D.C. restores Sister Dede’s medical license during Covid-19 vaccine legal battle

During the 2024 Napa Institute Summer Conference, Lila Rose spoke with EWTN News President Montse Alvarado about the task currently before the pro-life movement. / Credit: EWTN News/Screenshot

CNA Staff, Aug 10, 2024 / 10:00 am (CNA).
On the o… […]

Washington D.C., Oct 30, 2019 / 01:44 pm (CNA).- When Janice Benton, OFS was attending college in Michigan, she answered an ad in her parish bulletin that was seeking someone willing to be a catechist for children with intellectual disabilities.

That response would begin a career spanning several decades, where she would work to improve inclusion for Catholics with disabilities–a career that would lead her to speaking at the Vatican and leading the National Catholic Partnership on Disability for 15 years.

Benton will be retiring from her position this year and will be honored for her work with Catholics with disabilities at a banquet on Nov. 8. She spoke recently with CNA to discuss how the landscape in the Church has changed for people with disabilities since she began working in the field, and how she hopes things will continue to improve in the future.

After volunteering with children at her parish, Benton started a catechesis program to serve young adults with disabilities, and was working at a nursing home. There, she befriended a young woman with cerebral palsy. She told CNA she had wondered why a young adult was living in a nursing home, and sought out the friendship. She also met another volunteer in a catechetical program who had cerebral palsy.

“So I ended up with friends and family members with disabilities,…and I was blessed to work with folks from the Archdiocese of Detroit to get a lot of their training from them,” Benton said. “They had quite a good program there.”

The National Catholic Partnership on Disability (NCPD) was founded in 1982, and Benton assisted with its creation, having previously worked with the U.S. Bishops’ Advisory Committee on People with Disabilities. Benton took over the role of director of the NCPD in 2004.

Benton said she has seen many positive changes regarding the treatment of Catholics with disabilities during her more than 40 years working in that ministry.

“I think people are more engaged in parish life now, and their gifts are really being recognized,” she said. “I think of it as just recognizing their giftedness and that everybody is called to, everyone belongs in the Church. And they’re called as part of the body of Christ to contribute.”

Specifically, Benton said she is happy to see more and more parishes and schools adopt inclusive models to serve Catholics with disabilities.

“There’s more involvement in parish life itself and less just separate programs (that are) just kind of off to the side to serve people,” she said. “There’s just more appreciation of people for who they are, their giftedness and what they can bring to the faith community.”

While Benton is heartened by these changes, she said there’s still much more work to be done. For instance, the NCPD still receives calls from families with children who were told they would not be permitted to receive their First Communion or participate in faith formation classes due to their disabilities. The USCCB approved the Guidelines for the Celebration of the Sacraments with Persons with Disabilities in 1995, which Benton called a “beautiful resource that’s easy to put into the hands of pastors and catechetical leaders.”

And although there have been substantial improvements in the Church regarding persons with disabilities, especially with the ever-growing list of Catholic schools that are willing and able to accommodate students with special needs, Benton told CNA that Catholics with disabilities are still often overlooked by other members of their parishes.

“I have a friend who says one of the things that hurts her the most is not being seen as a person, (but) kind of being seen as a ‘person with a disability’ and not as somebody you’d want to go out to lunch with or just have fun with,” said Benton.

“And my friend in my parish says what hurts often the most is that nobody wants to sit near her. They kind of keep a wide berth. And, so I think people still tend to exceptionalize disability, and want to make it special or different or kind of focus on what might be a difference, as opposed to the common humanity of everybody.”

As she prepares to leave her role at the NCPD, Benton said she hopes the organization is able to expand its presence into parishes. She hopes that parishes will make the accommodations needed, and include persons with disabilities into their regular programs.

Doing this, she said, will ensure that “people can participate fully and meaningfully–and not just be taken care of, but really share their gifts with the Church community.”

“I want people to know that the Church is here for them, that the NCPD exists,” Benton said.

“I want people with disabilities to really experience the sense of belonging and really experience people treating them with dignity and respect, and that they really are just vital members of the body of Christ.”

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Washington D.C., Apr 14, 2020 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- The U.S. bishops have echoed Pope Francis’ call for a global ceasefire to help defend vulnerable populations from the COVID-19 virus and respond to the global pandemic.

Bishop David J. Malloy of Rockford, Ill., who chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace, said the Pope’s plea for peace seeks to deepen “fraternal bonds of the human family” in search of “lasting peace.”

“May God use even the difficulties of this moment to bring about peace and solidarity in the world,” Malloy said in an April 8 statement.

“May God’s grace open the hearts of combatants throughout the world so that they realize their shared frail humanity and allow a cessation of hostilities to come to pass,” he added. “With such cessation, corridors of humanitarian assistance can be established and strengthened to allow relief to reach those in greatest need.”

Malloy’s comments followed Pope Francis’ appeal for a global ceasefire as countries work to protect their populations from the coronavirus pandemic.

Close to 2 million people are confirmed to have been infected with the coronavirus, with some 125,000 dead and 470,000 deemed to be recovered. In some parts of the world the numbers of people with severe symptoms have overwhelmed hospital facilities. Efforts to halt the spread of the virus through mandatory self-distancing have led to business closures and massive new unemployment.

Even wealthy nations at peace have faced difficulties securing medical tests, protective equipment and hospital space in their responses to the novel coronavirus. These difficulties are amplified in regions at war.

About 70 countries are engaged in some kind of conflict, with some conflicts dating back decades.

“Over a billion people on our planet live without access to the basic necessities of life. Over 70 million are displaced who already live amidst violent conflict and persecution,” Malloy said. “The unfolding global health pandemic and subsequent economic crisis only exacerbate their intolerable suffering.”

Pope Francis urged nations in conflict to respond to the March 23 appeal from the United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who called for for an “immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world” to “focus together on the true fight of our lives,” the “battle” against the coronavirus.

“The current emergency of COVID-19 … knows no borders,” the pope said in his March 29 Angelus address.

“I invite everyone to follow up by stopping all forms of war hostility, promoting the creation of corridors for humanitarian aid, openness to diplomacy, attention to those in a situation of greater vulnerability,” the pope continued.

Francis repeated his call for a ceasefire in his Easter Sunday Urbi et Orbi address.

“This is not a time for division. May Christ our peace enlighten all who have responsibility in conflicts, that they may have the courage to support the appeal for an immediate global ceasefire in all corners of the world,” he said. “This is not a time for continuing to manufacture and deal in arms, spending vast amounts of money that ought to be used to care for others and save lives.”

Some parties to war appear to have backed the call for a ceasefire, but such efforts could be tenuous.

Humanitarian advocates at the United Nations feared that the COVID-19 virus could be especially devastating in Yemen, which continues to suffer a five-year-long civil war between Saudi Arabia-led forces and the Iran-aligned Houthi movement, whose forces hold the national capital of Sana’a.

The Saudi- and United Arab Emirates-led coalition announced a unilateral ceasefire to begin on April 9.

Skeptical Houthi officials called it a “political and media maneuver.” Their counter-offer appeared to apply a ceasefire only to fighting between their forces and Saudi Arabia, and not to groups loyal to Yemeni leader Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the U.K. newspaper The Guardian reports.

Within a week the Saudi and Emirati-led coalition accused Houthi forces of violating the ceasefire. On the ground, few civilians think the ceasefire will be more effective than previous efforts.

Over half of Yemen’s hospitals and clinics have been destroyed or closed by the fighting. UN officials say over 90% of the population could become infected by the COVID-19 virus. Only one case has been confirmed in Yemen, but there are almost no testing facilities there.

More than 100,000 have died because of the war, including 12,000 civilians dead in direct attacks. Another 3.6 million people have been displaced. About 12 million Houthis, about 80% of whom live in Houthi territory, depend on UN food supplies each month. About 24 million Yemenis need some form of humanitarian assistance, and close to 10 million people are considered to be on the brink of famine.

In Syria, where the civil war is now nine years old, fighting has calmed since Turkey and Russia agreed to a ceasefire. Russia backs the Syrian government in Damascus, while Turkey backs some rebel groups which oppose it.

At least one million people fled their homes since December during the Syrian government’s offensive in northwest Idlib province, Syria’s last rebel-held territory, which borders Turkey. Some displaced persons have returned home to Idlib, in part due to fears of coronavirus outbreaks in refugee camps, Reuters reports.

The Southern Cameroons Defence Forces, an armed rebel group in the English-speaking regions of Cameroon, announced a two-week ceasefire to begin March 29 as “a gesture of goodwill” and to allow testing for the new coronavirus, BBC News reports.

[…]