Washington D.C., Feb 28, 2025 /
19:30 pm
Speakers and attendees at the 2025 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast on Friday prayed for Pope Francis amid his ongoing ailments, emphasized a message of hope, and called attention to ongoing pro-life policy efforts.
“The Holy Father is still in precarious circumstances, but thanks be to God [and] thanks be to the prayers of Catholics throughout the world,” Monsignor Roger Landry, the national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies USA, told EWTN News at the breakfast.
During his remarks at the event, Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the apostolic nuncio to the United States, said Pope Francis is thankful for the prayers as he remains in critical — but stable — condition in the hospital amid his battle with pneumonia and other respiratory ailments.
“[Pope Francis] cares for the people of this country and he values our unity with him in faith and in hope,” Pierre said, adding: “He wants to encourage us in prayer and action for the common good.”
The annual event included a prayer for the Holy Father’s health led by Vice President JD Vance and a Divine Mercy Chaplet prayed for the pontiff, for the leaders of the country and the world, led by Mexican actor and activist Eduardo Verástegui.
Alessandro DiSanto, co-founder of the Catholic prayer application Hallow, recited the final novena prayer for the country.
The organizers also bestowed several service awards during the event, including to Rep. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, who was given the Christifidelis Laici Award for his consistent defense of the right to life and religious freedom. Smith also spoke during the breakfast.
Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker and San Diego businessman Terry Caster were given “Heroes of Hope” awards for their promotion of the Catholic faith.
A message of hope
The theme of the 2025 breakfast was centered on the theological virtue of hope, which is also the theme of the 2025 Jubilee Year of Hope.
During his opening remarks Mark Randall, chairman of the breakfast, said that “even as we acknowledge our concern” for Pope Francis’ health, “we’re uplifted by the theme of this milestone gathering: hope.”
“Hope is the anchor that binds us to faith and guides us to love,” Randall said. “As Pope Francis has so beautifully written: ‘Hope is not something distant or elusive. It is already within us. It is simply ours to strengthen through God’s grace and to share with the world.”
Delivering the event’s keynote address, Monsignor James Shea, president of the University of Mary in North Dakota, said that “without hope, everything falls apart for us.”
“Without hope, human beings are miserable and unhappy creatures. It doesn’t matter — you can give us wealth and health and prosperity of every kind, but eventually without hope, we’ll tire of it.”
Shea explained that the Christian hope in everlasting life in heaven helps guide faithful people to do good things here on Earth.
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“Our citizenship is in heaven and we need to know that the efforts that we place upon this world, all of our exertions for the good and the true and the beautiful have an effect in time and eternity because God is working alongside of us, giving strength and wisdom, fortitude to our smallest and even our meager and failing efforts,” Shea stated.
Smith defends life
Upon accepting his award for his efforts in defense of life and religious liberty, Smith spoke at length about abortion and religious persecution around the world.
“Even though at times we get tired and grow weary — I know I do — none of us have the luxury of growing weary,” Smith said. “The existential threats to life and human dignity today have entered a new phase that absolutely begs our time, our talent, and our intervention.”
Smith called surgical abortions a form of “brutally dismembering helpless babies” and chemical abortions as “poisoning babies” and said the dangers posed to women “must be exposed as well.”
The congressman thanked President Donald Trump for executive actions to reinstate the Mexico City policy, which prohibits federal funding for the promotion of abortion overseas. He also criticized former President Joe Biden’s administration for using the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to “push the abortion issue and change laws all over the world.”
Smith, who co-chairs the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, referred to abortion as “a weapon of mass destruction” during his speech.
“We all have very deep concerns about nuclear weapons, other weapons of mass destruction, but abortion is a weapon of mass destruction,” he added. “More than 66 million babies were aborted in the U.S. since 1973, a numbing death toll of children.”
Tyler Arnold is a staff reporter for Catholic News Agency, based in EWTN News’ Washington Bureau. He previously worked at The Center Square and has been published in a variety of outlets, including The Associated Press, National Review, The American Conservative, and The Federalist.
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