Ss. Joseph and Cabrini Parish

Parental and religious freedom rights advocates, including a group of Muslim parents, on June 6, 2023, protest a Maryland school system policy that removes parents’ authority to opt their children out of homosexual and transgender coursework. / Credit: The Religious Freedom Institute

Washington D.C., Jun 8, 2023 / 09:30 am (CNA).

A group of Muslim parents joined parental and religious freedom rights advocates Tuesday to protest a Maryland school system’s new policy that removes the parents’ authority to opt their children out of coursework that promotes homosexuality and transgenderism.

The June 6 protest at the Montgomery County public school district’s headquarters was led by a group called Family Rights for Religious Freedom. About 50 parents and activists carried signs that read “family rights” and “restore the opt-out” while chanting slogans such as “protect our children” and “religious freedom now.”

Maryland law requires that school districts allow parents to opt out of coursework that deals with “family life and human sexuality.” However, the school district decided in March that it does not consider reading materials that discuss subjects related to homosexuality, transgenderism, and other aspects of gender ideology to be a part of “family life and human sexuality instruction.” 

For this reason, beginning on May 1, the school district no longer notifies parents of such material in the coursework and will not allow them to opt out.

“We don’t want to be put aside as basically irrelevant,” Wael Elkoshairi, who leads Family Rights for Religious Freedom, told CNA.

The school district has approved several books that discuss subjects related to homosexuality and transgenderism for students as young as 3 or 4 years old. This includes a book called “Pride Puppy!”, which seeks to teach children the alphabet through a story about a homosexual pride parade and introduces them to words like “drag queen,” “leather,” and “zipper.” It also introduces them to Marsha B. Johnson, who was a drag queen, a gay rights activist, and, temporarily, a prostitute. 

Elkoshairi told CNA that he had opted his daughter out of this type of coursework in the past, but the current policy will no longer allow him to do that. His daughter is in second grade.

“We were always afforded the right to opt out,” Elkoshairi said.

Elkoshairi emphasized that the rally was not anti-LGBT and that they did not protest the school district for introducing these books. He said their only request is to “allow us to opt out because the state of Maryland has that provision in it.”

“We’re not anti-LGBT, but we are pro-family rights [and] we are pro-religious freedom,” Elkoshairi added.

Family Rights for Religious Freedom began primarily with Muslim parents, but Elkoshairi said a lot of Christian groups have reached out to them and they are growing their coalition membership.

Lindsey Smith, a member of Moms for Liberty Montgomery County, which also took part in the event, told CNA that her organization teamed up with other parents “to rally with parents who are standing up for parental and religious rights to opt out of sexual orientation curriculum being used in English literature classes and social studies in pre-K and up.”

“So far the BOE has stated multiple times that they are standing firm in their decision to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion and not honor their own religious policy giving the rights to the parent to opt out of any sexual orientation teaching,” Smith added. “We will continue to empower parents and stand beside like-minded organizations making known that we do not co-parent with the government but that we are the parents and advocates for our children, not any educational governmental agency.”

Montgomery County is located within the greater Washington, D.C., metropolitan area and is home to the largest public school district in the state of Maryland, with more than 160,000 students enrolled.

Some of the protesters testified about the policy at the school board meeting held at the site.

“Freedom of religion is a fundamental human right that protects the conscience of all people,” a former MCPS student who did not provide her full name testified to the board.

“Religion is not just private worship,” she continued. “It involves public expression on social and moral issues. … The issue of gender and sexuality are influenced by our faith and we should not be caricatured as intolerant and our faith to be subversive because it doesn’t align with your beliefs. Intolerance of the faith community threatens to erode support for religious freedom, therefore eroding the benefits it provides for everyone: religious and nonreligious.”

Becket Law, a legal nonprofit that defends religious liberty, filed a federal lawsuit on May 24 to demand the state Board of Education and the county Board of Education respect the parents’ right to opt out from this coursework, which they argue is required by state law and the First Amendment of the Constitution. 

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian parents. 

“The law already provides the right of parents to opt out,” Eric Baxter, senior counsel for Becket Law, told CNA. 

Baxter said the state law “applies generally to all instruction on family life and human sexuality” and is not limited to only health classes discussing sexual education. 

“All we’re asking is to restore the opt-outs,” he said.

“This is an issue that crosses political lines [and] it crosses religious lines,” Baxter said. 

null / Shutterstock.

Denver, Colo., Jun 8, 2023 / 08:50 am (CNA).

Congress must act to help prevent the exposure of children to online pornography and to combat online exploitation and abuse of children and other vulnerable people, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said Wednesday.

“Online child exploitation threatens the safety and well-being of our young people and destroys families and communities,” four leading bishops of the USCCB said in a June 7 letter to members of Congress. “The ability of a child to grow into adulthood in peace and security is both a human right and a demand of the common good: The dignity of the human person requires protections for our young people so that they may flourish as they mature.”

Signers of the letter were Bishop James V. Johnston Jr. of Kansas City-St. Joseph, who chairs the USCCB’s Committee on Protection of Children and Young People; Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Archeparchy of Philadelphia, who chairs the bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; Auxiliary Bishop Robert P. Reed of Boston, who chairs the Committee on Communications; and Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, chair of the bishops’ Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth.

The bishops’ letter alluded to Catholic failures to protect children from sexual abuse by clergy in the U.S., failures that have only been brought to light in the last two decades.

“As pastors, we have seen the destructive effects of the reprehensible offenses of child exploitation firsthand,” they said. “And as leaders of an institution that, for many years, failed to meet its responsibility to protect all children, we know all too well the consequences of a culture that fails to give adequate attention to the problem of child sexual exploitation.”

The bishops voiced concern that research indicates social media use can negatively affect young people’s mental health. They stressed the need for young people to have the opportunity to “mature to adulthood in safety and security” and to avoid pornography.

“Being exposed to pornography can be traumatic for children and youth,” the bishops said. “Seeing it steals their innocence and gives them a distorted image of sexuality, relationships, and men and women, which may then affect their behavior, including addiction to pornography. Because children lack mature understanding of appropriate behavior, pornography makes them more susceptible to victimization by sexual abuse and maltreatment.”

A majority of young people have viewed pornography, accidentally or intentionally, by the age of 13.

The bishops did not comment on any particular legislation. However, the REPORT Act passed the Senate Judicial Committee on June 1. The legislation would require websites and social media platforms to report crimes that violate federal trafficking and enticement of children laws. It would increase fines for companies that knowingly and wilfully fail to report child sexual abuse material (CSAM), according to a June 1 statement from the office of U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Georgia.

The bishops’ letter called for safeguards to ensure that pornography “causes minimum harm.” Such safeguards include prosecution of those who coerce others to produce pornographic materials and giving victims the power to remove unlawfully created pornography from internet platforms.

The bishops lamented that children and young people are coerced into the production of pornography, which is “illegal, abusive, and a form of human trafficking because of a child’s inability to consent.”

Despite parents’ efforts, the bishops said, the internet can be a dangerous place for children. 

There is an “immediate need for effective safeguards” to prevent children from accessing inappropriate content. Legislation should help parents protect their children online and ensure they have “the tools necessary to monitor their children’s online activity.”

The bishops’ letter noted the dangers of abuse, extortion, and blackmail online. This includes the coercion of sexual favors or money accompanied by threats to release sexual images or money.

“Legislation should ensure that social media platforms do not permit abuse by predators or undermine the rights of parents to protect their children from harm,” they said.

Researchers have sought to determine whether and to what extent popular social media sites help spread illegal pornography and CSAM.

Instagram, owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta, has many user accounts that seek to purchase sexual content depicting underage persons. Investigators and researchers with the Wall Street Journal, Stanford University, and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst analyzed these accounts and how Instagram treats them.

They found sexually explicit hashtags and pornographic accounts purporting to be run by children or minors themselves. Some Instagram accounts appear to allow other users to commission custom works of illegal pornography or to meet children in person. The social media platform algorithm appears to promote the accounts through recommendation systems that identify shared interests among users, researchers and investigators found.

“Child exploitation is a horrific crime,” the company said, according to the Wall Street Journal. “We’re continuously investigating ways to actively defend against this behavior.”

Promoting underage sexual content violates both Meta policy and federal law. Meta said it has an internal task force dedicated to policing this content. In the past two years, it said, it has removed 27 networks for distributors of pedophilic material and has blocked thousands of hashtags that sexualize children. The company is also seeking to prevent algorithms and recommendation systems from helping to connect adults with possible interests in CSAM.

Alex Stamos, who was chief security officer at Meta through 2018 and is now head of the Stanford Internet Observatory, told the Wall Street Journal that a sustained effort is needed to combat the material.

“That a team of three academics with limited access could find such a huge network should set off alarms at Meta,” he said, voicing hope that the company reinvests in human investigators.

Other researchers at the Stanford Internet Observatory, based on their analysis of 100,000 Twitter posts from March to May, have reported that the social media platform appears to have failed to block dozens of known images of child pornography, despite the availability of screening software, databases, and other best practices to combat CSAM.

A large statue of St. John Paul II at the entrance of Rome’s Gemelli Hospital, where Pope Francis is recovering from surgery he underwent on June 7, 2023. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Jun 8, 2023 / 08:20 am (CNA).

Pope Francis is recovering from abdominal surgery this week in the same hospital room where St. John Paul II was treated throughout his pontificate.

The Vatican said on June 8 that Francis is “in good general condition, alert and breathing naturally” one day after his three-hour surgery to treat an incisional hernia.

Pope Francis is expected to remain for several days in Gemelli University Hospital, located atop Monte Mario, the highest hill in Rome. The Vatican has canceled all of the pope’s scheduled audiences through June 18.

The pope’s hospital room is situated on the 10th floor of the sprawling polyclinic in a wing reserved for papal medical emergencies.

It is the same room where John Paul II stayed during many of his hospital treatments, including for a colon surgery in 1992 and his hospitalization after being shot in an assassination attempt in 1981.

St. John Paul II was admitted to the hospital so many times during his more than 25-year pontificate that he once referred to Gemelli as the “third Vatican” after Vatican City and Castel Gandolfo, the popes’ summer residence.

Family members and patients who come to the hospital’s chapel in search of consolation can now pray before a relic of St. John Paul II, located on the chapel’s right wall.

Pope Francis has been treated at the Gemelli Hospital three times in the past two years. The 86-year-old pope was hospitalized for four days in March for a lung infection and has also dealt this year with a recurrence of diverticulitis, a painful inflammation of bulges in the large intestine following his colon surgery in July 2021.

Religious leaders around the world have expressed their well-wishes and prayers for Pope Francis as he recovers in hospital.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, asked Catholics to continue to pray for the pope’s healing.

“As Pope Francis recovers from surgery, he is strengthened by faith in the healing power of our merciful God,” he said.

“Please keep Pope Francis and all those in the hospital in your prayers today and every day. Jesus always walks with us and is even closer whenever we need healing and comfort.”

Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento, California. / Credit: Randy Miramontez/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 8, 2023 / 07:50 am (CNA).

Officials in Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration confirmed Tuesday that they were responsible for sending 16 migrants from the southern border to the Diocese of Sacramento’s Catholic Charities headquarters in California.

The South American migrants were flown to California from the Texas border and dropped off at the Catholic Charities headquarters last Friday, June 2. 

The Florida officials also claimed responsibility for a second plane carrying 20 migrants that arrived in Sacramento a few days later. 

The Florida Division of Emergency Management said in a statement to Fox News that the migrants’ travels to California were “voluntary.”

According to the statement, the migrants were sent to the California Catholic Charities to receive care because it is a federally funded charity in a sanctuary city.

“From left-leaning mayors in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, the relocation of those illegally crossing the United States border is not new. But suddenly, when Florida sends illegal aliens to a sanctuary city, it’s false imprisonment and kidnapping,” the spokesperson told Fox. 

The relocation of these migrants to California caused a significant uproar.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his administration would be opening a kidnapping investigation of those responsible.

In response to the Florida officials’ admission, Newsom told Politico that “all this does is reinforce the cruelty of this act and the manipulative nature of the act and the stunt that this is — the shameful nature of it.” 

“We are very serious about pursuing action if the facts dictate it. And Mr. DeSantis should know that,” Newsom said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a statement Saturday saying: “While we continue to collect evidence, I want to say this very clearly: State-sanctioned kidnapping is not a public policy choice, it is immoral and disgusting.”

Katie Valenzuela, a Sacramento city councilmember, called the migrants’ relocation a “monstrous act of cruelty.” 

This comes as border states like Texas have faced record surges of illegal migrants under the Biden administration, with more than 2.76 million crossing last year alone.

Border residents have expressed concern and even dismay to CNA that the situation in border communities is becoming untenable.

“It’s going to impact the city greatly, and also those coming over,” one El Paso resident named Rosario Reynolds told CNA in May. “I don’t think the city is prepared to receive them. Yes, there are shelters in place, there are different federal, local, and state help in place, but it’s not enough.”

According to a separate Tuesday statement from DeSantis’ office, Florida officials have made contact with over 5,800 undocumented migrants while assisting Texas officials at the southern border. 

DeSantis is one of several Republican governors who have sent aid in the form of resources and law enforcement officials to the Texas border in response to a May call for assistance from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

In his letter to governors, Abbott said: “The flood of illegal border activity invited by the Biden administration flows directly across the southern border into Texas communities, but this crisis does not stop in our state. Emboldened Mexican drug cartels and other transnational criminal enterprises profit off this chaos, smuggling people and dangerous drugs like fentanyl into communities nationwide.”

Pope Francis at his general audience in St Peter’s Square on May 31, 2023. / Adi Zace/EWTN

Rome Newsroom, Jun 8, 2023 / 05:25 am (CNA).

One day after Pope Francis’ abdominal surgery for an incisional hernia, medical staff report that the pope is “in good general condition, alert and breathing naturally,” according to the Vatican.

Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni told journalists on June 8 that the pope’s routine follow-up examinations were good and that he will continue to rest in Rome’s Gemelli Hospital.

“The medical staff following the pontiff’s post-operative course informs us that Pope Francis had a peaceful night, managing to rest extensively,” Bruni said.

“The pope is informed of the messages of closeness and affection that have come in the last few hours and expresses his gratitude while asking for continued prayers,” he added.

In a surgery lasting three hours on June 7, a team of surgeons operated on a hernia in the pope’s abdominal wall at the site of a previous surgical incision.

Dr. Sergio Alfieri, the director of the hospital’s abdominal surgery department, said at a press conference immediately following the surgery that the hernia may have come about following past operations Francis underwent in Argentina, including for peritonitis, a redness or swelling of the lining of the abdomen often caused by appendicitis.

He said that Francis had been experiencing pain for several months due to an incisional hernia and decided on June 6 to undergo the surgery to correct it.

The 86-year-old pope has been hospitalized three times in the past two years. He was hospitalized for four days in March for a lung infection and has also dealt this year with a recurrence of diverticulitis, a painful inflammation of bulges in the large intestine following his operation in July 2021.

The surgeon said that Pope Francis, upon waking from the operation, was already cracking jokes and had asked him when the next surgery would be.

Alfieri underlined that the conditions treated by the operation on June 7 and the prior surgery of July 2021 were both benign and have been resolved.

“The pope does not have other illnesses,” he said.

Religious leaders around the world have expressed their well-wishes and prayers for Pope Francis as he recovers in hospital.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, asked Catholics to continue to pray for the pope’s healing.

“As Pope Francis recovers from surgery, he is strengthened by faith in the healing power of our merciful God,” he said.

“Please keep Pope Francis and all those in the hospital in your prayers today and every day. Jesus always walks with us and is even closer whenever we need healing and comfort.”

Interior of the Church of Santa Anita in Mexico after the gang confrontation. / Credit: Facebook of Father Enrique Urzúa

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 7, 2023 / 16:00 pm (CNA).

A priest rescued three abandoned children in a Mexican town following a confrontation between crime gangs that left one dead and a Catholic church riddled with bullets.

The church in the small settlement of Santa Anita (population 84) in the Diocese of Tarahumara in Chihuahua state was the scene of the confrontation between the rival gangs. The settlement is located fewer than 125 miles south of Cerocahui, also in Chihuahua, where almost a year ago two Jesuit priests were murdered inside a Catholic church.

According to the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office, at the scene more than 700 bullet casings, a grenade, 19 cartridges, and a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck, “completely charred,” were found.

The attorney general’s office also said that “on the outskirts of the community’s church, a lifeless body of an unidentified male, approximately 35 years old, was located.”

The man, who was wearing green military-style clothing, had been decapitated.

Santa Anita is located just nine miles from the city of Guachochi, where the Diocese of Tarahumara is headquartered.

Father Enrique Urzúa, pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe cathedral in Guachochi, arrived in Santa Anita on June 6. In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, he shared that what he found was “a heartbreaking situation.”

“They completely blasted the [church]” as well as the small room that served to welcome the missionaries who came to evangelize the town.

However, the human drama was even more overwhelming. “I came across three children who are without their parents and who were there, abandoned,” the priest said.

The youngest of the minors he rescued was just 1 year old, while the other two were 9 and 11.

He said he found them without food and took them to the parish “to provide them with food and see what to do” in order to help them.

The Mexican priest said that the criminals “directly blasted the church, because there are too many bullets inside and out” to just be stray shots.

“I don’t think that an armed gang can have something against us, against the Church. I don’t want to think that, but this is the fact,” he said.

After noting that June 21 will mark one year since the murder of the Jesuit priests Javier Campos Morales and Joaquín César Mora Salazar, Urzúa lamented that in the Diocese of Tarahumara in Chihuahua they are “in an area where criminal presence is permanent.”

“It’s sad what we are experiencing, where we are living. It is not something passing, it’s something permanent,” he said.

Mexico is experiencing the most violent period in its modern history, and the homicide figures for the current six-year term of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador have surpassed those of his predecessors, totaling more than 156,136 as of May 31.

López Obrador acknowledged the historic record in his morning press conference on June 1 but attributed it to “a poor security legacy” from previous governments.

Through April in the state of Chihuahua, 567 first-degree murders were recorded.

From Jan. 1 to June 5 of this year, 11,475 homicides have been recorded throughout Mexico.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Cathedral of Our Lady of the Rosary, Diocese of Estelí, Nicaragua. / Credit: Visit Nicaragua, official portal of the Marca País (Nicaragua)

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 7, 2023 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

A recent investigation by the Nicaraguan newspaper El Confidencial revealed that the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega has withheld more than half a million dollars that was donated to the Church in Estelí by the U.S. bishops’ humanitarian aid agency Catholic Relief Services (CRS).

The independent media reported June 2 that according to sources with ties to the diocese, the donation of $563,206 was legally made on June 14, 2012, to Estelí Caritas when Abelardo Mata was diocesan bishop.

The charity, whose legal personhood was canceled on Feb. 7, 2022, by the National Assembly, agreed to a “total donation” of the money to the Diocese of Estelí, whose apostolic administrator is currently Bishop Rolando Álvarez. The prelate was unjustly sentenced in February to 26 years and four months in prison, charged with treason by the regime. 

The money, the news outlet said, was the remainder of a donation that CRS had earmarked for the construction of a hospital.

“The accusation of money laundering is unfounded, because the funds are clean, the money belongs to the Diocese of Estelí, and the diocese decides what is most appropriate to guarantee its proper use,” a source told El Confidencial.

The newspaper also reported that in addition to the regime withholding the money, eight people from the diocese were arrested “under an alleged investigation for money laundering” in the case.

Those arrested are priests Rodríguez Benavides and Leonardo Guevara Gutiérrez, and laypersons Julio Sevilla, Julio Berríos, Bladimir Pallés, María Verónica Herrera Galeano, Freydell Andino, and Mariví Andino.

The arrests came after the Nicaraguan Police blocked the Church’s bank accounts in the country on May 27 and later accused it of money laundering. The regime claimed to have found hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden in the facilities of various dioceses including Matagalpa and Estelí where the imprisoned Álvarez is bishop and apostolic administrator respectively. 

However, human rights defenders said the accusation would not be substantiated.

“We hope that the corresponding authorities, once this situation is clarified, will suspend the precautionary measures, those affected will get back to their respective tasks and continue working for the progress and development of our beloved Nicaragua,” the sources within the diocese told the outlet.

On June 6, Félix Maradiaga, a Nicaraguan political activist and former political prisoner told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, that the data from the El Confidencial investigation “are correct” and have been verified “with sources within the country.”

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Jesuits accused of abuse in Bolivia in May 2023. / Credit: EWTN News

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 7, 2023 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

In addition to allegations of the sexual abuse of minors by a number of deceased Jesuits in Bolivia, six others, including the current provincial superior, are now reportedly under investigation for cover-up.

In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Gabriel Chávez, external communications consultant for the Jesuits in Bolivia, said that as of the end of May the order was aware of allegations of abuse against four deceased Jesuits: Alfonso Pedrajas Moreno, Alejandro Mestre Descals, Luis María Roma Padrosa, and Jorge Vila Despujol.

However, according to an article published June 5 by the newspaper La Razón, there are four more religious who have been accused: Antonio “Tuco” Gausset, Francisco “Pifa” Pifarré, Carlos “Vicu” Villamil, and Francesco “Chesco” Peris.

In addition, there are reportedly six Jesuits who are being investigated “as accused for alleged cover-up of abusers,” including the current superior in Bolivia, Father Bernardo Mercado, as well as Oswaldo Chirveches, Marco Recolons, Ignacio Suñol, Ramon Alaix, and Arturo Moscoso.

However, it hasn’t been determined whether these religious are part of the group of eight former provincial superiors who were suspended by the order at the beginning of May as part of the internal investigations of the order.

On May 31, Mercado, a Jesuit provincial, along with Chirveches, a former provincial, appeared before the La Paz prosecutor’s office as part of the investigation against them for alleged cover-up.

According to the newspaper Página Siete, Mercado emphasized at the end of his statement that he had committed “the Society of Jesus to contribute with everything necessary to clarify these cases that have come to light and that have caused and are causing so much pain to Bolivian society.”

ACI Prensa contacted the Jesuits’ lawyer in La Paz, Audalia Zurita, to learn more about the complaints against the religious and how the community is supporting the investigations but did not receive an answer by press time.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Less than a week after being violently attack outside of a Baltimore Planned Parenthood on May 26, 2023, Dick Schafer, 80, returned to the abortion facility to continue his pro-life work. / Credit: Eric Stocklin/CNA

Baltimore, Md., Jun 7, 2023 / 14:15 pm (CNA).

Less than a week after a violent attack against two elderly pro-life activists outside of a Baltimore Planned Parenthood, both men returned to the abortion facility to continue their work as sidewalk counselors promoting life.

The two senior citizens were brutally assaulted in front of the clinic on May 26 by an assailant who remains at large. The unidentified suspect attacked two elderly men after engaging in a “debate” with one of the pro-life activists about abortion.

Dick Schafer, 80, who was knocked to the ground and kicked, left the scene, bleeding from his head, with cuts, scrapes, and body aches.

The second man, 73-year-old Mark Crosby, who was badly beaten and kicked, was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and treated for external and internal bleeding that will require multiple surgeries.

Despite the severity of the attack, both men were not deterred from returning to the Planned Parenthood clinic on Tuesday, May 30, the next day the facility was open. Schafer and other members of the pro-life community were also there on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

“I’m not well,” Crosby told CNA. “But I’m better off than a baby that’s been butchered.”

Schafer, whose injuries were less severe, said he didn’t think twice about returning.

“I think [Crosby] might have taken a few more blows that I might have gotten,” he said. “After Mark [Crosby] did that, I had no choice but to go down there again.”

“It’s not for everybody, but I like being there, that’s for sure,” Schafer said.

‘The last line of hope’

Schafer provides sidewalk counseling, in which he engages with men and women who are walking into an abortion facility. He hands out literature, tries to converse with them about choosing life, and directs them to resources that can help them with the pregnancy.

“I talk to people going in there and I offer some help,” Schafer said. “I ask them to choose life.”

The Planned Parenthood facility is in downtown Baltimore on North Howard Street, across from several vacant buildings and a day care center. Next door to the abortion facility is a pregnancy resource center called Options, which provides women with non-abortive pregnancy services as an alternative to Planned Parenthood’s services.

Last Friday, Planned Parenthood had one security guard and four volunteer escorts stationed at the door of the clinic. That morning at least five pro-life activists were trying to engage men and women who walked toward the facility. One of the men also handed pamphlets to people who were stopped at red lights in their cars. A sixth man paced the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood while praying the rosary.

Brenda Bicksey, who was there to assist with the pro-life activists’ efforts on Friday with her young daughter, told CNA she comes to the clinic to show parents there are alternatives to abortion.

Bicksey said she wants to “let these parents know there’s help and they don’t have to murder their baby” and to “help find them whatever they need.”

“We’re sort of the last line of hope,” she said.

The Planned Parenthood escorts, wearing rainbow-colored vests with the words “CLINIC ESCORT” on them, were observed trying to prevent Schafer and other pro-life sidewalk counselors from talking to anyone who planned to enter the facility. They also tried to stop the activists from handing out pamphlets about alternatives to abortion.

In one instance, an escort forced himself in between a counselor and a woman who was walking toward the facility and physically boxed him out while trying to prevent her from receiving a pamphlet.

“Don’t take anything from them,” the escort implored the woman. “Those are protesters.”

Some of the literature included information about the number of Black babies killed by abortions in the United States, the emotional and physical risks of having an abortion, stories about mothers who chose to keep their babies after contemplating abortion, and information about resources that could help them through their pregnancy. One of the pamphlets geared toward men asks the father of the unborn child to step up and encourage the mother to choose life.

Most of the people entering the abortion facility refused to engage with the sidewalk counselors; one woman just shouted “bye” multiple times as she walked past them and entered the Planned Parenthood clinic.

Crosby, the activist who was more severely injured, told CNA that he takes a different approach than that of sidewalk counselors.

“I always have my rosary in my hand,” he told CNA, adding that he sprinkles blessed salt and holy water outside the clinic’s entrance. He prepares baggies with rosaries, prayer cards, and a prayer book, which he said he offers to those he encounters at the clinic.

“I don’t counsel people,” Crosby said. “I’m not a protestor. … I walk around in front of Planned Parenthood. I’m usually out in the street and I pray the rosary, and I don’t counsel people unless they come over to me.”

Crosby said he is “not forcing anything on anyone.”

The May 26 attack

On the morning of the May 26 attack, Schafer and Crosby were engaged in their normal routine outside of the Baltimore Planned Parenthood abortion facility. Schafer was counseling people near the building and Crosby was out in the street.

Schafer told CNA he was having “a little chat” that was “kind of cordial” with an advocate for abortion who had expressed disagreements with his pro-life views.

“We had two or three back and forths,” he said before he told the man that he needed to get back to work.

When Schafer turned away from the man, he bent down to replenish some of the material he was handing out. At this moment, the man struck him. Schafer initially thought he was hit by the train that runs parallel to the road.

“As I’m leaning over: ‘Boom!’” Schafer said. “I thought the train hit me. I thought ‘I never felt anything like that.’”

Witnesses saw Schafer lying on the ground unconscious, but he said he did not immediately realize he had been knocked out.

“I thought I instantly hit the sidewalk with my back and I [looked] up and it was sunny and blue skies and I kind of thought a little bit about what just happened,” he told CNA. “I got up and I noticed that the back of my right hand was bleeding a little bit.”

Crosby said when he was out in the street, just before the attack, the man had pointed at him and told him, “You stay out in the street.” He said he saw the man hand his drink to a Planned Parenthood escort right before he attacked Schafer.

“This person gets in a football rushing position and now Dick’s got his back to him, [he] hits him hard up into the plate glass [and then] he went through this big huge planter,” Crosby said. “Dick hits the ground [and] the guy kicks him.”

Crosby rushed over to help Schafer, but the man then turned on Crosby.

“This guy grabs my chain around my neck with crosses and medals,” Crosby said.

“[Then] he hits me in the face, I hit the ground, [and] he kicks me,” Crosby added.

Crosby lost consciousness for a brief period but eventually got back up and was “staggering around the sidewalk” until he walked into Options, the pregnancy health center next door, to sit down and wait for an ambulance to arrive.

After the man kicked Crosby in the head, the man left the scene. He was not apprehended by police, and the Baltimore County Police Department is still searching for him. Metro Crime Stoppers released a photo of the accused man on Wednesday and is offering a $2,000 reward. They are asking anyone with information to call Metro Crime Stoppers at 866-7LOCKUP. 

“So within a minute, this guy does all that destruction and he’s out of there,” Crosby said.

“If they’re killing babies, well, what’s the big deal [to them] about beating up an old man?” John Roswell, who runs Baltimore Sidewalk Advocates for Life and arrived shortly after the attack, told CNA.

“It wasn’t a fight,” Roswell added. “Nobody in our group had their dukes up.”

Roswell said the investigating officer spent about two hours on the scene. He told CNA he wasn’t optimistic that the Baltimore County Police would put in the effort to find the attacker, saying “they don’t want to make Planned Parenthood look bad.”

Crosby told CNA he had a “severe concussion” and two fractured fingers that probably need surgery. He said he lost sight in one of his eyes, which is bleeding internally, and will likely require surgery. He added that “my knees are killing me” and “my head is still pounding right now.”

Schafer was not taken to the hospital but instead decided to drive home. At first, he planned “to go to a rosary and then Mass and Communion,” which he does daily after spending the morning at Planned Parenthood. However, on his drive, he said, “I touch my head and I look and my head’s bloody.”

Schafer decided to visit a doctor to get cleaned up and checked out but still has aches and pains. He said that Crosby’s intervention may have saved him from being injured worse.

Opposition from Planned Parenthood escorts

Several pro-life activists outside of the Baltimore Planned Parenthood told CNA that the escorts and pro-abortion advocates entering the facility or simply passing by are often hostile to the pro-life activists.

“We are threatened on a very regular basis,” Roswell told CNA.

In one instance, Roswell said a man tried to hit him with his car after Roswell convinced the woman he was with to go into the pregnancy resource center rather than abort her child at the Planned Parenthood clinic.

Because of the frequent threats, Roswell began to carry pepper spray for self-defense purposes. He said he’s never needed to use it, but once pulled it out when a man shoved him and “[pulled] out a pipe wrench.”

In that instance, Roswell said the Planned Parenthood escorts “hustled [the man] out of there.”

Roswell said the escorts “create this atmosphere that emboldens people” and “they stand there and smirk if somebody’s threatening us.” He also said the police have mostly been unhelpful and, in one instance, encouraged him to walk away from the person when he called to report a threat.

“If I walk away from here every time there’s a threat, I wouldn’t be here,” Roswell said.

Crosby said that the escorts also become physical, stating that one of them “tries to get in our way and knock us down because we’re seniors.”

Bicksey, who was at the clinic on Friday, also said threats happen “all the time here” and that she has “been pushed around.”

“We need more hands on deck here. We need Christians here,” Bicksey said. “We need church leaders. … We need more people.”

Schafer recounted that people “threaten to kill me” at times, but “I always have a smile on my face.”

Legal fight ahead

Given the brutality of the attack, Crosby and Schafer are pursuing legal action and are being represented by American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative nonprofit legal team.

“This is horrific, and we’re appalled that it happened,” Olivia Summers, senior litigation counsel for ACLJ, told CNA.

“There’s been an escalating violence against the pro-life community … since Dobbs,” Summers added.

Summers said the ACLJ is still in the fact-gathering stage and is in contact with the police about finding out who the man responsible is.

She said the ACLJ is looking into tort claims and civil claims as well as determining whether the assailant violated any federal laws, such as the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. She added that ACLJ is also trying to find out whether the man is “known to anybody [or] had any connection to Planned Parenthood.”

“[We need to] take a stand and make sure people know this isn’t going to be tolerated,” Summers said.

The one-year-old “What Is A Woman?” documentary by The Daily Wire's Matt Walsh has amassed more than 177 million views in less than a week on Twitter. / Credit: Matt Walsh/YouTube

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 7, 2023 / 13:45 pm (CNA).

The one-year-old “What Is a Woman?” documentary has amassed more than 177 million views in less than a week on Twitter. Despite pushback from transgender activists, the documentary has had enormous success since the film was offered on Twitter at the beginning of June. CNA took a look at what the film is about and why it’s amassed so many views recently. 

What is the film about?

The documentary, which stars popular culture and political commentator Matt Walsh and is distributed by The Daily Wire, tackles questions related to the transgender movement, specifically delving into the question posed in the title, “What is a woman?”

Walsh interviews a variety of people, including politicians, doctors, a professor, and a therapist, asking them whether they can explain what a woman is. When met with unclear and nonspecific answers, Walsh presses the question further.

At one point, he asks Dr. Patrick Grzanka, a professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Tennessee, to explain the differences between sex and gender. When Walsh presses Grzanka about wanting to know the truth and the reality of whether someone is a man or a woman, the professor expresses that he is uncomfortable. 

“I’m really uncomfortable with that language of like ‘getting to the truth,’” Grzanka said during the interview. “It sounds actually deeply transphobic to me and if you keep probing, we’re going to stop the interview.”

During the documentary, Walsh also speaks with women who have been forced to compete with biologically male athletes who identify as women. This includes women who placed behind their transgender competitors in both swimming and track and field and believe wins and better finishes were taken from them.

Why is the film going viral?

The film is a year old and was initially released by The Daily Wire to its paid subscribers on June 1, 2022. To celebrate the one-year anniversary, The Daily Wire made the film free on Twitter for a limited time, which began on June 1, 2023. 

“What Is A Woman?” has amassed about 177.2 million views on The Daily Wire’s Twitter post since it was released for free. The film has received a lot of publicity and positive feedback from conservatives but a lot of hostility from transgender activists. 

Because the film deals with the highly contentious issue of gender identity and gender ideology, it has gained publicity from both sides of the issue.

The documentary has not received many reviews from movie critics, but it received an 83% approval rating from six movie critics listed on Rotten Tomatoes and an 86% approval rating from more than 10,000 users rating the film. 

“Our film has been banned from most platforms,” Walsh said in a Tweet. “Mainstream movie critics refused to even review it. It’s been blacklisted and suppressed and yet still reached a massive audience. But how many more could we have reached without the deck stacked completely against us? It’s no use lamenting these things.”

How did it survive content moderation on Twitter?

Twitter initially entered into a deal with The Daily Wire to help broadcast the documentary but ultimately backed out of the deal and began suppressing the film as soon as it was posted on the social media platform.

When the documentary initially aired on Twitter, it was given a content warning, which flagged the video as “hate speech” and limited its visibility based on accusations that it was transphobic.

Walsh and other members of The Daily Wire’s team sparred with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal on Twitter about the restrictions. They also directly appealed to Twitter owner Elon Musk by tweeting at his account.

Musk ultimately intervened and put a stop to the suppression efforts, which included getting rid of the “hate speech” warning. He then tweeted out the documentary, saying “every parent should watch this.” He pinned the tweet for a brief period.

What have Catholics said about it?

Walsh is a practicing Catholic and the film was well received by some Catholic viewers. 

CatholicVote, a Catholic political advocacy group, recommended the film for viewers aged 16 and older and suggested that high school students should discuss it with a trusted adult. 

“The question ‘What is Woman?’ is a hook — to catch a bigger fish, as it were,” Erika Ahern of CatholicVote wrote on June 2, 2022. 

“Yes, it’s one important question that trans ideologues have refused to tackle,” she continued. “(We hear multiple interviewees replying the Walsh with, ‘Why are you asking that question?’) But there are a number of other questions that could be posed. What is a man? What is gender? What is sex? But the central question is much deeper. Fisherman Walsh tackles it even before he lands his first interview: ‘What is truth?’”

Ann Schneible, a freelance journalist writing a review for National Catholic Register, gave the film a B+. She said it is a good starting point for this issue but would not recommend it as a tool for understanding someone with gender dysphoria. 

“While it may not be persuasive to anyone who does not generally agree with Walsh, it may still be a valuable starting point for anyone who wants to delve deeper into an issue that is affecting an increasing number of individuals and families,” Schneible wrote. “From this perspective, I would recommend this film.”

Mary Rice Hasson, the director of the Person and Identity Project at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, tweeted out her support for the film and criticism of the initial restrictions. 

“Matt Walsh’s documentary has had a powerful impact, sharing the truth on an incredibly important issue,” Hasson said.

Oli London, a man who formerly identified as a gender-fluid trans woman but has since detransitioned and converted to Catholicism, also tweeted about the film and the previous censorship. 

“Despite Twitter censoring [Matt Walsh’s] ‘What is a Woman?’ [The Daily Wire’s] documentary this evening and Elon issuing several tweets adding to the confusion he has now tweeted that the censorship will create ‘The Streisand effect,’” London tweeted. “The Streisand effect is an unintended consequence of attempts to hide, remove, or censor information where it instead leads to increased awareness of that information.”

Sachin Jose, a Catholic journalist and social media influencer, encouraged others to step up and discuss this issue. 

“Matt Walsh is one the greatest evangelizers in the West and Catholic Church today,” Jose said on Twitter. “He is able to save the lives of thousands of kids. We need priests, bishops, and laypeople who are not afraid to speak the truth.”