Kenosha Catholics praying for peace after third night of violence

Voting booths on Election Day. / Credit: vesperstock/Shutterstock

Ann Arbor, Michigan, Sep 16, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

The aggressive advocacy of abortion by Democratic Party candidates up and down the ballot this year, coupled with abortion ballot measures in 10 states, is causing pro-life groups across the political spectrum to adjust their tactics as well as expand collaborative efforts. 

At the state level throughout the country, “there are things that we are excited about and others that are very troubling,” said Americans United for Life (AUL) Chief Executive Officer John Mize in an interview.

“What we find most troubling are the ballot initiatives that are very deceptive by pro-abortion forces that have caused utter confusion in a vast swath of the American public,” Mize indicated.

In view of the current electoral panorama, Mize said his nonpartisan organization is stepping up its partnerships with other groups as part of their common objective to defend preborn lives and defeat pro-abortion measures. For example, he said, AUL has expanded its collaborative efforts with organizations such as CareNet, Heartbeat, Lifeline, and the Vitae Foundation.

Given the magnitude of the challenge the pro-life movement faces this year, National Right to Life (NRL) spokesperson Laura Echevarría said her group also welcomes increased collaborative efforts.

“We tend to be very accepting of other groups that want to work with us on issues. And we look at that commonality and we don’t get into other issues,” Echevarría observed. 

On the left, Democrats for Life and Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising (PAAU) are two groups that align with most aspects of the Democratic Party’s policy agenda yet are vociferously challenging its pro-abortion stance. 

PAUU executive director Caroline Taylor Smith, a Catholic who also volunteers for Democrats for Life, told CNA her pro-life principles are compatible with progressivism. She criticized both the Democratic and Republican parties for their respective stances on abortion. 

“I am very left-leaning and progressive and agree with every progressive value except for abortion. I condemn the idea that progressives have to support child-killing. My worldview is that I’m against violence and oppression against all people. I support liberation for all people. Embryos are preborn people that should be free from violence,” she said. 

Smith said that an example of PAAU’s pro-life commitment was set by PAAU activist Lauren Handy, 30, who was convicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for occupying the Surgi-Clinic abortuary in Washington, D.C. Handy, who identifies as a “queer Catholic,” is now serving a four-year sentence. 

Allied organizations identified by PAUU’s Smith also include Pro-Life San Francisco and Rehumanize International. 

Despite their common goals, Mize acknowledged, the groups take different approaches. For example, Mize said he is skeptical about “overly aggressive tactics” such as displaying photos of aborted babies or screaming over bullhorns at women. Such tactics, he said, “add to the trauma that a woman feels when she is making a very difficult and complex decision. There’s a better way. And that is to be incremental and focused on providing alternative options to women.”

In addition, while Mize said ALU is not opposed to PAAU’s work, he said ALU is “more apt to partner with an organization like Democrats for Life, who share a lot of the same values we do in terms of the appropriate process to advance the pro-life cause.” There are also organizations like Secular Pro-Life, Mize added.

“Unfortunately, this has become far too political and it’s really not,” Mize maintains. “It’s a moral issue that isn’t defined by the politics of the party. It’s defined by the morality and character of the person.”

Echevarría and Mize agreed that the challenges for all pro-life organizations are only multiplying. Intense political battles, both said, lie in state legislatures and ballot initiatives that threaten to overturn hard-fought limitations on abortion, such as requirements for parental notification and consent.

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Charlotte, N.C., Feb 21, 2018 / 11:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The evangelist Billy Graham died Wednesday at his home in Montreat, N.C., his family has announced. He was 99.

Born in Charlotte, N.C., Graham was ordained a Southern Baptist minister in 1939. During his work in ministry, he wrote more than 30 books and conducted the annual Billy Graham Crusades until his retirement from active ministry in 2005. His last book, Where I Am: Heaven, Eternity, and Our Life Beyond the Now, was published in 2015.

During his time in ministry, Graham insisted that his crusades and rallies be racially integrated, and was friends with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In 1981, Graham first met with St. John Paul II, who said that the two were “brothers.” They would meet again several times. When John Paul II died in 2005, Graham said he believed that the Pope had been “the most influential voice for morality and peace in the world during the last 100 years,” and praised his “strong Catholic faith” and perseverance through his illnesses.

Prominent Catholics reacted with sadness to Graham’s death, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York. In a statement on the archdiocesan website, Dolan wrote that while his family was Catholic, there was a level of respect for Graham’s work in bringing people to Christ.

“There was no question that the Dolans were a Catholic family, firm in our faith, but in our household there was always respect and admiration for Billy Graham and the work he was doing to bring people to God,” said Dolan.

“As an historian, my admiration for him only grew as I studied our nation’s religious past, and came to appreciate even more the tremendous role he played in the American evangelical movement.  May the Lord that Billy Graham loved so passionately now grant him eternal rest.”

Dolan’s sentiment was echoed by Catholic Herald editor Damian Thompson, who praised Graham’s evolution on Catholicism. Thompson called Graham a “fine man, a powerful force for good.”

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Billy Graham started out as an typical evangelical anti-Catholic and ended up acclaiming St John Paul II as the world’s greatest witness to Christianity. A fine man, a powerful force for good: rest in peace.</p>&mdash; Damian Thompson (@holysmoke) <a href=”https://twitter.com/holysmoke/status/966317143523495936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, offered condolences to the Graham family and said that he was praying for the repose of his soul. DiNardo praised Graham for his work spreading the gospel around the country, and said he was thankful for his ministry.

“His faith and integrity invited countless thousands around the world into a closer relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God for the ministry of Billy Graham,” said DiNardo.

Dr. Robert George, a professor at Princeton University and a former chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, compared Graham to St. John Paul II and other religious figures, saying that while he was “firmly rooted” in his denomination, Graham was able to reach all people.

<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>Billy Graham was like John Paul II, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Martin Luther King, Jr. He was firmly rooted in a particular tradition of faith, yet somehow spoke to–and in a sense belonged to–all of us.</p>&mdash; Robert P. George (@McCormickProf) <a href=”https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/966320319681187841?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>February 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
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Little Rock, Ark., Jan 18, 2018 / 04:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock has said he will not attend the local March for Life because its keynote speaker opposed Catholic appeals for clemency for prisoners on death row.
 
The march’s keynote speaker Attorney General Leslie Rutledge “has good anti-abortion credentials but otherwise is decidedly not an appropriate pro-life speaker,” said Bishop Taylor’s Jan. 17 letter, addressed to the people of the diocese. The bishop charged that Rutledge “worked tirelessly to secure the execution of four criminals who posed no further threat to society.”
 
“You will recall that the Diocese of Little Rock was very vocal in appealing for clemency for these four men, but we were opposed at every turn by Attorney General Rutledge,” the bishop continued. “For this reason, I asked Arkansas Right to Life to choose a more appropriate keynote speaker, indicating that I could not participate in what was supposed to be a pro-life event otherwise. But Arkansas Right to Life has refused to do so.”
 
Bishop Taylor encouraged Catholics to attend one two Masses for Life to be held Jan. 21 at the Little Rock Cathedral.
 
Catholic bishops have always taken part in the march and have led prayers, though the event is organized by Arkansas Right to Life. Bishop Andrew J. McDonald of Little Rock, who retired in 2000 and passed away in 2014, supported the establishment of the local March for Life 40 years ago, the diocesan newspaper Arkansas Catholic reports.
 
Arkansas Right to Life sent CNA a Jan. 17 statement saying the march would go on as planned.
 
“Arkansas Right to Life is a single-issue organization dedicated to seeking protection for the lives of innocent unborn children,” it said, voicing hope that everyone who shares its views will “support and attend the march, regardless of their views on other issues in which Arkansas Right to Life does not take a stand.”
 
Bishop Taylor’s letter said he looked forward to seeing as many people possible at the cathedral “as we pray for an end to abortion in this country and that all human life may be protected from the first moment of conception to natural death.”
 
He said the Church teaches “a consistent ethic of life in which human life and human dignity must be protected from the first moment of conception to natural death and every stage in between.”
 
“This means, among other things, that all lives have inherent God-given dignity. Even people who have been sentenced to death possess this dignity, which is why capital punishment must be abolished,” he said.
 
At Little Rock’s 2017 Mass for Life, Taylor wrote that “it is important for us to remember on this right to life weekend that the right to life is a seamless garment encompassing all of life, from the first moment of conception to natural death, and that any violation of human life and human dignity is contrary to our faith and must be actively opposed.”

In 2013, he testified against the death penalty before Arkansas Senate Judiciary Committee, saying “no one will be fully secure until we reject everything that threatens human life or degrades human dignity. Jesus’ teaching about the sanctity of life is a seamless garment.”

The term “seamless garment” was popularized by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, who advocated that abortion be treated as one issue among others which threaten the dignity of human life, including the treatment of immigrants and the elderly, the death penalty and nuclear proliferation.
 
Bernadin’s view has sometimes been criticized for appearing to diverge from the teachings of Pope St. John Paul II, who said in his 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae that “among all the crimes which can be committed against life, procured abortion has characteristics making it particularly serious and deplorable.”
 
The state of Arkansas had initially planned to execute eight inmates before the end of April 2017. Three of the prisoners received stays of execution from the Arkansas Supreme Court, while one received a preliminary injunction from federal district court, the Death Penalty Information Center says.
 
In a March 1, 2017 letter to Gov. Asa Hutchinson, Bishop Taylor had asked the governor to commute eight death sentences to life without parole.
 
“Though guilty of heinous crimes, these men nevertheless retain the God-given dignity of any human life, which must be respected and defended from conception to natural death,” the bishop said.

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