Month: June 2019

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Global Rosary Relay aims for 1 billion Hail Marys for priests

June 27, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Rome, Italy, Jun 27, 2019 / 01:19 pm (CNA).- The Global Rosary Relay aims to have 1 billion Hail Marys said for the sanctification of priests June 28, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

“This is the world family all joining together as one on Friday and praying for the sanctification of our priests,” Global Rosary Relay founder and organizer Marion Mulhall told CNA June 27.

With prayer locations in more than 70 countries this year, the relay is carefully timed with the recitation of the rosary every half hour.

The relay begins with the joyful mysteries in South Korea and then is passed off to Russia for the luminous mysteries, followed by the sorrowful mysteries in China before continuing on to India, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Uganda, Israel, and many other countries across Europe and the Americas.

“Ten years ago when we began the global rosary relay, we had 24 single locations in 24 countries for the 24 hour clock. This year we have 255 single prayer locations in every single corner of the planet,” Mulhall said. “The whole world is in prayer the whole day.”

“Anybody who prays the rosary on Friday — it doesn’t matter what time it is or where they are — can be pretty much guaranteed that they are joining, even if they may not realize it, with a participating prayer location around the world,” she said.

Mulhall explained that she felt personally called 25 years ago to “promote the priesthood at any price,” and this led to the creation of the World Priest Apostolate which organized campaigns to pray for priests for many years before starting the Global Rosary Relay ten years ago.

Saint Pope John Paul II declared the Feast of the Sacred Heart to be the World Day of Prayer for Priests in 2002. In 2016, the final rosary of the relay was led by the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.

This year, a rosary will be said in Rome at 6pm local time for Pope Francis and his intentions.

Mulhall said that social media live streams and television broadcasts of the rosary on EWTN and other Catholic channels have led to tremendous growth of the rosary relay in recent years.

“Last year, 700 million Hail Marys were prayed and 12-14 million people joined in prayer, so to go for 1 billion Hail Marys is actually not that hard with the help of global TV broadcasts,” she said.

“She [Our Lady] is watching out for her priestly sons all the time and she is always asking us to pray for her most beloved sons,” she said.

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No evidence that Notre-Dame fire was intentional, investigators say

June 27, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Paris, France, Jun 27, 2019 / 10:28 am (CNA).- An initial investigation into the devastating fire that consumed much of Notre-Dame cathedral in April has found no signs of criminal action behind the blaze, French officials said Wednesday.

Chief Prosecutor of Paris Remy Heitz said in a statement that the investigations so far have not been able to pinpoint a cause of the fire but have found no evidence that it was deliberate, the BBC reported. “Deeper investigations” will be carried out, he said.

Officials conducted 100 witness hearings in the initial stage of their investigation, according to CNN. They will now consider the possibility of negligence – including electrical malfunction or a poorly extinguished cigarette – as a cause for the fire.

Shortly before 7 p.m. on April 15, a fire broke out in the iconic Gothic cathedral in Paris. The roof and the spire, which dated to the 19th century, were destroyed. Shortly after midnight April 16, firefighters announced that the cathedral’s main structure had been preserved from collapse.

Major religious and artistic treasures of the cathedral were removed as the fire began, including a relic of the crown of thorns.

Originally built between the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, the landmark cathedral in the French capital is one of the most recognizable churches in the world, receiving more than 12 million visitors each year.

The cathedral was undergoing some restorative work at the time the fire broke out. Officials had been in the process of a massive fundraising effort to renovate the cathedral against centuries of decay, pollution, and an inundation of visitors. French conservationists and the archdiocese announced in 2017 that the renovations needed for the building’s structural integrity could cost as much as $112 million to complete.

Last month the French Senate passed a bill mandating that Notre-Dame be rebuilt as it was before the fire. President Emmanuel Macron had previously called for “an inventive reconstruction” of the cathedral.

Since the adoption of the 1905 law on separation of church and state, which formalized laïcité (a strict form of public secularism), religious buildings in France have been considered property of the state.

More than one billion dollars has been raised for the restoration effort.

The first Mass since the fire was celebrated at the cathedral June 15.

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North Dakota abortion clinic files suit against state requirements 

June 26, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Bismarck, N.D., Jun 27, 2019 / 12:11 am (CNA).- North Dakota’s sole abortion clinic, located in Fargo, is filing a lawsuit against two state laws that it claims force doctors to present false information, and is asking a judge to block the laws’ enforcement.

The complaint is from the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of the American Medical Association, the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, and the clinic’s medical director, Dr. Kathryn Eggleston.

The lawsuit alleges that two state laws, set to go into effect Aug. 1, force doctors to “lie”: one requires doctors to affirm that an unborn baby is a “unique, living human being,” and the other requires doctors to inform patients that reversals of medication abortions are possible.

Medication abortions have become an increasingly common method of abortion in the United States, making up 30-40 percent of all abortions.

North Dakota State Rep. Daniel Johnston said he sponsored the bill so that “women having second thoughts” about going through with a medication abortion know they have options, according to the Associated Press.

The AP reports that Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Utah have passed similar laws that require patients to be informed about medication abortion reversal.

The lawsuit asserts that there is no “credible, scientific evidence” that a medication abortion can be reversed.

Medical abortions involve the taking of two pills – the first pill, mifepristone (RU-486) blocks the progesterone hormone, which is essential for maintaining the health of the baby. The second pill, misoprostol, is taken 24 hours after mifepristone and works to induce contractions in order to expel the baby. Some women, after taking the first pill (mifepristone), experience regret and do not want to follow through with the abortion by taking misoprostol.

A study published last year in Issues in Law and Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal affiliated with the pro-life organization Watson Bowes Research Institute, examined 261 successful abortion pill reversals, and showed that the reversal success rates were 68 percent with a high-dose oral progesterone protocol and 64 percent with an injected progesterone protocol.

Dr. Mary Davenport and Dr. George Delgado, who have been studying the abortion pill reversal procedures since 2009, authored the study. Delgado sits on the board of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and co-founded the Abortion Pill Rescue Network, a coalition of 800 medical providers across the country.

“When I learned about the work of Dr. George Delgado…I jumped right on that. I felt we needed to educate women that they had a choice,” Tammy Taylor, a nurse practitioner at Guiding Star, a women’s health care clinic in Tampa, told Pregnancy Help News this month.

Taylor’s Tampa clinic has provided 15 women so far with abortion pill reversals, some of whom have traveled up to two hours for the procedure, Pregnancy Help News reports.

The director of a women’s clinic in Denver told CNA in April 2018 that she has found the abortion pill reversal protocol to be safe and effective with her patients, and her clinic has successfully treated several women who come in seeking a reversal after taking the first pill.

“I think the fact that we have now over 300 successful reversals is evidence that it works,” nurse practitioner Dede Chism, co-founder and executive director of Bella Natural Women’s Care in Englewood, CO, told CNA at the time.

“This isn’t make-believe and it isn’t coincidental.”

Delgado told the Washington Post that he believed more research should be done on abortion pill reversal, but that he believes there should be nothing to stop doctors from using the progesterone protocol in the meantime.

“(T)he science is good enough that, since we have no alternative therapy and we know it’s safe, we should go with it,” he said.

The pro-life group Heartbeat International has documented numerous cases of successful abortion pill reversals resulting in healthy babies being born. A recent report from Pregnancy Help News, a service of Heartbeat International, said 750 babies have been saved in this manner.

The AMA also took issue with a law that requires physicians to tell patients that abortion terminates “the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being,” a statement that the AMA deemed a “controversial, ideological, and non-medical message.”

North Dakota’s governor signed into law in April a bill that outlaws the common abortion procedure known as “dilation and evacuation,” also known as “dismemberment abortion.”

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Nicaraguan cardinal asks prayers that peace be the fruit of justice

June 26, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Managua, Nicaragua, Jun 26, 2019 / 11:13 pm (CNA).- The Archbishop of Managua encouraged the faithful Monday to pray so that peace in Nicaragua be the fruit of justice.

“Let us pray together so that in Nicaragua peace be the fruit of justice, that the restoration of trust be cemented in lasting and respected agreements based on the truth of the facts, reparation and reintegration of the victims and their families,” Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes Solorzano said in a video posted June 24 by the Archdiocese of Managua.

Earlier this month, Cardinal Brenes said the results of a law granting amnesty to both anti-government activists and security forces will determine whether the legislation is good for the country.

Nicaragua’s unicameral National Assembly passed the amnesty law June 8. Though it has allowed the release of a group of political prisoners, the law has been criticized by the opposition over fears it will also give impunity to troops and paramilitaries responsible for crimes and arbitrary arrests that have taken place during the past 14 months of protests.

The law also requires those released to refrain from future protests.

Deutsche Welle has reported that the released prisoners have not obtained definitive freedom nor have their trials been canceled, which prevents them from going back to work or to studies.

Anti-government protests in Nicaragua began in April 2018. They have resulted in more than 320 deaths, and the country’s bishops mediated on-again, off-again peace talks until they broke down that June.

A new round of dialogue began in February, but the opposition has made the timely release of all protesters a condition of its resumption.

Nicaragua’s crisis began last year after president Daniel Ortega announced social security and pension reforms. The changes were soon abandoned in the face of widespread, vocal opposition, but protests only intensified after more than 40 protestors were killed by security forces.

The pension reforms which triggered the unrest were modest, but protests quickly turned to Ortega’s authoritarian bent.

Ortega has been president of Nicaragua since 2007, and oversaw the abolition of presidential term limits in 2014.

The Church had suggested that elections, which are not scheduled until 2021, be held this year, but Ortega has ruled this out.

Ortega was a leader in the Sandinista National Liberation Front, which had ousted the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and fought US-backed right-wing counterrevolutionaries during the 1980s. Ortega was also leader of Nicaragua from 1979 to 1990.

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News Briefs

‘Sister Strike’ nominated for Best Viral Sports Moment

June 26, 2019 CNA Daily News 2

Chicago, Ill., Jun 26, 2019 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- Maybe it’s the signature bump of the baseball off her bicep before pitching the perfect curve ball. Maybe it’s that she does it all in a full black and white habit with a beaming smile on her face.

Whatever it is, the pitch of baseball whiz Sister Mary Jo Sobieck, OP, that captured the hearts of many over the past year inspired a baseball card, a bobble head, and now a nomination for a national sports award.

“Sister Strike,” as the DominIcan sister has been called, has been nominated for an ESPY award in the category “Best Viral Sports Moment.” The ESPYs (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) are an annual sports awards ceremony honoring memorable people and moments in sports. This year’s ceremony will be hosted by Tracy Morgan in Los Angeles July 10.

The moment for which Sister is nominated? It’s called “Don’t Sleep on Sister Mary Jo’s curveball”, and it’s the moment when she threw a curveball strike to Lucas Giolito at the ceremonial opening of a Chicago White Sox game in August 2018.

The fans went wild and the moment went viral, catching the attention of baseball fans and casual observers on social media and national media. Her strike also aired on ESPN’s Sportscenter highlight reel.

The National Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum now sells a Sister Mary Joe bobblehead for $25. She stands in a pitching stance, wearing a baseball jersey pulled over her habit, and a baseball mitt. Her right hand is cocked back with a baseball, ready to strike.

In April, Topps announced that they would be premiering a Sister Mary Jo baseball card this summer.

Patrick O’Sullivan, Topps Associate Brand Manager, told CNA in April that Sister is a good reminder that: “Baseball is for everyone from every walk of life. That’s what makes it so special and fun to be a fan.”

There’s a reason Sr. Mary Jo, a member of the Dominican Sisters of Springfield and a teacher at Marian Catholic High School, seems so comfortable on the pitching mound. She played softball starting in elementary school and through college and has coached high school sports.

She told the Chicago Catholic in December that she wasn’t about to “get ripped” by past coaches and teammates for a lousy pitch, so she gave the White Sox throw her all. But then again, that’s how she lives her whole life.

“Before (the pitch), she was just kind of like that loud nun,” Jen Pasyk, a fellow Marian Catholic teacher, told the Chicago Catholic. “She’s kind of gregarious and outgoing. There’s this image that sisters are kind of quiet and reserved, and that was never her. She is very popular, because she makes it a point to meet the students wherever they are. She really goes out for those shy kids who just want to blend into the bricks. She will learn something about them, so someone knows something about them.”

Since the viral moment, Sr. Mary Jo has been invited to various sporting events and speaking engagements. She wants to use the attention to lead others to God, she told the Chicago Catholic.

“The best gift I can give now is to give a good example of what it means to be virtuous,” Sister Mary Jo said. “It’s transitioned to what happens on the field of life. I try my best and sometimes I fail miserably and I get back up and try again. You get up the next day and try again.”

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