LifeSiteNews

LifeSiteNews, or simply LifeSite, is a Canadian far-right Catholic advocacy website and publication. The website routinely publishes misleading information and conspiracy theories, and in 2021 was banned from some social media platforms for spreading COVID-19 misinformation.

LifeSiteNews was founded in 1997 by the Canadian political lobbyist organization Campaign Life Coalition with the intent to promote anti-abortion views. At a 2013 March for Life Youth Conference in Ottawa, founder and editor-in-chief John-Henry Westen alleged there was a media conspiracy against the anti-abortion movement, and said that the purpose of LifeSiteNews was to circumvent the mainstream media.

Raymond Gravel, a Catholic priest and former member of the Canadian Parliament, filed a defamation lawsuit in Quebec against the website in 2011. He stated that the site's description of his self-described "pro-choice" views as "pro-abortion" was libelous, and sought CA$500,000 in damages. LifeSiteNews had published 41 articles about Gravel as of February 2013. In 2013, the lawsuit was allowed to advance to trial by a Quebec court. Gravel died of lung cancer on August 11, 2014.

In 2018, LifeSiteNews claimed to have a readership of 20 million. Its editor-in-chief is John-Henry Westen, and the president is Steve Jalsevac. The Campaign Life Coalition no longer runs LifeSiteNews, although the two groups share some board members.

On 31 October and 1 November 2023, LifeSiteNews held a conference called Rome Life Forum in Rome, Italy. Held immediately after the Synod on Synodality, the two-day "strategy conference" was aimed at confronting the supposed "evils of the Deep Church and Deep State and their involvement in the Great Reset agenda" and at "learn[ing] and work[ing] out together how we as Christ's faithful can combat this diabolical movement under the direction of Our Lady." At the forum, Joseph Strickland read out a letter that he attributed to a "friend". This letter included the question: "Would you now allow this one [Francis] who has pushed aside the true Pope [Benedict XVI] and has attempted to sit on a chair that is not his define what the church is to be?" Strickland described the letter as "challenging" but did not dispute this accusation. The letter also described Francis as an "usurper of Peter's chair" and "an expert at producing cowards." Strickland then claimed that Francis backed an "attack on the sacred". Strickland would later be removed by Pope Francis from his post as bishop for the Diocese of Tyler, Texas on 11 November 2023.

On 8 July 2025 it was officially announced by Jalsevac that Westen had been removed as CEO and editor-in-chief after a steep drop in readership and falloff of donors in recent years. However, on 18 July, it was announced that the website's board had restored Westen to his positions "subject to administrative review and investigation."

LifeSiteNews was founded for the purpose of opposing legal abortion, and that remains a primary focus. It also regularly publishes articles expressing opposition to contraception, homosexuality, and transgender rights, and its website names euthanasia and cloning among other issues it opposes. A Catholic publication, many of its articles are faith-related. It published many articles critical of Pope Francis while he was alive, and regularly publishes writing by critics of Francis including Italian archbishop, former Vatican diplomat, and conspiracy theorist Carlo Maria Viganò, as well as Cardinal Raymond Burke.

LifeSiteNews has been described as far-right, conservative, social conservative, and ultraconservative. Fact-checking website Snopes described LifeSiteNews in 2016 as "a known purveyor of misleading information". Paul Moses wrote for Commonweal in 2021 that LifeSiteNews coverage "feigns journalistic accuracy, but misleads through omission". The Canadian Anti-Hate Network described the website in a 2021 report as a "Christian version of Breitbart".