Washington D.C., Jul 25, 2018 / 02:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A recent poll suggesting widespread support for Roe v. Wade fails to account for the misinformation surrounding the 1973 Supreme Court decision, said the head of a prominent pro-life group this week.
“Polling can only be as accurate as the information available to respondents,” said Catherine Glenn Foster, president and CEO of the pro-life group Americans United for Life, in a statement.
She pointed to a 2013 study by the Pew Research Center which found that the majority of polled adults ages 18-29 “did not even know that the 1973 case dealt with abortion.”
“A combination of misleading poll questions and 45 years of misinformation and fear-mongering about Roe v. Wade by extreme pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood has conditioned millions of Americans to believe that overturning Roe v. Wade is tantamount to the apocalypse,” Foster said.
A new poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, released this week, found that 71 percent of registered voters believe Roe v. Wade should not be reversed, with 23 percent saying it should be overturned.
The poll was taken earlier this month, amid speculation that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, if confirmed, could pave the way for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, which mandated legal abortion nationwide.
However, Foster said, many Americans do not know that the repeal of Roe v. Wade “would not make abortion illegal nationwide” but would leave the issue up to each state, as it was before 1973.
She added that many Americans do not realize that “Roe is widely criticized as a poorly reasoned and overly broad decision, even among liberal legal jurists such as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”
Other recent polls have found strong support among Americans for limitations on abortion.
A poll released by Gallup last month as part of its Values and Beliefs survey found that two-thirds of Americans favor at least some legal restrictions on abortion. It also found that Americans who think abortion is morally wrong outnumber those who see it as morally acceptable, a result that is consistent with Gallup’s findings since it first started surveying Americans about the issue in 2001.
A Marist poll earlier this year, commissioned by the Knights of Columbus, found widespread support for limiting abortion to no more than the first trimester of pregnancy.
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CNA Staff, Oct 19, 2020 / 08:00 pm (CNA).- Abortion-advocacy groups have called for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to step down as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee after the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
In an Oct. 16, statement, Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL, called for “new leadership” for Democrats on the committee following Feinstein’s polite tone in remarks at the conclusion of the four days of Senate hearings last week.
During the hearing on Thursday, Feinstein thanked Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for presiding over “one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in.”
“I want to thank you for your fairness and the opportunity of going back and forth,” she said.
“It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions, and even some ideas–perhaps some good bipartisan legislation we can put together to make this great country even better,” said Feinstein, who is pro-choice, has not supported the nomination of Barrett to the Supreme Court, and has in the past criticized the judge’s Catholicism.
The two senators then shook hands and embraced.
Feinstein’s remarks to Graham, Hogue alleged, lent an “appearance of credibility to the proceedings,” one that is “widely out of step with the American people.”
“As such, we believe the committee needs new leadership,” she said, calling Barrett’s confirmation process “illegitimate” and “a sham.”
Hogue said that Barrett, a Catholic, an appeals court judge, law professor, and mother of seven, poses “a grave threat to every freedom and right we hold dear and tears the very fabric of our democracy.”
“Americans–whose lives hang in the balance–deserve leadership that underscores how unprecedented, shameful and wrong this process is.”
Barrett was nominated to the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on September 26, eight days after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Feinstein has served as ranking member of the committee since January 2017. During hearings that year for Barrett’s confirmation to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Feinstein challenged Barrett over her Catholic faith, observing to Barrett that “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.”
NARAL has consistently endorsed Feinstein during her time in the Senate, saying in 2018 that she is “at the forefront of the movement to safeguard our rights.”
“We need leaders in the Senate like Senator Feinstein who will stand up for the rights of women and families across California,” said NARAL in their 2018 endorsement.
NARAL was not the only organization calling for Feinstein to step down from her position. The group Demand Justice started a petition drive calling for Feinstein to resign from the committee, stating that the senator’s “behavior during Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings demonstrates that she is only standing in our way of fighting to protect our courts.”
“Sen. Feinstein has undercut Democrats’ position at every step of this process, from undermining calls for filibuster and Court reform straight through to thanking Republicans for the most egregious partisan power grab in the modern history of the Supreme Court,” said the petition.
Justice Democrats, which aims to elect progressive candidates to Congress, echoed the calls for Feinstein to depart from the Judiciary Committee, tweeting “Dianne Feinstein must step down.”
Feinstein, who has consistently supported pro-abortion policy in the Senate, opposed Barrett’s nomination since the president announced it, calling it “unprecedented” and criticizing the speed at which it was happening.
“The rush to confirm Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court is unprecedented in my time on the committee,” said Feinstein on October 15.
“The process exists for a reason, so we can adequately question and evaluate a nominee. There’s absolutely no need to jam this nominee through before a consequential election.”
While NARAL says Feinstein has not done enough, the senator has indicated repeatedly that she will not be voting to confirm Barrett to the Supreme Court.
Ray Kapaun, the nephew of Servant of God Father Emil Kapaun, and his wife, Lee, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Wichita, Kansas, on the day of Father Kapaun’s funeral. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Ray Kapaun
CNA Staff, Nov 11, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).
As a new film about U.S. military chaplains was released in theaters on Nov. 8, the nephew of heroic priest and chaplain Servant of God Father Emil Kapaun spoke about his uncle’s virtue and sense of mission during the Korean War.
“Fighting Spirit: A Combat Chaplain’s Journey” tells the story of former Army chaplain Justin Roberts as he travels to the funeral of Kapaun. Along the way, Roberts is inspired by the lives of the 419 other U.S. military chaplains who have given their lives in service. The documentary explores the stories of several of these chaplains, including the beloved Catholic priest.
Kapaun was a priest of the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas. Ordained on June 9, 1940, he began training in the U.S. Army Chaplain School at Fort Devens four years after his ordination. In January 1950, he was sent to Japan as a chaplain in the 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division. In July 1950, he was then sent to Korea, where he brought the sacraments to troops, tended to the injured, and prayed with soldiers in the foxholes. At times he celebrated Mass on the battlefield using the hood of a jeep as a makeshift altar.
Ray Kapaun receives the remains of his uncle, Father Emil Kapaun, and places them on the gurney to transport him out of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency in Hawaii. Credit: Photo courtesy of Ray Kapaun
During the Battle of Unsan, Kapaun was captured along with other soldiers and taken to a Chinese-run prison camp in Pyoktong, North Korea. While there, he regularly stole food for his fellow prisoners and tended to their spiritual needs despite a prohibition on prayer.
After being taken to what prisoners called the “death house,” Kapaun died on May 23, 1951, after months of malnutrition and pneumonia.
His cause for sainthood is being promoted by the Diocese of Wichita and is currently being reviewed by the theological committee for the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints in Rome.
A nephew of the heroic priest, Ray Kapaun, told CNA that growing up he heard stories about his uncle from his grandmother. He recalled hearing about his uncle’s devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and how his vocation to the priesthood was clear from a young age: He would stack cardboard boxes on top of one another, throw a towel over them, and pretend to say Mass at his makeshift altar.
“He was the most unselfish person I think I’ve ever heard of,” Ray Kapaun said. “He just always put everybody else ahead of his own needs.”
One story that Ray remembers was told to him by his father. Shortly before Father Kapaun was about to head out to the Korean War, he went to visit his family in his hometown of Pilsen, Kansas. He pulled Ray’s father aside and told him: “I don’t think I’m going to be coming back from this one.”
“Dad was like, ‘No, don’t talk like that. You can’t,’” Ray recalled. “And he said, ‘I’m not telling you that to make you sad or feel sorry for me,’ he said, ‘I just have that feeling that I’m not coming back from this one.’”
Ray believes it was this feeling that allowed his uncle to “do the things he did to help the guys in the prison camp, to run out across the battlefield when bombs were exploding — he knew that is exactly where he needed to be and he did it with compassion, but he didn’t do it with fear. He did it with a knowing that God was going to take care of him and that was exactly where he needed to be.”
In March 2021, after 70 years, the skeletal remains of Father Kapaun were identified among 866 other unknown Korean soldiers buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu. These remains were handed to American forces in 1954 by North Korea.
Ray said receiving the call that his uncle’s remains had been found was something he “never ever envisioned.” He called it truly “miraculous” that when Father Kapaun’s casket was opened for his body to be identified, “his [skeletal] remains were 98% intact.”
“They actually sent us a photo of the remains laid out as the skeleton and he was just missing a couple of fingertips, one of his toes, and the kneecap was all he was missing. So that in and of itself was pretty much a miracle” he said.
Father Kapaun’s funeral Mass was held on Sept. 29, 2021, at Wichita’s Hartman Arena, where over 5,000 people came together to remember him.
The entire Kapaun family at the dedication of the statue of Father Emil Kapaun in Pilsen, Kansas, on June 23, 2001. Credit: Photo courtesy of Ray Kapaun
In the days leading up to the funeral, Ray and his wife hosted two of the POWs (prisoners of war) who spent time with Father Kapaun in the prison camp and are the last two still alive.
Ray shared “an incredible moment” with the POWs: They were taken to the mortuary to have a moment alone with Father Kapaun and before entering, one of them, Col. Michael Dowe, turned to Ray and asked: “Am I going to get the chance to hold Father in my arms just one last time?”
“So, we had opened up the casket, and Mike is there, and he just starts crying and he was talking to Father and he’s like, ‘When they came to take you away we just didn’t stand up enough for you, we just didn’t stand up enough,’” Ray recalled.
“I know Father had his hands on his shoulders then as he did in the camp and I know he told him, ‘Oh, it’s OK Mike. You just gotta let me go. I’m where I wanted to be. So it’s OK,’” Ray said. “Those moments were probably the most memorable, the most touching for me.”
When asked how Father Kapaun can be a source of inspiration for not only chaplains but also for everyone, Ray said: “Father gives hope, and Father gives a meaning to find the right in the world, Father always looked for the good in the world.”
“I think especially now with all the division and all the hate and all the things going on in this world, he only saw the person. It wasn’t that you needed to be Catholic; he saw the person, he saw what their soul was and how they treated others.”
He added: “He saw the compassion that was needed, he saw somebody needed help and he would help them at whatever sacrifice to his own health.”
As for what he hopes people will take away from the new film about his uncle, Ray said he hopes people would “see others and not judge others” and that “you don’t have to do anything grandiose to do kind and great things in this world.”
Grand Rapids, Mich., Oct 31, 2019 / 08:01 am (CNA).- Catholic Charities West Michigan has announced plans to build a $4.5 million detox center, expected to serve 700 people a year recovering from drug or alcohol addiction.
The new center in Muskegon, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, will have 14 beds and offer three- to five-night stays, with some 80 employees including a doctor, according to local media.
Chris Slater, Executive Director of Catholic Charities Western Michigan, told CNA that they expect to break ground on the new center before the end of the year, with a 12 to 14 month timeline.
Slater said he used a Community Needs Assessment, released by various agencies active in the city including Mercy Health System, to determine what areas the community needed the most help improving.
The answer, he said, was a no-brainer.
“All throughout all of them, right on the top of the list, is substance abuse disorder treatment. It’s ravaging Muskegon county,” he said.
“It would have been negligent not to do something about it, in my opinion.”
A report from the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, released in 2018, found that Grand Rapids, which is less than an hour’s drive from Muskegon, had the second-most total opioid related deaths from 2013-2015 in the state after Detroit, with 138 reported.
The report found that the largest number of drug-related overdose deaths occurred among men aged 26-35, and men aged 46-55.
The county didn’t previously have a facility to treat drug and alcohol addicts under the supervision of a doctor. Slater says he hopes the new Catholic Charities detox center will plug holes in the community’s ability to care for people in need.
The county also ranks highly for per-capita deaths related to alcohol abuse.
“So when we had patients in Muskegan who wanted treatment, we were shipping them all over the state. And that posed another problem because even if they could find a bed for them, then we had transportation issues, and no way to get these patients there.”
He said for the past 18 months, he has worked closely with healthcare providers, social service agencies, the sheriff’s department, and the prosecutor’s office to get a feel for the community’s support for the project, which he says was strong from the get-go and has continued to build.
Slater said there will be opportunities for patients – who will be served regardless of their religious beliefs – to meet with a chaplain and to make use of a chapel being built along with a new office building near the detox center.
“We’ll be equipped to incorporate faith into patients’ recovery as they request,” he said.
WoodTV8 reports that the new detox center will neighbor the Muskegon Rescue Mission, which has its own food pantry, and as a result Catholic Charities will no longer have its own food pantry but will partner with other organizations to support their food services.
Catholic Charities obtained the land for the project through a land swap with the city, which will receive Catholic Charities’ old building, located less than a mile away, once the new center is completed.
A spokesperson for the city said that revitalizing the old building will help make it a “high-quality new asset” in the area.
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