National prayer vigil for life to continue post-Roe

Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 2, 2021 / 02:33 pm (CNA).- In a statement Tuesday responding to media inquiries about US president Joe Biden’s stated devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the bishops of Mexico expressed hope that public office holders would be enlightened by her.

“As the Mexican Bishops’ Conference we are proud that the Virgin of Guadalupe is so loved and appreciated everywhere, beyond the bounds of languages, cultures, and traditions. We wish that all those who hold public office allow themselves to be enlightened by Our Mother in their way of living and serving so that they know how to promote the highest values that give life to peoples, such as health and peace, justice, truth, solidarity, care for the earth, defense of the poor, and promotion of the marginalized,” the bishops said in a March 2 press note.

They said their statement was “in response to inquiries from the media about what was expressed by the President of the United States Joe Biden about his devotion to the Virgin of Guadalupe.”

Biden had cited Our Lady of Guadalupe and displayed his rosary in a conversation with Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador March 1.

Biden, who is Catholic, claimed a devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe from his previous travels to Mexico as vice president.

“During my visits, I got to know Mexico a little bit and its people, and paid my respects to the Virgin of Guadalupe. As a matter of fact, I still have my rosary beads that my son was wearing when he passed,” Biden said, according to a White House transcript of the event.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is patroness, not only of the Americas, but of unborn children.

Biden is the second Catholic U.S. president, and the U.S. bishops’ conference has noted the unique circumstance of having a Catholic president who is not inconsistent with Church teaching on topics such as immigration and fighting poverty, yet contradicts Church teaching on abortion, marriage, religious freedom, and gender ideology.

Biden has supported taxpayer-funded abortion and has pledged to sign the Equality Act, legislation the USCCB has warned would codify gender ideology in law and would “punish” objecting religious groups.

In a Jan. 20 statement for Biden’s inauguration, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles offered prayers for the new president and emphasized his own role as bishop in forming consciences, rather than in being a partisan.

Biden, warned the USCCB president, “has pledged to pursue certain policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender. Of deep concern is the liberty of the Church and the freedom of believers to live according to their consciences.”

Abortion, said Gomez, “remains the ‘preeminent priority’” of the conference, as it “is a direct attack on life that also wounds the woman and undermines the family.”

Although Biden’s staff have referred to him as a “devout Catholic,” the USCCB’s pro-life chair has said they should stop using that term due to his support for abortion.

“The president should stop defining himself as a devout Catholic, and acknowledge that his view on abortion is contrary to Catholic moral teaching,” said Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, in an interview with Catholic World Report published on Feb. 13.

Archbishop Naumann noted that “we bishops have the responsibility to correct him” for using the term. He added that Biden “is usurping the role of the bishops and confusing people” by calling himself a “devout Catholic” while opposing the Church’s teaching on life.

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ACI Prensa Staff, Feb 27, 2023 / 13:15 pm (CNA).
Speaking with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Father Kirill Gorbunov, who is also vicar general of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of the Mot… […]

Gabriel Boric, who won the 2021 Chilean presidential election, speaks after a candidates’ debate, Oct. 10, 2021. / Mediabanco Agencia via Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Concepción, Chile, Dec 21, 2021 / 14:22 pm (CNA).

Archbishop Fernando Natalio Chomali Garib of Concepción has expressed his hope that Gabriel Boric Font, Chile’s president elect, “will recognize and value the religious soul of the Chilean people.”

Boric, of the Apruebo Dignidad alliance, won the Dec. 19 runoff presidential election.

Out of almost 15 million registered voters in the country and abroad, about 8.3 million people voted. Of these, Boric won 55.87% or about 4.6 million votes; while his opponent José Antonio Kast of the Christian Social Front coalition won 44.13% or about 3.6 million votes.

The 35-year-old president-elect will succeed Sebastián Piñera in March 2022 and will serve a four year term. In his campaign platform Boric proposed the incorporation of a feminist perspective, the implementation of policies such as “legal, free and safe abortion on demand”, and changes to the gender identity law.

To carry out his political agenda, Boric will have to negotiate with the Senate, whose political affiliations lean slightly to the right.

In the Chamber of Deputies, 44% of the 155 representatives are on the right of the political spectrum and the rest consists of the left and other parties.

Archbishop Chomali, who is vice president of the Chilean Bishops’ Conference’s Standing Committee, told the El Mercurio newspaper Dec. 20 that he hopes Boric “will recognize the immense work that the Church and so many other institutions do” and that the new president will value “the family as the place where people learn to grow”  and as such is an “irreplaceable source of happiness.”

The prelate said he hopes Boric will act decisively on behalf of the vulnerable such as the unborn child in the womb, the patient in a hospital bed, the immigrant on the border without documents, the homeless, or the disabled.

Archbishop Chomali also encouraged Boric to promote employment, “because it is a privileged path to overcome the poverty that afflicts so many Chileans.”

“I hope he sets an example of probity and works on everything necessary to end corruption, cronyism and quotas of all kinds as they are a significant source of injustice,” he added.

The Archbishop of Concepción said he hopes Boric “will never under any circumstances endorse violence in any form, wherever it comes from.”

“Lastly, I hope it goes well for him in his presidential term,” Archbishop Chomali concluded.

The Chilean Bishops’ Conference  reminded the president-elect that the “country has expressed a vote of confidence and entrusts you with a great mission, destined to direct the destiny of our country as its first authority and first servant.”

“We pray that God will give you his wisdom and his strength, which you will undoubtedly need,” the conference said.

“The mission is always greater than our possibilities and capabilities, but we trust that—with the collaboration of citizens, the work of various social and political actors, and the spiritual strength that comes from faith and from the deepest human convictions—you can face your task with generosity, commitment and prudence,”

The bishops also said that the Catholic Church in Chile “wants to continue contributing, from its particular mission, to building a more just and fraternal humanity, where especially the poor and those who suffer are respected in their dignity.”

“Count on our support and prayer, and on the contribution of our pastoral action, which we will always develop with due respect for the democratic order of our country and its legitimately elected authorities,” the message concluded.

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