Year: 2020

Chicago, Ill., Mar 19, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-Ill.) conceded his primary race on Wednesday, saying that he stood by his pro-life principles even if they led to his defeat.  

“There was one issue that loomed especially large in this campaign, the fact that I am pro-life,” Lipinski, a Catholic eight-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives, told reporters on Wednesday as primary election results showed him more than 2,400 votes behind his challenger Marie Newman.

“Over the years I’ve watched many other politicians succumb to pressure and change their position on this issue,” he said, noting that his pro-life stance was based upon his Catholic faith and “on science, which shows us that life begins at conception.”

“I could never give up protecting the most vulnerable human beings in the world, simply to win an election,” Lipinski said.

“My faith teaches—and the Democratic Party preaches—that we should serve everyone, especially the most vulnerable,” he said.

“To stand in solidarity with the vulnerable is to become vulnerable. There is no higher calling for anyone. But politicians don’t like to be vulnerable.”

Lipinski, representing Illinois’ third congressional district on Chicago’s south side and suburbs, is recognized as the last reliably pro-life Democrat in the House.

In recent years, he joined Republicans in supporting a “pain-capable” 20-week abortion ban, a bill to mandate care for babies who survive botched abortions, and legislation to strip Planned Parenthood of federal funds.

His opponent, Marie Newman, was backed by national pro-abortion groups who targeted Lipinski’s pro-life record in ads during the primary.

“We ran a good campaign against tremendous headwinds,” Lipinski said on Wednesday, acknowledging his defeat and offering his congratulations to Newman. “As I said during the primary, I’ll support the winner of the primary,” he said.

For the second consecutive election cycles, Lipinski faced an onslaught of opposition from progressive and pro-abortion groups. 

Pro-abortion groups such as NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and EMILY’s List all joined a coalition that invested $1.4 million into the race, targeting him in digital, TV, and mail ads and highlighting his pro-life record.

Even two politically activist nuns from the Sisters of Mercy—Sisters JoAnn Persch and Pat Murphy—publicly endorsed Newman in a campaign video. The endorsement was “the most embarrassing, or shameful, moment” in the race, said Joshua Mercer, editor of CatholicVote.org’s “The Loop.”

Lipinski said on Wednesday that he “was pilloried in millions of dollars of TV ads and mailers” on the abortion issue. He had told CNA in January that he had not seen as much support from pro-life groups as he had hoped for.

“The pro-life community doesn’t have as much money as the abortion lobby, for sure,” said Kirsten Day executive director of Democrats for Life in America. Ads from pro-abortion groups also targeted Lipinski for opposing health care, immigration, and the minimum wage, even where he had voted reliably Democrat on an issue. “There was no counter to that,” Day said.

Lipinski’s seat was a symbolical for the abortion industry, Mercer said, and groups like NARAL understood that.

“It’s very few times when abortion legislation in the House would rise or fall on one vote. The abortion industry understood how frustrating it was to their cause to have someone who was a very reliable Democrat say ‘no, I’m pro-life,’” Mercer said.

“They saw him as undermining their cause, and they saw the value in spending millions of dollars to defeat him.”

Some progressive Democratic members of Congress, including freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), officially endorsed Newman.

Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) made headlines in 2019 for backing out of a DCCC fundraiser to support Lipinski after she endured backlash from abortion supporters in the party. On Wednesday, she congratulated Newman on her victory and thanked Lipinski for his service.

Lipinski on Wednesday said that he “was shunned by many of my colleagues and other Democratic Party members and operators. I was shunned because of my pro-life stance.”

“The pressure in the Democratic Party on the life issue has never been as great as it is now,” he said.

Democratic leadership in the House and senators from Illinois “did very little” to back the eight-term incumbent, even as other Democratic members were endorsing Newman, said Day.

Lipinski voted often with his party, so “to receive this kind of treatment over his support for human life, it just is a bad direction for the party,” she said.

Some party leaders, such as House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), have said that there is still room in the party for pro-life Democrats like Lipinski. Endorsements of his colleagues in Congress, however, never materialized as they did for Newman.

“They want the votes of Catholic voters,” Mercer said of Democratic Party leaders. “They don’t want the voices.”

In the wake of Lipinski’s defeat, political commentators said that the Democratic Party’s abortion extremism will come back to haunt them in the general election. Presidential candidates have endorsed abortion-on-demand even until birth, and all the candidates support taxpayer-funded abortions.

Day said that pro-life Democrats need to turn their attention to the general election and the party’s platform, which will be adopted at the 2020 convention in Milwaukee later this summer.

The 2016 DNC platform called for taxpayer funding of abortions in the U.S. and overseas, a significant shift on the issue. Day said that the platform contributed to the party’s extremist shift in favor of abortion, including efforts to unseat Lipinski.

Based on her conversations with moderate Democratic, independent, and Republican voters in Lipinski’s district, Day said the party’s abortion “extremism” had already convinced some of them to stay home on Tuesday rather than vote in the party’s primary.

“If the Democratic Party thinks that they’re going to do well in November with [Joe] Biden, who has really apologized for opposing taxpayer funding of abortion—if they think they’re going to get these independents to cross over and vote for Biden, I think that they’re going to be surprised,” Day said.

Biden, she said, needs to make “concessions” on the issue and there must be “drastic change to the [party] platform.”

Political strategist Jacob Lupfer said the pro-life movement could have done far more to save Lipinski.

“It is strategically insane for the party to move in this extreme direction,” Lupfer said.

While Students for Life volunteers canvassed for Lipinski in the closing days of the race, he noted, “the institutional pro-life movement did not make significant investments in this race commensurate with its wealth and power. The big pro-choice groups did.”

Mercer, however, questioned the lack of support Lipinski received from the “Catholic Left,” some of whom support presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)—who also endorsed Newman last year.

“It makes you wonder about what’s going on with the Catholic Left, that stuff like this happens,” Mercer said of pro-labor Lipinski’s defeat by the more liberal Newman who advocated for policies such as Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal.

“These are two Democrats. It’s like, what kind of Democratic Party do you want? Do you want it to be a cheerleader for the abortion industry? Then that’s Marie Newman. Or do you want the Democratic Party to say ‘we can be pro-labor, pro-environment, and still be pro-life’? That’s Dan Lipinski,” Mercer said.

Pro-lifers also need to recruit candidates from a more demographically diverse field, Lupfer said, noting that “it doesn’t look good for the movement when all the pro-life Democrats in Congress are moderate white men.”

The movement needs to be bipartisan to succeed on the national level, he said, and this means going on offense and running candidates in primaries in moderate and swing districts, targeting vulnerable incumbents.

Pro-lifers should “do what AOC did, but do it in reverse,” he said, referring to the unexpected success of young Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who ousted a Democratic incumbent in a 2018 primary.

“They need to go in and recruit black church leaders to run for Congress. Or go find Hispanic moms in state legislatures who are pro-life Democrats,” Lupfer said. “Go around the country and get 30 or 40 of these candidates and run them in Democratic congressional primaries against complacent, entrenched, or corrupt incumbents.”

Lipinski was one of the last remaining pro-life Democrats because he stood fast by his principles, Mercer said.

“It’s easy to get disappointed by politicians, and the enormous pressures that politicians face between voters and institutional party,” he said.

“Dan Lipinski was somebody who stood strong on the principle of defending the unborn, and was willing to pay whatever political price for it. And that’s a tremendous amount of courage.”

[…]

Fort Worth, Texas, Mar 18, 2020 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- Bishop Michael Olson of Fort Worth issued a pastoral letter March 18 detailing directives for the celebration of Mass during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Those directives include a plan for the distribution of the Eucharist after Masses conclude.

While all Masses are to be celebrated without a congregation present, Olson urged the continued distribution of Holy Communion “outside of church in designated spaces after Mass for those who are present in their cars or separated by a safe distance.”

“After consultation with my priests and civic officials at local and state levels, and in cooperating with them for the good of society, I am informing you that Mass will continue to be celebrated at the scheduled times throughout the territory of the Diocese of Fort Worth, but without a congregation physically present in the church,” Olson wrote Wednesday. 

Holy Communion, he continued, “is to be distributed in an open space with safe social distancing, in the hand, and not through a car window.”

In Tarrant County, where Fort Worth is located, civil authorities have urged the cancellation of gatherings of more than 250 people. 

The Fort Worth area has two confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of March 18. The number of confirmed cases worldwide stands at 200,000. 

Olson told CNA in an interview that each pastor in the diocese will be responsible for devising how to distribute Holy Communion in his parish. 

“There would be a designated place that is open-air, and then people would not be crowding around in a line, but people would come out, receive the Eucharist in a designated spot, make their reverence, and then move forward, and go and make their thanksgiving accordingly in a safe place,” the bishop told CNA. 

“I’m leaving my pastors, having consulted with them and talked with them, to devise how that will be done.”

More than 100 dioceses throughout the United States have suspended public Masses entirely amid recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urging the cancelation of gatherings of ten or more people and the practicing of social distancing, i.e. remaining at least six feet from other people.

Fort Worth’s directives seem to be unique in their provision for the distribution of the Eucharist after Masses.

Olson told CNA that “spiritual needs are often not seen as essential to the human person,” but that his plan for continuing the distribution of the Eucharist in his diocese is a means of “care of soul and body.” 

“This is very much a moving target, and we have used a system of gradualism to cooperate [with secular authorities],” Olson said. 

“But the work of the Church has to go on, and that includes the celebration of Mass. Other dioceses are having the celebration of Mass, albeit privately, so the Mass is going on. We’re just connecting this, as well, to the reception of Holy Communion…This is in no way an act of defiance. It’s an act of solidarity.”

Olson’s pastoral letter said that priests and deacons over the age of 60 ought not distribute Communion, and stressed that “the circumstances current in our community are such that attendance at Mass borders on an impossibility and thus there is no obligation to attend.”

Olson has asked that priests celebrate Mass in their churches at the scheduled times and for the published intention, assisted by a deacon or a server or acolyte. 

If inclement weather prohibits the distribution of Communion outdoors, he said, “Holy Communion may be distributed in the church with safe social distancing and without crowding with due respect for the limits on gathering size.”

The directives are set to go into effect March 19. The diocese is working with local authorities to assess whether to proceed with weddings and funerals in the coming weeks, Olson said.

[…]

Washington D.C., Mar 18, 2020 / 04:35 pm (CNA).- As much of the world faces quarantines, social distancing, and “shelter in place” orders amid the coronavirus pandemic, Catholics have faced unexpected challenges in accessing – and offering – the sacraments of the Church.

Catholics in some places impacted by the pandemic have learned that the sacrament of confession – the remedy for sin and a conduit of God’s mercy – has become rather difficult to find.  

The sacrament of penance requires a number of practical conditions. The penitent must make a manifestation of sins to a priest acting in the person of Christ, express true contrition and resolve to sin no more. It also requires the conferral of absolution – forgiveness, from the priest, according to the sacramental formula of the Church. And a valid sacramental confession requires that all of those things happen in one place, the Church has long taught.

But as the pandemic continues, and social prohibitions grow stricter, some Catholics are wondering why they can’t confess their sins virtually – over the phone, via text, or on Skype.

Father James Bradley, assistant professor of canon law at The Catholic University of America, told CNA that the coronavirus epidemic had created a new kind of pastoral urgency which many bishops and priests are trying to meet.

He told CNA on Wednesday that “the pastoral needs of the faithful,” have to be met “especially in this extraordinary time,” and that pastors are seeking new approaches to deliver spiritual care, including the sacraments.

“Canon law is clear: the faithful have a right to the sacraments, and the Church’s ministers should do all they can to provide them.”

Bradley noted the importance of online resources for Catholics. But he cautioned that innovation in ministry must be coupled with an understanding and respect for the nature of the sacraments.

“Digital communications can and do assist people in deepening their faith, especially through catechesis and formation,” he said. “We see wonderful examples of the internet as a tool for evangelization. We can appreciate this all the more in the present crisis, with dioceses and parishes encouraging and supporting their people through online ministries.”

“At the same time, the nature of the sacraments is not simply juridical. The law governs the celebration of the sacraments, but it does so by reason of the nature of the sacraments themselves.”

“The Pontifical Council for Social Communications puts it clearly: ‘Virtual reality is no substitute for the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the sacramental reality of the other sacraments, and shared worship in a flesh-and-blood human community. There are no sacraments on the Internet; and even the religious experiences possible there by the grace of God are insufficient apart from real-world interaction with other persons of faith.’”

Bradley told CNA that there are limits to what can be done online.

“Some laws regarding the sacraments are flexible, for instance the norm of hearing confessions in a church or oratory. Others are not, for instance that absolution requires a validly ordained priest,” he said.

Father Giorgio Giovanelli, a professor of canon law at Rome’s Pontifical Lateran University, told Catholic News Service this week that he believes confession could take place over the phone, if  Pope Francis would extend his permission.

“Some would object that the priest must be present. OK. That’s the kind of thing people would say in the 1980s, but the development of technology has allowed us to have other kinds of presence,” the priest told Catholic News Service.

“Am I less present by telephone? Virtual presence is real. Who could say that the celebrative dimension of the sacrament in these very particular, narrowly defined situations is lacking?” he asked.

But Bradley told CNA that innovative approaches to ministry have to be grounded in the Church’s teaching. Underpinning canon law, he said, is the essential theology of the sacraments, often rooted in a necessary person-to-person encounter.

“The nature of confession, like all the sacraments, involves a personal and ecclesial encounter with Jesus Christ, who is the Word made Flesh. A virtual reality can never replace the reality of the incarnation. We can deepen our faith through watching a livestream of Mass, but we all know: it’s not the same as being physically present.”

The canon lawyer also noted secondary concerns which should be considered when discussing new or adapted forms of sacramental ministry.

“There are also practical issues that relate to the nature of the sacrament of confession. A telephone call or online meeting raises serious concerns about privacy, anonymity, and safeguarding,” Bradley said.

Fr. Thomas Weinandy, OFM Cap, a member of the Vatican’s International Theological Commission, told CNA that “physical presence is absolutely for the validity of the enactment of the sacrament.”

“The reason I say that is because the sacrament is the action of Christ performed by the minister, and for that action to take place, the priest and the penitent must be in communion with one another, in a physical manner.”

Weinandy said that all sacraments involve a physical dimension. In marriage, that dimension is expressed in the sexual union of husband and wife. In other sacraments, it is expressed in the rites and rituals themselves, he said.

“You can’t baptize someone who’s not actually present, you can’t participate in the sacrifice of the Mass — a priest can’t confect the Eucharist— without being physically present,” the theologian added.

Weinandy told CNA that confession is an “interpersonal exchange.” The physical presence of confessor and penitent point to the significance of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ.

“The sacraments flow from the Incarnation, and because of that, there has to be a bodily presence of the one who is enacting the sacrament, and the one who is receiving the sacrament. They’re doing the sacrament together,” Weinandy said.

“The Incarnation sets the framework for the sacramental order. Sacraments by their very nature, are incarnational signs that effect what they symbolize and symbolize what they effect, and one must be a part of that sign and reality to participate in the sacrament,” he said.

“Even in the Old Testament, Moses had to be in front of the burning bush to know he was in the presence of God,” Weinandy said.

In the 17th century, the Church declared that confession by letter would be invalid. More recently, in 2011, papal spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, responded to the proposition that sacramental confession might one day take place by iPhone app.

“It is essential to understand well that the sacrament of penance requires necessarily the rapport of personal dialogue between penitent and confessor and absolution by the present confessor,” Lombardi said at the time.

One cannot speak in any way of ‘confession by iPhone,’” Lombardi added.

Priests in some parts of the world have devised creative ways to offer the sacrament of confession during the pandemic, among them “drive-up” confessionals and confession through a rectory window. While the Church is not going to change the essential elements of the sacrament, Weinandy said, creative pastoral ministry will find new and creative ways to extend the gift of God’s mercy.
 

[…]

Washington D.C., Mar 18, 2020 / 03:35 pm (CNA).- Congress has passed a second bill responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, including paid leave for coronavirus-related reasons for many Americans.

On Thursday, the Senate overwhelmingly voted to pass the F… […]