Denver, Colo., Apr 9, 2020 / 04:30 am (CNA).- Foster care is a difficult business in the best of times.
Social workers must ensure that children in need are given loving and safe homes, while trying to help them maintain contact and a relationship with their biological family. Kids have to adjust to new families and new routines while keeping up with schoolwork. Families accepting foster children are routinely monitored and must make adjustments to accommodate the new member of their family, who will be with them for an often unknown period of time.
Now, adding a pandemic – and all of its isolating and social distancing requirements – into the mix has made matters even more difficult.
“It’s a trauma for our children who’ve had a life built and now it’s gone,” Martha Holben, who works as the child welfare assistant director for St. Vincent Catholic Charities in Lansing, Michigan, told CNA.
Holben told CNA that for foster children, whose lives are already marked with so much disruption, the routine of school, and seeing friends and teachers they can count on, as well as regularly scheduled meetings with their families, are a big deal.
“And one day that was just all gone,” Holben said. “So we’re definitely seeing an increase in some outbursts with kiddos because their schedule is gone, and the people that they’ve built into their life that they could trust – their principal, their guidance counselor – all of that is gone, and some of them are too young to really understand why.”
Michigan has been one of the harder-hit states in the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S., with 20,346 confirmed cases and 959 deaths as of April 8. Holben said that while none of her program’s children and families have yet been diagnosed with coronavirus, concerns about spreading the disease have made it very difficult to find new foster families for children in recent weeks.
“We’ve had a child that we’ve been searching for placement for a couple of weeks,” she said.
“Luckily right now he’s in a place that’s willing to keep placement until another placement is able to be located, but because of the risk of COVID-19, prospective foster parents for this child are not willing to take a new placement right now,” Holben added.
While none of the children have tested positive for coronavirus, Holben said that families worry about accepting new children because experts believe that many people are carriers of the virus without ever showing symptoms, and prospective foster families are hesitant to put the rest of their family at risk.
Jennifer Hartwig is the senior program manager of foster care services for Catholic Charities Community Services in Phoenix, Arizona. So far, the state of Arizona has not been as hard hit by coronavirus as states like Louisiana, Illinois, California or New York. As of April 8, there were 2,726 cases in Arizona and 80 deaths.
Hartwig told CNA that their foster care program has changed the way it offers services – basically everything is online for now – “but we are going above and beyond trying to meet the needs of all of our families at this time. So we haven’t slowed down,” she said.
Families in the area are also still offering to take children in, even though the threat of coronavirus remains, Hartwig added.
“The response has been wonderful. Families are still stepping up,” she said. “The director of DCS (Department of Child Safety) does weekly updates for all of the providers in the area, and we’re still seeing about 20 children a day coming into the system needing homes. So children are still being placed at this time, and the families are stepping up.”
Hartwig compared social workers working with foster children to first responders, and added that while they are doing basically everything virtually, they do have permission from the governor and the DCS to step in and do home visits if there is a suspected crisis.
“As needed, if there’s a crisis, we will go in person and if everybody’s healthy and asymptomatic, we will do home visits,” Hartwig said.
“The directive from our governor and from the director of the DCS here in Arizona has stated that all visits have to be virtual…(but) safety’s number one. That’s been the message from everyone, child safety is number one,” she said. “We are, I’d say, right under doctors and nurses, we are still first responders.”
Other support being offered to families at this time include help finding diapers or formula or anything else they might need that could be in short supply in stores at this time Hartwig added.
She said when families have had concerns about possible cases of coronavirus, they’ve asked them screening questions and directed them to medical care. But so far, as of last Friday, none of the children in foster care in the state had tested positive for the virus.
“We have about 14-15,000 children in care in the state and (it has been) reported that there’s no child that’s been tested positive,” Hartwig said.
Unlike Arizona, New York has been the worst-hit state by coronavirus in the U.S. so far, accounting for 149,316 cases, with 6,268 deaths.
Good Shepherd Services, a foster care agency affiliated with the Archdiocese of New York, told CNA it has been scrambling to keep up with new federal, state and local guidelines as the coronavirus pandemic has come full force to the city. Good Shepherd Services oversees children in homes with foster families, as well as children in residential programs.
“I mean it certainly has turned our world upside down,” Denise Hinds, the associate executive director of foster care, juvenile justice and supportive housing at Good Shepherd Services, told CNA.
“It just creates a whole new level of stress and anxiety for everyone. From our own staff, to the birth parents who want to see their kids – they’re used to seeing their kids every week- so foster parents have to bring the kids in, or they must have phones, and birth parents have to have cell phones, so it’s just become quite an issue,” Hinds said.
Like Holben, Hinds also said she was concerned about the effect that closed schools were having on children in foster care. Not only were the closures disruptive to their routines, but the children are also losing access to additional learning and behavioral supports that are available to them at school.
A higher number of children in foster care “have many learning challenges and oftentimes more than the general population…many of our kids who come into residential care are several grade levels behind their peers, because they’ve moved around so many times before they get to us. So, we’re looking at the most vulnerable of the children in New York City, in terms of education, not having all the services they would normally have on a day to day basis,” she said.
The impact of the pandemic on foster care social workers has also been “tremendous”, Hinds said, because they have had to adapt to every-changing guidelines while still trying to meet the needs of children, foster families and biological families.
Initially, she said, they were still allowing family visits on-site at their facilities, but as time has gone on, the program has had to adapt to virtual visits and meetings, unless safety issues are a concern.
“This is all very new to us and to the families,” Hinds said.
Michelle Yanche, executive director of Good Shepherd Services, told CNA that the program had a “wake-up call” early on in the stages of coronavirus restrictions and shutdowns when, on a Friday night, a foster parent called, looking for a different placement for the child under their care, because the parent was showing symptoms of what was feared to be coronavirus.
The parent’s test for the virus was ultimately negative, and the child was able to be returned to the home, but Yanche said it made her realize that they would immediately need to implement new coronavirus protocols.
“It quickly was a wake up call for us that we need some new systems to be in place…to be able to manage these kinds of potential disruptions in the middle of the night,” she said. Fortunately, she said, those kind of late-night interventions have “not been as needed as we worried that it would be.”
Still, Hinds said they have had to move children around who have been exposed to the virus, but they have been lucky in finding foster homes to send them too. While they’re not onboarding a lot of new families at this time, she said families on their list have stepped up to take in these children despite the risk of the virus.
“So, those are some of the complexities, but we have been very fortunate to be able to continue our intake and support children when needed with our existing vacant foster homes,” she said. “We’re continuing to do that as we have been all along. I don’t think that has slowed down at all.”
Like leaders at a lot of organizations, Hinds and Yanche are also worried about the long-term financial impacts that a prolonged economic downturn will have on their programs.
Another concern has been providing PPE (personal protective equipment) to staff who either need to do in-home visits to homes that have known cases of or exposure to coronavirus, as well as staff in residential programs with children who may have been exposed and are in quarantine under their care, Hinds added.
“We’re doing our best to get a hold of equipment, and we’ve had some support from Catholic Charities and other organizations, but it is a daily concern because we have 24/7 programming,” she said. “So, we’re guarding our N95’s (facemasks) like it’s gold right now…we want to make sure we can keep our staff safe.”
Holben told CNA that people who want to help foster children, but are unable to open their homes to them, can be helpful through prayer.
“All of our foster parents, regardless of what we’re going through or regardless of what they’ve gone through in any cases, they always need prayers. All of our kiddos need prayers, our biological families need prayers,” she said.
“So I just always like to put a little plug out there when people don’t know what they can do for foster kiddos or parents. Just send some positive energy our way so that we can all get through it. Because it’s stressful enough without the added COVID-19 stuff.”
[…]
Another clarifying media pose for James Martin, as he continues to publish his gay-enabling networking site under the letterhead of the USCCB. Or, maybe Courage (couragerc.org) is now linked (not yet as the alternative, but as “inclusive”)? And what, exactly, is a “relationship.”
Exactly, Peter!
And how exactly was Weakman’s (malapropism intended) “relationship” with the seminarian “sexual”?
Males inseminating one another’s intestines may be characterized in many ways, but it is in no way, sense or respect “sexual”.
Spot on! The vile genital gymnastics does not deserve the term sexual.
We’ve just been told that monkey pox is essentially a vinereal disease among men who have sex with men. It seems we have not learned the lesson of AIDS.
I gave of my “time, talent and treasure” to the archdiocese and I expected that my effort and gifts would be used to advance the Kingdom of God and proclaim the hope of salvation. How discouraging to learn I was abused, lied to and deceived into supporting sodomites. May God forgive us all.
Truth establishes courage, they are concomitant as we walk God’s path.
Proverbs 12:22 Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.
1 John 3:18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Psalm 145:18 The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.
Psalm 25:5 Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long.
Thanks and God’s rich blessings.
Maybe James Martin SCH should consider another perspective, that one about removing the beam in one’s own eye before pulling the speck of sawdust out of his brother’s. Martin’s own teaching and position creates, supports, and protects people like Weakland, so it’s a situation where the pot is calling the kettle black. Does anyone actually take this guy seriously?
It would be music to the ears of those who wish to destroy the church.
Leviticus 18:22 You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.
Romans 1:26-27 For this reason God gave them up to dishonourable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.
Jude 1:7 Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Soldier on my brother and thank you.
Leviticus 20:10 says to execute adulterers. Deuteronomy 22 says to stone non-virgins. Fortunately, we don’t follow the Bible’s verses on heterosexuals. 99% fornicate, not due to immorality, but due to the fact that in Bible days couples got married as young teens while today the average first-time groom is 29 and bride 27. A record number opt out of marriage altogether and those who do wed do so later and later in life. Let’s not have one set of standards for heterosexuals and another for LGBT folks.
Mr Rusty,
There’s the New Testament. Please check it out. Thanks!
🙂
A sodomite has no business being a bishop in the Catholic Church. What more can be said other than I pray for the immortal soul of all sodomites who have died whether they are clergy or layperson. I pray, too, for those who keep sodomites in their sin by defending the sinfulness of their act.
I agree but would add a sodomite has no business being a deacon, priest, or pope in the Catholic Church.
If I defend the sinfulness of something it means that I insist on its sinful quality. Surely what is objected to is speaking and writing in defence of the sinlessness of the activity under consideration? I offer this suggestion only tentatively; it may be that this is another example of British and Americans being separated by a common language.
“I just wanted to be loved. Is that so wrong?” I couldn’t pass on the Jon Lovitz/SNL sketch. Then of course there is the infamous radical Bill Ayers’ paen to American justice. “Guilty as sin. Free as a bird. Is America a great country or what?”. Not a day in jail for misuse of Church funds; covering up for predators, or his own predation. He did get a book contract. Francesco “Mercy” avant la lettre.
Did Weakland ever repent of his acts of sodomy and homosexual behavior? Or, did he try to normalize his behavior?
Listened to an Eastern Orthodox priest on the subject and he was very clear. He said: We are not given the knowledge or wisdom on how to judge the soul of another human being. Eternal Judgement is left to our Lord. Our Lord does give us the knowledge and wisdom to judge the behaviors of another human being so that we may make decisions that will lead to our own salvation, and that of our families, for which we are responsible. If the behavior of another person is sinful, then we must admonish the sinner, and disassociate with that person if necessary to protect our own souls, by “avoiding the near occasion of sin.”
Also, the same Orthodox priest said: Christ doesn’t change, rather it is us who must change by repenting our own sinful behaviors. Christ doesn’t teach that sin is not sin, rather Our Lord calls us to repent of our sins, for without repentance, we cannot receive the merciful judgement of God.
I wish Roman Catholic priests were clearer in their teachings by simply saying we don’t know the fate of Weakland’s eternal soul as that has not been revealed to any of us, only Our Lord and Savior knows. We do know he committed mortal sins that would have kept him out of eternal paradise with our Lord, and we must also avoid these same mortal sins to preserve our own souls and advise others to avoid these same mortal sins.
The man is dead and may God have mercy on his soul.
Just have a Mass offered for him and move on – the subject is closed.
Amen.
Amen. Lot’s of folks ready to cast the first stone.
Weakland and his defenders used plenty of metaphorical stones to crush the skulls of the unborn without apology. Yes, there is reason to be frustrated that his defenders never learn, which reflects the ongoing crisis in the Church, which recrucifies Our Lord every day. Nonetheless, we pray for mercy on his soul.
James Martin,
Jesus’ friendship with sinners is not scandalous. After all, that is what the God who seeks the return of the lost do. There is nothing scandalous about that because He is always exhorting them to metanoia. The sinners are told that they will be thrown in hell where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth if they don’t repent. He tells them that the road to hell is wide and the road to life, narrow.
What is scandalous is your enabling of sin. What is scandalous is your promotion of sin and not calling it what it is – a grave transgression against our All Holy God – so that people will repent.
What is scandalous is that you who have been ordained to be a priest of God so terribly promotes what is the opposite of what God teaches we should do.
You’d rather people remain in the muck and the filth rather than seeking the painful (excruciating) path to freedom and to the Lord.
Thank you!
James Martin correctly states, “The heart of Jesus’s message is that no one is beyond God’s infinite mercy.” He didn’t add, however, that one must repent, confess and accept absolution for that mercy to be effective. Unfortunately, Martin fails in teaching, but succeeds miraculously in misleading.
I concluded a couple of years ago that prudence demands I completely ignore Fr. James Martin, SJ. I would no more read anything he writes or listen to anything he says than I would drink poison. That said, I have no objection to CWR reporting on his escapades in the interest of exposing dysfunction and corruption in the Church.
The Hypocritical Pharisees still roam about us today. As a ‘Straight-male’ I have friends who are homosexual, both men and women. Why they have this way of life is beyond my understanding. Quoting Jesus in Jn 8:7; “Let the man among you who has no sin be the first to cast a stone…,” I can’t imagine what went through their minds as the mob drifted away as John notes, “beginning with the elders.” Each of us has enough to atone for before a loving and forgiving God so, if your consider your self a good Catholic Christian act like the one you profess to believe in. Allow your brothers and sisters the freedom to live as sons and daughters of the Father you call your own. Don’t be like the older brother in the parable of the ‘Prodigal Son’ and refuse to accept your brother or sister as your Father does. Pray that they may find peace and acceptance in a world that is full of hate and intolerance for those who are “not like me.” Remember you are unique, a one-time creation and loved by God. so, remember my Pharisaical ‘brothers and sisters’ so are they.
Mr. Fargo, we are to love one another as Christians & meet them where they are but it doesn’t mean leaving them there. Christ has something better to offer them.
Let’s review scripture as it appears as if we may have read different versions. In the Catholic tradition, not that according to James Martin, God detests sin. Have you heard or read the scripture which teaches that principle?
Re the parable. The Father allowed his son the freedom, but the Father does not follow his son to the foreign land. Does the Father approve of his son’s action? No. Only when the son/sinner ‘returns to his Father’s house’ (otherwise known as repentance), the Father then forgives the son and welcomes him back home.
Jesus told the sinner to “Sin no more.” Jesus did not tell the sinner: “Carry on.”
God’s love is for everyone, but God shares His beatitude and His eternal glory only with those who love Him. John 14:21 has Jesus saying: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” If we love Him, we keep His commandments.
In numerous places in his Epistles, Paul proclaims that fornicators and sodomites, thieves, robbers, and adulterers will not inherit God’s kingdom. Just as Jim Martin SJ is free to describe Weakland as he does, so are we free to apply any of St. Paul’s labels as we see fit and appropriate to the homosexual bishop that Weakland proclaimed himself to be.
John Fargo,
Is this desire to misread and misinterpret the Lord wilful or just ignorant?
This loving and forgiving God loves us and forgives us precisely because there is something TO FORGIVE. This SOMETHING TO FOGIVE is sin. Just because we have an inclination to a particular sin does not give us a free pass. Each of us is told to repent. Forgiveness and repentance go together.
The same loving and forgiving God also said that death comes like a thief in the night at the time you do not know so be prepared or you’ll be cast out. This same merciful God tells us that we should tell sinners to repent and if we don’t then not only is their sin on them, but their sin is on us who fail to teach them.
Why would you not exhort your LGBT friends to repentance? It’s like a “friend” seeing someone ODying on heroine or recklessly driving towards a cliff saying: keep going my friend that seems to be your pleasure so go ahead.
We have so corrupted the meaning of love and compassion that we think affirming people in the depth of their depravity is compassion and mercy.
Christ did not die an excruciating death for us so that we can that think we can go on living a depraved life because he’ll forgive me anyway.
Grace is not cheap!
I hope you will have the courage (yes courage)to tell your friends like it is and in so doing truly love them and desire their good. At the moment you are affirming them in their sin.
Unless of course like so many people you don’t really think sin is a big deal.
Loading up my portfolio with the stocks of millstone manufacturers.
🤑 This emoji sports dollar-sign eyes.
I, a Mass going every Sunday all my life, Cradle Catholic, was rejected by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee seminary in the mid 1980s. My parish priest said that it was odd that the seminary gave no reason for the rejection. Later in life, a fellow Catholic from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, told me that the seminary had a problem. The straight seminarians had been complaining about the noise from homosexual sex going on in the next dorm room while they were trying to pray. So the seminary director simply stopped accepting straight candidates for the priesthood to solve the problem. She said this was Archbishop Weakland’s preference. Another friend told me that his parish priest in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee referred to the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, St. Francis seminary as St. Francis Sexinary. I am sure the Church lost a great number of good priest vocations by the evil acts of Bishop Weakland, and other liberal Bishops around the world, in their diabolical plan to build the ‘Gay Lobby’ in the Vatican, by grooming seminaries with only gay men.
More posturing and gaslighting by Martin. Weakland never repented his practice and promotion of sodomy. To be appalled by such a man is not contrary to the example of Christ eating with sinners. Christ always had a message for sinners: “Repent.” And Martin always has a message for sinners: “Relax.”
Mr. Olson;
I have a question – why does it seem to me that every uttering, every opinion, and now every apology from this sad little man merits being reported on by CWR? Surely you have reached the saturation point, as many of US have.
Enough is enough.
As a lifelong Traditionalist Catholic and a minor seminarians during the years before the full Modernist impact of Vatican II took control of the Church, I’ve maintained a conscious awareness of Fr. Martin’s reputation as the “resident heretic” of Notre Dame. I believe that his religious beliefs are distorted by Modernism and I take whatever he publishes and supports as opposite to the tried and true Traditionalist views that I have studied and believed in for all of my Catholic life. For the good of the Church he should have retired many years ago and gone into religious seclusion to examine fully where he has failed to follow the teachings of Christ, the Fathers of the Church and the Saints and Blesseds of the Church.
I think you give him to much credit for having a philosophical bent.
Keep in mind this guy has a degree from the Wharton School. He worked as a financial analyst at GE in the Jack Welch days.
Just as companies pander to the alphabet, Martin does. He’s created a personal brand and a cottage industry by staying focused on talking about the alphabet all the time.
In short, this is all about the Benjamins
🤑 This emoji sports dollar-sign eyes.
“It is quite human for the sinner to acknowledge his weakness and to ask mercy for his failings; what is unacceptable is the attitude of one who makes his own weakness the criterion of the truth about the good, so that he can feel self-justified, without the need to have recourse to God and His mercy” — Pope John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor. –
(Quoted by John Likoudis, writing at Catholic Culture.)
Edit please: Paul Likoudis, not John
Any man, homosexual or heterosexual, who seeks the priesthood, MUST embrace the teachings of the church – believe, support, teach and live those teachings clearly, fully and faithfully. If a priest or bishop (or, God forbid, a cardinal) finds he cannot do this, he should have the integrity to resign the priesthood. Ordinary people, like myself, look to priests for spiritual and moral guidance. How can a priest give such guidance if he is living a double life? If you don’t believe what the church believes, you should not be a priest.
Speaking of Weakland, the Library at Catholic Culture has an article describing Weakland’s role in post VCII liturgical reform. Seems we owe Weakland our thanks for the banally insipid ‘music’ in many NO liturgies today.
Weakland’s dissent from and distortion of VCII’s Sacrosanctum concilium (particularly regarding sacred music) is detailed at https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9038
Thanks, Meiron, for the tip-off to Weakland’s musical “contribution”.
Note Martin’s words; Weakland’s “sins and crimes” were cover-up of sex abuse and blowing $600K of embezzled money. Nothing about engaging in sodomy and breaking his vow of chastity. In Martin’s sick mind, the sodomy aint a big deal.
Religion, politics and all other walks of life have good, honest people and lowlifes. Religion has always been about power and always will be, same with politics. Many religious coverups abound the higher up the ladder you go. Plus there are many more we will never know about.
As much as I wish for the Mercy of God for him for his sins and his repentence,, Father Martin should say as little as possible sbout this man. Instead he should constantly and earnestly pray for his soul rather than clairify his position or seek to repair the reputation he calls a friend.. This would be the best Father Martin could do for his friend and himself.
If you can’t let someone die without criticizing their eulogy, get your rotten heart checked for worms.
Catholics don’t have eulogies though, at least not in the same way as others do And this all illustrates why.
We pray in charity for the soul of the departed. Period.
Martin is in many ways a fitting eulogist for Weakland. Both of them epitomize the difficulties driving the disintegration of the cadre of priests.
More: “When the tawdry truth was going to come out, he ‘paid,’ to use McFadd’” ‘misappropriated,’ or just plain ‘stole’ would be more like it.”
https://www.crisismagazine.com/2022/archbishop-weakland-stole-more-than-money-he-stole-the-faith?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=archbishop-weakland-stole-more-than-money-he-stole-the-faith
Weakland is a modern version of the Fall of the House of Eli. Eli’s worthless sons were adulterers and treated the offerings to God with contempt.
Homosexualist Martin should have been laicized and excommunicated years ago.
Judgement does come by Our Lord who is THE JUST JUDGE, we as the baptized should enforce to others HIS teachings. That is what is expected as we carry our cross. A unmarried woman sleeping with a married man is the same as a man sleeping with another man.. it equally is a SIN. No stone is cast if the brethren is in charity explaining the SIN and trying to bring salvation to that soul. Unfortunately, it is misleading not enforce the sacrament of confession. Not to enforce SIN. And what happens when one is in SIN, the Holy Spirit must leave.. HE CAN’T STAY…GOD is not sin… but the enemy sure is and likes to fill the minds with lies and convince it’s not so bad…As the woman who had many husbands and with another man who was not her husband, Jesus told her to SIN NO MORE.
I would love to sit next to Jesus and listen to what he said to the tax collectors and those in sin. HE would’ve been graceful and caring enough to tell them to stop.
Adultery and sodomy are both alike in being grave sins but they do differ significantly in other ways.
It’s within the realm of possibility that a man and woman who have committed adultery could later marry following Confession and the death of a spouse. That’s never going to be the case for a SSA relationship.
But I hear what you are saying about counseling others to sin no more. That’s a priest’s job and if he fails in that he will be held accountable to a higher standard.