CNA Staff, Jul 21, 2020 / 04:52 pm (CNA).- Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond, Virginia celebrated the 200th anniversary of the diocese with a call to reflect on grace in moments of hardship.
“For our bicentennial, we ask God to grace us with a new birth, a new springtime for all the faithful here in the Diocese of Richmond,” the bishop said in a recent homily.
“As we celebrate 200 years as a diocese amid a crisis and pandemic, we are reminded as bishops, priests, deacons, consecrated, the entire people of God that we are called to be a people always centered on Christ.”
Knestout celebrated Mass at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart July 11. The Mass included the ordination of two priests: Anthony Ferguson for the Diocese of Richmond, and Julio Reyes for the Diocese of Zacatecoluca, El Salvador.
The ordinations had been postponed from an earlier date due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Due to ongoing state restrictions limiting church gatherings to 50% of building capacity, the Mass was attended by 230 people, including 44 priests, according to The Catholic Virginian.
During the Mass, the cathedral displayed the relics of St. Vincent de Paul, St. John Neumann, and St. Katharine Drexel. It also displayed a replica of the apostolic brief, a formal papal letter founding the Diocese of Richmond.
In his homily, Knestout reflected on the various hardships the Catholic community in Virginia has faced over the past 200 years, including shortages of priests, insufficient resources, racism and bigotry, and epidemics such as Yellow Fever in 1820 and the Spanish Flu in 1919.
These challenges are similar to those facing people today, he continued, and Catholics in the diocese now can take heart in the faithfulness of God.
“In good times or bad, God has never abandoned us,” the bishop said. “Moved by this conviction, Catholics respond to the needs around us by making sacrifices for the sake of the Church, for the poor and for the common good by seeking ways to alleviate the pain of others.”
The bishop encouraged those present, especially the newly ordained ministers, to focus not on themselves but on evangelization and service to those who are vulnerable.
“As we grapple with the [coronavirus] pandemic and political and cultural turmoil, we are strengthened to serve others and give witness to our faith,” he said.
As Christians, Knestout said, we are called “to seek our center not in any idea, any ideology, any movement, any activity, any club, any association, any tribe, any nation – not to find our center there but to find and hold our center in Christ.”
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Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson testifies on her nomination to become an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court during a Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on March 22, 2022. / Saul Loeb/AFP via Get… […]
Washington D.C., Nov 7, 2018 / 02:31 pm (CNA).- Jeff Sessions has stepped down as attorney general. The decision came at the request of President Donald Trump.
A known defender of religious liberty and the right to life of the unborn, but a controversial actor in recent asylum and immigration debates, Sessions submitted his resignation on Wednesday afternoon.
In an undated letter, Sessions said “At your request, I am submitting my resignation.”
He continued, “I came to work at the Department of Justice every day determined to do my duty and serve my country. I have done so to the best of my ability, working to support the fundamental legal processes that are the foundation of justice.”
Sessions cited his successes in prosecuting “the largest number of violent offenders and firearm defendants” in history, as well as his work targeting transnational gangs, combating the opioid epidemic, and enforcing immigration law during his time as attorney general.
Rumors of Sessions’ departure from the administration had been circulating for months. In August, Trump said that Sessions would be staying as attorney general until at least November, but only weeks later appeared to avoid the question when asked if Sessions’ job was safe.
Tensions between the president and AG were said to begin following Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from oversight of the Justice Department invesitgation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s nomination of Sessions as attorney general was cheered by pro-life groups due to his record in Congress as a Senator for Alabama. National Right to Life gave Sessions a perfect 100 percent rating throughout his Senate career.
In July of this year, Sessions created a religious liberty task force to ensure proper implementation of a memo from the year prior. In announcing the task force, Sessions said there was a “dangerous movement” afoot that was “challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom.”
Sessions also garnered significant controversy over his handling of immigration issues, particularly the family separation policy. In June, he was criticized after citing Romans 13 to justify the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration.
“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained the government for his purposes,” said Sessions.
Romans 13 states, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.” Those critical of Sessions noted that the same verse had been invoked in the past to defend slavery.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston and president of the USCCB, was publicly critical of Sessions stance on immigration at the start of the conference’s Spring General Assembly.
DiNardo said that Sessions’ alteration of the United States’ policy on asylum seekers “elicits deep concern because it potentially strips asylum from many women who lack adequate protection,” and could “erode the capacity of asylum to save lives, particularly in cases that involve asylum seekers who are persecuted by private actors.”
DiNardo also joined Bishop Joe Vasquez, who chairs the USCCB’s migration committee, in condemning family separation as “not the answer” to immigration issues, as well as being “immoral.”
Until a replacement is nominated, Matthew G. Whitaker, Sessions’ former chief of staff, will serve as Acting Attorney General. President Trump said that Sessions’ replacement “will be nominated at a later date.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey walks across the campus of St. John’s Prep in Danvers, Massachusetts, on April 9, 2024. / Credit: Screenshot of St. John’s Prep Facebook page last visited April 19, 2024
Boston, Mass., Apr 23, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).
Pro-lifers in the Archdiocese of Boston are criticizing Cardinal Seán O’Malley over two recent appearances at Catholic education events by the pro-abortion governor of Massachusetts.
Earlier this month, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat who supports legal and publicly funded abortion and who has taken steps to make abortions easier to obtain, spoke at a fundraiser for The Catholic Schools Foundation, which raises money for Catholic schools in the archdiocese and helps poor students attend.
O’Malley, the archbishop of Boston, is the chairman of the board of trustees of the foundation, though he was in Rome at the time of the gala and did not attend it.
Healey also recently visited a Catholic school north of Boston, speaking to students and answering questions.
C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, called Healey’s appearances “a grave scandal.”
“Cardinal O’Malley should be ashamed of himself. Is Maura Healey an inspiring role model for Catholic students?” Doyle said.
Thomas Harvey, chairman of the Massachusetts Alliance to Stop Taxpayer Funded Abortions, called including Healey at the Catholic events “really disgraceful,” and he placed the blame on O’Malley.
“Maura Healey is a huge proponent of killing babies in the womb, in direct defiance of Catholic teaching, and yet here she is being presented to impressionable Catholic students as if she were a Catholic role model,” Harvey told the Register by text. “And the clear message being sent to Catholic students here is that killing babies in the womb is just not that big a deal.”
In June 2004, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops approved a document called “Catholics in Public Life,” which states: “The Catholic community and Catholic institutions should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles. They should not be given awards, honors, or platforms which would suggest support for their actions.”
Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Boston, pointed out that Healey was not an honoree at the gala or during her earlier appearance at the Catholic school.
Since Healey is the governor of the state, Donilon said, Cardinal O’Malley has worked with her “on a number of issues important to Catholics and the wider community,” including public funding for the archdiocese’s charitable work providing “basic needs assistance, job training, child care services, and immigration and refugee assistance to thousands of residents,” as well as building “badly needed affordable housing” and trying “to stem gun violence.”
“At the same time, the cardinal has been a leader in the pro-life movement for over 50 years and his commitment in being a staunch promoter of life is well known and unwavering,” Donilon said.
O’Malley, 79, a Capuchin Franciscan, has frequently attended the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and has spoken at pro-life rallies. Last week, The Boston Globe published a column by O’Malley urging state legislators to oppose a bill that would legalize physician-assisted suicide.
But critics such as Doyle claim that O’Malley during his time as archbishop has seemed to mix easily and uncritically with abortion-supporting Catholic politicians, including the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (whose funeral Mass he celebrated), the late Boston mayor Thomas Menino, former Boston mayor Marty Walsh, and the current governor, Healey, with whom he co-authored a column in The Boston Globe in September 2017 on immigration.
Donilon, O’Malley’s spokesman, addressing Healey’s participation in The Catholic Schools Foundation gala last week, said that “the governor has been a vocal supporter of Catholic education. … Our Catholic schools save cities and towns hundreds of millions of dollars in education costs. Our families benefit from an outstanding education based in an excellent faith-based environment.”
Gov. Maura Healey speaks to students at St. John’s Prep on April 9, 2024. Credit: Screenshot of St. John’s Prep Facebook page last visited on April 9, 2024.
Who is Maura Healey?
Healey, 53, was elected Massachusetts attorney general in 2014 with an endorsement from Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund. She served two terms as attorney general before being elected governor of Massachusetts in November 2022.
As an elected official, Healey has frequently supported public policies that clash with Catholic teachings on life and sexuality.
She has verbally attacked pro-life pregnancy centers, steered state government money to private abortion funds, and, in April 2023, quietly arranged for the flagship campus of the state-run University of Massachusetts to purchase 15,000 doses of abortion pills.
Healey’s administration in June 2023 successfully proposed a curriculum framework for public schools that calls for teaching between third and fifth grades “the differences between biological sex and gender identity” and “how one’s outward behavior and appearance does not define one’s gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Healey appeared Thursday, April 11, at the annual gala of The Catholic Schools Foundation at a hotel in Boston.
“So I didn’t have the benefit of going to Catholic school,” Healey said, according to a text of her remarks provided by a spokesman. “My mom went to Catholic school, and my nephew goes to Catholic school; we have priest[s] at the dinner table every Sunday. But I do know, both having been your attorney general and now as your governor, what your work means. And I can see that experience firsthand.”
She also said she wants to find ways “to partner” with the foundation “in the important work that you [are] doing.”
“And I want you to know that, as governor, I value our vibrant mix of education, our public schools, our private schools, and our religious schools,” Healey said.
Two days earlier, on Tuesday, April 9, Healey spent about 50 minutes with a group of 120 students at St. John’s Preparatory High School, a Catholic boys’ school founded by the Xaverian Brothers in Danvers, about 18 miles northeast of Boston, according to a description of the visit published on the school’s website. The school is in the Archdiocese of Boston, though it is not run by the archdiocese.
Healey had never visited the school before, “but it was quickly clear her personal values are closely aligned with those of the Xaverian Brothers,” the school’s write-up states.
Healey emphasized leadership and empathy during her remarks. The governor also told the students that while she believes in civil discourse, “there are some basic values that have kept our society intact,” and she told students they should “call out hate when you see it.”
“We can have differences of opinion on things,” Healey said, according to the school’s write-up, “but, to me, equality has got to abide. Respect for the dignity and worth of each person is something I call on people to really adhere to.”
Robert Joyce, a lawyer and member of the board of the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund, which provides legal representation for pro-lifers, said that St. John’s Prep last fall turned down an offer he made to provide a pro-life assembly for students featuring a canon lawyer, a physician, and a vocations director. (The head of school, Edward Hardiman, did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.)
Joyce called Healey’s recent appearances at the gala and at the school “abominations for Catholic education.”
“They send the clear message to Catholic students and parents that critical, fundamental precepts of the Catholic faith are not all that important. In simple terms, they declare that protection of innocent unborn life and the defense of traditional marriage are negotiable with these Catholic educators,” Joyce indicated.
Healey is also a featured speaker at the annual Spring Celebration of Catholic Charities Boston scheduled for Wednesday, May 29, at the Boston Harbor Hotel in Boston. O’Malley is expected to receive an award at the event for his work in welcoming immigrants.
Healey and the Catholic Church
Healey does not often talk about religion in public, but she occasionally identifies herself as a Catholic.
In October 2018, when she was state attorney general, she led off a brief column in The Boston Globe with the words: “As a member of law enforcement and as a Catholic …”
In April 2022, when Healey criticized Bishop Robert McManus of Worcester for calling for a Catholic school to take down a rainbow flag, she added, according to MassLive.com: “And I speak as a Catholic …”
In October 2022, during a debate while she was running for governor, Healey used a Catholic reference while defending herself from a claim by her Republican opponent that a bill she had supported effectively legalized infanticide, as the National Catholic Register subsequently reported. “You know, my mom goes to Mass every morning,” Healey said.
Healey is widely thought of as a potential candidate for other offices. She would be an obvious Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts if either of the two incumbents (both in their 70s) leaves office.
Additionally, just hours before her appearance at The Catholic Schools Foundation gala, Healey participated in an event at Northeastern University in Boston honoring former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. The moderator floated Healey as a potential future candidate for president of the United States, to applause from the audience.
This story was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and is reprinted here on CNA with permission.
His Excellency did not mention a pressing and current challenge – one that has faced him since his appointment. Its absence from his litany implies that it’s not a high priority for him, which is telling, and troubling.
Virginia’s Catholic Senator Tim Kaine lives in Richmond. He is 100% pro-abortion, yet has never been publicly corrected, much less canonically penalized. This scandal is compounded when Kaine’s pastor gives him a standing ovation, and even more when Kaine touts his Catholic Faith without a murmur of discontent from the chancery.
The reason for the silence, the hesitation to act? It might lie in the fact that Virginia’s Blackface Attorney General Mark Herring, a close ally of Kaine, has in his hands the files of every priest in +Knestout’s diocese. Could one false move (so to speak, since of course we mean a *correct* action taken) on the part of the bishop bring down upon him the sword now dangling over his head?
That is a story in itself, and it should be written and published in this fine journal.
“His Excellency” Lord Knestout is a “McCarrick-Establishment-clericalist-fraud.”
His persecution of Fr. Mark White is utterly repulsive and evil.
But what should we expect of the former secretary to the sociopath-sex-abuser-fraud McCarrick, who personally “groomed” Knestout to make him what he is: a servant of the ZEITGEST.
His Excellency did not mention a pressing and current challenge – one that has faced him since his appointment. Its absence from his litany implies that it’s not a high priority for him, which is telling, and troubling.
Virginia’s Catholic Senator Tim Kaine lives in Richmond. He is 100% pro-abortion, yet has never been publicly corrected, much less canonically penalized. This scandal is compounded when Kaine’s pastor gives him a standing ovation, and even more when Kaine touts his Catholic Faith without a murmur of discontent from the chancery.
The reason for the silence, the hesitation to act? It might lie in the fact that Virginia’s Blackface Attorney General Mark Herring, a close ally of Kaine, has in his hands the files of every priest in +Knestout’s diocese. Could one false move (so to speak, since of course we mean a *correct* action taken) on the part of the bishop bring down upon him the sword now dangling over his head?
That is a story in itself, and it should be written and published in this fine journal.
“His Excellency” Lord Knestout is a “McCarrick-Establishment-clericalist-fraud.”
His persecution of Fr. Mark White is utterly repulsive and evil.
But what should we expect of the former secretary to the sociopath-sex-abuser-fraud McCarrick, who personally “groomed” Knestout to make him what he is: a servant of the ZEITGEST.