Bishop blesses Sophia Forchas, 12-year-old unconscious victim of school attack; Vice President JD Vance asks prayers for Sophia’s health; Trump asks Supreme Court to greenlight tariffs; Vatican releases statement after Pope’s meeting today with Israeli President; Florida to eliminate ALL childhood vaccine mandates; 7 German AfD politicians die shortly before elections; and more —
Bishop blesses hospitalized 12-year-old Annunciation shooting victim still in critical condition
Blessing her forehead and both hands with holy water from Lourdes, France, as she lay unconscious in a hospital bed in Minneapolis, Auxiliary Bishop Michael J. Izen of St. Paul and Minneapolis prayed for 12-year-old Sophia Forchas, left in critical condition with head injuries when bullets tore through Annunciation’s church in Minneapolis one week before.
“Just ask people to pray. We’re going to win this,” Forchas’ father told Bishop Izen Sept. 2 at Hennepin Healthcare in Minneapolis.
Seventeen other students at Annunciation’s elementary school were wounded when a person wielding three guns began shooting through stained-glass windows into the church, which is next door to the school. Forchas’ brother was in the church, too, but he was not injured in the Aug. 27 shooting.
Read more at Our Sunday Visitor
JD Vance and Second Lady paying respects at Annunciation Catholic School
Watch @VP on X
Vice President JD Vance asks prayers for Sophia Forchas, the 12-year-old Minneapolis church shooting victim, ‘who continues to fight for her life every day’
Read @JDVance on X
Trump asks Supreme Court to greenlight tariffs
The Justice Department asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to rescue President Trump’s tariffs invalidated by lower courts.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit struck down the bulk of Trump’s tariffs in a 7-4 decision last week, ruling the president can’t use emergency powers to justify levies imposed on dozens of trading partners.
“The Federal Circuit’s decision casts doubt upon the President’s most significant economic and foreign-affairs policy—a policy that implicates sensitive, ongoing foreign negotiations and urgent national-security concerns,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the administration’s Supreme Court petition.
Read more at The Hill
Judge rules Trump admin’s Harvard funding freeze was unconstitutional
A federal judge in Massachusetts on Wednesday ruled that the Trump administration acted illegally when it froze more than $2 billion in federal funding for Harvard University earlier this year amid a battle over the school’s response to antisemitism.
Harvard President Alan Garber accused the federal government of attempting to exert “unprecedented and improper control” over the Ivy League school in April, and claimed the freeze impacted programs unrelated to antisemitism.
Judge Allison Burroughs ruled that the Trump administration’s freeze was in retaliation for the school’s refusal to comply with the administration’s demands in a way that violates the First Amendment, CNBC reported.
Read more at Just the News
Former Chicago Police Chief Says Democrats Fear a Trump Crime Crackdown in the City Because it Would Work
Jody Weis, the former police chief of Chicago, said that when it comes to Trump cracking down on crime in the city, what Democrats really fear is that it would work. This is undoubtedly correct.
Just like with Washington, DC, when people see that crime can be handled, they will realize that the Democrat leaders in Chicago are allowing this to happen. It is a matter of choice. Trump’s success at the southern border was the exact same thing.
When the people who live in Chicago see that they don’t have to live this way, some of them are going to start questioning these Democrats and they certainly don’t want that.
Read more at the Gateway Pundit
Trump Suggests National Guard Could Be Deployed to New Orleans
Watch @LesterDuhé on X
‘Murder’: World’s Biggest Cocaine Producing Country Upset Over Trump’s Narco Vessel Strike
The president of the leading cocaine producer in the world said Wednesday morning that the U.S. strike on a Tren de Aragua drug trafficking vessel Tuesday was tantamount to “murder.”
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said, in a post translated by the Daily Caller News Foundation, that the pilots of the boat were likely “poor young people” and that the killing was unjust because the transporters weren’t the “big narcos.” Colombia is not only the world’s largest exporter of cocaine, but also plays host to some of Latin America’s most vicious cartels and militias.
Read more at the Daily Caller
Vatican releases statement after Pope Leo XIV’s meeting today with Israeli President Isaac Herzog
Trump demands Hamas release all 20 hostages: ‘IT WILL END!’
President Donald Trump on Wednesday demanded that Hamas release all 20 of its remaining hostages, promising that, should they do so, the conflict will quickly end.
“Tell Hamas to IMMEDIATELY give back all 20 Hostages (Not 2 or 5 or 7!), and things will change rapidly. IT WILL END!” he posted on Truth Social.
Trump’s comments come as he has struggled to negotiate an end to the conflict, which began Oct. 7, 2023. Despite securing an initial pause in the fighting just before taking office, Trump has been unable to bring about a permanent peace agreement thus far.
Read more at America’s Voice
As war nears two-year mark, Catholic leaders head to Holy Land
As the Israel-Hamas war nears the two-year mark, Catholic leaders have headed to Jerusalem, the Palestinian West Bank and Israel on a pastoral visit.
The delegation is headed by Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, who serves as vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Msgr. Peter I. Vaccari, president of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association-Pontifical Mission; and members of the Knights of Columbus, including Supreme Knight Patrick E. Kelly and Supreme Secretary John A. Marrella.
In a Sept. 2 press release issued by CNEWA-Pontifical Missions, Msgr. Vaccari said the visit was meant to provide accompaniment and solidarity with those suffering from the war, sparked by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of Israel.
Read more at Our Sunday Visitor
Florida will eliminate ‘immoral’ childhood vaccine mandates: ‘People have a right to make their own decisions’
Florida will work to phase out all childhood vaccine mandates in the state, building on the effort by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to curb vaccine requirements and other health mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic.
DeSantis also announced on Wednesday the creation of a state-level “Make America Healthy Again” commission modeled after similar initiatives pushed at the federal level by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Read more at New York Post
Over 1,000 HHS Employees Sign Letter Demanding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Resign
Over 1,000 current and former employees with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have signed an open letter demanding that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. resign as Health Secretary.
The letter from the group Save HHS accused Kennedy of endangering Americans’ health and aiding in the violation of the U.S. Constitution. The letter was sent to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions as well as the Senate Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
“We swore an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution and to serve the American people. Our oath requires us to speak out when the Constitution is violated and the American people are put at risk,” the letter said. “Thus, we warn the President, Congress, and the Public that Secretary Kennedy’s actions are compromising the health of this nation, and we demand Secretary Kennedy’s resignation.”
Read more at Breitbart
Today Sec. Kennedy calls out Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), a leading voice on ‘healthcare reform’ for inaction
Watch @RapidResponse47
Ilhan Omar Latest Socialist to Rake in Millions Under Suspicious Circumstances
Rep. Ilhan Omar, one of the founding members of the “Squad,” has become the latest Democrat to constantly bash the rich while herself raking in millions of dollars. Despite earning an annual salary of just $174,000, Omar’s net worth has skyrocketed to as much as $30 million – after she denied being a multi-millionaire earlier this year.
As first reported by The Washington Free Beacon, according to Omar’s most recent financial disclosure, she and her husband’s net worth reached somewhere between $6 million and $30 million in 2024. While lawmakers aren’t required to report exact value figures on their assets, just a range, that still means Omar’s net worth has increased at least 3,500 percent since 2023.
Read more at Amac
Steve Bannon rousing speech on Polish president Karol Nawrocki’s visit to the White House and the Polish-American alliance
Watch @WojPawelczyk on X
Seven German AfD politicians die within weeks of each other ahead of elections
Seven Alternative für Deutschland politicians died within two weeks of each other before local elections, prompting party leaders to hint at foul play. …
Despite [one AfD member] distancing from speculation of any possible nefarious demise, several AfD leaders openly called foul play.
AfD co-chairwoman Alice Weidel reposted a post from retired economist Stefan Homburg, who said the deaths were “statistically almost impossible.”
Read more at msn; see also @MarioNawfal on X
Supreme Court Justice Barrett defends ‘Roe v Wade’ reversal, reflects on Catholic faith in new memoir
In her forthcoming memoir, Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett defends the landmark 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, calling the 1973 ruling an “exercise of raw judicial power” that invented a constitutional right to abortion.
In Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution, Barrett, a Catholic, argues that Roe had no grounding in American history or law and that abortion “had long been forbidden” in the nation’s legal tradition.
“The evidence does not show that the American people have traditionally considered the right to obtain an abortion so fundamental to liberty that it ‘goes without saying’ in the Constitution,” Barrett wrote, according to excerpts published by CNN. “In fact, the evidence cuts in the opposite direction. Abortion not only lacked long-standing protection in American law — it had long been forbidden.”
Read more at CatholicVote
‘Need a reinvigorating break? Here’s Gavin Ashedan reading ‘The Hound of Heaven’, a powerful poem about God’s loving pursuit of the human soul
Watch at Dr G Ashenden on YouTube
Buried in Assisi, new saint is ‘true disciple’ of St. Francis, rector says
Soon-to-be St. Carlo Acutis is a fresh “shoot” budding from the 800-year-old spiritual “vine” of Sts. Francis and Clare in Assisi, said the rector of the shrine housing the millennial teenager’s tomb.
“Assisi is clearly known for St. Francis and St. Clare, and this explosion of holiness in the 13th century is still incredibly fruitful today,” Father Marco Gaballo, rector of the Shrine of the Renunciation, told Catholic News Service in late August.
Read more at the Catholic Standard
