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Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. Courtesy photo. / nullCNA Staff, Mar 23, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).A new Catholic, osteopathic medical school that will be housed on the campus of Benedictine College hopes to open in the fall of 2027, the project's founding president told CNA this week. Dr. George Mychaskiw, an osteopath and a pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist, told CNA that the school in February completed its application to the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, the body designated by the U.S. Department of Education to accredit programs that grant the doctor of osteopathic medicine (DO) degree. The planned school, first announced last September and dubbed the St. Padre Pio Institute for the Relief of Suffering, will adhere to Ex Corde Ecclesiae, St. John Paul II's 1990 apostolic constitution on the mission of Catholic colleges and universities. It will be housed on the campus of Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, but as a separate inst...
A participant in a Women's March event Jan. 18, 2020, in San Francisco holds a "Pass the Equal Rights Amendment" sign while marching. / Credit: Sundry Photography/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 22, 2024 / 18:30 pm (CNA).Nevada Judge Erika Ballou ruled this week that the state must include abortion in its Medicaid program.This ruling effectively mandates Nevada taxpayers fund abortion. It is unclear whether the state will appeal the decision.Ballou did not give any explanation for her Tuesday ruling, only issuing a one-page order that granted a local pro-abortion group's request to strike down the Medicaid restrictions. The pro-abortion group, called "Silver State Hope Fund," which provides grants for women seeking abortions, applauded the ruling, calling it a "historic day for Nevada."Represented by ACLU Nevada, Silver State Hope Fund filed a suit against the state's Health and Human Services Department in Augu...
Cathédrale Notre-Dame de l'Assomption in Cap-Haitien, Haiti / Rotorhead 30A Productions/ShutterstockACI Prensa Staff, Mar 22, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).Amid the violence racking the country, the Haitian Bishops' Conference has issued a letter to the faithful that recalls Isaiah's prophecy: "No longer will violence be heard in your land, nor ruin or destruction within your borders, but you will call your walls Salvation and your gates Praise" (Is 60:18).Based on this hope for a country without violence, the prelates this week issued an urgent call for the end of the widespread violence and for the active search for peace and national reconciliation.In the letter, the prelates expressed their profound concern over the murders, the settling of scores, witch hunts, looting, and other acts of violence going on that have plunged the country into a major humanitarian crisis."This dream of a country without violence makes us raise our voices to call for an end to the acts that aim to ...
Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Montana, speaks at a press conference on the debt limit and the Freedom Caucus's plan for spending reduction at the U.S. Capitol on March 28, 2023, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Kevin Dietsch/Getty ImagesWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 22, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).Four congressmen in the conservative House Freedom Caucus voiced "strong objections" to a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) plan to expand its coverage of in vitro fertilization (IVF) to unmarried veterans, including those in same-sex relationships.Under the previous rules, the VA only covered IVF treatments for married couples who produce their own eggs and sperm for the fertility treatment. The new policy will allow donor eggs and sperm and cover treatments for unmarried people who require such donations to create an embryo.The lawmakers, led by Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Montana, expressed their dissent in a letter to VA Secretary Denis McDonough on March 20. He was joined ...
Pope Francis on March 21, 2024, laicized Bishop Emeritus of Bruges, Belgium, Roger Vangheluwe (center), years after the former prelate admitted to repeatedly sexually abusing his nephew when the latter was a minor. / Credit: Carolus, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsRome Newsroom, Mar 22, 2024 / 09:40 am (CNA).Pope Francis has laicized Bishop Emeritus of Bruges, Belgium, Roger Vangheluwe, years after the former prelate admitted to repeatedly sexually abusing his nephew when the latter was a minor. The apostolic nunciature to Belgium said in a statement on Thursday that "serious new elements" had come to light regarding Vangheluwe, who resigned in 2010 after having admitted to the sexual abuse of his nephew from when the youth was 5 years old.The "new elements" included the recent testimony of a victim that led to a reexamination of the case. On March 8 the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith recommended Pope Francis dismiss Vangheluwe from the clergy. Francis "gran...
The European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. / Credit: JLogan via Wikimedia/ Public DomainRome Newsroom, Mar 22, 2024 / 10:45 am (CNA).European bishops this week called on the institutions of the European Union to embrace greater state-church dialogue and on parliamentary candidates to include Christian principles in their political programs ahead of the bloc's elections in June. Stressing the importance of participatory democracy and the involvement of citizens in the decision-making process of European affairs, the statement bemoaned what it saw as the political and institutional marginalization of Christian voices. "We distinctly noticed that a large proportion of citizens, who confidently look at the European future through the prism of Christian values, now feel marginalized, as they do not have the opportunity to express their positions and opinions in an autonomous and distinct way," the bishops said in their March 20 statement."We also notice the exclusion o...
Map of Congo. / ShutterstockACI Africa, Mar 22, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).The decision by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to lift a 2003 ban on the death penalty is retrogressive, the local ordinary of the country's Kinshasa Archdiocese, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, has said.In a statement issued March 13, DRC's justice minister, Rose Mutombo, announced the lifting of the two-decade-old moratorium on the death penalty in the Central African nation.Mutombo has been quoted as saying that "acts of treachery or espionage have taken a toll on the population and the Republic" and that the restoration of the death penalty is to "rid our country's army of traitors … and curb the upsurge in acts of terrorism and urban banditry resulting in death."In a March 17 interview with the French-language Catholic television channel KTO, Ambongo faulted the justice minister's pronouncements, saying he finds it "abnormal that a government that claims to be responsible could ...
Rosa María Payá coordinates the pro-Cuba democracy platform Cuba Decide. She is the daughter of the revered late Catholic Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá. / Credit: Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty ImagesACI Prensa Staff, Mar 21, 2024 / 17:05 pm (CNA).The Cuba Decides initiative, founded by Catholic opposition activist Rosa María Payá, is calling on the international community to side with the Cuban people and support the country's peaceful transition to democracy, a demand made by protesters in July 2021 as well as last weekend.Payá is the daughter of revered Catholic pro-democracy leader Oswaldo Payá, who was reportedly assassinated by the Castro regime in 2012.In an email sent to ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner, the democratic initiative referred to the protests that took place March 18 in cities such as Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo, in which numerous people took to the streets to demand a change in the system due to continuous power outages and food shortages on the isl...
Pope Francis venerates the Salus Populi Romani icon in the Basilica of St. Mary Major on Dec. 8, 2023. / Vatican MediaRome Newsroom, Mar 21, 2024 / 17:30 pm (CNA).Pope Francis on Wednesday issued new regulations for the administration of the papal Basilica of St. Mary Major, placing new emphasis on spiritual work and pastoral care and appointing a coadjutor archpriest of the West's oldest Marian shrine. In the March 20 chirograph, or papal decree, the Holy Father explained that he sought to "free" the "canons," (members of the group or "chapter" of clergy he designates to serve the basilica) "from all economic and administrative duties, so that they may dedicate themselves, fully and with renewed vigor, to the spiritual and pastoral accompaniment" of pilgrims.In December 2021 Pope Francis appointed Lithuanian-born Archbishop Rolandas Makrickas as the extraordinary commissioner to undertake the commissioning process "for the reorganization of the life of the chapter and the...
Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Mississippi, urges the Supreme Court to restore abortion pill restrictions at a Capitol Hill press conference hosted by Reps. Chris Smith, R-New Jersey, and August Pfluger, R-Texas, Mar. 21, 2024. / Credit: Peter Pinedo/CNAWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 21, 2024 / 18:00 pm (CNA).With the Supreme Court set to hear arguments in a high-stakes abortion case next week, pro-life House members are urging the court to restore what they believe are necessary restrictions on the abortion drug known as mifepristone.Speaking at a Capitol Hill press conference on Thursday, lawmakers and activists said it was crucial that the court rule in favor of the pro-life groups in the case Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. Food and Drug Administration (AHM v. FDA), which is set to be heard by the Supreme Court on March 26.Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Mississippi, said at the press conference that in loosening restrictions on mifepristone, the Biden administration is "endangerin...
