News Briefs

How a priest and teams of homeless people are transforming Detroit

September 12, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Detroit, Mich., Sep 12, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Many homeless people of Detroit already recognize Father Marko Djonovic’s white Ford Excursion.

When Djonovic rolls up with his friend Marcus Cobb, it’s probably because they’ve got a job to offer, in exchange for lunch and some pay.

“Word is getting out on the street about us,” Djonovic said of his new ministry, which he dubbed Better Way Detroit.

“So when they see the white Ford Excursion they come up to us, asking, are you going to pick us up for work?” he told CNA.

Djonovic and Cobb are the two-man crew behind Better Way Detroit, and since May they have been teaming up with the city of Detroit and willing homeless workers to clean up the city’s parks, overgrown alleys, and vacant lots.

They drive around three days a week, stopping at shelters and other homeless hangouts, offering several hours of work for pay. The van can hold up to six people besides Djonovic and Cobb, and they typically take workers on a first come, first serve basis.

While he never worked with the homeless in any official capacity prior to starting this ministry, Djonovic said he was inspired by the individual interactions he had had with people on the streets.

After helping a mentally ill man get off the streets and into housing, he said he realized that while the homeless agencies are a “well-polished machine, there are gaps in that sometimes they can’t go out on the streets and find people and meet these people.”

He said he also discovered that many of the homeless had a strong work ethic and a desire to work for pay.

“When I see the homeless I don’t see hopeless objects of pity, but I see persons…with a sincere desire to work. They want to work. And there’s a great need in the city of Detroit, so putting those two things together moved me to to do this project,” he said.

Djonovic is also part of the newly-formed Congregation of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri at Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Detroit.

The spirit of service found in St. Philip Neri was an inspiration behind Better Way Detroit, Djonovic said.

“We serve following his spirit,” Djonovic said of the members of the Oratory. That service manifests itself in three ways: evangelization to youth, the cultivation of the spiritual life among the people through the sacraments, and service to the poor.

“I believe it’s what St. Philip would have done, he wasn’t afraid to out on the streets and preach the Gospel, to engage people, which included the homeless. St. Philip Neri was known as the apostle of Rome just because of that,” he said.

In the beginning, Better Way Detroit partnered with the City of Detroit Parks and Recreation Department to clean up parks through their Adopt a Park program. They now also help the city clear out overgrown alleys and vacant lots that can pose safety problems to neighborhoods.

Cobb provides much need insight to the ministry for how to work with the homeless because he was once a homeless veteran himself, Djonovic said.

“I learn a lot from Marcus, he understands the homeless culture; he’s very wise,” Djonovic said. He said Cobb has taught him the importance of being attentive to even the smaller needs of the homeless, such as if they want cigarettes or water, and to let them know they are respected.

Cobb said it helps instill a sense of respect and responsibility to the homeless that they work with if they are given ownership of the projects in which they partake. Every job starts with an evaluation of the site and the work to be done, and the homeless workers decide how best to get the job done, he said.

“You give them ownership, ask them how it should be done. It gives them responsibility,” Cobb said. “We get their input, and before you know it everyone’s teaming up. It makes them feel important, it gets better results, and they put the word out because they know it’s well worth their time.”

Cobb said he believes the ministry has been well-received among the homeless because “it gives them something to look forward to, and a chance to give back, and to get back into society.”

“Just because they’re homeless…doesn’t mean they don’t want to give back or try to get back in to society,” Cobb said.

It also appeals to the homeless because it gives them a chance to provide for some of their own needs “without a handout,” he said.

The partnership with the city, which is significantly understaffed, has also worked well, Cobb and Djonovic said, because their team is often able to get to jobs that the city doesn’t have the staff to do.

For example, the city gets a lot of calls from senior citizens who have lived in their neighborhoods for decades and have safety concerns about overgrown lots that may serve as hideouts or hubs for drug deals, Djonovic said.

“One woman was just singing our praises” after they cleared up a vandalized, overgrown lot in her neighborhood, he said. “Once (lots) are exposed, they feel safer, especially for the sake of children.”

Djonovic said he feels privileged to get to work alongside the homeless, and as they work, “sometimes I get to know their story, and they get to know my story,” he said.

“It’s happened a few times where guys ask me, why did you become a priest?” he said.

Every project concludes with lunch and a reflection on a bible reading. They have also handed out prayer cards to the homeless and do their best to connect them to housing, healthcare services, or other resources they might need.

“We at least just make them aware of the services available and encourage them to go, some guys aren’t aware of (everything available),” Djonovic said.

Djonovic currently funds the ministry entirely out of his own pocket, and through any donations he receives for the project. All of the money goes strictly to needed materials such as gloves or shovels and to pay the homeless for their work.

Djonovic and Cobb added that they are always looking for ways to expand and strengthen their ministry, and they are hoping sometime in the future to employ someone in a full-time position who can oversee the operation to make it more sustainable.

“Things are looking good we’re really enjoying it,” said Djonovic, who added that he’s been touched by some of the responses he’s seen from the homeless.

“One guy said: ‘I feel blessed because to be a part of something positive.’ He didn’t say, ‘oh, now I’ve got some money in my pocket’,” Djonovic recalled.

“Another young man, 25 years old, he said it was a grace” to participate in the project, he said.

Cobb said he would encourage Catholics to encounter and get to know the poor in their cities.

“Go out and start from the bottom and communicate with the people…go into the areas where the people don’t have the income, and approach them and talk to them halfway nice, and they’ll respond.”

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Gänswein: Sex abuse crisis is Church’s ‘9/11,’ but seeking God is the only way forward

September 11, 2018 CNA Daily News 3

Rome, Italy, Sep 11, 2018 / 03:58 pm (CNA).- While the current sex abuse crisis is tantamount to the Church’s own ‘9/11,’ Catholics can maintain hope if they remain focused on seeking God above all else, said Archbishop Georg Gänswein, personal secretary of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI.
 
“I perceive this time of great crisis, which today is no longer hidden from anyone, above all as a time of Grace, because in the end it will not be any special effort that will free us, but only ‘the Truth,’ as the Lord has assured us,” the archbishop said.
 
Gänswein, who is prefect of the Papal Household, spoke at a Sept. 11 presentation of the German edition of Rod Dreher’s recent book, “The Benedict Option.”
 
In that book, he said, Dreher notes “that the eclipse of God does not mean that God no longer exists. Rather, it means that many no longer recognize God, because shadows have been cast before the Lord.”
 
Today, Ganswein reflected, “it is the shadows of sins and of transgressions and crimes from within the Church that for many darken His brilliant presence.”
 
The archbishop noted the timing of the presentation, which fell on the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States.
 
He drew attention to “the report of the Grand Jury of Pennsylvania, on which now the Catholic Church too must cast a horrified glance at what constitutes its own ‘9/11,’ even if this catastrophe unfortunately is not only occurred on a single day, but over many days and years, and affecting countless victims.”
 
Ganswein clarified that he was “neither comparing the victims nor the numbers of abuse cases in the Catholic Church with those 2,996 innocent people who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon on September 9, 2001.”
 
However, he said, the reality of the souls damaged by the actions of Catholic priests in the U.S. is catastrophically grave.
 
Benedict XVI had warned in vain about this damage to souls when he lamented to the U.S. bishops in 2008 “the enormous pain that your congregations have suffered as clergy have betrayed their priestly duties and responsibilities through such gravely immoral behavior,” Ganswein said.
 
He reflected on other words from Pope Benedict XVI that shed light on the current crisis in the Church. Speaking to journalists onboard a flight to Fatima in 2010, Benedict had cautioned, “The Lord told us that the Church would constantly be suffering, in different ways, until the end of the world… attacks on the Pope and the Church come not only from without, but the sufferings of the Church come precisely from within the Church, from the sin existing within the Church.”
 
Five years earlier, as a cardinal reflecting on the Stations of the Cross, Benedict – then Josef Ratzinger – had observed, “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him!”
 
Even before the recent revelations of sex abuse and cover-up, people have been leaving the Church in drastic numbers in some countries, Ganswein said, pointing to recent statistics indicating that “of the Catholics who have not yet left the Church in Germany, only 9.8 percent still meet on Sunday” for Mass.
 
In his book, Dreher highlights the monasteries founded by St. Benedict in the 500s as a template for preserving culture amid social turmoil.
 
But in implementing this model, Gänswein said, it is important to note Pope Benedict’s observation that “it was not [the monks’] intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past.” Rather, their motivation was simply to seek God.
 
This is the task for those today who hope to contribute to the rebuilding of the Church, the archbishop said.
 
“If the Church does not know how to renew itself again this time with God’s help, then the whole project of our civilization is at stake again. For many it looks as if the Church of Jesus Christ will never be able to recover from the catastrophe of its sin – it almost seems about to be devoured by it.”
 
But ultimately, Catholics have hope in the promise of the Christ, that sin will never prevail over the Church, he said.
 
Pope Benedict recognized this truth as well, in the first Mass of his papacy, when he said, “[T]he Church is alive. And the Church is young. She holds within herself the future of the world and therefore shows each of us the way towards the future… The Church is alive – she is alive because Christ is alive, because he is truly risen.”
 
With this reality in mind, Catholics can face the future with hope, Archbishop Ganswein said, praying that the present crisis may be transformed a time of purification and renewal.
 
“Even the satanic ‘9/11’ of the Universal Catholic Church cannot weaken or destroy this truth, the origin of its foundation by the Risen Lord and Victor.”
 
 
Translations from German by Anian Christoph Wimmer

[…]

Missouri to enforce abortion regulations in wake of appeals court ruling

September 11, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Jefferson City, Mo., Sep 11, 2018 / 01:09 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Missouri’s health department announced Monday that it will immediately being enforcing state laws regulating abortion clinics and doctors, after a US appeals court ruled that the state may do so.

The 8th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Sept. 10 in Comprehensive Health v. Hawley to overturn a 2017 decision which blocked enforcement of state laws that required abortion clinics to have the same standards as similar outpatient surgical centers, and mandated that doctors who perform abortions have hospital privileges.

“In its opinion, the court noted that the good faith of state officers and the validity of their actions are presumed,” Randal Williams, director of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, stated.

“As the Director of DHSS, a board-certified obstetrician/gynecologist for thirty years, and a defendant in the case, my commitment and that of the department is to act in good faith to follow the law and protect the health and safety of all women in Missouri, including those seeking abortions.”

The health department stated: “now that the injunction has been vacated, DHSS will immediately begin enforcing the hospital privileges and physical plant requirements for abortion facilities.”

The appellate court ruling comes in a case filed by Planned Parenthood affiliates in 2016 after the US Supreme Court struck down similar abortion restrictions in Texas.

In April 2017 a federal judge issued an injunction against the Missouri law, citing the Supreme Court’s Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt decision.

The appeals court vacated that preliminary injunction, saying that Hellerstedt “did not find, as a matter of law, that abortion was inherently safe or that provisions similar to the laws it considered would never be constitutional,” and that the undue burden standard requires a weighing of regulations’ benefits and burdens.

In its 2017 decision the district court “explicity refused to ‘weigh [] the asserted benefits’”, Judge Bobby Shepherd wrote for the appellate court, and thus “in light of Hellerstedt the district court erred in so ruling.”

The appeals court judges remanded the case to the district court, saying it “should, at the very least, weigh the state’s ‘asserted benefits.’”

It added that the Hellerstedt decision did not find that provisions similar to those in Texas would never be constitutional, precisely because its analysis of the purported benefits of the law at issue related to abortion in Texas, and that “no such determination about abortion in Missouri was made.”

“Perhaps there was a unique problem Missouri was responding to,” the appeals court wrote. “Such a problem may required a different response than what was needed in Texas, and the Hospital Relationship Requirement may be appropriate given ‘[Missouri’s] legitimate interest in seeing to it that abortion, like any other medical procedure, is performed under circumstances that insure maximum safety for the patient,’” quoting Hellerstedt, which was in turn quoting Roe v. Wade.

“Invoking the Constitution to enjoin the laws of a state requires more than ‘slight implication and vague conjecture,’” the appeals court wrote. “At a minimum, it requires adequate information and correct application of the relevant standard. Because we conclude that the preliminary injuction in this case was entered based on less than adequate information and an insufficient regard for the relevant standard, we vacate the preliminary injunction and remand.”

Planned Parenthood currently provided abortion services at only two locations in Missouri, in St. Louis and Columbia.

In 2017, Missouri passed further regulations which granted the attorney general more power to prosecute violations, and required stricter health codes and proper fetal tissue disposal.

[…]