St. Paul, Minn., Dec 14, 2018 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Bernard Hebda of Saint Paul and Minneapolis announced Friday several changes meant “to change the culture that fostered the clergy abuse crisis.”
Among these are the creation of a new position within the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis to ensure that “the voice of survivors of clergy sexual abuse will be regularly heard within Archdiocesan leadership,” Hebda wrote in a Dec. 14 letter.
“To strengthen that voice, I want to say again today that any survivor who at any time entered into a settlement agreement containing a confidentiality provision is released from that provision,” he added.
“I also reiterate my pledge to meet with any survivors who would like to do so.”
Hebda wrote that he plans to make himself available to survivors of abuse all Friday afternoons in February, March, and April, as well as other times and places. Planning for spiritual outreach in 2019 is also underway, he said.
Hebda reiterated that he strongly favors a “lay-led mechanism for investigating and assessing any allegations made against me or any other bishop.”
Hebda’s predecessor, Archbishop John Nienstedt, was the subject of a misconduct allegation involving adult males in 2014. Nienstedt delegated the investigation to his senior auxiliary bishop, who submitted the investigative materials to then-Nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò after seeking the counsel of two law firms. In addition, the allegations against Nienstedt were provided to the county attorney’s office.
However, the situation remains “unresolved for the accusers, for Archbishop Nienstedt and for the public” because Hebda said as far as he knows, the Vatican’s effort into the investigation ended when Archbishop Nienstedt resigned his office in June 2015.
Archbishop Viganò has since denied that he ordered the Vatican’s investigation of Nienstedt to be halted.
Hebda wrote of the investigation: “I share the frustration that is felt by them, and believe this situation highlights the need for a better-defined process and independent mechanism to resolve allegations made against bishops.”
An additional allegation emerged that then-bishop of New Ulm Nienstedt, at a 2005 World Youth Day event in Germany, had invited minors to his hotel room, proceeded to undress and had invited them to do the same – an account which Nienstedt denies. Hebda said he transmitted information about this allegation to the nuncio in 2016.
“I have been asked repeatedly whether there are any restrictions on Archbishop Nienstedt’s ministry,” Hebda wrote.
“My answer has always been that although I do not know of any, I am the wrong person to ask: Bishops report to the Holy Father, not to each other. I have no general juridical authority over Archbishop Nienstedt or any other bishop outside the Archdiocese.”
However, Hebda did offer clarification that Nienstedt, like any priest facing misconduct allegations, “would not be free to exercise public ministry in this Archdiocese until all open allegations are resolved.”
Hebda said he would continue to advocate for an independent review board, and would commit to transmitting the entire 2014 archdiocesan investigation to whatever national or regional review board is created.
“In order to fully address bishop accountability, the Church needs a national or regional board empowered to act, much as our well-respected Ministerial Review Board has been empowered to address allegations involving our priests and deacons,” the archbishop wrote.
“The Church cannot fulfill its mission without public trust.”
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Washington D.C., Jul 24, 2017 / 11:59 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic figures from Washington, D.C. are remembering the legacy of Fr. Arne Panula, former U.S. vicar of Opus Dei, and a beloved leader, mentor and friend of many throughout the city.
“Father Arne Panula is greatly identified with our Archdiocesan Catholic Information Center where he carried out a quiet, effective, evangelizing ministry that touched many including a large number of young professionals,” said Cardinal Donald Wuerl Washington D.C. in a statement to CNA.
“Both his erudition and spirituality were inviting qualities that helped so many others come to a deeper knowledge and love of the Lord. His priestly presence will be greatly missed.”
Cardinal Wuerl presided over Fr. Panula’s funeral Mass on Saturday, July 22 at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. Fr. Panula passed away at his Washington, D. C. home on July 19, 2017 after a long battle with cancer.
Born in Duluth, Minn., Fr. Panula graduated from Harvard University in 1967, before traveling to Rome to study Theology. While there, he lived with St. Josemaria Escriva, founder of the personal prelature Opus Dei.
Fr. Panula was ordained a priest in 1973 before serving as chaplain of The Heights School in Washington, D.C. He later served as the U.S. vicar of Opus Dei from 1998-2002.
Starting in 2007, Fr. Panula became the director of the Catholic Information Center in downtown Washington, D.C. The center includes a bookstore and chapel, offering Mass, adoration, confession and spiritual direction, as well as talks from Catholic speakers.
Under Fr. Panula’s guidance, in 2013 the center began offering an educational fellowship, the Leonine Forum, to help young professionals learn more about the Church’s Social Teaching and service.
Members of Washington D.C.’s Catholic community remembered the priest for his influence in their lives. The Embassy of Poland also mourned his death, linking to his obituary and posting a picture of Fr. Panula giving an opening blessing at an event.
Chad Pecknold, theology professor at The Catholic University of America and leader of several Leonine Forum sessions, remembered the priest on Twitter: “Fr. Arne Panula died today. A hero of the Faith, I’m proud to have called him friend & Father. May God’s perpetual light shine upon him. RIP.”
Leonine Fellow and communications professional Elise Italiano commented on social media that Fr. Panula “treated Washington elite, the homeless at his doorstep, and many in between with equal dignity and compassion.”
Another Leonine Fellow, Catherine Szeltner, host of EWTN Pro-Life Weekly, recalled that “Fr. Arne Panula was a man whose eyes were piercing – but his kindness – even more so. It was an honor to know you. Requiem aeternam.”
George Weigel, biographer of Pope John Paul II and Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, noted that Fr. Panula served as a spiritual director to many from all walks of life, many of whom had colorful and difficult journeys to the faith.
Weigel, who is a frequent speaker at the Catholic Information Center, said that Fr. Panula helped turn the center into a “vibrant” source of authentic Catholic life and evangelization amid a city associated more with House of Cards than the House of the Lord.
“He was a man deeply in love with the gift of the priesthood, who was, I would also say, completely unclerical. He fully understood that sanctity is not limited to the sanctuary, that everyone is called by baptism to be a saint and he helped people do that,” Weigel added.
“He was really one of the most remarkable priests I have met.”
“What’s the Eucharist?” Kent Shi, a 25-year-old Harvard graduate student, asked that question when he attended eucharistic adoration for the first time. The answer put him on a path to conversion. / Julia Monaco | CNA
Cambridge, Massachusetts, Apr 16, 2022 / 09:03 am (CNA).
One convert’s journey to Catholicism began with an invitation to an ice-cream social.
Another says he instantly believed in the Real Presence the moment someone explained what the round object was that everyone was staring at during eucharistic adoration.
For a third, the poems of T.S. Eliot — and a seemingly random encounter with a priest on a public street — led to deeper questions about truth and faith.
Their paths differed but led them to the same destination: St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they are among 31 people set to be fully initiated into the Catholic Church during the Easter vigil Mass on Saturday, April 16.
That number of initiates is a record high for St. Paul’s, a nearly century-old Romanesque-style brick church whose bell tower looms over Harvard Square.
A scheduling backlog caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is partly responsible for the size of this year’s group of catechumens (non-baptized) and candidates (baptized non-Catholics.) But Father Patrick J. Fiorillo, the parochial vicar at St. Paul’s, believes there’s more to it than that.
“There’s definitely a significant segment of people who started thinking more deeply about their lives and faith during COVID-19,” Fiorillo said. “So, coming out of Covid has given them the occasion to take the next step and move forward.”
Fiorillo is the undergraduate chaplain for the Harvard Catholic Center, a chaplaincy based at St. Paul’s for undergraduate and graduate students at Harvard University and other academic institutions in the area. This year, 17 of the 31 initiates are Harvard students.
“Everybody assumes that, because this is the Harvard Catholic Center, that everybody here is very smart and therefore has a very highly intellectual orientation towards their faith,” Fiorillo told CNA.
“That is definitely true of some people. But I would say the majority are not here because of intellectually thinking their way into the faith. Some are. But the majority are just kind of ordinary life circumstances, just seeking, questioning the ways of the world, and just trying to get in touch with this desire on their heart for something more,” he said.
Fiorillo says welcoming converts into the Church at the Easter vigil is one of the highlights of his ministry.
“It’s an honor. It gives me hope just seeing all this new life and new faith here. So much in one place,” he said.
“When I tell other people about it, it gives them hope to hear that many young people are still converting to Catholicism, and they’re doing it in a place as secular as Cambridge.”
Prior to the Easter vigil, CNA spoke with five of St. Paul’s newest converts. Here are their stories:
‘This is what I’ve been looking for’
Katie Cabrera, a 19-year-old Harvard freshman, told CNA that she was excited to experience the “transformative power of Christ through his body and blood” at Mass for the first time at the Easter vigil.
A native of Dorchester, Massachusetts, she said she was baptized as a child and comes from a family of Dominican immigrants. Her father, who grew up in an extremely impoverished area, lacked a formal education, but always kept the traditions of the Catholic faith close to him in order to persevere in difficult times.
Her father’s love for her and his Catholic faith deeply inspired Cabrera, and served as an anchor for her faith throughout her life.
Growing up, however, Cabrera attended a non-denominational church with her mother. Because she felt the church’s teachings lacked an emphasis on God’s love and mercy, Cabrera eventually left.
“Even though I Ieft, I always knew that I believed in God,” Cabrera said. “So, I was at a place where I felt kind of lost, because I always had that faith, but I didn’t know what to do with it.”
“There was a void that existed in my heart,” says Katie Cabrera, a Harvard undergraduate student. She discovered what was missing when she started to get involved with the Harvard Catholic Center. Courtesy of Katie Cabrera
After she arrived at Harvard, she accepted a friend’s invitation to attend an ice-cream social at the Harvard Catholic Center — “and that was like, sort of, how it all started,” she told CNA.
Once she was added to the email list for the center’s events, she felt a “calling” that she “really wanted to officially become Catholic” after many difficult years without a faith community.
Catholic doctrine about the sacraments was no hurdle for Cabrera, as she credits Fiorillo with explaining the faith well.
“There was a void that existed in my heart,” she said. “As soon as Father Patrick started teaching about marriage and family, theology of the body, and the sacraments, I was like, ‘This is what I’ve been looking for my whole life.’”
‘What’s the Eucharist?’
“What is that thing on the thing?”
Kent Shi laughs when he recalls how perplexed he was the first time he attended eucharistic adoration at St. Mary’s of the Assumption in Cambridge.
Someone helpfully explained that what Shi was looking at was the Eucharist displayed inside a monstrance.
“What’s the Eucharist?” he wanted to know.
For many non-Catholics considering entering the Catholic Church, the Real Presence can be a major obstacle. But Kent Shi, a Harvard graduate student, says that once the Eucharist was explained to him, he instantly believed. Julia Monaco | CNA
For many non-Catholics considering entering the Catholic Church, the Real Presence can be a major obstacle.
Not Shi. He says that once the Eucharist was explained to him that day, he instantly believed.
Shi, 25, told CNA that he considered himself an agnostic for most of his life, meaning he neither believed nor disbelieved in God.
Between his first and second years as a graduate student in Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, however, he accepted Christ and started attending services at a Presbyterian church.
One day in the summer of 2021, a crucifix outside St. Paul’s that Shi says he “must have passed multiple times a week for months and never noticed” caught his eye, and deeply moved him.
Shortly after, he accepted a friend’s invitation to attend eucharistic adoration at St. Mary’s even though he “didn’t know what adoration meant.” Unaware of what he was about to walk into, Shi asked a friend what the dress code was for adoration. His friend replied, “Respectful.”
And so, respectfully dressed in a button-down shirt and slacks, Shi sat in the front row with his friend, only a few feet from the monstrance. That’s when the questions began.
It wasn’t long after that encounter that Shi began attending Mass at St. Paul’s and the parish’s RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) program. Shi asked CNA readers to pray for him and his fellow RCIA classmates.
“There’s a lot of prodigal sons and daughters here, so we would very much appreciate that,” he said, “especially me.”
Poetry and art opened the door
For Loren Brown, choosing to attend a secular university like Harvard proved to be “providential.”
The 25-year-old junior from La Center, Washington, said he comes from a “lapsed” Catholic family and wasn’t baptized.
He didn’t think much about the faith until the spring semester of his freshman year, when, he says, Catholic friends of his “began to question my lack of commitment to faith.”
Later, when students were sent home to take classes virtually due to the pandemic, he had time to reflect and began to read some of the books they’d recommended to him. The poetry of T.S. Eliot (his favorite set of poems being “Four Quartets”) and the “Confessions” by St. Augustine, in particular, “pulled me towards the faith,” he said.
Brown describes his conversion as a “gradual process” which backed him into a “logical corner.” But a chance meeting with a priest also played a pivotal role.
One day in the summer of 2021 while walking back to his dormitory he encountered a man wearing a priestly collar outside St. Paul’s Church on busy Mount Auburn Street.
It was Father George Salzmann, O.S.F.S., graduate chaplain of the Harvard Catholic Center.
“He asked me how I was doing, what I was studying, and we immediately found a common interest in St. Augustine,” Brown told CNA.
“You know, there’s this great window of St. Augustine inside St. Paul’s and you should come see it,” Brown remembers the gregarious priest telling him. Salzmann wound up giving Brown a brief tour of the church, which was completed in 1923.
Harvard undergraduate student Loren Brown describes his conversion to Catholicism as a “gradual process” which backed him into a “logical corner.” But a chance meeting with a priest also played a pivotal role. Courtesy of Loren Brown
The next week, Brown found himself sitting in a pew for his first Sunday Mass at St. Paul’s. He hasn’t missed a Sunday since, a routine that ultimately led him to join the RCIA program that fall.
Brown says he now realizes that coming to Harvard was about more than majoring in education.
“What I wanted out of Harvard has completely changed,” he said. “Instead of an education that prepares me for a job or a career, I want one that forms me as a moral being and a human.”
‘I can’t do this alone. Please help me.’
Verena Kaynig-Fittkau, 42, is a German immigrant who came to the U.S. 10 years ago with her husband to do her post-doctoral research in biomedical image processing at Harvard’s engineering school.
The couple settled in Cambridge, where they had their first child. Two subsequent pregnancies ended in miscarriage, however. That second loss was overwhelming for Kaynig-Fittkau, who says she was raised as a “secular Lutheran” without any strong faith.
“It broke me and a lot of my pride and made me realize that I can’t do things by myself,” she told CNA.
She found herself on knees one Thanksgiving, pleading with God. “I can’t do this alone,” she said. “Please help me.”
She says God answered her prayer by introducing her to another mother, who she met at a playground. She was a Christian who later invited Kaynig-Fittkau to attend services at a Presbyterian church in Somerville, Massachusetts.
In that church, there was a lot of emphasis on “faith alone,” she said. But Kaynig-Fittkau, who now works for Adobe and is the mother of two girls, kept questioning if her faith was deep enough.
A YouTube video about the Eucharist by Father Mike Schmitz sent Verena Kaynig-Fittkau on a path toward converting to Catholicism. Courtesy of Verena Kaynig-Fittkau
Then one day she stumbled upon a YouTube video titled “The hour that will change your life,” in which Father Mike Schmitz, a Catholic priest from the Diocese of Duluth, Minnesota, known for his “Bible in a Year” podcast, speaks about the Eucharist.
Intrigued, she began watching similar videos by other Catholic speakers, including Father Casey Cole, O.F.M., Bishop Robert Barron, Matt Fradd, and Scott Hahn, each of whom drew her closer and closer to the Catholic faith.
Familiar with St. Paul’s from her days as a Harvard researcher and lecturer, she decided to attend Mass there one day, and made an appointment before she left to meet with Fiorillo.
When they met, Fiorillo answered all of her questions from what she calls “a list of Protestant problems with Catholicism.” She entered the RCIA program three weeks later.
Recalling her first experience attending eucharistic adoration, she said it felt “utterly weird” to be worshiping what she describes as “this golden sun.”
A conversation with a local Jesuit priest helped her better understand the Eucharist, however. Now she finds that spending time before the Blessed Sacrament is “amazing.”
“I am really, really, really excited for the Easter vigil,” Kaynig-Fittkau said. “I can’t wait, I have a big smile on my face just thinking about it.”
The rosary brought him peace
Another catechumen at St. Paul’s this year is Kyle Richard, 37, who lives in the Beacon Hill neighborhood of Boston and works in a technology startup company downtown.
Although he grew up in a culturally Catholic hub in Louisiana, his parents left the Catholic faith and joined a Full Gospel church. Richard said he found the church “intimidating,” which led him eventually to leave Christianity altogether.
When Richard was in his mid-twenties, his father battled pancreatic cancer. Before he died, he expressed a wish to rejoin the Catholic Church. He never did confess his sins to a priest or receive the Anointing of the Sick, Richard recalls sadly. But years later, his non-believing son would remember his father’s yearning to return to the Church.
“I kind of filed that away for a while, but I never really let it go,” he said.
While Kyle Richard’s father was dying from pancreatic cancer, he returned to the Catholic faith, which made a lasting impression on his non-believing son. Courtesy of Kyle Richard
Initially, Richard moved even farther away from the Church. He said he became an atheist who thought that Christianity was simply “something that people used to just soothe themselves.”
Years later, while going through a divorce, he had a change of heart.
Feeling he ought to give Christianity “a fair shot,” he began saying the rosary in hopes of settling his anxiety. The prayer brought him peace, and became a gateway to the Catholic faith.
Before long, he was reading the Bible on the Vatican’s website, downloading prayer apps, and meditating on scripture.
A Google search brought him to St. Paul’s. Joining the RCIA program, he feels, was a continuation of his father’s expressed desire on his deathbed more than a decade ago.
“I think he would be proud, especially because he was born on April 16th and that is the date of the Easter vigil,” he said.
Phoenix, Ariz., May 8, 2019 / 07:19 pm (CNA).- The Arizona legislature has passed a resolution declaring pornography a public health crisis and a danger to mental and physical health.
House Concurrent Resolution 2009 was approved 16-13 by the state se… […]
2 Comments
Being a clergy abuse survivor, I wonder if Archbishop Hebda continues to believe —as do many of the US bishops—that merely giving victims and alleged victims a “voice” (which the current attorney general of Pennsylvania also claims), along releases from confidentiality, payouts, etc. is really going to the heart of the problem. This, along with admitting “credible” allegations (whatever that may mean) as fact, thereby continuing the “guilty before proven innocent” approach. Is this not merely a desire to help the abused or those who claim to be, but also a matter of optics? As long as a diocese seems to be “doing something,” that appears to be on behalf of victims’ rights and condemning malefactors (almost all of whom are males seducing teenage boys and young men—the core, unspoken issue avoided by virtually all the bishops) then it presents itself the hero. Have a discreet process to hear victims when needed. (In other words, don’t go advertising it like a government damage-control statement.) Provide reasonable support (especially spiritually and emotionally). But so-called listening sessions, penitential prayers and services (which should be in reparation, because the real would-be penitents are mostly dead, out of ministry or in prison) and nearly-continual self recrimination relayed in the media—what does any of this really accomplish, except to add fuel to an already horrendous situation? Would the archbishop really want to establish public trust? It may take a generation: Strengthen measures to bar identified homosexual candidates from our seminaries and houses of formation. (And admit that there IS a homosexual sub-culture manipulating local and regional church institutions.) Stop allowing for pastors and confessors to make easy compromises with a secular, godless world in the guise of “accompaniment” or “discernment.” Counsel clergy who are known by their own to have these deep-seated tendencies to reform their lives if necessary and get help—or leave the ministry. And perhaps most importantly, help to truly re-establish a priesthood that identifies with Christ the victim and redeemer of His people, and lead us to the “eternal and universal kingdom … of truth, life, holiness, grace, justice, love and peace.” (Cf. Preface of Christ the King).
The worst thing that ever happened in all of this was to make sure that everyone knew they could win a million dollar verdict if they sued the church over sexual abuse. Now, many kids who actually suffered from abuse, who should get million dollar verdicts, had to compete with false claimants who make up stories of abuse because they could make a million dollars by doing so. The fact is that priests often counsel kids who are mixed up, on drugs, having terrible mental problems etc. and they may later become the subject of a fantasy, a hallucination, etc. There is literally no way to tell truth from made up falsehood in these cases. Often deserving real victims get shunted aside because the diocese has dealt with too many fake claimants and a hardness of heart setts in. In the alternative, they just assume every priest that is accused is guilty, and they believe every story they hear, and good priests who have done nothing wrong ar thrown under the bus.
Add in the homosexual angle, where homosexuals will actually set up heterosexual priests on false child abuse charges if the straight priest should ever tell on the homosexually active priest, and you have the perfect storm of destruction.
It is literally the worst possible situation. You have people who can make millions by suing, and who are driven by their circumstances to either make up or invent things, knowingly or unknowingly. These things were usually done in private, where no one else witnessed anything. Yet there are true, suffering, deserving kids who deserve whatever can be done for them. And you have fakers, drawn by the money.
Add to that this much of this took place 30 or 40 years ago, and you have the perfect witches brew of not ever being able to detect the truth. Remember an FBI agent who worked on this stuff once said that in his estimation, half of all charges are false.
Being a clergy abuse survivor, I wonder if Archbishop Hebda continues to believe —as do many of the US bishops—that merely giving victims and alleged victims a “voice” (which the current attorney general of Pennsylvania also claims), along releases from confidentiality, payouts, etc. is really going to the heart of the problem. This, along with admitting “credible” allegations (whatever that may mean) as fact, thereby continuing the “guilty before proven innocent” approach. Is this not merely a desire to help the abused or those who claim to be, but also a matter of optics? As long as a diocese seems to be “doing something,” that appears to be on behalf of victims’ rights and condemning malefactors (almost all of whom are males seducing teenage boys and young men—the core, unspoken issue avoided by virtually all the bishops) then it presents itself the hero. Have a discreet process to hear victims when needed. (In other words, don’t go advertising it like a government damage-control statement.) Provide reasonable support (especially spiritually and emotionally). But so-called listening sessions, penitential prayers and services (which should be in reparation, because the real would-be penitents are mostly dead, out of ministry or in prison) and nearly-continual self recrimination relayed in the media—what does any of this really accomplish, except to add fuel to an already horrendous situation? Would the archbishop really want to establish public trust? It may take a generation: Strengthen measures to bar identified homosexual candidates from our seminaries and houses of formation. (And admit that there IS a homosexual sub-culture manipulating local and regional church institutions.) Stop allowing for pastors and confessors to make easy compromises with a secular, godless world in the guise of “accompaniment” or “discernment.” Counsel clergy who are known by their own to have these deep-seated tendencies to reform their lives if necessary and get help—or leave the ministry. And perhaps most importantly, help to truly re-establish a priesthood that identifies with Christ the victim and redeemer of His people, and lead us to the “eternal and universal kingdom … of truth, life, holiness, grace, justice, love and peace.” (Cf. Preface of Christ the King).
The worst thing that ever happened in all of this was to make sure that everyone knew they could win a million dollar verdict if they sued the church over sexual abuse. Now, many kids who actually suffered from abuse, who should get million dollar verdicts, had to compete with false claimants who make up stories of abuse because they could make a million dollars by doing so. The fact is that priests often counsel kids who are mixed up, on drugs, having terrible mental problems etc. and they may later become the subject of a fantasy, a hallucination, etc. There is literally no way to tell truth from made up falsehood in these cases. Often deserving real victims get shunted aside because the diocese has dealt with too many fake claimants and a hardness of heart setts in. In the alternative, they just assume every priest that is accused is guilty, and they believe every story they hear, and good priests who have done nothing wrong ar thrown under the bus.
Add in the homosexual angle, where homosexuals will actually set up heterosexual priests on false child abuse charges if the straight priest should ever tell on the homosexually active priest, and you have the perfect storm of destruction.
It is literally the worst possible situation. You have people who can make millions by suing, and who are driven by their circumstances to either make up or invent things, knowingly or unknowingly. These things were usually done in private, where no one else witnessed anything. Yet there are true, suffering, deserving kids who deserve whatever can be done for them. And you have fakers, drawn by the money.
Add to that this much of this took place 30 or 40 years ago, and you have the perfect witches brew of not ever being able to detect the truth. Remember an FBI agent who worked on this stuff once said that in his estimation, half of all charges are false.