St. Raymond of Penafort

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CNA Newsroom, Mar 20, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Catholic bishops released a statement Monday offering moral guidance for Catholic health care institutions, reiterating that “gender transition” interventions are not to be performed because they do not respect the fact that God has created each person as a unity of body and soul. 

“The body is not an object, a mere tool at the disposal of the soul, one that each person may dispose of according to his or her own will, but it is a constitutive part of the human subject, a gift to be received, respected, and cared for as something intrinsic to the person,” the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Doctrine wrote.

“As the range of what we can do expands, we must ask what we should or should not do. An indispensable criterion in making such determinations is the fundamental order of the created world. Our use of technology must respect that order.”

To that end, the bishops wrote, “Catholic health care services must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex or take part in the development of such procedures.”

“They must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who struggle with gender incongruence, but the means used must respect the fundamental order of the human body. Only by using morally appropriate means do health care providers show full respect for the dignity of each human person.”

The March 20 statement, titled “Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” is intended, the bishops say, to provide moral criteria for Catholic health care institutions for discerning which medical interventions promote the authentic good of the human person and which are injurious. The bishops said they developed the statement in consultation with medical ethicists, physicians, psychologists, and moral theologians. 

The bishops note that modern technology offers chemical, surgical, and genetic interventions for the functioning of the human body as well as for modifying its appearance. There are two scenarios, they said, whereby “technological interventions” can be morally justified: when they are aimed at repairing a defect in the body or sacrificing a part of the body for the sake of the whole, such as with amputation. These kinds of interventions “respect the fundamental order and finality inherent in the human person.”

However, gender transition surgeries “regards this order as unsatisfactory in some way and proposes a more desirable order, a redesigned order,” and thus are not morally permissible.

“These technological interventions are not morally justified either as attempts to repair a defect in the body or as attempts to sacrifice a part of the body for the sake of the whole,” the bishops asserted. 

The bishops said one of the reasons for this moral calculus is that the “transitioning” person’s organs, which undergo mutilation and reconstruction during the gender transition process, are not disordered but are healthy. Moreover, “when a part of the body is legitimately sacrificed for the sake of the whole body, whether by the entire removal or substantial reconfiguration of a bodily organ, the removal or reconfiguring of the bodily organ is reluctantly tolerated as the only way to address a serious threat to the body. Here, by contrast, the removal or reconfiguring is itself the desired result.”

Discussing the proliferation of “gender transition” medical interventions, the bishops noted that Catholic health care institutions are not to take part in these interventions because they do not respect the “fundamental order of the human body” as being “sexually differentiated.”

“Such interventions, thus, do not respect the fundamental order of the human person as an intrinsic unity of body and soul, with a body that is sexually differentiated,” the bishops continued. 

“The soul does not come into existence on its own and somehow happen to be in this body, as if it could just as well be in a different body. A soul can never be in another body, much less be in the wrong body,” the bishops wrote. 

“Because of this order and finality, neither patients nor physicians nor researchers nor any other persons have unlimited rights over the body; they must respect the order and finality inscribed in the embodied person.”

The bishops quoted Pope Francis, who wrote in his encyclical ​​Laudato Si’: “The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation.”

Relying on medical interventions that do not respect the body-soul unity is a “mistake,” they wrote. 

“An approach that does not respect the fundamental order will never truly solve the problem in view; in the end, it will only create further problems. The Hippocratic tradition in medicine calls upon all health care providers first and foremost to ‘do no harm.’ Any technological intervention that does not accord with the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body, ultimately does not help but, rather, harms the human person.”

null / Credit: Francesco Cantone/Shutterstock

Washington D.C., Mar 20, 2023 / 15:36 pm (CNA).

This Easter season the U.S. bishops are inviting old and new Catholics to discover the truth, beauty, and goodness of the Mass through a brand-new reflection series releasing every Thursday from Divine Mercy Sunday to Pentecost, April 13 through May 25.

Titled “Beautiful Light: A Paschal Mystagogy” and part of the bishop’s National Eucharistic Revival campaign, the series will feature powerful weekly reflections from some of the nation’s leading Catholic speakers and theologians on the divine mystery of the Mass.

“At every age and stage of life, Jesus invites us to discover the joy of friendship with him,” said National Eucharistic Revival spokesperson Sister Alicia Torres, FE, in a Monday press release. “For Catholics, this happens in a most special way during Mass — the source and summit of the Christian life.’”

“Many of us haven’t had the chance to really explore the beauty and mystery God invites us into at Mass. That is the goal of [this series], to give every Catholic a chance to go deeper this Easter season,” Torres said.

Over the seven weeks of the series, seven different Catholic thinkers will write reflections on different rites of the Mass: 

1. Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis will kick off the series by writing on sacrifice. 

2. Sister Maria Miguel Wright of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, will follow by reflecting on praise and thanksgiving. 

3. Next, renowned biblical scholar Jeff Cavins will write on the universal call to holiness.

4. Archbishop James Peter Sartain of Seattle will reflect on Jesus as Lord and lover of souls. 

5. United States Conference of Catholic Bishops President Archbishop Timothy Broglio will write about the joy of trinitarian adoration. 

6. Theologian and podcaster Father Harrison Ayre will write on the communal character of the Church as the body of Christ. 

7. Archdiocese of Washington adult formation and Hispanic catechesis coordinator Kately Javier will finish off the series by reflecting on the paschal mystery.

“Whether you are just joining the Church at Easter Vigil this year or have been Catholic your entire life, this series is for you,” Torres said.

Torres told CNA that her “primary hope is that this series will help us open our hearts to a new and deeper encounter with Jesus in the Mass that impels us to go on mission with Jesus — especially in the ordinary, everyday moments of our lives.” 

“What does it look like to go on mission with Jesus? Jesus told us to love one another as he has loved us (Jn 13:34). Loving this way — the way Jesus loves — this is what it means to go on mission with him. When we are on mission with Jesus, we are living eucharistic lives,” Torres said.

The paschal mystagogy theme calls for an Easter rediscovery of the Mass. The word “paschal” refers to the Easter season while mystagogy refers to “liturgical catechesis to initiate people in the mysteries of Christ” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, No. 1075).

In a 2019 address, Pope Francis said “mystagogy means discovering the new life we have received in the people of God through the sacraments, and continually rediscovering the beauty of renewing it.”

To access the Easter reflections, subscribe here. 

For more information on the National Eucharistic Revival, click here. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams attends the campaign launch event for “We Love NYC” in Times Square on March 20, 2023, in New York City. / Photo by Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images

CNA Newsroom, Mar 20, 2023 / 15:10 pm (CNA).

New York City Mayor Eric Adams on Sunday responded to critics of his recent statements on faith and spirituality.

In a March 19 appearance on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki,” when questioned about those who “shorthand” what he has said about religion, Adams responded: “You can allow the loudest to get in the way, and all of a sudden you’re responding to the loudest. So, if people who took my innocent words of saying spirituality is crucial, then let them be.”

Adams, a Democrat and former police officer who has been in office a little more than a year, in recent weeks has raised eyebrows by talking about God, prayer, and his ideas against the separation of church and state. 

In the interview with Psaki, Adams said he is concerned about America and that the root of the country’s problems is a failure to embrace spirituality. He likened the current state of affairs in the United States to a frog placed in cool water.

“If you place a frog in hot water, it jumps out right away,” he said. “If you place it in cool water, turn up the temperature, it will stay there and boil itself to death. I think that our country, we are boiling ourselves to death, and that the root of that is our failure to embrace our spirituality.”

Adams’ comparison of the country to a frog in boiling water repeated comments he made at a mental health faith-based summit March 16 at Columbia University Teachers College. The event was co-sponsored by the Mayor’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships, created by Adams in February 2022.

“People wonder why I lean into my faith so much. If you only know how broken I have been as a child, and I am just a pure miracle of God. And every day, just to be able to just rejoice in the fullness of [the fact that] you can take a broken child and turn him into the mayor of the city of New York. God is real. God is real,” he told the summit, to applause from the crowd.

He went on to give his opinions on the state of society today.

“Our babies are waking up every day in the morning, on their way to school, stopping into stores and bodegas, buying gummy bears and Skittles laced with cannabis and sitting inside the classroom,” he said.

“People ask me over and over again, 'Why do you keep saying it’s time to pray, it’s time to pray?' We have moved our faith-based leaders outside of what we should be doing together," he said. "We must introduce faith and wellness back into our families. I’m baffled that you can talk about cannabis in schools but not faith.”

Adams then said the city’s Department of Education would roll out “mindfulness,” “breathing exercises,” and “internal care” for school children.

“How do we take a city that is the center of the power of America and turn it into a city, when you enter it, everyone sees faith and sees God?” Adams asked. “Our challenge is not economics. Our challenge is not finance. Our challenge is faith. People have lost their faith.”

At an interfaith breakfast on Feb. 28, Adams also made strong statements about the separation of church and state.

“Don’t tell me about no separation of church and state,” he said. “State is the body. Church is the heart. You take the heart out of the body, the body dies. I can’t separate my belief because I’m an elected official. When I walk, I walk with God. When I talk, I talk with God. When I put policies in place, I put them in with a God-like approach to them. That’s who I am.”

New York archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan on March 1 praised Adams’ comments about church and state. “Bravo, Mayor Adams. Bravo! Glad you said it,” Dolan said on WCBS 880 news radio.

Donna Lieberman, executive director of NYCLU (ACLU of New York), said the mayor’s comments “were playing with fire.”

“Adams’ team is now claiming that those New Yorkers expressing concern over his comments are distorting his meaning — that he was making a point about what animates his leadership,” she wrote on the NYCLU website March 2. “But, without even considering what goes on in theocracies around the world, our city’s history alone shows why Adams is playing a dangerous game by casually dismissing the well-established partition between religion and public policy.”

Adams, who identifies as a Christian, was raised in the Church of Christ but now attends mostly nondenominational services, Politico reported.

In January, Adams introduced the New York City’s Women’s Health Agenda, which includes “expanding access to medication abortion at New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH) Clinics.”

The city said that and other initiatives “build off programs and services launched during Mayor Adams’ first year in office,” such as “a first-of-its-kind Abortion Access Hub that confidentially refers callers from across the country to abortion care providers in New York City, as well as connections to additional financial support, transportation, and lodging.”

Father Paul Hedman, the priest behind CanonLaw.Ninja. / Credit: Father Paul Hedman

Washington D.C., Mar 20, 2023 / 13:42 pm (CNA).

Canon law enthusiasts can breathe a sigh of relief. A popular canon law website will continue to offer its content to the public despite fears that it would have to shut down because of a copyright dispute over its English translation of the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law. 

The website, CanonLaw.Ninja, owned by Father Paul Hedman, will be able to continue its operations with a different translation owned by the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland (CLSGBI).

As CNA reported last Thursday, Hedman shared the Canon Law Society of America’s Code of Canon Law on his website for years before receiving a cease-and-desist letter from the organization telling him to take that translation of the Code of Canon Law down by March 17. He was also instructed to destroy all copies on the website and all personal copies unless purchased from the CLSA.

Hedman told CNA that the British and Irish CLSGBI offered its translation free of charge, as long as their organization receives proper attribution.

As of this past weekend, the website continues to operate with the CLSGBI translation now in use. 

“The Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland has graciously allowed me to use their translation of the Code of Canon Law,” Hedman said in a Tweet Saturday. 

CanonLaw.Ninja, which describes itself as “a resource for both professional and armchair canonists,” includes up-to-date translations of the Code of Canon Law as well as other documents, such as the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. It also offers an easy format and a tool that allows users to search for relevant canons. Hedman created the website as a seminarian because the only other online copy of the code, which was on the Vatican’s website, was not up to date and was not searchable.

Although Hedman initially took to Twitter to express his shock and disappointment over the copyright enforcement, he has since had an amicable discussion with CLSA. He issued a statement saying CLSA has clarified some of the reasons why it sent him the cease-and-desist letter and added that CLSA intends to work with CanonLaw.Ninja in the coming months. 

“As it turns out, CLSA itself did not possess the right to publish digital copies online until recently (beginning with the upcoming fourth printing), which led to the desire to address potentially conflicting online versions as the society itself tries to make the code more accessible in digital form,” Hedman said in the statement. 

“CLSA is trying to find a new way to work together with me to use and improve CanonLaw.Ninja, hopefully integrating the site with CLSA’s contributions,” the statement continued. “Based on the conversation, I am very hopeful that we will find a solution beneficial to everyone involved.”

Neither CLSA nor Hedman would comment further on the future collaboration when reached by CNA. Rather, they both referred CNA to Hedman’s statement and suggested that further announcements about the collaboration could come in the next few months. 

null / Credit: Unsplash

Washington D.C., Mar 20, 2023 / 12:52 pm (CNA).

Since the Supreme Court reversed Roe v. Wade in June 2022, the abortion battle has moved to the states.

Now that abortion is no longer considered a federally guaranteed constitutional right, individual states are allowed to determine their abortion policies. This means that each state legislature has a renewed importance when it comes to the abortion fight.

While 13 states have passed total abortion bans, many states have moved in the opposite direction, enshrining abortion as a state constitutional right.

Here is what is happening in the abortion battle right now.

Wyoming bans abortion pills

Republican Gov. Mark Gordon of Wyoming signed a bill banning abortion pills into law on Friday. The ban is set to take effect July 1 and makes it a felony to prescribe, sell, or use abortion drugs. The bill explicitly states that “a woman upon whom a chemical abortion is performed or attempted shall not be criminally prosecuted.”

Violations of the abortion pill are punishable by six months in prison and a $9,000 fine. This is the first law specifically banning chemical abortion in the U.S., though other states have restricted or banned the use of abortion pills as part of their abortion bans.

Additionally, Wyoming’s “Life is a Human Right Act” also took effect last week without the governor’s signature. This new law declares abortion the killing of a child and bans it except in cases of rape, incest, fetal abnormality, and the life of the mother. As another Wyoming total abortion ban remains blocked, it is uncertain whether this new law will be able to take effect.

Utah bans abortion clinics

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, signed a bill last week that prohibits abortions outside of hospitals and bans clinics that only offer abortion. The bill prohibits the licensing of abortion clinics after May 2, 2023, and makes it a criminal offense for out-of-state actors to prescribe abortion drugs to Utahns.

The law is set to take effect on May 3. 

North Dakota abortion ban remains blocked

The North Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a state law banning abortion will remain blocked as it works its way through the state’s court system. This means that abortion remains legal through 22 weeks in North Dakota for the time being.

Minnesota considers offering legal protection to abortionists

Minnesota lawmakers introduced a bill today offering legal protection to abortionists who provide abortions to out-of-state women. The law would prevent state courts or officials from complying with extraditions, arrests, or subpoenas from other states over abortions provided within Minnesota. Democrats hold majorities in both houses of the Legislature as well as the governorship, making this bill likely to pass.  

Arkansas authorizes ‘monument to the unborn’

Arkansas, which has banned abortion within the state, has now authorized the construction of a “monument to the unborn” on the state capitol grounds in Little Rock.

Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed the law authorizing the monument last week. The monument, which will be privately funded, will mark the number of abortions that were committed in Arkansas before the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

California proposes protecting doctors who mail abortion drugs

California lawmakers introduced legislation Friday to protect doctors from any legal repercussions for sending abortion drugs to women in states where the drugs are banned.

Texas judge considers halting abortion pill sales

Matthew Kascmaryk, a federal judge for the Northern District of Texas, is weighing whether to overturn the FDA’s approval of the abortion drug mifepristone. The judge heard arguments from the Alliance Defending Freedom and lawyers representing the FDA on Wednesday.

According to the Associated Press, Kacsmaryk stated he would issue a ruling “as soon as possible.” This case has national implications as a pro-life ruling could potentially halt the distribution of the drug used in over half of the nation’s abortions.

CompassCare Pregnancy Services, which had its facility outside of Buffalo burned down last summer, was attacked again with pro-abortion graffiti. / CompassCare Pregnancy Services

Boston, Mass., Mar 20, 2023 / 12:35 pm (CNA).

A New York pro-life pregnancy center that was seriously damaged in an arson attack in June 2022 was vandalized again Thursday with pro-abortion graffiti. 

The destruction of property at CompassCare Pregnancy Services in Amherst, New York, is the latest in a wave of attacks against pro-life pregnancy centers across the country, which began after a May 2022 leak from the Supreme Court indicating that the justices were poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Roe, the 1973 landmark case that legalized abortion nationwide, was overturned that June.

There have only been two reported arrests in the more than 60 acts of vandalism on pro-life pregnancy centers across the country. Amid heavy criticism from the pro-life community, the FBI announced in January a reward of up to $25,000 for any information leading to the arrest of the arsonists of CompassCare.

The word “liars” was spray-painted in red capital letters across the center’s sign at its 1230 Eggert Rd., Amherst, location.

Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, told CNA Monday that the graffiti is “consistent with Jane’s Revenge rhetoric.”

“Jane’s Revenge” became a calling card of sorts for dozens of pro-abortion vandals after the May leak from the Supreme Court.

Harden told CNA the suspect was caught on tape vandalizing the clinic. He said he presented the information collected to the FBI and local police. 

The sign was taken down and will cost about $2,000 to repair, he said. 

“This is a very dangerous moment in the history of our country,” Harden said, referring to the vandalism of centers across the country. He accused the Biden administration of weaponizing the federal government against its political opponents by failing to hold the vandals accountable.

“Why is the FBI not saying that it’s Jane’s Revenge or Antifa? Why is the FBI not engaging in any kind of manhunt?”

“The FBI needs to be defunded, dismantled, and rebuilt,” he said.

Harden has employed private investigators to track down those who committed the act of arson last May. 

He said that the solution to attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers and the weaponization of the government is for the media to cover it and for the “average citizen” to “be vigilant.”

“It’s been said that the only freedoms that we don’t have are the ones that we give up. And quite frankly, we’re giving up a lot of freedoms when we say nothing and do nothing,” he said.

“We have to keep standing strong, and not just for our rights. My personal rights are secondary to my duty to protect the rights of my fellow man. That’s exactly why pregnancy centers exist in the first place.”

Beer. / Africa Studio / Shutterstock.

Washington D.C., Mar 18, 2023 / 04:00 am (CNA).

With the Lenten season underway, Catholics are immersing themselves in 40 days of abstaining from sweets, technology, alcohol, and other luxuries.

But did you know that Catholic monks once brewed beer specifically for a liquid-only Lenten fast?

Back in the 1600s, Paulaner monks moved from Southern Italy to the Cloister Neudeck ob der Au in Bavaria. “Being a strict order, they were not allowed to consume solid food during Lent,” the braumeister and beer sommelier of Paulaner Brewery Martin Zuber explained in a video on the company’s website.

They needed something other than water to sustain them, so the monks turned to a common staple of the time of their region — beer. They concocted an “unusually strong” brew, full of carbohydrates and nutrients, because “liquid bread wouldn’t break the fast,” Zuber noted.

This was an early doppelbock-style beer, which the monks eventually sold in the community and which was an original product of Paulaner brewery, founded in 1634. They gave it the name “Salvator,” named after “Sankt Vater,” which “roughly translates as ‘Holy Father beer,’” Zuber said.

Paulaner currently serves 70 countries and is one of the chief breweries featured at Munich’s Octoberfest. Although its doppelbock is enjoyed around the world today, it had a distinctly penitential origin with the monks.

Could a beer-only fast really be accomplished? One journalist had read of the monks’ story and, in 2011, attempted to re-create their fast.

J. Wilson, a Christian working as an editor for a county newspaper in Iowa, partnered with a local brewery and brewed a special doppelbock that he consumed over 46 days during Lent, eating no solid food.

He had regular checkups with his doctor and obtained permission from his boss for the fast, drinking four beers over the course of a work day and five beers on Saturdays and Sundays. His experience, he said, was transformative — and not in an intoxicating way.

Wilson learned “that the human body is an amazing machine,” he wrote in a blog for CNN after his Lenten experience.

“Aside from cramming it [the body] full of junk food, we don’t ask much of it. We take it for granted. It is capable of much more than many of us give it credit for. It can climb mountains, run marathons and, yes, it can function without food for long periods of time,” he wrote.

Wilson noted that he was acutely hungry for the first several days of his fast, but “my body then switched gears, replaced hunger with focus, and I found myself operating in a tunnel of clarity unlike anything I’d ever experienced.” He ended up losing more than 25 pounds over the course of the Lenten season but learned to practice “self-discipline.”

And, he found, one of his greatest challenges was actually fasting from media.

As he blogged about his fast, Wilson received numerous interview requests from local and national media outlets, and he chose to forgo some of these requests and step away from using media to focus on the spiritual purpose of his fast.

“The experience proved that the origin story of monks fasting on doppelbock was not only possible but probable,” he concluded.

“It left me with the realization that the monks must have been keenly aware of their own humanity and imperfections. In order to refocus on God, they engaged this annual practice not only to endure sacrifice but to stress and rediscover their own shortcomings in an effort to continually refine themselves.”

Catholics are not obliged to give up solid food for Lent, of course, but they must do penance during the season of Lent in the example of Christ’s 40-day fast in the wilderness, in commemoration of his death and in preparation for Easter.

Catholics in the U.S., if healthy adults aged 18-59, must fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and are encouraged to continue the Good Friday fast through Holy Saturday to the Easter Vigil.

“No Catholic Christian will lightly excuse himself from so hallowed an obligation on the Wednesday which solemnly opens the Lenten season and on that Friday called ‘Good’ because on that day Christ suffered in the flesh and died for our sins,” the U.S. Catholic bishops wrote in their 1966 pastoral letter on fasting.

Fasting is interpreted to mean eating one full meal and two smaller meals that, taken together, do not equal that one full meal. There may be no eating in between meals, and there is no specific mention of liquids in the guidelines.

In their pastoral letter, the bishops also instruct all Catholics to abstain from meat on Fridays in Lent, and “strongly recommend participation in daily Mass and a self-imposed observance of fasting” on other Lenten days, as well as almsgiving, study of the Scriptures, and devotions such as the rosary and the Stations of the Cross.

This article was originally published on CNA March 1, 2017, and was updated March 16, 2023.

Ian Dinkla, 21, and Bryn Taylor, 26, abortion activists and students at the University of Florida are arrested by university police. / Created Equal

Washington D.C., Mar 17, 2023 / 16:20 pm (CNA).

Two pro-abortion activists were caught on video stealing pro-life signs and then violently resisting arrest on March 10 at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

The activists, identified by the police as Ian Dinkla, 21, and Bryn Taylor, 26, were arrested by officers from the University of Florida Police Department. They now face violent felony charges including “battery of a law enforcement officer” and “resisting an officer with violence.” They will stand trial in Alachua county court in Florida. 

The signs stolen by the abortion activists included photos of aborted babies and were posted on campus as part of a temporary demonstration by the pro-life group Created Equal. The group had received permission to post their display from the University of Florida administration. 

An Ohio-based group, Created Equal trains and sends students to colleges and high schools across the East Coast to raise awareness of the reality of abortion.

According to the police arrest report, Dinkla repeatedly shoved a police officer in attempts to resist arrest while Taylor struck the officer over the head with a bullhorn and punched him in the face. 

The video, posted by Created Equal, first shows Dinkla grabbing a large pro-life sign and walking off with it to put in his car.

Video taken later that day shows Dinkla approaching another pro-life display and then being confronted by a plainclothes law enforcement officer who identifies himself as “Detective Tarafa with the University of Florida Police Department.”

Dinkla becomes noncompliant and shoves the detective away, saying “stop this person, I’m being attacked.”

As Dinkla can be seen resisting arrest, Taylor intervenes, striking the detective, jumping on him, and shouting profanities.

According to the police arrest record, Taylor “struck Det. Tarafa in the back of his head with a bullhorn. Det. Tarafa then attempted to detain the Defendant [Taylor] and was punched in the face with a closed fist.”

During the altercation additional uniformed police officers converged on the scene. Dinkla is recorded shouting for other students to intervene, saying: “You fools, you get involved! Bystander effect!”

After both students have been subdued Taylor continues to shout at the police, saying; “Are you f---ing insane?” and “You’re defending people who come here and harass people?”

Taylor is now facing two felony charges for battery of a law enforcement officer and resisting an officer with violence, along with a misdemeanor charge of resisting without violence for interfering with a lawful arrest.

Dinkla is also facing two charges for robbery by sudden snatching and resisting an officer with violence. University of Florida Police documentation states that he “knowingly and willfully resisted, by doing violence to Det. Tarafa, by forcefully pushing him away, and then pulling away once Det. Tarafa placed his hands on Dinkla.”

Created Equal’s president Mark Harrington told CNA that harassment, vandalism, and theft against their pro-life efforts is “commonplace.”

“As you can imagine, going to a college campus and presenting a pro-life message is generally not very welcomed on a campus,” Harrington said. “Doing it the way we do, which is to show the victims of abortion, often brings even a higher level of opposition.”

“We face this kind of opposition everywhere we go. We will never back down or cower to these types of tactics by abortion advocates. It only emboldens us to continue on with the mission,” Harrington said. “There are a large number of students who are interested in discussing with us about abortion and that’s why we’re there.”

In a March 10 statement on Facebook, Harrington said: “It is no surprise that those who advocate for the killing of preborn humans resort to violence towards those with whom they disagree … We are grateful no staff members were injured in this incident. We also appreciate the efforts of the university and its law enforcement officers to protect the peaceful exercise of our First Amendment rights.”

The University of Florida confirmed with CNA that both Taylor and Dinkla are enrolled as students and that the school is currently conducting a disciplinary review.

Though the school could not disclose what type of disciplinary action the students could be facing, university spokesman Steve Orlando told CNA that “the University of Florida will be absolutely clear about these two things: Speech is protected, and violence is not tolerated.”

“Everyone — regardless of their views — can exercise their First Amendment rights on this campus, and nobody has a right to violence,” Orlando said. “Violent behavior and resisting arrest are unacceptable.”

Graduate Assistants United, a graduate employees’ labor union at the University of Florida of which Taylor is a member, took to Twitter in defense of the arrested students and asked for donations to pay their bail.

The group tweeted:

“!!NEED SOLIDARITY AND HELP!! 2 friends, GAs were arrested today while protesting in Turlington Plaza for women’s rights. Court support needed, Bail Money needed” and “Please share, show up, and help in any way. We will not be intimidated.”

Both Taylor and Dinkla have since been released, with Taylor being released on the condition she cannot return to the University of Florida campus during her trial, according to local news outlet WCJB.

WCJB reported that a crowd of nearly 100 protesters showed up at the county courthouse to demonstrate their support for Taylor and Dinkla.

This comes as pro-life groups and churches across the U.S. face a spate of vandalism and harassment since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

CNA has tracked and mapped more than 100 incidents of pro-abortion vandalism across the U.S., including at least 56 at pregnancy centers and 33 at churches of various denominations. 

Members of Congress have criticized the Department of Justice under the Biden administration for largely failing to respond to these crimes against pro-life groups and churches.

On Jan. 11, a resolution by Rep. Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, condemning the attacks against pro-lifers and calling for the administration to act in their defense passed the House in a 222-209 vote.

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller (left) and American Cardinal Raymond Burke. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Washington D.C., Mar 17, 2023 / 13:09 pm (CNA).

A synod of German bishops overwhelmingly approved Church blessings of same-sex unions and unions between divorced and remarried Catholics, but the move has faced harsh criticism from some members of the Catholic hierarchy who have accused the German bishops of abandoning the faith. 

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller and American Cardinal Raymond Burke rebuked the German bishops and called on them to be sanctioned in an interview on EWTN’s “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo,” which aired on Thursday night, March 16. 

“There must be a trial and they must be sentenced and they must be removed from their office if they are not converting themselves and they are not accepting the Catholic doctrine,” Müller said during the interview.

“That is very sad that a majority of bishops voted explicitly against the revealed doctrine, and the revealed faith of the Catholic Church and of all our Christian thinking, against the Bible, the word of God in the Holy Scripture and in the apostolic tradition and in the defined doctrine of the Catholic Church,” the cardinal added. 

Müller said the laypeople and the bishops who supported these resolutions at the German Synodal Way are “influenced by this LGBT and woke ideology, which is materialistic and nihilistic.”

“It is absolutely blasphemic to make a blessing about those forms of life which is, according to the biblical and the ecclesial doctrine a sin because all forms of sexuality outside of a valid matrimony is sin and cannot be blessed,” he said. 

“If you look in the Bible, it’s absolutely only the matrimony between man and woman who are united in love in the body and in the soul,” the cardinal said, “and to have the possibility [to] become fathers and mothers and to found a family.”

Burke urged the Vatican to sanction the bishops who voted in favor of blessing homosexual unions.

“Whether it’s a departure, heretical teaching and denial of one of the doctrines of the faith, or apostasy in the sense of simply walking away from Christ and from his teaching in the Church to embrace some other form of religion, these are crimes,” Burke said. “I mean, these are sins against Christ himself and, obviously then, of the most serious nature. And the Code of Canon Law provides the appropriate sanctions.”

The cardinal warned that the Church is being “used” to push an ideological agenda. 

“These are human inventions, human ideologies that are being pushed and the Church is being used,” Burke added. “And what it does is it renders the Church then into some kind of a human agency, almost like a government agency that’s being manipulated to foster certain programs and certain agenda. And so we need to wake up to what is happening.”

“You will notice that in a lot of this talk, you never hear the name of Our Lord,” Burke said. “You never hear talk about what Our Lord Jesus Christ is teaching us, what he’s asking of us. So this is a very serious situation.”

The cardinal also responded to Arroyo’s suggestion that “opponents of these reforms are often derided as going against the pope.”  

“We are the ones who love the pope and are trying to help him to carry out his mission, whereas these people who simply ignore what Rome is saying to them, what the See of Peter is saying to them, show that they have no respect for him, whatever they are indeed the enemies of the pope. I think it’s clear any reasonable person can see that,” he said.

Burke said that Pope Francis “sometimes says things that are very clear and in accord with the Church’s teaching with regard to these matters.”

“What the agents of the revolution do is simply ignore these statements and take other statements in which he seems to be favorable,” he said.

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Washington D.C., Mar 16, 2023 / 16:35 pm (CNA).

A popular canon law website, CanonLaw.Ninja, is removing much of its content by Friday, March 17, to comply with a copyright complaint, which will leave the website without an English translation of the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law. 

The website, which describes itself as “a resource for both professional and armchair canonists,” includes an up-to-date translation of the Code of Canon Law with a tool that helps users easily find the information they’re seeking. Father Paul Hedman created the website when he was a seminarian and pays for the website’s upkeep with donations from users.

“Prior to my site, the only place that the code was online was http://vatican.va, which was out of date, poorly formatted, and unsearchable,” Hedman said on Twitter. 

“So I made a tool to be of help. Sourcing the canons from the Vatican website and other places the code was freely available, I put together a website that for the past several years has helped hundreds of canonists, students, and Christian faithful know the law of the Church,” he wrote.

Hedman was served with a cease-and-desist order from the Canon Law Society of America (CLSA), which is the copyright holder of the translation. 

“The Code of Canon Law, Latin-English Edition,” which is the society-owned translation, is sold on the CLSA website for $75 but is currently out of stock. “The Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches” is available for $50. “Dignitas Conubii: Norms and Commentary” is also available for $50. 

The Minnesota priest tweeted that the letter “came as a shock” and wondered why “the CLSA [would] want to prevent people from accessing the law” and why they had not contacted him before taking legal action, based on the principles of Canon 1446. 

“If the CLSA chooses to make their fine translation of the code less accessible, the study [and] application of canon law will suffer,” Hedman said. “I beg them to reconsider: rather than make an adversary of a priest trying to serve the Church, be a team for the salvation of souls — the Lex Suprema.”

Hedman said he requested several alternative solutions to the problem, which would have allowed the content to stay on the website, but the CLSA did not accept any of them. He offered to stop collecting donations, split the donations with CLSA, pay yearly royalties, or even give the CLSA rights to the tool. 

“I am asking the CLSA to reconsider their course of action and allow for licensing of their translation of the code so that it may be used on http://CanonLaw.ninja,” Hedman said. “It would be regrettable if the resource had to be temporarily disabled until another translation can be found.”

The CLSA did not respond to requests for comment from CNA. 

Some priests took to Twitter to voice their opposition to the legal action. 

“The reality is that whether it’s a biblical translation (USCCB) or translation of the code (CLSA), these things need to move into the public domain after cost is recouped,” Father Josh Miller tweeted. “Instead, they end up paying for the cocktail parties, and that’s pretty disgraceful.”

Father Matthew Schneider, a priest with the Legionaries of Christ, urged the CLSA to work with Hedman to ensure the website can continue to function as it has. 

“Please find some way to work with Fr. Paul & keep http://canonlaw.ninja operating with the best English translation of canon law,” he tweeted to the Canon Law Society’s Twitter handle.

The cease-and-desist letter demands Hedman remove and destroy all copyrighted material from the website and halt any further use, reproduction, and transmission that would infringe on CLSA’s copyright. It further demands that Hedman destroy all materials, including physical copies, of the copyrighted translation, except for publications purchased from CLSA. 

According to the cease-and-desist letter, copyrighted materials include the website’s Code of Canon Law translation, the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches translation, and the Dignitas Connubii translation, which is a Vatican document on the nullification of marriages. This would not affect the other material on the website. 

The letter requests that the content be removed on March 16, but Hedman told CNA that he was given a one-day extension. He said he will comply with all of the demands in the letter and remove the copyrighted materials by Friday, March 17. 

“I fully intend to comply with the cease-and-desist order and remove the content that the CLSA owns, if that is what it comes to,” Hedman said in a tweet. “I hold no animosity against the society, and if I ever became a canonist would plan to join.”

Ecclesiastical documents are often copyrighted, except for older documents that have entered the public domain. According to Canon 828: “It is not permitted to reprint collections of decrees or acts published by some ecclesiastical authority unless the prior permission of the same authority has been obtained and the conditions prescribed by it have been observed.” 

Other Catholics have also had similar problems when trying to republish ecclesiastical works and specific translations. Matthew Warner, who founded a church communications software company called FlockNote, sent free daily emails with excerpts from the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which was meant to cover the entire catechism in one year. 

He discontinued that practice after he received a cease-and-desist letter from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which owns the copyright to the catechism.

The English version of the Code of Canon Law is available on the Vatican’s website.