at the heart of the Catholic Church in Germany… Marx instructed that the pastoral guideline ‘Blessing Strengthens Love’ should serve as the “foundation of pastoral practice.” The document, a product of Germany’s long-running Synodal Path, explicitly provides for the blessing of couples who cannot receive the sacrament of marriage, including homosexual couples and divorced-and-remarried Catholics. …

By OSV News – Ahead of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s Sept. 24 beatification, the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, recently released a schedule of events, inviting those who plan to travel to The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Missouri, for the beatification to “go deeper” and “transform your trip into a sacred journey.”… “The Sheen Pilgrimage is a spiritual experience centered around prayer, reflection, and celebration,” the diocese said. “Beginning in Peoria, IL, on September 15, this pilgrimage includes the anniversary of Sheen’s ordination ….

By Brandon Harvey, Catholic Exchange – Did you know that the apostles had students? The New Testament was not the only thing being written in those early years. We have writings from Christians that either existed during the time of the New Testament or immediately following. Those that wrote some of these texts personally knew apostles. They heard them preach, they followed them as students, some may have been baptized by them, and some became the next generation of leaders.

By Elise Winland, Zeale – A Virginia circuit court judge on April 22 blocked the state’s newly approved congressional redistricting map, issuing an injunction that prevents state officials from “certifying the results” and from taking “any actions to give effect to the proposed constitutional amendment.”… In a decision issued one day after voters passed the new map, Judge Jack Hurley of the Tazewell County Circuit Court declared the amendment and the referendum “void ab initio” (“void from the start”) and deemed “any and all votes for or against” the proposed measure “ineffective.”

By Gina Christian, OSV News – On March 24, the Guttmacher Institute, a national policy and research firm that supports legalized abortion, released data from its “Monthly Abortion Provision Study” for calendar year 2025… Guttmacher found that the 2025 figures were “largely unchanged from 2024,” when the institute counted 1.124 million clinician-provided abortions… The 2025 estimate marks a 21% increase from 2020, which Guttmacher said was “the last year of comprehensive national estimates” before the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case overturned the 1973 rulings that legalized abortion in the U.S.

By Fr. Kevin Drew, Catholic Exchange – The early Christians called the sacred mysteries Christ commanded them to celebrate “the breaking of the bread.” Why? Probably because they couldn’t think of anything better to call them. Bread and wine became Christ’s Body and Blood. How were they to put that into words?… Today we call it Holy Mass… What does Mass mean, anyway? It’s from the Latin missa, which means “Go, you are dismissed.” Speaking of “going,” listen to a short, 19th century poem in which Christ tells us to “Go”…

By Gabriella Hoffman and Sydney Rodman, The American Spectator – A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes. Scientific models and predictions can’t be taken as fact. This is true of the late biologist and alarmist Paul Ehrlich, whose lies and doomsday predictions about population growth and natural resource depletion traveled the world and negatively influenced people. Arguing for the suppression of the human population was Ehrlich’s unashamed stance behind everything he said.

By Robert Orlando, Catholic Exchange – If we begin where Protestants themselves insist we begin—with the Bible—the prominence of Peter becomes immediately clear. The most famous passage appears in Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus says to Simon: And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. (Mt. 16:18–19)

Author Don Schwager, Servants of the Word – John 6:35-40 – 35 Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; …

By Elizabeth Weiss, Zeale – In an op-ed acknowledging the heartache of infertility and the temptation to use in vitro fertilization (IVF) that Catholic couples may experience, a Catholic author recently offered insight into where couples carrying this cross can turn while remaining faithful to the teachings of the Church… In an April 20 Angelus News op-ed, Leigh Fitzpatrick Snead reflects on her own journey of infertility, which she shares in her book Infertile but Fruitful. She encourages Catholics contemplating IVF to pursue their desire for children in a way that upholds life as a gift from God, the fruit of the loving conjugal union between a man and a woman.

By Anthony Stine, Return to Tradition – Anthony Stine reveals how leftist bishops, the mainstream media and Democrat politicians are working to influence this fall’s midterm elections.

By Arthur Schaper, American Greatness – A friend of mine, an independent journalist from Massachusetts, attended the event a few years back to record the speeches and meet with activists. One of the media agents in attendance? The Southern Poverty Law Center. This hate group from Alabama is not even media in any respectable sense, but a hate group dedicated to fundraising and smearing anyone they disagree with… How could CPAC possibly consider them media and even allow them a table at the event?! … And it gets worse.

By Ryan Burge, X Post, (Complicit Clergy) – Among Catholic priests who were ordained in the late 1960s: 68% describe their theology as progressive. 16% said it was conservative. Among priests ordained in the last few years: 2% describe their theology as progressive. 84% said it was conservative… This graph is featured in my new book – The Vanishing Church …

By Shawn Fleetwood, The Federalist – A federal grand jury indicted the far-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) on Tuesday for allegedly making fraudulent payments to racist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan (KKK)… “The SPLC is manufacturing racism to justify its existence,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement announcing the charges. “Using donor money to allegedly profit off Klansmen cannot go unchecked. This Department of Justice will hold the SPLC and every other fraudulent organization operating with the same deceptive playbook accountable. No entity is above the law.” …