First responders honored at 31st annual ‘Blue Mass’ in Washington, DC

Denver Newsroom, Aug 28, 2020 / 04:50 pm (CNA).- Rehumanize International, a secular pro-life organization, is set to hold its annual conference Saturday virtually, with an eye to life topics such as abortion, assisted suicide, and the death penalty, as well as police violence and torture.

Aimee Murphy, founder and executive director of Rehumanize International, told CNA that the overarching theme of the Aug. 29 conference is that every human value has worth, and an inherent dignity. She said they plan to emphasize this common dignity and discuss ways people can work together regardless of their differences.

“That inherent dignity that we all share is not something that can be taken away, it’s not a matter of circumstance,” she said.

“Regardless of how old or young you are, how guilty or innocent you are, how small or big you are, how disabled or non-disabled you are, we all share this same inherent human dignity. And that transcends all the various topics we’re going to be talking about at our conference tomorrow.”

Rehumanize International describes itself as a non-sectarian, non-partisan organization “dedicated to creating a culture of peace and life” by opposing violence in all forms, including abortion, the death penalty, euthanasia, and assisted suicide.

Herb Geraghty, director of communications for Rehumanize International, told CNA that although the conference is set to feature a wide range of viewpoints and religions, the biggest unifier among the presenters is a commitment to nonviolence. 

Rehumanize’s “consistent life ethic” is not merely a checklist of topics to support or oppose, and can welcome a wide range of viewpoints with the hopes that people will learn something to bring back to their individual organizations, Geraghty said.

Co-sponsors of the event this year include the American Solidarity Party— which was founded based largely on Catholic social teaching, and is running a candidate for president in this year’s election— as well as Americans United for Life.

In addition to several Christian pro-life speakers— such as Mikhayla Stover, who works with Catholic Univeristy’s school of law— the conference is set to feature such presenters as Robert Saleem Holbrook, a formerly incarcerated person who was sentenced to life without parole as a teenager before a Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling overturned his conviction.

John Kelly, a disability self-advocate, is set to join to talk about disability discrimination in the context of assisted suicide and euthanasia.

“I think that’s a really important topic because often it’s not a hot-button issue…and I think that’s really unfortunate, because I think that the creeping threat of euthanasia and assisted suicide is growing on the other side,” Geraghty said.

“Being part of the movement to stem that side and show the voices of people with disabilities, who are going to be the people threatened the most by this type of legislation, is really important. So I’m excited for the attendees to get to hear that.”

Geraghty said the conference had already been set to have policing and criminal justice as one of its focal points well in advance— before the widespread protests against police violence, which began in May, thrust the issue back into the national spotlight.

“Police violence is another [topic] that comes in waves of media attention, because there are always high-profile cases of unjust police violence against civilians,” Geraghty said. 

Geraghty said they had planned on having a panel about the criminal justice system in general, focusing mainly on the death penalty, “the most obvious form of oppressive violence perpetrated by the justice system,” but also wanted to talk about some of the ways that the state can better respect life through better policing practices. 

That panel is set to include another formerly incarcerated person, as well as the director of Conservatives Concerned about the Death Penalty.

“We can just oppose the death penalty, or we can look at how to disrupt the systems of oppression that lead to people thinking that there needs to be a death penalty, or harsh sentencing laws,” Geraghty said.

Geraghty said one of Rehumanize International’s goals is to recognize and promote the many people and groups who organize around a single issue, such as abortion, the death penalty, or euthanasia.

This approach is more helpful than, for example, asking a person passionately advocating for an end to abortion why they are focusing on that, and not the death penalty, Geraghty said.

Each life issue is an important enough issue that “I am glad that [that person] is working on that individual issue,” even if it means they can’t always devote their time to a range of issues, Geraghty said.

[…]

Phoenix, Ariz., Aug 1, 2018 / 12:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix was named Wednesday as apostolic administrator sede plena of the Byzantine rite eparchy which is also based in Phoenix.

The Ruthenian Eparchy of Holy Protection of Mary of Phoenix is led by Bishop John Pažak, 71, who was appointed in 2016.

“Let me first state that this appointment has not come about because of any personal misconduct of any kind on the part of Bishop Pazak. Indeed, Bishop Pazak remains as the Bishop of this Eparchy,” Bishop Olmsted stated Aug. 1.

“However, over the past year there have been some disagreements about administrative matters within the Byzantine Ruthenian Church here in North America, of which the Eparchy of Phoenix is a part. Because of some unfortunate legal developments in these matters, their resolution has been unnecessarily complicated.”

The legal developments “have unintentionally endangered the peace, unity and communion” of the Ruthenian Catholic Church, the Latin rite bishop said.

Bishop Olmsted has been appointed apostolic administrator of the Phoenix eparchy to “facilitate the task of resolving these legal matters” and to “support the efforts on everyone’s part to build up the communion” within the Ruthenian Catholic Church.

The bishop added that his appointment as apostolic administrator has “no fixed term” and he is “happy to serve in any way that will support my brothers and sisters in this Eparchy.”

Bishop Olmsted’s statement mentioned “unfortunate legal developments” related to “disagreements about administrative matters” within the Ruthenian Catholic Church in the US.

On April 26, the Phoenix eparchy filed a suit claiming that an employee benefits company had wrongly started a self-insured health plan with funds from the eparchy, which believed it was paying premiums to secure insurance products for its employees, Danielle Smith reported at Law360.

“The Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix said in its complaint that Aetna-owned Meritain Health Inc. and Ohio-based Employee Benefits Services Inc., or EBS, flouted their fiduciary duty under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act by using assets meant to pay insurance premiums for the eparchy’s roughly 21 employees to pay for expenses and fees, among other things, instead,” Smith wrote.

It said EBS had also, prior to 2012, been selling health insurance also to the other Ruthenian eparchies in the US: Passaic, Pittsburgh, and Parma.

The Phoenix eparchy in 2012 joined the Eastern Catholic Benefit Plan, which the eparchy called in its complaint “the unregistered, fictitious name provided by Defendants of an employee welfare benefit plan … that was established and maintained to provide welfare benefits to participants.”

The eparchy said that “EBS falsely promoted ECBP … as a fully-insured health plan that would provide equivalent benefits at lower costs than the insurance previously in place.”

It said it opened a joint checking account with EBS, which it understood and intended that all of the assets in the account were to be held in trust and used for the sole and exclusive purpose of paying insurance premiums for medical, dental and drug insurance benefits to the approximately 21 employees of the Eparchy of Phoenix who participated in ECBP and their eligible beneficiaries.”

This joint account “created a fiduciary relationship by and among ECBP, the participants of ECBP, the Eparchy of Phoenix and EBS,” the eparchy maintained.

According to the eparchy in Phoenix, “EBS pooled the contributions with assets from other employers and used the funds to pay itself and for claims from the other organizations’ employees — all without the eparchy’s consent,” Smith reported.

The eparchy says it contributed more than $1 million to the joint account between 2012 and 2015. The Phoenix eparchy ceased participating in ECBP Dec. 31, 2015.

The Phoenix eparchy alleges that its assets were “used for the benefit of and have unjustly enriched” several defendants “and other parties including, upon information and belief … other Eparchies.” It says that it was owed surplus assets when it withdrew from ECBP, and has not been paid.

The eparchy’s complaint said that in or around 2017 EBS merged ECBP with the benefit plans for the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles and for the Melkite Eparchy of Newton, both of which it called groups “with different religious beliefs than the Byzantine Catholic Diocese.”

Both the Maronite and Melkite Churches are sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome.

The eparchy of Phoenix filed an amended complaint June 18, which added as defendants the administration committee of the ECBP, which it listed as Bert Reimann, William C. Skurla, and Robert Shalhoub.

Skurla is Archbishop of the Ruthenian Archeparchy of Pittsburgh, and as such, the metropolitan bishop over the Phoenix eparch.

The amended complaint says Archbishop Skurla was a fiduciary and a party in interest under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.

According to Law360, Archbishop Skurla was dismissed as a party to the case July 30.

Before his appointment as Ruthenian Bishop of Phoenix, Bishop Pažak was Bishop of the Slovakian Eparchy of Saints Cyril and Methodius of Toronto. He became apostolic administrator of the Toronto eparchy when he was transferred to Phoenix.

On July 5, Fr. Marián Pacák was appointed bishop of the Toronto eparchy.

[…]

New Orleans, La., Jan 23, 2019 / 11:41 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday rejected a request from abortion rights’ advocates to rehear a case challenging a Louisiana law that requires abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

The Jan. 18 decision effectively upholds its earlier ruling in favor of the bipartisan law, known as the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act, or Act 620. Unless an appeal to the US Supreme Court is filed, it will take effect Jan. 28.

A three judge panel of the Fifth Circuit had upheld Act 620 in September by a 2-1 vote. Abortion rights’ advocates were asking the court to rehear the case en banc – by a greater share of the court’s judges.

“I applaud the Fifth Circuit’s decision to reject the abortion providers’ latest legal challenge to Louisiana’s pro-life and pro-woman admitting privileges law,” said Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. “Act 620 is common-sense measure that ensures women will receive proper care if they have complications.”

The Fifth Circuit voted 9-6 to reject the petition for rehearing en banc.

Act 620 was authored by Democratic State Rep. Katrina Jackson, who authored the legislation and is chair of the Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus. She has said the law is about “the safety of women.”

It was passed in 2014 by an 88-5 vote in the Louisiana House, and a 34-3 vote in the Senate.

The Unsafe Abortion Protection Act requires that abortion doctors have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of their clinic.

The law also clarifies that informed consent protections also apply to chemical abortions, procured by ingesting mifepristone, and that chemical abortions must be reported anonymously to the Department of Health and Hospitals, which already tracks surgical abortions. Doctors who perform more than five abortions per year must also maintain proper licensing.

When the Fifth Circuit upheld Act 620 in September, it found that the law does not impose a substantial burden on women seeking to procure abortion.

Act 620 was challenged in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2016 Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt decision.

In that case, the high court struck down a Texas law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, and abortion clinics to meet the standards for ambulatory surgical centers. In the 5-3 vote, the majority found that the law put an “undue burden” on a women’s right to an abortion, posing a “substantial obstacle” to that right without showing the necessary benefits of its regulations to women’s health.

Considering Louisiana’s law in light of Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the Fifth Circuit wrote that “the facts in the instant case are remarkably different from those that occasioned the invalidation of the Texas statute in WWH.”

“Here, unlike in Texas, the Act does not impose a substantial burden on a large fraction of women under WWH and other controlling Supreme Court authority. Careful review of the record reveals stark differences between the record before us and that which the Court considered in WWH.”

“The Louisiana Act passes muster even under the stringent requirements of WWH,” wrote Circuit Judge Jerry E. Smith.

Similarly, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in September ruled that Missouri may enforce its own law mandating that doctors who perform abortions have hospital privileges and that abortion clinics to have the same standards as similar outpatient surgical centers.

The Eighth Circuit also cited the Hellerstedt case, saying that decision analyzed purported benefits of the law at issue related to abortion in Texas, not Missouri, and that it found courts should consider the asserted benefits of a law.

Fifth Circuit Judge James L. Dennis dissented from the court’s decision not to rehear the challenge to Act 620, asserting it is “in clear conflict” with the Hellerstedt decision and that “the panel majority’s attempt to distinguish WWH is meritless because it is based on an erroneous and distorted version of the undue burden test required by WWH and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey.”

Landry welcomed the majority’s decision not to rehear the challenge to Act 620, saying: “The Fifth Circuit once again affirmed what we have repeatedly said: our law is both factually and legally different from the Texas law that the Supreme Court ruled against.”

“I once again thank Representative Katrina Jackson for authoring this public safety legislation and Solicitor General Liz Murrill for preserving the Legislature’s intent,” he added.

When the Unsafe Abortion Protection Act was passed in 2014, there were five abortion clinics in Louisiana. By the time the Fifth Circuit upheld the law in September 2018, there were three, in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Shreveport.

The day before it declined to rehear the challenge to Act 620, the Fifth Circuit vacated a previous injunction barring Texas from stripping Planned Parenthood affiliates of Medicaid funding.

Circuit Judge Edith Jones affirmed that Texas has the right to exclude a healthcare provider from Medicaid funds, and criticized the Planned Parenthood affiliates’ argument that the Office of Inspector General has insufficient expertise to determine the qualifications of abortion providers.

[…]