A letter released Friday by Black Pentecostal and charismatic Christian leaders has decried criticisms of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s charismatic Catholicism, ahead of her possible appointment to the Supreme Court.
“Today we stand with, and speak in defense of, Judge Amy Coney Barrett,” the Sept. 25 letter said.
“As black Christians we will not stand by in silence as our sister in the faith is persecuted for the ‘political crime’ of her beliefs,” said the letter, which was signed by numerous clergy members, scholars, and religious leaders.
Barrett, said the letter, should be judged for her record as a lawyer, law professor, and judge in the U.S. Court of Appeals, not her religious beliefs and affiliations. Barrett is a reportedly a member of the People of Praise, an ecumenical charismatic organization based in South Bend, Indiana.
The judge’s affiliation with People of Praise has come under the spotlight as President Donald Trump prepares to nominate a new Supreme Court justice. The group has been repeatedly referred to as a “cult” and has been falsely accused of inspiring the dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
The letters signatories acknowledged that while they do not know if Barrett will be nominated for the Supreme Court, “we do know that attacks on her Christian beliefs and her membership in a charismatic Christian community reflect rank religious bigotry that has no legitimate place in our political debates or public life.”
“If Judge Barrett’s belief in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and in the moral convictions associated with the historic Christian faith disqualifies her for an office of public trust, then our American values of individual freedom and the right to follow one’s conscience are simply hypocrisy,” the letter said, adding that religious tests for public office are banned in the U.S. Constitution.
“Those who say that Judge Barrett’s charismatic Christian faith–or ours–is a threat to the Constitution are themselves enemies of the Constitution. They are enemies of the freedom of the individual,” the signatories added.
“Such behavior cannot be tolerated.”
Rev. Eugene Rivers III, director of The Seymour Institute for Black Church and Policy Studies and himself a Pentecostal minister, told CNA that “There’s an increasingly hostile environment for people of faith.”
“One of the cases that forced us to act was the disgraceful treatment of Professor Barrett. It was the disgraceful, unjust, unfair treatment of our sister of faith,” Rivers added.
“We felt it was absolutely essential, that as men of faith–or particularly as Black men of faith–that we needed to vigorously stand up and philosophically and politically defend the right of conscience and religion that’s part of our Constitutional order.”
Black men, said Rivers, are “acutely sensitive” to the persecution of the innocent.
“Few people could be more innocent and generous,” said Rivers.
“This loving mother, devoted wife, committed Christian. And so, as men, we felt that we were morally obligated to defend our sister.”
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Carissa Carroll, pictured with her son Jack, founded the nonprofit organization Jack’s Basket to celebrate babies with Down syndrome / Credit: Screenshot/EWTN Pro-Life Weekly
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 21, 2024 / 09:00 am (CNA).
As many countries celebrate World Down Syndrome Day on March 21, a panel of pro-life leaders and scholars is calling attention to the threat that prenatal testing poses to preborn children who are diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb.
“[The mother] often faces tremendous internal and external pressure to undergo an abortion,” said J.D. Flynn, who moderated the panel at the Catholic University of America’s Institute for Human Ecology and is himself the father of two children with Down syndrome.
Prenatal screening within the first 11 through 14 weeks of pregnancy can determine whether a preborn child has a higher likelihood of having Down syndrome, but a follow-up diagnostic test can confirm whether the child has the condition. Although efforts to destigmatize the condition have had some success, the likelihood that a mother will abort her child increases dramatically after such a diagnosis.
A 2012 study that compiled data from 24 studies between 1995 and 2011 found that more than two-thirds of preborn children who were diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb were killed via abortion. Rates throughout Europe are even higher — more than 90%. In Iceland, nearly all preborn children diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted and only about two or three children with Down syndrome are born every year.
Mary O’Callaghan, a visiting fellow at Notre Dame University’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, noted a disconnect between the “more positive” attitude the public expresses about people with Down syndrome and the “more aggressive targeting” of abortion for preborn children with Down syndrome.
“Those with Down syndrome are increasingly showing us their ability to flourish,” said O’Callaghan, who also has a child with Down syndrome. In spite of this, she said, “we’re in a much worse place in respect to abortion and Down syndrome.”
Bridget Brown, a 36-year-old woman with Down syndrome who serves on the National Catholic Partnership on Disability Council on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, expressed the same concern.
Noting the trends in countries such as Iceland, Brown said she may be from the last generation of people with Down syndrome: “The world may never again benefit from our gifts.”
“This is genocide — the systematic killing of a whole people,” Brown added, citing a letter she wrote to Pope Francis about the situation in Iceland before meeting the pontiff in 2017.
Bridget Brown meets with Pope Francis in Vatican City on Oct. 21, 2017. Credit: L’Osservatore Romano.
According to Tracy Winsor, who co-founded an organization to support couples who carry their children to term after a prenatal diagnosis called Be Not Afraid, many women consider abortion after a diagnosis because receiving the news is a “traumatic event” for most couples and is presented as a “worst-case scenario.”
Winsor noted that doctors will present a lot of information, which “can be overwhelming” at the moment. She advises parents to immediately connect with parents who have children living with Down syndrome and to advocates for individuals with Down syndrome.
O’Callaghan agreed: “Meeting with other parents around this time is very helpful [in reducing abortion].” Prenatal testing, she noted, should be oriented toward preparing for their child.
“They need to think about prenatal testing oriented toward the health of their child,” O’Callaghan said.
Brown similarly noted that like everyone else, her “life is filled with hopes and possibilities” and encouraged couples who receive a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis for their preborn child to approach the situation positively.
“Make plans based on dreams and not on fears,” Brown said. “Believe in yourself and your child.”
Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly speaks with EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado on Thursday, July 11, 2024, regarding the organization’s decision to cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in chapels in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut. / Credit: EWTN News
Rome Newsroom, Jul 11, 2024 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
The Knights of Columbus announced Thursday they will cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut, a dramatic move that represents the strongest public stand yet by a major Catholic organization regarding the former Jesuit’s embattled art.
The 2.1-million-member lay Catholic fraternal order said July 11 it would use fabric to cover the floor-to-ceiling mosaics in the two chapels of the St. John Paul II National Shrine in Washington and in the chapel at the Knights’ headquarters in New Haven, Connecticut — at least until the completion of a formal Vatican investigation into the Slovenian priest’s alleged abuse.
Patrick Kelly, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus, told EWTN News Thursday the opaque material would be installed “very soon” but gave no firm timetable. The Knights said in a statement released Thursday afternoon that the artwork may later be more permanently hidden with a plaster covering after the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issues its ruling on Rupnik.
The decision by the Knights to cover the sprawling works, which envelop both spaces, was made at the end of a comprehensive, confidential review process that included consultations with sexual abuse victims and those who minister to them, art historians, pilgrims to the shrine, bishops, and moral theologians.
“The Knights of Columbus have decided to cover these mosaics because our first concern must be for victims of sexual abuse, who have already suffered immensely in the Church, and who may be further injured by the ongoing display of the mosaics at the shrine,” Kelly said in the statement.
“While opinions varied among those consulted,” he said, “there was a strong consensus to prioritize the needs of victims, especially because the allegations are current, unresolved, and horrific.”
Kelly reiterated that point in his interview with EWTN News.
“Our decision process really came down to multiple factors. But the No. 1 factor was compassion for victims,” Kelly said. “We needed to prioritize victims over anything, any material thing. So that was our primary consideration.”
The first segment of Kelly’s interview with EWTN News will air on “EWTN News Nightly” Thursday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET. Additional comments will air on “EWTN News In Depth” on Friday at 8 p.m. ET.
Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Patrick Kelly speaks with EWTN News President and COO Montse Alvarado on Thursday, July 11, 2024, regarding the organization’s decision to cover mosaics by the accused abuser Father Marko Rupnik in chapels in Washington, D.C., and Connecticut. Credit: EWTN News
Once a renowned artist Rupnik, whose mosaics are featured in hundreds of Catholic shrines, churches, and chapels around the world, was expelled from the Jesuits in June 2023.
His expulsion followed a long review of what the society called “highly credible” accusations of serial spiritual, psychological, and sexual abuse of as many as 30 religious sisters by the priest spanning decades. Some women allege Rupnik’s abuse sometimes happened as part of the process of creating his art at the Centro Aletti, an art school he founded in Rome.
The Vatican announced in late October 2023 that Pope Francis had waived the statute of limitations in the Rupnik case, allowing the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith to do a canonical investigation into the abuse allegations.
There has been no further communication from the Vatican about the inquiry, and it is unclear whether Rupnik may still be living in Rome despite having been given priestly faculties in a diocese of his home country of Slovenia last year.
Growing public outcry
What to do with Rupnik’s once widely-praised works, colorful mosaics characterized by grand, flowing figures and large eyes, has proven to be a divisive question in the wake of the numerous allegations against him, which first came to public attention in December 2022.
While some want to await Vatican judgment before dismantling and replacing Rupnik’s works, much of it made in collaboration with other artists of the Centro Aletti — a Rupnik-founded art school and theological center in Rome — the public outcry for the removal of his art has intensified.
The Knights also announced several immediate changes that would be enacted at the shrine in solidarity with abuse victims, including providing educational materials about the mosaics, making clear that their display during the consultation process “was not intended to ignore, deny, or diminish the allegations of abuse.”
Every Mass at the St. John Paul II National Shrine will now also include a prayer of the faithful for victims of sexual abuse, and saints with connections to abuse victims, such as St. Josephine Bakhita, will be specially commemorated.
The group said it became aware of the allegations against Rupnik in December 2022 — and noted that the artist, while under investigation, remains a priest in good standing in the Diocese of Koper, Slovenia.
“This decision is rooted in a foundational purpose of the Knights of Columbus, which is to protect families, especially women and children, and those who are vulnerable and voiceless,” Kelly said in the July 11 statement.
The “Redemptor Hominis” chapel of the National Shrine of St John Paul II in Washington, DC, is decorated with mosaics by Fatherr Marko Rupnik. Credit: Lawrence OP|Flickr|CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The St. John Paul II National Shrine is a pastoral initiative of the Knights of Columbus, established in 2011, and designated a national shrine by the U.S. Catholic bishops in 2014.
Rupnik’s mosaics were installed at the shrine in 2015. The Holy Family Chapel at the Knights’ headquarters has featured Rupnik’s art since 2005.
Highlighting the John Paul II shrine’s mission of evangelization, the supreme knight said, “the art we sponsor must therefore serve as a stepping stone — not a stumbling block — to faith in Jesus Christ and his Church.”
Rupnik has not made any statements since the allegations came to light.
An eye on Lourdes
The Knights’ move to conceal the mosaics follows just a week after the bishop of Lourdes, France, said that despite his personal feelings that Rupnik’s artwork at the renowned Marian shrine there should be removed, he has decided to wait to make a final decision due to “strong opposition on the part of some.”
After forming a special commission in May 2023, Bishop Jean-Marc Micas of Tarbes announced July 2 that more time was needed “to discern what should be done” about Rupnik’s mosaics at the Marian apparition site, because his belief that they should be torn down “would not be sufficiently understood” and “would add even more division and violence” at this time.
As a “first step,” the French bishop said he had decided the mosaics will no longer be lit up at night during the shrine’s nightly candlelight rosary processions.
In his interview with EWTN News, Kelly said the Lourdes bishop’s intent to make a decision of some kind this spring galvanized the Knights to act at this time.
In his July 11 statement, Kelly thanked the Lourdes bishop for his “thoughtful decision” and said it “both informed and confirmed us in our own decision-making. Shrines are places of healing, prayer, and reconciliation. They should not cause victims further suffering.”
Emphasizing the importance of discernment based on mission and context, the supreme knight said: “Every situation is different. In the United States, Catholics continue to suffer in a unique way from the revelations of sexual abuse and, at times, from the response of the Church. It is clear to us that, as a national shrine, our decision must respect this country’s special need for healing.”
The Knights of Columbus was founded in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1882 by Blessed Michael McGivney, a parish priest. Dedicated to the advancement of the group’s key principles — charity, unity, fraternity, and patriotism — its members in 2022 provided 50 million service hours and nearly $185 million to charitable causes in their communities.
National Catholic Register Editor-in-Chief Shannon Mullen contributed to this story.
Nicaraguan political prisoner Juan Sebastian Chamorro speaks to the press ouside a hotel in Herndon, Virginia, on Feb. 9, 2023, after he was released by the Nicaraguan government. / Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
I used to attend people of praise prayer meetings while in college. They reached out to me as a new Catholic. I was hurt by liberal Catholics. They helped me to seek healing from God. The people of praise are not a cult.
I hope they come to the hearings.
I used to attend people of praise prayer meetings while in college. They reached out to me as a new Catholic. I was hurt by liberal Catholics. They helped me to seek healing from God. The people of praise are not a cult.