Baltimore, Md., Nov 13, 2019 / 11:48 am (CNA).- A national third-party reporting system for allegations of abuse, neglect, or misconduct against bishops could be activated by February 2020, the U.S. bishops’ conference said Wednesday.
Anthony Picarello, general counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told bishops Nov. 13 at their annual fall meeting in Baltimore that a contract had been finalized for the anticipated third-party reporting mechanism for allegations of abuse, neglect, or misconduct made against bishops.
The system could be ready for use by February 2020, he said, well ahead of the Holy See’s May deadline. However, metropolitans and dioceses would need to be ready to receive allegations.
Picarello spoke to the U.S. bishops near the close of their general meeting in Baltimore held Nov. 11-14. The bishops had elected a new conference president—Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles—and a new vice president, Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit, as well as six committee chairs.
In September 2018, the bishops’ executive committee had initially proposed a third-party reporting mechanism to handle accusations made against bishops. The decision followed new claims of sex abuse that had been made against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick in the summer of 2018; in August, McCarrick was removed from the College of Cardinals and assigned a life of prayer and penance.
At their November 2018 meeting, however, the U.S. bishops did not take substantive action on the abuse crisis following instructions from the Vatican that they not act until a clergy sex abuse summit in Rome would be convened in February 2019.
After that February summit, Pope Francis issued his apostolic letter Vos estis lux mundi, which outlined a canonical process of handling accusations of abuse, neglect, or misconduct made against bishops.
To handle such accusations, the U.S. bishops voted overwhelmingly at their spring meeting in June to authorize a third-party reporting mechanism to receive accusations made online or by phone.
The mechanism had to be updated from the bishops’ September 2018 proposal. For instance, Vos estis called for allegations against bishops to be sent to regional metropolitans, not just the apostolic nuncio. Also, the system would have to handle specific violations outlined in Vos estis, not those listed in the U.S. Bishops’ Code of Conduct.
Picarello said on Wednesday that at their September 2019 meetings, the bishops’ administrative committee picked the vendor Conversant for the reporting system, decided how costs would be allocated, and finalized a contract. Dioceses would be billed directly for their portion of the overall cost.
The contract provides that the reporting system could go live by February 2020, he said.
In the ensuing discussions after Picarello’s presentation, some bishops expressed concern that the hotline could be hit with a deluge of irrelevant requests.
Once the number for the national hotline is advertised, could people share “all sorts of concerns” such as priests not genuflecting for the consecration at Mass, Bishop Daniel Conlon of Joliet in Illinois asked, at the insistence of his metropolitan, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago.
Bishop Gregory Hartmayer, O.F.M. Conv., of Savannah asked if the reporting mechanism could be advertised too much.
Picarello replied that a process will be in place promptly to filter out irrelevant claims and ensure that allegations pertain to bishops and to those acts of misconduct listed in Vos estis.
“We just want to make sure this system is reserved for this very specific, very high-priority purpose,” Picarello said. The conference, he said, will provide advertisement resources for regional provinces but will ultimately leave the implementation to dioceses and provinces.
Bishop Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City asked how allegations made against religious superiors would be handled on the hotline. Picarello said the conference is waiting on a canonical determination for that question, as the matter is “complex.”
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Los Angeles, Calif., Sep 28, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Through Guadalupe Radio the Archdiocese of Los Angeles raised more than $90,000 last month to help reunited separated immigrant families in southern California.
“It was Archbishop [Jose] Gomez’s vision to have us be the leaders in treating immigration not as a political topic, but that it was important for the human dignity of people, first and foremost,” said Isaac Cuevas, the archdiocese’s director of immigration affairs.
A two-day campaign was held on Guadalupe Radio at the end of August, raising $92,000 in support of humanitarian efforts by Catholic Charities. Then, Archbishop Gomez of Los Angeles approved a virtual collection plate for the same efforts, which went into effect this week.
Cuevas told CNA that the money will be used to help families with a three-month transitional process and legal fees.
The families were affected by the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy: immigrants found illegally crossing the border would be held in a federal jail until they go before a federal judge, who must determine whether immigrants will receive prison sentences for crossing the border illegally.
This shift lead to family separation, because children cannot be held legally in a federal jail for more than 20 days per the 1997 Flores Settlement. These children were placed in the custody of the Department of Health and Human Services while their parents’ cases were processed.
Cuevas said he received a call in August by the USCCB stating that 20 reunited families would be coming to the Los Angeles. He said these people came to the city with “literally nothing.”
“These families were arriving in the city – some didn’t have any connections, some did have connections but they were arriving with zero resources,” he said.
The radio fundraiser was a small miracle, he said, noting the money raised far exceeded the original goal. The diocese first sought to support 20 reunited families, but raised enough money to support 56 families throughout the greater Los Angeles area.
“I consider it a small miracle that even though we were modest with our $30,000-50,000 goal with the radio efforts alone we reached $92,000 in two days.”
Cuevas said the money would be used to help the families with basic necessities, including food, clothing, and school supplies. While the families find places to live and the children get placed in schools, the funds will also contribute to mental health services and proposals for self-sufficiency.
The other part of the project will aid Esperanza Legal Services, a legal non-profit underneath Catholic Charities. According to Angelus News, the money will be used to hire more legal staff for Esperanza to serve these families.
Angelus reported that a majority of the families are still undergoing deportation proceedings and require attorneys to fight their cases, which may allow them to apply for asylum status.
Cuevas gave CNA an example of one of the families the agency has been able to help – a mother and her two sons, ages 15 and 7. He said that after their detention, the eldest expressed doubts that he would see his mother again and the youngest still struggles with separation issues.
“They assumed that the two boys would be kept together, even though they were being separated from their mom. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case and the three of them were separated individually. The eldest talks about … [that] he believed he would never get to see his mom again because he saw her go be taken away in handcuffs,” he said.
“The three were reunited. [But,] the youngest has a really hard time of even being away from his mom, like just having her be in another room makes him panic.”
Cuevas said the immigration system in United States is broken and needs to be addressed. He added that immigration policy needs to be seen foremost as a responsibility toward vulnerable persons.
“Before you get into the politics of any topic, it’s identifying with the necessities from a humanistic standpoint. The topic of immigration is exactly that – it’s people in need,” he said.
“As the Church, obviously, we believe in the country and the responsibility for us to protect its borders, but we also believe that people deserve human dignity. And that is where we would push and remind people to start with that first.”
Brooklyn, N.Y., Sep 19, 2018 / 10:53 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Diocese of Brooklyn and an after-school program reached a $27.5 million settlement Tuesday with four men who were sexually abused as minors by a layman who volunteered at a parish in the New York City borough.
The men were abused between 2003 and 2009 by Angelo Serrano, 67, who taught catechism and helped to organized religious education at St. Lucy – St. Patrick’s parish in Brooklyn. Serrano abused the boys, who were between the ages of 8 and 12, at the church, in his apartment, and at the after-school program. Serrano received a stipend from the church, and had a desk there.
“The diocese and another defendant have settled these lawsuits brought by the four claimants who were sexually abused by Angelo Serrano at his private apartment many years ago,” the Brooklyn diocese said in a Sept. 18 statement, the New York Times reported. “Mr. Serrano was a volunteer worker at a local parish; he was not clergy or an employee of the diocese or parish.”
A portion of the settlement is being paid by the Dorothy Bennett Mercy Center, an after-school program located next to the parish.
Serrano was arrested in 2009, and is now serving a 15-year sentence.
A suit against the diocese was set to go to trial next year, had the diocese not settled.
The victims’ suit listed the then-pastors of St. Lucy – St. Patrick’s, Fr. Stephen P. Lynch and Fr. Frank Shannon, as co-defendants.
According to the New York Times, a judge wrote that “The record is clear that Lynch and Shannon had knowledge that for years Serrano often had several boys, including plaintiff, sleep over at his apartment … In fact, both Lynch and Shannon testified that they visited Serrano on numerous occasions when young boys were present.”
Fr. Lynch testified, the Times reported, that he saw Serrano “kiss an 8- or 9-year-old boy on the mouth and inappropriately embrace the boy.”
A secretary at the parish, Beatrice Ponnelle, also testified about Serrano’s behavior with minors.
Earlier this month, the New York attorney general issued subpoenas to the state’s dioceses asking for documents related to sexual abuse allegations and the Church’s response to them.
Attorney General Barbara Underwood announced a civil investigation into Church entities and said the office’s criminal division is willing to partner with local district attorneys “to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute any individuals who have committed criminal offenses that fall within the applicable statutes of limitations.”
Leon is a baby boy cared for and loved at Mary’s Shelter, a pro-life maternity home in Fredericksburg, Virginia. / Courtesy of Mary’s Shelter
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 24, 2022 / 13:15 pm (CNA).
Amid a shortage of baby formula in the U.S., experts recommend parents scour smaller drug stores, check online, and join social media groups sharing information.
But here’s another, perhaps lesser-known, option they can also turn to for help: pregnancy resource centers.
Nearly 3,000 pro-life pregnancy centers serve millions of people each year in the United States. They offer women and parents in need everything from health care and material assistance to educational classes and job support — at little to no cost. Right now, for many of these centers, their work also includes connecting struggling families to baby formula.
One center in Michigan, an affiliate of Heartbeat International, a pro-life pregnancy resource center network, revealed to CNA that it has a surplus of formula.
“At this time, we haven’t heard of formula shortages at the pregnancy centers,” Andrea Trudden, vice president of communications and marketing at Heartbeat International, told CNA. “Quite the contrary, actually!”
Trudden recommended families turn to their local pregnancy help organizations for assistance and use OptionLine.org as a tool to find the center closest to them.
“Since pregnancy centers are equipped to help pregnant women and new families with practical resources such as diapers and formula,” Trudden said, “they have been able to step into that gap during this time.”
Some pro-life maternity homes in states such as Virginia and North Carolina said mothers are in desperate need and exploring all of their options, including feeding their babies with formula samples. But, these homes tell CNA, they are walking with mothers in their search, every step of the way.
What is this shortage about?
The nationwide baby formula shortage was caused, and then exacerbated, by a series of factors: supply-chain issues, recalls, the closure of a major production plant in February, and even U.S. trade policy. The result, data-firm company Datasembly found, is that more than 40 percent of baby formulas were out of stock in early May.
Babies with special needs and allergies rely on formula, along with babies in general. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 63.3% of infants were exclusively breastfeeding seven days after birth in 2018. Three months after birth, only 46.3% of infants exclusively breastfed. Six months after birth, that percentage changed to 25.8%
The trouble with formula began partially with the Covid-19 pandemic. Parents stockpiled baby formula at the beginning, which increased production, only to later discover that they had a surplus to use up, which decreased production.
After consuming formula from an Abbott plant in Sturgis, Michigan, four babies became sick, including two who died, from bacterial infections. This led to a recall and the plant shutting down in February.
These incidents exposed the formula market as one not structurally prepared for emergencies, with just four companies largely in control of supply in the United States. U.S. and regulatory trade policy only added to the problem, restricting the exchange of formula internationally, The Atlantic reported.
Months into the shortage, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has reached an agreement with Abbott, one of the largest U.S. baby formula manufacturers, to reopen its Sturgis plant in the coming weeks. President Joe Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to prioritize the production of formula. And, in the meantime, the U.S. military has begun importing formula from Europe.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have called for action. Senate Democrats are pushing a bill that would send $28 million in emergency funding to the FDA. Congress passed, and Biden signed into law, a bill to expand access to formula for lower-income families during emergencies.
In the meantime, before the shelves are fully stocked once more, pregnancy centers and maternity homes around the country are helping parents in need.
“I have never seen this much formula. We have an overflow!” Lois Stoll, a volunteer who manages the formula supply at the center, said in a press release. The center, one of Heartbeat International’s 1,857 affiliate locations, accumulated its surplus over the last two years, during the pandemic.
“It really is the result of an unexpected set of circumstances,” Bryce Asberg, the executive director, added in the release. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of clients fell but donations continued to come in.”
Baby formula is stored on shelves at Helping Hands Pregnancy Resource Center in Hillsdale, Michigan. Courtesy of Helping Hands
Asberg told CNA that the center has been running a material assistance program for several years where it provides mothers and families with baby clothes, diapers, wipes, and baby food or formula.
“We still offer all those items to clients who come in, but recently we have noticed a surge of interest in formula,” he said. “God has been building our supply of formula for many months, and we didn’t know why we had so much. Now we do!”
Washington, D.C.
In Washington, D.C., Janet Durig, the executive director of Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center, said that her center also has baby formula on hand.
“We’ve had some phone calls seeking help and we’ve had formula to give them,” she told CNA. But, she emphasized, the supply is limited because they rely on donations.
“We have it to help people on a limited basis and are helping people on a limited basis,” she said, adding that the center welcomes donations of unopened bottles or cans of formula as long as they have not expired.
Connecticut
Leticia Velasquez, executive director and co-founder of Pathways Pregnancy in Norwich, Connecticut, encouraged moms and families to reach out if they need formula.
She told CNA that the three-year-old center is there for any woman or mom in need.
“We just say, ‘How can we fill the need? That’s what we’re here for,’” she said. “We definitely stand with them in any crisis, whether it be a formula shortage or an unplanned pregnancy.”
Parents in eastern Connecticut looking for baby formula can text the center at (860) 222-4505.
North Carolina
Debbie Capen, the executive director of MiraVia, said that the baby formula shortage is affecting her group’s work in supporting and providing resources to new moms in need. The Catholic nonprofit runs an outreach center in Charlotte and a free college residence at nearby Belmont Abbey College where a pregnant student — from any university or college — can stay until her child turns two years old.
“Yes, the mothers we serve are very concerned about the baby formula shortage,” Capen told CNA. “We always encourage breastfeeding for our expectant mothers, but for those who cannot breastfeed, they usually rely on vouchers for baby formula through the USDA’s WIC program.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s WIC program, also known as the “Special Supplementation Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children,” offers federal grants to states for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant and postpartum women, and young children at nutritional risk.
Capen highlighted that WIC only covers one specific brand of formula, which means that moms must pay full price for any other label. Formula is at a premium price right now, she added, which only puts more stress on their limited resources.
In each state, baby formula manufacturers bid for exclusive rights to provide formula to WIC participants in that state. In return, they offer the state discounts, or rebates. For those who rely on WIC, this means that they face limited options.
In response to the scarcity, the mothers at MiraVia are turning to alternatives: food pantries and the MiraVia community.
“They communicate with our staff and each other when they find formula at a certain location, as well as contact stores to find out when shipments are expected,” Capen said. “They substitute with generic brands when possible and reach out to their pediatricians for recommendations and even free samples.”
Capen listed some ways that people can help during this shortage, beginning with communication and the sharing of resources.
“For example, you can help by searching posts on social media and community apps like NextDoor or OfferUp to find those with formula and suggest where it can be donated,” she said. “Remind friends and family not to stockpile so that the supply of formula can flow to those in most urgent need. If you are pregnant and have received free samples of formula, donate what you won’t use to food pantries or programs for new mothers.”
Virginia
Kathleen Wilson, the executive director of Mary’s Shelter, a faith-centered maternity home in Fredericksburg, Virginia, agreed that “our moms have had many difficulties.”
She told CNA about one of their mothers who gave birth to her fourth baby three months ago. At first, she used a formula brand called Enfamil Reguline. After it became unavailable, she began switching between brands and using whatever she can find, Wilson said. The mother has also tried ordering on Amazon and turned to her pediatrician for samples.
Yaretzi is a baby girl cared for and loved at Mary’s Shelter, a pro-life maternity home in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Courtesy of Mary’s Shelter
“This is a mom who is trying to hold down a job, with an infant and other children to tend to,” Wilson stressed the “very difficult” situation.
Wilson said that two of the other mothers spent days driving around at one point to try to find formula for their babies. When necessary, they are also turning to sample packets of baby formula.
“Our staff and volunteers have been assisting with this and picking up and delivering formula when they can get their hands on it,” Wilson said, adding that donors have also pitched in.
“We are blessed with wonderful donors,” she said. “A friend just stopped in this morning with two cans of formula that he was able to find.”
“If donors are willing and can find formula, we would be thrilled to take their donation,” she said, concluding that she is “praying this comes to an end soon.”
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