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St. Petersburg, Fla., Sep 8, 2018 / 04:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A recent event in a Florida diocese is seeking to help Catholics overcome a lack of awareness about the ongoing problem of racism in America today, said organizers of the initiative.
“We who do not experience racism are often blind to it and want to deny that it exists,” said Sabrina Burton Schultz, the Diocese of St. Petersburg’s director of Life, Justice and Advocacy Ministry.
“Changing hearts and minds is really more of a marathon than a sprint, and we are excited to continue to look at new ways to help people apply their experiences, their faith and the teachings of the Church to this very challenging issue,” she told CNA.
Close to 200 people attended the Diocese of St. Petersburg’s first listening session, held Sept. 5 at St. Lawrence Parish in Tampa.
Schultz said the session aimed to bring together a diverse group of Catholics and “start by listening to people’s experience of racism, in our pews and beyond, to make everyone aware that racism does still exist in our communities and in our Church.”
“We were greatly encouraged by the diversity of our audience and the candid responses that were shared,” she said.
The session moderators were Dale Brown, director of the diocesan Lay Pastoral Ministry Institute and liaison for its Black Catholic Ministry; and James Cavendish, a sociology professor at the University of South Florida.
Cavendish said that the U.S. bishops have “called on the church to confront instances of racism within its own walls.”
Bishop Gregory Parkes of St. Petersburg was present, as was Bishop Shelton Fabre, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism. The special committee was launched by the bishops to focus on how to address racism and come together as a society after a major rally of white supremacist, neo-Confederate and neo-Nazi activists turned lethal in Charlottesville, Virginia last year.
Schultz said discussions about how to increase dialogue and education regarding racism have been underway in the St. Petersburg diocese for some time, but the bishops’ national move strengthened local resolve. The diocese’s Racial Justice Committee first met in January 2018.
Gerri Drummond, a member of the racial justice committee and the diocese’s Life, Justice and Advocacy Committee, was born in Jamaica. She said she had never experienced racism before she moved to the U.S.
Those who are suffering racism are “asking for their brothers and sisters in the majority to embrace and heal them,” she told CNA.
Attendees called for “a clergy that truly understands the plight of racism, how it affects the person of color, and how silence from clerics is felt as a lack of care.”
“There was a great desire to see our priests, pastors and bishops preach more forcefully against the sin of racism, Drummond reported. “In addition, there were calls for a more diverse clergy and leadership at the diocesan and parish level.”
Ahead of the event, moderator Dale Brown told the Tampa Bay Times said she and other black Catholics have discussed their feelings about whether they are treated differently at Mass. If a parishioner does not drink after them from the chalice of the Precious Blood at Mass, they wonder what the reason is.
“I have the experience of people not sharing the (sign of) peace with me, but sharing with others who are white,” she said.
Brown said she hopes the event will help people examine their biases and “begin to broaden their understanding of the difficulties and experiences of those that have felt not only discriminated against, but left feeling like second-class citizens in the Church and society.”
Both Drummond and Brown are parishioners at St. Peter Claver, a historically African-American parish in Tampa.
The Sept. 5 listening session took inspiration from a similar event in the Austin diocese, but there have been similar events in the Diocese of Brooklyn and the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
According to Schultz, the event aimed to help clarify “that racism did not die in the 1960s. It exists today.” She reported that a special matter of concern for some locals is the law enforcement response to a recent racially charged shooting.
“There is a great deal of discussion currently about Florida’s use and application of the Stand Your Ground law due to the shooting of Markeis McGlockton in Clearwater, Florida in July,” Schultz told CNA.
Surveillance video showed Michael Drejka, 47, confronting McGlockton’s girlfriend for parking in a handicapped space outside a convenience store, CBS News reports. McGlockton, whose three young children were also present, then shoved Drejka to the ground and backed away. Drejka, a white man, pulled out a gun and fatally shot the African-American man.
Drejka was initially not charged due to a Florida law that protects the use of lethal force in self-defense. He claimed he feared for his life. He was later charged with manslaughter.
Court documents show authorities citing other motorists’ reports that he had previously brandished a weapon, with one saying Drejka had previously confronted him over parking in the same handicapped parking space.
Drummond stressed the need to “keep the conversation going… as long as black people are being unjustly victimized, as long as black families are having to have challenging conversation with their children regarding why persons of color are treated differently, as long as white supremacists are holding rallies, as long as our nation’s leaders use derogatory terms to describe persons of color and specific countries.”
Vivi Iglesias, an Argentina-born relationship manager with the southeast regional office of Catholic Relief Services, said all Catholics must continue these discussions in “open forums that foster civil dialogues.” She noted the importance of the ability to reach across cultures in a way that fosters understanding and acceptance of others.
Catholics must learn about and accept the diversity in the Church, Iglesias said. For instance, vocations teams should be culturally diverse, she said, and there must be “opportunities for gatherings to help us know one another, serve together, and learn from each other.”
The St. Petersburg diocese’s Racial Justice Committee is planning a broader initiative with several more events. A workshop on healing racial division in the Church and Society is set for Sept. 15, while a series of civil dialogues is also under development.
Santiago, Chile, Sep 7, 2018 / 07:28 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Chilean Senate has passed a gender identity bill that would allow minors as young as 14 to change their name and gender in the civil registry.
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Washington D.C., Sep 7, 2018 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After four days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh has progressed closer towards eventual confirmation to the Supreme Court. The hearings, which began Sept. 4, included several disruptions by protestors, seemingly political lines of questioning by senators, and even a cameo appearance by the youth basketball team he coaches.
As was widely expected, the issue of abortion loomed large during parts of the questioning, despite Kavanaugh’s relative lack of a judicial track record, or even public statements, on the issue. The only recent case in which Kavanaugh ruled on abortion came last year, when he argued that an undocumented minor teenager in federal custody should not be permitted to have an abortion immediately.
Kavanaugh was questioned by both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate about his thoughts on the issue, and he offered no indication that he thought the landmark case of Roe v. Wade, which affirmed the legal existence of abortion rights, should be overturned,.
Kavanaugh was questioned about a 15-year-old email, in which he questioned the statement that abortion was “settled law.” The judge explained that he was actually questioning the claim that legal scholars generally agreed that abortion was “settled law.”
“I’m always concerned with accuracy,” he said, “I thought that was not quite an accurate description of all legal scholars because it referred to ‘all.’”
The judge then stated that he believed that Roe is “important precedent” which has repeatedly been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.
This statement, however, did not do much to reassure those in favor of abortion rights, as activists continually, and loudly, protested Kavanaugh’s nomination throughout the four days of hearings.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) questioned Kavanaugh Sept. 6 “is there anything in the Constitution about a right to abortion? Is anything written in the document?”
Kavanaugh replied: “Senator, the Supreme Court has recognized the right to abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, has reaffirmed it many times.”
Graham pressed the issue, and Kavanaugh responded that the Supreme Court applied the liberty clause in its decisions regarding abortion: “The Supreme Court has found it under the liberty clause but you’re right.”
“The liberty clause talks about liberty,” Kavanaugh stated.
“Last time I checked, liberty didn’t equate to abortion,” Graham said. “The Supreme Court said it did, but here’s the point. What are the limits on this concept? You had five, six, seven, eight or nine judges. What are the limits on the ability of the court to find a penumbra of rights that apply to a particular situation? What are the checks and balances on people in your business, if you can find five people who agree with you to confer a right whether the public likes it or not, based on this concept of a penumbra of rights. What are the outer limits to this?”
Kavanaugh responded: “The test the Supreme Court uses to find unenumerated rights under the liberty clause of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, and that refers to rights rooted in the history and tradition of the country.”
The first day of the hearings saw several of women outside the hearing room protest his nomination by dressing in costumes from the book The Handmaid’s Tale, while several more individuals were removed from the hearing room after attempting to disrupt proceedings.
These interventions continued throughout the week, with the Women’s March even creating a “funeral procession” of women in funeral attire who marched towards the hearing.
Kavanaugh also came under fire for his comments regarding birth control.
In a summary of the argument presented by the pro-life Catholic group Priests for Life in the case Priests for Life v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which was brought over the HHS contraception mandate, Kavanaugh stated that the priests “said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objecting to.”
While Kavanaugh did not say that he himself thought this about birth control, those opposed to his nomination sent out mass emails decrying Kavanaugh’s presence potential confirmation to the court as “dangerous” for women. The Women’s March went as far as to say that his nomination constituted “an emergency, all-hands-on-deck moment for women across America.”
The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on a recommendation to confirm Kavanaugh in the near future. Assuming his nomination clears this hurdle, it would then be put to a vote before the entire Senate.
Brussels, Belgium, Sep 7, 2018 / 04:06 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An annual report released by a special group within the European Union warned of serious religious freedom violations in some parts of the world. It highlighted the importance of protecting th… […]
Vatican City, Sep 7, 2018 / 03:45 pm (CNA).- Catholic News Service on Friday published a redacted version of a letter sent in 2006 from a high-ranking official of the Secretariat of State, which implicitly acknowledges receipt of allegations made against then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
The Oct. 11, 2006 letter is from then-Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, who was Substitute of the Secretariat of State, to Fr. Boniface Ramsey, who had been on the faculty of Immaculate Conception Seminary in South Orange, N.J., from 1986 to 1996.
Sandri’s letter refers “to the serious matters involving some of the students of the Immaculate Conception Seminary, which in November 2000 you were good enough to bring confidentially to the attention of the then Apostolic Nuncio in the United States, the late Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo.”
Fr. Ramsey has said that when McCarrick was appointed Archbishop of Washington in 2000, he contacted Archbishop Montalvo to report allegations of McCarrick’s misconduct with seminarians he had heard from his own seminary students.
At the nuncio’s request, he said, he put his concerns in writing.
Fr. Ramsey told CNS that in his letter, “I complained about McCarrick’s relationships with seminarians and the whole business with sleeping with seminarians.”
“My letter [of] November 22, 2000, was about McCarrick and it wasn’t accusing seminarians of anything; it was accusing McCarrick,” he said.
CNS reported that though Fr. Ramsey has said he did not receive a formal response to his letter of Nov. 22, 2000, “he was certain the letter had been received because of the note he got from then-Archbishop Sandri in 2006 acknowledging the allegations he had raised in 2000.”
The immediate purpose of Sandri’s 2006 letter was to inquire about a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark who had studied at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University. The priest was being considered for a post at the Vatican.
Sandri is now prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, and a cardinal.
Fr. Ramsey’s account accords with details of that offered by the testimony of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who was apostolic nuncio to the US from 2011 to 2016.
Archbishop Viganò had written that Montalvo (and his successor, Archbishop Pietro Sambi) “did not fail to inform the Holy See immediately, as soon as they learned of Archbishop McCarrick’s gravely immoral behavior with seminarians and priests. Indeed, according to what Nuncio Pietro Sambi wrote, Father Boniface Ramsey, O.P.’s letter, dated November 22, 2000, was written at the request of the late Nuncio Montalvo. In the letter, Father Ramsey, who had been a professor at the diocesan seminary in Newark from the end of the ’80s until 1996, affirms that there was a recurring rumor in the seminary that the Archbishop ‘shared his bed with seminarians,’ inviting five at a time to spend the weekend with him at his beach house. And he added that he knew a certain number of seminarians, some of whom were later ordained priests for the Archdiocese of Newark, who had been invited to this beach house and had shared a bed with the Archbishop.”
Viganò also stated that on Dec. 6, 2006, he wrote and delivered to Sandri a memo which detailed accusations of sexual abuse against McCarrick by Gregory Littleton, a laicized priest, which included “absolution of the accomplices in these depraved acts.” The former nuncio said he proposed in that letter that “an exemplary measure be taken against the Cardinal that could have a medicinal function, to prevent future abuses against innocent victims and alleviate the very serious scandal for the faithful.”
Washington D.C., Sep 7, 2018 / 01:41 pm (CNA).- A U.S.-based organization of Catholic business executives announced Thursday that it is placing its annual donation to the Holy See in escrow until it can receive clarification on questions of financial a… […]
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