1. Bishop of Odessa, Ukraine: ‘In this war both peoples are victims’
The bishop says that his city of Odessa currently finds itself at the “epicenter of the war.” Every day there are air raid sirens and attacks. “So many ruins, so many tears, so much blood in our country.” In the first month of the war hundreds of children were killed or seriously injured. “Children have lost hands or feet in the bombardment; it is terrible!” The port of Odessa is currently blockaded; however, the Ukrainian army has been able to repel the advance of the Russian navy.
2. Crowds kneel to say goodbye to 24-year-old Ukrainian seminarian killed in recent fighting
3. Questions on Ukraine with Mindy Belz from World and Eric Patterson from the Religious Freedom Institute
4. Lela Gilbert: Nigeria’s Christians Face Increasing Violence Day after Day
This week we learn from Morning Star News that on March 24, in Nigeria’s Kaduna State, at least 50 Christians were murdered and a Catholic priest was abducted. Meanwhile, in another shocking attack, 100 kidnapped believers were taken captive in Giwa County, seized in the middle of the night. At the same time, radical Fulani terrorists burned houses and a church, and slaughtered animals.
Christian Post recently reported that at least 4,650 Nigerian Christians were killed between Oct. 1, 2020, and Sept. 30, 2021, up from 3,530 the previous year. Meanwhile, more than 2,500 Christians were kidnapped, up from 990 a year earlier.
5. Cameroon: Boko Haram raiders ravage villages
6. Ed Mechmann: New Bills to Legalize Infanticide
These bills would permit anyone to kill a baby up to one month old, either by act or omission, and completely escape any accountability. The horrific Kermit Gosnell approach of strangling newborns or leaving them to die on a shelf, would be perfectly legal in California and in Maryland. We are back to the barbaric ancient world, where unwanted children were exposed in the woods and left to die.
7. Oregon drops residency requirement for assisted suicide
“We already have a problem with dangerously short physician-patient relationships and the push to eliminate any waiting period for life-ending drugs. We should not be expanding access to lethal prescriptions,” said Oregon Right to Life Executive Director Lois Anderson.
“The residency requirement at least protected some patients from predatory practices going unnoticed in the current execution of the law.”
8. Elizabeth Bruenig: Can America Kill Its Prisoners Kindly?
As cases like Glossip multiply and lethal injection becomes a more difficult proposition for states across the board, the legal push for executions that comport with the Eighth Amendment may well result in the resurrection of bygone methods of last resort—the firing squad, electric chair, or gas chamber, with the perverse result that prisoners’ battle for their constitutional rights will, in the hands of the state, become an assault on the very same.
9. Bloomberg: State Restraints on Abortion Pill Access Tee Up New Legal Battle
The Supreme Court is expected to decide by the end of June whether to overturn the constitutional right to abortion created by Roe. The seminal decision was directly challenged in a fight over a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
It seemed like the court was headed that way during oral arguments in December, though there is another option. The court could instead say there’s still a right to abortion but allow states to put more restrictive limits on it.
10. Kristan Hawkins: I’m a mom and I’m saying goodbye to Disney
11. Josh Holdenried: The Real Civil Rights Issue Of Our Time
If there is any doubt whether President Biden will be as punitive on the transgender issue as he and Obama were on the contraceptive mandate, Barr reminds us that Biden has repeatedly said that “transgender rights” are “the civil rights issue of our time.” In response, Barr writes: “I disagree. I believe the civil rights issue of our time is our religious liberty enshrined in the Free Exercise Clause and the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.”
12. Francis X. Rocca: When Student Debt Stands in the Way of Religious Poverty
A study released in January by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University found that 6% of men and women who made a permanent commitment to a religious order in the U.S. last year had delayed their application because of educational debt. The average delay was four years and the average amount of debt was $41,000, up from two years and $19,500 in 2012, according to CARA.
13.
I would *love* to read a follow-up on this article, seeing where the same kids are now.
I have a hunch they did not, in fact, “beat autism” in the long run. Because that’s not a thing that is possible. It’s a lifelong neurodevelopmental disability.
I also hope they’re OK. https://t.co/5kp92TUboH
— Sara Luterman (@slooterman) April 1, 2022
14. Raymond J. de Souza: The meaning of Pope Francis’ apology to Indigenous people
For Christians — and most Indigenous Canadians are Christians — sins confessed, contrition expressed, forgiveness granted is at the heart of the faith, meaning that what took place in Rome was a profoundly religious act, even as there are cultural, political and economic dimensions too. Indeed, for the Holy Father the offences repented of were precisely a religious betrayal, which is the worst kind of betrayal for those who profess to follow Jesus.
“Clearly, the content of the faith cannot be transmitted in a way contrary to the faith itself,” Francis said. “It is a frightening thing when, precisely in the name of the faith, counter-witness is rendered to the Gospel.”
15. Heather King: Caryll Houselander and our ‘psychological suffering’
Houselander goes on to discuss the existential guilt arising from our fallen nature, our shared responsibility for the suffering of the world, and the strange phenomenon of people who feel neurotically guilty for trifles while totally overlooking huge sins of commission or omission for which they really should feel guilty: lack of charity, for example, or a tendency toward pathological lying, or murder.
16. Live Action: Idaho bill provides real help for parents after a Down syndrome diagnosis
According to the Post Register, the new law requires the Department of Health and Welfare to create an “up-to-date, evidence-based support sheet about Down syndrome that has been reviewed by medical experts and the Idaho Down Syndrome Council.” The support sheet will also include contact information for Down syndrome support groups and resources, and it will be distributed to health care practitioners, so that they can offer it to parents who receive a Down syndrome diagnosis.
“The goal of this bill is to take that fear and isolation away and provide support and hope,” Mary Murray, President of the Idaho Down Syndrome Council and Vice President of Eastern Idaho Down Syndrome Family Connect, told EastIdahoNews.com.
There are notable differences on these questions by party identification and religious affiliation. But even among Republicans and White evangelical Protestants – two groups with comparatively low vaccination rates – half or more express skepticism of religious objections to COVID-19 vaccines.
Roughly four-in-ten Republicans and independents who lean toward the Republican Party (42%) believe that most people who say they have a religious objection to getting the coronavirus vaccine sincerely believe getting the vaccine is against their religion; a larger share (55%) say these individuals are just using religion as an excuse to avoid vaccination. About half of White evangelicals also believe religious objections are largely insincere (52%).
18. Is Your State Ready for Roe to Go?
But what happens if Roe v. Wade is overturned? Most Americans don’t know that if Roe is overturned in Dobbs, it will merely send the abortion issue back to the states. This means states will become a battleground for pro-life and pro-abortion legislation.
Up until now, Planned Parenthood v. Casey said states may regulate, but not prohibit, abortion before the unborn baby is viable, over halfway through pregnancy. For many states, this isn’t enough. They want to go further.
19. Sadie Gurman: Federal Grand Jury Indicts Nine People on Charges of Blocking Abortion Clinic
The indictment, unsealed Wednesday, says the group converged in Washington in October 2020. Prosecutors said one person, Lauren Handy, 28 years old, of Alexandria, Va., whom they described as a ringleader, pretended to be a patient showing up for an appointment as another person stood outside and began to live stream their activity on Facebook. Court records don’t list a lawyer for Ms. Handy.
Others then gathered in the hallway and outside the clinic’s front door and pushed into the waiting room, where they blockaded doors, sat on chairs and chained and roped themselves together, the indictment says. Some of the people stood in front of doors and blocked patients from entering the clinic, prosecutors said, adding that at least one employee sprained an ankle when the group burst into the waiting room.
On the Facebook live stream, one of the men said, according to the indictment: “We have people intervening physically with their bodies to prevent women from entering the clinic to murder their children.”
20.
“Pregnant people” 😣 https://t.co/D9XzYcKxoj
— Andrew Sullivan (@sullydish) March 31, 2022
21. Jay Richards: Biden Doubles Down on Radical ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Kids
22.
Kids say the darndest things:
Princeton sophomore: “I don’t want to sell out by doing something like going to McKinsey when I graduate.”
Princeton senior (on her way to Goldman): “It won’t be selling out if you put a Black Lives Matter sign up on your lawn.”
— Robert P. George🇻🇦🇺🇸🪕 (@McCormickProf) April 1, 2022
23.
🧵 Must-read exposé — Apple has been “quietly mobilizing” its lobbyists to coordinate a smear campaign against Florida’s parental rights bill. They’re working with dark money groups on the Left to take down pro-parent, pro-child bills in at least 9 states. https://t.co/IwYn6ugHpi
— Jessica Anderson (@JessAnderson2) April 1, 2022
24.
Whoa.
New study: (Parental) divorce is worse than death—when it comes to kids’ educational attainment.
“with data from 17 countries from the Generations and Gender Survey, we found that parental divorce had a larger impact than parental death.”https://t.co/edfSamVZ0z
— Brad Wilcox (@BradWilcoxIFS) March 31, 2022
25.
Teacher on MSNBC worries he can’t discuss his love life with kindergarteners anymore: “It scares me that I am not going to be able to have these conversations with my children…I don’t want to have to hide that my partner and I went paddle boarding this weekend.” pic.twitter.com/YJperIlzJB
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) March 29, 2022
26. Finnish court acquits lawmaker in freedom of speech case
The Helsinki District Court said in its ruling that while some of the public statements by Paivi Rasanen, former leader of the small Christian Democratic Party, have been offensive to homosexuals they didn’t constitute hate speech and didn’t fall outside freedom of speech laws.
“I’m thankful to God and all my supporters,” Rasanen told reporters after the verdict, adding she was “very happy and relieved” over the decision. She said she didn’t mean to insult anyone with her statements as “I know homosexuals and they are just as valuable as I am.”
27. Institute for Family Studies: The Work-Family Balancing Act Doesn’t End With Older Kids
First, it no longer seems acceptable for even high-powered women to have professionals take care of it all. In a recent interview, former Xerox CEO Ursula Burns—who became the first Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company in 2009—said “I would not be able to be CEO of the company unless I outsourced the caring for my kids.” She told CNBC, “I was not a believer that you had to go to all your kids’ games. I just don’t understand what that’s all about.”
But Burns also explains that her husband retired early to be a stay-at-home dad and her sister was also around to help out with the kids. I’m not sure that putting your husband in charge of childcare counts as “outsourcing.” Not every dad will want to be a stay-at-home dad, but as with the case of Justice Amy Coney Barrett and her husband, fathers have to make sacrifices, too.
There is also a sense now—and maybe this has been reinforced by the pandemic work-from-home arrangements—that even high-powered jobs need to come with some amount of flexibility.
28.
On 1 April 1937 | A Hungarian Jewish boy, Sandor Braun, was born in Fehergyarmat.
In 1944 he was deported to #Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber. pic.twitter.com/odiZBXlNIX
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) April 1, 2022
29. Sisters of Life launch free series on new approach to pro-life ministry
30. Writing as a Spiritual Practice with Jonathan Rogers, Tish Harrison Warren and Doug McKelvey