St. James the Less Catholic Parish

Kennedy opened up to veteran EWTN News anchorman Raymond Arroyo about his family’s strong faith growing up, how his faith helped him overcome drug addiction and how it impacts him in his day-to-day life in the travails of U.S. presidential politics. / Credit: EWTN News "The World Over with Raymond Arroyo" / Screenshot

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 26, 2024 / 06:30 am (CNA).

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. discussed the importance of his Catholic faith in his daily life, his plan to reduce abortions without federal restrictions, and his opposition to biological males playing in women’s sports during an exclusive interview on “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo” Thursday night.

Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, is running a vigorous independent campaign to be the next president of the United States. He launched an independent bid for the White House last October after initially challenging incumbent President Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination.

In the interview, the presidential hopeful opened up about his family’s strong faith growing up, how his faith helped him overcome drug addiction, and how it impacts him in his day-to-day life.

“The centerpiece of our lives [growing up] was Catholicism,” Kennedy told Arroyo.

“We said the rosary at least once a day, oftentimes three times a day,” Kennedy said. “We prayed before and after every [meal]. We read the Bible every night. We read the lives of the saints. We went to church, sometimes twice a day. We would go to the 7 o’clock Mass and 8 o’clock Mass in the summers. It was our whole family, and it was really our whole community. It was part of me growing up.”

At age 15, following his father’s assassination, Kennedy expressed that he struggled with his faith. He became addicted to drugs, including heroin, until he was 28 years old.

“During that period of time, I wouldn’t say I lost my faith, but when you’re living against conscience, which you have to do if you’re addicted to drugs, you push God out over the periphery of your horizon,” Kennedy said. “So the concept of God was, although it never was erased from me, it was just a distant concept that was not part of my day-to-day life.”

He credits “a profound spiritual realignment” for his recovery from addiction in early adulthood, which he said has been “the centerpiece of my life ever since.” 

“I had a spiritual awakening very early in my recovery, which I was lucky about because I no longer had to struggle with the compulsion to take drugs,” Kennedy explained. “That was lifted away from me. But you can’t live off the laurels of a spiritual awakening. You have to renew it every day, and you renew it through service to other people.”

He said his faith gives him peace in the midst of the storms of life and cited his favorite saints, specifically St. Francis and St. Augustine.

Reducing abortions without federal restrictions

On the issue of abortion, Kennedy said his family has been divided on the issue and that he does not see himself as a “doctrinaire on either side.”

Kennedy said he disagrees with former President Donald Trump’s plan to leave abortion policies up to the states. Although he acknowledged that “every abortion is a tragedy,” he said decisions “should be up to the mother” and that he does not “trust government officials and bureaucrats” to be involved in the issue.

Rather than implementing restrictions on abortion, Kennedy has proposed a plan to subsidize day care “to make sure that no American mother ever has an abortion of a child that she wants to bring to term because she’s worried about her financial capacity to raise that child.”

“I would like to maximize choice but also minimize the number of abortions that occur every year,” Kennedy said.

The presidential hopeful also said he would not reverse the Biden administration’s approval of expanding access to the abortion pill in stores like CVS and Walgreens. However, he added that “we ought to know what the side effects are, what the risks are, [and] what the benefits [are].”

Opposing biological males in women’s sports

Kennedy said he disagrees with the Biden administration’s recent change to Title IX, which interprets sex discrimination as including discrimination of “gender identity.”

He is opposed to biological males who identify as women being allowed to participate in women’s sports. “I don’t think it’s fair if a boy can walk off a neighboring playing field and say, I’m a girl now, and I’m going to take that spot that you worked for,” the candidate said. “I think we all need to respect people who have sexual differences and protect them, but I don’t believe that people who were born men ought to be able to compete in consequential sports.”

The 2024 presidential election

At this juncture, Kennedy is polling well behind Biden and Trump but has stronger poll numbers than any independent or third-party candidate since Ross Perot in 1992. A compilation of polls from RealClearPolling currently puts him at just under 12%. 

“All we need to do is to get to 33% to win the election,” Kennedy said in the interview. “You don’t need 50%. It’s a three-way race. It’s really a five-way race. All I need is to get to 33%, and I’m close to that in a bunch of states.”

The election is on Tuesday, Nov. 5.

Students, faculty, monks, and staff at Belmont Abbey College took part in their first “Cover to Cover” Bible Marathon Reading Event from April 8–12, 2024.. / Credit: Nicholas Willey

CNA Staff, Apr 26, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Eighty-five hours and 42 minutes. That was the time it took students, faculty, monks, and staff to read the Bible from beginning to end at Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina during its first “Cover to Cover” Bible marathon reading event earlier this month. 

More than 110 readers took turns standing at a podium in Stowe Hall, the college’s main administration building, reading aloud from sacred Scripture throughout the day and night beginning Monday, April 8, and ending in the early hours of Friday, April 12. 

Tom MacAlester, the vice provost and dean of student life at Belmont Abbey College, told CNA in an interview that the idea came from an experience he had during his time in college at Florida State University. 

“There was a group of a number of campus ministries at Florida State that kind of undertook an ecumenical approach to reading the Bible from cover to cover, nonstop,” he explained. “Baptist students and Catholic students — we even had some students from Hillel come and read parts of the Old Testament, and it was a really cool event.”

“It’s stuck with me all these years, and I was excited to be able to try it out here at the Abbey and ended up having a fantastic reception,” he added.

Ahead of the event, sign-up sheets were sent out to all students and staff giving them the ability to find a time that worked with their class schedules. 

MacAlester shared that once they shared the vision for the event, “it was an easy sell” and “students got really excited about it.”

“There was a moment where we were like, ‘Oh, maybe we’ll just do the New Testament,’ but then students started signing up for the Old Testament,” he said. “You know reading the Book of Numbers at two in the morning — that sounds like really exciting stuff, right? But our students signed up really quick.”

He said many students have reached out to share how meaningful the event was to them and how, for many, “in a beautiful and a providential way, the Lord had them reading a very specific verse just for them and how touching and moving that was to them.”

There are now plans in the works to ensure each incoming class to Belmont Abbey has the opportunity to take part in the “Cover to Cover” Bible marathon at least once during their four years at the college. This will most likely mean a once-in-three-years cycle, MacAlester explained. 

MacAlester hopes that students recognized “the power of Scripture” by taking part in this event. 

“It’s a blueprint right? If we’re looking for a guide, if we’re looking for inspiration in how to live a holy life and one day hopefully get to heaven and bring our friends, we can’t be ignorant of Scripture,” he said.

An aerial view of Washington Square in San Francisco on May 22, 2020. / Credit: JOSH EDELSON/AFP via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Apr 25, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).

San Francisco police arrested a homeless man last Sunday for allegedly stabbing a parent from a nearby Catholic school after an altercation involving the two outside a historic Catholic church in the city. 

Twenty-five-year-old Marko Asaulyuk of San Francisco was charged with attempted murder and eight counts of assault with a deadly weapon.

The Catholic school father, who was released from the hospital Sunday, only suffered a minor injury to his leg, Father Tho Bui, pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul Church, told CNA Thursday in an email.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was conferring the sacrament of confirmation on the parish school’s students and students from a nearby parish during a noon Mass when a “disruptive man” entered the church, as Bui described him.

The man was walking up and down the main aisle of the church holding a bottle of wine, ABC7 reported. 

Bui said a group of parishioners and parents told the disruptive man to leave the church and escorted him out. ABC7 reported that the man was speaking with someone outside the church and said “Jesus is not real.”

A “scuffle” then occurred on the sidewalk and that’s when the man stabbed the parent in the leg, according to the priest.

The suspect, who was reported to be homeless, was arrested the same day, Bui said. Police said when they arrived at the scene, aid was given to the victim, who was brought to the hospital with “non-life-threatening injuries.”

Witnesses helped the police locate the suspect, police said. 

Bui called the incident “sad” and “extremely disturbing” but noted “the good news is that the criminal is behind bars, charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and is being held without bail.”

“Very likely, by getting him off the streets, our parishioners and dads prevented something even worse from happening,” he said. “But this is just the latest in an unending series of incidents caused by our city government’s tolerance of crime and mentally ill people on the streets.”

“It’s not specific to Sts. Peter and Paul. We saw in the news just this past week that the nurses at SF General [Hospital] and the librarians at our public libraries are demanding more protection from exactly the kind of incidents we had on Sunday,” he said. 

“Like SF General and the public libraries, we are open every single day. The mission of Jesus Christ requires it! While both our school and club can, and do, fulfill their missions while having gates and doors locked, the Church cannot,” Bui said.

CNA reached out to the archdiocese for comment but did not receive a response. 

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CNA Staff, Apr 25, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).

Louisiana State Police have obtained a new search warrant to collect documents from the Archdiocese of New Orleans as part of an ongoing investigation into Church abuse in that state.

State police spokesman Jacob Pucheu confirmed to CNA on Thursday that the bureau had obtained the warrant as part of its investigation into “numerous complaints of child sexual abuse” leveled at the archdiocese. The inquiry was first launched in 2022, he said.

“As part of the ongoing investigation, on Monday, April 22, 2024, SVU investigators obtained an additional search warrant to collect information and documents from the Archdiocese of New Orleans,” Pucheu told CNA.

“The archdiocese is cooperating with investigators to fulfill the terms of the search warrant,” he said. “This investigation remains ongoing with no further information available at this time.”

Pucheu declined to directly provide a copy of the warrant, saying that “since it is under investigation, it is not readily available.”

The archdiocese itself did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday morning.

The warrant comes as state police are investigating retired priest Lawrence Hecker, who was indicted in September on felony charges related to allegations that he raped an underage teenage boy in the 1970s.

A team of forensic experts this week said Hecker, who is 92, is presently unfit to stand trial due to short-term memory loss, though the experts said the accused priest could stand trial at a later date.

Prosecutors earlier this year had vowed to proceed with Hecker’s trial amid doubts of his competency. Orleans Parish First Assistant District Attorney Ned McGowan promised to “roll him in on a gurney” to try him.

The archdiocese filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020, with Archbishop Gregory Aymond pointing to financial pressure from clergy sex abuse claims as the driving force behind the reorganization.

“The prospect of more abuse cases with associated prolonged and costly litigation, together with pressing ministerial needs and budget challenges, is simply not financially sustainable,” the prelate said at the time.

Last year the archdiocese said it would ask “parishes, schools, and ministries” for monetary contributions in order to protect diocesan assets during the bankruptcy proceedings.

The archbishop had previously said that “parishes, schools, and ministries” would not be affected by the filing.

But “this is no longer the case,” Aymond said last year, “because of many external factors now facing us, including the fact that the law governing the statute of limitations has changed to now permit the filing of past abuse claims in civil court.”

Pro-life advocates demonstrate prior to an Arizona House of Representatives session at the Arizona State Capitol on April 17, 2024, in Phoenix. / Credit: Rebecca Noble/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 24, 2024 / 17:15 pm (CNA).

The Arizona House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to repeal a law protecting unborn babies from abortion throughout pregnancy.

The narrow 32-28 vote passed an “abortion ban repeal” bill designed to overturn the pro-life law. Republicans have a narrow majority in the Arizona House, but the bill was able to pass as three Republicans joined the Democrats against the pro-life measure.

The repeal bill will now be considered by the Arizona Senate where Republicans also hold a narrow 16-14 majority. Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs has already signaled she will sign the bill into law if it is passed by the Arizona Senate.

Even if the repeal bill is signed into law it will likely not go into effect until 90 days after the legislative session closes, meaning the pro-life law may be in effect for a short time. The pro-life measure is currently set to go into effect on June 8.

This comes after Democrats launched several unsuccessful attempts to repeal the pro-life law after a controversial Arizona Supreme Court decision ruled that the law — passed in 1864 — could go into effect.

Dormant since being invalidated by Roe v. Wade in 1973, the 1864 law protects all unborn life from conception and imposes prison time for those who “provide, supply, or administer” an abortion. The court ruled that since the U.S. Supreme Court overruled Roe in the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, there were no legal reasons to keep the law from being enforced.

On Tuesday, President Joe Biden criticized the Arizona pro-life law as backward, blaming former President Donald Trump for the Supreme Court overturning Roe and “literally taking us back 160 years.” 

Abortion is currently legal in Arizona until the 15th week of pregnancy. If the 1864 law takes effect, however, all abortion will be illegal, except in cases in which the mother’s life is in danger.

Pro-life and pro-abortion activists at a demonstration outside the U.S. Supreme Court as it hears arguments in the Moyle v. United States case, in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 2024. The case deals with whether an Idaho abortion law conflicts with the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA). / Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 24, 2024 / 16:15 pm (CNA).

A divided Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in a case that will determine whether federal law requires pro-life states to have broader exceptions for women who seek abortions in emergency situations. 

The crux of the case focuses on whether Idaho’s Defense of Life Act conflicts with a federal rule that requires hospitals to provide stabilizing health care that is consistent with standard medical practice in certain emergency situations.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit that argues Idaho’s law prevents hospitals from providing this care in some situations because it only allows abortions in cases of rape, incest, and when “necessary to prevent the death of the pregnant woman.”

The lawsuit, Moyle v. United States, is based on the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), which Congress enacted in 1986 to ensure that everyone has access to emergency medical care even if they can’t afford to pay for that care. 

Under EMTALA hospitals that receive Medicare funds must provide stabilizing care when the absence of care could put the patient’s health in serious jeopardy or cause the impairment of bodily functions or serious dysfunction of bodily organs. The law does not specifically reference abortion, but the Department of Justice is arguing that an abortion will sometimes be the standard care necessary to meet these rules.

According to the DOJ, Idaho’s threshold for when it permits abortion is too strict, because it only permits abortions when necessary to prevent the death of the mother and does not include any exceptions that would cover the other health risks considered in EMTALA.

The Supreme Court’s decision in this case could have far-ranging effects on protections for unborn children in Idaho and more than 20 other states that have passed pro-life laws in the past few years.

Idaho claims there is no conflict

In oral arguments presented to the justices, Idaho’s lawyer Joshua Turner said Idaho’s law does not conflict with EMTALA in any way and claimed the DOJ is “misreading” the statute when it makes that assertion.

Turner argued that states can legally regulate the practice of medicine and that they frequently impose such regulations. As an example, he noted that states control medical licensing and the legality of certain treatments. He referenced the different approaches among states related to how long a doctor can prescribe opioids to someone who is dealing with chronic pain and said there are “countless examples” of this.

The DOJ’s interpretation, according to Turner, would prevent the state from enforcing any of these regulations because it “lacks any limiting principle” and essentially “leaves emergency rooms unregulated under state law.” He further said that proper “professional standards” change from day to day and that it is limited to available treatments, according to the text: “Illegal treatments are not available treatments.” 

Turner added that the provisions in EMTALA have never been used to challenge a state regulation or criminal statute. He claimed that for EMTALA to override a state’s criminal law, it would need to be very clear. 

“Congress must speak clearly,” Turner said. “It has not done so here.”

Some of the judges challenged Turner on his interpretation and probed him with questions about when abortions would be allowed under Idaho’s law. Justice Elena Kagan argued with Turner about whether EMTALA was clear, claiming “the federal government has plenty to say about [when care must be provided] in this statute.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor pressed Turner with questions about whether Idaho’s law would permit an abortion in various hypothetical situations. Turner said the law permits an abortion when the life of the mother is threatened, which is based on “the doctor’s good-faith medical judgment” but was repeatedly interrupted when he sought to explain further.

The line of questioning and frequent interruptions provoked the ire of Justice Samuel Alito, who commented that Turner was presented with quick hypotheticals and “asked to provide a snap judgment of what would be appropriate” and “hardly given an opportunity to answer.”

DOJ asserts abortion is covered under EMTALA

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who provided the legal arguments on behalf of the DOJ, said Idaho’s law conflicts with the text of EMTALA, which has real implications for what is “happening on the ground.” She asserted that Turner is “gravely mistaken” in saying that there is no conflict. 

“This case is about how [EMTALA] applies to pregnant women in a medical crisis,” Prelogar said. 

Prelogar challenged Turner’s interpretation that the DOJ’s position would threaten all state medical regulations, asserting that EMTALA is “textually very narrow.”

According to Prelogar, if abortion is necessary to provide stabilizing care for a woman under the conditions set in EMTALA, “the statute protects her and gives her that choice.” She said the patient must “be offered pregnancy termination [when it is] the necessary treatment.”

Some of the justices challenged Prelogar’s interpretation of the law. Justice Clarence Thomas noted that EMTALA imposes a rule on hospitals as a condition to receive Medicare funding but that the law does not make demands of the state. 

“In this case, you are bringing an action against the state, and the state’s not regulated,” Thomas said.

Thomas and other judges noted that EMTALA concerns spending and questioned Prelogar on whether it would preempt a state’s criminal laws. 

“Congress has broad power under the spending clause to impose [these rules],” Prelogar responded. 

The judges also questioned Prelogar about whether EMTALA respects conscience objections made by doctors and hospitals who have moral objections to providing abortions, and she said those protections are still in place. They also asked her whether a mental health crisis could ever permit an abortion under EMTALA, to which she replied that abortion is “not the accepted standard of practice to treat any mental health emergency.”

Anti-death penalty activists rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in an attempt to prevent the execution of Oklahoma inmate Richard Glossip on Sept. 29, 2015, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Larry French/Getty Images for MoveOn.org

CNA Staff, Apr 24, 2024 / 15:15 pm (CNA).

Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond this week asked the Supreme Court to halt the execution of a condemned man whose death sentence has been criticized by an archbishop and other Catholic advocates. 

Drummond announced the filing on his website on Tuesday. In his petition to the Supreme Court the attorney general detailed “why the execution of Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip should be halted and his conviction remanded back to district court.”

Glossip was first convicted in 1998 for allegedly ordering a handyman at a motel Glossip managed to murder the motel’s owner. Glossip was largely convicted on the handyman’s testimony.

Since his initial conviction, two independent investigations have uncovered serious problems with his trial, including allegations of police misconduct and what were reportedly incorrect instructions given to the jury in the case. Prosecutors had also reportedly failed to correct false testimony in Glossip’s trial. 

The Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals upheld Glossip’s death sentence in April of last year, even though the state had previously admitted error and asked the appeals court to overturn the sentence. Drummond called that decision “remarkable and remarkably flawed.”

By “dismissing this extraordinary confession by the state,” Drummond’s office said this week, the appeals court engaged in a “flawed whitewashing of federal constitutional violations.”

The court should “vacate the judgment of conviction and order a new trial” for Glossip, Drummond’s filing said. 

Archbishop: Court’s review ‘offers hope’

The U.S. Supreme Court announced in January that it would review Glossip’s case. At the time, Oklahoma Archbishop Paul Coakley told CNA that the high court’s decision “offers hope in furthering the cause toward one day abolishing the death penalty.”

“With new evidence and the state of Oklahoma’s admission of errors in the case prompting the Supreme Court review — issues that seem to be more and more prevalent — we can clearly see reason to reconsider institutionalized violence against the incarcerated as we hopefully move to respect the dignity of life for all human persons,” Coakley told CNA. 

The Death Penalty Information Center says on its website that Oklahoma has the highest number of executions per capita of any U.S. state since the death penalty’s reinstitution in 1976. It is second only to Texas in total number of inmates put to death.

Glossip’s case has drawn support from other anti-death penalty Catholics. Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, the executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, said last year that Glossip “should not be put to death … not ever.” 

“No state should have the power to take the lives of its citizens,” she said at the time. “As we see in Mr. Glossip’s case, the system is too broken, too cruel, too disrespecting of human dignity."

“We give thanks to God that Richard Glossip has been granted a temporary stay of execution,” Vaillancourt Murphy said shortly thereafter, “and we pray the Supreme Court decides to formally take up his case.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, reflecting an update promulgated by Pope Francis in 2018, describes the death penalty as “inadmissible” and an “attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” (No. 2267).

St. John Paul II, meanwhile, called the death penalty “cruel and unnecessary” and encouraged Christians to be “unconditionally pro-life.” 

The former pope argued that “the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil.”

This is not the first time Glossip’s case has been to the highest court in the land. In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court in Glossip v. Gross ruled that lethal injections using midazolam to kill prisoners on death row do not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

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CNA Staff, Apr 24, 2024 / 14:15 pm (CNA).

As euthanasia and assisted suicide are legalized in more jurisdictions throughout the U.S. and the rest of the world, one Catholic-focused ministry is promoting end-of-life resources that the group’s founder says will help Catholics finish their earthly journeys while remaining faithful.

Aging with Dignity, a nonprofit that for years has been promoting end-of-life support in line with Church teaching, announced this month the release of “Finishing Life Faithfully,” a booklet that “makes complex end-of-life decisions easier.” The materials address “basic questions” on how to approach end-of-life topics such as pain management, feeding tubes, and other matters surrounding death.

The document “summarizes the Catholic Church’s guidance on end-of-life decision-making and the ethical considerations involved and helps patients and families better understand these teachings and follow them,” the group said this month.

Jim Towey, the founder and CEO of Aging with Dignity who previously served as legal counsel to Mother Teresa, told CNA this week that he launched the nonprofit in 1996 “to give people a hopeful vision for end of life that helps them practice their faith and that doesn’t treat dying like it’s just a medical moment.”

For years Aging With Dignity has distributed its “Five Wishes” legal document, which helps Catholics and others “express [their] wishes ahead of a serious illness.” A form of what’s known as an “advanced directive,” Towey said it lets the faithful “address their personal, emotional, and spiritual needs” before the final weeks and days of their lives.

The Five Wishes program has been immensely popular; the group has distributed over 40 million copies of the guide in 33 languages. But, Towey said, “it needed a companion guide to help Catholics understand what the Church teaches on feeding tubes, anointing of the sick, hospice, and pain management.”

Towey said he spent all of last year working with various collaborators, including priests, to develop the guide. The group says the document offers “a positive vision of care at the end of life that contrasts with the euthanasia/assisted suicide movements.”

The guide provides information on the ethical questions that often surround end-of-life concerns. It notes, for instance, that Catholics “can take or increase pain medication to lessen suffering” even if such medication might hasten the onset of death, so long as “death is not willed as either an end or a means.”

Elsewhere it notes that Catholics are not “obliged to accept or continue every medical intervention available” and that waiving “disproportionate medical treatments” that promise “only a precarious or painful extension of life” is “not the equivalent of suicide or euthanasia.”

The organization distributes the materials through more than 5,000 distributing organizations, including health care providers, churches, and employers. Individuals often request the documents to distribute to family or friends.

Both euthanasia and assisted suicide have been legalized in more and more jurisdictions throughout the U.S. and Western Europe. Assisted suicide is legal in nine U.S. states and under consideration in several more. Numerous countries, meanwhile, allow euthanasia and/or assisted suicide, including Canada, Belgium, Spain, and several others. 

Towey said when he founded the organization nearly 30 years ago, there were already warning signs on the horizon regarding those deadly procedures.

“What I saw back in 1996 were the clouds gathering in favor of assisted suicide,” he said. “Now the storms have begun.” 

“We’re seeing more and more people, including Catholics, deceived by the arguments in favor of assisted suicide,” he said.

Both the advanced directive and the end-of-life guide have been touted by U.S. Church leaders, including Cardinal Timothy Dolan and Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Archdioceses of New York and Boston. O’Malley described the documents as “grounded in the primacy of protecting God’s gift of life.”

Of the group’s end-of-life advocacy, meanwhile, Towey told CNA: “We’re just getting started.”

“Assisted suicide isn’t the solution,” he said. “Good end-of-life care and healthy family discussions are.”

“The Church needs to make this easier for families. We don’t make it easy for them to access some of this information,” he said.

“The Church needs to help people in this critical transition in their life to eternity, to remain faithful and to be assured by the accompaniment of the Church.”

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CNA Staff, Apr 24, 2024 / 13:35 pm (CNA).

Catholics Charities Corporation in Ohio was found partially negligent this week in the 2017 death of a 5-year-old boy who was being supervised by one of the organization’s caseworkers at the time he died.

A jury in Cuyahoga County ruled in the wrongful death suit that the Catholic charity group was 8% responsible for Jordan Rodriguez’s September 2017 death, local media reported. Rodriguez’s body was discovered buried in his mother’s backyard three months after he died.

The boy’s mother and her boyfriend earlier pleaded guilty to several charges stemming from his death, including involuntary manslaughter. Jordan was developmentally disabled and incapable of speaking.

In the civil wrongful death trial this week, Catholic Charities Corporation was ordered to pay $960,000 into Jordan Rodriguez’s estate. Several other defendants, including the boy’s mother and the county’s Department of Child and Family Services, were also found responsible. 

A caseworker contracted by the organization, Nancy Caraballo, had been assigned to Rodriguez’s case and was supposed to be checking on the boy, but she falsified reports and took bribes in connection with a food stamp scheme instead.

Caraballo had previously pleaded guilty to those charges and was sentenced to three years in prison, though she ultimately served only eight months. She was ordered to pay $240,000 in the civil case this week. 

The lawsuit had argued in part that the Catholic charity organization had failed to properly train and supervise Caraballo and thus failed to detect the false reports she had filed. 

Richard Blake, an attorney representing Catholic Charities Corporation in the case, told CNA on Wednesday that there is “an active gag order prohibiting us from going into any detail or making any comments about the matter.”

“There’s still another portion of the law that permits punitive damages,” he said. A court date is set for next week, he added. 

Catholic Charities did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. 

U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise says he is “very blessed” that doctors caught his cancer early enough and that the treatments worked. / Credit: EWTN News Nightly/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Apr 24, 2024 / 07:15 am (CNA).

In an exclusive update on his health this week, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise discussed with “EWTN News Nightly” the role prayer and his Catholic faith played in his recovery from blood cancer. 

“For so many people that are watching, that said prayers and offered just true, genuine support, I can’t thank everybody enough — because you feel that when you’re going through things,” Scalise said during an interview with EWTN News Capitol Hill correspondent Erik Rosales. 

“And thank God, God performed a lot of miracles and answered a lot of prayers,” he added. 

Scalise, a 16-year veteran of Capitol Hill and the No. 2 Republican in the U.S. House, started chemotherapy the day after he was diagnosed with blood cancer. After four months, he was isolated for six weeks for a stem-cell transplant.  

“I have a pretty intense job, and I missed being away. But I knew I had to focus on my health, and we did. We zoned in really tightly,” Scalise said.

Scalise said he was “very blessed” that the doctors caught the cancer early enough and that the treatments worked. 

When asked what he would say to someone battling a similar illness, Scalise said that “God gives you the strength to get through it.” 

“He puts people around you — and recognize that it’s not just God himself in the flesh, it’s doctors and friends and other people that are in your life that can help you get through those tough times,” he explained. 

In 2017, Scalise almost died after being shot by a progressive activist, but he said the experience “strengthened” his faith. 

“His intent was to kill all of us on that ball field,” Scalise said of the shooter. “Again, God performed miracles that day — [there’s] no other way to explain some of the things that happened. In the hospital, my doctor said I didn’t even have another minute to spare.”

“It also puts a different focus on what is really important in life,” he added in reference to his injury. “I said, ‘I’ve got to put this in God’s hands.’ I said some really direct prayers to God, asked him for some heady things. I started thinking about my young kids, my daughter, and wanted to make sure I could go to her wedding.”