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Washington D.C., Apr 13, 2017 / 02:03 pm (CNA).- Pro-life leaders applauded President Donald Trump for signing a repeal of what they called President Obama’s “parting gift to the abortion industry.”

“Today we thank President Donald Trump for restoring states' freedom to direct taxpayer dollars away from abortion providers in favor of supporting community health centers that deliver comprehensive women’s care, and already outnumber abortion providers 20 to 1,” Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, said Thursday.

In December, President Barack Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule that states could not deny federal funds to health clinics simply on the grounds that they provided abortions.

The funding program, Title X, consists of “family planning” grants for services like contraception, pregnancy testing, and infertility treatments.

Those federal grants, dispersed by the states, had to go to clinics that provided the “family planning” services, HHS said, and could not be denied to any clinic that provided those services.

Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.) introduced H.J. Res. 43 to the U.S. House of Representatives, which nullified the HHS rule. The measure passed the House easily and then passed the Senate, with Vice President Mike Pence as the tie-breaking vote.

President Trump signed the resolution into law April 13.

Susan B. Anthony List thanked Rep. Black and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), saying they “led this effort in Congress.” When the measure was introduced, Rep. Black had said that her state of Tennessee had tried to stop giving Title X grants to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers in order to redirect those grants to other health providers.

The HHS had explained that the rule was created in reaction to states that tried to stop funding abortion providers.

Susan B. Anthony List president Marjorie Dannenfelser added that “prioritizing funding away from Planned Parenthood to comprehensive health care alternatives is a winning issue.”

She pushed for Congress to take up more legislation to strip Planned Parenthood and abortion providers of other federal funds like Medicaid reimbursements. She said they should “redirect” federal funds to other health providers that do not perform abortions.

“The resolution signed today simply ensures that states are not forced to fund an abortion business with taxpayer dollars,” Dannenfelser said ahead of the signing of the bill.

“Rather, states have the option to spend Title X money on comprehensive health care clinics that better serve women and girls,” she said.

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Vatican City, Apr 13, 2017 / 03:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Early Easter greetings and birthday wishes were the reason for Pope Francis’ visit with Pope emeritus Benedict XVI on Wednesday.

Following his annual custom, Francis visited his predecessor at Vatican City’s Mater Ecclesiae monastery on April 12 to extend his greetings ahead of Easter Sunday. The Vatican Press Office said the visit had “a double celebratory character” given that Benedict XVI’s 90th birthday, April 16, falls on Easter this year.

Benedict XVI sends birthday greetings to Pope Francis every Dec. 17. Last December, on Pope Francis’ 80th birthday, the Pope emeritus sent a “very affectionate” written message that was “particularly appreciated” by the current pontiff, the Holy See press office said.

That December day, the Pope emeritus also sent three small gifts and made a personal phone call to his successor.

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Miao, India, Apr 13, 2017 / 05:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the Diocese of Miao, located in India's northeasternmost state of Arunachal Pradesh, Bishop George Pallipparambil does not stay quietly in his cathedral for Holy Week, but rather holds services across the diocese in an effort to better serve his people.

“What we're trying to do is to reach to as many places as possible. I'm not confining myself to the main church in Miao,” the bishop told CNA in a 2015 interview. “I'll be there only for the Easter Sunday Mass.”

“I finished today in one place, tomorrow I'll be in a big community called Khonsa, and for Good Friday I'll be in another district headquarters. For the [Easter] Vigil I'll be in another place, and then for Sunday Mass I'll be in Miao.”

The Miao diocese covers a vast area of nearly 17,000 square miles, and it is home to the easternmost portions of the Himalayas.

The terrain ranges “from the very low plains to the high snow-covered Himalayan peaks,” Bishop Pallipparambil explained. “Some of the biggest rivers in the world are in this region, coming down from the Himalayas flowing down to the plains.”

Mountainous terrain coupled with a lack of infrastructure explains why the diocese held its Chrism Mass entirely outside of Holy Week, that year on March 26.

The Chrism Mass is traditionally said on the morning of Holy Thursday, and it gathers all the priests of a diocese together with their bishop to emphasize their common ministry. The bishop blesses three kinds of oil – chrism, oil of the catechumens, and oil of the sick – which are distributed to the priests and used in sacramental anointings throughout the following year.

However, the Diocese of Miao has had to change this practice to adapt to its needs. The diocese was established in 2005, and Bishop Pallipparambil is its first ordinary.

“The first year we had [Chrism Mass] on Tuesday of Holy Week, and we found many of the priests could not reach back to their own places for Holy Thursday,” he explained. “So, we started in the last eight years to have the Chrism Mass in the previous week.”

Bishop Pallipparambil himself is sometimes beset by travel difficulties: in 2015, heavy rains had made the road to Kulagaon village extremely muddy, and on his way to Holy Week services there, he had to get out and push his jeep along with passersby.

Another adaptation: the Chrism Mass was not held in the cathedral at Miao, but rather in Minthong parish in the Longding district.

“It is one of the decisions we made when the diocese was created,” Bishop Pallipparambil said.

He explained that “having the Chrism Mass in the cathedral, at least for me, didn't make sense,” because each year, the same people would attend and carry the holy oils back to the distant villages and parishes, where the local people “just don't know what it is.”

“(W)hereas if the Chrism Mass is held in their place, they come to know because it is always done in their language, and so they know what it is. And when it's time to have an anointing, whether it be for baptism or confirmation or another occasion, they know the sacredness of this oil.”

He added that “it brings all the priests and religious to pray together with the people the whole day before the Mass, so that also has a positive catechetical influence.”

That year, the Chrism Mass was the occasion for Bishop Pallipparambil to present the first translation of the entire New Testament into the Wancho language.

At the bishop's request, Father TJ Francis spent three years working with Wancho leaders in preparing the translation, which will serve the 60,000 Wancho people who live in the Longding and Tirap districts.

Fr. Francis' work “must inspire many of us to take up a similar responsibility to translate the Message of the Gospel to the language of the people we serve,” Bishop Pallipparambil said at the Mass. The Miao diocese is home to more than 100 distinct tribes, many of which have their own language.

Bishop Pallipparambil told CNA that the Wancho, of whom 95 percent are Christian, now have printed in their own language only the Bible and a few prayer and hymn books.

As the language had no written form, it also lacked its own script, the bishop noted, and Fr. Francis wrote the works with Latin letters. The priest has also produced a Wancho grammar.

Despite lacking access to written Scripture until now, many of the Wancho have converted “just by hearing and seeing” the Gospel.

“Some of their children in the '80s and '90s travelled outside their area and attended Christian schools, and when they got knowledge of Christianity they helped by teaching Bible in their own language,” he explained. The diocese also hold four to five-day Bible camps in which biblical stories and the catechism are explained.

Asked if the diocese hopes that the Old Testament will now be translated into Wancho, Bishop Pallipparambil affirmed “yes, we want to do it by all means at the earliest.”

 

This article was originally published on CNA April 3, 2015.
 

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By Carol Zimmermann

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- When the U.S. Supreme Court looks at a Lutheran preschool playground case April 19, it will go far beyond settling a schoolyard squabble and step into religious liberty turf.

At issue in Trinity Lutheran v. Comer is if the state of Missouri can exclude houses of worship in a playground refurbishment grant program using tire scraps.

The Lutheran church says its exclusion from the program violates the Constitution because it discriminates against religious institutions. The state disagrees, saying the church can still worship and operate but just won't get state funds for its resurfaced playground.

In 2015, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the state's decision to deny the preschool's grant application.

A full bench will hear oral arguments in this case, since Justice Neil Gorsuch is now filling the seat left vacant by Justice Antonin Scalia's death last year. They will likely hear both sides argue different interpretations of the court's 2004 decision in Locke v. Davey, which said that states do not have to provide tax-funded scholarships to college students who are pursuing careers in ministry.

The church said the reimbursement grant had nothing to do with religion, like the scholarship did, while opponents insist the state should not be providing any financial support to religious institutions.

At a Supreme Court briefing last fall before the court's session began, C. Kevin Marshall, a partner with the Washington law firm Jones Day, said how the court responds to the playground case will have a broad effect.

He said the case raises religious liberty questions but is "less contentious" than last term's Zubik v. Burwell, which challenged the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive requirement for employers.

"We can get to basics here," he said.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops filed an amicus brief supporting the preschool April 21, 2016, joined by the Missouri Catholic Conference, the National Catholic Educational Association, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the General Synod of the Reformed Church in America and the Salvation Army.

The brief argues that the only reason the school was excluded from the state grant program is because it is operated by a church.

"Missouri's overt discrimination against Trinity Lutheran purely because of its religious status is repugnant to the First Amendment," the brief said, adding that the state lacked any legitimate or compelling reason to exclude the school from the program.

The brief also said the United States has had "a long and venerable tradition of including religious institutions in neutral public aid programs" and said the state's action sends the message that "religious people and their institutions are second-class citizens ... not entitled to participate on equal terms in government programs."

It said the government does not exclude religious institutions from basic public services like police and fire protection.

The dispute over the playground surface started five years ago when the school applied for a grant reimbursing nonprofit groups for the cost of purchasing and installing playground surfaces using recycled tires. The program is funded from a fee on the sales of new tires meant to reduce the number of tires in the state's landfills and provide safe playground surfaces.

Missouri's Department of Natural Resources, which administers the playground resurfacing program, ranked Trinity Lutheran's grant application fifth out of the 44 it received. The department, which funds 14 grants, denied Trinity Lutheran's application because the state constitution prohibits state funds from going "directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion."

For Trinity Lutheran, the bigger issue is the school's constitutional right to freely exercise religion. Its supporters argue that to go against this right, the state would have to show a compelling interest.

They said the state failed to do this because the criteria used to determine which schools receive the grants and even the grants themselves have nothing to do with religion.

The state has rejected these arguments stressing that the playground program has a limited availability and the reimbursement funds were not generally available to the public since only a handful of all applicants were accepted.

Scotusblog, a blog on the Supreme Court, says supporters on both sides "predict that dire consequences will flow from a ruling for the other side," noting that amicus briefs backing the church argue that if the lower court's ruling and the program are upheld, "everything from school vouchers and fire and safety protection for private religious schools to social services -- such as battered women's shelters and soup kitchens -- provided by faith-based organizations that receive public funds could be in jeopardy."

Those siding with the state say a ruling favoring the Lutheran church could prevent the government from treating churches differently which "could result in taxpayer funds going to groups that discriminate based on sexual orientation or religion."

The case has been sitting before the court for some time. It was granted a review last Jan. 15, nearly one month before Scalia's death.

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Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim.

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