Republicans attempting to move away from ‘pro-life’ terminology: ‘Need to be specific’

Chicago, Ill., Mar 16, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- With public Masses suspended in many U.S. dioceses due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many bishops and pastors have suggested that Catholics can benefit from increased personal prayer, and watching a live broadcast of Mass while making a spiritual communion from home. 

Fr. Dan Folwaczny, associate pastor at St. Norbert and Our Lady of the Brook Parish in Northbrook, IL, told CNA that watching Mass online or on tv is one way for Catholics to stay connected with the parish and the Church, even if they cannot gather together.

Folwaczny’s parish decided to begin livestreaming Mass after the Archdiocese of Chicago suspended public liturgies.

Celebrating Mass in a near empty room is “definitely kind of strange,” Folwaczny told CNA on Monday, March 16. 

“Normally, when you are saying the prayers, it’s very easy to look out over the congregation and see who’s there and you know, what comes to mind,” he said, explaining that being able to see the assembly helps to remind him of the circumstances of individual parishioners and remember them in his prayers. 

While churches are closed for the time being, Fr. Folwaczny echoed the encouragement of many priests and bishops for the faithful to tune into Mass if possible, and to make a spiritual communion. 

A spiritual communion, he explained, “is a way for us to say, okay, whatever the reason is, I can’t receive communion at this moment.” 

“But what happens at communion? We enter into this deep relationship, this presence of the grace of Jesus Christ and in the Eucharist in particular, His body and soul and divinity. And so as Catholics, we want that. We want that deep communion with our God. But again, it’s not always possible,” he said.  

When making a spiritual communion, the person “asks God in prayer in those moments when He knows that this thing is not possible for us at this time, to still come into our hearts at least spiritually, to come into our lives, to continue to fill us with the grace that we need to be sustained, even though we can’t receive the Eucharist at this time,” Folwaczny explained. 

For most of the Church’s history–until the early 20th century–Catholics did not habitually receive the Eucharist every Sunday. Folwaczny told CNA that he hopes this uncertain time of suspended Masses and decreased physical access to the sacraments will help Catholics “enter into a deeper solidarity with those around the world” who still lack access to regular Masses, either because of the remoteness of where they live, a shortage of priests, or the threat of violence. 

Fr. Folwaczny said that Catholics should still remember to keep the Sabbath holy even though there may be no chance to physically attend a Mass. 

“Set aside time on Sunday or Saturday evening to go through the readings for the day, to try and pray together as a family, or if they don’t have others living with them, to pray on their own,” he said. 

“The hope is that with this access now to live streaming, that it’s a way too that people can hear from their own pastors and their own priests. And I think that’s something that still matters to your average parishioner, that they can still feel a sense of connection.”

If your parish is not live-streaming Mass, here are five places Mass can be streamed or watched, in a variety of time zones, languages, and rites:

EWTN 

EWTN’s YouTube Channel contains videos of nearly all of the television channel’s programming, including daily and Sunday Masses. It can be found here.

LiveMass.net

LiveMass.net is an apostolate of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), and the website streams the Tridentine Mass (also known as the extraordinary form) five times each weekday and eight times each Sunday. In addition to Masses, the website also occasionally streams compline, vespers, and a Holy Hour. An exact schedule can be found on the website.

Catholic Information Center
The Catholic Information Center, an apostolate of the Opus Dei located in Washington, D.C., will be streaming daily Mass, as well as a rosary and Eucharistic adoration, each weekday on their website, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, starting at 9:30 a.m. EDT. Click here for their YouTube channel. 

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the seat of the Archbishop of Los Angeles, streams Mass live in both English and Spanish on Sundays, and in English throughout the week. Past Masses are then uploaded to the cathedral’s YouTube channel.  

Archdiocese of Chicago

Due to the threat of COVID-19, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that daily Mass from St. Joseph’s Chapel will be streamed each day starting March 17. Sunday Mass is streamed in English, Spanish, and Polish on the archdiocese’s website.

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Columbus, Ohio, Jul 27, 2017 / 06:07 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic leaders in Ohio stressed the need to replace the death penalty with mercy and spiritual conversion, following the execution of convicted child murderer Ronald Phillips.

“The Catholic Church believes that the death penalty is an unnecessary and systemically flawed form of punishment,” the Ohio Catholic Conference said in a statement.

“The Catholic bishops of Ohio sought mercy for Mr. Phillips because of the belief that spiritual conversion is possible and that all life – even that of the worst offender – has value and dignity.”

“May his soul, through the mercy of God, rest in peace,” the conference said.

The July 26 execution was the first in Ohio since a botched 2014 execution. Phillips, 43, was executed by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio, the Associated Press reports. He was convicted for the 1993 rape and killing of three-year-old Sheila Marie Evans, his girlfriend’s daughter.

He gave his final statement ten minutes before his death.

“Sheila Marie didn’t deserve what I did to her,” Phillips said, telling the girl’s family “I’m sorry you had to live so long with my actions.”

Phillips had spent much of the morning praying, kneeling and reading the Bible. Ohio Gov. John Kasich had rejected clemency in 2016, citing “the extremely brutal nature of the offense committed against an innocent 3-year-old child.”

The Ohio Catholic Conference previously cited Pope Francis’ address to Congress in which he had called for an end to the death penalty.

Karen Clifton, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, said her organization was “deeply saddened” by the resumption of the executions.

“Our prayers are with the victim, her family and all those who were asked to participate in Ronald Phillips’ execution,” she said.

“Ronald Phillips committed a horrific crime, but through the grace of God’s transformational love became a person who asked for forgiveness and journeyed with others from anger and hate to repentance,” Clifton continued. “Today’s execution highlights the need for mercy and reconciliation in our justice system.”

She called on Ohio to reconsider the 26 other scheduled executions.

Other opponents include the group Ohioans to Stop Executions, which had delivered over 27,500 signatures to Gov. Kasich asking him to postpone the state’s executions, including that of Phillips. The group sought better safeguards to prevent sentencing innocent people to death and endorsed 56 recommendations the Ohio Supreme Court’s death penalty task force made to the state legislature, Cleveland.com reports.

European pharmaceutical companies have barred the sale of their drugs for the purpose of executions, causing difficulties for Ohio state officials in charge of executions. Officials say they have enough of the drugs to carry out three executions.

Executions had been halted following the January 2014 execution of Dennis McGuire, in which he was seen clenching his fists, trying to sit up, gasping for breath and choking as the drugs took a record 26 minutes to kill him.
 
The execution used an untested drug cocktail that included the sedative midazolam and the morphine derivative hydromorphone. In a letter to Gov. Kasich, 17 former corrections officials and administrators had warned of possible errors in the use of midazolam, warning that a disturbing execution could traumatize corrections officials.

McGuire was condemned for the 1989 murder of a woman and her unborn child. In the months before his execution, he had returned to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and was an attendee at the prison’s weekly Masses for inmates. At the Mass before his execution, he was a recipient of the anointing of the sick and dying, and received spiritual direction.

Since capital punishment resumed in Ohio in 1999, 54 people have been executed.

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Washington D.C., Dec 13, 2018 / 02:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A bill was introduced Monday in the US House of Representatives to require that the State Department include “reproductive rights” in its annual human rights report.

The Reproductive Rights are Human Rights Act of 2018 was introduced Dec. 10 by Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA-5), and was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.

The Trump administration’s State Department included statistics on “coercion in population control” rather than “reproductive rights” in its 2017 annual human rights report.

The State Department’s decision was applauded by pro-life leaders.

“‘Reproductive rights’ has long been a euphemism for destroying human life in the womb,” said Lila Rose, founder and president of the pro-life group Live Action, said when the report was released in April.

“A phrase that sounds like empowerment is a really only code for the subjugation of preborn children,” Rose added.

Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, told CNA at the time that abortion is an “inappropriate indicator of human rights.”

The Reproductive Rights are Human Rights Act is a direct response to the State Department’s decision.

A statement from Clark’s office said that “removing women’s right from the annual report in 2017 was a dramatic and dangerous shift in U.S. efforts to protect the international rights of women.”

The State Department began including “reproductive rights” in its human rights report in 2011.

Clark commented that “documenting and reporting human rights violations is a major part of eradicating their existence. This bill would ensure that our State Department maintains its vital role as an international watchdog and protector of women’s rights no matter the ideology of our White House.”

Rep. Nita Lowey, a co-sponsor of the bill, characterized the State Department’s decision as the US “turn[ing] its back on the countless women around the world who are deprived of basic reproductive rights.”

Another cosponsor, Rep. Lois Frankel, asserted: “Women’s rights are human rights. There is no greater right for women than to be in charge of their own bodies.”

Among the 45 organizations which have endorsed the bill are the Center for Reproductive Rights, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the American Psychological Association, and the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, stated that “when women’s rights are limited and they are unable to access basic health care like contraception, safe abortion, and maternal health care, their ability to achieve economic, social, and political empowerment is fundamentally hindered.”

The State Department’s report currently includes a section on “Coercion in Population Control”, under a larger section titled “Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons”. The new section appears under the subsection for “women” and features reports of coerced abortion, involuntary sterilization procedures, and “other coercive population control methods.” There are also links to maternal mortality figures as well as the prevalence of contraceptives in a country.

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