Iowa Catholic Conference Newsletter, April 25, 2025

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has created a special page to honor the life and legacy of Pope Francis. The conclave to elect Pope Francis’ successor will most likely be scheduled to begin the week after next. We appreciate that Gov. Kim Reynolds ordered all flags in Iowa to be lowered to half-staff until sunset tomorrow for His Holiness.

Action alerts for the Iowa Legislature

We encourage you to contact legislators on several issues of interest still in the mix at the State Capitol, including:

Conscience protection for medical professionals (support)

Immigration enforcement (oppose)

Medicaid changes (oppose)

Showing students a video on fetal development (support)

Last week at the State Capitol

The governor’s preschool and childcare “continuum of care” proposal, SF 445, passed the Senate by a vote of 33-14 and is eligible for debate in the House. The Iowa Catholic Conference (ICC) supports the bill as it would allow community providers such as Catholic preschools to apply directly to the state for funding. Currently, community providers must work through the local public school district. 

Unfortunately, the number of students in Catholic preschools participating in the state preschool program has dropped this year. Some public schools do not allow Catholic preschools to participate.

Education Savings Accounts scholarship funding from the state remains a talking point for some legislators. Here’s a chart that shows how school funding is allocated.

There’s new research from the Urban Institute highlighting longer-term positive effects of school choice. Students who attend private school through a school choice program have significantly better postsecondary outcomes, likelier both to attend and graduate from college.

HF 248 unanimously passed the Senate on April 21. The ICC supports the bill, which requires businesses to provide adoptive parents the same benefits and family leave as biological parents. The bill has been around for 15 years or so but has never passed both chambers. It now goes to the governor.

We got ahead of ourselves last week when we said that SF 288 passed the House unanimously and was headed to the governor. Actually, the bill was amended by the House and sent back to the Senate. It requires state universities to make reasonable accommodations for students who are pregnant or who have recently given birth.

An Abortion Recovery Month proclamation was signed by Gov. Reynolds. The document promotes healing opportunities and raises awareness of the issues experienced by individuals and families in the aftermath of abortion.

Contact U.S. Congress about visas for religious workers

An increasing number of priests, religious sisters and brothers, and others serving the Church throughout the United States will be forced to abandon their ministries if policymakers do not act soon. Under current law, foreign-born religious workers are permitted to live and work in the United States temporarily through the temporary religious worker (R-1) visa.

Unfortunately, there is now a significant backlog in the visa category relied upon by these religious workers, along with several other classes of immigrants, for that purpose. This backlog means a priest or other worker who applies today will be forced to wait more than a decade before being able to receive permanent residency in the United States. This is unsustainable for the religious organizations that depend on these workers, as well as the workers themselves who have committed to serving our communities.

Here in Iowa, all four of our Catholic dioceses would be impacted if Congress does not act soon. In the Archdiocese of Dubuque, for example, foreign-born priests represent about 25% of its active priests.

The bipartisan Religious Workforce Protection Act (RWPA) (S. 1298/H.R. 2672), recently introduced in both chambers of Congress, would provide relief for religious workers in this situation and further the free exercise of religion in the United States for the benefit of all Americans. Ask our members of Congress to join with legislators on both sides of the aisle in supporting this much needed source of relief for people of faith and communities nationwide.