TCA Podcast, – “Conversations with Consequences,” Episode 175 – TCA Team Talks Rosary Extremists & Nicki Neilly On Parents Defending Education
With the Atlantic’s latest attempt to smear Catholics as Rosary-praying extremists, Dr. Grazie Christie, Ashley McGuire and Leigh Snead set the record straight on the reality of this truly spiritual weapon, and how this article actually led to a Rosary renewal. As students are heading back to school, we check back in with Nicole Neilly of Parents Defending Education about some of the critical issues facing our kids today, as she points out: ‘The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.’ Father Roger Landry also offers an inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday’s Gospel. Catch the show every Saturday at 7amET/5pmET on EWTN radio!
https://thecatholicassociation.org/podcast/ep-175-tca-team-talks-rosary-extremists-nicki-neilly-on-parents-defending-education/
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1. Abortion nonprofit tightens pill rules, Providers: Restriction to states where procedure is legal will hurt patients, By Caroline Kitchener, The Washington Post, August 26, 2022, Pg. A1
New restrictions from one of the country’s largest abortion funding organizations could add new obstacles for many patients in antiabortion states seeking the procedure elsewhere.
Since Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, patients have flooded clinics in states where abortion is legal — with many driving long distances to receive a medication abortion, a two-part regimen that includes mifepristone and misoprostol. These patients usually take the mifepristone in the clinic before driving home with the misoprostol, to be taken between 24 and 48 hours later.
The National Abortion Federation and its NAF Hotline Fund will now require patients who receive their funding to take both abortion pills in a state where abortion is legal, according to emails sent on Aug. 22 and obtained by The Washington Post. The nonprofit, which is backed largely by billionaire Warren Buffett, helped fund at least 10 percent of all abortions in the United States in 2020. The new rules could impact thousands of patients a year, providers say.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/08/25/national-abortion-federation-restrictions/
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2. Transgender Patients vs. Religious Doctors, By The Wall Street Journal, August 26, 2022, Pg. A14, Editorial
The Little Sisters of the Poor were a cause célèbre during President Obama’s tenure, and they’re still in court defending religious exceptions to ObamaCare’s contraceptive mandate. Progressives don’t merely want to win the country’s culture wars. They want to impose a Carthaginian peace.
The latest evidence is a case involving the Franciscan Alliance that was heard a few weeks ago by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The alliance is a Catholic hospital system, mostly in Indiana, founded by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration. As the alliance argues in its brief, in 2016 the government interpreted ObamaCare’s nondiscrimination provisions “to require doctors and hospitals nationwide to perform and insure gender-transition procedures and abortions or else be liable for ‘sex’ discrimination.”
Specifically, the feds read the law to require that services be offered on an equal basis. “If a gynecologist performs a hysterectomy for a woman with uterine cancer,” the alliance’s brief says, “she must do the same for a woman who wants to remove a healthy uterus to live as a man.”
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This cultural clash isn’t going away, and the country is in for more trouble if progressives can’t rediscover the principle of pluralism. The government’s appeal shows a bloody-mindedness that is difficult to fathom. A second pending case, similar but in the Eighth Circuit, involves the Religious Sisters of Mercy, who run a nonprofit clinic in Michigan.
The government spent years trying to shove birth control into the health plans of the Little Sisters, so perhaps no one should be surprised that it’s fighting exemptions for the Franciscan Alliance and the Sisters of Mercy. But seriously, why not leave the nuns alone? We’d love to hear the Catholic President Biden’s answer.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/transgender-patients-vs-religious-doctors-franciscan-alliance-catholics-nuns-religious-liberty-biden-administration-11661444493?
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3. Demands might be illegal, By Sharon Fast Gustafson, The Washington Post, August 26, 2022, Pg. A20, Letter to the Editor
The Aug. 22 news article “Workers demand that Google expand abortion protections post-Roe” reported demands that various businesses provide travel or relocation benefits for abortion and that they halt donations to antiabortion groups. The demands are misguided.
An employer providing a financial benefit to those who travel to end a pregnancy, while not providing the same financial benefit to those who travel to maintain a pregnancy or care for a child in utero, can be pregnancy discrimination under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Obama-era Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance clearly states as much. The demanded benefits may violate the Americans With Disabilities Act as well.
“Antiabortion groups” is a term applied to pregnancy centers that exist to meet pregnant women’s needs so they will not feel forced to choose abortion. What pro-choice person would oppose pregnant women’s empowerment to make a choice between possible options, rather than to feel her only choice is abortion? Americans hold a wide range of beliefs relating to abortion. We should respect others’ rights to disagree with us, and elect lawmakers who agree with us. However, giving in to the reported demands might violate the law — and will deprive some women of options they desire.
Sharon Fast Gustafson is immediate past general counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/08/25/abortion-care-demands-might-violate-law/
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4. Google Maps will label clinics that provide abortion services, The company had come under fire for sending users to crisis pregnancy centers, which do not provide abortions, By Gerrit De Vynck, The Washington Post, August 25, 2022, 5:58 PM
Google will begin specifically labeling medical clinics and hospitals that provide abortion care in its Maps app and websites.
The move comes in response to years of complaints from users and abortion advocates that its search results for abortion care often return links to crisis pregnancy centers that do not provide abortions and sometimes actively try to dissuade people from getting them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/25/google-maps-abortions/
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5. Knights of Malta joust with ‘arbitrary’ Vatican intervention, By The Pillar, August 25, 2022
As Pope Francis prepares to announce his decision on the future of the Order of Malta, senior knights have warned that a slate of Vatican-imposed changes to its leadership have left the order’s sovereignty in shreds, and drawn the authority of the order’s new leader – Lieutenant Grand Master John Dunlap – into question.
Francis is expected to direct the knights soon to convene a chapter meeting, at which they will be expected to ratify a draft constitution approved by the pope before the summit. Ahead of the impending chapter, the pope has already appointed an interim leader for the Order of Malta, and his cardinal delegate reshuffled the heads of the group’’s priories around the world.
But senior members of the order have been quietly, but frantically, pushing back — begging the pope to reconsider proposals for their future governance, and warning that Vatican “arbitrary interference” in their affairs has divided their members, and pushed beyond limits the balance between the order’s sovereign legal status and its religious identity.
Some leaders warned the pope this month that plans under papal consideration might cause even “a break-up of the Order of Malta” itself.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/knights-of-malta-joust-with-arbitrary
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6. Poland’s synod report says Catholics want change, but not to doctrine, By Luke Coppen, The Pillar, August 25, 2022
Catholics in Poland want the Church to change the way it functions but not its doctrine or structure.
That is the conclusion of Poland’s national synod synthesis, unveiled on Aug. 25 at a press conference at Jasna Góra, home to the revered icon of the Black Madonna.
The 23-page document summarized discussions held during the diocesan phase of the two-year global process leading to the 2023 synod on synodality in Rome.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/polands-synod-report-says-catholics
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7. Father’s civil claim against Cardinal Pell and Australian archdiocese to go forward, By AC Wimmer, Catholic News Agency, August 25, 2022, 7:15 AM
An Australian court on Wednesday ruled that a man can sue the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and Cardinal George Pell for nervous shock over the alleged sexual abuse of his late son.
The man is the father of a former choirboy, who prosecutors alleged had been abused by Pell. His son died from an accidental drug overdose in 2014, having never made a complaint against Pell.
The father is seeking compensation in a civil case against the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and the 81-year-old Pell, who served as archbishop of Melbourne from 1996 to 2001.
According to court documents, the father claims his son was abused by Pell and died from a heroin overdose “caused by the psychological impact of the abuse.” In turn, he says, he suffered nervous shock for which he is making a claim against the archdiocese and the cardinal.
Australia’s High Court unanimously overturned Pell’s conviction for alleged sexual abuse on April 7, 2020. The cardinal, who has always maintained his innocence, was released after more than 13 months of imprisonment and returned to Rome, where he had served as the Vatican’s economy czar.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252119/father-civil-claim-against-cardinal-pell-and-australian-archdiocese
__________________________________________________________TCA Media Monitoring provides a snapshot from national newspapers and major Catholic press outlets of coverage regarding significant Catholic Church news and current issues with which the Catholic Church is traditionally or prominently engaged. The opinions and views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Catholic Association. |
