Denver Newsroom, Feb 12, 2021 / 12:57 am (CNA).- Catholic Relief Services is asking Catholics this Lent to remember those affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic by participating in the annual CRS Rice Bowl campaign.“As the world continues to grapple… […]
El Paso, Texas, Feb 11, 2021 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Three angel statues at St. Pius X Church in El Paso have suffered heavy damage in a vandalism incident, prompting sadness and prayers for whoever committed the crime.
“We are saddened at the … […]
Washington D.C., Feb 11, 2021 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- A former director of the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) warned that pro-lifers should be concerned about President Biden’s pick for the position.
Neera Tanden, the CEO and president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, was nominated by President Biden in December to be the next OMB director. If confirmed by the Senate, Tanden will have a critical role at the White House in ensuring the success of the administration’s policies.
“It is certainly one that should trouble pro-lifers, from the standpoint of the policy agenda that she’ll be asked to articulate,” said Russ Vought, former director of OMB from July, 2020 to January, 2021, of Tanden’s nomination to the post. Vought was interviewed by EWTN Pro-Life Weekly in a segment that will air Thursday night.
The position of OMB director is a critical one, Vought explained. Tanden, if confirmed, would be tasked with seeing that Biden’s “policies are reflected throughout the federal government.”
“You’re really the nerve center, from the federal government’s perspective, to be able to put a high-level policy position into effect. And to make sure that the bureaucracy, quite frankly, isn’t going in a different direction,” Vought said on EWTN Pro-Life Weekly.
President Biden has already stated that it is the “policy” of his administration to promote “sexual and reproductive health and rights,” in a Jan. 28 memorandum that allowed for taxpayer funding of international pro-abortion groups. That language is commonly interpreted by international groups, including the United Nations, to refer to abortion and contraception.
At her confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Tanden reaffirmed President Biden’s opposition to the Hyde Amendment; the policy bars federal funding of elective abortions. When asked by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) if she would push to preserve the Hyde Amendment in future presidential budget requests, Tanden would not say.
Biden has also stated that his administration’s “policy” will be to “prevent and combat discrimination on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation,” in a Jan. 21 order redefining sex discrimination to include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity. Legal experts told CNA that his order would have broad implications and would ignite many conflicts over religious freedom.
A president’s choice of an OMB director is reflective of his thinking, Vought said, wanting someone who “consistent with his ideology” in the position.
Tanden has previously served as president and CEO of the Center for American Progress. During her tenure, the organization fought religious freedom protections for groups opposed to same-sex marriage. The think tank sought to redefine religious freedom to include LGBT “equality” and “reproductive rights,” and has also promoted figures who are seeking to split Christianity over LGBT issues.
Tanden has also been a strong supporter of the HHS contraceptive mandate, using contraception as an issue to divide and marginalize abortion opponents.
During her confirmation hearings this week, Tanden was pressed by Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) over a 2012 article where she called the mandate a successful “cudgel” used to cast opponents of contraception as “extreme.”
Tanden initially did not apologize for her words, saying instead that “for anyone offended by my language, you know, I feel badly about that.” Tanden later apologized for her comments contributing to polarization.
Tanden has also supported abortion during her tenure at CAP. She called efforts to defund Planned Parenthood “partisan attacks on women’s access to critical health services”; she lauded the Supreme Court’s 2016 Whole Woman’s Health decision that struck down Texas restrictions on abortion clinics; and she praised former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards as someone who has “fought tirelessly to improve women’s access to abortion.”
Vought served as acting OMB director from Jan., 2019, until July, 2020, when he was officially confirmed in the position by the Senate.
He said that, during his time in the office, he was able to help enact policies such as the Protect Life Rule which required recipients of federal Title X grants to not be co-located with an abortion facility. He also claimed credit for the administration stopping federally-funded research with fetal tissue at NIH facilities.
Washington D.C., Feb 11, 2021 / 02:15 pm (CNA).- The U.S. Supreme Court is considering the case of an Alabama death row inmate who has asked to have a Christian pastor present with him to pray in the final moments of his life.Alabama inmate Willie Smit… […]
Washington D.C., Feb 11, 2021 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Pro-life activist Abby Johnson addressed students at The Catholic University of America this week amid protests by students and alumni.
On Tuesday evening, Johnson spoke at an event of the unive… […]
Washington D.C., Feb 11, 2021 / 10:00 am (CNA).- Pro-life groups are warning against increased funding of abortions in Congress’ proposed COVID relief legislation.
Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List (SBA List), stated on Wednesday that “House Democrats are shamefully pushing a massive expansion of abortion on demand, paid for with tax dollars, in the guise of COVID-19 relief – including payouts to abortion giant Planned Parenthood.”
The House Energy and Commerce Committee commenced a hearing to consider a massive COVID relief proposal on Thursday morning. The proposal includes funding for vaccine distribution, national testing, and community health services.
However, SBA List noted that the proposal contains billions of dollars in health care funding but without specific prohibitions on funding of abortions—meaning that the funding could go toward abortions, abortion coverage, or abortion providers.
The proposal contains $750 million for global health and billions of dollars for community health centers but without “Hyde Amendment” provisions, SBA List said. The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funding of elective abortions in health care and has been part of congressional appropriations for decades; leading Democrats have said they intend to reverse the policy this year.
The proposal also includes $50 million for the Title X family planning program, and expanded subsidies towards health plans that cover abortions, SBA List said. In particular, the funding of Title X could go to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers if the Biden administration—as expected—repeals an existing prohibition on Title X funding of groups that refer for abortions.
“Polls consistently show that the overwhelming majority of Americans, including millions of rank-and-file Democrats, are opposed to bankrolling abortion businesses whether in this country or overseas,” Dannenfelser said.
According to a Jan. 27 Knights of Columbus/Marist poll, more than three-quarters of Americans opposed taxpayer funding of abortions overseas, and 58% of respondents opposed taxpayer-funded abortions in the U.S.
In addition, an Economist/YouGov poll published on Feb. 4 found that Americans disapproved of President Biden’s decision to repeal the Mexico City Policy, by a margin of 42% to 36%. The Mexico City Policy forbids U.S. funding of foreign organizations that promote or perform abortions.
Efforts are also underway to block federal funding of Planned Parenthood in COVID relief. On Wednesday, SBA List thanked Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas) for introducing an amendment to clarify that Planned Parenthood was not eligible for PPP loans.
Congress set up the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in March to provide emergency loans to small businesses and eligible non-profits to keep employees on payroll during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the rules of the program, Planned Parenthood affiliates were supposed to be ineligible for the loans, but affiliates applied for and received around $80 million in PPP loans anyway.
Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) on Tuesday also tried to add an amendment to a budget reconciliation bill blocking taxpayer funding of abortions, but Democrats on the House Education and Labor Committee blocked the amendment in a 27-21 party line vote.
The group Democrats for Life of America tweeted on Thursday that “If @TheDemocrats codify Roe and repeal the Hyde Amendment, they can kiss the House and Senate goodbye in 2022. Let’s not sacrifice our entire legislative agenda for something like this.”
Although Republican members of the House and Senate have signed statements pledging to uphold the Hyde Amendment, Democratic leaders have signaled that they are prepared to pass COVID relief bills on a simple majority vote, with or without Republican support.
The U.S. bishops’ conference (USCCB) has asked members of Congress to not include funding for abortions in the upcoming COVID relief bill.
Denver Newsroom, Feb 10, 2021 / 06:46 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Philadelphia hosted a Zoom conference on “Race and Catholicism” for more than 200 Catholics last week.Hosted by St. Agatha-St. James Parish and the Newman Center in University City, th… […]
Washington D.C., Feb 10, 2021 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Boston “followed the science” and have kept its students safe amid the pandemic, the archdiocesan superintendent told CNA on Wednesday.
“I think the Catholic schools, overall, have been vindicated,” said Thomas Carroll, superintendent for the Archdiocese of Boston schools. “A lot of uncharitable things were said when we opened our schools across the country, but it turns out we were right and science was on our side.”
Unlike public schools in the rest of the state, Catholic schools in the archdiocese – the largest district by geographic area and the second-largest school district by population in Massachusetts – opened in the fall for in-person learning.
“When we reopened, I said, my position was not that we’re going to be reopened ‘hell or high water,’” Carroll told CNA. “My position is we’ll be open as long as it’s safe to be open. And we’re literally watching the health data every single day.”
Carroll said that if COVID case numbers were to “spin out of control” once again, he would have no problem closing the schools. “But it didn’t spin out of control,” he said.
At the outset of the pandemic, the archdiocese had actually closed its schools to in-person learning before the public schools had shut their doors.
By the end of the 2020 school year, the archdiocese announced in June that 10% of its schools would close. The closures were due in part to the economic crisis caused by the pandemic, with families unable to make tuition payments, according to WBUR.
Projections were grim for the 2020-21 school year. Initially, the archdiocese was looking at a nearly 17% drop in student enrollment.
That all changed on July 15, when state public school teachers’ unions announced a delayed start to the year followed by remote learning. Parents began moving their children into the area Catholic schools.
“So at that moment from July 15th forward to like the third week in October, we gained more than 4,000 students,” Carroll said – a figure that almost entirely made up for the projected drop in enrollment. About 80% of those new students had been previously enrolled at public schools that were no longer meeting in-person.
When Carroll first announced that archdiocesan schools would be opening in-person for the school year, he received a barrage of criticism. Carroll said he was repeatedly asked if he would be attending the funerals of the students who would die of COVID-19.
In fact, he said that out of coronavirus cases in his schools, the vast majority of them have come from the “outside in”—meaning the student was first infected in the community and then brought the illness into the school. The schools themselves were not significant sources of community transmission.
“We have, at the moment, zero active cases of spread,” he said. “We’ve had very few over since inception. We’ve had hundreds of cases since the beginning, but they all cycle out. To my knowledge, nobody’s been hospitalized.”
Unlike in other dioceses, archdiocesan schools have not had to cap student populations due to social distancing measures. In Massachusetts, students are only required to distance about three feet apart from each other – which was essentially the pre-pandemic standard distance between desks.
Carroll credits the strict discipline inherent to Catholic schools for why his district has experienced relatively few cases of COVID.
“The one thing Catholic schools do really well,” he said, “is we get kids to follow instructions.”
“So this whole exercise from a public health perspective is having a reasonable set of rules and getting everybody to follow them religiously. Well, that’s what we do,” he said.
Students wear masks, wash their hands frequently, and stay in cohorts, he explained.
Some of the aging school buildings have large windows that can be opened to improve ventilation. “The fact that we don’t have enough money for nice new buildings has turned out to be a huge asset,” he said.
Despite the district’s large size and student population, Carroll told CNA there have not been differences of spread with regard to the location or demographics of schools. The archdiocese has schools located in both rural and urban communities, as well as in both affluent and disadvantaged areas.
The archdiocese was recently recognized by Gov. Charlie Baker (R) in his State of the Commonwealth address, for safely resuming in-person classes. Carroll said that the low level of infections in his schools helped to sway governmental policy on future school closings.
Initially, when the state designated geographic areas as “red zones” of community spread, Baker wanted the local schools to shut down automatically.
The archdiocese did not close its schools in the “red zones,” arguing “that the only safe place for the children in a red zone is a school – a school that’s following the (safety) protocols,” Carroll recalled.
Carroll said that children in other schools who have had to attend school remotely for months are suffering from it.
“It’s going to be catastrophic for these kids, particularly kids from economically disadvantaged backgrounds, homeless kids, kids with special needs,” he said.
Despite the low infection level in the current school year, he still acknowledges that new variants of the virus could force schools to close again.
“I think people should reflect on that and they should reflect on the much larger number of people that are being stranded now and how all of their leaders have completely ignored science and health data,” he said.
Despite the challenges and new protocols, Carroll said that he was “glad we all got back together,” and that he was “astonished” that things are still going well with in-person learning.
“And we’re grateful because our kids are doing great,” he said.
Detroit, Mich., Feb 10, 2021 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- Most Catholics in the Archdiocese of Detroit will again be obliged to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation starting March 14.
Detroit, along with every U.S. diocese, suspended public liturg… […]
CNA Staff, Feb 10, 2021 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- A recently published work collects speeches, articles, and essays by Carl Anderson, the Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, on religious freedom, respect for life, and more.
These Liberties We Hold Sacred was published Jan. 27 by Square One Publishers.
Its 26 selections regard domestic religious freedom, conscience, and secularism; international religious freedom; respect for life; transcending partisanship; and love in society.
Anderson, who will retire as Supreme Knight at the end of February, has been a vocal advocate for religious freedom, both nationally and internationally, throughout his career.
“What should America be? Can its promise of liberty and justice for all be fulfilled? These questions — over the past year — seem to be tearing our country apart,” Anderson wrote in the book’s introduction. “Is there a greatness or promise in our constitution that should be embraced, or has the American experiment failed to such an extent that it needs to be radically re-constituted? This book, through a series of essays and speeches on the subject of the confluence of faith and public life, speaks to that question.”
The Knights of Columbus has over 2 million members in 16,000 councils worldwide. The order was founded in 1882 by a Connecticut parish priest, Blessed Michael J. McGivney, who was beatified in October 2020. It is dedicated to the principles of charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism. In 2020 members of the Knights performed over 77 million reported service hours and gave over $187 million for charitable causes.
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