St. Therese Parish in Utah ‘overwhelmed’ with support after statue vandalism

Washington D.C., Oct 31, 2018 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- The issue of abortion has played a surprisingly limited role in campaigns for midterm and gubernatorial elections, this despite predictions by pro-abortion advocates that the Supreme Court could be poised to revisit the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade.

But while the issue has had a low profile in national campaigning, there have been several notable exceptions in individual races.

On Halloween, as parents/kids return home to enjoy the evening together, this is the mail piece that my opponent’s campaign & @nydems thought was most fitting to greet them in their mailbox. It’s the most disgusting mail piece I’ve ever seen in any campaign I have been a part of. pic.twitter.com/c3XPdKSmbB

— Lee Zeldin (@leezeldin) October 31, 2018

Incumbent Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-NY), who represents New York’s 1st district, was the subject of an especially pointed political attack for his pro-life views. The New York State Democratic Committee sent out a mailer containing a picture of a wire hanger, labeled as “Lee Zeldin’s plan for women’s healthcare.”

Zeldin called the campaign “the most disgusting mail piece I’ve ever seen in any campaign that I have been a part of.”

The second-term congressman has a pro-life record over his time in the House of Representatives, and responded angrily in a tweet.

Polls have shown Zeldin with a narrow lead over Democratic candidate Perry Gershon.

In New Hampshire, in a congressional debate for the state’s 2nd district, Republican challenger Steve Negron confronted incumbent Rep. Ann McLane Kuster (D) about her pro-abortion views. Negron describes himself as pro-life without exceptions, and refused to say if he would permit an abortion to save the life of the mother.

Negron said that advances in prenatal care make it so that these situations are rare, and that “right now, we don’t get to this point where it’s so draconian that we have to make a decision that it’s the life of a mother or the life of a child.”

Kuster defended the legality of abortion by saying that she did not feel it was something for the government to decide, and that it was “one of the most personal decisions” someone could make. Kuster, who worked for over two decades as an adoption attorney, said that she had worked with more than 300 women facing unplanned pregnancies, said that “it’s not the government’s choice whether they would carry a baby to term, whether they would terminate a pregnancy or whether they would place a baby for adoption.”

Kuster is expected to be reelected for her fourth term in Congress, and is polling well above Negron and Libertarian candidate Justin O’Donnell.

Two Senate candidates in Indiana, incumbent Sen. Joe Donnelly (D) and Republican Mike Braun, clashed over abortion during an Oct. 30 debate in which both tried to paint their opponent as inconsistent in their opposition to abortion.

Both are running as pro-life candidates, with Donnelly one of the few-remaining pro-life Democrats in Congress. Donnelly was endorsed by Democrats for Life of America, but the National Right to Life Committee gave him a score of just 40 percent in their 2018 Senatorial scorecard.

In Donnelly’s last Senate election in 2012, his opponent, Richard Mourdock, sparked a national controversy after he said that a woman who became pregnant from rape was “carrying a gift from God.” That debate was widely credited with cemeting Donnelly’s election.

The latest polling indicates that Braun has a slim lead over Donnelly ahead of the election next week.  

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Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2021 / 05:45 am (CNA).- While President Joe Biden has nominated a number of Catholics to serve in his cabinet, some of them have publicly contradicted Church teaching on abortion.

Joe Biden on Wednesday became the 46th president of the United States and only the second Catholic to hold that office. 

While U.S. bishops offered him their prayers and congratulations upon his inauguration, and noted areas of agreement such as immigration and protecting the environment, the bishops’ conference also noted that Biden had promoted “policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”

Like Biden himself, many of the Catholics he has nominated to cabinet roles have also publicly supported pro-abortion policies–and they could further these policies in their administrative roles. 

Xavier Becerra, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, was previously attorney general of California. In that role he defended the state’s law mandating that medically licensed pro-life pregnancy centers advertise where clients could obtain abortions. 

The Reproductive FACT Act was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2018. Kamala Harris, now the vice president, also defended the law as attorney general of California before she was elected to the U.S. Senate. 

Becerre also defended a state mandate of abortion coverage in employer-provided health plans; pro-life and Catholic groups, including the religious community Missionary Guadalupanas of the Holy Spirit, challenged the mandate.

Becerra previously served as a congressman from California, where the National Right to Life Committee gave him a 100 percent pro-abortion score. Politico reported in December that pro-abortion groups view their “pressure campaign” towards Biden as “wildly successful,” in part because of Becerra’s nomination. 

Should Becerra be confirmed as health secretary, his role at HHS would allow him to roll back certain pro-life rules and policies, as well as conscience protections for health care workers. 

Biden nominated Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to serve as Secretary of Labor. During his campaign for mayor in 2013, Walsh’s campaign website said that the disparity in the number of pro-life pregnancy centers to abortion clinics in Boston was detrimental to women’s health.

“In terms of reproductive choices, crisis pregnancy centers outnumber women’s health providers in Boston three to one, seriously undermining women’s access to quality family planning, appropriate counseling, and overall choice,” the website said. 

Walsh also recieved a “Men for Choice” award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts in 2016, according to the Boston Globe. Walsh stressed to that “I’m a pro-choice candidate, I’m a pro-choice mayor, I was a pro-choice legislator.

Three other cabinet nominees–Gina Raimondo, Tom Vilsack, and Jennifer Granholm–all backed pro-abortion measures in their roles as governor of Rhode Island, Iowa, and Michigan, respectively. Raimondo has been tapped to lead the Commerce Department, Vilsack the Agriculture Department, and Granholm the Department of Energy.

Denis McDonough, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Veterans Affairs, served as White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama, who held pro-abortion policy positions. 

McDonough was reportedly among the administration staff who pushed Obama to soften the rules on the HHS contraceptive mandate in 2012, to accommodate objecting religious groups. However, many groups including the Little Sisters of the Poor and the USCCB still opposed that revised rule, saying it required unacceptable participation in the immoral provision of contraceptive coverage.

Gen. Lloyd Austin, Biden’s nominee to serve as defense secretary, has not taken a public policy position on the issue of abortion in his military roles. Austin is also a Catholic, and has ties to the Biden family through the president’s late son Beau Biden, with whom he served in Iraq.

[…]

Statue of St. Junipero Serra in Golden Gate Park. / scupperssf/wikimedia. BY CC 2.0.

Los Angeles, Calif., Jul 2, 2021 / 15:01 pm (CNA).
The early Catholic missionaries to what became the United States were witnesses to the American belief that a… […]