“As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase.” — Aldous Huxley, Foreword to Brave New World Many liberals seem to think that dystopian cautionary tales can only be directed against the […]
Washington D.C., Jan 14, 2019 / 10:45 am (CNA).- Cardinal Donald Wuerl told Washington, DC priests Saturday that he appropriately handled a 2004 allegation of misconduct against Archbishop Theodore McCarrick. The cardinal also said that […]
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jan 14, 2019 / 10:51 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After a disputed presidential election in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the nation’s bishops have asked the UN Security Council to push the election commission to publish data from the vote.
Archbishop Marcel Utembi Tapa of Kisangani, president of the Congolese bishops’ conference, told the UN Jan. 11 that the commission’s announcement that opposition leader Felix Tshisekedi had won the Dec. 30 election did not correspond with the result of Catholic vote monitors.
The AP reported that Archbishop Utembi said publishing the data will enable the candidates to compare their numbers with the commission’s results.
“This might dispel doubts among the population as to the outcome and may therefore set minds at rest,” he added.
The Congolese bishops’ conference hopes that the UN Security Council will ask stakeholders to “prioritize the path of truth and peace while awaiting the outcome,” in case of a challenge.
The National Election Commission has announced that Tshisekedi had won the presidential election with 38.6 percent of the vote, just surpassing another opposition leader, former oil executive Martin Fayulu, who had 34.8 percent.
The two major opposition candidates both finished well ahead of former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, who had been officially backed by outgoing President Joseph Kabila but had never gained traction during the campaign.
The Congolese bishops’ conference did not say which candidate their data showed winning the vote. However, Fayulu has claimed that he is the rightful winner and has suggested that Tshisekedi had made a power-sharing deal with Kabila to rig the election.
Fayulu appealed to the Constitutional Court Jan. 12 asking for a recount of the votes.
The South African Development Community has called for the formation of a unity government, and backed Fayulu’s call for a recount.
The electoral commission has also announced that a pro-Kabila coalition won a majority in the lower house of the legislature.
Kabila has spent the last 17 years in power. While the nation’s term limits required the president to leave office in 2016, he refused to step down.
The bishops of the country, who have played a key role in promoting democracy, had helped mediate the 2016 New Year’s Eve Agreement between the country’s ruling political coalition and opposition leaders. Under the agreement Kabila was allowed to remain in office past his mandate, but agreed to step down after an election in 2018.
The bishops’ conference had also commissioned 40,000 election observers, who were sent to polling stations across the country to report on the election process.
In a Dec. 31 statement, the bishops’ conference had voiced concern about voting irregularities, including registered voters who were turned away from polling stations because their names were not on voting lists and election observers being expelled from polling stations by police officers.
Other election observers also reported irregularities including voting machine malfunctions, polling stations opening late, locations being changed on short notice, and an inability to cast votes privately, according to the BBC.
The bishops’ conference had delayed the release of its preliminary observation after internet connections and text message services were shut down across the country on Dec. 30.
Reuters has reported that observers from France and Belgium have also voiced doubts that Tshisekedi won the election, and three diplomats who had reviewed the Church’s observer mission data said Fayulu had won.
In his first remarks after his victory was announced, Tshisekedi promised to work closely with Kabila, AFP reported.
Tshisekedi, 55, leads the Union for Democracy and Social Progress, the country’s oldest and largest opposition party.
The 2018 election was a major test for the volatile nation, which has been plagued by political corruption, instability, and violence, and has never seen a peaceful transition of power since it gained independence in 1960.
At least four people have been killed so far in scattered protests of the election results.
Charleston, S.C., Jan 14, 2019 / 09:01 am (CNA).- While an exorcist of the Diocese of Charleston has received many more requests relating to diabolical possession in recent years, the phenomenon is in fact exceedingly rare, he said.
Fr. Marreddy Allam… […]
Vatican City, Jan 14, 2019 / 04:05 am (CNA).- A former papal representative to the U.S. has written an open letter to Archbishop Theodore McCarrick that urges the archbishop to repent publicly of the sexual abuse and misconduct of which he stands accus… […]
Veteran religion reporter Peter Steinfels’ recent, lengthy essay in Commonweal, on the supposed faults and failings of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report and the media coverage of the Report, is the sort of piece that […]
Dublin, Ireland, Jan 13, 2019 / 04:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With the dawn of legal abortion in Ireland, the pro-life movement in the country is beginning a fight that their U.S. counterparts have been engaged in since 1973.
For more than 40 years, pro-life Americans have staged marches, prayer vigils, sidewalk counseling, and political protests. Now, pro-life advocates in Ireland must determine how a robust pro-life movement should look in their country when abortion is legal.
Earlier this week, after hearing news of a group of pro-life protesters who gathered outside of a medical center in Ireland for several hours, holding signs with slogans such as “Say no to abortion in Galway,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin urged caution.
While everyone “has a right to make a protest,” he told The Irish Times, General Practitioners perform surgeries for “everybody…for all sorts of reasons.”
He added that he is “not a person personally for protest, what the Church should be doing is strengthening its resolve to help women in crisis and to educate people.”
The word “protest” is a touchy one in the pro-life world. It can conjure up images of angry mobs with torches and pitchforks, so some pro-life people prefer terms like “witness” or “sidewalk counselor,” or simply a faithful person at a prayer vigil.
But for many in the U.S. pro-life movement, it is dialogue and prayer – not protest – that are at the heart of what they do.
Mary Fisher is one of those people.
Fisher had an abortion herself, that caused her deep regret, anger and pain for years. After she found healing through a Bible study, Fisher now works as a regional coordinator for Silent No More, an organization that gives women who regret their abortions a platform from which to tell their stories, and connects women who have had abortions to healing ministries.
While Fisher participates in pro-life activism, she is opposed to the term “protest.”
“Protesting is kind of an anger thing. That’s the way it’s perceived,” Fisher told CNA. “This makes me mad, so I’m going to go out and protest, because it makes me so mad.”
But there is already so much anger from people who are pro-choice or who have had an abortion, that the only way to win them over is with love, Fisher said.
“Our world is so full of anger, and it’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’ve got this baby inside me that I don’t want, and everybody says it’s just a bunch of cells. So I’m just going to flush it down the toilet.’ And we do it in anger.”
Fisher herself experienced that anger after her own abortion.
“I lived as an angry woman for so many years, that one of my daughters actually moved from Colorado…to New York to get as far away from me as possible, because I was just so angry at everything.”
Fisher said the only thing that will win over those who are pro-abortion is to love them.
That doesn’t mean Fisher does not participate in the pro-life movement. She’s planning on attending her local March for Life, with a sign that says: “I regret my abortion. Ask me why.”
She also participates in 40 Days for Life prayer vigils, she shares her story through talks, and she helps connect women in need of healing from abortion to bible studies or retreats that can help them.
But ultimately, she says, abortion will never change through political protest, because abortion is not fundamentally a political issue.
“Abortion is not a political issue. Abortion is a heart issue. And until we get to the heart, nothing’s going to change,” she said.
“Protest is how we create friction. Just the word protest… just the thought of a protest is angry people, angry people with knives and swords and forks out to fight. This is a fight against principalities. It is not against flesh and blood.”
Shawn Carney is the president and CEO of 40 Days for Life, a popular form of pro-life activism that holds prayer vigils outside of local abortion clinics throughout the United States. The 40-day long campaigns of “prayer, fasting, and peaceful activism” have the goal of “repentance, to seek God’s favor to turn hearts and minds from a culture of death to a culture of life, thus bringing an end to abortion,” according to their mission statement.
It’s not a protest, it’s a prayer vigil, Carney told CNA.
“We take the approach of praying in front of the (clinics) because abortion is overwhelming. And it ends the life of a human being and it causes a woman to think she has no other option than to pay a physician to end the life of her child. And so in that great hopelessness, our Lord is the answer. And his joy is the answer, and his mercy is the answer,” Carney said.
The campaign has seen great success in turning the hearts of both abortion doctors and women considering abortions. Since its beginning in 2004, the organization knows of some 200 abortion facility workers who have had a change of heart and left their job, and over 15,000 women who have chosen life, during a 40 Days campaign.
It’s also often an entry point for people who have never participated in any kind of pro-life activism, Carney said.
“We’ve had 800,000 people participate in 40 Days for Life around the world in 50 different countries, and 30 percent of them said this is the first thing they ever did in the pro-life movement,” Carney said. “It has served as a great point of entry because it is peaceful and because it’s effective.”
But there is one word from Archbishop Martin’s comments that Carney does take issue with: caution. “I don’t agree with using the word caution with opposing abortion right now in Ireland,” he said.
“I think they need to do just the opposite…and I think that the Irish have been too timid and a little too cautious with their approach to abortion. Now they have it. And that happened to us here in the United States. Shamefully, we’re the example of this. We were cautious. We were timid. And now we have 61 million children that have been aborted.”
Instead, he said, the Irish should not lost hope, and should cling to God and to their lively Irish heritage, and use that in their advantage to continue to fight legalized abortion.
“The last thing the Irish should do is to throw their hands up in the air…I think they need to get out there. The Irish are a courageous people,” Carney said, adding that he is of Irish descent.
“The Irish aren’t cautious with anything, right? They’re the loudest and they’re the most fun and they like to sing and they have hot tempers. And they take their history and their country seriously,” he said.
“And this, more than any other time in their history, they need to do the same and they need to joyfully go out and witness the love and the hope and the mercy to those women who now think that Ireland is just a free for all to have an abortion.”
There are forms of activism that don’t belong in the pro-life movement, Carney added. Anything violent or with an intent to do harm “aren’t part of the pro-life movement,” he said. He’s seen people driven away from even peaceful forms of pro-life activism after bombings or murders of abortion doctors have taken place, he added.
“And so the archbishop doesn’t want that in their country. Who does?” he said.
“No bishop or no politician or no pro-life advocate in any other country is saying, ‘I want violence in my country to oppose abortion.’ No one’s ever said that, but they all should encourage the peaceful, public opposition to this because abortion is certainly a public issue.”
Even though abortion is a heavy issue, Carney said his message to pro-life Ireland is to hope.
“There’s practical things: there’s 40 Days for Life campaigns they need to do in Ireland. They need to have a March for Life. They need to get to work and we can help them do that,” he said.
“But the bigger picture is looking down, going to your knees in prayer and reflecting: ‘What is going to be my response? What am I going to tell my children and my grandchildren now that I, as an Irish person living in this country that I love, we have abortion now. And what’s going to be my response?’”
“And for that, we need to go to the Gospels.”
Vatican City, Jan 13, 2019 / 05:38 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At Mass in the Sistine Chapel Sunday, Pope Francis baptized 27 babies, reminding their parents that the first space in which children learn and witness the faith is at home.
“Yes, when they… […]
Washington D.C., Jan 13, 2019 / 04:51 am (CNA).- The language that people choose to use in reference to unborn children and ideological opponents is at the crux of the abortion debate, a pro-life Democrat argued in a New York Times op-ed this week.
&l… […]
Washington D.C., Jan 12, 2019 / 04:54 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the ongoing discussions surrounding immigration, part of the solution must involve looking at the factors that drive people to leave their homes in the first place, said the vice president of an international Catholic aid group.
“What we would like is more attention to addressing why people flee,” said Bill O’Keefe, vice president for government relations and advocacy for Catholic Relief Services.
O’Keefe spoke with CNA about the motives behind immigration to the United States, and how Catholic Relief Services is working to address these root causes.
“There’s a range of reasons why people migrate from different parts of the world, but in summary: conflict, persecution, climate change, and extreme poverty are the principal drivers that we see.”
For example, he said, “you have people who are refugees or want to claim asylum in the United States because of persecution and violence.”
These refugees – such as those trying to escape religious persecution in the Middle East, civil war in parts of Africa, or gang violence in Central America – are really “forced migrants,” he said.
“Their lives are at risk. They flee when they determine that staying would be a death sentence.”
There are also migrants who come to the United States “to live a better life,” often because they have no future or way to escape extreme poverty in their home country, O’Keefe continued.
In one part of West Africa where Catholic Relief Services works, there are rural communities where generations of families have farmed the land, he said. But changes in climate in recent years mean that agricultural productivity has dropped significantly, and farms that previously sustained families can no longer do so. Young people realize that they cannot survive by farming, and they are forced to move.
Jan. 6-12 marks National Migration Week, which has been observed by the U.S. Church for almost 50 years.
Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin, who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ migration committee, elaborated on this year’s theme, “Building Communities of Welcome.”
“In this moment, it is particularly important for the Church to highlight the spirit of welcome that we are all called to embody in response to immigrant and refugee populations who are in our midst sharing our Church and our communities,” he said in a statement.
Immigration remains a divisive subject in Washington, D.C. In an evening address on Jan. 8, President Donald Trump reiterated his insistence that a border wall is necessary to keep America safe from drugs and violent gangs. Democrats in Congress have pushed back against the idea, refusing to agree to a budget that funds the wall. The dispute has prompted a partial federal government shutdown that has now lasted three weeks, with no end in sight.
The U.S. bishops’ conference has long advocated for a comprehensive approach to immigration reform, with an earned legalization program, along with “targeted, proportional, and humane” enforcement measures.
The conference has also called for a temporary worker program that responds to market needs and protects against abuses, as well as the restoration of due process protections for immigrants, an emphasis on family unification, and policy changes to address the deeper causes of immigration.
Examining and addressing the things that drive people to leave their homes in the first place are key parts of a comprehensive approach to immigration, O’Keefe said.
“What needs more focused attention is how to help countries in Central America, for example, to address problems of violence, gangs, and poverty in those countries, so people don’t feel like they have to flee.”
This work is part of Catholic Relief Services’ focus as an international agency.
In El Salvador, where extreme gang violence has forced thousands to flee their homes, Catholic Relief Services runs a gang violence reduction program for young people. The agency works to help young people complete their education, get a job, and recognize that they have alternatives to joining a gang.
“We have 15,000 youth or so who have gone through that program successfully, and a very high retention rate in terms of education and jobs,” O’Keefe said.
The agency also builds relationships with local companies in El Salvador, so that young people who complete the violence reduction program can find jobs. Sometimes there is a stigma against hiring former gang members, which can contribute to the problem, as ex-gang members who find themselves unemployed may be more likely to return to violent activity.
Catholic Relief Services certifies people who have completed their program, O’Keefe said. This increases their job prospects, boosting employer confidence and trust that they will be good employees.
In poor, rural areas of Honduras, the agency is working to implement a U.S. government-supported school feeding program.
The idea, O’Keefe said, is to build prospects for education in a poor part of the country by connecting families to educational institutions, so there is less incentive for them to leave.
“The more children are connected to schools and education, the less likely they are to fall into trouble,” he said.
“In Central America, one of the most climate-impacted parts of the world, we have done a lot of work with small farmers, particularly in the coffee sector,” O’Keefe continued. Coffee tends to grow on hills and mountains, he explained, and as the climate has gotten warmer, farmers have to go to higher elevations to grow the crop.
Catholic Relief Services has helped the famers make that transition, O’Keefe said, whether it be a transition to different crops, farming techniques, or elevations. As a result, the people have avoided sinking further into poverty and in some cases are moving forward economically.
“That allows them to stay on their land and not feel like they have to migrate,” he said.
For Catholics, thinking about migration should always emphasize the dignity of human person, O’Keefe said. He noted the Share the Journey campaign launched in response to Pope Francis’ call a year ago for Catholics to unite in solidarity with migrants.
Over the past year, Catholic Relief Services has worked with the U.S. bishops’ conference and Migration and Refugee Services, as well as dioceses and Catholic universities, to organize events and activities “that highlight the plight of migrants and refugees, and just help Catholics in the United States to deepen their own understanding of…why people flee, what that experience is like, and really to have an experience of encounter.”
In a sub-campaign called Be Not Afraid, Catholic Relief Services worked with a videographer to bring together refugees and American citizens who had concerns and fears about immigration.
Videos on the Share the Journey website show the moment of encounter between people who come from different backgrounds and perspectives.
“That moment of encounter between them as human beings, where they recognize each other’s humanity.” O’Keefe said. “We did that because we really wanted to show what the Holy Father is asking us to do.”
© Catholic World Report