Washington D.C., May 30, 2015 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Award-winning American author and devout Roman Catholic Flannery O’Connor will appear on a new postage stamp this summer, the U.S. postal service announced last week. The stamp is decorated with peacock feathers, a tribute to the family peacock farm in Georgia where O’Connor did much of her writing. Famous for her Southern Gothic fiction style, O’Connor’s best-known works include her first novel, "Wise Blood", and many short stories such as “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” A collection of her works, "The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor," won the 1972 National Book Award for fiction and was named the Best of the National Book Awards, 1950-2008 by a public vote. The author was born in 1925, the only child to devout Roman Catholic parents living in the heart of the Protestant “Bible Belt” in Savannah, Georgia.  O’Connor went to school at Georgia State College for Women, then to the Iowa Writers Workshop, and finally to New York to study and work on her writing. However, at the age of 25, a diagnosis of lupus forced O’Connor to return home to her family’s farm in Andalusia, Georgia, where she lived out her days caring for animals, going to church, and writing.   Her inclusion on U.S. postage stamps is a triumph for both American authors and American Catholics, said Ralph Wood, professor of literature and theology at Baylor University and author of the 2005 book “Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South.”   “More than 50 years after her early death in 1964 (at age 39), her fiction continues to command worldwide attention, and so the USPS rightly adds her to its roll-call of writers who have been thus honored,” Wood told CNA in an e-mail interview. “Yet it would be tempting on such a public occasion to ignore the religious nature of Flannery O’Connor’s achievement,” Wood added. But this can hardly be done. O’Connor never kept her faith a secret, and despite her frail health would travel to speak about faith and literature. The recent release of her college prayer journal, which she kept while attending the Iowa Writer’s Workshop in her early 20s, provides even more evidence that the author’s deep interior life and relationship with God drove her passion for writing. “Dear God please help me to be an artist, please let it lead to You," she wrote.   “In those years O'Connor came to recognize her own significant talent, but also came to worry that her powerful desire for literary success – a success that seemed to be within her reach – might threaten her relationship with God,” said Professor John Grammar, director of the Sewanee School of Letters.   “How to harmonize her desire to write well with her desire to love God completely? Writing had to become an avenue to God, not an end in itself,” he added. Throughout the journal, O’Connor increasingly writes about seeing her talent as a vocation, rather than a career path to success. What further makes O’Connor stand out from other writers, and particularly other writers of faith, is her willingness to write about the dark and grotesque: her constant use of unsavory characters and horrific plots is almost unheard of in other Christian writings. “The distinctive thing about O’Connor as a Christian artist is that she has little interest in making us feel good,” Grammar said.  “In her work the love of God is always present, but far from being comforting, it is guaranteed to disrupt comfort and shake up complacent certainties, in her characters and her readers.” Indeed, O’Connor herself said she was uninterested in making people feel comfortable and happy, as Brad Gooch explains in his biography "Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor." "O'Connor said that modern writers must often tell 'perverse' stories to 'shock' a morally blind world. 'It requires considerable courage,' she concluded, 'not to turn away from the story-teller,'" he wrote. American Catholics can learn something from O’Connor, whose relevance continues today despite her unwillingness to compromise or water down her beliefs in her work. “Beset with its own failings, the Church is also besieged with demands for accommodation of its basic doctrines and practices to the secular spirit of the age,” Wood said. “Flannery O’Connor rejected all such compromises. Her fiction endures because it provides a living artistic alternative to the twin evils of modernity: the omni-competent nation-state and the all-pervasive Culture of Death. Whatever the motives prompting it, this commemorative stamp contains the image of the nation’s most redemptive writer: Flannery O’Connor.” The Flannery O'Connor stamp is a "forever" stamp for 3-ounce packages and will be available June 5.   Read more

Springfield, Ill., May 29, 2015 / 03:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An Illinois bill that some say threatens the conscience rights of medical providers is currently under consideration in the state’s general assembly. Catholics and pro-lifers are divided among themselves over the implications of SB 1564 for the conscience rights of medical providers. While the state’s Catholic Conference is neutral on the bill, the Christian legal group Alliance Defending Freedom states that it “would force medical facilities and physicians who conscientiously object to involvement in abortions (and other procedures) to refer for, make arrangements for someone else to perform, or arrange referral information that lists willing providers, for abortions.” The Health Care Right of Conscience Act would affect all medical providers in the state, including Catholic hospitals and pro-life pregnancy centers. Originally, it was invoked in court to uphold the rights of pharmacists not to sell birth control to which they morally object. However, a recent push by the state’s ACLU to “reform” the bill resulted in an amended version staunchly opposed by the state’s Catholic Conference. That version clearly mandated that all medical providers who, out of conscience, will not perform services – such as abortion and sterilization – must refer patients to other providers of that service. This “could constitute a direct material cooperation with the objected to service,” the conference stated at the time. Then, in an April 16 statement, the conference claimed to have reached a compromise with lawmakers: that the law does not require medical providers to refer for abortions, but instead maintains the status quo for medical providers – they could give a list of providers in the area where “maybe” one could provide what the patient was looking for. According to the National Catholic Register, while neither pro-life groups nor the Illinois bishops' conference “likes the bill … the Catholic Conference of Illinois has declared its neutrality as a consequence of negotiations that brought about changes it believes are acceptable but that pro-life groups say are insufficient.” Catholic ethicists and hospital lawyers participated in the compromise, the conference said, shortly before the bill passed the state senate. The National Catholic Register reported that a spokesman for the Illinois Catholic Conference “explained that they would rather see no changes to the existing law but had to make the best of the political reality” in the state. “What we did is negotiate the bill to a point where our ethicists and lawyers said, ‘This is acceptable … [and] reflects what is in Catholic health care now,” the spokesman said. However, heads of the Catholic Medical Association Illinois Guilds are not convinced that the bill establishes sufficient conscience protections for physicians. In a May 10 statement they expressed grave concern that the bill "violates the sacred life-affirming calling of medical practitioners by forcing them to provide information to aid killing." According to their statement, language in the bill still mandates that providers give information of places they are reasonably sure provides the service to which they object in conscience. The bill passed the Illinois state senate but has not yet passed the general assembly, which could vote on it soon. Lawmakers are hesitant to support a bill that opponents say takes away their right to choose a pro-life physician, said Matthew Bowman, senior counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom. The legal group plans to fight the bill if it is signed into law. "This is an attack on women's choice," Bowman told CNA, because women will no longer be able to have a pro-life doctor in the state who objects in good conscience to having to refer for abortions. In a fact sheet on the bill, the ACLU says that providers must give “either a referral or transfer, or written information about where the patient may be able to get the treatment they need.” Both Americans United for Life and Robert George, a professor of jurisprudence at Princeton, have voiced objection to the bill. So why are some pro-lifers opposing the bill, while others find it acceptable, though not ideal? Is the devil in the details? The National Catholic Bioethics Center has spoken about the issue, though not specifically referring to the bill itself. A moral distinction must be made between a “referral” and a “transfer of care,” they explained. When a provider refers a patient to another provider for a morally-objectionable service, that is “formal cooperation” with evil, even if the provider does not intend for the patient to receive the service. “The objector implicitly wills the requestor’s accomplishment of the evil act,” the center explained of formal cooperation with an evil act. The center gave two examples of formal cooperation: a hospital physician giving a patient a list of gynecologists who prescribe contraceptives, and a Catholic hospital informing a patient of other places “that it knows or believes will perform abortions.” However, there is a morally licit avenue for Catholic hospitals and physicians threatened by laws like SB 1564, they added. The provider must make every attempt to dissuade the patient from an evil practice like abortion or sterilization. However, if the patient insists on the action, they are still “an independent moral agent” with free will. So in such a case the provider can provide them a “transfer of care” to another provider that the patient wants, “without stating where the patient might go to receive the immoral procedure or otherwise directing the patient to it.” The provider can, in good conscience, even provide a list of medical providers in the area, without specifying whether or not they offer the morally-objectionable practice the patient wants – but the list must include providers who do not offer that practice. The Illinois Catholic Conference believes the bill satisfies moral concerns, as their director of government relations explained to the National Catholic Register. Now providers must only do “what they’ve always done.” That procedure, under the most recent version of the bill, is to “counsel against the objectionable service, tell the patient what the problems are with it, but if the patient continues to insist on it, to say, ‘Look, we don’t do that here; here is a list of medical providers: Maybe one of them can help you.’” For pro-life groups who still insist on fighting the bill, they may face a court date if it becomes law. Regarding their legal recourse, Illinois does have a law similar to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Bowman acknowledged, which could be invoked to protect pro-life doctors. Under such a law, the government in infringing upon a person's religious freedom would have to establish a compelling interest that would justify the substantial burden upon one's religious practice. Recently Illinois pharmacists won a years-long case in the state appeals court after they refused to provide customers with contraceptives. Then-Governor Rod Blagojevich had issued a mandate in 2005 that pharmacies fill prescriptions for emergency contraceptives “without delay.” The pharmacists fought the mandate in court, invoking their First Amendment rights, their rights under the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Health Care Right of Conscience Act. The ACLU later launched an initiative to “reform” the Right of Conscience Act, stating that “everyone in Illinois has the right to receive health care and information that is not restricted by the religious beliefs of others.” Read more

Washington D.C., May 29, 2015 / 03:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Native American tribe leader has been threatened with time in prison for his religious use of eagle feathers, and his case is currently before federal court. “This is a particularly ... Read more

Pittsburgh, Pa., May 28, 2015 / 03:15 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Second-time presidential candidate Rick Santorum announced his campaign for the U.S. presidency on Wednesday, standing behind his goals to shrink the government, heal the middle class, and focus on social issues, while honing in on his image as a "blue collar conservative." "I am proud to stand here among you and for you, the American workers who have sacrificed so much, to announce that I am running for president of the United States," Santorum stated May 27 in his home state of Pennsylvania. Santorum will try to appeal to Catholic voters in the 2016 race, although he is among two other Republican contenders with a Catholic affiliation - Jeb Bush, a convert from Episcopalianism, and Marco Rubio. Santorum's 2012 campaign for president bolstered his transparency on faith, revealing his belief that God and the importance of religion are pivotal in American democracy. The former U.S. Senator has made it clear over the years that he is devoted to his faith, and that the Church has helped shape some of his political stances. "I am proud of being Catholic. I'm proud of the teachings of the Church," Santorum told CNA in 2011, upholding the belief that faith and reason go hand in hand. "When the reason is right and the faith is true, they end up in the same place," Santorum continued. The New York Times called Santorum the "boldest candidate in the race" because of his stance opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, making him stand apart from what could be a dozen republican runners. During his two terms as a U.S. Senator, Santorum worked resolutely to ban partial-birth abortion and continues to oppose the practice. He also told CNA that the "faith teaches very clearly that life is life at the moment of conception." Santorum also defended religious-based organizations and helped them receive more assistance during his time as a senator in the 1996 welfare overhaul. He has also spoken out against homosexual acts and supports marriage between one man and one woman, publicly supporting the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996. Although Santorum admitted on NBC earlier in the year that he had spoken rashly about some sensitive issues during his 2012 campaign, but he is still resolved to speak openly about the importance of family and traditional values. The former senator, age 57, joins an already crowded race, but his history of winning 11 states against Mitt Romney in the 2012 Republican primaries could prove helpful in the continuously brimming bids. Although recent polls place him 10th among his fellow Republicans, Santorum will work to make his way towards the early debates in August, pushing his themes of restoring traditional American values and defence against the country's enemies. Santorum spoke boldly this week about the impending threat of radical Islam, saying he has been dubbed as an enemy by the Islamic State in one of their English-language magazines. Nevertheless, Santorum believes America should be wary of the brewing storm that extremist Islam may pose. Other candidates for the Republican nomination include former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Texas senator Ted Cruz, and Ben Carson, a retired surgeon. Read more

Washington D.C., May 28, 2015 / 12:31 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Obama administration’s massive immigration order met a roadblock in federal court, Catholic immigration advocates are unhappy but are helping undocumented immigrants any way they can. “Obviously, we're extremely disappointed,” Jeanne Atkinson of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network told CNA in response. CLINIC was founded by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and serves dioceses throughout the country in a legal capacity on immigration. It advocates for policies like legal status for undocumented immigrants and family reunification. “Every day” that the program’s implementation is delayed “makes a difference” for parents, children, and siblings of lawful residents, she added, “many of who have been here for many, many years.” On May 26, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to stay an injunction against President Obama’s massive executive action from November, the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans program. It would have delayed deportation for up to five million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. An expansion of the president's previous executive action on immigration, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, DAPA would have law enforcement effectively delay by three years the deportation of undocumented immigrants who met certain conditions. Among the primary conditions for DAPA eligibility were parents who entered the U.S. illegally but had children who were born in the U.S. who were also citizens or lawful permanent residents. In addition, the parents had to have resided in the U.S. for at least five years, passed a criminal background check, and agreed to pay taxes. Tewnty-six states had asked the courts for injunctive relief against having to roll out the program. In February, a district court judge in Brownsville, Tex. granted the state an injunction from implementing DAPA, ruling that the state made a sufficient case that the administration may have violated the Administrative Procedure Act. The Obama administration then asked the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals for a stay on the injunction, but were denied. Although the federal court decision was a blow to the president's immigration policy, the impact might only be temporary felt with the merits of the case still to be decided. The administration's official memorandum had established priorities for deportation of the undocumented, the highest including felons, terror suspects or terrorists, “criminal street gang” members, and those apprehended at the border or at ports. The next highest priority for deportation were the undocumented convicted of three or more misdemeanors or a “significant misdemeanor” like selling drugs, driving under the influence, sexual assault, or burglary. The memorandum made it clear that the lower priority undocumented not be sought after for deportation while higher priority cases existed. Although unhappy with the delay of the program, CLINIC is still working to help educate undocumented immigrants that the program was only a partial fix and there may be other means for them to “protect yourself from being taken advantage of.” “We're trying to make sure what the immigrant community understands what this means,” Atkinson said. Although legal precedent for the president’s executive action probably exists, immigration reform ultimately must be bipartisan and not a unilateral action, argued Alfonso Aguilar, head of the Latino Partnership at the American Principles Project. The president took a “risk” with the program because “nothing like this has ever been done before,” Aguilar said. Because it has been challenged “effectively” in federal court and opposed by so many states, the executive action has made passing comprehensive immigration reform harder than before. “I understand the frustration,” he said of President Obama’s criticism of the inaction of Congress on the issue, but “I think he could have waited,” Aguilar said. He thinks political capital does exist for Congress to pass immigration bills, but Republicans want it done “piecemeal” and not through a massive comprehensive bill. Read more