The New Atlantis—On June 9, 2016, a law permitting physician-assisted suicide went into effect in California. The same day, Dr. Lonny Shavelson, an emergency medicine physician, opened the Bay Area End of Life Options clinic to provide the newly legal service. A longtime activist for the cause, Shavelson’s interest began in adolescence. In an interview…
BBC—For the first 17 years of his life, Pascal Siakam didn’t pick up a basketball much. It was just a game his older brothers played. Even though his father dreamed about one of his children growing up to play in the NBA, Siakam, the youngest of six siblings, was always more interested in other sports.…
CNA—American fast-food chain Chick-Fil-A has announced it will stop donating to two large faith-based charitable organizations, after years of criticism from LGBT groups. On Monday, the Chick-Fil-A Foundation announced the organizations it would donate to in 2020. Notably, the foundation will no longer donate to the Salvation Army or to the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.…
CNA—A state law in Ohio that effectively defunds Planned Parenthood is legal, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday in a split decision. The state passed a law in 2016 that banned state funds from going to medical providers that offer abortions. In 2018, the Sixth Circuit unanimously found that Ohio’s law was…
On Friday, November 15, 2019, San Francisco Federal Judge Orrick—who is himself an abortion clinic founder and funder—succeeded in extracting a massive $2.2 million verdict from the jury against David Daleiden and Center for Medical Progress (CMP) for their felony-revealing undercover work exposing that Planned Parenthood routinely sells aborted human body parts and organs as core part…
CNA—A federal court in San Francisco found that pro-life advocate David Daleiden’s Center for Medical Progress caused “substantial harm” to Planned Parenthood by secretly recording meetings with abortion doctors and staff to expose their business practices. “Justice was not done today in San Francisco. While top Planned Parenthood witnesses spent six weeks testifying under oath…
CNA—The Diocese of Peoria announced Monday that Venerable Fulton Sheen will be beatified Dec. 21 at the city’s Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception. Sheen had been ordained a priest of the diocese in that cathedral Sept. 20, 1919. “It seems entirely fitting that the Beatification will take place at the end of…
Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles was elected president of United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) today during the Fall General Assembly in Baltimore. Archbishop Gomez has served as vice president of the Conference since 2016. Archbishop Gomez issued the following statement upon being elected. “I am humbled by this vote and my…
CNS, Knights of Columbus—Sgt. Gary Rose looked out and saw a wounded soldier 50 meters outside his company’s perimeter, stranded in the middle of North Vietnamese Army machine gun fire during a Vietnam War Special Forces mission in Laos. It was day two of Operation Tailwind — a Special Forces mission to disrupt the enemy…
Beijing, China, Sep 23, 2019—(CNA)—Christian churches in China have been ordered to take down displays of the Ten Commandments and replace them with quotes from Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to reports. According to Bitter Winter, a magazine covering religious liberty and human rights in China, churches belonging to the country’s state-run “Three-Self Patriotic Movement”…
New York City, N.Y., Nov 6, 2019-(CNA)—A federal judge in New York overturned the Trump administration’s conscience protection rule for health care workers on Wednesday. The “Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care” rule was finalized by the Department of Health and Human Services in May and set to go into effect on Nov. 22.…
Spokane, Wash., Nov 8, 2019- (CNA)—For the second time in two days, a federal judge on Thursday said the Trump administration’s conscience protection rule for health care workers violated the law. Judge Stanley Bastian in the Eastern District Court of Washington, an Obama appointee, ruled against the Department of Health and Human Services Nov. 7…
Last Wednesday, a New York federal district court issued an order to vacate a May 2019 rule issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to protect the conscience rights of health care professionals. This is unimaginable in a country founded upon, guaranteeing and listing, as our nation’s foundational document in the…
Crisis—A few decades ago, I had lunch with Daniel Carroll in Howard County, Maryland, during which he used a pop-up toaster in his grand dining room, which was hung with ancestral portraits. There were many such portraits, for Dan was a direct descendant of the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll…
Walmart is going into price-competitive health care. I live in exactly the right location to see the outcome of a grand experiment. The pilot Walmart Supercenter is located in Dallas, Georgia. So am I. On Friday, September 13, the CEO of Walmart cut the ribbon at the grand opening. Sadly, I only learned about this…
Caracas, Venezuela, Nov 4 2019-CNA—Cardinal Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino has said that if the administration of Nicolas Maduro “truly had love for Venezuela they would have already left power.” In an interview published by the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional, Cardinal Urosa, Archbishop Emeritus of Caracas, noted that the Maduro administration “has really led the country…
Vatican City, Nov 5, 2019-CNA—A 50 million euro loan request to secure the purchase of a bankrupt hospital was vetoed by Cardinal George Pell and financial authorities at the Institute for Works of Religion, commonly called the Vatican Bank, before it was approved by the Holy See’s central bank, APSA, where the loan breached international…
Melbourne, Australia, Nov 6, 2019 / 07:00 am (CNA).- Two former employees of the cathedral school in Melbourne, Australia are expressing strong doubts about the charges that landed Cardinal George Pell— the most senior member of the hierarchy ever convicted of sexual abuse— in prison. The former employees, Lil Sinozic and Jean Corish, have also…
CNA—The Oklahoma Supreme Court on Monday issued a temporary injunction against a law banning dilation-and-evacuation abortions. The injunction will stop the law from taking effect while a legal challenge to it progresses. The “Unborn Child Protection-from-Dismemberment-Abortion Act,” passed in 2015, bars dilation-and-evacuation abortions after 14 weeks. Also called a “dismemberment abortion,” the procedure uses clamps, scissors,…
U.S. senator and noted hip-hop enthusiast Marco Rubio shared his thoughts on rapper Kanye West’s new gospel album in a recent interview with CNA. “I don’t know if I like it or dislike it,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told CNA of the track “Selah” on West’s highly-anticipated album “Jesus is King.” Rubio said the track…
