Year: 2017

Fresno, Calif., Apr 18, 2017 / 04:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A 39-year-old man is in custody following a shooting spree that left three people dead in Fresno, California on Tuesday, including one person who was killed in the parking lot of a Catholic Char… […]

Cleveland, Ohio, Apr 18, 2017 / 03:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Mourning family members of a Cleveland man whose murder on Easter Sunday was posted online in a Facebook video said that despite their grief, they forgive their father’s killer.

“Each one of us forgives the killer. The murderer. We want to wrap our arms around him,” said Tonya Godwin Baines in a CNN interview.

She said that it was her slain father who taught her, through the example of his life, how to forgive.

“The thing that I would take away the most from my father is he taught us about God. How to fear God. How to love God. And how to forgive.”

On Sunday afternoon, 74-year-old Robert Godwin Sr. was shot and killed in Cleveland while walking home from Easter dinner with his family. Police said that the suspect, 37-year-old Steve Stephens, apparently chose his victim at random, and then uploaded a video of the murder to Facebook. The social media network later removed the video.

Following a nationwide manhunt, authorities were notified that Stephens’ car had been seen in a McDonald’s parking lot near Erie, Pennsylvania on Tuesday morning. Stephens shot and killed himself after a brief pursuit, police said.

The daughter of the Facebook murder victim has a message for the killer: I want him to know that “he’s loved by God” https://t.co/1lbr6fXvsX

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) April 18, 2017

On Monday night, Anderson Cooper spoke with Godwin Sr.’s children in a CNN interview, asking them if there was anything they would like to tell the suspect, who at the time was still at-large.

In addition to encouraging Stephens to turn himself in, Debbie Godwin voiced her forgiveness, saying, “(Y)ou know what, I believe that God would give me the grace to even embrace this man. And hug him.”

“It’s just the way my heart is, it’s the right thing to do. And so, I just would want him to know that even in his worst state, he’s loved…that God loves him, even in the bad stuff that he did to my dad…even though he’s going to have to go through many things to get better, there’s worth in him. And as long as there’s life in him, there is hope for him too.”

Though shocked and deeply pained by their father’s brutal murder, the children said they felt sorry for his killer.

“I honestly can say right now that I hold no animosity in my heart against this man. Because I know that he’s a sick individual,” Debbie said.

She added that she is able to forgive him because of her faith in God.

“I could not do that if I did not know God, if I didn’t know him as my God and my savior, I could not forgive that man,” she said.

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Little Rock, Ark., Apr 18, 2017 / 03:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholics in Arkansas and around the country continue to pray for death row inmates in the state, after courts on Monday blocked two executions in an eight inmate, 10 day flurry of executions planned by the governor.

“#SCOTUS upheld stays of execution last night in #Arkansas. But other 5 scheduled this week could still happen,” the Catholic Mobilizing Network, which works to end capital punishment, tweeted April 18.

Several courts handed down multiple decisions on Monday and early Tuesday morning, in a complex drama playing out as Arkansas seeks to execute eight men before its supply of midazolam, a sedative used in the lethal injection process, expires at the end of the month.

One inmate, Jason McGehee, had already been granted a temporary stay last week after a parole board recommended clemency. McGehee was convicted of the 1996 killing of John Melbourne, Jr.

Don Davis and Bruce Ward were both scheduled to be executed April 17, but the Arkansas Supreme Court stayed their executions.

Davis was convicted of the 1992 killing of Jane Daniel, and Ward of the 1989 killing of Rebecca Doss.

The men are claimed to have mental health problems, and the United States Supreme Court is due to hear oral arguments next week in a case involving a defendant’s right to access independent mental health experts during their tiral. The state supreme court granted the stays in light of the pending federal case.

Arkansas appealed the stay on Davis, but did not pursue Ward’s case.

In the early hours of April 18, the US Supreme Court denied Arkansas’ application to vacate the stay on Davis’ execution.

Neither of the men were put to death.

On Monday the Arkansas Supreme Court also made two decisions relating to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Wendell Griffin and his decisions.

Griffin had on April 14 ruled that the state’s supply of vecuronium bromide, an anesthetic which induces paralysis and which is the second of the state’s three-drug lethal injection protocol, could not be used in the process.

The drug supplier, McKesson Medical-Surgical Inc., had stated that the drug manufacturer prohibits vecuronium for use in executions, and that Arkansas had purchased it under false pretenses. McKesson discovered that the drug was to be used for executions and demanded the state return the drug, promising a refund. The supplier said it refunded the state, which never returned the drug.

However, Griffin also attended a protest against capital punishment outside the governor’s mansion on Friday.

On Monday, the Arkansas Supreme Court forbade Griffin from hearing death penalty-related cases, and referred him to the Arkansas Judicial Discipline and Disability Commission to discover if he violated a state code of judicial conduct.

It also vacated Griffin’s restraining order against the state’s use of vecuronium bromide.

Meanwhile, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit vacated April 17 a federal judge’s preliminary stay of executions which had been handed down April 15.

Federal judge Kristine G. Baker had ruled that the use of midazolam, a sedative, may violate the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

The sedative has been used in botched executions, and some medical experts have claimed it is not proven to be effective, thus exposing an inmate to the risk of severe pain as the other drugs are administered.

The eighth circuit appeals court rejected Baker’s determination that the executions should be delayed to give courts time to consider whether the use of midazolam is a breach of the Eighth Amendment. The appellate judges wrote that “the equivocal evidence recited by the district court falls short of demonstrating a significant possibility that the prisoners will show that the Arkansas protocol is ‘sure or very likely’ to cause severe pain and needless suffering.”

One appellate judge dissented from the eighth circuit’s decision.

After the US Supreme Court declined to reverse the stay on Davis’ execution, Governor Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, stated: “I am disappointed in this delay for the victim’s family. While this has been an exhausting day for all involved, tomorrow we will continue to fight back on last-minute appeals and efforts to block justice for the victims’ families.”

McKesson filed a complaint April 18 in Pulaski County Circuit Court seeking a restraining order and injunction to prevent the vecuronium it supplied from being used “for something other than a legitimate medical purpose.” The case has been assigned to Pulaski County Circuit Judge Alice Gray.

In another case, Baker cancelled an April 18 hearing in which the lawyers for Marcel Williams, who is scheduled to be executed April 24, intended to argue that because of his obesity, Arkansas’ lethal injection protocol is not likely to kill him and could cause organ damage. Williams was convicted of the 1994 killing of Stacy Errickson.

Baker cited the Eighth Circuit’s reversal of her earlier stay in her decision to cancel the hearing.

Both Bishop Anthony Taylor of Little Rock and Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, the chair of the US bishops’ domestic justice and human development committee, have spoken out against the planned executions.

Arkansas’ next executions are scheduled to be held the evening of April 20.

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Washington D.C., Apr 18, 2017 / 06:37 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A group of women and children from Central America who have been prioritized for deportation lost a legal battle Monday, when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal of a lower cou… […]

Washington D.C., Apr 18, 2017 / 03:18 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps have graced the shelves of U.S. stores for weeks in anticipation of Easter, but now that the actual Easter Season has begun, how should Catholics observe it?

“We cannot, as Christians, walk out of Easter liturgy and wash our hands of the business. Our life is forever changed, and it can never be what it was, if we believe that a man has walked out of the tomb,” said Fr. Hezekias Carnazzo, director of the Institute of Catholic Culture.

Easter Sunday begins the liturgical season of Easter, which continues through the celebration of the Ascension to Pentecost Sunday, 50 days in all. Each day of the Octave of Easter, the first eight days of the season, is a solemnity and ends on the Second Sunday of Easter, or Divine Mercy Sunday.

The Easter Triduum follows the 40-day penitential season of Lent, which is marked by penance, prayer, and almsgiving.

However, once the Triduum is over and Catholics cast off their Lenten penances, what comes next? Was Lent just one big detox program, and is the Easter Season a marathon of steak dinners, chocolate eggs, Netflix binges and bigger bar tabs, while practices of daily Mass and prayer are neglected?

Not so, said liturgical experts, who stressed that Catholics can both celebrate Easter and also grow in their spiritual life.

How do we do that? First, Catholics must remember the spiritual focus of the season, which is on Christ’s Resurrection and the evangelization that immediately follows from it, Fr. Chrysostom Baer of the Norbertines of St. Michael’s Abbey in Orange County, Calif., told CNA.

“The apostles were trying to convert the world because Jesus rose from the dead. And they really got the impulse to go at Pentecost, but the message is ‘Jesus died and rose’,” he said.

This evangelization was powered by a type of “evangelical poverty,” he said, pointing to the Acts of the Apostles: “The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all.”

While Easter is not a time for hairshirts and fasting, he clarified, Catholics shouldn’t feel like they must abandon good Lenten practices during Easter, if those practices help them be better Catholics – especially if they gave up things that were occasions of sin for them.

The Resurrection should change everything about our lives, Fr. Hezekias insisted, because in the words of St. Paul, since Jesus rose from the dead, “death no longer has dominion over Him.”

“It’s no great mystery that God is not able to be controlled by death. The great mystery is that a man walked out of the tomb that day. He was filled with Divine life. He’s the God-man. His divinity destroyed the power of death, but destroyed the power of death over us,” he said.

“We can say now, we who have been baptized in Him, death no longer has dominion over us,” he said. “Easter, Pascha, is the Christian life. Death no longer has dominion over us.”

This means that the created world has been brought back “into communion with God,” he said, and that realization should change how we see everything.

“I would think the first best way to celebrate the season is to go to daily Mass. That is bar none, the best,” Fr. Chrysostom said. “Because it really puts you in the mind of the Church, with regard to the season. The prayers change every day, but they’re all focused on the Resurrection.”

Catholics should also continue any good practices they fostered during Lent like prayer or almsgiving, he insisted, and should give attention to virtues they cultivated from Lenten penance.

“The Easter Season is for fostering those virtues that you’ve planted during Lent, and allowing them to grow,” he said. This requires taking “concrete steps” and not just vague promises to ensure that good habits are maintained, he added.

For instance, if someone gave alms during Lent, they could resolve to give money to the poor a certain number of times per week, he said.

However, Easter shouldn’t just be lived at church, but “it’s got to live out in our everyday lives,” Fr. Hezekias told CNA. There must be a “more intense realization that every aspect of my life has come into communion with God.”

“What about reading the Gospel in our homes or singing the Gospel in our homes before we bless the food at the dinner of that Sunday?” he suggested.

Another way to do this is for Catholics throw a party, he said, which we can enjoy in a new way having first fasted during Lent.

“The reason the Church has us set aside meat [during Lent] is because we’ve become dependent on those things,” Fr. Hezekias explained. “The key to the celebration of Easter and Pascha is the re-ordering in our life, that now I eat meat as a gift from God,” he said.

If someone has given up meat for 40 days, he explained, they will appreciate its goodness all the more: “Suddenly they take a bite of meat, and what do you say? ‘Thank you, God!’”

And Catholics should party together.

“I think what makes a feast really a feast is that it’s shared, with friends,” Fr. Chrysostom said, and where drinks served “heightens the conviviality and the joy.”

“Everyone should be asking themselves right now, who should I invite to my home [during the Easter Season]?” Fr. Hezekias said. They should also consider inviting the newly baptized at their parish over to their homes.

“We’ve forgotten our ability as Christians to go out and really have a party,” he said. “Our society is starving because of that. We’re the ones who are supposed to be showing everyone else what true joy is, but unfortunately we’ve forgotten it ourselves.”

“We’ve got to re-discover that for the sake of society.”

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