Close to 100 Spanish youths to walk almost 800 miles to World Youth Day in Lisbon

Boston Children’s Hospital / JosephBarillari|Wikipedia|CC BY-SA 3.0

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 4, 2022 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

Three top medical groups have called on Biden’s justice department to investigate and prosecute activists and journalists who report on hospitals that perform irreversible gender surgeries on children. 

The American Medical Association (AMA), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), and Children’s Hospital Association (CHA) asked Attorney General Merrick Garland to launch an investigation on Monday in a letter saying the backlash against children’s hospitals that perform gender surgeries amounted to “attacks.” 

“Children’s hospitals, academic health systems, and physicians are being targeted and threatened for providing evidence-based health care,” the letter read.

The letter claims that hospitals and medical staff who came under fire this summer for operating children’s gender clinics have faced harassment on social media and threats of violence in the form of emails, phone calls, and protestors. The letter also referred to a bomb threat that was later discovered to be false.

“The attacks are rooted in an intentional campaign of disinformation, where a few high-profile users on social media share false and misleading information targeting individual physicians and hospitals, resulting in a rapid escalation of threats, harassment, and disruption of care across multiple jurisdictions,” the letter states. 

The groups urged the Department of Justice to “investigate” and “prosecute” anyone responsible for spreading “disinformation” about gender programs. 

“We now urge your office to take swift action to investigate and prosecute all organizations, individuals, and entities responsible,” they wrote. 

Children’s hospitals received backlash for their own content 

One of the hospitals in question is Boston Children’s, which became infamous on social media earlier this summer when activists Libs of TikTok and Chris Elston, also known as “Billboard Chris,” highlighted the hospital’s own videos and website promoting its “first of a kind” gender clinic for kids.

Elston pointed out that the hospitals were coming under fire for their own published content.

“All I do is write the simple but horrific truth about what these clinics are doing to kids,” Elston told CNA.

“I’ve shared content which children’s hospitals themselves produced, and then tried to hide. It’s the words of their own doctors which cause the outrage.” 

Back in August, Elston shared screenshots on Twitter of Boston Children’s website, which said it offered double mastectomies for children as young as 15 and sterilizing genital surgeries for patients as young as 17.

After the hospital’s own videos describing these procedures went viral online, Boston Children’s removed the reference to 17-year-olds and updated its website to say patients must be 18 years of age to qualify. 

The hospital also deleted its entire YouTube playlist of at least 40 videos featuring surgeons describing the procedures.

Conservative activists such as Chris Rufo and Matt Walsh have also publicized the video playlists and websites of other children’s hospitals across the country that offer gender surgeries for children. 

Rufo took to Twitter on Monday, saying: “If ‘gender-affirming care’ is so good, the activists and doctors who promote it — and profit from it — should defend their practices in the realm of public opinion.”

Former transgender teen Chloe Cole replied, “‘Gender affirming care’ is so great that we need to violate 1A rights to convince people of how great it is!!!”

Boston Children’s Hospital did not respond to CNA’s request for comment. 

In the letter, the medical groups also called on tech companies, including Twitter, TikTok, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to censor what they called “disinformation.” 

“[We] ask the platforms to take bolder action when false information is shared about specific institutions and physicians” and “do more to prevent coordinated campaigns of disinformation,” the organizations wrote.

Elston told CNA he has already experienced these effects.

“Twitter is already censoring me, requiring people to enter a birthdate before viewing my account, and flagging all media as ‘sensitive content.’ They’ve also made my account unsearchable,” he said.

But Elston and other activists fighting against gender transitions for children are not deterred. 

“Trying to silence us only amplifies our voices,” he said. “If the AMA and AAP want the outrage over gender clinics to cease, there is only one solution: stop transitioning kids.”

When CNA reached out for comment, the AMA referred to a joint press release put out by the three organizations in lieu of a comment. 

AMA president Dr. Jack Resneck said in the release, “We condemn groups that promote hate-motivated intolerance and toxic misinformation that can lead to grave real-world violence and extremism and jeopardize patients’ health outcomes.” 

“The AMA will continue to work with federal, state, and local law enforcement officials to develop and implement strategies that protect hardworking, law-abiding physicians and other health care workers from senseless acts of violence, abuse, and intimidation,” he added.

The AAP, CHA, and DOJ did not respond to CNA’s requests for comment.

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CNA Staff, Sep 2, 2020 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- A Polish bishop dismissed Wednesday suggestions that the country’s bishops want to force people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender to undergo therapy.

In a Sept. 2 statement, Bishop J… […]

Cardinal Wilton Gregory of the Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., blesses the newly unveiled “National Life Monument” on the campus of The Catholic University of America’s Theological College on May 17, 2023. / Peter Pinedo|CNA

Washington D.C., May 17, 2023 / 15:58 pm (CNA).

The new “National Life Monument,” a larger-than-life bronze sculpture depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary pregnant with the Christ Child, was unveiled and dedicated today on the campus of The Catholic University of America’s Theological College in Washington, D.C.

According to the Canadian artist Timothy Paul Schmalz, the statue, titled “Advent,” is meant to be a symbol of beauty, a celebration of new life, and a bold pro-life statement in the nation’s capital.

Schmalz was present at the dedication ceremony along with the archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, and Canadian Cardinal Marc Ouellet. Gregory prayed over the monument, giving a special blessing to the statue and those present for the dedication.

Gregory praised the monument, saying, “Advent, as a pregnant Madonna, transcends bronze, revealing a deeper significance, deeper truths of God and of us, and his love for each of us, graced as we are in his image and likeness.”

The statue is entirely bronze except for the Blessed Virgin’s womb, which is made of reflective stainless steel. The Virgin Mother lovingly cradles her womb in which Jesus is depicted as an unborn baby. Our Lady is portrayed with a serene and peaceful countenance as she holds the Christ Child in her womb. The steel, which Schmalz describes as a “mystical material,” forms a type of halo around the unborn Christ Child.

“The hope with this sculpture is bringing a permanent, physical symbol that says ‘yes’ to life, that says life is great,” Schmalz told CNA. “To have it here in the nation’s capital is making a powerful statement. It’s saying that we have to celebrate all human life, and all human life is splendid and wonderful, and it’s mystical.”

Crafting a pro-life sculpture was something like solving a riddle, Schmalz said. For years he pondered how to create something that would send a bold pro-life message that wasn’t just “about the horror of abortion.”

“The idea is very difficult within a culture that, as Pope John Paul II said, we’re in a culture of death,” Schmalz said. “So, to put a sculpture called life in the center of Washington, D.C., is in a sense a peaceful weapon to persuade.”

By placing the monument in a high-traffic, public setting in Washington, D.C., Schmalz hopes his statue will not just “preach to the choir” but also touch the hearts of nonbelievers and even those who may be abortion supporters.

“Ideally, I’ll have people coming across here that might be ambiguous about their ideas of abortion, but they will come take a look at this and they will say, ‘You know, I have to say, that sculpture is beautiful,’ and if they’re saying the sculpture is beautiful, what it’s expressing is also beautiful,” Schmalz said. “If it touches one person, I think it’s done its job.”

To Schmalz, each sculpture he makes is a form of prayer that serves a specific function. As a Catholic artist, he believes that the work of faithful artists is about creating “visible ambassadors” of the faith to witness “in a culture that’s trying to remove Christianity.”

When it comes to his Life Monument, Schmalz’s depiction of the Madonna as a young, pregnant woman sends a very intentional message.

“If you look at the amount of positive life symbols out there, like even paintings of pregnant women or a new family, they’re becoming rare,” Schmalz said. “I’ve noticed over the last decade or so that we’re seeing less babies, less baby carriages, and less symbols around that. Our culture used to be filled with it. But now it’s becoming absolutely minimalized.”

This cultural shift, Schmalz believes, has led many young women to believe that having a child is something negative to be dreaded. The result of this anti-life mindset, Schmalz said, is having a devastating impact on society.

“Pope Francis said we’ve got to stop having pets and start having babies,” Schmalz said. “Elon Musk was basically suggesting the same thing, that we’re going to be in serious trouble if we don’t have babies.”

“We have to celebrate human life and that’s what this sculpture is saying,” Schmalz explained.

Schmalz is one of the most renowned Catholic artists of today. His work is displayed across the world from his “Angels Unawares” piece displaying immigrants at the Vatican to his “Homeless Jesus” in the Holy Land to a multitude of other works, religious and nonreligious, in the U.S. and beyond.

A smaller version of the National Life Monument is also on display in Rome’s Church of San Marcello al Corso. According to the statue’s website, Schmalz has plans to place life-sized copies of the National Life Monument in every state across the U.S.

A second casting of Schmalz’s “Angels Unawares,” pictured above, is also on display on Catholic University’s campus.

Father Daniel Moore, provincial superior of the U.S. Society of St. Sulpice, who presided over the dedication ceremony, explained that he hopes Schmalz’s statues will help people realize the sacredness of life and the obligation to help pregnant women, mothers, and those in need.

Schmalz, Moore said, “is using his gift of sculpting, his artistry much like the masons did when they built the great cathedrals, and then the stained glass within the cathedrals. They have become ways of communicating God’s message to us, God’s love to us, the story of how much we are cherished by God.”

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