TCA Podcast, – “Conversations with Consequences,” Episode 150 – Archbishop Gudziak Talks Crisis In Ukraine & Ways Catholics Can Help This Lent
With the terrible ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Metropolitan-Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia joins EWTN radio and the TCA team to discuss the situation on the ground as more than a million have already fled the war-torn country and why he thinks negotiating is out of the question. With the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act failing in the Senate this week, TCA colleague Maureen Ferguson joins to discuss this reprehensible legislation, and Ed Whelan of the EPPC also joins with a snapshot of Biden’s Supreme Court pick! Father Roger Landry also offers an inspiring homily for the first Sunday of Lent. Catch the show every Saturday at 7amET/5pmET on EWTN radio!
https://thecatholicassociation.org/podcast/ep-150-archbishop-gudziak-talks-crisis-in-ukraine-ways-catholics-can-help-this-lent/
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1. Ukraine’s Believers and the ‘Christian’ Putin, Pastors in Donbas and Crimea know what faith means to the Russian dictator., By Mindy Belz, The Wall Street Journal, March 4, 2022, Pg. A17, Opinion
Pastor Sergey Perkhalskiy made sure to convert his Christian Hope Church in Kyiv to a bomb shelter before quitting the capital last week. He faced a tough choice: stay with his congregation or leave to protect his family, including his elderly parents. Either way, he says, “we overcome fear by helping each other.” Mr. Perkhalskiy’s church is Pentecostal. Like many Protestant clergy, he knows today’s trauma is a foretaste of tomorrow’s wreckage should Vladimir Putin conquer Ukraine.
Protestant churches have proliferated by the hundreds since Ukraine gained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In recent years, however, Moscow operatives have steadily increased their harassment and intimidation tactics against these congregations. The results: church properties seized, clergy tortured and killed.
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If Mr. Putin’s military campaign prevails, “he will do in all the areas under his control what he has done in Donbas and Crimea,” says former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine John E. Herbst. “That’s very bad news for anyone in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, for any Tatars left from Crimea, and very bad news for evangelicals and for all Protestants living in Ukraine.”
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Ukraine’s Christians vow to engage the fight. Two days into the Russian assault, 10 evangelical seminaries in the region, including five in Ukraine and two in Russia, published a joint statement condemning Mr. Putin for “open and unjustified aggression” and “blatant lies.” Their declaration, if Mr. Putin succeeds in Ukraine, could turn into evidence against them.
Ms. Belz is a former senior editor at World Magazine and author of “They Say We Are Infidels.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraines-believers-and-the-christian-putin-russia-orthodox-evangelical-ukraine-invasion-churches-bomb-shelters-11646339090
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2. Invasion of Ukraine Revives Debate on US Role in the World, Images of Russian bombs hitting Ukrainian neighborhoods, of roads choked with fleeing families, and of some Ukrainian émigrés returning home to defend their nation injected a new urgency into the ongoing policy debate., By Joan Frawley Desmond, National Catholic Register, March 4, 2022
During a March 3 interview with Dr. Grazie Christie of The Catholic Association on EWTN, Metropolitan-Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia directly challenged what he viewed as misguided support for Putin from some U.S. Catholics.
“A lot of faithful conservative Catholics think [Russia] is a defender of traditional values, not realizing that Russia has the highest abortion rate in the world,” as well as a high incidence of “alcoholism, suicide,” said Archbishop Gudziak.
Putin, a former agent of the KGB, the notorious foreign intelligence and domestic security agency of the Soviet Union, has “held power for 22 years,” he said, while noting that the Kremlin has long been accused of ordering the assassination of his political foes, an allegation Moscow strongly disputes. “And people say this guy’s a defender of traditional values? He’s a killer. He’s a sociopath.”
https://www.ncregister.com/news/invasion-of-ukraine-revives-debate-on-us-role-in-the-world
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3. The Catholic Health Association Responds: ‘All Life Is Sacred’, By Sister Mary Haddad, The New York Times, March 4, 2022, Pg. A22, Letter to the Editor
I object to the way “Overturning Roe Isn’t Just About Abortion,” by Katherine Stewart (Opinion guest essay, Sunday Review, Feb. 27), represents how Catholic hospitals care for pregnant women.
Catholics believe that all life is sacred, including the unborn, and Catholic health care has a longstanding commitment to upholding the human dignity of every person. Catholic hospitals do not allow elective abortions. But they do treat life-threatening complications in pregnancy, even if it is foreseen that such action will result in the death of the unborn baby.
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The care Catholic hospitals provide is rooted in a commitment to human dignity for unborn children and their mothers. When complications arise our dedicated providers always try to save both lives. I disagree with the suggestion that clinicians working in Catholic hospitals would callously disregard one for the sake of the other.
(Sister) Mary Haddad is president and chief executive of the Catholic Health Association of the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/03/opinion/letters/climate-change-report.html
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4. Florida Republicans send 15-week abortion ban to governor, By Anthony Izaguirre, Associated Press, March 4, 2022
Abortions after 15 weeks would be banned in Florida under a bill Republican senators sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis late Thursday, capping a bitter debate in the statehouse as a looming U.S. Supreme Court decision may limit abortion rights in America.
DeSantis, a Republican, has previously signaled his support for the proposal and is expected to sign it into law.
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The Florida bill contains exceptions if the abortion is necessary to save a mother’s life, prevent serious injury to the mother or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality. The state currently allows abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy.
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-health-florida-legislature-453b8bf26f091e46487126ba333385e7
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5. Lincoln Bishop Opposes Now-Blocked Gender Identity City Ordinance, Biological sex, wrote Bishop Conley, ‘is not an accident from God or a flaw,’ but rather is ‘a gift that helps us grow close to each other and close to God. What God has created is good, true, and beautiful.’, By Christine Rousselle, Catholic News Agency, March 4, 2022
The Bishop of Lincoln recently spoke out against a city ordinance, recently blocked by a referendum petition, which added “sexual orientation and gender identity” to its list of protected classes.
“The state has a compelling interest in maintaining policies that uphold the scientific fact of human biology and supporting the social institutions and norms that surround it,” Bishop James Conley of Lincoln wrote in a Feb. 25 column, “The Truth will set us free.”
Bishop Conley is a member of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ standing Committee on the Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth.
https://www.ncregister.com/cna/lincoln-bishop-opposes-now-blocked-gender-identity-city-ordinance
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6. U.S. Supreme Court lets Republican defend Kentucky abortion curbs, By Andrew Chung, Reuters, March 3, 2022
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday let Kentucky’s Republican attorney general seek to restore a restrictive abortion law after the state’s Democratic governor dropped defense of the statute when lower courts struck it down.
The justices ruled 8-1 in favor of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, the top legal officer in the state, in his appeal of a lower court’s rejection of his request to intervene in the litigation.
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The 6th Circuit “failed to account for the strength of the Kentucky attorney general’s interest in taking up the defense” of the law, conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the ruling, joined by the other five conservative justices.
Liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer concurred in the judgment, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-supreme-court-lets-kentucky-official-defend-abortion-law-2022-03-03/
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7. Idaho Senate approves Republican bill to ban abortion after six weeks, Lawmakers in at least 11 states have introduced copycat bills modeled after Texas’s six-week abortion ban, By Caroline Kitchener, The Washington Post, March 3, 2022, 2:33 PM
The Idaho Senate on Thursday approved a Republican bill to ban abortion after six weeks, positioning Idaho to become the first state to copy the restrictive Texas law that has prohibited most abortions in the state.
The vote was 28 to 6.
As the Supreme Court considers whether to overturn or significantly weaken Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that guaranteed the right to abortion, Republican lawmakers in at least 11 states have introduced bills modeled after the Texas ban, which empowers private citizens to enforce the law through civil litigation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/03/idaho-abortion-restrictions/
___________________________________________________________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. |
