1. Pregnancy Care Centers in the Crosshairs, By Grazie Pozo Christie, Real Clear Politics, June 16, 2022, Opinion
What would it be like to go to work in the morning and find a death threat spray-painted across the façade of your office? What would it be like knowing that a facility just like yours was recently fire-bombed near Buffalo, New York? Would you keep showing up? Would you continue to put yourself in danger?
Maybe you could, if you knew you were saving fragile lives and helping vulnerable women and girls each day. Maybe you could, if you were very brave.
These are the hard questions facing the volunteers and staff at a pregnancy care center in South Florida where I volunteer. It was recently vandalized with spray-painted threats. Like other pregnancy care centers, our facility assists under-resourced pregnant women and families. Our clients are already struggling to make ends meet. Unlike the nearby Planned Parenthood, our center offers real choice. While Planned Parenthood offers exactly one solution for parents in this situation – abortion, and cash up front, please! – our center offers material necessities, parental education, assistance in accessing obstetric care, ultrasounds, and adoption referrals for those who don’t feel they are prepared to parent. All free, of course. And the mothers who nevertheless choose to have an abortion are always welcomed back with open arms for post-abortion grief counseling when and if they need it.
These are the works of mercy that have sparked the ire of hate groups like the one that claimed responsibility for the recent arson at a Wisconsin pregnancy care center. The vandals scrawl a variant of the same phrase at each site: “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either.” The group’s name – Jane’s Revenge – was painted across our facility’s wall. Their communique, as issued via journalist Robert Evans, reads, in part: “We have run thin on patience and mercy…we [shall] adopt increasingly extreme tactics to maintain freedom over our own bodies.” These are the kinds of words used by ideologues and extremists who are, indeed, ready to use violence to cleanse the world of the people who disagree with them.
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These acts must be prosecuted just as vigorously as any other act of violence – including those which have been committed against abortion facilities in the past. Violence is contagious and once unleashed, can grow exponentially. That’s one reason it must never be tolerated, from anyone.
This is a scary time for pregnancy center employees and volunteers. But those who stand the most to lose are our clients: the working poor, many of them immigrants without legal status, who long to welcome their beloved children into life but are beset by difficulties on every side. At a pregnancy care center, their longing is taken seriously and addressed. Our volunteers move heaven and earth each day to see that the poor and marginalized can make room in their lives for a new little son or daughter in the same joyous way that affluent and middle-class couples do. The recent outbreak of violence targeting these centers is not only a sign of an increasingly intolerant society, but it also threatens to shut down their critical and compassionate work.
Grazie Pozo Christie, M.D. is a Senior Fellow for The Catholic Association.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2022/06/16/pregnancy_care_centers_in_the_crosshairs_147752.html
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2. US Catholics gave $13 million to Peter’s Pence collection in 2021, By Hannah Brockhaus, Catholic News Agency, June 16, 2022, 4:11 AM
Catholics in the United States made the largest contribution to the Vatican’s Peter’s Pence fund in 2021, with a donation of $13 million, representing almost 30% of all donations.
The income of the pope’s charitable fund increased overall by 2.9 million euros in 2021, quashing an earlier prediction that contributions would decrease by 15% from the year before.
According to a report published on Thursday, Peter’s Pence received a total of 46.9 million euros ($48.8 million) in 2021.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251560/us-catholics-gave-13-dollars-million-to-peter-s-pence-collection-in-2021
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3. Biden Seeks to Strengthen LGBT Protections With Executive Order, Effort aims to blunt effects of state-level GOP transgender laws and practice of ‘conversion therapy’, By Catherine Lucey, The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2022, 5:50 PM
President Biden signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at improving protections for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people that includes efforts to counter GOP-led state laws regarding transgender youths.
The order charges the Department of Health and Human Services with “protecting LGBTQI+ children and families from attacks on their access to health care” and directs the department to release new policies for states on how to expand access to healthcare for those patients. The Democratic president is also asking the Education Department to release a sample school policy for “achieving full inclusion” for those students.
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Those laws include bans on transgender girls from competing in female sports at schools and on providing medical care such as hormone blockers and other treatments, as well as curriculum restrictions. The order focuses on healthcare access and school policies but doesn’t address sports bans specifically.
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The move also seeks to reduce the practice known as “conversion therapy,” which attempts to change a person’s sexual orientation to heterosexual through psychological or spiritual means.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-seeks-to-strengthen-lgbt-protections-with-executive-order-11655312068?
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4. Pope cracks down on new Catholic religious start-ups, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, June 15, 2022
Pope Francis has taken another step to reign in new religious groups in the Catholic Church after their unregulated proliferation in recent decades led to abuses in governance that allowed spiritual and sexual misconduct to go unchecked.
Francis issued a new decree published Wednesday that requires prior Vatican approval for bishops to erect new associations of the faithful, often the first step in the creation of a new apostolic society or institute of consecrate life.
The decree follows a similar one issued in 2020 that required prior Vatican approval for diocesan-level religious orders, suggesting the Vatican was now cracking down even further to better regulate the origins of these new forms of religious life and take the decisions about them out of the hands of local bishops.
https://apnews.com/article/pope-francis-religion-0fa95f0b77f94fd506719fef3b119c3c
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5. MAP: Vandalism attacks mount at pro-life centers across U.S., By Jonah McKeown, Catholic News Agency, June 15, 2022, 2:24 PM
Beginning in early May, vandalism attacks — such as graffiti, property damage, threats, and theft — against pro-life pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and other pro-life organizations have been reported across the country.
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The interactive map above shows notable attacks in the United States that have been reported in the past two months. The map includes attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and organizations, as well as attacks on Catholic churches that were related to the Church’s pro-life stance. Click on the individual dots to get details about each incident. This map will be continuously updated, so check back often.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251553/map-vandalism-attacks-continue-at-pro-life-centers-across-us
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6. White House condemns pro-abortion violence after new Jane’s Revenge threats, By Catholic News Agency, June 15, 2022, 4:51 PM
The words “Jane’s Revenge” have been a calling card in recent incidents of vandalism of pro-life pregnancy centers across the country, but now the name has popped up again at the bottom of a new “communique” that was released threatening “open season” on pro-life clinics.
The White House has condemned the threat Wednesday, according to The Daily Wire.
White House Assistant Press Secretary Alexandra LaManna told the Daily Wire that “Violence and destruction of property have no place in our country under any circumstances, and the President denounces this.”
“We should all agree that actions like this are completely unacceptable regardless of our politics,” she said.
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The statement threatening pro-life pregnancy centers was posted on abolitionmedia.noblogs.org and is dated June 14.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251555/white-house-condemns-pro-abortion-violence-after-new-janes-revenge-threats
___________________________________________________________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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