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Cardinal Dolan quarantining after contact with COVID-positive individual

January 29, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Jan 29, 2021 / 06:27 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of New York announced Thursday that Cardinal Timothy Dolan is quarantining after “close contact” with someone who tested positive for COVID-19. The cardinal does not currently have symptoms.

“Cardinal Timothy Dolan has cancelled all public appearances, including celebrating 10:15 a.m. Sunday Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, to remain in quarantine after last week having been in close contact with an individual who has tested positive for COVID,” the brief statement said.

The 70-year-old cardinal “has not tested positive, feels fine, and has no symptoms,” it added.

The archdiocese indicated that “others on his staff who also had close contact with this individual” will similarly follow “health and safety protocols as instructed by medical professionals.” The statement did not specify who or how many members of his staff will be under quarantine.

Since 2009, Cardinal Dolan has led more than 2.8 million Catholics in Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, and six counties north of the city.

New York has reached a new peak of COVID-19 cases this month, with more than 10,000 infected per day during January 2021.

Last Thursday, New York Attorney General Letitia James released a 76-page report accusing the administration of Governor Andrew Cuomo of undercounting the number of elderly who died in nursing homes by as much as 50%.

According to the Health Department’s data, there were 8,671 reported COVID-19 deaths in long-term care facilities as of January 18. The report from the Attorney General suggests that many nursing home residents died from COVID in the hospital, resulting in their deaths being reported as hospital deaths.


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No Picture
News Briefs

Politics divides, but Christ unites: Madison bishop confronts Catholic ‘acrimony’

January 29, 2021 CNA Daily News 2

CNA Staff, Jan 29, 2021 / 04:14 pm (CNA).- The polarization of American politics means that Catholics must be a force for unity rather than “divisively tribal,” and clergy especially need to be careful that they don’t let their personal politics compromise their Christian mission, Bishop Donald Hying of Madison has said.
 
“All Catholics have to be careful to engage in political life in a manner that reflects the Gospel, but clergy need to exercise special caution so that their political activity is consistent with their vocation in the Church,” he said in a Jan. 27 reflection on the “current state of general acrimony.”
 
Clergy should not voice “overt and purely political opinions regarding individuals, parties, election results, the current news cycle,” nor should they engage in ad hominem attacks.
 
“Such actions threaten to politicize the Church and divide our people even more,” he said.
 
“I am not implying that we should be silent in the face of evil, injustice, and wrongdoing, but we need to stick with the moral issues and refrain from the personal attacks,” Hying said.
 
While bishops, priests and deacons can vote and hold political opinions, Hying said, their task is “to preach and teach the Catholic faith to the laity and to lay out the revealed priority of moral issues.” Pastors who fail to preach the truths of the Catholic faith, however, “fail in loving our people.”
 
“The task of the laity is to form their consciences and apply the teachings of the Church to the spheres of politics, economy, society, and culture,” said the bishop.
 
He reflected on the state of the country in January 2021: “the anger and vitriol is palpably toxic.”
 
 “Our cultural, political, and social divisions, exacerbated by COVID; the elections; and the violence in our streets and cities have unfortunately entered into the Church and are seriously wounding our unity in Christ,” he said.
 
“We now seem to have Biden Catholics and Trump Catholics, perhaps just the latest incarnation of traditional and progressive Catholics, but a division that is louder, angrier, and far less compromising than all the previous rifts in the Body of Christ.”
 
“Any words of moderation, actions of conciliation, benefit of the doubt given to another point of view, or attempt to find middle ground is dismissed as betrayal and disloyalty to the truth,” he said.
 
“If we do not even desire to heal the divisions among us, how can we ever rediscover our unity in Christ? The bishop asked. “The painful experience of these past months tells me that we as fallen human beings can become divisively tribal. We instinctively associate with the people who think, act, and live as we do.”
 
He emphasized that Christ calls members of his body to “a far greater reality, indeed a supernatural unity, founded in the very life of the Most Blessed Trinity.”
 
“Jesus served, loved, died, and rose from the dead to establish a New Covenant in His Blood, a redeemed humanity of every race, tribe, and tongue, incorporating every culture, nationality, class, and people into the Church,” Hying continued. “For us Christians, water is thicker than blood, for the communion we discover in the waters of Baptism is far deeper and significant than the ties of race, nation, political party, and even family.”
 
“If we are bound together in Christ as His Mystical Body, then how can we keep tearing each other apart? We are brothers and sisters in Christ,” he said.
 
He suggested Catholics should spend the time before Easter in deeper prayer, penance, and almsgiving.
 
“How can I be more patient, kind, gentle, and compassionate to others, especially those I disagree with? Get off social media and get in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Stop watching so much news and start reading the Good News. Spend the time on volunteer service to help the poor instead of writing angry emails,” said the bishop, who added: “Examine your conscience regarding the sins of calumny, rash judgment, violent anger, and malicious speech. And then go to confession.”
 
At the same time, Hying said vocal partisans are not necessarily representative of Catholicism.
 
“Most Catholics are simply trying to live their faith, focus on Jesus Christ, become holy, and do God’s will. Many people had questions and concerns about some of President Trump’s policies and actions, as many do about President Biden,” he said.
 
He said that the Catholic bishops in the US do consider abortion the “preeminent” national issue because it is “intrinsic evil as the deliberate taking of human life in its fragile beginnings.” At the same time, he said, “‘preeminent’ does not mean ‘only’.”
 
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has always tried to work with every presidential administration to support moral policies and oppose others, said the bishop.
 
“The fact that President Biden is a baptized Catholic who attends Mass and asserts faith as the guiding principle of his life gives greater urgency to the need to challenge those of his policies which are opposed to moral teaching based on the natural law,” he said. “Some may mistakenly assume the Church is taking political sides, but Her actions are always inspired by the truth of God’s revelation and the dignity of the human person. And that cuts both ways, as the Word of God is ‘sharper than a two-edged sword’,” said Hying, quoting the Letter to the Hebrews.
 
To the Madison diocese’s north is the Diocese of La Crosse. Before the 2020 elections, La Crosse diocesan priest Fr. James Altman’s Aug. 30 video went viral for saying “You cannot be Catholic and be a Democrat. Period.”
 
Bishop William Callahan of La Crosse sought to correct the priest, saying he inflicted a “wound” upon the Church.
 
“Unfortunately, the tone Fr. Altman offers comes off as angry and judgmental, lacking any charity and in a way that causes scandal both in the Church and in society. His generalization and condemnation of entire groups of people is completely inappropriate and not in keeping with our values or the life of virtue,” Callahan said Sept. 9.
 
Altman’s video won support from Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, who praised him on Twitter Sept. 5.
 
Father James Martin, S.J., editor-at-large of America magazine, wrote an essay claiming that Catholic leaders’ criticism of President Joe Biden’s stance on abortion helped contribute to the conditions for the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. He named Altman and Bishop Strickland, among others, as well as Bishop Richard Stika of Knoxville.
 
In a brief response, Bishop Stika rejected the claim. He stood by his criticism of Biden’s abortion stand and again noted the contradiction between the president’s professed Catholic faith and his support for abortion.


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No Picture
News Briefs

‘I still wanted to make a difference’: Why pro-lifers came to D.C. to pray

January 29, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Jan 29, 2021 / 10:32 am (CNA).- Although the national March for Life is closed to the public this year, dozens of young adults gathered for a pro-life prayer vigil in Washington, D.C. on Thursday night.

 

While practicing social distancing and wearing masks, members of the group endured the January cold as they kept an all-night prayer vigil outside the U.S. Supreme Court building.

 

Organizers of the vigil told CNA that despite the Jan. 29 March for Life being closed to the public, they still wanted to take action for life.

 

As Thomas Hackett of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, the co-founder of the Catholic worker organization Tradistae, had announced the vigil prior to the decision of the March for Life to be a virtual event, he decided to continue with his plans.

 

Hackett told CNA he wanted to embrace the “penitential tradition” of an all-night prayer vigil, to “emphasize the more radical nature” of how to respond to legalized abortion.

 

“I’m certainly supportive of [the March for Life], but it does often come across more as like a youth rally, like something fun to bus parish kids out to,” he said, explaining that there’s a need to take “seriously the certain gravity of what abortion is and what it means to live in a country where millions have been killed and continue to be killed in the womb.”

 

Preceding the vigil was a Votive Mass of the Holy Innocents at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church on Capitol Hill. Attendees then made a short procession to the U.S. Supreme Court building about two blocks away. 

 

As the night continued and temperatures dropped into the mid 20s, the size of the group dwindled from roughly 30 people at the beginning to approximately eight people at dawn. Throughout the night, they prayed the Liturgy of the Hours and the rosary, and sang hymns.

 

Hackett told CNA that he had no major issues with the police or members of the military posted outside the Supreme Court, and that the vigil was peaceful the entire time. 

 

“We told them we weren’t trying to cause any trouble,” said Hackett. “And so they didn’t bother us after that.” 

 

Other people journeyed from near and far to stand for life. 

 

Mickey Kelly took the train from Philadelphia to come to the Mass and vigil, partly because he views the annual March for Life as a tradition that he wanted to continue. He had been attending the March for Life nearly every year for the past 12 years. 

 

“Even though it would be a small crowd, I just thought that I still wanted to make a difference,” Kelly said. He described his beliefs as supportive of “all stages of life, from womb to tomb.” 

 

Attending the vigil in person “also gives me a chance to recommit to the cause for life,” he said. Kelly told CNA that he would also attempt to walk the traditional route of the March for Life on Friday, from the National Mall eastward down Constitution Avenue and to the Supreme Court. 

 

“I just do my best to put what God wants me to do first, and what the world wants me to do last,” he said. 

 

Valerie Hart, who traveled to D.C. for the vigil from Orlando, Florida, told CNA on Thursday night that she had booked her flights and accommodations for the March for Life “a few months ago.” 

 

The organizers of the March for Life announced Jan. 15 that the 2021 event would be virtual. Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, cited both the pandemic and “the heightened pressures that law enforcement officers and others are currently facing in and around the Capitol” as reasons for the decision.

 

Mancini asked pro-lifers to “stay home” and watch a live-stream of the event, as a “small group of pro-life leaders” would still march in D.C.

 

Hart came to D.C. anyway, as she has every year since 2017. She said she was “heartbroken” when she found out the March was closed to the public. 

 

“I just couldn’t understand,” she said. “Because all the protests that have been going on in D.C., and ours is getting canceled, basically.” 

 

Hart said it was important for pro-lifers to go to D.C. to “get their voices heard.” 

 

She told CNA that she planned on attending a pro-life rally Friday morning, one not organized by March for Life, and then would attempt to join the smaller in-person march of pro-life leaders. 

 

“I guess we’ll just walk along–I mean, they can’t stop us from walking in D.C., right?” Hart said with a laugh. 

 

“It’s important to stand up for pro-life values, to stand up for the unborn, for all lives,” she said. “It’s important that people see that we’re still here, and they can’t stop us.”

 

 


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No Picture
News Briefs

Why the Mexico City Policy is so significant

January 29, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Jan 29, 2021 / 06:30 am (CNA).- On Thursday, President Joe Biden struck down bans on U.S. funding of international pro-abortion groups—an act that could have far-reaching consequences.

 

Biden on Thursday issued a sweeping presidential memorandum on “Protecting Women’s Health at Home and Abroad,” repealing the Mexico City Policy and the Trump administration’s expansion of it.

 

However, what is the Mexico City Policy, and why is the repeal of it so significant?

 

The Mexico City Policy was first instituted in 1984 by President Reagan. It is named for the location of the UN population conference at which it was announced. The policy has been rescinded by Democratic Presidents Clinton, Obama, and now Biden; it was reinstated by Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Trump during their presidential terms.

 

Under the policy, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) cannot distribute family planning funds to foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that perform or promote abortions.

 

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who has served as co-chair of the House Pro-Life Caucus for decades, was in office when the policy was first instituted.

 

He told CNA that existing policy—the Helms Amendment—had prohibited direct funding of abortions abroad, but stronger pro-life funding protections were still required.

 

“And the accounting trick that the pro-abortion groups were doing was that they would take the all of the U.S. funding and then tell us our money wasn’t being used to pay for abortion,” he said. “And then they would just fund abortions-on-demand, however many they wanted to do, and lobby for it.”

 

The Mexico City Policy, he said, “was all about saying if we care enough about the precious lives of unborn children who are going to be dismembered or chemically poisoned by an organization,” then “we’re not going to let bookkeeping tricks and accounting methods prevent us from as much protection as we can possibly provide.”

 

Many international pro-abortion groups that have partnered with the U.S. in the past—such as Marie Stopes International and the International Planned Parenthood Federation—aggressively promote abortion in developing countries.

 

“It is unrelenting,” Smith said of abortion advocacy by certain NGOs. “A lot of countries are pro-life, particularly in Africa and Latin America, and, sadly, we’re being forced to subsidize the lobbying and the performance of abortion by these groups.”

 

These groups work with multilateral organizations such as the United Nations and African Union to promote abortions in the developing world, he said. As an example, he noted that one NGO that received U.S. assistance wrote legislation in Kenya authorizing legal abortion.

 

The Mexico City Policy originally applied to around $600 million of U.S. international family planning funding. Critics call it the “global gag rule,” alleging that it silences recipients from referring for abortions or advocating for legal abortion.

 

However, beginning in 2017, the Trump administration not only reinstated the policy, but it also extended to more than $8 billion in global health assistance.

 

As pro-abortion groups withdrew from partnership with the U.S. over the pro-life requirements, their funding shortfall was not insignificant. The International Planned Parenthood Federation estimated in 2017 it would lose $100 million annually in funding, while Marie Stopes International estimated an $80 million funding shortfall.

 

Critics of the policy alleged that the pro-life restrictions were so broad they would hurt important global health initiatives such as AIDS relief. They argued that if NGOs forfeited U.S. foreign aid over the abortion restrictions, and the U.S. could not find suitable replacement partners, then there could be significant gaps in critical health care.

 

In August, a federal report found that the “vast majority” of U.S. partners in global health assistance accepted the new pro-life policies instituted by the Trump administration. For those which did not accept, either an alternative health provider, foreign governments, or donors stepped in to fill health care gaps.

 

Smith formerly chaired the House global health subcommittee, and in 2018 he authored a five-year extension of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). He affirmed the conclusion that there were no significant gaps in health care as a result of the policy.

 

“So there wasn’t a single dollar cut for any health initiative—not one. It was redirected, but in most cases it was accepted,” Smith said.

 

“The issue is, abortion is not health care,” he said. “It is a very violent deed, and we don’t want complicity in global abortion.”

 

The Trump administration also applied funding restrictions to multilateral organizations because of abortion lobbying or alleged involvement in abortions.

 

In 2019, the Trump administration cut funding for the Organization of American States (OAS) because of its lobbying for abortion. In 2017, it stopped funding the UN’s population fund (UNFPA) because of the fund’s partnership with China on family planning—and alleged complicity in forced abortions and sterilizations under China’s two-child policy.

 

On Thursday, President Biden issued a sweeping order that repealed the Mexico City Policy and restored funding to UNFPA. He instructed federal agencies to begin reaching out to global health partners, to inform them that the previous restrictions on abortion performance, advocacy, and lobbying are no longer in place.

 

“Now more money will be flowing to the NGOs that so aggressively promote the destruction of innocent human life,” Smith said.

 

In addition, on Thursday Biden instructed the Secretary of Health and Human Services—Xavier Becerra has been nominated for the position but not yet confirmed—to review the Trump administration’s “Protect Life Rule.”

 

That rule applied to the Title X program, set up in 1970 to subsidize family planning and contraception. The Trump administration required Title X grant recipients to not refer for abortions or be co-located with abortion clinics. The original law that created Title X said that funding could not go to “programs where abortion is a method of family planning.”

 

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, withdrew from the Title X program in 2019 rather than comply with the new requirements. It forfeited an estimated $60 million annually in Title X grants by doing so.

 

Biden said the new prohibition on abortion referrals “puts women’s health at risk by making it harder for women to receive complete medical information.”

 

The idea of the Protect Life Rule was similar to the Mexico City Policy, Smith said: to ensure tax dollars don’t fund clinics where abortions are also being performed.

 

“We’re supporting the organization and, in this case, it’s under the same roof where babies are being dismembered or chemically poisoned,” he said.

 

The Biden administration is also withdrawing from the Geneva Declaration, a statement signed by the U.S. and 31 other countries in October stating that abortion is not an international human right.

 

Biden’s support for abortion—after he once supported the Mexico City Policy in 1984 while a senator—is “tragic,” Smith said.

 

“I’ve been in the pro-life movement for almost half a century, 48 years. This is tragic that a man who purported to be so pro-life—even during the campaign and then gave it up under pressure—will now become the most aggressive promoter of abortion on the face of the earth.”

 

“It was a core conviction, and you shredded your core conviction for political expediency. That, to me, is tragic.”


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