Year: 2020

Denver Newsroom, Sep 1, 2020 / 03:00 am (CNA).-  

Several Catholic entrepreneurs this week were awarded $100,000 each as investment in project ideas “that will make a profound impact on the Church and the world.”

The OSV Institute’s annual Demo Day, whereby Catholic entrepreneurs pitch ideas for a chance to earn a significant investment, was held virtually last weekend with some 400 attendees.

Over the past year, some 350 Catholic entrepreneurs submitted their ideas for consideration. By May, the judges had narrowed it down to 12 finalists, who presented their pitches to judges Aug. 29 via Zoom.

The three winning ideas— each of which earned a $100,000 investment— include a Spanish-language podcast network; an initiative to help parents teach the Catholic faith at home; and an organization designed to reach and minister to young adults experiencing same-sex attraction. 

CNA spoke with the winners to ask about the genesis of their ideas, and how they expect the prize money will impact their initiatives.

Eden Invitation

Eden Invitation is a relatively new ministry in the Catholic Church that seeks to provide community, accompaniment and resources for people who experience same-sex attraction or gender dysphoria and who want to unashamedly follow Christ and Catholic Church teaching.

Shannon Ochoa, co-founder of Eden Invitation, told CNA that the ecumenical movement currently has chapters, called “hubs,” in three cities in the Midwest. The hubs lead retreats and online small groups to help build community, she said.

With the help of the OSV grant, they hope to expand to at least seven additional cities soon.

The idea that they pitched to OSV is called “Hearth and Porch,” Ochoa said.

The “Hearth” portion involves forming the city-based hubs for young adults to join, where they can pray together and support each other.

The “Porch” portion consists of a testimonial campaign from Catholics who experience same-sex attraction— ideally to be released during June, aka “Pride Month,” 2021.

Both Ochoa and Anna Carter, Eden Invitation’s other co-founder, experience same-sex attraction and credit their strong faith backgrounds with providing them the framework and the love for God necessary to stay and thrive in the Catholic Church.

Ochoa said one thing that makes Eden Invitation new and different is the attention they pay to the secular LGBT community, seeking to imitate that movement’s sense of radical community and joyful witness— but in service of the Church’s teaching, rather than LGBT ideology.

“It’s a fresh take in the Church,” she said.

Often times when the conversation comes up in the Church, people with same-sex attraction may feel “on the receiving end of ministry” rather than a part of a community, she said.

Ochoa said their ministry wants to encourage Catholics and Christians to be unashamed to talk about their experience of same-sex attraction, and also to be unafraid to proclaim Christ and the Church’s teaching related to same-sex attraction.

Ochoa said the outpouring of excitement and support after their project won the OSV prize was very encouraging for them.

“The whole community was really moved. It’s really more than $100,000…it’s people’s lives changed, it’s hearts knowing that they have a space in the Church, and recognition that we’re loved in God’s eyes,” she said.

Juan Diego Network

José Manuel De Urquidi, founder and CEO of JDN, told CNA the project’s goal is to “evangelize, inform, and entertain Latinos”— both in Latin America and in the USA— with high-quality, engaging podcast content.

In the Latino world, De Urquidi said, people tend to be culturally Catholic, but not well-formed in the faith.

In addition, he said, Latinos are consuming more and more podcasts, and the quality of Latino Catholic podcasts is generally not very high.

“It seems that the New Evangelization has not been reaching Latinos. So that’s the idea,” De Urquidi told CNA.

De Urquidi said he strayed briefly from the faith intellectually as a teen, and later went to law school, worked in the financial world for a time, and even started a craft brewery. He later earned a Master’s degree in Mass Communications, and started a podcast, which grew into the Juan Diego Network.

De Urquidi has been growing JDN for the last year. He said one of the goals is to help Latino Catholic speakers, authors, and influencers start and maintain their own podcasts, at no cost to them.

With the grant he won at the competition, De Urquidi hopes to expand JDN’s podcast offerings with new, highly produced podcasts and through more partnerships with Latino leaders. They also plan to host virtual summits to foster community among Latino Catholics, he said.

“The New Evangelization will get to Latino millennials and Gen Z, we are sure of it, and we are just a small part of it,” he said.

Catholic Sprouts

Bill and Nancy Bandzuch’s two-year old company began with a daily podcast for kids, Catholic Sprouts, which features story-based lessons designed to teach the Catholic faith.

The niche that their project fills, Nancy said, is a need for a systematic program for parents on how to be the primary faith formators for children.

Nancy launched Catholic Sprouts as a side project a few years ago, while working as a stay-at-home mom to their five children.

Today, they have a “small army” of contractors helping with the project, and Nancy says the prize money will certainly help with being able to hire more help for the project.

Bill and Nancy entered the OSV challenge with the hopes of getting support for the podcast and the written materials they are already producing. Now that they’ve won the OSV grant, Nancy said their goals are to create an app where their podcast will be available, as well as discussion questions for families after they listen together.

They are also hoping that the grant will help to accelerate Bill’s transition from his current job to working on Catholic Sprouts full-time.

Nancy said parents have contacted them saying that listening to the Catholic Sprouts podcast with their kids was actually filling in gaps in their own Catholic formation, and was fostering deep and engaging discussions about the faith around their dinner tables.

The content is meant to spark conversation, which Bill says is an important factor in ensuring children remain within the Catholic faith as they grow up.

“If you’re going to have a ministry for kids, in reality you’re going to have a ministry for parents,” Nancy Bandzuch told CNA.

[…]

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Denver Newsroom, Aug 31, 2020 / 05:34 pm (CNA).- After Hurricane Laura struck states along the Gulf of Mexico last week, Catholic Charities and other groups have provided aid to victims, some of whom have been displaced or are still without utilities.

With winds of 150 mph, the category 4 hurricane made landfall near Cameron, Louisiana, on the early morning of Aug. 27. As measured by maximum sustained winds, it is one of the strongest hurricanes to hit Louisiana in recorded history.

In the United States alone, the storm has killed 22 people: 14 in Louisiana, one in Florida, and seven in Texas. A large portion of deaths was attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning due to unsafe generators, CBS News reported.

As of Aug. 30, 900,000 people were still without power and 220,000 were without running water. Karen Clark & Company’s industry estimated that the hurricane’s damages have caused $8.7 billion of insured losses in the U.S.

Hurricane Laura has also caused severe damages to parishes and church buildings in the Diocese of Lake Charles. According to the diocese, nearly one-third of priests in active ministry have been displaced and all the homes for the Daughters Mary Mother of Mercy are uninhabitable. Additionally, only one of the six Catholic schools can open next week, and the chancery is closed because of extensive roof damage.

“The city is a disaster,” said Bishop Glen Provost of Lake Charles. “No house, no business is left untouched. The Chancery will be unusable in the foreseeable future. We have 39 (church) parishes and seven missions. All suffered some damage.”

“St. Louis Catholic High School is severely damaged,” the bishop added. “Father (Nathan) Long, rector of the school, reported that the roof on the administration building is, for the most part, blown off. Windows in various classrooms are blown in, and there is roof damage at the gym.”

Catholic Charities of Southwest Louisiana opened shortly after the hurricane struck and has been receiving donations and supplies to provide to the victims. Sister Miriam Maclean, director of Catholic Charities of Southwest Louisiana, has encouraged donations to be sent to the dioceses of New Orleans and Lafayette because of the Catholic Charities’ small storage space.

“We are here, we are open and we are trying to meet the needs of the community,” said Sister Miriam.

“The Lord preserved Catholic Charities from any major damage for sure so that we can be up and operational,” she continued. “We have a little bit of leakage in the roof, and a couple of roll-up doors got a little damage, but we are blessed. We have a generator, and the Religious Sisters of Mercy are running the office.”

Sister Marjorie Hebert, president of Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans, told CNA that other dioceses across the state would also be providing services including her own. She said that as the hurricane struck on the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, she has been able to share her experience with other dioceses.

“Part of what my staff and I have been about is being in contact with the other Catholic Charities in the rest of the state and the other dioceses of Louisiana … We have been in contact with some of those directors and are doing assessment [to] see how we might further assist them.”

“My counterpart in the Lake Charles diocese, I know exactly what she’s dealing with the darkness of no electricity, no potable water, all of those. So at least I’ve been there, and I can say, ‘I know what you’re going through,’” she added.

“Just [a] short 15 years ago, we New Orleanians we’re on the receiving end, and now it’s our time to give back and to further assist.”

As New Orleans has received thousands of evacuees, she said their community has also provided help by offering basic necessities and counseling services to help comfort those who have been displaced. She said some of the people were able to evacuate with some supplies while others were rescued and brought over with almost nothing.

“Our immediate efforts are to reach out. As a Catholic Charities agency in New Orleans, we are working very closely with the city to coordinate efforts of responding to the needs of the evacuees in the community.”

“We have been in contact with our churches and parishes and civil authorities just to see if there are some basic needs of some areas near the coastline that they may have gotten some floodwaters. We are working with the calls that are coming into our agency as well as referrals coming to us from the city and state officials locally.”

Among other Catholic initiatives in the Archdiocese of New Orleans, several parishes and charity groups have launched donation drives to bring in water, nonperishable food items, cleaning supplies, hygiene products, and baby supplies.

Bishop Provost expressed his gratitude for all the contributions and prayers.

“We appreciate everyone’s prayers,” he said. “Bishops in other dioceses have sent word of assistance to us, so we appreciate the fellowship of the other Catholic dioceses throughout the nation. I have heard from bishops on the East and West coasts, and especially in Texas and Louisiana.”

[…]

CNA Staff, Aug 31, 2020 / 03:30 pm (CNA).-  

In a letter to San Francisco’s Mayor London Breed and other city officials, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone on Monday called on the city’s secular authorities to, “at a minimum, remove the excessive limits on outdoor public worship.”

“Particularly for us as Catholics, attending the Mass and receiving the Body and Blood of Christ in person is the source and the summit of our faith, and we have shown we can celebrate the Mass safely,” Cordileone wrote Aug. 31.

The San Francisco County Department of Health is currently limiting outdoor worship services to 12 people, with indoor worship services prohibited. The archdiocese covers the city and county of San Francisco— where the cathedral is located— as well as San Mateo and Marin counties. 

Cordileone called the city’s restrictions on outdoor Masses “a serious deprivation of our rights as Americans under the First Amendment and our spiritual needs as people of faith.”

“San Francisco is the only government in the entire Bay Area that restricts public gatherings to 12 people out of doors. Ours and others’ faith is being treated as less important than a trip to the
hardware store, or a nice dinner out on the patio,” Cordileone stated.

Cordileone cited a recent article on Mass attendance and COVID-19, authored Aug. 19 by doctors Thomas McGovern, Deacon Timothy Flanigan, and Paul Cieslak for Real Clear Science.

Over the last 14 weeks, the doctors said, approximately 17,000 parishes have held three or more Masses each weekend, as well as daily services, combining to equal more than 1 million public Masses celebrated across the United States since shelter-in-place orders were lifted.

By following public health guidelines, these Masses have largely avoided viral spread. The doctors said in their article that there is no evidence that church services are higher risk than similar activities when guidelines are followed.

“One million public Masses without any [COVID-19] outbreaks demonstrates that it is just as safe in San Francisco as in other parts of the state, such as San Mateo County, to permit large gatherings for outdoor public worship with reasonable safety precautions,” Cordileone commented.

Some parishes in San Francisco, including the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption, have been holding simultaneous outdoor Masses in order to adapt to the 12-person limit.

The City of San Francisco has been closely monitoring Catholic churches in the city and has repeatedly issued warnings to the archdiocese for apparent health order violations.

The archdiocese told CNA in July that it had made a good-faith effort to comply with the city’s public health guidelines, despite some occasional confusion and last-minute changes to the city’s public health orders.

“Our intention has always been to conform to what we understand to be the City orders and timelines,” the archdiocese said July 2, noting that the city’s orders have been changing throughout the pandemic, sometimes on short notice.

In a July 30 memo, Cordileone exhorted his priests to be as diligent as possible in bringing the sacraments to their people, including celebrating outdoor Masses each Sunday, and providing Confession in a safe manner as often as possible.

“Please regularly remind people to follow the safety practices necessary to curb the spread of the virus. This is real, it is dangerous, and it has to be taken seriously,” he added.

“The resurgence is due in no small part to people becoming lax once the shelter-in-place rules began to be lifted. Please urge these practices upon them; absolutely do not give them the impression that the coronavirus is not a serious threat to the physical health of our community.”

Cordileone has pointed out that the city has allowed retail stores to operate at 50% capacity during the same time period that Christians are prohibited from gathering in their churches, even with masks and social distancing in place.

San Francisco has seen numerous street protests in recent months, including one in late June that resulted in the destruction of a statue of St. Junípero Serra by a crowd of about 100 people.

“With regard to outdoor services, you are all well aware that pre-planned and scheduled street protests have been allowed to continue unhindered, while the limit of no more than 12 people still applies to everyone else, including us,” he continued.

“Yet here again, an outdoor worship service is a much safer event than a protest, since the people are stationary, social distance is respected, and the participants are wearing masks.”

The Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, which provides liturgical resources in the archdiocese, shared a petition Aug. 31 in support of Cordileone’s statement calling for the lifting of restrictions on the Mass.
 

[…]

CNA Staff, Aug 31, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- The United States sent a strongly-worded letter to several UN committees in early August rejecting any implication that there is a right to abortion as “bizarre.” 

The letter was sent on… […]