Posted on 04/24/2024 11:00 AM (CNA Daily News - US)
A young woman is baptized at the 2024 Easter Vigil at St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M. / Credit: Courtesy of St. Mary’s Catholic Center, Texas A&M
National Catholic Register, Apr 24, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Zack Short was kneeling during adoration last fall, silently struggling with whether the host in the monstrance was actually Jesus or merely a piece of bread.
To his left was his girlfriend, Katie, a Catholic who had invited him to join the campus ministry’s catechism program for converts.
“I was like, ‘Lord, if this is really you, please speak to me. Lord, help my unbelief,’” Short recalled. “I kid you not: I saw light coming out of the Eucharist. It just clicked for me: This is really God.”
Later, he asked Katie if she saw the light. She didn’t.
Short, 19, a sophomore majoring in mechanical manufacturing engineering technology who grew up going to a nondenominational church in Colorado, entered the Catholic Church during last month’s Easter Vigil Mass at St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M.
He is one of thousands of new Catholics in the United States, part of what appears to have been a bountiful harvest for the Church this past Easter.
Nationwide numbers aren’t available yet. But certain dioceses are reporting increases of 30%, 40%, 50%, and even more than 70%.
A non-Catholic can become a Catholic any day of the year. But the Easter Vigil is the traditional time to enter the Church, whose adult conversion program is built around preparing converts for that moment.
The National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, contacted every diocese in the United States in early April asking about numbers of converts at Easter, which this year was the last weekend in March.
The Church’s conversion program for adults is widely known as Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, or RCIA, although the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted in November 2021 to begin a process to change the name to Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, with slight revisions of other terms as well.
The Diocese of Fort Worth, Texas, jumps out: The number of converts there rose from 896 at Easter 2023 to 1,544 at Easter 2024, an increase of 72%.
Part of that eye-popping figure can be attributed to the area’s skyrocketing population, said Jason Whitehead, the director of evangelization and catechesis for the diocese. He also credits young priests in the diocese, who he says are “faithful,” “energetic,” and “willing to do anything,” including helping out at catechetical sessions.
But the diocese has also changed the way it prepares catechists to teach the faith. In 2021, the diocese began a three-year catechetical program that begins with an introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and moves to an intermediate level of theological instruction. It finishes with an area of concentration, such as catechesis for converts.
“The heart and soul of all three levels is the ability to talk to anyone about the Catholic faith,” Whitehead said.
The program offers not just information about what the Church teaches but how to organize it, beginning with the old Baltimore Catechism question: Why did God make you? (“… to know him, to love him, and to serve him in this world, and to be happy with him forever in heaven.”)
It’s crucial, he said, to present Catholic doctrine in its fullness.
Whitehead, a former Baptist, came into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in 2012. While he was happy to become a Catholic, he wasn’t happy with his parish’s RCIA sessions.
“I saw one person after another leave the RCIA program because they were not being given the truth of the Gospel and the teachings of the Catholic Church,” Whitehead said.
“If I have any influence over RCIA,” he said, “I’ll be doggone if anybody goes through an RCIA program like the one I went through. It is my personal mission that that never happens to another soul, until the Lord comes again.”
One perennial powerhouse of conversions is Hillsdale College, a nondenominational Christian school in Hillsdale, Michigan, that has a large population of Catholics. (One recent survey done by students in an applied math class at the school found that 43% of the students are Catholics.)
The Easter Vigil Mass at St. Anthony’s Church in Hillsdale this year began at 9 p.m. and ended at midnight, followed by a Greek feast for more than 500 people that lasted until 4 in the morning, said Deacon John Crowley, who heads the parish’s conversion program.
Along the way, 28 people joined the Catholic Church, 22 of them current students at Hillsdale College, plus one who is a recent graduate of the school.
The total number of converts in the parish is up from 20 in 2023 for a 40% increase.
As for Hillsdale students: 1.4% of the college’s 1,563 undergraduates joined the Catholic Church on Saturday, March 30.
St. Anthony’s contributed to an approximately 30% increase in converts in the Diocese of Lansing from 2023 — about 620 this year, the highest number in more than a decade.
“To each of those new Catholics I say, ‘Welcome to the body of Christ. This is just the beginning of great things,’” said Bishop Earl Boyea in a video produced by the diocese.
The video highlights the Campbell family — dad Cody, mom Kirsten, daughters Ryleigh, Khloe, and Cadyn, and son Elijah — who all joined the Catholic Church at St. Mary’s in Charlotte, Michigan.
Though raised Baptists, Cody and Kirsten were without a church when Cody on his own started studying the Protestant Reformation and then the Church Fathers, which made him interested in Catholicism.
“You could say there was a raging storm taking place inside of me — like, I had to know. There was something that was pushing me to know where the truth actually comes from,” Cody said.
Kirsten listened. Then a communion service at a Protestant church came up short for her.
“I just sat there and I realized, ‘This, it’s not it,’” Kirsten said.
They talked afterward and found they were thinking the same thing. They called the local parish, and the OCIA director let them join the program, “a little late,” Kirsten said.
“After we talked, after that day, it’s been nothing but peace. Like, I feel at home,” said Cody, who took the confirmation name Robert Bellarmine after the Counter-Reformation Italian Jesuit cardinal and doctor of the Church.
As of mid-April, about two-fifths of the dioceses in the United States had responded to the Register’s queries. Some don’t have data for this year yet. A handful reported numbers similar to last year’s or small decreases.
As for increases, some observers caution that this-worldly factors may be at play. Some cite a backup from the coronavirus shutdowns of a few years ago. One diocese reported that the diocese’s marriage tribunal issued a large number of declarations of nullity recently, which allowed would-be converts in what the Church considers irregular marriage situations to have their marriages blessed by the Church, therefore also facilitating their entrance into the Church this past Easter.
Even so, the increases are widespread.
A small diocese in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the Diocese of Marquette, saw a 70% jump (from 40 to 68 converts) from 2023 to 2024. Others seeing large increases include Grand Island, Nebraska (35%); Portland, Maine (35%); and Grand Rapids, Michigan (33%).
Topping the charts so far is the Diocese of Des Moines, Iowa, which went from 181 to 339, an increase of 87%. The Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, saw an increase in converts of 53%: from 227 in 2023 to 347 in 2024.
Among larger sees, in Texas, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston saw an increase of 30%, from 1,820 in 2023 to 2,364 in 2024; and the Archdiocese of San Antonio went up 39% (from 1,285 to 1,789).
In the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the total number of converts increased by about 4% (from 3,462 in 2023 to 3,596 in 2024). But the number of previously unbaptized catechumens receiving baptism in the Catholic Church increased 19%, from 1,743 to 2,075, the highest number in the archdiocese since 2016.
The number of converts in the Archdiocese of New Orleans jumped 48% — from 294 in 2023 to 436 in 2024.
In the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, where the number of converts went from 278 at Easter 2023 to 388 at Easter 2024, a jump of almost 40%, the director of Christian formation, Deacon Jim Bello, credits a more flexible catechesis schedule, a spokesman said.
“Formation is year-round, not just an RCIA ‘season,’ if you will,” said Jim Wogan, the diocese’s director of communications, by email. “It seems to have been successful.”
That’s also a point of emphasis in the Diocese of St. Augustine in northeast Florida, which saw an increase from 625 converts in 2023 to 838 in 2024, up 34%.
Spanish-speaking families make up a big portion, said Erin McGeever, the diocese’s director of Christian formation. San Jose Parish in Jacksonville, for instance, brought 64 people to the Rite of Election during Lent 2024, a 36% increase from 47 in 2023.
The Cathedral-Basilica of St. Augustine has seen steady growth, from 12 in 2022 to 18 in 2023 to 24 in 2024, she said.
While she’s not sure why, exactly, she noted that the diocese has been emphasizing making the conversion program year-round.
The typical schedule mimics the school year, beginning around September and finishing in June, with the high point being the Easter Vigil. Sticking to that schedule can leave out people who show interest at some other point during the year.
She said that the cathedral parish has begun engaging with would-be converts right away.
“So whenever people call, they put them into some programming, until they can get into the formal formation,” McGeever said. “Maybe that’s the key: taking people where they’re at… and filling in the blanks with them.”
In the Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas, which saw an increase of 33% (from 515 in 2023 to 685 in 2024), the director of faith formation, Jeff Hines, said he’s not sure what to attribute it to, but he said it suggests a spiritual hunger in a society sharply divided.
“You look at the state of the world, there’s a lot of reasons not to have hope today, particularly for young adults; so people are really looking for meaning and hope, which is exactly what the Church offers,” Hines said.
“So it makes sense for this to happen,” he added. “We should not be surprised. We should be faithful to being open to people who are searching.”
St. Mary’s Catholic Center at Texas A&M is so busy it offers its conversion program year-round and brings people into the Church twice a year: a September-to-Easter track and a January-to-November track.
The group that entered the program in January 2024 is among the biggest that program director Kevin Pesek has seen.
This past Easter, St. Mary’s had 51 students enter the Church (18 baptized, 33 who made a profession of faith). That followed a group of 34 converts in November 2023 (14 baptisms, 20 professions of faith).
“I’m seeing more and more people coming in with nothing — no religious background,” Pesek said. “It’s very interesting.”
Non-Catholic students join the program because Catholic students invite them, Pesek said, along the lines of Jesus’ words in John 1:39: “Come and see.”
“I’m not the one bringing them in. It’s all through our students. They’re the ones bringing them to Mass, doing the evangelization, bringing them in the door,” Pesek said. “I provide pizza the first night. That’s about as creative as I get.”
In recent times, he has conducted an anonymous survey of new converts asking what drew them to the faith. He shared 57 of the responses, and they’re hard to characterize. Some cite the Eucharist, others the teaching authority of the Church, the papacy, unity, clarity, liturgy, community, the communion of saints, and strength to live a better life.
“The students who aren’t Catholic are hungry and are looking for something,” said Father Will Straten, the pastor of St. Mary’s. “People are just looking for something that’s authentic and real. They’re looking for something that’s grounded and seems to make sense.”
One of the Easter 2024 converts is Kirsten Ruby, 23, who is finishing a master’s degree in accounting at Texas A&M after spending four years there as an undergraduate. She began seriously considering the Catholic faith during the summer of 2023 through the intervention of a friend.
As a kid, she went to Protestant churches (mostly Baptist) sporadically, but was never baptized. The main draw of RCIA for her was a chance to learn more about Jesus: “I saw it as a way of making up for never going to Sunday school as a kid,” she said.
Once in the program, she engaged with the Church’s history and theology, aided by apologetics books by Catholic authors, including Richard Gaillardetz’s “By What Authority?”
She said she found the catechesis program at St. Mary’s helpful and particularly her sponsor, a current senior.
Asking questions helped bring Ruby to the faith, and that continues now that she has joined the Church.
“A big thing that keeps me close to God is questions, forever getting to know him,” Ruby said. “He’s an eternal spouse. You wouldn’t just marry your husband and run away with the ring. You’d want to stay and get to know him better.”
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
Posted on 04/24/2024 10:00 AM (CNA Daily News - US)
Katie Chihoski, a student at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, eats with her baby, Lucia, on her lap in the company of fellow students. Chihoski is among the first students to benefit from a new initiative at the Catholic college called the Saint Teresa of Calcutta Community for Mothers, which provides free babysitting and other material support for young mothers on campus. / Credit: Fabrizio Alberdi, EWTN News in Depth
CNA Staff, Apr 24, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
A young mother will be the first to graduate from a Catholic school in North Dakota with the support of the school’s program that provides young student-mothers with child care, housing, and community. Katie Chihoski plans to walk across the stage to obtain her diploma with her 18-month-old daughter, Lucia, by her side.
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in 2022 to overturn Roe v. Wade, supporting women with unplanned pregnancies has become an even greater priority for many groups and organizations. Planned Parenthood’s latest report reveals that the abortion giant performed its highest-ever number of abortions the year Roe v. Wade was overturned, numbering almost 400,000 abortions between Oct. 1, 2021, and Sept. 30, 2022.
With the help of concerned donors, University of Mary, a Catholic liberal arts college in Bismarck, North Dakota, launched the Saint Teresa of Calcutta Community for Mothers in 2023. Known as “St. Teresa’s,” the program pledges to help single mothers by providing room, board, and child care — as well semesterly retreats and frequent “community nights.”
The whole campus has stepped in to help, with students volunteering to help with child care and professors welcoming kids in class, while residence directors who live on campus — and are often recently married with young children — offer community and support to the St. Teresa’s moms.
“Katie and Lucia are beloved on campus,” said Vice President for Student Development Reed Ruggles, who oversees University of Mary’s program for mothers.
Because of the program, Ruggles said that he, staff, and students on campus have been able to “see some of these children grow up.”
“Lucia, for example, was very little when she moved in with her mother, Katie,” he said. “To see her take her first steps, say her first words, and grow from carrier to highchair in our Crow’s Nest Restaurant on campus has been a gift to all of us.”
Ruggles observed that Chihoski’s friends treat Lucia and Katie as “one of their own” and said they are “integral members of our campus.”
“Faculty and staff who know Katie are so supportive of her,” he continued. “From volunteering to babysit Lucia to holding Lucia during a meeting or Mass, we consider it a great joy to have Lucia and Katie on campus.”
Noting that the program is only in its third semester, Ruggles said that he is “excited” to celebrate “our first graduate.”
Chihoski hopes to walk across the stage with Lucia, who will be wearing a toddler-sized cap and gown on graduation day.
“I think she will walk across the stage with me, if I can figure out the logistics,” she said. “I would love to make that a tradition for future graduating mothers.”
Chihoski said that although she had some worries about attending school with a young daughter, Lucia has made things “twice as fun.”
“Coming to school, I expected to be seen as different, and somewhat outcast from the typical college life,” she explained. “I think it was difficult to get used to my tag-along when going to events on campus, but Lucia makes the world twice as much fun.”
“Attending school with my daughter, Lucia, has been the most amazing thing to witness,” she said. “Children bring out the joy in people and offer a fuller sense of purpose.”
“Our students hear all the time about how they can give their life away in love,” Ruggles added. “This community shows students what that can look like from a practical perspective and gives students an opportunity to practice that by giving their time and love to these mothers and their children.”
“It has been wonderful having the community of mothers on campus,” Ruggles said. “We have students from as far away as Texas and Colorado and from right here in North Dakota. Supporting these mothers is truly a gift to us.”
Chihoski was a sophomore studying abroad in Rome when she discovered she was pregnant.
St. Teresa’s hadn’t begun at the time, but Chihoski said that her UMary classmates were supportive of her: checking in on her, encouraging her to stay at UMary, and helping her move back in.
“It was the best day of the whole semester!” she said, recalling the day she announced her pregnancy to “the whole cohort” of study abroad students.
While pregnant with Lucia, Chihoski took online classes for a semester from her home in Golden, Colorado. She moved back to UMary junior year and stayed with a residence director until St. Teresa’s opened the next semester.
At St. Teresa’s, each mom has two rooms, one for her child and one for her, Chihoski explained. Mothers in the community are assigned a semester chore to focus on and babysit at least once a week. The moms go to fun events or eat dinner together, Chihoski said. Students volunteer to babysit so the moms can go to class and other campus events.
“I have seen [the student babysitters] make time for the kids and even bring them to classes if we are short on babysitters one week,” Chihoski said. “They come into our community willing to help in whatever way they can, and they do it so cheerfully!”
“One thing that has made the biggest difference for me returning to college was the mothers in the Bismarck community and residence directors [RDs] on campus,” she said. “Some of the RDs are mothers, and they are beautiful witnesses to living the role of a Catholic wife and mother well.”
Because of this, Lucia has several playmates her age. She’s also very popular on campus.
“Since Lucia was 4 months old, she was going to sports games, campus events, and meeting people,” Chihoski explained. “Because of that, she is the most social baby you will ever meet!”
Chihoski is now engaged and will marry her fiance, Josh, in October. They will move to his home state of Minnesota after graduation. Chihoski hopes to work in a school using her social work degree.
She and Josh began dating later on in her time at UMary.
“I always say that Josh fell in love with Lucia before he fell in love with me, which I had always desired for my future since having Lucia,” she said.
When asked what she would say to someone who found themselves unexpectedly pregnant, Chihoski encouraged moms to “not isolate yourself from your community.”
“Whether you’re living by yourself, with family, or are going to school, there is a community out there waiting to help,” she said. “You just have to ask.”
Posted on 04/23/2024 22:15 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth, Texas, and Rev. Mother Teresa Agnes Gerlach of the Most Holy Trinity Monastery in Arlington, Texas. / Credit: Diocese of Fort Worth; Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity Discalced Carmelite Nuns
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 23, 2024 / 18:15 pm (CNA).
In direct defiance of a Vatican decree, a Texas monastery of cloistered nuns is asking a judge to grant a restraining order against the parties the Vatican has tasked with overseeing the monastery — an association of Carmelite monasteries and Diocese of Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson.
The request, filed by the Monastery of the Most Holy Trinity in Arlington on Monday, came just days after the Vatican issued a decree concerning the governance of the monastery. That decree entrusted the monastery to the Association of Christ the King in the United States — an association of Carmelite monasteries — and named its president, Mother Marie, as the lawful superior of the monastery.
The decree also ordered the monastery to regularize its relationship with the bishop, with whom the nuns have feuded over the past year.
If the District Court of Tarrant County grants the monastery’s request, it would prevent Olson, Mother Marie, and any representatives of the diocese or the association from entering the premises.
Before filing for the restraining order, the nuns indicated their intent to defy the Vatican’s decree, labeling it “a hostile takeover that we cannot in conscience accept” and warned Mother Marie and the association that they are not welcome there.
The dispute between the diocese and the monastery began in April of last year when Olson launched an investigation into the former prioress, the Reverend Mother Superior Teresa Agnes Gerlach, over alleged sexual misconduct with a priest. The prioress, who was dismissed from the religious state by the bishop, admitted to sexual conduct occurring through the phone and through video chats, but later recanted her confession and claimed she was medically unfit and recovering from an operation when it was given.
The situation escalated when the monastery filed a lawsuit against the bishop, accusing him of illegally seizing property from the nuns during his investigation. The claim was later dismissed by a judge. The Vatican originally granted the bishop the role of pontifical commissary over the monastery, which gave him temporary governing authority over the nuns, but the monastery never recognized that authority.
Michael Anderson, a lawyer representing the diocese, said in a statement provided to CNA that the monastery’s argument in its request for a restraining order “is basically a rehash of the lawsuit filed last year,” which was dismissed by a judge. He said the only new part of this filing is the addition of the Carmelite association.
“The Arlington nuns’ decision to file suit on this basis is squarely at odds with an affidavit filed in the first lawsuit, wherein Ms. Gerlach testified that the [monastery] only answers ‘directly to the pope,’” Anderson said. “Apparently this no longer applies since the catalyst for this new lawsuit was a decision by the Holy See.”
The restraining order makes legal arguments against the bishop and the association and includes an affidavit signed by Gerlach — whom the Vatican no longer recognizes as the monastery’s legitimate superior.
In its request for a restraining order, the monastery states that Olson attempted to take over “full governing powers” and “full governing responsibility” of the monastery. It said that now the Association of Christ the King in the United States is seeking to take over management of the monastery “under the guise of some religious backdoor.”
Although the bishop’s authority was recognized by the Vatican and the association’s authority was decreed by the Vatican, the monastery states that it is a legal nonprofit corporation that is protected under “laws of the State of Texas.” It states that neither the bishop nor the association has any legal authority to govern the monastery, according to state law.
The monastery asserts that both the bishop and the association are “trying to utilize a religious back door to usurp the laws of the State of Texas to take over the management and assets of the [monastery].”
In an affidavit, Gerlach states that if the nuns lose their ability to govern the monastery, “it would allow the defendants to remove us from our home, as they already have threatened to do.”
“The level of emotional trauma and infliction of psychological distress this whole episode has caused me personally and the sisters is incomprehensible,” she said. “We have never faced such moral violence and adversity. These actions are affecting my emotional and physical well-being as well as that of our sisters. I pray they be stopped.”
A spokesperson for the diocese told CNA that the monastery “is not owned by the diocese and the diocese has no interest in owning the property.”
The Vatican has not yet issued any orders in response to the monastery’s most recent defiance of its decrees.
Posted on 04/23/2024 21:45 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign stop at Hillsborough Community College’s Dale Mabry campus on April 23, 2024, in Tampa, Florida. / Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 23, 2024 / 17:45 pm (CNA).
President Joe Biden on Tuesday called for a national right to abortion during a campaign speech in Tampa, Florida, in which he blamed the overturning of Roe v. Wade on former President Donald Trump.
Speaking to a crowd of supporters at Hillsborough Community College, Biden, a Catholic, called the overturn of Roe v. Wade “a political deal” made by Trump with “the evangelical base of the Republican Party to look past his moral and character flaws.”
He criticized Republicans as “extreme” for passing laws to protect unborn life, particularly singling out a Florida six-week abortion limit set to go into effect on May 1 as “bizarre.”
“Let’s be clear, there is one person who is responsible for this nightmare, and he’s acknowledged and he brags about it, Donald Trump,” Biden said.
“Trump is literally taking us back 150 years,” he went on, adding that Trump is responsible for efforts to limit abortion as well as in vitro fertilization and the chemical abortion drug mifepristone.
Though Trump recently said he would not sign a national abortion ban into law, Biden accused Trump of currently secretly working with Republicans in Congress to pass a federal abortion limit.
“Now women in America have fewer rights than their mothers and their grandmothers had, because of Donald Trump,” he said. “It was Donald Trump who ripped away the rights of women in America. It will be all of us who will restore those rights for women.”
Urging people to vote this November, he pledged to enshrine a national right to abortion.
“We’ll teach Donald Trump and the extreme MAGA Republicans a valuable lesson: Don’t mess with the women of America,” he said. “Elect a Democratic Congress and Kamala and I will make Roe v. Wade the law of the land again.”
Biden also praised a pro-abortion amendment that will be on the Florida ballot in November and could enshrine a right to abortion into the state constitution.
If passed, the amendment would change the Florida Constitution to include a provision reading: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.”
Biden endorsed the effort to add the abortion amendment to the state constitution, saying: “Let’s get this done.”
“Since the [Supreme] Court said that states should make the decision, states all over the country from Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, Kentucky, Wisconsin, Virginia, women and men of every background voted in record numbers to protect reproductive freedom,” Biden said. “This November, you can add Florida to that list. You can. Are you ready to do that? You’ve got to show up and vote.”
Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee, responded to Biden’s speech by telling CNA that the incumbent president’s “radical abortion agenda — refusing to support any limits and allowing abortion up to the moment of birth — is wildly out of touch with most Americans.”
“But that will not stop him from pitching it to Florida voters,” he went on. “Biden must have forgotten that thousands of Americans have fled from extremist Democrat policies to prosperous and pro-life states like Florida.”
Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, told CNA that though Biden “may be a self-proclaimed Catholic, or a ‘cafeteria Catholic’ as he was recently described by the Catholic archbishop of Washington, D.C.,” his actions “prove he does not deserve the vote of Catholic Americans.”
“Biden supports abortion up until birth, his Department of Justice targets and imprisons pro-life activists, and Biden’s FBI plotted to infiltrate Catholic Masses to spy on attendees,” she said. “President Trump will end Biden’s discrimination against all Christians and stand for religious freedom, as he did in his first term.”
In response to Biden’s speech, Lynda Bell, president of Florida Right to Life, told CNA that she was “not surprised but disgusted.”
Bell called the Florida abortion amendment touted by Biden “radical,” stating: “Biden doesn’t care about women, Biden doesn’t care about girls, Biden doesn’t care about safety, Biden cares about votes. If he thinks sacrificing babies through birth will get him a vote, then he’ll do it. The man has zero principles.”
A group of pro-life Floridians from Turning Point USA also held a “rally for life” outside the building where Biden gave his speech.
Amazing afternoon at our @TPAction_ ‘Rally for Life’! Joe Biden was greeted in Tampa, FL by so many Patriots who reject his extreme abortion agenda.
— Sydney Salatto (@sydmartsal) April 23, 2024
Thank you to everyone who came out today to support LIFE!🙏🏻🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/QXBU1cE8QM
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis also criticized Biden for making a trip to Florida to advocate for abortion and said his efforts to win Florida would be in vain.
“He’s coming down to try to support a constitutional amendment that will mandate abortion up until the moment of birth, that will eliminate parental consent for minors, and that’s written in a way that is intentionally designed to deceive voters,” DeSantis said. “So, all I can tell you is Floridians are not buying what Joe Biden is selling and in November we’re going to play an instrumental role in sending him back to Delaware where he belongs.”
Vice President Kamala Harris also hit the campaign trail this week advocating for a national right to abortion.
At a stop on her “Reproductive Freedoms” tour in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Monday, Harris slammed Trump as the orchestrator of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and urged supporters to send “Joe and me to the White House.”
John White, a professor of politics at The Catholic University of America, told CNA that though he believes pro-abortion voters will turn out to the polls in large numbers, he does not think they will be able to win the state.
“Abortion is a motivating factor in this year’s election,” White said. “If the past is prologue, it is an issue that helps Democrats, he added.
However, White noted that in recent years the Sunshine State has “moved rather decidedly toward the Republicans.”
“The abortion amendment on the ballot does make the state more competitive and Republicans may have to spend more money defending their candidates than they counted on doing,” he concluded.
Posted on 04/23/2024 20:45 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey walks across the campus of St. John's Prep in Danvers, Massachusetts, on April 9, 2024. / Credit: Screenshot of St. John's Prep Facebook page last visited April 19, 2024
Boston, Mass., Apr 23, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).
Pro-lifers in the Archdiocese of Boston are criticizing Cardinal Seán O’Malley over two recent appearances at Catholic education events by the pro-abortion governor of Massachusetts.
Earlier this month, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat who supports legal and publicly funded abortion and who has taken steps to make abortions easier to obtain, spoke at a fundraiser for The Catholic Schools Foundation, which raises money for Catholic schools in the archdiocese and helps poor students attend.
O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, is the chairman of the board of trustees of the foundation, though he was in Rome at the time of the gala and did not attend it.
Healey also recently visited a Catholic school north of Boston, speaking to students and answering questions.
C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, called Healey’s appearances “a grave scandal.”
“Cardinal O’Malley should be ashamed of himself. Is Maura Healey an inspiring role model for Catholic students?” Doyle said.
Thomas Harvey, chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance to Stop Taxpayer Funded Abortions, called including Healey at the Catholic events “really disgraceful,” and he placed the blame on O’Malley.
“Maura Healey is a huge proponent of killing babies in the womb, in direct defiance of Catholic teaching, and yet here she is being presented to impressionable Catholic students as if she were a Catholic role model,” Harvey told the Register by text. “And the clear message being sent to Catholic students here is that killing babies in the womb is just not that big a deal.”
In June 2004, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a document called “Catholics in Public Life,” which states: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors, or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, pointed out that Healey was not an honoree at the gala or during her earlier appearance at the Catholic school.
Since Healey is the governor of the state, Donilon said, Cardinal O’Malley has worked with her “on a number of issues important to Catholics and the wider community,” including public funding for the archdiocese’s charitable work providing “basic needs assistance, job training, child care services, and immigration and refugee assistance to thousands of residents,” as well as building “badly needed affordable housing” and trying “to stem gun violence.”
“At the same time, the cardinal has been a leader in the pro-life movement for over 50 years and his commitment in being a staunch promoter of life is well known and unwavering,” Donilon said.
O’Malley, 79, a Capuchin Franciscan, has frequently attended the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and has spoken at pro-life rallies. Last week, The Boston Globe published a column by O’Malley urging state legislators to oppose a bill that would legalize physician-assisted suicide.
But critics such as Doyle claim that O’Malley during his time as archbishop has seemed to mix easily and uncritically with abortion-supporting Catholic politicians, including the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (whose funeral Mass he celebrated), the late Boston mayor Thomas Menino, former Boston mayor Marty Walsh, and the current governor, Healey, with whom he co-authored a column in The Boston Globe in September 2017 on immigration.
Donilon, O’Malley’s spokesman, addressing Healey’s participation in The Catholic Schools Foundation gala last week, said that “the governor has been a vocal supporter of Catholic education. … Our Catholic schools save cities and towns hundreds of millions of dollars in education costs. Our families benefit from an outstanding education based in an excellent faith-based environment.”
Healey, 53, was elected Massachusetts attorney general in 2014 with an endorsement from Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund. She served two terms as attorney general before being elected governor of Massachusetts in November 2022.
As an elected official, Healey has frequently supported public policies that clash with Catholic teachings on life and sexuality.
She has verbally attacked pro-life pregnancy centers, steered state government money to private abortion funds, and, in April 2023, quietly arranged for the flagship campus of the state-run University of Massachusetts to purchase 15,000 doses of abortion pills.
Healey’s administration in June 2023 successfully proposed a curriculum framework for public schools that calls for teaching between third and fifth grades “the differences between biological sex and gender identity” and “how one’s outward behavior and appearance does not define one’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Healey also supports same-sex marriage. In February, she nominated her former same-sex partner for a seat on the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, which is the state’s highest court. She is currently living with a woman.
Healey appeared Thursday, April 11, at the annual gala of The Catholic Schools Foundation at a hotel in Boston.
“So I didn’t have the benefit of going to Catholic school,” Healey said, according to a text of her remarks provided by a spokesman. “My mom went to Catholic school, and my nephew goes to Catholic school; we have priest[s] at the dinner table every Sunday. But I do know, both having been your attorney general and now as your governor, what your work means. And I can see that experience firsthand.”
She also said she wants to find ways “to partner” with the foundation “in the important work that you [are] doing.”
“And I want you to know that, as governor, I value our vibrant mix of education, our public schools, our private schools, and our religious schools,” Healey said.
Two days earlier, on Tuesday, April 9, Healey spent about 50 minutes with a group of 120 students at St. John’s Preparatory High School, a Catholic boys’ school founded by the Xaverian Brothers in Danvers, about 18 miles northeast of Boston, according to a description of the visit published on the school’s website. The school is in the Archdiocese of Boston, though it is not run by the archdiocese.
Healey had never visited the school before, “but it was quickly clear her personal values are closely aligned with those of the Xaverian Brothers,” the school’s write-up states.
Healey emphasized leadership and empathy during her remarks. The governor also told the students that while she believes in civil discourse, “there are some basic values that have kept our society intact,” and she told students they should “call out hate when you see it.”
“We can have differences of opinion on things,” Healey said, according to the school’s write-up, “but, to me, equality has got to abide. Respect for the dignity and worth of each person is something I call on people to really adhere to.”
Robert Joyce, a lawyer and member of the board of the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal representation for pro-lifers, said that St. John’s Prep last fall turned down an offer he made to provide a pro-life assembly for students featuring a canon lawyer, a physician, and a vocations director. (The head of school, Edward Hardiman, did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.)
Joyce called Healey’s recent appearances at the gala and at the school “abominations for Catholic education.”
“They send the clear message to Catholic students and parents that critical, fundamental precepts of the Catholic faith are not all that important. In simple terms, they declare that protection of innocent unborn life and the defense of traditional marriage are negotiable with these Catholic educators,” Joyce indicated.
Healey is also a featured speaker at the annual Spring Celebration of Catholic Charities Boston scheduled for Wednesday, May 29, at the Boston Harbor Hotel in Boston. O’Malley is expected to receive an award at the event for his work in welcoming immigrants.
Healey does not often talk about religion in public, but she occasionally identifies herself as a Catholic.
In October 2018, when she was state attorney general, she led off a brief column in The Boston Globe with the words: “As a member of law enforcement and as a Catholic …”
In April 2022, when Healey criticized Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester for calling for a Catholic school to take down a rainbow flag, she added, according to MassLive.com: “And I speak as a Catholic …”
In October 2022, during a debate while she was running for governor, Healey used a Catholic reference while defending herself from a claim by her Republican opponent that a bill she had supported effectively legalized infanticide, as the National Catholic Register subsequently reported. “You know, my mom goes to Mass every morning,” Healey said.
Healey is widely thought of as a potential candidate for other offices. She would be an obvious Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts if either of the two incumbents (both in their 70s) leaves office.
Additionally, just hours before her appearance at The Catholic Schools Foundation gala, Healey participated in an event at Northeastern University in Boston honoring former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. The moderator floated Healey as a potential future candidate for president of the United States, to applause from the audience.
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
Posted on 04/23/2024 17:30 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
The Augustine Institute's new facilities in Florissant, Missouri. / Credit: Boeing Company and Augustine Institute
CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
The Augustine Institute, a Catholic educational and evangelization apostolate based in Denver for nearly two decades, announced on Tuesday that it will be moving its operations to a new campus in the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
The institute, founded in 2005 as a Catholic graduate theology school, currently has an enrollment of 550 students. It says on its website that it exists to serve “the formation of Catholics for the new evangelization” by “equip[ping] Catholics intellectually, spiritually, and pastorally to renew the Church and transform the world for Christ.”
The organization announced on Tuesday that it had purchased the former Boeing Leadership Center in Florissant, Missouri, just outside of downtown St. Louis. The school will “begin transitioning its operations over the next few years,” it said in a press release.
The nearly 300-acre property “offers an unprecedented opportunity to expand our Graduate School of Theology and further our mission to help Catholics understand, live, and share their faith,” institute President Tim Gray said in a Tuesday press release.
The Boeing facility, a former retreat center that went on sale in March, offers “state-of-the-art facilities” for the group’s Catholic mission, Gray said.
The president told CNA this week that the Augustine Institute “wasn’t even in a search mode” when they learned of the facility.
“Some of the leadership at the Archdiocese of St. Louis told us about this property when it became available,” he said.
The property was on the market for nearly a year before the institute began exploring it. “A couple of different buyers tied it up, but those deals fell through,” he said. “We found out about it toward the end of November, and it wasn’t until December that we started looking into it.”
Gray himself visited the campus in January; within several weeks the institute had purchased the property.
“My head’s still spinning,” he said. “Just a few months ago this was not even on our radar.”
Archbishop of Denver Samuel Aquila said in the institute’s press release this week that the discovery of the property was “providential” for the organization.
“It will allow the institute the opportunity to remain faithful to its mission while continuing to grow,” the prelate said, calling the purchase “the realization of a long-standing hope for a campus environment for students, faculty, and expanded theology programs.”
In addition to its graduate school, the Augustine Institute offers sacramental preparation resources, a Bible study app, an apologetics course for high school seniors, and other instructional and catechetical materials.
Much of that material is in digital format. Gray said this week that the new property will allow the Augustine Institute to expand from digital into “a national center for Catholic conferences, retreats, evangelization, and fellowship.”
The institute had largely outgrown its facilities in Denver, he told CNA.
“We’ve been growing here and we’ve filled up our building,” he said. “We love Denver, it’s been great for us. But we didn’t have student housing. Housing is very expensive in Denver and it’s hard to recruit people to move out here. Those were challenges we were facing.”
The organization had to work quickly to raise enough funds to realize the sale, he said.
“We had to raise a lot of money in just a few months so we could purchase this campus in cash,” he said. “We also had to raise enough money to have a reserve fund for the operations of such a large campus.” The institute amassed $50 million over the course of several months, he said.
The Augustine Institute is expecting to hold its 2024-2025 graduate school year at the new property starting in September.
Mitchell Rozanski, the archbishop of St. Louis, said in the press release that the facility could become “the premier center for the new evangelization in the United States.”
The institute “can foster a new era of collaboration with Catholic organizations nationwide,” the archbishop said, “and invite more people to encounter Jesus Christ and his Church.”
Posted on 04/23/2024 17:00 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan leads a Eucharistic procession inside a packed Louis Armstrong Stadium in Brooklyn, New York, on April 20, 2024. / Credit: Jeffrey Bruno
National Catholic Register, Apr 23, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
I’d never ridden the subway with a bishop before.
But then again, how many of us have?
Bishop Robert Brennan from the Diocese of Brooklyn is not your typical bishop — and I mean that with the utmost respect for the men who hold the office. Each is unique, endowed with their own personalities, charisms, and abilities. So perhaps don’t go telling your bishop he needs to start riding mass transit just yet.
He’s striking in the way he carries himself: You can sense a deep spirituality and humility within him. He’s genuinely kind and attentive — a true pastor.
If there were a contest for “Most Likely to Ride the Subway With His Flock,” I believe Brennan would win hands down.
I first met him in 2021, upon his eventful reassignment to Brooklyn. He had barely settled into the Diocese of Columbus, Ohio, in 2019 — where the paint in his office was probably still drying — only to be moved, much to the sorrow of the Columbus flock.
On the bright side, he’s a Mets fan. Though their recent performance hasn’t been much of a consolation, maybe his prayers will give them a boost.
So, early on Saturday morning, in anticipation of the Eucharistic Revival at Louis Armstrong Stadium in Flushing Meadows, he boarded the 7 train with members of his flock in tow. With each stop, more of the faithful joined, filling the carriages.
And they did exactly what you would expect a group of Catholics on a subway to do: They sang, they chanted, “Viva Cristo Rey!” and they laughed with a joy so palpable it electrified the air.
By the time we rolled into Mets-Willets Point Station, it felt like a rolling celebration.
That would have been enough to fill our hearts, but it was just the warmup.
The day unfolded with thousands traversing the borough to join a daylong celebration of the diocese’s Eucharistic Revival.
I could speak volumes about the day, but there was one moment — a moment that shook me to the core.
It was during the Eucharistic procession, a winding path around the stadium’s exterior, mostly out of sight — until the point of entrance.
As Brennan, carrying Christ, became visible to the gathered crowd, applause erupted — not just any applause, but one of overwhelming joy.
It was the kind of spontaneous outpouring that occurs when words fall short and emotions soar.
They were applauding for Christ.
The sound wrapped around the stadium, penetrating hearts and souls, as evidenced by the smiling, tear-streaked faces turning toward him.
I’ll leave it at this: Something breathtaking happened in Queens that Saturday.
And in mid-July, that same breathtaking event will unfold at the heart of the United States.
In three weeks, the Catholic faithful will kick off four historic and unprecedented pilgrimages, each originating from one of the four compass points of our great land.
Together, they will travel more than 6,500 miles with more than 100,000 participants converging on the 10th Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis from July 17-21 — the first congress in 83 years.
Proclaiming Christ the King, the giver of all gifts, fully present in the Blessed Sacrament to the entire world.
What a beautiful time to be alive.
What an incredible gift to have faith.
What a breathtaking reality to know and love Jesus Christ.
But all of that pales in comparison to the truth that we are known and loved by him.
Praise God.
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
Posted on 04/23/2024 15:45 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. / Credit: Shutterstock
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 23, 2024 / 11:45 am (CNA).
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is embracing a “massive subsidized day care initiative” to reduce abortions in the United States without restricting legal access to the procedure.
In a new webpage recently added to Kennedy campaign’s website, the candidate unveiled a policy platform the campaign is calling “More Choices, More Life.”
The candidate’s plan is to redirect money that is currently used to support military aid to Ukraine and put it toward federal funding for day care to help families in poverty. Last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to provide $61 billion to Ukraine, with the government having already provided more than $110 billion in aid since Russia invaded the country.
The campaign promises that a Kennedy presidency would “safeguard women’s reproductive rights.”
Kennedy, who is the son of former Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, first launched his presidential bid in the Democratic primary in April 2023. In October he switched his party registration and declared he would run as an independent.
“This policy will dramatically reduce abortion in this country, and it will do so by offering more choices for women and families, not less,” the webpage states.
“A lot of women, when they get pregnant, feel they can’t afford to have a baby,” the campaign says. “There isn’t a lot of support to raise a child in this society. You can’t call yourself pro-life if you are concerned only with life before birth. What about after birth? We have to make our society as welcoming as possible to children and to motherhood.”
Per the proposal, the federal government would fund 100% of day care costs for children who are under the age of 5 years old and living below the poverty line. For families living above the poverty line, their day care costs would be capped at 10% of the family’s income.
Only single-location small businesses that provide day care services — or parents who stay home with their children — would be eligible for subsidies. The plan would not provide subsidies to corporate day care chains or hedge funds that own day care chains.
The campaign added that Kennedy supports strengthening adoption infrastructure and increasing the child tax credit. The website also noted that the candidate would fund organizations that support women in pregnancy and the months after birth.
“There is a lot we can do to reduce abortions — by choice, not by force,” the campaign says. “As president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will make it easier for women to choose life. He will give them more choices than they have today, we will see a lot fewer abortions and a lot more flourishing families.”
Kennedy has not made abortion a major part of his campaign. When asked about a proposal to prohibit abortion at the federal level in August of last year, the candidate initially said he would back a three-month restriction. However, his campaign later claimed that he misunderstood the question and “does not support legislation banning abortion.”
Kennedy later voiced support for in vitro fertilization (IVF), which often discards human embryos, destroying human lives in the process. His running mate, Nicole Shanahan, has said she does not support “anyone having control over my body” but that she “would not feel right terminating a viable life living inside of me.”
The Washington Post reported this week that the Kennedy campaign said the candidate opposes former President Donald Trump’s plan to leave abortion policy to the states and that Kennedy further opposed an Arizona Supreme Court ruling that allowed a near-total abortion ban from the 1860s to go into effect in the state.
Kennedy “makes his position plain but does not dwell on the subject,” the campaign said, according to the Post.
The Post said that Kennedy’s new day care plan was posted shortly after the paper’s reporters contacted the staff about the candidate’s abortion policies.
Although Kennedy has generally supported legal access to abortion, a pro-abortion group called Reproductive Freedom for All recently launched a television advertisement in Michigan and Wisconsin that accuses the independent candidate of not supporting abortion strongly enough.
“Kennedy Jr. and Shanahan mean we’d be less safe from dangerous abortion bans and get more attacks on IVF,” the 30-second advertisement claims. “Kennedy Jr. and Shanahan would put your reproductive freedom at risk.”
Although Kennedy is polling in a distant third place behind Biden and Trump, he is polling better than any third-party candidate since Reform Party candidate Ross Perot in the 1990s. According to poll averages between Jan. 22 and April 2 from RealClearPolling, Kennedy is averaging just under 12% in a three-way race.
Posted on 04/23/2024 10:00 AM (CNA Daily News - US)
People join together during a “Rally to Stop the Six-Week Abortion Ban” held at Lake Eola Park on April 13, 2024, in Orlando, Florida. / Credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 23, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The Florida Supreme Court recently made national headlines when it issued two significant abortion rulings on the same day.
One ruling cleared the way for a law to take effect that protects unborn life at six weeks and beyond. The other allowed a far-reaching abortion proposal, titled the Limiting Government Interference with Abortion Amendment, to be placed on the November ballot.
If passed, the amendment would change the Florida Constitution to include a provision reading: “No law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health, as determined by the patient’s health care provider.”
With the abortion amendment now officially on the ballot in Florida, many will be looking to the state this November to see if it will break a long string of pro-life referendum defeats or simply mark another abortion victory.
Although several other states are expected to have similar abortion amendments on their ballots, Florida holds special importance both because it is the third-most populous state in the country and because of its perceived role as a leader among conservative states.
“It’s critically important that we win Florida,” Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told CNA.
“If we win Florida,” she explained, “I think it can really turn the tide on these ballot measure fights.”
So far, the pro-life movement has suffered one crushing defeat after another when it comes to abortion referendums. Every abortion-related amendment that has come to a general vote since the overturn of Roe v. Wade has resulted in an abortion victory.
The votes have not been close either. Despite a major pro-life push to defeat it, an amendment adding abortion to the Ohio Constitution passed in a 56% to 44% vote last October. Another pro-abortion measure in Michigan passed 56% to 43% in November 2022. In Kansas, which is considered a reliably Republican and conservative state, voters declined 59% to 41% to add an amendment that would have protected unborn life from abortion.
Several leading Republicans, including former president Donald Trump and Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have since embraced less protective pro-life positions.
Despite floating the idea of supporting a national abortion ban earlier in his campaign, Trump announced on April 8 that he would not support any federal abortion policy and that the issue is “up to the states.”
For his part, Scott said that he would support replacing Florida’s six-week law with a more permissive 15-week abortion limit.
President Joe Biden, meanwhile, criticized the Florida six-week law as “extreme” and has signaled his belief that support for abortion will propel him to victory in the 2024 general election.
“Trump is scrambling,” Biden said. “He’s worried that since he’s the one responsible for overturning Roe, the voters will hold him accountable in 2024. Well, I have news for Donald: They will.”
Biden is set to make a campaign stop in Tampa on Tuesday, where he is expected to speak on abortion and the six-week pro-life law.
With all this at play, John White, a professor of politics at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., told CNA that from a purely political perspective, “there is very little that can be done to defeat the initiative.”
“The six-week abortion ban in Florida is very likely to be overturned by the ballot initiative,” he said. “In every state in which a ballot initiative has appeared, the pro-life forces have lost. I don’t think Florida will be any different.”
“We have already seen the national significance of this issue and its ability to galvanize majorities of voters. Florida will only add to this,” he added.
Yet, Seana Sugrue, a politics professor at Ave Maria University in southwest Florida, said that this abortion showdown is “different from the other states both procedurally and substantively.”
She pointed out that while the abortion amendments in Ohio and Michigan only required a simple majority to pass, the Florida amendment must clear a 60% threshold to be added to the state’s constitution. This will make a major difference, she said, predicting that the pro-abortion camp will find it very difficult to rally that much support in the state.
According to an Emerson College poll published April 11, 57% of Florida voters believe the six-week pro-life law is too strict. According to the Pew Research Center, 56% of Florida adults believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Sugrue said the Florida amendment is “much more radical” than the other abortion proposals such as the one in Ohio and is “actually very, very broad.”
The amendment bans restrictions on abortion before viability, but late-term abortions would still be allowed if determined necessary by a health provider. According to Sugrue’s analysis of the amendment, it would allow abortion until birth in Florida because it doesn’t define what it means by necessary for one’s health and does not specify what type of health care providers are allowed to make that determination.
Sugrue said the pro-life movement needs to prioritize communicating the truth about the radical nature of the amendment to the public.
“Messaging is going to be very important,” she said, adding that the “constant, faithful, and clear support” from the Catholic Church in Florida will be needed.
So far, the Florida Conference of Catholic Bishops (FCCB) and Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Catholic, have both criticized the amendment.
In a statement shared with CNA on April 1, Michael Sheedy, FCCB executive director, said that the Florida bishops “will work hard to oppose this cruel and dangerous amendment and urge all Floridians to vote no.”
DeSantis, meanwhile, has called the amendment “very, very extreme” and said that voters will reject it once they figure out how radical it is.
According to Pritchard, there is already a coalition of pro-life groups formed to defeat the amendment. She said that “what’s going to be key to our success is the willingness of Gov. DeSantis to get in this fight.”
“We would hope that he would be vocal, continue to be vocal early and often, because that awareness of what this measure actually does is very important starting now rather than waiting until the last couple of weeks before the election,” she said.
But just as important as being vocally supportive, according to Pritchard, is for the governor to help with fundraising. In Ohio, the campaign in favor of the abortion amendment outraised the pro-life campaign by a large margin.
“We know the other side is going to easily pour millions upon millions into this, from George Soros to the abortion lobby and abortion industry,” Pritchard said. “So, the dollars will be as crucial as him [DeSantis] being willing to be a vocal advocate.”
With the help of the governor, Pritchard believes the pro-life movement can break its losing slump.
“Florida is the state where the red wave materialized in 2022. We were all hoping and expecting and praying for a red wave throughout the entire nation in those midterms, but that didn’t happen, except for in Florida, where Ron DeSantis won by double digits and took both houses of the Legislature,” she said. “We have reasons to be hopeful in that respect. At the same time, we have a lot of work to do.”
Posted on 04/22/2024 20:00 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Left to right: Dr. John Bruchalski, a former abortionist and IVF provider, Emma Waters, a senior research associate at the Heritage Foundation, Andrew Kubick, a bioethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the Religious Freedom Institute, and Sister Deirdre Byrne, superior of the D.C. Little Workers of the Sacred Hearts, discuss the "eugenic" dangers of in vitro fertilization at a panel event at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., April 18, 2024. / Credit: Photo by Peter Pinedo/CNA
Washington D.C., Apr 22, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
A former abortionist and several pro-life ethicists are urging lawmakers to protect children and parents from the in vitro fertilization (IVF) industry, which they say operates on “eugenic” principles.
IVF is a fertility treatment that works by inducing hyper-ovulation during a woman’s cycle to harvest her eggs and then fuse them with sperm to conceive a child outside the womb. The Catholic Church is opposed to IVF because it separates the marriage act from procreation and destroys embryonic human life.
Speaking at a panel discussion on IVF last week at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., Dr. John Bruchalski, a former abortionist and IVF provider, said that “IVF is embedded with eugenics” and that anything “not perfect” is either eliminated or used for scientific research.
According to Bruchalski, the IVF industry operates like the “Wild West,” with little to no oversight. The result is not only the destruction and abuse of millions of frozen human embryos but also risks to the children born of IVF as well as to the women involved in the process.
“Ultimately, the way we do this is we actually experiment on our patients,” Bruchalski said. “So, even without the embryos being created, I would say that it is something that still needs to be very cautioned over.”
This comes as IVF has returned to the forefront of American politics in the wake of a controversial Alabama Supreme Court decision that ruled children conceived through IVF should be protected under the state’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
Since the ruling, many politicians from both parties have rushed to defend IVF. Both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump voiced their support for the IVF industry.
During the 2024 State of the Union, Biden called the Alabama ruling an “assault on freedom” made possible by the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022. He urged Congress to pass a national “guarantee” of the right to IVF.
Trump, meanwhile, praised the Alabama Legislature for quickly passing a law in response to the ruling that gave the IVF industry in the state blanket immunity from certain negligence and malpractice lawsuits.
“The Republican Party should always be on the side of the miracle of life,” Trump said, adding that “IVF is an important part of that.”
IVF researchers and experts at the Georgetown panel, however, contested the idea that IVF is pro-life.
Andrew Kubick, a bioethicist with the National Catholic Bioethics Center and the Religious Freedom Institute, said that IVF operates on a “very dangerous eugenic note” in which “only the ‘best’ survive.”
“What are some of the aspects of IVF? Well, after sperm-egg fusion, we have pre-implantation genetic testing. We’re literally using arbitrary guidelines to select who is worthy of life,” he said. “From a country that has fallen into the sin of placing one group over another several times throughout history, we cannot fall into the trap of saying: ‘Well, because of this disability, this individual is not worthy.’”
“When we view the child as a product or commodity rather than a gift, when we put the domination of life and death in the hands of a technician,” he continued, “I don’t think that’s pro-life.”
Despite the current push to expand IVF, Kubick told CNA that he believes the pro-life movement can use this as an educating moment.
“The different types of procedures they do to bring about the life of the child can have devastating effects,” he said. “Alabama has given us the opportunity to dig deep, to educate, to pray, and to hopefully change hearts and minds.”
Emma Waters, another panelist and a senior research associate with the Heritage Foundation, told CNA that her advice to lawmakers is to “take a deep breath” and “not let temporary political pressure result in a rash decision that will have long-term negative consequences.”
Though she believes that Democrats will ultimately continue supporting the anti-life position, she said that several pro-life groups are currently strategizing on how to educate Republicans on the dangers of IVF. Right now, their goals are very limited.
“I think if we can keep Republicans from rashly putting forward legislation on this topic that’s a win in and of itself,” she said.
Going forward, however, she said she thinks it is a realistic goal to get lawmakers to address the “bloat” in the IVF industry by limiting the number of embryos being created through IVF.
“Oftentimes anywhere from 15 to 20 embryos are created in one cycle and yet only a couple, at most, actually result in the birth of a child and then parents are left with a really difficult decision where they have to decide what to do with the leftovers,” she said. “So how can we practice IVF in a way that empowers parents so that they’re not put in that position?”
Another realistic policy to pursue, Waters said, is to regulate the IVF industry by providing parents with legal recourse to sue fertility clinics for negligent or wrongful deaths of their children.
“At least half of the states already have a wrongful death law for children in the womb. So, we just need to extend that to children of in vitro fertilization,” she said. “That’s actually a very reasonable step, it doesn’t penalize IVF, but it does ensure that fertility clinics provide the highest standard of medical care.”
