In the battle to win hearts and minds to the cause of life, it is sometimes necessary to speak in non-religious terms. This is certainly possible and effective. For example, medical science and biology can help us defend the lives of unborn children and argue persuasively for an end to abortion. An unborn child is alive. An unborn Read more
The Tonga Privy Council says the Government’s plan to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) is unconstitutional. King Tupou VI, with his Privy Council, was responding to petitions from groups in Tonga who have sought his help to stop the ratification process. The Government has committed to ratify CEDAW but Read more
Last month a federal court ruled the New York state Department of Motor Vehicles had the right ban a Choose Life specialty plate. The DMV rejected the Children First Foundation’s plate back in 2002, saying it was the state’s “policy not to promote or display politically sensitive messages” on its license plates. The group has Read more
Just because we don’t talk about it, doesn’t mean that abortion isn’t something that affects Christian women. One in three women will have an abortion by the time they are 45 according to national statistics. That means that there are inevitably women in church who will have had an abortion – and it isn’t just Read more
On Saturday June 27th a drone will fly packages of abortion pills from Frankfurt an der Oder in Germany to Słubice in Poland. Arriving at the Polish town of Slubice on Saturday, the drone aims to drop several packages of pills weighing under 5kg in total. The packets are to be received by women’s groups, Read more
Everybody is talking about the Pope’s new environmental encyclical, even though there isn’t much that’s unusual about it. In fact, it’s a document so perfectly in line with usual Catholic teaching that the most illuminating piece of commentary on it I could find was perhaps this 2009 column by The New York Times’ Ross Douthat Read more
Catholic bioethicist Bernadette Tobin writes: “In order to understand the teachings of the Catholic Church in relation to questions about the beginning of life, we need to identify and appreciate the one idea that informs all of these teachings. This is the idea that the life of every human being is, in and of itself, Read more
An American academic has proposed Catholic social activist Dorothy Day as the perfect patron of the upcoming Year of Mercy. Dr Lance Richey has edited a recent edition of Day’s journal from the early years of the Catholic Worker Movement. He also organises an annual Dorothy Day conference. “I do think that it’s a very Read more
Bishops and priests have performed a “great exorcism” of the entire nation of Mexico, in a ceremony called an “Exorcismo Magno”. On May 20, the ceremony was carried out behind closed doors at the cathedral of San Luis Potosí. The Archbishop Emeritus of Guadalajara, Cardinal Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, presided. Also participating were Archbishop Jesús Carlos Read more
Women seeking an abortion are being offered easier access to the procedure with a free, national telephone consultation service that started this week. Using the freephone number the service has been set up by Wairarapa abortion doctor Simon Snook because of the delays, said to be potentially harmful, faced by many New Zealand women seeking Read more