California bishops side with Democrats on bill critics call a ‘kidnapper’s dream’
The California Catholic Conference urged Gov. Gavin Newsom to sign the Family Preparedness Plan Act, despite warnings the measure empowers predators and sidelines parents.
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Capitol in downtown Sacramento, CaliforniaMatt Gush/Shutterstock
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Thu Sep 18, 2025 - 11:15 am EDT
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SACRAMENTO, California (LifeSiteNews) — Among the hundreds of bills passed by the California legislature now awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s signature, the Family Preparedness Plan Act of 2025 is the worst of the typically bad crop.
Assembly Bill 495, according to its Democratic author, will “ensure caregiving continuity during family separations … due to immigration enforcement, incarceration, or military deployment.” The laudable intent is to provide minors with stable living environments if their undocumented parents are detained or deported by federal immigration authorities.
But California Family Council warns that AB 495 “creates a system where strangers, acquaintances, or distant relatives can claim authority over children.” CFC says the real goal is “expanding the state’s power over families and weakening parents’ authority.”
The California Catholic Conference did not take a public position on AB 495 until September 11, after an amended version was passed at the end of the legislative session. CCC abruptly announced its “strong support” despite not including the bill on its watchlist of legislation being tracked.
The result is that the two Christian public policy advocacy groups based in Sacramento are currently at loggerheads. CCC on Monday called on Californians to contact Gov. Newsom to request that he sign the bill into law. That same day CFC urged residents to ask Newsom to veto it.
AB 495 revises the Caregiver’s Authorization Affidavit, a legal form that enables an adult to make decisions about school and healthcare on behalf of a minor who is not their child. Checkboxes on the form indicate whether the caregiver seeking authorization has been able to contact the minor’s parents. The two-page form does not need to be signed by a parent or notarized.
Before the last-minute amendments, the form stated three times that a parent’s signature is not required. That language aimed at promoting use of the affidavit was removed, but serious problems remain.
Although the form asks for the caregiver’s California driver’s license number or government-issued consular card number, it states that a social security number or Medi-Cal number are acceptable forms of identification. There is no requirement for the information provided to be verified.
Pastor Jack Hibbs of Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in California has called AB 495 a “human trafficker, pedophile, and kidnapper’s dream come true.” Indeed, there is nothing to prevent a phony caregiver without any photo ID from picking up an unrelated child from school simply by providing a fake social security number.
“California’s ‘legal kidnapping’ bill puts gender-confused kids in danger,” read a recent New York Post headline. The opinion piece by a pair of detransitioners argued the measure will further disempower parents of transgender-identifying children.
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Several thousand opponents of AB 495, most of them evangelical Christians, attended an August 19 rally at the state Capitol organized by Hibbs’ church. I could only hear the speakers from my position at the back of the crowd at first. After downloading Hibbs’ Real Life Network app, which was live-streaming the event, I could also watch the speakers on my phone.
I’m a practicing Catholic and active in my Sacramento parish, but I heard about the rally only because I subscribe to CFC’s email newsletter. There didn’t seem to be many other Catholics present, even though the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament is located one block away from the Capitol.
Consisting of the state’s 12 bishops and a sizeable support staff, CCC is the “official voice of the Catholic community in California’s public policy arena.” CCC often maintains a low profile when contentious bills like the Family Preparedness Plan Act are debated, but its late show of support caught many observers by surprise.
CCC president Bishop Oscar Cantú said on September 11 that AB 495 “allows parents – especially those facing the uncertainty of detention, deportation, or deployment – to make loving, responsible plans so that their children remain in safe and caring hands.” He noted that around 1 million minors in California have at least one undocumented parent and some 133,000 children in the public school system are themselves undocumented.
CCC also declined to publicly track AB 1084, which speeds up the legal process for name changes for minors who believe their gender identity does not match their biological sex. Passed by lawmakers, the bill severely limits the ability of parents to block requests by minors with gender dysphoria to alter vital records like birth certificates.
A third harmful bill now on Newsom’s desk, AB 727, requires the phone number for the Trevor Project LGBTQ+ Suicide Hotline to be printed on the back of ID cards for all public and charter school students in grades seven through twelve. TrevorSpace, a related online community that promotes gender fluidity but lacks identity or age verification safeguards, has been flagged as a “groomer’s paradise.”
CCC’s “key bills” webpage indicates it tracked AB 727 but did not take a position on the measure. The conference opposed only five of the 42 bills it tracked this year; two of those involved abortion and one dealt with assisted suicide. Six of the bills CCC supported aim to mitigate the impact of federal immigration enforcement. AB 495, the seventh such bill, is still not listed on the tracker.
CCC backs bills based on a liberal understanding of Catholic social teaching. Main advocacy areas include immigration, education, poverty and homelessness, environmental sustainability, criminal justice reform, and care for vulnerable populations. It frequently acts as a cheerleader for liberal priorities of the Democratic Party, which has held a supermajority in the state legislature for the past decade.
California Family Council focuses more narrowly on protecting parental rights and traditional family norms, while pushing back against policies and proposals concerning sexuality and gender identity in schools. It is the public policy partner of Focus on the Family, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Family Research Council.
CFC plays a gatekeeper role by analyzing and publicizing the annual flood of bills in misalignment with Christian values. CFC’s 2025 watchlist shows it opposed 25 of the 32 bills it tracked.
CFC took the lead in mobilizing opposition to AB 495, AB 1084, and AB 727. Through podcasts and in-person protests, it also spearheads efforts to ban biological males from competing as females in high school sports. Prior to the start of the new school year last month, CFC provided detailed instructions for parents of public-school students to opt out of curriculum related to sexual orientation and gender ideology.
CCC’s relative passivity was highlighted by the three emails LifeSiteNews sent to its director of communications in August, asking if the conference planned to take a position on AB 495. She never replied.
CCC and CFC have distinct but usually complementary approaches to helping shape the law of the land in California from a Christian perspective. In the case of AB 495, CCC should have stayed on the sidelines.
Robert Jenkins is a Catholic writer living in Sacramento, California.
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- California
- California Catholic Conference
- California Family Council
- California Legislature
- Catholic
- Catholic Church
- Family
- Family Preparedness Plan Act
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- Gavin Newsom
- Oscar Cantú
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