Continuing a venerable tradition, I offer the following for your canicular reading pleasure: John Hay spent decades at the center of American public life as Lincoln’s secretary and biographer, a Republican political operative, an accomplished […]
Arica, Chile, Jun 26, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of San Marcos de Arica expressed Monday its concern over the humanitarian conditions of hundreds of people, mostly Venezuelans, held up at the Chacalluta border crossing between Peru and Chile.
Chile recently imposed stricter controls on those entering its territory, as the number of Venezuelan emigrants swells. More than 4 million Venezuelans have emigrated since 2015.
Since June 22, to enter Chile a passport with visa, proof of the money to support one’s stay, and a letter of invitation or a hotel reservation are required.
Since 2018, for residency there is required a temporary residency visa valid for one year and renewable for the same period, no criminal record, and other documents.
Immigrants at the Chacalluta border control would have to process their documents at the Chilean consulate in Tacna, fewer than 25 miles north of the site.
In a June 24 statement, the Arica diocese said that among the 700 people at the crossing, “lamentably there are children of all ages who urgently need better care, pregnant women, sick people suffering from inclement weather out in the open, unable to resolve their migration problems.”
That day Bishop Moisés Carlos Atisha Contreras, along with his vicar general, Mauricio Cáceres, and Fr. Isaldo Bettin, head of the Chilean Catholic Institute for Migration in Arica, went to the site to “see firsthand the situation experienced by our Venezuelan brothers and sisters.”
“We talked with the central and local government authorities, but the most important thing was to listen to the stories of those affected and to pray with them so that humanitarian solutions with concrete actions could be sought as soon as possible.”
“We have to understand the migration reality in the world from principles of humanity, and we are constantly challenged as a society to look for ways to treat people with the dignity proper to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus we put into practice what the Gospel mandates, ‘I was a migrant [sic] and you welcomed me.’”
The statement noted that the government authorized the entrance of families with underage children, while institutions such as INCAMI, the Jesuit Migrant Service, the National Human Rights Institute, the Scalabrini Foundation and other migrant associations, consulates, and individuals are providing humanitarian aid.
Different civil society organizations issued a letter in turn expressing the hope that “the states in the region provide a coordinated response commensurate with the situation of the Venezuelans. They’re not people invading countries, but families seeking to survive,” they said.
“While the efforts of the consulates in giving timely responses are appreciated … extraordinary measures must be jointly taken that adapt to the situation the people are going through that need protection, instead of imposing requirements that not everyone has the possibility of fulfilling.”
Millions of Venezuelans have emigrated in recent years, as under the socialist administration of Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval, with severe shortages and hyperinflation.
Some 1.3 Venezuelan emigrants are being hosted by Colombia, and some 800,000 are in Peru.
In a move to restrict the flow of immigrants, Peru mandated June 15 that Venezuelans have a passport and visa to enter the country; previously, only a national ID card was needed.
Washington D.C., Jun 26, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Human trafficking survivors shared their stories of abuse and oppression before an audience on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, kicking off a day of education and advocacy in the U.S. Congress.
Experts, membe… […]
Washington D.C., Jun 26, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- A new poll has shown that abortion is a top consideration among a large section of voters, indicating the issue may be a crucial policy battleground in the upcoming 2020 elections.
The study, cond… […]
London, England, Jun 26, 2019 / 01:10 pm (CNA).- In the face of an increasingly ‘eugenic’ mentality toward people with disabilities in Europe — exemplified in the recent overturned forced abortion case — a Catholic disability expert says parishes should be looking at how to further support people with disabilities and their families.
“Each and every person has been created in the image of God. There is no decision made about who can or cannot be born — that’s God’s choice,” disability theology specialist Cristina Gangemi told CNA.
“It is a type of eugenics here where they are beginning to say for the ‘well-being’ of this person who ‘cannot’ go through birth, who ‘cannot’ look after the child, the best thing to do is to kill their offspring,” she said.
Gangemi is the director of the UK-based Kairos Forum, a consultancy that helps communities and organizations respond to the educational and spiritual needs of people with disabilities. For the past 25 years, Gangemi has worked with people with intellectual disabilities, like the woman involved in the recent attempted forced abortion case.
In this case, “the judge was saying that she wouldn’t be able to cope with the birth and she wouldn’t be able to cope with the child being taken away, but if she had an abortion, she would, at 22 weeks, still have had to give birth to a dead baby and the baby would have been taken away dead. That is what would have caused psychological problems to the young woman,” Gangemi explained.
“We can always work with her to help her understand the life she has within her and beyond her. And who says that that young woman is not able to give that child an immense amount of love?” she said.
“If I were called into work with this family, or if I were called to advise the parish or the diocese in which the family lived — because we don’t know who they are — I would be working with the local church to help them first of all understand the canonical duties that they have toward families such as this, and I would be looking to work with symbols, pictures, body language, and music to help the young woman understand what it means to be a mother,” she said.
“She might not be able to reason out now and we shouldn’t even be expecting that, but what we can become is … creative teachers through love,” Gangemi explained.
“In my years working in the field I have never met anybody who can’t learn. I’ve met lots of people who learn creatively, but I’ve always met people who can learn,” she said.
“We turn our gaze back to God and we begin to work creatively and accompany such a family, helping this young woman and her family not to be burdened by society’s judgement, but to be celebrated by the Church’s face,” she said.
Concerns have been raised for years over the treatment of those with disabilities in Europe. Disability advocates voiced alarm in 2017 when Iceland declared that it had “eradicated Down syndrome,” because 100% of babies who were diagnosed with the condition were aborted. Many other European countries also have high rates of abortions of children with Down syndrome.
Gangemi is currently working on a program called “Icons of Christ,” which will be a resource to help parishes approach the lives of people with intellectual disabilities pastorally when they request support for marriage preparation and living family life.
“Importance needs to be given to people with disabilities in faith communities. They have to be seen for who they are, members of the Body of Christ, and therefore there have to be creative practices within our Church that are not just special parishes or special Masses,” she said.
“People with disabilities should be catechists, protagonists, active members of the Church. They should be participants rather than recipients … This is no special program. This is Catholicism at its finest,” she said.
Asmara, Eritrea, Jun 26, 2019 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- The head of the Eritrean Catholic Church has called for the Church’s faithful to observe the current fasting season in response to the government’s seizure and closing of 22 Church-run health clinics earlier this month.
Archbishop Menghesteab Tesfamariam of the Eritrean Archeparchy of Asmara wrote in a June 22 letter that “only the Lord can console us and resolve our problems.”
The Eritrean Catholic Church observes the Apostles’ Fast – a fasting season between Pentecost and the feast of Saints Peter and Paul – this year from June 25 through July 11. The Church uses the Alexandrian rite and the Coptic calendar, on which the feast of Saints Peter and Paul is not celebrated until the Gregorian calendar’s July 12.
The Association of Member Episcopal Conferences of Eastern Africa has also condemned the clinics’ seizure.
Bishop Charles Kasonde of Solwezi, chair of AMECEA, wrote to the Eritrean bishops saying, “I hereby extend my heart-felt message of solidarity to you and the entire Catholic family in Eritrea over the confiscation of the health institutions owned by the Catholic Church.”
“May the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ nurture you with the hope and give you the necessary courage and stamina to stand strong in defence of the rights of the Church and God’s people in Eritrea,” he added.
In June, military forces arrived at the Church’s 22 clinics, telling patients to return to their homes, and subsequently guarding the buildings.
A letter from the Church to the health ministry after the seizure said that “the government can say it doesn’t want the services of the Church, but asking for the property is not right.” It added that the Church’s social services cannot be characterized as opposition to the government.
Eritrea is a one-party state whose human rights record has frequently been deplored.
According to the BBC, analysts believe the seizures were retaliatory, after the Church in April called for reforms to reduce emigration. The bishops had also called for national reconciliation.
Government seizure of Church property is not new, however.
A 1995 decree restricting social and welfare projects to the state has been used intermittently since then to seize or close ecclesial services.
In July 2018, an Eritrean Catholic priest helping immigrants and refugees in Italy told EWTN that authorities had recently shut down eight free Catholic-run medical clinics. He said authorities claimed the clinics were unnecessary because of the presence of state clinics.
Christian and Muslim schools have also been closed under the 1995 decree, according to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s 2019 annual report.
Eritrea has been designated a Country of Particular Concern since 2004 for its religious freedom abuses by the US Department of State.
Many Eritreans, especially youth, emigrate, due to a military conscription, and a lack of opportunities, freedom, education, and health care.
A July 2018 peace agreement between Ethiopia and Eritrea, which ended a conflict over their mutual border, led to an open border which has allowed for easier emigration.
Washington D.C., Jun 26, 2019 / 11:00 am (CNA).- The House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday night to provide emergency funding for the humanitarian crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border.
The bill, HR 3401, provides $4.5 billion in emerge… […]
Vatican City, Jun 26, 2019 / 08:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis expressed his “immense sadness” upon seeing the image of the migrant father and child who drowned in their attempt to cross the Rio Grande, a Vatican spokesman said Wednesday.
“The Pope is profoundly saddened by their deaths, and is praying for them and for all migrants who have lost their lives while seeking to flee war and misery,” Holy See Press Office interim director Alessandro Gissoti said June 26.
The graphic image of the bodies of Salvadoran migrant Oscar Alberto Martinez and his 23-month-old daughter, Valeria, floating along the Rio Grande riverbank circulated across the world after they were discovered on June 24.
Martinez and his daughter died while attempting to swim across the Rio Grande along the U.S.-Mexico border after they were unable to make an official request to U.S. authorities for asylum from El Salvador, the Mexican newspaper, La Jornada, reported.
At least 283 migrants died while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border last year, according to U.S. border patrol.
President Donald Trump announced June 22 that he would delay scheduled immigration raids by two-weeks to allow Congress to modify U.S. asylum law.
The House of Representatives passed a bill June 4 that would provide a citizenship path for some brought to the U.S. illegally as children, as well as for qualified holders of Temporary Protected Status or Deferred Enforced Departure.
The bill, the American Dream and Promise Act of 2019, would grant qualifying childhood arrivals 10 years of legal residence, after which they could receive permanent legal residence with two years of higher education or military service, or three years of employment. Those with TPS or DED could apply for lawful permanent residence if they have been in the country for at least three years and have passed background checks. After five years of lawful permanent residence, they would apply for citizenship.
Earlier this month, Mexico agreed to take measures to reduce the number of migrants to the US, in order to avoid the imposition of tariffs.
Some 6,000 National Guard troops will be assigned to Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, and some asylum seekers in the US will be sent to Mexico to wait while their claims are processed.
Pope Francis has been an outspoken advocate for countries to accept migrants and refugees in recent years.
“Before the challenges of contemporary movements of migration, the only reasonable response is one of solidarity and mercy,” Pope Francis said at a Mass commemorating migrants who died attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea from Africa to Europe.
“How many of the poor are trampled on in our day! . . . Among them, I cannot fail to include the migrants and refugees who continue to knock at the door of nations that enjoy greater prosperity,” he said.
Washington D.C., Jun 26, 2019 / 07:00 am (CNA).- The House Committee on Education and Labor heard testimony June 25 on the Do No Harm Act, a proposed measure to limit the application of landmark religious freedom legislation.
The Do No Harm Act … […]
Vatican City, Jun 26, 2019 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis said Wednesday that there is no room for selfishness in the Christian life, pointing to the example of the lives of the early Christians in the Acts of the Apostles.
“The community of be… […]
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