‘No priest may obey’ proposed law, California bishop says

CNA Staff, Sep 29, 2020 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- The Arizona bishops have registered their opposition to a ballot initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana use in the state, saying it would be harmful to families and children.

“It is anticipated that legalizing the recreational use of marijuana in Arizona will lead to more abuse by teens, increase child fatalities, and result in more societal costs,”  they said in a Sept. 23 statement.

“Accordingly, due to these detrimental effects, we strongly oppose this dangerous proposal.”

Proposition 207, the Smart and Safe Arizona Act, will appear on the ballot in the state in November. It would allow persons 21 and older to possess one ounce of marijuana, and provide for the sale of the drug.

The bishops noted that “Legalizing the recreational use of marijuana sends a message to children that drug use is socially and morally acceptable. As people of faith, we must speak out against this effort and the damaging effects its passage would have on children and families.”

They said that “problematic marijuana use is 25 percent higher among teens in states that legalized recreational marijuana,” and that self-reported use of marijuana by middle- and high-schoolers in the state “has already increased over the past four years as perceptions of risk have fallen.”

They added that Arizona’s most recent child fatality report “listed marijuana as a direct or contributing factor in almost as many child deaths as alcohol.”

The Arizona Supreme Court in August rejected a legal challenge to the initiative. Opponents of the measure argued that the summary of the measure its backers put on petitions was misleading and had omissions.

A 2016 report showed that traffic deaths, crime, emergency room visits, and youth usage of marijuana increased significantly in the first two years following the legalization of recreational pot in Colorado.

Released by the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area in September, the report compared marijuana-related statistics from previous years in Colorado to data from 2013-2015, the first years after the legalization of recreational marijuana in the state, through ballot initiative, in November 2012.

Bishops across the US, as well as in the territory of Guam and in Canada, have also oppposed proposals to legalize recreational marijuana use in their jurisdictions.

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Washington D.C., Feb 12, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Black Catholic communities have been a part of the Church in the Washington, DC area for centuries.

But it wasn’t until the height of the Civil War that black Catholics in DC began the process of founding a parish of their own— with the help of President Abraham Lincoln.

In the 16th and 17th century, Spanish laws in North America freed slaves who converted to Catholicism. Some of these freed slaves and their descendants formed their own settlement in the region that would become Florida.

Meanwhile, in Maryland, in the decades before the American Revolution, Jesuit missionaries evangelized black slaves, including some owned by their order, along with freemen. Over the centuries, large African-American Catholic populations settled in cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago and numerous cities throughout the South.

Monsignor Charles Pope, pastor of the historically black DC parish of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian, told CNA that racial prejudice has played a role in the region’s Catholic history; that white parishioners enforced racial segregation, forcing black Catholics to sit in back of church or choir loft, and to wait to receive the Eucharist until after white Catholics had done so.

Black Catholics “had many reasons to walk out of the Catholic faith, being treated like that, and yet they didn’t. They stayed, they worked, they built their own church.”

“It’s a remarkable story of resilience,” Monsignor Pope said.

Beginnings of a black Catholic parish

In the mid-19th century, black Catholics were not permitted to worship in the main sanctuary of St. Matthew’s Church in downtown DC. They were likely relegated to the church basement to worship, and while black children had a separate Sunday school to attend, they were not at all allowed to attend the parish day school.

By 1864, the black Catholic community had had enough of being related to the margins of St. Matthews to worship, and decided to build their own place of worship.

According to historian Morris MacGregor, who wrote a book in 1999 entitled “The Emergence of a Black Catholic Community: St. Augustine’s in Washington,” a group of free black men and women came to the pastor of St. Matthew’s, Father Charles White, to ask him what could be done.

White was apparently supportive of the idea of building a new church building for the black Catholic community, though he didn’t initially envision it becoming a separate parish. He convened a committee which included the superintendent of the parish Sunday schools, as well as two black parishioners, one of whom was named Gabriel Coakley.

Gabriel Coakley was a Washington businessman, who according to his granddaughter was a cabinetmaker. Some sources say his wife Mary was a seamstress in the White House.

White agreed to underwrite the down payment for a lot on which to build the church using money from St. Matthews, but suggested fundraising efforts would be needed to continue the church’s construction.

The committee came up with a potentially winning idea: why not hold a massive Fourth of July fundraising picnic on the White House lawn?

Coakley appears to have been chosen as the leader and spokesman for the group, and by most accounts seems to be the one who met personally with Lincoln to ask for the use of the White House grounds for a fundraiser picnic to raise money for the new church.

Lincoln’s support

Even at the height of the Civil War, personal access to the President was much simpler than it is today. Coakley simply made an appointment to meet Lincoln and was welcomed into the White House on June 27, 1864.

Though not himself a Catholic, Lincoln was evidently supportive of helping black Catholics in DC build their own place to worship. He agreed at once, and told Coakley to go to General Benjamin French’s office to tell him that he had given permission for the event.

French was a prominent Mason, so Coakley feared that he would not be keen to grant permission for an unusual event organized by black Catholics.

Nevertheless, records show that General Benjamin French issued a permit for the use of the White House lawn on June 30, 1864, and, after Coakley returned to the White House to seek the president out once again, Lincoln signed it.

Here’s where the historical record gets slightly fuzzier.

It remains unclear whether Lincoln himself actually attended the event. A Washington Post article from the 1980s proclaims that the festival was “held” by President and Mrs. Lincoln, “who strongly supported a church for black Catholics in the nation’s capital.”

MacGregor wrote that “President Lincoln and members of his cabinet likely made a brief appearance,” it is not officially recorded— at least in Lincoln’s writings— whether he was actually there or not.

Regardless, the event was a success.

An estimated 1,500 parishioners from at least six DC-area parishes attended, and the picnic raised over $1,200 a very large sum at the time.

With the funds in hand, work began on the De Porres Chapel and school, which opened in 1866 on Fifteenth Street.

MacGregor says it took a while for the chapel to attract a congregation, because despite harsh treatment at their home parishes, many black Catholics were still attached to their congregations.

Nevertheless, black Catholics at various parishes around DC remained frustrated by discrimination, and with the support of an Italian priest named Father Felix Barotti, a black Catholic parish at last came to fruition.

The original St. Augustine’s Church, which replaced the De Porres chapel in 1876, sat on the site of what eventually became the headquarters of the Washington Post.

It was the first African American Catholic parish in the city, and was a great success. The parish hosted the first National Black Catholic Congress in 1889, and parishioners hosted marchers and participated in the 1963 March on Washington.

The parish also has a school which has been operating for over 150 years.

In 1961, St. Augustine parish merged with the nearby, mostly white St. Paul’s Church, which had been experiencing declining attendance. The new, merged parish was renamed Sts. Paul and Augustine until 1982, when the name was restored to St. Augustine’s.

The original St. Augustine’s church, sadly, was razed in 1946.

Today, however, St. Augustine’s parish has one of the largest congregations in all of DC, with over 2,000 registered members.

Changing demographics

Similar to the parishioners at St. Augustine, the parishioners of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian, another historically black DC parish, raised the funds necessary to build their first church building.

Last year, the parish community celebrated its 125th anniversary.

Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian has a long African American Catholic heritage, but now, the neighborhood is changing. Pope estimated that the congregation is now probably about 40% white.

“Every now and then people feel a little bit sad, it just feels kind of like the end of an era,” he said.

“We still have a very bright future as a parish, and there are many good, new things that are up and running now, too. So it’s always a mix of a little bit of sadness but also hope and enthusiasm for a parish that is now much more diverse.”

He said people use the term “gentrification” to describe changes in DC’s historically black neighborhoods.

“I don’t think that’s entirely accurate; it hides more than it discloses,” Pope reflected.

“There’s a subtlety to it. Most of the older black folks here in the neighborhood were not poor, they were working class— some of them had good government jobs with decent pensions.”

Many of the aging back parishioners have sold their homes at a tidy profit, while choosing to downsize or move to the suburbs, for well over $1 million, he said.

“The ones who are leaving aren’t necessarily all that poor, and the ones that are coming in aren’t necessarily all that rich. Most of them are young adults…it’s an odd thing.”

“As a parish, I think we’re handling it as best we can,” he said.

 

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Washington D.C., Apr 5, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Wilton Gregory told Washington Catholics Thursday that “the only way I can serve this local archdiocese is by telling you the truth.”

Gregory will be installed as Washington’s archbishop in May, likely bringing to an end the acute crisis the Archdiocese of Washington has faced in recent months, amid pervasive questions about the integrity, and especially the honesty, of its outgoing leader, Cardinal Donald Wuerl.

Wuerl came under fire after revelations emerged last June regarding the sexual misconduct of his own predecessor, Theodore McCarrick, and after his record as the former Bishop of Pittsburgh was scrutinized in the July report of a Pennsylvania grand jury examining clerical sexual abuse and institutional response.

The cardinal, it should be made clear, has not himself been accused of any act of sexual misconduct. But he has been criticized for seeming to insufficiently address problems or untenable situations in his dioceses, and the cardinal has faced relentless questions about what he knew and did, at various times in his dealings with McCarrick. This criticism became particularly acute after CNA reported that Wuerl had knowledge of allegations against McCarrick for more than a decade before they came to light, though he had seemed to deny them.

When Gregory was introduced to Washington Catholics April 4, he seemed acutely aware of those criticisms.  

“I will always tell you the truth as I understand it” Gregory promised his new flock.

Gregory has now set the stake by which his tenure as Washington’s archbishop will be measured. By his own account, he will be the archbishop of transparency.

And questions will certainly be waiting for him.

Catholics in the U.S., among them the president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, have been looking for answers on McCarrick since June, and once Gregory takes the reins from Wuerl, they will turn to him for those answers.

Gregory is likely to face questions about McCarrick’s influence on the Archdiocese of Washington, about his financial administration, his relationship with the Vatican, with priests, seminarians, and religious orders, and his relationship with Wuerl, his predecessor.

The nature of McCarrick’s apparent “prohibition” from living in a seminary, and the veracity of other admonishments and exhortations alleged by Archbishop Carlo Vigano has not yet been disclosed. The nature of the relationship between McCarrick and the Institute of the Incarnate Word, at whose seminary he lived for years, has not yet been clarified. The influence of McCarrick’s apparent generosity in Rome has not yet been unpacked, nor has the source of his financial largesse been explained. Gregory will, doubtlessly, be asked about these things.

There will also likely be questions about Wuerl, his relationship with McCarrick and with the apostolic nuncio, and about whether there were other issues in the Archdiocese of Washington that have not been addressed with transparency, and according to proper procedure.

When McCarrick resigned from the College of Cardinals, Gregory issued a powerful and candid statement.

“I am personally disheartened because in 2002 I stood before the body of bishops and the people of God as President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and made assurances in my own name and that of the Church in the United States that this crisis of faith and leadership was over and would not be repeated,” Gregory wrote.

“I never knew or suspected the hidden side of a man whose admired public persona concealed that of a violator of foundational Christian morality and of young people who trusted him. Like any individual who discovers far too late that a friend has a history of moral misconduct, I now stand dumbfounded that I was so unaware and naïve. I know that many other bishops feel the same.”

“Our people are disappointed with bishops in general who seemingly cannot or will not act decisively to heal this festering wound. They are perplexed and sickened that the Holy See may well have dismissed multiple warning signs that should have halted Theodore McCarrick and others earlier in their careers,” he added.

“I pray that this moment, and these days, weeks, and months ahead, will be an opportunity for light to break through the darkness, and for darkness to be exposed to the light. I pray that all victims and survivors of sexual abuse will come forward and receive the help, support, and healing they need. And I pray that our Church and our leadership will be renewed and transformed by the light of Christ and have the courage to take the necessary next steps.”

In file cabinets soon to be under his control, are likely some of the answers that Gregory, and other bishops, and many other Catholics have been hoping to find. Gregory has promised to tell the truth about what he knows. He has conceded that he might not always know the answers, but said that when he does, he will share them.

Making good on his word may not always prove easy for Washington’s new archbishop. But Archbishop Gregory likely knows that if he is going to restore trust among his priests, his people, and among Catholics hopeful about his leadership, the promise of honesty will be one he has to keep.

 

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