Month: February 2020

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News Briefs

Pope Francis meets again with Knights of Columbus

February 14, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Feb 14, 2020 / 01:45 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis met with leadership of the Knights of Columbus on Wednesday, for the second time in a week, in the Cappella Paolina of the Apostolic Palace.

The pope met with the Knights’ officers and directors with their families Feb. 12, following a Mass said by Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, Supreme Chaplain to the Knights.

Francis prayed an Our Father and a Hail Mary with the Knights, promising to pray for them and asking their prayers in turn.

Archbishop Lori gave the pope an Italian edition of a biography of Fr. Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights.

Francis had already received the leadership in an audience in the Clementine Hall Feb. 10.

“It was a great honor for our delegation to meet with the Pope not just once, but twice,” Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said.

“We are touched by the fact that Pope Francis took so much time with us, and we remain inspired by his words and grateful for his prayers. I ask all brother Knights and their families to take seriously the Holy Father’s request and commit to praying for him each day.”

The administrative council of the Knights of Columbus is on a pilgrimage to Rome to mark 100 years of charitable activity in the Eternal City.

At their Feb. 10 meeting, Pope Francis had praised the organization’s charitable work in Rome and in defense of life.

“Today the Knights of Columbus continue their work of evangelical charity and fraternity in a variety of fields,” the pope said. “I think in particular of your faithful witness to the sacredness and dignity of human life, evident at both the local and national levels.”

He also noted the Knights’ dedication to aiding, “both materially and spiritually, those Christian communities in the Middle East that are suffering the effects of violence, war and poverty.”

“I thank all the members of your Order for seeing in our persecuted and displaced brothers and sisters of that region neighbors for whom you are a sign of God’s infinite love,” he said.

Pope Francis noted the centenary of the group’s humanitarian aid in Rome, which started after World War I at the invitation of Benedict XV.

“The Knights responded generously, establishing sports centers for youth that quickly became places for education, catechesis and the distribution of food and other essentials so needed at that time,” he said.

Francis also praised the group for its “unswerving devotion to the Successor of Peter,” including through the Vicarius Christi fund, the annual proceeds of which are given to the pope for his personal charities.

The Knights of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal order, was founded in New Haven, Conn., in 1882 by Venerable Michael J. McGivney, a parish priest. It has 1.8 million members worldwide who perform volunteer service and advance the order’s key principles of charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism.

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News Briefs

Alabama state Rep. proposes forced vasectomy law

February 14, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

Mobile, Ala., Feb 14, 2020 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- An Alabama state representative has introduced a bill that would require men of a certain age or state to have a vasectomy.

The legislation (HB 238) was introduced in the state legislature on Thursday by Rep. Rolanda Harris (D). It provides that a man must undergo a vasectomy “at his own expense” within one month of his 50th birthday or the birth of his third child, “whichever comes first.”

Harris tweeted on Thursday that her aim “is to neutralize the abortion ban bill” and “help men become more accountable as well as women” in family planning decisions.

Harris’s statements refer to the “Human Life Protection Act,” passed by the state legislature last year and signed into law by Governor Kay Ivey.

One of the strongest pro-life state law in the country, the measure outlaws abortion except in “cases where abortion is necessary in order to prevent a serious health risk to the unborn child’s mother.”

The law also made performing or assisting in an abortion a felony offense for medical professionals; criminal penalties would not apply to mothers having abortions. Doctors performing abortions could be charged with a Class A felony and face up to 10 years in prison. No exceptions were made for cases of rape or incest.

The law has been the subject of legal challenges and was passed in part as an effort to force the reconsideration of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in the U.S. The 1973 decision struck down state abortion bans and instituted a “viability” test where states could only regulate abortion when the unborn child is considered “viable.”

The 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision built upon that framework and said that states could not put an “undue burden” on a woman’s ability to get an abortion pre-viability.

Bishop Robert Baker of Birmingham, Alabama, stated his strong support for the 2019 Alabama law and expressed his hope to “eventually, to make the killing of unborn children in our country something that is no longer viewed as anything but the horrendous and inhumane killing of the most innocent among us that it is.”

In October last year, a federal judge blocked the law from going into effect.

Harris, on Thursday, said her bill aimed to “neutralize” the Human Life Protection Act by forcing men to sterilize themselves to cut down on the number of cases where abortion is considered.

“The responsibility is not always on the women. It takes 2 to tangle. This will help prevent pregnancy as well as abortion of unwanted children,” she tweeted.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2399 lists direct sterilization as one of the “morally unacceptable” means of the regulation of births, along with contraception.

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