1. Church: Guidance counselor is a minister, By Mark A. Kellner, The Washington Times, May 17, 2022, Pg. A2
Attorneys for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Indianapolis told the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday that a guidance counselor fits the “ministerial exemption” allowing religious employers to demand conformity with a church’s doctrine in their private life.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/16/catholic-school-asserts-ministerial-exemption-laws/?
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2. Post-Roe v. Wade Babies Will Need Support, Government can’t do it alone. Fortunately, there’s a wide network of private charities., By Jedd Medefind, The Wall Street Journal, May 17, 2022, Pg. A17, Opinion
The likely end of Roe v. Wade is no finish line; it’s a starting gate. If the Supreme Court hands down an opinion similar to Justice Samuel Alito’s leaked draft, voters at the state level, not federal courts, will decide important questions of policy. One question lies beneath the others: Will we rise to the challenge and help children who would have been aborted but now won’t be?
The number of lives saved would be only a fraction of all U.S. abortions seen in recent years, which top 600,000 annually. Abortion clinics would expand their work in many states. Pill-driven abortions would likely continue to rise. Unintended pregnancies may decrease. But at a minimum we should anticipate tens of thousands of children would be born who wouldn’t have been under Roe—possibly many more.
Many of these children would be welcomed into loving, stable homes—some by their biological parents, others through adoption. But not all. Almost certainly, more children than before would be born into households strained by material poverty. For some, this will include family breakdown, addiction, homelessness and mental illness.
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Building this child- and family-support infrastructure is no small endeavor. But it is a worthy one, equal to any of the great undertakings of the American people. If we join together, the hundreds of thousands of children who would be born as a result of the end of Roe will not only live, they’ll thrive.
Mr. Medefind is president of the Christian Alliance for Orphans. He directed the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives under President George W. Bush.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/post-roe-babies-will-need-support-wade-abortion-adoption-family-foster-services-11652732280?
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3. Pope canonizes 18th-century Indian man who fought against caste system, By Anant Gupta, The Washington Post, May 17, 2022, Pg. A15
An Indian man who converted to Christianity in the 18th century was declared a saint by Pope Francis at a Vatican City ceremony Sunday, making him the first Indian layman to be canonized.
Devasahayam, born into a Hindu family in the south Indian kingdom of Travancore, was baptized in 1745 and went on to fight caste discrimination and advocate for social equality. India’s caste system divides Hindus into four groups, with Dalits, formerly known as untouchables, at the bottom. India’s constitution abolished untouchability in 1950, but caste-based discrimination persists.
The elevation of Devasahayam is significant for India’s Christians; a majority identify as Catholic and many belong to lower castes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/05/16/india-vatican-saint-caste-devasahayam/
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4. Vatican minister visits Ukraine as pope toes delicate line, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, May 17, 2022, 6:56 AM
The Vatican’s foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, is heading to Kyiv this week as the Holy See seeks to balance its concern for Ukrainians amid Russia’s war with its efforts to keep open a channel of dialogue with Moscow.
Gallagher is due to arrive Wednesday and meet Friday with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, a visit that was originally scheduled for before Easter but was postponed after Gallagher came down with COVID-19.
The Vatican said that Gallagher would stop first in Lviv to meet with refugees and regional officials, and then move onto Kyiv for the meeting with Kuleba and to tour the destruction nearby.
The secretariat of state tweeted Tuesday that the visit would mark the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations with Ukraine and show the closeness of the pope and Holy See to Ukraine, “reaffirming the importance of dialogue to reestablish peace.”
The trip comes as the Holy See toes a delicate line in trying to keep alive newly improved ties with the Russian Orthodox Church while offering support to the “martyred” Ukrainian faithful. At the same time, the Holy See is reconciling Pope Francis’ frequent denunciation of the weapons industry and “crazy” recourse to rearming Ukraine with Catholic teaching that says states have a right and duty to repel an “unjust aggressor.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/vatican-minister-visits-ukraine-as-pope-toes-delicate-line/2022/05/17/c1b72e22-d5b3-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html?
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5. Jimmy Lai faces legal ‘marathon’ in ‘fundamentally changed’ Hong Kong, By The Pillar, May 16, 2022
Jailed Catholic publisher and pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai faces a “marathon” cycle of court hearings and prison terms, according to his son Sebastian, who told The Pillar that Hong Kong has changed beyond recognition in recent years, amid a government crackdown on civil liberties.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/jimmy-lai-faces-legal-marathon-in?s=r
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6. Medical expert debunks false claims of Planned Parenthood about abortion in El Salvador, By David Ramos, Catholic News Agency, May 16, 2022, 5:30 PM
A Salvadoran medical expert has debunked the false claims about abortion in El Salvador made by a former journalist now working for Planned Parenthood.
In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language sister news agency, Dr. José Miguel Fortín-Magaña Leiva, a psychiatrist and former Director General of the Dr. Roberto Masferrer Institute of Forensic Medicine of El Salvador, said that Kate Smith, a former CBS News reporter who a few weeks ago became Planned Parenthood’s new senior director of news content, “is at best absolutely mistaken when she claims that in El Salvador women are imprisoned and harassed for induced abortions.”
“But even worse,” he continued, Smith is wrong in stating “that those who have suffered a miscarriage are also prosecuted and imprisoned by an infamous law.”
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In a recent interview with CNN, Smith referred to a documentary she made for CBS News in 2020 about El Salvador to predict what the United States would look like if Roe v. Wade were overturned, which a draft majority opinion leaked weeks ago suggests will happen.
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In her report for CBS News, Smith said that since 1998 more than 140 women have been accused of having abortions and ended up in prison with sentences of up to 35 years.
“They wake up and they’re shackled to the hospital bed and there was a police officer there investigating them,” she said.
“Doctors told me when they are looking at a patient, there is no way for them to tell the difference between an induced abortion and a spontaneous miscarriage,” Smith reported.
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However, for Fortín-Magaña “the only logical explanation” for what Smith says “is that what she said is a lie for the propaganda purposes of the organization she works for today.”
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“According to official statistics from the Office of Access to Public Information of the Attorney General’s Office, from 2013 to date there are no women serving jail time for the crime of abortion.”
“This is so because the penalties for abortion are minor and community service can be performed instead,” she said.
“Smith is actually talking about 140 women sentenced to 30 years in prison because it’s the minimum sentence given for crimes of aggravated homicide,” she said.
Larín noted the case of “María de los Ángeles Portillo, who murdered her daughter by suffocating her with a sock; or the recent case of Evelyn Sánchez, who stabbed her newborn baby in the chest.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251259/medical-expert-debunks-false-claims-of-planned-parenthood-about-abortion-in-el-salvador
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7. US Catholic bishops call for ‘honest dialogue’ on ‘persistent evil of racism’ after mass shootings, By Catholic News Agency, May 17, 2022, 5:17 AM
The U.S. Catholic bishops appealed on Monday for “an honest dialogue rooted in Christ” about the “persistent evil of racism” after two mass shootings.
In a May 16 statement, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said that it continued to “advocate for an end to violence,” citing the Church’s consistent appeals for “rational yet effective forms of regulation of dangerous weapons.”
The USCCB issued the statement after a gunman killed 10 people and injured three others on May 14 at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and a shooter killed one person and wounded five others on May 15 at a church in Laguna Woods, California.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251260/us-catholic-bishops-call-for-honest-dialogue-on-persistent-evil-of-racism-after-mass-shootings
___________________________________________________________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. |
