Senator Ted Cruz praised Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy for promising to restore a historic painting of Jesus comforting sailors adrift at sea back to a place of prominence in the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy after the Biden administration moved it to a basement.
Cruz thanked Duffy on Friday for his commitment to moving the 81-year-old painting, “Christ On The Water,” back to its original location at the academy. In a letter to Duffy obtained by The Daily Wire, Cruz said that restoring the painting, which depicts Jesus appearing to sailors lost at sea during World War II, was an imperative step to protect America’s religious heritage. 
“Your public acknowledgment of the painting’s spiritual and historical significance was a powerful moment of moral clarity and leadership—one that resonated not only with the midshipmen in attendance, but with countless Americans who care deeply about preserving our nation’s religious and military heritage,” Cruz wrote. 
Last month, Duffy was met with a round of applause at the Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York, after he called for the painting to be moved out of the basement. The Transportation Department&#8217;s Maritime Administration operates the academy, and gives direction over its policies and management. 
&#8220;Can we bring Jesus up from the basement?&#8221; Duffy said. &#8220;Let&#8217;s not put Jesus in the basement! Let&#8217;s get Him out! Let&#8217;s bring Him up!&#8221;
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Midshipmen at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy erupted in applause when <a href="https://twitter.com/SecDuffy?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SecDuffy</a> demanded a painting of Jesus saving merchant mariners be restored.
The Biden admin put a curtain over the painting before putting it in a flood-prone basement.
&#8220;Let&#8217;s bring Him up!&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/qQvLKXKE5r">pic.twitter.com/qQvLKXKE5r</a>
— Jon Brown (@JonBrownDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/JonBrownDC/status/1909780255633506322?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Christ On the Water&#8221; was completed in 1944 by artist Hunter Wood, who trained at the Merchant Marine Academy and was in the Coast Guard. In 1947 the painting was installed at the Merchant Marine Academy’s Wiley Hall Elliot See Room where it was displayed until 2023 when the Biden administration moved it because of a complaint from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation.  
<div id="attachment_918985" style="width: 797px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-918985" class="size-full wp-image-918985" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-12-at-10.18.22-AM.png" alt="" width="787" height="605" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-12-at-10.18.22-AM.png 787w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-12-at-10.18.22-AM-300x231.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-12-at-10.18.22-AM-749x576.png 749w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/Screen-Shot-2025-05-12-at-10.18.22-AM-768x590.png 768w" sizes="(max-width: 787px) 100vw, 787px" />&#8220;Christ on the Water&#8221;/ US Merchant Marine Academy.</div>
“Your statement—&#8217;Can we bring Jesus up from the basement?’—was more than rhetorical. I trust it will be seen as an imperative,” Cruz wrote. “Thank you for your principled leadership, for defending our nation’s religious heritage, and for working to ensure that this government-commissioned memorial is returned to its rightful place.”
Cruz said the removal of the painting had no legal basis and was an example of the academy being &#8220;hostile to religion.&#8221;
“Its sudden concealment in 2023—done hastily in response to a single baseless complaint—did a great disservice to the Academy’s heritage and to the memory of those the painting was meant to honor. To this day, no legal rationale has been provided, and the painting is reportedly out of public view in a flood-prone basement,” Cruz said. 
In January 2023, the academy covered the painting with a sheet to avoid the perception that it was &#8220;endorsing&#8221; Christianity, following complaints about the painting.
&#8220;Our priority is to ensure the Academy is a welcoming environment for all and that it respects all religions without endorsing one over any others,&#8221; the academy said at the time. &#8220;In light of this, the Academy has chosen to cover the painting with curtains and will also install a plaque describing its history. The curtains will remain closed when official Academy meetings and events are conducted.&#8221;
Later, the academy decided to discontinue the use of the Elliot See Room for official business and moved the painting to a downstairs chapel area.
Cruz previously wrote to Academy Superintendent Joanna Nunan to argue that displaying the painting did not violate the Constitution, as Military Religious Freedom Foundation President Mikey Weinstein has argued. 
Weinstein has <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKmyF-KUpTY" target="_blank" rel="noopener">promised</a> to start “World War Eight” if the painting is moved back to its previous location, warning the Trump administration to “Eff around and find out.” Weinstein called Duffy a “piece of s***” and said the midshipmen who cheered Duffy were “cowards” who “made a mockery” of their oath to the Constitution.
Last week, Duffy <a href="https://x.com/SecDuffy/status/1919917774681317457?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1919917774681317457%7Ctwgr%5E20725f8371ab5afe20016015fa273d316e88f5ea%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.faithwire.com%2F2025%2F05%2F08%2Fbring-jesus-up-sean-duffy-hangs-portrait-of-jesus-in-office-calls-for-original-to-be-rehung-after-being-sidelined-during-biden-admin%2F" target="_blank" rel="noopener">placed</a> a replica of the painting behind his desk at the Department of Transportation. 
“While we work on getting the piece out of the academy’s basement and back in a place of prominence, I figured there was no better place to hang a copy than right here @USDOT,” he wrote.

MixCollage-12-May-2025-10-35-AM-7052

Ted Cruz Backs Trump Official’s Attempt To ‘Bring Jesus Up From The Basement’ — Literally

Biden Administration

Christianity

Jesus Christ

Sean Duffy

Ted Cruz

Andrew Klavan’s new book arrived in my inbox with providential timing. Only a few hours before I started perusing The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness, I’d signed a publishing contract for my first novel — a story of murder, prostitution, and the many debased things that fallen man is willing to do in pursuit of his ambitions.
But a tiny part of me blushed at the plot I was preparing to put down on paper — what would compel a Christian, a self-professed church lady no less, to tell such a sordid tale?  What compels other Christians to read them? Klavan, as might be expected from an award-winning crime writer and very public Christ-follower, has long been thinking about such questions and now provides an answer.
“We should look at the question from the other direction,” Klavan says, “what good does it do anybody to write about the world as it&#8217;s not?” And the world, as he details through the true stories of three notorious killers — including history’s first killer — can be a very dark place. Portraying that darkness accurately in our art, Klavan contends, is one way we can better recognize and appreciate the light.
As one endorser of The Kingdom of Cain said, the book is part meditation and part memoir. I’d add, it’s also part apologia, as Klavan makes an argument for the ultimate triumph of not just a generic goodness but a Christian goodness. Evil, he argues, in the tradition of C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, is the unwelcome guest to the original state of creation, which, as we know from Genesis, was very good.
“The shall-nots of the Ten Commandments are not restrictions on our true selves,” writes Klavan, “They are a guide to clearing the path to our original nature so we can become who we truly are.” Another way to say it is that the world began with a moral order, and what goes against that order is the intruder. Klavan explains why this reality should inform the work of any Christian artist seeking to write words that ring true. “I will write about absolutely horrific things,” he says, “but always in the moral world.”
What does writing dark works in the moral world look like? He shows us.
While analyzing the great fictional works his three case studies inspired, Klavan’s insights give new relish to film classics, offering fresh revelations about their appeal to audiences. One of his chapters on 1950s cross-dressing serial killer Ed Gein dissects how he is reimagined in the film Psycho. Unlike the novel it was based on, the movie recognizes not just the psychological brokenness of its villain, but his spiritual deformity. What the Catholic Hitchcock “understood in his bones,” Klavan writes, “is that there is a tension between the things of the spirit and the things of the flesh.”
And so, the great director played up that tension, bringing about his female lead’s murder right as she is in a moment of redemption, preparing to make amends for stealing $40,000 from her employer. This elevates the story from simple scare fest to tragedy.
“[Lead female character Marion’s] work in the film is the work of the spirit,” Klavan writes. Through her death, Hitchcock picked up on an aspect of Gein’s history that Psycho’s initial author didn’t — &#8220;the struggle to reconcile religion with eroticism is real.” This is something Hitchcock subtly points to by having Norman Bates use a biblical painting of Susanna and the Elders, which depicts two spiritual leaders trying to sexually exploit a woman as she is bathing, as a peephole to spy on Marion undressing for the shower.
From the Book of Daniel to the Bates Motel — the baser impulses of men will ever be a threat to women.
Other works inspired by the Gein case, like The Silence of the Lambs, compel because they not only tell us truthfully of the violence associated with perverted sexual desire, they also mock the idea that the explanations for such violence will be provided by psychiatry rather than religion. Hannibal Lecter is simply the face of unapologetic evil — like the icy Nietzscheans Leopold and Loeb (whose story Klavan also details), there is no Freudian concept that will restrain his malevolence. He would have to become an entirely new creature for that, a magic that only Christianity can work.
The book is full of similar, worthy insights, particularly when it comes to works inspired by the story of Cain. It is clear that for Klavan, there is no joy like the joy of accurately representing the human experience, and humanity is sinful. You cannot tell compelling stories while hiding reality, something the Bible’s authors apparently knew very well, given the horrors that fill Scripture’s pages from incest, to gang rapes, to, well, crucifixion.
Too often, Christians forget the “true” part of the Apostle Paul’s admonition to think about: &#8220;whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable.” Truth is sometimes ugly, but all truth is God’s truth, Klavan tells me, and will reflect God’s moral order. “Every honest story, every true story, has God,” he says
“Whether you believe or not, if you tell a true story, if you tell the truth about life, God will be there.”

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Andrew Klavan’s Dark World

Andrew Klavan

Bible

American-born Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost is chosen as the next pope, the Trump administration signs a trade deal with the United Kingdom, and a Daily Wire investigation uncovers fraud in an African Aid group.
It’s Friday, May 9, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here:
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If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2>A New Pope</h2>
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Topline: The world has a new pope – the first American in history — Pope Leo XIV.
A new pope was named on Thursday. Cardinal Robert Prevost, a Chicago native, was elected pope on the second day of the conclave. Leo XIV, the Church&#8217;s 267th pope, will lead 1.4 billion Catholics around the world.
Pope Leo appeared visibly emotional as he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and addressed the massive crowd in the square.
“Peace be with you all! Dearest brothers and sisters, this is the first greeting of the resurrected Christ, the good shepherd who has given up his life for God, and I should also like this greeting of peace to enter our hearts and your families and to all those people wherever they are. All peoples throughout the world, peace be with you.”
Leo was born in the United States, but spent much of his priesthood in Peru. He became Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru for eight years until 2023, when he was made a cardinal by Pope Francis. He also led the Augustinian Order. Francis then made Prevost the Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops — this means he was a Vatican official responsible for recommending priests to be made bishops around the world. Prevost was not considered the most likely cardinal to become pope, but Vatican officials are often considered for the position.
Pope Leo has been strong on Church doctrine, but he has overall been seen as a centrist on political issues.
<h2>Trump Secures U.K. Trade Deal</h2>
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Topline: President Donald Trump announced a trade agreement with the United Kingdom on Thursday, and the markets responded well amid hope of more trade deals to come.
Ever since President Trump rolled out his Liberation Day tariffs, he’s promised that U.S. trading partners would come to the negotiating table and that deals would follow — and on Thursday, we saw the first such deal. The president announced a “full and comprehensive” trade agreement to “cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come.”
&#8220;This morning, I&#8217;m thrilled to announce that we have reached a breakthrough trade deal with the United Kingdom,” Trump said. “Today is a victory day in World War II, we won the war together, so there could be no more perfect morning to reach this historic agreement.”
The president held firm on the ten percent universal tariff he put in place last month, but did offer concessions elsewhere –  for example, he agreed to lower the tariff on British automobiles from 27.5% to 10%, while the rate for steel and aluminum will fall to zero.
For their part, the British agreed to open their markets to American ethanol, beef, and poultry — the White House said that means billions of dollars in new profits for our farmers and ranchers. They also agreed to purchase $10 billion of Boeing airplanes in exchange for the elimination of U.S. tariffs on Rolls-Royce engines and plane parts. Tech stocks skyrocketed when it was announced that the Brits would also eliminate a digital tax on American tech companies.
Trump hinted that he was “very close” on “numerous deals,” adding that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would be heading to Switzerland for negotiations with China. He also made sure to note that, rather than taking a piecemeal approach with the rest of Europe, he’s working on a single comprehensive deal with all of the EU – but the president also suggested that future deals would be unlikely to lower tariffs to the same degree.
<h2>Fraud Uncovered In African Aid</h2>
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Topline: A new Daily Wire investigation uncovers how one government agency went to great lengths to block a DOGE audit.
The African Development Foundation was deemed a resistance hero by the media for stonewalling DOGE auditors, including locking their doors. A small federal agency with 30 employees and a $45 million budget, by law, the foundation is tasked with giving grants of up to $250,000 for economic development in Africa, and it’s only allowed to give to African-run entities.
Employees at the African Development Foundation refused to let DOGE in, and said they wouldn’t recognize Trump’s appointee to lead it – Peter Moracco, who was also dismantling USAID. They also filed a lawsuit claiming DOGE was intruding on their privacy. Ultimately, the Trump administration seized the building with the assistance of U.S. Marshals.
A Daily Wire investigation found that the African Development Foundation would give money to African organizations and then require them to redirect that money back to the United States to pay officials, their friends, or former employers. Americans who worked at the headquarters of this agency in D.C. were wired money from African entities.
“I literally have a receipt for $17,000 from Kenya to a woman who was working as the assistant to the African Development Foundation’s CEO,” Daily Wire Investigative Reporter Luke Rosiak told Morning Wire. “The CEO, CD Glin, would actually push unwanted projects on Africans as a way of steering money to his friends. In one case, they told African groups that they’d give a grant to manufacture COVID masks, but they had to subcontract it to Glin’s friend in Colorado. The African groups said there’s no demand for that, we already have all the COVID masks we need, but Glin didn’t care.”
USAID inspector general agents suspect that at least some of the refusal to cooperate with DOGE was an attempt to cover up criminal conduct. The African Development Foundation’s chief financial officer, Matthieu Zahui, repeatedly steered about a million dollars in grants and contracts to an African company called Ganiam Ltd. without competition. One of them was for “travel” during COVID, when international travel dropped precipitously. USAID IG seized Zahui’s phone and found that Ganiam was owned by Zahui’s friend, and every time he gave it a contract, the friend sent money to Zahui’s personal bank account. But Zahui was never arrested.

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Morning Brief: A New Pope, Trump Secures U.K. Trade Deal & Fraud Uncovered In African Aid

Africa

Catholic Church

Media

Morning Wire

Politics

Pope Leo

trade

United Kingdom

A massive shortage of air traffic controllers causes delays, cancellations, and insecurity. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney discusses tariffs and U.S. statehood with President Donald Trump in an Oval Office meeting, and a surprising rise in Christianity is occurring in the U.S. and Europe, fueled by young converts.
It’s Wednesday, May 7, and this is the news you need to know to start your day.
Morning Wire is available on video! You can watch today’s episode here:
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If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
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<h2>FAA Modernization Efforts</h2>
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-916773" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/SEGMENT-HEADERS.00_00_33_14.Still001.jpeg" alt="" width="640" height="360" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/SEGMENT-HEADERS.00_00_33_14.Still001.jpeg 640w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/SEGMENT-HEADERS.00_00_33_14.Still001-300x169.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" /></div>
Topline: The Trump administration is rushing to modernize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) after years of chronic understaffing and a string of accidents and near misses on runways.
We all heard about the deadly crash in D.C. a few months back when a military helicopter collided with a commercial jet – but every week at airports around the country, there are roughly a dozen close-calls that largely go unreported. These incidents are referred to as “runway incursions” by the FAA.
In the last few months alone, two planes at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport were forced to abort landings at the last minute due to a helicopter in restricted airspace. A few weeks before that, at the same airport, two planes clipped wings on a crowded runway. Similar incidents have been reported this year at Chicago Midway, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, and Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. And on April 29, air traffic controllers at Newark International experienced a systems outage that knocked out their radar and left numerous planes essentially flying blind. That incident came amid existing air traffic controller shortages and equipment failures at Newark, which have led to 14 straight days of FAA-imposed delays on flights in and out of the airport.
Part of the problem is an ongoing worker shortage – the FAA says it needs 3,500 air traffic controllers to meet its target goal. For months, existing controllers have been stretched thin, working mandatory overtime shifts and six-day work weeks.
To combat those shortages, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy launched a new initiative to offer new incentives to keep experienced controllers from retiring and fast-track certifications for military veterans. But according to Duffy, the biggest problem plaguing the FAA is outdated technology. Many of the administration’s systems and computers are from the 1980s — many controllers still rely on floppy disks — and because the FAA tech is so old, Duffy says it’s difficult to find technicians who know how to operate on its systems. He’s now calling for Congress to allocate tens of billions of dollars to fund a revolutionary overhaul of the FAA.
Some Democrats say the Trump administration is to blame – they argue the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) project&#8217;s cuts have impacted the FAA’s preparedness. While the Trump administration cut around 400 FAA jobs, that amounts to less than 1% of the department’s workforce. According to a Transportation spokesperson, nearly all of those let go were probationary employees who’d been at the agency for less than two years.
<h2>Tariff Updates With Canada, China</h2>
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Topline: Canada’s new prime minister sits down with Trump after weeks of tough talk on tariffs and Canada becoming the 51st state.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney arrived at the White House on Tuesday for talks on trade, as well as the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia. Carney is one of dozens of world leaders seeking a new trade agreement with the U.S. Canada is the second-largest trading partner for the U.S., behind Mexico, and the U.S. is Canada’s largest trading partner by far.
“We are the largest client in the United States,” Carney said at a joint press conference. “We have a tremendous auto sector between the two of us and the changes we made have been helpful. You know, 50% of a car that comes from Canada is American. That&#8217;s not like anywhere else in the world.”
“We want to make our own cars,” Trump responded.
Meanwhile, another significant U.S. trade partner, China, is starting to feel the impact of ongoing tariffs. According to Goldman Sachs, U.S. tariffs could wipe out 16 million factory jobs in China. Workers are already upset over missed wages and layoffs and have even begun publicly protesting. It’s not clear how much influence this public discontent has on the communist government in Beijing.
A breakthrough in the tariff standoff between the United States and China emerged on Tuesday evening. Treasury Secretary <a href="https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0132" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Scott Bessent</a> and U.S. Trade Representative <a href="https://ustr.gov/about/policy-offices/press-office/press-releases/2025/may/ambassador-jamieson-greer-travel-switzerland" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jamieson Greer</a> are poised to meet with Chinese officials in Switzerland over the weekend to discuss trade and economic matters, according to their respective agencies. China reportedly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/06/business/economy/us-china-trade-talks.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">confirmed</a> there will be talks.
<h2>Christianity On The Rise</h2>
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Topline: A surprising shift is taking place across the religious landscape of both the U.S. and Europe. According to new data, Christianity is seeing a notable rise in conversions, particularly among young adults.
New data from the Pew Research Center shows that Christian identification in the U.S. has seen a 12% uptick since 2022, with Catholicism up 10%. In some dioceses, the rise is much more pronounced. The Diocese of Fort Worth, for instance, reports a 72% jump in converts just from 2023 to 2024. Meanwhile, when we look at Protestantism, particularly evangelical and nondenominational branches, it’s up 14% overall, and many pastors are reporting that they’re seeing record attendance and baptisms.
This same trend is playing out in Europe, with countries like France and Germany reporting a 15% increase in Catholic conversions and a 10% surge in Protestant affiliations, especially among Pentecostals and Baptists. Catholic pilgrimages, like the Chartres Pilgrimage, have seen record attendance — more than 15,000 participants last year, mostly under 35.
The majority of these converts aren’t older generations returning to faith — they&#8217;re young adults, disproportionately young men, reversing decades-long trends where women were more religious. Sociologist Dr. Ryan Burge has written that young men are rejecting the “feminization” of liberal churches, seeking instead the structure of traditional worship.
Sociologists argue that our culture is experiencing a “post-secular” moment – the rapid pace of political developments has left many people feeling unmoored. And also, conservatives tend to be more religious, and as the country has shifted to the right, this has coincided with this more muscular, public Christianity. For countries like France, England, and the U.S., where citizens feel their cultures are being erased by mass immigration, there also seems to be a desire to bolster the Christian character of their nations.

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Morning Brief: Dangerous Air Traffic Controller Shortage, & Christianity Growing Throughout World

Canada

Department of Transportation

Donald Trump

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

Mark Carney

President Trump quipped about &#8220;forgetting&#8221; the separation of church and state and declared &#8220;we&#8217;re bringing religion back to our country&#8221; during a National Day of Prayer event on Thursday.
&#8220;They said separation of church and state, they told me. I said, let&#8217;s forget about that for one time. We said, really? Separation? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I&#8217;m not sure,&#8221; Trump remarked during the Rose Garden ceremony.
&#8220;But whether there&#8217;s separation or not, you guys are in the White House where you should be, and you&#8217;re representing our country,&#8221; Trump <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-jokes-his-admin-forget-about-separation-church-state-were-bringing-religion-back">told</a> faith leaders at the event, adding, &#8220;We&#8217;re bringing religion back to our country.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
President Trump: &#8220;We&#8217;re bringing back religion in our country. And we&#8217;re bringing it back &#8212; as I say &#8212; bigger and better and stronger than ever before.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/TM0Y0rx9gz">pic.twitter.com/TM0Y0rx9gz</a>
— CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1917995948401193115?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 1, 2025</a></blockquote>
Trump signed an executive order, first <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/donald-trump-to-establish-religious-liberty-commission?author=Mary+Margaret+Olohan&amp;category=Exclusive&amp;elementPosition=24&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Donald+Trump%E2%80%99s+Next+Executive+Order+Will+Establish+Religious+Liberty+Commission">reported</a> by The Daily Wire, establishing the Religious Liberty Commission to be composed of church clergy, legal experts, and other Trump allies tasked with identifying “threats to domestic religious liberty,” such as attacks on houses of worship and First Amendment violations, and recommending protective actions.
During the Rose Garden ceremony, Trump thanked Paula White, White House senior advisor and leader of the White House Faith Office, for her dedication to religious freedom and emphasized the importance of protecting religious expression in American life.
“Prayer is not a religious act, it’s a national necessity,” <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/01/trump-religious-commission-church-state-00321814">said</a> Paula White, later adding asking God in a prayer to grant the president “wisdom beyond human understanding and capability, and … divine dreams.”
“We call for a spiritual reset in our nation, a return to what is right, a reverence for what is sacred, a real alignment with your divine purpose,” she said.
Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, vice chairman of the committee, along with former Housing Secretary Ben Carson, was also present at the event, praising the president: “There’s never been a president who’s invoked the name of Jesus more than you.”
Trump’s latest order builds on Trump&#8217;s previous executive action in February, establishing a &#8220;Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias,&#8221; which aimed to address what Trump <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/05/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-establishes-the-religious-liberty-commission/">described</a> as the Biden administration&#8217;s &#8220;egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses.&#8221;
Religious liberty concerns have escalated significantly in recent years, with numerous legal challenges arising across the country involving prayer in schools, religious symbols in public spaces, and faith-based organizations&#8217; hiring practices.
<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/establishment-of-the-religious-liberty-commission/">The Religious Liberty Commission</a> is expected to hold its first formal meeting within the next several weeks, with the commission set to &#8220;terminate on July 4, 2026, which marks the 250th anniversary of American Independence, unless extended by the President.&#8221;

Trump Tells Church Leaders ‘We’re Bringing Religion Back’ As New Commission Forms

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G.K. Chesterton <a href="https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43811/stfrancisproblem.htm">wrote</a> of St. Francis of Assisi, “But after all, this man was a man and not half a dozen men. What seems inconsistency to you did not seem inconsistency to him.”
We should keep this same principle in mind today as we continue to pray for the repose of Pope Francis’s soul — and assess what we can learn from his legacy, both good and bad.
Much like the great saint whom he chose as his namesake and clearly intended to emulate, Pope Francis confounded caricature and was often misunderstood. In his life, and especially over the course of his pontificate, this quality often led to confusion for the faithful. No doubt, that pattern of confusion will be one hallmark of Francis’s papacy.
If we hope to learn from the life of Pope Francis, however, we must start by rejecting the mainstream media’s depiction of him as a “liberal” pope. Since his death, the New York Times has been filled with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/22/opinion/pope-francis-gay-muddle.html'" target="_blank" rel="noopener">headlines</a> regarding his perspective on “LGBTQ people,” women deacons, or the Church’s teaching on birth control. But while these may be important issues to the opinion writers of the New York Times, they were not central to Pope Francis’s work.
A much better place to begin is, well, the beginning: those early years of the pontificate when an energetic and vigorous Pope Francis set out to reform the Vatican’s bureaucracy and put an emphasis on serving the poor and taking care of the sick.
<div id="attachment_913279" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-913279" class="size-large wp-image-913279" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-864x576.jpg" alt="VATICAN CITY, VATICAN - MARCH 31: Pope Francis embraces a boy prior to his first 'Urbi et Orbi' blessing from the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica during Easter Mass on March 31, 2013 in Vatican City, Vatican. Pope Francis delivered his message to the gathered faithful from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in St. Peter's Square after his first Holy week as Pontiff. (Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-165118482.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Franco Origlia/Getty Images</div>
I will never forget when the Pope, in 2013, reached down and kissed a man suffering from neurofibromatosis, a rare disease which had left him disfigured with boils all over his head. And this was far from the only example. In his first year in the seat of St. Peter, Pope Francis made a point of <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/26889/pope-francis-to-offer-hope-by-washing-young-inmates-feet" target="_blank" rel="noopener">washing the feet</a> of 12 young people at a juvenile detention center, <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/27588/pope-francis-invites-homeless-to-dine-at-vatican" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inviting</a> 200 homeless people to dine at the Vatican, and living in a modest guest house rather than the Apostolic Palace.
With this radical humility, Pope Francis — the first Pope from the global South, where the Church continues to grow — reminded the decadent old continent that the cultural inheritance of Christendom is not in attending U.N. Conferences, but the corporal works of mercy: to feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the prisoners, bury the dead, and give alms to the poor.
Yet as much as Pope Francis loved the poor, he was not a humble Franciscan friar but a savvy Jesuit political operator whose initial attention to the corporal works of mercy — though never entirely lost — soon gave way to practical considerations about what would secure his power over the Church. And unfortunately, as he aged and became more entangled in the politics of the Vatican, Pope Francis became vulnerable to manipulation by his advisers as well as the media and indeed made many missteps that confused and divided his flock.
Examples abound. One week he would promote the blessing of “unions of persons of the same sex.” The next he would say that marriage will always be the union of one man and one woman. On one occasion, he declared that abortion was akin to “hiring a hitman,” while nevertheless appointing a pro-abortion economist to the Pontifical Academy for Life.
And because of his excessive reliance on the likes of Cardinal Blase Cupich — the radical progressive archbishop of Chicago whom he appropriately dubbed “the little woman” — Pope Francis was especially misguided in his approach to more conservative segments of the Church. He imposed serious restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, which is growing rapidly in the United States. And despite his frequent denunciation of “clericalism,” he upended, for no apparent reason, the constitution of Opus Dei, a prelature distinguished for promoting the role of the laity in the Church’s mission.
In short, rather than working with the young, vibrant, and faithful segments of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis attacked them, choosing instead to champion progressive prelates and priests like Father James Martin, a Jesuit who pushes the Catholic church to abandon the traditional definition of marriage.
<div id="attachment_720181" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-720181" class="size-large wp-image-720181" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-864x576.jpg" alt="MALMO, SWEDEN - OCTOBER 31: Pope Francis gives a speech during the 'Together in Hope' event at Malmo Arena on October 31, 2016 in Malmo, Sweden. The Pope is on 2 days visit attending Catholic-Lutheran Commemoration in Lund and Malmo. (Photo by Michael Campanella/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/04/GettyImages-619464578.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Michael Campanella/Getty Images</div>
In spite of his own opposition to these groups, however, Pope Francis’s pontificate witnessed a surge of conservative young people converting to Catholicism, in America and around the world. This Easter, dioceses across the United States <a href="https://www.ncregister.com/news/easter-converts-2024-by-the-numbers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> 30%, 40%, 50%, and even 70% increases in the number of converts coming into the Church on Easter Vigil. Young people seeking stability and rootedness account for most of these conversions, and the same phenomenon is happening in <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263349/france-sees-record-10384-adult-baptisms-in-2025-45-percent-increase-as-young-catholics-lead-revival" target="_blank" rel="noopener">France</a> and <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263329/surge-in-adults-entering-church-in-england-this-easter-prompted-by-internet-tradition" target="_blank" rel="noopener">England</a>, where a <a href="https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263239/catholics-now-outnumber-anglicans-among-gen-z-in-the-uk-study-suggestshttps:/www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/263239/catholics-now-outnumber-anglicans-among-gen-z-in-the-uk-study-suggests" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> shows that Gen Z Catholics now outnumber Anglicans two to one.
Amid this renewed interest in the Catholic Church, one of the great tragedies of Pope Francis’s papacy is that his misguided opposition to traditional religious communities and conservative political policies may have given many of these young Catholics the impression that a focus on serving the poor, feeding the hungry, and carrying out the other corporal works of mercy is somehow at odds with tradition and orthodoxy.
Let me be clear: this is not and never has been the case.
Christ tells his disciples in Matthew 25, “whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” The corporal works of mercy are essential for all Christians, regardless of denomination or political party. And beyond informing our personal faith, they also must guide our efforts to reclaim our institutions and restore our country.
Moreover, Pope Francis’s liberal posturing on things like the environment may obscure his urgent message to modernity. Consider the late Pope’s 2015 “global warming” encyclical, Laudato Si. While it did include entire sections on “pollution and climate change” which the liberal media fawned over and promoted, its deeper argument — that we have failed to “safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic human ecology” — was profoundly conservative and largely ignored.
In Laudato Si, Pope Francis beautifully lays out how a “technocratic paradigm” has led us to accept “every advance in technology with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings.” And in pursuit of this “unlimited human power,” he argues, we have undermined the various conditions that help us flourish: destroyed God’s majestic creation, contracepted our God-given gift to create life, and dishonored God’s plan for men and women to be different.
This message — not misguided one-off statements on airplane interviews or liberal media headlines about hot button political issues — is what we should take away from Pope Francis’s papacy.
Modernity, despite all its advances, has robbed us of many of the most basic spiritual and moral resources we need to flourish and be truly happy. To recover them, we don’t need complex coding or advanced AI, but rather, as Pope Francis sought to remind us, simply to follow the lessons Jesus taught us about serving our fellow man.
Much like the early parts of his pontificate, Pope Francis’s final days reflected this message.
On Sunday, the Pope’s last day on Earth, he met with Vice President JD Vance, squashing their public spat. He used his Easter message to make an appeal for peace in the world&#8217;s most war-torn regions. And finally, he made one last loop through St. Peter’s square, stopping several times to bless babies brought up to him and wish all his “brothers and sisters” a “Happy Easter.”
May he rest in peace, mixed legacy and all — and may his brother cardinals be inspired to choose a successor capable of combining Pope Francis’s initial emphasis on the corporal works with a steadfast commitment to tradition, both of which were sorely lacking in the final years of the Holy Father’s life.
* * *
Kevin Roberts is the President of The Heritage Foundation.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

TOPSHOT-VATICAN-HEALTH-VIRUS-RELIGION-POPE-AUDIENCE

What Can We Learn From Pope Francis?

Catholicism

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Liberals

Opinion

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The Vatican

I believe that America’s core ideals are very much linked to its Christian faith. So as Easter has just passed, I thought this would be a good time to take a closer look at the state of the American church and then weep quietly and say it was a great country while it lasted.
Now, according to a Pew poll, 62% of Americans identify as Christian. This is a slight drop from the 1697 poll which showed 99.9% of Americans were Christian with one heretic hiding in the woods hoping some long-haired guy with a buckle on his hat wouldn’t blow his head off with a blunderbuss.
But today’s religious landscape looks different depending on political affiliation. For instance, on the political Left, 43% of those who identify as progressives say they have abandoned Christianity and become Episcopalians. Fourteen percent of progressives say they have renounced the corrupt beliefs of colonizing white men, have returned to the innocent and beautiful natural religion of indigenous peoples, and were preparing to sacrifice a virgin to the volcano God until they realized that by the time they were sure she was a virgin, she wasn’t a virgin anymore, and if they threw her into a volcano there’d be no one left who knew how to make breakfast.
Other progressives say they are sick of the sort of restrictive religions that ruined the 1950’s by making everything so great. Instead they have turned to more modern faiths with practices that reflect the moral progress of mankind. These practices include yogic meditation, ritual mindfulness, and tantric sex followed by butchering any unborn babies conceived during tantric sex, then celebrating the mass slaughter by dancing around a pole in a wild blood-drenched frenzy, getting a full body tattoo featuring goat-headed demi-gods with flaming eyes, then running naked through a forest while grunting inarticulately and listening to music that’s mostly composed of drumbeats and shrieking because classic rock is just the best.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
Among Christians on the political Right, 17% say they believe in Christ so hard they’ll kill anyone who disagrees with them, 14% say their faith is so strong they might even be willing to go to church as long as porn is provided, and 8% say their worship mostly involves posting unspeakably cruel remarks on social media to people who aren’t as Christly as they are. Four percent of conservative Christians say they have abandoned their own egos for Christ’s sake and have thus elevated their souls into a state of suffering-yet-serene agape love, and are now hiding in the woods hoping some long-haired guy with a buckle on his hat won’t blow their heads off with a blunderbuss.
The remaining 57% of Right-wing Christians spend most of their time sobbing and whispering, “Oh God, I suck so bad, please, please, please have mercy on me and don’t send me to hell or California.”
As far as other American religions go, 94% of limousine drivers identify as Muslims, 16% of Christian women pretend they’re Buddhists, and 82% of Jews control 90% of everything except which parts of Ivy League campuses they’re allowed to walk on without one of their professors pointing at them and making that awful insect noise like Donald Sutherland at the end of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
Approximately 29% of Americans have no religion whatsoever and they say that makes life much easier because they&#8217;re able to rotate their heads 360 degrees and spider walk across the ceiling, which comes in very handy when they’re trying to escape from the exorcist.
Around the world, the religious landscape is much more varied. For instance, in Great Britain, while 47% of the people identify as Christian, 70% of them say that Islam is also absolutely great, totally fine, really wonderful and not a problem at all, no, really, it’s fantastic, they’re not just saying that because they’d be arrested for telling the truth.
In France, 49% of the population were excited because they thought they belonged to a dark, obscure, mystery cult with elaborate secret rituals until they found out they were actually just Catholics.
And in China, 23% of high-ranking Communists identify their kidneys as Uiger.
* * *
This excerpt is taken from the opening satirical monologue of “<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Andrew Klavan Show</a>.”
The views expressed in this satirical article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Follow him on X: @andrewklavan
Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fourth installment, “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1613165536?ref_=dbs_m_mng_rwt_calw_thcv_3&amp;storeType=ebooks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A Woman Underground.</a>” His most recent nonfiction release is “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Kingdom-Cain-Finding-Literature-Darkness/dp/0310368340/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=nMYjR&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_p=bc3ba8d1-5076-4ab7-9ba8-a5c6211e002d&amp;pf_rd_r=133-8344803-2786917&amp;pd_rd_wg=7a8J3&amp;pd_rd_r=5791ea0f-6d96-4732-9d6a-3a4e6b348bb5&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literature of Darkness.</a>” (May 2025, Zondervan/HarperCollins).

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Progressives Abandon Christianity, Become Episcopalian

Conservatives

Easter

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Progressivism

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Attorney General Pam Bondi opened up the first meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias on Tuesday by hearing stories about how the Justice Department was weaponized by the Biden administration to go after Christians.
President Donald Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/eradicating-anti-christian-bias-trump-signs-executive-action-ending-targeting-of-christians" target="_blank" rel="noopener">signed an executive order</a> in February directing Bondi to convene a task force composed of top Trump admin officials with the goal of securing religious liberty. During the inaugural meeting, those in attendance shared examples of how the Biden administration &#8220;weaponized&#8221; government to go after Christian colleges and federal employees who refused the COVID vaccine for religious reasons.
“As shown by our victims’ stories today, Biden’s Department of Justice abused and targeted peaceful Christians while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses,” Bondi said. “Thanks to President Trump, we have ended those abuses, and we will continue to work closely with every member of this Task Force to protect every American’s right to speak and worship freely.”
In her opening remarks, Bondi added that protecting the First Amendment would be a high priority for the administration.
“The First Amendment isn&#8217;t just a line in the Constitution, it&#8217;s the cornerstone of our American liberty. It guarantees every citizen the right to speak freely, worship freely, and live according to their conscience without government interference,” she said. “Protecting Christians from bias is not favoritism, it&#8217;s upholding the rule of law and fulfilling the constitutional promise.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
🚨 BREAKING: First Meeting of the Task Force to Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias. <a href="https://t.co/PRlqJO48MD">pic.twitter.com/PRlqJO48MD</a>
&mdash; Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) <a href="https://twitter.com/AGPamBondi/status/1914748203552932185?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 22, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
Other admin officials who attended the meeting included FBI Director Kash Patel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
During the meeting, the task force heard from lawyer Michael Farris, who is represented the Cornerstone Church as it was under investigation by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) for an alleged Johnson Amendment violation. The Johnson Amendment is a decades old provision in federal law that <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-north-carolina-republican-leads-effort-to-restore-free-speech-for-pastors-churches" target="_blank" rel="noopener">allows pastors</a> to be prosecuted for making political statements from the pulpit.
The panel also heard from Phil Mendes, a Navy Seal who was relieved of duty by the Department of Defense after it denied his request for a religious exemption to the COVID vaccine.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump pledged to reverse many of the actions taken by the Biden administration, including the aggressive prosecutions of peaceful Christian pro-life protesters outside of abortion facilities. Multiple pro-lifers were sent to federal prison for their participation in peaceful protests after trials that were <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-89-year-old-woman-convicted-faces-over-a-decade-in-prison-for-peaceful-pro-life-protest" target="_blank" rel="noopener">covered extensively</a> by The Daily Wire.
&#8220;Those convicted included a Catholic priest and 75-year-old grandmother, as well as an 87-year-old woman and a father of 11 children who were arrested 18 months after praying and singing hymns outside an abortion facility in Tennessee as a part of a politically motivated prosecution campaign by the Biden Administration,&#8221; Trump wrote in his executive order creating the task force earlier this month.
Trump <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/they-should-not-have-been-prosecuted-trump-pardons-23-pro-lifers-targeted-by-biden-doj" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pardoned those pro-lifers</a> his first week in office, calling it a &#8220;great honor&#8221; to sign the pardons.

US-POLITICS-LAW-RELIGION-BONDI

Top Trump Officials Expose ‘Anti-Christian Bias’ Of Biden Admin

Department of Justice

Joe Biden

Pam Bondi

The first photos of Pope Francis in his casket were released on Tuesday, as the Vatican announced the pontiff&#8217;s funeral for Saturday.
The images released by the Vatican show the pontiff lying in a wooden casket wearing traditional red vestments and his bishop&#8217;s miter, with Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/world/first-photos-released-pope-francis-his-casket-funeral-set-saturday">praying</a> over his body.
Francis was placed in the casket Monday night in the chapel of the Vatican&#8217;s Casa Santa Marta by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, operating as the acting head of the church until a new pope is selected.
<div id="attachment_910751" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-910751" class="wp-image-910751 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211383735-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211383735-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211383735-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211383735-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211383735-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211383735-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211383735-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211383735-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Photo by Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images</div>
Catholics can <a href="https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2025/04/22/250422a.html">begin</a> paying their respects starting Wednesday, when the casket is brought into St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica.
Cardinals met on Tuesday to establish the next steps, <a href="https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2025/04/22/250422b.html">setting</a> the funeral for 10 a.m. Saturday in St. Peter&#8217;s Square, to be celebrated by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. President Trump said he plans to attend the funeral with the first lady, as dozens of other world leaders have also confirmed their attendance.
Francis, who was 88, died Monday morning of a cerebral stroke followed by a coma and ultimately “irreversible cardiocirculatory collapse,” according to the Vatican.
The pope had been in and out of the hospital for two months prior to his death, battling various respiratory illnesses necessitating a constant flow of supplemental oxygen and at least one emergency blood transfusion, per the New York Post.
<div id="attachment_910757" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-910757" class="size-large wp-image-910757" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211382949-864x576.jpg" alt="" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211382949-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211382949-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211382949-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211382949-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211382949-2048x1366.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211382949-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/04/GettyImages-2211382949-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Photo by Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images</div>
In his final will, Francis wished to be buried at St. Mary Major Basilica, located outside the Vatican, breaking with the tradition of papal burials at St. Peter&#8217;s Basilica.
Pope Francis was the first pontiff from the Americas and the first Jesuit pope in the Church&#8217;s history, serving during a period of significant challenges for the Catholic Church.
His death marks the end of a controversial era and sets the stage for what many religious conservatives hope will be a return to more traditional Catholic leadership.
A conclave to elect the next pope must begin between 15 and 20 days after Francis&#8217;s death, according to Church law.
During this period, Cardinal Farrell will oversee the Vatican&#8217;s administration and the conclave of 135 cardinals under the age of 80 who are eligible to vote in the secretive process of selecting the 267th pontiff.
&#8220;He gave himself to the end,&#8221; said Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, head of the Italian bishops&#8217; conference and a possible candidate to be the next pope. &#8220;To go out to meet everyone, speak to everyone, teach us to speak to everyone, to bless everyone.&#8221;

Pope Francis Dies At Easter

Vatican Releases First Photos Of Pope Francis In Casket

World

On Sunday, President Donald Trump marked Easter with a Truth Social post that paired festive greetings with his signature irreverent tone.
The <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114370361342759621" target="_blank" rel="noopener">missive</a> featured references to illegal immigration, judicial <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/bondi-says-the-real-constitutional-crisis-is-judicial-lawfare-not-trump-exec-actions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawfare</a>, the 2020 election, and former President Joe Biden&#8217;s controversial use of an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-pardons-signed-autopen-on-vacation-watchdog-finds" target="_blank" rel="noopener">autopen</a> to sign official documents.
&#8220;Happy Easter to all, including the Radical Left Lunatics who are fighting and scheming so hard to bring Murderers, Drug Lords, Dangerous Prisoners, the Mentally Insane, and well known MS-13 Gang Members and Wife Beaters, back into our Country,&#8221; Trump said.
&#8220;Happy Easter also to the WEAK and INEFFECTIVE Judges and Law Enforcement Officials who are allowing this sinister attack on our Nation to continue, an attack so violent that it will never be forgotten! Sleepy Joe Biden purposefully allowed Millions of CRIMINALS to enter our Country, totally unvetted and unchecked, through an Open Borders Policy that will go down in history as the single most calamitous act ever perpetrated upon America,&#8221; Trump continued.
Trump added, &#8220;He was, by far, our WORST and most Incompetent President, a man who had absolutely no idea what he was doing &#8212; But to him, and to the person that ran and manipulated the Auto Pen (perhaps our REAL President!), and to all of the people who CHEATED in the 2020 Presidential Election in order to get this highly destructive Moron Elected, I wish you, with great love, sincerity, and affection, a very Happy Easter!!!&#8221;
In an earlier post, Trump delivered a message from himself and the First Lady, Melania, to mark the holiday.
&#8220;Melania and I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Easter! Whether you are heading out to Church or, watching Service from home, may this day be full of Peace and Joy for all who celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. HE IS RISEN!!&#8221; Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114370333902322250" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
Vice President JD Vance spent part of Easter Sunday <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/jd-vance-pays-brief-visit-to-pope-francis-on-easter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">meeting</a> Pope Francis at the Vatican.
&#8220;The Vice President expressed his gratitude to Pope Francis for inviting him to meet on Easter Sunday and for the hospitality the Vatican has extended to his family,&#8221; the White House said in a statement.
Vance <a href="https://x.com/VP/status/1913977824739729459" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> on X, &#8220;Today I met with the Holy Father Pope Francis. I am grateful for his invitation to meet, and I pray for his good health. Happy Easter!&#8221;

President Donald Trump

Trump Blends Easter Greetings With Barbs For ‘Radical Left Lunatics,’ Judges, And ‘Sleepy Joe Biden’

Executive

Holiday

U.S.

An American missionary in South Africa who was kidnapped during a church service last week was rescued by authorities following a deadly shootout on Tuesday.
After searching for Josh Sullivan, 45, for five days, police received a tip that the missionary was being held in a safe house in KwaMagxaki, Gqeberha, which is around 20 minutes away from Sullivan&#8217;s church. When authorities approached the house on Tuesday, they saw multiple suspects inside a vehicle who opened fire on police, according to a <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/newsroom/selnewsdetails.php?nid=60329" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> from the South African Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (HAWKS).
&#8220;The officers responded with tactical precision, leading to a high-intensity shootout in which three unidentified suspects were fatally wounded,&#8221; the statement added.
Following the deadly shootout, Sullivan was found inside the vehicle &#8220;miraculously unharmed,&#8221; according to authorities. He was later assessed by medics and is in &#8220;excellent condition.&#8221;
While the South African authorities did not share the name of Sullivan in their statement, Pastor Tom Hatley, who oversees Fellowship Baptist Church in Maryville, Tennessee, where the Sullivans were previously members, shared the news of the missionary&#8217;s rescue.
&#8220;Josh has been released. I just got &#8216;the go ahead to let it be known,'&#8221; Hatley wrote on Facebook, adding, &#8220;Thank you for your support and prayers. Please do not stop praying for The Sullivans. Praise the Lord Jesus Christ!&#8221;
Sullivan, a husband and father of six children, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/american-missionary-kidnapped-at-gunpoint-during-church-service" target="_blank" rel="noopener">was taken at gunpoint</a> by armed men while he was preaching a sermon at Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell, just outside the city of Gqeberha, last Thursday. Around 30 people, including Sullivan&#8217;s family, were at the church service when Sullivan was kidnapped, but no one was harmed.
The captors reportedly knew Sullivan&#8217;s name when they entered the church, and Fellowship Baptist Church was the target of threats last year, according to human rights group International Christian Concern, sparking concern that Sullivan was taken because of his faith. However, Reverend Jeremy Hall, who also pastors in the Gqeberha area, said the kidnapping was likely “financially related.”
South Africa has experienced a massive spike in kidnappings over the past decade, jumping 264%. From 2023 to 2024 alone, there were more than 17,000 kidnappings in the country.

Josh Sullivan

‘Miraculously Unharmed’: American Missionary Rescued In Deadly Shootout After Gunpoint Kidnapping

Church

Rescue

South Africa

An American serving as a missionary in South Africa was kidnapped at gunpoint by a group of men during a church service in Motherwell, just outside the city of Gqeberha, on Thursday.
Josh Sullivan, a Tennessee native, was preaching a sermon at Fellowship Baptist Church when four masked men armed with firearms stormed into the church, robbed people of their cell phones, and abducted the 45-year-old missionary, according to police, The Straits Times <a href="https://www.straitstimes.com/world/us-pastor-abducted-at-gunpoint-during-sermon-in-south-africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>. Around 30 people were at the church service, including Sullivan&#8217;s wife and six children, when the kidnappers entered the building. No one else was harmed, and only Sullivan was taken captive.
The captors reportedly sped away with Sullivan in his silver Toyota Forerunner. The missionary&#8217;s vehicle was later found abandoned. The U.S. State Department told the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5y6xq4ex1ro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">BBC</a> on Friday that it is aware of Sullivan&#8217;s kidnapping and added that there is no &#8220;greater priority than the safety and security of US citizens abroad.&#8221;
Reverend Jeremy Hall, who also pastors in the Gqeberha area, said the kidnapping was likely &#8220;financially related,&#8221; but there is some concern that Sullivan was targeted for his faith. The kidnappers reportedly knew Sullivan&#8217;s name when they entered the church, and Fellowship Baptist Church was the target of threats last year, according to human rights group International Christian Concern.
Sullivan and his family moved to South Africa in 2018 and planted Fellowship Baptist Church in Motherwell in 2021. The church is a sister church of Fellowship Baptist in Maryville, Tennessee, where the Sullivans were members before going to the mission field. In the Sullivans&#8217; most recent prayer letter <a href="https://sullivansinsouthafrica.weebly.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">update</a>, which was published on March 3, the missionaries said they had just visited fellow missionaries in Mozambique, adding that the &#8220;trip was a wonderful opportunity to see another African country and grow our burden for the African people.&#8221;
Kidnappings have spiked in South Africa over the past decade, jumping 264%, according to the BBC. In 2023-2024, there were more than 17,000 kidnappings in the country. Just two days before Sullivan was taken by armed men, a Chinese national was kidnapped in Gqeberha, according to police.

Church Steeple

American Missionary Kidnapped At Gunpoint During Church Service

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