Virginia State House Credit: Sean Pavone/Shutterstock
Washington D.C., Feb 22, 2021 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Virginia is expected to become the first southern state to abolish the death penalty, after its general assembly voted on Monday to end the practice.
The state senate voted 22 to 16 to approve H.B. 2263, which would abolish the death penalty in the state including for inmates currently on death row. The state house has approved an identical version of the bill by a vote of 57-43.
Both chambers previously passed death penalty repeal bills, but had to pass a reconciled version of the legislation to send it to the governor’s desk. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) is expected to sign the bill into law.
In the state house of delegates, two Republicans joined Democrats in favor of abolishing the death penalty; in the Senate, one Republican joined all Democrats in voting to abolish capital punishment.
Virginia currently has two inmates on death row. The last execution in the commonwealth was in 2017, but no one has been sentenced to death in the state since 2011.
Virginia has executed more people in its history than any other state; nearly 1,400 people have been put to death in the state dating back from the colonial era. Since the death penalty was re-established in the United States in 1976, 113 people have been executed in Virginia, more than any state except Texas.
Both of Virginia’s Catholic bishops stated their support when versions of the bill passed the legislature earlier this month.
“We offer – and affirm the utmost need for – prayerful support for the families of victims of horrific crimes. We also affirm, with clarity and conviction, the words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church: ‘[T]he death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person’,” Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond stated on Feb. 5.
The U.S. bishops’ incoming doctrine chair has also called the death penalty part of the “throwaway culture” which “kills people to solve problems.”
A total of 23 states, including Virginia, have now banned capital punishment. According to the Death Penalty Information Center, the U.S. is now in the longest period in 40 years without a state execution; Texas executed the last inmate on July 8, 2020, 225 days ago.
However, in that time span the Trump administration executed 13 people after nearly a two-decade moratorium on the federal use of the death penalty.
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CNA Staff, Nov 20, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- A deacon who was stabbed outside a Michigan church this month is recovering in a rehabilitation hospital, the Diocese of Kalamazoo reported this week.
“We’re happy to share that Deacon Joe Schmitt is doing well. He’s been released from the hospital and working with rehabilitation services to work on improvement in strength and endurance. We’re grateful for all those who have prayed for Deacon Joe and his wife Becky and we continue to hold him in prayer for continued healing,” the diocese said in a statement released Nov. 17.
Schmitt, 71, was stabbed multiple times Nov. 5 outside St. Mary’s Church in Kalamazoo.
The deacon, who is assigned to a different parish, went to St. Mary’s the evening of Nov. 5 for a Mass. But according to his wife, he had gotten the date of the Mass wrong, and there was no one at the parish when he arrived.
Becky Schmitt, the deacon’s wife, told WWMT News that as he stood outside the church, a man approached and demanded her husband’s wallet. After the deacon said he wasn’t carrying a wallet, the mugger stabbed him repeatedly in the neck and shoulder, she said.
“Joe was able to stand back up, he lost his shoe, lost his glasses, lost his alb and stole and was able to walk,” she told WWMT. “He knew there was a daycare nearby, so he was able to go there. He said he was holding his mask over his wound.”
After daycare workers called 911, the deacon was taken to a hospital only seven blocks away. He had emergency surgery for a punctured trachea, and several stab wounds. Doctors told Schmitt’s family the deacon had lost 20% of his blood.
This week he was transferred to a rehabilitation hospital.
Kalamazoo police are searching for a suspect.
Schmitt, who was ordained a deacon in 1989, is expected to return home next week. His wife said parishes and other organizations have reached out with support. She also said she hopes for both justice and mercy for her husband’s attacker.
“I think there are a lot of desperate people around because of the circumstances of coronavirus, poverty, job loss, racism, all that stuff,” she told WWMT, encouraging prayer for both justice and mercy.
An Easter Vigil procession at St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco. / Credit: St. Dominic Parish/Lorelei Low
CNA Staff, Mar 15, 2025 / 06:00 am (CNA).
Five years ago this week, public health orders issued amid the uncertainty of the novel coronavirus turned Mass schedules across the country and the world upside down.
In those early days following the WHO’s March 11, 2020, declaration of COVID-19 as a pandemic, the bishops of every U.S. diocese issued some form of dispensation, suspending the obligation that Catholics must attend Sunday Mass in person.
Thousands of parishes and ministries scrambled to develop plans to offer livestreamed Masses, deliver the sacraments in a “socially distanced” manner, and live out the Church’s life as best they could under extraordinary circumstances. Public Masses at most parishes were suspended entirely for a time, and those that were able to reopen were subject, in many areas, to distancing requirements and numerical or percentage-based attendance caps.
As Catholics nationwide adapted to the changes — not knowing how long this new reality might last — observers feared that many Catholics, barred from their parishes for so long and now accustomed to attending from the comfort of home, might not return after the parish doors reopened.
A study from the Pew Research Center found that most Catholics continued participating in Mass throughout the pandemic — but many were only able to do so virtually. In November 2022, when the survey was done, only about 4 in 10 U.S. Catholics said they attended Mass in person as often as they did before the pandemic.
Indeed, from the start of the COVID pandemic lockdowns in the U.S. to the declared end of the pandemic in May 2023, in-person Mass attendance averaged just 15% — a dismal figure, but not markedly lower than the 24% it was before. (The Catholic Church teaches that Catholics are obligated to attend Mass in person every Sunday, except for a serious reason such as illness or if they’ve been dispensed from their obligation by their pastor or bishop.)
Some bishops lifted the dispensations they had issued as early as late 2020, while a few held out until 2022. In lifting the dispensations they issued amid the lockdowns, many U.S. bishops implored Catholics to return to Mass in person.
While Mass attendance today among Catholics in the U.S. remains much lower than among Catholics in other countries, recent data has suggested that U.S. in-person Mass attendance levels have quietly returned to where they were in 2019 after years of uncertainty over whether they would ever rebound.
For some thriving parishes in the U.S., the lockdowns — while challenging — presented an opportunity to continue sharing the faith in a creative manner and come out even stronger than they were before.
Father John Mosimann, pastor at St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Fredericksburg, Virginia, told CNA that the parish has seen its numbers grow since the pandemic.
On a typical weekend, Mosimann and his four parochial vicars celebrate 11 total Masses in English, plus another in Spanish at a different parish where they are kick-starting a Spanish Mass ministry.
All told, roughly 3,800 people attended St. Mary’s weekend Masses on a typical week in 2019. According to headcounts, the parish had already exceeded its pre-pandemic levels by 2023, with around 4,300 attendees on average. The parish, which is about 55 miles south of Washington, D.C., has 6,700 registered families and nearly 100 active ministries.
Father John Mosimann poses with altar servers and Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia. Credit: Photo courtesy of Father John Mosimann
During the pandemic, St. Mary’s added extra Masses — since for a time, Masses were limited to a smaller-than-usual number of attendees — and continued hosting adoration. Like so many other parishes, the parish had to quickly adapt to a livestreaming paradigm in order to stay connected with the community.
“I was in the office and I was looking at Facebook and I said, ‘What if I hit this button and go live, what would happen?’” Mosimann remembers thinking as the lockdowns began.
“And so I started streaming on Facebook Live and everybody started jumping in … ’What’s going on, Father? What’s going to happen?’ And I didn’t have answers, because I wasn’t that great a prophet. But we did immediately start streaming.”
He said parishioners were grateful for the effort the priests made to stay in touch, despite the occasional technical challenge — a problem far from unique to St. Mary’s.
“If you want perfect sound and you want a studio, go to EWTN. They’ve got professional equipment. If you want to see your priests, come talk to us,” Mosimann said he told his parishioners.
“We’re not going to be anxious over having studio quality, because what’s important is for us to be connected to you. People responded to that. People were very grateful for that. It was very frequently cited by parishioners, how grateful they were for our staying in touch with them during that difficult moment.”
Father John Mosimann baptizes a child at his parish, St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Credit: Ginny Foreman
The last of Virginia’s capacity-restricting public health orders on venues was lifted in late May 2021, and Bishop Michael Burbidge of the local Diocese of Arlington in the following month lifted the dispensation he had issued, inviting Catholics to return to Mass throughout the diocese. So far, as in most U.S. dioceses, Mass attendance overall in Arlington has risen significantly but has not quite returned to pre-pandemic levels.
Since the pandemic’s end, Mosimann said his focus has been on encouraging parishioners to use their time and talents generously to help rebuild and grow the parish community.
For Mosimann, the pandemic experience was proof that by remaining faithful even through troubling and difficult times, God can and does bring good out of bad situations through his grace.
“[We] did everything we could to provide the sacraments to God’s people and to make it available as much as possible with all the restrictions. That should be the goal of every parish, every day, whether there’s a pandemic or not,” Mosimann said.
‘We are proud to be who we are’
Father Michael Hurley, OP, pastor of St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco, said his parish, which offers what he believes is the largest young adult presence in the entire archdiocese, regularly sees attendance numbers today that are similar to pre-pandemic levels.
The parish was able to safely provide the sacraments to those in need during the pandemic and had, providentially, already set up livestreaming for Masses shortly before the start of the pandemic. To this day the parish maintains a healthy online base of Dominican laypeople who tune in for Masses and prayer.
Father Michael Hurley, OP, (left) and his fellow priests from St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco cross the street in a homage to “Abbey Road.” Credit: St. Dominic Parish/Ivi Fandino
Hurley said he personally never worried during lockdown about people not returning to Mass, instead trusting that Catholics would return when they could. He said his main concern was keeping the church building open safely during the pandemic — in a state with some of the strictest lockdown measures in the country — to maintain sacramental support.
California finally lifted all capacity restrictions on religious gatherings in April 2021 after previously implementing a near-total ban on indoor services that was contested all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The sanctuary of St. Dominic Parish in San Francisco. Credit: St. Dominic Parish/Alex Mizuno
Though the demographics of St. Dominic Parish has changed somewhat, in-person worshippers, many of whom work in the Bay Area’s high-tech sector, have returned in large numbers.
“The Lord is always searching for the strays, right? … All you have to do is open the doors and do what you’re doing, and people will come,” Hurley told CNA.
That said, Hurley said he believes St. Dominic’s beautiful church building, welcoming atmosphere, and a strong sense of identity — as a Dominican-led parish that aims to “radiate the joy of the Gospel in the heart of the city” — helps to make it an attractive place for Catholics, especially young adults. They also keep the church building open for personal prayer throughout the day, a rarity in a city that occasionally struggles with crime.
“We are proud to be who we are as Catholics, and for us as clergy, as Dominicans. And that makes a huge difference,” Hurley said.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 30, 2023 / 13:45 pm (CNA).
Patients between the ages of 12 and 18 accounted for nearly 8% of transgender surgeries from 2016 through 2020, according to estimates provided … […]
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