"Let us Pray Together for Christian families around the world; may each and every family embody and experience unconditional love and advance in holiness in their daily lives." - Pope Francis

We Were Born Ready: A New Vision for Post-Roe California

The Supreme Court is expected to overturn Roe v. Wade at the end of June. When that happens, other states will see abortion ended while California is seeking to become a sanctuary for abortion. The California bishops have proposed a different vision for California – one where women, children and families are welcomed, supported, and accompanied by the Catholic community. Join the movement. 

Join Bishop Oscar Cantú of San Jose, radio host Gloria Purvis, bioethicist Charlie Camosy, advocate Aimee Murphy, Respect Life & Gabriel Project Coordinator Maria Martinez-Mont, and CCC Executive Director Kathleen Domingo for the launch of the We Were Born Ready Campaign, and a conversation on how we answer the call, step up to the plate, and support women, children and families. 

Catholics were born ready. Now is the time to get engaged. 

Co-Sponsored by The McGrath Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame 

Thursday, June 9 at 6pm

This webinar will:

• Empower you to join the Catholic community in action
• Equip you to help support mothers
• Resource you to know the life affirming safety nets available 
• Enable you to advocate for transformative family policies

Register Today!

A party-line vote in the Assembly Judiciary Committee advanced SB 866, the bill that would allow children as young as 12 to be vaccinated without parental consent. 

Thank you to all who have already sent alerts to their legislators opposing this bill. To those that have not, or were unable due to the limitations of constituents of the committee members, the alert is now available for everyone. 

The Catholic community in California supports vaccination requirements for all children. 

However, minors may not know their entire medical history, understand vaccination’s potential risks of vaccination or know how to identify or respond to adverse reactions. SB 866 provides no requirement that the child’s medical history be provided or that the child read and understand the health information provided by the CDC for each vaccine. If parents are not aware that their children have been vaccinated, treatment of a serious adverse reaction may be delayed and the child’s life endangered.

It is also of great concern that children could consent to vaccinations offered to them with inappropriate incentives. In the past two years in CA, Covid-19 vaccines have been accompanied by gift cards, cash, and other incentives that could easily prey upon a child’s vulnerabilities and encourage a significant uninformed health decision.

Please contact your legislator today to let them know this bill is an extraordinary breach of the ability to parent and puts children’s health in jeopardy.  

CLICK HERE NOW

San Diego Bishop McElroy Named Cardinal by Pope Francis

The Vatican has announced that San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, 68, has been appointed by Pope Francis to the College of Cardinals.  Cardinal-designate McElroy will be installed by Pope Francis in a consistory on Aug. 27 at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

“I am stunned and deeply surprised by the news that Pope Francis has appointed me to the College of Cardinals,” said Bishop McElroy. “My prayer is that in this ministry I might be of additional service to the God who has graced me on so many levels in my life. And I pray also that I can assist the Holy Father in his pastoral renewal of the Church.  In this moment, I give thanks for those who have contributed profoundly to my life and priesthood: my family, the priests and women religious who helped to form me, and the Catholic community of San Diego and Imperial Counties, whom it is my privilege to lead.”

Bishop McElroy currently serves as president of the California Catholic Conference (CCC), a post he has held since 2019. His work with the CCC stretches back to 2010. 

“We congratulate Cardinal-designate McElroy and wish him every blessing as he enters his new role for the Church,” said CCC Executive Director Kathleen Domingo. “As President of the CA Catholic Conference, Bishop McElroy brings his wisdom and pastoral concern for California’s people to the many challenges we face. We look forward to his continued leadership and invite all CA Catholics to join us in prayer for Cardinal-designate McElroy.”

Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops commented that by “naming Bishop Robert McElroy as a cardinal, Pope Francis has shown his pastoral care for the Church in the United States. His strong faith and the pastoral concern for the faithful he has shown in his diocese will serve the global Church well.”

Pope Francis Appoints Bishop Barron Ninth Bishop of Diocese of Winona-Rochester 

Pope Francis has appointed Bishop Robert E. Barron, auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, as the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester (Minnesota). He will be installed on Friday, July 29, 2022. 

Bishop Barron succeeds Bishop John M. Quinn, 76, who submitted his resignation to Pope Francis per the canonical law’s retirement age for bishops. 

“The bishop of a diocese is, first and foremost, a spiritual father to the priests and people who have been entrusted to his care,” said Bishop Baron in a released statement. “My prayer this morning is that the Lord will give me the grace always to be a good father. The bishop is also, as Pope Francis often teaches, a shepherd with the smell of the sheep—out in front of the flock in one sense, leading the way, but also with the flock, giving encouragement, and in back of the flock in order to gather in those who have fallen behind. I pray also for the grace to be just that kind of shepherd to the Catholics of southern Minnesota.”

Read Bishop Baron’s statement in its entirety here.

The Diocese of Winona-Rochester comprises 12,282 square miles in the State of Minnesota and has a total population of 597,801, of which 134,027 are Catholic.

“This is tantamount to coercion,” Domingo said. “We tell low-income women we will pay for everything having to do with your abortion; but if you want to have a baby, then you’re on your own. You have to pay copays for your prenatal care, you have to find your own and pay for your own childcare if you have to go to doctor’s appointments, and if you want to take particular time to care for yourself during a pregnancy.”

With the Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, pro-life leaders are drawing the movement’s attention to what comes next if the 1973 decision that created a right to abortion across the country is no longer in effect.

For the most part, the fight to protect unborn children and their mothers won’t end with Roe’s reversal; if anything, that fight is expected to intensify, as the Supreme Court’s possible decision will usher in a new legal and social landscape, requiring new strategies to advance pro-life aims that will differ in each state as well as at the federal level.

“Pro-lifers need to remember, there’s a lot of work to be done,” Olivia Gans Turner, a Catholic and president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, told the Register. 

Continue Reading at NationalCatholicRegister.com

Homelessness is a major crisis plaguing the country right now, and a new bill by California Sen. Alex Padilla seeks to change that.

The senator was in San Diego on Tuesday, touring Saint Teresa of Calcutta Villa, an affordable housing community downtown that could be a model to get people into housing. The 14-story housing complex was the latest effort by Father Joe’s Villages to get unsheltered people into their own homes.

Padilla's bill, dubbed the Housing for All Act of 2022, seeks to get $500 billion in federal funding for affordable housing and to help end veterans' homelessness.

Continue Reading at KPBS.org

June 03, 2022 | Vol. 17, No. 18