Kate Scanlon

Although there was a significant increase in executions in the U.S. in 2025, a smaller number of new death sentences was imposed, a new report from the Death Penalty Information Center found.

A prayer service outside the Washington headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement Dec. 12 paid homage to Mary and showed support for "our immigrant brothers and sisters," organizers said.

Despite an uptick in executions in the U.S. in 2025, opponents of the death penalty lauded decreases in new death sentences and waning public support for the practice during comments at a Dec. 3 press event announcing a new coalition called the U.S. Campaign to End the Death Penalty.

The Supreme Court on Dec. 2 heard oral arguments in an appeal from a group of faith-based pregnancy centers in New Jersey challenging an investigation by that state's attorney general alleging they misled people about their services and seeking information about their donors.

President Donald Trump said in a series of social media posts on Thanksgiving Day that he will "permanently pause" all immigration from what he called "Third World Countries," prompting concern from Catholic immigration advocates.

" … I'm also saying this as a Catholic, I think they need to spend time fixing the Catholic Church," the Trump administration official said.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Nov. 10 a case that asked it to revisit its landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges that legalized same-sex marriage nationwide. The 2015 ruling overturned state laws defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman, a decision the head of the U.S. Catholic bishops at the time called a "tragic error."

A federal appeals court will hear arguments in January about state laws in Texas and Louisiana requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms.

As the U.S. Supreme Court considered President Donald Trump's sweeping tariff policy, economists raised concerns about the potential impact of that policy on the poor.

Closely watched off-year elections in several states that offered the first major opportunity for voters to weigh in at the ballot box since President Donald Trump began his second term resulted in key victories for Democratic candidates and showed signs voters were motivated by cost-of-living increases, an area of Catholic social concern.

The ruling "reaffirms a fundamental principle: no administration can use hunger as a political weapon," the coalition of plaintiffs in the case said in a statement. 

The Trump administration indicated it would restrict the number of refugees it admits annually into the country to 7,500, with most of that number to be white South Africans.

The president of the U.S. bishops' conference has urged lawmakers to fund federal food assistance before a looming deadline risks disrupting benefits for more than 40 million people.

A coalition of Catholic organizations held prayer vigils across the country on Oct. 22 for what organizers called "a national day of public witness for our immigrant brothers and sisters."

Reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents near St. Jerome Catholic Church in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood on Oct. 12 prompted warnings of caution from its pastor, although a spokesperson for ICE denied the church was targeted, NBC Chicago reported. The news outlet reported that neighbors have resorted to forming human chains to help Catholic migrants fearful of ICE go to and leave Sunday Mass so they could worship and receive the sacraments.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, is an $8 billion program that operates on a smaller $150 million contingency fund, and could potentially run out in the event of a long shutdown. 

Pope Leo XIV expressed concern about rhetoric used by President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth shortly after their Sept. 30 meeting with top U.S. military officials.

One detainee was killed and two others were in serious condition after a shooting Sept. 24 at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas, the Department of Homeland Security said.

The Archdiocese of Chicago is scheduled to present Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., a "Lifetime Achievement Award" for his work on immigration issues in November, but the decision has been criticized by some Catholic bishops over Durbin's public position on abortion.