Judge orders mental competency evaluation for L.A. bishop’s alleged murderer

Texas Children’s Hospital. / Credit: Zereshk|Wikipedia|CC BY-SA 3.0

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 24, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched an investigation into allegations that illegal sex-change procedures are being performed on minors at Texas Children’s Hospital. 

The probe follows news reports based on documents a whistleblower shared with City Journal. The outlet reported that Texas Children’s doctor Eithan Haim shared information showing that the hospital system had “secretly continued to perform transgender medical interventions … on minor children” despite it being illegal in Texas. 

Haim has since been indicted for allegedly breaking federal law by violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) while obtaining and disclosing the private health information of Texas Children’s pediatric patients. If found guilty, Haim faces up to 10 years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine.

A representative for Paxton’s office confirmed with CNA on Friday that Texas Children’s is currently being investigated. The hospital system, which is the largest children’s system in the U.S., is being investigated for potential Medicaid fraud in its sex-change program, according to National Review.

In addition to Haim, Texas Children’s nurse Vanessa Sivadge shared with City Journal information indicating that the hospital was “stealing” from the government by billing sex-change procedures on minors to Medicaid, which is illegal in Texas.

Brian Harrison, a Republican in the state Legislature, has also called on the Texas House to hold hearings on the potential Medicaid fraud by Texas Children’s and into the federal government’s actions in attempting to “silence” the whistleblowers.

In a Wednesday statement, Harrison called the administration’s actions “absolutely outrageous” and an attempt to protect “abusive and illegal practices.”

“The Texas House of Representatives must not sit idly by and allow this federal overreach to occur,” he continued.

Headquartered in Houston, Texas Children’s is the largest children’s hospital system in the U.S. The hospital announced in 2022 that it would be ceasing sex-change “therapies” and procedures, citing concerns that these practices were potentially illegal under Texas law.

This followed the publication of a directive by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Paxton that transgender procedures on minors could be considered “child abuse” in Texas. In 2023, Texas passed a law that explicitly bans sex-change procedures on children.

At least three doctors associated with Texas Children’s — Richard Roberts, David Paul, and Kristy Rialon — had continued to perform “gender-affirming” procedures on children throughout 2022 and 2023, according to whistleblower evidence published by Christopher Rufo of the Manhattan Institute. Rufo claimed that Rialon had been performing surgeries on minors ranging in age from 15 to as young as 1.

Sivadge, the nurse at Texas Children’s, further alleged that the hospital was potentially billing transgender procedures on children to Medicaid.

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Members of the U.S. Army carry the coffin containing the remains of Fr. Emil Kapaun to a hearse after they were unloaded in Kansas after a flight from Dallas that originated in Honolulu on Sept. 25. / Chris Riggs/Catholic Advance

Wichita, Kan., … […]

CNA Staff, Jun 30, 2020 / 05:19 pm (CNA).- A man has been arrested for allegedly tearing down a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of a county courthouse in northwest Montana.

The man, a 30-year-old Columbia Falls resident, allegedly wrapped a chain around the monument at the Flathead County courthouse grounds in Kalispell on June 27. He attached the chain to his truck, then pulled the monument into the street. He removed then chain, got into his truck, and left the area.

The Kalispell Police Department told NBC Montana that observers saw him and called police.

The accused man, Anthony Weimer, faces a felony charge of criminal mischief. Police said they did not know any motive for the action.

Kalispell Police Chief Doug Overman told MTN News he has no affiliation with any protest or demonstration groups in Flathead County.

Local media did not know whether the monument could be restored or if it had to be replaced.

The Ten Commandments monuments, often spread in collaboration with the movie of the same name, have been a tool for building Catholic, Protestant and Jewish unity in America. They have sometimes drawn objections, protests, and legal cases due to perceived violations of constitutional provisions regarding separation of church and state and non-establishment of a religion.

Many public monuments have been the focus of vandalism or have been thrown down in recent weeks.

Largely peaceful protests against police brutality swept the United States after the spread of video showing the death of Minnesotan George Floyd, a black man, during his detention by police.

However, civil unrest, looting, and vandalism have sometimes accompanied or followed these protests. Long-controversial statues of Confederate leaders were toppled in some localities, as were statues of George Washington, Christopher Columbus, and Ulysses S. Grant.

At least two statues of St. Junipero Serra were knocked down by rioters in California.

During the eighteenth century, the saint founded nine Catholic missions in the area that would later become California, many of those missions would go on to become the centers of major California cities. Serra helped to convert thousands of native Californians to Christianity and taught them new agricultural technologies.

Critics have lambasted Serra as a symbol of European colonialism and said the missions engaged in the forced labor of Native Americans, sometimes claiming Serra himself was abusive.

But Serra’s defenders say that Serra was actually an advocate for native people and a champion of human rights. They note the many native people he helped during his life, and their outpouring of grief at his death.

Biographers note that Serra frequently intervened for native people when they faced persecution from Spanish authorities. In one case, the priest intervened to spare the lives of several California natives who had attacked a Spanish outpost.

In St. Louis, Missouri the statue of the city’s namesake French king St. Louis IX has drawn protests from Muslims, Jews, and others who object to the crusader king. The statue has also drawn hundreds of Catholic defenders who have prayed at the base of the statue.

St. Louis was King of France from 1226-70, and he took part in the Seventh and Eighth Crusades. He restricted usury and established hospitals, and personally cared for the poor and for lepers. He was canonized in 1297.

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