Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 12, 2021 / 10:53 am (CNA).
The U.S. Catholic bishops’ pro-life chairman is expressing disappointment with President Biden as his administration reverses a Trump-era rule that restricted funding over abortion.
“It’s really sad,” Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City, who heads the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities, told EWTN News Nightly on Oct. 8. The Biden administration, he added, is “in the control of abortion extremists.”
The archbishop reacted to the administration’s reversal of the “Protect Life Rule,” which barred tax dollars from Title X recipients that provide or promote abortion and required Title X clinics to be physically separate from abortion clinics. A federal program, Title X subsidizes family planning services, including contraceptives, for low-income communities.
The archbishop challenged President Biden – the second Catholic president in U.S. history – to defend and cherish human life.
“He likes to call himself a devout Catholic. I would urge him to begin to act like one, especially on the life issues,” Archbishop Joseph Naumann said. “And to let his faith really inform his conscience and the decisions that he’s making, not the platform of his party.”
President Biden has repeatedly demonstrated support for abortion. After decades of backing the Hyde Amendment, which barrs taxpayer funding from going toward abortion, he switched his position while running for president. More recently, in the wake of Texas’ new abortion law, he confirmed that his administration is “deeply committed” to abortion as a constitutional right. According to White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, the president “believes that it’s up to a woman to make those decisions and up to a woman to make those decisions with her doctor.”
Right now, the archbishop said, the Biden administration is “looking for every opportunity to expand abortion,” and this latest reversal is “just one more casualty along that train.”
In an Oct. 7 statement, Archbishop Naumann stressed that Title X was “intended and authorized to be a program entirely separate from abortion.” Abortion, he concluded, is not family planning. Instead, it wounds women and “takes the life of an already-conceived and growing child.”
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Thousands of pro-life advocates gathered outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 1, 2021, in conjunction with oral arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion case. / Katie Yoder/CNA
Washington D.C., Dec 2, 2021 / 08:04 am (CNA).
Anna Del Duca and daughter, Frances, woke up at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning to brave the 30-degree weather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. They arrived hours before oral arguments began in the highly-anticipated abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The case, which involves a Mississippi law restricting most abortions after 15 weeks, challenges two landmark decisions: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe in 1992.
“We’re looking forward to the end of Roe versus Wade in our country,” Anna, who drove from Pittsburgh Tuesday night, told CNA. In her hands, she held a sign reading, “I regret my abortion.”
“I would like to use my testimony to be a blessing to others,” she said, so that “others will choose life or those who have regretted abortion or had an abortion would turn to Jesus.”
Anna remembered having an abortion when she was just 19. Today, she and her daughter run a group called Restorers of Streets to Dwell In Pittsburgh that offers help to women seeking healing after abortion.
Anna and Frances were among thousands of Americans who rallied outside the Supreme Court before, during, and after the oral arguments. To accommodate them, law enforcement closed the street in front of the court. Capitol police also placed fencing in the space in front of the building in an attempt to physically separate rallies held by abortion supporters and pro-lifers.
At 21-weeks pregnant, pro-life speaker Alison Centofante emceed the pro-life rally, called, “Empower Women Promote Life.” The event featured a slew of pro-life women of diverse backgrounds and numerous politicians.
“It’s funny, there were so many diverse speakers today that the only unifying thread was that we want to protect preborn children,” Centofante told CNA. They included Democrats, Republicans, Christians, Catholics, agnostics, atheists, women who chose life, and women who regretted their abortions, she said.
She recognized women there, including Aimee Murphy, as people who are not the typical “cookie cutter pro-lifer.”
Aimee Murphy, 32, founder of pro-life group Rehumanize International, arrived at the Supreme Court around 6:30 a.m. She drove from Pittsburgh the night before. Her sign read, “Queer Latina feminist rape survivor against abortion.”“At Rehumanize International, we oppose all forms of aggressive violence,” she told CNA. “Even as a secular and non-partisan organization, we understand that abortion is the most urgent cause that we must stand against in our modern day and age because it takes on average over 800,000 lives a year.”
She also had a personal reason for attending.
“When I was 16 years old, I was raped and my rapist then threatened to kill me if I didn’t have an abortion,” she revealed.
“It was when he threatened me that I felt finally a solidarity with unborn children and I understood then that, yeah, the science told me that a life begins at conception, but that I couldn’t be like my abusive ex and pass on the violence and oppression of abortion to another human being — that all that I would be doing in having an abortion would be telling my child, ‘You are an inconvenience to me and to my future, therefore I’m going to kill you,’ which is exactly the same thing that my rapist was telling me when he threatened to kill me.”
On the other side of the police fence, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Abortion Access Coalition and NARAL Pro-Choice America participated in another rally. Yellow balloons printed with the words “BANS OFF OUR BODIES” escaped into the sky. Several pro-choice demonstrators declined to speak with CNA.
Voices clashed in the air as people, the majority of whom were women, spoke into their respective microphones at both rallies. Abortion supporters stressed bodily autonomy, while pro-lifers recognized the humanity of the unborn child. Chants arose from both sides at different points, from “Whose choice? My choice!” to “Hey hey, ho ho, Roe v. Wade has got to go!”
At 10 a.m., the pro-life crowd sudddenly went silent as the oral arguments began and the rally paused temporarily as live audio played through speakers.
During the oral arguments, students from Liberty University knelt in prayer. One student estimated that more than a thousand students from the school made the more than 3-hour trip from Lynchburg, Virginia.
“Talking about our faith is one thing, but actually acting upon it is another,” he said. “We have to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. So to me this is part of doing that.”
Sister Mary Karen, who has been with the Sisters of Life for 21 years, also stressed the importance of prayer. She drove from New York earlier that morning because, she said, she felt drawn to attend. She came, she said, to pray for the country and promote the dignity of a human person.
“Our culture is post-abortive,” she explained. “So many people have suffered and the loss of human life is so detrimental, just not knowing that we have value and are precious and sacred.”
She stood next to Theresa Bonopartis, who traveled from Harrison, New York, and ministers to women and others wounded by abortion.
“I’ve been fighting abortion for 30 years at least,” she told CNA.
Her ministry, called Entering Canaan, began with the Sisters of Life and is observing its 25th anniversary this year. It provides retreats for women, men, and even siblings of aborted babies.
Abortion is personal for Bonopartis, who said she had a coerced abortion when she was just 17.
“I was kicked out of the house by my father and then coerced into getting an abortion,” she said. “Pretty much cut me off from everything, and that’s something people don’t really talk about … they make it try to seem like it’s a woman’s right, it’s a free choice. It’s all this other stuff, but many women are coerced in one way or another.”
She guessed that she was 14 or 15 weeks pregnant at the time.
“I saw my son. I had a saline abortion, so I saw him, which I always considered a blessing because it never allowed me to deny what abortion was,” she said. Afterward, she said she struggled with self-esteem issues, hating herself, guilt, shame, and more. Then, she found healing.
“I know what that pain is like, I know what that experience is like, and you know that you can get past it,” she said. “You just want to be able to give that message to other people, that they’re able to heal.”
Residents of Mississippi, where the Dobbs v. Jackson case originated, also attended.
Marion, who declined to provide her last name, drove from Mississippi to stand outside the Supreme Court. She said she was in her early 20s when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
“At the time, of course, I could care less,” she said. Since then, she had a change of heart.
“We were the generation that allowed it,” she said, “and so we are the generation who will help close that door and reverse it.”
The crowd at the pro-life rally included all ages, from those who had witnessed Roe to bundled-up babies, children running around, and college students holding up homemade signs.
One group of young friends traveled across the country to stand outside the Supreme Court. They cited their faith and family as reasons for attending.
Mathilde Steenepoorte, 19, from Green Bay, Wisconsin, identified herself as “very pro-life” in large part because of her younger brother with Down syndrome. She said she was saddened by the abortion rates of unborn babies dianosed with Down syndrome.
Juanito Estevez, from Freeport, a village on Long Island, New York, arrived Tuesday. He woke up at 6 a.m. to arrive at the Supreme Court with a crucifix in hand.
“I believe that God is the giver of life and we don’t have the right [to decide] whether a baby should live or die,” he said.
He also said that he believed women have been lied to about abortion.
“We say it’s their right, and there’s a choice,” he said. When girls tell him “I have the right,” his response, he said, is to ask back, “You have the right for what?”
Mallory Finch, from Charlotte, North Carolina, also woke up early but emphasized “it was worth it.” A pro-life podcast host, she called abortion a “human-rights issue.”
“I hope that it overturns Roe,” she said of the case, “but that doesn’t mean that our job as pro-lifers is done. It makes this, really, just the beginning.”
Mike Gutelius (center), head football coach of The Catholic University of America, watches the action on the sidelines. / The Catholic University of America
Washington D.C., Oct 22, 2021 / 14:35 pm (CNA).
If you visit The Catholic University of … […]
Washington D.C., Jul 27, 2021 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
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15 Comments
“He likes to call himself a devout catholic. I would urge him (Biden) to begin acting like one, especially on the life issues,” Archbishop Joseph Naumann said. “And to let his faith really inform his conscience and the decisions he is making, not the platform of his party.”
Well, that should do it. Based on this admonition I expect that Biden will now become the most pro-life president we have ever had.
Does anyone believe that Biden will change his spots based on this statement. Is the Archbishop, and are other bishops, making statements like this in the belief that gullible Catholics think that something worthwhile is being done?
I think the upcoming bishops meeting and the proposed document on the Eucharist will tell us much. If nothing is addressed at the scandal that prominent pro-abortion catholic politicians are causing, we will know that their talk is empty.
And a statement, with no names, and seemingly addressed to a nameless bipartisan group of politicians, will not fly.
The Biden administration is not “in the control of abortion extremists.”
The Biden administration ARE the abortion extremists, and all-abortion-all-the-time is their defining issue, their driving force, their litmus test, their animating principle, their end-all and their be-all.
The Democrats’ commitment to abortion is second only to their absolute, unwavering, monomaniacal thirst for power.
Only an extremely foolish man, who does not fear God would boast to the world about how holy and righteous he is, all the while publically and privately commiting evil deeds and endorsing the works of Satan. It’s truly sad not just for a career politician like Biden but for our entire beloved nation.
Bishop Naumann is being what the pope calls “pastoral” in calling out Chairman Joe for the split personality of his soul; that is, personally (supposedly) being against abortion but not inflicting his belief on others. Jesus didn’t tell the Apostles, “Here’s the Gospel, but keep it to yourselves.” I don’t see that this pope has what it takes to be truly “pastoral,” in teaching what it takes to attain eternal life. He’s busy sucking up to Nancy Pelosi and leaving the impression that she’s doing okay. He will do the same when he sees Chairman Joe later this month. Pastoral requires intestinal fortitude. Pope Francis has yet to show any.
The 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit are what all wayward bishops and priests and deacons need to have a good retreat upon and then all will know what it means to be pastoral toward the family members of the Lords’ church.
The Devils Workshop has to add another shift with Biden/Obama,and Pelosi,Soros,Jarrett,
and the Clinton’s behind the “Curtains” pulling the levers and strings.That make their
consistency dance and sing. We even see how a certain percentage of RINOS love to get on the floor, and clapping their hands join the Devils Dance down to the River Styx.Where Charon waits to welcome them aboard !
I’M GOING TO MAKE A COMMENT NOW AND ITS GOING TO BE BRUTALLY HONEST. I JUST HOPE & PRAY THAT ITS TAKEN IN THAT SPIRIT. SO HERE GOES: I’M SICK TO DEATH OF HEARING JUST HOW ‘DEVOUT’ ALLEGED ‘PRESIDENT’ BIDEN IS. (THINK ‘STOP THE STEAL’) ALSO, BESIDES HIS VERY OBVIOUS SPOTTY RECORD IN DEFENDING HIS “WIN,” THERE’S ALSO HIS HORRIFYING RECORD OF BEING POSSIBLY THE WORST EVER PRESIDENT IN PUSHING ABORTION ON DEMAND NATIONALLY & INTERNATIONALLY. YE GODS, THE MAN NEVER STOPS, THE DEMONIC GIFT JUST KEEPS GIVING. ‘NUFF SAID, THAT’S MY STAND. MAY GOD BLESS ALL.
It’s pretty late now for Bishops to condemn Biden. They should have confronted him before the election and he might not have won. I am not a fan of Trump but Biden and his administration are a disaster.
It is so easy to put down and criticize the behavior of others, but my remember that only God knows the truth of our hearts and the state of our souls. Perhaps my faith is too “simplistic.”
“He likes to call himself a devout catholic. I would urge him (Biden) to begin acting like one, especially on the life issues,” Archbishop Joseph Naumann said. “And to let his faith really inform his conscience and the decisions he is making, not the platform of his party.”
Well, that should do it. Based on this admonition I expect that Biden will now become the most pro-life president we have ever had.
Does anyone believe that Biden will change his spots based on this statement. Is the Archbishop, and are other bishops, making statements like this in the belief that gullible Catholics think that something worthwhile is being done?
I think the upcoming bishops meeting and the proposed document on the Eucharist will tell us much. If nothing is addressed at the scandal that prominent pro-abortion catholic politicians are causing, we will know that their talk is empty.
And a statement, with no names, and seemingly addressed to a nameless bipartisan group of politicians, will not fly.
I strongly differ with Archbishop Naumann.
The Biden administration is not “in the control of abortion extremists.”
The Biden administration ARE the abortion extremists, and all-abortion-all-the-time is their defining issue, their driving force, their litmus test, their animating principle, their end-all and their be-all.
The Democrats’ commitment to abortion is second only to their absolute, unwavering, monomaniacal thirst for power.
And it’s a very close second.
Only an extremely foolish man, who does not fear God would boast to the world about how holy and righteous he is, all the while publically and privately commiting evil deeds and endorsing the works of Satan. It’s truly sad not just for a career politician like Biden but for our entire beloved nation.
I salute you for the courage to state that — “all the while publically and privately committing evil deeds and endorsing the works of Satan.”
Sadly, most of our Bishops fear CNN more than they fear God.
Given that the House Speaker met the Pope and received no admonishment, there is no reason not to expect the same for Joe at Halloween.
Bishop Naumann is being what the pope calls “pastoral” in calling out Chairman Joe for the split personality of his soul; that is, personally (supposedly) being against abortion but not inflicting his belief on others. Jesus didn’t tell the Apostles, “Here’s the Gospel, but keep it to yourselves.” I don’t see that this pope has what it takes to be truly “pastoral,” in teaching what it takes to attain eternal life. He’s busy sucking up to Nancy Pelosi and leaving the impression that she’s doing okay. He will do the same when he sees Chairman Joe later this month. Pastoral requires intestinal fortitude. Pope Francis has yet to show any.
The 7 Gifts of the Holy Spirit are what all wayward bishops and priests and deacons need to have a good retreat upon and then all will know what it means to be pastoral toward the family members of the Lords’ church.
Biden needs to go back to the basics; his head is messed up
May God have mercy on his soul. May God have mercy on our country. Come, Lord Jesus Christ!
The Devils Workshop has to add another shift with Biden/Obama,and Pelosi,Soros,Jarrett,
and the Clinton’s behind the “Curtains” pulling the levers and strings.That make their
consistency dance and sing. We even see how a certain percentage of RINOS love to get on the floor, and clapping their hands join the Devils Dance down to the River Styx.Where Charon waits to welcome them aboard !
I’M GOING TO MAKE A COMMENT NOW AND ITS GOING TO BE BRUTALLY HONEST. I JUST HOPE & PRAY THAT ITS TAKEN IN THAT SPIRIT. SO HERE GOES: I’M SICK TO DEATH OF HEARING JUST HOW ‘DEVOUT’ ALLEGED ‘PRESIDENT’ BIDEN IS. (THINK ‘STOP THE STEAL’) ALSO, BESIDES HIS VERY OBVIOUS SPOTTY RECORD IN DEFENDING HIS “WIN,” THERE’S ALSO HIS HORRIFYING RECORD OF BEING POSSIBLY THE WORST EVER PRESIDENT IN PUSHING ABORTION ON DEMAND NATIONALLY & INTERNATIONALLY. YE GODS, THE MAN NEVER STOPS, THE DEMONIC GIFT JUST KEEPS GIVING. ‘NUFF SAID, THAT’S MY STAND. MAY GOD BLESS ALL.
Finally someone from the USCCB is standing up on two righteous and apostolic feet!
It’s pretty late now for Bishops to condemn Biden. They should have confronted him before the election and he might not have won. I am not a fan of Trump but Biden and his administration are a disaster.
It is so easy to put down and criticize the behavior of others, but my remember that only God knows the truth of our hearts and the state of our souls. Perhaps my faith is too “simplistic.”