The Church of St. Luke

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St. Louis, Mo., Nov 27, 2024 / 17:30 pm (CNA).

A Missouri circuit judge on Monday upheld the state’s ban on the provision of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries to minors for purposes of “gender transitions,” a law which took effect last summer and halted the procedures at some of the state’s largest clinics.

The law, the Save Adolescents from Experimentation (SAFE) Act, also prohibits adults who identify as transgender from accessing transgender health care under Medicaid. It further bars “gender-affirming” surgery for prisoners and inmates. It is set to expire on Aug. 28, 2027.

Lambda Legal, a law firm focused on LGBT activism, filed a lawsuit last year against the state challenging the new law on behalf of several medical professionals engaged in “gender-affirming care” as well the parents of several minors who identify as transgender. The trial began in late September. 

In his Nov. 25 opinion, Wright County Circuit Judge R. Craig Carter cited U.S. Supreme Court precedent in cases such as 2007’s Gonzalez v. Carhart in which the high court held that states have broad power to regulate in areas “fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties.”

State governments can prohibit treatments that are shown to be “fundamentally incompatible with the physician’s role as healer,” the high court held.    

The medical ethics of providing transgender interventions to minors are “entirely unsettled,” Carter noted this week, while the potential harms, including irreversible bodily mutilation and infertility, are serious. 

Carter said he was presented with an “almost total lack of consensus as to the medical ethics of adolescent gender dysphoria treatment.” The plaintiffs challenging the ban were able only to present “low” or “very low” quality evidence in favor of transgender treatments for minors, he wrote. 

“None of these interventions corrects any biological or physical abnormality. Rather, the thought process behind these novel procedures is that even though these adolescents are physically healthy, altering their bodies might reduce distress associated with the mismatch between their bodies and how they perceived their identity,” Carter wrote. 

Carter went on to write that “credible evidence” shows that most children with gender dysphoria —  a persistent feeling of identification with another sex and discomfort with one’s biological sex — grow out of the condition. 

In addition, many patients who seek transgender interventions have “serious mental health comorbidities,” many of which remain unaddressed and untreated. 

None of the commonly-used drugs in transgender interventions are FDA-approved to treat gender dysphoria, he noted, but their use, especially for young girls, has markedly increased in recent years. According to evidence cited by the judge, the prevalence of gender dysphoria among 15-year-olds increased by a factor of 20 between 2017 and 2021, to around 340 per 100,000 people. 

Also mentioned was the fact that in addition to “more than half” of U.S. states, other highly developed nations such as Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands have begun in recent years to restrict the use of puberty blockers for minors, citing insufficient evidence of their efficacy outweighed by evidence of harm. 

Finland and Sweden further reserve transgender surgery for adults.

The judge also pointed to a 400-page study out of the U.K. known as the Cass Review which found “remarkably weak evidence” in favor of transgender interventions for minors as a means of treating the mental health condition of gender dysphoria. 

That study prompted the U.K. National Health Service (NHS) earlier this year to end the practice of prescribing puberty blockers to children to facilitate a gender transition, a decision that was later upheld in U.K. courts. 

The ruling this week goes on to cite the “unrebutted,” “credible” testimony of Jamie Reed, a former employee at a major Missouri transgender center who in a Feb. 2023 sworn statement said she witnessed doctors prescribing puberty-blocking drugs to minors without parental consent and, in her view, “permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.”

In addition, Reed claimed her former clinic “regularly refers minors for gender transition surgery” and performed at least one double mastectomy on a minor at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. 

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey initiated an investigation into the hospital’s practices based on Reed’s allegations. He later led a seven-state-coalition in suing the Biden administration over a rule that would force doctors to provide sex-change procedures and require health insurers to cover them. 

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley also announced an investigation into the clinic’s practices after the allegations surfaced.

In a two-year period from 2020 to 2022, the clinic “initiated medical transition for more than 600 children. About 74% of these children were assigned female at birth,” Reed, who describes herself as a “queer woman” who is married to a formerly transgender person, wrote in her sworn statement.

Also testifying in the present case and cited as a credible witness by Carter was Chloe Cole, a young woman from California who in 2022 sued the doctors who performed transgender procedures on her, including a double mastectomy, beginning when she was 12 years old. 

Cole testified about the regret she carries for allowing doctors to remove her breasts, saying she wants to have children and will never be able to breastfeed them. 

In the end, Carter ruled that the plaintiffs’ arguments against Missouri’s law “simply [fail]” and noted that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a similar law in Indiana. 

Lambda Legal has vowed to appeal the ruling. 

After the law’s Aug. 2023 implementation, Washington University in St. Louis became the second major hospital in Missouri to shut down the practice of gender transition for minors following University of Missouri Health Care, based in Columbia. 

MU Health Care cited “significant legal liability for prescribing or administering cross-sex hormones or puberty-blockings drugs to existing minor patients.”

In 2023 there were more than 275,000 child pornography websites on the Internet, with approximately 11,000 photos generated by AI in just one month. / Credit: Kelly Sikkema / Unsplash

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 27, 2024 / 16:20 pm (CNA).

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a petition to the U.S. Supreme Court calling on the justices to uphold a state law that requires porn websites to verify the age of their users. 

According to a Nov. 26 press release, Paxton has filed a brief with SCOTUS asking that it uphold House Bill 1181, a Texas law that requires online pornography companies to implement “reasonable age verification measures to safeguard children from obscene online material.” 

“Let me put this simply: these companies do not have a right to expose children to pornography,” Paxton stated in the release. “Texas has a clear interest in protecting children, and we have been successful defending this commonsense age verification law against a powerful global industry.”  

Without age verification, Paxton’s brief points out, widespread availability of smartphones and other devices gives children “instantaneous access to unlimited amounts of hardcore pornography—including graphic depictions of rape, strangulation, bestiality, and necrophilia.”

“Like ‘doomscrolling’ on social media, online pornographers use sophisticated algorithms to keep adults who have greater maturity than children on their sites,” the brief states, describing widespread child access to pornographic content as a “public health crisis.’” 

The brief cites multiple studies which have found childhood exposure to pornography has led to increased likelihoods of mental illnesses such as anxiety, depression, and body dysmorphia, as well as increased chances of using tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. 

Children who are exposed to pornography were also found to be at an increased risk of “behavioral problems.” Critics have pointed out that much of the content that pervades pornographic websites contains sexual violence, including involving minors.

The document also points out that age verification measures have become a widespread practice for a variety of online services such as gambling or tobacco purchasing, and do not pose a demonstrable threat to constitutional rights. 

Countries around the world such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom currently require online porn sites to use age verification measures. 

Porn industry has challenged laws

When HB 1181 first passed in 2023, several online pornography companies, including Pornhub, filed a lawsuit alleging the mandate violated their First Amendment rights.

After lower courts ruled that the law did not violate the First Amendment, the companies appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. Earlier this year, SCOTUS denied a request by the Free Speech Coalition, which includes a porn trade association and several pornography creators, to issue a stay on the law during legal proceedings. 

Paxton has been aggressive in his efforts to enforce the law, filing multiple lawsuits against porngraphy companies as litigation continues. 

Texas currently issues fines of up to $10,000 per day that a company fails to comply with age verification requirements, an additional $10,000 per day “if the corporation illegally retains identifying information,” and $250,000 if a child is found to have been exposed to pornographic content due to lack of age verification. 

“Several of these companies, when faced with a choice between protecting children from pornography and complying with Texas law, have stopped doing business in Texas,” Paxton noted. Pornhub made headlines in March of this year after it opted to disable its website in the state instead of adopting age verification practices.

 “Good riddance,” Paxton added. 

Amicus briefs submitted in support of Paxton’s efforts include a coalition of two dozen state attorneys general, 60 lawmakers from 15 states, and over 20 U.S. congressmen and senators, as well as health organizations such as the Foundation for Addiction Research

“Texas has a right to protect its children from the detrimental effects of pornographic content,” Paxton said. “As new technology makes harmful content more accessible than ever, we must make every effort to defend those who are most vulnerable.”

Texas is currently slated to argue its case before the nation’s highest court on Jan. 15.

null / kristina sohappy via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 27, 2024 / 15:15 pm (CNA).

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Catholic, signed legislation on Wednesday that prevents males from entering women’s and girls’ locker rooms, showers, and bathrooms in the state’s public and private K-12 schools and colleges. 

The new law requires that schools and colleges separate gender-specific facilities on the basis of biological sex, rather than self-asserted gender identity. This prevents men and boys from using facilities that are designated for only women and girls and vice versa, even if the person identifies as transgender. 

“This landmark legislation reflects the will of Ohio voters who demanded bold, common-sense action to protect privacy and safety in school restrooms and other shared spaces,” read a statement issued by the Ohio Republican Party and posted on X. 

“This is more than just a law — it’s a fulfillment of Ohio’s mandate to prioritize the dignity and safety of young women,” the statement added. 

Under the new law, schools cannot establish facilities that are “nongendered” or “open to all genders,” but schools can create “family facilities.” 

The legislation includes exceptions for young children who need assistance from a parent or guardian. It also includes an exception for people with disabilities who need assistance.

Per the legislation, schools also cannot permit boys and girls to share overnight accommodations, regardless of whether one of them self-identifies as transgender.

The language was included in a bill that amends a college credit program.

Alliance Defending Freedom Legal Counsel Sara Beth Nolan praised DeWine for signing the legislation. 

“States have a duty to protect the privacy, safety, and dignity of women and young girls,” Nolan said.

“Yet certain advocacy organizations — and the Biden-Harris administration through its Title IX rule change — are demanding that states devalue women by eliminating longstanding, distinct private spaces for males and females,” Nolan continued. “Allowing males into women and girls’ locker rooms and bathrooms is an invasion of privacy and can even be a threat to their safety.”

The Biden-Harris Department of Education revised Title IX regulations in April to reinterpret the law’s prohibition on “sex” discrimination to include a prohibition on discriminating against a person based on his or her self-asserted gender identity.

The rule change was blocked by courts in more than half of the country after state attorneys general sued the department out of concern that it would overrule state laws restricting athletic competitions, locker rooms, and bathrooms on the basis of biological sex.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio criticized DeWine for signing the bill into law.

“We will always have the backs of our trans community,” the ACLU statement on X said. “Every Ohioan deserves the freedom to be loved, to be safe, to be trusted with decisions about healthcare and to access the facilities that align with their gender identity,” the statement continued.

In January, DeWine vetoed legislation to prohibit doctors from providing minors with transgender drugs and surgeries, but Republican lawmakers voted to override his veto and the law went into effect earlier this year. The American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to prevent the law from going into effect, but has appealed the loss.

The suspect faces life imprisonment for these crimes. / Credit: Pixabay

ACI Prensa Staff, Nov 27, 2024 / 14:39 pm (CNA).

Spain's National Police have arrested one of Europe's Most Wanted fugitives, a man accused of murdering a Catholic priest and injuring a nun 33 years ago in Hungary.

Nine-year-old Alex Espinosa has been very intentional in his devotion to the first millennial saint. / Credit: María Hermida/Amigos de Carlo Acutis

Puebla, Mexico, Nov 27, 2024 / 06:30 am (CNA).

The life of Carlo Acutis, who is slated to be canonized next year as the first millennial saint, inspires people around the world. Among them is 9-year-old Alex Espinosa.

A sign hangs above a Planned Parenthood clinic on May 18, 2018, in Chicago, Illinois. / Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

CNA Staff, Nov 27, 2024 / 05:30 am (CNA).

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

Lawmakers ask for investigation into abortion funding

More than 100 members of Congress asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the amount of federal funding given to abortion providers nationally and internationally over the past three years, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates.  

One hundred and twelve members of Congress signed the Nov. 22 letter spearheaded by House Pro-Life Caucus Co-Chair Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL), and Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY). Eighty-one House members and 31 Senators signed the letter, including top leaders such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), and incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD).

A 2023 GAO report found that from 2019-2021, the U.S .government provided $1.89 billion in federal funding to abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood Federation of America and MSI Reproductive Choices. 

Republican congressmen seek to stop expansion of IVF for military 

Two Republican representatives urged the House and Senate Armed Services committees to not expand health insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization (IVF) for military personnel, citing high costs and ethical concerns.

In a Nov. 21 letter, Reps. Matt Rosendale (MT) and Josh Brecheen (OK) asked committee leaders in both chambers to not include provisions that expand access to the method of fertility treatment that involves artificially creating many embryos, most of which are never born.

In the letter, Rosendale and Brecheen noted, “There are no limits under current law on how many embryos can be created in an IVF cycle.” The two said that the Centers for Disease Control could not provide “basic information” such as how many embryos are screened for sex selection or genetic abnormalities, or how many embryos are destroyed each year.

The representatives noted that in 2021 there were “4.1 million embryonic children created through IVF, but only 97,128 of those children were born,” meaning only 2.3% of embryonic children are ever born, according to numbers from the CDC and the Family Research Council.  The representatives called on Congress to “protect the most vulnerable and reject any provision that leads to the destruction of innocent human life.” 

When it comes to IVF, lawmakers hold opposing views. Proponents tout the technology as pro-family, while opponents point to the loss of unborn life that is an inherent part of the process. Rosendale, a Catholic who is retiring from Congress, shares these latter, moral and ethical concerns. 

The Catholic Church teaches that IVF is not a moral method of fertility treatment because it separates conception from the marital act and because multiple embryos are created only to be discarded. 

Texas bill could reclassify abortion pills as controlled substances

A bill has been introduced in the Texas legislature to reclassify abortion pills as Schedule IV substances, meaning the drugs would be considered controlled substances. The drugs are used in abortions, as well as for miscarriage care and other uses. The first pill in the regimen, mifepristone, deprives the unborn child of necessary nutrients, while the second pill, misoprostol, induces the delivery of the deceased child. 

Pat Curry, Republican from Waco, filed HB 1339 Nov. 14. If passed, the bill would take effect Sept. 1, 2025. It would also designate the muscle relaxant carisoprodol as a controlled substance, in addition to the two abortion drugs. The Texas Controlled Substance Act dictates that possession of a fraudulent prescription is punishable by a fine of up to $2,000 or 180 days in jail. 

The measure follows the state of Louisiana's abortion pill reclassification earlier this year.

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, with a capacity of 6,000 in its upper church, was standing room only for the National Prayer Vigil for Life in 2024. / Credit: Photo by Joe Bukuras/CNA

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 27, 2024 / 05:00 am (CNA).

The U.S. bishops are calling on faithful Catholics across the country to join them in person or virtually at their National Prayer Vigil for Life in Washington D.C., which takes place every year on the eve of the March for Life. 

Co-hosted by the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops (USCCB), The Catholic University of America’s Office of Campus Ministry, and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., the vigil will take place from the evening of Thursday, Jan. 23 to the morning of Friday, Jan. 24, 2025. 

“I enthusiastically invite Catholics from all around the country to join me in-person or virtually, in praying for an end to abortion and building up a culture of life,” stated Bishop Daniel E. Thomas of Toledo, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Pro-Life Activities, in a press release. 

“Together, we must pray to change hearts and build a culture of life as we advocate for the most vulnerable. I look forward to opening our Vigil with Holy Mass together with many other bishops, hundreds of priests, consecrated religious, seminarians, and many thousands of pilgrims,” he added. 

The event will kick off with an opening Mass celebrated by Bishop Thomas in the main sanctuary at the Basilica of the National Shrine on Thursday evening. Mass will be followed by a Eucharistic procession and Holy Hour, which will include a Rosary and the Benediction. 

The vigil will conclude on Friday morning before the March for Life with an 8 a.m. Mass celebrated by Bishop Robert Brennan of Brooklyn. 

U.S. Catholics may participate in the vigil via livestream on the Basilica’s website, or view EWTN’s live television broadcasts on Thursday from 5-8 p.m. and Friday from 8-9 a.m.

Full schedule: 

Thursday, January 23:

4:45 p.m.      Chaplet of Divine Mercy

5:00 p.m.    Opening Mass with Bishop Thomas

7:00 p.m.    Holy Hour for Life

Friday, January 24:

8:00 a.m.    Closing Mass with Bishop Brennan

The March for Life will begin with a pre-rally at 11 a.m. on Friday, Jan. 24. Professional surfer and EveryLife founder Bethany Hamilton will be the keynote speaker at this year’s event, for which the theme is “Every Life: Why We March.”

WASHINGTON – News of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was received with “profound hope” by Bishop A. Elias Zaidan of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace.

“It is in a spirit of profound hope that I welcome news that, after more than a year of fighting and thousands of deaths, a ceasefire has been agreed upon by Israel and Hezbollah, beginning today, Wednesday, November 27. I am grateful for the crucial, peacebuilding role that the United States has played in this development in Lebanon and Israel. As we rejoice in this opportunity for peace to take root, I urge all parties, as well as the broader international community, to remain vigilant and to continue working toward the consolidation of peace in the region through the disarmament of Hezbollah and the full implementation of the UN resolutions concerning Lebanon; this will lead to Lebanon regaining its full sovereignty and independence.

“I pray that this ceasefire proves to be a beacon of real hope, and that it inspires greater ambitions for a lasting peace in the Middle East on all fronts, especially in the dire situation in Gaza. I join in solidarity with Pope Francis, who, in October, called for a ceasefire, saying: ‘Let us pursue the paths of diplomacy and dialogue to achieve peace.’”

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St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin, Germany. / Cedric BLN via Wikimedia (Public domain).

CNA Deutsch, Nov 25, 2024 / 12:01 pm (CNA).

The Archdiocese of Berlin celebrated the reopening of St. Hedwig's Cathedral on Sunday after more than six years of renovation work.

A groom flashes a peace sign at wedding-goers while processing out of St. Mary’s Church in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, after having his marriage sacramentally blessed at the Marriage Mass on Oct. 19, 2024. / Credit: Nicholas Elbers/The B.C. Catholic

Vancouver, Canada, Nov 23, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

In total 121 couples had their marriages convalidated this year in the Archdiocese of Vancouver, an increase from last year's 42.