Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2021 / 11:30 am (CNA).- The Biden administration will repeal the Mexico City Policy in the “coming days,” White House advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci told board members of the World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday, … […]
Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2021 / 10:20 am (CNA).- The U.S. bishops’ conference applauded President Joe Biden for halting some deportations and preserving the DACA program on his first day in office.
“We applaud President Biden’s resto… […]
Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2021 / 08:45 am (CNA).- After President Joe Biden on his first day in office revoked a travel ban from certain Muslim-majority and African countries, leading U.S. bishops praised the move.
“We welcome yesterday’s Proclamation, which will help ensure that those fleeing persecution and seeking refuge or seeking to reunify with family in the United States will not be turned away because of what country they are from or what religion they practice,” stated Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and Bishop Mario Dorsonville, auxiliary bishop of Washington, D.C., on Thursday.
Cardinal Dolan chairs the religious freedom committee of the U.S. bishops’ conference (USCCB), and Bishop Dorsonville chairs the conference migration committee.
On Wednesday, President Biden had issued a proclamation revoking President Trump’s executive order from 2017, along with several of Trump’s ensuing actions to restrict travel into the U.S. from several predominantly Muslim and African countries. Biden’s proclamation was among his first executive actions while in office.
Biden said that travel bans “are a stain on our national conscience and are inconsistent with our long history of welcoming people of all faiths and no faith at all.”
The initial 2017 action by President Trump– was considered by some to be essentially a “Muslim ban,” a continuation of his promise on the campaign trail to shut down travel into the U.S. by Muslims, purportedly for security reasons.
At the time of the initial ban, the USCCB said it “targets Muslims for exclusion, which goes against our country’s core principle of neutrality when it comes to people of faith.”
Since the original order, the administration later added other countries to the list that were not Muslim-majority nations, including African countries. The travel ban was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Cardinal Dolan and Bishop Dorsonville said that reversing the travel ban would help refugees and victims of violence.
“We look forward to working with this new Administration in accompanying immigrants and refugees and continuing the welcoming tradition, which has helped make the United States the diverse and prosperous nation it is today,” they stated.
Other Catholic groups praised President Biden’s proposed actions on immigration on his first day in office.
Anna Gallagher, executive director of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC), tweeted on Wednesday of the “Muslim Ban” that “[i]t’s only fitting that this be among the first Trump policies to go.”
“The ‘Document on Human Fraternity’ from @Pontifex and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmad Al-Tayyeb calls on us ‘to unite and work together’ and ‘advance a culture of mutual respect in the awareness of the great divine grace that makes all human beings brothers and sisters,’” she tweeted.
Biden on Wednesday began a series of other executive actions on immigration, including the preservation the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and declaring a halt to border wall construction.
In addition, Biden’s transition team promised he would send an immigration bill to Congress that would, among other acts, offer a path to citizenship for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) holders.
That policy would protect “vulnerable people and families” from countries such as El Salvador, Honduras, and Haiti from deportation, said Bill O’Keefe, executive vice president for mission, mobilization and advocacy at Catholic Relief Services (CRS).
“Based on our presence in Latin America and our Church partners there, we know these countries are not prepared to reintegrate their citizens and are overwhelmed from the consequences of natural disasters, insecurity, and COVID-19,” O’Keefe told CNA in a statement.
Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2021 / 05:45 am (CNA).- While President Joe Biden has nominated a number of Catholics to serve in his cabinet, some of them have publicly contradicted Church teaching on abortion.
Joe Biden on Wednesday became the 46th president of the United States and only the second Catholic to hold that office.
While U.S. bishops offered him their prayers and congratulations upon his inauguration, and noted areas of agreement such as immigration and protecting the environment, the bishops’ conference also noted that Biden had promoted “policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”
Like Biden himself, many of the Catholics he has nominated to cabinet roles have also publicly supported pro-abortion policies–and they could further these policies in their administrative roles.
Xavier Becerra, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, was previously attorney general of California. In that role he defended the state’s law mandating that medically licensed pro-life pregnancy centers advertise where clients could obtain abortions.
The Reproductive FACT Act was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2018. Kamala Harris, now the vice president, also defended the law as attorney general of California before she was elected to the U.S. Senate.
Becerre also defended a state mandate of abortion coverage in employer-provided health plans; pro-life and Catholic groups, including the religious community Missionary Guadalupanas of the Holy Spirit, challenged the mandate.
Becerra previously served as a congressman from California, where the National Right to Life Committee gave him a 100 percent pro-abortion score. Politico reported in December that pro-abortion groups view their “pressure campaign” towards Biden as “wildly successful,” in part because of Becerra’s nomination.
Should Becerra be confirmed as health secretary, his role at HHS would allow him to roll back certain pro-life rules and policies, as well as conscience protections for health care workers.
Biden nominated Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to serve as Secretary of Labor. During his campaign for mayor in 2013, Walsh’s campaign website said that the disparity in the number of pro-life pregnancy centers to abortion clinics in Boston was detrimental to women’s health.
“In terms of reproductive choices, crisis pregnancy centers outnumber women’s health providers in Boston three to one, seriously undermining women’s access to quality family planning, appropriate counseling, and overall choice,” the website said.
Walsh also recieved a “Men for Choice” award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts in 2016, according to the Boston Globe. Walsh stressed to that “I’m a pro-choice candidate, I’m a pro-choice mayor, I was a pro-choice legislator.
Three other cabinet nominees–Gina Raimondo, Tom Vilsack, and Jennifer Granholm–all backed pro-abortion measures in their roles as governor of Rhode Island, Iowa, and Michigan, respectively. Raimondo has been tapped to lead the Commerce Department, Vilsack the Agriculture Department, and Granholm the Department of Energy.
Denis McDonough, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Veterans Affairs, served as White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama, who held pro-abortion policy positions.
McDonough was reportedly among the administration staff who pushed Obama to soften the rules on the HHS contraceptive mandate in 2012, to accommodate objecting religious groups. However, many groups including the Little Sisters of the Poor and the USCCB still opposed that revised rule, saying it required unacceptable participation in the immoral provision of contraceptive coverage.
Gen. Lloyd Austin, Biden’s nominee to serve as defense secretary, has not taken a public policy position on the issue of abortion in his military roles. Austin is also a Catholic, and has ties to the Biden family through the president’s late son Beau Biden, with whom he served in Iraq.
Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2021 / 05:00 am (CNA).- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused pro-lifers of putting their opposition to abortion over the tenets of democracy in a recent appearance on former Sen. Hillary Clinton’s podcast.
&l… […]
Denver Newsroom, Jan 21, 2021 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Dante Alighieri died 700 years ago, and Italy is ready to celebrate the author whose epic poem through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven has influenced the art, imagination, and faith of so many down the centur… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 21, 2021 / 12:45 am (CNA).- As the United States undergoes a transition in leadership, the Archdiocese of San Francisco will host a webinar this week discussing the future of the pro-life movement.
The webinar takes place on Jan. 22 with Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco; Marjorie Dannenfelser, founder and president of the Susan B Anthony List; and Charles Camosy, associate professor of theological and social ethics at Fordham University.
Moderated by J. A. Gray, a former editor at First Things and New Oxford Review, the webinar will discuss how the pro-life cause will move forward in 2021.
“I think this will be a very lively and inspiring webinar – a chance to hear from Archbishop Cordileone on what he sees as the way forward, ‘being a light in the midst of this darkness; a light being a witness to the sanctity of human life,’ as he said on Jan. 9 during a Mass for life and prayer walk to a Planned Parenthood clinic,” Valerie Schmalz, the archdiocese’s director of Human Life and Dignity, told CNA.
Prior to the event, the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption will have a live stream Mass for the Legal Protection of Unborn Children, which will be celebrated at noon by the archbishop. Other parishes throughout the archdiocese are encouraged to offer a noon Mass or the regular weekday Mass for that intention as well.
“By offering Mass in each of our parishes on this day for this particular intention, we will pray together but in safer smaller gatherings for the restoration of the right to life for all, from conception to natural death, on the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion throughout the country,” the website reads.
During the webinar, Archbishop Cordileone will converse with both Dannenfelser and Camosy. Schmalz said the presenters will discuss the next steps in establishing a “society where all human life is cherished and protected.”
She said Dannenfelser has advocated for a greater representation of pro-life women in politics and helped elect 18 new pro-life women to the incoming House of Representatives, also removed 10 pro-abortion lawmakers from their seats in the House.
“Susan B. Anthony is just one of the most powerful forces for pro-life in the country,” she said. “[Dannenfelser] really comes out of the pro-life feminist movement.”
“Women are empowered and they’re making a difference in the pro-life arena. That is what’s so great about what she’s accomplished this election cycle is she has gotten pro-life, articulate women into Congress.”
Camosy, who last year left the Democratic Party over the issue of abortion, served as a board member for the Democrats for Life for years. In his book “Resisting Throwaway Culture: How a Consistent Life Ethic Can Unite a Fractured People,” Camosy offers insight into how a progressive stance would promote pro-life issues, Schmalz said.
“This will be an opportunity for Marjorie Dannenfelser and Charles Camosy to articulate what they believe is the ‘action plan’ for life in the next two years, with an administration and a majority of Congress that embrace the abortion agenda,” she said.
She noted that while the incoming administration has some laudable stances, including its opposition to the death penalty, it is also “extremely invested in abortion and making it legal.”
Schmalz said she believes that there are challenges ahead for the pro-life movement, noting that it has recently become more challenging to purchase pro-life and religious liberty ads online. She said the pro-life movement will need to respond with creativity and ingenuity.
Schmalz stressed that in the current political environment, charity is particularly important for the pro-life movement.
“A big question will be how the pro-life movement can counter inevitable efforts to tar pro-life advocates with the awful actions of the rioters who descended on the Capitol. The riots have accelerated and are being used to justify a polarization of our society and are fueling a campaign to marginalize many, including pro-life and religious freedom advocates.”
“We’ve been drawn to such chaos right now … You look at the screen and you see this stuff happening and you just want to cry. It’s horrible,” she said. “So, as pro-life people, we have to do everything peacefully and with charity, don’t get caught up in the polarization.”
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 20, 2021 / 06:45 pm (CNA).- Washington, D.C.—President Joe Biden’s press secretary would not say on Wednesday evening what the administration will do with current safeguards against taxpayer funding of abortio… […]
CNA Staff, Jan 20, 2021 / 05:04 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, used Twitter to issue a scathing criticism of the USCCB’s official statement on the inauguration of President Joe Biden.
In his four-part Twitter thread on … […]
CNA Staff, Jan 20, 2021 / 03:51 pm (CNA).- The head of the Knights of Columbus on Wednesday expressed gratitude for the “balanced and prophetic” statement issued by the US bishops’ conference on the presidential inauguration of Joe Bi… […]
© Catholic World Report