Month: March 2024

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News Briefs

South Dakota to create ‘Med Ed’ video to combat ‘abortion misinformation’

March 28, 2024 Catholic News Agency 2
South Dakota’s Governor Kristi Noem arrives to speak during the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) meeting on Feb. 23, 2024, in National Harbor, Maryland. / Credit: MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 28, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

A prominent pro-life group is praising South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for signing a “Med Ed” bill that it says will mandate the creation of an informational video to combat “abortion misinformation.”

According to a March 25 statement by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), the South Dakota bill is the “first legislation of its kind drafted to end the confusion caused by the abortion lobby through direct education to doctors.”

Kelsey Pritchard, SBA state public affairs director, said in the statement that “though every state with a pro-life law allows pregnant women to receive emergency care, the abortion industry has sown confusion on this fact to justify their position of abortion without limits.”

“With many in the media refusing to fact-check this obvious lie, other states should look to South Dakota in combating dangerous abortion misinformation,” she said.

The bill, passed overwhelmingly by the Republican-controlled legislature, was signed into law by Noem, who is also a Republican, on Monday. Introduced by state Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt, who is a nurse, the bill requires the South Dakota Department of Health to create an informational video describing the state’s abortion law and clarifying when “life-threatening or health-threatening” exceptions apply.

Now that the bill has been passed into law the Department of Health has until Sept. 1 to create the video and accompanying informational materials. The video and materials will be posted to the Department of Health’s website for doctors and the public to use as a reference in understanding the state’s abortion laws.

South Dakota is one of 14 states that prohibit abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. While some states allow exceptions in cases of rape, incest, and fetal anomaly, South Dakota only makes exceptions in cases where the mother’s life or health is in danger.

The ACLU of South Dakota decried the bill when it passed out of committee, saying in a Feb. 28 statement that it “gives anti-abortion activists a guise to appear to care about pregnant patients while actually passing legislation that further enshrines anti-abortion cruelty.”

Pritchard, however, said that the new informational material will help to clear up confusion on when the exception allows an abortion to take place in the state.

“Regardless of political affiliation or whether someone is pro-life or pro-choice, South Dakotans of all philosophies can celebrate that moms will be better protected through direct education to our doctors on their ability to exercise reasonable medical judgment in all situations,” she said.

According to SBA, Kentucky and Oklahoma have also taken steps to clarify their abortion exceptions and the Texas Medical Board is currently considering issuing a clarification to its life of the mother exception.

[…]

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News Briefs

Easter holiday is canceled then restored in heavily Christian Indian state

March 28, 2024 Catholic News Agency 0
St. Paul’s Church, in Imphal, capital of Manipur state, after the church was set on fire in 2023. / Credit: Anto Akkara

Bangalore, India, Mar 28, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

After Indian officials’ announcement that Easter Sunday would be a “working day” this year was met with widespread protests from Christians, the governor of the state of Manipur in northeast India issued a statement reestablishing the annual holiday.

The March 28 reversal by the Manipur government, which is led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came within 24 hours after Manipur Gov. Anusuiya Uikey canceled the Easter holiday.

“In partial modification of the government order … dated 27th March, 2024, the governor of Manipur is pleased to declare that only the 30th March 2024 [Saturday] will be working day for all government offices,” the order read.

The previous day the government had announced that “the governor of Manipur is pleased to declare 30th [Saturday] and 31st [Sunday] March 2024 as working days for all government offices.”

Christians account for nearly half of Manipur’s population of 3.7 million. 

Archbishop Linus Neli, who heads the 100,000-strong Catholic Church in the state, told CNA that the Church had protested the cancellations of the Easter holiday to government officials. 

“We are storming the competent authority, awaiting reply,” Neli said.

A half an hour later, the archbishop shared with CNA the government’s “revised order regarding [Easter] working day.”

Tribal dancers waiting their turn at the celebration following the installation Mass of the new archbishop of Imphal Archdiocese, Linus Neli. Credit: Anto Akkara
Tribal dancers waiting their turn at the celebration following the installation Mass of the new archbishop of Imphal Archdiocese, Linus Neli. Credit: Anto Akkara

Prior to that, several Christian groups including those in Manipur had called for the cancellation of the order that stunned the Christians across the country.

“The decision to declare these sacred days as regular working days is not only insensitive but also disrespectful towards the religious sentiments of the significant portion of the population in Manipur,” lamented the Senapati District Catholic Union of Manipur in its condemnation of the governor’s order on the morning of March 28.

Of the 3.7 million Christians in Manipur state, 26% are ethnic Naga tribals, 16% are members of Kuki tribes, and more than 10% of the nearly 2 million Meiteis have also embraced the Christian faith in Manipur.

“By compelling government offices to operate on these holy days, the order not only disregards the religious rights of the Christian community but also fails to recognize the cultural diversity and religious pluralism that should be upheld and respected in democratic society,” the Senapati district Catholic forum pointed out.

“Height of insanity of the Manipur government,” a Christian pastor from Manipur who runs a theological college outside Manipur told CNA.

“What is happening is Manipur is nothing new,” John Dayal, an outspoken Catholic columnist and activist, told CNA.

“The BJP governments both at the national level and in several states had tried to insult and tinker with Christian holy days like Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter several times in the past,” Dayal pointed out.

“In 2002, I moved the Delhi High Court successfully against the bid to make Good Friday and Easter Sunday ‘working days’ against the Atal Behari Vajpayee [who was the BJP prime minister then],” said Dayal, a former member of the National Integration Council headed by the prime minister.

“This Manipur move is keeping with [Prime Minister] Modi’s consistent scheme to whittle away rights of Christianity and Islam in new ‘Bharat.’” (Bharat is the new name the Hindu nationalist BJP has proposed for India).

Since May 2023, Manipur has seen a protracted violent clash between the majority Meiteis, most of them Hindus, and the minority Kukis (all of them Christians) that has left more than 230 dead by the official conservative death toll. Over 50,000 Kuki Christians have been chased out from the Imphal valley along with over 10,000 Meiteis who were driven out from Kuki strongholds.

Amid the violence, over 600 churches have also been destroyed. The majority of them were Kuki, but 250 Meiti Christian churches were destroyed as well in what is seen as an attempt to stop Meiteis from embracing the Christian faith. 

Meanwhile, in another piece of good news for the Christian community, Carmelite Sister Mercy, who had been arrested on a charge of “abetting the suicide” of a sixth-grade girl at the Carmel School in Ambikapur in central Chattisgarh state, was released on bail on March 28 by the trial court.

The girl student committed suicide at home after the nun had questioned her and two other girls for being together in the bathroom for a long period of time. After other students complained to the nun, she asked the girls to bring the parents to school the next day.

Following the suicide of the girl, Hindu nationalist organizations promptly organized a huge crowd to march to the school. Police were brought in and arrested the nun the next morning. Although the large crowd tried to storm the school on Feb. 8, police prevented an arson attack.

[…]

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News Briefs

On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis asks priests to weep over their sins

March 28, 2024 Catholic News Agency 2
Pope Francis presides at the Vatican’s chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Mar 28, 2024 / 09:30 am (CNA).

On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis presided over a chrism Mass at which more than 1,880 priests, bishops, and cardinals renewed the promises made at their ordinations.

Pope Francis encouraged the priests to turn their gaze upon the crucified Lord and to weep over their sins in repentance, saying that tears can “purify and heal the heart.”

“Once we recognize our sin, our hearts can be opened to the working of the Holy Spirit, the source of living water that wells up within us and brings tears to our eyes,” Francis said on March 28.

Pope Francis speaks at the Vatican's chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Pope Francis speaks at the Vatican’s chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

“The Lord seeks, especially in those consecrated to him, men and women who weep for the sins of the Church and the world and become intercessors on behalf of all,” he added.

Forty-two cardinals, 42 bishops, and 1,800 priests living in Rome concelebrated the Mass with the pope in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Holy Thursday marks the institution of the Eucharist and institution of the sacrament of the priesthood at the Last Supper. Pope Francis will also preside over a Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Thursday evening at a women’s prison in Rome.

The 87-year-old pope arrived in St. Peter’s Basilica on Thursday morning in a wheelchair. Before giving his more than 20-minute homily, the pope took a sip of water and put on his reading glasses.

Pope Francis reflected in his homily on Peter’s tears after denying the Lord three times as recorded in the Gospel of Luke: “Peter remembered the word of the Lord … and went out and wept bitterly.”

Cardinal Angelo De Donatis presides at the altar during the Vatican's chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Cardinal Angelo De Donatis presides at the altar during the Vatican’s chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

“Dear brother priests, the healing of the heart of Peter, the healing of the apostle, the healing of the pastor, came about when, grief-stricken and repentant, he allowed himself to be forgiven by Jesus. That healing took place amid tears, bitter weeping, and the sorrow that leads to renewed love,” he said.

Compunction

Pope Francis said that he wanted to speak to the priests about the importance of compunction — an awareness of guilt due to sin — which the pope admitted is a “somewhat old-fashioned” term and “an aspect of the spiritual life that has been somewhat neglected, yet remains essential.”

The pope added that compunction “is not a sense of guilt that makes us discouraged or obsessed with our unworthiness, but a beneficial ‘piercing’ that purifies and heals the heart.”

“Compunction demands effort but bestows peace. It is not a source of anxiety but of healing for the soul, since it acts as a balm upon the wounds of sin, preparing us to receive the caress of the heavenly physician, who transforms the ‘broken, contrite heart,’” Pope Francis said.

Clergy assembled at the Vatican's Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Clergy assembled at the Vatican’s Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

The pope said that through compunction “the natural tendency to be indulgent with ourselves and inflexible with others is overturned and, by God’s grace, we become strict with ourselves and merciful toward others.”

“Weeping for ourselves … means seriously repenting for saddening God by our sins … It means looking within and repenting of our ingratitude and inconstancy, and acknowledging with sorrow our duplicity, dishonesty, and hypocrisy — clerical hypocrisy, dear brothers, that hypocrisy which we slip into so much — beware of clerical hypocrisy,” Francis said.

“How greatly we need to be set free from harshness and recrimination, selfishness and ambition, rigidity and frustration, in order to entrust ourselves completely to God and to find in him the calm that shields us from the storms raging all around us,” he added.

“Let us pray, intercede, and shed tears for others; in this way, we will allow the Lord to work his miracles. And let us not fear, for he will surely surprise us.”

During the Vatican’s chrism Mass, the pope, as the bishop of Rome, blessed the oil of the sick, the oil of catechumens, and the chrism oil, which will be used in the diocese during the coming year. Cardinal Angelo De Donatis served as the celebrant at the altar.

The oils were processed up the main altar of St. Peter’s in large silver urns as the hymns of the Sistine Chapel Choir filled the basilica.

Urns of oil are displayed at the Vatican's Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA
Urns of oil are displayed at the Vatican’s Chrism Mass on Holy Thursday, March 28, 2024. Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Pope Francis prayed over the oil of the sick: “O God, Father of all consolation, who through your Son have willed to heal the infirmities of the sick, listen favorably to this prayer of faith: Send down from heaven, we pray, your Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, upon the rich substance of this oil, which you were pleased to bring forth from vigorous green trees to restore our bodies, so that by your holy blessing this oil may be for anyone who is anointed with it a safeguard for body, mind, and spirit, to take away every pain, every infirmity, and every sickness.”

The blessed oil will be used for the anointing of the sick in Rome throughout the year.

Pope Francis thanked the priests gathered in St. Peter’s Basilica for all they do to bring “the miracle of God’s mercy” to the world today.  

“Dear priests, thank you for your open and docile hearts; thank you for your labors and thank you for your tears; thank you because you bring the miracle of mercy … you bring God to the brothers and sisters of our time,” he said. “Dear priests, may the Lord console you, confirm you, and reward you.”

Watch the full Mass here:

[…]

No Picture
News Briefs

5 tips for evangelizing on social media

March 28, 2024 Catholic News Agency 1

Based on his extensive apostolate on the internet, Dominican friar Nelson Medina offers several tips. / Credit: Shutterstock

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 28, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).
Friar Nelson Medina, a Dominican known for his extensive apostolate on… […]

The Dispatch

“I was in prison and you came to me”

March 28, 2024 CWR Staff 16

On Holy Thursday, Pope Francis will perform one of the seven traditional corporal works of mercy: “to visit the prisoner.” Most of the others acts of mercy—“to feed the hungry,” “to give drink to the […]