Articles by CNA Daily News

Buffalo, N.Y., Mar 20, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- A Catholic hospital in western New York will become the state’s first hospital entirely dedicated to treating COVID-19 patients, it announced on Thursday.

Catholic Health, a hospital network serving… […]

Washington D.C., Mar 20, 2020 / 03:01 am (CNA).- The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is, by most accounts, leading the United States toward a financial crisis.

According to Bloomberg, the global pandemic has caused the biggest decline in consumer confidence in the US economy since October 2008. The S&P 500 economic index sits at its lowest level since 2017, unemployment is rising, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average is tumbling.

How might the market downturn affect how much US Catholics give to their parish and other Catholic causes?

While the economic outlook is changing day-by-day, two experts in fundraising for Catholic causes pointed to historical data that suggests that pastors and bishops ought not be reticent to continue fundraising efforts.

Steve Manno, managing director for CCS Fundraising, a firm that has fundraised for numerous U.S. Catholic dioceses, told CNA that while fundraising is difficult, pastors should not give up amid a market downturn.

Manno said that giving to Catholic causes could face some real obstacles in years to come.

Data from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy suggests philanthropy tends to track with the stock market, with some of the more precipitous drops coming in the last economic downturn of 2008-2009, he told CNA.

The Lilly School data also suggests that while in terms of dollars, overall giving by Americans to charity has risen over the decades, the amount given per household actually is decreasing. Major gifts from high-net worth donors skews the data, Manno said.

In addition, the data show that in 2000, 66% of American households gave to charitable causes overall. By 2016, it was 53%.

Another study by Lilly Family School found that overall, 46% of American households gave to religious congregations in 2000, compared with 32% in 2016. The year 2019, Manno said, was unprecedented for faith-based giving in general.

“It dropped below 30% of all US philanthropy for the first time,” he said.

But Manno also pointed to data from the Center for Disaster Philanthropy that looks at the effects of natural disasters on charitable giving, which he said could provide relevant insights given the crisis at hand.

The data suggests that when an event such as a major natural disaster takes place, most households who donate to disaster relief will not donate less to other causes— in fact, a small percentage (12%) may increase their giving to other causes in addition to donating to disaster relief.

That data could suggest that the coronavirus pandemic itself might not lead to additional decreases in giving.

And there are bright spots on the fundraising landscape. Among them is online giving.

Overall, online giving to Catholic causes is up 2.6% from previous years, Brad Patterson, corporate vice president of CCS, told CNA.

He said development offices are better in general at driving toward online giving than they have been in the past.

In the face of the suspension of public Mass— which all Latin rite dioceses in the United States have now done amid the coronavirus pandemic— many parishes do not yet have an online giving portal set up are likely to feel the pinch of several weeks of no in-person donations. The current crisis will likely spur pastors to make online giving a priority, Patterson said.

Manno said in his experience, a time of financial uncertainty is the time for pastors and bishops to communicate with their flocks as much as possible. That communication is key, he said.

He said that if necessary, asking via videoconferencing for donations is a legitimate option.

“It may feel like now is a moment to pause, or delay activity, but it’s really important to take note that in previous economic downturns, those who continued to push forward in their [fundraising] efforts ultimately succeeded. And those who took a step back lost ground,” Manno told CNA.

He noted that some Catholics are giving less to the Church for reasons unrelated to the stock market, but such drops are highly regionalized. The Archdiocese of Washington, for example, took in millions of dollars less in its annual appeal this year, likely because of fallout from the sexual abuse crisis.

Still: “Catholics remain generous,” Manno said.

“When asked, Catholics give. When invited, they give. When shown what the specific need is, here’s what this money can do, then they tend to respond very favorably.”

[…]

St. Louis, Mo., Mar 19, 2020 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- Missouri authorities could soon rule on whether the state’s only remaining abortion clinic will remain open despite failures to meet basic patient care standards, and abortion advocates are already publicizing high abortion numbers at the new multi-million-dollar Planned Parenthood clinic built in secret just across the Illinois state line.

In June 2019, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services refused to renew the license of the clinic, Reproductive Health Services of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, to perform abortions.

A Missouri judge and the Missouri Administration Hearing Commission both granted a temporary stay of the health department’s decision, allowing the clinic to remain open while the case was reviewed.

March 16 marked the deadline for written briefs to be filed with the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission. The state health department had requested an extension to the original Feb. 28 deadline.

A decision is now “imminent,” advocates in the case told the U.K. newspaper The Guardian.

Before Missouri’s health department refused to renew the license, it submitted to court a “Statement of Deficiencies.” It cited an “unprecedented lack of cooperation” on the part of the St. Louis clinic, as well as a “failure to meet basic standards of patient care.” The statement also identified four instances of failed abortion procedures at the clinic.

Planned Parenthood’s attorneys argued that the state “cherry-picked” a “handful of difficult cases” out of an estimated 3,000 abortions performed at the facility. Its defenders have said that state inspectors did not find an unsafe environment.

Planned Parenthood has provided an analysis to National Public Radio reporting that only three abortions were performed at its St. Louis clinic in February 2020, compared to 174 abortions the previous year. However, 323 abortions were performed at the new Planned Parenthood clinic in nearby Fairview Heights, Ill.

Yamelsie Rodriguez, CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said that women are seeking abortions in Illinois due to more permissive abortion laws. Missouri also has a 72-hour waiting period for abortion.

“When they are weighing their options, the majority of patients are clearly seeing that abortion access is so unmanageable that they’re choosing to cross state lines,” Rodriguez told NPR.

The new clinic, which opened in October 2019, has space of 18,000 square feet and cost about $7 million to build.

Mary Kate Knorr, Illinois Right to Life Executive Director, in October said the facility is a “money-making venture.”

“Make no mistake – this new mega-facility is not a response to an increased demand, nor is it a gesture of care for women. This facility was created to fill the gaping hole they’re seeing in their bottom line,” Knorr said.

“The construction of this new facility was a strategic business move – certainly not a defense of women.”

Planned Parenthood constructed its new abortion clinic in secret just 13 miles from the St. Louis clinic. It used a shell company to hide that the facility would become one of the nation’s largest abortion clinics.

Colleen McNicholas, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, told CBS News in October that abortion facilities in other areas had faced public outcry and protest during their construction, hence their decision to build the clinic in secret.

Missouri authorities, however, could have final say over the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic.

According to the Missouri health department’s “Statement of Deficiencies,” Planned Parenthood went back on its agreement to perform pelvic examinations as a “preoperative health requirement.” Several doctors at the clinic refused requests to provide interviews with the health department, and the clinic would not have been prepared for a case of a woman who suffered “severe hemorrhaging” at a hospital before being referred to Planned Parenthood.

For its part, Planned Parenthood has accused the state of weaponizing the regulatory process and claimed the state has admitted the pelvic exams are “medically unnecessary.”

Some states have seen strong trends in favor of restricting abortion and providing legal protections to the unborn, expecting possible changes in U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

Missouri enacted a comprehensive abortion ban in 2019, which Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed into law. The legislation was supported by Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis.

Missouri’s law set up a multi-tier ban on abortions after eight weeks, 14 weeks, 18 weeks and 20 weeks, as well as bans on abortions conducted solely because of the baby’s race, sex, or Down syndrome diagnosis.

The law was crafted to be able to survive in the courts, but a federal judge in August 2019 struck down all of the bans related to the stages of pregnancy. At present the court left intact the disability, race, and sex-selective abortion bans.

In contrast to Missouri, Illinois law has moved further in a pro-abortion rights direction. In June Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois signed legislation to expand vastly access to abortion in that state.

The Reproductive Rights Act ended a ban on dilation and evacuation abortion, removed regulations for abortion clinics, and ended required waiting periods to obtain an abortion. It also lifted criminal penalties for performing abortions, required all private health insurance plans to cover elective abortions, and eliminated abortion reporting requirements, as well as regulations requiring the investigation of maternal deaths due to abortion.

The legislation was strongly opposed by Illinois’ Catholic bishops.

[…]

Denver, Colo., Mar 19, 2020 / 04:51 pm (CNA).- The Hernon family just barely makes the cut for the latest coronavirus social distancing measures, which allow only 10 people or less to gather together.

Though Mike and Alicia have 10 children, two of them are married and no longer live at home. They still have eight children under their roof, ranging in age from 7-22.

And now, as Sunday approaches and Masses across the country are canceled, the Hernon family, who run a ministry called The Messy Family Project, are thinking about how they can keep Sunday as a holy day without the liturgical celebration of the Mass.

“My first thought is that this pandemic is Lent for the world,” Mike said.

“It’s an imposed sacrifice that we didn’t choose, but like Lent, it’s stripping us away from things of this world. And it gives us an opportunity to focus on what matters, our faith and our families. Not to make light of anything, but to see…this as a way for us to become more intentional in our family life.

On March 11, the World Health Organization officially declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. Two days later, announcements from Catholic dioceses in the United States started trickling in. Public Masses were suspended in order to stop the spread of the disease. By March 18, every Latin Catholic diocese in the United States had suspended public Masses.

The Hernons were able to attend Mass last Sunday, so this weekend will be their first Sunday without Mass during the coronavirus pandemic.

They said the new situation should encourage Catholic parents to be the spiritual leaders of their homes.

“I think sometimes parents, we rely on (our parish) to kind of help us celebrate Sunday. We’re like, ‘Oh, go to Mass, and then we’ll come home and just whatever. It’s just another day.’ So we were relying on Father, your pastor, to do Mass. Well now that you can’t do that, parents actually have to take that responsibility,” Alicia said.

Mike especially encouraged fathers to take the lead.

He said that on Sunday, their family plans to read the Mass readings for the day, and on to pray morning prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. Mike said fathers could consider leading the family in a simple meditation on the Gospel or another scripture passage of the day.

“Just meditating and spending some time (in silence) as a family. And then discussing it and having a conversation, instead of a homily, but having a little bit of that type of discussion with the family. Particularly dads need to really take some leadership in the way that they lead a time of prayer on Sunday. It doesn’t have to be elaborate,” he said.

The Hernons also suggest a family examination of conscience, and a time for family members to apologize to each other if necessary.

“Everybody can modify based upon their kids, and what’s age appropriate, if they have older kids or younger kids,” Mike said. Alicia also encouraged dads to take the lead in celebrating Sunday.

“This is a great time for dads to step up and take that mantle that God has given them all along,” Alicia said.

The Hernons encouraged families to set aside the time for silence and family prayer, even if they are also planning on watching a televised Mass. They said younger children are likely to respond best to incorporating physical elements of prayer, such as candles or religious images, into their prayer time.

“Kids, but not even just kids, as people, we are so tangible. We are Catholics, we need physical things,” Alicia said.

“Make up a little altar, light candles, have a picture of Jesus, have a picture of the Blessed Mother. If you don’t have a statue or religious things, get them. Buy them on Amazon, immediately,” she said. “Include holy water in your ritual. Have everyone bless themselves.”

Alicia added that keeping Sundays holy should include not only prayer, but the way the rest of the day is lived out.

“If you look in the Catechism about how to celebrate Sunday, it doesn’t say just go to Mass. You have Mass, but then you also refrain from unnecessary work, take time to join with other families, take time to focus on each other,” she said.

Obviously, those things will look different in a world of social isolation, Mike and Alicia said, but it can include games and other forms of recreation, as well as special meals.

“You could make a maze out of your home, you could do a treasure hunt, you can get outside for goodness sake, we don’t have to stay inside,” Alicia said.

“You can still go on a hike. If there’s a lake nearby, you can go swimming, you can go to a beach, you can just get outside and do something with your family.”

The Hernons said they discussed a lot of ideas for how to spend this time of pandemic as a family on their latest podcast episode, and that they plan on coming up with a Sunday guide for prayer time that families can follow on their website.

Adam Barlett is also planning on making a guide to help families lead prayer in their homes on Sundays. Bartlett is the founder and president of Source and Summit, a new Catholic apostolate dedicated to helping parishes elevate the liturgy. He is also a husband and father to two girls, aged 13 and 9.

“Source and Summit exists to serve parishes fundamentally, but by extension to help all Catholics elevate liturgical prayer,” Bartlett told CNA. “So we found it kind of ironic that the moment we launched, parishes and diocese just started shutting down the public celebration of Mass. And so we felt kind of a obligation to respond in some way.”

To respond to canceled public Masses, Bartlett and his team at Source and Summit have begun building a website that can serve as a liturgical guide for families on Sundays during this time of canceled Masses, titled Keep the Lord’s Day.

The site will include a guide and texts of that Sunday’s Morning Prayer, as well as the Liturgy of the Word for Mass, and a prayer to make a spiritual communion. There will also be a musical component guiding families in liturgical chant.

“It’s a resource for Catholics to help them continue to pray the liturgy, and to unite themselves through the never ending prayer – the liturgy – from their homes when they can’t attend Mass at their parish.”

The Bartlett family started praying the Liturgy of the Hours this last week, as Colorado was one of the first states to announce that all Masses were suspended to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

“We realize that for a lot of people, the Liturgy of the Hours can be confusing or intimidating. It can be really difficult to navigate. And a lot of times people don’t know about it or if they’re even doing it correctly. So we thought we could put together a little resource for real liturgical prayer in the home for Sundays to help families unite themselves to this one never ending eternal prayer of the Church, which is a type of liturgy,” he said.

The Liturgy of the Hours are a set of prayers, including Psalms and readings from both the Old and New Testaments, that are prayed multiple times a day throughout the world by Catholic priests, nuns, and religious sisters and brothers, Bartlett said, but the Church also invites lay Catholics to pray the Hours as well.

“All of the lay faithful are invited to join in this prayer,” he said.

While watching a livestream Mass can be a place to start for families, Bartlett said he hopes Catholics will also consider praying the Liturgy of the Hours with their families, because of its sacramental and liturgical nature.

“As Catholics, our worship is sacramental… meaning that God communicates himself to us through physical things. And we’re able to worship and to pray not only in a purely spiritual way, but also in a physical way with our bodies, with our voices, with gesture, with things that engage all of our senses,” he said.

Mass, of course, uses all of these things, he added. Catholics sit, stand, speak, sing, listen, smell incense and taste the Eucharist.

“It engages all of our senses,” he said. “And this is the way that Christ chose to draw to himself and to unite us to himself in that, not only the spiritual way but the very real sacramental way.”

But if Catholics only participate in prayer through a screen for the next few months, they will miss out on the sacramentality and the liturgy of the Church, he said.

“That can be a little bit more of a passive engagement rather than a real physical participation in the liturgy itself,” he said.

Another reason he would encourage Catholics to pray the Liturgy of the Hours would be because it would feel set apart from the day-to-day activities, which, during a time of pandemic, will increasingly take place in front of a screen, he said.

“Part of the nature of liturgical prayer is that it’s intentionally set apart; and another way of saying that is that it’s sacred. We use sacred objects. It’s set apart from the ordinary aspects of our life,” he said.

“Now, being in our homes will kind of limit our ability to go into a beautiful church and into a sacred place for prayer. But if we think about watching the Mass in the same place where we watch Netflix, there’s a kind of challenge there, in that it’s not a time that we’re setting apart for the sacred,” he said.

“So really what we’re encouraging people to do, particularly on Sundays, on the Lord’s Day, is to create a kind of sacred space in their home for prayer and to engage in it themselves,” Bartlett added.

Fr. Ryan Hilderbrand, the pastor of St. Mary’s in Huntingburg, Indiana, is streaming and posting his Masses on his new YouTube channel. He said watching Mass on a livestream or on TV on Sundays can be a great start for families, but he also encouraged them to participate in “age-appropriate devotionals.”

“Watching a live stream is a great way to participate in the Mass if someone can’t attend. Actual graces are still present and can stir the heart to a deeper relationship with Jesus,” Hildebrand told CNA.

“However, it is clearly different from participating in Mass by one’s physical presence. Among other things, Mass is the reunion of Christ the Head with his Mystical Body, the Church. We are all sons and daughters of the Father, coming together as that one body in Jesus for Mass. Additionally, we are made members of one another at Mass – we carry one another’s burdens, offer support and prayer, and encourage one another in worshiping the Father,” he added.

Besides prayer and watching Mass, Hildebrand encouraged families to observe Sundays as a day of joy and rest by spending time together.

“For families with kids, they could follow the old rule of ‘spirituality, service, silliness’ – that is, pray together, do something constructive together, and have fun together,” he said.

Service might look different under social distancing, he added, but it could be cleaning out closets together or collecting toys and clothes for future donations.

As for silliness -“Have fun together! Watch a movie, play a board game, joust with pool noodles – what is important is that they do something as a family,” he said.

Calvin Mueller is the coordinator of rural parish evangelization at the Archdiocese of Omaha, which had Mass last weekend, but announced on Monday the “indefinite” suspension of public Masses and other sacraments with 10 or more people present.

That day, Mueller posted to his Facebook page a personalized “Mueller Family Pandemic Plan,” which included plans for worship and prayer, and asked his friends for feedback.

With three children under the age of 5, Mueller said planning a lot of structured prayer time is difficult. Their family plans to say a daily rosary, for example, but they will say only as many decades as they can “until our kids lose it,” he said.

As for Sundays, Mueller said the family plans on watching their local parish’s livestream Mass and making a spiritual communion. Mueller said he also wants to plan his family’s Sundays around three different areas: reverence of holy things, reverence of others, and experiencing the joy of Christ.

Even if a family does not stream Mass, Mueller said they could spend some time in silence and prayer with “engagement in scripture, making a spiritual communion, and the rosary.”

As for reverencing others, Mueller said he would encourage families to think about who they could reach out to either through phone calls or video chats on Sundays.

“That might be grandparents, or other loved ones, in order that you can experience community together,” Mueller said.

Mueller added that even though most restaurants and venues are closed, Sundays should not stop being days to experience the joy of the Lord. “That might mean baking a particular food, or serving a particular drink, or playing a game that you know is going to bring life to your family,” he said.

Ultimately, while this is an “unprecedented time” in the life of the modern Church, Mueller said he is viewing it as a gift that calls for an “unprecedented response” from Christians.

“I see this as a tremendous gift, to actually be able to slow down and reevaluate the sainthood that Christ is calling all of us to. And I’m grateful that people are recognizing the ephemeral pleasures that they’re used to…are not adequate for what the Lord has really made us for. So to have this time, to actually have that come to the light, I see it as a tremendous gift and my hope is that the Church, and ourselves as the Church, will seize this opportunity to fill the void.”

 

[…]

Washington D.C., Mar 19, 2020 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- The lieutenant governor of Washington announced on Thursday that he will not seek re-election and instead will enter the Society of Jesus this autumn. 

Lt. Gov. Cyrus Habib (D), 38, will end his ei… […]