Denver Newsroom, Aug 24, 2020 / 07:19 pm (CNA).- Two weeks after a major storm system caused massive damage in the Midwest, residents of Iowa and other affected states are working to rebuild.
For fourteen hours over an 800-mile stretch, the Aug. 10 storm caused major damage and killed several people, with Iowa and northern Illinois the worst hit. The storm began in eastern Nebraska, and also hit Wisconsin and Indiana.
Its winds gusted to the strength of a strong tornado or weak hurricane, reaching speeds of over 100 miles per hour. The phenomenon, known as a derecho, is a chain of intense thunderstorms.
Kent Ferris, Director of Social Action and Catholic Charities at the Diocese of Davenport, told CNA Aug. 24 that “Though people in our diocese have endured days without power, (and) dealt with wind damage to crops and trees, they also have responded generously to people in need in the diocese with food, water and monetary donations,” Ferris said.
“Our terrain may have been battered by Derecho’s winds, but the Holy Spirit blows stronger to prompt heartfelt concern for all our neighbors,” he told CNA.
The storm left hundreds of thousands without power or access to phone and internet. Homes and cars were damaged by high winds, falling trees, and flying debris,
At least 10 million acres of crops were destroyed in Iowa, and many harvested crops in storage were destroyed. Damage to grain storage bins could top $300 million. Sixteen Iowa counties have been declared federal disaster zones, while 25 counties have been declared disaster areas by the State of Iowa.
In Iowa, nearly 8,300 homes were heavily damaged or destroyed.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ request for federal assistance said the storm damage totaled nearly $4 billion.
While damage is still being assessed, Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Dubuque has set up a relief fund for those affected, giving priority to those not eligible for state and federal aid.
The Catholic Charities affiliate said on its website, “we do know that the individuals and families most severely affected are the poor, and those struggling with the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic. And we know that the recovery process will be lengthy and costly.”
Some church buildings also were damaged.
In the eastern Iowa city of Grand Mound, the storm tore a hole in the roof of Ss. Philip and James Parish, allowing water to enter and soak the roof insulation and the floor. The wood in the ceiling is saturated, Peter Whitman, building committee chair at the parish, told the Diocese of Davenport’s newspaper The Catholic Messenger.
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Baltimore, Md., Nov 13, 2018 / 05:34 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- James Grein, the man who came forward this summer alleging he was abused for 18 years by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, appeared in public Tuesday for the first time and revealed his full name. Previously, the New York Times had identified him only as “James.”
Grein appeared at the Nov. 13 “Silence Stops Now” counter-rally organized by several groups critical of the bishops’ approach to addressing the sexual abuse crisis. The rally was held near the location of the USCCB’s Fall General Assembly in Baltimore.
Grein was visibly nervous taking the stage, where he delivered a short speech about his experience coming forward with his story, and received an extended standing ovation when he finished.
In July Grein came forward with his story to the New York Times. He said McCarrick began abusing him when he was 11 years old. At that time, McCarrick was 39 years old, and a priest of the Archdiocese of New York.
This abuse continued for the next 18 years, he said, during which McCarrick was consecrated a bishop and served in the local Churches of New York, Metuchen, and Newark. In November 2000, he was appointed Archbishop of Washington, where he served the remainder of his career until his 2006 retirement. In 2001, McCarrick was elevated to the College of Cardinals. About a week after Grein’s allegation was published, McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals.
Grein credited the first survivor coming forward for giving him the strength to share his experience.
“That article would never have been written had it not been for a 16-year-old altar boy who accused McCarrick of abusing him,” he said. After that survivor went public, and his claim was found to be credible, Grein said he felt as though “my time has come” and chose to share his story.
Previously, he felt there was “no place” for him to report his abuse, and that nobody would believe him even if he were to report it. Grein said he was motivated to go public Tuesday as a way to inspire other victims.
“I do this today so that others like me have the strength to come forward. Think about what you can do to help others. This movement must continue to gain strength,” he said.
“Our bishops must know that the jig is up.”
Grein said he believed that McCarrick’s punishment of a life of prayer and penance was a “necessary step” on the extended journey to “reform and reclaim the Church.” McCarrick is currently living in a monastery in Kansas until he is faces a canonical trial.
Despite his abuse, Grein said that he has continued to put his faith in Christ, and continues a regimen of prayer and fasting.
“Jesus’ law is much higher than pontifical secrets,” he told the crowd.
“It’s not Francis’ Church. It’s Jesus Christ’s Church.”
Washington D.C., Mar 29, 2021 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- A parish in the Diocese of Trenton will no longer restrict the sacrament of confession to those who have received a COVID vaccine, after a clarification from the diocese.
Nebraska Capitol. / Credit: Steven Frame/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Nov 1, 2024 / 14:55 pm (CNA).
Nebraska’s Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) has released an advisory clarifying that the state’s preborn protection law does not prohibit miscarriage care or lifesaving care amid a pro-abortion advertisement campaign that told the public otherwise.
“The Department of Health and Human Services has received several inquiries, from physicians and health care providers, expressing concern regarding recent radio and television ads that included incorrect and misleading information regarding the Preborn Child Protection Act,” the Oct. 28 advisory reads.
The health advisory came amid an advertising campaign by advocates of Nebraska’s Right to Abortion Initiative 439, which advocates for a right to abortion up to fetal viability in the state constitution. The campaign featured multiple ads that stated that women couldn’t receive miscarriage care and necessary health care because of Nebraska’s current law.
“Any time misleading information causes confusion among health care professionals, it could cause harm to the health and well-being of their patients,” stated the advisory by Dr. Timothy Tesmer, the chief medical officer of the DHHS in Nebraska.
In the health advisory, Tesmer didn’t name which ads the department was responding to, but he clarified that the current law, which protects unborn children after 12 weeks’ gestational age from abortion, provides exceptions for medical emergencies and for cases of rape or incest.
But an advertisement campaign by pro-abortion group Protect Our Rights: Nebraska for 439 told the public otherwise. In one advertisement, advocates said that in Nebraska, there is “an abortion ban that threatens women’s lives” and that “doctors can’t help them even if the pregnancy won’t survive. It puts their lives in danger.” Other advertisements by the same group state that doctors “can’t properly care for patients” and claim that women get sent home “because of the confusing abortion ban” when they have miscarriages.
Allie Berry, the campaign manager for Protect Our Rights, told NBC News that she believed the advisory referred to her group’s ads but said the advisory was designed to “confuse voters.”
The advisory noted that a medical emergency is legally defined as either a threat to the pregnant woman’s life or a “serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”
“The act does not require a medical emergency to be immediate,” Tesmer noted in the advisory. “Physicians understand that it is difficult to predict with certainty whether a situation will cause a patient to become seriously ill or die, but physicians do know what situations could lead to serious outcomes.”
Nebraska also has a competing pro-life amendment, Initiative 434, which would prohibit abortions after the first trimester, with exceptions for medical emergencies and cases of rape or incest. Another advertisement by Protect Our Rights claimed that Initiative 434 would make Nebraska’s current law permanent and “opens the door” to banning miscarriage care and IVF.
The health advisory clarified that a variety of medical treatments are not prohibited by the Preborn Child Protection Act, including the removal of a child’s remains after pregnancy loss and the termination of a preborn child produced by in vitro fertilization (IVF) but not implanted in the mother’s womb. The advisory noted that any act intended to save the child’s life, as well as treatment for ectopic pregnancies, is not prohibited under the current law.
“Physicians should exercise their best clinical judgment, and the law allows intervention consistent with prevailing standards of care,” the advisory continued. “The law is deferential to a physician’s judgment in these circumstances.”
Political context
With two contradicting abortion-related measures on the 2024 ballot, Nebraskans will decide Nov. 5 on protection for unborn children in the nation’s only competing abortion ballots.
Marion Miner, the associate director of Pro-life and Family Policy for the Nebraska Catholic Conference, told CNA that “these lies … are abortion activists’ attempt to terrify voters into approving a radical pro-abortion constitutional amendment they would never otherwise support.”
“Abortion activists are putting women’s lives at risk in a gambit to advance a pro-abortion political agenda,” Miner added. “There are real potential human costs, including lost lives.”
She noted that “misinformation by abortion activists …is putting women’s lives at risk.”
“These lies have become so rampant in the weeks leading up to this election that public health officials felt the need to correct the record to prevent this misinformation from provoking a public health crisis,” Miner said.
Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs for Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, pointed out that this pro-abortion rhetoric is not isolated to Nebraska.
“This falsity that has been parroted by [Vice President] Kamala Harris and unchecked by most of the media leads women to delay seeking care and gives doctors pause when they need to act immediately,” Pritchard said in a statement shared with CNA.
“This falsity that has been parroted by Kamala Harris and unchecked by most of the media leads women to delay seeking care and gives doctors pause when they need to act immediately,” said Kelsey Pritchard, director of state public affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America. Credit: EWTN News/Screenshot
“Every state with a pro-life law, including Nebraska, protects women who experience a miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, or any other medical emergency in pregnancy,” Pritchard emphasized. “This care continues to be available under ‘life of the mother’ exceptions, which allow physicians to rely upon their reasonable medical judgment.”
Recently, Harris amplified claims by several news outlets that two women died as the result of Georgia’s pro-life laws. But doctors say one woman, Amber Thurman, died because of the abortion pill and medical malpractice, while the other woman, Candi Miller, died of side effects from the abortion pill after she didn’t seek medical help.
“Women who need medical care should not be made to believe, because of ads they have seen on TV or in political mailers, that they have no option but to stay home instead of seeking treatment,” Miner said.
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