JD Vance to speak at annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast

Tessa Gervasini By Tessa Gervasini for CNA

February 25, 2025 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 0 Print

 

U.S. Vice President JD Vance addresses the 2025 International Religious Freedom Summit in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Migi Fabara/EWTN News

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 25, 2025 / 14:05 pm (CNA).

Vice President JD Vance will speak at the 20th National Catholic Prayer Breakfast (NCPB) held on Friday, Feb. 28, in Washington, D.C., the organization has announced.

“I am honored to be able to address the 20th annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and represent the Trump administration’s support for people of faith across the United States,” Vance said in a statement.

Vance spoke about returning to the NCPB as vice president. “Last year, I was moved to witness the joyful devotion of over a thousand Catholics praying for the future and success of our country,” he said.

“Thanks to their faithful prayers, President Trump’s leadership has restored the hopes and dreams of the American people and our great nation is on the path to peace and prosperity once more,” Vance said.

NCPB Chairman Mark Randall stated: “We are thrilled to welcome fellow Catholic JD Vance back, now as vice president, for our 20th annual gathering of fellowship and prayer. His presence is a sign of hope and openness to Catholic values and all the good that they bring to our entire nation.”

This year’s keynote speaker is Monsignor James Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. Among the other political figures who will attend the event is New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, who will be honored with the NCPB’s Christifideles Laici Award. 

The award is given out yearly by the NCPB to a layperson who demonstrates service and “good works” to the Church, according to the organization. It was created to acknowledge those following St. John Paul II’s call to “spread the Gospel in ways that are new in ardor, methods, and expression.”

Smith, who is a devout Catholic dedicating his time on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs to advocate for those suffering religious persecution and human trafficking, will be the sixth recipient of the award.

The NCPB events will begin Thursday evening and guest speakers will give remarks on Friday, Feb. 28, starting at 7 a.m. ET. EWTN will cover the event live and report on its presenters.

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A letter from the Pope to the US president sunk in the Titanic

April 5, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Denver, Colo., Apr 5, 2017 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On the fateful voyage that embarked from Southampton and never made it to New York City, a passenger on the RMS Titanic named Major Archibald Willingham Butt was tasked with a special mission.

He was to carry a letter from Pope Pius X and personally deliver it to United States president William H. Taft.

But the 45-year-old major perished along with more than 1500 other passengers the night of April 15, with the contents of the letter never to be known.

Born in 1865 in Augusta, Georgia, Major Butt began a career in journalism after graduating from the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee. He later worked as first secretary of the United States Embassy in Mexico. During the Spanish-American war, he joined the army and was later appointed in 1908 by Theodore Roosevelt as his military aid. When President Taft was elected, Major Butt was kept on staff and promoted to the rank of major in 1911.

By the next year, his health began to deteriorate – some speculating that this was due to him wanting to stay neutral and supportive amid tense political rivalry between Taft and Roosevelt, the latter of whom was planning a re-election campaign.

On a leave of absence, Major Butt embarked on a six-week tour of Europe in March of 1912 with his friend, artist Francis Millet. President Taft gave the major a letter to deliver to Pius X while in Rome, which he did on March 21. In return, Pius X gave him a letter to deliver to the president, according to the U.K. National Archives.

The major boarded the RMS Titanic in Southampton on April 12.

When the ship struck an iceberg in the waters of the Atlantic on the evening of April 15, he was seen in the smoking room, playing cards with Millett, the two ostensibly making no attempt to save themselves. Other sources, however, report his heroism.

According to Biography.com, The New York Times reported survivor Renee Harris as saying that he helped the sailors place women and children safely into lifeboats – even threatening bodily harm to any man who tried to circumvent the process.  

“Women will be attended to first or I’ll break every…bone in your body,” he told one such unfortunate gentleman, according to Harris. The major helped “frightened people so wonderfully, tenderly, and yet with such cool and manly firmness. He was a soldier to the last,” Harris reportedly said.

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