Month: September 2020

Washington D.C., Sep 13, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).-  

As both the Biden and Trump presidential campaigns court Catholic voters, both campaigns have made efforts to suggest they represent a commitment to Catholic social teaching. But there are marked differences between the candidates’ approaches on issues Catholics say are important to them in the voting booth, especially abortion.

President Donald Trump has received praise for the U.S. bishops’ conference (USCCB) for some of his policies, and criticism for other policies.

Trump’s administration has enacted conscience protections for health care workers, expanded protections against taxpayer funding of abortion providers and promoters domestically and overseas, halted federal funding of research using aborted fetal tissue, and worked to end a government mandate that doctors perform gender-transition surgeries upon request.

The administration has offered legal relief for Catholic organizations opposing the government’s contraceptive mandate, including the Little Sisters of the Poor.

At the same time, Trump’s administration has also resumed federal executions after a 17-year moratorium, cut down on the number of refugees the U.S. allows each year, has separated migrant children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, and has begun the deportation of Chaldean Christians from the Detroit metro area—all of which earned criticism from the USCCB.

Trump has also been criticized for issues of personal character, an issue the Biden camp says should be front and center in the campaign.

Patrick Carolan is Catholic outreach director for the group Vote Common Good, which is campaigning for Joe Biden.

Catholics should heed the advice of Bishop Robert McElroy of San Diego, Carolan said, that “a person’s character is what’s as important as any of these issues when considering who to vote for.”

Carolan shared an anecdote about a friend he said is Catholic and voted for Trump in 2016.

After watching Biden’s friendly interaction with a stuttering boy at the 2020 Democratic National Convention, Carolan said, his friend remembered Trump’s apparent mocking of a disabled reporter in 2015. He reconsidered his preferred candidate, Carolan said.

“Because in those two instances, Joe Biden is definitely more Christ-like than Donald Trump. Not that either of them are Christ-like,” Carolan told CNA, before emphasizing again that he was “not suggesting that Joe Biden is Christ-like.”

Catholics may blanch at Biden’s support for abortion, but the administration will not be as extreme on the issue as critics are charging, Carolan said.

“Despite what the Republicans say, Biden’s not somebody who thinks that women should be able to have abortions even when they’re giving birth,” Carolan said. A Biden administration, he said, would be “willing to have discussions” on policies that reduce abortions.

Amid the 2020 campaign, however, pro-life Democrats have decried the party’s “extreme” support of abortion in its 2020 platform. Biden has not responded to their call for a platform that would welcome pro-lifers to the party.

While Biden was criticized during the Democratic primary by some abortion advocates, the candidate supports pro-abortion policies that would expand even upon those that existed during the Obama administration.

Biden says he would “work to codify Roe v. Wade,” the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that legalized abortion, “as amended by Casey.” The Court’s 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision upheld Roe, but said that state laws could regulate abortion so long as they did not pose an undue burden on women seeking abortions.

Biden supports taxpayer funding of elective abortions in the U.S. through the repeal of the Hyde Amendment; a position Biden adopted last year under pressure from liberal groups. He also opposes the Mexico City Policy, which bars U.S. foreign assistance from funding foreign groups that perform or promote abortions.

And Biden’s health plan would offer public funding of abortions on a mass scale, something that President Obama promised he would not do when the Affordable Care Act passed Congress. Biden says he would set up a public health insurance option which, among other things, would cover contraceptives and abortions.

Biden also says his Justice Department “will do everything in its power” to stop state abortion restrictions, such as parental notification requirements or ultrasound requirements.
 
Recently, Biden’s selection of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as his running mate reignited pro-life concerns about abortion policy in his administration.

Harris has been an outspoken proponent of abortion. She grilled judicial nominees on the issue while on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as California attorney general, she supported legislation to force pro-life pregnancy centers to inform clients where they could get abortions.

Harris also has connections to Planned Parenthood. Her presidential campaign communications director, Lily Adams, is the daughter of former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards. And following Harris’ selection as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Planned Parenthood spent five figures on a video ad calling her “OUR Reproductive Health Champion,” according to the Washington Post.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says that laws protecting the right to life are of primary importance in civil societies.

“The inalienable right to life of every innocent human individual is a constitutive element of a civil society and its legislation,” the Catechism says.

Despite the Catechism’s teaching, Carolan told CNA that abortion should not be the primary issue that Catholics consider in the voting booth, adding that the abortion rate is falling no matter who is in office—and has actually declined faster during Democratic administrations.

“We have to have a discussion about abortion, but it can’t be framed in black-and-white, like some people try to make it. And it’s not the only issue,” Carolan said.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, the abortion rate (number of abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age) rose sharply after 1973, the year the Supreme Court struck down state bans on abortion and ruled that there is a right to abortion. The rate jumped from 16.3 to 29.3 between the years 1973 and 1981. It has then declined steadily since to a 2017 rate of 13.5 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44.

Fr. Frank Pavone, founder of Priests for Life, who supports Trump’s re-election, told CNA that the abortion rate, ratio (number of abortions compared to number of live births), and absolute numbers of abortions have all declined, but the drop is due to “complex” factors including increased education on abortion, fewer abortionists and clinics, the rise of pro-life pregnancy centers, sexual mores, and state restrictions on abortion.

Federal and state abortion restrictions will push the number of abortions and the abortion rate down, and not increase it, he said.

Pavone pointed a report published by the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute that reviewed more than 20 studies in peer-reviewed journals; the institute concluded that birthrates of women on Medicaid increased when the Hyde Amendment took effect in the 1970s, and that the policy “routinely” saves around 60,000 lives each year and has resulted in more than two million lives saved since 1976.

In conclusion, “the more the abortion industry is funded, the more abortions will occur,” Pavone said.

Regarding Biden’s promise to codify Roe, the abortion rate, numbers, and ratio “skyrocketed” after the Roe decision in 1973, Pavone said, and thus “[i[t stands to reason that a codification of Roe would not lead to a decrease in those numbers.”

Carolan says that a proliferation in free or affordable contraception could also reduce abortions. He pointed to a Colorado program, funded by a grant from Warren Buffett’s family, that provided no-cost intrauterine devices (IUDs) to health clinics throughout the state. According to state officials in 2017, it had resulted in a 64% decline in the teen abortion rate in eight years, state health officials claimed in 2017.

“Of course that opens up another issue then about birth control with the Catholic Church, but those are issues that we have to have discussions about and think about,” Carolan said.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church says contraception is a moral evil, explaining that any “action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible’ is intrinsically evil.”

Carolan emphasized to CNA that in his view, and the Biden campaign’s, other pressing issues such as the separation of immigrant families at the U.S.-Mexico border, and the environment, are just as important as abortion.

“Every day 15,000 children die of starvation, of hunger diseases. You think God cares less about those children than those who die of abortion?” he asked.

The U.S. bishops’ conference has said that while Catholics should weigh numerous issues in the voting booth, abortion is a priority.

In a 2020 letter, the bishop’s conference said that “the threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed.”

The bishops’ letter adds that “we cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty and the death penalty.”

Religious freedom has also been at the center of presidential political debates.

Carolan downplayed the issue, telling CNA that “religious freedom” is a “word that’s misused, and it can be used for almost anything.” He claimed that “religious freedom” has historically been used to justify causes ranging from slavery to churches conducting same-sex marriages before Obergefell.

“We need to stop spreading the myth that our religious freedom is being violated,” Carolan said, noting that there is “not a war against Catholicism.”

During the campaign, Biden has said that he would reinstate the Obama administration’s rules for religious nonprofits on the HHS contraceptive mandate—thus potentially forcing Catholic groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, who say the rule violates their religious conscience, to go back to court.

Biden also says he will undo the Trump administration’s “broad exemptions” for religious groups to nondiscrimination laws—thus possibly opening the door to a flood of litigation against religious groups.

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CNA Staff, Sep 13, 2020 / 03:14 am (CNA).- The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) has agreed to reverse a policy that barred funding for Martin Luther King Jr.’s niece to be brought to campus as a pro-life speaker.

“The Constitution is clear that public universities can’t discriminate against students for their political or religious beliefs, and we are hopeful that Georgia Tech’s decisive policy changes will set an example for universities around the country to uphold all students’ constitutional rights,” Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins said in a Sept. 10 statement.

The university’s chapter of Students for Life (SFL) during fall 2019 had invited Dr. Alveda King to speak on campus.

King, a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives, frequently speaks on pro-life issues and is director of the pro-life group Civil Rights for the Unborn.

Like many public universities, Georgia Tech collects an activity fee from all students, which the Student Government Association uses to fund campus events. SFL requested $2,346 in funding to bring King to campus.

According to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a Christian law firm representing SFL, the Student Government Association questioned SFL’s leadership about the content and viewpoints that King would present at the event. ADF says the student government voiced concerns about King’s views on abortion and gay marriage, and concern that King’s viewpoints might offend some students.

According to ADF, the student government denied SFL’s funding request, stating in part that because King has been involved in religious ministries, her life was “inherently religious.”

ADF sued the university in April 2020 on behalf of Students for Life. On Sept. 2, the university’s board of regents agreed to settle the case.

As part of the settlement, the school revised its policies to state that student activity funding would be viewpoint neutral. Georgia Tech also agreed to pay $50,000, as well as attorney’s fees.

“Thankfully, Georgia Tech has shown its renewed commitment to [First Amendment] principles by taking quick corrective action to revise their policies so that all student organizations are treated fairly, regardless of political or religious views,” said ADF Senior Counsel Tyson Langhofer.

“We hope that other universities around the country will ensure their policies meet constitutional muster without the need for a lawsuit.”

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Denver Newsroom, Sep 12, 2020 / 04:51 pm (CNA).- Snuffy the Snuffleupagus’ parents were supposed to have divorced in 1992. The brown, fuzzy Muppet-quasi-mammoth, a beloved feature character on the PBS show Sesame Street, was going to chronicle his experience of the split in an episode intended to address a difficult topic with children.

But the episode never aired. Reportedly, during its screening, it “made preschoolers cry” and did not further their understanding of concepts surrounding divorce, and so it was pulled. It wasn’t until a decade later that the kid’s show would again take on the topic of divorce, in a small segment posted only on their website.

Divorce is a difficult topic to discuss with children, even though an estimated 1 million of them experience it every year.

Today, an estimated one-quarter of young adults are children of divorce – and many of them feel they were failed as youngsters in addressing their pain from the experience.

“That can come from messages from society, like a ‘happy divorce talk’,” Bethany Meola told CNA. The messaging of those talks often goes something like: “kids are resilient, you’ll be fine.” 

But divorces and separations often cause deep emotional, spiritual and psychological wounds in children that can last well into adulthood – and that are rarely formally addressed. This is why Bethany, along with her husband Dan, co-founded Life Giving Wounds, a Catholic ministry offering healing retreats, talks and resources for adult children of divorce.

“Our ministry looks at a number of the common wounds that children of divorce experience,” Bethany said. She added that the ministry is for adults whose parents divorced or separated when they were children or young adults.

“The first wound we address is the wound of silence,” she said. Children of divorce often feel like talking about the pain caused by the divorce is not allowed – that it just further burdens their parents, or that divorce is normal and therefore should not be a big deal.

“There’s a lot of testimonies now from adult children of divorce that they felt like, ‘I don’t know how to share this or where to go with this, or even if anyone will care’,” Bethany said.

Bethany herself is not technically an adult child of divorce – her parents separated a few times but got back together, and remained married.

But her husband Dan, co-founder of Life Giving Wounds, is an adult child of divorce. His parents separated when he was 11, but didn’t formalize the divorce until he was 26. That left Dan feeling like he lived in “somewhat of a limbo, though it was pretty clear they weren’t getting back together,” he said.

Dan said as a kid, he felt confused by the separation at first, and then hopeful about his parents possibly reuniting. It pushed him towards God, towards prayer.

“I was praying like crazy for my parents. A lot of rosaries, a lot of Divine Mercy Chaplets in grade school, sixth, seventh, eighth grade.”

But his understanding of those prayers was kind of “cold,” he said. He thought if he just prayed enough prayers, God had to grant him what he wanted. That eventually led to a lot of disillusionment and anger, Dan said, when it became clear a few years into the separation that his parents were not going to get back together.

“You’re caught between anger and love with your parents,” he said. “As a kid growing up, even as an adult…it’s still hard to navigate that – those complex, warring emotions.”

Dan waffled between not wanting to talk about the divorce – because the emotions were just too confusing and because he was worried how his parents would react – to feeling overwhelming anger because it seemed like there was an “unspoken rule,” particularly around his parents or siblings, that the divorce was something that was not to be talked about.

It wasn’t until Dan was a junior in high school that he really started to seek healing through the Church from the effects of the divorce, he said. He went on a retreat and he talked to some priests about what he had experienced for the first time. He told his parents he was seeking healing, and they were accepting of it.

“That really ushered in a path of healing that was going to extend over four more years very intensely,” he said, even though the process was “haphazard.” Not much existed in the Church to address this specific issue, and he had to seek out a lot of resources on his own.

As he studied marriage and family in graduate school at the Potificial John Paul II Institute at The Catholic University of America, Dan was part of a focus group that studied the effects of divorce on adult children. The project, called Recovering Origins, inspired him to create retreats that would help adult children of divorce – and these retreats would soon become the ministry, Life Giving Wounds.

The name of the ministry is taken from 1 Peter 2:24, “this beautiful passage which is, ‘by his wounds, you are healed’,” Dan said.

“It’s Christ teaching us the spirituality of redemptive suffering and helping people live that.”

That healing comes about in several ways, Dan and Bethany said. The first goal of the retreat is to “give voice to the pain,” to let retreatants know that their wounds as a result of divorce are valid, and giving them a place to grieve what was lost.

They share their stories and get their wounds “all out on the table.” Those wounds can take many shapes, Dan added, from protective behaviors like promiscuity and cohabitation, to broken relationships with parents or other family members, to identity crises and strained relationships with God.

Then they bring those wounds to the Holy Spirit in prayer, he said, and invite healing in. They also help facilitate further conversations with parents, spouses, friends, and therapists as needed.

“We also provide them resources on our blog to follow up with a support group. We give them recommended reading, so we give them a lot of the tools that they need in those different avenues, and we’re constantly creating more things,” Dan said.

Jennifer Cox was one of the first participants in a retreat for Recovering Origins, when Life Giving Wounds was still taking shape. Cox’s parents divorced when she was 7 in what she said was a kind of “best case scenario” divorce, at least on paper. Her parents were respectful to each other, they lived close enough to one another that bouncing back and forth between them was not too difficult. They both remained very involved in her life, attending her swim meets and other school events. Jennifer graduated college, became a nurse, and owned a home. By all measurable accounts, she was a successful adult.

“When I was in high school or my early twenties, if somebody said to me, ‘Wow, I’m so sorry that your parents are divorced. That must be really hard for you,’ I just would have looked at them like, ‘Okay. Well I mean, thanks, but I’m fine’,” she said.

But Cox started to notice something was wrong around her late 20s, she said. Although her life was seemingly going well, she experienced depression and anxiety, despite having normally been a very positive and upbeat person. She struggled with self-confidence and had an outsized fear of failing. 

She now recognizes that many of those wounds came from a place of not wanting to disappoint her parents and make life even harder for them. She said she also realized early on that she took it on as her “job” in the family to make her parents happy, so that they would not be sad because of the divorce.

“I started therapy, I started really digging into some of my struggles and a lot of the dots connected back to my parents’ divorce,” Cox told CNA. “And I was shocked, honestly. I just had no idea, because my parents divorce was a ‘good divorce’ and we had minimal issues. I have good relationships with both of them.”

The beauty of the retreat, Cox said, was being able to unite her wounds to Christ and to realize that she could use them to help others.

“When he was on the cross, Jesus suffered and had the ultimate woundedness of obviously physical wounds, but also the huge woundedness of being rejected,” Cox said. “Then that was redeemed. He rose again…he did that for all of us.”

“So for me, and specifically this wound of my parents divorce, in being able to acknowledge it and share my story…it makes it worth it somehow.”

Cox now volunteers with the ministry and helps coordinate content for their Instagram page. She said she would recommend the retreat to anyone whose parents have separated or divorced.

“If their parents are divorced, I’d want them to really take the time to reflect, to see where they are, did their parents’ divorce affect them. I think there are so many people walking around struggling with all sorts of things, but not realizing that there might be this route to (healing) that maybe we need to focus on. Think about it, pray about it, bring it to the Lord. Don’t ignore it, really lean into that.”

Samuel Russell is another participant in a Life Giving Wound retreat who now volunteers with the ministry, helping edit their blog.

Russell is a convert to Catholicism but grew up in a Christian environment, he said. Two years ago, when he was engaged to his now-wife, there were family issues and wounds that arose as he prepared for marriage.

Russell’s fiancee was the one who found Life Giving Wounds, and recommended that Russell try one of their retreats.

As someone about to get married, Russell said he was struggling with not having grown up with a marriage that lasted.

“It was the question of: Am I able to do this? Is this something I can actually do, live with? The phrase in the vows – ‘To have and to hold all the days of my life’ – not having that modeled, and having actually a broken model of that, it’s like you’re carrying that with you into something where you’re planning to say: ‘for the rest of my life’.”

“It was a challenge trying to grapple with the psychological level of, yes I can do this,” he said.

Russell said one thing that really struck him during the retreat was a song, Waiting in the Wound, by Michael Corsini.

The song “helped reframe how I think about Christ because…The song implies that Christ is already there. He’s in that wound that you know you have and he knows you have. He’s just waiting for you to come so he can heal it,” Russell said.

Russell said he encouraged other adult children of divorce to explore their own healing when they felt ready.

“I want people to know that they’re not alone in their suffering or grief on this issue,” he said. “And it’s okay to address it now, or address it in the future at a time when you feel more comfortable exploring it.” 

Dan said he hopes that Life Giving Wounds helps spark more conversations about healing from divorce in the Church, where sometimes there can be a stigma attached to the topic.

“I think the stigma is there for different reasons, like ‘Oh, I don’t want to bring up woundedness, that’s such a sensitive topic,’ or, ‘I don’t want to treat them as fragile,’ or, ‘I don’t want to upset their parents’,” Dan said.

“I would just say, I’d rather err on giving voice to the pain than saying nothing at all,” he said. “(Adult children of divorce) are getting the message, by and large, that this is something not to talk about, I can’t go to the Church and talk about this, I can’t go to the priest to talk about it. I haven’t heard many homilies from priests about divorce and the effect on children. I don’t know any I’ve heard in the last four or five years.”

Like countless ministries this year, Life Giving Wounds has had to cancel their in-person retreats for 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, the ministry is hosting an online retreat starting in October, the details of which can be found on their website, LifeGivingWounds.org.

Bethany said while they are disappointed to cancel their in-person retreat, they are hoping the online option makes it even more accessible.

“If you’re a child of divorce and you have seen ways that it’s affected you, it’s a retreat to go on. Or, if you’re not even sure, if you’re thinking okay, I’ve never really taken a good look at this, it’s a great retreat to go on for that, too. There will be people of all different places on that spectrum,” Bethany said.

“No matter what happened with your parents’ marriage, no matter when they divorced, no matter if they ever even were married, if your parents are not together, then the retreat is for you.

“You’re not alone,” Dan added.

 

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