Boston, Mass., Jul 24, 2018 / 04:57 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After numerous accusations of sexual abuse of minors and adults have arisen against a former Archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston called Tuesday for bishops to be held accountable for sex abuse.
“These cases and others require more than apologies. They raise up the fact that when charges are brought regarding a bishop or a cardinal, a major gap still exists in the Church’s policies on sexual conduct and sexual abuse,” Cardinal O’Malley wrote July 24.
“While the Church in the United States has adopted a zero tolerance policy regarding the sexual abuse of minors by priests we must have clearer procedures for cases involving bishops. Transparent and consistent protocols are needed to provide justice for the victims and to adequately respond to the legitimate indignation of the community. The Church needs a strong and comprehensive policy to address bishops’ violations of the vows of celibacy in cases of the criminal abuse of minors and in cases involving adults.”
He said he had reached this conclusion through his experience in several dioceses and with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.
“The Church needs to swiftly and decisively take action regarding these matters of critical importance. In every instance of claims made by victims of sexual abuse, whether criminal violations or the abuse of power, the primary concern must be for the victim, their family and their loved ones. The victims are to be commended for bringing to light their tragic experience and must be treated with respect and dignity.”
The accusations “are understandably a source of great disappointment and anger for many,” Cardinal O’Malley stated.
The cardinal also addressed reports that he was contacted in 2015 by Fr. Boniface Ramsey, who was reporting allegations of McCarrick’s misconduct with seminarians.
He said he did not “personally receive” the letter from Fr. Ramsey. “In keeping with the practice for matters concerning the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, at the staff level the letter was reviewed and determined that the matters presented did not fall under the purview of the Commission or the Archdiocese of Boston, which was shared with Fr. Ramsey in reply.”
Cardinal O’Malley added that three actions are now required of the Church: a fair and rapid adjudication of these accusations; an assessment of the adequacy of our standards and policies in the Church at every level, and especially in the case of bishops; and communicating more clearly to the Catholic faithful and to all victims the process for reporting allegations against bishops and cardinals.
“Failure to take these actions will threaten and endanger the already weakened moral authority of the Church and can destroy the trust required for the Church to minister to Catholics and have a meaningful role in the wider civil society,” said Cardinal O’Malley. “In this moment there is no greater imperative for the Church than to hold itself accountable to address these matters, which I will bring to my upcoming meetings with the Holy See with great urgency and concern.”
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Thousands of pro-life advocates gathered outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 1, 2021, in conjunction with oral arguments in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization abortion case. / Katie Yoder/CNA
Washington D.C., Dec 2, 2021 / 08:04 am (CNA).
Anna Del Duca and daughter, Frances, woke up at 5 a.m. Wednesday morning to brave the 30-degree weather outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. They arrived hours before oral arguments began in the highly-anticipated abortion case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
The case, which involves a Mississippi law restricting most abortions after 15 weeks, challenges two landmark decisions: Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which upheld Roe in 1992.
“We’re looking forward to the end of Roe versus Wade in our country,” Anna, who drove from Pittsburgh Tuesday night, told CNA. In her hands, she held a sign reading, “I regret my abortion.”
“I would like to use my testimony to be a blessing to others,” she said, so that “others will choose life or those who have regretted abortion or had an abortion would turn to Jesus.”
Anna remembered having an abortion when she was just 19. Today, she and her daughter run a group called Restorers of Streets to Dwell In Pittsburgh that offers help to women seeking healing after abortion.
Anna and Frances were among thousands of Americans who rallied outside the Supreme Court before, during, and after the oral arguments. To accommodate them, law enforcement closed the street in front of the court. Capitol police also placed fencing in the space in front of the building in an attempt to physically separate rallies held by abortion supporters and pro-lifers.
At 21-weeks pregnant, pro-life speaker Alison Centofante emceed the pro-life rally, called, “Empower Women Promote Life.” The event featured a slew of pro-life women of diverse backgrounds and numerous politicians.
“It’s funny, there were so many diverse speakers today that the only unifying thread was that we want to protect preborn children,” Centofante told CNA. They included Democrats, Republicans, Christians, Catholics, agnostics, atheists, women who chose life, and women who regretted their abortions, she said.
She recognized women there, including Aimee Murphy, as people who are not the typical “cookie cutter pro-lifer.”
Aimee Murphy, 32, founder of pro-life group Rehumanize International, arrived at the Supreme Court around 6:30 a.m. She drove from Pittsburgh the night before. Her sign read, “Queer Latina feminist rape survivor against abortion.”“At Rehumanize International, we oppose all forms of aggressive violence,” she told CNA. “Even as a secular and non-partisan organization, we understand that abortion is the most urgent cause that we must stand against in our modern day and age because it takes on average over 800,000 lives a year.”
She also had a personal reason for attending.
“When I was 16 years old, I was raped and my rapist then threatened to kill me if I didn’t have an abortion,” she revealed.
“It was when he threatened me that I felt finally a solidarity with unborn children and I understood then that, yeah, the science told me that a life begins at conception, but that I couldn’t be like my abusive ex and pass on the violence and oppression of abortion to another human being — that all that I would be doing in having an abortion would be telling my child, ‘You are an inconvenience to me and to my future, therefore I’m going to kill you,’ which is exactly the same thing that my rapist was telling me when he threatened to kill me.”
On the other side of the police fence, the Center for Reproductive Rights and the National Abortion Access Coalition and NARAL Pro-Choice America participated in another rally. Yellow balloons printed with the words “BANS OFF OUR BODIES” escaped into the sky. Several pro-choice demonstrators declined to speak with CNA.
Voices clashed in the air as people, the majority of whom were women, spoke into their respective microphones at both rallies. Abortion supporters stressed bodily autonomy, while pro-lifers recognized the humanity of the unborn child. Chants arose from both sides at different points, from “Whose choice? My choice!” to “Hey hey, ho ho, Roe v. Wade has got to go!”
At 10 a.m., the pro-life crowd sudddenly went silent as the oral arguments began and the rally paused temporarily as live audio played through speakers.
During the oral arguments, students from Liberty University knelt in prayer. One student estimated that more than a thousand students from the school made the more than 3-hour trip from Lynchburg, Virginia.
“Talking about our faith is one thing, but actually acting upon it is another,” he said. “We have to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. So to me this is part of doing that.”
Sister Mary Karen, who has been with the Sisters of Life for 21 years, also stressed the importance of prayer. She drove from New York earlier that morning because, she said, she felt drawn to attend. She came, she said, to pray for the country and promote the dignity of a human person.
“Our culture is post-abortive,” she explained. “So many people have suffered and the loss of human life is so detrimental, just not knowing that we have value and are precious and sacred.”
She stood next to Theresa Bonopartis, who traveled from Harrison, New York, and ministers to women and others wounded by abortion.
“I’ve been fighting abortion for 30 years at least,” she told CNA.
Her ministry, called Entering Canaan, began with the Sisters of Life and is observing its 25th anniversary this year. It provides retreats for women, men, and even siblings of aborted babies.
Abortion is personal for Bonopartis, who said she had a coerced abortion when she was just 17.
“I was kicked out of the house by my father and then coerced into getting an abortion,” she said. “Pretty much cut me off from everything, and that’s something people don’t really talk about … they make it try to seem like it’s a woman’s right, it’s a free choice. It’s all this other stuff, but many women are coerced in one way or another.”
She guessed that she was 14 or 15 weeks pregnant at the time.
“I saw my son. I had a saline abortion, so I saw him, which I always considered a blessing because it never allowed me to deny what abortion was,” she said. Afterward, she said she struggled with self-esteem issues, hating herself, guilt, shame, and more. Then, she found healing.
“I know what that pain is like, I know what that experience is like, and you know that you can get past it,” she said. “You just want to be able to give that message to other people, that they’re able to heal.”
Residents of Mississippi, where the Dobbs v. Jackson case originated, also attended.
Marion, who declined to provide her last name, drove from Mississippi to stand outside the Supreme Court. She said she was in her early 20s when Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973.
“At the time, of course, I could care less,” she said. Since then, she had a change of heart.
“We were the generation that allowed it,” she said, “and so we are the generation who will help close that door and reverse it.”
The crowd at the pro-life rally included all ages, from those who had witnessed Roe to bundled-up babies, children running around, and college students holding up homemade signs.
One group of young friends traveled across the country to stand outside the Supreme Court. They cited their faith and family as reasons for attending.
Mathilde Steenepoorte, 19, from Green Bay, Wisconsin, identified herself as “very pro-life” in large part because of her younger brother with Down syndrome. She said she was saddened by the abortion rates of unborn babies dianosed with Down syndrome.
Juanito Estevez, from Freeport, a village on Long Island, New York, arrived Tuesday. He woke up at 6 a.m. to arrive at the Supreme Court with a crucifix in hand.
“I believe that God is the giver of life and we don’t have the right [to decide] whether a baby should live or die,” he said.
He also said that he believed women have been lied to about abortion.
“We say it’s their right, and there’s a choice,” he said. When girls tell him “I have the right,” his response, he said, is to ask back, “You have the right for what?”
Mallory Finch, from Charlotte, North Carolina, also woke up early but emphasized “it was worth it.” A pro-life podcast host, she called abortion a “human-rights issue.”
“I hope that it overturns Roe,” she said of the case, “but that doesn’t mean that our job as pro-lifers is done. It makes this, really, just the beginning.”
CNA Staff, Feb 5, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).
After a year of major efforts to prohibit irreversible and untested transgender operations on young children, lawmakers across the U.S. are continuing the push to protect chil… […]
Orlando, Fla., Jul 12, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Church may be thousands of years old, but its bishops are rapidly adjusting to the demands of 21st-century communication.
If the Church is to effectively evangelize in the modern world, a group of bishops argue, its leaders must be engaged online – but in the right way.
What’s most important is for Catholics engaging online, particularly priests and bishops, is to be sure to bring Christ with them online, said Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas.
“If we aren’t talking about the Gospel and what Jesus said today, then all the other stuff is going to be simply polemical, and our young people are tired of polemics,” he said during a panel discussion.
Young people, he added, want to know what Jesus has to say about the various issues and discussions happening online.
“I think, actually, we have kind of an obligation to sanctify social media,” the bishop said.
Bishop Flores spoke on social media use at a press conference during the “Convocation of Catholic Leaders: The Joy of the Gospel in America” event on July 2 in Orlando, Florida. Joining him in the press conference were Dr. Hosffman Ospino, associate professor of theology and religious education at Boston College; Archbishop Wilton Daniel Gregory of Atlanta; and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C.
Consultant and member of the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communication Kim Daniels also brought up the opportunity presented by social media in a July 3 speech at the convocation. In many ways, she commented, social media is a modern “periphery” where many whose needs are overlooked gather together.
“It’s clear that we need to engage people where they are, and the place where people are is social media on their own devices,” she said. “We know this is a great advantage for us to have this opportunity to reach out.”
Daniels also said that the Church has millennia of experience in communicating and bringing people together that it can give to online spaces.
“We know what it is to be a global interconnective network. We know that these kinds of communities need stability, and they need fidelity, and they need mercy, and relation and we can bring those gifts there.”
For an example of these kinds of gifts being used in the Church today, Daniels said to look at Pope Francis as an “extraordinary communicator.” His enthusiasm, honesty, frank discussion, and resistance to jargon makes him effective at bringing the Gospel to the peripheries, even online, she said.
“He brings something very substantive.”
Bishop Flores agreed with the need to bring substance and Christ to online spaces. “There’s one thing I do every day, and that’s that I will tweet out the Gospel of the day,” he said of his own personal Twitter use.
“If there’s anything I want people to know about the bishop it’s that the first thing he does in the morning is tell you about something Jesus said in the Gospel, because that’s the context from which we have to speak.”
“Maybe you’re not going to get a lot of followers if you comment on the Gospel every day, but it has an effect.”
However, bishops and Catholics can use social media in other worthwhile ways, Bishop Flores stressed. “I have a Twitter and I probably have more fun with it than I should,” he joked.
He said that he often takes group pictures of his confirmation classes, and the confirmande will share his photos online and discuss their confirmation.
“It gives them a chance to say that they’re happy to be Catholic.”
Their diocese also helps high school students utilize social media to develop skills in journalism through the diocese’s Mobile Journalism Project.
“We help get some mobile equipment for high school students who want to learn about journalism, because they’re out there everywhere,” Bishop Flores said.
After the students take pictures or write stories, the diocesean communications office will share them and give feedback. “It helps them get the idea that they can do this,” he said of the program’s impact on students.
Cardinal Wuerl also pointed to the need for bishops to play a more active role on social media, acknowledging the challenges it brings for those who didn’t grow up online.
“We need to be able to be a part of the conversation,” he urged. “If the Church is not part of their conversations, we’re not speaking to them.”
Dr. Ospino pointed out, however, that in many places in the country, this collaboration between generations is not the norm for social media use in the Church. He noted that there is a large “discrepancy” between people in leadership positions in the Church and those who are using the media constantly, with most lay leaders, priests and religious being in their mid 50s, 60s, and 70s, respectively.
“It is more than likely that these people are not tweeting day and night,” he said. Instead, he encouraged Catholic leaders to learn how young people are interacting with social media and the kinds of conversations they are having.
Archbishop Gregory had a different warning. While he agreed that bishops and Catholics should use social media more effectively, he also worried that it has its limitations.
“There is a great challenge though with social media and I think it’s that it emphasizes one-on-one relationships. It doesn’t provide the opportunity of a sense of belonging to a group larger than yourself,” he said.
He noted that in his diocese, many young people will say that they don’t need to attend Mass because they can watch Mass on their smartphones, which runs counter to the Church’s understanding of Mass and the Church.
“The Church is this community that is comprised of all of us together, and without that capacity to highlight that and to give expression to that, the best social media in the world will be missing a unique dimension of what it means to be the Church,” Bishop Gregory said.
“It doesn’t mean that we don’t use it, but we also have to recognize its limitations in delivering the Gospel message.”
The usual normalizing “it’s-all-under-control” blather from G9 FrancisCardinal O’Malley. No, we don’t need “clearer procedures” or other juridical, canonical, and bureaucratic camouflage. What we need are the expulsion of all homosexual cardinals, bishops, and priests who infest, dominate, and effectively control the Church today. And, by the way, how could he possibly not have known McCarrick’s child rape and adult sodomy reputation when every seminarian and priest in Washington, Newark, Metuchen, and New York did?
Why was nothing done on St. John, U S Virgin Islands with fello Carpecian?
Why no action to protect others?? What throw out the Redemptorists who were truly priests who cared for our people? They need them again – too many negative comments about what’s not being done and the lack of adequate training to help in growing and returning to their faith which most have left or live shallowly? Please don’t politic for papacy next time around. You failed the islands.
The usual normalizing “it’s-all-under-control” blather from G9 FrancisCardinal O’Malley. No, we don’t need “clearer procedures” or other juridical, canonical, and bureaucratic camouflage. What we need are the expulsion of all homosexual cardinals, bishops, and priests who infest, dominate, and effectively control the Church today. And, by the way, how could he possibly not have known McCarrick’s child rape and adult sodomy reputation when every seminarian and priest in Washington, Newark, Metuchen, and New York did?
Why was nothing done on St. John, U S Virgin Islands with fello Carpecian?
Why no action to protect others?? What throw out the Redemptorists who were truly priests who cared for our people? They need them again – too many negative comments about what’s not being done and the lack of adequate training to help in growing and returning to their faith which most have left or live shallowly? Please don’t politic for papacy next time around. You failed the islands.