Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a Cesar Chavez Day event at Union Station on March 30, 2024, in Los Angeles. / Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 9, 2024 / 17:25 pm (CNA).
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has endorsed completely unrestricted abortion “even if it’s full term.”
“My belief is that we should leave it to the woman, we shouldn’t have government involved,” Kennedy said on an episode of “The Sage Steele Show” aired on Wednesday.
Steele, who is a Catholic, pressed Kennedy further on whether he holds this position for the entirety of pregnancy, saying that “as a Catholic that definitely is a concern with many practicing Catholics.”
Kennedy responded by confirming that he would leave the decision to the pregnant woman “even if it’s full term.”
“I don’t think it’s ever OK,” Kennedy added. “I think we should do everything in our power to make sure that never happens, everything that we can do. But I think ultimately, nobody sets out to do that and there are always some kind of extenuating circumstances that would make a mother make that kind of choice, a terrible, terrible choice which is, you know, you can’t overstate how bad that is, but ultimately, I think we have to trust the woman.”
He admitted that he believes “there is a very good argument that the state has an interest in protecting a fully formed fetus,” but went on to say: “I come down to the fact that I don’t trust the state and I think we need to trust the woman.”
Kennedy’s running mate, Nicole Shanahan, a tech entrepreneur and health activist, meanwhile, was surprised by this stance, saying in another episode of “The Sage Steele Show” that unrestricted abortion until birth “is not Bobby’s position as I understand it.”
“My understanding is that he absolutely believes in limits on abortion, and we’ve talked about this,” Shanahan said, adding: “I don’t know where that came from.”
Stefanie Spear, a spokesperson for Kennedy’s campaign, confirmed with CNA that though Kennedy believes “late-term abortions are horrifying,” he “believes the mother has the final say, and moral responsibility, in such decisions.”
Spear did not respond to CNA’s question asking if Kennedy, like Biden, would support efforts to “codify” Roe v. Wade by passing a federal law to overrule state pro-life measures.
She did say that Kennedy is “committed to reducing the abortion rate by supporting mothers and families and implementing universally affordable child care.”
Kennedy’s independent run has attracted a considerable amount of traction. Among Kennedy, Trump, and Biden, Kennedy is the only candidate to have a positive favorability rating. In terms of national support, he is currently polling at 10.1%, well behind former President Donald Trump, who leads at 41.3%, and incumbent President Joe Biden, who is polling at 40.7%, according to the latest poll by 538.
A Catholic and the nephew of the first Catholic president in U.S. history, Kennedy has said that his relationship with God is “the centerpiece of my life.”
In an interview with EWTN in April, Kennedy said that he believes “every abortion is a tragedy” and proposed a plan to subsidize day care “to make sure that no American mother ever has an abortion of a child that she wants to bring to term because she’s worried about her financial capacity to raise that child.”
“I would like to maximize choice but also minimize the number of abortions that occur every year,” Kennedy said.
He also said he would not reverse the Biden administration’s approval of expanding access to the abortion pill in stores like CVS and Walgreens. However, he added that “we ought to know what the side effects are, what the risks are, [and] what the benefits [are].”
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Bishop Gregory Mansour released his sixth pastoral letter on men’s spirituality on Oct. 12, 2023. / Credit: Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn
CNA Staff, Nov 23, 2023 / 10:38 am (CNA).
In his sixth pastoral letter on male spirituality, Maronite Bishop Gregory Mansour says that “fatherhood is expected of all men, whether biological, natural, or spiritual.”
In the Oct. 12 letter titled “The man of God is a man for others: Some themes in men’s spirituality,” Mansour, said that there are “some worrisome trends” in the culture that “undermine masculinity under the guise of remedying past chauvinism or over-reliance on patriarchal structures.”
Mansour added that given “the absence of dads in far too many homes in our country and the need for inspiring male role models, many young men are growing up without effective guidance about how to live out their male identity.”
Expressing the desire to reach the “hearts of men” through his letter, he added that “I would be grateful if this Pastoral Letter nourishes women and youth as well because so much of this letter can be helpful to everyone interested in the spiritual life.”
Pastoral letters are often released by bishops to members of their dioceses on a certain aspect of the faith, in an attempt to guide the faithful.
The letter explores a myriad of topics ranging from a man’s disposition towards his wife and children, the use of contraception and pornography, the need for self-mastery and a life of prayer, and the call to fatherhood for all men regardless of one’s current state in life.
“Men who live as ‘chips off the old (divine) block’ are the greatest need today; women and children long for this — many men also long for this,” he wrote.
‘A man for others’
Much of a men’s spirituality can be discovered through reflecting on Jesus as “a man for others,” the letter said.
Mansour cites the Gospel of John where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. He adds that Jesus was teaching “all of us, but especially men” about servant leadership.
“Jesus wanted to teach men how to undo the sin of the first man, Adam, who after the Fall would ‘rule over’ his ‘helpmate’ Eve (Gen. 3:16),” he wrote.
Christ was making service “his privileged way,” Mansour wrote, adding that “the path of redemption would involve self-mastery rather than domination of others.”
Men and women have equal dignity, Mansour wrote pointing to Jesus’s discourse on marriage and divorce with the Pharisees.
Mansour wrote that Christ “rebutted the religious leaders of the day who were justifying divorce by referring to how Moses allowed a man to divorce his wife for any reason whatsoever.”
Jesus responded by stating “that it was God’s intention from the beginning that what God has joined no human authority should separate,” Mansour wrote, adding that his new command “shattered all previous rights to male domination in marriage.”
“Jesus, it should be noted, was speaking only to men, because women did not have the ‘right,’ given by Moses, to divorce their husbands. Thus, Jesus was indicating that a woman and a man are, by nature, and by the intention of the Creator, of equal importance and dignity,” he wrote.
The call to chastity
Noting that men and women are able to give themselves as gifts to each other in the sexual embrace, Mansour said that “a man and woman need to develop within themselves the virtues necessary to ensure that they can be faithful to each other.”
Mansour wrote that chastity orders sexual intimacy to be “appropriately expressed in fidelity, love, and mutual reverence,” adding that “man completes woman and woman completes man, as two halves make a whole.”
“We can easily enslave ourselves to our desires, passions, compulsions, addictions, and whims. Pornography, masturbation, and sexual promiscuity are always sinful, as is sexual harassment or abuse,” he wrote.
Mansour wrote that if one falls into any of these sins or crimes, “he should repent of these quickly, and ‘flee’ from them, saying that professional help may be necessary in some cases.
“We should all work to rid ourselves and the culture of such ills, to make our culture and ourselves, more holy, chaste, and respectful, especially for the sake of women, girls, and boys,” he wrote.
Mansour said that one way chastity can be used in marriage is through Natural Family Planning, a method of tracking a woman’s natural cycle which can help couples either conceive or avoid pregnancy.
“If a couple for serious reasons prayerfully recognizes the need to space children, they should not make recourse to contraception but work together to achieve a healthy spacing of children in the chaste and natural way given by God,” he wrote.
On the topic of children, Mansour said that God intended “these ‘little ones’” to enter the world in the context of the marriage covenant.
“A child has the right to come into the world through this kind of marital love, embrace, complementarity, and commitment, in which the mother and father mutually pledge to love and care for the child and each other in a stable and permanent relationship,” he wrote.
Turning his attention to the single and celibate man, Mansour wrote that these groups of men are also called to live chaste lives and deny themselves.
Mansour cited Pope John Paul II, who referred to the “nuptial meaning of the body,” adding that those who forsake marriage for the sake of the kingdom can live in a “spiritual union” with God.
“This gift, in imitation of the chaste and celibate Christ, depends on and deepens one’s communion with God, and sets one free to embrace an intense and life-giving love for others,” he wrote.
A man’s prayer
A prayerful man will learn that his life’s purpose is holiness, Mansour wrote. He added that men are called to make themselves vulnerable in prayer.
Mansour notes that it can seem “contradictory” for a man who is a “protector, provider, and cultivator” to become so vulnerable in prayer, but said that to “enter into a prayerful state requires a man to now go a step even further, and to stand vulnerable before another man, that is before the God-man, Jesus Christ, and ask him for help.”
But a man’s prayer is not just for himself, Mansour wrote, it is for “all those for whom he loves and cares.”
“A good father, husband, friend, priest, or consecrated man carries the responsibility to not only answer his call to holiness, but to also help bring others to holiness as well,” he wrote.
Fatherhood “is expected of all men,” regardless of their current state of life, Mansour wrote.
He wrote that all men, biological or not, are called to “natural” fatherhood, which is “a role in which a man teaches by example, providing proof that what the father teaches is possible in one’s life.”
The biological father is a “generator of life” that will “go on to nurture other generators of life,” he wrote.
“Thus, the biological father ‘passes on the torch’ allowing his sons the potential to take on the same name, ‘father.’ Fatherhood does not end with the generation of new life, but rather the perfection of this new life through proper rearing, education, and accompaniment,” Mansour wrote.
A natural fatherhood calls a man “to showcase a virtuous life that embodies a lifestyle worthy of imitating,” he wrote.
“Whether one is both a biological and natural father or only a natural father, both roles are ordered to an even greater level of fatherhood: spiritual fatherhood. This is a fatherhood expected of all men of goodwill, focused on accompanying one’s loved ones through this temporal, earthly journey while keeping their eyes fixated on eternal life,” Mansour wrote.
Leon is a baby boy cared for and loved at Mary’s Shelter, a pro-life maternity home in Fredericksburg, Virginia. / Courtesy of Mary’s Shelter
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 24, 2022 / 13:15 pm (CNA).
Amid a shortage of baby formula in the U.S., experts recommend parents scour smaller drug stores, check online, and join social media groups sharing information.
But here’s another, perhaps lesser-known, option they can also turn to for help: pregnancy resource centers.
Nearly 3,000 pro-life pregnancy centers serve millions of people each year in the United States. They offer women and parents in need everything from health care and material assistance to educational classes and job support — at little to no cost. Right now, for many of these centers, their work also includes connecting struggling families to baby formula.
One center in Michigan, an affiliate of Heartbeat International, a pro-life pregnancy resource center network, revealed to CNA that it has a surplus of formula.
“At this time, we haven’t heard of formula shortages at the pregnancy centers,” Andrea Trudden, vice president of communications and marketing at Heartbeat International, told CNA. “Quite the contrary, actually!”
Trudden recommended families turn to their local pregnancy help organizations for assistance and use OptionLine.org as a tool to find the center closest to them.
“Since pregnancy centers are equipped to help pregnant women and new families with practical resources such as diapers and formula,” Trudden said, “they have been able to step into that gap during this time.”
Some pro-life maternity homes in states such as Virginia and North Carolina said mothers are in desperate need and exploring all of their options, including feeding their babies with formula samples. But, these homes tell CNA, they are walking with mothers in their search, every step of the way.
What is this shortage about?
The nationwide baby formula shortage was caused, and then exacerbated, by a series of factors: supply-chain issues, recalls, the closure of a major production plant in February, and even U.S. trade policy. The result, data-firm company Datasembly found, is that more than 40 percent of baby formulas were out of stock in early May.
Babies with special needs and allergies rely on formula, along with babies in general. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 63.3% of infants were exclusively breastfeeding seven days after birth in 2018. Three months after birth, only 46.3% of infants exclusively breastfed. Six months after birth, that percentage changed to 25.8%
The trouble with formula began partially with the Covid-19 pandemic. Parents stockpiled baby formula at the beginning, which increased production, only to later discover that they had a surplus to use up, which decreased production.
After consuming formula from an Abbott plant in Sturgis, Michigan, four babies became sick, including two who died, from bacterial infections. This led to a recall and the plant shutting down in February.
These incidents exposed the formula market as one not structurally prepared for emergencies, with just four companies largely in control of supply in the United States. U.S. and regulatory trade policy only added to the problem, restricting the exchange of formula internationally, The Atlantic reported.
Months into the shortage, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reached an agreement with Abbott, one of the largest U.S. baby formula manufacturers, to reopen its Sturgis plant in the coming weeks. President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to prioritize the production of formula. And, in the meantime, the U.S. military has begun importing formula from Europe.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have called for action. Senate Democrats are pushing a bill that would send $28 million in emergency funding to the FDA. Congress passed, and Biden signed into law, a bill to expand access to formula for lower-income families during emergencies.
In the meantime, before the shelves are fully stocked once more, pregnancy centers and maternity homes around the country are helping parents in need.
“I have never seen this much formula. We have an overflow!” Lois Stoll, a volunteer who manages the formula supply at the center, said in a press release. The center, one of Heartbeat International’s 1,857 affiliate locations, accumulated its surplus over the last two years, during the pandemic.
“It really is the result of an unexpected set of circumstances,” Bryce Asberg, the executive director, added in the release. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of clients fell but donations continued to come in.”
Baby formula is stored on shelves at Helping Hands Pregnancy Resource Center in Hillsdale, Michigan. Courtesy of Helping Hands
Asberg told CNA that the center has been running a material assistance program for several years where it provides mothers and families with baby clothes, diapers, wipes, and baby food or formula.
“We still offer all those items to clients who come in, but recently we have noticed a surge of interest in formula,” he said. “God has been building our supply of formula for many months, and we didn’t know why we had so much. Now we do!”
Washington, D.C.
In Washington, D.C., Janet Durig, the executive director of Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center, said that her center also has baby formula on hand.
“We’ve had some phone calls seeking help and we’ve had formula to give them,” she told CNA. But, she emphasized, the supply is limited because they rely on donations.
“We have it to help people on a limited basis and are helping people on a limited basis,” she said, adding that the center welcomes donations of unopened bottles or cans of formula as long as they have not expired.
Connecticut
Leticia Velasquez, executive director and co-founder of Pathways Pregnancy in Norwich, Connecticut, encouraged moms and families to reach out if they need formula.
She told CNA that the three-year-old center is there for any woman or mom in need.
“We just say, ‘How can we fill the need? That’s what we’re here for,’” she said. “We definitely stand with them in any crisis, whether it be a formula shortage or an unplanned pregnancy.”
Parents in eastern Connecticut looking for baby formula can text the center at (860) 222-4505.
North Carolina
Debbie Capen, the executive director of MiraVia, said that the baby formula shortage is affecting her group’s work in supporting and providing resources to new moms in need. The Catholic nonprofit runs an outreach center in Charlotte and a free college residence at nearby Belmont Abbey College where a pregnant student — from any university or college — can stay until her child turns two years old.
“Yes, the mothers we serve are very concerned about the baby formula shortage,” Capen told CNA. “We always encourage breastfeeding for our expectant mothers, but for those who cannot breastfeed, they usually rely on vouchers for baby formula through the USDA’s WIC program.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s WIC program, also known as the “Special Supplementation Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children,” offers federal grants to states for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant and postpartum women, and young children at nutritional risk.
Capen highlighted that WIC only covers one specific brand of formula, which means that moms must pay full price for any other label. Formula is at a premium price right now, she added, which only puts more stress on their limited resources.
In each state, baby formula manufacturers bid for exclusive rights to provide formula to WIC participants in that state. In return, they offer the state discounts, or rebates. For those who rely on WIC, this means that they face limited options.
In response to the scarcity, the mothers at MiraVia are turning to alternatives: food pantries and the MiraVia community.
“They communicate with our staff and each other when they find formula at a certain location, as well as contact stores to find out when shipments are expected,” Capen said. “They substitute with generic brands when possible and reach out to their pediatricians for recommendations and even free samples.”
Capen listed some ways that people can help during this shortage, beginning with communication and the sharing of resources.
“For example, you can help by searching posts on social media and community apps like NextDoor or OfferUp to find those with formula and suggest where it can be donated,” she said. “Remind friends and family not to stockpile so that the supply of formula can flow to those in most urgent need. If you are pregnant and have received free samples of formula, donate what you won’t use to food pantries or programs for new mothers.”
Virginia
Kathleen Wilson, the executive director of Mary’s Shelter, a faith-centered maternity home in Fredericksburg, Virginia, agreed that “our moms have had many difficulties.”
She told CNA about one of their mothers who gave birth to her fourth baby three months ago. At first, she used a formula brand called Enfamil Reguline. After it became unavailable, she began switching between brands and using whatever she can find, Wilson said. The mother has also tried ordering on Amazon and turned to her pediatrician for samples.
Yaretzi is a baby girl cared for and loved at Mary’s Shelter, a pro-life maternity home in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Courtesy of Mary’s Shelter
“This is a mom who is trying to hold down a job, with an infant and other children to tend to,” Wilson stressed the “very difficult” situation.
Wilson said that two of the other mothers spent days driving around at one point to try to find formula for their babies. When necessary, they are also turning to sample packets of baby formula.
“Our staff and volunteers have been assisting with this and picking up and delivering formula when they can get their hands on it,” Wilson said, adding that donors have also pitched in.
“We are blessed with wonderful donors,” she said. “A friend just stopped in this morning with two cans of formula that he was able to find.”
“If donors are willing and can find formula, we would be thrilled to take their donation,” she said, concluding that she is “praying this comes to an end soon.”
RFK Jr has never held any political office, but seems to think that he should be President. If his last name was not Kennedy, would anyone pay attention to him?
Why should anyone be surprised when McCarrick was the family chaplain? And where are the bishops who should be excommunicating this evil clown and his political twin Biden?
Confused and confusing, IMHO.
His support for abortion means he’s turned his back on Christ and does not deserve the support of any faithful Catholic.
RFK Jr has never held any political office, but seems to think that he should be President. If his last name was not Kennedy, would anyone pay attention to him?
Why should anyone be surprised when McCarrick was the family chaplain? And where are the bishops who should be excommunicating this evil clown and his political twin Biden?