Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ fall plenary assembly in Baltimore, Nov. 16, 2022. / Katie Yoder/CNA
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 30, 2023 / 12:50 pm (CNA).
The U.S. bishops are urging Congress to permanently ban the use of taxpayer dollars for abortion through the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act.
Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Pro-Life Committee, issued a letter Friday to House and Senate leaders supporting the legislation to permanently ban taxpayer funding of abortion.
In his letter, Burbidge said that the “government should never fund the destruction of innocent preborn children” and that “congressional action is required.”
This month Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota and Rep. Chris Smith of New Jersey, both Republicans, introduced legislation (H.R. 7 and S. 62) to permanently ban the use of federal taxpayer dollars for abortion.
“As chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, I write in support of your bill,” Burbidge said in his letter.
According to Burbidge, “protecting taxpayers from being forced to pay for abortion in violation of their conscience is a principle that has enjoyed historically broad support among Americans.”
Various federal restrictions on taxpayer abortion funding have been in place for decades. Chief among these restrictions is the Hyde Amendment, which is estimated to have saved more than 2 million lives from abortion, according to the pro-life research group Charlotte Lozier Institute.
The Hyde Amendment, first passed in 1976, has been applied to federal spending packages for 45 years, blocking the use of federal tax dollars for abortions in government programs such as Medicaid. Yet the amendment has never been made permanent law and thus must be passed for every spending bill brought before Congress.
Abortion spending restrictions such as the Hyde Amendment have traditionally enjoyed bipartisan support, with even President Joe Biden, a Catholic, voting for it as a senator.
Now, recent years have seen Democratic leaders, including Biden and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, attempting to exclude Hyde and similar abortion spending restrictions from federal appropriations packages.
In a 2021 statement, Pelosi cited her Catholic faith for opposing federal restrictions on abortion spending.
“As a devout Catholic and mother of five in six years, I feel that God blessed my husband and me with our beautiful family — five children in six years almost to the day. But that may not be what we should — and it’s not up to me to dictate that that’s what other people should do, and it’s an issue of fairness and justice for poorer women in our country,” Pelosi said.
Hyde and its abortion spending restriction companions have remained in federal spending packages thus far, despite Democrat efforts. Yet, efforts to dismantle restrictions on taxpayer spending on abortion continue.
“Each of the existing funding limitations affect only a particular funding stream, and many have to be reenacted every year in annual appropriations. This puts them — and subsequently women and their children — at risk in a polarized climate,” Burbidge said.
Passing the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act in Congress would protect the lives of the unborn by “making permanent and government-wide the long-standing policy of preventing federal taxpayer funding of elective abortions,” Burbidge said.
Speaking with CNA just before the March for Life, Burbidge said that though the USCCB is “thankful” for the overturn of Roe v. Wade, “we are very much aware that this is just the beginning, our work is just beginning. It’s a new moment in the pro-life movement. But we have to be as tireless in that work as ever before because as we know abortion remains legal in most of the country.”
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An overturned van which was carrying pilgrims to the Basilica of Our Lady of San Juan de Los Lagos, Jan. 29, 2022. / Unidad Estatal de Protección Civil y Bomberos Jalisco via Twitter
San Juan de los Lagos, Mexico, Jan 31, 2022 / 15:26 pm (CNA)…. […]
Pope Francis speaking to pilgrims on All Saints Day, Nov. 1, 2022 / Vatican Media
CNA Newsroom, Nov 1, 2022 / 05:26 am (CNA).
Pope Francis on Tuesday called on Catholics to “disarm their hearts” and become peacemakers. “Peace is not achiev… […]
Bishops process into St. Peter’s Basilica for the closing Mass of the first assembly of the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 29, 2023. / Vatican Media
Rome Newsroom, Jul 9, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The guiding document for the final part of the Synod on Synodality, published Tuesday, focuses on how to implement certain of the synod’s aims, while laying aside some of the more controversial topics from last year’s gathering, like women’s admission to the diaconate.
“Without tangible changes, the vision of a synodal Church will not be credible,” the Instrumentum Laboris, or “working tool,” says.
The six sections of the roughly 30-page document will be the subject of prayer, conversation, and discernment by participants in the second session of the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held throughout the month of October in Rome.
Instead of focusing on questions and “convergences,” as in last year’s Instrumentum Laboris, “it is now necessary that … a consensus can be reached,” said a FAQ page from synod organizers, also released July 9, answering a question about why the structure was different from last year’s Instrumentum Laboris.
The guiding document for the first session of the Synod on Synodality in 2023 covered such hot-button topics as women deacons, priestly celibacy, and LGBTQ outreach.
By contrast, this year’s text mostly avoids these subjects, while offering concrete proposals for instituting a listening and accompaniment ministry, greater lay involvement in parish economics and finances, and more powerful parish councils.
“It is difficult to imagine a more effective way to promote a synodal Church than the participation of all in decision-making and taking processes,” it states.
The working tool also refers to the 10 study groups formed late last year to tackle different themes deemed “matters of great relevance” by the Synod’s first session in October 2023. These groups will continue to meet through June 2025 but will provide an update on their progress at the second session in October.
The possibility of the admission of women to the diaconate will not be a topic during the upcoming assembly, the Instrumentum Laboris said.
The new document was presented at a July 9 press conference by Cardinals Mario Grech and Jean-Claude Hollerich, together with the special secretaries of the synodal assembly: Jesuit Father Giacomo Costa and Father Riccardo Battocchio.
“The Synod is already changing our way of being and living the Church regardless of the October assembly,” Hollerich said, pointing to testimonies shared in the most recent reports sent by bishops’ conferences.
The Oct. 2-27 gathering of the Synod on Synodality will mark the end of the discernment phase of the Church’s synodal process, which Pope Francis opened in 2021.
Participants in the fall meeting, including Catholic bishops, priests, religious, and laypeople from around the world, will use the Instrumentum Laboris as a guide for their “conversations in the Spirit,” the method of discussion introduced at the 2023 assembly. They will also prepare and vote on the Synod on Synodality’s advisory final document, which will then be given to the pope, who decides the Church’s next steps and if he wishes to adopt the text as a papal document or to write his own.
The third phase of the synod — after “the consultation of the people of God” and “the discernment of the pastors” — will be “implementation,” according to organizers.
Prominent topics
The 2024 Instrumentum Laboris also addresses the need for transparency to restore the Church’s credibility in the face of sexual abuse of adults and minors and financial scandals.
“If the synodal Church wants to be welcoming,” the document reads, “then accountability and transparency must be at the core of its action at all levels, not only at the level of authority.”
It recommends effective lay involvement in pastoral and economic planning, the publication of annual financial statements certified by external auditors, annual summaries of safeguarding initiatives, the promotion of women to positions of authority, and periodic performance evaluations on those exercising a ministry or holding a position in the Church.
“These are points of great importance and urgency for the credibility of the synodal process and its implementation,” the document says.
The greater participation of women in all levels of the Church, a reform of the education of priests, and greater formation for all Catholics are also included in the text.
Bishops’ conferences, it says, noticed an untapped potential for women’s participation in many areas of Church life. “They also call for further exploration of ministerial and pastoral modalities that better express the charisms and gifts the Spirit pours out on women in response to the pastoral needs of our time,” the document states.
Formation in listening is identified as “an essential initial requirement” for Catholics, as well as how to engage in the practice of “conversation in the Spirit,” which was employed in the first session of the Synod on Synodality.
Pope Francis and delegates at the Synod on Synodality at the conclusion of the assembly on Oct. 28, 2023. Credit: Vatican Media
The document says the need for formation has been one of the most universal and strong themes throughout the synodal process. Interreligious dialogue also is identified as an important aspect of the synodal journey.
On the topic of the liturgy, the Instrumentum Laboris says there was “a call for adequately trained lay men and women to contribute to preaching the Word of God, including during the celebration of the Eucharist.”
“It is necessary that the pastoral proposals and liturgical practices preserve and make ever more evident the link between the journey of Christian initiation and the synodal and missionary life of the Church,” the document says. “The appropriate pastoral and liturgical arrangements must be developed in the plurality of situations and cultures in which the local Churches are immersed …”
How it was drafted
Dubbed the “Instrumentum Laboris 2,” the document released Tuesday has been in preparation since early June when approximately 20 experts in theology, ecclesiology, and canon law held a closed-door meeting to analyze around 200 synod reports from bishops’ conferences and religious communities responding to what the Instrumentum Laboris called “the guiding question” of the next stage of the Synod on Synodality: “How to be a synodal Church in mission?”
After the 10-day gathering, “an initial version” of the text was drafted based on those reports and sent to around 70 people — priests, religious, and laypeople — “from all over the world, of various ecclesial sensitivities and from different theological ‘schools,’” for consultation, according to the synod website.
The XVI Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod, together with consultants of the synod secretariat, finalized the document.
According to the working tool, soliciting new reports and feedback after the consultation phase ended is “consistent with the circularity characterizing the whole synodal process.”
“In preparation for the Second Session, and during its work, we continue to address this question: how can the identity of the synodal People of God in mission take concrete form in the relationships, paths and places where the everyday life of the Church takes place?” it says.
The document says “other questions that emerged during the journey are the subject of work that continues in other ways, at the level of the local Churches as well as in the ten Study Groups.”
Expectations for final session
According to the guiding document, the second session of the Synod on Synodality can “expect a further deepening of the shared understanding of synodality, a better focus on the practices of a synodal Church, and the proposal of some changes in canon law (there may be yet more significant and profound developments as the basic proposal is further assimilated and lived.)”
“Nonetheless,” it continues, “we cannot expect the answer to every question. In addition, other proposals will emerge along the way, on the path of conversion and reform that the Second Session will invite the whole Church to undertake.”
The Instrumentum Laboris says, “Synodality is not an end in itself … If the Second Session is to focus on certain aspects of synodal life, it does so with a view to greater effectiveness in mission.”
In its brief conclusion, the text states: “The questions that the Instrumentum Laboris asks are: how to be a synodal Church in mission; how to engage in deep listening and dialogue; how to be co-responsible in the light of the dynamism of our personal and communal baptismal vocation; how to transform structures and processes so that all may participate and share the charisms that the Spirit pours out on each for the common good; how to exercise power and authority as service. Each of these questions is a service to the Church and, through its action, to the possibility of healing the deepest wounds of our time.”
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