Public Masses suspended at Chicago’s Shrine of Christ the King

Washington D.C., Sep 10, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Five months after first attempting to force a vote on legislation to protect babies who survive botched abortions, pro-life Members in the House are still at a standstill.

“This is not even a pro-… […]

Lincoln, Neb., Mar 22, 2018 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Following reports that some Title X funds have wrongly gone to abortion-related expenses, Nebraska is considering stronger budget restrictions, but some legislators are resisting.

“It has long been a policy that we do not use taxpayer dollars to fund abortions,” Gov. Pete Ricketts told CNA March 22. “What we have seen in Nebraska is that these Title X dollars, according to a couple of our audits, have been used to fund abortions.”

“Nebraska is a pro-life state, and that our budget ought to reflect that,” Ricketts said. “I believe that abortion is inherently wrong, so personally I do not want to see those dollars to go to that, but in general even those who are pro-choice understand that it’s bad policy to have federal tax dollars fund something that is so controversial and really ought not be funded by fed tax dollars.”

Gov. Ricketts backs proposed budget language that would require clinics that receive Title X funds to be “objectively independent” from abortion providers, meaning they have “legal, physical and financial separation.”

The unicameral legislature narrowly voted to pass the $8.8 billion budget bill, L.B. 944, to the second round of debate, the Omaha World Herald reports. On March 21 a vote for cloture, to end debate on the bill, failed by three votes. Three members of the Appropriations Committee were recorded as “present not voting,” Sens. Kate Bolz, Anna Wishart, and Tony Vargas, who is Catholic.

Under the legislature’s current rules, which legislators may suspend by vote, the budget bill must advance by Friday, March 23.

Tom Venzor, executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, told CNA that some legislators are under political pressure to remove the provision.

“Overall, a majority of Nebraska state legislators have pro-life values, and want to provide support for mothers and protect unborn children,” he said. “As we’ve seen throughout the country, we’ve noticed that some legislators seem to be succumbing to the pressure of abortion lobbyists and special interest groups. That is always a pressure of which to be aware.”

The 2015 and 2016 Nebraska statewide audits found that abortion-related expenses were wrongly funded using taxpayer dollars, according to a summary from Marion Miner, the Nebraska Catholic Conference’s associate director for pro-life and family issues.

The expenses included a nearly $2,000 payment for abortion-related physician fees through Planned Parenthood of the Heartland. Such misappropriations would put federal funding to the state at risk given federal rules against funding abortion, state auditor Charlie Janssen told the Appropriations Committee in Feb. 8 testimony.

Sen. Suzanne Geist of Lincoln has backed the proposed policy, saying it “protects the health clinics’ ability to provide the best healthcare for men and women by ensuring that Nebraska’s Title X dollars are not compromised.”

Ricketts said the state budget rules “can ensure that those health care dollars that we’re getting from the federal government are not being used to provide or subsidize abortion.”

“That is something that is not unwarranted in our budget,” he said, pointing to similar provisions barring funding for biomedical research involving human fetuses.

He compared the limits to other rules like the Mexico City Policy, which bars federal funding for overseas organizations that promote or perform abortions.

Sen. Patty Pansing Brooks of Lincoln, however, objected to the ban on funds for abortion providers and characterized it as a policy statement.

“What social policy is going to be in the budget next?” she said, the Lincoln Journal-Star reports. “We could talk about gambling and helmets and property taxes and environmental issues. Let’s just put it all in the budget and then we don’t have to have bills or committee hearings.”

About $1.5 million in Title X grants goes through the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, aiming to provide services like well-woman exams, STD testing and treatment, HPV testing and vaccinations, and contraception. The leading grant recipient is Planned Parenthood of the Heartland, which receives about $300,000 per year, according to the Nebraska Catholic Conference.

“Whether it is direct or indirect, tax payer money should not go to abortion services,” said Venzor. “The pro-life provision in the state budget simply keeps these clinics accountable and ensures that taxpayer dollars are not used for the killing of unborn life.”

In January, the Omaha World-Herald said the provision would cut funding from Planned Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood of the Heartland said the money helps its clinics serve about 8,000 patients. Its clinics in Omaha and Lincoln also perform abortions.

Ricketts told CNA it was “absolutely false” to claim the funding rules would limit women’s services.

“The exact same amount of dollars will be spent after we pass this bill, with this budget language in it, as was being spent before,” he said. “Anybody is able to apply for those dollars.”

“The clear majority of legislators want to have this Title X language in there,” Ricketts said. He accused three members of the appropriations committee of voting the bill out of committee then working to undermine it.

“They’re playing reckless games with the budget process. If they had a problem with this bill, they ought to not have voted for it out of committee,” he said. “The legislature still has time to address this. They still have plenty of time to go back and pass this bill.”

Venzor encouraged voters and legislators in other states who want to implement similar restrictions on Title X money to contact the Nebraska Catholic Conference.

“We’re all working hard across the country to defend life and advance the common good, and we should learn from each other,” he said.

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Italian Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu (right) waits prior to the start of a consistory during which 20 new cardinals are to be created by the Pope, on Aug. 27, 2022 at St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. ( / Photo by ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP via Getty Images

Rome Newsroom, Feb 9, 2023 / 08:48 am (CNA).

Pope Francis met at the Vatican Thursday morning with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, who is on trial for charges related to Vatican finances.

The meeting appeared on the top of Pope Francis’ list of official audiences for Feb. 9, published by the Vatican every day at noon Rome time.

The editors of the news aggregation website Il Sismografo called the official nature of the meeting “puzzling” given that the pope and the cardinal have been in contact other times since Becciu’s fall from grace in 2020.

Becciu served as “sostituto,” or second-ranking official at the Secretariat of State, from 2011 to 2018, when Pope Francis named him a cardinal and made him head of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Since July 2021, Becciu has been on trial in the Vatican on several finance-related charges. The trial centers on the Secretariat of State’s purchase of a London building, a controversial investment that lost the Vatican hundreds of thousands of euros. It also marks the first time a cardinal has been tried by a Vatican court of lay judges.

The 74-year-old cardinal has also been accused of using Vatican funds to help a charity run by his brother, an allegation that made waves when it was published in a major Italian newspaper in September 2020.

According to Becciu, Pope Francis referenced the accusation when he asked him to give up his Vatican job and relinquish the rights and privileges of a cardinal on Sept. 24, 2020.

Since that day, the disgraced cardinal has insisted on his innocence of all the charges.

Pope Francis has also expressed a hope in Becciu’s innocence, saying in a September 2021 interview that Becciu “is a person for whom I have a certain esteem as a person, that is to say that my wish is that he turns out well … In any case, justice will decide.”

Five months prior, in April 2021, the pope had celebrated a private Mass in the chapel in Becciu’s apartment for Holy Thursday.

More recently, the cardinal participated in Pope Francis’ Aug. 27, 2022, public consistory to create new cardinals and an Aug. 29-30 meeting of cardinals.

They were the first consistories Becciu had participated in since stepping down in September 2020.

According to the cardinal, Pope Francis had called him on Aug. 20 “to tell me that I will be reinstated in my cardinal functions.”

Becciu took the stand for the first time in the Vatican finance trial on May 5, 2022.

He is charged with embezzlement, money laundering, fraud, extortion, and abuse of office.

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