U.S.

Activists say fetuses from abortion clinic are ‘proof of illegal abortions’

WASHINGTON — Two members of a group called Progressive Anti-Abortion Uprising said April 5 that five fetuses taken by the police a week earlier from the Capitol Hill residence of one of the activists were “proof of illegal abortions” being performed at a Washington abortion clinic. Activists Lauren Handy, 28, and Terrisa Bukovinac, 41, made the comments at a news conference. The same day, a group of 23 congressional Republicans wrote a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser and Police Chief Robert J. Contee III asking for a thorough investigation of the remains “of five preborn children.” Handy and Bukovinac said the fetuses are from a box of medical waste they got from the driver of a medical waste truck at an abortion clinic, and they claimed the fetuses looked like they were from late-stage abortions.

Brooklyn bishop prays for victims, first responders after subway shooting

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Brooklyn Bishop Robert J. Brennan urged prayers April 12 for victims of an early morning shooting spree at a Brooklyn subway station and for the protection of first responders on the scene and those hunting for the shooter. “On this Tuesday of Holy Week, our city has suffered a terrible attack on New Yorkers just trying to commute,” the bishop said in a statement. “Let us fervently pray for the multiple people shot and injured in a Sunset Park subway station.” Reuters, CNN and other news outlets reported that during the morning rush hour, a man wearing a gas mask released a canister of smoke and opened fire into a train and on the station platform at a subway stop in the Brooklyn borough of New York.

Pope names two U.S.-based experts to Vatican science academy

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has appointed Stanley B. Prusiner, an American neurologist and Nobel Prize laureate in medicine, and Zeresenay Alemseged, an Ethiopian paleoanthropologist who discovered the fossilized remains of the “world’s oldest child,” to be members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The pope also appointed Emilce Cuda, an Argentine theologian and secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, as a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, the Vatican said April 13. The two academies are made up of top-level scholars and experts from around the world who promote studies on issues of concern to the Vatican.

WORLD

Cdl. Parolin: Vatican looking at implications of possible papal visit to Kyiv

VATICAN CITY — Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican secretary of state, said it appeared Ukraine could keep Pope Francis safe if he made a wartime trip to Kyiv, but the pope’s safety was not the Vatican’s only concern. During his trip to Malta April 2-3, Pope Francis had told reporters that a proposal for him to visit Kyiv was “on the table.” “A trip is not impossible; it can be done. It’s a matter of seeing what consequences this trip would have and assessing whether it would really contribute to ending the war,” Cardinal Parolin told reporters April 7. And, he said, the Vatican’s “delicate” relationship with the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, which supports Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, “also will have to be taken into account in the overall consideration of the possibility of making the trip or not.”

Pope advances sainthood causes, including Salesian brother

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Artémides Zatti, a Salesian brother who was a pharmacist in Argentina and known for his care for the sick; the miracle clears the way for his canonization. During a meeting April 9 with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, the pope also signed decrees advancing the sainthood causes of four other men and five women. Born in the northern Italian city of Reggio Emilia in 1880, Blessed Zatti’s family immigrated to Bahía Blanca, Argentina, in 1897. At the age of 19, he was accepted by the Salesians to study for the priesthood. However, he was forced to abandon his studies after falling ill with tuberculosis. After his recovery, he professed vows as a Salesian brother in 1908. He worked at a Salesian-run hospital where he served for more than 40 years as a trained pharmacist, nurse and operating-room assistant as well as handling the hospital’s budget and personnel. Blessed Zatti was diagnosed with liver cancer and died in 1951.

— Catholic News Service