California bishop praises district attorney for seeking to change death sentences

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St. Louis, Mo., Feb 10, 2023 / 17:45 pm (CNA).
Lawmakers in Missouri have announced at least two official investigations into a children’s transgender clinic in St. Louis, after a whistleblower revealed… […]

Denver Newsroom, Aug 5, 2020 / 04:37 pm (CNA).- The Knights of Columbus announced plans to create a new pilgrimage center for visitors to encounter the spirituality of the order’s founder, Fr. Michael McGivney, who is set to be beatified in October.

The Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center will be created at the current Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven, Connecticut.

Supreme Knight Carl Anderson said the center will offer pilgrims the opportunity to learn more about the group’s founder.

“While the museum will continue to recount the Knights’ history, it will also broaden its mission by focusing more on the spirituality and charitable vision of our founder and his legacy. A visit to the Blessed Michael McGivney Pilgrimage Center will enhance the formative experience of a pilgrimage to Father McGivney’s tomb at St. Mary’s,” he said.

Anderson made the announcement of the new pilgrimage center on Tuesday, during the Knights of Columbus’ 138th annual Supreme Convention. It is the first annual convention to be held completely virtually, as ongoing limitations due to the coronavirus pandemic have restricted in-person gatherings.

McGivney’s beatification Mass will take place on October 31 in Hartford, Connecticut.

Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to McGivney’s intercession in May. The miracle involved an unborn child in the United States who was healed in-utero of a life-threatening condition in 2015 after his family prayed to McGivney.

“For members of the Knights of Columbus and many others, the news of the beatification is a time of great joy and celebration. Father McGivney ministered to those on the margins of society in the 19th century, and his example has inspired millions of Knights to follow his example in their own parishes and communities,” said Anderson.

McGivney founded the Knights of Columbus in 1882. Today it is the world’s largest Catholic fraternal service organization, with nearly two million members in more than a dozen countries.

Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, in 1852, McGivney was ordained a priest in 1877. He served a largely Irish-American and immigrant community in New Haven.

Amid an anti-Catholic climate, he established the Knights to provide spiritual aid to Catholic men and financial help for families that had lost their breadwinner.

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI declared McGivney a Venerable Servant of God. He said McGivney was an “exemplary American priest” whose vision and zeal led to the establishment of the Knights of Columbus.

In a recent letter to the Knights, Pope Francis commended McGivney’s contributions to the world and Church. He said the priest’s service to the poor and vulnerable calls the Knights “to deepen their commitment to live as missionary disciples in charity, unity and fraternity.”

“His Holiness is grateful for these and for the many other countless ways in which the Knights of Columbus continue to bear prophetic witness to God’s dream for a more fraternal, just and equitable world in which all are recognized as neighbors and no one is left behind,” the pope said.

Following his beatification, McGivney’s cause will require one more authenticated miracle before he can be considered for canonization.

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump walks on stage to deliver the keynote address at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s Road to Majority Policy Conference at the Washington Hilton on June 22, 2024, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Samuel Corum/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 25, 2024 / 10:50 am (CNA).

Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee in the 2024 U.S. presidential election, has expressed his support for the pro-life activists who have been aggressively prosecuted and jailed under the Biden administration.

Trump raised the issue during a June 22 speech to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, where he specifically mentioned the case of 75-year-old Paulette Harlow, a Catholic, who was convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act this year. 

The U.S. Department of Justice has tried and convicted more than a dozen pro-life activists in 2024 based on the federal law, which increases penalties for anyone who obstructs access to an abortion clinic. Harlow, who is in poor health, was sentenced last month to 24 months in prison for participating in a blockade of an abortion clinic in Washington, D.C.

“Paulette is one of many peaceful pro-lifers who Joe Biden has rounded up, sometimes with SWAT teams, and thrown them in jail,” Trump said. “Many people are in jail over this. … We’re going to get that taken care of immediately — [on the] first day.”

Trump added that, if elected to another term as president, his administration would “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s unjustly victimized by the Biden regime, including Paulette, so we can get them out of the gulags and back to their families where they belong.”

When reached for comment, the former president’s national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, did not elaborate on Trump’s pledge. CNA specifically asked whether Trump would commit to pardoning Harlow and the other pro-life activists convicted of FACE Act violations during the Trump administration.

During his speech, Trump said Christians, and especially Catholics, are being persecuted under the county’s current leadership. The former president also reiterated his promise to create a federal task force to investigate anti-Christian bias and other forms of illegal discrimination against people of faith. 

“We will protect Christians in our schools, in our military, in our government, in our workplaces, in our hospitals, and in our public square,” Trump said.

Trump also took credit for the United States Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. He said abortion policy was given “back to the states … where the people [can] vote and make their decisions.” He said if Democrats “get their way, they will have a federal law for abortion to rip the baby out of the womb in the seventh, eighth, and ninth month and even execute the baby after birth.”

For her part, Leavitt said the Biden administration has “waged a yearslong assault on Christianity.” She added that, under Biden, the Federal Bureau of Investigation “plotted to infiltrate Catholic Masses to spy on attendees” and emphasized that as president, Trump will “end Biden’s discrimination against Christians and stand up for religious freedom, as he did in his first term.” 

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