China sanctions U.S. religious freedom ambassador over Uyghurs

Washington D.C., Feb 2, 2021 / 06:15 pm (CNA).- Pro-life advocates are concerned over the nomination of Samantha Power to head a critical United States international aid agency. 

 

Earlier this month, President Joe Biden announced his nomination of Power to be administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). In that position, Power would have broad sway to determine which groups would and would not merit U.S. assistance in developing countries.

 

Pro-life leaders are concerned that, given Power’s record in international affairs, she would either direct aid to pro-abortion and pro-LGBT groups in developing countries, or condition U.S. assistance upon groups adopting pro-abortion and pro-LGBT principles.

 

Fr. Bonaventure Luchidio, National Director of the Pontifical Missionary Society in Kenya, said in a statement to ACI Africa that he hopes Power “having been a diplomat of highest repute and a global writer and a Pulitzer award winner will not persuade and influence other people’s conscience and mind by proposing a pro choice agenda towards aid to needy countries.” 

 

“This will be unethical and immoral at the same time,” Luchidio said. “May human dignity and preferential option to the poor be the guiding principles and concerns that take precedence in all aid given to needy countries without attaching aid to some practices that impair our conscience.” 

 

Power’s nomination to USAID is waiting upon Senate confirmation. She formerly served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations during the Obama administration.

 

Born in London and raised near Dublin, Power immigrated to the United States as a child. She worked as a foreign correspondent before turning to foreign policy, and her book on genocide won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2003. 

 

Power, a Catholic, also co-chaired the Catholic outreach for the Biden 2020 presidential campaign.

 

Bishops and leaders of international pro-life groups have questioned what type of American interests would be advanced in their countries on Power’s watch. They likened a pro-abortion U.S. foreign policy to cultural imperialism. 

 

For instance, President Biden last week announced he would rescind the Mexico City Policy, opening the door to funding of foreign NGOs that perform or promote abortions abroad. 

 

This action applies to hundreds of millions of dollars in USAID family planning assistance, as well as billions of dollars of U.S. global health assistance. Thus, Power could be in a key position at USAID to direct funding to pro-abortion groups such as Marie Stopes International or the International Planned Parenthood Federation. 

 

Bishop Emmanuel Badejo of Nigeria’s Oyo Diocese said in a statement to ACI Africa that under Power, USAID “will doubtlessly pursue an ideological and cultural onslaught against African religious and cultural values.”

 

“More than ever, Catholics in particular and Africans in general, need awareness education so as to know what is really going on about the right to life and the gender ideological war,” the bishop said. 

 

Jesús Magaña, president of United for Life – Colombia, said in a statement to ACI Prensa, “It is very sad to see that the new president of the United States of America, Joe Biden, has an agenda of death.” 

 

“This is confirmed by the [selection] of Samantha Power as the new director of the United States development agency (USAID),” Magaña said. 

 

“Her trajectory as a promoter of abortion and the LGBT agenda confirms that the agency will be used in an ideological way to impose programs that distance themselves from the development of the peoples, by imposing agendas of death and destruction of the family and the culture of these peoples of which they pretend to ‘help,’” Magaña said.

 

Ivone Mieles, director of Pro-Life Ecuador, said in a statement that the nomination of Power “leaves us much to think about,” warning that she could bring back the Obama administration’s advocacy for abortion and LGBT causes.

 

“So, this woman who worked in the Obama administration comes back to reactivate in a way what Trump stopped,” Mieles said. “So, it is scary for Latin America, in that sense, the influence that organizations, among others, like Planned Parenthood, will have.”

 

Mieles said that his country is in a vulnerable position, dependent on development assistance. With Power in the Biden administration, “surely the attack and the influence will be more aggressive,” he said. 

 

Luis Losada Pescador, director of campaigns for CitizenGO, said in a statement to ACI Prensa that the Biden presidency will bring about “a serious reversal for the pro-life and pro-family cause.” 

 

“[I]t would allow the use of federal funds to finance abortion outside the United States and the return of ‘LGBT diplomacy’ in an ideological interference incompatible with respect for the sovereignty of other countries,” Pescador said. 

 

Pescador added that he is preparing for the U.S. to now “promote abortion under the euphemism of ‘sexual and reproductive rights,’” adding that civil society leaders will need to denounce it. 

 

As UN Ambassador, Power gave speeches on LGBT rights, noting actions that the Obama administration had taken in furtherance of that end.

 

At a 2015 address at Harvard University on LGBT rights, Power touted U.S. participation in “the first-ever Ministerial event on LGBT rights” during the 2013 UN General Assembly. 

 

In a 2016 speech to the Human Rights Campaign, Power explained how a 2011 memorandum by President Obama weaved LGBT rights into the “DNA” of U.S. foreign policy and “into the work we do to advance human rights and human dignity around the world.” She said this policy consisted not only of fighting the criminalization of homosexuality by foreign countries, but of sending resources to LGBTI groups.

 

When remarks by Pope Francis on civil unions were made public in October, Power tweeted that the pope’s purported support for civil unions “will ultimately have a profound impact on how gays and lesbians are treated around the world.”

 

The Vatican later clarified that Pope Francis’ remarks, made in a 2019 interview and included in a documentary that aired in 2020, were referring to a specific 2010 same-sex marriage bill in the Argentine legislature; as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio had opposed it. The Vatican clarified that Bergoglio did support certain legal coverages for same-sex persons living together, which he referred to as “a law of civil union.”

 

After her time in the Obama administration, Power has also supported legal abortion.

In an interview with the Irish Times, Power stated her support for legal abortion in Ireland as part of the “Repeal the 8th” campaign in 2018.

 

Last summer, when the Supreme Court sided with abortion clinics against Louisiana’s regulations, Power tweeted “Good for #SCOTUS to uphold clear precedent” and called Louisiana’s law “impossibly restrictive.”

 

 

[…]

Washington D.C., Apr 23, 2019 / 10:59 am (CNA).- A D.C. federal appeals court has ruled that the chaplain for the House of Representatives cannot be forced to allow a self-described atheist to proclaim a secular prayer publicly to the body.

The decision, delivered on Good Friday, said the House rules allow for a religious invocation at the start of its work day, and a secular prayer does not qualify as a religious invocation.

The suit was raised by Dan Barker with the Freedom from Religion Foundation. He had asked to be a guest chaplain for the House of Representatives, but had been rejected by the House chaplain, Fr. Patrick Conroy.

Barker claimed that he had been rejected because he was an atheist, which he said amounted to an unconstitutional establishment of religion by Congress.

But the appeals court said the prayer was rejected because it was non-religious in nature, which renders it irrelevant that the proposed minister was an atheist.

“Even though we accept as true Barker’s allegation that Conroy rejected him ‘because he is an atheist,’ the House’s requirement that prayers must be religious nonetheless precludes Barker from doing the very thing he asks us to order Conroy to allow him to do: deliver a secular prayer,” wrote Judge David Tatel on behalf of the three-judge panel.

He noted that Article 1, Section 5 of the Constitution allows the House to make its own rules. “Accordingly, we accept the House’s interpretation of its own rules as requiring a religious prayer,” he said.

Conroy, who has served as the House chaplain since May 2011, made headlines last year when he offered his resignation but then rescinded the resignation two weeks later.

He told then-Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) that he would not leave voluntarily and that Ryan would have to fire him if he wished for him to leave his role.

Conroy said Ryan’s chief of staff had asked him to resign, commenting on a prayer that he had offered several months earlier, which was perceived as critical of the Republicans’ tax bill.

Ryan said that some House members had concerns about Conroy, and that he was not able to adequately tend to the spiritual needs of some Congressmen.

The Jesuit priest objected that he had never faced disciplinary measures or received any complaints about his ministry during his then-nearly seven years as House chaplain.

Ryan then said that he had decided to allow Conroy to “remain in his position as Chaplain of the House.”

[…]

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone receiving the gifts during Mass in 2021. / Dennis Callahan/Archdiocese of San Francisco

Washington D.C., Aug 13, 2021 / 13:01 pm (CNA).
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