Pro-life leaders are challenging President Joe Biden after he expressed support for a federal fund for women who take time off work or pay for child care while seeking an abortion.
“It is heartbreaking to see President Biden is so obsessed with abortion on demand that he is willing to use American tax dollars to push for more abortion rather than offering federal funding for lifesaving options offered by pro-life organizations and maternity homes around the country,” Jeanne Mancini, the president of March for Life, responded in a statement.
Biden made his comments during an interview forum that will air Oct. 23 with the digital media brand NowThis. Group Nine Media, which houses NowThis, shared a portion of the transcript with CNA.
Biden’s remarks on abortion came in response to a question from 26-year-old medical resident Danielle Mathisen, who cited her own abortion.
“I had to travel about 600 miles and leave my family behind and spend thousands of dollars to get abortion care for my own very wanted and very loved pregnancy in the wake of Roe,” Mathisen said, referring to the 1973 Supreme Court decision that was recently overturned in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization — a ruling that frees individual states to decide abortion policy.
“Some companies are offering funding and services for trips like this,” she added, before asking Biden, “Would you support a federal fund for individuals like myself who need to take time off work, obtain child care?”
Biden responded: “Absolutely.”
“The answer is absolutely,” the president said. “But guess what? We need the same votes. We need to overrule Dobbs to reinstate the decision that was struck down by the court.”
He said that, as president, he encouraged companies to help their employees get abortions.
“I mean, I do support that, and I’ve urged publicly urged companies to do that,” he continued. “I’ve urged them publicly as president of the United States saying, this is what you should be doing. I urge you to do it because there’s so many, and imagine the women who need that kind of assistance, but have no money at all to be able to do this. None. How, how, what do they do? They don’t, they don’t have the option.”
As president of the national pro-life group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, Marjorie Dannenfelser stressed that Biden’s position on abortion is unpopular.
“President Biden and the Democrats’ one-note strategy of promoting abortion on demand until birth won’t prevent them from losing Congress,” she said in a statement. “Biden’s radical agenda is not in line with the majority of Americans who support limits on abortion, including limits on brutal late-term abortions when unborn babies can feel pain.”
On Twitter, the president of Students for Life, Kristan Hawkins, said that Biden’s remarks inspired her to take action at the ballot box.
“How does it feel, American taxpayers, when the President tells you that he’s taking money out of your wallet & handing it over to abortionists to kill children — & there’s nothing you can do about it?” she tweeted. “Personally, it makes me feel the urge to vote.”
CatholicVote also responded on Twitter, asking: “Govt sponsored abortion vacations?” The Catholic advocacy organization challenged Biden for “committing to take tax dollars out of the pockets of American workers to pay for time off to destroy unborn children.”
The White House did not respond with comment by time of publication.
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 21, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he expects to name his nominee for the Supreme Court by the end of the week. The nomination, Trump’s third to the highest court, follows the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose funeral services will be held this week.
Speaking to the television program “Fox & Friends,” President Trump said that he is “going to make a decision on either Friday or Saturday,” and that he “will announce it either Friday or Saturday, and then the work begins.” The president added that he would not make the announcement earlier “in all due respect” for the late justice’s memorial arrangements.
Justice Ginsburg died September 18, at the age of 87. She had previously been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Trump said that he was “looking at five, probably four, but I’m looking at five very seriously” options to replace Ginsburg. Previously, Trump had said he would nominate a woman for the position.
He said two of the people he was considering were “fantastic,” but did not elaborate further.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) announced on Monday that Ginsburg will lie in state at the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol on Friday, following two days of lying in repose at the Supreme Court on Wednesday and Thursday. Ginsburg will lie underneath the Portico, and the public will be permitted to view the casket outdoors.
As per tradition, Ginsburg’s former law clerks will serve as her honorary pallbearers.
According to the New York Times, Ginsburg will be buried in a private ceremony alongside her husband at Arlington National Cemetery.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a Catholic mother of seven, is widely reported to be the front-runner on the president’s shortlist of prospective nominees.
Barrett, a federal judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, is reported to lead the president’s short list, and was also a contender for Trump’s second Supreme Court nomination in 2018, before the president nominated Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
According to Axios, Trump in 2018 said of Barrett that he was “saving her for Ginsburg” in explanation of his decision not to appoint her to the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Appointed a federal judge in 2017, Barrett had been a professor at Notre Dame’s law school until her nomination was confirmed. Barrett has twice been honored as “Distinguished Professor of the Year” at Notre Dame, and was a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.
During confirmation hearings, Senator Diane Feinstein said of Barrett’s Catholicism “the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you. And that’s of concern.”
“You’re controversial because many of us that have lived our lives as women really recognize the value of finally being able to control our reproductive systems,” she said. “And Roe entered into that, obviously.”
Barrett repeatedly said that as a judge, she would uphold the law of the land, but many pro-life groups believe she would be open to overturning the precedent of Roe vs. Wade, and uphold state restrictions on abortion.
New York City, N.Y., Sep 28, 2019 / 06:01 am (CNA).- As displaced Christians return to their homes in the Middle East, the Vatican Secretary of State encouraged U.N. representatives Friday to help rebuild a culture ravaged by the Islamic State.
Pope Benedict XVI announced his intention to resign the papacy during a meeting of cardinals Feb. 11, 2013. The surprise announcement, which he made in Latin, took place in the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican’s apostolic palace. / Vatican Media
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
On Feb. 11, 2013, before a gathering of cardinals who had come to the Vatican expecting to hear the announcement of upcoming canonizations, Pope Benedict XVI dropped a bombshell.
After a few announcements about Church business at the conclusion of the meeting, the pope took out two sheets of paper and read a prepared statement in Latin.
“I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the then 85-year-old pontiff told the gathering of the Catholic Church’s highest-ranking clergymen.
Because he spoke in Latin, the language used for official Vatican proclamations, reporters present did not at first realize that the pope had just stepped down.
‘Total surprise, total shock’
The assembled cardinals, on the other hand, who knew their Latin, reacted with stunned silence.
American Cardinal James Stafford later told CNA that the pope’s statement was received with “total surprise, total shock.”
“A cardinal who was sitting next to me said, ‘Did he resign?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s what he did. He resigned.’ And we just all stood at our places.”
Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze, who was present that morning, said the announcement was a “surprise, like thunder that gives no notice that it’s coming,” reported The Catholic Telegraph.
In renouncing the papacy, Benedict became only the second pope in almost 600 years to voluntarily step down. In 1294, Pietro da Morrone, an elderly hermit, was crowned Pope Celestine V, but finding the demands of the job too much for him, he resigned after only five months.
In 1415, Pope Gregory XII also resigned, but under very different circumstances — he stepped down in order to end a crisis within the Church known as the Great Western Schism.
Title, white clothes, and papal coat of arms
What happened next with Benedict XVI was no less surprising to those who expected him to live as a retired cardinal.
In his last official statement as pope, before a general audience on Feb. 27, 2013, Pope Benedict assured the tens of thousands of people gathered to hear him speak as pope for the last time that even though he was stepping back from official duties, he would remain, in essence, pope.
“The ‘always’ is also a ‘forever’ — there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this,” Benedict said.
“I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences, and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord,” he told the crowd.
A day earlier, on Feb. 26, 2013, the director of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, had silenced speculation over what Benedict would be called and what he would wear. He would, Lombardi said, retain the trappings of the papacy — most significantly, his title and dress.
“He will still be called His Holiness Benedict XVI,” Lombardi said. “But he will also be called Pope Emeritus or Roman Pontiff Emeritus.”
Lombardi said Benedict would continue to wear a white cassock but without the mozzetta, the short cape that covers the shoulders. The pope’s fisherman’s ring would be replaced by a ring from his time as cardinal. The red shoes would go as well, Lombardi said, and be replaced by a pair of brown ones.
“The city of León is known for beautiful shoes, and very comfortable shoes. And when the pope was asked what he wanted to wear he said, ‘I want the shoes from León in Mexico,’” Lombardi said at the press conference.
On May 2, the cardinal who designed Benedict’s coat of arms in 2005 told CNA that he had written the pope emeritus suggesting that his coat of arms would need to be redesigned to reflect his new status. Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo proposed making the keys of St. Peter smaller and less prominent.
“That shows that he had a historic possession but not a current jurisdiction,” said the cardinal at the time.
Benedict, however, it seems, politely declined a new coat of arms. La Stampa reported the following year that the Vatican Publishing House’s manual of ecclesiastical heraldry in the Catholic Church contained the following note:
“Expressing deep appreciation and heartfelt gratitude to the author for the interesting study sent to him, [Benedict] made it known that he prefers not to adopt an expressive heraldic emblem of the new situation created with his renouncing of the Petrine Ministry.”
By his decision to continue to dress in white like the pope, retain the title of pope, and keep the coat of arms of his papacy, Benedict revealed that in giving up the “active exercise of the ministry,” he was not forsaking the role of pope altogether.
An expanded Petrine ministry
In his 2013 announcement, Benedict clearly expressed his intention to step aside, even determining the date and time of his official departure. Nonetheless, his decision to keep the title of pope and maintain the ceremonial protocol that goes along with the papacy led some to speculate whether there were not actually “two popes.”
Benedict’s personal secretary and closest confidante, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, sought to clear up any confusion in 2016.
In a speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on May 20, 2016, Gänswein said that Pope Francis and Benedict are not two popes “in competition” with one another but represent one “expanded” Petrine office with “an active member” and a “contemplative.”
Parsing Benedict’s speech, Gänswein explained that in stepping down, Benedict was not giving up his ministry.
“The key word in that statement is ‘munus petrinum,’ translated — as happens most of the time — with ‘Petrine ministry.’ And yet, ‘munus,’ in Latin, has a multiplicity of meanings: It can mean service, duty, guide, or gift, even prodigy. Before and after his resignation, Benedict understood and understands his task as participation in such a ‘Petrine ministry [munus],’” Gänswein said.
“He left the papal throne and yet, with the step he took on Feb. 11, 2013, he has not abandoned this ministry,” Gänswein explained, saying the latter scenario was something “quite impossible after his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005.”
Benedict himself later made clear in an interview with his biographer Peter Seewald that he saw himself as continuing in his ministry. He said that a pope who steps down is like a father whose role changes, but always remains a father.
“Of course a father does not stop being father, but he is relieved of concrete responsibility. He remains a father in a deep, inward sense, in a particular relationship which has responsibility, but not with day-to-day tasks as such. It was also this way for bishops,” Benedict said.
“I think it is also clear that the pope is no superman and his mere existence is not sufficient to conduct his role, rather he likewise exercises a function.
“If he steps down, he remains in an inner sense within the responsibility he took on, but not in the function. In this respect one comes to understand that the office of the pope has lost none of its greatness, even if the humanity of the office is perhaps becoming more clearly evident,” Benedict said.
Benedict’s decision “not to abandon his ministry” inspired a cottage industry of conspiracy theories, with some questioning whether the pope emeritus truly stepped down because of his age and frailty.
George Weigel, author of the definitive biography of St. John Paul II, “Witness to Hope,” dismissed such speculation in an interview with CNA.
“I have no reason to think that there was anything more to Pope Benedict’s resignation than what he said was its cause: his conviction that he no longer had the strength, physical and intellectual, to give the Church what it needed from a pope,” he said.
“Everything else written about this is sheer speculation. Let’s take Benedict at his word,” Weigel said.
A life of prayer
In retiring to live in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican Gardens, Benedict did not completely withdraw from the world. He attended public events in his new capacity as pope emeritus, received visitors, and pursued a life of fruitful study, writing, and prayer.
Matthew Bunson, Catholic historian, author, and executive editor of EWTN News, told CNA that Benedict was determined not to exercise authority in his new role.
“He really embraced what it means to be pope emeritus, and refrained from making public comments, to instead live a life of prayer and reflection,” Bunson said.
“Benedict really was on retreat, and in prayer,” he said, “and that means we have his prayer for us as a Church.”
While becoming increasingly frail, Benedict continued to celebrate Mass daily with the other residents of the monastery and was known to enjoy spending time in the Vatican Gardens praying his daily rosary.
In the fall of 2021, more than eight years after Benedict stepped down, his private secretary, Gänswein, told Domradio in Cologne, Germany, that Benedict was “stable in his frailty.”
He described the pope emeritus as very weak physically but still clear in mind. Gänswein said he had not lost his “typical Bavarian humor.”
The meaning of Benedict’s renunciation for future popes
In 2013, after Benedict announced that he would step down as pope, Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit theologian and canonist chosen by Pope Francis to be a cardinal, wrote an essay on what should happen when a pope steps down.
In the article, published in Civiltà Cattolica, Ghirlanda suggested the retiring Benedict take the title bishop emeritus of Rome.
“It is evident that the pope who has resigned is no longer pope; therefore he no longer has any power in the Church and cannot interfere in any government affair. One may wonder what title Benedict XVI will retain. We think that he should be given the title of bishop emeritus of Rome, like any other diocesan bishop who ceases,” he said.
In December 2021, at a congress on papal resignations, Ghirlanda took up the theme again.
“Having two people with the title of ‘pope,’ even if one added ’emeritus,’ it cannot be said that this might not generate confusion in public opinion,” he said.
To make clear that the pope who resigns is no longer pope, he said, he should perhaps be called “former Roman pontiff” or “former supreme pontiff.”
Pope Francis in July 2022 told reporters that if he were to retire from the papacy he would do things differently from his predecessor.
“The first experience went very well,” Pope Francis said, because Benedict XVI “is a holy and discreet man.”
In the future, however, “it would be better to define things or explain them better,” the pontiff added.
“I am the bishop of Rome. In that case I would be the bishop emeritus of Rome,” he said, and then suggested he would live in St. John Lateran Palace rather than at the Vatican.
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