1. We’re All Jews Now, By William McGurn, The Wall Street Journal, September 13, 2022, Pg. A13, Opinion
In mid-1960s Brooklyn, my dad was stopped at a traffic light when my brothers and I noticed a group of odd-looking men on the street corner, all with long beards, dark coats and hats. “Who are they?” we asked, pointing.
My father said something along the lines of “they are like us.” We didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. What he meant was that their strong religious beliefs made them look strange to society—and as Catholics we did too, even if our views weren’t manifested in our clothing.
More than 60 years later, these words come back to me as Yeshiva University was granted an 11th-hour reprieve Friday by the Supreme Count. The school had filed an emergency petition with Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Sept. 2, hoping to stay a Manhattan judge’s order that the university grant official recognition to the Yeshiva University Pride Alliance in accord with New York City’s Human Rights Law. The school had decided an official LGBTQ student club wouldn’t be consistent with Torah values at the heart of its identity.
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The general idea behind New York’s court ruling and human-rights law seems to be that a religious institution’s admission to American society can require the jettisoning of certain convictions when they clash with the prevailing secular orthodoxy. In this light, Yeshiva University’s insistence on Orthodox Jewish practice and principle looks hopelessly parochial.
But the Constitution offers a profoundly different understanding. The American promise isn’t only universal freedom for each man to worship God in his own way—but the right to come together freely to form self-governing entities to that purpose. That’s a kind of universalism too. And its reigning impulse is accommodation.
This is the universalism my father alluded to when he recognized a kinship with those Orthodox Jews on that Brooklyn corner so many years ago. The issue is only secondarily about who’s right about Jewish law, or whether the YU Pride Alliance should be recognized. The real issue is far more consequential.
It’s whether Jews—or any other religious community—decide such questions for themselves.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/were-all-jews-now-supreme-court-free-exercise-yeshiva-university-lgbtq-student-club-judaism-pride-emergency-petition-11663016097?
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2. Russia’s war in Ukraine the backdrop to pope’s Kazakh visit, By Nicole Winfield and Kostya Manenkov, Associated Press, September 13, 2022, 7:37 AM
Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Holy See’s strained relations with China are the backdrop to Pope Francis’ visit this week to the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan, where he is ministering to a tiny Catholic community and participating in an interfaith conference aimed at promoting peace and dialogue.
Francis arrived Tuesday in the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan to meet with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev during the state visit portion of the three-day trip. On Wednesday and Thursday, he participates in an interfaith meeting with more than 100 delegations of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Shinto and other faith groups from 50 countries.
The most noteworthy aspects of Francis’ visit might be missed opportunities: Francis was supposed to have met with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church on the sidelines of the conference. But Patriarch Kirill, who has justified the war in Ukraine, cancelled his trip last month.
Francis is also going to be in the Kazakh capital at the same time as Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is making his first foreign visit since the coronavirus pandemic.
Xi is not attending the religious congress. On the pope’s flight to Kazakhstan, Francis was asked about a possible meeting with Xi and replied: “I don’t have any news about this. But I am always ready to go to China.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russias-war-in-ukraine-the-backdrop-to-popes-kazakh-visit/2022/09/12/243542e8-330e-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html
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3. Hungary’s government tightens rules regulating abortion, By Justin Spike, Associated Press, September 13, 2022, 7:12 AM
Hungary’s right-wing government has issued a decree which will require doctors to present women requesting an abortion with fetal vital signs, an obligation that tightens the country’s relatively liberal abortion rules.
The decree issued on Monday states that health care providers must provide pregnant women with “a clearly identifiable indication of fetal vital signs” before proceeding with any abortion procedure. The regulation enters into force on Sept. 15.
In a statement on Monday, the Interior Ministry said that “nearly two-thirds of Hungarians associate the beginning of a child’s life with the first heartbeat,” and that modern equipment can detect heartbeats early in pregnancy which can provide “more comprehensive information for pregnant women.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hungarys-government-tightens-rules-regulating-abortion/2022/09/13/f27bc80c-3354-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html
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4. The Pro-Life Movement Needs to Be More Realistic, By Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg, September 12, 2022, 1:53 PM, Opinion
For nearly 50 years, those of us who favor legal protection for children in the womb have asked the US Supreme Court to allow abortion policy to be set through democratic debate. Now we’re having that debate, and strategists in both parties say we’re losing it.
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The debate has also focused on the issues where the public most favors legal abortion: on abortions early in pregnancy, on cases of threats to the mother’s life, on rape and incest. It’s not dwelling on the aspects of abortion that incline most people toward restrictions: whether it should be government funded, used for sex selection or allowed late in pregnancy.
Pro-lifers and Republicans should do what they can to change this focus, even before the elections are over. But that will require adjustments from two different groups. Passionate pro-lifers, in their impatience at what they recognize to be a grave injustice, are forgetting the need for patient persuasion of the public. Republicans who consider themselves pragmatists, on the other hand, are making a practical mistake in assuming that by not talking about their view of abortion, they can make the issue go away.
Both groups should converge on an approach that has served them well in the past: pro-life incrementalism.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-pro-life-movementneeds-to-be-more-realistic/2022/09/12/1e031fe0-329f-11ed-a0d6-415299bfebd5_story.html
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5. New York archdiocese: ‘Vos estis’ Hubbard records can’t be turned over in sex abuse lawsuit, Are ‘Vos estis’ records protected by the First Amendment? The New York archdiocese says they are., By The Pillar, September 12, 2022, 4:34 PM
The Archdiocese of New York argued in an Albany courtroom on Friday that records compiled during a Vatican-ordered investigation into a retired bishop are protected by the First Amendment, and can not be turned over in response to a subpoena in a sexual abuse lawsuit.
The case raises questions about the confidentiality of the Vos estis lux mundi process, promulgated by Pope Francis in 2019 as a mechanism for investigating allegations of abuse or misconduct against bishops.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/new-york-archdiocese-vos-estis-hubbard-records-cant-be-turned-over-in-sex-abuse-lawsuit/
__________________________________________________________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. |
