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Bishop Barron leads prayer vigil at Planned Parenthood, calls for end to ‘culture of death’

March 1, 2024 Catholic News Agency 3
Bishop Robert Barron speaks to EWTN’s Colm Flynn about evangelizing the culture today. October 2023. / Credit: Word on Fire

CNA Staff, Mar 1, 2024 / 17:30 pm (CNA).

Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, Bishop Robert Barron last week hosted a prayer vigil outside a local Planned Parenthood, an effort the prelate said was meant to “pray for the conversion of hearts and minds to protect the most vulnerable in our society.”

The bishop posted photos of the Rochester-area event to his Twitter account on Tuesday afternoon. “Friends, on Friday evening I prayed outside a Planned Parenthood with a number of other individuals who tirelessly devote their time and prayers to the unborn,” he wrote.

“We must continue to pray for the conversion of hearts and minds to protect the most vulnerable in our society and to stand firm in protest against the culture of death,” the bishop said. 

Peter Martin, the director of communications for the diocese, told CNA that Barron “joined the seminarians from the Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary (Winona) for an hour of prayer as a part of the 40 Days for Life in Rochester.”

“This has been an annual event in our diocese and the bishop and seminarians join each year to pray for an end to abortion,” Martin said.

The participants “are there to pray for all those involved, in particular, for the lives of the unborn and their mothers.”

Barron, who founded the Catholic media company Word on Fire prior to his elevation to the bishopric, has regularly used his expansive platform to advocate for the unborn and speak against abortion.

The bishop recently engaged with California Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna in a wide-ranging discussion that touched in part on abortion. Khanna is pro-abortion and voiced his opinion during the conversation that abortion “should be for the woman and her doctor” to decide. 

The politician suggested that too much attention is paid to late-term abortions, which he called “exceedingly rare cases.”

“Even if that were the case, that is still a lot of babies being murdered from our perspective,” Barron responded. “And how is that ever acceptable in a decent society?”

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News Briefs

French bishops lament country’s enshrinement of abortion in constitution

March 1, 2024 Catholic News Agency 1
Members of the French Parliament are shown when they convened for a previous revision of the country’s constitution at Versailles castle, near Paris, in 2008. / Credit: Joel Sagat/AFP via Getty Images

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 1, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

By a vote of 267-50, the French Senate this week approved a constitutional amendment to include women’s recourse to abortion as a “guaranteed freedom.” 

In the wake of the vote on Monday, March 4, the amendment is expected to receive a final vote of approval at the Palace of Congresses in Versailles. If approved as expected, the country will become the first in the world to specifically make abortion a right enumerated in its constitution.

“I committed to making women’s freedom to abort irreversible, enshrining it in the Constitution,” said French President Emmanuel Macron on X. “The Senate has taken a decisive step, which I welcome,” he added.

French bishops respond

In a Feb. 29 statement posted on X, the French Bishops’ Conference said it was “saddened” by the senators’ vote on the constitutional measure.

The bishops pointed out that abortion “remains an affront to life in its beginnings” and that “it cannot be seen solely from the perspective of women’s rights.”

The prelates also regretted that the parliamentary debate “did not mention the measures to help those women and men who would like to keep their child.”

“The bishops’ conference will be vigilant with respect to the freedom of choice of parents who decide, even in difficult situations, to keep their child and the freedom of conscience of doctors and all health care personnel, whose courage and commitment it commends,” the prelates concluded.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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