The Bishop’s Urgent Message - 8/21/26

Voters in Virginia will decide on abortion and marriage at the ballot, and the church is urging Catholics to get involved. The first ballot question would add a legal right to abortion in the state's constitution. The Diocese of Arlington, Virginia said the proposal would weaken existing health and safety regulations, allow unlicensed providers to perform abortion throughout all nine months of the pregnancy, and would reduce parental involvement in minors' medical decisions. The second ballot question would remove the provision in the state's constitution that defines marriage as a union of one man and one woman.

The diocese argued that Virginia lawmakers would enshrine into the state's constitution the false legal definition of marriage that was unjustly established by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2015 Obergefell decision. Bishop Burbage urged Virginia Catholics to get registered to vote and to cast no votes on the two proposed amendments. Catholics in Virginia are encouraged to visit the website catholicsvotenow.com. Meanwhile, over at The Loop, there's a story about the upcoming conference on... Fulton Sheen, on the eve of his beatification. CatholicVote president Kelsey Reinhart will be among the speakers.

Today is the feast of St. Pius X, who served as the head of the Catholic Church from 1903 to 1914. He is known for condemning modernism, and he also lowered the age for First Communion. I'm Josh Mercer, editor of The Loop, taking you behind the headlines. Go to zeal.co for the rest of today's Loop, and while you're at it, subscribe to get The Loop in your inbox every morning. Again, that's zeal.co.