Annapolis, Md., Mar 7, 2019 / 11:45 am (CNA).- Legislators in Maryland are considering a bill to legalize physician assisted suicide. At the same time, Georgia lawmakers have advanced a bill that would ban abortions after the detection of a fetal heart… […]
Lyon, France, Mar 7, 2019 / 03:50 am (CNA).- French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, archbishop of Lyon, was found guilty Thursday of failing to report to authorities the alleged sexual abuse of a priest in his diocese. He was given a six-month suspended prison sentence.
French tribunal president Brigitte Vernay declared Barbarin guilty March 7 “of non-denunciation of ill-treatment” of a minor, according to AFP. Barbarin was not present in court for the verdict.
Five other archdiocesan officials on trial with Barbarin were acquitted March 7. Barbarin was also expected to be acquitted after even the prosecutor of the case argued there was no proof of the cardinal’s legal wrongdoing and therefore no grounds for conviction, the Associated Press reports.
The cardinal will appeal the verdict, according to AP. Barbarin’s lawyer, Jean-Felix Luciani, said Thursday about the conviction that “this is a decision that is not fair at the juridical level.” Implying hope in the success of an appeal, he stated: “We hope that at the next step, justice will be done.”
The trial against Barbarin began in January on charges he did not report facts of abuse to judicial authorities between July 2014 and June 2015, in a case involving Fr. Bernard Preynat, who has been accused of abusing dozens of minors in the 1980s and early ’90s.
In 2017, the cardinal told Le Monde that he did not conceal allegations against Preynat, but said that his response to the allegations had been “inadequate.” He said he opened an investigation against Preynat after becoming aware of the allegations against him.
Allegations against Preynat became public in 2015. Prosecutors dropped the case the following year after an initial investigation, but a victims’ group with more than 80 members who say they were abused by Preynat led to a reopening of the case, the Guardian reports.
Preynat was banned from leading boy scout groups in the early 1990s, but remained in ministry until being removed by Cardinal Barbarin in 2015.
The priest has acknowledged abusing minors, according to the Guardian, and will face trial later this year.
Cardinal Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, was also ordered to testify in the case. In October, the Vatican invoked diplomatic immunity in refusing to deliver a French court summons to Ladaria, saying that as a minister of Vatican City State, he is protected under international law.
The court summons had involved a letter Ladaria sent to Barbarin, advising him to take disciplinary action against Preynat, “while avoiding public scandal.”
The plaintiffs’ lawyers wanted Ladaria to testify as to whether the direction to prevent scandal was intended as an injunction to avoid going to court, in which case they accuse the CDF prefect of being complicit in failing to report the allegedly abusive priest to authorities.
Barbarin’s trial comes as revelations of clerical sex abuse and cover up continue to send shock waves through the Catholic Church. The United States, Ireland, Australia, Chile, Argentina and Germany are among the countries that have seen recent abuse scandals uncovered.
London, England, Mar 7, 2019 / 03:36 am (CNA).- Next month, the United Kingdom will roll out new online restrictions in an attempt to protect children under the age of 18 from accessing pornography.
Digital Minister Matt Hancock signed a commencement order for the Digital Economy Act in 2017. After two years of development, the program will be released on April 1.
To view online pornography, internet users will need to confirm their age by entering information from a driver’s license, credit card, or passport. If users do not wish to input their personal information, they may purchase a special ID card, available at thousands of retail shops across the nation for under £10.
Websites that fail to follow the age verification rules may face a nearly $330,000 fine or be blocked by the country’s internet service providers.
Matt Fradd, author of The Porn Myth and creator of the new 21-day porn detox STRIVE, voiced support for increased restrictions surrounding pornography.
“If it’s something as simple as age verification, I’m all for it,” he told CNA. “It just sounds like we are expecting the same thing of people online that we already expect of them offline.”
The most popular verification service is called AgeID and was built by MindGeek, which operates and owns several common pornographic sites.
Some critics of the new UK policy say it violates the privacy and safety of pornography users. Others argue that it does not go far enough to protect minors.
“It may make it harder for children to stumble across pornography, especially in the younger age range, but it will do nothing to stop determined teenagers,” said Dr. Victoria Nash, deputy director of the Oxford Internet Institute, according to BirminghamLive.
Dr. Joss Wright, senior research fellow at the institute, added that the new policy raises “privacy issues – you’re requiring people to effectively announce the fact they are looking at this material to the credit card authorities. And there’s serious security issues from requiring people to enter their credit card details into untrusted sites.”
The UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said the age verification is a valuable first step, but that other measures need to be taken alongside it.
“The NSPCC is calling for social networks to be required by law to give under-18s safe accounts with extra protections built in, so that children are kept as safe online as they are in the real world,” read a statement from the organization, according to BirminghamLive.
Fradd said the restrictions are enforcing age requirements that are already established offline. He said there is often confusion among parents about the seriousness of material viewed online compared to explicit material accessed in stores or movie theaters.
“Imagine a 17-year-old going to watch 50 Shades of [Grey] and being turned away and within five minutes looking at something a hundred times worse on their phone. So either allow children to watch 50 Shades of Grey and buy pornography from stores, or be consistent and require age verification,” he said.
Children’s access to online pornography has been identified as a significant problem: A 2016 study by internet security company Bitdefender found that about 1 in 10 visitors to porn video sites is under age 10.
Fight the New Drug, an organization that works to fight pornography addiction, has highlighted numerous studies showing negative effects of pornography on underage users, including the creation of addictions, changes in sexual taste, and physical impact on the brain.
“Just more broadly, I would say pornography perverts a child’s understanding of human intimacy and sexual life, which is a very beautiful thing,” Fradd stressed.
“It’s as pernicious as sex is beautiful and human intimacy is worthwhile. Since those two things are beautiful and worthwhile, the corruption of it [in regards to] a child is all together something despicable and horrid.”
Cardinal Gerhard Müller is the former prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith and the former bishop of Regensburg, Germany. A noted professor of theology, he is also the author of many […]
St. Louis, Mo., Mar 7, 2019 / 12:08 am (CNA).- The Missouri state Supreme Court issued two discrimination rulings last week related to sexual orientation and gender identity, both of which could lead to changes in the way discrimination is defined in the state, a Catholic public policy advocate told CNA.
Tyler McClay, an attorney and executive director of the Missouri Catholic Conference, expressed concern about the rulings, as it is now possible for “discrimination” under the Missouri Human Rights Act to be redefined if these plaintiffs win their court cases.
In one case, Harold Lampley, a gay man, sued the Missouri Commission on Human Rights in 2015, alleging that because he does not conform to “stereotypical expectations” of how a male should behave, he and his friend Rene Frost were harassed in their workplace.
Though the circuit court originally threw out the case, the Supreme Court’s ruling last week will allow Lampley to sue his former employer, with judges writing in the opinion that the question of whether Missouri’s human rights laws protect people from sex-based stereotyping had not yet been addressed.
The Eighth Circuit Court had previously ruled that the Missouri Human Rights Act, which was amended during June 2017, does not include sexual orientation in its list of protections. The law does specifically mention race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, disability, age and familial status.
In a separate case, the Court ruled Feb. 26 that a transgender student had the right to sue the school district that denied the student access to the boys’ restroom and locker rooms. The student, identified in court documents as R.M.A., alleges discrimination on the basis of sex. The student was born biologically female but identifies as a male.
The Missouri Supreme Court’s latest ruling states that R.M.A. did not claim protection from the law based on his transgender status, but rather because of “sex,” a term which the state’s human rights statute does not define. Moreover, although the student remains biologically female, the student had changed the gender on their birth certificate to male, in accordance with existing Missouri law. Therefore, R.M.A.’s lawsuit against the Blue Springs school district will be allowed to go forward.
In an interview with CNA, McClay explained that the cases could impact what constitutes discrimination under state law.
“The reasoning in the gay employee case had to do with him saying he was discriminated against because he didn’t act like a man, and so they consider that to be sex-stereotyping discrimination,” he said.
“I’m kind of surprised that the court would define sex-based discrimination based on those fact patterns,” he said. “Maybe the court feels like there’s no other way for this [plaintiff] to get relief than for us to say, ‘you can sue on this ground.’”
On the transgender student case, McClay said the debate revolves around the fact that the school would not allow a biologically female student to use the male bathroom facilities.
“The court now has to make a decision: is that accommodation that was being made for that student discrimination? I would argue that it’s not, it’s an accommodation that’s respecting the privacy of the other students and the safety of that individual student. Regardless of how well-accepted that person is by the other sex, you’re putting that person in a difficult situation,” he said.
“As a policy matter, we have to decide; if we have these situations, how are we going to deal with these cases at the high school and elementary school level?”
These two cases have broader implications, too, he said, for faith-based organizations — such as adoption agencies that only place children in homes with a mother and a father — that could be accused of discrimination if the interpretation of the law changes.
“Faith-based organizations that have contracts with the government; are they going to be able to continue to operate according to their faith systems going forward?” McClay said. “Or are they going to be deemed to be discriminatory, and excluded?…Those agencies do a lot of good.”
“The important thing for people to recognize is there are not just religious liberty implications, but there are privacy implications and rights of conscience as well,” McClay said.
“If sex discrimination is, in a sense, discrimination based on gender identity, then does a doctor who doesn’t want to do gender transition surgery have the right to refuse? Or is that discrimination? Is the hospital that doesn’t want to do the procedures for religious reasons, is that now going to be discrimination? I think those are the concerns that I have going forward,” he said.
There are also pushes to change the Missouri Human Rights Act to explicitly outlaw discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Missouri Nondiscrimination Act, which would list both as protected categories, has been pending in the state legislature since 1998, the Associated Press reports.
Washington D.C., Mar 6, 2019 / 04:36 pm (CNA).- A proposed federal tax credit-based scholarship program could provide a boost for parents who want to send their children to Catholic school, and it has the backing of a major Catholic education group.
“This bill is clearly something we could support,” said Sister Dale McDonald, P.B.V.M., director of public policy at the National Catholic Education Association. Her organization’s membership includes more than 150,000 educators serving 1.9 million Catholic school students across the U.S.
“We believe it’s a justice issue,” she told CNA. Parents who are well off can move to a better school district, but parents who can’t have a particular claim on society’s need to care for them.
“Parents as the primary educators of their children should be helped to be able to choose the best option for their children, and in most cases that would involve money,” she said.
McDonald said the association is pleased with the general framework of what the U.S. Department of Education calls Education Freedom Scholarships, put forward by supporting members of Congress.
If the legislation passes Congress, these scholarships will be funded through taxpayers’ voluntary contributions to state-identified Scholarship Granting Organizations. Donors will receive a federal tax credit equal to their contribution.
According to the education department, the tax credit program could mean “a historic investment in America’s students, injecting up to $5 billion yearly into locally controlled scholarship programs that empower students to choose the learning environment and style that best meets their unique needs.”
States could use the program to expand student access to education opportunities including private and home education; special education services and therapies; transportation to school; advanced, remedial and elective courses; summer and after-school programs; tutoring; and apprenticeships and industry certifications.
Sister McDonald said the NCEA has supported “fair and full choice” or “parental choice” for more than two decades.
Her association also advocates for Catholic education.
“We produce well-educated citizens with moral values who have track records of community service, and, from our perspective, commitment to our Church and the civic values that they learn in school,” she said.
All schools serve the public good, and Catholic schools act “in concert” with public school, not in opposition to them.
While talk of taxpayer funds to Catholic schools sometimes prompts fears of political interference in their mission, McDonald pointed to protections in the proposed legislation.
The legislation says it does not allow the federal government, the state, or another scholarship-granting entity to control “any aspect of a private or home educator provider.” No education provider may be excluded or disadvantaged based “in whole or in part” on its religious education character or affiliation, “including religiously- or mission-based policies or practices.”
Non-interference with a Catholic school’s mission is a particularly important feature of the proposal, said McDonald. This would bar efforts to require that Catholic schools give up any part of their religious identity if they want to participate in the scholarship programs.
Elizabeth Hill, press secretary at the U.S. Department of Education, emphasized these provisions in a March 6 email to CNA.
“Discrimination against any education provider based on their religious character or affiliation is expressly prohibited,” Hill said. “Existing state constitutional provisions like Blaine Amendments would not prohibit a state from including private and parochial schools as eligible providers under a federal tax-credit for scholarships. State constitutions apply to state appropriations and tax expenditures.”
McDonald added that the legislation is clear that the scholarship is “a benefit to the child,” saying “this is paid to the parent, not to the school even in any state programs.” Any denial of a “secular benefit available to all” would run afoul of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, in her view.
At the same time, any legislation must pass Congress for a federal tax credit to become available for scholarships.
The NCEA said it will “work with others in the private school community to advocate for congressional passage.”
“There will be a number of challenges in attempts to gain bipartisan support for the bills in both houses of Congress and get a final bill passed,” the association said in a statement. “Coalitions of supporters will need to engage with one another and with parent groups to develop a blueprint for advocacy with their congressional delegates to dispel myths and promote benefits of the program.”
The U.S. Department of Education said the scholarships “will not create a new federal education program but instead will allow states to decide whether to participate and how to select eligible students, education providers, and allowable education expenses.”
“The policy would not rely on any funds currently allocated to public education, nor would it create a new federal education program. Participation would be voluntary for students, schools, and states,” the Department of Education said.
Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said “freedom for all involved” is the key element of the proposal.
“Students, families, teachers, schools, states – all can participate, if they choose, and do so in the ways that work best for them,” she said in a Feb. 28 statement. “The major shift is that a student’s needs and preferences, not their address or family income, will determine the type and quality of education they can pursue.”
U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, R-Alabama, is sponsoring the House version of the proposed legislation, called the Education Freedom Scholarships and Opportunity Act.
“Every student in America should have the opportunity to receive a high-quality education, and we can help accomplish that goal through a new federal tax credit,” Byrne said Feb. 28. “This model has succeeded at creating opportunity for students in my home state of Alabama, and I am hopeful through this legislation that we can create similar opportunities for students around the country.”
U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, a sponsor of the Senate version of the legislation, said the proposal would help all students access “a personalized education experience that meets their individual needs.”
“A quality education is the gateway to the American dream and stable, family-sustaining employment,” Cruz said.
As the NCEA understands the bill, McDonald said, a scholarship-granting organization could be set up even without legislative involvement. The proposed legislation is “deliberately vague so that other configurations could work if a state would not want to do it.”
About 17 states have some kind of tax credit program, though they differ in who is eligible for the tax credit and which families or schools are eligible for the scholarships. Almost all of these programs are need-based.
Washington D.C., Mar 6, 2019 / 04:30 pm (CNA).- Catholic members of Congress participated in the traditional Lenten practice of receiving ashes at the Capitol on Wednesday. During the liturgy, legislators and staff were reminded of the importance of Christian witness and service, even in the heart of government.
Fr. Bill Carloni of the Archdiocese of Washington told the assembly that while many in the public might view Congress as a “trainwreck”, it was important to remember that the work done on Capitol Hill was “holy, because of the holiness that we bring to it.”
The standing-room-only crowd gathered for the Ash Wednesday liturgy March 6. The liturgy was held in a House of Representatives meeting room in the Capitol Visitors’ Center.
Work, Carloni said in his homily, should be viewed as “in some way a response to the impulse of God’s spirit in your life,” and that those who work for Congress are “servants of the Lord when [they] are servants of this institution and the commonwealth of our nation.”
Carloni, the pastor at Holy Name Church in Washington, was on the Hill to assist House Chaplain Fr. Pat Conroy, S.J., with the distribution of ashes to members of the House of Representatives, their staff, and staff of the Capitol building.
On Ash Wednesday, Christians, including national politicians, receive ashes as a sign of their contrition and a reminder of their mortality. Throughout the day, on C-Span and in pictures posted to Twitter, members of Congress could be seen wearing small ashen crosses on their foreheads.
Representatives and their staff, as well as anyone else who works in the Capitol, had several chances on Wednesday to receive ashes from Conroy. In addition to daily Mass, ashes were distributed during a Liturgy of the Word held three times during the day.
At the 2:30 p.m. service, at least five members of Congress could be seen in attendance, including Rep. Don Young (R-AK) and Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL).
“I choose to participate in Ash Wednesday as a reminder and recommitment to my faith. I live my faith in Congress through promoting good works to help others, particularly the less fortunate,” Soto told CNA.
Conroy told CNA that he had been distributing ashes each year since he became House Chaplain eight years ago, and his predecessor, Fr. Dan Coughlin, also made a point of holding services on Ash Wednesday.
The Senate Chaplain Barry C. Black, who is not Catholic, also offered ash distribution services.
Coughlin and Conroy are the only Catholics to serve as House Chaplain.
Earlier in the day, Conroy told CNA that about eight members came to Mass that morning, and that he had also distributed ashes to about 45 members after votes had concluded.
“It’s a pretty popular devotion,” said Conroy. He told CNA that many members also chose to receive ashes at one of the nearby Catholic parishes.
Two members of Congress who did not have to wait in line for ashes were Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA). Both are practicing Catholics. Conroy told CNA that he had visited their offices earlier in the morning and distributed ashes there.
“I make house calls for leadership,” he explained. Pelosi was spotted wearing ashes during a live-stream video late Wednesday morning.
The practice of wearing ashes on one’s forehead as a form of penance has existed for centuries. While Fr. Conroy’s flock includes some of the most powerful foreheads in the world, he told CNA that he believes they are just like other people of faith, and are in need of redemption.
“I think any person who steps forward to receive ashes–doesn’t matter who they are–is at least in some small way acknowledging to themselves that they are in need of repentance, that they are in need of renewal, that they do need to remember who we are, as people of faith, and what we’re called to. Even if we’re not that good at it,” said Conroy.
“In that sense, I think the population of members of Congress is no different than anybody else.”
Santiago, Chile, Mar 6, 2019 / 03:33 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Santiago commented Tuesday on the case of Father Tito Rigoberto Rivera Muñoz, who was found guilty in August 2018 of the sexual abuse of adults.
Rivera’s victim claims that he told the Archbishop of Santiago of the attack, but the prelate gave him money and asked him not to report it.
The March 5 statement of the Santiago archdiocese’s Truth and Peace Commission follows the appearance of the victim, Daniel Rojas Alvarez, on state television.
Rivera sexually assaulted Rojas, who was then about 40, in a room of the Santiago Metropolitan Cathedral in 2015.
Rojas claims he told Cardinal Ricardo Ezzati Andrello of the attack, who asked him to pray for the abuser, gave him 30,000 pesos ($45), and asked that he not asked him not to share what happened.
During proceedings initiated by the Chilean justice system, another victim reportedly presented photographs and videos that confirmed Rivera’s abuse of other youths.
The Santiago archdiocese stated that it received a complaint of possible abuse of minors by Rivera in August 2011, but that during enquiries into the case “it was not possible to contact the complainant.”
The Pastoral Office for Complaints then received a complaint against Rivera from an adult in March 2015, which permitted the start of a preliminary investigation and the implementation of the precautionary measure of removing the priest from all pastoral responsibilities.
The preliminary investigation “was widened with new information that was provided to the Chilean Investigative Police, which included the possible theft of the religious objects.”
In August 2015, Cardinal Ezzati sent the information on the case to the apostolic nunciature.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, at the request of the Santiago archdiocese, “gave new instructions to continue the preliminary investigation and to start an administrative penal process” in September 2016.
The preliminary investigation was closed in November 2016, leading to the administrative penal process which concluded with the Decree of Condemnation of Aug. 16, 2018.
The priest was declared “guilty of crimes against the Sixth Commandment of the Decalogue continued over time and involving scandal, with adults, as is specified in Canon 1395§1 of the Code of Canon Law,” the archdiocese said.
Rivera was suspended from public ministry for ten years, “only being able to celebrate the Eucharist privately and with the company of a person over 50 years of age.”
He was also prohibited from “meeting with or maintaining contact with young people” and was required not to move anywhere.
Once the ten years are completed, if the priest does not comply with the measures, he risks “being suspended for a greater period of time.”
The archdiocese also noted that these four penalties were “among others.”
It concluded, saying that “besides the canonical sentence which was implemented in September 2018, an exhaustive review was begun to clarify all the information that was made known publicly.”
Bishop Luis Fernando Ramos Perez, an Auxiliary Bishop of Santiago and secretary general of the Chilean bishops’ conference, has called the Rivera’s abuse “repugnant, unacceptable and terrible. The question we have to ask ourselves is how a priest came to that.
Cardinal Ezzati has faced accusations that he was involved in covering up the crimes of other abusive priests, including Fernando Karadima and Oscar Munoz Toledo.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Edinburgh, Scotland, Mar 6, 2019 / 02:05 pm (CNA).- The Scottish Parliament hosted a Blessing and Distribution of Ashes for the first time this year, with Archbishop Leo Cushley of St. Andrews and Edinburgh presiding.
Archbishop Cushley reflected duri… […]
Albany, N.Y., Mar 6, 2019 / 01:45 pm (CNA).- The New York State Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s 28 bishops, issued a fiery statement on Wednesday opposing plans to legalize recreational marijuana in the state.
In a stat… […]
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