U.S. & World News

U.S. Briefs

FOLLOWING DEATH OF JUSTICE GINSBERG, TRUMP SAYS REPLACEMENT WILL BE A WOMAN

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The September 18 death of longtime U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – at 87, the eldest of the nine justices, succumbing to pancreatic cancer – has juiced this year’s election-season adrenaline even further. With President Trump narrowing his choices to female candidates, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell aims for a Senate vote before the November 3 presidential election. This would be President Trump’s third Supreme Court appointment.

Ginsburg was the second woman nominated to the Supreme Court (after Sandra Day O’Connor).

Trump’s rumored finalists (at press time) included Amy Coney Barrett, 48, judge with the Chicago-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. She is a Catholic mother of seven who once clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia, and who became widely known when Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) interrogated her about her Catholic faith during her 7th Circuit confirmation hearing in 2017. At that time, Barrett was a University of Notre Dame law professor.

PANDEMIC EFFECTS? ONE-FOURTH OF YOUNG ADULTS RECENTLY CONTEMPLATED SUICIDE, CDC REPORTS

WASHINGTON — Over a quarter of young adults aged 18-24 have seriously contemplated suicide during the month of June, according to a Centers for Disease Control survey published in August.

Of all respondents, 10.7 percent reported “having seriously considered suicide” in the 30 days prior to taking the survey, which was conducted in late June. That number rose to 25.5 percent of respondents aged 18-24.

Tommy Tighe, a marriage and family counselor and host of the Catholic mental health podcast “Saint Dymphna’s Playbook,” said the data shows “our baseline level of anxiety has gone up during this experience” of the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns, and social distancing measures.

SAN FRANCISCO ARCHBISHOP ENCOURAGES ‘PUSH BACK’ ON MASS AND WORSHIP RESTRICTIONS

SAN FRANCISCO — In a midsummer letter citing government-imposed limits on public gatherings due to the COVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone asked priests of the archdiocese “to do everything possible to make Mass available to your people.”

Then in mid-September, he emphatically denounced the city’s updated coronavirus restrictions as “uniquely punitive,” referring to limits (albeit increased) on numbers of participants allowed for Mass indoors and outdoors. Saying the “time has come to push back,” he then asked Catholics of his diocese to join Eucharistic processions beginning September 20 that would eventually “process together” as a “public witness of faith” to press civil authorities to “Free the Mass.”

San Francisco mayor London Breed’s norms (at press time) didn’t allow indoor gatherings in houses of worship — other than 12 people to live-stream a service — and were restricting outdoor gatherings to 50 people (up from the previously allowed 12). While the Mayor had permitted indoor private prayer, only one person at a time has been allowed inside.

BISHOPS: CATHOLIC VOTERS’ CONSCIENCES SHOULD SUPPORT COMMON GOOD, NOT PARTISANSHIP

OKLAHOMA CITY — The U.S. bishops’ quadrennial document on political responsibility “is meant to give Catholic voters an opportunity to reflect upon how their faith intersects with their political and civic responsibilities,” said Archbishop Paul S. Coakley of Oklahoma City, who chairs the bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

Voting, he added, is a responsibility to be taken seriously and that requires prudential judgment in determining who can best serve the common good. Titled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the document has been updated and offered as a guide to Catholic voters every presidential election year since 1976.

World Briefs

VIETNAMESE OFFICIALS, THUGS INVADE BENEDICTINE MONASTERY, SEIZE THEIR LAND

HANOI, Vietnam — Dozens of thugs and local officials have undertaken to harass and threaten the monks of Thiên An Benedictine Monastery in Huế, disrupting their community life and seizing monastery land.

Several times in August, the aggressive group, which includes government officials and security forces from the Thủy Bằng People’s (Municipal) Committee, entered the monastery’s cloister shouting insults and threats at the monks, even mocking the image of Christ during prayer. They also seized part of the monastery land, cordoning it off with a barbed-wire fence.

For years the monastery has been attacked by “red capitalists” who mix communist ideology, capitalist greed, and violence, resorting at times to kidnapping and intimidation in an effort to force the monks to leave the area so they can sell the land to speculators.

CHINA HOSPITALS REPORTEDLY FORCE ABORTIONS, INFANTICIDE ON UYGHURS IN DETENTION CAMPS

XINJIANG, China — Hospitals in China’s Xinjiang province regularly commit forced late-term abortions on Uyghur women and killed newborn Uyghur babies to enforce China’s family planning policies, according to a former hospital worker in the region.

The worker told Radio Free Asia that hospital maternity wards in Xinjiang strictly enforce family planning laws, including limiting Uyghurs to three children in rural areas or two in urban regions.

“There were babies born at nine months who we killed after inducing labor,” and some who were born alive were killed, the worker said. “They did that in the maternity wards, because those were the orders.”

Well over 1 million Uyghurs are estimated to be kept in some 1,300 detention camps set up by Chinese authorities, ostensibly for “re-education” purposes. Survivors have reported indoctrination, beatings, forced labor, and torture in the camps.

VATICAN-APPROVED ASSOCIATION PUBLISHES GUIDE EXPLAINING CATECHESIS ON MINISTRY OF EXORCISM

ROME — A new guide compiled by the International Association of Exorcists and approved by the Vatican aims to provide an authoritative, up-to-date, and accurate look at the quiet backstage ministry of exorcism.

“If an untrue image of the exorcist’s ministry has spread among the general public, this is due not to the discretion with which good exorcists proceed, but to the lack of professional honesty” in the media, said Father Francesco Bamonte, president of the Rome-based association.

The 300-page Guidelines for the Ministry of Exorcism was originally published as a private reference book for exorcists, but many priests and bishops thought it would be a “good catechetical and pastoral tool that would counterbalance the many publications that emphasize the sensationalistic aspects of demonic activity,” said Fr. Bamonte. An English version could be out as early as next year.

CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC HAS REVEALED HOW OFTEN HUMAN DIGNITY IS IGNORED, SAYS POPE FRANCIS

VATICAN CITY — The coronavirus pandemic has shed light on other, “more widespread social diseases,” particularly attacks on the Godgiven human dignity of every person, Pope Francis said.

“The pandemic has highlighted how vulnerable and interconnected we all are. If we do not take care of each other, starting with the least — those who are most affected, including creation — we cannot heal the world,” the pope said at a weekly general audience in mid- August.

SOURCES: Catholic News Agency, Catholic News Service, Crux, AsiaNews