US Supreme Court won’t hear challenge to Arkansas abortion pill law

Denver, Colo., Jul 23, 2018 / 03:47 pm (CNA).- This week, CNA says farewell to our summer intern, Lizzy Josyln. In her final week at CNA this summer, Lizzy offers “The Genius of Woman,” a four-part series of interviews and profiles, based on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Letter to Women,” and interviews with seven Catholic women from very different walks of life. This is the first piece in that series:

 

The “genius of woman” or the “feminine genius,” a phrase made popular by Pope St. John Paul II’s 1995 “Letter to Women,” can be summarized as the distinct social and interpersonal strengths of women, offered generously to the world.

John Paul wrote: “Much more important is the social and ethical dimension, which deals with human relations and spiritual values. In this area, which often develops in an inconspicuous way beginning with the daily relationships between people, especially within the family, society certainly owes much to the ‘genius of women.’”

Such “genius,” he said, can and should be exercised in various environments–in all environments–but it develops at the basic level of the family unit.

The following are two stories of lives centered and exemplifying the feminine genius. They are stories of women supporting other women.

Sister Maria: a “spiritual family in Christ”

Two foundationally important ideals within consecrated life are “love of God and love of neighbor,” Sister Maria told CNA.

Sister Maria, a cloistered nun of the Capuchin Poor Clares, spoke to CNA about the centrality of dedication to Christ in the consecrated life, while she highlighted the “fraternal life” of the cloister.

The nuns “build a spiritual family in Christ,” she said, caring for one another “especially when sisters are sick.” As nuns age, the Poor Clares do not bring them to “assisted living or hospice,” she said, adding “we do all the caring in the community.”

But “it’s not… out of duty,” she said. “It’s out of that warmness, love and caring as sisters and mothers.”

Sister Maria said the nuns of her community take care of one another “as a mother takes care of her children,” she said.

Veronica and Miriam Miller: the strength of sisterhood

“Spiritual families” and biological families blossom, Pope St. John Paul II taught, when a woman’s love–the feminine genius–is central to their functioning. So too does society.

For John Paul, understanding that the family is the most basic and essential building block of society was crucial to comprehending the importance of a woman’s familial–and, consequently, cultural–role. In a 1995 letter to Gertrude Mongella, Secretary General of the Fourth World Conference on Women of the United Nations, John Paul II wrote:

“At the personal level one’s dignity is experienced not as a result of the affirmation of rights on the juridical and international planes, but as the natural consequence of the concrete material, emotional and spiritual care received in the heart of one’s family.”

Women, he said, are central to a family’s love.

“No response to women’s issues can ignore women’s role in the family or take lightly the fact that every new life is totally entrusted to the protection and care of the woman carrying it in her womb (Cf. John Paul II Evangelium Vitae, 58).

“A mother’s presence in the family, so critical to the stability and growth of that basic unity of society, should instead be recognized, applauded and supported in every possible way.”

Every women is crucial to the cohesion and strength of families, John Paul taught–regardless of her place in the family. Sisters and daughters are called to the same nurturing roles within their families–such is the case of the Miller family of Golden, Colorado.

Veronica Miller, 22, and her sister, Miriam, 18, are two of six children. Their upbringing was largely based on caring for their fellow siblings, both women said, and this shaped them personally and in their relationship.

Caring for their brother, John, 20, has been a significant element in their experience of caring for one another. John is on the autistic spectrum and is non-verbal.

“It’s crazy because he’s… formed how our family has been together and how we’ve grown up… in a really positive and really good way,” said Miriam. “Our family is super close, and I think that he’s a huge reason why.”

Both sisters agreed that the family’s efforts to care for John have given them communication and cooperation skills among one another and people outside of their family, Veronica said.

John has “helped us read people, so we read each other better, in a sense… because we’re used to not using language with him,” Miriam said.

Coordinating who would take care of John when was a part of this too, said Veronica.

“There would always be one of us who couldn’t go to dinner with the rest of the family because they had to stay back with John,” she said. “You’d have to cancel your plans with your friends because John didn’t have someone to take care of him.”

“We’re always the caregivers, you know, and we always have to sacrifice to be able to love him better.”

This, however, was never a “major source of conflict” for their family–it built them up more than anything, she added. “I would not be who I am if I didn’t have all of them.”

John brought Veronica and Miriam “closer because we know that we have a responsibility to him,” said Miriam.

Their family’s selfless culture, said Veronica, is also rooted in the influence of their mother–the model of the feminine genius for her daughters.

“It’s very clear that she loves all of us by… the things that she’ll do for us,” said Veronica of her mother.

As the two sisters grew up and into their lives as students, their bond, built on self-giving, held steadfast, they say. Veronica and Miriam grew especially close when they both studied at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. It was here that the sisters deepened their faith as individuals, but also together.

“It was just the coolest thing ever,” said Miriam. “I felt like I got to re-know her.”

Veronica, who lived in an off-campus house, would invite Miriam over frequently, both sisters reported.

“She would always make me tea,” said Miriam, “and we would go to Mass together.”

Visiting her sister was a relief for Miriam in the midst of a sometimes socially overwhelming freshman-year experience, she said. It also gave Veronica the chance to exercise the “spiritual motherhood” that Letter to Women discusses, she said.

“College is funny,” said Veronica. “You’re so inclined to only think about yourself all the time.”

“I found that to be a challenge, actually, in the beginning of college when I didn’t have her there. Just because I’d realize, ‘When was the last time I did something for someone else?’ or really thought about someone else besides myself.”

“So having her there just, I think, really encouraged me to… exercise the motherly virtues that I had kind of started to develop younger.”

“It helped me, really, to strengthen those virtues because we didn’t have our mom there or my older sister there…We kind of exchanged that with each other. So then she was able to… love me in a very real way.”

Veronica’s support meant more to Miriam more than Veronica knew. As the sisters were interviewed separately, it became clear that Veronica was largely unaware of the effects of her leadership.

Seeing her sister pursue her faith with such fervency, Miriam said, was “inspiring.”

“I definitely feel like I found my faith more through her because… she was leading me. But it wasn’t… pushy,” she said. Small actions like invites to attend daily Mass, she said, made her realize just how solid her sister’s faith was.

The feminine genius, established and fortified in their family, extended beyond their relationship. Veronica, said Miriam, helped her to develop deep and meaningful friendships.

“I have so many different relationships in place because of Veronica,” Miriam said. Her sister’s willingness to befriend people outside of her assumed “typical” circle, resulting in many unlikely friendships, is something she learned to imitate: “I’ve learned how to reach out of my comfort zone because I’ve seen her do it too.”

“They all come from these different walks of life… it doesn’t matter to her. Which I think is really cool. That’s definitely impacted how I’ve made friends.”

Veronica also showed Miriam an example of emotionally supportive friendships–something that certainly speaks of the feminine genius.

“They all feel so comfortable telling her stuff,” Miriam said of Veronica’s friends.

Veronica herself felt her friendships strengthen because of her their renewed, intuitive sisterly bonds.

“I was able to be more in touch with her and maybe even with my other friends, too,” she said. “I don’t think I’d be able to have… that same relationship with them if I didn’t have sisters.”

Thus, the feminine genius, if adequately fostered in the context of the home, has the capability to pour into relationships of all kinds and help to water the thirst of humanity for genuine love. The impact of “the genius of woman” is unparalleled.

“Describe your sister.”

CNA interviewed the Miller sisters separately, but we asked both sisters to describe the other. Here are their answers:

Miriam, on Veronica:

-“She’s super big-hearted and she’s super compassionate and she’s super kind.”
– She is “wise beyond her years.”
– She “has so many smart things to say.”
-“She cares SO much.”
-“She’s super hard working and super smart, but she’s so humble about it… She’ll never talk about it. Like she didn’t tell you she graduated from high school when she was 15.” (Miriam is correct–Veronica definitely did not tell me this.)
-“She’s really accomplished.”
-She’s humble: “She’s so good at what she does, but she won’t talk about it.”
-She’s “super pretty, super nice, super holy… and it doesn’t affect her.”

Veronica, on Miriam:

-“She cares about other people a lot. If she would get together with someone and have coffee with them, she’s totally happy sitting and listening to the other person talk the whole time and will ask the other person questions and doesn’t really talk about herself.”
-“She’s very joyful. Like, all the time.”
-“She’s awesome. She’s out of town right now, so I miss her, too.”
-“Just in the way she lives, you can just tell that she cares so much about other people.”
-“If you ask her if she has a hair tie, she’ll literally pull the hair tie out of her hair and give it to you.”
-“She’s super strong.”
-“And she’s very mature, too, I think.”

[…]

Denver Newsroom, May 6, 2020 / 04:49 pm (CNA).- Because of the ongoing pandemic, most Catholic parishes in the United States have had to forgo a treasured spring tradition this year: crowning Mary with flowers to honor her during the Marian month of May.

But planting a Mary garden can be another way of honoring the Blessed Virgin Mary with flowers this spring and summer while staying at home.

The tradition of planting Mary Gardens goes back centuries. In the Middle Ages, when much of the population was illiterate, priests and religious brothers and sisters would plant gardens and give the flowers and herbs religious names and symbolism in order to teach people about the faith, in the same way they would use stained glass windows to tell stories of the bible or the saints.

Katrina Harrington, a Catholic artist and mother living in California, has always loved flowers and her middle name – which is Rose. While she doesn’t consider herself a master gardener, she is a watercolor artist, and for a long time, flowers have been her favorite subject.

But several years ago, Harrington was seeking new inspiration and meaning for her art.

“I was trying to find some hidden meaning that I could add to it,” she said. “I have always loved hidden meanings, that’s one of the things I love about Catholic churches. For example, on the altar at the church I grew up in, I remember seeing that there were five marks, for the five wounds of Jesus.”

Harrington also remembered that, when she had been in high school, there was a club for Mary gardens – but it was one of the few activities she wasn’t involved in. She decided to do some research to see what Mary gardens were all about.

“I googled Mary gardens, just thinking, ‘What was that club even about? Is there anything that I can learn from it?’ And it turns out that the University of Dayton has a library focused just on Mary gardens. Their archives are full of so much information about Mary gardens. And I went down that rabbit hole – or I guess flower hole – and I’ve read so much about Mary gardens through that.”

Harrington said she also ordered about every book on Mary gardens that she could find.

“It’s really helped my faith, and it’s helped me to teach our faith to my children when we’re out walking.”

There are many different kinds of flowers and herbs that take on Marian significance that can be planted in a Mary garden, Harrington said.

Perhaps the most obvious flower associated with Mary is a rose.

“Our Lady is called The Mystical Rose. And also, when you hear about the beginnings of the rosary that was given to Saint Dominic, you hear about different legends where, as different saints prayed, roses would float up to Our Lady and she would gather them. So, every time we pray a rosary, I tell my children that ‘you are giving Our Lady a beautiful bouquet. We’re giving our Blessed Mother a crown of flowers,’” she said.

Columbines are another flower that can be planted in Mary gardens. Depending on their color, they can take on different religious meanings.

“Columbines that are red can often be called the Pentecostal Holy Spirit flower because, if you’ve ever seen them, they kind of point upside down with petals that look like…tongues of fire pointing up. So they look like the Holy Spirit coming down at Pentecost upon the Apostles’ heads,” she said.

But if the columbines are white, they are called “Our Lady’s Shoes”

“Another legend associated with the columbine is when Our Lady found out that her cousin Elizabeth was expecting Saint John the Baptist, and she walked to go take care of her,” Harrington said.

Legend has it “that everywhere Our Lady’s shoes or her slippers touched, little white columbines sprouted out of the earth marking her path. So, the other name for columbine would be ‘Our Lady’s Shoes,’” she explained.

Pansies have been given the Marian name “‘Our Lady’s Delight,’ and with that, we can tell our kids to think of how Our Lady delighted in Christ, in having him so close in her life,” Harrington explained.

Sunflowers have also been called “Mary’s Gold,” and can be reminiscent of Mary’s golden crown as Queen of Heaven and Earth, she said.

In her home state of California, bright fuchsia bougainvillea flowers grow abundantly on bushes, and have the religious name of “trinitaria, for Trinity, because in the middle of those flowers are three little white petals, and that’s surrounded then by the three pink pedals,” Harrington said.

“So when we walk by, I tell my children, ‘Oh, this is trinitaria. What prayers should we pray?’ And they know that then, we’ll pray the Glory Be. That’s been really great, to always be pointing my children to the Divine and having fun stories that could help them really lock in that image” and lead them into prayer, she said.

Rosemary and lavender are two herbs that have traditionally been called “Our Lady’s drying plants,” Harrington noted.

“The legend goes that when Our Lady was doing laundry for the Christ child, she laid his swaddling clothes upon the rosemary plant or the lavender bush and that is how they dried. And then that’s also how they got their sweet heavenly scents.”

Harrington paints and sells prints of various Marian flowers, including prints that have specific flowers representing the various mysteries of the rosary.

While her grandmother and parents have been the true gardeners of the family, Harrington said this year, because of the extra time at home due to coronavirus, she was inspired to start planting her own Mary garden.

“I am just very much a novice, but I’m excited to try during this shelter in place, social distancing time. I’m really excited to plant a Mary garden for my kids to help tend to and for us to be inspired by the beauty of God’s creation,” she said.

And she’s not the only one. Harrington said this year, she has noticed an uptick in interest in Mary gardens from followers of her social media and art website.

“Since the pandemic and the accompanying shelter in place that has led to an extraordinary amount of time at home, I think people are paying more attention to what surrounds them in their home,” she said.

“They want their home to be a place of refuge, a place of harboring health, and a place that points them to the divine. A Mary garden is a way to tend to beauty and is a perfect conduit to Jesus as the Blessed Mother always leads us to her Son. There have been many questions as to where to purchase a Mary statue for their garden and what flowers to include,” she said.

Harrington said to start a Mary garden, she advises people to look up what plants and flowers are native to their area, and which of those have Marian meanings. She then recommends that people either order seeds online or call their local nurseries to see what plants are available. It’s important to take into account factors like sunlight, and whether the plants will be indoors or outdoors, she said.

Harrington added that anyone could start a Mary garden, even if they don’t own land.

“It’s important to remember that when you’re trying to use flowers as a prayer guide, to not be so stuck on the word ‘garden’ and that you have to have land. My family and I, we rent. We don’t really actually have a big yard. We don’t have any grass. But we can plant in pots,” she said.

“If you have only an indoor space or a small outdoor space, I would try to find a great plant that doesn’t need a ton of sunlight that can be on a windowsill,” she said. “And if you can, just put your statue of Our Lady next to that.”

Harrington said she hopes to publish guides to Marian gardens sometime soon, and more information on those or her art can be found on her website.

She said now in particular is a good time for people to slow down and enjoy the leisure of gardening, since most people have to stay at home much more than they are used to due to the pandemic, and she hopes that Mary gardens can be a source of joy and rest for those who plant one.

“As Saint Paul of The Cross said: ‘Let everything in creation draw you to God. Refresh your mind with some innocent recreation and needful rest. If it were only to saunter through the garden or the field, listening to the sermon preached by the flowers, the trees, the meadows, the sun, the sky, and the whole universe, you will find that they exhort you to love and praise God, that they excite you to extol the greatness of the sovereign architect who has given them their being.’”

[…]

CNA Staff, Mar 31, 2020 / 06:30 pm (CNA).- Kentucky’s attorney general has joined the national controversy over whether abortion clinics can continue to operate at a time when other surgeries and procedures have been canceled or delayed to conserve medical resources to combat the novel coronavirus.

“Abortion providers should join the thousands of other medical professionals across the state in ceasing elective procedures, unless the life of the mother is at risk, to protect the health of their patients and slow the spread of the coronavirus,” Kentucky’s Attorney General Daniel Cameron said March 27.

The attorney general has asked Kentucky’s Acting Secretary of Health and Family Services Eric Friedlander to certify that abortion providers are not essential under the governor’s executive order barring non-essential medical procedures. The certification is necessary to act against any abortion clinics in violation.

According to Cameron, the certification would advance the goals of conserving medical supplies and advancing the “social distancing” deemed necessary to slow the spread of the coronavirus, also known as COVID-19.

“Acting Secretary Friedlander is on the front lines of fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, and I am confident that he understands, better than anyone, the necessity of ending abortion procedures during this health crisis,” Cameron said. “His certification will immediately trigger action by our office to stop elective procedures during the pandemic.”

The only remaining abortion clinic in the state is EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville. It continues to perform abortions.

Cameron, the current attorney general, is a Republican. He made the request to the administration of Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, who was Kentucky Attorney General from 2016 to 2019.
Beshear campaigned on a pro-abortion rights position and defeated deeply controversial incumbent Republican Gov. Matt Bevin by about 5,000 votes in the November 2019 elections.

State legislators have proposed a bill to allow the attorney general’s office to proceed with legal action without a certification from the health and family services department, the CBS affiliate WLKY reports.

The State Senate could consider the legislation, House Bill 451, on Wednesday. A floor amendment could bar abortions during the response to the coronavirus outbreak.

CNA contacted the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office for comment but did not receive a response by deadline.

Federal judges in Texas, Alabama, and Ohio on Monday halted state rules that would limit or halt entirely abortions during the coronavirus pandemic on the grounds they are non-essential surgeries. On Tuesday the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily reinstated the Texas rule.

Indiana, Oklahoma, and Iowa have similarly acted to limit abortions. A hearing on the Iowa law is pending and the others too could be challenged in court.

For their part, officials in Hawaii, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Oregon have said abortions may continue.

In Utah, judgment about the medical necessity of an abortion will be left to the doctor, a spokesperson for the Utah Department of Health told the pro-abortion rights website Rewire News.

 

[…]