Peoria, Ill., Jun 27, 2019 / 04:20 pm (CNA).- Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s remains have been transferred from the Archdiocese of New York to Peoria, Illinois, after three years of litigation, clearing the way for the former archbishop&rsqu… […]
Brussels, Belgium, Jun 27, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Despite European Union guidelines and the work of a special envoy for religious freedom and belief, the state of religious freedom inside and outside of Europe at times seems to be worsening, not impro… […]
New Ulm, Minn., Jun 27, 2019 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of New Ulm announced Wednesday it has reached a $34 million settlement with victims of clerical sexual abuse.
“The settlement represents our commitment to finding a fair resolution for victims and survivors of sexual abuse while continuing our ministry for those we serve throughout south and west central Minnesota,” Bishop John LeVoir stated June 26.
According to the AP, there are 93 victims party to the settlement.
Jeff Anderson, the attroney representing many of the survivors, said that $8 million of the settlement comes from the diocese and its parishes, while the remaining $26 million is from insurance coverage.
The New Ulm diocese had filed for bankruptcy in March 2017 in the face of 101 lawsuits regarding sex abuse claims dating back to the 1950s.
Most of the lawsuits concern incidents that allegedly took place from the 1950s through the 1970s. The suits were filed under a 2013 Minnesota law that temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for cases of sexual abuse of children.
Approval of the settlement will resolve the diocese’s bankruptcy.
The diocese will file the reorganization plan to the bankruptcy court, which will be reviewed by a judge. The settlement plan must then be voted on for approval by the claimants, and a trust from which payments will be made will be established. The diocese said this should be completed by the end of the year.
Bishop LeVoir said the diocese “remains committed to preventing sexual abuse, holding accountable those clergy who are credibly accused of abuse and helping victims and survivors find healing.”
“For more than 15 years, all priests and deacons, diocesan staff, parish and Catholic school employees, as well as volunteers having regular or unsupervised interaction with minors have been required to meet safe environment requirements,” which include adherence to a code of conduct, undergoing a background check, and participation in sexual abuse awareness and prevention training, he said.
The bishop added that “the diocese has committed to disclosing the names of all clergy with credible claims of abuse made against them” and that it “follows strict standards for determining suitability of clergy serving in the diocese, starting during the seminary formation process and including verifying the credentials of priests visiting from other dioceses or from religious orders.”
He said the diocese “promptly contacts law enforcement to report any allegations it receives regarding sexual misconduct by clergy or others involved in ministry within the geographic area the diocese serves.”
Bishop LeVoir also invited victims to contact the diocese for counseling or other assistance in healing, and invited them to meet with him as part of their healing process if they wish.
“I again extend my deepest apologies on behalf of the Diocese of New Ulm to victims and survivors of clergy sexual abuse,” he concluded. “Victims and survivors have courageously worked to raise awareness about the tragedy of childhood sexual abuse and how we must address it. I hope and pray that today’s settlement helps victims and survivors on their healing journey.”
Several more Minnesota dioceses filed bankruptcy over sex abuse claims, including Saint Paul and Minneapolis, Duluth, and Winona-Rochester. The Diocese of Saint Cloud has said it will do so.
Rome, Italy, Jun 27, 2019 / 01:19 pm (CNA).- The Global Rosary Relay aims to have 1 billion Hail Marys said for the sanctification of priests June 28, the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“This is the world family all joining together as one on Friday and praying for the sanctification of our priests,” Global Rosary Relay founder and organizer Marion Mulhall told CNA June 27.
With prayer locations in more than 70 countries this year, the relay is carefully timed with the recitation of the rosary every half hour.
The relay begins with the joyful mysteries in South Korea and then is passed off to Russia for the luminous mysteries, followed by the sorrowful mysteries in China before continuing on to India, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Uganda, Israel, and many other countries across Europe and the Americas.
“Ten years ago when we began the global rosary relay, we had 24 single locations in 24 countries for the 24 hour clock. This year we have 255 single prayer locations in every single corner of the planet,” Mulhall said. “The whole world is in prayer the whole day.”
“Anybody who prays the rosary on Friday — it doesn’t matter what time it is or where they are — can be pretty much guaranteed that they are joining, even if they may not realize it, with a participating prayer location around the world,” she said.
Mulhall explained that she felt personally called 25 years ago to “promote the priesthood at any price,” and this led to the creation of the World Priest Apostolate which organized campaigns to pray for priests for many years before starting the Global Rosary Relay ten years ago.
Saint Pope John Paul II declared the Feast of the Sacred Heart to be the World Day of Prayer for Priests in 2002. In 2016, the final rosary of the relay was led by the president of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelization.
This year, a rosary will be said in Rome at 6pm local time for Pope Francis and his intentions.
Mulhall said that social media live streams and television broadcasts of the rosary on EWTN and other Catholic channels have led to tremendous growth of the rosary relay in recent years.
“Last year, 700 million Hail Marys were prayed and 12-14 million people joined in prayer, so to go for 1 billion Hail Marys is actually not that hard with the help of global TV broadcasts,” she said.
“She [Our Lady] is watching out for her priestly sons all the time and she is always asking us to pray for her most beloved sons,” she said.
Washington D.C., Jun 27, 2019 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- The security of Christians in Northern Iraq remains “tenuous” and will require close attention in the future, the State Department’s religious freedom ambassador told members of Congres… […]
Washington D.C., Jun 27, 2019 / 11:04 am (CNA).- With suicide rates remaining high in the United States’ prison system, civil advocates are raising concerns regarding the treatment of inmates.
Suicide is the leading cause of death in prison. Acc… […]
Paris, France, Jun 27, 2019 / 10:28 am (CNA).- An initial investigation into the devastating fire that consumed much of Notre-Dame cathedral in April has found no signs of criminal action behind the blaze, French officials said Wednesday.
Chief Prosecutor of Paris Remy Heitz said in a statement that the investigations so far have not been able to pinpoint a cause of the fire but have found no evidence that it was deliberate, the BBC reported. “Deeper investigations” will be carried out, he said.
Officials conducted 100 witness hearings in the initial stage of their investigation, according to CNN. They will now consider the possibility of negligence – including electrical malfunction or a poorly extinguished cigarette – as a cause for the fire.
Shortly before 7 p.m. on April 15, a fire broke out in the iconic Gothic cathedral in Paris. The roof and the spire, which dated to the 19th century, were destroyed. Shortly after midnight April 16, firefighters announced that the cathedral’s main structure had been preserved from collapse.
Major religious and artistic treasures of the cathedral were removed as the fire began, including a relic of the crown of thorns.
Originally built between the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, the landmark cathedral in the French capital is one of the most recognizable churches in the world, receiving more than 12 million visitors each year.
The cathedral was undergoing some restorative work at the time the fire broke out. Officials had been in the process of a massive fundraising effort to renovate the cathedral against centuries of decay, pollution, and an inundation of visitors. French conservationists and the archdiocese announced in 2017 that the renovations needed for the building’s structural integrity could cost as much as $112 million to complete.
Last month the French Senate passed a bill mandating that Notre-Dame be rebuilt as it was before the fire. President Emmanuel Macron had previously called for “an inventive reconstruction” of the cathedral.
Since the adoption of the 1905 law on separation of church and state, which formalized laïcité (a strict form of public secularism), religious buildings in France have been considered property of the state.
More than one billion dollars has been raised for the restoration effort.
The first Mass since the fire was celebrated at the cathedral June 15.
Vatican City, Jun 27, 2019 / 10:22 am (CNA).- Pope Francis could receive a final draft of a new constitution for the Roman curia as soon as September, according to the secretary of the pope’s Council of Cardinal Advisors.
Bishop Marcello S… […]
Paris, France, Jun 27, 2019 / 03:17 am (CNA).- France’s soon-to-be mandatory Universal National Service program for teens has drawn serious religious freedom concerns, with critics noting that the program prohibits religious symbols, does not all… […]
Bismarck, N.D., Jun 27, 2019 / 12:11 am (CNA).- North Dakota’s sole abortion clinic, located in Fargo, is filing a lawsuit against two state laws that it claims force doctors to present false information, and is asking a judge to block the laws’ enforcement.
The complaint is from the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of the American Medical Association, the Red River Women’s Clinic in Fargo, and the clinic’s medical director, Dr. Kathryn Eggleston.
The lawsuit alleges that two state laws, set to go into effect Aug. 1, force doctors to “lie”: one requires doctors to affirm that an unborn baby is a “unique, living human being,” and the other requires doctors to inform patients that reversals of medication abortions are possible.
Medication abortions have become an increasingly common method of abortion in the United States, making up 30-40 percent of all abortions.
North Dakota State Rep. Daniel Johnston said he sponsored the bill so that “women having second thoughts” about going through with a medication abortion know they have options, according to the Associated Press.
The AP reports that Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Utah have passed similar laws that require patients to be informed about medication abortion reversal.
The lawsuit asserts that there is no “credible, scientific evidence” that a medication abortion can be reversed.
Medical abortions involve the taking of two pills – the first pill, mifepristone (RU-486) blocks the progesterone hormone, which is essential for maintaining the health of the baby. The second pill, misoprostol, is taken 24 hours after mifepristone and works to induce contractions in order to expel the baby. Some women, after taking the first pill (mifepristone), experience regret and do not want to follow through with the abortion by taking misoprostol.
A study published last year in Issues in Law and Medicine, a peer-reviewed medical journal affiliated with the pro-life organization Watson Bowes Research Institute, examined 261 successful abortion pill reversals, and showed that the reversal success rates were 68 percent with a high-dose oral progesterone protocol and 64 percent with an injected progesterone protocol.
Dr. Mary Davenport and Dr. George Delgado, who have been studying the abortion pill reversal procedures since 2009, authored the study. Delgado sits on the board of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, and co-founded the Abortion Pill Rescue Network, a coalition of 800 medical providers across the country.
“When I learned about the work of Dr. George Delgado…I jumped right on that. I felt we needed to educate women that they had a choice,” Tammy Taylor, a nurse practitioner at Guiding Star, a women’s health care clinic in Tampa, told Pregnancy Help News this month.
Taylor’s Tampa clinic has provided 15 women so far with abortion pill reversals, some of whom have traveled up to two hours for the procedure, Pregnancy Help News reports.
The director of a women’s clinic in Denver told CNA in April 2018 that she has found the abortion pill reversal protocol to be safe and effective with her patients, and her clinic has successfully treated several women who come in seeking a reversal after taking the first pill.
“I think the fact that we have now over 300 successful reversals is evidence that it works,” nurse practitioner Dede Chism, co-founder and executive director of Bella Natural Women’s Care in Englewood, CO, told CNA at the time.
“This isn’t make-believe and it isn’t coincidental.”
Delgado told the Washington Post that he believed more research should be done on abortion pill reversal, but that he believes there should be nothing to stop doctors from using the progesterone protocol in the meantime.
“(T)he science is good enough that, since we have no alternative therapy and we know it’s safe, we should go with it,” he said.
The pro-life group Heartbeat International has documented numerous cases of successful abortion pill reversals resulting in healthy babies being born. A recent report from Pregnancy Help News, a service of Heartbeat International, said 750 babies have been saved in this manner.
The AMA also took issue with a law that requires physicians to tell patients that abortion terminates “the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being,” a statement that the AMA deemed a “controversial, ideological, and non-medical message.”
North Dakota’s governor signed into law in April a bill that outlaws the common abortion procedure known as “dilation and evacuation,” also known as “dismemberment abortion.”
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