St. Marianne Cope Roman Catholic Parish

The Sanctuary of Chimayo / Modern Catholic Pilgrim Facebook

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 23, 2021 / 06:41 am (CNA).

The most popular pilgrimages for Catholics range from the Holy Land to the Camino de Santiago. But, pilgrims should know, these faith-filled trips can also be as simple as walking to a local church.

“Choose a place to go, [it] can be as short as a block away,” Will Peterson, the founder of Modern Catholic Pilgrim, told EWTN News Nightly on Oct. 15. “I invite people to not make it too complicated.”

The mission of Peterson’s group is to deepen faith and build community in the U.S. through the longstanding Catholic tradition of making pilgrimages on foot. While many people think of traveling overseas for pilgrimages, they should also consider staying local, he said. 

“There are places worthy of pilgrimage here,” he stressed. For Holy Week, he pointed to New Mexico as a pilgrimage destination.

“Chimayo is a great spiritual place in northern New Mexico where on Good Friday every year there's like 30,000 people who make walked pilgrimage,” he said.

Another, called Wisconsin Way, begins outside Green Bay at the Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, the only approved Marian apparition site in the country. Founded in 2013 by a local priest, Fr. Andrew Kurz, the trip is approximately 137 miles.

Pilgrimages, as defined by the Catechism of the Catholic Church, are an important part of the Catholic faith and “evoke our earthly journey toward heaven and are traditionally very special occasions for renewal and prayer.”

Catholics can begin their pilgrimages as soon as today. For the month of October, leading up to the Solemnity of All Saints on Nov. 1, Modern Catholic Pilgrim encourages Catholics to walk with the saints by praying for the intercession of a local parish patron saint as they walk to the church named after him or her.

“Then the next time you're there for Mass on Sunday, it’s going to kind of change your experience because you’ve journeyed there as a holy space,” Peterson urged.  

Peterson draws his inspiration from a trip to Rome eight years ago. That experience set him on fire spiritually, he said. Now, he hopes that his group will infuse an appreciation of pilgrimages in the U.S.

Making a pilgrimage on foot is a “very ancient tradition for Christians, but feels kind of contemporary and new [for the U.S.] because we don’t really have a culture of it,” he said. “So we’re excited to be part of that development of the culture.”

Young people hold signs opposing abortion during the March for Life in Washington, D.C. / Addie Mena/CNA.

Denver Newsroom, Oct 22, 2021 / 18:22 pm (CNA).

Part of a continuing series examining the U.S. Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a direct challenge to the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion throughout the United States.

Since its 1803 decision in Marbury v. Madison, the U.S. Supreme Court has exercised judicial review, deciding whether laws violate the country's constitution. These decisions are then used as the precedents for further decisions, creating a stable legal landscape.

Exceptions can occur, however, when the court subsequently decides it erred grievously, or when the U.S. Constitution has been amended following court decisions.

Interest in these cases is heightened as the court will hear oral arguments Dec. 1 in Dobbs v. Jackson Whole Women’s Health Organization, a case regarding a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks. The case is a test of the precedent set by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

Among the most notable cases that have been overturned or superseded in the past are Dred Scott v. Sandford, Pace v. Alabama, Plessy v. Ferguson, Korematsu v. United States, Apodaca v. Oregon, and Bowers v. Hardwick. An overview of each case and its subsequent history is presented below.

Dred Scott v. Sandford

This 1857 decision issued 7-2 held that citizenship rights were not held by African Americans, regardless of whether they were free or enslaved. Dred Scott was a slave who had been taken into areas where slavery was illegal, and he argued that he was thus no longer enslaved. In finding that African Americans could not be U.S. citizens, the majority opinion said that Scott lacked standing to bring his case. Nevertheless, the court ruled on the merits of the case, finding the Missouri Compromise, a congressional limitation on slave-holding in new federal territories, to be unconstitutional.

Justices Benjamin Robbins Curtis and John McLean both authored dissents in the case. Curtis noted that African-American men were able to vote in several of the states at the time of the Constitution's ratification, and that they were therefore U.S. citizens in fact.

The Dred Scott decision was nullified by the Reconstruction-era Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, and granted citizenship to all those born in the country and ensured the rights of due process and equal protection.

This case has been widely cited as an example of Supreme Court decisions that were made wrongly, and is frequently pointed to by pro-life activists urging that Roe v. Wade be overturned.

Bishop David Konderla of Tulsa wrote in a July letter that as abortion is intrinsically evil, “there is never a circumstance that could justify it. The laws that protect it are unjust and, therefore, no law at all. Roe was wrongly decided and must be corrected. It offends God and the principles of our founding, just as Dred Scott and its defense of slavery once did. We corrected that error, and now we must correct this one.”

In July 2020 Democrats for Life cautioned the Democratic National Committee that “denying personhood to the pre-born child has disturbing parallels to Dred Scott vs. Sandford.”

Pace v. Alabama

In this 1883 case the court unanimously upheld an Alabama anti-miscegenation law prohibiting interracial marriage. It held that the law did not violate the equal protection clause because it punished equally whites and non-whites: “Whatever discrimination is made in the punishment prescribed in the two sections is directed against the offence designated and not against the person of any particular color or race. The punishment of each offending person, whether white or black, is the same.”

This was overturned by two cases in the 1960s. The 1964 decision McLaughlin v. Florida found unconstitutional a Florida law that barred unmarried persons of the opposite sex and when one is white and the other black from habitual cohabitation. And 1967’s Loving v. Virginia struck down a state law prohibiting interracial marriage as violating the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Plessy v. Ferguson

This 1896 decision established the “separate but equal” doctrine that permitted racial segregation laws provided that provisions for the races were of equal quality. 

In the 7-1 decision the court said that the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause didn’t require that “all distinctions based upon color” be eliminated, upholding a Louisiana law that required separate but equal train cars for whites and blacks. The decision held that state legislatures have broad powers to write laws they deem reasonable, so long as they are not intended to oppress a particular class, and that enforced racial segregation does not mark one group with “a badge of inferiority.”

Justice John Marshall Harlan dissented, writing that Louisiana’s Separate Car Act was plainly intended “to exclude colored people from coaches occupied by or assigned to white persons,” compelling blacks “to keep to themselves while traveling in railroad passenger coaches.” He added that the constitution “is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved.”

Plessy was effectively overturned in 1954 by Brown v. Board of Education. That unanimous decision found that racially separate schools “are inherently unequal,” violating the equal protection clause.

Korematsu v. United States

In this 1944 case the court upheld by 6-3 an order that excluded persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast during World War II. This exclusion order led to the internment of some 120,000 Japanese Americans.

A 1942 executive order had permitted the War Department to designate military areas from which any or all persons may be excluded, in the interest of preventing espionage and sabotage during the state of war. The U.S. Army then created a military area on the West Coast from which persons of Japanese ancestry were excluded. 

Fred Korematsu was a California native who refused to leave his home, and challenged the exclusion order under the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause.

The court’s majority opinion held that the exclusion order was not made out of hostility to Japanese-American individuals or their race, but because the military had deemed it necessary for security during the war. In a concurring opinion, Justice Felix Frankfurter held that the war powers clause gives Congress the ability to enforce military orders deemed appropriate for conducting war. 

The three dissenting justices each wrote opinions, all of them holding that the exclusion order was racially discriminatory. Justice Owen Roberts wrote that “it is the case of convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, based on his ancestry, and solely because of his ancestry, without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States.”

Korematsu has been widely reprobated since the 1980s, and it was effectively overturned by a passing remark in the 2018 5-4 decision in Trump v. Hawaii. There, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that “The forcible relocation of U.S. citizens to concentration camps, solely and explicitly on the basis of race, is objectively unlawful and outside the scope of Presidential authority,” and that it “is already obvious … Korematsu was gravely wrong the day it was decided, has been overruled in the court of history, and — to be clear — 'has no place in law under the Constitution.'” Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent, which was joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, also repudiated Korematsu.

In his dissent from the 5-4 decision Stenberg v. Carhart in 2000, which struck down a Nebraska ban on partial-birth abortion, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote that “I am optimistic enough to believe that, one day, Stenberg v. Carhart will be assigned its rightful place in the history of this Court's jurisprudence beside Korematsu and Dred Scott.”

Apodaca v. Oregon

In this 1972 decision the court ruled that the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury is not violated by non-unanimous verdict for conviction by state juries in criminal cases. The plurality opinion was held by four justices, with a fifth writing a concurring opinion. Oregon’s constitution allowed a verdict to be reached by 10 members of a 12 person jury.

The plurality of justices held that a unanimous jury was a historical fact, like juries being composed of 12 persons, and was not therefore guaranteed by the right to trial by jury. In his concurring opinion, Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. held that the Sixth Amendment did require unanimous verdicts for federal trials, but that this did not apply to state trials. Four justices dissented from the plurality decision.

The decision was overturned by Ramos v. Louisiana in 2020. The 6-3 majority opinion found that the Sixth Amendment right to a unanimous verdict was incorporated against states by the Fourteenth Amendment. The minority opinion, authored by Justice Samuel Alito and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts in whole and by Justice Elena Kagan in part, argued the court should maintain the precedence decided by Apodaca.

Multiple amici curiae briefs filed in Dobbs v. Jackson Whole Women’s Health Organization cite Ramos v. Louisiana as grounds for the court overturning Roe v. Wade and its successors. 

A July amici curiae brief by Mary Ann Glendon and O. Carter Snead said that Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurrence in Ramos gave three broad considerations to determine whether there is a special justification to overrule an erroneous precedent: that it is “grievously or egregiously wrong”; it has “caused significant negative jurisprudential or real-world consequences”; and whether overruling the decision would “unduly upset” society’s operation.

Jackson Whole Women’s Health Organization similarly cited Justice Kavanaugh’s “egregiously wrong” standard as the issue before the court in its case.

Bowers v. Hardwick

This 1986 decision upheld, by a 5-4 vote, a Georgia law that criminalized sodomy.

The majority opinion rejected the argument that the right to privacy, discovered by the court in its 1965 decision in Griswold v. Connecticut in the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause, extended to homosexual conduct. Justice Byron White wrote that “There should be great resistance to expand the reach of the Due Process Clauses to cover new fundamental rights. Otherwise, the Judiciary necessarily would take upon itself further authority to govern the country without constitutional authority.”

Bowers was overturned in 2000 by Lawrence v. Texas. The majority opinion, held by five of the justices, held that the right to privacy through the due process clause did extend to consensual sexual conduct. In a concurring opinion, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor held that Bowers should not be overturned, but that the Texas sodomy law was nevertheless unconstitutional, by violating the equal protection clause, because it criminalized homosexual, but not heterosexual, sodomy.

In his dissent in Lawrence, Justice Scalia noted that “Today's opinions in support of reversal do not bother to distinguish — or indeed, even bother to mention the paean to stare decisis coauthored by three Members of today's majority in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. There, when stare decisis meant preservation of judicially invented abortion rights, the widespread criticism of Roe was strong reason to reaffirm it … Today, however, the widespread opposition to Bowers, a decision resolving an issue as ‘intensely divisive’ as the issue in Roe, is offered as a reason in favor of overruling it.” 

Scalia added that the majority opinion gave three criteria for overruling erroneous precedent, adding that “Roe itself — which today's majority surely has no disposition to overrule — satisfies these conditions to at least the same degree as Bowers” and that “the Court has chosen today to revise the standards of stare decisis set forth in Casey. It has thereby exposed Casey's extraordinary deference to precedent for the result-oriented expedient that it is.”

Florida Department of Corrections execution chamber 1. / Florida State Correctional Facility.

Washington D.C., Oct 22, 2021 / 17:01 pm (CNA).

Alabama executed inmate Willie B. Smith III on Thursday evening, Oct. 20, marking the first execution in the state since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Smith received a lethal injection and was pronounced dead at 9:47 p.m. 

Smith, 52, was sentenced to death in 1992 for the 1991 murder of Sharma Ruth Johnson, a 22-year-old woman from Trussville, Alabama. Smith kidnapped Johnson at an ATM, robbed her, and then shot her to death execution-style at a cemetery in Birmingham. 

Donald Carson, communications director of the Diocese of Birmingham, told CNA Oct. 22 that the diocese "recognizes that the State must protect innocent people from violent criminals. In today’s world, however, we know that there are ways to do so other than to execute even those such as Mr. Smith, convicted of the most heinous of crimes. Society does not teach respect for life, for the dignity of every living human, by taking life. Instead, capital punishment devalues human life and contributes to a climate of violence in our communities."

The organization Catholic Mobilizing Network, which is dedicated to ending the death penalty, stated on Twitter on Thursday that members were praying for Smith ahead of his execution.  

“Dear God, You call us to be a people of justice and mercy. We know this execution is not Your will,” the group said.

Following Smith's execution, the group stated on Twitter, “Dear God in Heaven, we pray for the repose of Willie Smith's soul. Lord, guide us as we work, in Your name, for a world that upholds and honors the sanctity of all human life.”

During Smith’s trial, a recording of him boasting about his crime to one of his friends was played for the court. He said at the time that he had to shoot Johnson after kidnapping her, as her brother was a police officer. 

An accomplice, a 17-year-old girl who lived with Smith at the time of the murder, testified against him at his trial in exchange for a shorter prison sentence.  

Smith’s death sentence has been controversial for years due to multiple factors. In 2013, his attorneys claimed that he had been given antipsychotic drugs during his trial, which left him incapable of showing emotion.

In 2019, they alleged that his IQ was 70, which is considered to be borderline intellectually disabled. It is unconstitutional to execute someone with an intellectual disability, but both the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected this appeal in Smith’s case. 

Initially, Smith was set to be executed on Feb. 11, 2021. That was delayed after he requested his pastor be present with him during his final moments. The Supreme Court ruled in his favor, saying that it would be unconstitutional for the state to deprive him of a spiritual advisor while executing him.

Supporters for and against legal abortion face off during a protest outside the United States Supreme Court. / mark reinstein / Shutterstock

Denver Newsroom, Oct 22, 2021 / 16:38 pm (CNA).

Part of a continuing series examining the U.S. Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a direct challenge to the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion throughout the United States.

As the Supreme Court considers whether to overturn its precedents mandating legal abortion nationwide, critics of legal abortion have argued that precedent by itself is no reason to preserve flawed decisions — especially rulings that treat taking a human life as a constitutional right.

“The Supreme Court has, in fact, overruled many of its own erroneous precedents, such as Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson, upholding slavery and segregation laws,” said Ligia Castaldi, a law professor at Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, Florida. 

“Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton are exactly this kind of erroneous precedent,” she told CNA, “with their creation of a non-existent fundamental right to abortion, and their judicial regulation of abortion on the basis of a viability standard and an overbroad definition of the health exception.”

The court’s rulings in Roe v. Wade and companion case Doe v. Bolton legalized abortion nationwide in 1973, while the court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirmed legal abortion.

Castaldi said the principle of stare decisis, a Latin phrase roughly meaning “to stand by things that have been decided,” is a principle that “generally binds the U.S. Supreme Court to its own precedent, its own decisions.”

Sharply different interpretations of that principle as it relates to abortion will be on display Dec. 1 when the nation’s highest court is set to hear oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the highly charged Mississippi case viewed as a decisive test of Roe and the legal reasoning that has sustained it as the law of the land for the past 48 years.

Three key justices — Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and Justice Amy Coney, all nominees of Republican presidents — have each demonstrated deference for stare decisis. A recent analysis in Slate said the legal team for abortion proponents will try to persuade at least two of those justices that the court’s prior abortion decisions should not be set aside, with Roberts considered the most persuadable and Barrett the least persuadable. Mississippi and many of its supporters in the Dobbs case also address precedent prominently in their briefs.

The principle of stare decisis “protects expectations of people subject to the law,” explained Teresa Collett, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, Minnesota. 

“It promotes societal stability, thereby shaping people’s behavior. This is particularly true in the area of economic activity,” Collett told CNA. “Stare decisis does not prevent courts from making mistakes. It keeps them from reinventing the wheel every time a similar, but slightly different, set of facts comes before it.”.

Castaldi of Ave Maria Law said legal principles regarding precedent are “intended to promote consistency and predictability of Supreme Court decisions.”

“They are generally a good idea, but just as in every other legal rule, there may be legitimate exceptions,” she said. “They certainly do not prevent the Supreme Court from correcting erroneous decisions, such as Roe v. Wade.”

At issue in the Dobbs case is the constitutionality of Mississippi’s 2018 ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

As Castaldi explained, the state law directly contradicts Roe, Doe, and Casey. Roe prohibited states from banning abortion prior to fetal viability, or the capacity of the fetus to survive outside the woman’s body (now considered to be at approximately 24 weeks gestation) while Casey barred states from adopting regulations that pose an “undue burden” for a woman exercising her legal right to obtain an abortion.

“It also challenges Doe’s health exception, since Mississippi defines health to mean only physical, not mental health of the mother,” Castaldi said.

“Thus, it begs the question of whether the court should invalidate Roe and the only way that the Court could do this is by departing from stare decisis,” she continued. “That will not be easy to do since Roe has been reaffirmed in the past, such as in Casey, and again in June Medical, where Chief Justice Roberts shocked fellow Catholics by declaring that Roe was binding precedent under stare decisis.”

The 2020 decision June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo concerned a Louisiana law that held abortion clinics to the same standards as other surgical centers, such as requiring doctors to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. The court ruled this posed substantial obstacles to a woman’s access to abortion.

Roberts’ concurring opinion in the 5-4 case said the law was “just as severe” as a similar Texas law struck down in a 2016 Supreme Court decision. Though he had dissented from that 2016 ruling, he said the principle of stare decisis meant that Louisiana’s law could not stand.

However, Castaldi noted, the Supreme Court has already “chipped away” at its precedent in Roe. Casey affirmed a right to abortion based on personal liberty, rather than Roe’s privacy finding, she said, while also dispensing with Roe’s trimester-based system for evaluating state abortion laws.

For Castaldi, such developments allow grounds for further change.

 “Therefore, the court can rely on its own precedent to either undermine or entirely abolish Roe,” she said.

‘Precedent on top of precedent’?

The principal brief against the Mississippi law was filed by attorneys from the pro-abortion rights group Center for Reproductive Rights, on behalf of the Mississippi abortion clinic Jackson Women’s Health Organization. This brief cites principles of precedent, like stare decisis, to argue that all pre-viability bans on elective abortion are unconstitutional. The viability standard is “well grounded in the constitution and the court’s broader jurisprudence.”

The brief also faults backers of the Mississippi law for failing to establish an alternative precedent. If a state seeks to overrule a repeatedly affirmed precedent, the brief argues, it “should at least propose and seriously develop an alternative legal framework.”

The pro-abortion rights brief depicts Casey as “precedent on top of precedent,” saying the decision backed up the correctness of the viability line.

“Even if contested, constitutional rights that have ‘become embedded’ in ‘our national culture’ are entitled to heightened stare decisis effect,” the brief states. It argues that the right to an abortion is grounded in precedents guaranteeing bodily autonomy, family decision-making, and access to contraception. The brief also depicts the viability line as “a principled point” at which to strike the balance of “the individual’s interests against the state’s interests.”

“(T)ime and again, the Court has reaffirmed that it is ‘imperative’ to retain a ‘woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy before viability’,” the brief states.

For Collett, however, the constitutional arguments are key to determining whether precedent should stand.

“Both Roe and Casey are cases that have no foundation in the text of the Constitution, nor are they consistent with the states’ history of outlawing abortion both to protect the unborn child and the mother,” the University of St. Thomas law professor said. “As several justices have noted, stare decisis has less weight in reviewing interpretations of constitutional text.”

The constitutional amendment process makes it “extremely difficult” to correct judicial mistakes. When it comes to the interpretation of the constitution “getting the answer right is more important than stability,” said Collett.

While abortion precedent has at times been described as “settled law,” in Castaldi’s view this perception is not accurate.

“A case is settled law when no serious challenge to its holdings sticks in state or federal courts and its essential tenets have been repeatedly reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court,” she said. “Roe and Doe are quite the opposite. Roe is one of the most challenged Supreme Court cases of all time and continues to be incredibly divisive both among the justices and the general population.”

At least four Supreme Court justices have called for Roe to be overturned: Chief Justice William Rhenquist and Justice Byron White in the 1989 decision Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in the Casey decision.

“Roe has sometimes been partially reaffirmed but also undermined by subsequent cases, therefore it is not settled constitutional law,” Castaldi said.

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and other leaders made their case for the state law, arguing in their brief that stare decisis is itself an “overwhelming” reason to overrule Roe and Casey.

“Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong. The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition,” the Mississippi brief states. Roe itself broke from precedent because it invoked “a general ‘right to privacy’ unmoored from the Constitution.”

“Abortion is fundamentally different from any right this Court has ever endorsed. No other right involves, as abortion does, ‘the purposeful termination of a potential life,’” the brief continues. “Roe broke from prior cases, Casey failed to rehabilitate it, and both recognize a right that has no basis in the Constitution.”

Clashing views on precedent

Arguments revolving around abortion precedent are integral to a number of other amicus briefs in the Dobbs case.

In an amicus brief filed at the Supreme Court last month, the Biden administration’s Justice Department argued that Mississippi is seeking to overturn nearly 50 years of court rulings that upheld legal abortion.

The administration’s brief asks the court to maintain its previous abortion precedents. Legal abortion “means that every American woman of reproductive age has grown up against the backdrop of the right secured by Roe and Casey, which has become even more deeply woven into the Nation’s social fabric,” the brief states. The brief characterizes abortion bans as “forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy against her will.”

On the other side of the Dobbs case, Collett was the lead counsel for an amicus brief of 240 women scholars and professionals and pro-life feminist organizations. In contrast to backers of legal abortion who claim it is necessary for women’s progress, this brief argues that the current abortion rights precedent disadvantages women.

The brief states that legal abortion changes sexual behavior and increases the rate of sexual relations outside of committed relationships, which in turn leads to more non-marital pregnancies, single parenthood and abortion.

Abortion access changes the point of view of the father and of the wider society to see single parenthood as “always the woman’s ‘free choice’.” Claims that unrestricted access to abortion is “a necessary and a major contributor to women’s economic and social advances” are claims that “simply cannot be demonstrated,” their brief said.

Rebuilding project in Haiti / Christian Aid Ministries

Washington D.C., Oct 22, 2021 / 16:01 pm (CNA).

The ringleader behind the kidnappings of 17 missionaries in Haiti has threatened to kill the hostages unless he received his demands, in a video posted online on Thursday. Meanwhile, the group that organized the mission trip has called for prayer and fasting for the missionaries’ safe release.

The group of missionaries and family members with the Ohio-based group Christian Aid Ministries were kidnapped by the gang 400 Mazowo on Saturday, Oct. 16, when they were working at an orphanage in Haiti. 

Christian Aid Ministries on Thursday requested that people pray not only for the hostages, but for their families, the government, and for the kidnappers themselves. The group encouraged people to pray and fast for the safe return of the hostages. 

“Pray for the kidnappers—that they would experience the love of Jesus and turn to Him. We see that as their ultimate need,” the group said in a statement posted on its website. 

Those kidnapped “are from Amish, Mennonite, and other Anabaptist communities in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Ontario, Canada,” and are continuing “to support each other with prayers and encouragement during this difficult time,” the group said.

The hostages range in age from 8 months to 48 years. Of the 17 hostages, all but one are American citizens; the other is Canadian. 

“Pray for government leaders and authorities—as they relate to the case and work toward the release of the hostages,” Christian Aid Ministries said. “We appreciate the ongoing work and assistance of those knowledgeable and experienced in dealing with kidnapping cases.”

On Thursday, the leader of the 400 Mawozo gang released a video saying that he would kill the hostages if his demands were not met. The gang is requesting a $1 million ransom for each hostage. 

"I swear by thunder that if I don't get what I'm asking for, I will put a bullet in the heads of these Americans," said Wilson Joseph in a video published on social media. According to Reuters, a senior U.S. State Department official said the video appeared to be legitimate. 

Christian Aid Ministries said in a statement that it would not comment on the video “until those directly involved in obtaining the release of the hostages have determined that comments will not jeopardize the safety and well-being of our staff and family members.” 

The 400 Mawozo gang responsible for the most recent kidnapping is the same criminal gang behind the April 2021 kidnapping of Catholic priests and religious in Haiti. All of those kidnapped in April were released within several weeks; ransom was paid for just two of the kidnapped priests, according to a Haitian official.

In a statement on Friday, Christian Aid Ministries said that six days after the kidnapping, the families of the victims “face uncertainty. They long for the return of their loved ones.”

The group also explained why the missionaries chose to serve in Haiti. Kidnappings and acts of violence have become common in the country, with the country’s president Jovenel Moïse assassinated at his home in July.

“You may wonder why our workers chose to live in a difficult and dangerous context, despite the apparent risks. Before leaving for Haiti, our workers who are now being held hostage expressed a desire to faithfully serve God in Haiti,” the statement read. 

The website of Christian Aid Ministries states that it serves as a “channel for Amish, Mennonite, and other conservative Anabaptist groups and individuals” to provide aid to those in need around the world. 

It supports aid and anti-poverty efforts in countries such as Haiti and Kazakhstan, but also promotes billboard evangelism in the United States and advertises assistance for any conscientious objectors in the event of a U.S military draft.

Credit: Photographee.eu / Shutterstock.

London, England, Oct 22, 2021 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

After seven hours of debate and notable opposition in the House of Lords on Friday, the sponsor of a bill that would legalize assisted suicide in England and Wales chose not to take the bill to a vote.

Mike Gutelius (center), head football coach of The Catholic University of America, watches the action on the sidelines. / The Catholic University of America

Washington D.C., Oct 22, 2021 / 14:35 pm (CNA).

If you visit The Catholic University of America’s campus in Washington D.C., you will be sure to notice members of the school’s football team walking around with a “chip” on their shoulders. 

That chip is figurative and literal, as head coach Mike “Gut” Gutelius has commissioned team shirts that say “All Gas, No Breaks” on the front, and the word “chip” located on the back right shoulder.

The symbolism appears to be having the desired effect, as Gutelius’s team is 5-2 and undefeated in its conference heading into its Oct. 23 game against the Merchant Marine Academy.

The Cardinals’ success this season is a product of Gutelius’ efforts to change the culture of the football program, a slow but steady process that began with his hiring after the 2016 season. His approach encompasses a special emphasis on faith: Team Bible studies, pre-game rosaries, and discussions about the Cardinal Virtues all figure into his plan for developing young men with character.

Although Gutelius describes himself as “just a coach,” his success and faith life on and off the field drew the attention of Ablaze Family Ministries (AFM) and world-renowned Ignatian spirituality speaker, Fr. Timothy Gallagher, O.M.V. 

AFM, a nonprofit organization based in Ellicott City, Maryland, with a mission to strengthen Catholic families, has teamed up with Gallagher to find a way to make St. Ignatius of Loyola’s 14 Rules for Discerning the Will of God more accessible and relatable to a younger audience. 

“St. Ignatius of Loyola has crafted an invaluable set of 14 practical guidelines (rules) to understand and respond to this daily ebb and flow in the spiritual life,” Gallagher told CNA. “As I know from almost 40 years of experience, people love the concrete wisdom of these rules that help them know what is of God and what is not, and how to accept the one and reject the other.”

Gallagher, a frequent speaker on EWTN, has an extensive international ministry providing retreats, spiritual direction, and teaching about the spiritual life. He currently holds the St. Ignatius Chair for Spiritual Formation at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver.  

Because of his platform as a college football coach and his authenticity as a faithful Catholic, Gutelius was a clear choice for AFM and Gallagher to help bridge the gap between the academic nature of Ignatian spirituality and a younger audience that could greatly benefit from Ignatius’ rules for discernment. 

Gallagher told CNA that Gutelius “brings a wealth of experience to help make this bridge between St. Ignatius’s words and our daily experience.”

The project, produced by AFM, is called the “Playbook for the Spiritual Life,” and features 10 videos explaining how to apply St. Ignatius’s rules for discernment. 

The 10-minute videos feature Gutelius, filmed in the locker room or on the field, giving a unique game situation and explaining how to act during that time of adversity. After the coach's brief introduction of the football concepts, Gallagher then explains how the football analogy is similar to a particular Ignatian rule.

"In football you have to be aware of what's going on, you have to understand the game, and you have to execute. It's the same in your spiritual life,” Gutelius told CNA. 

“You have to be aware of the traps that can be set for you. You have to be aware of your own limitations. You have to be aware of your own physical desires. And then you have to understand them in relation to God's plan. And then the real trick is, can you execute?"

In one video the two men discuss St. Ignatius' fourth rule, which states, “When your heart is discouraged, you have little energy for spiritual things, and God feels far away, you are experiencing spiritual desolation. Resist and reject this tactic of the enemy!” 

Gutelius first explains the necessity of lifting weights in order to succeed in the game. However, sometimes, he says, players are physically drained and are unmotivated to work out. The coach says the decision to either take a day off or push through the temptation makes the difference between winning and losing come gametime. 

Gallagher then likens the challenge of lifting weights during a time of unmotivation to a young man who “has no energy for prayer” and is tempted to scroll through his phone, rather than read scripture as he planned. Gallagher says that the choice to scroll through the phone will leave the young man feeling empty, while if he chooses to read scripture as planned, he will feel more fulfilled.

“Football is an analogy for life in general and in that sense you can find a lot of connections between football done well and spirituality done well,” Gutelius told CNA. “Both require practice, commitment, and a desire to get better, and you’re going to have bumps and bruises in both football and your spiritual life.”

Executive Director of Operations at AFM, Deacon Steve Sarnecki said the combination of all these elements make the videos effective.

“Father Gallagher’s theological excellence when it comes to Ignatian spirituality, Ablaze’s unique ability to create family friendly, approachable, accessible content, and Coach Gut’s ever-present witness and understanding of strategy and the spiritual life came together in a beautiful weave for this project,” he said.

Gutelius said he was enthusiastic to be included in the project. "I hope that if I have any small part in maybe reducing a barrier for young people, then I am fired up to do it,” he said.

“I feel like I have a little bit of a pulpit as the head football coach at the Catholic University of America, and if I don't use it to help people understand the truth, to help people understand that God has a plan for them that they have to figure out, if I don't use that, then I might wind up at the pearly gates and not get the reception I'm looking for."

Gabe Aparicio, the team’s senior captain, told CNA that Gutelius has been a spiritual and fatherly role model for the whole team. 

“Gutelius’ office door is always open for us and I’ve had multiple conversations with him about life and faith, and honestly, he’s the type of person, the type of Catholic I aim to be someday,” Aparicio said. 

Gutelius graduated from The Catholic University of America in 1992 with a major in politics and a minor in philosophy. When he is not on the field or in the game-film room, he can often be found attending a campus Mass or showing prospective players around campus. He currently resides in Maryland with his wife Kimberly, and children Michael, 21, Sam, 19, and Mary, 16.

“I firmly believe St. Ignatius will be pleased with how this series presents his rules for discernment,” Gutelius said.

“Maybe even pleased enough that he might intercede a little bit to help the Cardinals get a big win this weekend?” he added. “We can always use a little heavenly help in worldly matters but especially this weekend vs the Merchant Marine academy!"

A baptismal font in St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, Austria. / Bwag via Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Vienna, Austria, Oct 22, 2021 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Some have had ‘very deep religious experiences.’

Texas state capitol building / f11photo/Shutterstock

Washington D.C., Oct 22, 2021 / 11:40 am (CNA).

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to consider two legal challenges to Texas’ pro-life heartbeat law, just weeks before it hears oral arguments in another major abortion case.

Both the Biden administration and abortion providers had challenged the Texas Heartbeat Act, a law which went into effect Sept. 1 and which restricts most abortions after detection of a fetal heartbeat. The law is enforced through private civil lawsuits.

On Friday, Oct. 22, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider both challenges to the law and expedited the cases, with oral arguments scheduled for Nov. 1. The court will consider whether the federal government can sue to block implementation of the law by the state, state courts, and private citizens; it will also consider whether lawsuits under the law can move forward, according to the website SCOTUSBlog.

In the meantime, the court is leaving the law in place as it considers both cases.

In her opinion accompanying the court order on Friday, Justice Sonia Sotomayor criticized the court’s refusal to temporarily block the law while considering challenges to it.

“The promise of future adjudication offers cold comfort, however, for Texas women seeking abortion care, who are entitled to relief now,” Sotomayor wrote. “These women will suffer personal harm from delaying their medical care, and as their pregnancies progress, they may even be unable to obtain abortion care altogether.”

The law is unique in that it is enforced through private civil lawsuits against those performing or, in some cases, those assisting in illegal abortions. Successful lawsuits can net at least $10,000 in damages.

Certain parties are barred from filing lawsuits, such as men who impregnate women who then have abortions; women who have illegal abortions also cannot be sued under the law.

The Justice Department challenged the law in court, and on Oct. 6 a federal district judge barred the state from enforcing judgments or awarding damages in successful lawsuits against illegal abortions. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit temporarily reversed that decision on Oct. 8, and on Oct. 14 allowed the law to remain in effect.

The Justice Department then appealed its case against the law to the Supreme Court on Oct. 18.

In the second case that the court is taking up, Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, a coalition of abortion providers, staff, and patients had sued to prevent lawsuits over illegal abortions from going forward in Texas.

The high court is considering the cases ahead of another major abortion case in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Oral arguments in that case, which involves Mississippi’s law restricting most abortions after 15 weeks, are scheduled for Dec. 1.

Shortly after the law went into effect in September, the Supreme Court declined to block the law in a 5-4 decision.

In its Oct. 21 brief before the Supreme Court, Texas argued that the court should reconsider landmark abortion cases if it took up the Biden administration’s appeal.

“The Court erred in recognizing the right to abortion in Roe and in continuing to preserve it in Casey,” the brief read. “The heartbeat provisions in SB 8 reasonably further Texas’s interest in protecting unborn life, which exists from the outset of pregnancy.”

“If it reaches the merits, the Court should overturn Roe and Casey and hold that SB 8 does not therefore violate the Fourteenth Amendment,” the state argued. 

Texas had accused the Biden Administration of overreach after the Justice Department challenged the law. The brief called the Justice Department’s challenge “extraordinary in its breadth and consequence” and asked the Supreme Court to decline its request. 

This article was updated on Oct. 22.

Father Thomas Dailey, O.S.F.S.; Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson J. Perez; Msgr. Gerald Mesure, archdiocesan chancellor; and Father Sean Bransfield, vice chancellor, hold the official documents for the canonization cause of Father Bill Atkinson during the closing ceremony on Oct. 19, 2021. / Sarah Webb

Philadelphia, Pa., Oct 22, 2021 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Father Bill Atkinson, an Augustinian priest from Philadelphia who died in 2006, is one step closer in the cause for canonization. In a ceremony on Tuesday, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia officially closed the diocesan phase, which is the first step in the process. The archdiocese will now hand over all materials to Rome for further examination.

“He was really a very quiet man, a humble man, but a very dedicated and devout individual in terms of his commitment to religious life, to his Augustinian identity, and to his service working for 30 years with young men in one of our high schools,” said Father Michael Di Gregorio, O.S.A., prior provincial of the Province of St. Thomas of Villanova, of which Father Bill was a member.

Father Bill was the first priest to be ordained who was a quadriplegic. He was paralyzed from the neck down in a sledding accident during his first year in the novitiate for the Order of Saint Augustine, also known as the Augustinians.

“He was always responsive to requests that were made of him to use his ministry on behalf of other people who were in situations that could be identified with his own in terms of his disability,” Father Michael said.

He often visited hospitals and spoke to veterans who had been injured, using his own experience as a paraplegic to minister to those who had disabilities.

“There’s something very ordinary about Father Bill in terms of how he did his work,” Father Michael said. “The extraordinary part was that he did his work, his ministry, exercised his priesthood in the context of great limitation—a physical limitation, but certainly not any limitation in terms of his mental ability or his will and his desire to be of service.” 

Born in Philadelphia in 1946, Father Bill entered the novitiate following a year as a postulant at Augustinian Academy in Staten Island, New York. In the accident, it was unclear if Father Bill would survive, so he was given the opportunity to profess first vows from the hospital bed. He began a long and extensive rehabilitation process and continued in the novitiate.

“I really noticed most of all that he was just one of the rest of us,” said Father Michael, who lived with Father Bill during several years of formation. “He was in a wheelchair and needed the assistance of others around him all the time, but he participated in everything that we did. He was always at prayer. He came to meals with us. He fit right in, and never saw himself or wanted others to see him as different from the rest of us.” 

Almost nine years after the accident, Father Bill completed his studies and petitioned St. Paul VI to be ordained a priest. The pope granted a dispensation and on Feb. 2, 1974, Father Bill was ordained a priest. 

“He did what he needed to do without any assurance of where it would lead—it had never been done before,” Father Michael said. “He wrote his letter to Pope Paul VI and the answer came back, ‘Yes, it’s possible.’”

“Perseverance was a great hallmark of his life, but it wasn’t guaranteed. It was always a trust that whatever God’s will is here, that’s what will happen,” Father Michael said.

Father Bill died Sept. 15, 2006, at Saint Thomas Monastery at Villanova University. Several years later, the Augustinians decided to examine the possibility of introducing a cause for canonization. The postulator general met with relatives, friars, friends, and caretakers of Father Bill, and asked them to explain to him their reasons for wishing to have Father Bill’s cause introduced.

“Father Joseph, who was the postulator, said, ‘Well, you have convinced me that this is a cause that we should undertake.'” Father Michael said. 

The postulator gathered written material over several months and made an appointment with Archbishop Charles Chaput, then the Archbishop of Philadelphia, who then took it to the USCCB for a confirmation.

“The response was overwhelmingly positive, if not unanimous,” Father Michael said.

In 2015, Archbishop Chaput appointed a tribunal and an historical commission to look at documentation about Father Bill. The tribunal was charged with the task of interviewing people who knew Father Bill and who wanted to offer testimony toward the cause. 

“This is where all the ground work is done in speaking to people, in gathering information,” Father Michael said. 

The closing ceremony, which was held at Saint Thomas of Villanova Church Oct. 19, marked the official end of the first phase of the process. The materials were bound and sealed in preparation for the transfer to Rome, where the cause will go before the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to make sure the process was completed correctly.

“Then we need to wait for a miracle—a miracle can happen at any time along the process,” Father Michael said. “There are some favors that have been presented to us that we forwarded to our postulator general.” 

If a miracle happens, it can speed up the process and put someone in a higher priority for review, Father Michael said. 

“From our perspective, what seems to have been given as a great cross became a great opportunity, because he was able to touch and influence the lives of people precisely through his challenge that he might never have had the opportunity to touch otherwise,” Father Michael said.