• Landmark abortion ruling published in Poland

  CNA Staff, Jan 28, 2021 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Poland’s constitutional court published on Wednesday the rationale for its declaration that abortion for fetal abnormalities is unconstitutional three months after it made the ruling. In the highly anticipated ruling on Oct. 22, the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw said that the law introduced in 1993 was incompatible with Poland’s constitution.But the law did not come into effect until the ruling was published in the country’s Journal of Laws on Jan. 27.The 154-page ruling said: “In the opinion of the Tribunal, an unborn child is, as a human being -- a person who[…]

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• Virginia bishops deplore House passage of ‘drastic’ taxpayer funded abortion bill

  CNA Staff, Jan 28, 2021 / 12:42 am (CNA).- The bishops of Virginia lamented the House of Delegates’ “tragic decision” to pass legislation that would permit abortion coverage for any reason in taxpayer health insurance plans on the state’s taxpayer-funded health exchange.“Replacing the current life-saving restrictions on abortion with a policy of abortion coverage without limits in our state exchange is drastic, dangerous and will result in the tragic end to more unborn lives,” said Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington and Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond in a January 26 statement.The statement came in response to legislation passed by the[…]

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• Irish Supreme Court: Hospital may withhold treatment of child against parents' wishes

  Dublin, Ireland, Jan 27, 2021 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- The Supreme Court of Ireland ruled Friday that a hospital may withhold medical treatment contrary to the wishes of the parents of a child with severe injuries.“The withholding of treatment to a child does not necessarily require parental consent to be lawful if it based on a properly made decision as to the best medical interests of the child and it would be contrary to medical ethics to provide the treatment,” the court wrote in its Jan. 22 decision In the matter of JJ.Among the problems raised by the case are[…]

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• Disability cannot be grounds for voluntary euthanasia, UN officials say

  Washington D.C., Jan 27, 2021 / 04:17 pm (CNA).- A disability rights organization praised United Nations human rights experts for condemning voluntary euthanasia on the basis of disability. On Monday, three UN human rights experts issued a joint statement condemning the “growing trend” of countries that extend legal assisted suicide to people who have disabilities, but who do not have a terminal condition.  They added that a disability “should never be a ground or justification to end someone’s life directly or indirectly, and that a government “[u]nder no circumstance” should help “a person with a disabling condition who is not dying to[…]

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• Walk for Life West Coast draws thousands to San Francisco march

  Denver Newsroom, Jan 27, 2021 / 03:25 pm (CNA).- Despite pandemic restrictions, thousands of pro-life advocates showed their support at the Walk for Life West Coast in San Francisco on Saturday.Eva Muntean, co-chair of Walk for Life, said she expected only a few hundred to attend the march because of the pandemic but was pleasantly surprised to walk alongside about 2,500 pro-life demonstrators.“That pro-lifers would show up, and in numbers beyond our hope, in the face not only of Covid but also of threats of political unrest, shows the unshakable commitment pro-lifers have to protecting the littlest and most defenseless[…]

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• Pope Francis gives over $100K for earthquake relief in Croatia

  Vatican City, Jan 27, 2021 / 02:40 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis has given a Catholic charity in Croatia more than $121,000 for earthquake relief.The money was given to Caritas, part of the local bishops’ conference, to aid families in the Banija region, which was struck by a 6.4-magnitude earthquake last month.The quake and its foreshocks and aftershocks, which hit on Dec. 29, killed at least seven people, injured dozens, and destroyed homes and churches.One victim was the organist at the parish church in the town of Žažina, Stanko Zec, who was found dead in the rubble of the church.Many people[…]

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• Poll: Most Americans oppose taxpayer-funded abortion

  Washington D.C., Jan 27, 2021 / 02:20 pm (CNA).- Most Americans oppose the use of tax dollars to fund abortions in the United States or overseas, according to a Knights of Columbus/Marist Poll released on Wednesday.  “Amidst the harsh political divides in our country, clear bipartisan majorities support abortion restrictions and do not want their tax dollars paying for abortion abroad,” said Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, in a statement on Wednesday.  “Our polling has shown consistently over the past decade that policies that promote abortion-on-demand paid for by taxpayers are divisive and out of step with American[…]

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• Archbishop Cordileone: Catholics must recover ‘idea of worthiness to receive Communion’

  Washington D.C., Jan 27, 2021 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- In an interview discussing his recent admonition of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco emphasized the need for Catholics to recover the sense of worthiness to receive Holy Communion. “Catholics no longer understand the idea of worthiness to receive Communion. It’s just seen as a sort of a token gesture of welcome and belonging,” Cordileone told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly in an interview that will air on Thursday night. The archbishop was addressing the topic of denial of Holy Communion to someone “for the sake of their soul.” He[…]

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• Amanda Gorman, inaugural poet for Biden, has history of abortion advocacy 

  Denver Newsroom, Jan 27, 2021 / 12:40 pm (CNA).- Poet Amanda Gorman made a splash with her performance at President Joe Biden’s inauguration. But less than two years earlier, she performed a strongly pro-abortion poem that championed abortion access as necessary to secure equality, to escape from poverty, and to achieve the freedom to determine family size. Her poem charged that those who advocate abortion bans aim to control women and sustain the “patriarchy.”Her performance, carried by Now This News in May 2019, took place when Gorman was a 21-year-old undergraduate at Harvard University. She argued against proposed abortion restrictions in[…]

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• Survey: Americans more likely to say that pandemic strengthened their faith

  Washington D.C., Jan 27, 2021 / 12:37 pm (CNA).- Americans are more likely than people in other developed countries to say their faith has strengthened during the pandemic, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center.  The survey, published on Wednesday, found that while more than two-thirds of Americans (68%) said their faith “has not changed much” during the coronavirus pandemic, almost one-third of Americans (28%) said their faith has grown stronger because of the pandemic.  Americans were more likely than citizens of other developed countries to say their faith has strengthened. In Spain, only 16% of respondents said their faith[…]

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