Twenty-Two Things That Caught My Eye: March for Life Week, Assisted Living, Assisted Suicide & More

1. New York Times: Israel Unearths More of a Subterranean Fortress Under Gaza

Hamas has improved its ability to conceal the tunnels, but the senior official said the Israeli military had figured out one of the group’s operating models. The official called it the “triangle.” Whenever the Israeli military finds a school, a hospital or a mosque, soldiers know they can expect to locate an underground tunnel system beneath them, the official said.

2. Jerusalem Post: Yemen’s Houthis train storming Israeli towns in Hamas-style attack

3. Nicaraguan Dictatorship Releases Bishop Álvarez, Brother Bishop, and Priests

4. March for Life 2024 aims to make abortion ‘unthinkable’ in American culture

“When a woman is facing an unexpected pregnancy, what she most needs to hear is, ‘You can do this. You’ve got this. And I’m going to help you,’” March for Life’s president, Jeanne Mancini, said in November, ahead of the pro-life rally that regularly draws tens of thousands to the nation’s capital each January.

5. Washington Post: Senate to examine walkaway deaths in assisted-living facilities

In response to The Post’s finding that nearly 100 seniors have died over the past five years after leaving facilities unnoticed or being left unattended outside, Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) sent letters Tuesday to the nation’s three largest assisted-living chain owners seeking information about their practices. The Post’s report is the first nationwide accounting of such deaths.

6. Rachel Roth Aldhizer: Disability Requires Protection in the Womb

7. National Post: Cancer treatment delayed, B.C. man opts for medically assisted death

8. Charles Camosy: The pain behind why some turn to surrogacy

Those bearing the pain of infertility as well as those who have used surrogates and are now beginning to question what they have done are among those who are hurting. They need the Church to be a field hospital which emphasizes God’s mercy on the way to speaking the truth in love.

And they need a Church which focuses on other ways faithful Christians can be fruitful. Our spiritual father, St. Joseph, certainly provides a primordial example in his fatherhood of Jesus. (He was a foundational inspiration — and remains an ongoing help — for and with our three adopted children.)

But let’s move even beyond adoption. The Church must do a much better job making space for childless people in the Church, both single and married. Far too often, one of the first questions I hear from Catholics I meet is, “How many children do you have?” Can you imagine how such a question hits for those bearing the pain of infertility?

Having biological children is a wonderful gift to be given by God, and we must continue to make cultural space for these gifts, especially in a culture that is often hostile to children. But let us also make space for the wounded people in the Church bearing the pain of not having been given this gift — and let us do so in ways that make it clear we value the gifts they bring to the table just as much.

9. Becket releases its fifth edition of the Religious Freedom Index

Over two thirds of Americans (67%) believe that parents should be the primary educators of their children and should be able to opt them out of school curriculum if the parents believe the material is inappropriate or violates their religious beliefs. Americans also expressed disagreement over preferred [pronoun] policies in schools. Becket’s findings reveal that most Americans (58%) now disagree with school policies that require students and employees to use a person’s preferred pronouns. This data represents a 12-point swing since 2021, when less than half of Americans disagreed with pronoun mandates and 54% favored them.

The Index also asked about the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), a core piece of religious liberty legislation that turned 30 in 2023. Becket asked Americans about the RFRA standard, which says that the federal government cannot burden religious freedom unless they have a 1) a compelling reason or 2) have chosen the option least restrictive of religious freedom. An overwhelming 88% of Americans favored RFRA or an even stronger standard for religious freedom.

10. Mary Margaret Olohan: Sen. Blackburn Introduces ‘Women’s Right to Know Act’ Requiring Abortionists to Inform Women of Risks

11. Daily Signal: Rubio Memo Lays Out Pro-Life Strategy for GOP

12. Alliance Defending Freedom: District court grants states’ request to hold FDA accountable for removing critical safety standards for women and girls

13. Washington Post: Republicans try to block Biden administration plan to cut money for anti-abortion counseling centers

The rule would prohibit states from sending federal funds earmarked for needy Americans to so-called “crisis pregnancy centers,” which counsel against abortions. At stake are millions of dollars in federal funds that currently flow to the organizations through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program, a block grant program created in 1996 to give cash assistance to poor children and prevent out-of-wedlock pregnancies.

“Programs that only or primarily provide pregnancy counseling to women only after they become pregnant likely do not meet the . . . standard,” the Health and Human Services agency said in its rule proposal released late last year.

14: Eithan Haim: Not on My Watch

A whistleblower on “gender-affirming care” speaks out.

15.  Vatican News: Escalation of war worsens humanitarian crisis in Lebanon

16. The Pillar: Seminarians helped fight Nigerian seminary blaze

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18. Naomi Schaefer Riley: The ‘Stay-at-Home-Girlfriend’ trend is bad for women

Haven’t heard of it? SAHGs are women with no children who keep house and let their boyfriends support them instead of focusing on their careers.

. . .

In many ways the idea is not new, but its popularity provides some important lessons about the state of modern coupling and why the choices women make in this era of feminist enlightenment are often worse than ever before.

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20. Francis X. Maier: On the Character of a Nation

Eulogies are curious things. Too many, too often, are long, rambling, weepy, and meaningful only to the relatively few who liked the deceased enough to show up for the wake or funeral. Death is a drag. It’s also universal and inescapable, which is why we fear it, and avoid even thinking too deeply about it for as long as we can. Yet, on occasion, a eulogy can capture the inner quality of a man, and in doing so, place the character of his nation in the docket for judgment.

Joseph F. Mahoney Jr. died on Christmas Eve. He was a friend. I delivered his eulogy, and I share it here for reasons that will become clear at the end.

21. The Atlantic: Arthur Brooks’s 31 Days to a Better You

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