1. High court strikes law restricting abortions.
By Associated Press, The Washington Post, May 1, 2019, Pg. A2
The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a state law restricting access to drug-induced abortions is unconstitutional, the latest decision by the state’s highest court striking down abortion restrictions adopted by the Republican-controlled legislature.
https://www.washingtonpost.
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2. Rural Catholic church defies Sri Lanka threats, holds Mass.
By The Associated Press, April 30, 2019, 8:04 PM
The small village in eastern Sri Lanka held likely the first Mass since Catholic leaders closed all their churches for fear of further attacks. Under incredibly tight security, worshippers watched a priest be ordained as they hoped for a future when Mass wouldn’t require hundreds of troops armed with assault rifles to defend it.
“People wanted to celebrate Mass, they wanted to participate in this, but they — even myself — were afraid,” Father Norton Johnson told Associated Press journalists who witnessed the Mass. “However, security personnel gave us good protection.”
The Mass in Thannamunai, about 225 kilometers (140 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo, had been planned at least two weeks earlier to mark the ordination with the participation of some 200 priests. They had expected thousands to attend the ceremony at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church.
https://www.washingtonpost.
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3. Truth-Telling and Big Abortion.
By George Weigel, First Things, May 1, 2019
For over a half-century, what styles itself the “pro-choice” movement has thrived because of its extraordinary ability to mask what it’s really about—the willful taking of innocent human lives in abortion—through various rhetorical deceptions.
Planned Parenthood clinicians ask frightened and often ignorant young women, “Would you like us to restore your period?” Legislators in thrall to Big Abortion dollars vie to keep sidewalk counselors away from abortuaries, in order to maintain the pretense that what goes on inside those chop-shops involves no more than unwanted “tissue.” The governor of New York celebrates the passage of a bill that would legally permit abortions up to the moment of birth because this is all a matter of “women’s reproductive health.”
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Unplanned tells the story of Abby Johnson, a former Planned Parenthood clinic director and onetime Planned Parenthood employee-of-the-year, who became a pro-life activist after being called from her safe, euphemism-ridden director’s office to assist in a “procedure.” Watching what was indisputably a human creature trying desperately to avoid the instruments of impending intrauterine murder, Abby Johnson saw the truth of what abortion does, as what she described as a “perfect baby” was sucked out of the womb. She then had the honesty, and courage, to acknowledge what she had learned, leave her remunerative Planned Parenthood job, and try to teach others the truth that had seized her imagination.
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Hollywood’s rating system labeled Unplanned “R,” presumably because of its devastating first scene, where Abby Johnson meets the truth about abortion. That scene, and indeed the whole film, should be watched most carefully by men, who have benefited for far too long from Big Abortion and its wicked language games.
https://www.firstthings.com/
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4. U.S. religious freedom body wants China sanctioned for human rights abuses.
By Christopher White, Crux, May 1, 2019
China has been singled out by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) for its attacks on religion and human rights in its newly released annual report.
In its 20th annual report, released on Monday, the Commission offered a bleak picture of oppressed conditions for practicing faith for believers of all stripes in the world’s most populous country.
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The report, which by law is required to be submitted by May 1 of each year, comes after the recent 20th anniversary of the International Religious Freedom Act, which its authors says regrettably spans “a generation of cruel and unrelenting treatment [of individuals] because of their beliefs.”
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-
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5. Church in Latin America faces crises from without and within.
By Inés San Martín, Crux, May 1, 2019
There’s no such thing as a dull moment when it comes to the Catholic Church in Latin America, Pope Francis’s backyard and home to an estimated 40 percent of the world’s 1.3 billion Catholics.
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Tuesday was, once again, a day of revolt and protest in Venezuela, where an ongoing crisis has led a country with the world’s 10th largest oil reserve into a place where an estimated 96 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
With Juan Guaido, leader of the opposition and proclaimed president by the General Assembly leading the Operación Libertad, or Operation Freedom, hundreds of thousands took to the streets with the support of at least one military base that revolted against President Nicolas Maduro, who succeeded Hugo Chavez.
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The bishops, who are gathered in their national assembly from April 29 to May 1, are expected to release a statement during the last day of the meeting, and at press time they hadn’t yet made any official comments on Tuesday’s revolt.
However, the Venezuelan bishops in the past have been very vocal against Maduro.
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Bishop Silvio Jose Baez, auxiliary of Managua, Nicaragua, arrived in Rome on Tuesday after being “exiled” by Pope Francis, who requested the prelate move to the Eternal City on April 4.
Though no official explanation was given by the Vatican, Baez is known for being one of the most critical voices within the local bishops’ conference against President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo.
