WASHINGTON, D.C., February 17, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Although two pro-life women testified before a Congressional panel investigating whether the Obama administration had crossed a dangerous line violating the freedom of religion with its birth control mandate, the president of Planned Parenthood led a chorus of pro-abortion activists in asking, “Where are the women?”

On Thursday, the House Oversight Committee chaired by Congressman Darrell Issa called the two women, who work for Christian universities, before a hearing titled, “Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama Administration Trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?” 

Dr. Allison Dabbs Garrett, the senior vice president for academic affairs at Oklahoma Christian University, and Dr. Laura Champion, the medical director at Calvin College Health Services, were two of ten witnesses who said the government mandate requiring religious institutions such as theirs to provide contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs violated the First Amendment.

However, Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, released a statement the same morning asking, “How can Congress hold a hearing about birth control and not let any women speak?”

She accused Issa of “holding a congressional hearing to oppose insurance coverage for contraception, yet not allowing a single woman to testify in support of the benefit.”

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The two women testified as part of the second panel. The first panel included five men: a Catholic bishop, the president of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, two Southern Baptists, and a rabbi.

Cecile Richards sent out a picture of the first panel as part of a fundraising e-mail Thursday afternoon. “This picture is spreading around the internet like wildfire right now because of what’s missing. WOMEN.” she wrote. “The anti-birth control lawmakers who want to give employers the power to deny women coverage for contraception don’t want to hear from women or from anyone who disagrees with them.” 

Nancy Keenan, the president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, followed suit, telling her followers in an e-mail message, “Unbelievably, the head of the committee, anti-choice Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), refused to allow a female law student to testify in support of contraceptive coverage.” However, she implicitly acknowledged a female presence in the hearings. “The hearing featured 10 anti-choice witnesses – eight of whom were men,” she wrote.

George Zornick of The Nation invoked the days of segregation in his article, “Republican Hearing on Contraception: No Women Allowed.”

The row over representation began during the hearing itself. “I look at this panel, and I don’t one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventive health care services,” said Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, D-NY. “Where are the women?”

Maloney later pioneered the #“wherearethewomen hashtag on Twitter.

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi revived the issue during a press conference later in the day. “Imagine they’re having a panel on women’s health, and they don’t have any women on the panel – duh! “ she said. “What is it that men don’t understand about women’s health and how central the issue of family planning is to that?”

The hearings, which were marked by contention – including Eleanor Holmes Norton walking out and Rep. Gerry Connolly accusing testifying clergy of “trampling” on freedom – produced their lighter moments. After Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-NY, said he would feel more comfortable with women on the panel, Congressman Issa responded, “I might want to note Rev. Barry Lynn is not a woman. That’s who you requested.”

Under rules established before Republicans regained control of the House, the minority party gets to choose one witness per hearing. The committee’s Democratic members originally chose Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

The minority then changed its mind and asked for Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown Law student who was once president of its Students for Reproductive Justice chapter. She was expected to testify about a fellow student who was reportedly unable to afford the birth control pills that her doctor was prescribing to treat ovarian cysts.

Since the hearings were about religious freedom rather than birth control, Congressman Issa said Fluke would be an inappropriate witness. However, his office contacted Lynn, who declined to attend, saying he did not find the call very “serious.” 

A committee spokeswoman defended the hearing’s inclusion of women against misrepresentations, saying, “Rep. Pelosi is either ill informed or arrogantly dismissive of women who don’t share her views.”

January 8, 2016 (NewsBusters) -- Churches must not be afraid to speak out against abortion in the 2016 election, according to one prominent pro-life group.

On Wednesday, Priests for Life hosted a press conference on abortion in light of the upcoming 2016 elections at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The event centered on the question “How political can the Catholic Church be?” under its tax-exempt status and highlighted that “restrictions on political activity by churches are misunderstood” -- even by the media.

Priests for Life National Director Fr. Frank Pavone opened the press conference by stressing Church obligation during the election season.

“This is not about the Church becoming a political machine,” he said. “This is about the Church becoming more the Church.”

But instead, many churches have been undergoing a “massive self-censorship” to avoid losing their tax exemptions.

During elections, Catholic institutions and Christian entities send out instructions and memos, he said, "somehow telling us that we cannot really participate in the election process by doing, for example, clear teaching and preaching that the people of God have to elect public servants who know the difference between serving the public and killing the public.”

According to Fr. Pavone, churches too frequently veer away from teaching Catholic doctrine due to the Johnson amendment, which forbids tax-exempt organizations from intervening “directly or indirectly” in political campaigns.

He deemed the amendment a “law on the books which is being vastly misunderstood, misrepresented.”

“Whether it’s by the fact that we simply do not understand this particular law or whether it’s by the fact that we are using the taxman as an excuse for our own fears and hesitations,” he said, “we have not gotten in our institutional churches a proper understanding of what we really are allowed to do and what we aren’t allowed to do.”

But the vague rules directly influence diocese memos, said Fr. Pavone, like one, which read, “Do not even appear to endorse or oppose particular candidates for public office or political parties.”

Fr. Pavone deemed that mandate impossible.

“I ask you, brothers and sisters, how can anyone carry out that particular piece of advice?” he pressed. “How can you not even appear to favor or oppose a candidate who is in favor of child-killing throughout pregnancy when you represent a church that says no abortion is never morally permitted and that the law has to protect children from the beginning of their lives?”

Fr. Pavone stressed that the Church really is non-partisan in messaging.

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“Whatever my message today seems to favor or oppose when it comes to political parties or candidates, what if tomorrow those parties and candidates swapped their positions on abortion?” he challenged.

“Nothing changes,” he confirmed.

MRC Culture Exclusive Interview

Following the event, MRC Culture asked Fr. Pavone if he saw a pro-life president in the near future.

“I am very confident that a lot of pro-life candidates are going to be elected in 2016,” he said, “and the reason for that confidence is that the American people are learning much more about what abortion is.”

He also expressed confidence that the Priests for Life’s new initiative to encourage churches to speak out was “very much in line with the spirit of Pope Francis.”

“The pope has made statements about the fact that we shouldn’t be afraid to ‘mess things up,’” Fr. Pavone said. “In other words, don’t feel constrained by the limitations that are imposed just by an institution.”

While the pope takes a staunch pro-life stance in line with Church doctrine, he called the Church “obsessed” with certain doctrines, such as abortion, in 2013.

“This is what the pope means when he expresses concern,” Fr. Pavone told MRC Culture. “The Church is not defined by one or another particular issue.”

The Church, he continued, is defined by Jesus. And it’s in Jesus that “we find the reason why we’re pro-life and the reason why we take the stance on every other issue that we stand on.”

Fr. Pavone also addressed the media’s part in church restrictions.

“The media’s role in all of this, I believe, plays into the confusion as well, because I don’t believe that our friends in the media,” he said, “necessarily understand these limitations any better than the pastors do.”

Fr. Pavone encouraged his audience to visit www.politicalresponsibility.com and www.abolishingabortion.com and read his new book Abolishing Abortion for more information.

Attorney James Bopp, Jr., a law expert on church freedom in elections, Alliance Defending Freedom’s legal counsel Christiana Holcomb and Priests for Life executive director Janet Morana also spoke at the event.

Reprinted with permission from Newsbusters.

In a sweeping interview, the archbishop emeritus of Brussels warns that the ambiguity in the Synod’s final text was ‘very risky,’ but says he trusts the Pope will hold to his word and defend Catholic Tradition.

BRUSSELS, January 8, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Shortly after leaving the see of Mechelen-Brussels at the age of 75 – the official retirement age for prelates of the Roman Catholic Church – Archbishop André Léonard, former primate of Belgium, gave a wide-ranging interview to the French weekly Famille chrétienne. Bishop Léonard made unusually direct remarks about the crisis of vocations, the dangerous “ambiguities” of the recent Synod on the Family and other controversial topics. In liberal Belgium he had the reputation of being conservative and even narrow-minded – contrary to his successor, Jozef De Kesel, former auxiliary bishop to Cardinal Danneels of the infamous “Sankt-Gallen group.” Léonard was even attacked by a group of topless “Femen” activists in April 2013: they drenched him with water during a conference, accusing him of “homophobia” for his statements on the “abnormality” of homosexuality.

But he has never wavered. Responding to Famille chrétienne’s journalist, he said: “I am convinced that the Church’s Magisterium is valid, even on the most sensitive and controversial issues.”

Under his leadership, the number of seminarians progressed tenfold in his diocese, growing from four when he arrived to 55 on his departure. Archbishop Léonard is also known for his openness to traditional Catholic institutions such as the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) and the Institute of Christ the King, both of whom he welcomed in Brussels. Just before leaving Belgium to retire in the French Marian sanctuary of Notre Dame du Laus, he celebrated Mass in the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite in the church of the Minims where he had named a priest of the FSSP as vicar several years before.

Of special interest to the readers of LifeSiteNews are Leonard’s interview responses regarding the Synod on the Family. Antoine Pasquier of Famille chrétienne asked him: “The second Synod on the Family took place in October. The final text is open to interpretation. How do you read it, having taken part in the first session?”

What is most fundamentally at stake in the Synod is the alliance – in all the joys and suffering of families and couples – of love and truth. 

Archbishop Leonard answered bluntly: “I didn’t get the impression of real progress from one synod to the other, rather there was a repetition of what had already been said. It left me a bit unsatisfied. There are good things in the final text, but I was a bit disappointed by the fact that they cultivated ambiguity around the most sensitive issues. Some bishops told me the texts were deliberately formulated in an ambiguous way, in order to leave them open to interpretation in different directions. Such ambiguity on key issues is very risky, as it could give way to practices that would be very difficult to reverse once they have been instituted and developed.”

“I therefore hope”, he said, “that we will have a nuanced and benevolent approach, but that it will remain clear on doctrinal and disciplinary teachings of the Catholic Church regarding marriage and the family. The ball is now in the Pope’s court. The time has come for him to fulfill his Petrine ministry of unity and continuity of Tradition, as he declared he would in his final declaration at the end of the first Synod on the Family. What is most fundamentally at stake in the Synod is the alliance – in all the joys and suffering of families and couples – of love and truth. So says Psalm 84: ‘Love and truth will meet; justice and peace will kiss.’ The Church must be all at once merciful, welcoming all with openness of heart, and faithful to her teachings on marriage and the family.”

Bishop Leonard was equally clear about the idea of delegating more power to bishops’ conferences in matters of discipline.

STORY: Archbishop prays while topless gay activists shout curses and douse him with water

“That is not a good idea”, he said. “I find it hard to see how discipline could be modulated from one country to another or from one continent to another. I would find it extremely risky for Western countries to be allowed a more flexible discipline. What sort of image would that give of the Church? Would Christians from richer countries, besides the greater comforts that most of them enjoy, also benefit from a more comfortable discipline? It would be a great scandal! On the other hand, there is a point where the diversity of locations should be taken into account: in implementing pastoral care with regard to the different problems that appear in different continents, so as to offer adequate solutions.”

Archbishop Léonard’s plain speaking earned him no little opposition during his five years as Primate of Belgium: an overwhelmingly Catholic nation which gave innumerable missionaries to the Church in the first half of the 20th century but where relativism has become a way of life and religious practice has plummeted. Seventy percent of under-thirties now declare they have no link whatsoever with the Catholic Church and only 25 percent of marriages involve a religious ceremony. The decline accelerated under Cardinal Danneels, who was Primate of Belgium between 1979 and 2010: he was of the vein of the majority of Belgian bishops who openly defied the teaching of Paul VI on contraception in Humanæ vitæ in 1968. How did Archbishop Léonard cope with this opposition both within and without the Church?

“Partly with strong convictions, partly by temperament,” he answered. “During my years of priesthood the Church’s conviction as it regards different aspects of human existence my own. And I am convinced that the Church’s Magisterium is valid, even on the most sensitive and controversial issues. I always judged my mission was to be an echo to the teachings of Christ and the Church on human destiny. So it never disturbed me to paddle upstream, sometimes, against the current of society and the spirit of the times. Wouldn’t you say that is a bit normal? A significant proportion of the Gospel goes against the grain. St Paul, speaking to the Romans, said: ‘Do not conform yourselves to this age.’”

If a man wants to give his life to Christ, the bishop should meet with him! When a young man feels he is important in the eyes of the bishop of his diocese: that will help him to make his decision.

Léonard went on to say: “My convictions prompted varied reactions: there were those who were happy to hear clear language that was truly encouraging them to live according to their Catholic identity, and there were others who protested, sometimes even among Christians themselves because they didn’t really like – even in a world where freedom is considered to be a supreme value – that a bishop should be thinking differently from the dominant mindset. This type of opposition or disagreement is, in a way, inevitable. It is its absence that would have troubled me. Jesus does not promise us success, but rather contradiction. But these small miseries are only a small part of my ministry, and they are nothing compared with what the bishops suffered during the first centuries of the Church, or what bishops suffer today in the Middle-East or in Asia!”

Despite his reputation of “rigidity” and “intolerance” hawked by the Belgian media, Léonard’s steadfast Catholic stances and clear condemnation of the manifestations of the culture of death in a country that has been a fore-runner in social engineering did not deter young men in Belgium from answering their call to the priesthood; quite the contrary.

When asked to explain the sudden in rise in vocations under his leadership in Mechelen-Brussels, Léonard made it plain that what counted in his eyes was the attitude of the bishop to young men who think they have a vocation: it requires welcoming and proximity, he said. “I never sent away a young man who came to see me, I never told him to first go and see the vocations office of the diocese, I always welcomed him. If a man wants to give his life to Christ, the bishop should meet with him! When a young man feels he is important in the eyes of the bishop of his diocese: that will help him to make his decision. I have no miracle recipe. I simply always remained open to the realities to which the Holy Spirit gives rise in the Church. (…) All those who present themselves will not necessarily become priests, discernment is necessary, but first of all there must be a welcoming attitude. What a joy for a bishop to meet a man who wants to consecrate himself to the Church! What a wonderful present!”

January 8, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Want to have a monthly collection of the most important Catholic news from LifeSite in a beautiful full color magazine? While some may not know about it yet, Faithful Insight, a publication of LifeSiteNews, has just published its fourth issue.  Dedicated to the service of Christ through Our Lady, this magazine, unlike LifeSiteNews, is specifically intended for Catholics, but like LifeSiteNews, hopes to strengthen faith, life, the natural family, and freedom, by arming readers with truthful news and views and many inspiring stories from a faithfully Catholic perspective.

The name Faithful Insight is one rendering of the Latin phrase ‘sensus fidelium’ better known in English as ‘sense of the faithful’ which the Catechism calls, a “supernatural sense of the faith,” where “all the faithful share in understanding and handing on revealed truth.” That sensus fidelium or faithful insight is bolstered as we see the truths of God confirmed in science and human experience.  Conversion testimonies, the words of true fathers of the faith and the witness of countless martyrs “manifest a universal consent in matters of faith and morals.”  

Subscribe to Faithful Insight here.

Faithful Insight magazine is intended for an international audience but is currently only available in the United States and Canada. Faithful Insight launched in September as the last authentically Catholic news magazine in Canada, Catholic Insight, ceased its paper publication after more than 20 years of service. The first issue was dedicated to Fr. Alphonse de Valk whose courageous work in founding and running Catholic Insight has served the Church by helping countless Canadian Catholics to maintain and strengthen their faith in perilous times.

The guiding principle of LifeSiteNews will also permeate Faithful Insight – Caritas in Veritate – Love in Truth. It is not a love that is sentimental or afraid to risk loss of worldly respect, but the love a parent would show – a willingness to speak the hard truth out of love for the ultimate well being of their child.

It is rather painfully obvious we are living in times St. Paul warned about in 2 Timothy 4 when he said “they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”  But the apostle to the Gentiles strictly directed Timothy preach the truth nonetheless. “I charge thee, before God and Jesus Christ, who shall judge the living and the dead, by his coming, and his kingdom:  Preach the word: be instant in season and out of season: reprove, entreat, rebuke in all patience and doctrine.”

Finally, this magazine is consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. True Devotion to Mary is as St. Pope John Paul II said, “indispensable to anyone who means to give himself without reserve to Christ and to the work of redemption.”

Hopefully you will find Faithful Insight to be edifying for your spiritual lives. Please pray for us, for the success of Faithful Insight, and especially for the situations you will read about in the pages of this magazine.  Prayer is our most powerful weapon in the culture war.

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