Year: 2020

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Experts push back on criticism of Amy Coney Barrett’s ‘covenant’ agreement

September 24, 2020 CNA Daily News 2

CNA Staff, Sep 24, 2020 / 06:30 pm (CNA).-  

Legal experts have pushed back after a Catholic commentator said it is reasonable for the Senate to question potential Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett’s membership in the People of Praise, a charismatic covenant community based in South Bend, Indiana.

Barrett, a federal judge and professor at Notre Dame Law School, is widely reported to be a member of the People of Praise, and has faced media criticism for that, even while covenant communities have been fixtures in American Catholic and Protestant churches since the 1970s.

Massimo Faggioli, a historian and Catholic commentator, wrote a Sept. 24 op-ed for Politico Magazine expressing suspicion about the vows or promises Barrett may have made to an entity that, in his view, appears to lack the accountability of the official Church hierarchy. 

Faggioli noted that “the dogmatic dimension of the Catholic intellectual tradition is, literally, an open book—the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

However, Faggioli claimed, “[Barrett] has made solemn promises that go far beyond the baptismal promises every Catholic makes.”

“To whom has Barrett made a vow of obedience? What is its nature and scope? What are the consequences of violating it?” Faggioli asked.

The professor did not note that since 2018, the People of Praise have made their covenant publicly available on their website. The covenant requires members to promise mutual support, common Christian discipleship, and common Christian witness. Members often move into the same low-income neighborhoods, in order to promote community development and develop charitable programs.

The People of Praise have said that their covenant agreement differs from a vow— which is a promise made to God— and that members are free to leave at any time.

Nevertheless, the Senate’s vetting process for Supreme Court nominees ought, Faggioli said, to examine “oaths and commitments they may have made that could affect or supersede an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Faggioli did not mention that numerous Supreme Court justices have been Freemasons, making vows of loyalty that are generally understood to supersede other loyalties and obligations.

In a Catholic context, “vows” are specifically defined by the Code of Canon Law as promises made to God, while the group’s covenant speaks of “a unique relationship one to another and between the individual and the community.”

The group’s covenant, according to the People of Praise’s website, is “made freely and only after a period of discernment lasting several years.”

“Our covenant is neither an oath nor a vow, but it is an important personal commitment. We say that People of Praise members should always follow their consciences, as formed by the light of reason, and by the experience and the teachings of their churches,” the group’s website reads.

The group’s website also states that “we have always understood that God can call a person to another way of life, in which case he or she would be released from the covenant.”

A former member of the People of Praise told CNA that the covenant was taken seriously, and as a result his family was encouraged to reconsider when they decided to leave several decades ago, but the group did release them from the covenant..

Even vows of obedience, in and of themselves, are not new or uncommon amongst Catholics. As Faggioli himself notes, Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and lay Catholic members of “secular institutes” all take them.

“But at least in these communities, the vow of obedience that such a person has made would be visible, formal and accountable. That is not the case with new Catholic charismatic communities, whose vows are not public and whose leadership is not accountable under Church law,” Faggioli writes.

People of Praise’ covenant, which is publicly available, speaks mostly about the members’ commitments to each other and to the community, and does not explicitly include any provisions related to obedience to the group’s leadership, though it does provide that the member “accept the order of this community.”

Part of the covenant includes a promise to “obey the direction of the Holy Spirit” “in full harmony with the Church.”

Covenant communities- Protestant and Catholic- emerged across the country in the 1970s, as a part of the Charismatic Renewal movement in American Christianity.

While most People of Praise members are Catholic, the group is officially ecumenical; people from a variety of Christian denominations can join. Members of the group are free to attend the church of their choosing, including different Catholic parishes.

The group began with 29 members who formed an agreement to follow common principles, to give five percent of annual income to the group, and to meet regularly for spiritual, social, and service projects.

Rick Garnett, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, argued in a response to Faggioli’s op-ed that while there may be legitimate reasons for a nominee’s faith to come up in their hearings, a willful misunderstanding or misrepresentation of a nominee’s beliefs is not acceptable, nor is the application of greater skepticism to a nominee’s sworn testimony because of disagreements with that nominee’s religious beliefs or affiliations.

“Several Democratic senators did these things during Barrett’s hearings on her Court of Appeals nomination, and too many commentators and activists are doing these things now,” Garnett contended.

Barrett offered sworn testimony in 2017  to the Senate that she sees “no conflict between having a sincerely held faith and duties as a judge,” and that she will “never impose my own personal convictions upon the law.”

In a 2018 interview with the South Bend Tribune, People of Praise leader Craig Lent said the group never tries to influence how their members live their professional lives.

Faggioli in his op-ed cited a 2014 warning from Pope Francis for church communities in which he advised them not to “usurp the individual freedom” of members.

But Garnett noted that Pope Francis has praised charismatic renewal movements as a “current of grace” in the Catholic Church, and rejected the idea that Pope Francis’ comments could be used to single out People of Praise specifically.

Bishop Peter Smith, auxiliary of Portland in Oregon and a member of the People of Praise, rejected the idea that there is anything out of the ordinary or inappropriate about the group. If affiliation with the group were something to be concerned about, he said, Pope Francis would not have appointed him a bishop.

Some former members of the People of Praise have alleged that leaders have exerted undue influence over family decision-making, or pressured the children of members to commit to the group before being able to make that decision with maturity.

One critic, philosopher Adrian Reimers, has written that the group has made “serious errors” in its theological approach.

One former member of the group acknowledged the criticisms the group has faced, and said groups like People of Praise can develop unhealthy dynamics without careful attention. But he told CNA that “the rank and file People of Praise members are very, very good people, wholeheartedly dedicated to the Lord,” he said.

 


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News Briefs

Uyghur detention centers in Xinjiang expanding, researchers find

September 24, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Sep 24, 2020 / 02:08 pm (CNA).- Researchers at an Australian think tank have found that re-education camps for Muslims in China’s Xinjiang region have expanded in the past year, despite government claims that most detainees had been released.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute said in a Sept. 24 report that it had “identified and mapped more than 380 suspected detention facilities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, highlighting ‘re-education’ camps, detention centres and prisons that have been newly built or expanded since 2017.”

“The findings of this research contradict Chinese officials’ claims that all ‘trainees’ from so-called vocational training centres had ‘graduated’ by late 2019. Instead, available evidence suggests that many extrajudicial detainees in Xinjiang’s vast ‘re-education’ network are now being formally charged and locked up in higher security facilities, including newly built or expanded prisons, or sent to walled factory compounds for coerced labour assignments.”

The think tank presented satellite imagery evidence showing construction and expansion at 61 sites since July 2019; half of these, it said, are ‘higher security facilities, which may suggest a shift in usage from the lower-security, ‘re-education centres’ toward higher-security prison-style facilities.”

It added that “at least 70 facilities appear to have been desecuritised by the removal of internal fencing or perimeter walls. This includes 8 camps that show signs of decommissioning, and it is possible they have been closed.”

An estimated 1 million Uyghurs, members of a Muslim ethnoreligious group, have been detained in re-education camps in Xinjiang. Inside the camps they are reportedly subjected to forced labor, torture, and political indoctrination. Outside the camps, Uyghurs are monitored by pervasive police forces and facial recognition technology.

The Chinese government has defended its policy of mass detention and re-education as an appropriate measure against terrorism.

The government at one time denied the camps even existed, but has since shifted to defending its actions as a reasonable response to a national security threat, and claiming they are vocational training centers.

Government officials from the region said in July 2019 that the area’s re-education camps for Muslims have been successful, with most of those held having been reintegrated into Chinese society.

Shohrat Zakir, chairman of Xinjiang, said at a July 30 press conference in Beijing that “most of the graduates from the vocational training centers have been reintegrated into society,” according to the AP. “More than 90% of the graduates have found satisfactory jobs with good incomes.”

Xinjiang vice chairman Alken Tuniaz said detainees were allowed to “request time off” and “regularly go home,” the AP reported.

While they are not permitted to practice their religion during their “period of study”, he said, they may do so at home.

Tuniaz also said that “the majority of personnel who received education and training have returned to society and gone back to their homes,” according to the Wall Street Journal. “The majority have successfully secured employment.”

Uyghurs can be arrested and detained under vague anti-terrorism laws. Violence in the region escalated in the 1990s and again in 2008.

A 2019 document from a Xinjiang county leaked to western media earlier this year gave violation of birth control policies as the most common reason for the “re-education” of some 3,000 Uyghurs, often alongside other reasons.

In June an AP investigation found a systematic campaign by the Chinese Communist Party of pregnancy checks and forced abortions, sterilizations, and implantations of IUDs on Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang.

The US House passed a bill Sept. 22 to ensure goods sold in the country are not made with forced labor from the internment camps, and earlier this year the Trump administration put travel and asset sanctions on several senior officials of the CCP. in Xinjiang for their role in the mass internment of Uyghurs.

The US Commerce Department in October 2019 added 28 Chinese organizations to a blacklist barring them from buying products from US companies, saying they cooperate in the detention and repression of the Uyghurs.

The repression of Uyghurs is part of a widespread effort by the Chinese government to “Sinicize” religion and culture across the country.

In 2018, the Holy See and Beijing signed a two-year deal to unify the underground Catholic Church in China with the communist-administered Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, and to collaborate on the appointment of bishops in Chinese dioceses. That agreement is expected to be renewed. State officials in various regions of China have continued to remove crosses and demolish church buildings, and underground Catholics and clergy continue to report harassment and detention.

A Sept. 22 report by Adrian Zenz at the Jamestown Foundation said that in the Tibet Autonomous Region hundreds of thousands have been coerced into vocational training or labor camps.

And in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, beginning this month schools are transitioning from teaching three core subjects in Mongolian, to doing so in Mandarin.


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