Washington D.C., Mar 26, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The Senate passed a massive relief package Wednesday night to counter the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The measure passed unopposed, and contained provisions excluding abortion providers like Planned Parenthood from access to funding for elective abortions.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act passed the Senate by a vote of 96-0 late Thursday evening. Not voting were Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who tested positive for the coronavirus on Sunday, and Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who reportedly did not attend the vote because he was feeling unwell.
Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) have self-quarantined in recent days, as a precaution after having had contact with Sen. Paul.
The House plans to vote on the package on Friday, as members will need time to travel to Washington, D.C. to vote.
The bailout package includes: direct checks to taxpayers of up to $1200; grants and loans to small businesses for payroll and rent; temporary expansion of unemployment insurance; funding for hospitals and health care clinics; and authorization for the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department to send several trillion dollars to “distressed” industries such as the airline industry.
Volunteer health care workers will be protected from liability under the Good Samaritan provision.
On Thursday, the Department of Labor reported that unemployment insurance claims had soared to their highest-recorded seasonally-adjusted levels of almost 3.3 million.
Negotiations over language for funding of abortion providers continued on Thursday, with the final version that passed the Senate including protections against taxpayer funding of elective abortions, as well as a provision blocking Planned Parenthood from receiving small business loans.
Under the provision, non-profits such as Planned Parenthood would not be eligible for small business loans for coronavirus relief if they have more than 500 employees, a requirement which is already a part of affiliation rules for the Small Business Administration.
Planned Parenthood Action tweeted out on Wednesday that senators were “exploiting a public health crisis to target sexual and reproductive care” and that the bill “expands the discriminatory Hyde Amendment.”
The Hyde Amendment—which bars taxpayer funding of elective abortions—was specifically extended to certain health care funding provisions in the bill.
It covers $100 billion in supplemental discretionary health funding for hospitals and health care providers, an extension of mandatory funding for community health centers, and $150 billion in a coronavirus relief fund for states.
“Have been pouring over the text of the relief bill. I’m not happy negotiators took out language that excluded Planned Parenthood from receiving government subsidies. But I have been assured Planned Parenthood will still NOT be eligible,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) tweeted on Wednesday afternoon.
The acting president of Planned Parenthood Action, Alexis McGill Johnson, responded that she was “appalled” to see senators “continue to exploit this pandemic to attack reproductive health care.”
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Oklahoma City, Okla., May 18, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The remains of Venerable Stanley Rother were exhumed last week and moved to a chapel in Oklahoma City in preparation for the beatification Mass of the first US-born martyr.
“The witness of Father Rother’s life and death has been a source of encouragement and inspiration to me as a seminarian, priest and now as a bishop. I consider it a great gift to be entrusted with overseeing the continuation of his cause for beatification and canonization begun by Archbishop Beltran,” Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City said after the May 10 service.
“His beatification is an unexpected blessing for Oklahoma and for the United States as we celebrate this ordinary man from humble beginnings who answered the call to serve an extraordinary life. His witness will continue to inspire us for generations.”
The body of Fr. Rother, who served as a priest in Guatemala, was taken from Holy Trinity Cemetery in his home town of Okarche, Okla., to the chapel at Resurrection Cemetery in Oklahoma City.
Before his body was exhumed, his family led a prayerful procession to the gravesite. Fr. Rother’s remains were later removed form the vault, and examined by medical professionals and verified, as required by the process of beatification.
The martyred priest’s body was then placed in a new casket with golden vestments, along with a document signed by those in attendance. A ribbon was wrapped around the casket, sealed with the archdiocese’s seal in wax.
The Salve Regina was sung as the casket was re-interred, and a prayer service followed.
“It was a holy day. Father Rother’s presence was felt by many, and we are blessed as the Catholic Church in Oklahoma to present Father Rother’s life to the world,” Archbishop Coakley commented.
A temporary sign now marks Fr. Rother’s original gravesite in Okarche, located about 40 miles northwest of Oklahoma City, where the original vault and casket have been re-buried, and a permanent memorial marker is planned.
Fr. Rother’s Mass of Beatification will take place Sept. 23 at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City. It will be said by Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and concelebrated by Archbishop Coakley.
Fr. Rother was born March 27, 1935 in Okarche and entered seminary soon after graduating from Holy Trinity High School.
Despite a strong calling, Rother would struggle in the seminary, failing several classes and even out of one seminary before graduating from Mount St. Mary’s in Maryland. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Oklahoma City and Tulsa in 1963.
He served for five years in Oklahoma before joining the Oklahoma diocese’s mission in Santiago Atitlan, Guatemala, a poor rural community of mostly indigenous persons where he would spend the next 13 years of his life.
The work ethic Fr. Rother learned on his family’s farm would serve him well in this new place. As a mission priest, he was called on not just to say Mass, but to fix the broken truck or work the fields. He built a farmers’ co-op, a school, a hospital, and the first Catholic radio station.
Over the years, the violence of the Guatemalan civil war inched closer to the once-peaceful village. Disappearances, killings, and danger soon became a part of daily life, but Fr. Rother remained steadfast and supportive of his people.
In 1980-1981, the violence escalated to an almost unbearable point; Fr. Rother was constantly seeing friends and parishioners abducted or killed.
In January 1981, in immediate danger and his name on a death list, Fr. Rother did return to Oklahoma for a few months. But as Easter approached, he wanted to spend Holy Week with his people in Guatemala.
The morning of July 28, 1981, three Ladinos, the non-indigenous men who had been fighting the native people and rural poor of Guatemala since the 1960s, broke into Fr. Rother’s rectory. They wished to disappear him, but he refused.
Not wanting to endanger the others at the parish mission, he struggled but did not call for help. Fifteen minutes and two gunshots later, Father Stanley was dead and the men fled the mission grounds.
Though his body was buried in Okarche, Fr. Rother’s heart was enshrined in the church of Santiago Atitlan where he served.
Fr. Rother’s cause for beatification was opened in 2007, and his martyrdom was recognized by the Vatican in December 2016, which cleared the way for his beatification.
Louisville, Ky., Apr 17, 2021 / 17:03 pm (CNA).
“The Catholic Church has a deep and cherished commitment to give voice to the child in the womb and to support mothers in choosing life for their unborn childre… […]
Saint Peter’s Chapel and Native American Museum at Saint Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine and Historic Site in Fonda, New York. / Photo courtesy of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine and Historic Site
Chicago, Ill., Jul 13, 2023 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Shrines to various saints can be found in every part of the world, including every state in the U.S. Each one is dedicated to faith and prayer, but one shrine in the northeastern United States also has a distinct mission of connecting pilgrims with Native American culture and sharing the fascinating history of Kateri Tekakwitha, the first American Indian to be canonized a saint.
The Saint Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine and Historic Site in Fonda, New York, honors not only the life of St. Kateri, whose feast day is July 14, but also the life and history of the local Indigenous people to whom she belonged.
“We have cultivated strong ties to both the Catholic Mohawk community and the traditional Mohawk community,” said Melissa Miscevic Bramble, director of operations at the St. Kateri Shrine, in an interview with CNA. “We see it as our mission to educate about her Mohawk culture as well as her Catholic faith.”
Who was St. Kateri?
Called the Lily of the Mohawks, Kateri Tekakwitha was the child of a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother but was orphaned at age 4 when the rest of her family died of smallpox. Her own early bout with the illness left lasting scars and poor vision.
She went to live with an anti-Christian uncle and aunt, but at age 11 she encountered Jesuit missionaries and recognized their teaching as the beliefs of her beloved mother. Desiring to become a Christian, she began to privately practice Christianity.
Beginning at about age 13, she experienced pressure from her family to marry, but she wanted to give her life to Jesus instead. A priest who knew her recorded her words: “I have deliberated enough. For a long time, my decision on what I will do has been made. I have consecrated myself entirely to Jesus, son of Mary, I have chosen him for husband, and he alone will take me for wife.”
At last, she was baptized at about age 19, and her baptism made public her beliefs, which had been kept private up until then. The event was the catalyst for her ostracism from her village. Some members of her people believed that her beliefs were sorcery, and she was harassed, stoned, and threatened with torture in her home village.
Tekakwitha fled 200 miles to Kahnawake, a Jesuit mission village for Native Amerian converts to Christianity to live together in community. There, she found her mother’s close friend, Anastasia Tegonhatsiongo, who was a clan matron of a Kahnawake longhouse. Anastasia and other Mohawk women took Kateri under their wings and taught her about Christianity, and she lived there happily for several years until her death around age 23 or 24.
Although she never took formal vows, Tekakwitha is considered a consecrated virgin, and the United States Association of Consecrated Virgins took her as its patron. She is also the patron saint of traditional ecology, Indigenous peoples, and care for creation.
A shrine with a special mission
The Saint Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine and Historic Site has a unique mission of archaeological and historical research related to Kateri Tekakwitha and her people. Welcoming several thousand visitors per year, the shrine ministers not only to Christians but also to all American Indians.
According to its website, the shrine and historic site “promotes healing, encourages environmental stewardship, and facilitates peace for all people by offering the natural, cultural, and spiritual resources at this sacred site.” Describing itself as a sacred place of peace and healing with a Catholic identity, its ministry and site are intended to be ecumenical and welcome people of all faiths.
In keeping with this mission, the shrine’s grounds include an archaeological site, the village of Caughnawaga, which is the only fully excavated Iroquois/Haudenosaunee village in the world. St. Kateri lived in this village, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Visitors can also visit the Kateri Spring, where Kateri Tekakwitha was baptized.
“The water from the Kateri Spring is considered holy water by the Catholic Church,” Bramble said. “People are welcome to come take the waters, and we regularly get reports of healing. We’ve sent that water all over North America to folks who have requested it.”
Besides the archaeological site, the main grounds of the shrine include St. Peter’s Chapel, housed in a former Dutch barn built in 1782; museum exhibits of Native American culture and history; St. Maximilian Kolbe Pavilion; a Candle Chapel dedicated to St. Kateri; Grassmann Hall and the Shrine office; a friary; a gift shop; an outdoor sanctuary; and maintenance facilities. The 150-acre property includes hiking trails that are open to the public year-round from sunrise to sunset.
Peace Grove at Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine and Historic Site in Fonda, New York. Photo courtesy of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Shrine and Historic Site
Outside the Candle Chapel, which is always open for prayer, visitors can participate in a ministry of “Kateri crosses.”
“St. Kateri was known for going into the forest, gathering sticks, binding them into crosses, and then spending hours in prayer in front of crosses she created,” Bramble said. Sticks are gathered from the shrine grounds and visitors are invited to make their own “Kateri crosses” and take them home to use as a prayer aid. Bramble shared that the shrine sends materials for Kateri crosses to those who aren’t able to visit, including recently to a confirmation group.
The feast day weekend
The Saint Kateri Tekakwitha National Shrine has a schedule of special events planned for St. Kateri’s feast day on July 14. Bramble said they anticipate several hundred visitors for the feast day events this year, which include Masses, a healing prayer service, and talks. (A listing of the full schedule can be found here.)
The weekend Masses, which include special blessings and the music of the Akwesasne Mohawk Choir, “incorporate American Indian spiritual practices in keeping with the Catholic Church,” Bramble said. “The Akwesasne Mohawk Choir is made up of descendants of St. Kateri’s community who lived in the area historically.”
Bramble described numerous events each year that partner with the local American Indian community, such as the fun-filled “Three Sisters Festival” in May (celebrating corn, beans, and squash — the “three sisters” that were staples of Native cuisine), healing Masses during Indigenous Peoples’ Week in October, and a recent interfaith prayer service with Mohawk elders.
“There is a reestablished traditional Mohawk community a few miles west of the shrine, and we feel very blessed that we’ve been able to cultivate a very cooperative and mutually respectful relationship with the folks there,” Bramble said.
The Saint Kateri Shrine is also a great place for families. Events often include activities and crafts for children, there is an all-ages scavenger hunt available at the site, and the shrine’s museum is “a phenomenal educational opportunity.”
Bringing together American Indian archaeology and history with the story of St. Kateri, the shrine and its programs shed light on the saint’s story and keep alive the traditions and history of her people.
To Planned Parenthood and the promiscuity community. St. Augustine: God doesn’t compel us to be pure; He merely leaves those alone who deserve to be forgotten.
“Reproductive health care” my foot.
George Orwell, where are you when we need you?
To Planned Parenthood and the promiscuity community. St. Augustine: God doesn’t compel us to be pure; He merely leaves those alone who deserve to be forgotten.