1. What I Went Through to Meet My Daughter, By Madeleine Kearns, The Free Press, July 19, 2025
I grew up in the United Kingdom, where healthcare is supposed to be free and equal for everyone, and spent the last eight years in New York City, home to some of the best teaching hospitals and research centers in the world. And yet, here I was, at a niche clinic a thousand miles from home, because I was hoping to do the most ordinary thing in the world: become a mother.
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In America, around 13 percent of women struggle with fertility issues. Up to half of couples seeking treatment for them are labeled as having “unexplained infertility” by doctors—and therefore go untreated. Many of them will try IVF, which risks being unsuccessful, because the underlying cause of their infertility has not been addressed. Revolutionary though it has been, IVF does not restore a would-be mother’s body to optimal health; in fact, IVF is often a profoundly uncomfortable experience for women, not to mention an expensive one. It’s no wonder that many women with “unexplained infertility” are left feeling that mainstream medicine has failed them, subjecting them to stressful, painful interventions, while leaving them in the dark about the mysteries of their own bodies.
But there is another way.
It’s called “NaPro Technology,” which is short for natural procreative technology. Until recently, it was seen as an obscure set of medical ideas designed for practicing Catholics, for whom IVF is morally unacceptable. The church recognizes, among other things, that human life is sacred and not ours to create in a lab.
The godfather of NaPro is Dr. Thomas Hilgers, a devoutly Catholic obstetrician and gynecologist. In 1985, he founded the Saint Paul VI Institute for the Study of Human Reproduction in Omaha, Nebraska—a medical research, education, and service center, which to this day investigates, diagnoses, and treats the root causes of infertility. NaPro also teaches fertile couples how to avoid pregnancy without the need for contraception, by accurately tracking a woman’s cycle.
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While it was Hilgers’s religious convictions that inspired him to offer couples alternatives to IVF and contraception, there is nothing inherently ideological—or even controversial—about the treatments he recommends.
In fact, they might be catching on. In recent years, there has been a growing sense that fertility medicine isn’t putting women first. In the United States, IVF is a multibillion-dollar industry and, compared to Europe, remains largely unregulated. Against the background of the Make America Healthy Again movement, which has called out various so-called “medical-industrial complexes,” an increasing number of voices have argued that IVF prioritizes profits over patients.
At the Saint Paul VI Institute, Dr. Hilgers trained a generation of doctors to detect, and tackle, the root causes of “unexplained infertility.” One of them is Dr. Gavin Puthoff, who went on to found the Veritas Fertility & Surgery clinic in St. Louis—whose waiting room I found myself sitting in, last August.
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What women’s bodies are capable of in producing new life is nothing short of miraculous. But even when we face tremendous obstacles, I have learned how resilient and responsive we are to proper treatment.
It’s a travesty, then, that so many of us aren’t given the care we deserve.
Pursuing surgery with Dr. Puthoff was a gift to myself—at the very least, I had taken steps to address the pain that had hampered my life for over a decade. But it was also a gift to my daughter—giving her the healthiest passage into life that I could offer.
My baby was born this week, on Tuesday, July 15. She’s four days old today.
https://www.thefp.com/p/what-i-went-through-to-meet-my-daughter-ivf-fertility
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2. Under Trump, a New Focus for a Birth Control Program: Helping Women Get Pregnant, By Caroline Kitchener, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, The New York Times, July 21, 2025, Pg. A17
The Trump administration intends to use funds from a decades-old federal program that provides birth control to low-income women to ramp up efforts to help aspiring mothers get pregnant, signaling a shift in policy that will appease both religious conservatives and adherents of its Make America Healthy Again agenda.
The first sign of the change appeared on a little-noticed government website last week, in a post offering a $1.5 million grant to start an “infertility training center.” The center would promote “holistic” approaches to combating infertility, such as menstrual cycle education classes that women also take to try to prevent pregnancy without using birth control.
The announcement of the training center is the clearest sign yet that the administration plans to take a new approach with the federal family planning program known as Title X, and point it more toward combating infertility, a goal that President Trump has made part of his agenda.
The announcement is also an early indication that the administration is backing an alternative approach to infertility — one supported by conservative and religious policy groups that are skeptical of in vitro fertilization, even after Mr. Trump promised as a candidate last year to make I.V.F. free. A formal White House report on infertility was delivered to the president in May, several months after Mr. Trump pledged in an executive order to lower the cost of I.V.F., but has not yet been released to the public.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/18/us/politics/under-trump-a-new-focus-for-a-birth-control-program-helping-women-get-pregnant.html
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3. A Push for More Organ Transplants Is Putting Donors at Risk, People across the United States have endured rushed or premature attempts to remove their organs. Some were gasping, crying or showing other signs of life, By Brian M. Rosenthal and Julie Tate, The New York Times, July 20, 2025, Pg. A1
Across the United States, an intricate system of hospitals, doctors and nonprofit donation coordinators carries out tens of thousands of lifesaving transplants each year. At every step, it relies on carefully calibrated protocols to protect both donors and recipients.
But in recent years, as the system has pushed to increase transplants, a growing number of patients have endured premature or bungled attempts to retrieve their organs. Though Ms. Hawkins’s case is an extreme example of what can go wrong, a New York Times examination revealed a pattern of rushed decision-making that has prioritized the need for more organs over the safety of potential donors.
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Stories like these have emerged as the transplant system has increasingly turned to a type of organ removal called donation after circulatory death. It accounted for a third of all donations last year: about 20,000 organs, triple the number from five years earlier.
Most donated organs in the United States come from people who are brain-dead — an irreversible state — and are kept on machines only to maintain their organs.
Circulatory death donation is different. These patients are on life support, often in a coma. Their prognoses are more of a medical judgment call.
They are alive, with some brain activity, but doctors have determined that they are near death and won’t recover. If relatives agree to donation, doctors withdraw life support and wait for the patient’s heart to stop. This has to happen within an hour or two for the organs to be considered viable. After the person is declared dead, surgeons go in.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/20/us/organ-transplants-donors-alive.html
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4. Pope Leo XIV marks 56th anniversary of moon landing with observatory visit, call to Buzz Aldrin, The Associated Press, July 20, 2025
Pope Leo XIV marked the 56th anniversary of man’s arrival on the moon Sunday with a visit to the Vatican astronomical observatory in Castel Gandolfo and a call to astronaut Buzz Aldrin.
After praying the Sunday Angelus at his summer retreat in Castel Gandolfo, Leo headed to the astronomical observatory located in the Pontifical Villas, where he took a close look at the telescopes that have supported celestial exploration from a faith-based perspective for decades.
The pontiff was accompanied by astronomers and students participating in the traditional summer school organized by the observatory.
This was Pope Leo’s first visit to the observatory, founded in 1891 by Leo XIII. The first vision of it, however, can be traced back to the establishment by Pope Gregory XIII of a commission aimed at studying the scientific data and implications of the calendar reform that took place in 1582.
The Vatican Observatory has generated top-notch research from its scientist-clerics, drawing academics to its meteorite collection, which includes bits of Mars and is considered among the world’s best.
Later Sunday, the pope called astronaut Buzz Aldrin, who shared with Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins the historic 1969 moonwalk.
“This evening, 56 years after the Apollo 11 moon landing, I spoke with the astronaut Buzz Aldrin,” Pope Leo wrote on his X account. “Together we shared the memory of a historic feat, a testimony to human ingenuity, and we reflected on the mystery and greatness of Creation.”
Pope Leo then blessed the astronaut, his family and his collaborators.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/jul/20/pope-leo-calls-buzz-aldrin-marks-56th-anniversary-moon-landing/
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5. Pope Leo XIV prays by name for Gaza parish strike victims, renews plea for ceasefire, By Courtney Mares, Catholic News Agency, July 20, 2025, 8:46 AM
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday prayed by name for the victims of a deadly Israeli strike on the only Catholic parish in Gaza, decrying the “barbarism of the war” as he renewed his call for an immediate ceasefire.
“I express my profound sadness regarding last Thursday’s attack by the Israeli army on the Catholic Parish of the Holy Family in Gaza City, which as you know killed three Christians and gravely wounded others,” the pope said in his Angelus address from the papal estate at Castel Gandolfo, about 16 miles southeast of Rome.
He named the dead — Saad Issa Kostandi Salameh, Foumia Issa Latif Ayyad, and Najwa Ibrahim Latif Abu Daoud — and said, “I am especially close to their families and all the parishioners.”
The July 17 strike on the parish compound also wounded nine others, including the local parish priest, Father Gabriel Romanelli. The church had been serving as a shelter for more than 600 people since the conflict began in October 2023, including Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Muslims.
“Sadly, this act adds to the continuous military attacks against the civilian population and places of worship in Gaza,” Leo said. “I again call for an immediate halt to the barbarism of the war and for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/265457/pope-leo-xiv-prays-by-name-for-gaza-parish-strike-victims-renews-plea-for-ceasefire
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6. US Catholic Seminaries Said to Be in a ‘Golden Age’, By Stephen Beale, National Catholic Register, July 20, 2025
For decades, Catholic seminaries — buffeted by the post-Vatican II turmoil of the 1960s and the sex-abuse crisis — have seen the ranks of candidates for the priesthood steadily shrink.
So far, that trend hasn’t changed, but it no longer reflects the reality within seminaries, which are at the healthiest point they have been in for decades in terms of culture and quality of priestly formation, experts say.
“I am convinced that U.S. Catholic seminaries are doing very well, better than they have in many decades. While there are statistics on seminary formation, my own conclusion comes down to personal experience and conversations with many other seminary rectors and formators over the 14 years that I have been doing this work. I would even call this a ‘golden age’ of seminary formation,” said Father Carter Griffin, rector of Saint John Paul II Seminary in Washington, D.C.
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“Some seminaries remain to be reformed, but … by a considerable majority, U.S. seminaries are in the best shape they’ve been for decades, and possibly ever,” agreed George Weigel, a prominent Catholic author and distinguished fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
Weigel, a frequent speaker at American seminaries, says he has noticed “a level of seminarian maturity and faculty engagement in formation that would have been startling 40 years ago — perhaps even 25 years ago.”
https://www.ncregister.com/news/us-catholic-seminaries-said-to-be-in-a-golden-age
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7. Netanyahu call to Pope shows Israel has to acknowledge Church’s influence, By Charles Collins, Crux, July 20, 2025
Pope Leo XIV spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday evening, after a tank hit the only Catholic church in Gaza, killing three people.
Several others were injured in Thursday’s attack, including Father Gabriel Romanelli, the pastor of Holy Family Church.
Israel insists the tanks strike on Holy Family was an accident. “Israel deeply regrets that a stray ammunition hit Gaza’s Holy Family Church,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “Every innocent life lost is a tragedy,” the statement also said, adding that the incident is under investigation.
“I find the Israeli Prime Minister’s willingness to speak directly with Pope Leo positive,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, in an interview with Italian television news program Tg2 Post.
Netanyahu made the call, during which Leo – according to a Vatican statement – again expressed his concern about the tragic humanitarian situation of the population in Gaza, whose children, elderly and sick are paying an agonizing price.
https://cruxnow.com/news-analysis/2025/07/netanyahu-call-to-pope-shows-israel-has-to-acknowledge-churchs-influence
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8. What Is Planned Parenthood Fighting For?, Facing government pressure and massive budget shortfalls, the group is increasingly torn between its healthcare mission and progressive advocacy, By Pamela Paul, The Wall Street Journal. July 18, 2025, 11:00 AM
To American feminists, the Planned Parenthood brand symbolizes liberation and empowerment. To Medicaid recipients and rural women, it means access to affordable contraceptives, testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections, and cancer screenings. To conservatives and opponents of abortion, it means the devaluation of human life and dissolution of the family.
But to many young people encountering Planned Parenthood today, the organization, founded in 1916 as a grassroots movement to provide family planning to poor women, means something else entirely. When a 3- to 5-year-old asks, “Is that a boy or a girl?” Planned Parenthood, currently the country’s leading provider of sex education, suggests replying, “Only an individual can define their gender identity. Gender identity is separate from what body parts a person has.” (Planned Parenthood is also now the country’s second largest provider of cross-sex hormones for transgender treatments.)
On Instagram, where young people are most likely to seek information, Planned Parenthood offers decidedly liberationist advice, including graphic descriptions of sexual techniques. Posts celebrate Pansexual Pride Day and declare that “virginity is a social construct.” In keeping with the organization’s racial justice agenda, which includes support for #DefundthePolice, its TikTok account displays a video of a Black woman seemingly fleeing and then laughing, with the tag, “Running from the police, but then they say, suspect is an abortion-rights baddie.”
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“We are in a fight for survival,” said Rebecca Gibron, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the Greater Northwest, which includes Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Kentucky, Indiana and Idaho, and is the country’s largest affiliate. She said the organization may face a deficit as high as $800 million. “This is a catastrophic situation. So we are doing an analysis of the impact, looking at where we may need to consolidate. It’s a moving target.”
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Today, Planned Parenthood no longer positions itself as the leading healthcare provider for women and has largely stopped referring to women on its website and in policy statements.
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The organization’s pervasive language around “pregnant people” is intended to be inclusive of transgender people, a cause that the organization connects to abortion rights under the umbrella of “bodily autonomy.” As Planned Parenthood put it on Threads, “trans and nonbinary people are essential to the movement for sexual and reproductive health and rights—the fight for trans rights is our fight.”
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According to an analysis of insurance claim information by the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, at least 40,000 patients went to Planned Parenthood for gender medicine in 2023. About 40% of them were 18- to 22-year-olds. Between 2017 and 2023, it also treated 12,000 kids aged 12 to 17 for gender dysphoria. (These figures do not include patients who paid out of pocket, patients at VA facilities or those covered by Kaiser.)
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/what-is-planned-parenthood-fighting-for-ddf1de65
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9. 6 Takeways From the West Virginia Abortion-Pills Court Decision, By Matthew McDonald , National Catholic Register, July 18, 2025
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld West Virginia’s ban on abortion pills.
GenBioPro, an abortion-pill manufacturer, had argued that an existing approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration of its generic version of mifepristone in April 2019 preempts regulation by the states.
But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit found that Congress can only preempt state regulations by doing so explicitly, adding that existing federal legislation concerning prescription drugs “suggests that Congress intended to create a regulatory floor, not a ceiling.”
“The states are not free to dilute congressional safety measures, but they are free to strengthen them,” the court said in a 28-page majority opinion.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which approved GenBioPro’s generic version of mifepristone in April 2019, says chemical abortions are safe if the pills are taken within the safety parameters, citing studies. Critics say the FDA tainted the data in 2016 by removing a requirement that abortion providers report nonfatal adverse events and that abortion pills aren’t as safe as the agency says.
“This ruling gives states the power to protect the safety of its women and girls where the federal government has failed,” said Ashley McGuire, senior fellow with The Catholic Association and EWTN co-host of the nationally syndicated radio show Conversations with Consequences, in a written statement.
By letting a state ban on abortion pills stand, Tuesday’s West Virginia decision enables pro-life states to try to keep a lid on chemical abortions.
https://www.ncregister.com/news/west-virginia-abortion-pills-4th-circuit-court-decision
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10. Judge blocks Washington state law requiring Catholic priests to report abuse, even if disclosed in confession, By Josh Christenson, The New York Post, July 18, 2025, 2:17 PM
A federal judge blocked Washington state Friday from enforcing a law that would require Catholic priests to report child abuse — even when disclosed in a confessional — or face nearly a year of jail time.
US District Chief Judge David G. Estudillo in Tacoma stayed the law that threatened clergy with a $5,000 fine and up to 364 days in prison for not disclosing child abuse and neglect heard during confessions.
The legislation, SB 5375, was signed by Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson in May and would have taken effect July 27.
In a 25-page order, Estudillo — appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden — determined that the law was likely unconstitutional and violated First Amendment protections allowing for the free exercise of religion.
“The State arguably could have chosen a less restrictive means of advancing its interest in protecting children from abuse and neglect by adding members of the clergy to the list of mandated reporters while also permitting a narrow exception for the confessional, as approximately 25 other states have done,” he wrote.
https://nypost.com/2025/07/18/us-news/judge-blocks-washington-state-law-requiring-catholic-priests-to-report-abuse-even-if-disclosed-in-confession/
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TCA Media Monitoring provides a snapshot from national newspapers and major Catholic press outlets of coverage regarding significant Catholic Church news and current issues with which the Catholic Church is traditionally or prominently engaged. The opinions and views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Catholic Association.
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