Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 17, 2025 /
17:30 pm

The Catholic Information Center (CIC) on Saturday held its third annual Eucharistic procession through Washington, D.C. in which more than 1,000 participants processed through the downtown area with the Blessed Sacrament. 

Father Charles Trullols, the director of the CIC, told CNA the day was “perfect.”

The event kicked off with a Mass at CIC’s chapel. The group of attendees was so large that it could not fit inside the chapel itself, sending people to watch the Mass on a screen outside where they were eventually brought Holy Communion. 

The procession began after Mass and was led by the crossbearer, candle-bearers, religious sisters, and young children who recently received their first Holy Communion and who laid rose petals ahead of the Eucharist.

Trullols carried the Blessed Sacrament in the monstrance and held it high for the crowd to witness and follow. A choir, priests, and lay people followed behind through the downtown area.

As the group walked, attendees said prayers and sang hymns. Some bystanders joined in and others kneeled as the procession passed by.

Gerard McNair-Lewis, a development associate at CIC, noted that the event is held during May, “the month of Mary.” 

“What better way to celebrate Mary than to honor her son’s Eucharistic presence?” he said.

The group processed down K Street. The Eucharist in the procession was “the closest tabernacle to the White House,” McNair-Lewis said. It’s “a great testament that religious things happen in our nation’s capital.”

Throughout the procession the group stopped at different locations to kneel before the Blessed Sacrament and hear the gospel. At one stop, Monsignor Charles Pope spoke outside the veteran’s affairs office.

Pope praised veterans and the military, pointing out that “many put their lives on the line so that others can live in greater security and freedom.” He said these individuals “imitate Jesus who lays down His life so we can live eternally.”

Krista Anderson, an attendee from Virgina, told CNA that her husband Micheal Simpson was a staff sergeant for the United States Army who was killed in Afghanistan. 

She felt the moment to honor veterans was a message from God.

(Story continues below)

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Craig Carter flew into Washington for a work trip and “happened to see [the procession].” 

A Protestant, Carter said God “wanted me to come to D.C. early just to pray.” He joined the procession, he said, because God “has been working on [his] heart.” 

“Adoration has always been super special to me in my Catholic faith,” Lydia Vaccaro, a young attendee from Virgina, told CNA. “So it brought me here.”

“It’s a beautiful witness,” said attendee Hannah Hermann.

“I like being in front of processions like this, where you’re out and people see,” Hermann said. “I’ve heard conversion stories from people who witness a procession.”

“The procession was beautiful,” Trullols told CNA after the event concluded. “Every year it is getting better.”

 “We know how to do it better and it’s growing – the quantity of people, the attention, and also the way we organize the liturgy and the music,” Trullols said.

As part of the launch of World Pride in Washington, D.C. the American Civil Liberties Union and the Gender Liberation Movement is unveiling the Freedom To Be quilt on the National Mall on May 17, a 9,000 square-foot collection of over 250 quilt panels handmade by transgender people and their families from across the United States. Co-creators Abdool Corlette and Gillian Branstetter were working with a team of people to install the quilt panels on Thursday, May 16. (AP Video: Mike Pesoli)

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The FBI is leaving its longtime headquarters in D.C. and will transfer 1,500 employees to locations around the country, according to FBI Director Kash Patel.

What we know:

Patel announced the news Friday morning, stating he didn’t expect to share the details of the move. 

“This FBI is leaving the Hoover building because this building is unsafe for our workforce,” Patel told Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo in a preview clip of an interview that is set to air on Sunday, May 18 on the network.

“The FBI is 38,000 when we are fully manned, which we are not. In the national capital region in the 50-mile radius around Washington, D.C., there were 11,000 FBI employees. That’s like a third of the workforce. A third of the crime doesn’t happen here.” 

“So we are taking 1,500 of those folks and moving them out. Every state is getting a plus-up. And I think when we do things like that, we inspire folks in America to become intel analysts and agents and say we want to work at the FBI because we want to fight violent crime, and we want to be sent out into the country to do it.”

He added that the transition will begin in the next “three, six, nine months.”

“We want the American men and women to know if you’re going to come work at the premier law enforcement agency in the world, we’re going to give you a building that’s commensurate with that, and that’s not this place.”