Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. Courtesy photo. / null
CNA Staff, Mar 23, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
A new Catholic, osteopathic medical school that will be housed on the campus of Benedictine College hopes to open in the fall of 2027, the… […]
The exterior of St. Joseph’s in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. / Credit: Paula Kydoniefs
CNA Staff, Mar 23, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
A group of parishioners in the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, is celebrating this month after acquiring a historic church from the diocese and preserving it as a chapel and place of worship.
The Society of St. Joseph of Bethlehem (SSJB) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, announced earlier this month that the society had purchased St. Joseph’s Church, which opened more than a century ago, from the Allentown Diocese.
“The desire to preserve the church by former parishioners has been steadfast since the church was closed in 2008,” the society’s board said in a letter announcing the purchase. “It has taken time and energy over the years to enter into an agreement with the Diocese of Allentown.”
On its Facebook page, the SSJB says its mission is “to restore and preserve St. Joseph’s Church as a sacred place of worship and a testament to the history and cultural heritage” of the area.
Lina Tavarez, a spokeswoman for the diocese, said the parish ”was closed in 2008 because of a merger of several local parishes.”
“It hosted only one regular Mass per year — on the feast day of St. Joseph — and was available for funerals for former parishioners,” she said.
Paula Kydoniefs, the president of the board of directors of SSJB, told CNA that the group was established “solely for the purpose of buying this church, taking care of it, and sponsoring events.” The church, historically attended by the local Slovenian/Windish community, had its cornerstone laid in 1914 and fully opened in 1917.
Kydoniefs explained that the decision to purchase the property originated several years ago, during a period when the diocese was in the process of merging local parishes.
“In 2008 they were consolidating, and this was one of five churches that was being closed as a parish,” she said. “St. Joseph’s parishioners fought that and appealed it and ended up taking it to the Vatican.”
The Vatican eventually ordered that the parish remain open for use, Kydoniefs said. In 2011 then-Bishop John Barres “gave the parish the ability to have an annual Mass and have funerals of former parishioners.”
The church was used “only occasionally” in this capacity, Tavarez told CNA. In 2023 the diocese moved again to sell the church.
“We went back to the diocese,” Kydoniefs said. “It’s a minor miracle. It was last-minute.”
“They had already announced they were going to sell it. They could have just told us no,” she said. “But, credit to them, they said: ‘If you can come up with $175,000 quickly, you can purchase it.’”
Kydoniefs said “several minor miracles and maybe major miracles” followed, with a benefactor — the James Stocklas Family Trust — quickly coming forward to donate “the whole $175,000.”
“Financially we’re independent, and we’re totally responsible for the care and upkeep and maintenance of the church,” Kyondiefs said.
“According to canon law, it’s a chapel,” she said. “It’s still a Catholic church, it’s still affiliated with the diocese in that way. The diocese has the jurisdiction over what public worship services we can do there.”
“They’ve told us that we must have two Masses a year, one on the feast day of St. Joseph [March 19] and one on Oct. 28, the anniversary of the consecration of the church,” she added.
Presently the church is not suited for occupancy, Kydoniefs said, with inspectors finding several code deficiencies in need of updating. Regulators did work with the community to develop a stopgap mitigation plan that allowed the church to celebrate St. Joseph’s feast day on March 19.
The church “does need a lot of work,” she admitted, but she said the SSJB is prepared to see the building restored and utilized for regular community and religious events “at least monthly.”
“We’ve got a lot of ideas,” she said. “We really want to see this church being used again.”
In a letter issued upon the church’s reopening, meanwhile, the SSJB wrote that “as heartbreaking as it was a year ago, to hear that our cherished St. Joseph’s Church was to be permanently closed and sold on the open market, we now experience the opposite — hearts filled with joy and thanksgiving!”
“To the St. Joseph’s Church community,” the letter said, “welcome home!”
View of the Vatican from the Tiber / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA
CNA Newsroom, Mar 23, 2024 / 05:30 am (CNA).
The Vatican and the German bishops have announced they will work together to resolve the controversial German Synodal Way. In a joi… […]
Thursday’s news about the defrocking of Roger Vangheluwe has given us an answer to a question raised with some palpable urgency by another high-profile scandal touching the very echelons of power in the Vatican. The […]
A participant in a Women’s March event Jan. 18, 2020, in San Francisco holds a “Pass the Equal Rights Amendment” sign while marching. / Credit: Sundry Photography/Shutterstock
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 22, 2024 / 18:30 pm (CNA).
Nevada Judge Erika Ballou ruled this week that the state must include abortion in its Medicaid program.
This ruling effectively mandates Nevada taxpayers fund abortion. It is unclear whether the state will appeal the decision.
Ballou did not give any explanation for her Tuesday ruling, only issuing a one-page order that granted a local pro-abortion group’s request to strike down the Medicaid restrictions.
The pro-abortion group, called “Silver State Hope Fund,” which provides grants for women seeking abortions, applauded the ruling, calling it a “historic day for Nevada.”
Represented by ACLU Nevada, Silver State Hope Fund filed a suit against the state’s Health and Human Services Department in August 2023. The suit argued that the state was violating the ERA through its so-called Medicaid “coverage ban” on abortion. ACLU Nevada argued that not including abortion in Medicaid “disadvantages women because of their sex, including their reproductive capabilities.”
According to reporting by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, attorneys for the state of Nevada argued that the state has “a legitimate interest in efficiently utilizing Medicaid funds — both federal and state — to maximize the services provided to Medicaid recipients” and that “if Medicaid were to cover elective abortions, it would have to divert state money from covering other services because it cannot use federal matching dollars to pay for elective abortions.”
All funding for abortion would have to come out of the state’s budget because of the Hyde Amendment’s prohibition of federal tax dollars from being used for abortion.
ACLU attorney Rebecca Chan also celebrated the ruling, saying in a statement: “We are relieved that the court correctly recognized the severe harms of Nevada’s ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion, which directly violates the recently passed state Equal Rights Amendment.”
“Every person, regardless of their income level or insurance source, deserves the power to make personal medical decisions during pregnancy, including abortion,” she said.
The Nevada ERA, passed in a referendum vote in 2022, added a section to the Nevada Constitution that said: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by this State or any of its political subdivisions on account of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression, age, disability, ancestry, or national origin.”
There is an ongoing national push to add a similar version of the ERA to the U.S. Constitution, something the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has firmly opposed. The bishops have voiced concerns that the language could be used to claim a constitutional right to an abortion or could be used to infringe on religious liberty.
In 2023 Arlington Bishop Michael Burbidge, chair of the bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, issued a statement speaking out against this version of the ERA.
“The Catholic faith teaches that women and men are created with equal dignity, and we support that being reflected in law. The proposed ‘Equal Rights Amendment,’ however, would likely create a sweeping new nationwide right to abortion at any stage, at taxpayer expense, and eliminate even modest protections for women’s health and the lives of preborn children,” he said.
Burbidge added that the measure “could also pose grave problems for women’s privacy and athletic and other opportunities, and negatively impact religious freedom.”
Britain’s Catherine, Princess of Wales, (Kate Middleton) arrives to attend the “Together At Christmas” carol service at Westminster Abbey in London on Dec. 8, 2023. / Credit: Chris Jackson/POOL/AFP
ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 22, 2024 / 18:00 pm (CNA… […]
null / Credit: lazyllama/Shutterstock
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 22, 2024 / 16:27 pm (CNA).
The Republican Study Committee (RSC), of which over 80% of House Republicans are members, dedicated a section of its “Fiscal Sanity to Save America”… […]
Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Montana, speaks at a press conference on the debt limit and the Freedom Caucus’s plan for spending reduction at the U.S. Capitol on March 28, 2023, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 22, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
Four congressmen in the conservative House Freedom Caucus voiced “strong objections” to a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) plan to expand its coverage of in vitro fertilization (IVF) to unmarried veterans, including those in same-sex relationships.
Under the previous rules, the VA only covered IVF treatments for married couples who produce their own eggs and sperm for the fertility treatment. The new policy will allow donor eggs and sperm and cover treatments for unmarried people who require such donations to create an embryo.
The lawmakers, led by Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Montana, expressed their dissent in a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough on March 20. He was joined by Caucus Chairman Bob Good, R-Virginia; Rep. Mary Miller, R-Illinois; and Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Oklahoma.
“An IVF embryo is the earliest stage of life that exists outside of the womb,” Rosendale said in a statement accompanying the letter.
“Through this expansion, a surplus of embryos will be created, which are likely to result in abandoned or cruelly discarded human life,” Rosendale said. “Accompanying that, legislation has been introduced previously to expand IVF at the VA, meaning the legality of this decision is questionable at best.”
IVF is a fertility treatment in which doctors extract eggs from the woman and fertilize the eggs with sperm to create human embryos in a laboratory without a sexual act. Clinics create a surplus of embryos to maximize the likelihood that the mother can bring one healthy baby to term — the remaining embryos are often discarded, which ends a human life, or frozen indefinitely.
The letter from the lawmakers notes that expanding IVF “creates a plethora of ethical concerns and questions” and calls the treatment “morally dubious.” Because most human embryos are either destroyed or abandoned, the signatories conclude it “should not be subsidized by the American taxpayer.”
Rosendale and his three colleagues also requested information from the VA pertaining to what the department does with surplus embryos, how many are destroyed or frozen, how much the IVF expansion and embryo storage will cost taxpayers, and what specific law grants them the authority to take this action.
Rather than expanding IVF, the lawmakers suggested the VA provide reimbursements for adoption efforts instead.
“There are around 400,000 children in foster care nationwide, and approximately 117,000 are waiting to be adopted,” the letter adds. “The VA also provides fertility and infertility care to help veterans who struggle with infertility. It would make more sense to use the funds that the expansion of IVF will cost to bolster adoption efforts at the VA.”
Under its current policies, the VA can provide up to $2,000 for adoption expenses, but only if the veteran has a service-connected disability that causes infertility. The law does not allow coverage for surrogacy.
Access to IVF became a major political issue after the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF are covered under the state’s “Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.” After several clinics stopped providing IVF, Republicans and Democrats in the state quickly passed legislation to grant clinics immunity in the deaths of human embryos, which was signed by Gov. Kay Ivey, who claims to be pro-life.
A large number of Republicans, including lawmakers who are outspoken on other pro-life issues, distanced themselves from the ruling and embraced IVF despite the destruction to human life that is integral to the industry. Few have spoken out against the process.
The Catholic Church opposes IVF because it separates the marriage act from procreation and destroys embryonic human life. Acknowledging the advances in science available today to those seeking help having children, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops warns Catholics on its website of the ethical issues involved.
“The many techniques now used to overcome infertility also have profound moral implications, and couples should be aware of these before making decisions about their use,” the guidance reads.
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de l’Assomption in Cap-Haitien, Haiti / Rotorhead 30A Productions/Shutterstock
ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 22, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
Amid the violence racking the country, the Haitian Bishops’ Conference has issued a letter to … […]
The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. / Credit: JLogan via Wikimedia/ Public Domain
Rome Newsroom, Mar 22, 2024 / 10:45 am (CNA).
European bishops this week called on the institutions of the European Union to embrace greater state-chur… […]
© Catholic World Report