News - Editorials RSS Feed

In addition to the hundreds of thousands from around the country who will trek to Washington, D.C., for the annual March for Life, on Jan. 24, thousands will attend similar events in major cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, Denver and here in New Jersey in Trenton. Before the March for Life in Los Angeles, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels will host a requiem Mass for the millions of unborn who have been aborted since Roe vs. Wade in 1973.

A federal rule change once again allows faith-based adoption agencies to receive federal funding without being required to place children with same-sex couples. Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a religious freedom legal group, welcomed the move.

Earlier last year, legislators in Kentucky passed “The Ultra­sound Informed Consent Act.” It requires abortion doctors to present and describe an ultrasound image of an unborn child to a mother seeking an abortion, along with having to play audio of the baby’s heartbeat. Then-Gov. Matt Bevin (R) signed the bill into law.

Another new year is less than a week away. For most of us these last few days of the year are times when we reflect on what we accomplished (or not) in 2019 and what positive changes we would like to make in our lives in 2020. We look at Jan. 1, 2020 as a new beginning and as a time for a fresh start in our lives. However, when we look back on the year that is in our rear-view mirror, we find that some problems we vowed to fix in 2019 still remain with us.

Christmas is less than a week away. With celebration of the Birth of Our Savior so close, it is important that Catholics and all Christians take time out from our hectic holiday planning and focus on the real reason for the season. It is amazing how society has secularized the great feast of Jesus Christ’s birth.

Before the Vatican held its annual Christmas tree lighting Dec. 5, Pope Francis expressed hope that the Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square will be a reminder to all of what Christmas is truly about. A Nativity scene “is a genuine way of communicating the Gospel, in a world that sometimes seems to be afraid of remembering what Christmas really is, and blots out the Christian signs to only keep those of a banal, commercial imagination,” Pope Francis said.

Readers of The Beacon know well the good work that is being done on a daily basis for those in need in Passaic, Morris and Sussex counties by the agencies of Catholic Chari­ties in the Diocese of Paterson. During Advent, the needs of the poor take on even more prominence as our neighbors ask for a helping hand to brighten their Christmas celebration.

One year ahead of the 2020 national elections, no matter what side of the political spectrum one identifies with, it is safe to say civility is not the calling card for either one of our major political parties and their supporters. No matter what the issue, those running for office at any level spend more time tearing down their opponent than building up the community they are trying to be elected to serve.

Pro-lifers are often criticized by those who support abortion for focusing on the child in the womb and not on the children who have been born and need our help. But that criticism falls flat on its face when statistics are viewed that show the sheer number of pro-lifers who are dedicating their lives to working in foster care, adoption and similar social service agencies solely to assist vulnerable children.

The grisly discovery of the remains of more than 2,200 aborted children inside the Illinois home of deceased abortionist Dr. Ulrich George Klopfer was a nationwide wake-up call to a problem that’s sadly not an isolated incident: the remains of aborted children being treated with irreverence and disrespect.

With Election Day 2019 in the rearview mirror, all eyes are now intensely focused on the presidential election in 2020. And with every candidate for president in the Democrat Party in lock step with the party’s platform that supports abortion on demand at any time during a pregnancy, the stage has been set for the inevitable clash between politics and faith on this issue.

It was heartening to see the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) and the National Catholic Bio­ethics Center (NCBC), whose Director of Educa­tion, Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, is a regular columnist in The Beacon, respond to a misleading statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and Physicians for Reproductive Health that abortion can be medically necessary when some issues occur during pregnancies. Its problematic statement read: “There are situations where pregnancy termination in the form of an abortion is the only medical intervention that can preserve a patient’s health or save their life.” The CMA and NCBC were quick to point out the fallacies in this statement stating that they each recognize the obligation to treat both patients, the mother and the unborn child, when a life-threatening pathological situation arises during pregnancy.

The canonization of St. John Henry Newman Oct. 13 in Rome during Respect Life Month had an amazing tie-in to one of the miracles attributed to him that led to his sainthood. Melissa Villalobos first heard about Cardinal John Henry Newman, on a show about him on EWTN “just by accident” in 2000, while she was getting ready for work. “I was really taken by it and I thought, ‘This man is so amazing,’” she told Catholic News Agency.

The Evangelium Vitae Medal is given by the University of Notre Dame to champions of the pro-life movement. The announcement Oct. 6 during Respect Life Month that the recipient of this cherished award would be Vicki Thorn, founder of Project Rachel and executive director of the National Office of Post-Abortion Reconciliation and Healing, is deserving of applause from the entire pro-life movement.

Just as the month of October dawned and the Church’s celebration of Respect Life Month began disturbing events showing the absolute lack of respect for life surfaced in the news. In Mexico, amid a dem­on­stration urging the legalization of abortion, activists tried to set fire to the Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral. In response to the arson attempt, Catholics gathered before the front doors of the cathedral to protect it until firefighters got there and acted quickly to prevent the fire from spreading, and police acted to prevent further acts of aggression by the abortion rights activists.

For Catholics, October begins the celebration of Respect Life Month underscoring the Catholic Church’s teaching that every human life is precious and worthy of protection. In our nation, those in the womb are the most in danger because of unrestricted abortion laws in many states, including New Jersey, which fully funds Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Whenever we cast our ballot, we have always been told our vote counts. However, voting in a public poll conducted by “She Built NYC,” a public arts program established to create more statues of women around the city of New York, under the patronage of Chirlane McCray, the wife of New York Mayor Bill De Blasio, was an utter sham.

Over the last few decades, the news media has gone through numerous changes in the way it presents the news. None of us knows how the news media will evolve in future years in disseminating the news, but according to Pope Francis, it will have no future if reporters and the public cannot distinguish between facts and fiction.

Who doesn’t like to go to a concert to hear and see their favorite singers and musicians? Most of us enjoy going to concerts, no matter what our age or taste in music. But when these musicians and singers use their platforms as stars to take a side on a moral issue that results in the killing of an innocent child in the womb, it is time for us to draw a line in the sand and not support them.

The Department of Labor is considering a new rule that would allow federal contractors who identify as religious to hire employees based on faith and religious practice. The new policy would expand an executive order by President Lyndon Johnson protecting the rights of religious employers with federal government contracts to hire from within their religious group.