Posted on 10/22/2024 09:00 AM (CNA Daily News - US)
A pro-life sign is seen on a roadside in Agnew, Nebraska, on May 14, 2024. / Credit: CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images
CNA Staff, Oct 22, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
In an election year in which a record number of states with pro-abortion measures are on the ballot, Nebraska is the only state to have a pro-abortion ballot measure competing with a pro-life measure.
Chelsey Youman, with Human Coalition Action, a national pro-life group based in Texas, on “EWTN News In Depth” recently said that amid a “disinformation” campaign, Nebraska is “fighting back.”
“Nebraska is taking a unique approach to this issue and fighting back, saying that we’re not going to accept the pro-abortion industry’s rampant push of extreme constitutional measures to allow abortion on demand without limits throughout the entire pregnancy, all three trimesters,” Youman told “EWTN News In Depth” host Catherine Hadro on Oct. 18.
Nebraska’s ballot measure 439 would create a constitutional right to abortion, while measure 434 would establish constitutional protections for unborn children in later stages of pregnancy.
Tom Venzor, executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, called the pro-abortion measure “worse than Roe v. Wade.”
“Initiative 439 is a very extreme proposal that allows abortions throughout the entire pregnancy,” Venzor continued. “Alternatively, you have Initiative 434, which provides some protection in the second and third trimester for the unborn child but then allows us to continue regulating against unsafe and coercive abortion practices.”
Dr. Catherine Brooks, a neonatologist and pediatrician in Lincoln, Nebraska, noted that fetal viability does not have a set definition in the medical community.
“When they talk about it on the political front, it’s often assumed that there’s a definition of viability, and there just isn’t,” Brooks told “EWTN News In Depth” reporter Mark Irons.
Measure 439 creates a right to abortion up until fetal viability, which it defines as whenever the patient’s health practitioner determines that “there is a significant likelihood of the fetus’ sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.”
Tremendous progress has been made in recent years, increasing the likelihood of survival for the tiniest premature babies. For instance, Curtis Zy-Keith Means was born at 21 weeks’ gestation and weighed less than a pound. He holds the Guinness World Record for the youngest premature baby to survive and turned 4 this summer.
But viability is often defined to be between 24 and 26 weeks.
Brooks works in the neonatal intensive care unit, caring for premature babies who need additional support before they leave the hospital. She said she noticed “their personalities are all so unique.”
Venzor’s daughter Therese was born three months premature. She lived for only two weeks.
“My personal experience is those two weeks were beautiful,” Venzor said. “They were wonderful.”
“We never knew if we were going to get one second with her,” he recalled. “We didn’t know if when she was delivered, she was going to make it. To have any amount of time with her was precious, not only in the womb but outside of the womb, and to look at her, to see her face. It taught us how to love more deeply. She taught us how to love.”
Nebraska’s pro-abortion measure also creates a right to abortion after the baby is viable outside the womb “when needed to protect the life or health of the pregnant patient, without interference from the state or its political subdivisions,” according to the text of the ballot measure.
“I think 439 is vague intentionally, and that’s so that people don’t understand what it’s saying,” Brooks said. “But from a medical perspective and a legal perspective, it’s allowing abortion at any gestation for any reason.”
Youman noted that Nebrasa’s pro-life measure is a unique opportunity for voters in the U.S. this year.
“They’re giving voters another option, an option to say: We’re going to vote to protect children past the 12-week mark but also, importantly, allow the legislator there in Nebraska to continue to protect children in the womb before 12 weeks,” Youman said of the measure.
“The pro-life vote is alive and well,” Youman said, even though there is “a massive campaign of misleading disinformation” and “fear-mongering” around abortion ballot measures.
“It took the pro-abortionists seven months to get the requisite amount of 200,000 signatures. It took the pro-lifers only three months to get the same amount of signatures,” Youman said. “So don’t always believe the polling. Don’t always believe what mass media is telling you. The pro-life vote is alive and well and active like it never had been. Now is that time for us to lean in more than ever.”
Youman noted that there is misinformation about medical emergencies and abortion.
For instance, in September, Vice President Kamala Harris amplified claims by several news outlets that a woman died as the result of pro-life laws, while a group of doctors responded that the Georgia woman, Amber Thurman, died because of the abortion pill and medical malpractice.
“The truth is, in pro-life states, all 50 states protect women from medical emergencies,” Youman said. “That’s not only a Supreme Court requirement but at the state level of statutory requirements.”
Youman said that having conversations about these issues is essential and that voting “on these issues in these states will be the loudest thing we can do to send that message to protect the unborn.”
“The longer that we have these conversations at the grassroots, at the church level, at the local level, with our families and communities, the more people realize the value of innocent human life, and the more people realize how extreme these measures are,” Youman said.
“This election, more than ever, as pro-life voters, we need to show up and tell them we will not stand for a country that aborts innocent children in the womb,” Youman said. “We will vote for pro-life measures, and we want to hold our candidates accountable to protecting innocent life in the womb.”
Posted on 10/22/2024 07:00 AM (CNA Daily News - US)
null / Credit: Marvel
CNA Staff, Oct 22, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).
St. John Paul II, who led the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005, is one of the most compelling figures of the 20th century.
Born more than 100 years ago on May 18, 1920, in Wadowice, Poland, Karol Wojtyla — the future pope — endured the loss of most of his family, clandestinely studied for the priesthood while his country was under Nazi rule, and rose through the Church hierarchy never ceasing to encourage his Polish countrymen to keep the faith while resisting communist pressure.
He participated in the Second Vatican Council and, upon his election as pope, became the most widely traveled pontiff and likely the most-seen person in the history of the world. He was an academic and widely regarded as a genius but also as a man of simplicity and humility.
He survived a brutal assassination attempt in 1981, crediting Mary’s intercession for his survival and extending forgiveness to his attacker.
“He’s the exemplar of the fact that a life wholly dedicated to Jesus Christ and the Gospel is the most exciting human life possible,” George Weigel, John Paul II’s biographer, told CNA.
“This man lived a life of such extraordinary drama that no Hollywood scriptwriter would dare come up with such a storyline. It would just be regarded as absurd.”
His compelling life story has been told and retold many times, including on the big screen. But did you know that John Paul II’s life story was once the subject of a Marvel comic book?
Printed in full color and featuring dramatic, stylish visuals, the 1982 comic chronicles the pope’s life, from his childhood in Poland all the way up to the attempt on his life by a would-be assassin.
Marvel, which Disney purchased in a multi-billion-dollar acquisition in 2009, is one of the largest entertainment companies in the world and the purveyor of such iconic characters as Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Captain America.
So what persuaded the Marvel executives to green-light a comic book about the then-newly-elected pope?
It all started with Gene Pelc — a New Yorker and Marvel representative living in Japan.
Pelc — whose wife is Japanese — had moved to Japan in the 1970s to report back to Marvel on how the comic book company could adapt its products for a Japanese audience.
Pelc was tasked with licensing Spider-Man to play on Japanese television and was largely successful at what he did, earning the moniker “Marvel’s Man in Japan.”
Pelc told CNA that he and his family went — and still go — to Mass at the Franciscan Chapel Center, a community of English-speaking priests in Tokyo.
Japan was then — and remains today — a very non-Christian country, with Catholics comprising less than half of 1% of the population.
One day, a priest named Father Campion Lally approached Pelc at the Franciscan Chapel Center with an unusual proposition. The 800th anniversary of St. Francis’ birth was coming up in 1982, Lally said — what if, to commemorate it, Marvel produced a comic book about the life of St. Francis?
Pelc liked the idea and wondered whether it would prove popular among Catholics in the United States. Lally was adamant, however, that the comic be marketed to non-Catholics as well.
“The real reason I want this done is to reach an audience the Church doesn’t normally reach,” Pelc remembered Lally saying. “’I want to take St. Francis out of the birdbath’ was his exact comment.”
Pelc called up Stan Lee — a legendary Marvel comic book publisher — who apparently liked the idea. But when Pelc pitched the idea to the higher-ups at Marvel, they weren’t quite so supportive at first.
“They all said: Gene, you’ve been in Japan too long. No one wants to hear about that. They want to hear about superheroes,” Pelc remembers the executives telling him.
Pelc was able to appeal to the financial sensibilities of the executives to help his case, however — Paulist Press, a U.S.-based Catholic publisher, had expressed interest in purchasing some 250,000 copies of the comic upon its release.
Needless to say, the prospect of a minimum of 250,000 copies sold — when a popular comic at the time could be expected to sell around 150,000 copies — was enough to sway the executives to approve the project.
Father Roy Gasnick, a Franciscan priest and director of communications based in New York, helped Marvel writer Mary Jo Duffy write the story of St. Francis’ life for the comic. Gasnik was, by all accounts, a massive comic book fan himself.
Then the artists at Marvel did their magic and produced the comic titled “Francis: Brother of the Universe,” which hit stores in 1980.
Helped by the Paulist Press’ large order, it proved to be a hit, both critically and commercially.
“The next step was pretty obvious to me, being Catholic and being Polish,” Pelc said.
“Pope John Paul II was extremely popular in the world at the time; he was traveling much more than the old popes did previously. And he was actually coming to Japan.”
John Paul II was the first pontiff to visit the country. The pope arrived in Japan in February 1981 to a small but enthusiastic welcome.
The pope’s visit galvanized Pelc, who was still riding high on the success of the St. Francis comic. He began looking into the possibility of producing another religious-themed comic for Marvel.
A friend of Pelc’s introduced him to Father Mieczyslaw Malinski, who was a friend of the pope’s back in Poland during the war. Malinski apparently consulted with the pope himself about what he thought about the idea of turning his story into a comic.
According to Pelc, John Paul II was supportive of the idea, as long as Malinski himself worked with the comic book team on the project.
So, the Marvel team was off to the races yet again. The first step? Research. And a lot of it.
Most of the information came from Malinski, but the story still had to be adapted to fit into the panels and speech bubbles.
That task fell to Steven Grant, a young freelance comic book artist who at the time was living in New York and working for Marvel. He had heard that Marvel was producing a second religious-themed comic, but he didn’t think much of it — he assumed that Mary Jo Duffy would be tasked with writing this one, too.
Instead, Marvel’s editor-in-chief called Grant into his office and asked him to take on the task of writing the John Paul II comic book.
“I got involved because I was expendable at the time,” Grant told CNA.
“I wasn’t one of the artists they particularly wanted writing the Fantastic Four that month,” he said with a laugh. “And they knew I was Catholic — that was my big credential.”
For Grant, working on a comic book about John Paul II — which the team always referred to as “the pope book” — was both ordinary, in the sense that the writing process was not markedly different than other comic books, and extraordinary, given that the subject matter was not only a living person but also the leader of a 1-billion-strong worldwide religion.
“No one was worried about offending him, but there was a lot of room to offend a lot of people if we did a bad job with it,” he said.
The project experienced two major roadblocks the year before it was released, the first of which was the attempt on John Paul’s life in May 1981 in the midst of the comic’s production.
Instead of dropping the project, the Marvel team wrote the events of the assassination into the book itself.
In addition, communicating with Malinski would prove more difficult than the team at Marvel had expected.
On Dec. 13, 1981, a general named Wojciech Jaruzelski appeared on television sets throughout Poland. In a video message repeated over and over again, the general declared martial law and ordered troops to suppress the Solidarity movement, a trade union rooted in Catholic principles that opposed communism.
Many striking Solidarity workers would die in the next few days as Polish troops fired into groups of them.
After John Paul’s visit to his native Poland in 1979, it would be another decade before the Solidarity Party in Poland, with the pope’s encouragement, would finally gain a majority in Parliament and, largely peacefully, the country would shrug off the shackles of communism.
To make matters worse, the turmoil in Poland was taking place in the middle of the comic book’s production schedule, and the Marvel team needed Malinski’s insights to get the comic book written.
The communists restricted much of the communications in and out of Poland during that time. Pelc said he remembers receiving smuggled communications from Malinski, which he brought to his father in New York to have translated from Polish to English.
Apart from Malinski’s contributions, Grant said he simply put his nose to the grindstone and read up on as much as he could about the pope’s life.
“It was a little pre-internet,” Grant said, chuckling.
“I figured anything I found three or four references to was probably accurate.”
His total research spanned about two months, he said, but the actual writing process was only a couple of weeks long, spurred on by Marvel’s tight production schedules.
Finally, in 1982, the comic book hit the shelves. Thanks in large part to Catholic agencies buying up the edition, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 million copies made their way into the world.
For a young comic book artist, it was quite the windfall. Grant said he was able to pay off his student loans when he received the royalties for the comic the following year.
So, did the pope himself ever get a chance to see himself as a Marvel hero?
According to Pelc, he did. A Marvel executive flew to Rome and presented the pope with a leatherbound edition.
The success of the first two religious-themed comic books led to a third, this time about another future saint — and friend of John Paul’s — Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Although Pelc was not able to assist with that project, that comic also proved successful, though it was the last of the major religious-themed comics that Marvel produced. That comic even won a Catholic Press Association award in 1984.
In the four decades since the John Paul II comic book’s release, several members of the team that worked on it, including the artist who created the drawings, have died.
Pelc and Grant have gone their separate ways. When CNA reached him in 2020, Grant was still doing freelance comic writing and said he was still writing for Marvel “once in a blue moon.”
Though the “pope book” remains just one of the hundreds of projects that Grant has worked on over the years, he said he remembers walking into his local laundromat in New York a few months after the comic’s release and being surprised to see the comic’s cover framed and hung proudly on the wall.
Though Grant never told the owners of the laundromat — clearly devout Catholics — that he was the author of the comic, he said it brought him pride that they valued it so highly.
Pelc, as of 2020, still lives in Japan and owns a company that sells merchandise for musical artists. He said he still gets asked to this day — mostly by parishioners at the Franciscan Chapel Center — about Marvel’s religious comics.
Pelc said he believed it unlikely that a company like Marvel would produce something like this again, but he’s glad that by means of the “pope book,” he and Grant and the entire team were able to tell a good story in a world inundated by bad stories.
“That man deserved to be known by more than just people who go to church. He was an everyman pope, and I, being Polish, loved him,” he reflected.
Note: This story, which was first published on May 5, 2020, was adapted from a podcast episode of CNA Newsroom and has since been updated.
Posted on 10/21/2024 21:10 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance listens as Republican presidential nominee former president Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally at the Butler Farm Show fairgrounds on Oct. 5, 2024, in Butler, Pennsylvania. / Credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2024 / 18:10 pm (CNA).
Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, at an Oct. 20 faith rally in Waukesha, Wisconsin, accused the Biden-Harris administration of persecuting Christians and Catholics in particular.
In his speech, Vance also spoke about religious liberty and the impact of inflation, illegal immigration, and drug addiction.
“There are a lot of Catholics … [who] I think rightfully feel abandoned by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ leadership, and they’re just looking for somebody to protect their rights and make this country an affordable and decent place to raise a family,” Vance said at the Sunday afternoon rally in the battleground state.
“I think that’s true of a lot of Catholics,” Vance said. “It’s true of non-Catholics, too. But we cannot have an American government that is persecuting Christians for living their faith. We should be rewarding people and encouraging people to live their faith.”
Vance took Harris to task for her support for “suing Catholic nuns to force them to perform procedures that violate their conscience.”
The allegation appears to be in reference to Harris’ 2019 support for the Do No Harm Act, which would have ended religious liberty exemptions for certain government mandates, including for health insurance coverage. It would have scaled back the protections in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act so the government could force religious employers to include coverage for abortion and transgender surgeries in their health insurance plans.
Democratic lawmakers introduced the legislation to push back against the Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic community of religious sisters who were suing the federal government over a mandate that their health insurance plan cover abortion. The sisters won at the Supreme Court.
“I think that’s ridiculous,” Vance continued. “I think we’re a big enough country where we can actually respect the right of people of faith to live according to their conscience and not try to force Kamala Harris’ progressive values down their throat.”
The Trump campaign has also been critical of Harris for scrutinizing judicial nominees for being members of the Knights of Columbus and for a leaked internal Richmond FBI memo that called for an investigation into a supposed link between so-called “radical traditionalist Catholics” and “the far-right white nationalist movement.” Trump also criticized Harris for skipping the Al Smith dinner, which raises money for Catholic charities and is traditionally attended by both major-party candidates.
“Kamala Harris is the candidate of anti-Christian and anti-Catholic bigotry,” Vance said. “She brags about it. That’s her policy record. Donald Trump is the candidate of defending your First Amendment right to practice your faith however you want to, because this is the United States of America, and we believe in religious liberty in this country.”
Vance also blamed Harris and President Joe Biden for the rising cost of living, resulting from high levels of inflation. He blamed government spending for the inflation, which he said harmed families and “made groceries unaffordable for American citizens.”
Additionally, Vance blamed Biden and Harris for the flood of migrants illegally entering the United States. He said their border policies have made Americans less safe and sparked a rise in fentanyl-laced drugs in the country.
On a personal note, Vance referred to his mother’s past struggle with opioid addiction, saying she “has been clean and sober for 10 years, and we’re proud of her.”
“That, to me, is the grace of God,” he said. “I know in this room, [many people] believe that God sometimes works in mysterious ways, but he does work every single day in the lives of citizens of this state and of this country. I’m living proof of it, my friends.”
“But while we pray to God for recovery and we fight every single day for those of our loved ones who are getting caught up in this stuff, wouldn’t it be nice to have a president of the United States who stopped this poison from coming into our country in the first place?” Vance added.
Hundreds of people turned out for Vance’s rally, which took place outside of Milwaukee, the state’s largest city. Several people held campaign signs that read “Catholics for Trump.” Vance is a convert to Catholicism and noted during the speech that he was “baptized for the first time in 2019” and “returned to my faith as a young man.”
“I know all of you are praying for me, and I know we got a lot of Catholics for Trump,” Vance said. “I see the signs here. Thank you, Catholics for Trump.”
While he was speaking, one attendee loudly yelled “Jesus is king,” to which Vance responded: “That’s right — Jesus is king” and received loud cheers and applause from the crowd. This appeared to be in reference to an incident that took place at a Harris rally two days earlier. Two college students say they were asked to leave a Harris rally after reportedly shouting, “Jesus is Lord.” A video circulating on social media, however, shows that someone in the audience also shouted “Liar! Liar!” before Harris told them they were “at the wrong rally.”
“Whether you’re a person of [the] Christian faith or not, Donald Trump and I are going to fight for your right to live your values because that’s what the First Amendment protects,” Vance said.
According to a polling average from RealClearPolling, Trump and Harris are virtually tied in Wisconsin, a state with 10 Electoral College votes. In all seven battleground states with the tightest races, polls show Trump with very narrow leads, with Harris less than two percentage points behind in each — well within the margin of error.
Some recent polls show that Catholic voters are nearly evenly divided on the 2024 presidential election. According to a September Pew Research Center survey, about 52% of Catholics support Trump and 47% support Harris. A poll conducted by the National Catholic Reporter found that Catholics in the seven most tightly contested swing states preferred Trump 50% to Harris’ 45%.
Posted on 10/21/2024 20:50 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Pro-life protestors hold signs outside the Missouri Supreme Court on Sept. 10, 2024, advocating against Amendment 3, which would dramatically expand abortion access in Missouri if passed in November. / Credit: Courtesy of Thomas More Society
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 21, 2024 / 17:50 pm (CNA).
Three states have picked up a lawsuit previously dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) over its removal of safety restrictions on abortion drugs.
In June 2023, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision saying the group of pro-life doctors and organizations who filed the original case lacked standing as they could not show they had been harmed by the abortion drug mifepristone’s widespread availability.
The states of Missouri, Kansas, and Idaho argue in the new lawsuit, filed in the same Texas federal court as the original case, that “women should have the in-person care of a doctor when taking high-risk drugs.”
Since the FDA rolled back its regulations, the states wrote in the filing, abortion drugs have been “flooding states like Missouri and Idaho [where abortion is otherwise regulated] and sending women in these states to the emergency room.”
The plaintiffs describe the FDA’s move to deregulate the drug as “reckless,” noting that the FDA’s own label estimates that about 1 in 25 women who take mifepristone “will visit the emergency room.” Though side effects of the drug include severe bleeding, life-threatening infections, and ruptured ectopic pregnancies, abortion providers are no longer required to report nonfatal complications.
“This elimination was based on past data collected under the originally approved safety standards, not the new deregulated regime,” the states pointed out, calling the deregulation “unreasonable.”
The original FDA requirements for the drug upon its approval in 2000 limited use to 49 days of pregnancy, required three in-person visits, and could only be administered by certified health care providers at a clinic or health care center. In 2016, the gestational limit was extended to 70 days and the number of in-person consultations reduced to a singular visit.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the FDA dropped its consultation requirement altogether and further authorized all certified health care professionals to be able to distribute the drug. Telehealth providers were initially given the temporary ability to distribute the drug via mail that same year. The Biden administration eventually solidified the practice as a norm in 2023.
Although most of the country requires parental consent for the drug to be prescribed, 18 states — including California, Colorado, Maryland, and Illinois — do not require parental consent for minors to access mifepristone.
The states also claim in the filing that the FDA “ignored the potential impacts that the removal of commonsense safeguards would have on adolescent girls” and that the administration purposefully categorized pregnancy as a “disease” to avoid having to complete otherwise necessary safety assessments among pediatric patients to approve the deregulations.
The new filing calls for the drug to be prohibited among patients under the age of 18.
“The FDA has acted unlawfully,” the states concluded in the amended complaint. “Now, the state plaintiffs ask the court to protect women by holding unlawful, staying the effective date of, setting aside, and vacating the FDA’s actions to eviscerate crucial safeguards for those who undergo this dangerous drug regimen.”
Posted on 10/21/2024 18:30 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
An aerial view of flood damage wrought by Hurricane Helene along the Swannanoa River on Oct. 3, 2024, in Asheville, North Carolina. / Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images
CNA Staff, Oct 21, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).
Weeks after deadly Hurricane Helene dumped record rainfall on western North Carolina, the Diocese of Charlotte is encouraging parishes to band together to create “sister” partnerships for mutual material aid and spiritual support over the next six months.
Bishop Michael Martin noted in an Oct. 10 email to the diocese’s 160 priests that parishes need to be ready to help each other and the community even if they themselves did not suffer serious damage.
“While some of the immediate needs have been cared for, our longer-term walking with the people affected … remains an important ministry of our local Church,” the bishop said as reported by the local Catholic News Herald.
Parishes that are partnered with a “sister” can hold second collections to help offset lost operating revenue in their sister parish, offer monthly Holy Hours to pray for their sister parish, and check in with the parish regularly about the need for pastoral help or volunteers, the bishop noted.
Parishes can sign up for the program and the diocesan chancery will pair up parishes based on their resources and level of need.
Helene made landfall in late September in Florida’s sparsely populated Big Bend region, bringing a nine-foot storm surge to some areas and knocking out power for millions.
Weakening into a tropical storm over land, it wrought deadly flooding and damaging winds inland in Georgia, Alabama, and the Carolinas.
The city of Asheville, North Carolina, a gateway to the Smoky Mountains about 125 miles west of Charlotte, was especially hard-hit along with hundreds of smaller communities. Nearly 100 people have died in North Carolina as a result of the storm.
Martin told CNA earlier this month that he and diocesan staff took a trip to several of the harder-hit areas in the Charlotte Diocese to survey the destruction and offer aid to stricken residents, including in the towns of Hendersonville and Swannanoa.
The diocese has been heavily involved in relief efforts, with the diocese’s first truckload of supplies from Charlotte arriving in Hendersonville 48 hours after the storm.
The diocese has since, as of Oct. 17, delivered 48 box trucks and 16 pickups and trailer loads of supplies to the communities of Asheville, Boone, Brevard, Hendersonville, Linville, Swannanoa, and Waynesville.
Monsignor Patrick Winslow, vicar general and chancellor of the Charlotte Diocese, recently consulted with pastors who lived through Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana to get advice on how to transition from addressing immediate to long-term needs.
Donors from “all 50 states and six countries” have donated some $3.8 million as of Oct. 17 to response-and-recovery efforts led by the diocese’s parishes, schools, central administration, and its Catholic Charities agency, the diocese said.
People can learn how to pray for North Carolina’s recovery and donate financially by visiting this page.
Posted on 10/21/2024 17:20 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Our Lady of Pompei Chapel, Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. / Credit: John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images
National Catholic Register, Oct 21, 2024 / 14:20 pm (CNA).
Beginning on Sunday, Oct. 27, the Eternal World Television Network (EWTN) will launch a nine-day novena in anticipation of the U.S. election on Nov. 5. Catholics and all people of goodwill are invited to join in the “Novena to the Mother of God for the Nation” to pray for the country and all government officials. (Editor’s note: EWTN is the parent company of CNA.)
“As Catholics, we turn instinctively to our Blessed Mother in times of need,” said EWTN Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer Michael Warsaw.
“In this present moment, when there is so much division and unrest in our country, and when many of the values that formed our nation seem to be at risk, we again need to turn to our Blessed Mother,” Warsaw said. “We need to pray for her intercession, that leaders and all who seek public office will follow the path of truth, guarantee religious liberty, and ensure that all human life is valued and protected, most especially the unborn.”
The Novena to the Mother of God for the Nation concentrates on some central truths and Mary’s unique role in salvation. Each day turns to different times and roles in the Gospel and rosary — days dedicated to themes such as “The Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God Day,” “The Divine Motherhood of Mary,” “The Wedding Feast of Cana Day,” “Mary at Calvary Day,” “The Mystery of Easter Day,” and the “Assumption Into Heaven.”
Even in the earliest times of Christianity, the faithful turned to Mary for her intercession in their times of persecution and great need, as did the Catholics who lived in the new republic of the United States.
In 1792, Bishop John Carroll of Baltimore, the nation’s first Catholic bishop, chose the Blessed Mother as “patroness of the United States,” and he entrusted the new United States of America to her maternal care. On May 13, 1846, 54 years later — on the same month and day she would appear years later at Fátima — the nation’s bishops named Mary under the title of “The Immaculate Conception” as the patroness of the United States.
Once again, the bishops solemnly entrusted the U.S. to the Blessed Mother in 1959, when the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception was dedicated in Washington, D.C.
America’s first president, George Washington, strongly reminded citizens of the need for heavenly help. In his farewell address, he told the nation: “[T]he propitious smiles of heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which heaven itself has ordained.”
Many victories throughout history have been credited to the prayers of the Blessed Mother, such as the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, the Victory of Muret in 1213, the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the Battle of New Orleans in 1815, the defeat of Soviet Communism in Austria in 1955, the defeat of dictatorship in the Philippines in 1986, and more.
From those earliest of times of Roman persecutions, Christians would pray the simple yet very powerful “Sub Tuum Praesidium”: “We fly to your patronage, O holy Mother of God; despise not our prayers in our necessities, but ever deliver us from all dangers, O glorious and blessed Virgin.”
The Mother of God for the Nation novena’s introduction reminds the faithful that “in times of crisis, Catholics turn instinctively to the Mother of God to heal our wounds. Now we can all do our part in this national effort by praying the Novena to the Mother of God for the Nation. In this powerful supplication, our voices speak as one asking Mary’s intercession to unite us as one nation under God.”
Each day of the Mother of God for the Nation novena there is a short Scripture reading related to the day’s theme, a reflection, and a prayer. The novena will be broadcast on EWTN in the morning and evening (see the times listed below). To follow along, and for those who cannot watch at those times, EWTN has a free novena eBook and will send each day’s prayers of the novena directly by email. Requesting it is simple and quick. (See below.)
If possible, during the novena people are also encouraged to do as many of the following five acts as they can (fully explained in the free novena booklet): 1) Attend Mass and receive holy Communion each day of the novena. 2) Go to confession; receive the sacrament of penance. 3) Read Scripture and pray the rosary each day. 4) Make a donation or do something practical to help the poor. 5) Encourage as many people as possible to make the novena.
The novena booklet reminds those who join the novena that prayer testifies to the Church’s faith that “Jesus Christ is God and Mary is the mother of God and the mother of Christ’s disciples (John 19:25–27). Her maternal relationship to Christ and to all the members of his body is the foundation of Christians’ confidence in her ability to help her children on earth who face any danger.”
“Here is a wonderful secret of prayer: Christ wants us to go humbly to his mother in search of his help,” the introduction in the novena booklet states. “This is precisely what we are doing in ‘Novena to the Mother of God for the Nation.’”
If you would like to receive the Novena to the Mother of God for the Nation, please click here.
The free eBook is available in English and in Spanish. The printed booklet is only available to ship to homes in the U.S., one per household. For a digital version for everyone who prefers one and those outside the U.S., please click “Send me an eBook.”
Make sure to watch the “Novena to the Mother of God for the Nation” on EWTN TV beginning Oct. 27. Check the broadcast times below. Join us and unite with others in prayer to the Blessed Mother.
(Times shown are Eastern time; adjust for other time zones.)
Sunday, Oct. 27, at 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Monday through Thursday, Oct. 28–Oct. 31, at 9 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Friday, Nov. 1, at 9:15 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Saturday, Nov. 2, at 9 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 3, at 9:30 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.
Monday, Nov. 4, at 9 a.m. and 9:30 p.m.
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register on Oct. 21, 2024, and has been adapted by CNA.
Posted on 10/21/2024 16:20 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
The headquarters of the Satanic Temple, a political activist group known for protesting religious symbolism in public spaces and mocking Christianity, is located in Salem, Massachusetts. / Credit: Crisco 1492/Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
CNA Staff, Oct 21, 2024 / 13:20 pm (CNA).
Catholics in Atlanta plan to fervently pray and make reparation ahead of and during an upcoming “black mass,” a sacrilegious event planned for Oct. 25 by the so-called Satanic Temple.
Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer of Atlanta in an Oct. 8 memo urged all Catholics to counter the Satanic Temple’s “attack on the faith” through prayers of reparation and penance, calling the planned Friday event “a blasphemous and obscene inversion of the Catholic Mass.”
The Satanic Temple, which, according to its website, denies the existence of God and Satan, is a political activist group known for protesting religious symbolism in public spaces and mocking Christianity by offering “unbaptism” and hosting “black masses.”
In 2014, a planned “black mass” at Harvard University sparked considerable outcry from Catholics, as did another one later that year in Oklahoma City.
A direct mockery of the Catholic Mass, a so-called “black mass” sometimes entails the desecration of the Eucharist, stolen from a Catholic church. The Satanic Temple website briefly describes the “black mass” as “a celebration of blasphemy, which can be an expression of personal liberty and freedom.”
The Atlanta Satanic Temple is selling tickets to the “mass,” which is set to be held at a performance venue northeast of downtown.
Hartmayer reiterated that Catholics should respond to “this attack to our faith through prayer, penance, and prayers of reparation.” He said he has asked each Atlanta parish to conduct a Eucharistic Holy Hour with Benediction to honor the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, ideally on or before Friday, Oct. 25, at 9 p.m. ET.
“Using a consecrated host they claim they obtained illicitly from a Catholic church and desecrating it in the vilest ways imaginable, the practitioners offer it in sacrifice to Satan,” the archbishop said.
“This terrible sacrilege is a deliberate attack on the Catholic Mass as well as the foundational beliefs of all Christians. It mocks Our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we Catholics believe is truly present under the form of bread and wine in the Holy Eucharist when it has been consecrated by a validly ordained priest.”
“We commend our efforts to the Lord through the loving intercession of Mary, the mother of God,” he concluded.
In recent years, the Satanic Temple has engaged in pro-abortion advocacy, losing the various lawsuits it filed against state pro-life laws in Missouri and Indiana. It also announced last year the creation of an “After School Satan Club” at a Connecticut elementary school.
Critics have long suspected that the group is a hoax or simply exists to “troll” religious people, though the group strongly denies this.
Posted on 10/21/2024 15:15 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
null / Credit: Image Point Fr/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Oct 21, 2024 / 12:15 pm (CNA).
The Biden administration announced on Monday that it will require insurance companies to cover over-the-counter contraception in what the White House called the “most significant expansion ... in more than a decade” of access to birth control under federal law.
The new rule requires insurance companies to remove the prescription requirement for coverage of contraception. The administration seeks to expand contraception in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, according to a White House press conference.
“The Biden-Harris administration is advancing the most significant expansion of contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act in more than a decade,” said Jennifer Klein, assistant to the president and director of the White House’s gender policy council, in the White House press briefing.
“For the first time ever, women would be able to obtain over-the-counter (OTC) contraception without a prescription at no additional cost, and health plans would have to cover even more prescribed contraceptives without cost sharing,” Klein said.
The new rule requires insurers to provide OTC contraception to women at no cost without requiring a prescription. The rule also increases the required coverage for prescriptive contraception drugs, requiring one drug per category of contraceptive, such as oral contraceptions or implants.
Following a comment period, the new rule is set to require insurance companies to expand coverage of contraceptives by fully covering multiple methods of birth control including oral contraception, condoms, and “emergency contraception.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls contraception a “morally unacceptable” form of birth regulation, stating that “every action” that “proposes … to render procreation impossible” is “intrinsically evil” (No. 2370).
In his 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, Pope Paul VI called “the transmission of human life” a “most serious role in which married people collaborate freely and responsibly with God the Creator,” writing that it is “a source of great joy” though it “sometimes entails many difficulties and hardships.”
In the document Paul VI wrote that marriage is designed by God for a husband and wife to develop a union through the “mutual gift of themselves.”
The pontiff condemned “any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse is specifically intended to prevent procreation — whether as an end or as a means.”
“We must accept that there are certain limits, beyond which it is wrong to go, to the power of man over his own body and its natural functions,” the document read.
The only means of “spacing births” that the Church supports is “tak[ing] advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system” through natural family planning (NFP).
Paul VI acknowledged that there are sometimes serious reasons for couples to “decide not to have additional children for either a certain or an indefinite period of time,” depending on “physical, economic, psychological, and social conditions.”
However, “every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life,” Paul VI wrote. Union and procreation are “both inherent to the marriage act,” Paul VI continued, making contraceptives “unlawful.”
Over-the-counter contraceptives could also have negative medical consequences for women, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) noted.
Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, who heads the USCCB’s laity, marriage, family life, and youth committee, condemned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of OTC contraception in 2023.
Barron noted that giving OTC hormonal contraceptives “without the supervision of a doctor and contrary to the mounting evidence of many harmful side effects — violates the Hippocratic oath by putting the health of women at grave risk.”
Contraception mandates have also led to legal challenges in the past for religious organizations, including the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor.
The religious sisters spent nine years embroiled in a legal struggle as they appealed for a religious exemption from the Affordable Care Act birth control rule. That rule required employers to provide for contraceptive coverage for employees through their health care plans.
The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ruled in favor of the Little Sisters in 2020.
Posted on 10/20/2024 09:00 AM (CNA Daily News - US)
Cristo Rey students focus on their studies, preparing for success in both college and career. / Credit: Cristo Rey Network
CNA Staff, Oct 20, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
A network of 40 Jesuit Catholic schools around the U.S. is using a unique model to provide quality Catholic education and professional experience for students from low-income families.
The Cristo Rey Network implements a “Corporate Work Study” program that places students at professional jobs once a week during the school year, giving them job experiences while helping fund their education.
The network fills a gap in low-income neighborhoods where many Catholic schools have closed “because their tuition-based model has become unaffordable for families,” Father Jim Gartland, SJ, Cristo Rey Network’s chief mission and identity officer, told CNA.
“The need for accessible Catholic education is especially urgent in low-income neighborhoods, where the Catholic Church has historically been a pillar of support,” Gartland said. “While there is more funding in wealthier neighborhoods, it’s vital that all students, regardless of their socioeconomic status, have access to rigorous academics and a safe environment that Catholic schools provide.”
“Catholic, after all, means universal — and we’re committed to educating all people with excellence,” Gartland said.
Jason Morrison, president of Cristo Rey Jesuit High School Twin Cities in Minneapolis, said that being part of Cristo Rey Network means being part of a network that works to ensure “that every young person has access to the best education.”
“We can meet students where they are so they can work to achieve college readiness by the time they graduate, giving them choices in their postsecondary future,” Morrison told CNA. “They can choose their path without being forced into one because of a lack of opportunity.”
Morrison called the environment at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in the Twin Cities “transformational.”
“In addition to transforming the lives of our students and their families, we are transforming the status quo in education,” Morrison said.
With more than 3,000 corporate partners, the network connects students with professional industries, enabling students to get both a quality education and professional experience. Cristo Rey schools also offer college and alumni counseling for students. Cristo Rey Network’s students have an 100% college acceptance rate and average daily attendance rates of 96%, which more than doubles the local districts rates, Morrison noted.
But the social isolation and remote schooling of the COVID-19 era set many students back, and at Cristo Rey in the Twin Cities, this affected students in both academic life and in the work study program. Gartland noted that the network is facing both a challenge and an opportunity: “adapting to the post-COVID hybrid work environment.”
Morrison, along with Gartland and other network leaders, have been working to face this challenge.
“We continue to adapt to new models while maintaining the impactful relationships our students form with employers,” Gartland said. “We’re constantly seeking ways to remain marketable in this changing landscape, ensuring corporate partners can continue to provide hands-on, transformative experiences for our students.”
Morrison said he looks to the founder of Cristo Rey Network, Father John Foley, SJ, for inspiration.
“Father Foley, the network’s founder, has always challenged us never to be content with doing something small,” Morrison said.
School leaders are “investing in intensive intervention programming,” designed to help struggling students, Morrison noted. For the corporate work study program, school leaders are “looking to new markets for work for our students while rewriting the value proposition for new job types,” he added.
“This is who we are as a school and a network: a community committed to a growth mindset to ensure our students achieve their God-given potential,” Morrison said.
Cristo Rey Network has 40 college preparatory schools in 24 different states, totalling more than 12,300 students, Gartland told CNA. The schools work with religious sponsors ranging from the Jesuits to the Dominicans to the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, who ensure the schools “are Catholic in identity and mission, true to the religious charism of their respective order,” Gartland said.
Cristo Rey Network offers an approach that is “rooted in Catholic values, strengthens students’ knowledge and life skills while helping them fully realize their dreams for the future,” Gartland noted.
“What started as a single school in 1996 in Chicago has grown to 40 across the country,” Gartland said. “Our founding Midwest Jesuits never thought our first campus — Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in the Pilsen neighborhood in Chicago, a culturally rich community known for its deep Mexican heritage — would expand nationwide with more schools opening year by year.”
“Our work is inspired by the belief that every student, especially those from low-income backgrounds, deserves a quality education that equips them for both college and the workforce,” Gartland noted. “Cristo Rey Network was founded to support economically disadvantaged families, offering students a path to success through education, professional development through relationships with corporate partners, and supporting our alumni to and through college.”
Cristo Rey Jesuit High School is faith-centered and staff incorporate daily prayer, Morrison said.
“Our Jesuit charism permeates every aspect of Cristo Rey from morning prayer to the daily practice of the examen to grounding each year in an Ignatian theme,” he said. “Our Catholic identity is a lived experience as we commit to ensuring all students graduate with the values of being open to growth, religious, intellectually competent, loving, committed to justice, and work-experienced.”
“For me, faith is what called me to this ministry,” Morrison continued. “A quote often attributed to St. Ignatius and St. Augustine is my guiding force: ‘Pray as though everything depends upon God, and act as though everything depends upon you.’”
When asked what inspires him at Cristo Rey, Morrison said he “is inspired daily by our students, who dedicate themselves to achieving their dreams,” as well as the faculty and staff who “devote countless hours to creating an environment where all students are seen, valued, and heard.” He also takes inspiration from the corporate partners “who mentor our students and provide meaningful work model leadership,” as well as the generosity of the network’s donors.
“While each school certainly has its own unique environment, the network creates an opportunity for us to implement what might be working at another school and apply it locally,” Morrison said. “We truly can create a space where education is the great equalizer because of our ability to implement the network model within our local context.”
“Cristo Rey is a place where prayers of hope and love are realized, and where each community member owns their role in taking action to achieve greatness,” Morrison added.
Cristo Rey Network recently opened a Cristo Rey Jesuit Seattle High School this school year, while a new Cristo Rey school in Orlando, Florida, is set to open in fall 2025. Plans for another possible Cristo Rey school in Charleston, South Carolina, are underway.
Posted on 10/18/2024 21:15 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops meets for its fall plenary assembly meeting Nov. 14, 2023, in Baltimore. / Credit: Joe Bukuras/CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 18, 2024 / 18:15 pm (CNA).
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will gather in Baltimore next month for its 2024 Fall Plenary Assembly.
Major items on the agenda for the plenary assembly, according to a USCCB press release, include reports on the U.S. bishops’ efforts concerning the National Eucharistic Revival and the National Eucharistic Congress, which took place this summer in Indianapolis.
Additionally, coming on the heels of the second session of the Synod on Synodality in Rome this month, bishops attending the Nov. 11–14 plenary assembly will discuss a comprehensive report on the multiyear synodal process begun by Pope Francis in 2021 and concluding this month.
Cardinal Christophe Pierre, the papal nuncio to the United States, and USCCB president Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, will address the conference.
While the full schedule is not yet set in stone, the USCCB stated that bishops are expected to discuss updates on resources being developed among several USCCB committees to advance papal initiatives on human dignity and the ministry of catechesis.
They will also reportedly discuss plans for “pastoral implementation of integral ecology” as articulated by Pope Francis in his 2015 encyclical Laudato Si’.
Bishops will also vote for new chairman-elect for five of the USCCB’s committees and a new USCCB treasurer.
Another highlight for the plenary assembly will be a consultation among the bishops regarding the causes of beatification and canonization for two 20th-century women: Sister Annella Zervas, a Benedictine nun from Minnesota, and teacher and servant of God Gertrude Agnes Barber of Pennsylvania.
Bishop Andrew Cozzens of the Diocese of Crookston, Minnesota, announced in October 2023 that preliminary steps had been taken that could lead to the advancement of the cause for Sister Annella’s canonization, while the process was begun for Barber’s in December 2019.
Public sessions of the assembly will be livestreamed on Nov. 12 and 13 on the USCCB’s website along with other news updates, texts of addresses, and voting results.
