Vatican City, Mar 7, 2020 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis will lead the Sunday Angelus prayer via video link, the Vatican has announced. The pope will also hold this week’s Wednesday general audience in the same way. The decision was taken in res… […]
Washington D.C., Mar 7, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry has dismissed arguments made before the Supreme Court against a state abortion law as “absolutely a lie.” In a Thursday interview, Landry said efforts to conflate the case with a Texas law regulating abortion clinics, struck down by the court in 2016, were clearly false.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case June Medical Serves v. Russo on Wednesday, as lawyers for a Louisiana abortion clinic challenged the state’s Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, which requires that abortionists in the state have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of the facility.
Critics of the law have likened it to a similar statute in Texas which the Supreme Court struck down in the case Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt in 2016. The court ruled that the admitting privileges requirement in Texas’ H.B. 2 placed “an undue burden on abortion access.”
In an interview Thursday on EWTN Pro-Life Weekly, Landry said there was no reasonable parallel to be drawn between the two cases.
The Texas law, he argued, singled out abortion facilities by only requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges, without making that a requirement for other ambulatory surgical centers. Under the Louisiana law, abortion centers are simply being brought into line with existing regulation – doctors at all other ambulatory surgical centers are already required to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, regardless of the type of procedure they perform.
Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, Landry said, brings abortion clinics out of a “no-man’s land,” making them subject to the same regulations other ambulatory surgical centers already meet in Louisiana.
Landry argued that by conflating the two separate laws and cases surrounding them, the mainstream media is echoing the plaintiff’s argument “which is absolutely a lie.”
“Texas’ law and Louisiana’s law and the cases are as different as an apple and an orange,” he said.
Louisiana Solicitor General Liz Murrill, who defended the law before the Supreme Court, agreed, saying in the same interview that abortionists “shouldn’t be given a special exemption to rules that we’re applying to other doctors in our state.”
Murrill said there is a “robust legislative record to support our law,” and argued that the law was being challenged by those with an interest in deregulation – an interest in clear conflict with what was best for women.
“I think it’s just fundamentally in conflict with the interests of the people who are protected with health and safety regulations,” Murrill said. “If you think about a seat belt law, we wouldn’t let Ford Motor Company challenge a seatbelt law or an airbag law in the name of the people who are protected by that airbag.”
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Liz Murrill, Louisiana’s Solicitor General, defended Louisiana’s <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/ProLife?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#ProLife</a> law in the Supreme Court yesterday. It was a case brought on by an abortion facility over admitting privileges. Murrill explains why she considers this a conflict of interest. <a href=”https://t.co/lPIPd7paoS”>pic.twitter.com/lPIPd7paoS</a></p>— EWTN Pro-Life Weekly (@EWTNProLife) <a href=”https://twitter.com/EWTNProLife/status/1235719240767791104?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>March 6, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″></script>
Kate Scanlon is a producer for EWTN Pro-Life Weekly.
South Bend, Ind., Mar 7, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Catholic clergy and laity have a shared responsibility to proclaim the Gospel, speakers at a conference sponsored by the University of Notre Dame have said.
“We’re all in the same boat… […]
Aleppo, Syria, Mar 7, 2020 / 06:01 am (CNA).- As a wartime missionary priest in Aleppo, Fr. Firas Lufti witnessed the trauma endured by a generation of Syrian children who have spent the entirety of their lives in the uncertainty and tragedy of war.
&… […]
Mainz, Germany, Mar 7, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- The new president of the German bishops’ conference has emphasized his support for the ongoing synodal process of German bishops and laity, and for a paper supporting intercommunion with Lutherans.
Speaking at the closing of the plenary assembly of the German bishops in Mainz on Thursday, Bishop Georg Bätzing of Limburg also affirmed he is following in “the big footsteps” of Cardinal Reinhard Marx in continuing along the “synodal path” currently underway in Germany.
Bätzing described as having gotten off to a “good start”, despite strong criticism about the first synodal assembly in January from a number of attending bishops.
Bishop Bätzing also claimed Pope Francis supported the controversial process, stating the “synodal way” was “in line” with and exactly what the Holy Father wanted.
Pope Francis has issued a cautionary personal letter to all German Catholics on the matter, and the Vatican has repeatedly intervened, raising a number of concerns about the process.
Asserting that ecumenism is “on the right track” in Germany, Bätzing reiterated his support for a document titled “Together at the Lord’s Table” by the ecumenical working group of Lutheran and Catholic theologians (ÖAK) in Germany, a body chaired by himself and the Protestant bishop Martin Hein.
The document promotes non-Catholics receiving the Eucharist at Catholic Mass. Bätzing also suggested in future, Christians of any denomination should simply decide on their own, individual accord if – and when to receive the Body of Christ.
Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, has dismissed the document, saying it was based on an “assumption” he could not share, “namely, that the Catholic Eucharistic celebration and the Protestant last supper are identical.” Koch also pointed out that there were several further “open questions” that needed clarifying.
This year’s spring plenary assembly of the German bishops’ conference also saw the announcement that the bishops had reached an agreement about compensation payments for victims of clerical sexual abuse.
A version of this story was first published by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Vatican City, Mar 7, 2020 / 05:00 am (CNA).- The next ordinary Synod of Bishops will be a synod on synodality, the Vatican announced March 7.
In October 2022, bishops from around the world will meet in Rome to discuss the theme: “For a synodal C… […]
Vancouver, Canada, Mar 6, 2020 / 08:19 pm (CNA).- A Vancouver-based bicycling charity broke a long-standing partnership with a local Knights of Columbus group this week and rejected their donations of bikes over the Knight’s “anti-LGBTQ+&rd… […]
Washington D.C., Mar 6, 2020 / 04:05 pm (CNA).- For some time, a narrative has developed among Catholic pundits and observers suggesting that Pope Francis and the bishops of the United States do not get […]
MPAA Rating: Not rated at time of this review USCCB Rating: Not rated at time of this review Reel Rating: 3 out of 5 reels Fresh off the success of Love and Mercy comes another […]
Birmingham, Ala., Mar 6, 2020 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- Following a controversial execution in Alabama on Thursday night, Catholics in the state have reiterated their opposition to the death penalty.
Late Thursday evening, the state of Alabama executed 43-year-old Nathan Woods by lethal injection.
Woods, who was black, was convicted in 2005 on four counts of capital murder and one count of attempted murder in the shootings of three white police officers in 2004 in Birmingham.
The three officers had arrived at a house where Woods and his co-defendant Kerry Spencer were believed to stash and sell drugs, and served Woods an arrest warrant for another misdemeanor offense.
As the officers tried to take Woods into custody, three of the officers were shot dead and a fourth survived.
The survivor, Officer Michael Collins, took cover behind the patrol car and testified that he saw Spencer shooting at him from inside the apartment.
The state conceded that Spencer shot the three officers, but argued that Woods was “an accomplice to the shootings,” according to local news KIRO 7. Woods, according to court records, allegedly threatened the officers if they were to enter the residence.
His co-defendant Kerry Spencer claimed that Woods was “100% innocent” in the killings of the officers, in a handwritten letter from prison.
Woods was sentenced to death by a jury, although not unanimously—Alabama is the only state where a death sentence does not require a unanimous vote by a jury.
A last-minute appeal to halt the execution was rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday night.
Justice Clarence Thomas granted a temporary administrative stay to give the Court more time to fully consider the case. Later on Thursday evening, the application for a halt to the execution was denied by the full Court.
In response to Thursday night’s execution of Woods, the Diocese of Birmingham directed CNA to a joint statement of the bishops of Alabama and Mississippi on capital punishment.
“As Christians, we remember that wrongdoing, no matter how evil, deserves punishment but not vengeance,” the statement reads.
“God can touch and change even the most bitter and hardened heart. Mindful of this, we do not support the execution of criminals. When we execute someone, we take away any opportunity they have to repent and develop a relationship with God in this life,” the bishops stated.
The Archdiocese of Mobile referred to a column written by Archbishop Thomas Rodi in The Catholic Week in August of 2018.
“The death penalty is not a private matter,” the archbishop wrote in the column.
“It is not the grieving loved ones who execute those found guilty, it is not merely the governor who executes, it is not merely the warden of the prison who executes, it is all of us, the citizens of Alabama, since capital punishment is the law that we have enacted and enforce.”
“I remain convinced that we the citizens of Alabama need to end capital punishment in our civil courts,” he wrote.
The group Catholic Mobilizing Network, which advocates for an end to use of the death penalty, was following Woods’ case and asked supporters for prayers.
“At times like these we may feel at a loss of what to do in the face of such egregious acts of violence. These are the moments when we pray for God’s guidance and Grace. Please pray, on behalf of Nathaniel Woods that he may come to know God’s peace and ever-present mercy,” the group stated on its website.
Pope Francis in 2018 approved new language for the Catechism on the death penalty, calling it “inadmissible.”
The new language states that “the Church teaches, in the light of the Gospel, that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person,’ and she works with determination for its abolition worldwide.”
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