US

Washington D.C., Jun 5, 2019 / 04:54 pm (CNA).- The chairman of the US bishops’ migration committee welcomed Tuesday a vote in the House of Representatives passing a bill that would provide a citizenship path for some brought to the US illegally as children, among others.

The House passed the American Dream and Promise Act of 2019 by a 237-187 vote June 4. Along with some “Dreamers”, who were illegally brought to the US as minors, it would allow a path to cizenship for qualified holders of Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure.

“This is a big step for Dreamers and TPS holders who have called the United States home but have been working and living in uncertainty for years,” said Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin. “Dreamers, TPS and DED holders are working to make our communities and parishes strong and are vital contributors to our country. We welcome today’s vote and urge the Senate to take up this legislation which gives permanent protection to Dreamers, TPS and DED holders.”

The bill would grant qualifying childhood arrivals 10 years of legal residence, after which they could receive permanent legal residence with two years of higher education or military service, or three years of employment.

TPS is an immigration benefit that allows persons who are unable to return safely to their home countries because of armed conflict, other violence, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions to remain in the United States while the situation in their home country resolves. It protects them from deportation and grants them permission to work. DED protects from deportation persons from countries or regions facing political or civic conflict or natural disaster, and allows them to work. The status is currently given only to Liberians.

Those with TPS or DED could apply for lawful permanent residence if they have been in the country for at least three years and have passed background checks. After five yearrs of lawful permanent residence, they would apply for citizenship.

Voting for the bill were the Democrats in the House, as well as seven Republicans.

Similar bills have been introduced in the Senate, but according to Felicia Sonmez at the Washington Post “it is unlikely that the Senate will consider the bill.”

Last month, Bishop Vásquez and Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Houston, president of the US bishops’ conference, voiced concern over a separate immigration plan from the Trump administration which prioritizes immigration status based on merit rather than family ties.

“We oppose proposals that seek to curtail family-based immigration and create a largely ‘merit-based’ immigration system,” they said. “Families are the foundation of our faith, our society, our history, and our immigration system.”

The administration’s proposal would significantly reduce the current family-based portion of the immigration system, instead focusing on applicants with high education and skill levels.

The plan would not provide legal status for those brought to the United States illegally as children. Nor does it provide a clear path forward for TPS holders.

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Washington D.C., Jun 5, 2019 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- The Trump administration announced Wednesday that it declined to renew a contract with the University of California that funding a research program which used fetal tissue obtained from abortions.

The de… […]

Rome, Italy, Jun 5, 2019 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Elio Sgreccia, a bioethicist and president eremitus of the Pontifical Academy for Life, died in his home in Rome Wednesday afternoon, one day before his 91st birthday.

Sgreccia had been hospitalized… […]

Birmingham, Ala., Jun 5, 2019 / 11:23 am (CNA).- The mayor of a small town in Alabama has apologized after posting on Facebook that the only way to reclaim America is to kill gay and transgender people, abortionists, and socialists.

"Although I b… […]

Portland, Maine, Jun 5, 2019 / 10:00 am (CNA).- A bill legalizing assisted suicide in Maine moved to the governor’s desk on Tuesday after both houses of the state’s legislature narrowly passed the legislation.

The so-called “Dignity … […]

New York City, N.Y., Jun 4, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Efforts to restrict abortion in the U.S. have drawn strong denunciations from a senior United Nations official, who called recent pro-life laws “torture” and “violence against women.”

Kate Gilmore, an Australian who serves as U.N. Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the U.K. newspaper The Guardian that new laws limiting abortion in some U.S. states run afoul of the judgment of members of the human rights commission, who have made independent declarations that the “absolute prohibition” of abortion is “against human rights”

In an interview published June 4, Gilmore said “We have not called [pro-life laws in the United States] out in the same way we have other forms of extremist hate, but this is gender-based violence against women, no question,” she said.

“It’s clear it’s torture – it’s a deprivation of a right to health.”

Gilmore was appointed to her current role in December 2015. She previously served as executive deputy secretary general of Amnesty International. Her time there coincided with its deeply controversial 2006 decision to end neutrality on abortion and to advocate abortion access as a human right. She has also held leadership roles at the United Nations Population Fund.

The U.S. has, at times, played a leading role in promoting legal abortion around the world, but at present many observers think the U.S. Supreme Court could alter or overturn precedents like the 1973 decision Roe v. Wade that mandate legal abortion across the U.S.

Laws banning abortion based on the detection of a fetal heartbeat have passed in several U.S. states, including controversial measures in Louisiana, Missouri, and Alabama. Challenges to the  laws could prompt a Supreme Court review of the issue at a federal level.

“This is a crisis. It’s a crisis directed at women,” Gilmore said of abortion restrictions in the U.S.  She also criticized Trump administration decisions to oppose language about reproductive health in some documents. “Reproductive health” is sometimes a euphemism for abortion.

At the same time, other U.S. states, including New York and Vermont, have proposed or passed extremely permissive legislation that would in effect allow abortion up through birth.

While Gilmore’s strongly worded rhetoric surprised some observers, other U.N. officials and bodies have previously made similar comparisons, and linked opposition to abortion with torture and human rights violations.

In May 2014, members of the anti-torture committee pressed the Holy See, a signatory to the anti-torture convention, about Catholic opposition to abortion. One committee member claimed that the committee holds that laws that prohibit abortion in all circumstances violate the convention.

For several years before the successful 2018 push to remove the Republic of Ireland’s pro-life constitutional amendment recognizing the equal right of a pregnant mother and her baby, leaders on U.N. committees overseeing human rights strongly criticized the Irish constitution.

They claimed that refusal of legal abortion to women was cruel and unusual punishment and discriminated on grounds of wealth or social class because some Irish women, and not others, could afford to travel to countries where abortion is legal.

In 2011 the United Nations Committee on the Convention Against Torture called on Ireland to change its abortion laws.

In July 2014, members of the U.N. Human Rights Committee in hearings reviewing the Republic of Ireland’s adherence to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights contended that Irish abortion restrictions violated human rights agreements.

Since 2015, U.N. resolutions have encouraged member states to ensure that women and girls have access to “sexual and reproductive health-care services,” which in the U.N.’s view includes the promotion of abortion.

These resolutions are not binding in international law, but do reflect internal U.N. priorities and policies. The repeated inclusion of “sexual and reproductive health” in resolutions could result, over a period of time, in the United Nations adopting abortion as a human right.

While Gilmore acknowledged that human rights commission rulings are unenforceable, she said they can help pressure governments to act, The Guardian reported.

“The human rights system doesn’t have an army, but what we know is many national courts follow that jurisprudence in their own rulings,” she said.

Moves to promote abortion at the U.N. have been challenged by Archbishop Bernardito Auza, head of the Holy See’s permanent observer mission to the U.N.

Auza rejected claims of a right to abortion by some U.N. leaders in his April 3, 2019 response to assertions of such a right at a spring meeting of the U.N. Commission on Population of Development.

“Suggesting that reproductive health includes a right to abortion explicitly violates the language of the (International Conference on Population and Development), defies moral and legal standards within domestic legislations and divides efforts to address the real needs of mothers and children, especially those yet unborn,” Auza said.

Pope Francis has repeatedly likened the practice of abortion to the “hiring of a hitman” and decried “eugenicist” abortion campaings against the disabled.

The Holy See’s diplomatic opposition to the global abortion agenda goes back decades, to the pontificate of St. John Paul II, who wrote a letter to the general secretary of the International Conference on Population and Development, held in Cairo in 1994. 

In that letter, St. John Paul II voiced his strong concerns that the conference’s draft document showed a “tendency to promote an internationally recognized right to access to abortion on demand, without any restriction, with no regard to the rights of the unborn.”

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Washington D.C., Jun 4, 2019 / 03:16 pm (CNA).- The House Appropriations Committee has reinstated a condition in 2020 spending bills which prohibit embryonic gene editing. The amendment was passed in a vote full House Appropriations Committee on Tuesda… […]

Chicago, Ill., Jun 4, 2019 / 02:51 pm (CNA).- Courage International, an apostolate for people with same-sex attraction, is preparing for its annual conference next month, which will focus on the importance of friendship.

The conference, for people who experience same-sex attraction and for the families of those identifying as LGBT, will be held July 18-21 at Mundelein Seminary, near Chicago. The theme of the conference is “Courageous Friendship: Inspiring Hope and Renewal.”

Father Philip Bochanski, Courage’s executive director, likened the event to a family reunion, where individuals may grow in a community that helps them in the pursuit of chastity.

“Every year, our Annual Conference often feels more like a family reunion than a conference. It’s a special opportunity for our members to reconnect with old friends, and to form new friendships with those who understand their experience and their journey,” said Fr. Bochanski.

“Learning how to foster chaste, generous friendships is central to our work at Courage, but is also essential for the Christian,” he added.

“In our friendships, we learn to love others because God loves them, in the same way that God loves them. When we do this, we find that we’re drawn out of ourselves in a way that gives us the ability to grow, and to start to live with the life of Christ”, Fr. Bochanski said.

A clergy day July 17 will prepare clerics and religious on how best to minister to people with same-sex attraction.

Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto, who will attend the conference, called Courage “a great sign of hope.”

With more than 150 chapters across 18 countries, Courage International looks to support individuals with same-sex attraction who have decided to live a chaste life.

The conference attendees will be able to hear a variety of discussions, consisting of topics such as pastoral ministry and psychology. Participants will also be able to be involved with opportunities of prayer, like daily Mass, confession, and Eucharistic adoration.

The speakers at the event will include Adam Minihan and David Niles, hosts of The Catholic Man Show; Avera Maria Santo, a young adult blogger and member of courage; Mary Rice Hasson, the director of the Catholic Women’s Forum; Mark Houck, co-founder and president of The King’s Men; and Father Michael Gaitley, Director of Evangelization of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception.

Founded by Fr. John Harvey, the first Courage chapter meeting was held in 1980. The five foundational goals of Courage are chastity, prayer, fellowship, support, and good examples.

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San Jose, Calif., Jun 4, 2019 / 02:50 pm (CNA).- It its latest rollout of updates, Apple announced that it will be adding menstruation and fertility tracking to its newest Apple Watch system.

While it has been a feature of the health app on Apple smar… […]

San Francisco, Calif., Jun 4, 2019 / 01:27 pm (CNA).- The Little Sisters of the Poor are expected back in court Thursday to ask for protection against a lawsuit seeking to end the religious order’s exemption from the HHS contraception mandate.

P… […]