Cardinal DiNardo calls for ‘reasonable’ gun control after Chicago hospital shooting

CNA Staff, Sep 9, 2020 / 11:30 am (CNA).- Months before officials in the Archdiocese of Newark sold a beach house used by former cardinal Theodore McCarrick for sexual abuse and coercion, the archdiocese bought a second beach house on the Jersey Shore, at which McCarrick reportedly hosted friends and courted donors.

The second beach house, according to an investigative report from northjersey.com, was purchased in 1997 by the Newark archdiocese from the neighboring Diocese of Metuchen. The house was located in Brick, New Jersey, on Barnegat Bay.

The archdiocese bought thar home four months before it sold the Sea Girt, New Jersey beach house which McCarrick was alleged to have used for sexual abuse and coercion since the 1980s.

Both homes were owned by the Diocese of Metuchen, which McCarrick led as a bishop from 1981 to 1986, before they were purchased by the Archdiocese of Newark, which McCarrick led from 1986 to 2000.

The Sea Girt house was purchased by the Metuchen diocese in 1985, and sold to the Newark archdiocese in 1988.

The Brick house was purchased in 1987 by a Metuchen priest, Msgr. Francis Crine, and Walter Uzenski, principal of the school at Crine’s parish. Crine died in 1989, and Uzenski gave the house to St. James Parish in Woodbridge, NJ, to settle an unspecified debt of McCarrick’s. In 1994, the parish transferred the property to the diocese, northjersey.com reported.

It is not clear what debt Crine owed to the parish.

Crine was a Metuchen chancery official during McCarrick’s tenure in Newark. He was also pastor of St. James Parish during a period in which at least three priests were assigned to the parish who eventually faced allegations of sexual abuse, misconduct, and theft.

McCarrick was first accused of misconduct toward seminarians, and of compelling them to visit the Sea Girt house, in the late 1980s. He was accused in 1994 of abusing a seminarian there. According to northjersey.com, the apostolic nuncio to the U.S. ordered the Sea Girt home be sold in the late 1990s.

In April 1997, four months before the Sea Girt home was sold, the Archdiocese of Newark purchased the Brick house. In 2002, after McCarrick had become Archbishop of Washington, the archdiocese sold the home.

According to northjersey.com, there are no allegations of sexual abuse or coercion at the beach house in Brick.

News that the Archdiocese of Newark purchased a second beach house at which McCarrick entertained guests comes as Catholics await the results of internal investigations on McCarrick conducted by the Vatican, and by the archdioceses of Newark and Washington.

Little information regarding McCarrick’s misconduct has been released by those dioceses or the Holy See since news emerged in June 2018 that McCarrick was credibly accused of sexually abusing minors.

The former cardinal has since been laicized, and is accused of serially sexually abusing and coercing minors, seminarians, and young priests.

The Archdiocese of Washington has declined repeatedly to release files on slush funds controlled by McCarrick in Newark and Washington, in which several hundred thousand dollars reportedly was under the archbishop’s direct control, with no auditing or oversight. McCarrick is believed to have used the funds to lavish cash gifts on other Church leaders.

The Vatican investigation is expected to report whether other senior Church leaders enabled, abetted, or ignored allegations against McCarrick. A report was initially expected to be released in late 2019, but there is not yet any indication of when it will be released. Several sources in the Vatican tell CNA the report has been completed, and can be released at any date selected by Pope Francis.

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Washington D.C., Nov 5, 2017 / 02:12 pm (CNA).- It’s been a month since the New York Times first published an investigative report on Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood film producer and studio executive who has been accused of sexually assaulting numerous women in the entertainment industry since the 1990s.

Already, the reports have been followed by a movement among women – both those who have made additional accusations against Weinstein and other celebrities, and women throughout the world who are sharing their own stories of sexual assault on social media, accompanied by the hashtag #MeToo.

The Catholic Church in the United States faced its own sex abuse crisis in the early 2000s, beginning with the Boston Globe’s report on extensive sexual abuse by clergy, particularly against minors. Since then, the Church has taken care to provide numerous resources to such victims, and develop robust child protection policies.

But what can the Church provide for adult victims of general sexual assault, whether committed by Church personnel or other people?  

Catholic psychologist Dr. Greg Bottaro said one of the most important things the Church can do to help victims of sexual assault is to anticipate and initiate the conversation about it.

“I think that’s the good thing about the Harvey Weinstein case – obviously this has become a more common conversation, but there needs to be more of that,” he said.

“Let people know that it’s ok to talk about this, it’s ok to report this, if something has happened to you it’s ok to come forward.”

Victims also need validation “that the assault is wrong, because sexual assault is traumatic. It’s trauma in the deepest sense of the word, and the definition of trauma is the perceived harm to life or integrity of body. Having your bodily integrity violated is a traumatic event, there’s a loss of power that happens, it’s a real victimization.”

If a Catholic experiences sexual assault, there are several websites that can help connect them to Catholic counselors and therapists, including catholicpsych.com, catholictherapists.com, and wellcatholic.com. Most dioceses also have Catholic counselors and therapists with whom they work closely and to whom victims can be referred, Dr. Bottaro noted.

Seeking a healing and help that incorporates one’s Catholic faith is important, Dr. Bottaro said, because the trauma caused by sexual violence can wound the deepest parts of the human person.

“Our bodies are meant to be gifts to be given with full freedom in a full fruition of our choice, and when that choice is taken away, that’s a strike against our sense of (self),” he said.

“So the healing we seek has to take that into account and help us rebuild the sense of self that is founded on a deeper principle.”

People who have experienced sexual assault also often are in need of spiritual healing, because such traumatic events can cause them to question their belief in God as a loving father, Dr. Bottaro noted.

“One effect (of trauma) is that our sense of being safe in the world is violated, and that digs down into our sense of having a father who loves us and takes care of us,” he said. “Victims of trauma have to make sense of that – how can you say that there’s a father in heaven who loves me when this happened to me? So having a psychologist who can walk through that with somebody, and help wrestle with that reality, and learn how to accept suffering as part of God’s will is an essential element to healing.”

Sue Stubbs is the director of the Victim Assistance Office for the Archdiocese of Atlanta, Georgia. While her office was originally created to respond to the clergy sex abuse crisis, as were many diocesan child and youth protection departments, Stubbs said that her office has become a catch-all, and now provides resources to a wide variety of victims, whether they were assaulted by church personnel or not.

Besides helping connect victims with counselors, Stubbs said the office also puts on retreats every year, two for women and one for men, that help address both psychological and spiritual components of healing after sexual assault.

Stubbs said it was important for victims to seek spiritual as well as psychological healing, because the two areas often overlap, and because recognizing God as an all-good and all-loving creator helps victims make sense of their experiences.

“You have to believe that someone bigger than you cares about you, and created you a certain way, to really understand that nothing…that happens to you and nothing that you do can change the way God made you. (Your worth) stays the same no matter what.”

Her office also facilitates trauma recovery groups for victims that are usually put on once or twice a year, for nine sessions each. The groups welcome people who have suffered all kinds of trauma and sexual assault, whether in childhood or later in life.

The benefit of a group, Stubbs said, is that people can get a sense that they’re not alone.

“You don’t feel alone, you don’t feel different. (Victims sometimes) feel like a freak and they realize they’re not. Someone in the group is saying the same thing that they’ve thought a million times,” she said. “And it provides a safe connection, because these people get it, they’re not afraid to reach out because they know that this person has had something similar.”

Stubbs said that she often tells other people in Church leadership that the Church has to start seeing victims of sexual assault as people who are on the peripheries, to whom Pope Francis has called the Church to minister.

“The people that come to church oftentimes are the periphery, you just can’t see it,” Stubbs said.  “People who’ve been sexually assaulted are the periphery and they could be sitting right next to you and have no idea, because they don’t talk about it, they hide it, it’s an invisible secret that they’re afraid to show anybody.”

“There’s a part of them that feels broken, they perceive themselves as something sinful, but it isn’t their sin, it’s someone else’s sin that has affected their life, and it’s confusing,” Stubbs said.  

“And I think that’s where the Church can help to untie those knots – I think we could add the spiritual piece” that is missing from other community resources, she said.

College campuses are unfortunately a place of increased risk for sexual violence – especially for women. RAINN – the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, reports that women ages 18-24 are at a heightened risk to experience sexual assault, both on and off college campuses.

In order to prevent and educate students about sexual assault and other harmful situations, The Catholic University of America (CUA) has created PEERS – Peer Educators Empowering Respectful Students – a group that seeks to educate other students and help foster a more respectful environment on campus.

Stephanie Davey is the Assistant Dean in the Office of the Dean of Students at CUA and oversees much of the work that PEERS does. She said that PEERS helps students understand what sexual assault is, and how to either intervene to prevent it from happening or what to do if sexual assault has occurred.

Davey said they especially want victims to “understand that we are a supportive place and they don’t have to be fearful or ashamed about seeking support,” whether the incident occurred with another CUA student or not.

The university just concluded observing October as Sexual Violence Prevention Month, during which the school has participated in several national campaigns that raise awareness of sexual violence and encourage increased conversation about the issue.

For example, Davey said, the students participated in the national “Walk a Mile in Her Shoes” campaign, which usually involves men walking in high heels, but CUA decided to do it with a Catholic twist.

“Instead of having men walk in high heeled shoes we had a candlelit solidarity walk through campus and stopped at different places through campus and read testimonies of survivors…and culminated with a prayer service outside our chapel with our chaplain and then had some fellowship,” she said.

Much of their training, such as bystander intervention training, is rooted in the Catholic faith, she said – being a good Samaritan, being a good neighbor, and upholding the dignity of everyone.

“I think that that’s what we do well in terms of addressing these issues but also not ignoring our Catholic identity,” she said.

“Every person has worth and dignity, it’s our responsibility to look out for each other and uphold that dignity.”

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Washington D.C., Sep 12, 2017 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Colorado baker’s fight to maintain his freedom of expression could be the most influential religious freedom decisions of the US Supreme Court in years, as the court considers the case this term.

“There is far more at stake in this case than simply whether Jack Phillips must bake a cake,” the US bishops’ conference and other Catholic groups stated in an amicus brief in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission. “It is about the freedom to live according to one’s religious beliefs in daily life and, in so doing, advance the common good.”

The Masterpiece Cakeshop case, to be decided by the Supreme Court in the next term, dates back to 2012. In July of that year, Jack Phillips went to work one July day at Masterpiece Cakeshop, his Lakewood, Colo. bakery in the suburbs of Denver.

Phillips had started his business in 1993 as a way to integrate his two loves — baking and art – into his daily work. Philipps named his shop “Masterpiece” because of the artistic focus of his work, but also because of his Christian beliefs. He drew from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew, specifically the commands “no man can serve two masters” and “you cannot serve both God and mammon.”

“I didn’t open this so I could make a lot of money,” Phillips said of his business. “I opened it up so that it would be a way that I could create my art, do the baking that I love, and serve the God that I love.” Phillips spoke last Wednesday at the Heritage Foundation at a panel event on his upcoming Supreme Court case.

One day in July of 2012, two men walked in to Masterpiece Cakeshop and began looking at pictures of wedding cakes. Phillips approached them and quickly ascertained that they were planning their own wedding and had wanted him to bake them a cake for their same-sex wedding.

“Right away, I’m thinking ‘how can I tell them politely that I can’t take care of this wedding for them, because I don’t do same-sex weddings’,” he recalled.

Phillips explained to the couple that he could not serve same-sex weddings – to do so would have been a violation of his Christian beliefs. He said has declined to make a number of types of cakes, including cakes for Halloween, bachelor parties, and a divorce, cakes with alcohol in the ingredients, and cakes with atheist messages.  

Once they heard they would not be able to buy a cake from Masterpiece, the couple stormed out of the store angrily. During the ensuing hour, Phillips said his store received about a half-dozen threatening phone calls. Days later, he received a death threat where he had to call his sister, who was at the store with her four year-old daughter, and tell her to hide in the back of the store until police arrived on the scene.

The couple, meanwhile, filed a complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Commission for discrimination.

The commission ordered Phillips to serve same-sex weddings and to undergo anti-discrimination training. In a hearing in 2014, the civil rights commissioner Diann Rice compared his declining to serve same-sex weddings to justifications for the Holocaust and slavery.

“Freedom of religion and religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the Holocaust,” Commissioner Rice said.

Alliance Defending Freedom took up Phillips’ case in court. He lost before an administrative judge in 2013, who ruled that the state could determine when his rights to free speech unlawfully infringed upon others’ rights.

Phillips then appealed his case to the state’s human rights commission, which ruled against him. He appealed again to the state’s court of appeals, which also ruled against him. The Colorado Supreme Court did not take up Phillips’ case.

The case was appealed to the Supreme Court. It was re-listed repeatedly throughout the winter and spring of 2017, before the Court finally decided to take the case in June, at the end of its term.

Once the case is decided at the Supreme Court, the ruling is expected to cap one of the most decisive religious freedom cases of this century.

“It has been said, and I think accurately so, that this could be one of the most important First Amendment cases in terms of free speech and the free exercise of religion in a century or more, and it could be a landmark, seismic kind of case of First Amendment jurisprudence,” Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) stated at a Thursday press conference at the U.S. Capitol.

As state amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman were declared unconstitutional by the court in Obergefell v. Hodges in 2013, states have also begun enforcing laws against discrimination on basis of sexual identity. The conscientious refusal of certain business owners, like florists and bakers, to serve same-sex weddings has been ruled unlawful in several states, including Colorado.

In Phillips’ case, he has a right to freedom of expression as an artist, Alliance Defending Freedom has argued, and this right has been recognized as protected by the First Amendment. If the Supreme Court rules in Phillips’ favor in this case, it could have ramifications in other cases where business owners face discrimination lawsuits.

“The Supreme Court has said that things like that [art] are covered under the protection of the First Amendment,” Kristen Waggoner, senior vice president of the U.S. legal division for ADF, stated at the Heritage Foundation panel event.

Throughout the ordeal, Phillips has paid a heavy price for his stand. He has lost 40 percent of his family’s income and more than half his employees, he said.

The initial briefs have been filed with the Supreme Court. Amicus briefs are currently being filed, the opposing briefs will come in October, and the reply of ADF to those briefs the following month. The case will likely be decided late next spring.

ADF has argued in its brief before the Supreme Court that the rulings by the state’s court of appeals and human rights commission that the state can determine which free artistic expression is protected under the First Amendment stands in flagrant opposition to the original meaning of the Constitution.

“But just as the Commission cannot compel Phillips’s art, neither may the government suppress it,” ADF stated.

Instead, the conflict between Phillips’ freedom as an artist and the wishes of his customers should be solved by the citizens themselves, and not by the government, ADF said.

“There is a better way – one that allows the Commission to ensure that businesses do not refuse to serve people simply because of who they are, but protects individuals like Phillips from being forced to create expression about marriage that violates their core convictions,” ADF’s brief stated.

“The path to civility, progress, and freedom does not crush those who hold unpopular views, pushing them from the public square,” ADF said. “It allows free citizens to determine for themselves ‘the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence’.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, along with the Colorado Catholic Conference, the Catholic Medical Association, and other Catholic non-profits have also weighed in on the case, submitting an amici curiae brief on behalf of Masterpiece Cakeshop.

Religious freedom must never mean just the freedom to worship or the freedom to practice one’s religion in private, the brief said. The First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause “guarantees every individual the right to seek the truth in religious matters and then adhere to that truth through private and public action.”

In an apostolic exhortation on the proclamation of the Gospel, Pope Francis recently insisted that “no one can demand that religion should be relegated to the inner sanctum of personal life, without influence on societal and national life, without concerns for the soundness of civil institutions, without a right to offer an opinion on events affecting society.”

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