CompassCare, a pro-life pregnancy center near Buffalo, New York, was heavily damaged by fire and spray-painted with pro-abortion graffiti on June 7, 2022. / CompassCare
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 20, 2022 / 17:08 pm (CNA).
While Jim Harden waits for those responsible for firebombing the pro-life CompassCare pregnancy center he runs in upstate New York to be brought to justice, he’s facing another, unexpected investigation — of the clinic itself.
One of several pro-abortion measures New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed into law on June 13 authorizes the state’s commissioner of health, currently Dr. Mary T. Bassett, to conduct an in-depth study of pro-life pregnancy centers like CompassCare that don’t provide abortion services.
The probe will assess the impact that so-called “limited service pregnancy centers” have on women’s access to “accurate, non-coercive health care information” and “a comprehensive range of reproductive and sexual health care services,” the legislation states. A final report is due in December 2023.
Harden, CompassCare’s CEO, told CNA that the state wants him to turn over information on CompassCare’s donors, patients, service processes, affiliates, and more. Meanwhile, no arrests have been made in the June 7 firebombing and vandalism of the clinic, located in the Buffalo suburb of Amherst, New York.
“They want to know anything and everything. They want an open book,” said Harden, who does not intend to comply. “It’s absolutely ironic and crazy.”
CompassCare is one of a growing number of pro-life pregnancy centers that have been vandalized in the past two months in response to the leak of a draft decision in a Mississippi abortion case that calls for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case that legalized abortion nationwide. The FBI confirmed Friday that it is investigating the attacks.
On EWTN’s “The World Over” with Raymond Arroyo on June 16, Harden took issue with the New York law calling pro-life pregnancy centers “limited.” He said abortion clinics are actually the ones with limited service because they only provide one service: abortion.
“The only intent here is to draft more legislation to regulate us,” he told Arroyo. You can watch the full interview in the video above.
CompassCare provides women with free, baseline OB-GYN care, diagnostic pregnancy services, sexually transmitted disease (STD) treatment, and abortion pill reversal care. More information is available on the center’s website.
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Triplets María Gorete dos Santos, María de Lourdes dos Santos, and María Aparecida dos Santos, 57, are all nuns belonging to the Franciscan Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. / Credit: Courtesy of Sister María Gorete dos Santos
Father Joe Barron is among the first two Americans to join Pro Ecclesia Sancta, a religious institute founded in Lima, Peru. He was invited by Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron to found another home for the community in the Archdiocese of Det… […]
Pope Benedict XVI arrives in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican for the Oct. 21, 2012, canonization ceremony for Jacques Berthieu, Pedro Calungsod, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, Maria Carmen Salles y Barangueras, Marianne Cope, Caterina (Kateri) Tekakwitha, and Anna Schaffer. / Photo by Franco Origlia/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
During his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI beatified 870 people and canonized a total of 45 saints. Though his papacy was relatively short, spanning from 2005 to 2013, the 45 people whom he declared saints are models of faith and holiness, celebrated by Catholics all over the world.
Here are seven of the best-known saints Pope Benedict XVI canonized:
St. Kateri Tekakwitha
St. Kateri Tekakwitha, or “Lily of the Mohawks,” was the first Native American saint to be canonized. Born in what is today New York state, she was the daughter of a Mohawk father and a Christian Algonquin mother. She was baptized at age 21 and fled persecution to St. Francis Xavier Mission near Montreal, Canada, joining a community of Native American women who had also converted to Christianity. She is remembered for her suffering, devout faith, courage, and her purity. St. Kateri died on April 17, 1680, at age 24.
Statue of St. Kateri Tekakwitha with lily. Shutterstock
She was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 21, 2012. He said: “Kateri impresses us by the action of grace in her life despite the absence of external help and by the courage of her vocation, so unusual in her culture. In her, faith and culture enrich each other! May her example help us to live where we are, loving Jesus without denying who we are.”
St. Hildegard of Bingen
St. Hildegard of Bingen was an abbess, artist, author, composer, mystic, pharmacist, poet, preacher, and theologian from Germany. Born in 1098, in her late teens she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of Saint Disibodenberg. From the age of 3, she experienced visions of God and was asked by her confessor to write them down in what became the influential illustrated book “Scivias.”She founded two monasteries and was a prolific writer of poetry, theology, and sacred music. She died on Sept. 17, 1179.
A sculpture of Hildegard of Bingen by Karlheinz Oswald at Eibingen Abbey in Hesse, Germany. . Gerda Arendt (CC BY-SA 3.0).
St. Hildegard was canonized on May 10, 2012, and declared a Doctor of the Church by Benedict XVI on Oct. 7, 2012. He said: “In Hildegard are expressed the most noble values of womanhood: hence the presence of women in the Church and in society is also illumined by her presence, both from the perspective of scientific research and that of pastoral activity.”
St. Damien of Molokai
The bronze cast of Marisol Escobar’s ‘Father Damien’ in the National Statuary Hall (detail). public domain.
Joseph de Veuster, later to become St. Damien of Molokai, was born in 1840 in rural Belgium. At the age of 13, he was forced to leave school to work on a farm but later decided to pursue a religious vocation with the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. As a priest, he served victims of leprosy quarantined on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. He eventually contracted the disease, losing his eyesight, speech, and mobility. St. Damien died of leprosy on April 15, 1889. Benedict XVI said of St. Damien, whom he canonized on Oct. 11, 2009: “Following in St. Paul’s footsteps, St. Damien prompts us to choose the good warfare, not the kind that brings division, but the kind that gathers people together. He invites us to open our eyes to the forms of leprosy that disfigure the humanity of our brethren and still today call for the charity of our presence as servants, beyond that of our generosity.”
St. Marianne Cope
St. Marianne Cope was born in Germany in 1838 and entered religious life with the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis in Syracuse, New York, in 1862. Mother Marianne served as an educator and opened two of central New York’s first hospitals. She was sent to Kalaupapa on the island of Molokai in Hawaii at age 45 to care for leprosy patients and established an education and health care system for them in the years she was there.
Painting of nun Saint Marianne Cope and images with lepers and her team on Molokai Island at Mary, Star of the Sea, Catholic Church, Kalapana, Hawaii. Claudine Van Massenhove / Shutterstock
Benedict XVI canonized St. Marianne Cope on Oct. 21, 2012. Of her legacy, he said: “At a time when little could be done for those suffering from this terrible disease, Marianne Cope showed the highest love, courage, and enthusiasm. She is a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and of the spirit of her beloved St. Francis.”
St. Jeanne Jugan
St. Jeanne Jugan was born on Oct. 25, 1792, during the French Revolution. At age 25, she joined the Third Order of St. John Eudes, a religious association for laypersons. After some time serving as a nurse caring for elderly women, she acquired an unused convent building that would hold 40 people and established the Little Sisters of the Poor. At the time of her death on Aug. 29, 1879, 2,400 members were serving internationally.
Portrait of St. Jeanne Jugan (1792–1879), foundress of the Little Sisters of the Poor, by Léon Brune 1855. Public domain
At St. Jeanne Jugan’s canonization on Oct. 11, 2009, Benedict said: “Jeanne lived the mystery of love, peacefully accepting obscurity and self-emptying until her death. Her charism is ever timely while so many elderly people are suffering from numerous forms of poverty and solitude and are sometimes also abandoned by their families.”
St. Pedro Calungsod
St. Pedro Calungsod was born in 1654 in the Philippines. In 1668, at the age of 14, he was among the young catechists chosen to accompany Spanish Jesuit missionaries — among them Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores — to the Marianas Islands to spread the Catholic faith. St. Pedro was responsible for converting many people, especially through the sacrament of baptism. On April 2, 1672, he was killed, along with San Vitores, while they were conducting a baptism. He is now recognized as a martyr.
Pope Francis and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle before a mosaic of catechist St. Pedro Calungsod in St. Peter’s Basilica on Nov. 21, 2013. Credit: Kerri Lenartowick/CNA.
He was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012. Of St. Pedro’s hardships, while visiting the Marianas Islands, Benedict said: “Pedro, however, displayed deep faith and charity and continued to catechize his many converts, giving witness to Christ by a life of purity and dedication to the Gospel. Uppermost was his desire to win souls for Christ, and this made him resolute in accepting martyrdom.”
St. Alphonsa
St. Alphonsa was born in Kerala, India, on Aug. 19, 1910. As a young woman, she rejected all suitors who came her way, as she was determined to enter religious life. In 1923, she suffered an accident that left her burned, disabled, and partially disfigured. She joined the Franciscan Clarist Congregation, and until her death suffered from physical ailments and problems associated with her disability. In her love for God, she embraced her sufferings until her death on July 28, 1946.
1996 stamp of India with photo of St. Alphonsa. India Post, Government of India via Wikimedia Commons
St. Alphonsa was canonized by Benedict XVI on Oct. 12, 2008. She is the first Indian woman to become a saint. In a Vatican statement released on the day of her canonization, she is described as “a victim for the love of the Lord, happy until the final moment and with a smile of innocence always on her lips.”
For the Hochul-Bassett duo to fault CompassCare for not offering abortion “services” is like the Munich Central Hospital (city nearest to Dachau) being faulted for not doubling as a Nazi crematorium.
Mind-bending and gender transitioning are cut from the same cloth…
The earlier Governor Cuomo refused to enforce child protection against abortion, and the transition to the later Governor Andrew Cuomo gave us the announcement, in 2014, that those who oppose abortion and gay “marriage” “are not welcome in New York.” More recently (2016), it was reported that the fully transitioned New York City Commissioner on Human Rights declared no less than thirty-one kinds of sexual identity (and now there are 78!). And, that (“he”) wanted the use of the “non-binary” spectrum “zie” in place of “he” and “she,” threatening heavy fines for not following the new script.
Small wonder—the net loss of well over 300,000 people from New York City last year, and an equal number overall from New York state. Reported as COVID fallout, but a sane world knows it’s because the lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
More heavy-handed stupidity from the left. Their ironic double standards of morality are plainly visible except to those most thoroughly indoctrinated.They get away with lies, propaganda and distortions which push us further left as long as people do not openly oppose them and complain to their govt representatives. I am reminded of the leftists who even now flap their hands hysterically about an “insurrection” that was “threatening the very foundations of our democracy”, all the while on TV I am seeing film of UNARMED folks in viking costume taking selfies.Yeah. Scary as anything. NOT. A dog is a dog, and no amount of calling it a cat will make it so.
The Transgressive Party Platform:
1 – We decide what your choices are, or we burn your business down.
2 – We believe Science is Surreal, and Bruce Jenner is a woman, and if you don’t agree, we’ll burn your business down.
3 – You are just breeders, and your kids are our property, and we’ll decide how to raise them, and if you don’t agree, we’ll burn your business down.
The picture of life arising from modern Democrat politics is all chaos and the relations with it maintained by the Republicans can seem to be mostly self-serving and paternalizing/accommodating and therefore impotent.
As you might compile a study card, jot down some notes and see: endless Congressional management hearings, over-bearing petrol prices, sabre-rattling for war, fire-bombings, prosecuting victims, reductionist federal policies, etc., etc.
It’s ugly and I don’t want to complete the list. But it serves the purpose of providing a snapshot of where things are and a measuring line for discerning if anything actually progresses.
And it provokes the question, very rational, very universal: What really can be achieved that way?
For the Hochul-Bassett duo to fault CompassCare for not offering abortion “services” is like the Munich Central Hospital (city nearest to Dachau) being faulted for not doubling as a Nazi crematorium.
Mind-bending and gender transitioning are cut from the same cloth…
The earlier Governor Cuomo refused to enforce child protection against abortion, and the transition to the later Governor Andrew Cuomo gave us the announcement, in 2014, that those who oppose abortion and gay “marriage” “are not welcome in New York.” More recently (2016), it was reported that the fully transitioned New York City Commissioner on Human Rights declared no less than thirty-one kinds of sexual identity (and now there are 78!). And, that (“he”) wanted the use of the “non-binary” spectrum “zie” in place of “he” and “she,” threatening heavy fines for not following the new script.
Small wonder—the net loss of well over 300,000 people from New York City last year, and an equal number overall from New York state. Reported as COVID fallout, but a sane world knows it’s because the lunatics are in charge of the asylum.
This type of thinking makes you wonder if this country will survive.
More heavy-handed stupidity from the left. Their ironic double standards of morality are plainly visible except to those most thoroughly indoctrinated.They get away with lies, propaganda and distortions which push us further left as long as people do not openly oppose them and complain to their govt representatives. I am reminded of the leftists who even now flap their hands hysterically about an “insurrection” that was “threatening the very foundations of our democracy”, all the while on TV I am seeing film of UNARMED folks in viking costume taking selfies.Yeah. Scary as anything. NOT. A dog is a dog, and no amount of calling it a cat will make it so.
It didn’t take long for progressives to move way past cakes and flowers.
It didn’t take long for progressives to move FAR beyond cakes and flowers.
Lex – When were they EVER at cakes and flowers?
Just when you thought (or hoped) that the lunacy had peaked.
Q: WHY did they do that?
A: Because that’s what they do.
One is tempted to say that they can’t help themselves, but that’s not the case – they know damn well what they’re doing.
The Transgressive Party Platform:
1 – We decide what your choices are, or we burn your business down.
2 – We believe Science is Surreal, and Bruce Jenner is a woman, and if you don’t agree, we’ll burn your business down.
3 – You are just breeders, and your kids are our property, and we’ll decide how to raise them, and if you don’t agree, we’ll burn your business down.
The picture of life arising from modern Democrat politics is all chaos and the relations with it maintained by the Republicans can seem to be mostly self-serving and paternalizing/accommodating and therefore impotent.
As you might compile a study card, jot down some notes and see: endless Congressional management hearings, over-bearing petrol prices, sabre-rattling for war, fire-bombings, prosecuting victims, reductionist federal policies, etc., etc.
It’s ugly and I don’t want to complete the list. But it serves the purpose of providing a snapshot of where things are and a measuring line for discerning if anything actually progresses.
And it provokes the question, very rational, very universal: What really can be achieved that way?
The graffiti looks like something from a four year old’s coloring book. Real bright people, these.