US

Washington D.C., Jan 8, 2019 / 09:00 am (CNA).- Opus Dei announced Monday that it had paid a settlement following accusations of misconduct against a priest of the society made in 2002.

 

Fr. C. John McCloskey was the subject of a complaint by a married woman to whom he had been giving spiritual counsel. As a result of the complaint, Opus Dei paid a reported settlement of $977,000 to the woman in 2005.

 

At the time of the complaint, McCloskey was serving as the director of the Catholic Information Center in downtown Washington, D.C. The center is a popular venue among Washington  Catholics, offering daily Mass during the working week and a program of Catholic events in the evenings.

 

McCloskey had a high public profile during his time in Washington, preparing several senior politicians for reception into the Catholic Church, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and serving U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback.

 

In a statement released by Msgr. Thomas Bohlin, Vicar of Opus Dei in the United States, the prelature expressed its sorrow and called any case of harassment or abuse “abhorrent.”

 

“What happened was deeply painful for the woman, and we are very sorry for all she suffered,” Bohlin wrote. “I am very sorry for any suffering caused to any woman by Father McCloskey’s actions and pray that God may bring healing to her.”

 

“I am painfully aware of all that the Church is suffering, and I am very sorry that we in Opus Dei have added to it. Let us ask God to show mercy on all of us in the Church at this difficult time.”

 

The Washington Post reported that McCloskey groped the woman on several occasions while giving her spiritual direction. According to that report, the woman was left with feelings of guilt and shame, and struggled with depression. The Post also reported that the woman took her concerns to McCloskey in the confessional, where he absolved her.

 

Bohlin said that Opus Dei had acted swiftly when the complaint was first made, telling McCloskey to have no further contact with the woman and to offer spiritual direction to women only through a screen in a traditional confessional – something Bohlin noted was already a rule for Opus Dei priests.  

 

“After investigating the complaint in subsequent months, we found the complaint to be credible, and in December 2003, Father McCloskey was removed from his position at the CIC,” Bohlin said in the statement.

 

After leaving Washington, McCloskey was first sent to the United Kingdom before being assignments in different regions of the United States. McCloskey has since returned to the Washington area because of his declining health.

 

Bohlin stated that McCloskey’s ministry had been restricted since he left Washington, and his contact with women limited to the confessional. “Throughout the years, we were careful to ensure that he would not have any opportunities to engage in the kind of actions that led to the complaint.”

 

Opus Dei is personal prelature founded in Spain by St. Jose Maria Escriva in 1928 and first approved by the Vatican in 1950.

 

According to Opus Dei, McClosky is currently suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease and is unable to say Mass, even privately, as he is “largely incapacitated.”

 

“I would also ask you to pray for Father McCloskey as his health continues to decline,” Bohlin said.

 

The prelature released details of the complaint at the request of the woman involved in the settlement in an effort to encourage any other potential victims to come forward.

 

Brian Finnerty, spokesman for Opus Dei, told CNA he was not aware of either the woman who brought the complaint or the society had contacted the police.

 

Opus Dei said it believes there could be at least two other women similarly abused by McCloskey in Washington, and that the group has attempted to make contact with one of them. In his statement, Bohlin said the prelature had received no complaints about McCloskey concerning his time in ministry either before or after his term as director of the CIC.

 

According to the statement from Msgr. Bohlin, the woman who raised the original complaint remains in contact with Opus Dei’s ministry in Washington. She told the Washington Post this week she is “very happy with how it’s being handled right now. They listened.”

[…]

Santa Fe, N.M., Jan 8, 2019 / 02:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Proposed legislation in New Mexico could legalize assisted suicide in the state, and may even allow for the prescription of deadly drugs outside the state via telemedicine, and by healthcare professionals other than physicians.

Deacon Steve Rangel, associate director for the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the bill was disheartening to read.

“In our Catholic faith, we know the dignity of life from conception to natural death,” he told CNA.

“Here we have an attack on [life]. It’s really disheartening that we even have to be put in this type of position…Our driving force has always been to prevent harm and loss of life.”

Rangel cited several particularly objectionable points in House Bill 90, known as the “Elizabeth Whitefield End of Life Options Act,” including a provision that medical practitioners other than doctors can administer the drugs, without ever having examined the patient in person.

He also pointed out that the bill reduces the waiting period for assisted suicide from 15 days to 48 hours.

“We all get down. We’re human beings,” he said. “But at [a patient’s] most vulnerable point, are we going to let them make a life decision like that?”

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, an international organization with a headquarters in Ontario, told CNA that this assisted suicide bill jumped out at him as particularly expansive and vague.

“This bill allows nurses and physician assistants to be involved also. So you have this wider group of people who can be involved in the act itself of prescribing,” he told CNA.  

The current bill allows for the prescription of assisted suicide drugs after a healthcare professional examines a patient via telemedicine.

“A doctor could assess you, or even a nurse, by telemedicine. So you have a terminal condition, supposedly, and this is going to be approved that you can die by assisted suicide but your interview for this process is done over a screen,” Schadenberg said.

“To me, this is a crazy thing because we’re talking about life and death.”

The bill includes a provision that makes assisted suicide acceptable if it can be determined that a terminal condition will cause a patient’s death “in the foreseeable future.”

“’Foreseeable future’ is not defined,” Schadenberg noted. “So it’s wide open…basically you can have your interview by telemedicine, and die two days later because your terminal condition that you supposedly have might cause your death in the ‘foreseeable future.’”

The bill also removes conscience protections, he said, because although doctors are not required to prescribe the lethal medication, they are mandated to refer the patient to a medical professional who will.

“So if you think it’s wrong to prescribe lethal drugs for a patient, knowing that they’re going to die by assisted suicide, then it must be equally wrong for you to send them to a doctor who’s willing to do that,” Schadenberg said.

In addition, the bill does not clearly define whether residents of states other than New Mexico might be allowed to avail themselves of assisted suicide. It was reported in some publications that the bill lacks a residency requirement completely, meaning patients coming from other states to seek the procedure, so-called “suicide tourism,” could become a reality.

Most assisted suicide laws, such as Oregon’s, Schadenberg clarified, explicitly state that the patient must be a resident of the state in order to qualify for the procedure.

The New Mexico bill, however, only has an indirect residency requirement under the definition of the word “adult,” which is defined as a resident of the state. But the word “adult” is only mentioned once in the bill, under the proposed form that must be signed to be approved for assisted suicide, he said.

“But even under the wording of this bill, it still seems a very weak way of defining a resident. It’s very awkward.”

Schadenberg said some advocates of assisted suicide are calling for a complete elimination of waiting periods for the procedure.

“We’re talking about life and death,” he said. “Obviously you could be depressed today, and the purpose of the waiting period is not to be onerous and force suffering people to have to live 14 more days. It’s that you might be depressed, and the way to ensure [assisted suicide] is your real will is to create a waiting period. You might be feeling better in two weeks.”

Schadenberg said about 20 states introduced assisted suicide bills in 2018, but only one state actually passed the measure.

“This is not what you’d call an inevitability,” he said. “The opposition to assisted suicide has been very successful, but the sad reality is that it only takes one state and things look bad…New Mexico I’m very concerned about. There’s no question about it.”

Rangel echoed Schadenberg’s consternation at the bill’s current language, but reiterated that as Catholics the best approach to terminal illness is compassion.

“We align ourselves with our Lord’s pain and suffering,” Rangel reflected. “I have a priest friend who has [Multiple Sclerosis,] and when he’s feeling the most pain, that’s when he offers it up for other people’s intentions. I thought that was so powerful…We truly are compassionate for those who are suffering.”

He said his own daughter suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident, resulting in the loss of part of her brain which has left her cognitively impaired.

“Did she lose some things because of the injury? Absolutely,” he said. “But at the same time, [we gained] so many other blessings. So we look for the blessings in everything in life…she loves people, people respond to her, and so if you’d ask me, ‘Iis that quality of life?’ I would say absolutely.”

Assisted suicide has been illegal in New Mexico since the 1960s, but doctors have been protected from liability for removing life support from terminally ill patients since 1978.

The New Mexico Supreme Court previously ruled in June 2016 that assisted suicide was not a “fundamental or important right” under the state constitution, after a woman with terminal cancer expressed her wish for “a more peaceful death.” At that time the New Mexico Supreme Court suggested a  “robust debate in the legislative and the executive branches of government” to determine if the law needed to be changed.  

The states of California, Colorado, Hawaii, Montana, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington, plus the District of Columbia, have already legalized assisted suicide.

 

[…]

Chicago, Ill., Jan 7, 2019 / 04:41 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Chicago’s Mundelein Seminary is beautiful. Set on 600 leafy acres, its buildings merge the aesthetics of the American Colonial Revival with the motifs of great Roman edifices. Its library is expansive. Its chapel is a gem. Mundelein is the kind of place that is hard to leave.

When their seven-day retreat at Mundelein ends Jan. 8, some of the U.S. bishops may be reluctant to leave the seminary. But if they are not eager to go home, it will not be because of the setting.

When they depart, many bishops will find their retreat was not an end to the siege under which they find themselves.

Once home, they will face the same questions, the same investigations, the same demand for answers that they left behind. And they will face the same impatience from Catholics across the country.

The president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, for example, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, will likely face questions about his dealings with the Vatican in the lead-up to the bishops’ meeting: he will be asked whether he knew earlier than he let on that the conference would not be permitted to vote on a reform package of policies that he championed.

Back in Houston, DiNardo will also face questions from county prosecutors who have accused the archdiocese of withholding evidence during a police investigation.

DiNardo will not be the only U.S. cardinal with problems when the retreat comes to an end.

After losing an auxiliary bishop to allegations of sexual abuse, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York now faces questions about why his archdiocese misrepresented a priest under investigation.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston is investigating accusations of misconduct at the seminaries in his archdiocese. Cardinal Blase Cupich faces a diocesan investigation from Illinois’ attorney general.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin’s Archdiocese of Newark remains at the center of questions regarding long-time archbishop Theodore McCarrick. And Cardinal Donald Wuerl, McCarrick’s successor in Washington, faces continued scrutiny as he remains the archdiocesan interim leader until his successor is named.

Other bishops face allegations of misconduct or cover-up, among them Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo and Bishop Michael Hoeppner of Crookston.

Like Dolan, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles must also address an auxiliary bishop accused of sexual abusing a minor. And dozens of other bishops are faced with state and federal investigations into the historical and current administration of their dioceses.

The bishops did not formally discuss strategy or plans during the retreat: meals were taken in silence, recreation periods were few. But their leaders, DiNardo and Gomez, will go to Rome next month for a meeting with Pope Francis, and the heads of bishops’ conferences from around the world. That summit, occasioned by the eruption last year of sexual abuse scandals in the United States, is scheduled to address the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults around the world.

Sources expect very little practical policy to come from the February summit. The meeting is expected to encourage bishops in the developing world to develop the baseline child protection protocols that U.S. bishops developed in 2002, and to engender in all participants a greater awareness of the profound harm that clerical sexual abuse can cause to victims.

As he did in his letter to the U.S. bishops at Mundelein, Pope Francis is likely to encourage the assembled bishops to greater personal conversion, and to emphasize, as he often has, the centrality of personal integrity in resolving allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct.

It is expected that a guilty verdict for Archbishop McCarrick will be announced before the February meeting, along with the likely penalty of laicization. But Vatican sources do not expect a report on the Vatican’s investigation into its own documents on McCarrick to be forthcoming.

Leadership and committees of the U.S. bishops’ conference continue to revise and discuss the policies they proposed in November, along with alternatives that emerged during their meeting. It is not likely that the February summit will substantially impact that work. Instead, it seems most likely that the bishops’ will work on their policies and proposals until a March meeting of the conference’s administrative committee, and then send them to Rome for review.

After DiNardo was accused of not giving the Vatican enough time to weigh in on proposals before the November meeting, the bishops will want to leave ample time for back and forth with Rome before they vote at their June meeting on whatever draft policies have received an initial approval from the Vatican.

The priorities for the U.S. bishops are said to be establishing a mechanism for credibly investigating allegations of abuse, negligence, or misconduct against bishops; investigating the possibility of expanding the Church’s definition of vulnerable adults to include seminarians and others under the authority of bishops, and creating protocols for bishops who are removed or resign from their posts amid scandal or allegations.

It seems likely they’ll be able to accomplish some portion of those goals by the conclusion of their June meeting.

The question, of course, is whether Catholics will wait.

Among the effects of the scandal has been a much broader sense of disillusionment and disenfranchisement from Catholics than was palpable in the aftermath of the 2002. It is not yet clear whether the scandals of 2018 have impacted Church attendance or diocesan financial support. And, of course, for many Catholics the anger of last summer has abated. But episcopal leadership is under a new level of scrutiny in the U.S., and voices from across the ecclesial spectrum have been unrelenting in calling for change.

Some of those voices are likely to intensify after the February meeting, at which the outcomes, and even the agenda, are not likely to meet public expectation.

Since June, the bishops seem to have been playing catch-up with a tornado. Their responses to new fronts of the crisis often seemed insincere or unconvincing. They have seemed often to have been owned by the events unfolding around them, and they frequently have been criticized for seeming to lack authenticity, contrition, and above all, leadership.

As a result, in addition to the legitimate questions bishops have faced from Catholics, and from the media, they now must also contend with a growing anticlerical populist backlash in the U.S. Church, one that seems to foster broad distrust for episcopal initiatives and the Church’s governing structure, rather than on calling for or supporting reform efforts.

The retreat may well motivate bishops to address their problems with new vigor: it may have given them an opportunity to regroup, catch their breath, and emerge as the leaders that Catholics seem to have been looking for.

If they have any hope of restoring confidence in U.S. Catholic hierarchy, the opportunity afforded to them by their retreat is one the bishops ought not miss. 

Because any practical change is likely six months away, if there is to be change in the narrative of the last six months, or if the burgeoning anti-episcopal populist movements in the U.S. Church are to lose steam, it will only be because bishops emerge renewed from their retreat, and begin to address the Church with the kind of courageous, direct, transparent, and fatherly leadership Catholics have been calling for, even in the absence of new policies. Even then, it will be an uphill battle, and will become more difficult with each passing month in which leadership is seen to be lacking.

If their retreat has had its effect, the U.S. episcopate may now have more spiritual health and vigor with which to lead the Church than it has had since before the crisis began. Whether they will emerge ready to take the mantle of leadership, and begin to foster healing from the Church’s still-gaping wounds, remains to be seen.

 

[…]

Denver, Colo., Jan 7, 2019 / 04:40 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Colorado baker who already won a U.S. Supreme Court case may proceed with a second lawsuit claiming the state of Colorado is again wrongly prosecuting him, this time for declining to bake a cake… […]

Indianapolis, Ind., Jan 7, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- At the closing Mass of the SEEK 2019 conference, Fr. Doug Grandon offered advice to the 17,000 attendees on how to become effective missionary disciples. Grandon is a national chaplain with the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), meeting in Indianapolis this week for their annual conference.

 

Grandon centered his homily on Monday’s reading from the gospel of Matthew, which recounts Jesus’s arrival in Capernaum to preach perform miracles in the region. He related this story to his own personal experience of a missionary disciple: his friend Dan, who helped to bring him to Christ.

 

“What Dan did for me, each of us can do for someone else in our circle of influence,” he said.

 

“Our ‘yes’ to becoming missionary disciples will make an eternal difference for more souls than we will ever realize.”

 

Grandon then provided three pieces of advice to the congregation on being an effective and productive missionary disciple in their own communities: a commitment to learning and spiritual growth, planning, and reading signs in their own lives.

 

“Missionary disciples commit to life-long learning and ongoing spiritual growth,” said Grandon. With Jesus, the Bible only tells a few stories about his childhood and training, but instead there are many stories of Christ beginning his messianic ministry, he pointed out.

 

The move to Capernaum to begin this ministry was significant, Grandon explained, as Capernaum was more centrally located than Nazareth.

 

In terms of his own spiritual growth, Grandon spoke of Dan and his Protestant pastor, who led him to embrace a life of Christian ministry. They “taught me to serve, even though I didn’t like that very much,” he explained. At the time, Grandon was a Protestant. He would eventually be received into the Catholic Church in 2002, and was given a special dispensation by the Vatican to become a married priest.

 

In addition to a commitment to growth and learning, Grandon said that missionary disciples “must engage in careful strategic planning,” and remain “attentive to providential signs,” much like Jesus did in Monday’s gospel.

 

He shared a story of a young woman who came to Denver to follow what she thought was God’s will, yet did not properly plan and quickly ran out of money. Failure to properly plan will make one an ineffective missionary disciple, he said.

 

Grandon told the hall that a recognition of signs and trusting in God’s providence were also important, noting that the places in today’s Gospel reading where Jesus preached were “overshadowed by death” in past generations, and were often the first to be invaded and occupied. Jesus arrived and changed this, he said, and these cities were the first to witness the “blazing light” of the Gospel and of Christ’s teachings.

 

“Isaiah’s prophecy was a providential sign” of Christ’s eventual mission, he said.

 

Grandon shared a story of his own reliance on providence, when he thought he would have to cancel a mission trip due to a lack of funds. He went to preach at a small church, and, miraculously, that church donated exactly the amount that was needed for the trip to happen. This encounter left him “astounded at God’s miraculous providence.”

 

Referring back to his friend Dan, Grandon said his friend eventually visited him in Denver to see him celebrate Mass. The parish, being familiar with his vocation story and Dan’s role in bringing him to God, gave him a standing ovation once they learned he was present.

 

“Where would I be today if it wasn’t for Dan?” Grandon asked.

 

“Let’s go home. And change the world.”

[…]

Denver, Colo., Jan 6, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Founder of the pro-abortion campaign “Shout Your Abortion”, Amelia Bonow was featured in a recent kids’ YouTube video to talk abortion with adolescents, telling them that life begins when they decide it does and that abortion is “part of God’s plan.”

The video, entitled “Kids Meet Someone Who’s Had an Abortion,” was published by Seattle-based company HiHo kids, and is a part of a series of videos called “Kids Meet.” Other videos in the series include kids meeting a ventriloquist, a deaf person, a Holocaust survivor, a gender non-conforming person, and a gynecologist, among others.

“Shout Your Abortion” (SYA), the organization founded by Bonow, has as its mission the normalization and celebration of abortion as an act of female empowerment.

“We’re in a fight for our lives, and it’s time to tell the truth. Every single day, all sorts of people have abortions, for every reason you can imagine. We are your siblings, your coworkers, your spouses and your friends. Abortion helps people live their best lives. We are the proof. And we’re only going to get louder,” the organization’s website states.

In the “Kids Meet” video featuring Bonow, she answers the questions of the kids, who appear to be middle-school aged, about the abortion she procured, which spurred her to found SYA. She also questions the kids about their own views – about what they think abortion is, their opinion on abortion, and even their religious and moral views.

“Do you think that sometimes it’s not ok to have an abortion?” Bonow asked one of the boys in the video.

“I want to say if you’re being reckless, if there’s nothing wrong going on…” he replied.

“I don’t know, I just don’t agree,” Bonow said. “Do we want people to just have all those babies?”

When the boy responds that unwanted babies could be put up for adoption, Bonow argues that that would still be forcing women to “create life.”

“I feel like if I am forced to create life, I have lost the right to my own life,” she said. “I should be the one to decide if my body creates life. Even if you give a kid up for adoption, you still like have a kid out there somewhere, you know?”

Bonow also questions several of the kids in the video about their religious views. When one girl identifies as Catholic, Bonow questions her whether she knows what the Catholic Church teaches about abortion.

“I don’t think the Church liked it. Because they see it as like, killing the baby,” the girl responds.

Bonow then asks her and another girl what their personal opinions are.

“I think it’s up to you,” one of the girls responds. “Same,” says the girl who identified as Catholic.

“I feel supported by that,” Bonow replies, smiling.

Bonow then asks a boy in the video whether he believes in God. When he says he does, she asks him what he thinks God would think about abortion.

“If I were to say, I think he’s ok with it because there’s still babies being born,” he answers hesitantly. “What do you think God thinks about abortion?”

“I think it’s all part of God’s plan,” Bonow responds. “I really was just thinking about Drake when I said that,” she adds.

A few of the kids in the video asked Bonow why she had the abortion, and whether she and her partner had used a condom or contraception to try to prevent pregnancy.

“He wasn’t wearing a condom,” Bonow said, because it seemed “easier at the time.”

When asked what the abortion was like, Bonow compared it to “a crappy dentist appointment or something.”

“You go to the doctor and they put this little straw inside of your cervix and inside of your uterus. And then they just suck the pregnancy out,” she said. “It was like a body thing that’s kind of uncomfortable, but then it was over and I felt really just grateful that I wasn’t pregnant anymore.”

The content of the video, released Dec. 28, garnered so much negative attention that the comments for the video on YouTube have been disabled.

As of Jan. 4, the original video had more than 250,000 views, with 5,900 “thumbs up” ratings and 6,700 “thumbs down” ratings on YouTube.

Thousands of concerned parents and critics in social media comments called the video “disgusting”, “disturbing” and “irresponsible.”

Kristi Hamrick, a spokesperson for pro-life group Students for Life of America, told CNA that the video lies to children about the weight of the decision of having an abortion.

“It’s clear that when an abortion takes place, there’s a tragedy that affects both woman and child,” she said.

“And to pretend otherwise, and to tell children that it’s an irrelevant, insignificant choice is the largest lie of abortion, because so many people understand that no matter how you feel about it, it is an unchangeable thing that you have done,” she said.

Hamrick added that she thought it was unfortunate that the video expended effort on justifying abortion to children, rather than trying to teach them how to make good choices.

“To go to kids and say I want to help you feel comfortable with what is an unchangeable and terrible choice, why would we do that?” Hamrick said. “Why wouldn’t we talk about children what is best, what is aspirational, about their hope and future?”

Georgette Forney is an Anglican deacon, the president of Anglicans for Life, and co-founder of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, whose mission is to give a voice and platform to women who regret their abortions.

Forney told CNA in e-mail comments that she thought the video should be called “Kids Meet Abortion Propaganda.”

“…when I looked into the organization producing the series – I realized it was indeed an organization pumping out ‘content’ for kids that features a liberal agenda,” she said.

She said the video with Bowon is “disingenuous and not representational of women who have abortions,” many of whom have deep regrets.

She said she attempted to reach out to the group to suggest that they make an alternative video, where kids talk with women who regret their abortions, but could not find any contact information.

“Guess they don’t want to hear from people but do want to decide what kids should hear!” she said.

Mallory Quigley, a spokesperson for pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, which advocates for pro-life politicians, told CNA that she thought it was sad that Bowon felt the need to use children to justify her decision.

“It’s sad that she felt the need to justify the choice to end a life, and to bully kids into supporting her decision,” she said. “People who are comfortable with their decisions don’t usually take that step.”

She added that she thought the video was an act of “desperation” on the part of the “abortion lobby.”

“They see that life is winning, that a majority of young people are pro-life,” she said. “This is sort of a desperate attempt to try out what’s really old and tired language at this point on the next generation. And I think that it reveals a lot of the flaws in their arguments and the subjectivity of it all.”

D. C. McAllister, writing for P.J. Media, wrote that the video was “creepy” and “targets children.”

“Notice how she dehumanizes the baby, the life inside of her. She also fails to tell the children about the physical risks to the mother. She ignores the pain women suffer and the long-term adverse effects. She skips over the emotional toll having an abortion takes on most women,” McAllister wrote.

“She doesn’t describe what happens to the baby – how it’s chemically burned, how it feels pain. How it is cut up into pieces. Little arms, legs, and torsos. Planned Parenthood has plenty of pictures she could have provided, but no, she tells these kids it’s a simple procedure – and you’ll be so grateful afterwards.”

Nathan Apodaca, writing for life advocacy group Human Defense, deconstructs the arguments made for abortion in the video, which he said “simply helps confirm many of the biases that people have against those who oppose abortion, through lazy dismissals, bad arguments, ad hominem insults, and snarky political posturing.”

“The ‘#SHOUTYOURABORTION’ movement may be holding the hearts of many at the moment through tearful and heart wrenching stories, but it is instead the desperate plea of a movement which has broken tens of millions of men and women and helped slaughter tens of millions of little children who never got to see the light of day or feel the warm embrace of those who loved them,” he wrote.

Bonow posted the video on her Twitter, and announced that her group was also working on a children’s book: “I let a bunch of kids grill me about my abortion and it was great. #ShoutYourAbortion will be releasing a children’s book about abortion in 2020!”

But the 2,200-plus comments on her post were overwhelmingly against the video.

“I notice not one child was filmed who rejected her position,” Twitter user MamaD said.

“I watched this. No information given such as facts of embryonic developmen [sic] & what abortion procedures at various trimesters actually entail. No, it’s platitudes & emotional appeals; of course kids will tell you it’s ok and sadly so will many adults. Abortion is a grave injustice,” Twitter user Jenny S. commented.

Several commenters on Twitter and Facebook recommended that the “Kids Meet” series also expose children to someone who has survived abortion, such as Gianna Jessen, a pro-life speaker and advocate who survived a late-term saline abortion at 7 months, and has cerebral palsy as a result.

Jessen herself responded to the video on Twitter: “as someone who was actually born in an abortion clinic, resulting in cerebral palsy, and being a woman-i would Love to give these kids another perspective. the baby’s perspective-what were my rights?”

[…]

Bridgeport, Conn., Jan 5, 2019 / 06:22 pm (CNA).- The Bishop of Bridgeport condemned anti-Semitism Saturday, after a swastika was found painted on the doors of Bridgeport’s cathedral.

“I am appalled and outraged by this act of vandalism ag… […]

Denver, Colo., Jan 5, 2019 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- In a 25-year film career, Scarlett Johansson has portrayed a cartoon mermaid princess, a comic book superhero, an Indian python, and a punk-rock porcupine. She has not portrayed a porn star. Nevertheless, h… […]

Denver, Colo., Jan 4, 2019 / 04:47 pm (CNA).- It’s probably a little late for retrospectives, but if you’re planning your 2019 reading list, here are six great novels and memoirs I read in 2018.

I am not including on this list my perennial favorites, but I am not limiting myself to books published in 2018 either. Rather, these are six books that gripped my heart and imagination last year, and might do the same for you.

Novels:

“The Devil’s Advocate” Morris West, 1959.

Father Blaise Meredith is an English priest, a canon lawyer, and official in the Sacred Congregation of Rites, the predecessor to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

Father Meredith is precise, meticulous, intelligent, and disconnected: lacking living relationships, and the experience of love. His life is ordered, peaceful, and gray. When he discovers he is dying, his Vatican superiors send him to investigate the cause for canonization of a complicated figure from a complicated place, a man who was executed by Communist partisans in Calabria at the end of World War II. In Calabria, he discovers more about faith, hope, and about himself than he ever would have expected.  

“Lincoln in the Bardo” George Saunders, 2017

George Saunders is weird, and so is his fiction. A lapsed Catholic and a practicing Buddhist, the impact of a Catholic education and a Catholic worldview is never entirely absent from his work, which explores questions of spirituality, morality, and relationships from new approaches and perspectives.

“Lincoln in the Bardo” is the story of the afterlife of Abraham Lincoln’s deceased son, Willie. While not reflective of Catholic doctrine, and at times upsetting for some readers, the book is funny, tragic, and, in its own way, offers beautiful insights on living and dying well.  
 

“The Book of Aron” Jim Shepard, 2015.

Aron is a poor, Polish, Jewish boy who endures the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, where his family lives in a tenement flat. His world is miserable before the Nazis arrive, and it falls apart as they force Warsaw’s Jews into ever-worsening conditions. When he can no longer survive by his own wits, he discovers what it is to be loved, by Janusz Korczak, director of a Warsaw orphanage. While Aron, Korczak, and everyone they know march toward an inevitable evil, that love endures, as a powerful counter-witness of hope.

Memoir:

“The Last Homily: Conversations with Fr. Arne Panula” Mary Eberstadt, 2018

“How great,” wrote St. Francis de Sales, “is a good priest.” Fr. Arne Panula was a good priest: holy, humble, cultured, and human. It takes a writer as skilled as Mary Eberstadt to capture the beauty of a good and holy priest preparing for a good and holy death. In this book, she has done exactly that. Do not miss the prophetic witness of Fr. Panula, captured in the prophetic prose of Eberstadt.

“From Fire, By Water: My Journey to the Catholic Faith” Sohrab Ahmari, 2019

The story of an Iranian immigrant, who discovered in America first nihilism, then communism, and then eventually the Lord. Ahmari’s memoir took me to places I have never been, and gave me a fresh look at people and places that seemed very familiar. Most especially, Ahmari’s book explored a restless human heart, searching and seeking, until, quite unexpectedly, coming to rest in the Lord.

 

“With God in Russia” Fr. Walter J Ciszek, SJ, 1964.

As a young priest, Fr. Walter Ciszek wanted to preach the Gospel behind the Iron Curtain. He spent more than a decade in Soviet labor camps, preaching and witnessing to the Gospel in extraordinary ways. His story is the story of the Lord’s Providence, and one man’s fidelity to Christ.

I asked CNA reporters and editors to suggest the best books they read in 2018. Here are some of their suggestions, in no particular order:

“The Other Francis: Everything they did not tell you about the pope” Deborah Lubov, 2018
“Life and Love: Opening Your Heart to God’s Design” Terry Polakovic, 2018
“Why Liberalism Failed,” Patrick Deneen, 2018
“By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed,” Edward Feser, 2017
“A Canticle for Leibowitz” Walter Miller Jr., 1984
“The Magnolia Story” Chip and Joanna Gaines, 2016
“In Sinu Jesu”  A Benedictine Priest, 2016
“Crossing to Safety” Wallace Stegner, 2002
“Gilead” Marilynne Robinson, 2006
“Building the Benedict Option: A Guide to Gathering Two or Three Together in His Name” Leah Libresco, 2018
“A Call to a Deeper Love: The Family Correspondence of the Parents of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus” Louis and Zelie Martin
“Hillbilly Elegy” J.D. Vance, 2016
“My Squirrel Days,” Ellie Kemper, 2018
“The Buried Giant” Kazuo Ishiguro, 2016
Every Sacred Sunday Mass Journal
“I’ll Be Gone In The Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer” Michelle McNamara, 2018
“The Power of Silence”  Cardinal Robert Sarah, 2017
“Deaconesses: An Historical Study” Aime G Mortimort, 1986
“The Idea of a University” John Henry Cardinal Newman, 1852
“Don Quixote” Miguel de Cervantes, 1605

 

[…]

Indianapolis, Ind., Jan 4, 2019 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS) founder Curtis Martin encouraged members to recall the real purpose of their lives while speaking at the organization’s annual conference.

&nbs… […]