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CNA Staff, Aug 13, 2024 / 14:25 pm (CNA).

The Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board on Monday unanimously rescinded the contract for what would have been the nation's first religious charter school. 

St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School would have been the first religious charter school in the nation, but in late June the Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled against its establishment and ordered the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board to drop the Catholic institution's contract. A charter school is a privately run, publicly funded school. 

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond, a Republican who has opposed the school on religious freedom grounds, requested the Oklahoma school board rescind the contract or face contempt charges. 

"While it is appalling that the Statewide Charter School Board took so long to recognize the authority of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, I am pleased that board members finally fulfilled their duty," Drummond said in a statement Monday.

St. Isidore has appealed the decision to the United States Supreme Court and requested a stay of the court order for the duration of the legal process, but the request was denied last week. 

Meanwhile, the Virtual Charter School Board — which has since been incorporated into the Statewide Charter School Board — delayed rescinding the contract pending the outcome of the appeal. The school board had met two times previously without complying with the court order to rescind the contract.

The board rescinded the contract on Monday but voted that St. Isidore's contract would be immediately reinstated if a court were to reverse or nullify the current orders.

While Drummond and others argue that funding the school with taxpayers' money would violate religious freedom, proponents of St. Isidore argue that rescinding its contract violates religious freedom. 

"The proposed state-sponsored religious charter school, funded by our tax dollars, represents a serious threat to the religious liberty of all Oklahomans," Drummond said. 

A 2022 Supreme Court ruling found that Maine couldn't exclude religious schools from a tuition aid program because it violates the free exercise clause. Other states have established voucher systems allowing tuition aid for students to attend private religious schools.

One proponent of St. Isidore's, Oklahoma state superintendent Ryan Walters — who recently mandated using the Bible as a historical document in schools  — called the decision "shameful."

"The Oklahoma Supreme Court has failed Oklahomans in their latest dismal ruling against parents and kids," he said in a statement Monday. 

"They have chosen the path of liberal extremism and Marxism by depriving parents of a choice," Walters continued. "It's shameful but predictable from a failed judicial system. They do not represent conservative Oklahoma values."

St. Isidore is currently working with attorneys from the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Clinic, part of the Notre Dame Law School Religious Liberty Initiative, to appeal the decision. 

St. Isidore was initially set to launch in August as an online, tuition-free, Catholic K–12 charter school managed by the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City and the Diocese of Tulsa, with 200 students registered to start in the fall.

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ACI Digital, Aug 13, 2024 / 15:02 pm (CNA).

"We are hurting, traumatized, dejected, but not defeated, not destroyed, because whoever eats this Bread will live forever," said Father Aloísio Motta, pastor of St. Peter the Apostle Parish in the town of Guaratinguetá, São Paulo state, in Brazil at an Aug. 11 Mass celebrated for the souls of two extraordinary ministers of holy Communion at the parish who died in a plane crash in the town of Vinhedo on Friday, Aug. 9.

"This disaster took away people very dear to us and to Brazil," Motta told the hundreds of faithful who filled the church to remember María Auxiliadora Vaz de Arruda, 74, and her husband, José Cloves Arruda, 76. "It tore away a piece of our beloved parish of St. Peter in the small town of Guaratinguetá."

The Voepass Airlines plane crashed into the garden of a house inside a gated community in Vinhedo, Brazil, killing all 62 people on board. The plane took off Aug. 9 from the town of Cascavel in Paraná state at 11:46 a.m. bound for Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo state, about 450 miles away.

Aboard the plane was the couple, who were returning from a visit to their daughter, Priscila Vaz de Arruda, a professor at the Federal Technological University of Paraná, who lives in Toledo, also in Paraná state.

"This accident in Vinhedo once again brings us to reflect on the brevity of life and the important things we cannot forget: to love, to forgive, and to fill our innermost selves with absolute and eternal truths," the priest continued in his homily.

María Auxiliadora, known as Doña Dora, was the coordinator of the extraordinary ministers of holy Communion in St. Peter Parish. Her husband also served as an extraordinary minister of the Eucharist in the same parish.

"In this little place here, in the third row," Motta said, "there was not a Sunday when Doña Dora was not there. There was not a Thursday when she was not there."

"I was wrong when I said that the Catholic Church needs people like Doña Dora, because the Catholic Church depends on people like Dona Dora," the pastor said. "We depend on a multitude of Catholics who make a difference."

"We have to be a little bit like Doña Dora here among us. Let's transform our pain into victory. Let's transform our mourning into victory," Motta encouraged. "We do depend on Doña Doras all over the world, men and women like her."

"We will strengthen the Catholic faith as they always wanted. As she always did, based on zeal, dedication, commitment, responsibility, and love for the Eucharist," the priest said.

Dora was a retired teacher and also worked at the Association of Parents and Friends of the Exceptional (people with physical and intellectual disabilities) in the city of Guaratinguetá. The association published this recollection in her honor: "Always with a smile on her face, a friendly word, serving God and her neighbor. Here is our eternal gratitude for everything she cultivated."

This story was first published by ACI Digital, CNA's Portuguese-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 13, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, in Nicaragua has been on a long campaign of retaliating against the Catholic Church dating back to 2018, when Church leaders expressed support for the people who were demonstrating against proposed reforms and Ortega's authoritarian rule.

One of the regime's tactics in response has been abducting and exiling priests. In the most recent sweep beginning July 26, police abducted nine priests from their dioceses and sent them to Our Lady of Fatima Interdiocesan Seminary in the country's capital, Managua. Of these, seven were exiled to Rome.

Two experts explained why the regime in the Central American country is ramping up its repressive tactic at this time.

Emilio Blasco, director of the Center for Global Affairs at the University of Navarra in Spain, told "EWTN Noticias" that "all that effort that the government is making to persecute any hint of opposition, not only political but also cultural and religious, shows that the government's intention is to shore itself up and to remove, sometimes eliminate, people who think differently."

For Blasco, Ortega persecutes the Catholic Church because "he perceives it as a stronghold of opposition, of people who think for themselves and that he cannot dominate as he dominates other sectors of society."

This is further aggravated by the fact that in Nicaragua "the power of the Catholic Church remains great, and one way to control everything is to go against the Church, eliminating those voices that [Ortega] considers most critical."

For the Spanish analyst, these deportations are taking place in light of "what is happening in Venezuela: international opinion, the attention of the media in Latin America is focused on Venezuela and that makes it so that perhaps [Ortega] can feel that he has a freer hand to carry out these arrests in Nicaragua."

Miguel Mendoza, a Nicaraguan journalist living in exile in the United States, also told "EWTN Noticias" that what the Nicaraguan dictatorship is seeking to do is to "put an end to a religion that is so important to all Nicaraguans."

Dictatorship may be seeking deal like China-Vatican accord

Mendoza also commented that these days "there is speculation that the dictatorship was uneasy, believing that from Rome, Bishop Rolando Álvarez continued giving guidance to these priests. [Matagalpa] is the diocese that they see as totally adversarial. That's the reason, because it makes no other sense since the priests are silenced under the threat of being abducted."

Matagalpa is the diocese of Álvarez, a human rights defender and critic of the dictatorship, who beginning in August 2022 was put under house arrest and finally sentenced in February 2023 to 26 years in prison in a controversial judicial process. He was deported in January of this year to Rome, where he now lives in exile.

The journalist also charged that these days "Sunday and weekday Masses are not taking place in a peaceful atmosphere, but rather there are police officers, harassment, and repression."

"It is also believed that Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo are trying to pressure the Vatican to … have a model similar to that of China" regarding the selection of new bishops, as established in the provisional agreement signed in 2018, renewed in 2020 and 2022 between the Holy See and the Vatican.

"It is presumed that this is the tactic" of the Ortega and Murillo dictatorship to get "bishops who are in line with their politics because there are also priests close to the regime," Mendoza noted.

According to researcher Martha Patricia Molina, author of the report "Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?", the priests detained by the dictatorship in recent days are Monsignor Ulises Vega Matamoros, Monsignor Edgar Sacasa Sierra, Father Victor Godoy, Father Jairo Pravia Flores, Father Marlon Velasquez, Father Harvin Torrez, and Father Raul Villegas, all of them from the clergy of the Diocese of Matagalpa.

Completing the list are Friar Silvio Romero of the Diocese of Juigalpa and Father Frutos Constantino Valle Salmerón, who as administrator "ad omnia" of the Diocese of Esteli is in charge of the administration of its material assets in the absence of the actual apostolic administrator, exiled Bishop Rolando Alvarez.

Vatican News reported that the names of the priests who arrived in Rome on Aug. 7 are Ulises Vega, Edgar Sacasa, Víctor Godoy, Jairo Pravia, Silvio Romero, Harvin Torres, and Marlon Velázquez.

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

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Rome Newsroom, Aug 13, 2024 / 09:08 am (CNA).

The baths at the Marian shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France have fully reopened for the first time in four years for France's national pilgrimage for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary this week. 

More than 30,000 pilgrims are expected in Lourdes for the Aug. 15 feast day, according to the news station Europe 1. The weeklong celebration will culminate in a Mass and candlelight rosary procession with thousands of sick in wheelchairs leading the way. 

The immersion pools at Lourdes have been closed since 2020 due first to the pandemic and later to renovation work. During the closure, pilgrims were invited to participate in a "water gesture" by washing their face, hands, and forearms with holy water from the miraculous spring.

 The return of the possibility of full immersion in the sacred water has been welcomed by the thousands of sick, disabled, and volunteers taking part in France's 151st national pilgrimage for the Assumption solemnity.

"It is a return to normal," Father Sébastien Anthony, the president of the pilgrimage, told a French radio station. 

"Our teams have mobilized to make this possible, so that we can welcome the sick and pilgrims with dignity," he added. 

During the pilgrimage, which lasts from Aug. 12–16, the swimming pools will be open from 7:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. with more than 3,000 people volunteering to enable as many pilgrims as possible to wash in the baths and take part in the processions, according to the pilgrimage organizers.

The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes is one of the most visited religious shrines in the world, attracting more than 5 million visitors each year. It marks the site where a young St. Bernadette Soubirous witnessed 18 Marian apparitions beginning on Feb. 11, 1858.

During the ninth apparition, the Blessed Virgin Mary told Bernadette: "Go and drink at the spring and wash yourself there." The miraculous spring that appeared after Bernadette humbly dug in the dirt with her hands resulted in the healing of a woman with a paralyzed hand in the presence of more than 1,500 people in 1858. 

Since then, doctors on the International Medical Committee of Lourdes have certified 70 medical cures from the spring as being "unexplained on the basis of current medical knowledge." 

The most recent medical miracle at Lourdes took place in 2008 when Sister Bernadette Moriau was cured of total paralysis resulting from cauda equina syndrome, a disorder of the nerves and lower spine.

The Marian shrine also places an emphasis on spiritual healing through the sacrament of reconciliation, offering confessions in French, Italian, English, Spanish, German, Dutch, and other languages in response to Our Lady of Lourdes' request to Bernadette to pray for the conversion of sinners.

More than 7,000 people have reported that they experienced a physical healing because of a pilgrimage to the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.

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CNA Staff, Aug 12, 2024 / 15:54 pm (CNA).

A massive landslide at a garbage dump on Sunday in Kampala, Uganda, has killed at least 21 people, according to local police.

The 36-acre garbage dump known as Kiteezi is the only one serving the whole of the Ugandan capital, a city home to an estimated 4 million people, the BBC reported. The high piles of garbage were loosened by recent heavy rains, sending it tumbling down onto houses that had been constructed near the dump. Despite the death toll, at least 14 people have been rescued alive so far, according to Kampala police spokesman Patrick Onyango. 

Writing on social media Aug. 11, Ugandan President Yoweri K. Museveni conveyed his condolences and prayed that "Almighty God rest the souls of our departed people in eternal peace and heal the injured." He said he has directed a government inquiry into "why human settlement was allowed near the heap" and has also directed that all houses in the "danger zone" be removed. 

Onyango also said that more than 1,000 people have been displaced by the landslide. 

The garbage landslide is not the first of its kind, Reuters noted: In 2017 at least 115 people were killed by a garbage landslide in Ethiopia, and in Mozambique, at least 17 people died in a similar 2018 disaster. 

The Red Cross is on the ground assisting victims of the Uganda disaster, with emergency shelter tents erected yesterday to accommodate the displaced families.

CNA has reached out to the Ugandan Catholic bishops' conference, the Archdiocese of Kampala, and to Catholic Relief Services, which is active in Uganda. 

This is a developing story.

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CNA Staff, Aug 12, 2024 / 16:50 pm (CNA).

As the marriage rate continues to decline in 2024 in the U.S., Catholic women discussed the struggles of modern dating in a segment on "EWTN News In Depth." 

"I didn't expect to be single into my 40s. That was not my plan," said Anastasia Northrup, a Catholic woman who founded the National Catholic Singles Conference.

A quarter of 40-year-olds in the U.S. had never been married, Pew Research found in 2021. 

Meanwhile, the Catholic marriage rate has plummeted by about 70% between 1969 and 2019, according to a recent report from Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

There are just over six marriages for every 1,000 people in the United States, compared with a record 16.4 in 1946 after World War II, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics.

Amid the difficult dating situation, a resurfaced comment Republican candidate for vice president J.D. Vance made in 2021 about "childless cat ladies" sparked an outcry from single women who feel they aren't to blame for their unmarried status.

"We're effectively run, in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too," Vance had said on an appearance on Fox News with Tucker Carlson, where he suggested that politicians without kids have less of a stake in the country's future.

"If we're not pursued, then there's not a lot we can do," said Sara Perla, the communications manager for the Catholic Project at The Catholic University of America, in response to "the whole childless cat lady thing."

"It's interesting that women are blamed for the situation in a way that I think is very unfair because we still want to be pursued," Perla explained.

Hundreds of people attended a panel on the challenges of modern dating hosted by the Catholic Project at the recent National Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis.

"I did a survey both before and after [the panel], and the No. 1 challenge that the single people were complaining of is just meeting someone," Perla said. "You can't just be Catholic. I can't just meet a Catholic guy. I have to meet a Catholic guy who is interesting and who is interested in me." 

Perla says one of the greatest challenges to Catholic dating today is finding someone who is both a well-formed Catholic and someone you can connect with — it's not just about having the same religious beliefs.

"It's a mistake that some people make when they try to set people up and they say, 'Oh, he's Catholic,'" said Perla, who is a single Catholic woman in her early 40s. "And you're like, that doesn't tell me much at all. Is he funny? Does he have interests? Does he do anything outside of reading theology? Because if not, then we're not going to have anything to talk about." 

Northrup founded the National Catholic Singles Conference to encourage formation and community among single Catholics. 

"We're called to communion, we're called to fellowship, and we don't live our faith on our own or in a vacuum," she said. "Especially as single people that don't have that built-in family community, having relationships and friendships is very important."

Both Northrop and Perla encourage local Catholic parishes to be more intentional in including unmarried Catholics and fostering community among singles.

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ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 12, 2024 / 17:32 pm (CNA).

Following last week's exile of seven priests to Rome, the Nicaraguan dictatorship has arrested two more priests and two laywomen in Estelí and Matagalpa, both dioceses officially led by Bishop Rolando Álvarez, who has been living in exile in Rome since January.

According to the Nicaraguan media outlet Mosaico, on Sunday, Aug. 11, the police arrested Father Denis Martínez García when he was on his way to celebrate Mass in Matagalpa. His whereabouts are unknown.

Martínez was a formator at Our Lady of Fatima Interdiocesan Seminary in Managua and on weekends went to Matagalpa to celebrate Mass due to the steep reduction in the number of priests in the diocese as a result of ongoing persecution by the dictatorship.

Mosaico also reported that on Saturday, Aug. 10, Father Leonel Balmaceda, pastor of Jesus of Charity Parish in the town of La Trinidad in the Diocese of Estelí, was arrested.

Two women abducted by Nicaraguan dictatorship

Also on Aug. 10, the police went to the homes of two laywomen and arrested them apparently without cause, according to Mosaico. Their families have no information about their whereabouts.

One of the women was Carmen María Sáenz Martínez, who holds a master's degree in canon law and worked at the Diocese of Matagalpa on marriage annulment cases.

The other was Lesbia Gutiérrez, former coordinator of the Urban and Rural Financial Support Program through which the Diocese of Matagalpa's Caritas (which was shut down by the government) offered loans to small producers.

Dictatorship seeks to 'exterminate' Catholic Church in Matagalpa

The arrests occurred just three days after the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, exiled seven priests to Rome, six of whom belong to the Diocese of Matagalpa.

Martha Patricia Molina, researcher and author of the report "Nicaragua: A Persecuted Church?", said on X in reference to the arrest of Martínez that "the Sandinista dictatorship intends to exterminate the presence of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of #Matagalpa."

Matagalpa is the diocese of Bishop Álvarez, a human rights defender and critic of the dictatorship who, beginning in August 2022, was put under house arrest and finally sentenced in February 2023 to 26 years in prison in a questionable judicial process. Álvarez was deported in January to Rome, where he lives in exile.

Estelí has ??not had a bishop since mid-2021. Álvarez was then appointed as apostolic administrator, and in his absence, Father Frutos Valle was appointed as administrator "ad omnia" in charge of looking after diocesan assets. Valle has also been arrested by the dictatorship.

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

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CNA Staff, Aug 12, 2024 / 14:18 pm (CNA).

Hong Kong's high court this week rejected the appeal of Catholic democracy activist Jimmy Lai and six others to overturn their sentences for having participated in protests in 2019.

Lai and the other demonstrators had been convicted in 2021 of taking part in what the Hong Kong government had argued was an "unauthorized assembly" at Victoria Park in Hong Kong's Causeway Bay neighborhood. The demonstration was against what activists said was police abuse in Hong Kong.

Several of the defendants including Lai had been sentenced to jail terms of varying lengths. The convicted protesters had argued on appeal that the sentences were disproportionate to their human rights.

In its ruling on Monday the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal said their argument was "unsustainable."

"It is contrary to all established principles governing constitutional challenges in Hong Kong and especially contrary to accepted principles for assessing proportionality," the court wrote. "It is unsupported by legal authority."

The ruling of the court was unanimous.

Lai, an outspoken pro-democracy activist who has cited his Catholic faith as a source of strength and inspiration, has been under various forms of prosecution in China for several years.

He was first arrested in August 2020 and has been permanently detained since the end of that year. In 2022, he was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison on a fraud charge.

Also in 2021 he was sentenced to a 13-month jail sentence for participating in a 2020 vigil commemorating the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

The jailed media mogul was the owner of the Apple Daily, which was Hong Kong's most popular Chinese-language newspaper until it was closed in June 2021 after its offices were raided by hundreds of Hong Kong police and its executives detained. 

In September 2023 Lai marked his 1,000th day in prison in Hong Kong while awaiting trial.

In a petition last November signed by 10 Catholic bishops and archbishops, the prelates "call[ed] on the government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region to immediately and unconditionally release Lai.

"Mr. Lai's persecution for supporting pro-democracy causes through his newspaper and in other forums has gone on long enough," the bishops wrote. 

"There is no place for such cruelty and oppression in a territory that claims to uphold the rule of law and respect the right to freedom of expression," they said.

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CNA Staff, Aug 12, 2024 / 15:03 pm (CNA).

A proposal aiming to create a $1,000 bonus that parents would receive upon the birth or adoption of a child in Baltimore is unconstitutional, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge ruled on Friday.

If ultimately approved, the "baby bonus" measure would create a fund that would issue one-time $1,000 payments to parents in the city regardless of their income level, costing Baltimore at least $7 million annually.

The plan is reminiscent of others in countries around the world that offer various bonuses, whether in the form of cash or supplies, to new parents in order to help their children thrive and, in many cases, as an attempt to buoy low birth rates.

Led by the Maryland Child Alliance (MCA), a volunteer organization mainly composed of teachers, the measure garnered roughly 13,000 signatures and received approval in early July from the Baltimore City Board of Elections to appear on the November ballot.

Mayor Brandon Scott had asked to have the question thrown off the November ballot, however, arguing it exceeds the authority of the citizen and goes beyond their right to petition, the Baltimore Sun reported.

The MCA had argued in reply that the city would have discretion to make decisions about how to implement the baby bonus, including whether adoptive parents would be eligible as well as the source of the funds.

The judge ultimately sided with the city, saying the proposal would implement a policy that falls within the purview of the city council, not the citizenry, the Sun reported.

The MCA plans to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Maryland.

Despite the proposal's apparently pro-life intentions, the measure's website touts "Pro-Choice Maryland" as one of the groups that has endorsed the proposal. Maryland as a whole is one of several states that will vote on a constitutional amendment to expand abortion this fall.

CNA queried the Archdiocese of Baltimore and the Maryland Catholic Conference for comment on the proposed baby bonus measure but did not receive a response. 

The MCA says its push for the bonus program is driven by evidence that mitigating the significant financial costs of bringing home and caring for a newborn can lead to greater success for children and adults in the long run. 

"The aim is to improve the well-being of children and families while also having long-term benefits for the economy as a whole," the group says on its website.

"By voting YES on the upcoming November ballot, you can help improve the well-being of children and families in our community while also contributing to long-term economic benefits."

Voters in Baltimore haven't rejected a ballot question since 2004. Election Day is Nov. 5.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 12, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has issued a statement rejecting "false claims" that Catholic nonprofit organizations are complicit in human trafficking, smuggling, harboring, or child exploitation through the country's southern border.

"Catholic organizations cooperate in providing humanitarian aid with local, state, and federal officials," the bishops' statement read. "This includes working with law enforcement to identify and counter criminal activity, such as human trafficking, and assisting those who have been victimized by crime."

According to the bishops, federal agencies often rely on Catholic organizations as "trusted partners within local communities." Those agencies include U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and Homeland Security Investigations. 

The bishops' statement comes as public officials in Texas and elsewhere have scrutinized Catholic nonprofit organizations about their activities to assist migrants entering the United States through the border with Mexico. Millions of people have entered the United States unlawfully in recent years, with many also applying for asylum status. 

"Catholic doctrine distinguishes between persons and their actions," the statement read. "Each person — whether native-born or immigrant, documented or undocumented — is imbued by God with equal dignity. Catholics are compelled by sacred Scripture and Church doctrine to recognize all as brothers and sisters and serve them accordingly."

According to the bishops, Catholic nonprofits provide "spiritual, social, and legal services" to those who enter the country. This includes helping migrants comply with legal obligations and working to protect vulnerable people from exploitation, such as trafficking. The organizations also provide additional support, such as shelter and medical assistance. 

"Like all organizations that receive public funds, Catholic organizations are expected to adhere to requirements for the use of those funds, consistent with applicable laws and Church teaching," the statement added.

The bishops referred to allegations that nonprofits are complicit in child trafficking as "completely antithetical to their efforts." Rather, the bishops stated that child migrants can only be placed with a sponsor through the federal government — a process with which Catholic organizations assist federal officials.

"Accusations that the Church is betraying the United States, violating its tax-exempt status, or seeking new members through its ministries serving newcomers are nothing new," the bishops added. "Anti-Catholic bias, political motivations, and misinformation have long undergirded these claims. Assisting newcomers, however, is one of the corporal works of mercy and integral to Catholic identity."

In February, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued a Catholic nonprofit called Annunciation House based on allegations that the organization facilitates illegal immigration, harbors people who entered the country illegally, and participated in human trafficking. Annunciation House denied those allegations and a judge blocked Paxton's effort to revoke the group's license to operate. Paxton has subsequently appealed the decision and continued to investigate the nonprofit.

Paxton is also investigating Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley based on allegations the group is facilitating illegal immigration. Paxton is Protestant, but Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who asked Paxton to investigate nonprofits who might be facilitating illegal immigration, is Catholic. 

In June, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry — who is Catholic — vetoed $1 million in funding for Catholic Charities based on allegations it has facilitated illegal immigration.

In April, Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, a Catholic, and Rep. Monica de la Cruz, R-Texas, a Protestant, accused Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of San Antonio of inappropriately using federal funds to provide airfare to migrants. José Antonio Fernández, CEO of Catholic Charities San Antonio, told CNA at the time that providing airfare to migrants does not violate the grant rules.

Former immigration judge Andrew Arthur, a Catholic and current fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, told CNA he believes it's appropriate to investigate allegations of wrongdoing, to "follow the evidence," and to respond accordingly.

"I don't think that anybody asserts that these issues are system-wide, but it is one of those things that it's appropriate for state and federal governments to take a look at to make sure there are no violations of the law and that funding is being used appropriately," Arthur said.

Bishop Mark Seitz of the Diocese of El Paso, who heads the USCCB Committee on Migration, has been critical of the Texas state government's efforts to restrict border crossings. He also criticized President Joe Biden's executive action in June to prevent migrants from entering the country when border crossings surge.

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