Important Legislative Updates
Policy committees have been very active the past few weeks and important bills are receiving their initial examination by California lawmakers. Thank you to all who have generously responded to our action alerts and sent letters to legislators.
There are victories and much work to be done. Lawmakers will take their spring break next week and will resume work after Easter. Please be on the lookout for additional upcoming alerts then as these bills continue their voyage through the Legislature.
As reported last week, SB 360 Mandated reporters: clergy (Hill, D-San Mateo), which would remove the right to privacy between a penitent and confessor during the Sacrament of Reconciliation and other spiritual counseling, cleared the Senate Public Safety Committee and is scheduled to be heard in Senate Appropriations on April 22. Click here to ask for a NO vote to stop this bill from going to the Senate Floor for a vote.
AB 809 child development programs (Santiago, D – Los Angeles) would require all California public colleges and universities to prominently display Title IX protections on their website and health centers in order to increase the awareness of these protections and allow students to overcome the challenges of being both a parent and student. AB 809 passed the Assembly Committee on Higher Education and has been referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. This is a huge victory for this bill. Please send a letter to your legislators now to keep the momentum going and get this bill signed into law.
SB 24 Abortion by medication techniques (Leyva, D-Chino) requires on-campus health centers of public universities in California offer abortion-inducing drugs like RU-486. SB 24 has passed the Senate Health Committee and is scheduled to be heard in the Senate Education Committee on April 24. Click here to let legislators know that California should under no circumstances be encouraging or funding abortions.
AB 1593 Earned income credit (Gómez Reyes, D – Grand Terrace) extends eligibility for the existing California Earned Income Tax Credit (CalEITC) to some of the most vulnerable working Californians. The bill has been amended by the author and will be heard in the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation. The CCC is supporting and closely monitoring AB 1593’s status and will report back as it progresses.
SB 298 Poverty reduction (Caballero, D-Salinas) would establish specific targets to end deep child poverty in four years and reduce child poverty by 50 percent in California by 2039. This bill unanimously passed the Senate Human Services Committee and will next be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee. The CCC is supporting this bill will need your help in sending letters to the Committee once a hearing has been set to help continue its momentum.
AB 624 Pupil and student health: identification cards (Gabriel – D-Encino) would require all require public and private schools to add telephone numbers on student I.D.s for The National Sexual Assault Hotline; The National Domestic Violence Hotline; and a sexual or reproductive health hotline. The CCC is strongly opposed to this bill because the inclusion of any more numbers of other hotlines, regardless of how worthy, would diminish the efficacy of the only number (National Suicide Prevention Hotline) now required on student identification cards. The hearing for this bill has been postponed by the Assembly Education Committee but an Action Alert is available here.
Stay tuned with the CCC for updates on these bills and visit www.cacatholic.org anytime for the latest.
Seeing Abortion
Written by Bishop Robert Barron, originally posted on Word on Fire.
We stand at a pivotal point in the great moral debate over abortion in our country—not because new arguments have emerged, but rather because laws so breathtaking in their barbarism have been passed, and a film so visceral in its presentation of the reality of abortion has found a wide audience. As John Henry Newman reminded us, assent to a proposition is rarely a matter of acquiescing to rational demonstration alone; instead, it often has to do with the accumulation of argument, image, impression, experience, and witness.
The legal protocols now in effect in New York, Delaware, and a number of other states allowing for the butchering of a child in the womb at any point in his or her nine-month gestation—and indeed, on the clinic or hospital table, should the child by some miracle survive the abortion—have sickened much of the country. And they have allowed people to see, in unmistakably clear terms, the full implications of the twisted “pro-choice” ideology. If a mother chooses to bring her baby to term and to be born, that child is, somehow by that choice, the subject of dignity and worthy of the full protection of the law; and if a mother chooses otherwise, even a newborn baby struggling to breathe on an operating table can be murdered and discarded like so much garbage. Biology and metaphysics be damned: our subjective decisions determine reality—and the result is state-sanctioned infanticide. So obviously insane, so clearly dangerous, so unmistakably wicked are these laws that they are causing many people to reconsider their position on abortion.
Advocacy Day Backgrounders Available
Catholic Advocacy Day is just around the corner and for those who are participating and those who wish to know more about the legislation taking center stage that day, the CCC is publishing backgrounders on the bills.
Delegates from arch/dioceses around California will visit Sacramento on April 30 to talk with lawmakers on issues important to the Catholic community in California.
Visit www.cacatholic.org for the latest info on these and other bills the CCC is monitoring.
Final Videos in Gaudete Et Exsultate
The final videos in the CCC-produced eight-part series examining Gaudete Et Exsultate (Rejoice and Be Glad), Pope Francis’ Apostolic Exhortation on the Call to Holiness in Today’s World are now up.
Video 7 calls to mind the wars of every kind in our world, and in ourselves. It implores us to seek peace and be peacemakers.
Video 8 asks us to remain faithful to the Cross, which will sanctify us through persecution and challenges.
Check the CCC’s YouTube page for the entire series.
Blessed Easter Triduum
The summit of the Liturgical Year is the Easter Triduum—from the evening of Holy Thursday to the evening of Easter Sunday. Though chronologically three days, they are liturgically one day unfolding for us the unity of Christ’s Paschal Mystery.
The single celebration of the Triduum marks the end of the Lenten season and leads to the Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord at the Easter Vigil.
The liturgical services that take place during the Triduum are Mass of the Lord’s Supper, Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion and Mass of the Resurrection of the Lord. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has an excellent page of resources.
There will be no Insights next week in observance of Holy Week. The CCC wishes you a blessed Easter.
April 12, 2019
Vol. 12, No. 12
En Español