Vatican City, Dec 21, 2019 / 04:20 pm (CNA).- In recent weeks, CNA has been covering a Vatican financial scandal involving a multi-million-dollar investment fund, money donated by Catholics to support charity and Vatican ministries, and a pair of banks… […]
Santo Domingo, Ecuador, Dec 21, 2019 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- A group of religious sisters in Santo Domingo, Ecuador has installed the country’s first baby drop-off box, as an alternative to abortion for mothers who find themselves unable to care for their newborns.
The Missionary Benedictine inaugurated the country’s first “Cradle of Life” baby drop-off box on Dec. 10 in Santo Domingo. The box is located in the exterior wall of their Happy Valley Home, a temporary shelter providing foster care for at-risk girls and adolescents.
The sisters will support babies left in the box for up to three months. If the mother wishes to come back for the baby, she can also receive support from the Happy Valley Home. If the mother does not return after three months, the baby will be given up for adoption.
Sister Carmela Ewa Pilarska, a member of the home’s leadership team, said the project hopes to respond to cases of abandoned infants, such as those found occasionally in cardboard boxes or abandoned houses.
“We would like to be the voice for so many newborns who struggled to survive, and we’re speaking up for those newborns who didn’t have the same fate,” she said at a presentation of the “Cradle of Life” project.
Inside the drop-off box is a bassinet and a letter assuring mothers that their babies will be cared for with love and medical attention.
“We don’t know what happened in your life that you’re making this decision, and we’re not judging it,” the letter says.
Women can leave their babies safely and anonymously in the box. Once the door to the box is closed from the outside, it cannot be reopened, thus ensuring the baby’s safety. An alarm sounds inside the home, alerting the personnel of the baby’s arrival.
“After waiting a short interval to protect the anonymity of the person leaving the baby, the inner door is opened, the baby is retrieved and immediately given the necessary care,” Sister Pilarska explained.
“Every life is a gift. Mother Teresa of Kolkata said that children are like stars, there’s never too many,” she stressed.
The “Cradle for Life” initiative seeks to provide an alternative to abortions and follows in the footsteps of similar initiatives created in the United States and Europe. Notable efforts include Germany with 99 baby drop-off boxes, Poland with 45, the Czech Republic with 44, Hungary with 26 and Italy with eight. Such boxes are also present in Belgium, Switzerland, Canada, Malaysia and Japan, according to the Missionary Benedictine Sisters.
The sisters’ order was founded in Biala Cerkiew, Poland, in 1917 by Mother Jadwiga Josefa Kulesza, a cloistered Benedictine nun. Her goal was to help poor, abandoned, and homeless children, and she opened an orphanage after World War I.
The order currently has 280 sisters serving the needs of children in Poland, Ukraine, the United States, Brazil and Ecuador.
Vatican City, Dec 21, 2019 / 07:54 am (CNA).- Pope Francis Saturday accepted the resignation of Cardinal Angelo Sodano as dean of the College of Cardinals and declared that the position will now have a five-year term limit with the possibility of renew… […]
Vatican City, Dec 21, 2019 / 05:44 am (CNA).- The very first way the Child Jesus revealed the love and goodness of the Father was in smiling at his parents, just “like every newborn baby in this world,” Pope Francis said Saturday.
“W… […]
Vatican City, Dec 21, 2019 / 05:02 am (CNA).- To carry out the continuing reform of the Church requires a willingness to change and a commitment to personal conversion, Pope Francis said Saturday, during his annual Christmas greeting to the bishops and… […]
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Dec 21, 2019 / 12:00 am (CNA).- Leaders of the Argentine bishops’ conference met with Argentina’s president Dec. 18, to express their opposition to new abortion protocols in the country.
“We were surprised by the presentation of the protocol on abortion as one of the first acts of the new government. This way of acting pains and concerns us, which avoids reasonable democratic debate on the protection of life, the first human right,” the bishops said in a statement.
Their visit came after the administration of Argentine president Alberto Fernández, who took office last week, updated the country’s abortion protocol to guarantee access to abortion to women who have been raped.
Argentine law allows abortion in cases when the mother’s life or health is in danger, or in cases of rape. But pro-choice activists maintain that it has not in fact been accessible because of hospitals’ discretion and conscientious objection.
The new protocol “will be used as a guide, especially in cases where the law clearly allows for the interruption of pregnancies,” Health minister Gines Gonzalez Garcia said.
“We are respectful of conscientious objection but conscientious objection cannot be used as an institutional alibi for not complying with the law,” Gonzalez added.
The bishops say the protocol violates Argentine law, since it was imposed by a government official “contrary to the National Constitution, international treaties and the country’s Civil and Commercial Code, among other laws that protect life at conception.”
In their meeting with the president, the bishops objected that the protocol practically “authorizes abortion on demand.”
Argentine pro-lifers, known as the “Blue Wave” for the blue neckerchiefs they have adopted as a symbol of their movement, took to the streets Dec. 18, demonstrating in front of the Ministry of Health and calling for the protocol to be rescinded and for the Health Minister to resign.
ernández, of the Justicialist Party, assumed office Dec. 10. He has also announced plans to decriminalize abortion.
A bill to legalize abortion through the first 14 weeks of gestation narrowly passed the Chamber of Deputies in 2018, but was rejected by the Senate.
In May, an obstetrician-gynecologist was found guilty of having prevented an abortion in Argentina, after he decided in May 2017 to save the life of an unborn baby whose mother had taken misoprostol. Dr. Leandro Rodríguez Lastra was found guilty of failing to carry out his duty as a public functionary, as he was not registered as a conscientious objector. The child was eventually adopted.
And in March, the Archbishop of Tucumán called on society to be committed to protecting life, after an 11-year-old rape victim received a Caesarean section.
He encouraged the faithful to care for the life “of every child, of every adolescent, of every elderly person, of every sick person,” and daily “to protect, to care for, to serve, every human life, because every life has value.”
“It is very important to be called together in prayer, but for this prayer to become a real commitment to protect every human life and defend every human life with passion, courage and with much generosity and dedication,” he added.
Vatican City, Dec 20, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, said Friday that a new document by the Pontifical Biblical Commission does […]
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Erie, Pa., Dec 20, 2019 / 03:45 pm (CNA).- When Dr. Gertrude Barber became the assistant superintendent of the Erie School District in Pennsylvania, the standard practice for educating children with disabilities and special needs was to institutionalize them.
This did not sit well with Barber, who had dedicated her career to the education of children with mental and physical disabilities.
In 1952, with the help of teachers volunteering their time and efforts after-hours, Barber opened Erie’s first community-based program for children with special needs in a room at the YMCA that allowed them to return to their families at the end of the day.
This was the beginning of the Dr. Gertrude A. Barber Center, now called the Barber National Institute, which currently serves more than 4,000 children and adults with disabilities in Pennsylvania.
Bishop Lawrence Persico of Erie announced Dec. 12 that he was formally opening the cause of canonization of Dr. Barber for her life-long efforts to help those in need, influenced by her Catholic faith.
“It is an honor to open the cause for sainthood for Dr. Gertrude Barber,” Bishop Persico said in a statement.
“Her family members, and the thousands of families who have been touched by the work she initiated in her lifetime, are surely thrilled to be part of this historic moment. But I am particularly pleased that the good work of Dr. Barber, motivated by her Catholic faith and undertaken on behalf of those in need, will now be known more fully by those throughout our region and beyond.”
Barber was born in Erie Sept. 16, 1911, the seventh of ten children born to John and Kathryn (Kate) Barber. When Gertrude was just seven years old, her father died during the influenza epidemic. Her oldest sibling did not survive infancy.
According to the Association for the Cause of Gertrude Barber, friends and family encouraged Kate to place her many children in an orphanage. But Kate was determined to keep them all at home, to give them a good education, and to instill in them the value of serving others which she had shared with her husband. All nine of the surviving Barber children graduated high school, and five earned college degrees.
Gertrude earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from Penn State University, where she continued her education and earned a master’s in psychology and doctorate in educational administration. She finished post-doctoral work at Syracuse University, the University of Buffalo, and Adelphi University.
Her faith, as well as the values of education and service to others, were foundational to Barber’s career as an educator and advocate for people with disabilities. According to the association, Barber at one time expressed a desire to be a missionary in foreign country, but was encouraged by a superintendent to be a missionary in her home town by becoming an advocate for children with learning and physical disabilities.
In 1933, Barber became a special education teacher for Erie’s school district. Ten years later, she took the position of home and school visitor for the district, and in 1945 she became the district’s coordinator of special education programs.
As a home and school visitor, part of Barber’s job included telling some parents of children with disabilities that their child could not enroll in their local school, and must either be educated at home or sent to faraway institutions.
“I would have to go to the parents and tell them that their children could not go to school anymore,” Barber once said.
The experience solidified her convictions to help children with disabilities in a way that kept their families as involved as possible in their lives and education.
In 1952, with a small group of parents, teachers, and volunteers, she opened a classroom for children with disabilities at a local YMCA, and continued to advocate for a more permanent space for her programs. As previously mentioned, this first classroom was the foundation of what is now the Barber National Institute.
In 1958, a former hospital used to treat polio patients was given to Barber by the City of Erie as a space for both a school for children and a program for adults with disabilities, and Barber’s programs quickly expanded. In 1962, Barber was appointed to President John Kennedy’s White House Task Force on the Education and Rehabilitation of the Mentally Retarded, where she helped bring national awareness to the needs of children and adults with disabilities.
As the years went on, the Dr. Gertrude A. Barber Center sprouted satellite locations throughout the region. Legislation protecting the rights of children and adults with disabilities passed, and the Center became a hub for implementing new and improved methods of education and training for the disabled.
In the 1970s, Barber established local group homes for adults who had been institutionalized for their disabilities as children, the beginning of now more than 50 group homes for adults with disabilities operating in Erie County today. In the 1990s, Barber worked to turn the center into a national institute for the best research, education, training and care available for people with disabilities.
Barber received numerous awards and honors for her work throughout her life, including an honorary LL.D. degree from Gannon University in 1982, the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice award from St. John Paul II in 1984, and the Unitas Award from Gannon University in 1984.
Barber died suddenly while on a trip to Florida in 2003 at the age of 87. She is remembered for her selfless, compassionate, personal, and groundbreaking care for children and adults with disabilities.
“Dr. Barber served as a model for all of us to become more giving and to see God in one another,” John Barber, nephew of Dr. Barber and president of the Barber National Institute, said at the announcement of the opening of his aunt’s cause for canonization.
“She established the philosophy which we at the Barber National Institute live by, which is ‘all children are welcome here.’ I know that she would look at this honor today not as a recognition of her, but as an honor for the children and adults she served.”
The opening of the cause means that Barber can now be referred to with the title “Servant of God”, and that the Diocese of Erie will open a formal inquiry into her life and works. Msgr. Thomas McSweeney, a retired priest and former director of the Office of Evangelization for Communications for the Diocese of Erie, will serve as postulator for the cause. He will be interviewing those who knew Barber and want to share testimonies about her impact on their lives.
Once the inquiry is complete, the cause will be presented to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for further approval.
If canonized, Barber could be the first United States layperson to be canonized a saint.
Washington D.C., Dec 20, 2019 / 02:59 pm (CNA).- A federal rule change once again allows faith-based adoption agencies to receive federal funding without being required to place children with same-sex couples. The move was welcomed by a religious freedom legal group, but drew opposition from all Democrats in the U.S. Senate.
The previous rule, enacted at the end of the Obama administration in 2016, “threatened to shut out faith-based social service providers” if the adoption and foster care agencies “respect a child’s right to a mother and a father,” the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops said when the proposed change was announced Nov. 1.
The rule change cited several complaints, requests for exceptions, and lawsuits, according to the Department of Health and Human Services notice published in the Federal Register. Some entities outside the federal government voiced concern that the 2016 rule violated the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act or the U.S. Constitution, exceeded the authority of the HHS, or reduced the effectiveness of programs.
The change drew support from the Alliance Defending Freedom legal group.
“Every child deserves a chance to be raised in a loving home. That’s why ADF supports HHS’s revision of its regulations to allow both secular and faith-based providers to compete for federal grants on an equal footing,” Alliance Defending Freedom senior counsel Zack Pruitt said Dec. 19.
Pruitt said faith-based adoption and foster care providers play “an integral role” in serving vulnerable children, like the 430,000 in foster care system and the 125,000 eligible for adoption.
“Unfortunately, the previous regulation—finalized in the 11th hour of the Obama Administration—failed to protect all providers and discriminated against faith-based providers simply because of their beliefs about marriage. That is not keeping kids first,” Pruitt added.
“HHS’s proposed rule to end this discrimination offers hope for children, more options for birth parents, support for families, and increased flexibility for states seeking to alleviate real human need, he said. “We commend HHS for protecting a diversity of providers to ensure the greatest number of children find a permanent, loving family.”
The Obama administration’s rule interpreted existing law to forbid discrimination in the child welfare system not only on basis of sex, but sexual orientation as well. Thus, it began taking action against adoption agencies that did not place children with same-sex couples, on the grounds that they were discriminating against an individual’s sexual orientation.
The Trump administration’s rule guarantees legal protection based only on existing statute, which does not recognize sexual orientation or gender identity.
The HHS notice said the previous rule would reduce foster care placements in the HHS Administration for Children and Families. The department acknowledged that some grantees and subgrantees could cease to provide services if forced to comply with the previous rule. Such grantees make up a “substantial percentage of services” and are “effective partners” of federal and state governments.
The Trump administration’s action drew protest from all of the U.S. Senate’s Democrats, The Hill reports. Every Democratic senator signed an objecting letter to HHS Secretary Alex Azar.
“It is unconscionable that HHS has disregarded essential nondiscrimination protections, chosen to no longer enforce them and has pursued a rollback of the very protections that ensure HHS funding benefits all people in an equitable way,” said the Senate Democratic Caucus’ letter.
“We strongly urge the department to enforce existing federal nondiscrimination regulations that protect against discrimination based on sex and religion and rescind this proposed rule,” they said.
A federal court recently blocked the Obama-era regulation from going into effect in a case involving the Lansing-based St. Vincent Catholic Charities and a family looking to adopt, represented by the legal group Becket.
Alliance Defending Freedom is representing Catholic Charities West Michigan in a federal lawsuit against state officials who withheld funding from faith-based adoption agencies over their stances on marriage.
Religious adoption agencies in several states and the District of Columbia have been shut down by anti-discrimination laws that require them to place children with same-sex couples. Anti-discrimination provisions in state funding laws have also resulted in the shut down of agencies that cannot in good faith follow funding requirements that they place children with same-sex couples.
The federal rule would not necessarily change these laws and funding rules at the state level.
U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) introduced an amendment in a 2018 funding bill to withhold some HHS funding from states that would not allow faith-based organizations to carry out their religious mission in child welfare. The amendment was removed from the legislation before a final House vote.
When the rule change was announced Nov. 1, the U.S. bishops’ conference said the previous regulation “threatened to shut out faith-based social service providers, namely adoption and foster care agencies that respect a child’s right to a mother and a father”
“To restrict faith-based organizations’ work by infringing on religious freedom – as the 2016 rule threatened to do – is unfair and serves no one, especially the children in need of these services.”
In Massachusetts, Catholic Charities of the Boston Archdiocese stopped its adoption services in 2006. Catholic Charities in California and Illinois stopped their adoption services in 2006 and 2011, respectively.
In 2018, Philadelphia stopped placing adoptive children with Catholic Social Services, only days after the city called for 300 new families to adopt foster children.
The city faces a lawsuit by several foster mothers for its decision to stop working with Catholic Social Services. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether or not to review the case, Fulton v. Philadelphia.
Critics of religious freedom protections have established a significant network of NGOs, legal experts and activists to limit religious freedom they consider to be discriminatory on issues of LGBT equality and contraception and abortion access. As CNA has previously reported, some $10 million has been earmarked specifically for this purpose through groups like the Arcus Foundation and the Proteus Fund.
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