Seán Patrick O'Malley is an American cardinal of the Catholic Church serving as archbishop of the Archdiocese of Boston in Massachusetts since 2003. He is a member of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin and was elevated by the Vatican to the rank of cardinal in 2006.
José Horacio Gómez Velasco is a Mexican-born American prelate of the Catholic Church. He became the fifth archbishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in California in 2011. He previously served as an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Denver in Colorado from 2001 to 2004 and as archbishop of the Archdiocese of San Antonio in Texas from 2004 to 2010.
Mary Ann Glendon is the Learned Hand Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a former United States Ambassador to the Holy See. She teaches and writes on bioethics, comparative constitutional law, property, and human rights in international law. She supports government bans on abortion services and "writes forcefully against the expansion of abortion rights."
Frank Anthony Pavone is an American anti-abortion activist and laicized Catholic priest. He is the national director of Priests for Life and the chairman and pastoral director of its Rachel's Vineyard project. He is also the president of the National Pro-Life Religious Council, an umbrella group of various anti-abortion Christian denominations, and the pastoral director of the Silent No More campaign.
Robert William Finn is an American bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He served as bishop of the Diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph from 2005 until his forced resignation in 2015.
Catholics for Choice (CFC) is a dissenting Catholic abortion rights advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. Formed in 1973 as Catholics for a Free Choice, the group gained notice after its 1984 advertisement in The New York Times challenging Church teaching on abortion led to Church disciplinary pressure against some of the priests and nuns who signed it. It has lobbied nationally and internationally for abortion rights goals and led an unsuccessful effort to downgrade the Holy See's status in the United Nations. CFC was led for 25 years by Frances Kissling and is currently led by its President Jamie L. Manson.
Sr Jeannine Gramick, SL is an American Catholic religious sister and advocate for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. She is also a co-founder of New Ways Ministry.
NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice is a national Catholic social justice lobby founded in 1971 and headquartered in Washington, D.C. The organization focuses its lobbying efforts in the areas of economic justice, immigration reform, healthcare, peace making and ecology.
Catholic Democrats is an American not-for-profit organization of Catholics to support the Democratic Party, based in Boston, United States. The Catholic Democrats have more than 60,000 members in all 50 American states and Puerto Rico. It claims no authorization from the Catholic Church, or any Catholic bishop, Catholic diocese, candidate or candidate committee.
Dignity Health was a California-based not-for-profit public-benefit corporation that operated hospitals and ancillary care facilities in three states. Dignity Health was the fifth-largest hospital system in the nation and the largest not-for-profit hospital provider in California.
The Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) is one of two associations of the leaders of congregations of Catholic women religious in the United States. LCWR includes over 1300 members, who are members of 302 religious congregations that include 33,431 women religious in the United States as of 2018. Founded in 1956, the conference describes its charter as assisting its members to "collaboratively carry out their service of leadership to further the mission of the Gospel in today's world." The canonically-approved organization collaborates in the Catholic Church and in society to "influence systemic change, studying significant trends and issues within the church and society, utilizing our corporate voice in solidarity with people who experience any form of violence or oppression, and creating and offering resource materials on religious leadership skills." The conference serves as a resource both to its members and to the public who are seeking resources on leadership for religious life.
Women play significant roles in the life of the Catholic Church, although excluded from the Catholic hierarchy of bishops, priests, and deacons. In the history of the Catholic Church, the church often influenced social attitudes toward women. Influential Catholic women have included theologians, abbesses, monarchs, missionaries, mystics, martyrs, scientists, nurses, hospital administrators, educationalists, religious sisters, Doctors of the Church, and canonised saints. Women constitute the majority of members of consecrated life in the Catholic Church: in 2010, there were around 721,935 professed women religious. Motherhood and family are given an exalted status in Catholicism, with The Blessed Virgin Mary holding a special place of veneration.
The official teachings of the Catechism of the Catholic Church promulgated by Pope John Paul II in 1992 oppose all forms of abortion procedures whose direct purpose is to destroy a zygote, blastocyst, embryo or fetus, since it holds that "human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life". However, the Church does recognize as morally legitimate certain acts which indirectly result in the death of the fetus, as when the direct purpose is removal of a cancerous womb. Canon 1397 §2 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law imposes automatic excommunication on Latin Catholics who actually procure an abortion, if they fulfill the conditions for being subject to such a sanction. Eastern Catholics are not subject to automatic excommunication, but by canon 1450 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches they are to be excommunicated by decree if found guilty of the same action, and they may be absolved of the sin only by the eparchial bishop. In addition to teaching that abortion is immoral, the Catholic Church also generally makes public statements and takes actions in opposition to its legality.
The excommunication of Margaret McBride occurred with the sanctioning by the American religious sister Margaret McBride in November 2009 of an abortion at a Roman Catholic hospital, the St. Joseph's Hospital, in Phoenix. It was lifted in December 2011. Her decision and her subsequent excommunication aroused controversy in the areas of medical ethics and Catholic theology.
"A Catholic Statement on Pluralism and Abortion", alternatively referred to by its pull quote "A Diversity of Opinions Regarding Abortion Exists Among Committed Catholics" or simply "The New York Times ad", was a full-page advertisement placed on October 7, 1984, in The New York Times by Catholics for a Free Choice (CFFC). Its publication brought to a head the conflict between the Vatican and those American Catholics who were pro-choice. The publicity and controversy which followed its publication helped to make the CFFC an important element of the pro-choice movement.
Agnes Mary Mansour was an American former Catholic nun, as well as a politician and public official. She is known for having been given a choice from the Vatican in 1983 to end her religious vows or to resign from her position as the director of the Michigan Department of Social Services, which required her to support and allocate public funding for abortions. The controversy involved her belief that abortion was tragic but should be legal, despite her vows as a religious and the teachings of the Catholic Church.
The Fortnight for Freedom is a campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States. Events over the course of fourteen days from June 21 to July 4 each year, call upon Catholics to participate in a pledge to religious liberty and an appeal for the inclusion of a "conscience clause" for religious institutions and religious faithful to practice according to the moral tenets of one's religious faith.
Nuns on the Bus is a Catholic advocacy group in the United States. Their name comes from the fact that they tour the country on a bus.
The International Union of Superiors General (IUSG) is a Catholic organization representing about 600,000 sisters and nuns from 80 countries worldwide. Its origins date to the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, who supported its creation, later formalized after the Second Vatican Council. It offers a global forum for superiors general of institutions of Catholic women religious. It has evolved as a means of connecting women religious congregations with the council fathers. Its members include approximately 2000 leaders of congregations of apostolic women religious.
Deirdre "Dede" Byrne is a Roman Catholic religious sister, missionary, surgeon, and retired U.S. Army Colonel.
Presidential Medal of Freedom (2022)
