US

Denver, Colo., Jan 11, 2018 / 05:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A U.S. cardinal has called Catholics to support the needs of refugees and immigrants living along the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico.

“The story of our salvation in… […]

Washington D.C., Jan 11, 2018 / 12:11 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Americans must recommit to the fight against racism through love and faith, said the head of the U.S. bishops’ conference in the days leading up to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

“In… […]

Lincoln, Neb., Jan 10, 2018 / 07:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Unveiled on Wednesday, Nebraska Governor Pete Ricketts’ new state budget proposal would block federal funds from going to health clinics that provide abortion services.

Ricketts said that … […]

Washington D.C., Jan 10, 2018 / 03:54 pm (CNA).- Catholic leaders have responded to developments in the legal battle over the DACA program, including a court order maintaining legal protections for undocumented youth, known as “Dreamers,” a… […]

Washington D.C., Jan 10, 2018 / 12:52 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) will address the upcoming March for Life, organizers announced on Wednesday. This is the first time Ryan has spoken at the March for Life in person sinc… […]

New York City, N.Y., Jan 10, 2018 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Two commentators on Pope Francis, New York Times columnist Ross Douthat and Villanova University theology professor Massimo Faggioli, will debate the Pope’s impact on the U.S. and the Church.
&… […]

Orange, Calif., Jan 10, 2018 / 03:28 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Raised by an alcoholic mother and without her birth father, Cordiella James found out she was pregnant while she was in jail in Orange County.

Her future at the time seemed bleak, but today, Co… […]

Palm Beach, Fla., Jan 9, 2018 / 04:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- More people need to know about the Dutch priest Blessed Titus Brandsma and his heroic death in a Nazi concentration camp, according to a Florida priest who says Brandsma’s intercession led to a miraculous healing from cancer.
 
“He was bold. He was brave,” Father Michael Driscoll, 76, told CNA. “He knew when he was in the pulpit preaching that there were people in the congregations taking notes for the Nazis about what he would be saying. Yet he continued.”
 
Driscoll has faced his own struggles. He was diagnosed with advanced melanoma in 2004. Shortly after that, someone gave him a small piece of Brandsma’s black suit, which the American priest applied to his head each day.
 
He underwent major surgery, with doctors removing 84 lymph nodes and a salivary gland. He then went through 35 days of radiation treatment, the Boca Raton Sun-Sentinel reports.
 
Still, his cancer had a very poor survival rate, of only 10 to 15 percent after ten years.
 
“Doctors have stated Fr. Driscoll’s cancer is now gone and have said his good health over the past 12 years defies all odds,” the Diocese of Palm Beach said Dec. 13. “They have stated his healing and recovery from Stage 4 cancer cannot be explained medically.”

Driscoll recounted his doctor’s words three and a half years ago: “no need to come back, don’t waste your money on airfare in coming back here. You’re cured. I don’t find any more cancer in you.”

The apparent miracle could lead to the canonization of Bl. Titus Brandsma. The Palm Beach diocese, where Driscoll serves as a retired priest, sent its findings and evidence to the Vatican in December 2017.

Brandsma, a Netherlands-born Carmelite priest, was a professor and a journalist. He was a strong critic of Nazi ideology. After the Nazis occupied his country in May 1940, they persecuted Jewish citizens and laid increasing restrictions on others.

The priest defended freedom of Catholic education and of the Catholic press against Nazi pressures.

“He was a spokesperson for the Dutch bishops,” Driscoll said. “He got the message across against the Nazis and what they were doing against the Catholic press, the Catholic schools, the persecution of Jews, you name it.”

Due in part to Brandsma’s refusal to expel Jewish children from Catholic schools and because he opposed mandatory Nazi propaganda in Catholic newspapers, he was arrested by the Nazis in January 1942. He was was eventually sent to the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, joining 2,700 other clergy. He faced inhumane conditions and abuse from his captors.

“He apparently was very kind to other prisoners, telling them to forgive the people who were persecuting them and punishing them in this prison, giving up little bits of his food to others,” Driscoll recounted.

Non-German priests weren’t allowed to celebrate Mass in the camp, where the majority of the priests were Polish.

Still, Brandsma carried out priestly duties.
 
“The German priests used to smuggle the Eucharist to him so he could distribute it to various prisoners, by an eyeglass case. That’s where he hid the Eucharist,” said Driscoll. “He would go around giving encouragement to other prisoners and giving them the Eucharist too, as best he could.”

Brandsma, who was always frail, was sent to the prison hospital.
 
“It is said that anybody who went to this prison hospital never came out,” Driscoll said. “Probably when he went there, he knew all sorts of things might happen to him.

The hospital’s doctors regularly engaged in human experimentation.
 
Driscoll said a nurse gave Brandsma a lethal injection on July 26, 1942 and he died immediately. His remains were likely cremated within a day. He was 61 years old.
 
A nurse on duty at the time of the priest’s death later testified that the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, had ordered his death.
 
“Before he died, he gave this person his rosary, which was a rather primitive rosary, made with some kind of beads,” Driscoll said. “He told her to pray the rosary. She objected that she didn’t understand how and wasn’t a believer anymore.”
 
“He said all you have to do is go from bead to bead and say ‘pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death, Amen.’ And just keep saying ‘pray for us sinners, pray for us sinners’. And that’s enough,” the American priest recounted.
 
Brandsma was beatified in November 1985 as a martyr for the faith.
 
For Driscoll, the priest’s life teaches us “to preach the gospel boldly, forcefully, and not be afraid.”
 
“I think that’s one of the important issues,” he said. “Being kind to one another, as he was to his fellow prisoners, and try to console them when they fell down. I assume many of them were totally depressed by their condition. He encouraged people.
 
Driscoll also reflected on the nature of faith, sickness and healing. Those who suffer illness should “try their best… try to not lose hope.”
 
“It’s faith that heals. I believe, and that’s important,” he said. “I tell people ‘It’s not the touching of this piece of cloth to you. It’s faith that saves.’ You should not give up hope, but have faith. Jesus says ‘ask and you shall receive.’ You keep praying for that. Certainly everybody’s prayer is answered somehow. It may not be the way that you like, but it is answered.”
 
Fr. Mario Esposito, a Carmelite priest from New York, is a vice-postulator for the case. He told the Sun-Sentinel that he knows of no other miracles attributed to Brandsma that are under investigation.
 
“We hope this could be the one, but there are very exacting standards, and Rome is going to go over this case with a fine-toothed comb,” Esposito said.

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Indianapolis, Ind., Jan 9, 2018 / 04:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A bill to legalize assisted suicide in Indiana has come under fire by Catholic and pro-life groups shortly after it was introduced in the Indiana Legislature.

House Bill 1157, which was introduced by State Rep. Matt Pierce (D-Bloomington), would allow adults who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness to end their own lives with the assistance of a doctor, following a 15-day waiting period and other psychological examinations.

Pierce submitted a similar bill during last year’s legislative session, however, the bill did not make it out of committee.

Glenn Trebbe, the executive director of the Indiana Catholic Conference, told the Chicago Tribune that he thinks the bill’s characterization as one that allows patients to choose “death with dignity” is a “misnomer” as it will result in doctors being given permission to kill people.

“We see that as a misnomer, really, because what the bill does is allow doctors to assist in killing their patients,” Trebbe said. Trebbe also told the Tribune that there are better ways to treat a dying person with dignity than by offering them drugs that will kill them.  

Currently, six states, plus the District of Columbia, have legalized assisted suicide. The most recent of these was the District of Columbia, whose law went into effect in February of 2017.

The proposed bill in Indiana was modeled after laws in Oregon. Oregon was the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide, in 1994, but the law did not go into effect until 1997. In 2016, the most recent year statistics are available, doctors in Oregon prescribed lethal drugs to 204 patients. Slightly under two thirds of this number chose to end their own life. More than three-fourths of the patients who ended their lives via assisted suicide in Oregon had been diagnosed with cancer. The next largest percentage of patients had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), which is also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

According to the USCCB’s fact sheet against assisted suicide, some seriously ill patients in Oregon have been told by their insurance companies that they will not cover the cost of treatment, but will cover the cost of drugs to commit suicide. Further, since assisted suicide was legalized, the state’s overall suicide rate has steadily increased and is now above the national average. The USCCB advocates for improving palliative care for the dying, instead of hastening someone’s death.

House Bill 1157 is awaiting committee hearings.

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Washington D.C., Jan 9, 2018 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Forty-five years after the Supreme Court ruling that mandated legal abortion nationwide, hundreds of thousands are expected to attend rallies supporting the dignity of life, from conception to n… […]