Posted on 10/3/2024 19:25 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
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Archbishop Timothy Broglio is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and also leads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA. / Credit: "EWTN News In Depth"/Screenshot
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 3, 2024 / 15:25 pm (CNA).
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is asking the U.S. bishops to invite the faithful throughout the country to join in prayer on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel.
In an open letter to the bishops published Wednesday, Broglio lamented the “horrific attack” by Hamas on Israeli citizens on Oct. 7, 2023. He also expressed his sadness over the continued captivity of Israeli hostages, the deaths of the Gazan civilians killed in the ensuing war against Hamas, and the “dramatic rise” in antisemitic and anti-Muslim hate crimes throughout the U.S. and the world.
“The terrible loss of life in Israel and in Gaza, as well as the spike in crimes of hate here in the U.S. and elsewhere, is a source of great sorrow to us as Catholics,” Broglio said.
He went on to say that “compassion is not a zero-sum game.”
“We hear the cries of lament of all our brothers and sisters — Israelis and Palestinians, Jews and Muslims and Christians — all of whom have been traumatized by these events. We join in mourning all whose lives have been cut short. We share the earnest desire for lasting peace,” he emphasized.
Broglio also shared his dismay over the recent escalation of the conflict at the Israeli-Lebanese border. In recent weeks both Iran and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah have launched hundreds of missiles into Israel. In response, Israel has launched a series of missile barrages and attacks into Lebanon.
Calling to mind the invitation for the faithful to participate in a day of prayer and fasting on Oct. 7 from the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Broglio asked his brother bishops to extend the commemoration to the faithful throughout the United States.
“Our Catholic faith teaches us to hope even amidst the darkest of circumstances, for Christ is risen from the dead. Out of death God brings forth a new creation,” he said.
“As this anniversary approaches, in a time of anguish and trauma,” he went on, “let us seek ways to express our solidarity with our Jewish and Muslim brothers and sisters. Let us also commit ourselves to combat all forms of hatred directed towards Jews and Muslims, and to work for a lasting peace in the land of the Lord Jesus’ birth.”
Broglio asked that his letter be distributed to the clergy and lay faithful throughout the Catholic Church in the United States “to invite them to join the Christians of the Holy Land, together with the Holy Father, Pope Francis, in fervent prayer for an end to the violence in the Holy Land, for the safe and prompt return of all hostages, and for the conversion of hearts so that hatred may be overcome, opening a pathway to reconciliation and peace.”
Posted on 10/3/2024 18:55 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Autistic Catholics is an online resource and support system that offers weekly meetings for Catholics on the autism spectrum. / Credit: Autistic Catholics
CNA Staff, Oct 3, 2024 / 14:55 pm (CNA).
Several Catholics have banded together to create a support system for Catholics on the autism spectrum. Autistic Catholics, an online resource and support group, kicked off this week with the group’s first online meeting.
Allen Obie John Smith, a Catholic convert who lives in Ridgway, Colorado, with his wife, is the founding executive director of Autistic Catholics. Inspired by his own experience with autism, Smith — who goes by his middle name, John — founded the group this past summer to help build fellowship among autistic Catholics while giving them a voice.
“I think my own experience of feeling alone as a diagnosed autistic person really contributed the most to the founding, and I knew I wasn’t alone in my feeling of isolation,” Smith told CNA.
The new president of Autistic Catholics, Father Matthew Schneider, an openly autistic priest, told CNA the project is a response to Pope Francis’ call to go to the peripheries, “as autistic people are often on the periphery in our society.”
Schneider, who was ordained in 2013, is a priest with the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi and teaches at St. Patrick’s Seminary near San Francisco.
Schneider noted that people with autism are disproportionately more likely to be atheists.
“If we don’t fill that niche to help autistics live a full Catholic life, non-Catholic and non-Christian groups will do that and lead autistics away from Christ and his Church,” Schneider said. “We already know we autistics are about almost twice as likely (1.84 times) to never attend church and significantly more likely to be atheists and agnostics or to make their own religious system.”
Schneider compared this to Catholic inculturation: evangelization “where you adapt how you explain the Gospel to reach people while maintaining the whole Gospel.”
“The differences in autistic brains create differences in communication that are analogous to differences between cultures,” Schneider explained. “The Church has evangelized each culture first from outside, but the biggest evangelization happened once one from inside this culture is able to explain the Gospel in a way appropriate to that culture.”
People with autism face a variety of challenges, some of which can directly impact their faith life. Being involved in the parish community or even attending Mass can be a challenge for a Catholic who has autism.
Schneider and Smith, when asked how Catholics can better support the autistic community, both suggested “sensory-friendly Masses.”
Sensory overload, a common experience for someone with autism, is when a person experiences hypersensitivity in one of their senses: sound, sight, taste, touch, or smell, triggering a fight-or-flight response. People with other conditions such as anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may experience this as well.
Mass offers “various sensory challenges” and may overstimulate olfactory (sense of smell), auditory, or visual senses, Smith told CNA. The lights might be too bright, the music too loud, or the scent of incense too strong.
As a resource for neurodivergent Catholics, Schneider developed a sensory-friendly Mass directory, which often features not only Masses designed for autistic Catholics but also low forms of the Traditional Latin Mass that are often less stimulating. Some parishes, such as St. Pius X in Rochester, New York, even offer sensory-friendly rooms for neurodivergent Catholics attending Mass.
Schneider, who was diagnosed with autism early on in his ministry, has been working to build more resources for Catholics with autism in recent years.
“I had always felt different, but having a diagnosis alerted me to how I was different,” Schneider said, recalling his diagnosis of autism in 2016.
Following his diagnosis, Schneider searched for support but found there were few resources from a Catholic or Christian perspective.
“Given autistics are about 2% of the population, I realized this is a group the Church needs to reach out to,” he said. “As an autistic priest and religious, I realized some of that fell on me.”
Schneider has since written a book on autistic prayer as well as published shorter pieces on sensory-friendly Masses in addition to the sensory-friendly Mass directory.
Not everyone who is autistic struggles with sensory overload at Mass, Schneider noted.
“The first thing I would suggest for non-autistic people to do to help is to ask autistic people where you are,” Schneider said. “Autism is a spectrum and different individuals struggle most with different things.”
Finding community is another challenge autistic Catholics may face, whether it’s due to social differences or a lack of fellow autistic Catholics.
Smith wanted to form the group to “reach out to fellow autistic Catholics who may also be experiencing any type of loneliness, isolation, and lack of fellowship,” he said.
“We often struggle with social clues so we can feel excluded even if that is not people’s intention,” Schneider said.
While Autistic Catholics connects people online, Schneider suggested that parishes help initiate in-person communities.
Parishes could “help create autistic small groups where people can discuss both autistic struggles and the faith from an autistic perspective,” Schneider suggested.
People with autism may thrive among people with similar neurodivergence, but Schneider noted that there is “what is called the double-empathy problem.”
“Autistics and non-autistics seem to be able to communicate well with each other but there is often miscommunication in both directions between the two groups,” Schneider explained.
In a world that offers many challenges for people on the autism spectrum, Smith believes that Catholics with autism should have a voice.
“We needed a way to communicate collectively; we needed representation from our point of view, as autistic Catholics, a special gift in and to the body of Christ,” Smith said. “I think that’s what this is: a voice of lamentation but also of joy in the gift of being autistic.”
Smith explained that it’s important “to frame our perception from the viewpoint of those who are disabled.”
“We may sometimes have support with sensory-friendly Masses, but our collective experience is still not yet fully apparent with regard to our family lives, work, and apostolate,” Smith said.
He hopes to make a difference by helping fellow autistic Catholics in “forming a collective voice while joining together in friendship while being encouraged to grow in the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.”
Part of this voice is sharing that autism is a gift.
Kaitey Sheldon, a board member for Autistic Catholics and a Catholic bioethicist, noted that autistic Catholics have much to offer within the body of Christ.
“Autistics and those who are neurodivergent not only belong to the body of Christ but offer beautiful, unique gifts to the Church and to the world,” Sheldon told CNA.
The neurodiversity movement began in the 1990s with the work of Judy Singer, a sociologist on the autism spectrum who advocated for autism and other neurological differences to be viewed as variances, not deficits.
“It’s a beautiful flourishing of the gift of autism in and for the body of Christ, once seen as a set of ‘deficits’ now, rather, as a neurotype itself with a sense of what it means to be gifted or twice exceptional,” Smith explained.
Smith also noted that the autistic community is moving away from categorizing people as high or low functioning. Instead, the group is “simply acknowledging the variety of support needs, needs we all share, to underscore the interdependence of human flourishing rather than this ugly view of ‘self-sufficiency’ as the goal of human life,” Smith said.
“We belong with one another sharing our various support needs and growing in mutual love and appreciation of one another as gifts,” he said.
Sheldon said the apostolate is all about “uplifting every member of the body of Christ.”
“I think of this apostolate as the friends who climbed the roof with a stretcher or the father begging Jesus to come to his home to heal his daughter — we are reaching out to him, seeking his love and mercy for autistics, who too often feel they are on the outside,” Sheldon said.
Though the project is still in its early stages, Smith said dioceses across the U.S. that he has reached out to have had “an overwhelmingly positive response.”
“People [were] saying things like, ‘We need this.’ and ‘This is a direct response to prayer,’” he said.
“The real fellowship, however, is just beginning to form,” Smith said. “I anticipate hundreds and hundreds will find a place of acceptance, belonging, encouragement, and support while growing in faith, hope, and charity as a community of friends.”
The board of Autistic Catholics currently includes eight members, all of whom “either are autistic and have had direct experience feeling these challenges or identify strongly with the autistic community,” Smith noted. The group is awaiting approval for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status.
Sheldon said she hopes the ministry will be “a comfortable, affirming home” for people with autism and other neurodivergent people as well as those who love them.
“I hope it is a place where the weekly meetings bring warmth and familiarity, a sense of importance and integral belonging in the Church,” she said. “And I do hope we are able to advocate and educate in dioceses so that the next generations of Catholic autistics are raised in an inclusive Church that recognizes their goodness, belovedness, and giftedness.”
Posted on 10/3/2024 16:10 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
null / Credit: Kryvosheia Yurii/Shutterstock
CNA Staff, Oct 3, 2024 / 12:10 pm (CNA).
A school board in Virginia will pay a teacher more than half a million dollars after he was fired for refusing to use a student’s transgender pronouns.
The legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), representing Peter Vlaming in the dispute, said in an announcement this week that the West Point School Board “has agreed to pay $575,000 in damages and attorneys’ fees” to the teacher.
Vlaming was dismissed by the West Point School District, about one hour east of the state capital of Richmond, in 2018 after he refused to use male pronouns to refer to a female student who believed she was a boy.
Vlaming had ”tried to accommodate the student by consistently using the student’s new preferred name and by avoiding the use of pronouns altogether” before his dismissal, ADF said. He sued the district in September 2019 over the firing, which he said violated his religious rights as an Anglican Christian. A lower court dismissed the suit, but in 2021 Vlaming appealed his case to the Virginia Supreme Court, which subsequently reinstated the case.
“Peter wasn’t fired for something he said; he was fired for something he couldn’t say,” ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer said in the announcement.
“The school board violated his First Amendment rights under the Virginia Constitution and commonwealth law,” Langhofer said.
Vlaming “was passionate about the subject he taught, was well-liked by his students, and did his best to accommodate their needs and requests.” But “he couldn’t in good conscience speak messages that he knew were untrue, and no school board or government official can punish someone for that reason.”
Vlaming in the announcement said his religious beliefs “put me on a collision course with school administrators who mandated that teachers ascribe to only one perspective on gender identity — their preferred view.”
“I loved teaching French and gracefully tried to accommodate every student in my class, but I couldn’t say something that directly violated my conscience,” he said, adding that he hopes the ruling “helps protect every other teacher and professor’s fundamental First Amendment rights.”
In addition to the payout, the school district will also change its policies to conform to new Virginia education rules the state put in place last summer.
Those rules affirmed that parents in the state enjoy broad oversight of their children while enrolled in public school. They stipulate that parents exercise broad discretion over whether or not a child is permitted to present as a member of the opposite sex, including whether or not the child adopts new pronouns at school.
Parents also have control over whether or not their children are permitted to undergo “social transition” to a different “gender” at schools and whether or not the child “expresses a [different] gender” while in school.
Posted on 10/3/2024 08:30 AM (CNA Daily News - US)
null / Credit: BAUER Alexandre/Shutterstock
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 3, 2024 / 04:30 am (CNA).
Here’s a roundup of the latest developments in the U.S. regarding abortion and pro-life issues.
In response to a court decision this week striking down Georgia’s pro-life law protecting unborn babies starting at six weeks, Savannah Bishop Stephen Parkes highlighted the damage done by abortion and urged abortion-minded women to “go to any Catholic church” for help.
“I am very disappointed in the ruling. We as a society need to remember the sacredness of human life and thus our responsibility to protect it. We need to listen to the cries of the unborn,” Parkes told CNA on Tuesday.
He said the ruling “opens up the potential for both the loss of innocent human life and for the psychological and sometimes physical damage abortion causes the people affected by it.”
He praised Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr’s decision to immediately appeal the ruling to the state Supreme Court, saying it is “obviously a good thing.”
Kara Murray, a representative for Carr’s office, told CNA on Wednesday that the attorney general had requested an emergency block of the ruling to allow the pro-life law to continue to be enforced as the case works its way through the court.
Regardless of the legal outcome, Parkes said that “Catholics should continue doing what we’ve been doing even before the ruling, which is working to build a culture of life.”
“Laws protecting the unborn are important, but as we saw yesterday, laws aren’t necessarily permanent,” he said. “A culture of life is cultivated in the home. It is cultivated in the public square. It is cultivated when we help pregnant women, when we assist those in need, when we recognize Jesus Christ in our neighbor and offer hope and comfort.”
“For a woman feeling that an abortion is the only option,” Parkes said, “I urge you to talk to your pastor or to go to any Catholic church. I promise you; you are not alone and there are other options.”
During the vice presidential debate on Tuesday night, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump posted on social media that he would veto any federal abortion ban sent to his desk.
“Everyone knows I would not support a federal abortion ban, under any circumstances, and would, in fact, veto it,” Trump said in a post written in all caps.
Though Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, has previously said Trump would veto any national abortion restriction sent to him, this is the first time the former president has said this himself. Trump has previously said he would not sign a national abortion restriction.
Consistent with his campaign’s messaging on abortion, Trump said in his post that “it is up to the states to decide based on the will of their voters.”
Trump noted that he supports exceptions for abortion in cases of rape, incest, and when the life of the mother is in danger.
He added that Democrats such as Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, support a “radical position of late-term abortion” up to the ninth month of pregnancy with “the possibility of execution of the baby after birth.”
During the debate, Vance confronted Walz about a Minnesota bill he signed as governor that removed language that had previously required doctors to “preserve the life and health of the born-alive infant” after a failed abortion. The new standard only requires doctors to “care for the infant who is born alive” but does not expressly require them to take lifesaving measures.
In response Walz claimed “that’s not what the law says.” He did not explain his understanding of the law any further but accused Vance of “trying to distort the way a law is written to try and make a point.”
The Ohio Health Department released a new report showing an uptick in abortions in 2023.
According to the report, the total number of abortions in Ohio in 2023 was 22,000. This is an increase from the 2022 number — 18,488 — but is relatively on par with abortion numbers in the state over the last 10 years.
This comes after the citizens of Ohio voted in October 2023 to pass a constitutional amendment repealing the state’s six-week pro-life law and enshrining a “right” to abortion. Currently, abortion is legal up to 20 weeks in pregnancy or later if needed to promote the health of the mother.
The majority — 63% — of the abortions in the state were performed on women who were fewer than nine weeks pregnant. Nearly a quarter — 23.4% — were performed on women who were between nine and 12 weeks pregnant, while 10.4% were 12 through 18 weeks, 1.4% were conducted in the 19th or 20th weeks, and 0.6% were late-term abortions at 21 weeks or beyond.
About half — 49.8% — of all 22,000 abortions in Ohio were performed on Black women while 42.2% were on white women and the remaining 8% were on other racial identities.
The single most common abortion method was surgical curettage, which accounted for 45.7% of the state’s total. The study noted that surgical abortions have been consistently declining since 2001 when this type of abortion accounted for 87% of all abortions. The abortion pill mifepristone accounted for approximately 45% of all abortions in 2023.
Overall, the state’s abortion numbers have been declining since an all-time recorded high of more than 45,000 in 1982.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a law firm specializing in religious liberty cases, sued California Attorney General Rob Bonta this week for his efforts to block pregnancy centers in the state from promoting abortion pill reversal.
ADF filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates and SCV Pregnancy Center, which is based in Santa Clarita, California. The law firm is arguing that Bonta’s censorship violates the pregnancy centers’ First Amendment right to free speech and constitutes “viewpoint-based discrimination.”
Abortion pill reversal is a medication meant to stop a chemical abortion after the process has already been initiated. While the chemical abortion pill mifepristone works by cutting off progesterone, essentially starving the unborn baby to death, abortion pill reversal can restore progesterone flow in the womb, reversing the effects of mifepristone.
In 2023 Bonta sued a group of pregnancy centers in California seeking to keep them from promoting what he called “false and misleading claims” about abortion pill reversal that he said endangered women.
Caleb Dalton, a senior counsel at ADF, said that “every woman should have the option to reconsider going through with an abortion, and the pro-life pregnancy centers we represent in this case truthfully inform women about that choice.”
“Attorney General Bonta and his allies at Planned Parenthood may not like it, but the truth is that many women regret their abortions, and some seek to stop the effects of chemical abortion drugs before taking the second drug in the abortion drug process,” Dalton said. “Women deserve to know all their options every step of the way.”
Posted on 10/2/2024 21:45 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
A sign for the Providence St. Joseph Medical Center is on display near the hospital in Burbank, California. / Credit: Jason Kirk/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 2, 2024 / 17:45 pm (CNA).
The head of a Catholic hospital network in California has issued an apology after the state’s attorney general filed a lawsuit claiming Providence St. Joseph Hospital refused emergency care to a pregnant woman whose water broke prematurely at 15 weeks.
“We are heartbroken over the experience this patient had while in our care and reached out to her today in an effort to express our profound apologies,” said the chief executive of Providence Northern California Service Area, Garry Olney, in a statement addressed to hospital employees that was provided to CNA on Wednesday.
The lawsuit filed on Monday in Humboldt County Superior Court claims that Providence St. Joseph Hospital in Eureka violated several California state laws by allegedly refusing to perform abortive procedures on a patient, Anna Nusslock, 36, whom doctors diagnosed with a rare condition, preterm premature rupture of the membranes (PPROM).
According to the attorney general’s lawsuit, Nusslock was denied treatment by the hospital, which does not perform dilation and evacuation (D&E) procedures if a heartbeat is detected. Though it has issued an apology to Nusslock, the hospital has not publicly confirmed whether the detection of a fetal heartbeat was why she was allegedly denied treatment.
Olney wrote in the hospital’s statement that Nusslock’s experience “was a tragic situation that did not meet our standards for safe, quality, compassionate care.” He further added that the hospital intended to revisit its training processes regarding emergency medical situations, “to ensure that this does not happen again.”
“As devastated as we are,” he concluded, “we can’t begin to imagine what the patient and her family have been through. We will learn from this and renew our commitment to ensuring that the care and experience we deliver are aligned with our high standards, every time and in every care setting.”
A spokesperson for the hospital told CNA earlier this week that it had been unaware of the lawsuit until the morning it was announced and that it planned to investigate the incident further to determine what happened and how it relates to the allegations.
“While elective abortions are not performed in Providence facilities, we do not deny emergency care,” the spokesperson told CNA, adding: “When it comes to complex pregnancies or situations in which a woman’s life is at risk, we provide all necessary interventions to protect and save the life of the mother.”
The attorney general also moved for a permanent injunction against the hospital, mandating it to provide “timely emergency services,” “including abortion care.”
“California is the beacon of hope for so many Americans across this country trying to access abortion services since the Dobbs decision. It is damning that here in California, where abortion care is a constitutional right, we have a hospital implementing a policy that’s reminiscent of heartbeat laws in extremist red states,” Attorney General Rob Bonta stated in a press release on Monday.
“With today’s lawsuit, I want to make this clear for all Californians: Abortion care is health care. You have the right to access timely and safe abortion services,” he continued. “At the California Department of Justice, we will use the full force of this office to hold accountable those who, like Providence, are breaking the law.”
Michael Pakaluk, a professor and ethicist at The Catholic University of America, told CNA that the D&E procedure in this case would be against natural law and therefore against God’s law and Church teaching.
“The natural law states that no one may directly take the life of an innocent human being. There are never any exceptions to this law,” Pakaluk said. “It is always better that we die than violate this law. So the Church has always taught.
“Abortion is not medical care,” he continued. “No physician has any competence to recommend trading one human life for another. Such a judgment is never a medical judgment but a utilitarian judgment, playing God, outside the competence of medicine.”
Posted on 10/2/2024 20:00 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Parents protest the Montgomery County School Board's policy blocking them from opting out their children from pro-homosexual and transgender materials. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Becket
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 2, 2024 / 16:00 pm (CNA).
The United States Supreme Court will begin its October term in less than a week — and several lawsuits related to the First Amendment’s guarantee of religious freedom could potentially land on the docket.
Although the nation’s highest court did not consider any religious liberty cases in its last term and has not yet committed to hearing any in the upcoming term, several lawsuits that touch on the subject have been appealed to the court. To get a lawsuit on the docket, four of the nine justices must agree to hear the case.
The most high-profile religious liberty case being appealed to the Supreme Court deals with religious freedom and parental rights in the classroom. The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, seeks to protect parents’ right to opt their children out of coursework that conflicts with their religious beliefs.
Catholic, Orthodox, and Muslim parents are suing the Montgomery County, Maryland, Board of Education for not allowing parents to opt their children out of course material that promotes homosexuality, transgenderism, and other elements of gender ideology. The parents are arguing the curriculum, which includes reading material for children as young as 3 and 4 years old, violates their First Amendment right to direct the religious upbringing of their children.
The parents are represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the parents, but the lawyers appealed the case to the Supreme Court on Sept. 12.
A coalition of Christian religious organizations, which includes Catholic and Anglican nuns, are suing the state of New York over a regulation designed to force organizations to cover abortions in their health care plans. The case, Diocese of Albany v. [Adrienne] Harris, argues that the organizations should be exempt from the mandate on religious freedom grounds.
The regulation, issued by the New York Department of Financial Services, requires health insurance plans to cover “medically necessary” abortions. Although it includes a narrow religious exemption, the strict criteria for qualifying for that exemption may not apply to all faith-based groups, according to the lawsuit.
In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor when they challenged a similar regulation at the federal level. However, that ruling was based partially on the religious freedom protections in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — which only applies to federal regulations. Although the same First Amendment concerns are in play, the sisters in New York cannot rely on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to win their case.
The coalition is also represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. The New York Court of Appeals — the state’s highest court — ruled that the mandate does not infringe on religious liberty. The lawyers appealed the case to the Supreme Court on Sept. 17.
A Catholic charity based in Wisconsin is suing its state’s Labor & Industry Review Commission after officials removed its designation as a religious organization — deciding, instead, that its mission is not primarily religious in nature.
The commission removed the religious designation from Catholic Charities Bureau because it claims the organization is not “operated primarily for religious purposes.” That decision prevents the charity from using a Church-run unemployment system and forces it to use the state-run system instead. According to its lawyers, the designation decision could also set a dangerous precedent that could lead to refusing other religious liberty exemptions to faith-based charities.
In Catholic Charities Bureau v. Wisconsin Labor & Industry Review Commission, the charity argues that its charitable functions, such as serving the poor, the disabled, and the elderly, are part of living out the Catholic faith. The commission stated that because the charity serves people of all faiths and does not focus on evangelization, it does not qualify as a religious organization.
The charity is also represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. An appellate court ruled against the charity and the lawyers appealed the case to the Supreme Court on Sept. 17.
A few other religious liberty cases could also land on the Supreme Court’s docket.
One case, Landor v. Louisiana Dept. of Corrections, would determine whether a prisoner could seek monetary damages for violations of his religious liberty. Damon Landor, a Rastafarian, had his hair forcefully cut off while in custody even though keeping one’s hair in dreadlocks is part of his religious practice.
In another case, Young Israel of Tampa v. Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, a Jewish group is challenging a local ban on religious advertising on public transit.
Another appeal, in Apache Stronghold v. United States, seeks to prevent the federal government from transferring ownership of a sacred Apache site to a British-Australian mining company.
Posted on 10/2/2024 18:45 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
null / Credit: Minerva Studio/Shutterstock
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 2, 2024 / 14:45 pm (CNA).
The Diocese of Burlington filed for bankruptcy on Monday in an attempt to adequately resolve its fourth and largest wave of sex abuse lawsuits filed against it since the clergy sex scandal broke in 2002.
“While my heart is heavy with the decision to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy, such weight pales in comparison to the pain suffered by victims of abuse,” Bishop John McDermott said in a video statement released on Wednesday in which he addressed the decision to file and apologized to victims of clergy abuse.
“This chapter in the Church’s history is horrific, and the harm it has caused, immeasurable,” McDermott said. “I know that the decision to file for reorganization may be challenging or even triggering for some survivors. For that and for every aspect of dealing with the crimes of these clergy, I sincerely apologize.”
The diocese currently faces 31 lawsuits — with allegations dating back as far as the 1950s — after the state Legislature repealed the statute of limitations on filing civil claims in 2019 and 2021.
Previously, the diocese had spent approximately $2 million to settle its first nine cases in 2003. In 2010, it paid over $20 million to resolve 29 more cases and settled 11 cases for $6.75 million in 2013, according to the affidavit.
To resolve these cases, the diocese utilized its unrestricted funds and liquidated most of its available assets, including its 32-acre Burlington Chancellery on Lake Champlain for $10 million in 2010 and its 26-acre Camp Holy Cross in Colchester for $4 million in 2012.
The lawsuit will not affect the individual parishes and organizations that operate within the diocese, as their respective assets remain in separate trusts — a move the diocese made in 2006 to protect local parish community funding intended for their own religious and educational purposes from being siphoned into legal settlements.
In his statement, and in the affidavit he filed on Monday, the bishop explained that filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy was found to be the only way for the diocese to fairly compensate victims of abuse in current lawsuits — and any who might come forward in the future — since the diocese has limited funds, depleted assets, and lacks insurance coverage.
“Through Chapter 11 reorganization, funds will be allocated among all those who have claims against the diocese while hopefully allowing the diocese to maintain its essential mission and ministries,” McDermott stated.
McDermott further highlighted the diocese’s efforts to address the scandal and prevent future abuse through its diocesan victims assistance coordinator and its office of safe environment programs.
According to the affidavit, the diocese released a list in 2019 of 40 of its credibly accused priests, which included information about who they were and where they had been assigned in the dioceses. The diocese removed all accused clergy from priestly ministry, 30 of whom are now deceased.
“Due to the diocese’s efforts since 2002, there has only been one credible and substantiated claim of abuse,” he stated in the affidavit, adding that no current clergy face allegations of sexual abuse.
Posted on 10/2/2024 16:50 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
“We are worried about every human being in Lebanon because there is a big, big difference between what Lebanese people want and [how] the political parties are behaving these days,” said Holy Spirit University of Kaslik President Father Talal Hachem. / Credit: "EWTN News Nightly"/Screenshot
CNA Staff, Oct 2, 2024 / 12:50 pm (CNA).
In the midst of intensifying Israeli raids against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Father Talal Hachem, president of Holy Spirit University of Kaslik located just north of Beirut, said in an interview with “EWTN News Nightly” that “because we have faith, because we have hope, we are seeking peace.”
An estimated 1 million people in Lebanon have been displaced, according to the country’s prime minister, following Israel’s latest targeted ground raids in southern Lebanon against the terrorist group Hezbollah.
The Iranian-backed terrorist group, which has been a major player in the Lebanese political system, had set up the villages as staging grounds “for an Oct. 7-style invasion,” according to a statement by Israel Defense Forces.
Iran has since directly fired on Israel, targeting 10 million civilians with hundreds of ballistic missiles on Tuesday. That attack comes on the heels of Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Most of the missiles were intercepted.
“Our people in Lebanon are struggling today. They are worried. They are shocked, but they have faith and they pray and we pray for them,” Hachem told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol during a visit to Washington just before returning to Lebanon on Wednesday.
The Holy Spirit University of Kaslik in Jounieh, Lebanon, is run by the Lebanese Maronite Order, a monastic group also known as the Baladites. Hachem said he is “not afraid” to go back and wants to be there with his community.
“We are worried about every human being in Lebanon because there is a big, big difference between what Lebanese people want and [how] the political parties are behaving these days,” Hachem said.
Though Hachem’s particular community is “a bit far off from the military tension,” he said, “we have many Lebanese people who are Catholic that are near this tension. That’s why we are worried. We are worried about them.”
Lebanon is about 70% Muslim and about 30% Christian, according to a 2022 international religious freedom report by the U.S. Department of State. The nation is home to the largest concentration of Catholics in the Middle East and has the highest proportion of Christians in the Middle East.
The majority of Catholics in Lebanon are Eastern-rite Catholics. The Maronite Church, an Eastern Catholic rite with roots in Syriac rituals, is centered in Lebanon.
When asked what faith means to him in a time like this, Hachem said: “Because we have faith, because we have hope, we are seeking peace and at least stability.”
“Our hope is to get this peace as soon as possible so people can live safely,” he said.
Posted on 10/2/2024 15:30 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Diocese of Charlotte Vicar General Monsignor Patrick Winslow speaks to “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024. / Credit: “EWTN News Nightly”
CNA Staff, Oct 2, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).
Monsignor Patrick Winslow, the vicar general and chancellor of the Diocese of Charlotte, North Carolina — an area heavily impacted by the recent Hurricane Helene — said in an interview with “EWTN News Nightly” on Tuesday that the storm’s impact has been “extremely difficult” throughout the state.
Hurricane Helene passed through multiple southeastern states during its trek through the U.S. last week. The storm killed more than 160 people, with hundreds more reported missing.
The Category 4 storm further left millions of people stranded without electricity and hundreds of thousands in flooded areas. The power outages are still affecting hundreds of thousands of people in North and South Carolina and Georgia as of Wednesday morning.
“For us, the impacted area includes 44 churches,” Winslow told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol. The area includes “more than half the counties that constitute western North Carolina, the Diocese of Charlotte — and that’s an enormous amount of territory.”
Many of the affected areas were far inland. The city of Asheville was hit particularly hard, as were hundreds of smaller communities. Local authorities reported at least 40 deaths in Buncombe County, where Asheville is located.
Winslow said communication has made it “extremely difficult” to process the impact, “in large part because we’ve had such limited and sketchy contact with people, because the communication lines have been out, with cell towers down, with roads being blocked, [and] with bridges being out.”
Since the storm passed on Friday, Winslow said they have been able to make more contact with people and get more resources out.
“We’ve been communicating ever since the storm passed us in the hours of noon, 1 o’clock on Friday, making some contact with some people who have been reflecting on how tragic and how difficult circumstances are,” he said.
“From that moment on, we’ve been mobilizing, getting our resources out to those people who need basic things: diapers, baby food, water, things of that nature.”
When asked about how he approaches the emotional and spiritual side of this tragedy with the faithful, he said: “It’s a heartache.”
“It’s a heartache, especially when people who are at a distance have their loved ones, their friends, and they can’t reach them, they can’t make contact with them. That’s extremely difficult,” he said. “Then you have the people that are there who’ve lost loved ones already. That’s very disorienting, and it’s hard to make sense of.”
Winslow noted that there are also many people who are missing.
“We have a number of people where we have their identities, but we don’t know exactly what they are, and so we’re not sure if they’re safe or if they’re in harm’s way or if the worst has happened,” he said. “And so this is just an extremely difficult position to be in.”
The priest said he is not without faith.
“As I reflect upon it from a spiritual perspective, my first thought is, in the midst of all this tragedy and difficulty, how through ordinary events of life, on a regular day, the most important things that matter always seem to hide in plain sight,” he said.
“But as we confront these challenges, this darkness, these difficulties, how the things that matter the most start to come out of the shadows: loving our neighbor, relying on God, asking God for his grace and his help, just recognizing how frail we all are.”
“And those things, I think, are inspiring our communities, inspiring the faithful of western North Carolina in the Diocese of Charlotte,” Winslow continued. “We’re beginning to make some real inroads and bringing resources to bear, and we begin to see how the strength of faith is able to really give people that hope that they need.”
When asked about the response of the public so far, Winslow said it has been “tremendous.”
“They’re actually calling our offices, wanting to know how they can give,” he said. “We’re going to be having a special second collection this upcoming Sunday at Masses. We have our websites which are available, our Catholic Charities of Diocese of Charlotte website, which you can also get there through our charlottediocese.org website.”
North Carolina Catholics, including Catholic Charities and the local diocese, have been mobilizing to bring together aid. Emergency relief supplies running from bottled water to formula to flashlights are being collected at the Charlotte Diocesan Pastoral Center for delivery to neighboring areas affected by the disaster.
Posted on 10/2/2024 13:15 PM (CNA Daily News - US)
Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, participate in a debate at the CBS Broadcast Center on Oct. 1, 2024 in New York City. / Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 2, 2024 / 09:15 am (CNA).
In their first and only vice presidential debate this election season, Republican Sen. JD Vance and Democratic Gov. Tim Walz on Tuesday night clashed on whether abortion should be a federal or state issue and sparred over each other’s records on abortion limits and protections for infants born alive from botched abortions.
During the Oct. 1 CBS debate, moderated by network anchors Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, both candidates quarreled over abortion policy and about which presidential ticket has the best track record on handling illegal immigration and the economy.
Vance is an incumbent senator from Ohio running on former president Donald Trump’s ticket, while Walz is the incumbent governor of Minnesota serving as Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate. Vance is a convert to Catholicism and Walz was raised Catholic but now attends a Lutheran church.
Much of the debate remained civil, with both candidates occasionally trading kind words with each other.
In some cases, Vance and Walz agreed on policy goals — such as reducing illegal immigration, lowering housing costs, and making child care more accessible — but feuded over whether Trump or Harris has the best plan and track record for achieving those goals.
The main dispute on abortion policy focused on whether it should be handled by the federal government or at the state level. Walz backed a federal law to legalize abortion nationally, which would overturn state-level pro-life laws. Alternatively, Vance advocated a state-by-state approach to regulating abortion.
Walz defended a 2023 Minnesota bill he signed establishing that every person in the state has a right to “obtain an abortion” and prevents local governments from limiting that right. The bill does not include any restrictions on abortion at any point in pregnancy and state law permits elective abortion through the ninth month of pregnancy for any reason.
“What we did was restore Roe v. Wade,” Walz said. “We made sure that we put women in charge of their health care. … How can we as a nation say that your life and your rights — as basic as the right to control your own body — is determined [by] geography?”
When asked by O’Donnell whether Walz supports abortion “in the ninth month,” the governor said “that’s not what the bill says.” He did not say whether he would support any restrictions on late-term abortions but said, “We trust women [and] we trust doctors.”
Vance pressed Walz on another bill he signed as governor that removed language that had previously required doctors to “preserve the life and health of the born-alive infant” after a failed abortion. The new standard only requires doctors to “care for the infant who is born alive” but does not expressly require them to take lifesaving measures.
“[This law] says that a doctor who presides over an abortion, where the baby survives, the doctor is under no obligation to provide lifesaving care to a baby who survives a botched late-term abortion,” Vance argued. “That is … fundamentally barbaric.”
Walz interrupted to say “that’s not true” and accused Vance of “trying to distort the way a law is written to try and make a point.” The governor did not further explain his understanding of the law but claimed, “That’s not what the law says.”
Vance also questioned Walz on whether he would “want to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions against their will,” which the governor did not directly answer.
“We can be a big and diverse country where we respect people’s freedom of conscience and make the country more pro-baby and pro-family,” Vance said.
When asked about abortion, Vance said a Trump administration would seek to “be pro-family in the fullest sense of the word” by supporting “fertility treatments” and making it easier for parents to afford to have children by expanding the child tax credit and reducing housing costs.
“We’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they frankly just don’t trust us,” Vance said.
“The proper way to handle this — as messy as democracy sometimes is — is to let voters make these decisions,” the senator added. “Let the individual state make their abortion policy.”
Vance further noted that Ohio voters adopted a referendum to enshrine a right to abortion in the state constitution, which was “against my position.” He also said he “never supported a national ban.”
Both candidates agreed that lawmakers need to work to reduce illegal immigration, but the two argued over whether Trump or Harris is more qualified to solve the problem.
“A lot of fentanyl is coming into our country,” Vance said. “I have a mother who struggled with opioid addiction and has gotten clean. I don’t want people who are struggling with addiction to be deprived of their second chance because Kamala Harris let in fentanyl into our community at record levels.”
Vance said the federal government should build a wall on the American border with Mexico and re-implement mass deportations of immigrants who entered the country illegally, beginning with those who have committed additional crimes after coming into the country.
Walz criticized the Trump administration, saying “less than 2% of that wall got built and Mexico didn’t pay a dime.” He argued that Harris would be better on illegal immigration and chided Republican lawmakers for sinking a border bill earlier this year.
“[Harris] is the only person in this race who prosecuted transnational gangs for human trafficking and drug interventions,” Walz said, referencing the vice president’s work as a prosecutor in California.
Vance also argued that illegal immigration under the Biden-Harris administration is one of the causes of the higher cost of housing because migrants compete for homes. He said a Trump administration would also lower the cost of housing by using federal land to build homes and driving down energy costs.
“We have a lot of land that could be used,” Vance said. “We have a lot of Americans that need homes. We should be kicking out illegal immigrants who are competing for those homes and we should be building more homes for the American citizens who deserve to be here.”
Walz promoted Harris’ plan to provide assistance for down payments on houses, impose price controls on certain products, and expand small business tax credits.
“We’ll just ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share,” Walz said. “When you do that, our system works best, more people are participating in it and folks have the things that they need.”
Both candidates expressed their intent to make child care more accessible and expand the child tax credit.
