Tallahassee, Fla., Jan 16, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A bill presented to the Florida House of Representatives on Jan. 8 would require couples to review a state-published “Healthy Marriage Guide” before tying the knot.
“The statistics have been staggering over the years for divorces and kind of the subsequent problems that go along with that, like children who don’t have families that are put together,” said Republican Representative, Clay Yarborough, according to CBS 47.
Yarborough introduced the bill to the state House days after Republican Kelli Stargel introduced a version of it to the Senate.
The legislation would establish the Marriage Education Committee, who will be appointed by Florida’s Senate president, state speaker of the house, and the state’s governor. The six-person committee would develop the guide, serving a maximum term of one year.
Couples would be required to read the guide as a prerequisite for a marriage license. The guide would cover communication skills, fiscal control, conflict management, spousal abuse, and parenting responsibilities.
Additionally, the guide would offer marital advice and resources for extra premarital education or for potentially failing marriages.
The legislation’s supporters say that money for the project will be funded by private sources, but the financial backers have not been clearly identified.
If passed, the act would take effect in July 1, 2018.
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Nell O’Leary, managing editor of Blessed Is She. / Therese Westby
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Feb 3, 2022 / 11:01 am (CNA).
When Nell O’Leary sat down with her team to brainstorm a new book for Catholic women, she said they felt drawn to the theme of “identity.”
“This one kept coming back, this idea of identity, of who we are as Catholic women, made in God’s image and likeness,” O’Leary, the managing editor of Blessed Is She, told CNA. This identity, she said, gets battered by the world “with all these lies that you are what you look like, you are your social media following, you are how successful you are, you are how many kids you have.”
Instead, O’Leary says, every woman is unconditionally loved as a “beloved daughter of God.”
This message is central to Made New: 52 Devotions for Catholic Women, a weekly devotional released in December. The book houses personal stories from five writers associated with Blessed Is She (BIS), a “sisterhood” of Catholic women who desire to grow in their faith through prayer and community. Each of the five — O’Leary, Leana Bowler, Brittany Calavitta, Jenna Guizar, and Liz Kelly — focus on a theme under the umbrella of identity: beheld, belong, beloved, believing, and becoming.
While their stories are different, their tone is consistent. Each writer engages the reader with the frank, casual tone of a friend who’s honest about her struggles, hopeful for the future, and, well, confident in her identity.
“I invite you to journey with me, dear sister, to walk through the next fifty-two weeks as we rediscover our value, our worth, and our identity in Our Lord’s eyes,” Guizar, the founder of BIS, writes in the book’s opening. “He is waiting for you and me, and He desires to be in relationship with us. All it takes is a response to His call: yes.”
Each week begins with a short reflection or personal story from one of the writers and concludes with a scripture passage and two questions for the reader to ask herself. Along the way, artwork interrupts the text to greet readers with dusty, muted colors and shapes. The rose-gold cover impresses a feminine touch, along with a pink ribbon bookmark. Leaves and plants adorn the pages, suggesting growth and life made new.
Interior of Made New. Therese Westby
A saint’s calling
If readers come away remembering one thing, O’Leary wants them to believe and remember that “there’s no one way, cookie-cutter way, to become a saint.”
“God is calling you personally, through the circumstances in your life, through the challenges, through the blessings, to grow in holiness in who you are and where you are,” she said. “And to compare yourself to other women and feel like you can’t measure up is simply not where you want to put your energies.”
Instead, she said, God is calling each woman — in her particular, unique life — to become a saint.
Every woman is different, something that the five writers themselves demonstrate. According to O’Leary, they are not all just a “bunch of young moms.” One struggles with infertility, another married later in life, one started a family before marriage, and another has no children.
“I think that however old the reader is, they will find part of their own story,” O’Leary said. “When we write [our stories], we want the reader to actually be able to contemplate and ponder… to kind of find their own story. So you’re not just consuming another person’s content, you’re actually looking at yourself too.”
One story particularly moved O’Leary (even though she compared picking her favorite to “picking a favorite flower”). She pointed to writer Liz Kelly, who shares with readers her diagnosis with multiple sclerosis toward the end of the book.
While Kelly originally “thought that meant her role would become really small,” God “used her in that time and in that diagnosis to broadcast his message even further than she thought,” O’Leary summarized.
She added, “I think the reason I love that story so much is because where we see limitations, God just sees more opportunities for grace.”
Unconditional love
A theme in the book that O’Leary herself touches on is God’s unconditional love — that he loves you as you are right now, regardless of what you do or don’t do, regardless of how your family or friends treat you, regardless of your past or future. He loves you.
“I suppose people in general struggle with the idea of unconditional love because it’s so rarely manifest in our human interaction,” O’Leary said of accepting God’s love. “And so, because the human level of relationship in our lives are fraught with other imperfect people, to really trust in and experience God’s love takes this trust and this faith.”
Her first piece of advice for women who doubt God’s love or think they aren’t good enough is to visit the confessional.
“Get all those embarrassing sins off your chest,” she said. “The priest has heard it all … you can go behind the screen.”
“It’s nothing that’s too embarrassing to bring to the sacrament and really unload yourself of the burden of all those sins and experience God’s grace filling you,” she added. God’s unconditional love can get “so shrouded and clouded by my own, my own humanity, my own mistakes, my own sinfulness.”
Community and Covid
Another topic in the book — and a priority for Blessed Is She as a whole — is community. O’Leary addressed the challenges of community, particularly during the pandemic.
“Living in a global pandemic, so many things being more online, we just see that highlights reel…those drive those envy twinges of, ‘Her life looks perfect. She doesn’t have my struggles,’” she said. “Really puts in wedges in our sisterhood and we need our sisterhood.”
“When we can’t be together, it just starts to look like everyone has it together,” she added. “We don’t.”
O’Leary advised women to read the free daily devotions offered by Blessed Is She. And delete social media apps off of their phones, even if just for the weekend.
“I know that our phones and the internet are wonderful for connecting us, but they’re also really toxic for making it feel more lonely,” she said. “Live the life that’s in front of you.”
The personal
O’Leary talked about her personal life and her own struggle with identity. The fourth of five children, she said she grew up surrounded by high-achieving parents and siblings. While she thought that one day she might have a family, she worked toward becoming an attorney. She ended up marrying her “law school love” and worked as an attorney. Then, she became a stay-at-home mom.
“Realizing that I had hung so much on my identity being what I did, and what the world could see and applaud, that becoming a mom and then eventually staying at home with our kids,” she said. “It’s such a hidden life.”
“The children are not cheering you on, ‘You did a great job!’ there’s no affirmation, there’s no feedback other than the deep satisfaction I guess, that no one went to the ER,” she added.
The experience changed her.
“What I realized that I had to have a big mentality shift from, I’m not what I do and I’m not what I accomplish and I’m not even how my children behave,” she said. “That really, in these hidden moments in prayer with God, to say, ‘I know I’m your beloved daughter. I know I’m made in your image and likeness.’”
CNA Staff, Sep 13, 2020 / 03:14 am (CNA).- The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) has agreed to reverse a policy that barred funding for Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece to be brought to campus as a pro-life speaker.
“The Constitution is clear that public universities can’t discriminate against students for their political or religious beliefs, and we are hopeful that Georgia Tech’s decisive policy changes will set an example for universities around the country to uphold all students’ constitutional rights,” Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins said in a Sept. 10 statement.
The university’s chapter of Students for Life (SFL) during fall 2019 had invited Dr. Alveda King to speak on campus.
King, a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives, frequently speaks on pro-life issues and is director of the pro-life group Civil Rights for the Unborn.
Like many public universities, Georgia Tech collects an activity fee from all students, which the Student Government Association uses to fund campus events. SFL requested $2,346 in funding to bring King to campus.
According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian law firm representing SFL, the Student Government Association questioned SFL’s leadership about the content and viewpoints that King would present at the event. ADF says the student government voiced concerns about King’s views on abortion and gay marriage, and concern that King’s viewpoints might offend some students.
According to ADF, the student government denied SFL’s funding request, stating in part that because King has been involved in religious ministries, her life was “inherently religious.”
ADF sued the university in April 2020 on behalf of Students for Life. On Sept. 2, the university’s board of regents agreed to settle the case.
As part of the settlement, the school revised its policies to state that student activity funding would be viewpoint neutral. Georgia Tech also agreed to pay $50,000, as well as attorney’s fees.
“Thankfully, Georgia Tech has shown its renewed commitment to [First Amendment] principles by taking quick corrective action to revise their policies so that all student organizations are treated fairly, regardless of political or religious views,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer.
“We hope that other universities around the country will ensure their policies meet constitutional muster without the need for a lawsuit.”
Washington D.C., May 18, 2017 / 03:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Within the next 10-20 years, a new and controversial fertility technology called in vitro gametogenesis could make it possible to manipulate skin cells into creating a human baby.
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