News Briefs

Washington D.C., Nov 29, 2018 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Landmarks from London to Sydney were illuminated with red light Wednesday, in tribute to the modern martyrs around the world who have offered their lives for Christ and the Church.

In Washington’s Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Catholics and Church leaders from four continents gathered inside the illuminated shrine to pray solemn vespers for the persecuted Church.

“For me, it’s really a blessed moment where we have the whole Church praying for us persecuted churches around the world,” Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, Iraq told CNA at the event Nov. 28.

Red Wednesday shows “that we are one in Christ. If any part of the body of Christ is suffering, the whole body is suffering,” he continued.

The Iraqi archbishop also spoke of suffering in the context of the “purification” of the Catholic Church, describing not only the persecution of the faithful in his home country, but also touching on Catholics’ suffering due to the sex abuse crisis in the West.

“We feel the pain of the Church today because of the sins of its servants, and I believe that the Holy Spirit is working in the Church for its painful cleansing from within to become purified and to be the bride of Jesus Christ,” Warda said at the prayer vigil.

“Jesus gave up everything only to be holy to the Father,” he said. “Love, peace, and forgiveness will always remain and have the last word. He will achieve victory with his grace.”

“God gave us the grace to overcome ISIS,” Warda said.

Apostolic Nuncio to the U.S. Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Archbishop for the Military Services Timothy Broglio, and Bishop Oliver Doeme of Maiduguri, Nigeria were among the distinguished guests at the basilica event organized by Aid to the Church in Need.

“We must not hide from suffering when it comes. We must firmly address it in faith, love, and prayer,” Warda said.

The Iraqi bishop shared stories and statistics of the suffering that his people have endured. “Since 2003, 61 churches and shrines were burned, destroyed, or harmed. Over 55,000 homes seized, 150,000 Christians were displaced in 2015. Countless Christians have been kidnapped or murdered,” he said.

“The Church in Iraq is a martyr Church,” Warda said. “Our persecution continues to make us a church of peace and reconciliation, transforming us into an apostolic, missionary church.”

“Persecution brings us closer to Jesus … We are called upon to remain faithful to the Gospel” through “an invitation to the cross,” he continued.

Throughout the prayer vigil, the names of 20 martyrs killed between 2017 and 2018 were read aloud. Priests were among the martyrs from Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Venezuela, Madagascar, and Kenya.

Those gathered in the basilica prayed for Catholics who remain missing since being kidnapped in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and Mali.

Specific attacks against large groups of Christians in Egypt, Pakistan, Central African Republic, and other countries were also remembered. On November 15, 42 people died in an attack on the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Alindao, Central African Republic.

Aid to the Church in Need began the “Red Wednesday” initiative in an effort to draw attention to the plight of persecuted Christians around the world today. On Nov. 28, St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, Westminster Cathedral in London, and more than a dozen other  buildings were lit red for the evening.

Warda told CNA, “This is really a time for prayer, a time to be with the persecuted one. It gives the Church a mission today … to be with those who have been persecuted for their faith, been neglected, been marginalized, to feel their pain, even when we are in distance.”

“I take this message back home and will tell them that the whole Church is praying for you,” he continued. “It makes us more strong in knowing that we are persecuted, but not forgotten.”

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Washington D.C., Nov 29, 2018 / 02:19 pm (CNA).- Before it began, many U.S. bishops expected their November general assembly in Baltimore to produce something tangible – a new policy, structure, or system – that would help them reassure Catholics that they were responding to months of sexual abuse scandals breaking across the Church.
 
But after a last-minute Vatican’s decision to suspend a vote on draft measures until after a Rome meeting of the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences in February, it seems likely that no universal response to the crisis will emerge until at least the second half of 2019.
 
Some U.S. bishops have told CNA they now realize that if they want to initiate new reforms, they’ll have to do so in their own dioceses, using the ordinary prerogatives of a diocesan bishop.
 
As they wait for Rome to form its response to the crisis, there are several options available to bishops who are looking to improve diocesan mechanisms for handling clerical misconduct.

And as bishops begin to implement new policies at the diocesan level, their local action might provide useful examples for study and consideration ahead of the February meeting Rome.
 
The Promoter of Justice
 
One of the common threads across most proposals for responding to the abuse crisis is the call more independent, lay-led involvement in handling accusations of abuse or sexual misconduct.

Independent lay involvement is seen increasingly as a necessary aspect of transparent and accountable investigations. Bishops have suggested such involvement is the best defense against clericalism, and a defense against any the temptation for bishops to shirk from imposing justice on themselves or clerics they (rightly) view as their spiritual sons.
 
While U.S. dioceses already have independent lay review boards, concerns have been raised  about how such bodies fit within the Church’s structure and canonical processes,.
 
There is a fine line between independent accountability and “outsourcing” problems. The need to preserve canonical coherence in the handling of accusations is essential to a credible outcome.
 
One ready-made option for individual bishops to consider is the role of the promoter of justice. This is a position in canon law which functions as something akin to a public prosecutor or district attorney. Every diocese is to have one, and they are supposed to intervene in all cases concerning the public good.
 
In many dioceses, the promoter of justice is a priest who has to combine the role with other chancery or tribunal duties, leaving an important function as often little more than a name on paper. But this does not have to be the case.
 
Canon law provides that the promoter of justice can be either cleric or layman, with the only requirements for the role being an “unimpaired reputation,” a doctorate or license in canon law, and a proven “prudence and zeal for justice.”
 
Some observers have suggested that any diocesan bishop could, if he wished, appoint a lay expert in handling sexual abuse cases as his promoter of justice and empower that office with the independence and resources needed to deliver a truly credible, and canonically coherent response to allegations. This could include the use of experts in the fields of civil criminal law, psychology, and sexual abuse.
 
While cases of sexual abuse of minors are reserved to Rome, a sufficiently independent and well-resourced local promoter of justice could conduct the preliminary investigation into all accusations of sexual abuse – including against the local bishop – in a way which would be externally credible and canonically sound.
 
A serious and independent office of promoter of justice, run by a lay expert in canon law, could also help address the current confusion of terms which often clouds the handling of cases.  Canonical authorities in Rome and lay experts and civil lawyers in America often mean and understand very different things when using words like “credible” or “substantiated” to talk about accusations.
 
A well-resourced promoter of justice might also bring a renewed level of canonical formality and rigor to cases involving clerical misconduct with adults. To help this to happen, bishops could make use of another power available to them: they could make local laws.
 
Enhanced Local Law
 
While accusations of child sexual abuse have drawn the most attention, most of the allegations facing Archbishop Theodore McCarrick concern alleged sexual behavior with seminarians and priests.
 
While such behavior, either coercive or consensual, is certainly sinful, many have noted that there is no clear canonical crime with which to charge McCarrick, or other clerics similarly accused.
 
The 1917 Code of Canon Law contained a comprehensive list of illicit sexual behavior. Clerics who engaged in sexual activity, either with men or women, minors or adults, were subject to a range of penalties up to and including laicization.
 
The whole code was revised following Vatican Council II, and much of the Church’s long list of canonical crimes was simplified or removed from the new version, promulgated in 1983. Many were left with the impression that the Church was moving away from the idea penal law at all, seeing it as out of step with a modern, more pastoral approach.

However, the bishops charged with reforming the Church’s penal law had an entirely different motivation.
 
Universal penal law was not downscaled to create a disciplinary vacuum, but in order to clear space for individual bishops to pass local laws best suited to their own circumstances.
 
It is within the power of every bishop to pass particular canon law for his own diocese. Such legislation could be introduced relatively easily and could address illicit sexual behavior by clerics in the diocese with adults, consensual or otherwise. Such laws could also provide for aggravating factors, like public scandal caused and the abuse of pastoral or hierarchical relationships between parishioners, seminarians, priests, and bishops.
 
Bishops could also lay out clear and escalating penalties for priests who are unable or unwilling to live chastely. Depending on circumstances, an initial moral lapse by a priest could be met with a lesser punishment, enhanced supervision, and restricted ministry. Those who repeatedly offend could be subjected to increasingly punitive measures, including the possibility that a bishop might ask the Vatican to remove the priest from the clerical state altogether.
 
Misconduct and Mental Illness
 
With a clear canonical framework to work from, bishops could also bring a sense consistency and rigor to clerical disciplinary procedures often haphazardly applied.

Very often, the first instinct of a bishop when dealing with a priest who has engaged in sexual misconduct is to send him for psychological assessment and treatment.
 
While it is true that some priests can find themselves isolated in their ministry and living under enormous pressure, illicit sexual behavior – either with adults or minors – is not itself evidence of a mental disorder.

For years, some canonical experts have said that sending, for example, two priests found engaged in consensual homosexual acts for “a psychological assessment” is a step that begins a process from the presumption of moral irresponsibility, and therefore undermines the Church’s penal law.

The current scandal might lead to a change in that practice.
 
Some bishops have also found that “medicalizing” canonically criminal behavior can tie their hands at the end of the process. If a priest who has committed a grave sexual offence is sent for treatment, the expectation is that he should be returned to ministry once therapists believe treatment has been effective – even if the bishop has his own doubts about the priest’s moral or personal aptitude for priestly ministry.

But in the wake of the McCarrick scandal and ensuing revelations, bishops may soon move away from the “therapeutic model,” and begin treating acts of grave immorality principally as matters of justice and mercy, punishment and reform. This move, if it happens, would leave them free to account for the damage to victims and to Church community caused by offending clerics, and allow them to make their own prudential judgment about a priest’s future.
 
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To many Catholics, the crisis facing the Church in the United States, while caused by sexual abuse, has developed into a crisis of leadership. Earlier this week, JD Flynn wrote about the danger of a “paralysis of analysis.”  Some bishops have said they are frustrated with the pace of global reforms; as they wait, they might decide that it is time to act for themselves.

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Washington D.C., Nov 29, 2018 / 11:30 am (CNA).- The U.S. Senate voted Wednesday in favor of a procedural motion to advance a resolution that could end U.S. involvement in the conflict in Yemen. By a margin of nearly two-to-one, senators backed a motio… […]

Washington D.C., Nov 28, 2018 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The US House of Representatives passed Tuesday H.R. 390, a bill titled “Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act,” which seeks to assist with the rebuilding of the Christian and Yazidi communities in Iraq and Syria.

Having also passed the Senate, the bill now will go to President Donald Trump, who has indicated he is willing to sign it.

The bill was introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) and was cosponsored by a bipartisan group of 47 members of Congress. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA) was the lead Democratic co-sponsor of the bill. The bill was passed unanimously in the House Nov. 27.

H.R. 390 would provide funding to entities, including those who are faith-based, that are assisting with the humanitarian, stabilization, and recovery efforts in Iraq and Syria to religious and ethnic minorities in the area.

It would also direct the Trump administration to “assess and address the humanitarian vulnerabilities, needs, and triggers that might force these survivors to flee” the area, as well as identify potential warning signs of violence against religious or ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria.

Additionally, the bill will support entities that are conducting criminal investigations into members of the Islamic State who committed “crimes against humanity and war crimes in Iraq,” and will encourage foreign governments to identify suspected Islamic State perpetrators in security databases and security screenings to assist with their capture and prosecution.

The Senate unanimously passed a slightly amended version of the bill Oct. 11.

“The fact that this bill passed both the House and the Senate unanimously shows that the American response to genocide transcends partisanship and that there is enormous political will to protect and preserve religious minorities in the Middle East, including Christians and Yazidis, who were targeted for extinction,” said Knights of Columbus Supreme Knight Carl Anderson upon the bill’s passage. Anderson testified at a congressional hearing about the bill.

“We thank Representatives Chris Smith (R-NJ), the bill’s author, and Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), its lead cosponsor, for their leadership in partnership with Knights of Columbus on this important bill,” he said.

Smith noted that “over-stretched groups on the ground” have been “fill[ing] the gap” in providing aid to survivors of Islamic State. He said that so far, Aid to the Church in Need has contributed more than $60 million, and the Knights of Columbus more than $20 million, to the region’s response.

The bill took 17 months to pass, Smith told CNA, and was introduced three separate years. Smith was able to visit Chaldean Archbishop Bashar Warda of Erbil, and he said he found the work the archbishop was doing there to be inspiring. The congressman said that it was important to include faith-based entities among those receiving funding under the bill.

Since Islamic State came to power in the region, the Christian and Yazidi populations have been decimated, Warda explained to CNA. And even though Islamic State is no longer in power and the area has been liberated, the region’s Christians are still struggling due to the conflict.

Many people have not been able to rebuild their homes, and a lack of job prospects cause
people to leave even though the situation is largely safe, said Warda. In order to provide long-term security for the region’s Christians, he said that there needs to be an emphasis on economic opportunities for young people.

“I’m a shepherd there. I have to really speak to my people there and tell them that it’s safe. It’s safe to be and to prosper at the same time,” he said. “So, providing jobs. Helping and really realizing some of the economical projects for the young people, to help them stay and prosper in the area.”

Many of the area’s Christians fled to Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey. While Warda said that he would love to work on luring them back to Iraq, he conceded that this task is “really difficult.”

Another effort to ensure long-term safety for religious minorities will require a cultural shift, Warda explained. The deaths or displacement of Christians and Yazidis are considered “collateral damage” by the government, said Warda. This mentality resulted in “the majority of the persecution” faced by those groups.

He laid blame on the public school curriculum used in Iraq, which provides no information at all about religious minority groups in the country.

“There’s nothing about Christians,” he explained, noting that non-Muslims are described as infidels, and conspiracy theories about these groups abound.

Warda was particularly pleased with the inclusion of support for the criminal prosecution of Islamic State members who committed genocide. This, he said, will ensure that “history will not be written by people like ISIS. For the first time, the victims of this genocide will be able to tell their story and to provide history from their side.”

The ability for these groups to have their stories heard will be a way to ensure that this genocide and displacement does not happen again.

“Unless you tell Muslims that there’s something wrong in the way that you teach Islam, the history will repeat itself,” the bishop explained. Even though Islamic State was defeated, “the ideology is still there.”

“Writing the history from the side of the victims; it would help the other (side) to realize ‘okay, never again,” he said.

“Hopefully.”

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Washington D.C., Nov 28, 2018 / 05:00 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a letter last week urging the Senate to pass the bipartisan First Step Act, which aims to “improve the lives of thousands of peop… […]

Washington D.C., Nov 28, 2018 / 04:40 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Students for Life has urged U.S. President Donald Trump to defund Planned Parenthood, and encouraged pro-life advocates to ask the administration to do so.

The pro-life organization issued a l… […]