Month: October 2020

CNA Staff, Oct 6, 2020 / 03:13 pm (CNA).- A year and a half after church and hotel bombings killed 259 people and injured another 500 in Sri Lanka, five of seven suspects arrested in connection with the attacks have been released by the country’s government.

The government has said the suspects were released due to a lack of evidence. However, Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo, as well as friends and family of the victims, have said they fear the release means corruption, or a lack of a thorough investigation, on the part of the Sri Lankan Criminal Investigation Department.

“It is sad and unfortunate that those who are alleged to have been involved in the attacks are released,” Ranjith said in an Oct. 3 press conference, according to UCA News.

“Those who are affected physically and mentally wait for justice to be meted out, but it is unfortunate that the investigation is not going the way it should,” the cardinal added.

On April 21 of last year, suicide bombers detonated during Easter services at two Catholic churches and one evangelical Christian church, as well as at four hotels and a housing complex that same morning, with a total of nine suicide bombers. Later that week, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks. Ranjith said security officials had confirmed to him a few months ago that there was sufficient evidence against many of the suspects who had been arrested.

Of the suspects released, Ranjith and other Sri Lankans said they were most dubious of the release of Riyaj Bathiudeen, brother of Rishad Bathiudeen, who is the leader of the All Ceylon Makkal Congress party in Sri Lanka. According to UCA, a police spokesman told journalists on Sept. 15 that Riyaj Bathiudeen had met with one of the suicide bombers before one of the attacks on a hotel, and he is accused of other acts of collaboration with the bombers. He was released after 168 days of detainment. On Oct. 4, relatives of the victims of the Easter bombings protested in front of St. Sebastian’s Church, Katuwapitiya, a little more than 20 miles north of Colombo, demanding a fair and thorough investigation and for justice to be done.

“My family and child were both killed in the Katuwapitiya bombing. We need a fair solution,” S. Fernando, one of the demonstrators, told UCA. “Four of the seven suspects arrested along with Riyaj Bathiudeen in connection with the attack and detained for several months by the CID have been released and none of them have ever been produced in court. Do justice to the dead,” Fernando added. That same day, President Gotabaya Rajapaksa said in a Facebook post that national security was his government’s top priority, and that they had not made any deals with MP Bathiudeen in the release of his brother. According to UCA News, other media reports in the country claim that if such a deal were made with Bathiudeen, it would be to help secure his support for constitutional changes that would grant “sweeping powers” to the president. Ranjith has been outspoken in calling for a thorough investigation into the attacks. “Anybody who had dealings with these people who set off the bombs, even their bank accounts and their telephone calls, has to be investigated,” the cardinal said in February.

At that time, Ranjith said he believed that past government commissions “may have worked to cover up what happened,” but that he was “pleased” with the way the new presidential commission seemed to be handling the investigation.

Rajapaksa, who assumed office in November 2019, had been working with Ranjith on the investigation. Ranjith appeared before the investigation commission Dec. 6 and 7, 2019, to express the concerns of the victims and of the Catholic community.
 
Sri Lanka is an island nation in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal; its population is more than 21 million. More than 70% of Sri Lankans are Buddhists, roughly 13% are Hindus, almost 10% are Muslims, and fewer than 8% are Christians. There are 1.5 million Catholics in the country, constituting the overwhelming majority of the Sri Lanka’s Christians.

The country has been plagued with periodic violence since its 26-year civil war concluded in 2009.

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CNA Staff, Oct 6, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The U.S. bishops’ religious freedom chair has called for better protection of churches and other houses of worship, following a recent series of acts of vandalism.

Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami joine… […]

CNA Staff, Oct 6, 2020 / 09:30 am (CNA).- Former vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic Party’s nominee for president, repeated his pledge to codify a right to abortion into federal law should the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision be overturned by the Supreme Court.

Speaking at an outdoor town hall event airing on NBC Monday, Biden was asked what he would do to protect “reproductive health rights” should Judge Amy Coney Barrett be confirmed to the Supreme Court.

“Number one, we don’t know exactly what [Barrett] will do, although the expectation is that she may very well move to overrule Roe, and what the only thing–the only responsible response to that would be to pass legislation making Roe the law of the land,” said Biden. “That’s what I would do.” 

After decades of previous reservations about unrestricted abortion and Roe v. Wade, which he originally said went “too far,” Biden committed to enshrining the full extent of the decision in law during the 2019 Democratic primary contest.  

Kirsten Day, executive director of Democrats for Life of America, responded to Biden’s renewed pledge, saying it was “sad to see [Biden] move from recognizing the humanity of preborn children to pledging to make abortion the law of the land if elected.”

“Pro-Life Democrats, we have to mobilize to make sure this does not happen if he is elected,” Day said via Twitter.

President Donald Trump, who is back at the White House following a three-day hospitalization for the coronavirus, encouraged his own supporters to vote against Biden, and against congressional Democrats’ plans to potentially add more seats to the Supreme Court.

On Tuesday, Trump said that “Joe Biden just took a more Liberal position on Roe v. Wade than Elizabeth Warren at her highest.”

Trump also said that Biden “wants to PACK our great United States Supreme Court.” Biden was asked if he would support court-packing were he elected following a Barrett confirmation during the presidential debate last week, he declined to answer. 

The president also noted that Biden had endorsed Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, who sparked controversy in January 2019 after he said that if a baby were sufficiently disabled at birth, it could be “kept comfortable” and might be resuscitated if the mother wished, and there could be a “conversation” between doctors and the mother.

Several states have already passed laws codifying a right to an abortion should the Roe decision be overturned in future. There is no federal law enshrining abortion rights. 

The Democratic Party platform has rapidly evolved on abortion rights during the 21st century. As recently as 2004, the platform was calling for abortion to be “Safe, legal, and rare.” The 2020 platform was the first to call for a codification of abortion rights into law, in addition to calls for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment and Mexico City Policy, which limit U.S. tax dollars from funding abortions.

Despite the Church’s absolute condemnation of abortion as the taking of an innocent human life, Biden has frequently touched upon his Catholic faith throughout his campaign, including a series of recent spots on Catholic radio stations.

He has also released ads saying that he was partly inspired to run for president due to an encounter with religious sisters at the Vatican. 

In the ad, which was released during the Democratic National Convention, Biden narrated how once, after having a brief meeting with Pope Francis at St. Peter’s Basilica, he departed the church and ran into a group of religious sisters. 

These sisters, said Biden in a voiceover, “to me, epitomize everything Pope Francis talked about in his homily and what he stands for. About generosity to other people, about reaching out, about making it a point to understand that we are our brother’s keeper,” said Biden. 

Biden said the idea that people have an obligation to look out for one another had been imprinted on him during his Catholic upbringing and “being educated by the nuns.” 

“That’s what those lovely women I’m talking to symbolize to me,” said Biden. 

Despite that evidently favorable encounter with nuns in Rome, Biden has been quite critical of a religious order in the United States. 

Shortly after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Little Sisters of the Poor v. Pennsylvania on July 8, Biden said he was “disappointed” by the decision and promised to reinstate Obama-era policies requiring the sisters to ensure access to birth control in violation of their religious beliefs.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 6, 2020 / 07:30 am (CNA).- Senator Kamala Harris’ 2016 senate campaign was supported by several large donors who were executives at pro-abortion groups. Harris went on to repeatedly grilled judicial nominees on abortion while in the Senate.

Harris is considered a champion of the abortion industry. When the Biden campaign announced her inclusion on the ticket in August, Planned Parenthood Action spent five figures on an online video ad promoting Harris as “OUR Reproductive Health Champion.” Planned Parenthood Votes also released a fact-sheet “Nine Reasons to Love Kamala Harris.”

Harris will participate in the Vice Presidential debate against Mike Pence on Wednesday, the event is due to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah. Abortion is a key issue among voters in both parties and, while the topic did not feature prominently in last week’s presidential debate, it is expected to be a central flashpoint between Harris and Pence, with the California senator widely predicted to reaffirm her party’s absolute support for abortion – a key donor and supporter base.

Harris in her 2016 Senate campaign was 11th among Senate candidates in the amount of contributions she received from the “abortion policy/pro-abortion rights” sector, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. She received $38,830 in total from these groups.

Although Harris ran against another pro-abortion Democrat, Rep. Loretta Sanchez— who had a 100% rating from the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) in 2016—Harris received the endorsement of the national pro-abortion group.

Harris’ campaign hauled in $5,000 from NARAL in 2015, and received two more donations of $2,500 each in 2016. EMILYs List PAC, which works to elect pro-abortion women candidates to political office, contributed $10,000 to Harris’ campaign in 2016, along with earmarking other contributions from individual supporters. 

The pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights contributed $4,400 to Harris’ election bid in 2016—more than they gave to any other candidate that cycle aside from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

In addition to the support she received directly from these organizations, Harris also benefited from officials at these groups and their affiliates contributing to her 2016 campaign as individual donors.

Linda Wyatt Gruber, a California philanthropist who was formerly on the board of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, gave $10,000 to the Kamala Harris Victory Fund—Harris’ PAC—in 2016. She also made two donations of $2,700 each to Harris’ campaign that year.

Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, gave a total of $4,400 from two donations to Harris’ campaign in 2015 and 2016. The current chair of the board of the center, Amy Metzler Ritter, was also listed as a Harris donor in 2016, of $1,000; in a later donation to Senate candidate Mark Kelly, Ritter was listed in her current position as chair of the board at the same address.

A pediatrician at Stanford University who specializes in access to contraception and abortion, Sophia Yen M.D., gave $5,355 to Harris’ campaign in 2015; she contributed another $1,400 to the campaign in 2016. Later in 2019, Yen gave $2,800 to Harris’ presidential campaign.

Yen founded the birth control prescription and delivery business Pandia Health, based in Sunnyvale, California, and has been outspoken about expanding the availability of birth control and abortion.

In July, when the Supreme Court protected the Little Sisters of the Poor from the HHS contraceptive mandate, Yen said the ruling “hurts those with uteri” and “imposes the employers’ religion on the employees.” After Alabama and Georgia passed laws banning most abortions, Pandia Health allowed new customers to sign up for a pledge where the company would donate $5 to pro-abortion groups with every purchase.

Another “physician” at Planned Parenthood Golden Gate, Glenda Newell-Harris, M.D., gave $3,000 to Harris’ Senate campaign in 2015, and later gave $2,800 to Harris’ presidential campaign in 2019.

Before she was elected to the Senate, Harris served as attorney general of California, and before that was the San Francisco district attorney. In 2016, she received critical support from Bay-area philanthropists and influential donors.  

Two members of the board of trustees for Planned Parenthood of Northern California, based in San Francisco, were donors to Harris’ 2016 Senate campaign.

Mary Jung, currently on the San Francisco Arts Commission, gave $850 to Harris’ 2016 senate campaign and in 2019 gave $1,000 to Harris’ presidential campaign.

Loren Kieve of Kieve Law Offices in San Francisco, was also on the board of trustees of Planned Parenthood of Northern California and made two donations of $2,700 each to Harris’ senate campaign in 2015 and 2016. A Nov., 2015 newsletter of Planned Parenthood of Northern California listed Kieve as a new board member.

Two CEOs at regional Planned Parenthood affiliates donated to Harris’ campaign in 2016, and even to her presidential campaign in 2019.

Susan E. Dunlap, CEO of Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles, made two donations of $1,000 each to Harris’ campaign in 2016, and gave another $1,000 to Harris’ presidential campaign in 2019.

A board member of Planned Parenthood-Illinois Action, Bernadette Chopra, gave $1,500 to Harris’ campaign in 2015.

Two doctors who were instrumental in the creation of the HHS contraceptive mandate were also Harris donors in the 2016 cycle.

In 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) charged a panel of doctors to report on preventive care “gaps” that needed addressing. Congress had passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, and HHS was drafting its guidelines and rules to implement the law’s preventive services mandate.

This panel, the “Committee on Preventive Services for Women,” recommended that the HHS mandate the “full range of Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling” be covered in health plans, cost-free. This “range” of drugs and procedures included the Plan-B emergency contraceptive, which can act as an abortifacient.

The HHS accepted all the panel’s recommendations and crafted its contraceptive mandate that employers cover these drugs and procedures in their health plans; as many religious non-profits and businesses were not exempt from the mandate, eventually hundreds of lawsuits against the mandate were filed in court, including the case of the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Two of the doctors on this panel were Harris donors; panel chair Linda Rosenstock, currently the dean emeritus at University of California Los Angeles school of public health, made two donations of $1,000 each to Harris’ campaign in 2016. Kimberly Gregory of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles also gave $1,000 to Harris’ campaign in 2015.

Another Bay-area doctor, Dr. Nancy Milliken, helped found the National Center of Excellence in Women’s Health at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center which offers abortions, among other services. She gave $2,700 to Harris’ campaign in 2015, and four years later contributed $2,800 to Harris’ presidential campaign. She called the panel’s mandate of cost-free contraceptive coverage “central,” in a 2011 UCSF publication.

After she won her 2016 Senate campaign, Harris was appointed to the Senate Judiciary Committee in January of 2018—a prominent assignment where senators vet Supreme Court and federal judicial nominees, and executive appointees. In her time on the committee, she repeatedly pressed nominees on the issue of abortion, including her grilling of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

In Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings in September of 2018, Harris asked him about abortion and the “right to privacy,” and whether he thought a 20-week abortion ban was constitutional. She cited a letter by 31 “reproductive rights groups,” including by Planned Parenthood and NARAL, that stated concern about Kavanaugh.

In 2018, Harris also grilled three other federal judicial nominees about their membership in the Knights of Columbus, citing the Catholic group’s opposition to abortion, in line with Church teaching, and asking nominees if they were “aware” of that stance when they joined the Knights and if they agreed with it.

Harris asked nearly a dozen nominees about the Supreme Court’s 2016 ruling in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt. She also repeatedly brought up Roe v. Wade and asked nominees where they stood on the Supreme Court’s 1973 abortion ruling.

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