Catholic News Agency: US News

Washington D.C., Jun 18, 2013 / 05:22 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Despite passing the U.S. House of Representatives, a bill to prohibit abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy faces an uncertain future as President Obama's administration has suggested that he will veto it. “(S)cience is on our side,” Representative Marsha Blackburn, (R- Tenn.) told MSNBC in an interview. Blackburn joined other pro-life representatives, including Michelle Bachmann (R- Minn.) and Virginia Foxx (R- N.C.) in defending the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which would ban abortions 20 weeks into a pregnancy and later, based on science indicating that unborn children can feel pain by this point. Exceptions in cases of rape, incest or a risk to the mother’s life were included in the final House version of the legislation. The House of Representatives approved the bill by a vote of 232-293 on June 18, following its passage by the House Judiciary Committee. The legislation will now a

Washington D.C., Jun 18, 2013 / 02:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The domestic anti-poverty program of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has approved more than $9 million in grants to help alleviate poverty and injustice throughout the United States. Ralph McCloud, director of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, said in a June 17 statement that “Catholics should be proud of this opportunity to get involved in making a real difference in the lives of the people in their communities.” The recent grants were approved by the bishops serving on the campaign subcommittee, during a June meeting in San Diego, Calif. Of the allocations this year, more than $1.5 million will go to the Catholic Campaign for Human Development’s new National Strategic Grant Program, which focuses “on issues that are broader in scope regionally and that require a more intensive community response, especially from the Catholic community.” Other activities that will be sup

Washington D.C., Jun 17, 2013 / 05:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. bishops’ point man on pro-life issues is calling on federal legislators to support a bill that would ban late-term abortions after unborn children are able to feel pain. “(O)ur citizens were deeply shaken by the revelations of Dr. Kermit Gosnell’s actions that led to his being convicted of murder and other crimes committed in the course of providing abortions,” Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston said in a June 14 letter to U.S. representatives. “This tragic circumstance led many Americans to realize that our permissive laws and attitudes have allowed the abortion industry to undertake these procedures. All decent and humane people are repulsed by the callous and barbarous treatment of women and children in Gosnell’s clinic, and in other clinics that abort children after 20 weeks.” Gosnell, an abortionist in Philadelphia, drew media attention when he was recently convi

Denver, Colo., Jun 16, 2013 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Saint Romuald, who founded the Camaldolese monastic order during the early eleventh century, has his liturgical memorial on June 19. Working within the Western Church’s Benedictine tradition, he revived the primitive monastic practice of hermit life, allowing for greater solitude in a communal setting. Born into an aristocratic family during the middle of the tenth century, Romuald grew up in a luxurious and worldly environment, where he learned little in the way of self-restraint or religious devotion. Yet he also felt an unusual attraction toward the simplicity of monastic life, prompted by the beauty of nature and the experience of solitude . It was not beauty or tranquility, but a shocking tragedy that spurred him to act on this desire. When Romuald was 20 years old, he saw his father Sergius kill one of his relatives in a dispute over some property. Disgusted by the crime he had witnessed, the young man went t