News Briefs

Cardinal Burke sent to Guam to oversee sex abuse trial

February 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Feb 16, 2017 / 03:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).-  

The Vatican has sent Cardinal Raymond Burke to Guam to act as presiding judge at the trial of Archbishop Anthony Apuron, who was removed from office in June 2016 following allegations of child sex abuse.

 

Cardinal Burke is a canon lawyer and former prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Holy See’s highest court. He currently serves as the chaplain of the Knights of Malta, where he has clashed with the Holy See over the removal of the Grand Chancellor of the Knights. He is also one of four cardinals who signed the controversial dubia, a letter asking Pope Francis to clarify parts of his apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia”.

 

Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who leads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), appointed Cardinal Burke to the Guam trial.

 

Archbishop Apuron has denied the allegations against him and has not been criminally charged. Most of the allegations involve sexual abuse of altar boys in the 1970s.

 

On Thursday, the AP reported that one of Archbishop Apuron’s accusers refused to appear before the Vatican court, despite a request from Cardinal Burke for testimony.

Attorney David Lujan, representing former altar boy Roland Sondia, told the AP that the proceedings were “worse” than he had expected because he wasn’t allowed to be present to advise his client, who was to have been “questioned by the prosecutor, who is a priest, and Archbishop Apuron’s lawyer, who is a priest, and a presider who is Cardinal Burke, and a notary who is also a priest.”

 

“We felt it wasn’t in my client’s best interest to be in that position,” he said. He said Sondia may submit a written declaration instead.

 

Many of the allegations against Archbishop Apuron became public last year, after full-page ads sponsored by Concerned Catholics of Guam encouraged anyone who had been abused by clergy to come forward, according to reports from Pacific Daily News.

 

Following the new allegations, the Archdiocese created a new Task Force for the Protection of Minors and a new Victims Support group to aid in the counseling and support of victims and their families.

 

“The Church on Guam has a duty and desire to render pastoral care to all of its faithful, most especially those who have been severely wounded by those holding trusted positions in our Archdiocese. We are strengthening our work in this area and pledge to provide a safe environment for all children and all people entrusted in our care,” the Archdiocese said in a November statement.

 

In November 2016, Pope Francis appointmented Detroit Bishop Michael Jude Byrnes as coadjutor archbishop of the Archdiocese of Agana. He replaced Archbishop Savio Hon Tai Fai, who was sent to Guam by the Vatican in June to temporarily replace Apuron.

 

Archbishop Apuron is a member of the Neocatechumenal Way, a group within the Church that has also clashed with other Catholics on the island over the past few years.

 

Besides sexual allegations, Archbishop Apuron has also been accused of mishandling control over the island’s seminary, reportedly using it as a Neocatechumenal seminary rather than a diocesan seminary, which led to the withdrawal of all Samoan students. Guam’s Carmelite nuns also relocated to California last year over issues with Apuron.

 

Guam is a U.S. island territory in Micronesia, in the Western Pacific, with a population of 165,124. Approximately 85 percent of the island’s citizens identify as Catholic.

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Christian florist loses religious liberty case, will appeal to US Supreme Court

February 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Seattle, Wash., Feb 16, 2017 / 03:35 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Washington state florist must pay fines and legal costs for conscientiously objecting to serving a same-sex wedding, as the state’s supreme court upheld a lower court’s decision on Thursday.

“It’s wrong for the state to force any citizen to support a particular view about marriage or anything else against their will. Freedom of speech and religion aren’t subject to the whim of a majority; they are constitutional guarantees,” Kristin Waggoner, senior counsel with the group Alliance Defending Freedom who argued the case before the Washington Supreme Court, stated Feb. 16.

“This case is about crushing dissent. In a free America, people with differing beliefs must have room to coexist,” she added.

In 2013, Barronelle Stutzman, owner of Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Wash., declined to serve the same-sex wedding of a long-time customer who had requested her service, citing her Christian religious beliefs that marriage is between one man and one woman.

After hearing of the incident, the office of the state attorney general wrote her that she was violating the state’s law by discriminating on basis of “sexual orientation,” and asked her to stop declining such weddings. Stutzman refused out of conscience.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the state of Washington eventually sued her and a lower court ruled against her, ordering her to pay a fine and legal costs.

She appealed her case to the Washington State Supreme Court, which upheld the lower court’s desicion on Thursday, saying that as a business owner Stutzman had to abide by the state’s anti-discrimination law despite her religious beliefs.

“The State of Washington bars discrimination in public accommodations on the basis of sexual orientation. Discrimination based on same-sex marriage constitutes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation,” the court’s opinion stated.

“We therefore hold that the conduct for which Stutzman was cited and fined in this case – refusing her commercially marketed wedding floral services to Ingersoll and Freed because theirs would be a same-sex wedding – constitutes sexual orientation discrimination under the WLAD.”
 
The law “does not compel speech or association,” the court added, stating that it “is a neutral, generally applicable law that serves our state government’s compelling interest in eradicating discrimination in public accommodations.”

Stutzman has announced that she will appeal her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. “We stand to lose everything we worked for and own,” she stated back in October, noting that legal fees from the case could top $2 million by the end of the case.

Religious freedom advocates decried the ruling.

Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, said it “shortchanges our nation’s most fundamental freedom in favor of ideological conformity.”

With Stutzman facing the loss of her business and personal assets, “it’s no wonder that so many people are rightly calling on President Trump to sign an executive order to protect our religious freedom,” Waggoner stated.

“Because that freedom is clearly at risk for Barronelle and so many other Americans, and because no executive order can fix all of the threats to that freedom, we will ask the U.S. Supreme Court to hear this case and reverse this grave injustice.”

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House votes to allow states to deny funding to Planned Parenthood

February 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Feb 16, 2017 / 03:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The House voted Thursday to allow states to choose not to fund Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers with federal dollars, repealing an Obama administration rule from December.

“As a registered nurse, I know that vulnerable women seeking true comprehensive care deserve better than abortion-centric facilities like Planned Parenthood,” Rep. Diane Black (R-Tenn.), who introduced the resolution, stated before its Feb. 16 passage.

Back in December, the Department of Health and Human Services issued a rule that states cannot deny federal Title X family planning grants to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood simply because they perform abortions.

States, the administration said, could only deny funding to clinics that did not provide the services for which Title X funds are meant.

While federal dollars cannot directly fund abortions, pro-life leaders insist that taxpayer dollars going to the nation’s largest abortion provider Planned Parenthood free up resources for them to perform more abortions.

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List, called the rule a “parting gift to the abortion industry.”

Black introduced H.J. Res. 43 to repeal the rule, under the Congressional Review Act. The resolution passed the House on Thursday 229 to 188.

The move comes as pro-life groups are reporting poor care and abuses at Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide, from affiliates using taxpayer funds for abortion-related services to many clinics not providing prenatal care to clinics setting monthly quotas for abortions or abortion referrals.

“Planned Parenthood which, according to their latest annual report, performed 323,999 abortions in a single year, does not need or deserve taxpayer dollars,” Dannenfelser insisted.

“We look forward to swift passage of this resolution in the Senate so that it can receive President Trump’s signature,” she said.

Dr. Grazie Pozo Christie of The Catholic Association commented: “We applaud the House for voting to rescind a last minute Obama Administration regulation that allows states to take their tax payers’ hard-earned dollars away from the severely limited Planned Parenthood abortion centers and redirect them to comprehensive health care clinics … Passing this resolution lets states fund the health clinics that are true lifelines for poor women.”

Black claimed that states were for decades allowed to pick which health providers they thought were best to receive Title X funds, and that the Obama administration’s rule set “unprecedented new parameters” on states’ use of the funds.

In her state of Tennessee, she said, the state did not cut Title X funds but directed them to county health departments and community health centers.

“We thank Rep. Diane Black (R-TN) and Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA)  for leading this measure to restore states’ freedom in choosing Title X providers,” Christie stated. “The Obama Administration’s ruling defies states’ right to choose Title X providers, including the ability to exclude abortion providers like Planned Parenthood.”

States are not cutting health grants, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, insisted, but are redirecting the funds “to other health clinics that provide women’s health care and don’t engage in abortion.”

In issuing its December rule, the Obama administration had claimed that the states’ actions against Planned Parenthood and other clinics had led to “limitations in the geographic distribution of services and decreased access to services.”

However, that was not the case, members maintained on Thursday.

“Prior to the Obama rule, 5 states had chosen to award their Title X funds to non-Planned Parenthood entities,” Smith said. “These five states – Tennessee, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Ohio – account for nearly $16 million in annual Title X funding and serve over 279,000 individuals a year.”

“According to HHS’s own 2015 Title X Family Planning Annual report, our state provided care under Title X to more than 75,000 Tennesseans,” Black stated. “That means we served even more citizens than more populated states like Michigan and Virginia.”

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How should the US react to human rights abuses in Ethiopia?

February 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Feb 16, 2017 / 10:44 am (CNA/EWTN News).- One member of Congress is hoping for a “serious policy review” by the Trump administration of the United States’ relationship with Ethiopia, citing human rights abuses by the government there.

“To truly stop violence abroad, Ethiopia must stop violence at home,” Rep. Chris Smith, chair of the House subcommittee on Africa and global human rights, stated at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol building on Wednesday.

“Since 2005, untold thousands of students have been jailed, have been shot during demonstrations or have simply disappeared in the last 11 years,” Smith stated Feb. 15. “Ethiopia’s next generation is being taught that the rights that democracy normally bestows on a country’s citizens don’t apply in their country.”

Smith and Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) introduced a House resolution (H. Res. 128) Wednesday “highlighting the crisis in Ethiopia due to government violations of the human rights of its citizens,” Smith stated.

“With this resolution, we are showing that the United States remains committed to universal respect for human rights, and that we will not tolerate continued abuse of those human rights by Ethiopian security forces,” Coffman said.

There has been a “steady erosion” of democracy in Ethiopia since 2005, the congressmen maintained.

Government dissidents have been jailed, citizens have been tortured and killed by the government’s security forces, and freedom of the press has been infringed upon. Ethnic groups have been the victims of violence perpetrated by the government.

Peaceful protests in the Oromia and Amhara regions of the country were met with hundreds of killings and tens of thousands of arrests by security forces in 2016, Human Rights Watch said in its recent report on the country. Citizens released from jail claimed they were tortured while in custody.

“Instead of addressing the numerous calls for reform in 2016, the Ethiopian government used excessive and unnecessary lethal force to suppress largely peaceful protests,” Felix Horne, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch, stated in the report released in January.

One protest in the Oromia region resulted in the police using tear gas, rubber bullets, and rounds fired into the air to break it up, claiming that the crowd was getting out of hand. An ensuing stampede killed 50. The Inter-religious Council of Ethiopia, on which Catholic leaders sit, called for prayer and peace amid the protests and asked government leaders to listen to the people.

The recent protests in the Amhara region of the country have showed a sense of “identity” on the part of embattled citizens, and their “need to survive,” Tewodrose Tirfe of the Amhara Association of America, a refugee who came to the U.S. in 1982, noted.

“The U.S. and the West cannot sympathize with a government that kills people,” Seenaa Jimjimo, a human rights advocate who was born and grew up in Ethiopia, insisted in her statement at Wednesday’s press conference.

Amidst protests, a state of emergency was declared by the state in October and is “being used as a method to crack down even further on basic human freedoms,” Coffman said.

Thus, the resolution is the “first step by our representatives to let the Ethiopian government know that the U.S. policy is changing, that their continued human rights violations on innocent civilians will not be tolerated,” Tirfe stated.

“We invoke the Global Magnitsky Act,” Gregory Simpkins, staff director of the House subcommittee on Africa, said on Wednesday of the law which enables sanctions against specific “entities and persons who violate the human rights of people.”

Ethiopia has acted as a key ally in fighting international terrorism, Smith noted, but if it fails to protect human rights at home then extremism could fester within its own borders.

“What Congressman Smith and I are asking is for the Congress of the United States to join together and pass this resolution condemning the Ethopian government for its human rights abuses,” Coffman stated.

“And I think it’s important for all Americans to care about human rights to encourage their member of Congress to co-sponsor this resolution so that we can pass it in the Congress.”

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What is the devil’s favorite sin? An exorcist responds

February 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Madrid, Spain, Feb 16, 2017 / 03:17 am (CNA).- Is an exorcist afraid? What is the devil’s favorite sin? These and other questions were tackled in an interview with the Dominican priest, Father Juan José Gallego, an exorcist from the Archdiocese of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain.

Almost a decade after Fr. Gallego was appointed as exorcist, he was interviewed by the Spanish daily El Mundo. The priest said that in his experience, pride is the sin the devil likes the most.

“Have you ever been afraid?” the interviewer asked.

“In the beginning I had a lot of fear,” Fr. Gallego replied. “All I had to do was look over my shoulder and I saw demons… the other day I was doing an exorcism, ‘I command you! I order you!’…and the Evil One, with a loud voice fires back at me: ‘Galleeeego, you’re over-doooing it.’ That shook me.”

Nevertheless, he knows that the devil is not more powerful than God. The exorcist recalled that “when they appointed me, a relative told me, ‘Whoa, Juan José, I’m really afraid, because in the movie ‘The Exorcist,’ one person died and the other threw himself through a window. I said to her ‘Don’t forget that the devil is (just a) creature of God.’”

When people are possessed, he added, “they lose consciousness, they speak strange languages, they have inordinate strength, they feel really bad, you see very well-mannered people vomiting and blaspheming.”

“There was a boy whom the demon would set his shirt on fire at night and things like that. He told me what the demons were proposing him to do: If you make a pact with us, you’ll never have to go through any more of what you’re going through now.”

Father Gallego also warned that “New Age” practices like reiki and some yoga can be points of entry for the demons. He also said that addictions are “a type of possession.”

“When people are going through a crisis they suffer more. They can feel hopeless. People feel like they’ve got the devil inside,” he said.

 

This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 25, 2015.
 

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Meet the priest who has helped rescue thousands on the Mediterranean Sea

February 16, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Madrid, Spain, Feb 16, 2017 / 01:56 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Father Alberto Gaton is the chaplain of a Spanish ship that combats human trafficking by rescuing people in the Mediterranean Sea. In the span of almost 5 months, his team has managed to rescue more than 3,000 people.

“Seventy percent of them are Christians fleeing from persecution in their countries,” he told CNA. “They’re fleeing persecution from Boko Haram in Nigeria, the terrorists groups, the situation in their countries.”

From September 2016 through January 2017, the priest was aboard the “Frigate Navarra” in Operation Sophia, the EU anti-migrant smuggling operation in the Mediterranean Sea. The ship had a crew of 208 sailors.

“We were also collaborating to rescue people that the mafias have abandoned to their fate in the sea – we on the Frigate Navarra, along with other NGOs and other European naval forces, collaborated to make rescues,” he said.

In precarious make-shift boats of rubber and wood, hundreds of people try to cross the Mediterranean every day, the chaplain said. “Heavy storms frequently come up, and if we’re not there, they would die.”

The main goal of Operation Sophia is to “combat the mafias which are trafficking in souls on the Mediterranean,” he said, and “always help to rescue those at sea, because they are the poor people of the land who embark from all points in Africa hoping to reach the coasts of Europe and who many times end up on the bottom of the sea.”

Sometimes, it happens that due to wind, rough seas or nightfall, the rescue is hindered, he said. “Thanks be to God, we were able to rescue all the boats we were responsible for, even though some of them were in very bad sea conditions.”

Fr. Gaton recalled his first rescue: “once inside the ship, they began to dance, it was a happy day because nobody died. It was marvelous to see those who were rescued safe and sound dancing.”

But the joy of days like that is offset by the profound sadness of seeing “what point this world has come to in wickedness of heart, which when God is forgotten, is capable of sending little children, pregnant mothers and babies in inflatable boats that are like shoe boxes, floating coffins with no other fate than to be rescued or lost.”

When they rescue refugees, he said, “the first thing is to recover from injuries, have something to eat, treat dehydration…But meanwhile I am always there with the families, with the sick.”

At one point, an old woman who had been rescued asked him to bless her and the girl she was carrying.

“The parents of the little girl had gone missing before the rescue and now it was the old woman who took care of her. She just asked me to bless them. We prayed together in the infirmary,” he recalled.

On another occasion, a Protestant pastor had fled his homeland due to persecution. “I helped him in everything I could,” the chaplain said, adding that most of the time, people don’t ask for anything material. “They just want a prayer, a smile.”

Fr. Gaton told CNA that his work as a chaplain has been difficult. “You are faced with death, with suffering, with violence. If you’re far from home and the priest introduces himself as another shipmate for the believers and non-believers with whom they can unburden themselves, they can talk and share like they can’t do with the naval officers.”

In addition to carrying out the same tasks as the other sailors, his unique task is “to be with the parishioners without forgetting that you are a soldier, but giving your all as a priest. “

The priest said that every day, Mass was celebrated on the ship. However, since there was no chapel, it was celebrated on the deck, or else inside if there was bad weather.

Another especially moving moment for the chaplain was evening prayer, offered each day “at the moment of sunset, to the Lord of the calm and the storm.” Even the atheists would join in when there was a bad storm or if they had a sick relative.

The priest said that in the months spent at sea on the Frigate Navarra, they celebrated a First Communion, and several sailors took marriage or Confirmation prep classes.

“I always say that at sea, the atheists become agnostics; the agnostics become non-practicing Catholics, and the non-practicing, at least for a while, they practice. That’s my experience.”

Fr. Gaton was ordained a priest at the age of 29, after exercising his ministry in Santander, Spain; Rome; and the United States, and at the advice of his bishop, he decided to join the army. When he began this service, he was already 45 years old.

Currently, he is Major Chaplain of the southern military region, a permanent major, and as such he belongs to the military archdiocese.

 

 

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Did you know Mother Teresa experienced visions of Jesus?

February 15, 2017 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Feb 15, 2017 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Even her friend of more than 30 years, Father Sebastian Vazhakala, did not know Mother Teresa had conversations with and visions of Jesus before forming the Missionaries of Charity.

It wasn’t until after her death, for the vast majority of people, that this part of Mother Teresa’s spiritual life was uncovered. “It was a big discovery,” Missionary of Charity priest, Fr. Vazhakala told CNA.  

When Mother Teresa’s cause for canonization was opened, just two years after her death in 1997, documents were found in the archives of the Jesuits in Calcutta, with the spiritual director and another of Mother Teresa’s close priest friends, and in the office of the bishop, containing her accounts of the communications.

Fr. Vazhakala, who co-founded the contemplative branch of the Missionaries of Charity alongside Mother Teresa, said he has a document handwritten by Mother Teresa where she discusses what Jesus spoke to her directly during the time of the locutions and visions.

During a period lasting from Sept. 10, 1946 to Dec. 3, 1947, Mother Teresa had ongoing communication with Jesus through words and visions, Fr. Vazhakala said. This all happened while she was a missionary sister in the Irish order of the Sisters of Loreto, teaching at St. Mary’s school in Calcutta.

Mother Teresa wrote that one day at Holy Communion, she heard Jesus say, “I want Indian nuns, victims of my love, who would be Mary and Martha, who would be so united to me as to radiate my love on souls.”

It was through these communications of the Eucharistic Jesus that Mother Teresa received her directions for forming her congregation of the Missionaries of Charity.

“She was so united with Jesus,” Fr. Vazhakala explained, “that she was able to radiate not her love, but Jesus’ love through her, and with a human expression.”

Jesus told her what sort of nuns he wanted her order to be filled with: “’I want free nuns covered with the poverty of the Cross. I want obedient nuns covered with the obedience of the Cross. I want full-of-love nuns covered with the charity of the Cross,’” Fr. Vazhakala related.

According to the Missionary, Jesus asked her, “Would you refuse to do this for me?” “In fact, Jesus told her in 1947,” Fr. Vazhakala explained, “’I cannot go alone to the poor people, you carry me with you into them.’”

After this period of joy and consolation, around 1949, Mother Teresa started to experience a “terrible darkness and dryness” in her spiritual life, said Fr. Vazhakala. “And in the beginning she thought it was because of her own sinfulness, unworthiness, her own weakness.”

Mother Teresa’s spiritual director at the time helped her to understand that this spiritual dryness was just another way that Jesus wanted her to share in the poverty of the poor of Calcutta.

This period lasted nearly 50 years, until her death, and she found it very painful. But, Fr. Vazhakala shared that she said, “If my darkness and dryness can be a light to some soul let me be the first one to do that. If my life, if my suffering, is going to help souls to be saved, then I will prefer from the creation of the world to the end of time to suffer and die.”

People around the world know about Mother Teresa’s visible acts of charity toward the poor and sick in the slums of Calcutta, but “the interior life of Mother is not known to people,” said Fr. Vazhakala.

Mother Teresa’s motto, and the motto of her congregation, was the words of Jesus, “I thirst.” And that they could quench the thirst of Jesus by bringing souls to him. “And in every breathing, each sigh, each act of mind, shall be an act of love divine. That was her daily prayer. That was what was motivating her and all the sacrifices, even until that age of 87, and without resting,” he said.

Mother Teresa never rested from her work during her life on earth, and she continues to “work” for souls from heaven. “When I die and go home to God, I can bring more souls to God,” she said at one point, Fr. Vazhakala noted.

She said, “I’m not going to sleep in heaven, but I’m going to work harder in another form.”

Mary Shovlain contributed to this report.

This article was originally published on CNA Aug. 27, 2016.

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