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US, Mexican bishops oppose Trump’s plan to send National Guard to border

April 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 4

Washington D.C., Apr 7, 2018 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishops in both the US and Mexico have criticized the Trump administration’s plan to send National Guard troops to the southern border of the United States.

“The new measures on the border US-MX. Once again a senseless action and a disgrace on the administration,” tweeted Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio April 5.

“These measures manifest represion, [sic] fear, a perception that everyone is an enemy, and a very clear message: we don’t care about anybody else. This is not the American Spirit.”

U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order Wednesday to deploy the National Guard.

“A key and undeniable attribute of a sovereign nation is the ability to control who and what enters its territory,” said Trump in the April 4 memo. “The situation at the border has now reached a point of crisis. The lawlessness that continues at our southern border is fundamentally incompatible with the safety, security, and sovereignty of the American people. My administration has no choice but to act.”

The Pentagon stated Thursday that a “security support cell” was being developed to aid coordination between the Homeland Security and the Defense departments. The expected financial costs, number of troops, and time frame have not been announced, but the Pentagon said the cell will support U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.  

Both the Obama and Bush administrations had ordered the National Guard to attend to the border, but critics of the deployment have questioned the reasons behind this recent move when illegal border crossing is, broadly speaking, at historically low levels.

Fiscal Year 2017 saw nearly 304,000 people caught trying illegally to cross the border, the lowest number of since 1971. The number of apprehenions in March (37,393) is more than double from a year ago, but is less than in 2013 and 2014.

The Mexican bishops’ conference tweeted against the militarization of the border, expressing concern that the move may put more Latin Americans at risk.

“It is extremely risky for our Mexican and Latin American people, to have a semi-militarized border. #JesusChrist #migrant, could be executed again for trying to cross #frontier.”

Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso wrote April 5 that it is his understanding that “the National Guard is a military force intended for the protection of our nation. They assist in times of natural disasters or respond to an armed threat from a foreign military force.”

“I am left with many questions to which there appear to be no reasonable answer,” he continued. “To what threat are the citizen soldiers of our powerful nation responding? Why are we placing a military force on the border when the vast majority of those in our country without documents are here because they have overstayed their visa? Why are we further militarizing a border that we share with a peaceful neighbor at a time when undocumented immigration across our border is at a low ebb? Is our nation reacting to a ragtag group of Hondurans who are fleeing for their lives seeking refuge? They are fleeing from a nation controlled by narco-trafficking gangs flush with cash provided by our nation’s insatiable appetite for illegal drugs.”

The bishop noted that many of those entering the country are seeking asylum, “following international asylum laws which our country had a major role in writing, to assure that people fleeing persecution and organized violence would be able to find safe refuge.”

“Have we become so fearful and hypocritical that we would expect a country like Lebanon to accept a number 30% the size of their population from Syria, but we ourselves cannot accept a fraction of one percent of those fleeing from the countries with the highest homicide rates in the world?” he asked. “If you were a Honduran whose children were being raped and told that they would have to do the gang’s bidding or die, what would you do?”

Bishop Seitz urged that Trump “stop playing on people’s unfounded fears.”

“I live on the border and my city is year after year one of the safest in the country. These troops are being asked to leave their families and their employment to come to our border where they can do battle against the wind. They will find no enemy combatants here, just poor people seeking to live in peace and security. They will find no opposition forces, just people seeking to live in love and harmony with their family members and neighbors and business partners and fellow Christians on both sides of the border.”

“I pray that our President will reconsider this rash and ill-informed action,” he concluded.

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Parents in Ohio ask court to recognize personhood of embryos

April 6, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Cleveland, Ohio, Apr 6, 2018 / 05:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After an in vitro fertilization clinic in Ohio lost more than 4,000 eggs and embryos, one of the couples is suing the clinic, asking a court to recognize an embryo as a person.

Wendy Penniman was one of many people to file a lawsuit against University Hospitals Fertility Center  after a malfunctioning cryogenic tank increased temperatures the weekend of March 3.

“We are asking the court to declare that an embryo is a person and that life begins at conception,” said the Penniman’s lawyer, Bruce Taubman, according to News 5 Cleveland.

Having first filed a lawsuit March 12, Taubman filed an additional complaint March 30, asking for a declaratory judgment on the legal status of an embryo. If embryos are recognized as persons, wrongful death suits could be brought against the fertility center.

Taubman has referred to a 1985 Ohio Supreme Court case, Werling v. Sandy, in which the court held that a viable fetus is a person.

“In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court held that an embryo is not a person, but that was solely for the purposes of obtaining an abortion,” said Taubman, according to News 5 Cleveland.

“I see this case ending up in front of the Ohio Supreme Court, and I would like to think that they are going to follow my line of reasoning and declare an embryo a person.”

But Harvard Law Professor Glenn Cohen told News 5 Cleveland, “Ohio has already had a case where they basically said you can’t use this statute unless you’re talking about a viable fetus, and this is so much earlier than that.”

The Pennimans chose to use IVF after suffering 11 miscarriages. Through the clinic, the couple had two children and was hoping to have a third with another one of the frozen embryos.

Having a degree in biochemical engineering herself, Penniman felt betrayed to hear how the lab handled liquid nitrogen and the malfunction.

Reportedly, an employee had turned off the alarm system so none of the staff offsite had been notified, and an issue occurred with the tank’s autofill valve, which replenishes the freezers with liquid nitrogen to keep the embryos cool.

“You think to yourself, ‘How can this be going on behind the scenes?’” said Penniman, noting that the clinic should treat embryos and eggs with the same care as other patients.

“They trusted them with the most important thing they have: the future of their families. With the flip of a switch, they’ve lost the future,” Taubman added. 

[…]

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Wuerl: On “Humanae Vitae” anniversary, we renew fidelity to the pope

April 6, 2018 CNA Daily News 4

Washington D.C., Apr 6, 2018 / 05:14 pm (CNA).- “The Church, from the very beginning, has always recognized the special and unique role of Peter,” said Cardinal Donald Wuerl at the closing Mass of a Catholic University of America symposium on the 50th anniversary of papal encyclical Humanae Vitae.

The role of Peter – as an authoritative teacher of faith and morals – was reaffirmed, Wuerl believes, by the US bishops’ response to initial controversy over Humanae Vitae.

During the Mass, celebrated in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Wuerl spoke of his personal experience as a young priest at the time of Humanae Vitae’s promulgation. He noted that he was taken aback by negative attitudes towards the encyclical.

“As a newly-ordained priest, I came very quickly in ministry to recognize that not every encyclical or apostolic exhortation meets with immediate acceptance,” he said, to laughter among the congregation.

Having begun his first priestly assignment just the year before, Cardinal Wuerl said that he was “surprised” by the “vehement rejection” of the encyclical, particularly in the archdiocese he now leads.

The Archdiocese of Washington, he said, was “one of the largest flashpoints of opposition.”

“I remember attending a lecture on this very campus [The Catholic University of America] in which it was explained to us that the teaching of Paul VI was his own personal views, and that it was not truly a part of the papal magisterium,” said Wuerl.

However, the dissent was far from universal, he said. Priests who agreed with the document and supported the pope as the “universal shepherd” were assisted by the United States Catholic Conference (a precursor to the USCCB) in writing a pastoral letter to help better explain and support the teachings outlined in Humanae Vitae. This letter, titled “Human Life In Our Day,” was published about four months after the encyclical was released.
    
Wuerl said this experience helped to confirm his beliefs in the importance of the teaching ministry of the pope, in addition to the overall teachings of the document.

“I was impressed then with the alacrity of the response in defense of the teaching office of Saint Peter and therefore the validation of the teaching of Humanae Vitae,” explained Wuerl.

“But there was another lesson that I saw confirmed in those days of dissent from Humanae Vitae – the importance of the teaching role of Peter. The issue was not just what was said, but also who said it.” The pope, regardless of which pope, is “Peter” and has the role of Christ’s vicar, Wuerl said.

Wuerl conceded that there is still much to be done in terms of implementing the teachings of Humanae Vitae for the good of the faithful.

“One half century later, we continue to set forth the teaching of Blessed Pope Paul VI concerning the proper regulation of the propagation of offspring, and over these five decades we have learned that it is not sufficient simply to announce the teaching and repeat the words of the encyclical.”

To assist with this endeavor, the cardinal suggested that this 50th anniversary be viewed as “a call to [….] whom we go out, announce, engage, and walk with as we try to help them grasp and appropriate the teaching of this encyclical.”

“Today then, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, as we commemorate the encyclical letter, Humanae Vitae, we renew our own fidelity to the Vicar of Christ. It is his voice that gives us assurance of the truth of what we profess.”

[…]