Abortion is ‘pre-eminent’ human rights issue, St Augustine bishop says as election nears

House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with EWTN News’ Erik Rosales at the U.S. Capitol. / Credit: EWTN News

CNA Staff, Jan 22, 2024 / 19:00 pm (CNA).

House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke with EWTN News on the eve of the March for Life about his belief “in the sanctity of every human life at all stages” and shared a bit about his personal history.

“I’m the product of an unplanned pregnancy. My parents were teenagers when I was born, exactly one year before Roe v. Wade in 1972, in January,” Johnson told Capitol Hill correspondent Erik Rosales in an interview that aired Monday on “EWTN News Nightly.”

“Often we talk about the unborn, which is certainly important because we believe life has value from the moment of conception because it’s our Creator that gives us that and gives us our value,” Johnson said. “But it’s all the way through every stage of life.”

“This is an important thing to support young mothers who are in times of crisis in unplanned situations, to support families, to support them all the way through the pregnancy,” he said. 

“And then after, we need to be promoting adoption, cutting red tape that hinders the foster children system. So there’s a lot of work to do to build a culture of life.”

Johnson said Congress also has a role to play in protecting the pro-life community from attacks. In the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many pregnancy resource centers were victimized by arson attacks and acts of vandalism. 

“We have to, again, bring accountability,” he said. “We have a very important responsibility here in Congress to ensure that the rule of law is maintained, to ensure that the inherent and fundamental freedoms of all people are respected.”

The speaker pointed out that religious freedom is “literally the first freedom listed in the Bill of Rights,” which he said was “not by accident.”

“The founders understood that was essential not only to who we are as Americans but to who we are as human beings,” he told Rosales. 

“And so Congress has a role to advance that, to maintain those founding principles and to defend them at all costs.”

The weaponization of the U.S. government

Johnson also told EWTN that Congress needs to hold government institutions accountable for incidents like last year’s controversial federal investigation into traditionalist U.S. Catholics.

Rosales asked Johnson about last year’s revelations that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had circulated a memorandum that described an investigation into traditionalist Catholics for possible ties to domestic terrorist activities. 

The memorandum was the subject of hearings held by the House Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. FBI Director Christopher Wray said in December that the bureau “[does] not and will not conduct investigations based on anybody’s exercise of their constitutionally protected religious [expression].” 

Johnson told Rosales that lawmakers describe the FBI as “weaponized” because “that’s exactly what it is.” Congress “[has] to bring accountability for agencies that have been spun out of control,” he said.

“It’s alarming,” Johnson said. “So we’ve called it out, we’ve drawn attention to it, and we’re demanding accountability for those who are in charge to ensure that those abuses of our agencies don’t happen again.”

“Ultimately, what’s at stake here is the people’s belief in our institutions, their faith in our institutions of government,” Johnson continued. “And that faith is at an all-time low right now. That’s what the polling shows. And that’s a very dangerous thing.” 

“To keep a constitutional republic — a government of, by, and for the people — the people have to believe that their justice system is fair and that they’re not picking on or discriminating against people of faith. And we’ve got to make sure that that happens,” Johnson concluded.

“EWTN News Nightly” airs weekday evenings at 6 p.m. ET.

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Aultman in her first year of private practice, outside her office, which was under construction. / Kathi Aultman

Denver Newsroom, Oct 14, 2021 / 12:26 pm (CNA).
Kathi Aultman was six weeks postpartum when she returned to work at an abortion clin… […]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 11, 2020 / 03:29 am (CNA).- Benedictine College had a problem.

After students returned to campus for the fall semester, 38 of them tested positive for COVID-19. And while none of the students who tested positive had serious symptoms or required hospitalization, Atchison County, Kansas, where Benedictine College is located, was spooked.

So, out of a sense of desperation, Benedictine College President Stephen Minnis told his students to pray and fast for the health of the college from August 28 until September 8, the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin Mary. The college had already made adjustments, at the behest of the county, to its existing coronavirus mitigation protocols.

“We had a commitment to be open in a safe and healthy environment, but with dynamic campus life, including athletics, with access to a strong faith program–including the sacraments–with in-person classes, all with the intention to stay open and true to our mission,” Minnis told CNA in an interview on September 9.

Minnis told CNA that bringing the students back on campus was necessary for fulfilling the college’s mission statement: “to educate within a community of faith and scholarship.”

“We believe strongly that COVID has attacked our mission directly,” said Minnis. “It’s an attack on our community by forcing our students to stay in their homes or in their dorm rooms and away from people. Humans are social beings, and if you take that away from them, they can’t be fully alive.”

The effects of the pandemic also attacked the “faith” and “scholarship” aspects of the college’s mission, with public Masses being suspended, and students sent home away from campus last semester.

“We had students that came back to Benedictine and had not gone to Mass since March, because of where they were living,” Minnis said. “We wanted to provide a really strong faith experience for them.”

While things were improving on the health front–no Benedictine student has been hospitalized with coronavirus, and the number of active cases continues to drop–this was not the case on the county level. According to local media, the county had four recorded cases of COVID-19 two weeks before school started, but that number had leapt to more than 200 once the students returned.

On September 2, Atchison County announced that all 2,000 college students would be required to isolate in their rooms for two weeks to stop the spread of coronavirus. The order, which was given without “any kind of warning” to Benedictine College, was to go into effect at midnight the next day. Students would be required to stay in their dorm rooms or homes and leave only for meals.

This meant no Mass, no athletics, no going for a walk around outside, no in-person classes. Students living off-campus would not be permitted to even go to the grocery store during that two-week period.

Minnis did not want to subject his students to a strict isolation, nor did he want to tell students they could not go to Mass. The school managed to convince the county to hold off for increased negotiations.

“And the County Commission asked the parties not to have this order go into effect, but ask the parties to begin negotiating and see if there could be common ground,” said Minnis.

Those negotiations began September 3. That evening, Benedictine students took it upon themselves to organize a masked, socially-distant rosary to pray for their school community. Minnis told CNA that he believes the same time the Rosary began, he was told that there would be “no chance” the county would budge on their order to require students to be isolated in their rooms.

Minnis decided to fast starting at the Thursday evening meeting with the county’s negotiation team. The negotiations that night were not ideal, and it did not seem as though Atchison County would change their minds.

But the following morning at 8:15 a.m., when the negotiations started again, he found “a completely different atmosphere” than the one from the previous night.

“There was an atmosphere of unity, not of division,” said Minnis. Officials were now “trying to get this resolved, not trying to punish anyone.”

An agreement was reached on Friday that appeased both the county and the school.

The new agreement, which is titled “Atchison and Benedictine: Stronger Together” was announced in a press release on September 4. It allows for greater movement on campus for students, while seeking to protect the broader community.

The agreement prohibits students living on campus from leaving campus, except for work, essential activities, or for academic requirements, and allows for students living off-campus to come on campus for “authorized athletic practices, religious services, work study, labs, or other necessary academic purposes.”

“By the end of Friday, we had an agreement and, and this agreement allowed us in-person classes. It allows our students to be out and still socialize, still exercise, still go to Mass,” said Minnis. He said the county had a “complete turnaround.”

“And there’s no question about it,” said Minnis. “It was Our Lady that did that.”

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