In late October, Pew Research Center reported that “there was a sharp rise in the share of U.S. adults who say religion is gaining influence in American life” since February 2024, when it was only 18%, to 31% today — the highest in 15 years. What is more, the percentage of Americans who say faith is losing influence has declined from an all-time high of 80% in 2024 to 68% today.

Pew adds, “The new survey also finds that in recent years, a growing share of the public takes a positive view of religion’s role in society.” Remarkably, the gain is at least 10% among both Democrats and Republicans, even as Democrats grow increasingly secular. And Democrats were far more likely to have a net negative view of religion’s impact on American life, at 35% for Democrats, compared to just 6% for Republicans.

This present trendline appears encouraging, but the fact is a majority of U.S. adults believe religion is losing influence at 68% and only 31% believe it is gaining influence. But of late, the shifts appear to be moving in a more positive direction, and markedly so.

It is interesting that the age group showing the largest positive change believing religion is gaining in influence is among 18- to 29-year-olds, at an 18 percentage point increase, while 30- to 40-year-olds saw a 12 percentage point increase; 50- to 64-year-olds saw a 10-point increase; and those aged 65 and older saw a 16-point boost.

This year’s college football bowl season consists of 41 games, including 11 that are part of the playoff system that first began in 2014. What schools make it in and what teams are left out is a matter of perennial controversy, especially this year’s snubbing of the University of Notre Dame.

The lackluster and lopsided results of last week’s first round playoff games did little to quell the uproar, but those of us Irish fans still smarting from the injustice can take heart from an otherwise forgotten message from the university’s longtime president, the Reverend Fr. Theodore Hesburgh.

It was December 1951. “Fr. Ted,” as he was affectionately known, was speaking at the team’s annual football banquet. The Irish had finished the season at 7-2-1, ranked 13th, ending with a win over USC. As was school policy up until 1968, they declined playing in a bowl game.

“By now, the last whistle has sounded,” Fr. Ted began. “The cleats are cleaned and stored away … But there is something left after this season that is very much a reality … Not just a pile of bricks, not just a system or a practice, not just a feeling or an abstraction, but something very real, a person. You might call him the forgotten man, although he is really what remains when all is said and done about football.”

Invoking the “forgotten man,” Fr. Hesburgh was borrowing a phrase from a President Franklin Roosevelt radio address in 1932. FDR was referring to the individual at the bottom of the economic ladder — but Fr. Ted was stressing the multi-dimensional nature of the student-athlete.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced it will block hospitals from performing sex-rejecting, mutilating procedures on children.

A press release from the department stated that procedures to be barred “include pharmaceutical or surgical interventions of specified types that attempt to align a child’s physical appearance or body with an asserted identity different from their sex.”

The department is working to fulfill President Trump’s Executive Order, signed on January 28, 2025, Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.

In a press conference, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy said he has now taken action to follow that order, directing health care providers to follow science — not transgender dogma:

“This morning, I signed a declaration: Sex-rejecting procedures are neither safe nor effective treatment for children with gender dysphoria.”

Secretary Kennedy used strong language to condemn hospitals, health care professionals, and medical organization that irreversibly damage children. He called these procedures “junk science” and “malpractice,” stating:

“Doctors assume a solemn obligation to protect children. Yet doctors across the country now provide needless and irreversible sex-rejecting procedures that violate their sacred Hippocratic Oath by endangering the very lives that they are sworn to safeguard.”

Dominick Critelli, a 104-year-old veteran of World War II, performed the national anthem on Saturday at UBS Arena before the New York Islanders’ game against the New York Rangers.

The veteran, born in 1921 and sporting the team’s jersey, was helped into the arena by Islanders’ cheerleaders. He performed a rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” on his saxophone.

As Critelli held onto the last note, the crowd cheered his performance and broke out into exuberant chants of “USA.” Critelli acknowledge the crowd’s praise and gave a quick salute before exiting the arena.

Critelli “spent 151 days in combat during World War II” and survived “the Battle of the Bulge … flying behind enemy lines to provide isolated American troops with much-needed supplies,” NHL.com reported.

He earned the “European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal with three Bronze Stars, the American Theater Medal, the WWII Victory Medal and a Good Conduct Medal.”

“I love this country,” Critelli, who immigrated to the USA from Calabria, Italy as a young boy, told The New York Post in an interview before the game. “If I hadn’t come to this country, I’d be stuck with Mussolini.”

Critelli’s performance and remarks provide a good moment for reflection, considering national pride in America has fallen to an all-time low.