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The US Conference of Mayors, representing 1,200 cities across America voted on Saturday to pass a resolution in support of women’s reproductive rights and also funding for Planned Parenthood.

The mayors including its lead sponsors including Michael Bloomberg of New York City, Ed Lee of San Francisco, Mike McGinn of Seattle, Antonio Vilaraigosa of Los Angeles, Pedro Segarra of Hartford, Conn and Sam Adams of Portland, Ore organized the resolution to fight back against the wave of state and federal efforts to restrict women’s access to abortion and family planning services.

The mayors collectively agreed to fight back against these efforts to restrict women’s health care in the future, writes Laura Bassett for Huffington Post.

The resolution “affirms the importance of women’s reproductive rights” and “urges Congress and the states to pursue a positive agenda that reaffirms fundamental rights and improves women’s access to safe and comprehensive reproductive-health care.”

“When it comes to reproductive health decisions, nobody knows better than an individual woman what is best for herself and her family,” Bloomberg said in a statement. “New York City is committed to supporting a woman’s right to choose and ensuring that all New Yorkers have the information, and access to care, they need to make safe and healthy decisions.”

Mayor Bloomberg donated $250,000 of his foundation’s money to Planned Parenthood during the Komen funding crisis.

The mayors’ resolution came the day after the Obama administration lost its key ally in its controversial plan to require health insurers to provide free contraceptive coverage.

To all who can read the tea leaves, the Catholic bishops clamped down on the Catholic Health Association, which had initially supported the Obama contraception mandate compromise. Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association in February announced: “The Catholic Health Association is very pleased with the White House announcement that a resolution has been reached that protects the religious liberty and conscience rights of Catholic institutions.”

That announcement raised the furor of Catholic bishops weeks before the Vatican’s called American nuns a bunch of “radical feminists”. With American nuns under investigation, the change of heart by the Catholic Health Association comes as no surprise.

On Friday Sister Keehan withdrew support for the compromise, saying the the CHA is now “deeply concerned” about the plan and that the White House “has not relieved our initial concerns.”

Cardinal Dolan Riles Ireland

Americans of every faith including Catholics aren’t the only people upset with Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Ireland’s Association of Catholic Priests has strongly protested against Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s visitation report on the Irish College in Rome.

According to the Irish Times, the association called on Ireland’s four Irish archbishops, trustees of the college, and bishops of the priests concerned, “to publicly repudiate this report in the strongest possible terms and to support the priests involved in seeking to restore their reputations”.

They protested “in the strongest possible terms against the methodology and conclusions” of Cardinal Dolan’s report and said it had “effectively destroyed the reputations of priests, who have given lifelong service to the Irish Catholic Church, without giving them a right of reply to the allegations made against them”.

They found it “unacceptable that a report to the pope, on a sensitive issue, should be conducted in such an incompetent fashion” and said “no court of law would treat people in such a way”.

The four Irish priests at the college who were recommended for dismissal by Dolan’s team argues that Cardinal Dolan was investigating the “gay-friendly” reputation at the college. Charging that the report lists no evidence at all, even stating that it found no evidence.

Sister Pat Farrell Speaks

The Washington Post reports Sister Pat Farrell, president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, said today that Catholics should be able to search for answers about faith without fear.

In the Rome meeting, Farrell said she did not ask Vatican officials in to drop their demand for reform. “I think we could clearly see in the tenor of the conversation that that was not an option,” she said. She characterized the meeting as frank and open but difficult, and said she did not leave the talk feeling any more hopeful about what’s ahead.

NH Governor Vetoes “Partial Birth” Abortion Ban

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch vetoed a state law that makes illegal a non-existent procedure known as “partial birth abortion,” saying that a federal ban already exists.Since 2003, federal law has banned late-term abortions except to protect the health of the mother.

The law required that two physicians from separate hospitals must determine that a woman’s life was in danger before performing a partial-birth abortion. Both houses say they are prepared to override the veto.