News Briefs

Analysis: Vatican decision on Indianapolis could impact pending lawsuit, and Catholic identity in Catholic schools

December 21, 2020 CNA Daily News 4

Denver Newsroom, Dec 21, 2020 / 09:35 am (CNA).- The outcome of a Vatican appeal involving same-sex civil marriage and the Catholic identity of an Indiana school could have effect on a pending religious liberty lawsuit, and on the way other Catholic schools approach the issue of Catholic identity among their faculty.

Layton Payne-Elliot is a math teacher at Brebeuf Jesuit High School in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. In 2017, the school became aware that Payne-Elliot had contracted a same-sex marriage with Joshua Payne-Elliot, a teacher at Cathedral High School, which is also in the archdiocese.

The archdiocese asked that both schools not renew the teachers’ contracts, because, they said, teachers in Catholic schools are supposed to be witnesses of Catholic doctrine, and contracting a same-sex marriage constitutes a public act of counterwitness to that doctrine.

Brebeuf refused the archdiocesan instruction. In turn, the archdiocese revoked the school’s recognition as Catholic. The school appealed that decision to the Congregation for Catholic Education.

Curial officials close to the case have warned for months that Indianapolis’ Archbishop Charles Thompson is unlikely to find support for his deployment of the “nuclear option” in response to the school’s decision on Layton.

Several Vatican officials have told CNA that after some gestures of consideration, Brebeuf’s Catholic identity will likely remain intact, and the practical autonomy of institutes administered by religious orders will be bolstered by the Congregation’s decision.

A decision against Thompson could impact an ongoing civil lawsuit over the same case.

Joshua Payne-Elliot, who taught at Cathedral High School, filed suit against the Archdiocese of Indianapolis in 2019, after he was fired from his position. His case is currently before the state Supreme Court; this month the court rejected a request from the archdiocese to dismiss the case.

Cathedral High School’s handbook states that the “personal conduct” of all teachers should “convey and be supportive of the teachings of the Catholic Church.”

The Department of Justice has filed an amicus brief on behalf of the archdiocese, saying that “religious employers are entitled to employ in key roles only persons whose beliefs and conduct are consistent with the employers’ religious precepts,” and the government cannot interfere “with the autonomy of religious organizations.”

But according to The Indiana Lawyer, a judge in the litigation offered an unexpected settlement proposal last year.

Judge Stephan Heiman suggested that the parties reach a settlement that would depend on the Vatican’s decision in Brebeuf Jesuit’s canonical appeal against the archbishop. The judge suggested that if the archdiocese prevailed in Rome, the civil litigation would be dismissed, but if Brebeuf won in Rome, “the liability of the Archdiocese to Payne-Elliott would be established as a legal matter.”

Payne-Elliot accepted the idea, but the archdiocese did not. It’s worth noting that the judge’s proposal seemed to consider that the Congregation for Catholic Education will rule on the issue only as a matter of principle, when, in fact, there are any number of technical canonical issues at play, all of which may be a factor in the canonical case.

Heiman has recused himself from the case, and a special judge has been appointed.

But Heiman’s proposed settlement indicated that he saw a correlation between the Congregation’s decision and the case before him. That idea may well be picked up by Judge Lance Hammer, who is now overseeing the case, or argued for by Payne-Elliot’s attorneys, especially if the Congregation decides against Thompson without clarity on the reasons.

In short, the canonical specifics of the Vatican’s decision may well prove an operative factor in the ongoing civil litigation.

Of course, a decision against the archdiocese could also have a chilling effect on other Catholic institutions which require that teachers or employees live according to Catholic doctrine. It is unlikely bishops will be willing to press institutions in their diocese on such requirements, especially institutions administered by religious institutes, if they expect Rome won’t support their decisions on the matter.

Across the U.S., Catholic bishops in recent years have strengthened their policies on the Catholic identity of employees, in light of a number of religious liberty decisions in U.S. courts. But to understand how those policies might actually be applied in the years to come, many will now be looking to Rome, and to Indianapolis.
 

 


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Colorado medical practice to offer specialized care to adults with Down syndrome

December 21, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

Denver, Colo., Dec 21, 2020 / 07:15 am (CNA).- In a first-of-its-kind initiative, a Catholic-run healthcare practice in Colorado will partner with a major foundation based in Paris to bring specialized medical care to adults with Down syndrome.

Bella Health & Wellness, a practice based in the Denver suburb of Englewood, Colorado, announced at a Dec. 3 fundraiser that they will partner with the Jerome Lejeune Foundation, a French organization named for the pro-life doctor who discovered the genetic cause of Down syndrome in the 1950s.

Dede Chism, Bella’s co-founder and executive director, told CNA that the Lejeune Foundation was looking to partner with a medical practice in the United States that shared their ethos.

“The biggest thing is really believing in one another’s mission. We really believe in the mission of Lejeune and the mission of life…to be able to augment one another’s capacity to care by joining forces in any way that we can,” Chism told CNA.

Named for Servant of God Jérôme Lejeune, a French pediatrician and geneticist, the Lejeune Foundation aims to provide research, care, and advocacy for people with genetic intellectual disabilities. The foundation currently operates the largest medical center for people with Down syndrome in the world, located in Paris.

Bella opened in December 2014 as a non-profit medical practice, founded by Chism and her daughter Abby Sinnett, both of whom are nurse practitioners, with the goal of taking a holistic approach to caring for women in mind, body, and spirit.

The practice is run in full alignment with Church teaching, although it attracts non-Catholics as well, particularly those drawn to the clinic’s natural and scientific approach. Some areas of focus for the clinic include obstetrics, annual exams, gynecology, infertility treatment, menopause care, and abortion pill reversal.

Over the years, the practice has expanded its scope to offer care for men and children as well as for women, with services such as well child check ups, management of chronic illness, and COVID-19 testing.

One of the important facets of Bella’s work is care for pregnant mothers, and Chism said they are already adept at meeting the medical needs of mothers who are carrying babies with Down syndrome.

The new partnership will enable Bella to care for adult patients who have Down syndrome, she said. Bella will help Lejeune learn more about how medicine in the United States works, while the Foundation’s knowledge of how to care for people with Down syndrome, passed on to Bella’s staff through mentorships, will greatly benefit Bella’s medical practice.

“We know that there is an identified need, and we are going to be there to fill it,” she said.

Chism said they expect to begin serving their first patients with Down syndrome on March 21, 2021. March 21 has been marked as World Down Syndrome Day by the United Nations since 2012.

Dr. Lejeune, a devout Catholic, discovered the genetic cause for Down syndrome— an extra copy of chromosome 21— in 1958.

He spent the rest of his life researching treatments and cures for the condition— also known as trisomy 21— advocating strongly against the use of prenatal testing and the abortion of unborn children who were found to have Down syndrome.

Chism commented that before Lejeune’s discovery, people generally thought there was  something “missing” from people with Down syndrome, but Lejeune found that there was “nothing missing at all.” Rather, “God chose to write a second sentence in the DNA of Down syndrome people.”

Kieth Mason, executive director of the Jerome Lejeune Foundation USA, told CNA that the foundation chose Bella as their first medical practice partner in the United States because of a shared reverence for the dignity of the human person.

Denver is already home to the Anna and John J. Sie Center for Down Syndrome at Children’s Hospital Colorado, as well as the Global Down Syndrome Foundation, a major advocacy organization.

Currently however, Mason said, there is no freestanding medical center in the United States for people with Down syndrome older than 21. Most specialized clinics— of which there are about a dozen throughout the country— are pediatric. The partnership with Bella will aim to change that, he said.

The Lejeune Foundation operates the largest DNA database in the world, Mason said, and they base their specialized care for people with Down syndrome on many years of research. Research by the foundation is likely to yield positive results not only for people with Down syndrome, but for all people, he noted.

For example, it is very common for people with Down syndrome to get Alzheimers, so the foundation is doing a lot of research into how to lessen the impact of the disease. On the other hand, women with Down syndrome appear to be protected from contracting breast cancer, so research into this area could benefit all humanity, he said.

Mason said he fully expects Bella to attract interest from patients across the country, just as their clinic in Paris attracts patients from across Europe and the world.

Mason’s daughter Maria, who has Down syndrome, will be one of the first people to receive specialized medical care at the Denver clinic, he said.

“As we care for people with Down syndrome, they care for us. They minister to our hearts and show us what true joy is,” he commented.

Lejeune was a personal friend of Pope St. John Paul II. In 1994, the pope named him the first president of the then brand-new Pontifical Academy for Life.

Lejeune died of lung cancer on Easter Saturday 1994. His canonization cause was opened in 2007.

Madame Berthe Lejeune, Dr. Lejeune’s widow, has said her husband was heartbroken that many doctors and governments used his discovery to “screen out” babies with Down syndrome, targeting them for abortion.

“He thought that all doctors would be happy to find research to cure them,” Madame Lejeune told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly in 2017.

“But sadly, all government[s], not only in France, said: oh, it’s a wonderful discovery. You can detect these little sick children before they are born, and so take them away with an abortion.”

Madame Lejeune died in May 2020, also of lung cancer.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has consistently criticized countries which provide for abortion on the basis of disability. In some countries, such as Denmark and Iceland, the abortion rate for babies found to have Down syndrome is close to 100%.

In the United States, there have been numerous attempts at the state level to ban abortions based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome.

Missouri lawmakers passed a law during 2019 that, in addition to banning all abortions after eight weeks, prohibits “selective” abortions following a medical diagnosis or disability such as Down syndrome, or on the basis of the race or sex of the baby. The law is currently blocked in the courts amid a legal challenge.

Ohio lawmakers attempted in 2017 to pass a ban on Down syndrome abortions, but a federal judge in 2019 blocked the legislation from taking effect.

Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Utah have all considered or passed similar bans.

At the federal level, the Down Syndrome Discrimination by Abortion Prohibition Act has been introduced in Congress, but has not yet been debated. The proposed law would ban doctors from “knowingly perform[ing] an abortion being sought because the baby has or may have Down syndrome.”


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Chesterton fans fundraising to create Father Brown mystery game

December 20, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Dec 20, 2020 / 05:22 am (CNA).- A group of Catholic board game enthusiasts has launched a new Kickstarter campaign to create a game based on the Father Brown series by G.K. Chesterton.

The game is called Father Brown Investigations: The Death of Sir Percy Coldwell. It is inspired by Chesterton’s fictional character, Father Brown, a priest who solves crimes by using deduction and his insight into the human person.

The idea was developed by Nikola Bolšec, the president of the Croatian Chesterton Club and an editor for Laudato TV. The Kickstarter campaign was launched on Dec. 8 with a goal of raising $30,000. Ten days later, the project had raised nearly $5,000.

The game is estimated to take about 45-90 minutes and is for up to 6 players. The object of the game is for players to compete as rival investigators to unveil the suspect before their opponents.

At the beginning of the game, players are confronted with a crime scene. Each player will then receive investigation resource cards depending on their character’s skills. The players will use these cards to acquire the proper evidence to solve the mystery.

While the goal of the game is to make a case against a suspect before other investigators, one of the players in the game could be playing as the arch-villain Flambeau. This player seeks to mislead his opponents and wins by preventing the other players from completing the investigation.

Among other perks, donors to the Kickstarter campaign can receive base or deluxe versions of the game, the chance to play a virtual game with the creators, and the opportunity to be incorporated as a character in the game.

The project has been supported by Jacek Malkowski, a Polish game designer who has created board games such as The Road to Bethlehem and Inspiration. The creative team also includes artist Matko Antolčić and graphic designer Iva Risek.

The marketing campaign is being led by Joseph Grabowski, president of the Philadelphia Chesterton Society. He said Chesterton fans everywhere have met the news with excitement.

He said Father Brown – whose character also featured in a popular BBC television show – has enduring appeal. He also expressed hope that a fun example of an admirable priest would help address negative stereotypes of clergy and the Catholic Church.

“We’re incredibly excited by the enthusiasm we’ve seen from Chesterton fans, and the wider world of board game lovers,” said Grabowski in a Dec. 16 press release.

“This is a game that can be played by anyone, regardless of background or faith, and regardless of whether they are familiar with Chesterton’s Father Brown fiction. Nevertheless, for us, as Catholics, we think this game is important and that the market is ripe for it.”

“The reputation of the Catholic priest in our society has taken quite a hit over the past two decades, and we think a character like Father Brown who is wholly admirable, virtuous, and wise is a needed remedy to so many bad perceptions of priests.”

 


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