CNA Staff, Sep 3, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The 2020 National Catholic Prayer Breakfast (NCPB) will be streamed online on Sept. 23 the organization announced on Wednesday. The event will honor Attorney General William Barr.
Former presidents and vice presidents have made appearances at the gathering—Vice President Mike Pence addressed the annual event in 2017, and former President George W. Bush spoke at the breakfast each year from 2005 to 2008.
Barr will be the latest high-ranking Trump administration official to appear at the event–Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the NCPB in 2017, and then-acting White House chief-of-staff Mick Mulvaney addressed the gathering in 2019.
The National Catholic Prayer Breakfast has taken place in Washington, D.C. every year since 2004. It was originally scheduled for March 30, before the city curbed public gatherings following the coronavirus pandemic. Now, the NCPB says that the current “uncertainty” as to COVID-related restrictions in D.C. “dictated that we could no longer hold an in-person event of this size.”
Attended by 1,400 people in 2019, the prayer breakfast will now be streamed online with a mix of live and taped segments filling a one-hour schedule. Bishop Robert Barron, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, will deliver the keynote address.
While Archbishop Charles Chaput, archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, was originally scheduled to speak at the prayer breakfast in March, he no longer appears on the schedule.
“Although we will be unable to gather in Washington, DC for our usual in-person event, we believe it has never been more important to host this prayer event,” the group stated on its website.
Attorney General Barr is still scheduled to speak on Sept. 23 and receive the Christifideles Laici award, named for Pope St. John Paul II’s 1988 exhortation and reserved to honor the laity who promote the New Evangelization and the Church’s mission in their life and work.
Barr, a Catholic, served as attorney general during the George H.W. Bush administration from 1991 to 1993, and was confirmed as attorney general again in 2019.
Barr’s Justice Department (DOJ) has taken an active role during the pandemic in curbing state public health orders that it says treat churches more harshly than similar establishments such as restaurants and shopping malls.
Barr himself has spoken out about threats to religious freedom, in an October, 2019 speech at the University of Notre Dame law school, where he said that education is “ground zero” in the fight for religious freedom. He warned of a secularism that seeks the “organized destruction” of the Judeo-Christian ethic, which he said the U.S. was founded upon.
However, the attorney general has also overseen the resumption of executions of federal prisoners after a nearly-two decade halt; the U.S. bishops’ conference has spoken repeatedly to condemn the executions, as has Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis, whose diocese includes the federal prison in Terre Haute, where federal executions take place.
The Vatican in 2018 revised language in the Catechism on the death penalty, calling it “inadmissible.”
Catholic members of religious orders, pro-life activists, bishops and prelates, and politicians—including non-Catholic officeholders—have previously addressed the prayer breakfast. Past speakers have included the second President Bush, late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Vice President Pence, and Cardinal Robert Sarah.
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Is the meaning of the new-paradigm/polygon Church fully exposed by the vague language of “inadmissible” (versus the implied admissible) having REPLACED the language of Veritatis Splendor grounded in moral absolutes?
Broader than the specifics of capital punishment—the clear meaning of “inadmissible” is left hanging, so to speak, wreaking of NON-BINARY fluidity as also in the temporary, renewable, and equally “provisional agreement” with China; as in the evolutionary separation (?) of dogmas still reaffirmed from disconnected and admissible praxis (the dubia); and as from the secular realm the blurring of binary/complementary human sexuality within meandering gender theory.
Maybe it’s NOT at all about the close-at-hand stencils of theology, or ecclesiology, or the hermeneutics of continuity/discontinuity? Maybe, instead, the winter of our discontent is very simply about the infiltrating/malignant lavender thingy—and lost masculinity? The “smoke of Satan” or at best a random groping in a grey twilight….
The cure? Maybe this, from the secular (!) and robust President Theodore Roosevelt:
“Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though chequered by failure, than to take rank with those poor souls who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the GREY TWILIGHT that knows neither victory nor defeat.”
Barr was from a Jewish background their family converted
And that signifies how?
Foolishness! Barr is a member of President Trumps inner circle. You can’t believe he is in anyway anything but a voice for a corrupt administration. Why aren’t you honoring the Democratic Senator, the Catholic presidential candidate. RESCIND the invitation, or face the reality that a sizable number of practicing Catholics , as myself, will RESCIND our contributions to the church that has become politicized!
or face the reality that a sizable number of practicing Catholics(sic), as myself(sic), will RESCIND our contributions to the church that has become politicized!
And then likely mail that two dollars a week directly to the baby killers and eugenicists at planned barrenhood.
“the Catholic presidential candidate”
Because he promotes butchering babies.
“a corrupt administration.”
Your evidence? Your proof?
“practicing Catholics, as myself,”
Yeah, right.
“the church that has become politicized!”
I’m quite sure that you don’t care aat all if the Church is politicized if She were to honor people who share your political views – andyour Trump Derangement Syndrome.
This may very well be the straw that broke this Catholic’s back. I can’t believe the church can overlook the horrendous evils that the Trump administration and his cohorts including Barr Continue to commit. Over 200,000 lost lives are meaningless? I have weathered many storms along with the church and have supported it financially wherever I could. I honestly don’t know that I can do it any longer. This is unbelievable.
Between 1.5 and 2 million lives were originally predicted to be lost. Considering that and that 40 percent or more fatalities were frail elderly folks in care homes I’d say we’re faring much better than expected.
Originally it looked like everyone was at risk. We need to continue to shield the vulnerable but weigh that out with letting others resume their lives. There should be a commonsense balance. I think we’ve mostly done a good job in a very difficult scenario.
Just how do you think the Trump administration caused the 200,000 Wuhan coronavirus deaths? What did they do, or fail to do? Be specific.