Pro-life activist Matthew Engelthaler places signs in front of Camelback Family Planning, an abortion clinic in Phoenix, on April 18, 2024. / Credit: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Dec 5, 2024 / 15:40 pm (CNA).

Here is a roundup of the latest pro-life and abortion-related policy developments in the United States. 

CDC: Abortions declined slightly following reversal of Roe v. Wade

Abortions decreased by 2% from 2021 to 2022 — the year Roe v. Wade was overturned — according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were a recorded 622,000 abortions in 2021 from 46 reporting states and Washington, D.C., dropping to 609,000 in 2022, according to the report.

The CDC compiles data that is voluntarily reported by states’ central health agencies. The 2022 report includes 46 states as well as Washington, D.C., and New York City. California, Maryland, New Hampshire, and New Jersey did not provide data for the 2022 report. 

According to the report, the abortion rate — the number of abortions per 1,000 women in a population — declined by 3%. The abortion ratio — the relative number of pregnancies that end in abortion compared with live birth — also declined slightly, by 2%.

The report found that almost 4 out of 5 abortions were performed at or before nine weeks’ gestation, while about 6% of abortions were between 14 and 20 weeks’ gestation. About 92% of abortions happened at or before 13 weeks of gestation.

The CDC found that more than 70% of abortions were chemical abortions. The high percentage of chemical abortions is similar to the CDC’s report from 2021, though chemical abortions have increased markedly in past decades. Missouri had a low rate of abortions, at 0.1 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44, while New Mexico had 28.8 abortions per 1,000 women. 

In 2022, women in their 20s accounted for more than half of abortions, according to reporting areas. Black women accounted for the highest percentage of abortions according to reported ethnicity data, at almost 40%, while white women accounted for the second-highest percentage, at almost 32%. Nearly 90% of women who had abortions were unmarried. 

Pro-life hero remembered 

Monsignor Philip Reilly (1934–2024), a major figure in shaping the modern pro-life movement, died on Nov. 30 at the age of 90. Reilly was one of the first organizers of the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C.

Testimonials in the wake of his death hailed Reilly as an “unsung hero,” a “spiritual father,” and a pro-life mentor. He mentored the founders of 40 Days for Life and the Pro-life Action League as well as the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal and the Sisters of Life.

Reilly was initially involved in political advocacy against abortion — even blocking entrances to abortion clinics — but ultimately took another approach, founding in 1989 the Helpers of God’s Precious Infants. Based in New York, the worldwide apostolate organizes prayer vigils outside of abortion clinics, pledging peaceful prayer for the salvation of souls. The vigils usually begin with an early morning Mass followed by a procession from the church to the local abortion clinic.

Reilly’s funeral Mass will be held on Monday, Dec. 9, at 11 a.m., and he will be buried at St. John Cemetery in Queens, New York. A more detailed account of his life and influence can be found in the book “Pro-Life Champion: The Untold Story of Monsignor Philip J. Reilly and His Helpers of God’s Precious Infants” by Frederick W. Marks. 

For an archival EWTN interview with Reilly, see here.

Idaho’s abortion trafficking law partially revived 

On Dec. 2, a federal appeals court ruled in favor of Idaho’s law against trafficking minors out of state to obtain abortions. The abortion trafficking law makes it illegal to harbor or transport a minor to get an out-of-state abortion without parental consent. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals partially approved the law but blocked a part of the law that prevented “recruiting” minors.

Two abortion rights groups challenged the law shortly after it passed in 2023, saying it violated the right to free speech and could prevent them from counseling minors seeking abortion. Circuit Judge M. Margaret McKeown ruled that “harboring” and “transporting” weren’t considered speech, and the law was partially approved.

A part of the law banning “recruiting” of minors to get out-of-state abortions was ruled as a violation of free speech. Abortions in Idaho are allowed only when the mother’s life is at risk, her physical health is substantially threatened, or if the pregnancy was from rape or incest. Abortion trafficking is punishable by two to five years in prison.

Arizona’s abortion law paused as lawsuit ensues 

Arizona is temporarily pausing its 15-week abortion restriction pending an ongoing lawsuit that followed Arizona’s ballot measure that enshrined a right to abortion in the state constitution.

Arizona abortion providers filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in Maricopa County Superior Court. The abortion providers argued that the 15-week abortion law is unconstitutional. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes agreed that the state will not enforce the law as the lawsuit plays out, meaning that abortion providers will be able to perform abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.   

Arizona’s ballot measure provided constitutionally for a “fundamental right to abortion.” The measure says the state cannot restrict abortion until the point of “viability” at approximately 24 weeks of pregnancy, unless it has a compelling reason and does so in the least restrictive way possible.

null / Credit: Dzelat/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 5, 2024 / 15:10 pm (CNA).

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley this week warned the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to not destroy federal records including documents related to the investigation of traditionalist Catholics or the convictions of numerous pro-life activists.

In a Dec. 3 letter directed to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General Merrick Garland, Hawley — a senator from Missouri who serves on the Judiciary Committee — claimed that he has received reports of employees “destroying records and other documents in an effort to conceal widespread misconduct that took place under the [Joe] Biden administration.”

The senator accused the federal agencies of engaging in “unprecedented abuses of the justice system” and specifically referenced “attempts to recruit undercover informants in Catholic parishes” and “bad-faith prosecutions of pro-life Americans for peacefully protesting abortion,” along with prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump.

“You must immediately stop this attempt to evade accountability and should terminate any employees involved,” Hawley wrote. “Further, you must preserve all department and bureau documents in anticipation of congressional investigations to come.”

When asked where the senator had learned about the alleged destruction of records, a spokesperson for Hawley’s office referred CNA back to the original letter.

In January 2023, the Richmond office of the FBI issued a memo that detailed an investigation into what it called “radical traditionalist” Catholics and potential ties to “the far-right white nationalist movement.”

The memo referenced an opportunity for “trip wire or source development” within parishes that offer the Latin Mass and within online communities that the FBI considered to be “radical-traditionalist” Catholic.

The FBI immediately retracted the memo after it was leaked to the public and the DOJ issued a report in April 2024 that claimed there was no “malicious intent” behind the memo.

In August 2023, the House Judiciary Committee claimed it had evidence that multiple field offices were coordinating the investigation. The committee also found evidence that the FBI had approached a priest and a choir director to ask them to inform on parishioners.

During Garland’s leadership of the DOJ, meanwhile, the department has also overseen the prosecution of more than 30 pro-life activists for violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. More than a dozen are either in prison or awaiting sentencing, but Trump has vowed to get them “back to their families.”

In his letter, Hawley said: “This is a sordid track record, and the American people deserve the truth about how it happened and who was involved.”

“With sunlight now on the horizon, I’m not surprised by last-ditch efforts to stonewall the incoming administration,” Hawley wrote.

“But those efforts will fail. … I intend to investigate your respective agencies’ illicit actions over the past several years. If your staff are presently destroying relevant documents, then the American people will learn about that too and will learn who gave the orders to do so.”

Hawley wrote that the DOJ and FBI “must immediately take all necessary steps to preserve all documents, records, and other materials generated by your agencies during your respective tenures in office” and “must cease any bad-faith document destruction.”

“You should prepare for the real justice to come,” Hawley told Wray and Garland.

A spokesperson for the FBI declined to comment specifically on the letter but told CNA that FBI records “are retained in accordance with records retention schedules, which are approved by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).” 

“FBI records may not be destroyed without a NARA approved records schedule,” the statement said. “In instances of anticipated or pending litigation or other inquiry, normal disposition practices (to include destruction or transfer to NARA) are halted until resolution of the litigation or inquiry.”

The DOJ did not respond to a request for comment.

The Nicaraguan dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his “co-president” and wife, Rosario Murillo, kidnapped and expelled from the country a priest of the Diocese of Bluefields. / Credit: Pixabay

ACI Prensa Staff, Dec 5, 2024 / 14:40 pm (CNA).

The Nicaraguan dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his “co-president” and wife, Rosario Murillo, this week kidnapped and expelled from the country Father Floriano Ceferino Vargas, a priest of the Diocese of Bluefields.

Medardo Mairena, a former peasant leader now in exile, stated on X that “Father Floriano Ceferino Vargas, parish priest of the Church of San Martín de Porres in Nueva Guinea, has been exiled by the Sandinista regime,” further specifying that the priest is now in Panama.

In an interview with EWTN Noticias, lawyer and researcher Martha Patricia Molina said it is not known exactly why Vargas was kidnapped and expelled from the country.

However, Molina said, “just because you are religious in Nicaragua, the dictatorship can kidnap you."

Molina, who has documented hundreds of attacks by the Nicaraguan government against the Catholic Church in recent years, also indicated that it is possible that the priest had made “some comment that they [the dictatorship] consider hostile to the supposed revolution, which at every moment they say must be defended.”

The researcher also commented that, in the midst of everything, it is good to know that the priest “is not going to be in the prisons of Nicaragua, where more than 40 mechanisms of torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment are practiced.”

The priest was arrested after celebrating Mass in his parish.

The kidnapping and expulsion of Vargas happened the same week Pope Francis sent a letter to the country’s Catholics in which he encouraged them and reminded them that faith and hope “work miracles.”

Growing concern for the well-being of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua was also expressed this week by the bishops of Central America, who convoked for Dec. 8, the solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, a day of prayer for the persecuted Church in the neighboring country.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Pope Francis waves to pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square for his Wednesday general audience on Dec. 4, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Dec 5, 2024 / 14:10 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis this week encouraged participants of the second International Congress of Confraternities and Brotherhoods to bring Christ “out into the streets so that he may enter into all hearts.”

In a message to nearly 2,000 people participating in this year’s conference on popular piety in Seville, Spain, from Dec. 4–8, the pope emphasized the significance of “beauty” in attracting others to faith in Jesus Christ and his Church. 

“Above all, it is the beauty of Christ that summons us, calls us to be brothers and sisters and urges us to take Christ out into the streets, to bring him to the people, so that everyone can contemplate his beauty,” the pope wrote in a Dec. 4 message to congress participants.

“Be crazy with love,” the pope added. “Crazy with love for God, so much so to touch the hearts of their people, to bring them to God.” 

Using the expression of Spanish saint Manuel Gonzalez, known for his devotion to the Eucharist and who describes life as a “round trip” that begins and ends in Christ, the Holy Father reminded the congress’ European and Latin American participants that the Church is a “people walking toward God” in the pilgrimage of life. 

“‘The people ... are hungry for truth, for affection, for well-being, for justice, for heaven, and, perhaps, without realizing it, for God and ‘the tears of his heart,’” the pope said, sharing the words of St. Manuel.

Besides elaborate acts of piety, such as processions and public liturgies, the pope highlighted the need for people to go “to the tabernacle where the Lord awaits us” to present one’s own and others’ prayers and petitions.   

“This living Bread is the only one that can satisfy the hunger of our society, a Bread that was born to be given, to be consumed, and that from the altar calls us to dialogue with him, to be our consolation and our rest,” the Holy Father wrote. 

This year’s International Congress of Confraternities and Brotherhoods includes separate presentations by the Vatican’s prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, Archbishop Salvatore Rino Fisichella; prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life Cardinal Kevin Farrell; and Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education.

Pope gifts golden rose to Our Lady of Hope of Macarena 

On Dec. 3, the evening before the five-day congress, Pope Francis gifted a golden rose to the image of Our Lady of Hope of Macarena.

Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra, substitute for general affairs of the Vatican Secretariat of State, was in charge of granting the golden rose to Our Lady in the Basilica of the Macarena in Seville.

In an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Archbishop José Ángel Saiz Meneses of Seville said the pope’s gesture “reinforces the Christian and Marian identity of the city and constitutes a call to spiritual renewal and commitment to the values ​​of the Gospel” and expresses a “deep recognition” of the popular piety found in southern Spain.

St. Agnes Cathedral in Rockville Centre, New York. / Credit: Nassau Crew via Wikimedia (CC0 1.0)

CNA Staff, Dec 5, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

The Diocese of Rockville Centre on Wednesday said a bankruptcy court had approved its record abuse settlement of $323 million, which officials said will bring “some measure of healing to survivors” of clergy abuse. 

The New York diocese announced in September that it had reached the massive settlement for abuse victims after a four-year-long process that included an earlier offer that the survivors had rejected.

On Wednesday U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Martin Glenn approved the settlement, greenlighting the payout that includes contributions from insurers and diocesan churches. 

The Rockville Centre Diocese said in a statement that it was “grateful to God” for the approval. 

“For the sake of abuse survivors and the Church’s mission on Long Island, we pray that the plan brings some measure of healing to survivors and allows the Church to carry on the saving mission of Jesus Christ,” the statement said. 

“Victim survivors of child abuse deserve our respect, our prayers, and our pastoral support,” they added. “The Church is grateful for their courage and perseverance.”

On Wednesday Glenn acknowledged that “money alone cannot make up for the trauma that so many have lived with for so many years.”

“I hope that confirming the plan today will speed the process of providing survivors with compensation and will help put this terrible history behind them so that the Church can carry on its important mission without the distraction of the bankruptcy process,” he said. 

The amount represents the largest settlement in U.S. diocesan bankruptcy history. It will be distributed to about 600 abuse survivors.

The diocese filed for bankruptcy in October 2020 following the passage of the state’s Child Victims Act in 2019. That measure allowed for sex abuse lawsuits to be filed in past cases where survivors had not yet taken action, long after the statute of limitations had expired.

Rockville Centre had last year made a $200 million settlement offer to diocesan abuse victims, though the survivors ultimately rejected that offer.

The diocese on Wednesday said its goal “has always been the equitable compensation of survivors of abuse while allowing the Church to continue her essential mission.” 

“We believe this plan has achieved those goals,” it said.

Activist and detransitioner Chloe Cole was among the speakers at a rally on the steps of the United States Supreme Court on Dec. 4, 2024, as justices heard oral arguments in a challenge to a Tennessee law banning transgender surgeries for minors. / Credit: Migi Fabara/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 5, 2024 / 13:00 pm (CNA).

Demonstrators rallied on the steps of the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday morning as justices heard oral arguments in a challenge to a Tennessee law banning transgender surgeries for minors.  

Speaking at the rally was activist and detransitioner Chloe Cole, who joined a chorus of opponents of “gender-affirming care” for children, calling the law a necessary step in protecting young people from what they described as irreversible medical interventions. 

Cole was joined by Daily Wire host Matt Walsh, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and other advocates, medical professionals, and concerned parents speaking at a rally organized by the medical nonprofit Do No Harm. 

Tensions were high at times, as a rally organized by a coalition of trans-rights activists shared the space outside the nation’s highest court.

“What an absolute honor to be here on the steps of the Supreme Court speaking, surrounded by so many of my friends, my colleagues, and all the other brave souls who have pushed this battle forward,” Cole told those surrounding her. The 20-year-old detransitioner spoke through shouts of both approval and derision.

In her speech, Cole expressed confidence that “the Supreme Court is going to do the right thing” and is in the momentum of the movement against “gender-affirming care” for minors.

“The transitioning of children is so awful and horrific,” she declared, “that it’s managed to create this massive movement that has unified Democrats, Republicans, Christians, atheists, and really just about everybody to fight for the safety of our children.” 

Cole detransitioned after undergoing years of puberty blockers and an irreversible double mastectomy at the age of 15. She has shared her story across a variety of platforms and spoken widely about the dangerous effect of gender transition procedures on children.

“I’m grateful that the state of Tennessee has listened to the stories of victims like me, that they have pumped the brakes hard on this practice, that the Supreme Court is willing to listen so soon and set a precedent that will allow most of the nation to protect children,” she continued.

“I feel like the suffering that I went through as a child and the grief and the guilt that my mom and dad experienced while they had their healthy daughter ripped away from them was not in vain,” Cole added.

Cole told the audience she was confident the justices “understand how wrong this is.” 

“It doesn’t take a degree in biology to understand that a drug cocktail and a scalpel do not make a child the opposite sex,” she said. “You don’t have to be a biologist to know that no child is born in the wrong body, that children are perfectly made in God’s image.” 

Walsh, the leading figure in the documentary “What is a Woman?”, also underscored biology as a driving force behind his advocacy against transgender surgeries for minors.

“Biology is real,” he stated. “It is immutable. It is not subject to the whims of any individual or government or medical organization.” 

The Daily Wire host often discusses sex and gender-related news on his show and in his documentary “What is A Woman?”, where he tackles the highly contentious issue of gender identity and gender ideology. The film received widespread accolades from conservatives as well as hostility from transgender activists. 

Walsh described gender ideology as “deeply sinister,” stating to the crowd of both supporters and counterprotesters that gender ideology “is one of the greatest and most incomprehensible evils ever visited upon children in the whole history of the human race.” 

At several points during his address, advocates for trans rights shouted insults or attempted to rush the stage where he was speaking. 

“These are the truths that bring us to this spot on this day, that biology is a fact, that we have a duty to protect our children, that the trans agenda denies the fact of biology,” he said. “It is a distinct threat to our children — we affirm these truths [and] we call the Supreme Court to affirm them, too.”

The Tennessee law went into effect in July 2023 and prohibits doctors from performing transgender surgeries on or prescribing any drugs to facilitate a gender transition, such as puberty blockers or hormones to minor children under 18 years old.

It is being challenged by President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) and by families who live in the state, who are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Tennessee.

The Supreme Court’s decision could have a wide-ranging effect across the country. There are currently 24 states that prohibit both transgender surgeries and drugs for minors. Another two states — New Hampshire and Arizona — prohibit the surgeries but not the drugs. Numerous state-level laws currently face legal challenges.

During an interview with “EWTN News Nightly” on Wednesday, Ethics and Public Policy Center resident expert Mary Rice Hasson told anchor Tracy Sabol that she was “cautiously optimistic” after hearing the oral arguments. 

Rice Hasson said she believes the justices were reluctant to “wade into something that they saw as really medically unsettled” or to grant transgender individuals protected status.

The court, she said, will “either grant some sort of protected status” or will “go and look at the purpose of the status and say, ‘This is not about sex discrimination or “transgender status,” this is about a legislature looking at the medical evidence and making a decision, and we are going to uphold the authority of the state.’ So I’m cautiously optimistic,” Rice Hasson concluded.

Pro-abortion activists march in Mexico City on Nov. 26, 2024. / Credit: Congress of the State of Mexico

Puebla, Mexico, Dec 5, 2024 / 11:00 am (CNA).

Over the past six years, the legalization of abortion has accelerated rapidly in Mexico, with 19 of the country’s 32 states taking steps to decriminalize the deadly procedure.

What’s behind this trend? ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, asked several pro-life leaders in Mexico to weigh in.

Political factors 

Luis Antonio Hernández is responsible for the Mexican platform Voto Católico, which analyzes the positions of Mexican politicians as they relate to the values ​​of the Church.

In an interview with ACI Prensa, Hernández pointed out that the increasing decriminalization of abortion throughout the country “could not be explained without the role played by the majorities achieved and built by MORENA,” the National Regeneration Movement, founded in 2011 by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

This role, according to Hernández, was carried out hand in hand with his political allies during the country’s most recent election cycles: the Labor Party (PT) and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM).

In 2007, Mexico City — previously the Federal District or D.F. — was the first entity to decriminalize abortion up to 12 weeks. This happened while Marcelo Ebrard, who at that time was part of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), was head of government, the party López Obrador also belonged to at the time. 

In October 2011, López Obrador left the PRD and formalized the creation of MORENA. When he won the 2018 elections, Ebrard joined his government as minister of foreign affairs.

A major push for the decriminalization of abortion got underway during López Obrador’s six-year term in power, between December 2018 and October of this year. MORENA, which in the 2018 elections obtained a large majority in the congresses of several states, took advantage of its power political effort to promote legislation in favor of abortion, getting 12 state congresses to approve regulations favorable to the practice.

Since Oct. 1 of this year, following the inauguration of the country’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum — also from the MORENA party — and thanks to the majority her party holds in additional state congresses, the states of Jalisco, Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, Zacatecas, State of Mexico, and Chiapas have all decriminalized abortion up to 12 weeks.

While during López Obrador’s six-year term abortion was decriminalized in an average of two states per year, under Sheinbaum, in just 59 days, six states have done so.

Another important point highlighted by Hernández is the arrival of a woman to the country’s presidency. This is a factor that, he said, “has been the touchstone to promote this agenda that seeks to achieve supposed benefits and false rights for women.” 

As Hernández sees it, the ideological training of a large number of MORENA’s legislative and political officials has also played a crucial role, as they appear to be “fully convinced of this ideological current.”

Marcial Padilla, director of the pro-life platform ConParticipación, agreed that abortion is being decriminalized in Mexico “by a political will that is telling local congresses to carry out these actions.” 

This, he told ACI Prensa, “is noticeable in the dirty, accelerated way in which these processes are being carried out, including sometimes even hiding it from society or voting in secret as happened in Jalisco.” 

During an evening session on Oct. 4 of this year, the Congress of Jalisco took up and voted on modifications to the state penal code. With 20 votes in favor, 16 against, and one abstention, abortion was decriminalized up to 12 weeks. However, the voting was done in an anonymous manner, so it is not public knowledge who the legislators who approved the initiative are. 

“It is a political decision far removed from society,” Padilla said, warning that “as long as we have a government that thinks about pushing women to consider abortion as an option instead of addressing their real needs, we are only going to see a spiral of violence and a spiral of death.”

Breakdown of the family 

Padilla also said that one of the factors that has facilitated the decriminalization of abortion in the country is an “accelerated decomposition of nuclear families.” 

The “instability of family units means that women increasingly find themselves in a vulnerable situation in which situations may arise where they become afraid, feel alone, and come to think about abortion,” he said.

Paulina Mendieta, spokesperson for the Women for Mexico collective and other initiatives to help vulnerable women, warned that “abortion is a million-dollar industry.” She noted that there are international aid organizations that offer money to local institutions “and they tell you that there is a condition [to give it to you] and the condition is often the promotion of abortion.”

Mendieta also pointed out the “lack of creativity to solve the real problems of our country. So, because of this mental laziness, they prefer to say: ‘Abortion [is] an option. Because we do not have the possibility of really resolving what women are experiencing.’”

In this sense, she called on platforms that defend women and are in favor of abortion to realize that legislators, by approving these measures, “are not solving women’s problems; on the contrary, they get her more into trouble. “They should be the first to call abortion a false solution.”

She pointed out that a woman who suffers domestic violence “is going to commit an abortion and lose the life of her child, but she is going to return home and continue being violated.”

“Abortion is not solving women’s real problems,” she reiterated.

The ‘spiral of silence’

One of the reasons why abortion is becoming normalized, according to Mendieta, is the so-called “spiral of silence.” She observed that in popular consultation exercises carried out by the National Front for the Family in the State of Mexico and Mexico City, “the vast majority [of the people] are against abortion.”

However, she explained that “for the media and social networks in general, it is better to say that you are in favor of abortion. So, the moment someone says ‘This is not right,’ they are crossed out, they are punished.”

In 2023, the French multinational market research and consulting company Ipsos conducted a survey on abortion in Mexico. 

The results found that 26% of respondents believed abortion should be legal in most cases, while 23% believed it should be illegal in most cases. Another 19% believed it should be legal in all cases, while 16% maintained that it should be illegal in all cases. Sixteen percent of the respondents did not express a defined position.

Those who defend life, Mendieta lamented, are accused of being “ignorant, that we do not know the reality of women, that we are losers, that we are wasting our time, that we are not in favor of women.” 

With these accusations, according to the pro-life leader, “they silence you, they punish you socially for saying that you are against abortion.”

A spiritual battle 

María Lourdes Varela, director of the 40 Days for Life prayer campaign for Latin America, assured ACI Prensa that “behind every abortion is the devil.” 

Varela said that in today’s society there is the widespread idea that a baby represents a “great threat to the dream, to the profession, to the future of the girl, and turns into the enemy of his or her own mother,” and that is “what the devil wants: to separate any act of love and life from God.” 

“The devil rejoices in the murder of babies in the womb,” the pro-life leader said.

She explained that, although the outlook seems bleak and at times it feels like “a lost war,” in their days of prayer outside abortion clinics they find the opposite, because it is then “when we see conversions, when we see lives saved, even if it is only one. They are like caresses from God telling us: ‘Keep going, keep fighting.’”

“In the face of the pain of seeing so many lives lost, so many laws and so many people defending things that are aberrations,” Varela invited the faithful to “continue seeing Christ triumphant. So I encourage you to persevere in faith. How? Well, through the sacraments.”

Why so much interest in abortion? 

In a Dec. 1 editorial, the Archdiocese of Mexico expressed its concern about the “number of states that have addressed the issue in a synchronized manner, and with unprecedented speed.” 

The text, published in the weekly Desde la Fe, denounced that those who promote abortion “maintain the same narratives of supposed benefits for women and supposed rights” and criticized the fact that “arguments against it are not taken into account, even though they are well-founded in science and law.”

In addition, the editorial warned that the “misnamed ‘right to decide’ is really a slogan that disguises the intention to force pregnant women in a state of vulnerability to abortion.”

The archdiocese also recalled that “each of us loses some humanity when one of our brothers is discarded, murdered, whether in his development in the womb or as an adult” and stressed that “no economic benefit, no ideological benefit, compensates the loss of human beings at the hands of others.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

null / Credit: Andrii Yalanskyi/Shutterstock

Vatican City, Dec 5, 2024 / 10:00 am (CNA).

In October, Italy became the first country to ban surrogacy for its citizens both within and without its borders — a legal move that could be replicated in other nations, according to experts.

“For us, Italy is an example to follow for other countries,” Bernard Garcia Larrain, a lawyer and international anti-surrogacy advocate, told CNA.

Garcia Larrain is the coordinator of the Casablanca Declaration, an international group calling for the abolition of surrogacy worldwide.

On Oct. 16, Italy’s Senate passed a bill making it possible to prosecute Italian citizens for pursuing surrogacy abroad. The practice was already a crime within Italian borders.

Garcia Larrain told CNA that national regulation of surrogacy is not enough, because surrogacy “is a global market,” which is why the group he coordinates is calling for its universal abolition for the protection of children and women.

In the meantime, however, the lawyer said Italy has taken a good first step that he hopes other countries will follow.

“Italy is a good example, but now countries like Italy have to join our movement to call for an international treaty [banning surrogacy],” he said.

Surrogacy has been illegal in Italy since 2004. The prohibition is contained within the country’s Law 40, which regulates medically assisted procreation.

Under the recently passed law the Italian state will be able to prosecute its citizens who seek surrogacy even in countries where it is legal.

In an Oct. 16 press release, the Casablanca Declaration applauded Italy’s decision, calling it “a major step forward in the universal abolition of surrogacy.”

“Italy is showing the way forward for all the other countries that have not yet dared to take initiatives to protect women and children from surrogate motherhood,” the group said.

Italy’s wider ban on surrogacy has been frequently referred to by media and elsewhere as a “universal crime.”

Giorgio Mazzoli, the director of U.N. Advocacy for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International and an expert in public international law and international human rights law, explained that the term “universal crime” is a legal misnomer, and the Italian law is actually based on a “more narrowly defined form of extraterritorial jurisdiction.”

Mazzoli has done anti-surrogacy advocacy since 2017 and was among the first to speak out against surrogacy and for a universal ban on the practice at the United Nations. He explained more about the legal implications of the ban in a written interview with CNA.

The full interview can be read below:

CNA: What does the extension of Italy’s law banning surrogacy do, practically speaking? What might enforcement look like?

Mazzoli: Before the adoption of the new law, Italian legislation did not impose sanctions on maternal surrogacy arrangements commissioned by Italian citizens outside national borders. This allowed couples to circumvent domestic prohibitions by entering into surrogacy agreements in jurisdictions where the practice is permitted or tolerated, and subsequently requesting the legal recognition of parentage for children born through these arrangements. The new law closes this loophole by extending criminal penalties to surrogacy arrangements carried out abroad by Italian citizens. Italian citizens who commission surrogacy in other countries will now be prosecuted under Italian law.

The primary mode of enforcement is without a doubt deterrence: By establishing that surrogacy will be punished regardless of where it occurs, the law aims to dissuade individuals from engaging in such practices in the first place. In practical terms, enforcement is closely linked to the existing legal requirements for the recognition of parentage for children born through surrogacy, which include the need to ascertain the child’s origins. This framework, combined with increased scrutiny of intermediaries and clinics promoting surrogacy abroad, should empower Italian authorities to identify and investigate cross-border cases effectively.

CNA: What does the term “universal crime” mean?

Mazzoli: The term “universal crime” is a legal misnomer and should not be confused with universal jurisdiction, which allows states to prosecute specific grave offenses regardless of where they occurred or the nationality of those involved. However, Italy’s law banning surrogacy abroad is not based on universal jurisdiction. Instead, it relies on a more narrowly defined form of extraterritorial jurisdiction, which enables Italian authorities to prosecute their citizens for commissioning surrogacy arrangements outside the country.

CNA: What are the legal limits of Italy’s new ban on surrogacy outside its borders, if any?

Mazzoli: While surrogacy has been prohibited domestically in Italy since 2004, the new ban on surrogacy abroad does not cover the conduct of non-Italian citizens due to reasons of jurisdiction.

CNA: Could Italy be an example for other countries on how to totally ban the practice of maternal surrogacy?

Mazzoli: Yes. As the first country in the world to ban surrogacy outside its borders, Italy could serve as a model for countries determined to combat this deeply unethical, inhumane, and exploitative practice, which turns children into commodities and women’s reproductive capacities into tools for others’ desires. However, addressing the full scope of this human rights issue requires a unified global response. That is why I, along with many human rights experts and organizations, have long been advocating for a universal ban on surrogacy in all its forms.

U.S. national and rainbow flags are pictured on the U.S. embassy in Moscow on June 30, 2022. / Credit: NATALIA KOLESNIKOVA/AFP via Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 5, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).

After his inauguration on Jan. 20, President-elect Donald Trump could reverse the promotion of gender ideology and abortion in the Department of State (DOS) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), according to those closely watching these issues.

Under President Joe Biden’s administration, officials have used USAID and DOS to promote transgenderism and other elements of gender ideology through grants. Efforts have also been made to leverage foreign aid programs and influence international financial institutions and the United Nations to pressure countries into embracing transgenderism and gender ideology. 

The administration ended policies that previously banned funding for foreign organizations that promote abortion in other countries as well.

“The Biden-Harris administration radicalized the federal bureaucracy to promote abortion and dangerous gender procedures and suppress opposition to their agenda,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Matt Bowman told CNA. 

“We hope President-elect Trump’s appointed leaders will restore the rule of law, respect biological reality, and stop targeting free speech,” Bowman added.

Trump tapped Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, to serve as secretary of state, a position that requires confirmation by the Senate. The president-elect has not announced whom he will choose to lead USAID, which does need a Senate confirmation.

Rubio has been critical of what he calls “radical gender ideology” in the American health care system and the Democratic Party’s “extremism on abortion.” 

Trump also plans to establish a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to identify government waste. In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal, the two DOGE leaders indicated that funding for international groups, particularly progressive groups, will be reviewed. 

Biden policies to promote gender ideology and abortion

The DOS issued a report in July that detailed tens of millions of dollars going to projects that promote “LGBTQI+ human rights.” This includes a USAID grant for the “Transformation Salon” in India “to enhance the career and entrepreneurial opportunities for the transgender community” and similar projects.

According to the report, the DOS authorized more than $3.2 million in small grants to 116 “LGBTQI+” organizations in 73 countries and USAID spent “more than $7 million to support activities … that integrate LGBTQI+ equities” and “leveraged more than $11 million from private philanthropy to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons.”

According to the report, DOS and USAID used their influence to pressure foreign governments into adopting policies that conform to gender ideology. One of the top priorities was to put an end to “conversion therapy,” understood as any therapy directed toward changing “an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity” including “behaviors or gender expressions, or to eliminate or reduce sexual or romantic attractions or feelings toward individuals of the same sex.” 

Additionally, Biden rescinded the Mexico City Policy shortly after taking office — an action that allowed federal tax dollars to go toward foreign organizations that encourage women to have abortions. 

“It is the policy of my administration to support women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive health and rights [including abortion] in the United States, as well as globally,” Biden said at the time.

On the domestic front, Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a memorandum, obtained by The National Review, that included guidelines to discourage staff members from “misgendering” — which means using pronouns consistent with a person’s biological sex when that person self-identifies as the opposite gender — and stated that it can be “problematic” to assume someone’s gender based on his or her appearance.

How to reverse the promotion of gender ideology and abortion

Stefano Gennarini, vice president for legal studies at the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam), told CNA that Trump should sign an executive order to reinstate the Mexico City Policy — which banned federal funding for overseas groups that promote abortion — and expand that ban to include the promotion of gender ideology. 

“Anyone who receives U.S. funds must agree not to promote abortion and gender ideology, specifically the notion that gender is a social construct,” Gennarini said. “This is what conservative lawmakers proposed in the [President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief] reauthorization battle in Congress.” 

He added that Trump could rescind every Biden order that promotes “gender ideology” and order a 30-day review of all USAID “strategies, programs, and grants to ensure they comply with the new Mexico City Policy and do not promote abortion or gender ideology.”

“All incompatible strategies, programs, and grants must be rescinded,” Gennarini continued. “Incompatible strategies, programs, and grants should be replaced with ones based on the recognition of the real sex-based differences between men and women and their equal dignity and rights before the law.”

Additionally, Gennarini encouraged the administration to eliminate the White House’s Gender Policy Council, established by Biden to “advance gender equity and equality in both domestic and foreign policy development and implementation,” according to the White House.

Gennarini told CNA that the incoming administration should “appoint proven pro-life leaders to head USAID and the Global Women’s Issues Office at the State Department.” He further suggested that Trump “fire virtually all ‘gender specialists’ who conduct so-called ‘gender analysis’ in the USAID and State Department apparatus.”

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CNA Staff, Dec 5, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Is the Bible — already the most widely printed book of all time — having a moment?

As recently reported by the Wall Street Journal, Bible sales — across a variety of editions — rose 22% in the U.S. through the end of October 2024 compared with the same period last year, according to book tracker Circana BookScan. This is despite nearly a third of U.S. adults identifying as religiously unaffiliated. 

In contrast, print book sales overall rose just 1% during the same period. 

Experts cited by the WSJ attributed the rise in Bible sales to readers seeking solace and meaning amid growing anxiety and uncertainty in the culture; the emergence of new Bible versions and formats catering to diverse preferences; and strategic marketing campaigns to reach new audiences, such as young people wanting to make their faith their own by buying their own Bible. 

Several prominent Catholic publishers told CNA that they, too, are riding this wave of increased Bible sales, with many attributing the rise to a spiritual hunger among Catholics to dive into God’s word for themselves. 

A biblical ‘moment’ in the culture

For Word on Fire, the Catholic media and publishing apostolate founded by Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, the “Bible boom” has been very tangible. 

Brandon Vogt, senior publishing director at Word on Fire and general editor of the Word on Fire Bible series, told CNA that the apostolate has sold over half a million volumes of the Word on Fire Bible since launching the product in 2020, far outpacing their own expectations. 

“We ordered 50,000 copies, which to us seemed like a lot, and we expected those would last for at least a year or two. Shockingly, we sold out the leather copies within 24 hours and most of the hardcover and paperback editions within a few weeks. Sales haven’t slowed since then,” Vogt said. 

Jon Bator, Word on Fire’s senior director of sales and marketing, added that the apostolate was “certainly blown away” by the series’ popularity and has “since struggled to keep up with the consistent demand” — in part because the leather-bound volume is printed in Italy. 

“The monthly demand has been fairly consistent, even with very little marketing and promotion,” he said. 

Word on Fire’s approach to creating its Bible was to “lead with beauty,” Bator said, which means making the Bible itself a beautiful object — taking great care with the volume’s artwork, typography, binding, and materials. Beyond that, the book includes commentary from a wide range of voices, most prominently Barron himself, who is a sought-after preacher.

“By leading with beauty in both design and content, it is especially meant to appeal to those who — whether they fully know it or not — are restlessly seeking the Lord,” Bator added. 

Vogt said he believes that the Bible is having a cultural “moment.”

“From Jordan Peterson’s biblical lectures on Genesis and Exodus, which drew millions of views on YouTube and sold out arenas across the country, to Father Mike Schmitz’s ‘Bible in a Year’ podcast, which for a time was the No. 1 podcast in the world, to Bishop Barron’s weekly YouTube sermons, which draw hundreds of thousands of viewers each Sunday, we’re seeing the Bible presented in fresh and exciting ways and people are responding. The Word on Fire Bible offers just another example,” Vogt said. 

“People have grown weary of the ‘your truth, my truth’ paradigm and are hungry for the truth, which is partly why many are turning back to this ancient text which claims to be the very Word of God, not just one word among many.”

‘A revolution in Catholics reading the Bible’

Ignatius Press, which has been a major name in Catholic Bible publishing for decades, recently announced a new study Bible created in concert with professor Scott Hahn’s St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology that is already contributing to the ongoing Bible boom. 

The new Ignatius Catholic Study Bible includes the complete text of the Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition of the Bible, plus notes, detailed maps, introductory essays for each book, and over 17,000 footnotes and thousands of cross-references to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The notes aim to clarify the historical and cultural context, explain unfamiliar customs, and illuminate theological themes, emphasizing the interconnectedness of the Old and New Testaments. 

Mark Brumley, president of Ignatius Press, told CNA he sees the recent surge in Bible sales as a reflection of a growing hunger for God and spiritual guidance in society. The new Ignatius Catholic Study Bible has already sold about 40,000 copies, with at least 20,000 more expected to sell from the current print run, he said. 

Ignatius already sells approximately 100,000 copies of various editions of its Ignatius Bible line annually, and Brumley confirmed that the company has seen a “steady increase” in interest and sales in recent years.

“I’m not surprised that this is happening. I see signs of it in my own Catholic parish and in different places around the country, that Catholics are reading the Bible,” Brumley said in response to questions from CNA during a Dec. 2 press event.

The Bible is “a place where increasingly Catholics go to understand what God has said and done in history … I’m not surprised that Bible sales are up. We’re at a point in the Catholic Church, I think, where we’re seeing almost a revolution in Catholics reading the Bible.”

Brumley told CNA he sees the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible as a complementary resource rather than a replacement for other Bibles. He expressed excitement about the diverse range of Catholic Bibles available, recognizing the contributions of other publishers like Ascension Press and the Augustine Institute. 

He said he hopes the new Ignatius Catholic Study Bible will help Catholics in not just reading the Bible but understanding it in its entirety. 

“We’re allowing Catholics to have access to the Bible and to kind of improve their game in reading Scripture, so that Bible teachers and Bible professors can come along and bring them yet to even a higher level … I’m happy that they’re going to have this tool available to them to help them go deeper and come to know Jesus more solidly.”

The ‘explosive factor’ of ‘Bible in a Year’

Beginning in the first days of 2021, the “Bible in a Year” podcast, read in its entirety by popular Minnesota priest Father Mike Schmitz, climbed the podcast charts and dethroned several of the most popular secular podcasts for a few weeks, going on to be downloaded more than half a billion times. 

Jonathan Strate, CEO of Ascension, the Catholic publishing company that produces the podcast, told CNA that “Bible in a Year” (BIY) has been an “explosive factor” driving Ascension’s Bible sales.

Already a popular item, the Great Adventure Catholic Bible, which is formatted to be read in concert with BIY, remained sold out for months after the launch of the podcast at the beginning of 2021.

While unable to quantify whether or not its own Bible sales boom contributed to the nationwide trend, Strate said the company “certainly hope BIY has been a factor in this revival.”

“We find that BIY is both bringing in new audience members and also inviting current members to repeat the journey year after year. We hear from audience members who repeat BIY annually and find new insights and meanings every year,” he told CNA, adding that Ascension continually receives requests from customers for additional Bible products on top of what they already offer.

In addition to the Bible itself, Ascension promotes its color-coded Bible Timeline Learning System, created by Bible scholar Jeff Cavins and designed to help people understand “how the big picture of salvation history fits together.”

“Many people have struggled to read the Bible for years because they’ve never been taught that it tells the story of God’s salvation of humanity from the beginning of time until now. Having this insight, and the color coding on every page, helps them make connections they never have before. Understanding what they’re reading helps them fall in love with Scripture and want to keep returning to it again and again,” Strate said.