Biden to award Presidential Citizens Medal to abortion and gay marriage activists

Philadelphia, Pa., May 17, 2018 / 02:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A group of foster parents and social workers appeared in court on Wednesday, asking that the city of Philadelphia rescind its decision to ban a Catholic organization from placing children in foster homes.

The plaintiffs of Sharonell Fulton et al. v. City of Philadelphia told a US District Court May 16 that they are being discriminated against because of their agency’s deeply-held religious beliefs.

For over a century, Philadelphia has worked with Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (CSS) to facilitate the placement of children in foster care. Catholic Social Services has assisted with home visits, training of foster parents, and placements. At any given time CSS serves about 120 foster children in 100 foster homes. In 2017, the charity says it helped more than 2,200 children in the Philadelphia area.

In March, CSS was informed that the city would no longer be referring foster children to the agency for assistance. Philadelphia then passed a resolution calling for an investigation into religiously-based foster care services, after a same-sex couple claimed they were discriminated against by a different faith-based agency.

CSS has not been the subject of discrimination complaints by same-sex couples. The agency says that it assists all children in need, regardless of a child’s race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Catholic Social Services will not stand in the way of anyone who wants to try and become a foster parent,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Becket is providing counsel for the case.

“They’re simply asking that they can continue to serve the children of Philadelphia consistent with their faith.”

The suit’s lead plaintiff, Sharonell Fulton, has “fostered more than 40 children over 25-plus years as a foster parent. She has cared for children with significant medical needs and is currently caring for two special needs foster children,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit claims that Fulton “could not provide the extensive care that these special-needs children require without the support she receives from Catholic Social Services.”

Other plaintiffs include a foster parent recognized in 2015 as one Philadelphia’s “Foster Parents of the Year,” and a long-time social worker, herself a foster parent, who claims that she would likely discontinue providing foster care to children if she could not work with CSS. The agency itself is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

If the city declines to renew its current contract with CSS, which expires at the end of June, there’s a chance that children in CSS foster-care placements will be immediately removed from their homes. Windham, however, is hopeful that this will not be the case.

Since the policy went into place, Philadelphia has put out calls for new foster parents, as the city is facing a severe shortage. According to Windham, there are at least a dozen empty foster homes in the city–which are empty because they work with CSS.

Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Chief Communications Officer Kenneth Gavin told CNA that the archdiocese is disappointed that the city decided to stop partnering with CSS, despite its history of providing care for children.

“Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (CSS) recognizes the vital importance of the foster care program in our city and is proud to provide safe and nurturing foster environments to young people in need. We have been providing those environments for over a century. We were extremely disappointed when the City ceased new foster care child intakes with CSS in late March of this year,” said Gavin.
 
Gavin said the foster care program provides care “for all those in need with dignity, charity, and respect regardless of their background.” Given that the Philadelphia is in “a foster care crisis,” Gavin said he hopes that CSS will be permitted to continue providing care for needy children.
 
The lawsuit is expected to be heard later this year.
 

 

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Newark, N.J., May 18, 2018 / 03:30 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After a fire destroyed their chapel just days before Pentecost, a community of Salesian sisters expressed gratitude for the first responders who extinguished the flames and saved the church’… […]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 5, 2022 / 13:31 pm (CNA).

U.S. Catholic voters are split on the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, but a majority agrees that abortion should be restricted and that there should be at least some protections for the unborn child in the womb, according to a new EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll. 

The court’s June 24 ruling in the Mississippi abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization upended 49 years of nationwide legalized abortion and freed states to regulate abortion as they see fit.

When asked whether they agreed or disagreed with Roe being overturned, 46.2% agreed, 47.8% disagreed, and 6% said they weren’t sure.

Catholic voters were similarly split on whether they are more or less likely to support a candidate who agrees with Roe’s dismantling: 42% said they were more likely, 41.9% said they were less likely, and 16.1% were unsure.

At the same time, the poll results point to apparent inconsistencies in Catholic voters’ positions on abortion.

While nearly half of Catholic voters in the poll said they disagreed with Roe being overturned, a large majority (86.5%) said they support some kind of limit on abortion, even though Roe and related abortion cases allowed only narrow regulation at the state level. The breakdown is as follows:

• 26.8% said abortion should be allowed only in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother;

• 19.8% said abortion should be allowed until 15 weeks when the baby can feel pain; 

• 13.1% said that abortion should be allowed only during the first six months of pregnancy;

• 9.9% said that abortion should be allowed only until a heartbeat can be detected, and

• 9.1% said that abortion should be allowed only to save the life of the mother. 

Of special note for Catholic pro-life leaders, only a small minority of Catholic voters — 7.8% — were aligned with the clear and consistent teaching of the Catholic Church that abortion should never be allowed.

On the other end of the spectrum of abortion views, 13.4% of Catholic voters said that abortion should be available to a woman at any time during her pregnancy.

The poll, conducted by the Trafalgar Group from Sept. 12–19, surveyed 1,581 Catholic voters and has a margin of error of 2.5%. The questionnaire was administered using a mix of six different methods, including phone calls, text messages, and email.

The poll’s results echo surveys of the general U.S. population on abortion. A Pew Research Center survey from March found that 19% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal in all cases, while 8% said it should be illegal in all cases. More recent Gallup data from May found that 35% of U.S. adults say abortion should be legal under any circumstances while 13% said it should be illegal in all circumstances. 

The Pew Research Center data also looked at Catholic adults. Thirteen percent said abortion should be legal in all cases, while 10% said it should be illegal in all cases.

A previous EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research poll released in July found that 9% of Catholic likely voters said abortion should never be permitted and 18% said that abortion should be available at any time. The poll similarly showed that a majority of Catholic voters (82%) support some kind of restriction on abortion.

Confused about what Roe said?

The poll’s results came as little surprise to Catholic pro-life public policy experts such as Elizabeth R. Kirk.

“This study confirms a phenomenon we have known for some time, i.e., that there is an enormous disconnect between the scope of abortion practices permitted by the Roe regime and what abortion practices Americans actually support,” Kirk, director of the Center for Law and the Human Person at The Catholic University of America, told CNA. 

Kirk, who also serves as a faculty fellow for the Institute for Human Ecology and research associate and lecturer at the Columbus School of Law, noted the finding that nearly 42% of Catholic voters said they are less likely to support a candidate who agrees with Roe being overturned.

“At first glance that suggests that many Catholic voters wanted to keep Roe in place,” she said. “Yet, the study also reveals that 86.5% of Catholic voters want some type of restriction on abortion access.”  

Why the inconsistency? “Most people do not realize that Roe allowed states to permit unlimited abortion access throughout the entire pregnancy and made it difficult, or even impossible, to enact commonsense restrictions supported by the majority of Americans,” Kirk observed. 

“Many people who ‘support Roe’ actually disagree, unknowingly, with what it permitted,” she added. “All Dobbs has done is return abortion policy to the legislative process so that the people may enact laws which reflect the public consensus.”

Mass-goers more strongly pro-life

The new poll, the second of three surveys of Catholic voters tied to the midterm elections on Nov. 8, shows that the opinions of Catholic voters on abortion and other issues vary depending on how often respondents attend Mass.

Only a small portion of those who attend Mass at least once a week said that abortion should be allowed at any time: 0% of those who attend Mass daily, 1% who attend more than once a week, and 8% of those who attend weekly support abortion without restrictions. In contrast, 57.5% of Catholic voters who attend Mass daily, 21.5% of those who attend more than once a week, and 15.6% of those who attend weekly say abortion should never be permitted.

In addition to respondents’ apparent confusion about what Roe stipulated, the poll suggests that many Catholic voters don’t fully understand what their Church teaches about abortion.

Less than one-third of Catholic voters who said they accept all Church teachings (31.1%) said that abortion should never be permitted, and 5% who profess to fully accept the Church’s teachings said abortion should be permitted at any time.

Overall, 32.8% of respondents reported attending Mass at least once a week, with another 30.7% attending once a year or less. Only 15% agreed that they accept all of the Church’s teachings and live their lives accordingly, with another 34.5% saying they generally accept most of the Church’s teachings and try to live accordingly.

Pew Research Center also looked at how Mass attendance factors into Catholics’ views on abortion. Among those who attend Mass at least once a week: 4% said abortion should be legal in all cases, and 24% said it should be illegal in all cases, Pew found. 

Strong support for pregnancy centers

The poll asked Catholic voters about a variety of other topics including abortion limits, Holy Communion for pro-abortion politicians, conscience protections for health care workers, and pro-life pregnancy centers.

Among the findings:

• Catholic voters are prioritizing other issues above abortion. Only 10.1% of Catholic voters identified abortion as the most important issue facing the nation, falling behind inflation (34.2%) and the economy/jobs (19.7%) and tying with immigration. At the same time, a higher percentage of Catholic voters chose abortion than crime (8.7%), climate change (8.1% ), health care (6.8%), K–12 education (1.7%), or religious freedom (0.8%).

• About half of Catholic voters (49.3%) disagreed that Catholic political leaders who support abortion publicly and promote policies that increase abortion access should refrain from taking Communion, while 36.7% said they should refrain.

• A majority (67.4%) of Catholic voters said they support public funding for pro-life pregnancy centers that offer pregnant women life-affirming alternatives to abortion, while 18.3% said they did not favor using tax dollars for this purpose.

• A comparable majority (61.8%) said that political and church leaders should be speaking out against the recent attacks and acts of vandalism on pregnancy resource centers.

• When asked about conscience protections for health care workers that would allow them to opt out of providing “services” such as abortion, a majority of Catholic voters (60.7%) said that health care workers should not be obligated to engage in procedures that they object to based on moral or religious grounds. Conversely, 25.3% said that health care workers should be obligated to engage in procedures that they object to based on moral or religious grounds. 

Work to be done

What is the takeaway from the latest poll, where abortion is concerned?

“This polling shows that Catholics, like the overwhelming majority of Americans, support commonsense protections for women and the unborn,” Ashley McGuire, a senior fellow with The Catholic Association, told CNA.

“It also affirms other recent polling that found Americans by strong numbers support the work of pregnancy resource centers in providing women facing crisis pregnancies with a real choice and the chance to thrive as mothers despite difficult circumstances,” she noted.

At the same time, McGuire added, “This new polling is also a reminder that more work needs to be done in catechizing Catholics on foundational Church teaching in support of vulnerable life in all stages — an effort that is continually undermined by Catholic politicians in the highest echelons of power who use their platforms to advocate for extreme abortion policies in direct violation of Church teaching.”

Nearly all of those surveyed (99.2%) said they plan to vote in the midterm elections on Nov. 8.

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