32 Things That Caught My Eye Today

1. Canadian doctors encouraged to bring up medically assisted death before their patients do

A guidance document produced by Canada’s providers of medically assisted death states that doctors have a professional obligation to bring up MAID

2. Benjamin Weinthal: Christianity Criminalized in Iran

A shocking new report from the British government details that the violent persecution of the Christian minority population continues unabated in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“Simply being a Christian is enough to get you arrested” in the Muslim-majority country, noted the United Kingdom’s study on Christians and Christian converts in Iran. The report said that “many arrests reportedly took place during police raids on religious gatherings” and that “Christians, particularly evangelicals and converts from Islam, continued to experience disproportionate levels of arrest and detention.”

Late last month, the United Kingdom published its study detailing the severe mistreatment of Iranian Christians, who compose between 500,000 and 800,000 people of an estimated total population of 86.7 million in 2022. The number of Iranian Christians may exceed 1 million, based on other estimates, noted the study.

According to the report, 99.6% of Iran’s population identifies as Muslim, with Iran classifying Twelver Ja’afari Shia Islam as its state religion.

3. Nigerian bishop addresses the evils of Islamist extremism at interfaith summit

Before a gathering of religious leaders in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority country, a Catholic bishop from Nigeria gave an account of how his country had become a “cauldron of violence” at the hands of Islamist extremists.

Addressing the G20 Religion Forum in Bali on Nov. 3 in advance of the Group of 20’s meeting later this month, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah testified to the violence committed against both Christians and Muslims caught in intra-sectarian warfare.

“Every day, news of abductions, armed robberies, kidnappings for ransom, murders, and assassinations of our innocent citizens persists. Our sacred spaces have become killing grounds,” the bishop said. “Hundreds of worshippers have been murdered in mosques and churches across the country.

According to a report by the nongovernmental organization Open Doors, 4,650 Christians were killed in Nigeria in 2021— that’s more than the number killed in all of the other countries in the world combined.

4. Iraqi archbishop calls for courageous dialogue among religions, end to violent persecution

The archbishop warned: “We live in a tipping point of history, one in which an aggressive secularism seeks to drive all elements of faith into oblivion, and with it all the basic principles of the sacred nature of life, of family, of our obligation to our Creator.”

5. From Aid to the Church in Need: For the Church in Bulgaria, ‘what was a dream is now a reality’

The Bulgarian Church is a Church of martyrs. Between 1946 and 1990, during communist times, every single priest spent time in prison, properties were confiscated, foreign priests were expelled, and seminaries were shuttered. “I was ordained a priest in 1971. I was the first and only priest in 19 years; it took another five years before the next ordination,” says the Greek Catholic Bishop of Sofia, and chairman of the Bulgarian Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Christo Proykov, in an interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

Slowly but surely, the Catholic Church has recovered. Currently 60 priests, 100 male and female religious, as well as a variety of secular movements operate in the country. “Some of our buildings were returned, and with the help of ACN we managed to repair and build new ones,” says the head of the Byzantine rite Church. “Although there is a generation that has been well educated in the faith, thanks to the parishes and catechists, the young people in general had no religious formation, their parents had not received anything they could pass on,” Bishop Proykov explains.

6. Prayer rally against Michigan abortion amendment going ahead, despite online efforts to stop it

The Diocese of Saginaw, Michigan, is forging ahead with a planned ecumenical prayer rally opposing abortion legislation on the state’s ballot next week despite outside actors sabotaging the event’s online registration system.

The rally, titled “Fight like Heaven” is scheduled for this Sunday, Nov. 6, to “pray for the defeat of Proposal 3.” If passed, Proposal 3 would enshrine abortion rights into the state’s constitution.

The diocese had set up an online registration system for the event to gauge how many people planned to attend to allow the event organizers to adequately prepare the venue.

According to the diocese, a few days ago they realized that many of the registrations were fake and coming from outside of Michigan. This caused the event to “sell out” online, limiting their ability to gauge how many genuinely interested people registered.

The “cyber-attack” came from individuals with IP addresses from cities including Portland, Ore., Boston, Chicago, and New York City, the diocese said in a Nov. 3 statement. Many of the phony registrations were disguised, the statement added, appearing to come from pro-life organizations, though some came from domains associated with abortion clinics.

The diocese has since closed the registration and will not require it for the event. Instead, they will estimate the attendance, a diocese of Saginaw official told Crux.

Bishop Robert Gruss of Saginaw alleged that the sabotage attempt shows that there are people “from outside of our state who want to influence our state constitution through Proposal 3.”

“Just last week, The Detroit News reported that more than $20 million in funding for Proposal 3 came from six people and/or organizations located in New York, California and Washington D.C.,” Gruss said in a Nov. 3 statement.

7. Minnesota bishop expresses outrage over desecration at Catholic cemetery

Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester expressed outrage Nov. 2 over the desecration of several graves and the columbarium at the diocese’s Calvary Cemetery in Rochester “with hateful and obscene graffiti” on Halloween night.

He assured his prayers for families “of those whose final resting places were so dishonored.”

The diocese “will cooperate with police in assuring that those responsible are brought to justice,” he added in a statement issued on All Souls’ Day, when the Catholic Church “honors our beloved dead.”

“Cemetery staff is working diligently to repair the damage and restore the grounds,” Bishop Barron said, and he pledged to bless and reconsecrate “this sacred space” once the staff’s task “is completed.”

“May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace,” Bishop Barron added.

Arson, vandalism and other destruction have taken place at more than 100 Catholic sites across the United States since May 2020.

In October 2021, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty began tracking such incidents, saying: “These incidents of vandalism have ranged from the tragic to the obscene, from the transparent to the inexplicable.”

“There remains much we do not know about this phenomenon, but at a minimum, they underscore that our society is in sore need of God’s grace,” said a joint statement issued by the chairmen of the bishops’ religious liberty and domestic policy committees.

8. New York Times: The New Abortion Landscape

Only one telemedicine service, Aid Access, openly provides pills in states with abortion bans. In the months preceding a leaked draft of the Supreme Court’s decision, Aid Access received an average of about 83 requests a day from people seeking abortion pills in 30 states, new research found. In 27 of those states, abortion is now banned, likely to be banned or allowed only during the first six weeks of pregnancy. For comparison’s sake, the study also included three states where the procedure is still widely available.

Across the 30 states, requests to Aid Access for pills has risen to about 218 a day since the court released its decision at the end of June through September. The largest increases in queries came from states that enacted total abortion bans

9. Politico: FDA says providers offering medication abortion before pregnancy have gone rogue

10. NPR: Meeting abortion patients where they are: providers turn to mobile units

11. Fox News: Pro-life groups urge states to step up support for women after data predicts 60K fewer abortions in next year

Lila Rose, president of the pro-life activist group Live Action, echoed that sentiment, saying: “Live Action and the pro-life movement will not stop until every child is protected and elective abortion is wiped out completely.”

“It is also critical,” Rose said, “for life-affirming policymakers to craft laws that provide for children in need and make America a more welcoming place to raise a family, but the first priority must be to stop the killing.”

12. Charlotte Lozier Institute: Medicaid Data: Lifetime of Risk After Aborting First Pregnancy

Researchers analyzing 17 years of comprehensive Medicaid claims data have discovered that women whose first pregnancy ends in abortion are likely to have more pregnancies, more abortions, and more miscarriages than women whose first pregnancy ends in a live birth.

In a recent CBS News interview, former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards promoted abortion as a benefit to women in pursuing goals, such as “when they want to have their children, does it help them finish education, (or) pursue a career.” Congressman Donald Norcross (D-NJ) wrote earlier this year that women who had abortions “often went on to have a child by choice when they were more financially secure, therefore improving outcomes for the mother and the child.”

Yet according to new, first-of-its-kind research from Charlotte Lozier Institute (CLI), women whose first pregnancy ends in abortion had on average:

53% more miscarriages than women whose first pregnancy resulted in a live birth

35% more pregnancies over their reproductive lifetime

More than four times as many abortions

Only half the number of live births

13.

Imagine the cognitive & moral dissonance that labor & delivery staff experience on a daily basis when they are trying to save a baby in one room and abort a baby in the next. It’s difficult to continue practicing a double standard in medicine based on a baby’s wantedness.

— Dr. John Bruchalski (@JohnBruchalski) November 1, 2022

14. Anthony Esolen: The Problem with ‘Recreational Sex’

Recently, I was lectured by a woman defending the right to have an abortion, because, she said, “some people like to have recreational sex,” and they should not have to worry about pregnancy and childbirth in case the synthetic hormones fail, as they often do.

I thought about that phrase, “recreational sex,” and how weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable it is, this pretense that a man and woman can unite in that unique act, and have it mean no more than if they were strips of Velcro stuck together for an afternoon.

Their bodies are more honest. They prepare themselves in countless ways we are still discovering, to beget and to bear the child that may be the fruit of that union. But in the abstracted minds of the players, there is no child, there shall be no child, there is nothing but “recreation.”

And that is an attempt to strain the act so thin, there is hardly any blood left in it, any real humanity.

It’s nonsense. In fact, many a thing ceases to be what it is as soon as you say it is merely recreational. You can pray at a ballgame or a picnic. You ought to! But though you pray as you are surrounded by good cheer and people relaxing, your prayer itself is not recreational, nor could it be without ceasing to be prayer. If I am playing at prayer, I am not praying.

15. Chris Cillizza for CNN: Did Democrats place a losing bet on abortion?

16.

A PSA for doctors:

When you take a history and I tell you that I have lost six children through miscarriage and have two living children, it is not pleasant to hear:

“…so it all worked out? You’re lucky!”

— Leah Libresco Sargeant (@LeahLibresco) November 4, 2022

17. National Catholic Register: Does Affirming a Student’s Transgender Identity Constitute Mental-Health Counseling?

In a case that could have national implications, answering that question may help determine parents’ lawsuit in Massachusetts against public-school officials over ‘gender transitioning.’

18. Leor Sapir for City Journal: Reason and Compassion on Gender Medicine

Florida adopts the more cautious European model of pediatric care—and exposes American “gender-affirming” advocates as incompetent and dishonest.

19. Nadya Williams on Plough: Writing at Burger King

We can lament books never written by mothers who put children first. But what about children rendered invisible by their parents’ aspirations?

20. Leslie Bienen & Margery Smelkinson for City Journal: Reforms, Not Blame

Commonsense policies can ensure that school closures never happen again.

21. Tal Fortgang for City Journal: Why Kanye West’s Anti-Semitism Matters

They [anti-Semites] are, in all likelihood, tuned into mass popular culture, however. Which is why the scandal of hip-hop and fashion mega-star Kanye West, who recently made a series of bizarre and flagrantly anti-Semitic public comments, deserves some attention. For better or worse, West is better known than, say, Marjorie Taylor Greene or Edward Said. He made his comments on radio shows and podcasts that enjoy big followings but evade outgroup attention, much less analysis. Perhaps his brand of vulgar anti-Semitism can tell us something about what is motivating similarly vulgar—in the sense of being both ugly and common—violence.

22. Russell Shaw: Political Violence Is a Bipartisan Issue

A few days ago, Americans awoke to the news that a man shouting, “Where’s Nancy?” had staged a hammer attack on the 82-year-old husband of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Weeks earlier, a man with a gun had approached the house of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. These and incidents like them point to a terrible question: Has violence become the new normal way for a significant body of people in America to express political and social disagreement?

Without presuming to pronounce a flat yes or no to that, I think it’s fair to say resorting to violence is now disturbingly evident at both ends of the ideological spectrum instead of, as some would have it, only on the far right.

Right-wing extremism is a serious problem. But the extremism of the left is hardly less threatening to important values. Instead of each side blaming only the other, recognizing that the rash of political violence has roots in both camps is a necessary first step toward doing something about it.

23. Michael & Melissa Wear: How Christians Should Think About Voting

Politics is causing spiritual harm in this country.

One of the ways it does this is by intentionally placing moral pressure, a moral burden, on citizens that fits the interests of political candidates, parties and activists, but does not fit the nature of politics.

I want to be very clear here, because while it should be self-evident given my background and work, sometimes people misunderstand me when I talk about this. The argument is not that politics is unimportant. The argument is not that we should not feel any moral pressure when we consider civic action. My argument is that nature of the moral burden we are so often made to feel, the shape of it, is ill-fitting. It is a burden shaped and cast down in a way that is manipulative. A way that is coercive.

24. Leonard Sax: Should Boys Start Kindergarten One Year Later Than Girls?

25. John F. Doherty on Public Discourse: The Importance of Morality to University Life

Reason cannot become right reason unless the will is in love with the Truth; intellectual formation requires moral formation. And yet, as my previous essay argued, the university—the teacher of the intellect—cannot impart moral principle of itself. Moral communities, therefore, naturally complement the university’s work. But still more beneficial to the university is the moral witness of each person.

26. Adam M. Carrington on Law & Liberty: Friendship Crisis in America

The growing friendlessness in American society is a contemporary tragedy for individuals. Yet it proves a political one as well. Our public policy must facilitate and promote friendship both at the level of citizen and in private relationships.

At the private level, this entails a robust re-founding of community. We must encourage the civil associations that Tocqueville celebrated in Americans of the 1830s. Cultivating the mediating “little platoons” found in gatherings of religious groups, book clubs, and hunting associations all can do much good on this project. They can help articulate meaning, worth, and dignity for the individuals involved. Perhaps the way our tax code aids charitable organizations can be expanded to other forms of association, giving a financial incentive to start organizations that will facilitate common bonds.

At the political level, we must rebuild small towns and neighborhoods. They must become hubs of political activity so citizens can see, talk to, and develop relationships with each other. The internet presents a barrier to this needed change. We measure our community too much by the number of Twitter likes and Facebook “friends,” creating for ourselves a desert of true companionship. Instead, we should move away from our keyboards and toward cultivating real interactions with real human beings. Reinvigorating federalism would move us in this direction as well, as we find more concrete ways to exercise citizenship and the bonds it entails locally.

Finally, we must work to aid the quality of friendships. Can our education system move away from its focus on creating workers and cultivating humans and citizens? It should do so not only because true education seeks to elevate the soul, not just give skills for employment. That emphasis also would form more lasting, healthier grounds for friendship. Such friendships would help us to know ourselves and others in light of what is good, true, and beautiful.

27.

Sunday mass at Geghard Monastery, built in the 4th century by St Gregory the Illuminator and famous for its sacred spring, is literally carved into a mountain. One of the most beautiful churches I've ever seen

They're singing the "Song of Repentance" pic.twitter.com/RpI9nDkpi9

— Robert Nicholson (@rwnicholson_) October 30, 2022

28. Faith Bottum in the Wall Street Journal: Living Among the Dead in Manhattan

There’s a temptation to think about life only through the lens of the present and future. But “the presence of the dead is very palpable, and a graveyard is the material expression of that sociality or that communion,” insists Rabbi Gottlieb. The result is that cemeteries have an important effect on urban life. In all the city’s bustle, the cemeteries are there: a quiet presence that demands reflection. “When the graveyard is in the middle of the city, you can keep whistling” past it, says Rev. Gerald Murray, pastor of Holy Family Catholic Church on 47th St. “But one day the whistling is going to stop. It’s good to have that visual impact of a graveyard. It humanizes the city in a way that little else can do.”

29. Fr. Peter John Cameron: Surrendering to Resurrection

30. Theology of Home: Nativity Christmas Ornament

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