News - April 2019

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Preservation of the family, marriage and the unborn were the main themes of the annual National Catholic Prayer Breakfast at the Marriott Marquis hotel in Washington April 23. “Faith in the crucified and risen Christ shields us from two cold and deadly sins: arrogant presumption and cynical despair,” said Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted of Phoenix, the guest speaker. “Neither of which are appropriate in a Christian leader. The enemy of our souls does not care which we prefer.” Bishop Olmsted, who is a consultant to the pro-life committee of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the matter of legal abortion has defined his ministry, since he was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1973, the year of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which legalized abortion on demand. “It is my pastoral duty to proclaim the Gospel of life and the protection in law of the most vulnerable among us. The love of Christ compels me.”