Recent Catholic News

WASHINGTON, June 1 (LSN) – On Thursday, President Clinton signed an executive order granting “minority” status to   homosexuals, by adding the term “sexual orientation” to the list of prohibited grounds of discrimination in federal   law. “Individuals should not be denied a job on the basis of something that has no relationship to their ability to   perform their work,” Clinton said. While Clinton’s measure is restricted to the public sector, he urged Congress to   pass similar legislation across the board.

WASHINGTON, June 1 (LSN) – At the recent “Values Summit” with Republican Speaker Newt Gingrich, several staunch   pro-life leaders appeared to take an “incrementalist” approach to the abortion issue, says an article in today’s U.S. News and World Report. Apparently, Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum,  and Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition focused on plans to ban partial-birth abortion, rather than   their ultimate goal of full legal protection of the right to life from conception onward. While such an approach may   be pragmatic, it is controversial […]

PROVO, Utah, June 1 (LSN) – In a concise and illuminating article released Friday, Brigham Young University Law   Professor Richard G. Wilkins detailed potential abuses of the United Nation’s proposed International Criminal Court (ICC). Using quotations from ICC documents, Professor Wilkins demonstrates how the UN plans to make the “denial   of abortion” a “war crime,” and how certain “crimes” as defined by the ICC may “criminalize the denial of marriage to   homosexuals.” He notes that the proposed court runs the “risk of expanding to condemn (and eventually eliminate)  traditional cultural and religious values.”  Please see the article […]

OTTAWA, June 1 (LSN) – The 1998 Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, released   last week, indicates the grim consequences Canada faces for its anti-life, anti-family policies at home and abroad.  One section of the report, Population Aging and Information for Parliament: Understanding the Choices, details   economic implications of Canada’s dismal demographic situation, especially how the country will soon face grave   difficulties caring for a disproportionately large number of senior citizens.  “Unless our productivity somehow increases significantly or patterns of work and retirement change substantially,  the current demographic trends suggest that the growth […]

SAO PAULO, Brazil, May 29 (LSN) – The global push for chemical abortion by the feminist and de-population movements has extended into countries where abortion is illegal, causing especially great damage to women and children.  Dr Claudette Gonzalez of the University of Sao Paulo said Friday that “Information on the effects of taking misoprostol (a common abortion drug)  during pregnancy should be made more widely available to dissuade women from misusing the drug.”  According to a report in the prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, doctors in Brazil have treated 42 infants whose mothers attempted to abort them with the […]

NEW YORK, May 29 (LSN) – In a release issued today, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (CAFHRI) reported that the United Nations has awarded official “consultative status” to a tiny, elite group of dissidents who call themselves “Catholics for a Free Choice” (CFFC). The group, which has been called “a well-funded letterhead,” is lead by Frances Kissling, who left the Church decades ago. Its purpose is to fight the Catholic Church’s position on abortion and contraception. CAFHRI also noted several other pro-abortion groups that have received official status with the UN.  According to CAFHRI, NGOs (non-governmental organizations) which […]

LANSING, May 29 (LSN) – On Wednesday, the Michigan House of Representatives passed a motion to provide for both civil and criminal retribution for the injury or killing of a child in utero. The bill, however, is not intended to restrict abortion.

OTTAWA, May 29 (LSN) – Yesterday, Health Minister Allan Rock announced permanent federal funding for AIDS programs of at least $42.2 million per year without any requirement for review of the programs. The unprecedented step caught even the liberal media off-guard. Other diseases kill more Canadians, but research and treatment for them receive far less government support, leaving some to wonder whether Rock’s announcement reveals questionable priorities on the government’s part.  For example, from the time it was recognized in the early ‘80s until last summer, AIDS has claimed the lives of 11,046 Canadians. The federal government will now provide […]

LANSING, May 28 (LSN) – On Tuesday, the pro-assisted-suicide group Merian's Friends announced they have collected enough signatures to force a ballot consideration of assisted suicide in November. Dr. Edward C. Pierce, chair of Merian’s Friends, noted the group is gearing up for the public opinion battle and said that his main opponents would be pro-lifers and the Catholic Church.  Reacting to the news, the Michigan Hospice Organization (MHO) expressed concern that that “the legalization of physician-assisted suicide will cause the ill elderly to begin to feel an obligation to die, when they consider themselves no longer productive to society.”

ST LEONARDS, Australia, May 28 (LSN) – On Saturday, the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet reported on an Australian study showing a certain in vitro fertilization (IVF) technique is linked to developmental delays in children conceived in such a manner. Dr. Jennifer Bowen and her colleagues at the Royal North Shore Hospital in St. Leonards, Australia, studied about 250 children—some conceived naturally, and some conceived artificially by intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a procedure which is meant to weed out abnormal sperm and select healthy sperm for injection.  In March, USA Today reported that at a meeting of the American […]