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Southern Cross, Page 2
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Thursday, July 9, 2020
Florida bishops hail new law
on parental consent before
minor has abortion
ORLANDO, FLA. (CNS)
Pro-life advocates in Florida
applauded Gov. Ron DeSantis
when he signed a bill June 30
that requires parental consent
before a minor has an abortion.
In a statement following the
signing of the bill, the Florida
Conference of Catholic Bishops
thanked Florida’s governor
for signing S.B. 404. “This
commonsense measure sim
ply holds abortion to the same
consent requirements as most
every other medical decision
involving a child, including sim
ple interventions such as tak
ing an aspirin or getting ears
pierced,” the statement added.
The bill was passed by Florida’s
Legislature Feb. 20. According
to News Service of Florida, the
governor did not make a public
statement about the bill sign
ing, but legislative supporters
praised the measure and said
parents need to be involved
when their underage daugh
ters consider having abortions.
Opponents contend the paren
tal-consent requirement will
endanger teens who could be
subject to retribution or abuse
if their parents find out they
are pregnant or considering an
abortion.
Ruling in Montana case
called ‘welcome victory’ for
religious freedom
WASHINGTON (CNS)
The consensus from religious lib
erty advocates following the June
30 Supreme Court ruling on pub
lic funds and sectarian schools
is the Blaine amendments, a
hated remnant of 19th-century
anti-Catholic bigotry, are finally
gone for good. “The court should
be applauded...for stating clearly
that laws like Montana’s that
treat people of faith like sec
ond-class citizens have no place
under our Constitution,” Carrie
Severino, president of the
advocacy group Judicial Crisis
Network, said in a statement
posted on Twitter. “The justices
have gone a long way toward
blotting out the stain of religious
bigotry that has permeated so
much of the law in this area.”
The case, Espinoza v. Montana
Department of Revenue, was
brought by three mothers who
had been sending their children
to Stillwater Christian School in
Kalispell with the help of a state
A woman carries stone on her head at a granite quarry in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in early June, during
the COVID-19 pandemic. (CNS photo/Anne Mimault, Reuters)
scholarship program created in
2015. The Montana Department
of Revenue issued an adminis
trative rule a few months after
the program started, saying
the tax credit donations could
only go toward nonreligious,
private schools. In its 5-4 rul
ing the Supreme Court said
this exclusion violated the U.S.
Constitution. Writing for the
majority, Chief Justice of the
United States John Roberts
cited the Blaine amendments,
a ban on government aid to
sectarian causes or religious
institutions that came out of an
era in which official government
hostility to Catholics was at its
peak. Montana ratified a Blaine
Amendment to its state constitu
tion in 1889 and again in 1972.
Thirty-six other states also have
them. “Many of the no-aid pro
visions belong to a more check
ered tradition shared with the
Blaine Amendment of the 1870s,”
Roberts observed. “That proposal
- which Congress nearly passed -
would have added to the federal
Constitution a provision similar
to the state no-aid provisions,
prohibiting states from aiding
‘sectarian’ schools.”
Listen, respond to modern
world, Vatican panel tells
Catholic media
WASHINGTON (CNS)
When Vatican communication
leaders met virtually with
U.S. and Canadian Catholic
journalists and communication
leaders June 30, they urged
the group to keep up their
work, think of new ways to
have a broader reach and not
get weighed down by society’s
current polarization. “We have
something to bring” to the
modern world “and a huge
amount to learn” from it, said
Bishop Paul Tighe, secretary
general of the Pontifical Council
for Culture. The bishop, who
has addressed this group in
person at previous events, is
a past secretary of the former
Pontifical Council for Social
Communications. He was
joined in the virtual panel
by Paolo Ruffini, prefect
of the Vatican Dicastery for
Communication, and Natasa
Govekar, director of the
dicastery’s theological-pastoral
section, which coordinates Pope
Francis’ Instagram page. The
Vatican officials had a simple
message, urging the group
above all to really engage with
readers, viewers and social
media followers. Ruffini stressed
that communication is about
relationships, which the other
panelists also echoed. Govekar
emphasized that a key part of
communication is not just getting
the word out but listening. The
panel addressed the opening
session of the Catholic Media
Conference via a Zoom call,
replacing the session that would
have kicked off the gathering
this year in Portland, Oregon,
which was canceled due to the
coronavirus. Some workshops
and other parts of the annual
conference were available to
participants in an online format.
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