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Paulist Fathers to end ministry at UC Berkeley after 117 years

Students at the University of California, Berkeley, with the Campanile tower in the background. / Credit: cdrin/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Mar 14, 2024 / 15:25 pm (CNA).

After serving at the elite California public university since 1907, the Paulist Fathers announced Wednesday that they will leave the University of California, Berkeley, citing “the changing landscape of the Catholic Church in the United States and the shifting demographics of our own members.”

In a press release, the congregation of missionary priests said they had decided after a “comprehensive discernment process” to return Newman Hall-Holy Spirit Parish, which serves the university’s campus, to the care of the Diocese of Oakland at the end of the academic year. 

They also announced several other staffing changes related to the Paulists’ operations in the U.S., including the closing of several nationwide ministries. 

“The Paulist Fathers remain committed to sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ with missionary zeal, especially with people beyond the Church walls and with Catholics who feel apart from the Church,” said Father René Constanza, Paulist Fathers president. 

“Rooted in hopefulness, we trust that the Holy Spirit is actively breathing life into all things.”

The Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle, today known as the Paulist Fathers, was founded in the 1850s as a congregation dedicated to evangelization in America. The new priestly congregation engaged in parish missions across the country and shared the Gospel with non-Catholics through lectures. 

The Paulists have said in recent months that they are in the process of discerning which ministries they can continue to support in light of a continually shrinking and aging population of priests. 

An undated message on the Paulists’ website states that the current trajectory of priestly numbers in their congregation is “not sustainable.” Just 50 Paulist priests are in active ministry today, the letter says, down from 98 in 2004. Of those 50 priests, almost two-thirds are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. By 2034, the current trajectory suggests there will be only 31 active Paulists.

The congregation’s March 13 statement announced that similar to UC Berkeley, the Paulist presence at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, will conclude “in the coming months.”

In addition, three distinct ministries of the Paulists — Paulist Evangelization Ministries; Landings International, a reconciliation ministry with Catholics returning to the Church after a time away; and the Paulist Office for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations — “will cease operations as distinct apostolic endeavors of the Paulist Fathers” at the end of this year. 

“These three ministries began as a response to the signs of the times in 1970s and 1980s with the establishment of national offices that served the Church well for decades,” Constanza said. 

“We underscore that these three key parts of our mission will continue, and many of the particular programs and offerings created by these national offices will remain available through other means.”

Three of the Paulists’ main media ministries — Paulist Press, Paulist Productions, and Busted Halo — will continue, the congregation said.  

The Paulists also announced that three communities served by the society — Immaculate Conception Church in Knoxville, Tennessee; Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco; and the Paulist Center in Boston — will transition from being staffed by two full-time, active Paulist priests to being served by one full-time priest, assisted by local Paulists in senior ministry. 

The Paulist Fathers’ founder, Father Isaac Hecker, took a step toward sainthood late last year when the U.S. bishops voted to advance his cause. Hecker’s cause for canonization had been formally opened in 2008. 

Priest sues Indiana diocese after ‘no evidence’ found in sex abuse investigation

null / Credit: Ulf Wittrock/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Mar 14, 2024 / 12:45 pm (CNA).

A priest in Indiana is suing his diocese for fraud and defamation after he was suspended over what the clergyman claims were false allegations of sexually abusing a minor. 

Father James DeOreo in a filing at Boone County Circuit Court earlier this month alleged that the Diocese of Lafayette-in-Indiana, along with its vicar general, Father Theodore Dudzinski, committed both defamation and fraud, respectively, against DeOreo in a yearslong conflict over accusations against the priest. 

The filing alleges that in January 2021, a parishioner alleged that DeOreo “abused the [parishioner] by encouraging him to fast and engage in other spiritual and ascetic practices,” which eventually led the individual to “suffer an eating disorder.”

A subsequent investigation found that “no abuse had occurred.” The diocese, however, “agreed to pay for the Complainer’s psychotherapy” in order to help him cope with his eating disorder. 

DeOreo in the filing claims that Dudzinski “[sat] in on [the parishioner’s] therapy sessions” for several months throughout 2021, and that in several cases the vicar general allegedly told both the individual and his therapist that the diocese would reopen the investigation against DeOreo if accusations “of a sexual nature” were leveled against him. 

The parishioner subsequently “made false allegations that DeOreo had abused him,” the filing says. The parishioner had claimed the abuse consisted of “verbal communication and innuendo,” including an “off-color” joke the priest reportedly told, as well as an instance where DeOreo allegedly claimed to have felt “tempted” around the accuser. The priest denied both situations ever occurred.

The diocese undertook a new investigation, DeOreo said, but none of its investigators “found the new allegations to be credible,” and they found “no evidence to substantiate the allegations.”

The priest claimed Dudzinski moved to “hide, obfuscate, or destroy the findings” of the diocese’s investigation. DeOreo was subsequently restricted from public ministry and ultimately suspended in March 2022 following further complaints from his accuser’s family. 

The diocese days later published a public statement revealing the existence of “allegations of inappropriate conduct with a minor” originally made by the parishioner. 

The diocese did not follow proper Church protocol in its handling of the controversy, DeOreo’s filing claims. The diocese further falsely suggested that “substantial evidence pointed toward DeOreo’s misconduct, guilt, and/or culpability,” which the priest called an “untruth.”

DeOreo is seeking $10 million from the diocese for the loss of his “previously impeccable reputation as a priest.” He is further seeking unspecified damages against Dudzinski.

Diocesan spokeswoman Gabby Hlavek on Thursday declined to comment on the proceedings. 

“The diocese cannot discuss pending litigation; instead, we ask that you please join us in prayer for all those that are affected,” she told CNA.

Dudzinski’s office did not respond to a query on the filing. 

DeOreo was ordained in 2018. In 2022 he sued the man who originally made the allegations against him. That case was ultimately dismissed this month with the priest and the accuser settling out of court. 

Diocese of Buffalo announces sale of headquarters to pay sex abuse victims

Built in 1930, the Courier-Express Building is home to the Catholic Center of Buffalo. / Credit: Warren LeMay|Flickr|CC BY-SA 2.0

CNA Staff, Mar 14, 2024 / 11:15 am (CNA).

The Diocese of Buffalo in New York has announced the sale of its headquarters in downtown Buffalo nearly four years after it declared bankruptcy amid hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits filed against it.

The diocese announced in Western New York Catholic this week that “​​the Catholic Center, the diocesan central office building since 1986, has been listed for sale” for $9.8 million.

In 2020, the diocese formally filed for Chapter 11 reorganization under the U.S. bankruptcy code. At the time the diocese said it was acting to provide the most compensation for victims of clergy sex abuse while continuing the day-to-day work of its Catholic mission.

Diocesan officials announced in October of last year that the diocese would be putting forth $100 million to settle the numerous abuse claims lodged against it. 

Some of those funds would come from the sale of the Buffalo headquarters as well as the former Christ the King Seminary campus in East Aurora about 20 miles outside of the city. 

The diocese said it purchased its headquarters building in 1985; before that, it had been home to the local Courier-Express, which had gone out of business in 1982.

The building was constructed in 1930 in the then-popular art deco style, the diocese said. 

“Following the purchase in 1985, renovations began to house all diocesan offices serving the faithful of the eight counties of Western New York in one location,” the announcement said. Staff from 20 departments as well as staff from the nearby chancery moved into the new location about a year later; the building was dedicated in September 1986.

The sale “includes the 95,000-square-foot building,” an additional two-story building, and “an adjacent garage structure,” along with three parking lots. 

An official with the Buffalo Diocese told CNA on Thursday morning that the diocese staff remain in the building for the time being. 

Pope advances sainthood causes, including daughter of US author

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis has advanced the sainthood cause of U.S. Sister Rose Hawthorne, the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and he recognized the martyrdom of a German priest executed by the Nazis and a German nun and her 14 companions who were raped and murdered by Russian soldiers during World War II.

After Pope Francis met March 14 with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, the Vatican published the list of decrees the pope approved in 12 sainthood causes.

The pope recognized the heroic virtues of Sister Hawthorne, who, born in 1851 in Lenox, Massachusetts, was the third and last child of novelist and short-story writer, Nathaniel Hawthorne. She and her husband, George Lathrop, converted to Catholicism, but they eventually separated after his alcoholism led to extremely violent behavior. 

rose hawthorne
Rose Hawthorne is shown in this file photo taken before her work with cancer patients began. (CNS photo/courtesy Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne)

She moved to New York City to dedicate herself to charitable work, studied to become a nurse and cared for the poor afflicted with cancer.

After her husband died, she professed religious vows and became known as Mother Mary Alphonsa as she founded the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, the Congregation of Saint Rose of Lima. She established two homes where the sisters cared for the poor without charge, St. Rose's in Manhattan and Rosary Hill in Hawthorne, the motherhouse, where she died in 1926.

Pope Francis also signed decrees recognizing the miracle needed to clear the way for the beatification of two 19th-century priests and of Lebanese Patriarch Estephan Douaihy of the Maronite Catholic Church, who was credited with protecting the Maronite Church from Latinization in the 17th century.

He recognized the martyrdom of Father Max Josef Metzger, an ecumenist born in 1887 who became a peace activist after serving as a chaplain in World War I. During World War II, he was arrested several times by the Gestapo. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1944 after the interception of his memorandum to a Swedish bishop outlining how a defeated Germany could become part of a peace plan.

The pope also recognized the martyrdom of German Sister Mary Christophora Klomfass and 14 of her fellow sisters of the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Catherine, Virgin and Martyr, who were killed out of hatred for the faith between Jan. 22, 1945, and Nov. 25, 1945, during Russia's invasion of Poland.

They were assaulted and raped by the soldiers; some of the sisters were killed immediately, some died after the severe violence they suffered, and some died of typhus in Russian concentration camps.

Martyrs do not need a miracle attributed to their intercession for beatification. However, a miracle must be recognized by the Vatican for them to become saints.

Other decrees signed by the pope attested to the heroic virtues lived by six servants of God, including Archbishop Ivanios Givergis Thomas Panikervitis. Born in 1882 in India, he was the first major archbishop of the Syro-Malankara Catholic Church and a pioneer of ecumenism in India before he died in 1953.

Among the others were three Italians -- two laywomen and one religious -- a 20th century Brazilian priest and Ante Tomicic, a Capuchin brother from Croatia. Born in 1901, he was devoted to eucharistic adoration, and after the communists took over his country, he continued to wear signs of his faith in public, provoking hostile and derisive remarks. He died in 1981.

Pope sets up groups to study most controversial issues raised at synod

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Francis has decided that some of the most controversial issues raised at the first assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality will be examined by study groups that will work beyond the synod's final assembly in October.

The possible revision of guidelines for the training of priests and deacons, "the role of women in the church and their participation in decision-making/taking processes and community leadership," a possible revision of the way bishops are chosen and a revision of norms for the relationship between bishops and the religious orders working in their dioceses all will be the subject of study groups.

That Pope Francis did not wait until the end of the second assembly to convoke the study groups, "shows that he has a heart that listens; he listened and is acting," Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the synod, told reporters March 14.

Pope Francis approved the 10 groups and their topics; he asked the groups, coordinated by different offices of the Roman Curia, to make a preliminary report to the synod's second assembly in October and to give him a final report on their work by June 2025.

Cardinal Mario Grech
Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary-general of the Synod of Bishops, speaks at a news conference at the Vatican March 14, 2024, about study groups authorized by Pope Francis to examine issues raised at the synod on synodality. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

Msgr. Piero Coda, secretary general of the International Theological Commission, a papally-appointed body that serves the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, said the groups "certainly" will discuss specific issues such as the possibility of women deacons, the involvement of laypeople in the choice of bishops and a greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics.

In a letter to Cardinal Grech, released March 14, Pope Francis said that with the study groups working on issues "requiring in-depth study," members of the synodal assembly in October will be able "to focus more easily on the general theme that I assigned to it at the time, and which can now be summarized in the question: 'How to be a synodal Church in mission?'"

Pope Francis named the 10 themes to be explored by the study groups and provided references to where those themes were discussed in the first assembly's synthesis report (SR) last October:

-- "Some aspects of the relationship between the Eastern Catholic Churches and the Latin Church. (SR 6)

-- "Listening to the Cry of the Poor. (SR 4 and 16)

-- "The mission in the digital environment. (SR 17

-- "The revision of the 'Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis' (guidelines for priestly formation) in a missionary synodal perspective. (SR 11)

-- "Some theological and canonical matters regarding specific ministerial forms. (SR 8 and 9)

-- "The revision, in a synodal missionary perspective, of the documents touching on the relationship between Bishops, consecrated life and ecclesial associations. (SR 10)

-- "Some aspects of the person and ministry of the Bishop -- criteria for selecting candidates to Episcopacy, judicial function of the Bishops, nature and course of 'ad limina Apostolorum' visits -- from a missionary synodal perspective. (SR 12 and 13)

-- "The role of Papal Representatives (nuncios) in a missionary synodal perspective. (SR 13)

-- "Theological criteria and synodal methodologies for shared discernment of controversial doctrinal, pastoral and ethical issues. (SR 15)

-- "The reception of the fruits of the ecumenical journey in ecclesial practices. (SR 7)"

Cardinal Grech and Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of the synod on synodality, had a private meeting with Pope Francis before the news conference. Cardinal Grech said that during the meeting, Pope Francis approved inviting to the synod assembly four additional representatives of other Christian churches and communities, so that in October there will be 16 "fraternal delegates."

Archbishop Filippo Iannone
Archbishop Filippo Iannone, prefect of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, speaks during a news conference speaks at the Vatican March 14, 2024, about study groups authorized by Pope Francis to examine issues raised at the synod on synodality. (CNS photo/Lola Gomez)

In addition, Archbishop Filippo Iannone, prefect of the Dicastery for Legislative Texts, told reporters a commission already is studying possible revisions to the Eastern and Latin codes of canon law with a focus on strengthening "synodality," or the participation of all the baptized in the life and mission of the church while respecting the different forms of service to which laypeople and clerics are called.

And, Cardinal Grech said, the synod secretariat has convoked five working groups to focus on: building synodality in dioceses; building synodality on a national or regional level; increasing synodality in the universal church, including by exploring "the relationship between the primacy of the Bishop of Rome, episcopal collegiality and ecclesial synodality"; ways to ensure a "synodal method" of operating that includes prayer, listening, discernment and liturgy; and looking at the identity of the church as a community promoting unity with diversity, whether of culture, language or customs.

In a note on "perspectives for theological exploration" in preparation for the synod's second assembly, the synod secretariat said the goal was to ensure "reciprocity between evangelization of culture and inculturation of the faith, giving space to local hermeneutics, without 'the local' becoming a reason for division and without 'the universal' turning into a form of hegemony."

The whole point of synodality, the note said, is "credibly and effectively manifesting and supporting" the church's mission, "which is the ultimate criterion of all discernment. What is most effective in terms of the proclamation of the Gospel must be privileged, finding the courage to abandon what proves to be less useful or even an obstacle."

 

MEDIA ADVISORY: Nationwide Invitation to Prayer for the End of Abortion and for the Protection of Women and Pre-Born Children

WASHINGTON - On March 26, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear oral arguments in a case that has the potential to make a major impact in the widespread accessibility of chemical abortion (abortion pills). Chemical abortions are now the most common form of abortion in the United States. Most Reverend Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), and Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities have announced a nationwide invitation to prayer beginning on March 25 (the eve of the oral arguments), through June 2024, when the court's decision is expected. 

Invitation may be viewed here: https://www.usccb.org/resources/nationwide-invitation-to-prayer.pdf.

Background information may be found here: https://www.usccb.org/prolife/nationwide-invitation-prayer.

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Survey: Slight decrease in gay marriage support, uptick in religious freedom support in U.S.

null / Credit: Daniel Jedzura/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 13, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

A survey of more than 22,000 Americans found that support for homosexual marriage declined slightly and support for businesses who refuse to violate their religious beliefs went up in 2023 when compared with 2022.

The American Values Atlas survey, which is produced by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), is released annually. The report details trends on these topics from 2014 until the most recent 2023 survey. 

Homosexual marriage support declines

The survey found that 67% of Americans supported homosexual marriage in 2023, which is a two-point decrease from the 69% that recorded their support in 2022. This is the first time the annual survey found a downtick in support since 2015.

Support for homosexual marriage also declined among self-identified Catholic respondents, but a majority still supported it. The decline was significantly larger among Hispanic Catholics, who dropped from 75% support to 68% support, than white Catholics, who dropped from 75% support to 73% support.

The groups least likely to support homosexual marriage were Mormons, Hispanic Protestants, white evangelical Protestants, Muslims, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. These were the only groups in which fewer than half of the respondents supported homosexual marriage.

Young people are more likely to support homosexual marriage than the average American, but support from youth has been declining since 2018. The survey found that 71% of people between the ages of 18 and 29 support homosexual marriage — a significant eight-point decline from the 79% of young people who said the same in 2018.

The majority of Americans in nearly every state still support homosexual marriage, with the exceptions being Arkansas, where only 49% support it, and Mississippi, where exactly 50% support it. 

Support for religious freedom is rising

Most Americans — 60% — still opposed a small business owner’s right to refuse service to homosexuals when it would violate his or her religious beliefs. But this is a five-point decline from 2022 when 65% said the same. 

This decline puts the public closer to 2015 numbers, when 59% of Americans opposed these rights.

Young people are more likely to oppose these religious rights, with 64% of respondents aged 18–29 in opposition. However, this is six points lower than the 70% of young people who were in opposition to these rights in 2022. 

The report also found that 76% of Americans support nondiscrimination laws for homosexual and transgender people, but this too is four points lower than the 80% who said the same in 2022. 

For Americans aged 18–29, support for nondiscrimination protections peaked in 2020 with 83% in support but fell significantly in 2023 to 75% in support.

Partisan differences

The survey showed vast differences on these topics between the two major political parties. The chief executive officer of PRRI, Melissa Deckman, attributed these shifts to partisan division.

“Our survey shows that support for LGBTQ rights has dipped slightly from 2022 to 2023, although the vast majority of Americans continue to endorse anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ Americans and the rights of same-sex couples to marry,” Deckman said in a statement. 

“The growing partisan divide on these issues show the effect of the continuous use of LGBTQ identity and LGBTQ rights as a wedge issue in our nation’s culture wars.”

About 82% of Democrats in the survey said they supported homosexual marriage, compared with 47% of Republicans. 

The distinction was also present in opposition to a business owner’s religious freedom — 82% for Democrats and 32% for Republicans — and support for homosexual and transgender nondiscrimination protections — 89% for Democrats and 59% for Republicans.

DOJ signals that U.S. prisons must adopt transgender policies for prisoners

null / Credit: Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Mar 13, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) this week signaled that prisons throughout the United States must provide prisoners with transgender-related medical care, including “hormone therapy” and other gender-related requests. 

The department said in a press release on Tuesday that the Utah Department of Corrections (UDOC) had “violated the Americans with Disabilities Act” when it “failed to provide” a male prisoner with access to “hormone therapy.” 

The prisoner in question had claimed to identify as a woman and had “repeatedly requested” access to female hormones as well as special accommodations such as “female clothing” and the modification of “pat search policies.” The individual’s gender dysphoria “worsened during [his] incarceration” at UDOC, the DOJ said. 

The department in its finding ordered UDOC to “adopt, revise, and implement relevant policies, practices, and procedures” in order to bring its practices in line with the DOJ’s preferences, including “providing health care services for gender dysphoria consistent with UDOC’s treatment of other medical conditions.”

The DOJ indicated in its announcement that its findings apply to all U.S. prisons. 

Prison facilities, the press release said, “violate the Eighth Amendment when they categorically refuse to provide medically necessary gender-affirming care to incarcerated individuals with gender dysphoria.”

Catholic leaders increasingly critical of gender ideology 

Leaders in the Catholic Church have in recent years become increasingly critical of transgenderism and gender ideology. Those beliefs hold that men and women must be treated as the opposite sex if they simply “identify” as such. 

Pope Francis last year called gender ideology “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” because it “blurs differences and the value of men and women” and “[makes] the world the same, all dull, all alike.”

The Holy Father earlier this month reiterated his criticism of transgenderism, calling gender ideology “the ugliest danger.”

The ideology “makes everything the same,” Francis said, with the pope adding: “Erasing differences is erasing humanity.”

The U.S. bishops last year voted to move forward with a significant revision to their document offering guidance to Catholic health care institutions on the issue of transgender surgeries and hormone treatments.

The bishops’ Committee on Doctrine at that time began the process of updating a portion of its Ethical and Religious Directives in order to emphasize that transgender surgeries and procedures are incompatible with the Church’s teaching on sex and the dignity of the human person.

In a joint letter to Catholics last year, meanwhile, two California bishops acknowledged that the “influence of gender ideology” has “become pervasive in contemporary society” and urged Catholics to respond to the zeitgeist with both “truth and charity.”

Oklahoma City Archbishop Paul Coakley composed a similar letter earlier in the year, while the Diocese of Cleveland said in a guidance document in August that Catholic institutions there must respond to those suffering from gender dysphoria by offering “a loving environment” while also “upholding the truth of God’s created reality.”  

House passes bill to ban or force sale of TikTok

null / Credit: Solen Feyissa|Wikimedia|CC BY-SA 2.0

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 13, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

The House has passed a bill that could ban the massively popular Chinese-owned social media app TikTok from being used in the U.S.

Titled the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act,” the measure passed in an overwhelming bipartisan 352-65 vote. Though the bill does not ban TikTok outright, it prohibits “distributing, maintaining, or providing internet hosting services” to any app controlled by an entity determined to be a foreign adversary. 

If made law, the bill will force TikTok’s Chinese owner to either sell the platform or face a U.S. ban. This means that if the company is sold to an American owner, it would be allowed to continue to operate in the U.S. However, if TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, retains ownership of TikTok, U.S. users will not be allowed to use the app.

House members supporting the bill voiced their concerns that TikTok poses a threat to national security and could also be acting as a propaganda outlet for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 

Some opponents of the bill, meanwhile, voiced concerns that the bill could curb First Amendment rights. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, called the TikTok ban a “Trojan horse,” saying it gives the government too much power to determine which platforms Americans can access. 

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, told CNA that he believes “Catholics should resolutely stand against TikTok, not simply to protect Catholics, but to safeguard the well-being of everyone else as well.” 

“Congress needs to ban TikTok,” he said. “It is not only a pernicious, predatory force that exploits young people, especially girls, it is inextricably tied to the Chinese Communist Party. As such, its content is predictably manipulative and seductive.”

The bill will now move to the Senate for consideration, where some senators have previously expressed concerns with TikTok. In a January Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, accused the CCP of targeting American children to promote harmful content through TikTok.

“If you look at what is on TikTok in China, you are promoting to kids science and math videos and educational videos and you limit the amount of time kids can be on TikTok. In the United States, you are promoting to kids self-harm videos and anti-Israel propaganda. Why is there such a dramatic difference?” Cruz said. 

President Joe Biden has signaled he would sign the bill into law if passed by both the House and Senate, according to reporting by Politico.

Marco Rubio draws attention to pro-life strategy, spike in church vandalism

Speaking with EWTN Capitol Hill correspondent Erik Rosales, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, railed against the Biden administration’s passivity as more than 400 attacks against Catholic churches in the U.S. have been perpetrated during the last four years. / Credit: Screenshot/EWTN News Nightly

CNA Newsroom, Mar 13, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).

The need for the pro-life movement to update its strategy and hold the Biden administration accountable for its failure to address the wave of vandalism against Catholic churches across the country were the top two issues raised by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, in an interview with EWTN News.

Speaking with EWTN Capitol Hill correspondent Erik Rosales, Rubio expounded upon his proposed pro-life strategy released earlier this year. As part of that strategy, the Florida senator called on pro-life Americans to rally behind “supporting mothers and their babies with compassionate, pro-family policies; exposing the Democrats’ abortion extremism; and protecting the unborn by championing just limits to abortion.”

Rubio also railed against the Biden administration’s passivity as more than 400 attacks against Catholic churches in the U.S. have been perpetrated during the last four years.

“We have these anti-Christian violent extremists operating in this country, and it is not a focus or [has] the attention of this administration or this Justice Department,” Rubio told Rosales.

“They can’t find a single person or any of these people that were responsible for these, what is a pretty concerted effort to attack Catholic churches in America,” Rubio emphasized. 

In a March 5 letter to President Joe Biden, Rubio pointed out that the rash of attacks on Catholic churches “seldom result in any consequences for offenders” and demanded that Biden “make investigating, and fully prosecuting, these incidents an urgent priority for [his] administration.” 

“These attacks are not random nor are they the result of a temporary lapse in judgment by perpetrators,” Rubio, who is Catholic, wrote, citing numerous examples, including “a priest being attacked with a machete, a 249-year-old church being set on fire and nearly fully destroyed, and, in Florida, a man crashed a van into a Catholic church and then set it on fire with people inside.”

Returning to the topic of pro-life strategy in the post-Dobbs era, Rubio told Rosales that “unfortunately, a lot of the debate around abortion talks about children as a burden, as something terrible that’s going to ruin your life.”

Rubio’s strategy emphasizes the importance of “dismantling the false choice between motherhood and opportunity” while also “exposing “the truth about abortion.” 

In his pro-life strategy proposal, Rubio slams Democrats for “painting apocalyptic visions of what  a supposedly pro-life future would look like.”

“Key to their strategy,” Rubio says, “has been peddling disinformation that pro-life laws criminalize treatments for miscarriage, stillbirth, and ectopic pregnancy.”

As Rubio sees it, “we can change Americans’ perception of the pro-life movement by embracing an agenda that provides generous material support to pregnant women and their children.” He pointed to the Providing for Life Act as a concrete example, as the measure boosts paid parental leave, enhances child support enforcement, and improves the Child Tax Credit.

In his proposal, Rubio also notes that “other countries in the civilized world have far stronger limits on abortion than the average blue state. Nations like Switzerland prohibit abortions after 12 weeks with limited exceptions and require physicians to counsel women seeking abortions about the risks of the procedure, as well as provide them with information about alternatives like adoption.”

“Yet reasonable laws such as these are decried by the media as ‘draconian’ and ‘evil’ when they are proposed in our country,” Rubio observes. “If Republicans cannot go at least as far in limiting abortion as Europe, then truly we have failed our voters and do not deserve to be described as a pro-life party.”

In 2022, Rubio co-sponsored Sen. Lindsey Graham’s bill for a 15-week abortion ban as a starting point to protect life. Graham plans to reintroduce the bill in the coming months.