A Catholic pregnancy center called “Aid for Women” in north Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood was vandalized with red paint and the words “fake clinic” and “the dead babies are in Gaza” at 3 a.m. on Friday, Aug. 23, just hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention. Mary FioRito, a spokesperson for the center, said that vandals also cemented the doors shut, forcing the nonprofit to cancel appointments for around 12 women. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Aid for Women.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 23, 2024 / 18:37 pm (CNA).
A Catholic pregnancy center in Chicago called “Aid for Women” was vandalized in the early morning hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention.
No one was present at the center at the time of the incident. Police have been contacted and are investigating the incident as a violation of the Freedom of Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, according to Mary FioRito, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a spokesperson for Aid for Women.
Aid for Women is a non-profit which according to its website was “founded on the faith and teachings of the Catholic Church.”
The nonprofit operates five pregnancy centers and two maternity homes in the Chicago area. The group partners with the Archdiocese of Chicago and offers a range of services including ultrasounds, abortion pill reversal medications, counseling, and material aid.
FioRito, who has been a regular volunteer at Aid for Women for over two decades, told CNA that the incident occurred in north Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood at 3 a.m. Friday morning, hours after the DNC’s final closing.
The act of vandalism was caught on the center’s security camera. The footage has now been turned over to police.
According to FioRito, four vandals splattered red paint and painted the words “fake clinic” and “the dead babies are in Gaza” on the center’s entrance. FioRito said that the vandals also cemented the center’s doors shut, forcing staff to cancel all appointments on Friday — which she said were with about a dozen women.
The doors at “Aid for Women,” a Catholic pregnancy center in north Chicago, were cemented shut by vandals at 3 a.m. on Aug. 23, 2024, hours after the closing of the Democratic National Convention. Credit: Photo courtesy of Aid for Women.
As of Friday afternoon, the center’s doors were still cemented shut and there is no timeline on when it will be able to reopen. FioRito said that this means the Aid for Women pregnancy center may have to cancel its appointments or ask women to visit another location on Saturday, which FioRito said is their busiest day.
FioRito said that when she saw the pictures of the damage to the center she was “horrified.”
Addressing the vandals she said: “You’re not hurting us; you’re hurting these women.”
“These are working-class women. A lot of stuff for them is a struggle. Why would you do this to women who already are facing so many obstacles? It baffles me,” she said.
The act of vandalism was caught on the center’s security camera. The footage has now been turned over to police.
According to FioRito, there was an unusually low police presence in the neighborhood at the time of the incident due to the DNC which took place in another part of town.
FioRito lamented that pregnancy centers have borne the brunt of anti-abortion anger since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022.
“It’s so strange to me that pregnancy centers are somehow the collateral damage of all this anger over Roe being overturned because the pregnancy centers didn’t have anything to do with it,” she said. “Pregnancy centers are largely apolitical … they are not political advocates, they are not legal advocates, they simply help women.”
Edgewater is an urban neighborhood as culturally diverse and “not a wealthy neighborhood.”
“Many of the women we serve are not women of means,” she said. “Pregnancy is hard enough. You don’t need something like this layered on top of it, making your life even harder.”
“If the people who did this were intending to hurt the pro-life movement or get back at the pro-life movement for Dobbs, all they’re really hurting is poor women when they do something like this,” said FioRito.
The DNC took place at Chicago’s United Center this week, Aug. 19-22. Several of the Democratic speakers, including Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, highlighted abortion as a central issue in the 2024 election and condemned pro-life attempts to restrict abortion.
A local Planned Parenthood operated a free mobile abortion clinic just outside the convention. Planned Parenthood Great Rivers reported on Thursday that the mobile clinic had provided nine vasectomies and eight chemical abortions.
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CNA Staff, Oct 29, 2020 / 11:30 am (CNA).- The U.S. Secretary of State on Thursday called out the Chinese Communist Party as the world’s most serious threat to religious freedom.
In a speech in Jakarta, Indonesia, Oct. 29, Mike Pompeo said that … […]
Buffalo, N.Y., Dec 9, 2019 / 08:19 pm (CNA).- Efforts to recover from clergy sex abuse scandals in Buffalo require listing to victims and others affected by the diocese’s handling of abuse, the apostolic administrator of the Buffalo diocese Bishop Edward Scharfenberger has said.
“I know there’s a lot of pain. I know that pain sometimes presents itself first as anger,” Bishop Scharfenberger said in opening remarks at a Dec. 7 symposium at Canisius College in Buffalo.
“We can’t deny the fact that there is a lot of anger and frustration. Maybe in our personal lives but also in those who expect much of us as leaders to be able to help them find a way out of the darkness that they have experienced,” he continued.
“The darkness of fear is absolutely chilling,” he said. “Remember, Jesus tells us that fear is useless. It’s faith that counts. The more we trust in him, that he’s with us…. He accompanies us wherever we go.”
“We can do this together,” he said, adding that Jesus Christ is the “ultimate healer.”
“People are not giving up,” he said. “And there are reasons for hope too, because God is with us, and we’re going to get through this.
Scharfenberger became apostolic administrator of the diocese December 4, following Pope Francis’ acceptance of the early resignation of 73-year-old Bishop Richard J. Malone of Buffalo, who has faced a year of controversy over his handling of sexual abuse by clergy.
In November 2018, a former Buffalo chancery employee leaked confidential diocesan documents related to the handling of claims of clerical sexual abuse. The documents were widely reported to suggest Malone had covered-up some claims of sexual abuse, an allegation the bishop denied.
Six months later, in April 2019, Malone apologized for his handling of some cases in the diocese, and said he would work to restore trust. The bishop particularly apologized for his 2015 support of Fr. Art Smith, a priest who had faced repeated allegations of abuse and misconduct with minors.
That was the background for the Dec. 7 symposium, held by the Movement to Restore Trust. The group’s organizing committee is comprised mostly of business and non-profit Catholic leaders.
“The biggest thing that we need is that trust,” Michael Whalen, a survivor of clergy sex abuse who advocates on behalf of victims, said at the symposium, the NBC affiliate WGRZ reports.
Whalen made suggestions for the bishop administering the diocese.
“How do we go about getting that trust back? I think by him making big changes in the diocese, getting rid of the old garb, people who’ve been there decades, who knew about the abuse, and didn’t do anything about it,” he said.
The bishop praised Whalen’s comments, Scharfenberger said to reporters, according to audio published by the Buffalo AM radio station WBEN.
“His heart is so full of a desire to help, and to help us heal,” Scharfenberger said. “I thanked him, because I believe that our victim-survivors are an essential part of our mission. They’re our family. Their experience and the experience of every one of us is very, very valuable.”
“We have to be able to feel that we have a safe space, that we can come together and talk about that and learn from one another, and hear our stories and share our pain, and our vision,” said the bishop.
For Scharfenberger, who will serve as both Bishop of Albany and apostolic administrator pending further decisions by the Vatican, the restoration of trust is ultimately a matter of proving oneself trustworthy and hoping that this is recognized. Though he thought the good faith displayed at the symposium was “heartwarming,” he compared it to a honeymoon period. Upcoming decisions might not be popular.
“I just want everybody to know that whatever I do, I will do with a spirit of justice and charity and openness and listening,” he said. “I don’t want to make any decision that does not take into account and does not show respect for all of those that these decisions affect.”
Whalen, the survivor of sexual abuse, has advocated for the release of the diocese’s confidential files.
The bishop pledged transparency but also said clarity was needed in the release of records which might not give the full context or accurate knowledge.
“I want to be transparent. I want everybody to know what they have a right to know but I want to do it in a way that is clearly understood,” he said.
The possible financial bankruptcy of the diocese was a topic at the symposium. University at Buffalo Law School Vice Dean Todd Brown said if the diocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy it would not liquidate, but rather reorganize.
The Movement to Restore Trust’s organizing committee members include John Hurley, the lay president of Canisius College, a Jesuit school in Buffalo.
Hurley said bankruptcy would represent “the fairest option” because court cases would be done all together. He said “everyone will be treated equitably and all at the same time, and it won’t be who has the better lawyer, or who can get the first trial.”
In comments to reporters, Scharfenberger said there are many different sides to the arguments for and against bankruptcy. He stressed the need to make the right decision and the need to help people to know why he made that decision.
“It has to be done with deliberation,” he said.
“Ultimately this is a spiritual crisis… People did unholy bad things, evil things, and the only way to eradicate evil is by returning to holiness and to return to God, and to live according to the way our faith teaches us to live,” the bishop continued.
“It’s in God’s time when that happens. God has been trying to restore trust with the human race since the Fall of Adam and Eve,” he said. “We keep turning away. And God keeps coming back.”
“Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak attends a taping of the show’s 35th anniversary season at Epcot Center at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, in 2017. / Credit: Gerardo Mora/Getty Images
Boston, Mass., Sep 3, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Pat Sajak, the longtime host of the popular television game show “Wheel of Fortune,” will be retiring after this upcoming season.
After more than 40 years in that role, Sajak is like a member of the family for the show’s millions of fans.
A lesser-known fact about the Emmy winner is that he’s the chair of the board of trustees at Hillsdale College, a small Christian, classical liberal arts school in southern Michigan that is often branded as “conservative” and which one magazine has even described as being “at the heart of the culture wars.”
Founded by Freewill Baptist slavery abolitionists in 1844, Hillsdale defines itself as “nonsectarian Christian.” But Sajak’s many Catholic fans might be interested to know that Hillsdale has a thriving Catholic community of students and faculty — and has become something of a hub for converts to the Catholic faith.
An average of about 15 students from Hillsdale convert to Catholicism each year, Kelly Cole, a staff member from the local St. Anthony Catholic Church, which ministers to the students, told CNA.
Additionally, in recent years certain Catholic prelates have made visits to campus including Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron, who gave the college’s graduation commencement address in May, and German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, former head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, who offered a lecture on campus in 2021.
Is Pat Sajak Catholic?
Sajak declined an interview with CNA. While his religious affiliation isn’t clear, a 1993 article from the Los Angeles Times reported that Sajak received an annulment from the Catholic Church. Sajak’s first marriage was with Sherril Sajak, but after they divorced, he married Lesly Brown, his current spouse of over 30 years, according to Hollywood Life.
People magazine reported that Sajak married Brown at a Catholic church in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1989. Outsider reported that this church was St. Mary’s.
A Chicago native, Sajak, who called himself an “unapologetic conservative” in a 2012 interview with the Hoover Institution, has Polish roots and described his upbringing as blue-collar. A Vietnam veteran, he served as a television weatherman before his time at “Wheel of Fortune.”
“Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak speaks at the Hillsdale College graduation ceremony on May 17, 2019, in his first year as chairman of the board of trustees at the college, located in Hillsdale, Michigan. Credit: YouTube/Hillsdale College
Since 2019, Sajak, who is 76 according to the History Channel, has been serving as chairman of the board for the school. But he’s been involved with the school long before he was the chair, serving as the vice chairman of the board of trustees beginning in 2003.
He said in his interview with the Hoover Institution that he came to Hillsdale as a result of his relationship with the school’s president, Larry Arnn, whom Sajak met when he served on the board of the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank.
In that interview, he praised the school for not taking government funding, something that Hillsdale prides itself on.
The school was included in the Princeton Review’s 2024 edition of the nation’s best colleges, earning a No. 3 ranking of “most conservative students,” a No. 2 ranking of “most religious students,” and a No. 2 ranking of having the “friendliest students.”
A Great Books curriculum
Why is Catholic life at Hillsdale so vibrant?
On Hillsdale’s website, the school prides itself on a core curriculum that “considers the spiritual and intellectual inheritance of the Western Tradition and provides a fuller perspective on the world and its workings.”
From the school’s longtime English professor David Whalen’s perspective, the college’s “traditional, Great Books-heavy curriculum” inevitably brings students into contact with many ideas that are influenced by the Catholic faith.
The Great Books curriculum consists of literature courses mandatory for every student.
Professor David Whalen has been teaching English at Hillsdale College for almost 30 years. Credit: YouTube/Catholic Diocese of Lincoln
Whalen, a Catholic who is also the school’s associate vice president for curriculum, said that the amount of Catholic conversions each year is a result of “grace” but “also the natural consequence of young people reading deeply in the Western intellectual and spiritual tradition and reflecting on their own beliefs.”
While the “great majority” of Hillsdale’s faculty and students are not Catholic, Whalen said that the atmosphere on campus is “highly collegial” and the Catholic community flourishes at the school.
“There are enough Catholic students, faculty, and staff to sustain a quite vibrant Catholic community and, at the same time, integrate with the campus as a whole,” he said. “This makes the college attractive to Catholic students, as does its traditional curriculum and strong academics.”
Being a minority on campus, Catholics would do well to brush up on their faith, Whalen said.
“This is a highly intelligent place, and people with different beliefs are going to be articulate and thoughtful about them. So, the Catholics here need to be so as well,” he said.
Taking Catholicism seriously
Cole, who converted to Catholicism the year she graduated from Hillsdale in 2002, said that she took Whalen’s literature course and it had a major impact on her conversion.
But it wasn’t just the literature classes that pushed her to convert, it was mainly the history courses, she said.
“And my history courses were taught by Protestants; it wasn’t Catholics that were teaching this or anything,” she noted.
Kelly Cole, who is seen in this photo with two of her seven children William (right) and Alex (left), graduated from Hillsdale College and converted to Catholicism in 2002. Credit: Kelly Cole
Cole, 43, said that “trying to faithfully engage with history and the history of Christendom and talking about our Judeo-Christian heritage just led to me feeling like I needed to take Catholicism seriously.”
Earlier this year, the Diocese of Lansing posted a video highlighting the 2023 Easter Vigil at St. Anthony’s in which 24 people, 22 of them Hillsdale students, were received into the Catholic Church.
Today, Cole, her husband, Lee Cole — a professor at the college — and her seven children all reside in Hillsdale, where she serves on staff at the city’s St. Anthony Catholic Church, where she was received when she converted more than 20 years ago.
Defenders of the faith
Just as it did then, St. Anthony is the sole institution providing the sacraments to students on campus. But the church works hand in hand with the school’s “Catholic Society,” a student-led club that organizes social events and opportunities for students to receive the sacraments and brings speakers to campus.
Noah Hoonhout, a 2023 graduate who led the school’s Catholic student organization, said that the Catholic Society is “the most active” club on campus.
Among the recent speakers the society has sponsored are German Cardinal Gerhard Müller and American theologian George Weigel, both of whom drew large crowds, according to Hoonhout.
Noah Hoonhout, 22, a 2023 graduate, was the president of Hillsdale’s Catholic Society in his senior year. Credit: Noah Hoonhout
According to the Hillsdale Daily News, the school’s president called Weigel and Müller “ardent defenders of the immemorial teachings of the Christian faith and of the liberty of the human soul before God that Hillsdale College holds so dear” following their lectures in 2021.
Whalen told CNA that when Müller visited campus he was invited to say a few words at a dinner in his honor at the school’s president’s house.
Whalen said that Müller “gave an extemporaneous short talk that was both brilliant and beautiful. It was a great moment.”
The Catholic Society points students toward St. Anthony’s many ministries, one of which is specifically established for Hillsdale students called “The Grotto.”
The Grotto is a house located near campus where students can come and pray before the Blessed Sacrament.
Each week, the Grotto offers Mass, confession, eucharistic adoration, the recitation of the rosary, formation events, and social gatherings for the students, such as “convivium,” where dozens of students will gather for dinner at the house on Thursday nights and hear a talk on the Catholic faith from a professor at the school.
Hoonhout, 22, said that the Grotto is one of the “centers of Catholic culture” on campus.
What’s next?
In Sajak’s long tenure at “Wheel of Fortune,” he has earned several awards, including a Daytime Emmy Lifetime Achievement Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2019, Guinness World Records deemed him to have “the longest career as a game show host for the same show,” which was 35 years and 198 days at the time, according to abc.com.
Although not much is known about what Sajak will do following retirement from “Wheel of Fortune,” Hillsdale has said that he will continue serving in his role as chairman of its board of trustees.
His role at the game show will be taken over by celebrity host Ryan Seacrest. Sajak’s longtime co-host, Vanna White, reportedly will remain with the show.
“Well, the time has come. I’ve decided that our 41st season, which begins in September, will be my last,” Sajak tweeted on June 12. “It’s been a wonderful ride, and I’ll have more to say in the coming months. Many thanks to you all.”
Whoever committed this attack seems to assume that women are stupid and don’t know the difference between an abortion center and a women’s center. That doesn’t seem “pro-women” to me. Give women credit for having brains!–if they make an appointment at this center and learn that it is not a place where they can get an abortion, they’ll know enough to walk out and find what they are looking for. Women need to know ALL their alternatives when faced with any health-related issue (which pregnancy definitely is!). I moved out of Illinois to a pro-life state 3 years ago. I mourn having to leave a state that I love and consider to be one of the richest in the world (the soil!). But it’s run by people who have given themselves and their state over to evil. And no matter what Cardinal Cupich says or does, there are many wonderful priests and laypeople in Illinois!
Any comment from Cardinal Cupich?
Nope. He’s too busy focusing on illegal immigration, climate hysteria and alphabet issues.
Whoever committed this attack seems to assume that women are stupid and don’t know the difference between an abortion center and a women’s center. That doesn’t seem “pro-women” to me. Give women credit for having brains!–if they make an appointment at this center and learn that it is not a place where they can get an abortion, they’ll know enough to walk out and find what they are looking for. Women need to know ALL their alternatives when faced with any health-related issue (which pregnancy definitely is!). I moved out of Illinois to a pro-life state 3 years ago. I mourn having to leave a state that I love and consider to be one of the richest in the world (the soil!). But it’s run by people who have given themselves and their state over to evil. And no matter what Cardinal Cupich says or does, there are many wonderful priests and laypeople in Illinois!