Washington D.C., Oct 4, 2019 / 09:30 am (CNA).- The Supreme Court will consider an abortion case this term after it announced on Friday that it will hear a challenge to Louisiana’s abortion law.
Louisiana’s Unsafe Abortion Protection Act r… […]
Steubenville, Ohio, Oct 3, 2019 / 06:45 pm (CNA).- The incoming president of Franciscan University of Steubenville has spent the past few months speaking, and listening, to students, alumni, and friends of the university.
He’s become well-known for a phrase he uses.
“We don’t just want God to bless what we’re doing, we want to bless what God is doing,” Fr. David Pivonka, TOR, tells students and alumni.
And God, Pivonka told CNA, is doing new things at the Ohio university he now leads.
God “is revealing himself to us and making it clear that he has a plan and a desire for us,” the priest said during an Oct. 3 interview, the day before his inauguration as the university’s seventh president.
There is, Pivonka said, “a newness, or freshness that is going on,” at the university. And, he insists, that newness is not about him, but about God’s Providence.
“In my own life and in the life of the friars in our community, we are just seeing different pieces come together and different people being placed here, and I think God is doing a really great thing, and a prophetic thing.”
Pivonka said God is inviting the university to a “refocusing” of its identity, and its priorities. How that unfolds will depend on prayer and discernment.
“It’s really keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, being faithful to what he is asking us to do,” Pivonka told CNA.
“I think St. Francis has something to do with that,” he added, mentioning that the saint can “helping us continue to understand what makes a Franciscan university different than any other university.”
Pivonka, 54, has some ideas about what that might look like. Franciscan identity, he emphasized, is about daily conversion, repentance, discipleship, and about solidarity with the poor.
The priest mentioned especially the importance of the university’s relationship with locals in the city of Steubenville, which suffers from high unemployment and economic depression, and the surrounding Ohio valley.
Pivonka said he’s met with local leaders to try to strengthen the university’s place in the region. He said he’s encouraged local leaders to think with him creatively about how the university – mostly set apart from the rest of the city atop a hill – can better engage with, and benefit from the community.
“What can we do in a mutual relationship? What can they do to help the university? Bause there’s gifts and talents here that have not been utilized. And, what can we do to help them?” he asked.
Noting the poverty of the region, Pivonka said that “one of the greatest things to raise people out of poverty is education. Education opens up new worlds, opens up doors. It provides people with options. The poor don’t always have options, and that’s a horrible feeling to have: that you don’t have any options or choices. I think education provides those options.”
“We want to make more resources available for the local kids who can’t afford to come to the university. We already have a grant of 50% off of tuition for any local kid. There’s some people for whom that’s enough to get them over the hump. They can come. But there are still others where that’s not enough. We want to do a better job at making sure that if an individual who lives in the Ohio Valley and wants an education from Franciscan, that we’re able to help them with that.”
He also told CNA that he wants his leadership of the university to emphasize unity—in the Church and within the university community. And he said unity will require a spiritual vision.
“We just find ourselves in a Church in a time that is really broken,” Pivonka said.
“The Church has been really wounded, but she has always been that way. There has never been a time when the Church wasn’t like that,” he added.
“But she is still the bride, and she is still beautiful, and still worth fighting for, and she is still worth protecting, and my fear is that maybe we haven’t recognized that, maybe we have been unable to see that. That is one of my prayers that the university is able to help see the bride, see the Church as she is.”
“The university,” he said, “could be a source of unity and healing.”
He prays that will be the case.
Pivonka told CNA he thinks prayer can also be a source of unity on the university’s campus.
While the Charismatic Renewal has long been associated with Franciscan University, Pivonka said that he’s mostly concerned that students live as Christian disciples, regardless of their spirituality.
“One of the things I said at the beginning of the year to students and the faculty is ultimately that I’m not concerned with people involved with Renewal as a movement, but what I am concerned about is that our lives be animated by the Holy Spirit,” he said.
Acknowledging liturgical “polarization” on the university’s campus, and more broadly in the church, the priest explained that “my prayer, and I think it’s possible but it will take work by us, is that we can, by the grace of God, really give an example that we don’t all have to pray in exactly the same way, and we can approach the Lord differently.”
“But part of being Catholic is embracing one another and giving one another freedom to do that without judgement, without dismissal. And that’s one of the goals and one of the desires I have for the university.”
“The Spirit of God is the same Spirit for all of us,” he said.
In the Church “we are supposed to be most united in our prayer and in our worship, and we are actually becoming more divided. I think that is ultimately the work of the Evil One, I really do. So can Franciscan University be a source of renewal, that we can bring this together? That’s my prayer.”
Pivonka is familiar with renewal at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
The priest graduated from the university in 1989, during the tenure of its well-known and charismatic fourth president, Fr. Michael Scanlan, TOR, who is largely credited with sparking a turnaround in the faith and culture of the university, which was nearly closed when Scanlan took the helm in 1974. Pivonka joined the Franciscans, Third Order Regular, the religious order that oversees the university, and later worked closely with Scanlan in the university’s administration.
The university’s trustees unanimously elected Pivonka president on May 21. The priest acknowledged that Scanlan, who died in 2017, has recently faced allegations of improper conduct during his term of leadership at the university.
Scanlan is alleged to have enabled and covered-up sexual misconduct on the part of another popular Franciscan friar on the campus. While Pivonka said he had not seen direct evidence supporting the claims made against Scanlan, he told CNA that he is sorry that anyone might have been harmed by failures on Scanlan’s part to respond properly in the face of allegations, and that the allegations – and his responsibility to address them- have been the subject of his prayer.
Pivonka said that as president of the university, he is committed to transparency in leadership, and to facing the past directly.
“We want to make sure that if there’s anybody who’s been a victim of any abuse or anything that was inappropriate, that we want to make sure that they’re cared for and that they’re heard and that they’re seen, and taken care of whatever circumstances, whoever was responsible for that to make sure that justice is brought about and healing is brought about,” he told CNA.
He emphasized the efforts made by the university in recent years, especially under the leadership of Fr. Sean Sheridan, his predecessor as president, to address accountability and assure a safe environment at the university.
Pivonka also emphasized the university’s commitment to forming students, to “household” faith communities, to academic freedom, and to “dynamic orthodoxy,” a phrase long associated with Franciscan, but attributed to the late Cardinal John O’Connor of New York.
“I think that when one experiences the beauty and grandeur and the glory of orthodoxy in right practice and right living, then orthodoxy is life-giving.”
“There is a need for an animated orthodoxy, an orthodoxy that’s alive, that’s fresh, that’s engaging. That’s really where we see orthodoxy here at the university,” Pivonka added.
Pivonka will be inaugurated as the university’s president Oct. 4, on the feast of St. Francis. He told CNA that as a leader, he hopes to be an instrument of conversion.
“My prayer is that people will experience conversion. That’s continually my prayer in the work that I’m doing at the university,” Pivonka said.
Calling a Catholic university a “faith community,” Pivonka said that “a faith community needs a pastor. It needs a shepherd, it needs a teacher. I really see my role in the university as that – it’s a priest and a shepherd.”
As a shepherd, he said, he hopes that after they graduate, students of Franciscan University are “engaged in their professions. That they’re outstanding doctors and lawyers and engineers and nurses and teachers and catechists and priests. That they are profoundly competent in their field. That they are influencing the people that they work with, to witness to them, to live the goodness of God’s love for them.”
“That they see the beauty of the Church, are engaged in the life of the Church, participating in their parishes, as lectors and youth ministers and Eucharistic ministers and works of mercy. That they are holy moms and dads that love their kids, that they are raising saints. That they live with hope and joy, purpose.”
He added that he hopes the university he leads will exercise a prophetic mission in the world.
God has placed on his heart, he told CNA, that “the Lord wants to do more, to use the university as a prophetic voice to a culture, to a Church, about what is possible. About hope that the situations in which we find ourselves are not the end of the story. About faithfulness.”
Ultimately, Pivonka said, he’ll measure his success by the holiness of his students.
“I told the students at the opening school year Mass that my goal and my desire is that each one of them hear the Lord say to them, ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. Enter into joy today.’ So, big picture success is that each of the students and everyone associated with the university ultimately inherits the Kingdom of God.”
Belfast, Northern Ireland, Oct 3, 2019 / 04:41 pm (CNA).- The High Court in Belfast ruled Thursday that the region’s existing abortion law is in violation of the United Kingdom’s human rights commitments.
“It’s a very sad day that the court has denied the right to life for unborn children,” Bernie Smyth, director of the pro-life organization Precious Life, said Oct. 3. Smyth was present when the ruling was made.
The case challenging the legality of the country’s abortion laws was brought forward by a woman named Sarah Ewart, who was denied an abortion in 2013 after it was determined that her baby would not live outside the womb. Ewart, who lives in Belfast, traveled to England for the procedure and has been an advocate for abortion rights in Northern Ireland since then.
Justice Siobhan Keegan declined to make a formal declaration of incompatibility, due to the fact that there is already legislation in place that would make abortion legal in Northern Ireland in the near future. A bill was passed in July by the British parliament that will make both abortion and same-sex marriage legal in the region if a devolved government is not formed by Oct. 21.
Last year, a similar challenge to Northern Ireland’s abortion law was dismissed on a technicality. That case was led by Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which the judge said had no legal standing to appeal the abortion law.
At that time of the dismissal, the court said there would be a stronger case if it were to be led by a woman who was unable to have an abortion after becoming pregnant after sexual assault or who was carrying a baby with an abnormality. Ewart stepped in to lead this new case.
While elective abortion is legal in the rest of the United Kingdom up to 24 weeks, currently it is legally permitted in Northern Ireland only if the mother’s life is at risk or if there is risk of permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.
In September, thousands of people took to the streets of Northern Ireland to protest abortion coming to the country. The “March for their Lives” was organized by Precious Life, who at the time told CNA they were “heartened and encouraged” by the strong turnout, which was estimated to be over 20,000.
The people of Northern Ireland made “ a strong stand against the extreme and undemocratic legislation that Westminster is forcing on Northern Ireland,” said Smyth.
“We believe Northern Ireland is being used as a Trojan horse to push for full ‘decriminalisation’ of abortion across the UK, a euphemism for the full legalisation of abortion through the whole nine months of pregnancy,” said Smyth.
Bills to legalize abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, or incest failed in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2016.
Northern Irish women have been able to procure free National Health Service abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales since November 2017.
Washington D.C., Oct 3, 2019 / 03:33 pm (CNA).- Former Bishop of Wheeling-Charleston Michael Bransfield is facing an allegation that he touched inappropriately a nine year-old girl during a pilgrimage to Washington, DC, in 2012.
A subpoena was … […]
Washington D.C., Oct 3, 2019 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- The Holy See has announced that Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn will lead an Apostolic Visitation of the Diocese of Buffalo.
The visitation, a canonical inspection and fact-finding mission, was ordered by Cardinal Marc Ouellet of the Congregation of Bishops in Rome, the Vatican department responsible for overseeing the personal conduct of bishops.
A notice issued by the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington, DC, on Thursday confirmed that the visitation was “non-judicial and non-administrative,” meaning that no formal charges are currently being considered against the scandal-plagued Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo.
The nunciature did confirm that the visitation had not been ordered under the provisions of Vos estis lux mundi, the policy document on sexual abuse and diocesan administration issued May 7 by Pope Francis, which came into effect June 1.
DiMarzio will will assisted by Fr. Steven Aguggia, the judicial vicar of the Brooklyn diocese, who will act as secretary of the visitation. The nunciature did not confirm when the visitation would formally begin, or how long it would continue before transmitting its findings to the Congregation for Bishops in Rome.
“This is a difficult period in the life of the Church in Buffalo,” DiMarzio said in a statement released on Oct. 3.
“I pledge I will keep an open mind throughout the process and do my best to learn the facts and gain a thorough understanding of the situation in order to fulfill the mandate of this Apostolic Visitation.”
In a statement released Thursday afternoon, the Diocese of Buffalo said that Malone “welcomes” the apostolic visitation.
“Bishop Malone has committed to cooperate fully and stated that this Visitation is for the good of the Church in Buffalo. The purpose of an apostolic visitation is to assist the diocese and improve the local Church’s ability to minister to the people it serves,” the diocese said.
“The mission of the Church in Buffalo continues to be to seek justice and compassion for the victim-survivors of sexual abuse and their families and to continue the good works of the church, fulfilled on a daily basis, by faithful men and women who serve a wide spectrum of our diocese.”
The diocese added its “heartfelt gratitude” to DiMarzio, and “to the Catholic community of Buffalo, including the lay faithful and the clergy.”
While the nunciature in Washington made it clear the law had not been invoked in this case, the visitation is the second authorized in the U.S. since the May 7 publication of Vos estis lux mundi. Bishop Michael Hoeppner of Crookston, Minnesota was investigated in September by Archbishop Bernard Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis. Sources close to the archbishop tell CNA that Hebda sent to Rome in late September, and is now awaiting further instructions.
In a year of scandals related to clerical sexual abuse, Malone has repeatedly found himself at the center of media attention.
In November, 2018, a former employee leaked confidential diocesan documents related to the handling of claims of clerical sexual abuse.
In August, a RICO lawsuit was filed against the diocese and the bishop, alleging that the response of the diocese was comparable to an organized crime syndicate.
Recordings of private conversations released in early September appeared to show that Malone believed sexual harassment accusations made against a diocesan priest months before the bishop removed the priest from ministry.
The contents of recordings of conversations between Malone and Fr. Ryszard Biernat, his secretary and diocesan vice chancellor, were reported in early September by WKBW in Buffalo.
In the conversations, Malone seems to acknowledge the legitimacy of accusations of harassment and a violation of the seal of confession made against a diocesan priest, Fr. Jeffrey Nowak, by a seminarian, months before the diocese removed Nowak from active ministry.
In an Aug. 2 conversation, Malone can reportedly be heard saying, “We are in a true crisis situation. True crisis. And everyone in the office is convinced this could be the end for me as bishop.”
The bishop is also heard to say that if the media reported on the Nowak situation, “it could force me to resign.”
Malone, 73, has led the Buffalo diocese since 2012. He was ordained a priest of Boston in 1972, and became an auxiliary bishop in that diocese in 2000, two years before a national sexual abuse scandal emerged in the United States, centered on the Archdiocese of Boston and the leadership of Cardinal Bernard Law. Malone was Maine’s bishop from 2004 until 2012.
“Our Holy Father has a great devotion to Our Lady Untier of Knots,” DiMarzio said, “I beg the intercession of the Blessed Mother, that I may be an instrument for surfacing the truth so that justice might be served and God’s mercy experienced.”
London, England, Oct 3, 2019 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- The High Court of Justice ruled Thursday that the parents of Tafida Raqeeb may take her to Italy for medical treatment. The five-year-old girl has been comatose since February, and UK doctors want to remove her life-sustaining treatment.
Doctors at Royal London Hospital, where Raqeeb is on life support, had barred her parents (Muhhamed Raqeeb and Shalina Begum) from taking her abroad for treatment. Barts Health NHS Trust, which operates the hospital, had asked that the court find that ending Raqeeb’s life-sustaining treatment is in her best interest.
Alistair MacDonald, the High Court judge, wrote in his Oct. 3 ruling that “where a child is not in pain and is not aware of his or her parlous situation, these cases can place the objective best interests test under some stress”.
“Tests must be looked for in subjective or highly value laden ethical, moral or religious factors… which mean different things to different people in a diverse, multicultural, multi-faith society,” stated MacDonald, who before his appointment as a judge practised family law, and is regarded as an expert on children’s rights.
He wrote that continued treatment was “consistent with the religious and cultural tenets by which Tafida was being raised”.
“There is no justification for interfering with the right to receive treatment in another EU member state,” the judge said.
“Transfer for treatment to Italy is the choice of her parents in the exercise of their parental responsibility and having regard to the sanctity of Tafida’s life being of the highest importance, I am satisfied, on a fine balance, that it is in Tafida’s best interests for life-sustaining treatment to continue,” Macdonald found.
The BBC reported that lawyers for Barts Health NHS Trust “said hospital bosses would consider appealing against the ruling.” They have 21 days to do so. The NHS trust said MacDonald’s decision “has clear ramifications that go beyond Tafida,” and could affect other patients being cared for in its hospitals. It stated: “The judge has granted us more time to consider the implications of this judgment for the Trust, other NHS organisations, doctors and patients.”
Two doctors from the Gaslini Children’s Hospital in Genoa examined Raqeeb via video link in July, and they agreed to care for her in Italy, saying they did not believe her to be brain dead. Her family have raised money for her transfer.
A lawyer for the Italian hospital told the court, according to The Evening Standard, that “When you drill down, it is based on differing views of what quality of life Tafida has. Clinicians (in England) don’t think she has a quality of life. Her parents do.”
Raqeeb suffered an arteriovenous malformation which resulted in a burst blood vessel in her brain, and has been in a coma since Feb. 9.
The AVM triggered cardiac and respiratory arrest, as well as a traumatic brain injury. Doctors at the Royal London Hospital say there is no chance she will recover from her coma, and declared any further medical treatment futile.
Raqeeb’s family are Muslim, and have argued that Islamic law “said only God could take the decision to end her life,” the BBC reported.
Begum, a solicitor, has said she wants to “exercise her rights as a parent.”
Muhhamed Raqeeb said he and Begum were thrilled by the High Court’s judgement.
According to The Guardian, Begum said that “We have always had Tafida’s best interests at heart and we have never wanted to come to court to have to argue for our rights to seek continued care in a world-class hospital [the Gaslini] willing to give her the treatment she needs. The entire experience of having to fight for our daughter’s life over the last three months has been exhausting and traumatic for all of her family and we are glad it is now finally over.”
She added that Tafida “is not dying and we are continuously seeing small but important signs that she is gradually improving and we have always been hopeful that she might make something of a recovery if she is just given the time and the right treatment to continue to improve.”
Begum commented, “If it happens to me, I want my life to continue until a time that God actually takes me, not withdraw life support from me.”
David Lock, a barrister for Raqeeb and Begum, said the judgement was an “enormous relief” and that the family “wanted to get on with the transfer” to Gaslini Children’s Hospital.
And Paul Conrathe, a solicitor for the family, said MacDonald’s ruling recognized “that a child’s best interests are not merely medical, but include broader social and religious values. It also recognised the legal right of parents to request life-prolonging treatment in another EU state so that their child can be treated under that system of care and ethics.”
He added, according to The Telegraph, that Raqeeb’s parents “look forward to her receiving outstanding care at the Gaslini hospital in Genoa. They will also feel at peace knowing that Tafida will be cared for under the Italian ethical and legal system.”
Bishop John Sherrington, an auxiliary bishop of Westminster and the English and Welsh bishops’ representative on life issues, welcomed the ruling, which he said “has taken account of the wishes of Tafida’s parents and their innate urge to do all they can to help their daughter in what are truly tragic circumstances. The heart-breaking illness of Tafida Raqeeb and the distress which the illness of a child causes parents touches the hearts of many people.”
“I trust that all the medical professionals will cooperate to continue to give her the best possible care and appropriate treatment. Such international cooperation is essential good practice in the care of tragically difficult lives,” he continued.
In July, Bishop Sherrington had urged that the public be reserved in judgement on Raqeeb’s case, saying that “difficult dilemmas have to be faced. In that process, I hope that all due weight will be given to the wishes of her parents, while also respecting the clinical judgement of the doctors caring for her. Those of us not in possession of all the relevant information might best be reserved in our judgement.”
Katie Gollop, a barrister representing Barts Health NHS Trust, said MacDonald’s ruling could affect other children.
Raqeeb’s case follows similar campaigns by parents with children in NHS care. Charlie Gard, Alfie Evans, and Isaiah Haastrup were all gravely ill children on life-support treatment. The parents of each of those children lost court battles in recent years against hospitals that wanted to end their treatment, and prohibit them from being taken abroad for treatment.
The NHS trust cited both Gard’s and Evans’ cases in its arguments against continuing treatment for Raqeeb and against allowing her to receive treatment elsewhere.
Vatican City, Oct 3, 2019 / 01:37 pm (CNA).- U.S. diplomats asked the Holy See to join the multilateral International Religious Freedom Alliance Wednesday, underscoring the contributions of faith-based organizations to flourishing and free societies around the world.
Faith-based institutions unleash “spiritual capital into a society,” Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback told CNA. He said these non-governmental organizations “bring the heart and hands,” helping the parts of society where governments or big institutions cannot reach.
“Governments are not real good about ‘Hey, let us help you get out of alcoholism,’ but churches are. That is just one quiet example,” Brownback said.
A symposium held at the Vatican Oct. 2 focused on the unique role that faith-based organizations play in providing humanitarian aid, combatting human trafficking, and advancing religious freedom in different parts of the world.
“Faith communities have been foundational, that is, fundamental to our work,” U.S. Ambassador-at-large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons John Cotton Richmond said at the symposium.
“Governments are limited by borders. They are limited by jurisdictions, election cycles, political will, and sometimes their self-imposed political struggles. But faith communities are not similarly bound,” Richmond said.
The ambassador said that faith-based organizations have the advantage of being able to “operate through networks that extend beyond any government or regime.”
“They do not last for just a cycle … They can build and plant for the long term,” he said.
“Faith-based communities with their contributions to philosophy have contributed to the foundation of the modern human rights movement. Faith-based groups have advanced the idea that all people have inherent value and intrinsic worth regardless,” Richmond said.
Representatives from Aid to the Church in Need, Caritas, Talitha Kum, the Community of Sant’Egidio, AVSI, Adyan Foundation, and the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development participated in the symposium, “Pathways to Achieving Human Dignity,” co-hosted by the Holy See’s Secretariat of State and the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See.
The U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Callista Gingrich announced at the symposium that the embassy will be awarding financial grants to each of the faith-based organizations that participated in the event.
“There has never been a more critical time to work with and to support faith-based organizations,” Gingrich said in her opening address Oct. 3.
“Today, religious freedom is under attack in nearly every part of the world. Faith-based organizations, through their unique ability to build trust and encourage dialogue, can play a critical role in turning the tide,” Gingrich said.
“Faith-based organizations are advocates for the most vulnerable among us, including those enslaved by human trafficking. They are also providers of humanitarian assistance, helping governments deliver aid effectively and honestly to those most in need,” she said.
Seattle, Wash., Oct 3, 2019 / 01:35 pm (CNA).- Children who attend Catholic schools administered by the Archdiocese of Seattle must be vaccinated and can no longer claim personal or religious opposition to vaccines, the archdiocese announced earlier th… […]
Dallas, Texas, Oct 3, 2019 / 12:03 pm (CNA).- The brother of Dallas man fatally shot by an off-duty police officer used his time in court to offer a hug and a message of forgiveness to the officer as she received her prison sentence.
“If you truly are sorry, I know I can speak for myself, I forgive you,” said 18-year-old Brandt Jean to former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger during his victim impact statement.
“I hope you go to God with all the guilt, all the bad things you may have done in the past,” he said. “If up go to God and ask him, he will forgive you.”
Guyger, 31, was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Wednesday for the murder of Botham Jean, a 27-year-old black man who was killed last September. She will be eligible for parole in 5 years.
Guyger was off-duty but still wearing her police uniform when she entered Jean’s apartment and fatally shot him. She said she had just finished a long shift, was distracted by a series of text messages from a colleague with whom she was having an affair, and did not realize she had entered the wrong apartment by mistake.
Thinking that she was in her own apartment, she saw Jean sitting on the couch, thought he was an intruder, and opened fire.
Prosecutors had sought at least 28 years in prison, in recognition of the fact that Jean was about to turn 28 years old when he was killed. Guyger’s defense had argued that the murder was a mistake rather than a malicious act.
Protestors outside the courthouse objected to the sentence, saying it was too short.
Inside the courtroom, however, Brandt choked back tears as he addressed Guyger, saying, “I don’t even want you to go to jail. I want the best for you, because I know that’s exactly what Botham would want…and the best would be give your life for Christ.”
“I love you as a person, and I don’t wish anything bad on you,” he continued, before asking – and receiving – permission to give Guyger a hug. The two shared a tearful embrace, with whispers that were not audible to those around them, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Bishop Edward Burns of Dallas praised the encounter, saying, “What an incredible example of Christian love and forgiveness we witnessed during the victim impact statement as Botham Jean’s brother, Brandt, forgave Amber Guyger, encouraged her to turn her life over to Christ and gave her a hug.”
“He said it is what Botham would’ve wanted,” Burns continued. “I pray we can all follow the example of this outstanding young man. Let us pray for peace in our community and around the world.”
After the sentencing, State District Judge Tammy Kemp offered Guyger her personal Bible, the Dallas Morning News reported. She encouraging Guyger to read it and told her, “Forgive yourself.”
Chicago, Ill., Oct 3, 2019 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- You might say that running 10 marathons is extreme.
Well, Sr. Stephanie Baliga, who is about to run her tenth, is somewhat of an extreme person. Just ask her. She’ll tell you.
She was once even more of an extreme runner, she told CNA.
But while she was a college athlete at the University of Illinois, she was grounded by a foot injury. While she recovered, Baliga, who had been running seriously since she was 9 years old, had some time to reevaluate her life.
“The metatarsal of my foot spontaneously fractured, so I went from being in very good shape to completely messed up because it was a…complete fracture. So I was in a boot and crutches for a very long time,” Baliga told CNA.
“And it made me – it forced me to reevaluate my life priorities and realize that I had pretty much placed running on this pedestal. It was how I defined myself and how I thought, how I understood who I was, and how I explained myself everybody else.”
But the injury, and the time off, made Baliga realize that her approach to running, and to life, was “super-not-sustainable and really didn’t make sense. So I needed to completely reevaluate what I was thinking about my life and who I was.”
It was during that time that Baliga connected with some students from her campus Newman Center and began delving deeper into her Catholic faith. She said when her friends invited her on a retreat, she was ready to go.
“I was pretty open to it,” Baliga told CNA. “It was pretty clear that Jesus was preparing for me to be ready for that point in time.”
It was on that retreat, during Eucharistic Adoration, that Baliga said she encountered the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist in a new way.
“There was this increasingly intense realization of his presence and the sense, the knowledge that Jesus was really there in the Eucharist and this is real, it’s not just some stuff that people say because it’s nice to talk about, or it’s nice because it ties the theology together. But this is actually real…and that I needed to completely change the ways that I live my life.”
After that retreat experience, it didn’t take long for Baliga to realize she was being called to the vocation of religious life.
“So I’m kind of an extreme person,” Baliga said.
She said after the experience of realizing Jesus is real, she took time to delve more deeply into prayer and her faith community. It wasn’t long after that that she realized she was being called. “It was only like five months, because I’m extreme,” she added.
Baliga said she felt drawn to a Franciscan order from the start of her discernment because of their “love of the Eucharist and focus on the Eucharist, and love of the poor and work with the poor, and then (living in) actual poverty.”
As she was looking into different religious orders, Baliga said she considered one that would have required her to completely give up running, because it wouldn’t have been compatible with that order’s way of life. In prayer, she said, she told Jesus that if he was asking her to give up running, that was ok.
“I told Jesus that if he really would rather me not run ever again, that’s what I’ll do…if that’s what’s needed, that’s what I’ll do,” she said.
“And that was just kind of this experience of freedom in that once I gave run into Jesus, which is what I did at that moment, it then became his. And then he was able to use it for his glory instead of me being selfish and prideful and…showy about my running.”
Around February of her senior year, Baliga found the sisters that she would soon join – the Franciscans of the Eucharist of Chicago. A relatively new religious community, there were only two other sisters in the order at that time.
Baliga decided to join after graduating from the University of Illinois in 2009.
The order encourages sisters to exercise as their schedule allows, and Baliga has been able to keep up her running – though not in full habit, she said.
“I wear a bandana, and a T-shirt, and then a long running skirt with tights,” she said.
“Some orders do run in their habits because they’re shorter, but ours…we have ankle-length habits. It would be kind of a problem.”
Sr. Baliga ran her first marathon as a sister in 2011, and for the past several years has used the Chicago Marathon as a chance to recruit people to be on a team that raises donations for her order’s mission.
“My community runs a place called Mission of Our Lady of the Angels, and we work with the poor on the west side of Chicago. We are a presence of Jesus here on the west side and this is one of the worst areas in the United States and leading Chicago in murders this year and things of that nature,” she said.
“So we provide a presence of peace, and a presence of love, and a presence of Jesus here in the midst of violence and poverty. We feed about 1,000 families a month with food and provide clothing and household goods for that same group, as well as work with senior citizens and families and do a lot of special events.”
This year, she’s recruited 105 people for Team Our Lady of the Angels for the October 13 marathon, and so far they have raised more than $126,000 of the $200,000 goal.
The money will go toward the renovation of an old Catholic school building that caught fire in 1950, killing 92 students and three sisters. Sr. Baliga and her sisters plan to transform the building into a community center.
According to the team’s fundraising page, the new outreach center will provide space for the Mission’s donation storage and distribution, a handicapped accessible kitchen and dining room, meeting space for neighborhood and retreat groups, and a 60+ bedroom retreat center for volunteers and retreat guests.
Sr. Baliga also has a personal fundraising page for the marathon, where she is raising $30,000 for the boiler system in the sisters’ church and school.
“I have spent the past 9 years of my life tackling maintenance issues. BY FAR the most annoying, long-lasting, and time-consuming issue was the BOILERS/ heat system. It has innumerable issues. The only advantage has been my opportunity to evangelize at least 10 different HVAC repair companies,” Baliga wrote on her fundraising page.
“This is the year the Lord has made. Both boilers in the school-rectory-church heat system will be replaced by winter 2020-2021. I am running the 2019 Chicago Marathon to end the boiler issues once and for all.”
By press time, Baliga’s page had raised about half of its goal.
Baliga said she would encourage anyone else who finds themselves in a similar situation as herself in college – wonder what God is calling them to do – to be courageous.
“I think the Church right now needs saints and saints in the making. So we need people to be courageous…if people think Jesus is calling them to religious life, he probably is. So people should seriously take that very seriously and not wait,” she said.
“Listen to Jesus and make the sacrifices that he asks because the rewards will be great. Honestly, here on earth, he has provided for us beautifully here. And then obviously we know that he’ll provide infinitely for us in heaven.”
© Catholic World Report