By Kurt Jensen
WASHINGTON (CNS) – It’s a question Jeanne Mancini has already been asked so many times, she has an answer ready to go.

On Dec. 1, the Supreme Court hears oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an appeal by Mississippi to remove a lower court’s injunction on its law banning most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy.

Should the court rule in favor of the state law in a decision to be handed down next year, overturning Roe v. Wade and sending the abortion issue back to the states, will there still be a need for the annual rally and march in Washington?

Or will March for Life, a fixture since January 1974, instead become a decentralized arrangement of statewide marches?

“We will make an announcement if and when that happens,” Mancini, president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, told Catholic News Service.

State marches that began a few years ago, she said, were not planned in anticipation of any Supreme Court decision, but rather as a way “to strengthen the grassroots” and provide opportunities for activism for those who don’t make the long trip to Washington.

Carrie Severino, president of Judicial Crisis Network, identified the challenge should the court uphold the Mississippi law. “It really just puts the ball back in (the states’) court. There should be 50 Marches for Life,” she said during the Oct. 27 announcement of next year’s theme, “Equality Begins in the Womb.”

“We want to expand this rigorous debate about inequality” to the unborn, Mancini said at the Heritage Foundation, where the theme was announced.

Calling the theme a cry for “inherent human dignity because of who we are in our essence,” she added, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to injustice everywhere, including in the womb.”

Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life, said in a statement that “it reclaims a key word – equality – and reminds us that unless children in the womb enjoy it, the rest of us lose it as well.”

The March for Life is scheduled for Jan. 21. The event, which starts with a rally near the National Mall followed by a march to the Supreme Court, is always held on a date near the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s 1973 rulings, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, companion rulings that legalized abortion nationwide.

“It’s going to be one of the most significant years for the march yet,” said Severino. “This court has an opportunity like none it has had before with the Dobbs case.”

The Mississippi law was enacted in 2018, but it never took effect because a federal appellate court immediately blocked its enforcement. The state’s single abortion clinic is still performing them.

With Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch, as well as Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, Severino said, “we now have a majority of justices on the court who believe the Constitution must be interpreted according to its original understanding, and its original meaning.”

The turnout of more than 100,000 people for the 2020 March for Life is considered the all-time high for the event. Attendees packed the National Mall to hear President Donald Trump address the rally in person.

But in January of this year, the combination of the COVID-19 pandemic and heavy security following the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol reduced the march to its smallest turnout – an invited core group of 80.

Instead of the usual march up Constitution Avenue, the group took a winding route through Washington streets to the Supreme Court and were joined midway by about 100 others.

“We never thought of not doing the march,” Mancini told CNS. But, she added, she didn’t think she could comment on whether any of the current plans represent “back to normal.”

Mancini, who has headed the march since 2012 when she took over from its founder, the late Nellie Gray, said: “I wouldn’t call any march I’ve been part of a predictable march. It’s always been a little bit unpredictable.”

The bus pilgrimages that traditionally bring thousands of marchers to the nation’s capital also are difficult to predict for 2022 until reservations are confirmed by organizers and bus companies.

At the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, Ed Konieczka, assistant director of university ministry, said their goal is to have 240 students, about 50 more than in 2020, head for Washington on five buses, with an event to be held in Bismarck coinciding with the national march.

John Pratt, director of youth ministry for the Diocese of Fort Wayne–South Bend, Indiana, told CNS that “if we are able to go, my sense would be that we would have about 80% of the participation as compared to recent years. In 2019 and 2020, we sent 10 busloads (just over 500 pilgrims) from our diocese.”

For 2022, he said, “350 to 400 (seven to eight busloads) is pretty realistic.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) – When the U.S. bishops gather for their fall assembly in Baltimore Nov. 15-18, it will be the first in-person meeting of the full body of bishops since November 2019.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced the cancellation of the bishops’ June 2020 spring meeting, and their November 2020 fall assembly and June 2021 spring meeting were both held in a virtual format.

Topping the meeting’s agenda will be debate and votes on a proposed document on the Eucharist, “The Mystery of the Eucharist in the Life of the Church,” and on a eucharistic revival initiative.

During their spring meeting this past June, 75% of the U.S. bishops approved the drafting of a document, to all Catholic faithful, on eucharistic coherence.

Part of the impetus for the bishops’ work on this document and a eucharistic revival to increase Catholics’ understanding and awareness of the Eucharist was a Pew study in the fall of 2019 that showed just 30% of Catholics “have what we might call a proper understanding of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist.”

The eucharistic revival would launch on the feast of Corpus Christi in June 2022. The three-year effort will include events on the diocesan level such as eucharistic processions around the country along with adoration and prayer.
In 2023, the emphasis will be on parishes with resources available at the parish level to increase Catholics’ understanding of what the Eucharist really means. This would culminate in a National Eucharistic Congress in the summer of 2024.

The Baltimore assembly of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will begin with an address by Archbishop Christophe Pierre, papal nuncio to the United States.

The bishops also will hear from Archbishop José H. Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the USCCB.

The agenda also includes a report to the bishops from the National Advisory Council, a group created by the USCCB that is comprised of religious and laypeople primarily for consultation on action items and information reports presented to the bishops’ Administrative Committee.

Other action items on the agenda requiring debate and a vote will be an update of the “Socially Responsible Investment Guidelines”; a proposal to add St. Teresa of Kolkata to the “Proper Calendar for the Dioceses of the United States” as an optional memorial Sept. 5; a resolution on diocesan financial reporting; new English and Spanish versions of the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults; a translation of “Holy Communion and Worship of the Eucharistic Mystery Outside Mass”; “National Statutes for the Catechumenate” in English and Spanish; and the USCCB’s 2022 budget.

During the assembly, the bishops also will vote for a treasurer-elect for the USCCB, as well as chairmen-elect of five standing committees: Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations; Divine Worship; Domestic Justice and Human Development; Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth; and Migration.

The bishops elected will serve for one year as “elect” before beginning their three-year terms in their respective posts at the conclusion of the 2022 fall general assembly.

There also will be voting for board members for Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops’ overseas relief and development agency, and the election of a new USCCB general secretary.

Also scheduled to take place will be a consultation of the bishops on the sainthood causes of Charlene Marie Richard and Auguste Robert “Nonco” Pelafigue.

Both have the title of “Servant of God” and were from the Diocese of Lafayette Louisiana, where Bishop J. Douglas Deshotel has officially opened their sainthood causes.

Charlene, a young Cajun girl who died of leukemia in 1959 at age 12, is regarded by many in south Louisiana and beyond as a saint, saying her intercession has resulted in miracles in their lives. She is known as “The little Cajun saint.”

Pelafigue was born in France and from the time he was almost 2 years old, he lived in Arnaudville, Louisiana. He died on the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus June 6, 1977. He is known for his decades of ministry in the League of Sacred Heart, Apostleship of Prayer – which is now called the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network.

The 2007 Vatican document “Sanctorum Mater” requires the diocesan bishop promoting a sainthood cause to consult with the body of bishops on the advisability of pursuing the cause.

Other items to be presented and discussed at the bishops’ assembly include:
– The 2021-2023 Synod of Bishops.
– The work of CRS, Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Legal Immigration Network Inc., or CLINIC.
– The 50th anniversary of the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, the U.S. bishops’ domestic anti-poverty program.
– The “Journeying Together” process of intercultural dialogue and encounter “focused on the church’s ministry with youth and young adults that fosters understanding and trust within and across cultural families toward a more welcoming and just community of faith.”
– The application and implementation of the “ Pastoral Framework for Marriage and Family Life Ministry in the United States: Called to the Joy of Love.” At their June assembly, the U.S. bishops approved a draft document that provides a pastoral framework meant to strengthen marriage and family ministry in parishes and dioceses.
– The “Walking with Moms in Need” initiative of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities that asks every diocese and parish to help mothers experiencing a difficult pregnancy find services and resources or provide these when they see gaps in such services.
Public sessions of general assembly discussions and votes will be livestreamed at www.usccb.org/meetings.

By Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON – After a prayer rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington Oct. 4, Students for Life of America and the Justice Foundation released the “Moral Outcry Petition,” a call for the court to overturn its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide.

Over half a million Americans signed the petition, which was two massive scrolls filled with the signatures.

“Every child, born or preborn, has the inalienable right to life given by God,” said Tina Whittington, executive vice president of Students for Life of America, an organization she said “stands with the hundreds of thousands of signers who call on the Supreme Court to do the right thing and protect the lives of the preborn.”

“The pro-life generation will not rest until abortion is abolished and made unthinkable,” she said.

The Justice Foundation said in a statement that the petition “stands on the premise that U.S. citizens do not accept abortion as the law of the land. Especially now that every state has passed safe-haven laws, the ‘unwanted child’ argument of the pro-abortion lobby is no longer valid.”

Safe-haven laws generally allow the parent, or an agent of the parent, to remain anonymous and to be shielded from criminal liability and prosecution for child endangerment, abandonment or neglect in exchange for surrendering the baby to a safe haven.

Pro-life supporters argue these laws provide a free, safe alternative to abortion for pregnant women in need who feel that they could not care for a newborn.

“This is an unprecedented moment in our fight to abolish abortion,” Whittington added. “With a ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson, the pro-life movement may soon see at least the partial reversal of Roe v. Wade.”

On Dec. 1, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the Dobbs case, which is an appeal from Mississippi to keep its ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Supporters of the law are urging the court to reexamine its previous abortion rulings, including Roe v. Wade.

If the court overturns Roe, the move would not make abortion illegal throughout the U.S., but would return the issue to the states to be decided.

For 15 years, Whittington said, Students for Life of America “has been preparing for a post-Roe America, and the Moral Outcry petition reflects the many Americans who have fought and prayed for the protection of the preborn in law – and who now stand ready to serve mothers and families.”

Oct. 4 was the first day of the high court’s new term, and both pro-life advocates and supporters of legal abortion gathered along the street at the front of the court or nearby to rally for their side on the abortion question.

Two days earlier in Washington, supporters of legal abortion marched for “Abortion Justice,” gathering at Freedom Plaza in Washington before marching to the Supreme Court.

Organizers said some 600 “sister marches” took place across the country to protest a new Texas law that bans most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy and also to press the Supreme Court to uphold “reproductive rights” and keep Roe intact.

“The ‘Women’s March’ doesn’t speak for me or the millions of women who value human lives – it is completely out of step,” Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, wrote in an Oct. 2 opinion piece posted at www.foxnews.com.

“This year’s Women’s March is not about following science or anything that elevates women or humanity. When we march for life every January, we welcome all human beings – most especially expectant mothers and their unborn children,” she said.

If anyone expected the Oct. 2 event would be a gathering “that welcomes all women,” they instead found “a monolith of thought almost exclusively focused on pro-abortion ideology,” Mancini said.

The marchers and the event’s organizers, she added, make “no effort to keep up with emerging science as it relates to embryonic development,” nor do they “draw any lines between early abortions and procedures that cross over into infanticide.”

Recognizing “equal rights for unborn women,” she added, “sadly … does not make its way into the policy platform.”
Mancini also noted that in the nearly 50 years since the Roe v. Wade decision, “medical science has made stunning advances.”

“We now know that a baby’s heart starts to beat around five weeks, and a recent study found that babies could experience pain as early as 12 weeks,” she said. “These discoveries and numerous others should shape how we approach abortion, especially after 15 weeks, but pro-abortion advocates are stuck in the past.”

She called the Mississippi law’s 15-week limit on abortion “a modest limit.”

By Carol Zimmermann

WASHINGTON (CNS) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s new term, starting Oct. 4, returns to its standard routine: hearing arguments in person and taking on hot-button issues.

The big cases, among the 34 it has so far agreed to hear, include those on abortion, the Second Amendment, and religious liberty issues related to a death penalty case and religious schools excluded from a state school choice program.

Likely the most anticipated case of the term is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the abortion case that will be argued Dec. 1 and has been described as potentially taking down Roe v. Wade, the court’s 1973 decision legalizing abortion.

Here, the justices will consider the constitutionality of a Mississippi state law prohibiting abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy. The state ban was struck down by a federal District Court in Mississippi in 2018 and upheld a year later by the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

If the court sides with Mississippi in this term’s case, it would be the first time it would allow an abortion ban before the point of viability and could lay the groundwork for other abortion restrictions.

Catholic leaders and pro-life organizations have shown support for the Mississippi law in friend-of-the-court briefs. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in its brief, stressed that abortion is not a right created by the Constitution and warned that if the court “continues to treat abortion as a constitutional issue,” it will face more questions in the future about “what sorts of abortion regulations are permissible.”

The court also is taking up two death penalty cases. On Nov. 1 it will look at an issue it has previously weighed in on: the presence of religious leaders at an execution. But this case will specifically examine exactly what a spiritual adviser can do during an execution.

The focus is on the case of John Ramirez, a Texas death-row inmate who was granted a stay of execution by the Supreme Court in early September based on his rejected appeal for his pastor to pray over him, with his hands on him, in the execution chamber.

This year the court will also hear a government appeal to reinstate the death penalty for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It will review a lower court’s decision that said errors made by the judge in Tsarnaev’s trial tainted his sentencing.

Another big case, that similarly echoes previous ones, is the Dec. 8 oral arguments in Carson v. Makin, where the court will determine if Maine violated the Constitution by prohibiting students from using funds from a state school choice program for schools that provide religious instruction.

This term, the court also will look at handgun laws, reviewing a New York law, upheld by the lower courts, that requires individuals to have a license to carry a concealed gun outside the home.

The court also will take up two immigration cases involving immigrants who were ordered to be deported but claimed they were entitled to humanitarian relief and can’t be deported to their home countries because they could be tortured or persecuted there. They have argued that after spending more than six months in immigration detention awaiting the resolution of their claims, they are entitled to a hearing before an immigration judge.

With all of these cases in the wings, Supreme Court watchers have expressed concern over the court’s current ability to find general consensus or narrowly decide cases as it did in previous term.

By Tom Tracy
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (CNS)– With several Northeast states now joining major metropolitan regions in the Gulf Coast as Hurricane Ida-related disaster areas, Catholic Charities agencies are using virtual deployment systems refined during the coronavirus pandemic to maximize their outreach to those in need.

Prolonged power outages or record flooding are making quick disaster response access to the greater New Orleans and New York City areas an impossibility following the remnants of Hurricane Ida as it marched north after making landfall Aug. 29 in Louisiana.

Right now, disaster response teams are turning to digital workaround solutions using staff members well outside the disaster zones.

“COVID set the stage for being able to do virtual deployment: instead of a physical person on the ground, staff can assist by doing phone calls, setting up shared documents on the internet, and taking an administrative burden off the local staff,” said Kathleen Oldaker, senior director of disaster strategy for Catholic Charities USA.

As it did during Hurricane Katrina, Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is expected to serve as the central supporting role in recovery efforts in hard-hit New Orleans and Houma-Thibodaux.

“But we are also looking at possible virtual actions: a (staff) person in California or Indiana – if there is a way of doing things with our network that might require some bandwidth – can help the agencies on the ground can focus on their outreach,” Oldaker told Catholic News Service Sept. 2.

Hurricane Ida’s remnants delivered a deadly surprise punch in the Northeast, causing an estimated 41 deaths and flooding roads and cities after slogging across New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Connecticut. The post-tropical cyclone reportedly dropped more than three inches of rain in an hour in New York.

Catholic Charities staff have learned that text messages can be a more reliable form of communications wherever cellphone signals are knocked out, which includes a large area of Southeastern Louisiana.

In addition, email communications for one disaster area can be managed through a related diocesan office of Catholic Charities. The email for Houma-Thibodaux’s Catholic Charities office, for example, was being intercepted this week by Catholic Charities in the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, Oldaker said.

Each year, staff members at Catholic Charities complete a training program called the “Applied Institute for Disaster Excellence,” a decade-old preparedness platform that can prepare a staff person with disaster experience in Maine, for example, to deploy to Louisiana.

But Hurricane Ida left infrastructures so badly damaged in places like Louisiana that teams will have to wait for electricity and water to come back online.

“What we are really seeing in this response is the neighboring agencies offering support from Lake Charles, Lafayette, Baton Rouge, and Biloxi, Mississippi – they have had staff go and help Houma with assessments and seeing where they could do distribution sites,” Oldaker said.

In the South, Houma may have experienced some of the greatest wind damage following Ida, whereas New Orleans is mostly suffering from a damaged power infrastructure. Catholic Charities staff in New Orleans have been focused on checking in on residents living in senior care homes and other residential facilities there.

“The Catholic Charities agency in Houma is trying to get on their feet a bit in a place where you walk outside and the house next door is either destroyed or damaged,” Oldaker said. “We have a Houma-Charities staff member who lost a home down to the concrete slab there.”

In the Northeast, Catholic Charities workers spent Sept. 2 contacting agencies in the Mid-Atlantic states and New York and New Jersey especially, which took some of the heaviest flash flooding.

The rapid accumulation of rainfall from Ida’s remnants turned city streets into rivers, flooded basement-level residences and shut down subway services in New York.

“Right now, the agencies are not in assessment mode; we have heard of a flooded agency in one of our buildings in New York City; in the next day or two we will get a handle on the level of response,” Oldaker said.

Calls also went out to agency chapters in Pennsylvania, and parts of Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.
Across the system, Catholic Charities agencies have been inundated with calls from Ida evacuees who mostly fled the Gulf Coast region to areas across the country.

“We even had a call from Paterson, New Jersey. They reported a few evacuees there and they were wondering what they could do to help,” Oldaker said of the Catholic Charities affiliate there.

“In Houston, Texas, alone, we got some 10,000 phone calls or requests from evacuees, with people lining up outside their doors even before they opened.

“People are sleeping in the car, finding hotels are not available, or the hotel bills are getting expensive for those who cannot go home for a few weeks. Those costs get pretty expensive pretty fast,” she added.

When asked what may be different about the emergency response in 2021 over past years, Oldaker said the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic adds an additional burden to the crisis response and distribution work.

“Ten years ago, I would not have been ordering masks and gloves and personal protective gear – it wasn’t something we thought about, and in Louisiana it is something they are thinking about in terms of spacing evacuees and people having to wear masks in such high heat.”

“How do you balance response with safety, that is a new normal as we move forward with disaster work,” Oldaker said.

September, she said, is national disaster preparedness month and getting people prepared is a good thing “because you never know when what might look like just rain could be a big event. When a river washes out it is shocking how fast you can have water coming into your home.”

Patricia Cole, vice president of communications Catholic Charities USA, noted that contributions are critical right now and that 100% of the donation proceeds will be directed to the disaster areas following Ida.

For more information see: https://www.catholiccharitiesusa.org/