Cheyenne, Wyo., Apr 6, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- “I am the last F.B.I.: foreign-born Irish,” Father Tom Sheridan, a retired priest of the Cheyenne diocese, told CNA.
Sheridan speaks with an Irish accent mixed with the slow drawl of a longtim… […]
Hagatna, Guam, Apr 6, 2019 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The sexual abuse of minors is “a deep and sorrowful shame,” Archbishop Michael Jude Byrnes has said after Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron’s conviction in a church court, adding that the Church on Guam must “ensure that the horrible harm inflicted to the innocent is never repeated.”
“Our focus shall remain on making penance and reparation in our Church on Guam, attending to justice for the numerous victims of clergy sexual abuse on Guam and continuing our mission to proclaim the love of God to the people of Guam and the Marianas,” Byrnes, the new Archbishop of Agana said April 5, according to the Guam-based news site the Pacific Daily News.
Byrnes said the Church doesn’t rejoice when its members “plummet from grace and are found guilty of grave wrong,” such as cases of “the grievous sin of child abuse.”
The Apostolic Tribunal of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in March 2018 found Archbishop Apuron, 73, guilty of several abuse-related charges. He immediately appealed the decision. The Vatican court upheld the original decision Feb. 7, and the final sentencing was announced April 4 by the CDF.
As punishment, Apuron was deprived of his office as Archbishop of Agana; forbidden from using its insignia including the bishop’s miter and ring; and banned from living within the jurisdiction of the archdiocese.
He was not removed from ministry and remains a priest under church law.
Apuron has denied the charges. He said he was “deeply saddened” when the Pope confirmed the church court’s ruling.
“I believe that the facts and evidence presented demonstrated my total innocence,” he said.
Archbishop Byrnes offered “deepest apologies” to the victims of Apuron, whom he listed by name. The victims were altar boys. They included the former archbishop’s nephew and a former seminarian. They said the crimes happened while Apuron was a parish priest.
“I am truly sorry for the betrayal and severe anguish that you suffered and continue to suffer,” Byrnes said.
Walter Denton, who accused Apuron of raping him at the age of 13, thanked Byrnes for “all his support.”
“He has made the Catholic Church a better place for the people of Guam and especially for our beautiful children who are altar servers,” he said, the Pacific Daily News reports.
Roland Paul Sondia, who was also abused in 1977, voiced hope that Byrnes “would do his best to try to make the Church whole again, and that’s what we want.”
Byrnes had been serving as coadjutor Archbishop of Agana and became full Archbishop upon Apuron’s removal.
Speaking to CNA last year, a source close to the Apuron case noted a contradiction between the penalty and the sentence of sexual abuse against minors – a grave offense which usually carries the penalty of removal from the clerical state.
On Thursday Apuron called the sentence, which prevents him from living in Guam, a penalty “analogous to a death sentence,” adding: “I lose my homeland, my family, my church, my people, even my language, and I remain alone in complete humiliation, old and in failing health.”
He professed his obedience to the Pope and said he submits to his judgment and thanked him for “allowing me to continue serving as a priest and archbishop without insignia.”
The former archbishop said the pontifical secret prevents him from “litigating my good name in public,” but claimed that “many individuals” have come forward privately and publicly in his defense “despite threats and the climate of fear in my beloved home of Guam.”
He blamed a climate of fear and publicity in the local media for hampering the court’s work. This climate “testifies to the presence of a pressure group that plotted to destroy me, and which has made itself clearly known even to authorities in Rome,” he said.
Apuron claimed that some people have told him they were asked to make false allegations against him in return for money.
He offered his suffering for the Pope, for his accusers, and for “those who have plotted for my removal.”
The archdiocese is working to settle civil lawsuits for the sex abuse claims. It filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. At the time, there were lawsuits seeking about $115 million in legal claims pending against the archdiocese.
In 2016, the territorial legislature lifted the statute of limitations for sexual abuse of minors. Since then, nearly two dozen clergy in Guam have been named as defendants in over 200 sex abuse cases, Pacific Daily News reports.
Byrnes has implemented new child protection policies in the archdiocese, including a safe environment program that he said will help begin a culture change in the archdiocese.
Washington D.C., Apr 5, 2019 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- Catholic leaders issued a letter Thursday to United States government officials asking for a temporary legal status for thousands Venezuelan nationals who would otherwise risk returning to a hazardous crisis.
The April 4 letter asks of the Secretaries of Homeland Security and State that Venezuela be designated for temporary protected status for 18 months.
TPS allows people who are unable to return safely to their home countries because of armed conflict, other violence, natural disasters, or other extraordinary conditions to remain in the United States while the situation in their home country resolves. It protects them from deportation and grants them permission to work.
The letter was signed by Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin, chairman to the USCCB Committee on Migration, and by Sean Callahan, president of Catholic Relief Services.
“Given the unprecedented humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, its nationals cannot safely be returned home at this time,” the letter read.
According to the letter, an estimated 150,000 Venezuelans would qualify for TPS.
Since Nicolas Maduro became president of Venezuela in 2013, the country has been marred by violence and social upheaval. Under the socialist government, the country has seen severe shortages and hyperinflation, and an estimated 3 million have emigrated.
“Our nation has the legal ability, as well as the moral responsibility, to provide Venezuelans in the U.S. with temporary protection,” wrote Callahan and Bishop Vasquez.
“As you well know, while stability in Venezuela hasbeen tenuous since 2015, it is continuing to deteriorate at an alarming rate,” they added. To evidence this claim, they noted that the State Department issued a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory for Venezuela last month, shortly after it withdrew its diplomatic personnel from the country.
In issuing the travel advisory, the State Department “explained that in addition to violent political demonstrations and shortages in basic necessities (food, water electricity, and medical care), the country suffers from high rates of violent crime, such as homicide,armed robbery, and kidnapping.”
Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo himself suggested that the Organization of American States should be concerned with the crisis in Venezuela (along with those in Cuba and Nicaragua), rather than with lobbying for abortion.
The Catholic leaders noted that “distressing conditions discussed above show that such a designation would be appropriate and could be made either on the grounds that: (1) Venezuela is suffering from ‘ongoing armed conflict within the state’ and, consequently, return of nationals to the country would ‘pose a serious threat to their personal safety,’ or (2) that it isfacing ‘extraordinary and temporary conditions’ that prevent nationals ‘from returning to the state in safety,’” making note of the conditions required for TPS under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Callahan and Vasquez said that “providing a TPS designation for Venezuela is also a moral, compassionate and needed response.”
TPS would ensure that Venezuelans resident in the US “are not returned to dangerous and life-threatening situations7and give them an opportunity to live with dignity, work lawfully, andprovide for their families’ well-being until they can safely return home,” they added.
The Trump administration has for the most part been hesitant to extend existing TPS designations.
Last month, the Department of Homeland Security extended TPS for El Salvador, Haiti, Sudan, and Nicaragua to January 2020 only as the result of a federal court order. The administration had perviously determined this status was no longer merited, and it was set to lapse.
Another lawsuit is seeking to extend TPS for Honduras and Nepal.
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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.
Washington D.C., Apr 5, 2019 / 02:20 pm (CNA).- Students at The Catholic University of America have asked the administration to ban the top 200 pornography websites from its internet system.
The call came in a petition and resolution passed by the university’s Student Government Association and signed by its student body president on Monday, April 1.
The “Resolution for a Pornography Free Campus Network,” was sponsored by student Sen. Gerard McNair-Lewis, a junior at the University. It states that the Student Government Association Senate “hereby requests that the University take an outward stance on the use of pornography by prohibiting access to the top 200 pornography sites through the campus network.”
“This allows the University to remove itself as a means in accessing such material.”
The resolution was passed by a vote of 13 to 12, and signed by SGA President Jimmy Harrington. Student vice president, Weston Kirby, cast the tie-breaking vote.
In a statement issued after he signed the resolution, Harrington said that he did not think that Catholic University of America students had any inherent right to access pornography on the school’s internet.
“I am signing the Resolution not from purely religious or Catholic grounds, but because The Catholic University of America can and should exercise its rights to prohibit the use of pornography on the campus network,” said Harrington.
One of the resolution’s co-sponsors, Alexandra Kilgore, told CNA that she was surprised to learn action had not already been taken.
“I was honestly shocked to learn that such a ban wasn’t already in place. Even my public high school blocked inappropriate content on its wi-fi, so I knew The Catholic University of America could do better,” she said.
“As a woman, I thought it was important to be a cosponsor to bring to light that pornography is not just a men’s issue. Not only does the industry exploit and prey upon primarily women and girls, but females can struggle with addition and consumption just as much as males.”
Kilgore described the resolution as a positive expression of corporate concern among the student body, not a condemnation.
“Our resolution is not intended to shame anyone or to make pornography addiction more isolating than it already is. Rather, it demonstrates the Student Government Association’s commitment to the well-being of the student body and the University’s continued demonstration of the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
Harrington rejected the idea that blocking pornography amounted to censorship or a violation of personal freedoms, saying “it is a regulation that the national University of the Catholic Church or any private institution ought to enact.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes pornography as a “grave offense.”
It “offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other” and does “grave injury to the dignity of its participants,” the Church teaches.
“Civil authorities should prevent the production and distribution of pornographic materials,” states the Catechism.
Harrington pointed out in his statement that many secular organizations ban pornography from their networks, not only out of moral concerns, but also becasue such websites often contain viruses and other malware that can damage machines.
“If a secular company can block these sites from their networks and computers, then I am even more convinced that The Catholic University of America ought to be able to and should regulate these sites on its own network,” said Harrington.
Cornelius Deep, a member of the student Senate and one of the co-sponsors of the resolution, told CNA that the student body reaction to his resolution was not what he had expected.
“Surprisingly, the majority of people I have come across have thanked me for standing with this bill,” Deep said. Others have told him that while they were initially against the resolution, they changed their minds after attending the Senate meeting and hearing arguments against pornography.
Deep told CNA that he believes that most men his age recognize that pornography is bad, but continue to consume it due to its addictive nature. Still, he believes that what he and his fellow senators are doing is an important step.
“It is important to be the change you want to see in the world and if we want to see pornography, the intrinsic evil of degrading human beings, be eliminated than we must be the ones to start the change,” said Deep.
The resolution also enacted a clause requesting that the school provide additional pastoral services through its Counseling Center and Campus Ministry offering assistance to those who exposed to pornography.
Kilgore told CNA that many services were already available to students, and that these had a real value.
“Campus Ministry offers spiritual direction and/or aid in finding a spiritual director off campus, if that’s the student’s preference,” Kilgore said.
“The University Counseling Center also provides 45 free therapy appointments to students and unlimited group therapy appointments if the student would prefer to take a secular route. Just yesterday, Campus Ministry hosted Matt Fradd to speak about the myths surrounding pornography and to offer resources to students struggling [with addiction.”
While the resolution has been voted on and signed, it is technically non-binding and there is no guarantee its goals will ever come into fruition.
University administrators, though, told CNA that they are grateful with the steps taken by the students on this particular issue and will consider the ban in the future.
“It is difficult to ignore the firm stance against pornography made by our student body,” Karna Loyoza, spokesperson for The Catholic University of America, told CNA.
When the university last considered banning porn from the network, they found it would have been both expensive and ineffective. Now, due to advances in technology, it is now more affordable to implement this kind of filter, said Loyoza.
While students may work around a firewall and continue to access porn, “the student resolution made a convincing argument that banning porn on the University network sends the right message to the student body.”
“No decision has been made on the ban, but the University is grateful to the SGA for bringing to our attention their desire that we ban pornography on the University network,” said Loyoza.
Washington D.C., Apr 5, 2019 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- Mike Pompeo has said the Trump administration is doing its “level best” to prevent foreign aid dollars reaching organizations that perform abortions, and was looking to close “loopholes&… […]
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