Children (file photo) / Ben Wicks / Unsplash (CC0)
CNA Newsroom, Oct 31, 2022 / 09:01 am (CNA).
Pope Francis’ prayer intention for the month of November is for children who suffer, including war victims and orphans.
“There are still millions of boys and girls who suffer and live in conditions very similar to slavery,” the pontiff said in a video appeal issued Monday.
“They aren’t numbers,” he said, “they are human beings with names, with a face of their own, with an identity that God has given them.”
“Let us pray for children who are suffering, especially for those who are homeless, orphans, and victims of war,” the pope said in a video message published Oct. 31.
“Each marginalized child, abandoned by his or her family, without schooling, without health care, is a cry! A cry that rises up to God and shames the system that we adults have built,” the pope said, adding: “An abandoned child is our fault.”
Pope Francis’ prayer video is promoted by the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network, which raises awareness of monthly papal prayer intentions.
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U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren addresses the public during a rally to protest the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe Vs. Wade at the Massachusetts State House in Boston, Massachusetts, on June 24, 2022. / Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images
A leading international network of pro-life pregnancy centers is pushing back against claims made by U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other top Democrats that it engages in “misleading practices” and could use the data it collects to incriminate women seeking abortions.
Warren and six other senators made those allegations in a Sept. 19 letter sent to Jor-El Godsey, the president of Heartbeat International.
“We all know what this is,” Godsey said in a statement Tuesday. “This is naked politics intended not to help women but to influence elections. It is clearly a stunt designed to appease Big Abortion power brokers.”
Heartbeat International currently serves over 2,800 affiliated pregnancy centers, maternity homes, and non-profit adoption agencies worldwide.
The senators’ letter claims that the data that the organization gathers from women who access its pregnancy centers is not protected by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, most commonly referred to as HIPAA, which grants protections to a patient’s health information.
The letter also requests that Godsey answer more than a dozen questions related to Heartbeat’s operations. One question reads, “Does Heartbeat International share people’s data with anyone? If yes, with whom?”
Jor-El Godsey, president of Heartbeat International. Courtesy of Heartbeat International
Godsey says that the senators’ letter is promoting a fabricated narrative based on “unfounded speculation.”
“What we do is safe, secure, and legal. Heartbeat has been providing help for more than fifty years and never once did we receive any of these questions or concerns until recently, and then from those with a clear abortion agenda,” he said in the statement.
“It’s politics, and we regret only that it’s a distraction to our important work of helping women find alternatives to abortion,” he added.
Godsey also criticized the senators who signed the letter for not condemning any of the acts of vandalism that have targeted pro-life pregnancy centers in recent months.
“Instead,” Godsey wrote, “they’ve spent their time fabricating a narrative on unfounded speculation. Rather than finding ways to help women be able to choose something besides abortion, they have used their political powers to bully those who are helping women make life-affirming choices.”
Besides Warren, of Massachusetts, the other senators who signed the letter are Mazie K. Hirono of Hawaii, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Ron Wyden of Oregon, Edward Markey of Massachusetts, and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.
Denver, Colo., Aug 8, 2022 / 19:01 pm (CNA).
The teaching of Humanae vitae on contraception is an instance of the ordinary and universal magisterium, and as such is irreformable, a moral theologian has said in respon… […]
May each child be blessed with a healthy present, and a bright and happy future.