Year: 2019

Gallup, N.M., Nov 6, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Gallup has chosen to stop using Zoom Video Communications for its internet meetings, citing the company’s support of abortion rights.

Eric Yuan, the founder and CEO of Zoom, was among the 187 executives who signed a letter that appeared a full-page ad in the New York Times June 10 criticizing regulations on abortion passed by state legislatures.

“Due to the company’s vocal support for abortion, the Diocese of Gallup has ceased all business with Zoom and will instead be seeking the use of an alternative platform for online meetings and presentations,” read a letter sent to the diocese’s schools and parishes.

The diocese’s education office had been utilizing Zoom for several years.

While acknowledging that “our monthly transactions with Zoom were not large,” the diocese said that “large or small, we cannot contribute to a company with anti-life policies.”

“It is distressing that the CEOs who paid for the ad call abortion restrictions ‘bad for business’, as if the life of a human being can be measured solely in monetary and economic value. We wholeheartedly reject this view.”

The Gallup diocese stated: “Each human, made in the image and likeness of God, is inherently worthy and has a right to life, from conception to natural death. We do not want to lose even a single future child, future student, future mother, father, sister or brother to abortion.”

“In providing the highest-quality Catholic education to our students, we must also strive to follow Christ and the teachings of his Church. We cannot truly be Christlike if we cooperate with evil or provide monetary support – even in the smallest amount – to other companies and institutions who promote and foster abortion, euthanasia, or other anti-life actions,” the diocese added.

The diocese has indicated that several Catholic companies and groups also use Zoom for video conferencing, and hopes that its decision may raise awareness of the company’s stance on abortion.

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Columbia, S.C., Nov 6, 2019 / 03:14 pm (CNA).- As the South Carolina legislature considers a bill that would ban most abortions after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable, a Senate committee vote has restored exemptions that would allow abort… […]

Fort Wayne, Ind., Nov 6, 2019 / 02:31 pm (CNA).- The unlikely friendship between a controversial abortion doctor and a local Catholic shows the impact of encounter and friendship in spreading the Gospel, reflected a priest after the abortionist’s death.

On Sept. 16, police launched an investigation after more than 2,000 remains of aborted children were found at the former home of abortion doctor Ulrich “George” Klopfer in Will County, Illinois.

Klopfer, 75, had died about a week before the fetal remains were discovered on his property. He had spent four decades performing abortions at clinics in Indiana and Illinois.

For years, Klopfer’s abortion practice had been criticized for a lack of safeguards. His license was suspended in 2016 because he failed to exercise reasonable care and violated documentation requirements, according to local reports.

In a homily on Sept. 15, Father Dan Scheidt of St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Parish in Fort Wayne said that one of the parishioners from the church had befriended Klopfer while he was alive. The parishioner, who was not named in the homily, would routinely pray outside one of the clinics where Klopfer worked, and the two eventually got to know one another.

“Even after his [medical] license was taken away from the state, George Klopfer kept returning to his closed clinic so that he could get out of his car and sit in the passenger seat of the Saint Vincent’s parishioner’s car and talk to his friend. Every single Thursday, George Klopfer drove from Chicago to be with his friend.”

Through the parishioner, Scheidt said he was also introduced to Klopfer.

“Twice I sat next to that man, who is responsible for the ending of over 30,000 human lives,” said Scheidt. “It became clear in our conversation that we were his only friends. It’s what prompted him to drive the distance and want to meet with the priest.”

Scheidt said he learned a great deal about Klopfer and the sufferings of his life. Klopfer was born in World War II Germany and witnessed “the neglect of human beings for each other,” he said. In one story, the abortion doctor recalled Russian soldiers machine-gunning small animals for their own cruel amusement.

Before Klopfer passed away, the priest said, the Catholic parishioner believed he saw the abortion doctor undergo a change of heart. At the time of their last meeting, the parishioner had challenged Klopfer, saying, “George, it’s not too late. You are like the thief on the cross next to Jesus. You belong to Jesus, George, accept that, even in the last hour, accept that.”

“The parishioner, who so many times left the Thursday meeting with frustration at the progress, he left that meeting believing that he’d actually reached George’s heart,” Scheidt said, emphasizing that God alone knows the condition of Klopfer’s soul at the moment of his death.

Scheidt encouraged members of his congregation to imitate the actions of the parishioner, seeing everyone as more than the sum of their sins, but as a child of God.

“My brothers and sisters, we must go in search of the divine image in every person. I saw in George Klopfer not simply one who slaughtered, but a lost sheep…Somebody who needed to know his sonship,” the priest said.

He encouraged parishioners to consider anyone they may have dismissed because of that person’s sin. He asked them to call on Christ for help in inviting those people into an encounter of love.

“God possesses the ability to transform and to heal human life,” he said. “This is our story and Jesus has given us everything, everything, for us to be part of the happy ending.”

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Oklahoma City, Okla., Nov 6, 2019 / 01:55 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City broke ground Sunday on what will be the largest Catholic church in the state— the Blessed Stanley Rother Shrine, meant to honor a late Oklahoma priest on the path to sainthood.

“What we are about to construct here we are building for the honor and glory of God whose goodness, whose holiness, whose faithfulness, whose mercy is shown through the life of Father Stanley Rother,” Archbishop Coakley said during his Nov. 3 homily.

Rother was born in 1935 in Okarche, Oklahoma, about 40 miles northwest of Oklahoma City. He graduated from Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Maryland and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa in 1963.

Five years after his ordination, Fr. Rother accepted an invitation to join the mission team at Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, a poor rural community of mostly indigenous people.

Rother served the people of the parish during the Guatemalan civil war. He briefly returned to his home state of Oklahoma after a death threat, then returned knowing the dangers.

Rother was martyred in his rectory in the early morning hours of July 28, 1981 by men involved in the civil war who were attempting to kidnap him at gunpoint.

Coakley on Sunday blessed the cornerstone of the planned Spanish-style colonial shrine, the ground where the future main altar will be located, as well as the area where Blessed Rother will be entombed.

Most of Rother’s body is buried in Okarche, but his heart remained in Guatemala and became a relic upon his beatification.

Funds for the $40 million shrine come in large part from the archdiocese’s first ever capital campaign. The site will include a 2,000-seat church, a chapel where Rother’s body will be entombed, an education building, an event space and several areas designated for shrines and devotion, according to the archdiocese.

Also in attendance at the ceremony were Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt, Archbishop Emeritus Eusebius Beltran, Tulsa Bishop David Konderla and Little Rock Bishop Anthony Taylor, along with nearly 2,000 priests, deacons and laypeople.

The shrine will host many large diocesan events and will help accommodate the growing Hispanic population whose parishes are significantly overcrowded, the archdiocese says.

The Oklahoma City archdiocese opened Rother’s cause for canonization in 2007, and Pope Francis recognized Rother as a martyr in 2016. His Rite of Beatification took place Sept. 23, 2017, in downtown Oklahoma City with more than 20,000 people in attendance.

Rother is the first martyr from the United States and the first U.S.-born priest to be beatified, the archdiocese says.

Rother was, according to those who knew him, a quiet man who struggled with academics at times. He was well-suited for missionary life and was much-beloved by the Tz’utujil indigenous people he served, who called him “Padre Apla’s.”

The fruits of Rother’s service in Guatemala are still apparent, Coakley and others have told CNA.

Rother helped to translate the Bible into the native language, organizing a team to translate the New Testament so they could read it at Mass. That translation is still used to this day.

He also helped to build schools, hospitals, wells, and a Catholic radio station.

“The Catholic community in Santiago Atitlan is incredibly vibrant and active. I’ve never seen as many altar servers as they have at each Sunday Mass in Santiago – it’s incredible,” said Father Josh Mayer, a priest of the Diocese of Gallup who visited Rother’s mission in Guatemala for his feast day last summer.

“The Eucharistic Ministers and lectors and catechists and other ministry groups are all incredibly well organized and everyone takes their roles very seriously. The people are very proud of what they do for Jesus and His Church. Every time I visit the parish of Santiago Apostol [St. James the Apostle], I’m inspired with a vision of what we could do at our parishes back home.”

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New York City, N.Y., Nov 6, 2019 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- A federal judge in New York overturned the Trump administration’s conscience protection rule for health care workers on Wednesday.

The “Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Ca… […]

Richmond, Va., Nov 6, 2019 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Tuesday’s state election results suggest coming fights over abortion, religious freedom, and gun restrictions in Virginia and Kentucky.

In Virginia, Democrats won both chambers of the state legislatu… […]