Angelus News | July 29, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 15

NATION
Volunteers with the Ladies of Charity of Calvert County, Maryland, give away provisions for a Thanksgiving meal in
November 2021. | CNS/BOB ROLLER
■ Should the US brace for a ‘charity deficit’?
The decline of religious observance in the United States could spell bad news for
the future of philanthropy, according to one Christian author.
Writing in the The Wall Street Journal June 30, Ericka Andersen argued that
“even nonbelievers should worry about the practical consequences of an increasingly
secular U.S.” in which a “ticking time bomb of philanthropic demise” could
cause a “charity deficit.”
Andersen pointed out that as the wealthy, “disproportionately religious” baby
boomer generation slowly ages out, so will the money it gives to fund some of the
country’s most important charities. She noted there is no guarantee that more
nonreligious millennial “nones” will be as generous.
To fill the gap, Andersen suggested offering younger generations more ways to
give, as well as forging charity partnerships between religious and secular organizations.
“By the grace of God, bringing religious ‘nones’ into the charitable fold could
have the welcome side effect of bringing them back to religion,” she wrote.
■ OSV announces plan to replace Catholic News Service
Our Sunday Visitor (OSV) announced that it will launch a new Catholic news
service to replace Catholic News Service (CNS), which will suspend U.S. coverage
at the end of the year.
“After the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops decided to bring the
domestic operations of Catholic News Service to a close at the end of 2022, we
started talks with the USCCB and have reached an agreement to acquire rights to
the platform that CNS uses to produce and distribute its content,” announced OSV
Publisher Scott P. Richert July 6 at the Catholic Media Conference in Portland,
Oregon.
In addition to providing national and international news, analysis, and editorials,
OSV News will acquire usage of all CNS’s digital archives. The new service will also
partner with the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communications, Aleteia, and CNS’s Rome
Bureau, which will continue to operate independent of OSV.
The USCCB announced May 4 that CNS would close domestic offices and coverage
as part of a “significant realignment” of the conference’s communications arm.
■ Bishops blast President
Biden over abortion
executive order
The U.S. bishops’ pro-life chairman
called President Joe Biden’s new
executive order on abortion “disturbing
and tragic.”
The executive order, signed July 8,
came in response to the overturning of
Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court in
June. The order safeguards access to
medication abortion and emergency
contraception; protects patient privacy;
launches public education efforts; and
strengthens “the security of and the
legal options available to those seeking
and providing abortion services.”
Baltimore Archbishop William E.
Lori criticized the president for “seeking
every possible avenue to deny unborn
children their most basic human
and civil right, the right to life.”
“Rather than using the power of the
executive branch to increase support
and care to mothers and babies, the
president’s executive order seeks only
to facilitate the destruction of defenseless,
voiceless human beings,” he said
in a July 9 statement.
A well-deserved ‘Franny’ — Ann Augherton,
managing editor of the Arlington Catholic Herald,
newspaper of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia,
receives the 2022 St. Francis de Sales Award July
7 from Amy Kawula, president of the Catholic
Media Association during the Catholic Media
Conference in Portland, Oregon. | CNS/BOB
ROLLER
July 29, 2022 • ANGELUS • 5