A Tale of Two Priests

The leaders of the Roman Catholic Church traditionally couch even the harshest disagreements in decorous, ecclesiastical language. But it didn’t take a decoder ring to figure out what Rome-based Archbishop Raymond Burke meant in a late-September address when he charged Boston Cardinal Sen O’Malley with being under the influence of Satan, “the father of lies.” Burke’s broadside at O’Malley was inspired by the Cardinal’s decision to permit and preside over a funeral Mass for the late Senator Ted Kennedy.

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Abortion support falls sharply, new research finds

Support for abortion rights has fallen sharply in the past year, with Americans now split roughly 50-50 between those who back legal access to abortion and those who oppose it, according to a new survey. The findings mark a dramatic shift in public opinion, supporters of abortion rights have outnumbered opponents for many years, with one brief exception, studies have shown

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Police: Shooting suspect offended by anti-abortion material

Authorities have charged an Owosso, Michigan, man with two counts of first-degree premeditated murder in the Friday shooting deaths of an anti-abortion activist and another man, a prosecutor’s office said. Authorities say the suspect, Harlan James Drake, was offended by anti-abortion material that the activist had displayed across from the school all week.

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Opposing groups protest outside abortion doctor’s clinic

A woman walked slowly toward the door of the abortion clinic when a nearby protester screamed, "Don’t kill your baby!" But the shouts on this day were drowned out by women’s rights groups who gathered at the Abortion & Contraception Clinic of Nebraska in Bellevue, just south of Omaha. “Welcome! Welcome! This clinic stays open,” abortion supporters chanted in unison, their voices rising every time anti-abortion activists tried to shout at patients arriving at the clinic.

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Home Nurse Visits: A New Health-Care Fear for Conservatives

George Orwell never wrote about health insurance, but his ghost hovers over the current health-care debate, providing inspiration for all manner of fears about Big Brother-like intrusions by the government into the lives of ordinary Americans. First was the rumor—promoted by high-profile Republicans like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and Iowa Senator Charles Grassley—that Democratic health care plans would create “death panels” which would pass judgment on which citizens deserved to live.

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A Hard-Line Sequel to the Case of the Pregnant Nine-Year Old

The Catholic Church were presented with a public relations powder keg last March when news broke that a nine-year-old Brazilian girl underwent an abortion after she’d been raped and impregnated with twins by her stepfather. Catholics from Sao Paolo to Paris were outraged after the swift public declaration by the local archbishop, Jose Cardoso Sobrinho, that the girl’s family, as well as the doctors who performed the abortion, were automatically excommunicated. Monsignor Rino Fisichella, a solidly traditionalist Rome prelate considered close to Benedict, tried to soften the Church’s approach on the Brazilian case by writing in the Vatican’s official newspaper L’Osservatore Romano that the girl “should have been defended, hugged and held tenderly to help her feel that we were all on her side.” Two weeks ago, the Vatican announced that Sobrinho, who had been serving past retirement, was stepping down

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Man charged with murder in Kansas doctor’s death

Kansas prosecutors have brought murder and assault charges against the man suspected of killing Wichita physician George Tiller, whose women’s clinic was a frequent target of protests against abortion. Scott Roeder, 51, is being held without bail on a first-degree murder charge and two counts of aggravated assault stemming from Tiller’s shooting death Sunday morning, Sedgwick County District Judge Ben Burgess said. Burgess set a preliminary hearing in the case for June 16.

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