Month: June 2020

Denver Newsroom, Jun 22, 2020 / 08:19 pm (CNA).- Leading education expert Father Ronald Nuzzi will head a task force for Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Seattle, with a special focus on the “ministerial covenant” that helps Catholic teachers witness to and pass on the Catholic faith.

“Catholic schools are rooted in the Catholic faith. It’s what makes them different from other private schools,” Nuzzi told CNA. “Therefore, our educators are asked to teach from this faith-based foundation.”

“At the core of the faith are the great mysteries, which root both parishes and schools in the Incarnation, the Trinity, the Paschal Mystery, and the Eucharist,” he said.

Nuzzi is a priest of the Diocese of Youngstown in Ohio and professor emeritus of the University of Notre Dame. He is senior director emeritus at the university’s Alliance for Catholic Education, which aims to support, improve and expand Catholic K-12 schools, especially schools lacking resources.

“Catholic schools had their origin in the immigrant Church, providing a safe and faith-filled place where newcomers to this country could learn, grow, and prosper,” Nuzzi said. “They served a vital social and religious purpose, providing waves of immigrants the opportunities to fully participate in American society. Today, Catholics are part of the mainstream, but schools are still providing a counter-cultural witness, addressing the secularization, consumerism, relativism, racism, and hyper-individualism that are so common today.”

“In some ways, a Catholic school education, rooted in Gospel values and the example of Jesus, are even more important today than they once were,” he continued.

Nuzzi’s task force is set up to secure three key goals. These include a review and study of Church documents about Catholic teaching and tradition, especially the formation of conscience, free will, and human social and sexual development. The task force will assess, analyze and summarize the convictions, beliefs and opinions of archdiocesan stakeholders about the ministerial covenant and its use in employment decisions.

They will make a recommendation based on “an informed and thoughtful approach” to renewal of the ministerial covenant in a way that respects both of the previous goals and “embraces the fullness of church teaching while honoring and appreciating the sense of the faithful,” the Seattle archdiocese said.

The archdiocese did not respond to CNA’s questions about the meaning of “the sense of the faithful,” or what would happen if public opinion conflicted with Church teaching.

“The Ministerial Covenant ensures that our 73 Catholic schools reflect our Catholic faith. How it is applied across our Catholic schools is of great interest not only to me, but to all our principals, teachers, parents and students,” Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle said in a June 16 statement from the Seattle archdiocese.

He voiced gratitude for Nuzzi’s leadership in “this important body of work.”

“He is a well-known leader in Catholic school administration and has a wealth of experience as well as a great passion for the faith and Catholic schools,” Etienne said.

Nuzzi will review nominees for task force membership. Nominees include principals, pastors, parents of children in Catholic schools, Catholic school teachers and members of the archdiocese’s Office for Catholic Schools. The nominees will be announced in July.

“The ministerial covenant is signed by all employees of the Archdiocese of Seattle. It hasn’t been updated in several years, so this taskforce will review its language and how it is applied at Catholic schools across the archdiocese,” Nuzzi told CNA. “What is important about the title ‘ministerial covenant’ is that every Catholic school in the country, including all in the Archdiocese of Seattle, considers teachers to be ministers of the Gospel and witnesses to the faith.”

Ministerial language is not intended to “clericalize” lay teachers or obscure the lay state, he said.

“Lay leaders not only help run our Catholic schools, they help run our entire archdiocese,” Nuzzi said. “This taskforce is focused on Catholic teaching and the Catholic faith – not on clericalization. In calling our teachers ministers, we are saying they are public, contractually committed, inspired examples, worthy of emulation, not clerics.”

The task force will meet 12 times from August 2020 to June 2021. Members are asked to maintain confidentiality about all deliberations.

In a statement from the archdiocese, Nuzzi described Catholic schools as a “vital part” of the Church’s mission. He said he was “enthusiastic” about the task force and “its potential to help shape a brighter future for youth, children, and families.”

The Seattle archdiocese covers the territory of western Washington State. Almost 580,000 Catholics are registered with a parish and make up over 15% of the area’s population.

The people of Washington state tend to be more secular than other Americans. Those without religious affiliation make up the largest group, about 32%, if small sections of atheists and agnostics are grouped with 22% who self-identify as “nothing-in-particular.” However, 61% self-identify as Christian. Evangelical Christians make up about 25% of Washingtonians, 17% identify as Catholic, and 13% as mainline Protestant, the Pew Research Center reported in 2019.

The task force was announced in February after the Seattle archdiocese saw a controversy in which the facts are disputed. Two teachers at Kennedy Catholic High School in Burien, Washington either resigned voluntarily in order to contract same-sex civil marriages with different partners, or were forced out of their positions.

Michael Prato, president of Kennedy Catholic, said in a February statement that the two teachers approached him in November 2019 to share their desire to civilly marry their same-sex partners.

The teachers had voluntarily signed a covenant agreement to “live and model the Catholic faith in accord with Church teaching,” Prato said. In light of the agreement they signed, both chose to resign, he said. The school worked out a transition plan and financial package for the teachers.

“I hired these teachers and I care about them very much. I still do,” Prato said. “I wanted to make sure they felt supported, and so we discussed several options including the possibility of finishing out the school year.”

Groups of students staged protests in support of the teachers. Students, as well as parents and alumni of the school, also staged a protest outside the diocesan chancery in Seattle.

The two teachers’ attorney, Shannon McMinimee, said the teachers were forced out. She said they “were hoping to have a dialogue with the school about their desire to be their authentic selves and not hide that they were engaged and not hide who they were engaged to.”

“And that — what they thought would be a conversation with their principal turned into being called into the presidents’ office and being told that the superintendent of the archdiocese school system wanted their keys the minute they found out they were gay and engaged,” McMinimee said, according to KING 5 News Feb. 21.

Archbishop Etienne addressed the situation in a Feb. 19 statement.

“Pastors and church leaders need to be clear about the church’s teaching, while at the same time refraining from making judgments, taking into consideration the complexity of people’s lived situations,” he said, stressing that the end goal of accompanying people in faith is “to help people embrace the fullness of the Gospel message and integrate the faith more deeply into their lives.”

“Those who teach in our schools are required to uphold our teaching in the classroom and to model it in their personal lives,” he said. “We recognize and support the right of each individual to make choices. We also understand that some choices have particular consequences for those who represent the church in an official capacity.”

The Catholic Church teaches that while homosexual inclinations are not sinful, homosexual acts “are contrary to the natural law… under no circumstances can they be approved.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church goes on to say that people with these inclinations should be “accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

In 2003, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that “in those situations where homosexual unions have been legally recognized or have been given the legal status and rights belonging to marriage, clear and emphatic opposition is a duty.” It said Catholics must refrain from any kind of formal cooperation with such laws and, insofar as possible, any material cooperation.

“In this area, everyone can exercise the right to conscientious objection,” the CDF said.

In the United States, various Catholic schools and dioceses have faced lawsuits from employees who have been fired after contracting civil same-sex marriages in violation of the diocesan or school policy.

Despite strong social pressure, the legal freedom of primary and secondary Catholic schools appears secure at present. In the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court case Hosanna Lutheran Church and School v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the court unanimously ruled that religious organizations do not need to follow federal anti-discrimination laws in what was characterized as a “ministerial exception.”

At the same time, religious freedom has become a target by some LGBT advocacy groups and politicians who say it wrongfully protects actions they consider discriminatory.

[…]

CNA Staff, Jun 22, 2020 / 07:30 pm (CNA).- As New York City’s eviction moratorium expires for some people affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Catholic Charities has warned that many low-income residents may face risk of eviction.

New York City… […]

CNA Staff, Jun 22, 2020 / 06:40 pm (CNA).- The Catholic bishops of California have defended St. Junipero Serra, after statues of St. Junipero were torn down in both San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The bishops said June 22 that the saint was “ahead of his time” in defending the rights of indigenous peoples and that those who have called for statues of him to be removed or torn down “failed the test” of history.

A statue of Serra was torn down in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park June 20, along with statues of Francis Scott Key and Ulysses S. Grant. In Los Angeles the same day, rioters pulled down a statue of Serra in the city’s downtown area.

“The movement to confront racism within our society during these past weeks has been, at times, challenging,” said a statement from the California Catholic Conference of Bishops on Monday, “but it has provided bold new hope for every American that our nation can begin to transform key elements of our racist past and present.”

The bishops said that they “vigorously and wholeheartedly support” efforts to identify, and repair historical instances of racism against members of the African-American and Native American communities, but that on the specific question of removing statues and other public images, the actual history of the individuals must be considered.

“If this process is to be truly effective as a remedy for racism, it must discern carefully the entire contribution that the historical figure in question made to American life, especially in advancing the rights of marginalized peoples,” they said.

“In calling for the removal of images of Saint Junipero Serra from public display in California, and in tearing down his statue in San Francisco and in Los Angeles, protesters have failed that test.”

Serra, who was canonized a saint by Pope Francis in 2015, was an eighteenth century Franciscan missionary who founded nine Catholic missions in the area that would later become California; many of those missions would go on to become the centers of major California cities.

The saint helped to convert thousands of native Californians to Christianity and taught them new agricultural technologies.

Some California activists view Serra, an 18th-century Franciscan missionary, as having contributed to the destruction of Native American way of life through his founding of the first nine of California’s mission churches. Many of the priest’s biographers dispute those claims.

Referring to a statement by San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone on Saturday, the state’s bishops defended the saint’s life and mission.

“The historical truth is that Serra repeatedly pressed the Spanish authorities for better treatment of the Native American communities,” they said. 

“Serra was not simply a man of his times. In working with Native Americans, he was a man ahead of his times who made great sacrifices to defend and serve the indigenous population and work against an oppression that extends far beyond the mission era.”

If that is not enough to legitimate a public statue in the state that he did so much to create,” the bishops observed, “then virtually every historical figure from our nation’s past will have to be removed for their failings measured in the light of today’s standards.”

On Saturday, Archbishop Cordileone said that Serra made “heroic sacrifices to protect the indigenous people of California from their Spanish conquerors, especially the soldiers,” recalling how Serra, despite having an infirm leg, walked to Mexico City to obtain special authority from the Spanish viceroy to discipline the military who were abusing the indigenous people.

“Then he walked back to California,” the archbishop said.

Cordileone it is important not to “deny that historical wrongs have occurred, even by people of good will, and healing of memories and reparation is much needed. But just as historical wrongs cannot be righted by keeping them hidden, neither can they be righted by re-writing the history.”

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CNA Staff, Jun 22, 2020 / 06:05 pm (CNA).- President Donald Trump on Monday said he will issue an executive order designed to protect public statuary, as statues around the country have been torn down or defaced amid protests in recent weeks.

The president spoke during an exclusive June 22 interview with Raymond Arroyo, host of EWTN’s “The World Over.” During the interview, Trump also spoke about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program and an open letter written to him by former U.S. apostolic nuncio Archbishop Carlo Viganò.

“We’re going to do something very soon,” Trump said. “We’re going to do an executive order. We’re going to make the cities guard their monuments, this is a disgrace.”

Amid protests that began after the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer, statues of historical figures have been torn down by some demonstrators.

While protesters against racism began by toppling statues of Confederate Civil War figures, demonstrators in recent days have toppled other figures: George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant among them, along with St. Junipero Serra, a Catholic missionary who founded nine missions in California.

Trump emphasized his claim that cities most dramatically impacted by protests, rioters, or looting are those in which Democrats are in power.

“It’s all Democrats, usually liberal Democrats. Take a look. Whether it’s Chicago, it’s Democrat, Seattle, it’s Democrat. The state of Washington. It’s Democrat. Portland, it’s Democrat. All of these places are run by Democrats. Twenty out 20 are Democrat-run,” the president said. “They don’t know what they’re doing. And if Biden got in, this country would be a disaster.”

“Take a look at the way we’re running things, we’re running them good. And if I weren’t president, talk about the statues, we wouldn’t have any statues standing right now. Because I did things that you don’t know about to save a lot of them,” the president added.

Arroyo asked Trump about whether presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is pro-life, noting that some Catholics claim Biden is a pro-life candidate because of his opposition to the death penalty and his efforts to end climate change, while claiming Trump is not.

“I am totally in favor of the death penalty for heinous crimes, ok? That’s the way it is,” the president said.

“I’m pro-life, he’s not. And the Democrats — look who he’s putting on the court.”

“They want to put people on the court- you have no chance. So I’m pro-life, the Democrats aren’t. Nobody can say that Biden is, look at his stance over the years,” the president added, saying that in his view Democratic party operatives will advance a pro-abortion agenda if Biden is elected to the White House.

“Look at the governor of Virginia, look at what he did. He did an execution after. You know, normally you talk about late-term, his wasn’t late-term, his was, the baby was born, and then you can execute the baby. That’s the Democrats. That’s Joe Biden.”

The president referenced a 2019 Virginia bill supported by Gov. Ralph Northam, which opponents said would permit abortion even while a woman was in active labor.

During dispute over the bill, Northam said on a talk radio show that that if a baby were sufficiently disabled at birth, it could be “kept comfortable” and might be resuscitated if the mother wished, and there could be a “conversation” between doctors and the mother regarding what should be done with the baby.

Trump also talked about a June 18 Supreme Court decision that keeps intact the DACA program, which Trump has made efforts to terminate.

On DACA, Trump said that “What we want to do is win the case and then work it out.”

“They’re not going to have anything to worry about,” Trump said of DACA recipients, immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

While the president has said he is willing to make a deal on immigration reform to preserve the DACA program, some U.S. bishops have said that approach amounts to using DACA recipients as leverage in a political debate.

On June 18, the U.S. bishops’ conference urged President Trump “to strongly reconsider terminating DACA,” citing the plight of immigrant families during the new coronavirus pandemic. To end the program “needlessly places many families into further anxiety and chaos,” they said.

Trump was also asked about allegations by former National Security Advisor John Bolton that the president approved of the construction of internment camps in which up to one million Uighur people have been detained in the Xinjiang region of China.

The allegations are contained in “The Room Where It Happened,” a memoir by Bolton to be released June 23.

“The book is a total lie, or mostly a lie,” the president said, noting that in his view Bolton violated the law by including classified information in his book.

“Everybody was in the room and nobody heard what Bolton heard,” Trump said of the allegations concerning the internment of the Uighur people in forced labor and “reeducation” camps.

The president also spoke about his concerns that mail-in ballots in the upcoming presidential election could lead to a “rigged election,” and offered comments on police reform and his belief that states which have not reopened their economies amid the coronavirus are keeping health measures intact for partisan political purposes.

Commenting on the country’s racial strife, Trump told Arroyo that because of his efforts on criminal justice reform and other policy initiatives, “I did more for our black population than anybody other than Abraham Lincoln. And nobody’s even close.”

The president remarked on a June 6 open letter written to him by former apostolic nuncio Archbishop Carlo Viganò.

The letter said that “it appears that the children of darkness – whom we may easily identify with the deep state which you wisely oppose and which is fiercely waging war against you in these days – have decided to show their cards, so to speak, by now revealing their plans.”

Viganò added that some bishops are “subservient to the deep state, to globalism, to aligned thought, to the New World Order which they invoke ever more frequently in the name of a universal brotherhood which has nothing Christian about it, but which evokes the Masonic ideals of those want to dominate the world by driving God out of the courts, out of schools, out of families, and perhaps even out of churches.”

The president said that he thinks Vigano’s letter is accurate, calling it a ”tremendous letter of support from the Catholic Church.”

Viganò “is highly respected as you know. It was beautiful, it was really three pages long, it was a beautiful letter. Yeah, he’s right in what he says,” Trump said.

[…]

CNA Staff, Jun 22, 2020 / 04:41 pm (CNA).- Black Catholics in Pittsburgh will have a personal parish to respond to their specific needs, Bishop David Zubik has said in response to local requests and a listening session held in early 2020.

“Along… […]

Denver Newsroom, Jun 22, 2020 / 03:20 pm (CNA).- In Los Angeles and San Francisco over the weekend, protestors tore down two statues of St. Junipero Serra, an 18th-century Franciscan priest and missionary who they accused of contributing to the destruc… […]

CNA Staff, Jun 22, 2020 / 03:08 pm (CNA).- While statues of St. Junipero Serra have been taken down by protestors in California cities, the mission church in Ventura, California, founded by the saint, has announced it will work with local officials and indigenous tribal leaders to see a Serra statue outside Ventura City Hall moved to “a non-public location.” 

The announcement came days before a statue of St. Serra was torn down in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park June 20, along with statues of Francis Scott Key and Ulysses S. Grant. In Los Angeles the same day, rioters pulled down a statue of Serra in the city’s downtown.

“Some people disagree with the way that I am handling this, and that’s ok. Some people agree. Some people have even asked that I should be pastor of a mission. Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinion,” Father Tom Elewaut, pastor of the San Buenaventura mission church, said in a homily on June 21.

“The statue is up today, isn’t it? And that is due to not only the joint statement, but the strong position of the elders of the Chumash, who are local here. We want to see the statue preserved. It needs to be relocated— it could have very well been toppled yesterday,” the priest said.

Though protestors rallied at the bronze statue in Ventura on June 20 and reportedly called for it to be torn down, Chumash tribe elders have been adamant that they want a peaceful solution.

“We are going to become a model for the nation so it’s not this riot mob act and desecration, and even having a statue broken into pieces. That is our goal, and that we hope will come to fruition,”  Elewaut added.

Across the country, protestors and rioters this week have pulled down statues of historic figures— some depicting Confederate figures, as part of a call to end systemic racism, but others depicting such figures as George Washington and Grant.

Some California activists view Serra, an 18th-century Franciscan missionary, as having contributed to the destruction of Native American way of life through his founding of the first nine of California’s mission churches. Many of the priest’s biographers dispute those claims.

Elders of the Chumash Native American tribe met last week with Ventura Mayor Matt Lavere and Fr. Elewaut.

“The three of us are confident that a peaceful resolution regarding the Father Junipero Serra statue can be reached, without uncivil discourse and character assassination, much less vandalism of a designated landmark,” the parties said in a June 18 joint statement.

“We all believe that the removal of the statue should be accomplished without force, without anger, and through a collaborative, peaceful process. This process has already commenced through our initial meeting and we look forward to continuing the discussion with the community to help guide further action on this.”

The proposal to remove the statue, which was dedicated in 1989, will need to go before the city council, the parties said, and a formal removal decision has not yet been made.

A similar statue was beheaded at the Old Mission Santa Barbara in 2017, and red paint was used to graffiti the mission in 2018, Ventura’s ABC affiliate reported.

Pope Francis canonized Serra in Washington, D.C. on Sept. 23, 2015, saying that “Junípero sought to defend the dignity of the native community, to protect it from those who had mistreated and abused it,”

Father Elewaut, said in his Sunday homily that while it is true that many Native Americans died after contact with Europeans, “it wasn’t a purposeful or contrived death” because most of them died of disease, which no one at the time fully understood.

Father Elewaut was present at the June 20 rally, and said he hopes the peaceful dialogue in which he and the Chumash elders have so far been engaged can be a model for the nation, to show that controversial statues need not be torn down by force.

The idea that Serra created what were akin to “concentration camps” for the Natives is “categorically false,” Elewaut said.

“The blame cannot be put on one person, or one movement…but the hurt that they feel, the the pain that we should join with them in feeling is true, and it remains true, and it will remain true whether our statue stands or not,”

“But if [the removal] brings some healing, if that brings some peace of mind, then so be it…statues come and go, but the truth will be laid bare,” the priest said, acknowledging that the statue will be removed from its current location, but the Church’s mission will continue.

The mission will continue to be a sign of God’s grace, regardless of the location of any particular statue, he said.

“Serra wanted to share what he truly believed to be the great gift of Christianity, of Catholicism, of sacramental life,” the priest said.

Elewaut said he has been working with the elders of the Chumash tribe, for whom he has “profound respect.” He hopes to continue to work with the Chumash, some of whom are parishioners at the mission.

Elewaut told Ventura’s ABC affiliate that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles is open to moving the statue from City Hall to mission grounds. The LA Archdiocese did not confirm this by time of posting.

Serra was instrumental in founding the first nine of the 21 missions in California, many of which would form the cores of what are today the state’s biggest cities— such as San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

A native of Petra Mallorca in Spain, Serra was a renowned scholar who gave up his academic career to become a missionary in North America.

Serra arrived in Mexico City in 1750, entering the vast territory of New Spain. The Spanish had been in North America for over 200 years at that point, after Hernan Cortez’ conquest of the Aztec Empire in 1521.

While many activists today associate Serra with the abuses that the Native Americans suffered, biographies and historical records suggest that Serra actually advocated on behalf of the Natives against the Spanish military and against encroaching European settlement.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco decried “mob rule” that led to the tearing down of Serra’s statue in his city. 

Cordileone said in a statement June 20 that he did not want to “deny that historical wrongs have occurred, even by people of good will, and healing of memories and reparation is much needed. But just as historical wrongs cannot be righted by keeping them hidden, neither can they be righted by re-writing the history.”

The archbishop praised the saint’s missionary zeal: “St. Junipero Serra also offered them the best thing he had: the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, which he and his fellow Franciscan friars did through education, health care, and training in the agrarian arts.”

In 2018, San Francisco’s city government removed a statue of the saint from a prominent location outside City Hall. A statue of the saint remains on display in the U.S. Capitol.

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CNA Staff, Jun 22, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami has been appointed as the acting chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Religious Liberty, following the death of Bishop George Murr… […]