Illinois diocese halts St. Jude relic tour amid ‘incident’ involving priest, students

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to reporters after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Vice President’s ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 25, 2024, Washington, D.C. / Credit: Kenny Holston-Pool/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 26, 2024 / 10:05 am (CNA).

Here’s a roundup of pro-life-related developments in the U.S. this week. 

Harris pledges to codify Roe in federal law

Since replacing President Joe Biden as the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic party, Vice President Kamala Harris has already made abortion a major focus of her campaign, pledging in several speeches to codify Roe v. Wade into federal law.

In a Wednesday night speech in Indianapolis, Harris bashed former President Donald Trump for nominating three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe.

“When I am president of the United States and when Congress passes a law to restore those freedoms, I will sign it into law,” she said.

“We who believe in reproductive freedom will fight for a woman’s right to choose,” said Harris, “because one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree that the government should not be telling her what to do.”

Harris has used this line repeatedly during her “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms Tour” in which she slammed states with pro-life laws as “immoral” and advocated for a national pro-abortion law. 

Iowa heartbeat law to take effect July 29

Iowa District Judge Jeffrey Farrell lifted a block on the state’s six-week pro-life law, clearing the path for the measure to finally take effect on July 29.

The Iowa “heartbeat” law was passed by the legislature in 2023. It protects unborn life from abortion once a baby’s heartbeat is detectable, which is typically around six weeks.

Planned Parenthood and several other abortion groups launched a lawsuit over the law and it was blocked by a district court shortly after passage. Polk County District Judge Joseph Seidlin ruled in 2023 that the law was likely invalid because it imposed an “undue burden” on abortion.

The Iowa Supreme Court, however, ruled on June 28 that the law is likely not unconstitutional because abortion is “not a fundamental right under the Iowa Constitution.” The high court returned the case to lower courts for further deliberation.

Commending the state supreme court’s ruling, Iowa’s Catholic bishops said: “For us, this is a question of the common good and human dignity. Human life is precious and should be protected in our laws to the greatest extent possible.”

Arkansas Supreme Court rules on abortion petition  

The Arkansas Supreme Court ordered that signatures as part of an abortion ballot initiative be counted after Secretary of State John Thurston said the documentation was improperly submitted.

This comes after Thurston denied abortion advocates their petition to add a broad pro-abortion amendment to the November ballot. The prosecutor said the activists failed to identify their paid canvassers or to indicate that the canvassers had followed state law regarding gathering signatures.

The state high court’s decision issued on Tuesday ordered Thurston to resume counting petition signatures gathered by volunteers by July 29.

The group claimed to have gathered over 100,000 signatures — well over the 90,700 required to add an amendment proposal to the ballot. Thurston, however, said that after subtracting the signatures allegedly invalidly obtained by paid canvassers, the group only had 87,382 signatures, more than 3,000 short of the minimum required.

The Arkansas Supreme Court ruled that the petition’s signatures could be counted but only those not gathered by paid canvassers, meaning the petition may fail to reach the necessary threshold for the November ballot.

Currently, Arkansas protects unborn life beginning at conception, only allowing abortion in cases in which the mother’s life is in danger.

If successfully passed, the abortion amendment would mandate that the state not “prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict” abortion before 18 weeks of pregnancy. The amendment would further prohibit the state from restricting abortion at all stages in cases of rape, incest, fetal anomaly, or health of the mother.

Federal court denies effort to restrict abortion pill

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied an appeal by seven Republican-led states to challenge the federal government’s recent loosening of restrictions on mifepristone, the pill that accounts for over 60% of all U.S. abortions.

The seven Republican states — Idaho, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah — argued that the federal government’s loosening of mifepristone restrictions, such as allowing mail-order abortions and prescriptions via telemedicine, undermines their pro-life laws and harms women in their jurisdictions.

The states claimed they had standing to sue because the increase in women needing medical care after unsupervised chemical abortions would result in increased Medicaid expenses.

The 3-0 decision issued by a panel from the Ninth Circuit Court on Wednesday, however, denied the states had standing and dismissed their challenge.

The circuit court’s ruling cited the June 13 AHM v. FDA Supreme Court decision that unanimously rejected an attempt to impose stricter regulations on mifepristone because the doctors bringing the challenge lacked standing.

This comes as a coalition of seventeen Democrat-led states and the District of Columbia are suing to block any further efforts to restrict mifepristone.

Lawsuit by Texas woman wrongly imprisoned for abortion proceeds

U.S. District Judge Drew Tipton this week denied several requests to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a Texas woman who was wrongly imprisoned over her abortion.

The woman, Lizelle Gonzalez, was improperly jailed for murder by the county sheriff for three days in 2022. She was dismissed after the county found the charges were unfounded.

Texas law protects unborn life from conception. However, the law explicitly states that pregnant mothers cannot be prosecuted for their abortions.

Gonzalez is now seeking $1 million in damages from Starr County, which is in south Texas on the U.S.-Mexico border.

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Our Lady of the Holy Rosary is home to the Seton Shrine in New York City. / Beyond My Ken|Wikipedia|GFDL

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 17, 2023 / 12:06 pm (CNA).
An “unhinged” individual reportedly broke into a Catholic church in Manhattan and… […]

CNA Staff, Jun 30, 2020 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Agaña announced Tuesday it will no longer give a monthly honorarium to its emeritus Archbishop Anthony Apuron.

Archbishop Apuron, 74, was found guilty of some of several abuse-related charges by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2018.

The archdiocese announced June 30 that “the decision by Archbishop Michael Byrnes will become effective Wednesday, July 1.”

Archbishop Byrnes is on an extended leave from Guam, having had hip surgery earlier this month.

In April 2019, Archbishop Apuron’s sentencing was announced by the CDF. He was sentenced to privation of the office of Archbishop of Agaña; forbidden from using the insignia attached to the rank of bishop, such as the mitre and ring; and forbidden from living within the jurisdiction of the archdiocese. He was not removed from ministry or from the clerical state, nor was he assigned to live in prayer and penance.

The archdiocese noted in its statement that it “has still remitted a monthly honorarium of $1,500 to former Archbishop Apuron, even during this time of bankruptcy.”

The statement included quotes from a letter sent to Archbishop Apuron last week by Fr. Ron Richards, episcopal vicar of the archdiocese.

Fr. Richards said that the payment “has been been, to say the least, very difficult for the victim survivors of sexual abuse to comprehend. The victim survivors see this honorarium, to a credibly accused violator of delicts against the Sixth Commandment, as contrary to justice and a continuation of the abuse they suffered at the hands of the clergy.”

The priest added that “Archbishop Byrnes has heard from more of the victim survivors. Recognizing the pain these survivors have experienced from the sexual abuse in the past, he sees the continuation of remitting this honorarium as a further deepening of the wounds they are trying to heal from.”

The Agaña archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in January 2019, in the wake of numerous sex abuse allegations. Guam’s territorial legislature had eliminated the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits involving child sexual abuse in 2016.

Earlier this year the Diocese of Buffalo, which has also filed for bankruptcy amid sex abuse lawsuits, similarly announced that a number of priests “with substantiated allegations of sexual abuse” would no longer receive financial assistance or health benefits, though pension plans would not be affected.

Greg Tucker, the Buffalo diocese’s interim communications director,  told CNA in May that “the diocese recognizes that there are certain canonical obligations to ensure that these individuals are not left destitute and is addressing this.”

Canon 402 of the Code of Canon Law says that “the conference of bishops must take care that suitable and decent support is provided for a retired bishop, with attention given to the primary obligation which binds the diocese he has served,” while canon 707 notes that a retired religious bishop is to be supported by his former diocese “unless his own institute wishes to provide such support; otherwise the Apostolic See is to provide in another manner.”

Archbishop Apuron had been found guilty by the CDF in March 2018, and the decision was upheld on appeal in February 2019.

The Vatican first opened its investigation in 2015 after a victim reported his alleged abuse to the apostolic nuncio for the Pacific.

Archbishop Apuron, is a native of Guam. He took solemn vows as a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in 1968, and was ordained a priest in 1972. He was appointed an auxiliary bishop of Agaña in 1983, its apostolic administrator in 1985, and its archbishop in 1986.

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