Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 13, 2021 / 12:13 am (CNA).- China remains a primary human rights concern in 2021, a federal religious freedom commissioner told CNA this week.
“China remains of utmost concern to USCIRF,” said Nadine Maenza, … […]
San Rafael, Argentina, Jan 12, 2021 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- A group of Catholic women in the Diocese of San Rafael have launched a campaign to adopt the seminarians affected by the closure of the local seminary.
The campaign was launched by the association… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 12, 2021 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- A Dominican priest and biology professor has on social media encouraged people to receive a coronavirus vaccine, emphasizing his trust in modern medicine and expertise in biology.
Father Nicanor Austriaco, a … […]
Bogotá, Colombia, Jan 12, 2021 / 04:57 pm (CNA).- The Colombian diocese of Santa Marta announced on Tuesday that Bishop Luis Adriano Piedrahita Sandoval, 74, died January 11 of complications from COVID-19.
“With deep sorrow and pain, but with our hope placed in Our Lord Jesus Christ, conqueror of death and sin, we communicate to you that at 5:15 p.m. our bishop, Monsignor Luis Adriano Piedrahita Sandoval, has been called to the House of the Father,” the diocese said in a statement.
The bells of all local churches will toll on Tuesday, the diocese said. Funeral arrangements for the bishop have not yet been announced, but will include stringent social distancing requirements and other safety protocols.
Luz Marina Medina, communication director for the Colombian Bishops Conference, confirmed to ACI Prensa that Piedrahita Sandoval is the first Colombian bishop to die of COVID-19.
“We pray for the repose of his soul, and we also pray for another bishop in very serious condition also in Santa Marta, Bishop emeritus Ugo Puccini,” Medina said.
Bishop Piedrahita Sandoval was born on October 7, 1946 and was ordained a priest on October 29, 1972. In 1999, he became auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Cali, and on August 5, 2014, Pope Francis appointed him Bishop of Santa Marta, on Colombia’s Caribbean coast.
After a new spike in COVID-19 cases – with up to 400 deaths per day – many parts of Colombia have returned to lockdowns.
President Iván Duque announced that vaccinations would begin in January, but Minister of Health Fernando Ruiz said on January 10 that “no date is set” because no arrangements have been solidified with vaccine suppliers.
Washington D.C., Jan 12, 2021 / 04:48 pm (CNA).- The U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision Tuesday reversed a federal judge’s injunction that had blocked FDA rules requiring women to obtain an abortion pill from a doctor in person.
“The que… […]
For the past few years the best Latin lessons in the world were being offered in the unlikely setting of a nursing home basement in Milwaukee. After working in the Vatican for 40 years as […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 12, 2021 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- A lawsuit was filed Tuesday against the state of New York over its 2019 law legalizing some abortions throughout pregnancy.
Among the plaintiffs are victims of domestic violence, alleging that New York’s Reproductive Health Act helped enable domestic abuse by removing penalties for the death of unborn children resulting from abuse.
The women are represented by attorneys serving as special counsel to Women’s Alliance Against Violence, a new initiative of the Thomas More Society to challenge laws that enable violence against women and children.
The Reproductive Health Act, enacted in 2019, legalized abortion in some cases up until the point of birth. It also excluded unborn babies from the definition of “persons” with legal rights and removed protections for babies who could survive abortion attempts.
In the complaint, the plaintiffs allege that the law is unconstitutional for allowing late-term abortions when the life of the mother is not at stake, and is “void for vagueness.”
Furthermore, the lawsuit says, the law puts pregnant women in greater danger from domestic abusers; by removing legal rights of unborn children, it effectively removes criminal penalties for domestic abuse that results in the death of the child.
“New York has stripped women and their families of their ability to pursue justice for those deaths,” said Christen Civiletto, one of the attorneys filing the federal action. “That’s outrageous. In fact, it is contrary to the stated policy of the RHA itself: to affirm the “fundamental right [of women] to choose to carry the pregnancy to term, to give birth to a child.”
Counsel for the group allege that by deregulating abortion and expanding the number of staff who can perform abortions, the law also resulted in lower safety standards for women and put them at greater risk.
“There are numerous cases where women have died or been injured during abortions performed by unqualified and untrained clinic staff,” stated Catherine Glenn Foster, counsel to Women’s Alliance Against Violence.
When the Reproductive Health Act was passed and signed into law, critics of the law said it was extraordinarily permissive of abortion.
The law expanded those who could legally perform abortions to include nurse practitioners and physicians assistants; it allowed for abortions at any point in a pregnancy in the case of fetal inviability or “when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health.” The law also decriminalized illegal abortions.
In February 2019, the Queens County district attorney reportedly cited the law in dropping an unlawful abortion charge, in the case of a man accused of killing his pregnant girlfriend. While the man was still charged of second-degree murder for the killing of his girlfriend, he reportedly was not charged with unlawful abortion for the death of the baby.
Another lawsuit was filed in 2019 against a separate abortion bill enacted that year. Pregnancy care centers and a Baptist church sued over another law that barred employers from discriminating against “reproductive rights” in the workplace.
Faith-based groups claimed that the law did not include religious exemptions, thus possibly violating the rights of churches and pregnancy centers to uphold their pro-life beliefs in the workplace.
Vatican City, Jan 12, 2021 / 11:57 am (CNA).- A letter by Cardinal Pietro Parolin leaked to an Italian outlet shows that the Secretariat of State was aware, and approved at its highest ranks, of […]
CNA Staff, Jan 12, 2021 / 02:17 pm (CNA).- Bioethicists expressed alarm Tuesday at a U.K. court ruling allowing the withdrawal of food and water from a practicing Catholic patient.In a statement Jan. 12, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford, England… […]
Washington D.C., Jan 12, 2021 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- As three federal executions were scheduled for this week, multiple bills have been introduced in Congress to end use of the federal death penalty.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) introduced Jan. 11 the Federal Death Penalty Prohibition Act of 2021, which would end federal use of the death penalty, bar the imposition of the death penalty for violation of federal law, and mandate that federal inmates on death row be re-sentenced.
“Ending the federal death penalty— which is as cruel as it is ineffective in deterring crime—is a racial justice issue and must come to an end,” said Pressley.
“The death penalty is deeply flawed and disproportionately imposed on Black and Brown and low-income people in America,” Durbin, a Catholic, said.
More than 70 members of Congress sponsored or co-sponsored the legislation. The effort comes after Rep. Adriano Espillat (D-N.Y.), a Dominican-American and Catholic, introduced H.R. 97 Jan. 4, “To abolish the death penalty under Federal law.”
The Trump administration has resumed federal use of the death penalty after nearly a two-decade moratorium on its utilization. Former Attorney General William Barr—a Catholic—had announced the resumption of the federal use of the death penalty in 2019.
In 2020, 10 federal inmates were executed by the U.S., and three more on death row were scheduled to be executed this week before President-elect Joe Biden is inaugurated Jan. 20.
However, a district court judge granted Lisa Montgomery—one of the three federal death row inmates—a stay of execution Jan. 11, “to allow the Court to conduct a hearing” regarding “Ms. Montgomery’s competence to be executed.”
According to Montgomery’s attorneys and expert testimonies, she is suffering from mental illnesses and brain impairments.
The D.C. Circuit Court also granted Montgomery a stay of execution Jan. 11. The Trump administration has appealed the case to the Supreme Court; Montgomery had originally been scheduled to be executed Jan. 12 at 6 p.m. EST.
In December, Pressley led a letter by more than 40 House members to Biden asking him to end use of the death penalty once he takes office.
U.S. bishops have been outspoken about ending the death penalty, and have repeatedly implored the Trump administration to stop the federal executions. Leading bishops also asked Biden to declare a moratorium on the federal use of executions and commute federal death sentences to life imprisonment.
Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, the next chair of the U.S. bishops’ doctrine committee, said the death penalty was part of the “throwaway culture” in remarks at an online forum Jan. 8.
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