Washington D.C., Dec 10, 2016 / 04:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- More than 10 years ago, the Supreme Court ruled in two separate cases that the death penalty is unconstitutional when applied to juveniles or the intellectually disabled. But today, over a dec... Read more

Lincoln, Neb., Dec 9, 2016 / 05:15 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Clarity and renewal can be the fruit of disputes and disagreements, Bishop James Conley of Lincoln said to his priests on Monday, reassuring them in the face of confusion regarding Amoris laetitia. “Amoris Laetitia will continue to be discussed among the Church's bishops and the Holy Father, in order to bring clarity and understanding to difficult questions,” Bishop Conley wrote in a Dec. 5 letter to the priests and seminarians of his diocese. “I appreciate that public disagreement in the Church can become a source of discouragement. The history of the Church has included great theological disputes, which have been the source of division but, ultimately, have led to clarity, and to renewal.” He reflected that “the Church is the Bride of Christ, and is protected and guided by the Holy Spirit … We can have confidence in the enduring grace of God to lead us, as it has done in many moments of difficulty or disagreement in the Church's history. The lessons of history are that we need not be dismayed or anxious by the challenges of our own time.” Pope Francis' March 2016 apostolic exhortation on love in the family has been met with a varied reception and interpretation within the Church. Its eighth chapter, on accompanying, discerning, and integrating fragility deals with, among other things, the pastoral care of the divorced-and-remarried, who have not been admitted to Communion unless they commit to living in continence with their partner, forgoing the acts proper to married couples. Yet ambiguous language in that chapter has led to uncertainties about this practice and about the teaching and status of the apostolic exhortation. Some have maintained it is incompatible with Church teaching, and others that it has not changed the Church's discipline. Still others read Amoris laetitia as opening the way to a new pastoral practice, or even as a progression in continuity with St. John Paul II. In June, a letter signed by 45 theologians identified 19 propositions in Amoris laetitia “whose vagueness or ambiguity permit interpretations that are contrary to faith or morals, or that suggest a claim that is contrary to faith and morals without actually stating it.” And in November, a letter sent by four cardinals to Pope Francis was made public, which had requested that he “resolve the uncertainties and bring clarity” regarding his exhortation. Bishop Conley's letter to his clergy is a pastoral response to the situation, and begins by acknowledging that “in recent weeks, some of you have asked me about media reports of controversy and disagreement about the interpretation of Amoris Laetitia.” “Disagreement and conflict in the Church can be unsettling,” he wrote. “Yet moments of sincere disagreement provide the occasion for the Holy Spirit to bring deeper clarity to our understanding and proclamation of the faith. The questions being posed to the Holy Father are intended to help achieve clarity.” He added that discussion on Amoris laetitia “is an opportunity to grow in our understanding of the Church's teaching on the sacraments, the nature of mercy, the process of evangelization and conversion, and the pastoral mission of solidarity and accompaniment. I know that many of you have questions about the meaning of Amoris Laetitia, and its impact on our pastoral ministry. I am writing to address those questions.” The bishop acknowledged that the exhortation does contain “insightful reflections on family life in the modern world, and on the meaning of mercy and charity in pastoral ministry … the Holy Father calls us to discern the hearts of those entrusted to our care, and to facilitate meaningful encounters with Jesus Christ, who loves us, and who calls us to love, uniquely, exclusively, and irrevocably.” He also stated that Amoris laetitia “also includes some passages which have proven challenging to interpret and understand, especially regarding the pastoral care of Catholics who are divorced and civilly remarried, or cohabiting.” Bishop Conley affirmed that the exhortation “does not repudiate the indissolubility of marriage, or the Church's moral teachings regarding divorce,” and neither does it “change the Church's understanding that conscience must be formed according to truth, and that a well-formed conscience cannot guide us in a manner contrary to divine revelation.” “Sexual relationships outside the bonds of marriage constitute circumstances of grave sin,” Bishop Conley taught. “The Lord calls those who are divorced and civilly remarried, or who are cohabiting, to continence … like every person who is conscious of grave sin, divorced and civilly remarried Catholics who engage in ongoing sexual relationships may not approach Holy Communion.” He said that “faithful pastoral care requires that we encourage Catholics to live according to the Gospel's teaching, and accompany them as they grow in understanding and acceptance of the Lord's call … the goal of our pastoral ministry is the salvation of souls – holiness – which is borne of cooperation with grace, and obedience to truth.” The bishop indicated that he had provided the priests with the pastoral guidelines of several diocese, among them those of the Philadelphia archdiocese, the Phoenix diocese, and the province of Alberta. “I have provided these particular documents because they reflect the most faithful interpretation of Amoris Laetitia, and covey the intepretation that is to be considered normative in the Diocese of Lincoln,” Bishop Conley wrote. Concluding, the bishop wrote, “I ask each one of you to continue praying for the Holy Father, who is Christ's vicar on earth. I ask you to pray for the Church's bishops, unworthy successors of the apostles. And I encourage you to continue to lead the Church in fidelity, in charity, in hope, and in peace.” Read more

Austin, Texas, Dec 9, 2016 / 11:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A regulation in Texas going into effect this month gives mothers and families the right to know about their child’s burial, and gives unborn babies who die the opportunity for a respectful burial – regardless of the circumstances of their death. Kristi Hamrick, spokesperson for Americans United for Life, who helped create the model legislation for the new Texas regulations, told CNA the legislation both prevents unborn infants who died through abortion as being treated as waste, as well as helping families who lost a child through miscarriage or stillbirth to retrieve their infant's body for burial. “This effort empowers women and informs them of their options,” she told CNA. “It does not require anything of the mothers, but it does require that the facility handle the bodies of unborn infants with the same respect we show the remains of other people who die in a medical setting.” The new regulations, proposed earlier this year by the  Texas Department of State Health Services, will go into effect Dec. 19. Similar laws have been passed in Indiana, Louisiana, and Ohio. The rules require that medical facilities care for remains of unborn babies with recognizable body parts who do not survive until birth. The remains of the unborn infant must now be cremated or buried, as opposed to being treated as medical waste. The parents of the deceased unborn child must also be given the opportunity to take care of arrangements themselves – though if she does not wish to do so, a woman may consent to relinquish control of the remains to the medical facility. “No woman is required to take the body of the infant with them or to have it released to her,”  Hamrick stressed. The new regulations do not apply to unborn persons who are passed at home.   These new regulations stand in sharp contrast to how the remains of miscarried and aborted infants are currently treated.    “Currently, facilities dispose of the infants, often without input from the mother,” Hamrick stated. This often makes retrieval of the baby’s body intensely difficult, particularly for families who miscarry or have a stillborn child. “We’ve seen families who lose a child to miscarriage go through intense efforts to have the body released to them for burial,” she continued.  Hamrick noted that the new regulations actually give mothers more options than they currently have for how to treat the remains of their child, in most cases. Jaqueline Harvey, a policy analyst and mother who attended the hearings for the regulation in Austin, Texas, says she sees a need for the new rules and thinks, at least in her case, they might encourage women to make safer medical decisions. Harvey pointed to her own decision not to have a Dilation and Cuterage (D&C) procedure earlier this year after a miscarriage. While the procedure would have been safer, she said she chose the more risky route of passing the baby at home because she knew her baby’s remains would be sent to pathology with the D&C procedure: “After that point you cannot retrieve the child,” she explained. She said she also feared for what might happen to her child after it went to pathology. “The present rule in Texas is an absence of rules,” Harvey explained. “It’s much easier for them to just put the baby down the garbage disposal.” While she respects and understands mothers who do have D&C procedures after miscarriage and realizes that her choice was risky, she said she made the decision she did in order to honor her son. “I made the decision to give birth at home because I wanted his body to be intact,” Harvey said. “I felt like I owed it to him.” Harvey said that while she realizes “that not everyone has the same conviction I do,” she thinks the new regulations can bring relief to families in situations like hers, as well as to the broader community. “I think people would want to know how unborn children are treated, whether they are wanted or not.” Read more

New York City, N.Y., Dec 9, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA).- Emma and Isabella are suing their mother, Sofia Vergara, according to court documents obtained by the New York Post. Emma and Isabella are Vergara’s frozen embryos. Vergara is a Colombian-born actress perhaps best known for her role as the quirky but loving Gloria Delgado-Pritchett from the ABC series “Modern Family”. In 2013, she created and froze embryos with then-fiancé Nick Loeb, a businessman, in a California clinic through in-vitro fertilization. Reportedly, a contractual agreement struck between Vegara, then 40, and Loeb, then 37, stipulated that nothing could be done with the embryos without the consent of the other. The contract did not specify what would happen should the couple separate. The recent lawsuit, filed in Louisiana, argues that the embryos are being denied their inheritance of a trust in the state of Louisiana by not being allowed to be born. The state of Louisiana legally recognizes a fertilized egg as a "juridical person". Reportedly, the lawsuit was brought forth on behalf of the unborn embryos. It does not name Loeb directly, but rather a trustee as the plaintiff. The suit asks that Loeb receive full custody of the embryos so that they may be brought to term and allowed to receive their inheritance, which would cover health care and education expenses, among other things. It is not the first time the couple has sparred over the fate of their embryos. In August 2014, Loeb unsuccessfully sued for full custody of the embryos under a pseudonym, hoping to keep the case private. As the story broke, Loeb took to the New York Times op-ed pages to argue that his two frozen children had a right to live. Loeb wanted custody of the embryos in order to implant them in a surrogate mother. Vergara, a Catholic, has said that while she does not want to destroy the embryos, she wants them to remain frozen indefinitely, which Loeb wrote would be “tantamount to killing them.” According to court documents, the IVF process prompted the following text exchange: Loeb: "Now what. You can't keep 4 frozen lives forever or kill them, we will go to hell." Vergara: "We r going to hell regardless." The Catholic Church is against the freezing of embryos, primarily because it requires the creation of embryos outside of the human person and because it puts the lives of those embryos at risk. “Every human embryo is a human being with intrinsic worth like all other human beings. To freeze a human being, and thereby risk their life, is to treat a human being like a mere thing, to use him or her as a means,” Christopher Kaczor, a professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, told The Tidings in 2015. The recent lawsuit has again brought into question at what point a fertilized embryo is considered a human being. The news also comes after Ohio legislators approved a bill which would ban abortions after the detection of a heartbeat in a fetus. The bill allows exceptions if the mother’s life is deemed to be in danger. If signed by Governor John Kasich, the law could mean no abortions as early as six weeks after conception.   Read more