Angelus News | April 21, 2023 | Vol. 8 No

NATION
Texas Catholics gather in front of the State Capitol March 28 for “Advocacy Day.”
| BISHOP DANIEL FLORES/TWITTER
■ Texas bishops: Don’t bar
migrant children from schools
The Catholic bishops of Texas are calling on Catholics to
oppose a bill that would bar undocumented children from
enrolling in public schools.
The bill, introduced in February at the request of Gov.
Greg Abbott, challenges a 1982 Supreme Court decision
requiring public schools to provide services regardless of
documentation status. Abbott has previously argued that
undocumented children cost the state “billions more a year
just in education expenses.”
“This is wrong, and while the bill’s authors may not intend
to cause harm, we cannot gamble with the education of
innocent children,” said Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville
March 28. “To educate a child is a great work of mercy, and
it’s a great good for the whole society.”
Flores made the comments at the Catholic Advocacy Day
at the state capitol in Austin, where the state’s bishops also
spoke out in favor of school choice, health care reform,
religious liberty, and other social concerns.
■ Will Catholic Mass attendance
ever recover from COVID-19?
In-person Mass attendance in the U.S. has yet to return to
pre-pandemic levels, according to a new study.
The report released March 28 by the Pew Research Center
looked at the impact of COVID-19 on religious life in America
three years after the start of the pandemic. It found that
40% of Americans say they’ve participated in religious services
at least once a month since then.
About 4 in 10 U.S. Catholics said they attend in-person Mass
as often as before the pandemic, and a quarter of them say
they now attend less often. The study also reported a 14% rise
in Catholics who say they follow Mass virtually more often
than before COVID.
■ Possible eucharistic miracle
investigated in Connecticut
The Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, is investigating
a potential eucharistic miracle in one of its parishes.
The alleged miracle was reported at St. Thomas Church
in Thomaston, Connecticut March 5 by an extraordinary
minister of holy Communion, who said that the hosts in
his ciborium began duplicating during the distribution of
Communion.
“They were running out of hosts and all of a sudden more
hosts were there,” Father Joseph Crowley, pastor of the
church, said. “So today not only did we have the miracle of
the Eucharist, we also had a bigger miracle. It’s pretty cool.”
The archdiocese’s judicial vicar has begun an investigation
into the episode, from which he will prepare a report to be
presented to Hartford Archbishop Leonard Blair.
St. Thomas was the final assignment of Blessed Father
Michael McGivney, the 19th-century American priest and
founder of the Knights of Columbus.
Nashville’s new cross — People gather around a cross during a prayer vigil
in Nashville, Tennessee, March 29, for the victims of the March 27 Covenant
School shooting, which left three children and three adults dead, including the
head of the school. According to the police, the school was targeted by a 28-yearold
former student who identified as transgender for ideological reasons and that
the victims were not specifically targeted. | OSV NEWS/CHENEY ORR, REUTERS
April 21, 2023 • ANGELUS • 5