Washington D.C., Jun 7, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The 1976 Hyde Amendment prohibits the use of Medicaid funds for most abortions. Biden, who voted as a senator in favor of the Hyde Amendment when it was first written, had reaffirmed his support for the l… […]
Chicago, Ill., Jun 7, 2019 / 03:08 am (CNA).- On Friday, May 31, four lanes of traffic on a major thoroughfare in the city of Chicago shut down for an hour and a half, while 3,200 people marched past.
Instead of political banners, they held candles. I… […]
Washington D.C., Jun 7, 2019 / 12:34 am (CNA).- In his opening question for Peter J. Phipps, a judicial nominee for the United States Third Circuit court, Senator Ben Sasse (R-NE) started with what he called “a hard question.”
“Are y… […]
Washington D.C., Jun 6, 2019 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- When the U.S. bishops arrive in Baltimore next week for their second plenary meeting since a year of serious crisis began last June, they will do […]
Tallahassee, Fla., Jun 6, 2019 / 07:34 pm (CNA).- The co-cathedral of the Diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee was damaged by fire Wednesday, with several of the chairs in the sanctuary set ablaze using an accelerant. The church’s rector has said he … […]
Arlington, Va., Jun 6, 2019 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- Sgt. Carl Mann, Sr. died March 30 at the age of 96, almost a month after his son, Fr. Gordon Mann, died of leukemia at the age of 59.
Both of the Manns’ lives were changed forever on June 6, decades apart.
For the patriarch of the Mann family, his life-altering June 6 came in 1944, when he was part of the second wave of soldiers who stormed Omaha Beach as part of the D-Day invasion. Gordon’s was in 1992, when he was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Evansville.
According to Miles and Carl Mann II, two of Carl Sr.’s sons, nobody realized the significance of the overlapped dates until they began planning their father’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery – which was also held June 6.
The brothers do not believe this happened by chance.
“It’s not a coincidence, I promise you,” Miles told CNA. “I’m not good enough to try to coordinate anything like this and put all these pieces together. But God’s perfect and that’s how it happens.”
Their father lived his life by a simple motto: “God, country, and family.”
While in the army, Mann would take time to pray and evangelize, even in the face of death and in the midst of bloodshed.
Mann would baptize soldiers in the middle of battle. Miles said he “was basically just the hands and feet of Jesus to do that.”
Carl II said that his father was willing and able to baptize on the battlefield as he knew that he was “spiritually ready” to die, and wanted to make sure others were as well.
“He just knew there was nothing in the world more important than (baptism),” said Miles. “Not even his own life.”
Some soldiers came to know Christ in their dying moments because of Mann’s battlefield prayers.
“His buddies would ask him was he was doing because they saw him kneeling down praying in the middle of the battle. And, a lot of those men didn’t know who Jesus was,” said Miles. They would ask Mann to teach them how to pray, and he would reply, “just listen.”
“He’d finish the prayer and then they would finish whatever skirmish or battle or event they were in the middle of. Some of them made it, some of them didn’t, but the ones that did not make it, they got to meet Jesus through him.”
Initially, Sgt. Mann was reluctant to discuss his military experience, and would often make jokes relating to his service.
“He would say, ‘Boy, I couldn’t wait to get off that (Omaha) beach. We were out of hotdogs and the ice cream was melting,’” said Miles. That all changed about a decade ago, after he was asked by a grandchild on which side of World War II he had fought.
Realizing that history was at risk of being forgotten, he began to open up more about his service, and shared his story at high schools and to his family. In addition to Normandy, Mann also served in the Battle of the Bulge and assisted in the liberation of two concentration camps. He was awarded three Purple Hearts and seven Bronze Stars, which enabled him to be buried at Arlington.
Sgt. Mann’s priorities of God, country, and family will leave a lasting legacy after his death.
“I think that I could give one perspective on it. It’s Dad’s statement was this: You know, my brother is him,” said Carl II, gesturing around.
“My brothers were willing to die for freedom. He said, ‘but there was only one who died for our sins.’ And that was his faith.”
Washington D.C., Jun 6, 2019 / 04:33 pm (CNA).- Former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is facing opposition within the Democratic Party after voicing his support for the Hyde Amendment, a federal policy prohibiting tax dollars from paying for elective abortions.
Biden’s presidential campaign this week reiterated his support for the Hyde Amendment to NBC News.
The move immediately drew strong criticism from abortion advocacy groups, as well as from other Democratic candidates.
“There’s no political or ideological excuse for Joe Biden’s support for the Hyde Amendment, which translates into discrimination against poor women and women of color plain and simple,” said Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, in a June 5 statement.
Kelley Robinson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, was similarly critical.
“As abortion access is being restricted and pushed out of reach in states around the country, it is unacceptable for a candidate to support policies that further restrict abortion,” she said in a statement.
Biden, who has been vocal about his Catholic faith throughout his political career, has repeatedly said that he is personally opposed to abortion but supports its legality. In his 2007 book “Promises to Keep,” Biden described his position on abortion as “middle-of-the-road” and reiterated his opposition to both federal funding of abortions and partial-birth abortions.
While Biden’s views on abortion have shifted over time, he has generally presented himself as pro-choice. Throughout his time in the Senate, he opposed numerous pro-life Supreme Court appointments. Last month, he released a video opposing new state-level pro-life legislation and saying he would support federal protections for abortion. He has recently reiterated that he thinks Roe v. Wade is “the law of the land.”
Biden’s stance on the Hyde Amendment, however, puts him at odds with other major Democratic hopefuls, including Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren.
The Hyde Amendment was introduced in 1976 by Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.). It is not a law, but rather has been passed as a rider to budget legislation every year.
A policy that has been supported by members of both parties, it prohibits federal tax dollars from paying for abortions, except in cases of rape, incest, or when it is deemed necessary to save the life of the mother.
The Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of the pro-life Susan B. Anthony List, has estimated that more than 2 million unborn lives have been saved as a result of the policy.
Various efforts to repeal the Hyde Amendment over the years have failed.
Biden enjoys a strong lead in the polls over more than two dozen other Democratic presidential hopefuls. While many of the other prominent candidates have moved in an increasingly progressive direction with their policy proposals, Biden has remained more moderate on topics such as the environment and health care. The former vice president argues that in order to beat President Donald Trump in the upcoming election, the Democratic Party will need to appeal to mainstream voters, including moderate independents and dissatisfied Republicans.
A survey by the Harvard School of Public Health found that the majority of Americans oppose taxpayer money being used for elective abortions.
However, the Democratic Party in 2016 included in its national platform a statement of support for repealing the Hyde Amendment, as well as opposition to state and federal restrictions on abortion.
Several other Democratic presidential contenders shot back at Biden and reiterated their own stance in favor of removing the Hyde Amendment.
“There is #NoMiddleGround on women’s rights. Abortion is a constitutional right. Under my Medicare for All plan, we will repeal the Hyde Amendment,” said U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders on Twitter.
“No woman’s access to reproductive health care should be based on how much money she has,” said U.S. Senator Kamala Harris. “We must repeal the Hyde Amendment.”
“No matter your income or where you live, every woman should have access to health care including abortion,” said former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke.
Camagüey, Cuba, Jun 6, 2019 / 04:18 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Camagüey inaugurated the Archbishop Adolfo Home for the Elderly to serve the city’s seniors last month.
During the May 25 event, Archbishop Wilfredo Pino Estevez of Camagüey said the initiative shows how the Cuban state and Church can cooperate.
“I believe that the Public Health System and the Church have set an example of how we can work together to achieve a common good. And that is something we must continue to maintain,” the prelate said. He also encouraged the initiative “to be multiplied in other areas in which the Cuban Church and the state could work together.”
“In the end, we are all at the service of one and the same Cuban people,” he said.
The prelate highlighted the presence of the Camillian Sisters who will serve the elderly.
The home bears the name of Archbishop Adolfo Rodríguez Herrera, who led the diocese for 40 years. The facility took 13 years to build and constitutes a great achievement for the Church in Cuba.
The prelate also recalled the letter that Archbishop Rodriguez wrote 18 years ago addressed to a Cuban official about the project: “I wish to take the opportunity to reiterate to you that the Church does not seek to compete nor to overshadow other institutions of this kind. For centuries (and in Cuba for 500 years), the Church, by a mandate from Jesus Christ, has raised up the first schools, hospitals, leprosariums, and asylums, when there was no one to compete with nor to eclipse. Experience, also in Camagüey, before and now, shows that a school, a hospital, an asylum… does not compete, rather it stimulates, establishes a healthy emulation that benefits everyone. A Home for the Elderly, is not a productive business but an under appreciated service for a very difficult stage in life which is old age.”
Archbishop Pino commented: “All of us who knew him will never forget the saintly bishop who taught us, in word and deed to always trust in the Lord, a conviction that made him a serene and positive being even in the dark and difficult hours of our history!”
He likewise recognized the support of “so many people and institutions, inside and outside the country, who, with their financial contributions according to their means, made this construction possible.” He also thanked the lay people, deacons, priests, sisters and others others who got involved and helped the project go forward.
“Thanks for the example you gave us in reminding us that this work does not belong to one group but of all of you!”
Also present at the dedication was the Bishop Domingo Oropesa Lorente of Cienfuegos, whom Pino also thanked for the efforts he made benefiting this great work.
Washington D.C., Jun 6, 2019 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said June 6 that the U.S. Senate might soon have an opportunity to vote “on some kind of legislation related to Planned Parenthood.”
During an interview… […]
Bayeux, France, Jun 6, 2019 / 02:27 pm (CNA).- Marking Thursday’s 75th anniversary of the Normandy landings during World War II, bishops from across the world said the operations recall the need for peace and the duty of gratitude to veterans.
Some 156,000 Allied forces landed on five beaches of Normandy June 6, 1944 to liberate the European continent from Nazi German occupation. About 4,400 Allied servicemen died that day, and there were between 4,000 and 9,000 German casualties.
Within a year of D-Day, Nazi Germany had been defeated.
Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, gave an address June 5 at the Abbey of Saint-Étienne in Caen, not far from the landing sites.
“Seventy-five years after the end of the Second World War, the memory of the victims of this massacre imposes on us a homage of respect and a duty to prevent conflicts by all means,” he said.
“Believing in peace” implies “an increased rational commitment to transform the world according to the imperative of unconditional respect for the dignity of the human person, unfortunately undermined by ideological colonization hostile to the sanctity of human life,” he said.
“In this difficult context, believing in peace also means relying on the efficiency of prayer for peace, since the Spirit of God directs human history towards its transcendent accomplishment with the imperfect but voluntary support of human freedoms.”
Cardinal Ouellet lamented the terrible cost of the World Wars: “The bitter feeling of the monstrous cost of these conflicts remains a heavy legacy that does not erase what has been achieved in the positive and generous achievements in European reconstruction. That is why remembering the end of the last great conflict is a duty of respect for the too many victims of these tragedies and a permanent requirement for reflection and commitment to prevent such disasters from happening again in the future.”
“There is a constant need for reflection and commitment to prevent such tragedies,” he stated. “But man does not seem to have learned much from his past sufferings: we are experiencing a globalization of oblivion and indifference to the victims of today, and conflicts have not ceased to increase and fragment on all continents.”
Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the US Military Services marked the anniversary saying: “On my last visit to Normandy in 2015 I was struck by the number of French men and women who came up to me and said: ‘We will never forget what your countrymen did here.’ Indeed it is important to remember and give thanks for the sacrifices made on the beaches of Normandy and elsewhere in Europe and in the Pacific Theater.”
“We are continually reminded of the commitment of those who have gone before us and we pause on this 6th day of June to give thanks for those who 75 years ago made the ultimate sacrifice on the beaches of Normandy to liberate Europe from the Nazis and to defend the cause of freedom for all humanity. As we pause to honor their memory, we thank them for their sacrifice. As Christians, we pray for the repose of their souls and pray for their families. Can we forget all who lost their lives because of their religion or ethnic group? We recognize that all people are created in the image of God and pledge to live that belief in the day-to-day activities of ordinary life.”
The archbishop said that “Christ reminds us there is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. We give thanks to God Almighty for all the brave servicemen and women who have faithfully kept the Lord’s commandment to love their compatriots even to the point of death throughout the course of our nation’s history from the time of its birth.”
He added that “we ask God that their sacrifice not be in vain. We beg Him to transform our power to turn war into a force for peace, to transform our weapons into plowshares, to give us the ability to negotiate, to talk, and to listen. We pray to remain vigilant against the forces of evil in our troubled world, and to pour our energies into building lasting peace and justice among nations.”
Pope Francis, in a May 31 letter to Bishop Jean-Claude Boulanger of Bayeux-Lisieux, reflected that the Normandy landings were “decisive in the struggle against Nazi barbarism and that they opened the way to the end of this war which so profoundly wounded Europe and the world.”
“That is why I remember with gratitude all the soldiers who, coming from several countries including France, had the courage to commit themselves and to give their lives for freedom and peace. I entrust them to the infinitely merciful love of the Lord, as well as the millions of victims of this war, without forgetting those who, on the German side, fought in obedience to a regime animated by a deadly ideology.”
© Catholic World Report