TCA Podcast, – “Conversations with Consequences,” Episode 118 – Noelle Mering Talks ‘Awake Not Woke’ & Ashley Mcguire On Dangers Of Kids Wearing Masks
 
Dr. Grazie Christie and TCA co-host Leigh Snead talk with Noelle Mering of the Ethics and Public Policy Center’s Theology of Home project about the challenges facing parents and students in the wake of critical race theory and how best to combat this ‘woke ideology’ infiltrating schools across the country. TCA colleague and co-host Ashley McGuire also joins to discuss her recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, It’s 98 Degrees Out. Why Is My Child Wearing a Mask? We also talk with a young Cuban-American millennial Stephanie Almeida about the ongoing Cuban protests that have sparked government crackdown. 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-118-noelle-mering-talks-awake-not-woke-ashley-mcguire-on-dangers-of-kids-wearing-masks/
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1. More Canadian Churches Burn in ‘Suspicious’ Fires, Police are searching for suspects in a series of church burnings that have occurred following discoveries of indigenous unmarked graves, By Vipal Monga and Kim Mackrael, The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2021, 8:51 AM
 
A Coptic Orthodox church burned to the ground in the Canadian province of British Columbia on Monday, the latest in a string of church fires in this country deemed “suspicious” by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
 
Police in Canada are investigating more than 15 fires that have damaged or destroyed churches in recent weeks, but in most cases they have yet to name suspects or offer an official motive to the wave of suspected arson that has targeted Christian churches across the country.
 
No one has taken credit for the fires, but politicians and law-enforcement officials have speculated that the churches are being targeted by those angry about the recent discovery of unmarked graves at schools for indigenous children that were run by the Roman Catholic Church. In most cases, police have said they don’t have evidence the fires are linked to the graves.
 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-canadian-churchesburn-in-suspicious-fires-11627044714?
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2. Pope Francis, the Latin Mass and My Family, We are loyal children of the church on the receiving end of a harsh punishment., By Matthew Walther, The Wall Street Journal, July 23, 2021, Pg. A15, Opinion
 
The stable Latin Mass communities to which families like mine belong would have been unrecognizable to traditionalist Catholics in the 1980s and ’90s. In those days many drove several hours to sparsely attended Masses celebrated at odd hours in American Legion halls or the basements of private homes. Some families might have come with the priest in tow, carrying him to the next stop like a frontier clergymen.
 
Today many young priests celebrate the traditional Mass daily.
 

 
Pope Benedict XVI created this world.
 

 
Now Pope Francis is set to put an end to this.
 

 
My family and thousands like us are obedient sons and daughters of the church. We cheerfully make sacrifices for the faith, but now we are on the receiving end of a harsh punishment that would never be meted out to those who openly defy papal teaching on abortion, for instance.
 

 
Now we wait. After a half-century collapse in vocations, how will Rome treat newly ordained priests who must now ask permission to say the traditional Mass? If they are rebuffed, then what? Regardless of what happens, this was not the future many of us attached to the traditional Mass hoped for. The vans might be full, but one should not be surprised if the trips soon become longer.
 
https://www.wsj.com/articles/pope-francis-latin-mass-novus-ordo-vetus-ordo-summorum-pontificum-catholic-liturgy-11626983218?
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3. Mississippi argues Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade, By Emily Wagster Pettus, Associated Press, July 22, 2021
 
The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn its landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide and let states decide whether to regulate abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb, the office of Mississippi’s Republican attorney general argued in papers filed Thursday with the high court.
 
“Under the Constitution, may a State prohibit elective abortions before viability? Yes. Why? Because nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and four of her attorneys wrote in the brief.
 
The arguments are a direct challenge to the central finding of the court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and its 1992 decision in a Pennsylvania abortion case. Both rulings said states may not put an undue burden on abortion before viability. The Mississippi attorneys argue that the rulings are “egregiously wrong.”
 
https://apnews.com/article/health-abortion-us-supreme-court-mississippi-57342eb0af27efe5c7cda5062105bd7f
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4. Mississippi Brief in Crucial Supreme Court Abortion Case: Overturn Roe and Casey, By John Mccormack, National Review, July 22, 2021, 4:53 PM
 
On Thursday afternoon, Mississippi attorney general Lynn Fitch filed a brief in the most important Supreme Court abortion case in three decades.
 
In the brief defending the constitutionality of Mississippi’s law prohibiting abortions after 15 weeks of gestation (with exceptions for when the life or physical health of the mother is endangered and in cases of severe fetal abnormalities that would prove fatal to the child), Attorney General Fitch argues that the Supreme Court’s Roe and Casey decisions should be overturned and state legislatures should be allowed to pass laws protecting the lives of human beings in the womb.
 
If the Court isn’t willing to allow legislatures to pass any rational law protecting the lives of unborn children, the attorney general argues, the Supreme Court should at the very least reject the “unworkable” and “arbitrary” line banning any prohibition on abortion before viability. 
 
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/mississippi-brief-in-crucial-supreme-court-abortion-case-overturn-roe-and-casey/
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5. New Mass rules begin their ‘study period.’ How long will it last?, By JD Flynn and Ed. Condon, The Pillar, July 22, 2021
 
With few exceptions, most U.S. bishops have responded with something of a punt to the promulgation of Traditionis custodes, a piece of canonical legislation from Pope Francis which overhauls the Church’s approach to the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.
 

 
And while bishops may eventually issue long-term plans for restricting Masses in the manner Pope Francis prescribes, most — even those who are not usually identified as supporters of the usus antiquior —  seem in very little hurry to do anything.
 
There are probably a few reasons for that.
 

 
First, bishops who have seen tremendous discontent about the norms of Traditionis custodes are unlikely to want to bring the protests to their own door if they can help it. When they do make policies about the “Latin Mass,” they’re going to want to get it right, and they’re going to want to be prepared for the frustration that will bring to bear.
 
Second, the motu proprio may be clear in its broad aims, but it is full of questions at the granular level.
 

 
There will likely be workshops and guidebooks offered in the months to come on the implementation of the pope’s new norms, probably with competing viewpoints about how to interpret certain provisions. A few prevailing models will likely shake out.
 
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/new-mass-rules-begin-their-study
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6. Cardinal Burke questions Pope Francis’ authority to eliminate the Traditional Latin Mass, By Alejandro Bermudez, Catholic News Agency, July 22, 2021, 7:15 PM
 
In a 19-point statement regarding Pope Francis’ motu proprio Traditionis Custodes, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke called the restrictions on the Traditional Latin Mass “severe and revolutionary,” and questioned the pope’s authority to revoke use of the rite.
 
Cardinal Burke, in his July 22nd statement on the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, asked if the pope could “juridically abrogate” the Traditional Latin Mass. The July 16 motu proprio Traditionis custodes, he said, “places restrictions” on the Traditional Mass “which signal its ultimate elimination.”
 
He argued that “the fullness of power (plenitudo potestatis) of the Roman Pontiff is the power necessary to defend and promote the doctrine and discipline of the Church,” but “is not ‘absolute power’ which would include the power to change doctrine or to eradicate a liturgical discipline which has been alive in the Church since the time of Pope Gregory the Great and even earlier.”
 
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248472/cardinal-burke-questions-pope-francis-authority-to-eliminate-the-traditional-latin-mass
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7. Ninth Circuit favors Washington church in case against state abortion coverage mandate, By Matt Hadro, Catholic News Agency, July 22, 2021, 5:03 PM
 
A Washington church won its case against a state abortion coverage mandate on Thursday, in a ruling by a federal appeals court.
 
Cedar Park Church in Bothell, Washington had filed a complaint in March 2019 regarding a state law that required employers – including churches – to cover abortions if their health plans also included maternity coverage. While state law allowed religious groups not to pay for abortion coverage, it required it to be available to enrollees; the church argued that it could not find a health plan without abortion coverage included.
 
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday ruled that the church had “sufficient” cause to claim an injury in the case, and that injury was “fairly traceable to SB 6219,” the state abortion coverage mandate.
 
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/248470/ninth-circuit-favors-washington-church-in-case-against-state-abortion-coverage-mandate
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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.
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