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CNA Staff, Aug 21, 2024 / 14:14 pm (CNA).

An elderly survivor of a Soviet concentration camp and six other pro-life advocates were convicted of blocking access to a Michigan abortion clinic, the latest in a high-profile series of judgments against anti-abortion demonstrators in federal courts.

The seven defendants in the case were found guilty for their involvement in a "blockade of a reproductive health care clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan" on Aug. 27, 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release on Tuesday. 

The demonstrators were convicted of both a felony conspiracy against rights and a Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act offense, the government said. Sentencing will be set at a later date. 

Kristen Clarke, an assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's civil rights division, claimed the pro-life activists had "orchestrated an unlawful clinic blockade and physically obstructed patients seeking access to their doctors, without regard to the serious medical needs of the women they blocked from accessing reproductive health care."

The defendants — Calvin Zastrow, Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Caroline Davis, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Eva Edl, and Eva Zastrow — reportedly staged the demonstration as part of a "Michigan Holiness Revival Tour," one that allegedly set out with the "express purpose of blockading a reproductive health clinic," the Justice Department said. 

The 89-year-old Eva Edl is a well-known pro-life activist and a survivor of a communist concentration camp who fled Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe.

Her biography reveals that her mother was kidnapped by the Soviets in postwar Europe after which she and her siblings were sent to communist concentration camps in Yugoslavia. She eventually escaped and emigrated to the United States.

The Biden administration has aggressively prosecuted several FACE Act cases over the last few years, handing out prison sentences to men and women who attempted to block access to abortion clinics around the country. 

Some of the activists found guilty this week, including Eva Edl, were also found guilty earlier this year of a similar abortion clinic blockade in Tennessee in 2021. Edl has yet to be sentenced for that conviction. 

Last year multiple pro-life activists were convicted under the FACE Act for an October 2020 demonstration at the Washington Surgi-Clinic run by Cesare Santangelo in Washington, D.C.

Pro-life advocate Lauren Handy, 30, was sentenced in May to four years and nine months in prison for organizing the protest. 

Several other demonstrators ultimately received prison sentences ranging from about two to three years.

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy and 25 House Republicans last year introduced a resolution to repeal the FACE Act, arguing that the Biden administration had "brazenly weaponized the FACE Act against normal, everyday Americans across the political spectrum, simply because they are pro-life." 

Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, indicated earlier this year that he would move to release some of the convicted pro-lifers from prison if he is re-elected president in November. 

"Many people are in jail over this.… We're going to get that taken care of immediately — [on the] first day," he told the Faith and Freedom Coalition in June. 

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Madrid, Spain, Aug 21, 2024 / 14:46 pm (CNA).

The Holy See Press Office announced the appointment of Archpriest Kevork Noradounguian as the new Ordinary for Armenian Catholics in Eastern Europe, assigning him the title of Archbishop of Sebaste of the Armenians.

Until now, Noradounguian served as patriarchal vicar of the Institute of the Clergy of Bzommar and superior of the Convent of Our Lady of Bzommar in Lebanon.

Born in Aleppo, Syria, on Nov. 16, 1968, he obtained a licentiate in educational sciences from the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome in 1997. Two years earlier he was ordained a priest in Aleppo for the Institute of the Patriarchal Clergy of Bzommar.

Throughout his pastoral service, the new archbishop has served as rector of the minor and major seminary, administrator and general bursar of the Institute, pastor of the Armenian Catholic community of Moscow, rector of the church of St. Nicholas of Tolentine and rector of the Pontifical Armenian College of Urbe, apostolic administrator ad nutum Sanctæ Sedis (at the disposition of the Holy See) of the Armenian Catholic Patriarchal Exarchate of Jerusalem and Amman and pastor of the Armenian Catholics of Lyon, France.

What is the Armenian Catholic Church?

The Armenian Catholic Church is one of the 24 particular churches in communion with Rome and follows the Armenian liturgy. The church is organized as a patriarchal church under the authority of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches.

The origins of the Catholic Church in Armenia date back to the preaching of St. Jude Thaddeus and St. Bartholomew in the 1st century, which was brought to fruition by St. Gregory the Illuminator in the 4th century.

The Armenian Apostolic Church, from which the Armenian Catholic Church derives its origins, fell out of communion with Rome in a dispute over the definition of the natures of Christ decreed by the Council of Chalcedon in 451.

The Armenian Catholic Church has been formally united with Rome since 1742 and its followers are present in different countries such as Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Jordan and Egypt.

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

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ACI MENA, Aug 21, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Born 61 years ago into a Muslim family in Turkey, Belkiz was the first daughter after two sons. As a child, she went to the mosque and read the Koran in Arabic but says she didn't understand it. After reading books on materialist philosophy in her youth, she became an atheist at the age of 15.

Belkiz (whose last name is being withheld for privacy reasons) told ACI Mena, CNA's Arabic-language news partner, that after graduating from university, she became a literature teacher and was constantly reading books. When she was 28 years old, she read Turan Dursun's book "This Is Religion." (Dursun, a former Shia Muslim and scholar who became an atheist, was murdered because of what he wrote about Islam and religion. His book criticizes religious books — mainly the Koran.)

Belkiz couldn't believe what she read so she bought a Turkish Koran and read it. The Bible was next — she bought one at the Izmir Book Fair and was invited to watch a movie at a Protestant church about the life of Jesus based on the Gospel of Luke.

Watching the movie completely changed the way she thought about God. The biblical story that touched her the most was the prayer of the tax collector and the Pharisee in the Temple. Here she saw her own sin. Because, like the Pharisee, she was so confident in her own righteousness, she experienced her first shame before God. "Love your enemies" became her guide. At the end of the movie, Belkiz prayed with all her heart: "Lord please come into my life, I leave my life in your hands, do with me as you will!"

Afterward, she went to the Protestant church every Sunday, read the Bible regularly, and always attended prayer meetings. She was baptized and lived happily in a living relationship with God. 

Then one Sunday at a church service in 2005, a young person taking bread and wine at the Lord's table took the bread, put the crust in his mouth and squeezed the inside of the bread in the palm of his hand. When Belkiz saw this she felt uncomfortable because she felt as if the body of the Lord had been hurt. She talked to a Protestant friend about it. She said he told her it was okay because "it's not really the Lord's body, we do it in remembrance; Catholics really believe that it is the body of Christ."

After that she sought out the Catholic Church and has been a Catholic ever since.

After taking catechism classes, she was confirmed as a Catholic on April 25, 2011, and changed the religion on her birth certificate from Muslim to Christian.

"I did not choose God, he chose me," Belkiz said. "What impresses me most about Christianity is the Lord Jesus' infinite love for us. I have found my best friend and my most beautiful lover."

When asked if she was afraid of persecution as a Christian, she smiled: "When Jesus was betrayed, his disciple Peter denied Jesus three times. Because he was afraid. But the same Peter, after receiving the Holy Spirit, spread the Gospel from Jerusalem to Italy and when he was going to be crucified, he said, 'I am not worthy to die, Lord,' and was crucified [upside down]."

Belkiz also said what she has gained in her faith journey is right in the Bible: "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control" (Gal 5:22-23).

"God offers us all a treasure. All we have to do is accept it," Belkiz said. "And God proves his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Rom 5:8).

This article was first published by ACI Mena, CNA's Arabic-language news partner, and has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Vatican City, Aug 21, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

Pope Francis said Wednesday the person who lives with joy his anointing in the sacrament of confirmation cannot help but spread the fragrance of holiness in the Church and the world.

"We know that, unfortunately, sometimes Christians do not spread the fragrance of Christ, but the bad odor of their own sin," the pope also warned during the general audience Aug. 21, adding that "sin turns us into bad oil."

During his weekly public audience in the Vatican's Pope Paul VI Hall, Pope Francis continued a series of lessons on the Holy Spirit, focusing on the fruits of being anointed with the blessed oil called Chrism in the sacraments of baptism and confirmation.

The audience hall brimmed over with thousands of pilgrims from around the world, some of whom held flags from their countries or waved colored bandanas, eager to catch a sight of the pope.

At the end of the meeting, before praying the "Our Father" and giving his blessing, the pontiff remembered certain countries and territories experiencing war, including Ukraine, Myanmar, South Sudan, and the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"Let us pray for peace," he said, "and let's not forget Palestine and Israel, that there will be peace there."

In his catechesis, Pope Francis recalled the baptism of Christ, when "the very Spirit descended on Jesus."

Christians, he explained, are "anointed in imitation of Christ," as St. Cyril of Jerusalem wrote in his Mystagogical Catecheses.

The pope recited the prayer said by the bishop when he consecrates the chrism oil on Holy Thursday: "May those formed into a temple of your majesty by the holiness infused through this anointing and by the cleansing of the stain of their first birth be made fragrant with the innocence of a life pleasing to you."

"A person who lives his anointing with joy gives fragrance to the Church, gives fragrance to the community, gives fragrance to his family," the pontiff said.

Quoting from St. Paul's Letter to the Galatians, Francis said, "the fragrance of Christ emanates from the 'fruits of the Spirit,' which are 'love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.'"

"It's beautiful to find a good person, a faithful person, a meek person, not proud," he commented.

Sin, the pope emphasized, "must not distract us from the commitment of realizing, as far as we are able and each in their own environment, this sublime vocation of being the good fragrance of Christ in the world."

"Let us ask the Holy Spirit to make us more conscious [of being] anointed, anointed by him," he concluded.

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 20, 2024 / 18:06 pm (CNA).

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich praised the boldness and the faithfulness of the Catholic Church in Africa after a pilgrimage the prelate took to the west African country Benin last week.

"The Church in Africa is a Church that knows its own value and is not afraid to speak," Hollerich, a leading organizer of the Vatican's Synod on Synodality, told La Croix International, a French Catholic newspaper.

Hollerich, who serves as the relator general of the synod, participated in the annual Marian pilgrimage to the Notre-Dame d'Arigbo cave in Dassa-Zoumè. 

The prelate told La Croix that the Church in Africa is one that is "alive and full of faith" and that he came to "learn," adding: "I am looking at this Church as a pastor from a European Church to see how we can move forward in the future." He noted the "joy" seen in the celebrations in Africa, which he contrasted with European celebrations that he said "are sometimes very dull."

"People do not always participate with their hearts," the cardinal, who has served as archbishop of Luxembourg since 2011, explained. "It becomes merely a ceremony — a rite. However, here in Africa, what is done is magnificent. Even the pilgrimage I am attending shows this participation and deep faith in Africa. In Europe, we speak more of tradition than of faith. But tradition is only understood when there is faith to interpret it. So, it is beautiful to see the faith as it is lived in Africa."

The Catholic hierarchy in Africa often leans more traditional and conservative than the hierarchy throughout the Western world. Earlier this year, African bishops declined to implement a Vatican directive that sanctioned "spontaneous" pastoral blessings for "same-sex couples" and other couples in "irregular situations."

The Vatican declaration, Fiducia Supplicans, maintained a ban on liturgical blessings for same-sex couples, did not allow recognition of civil unions, and instructed the clergy to not take any actions that could make the blessings appear like a marriage. Less than a month later, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar issued a statement that said there would be "no blessing for homosexual couples in the African churches."

Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, who heads the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, had earlier granted leeway to Church hierarchy in enforcing the directive, saying: "It's proper for each local bishop to make that discernment."

Pope Francis later said Africa was "a special case," because "for them, homosexuality is something 'ugly' from a cultural point of view; they do not tolerate it."

Hollerich addressed the issue of the upcoming Synod on Synodality, which is scheduled to meet for its concluding session from Oct. 2 to Oct. 27, at which point officials will produce a final report to deliver to Pope Francis.

"My role … is to ensure that everyone is heard, that there are no political machinations within the Church, but that all the people of God, from all continents, are listened to and that the entire Church can journey together," Hollerich said in the interview. 

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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 20, 2024 / 18:26 pm (CNA).

Delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago have approved a party platform that doubles down on support for abortion, IVF, and "gender-affirming health care."

The platform is an aspirational document drafted and approved by party delegates during election years. It is meant to outline the party's policy goals for the coming years.

The new platform, which is 91 pages long and mentions abortion nearly three times more than the 2020 platform, was approved in an overwhelming voice vote on the first night of the convention.

Here are some highlights that are especially relevant to Catholics.

Enshrine Roe v. Wade

While the 2020 platform expressed that "every woman should be able to access high-quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion," the 2024 platform goes further by explicitly calling for the enshrinement of abortion into national law by making Roe v. Wade the law of the land.

The plank on "reproductive freedom" blames former President Donald Trump for Roe's overturn and claims that if elected he would "ban abortion nationwide."

"President [Joe] Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Democrats are committed to restoring the reproductive rights Trump ripped away," the platform says. "We will pass national legislation to make Roe the law of the land again."

This focus on abortion is consistent with the new Democratic presidential nominee Harris' prioritization of abortion as a central campaign issue.

The platform promises that a Harris-Walz administration would "support access to FDA-approved medication abortion, appoint leaders at the FDA who respect science, and appoint judges who uphold fundamental freedoms."

Like previous versions of the Democratic platform, the 2024 platform pledges to eliminate the Hyde Amendment, a long-standing measure that bans federal tax dollars from being used for abortion.

This comes after Republicans approved a 2024 platform that softened its stance on abortion by removing a "right to life" plank and a call for a national law protecting unborn life from the platform.

Protect IVF

While the 2020 platform did not mention in vitro fertilization (IVF), the new platform mentions it six times.

IVF is a fertility procedure to conceive a child outside of the sexual act. The Catholic Church holds that IVF is "morally unacceptable" because it separates the marriage act from procreation and establishes "the domination of technology" over human life.

IVF has become a hot topic since a February ruling by the Alabama Supreme Court determined unborn babies conceived through IVF to be human children protected by state law. Since the ruling, many leading Republicans and Democrats have firmly denounced limits on IVF and advocated for expanded IVF protections.

The platform accuses Republicans of "openly attacking" IVF and promises that a Democratic White House "will protect a woman's right to access IVF."

Marriage

The only mention of marriage made in the 2024 Democratic platform is in the context of protecting LGBTQ+ "marriage equality in federal law."

The platform bashes Trump for appointing judges who "oppose same-sex marriage" and promises to pass the Equality Act to "codify protections for LGBTQI+ Americans and their families."

The Equality Act would recognize sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes under civil rights law and forbid discrimination based on those classes.

The U.S. Catholic bishops have opposed the legislation, saying it upholds the redefinition of marriage and frames gender as simply a "social construct." The bishops have also said it would "punish" religious groups opposed to these beliefs.

'Gender-affirming care'

The platform accuses Trump of "running on an extreme plan to punish doctors who treat transgender youth and to ban gender-affirming care."

According to the World Health Organization, gender-affirming care refers to an array of interventions including social, psychological, behavioral, and medical treatments, such as hormonal therapies and surgery.

The platform lauds the Biden-Harris administration's actions to "protect transgender Americans' access to health care and coverage, including medically necessary gender-affirming care."

"Democrats will vigorously oppose state and federal bans on gender-affirming health care and respect the role of parents, families, and doctors — not politicians — in making health care decisions," the platform states.

Freedom of religion

The platform also includes a plank on "combating hate and protecting freedom of religion," in which Democrats decry the rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia and pledge to "maintain the separation of church and state."

The platform makes no mention of Christians but states that Democrats will "advocate for religious freedom across the world" and "continue to honor both religious freedom and other civil rights, not put them at war with one another."

Immigration

The platform asserts that "America is a nation of immigrants" and states that the next Democratic presidential administration will push for legislation that will "secure the border, reform the asylum system, expand legal immigration; and keep families together by supporting a pathway for long-term undocumented individuals."

Illegal immigration has soared under the Biden administration. The Washington Post reported that illegal border crossings hit an all-time high in 2022 with 2.2 million crossings. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection there have been nearly 2 million crossings this year, which is double the highest point under the Trump administration.  

Differing from the 2020 version, the new Democratic platform includes a section on securing the border. This section claims Democrats will push for additional border patrol agents, immigration judges, asylum officers, and inspection technology to better detect and stop human trafficking and the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. from the southern border.

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CNA Staff, Aug 20, 2024 / 11:21 am (CNA).

In his prayer of invocation at the opening night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday, Chicago archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich lamented the "ongoing injustices in our national life" while calling for national unity.

Speaking before a packed house at the United Center in Chicago on Monday night, Cupich said Americans are regularly called to "reweave the fabric of America," arguing that the country is "a nation composed of every people and culture, united not by ties of blood but by profound aspirations of life, freedom, justice, and unbound hope." 

"In every generation, we are called to renew these aspirations," the prelate said. "We do so when we live out the virtues that dwell in our hearts, but also when we confront our failures to root out ongoing injustices in our national life, especially those created by moral blindness and fear of the other."

The archbishop asked God to "quicken in us a resolve to protect your handiwork."

"May our nation become more fully a builder of peace in our wounded world with the courage to imagine and pursue a loving future together," the archbishop prayed. "And may we as individual Americans become more fully the instruments of God's peace."

Cupich also called for world peace, especially "for the people suffering the senselessness of war," and evoked Pope Francis by encouraging the audience to "dream dreams and see visions of what by [God's] grace the world can become."

Cupich's remarks come after Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki gave the invocation at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee last month. 

"We pray that you assist our elected officials and candidates always to protect our freedoms, to preserve our democracy, and to govern fairly," Listecki said last month.

"Grant them the wisdom every day to place the good of our nation above personal interest and to cherish our union. Teach us all to respect justice and our equality before the law," the archbishop said.

Here is the full text of Cupich's invocation: 

We praise you, O God of all creation. Quicken in us a resolve to protect your handiwork. You are the source of every blessing that graces our lives and our nation.

We pray that you help us to truly understand and answer the sacred call of citizenship. We are a nation composed of every people and culture, united not by ties of blood but by the profound aspirations of life, freedom, justice, and unbound hope. These aspirations are why our forebears saw America as a beacon of hope. And, with your steady guidance, Lord, may we remain so today.

In every generation, we are called to renew these aspirations, to reweave the fabric of America. We do so when we live out the virtues that dwell in our hearts but also when we confront our failures to root out ongoing injustices in our national life, especially those created by moral blindness and fear of the other.

We pray for peace, especially for people suffering the senselessness of war. But as we pray, we must also act, for building up the common good takes work. It takes love.

And so we pray: May our nation become more fully a builder of peace in our wounded world with the courage to imagine and pursue a loving future together. And may we as individual Americans become more fully the instruments of God's peace.

Guide us, Lord, in taking up our responsibility to forge this new chapter of our nation's history. Let it be rooted in the recognition that for us, as for every generation, unity triumphing over division is what advances human dignity and liberty.

Let it be propelled by the women and men elected to serve in public life, who know that service is the mark of true leadership.

And let this new chapter of our nation's history be filled with overwhelming hope, a hope that refuses to narrow our national vision, but rather, as Pope Francis has said, "to dream dreams and see visions" of what by your grace our world can become.

We ask all of this, trusting in your ever-provident care for us. Amen.

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CNA Staff, Aug 20, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

Catholic organizations at the University of Southern California (USC) and the University of New Mexico (UNM) are banding together to host a forum with policymakers and leading voices on nuclear disarmament and deterrence.

The "Forum on Nuclear Strategy: Disarmament and Deterrence in a Dangerous World" is set to take place on Saturday, Sept. 7, at the University of New Mexico, led by the Endowed Chair of Roman Catholic Studies and the Religious Studies program at UNM and the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies (IACS) of USC.

The "groundbreaking" forum will discuss deterrence and disarmament approaches to nuclear weapons amid rising political rivalry between the U.S., China, and Russia, according to an Aug. 13 press release by IACS.

The forum is "considered the first of its kind since the American Catholic bishops reshaped the nuclear weapons debate in the 1980s," the release noted. In 1983, the U.S. bishops released a pastoral letter, "The Challenge of Peace," which discussed Catholic teaching on war, deterrence, and disarmament. 

"The forum is an important opportunity for experts in religious and secular fields to learn from each other as they explore modern nuclear strategy decisions," said Archbishop John Wester of Sante Fe, who is set to present welcoming remarks at the forum, in the release.

"It's precisely these conversations that will lead to a clearer understanding of the threat that nuclear weapons pose and how best to navigate the waters of the perilous arms race we find ourselves in today," he added.

Wester has contributed to the conversation on nuclear weapons particularly through his pastoral letter on nuclear disarmament in 2022, "Living in the Light of Christ's Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament." 

The subject of nuclear weapons is particularly relevant as New Mexico plays host to the Los Alamos and Sandia nuclear weapons laboratories as well as the largest storage site of nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal, the Kirtland Underground Munitions Maintenance and Storage Complex. 

New Mexico is also historically connected with nuclear weapons, as the first atomic bomb was detonated at the Trinity Site in New Mexico in 1945. 

"It's important that we host this discussion near the birthplace of nuclear weapons and with leading experts from differing perspectives regarding nuclear strategy," stated Richard L. Wood, president of the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC.

"With regional conflicts escalating and the threat of nuclear war rising, humanity is at a critical moment," Wood said. "Our forum will be a platform for in-depth discussion and debate that will explore our current global realities and seek tangible solutions to the rising threat of nuclear conflict."

Before the forum begins, participants will have a closed-door discussion for debate and discussion on finding common ground. In the public forum, participants will summarize their thinking and the results of the dialogue.

Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Mitsuaki Takami of Nagasaki, Japan, and the bishop of San Diego, Cardinal Robert McElroy, are set to participate in the forum, as well as political leaders including the former deputy secretary-general of NATO and former U.S. undersecretary of Arms Control and International Security for the U.S. State Department, Rose Gottemoeller, and Thomas Countryman and Christopher Ford, both former U.S. assistant secretaries of state for International Security and Nonproliferation under Barack Obama and Donald Trump, respectively. 

The archbishop emeritus of Nagasaki, who survived the atomic bomb when he was in utero, will share a reflection at the forum. Takami lost several members of his extended family in the Aug. 9, 1945, atomic bombing of Nagasaki.

Academic voices will include Maryann Cusimano Love, associate professor of international relations at The Catholic University of America; Richard Love, professor of national security strategy at the National Defense University; and Gerard Powers, director of Catholic peacebuilding studies at the University of Notre Dame's Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. 

The director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, Thomas Mason, will also participate in the forum.  

Local leaders and Indigenous communities impacted by nuclear-weapons testing are also set to participate.

Those wishing to attend may register here to attend in person or via livestream.

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CNA Staff, Aug 19, 2024 / 17:20 pm (CNA).

Phil Donahue, a self-described "lapsed Catholic" who reinvented the daytime television talk-show format beginning in the 1960s, died Sunday at his home in New York at age 88. 

Born in Cleveland in 1935 and raised in a Catholic family, Donahue attended an all-boys Catholic high school and the University of Notre Dame. He later dismissed the Church as "'sexist,' 'racist,' and 'unnecessarily destructive,' feelings that imbued many of his shows," his New York Times obituary notes.

When "The Phil Donahue Show" debuted in 1967 on a Dayton, Ohio, TV station, Donahue encouraged audience participation in his interviews and discussions, an unusual practice at the time that was later copied by numerous other shows.

In nearly 30 years on the air and 6,000 episodes, Donahue frequently courted controversy, both in his choice of guests and in the topics he covered.

He was often critical of the Catholic Church into which he was baptized, especially amid the sexual abuse crisis. He first dealt with the sex abuse scandal in a 1988 episode and revisited it in later seasons of his show, Reuters reported.

In a 2002 interview with Oprah Winfrey — who has cited Donahue as a major influence on her — Donahue described an infamous episode of his show where he aired footage of an abortion procedure.

"If you look up outrage in the dictionary, there's a picture of me. We once even filmed an abortion," he said. 

"Then we called the Archdiocese of Chicago, the pro-life people, and the pro-choice people, sat them in a room, and played the tape before going anywhere near the air with it. When I walked into the room after they'd seen it, half the people were crying," he continued. 

"The major grievance of the pro-life and Catholic Church folks was that the tape made abortion look easy. I said, 'Well, that's the procedure — 15 minutes.' Their fear was that if we aired this, everybody would run out and get abortions. I said, 'Look, this issue is splitting families. It's at the center of America's agenda.' Somehow, we got to air that," he recalled.

A self-described feminist, Donahue also supported same-sex marriage.

In a 2002 New York Times interview, Donahue said he still saw himself "as a Catholic. I will always be a Catholic."

Donahue's show was canceled in 1996 amid falling ratings, and an attempted revival of the show in 2002 was canceled after just six months. In 2024 President Joe Biden, a fellow Catholic, awarded Donahue the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

Despite their many differences, Catholic League President Bill Donohue has fond memories of the legendary Irish-American television personality.

"I was a guest on Phil Donahue's show for many years and I thoroughly enjoyed mixing it up with him," Donohue recalled. "He told his producers on several occasions that he loved having me on even though we usually clashed. That made him unusual — he was not afraid of confronting a conservative. He was a real man. And I always appreciated his kindness. May he rest in peace."

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ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 19, 2024 / 15:20 pm (CNA).

In his new book, "A Short History of the Roman Mass," Father Michael Lang, a priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri and professor of theology, offers a detailed and accessible overview of the historical development of the Mass from its origins to the present day.

In an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish-language news partner, Lang, who is from London, shared his motivations for writing the book and the importance of the liturgy in the life of the Catholic Church.

"I am certainly passionate about liturgy; it is my main research interest," said Lang, who holds a doctorate in theology from the University of Oxford and is a former consultant to the Holy See. He also explained that his passion for liturgy has been a constant driving force in his academic and pastoral life.

This interest led him to explore in depth the history of Christian worship, moving away from his initial studies in patristics to focus on the Roman rite of the Mass.

"This book is really the abbreviated and more popular version of a larger monograph I published in 2022 on the history of the stable core of the rite, beginning with the origins of the Eucharist and ending at the Council of Trent in the 16th century," he said.

The priest emphasized that the basic structure of the Mass and its evolution over time are key elements in his work: "I focus on the basic structure of the Mass. I answer [the questions], 'Why is the structure of the Mass the way it is? How did it develop? How did the pieces come together?'"

Continuity of today's Mass with Jesus at the Last Supper

Through his research, Lang seeks to show how, despite historical and cultural transformations, "the essential continuity ... takes us back to the time of the apostles and to Jesus at the Last Supper."

Asked about the relevance of this topic today, Lang stressed that "the liturgy of worship is really at the heart of what the Church does: It is the worship of God from which everything else flows."

"As Vatican II so rightly said, especially the Eucharist, the Mass, is the most important act of worship and the most important of the sacraments."

He also said that understanding historical development is crucial to full participation in the liturgy.

"History is very important to our understanding of the faith. We believe that God revealed himself in history… and the history of the Church is important to us," Lang explained.

According to the priest, this historical awareness also "helps you enter into the prayers of the Mass, it helps you to make these prayers your own, to make them part of your own spiritual life."

The aim of the book, according to the author, is to provide Catholics with a tool that will enable them to better understand the liturgy and, consequently, to participate more consciously in it.

"I hope that my little book will help readers to have an idea of ??this and that it will make their participation in the Mass more fruitful," Lang concluded.

The book can be purchased on Amazon.

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

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