Washington D.C., Aug 27, 2019 / 01:05 pm (CNA).- Over 130 musicians have signed a Planned Parenthood-sponsored petition against recent abortion restrictions passed by several states, a move condemned by pro-life activists as “out of touch.”… […]
St. Louis, Mo., Aug 27, 2019 / 12:56 pm (CNA).- A federal judge has blocked a Missouri law banning abortions after eight weeks of pregnancy from taking effect while a challenge to the law is being heard in court.
U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs issue… […]
Vatican City, Aug 27, 2019 / 10:44 am (CNA).- A new bishop was consecrated Monday in Inner Mongolia, China, according to Asia News. Bishop Antonio Yao Shun is the first bishop to be consecrated in the country after a deal on bishop appointments was made with the Vatican last year.
Beijing and Vatican officials signed a provisional agreement on bishop appointments Sept. 22, 2018. The Vatican-China deal was intended to unify the underground Church and the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association.
While the terms of the agreement have been kept confidential, it reportedly allows the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association to choose a slate of nominees for bishop. The deal has drawn significant criticism.
Bishop Antonio Yao Shun, 54, will head the Diocese of Jining in Ulanqab, Inner Mongolia, Asia News reports. The diocese has been without a bishop since the June 2017 death of Bishop John Liu Shigong.
Yao was consecrated in the Jining Cathedral on the morning of Aug. 26, with more than 120 priests concelebrating, a consecrator-bishop, and three co-consecrators, Asia News reports.
Contrary to usual Vatican practice, Yao’s nomination to the episcopacy was not published in the daily bulletin of the Holy See press office, and it is unknown whether Pope Francis appointed Yao prior to or after the signing of the Vatican-China deal.
Yao studied at the national seminary in Beijing. From 1994 to 1998 he was in the United States completing a specialization in liturgy. He also spent a period doing biblical studies in Jerusalem.
The bishop previously taught at the national seminary. From 1998 to 2004 he served as secretary of the liturgical commission of the Council of Chinese Bishops and the Patriotic Association. He has been vice director of the same commission since 2004.
Yao’s chosen episcopal motto is “Misericordes sicut pater,” which means “Be merciful as the Father is.”
Since 1957, the Church in China had been split between the “underground” Church, in full communion with Rome, and the state-run Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA) for which the Chinese government appointed bishops.
The agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic is meant to end the split between the two.
The U.S. Commission on International Religion wrote in its 2018 report that last year China “advanced its so-called ‘sinicization’ of religion, a far-reaching strategy to control, govern, and manipulate all aspects of faith into a socialist mold infused with ‘Chinese characteristics.’” Christians, Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists, and Falun Gong practitioners have all been affected.
Restrictions put in place in February 2018 made it illegal for anyone under age 18 to enter a church building.
Reports of the destruction or desecration of Catholic churches and shrines have come from across China, including the provinces of Hebei, Henan, Guizhou, Shaanxi, and Shandong.
Muslims, too, have come under pressure from the Chinese government. It is believed that as many as 1 million Uyghurs, a Muslim ethnoreligious group in China’s far west, are being detained in re-education camps where they are reportedly subjected to forced labor, torture, and political indoctrination.
Washington D.C., Aug 27, 2019 / 07:00 am (CNA).- Planned Parenthood’s decision to forgo tens of millions of dollars per year in Title X grants simply reinforces its commitment to abortion, say those familiar with the organization’s operatio… […]
Raleigh, N.C., Aug 26, 2019 / 07:25 pm (CNA).- The Supreme Court of North Carolina is set to hear the case of six death row inmates who say a repealed state law should still allow them to be resentenced to life without parole, since they were able to successfully demonstrate that racial bias was a factor in their death sentences.
The court is scheduled to hear arguments Monday and Tuesday in the cases of four death row inmates who briefly were resentenced to life without parole when state legislators approved the Racial Justice Act in 2009, the AP reports.
Under the Racial Justice Act, four inmates had used statistics to prove that their race was a “significant factor” in their trials, thus leading to a judge converting their sentences to life without parole.
Legislators repealed the Act in 2013, and the four inmates were sent back to death row without a new hearing.
North Carolina’s Supreme Court justices also will hear from attorneys for two other death row prisoners whose Racial Justice Act claims were not decided before the law was repealed, the AP says.
More than 130 inmates brought claims under the Act when it was law, but these four were the only cases adjudicated successfully and then mooted, Slate reported.
A statistical study conducted by Michigan State University’s College of Law found that prosecutors struck qualified black jurors in North Carolina at far higher rates than white jurors, AP reported.
North Carolina currently has 142 people on death row, 63% of whom are non-white in a state that is 29% non-white, the AP reports.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the death penalty is today “inadmissable,” because “there is an increasing awareness that the dignity of the person is not lost even after the commission of very serious crimes,” and “more effective systems of detention have been developed, which ensure the due protection of citizens but, at the same time, do not definitively deprive the guilty of the possibility of redemption.”
Denver, Colo., Aug 26, 2019 / 05:25 pm (CNA).- Jury selection began Monday in a lawsuit that accuses the Knights of Columbus of violating a verbal contract with a vendor who claims that the Catholic fraternal organization inflate its membership numbers, and has destroyed his business.
The lawsuit claims that the Knights of Columbus gave a software company, UKnight Interactive, a $100 million verbal contract to make it a designated web services vendor to KofC local and regional organizations.
UKnight alleges that its services would have provided local councils with a “complex interactive system” of linked websites designed to attract and engage members, increase fundraising, and increase sales of Knights of Columbus insurance policies.
However, the company alleges that in 2016, the Knights of Columbus “fraudulently” denied the verbal contract, and later used the company’s proprietary design elements to seek contracts with other technology companies.
UKnight claims that Knights of Columbus executives “acted…maliciously” with the “specific intent” of destroying the company.
In a 2018 court filing, the Knights of Columbus disputed that account.
“The true nature of this action is that Plaintiff is a disappointed prospective vendor that offered the Order inferior and outdated website services that the Order refused to endorse. UKnight is now trying to accomplish through this lawsuit what it could not get through product development and sales negotiations,” the Knights argued.
The Knights argued that Labriola has “raised preposterous legal claims in an attempt to force the other side to pay money that is neither owed nor deserved. One of these claims is that the Order supposedly gave UKnight an oral contract in which it would, on a single day, endorse UKnight’s services and thereby confer on UKnight a $100 million value.”
UKnight filed its lawsuit in January 2017. The suit was dismissed in July of that year, and UKnight refiled the lawsuit in January 2018.
The plaintiff, List Interactive, also known as UKnight Interactive, claims that “broken promises” by the Knights of Columbus have destroyed its business. That business is owned by Colorado resident Leonard Labriola.
The Knights of Columbus say the lawsuit is over a simple business dispute that has been exagerrated for publicity.
In a February 2017 motion requesting that the suit be dismissed, the Knights argued that a “garden variety business dispute” had been “repackaged…to extort a settlement through damaging publicity having nothing to do with the Plaintiffs’ core allegations.”
UKnight and Labriola had “festooned their complaint with baseless, scandalous allegations that are designed only to inflame and attract publicity,” the Knights said.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court, seeks $100 million in damages, and a court order invalidating the Knight’s tax-exempt status.
Among the suit’s claims is the allegation that the Knights of Columbus deceptively inflates its membership numbers in order to increase its life insurance ratings.
While Judge Brooke Jackson allowed UKnight to review membership data last year, the Knights have rejected claims that they inflate their numbers.
“The Knights of Columbus has a long-standing, thoughtful, and well-conceived membership retention process in place that reflects sound practices and the values of the Order,” a spokesperson told Buzzfeed last week.
“One of those values is to ensure that members of the Knights provide mutual aid and assistance to fellow members of our organization.”
Labriola could not be reached for comment. But the plaintiff is no stranger to litigation.
In 1993, Eller Industries, a company owned by Labriola, attempted to revitalize the bankrupt Indian Motorcycle brand by purchasing the defunct company’s trademarks. Labriola signed a contract to purchase the trademarks in 1997, but a court battle began in 1998, after the brand’s legal custodian said that Eller had failed to obtain financing or meet the terms of its contract.
Eller’s contract with Indian Motorcycles was terminated by a federal judge on Dec. 7, 1998.
Labriola subsequently sued the brand’s custodian for $2.7 million, and in the midst of the lawsuit requested that two judges recuse themselves, accusing them of “corruption, duplicity, ineptitude, hubris, and abject indifference.”
In the same motion, Labriola accused Indian Motorcycle’s legal custodian of “brazen temerity” and “outright lies and distortions.”
Before founding UKnight, Labriola founded at least three additional companies.
In 2002, he founded the Backyard Drills Foundation, which produced DVDs teaching sports skills. According to a 2007 article in BizWest, the DVD sets were marketed through revenue-sharing fundraising arrangements with youth football leagues. Backyard Drills was dissolved in 2007.
Two months after dissolving Backyard Drills, Labriola founded Quvico, a clean energy enterprise, which was dissolved less than a year after it was founded.
In September of 2007, Labriola founded Dinner Party Dot Com, LLC. The company was cited by the Secretary of State for failing to file required annual reports, and was dissolved in November of 2016.
According to the Colorado Secretary of State, UKnight Interactive was registered in 2011 as a trade name of LiST Interactive, a company founded by Labriola on the same day. In 2012 and 2015, LiST Interactive was cited by the Secretary of State for failing to file required periodic reports.
The UKnight lawuit has made several allegations dismissed by the court.
Among the dismissed claim’s is UKnight’s charge that the IRS fraudulently maintains the tax-exempt status of the Knights of Columbus, allowing the organization to commit acts of racketeering forbidden by federal law.
Also dismissed is UKnight’s initial accusation that the Knights engaged in “racketeering,” in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO.
Jackson dismissed the suit’s first filing on July 28, 2017. His order determined that the plaintiffs’ RICO allegations were unfounded, and noted that the suit seemed actually to misunderstand racketeering laws.
“If plaintiffs’ description of how jurisdiction under RICO works were correct it would mean that Congress could effectively override the Constitution,” Jackson wrote.
Jackson also criticized UKnight and Labriola for the lawsuit’s “excessively aggressive phrasing and histrionics.”
Sources have told CNA that UKnight’s lawsuit is partially funded through LexShares, an online platform that connects plaintiffs with investors, who buy a stake in any settlement or judgment rendered in the suit.
Vatican City, Aug 26, 2019 / 04:35 pm (CNA).- A better understanding of the meaning and symbolic language of the Church’s liturgy, especially the Mass, will help Catholics encounter the Lord and grow in holiness, Cardinal Pietro Parolin said in a… […]
Kolkata, India, Aug 26, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Hundreds of Missionaries of Charity gathered at their headquarters on Monday to commemorate the birthday of the order’s founder, Mother Teresa.
Archbishop Thomas D’Souza of Calcutta, whose birthday falls on the same day, celebrated Mass on Aug. 26 to recognize what would be the 109th birthday of Saint Mother Teresa.
“It was a splendid celebration. The 109th anniversary of the birth of our beloved Saint Mother Teresa was a moment of thanksgiving through prayer and joy,” said Father Dominic Gomes, vicar general of the archdiocese.
“The chapel was packed with people of all social origins,” he told Asia News.
The event was held at the Mother House of the Missionaries of Charity in Kolkata. After Mass, an estimated 300 nuns and novices gathered around the saint’s tomb and sang “Happy Birthday.”
Catholics normally commemorate the feast day of a saint – which often corresponds with the day they died – but the Missionaries of Charity have continued to celebrate Mother Teresa’s birthday as well, even after her death in 1997. During Mother Teresa’s life, her birthday had been a major celebration at the house.
The nuns told UCA News that they celebrate Mother Teresa’s birthday in all 700 of their homes across the world. The nuns will begin a nine-day novena on Aug. 27 in preparation for the saint’s feast day on Sept. 5.
“There can be no feast day without a birthday,” one of the nuns told UCA News. “So, our birthday celebrations could be seen as preparation for the feast day.”
Mother Teresa was born Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu Aug. 26, 1910, in Skopje, Macedonia. After joining the Sisters of Loretto at age 17, she was sent to Kolkata, where she later contracted tuberculosis, and was sent to rest in Darjeeling.
On the way, she felt what she called “an order” from God to leave the convent and live among the poor.
After she left her convent, Mother Teresa began working in the slums, teaching poor children, and treating the sick in their homes. A year later, some of her former students joined her, and together they took in men, women and children who were dying in the gutters along the streets.
In 1950, the Missionaries of Charity were born as a congregation of the Diocese of Calcutta. In 1952, the government granted them a house from which to continue their mission of serving Calcutta’s poor and forgotten. Today, they operate in 176 countries, serving the “poorest of the poor.”
Mother Teresa was canonized in 2016.
During his homily, Archbishop D’Souza said Christ invites everyone to service and pointed to Mother Teresa as a model of selfless love.
“Jesus invites us to love one another. The Mother served the poorest of the poor with selfless service and passionate love, giving them to Jesus through her work,” he said, according to Asia News.
Richmond, Va., Aug 26, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- The Governor of Virginia has appointed a Democratic activist with a history of profane, anti-Catholic statements to an influential public body.
On Aug. 16, Gov. Ralph Northam (D) appointed Gail Gord… […]
Dhaka, Bangladesh, Aug 26, 2019 / 03:41 pm (CNA).- Two years after a surge of state-sponsored violence in Burma forced more than 1 million members of the Rohingya Muslim minority group to flee the country, the refugees are calling for international act… […]
© Catholic World Report