Month: February 2020

Washington D.C., Feb 13, 2020 / 12:20 pm (CNA).- A Democratic congressman grilled a Catholic female law professor on her beliefs about contraception during a congressional hearing for a pro-abortion bill on Wednesday.

During a committee hearing on the Women’s Health Protection Act—a bill that could threaten existing state abortion regulations—73 year-old Rep. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C) questioned law professor Teresa Stanton Collett about her stance on “contraception as a means of birth control.”

“Where are you on contraception?” Butterfield asked the female professor.

“I am post-menopausal, Congressman, so that’s really not a relevant question to me,” Collett answered.

Collett teaches at law at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota, and is director of her law school’s Prolife Center. She has served on the Pontifical Council for the Family: she was first appointed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009, and Pope Francis subsequently renewed her mandate.

In 2013 she was also a delegate to the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) for the Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations.

On Wednesday, she testified at the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on the Women’s Health Protection Act (H.R. 2975) (S. 1645).

The bill was introduced by Rep. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). It seeks to expand legal abortion by subjecting state regulations of it to increased legal scrutiny.  

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, called the legislation a “radical and egregiously misnamed” law that would allow for “abortion on demand through [to] birth.”

The bill could be used to overturn state abortion regulations, such as safety laws for clinics and abortionists, informed consent provisions, parental notification laws, and restrictions on abortions after 20 weeks.

At the hearing Wednesday, committee chair Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) also brought up contraception. She noted that the lack of large families among her fellow members of Congress suggested t her that widespread provision of contraception is “working.”

“Very little is being said about contraception,” Eshoo, a Catholic, said while arguing for the effectiveness of contraceptives in reducing abortions.

“There are very few here that have 11, 12, and 15 children, so something is working somewhere,” she said, looking around the hearing room.

In addition to possibly overturning state abortion laws, the bill in question—which has 215 cosponsors in the House and 42 cosponsors in the Senate— could also override conscience protections for medical professionals. The bill would require a health care entity to provide abortions, if any delay to do so is deemed unsafe by a doctor or nurse, or the mother—without sufficient protections for conscience or religious-based objections.

Additionally, the bill would “supercede” all federal laws “notwithstanding” the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), meaning that health care professionals or hospitals that object to providing abortions on religious or conscience grounds would not have recourse to religious freedom protections like RFRA.

The bill’s text does allow for states to defend their safety regulations of abortion, but demands that the evidence must be “clear and convincing” that the state law “significantly advances the safety of abortion services or the health of patients.” Also, it requires that patient safety “cannot be advanced by a less restrictive alternative measures or action.”

The Charlotte Lozier Institute says the bill would impose “a heightened burden of proof” on state laws that even the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute has termed “unusually strict.” 

In addition to Collett, witnesses who testified before the committee on Wednesday was Georgette Forney, president of Anglicans for Life and co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign.

Forney highlighted the work of groups serving post-abortive women, who often experience nightmares, depression, eating disorders, suicidal feelings or attempts, addiction, and low self-esteem, he said, calling their suffering a testament to the destructive nature of abortion. She singled out the work of Rachel’s Vineyard, which provides more than 1,000 retreats for post-abortive women each year in 49 states and 70 countries.

“If abortion is no big deal, why are all these people going through healing programs?” Forney asked.

While abortion supporters might argue that state and local laws are reducing the number of abortion clinics statewide, Collett said that 54% of counties in the U.S. have no hospitals with obstetric services.

“That is an outrage. If you were really concerned about women’s health, that would be your primary concern,” she said.

The bill says abortion is “central to women’s ability to participate equally in the economic and social life of the United States.”

Yet abortions have declined by more than 50% from 1991-2016, she said, as the participation of women in the workforce has been “largely steady.”

“Women are succeeding in this society while abortion rates are falling rapidly,” she said.

[…]

Washington D.C., Feb 12, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Black Catholic communities have been a part of the Church in the Washington, DC area for centuries.

But it wasn’t until the height of the Civil War that black Catholics in DC began the process of founding a parish of their own— with the help of President Abraham Lincoln.

In the 16th and 17th century, Spanish laws in North America freed slaves who converted to Catholicism. Some of these freed slaves and their descendants formed their own settlement in the region that would become Florida.

Meanwhile, in Maryland, in the decades before the American Revolution, Jesuit missionaries evangelized black slaves, including some owned by their order, along with freemen. Over the centuries, large African-American Catholic populations settled in cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago and numerous cities throughout the South.

Monsignor Charles Pope, pastor of the historically black DC parish of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian, told CNA that racial prejudice has played a role in the region’s Catholic history; that white parishioners enforced racial segregation, forcing black Catholics to sit in back of church or choir loft, and to wait to receive the Eucharist until after white Catholics had done so.

Black Catholics “had many reasons to walk out of the Catholic faith, being treated like that, and yet they didn’t. They stayed, they worked, they built their own church.”

“It’s a remarkable story of resilience,” Monsignor Pope said.

Beginnings of a black Catholic parish

In the mid-19th century, black Catholics were not permitted to worship in the main sanctuary of St. Matthew’s Church in downtown DC. They were likely relegated to the church basement to worship, and while black children had a separate Sunday school to attend, they were not at all allowed to attend the parish day school.

By 1864, the black Catholic community had had enough of being related to the margins of St. Matthews to worship, and decided to build their own place of worship.

According to historian Morris MacGregor, who wrote a book in 1999 entitled “The Emergence of a Black Catholic Community: St. Augustine’s in Washington,” a group of free black men and women came to the pastor of St. Matthew’s, Father Charles White, to ask him what could be done.

White was apparently supportive of the idea of building a new church building for the black Catholic community, though he didn’t initially envision it becoming a separate parish. He convened a committee which included the superintendent of the parish Sunday schools, as well as two black parishioners, one of whom was named Gabriel Coakley.

Gabriel Coakley was a Washington businessman, who according to his granddaughter was a cabinetmaker. Some sources say his wife Mary was a seamstress in the White House.

White agreed to underwrite the down payment for a lot on which to build the church using money from St. Matthews, but suggested fundraising efforts would be needed to continue the church’s construction.

The committee came up with a potentially winning idea: why not hold a massive Fourth of July fundraising picnic on the White House lawn?

Coakley appears to have been chosen as the leader and spokesman for the group, and by most accounts seems to be the one who met personally with Lincoln to ask for the use of the White House grounds for a fundraiser picnic to raise money for the new church.

Lincoln’s support

Even at the height of the Civil War, personal access to the President was much simpler than it is today. Coakley simply made an appointment to meet Lincoln and was welcomed into the White House on June 27, 1864.

Though not himself a Catholic, Lincoln was evidently supportive of helping black Catholics in DC build their own place to worship. He agreed at once, and told Coakley to go to General Benjamin French’s office to tell him that he had given permission for the event.

French was a prominent Mason, so Coakley feared that he would not be keen to grant permission for an unusual event organized by black Catholics.

Nevertheless, records show that General Benjamin French issued a permit for the use of the White House lawn on June 30, 1864, and, after Coakley returned to the White House to seek the president out once again, Lincoln signed it.

Here’s where the historical record gets slightly fuzzier.

It remains unclear whether Lincoln himself actually attended the event. A Washington Post article from the 1980s proclaims that the festival was “held” by President and Mrs. Lincoln, “who strongly supported a church for black Catholics in the nation’s capital.”

MacGregor wrote that “President Lincoln and members of his cabinet likely made a brief appearance,” it is not officially recorded— at least in Lincoln’s writings— whether he was actually there or not.

Regardless, the event was a success.

An estimated 1,500 parishioners from at least six DC-area parishes attended, and the picnic raised over $1,200 a very large sum at the time.

With the funds in hand, work began on the De Porres Chapel and school, which opened in 1866 on Fifteenth Street.

MacGregor says it took a while for the chapel to attract a congregation, because despite harsh treatment at their home parishes, many black Catholics were still attached to their congregations.

Nevertheless, black Catholics at various parishes around DC remained frustrated by discrimination, and with the support of an Italian priest named Father Felix Barotti, a black Catholic parish at last came to fruition.

The original St. Augustine’s Church, which replaced the De Porres chapel in 1876, sat on the site of what eventually became the headquarters of the Washington Post.

It was the first African American Catholic parish in the city, and was a great success. The parish hosted the first National Black Catholic Congress in 1889, and parishioners hosted marchers and participated in the 1963 March on Washington.

The parish also has a school which has been operating for over 150 years.

In 1961, St. Augustine parish merged with the nearby, mostly white St. Paul’s Church, which had been experiencing declining attendance. The new, merged parish was renamed Sts. Paul and Augustine until 1982, when the name was restored to St. Augustine’s.

The original St. Augustine’s church, sadly, was razed in 1946.

Today, however, St. Augustine’s parish has one of the largest congregations in all of DC, with over 2,000 registered members.

Changing demographics

Similar to the parishioners at St. Augustine, the parishioners of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian, another historically black DC parish, raised the funds necessary to build their first church building.

Last year, the parish community celebrated its 125th anniversary.

Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian has a long African American Catholic heritage, but now, the neighborhood is changing. Pope estimated that the congregation is now probably about 40% white.

“Every now and then people feel a little bit sad, it just feels kind of like the end of an era,” he said.

“We still have a very bright future as a parish, and there are many good, new things that are up and running now, too. So it’s always a mix of a little bit of sadness but also hope and enthusiasm for a parish that is now much more diverse.”

He said people use the term “gentrification” to describe changes in DC’s historically black neighborhoods.

“I don’t think that’s entirely accurate; it hides more than it discloses,” Pope reflected.

“There’s a subtlety to it. Most of the older black folks here in the neighborhood were not poor, they were working class— some of them had good government jobs with decent pensions.”

Many of the aging back parishioners have sold their homes at a tidy profit, while choosing to downsize or move to the suburbs, for well over $1 million, he said.

“The ones who are leaving aren’t necessarily all that poor, and the ones that are coming in aren’t necessarily all that rich. Most of them are young adults…it’s an odd thing.”

“As a parish, I think we’re handling it as best we can,” he said.

[…]