St. James the Less Catholic Parish

Father Greg Boyle gives an address at “We ♥ LA: An Urban Retreat for LA's Passionate Leaders” in 2010. / Credit: durfeefoundation, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

The White House on Friday announced that Jesuit Father Greg Boyle, the founder of a prominent ministry dedicated to rehabilitating gang-affiliated youth, will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom alongside 18 other recipients this afternoon. 

Boyle, ordained a priest in 1984, founded Homeboy Industries in 1992 while pastor of Dolores Mission, a Catholic church and school in an area that at one time had one of the highest concentrations of gang activity in Los Angeles. 

Today, Homeboy Industries claims to be the largest gang-intervention program in the United States.

The successful ministry, which now operates nationwide, offers training and job skills to those formerly involved in gangs or in jail, as well as case management, tattoo removal, mental health and legal services, and GED completion.

While the group has said it is “not affiliated with any particular religion,” it also notes that many of its works are “in line with the Jesuit practice of social justice,” and Boyle has said that the organization does not seek to “downplay” its Catholic identity.

Boyle described the ministry several years ago to CNA as “soaked with the Gospel.”

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, is presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public, or private endeavors, the White House says.

In announcing this year’s recipients, the White House noted that the honorees “built teams, coalitions, movements, organizations, and businesses that shaped America for the better.”

“They are the pinnacle of leadership in their fields. They consistently demonstrated over their careers the power of community, hard work, and service,” the announcement says. 

Biden, who is Catholic, announced that among the honorees is former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and former Secretary of State John Kerry, both fellow Catholics known for their pro-abortion advocacy.

Other honorees this year include former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, former Vice President Al Gore, Olympian Katie Ledecky, and actress Michelle Yeoh.

In 2020, Boyle was one of several hundred religious leaders who signed an endorsement of Biden’s campaign. The priest has called for the Church to “include with more compassion our LGBTQ sisters and brothers.”

In 2021, meanwhile, Homeboy Industries received $20 million in grants from prominent progressive backers Mackenzie Scott and Dan Jewett.

Martyred by the Nazis, Dutch St. Titus Brandsma was a journalist who gave his life so that the truths of the faith would not be silenced. / Credit: Wikimedia Commons

CNA Newsroom, May 3, 2024 / 13:45 pm (CNA).

World Press Freedom Day is celebrated every May 3, drawing attention to the importance of free and independent news media. 

Among modern-day saints, there is a journalist-priest who suffered martyrdom by the Nazis for his work in Catholic media: St. Titus Brandsma.

St. Titus (1881–1942), canonized by Pope Francis in 2022, was a Carmelite priest and native of the Netherlands. During the Nazi occupation of that country, the Nazi public relations bureau informed Dutch newspapers that they had to accept advertisements and press releases emanating from official sources.

The cardinal-archbishop of Ultrecht, Johannes de Jong, commissioned Brandsma, in his capacity as a journalist and spiritual director of the country’s Catholic journalists, to convey the hierarchy’s response to the Nazis’ mandate to all the Catholic editors in the country.

Brandsma concluded each visit to the editors with remarks along these lines: “We have reached our limit. We cannot serve them. It will be our duty to refuse Nazi propaganda definitely if we wish to remain Catholic newspapers. Even if they threaten us with severe penalties, suspension, or discontinuance of our newspapers, we cannot conform with their orders.”

Brandsma visited 14 editors before the Gestapo arrested him. He was arrested and taken to the Amersfoort penal camp, where he was made to work in inhumane conditions. Later, he ended up in the terrifying Dachau concentration camp in Germany, where the regime carried out experiments on prisoners. He was ultimately killed with a lethal injection of carbolic acid.

Before dying, he gave his rosary to the nurse who injected him with the deadly substance. She told him that she did not know how to pray, and he replied that she should only say: “Pray for us sinners.” Some time later the young woman converted and was a witness in the canonization process of Brandsma.

His body was never found and it is believed that he was cremated in the ovens of the Nazi extermination center. St. John Paul II approved the decree recognizing his martyrdom, and he was beatified in 1985. Pope Francis canonized him on May 22, 2022.

According to the Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad, dozens of international journalists and the 520-member German Association of Catholic Journalists signed a letter to Pope Francis asking him to name St. Titus Brandsma as patron of journalism.

For their part, the Carmelites indicate that the saint wrote a special prayer between Feb. 12–13, 1942, when he was in prison titled “Before an Image of Christ”:

O Jesus, when I gaze on you

Once more alive, that I love you

And that your heart loves me too

Moreover as your special friend.

Although that calls me to suffer more

Oh, for me all suffering is good,

For in this way I resemble you

And this is the way to your kingdom.

I am blissful in my suffering

For I know it no more as sorrow

But the most ultimate elected lot

That unites me with you, O God.

O, just leave me here silently alone,

The chill and cold around me

And let no people be with me

Here alone I grow not weary.

For thou, O Jesus, art with me

I have never been so close to you.

Stay with me, with me, Jesus sweet,

Your presence makes all things good for me.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

null / Gutzemberg / Shutterstock

CNA Staff, May 3, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

A priest in Chicago last month blessed a same-sex couple, saying that the Vatican’s recent document Fiducia Supplicans authorized such blessings. 

Father Joseph Williams, the pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Parish near downtown Chicago, is seen in an April 22 video shared on Instagram by Kelli Knight, a Methodist minister and self-identified “queer” community organizer. 

In the video, Williams is seen in the parish with Kelli and Myah Knight. “Myah always wanted to get married at the chapel of her alma mater, so I surprised her with a blessing of our marriage!” Kelli wrote in the post. The parish is affiliated with the Catholic DePaul University in Chicago. 

In the video, Williams can be seen asking the couple: “Kelli and Myah, do you freely recommit yourselves to love each other as holy spouses and to live in peace and harmony together forever?” The two women respond, “I do.”

“Loving God, increase and consecrate the love which Kelly and Myah have for one another,” the pastor then says. “The rings that they have exchanged are the sign of their fidelity and commitment.” 

“May they continue to prosper in your grace and blessing,” he added. 

“May God’s blessing be yours, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen,” the priest finished. 

Neither the priest nor the Archdiocese of Chicago immediately responded to requests for comment from CNA on Friday morning. The pastor told OSV News that his understanding of Fiducia Supplicans is that “same-sex couples can be blessed as long as it does not reflect a marriage situation … as long as it’s clear that it’s not a marriage.”

He reportedly told Knight when she first inquired about the blessing: “Please understand that this is not in any way a marriage, a wedding, anything like that. This is just simply a blessing of persons.”

Fiducia Supplicans has generated global controversy since it was first promulgated last December. The Vatican at the time directed that Catholic priests can bless same-sex couples as an expression of pastoral closeness without condoning their sexual relations. 

Bishops around the world in the subsequent months have been deeply divided over the declaration. Some prelates have responded warmly to the directive, while others have said they will not implement the practice.

null / Credit: Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 18:20 pm (CNA).

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) released a pair of emergency rules that it said are aimed at combating “misinformation” and a “deeply dishonest scare campaign” by the Biden administration about the state’s new six-week pro-life law. 

The rules, published on May 1, establish guidance for lifesaving measures and clarify that certain procedures, including treatment for ectopic pregnancies, are not considered abortion and remain legal under the Florida Heartbeat Protection Act, which went into effect on Wednesday.  

This comes amid significant criticism over the state’s pro-life law that prohibits abortions on women after six weeks of pregnancy except for in cases of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is in danger. The new AHCA rules further clarify those exceptions. 

“The agency finds there is an immediate danger to the health, safety, and welfare of pregnant women and babies due to a deeply dishonest scare campaign and disinformation being perpetuated by the media, the Biden administration, and advocacy groups to misrepresent the Heartbeat Protection Act and the state’s efforts to protect life, moms, and families,” the AHCA wrote in both rules. “The agency is initiating rulemaking to safeguard against any immediate harm that could come to pregnant women due to disinformation.” 

“This rulemaking,” the AHCA goes on, “will ensure health care providers establish medical records procedures that will adequately protect the care and safety of both mothers and their unborn babies during medical emergencies.”

The rules state that “regardless of gestational age,” treatment for ectopic pregnancies, premature rupture of membranes, trophoblastic tumors, and “other life-threatening conditions” is “not to be considered an abortion and shall not be reported [as such]” even if those procedures inadvertently result in the death of the unborn child. 

In a “Myth vs. Fact” sheet published the same day, the AHCA also clarified that “Florida law does not prohibit the removal of the pregnancy for women who experience a miscarriage in any circumstance.” 

The Biden administration has been outspoken about its opposition to Florida’s six-week law. Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech in Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday in which she condemned the Florida pro-life law as “extreme” and dangerous for the health and safety of women. 

President Joe Biden also attacked Florida’s six-week law in a campaign speech in Tampa on April 23. He blamed former President Donald Trump and Republicans for unleashing a “nightmare” on American women. 

Florida state Sen. Lauren Book said that “women and girls will die” because of the law.  

AHCA Secretary Jason Weida issued a statement the same as the rule in which he said: “The pro-abortion left is lying for political gain. The attempts to demonize standard health care for women make a physician’s job more difficult and can put a pregnant woman’s life at risk. The Heartbeat Protection Act protects women from life-threatening complications while protecting the life of the unborn.” 

Fertility rose at the end of the Depression and the end of World War II with the baby boom, to more than 3.5 births for every woman by 1960 — then plummeted immediately thereafter. / Credit: Glenn|Wikimedia|CC BY-SA 2.0

Washington D.C., May 2, 2024 / 17:55 pm (CNA).

The record-low fertility rates in the United States and the decline in fertility globally are driven by both social and economic factors, according to Catholic panelists speaking at an event hosted by the Institute for Human Ecology (IHE).

According to provisional data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, the 2023 American fertility rate fell to 54.4 births per 1,000 women, which is the lowest in recorded history. The total fertility rate, which estimates how many children the average woman will have over her lifetime, fell to just over 1.6 — well below the replacement rate of 2.1.

The panel, titled “The Population Bust,” took place at the Catholic University of America. The institute is affiliated with the university’s Department of Politics. The panel was moderated by Catholic New York Times columnist Ross Douthat.

How fertility began to trend downward

In 1800, the fertility rate was more than four times the current rate, standing strong at more than seven births for every woman over her lifetime. 

The rate steadily decreased to just over three births for every woman in 1925, until taking a large dip to 2.06 during the Great Depression. Fertility rose again at the end of the Depression and the end of World War II with the baby boom, to more than 3.5 births for every woman by 1960 — then plummeted immediately thereafter. 

Apart from a few small short-term bumps, the country’s fertility rate has never recovered from the post-1960 downward trajectory. 

Catherine Pakaluk, an IHE scholar, mother of eight, and author of the recently published book “Hannah’s Children,” said the gradual decline since 1800 was primarily a result of industrialization. When the country was more agrarian, children were an economic necessity to help with work and to provide care for their parents as they aged. But industrialization and the social safety nets ended that incentive. 

Before industrialization, Pakaluk noted, the mindset was, “You’re going to do this really hard thing because it’s the sort of thing you need to do.”

Yet fertility had mostly remained above the 2.1 replacement rate until the 1960s when there were significant shifts in the culture. In 1960, just before birth rates began to plummet again, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first birth control pill and the women’s liberation movement began to take hold of the country.

When the “contraceptive revolution” occurred, along with a rise in feminism, Pakaluk said many women still wanted to have children but began to prioritize professional goals instead. 

“They also want to have jobs and careers,” Pakaluk added. “Literally, that’s the problem. They want to have two things that are in conflict. … Women’s large-scale entry into the paid workforce is the thing that’s in tension with having the children they want to have.”

Timothy Carney, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, father of eight, and author of the recently published book “Family Unfriendly,” said the United States has become “a contraceptive society.” He lamented the social view that children are simply “your individual deliberate choice,” which he said emboldens the mindset that this “freed up everybody else from having to help out.”

“Our society is failing to make people want to have kids,” Carney said. “Our society is falling short in all these ways. … It is our culture that is family-unfriendly.”

Carney said that having children used to simply be a part of life, but now people postpone and agonize over the decision. He criticized “helicopter parenting” as one of the reasons people are afraid to have more children.

“Millennials were more helicoptered as kids, and so their view of what parenting is was much more daunting than [Generation] X, where it was ‘come home when the street lights turn on’ when we were little,” Carney said.

“It’s our culture’s values that are off,” Carney added. “And it’s all tied to the overparenting [and] the strange new mating and dating norms, which [are based on] a belief in hyper-individualism.”

Complexities in fixing these trends

For her recent book, Pakaluk interviewed women who have defied these trends and built large families with their husbands. The reasons that those women decided to have large families, she noted, were rooted in religious faith.

According to Pakaluk, these women believed that “children are blessings from God, expressions of God’s goodness and the purpose of my marriage.”

“Churches and religious people are actually holding the one thing that can make the biggest difference because it’s either true or it’s not true that children are blessings [and] that they’re always valuable,” Pakaluk said. “... If it’s true, it’s not propaganda to say it. … If it’s true and it’s not propaganda, people can begin to believe this.”

Pakaluk said the central assertion of Christianity is that “God became Man as a human infant and that reality is supposed to color the way we see the value of human infancy.” Although the women she spoke to have goals and responsibilities apart from their roles as mothers, she said the faith component ensures that they prioritize building a family first.

“To get more children, you have to find some way … to argue that this particular good — the ‘children’ good — is of greater value or more importance,” Pakaluk added.

Carney suggested that some of the cultural difficulties could be mitigated through economic incentives. He criticized the failure to pass a child tax credit and rebuked the mindset that society has no role in supporting families. 

“People have less community support,” he said.

Still, Carney cited the importance of a resurgence in faith as a fundamental component of raising fertility rates. 

“The secular story — the godless story — ends up being too sad to want to continue the human race,” Carney said.

null / Credit: Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 2, 2024 / 15:26 pm (CNA).

Former President Donald Trump is polling more than 10 points ahead of President Joe Biden among Catholic voters, thanks in part to increasing support from Hispanic Catholic voters, according to a recent Pew survey.

Overall, Pew has Trump leading by only 1% among the general voter population. His support among the Catholic demographic, however, shows noteworthy signs of growth compared with 2020.

According to the latest Pew Research Center poll, which was taken April 8–14, Trump leads Biden among Catholics 55% to 43%. The 12% lead is a significant increase from 2020, when Catholics voted in favor of Trump by just 1%, 50% to 49%. 

Chad Pecknold, a theology professor at the Catholic University of America and an expert on the American Church, told CNA the Hispanic Catholic shift is what stands out most in Pew’s latest poll. 

Hispanic Catholics, who make up approximately 40% of the U.S. Church, continue to favor Biden, but at a much smaller margin, 49% to 47%. This is a serious decline in Hispanic Catholic support for Biden. A similar Pew poll taken a month before the 2020 election showed Hispanics favored Biden by an overwhelming margin of 67% to 26%. 

This comes as Pew projects Hispanics to make up a record-high 14.7% of all eligible U.S. voters this election season. 

“Democrats are experts at harvesting ‘identities’ for votes, so it’s important to pay close attention when they fail,” Pecknold said. 

“They [Hispanic Catholics] were once reliable votes for Democrats, but they are now splitting down the middle. What this suggests is that, despite their best attempts at buying their votes through political favors, Democrats are losing one of the identity groups they’ve worked hardest at keeping.” 

Meanwhile, Trump’s lead among White Catholics has also grown, currently at 61% in favor of Trump to 38% for Biden, compared with 57% to 42% in 2020. 

Nevertheless, both Biden and Trump currently hold high unfavorability ratings among Catholics. According to Pew, only 35% of Catholics hold a favorable view of Biden while 64% have an unfavorable view. Trump, meanwhile, is also viewed unfavorably by a majority of Catholics (57%) and favorably by 42%. 

Though he is the second Catholic president in U.S. history, Biden has sparked outrage among many Catholics for invoking his Catholic faith to support abortion. Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, D.C., recently criticized Biden on national television, saying he “picks and chooses” elements of the Catholic faith to follow.

Pew’s data reveals a marked difference in political affiliation between Catholics who attend Mass at least monthly or more and those who do not.

Regardless of ethnicity, among all Catholics who attend Mass monthly or more often, 61% identify with the Republican Party or lean Republican. This includes a majority (67%) of both white Catholics and Hispanic Catholics (52%).

Biden’s most significant polling lead is among atheist voters, a demographic he leads by 76 percentage points, 87% to 11%. He also holds very large leads among Black Protestants (77% to 18%) and agnostics (82% to 17%). Biden leads among religiously unaffiliated voters 69% to 28%, which is very similar to his support in this demographic in 2020.  

Thousands of pilgrims come together each year to take part in the annual Walk to Mary, which takes place on the first Saturday of May in Wisconsin. The 21-mile pilgrimage starts at the National Shrine of St. Joseph in De Pere, Wisconsin, and ends at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion, Wisconsin. / Credit: The Shrine of Our Lady of Champion

CNA Staff, May 2, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Thousands of pilgrims come together each year to take part in the annual Walk to Mary, which takes place on the first Saturday of May in Wisconsin. The 21-mile pilgrimage starts at the National Shrine of St. Joseph in De Pere, Wisconsin, and ends at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in Champion, Wisconsin.

The Walk to Mary will take place on May 4 this year and includes several “join in” points along the route that offer participants unable to walk the entire distance to participate. These locations shorten the pilgrimage length, allowing pilgrims of all ages to take part in what is a spiritual and physical test in perseverance.

This year’s pilgrimage is particularly special as the participants will be walking similar stretches that the perpetual pilgrims and Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament on the Marian Route will be walking during the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage this June.

The National Eucharistic Pilgrimage will be making a stop at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion on June 16, where there will be a Mass celebrated and a large Eucharistic rosary procession.

Father Joseph Aytona, CPM, rector of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, told CNA in an interview that the Marian Route of the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage was actually named in honor of Our Lady of Champion.

“It is an honor to pray over this path during the Walk to Mary and, in a real way, ‘prepare the way of the Lord and make straight his paths’ for when he arrives in June through the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage,” he said.

Since 2023, a segment of the Walk to Mary has been designed to accommodate children, families, and anyone who wants to participate in the pilgrimage but is challenged by the longer distances. This 1.7-mile route, called “The Walk With the Children,” merges into the last half a mile of the longer route.

Aytona shared that they are expecting more than 6,000 pilgrims from around the world to attend this year’s Walk to Mary. 

“Participants walk down everyday streets and trails through the Green Bay area, led by a carried statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary,” he explained. “They pray the rosary, sing hymns, and silently reflect on the intentions they are walking for. It’s always a beautiful display of faith for the world to see.”

Aytona compared the walk to a “mini-version of the Camino de Santiago in Europe,” adding that “the Walk to Mary draws people to the heart of pilgrimage — the opportunity for one to draw closer to the Lord and for him to draw closer to you — but all through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Joseph.”

The final destination of the walk is also particularly special as the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion is the first and only approved Marian apparition in the United States. 

On Oct. 9, 1859, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a young Belgian woman named Adele Brise in the woods near present-day Champion, Wisconsin. Seeing the beautiful lady dressed in dazzling white with a crown of stars around her head, Brise asked the woman who she was.

The lady replied: “I am the Queen of Heaven who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same.”

The Blessed Mother then told the young girl to “gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation. Teach them their catechism, how to sign themselves with the sign of the cross, and how to approach the sacraments; that is what I wish you to do.”

The apparition was approved by Bishop David Ricken of the Diocese of Green Bay in 2010. 

Karmen Lemke, executive director of Catholic Charities at the Diocese of Green Bay, called the 21-mile pilgrimage “absolutely life-changing.”

This year marks Lemke’s third time participating in the Walk to Mary; however, her first two experiences hold a special place in her heart. 

“My first walk, the full 21 miles, was in 2022, and my inspiration for participating was to join my friend Doris Lamers, who was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer,” Lemke shared with CNA in an interview. 

“The Blessed Mother has been an important person in her life and the Walk to Mary was something she really wanted to do. A few days before I asked again if she wanted to walk, even if we did the short version, and she quickly replied: ‘I want to walk and I want to do the whole thing,’” she recalled.

Lemke said that will be a day she will “forever treasure.”

“The weather was perfect, but our conversations along the walk were priceless,” she said. “We prayed the rosary and talked about life in general. We met so many wonderful people along the way, sharing stories of why they walk.”

In 2023, Lemke and Lamers participated in the walk again, along with Lamers’ sister and niece; however, due to the progression of the cancer, Lemke pushed Lamers in a wheelchair for the last seven miles of the walk.

“Upon our arrival at the shrine, Doris received a special blessing from Father Joseph [Aytona]. It was wonderful. I know that Doris knew exactly what was going on and was grateful for the day.”

Lamers passed away on Sept. 20, 2023.

“This year will hold a different meaning for us,” Lemke said. “We know that Doris will be with us and she’ll be saying, ‘Come on girls, you can do the whole route!’”

As for what Lemke has taken away from participating in the Walk to Mary, she said she has come to see “that anyone can do it with a little encouragement and not a lot of necessary training. I was moved by the number of people and their love for Mary and the love for their faith. It was a true sense of community.”

Aytona said he hopes that participants “are led to a deeper devotion to Our Lord Jesus.”

“True devotion to Mary always brings us to Jesus, and when people step foot on the grounds where Mary appeared, I hope they have an encounter with her that ultimately leads them to profound encounters with the merciful and divine love of Christ,” he added.

The pro-life flag from the Pro-Life Flag Project (www.prolifeflag.com). / Credit: Pro-Life Flag Project (www.prolifeflag.com)

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 1, 2024 / 18:50 pm (CNA).

Here’s a look at abortion-related developments that took place in various U.S. states this week. 

Florida’s six-week pro-life law takes effect

Florida’s Heartbeat Protection Act took effect on Wednesday, May 1. The law protects unborn babies from abortion starting at six weeks of pregnancy. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the law back in April 2023, but it remained blocked until an April decision by the state Supreme Court that cleared the way for it to take effect. 

This comes as a high-stakes abortion amendment, effectively legalizing the procedure through all nine months of pregnancy, is set to be included on the ballot this November. 

Arizona Senate votes to repeal law protecting life at conception

In a 16-14 vote the Arizona Senate voted to repeal a law protecting unborn babies from abortion beginning at conception. The so-called “abortion ban repeal” bill passed the Arizona Senate despite a narrow Republican majority, due to two Republicans joining all Democrats to repeal the pro-life law. The Arizona House already passed the repeal bill in a similarly close vote last week. Gov. Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, has already said she plans to quickly sign the bill, which will return the state to limiting abortion after 15 weeks. 

South Dakota abortion amendment reaches required signatures

Dakotans for Health, a pro-abortion group in South Dakota, announced on Wednesday that it has exceeded the required number of signatures to add an abortion amendment to the state’s November ballot. The amendment proposal and signatures will need to be vetted by state authorities. If passed, the amendment would override the state’s existing pro-life laws and enshrine abortion into the state constitution. Currently, abortion is only legal in South Dakota if the life of the mother is at risk.

Tennessee governor signs ‘Baby Olivia’ pro-life bill

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill on Tuesday to increase education on fetal development in public schools. The bill mandates that the state’s family life curricula include a three-minute video titled “Baby Olivia,” which was produced by the pro-life group Live Action and shows an unborn baby’s development from conception till birth. 

Several other states — Iowa, Missouri, Kentucky, and West Virginia — are also considering passing bills to add the Baby Olivia video to their curriculum.

Maine governor signs out-of-state abortion law

Maine Gov. Janet Mills signed a law last week that seeks to shield out-of-state patients who are seeking abortions or so-called “gender-affirming care” in Maine from possible prosecution. The legislation would prevent their medical records from being shared with law enforcement agencies in other states where such practices have been banned. The law also gives abortionists in the state immunity from any prosecutions on abortions performed on out-of-state women. 

Catholics in the Archdiocese of Baltimore pack the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen during a concluding listening session on the archdiocese's major parish restructuring plan on April 30, 2024. / Credit: Matthew Balan

Baltimore, Md., May 1, 2024 / 18:10 pm (CNA).

Hundreds of Catholic residents of Baltimore packed the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen on Tuesday evening to give their often-impassioned reactions to a process that could lead to the closure of nearly two-thirds of the city’s parishes.

Several parishes from the state’s largest city organized large contingents to attend the April 30 meeting, which was the final of three listening sessions for the Archdiocese of Baltimore’s “Seek the City” parish restructuring proposal. They made their presence known with custom-made T-shirts or ethnic attire, with some even carrying large banners that begged Archbishop William Lori to spare their churches.

Parishioners from the Shrine of the Sacred Heart in the Mount Washington neighborhood of the city printed a banner that proclaimed: “SOS! Save Our Shrine.” The group from the largely-Filipino parish also participated vocally in the session, including an emotional plea from John Tagle, a high school student. Tagle worried that his parish would be gone when he returned home from college.

A non-Filipino member of the shrine, David Bender, bluntly stated: “The proposal does not make spiritual sense.” 

Many of those wearing custom T-shirts came from Holy Rosary, a parish in the Fells Point neighborhood that has connections to two Polish canonized saints. Some of their group wore ethnic attire and waved the white and red flag of their Eastern European homeland. 

A young woman from Holy Rosary wondered why the archdiocese would shutter a place that was visited by St. John Paul II (when he was Cardinal Karol Wojytla in 1976). The parish is also directly tied to the canonization process of St. Faustina Kowalska, as it was the site of a documented miraculous healing attributed to the Polish sister.

Auxiliary Bishop Bruce Lewandowski gave a grim assessment as he spoke to local media before presiding over the listening session. “This is difficult. It’s heart-wrenching,” he emphasized. “But we’re at a pivotal moment in the city Church. We need to do this.”

Lewandowski led the attendees in prayer before starting the main presentation about the parish closure/consolidation proposal under “Seek the City.” He, along with two lay consultants, began a slideshow that first gave an overview of the two-year process leading up to the current juncture.

The trio then unveiled several slides that outlined the proposal to shrink the city’s parishes from 61 parishes to 26 parishes. The City of Baltimore, along with some immediate surrounding parts of neighboring Baltimore County, was divided into five regions (center, east, west, north, and south). While the first four regions would have three to five consolidated parishes, the south region would be reduced to only two. 

An additional two parishes have been designated “personal parishes”: St. Ignatius, which is administered by the Jesuits, and St. Alphonsus, the home of the Traditional Latin Mass in Baltimore. During the listening session, the archdiocese disclosed that a final decision on the “Seek the City” proposal would be made by mid-June.

The slideshow spotlighted that four of the merged parishes would specifically minister to Hispanic communities. It also noted that the Filipino community — currently centered at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart — would move to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen.

Other parishoners with deep roots in Baltimore City also bewailed the spiritual devastation the proposed restructuring would cause. A representative from St. Rita’s in Dundalk (a community that was directly impacted by the recent collapse of the Key Bridge at the mouth of Baltimore Harbor) begged: “Don’t let the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ leave Old Dundalk!”

Sue Jones, who has lived her entire life in the region, reflected on entering her eighth decade as a Catholic in the primatial see of the United States. Jones, who attends St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in the Hampden neighborhood, underlined that “killing [the parishes], or turning them into unrecognizable hubs, ... is the final nail in the coffin for the Church in Baltimore City.” Her parish would be closed under the current proposal.

The lifelong Baltimore resident added that she remained hopeful.

“I’m so proud, because the remaining Catholics are here in spite of the archdiocese’s leadership,” she said after the listening session.

The St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest Catholic cathedral in continual use in the United States, on April 9, 2020, in New Orleans. / Credit: Chris Graythen/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 1, 2024 / 17:50 pm (CNA).

A criminal investigation into the Archdiocese of New Orleans is based on a suspicion that it may be linked to child sex trafficking, according to allegations presented in a search warrant granted to Louisiana State Police.

The affidavit requesting the search warrant, first obtained by the New Orleans-based WWL Radio, alleges that multiple sex abuse victims provided statements that claim they were transported to other parishes and outside of Louisiana, where they were sexually abused. It further alleges a scheme within the archdiocese in which abused children were instructed to provide “gifts” to certain priests, which were meant to signal that the children were targets for sexual abuse.

According to the allegations in the affidavit, multiple victims reported that they were brought to the New Orleans Seminary, where they were instructed to “swim naked in the pool and would be sexually assaulted or abused.” It also alleges that investigators found that this was “a common occurrence” and that other members of the archdiocese were present. 

“Based on these findings, as well as the allegations of previous widespread child sexual abuse, it was determined that further investigation into the Archdiocese of New Orleans was necessary,” investigator Scott Rodrigue wrote in the affidavit. 

Judge Juana Lombard granted police the search warrant last week, but the allegations in the warrant were not made public until Tuesday, April 30. It allows police to search personnel files, financial records, communications, and other documents related to allegations of sexual abuse.

The warrant acknowledges that the police have probable cause to suspect felony violations of the law that prohibits the “trafficking of children for a sexual purpose.”

Although the allegations contained in the warrant do not indicate when the alleged trafficking occurred, the information that led to a suspicion of sex trafficking was obtained by police during an earlier investigation into a retired priest named Lawrence Hecker, who is accused of raping an underage teenage boy in the 1970s. Hecker was indicted for the alleged crime but has not yet been tried.

The affidavit alleges that documents obtained during the Hecker investigation show that “previous archbishops … not only knew of the [widespread] sexual abuse and failed to report all the claims to law enforcement, but [also] spent archdiocese funding to support the accused.”

One document cited in the affidavit states that one specific archbishop “was aware of rampant sexual abuse throughout the archdiocese,” but the affidavit leaves out the archbishop’s name. 

The affidavit alleges, without stating the exact time frame, that the archdiocese “disregarded” or “covered up” claims of widespread sexual abuse. It alleges that in many cases, abuse claims “were not reported to law enforcement.” In some instances, the archdiocese provided “monetary payments” to victims or their families “to dismiss the allegations,” according to the affidavit.

Investigators conducted “a large number of interviews” of individuals who allege widespread sexual abuse against children in the archdiocese, according to the affidavit. Interviews are still being conducted. 

The Archdiocese of New Orleans filed for bankruptcy in May 2020 amid financial problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the costs of litigation and settlements related to alleged sexual abuse.

CNA reached out to the archdiocese for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.