Big honors for scholar who revitalized Christian philosophy

Dallas, Texas, Sep 23, 2018 / 11:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At the final Mass of the National V Encuentro gathering, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles encouraged Hispanic and Latino Catholics to go out into the world and be missionary disciples for the Church, like the many holy lay people before them.

“Our reading of today’s Gospel begins with these words: ‘Jesus and his disciples They left from there and started a journey,’” he said, referencing Mark 9:30-37.

“This is our story, yours and mine. This is the history of the Church. We are his disciples.”

Gomez gave the homily on the final day of the National V Encuentro, a meeting of Hispanic and Latino Catholics from throughout the United States that was the culmination of a years-long process of consultation at the parish, diocesan and regional levels.

The theme of this National Encuentro, held Sept. 20-23 in Grapevine, Texas, was “Discípulos Misioneros: Testigos del amor de Dios” or “Missionary Disciples: Witnesses of the love of God.”

Missionaries are made because they have first encountered Jesus, who then sends them on a journey, Gomez said.

“Your journey is now joined to Jesus. Your story is now part of the story of salvation, the journey of God’s people through history,” he added, like the disciples who spread the Gospel from Jerusalem to Rome, Asia and Africa.

“The journey of the Church continued towards the American continent with the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, in 1531,” Gomez said.

“We all know that story. We learned it when we were children, and we transmitted it to our little ones. It is a beautiful narration of the tender love of God, manifested in history.”

As Jesus sent the disciples, God through the Virgin of Guadalupe entrusted a mission to San Juan Diego – to go tell the bishop to build a church.

“Think about that, my dear brothers and sisters: Jesus entrusted him with the mission of his Church in the New World to a layman,” he said. “Not to a priest or a bishop. Not a member of a religious order.”

“You are the sons and daughters of the Virgin of Guadalupe in our time; you are the spiritual heirs of Juan Diego. The mission entrusted to him is now entrusted to you.”

Just like Juan Diego, God is calling the Hispanic and Latino Catholics of the United States to be saints, missionary disciples and leaders of the Church, Gomez said.

“He is calling the lay faithful to work together with the bishops to renew and rebuild his Church. Not only in this country, but throughout the continents of the Americas,” he said.

Hispanic and Latino Catholics are being called to lead not for power or ambition, he added, but “to lead by your holiness. True unity in the Church will only come about if every one of us – clergy and laity – is striving to be holy as God is holy.”

“Let’s always move forward with confidence. Let’s be men and women of the encounter! What
each one of us leads many people to a personal encounter with Jesus Christ,” Gomez said.

“And may Our Lady of Guadalupe always go with us on the journey we make as disciples of Jesus. May she help us to be saints, to be heroes, instruments of unity and healing. These times demand it. And for this is what we were made for.”

[…]

Washington D.C., Feb 22, 2019 / 05:11 pm (CNA).- The movie “Unplanned,” which tells the true story of former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson’s conversion into a pro-life activist, has been given an R rating by the Motion Picture Association of America, a decision the directors fear could have been motivated by the pro-life message of the film.

The rating was announced Friday, Feb. 22.

“We had hoped that (the rating) would be different, but due to the political climate, and the fact that we’re in Hollywood, it doesn’t surprise us,” co-director Chuck Konzelman told CNA.

Co-director Cary Solomon agreed, adding, “we’ve made a pro-life film in a pro-choice town. We’re very aware of that.”

By giving the film an a R-rating, Konzelman said that he believes the MPAA is inadvertently supporting the belief that “anything that has to do with abortion is an act of extreme violence.”

“Ironically, that’s (also) our viewpoint,” he said.  

In the United States, a film that is rated R by the MPAA is restricted to those over the age of 17 unless accompanied by a parent or another adult guardian. The MPAA said “Unplanned” earned the rating due to “some disturbing/bloody images.”

Solomon told CNA that he found it to be “absurd” that Unplanned was given an R-rating when several, far more violent, movies to be released later this year were given PG-13 ratings.

Despite the R-rating, “Unplanned”’s  directors told CNA that Christians should not worry about seeing the film alongside their children.

“For us, R means ‘recommend.’ Because the bottom line is that this is real life,” Solomon told CNA.

“It’s time for Christians to come to the reality of the fact that (abortion) is going on. If a rating is going to keep them from even looking at this subject, then shame on us,” he added.

Konzelman agreed, and told CNA that there is no nudity or profanity in the film that would merit an R-rating.

“They’re not even mentioning violence, other than the violence directly associated with the termination of an unborn human being. That’s it. That’s all that’s in there,” said Konzelman.

Unplanned is based on Johnson’s 2012 book of the same name. Johnson quit her job at Planned Parenthood in October of 2009, one year after being named employee of the year, after she had been asked to assist with a late-term abortion.

In the film, multiple scenes depicting an abortion clinic involve blood or post-abortive women. The directors told CNA that the MPAA objected in particular to a scene that depicts Johnson bleeding on a bathroom floor after taking an abortion pill.

The directors said they would not change that particular scene, or anything else in the film, as they felt it would be disrespectful to Johnson’s personal story.

“We’re not going to change it. It’s a true-life story. To change it just to appease the MPAA or a Hollywood entity is not going to happen. We told the true-life story of Abby Johnson, and these are the things that are happening,” said Konzelman.

Solomon told CNA that in real life, Johnson nearly bled to death in her bathroom after self-administering the second drug in an abortion drug protocol.

“For us to avoid that, for the sake of appeasing the MPAA, would make the story untrue,” said Solomon.

Even if the filmmakers sought to make changes to get a lower rating, it would be quite difficult as “(the MPAA) pretty much objected to everything, including black and white images of a sonogram,” said Konzelman.

To make any changes would require that the filmmakers “gut the entire movie,” which they said they did not want to do.

Johnson herself had two abortions prior to her ideological conversion. Since then, she has founded the organization “And Then There Were None,” which seeks to assist abortion industry workers with finding new jobs outside the industry. Since the group was founded, nearly 500 clinic workers have left the industry.

After Johnson left her job at Planned Parenthood, she converted to Catholicism. She and her husband are now expecting their eighth child.

“Unplanned” stars Ashley Bratcher as Abby Johnson. During filming, Bratcher discovered that her own mother had planned on having an abortion when she was pregnant with her, but changed her mind minutes before the procedure was to begin.

“Unplanned” was written and directed by Konzelman and Solomon, who also wrote “God’s Not Dead” and “God’s Not Dead 2.” The movie was partially funded by Michael Lindell, a born-again Christian and the founder of the company MyPillow.

“Unplanned” is the first-ever R-rated film distributed by PureFlix, and will be released in theaters nationwide on March 29.

[…]

Fort Worth, Texas, Feb 3, 2020 / 03:48 pm (CNA).- A Fort Worth diocesan priest who resigned his post and later attempted to rescind his resignation has dropped a lawsuit against Bishop Michael Olson and the Diocese of Fort Worth— a lawsuit which alleged that the bishop had defamed him by implying he is a threat to children.

In June 2018, Olson asked Father Richard Kirkham, former pastor of St. Martin de Porres parish in Prosper, Texas, to resign his pastorate, because the priest did not report to authorities what appeared to the bishop to be a case of a priest abusing a vulnerable adult.   

Last week, Kirkham dropped the lawsuit he had filed in June 2019. In that lawsuit, Kirkham and his attorney had argued that the bishop had, in interviews with the Star-Telegram, implied that Kirkham’s removal was because he posed a danger to minors and the vulnerable.

According to Kirkham’s attorney, John Walsh, the lawsuit was dropped because Olson eventually clarified that Kirkham’s resignation did not result from any failure to report the sexual abuse of child, and there are not any allegations that Father Kirkham has sexually abused a child.

In 2017, Kirkham apparently became aware that a Dallas priest, whose name has not been publicly released, was having an affair with a married Church employee.

According to court documents, Kirkham and the priest were friends, and would often speak lewdly over alcoholic drinks.

In May 2018, Kirkham wrote a letter to the priest. Kirkham claimed in the letter that while the two priests had been having drinks at a restaurant, the priest had related to Kirkham graphic details about his alleged sexual encounters with the woman.

The letter depicted in graphic sexual detail what the priest had allegedly told Kirkham about the alleged affair.

Also in the letter, Kirkham threatened to tell the priest’s bishop if the affair continued.

“You have admitted to me more than once that you have a drinking problem, you can’t stop, you black out,” Kirkham wrote to the priest in the letter.

“You are a substance abuser. You have an addiction to pornography, masturbation and sex. Your behavior is reckless and risky. You need to seek help.”

Though Kirkham never formally reported the alleged affair, the letter came to the attention of the Bishop Edward Burns of Dallas, because the Dallas priest shared it with him.

But the Dallas Diocese says the alleged affair might have never actually occurred.

“The allegation of an inappropriate relationship between two adults was looked into and denied by both parties,” Annette Gonzales Taylor, Director of Communications for the Diocese of Dallas, said in a statement to CNA this week.

“The priest in question was on a leave of absence while the allegation was looked into and assigned to a parish afterward.”

The Dallas diocese has not officially disclosed the accused priest’s name.

A Fort Worth spokesman told CNA that the Dallas diocese has not officially communicated the results of their investigation to Fort Worth.

Olson said in a Dec. 15, 2019 pastoral letter that he learned about Kirkham’s letter to the Dallas priest from Burns, who sent him a redacted copy. The priest’s first name, “Paul,” and the parish, “St. Francis,” remain visible.

Olson says he spoke to the Dallas priest with Burns’ permission. He told the Star-Telegram in July 2019 that he knows the Dallas priest, having served as his seminary rector, but says he does not have “a peer relationship with him.”

Olson said in his December letter that he asked Kirkham to resign because he had failed to report what he suspected to be the abuse of a vulnerable adult.

“Father Kirkham claimed to have learned about the alleged misconduct that he obscenely detailed in the letter over half a year before writing the letter to the other priest, but he never reported it.” Olson said.

Pat Svacina, Director of Communications for the Diocese of Fort Worth, told CNA that the term “vulnerable adult” is not “denoted by definition” in the diocese’ policies, but that “as bishop, [Olson] made the judgement that this was a vulnerable adult situation that should have been reported immediately.”

According to the Star-Telegram, Kirkham admitted in a Jan. 7 deposition that he recognized the relationship between the priest and a church employee as abuse against a vulnerable person, but also that he never planned to make an official report.

Svacina also said that Bishop Burns had, after “an investigation,” concluded that the Dallas priest’s alleged affair had not occured.

Despite this, Svacina said that Bishop Burns had not contacted the Fort Worth diocese directly with the results of the investigation into the Dallas priest accused in the letter.

“Bishop Burns never informed Bishop Olson what the investigation [was],” Svacina told CNA.

“We learned it through news reports, when the Dallas Diocese told news media there that they investigated and found no grounds for [the affair]. We don’t know the details…what we know is through the media.”

Olson said he asked Kirkham in June 2018 to resign, and Kirkham did, but he later retained an attorney and sought to rescind his resignation, which is permitted under canon law. Olson refused to reverse Kirkham’s resignation, and Kirkham appealed the decision to the Vatican.

The Congregation for Clergy upheld his resignation in July, and Kirkham is currently awaiting the results of his final appeal.

Kirkham was at first unable to retrieve his belongings from the rectory where he was living because Olson ordered the locks changed while Kirkham was out of state, the Dallas Morning News reported. A judge in June 2019 allowed Kirkham to reenter the rectory to retrieve his belongings.

Kirkham did not respond to CNA’s attempts to contact him for comment.

A number of Texas Catholics, in the form of an online group called FRK Advocates, have formed a website raising questions about Olson’s judgement in disciplining Kirkham, and blaming Olson for the resignations of two other diocesan priests and the closure of a mission church.

Olson has said there were no disciplinary issues with either of the priests mentioned by the group, and that he was surprised at their resignation. He also defended his decision to close San Mateo Mission, noting that the Congregation for Clergy has twice upheld his decision to do so.

FRK Advocates sent a petition to the Vatican during Nov. 2019, signed by about 1,500 parishioners from 20 parishes in the Fort Worth diocese, asking Pope Francis to remove Olson as bishop. The petition detailed alleged verbal abuse to several diocesan priests in the Fort Worth Diocese and alleged verbal abuse and demeaning conduct towards parishioners.

In a Jan. 28 pastoral letter, Olson did not mention Kirkham’s failure to report the alleged abuse as a reason Olson asked for his resignation. Olson said in that letter that he had asked Kirkham to resign because “I had come to believe that Father Kirkham needed to take a step back from ministry.”

“I had previously issued him a formal rebuke for dishonesty, and he had also acknowledged to me that there were issues that he needed to address,” Olson continued.

“This was especially apparent in light of the deeply disturbing letter he sent to a priest of the Dallas Diocese which contained many lewd communications they had shared over drinks.”

[…]