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Brownsville, Texas, Feb 13, 2019 / 03:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- City commissioners in McAllen, Texas have ordered Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley (CCRGV) to vacate their migrant respite center within 90 days, after complaints from neighbors.
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Newark, N.J., Feb 13, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Newark released a list of names of credibly accused clergy on Wednesday, including disgraced former archbishop of the diocese Theodore McCarrick. The archdiocese listed McCarrick as &ldqu… […]

Burlington, Vt., Feb 13, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- A new poll, released Tuesday, reports that most Americans, including those identifying as pro-choice, are opposed to the late-term abortions. The poll comes amid attempts in several states to expand acce… […]

Pittsburgh, Pa., Feb 13, 2019 / 01:34 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Pittsburgh has launched a new addiction ministry to bring rehabilitation to addicts and families through a holistic approach, including spirituality and close relationships.

“We have a big opiate crisis in Pittsburgh, like every big city,” said Father Michael Decewicz, a recovering alcoholic and one of the leaders behind Addiction Recovery Ministry (ARM).

“How can we as Church respond in love to the addicted and the afflicted? This is our chance as Church, as people of God to reach out to those who are suffering addictions and afflicting their loved ones,” he told CNA.

ARM began Feb. 10 with a Mass of Healing from Addiction. An estimated 200 gathered at the liturgy, where addicts received Anointing of the sick.

Anointing of the sick “can be administered to a member of the faithful who, having reached the use of reason, begins to be in danger due to sickness or old age,” according to the Code of Canon Law.

Father Decewicz noted to CNA the proximity of the program’s initiation to the Feb. 11 feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. He said it correlates to the healing miracles of Lourdes, but also emphasized that addiction is a disease, not a moral choice.  

The ministry is funded by Pittsburgh’s On Mission for the Church Alive campaign, a movement in the diocese to condense unused or small parishes into multi-parish groups. Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh said the program is an effort to strengthen ministries.  

Located at the John Paul I Center in Sharpsburg, the program will begin with three meetings a week of either Narcotics Anonymous or NARANON, a support group for friends and family of addicts suffering from an addiction to narcotics.

Decewicz said program will later add Alcoholics Anonymous and ALANON, the family support group for alcoholics, and eventually have a variety of all four of these meetings three times a day.

The program will also include monthly opportunities for education on the disease of addiction and spiritual nourishment, which may include “a talk on the spirituality of recovery and addiction,” said Decewicz.

He said this ministry is an opportunity for evangelization. The results might not be immediate, he said, but these are moments to plant the seeds of the faith and help people, who often have been wounded by organized religion, reconsider the Church.

“God calls us in our brokenness. We need to spread that message that God touches us in our brokenness and in our frailty. To bring a message of compassion and empathy….to affirm the dignity of every human being regardless of what they are suffering,” he said.

“For years AA has met in the basement of the church, it’s time to invite them upstairs,” he said.

Father Decewicz said a major component of the ministry will be the opportunities for one-on-one encounters. If people call the program, he said the organization will the return the call within 24 hours and connect the person to a recovering addict who can be a guide or a friend.  

Decewicz will be one of the individuals answering calls, helping direct people to the proper services, and discussing his or her experience. Another volunteer for the ministry is Carol Smith, a retired Program Manager for a women’s residential facility and a recovering addict of nearly 24 years.

“You need the right tools, the right people around you to support you,” she told CNA. “There is someone here who can help you, who can identify with you, and get [you] to a meeting.”

She stressed the healing potential of 12 steps programs and shared her own experience with addiction – getting into prescription drugs when she was about 12 and the damage that followed.

Smith was introduced to prescription painkillers because of a dental procedure. She fell in love with these opiates, she said, noting she began stealing drugs from her father’s drug store. After her little brother was born and she felt more estranged from her family, Smith began to spend more time with the wrong crowd, getting deeper into alcohol and other types of drugs.

Even as the drug habit progressed, she was able to function, receiving good grades throughout high school and getting accepted into the University of Pittsburgh. While maintaining an addiction to heroin, Smith graduated with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and later on worked for the government as a supervisor in the welfare department.

She said her life began to take a tragic turn after her husband died. She was forced to resign from her position because of a problem with theft, and eventually ended up in the hospital with sores on her legs from heroin abuse. From the hospital, she was taken to jail which then led to a work release program.

After prison, the addiction was still too much, and Smith again began shooting up heroin. “[Getting high,] that’s all I know how to do. I’ve been doing it for the past 40 years,” Smith told her supervisor when she was confronted about her relapse. But, instead of getting taken back to jail, Smith was taken to an eight week outpatient program, where she was introduced to NA.

“I started going to meetings every day and that’s when the bulb finally went off – you can get through a day without getting high, you can live without using.”

Smith explained the importance of faith in the 12 step program, calling it an opportunity for people to experience the love of God. She further added that evangelization efforts begin with people living this love.

“God is a part of it,” she said. “There’s a lot of people, especially people in addiction, they think that God’s given up on them and that he could never love them with the horrible things they’ve done.”

“The biggest thing is you let them know that God’s love them,” she said. “I think it is more about being an example if you are going to try and have other people come to God or look at him the way you do.”

[…]

Washington D.C., Feb 13, 2019 / 03:06 am (CNA).- Millennials are notoriously blamed for being killers of previously-thought-necessary industries and activities: Applebees. Napkins. Golf. Mayonnaise. Lunch. And so on.

For the ever-shrinking number of millennials who are practicing Christians, could evangelization be on the chopping block next?

Recent data from the Barna group, which researches the intersection of faith and culture, shows that of millennials practicing their Christian faith, almost half – 47 percent – believe it is at least somewhat wrong to “share one’s personal beliefs with someone of a different faith in hopes that they will one day share the same faith.” This is significantly higher than the number of Gen X-ers (27 percent), and Boomers (19 percent), who said the same.

But while at a glance this statistic may be alarming, given the missionary mandate of the Church, there might be more behind it than just another hit on the millennial kill list.

Elizabeth Klein is an assistant professor of theology at the Augustine Institute in Denver, Colorado. One of the main goals of the institute is to prepare students to respond to the New Evangelization – a term popularized by Pope John Paul II that emphasizes a renewed call to share the Gospel with the world.

Klein said before sounding the alarm about the death of evangelization, the statistic should be read in light of the others also shared by Barna – that 96 percent of millennials believe “part of my faith means being a witness about Jesus,” that 94 percent said that “the best thing that could ever happen to someone is for them to know Jesus,” and that 73 percent said “I am gifted at sharing my faith with other people” – higher than every other generation included in the data.

And in 2013, 65 percent of millennial Christians said they had shared the Gospel with someone in the past year, compared to the national average of about half of Christians in general.

“I thought it was interesting that they didn’t highlight that millennials in fact evangelize more than the older generations do,” Klein said of an article from Christianity Today on the data.

Furthermore, she said, the phrasing of the particular question about evangelization probably also affected the way millennials responded.

“I thought the phrasing of the specific question – it’s about people who already have a religious faith, so I thought that was a big factor,” Klein told CNA.

“I think millennials are more likely to see someone of a different faith as more of an ally maybe than in the past,” she said, “because we are in such a post-Christian, post-religious world that anyone else who is practicing a faith may be more likely to be seen as someone you have a lot in common with, rather than the chief object of evangelization for millennials,” which would probably be atheists or fallen away Catholics, she said.

Vince Sartori is a regional director with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), which trains students and missionaries on college campuses to form disciples through friendships and Bible studies. Evangelizing in a millennial culture is at the heart of the group’s work.

Sartori, who served as a missionary on two different campuses before becoming a regional director, said he has noticed a hesitancy in millennials on campus to engage in evangelization.

“I think some of it comes down to a misunderstanding of evangelization versus proselytization,” Sartori told CNA.

Proselytization, Sartori said, happens when “the person is preaching or going out to be heard, not listening to someone but rather just trying to get a point across.”

Evangelization, on the other hand, is “about building trust, encountering a person, understanding a person, and introducing them to Jesus and proposing ideas, as opposed to just telling them something.”

Sartori said the way millennials answered this question also reflects the current political climate and a culture that prioritizes people’s comfort over everything else.

“In this culture of ‘if you disagree with me you hate me,’ I would say most millennials would say: ‘I’m not trying to convert anyone,’” Sartori said.

“But I would hope everyone is trying to convert someone, it’s just that there’s a right and true way, and then there’s a way that’s just kind of yelling at people, and that’s obviously not what I’m about and not what anyone would desire. And I think in general millennials are really sensitive to that.”

Klein also said that millennials are reacting to the polarization that characterizes the political and social media world of today.

“Actual authentic dialogue has in fact broken down, and I don’t think that’s a delusion of millennials; things are often so polarized that it is very difficult to have a dialogue which is perceived as open and a back and forth, and not somehow inauthentic or aggressive” she said.

“It’s not that they don’t want to share their faith, but it seems that sharing via dialogue or speaking makes people uneasy, and I don’t think that’s inexplicable, that seems to make sense,” she said.

Part of the training of FOCUS missionaries is teaching them how to evangelize, Sartori said – which includes building friendships and trust with people before proposing that they consider going to church or learning more about Jesus.

“The three habits (taught to missionaries in training) are the things we emphasize that help us to go and do evangelization,” Sartoir said. “The first is divine intimacy (with God), the second is authentic friendship, and the third one is clarity and conviction for what we call spiritual multiplication. So this idea that you’re investing deeply in a few people, and sharing your faith in a way that they can then go and do that with others.”

“You’re listening, you’re building trust, you’re speaking in a way that they’re going to be able to hear you,” Sartori said, “but you’re also hearing where they’re coming from on things.”

Once a friendship is established, Sartori said one of the easiest ways to talk to someone about God is to ask them about the faith tradition they had while they were growing up.

“It’s the basic questions of like – did you ever go to church growing up? Something like that that’s less attacking than, say, ‘How do you feel about abortion?’ or something that’s more politicized or a hot topic,” Sartori said. “You want to do something that’s a softer, more inviting conversation, so you can just understand the person.”

After a conversation about faith has been opened, then it can be time to invite someone to events at a parish or into a Bible study, if the person is open to it.

“While there’s an urgency for someone to accept the Gospel as quickly as possible, we also want to propose it and not impose it, so we’re not going to rush into anything on that,” Sartori said.

Klein said millennials are also most likely to be tuned into the need for authentic witness – that someone must be living a personal life of holiness and friendship with God before they can propose it to someone else.

The article on the Barna research from Christianity Today ended with: “Younger folks are tempted to believe instead, ‘If we just live good enough lives, we can forgo the conversation entirely, and people around us will almost magically come to know Jesus through our good actions and selfless character.’”

“This style of evangelism is becoming more and more prevalent in a culture constantly looking for the fast track and simple fix,’” it said, quoting Hannah Gronowski, the founder and CEO of Christian non-profit Generation Distinct.

But Klein said this kind of attitude is overly dismissive of the importance of personal holiness.

“Witnessing personal holiness – it’s not like that’s easy, its plenty important,” she said, especially with the recent sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church.

“I don’t think that millennials are crazy to think that personal holiness is the most important thing right now, especially when dialogue has broken down and there has been a lot of – with the recent scandals – insane hypocrisy where people’s lives are not matching what they’re saying,” she said.  

“I think a big part of it is…holistic Catholic formation,” Klein added. “If you’re not prepared to pursue wisdom and pursue personal holiness, you’re not going to have that authentic witness and authentic life to share.”

While that doesn’t remove the necessity of evangelizing with words, Klein said, it does point to why millennial Christians may have answered that particular question the way they did, beyond a trend toward universalism and relativism.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church itself recognizes the disconnect that may exist between a person’s holiness and the preaching of the Gospel: “On her pilgrimage, the Church has also experienced the ‘discrepancy existing between the message she proclaims and the human weakness of those to whom the Gospel has been entrusted.’ Only by taking the ‘way of penance and renewal,’ the ‘narrow way of the cross,’ can the People of God extend Christ’s reign. For ‘just as Christ carried out the work of redemption in poverty and oppression, so the Church is called to follow the same path if she is to communicate the fruits of salvation to men.’” (CCC pp. 853).

“It’s very clear that the Church has a missionary mandate, but I think it nuances that very well and talks about the hypocrisy that has been found,” Klein said. “I think that tension is what millennials are most keyed into, that personal holiness comes first before you can even think about opening your mouth.”

An oft-quoted line, typically attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, speaks of the tension between personal holiness and evangelizing: “Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words,” the saying goes.

But if that quote really came from St. Francis of Assisi, Sartori said, it came from a saint who preached the Gospel so prolifically that he was known to preach it “to the birds.”

“He couldn’t stop preaching,” Sartori said, “so of all the people to have said that, St. Francis is one of the greatest examples of preaching (the Gospel).”

So while personal holiness is a must, he said, so is preaching the Gospel with words.

“To preach the Gospel is an integral part of being a Christian,” he said, “and we can’t separate that.”

[…]

Newark, N.J., Feb 12, 2019 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- The five Roman Catholic dioceses of New Jersey announced on Monday the creation of the Independent Victim Compensation Program (IVCP) for survivors of sexual abuse as minors by clerics in the state. The program will not handle claims of sexual abuse involving adults, including seminarians.

The IVCP will be administered by victims’ compensation experts Kenneth R. Feinberg and Camille S. Biros, according to a statement from the IVCP that was emailed to CNA and posted on the websites of the New Jersey dioceses.

Feinberg and Biros were involved in the creation of compensation programs for abuse survivors in New York and Pennsylvania, as well as in the administration of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and the BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Fund.

“Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark and the Bishops throughout New Jersey have united in going further than any other state in establishing such a compensation program,” said the statement.

While dioceses in other states such as New York and Pennsylvania have created programs to compensate abuse survivors, the IVCP is unique in being statewide program that involves every diocese agreeing to follow the same compensation protocol.

“The program provides victims with an attractive alternative to litigation,” said the statement, and will give abuse survivors a “speedy and transparent process to resolve their claims with a significantly lower level of proof and corroboration than required in a court of law.”

After agreeing on and receiving a settlement, the abuse survivor will not be able to pursue additional legal action against the diocese. All settlements will be funded by the dioceses themselves.

The first phase of the program will give “priority” in compensation to those who have already filed a complaint about abuse committed by a member of the clergy.

The statement from the IVCP confirmed that abuse survivors who have not previously reported their abuse will be eligible to join phase II of the program. These claims will be reviewed by Feinberg and Biros, and survivors will be compensated if their claims are found eligible.

According to the IVCP, Feinberg and Biros will “act independently” in their administration when evaluating claims and deciding levels of compensation. The dioceses will not be able to appeal the decisions made by the administrators.

“[The participating dioceses] have assured us that we have complete discretion in deciding who is eligible to receive compensation and the amount to be paid to the individual victim,” Biros said in the statement.

The IVCP has been in the works since mid-November 2018. At that time, a statement was published by the Archdiocese of Newark announcing that some sort of compensation program would come together in the near future.

A draft of the IVCP protocol will be released on March 1, and a final version will be implemented after a 30-day comment period. After the final version is adopted, the IVCP will commence receiving claims.

All claims must be submitted before December 31, 2019.

The IVCP is limited to those who were abused as minors. According to (Amy Weiss, the PR lady for Feinberg and Biros? I don’t know how to phrase this) there are no plans at this time to create a similar fund for those who were abused as adults, including by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

McCarrick, who resigned from the College of Cardinals in July after being credibly accused of abusing two minor boys, was the Bishop of Metuchen from 1981 until 1986 and the Archbishop of Newark from 1986 until 2000.

In 2005, the Archdiocese of Newark and the Dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton paid an $80,000 settlement to Robert Ciolek, who was abused by McCarrick while he was a seminarian. A $100,000 settlement was paid in 2007 to a man who says he too was abused by McCarrick when he was in seminary.

Both of these settlements were first disclosed after McCarrick was accused of abusing a minor.

[…]

Gallup, N.M., Feb 12, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop James Wall of Gallup has announced in a pastoral letter the restoration of the order of the sacraments of initiation in the mission diocese.

Once the new policy is implemented, children will receive Confirmation and First Holy Communion in the same Mass, at around the age of 7 or 8.

“Receiving the Sacrament of Confirmation long after the reception of Holy Communion, tends to weaken the understanding of the bond and relationship that the Sacraments of Initiation have with one another,” Bishop Wall wrote in his Feb. 11 pastoral letter The Gift of the Father.

“Because the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation lead the faithful to the culmination of their initiation into the Christian Life in Holy Communion,  the practice of postponing the reception of Confirmation until the teenage years has not always been beneficial,” he noted.

The bishop added that “An alarming percentage of our Catholic children who were baptized and received First Holy Communion, do not continue their formation for the Sacrament of Confirmation, and in too many cases, never receive the Sacrament.  As your shepherd, I believe it is important for our children, before they reach their adolescent years, to receive the strength of this important Sacrament.”

The pastoral change in the Diocese of Gallup follows that of several other local Churches in the US.

Commending such a change in the Diocese of Manchester in 2017 as “a praiseworthy practice”, Rita Ferrone wrote in Commonweal that 11 dioceses were then practicing “restored order”.

Bishop Wall opened his letter reflecting on the relationship among the sacraments of initiation: Baptism, Confirmation, and Communion.

Baptism “immerses us into the Divine Trinity,” while the grace of Confirmation “confirms and strengthens the supernatural life we have received in Baptism and it also enables us with its grace to live in a more mature way our lives as Christians giving witness to Christ in all that we do.”

“At the same time, the Sacrament of Confirmation is ordered toward a deeper communion with the Lord and to His Church through this witness to Him, a communion which receives its greatest expression and grace in this life in the sacrament of Holy Communion.”

The bishop noted that he has chosen to restore the original order of the sacraments of initiation “after consultation with the Presbyteral Council and having prayerfully considered it.”

Wall then discussed the historical background of the temporal order of the sacraments of initiation, noting that in the first 500 years of the Church they “were received together,” and that afterwards Baptism came to be administered in infancy, Confirmation around the age of 7, and Communion around the beginning of adolescence, such that “the order of the sacraments was conserved but they were administered in separate celebrations throughout childhood.”

St. Pius X “decided that it was important for children at a younger age to receive Holy Communion,” and began administering First Communion around the age of 7.

“This positive change had the unintended consequence of moving the Sacrament of Confirmation to an older age, thus inverting the original order of the Sacraments of Initiation,” Wall stated.

He added that today a person baptized after reaching the age of reason normally “receives in the same celebration the three Sacraments of Initiation,” but that “up until now, a child who was baptized as an infant would receive Holy Communion at around the age of 8 and receive the sacrament of Confirmation at a later date, sometimes waiting until they are 15 or 16.”

The bishop also discussed the effects of Confirmation, which “ gives us an outpouring of the Holy Spirit which strengthens us,” and he cited Divinae consortium naturae, St. Paul VI’s  1971 apostolic constitution on the sacrament.

Teaching about the sacraments, he said: “Although grace builds upon nature and much depends upon the disposition in faith, the piety and charity of the one who receives it, the sacraments work in us in a different way.  As long as the recipient does not have any impediment, the sacraments will produce in us their grace on their own.”

“This is important when we consider the age of the reception of the sacraments,” Wall said.

While Confirmation is sometimes called “the Sacrament of Christian maturity,” it “does not require the recipient to be physically mature in order to transmit its grace. On the contrary, the Sacrament brings the recipient into Christian maturity and is given the strength through the Sacrament to live one’s Christian life even in a heroic way.”

“Although the recipient of the Sacrament always must seek to remove obstacles to grace in his or her life and cooperate with the strength of the grace that is offered to the individual, the power of the sacraments to transform one’s life has been well established.”

Noting that “countless young children have shown the witness of heroic virtue,” Wall said that “it has become all the more important” for young Christians, given the challenges they face in today’s world, “to receive the strength of the Sacrament of Confirmation as soon as possible to assist them.”

Citing St. Paul VI, Bishop Wall said that Confirmation’s link with the Eucharist “will be emphasized by uniting the Sacrament of Confirmation with the reception of the First Holy Communion in the same celebration of the Sacrifice of the Mass.”

The policy change in the Gallup diocese will be gradually implemented over the next three years, with a “progressive lowering of the age,” until preparation for the reception of Confirmation and First Communion will begin in third grade.

“There will always be the possibility of children older than 3rd grade seeking the Sacrament, especially those who move into our diocese from other areas, as well as adults who seek the reception of Confirmation,” he noted. “For this reason, there will have to be available an intergenerational model of catechesis or catechists prepared to take on classes of different age groups to prepare them for Confirmation.”

The sacraments, the bishop reflected, “are an introduction and aids to living an authentically Christlike life, to prepare ourselves for our passage into our longed-for eternal life.”

He called on parishes to meet the challenge of developing “creative programs to accompany, form and integrate young members of the parish – now fully initiated – into the life of the Church.”

With catechetical formation after third grade no longer tied to sacramental preparation, it will instead “help our young Catholics grow in their faith, discern their vocation and prepare for that Christian vocation as they approach adulthood.”

“As we implement these new policy changes we are attempting to face the great challenges of our time,” Wall concluded.

Thanking the pastors of the diocese for their faithful service, he asked them “to work closely with the families of your communities to help them accomplish their vocation as first catechists and witnesses of their faith.”

“The parish should become a community of communities where the family, the domestic Church, can find guidance in the Word of God, strength in the Sacraments and support in their daily struggles. Your assistance to the families of your parish to provide them with what they need to accompany their children in their pilgrimage of faith is invaluable.”

“May Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Diocese of Gallup and our Mother, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, heroic witness to the faith, intercede for all of us, for you and your families, and may the Lord bring to completion the good work He has begun in us.”

[…]

Santa Fe, N.M., Feb 12, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- New Mexico’s House of Representatives passed a bill that would decriminalize the state’s inactive ban on abortion.

The move is seen as a preemptive measure to legalize abortion in the event that the U.S. Supreme Court overturns the 1973 decision to legalize abortion nationwide.  

A 1969 state law in New Mexico made it is a felony to for any doctor to provide abortions, except in instances of congenital abnormalities, rape, and a danger to the woman’s health.

If Roe vs. Wade was overturned, abortions would be banned completely in the New Mexico. Eight other states have laws that would also ban abortion and four additional states have “trigger laws” that would ban abortion if the Supreme Court decision was overturned.

The bill passed through the House 40-29 on Feb. 6. If the bill is approved by the Senate, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has promised to sign the measure into law.

The House, which is controlled by the Democratic Party, approved the bill mostly along party lines, but opposition to the legislation did gain bipartisan support.

According to the Associated Press, the Democrat representatives who opposed the bill included, Patricia Lundstrom of Gallup, Anthony Allison of Fruitland, Candie Sweetser of Deming, Wonda Johnson of Church Rock, and Patricio Ruiloba of Albuquerque.

Before the bill’s approval, Las Cruces Sun News reported on a few testimonies that were given to the House on Jan. 26. Opponents to the bill emphasized the lack of abortion restrictions currently in New Mexico and expressed concern that the repeal would weaken safeguards.

“We are now known as a late-term abortion state, which I’m very ashamed of,” said Pauline Anaya, an educator and therapist in Albuquerque.

“I just have a deep concern that we are taking the only explicit protection we have for individuals,” said Rep. Gregg Schmedes, a Tijeras Republican and surgeon.

The makeup of the Supreme Court has changed significantly since President Trump promised to appoint pro-life Justices. Trump nominated Justices Neil Gorsuch in 2017 and Brett Kavanaugh in 2018.  

Advocates for the bill have expressed concern about a possible repeal of Roe vs. Wade. Representative Joanne Ferrary, co-sponsor of the bill, said the bill was a necessary protection to ensure abortion services are safe and legal.

“It is time to remove this archaic law from New Mexico’s books,” she said, according to Las Cruces Sun News. “With the threat of a Supreme Court ruling to overturn Roe, we need to pass this bill to protect health care providers and keep abortion safe and legal.”  

In a Jan. 7 statement, Bishop James Wall of Gallup opposed House Bill 51 and encouraged lawmakers to focus on policies that support human prosperity at all stages of life.

“While the law is currently not enforced due to federal legalization of abortion through the Supreme Court’s ruling on Roe v. Wade, I nevertheless urge opposition to any bills that would loosen abortion restrictions,” he said.

“New Mexico consistently ranks low or last among other states in education results, economic opportunities, poverty, and childhood health. An abortion will not fix the obstacles many women and families face, such as economic instability, access to education, and a higher standard of living.”

[…]

Washington D.C., Feb 12, 2019 / 11:30 am (CNA).- Congressional leaders hope to have avoided a further partial government shutdown after reaching an agreement on a budget that includes over a billion dollars in funding for new barriers along the United … […]

New York City, N.Y., Feb 11, 2019 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of New York has said it had only recently learned of an allegation that the deeply influential Cardinal Francis Spellman groped a visiting West Point cadet in the 1960s, but says it w… […]