State-level abortion battles continue across the US

March 18, 2019 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Lexington, Ky., Mar 18, 2019 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- A judge blocked a Kentucky law that would prohibit abortion after the detection of a fetal heartbeat, in the latest setback in efforts to expand abortion restrictions in the United States.

Federal Judge David J. Hale of the Western District of Kentucky ruled on March 16 that Kentucky’s newly-signed law to ban abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy may be unconstitutional, and delayed its enforcement for the next two weeks.

The bill was signed into law earlier that day by Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin, and was supposed to go into effect upon signing. The ACLU and other groups had pledged to immediately challenge the law.

Other states’ attempts to pass “heartbeat bills” that ban abortion following the detection of a fetal heartbeat have run into similar judicial hurdles. Due to the existing legal precedent of the Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which found that a woman has a constitutional right to an abortion, legislation that restricts abortion prior to fetal viability is generally found to be unconstitutional.

This has led some prominent pro-life groups, as well as Tennessee’s Catholic bishops, to say that they do not support the “heartbeat bills” at the present time, due to their inevitable legal challenge and likely failure.

Kentucky currently has one abortion clinic operating in the entire state.

Meanwhile, the Indiana House voted to allow expand religious and other conscience-based objections to abortions by medical personnel.

Current law allows physicians and staff members at health clinics and hospitals to object to abortion procedures. The proposed legislation, which passed the state house by a vote of 69-25 on March 14, would expand the ability to opt-out to pharmacists, nurses and physician assistants, according to the Northwest Indiana Times.

It would also broaden the definition of abortion to include prescribing or dispensing an abortion pill.

The Indiana Senate will now need to consider the legislation, with changes made by the House, before sending it to Governor Eric Holcomb (R), who is expected to support it.

 

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Mother Teresa’s postulator says new film’s creators made ‘grave errors’ 

October 4, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
Mother Teresa around the year 1994. / L’Osservatore Romano.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 4, 2023 / 16:36 pm (CNA).

The chief promoter of St. Teresa of Calcutta’s cause for canonization says a new film about the beloved saint is hampered by “grave errors” in how its producers approached the life of the celebrated nun.

Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, the director of the Mother Teresa Center and the postulator of the cause of beatification and canonization of Mother Teresa, said in a Sept. 28 statement before the release of “Mother Teresa and Me” that its creators committed “several crucial errors” in adopting how the film approaches the doubts St. Teresa experience in her life even as she devoted herself to living out the Gospel in her care for the sick and poor.

“Mother Teresa and Me” tells the story of Kavita, a young woman who finds herself with an unexpected pregnancy. Battling whether or not to get an abortion, she returns to her hometown in India where her now very old nanny shares the story of Mother Teresa’s first days working in the streets of Calcutta. Learning how Mother Teresa faced many doubts after no longer being able to hear the voice of Jesus, Kavita is inspired.

The film’s writer and director, Kamal Musale, claimed on the film’s website, before it was revised, that the film’s portrayal of Teresa is “more true to life” because of its treatment of how she “lost her faith” and apparently “never recovered from it.”

“During [an] approximately 12-year period, Teresa goes through a complete change, from the intensity of her epiphany to the disillusionment and the realization that her connection with God is lost,” Musale said.

Yet, Kolodiejchuk has criticized this characterization of St. Teresa as inaccurate.

“Unfortunately, the producers of the film appear unaware of Mother Teresa’s own interpretation of her darkness, or the significance it had for her life and vocation,” Kolodiejchuk said.

“As her own writings attest, one of the most profound things about Mother Teresa is that she never ‘lost her faith,’ even amid desolation and uncertainty. Her personal letters speak of her ’unbroken union [with God]’ during her darkness and observe that ‘my mind and heart is habitually with God,’”

“She describes the ‘doubt’ in which she lived ‘for the rest of her life’ as, instead, a trial of faith — an experience well-known in the Catholic mystical tradition,” Kolodiejchuk said. 

The priest argued that, rather than demonstrate a loss of her faith, St. Teresa’s doubts “illustrated the depth of that faith, and her confidence that Christ would not abandon her.” 

“She even states that, ‘I will hear his voice’, and ‘I know this is only feelings — for my will is steadfast bound to Jesus.’”

Citing his own personal experience with the saint, Kolodiejchuk said the film “does not accurately capture the woman who captured the world with her steadfast, joyful love of God and neighbor; one of the most loved and admired women of the 20th century.” 

“We still must wait for a nondocumentary film that adequately portrays the ‘real and relatable’ St. Mother Teresa,” he said, “since a misrepresentation is unjust to her and to those who wish to know her in all her beauty and fullness.”

The film is set to premiere for a one-night-only release on Oct. 5 in 800 theaters around the United States. It was produced by Curry Western Movies out of India along with Switzerland’s Les Films du Lotus. 

Musale, the film’s director, has also directed the films “Millions Can Walk” and “Bumbai Bird,” among others. 

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