Posted on 12/29/2025 22:51 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Micah Kim, 5, son of popular Catholic speaker Paul Kim, is anointed by a priest on Dec. 26, 2025. Credit: Courtesy of Paul Kim's Facebook page / null
Dec 29, 2025 / 17:51 pm (CNA).
Paul Kim, a highly popular Catholic youth and young adult speaker, continues to share updates on his 5-year-old son, Micah, who remains on life support following a sudden medical emergency just days before Christmas.
Entering his ninth day in the hospital, Micah’s condition has sparked an outpouring of prayers across the globe, with the family invoking the intercession of Venerable Fulton Sheen for a miracle amid grim medical prognoses.
The ordeal began when Micah was rushed to the hospital last week after experiencing severe internal bleeding and other complications. Kim, a devoted husband and father of six known for his engaging talks on faith and family at Catholic conferences, first alerted followers via social media on Dec. 22: “My son Micah is having a medical emergency right now and headed to the hospital in an ambulance.”
By Dec. 24, Micah underwent emergency chest surgery to address the bleeding, which successfully stabilized his heart function. Kim shared on social media that after the surgery, his son’s heart began beating independently and his vital signs remained steady.
Doctors gradually reduced life support, with Micah’s lungs showing slow improvement on a ventilator. However, a subsequent MRI revealed severe brain damage, leading physicians to conclude there is “no medical possibility” of recovery.
“Micah is fighting for his life,” Kim said in a Dec. 29 update on Instagram. “We’re waiting on the Lord, and we don’t give up trust.”
Micah received the sacrament of anointing of the sick on Dec. 23 at 3 p.m., “when divine mercy redeemed us all,” and Kim invited all Catholics to join with his family in praying the Divine Mercy Chaplet, humbly requesting a miracle “through the intercession of Archbishop Fulton Sheen.”
In addition to an outpouring of prayer for Micah, a GoFundMe campaign was begun to support the family amid mounting medical costs.
“Praying that all is stable and the parents are resting,” one supporter posted on social media platform X, echoing widespread sentiment.
As of Dec. 29, Micah’s kidney function remains a concern, but the family is holding fast to hope. “Please keep praying! God has the ultimate say. He is the Divine Physician,” Kim noted on Instagram.
Posted on 12/29/2025 22:21 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Actor Jonathan Roumie, known for his role as Jesus in “The Chosen,” and Father Mike Schmitz, known for the “Bible in a Year” podcast, sit down for an in-depth interview. Credit: Ascension Presents
Dec 29, 2025 / 17:21 pm (CNA).
In a new sit-down interview with Father Mike Schmitz, who is best known for the “Bible in a Year” podcast and YouTube videos on Ascension Presents, actor Jonathan Roumie spoke in depth about his role portraying Jesus in the hit series “The Chosen.”
“Everything in my life has prepared me for this role,” Roumie told Schmitz in the 43-minute-long interview, which aired Dec. 28 on the Ascension Presents YouTube channel.
Looking back at his childhood, Roumie recalled a couple of moments and experiences that deeply impacted him and his own portrayal of Jesus. He said at 12 years old he reenacted Christ’s passion and crucifixion in his backyard after watching Robert Powell’s portrayal of Jesus in “Jesus of Nazareth.”
“I had 2-by-8 planks that I found and I hammered them together and I hammered the nails where the hands would go and I painted the blood and the same thing with the feet,” he recalled. “And then I grabbed like a bush, a piece of a branch of a bush, and made my own crown of thorns and I painted blood on it and everything and I processed around to the side of my garage.”
Roumie also opened up about his experience being bullied as a child and how it led him to offer up his past trauma to God as he was reenacting the Crucifixion during filming of Season 6 of “The Chosen,” which focuses on Jesus’ passion and crucifixion.
“I was bullied as a kid a lot and I had to kind of look at what Jesus went through as a righteous man and a peaceful man and meek and humble and see just the level of devastation and terrorized bullying that he received to the point of death,” he said.
“So for me, I think, and I’ll go back and look at all those experiences I had as a kid, which might have been part of the reason that led me to reenact the Passion, as something that I could relate to and I think all of that prepared me for this role.”
He added: “I understand it now a bit more, at least I think, in my own sort of human ignorance and pride… Of course I don’t know exactly what all of this is about but it feels authentic. Like, ‘Well, I went through that as a kid and my compassion increased and my empathy increased and now I’m playing the most compassionate, empathetic human being that was God in the universe for all time.’ So I can lend that experience in his suffering and in his empathy even in wanting to forgive his enemies, which I had to do.”
“I was beaten pretty bad. So, I had to offer up all of my past trauma to him as I was recreating it, knowing that that was part of my own personal sacrifice — was my own offering for him on behalf of what he suffered for humanity.”
The actor shared that before beginning the filming of Season 6, he asked God in prayer that “if it were his will to allow me a fraction of a fraction of what he went through.”
Before traveling to Matera, Italy — the location where the Crucifixion was filmed — Roumie injured his right shoulder after falling while filming a scene. An X-ray and MRI showed that he had separated a bit of his AC joint from the clavicle, causing sharp pain.
“It was the right shoulder, so the shoulder that was carrying the beam [of the cross] on and it was extremely painful,” Roumie said. “And that was just one of many things.”
Roumie added that while filming the Crucifixion “certain adjustments” also had to be made due to pain being felt by the metal and real nails being used during filming.
“He [God] gave me exactly what I asked for — just a glimpse, just a glimpse,” he said. “And I think the thing that I got was that I got to enter into it in a way that I had never entered into it before.”
Schmitz asked Roumie how his experience portraying Jesus’ passion and crucifixion has impacted the way he attends or prays at Mass. Roumie shared that in the past year he began to feel “convicted to give more reverence to Christ in the Eucharist.”
“I started receiving on my knees and on the tongue, which I hadn’t before,” he said, adding that it was slightly “disorienting at first.”
He recalled an experience at Mass where he kneeled to receive the Eucharist but the priest asked him to stand up. He hesitated but rose and continued on with the Mass. Afterward, he asked his spiritual director if that was permissible, to which he responded that a priest “shouldn’t do that but it happens.”
After this experience, Roumie shared that he “doubled down on it and now I’m prepared to just wait as long as I need to until somebody concedes because I’m not going anywhere.”
Returning to his time portraying Jesus in the series, Schmitz told Roumie that “the show is called ‘The Chosen’ in the sense that it’s also about those who were chosen, but you were chosen and there’s something in that that has changed you. You being chosen to not only portray Jesus, but to be his disciple, an imitator of him, as St. Paul says, and that’s changed you.”
“That’s something I’m trying to wrap my head around and identify with,” Roumie responded. “It wasn’t somebody else. He picked me. And I, of course, said yes, because I needed the work initially. I didn’t know what it was going to do to me internally.”
Once the final season of “The Chosen” airs, it will have been a span of 10 years that Roumie will have been portraying Jesus. He said that this experience is something that might take “the rest of my life to unpack.”
“So, I have to give myself a little bit of grace, but it’s something that I think I will always live with. And in fact, I don’t know that I want to let it go because it keeps me connected to him, especially when the show ends.”
Posted on 12/29/2025 19:48 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Pope Leo XIV meets with a group of pilgrims from St. Thomas of Villanova Parish in Alcalá de Henares, Spain, on Dec. 29, 2025, in the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican. | Credit: Vatican Media
Dec 29, 2025 / 14:48 pm (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on Monday explained that in order to allow God’s action in our personal lives, people must “empty” themselves and cultivate a deep inner life.
The pontiff made the observation during a Dec. 29 audience at the Apostolic Palace with a group of pilgrims from St. Thomas of Villanova Parish in Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
The event took place in the context of the Jubilee Year of Hope, which the Holy Father described as “a particularly significant time for the Church.” Leo XIV thanked the pilgrims for their spiritual closeness and support for the successor of Peter “with their prayers and generosity,” emphasizing that this is “a gesture of communion and closeness.”
In his greeting, the pope recalled the figure of St. Thomas of Villanova, an Augustinian Spanish bishop and the patron saint of the pilgrims’ parish, highlighting that he was a man “open to God’s action in his life.”
“That openness led him to do much good,” Pope Leo said.
The pontiff invited the faithful to be inspired by some of the distinctive traits of the Spanish saint, beginning with his intense spiritual life.
“In his life and in his writings, he reveals to us an unceasing search for continuous prayer; that is, a holy restlessness to be in God’s presence at every moment,” he said. This attitude involves profound interiority, emptying yourself to listen to and allow the Lord to work.”
Leo XIV also highlighted the saint’s “sobriety and simplicity” as well as “his selfless labor,” especially in the university setting, and his “apostolic zeal.” The pope emphasized that all these attitudes lead us to believe that “we must recognize the talents we have received and put them at the service of the community, with effort and dedication, so that they may multiply for the benefit of all,” especially in a world that “seems to offer us everything more and more quickly and easily.”
He also highlighted the simplicity of St. Thomas of Villanova (1486–1555), historically known as the “Archbishop of the Poor” or the “Almsgiver of God” because of his immense charity. “I would like to emphasize his love for the poor,” he said.
Referring to the parish life of the pilgrims, Leo XIV expressed his gratitude for their concrete sensitivity toward those most in need, reminding them that “the poor are not only someone to be helped but the sacramental presence of the Lord.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 12/29/2025 19:18 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Bishop Earl Fernandes of Columbus, Ohio, carries the Blessed Sacrament during a procession at Pickaway Correctional Institution on June 28, 2024, at one of the stops on the Seton Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage. Credit: Catholic Times/Ken Snow
Dec 29, 2025 / 14:18 pm (CNA).
The bishop of the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, has granted a dispensation from Mass for parishioners who fear deportation by immigration enforcement officers, who have increased activity in the area since mid-December.
Bishop Earl Fernandes announced in a letter and video last week that those who fear immigration enforcement action are free from the obligation to attend Sunday Mass until Jan. 11, 2026. The bishop said the dispensation was precipitated by increased immigration enforcement activity in Ohio stemming from Operation Buckeye, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initiative launched Dec. 16 that is allegedly targeting “the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in Columbus and throughout Ohio.”
Fernandes told EWTN News on Monday that after he began receiving messages from pastors throughout his diocese informing him that Hispanic parishioners were afraid to attend Mass due to the increased enforcement by ICE officers, he asked diocesan personnel in the Office of Catholic Social Doctrine and the Hispanic ministry office to help him get a clearer picture of “what is happening on the ground.”
“They told me there were ICE trucks in front of parishes; even in front of schools,” Fernandes said. “All of a sudden, there were half or fewer attendees at the Posadas [traditional pre-Christmas] celebrations.”
He said he decided to issue the dispensation “even though I did not want to” because “people need Mass and the sacraments more than ever” and he wanted families to be together without fear for Christmas.
During a Mass he celebrated on Saturday, Dec. 20, Fernandes told EWTN News the pastor of the church remained at the front door and saw an ICE truck nearby. Because of this, the Posada [traditional pre-Christmas] procession was moved from outdoors to a hallway inside the building because “the people were too afraid to go outside.”
The procession took place inside the building. “We had a meal, there was a piñata and some celebrations,” Fernandes said. “But it was clear there were a lot of people who weren’t there.”
The bishop said he began receiving calls from pastors more than two hours from Columbus who were reporting ICE’s presence.
“The atmosphere of fear was keeping people away,” he said. One pastor reported that only one-third of his congregation attended weekend Mass. Another said only one-quarter were present, Fernandes said.
Of the increased enforcement against immigrants, Fernandes reflected: “It’s easy to say immigrants should have come to our country legally. But what if your parents came here illegally and you are a U.S. citizen? … What if one spouse is documented and the other is not. What’s in the best interest of their children and society at large?”
Of the Mexican population in Columbus, Fernandes said that “many are the grandchildren of the Cristeros,” resistors to the Mexican government’s attempts in the 1920s to suppress Catholicism in the country.
He said a large group of Hispanics came to the midnight Mass on Christmas at the cathedral because they did not think ICE would be there. “I think they felt safe at the cathedral.”
Fernandes said the Diocese of Columbus also has large numbers of Catholic African migrants who have “tons of children” and make up “young communities full of life and full of faith.”
Fernandes said he talked to the pastor of a multiethnic parish made up of Nigerians, Filipinos, and others, and “they’re afraid too.”
He is concerned for the Haitian community as well, whose temporary protected status (TPS) is set to expire on Feb. 3, 2026.
He said the Mass dispensation expires on Jan. 11, the end of the Christmas season, at which time he will reevaluate the situation.
Posted on 12/29/2025 11:00 AM (CNA Daily News - US)
The lethal injection chamber at the Oklahoma State Penintentiary, May 7, 2010. Credit: Josh Rushing via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Dec 29, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
A rise in executions in the United States in 2025 occurred alongside “shifting public opinion” against the death penalty, offering anti-death-penalty advocates a hopeful sign going into 2026 even amid high levels of capital punishment.
The Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit group that tracks and catalogs executions in the United States, said in its year-end report that 48 prisoners were executed in the U.S. in 2025, up from 25 the year before.
The near-100% increase in executions was driven in large part by Florida, which at 19 executions counted for about 40% of the year’s total, the group noted.
The year also saw the expanded use of a controversial method of execution, that of nitrogen gas. Louisiana and Alabama both killed two condemned prisoners using this method, which advocates have said poses the risk of a slow, agonizing death. Alabama murderer Anthony Boyd reportedly took around 20 minutes to die during his execution by gas.
South Carolina executed two inmates by firing squad, the first such executions in the U.S. in 15 years. Lawyers alleged that one of those executions was botched, leading to the inmate suffering before dying.
The U.S. Supreme Court, meanwhile, “denied every request to stay an execution” in 2025, the Death Penalty Information Center noted, while several states passed laws expanding the death penalty or otherwise supporting it.
Though executions were up in 2025, data indicate a growing public opposition to the death penalty, both in poll numbers and in the declining number of prisoners condemned to death in the United States.
The Death Penalty Information Center noted that new death sentences were down in 2025, declining to 22 from 24, with “only 14 juries nationwide” reaching unanimous death verdicts.
Though the decline was relatively small, it reflects a decades-long overall trend in the reduction of death sentences in the U.S., which peaked at 325 in 1986.
A Gallup poll this year, meanwhile, found that public support for the death penalty reached a 50-year low of 52%, while 44% of Americans oppose the death penalty, the highest level recorded since 1966.
A majority of those under 55, meanwhile, oppose the death penalty.
The shift suggests changing opinions in a country known for its relatively high levels of executions. The U.S. ranked third in 2023 for the number of executions in countries where that number was known.
And while countries such as China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia regularly record significantly more executions than the U.S., many of the United States’ traditional geopolitical allies outlaw executions entirely, including effectively all of Western Europe.
A near-majority of U.S. states outlaw executions, which could help to explain decreasing public support for the practice.
Yet while opinion is shifting, Catholics notably remain largely supportive of the practice: A November poll from EWTN News and RealClear Opinion Research found a majority of Catholic voters in the U.S. support it.
Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the executive director for the anti-death penalty group Catholic Mobilizing Network, admitted that 2025 was a “tough year” for pro-life advocates looking to abolish capital punishment in the U.S.
“We started off the year on a high note,” she told CNA, pointing to former President Joe Biden’s December 2024 commutations of 37 federal prisoners on death row. The beginning of the Catholic Church’s jubilee year, meanwhile, offered a spiritual bolster to life advocates.
But “executions have been happening at breakneck speed” in 2025, she said.
“The Trump administration was talking about the death penalty from day one,” she said. “They haven’t been able to do much in terms of executions [at the federal level], but it’s kind of permeated things and given political cover to elected officials in states.”
Murphy acknowledged that Florida carried out “the lion’s share” of executions in 2025. “I’ve talked to almost every Catholic bishop in the state of Florida,” she said. “They’re stumped. It’s very troubling.”
Like many bishops in the U.S., the Florida bishops regularly petition the state government to commute death sentences, though to no avail. The last clemency granted by an executive in Florida was in 1983, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
Executive clemency is somewhat rare in the U.S., though at times it has been used dramatically, including Biden’s mass clemency order as well as North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper’s commutation of 15 death row cases at the end of 2024.
In spite of the grim execution numbers in 2025, Murphy admitted there are “encouraging signs” for life advocates.
“The jubilee year has been a true reminder that our compass, our North Star, is life — the sanctity of life,” she said. “There’s something about a jubilee year and about the promise it holds. It has exposed vengeance’s empty promises.”
She pointed out that the executions being carried today are actually reflective of “the standard of three decades ago.”
“When you look at the sentencing of the average person being executed today, that sentence happened 25, 30 years ago,” she said. “When you look at the number of death sentences now, it’s low.” She pointed to the well-documented decline in death sentences both this year and overall from decades before.
Murphy said life advocates are looking to 2026 to continue those encouraging trends. Catholic Mobilizing Network in December joined a broad coalition of more than 50 organizations seeking to end the death penalty in the United States.
Activists are generally required to “go state by state” in their efforts to abolish the death penalty, Murphy said. She pointed to promising abolition efforts in Ohio and Oklahoma, among others.
One of the Catholic group’s key focuses, she said, is in speaking to younger generations.
“Young people don’t have the baggage around the death penalty that some older generations might,” she said. “We’re bringing exonerees and murder victim family members to campuses and younger communities and helping them really grab onto the issue and make it their own.”
“Young people are sometimes our best advocates,” she said. “They have lots of energy and a real commitment to a broad consistent life ethic.”
Among the more notable developments in death penalty advocacy in recent years was the Catholic Church’s 2018 update of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that declared the death penalty “inadmissible” and stated that the Church seeks its abolition around the world.
Pope Francis regularly spoke out against the death penalty, while Pope Leo XIV has signaled his own opposition to it. In September he said support for the death penalty is “not really pro-life,” a remark that drew controversy even as it appeared to line up with the catechism’s directive.
Elsewhere, Church leaders have turned to Catholic tradition as part of efforts to abolish the death penalty. In August the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops called for a novena asking the faithful to pray for an end to Florida’s death penalty.
Murphy acknowledged that the 2018 catechism revision “threw some people,” though she said there are opportunities at hand for Catholics to evangelize on the need to save the lives of those condemned to die.
“There’s catechesis we need to do, and formation, about how we can be reconcilers and restorers,” she said. “It’s Jesus’ way. But we need to spend time walking with one another and figuring this out together.”
Posted on 12/29/2025 09:00 AM (Catholic News Agency)
Graduates pose with their degrees at St. Mary’s University College in Belfast, Northern Ireland. | Credit: St. Mary’s University College
EWTN News, Dec 29, 2025 / 04:00 am (CNA).
St. Mary’s University College in Belfast is marking the 125th year of a remarkable journey that began in 1900.
Posted on 12/28/2025 14:00 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Pope Leo XIV addresses pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for recitation of the Angelus on Dec. 28, 2025. | Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Dec 28, 2025 / 09:00 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV has sent three trucks carrying humanitarian aid to parts of Ukraine hit hardest by bombardments, where residents are facing severe shortages of electricity, water, and heat.
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the pope’s almoner, disclosed the delivery to Vatican media on Dec. 27, saying the convoy carried special food that can be dissolved in a small amount of water to produce energy-rich soups with chicken and vegetables.
Krajewski described the shipment as a small gesture of closeness from the pope to Ukrainian families on the feast of the Holy Family, celebrated Dec. 28.
The trucks, he said, arrived in the Vatican shortly before Christmas loaded with supplies donated by South Korean food company Samyang Foods. As had happened on previous occasions, including during the pontificate of Pope Francis, the aid was then redirected to war zones most severely affected by strikes, where basic utilities are often unavailable.
Krajewski said the delivery underscores that the pope not only prays for peace but also wants to be concretely present with families who are suffering.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 12/28/2025 13:30 PM (CNA Daily News - Vatican)
Pope Leo XIV greets pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican for the recitation of the Angelus on Dec. 28, 2025. | Credit: Vatican Media
Vatican City, Dec 28, 2025 / 08:30 am (CNA).
Pope Leo XIV on Sunday urged Christian families to “cherish the values of the Gospel” and protect the “flame of love” in their homes against modern myths of success, power, and comfort that he said often leave people isolated and divided.
Speaking to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square before the Angelus on Dec. 28, the feast of the Holy Family of Nazareth, the pope reflected on the Gospel account of the family’s flight into Egypt and contrasted the trust of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph with what he called the fear-driven cruelty of King Herod.
“It is a moment of trial for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Leo said, adding that “the bright image of Christmas is suddenly almost eclipsed by the disturbing shadow of a deadly threat.”
The pope described Herod as “a cruel and bloodthirsty man” who is “deeply lonely and gripped with the fear of being deposed.” After hearing from the Magi that the “king of the Jews” had been born, Herod “decrees that all children of the same age as Jesus should be killed,” the pope said.
“In Bethlehem there is light and joy,” Leo noted, recalling the shepherds who “have glorified God before the manger,” but he said “none of this can penetrate the armored defenses of the royal palace, except as a distorted echo of a threat to be stifled with blind violence.”
Against that backdrop, the pope said the Holy Family reveals “the only possible answer of salvation,” namely, “God who, in total gratuitousness, gives himself to men without reserve and without pretension.”
Leo pointed to St. Joseph’s obedience in protecting Mary and Jesus, saying that “the gesture of Joseph is revealed in all its redemptive significance.” He added: “In Egypt, the flame of domestic love, to which the Lord has entrusted his presence in the world, grows and gains strength in order to bring light to the whole world.”
Turning to families today, the pope warned that “the world always has its ‘Herods,’ its myths of success at any cost, of unscrupulous power, of empty and superficial well-being” and said societies often “pay the price in the form of loneliness, despair, divisions, and conflicts.”
“Let us not allow these mirages to suffocate the flame of love in Christian families,” he said.
Instead, Leo urged families to cultivate “prayer, frequent reception of the sacraments, especially confession and Communion, healthy affections, sincere dialogue, fidelity, and the simple and beautiful concreteness of everyday words and gestures.” He said such family life can make homes “a light of hope for the places in which we live; a school of love and an instrument of salvation in God’s hands.”
After the Angelus, the pope greeted pilgrims from several Italian parishes and groups. He also renewed his appeal for peace, asking Catholics to remember those suffering because of conflict.
“In the light of the Nativity of the Lord, let us continue to pray for peace,” he said. “Today, in particular, let us pray for families suffering because of war, especially for children, elderly, and the most vulnerable.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 12/28/2025 13:00 PM (Catholic News Agency)
Monsignor Maurizio Gronchi. Credit: EWTN Noticias
, Dec 28, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Vatican expert explains that the titles “Co-Redemptrix” and “Mediatrix” will no longer be used in the liturgy or official documents but can be used in popular piety.
Posted on 12/28/2025 12:00 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Empty wheelchairs were used during a Nov. 4, 2025, anti-assisted suicide event in Rome. | Credit: Photo courtesy of ProVita & Famiglia
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 28, 2025 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Despite opposition from advocacy groups and Catholic leaders, multiple states and countries advanced legislation in 2025 to expand access to physician-assisted suicide.
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer signed a bill in May legalizing physician-assisted suicidefor terminally ill adults with a prognosis of six months or less to live. The law will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026, allowing patients to self-administer lethal medication.
After the bill was signed, several disability and patient advocacy groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Delaware on Dec. 8 alleging that the law discriminates against people with disabilities.
The House passed a bill in May to legalize physician-assisted suicide in Illinois, and it stalled in the Senate during the regular session. After it was taken up during the fall veto session, senators passed it on Oct. 31.
The bill, which allows doctors to give terminally ill patients life-ending drugs if they request them, was signed into law by Gov. JB Pritzker on Dec. 12. The law “ignores the very real failures in access to quality care that drive vulnerable people to despair,” according to the Catholic Conference of Illinois.
Illinois joined states that permit the practice including California, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, as well as the District of Columbia.
The New York State Assembly advanced an assisted suicide measure in May, which Cardinal Timothy Dolan called “a disaster waiting to happen.” Despite calls from Catholic bishops, the New York Legislature passed the “ Medical Aid in Dying Act” in June.
The legislation is expected to be signed by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul.
Assisted suicide has been legal in Colorado since 2016. In June 2025, a coalition of advocacy groups sued the state over its assisted suicide law, claiming the statute is unconstitutional for allegedly discriminating against those who suffer from disabilities.
The suit was filed on June 30 in U.S. district court by organizations including Not Dead Yet and the Institute for Patients’ Rights. It calls Colorado’s assisted suicide regime “a deadly and discriminatory system that steers people with life-threatening disabilities away from necessary lifesaving and preserving mental health care.”
The National Assembly approved a bill in May that would allow certain terminally ill adults to receive lethal medication. The bill passed with 305 votes in favor and 199 against.
In a statement released after the vote, the French Bishops’ Conference expressed its “deep concern” over the so-called “right to assistance in dying.”
British lawmakers in the House of Commons passed a bill in June to legalize assisted suicide for terminally ill patients in England and Wales.
In order to become law, the bill must pass the second chamber of Parliament, the unelected House of Lords. The Lords can amend legislation, but because the bill has the support of the Commons, it is likely to pass.
Legislators in Uruguay passed a bill in August to legalize euthanasia in the country. In October, Uruguay’s Parliament approved the “Dignified Death Bill,” making the bill law and allowing adults in the terminal stage of a disease to request euthanasia.
A Cardus Health report released in September found the legalization of medical assistance in dying (MAID) in Canada led to disproportionately high rates of premature deaths among vulnerable groups.
MAID passed in 2012 with safeguards and provisions that the report said Canada has not upheld. It said: “Those who died from MAID were more likely to have been living with a disability than those who did not die from MAID, even though both groups had similar medical conditions and experienced diminished capability.”
People suffering from mental illness are also dying by assisted suicide at disproportionate rates, the report said.