Canadian “Mass Grave” Story A Hoax?

By Bill Donohue, Catholic League President    

In 2014, I wrote a monograph, Ireland’s “Mass Grave” Hysteria, on claims that 800 bodies of children were found in a mass grave outside a former home run by nuns in Tuam, near Galway. It was all a hoax, just as I had suspected. There was no mass grave. The result: It made the anti-Catholic activists and journalists look like fools. 

Two years ago, the Canadian government claimed that Indian children were buried in “mass graves” at residential schools established by the government and run, in part, by the Catholic Church. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sounded the alarms and ordered the nation’s flags to be flown at half mast; he pledged to spend $40 billion to settle with those associated with the alleged victims. 

Looks like Trudeau, and all the critics of the Catholic Church, were fooled. It is becoming increasingly apparent that this story is also a hoax. After 14 sites were excavated recently, not one mass grave has been found. Indeed, the body count is zero. 

This story began in 2021 after claims about unmarked graves emerged. Immediately, pundits and activists speculated that the Catholic Church (which did not run the majority of the schools) was to blame for the deaths of thousands of indigenous children. Murray Sinclair, who was chosen to chair the Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, opined that the number of corpses was in the range of 15,000-25,000. Now the attorney and member of the Peguis First Nation can’t find even one. 

When the Report was issued last year, it did not make claims about mass graves. Instead, it focused on the “cultural genocide” that the indigenous children experienced. After reading the report, on August 2, 2022, I titled my assessment, “The Genocide That Wasn’t.” 

No sooner had the charge of “cultural genocide” been bandied about when it was shortened by Catholic critics to “genocide.” On p. 6 of the Report, it noted that “Despite the coercive measures that the government adopted, it failed to achieve its policy goals. Although Aboriginal peoples and cultures have been damaged, they continue to exist.” So much for the “cultural genocide” thesis—never mind the more serious charge of genocide. 

Was there no violence at these residential schools? 

In the 535-page Report, there were exactly two testimonials about killing. One was made by an indigenous woman who said she witnessed her older brother kill one of her other brothers when she was nine. The other was in reference to a killing that took place between 1980 and 2012. The residential schools were closed in 1969. 

If the residential schools were guilty of genocide, surely the Report would have found instances of torture, if not whipping. I looked in vain to find such incidents. Oh, yes, there was one instance of whipping: it was committed by a government teacher in 1895. 

Were the Catholic-run schools free of wrongdoing? Pretty much. 

On p. 68 of the Report it says the missionaries opposed integrating the indigenous children into the public schools, but not for nefarious reasons. They did so because “1) teachers in public schools were not prepared to deal with Aboriginal students; 2) students in the public schools often expressed racist attitudes towards Aboriginal students; and 3) Aboriginal students felt acute embarrassment over their impoverished conditions, particularly in terms of the quality of the clothing they wore and the food they ate.” 

None of this was highlighted by the media, nor by Trudeau’s government. 

Mass graves. Genocide. We saw those words thrown about with alacrity in Ireland a decade ago, and more recently in Canada. These false charges have stoked anti-Catholic sentiment in Ireland and have led to the burning of scores of Catholic churches in Canada. The consequences of bigotry can be severe, especially when promoted by the secular-minded members of the ruling class.

CatholicVote Launches 2nd Annual St. Michael Novena

CatholicVote is launching its 2nd annual nationwide St. Michael Novena to protect Catholics in America.

“Our great nation is ruled today by an an anti-Catholic elitist class who not only tolerate anti-Christi bigotry, like we saw on display at Dodger Stadium this year,” noted CatholicVote President Brian Burch, “but they also encourage and celebrate it.”

“That bigotry has given thugs silent permission to carry out actual violence against Catholic churches and symbols,” he added.

The United States has seen a dramatic increase in attacks against Catholic churches, especially since the controversial leak of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. To date, there have been over 350 attacks on Catholic properties since May 2020. 

“Most disturbing is the fact that while violence against pregnancy care centers has slowed, attacks on Catholic churches and sacramentals have only increased in frequency,” reported CatholicVote Field Director Tommy Valentine.

The novena will begin on September 20 and end on the feast day of St. Michael the Archangel. The novena intends to draw Catholics from across the country together to pray for an end to the violence. 

“Catholics have always gone to St. Michael, the prince of the archangels, to help them in battle,” commented Joshua Mercer, editor of the LOOP:

We know that the anger and violence we see against our faith comes from the prevailing influence of the lies of the evil one. Abortion and the blasphemies of hate groups like the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence open human beings up to the influence of the fallen angels, so we’re asking the prince of angels to fight for us.

Each day of the novena promotes a special intention, and there will be days dedicated to specific parishes that have suffered vandalism, to Catholics who work in the trenches to support women and families, and to leaders in politics and in the Church.

Catholics can sign up to receive special access to the entire set of prayers. They will also get a daily email throughout the novena to remind them to pray. 

>> JOIN CATHOLICVOTE IN PRAYER TODAY! <<

EXCLUSIVE: Women Speak Out Against YMCA ‘Transgender’ Bathroom Policies – The Daily Signal

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL: Small-town YMCAs in suburban Ohio have launched themselves headfirst into the transgender debate by allowing men who “identify” as women to access women’s locker rooms. And women who have belonged to these supposedly family-friendly YMCAs for years are discovering, to their shock, that management considers their safety and privacy inferior to the feelings of men.

Local media broke the news earlier this year that an obese man who allegedly identifies as a woman would not be guilty of indecent exposure since, when he was naked in the women’s locker room, his stomach fat supposedly concealed his genitalia.

Now, for the first time, some of the women whose privacy he invaded are speaking out in interviews with The Daily Signal.

One Ohio mother, who asks not to be identified to protect the privacy of her two daughters, says that she saw the man, who goes by the name Rachel Glines, fully naked and “leering” when she and her daughters were showering and changing in November 2022.

Another local woman, Janell Holloway, shares that she was shocked and startled to find a naked man in her locker room when she went to change in September 2022. She says she unsuccessfully sought help and comfort from the Xenia, Ohio, YMCA’s leadership, only to find that this man had been given permission to use the women’s facilities.

Kateisha Young, an employee of the neighboring Fairborn YMCA, shares with The Daily Signal that this same man, also known as Darren Glines, allegedly assaulted her by groping her genitals in December 2022 as she sought to offer emotional support for his struggles living as a transgender-identifying woman.

And Kyle Kettering, a minister at the Church of the Messiah in Xenia, Ohio, shares with The Daily Signal that his 10-year-old and 5-year-old daughters had seen the allegedly naked Glines from the back while they were in the locker room in September 2022, though it appeared that he was covering his genitals with a towel.

“I was sending my girls in by themselves!” the father said in a phone interview. “That was pretty naive on my part, I guess.”

The Daily Signal learned of these stories through the Independent Women’s Forum. The organization’s storytelling coordinator, Andrea Mew, slams the YMCA’s actions as “disappointing” but “unsurprising” in a statement to The Daily Signal, saying that “the YMCA has once again let down its female members, ultimately stripping them of any commonsense protections.”

“Just like when 16-year-old Abbigail Wheeler spoke out about a biological male in her Illinois YMCA locker room, these women’s dignity and their right to privacy is once again on the chopping block,” she adds. “Thankfully, Janell Holloway came to Independent Women’s Forum with her story because we are determined to prevent woke ideology from silencing and canceling women’s voices.”

Glines has not responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal. Neither the Fairborn nor the Xenia YMCA has responded to requests for comment.

Dale Brunner, president and CEO of the YMCA of Greater Dayton, refused to address The Daily Signal’s specific questions about protecting women’s spaces and privacy.

Study: Children regularly mutilated in ‘trans’ industry

“Transgender advocates repeatedly claim that minors only take ‘puberty-blocking’ drugs or cross-sex hormones, but never undergo surgeries in an attempt to force their male or female bodies to resemble the opposite sex,” writes Tyler O’Neil. But “a new study estimates that more than 3,000 minors underwent transgender surgeries in a five-year period, and more than 400 of them had their genitals removed.”  READ

Over 100 incidents of Chinese security probes

The FBI and Department of Defense have reportedly tracked more than 100 incidents of Chinese nationals posing as tourists to attempt to breach U.S. military bases and other federal sites. The growing trend represents a potential espionage threat, as authorities believe the Chinese government is compelling nationals to test out and report back on U.S. security practices.  READ

Parents Beware: California Is Out To Marginalize You!

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – By now most have heard about California’s lawsuit against a local school district that refuses to keep parents in the dark about the sexual proclivities of their children. Under state law school officials are prohibited from telling parents that their child might be living a “double life,” a boy at home and a girl in school.

It’s called transgenderism and it’s becoming very popular in some circles. It is where a child — yes, child is the correct word — has occasion to believe that he or she was born in the wrong body and is confused about which sex he or she is. And for some kids they claim they are neither, the term is gender nonconforming.

Now that used to cause a red flag to pop up saying, “This kid needs help.” Of course, that’s not the case now. This, according to experts in the field (oxymoron?), is a perfectly normal condition for which society should make allowances. It is not a disease or mental health, they say.

Of course, they are wrong. This is what happens when personal and political ideology rules rather than common sense, as we see far too often in these blue states.

This is a social contagion whose fires are being fanned by a collection of leftist activists, woke academics, anti-family Marxists, and an assortment of other wing-nuts from across the political spectrum whose voices are louder than their collective intelligence.

In the case at hand, California’s chief legal wing-nut, Rob Bonta — and a host of others in his employ having the same level of intelligence — has filed a lawsuit against the Chino Valley School District that had the courage to stand up against the state and declared that when it comes to their children, parents should know about such things.

You see, to the nimrods running the California schools, Chino Valley’s unwise defense of parents’ right to know is outweighed by the collective intelligence of those who celebrate gender as a spectrum.

“[The Chino policy] unlawfully discriminates against transgender and nonconforming students, subjecting them to disparate treatment, harassment, abuse, mental, emotional, and physical. This is by design: The Board’s plain motivations in adopting [the policy] were to create and harbor animosity, discrimination, and prejudice towards those transgender and gender nonconforming students, without any compelling reason to do so,” says the all-knowing and all-powerful banana republic of California.

According to W-N Bonta, “For far too many transgender children and gender nonconforming youth, school serves as their only safe haven — a place away from home where they can find validation, safety, privacy. We have to protect that.” Of course, that is woke speech for “parents can’t be trusted to do that job that is why the atheists running the state must step in.”

The suit alleges in one section that “transgender and gender nonconforming students in unsupportive environments experience high degrees of discrimination and harassment.” I would think that that would be true. But where are these “unsupportive environments” that the state must assume dot the landscape? According to the suit, the unwelcome places are homes in which these children reside with their parents.

“Gender identity is not a choice, and it is not a mental illness. It is an essential part of one’s identity and being, and cannot be voluntarily changed. Transgender students in unsupportive or unsafe environments suffer significant levels of discrimination, abuse, and harassment, both physical and mental, well above their non-transgender peers,” it says.

Of course, schools are the ideal place for such students. They are safe from prying parents. Perhaps the teachers’ union loves the kids more than the parents do. Think that answers it?

Then the state reports on a study from the state’s public schools which found that 40 percent of the transgender students reported bulling against only 7.3 percent of the non-transgender students that reported bulling.

Okay, but this is a sad fact: Kids will be kids and they can be mean to those they see as “different.” So, the answer is to treat them in such a manner that they find solace only with other transgender and transgender allied students? Who’s treating whom differently?

But it can’t be just other kids that are bullying these students. It’s not. According to the suit the bullies are (drum roll) the parents. And here is the evidence as presented to the court:

“In the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, 10 percent of respondents said that an immediate family member had been violent toward them because they were transgender, and 15 percent ran away from home or were kicked out from their homes because they were transgender. Of those who transitioned in the year preceding the survey, eight percent reported violence from an immediate family member because they were transgender, seven percent ran away from home, and eight percent had been kicked out of their home.”

Okay, look at the percentages. Harassment at home: 10 percent; 8 percent. That means that 90 percent and 92 percent of the homes were not abusive just because their kids found some difficulty with their sexual identities. But the state sees a problem that can only be rectified by a complete ban on parental notification. Typical authoritative governmental overreach and assertion of power by one who knows best.

And think about this a little harder. Some children are reluctant to talk with parents about many sensitive (to them) matters; afraid of disapproval, punishment, loss of parental love. These are all things that children of all ages wonder about; now combine that with some teachers’ union representative who tells them you can’t trust your parents with this information.

One of the saner voices in this argument came from Republican State Rep. Bill Essayli: “There’s a lot of systems in place to deal with physical abuse of any minor, and I think it’s wrong for the state to presume that parents are a danger and therefore take a blanket policy where they’re going to withhold information from all parents under the auspice that some parents might be harmful to their kids.”

His bill to do just that was never given a hearing.

There is a disconnect here and it is one that the wing-nuts running the state are encouraging. If these self-aggrandizing nitwits really wanted to support children they would be doing all they could to strengthen the bonds and developing trust between parents and their children. Parental involvement in the lives of their children makes for better kids and better schools.

But that apparently doesn’t count in California. Remember this is the state that legalized abduction of children from other states who were unable to transition there to find appropriate state-approved guardians with nary a word to the parents who would be left wondering whatever happened to the pretty little girl who helped them with their farm chores.

Sorry, she ran off to California where she could become a boy.
Of course, we’re not winning this war. In just the past two weeks courts in Maryland and New Jersey, apparently populated with the same dimwitted nimrods as in California, sided against parents on this issue.

And keep this in mind: from its inception, Communists’ dogma has always promoted the disruption of the nuclear family. Just sayin’.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com and listen to him every weekend on Faith On Trial or podcast at https://iowacatholicradio.com/faith-on-trial/)

Beverly Hills Officials Harass Small Jewish Prayer Meetings

Beverly Hills, CA—First Liberty Institute and the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP today sent a letter to Beverly Hills, CA city officials urging them to withdraw their “Notice of Violation” against Rabbi Levi Illulian, which threatens the Rabbi with civil and criminal proceedings for hosting religious gatherings in his home to meet the religious needs of his family, neighbors, and friends.  

To read the letter, click here. 

“Rabbi Illulian has a constitutional right to engage in religious exercise at his home with family or friends, free from government burden and interference,” said Ryan Gardner, Counsel for First Liberty Institute. “Beverly Hills is a diverse city that should welcome this Rabbi and protect his freedom to live out his faith.  The city should stop its harassment of Rabbi Illulian immediately.” 

Elizabeth Kiernan of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher added, “It is chilling that Beverly Hills officials have resorted to surveilling a small group of Jewish residents who meet together for worship.  The law and constitution protect his right to host gatherings of family and friends to meet their spiritual needs.”  

Rabbi Illulian’s gatherings, which began as a means of supporting an aging, home-ridden Holocaust survivor, include Shabbat prayers and dinner, and religious holiday celebrations and are open only to those who are invited and not the general public.  During Shabbat, adherents traditionally join their family and friends to recite Jewish prayers and for meals prepared in accordance with the Jewish beliefs and must “make the Shabbat a delight,” and thus cannot work or drive.  Many of the individuals present at his Shabbat gatherings and holiday celebrations are blood relations, as his father and several of his uncles, siblings, nieces, and nephews live within walking distance.  City officials have been investigating Rabbi Illulian’s religious exercise since March using increasingly invasive means, including surveilling individuals and cars coming and going from the home and flying a drone over the home.  They issued a “Notice of Violation” prohibiting all religious activity at the home with non-residents in June. 

According to the letter, “The City’s Notice of Violation threatens Rabbi Illulian with civil and criminal proceedings for his ‘religious activity’ at his home with ‘non-residents,’” despite allowing social gatherings of similar size and character to occur in the same neighborhood unmolested.   When Rabbi Illulian’s neighbors can invite friends and family into their homes for a card game or dinner party but the City notices Rabbi Illulian for inviting his friends and family to pray or celebrate Shabbat, neither the First Amendment nor RLUIPA tolerates this kind of unequal treatment.”

18 states stand with Tennessee effort to protect kids

Eighteen states filed a brief petitioning a federal court to rule in favor of a Tennessee law protecting kids from being exposed to lewd “drag” performances. A federal judge blocked the law in June. The law banned performances depicting “nudity, sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse” on public property.  READ

This week's Faith On Trial podcast is now available

This week on Faith On Trial, Iowa Catholic Radio Network. Listen now: https://iowacatholicradio.com/faith-on-trial/  Episode 378

 

Abortion groups sue over Ohio amendment language

 Pro-abortion activists are suing Ohio ballot officials for adopting the term “unborn child” in the new official language for a ballot measure that could make abortion a constitutional right in November. The ballot’s language states that Issue 1 would grant a pregnant woman’s physician “the authority to determine … whether an unborn child is viable,” and subsequently whether they believe an abortion is necessary for the life of the mother. READ

U.S. Bishops’ Pro-Life Chairman Rejects Distortion of Pregnant Workers’ Protection Law

WASHINGTON - On Monday, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) released proposed regulations implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act. Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Committee on Pro-Life Activities, responded with the following statement:

“We supported the bipartisan Pregnant Workers Fairness Act because it enhanced the protection of pregnant mothers and their preborn children, which is something that we have encouraged Congress to prioritize. The Act is pro-worker, pro-family, and pro-life. It is a total distortion to use this law as a means for advancing abortion, and the complete opposite of needed assistance for pregnant mothers.

“The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s proposed interpretation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to include accommodations for obtaining an abortion is wrong and contrary to the text, legislative history, and purpose of the Act, which is to help make it possible for working mothers to remain gainfully employed, if desired, while protecting their health and that of their preborn children. We are hopeful that the EEOC will be forced to abandon its untenable position when public comments submitted on this regulation demonstrate that its interpretation would be struck down in court.”

Nashville Murderer’s Manifesto Still Secret

By Bill Donohue, Catholic League president 

As we begin the new school year, five months after a mass murder at a Christian school in Nashville, the manifesto of the killer has still not been released to the public.  

On March 27, 2023, a 28-year-old female, Audrey Hale, who falsely claimed to be a male, shot and killed three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee. The transgender person had attended Covenant School and apparently expressed her disdain for it. 

Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake told the media at that time, “There’s some belief that there was some resentment for having to go to that school.” He was not speculating. We know that she was planning the attack “over a period of months.” More important, she left behind a manifesto that sheds light on why she did what she did. But it has not been made public. 

According to a spokesman for Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, it is the FBI and the Metro Nashville Police who are stopping the manifesto from being released. Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett blames the FBI. 

What’s the reason for balking? The fear, as expressed by school officials, Covenant School parents, the media, and LGBT activists is that the public may learn the real reasons why Hale did what she did. In other words, if she made vicious anti-Christian remarks, they don’t want to deal with the fallout. 

School officials and the school’s parents understandably want this issue behind them. But no such slack can be cut the media and LGBT activists. Had Hale been a white supremacist, and the manifesto contained racist statements, is there anyone who doubts that it wouldn’t have been released by now? Anti-Christian bigotry is no less invidious. 

Metro Nashville Police Department Deputy Chief Mike Hagar has reviewed the unredacted version of the documents, as well as the redacted one, and he “does not believe” the release of the redacted papers would “impede the investigation.” Then let’s do it. 

On August 26, a white racist shot and killed three black people in Jacksonville, Florida. We know all about his bigotry. So why are we still being kept in the dark about the anti-Christian bigotry of a transgender person?

“Gender Industry” Targeting Children for Medical Mutilation

ORLANDO, FL – The Journal of the American Medical Association published a new study last week analyzing the number of people in the U.S. who underwent medical mutilation procedures––what it referred to as “gender-affirming surgeries” (GAS)––discovering that more than 48,000 people, including 3,678 patients aged 12-18 years, were surgically mutilated between 2016-2019.

The Columbia University study, “National Estimates of Gender-Affirming Surgery in the US,” stratified surgical patients into seven age groups, in which the youngest category was notably grouped ages 12-18. The study revealed that in this age group 87 percent underwent breast or chest procedures, 11 percent had genital surgery, and nearly 10 percent had facial or cosmetic interventions. For reasons not specified in the study, the researchers did not separate minors into their own 12-17 group making it impossible to know exactly how many children under age 18 were surgically mutilated. 

However, a different study by Vanderbilt University researchers in October 2022 titled, “Gender-Affirming Chest Surgeries Increase by Nearly 5x in Teens,” did stratify children into a 12-17 age group finding that 489 minors had chest surgeries in the same four-year time period. These studies clearly indicate by including ages as low as 12 that children that young are being mutilated. 

While the researchers at Columbia University also did not break down specific surgeries by age, they did reveal out of dozens of procedures that the most common ones amongst all the patients studied (48,019) were breast reconstructions (21,244), mammaplasties (4,926) hysterectomies (4,489), and “orchitectomies” (testicle removal, 3,425). Notably, the study confirmed with past research that the number of these procedures, surgeries, and interventions are increasing over time. The study stated, “A prior study examining national estimates of inpatient GAS procedures noted that the absolute number of procedures performed nearly doubled between 2000 to 2005 and from 2006 to 2011. In our analysis, the number of GAS procedures nearly tripled from 2016 to 2020.” 

Going beyond 2020, other researchers at Komodo Health, Inc., also found the same rate of increase stating that gender dysphoria tripled in minors from 2017 to 2021. In commensurate fashion, the number of gender clinics treating children in the United States has grown from zero to an estimated 200 to 300 clinics in the past 15 years. The first gender clinic for children in America was founded in 2007 at Boston Children’s Hospital where at the time doctors there did not limit candidates for puberty blockers to a “minimal age” but advised children needed to “wait for pubertal signs.” 

In 2021, the “gender surgery industry” in the United States was valued at $1.9 billion, and was estimated to be $2.1 billion in 2022, and is expected to grow to $5 billion by 2030. Despite many gender hospitals today touting “the minimum age of 18 as eligibility” to undergo these procedures, these studies and reports show that surgeons are performing them on children younger than 18 years. 

As the American medical community sees record profits from irreversibly mutilating children and adults, therapeutic counseling is largely ignored as an alternative treatment to gender dysphoria. 

Liberty Counsel has represented several licensed counselors who have used therapeutic counseling to help many people get beyond gender dysphoria. Through Liberty Counsel’s efforts, city ordinances in Florida and Iowa banning this type of counseling have been struck down or repealed preserving the free speech rights of counselors so they can help their clients to reduce or eliminate unwanted same-sex attractions, behaviors, or gender confusion. Several clients of these counselors have testified under oath that without counseling they would have continued down a dark, irreversible path, and it was the counseling that helped them resolve their health issues to embrace their biological sex. 

Counseling for gender dysphoria, which the “gender industry” and media falsely refer to as “conversion therapy,” is actually talk therapy and is a lot like a GPS map system for mental health. The clients tell the counselor the direction in which they want to go, and the counselor helps them reach that destination. Counseling operates from the viewpoint that people do not have to be chained to gender dysphoria or unwanted desires, behaviors, or confusion. 

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “The fact that children are being irreversibly mutilated is appalling. Gender ideology and greed are rotting the medical community to its core making the mutilation of children a billion-dollar industry. This insanity needs to stop, for real science shows that counseling is effective in treating gender dysphoria. Liberty Counsel has successfully defended licensed counselors who have helped people with gender dysphoria and this talk therapy is protected by the First Amendment.”

Pro-Life Advocate Lauren Handy Seeks Emergency Jail Release After FACE Act Conviction

(Washington, D.C.) Thomas More Society attorneys filed August 30 an emergency
motion with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia asking the Court to reconsider its order detaining pro-life advocate Lauren Handy while she awaits sentencing. 

Concluding that Handy’s violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act was a “crime of violence,” U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ordered Handy and her four co-defendants be immediately taken into custody after the federal jury returned its verdict on August 29, 2023. In their motion, Thomas More Society Senior Counsels Martin Cannon and Steve Crampton argue that under federal law and binding precedents from the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court, the FACE Act is not categorically a “crime of violence,” and should not lead to pre-sentencing detention. 

Handy and her co-defendants were found guilty of violating the FACE Act during a peaceful protest at a notorious Washington, D.C. abortion facility in October 2020. Thomas More Society attorneys plan to appeal Handy’s conviction. 

After the jury returned its verdict, an army of U.S. Marshals led Handy and her co-defendants out of the courtroom. “That is outrageous. These pro-life advocates committed no violence during their protest at the abortion facility as they kneeled and prayed, distributed pro-life literature and counseled women considering abortions,” said Crampton. “The real violence is what happens to an innocent child during an abortion procedure.”  

In a drive to prosecute FACE cases, the Biden Department of Justice charged Handy and her co-defendants with one count of “Conspiracy Against Rights” and one count of “Clinic Access Obstruction” in March 2022. The charges were filed nearly one and a half years after Handy organized the October 2020 protest at the facility operated by notorious late-term abortionist Cesare Santangelo, who has long been suspected of refusing care to infants born alive during abortions. This week, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department confirmed it is investigating  Santangelo and his facility. 

During the trial, Handy testified that she had viewed an undercover video produced by pro-life group Live Action that showed an abortionist at the facility would refuse to treat an infant who had survived an abortion attempt. She also passed out flyers at the protest that asserted that live-birth abortions were being performed at the facility. 

“Ms. Handy was there to prevent these horrific live-birth abortions, which does not violate the FACE Act,” said Cannon. “However, she has become a victim of the merciless drive by Biden’s Department of Justice to prosecute those who are trying to protect preborn human beings. To add to that injustice, she was incarcerated when the true violence continues to be committed against innocent children.” 

A national non-profit leader, Handy founded Mercy Missions in 2017. The mutual aid organization assists families and mothers in crisis pregnancies and provides relief for the homeless. “Clearly, Ms. Handy does not pose a danger to the safety of any person or the community and is not a flight risk,” Cannon added. “Therefore, she should be released immediately.”  

Read the emergency motion filed August 30, 2023 by Thomas More Society attorneys in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Lauren Handy’s Emergency Motion for Reconsideration of Order of Detention Pending Imposition of Sentence, here [ https://tinyurl.com/52utdcjx].

CDC may have exaggerated COVID deaths by over 5000%

Newly-released data suggests that nearly 99% of the new COVID deaths reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) may primarily be attributed to other causes. Of the 324 “COVID deaths” reported in the week that ended August 19 by the CDC, fewer than 2% (1.7%) were recorded as being primarily caused by COVID.  READ