News Briefs

Senate Judiciary Committee wraps up Kavanaugh hearing

September 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Sep 7, 2018 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After four days of hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh has progressed closer towards eventual confirmation to the Supreme Court. The hearings, which began Sept. 4, included several disruptions by protestors, seemingly political lines of questioning by senators, and even a cameo appearance by the youth basketball team he coaches.

As was widely expected, the issue of abortion loomed large during parts of the questioning, despite Kavanaugh’s relative lack of a judicial track record, or even public statements, on the issue. The only recent case in which Kavanaugh ruled on abortion came last year, when he argued that an undocumented minor teenager in federal custody should not be permitted to have an abortion immediately.

Kavanaugh was questioned by both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate about his thoughts on the issue, and he offered no indication that he thought the landmark case of Roe v. Wade, which affirmed the legal existence of abortion rights, should be overturned,.

Kavanaugh was questioned about a 15-year-old email, in which he questioned the statement that abortion was “settled law.” The judge explained that he was actually questioning the claim that legal scholars generally agreed that abortion was “settled law.”

“I’m always concerned with accuracy,” he said, “I thought that was not quite an accurate description of all legal scholars because it referred to ‘all.’”

The judge then stated that he believed that Roe is “important precedent” which has repeatedly been reaffirmed by the Supreme Court.

This statement, however, did not do much to reassure those in favor of abortion rights, as activists continually, and loudly, protested Kavanaugh’s nomination throughout the four days of hearings.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) questioned Kavanaugh Sept. 6 “is there anything in the Constitution about a right to abortion? Is anything written in the document?”

Kavanaugh replied: “Senator, the Supreme Court has recognized the right to abortion since the 1973 Roe v. Wade case, has reaffirmed it many times.”

Graham pressed the issue, and Kavanaugh responded that the Supreme Court applied the liberty clause in its decisions regarding abortion: “The Supreme Court has found it under the liberty clause but you’re right.”

“The liberty clause talks about liberty,” Kavanaugh stated.

“Last time I checked, liberty didn’t equate to abortion,” Graham said. “The Supreme Court said it did, but here’s the point. What are the limits on this concept? You had five, six, seven, eight or nine judges. What are the limits on the ability of the court to find a penumbra of rights that apply to a particular situation? What are the checks and balances on people in your business, if you can find five people who agree with you to confer a right whether the public likes it or not, based on this concept of a penumbra of rights. What are the outer limits to this?”

Kavanaugh responded: “The test the Supreme Court uses to find unenumerated rights under the liberty clause of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, and that refers to rights rooted in the history and tradition of the country.”

The first day of the hearings saw several of women outside the hearing room protest his nomination by dressing in costumes from the book The Handmaid’s Tale, while several more individuals were removed from the hearing room after attempting to disrupt proceedings.

These interventions continued throughout the week, with the Women’s March even creating a “funeral procession” of women in funeral attire who marched towards the hearing.

Kavanaugh also came under fire for his comments regarding birth control.

In a summary of the argument presented by the pro-life Catholic group Priests for Life in the case Priests for Life v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services which was brought over the HHS contraception mandate, Kavanaugh stated that the priests “said filling out the form would make them complicit in the provision of the abortion-inducing drugs that they were, as a religious matter, objecting to.”

While Kavanaugh did not say that he himself thought this about birth control, those opposed to his nomination sent out mass emails decrying Kavanaugh’s presence potential confirmation to the court as “dangerous” for women. The Women’s March went as far as to say that his nomination constituted  “an emergency, all-hands-on-deck moment for women across America.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on a recommendation to confirm Kavanaugh in the near future. Assuming his nomination clears this hurdle, it would then be put to a vote before the entire Senate.

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Letter acknowledges Vatican receipt of allegations against McCarrick in 2000

September 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Sep 7, 2018 / 03:45 pm (CNA).- Catholic News Service on Friday published a redacted version of a letter sent in 2006 from a high-ranking official of the Secretariat of State, which implicitly acknowledges receipt of allegations made against then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.

The Oct. 11, 2006 letter is from then-Archbishop Leonardo Sandri, who was Substitute of the Secretariat of State, to Fr. Boniface Ramsey, who had been on the faculty of Immaculate Conception Seminary in South Orange, N.J., from 1986 to 1996.

Sandri’s letter refers “to the serious matters involving some of the students of the Immaculate Conception Seminary, which in November 2000 you were good enough to bring confidentially to the attention of the then Apostolic Nuncio in the United States, the late Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo.”

Fr. Ramsey has said that when McCarrick was appointed Archbishop of Washington in 2000, he contacted Archbishop Montalvo to report allegations of McCarrick’s misconduct with seminarians he had heard from his own seminary students.

At the nuncio’s request, he said, he put his concerns in writing.

Fr. Ramsey told CNS that in his letter, “I complained about McCarrick’s relationships with seminarians and the whole business with sleeping with seminarians.”

“My letter [of] November 22, 2000, was about McCarrick and it wasn’t accusing seminarians of anything; it was accusing McCarrick,” he said.

CNS reported that though Fr. Ramsey has said he did not receive a formal response to his letter of Nov. 22, 2000, “he was certain the letter had been received because of the note he got from then-Archbishop Sandri in 2006 acknowledging the allegations he had raised in 2000.”

The immediate purpose of Sandri’s 2006 letter was to inquire about a priest of the Archdiocese of Newark who had studied at Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University. The priest was being considered for a post at the Vatican.

Sandri is now prefect of the Congregation for the Eastern Churches, and a cardinal.

Fr. Ramsey’s account accords with details of that offered by the testimony of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who was apostolic nuncio to the US from 2011 to 2016.

Archbishop Viganò had written that Montalvo (and his successor, Archbishop Pietro Sambi) “did not fail to inform the Holy See immediately, as soon as they learned of Archbishop McCarrick’s gravely immoral behavior with seminarians and priests. Indeed, according to what Nuncio Pietro Sambi wrote, Father Boniface Ramsey, O.P.’s letter, dated November 22, 2000, was written at the request of the late Nuncio Montalvo. In the letter, Father Ramsey, who had been a professor at the diocesan seminary in Newark from the end of the ’80s until 1996, affirms that there was a recurring rumor in the seminary that the Archbishop ‘shared his bed with seminarians,’ inviting five at a time to spend the weekend with him at his beach house. And he added that he knew a certain number of seminarians, some of whom were later ordained priests for the Archdiocese of Newark, who had been invited to this beach house and had shared a bed with the Archbishop.”

Viganò also stated that on Dec. 6, 2006, he wrote and delivered to Sandri a memo which detailed accusations of sexual abuse against McCarrick by Gregory Littleton, a laicized priest, which included “absolution of the accomplices in these depraved acts.” The former nuncio said he proposed in that letter that “an exemplary measure be taken against the Cardinal that could have a medicinal function, to prevent future abuses against innocent victims and alleviate the very serious scandal for the faithful.”

 

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Russians hacked Catholic, Orthodox clergy amid Ukrainian push for autocephaly

September 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 3

Kyiv, Ukraine, Sep 7, 2018 / 11:27 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Russian hackers infiltrated the email inboxes of Orthodox, Catholic, and other religious leaders connected to Ukraine amid conflict between Kyiv and Moscow over Ukraine’s political and religious independence.

Archbishop Claudio Gugerotti, apostolic nuncio to Ukraine, was among the 4,700 global targets of the “Fancy Bear” cyber espionage group, the same Russian hackers who were indicted in the special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, according to the Associated Press.

Gugerotti and unnamed Ukrainian Greek-Catholic clergy were hacked by this group, along with other foreign diplomats, journalists, intelligence personnel, and Hillary Clinton.

Kyiv is the site of the 988 baptism of Vladimir the Great, Grand Prince of Kiev, which resulted in the Christianization of Kievan Rus’, a state whose heritage Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus all claim.

The Christianization of Kievan Rus’ forms the roots of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, and several Orthodox Churches in Ukraine.

In addition to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate), which is linked to the Russian Orthodox Church, there are two other Orthodox Churches which have claimed autocephaly, but are not recognized by other Orthodox Churches: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Kyiv Patriarchate) and the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.

These two latter Churches have asked the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Bartholomew I, for recognition as autocephalous Churches. The request has been supported by the Ukrainian parliament and its president.

The Ecumenical Patriarch is regarded as the primus inter pares or “first among equals” among the Eastern Orthodox Churches.

Bartholomew’s staff were particularly targeted by the cyber-espionage group aligned with the Russian government. Several Greek Othodox metropolitans were hacked, including Bartholomew Samaras, Emmanuel Adamakis, and Elpidophoros Lambriniadis.

In a highly-anticipated meeting, Bartholomew hosted Russian Patriarch Kirill of Moscow in Istanbul Aug. 31. There was no statement released as a result of the meeting, leaving many Ukrainians wondering whether their request for an independent national Church will be accepted by Eastern Orthodox leaders.

The Russian Orthodox Church has strongly opposed the proposal of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church independent from Moscow’s control. One representative for Patriarch Kirill told AP that Ukrainian Orthodox independence would lead to the biggest Christian schism since 1054.

Granting autocephaly to the UOC-KP and UAO would end “Russia’s four-century-long monopoly on the ancient Kyivan heritage and modern Ukrainian Orthodox spirituality,” Myroslav Marynovych, a Ukrainian Greek-Catholic and vice-rector for university mission at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, told Catholic News Agency.

Marynovych added that he understands that “this sine qua non solution might create new problems in the inter-Church relations in Ukraine and in the world.”

However, he maintains that the Russian Orthodox Church’s willingness to cooperate with the Russian government’s “practice of evil” necessitates a split. The hacking is just one example.

The AP reported that “The Soviet Union slaughtered tens of thousands of priests in the 1930s, but the Communists later took what survived of the church and brought it under the sway of Russia’s secret police, the KGB, with clerics conscripted to spy on congregants and emigres,” a connection which has outlasted the fall of the Soviet Union.

The hacking of Orthodox and Catholic clergy took place from 2015 to 2016, but the AP reported that other evidence gives reason to believe that Russian attempts to compromise Bartholomew are ongoing.

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Speak out against injustice, Pope Francis says

September 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 5

Vatican City, Sep 7, 2018 / 04:14 am (CNA/EWTN News).- God needs Christians to be his hands and feet on earth, and to speak out about injustice wherever it happens, especially when hidden by silence, the pope said in an interview published Friday.

Spe… […]

Names of accused bishops scrubbed from Pennsylvania schools

September 6, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Harrisburg, Pa., Sep 6, 2018 / 04:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The names of accused clerics are being removed from the buildings of several colleges and high schools in Pennsylvania in the wake of the grand jury report detailing sex abuse cases in six dioceses in the state.

The University of Scranton, a Jesuit school, announced last month that “with sympathy for and in solidarity with victims of sexual abuse,” the honorary degrees and names of campus buildings recognizing Bishops Jerome Hannan, J. Carroll McCormick, and James Timlin would be rescinded.

“As documented in the report, these Bishops covered up the crimes and misdeeds of men who were under their jurisdiction and placed children in harm’s way,” President Scott R. Pilarz, S.J., said in a statement announcing the changes.

King’s College, a Catholic college in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. also announced that the name of Bishop McCormick would be removed from one of its buildings and an honorary degree would be rescinded from Bishop Timlin.

North Catholic High School in Cranberry Township, Pa. removed “Cardinal Wuerl” from its name at the request of Cardinal Donald Wuerl himself, after signs at the school bearing his name were vandalized.

According to a diocesan statement, Wuerl wrote to Bishop David Zubik of Pittsburgh requesting the removal of his name “lest we in any way detract from the purpose of Catholic education.”  

His name is also being removed from the parish hall at St. Rosalia Church in Pittsburgh, according to the Tribune-Review.

Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington  and successor of former-cardinal Theodore McCarrick, came under increasing scrutiny in August because of his role in sex abuse cases listed in the Pennsylvania grand jury report and because he has been accused of negligent oversight of McCarrick.
 
Students and staff at the University of Scranton who spoke with NPR said they supported the removal of the names from the school.

“I don’t think it’s being disrespectful to the church,” Adam Pratt, an assistant history professor at the University of Scranton, told NPR in August. “What these men have done is beyond the pale. And it’s not the values that we teach here at the University of Scranton.”

In his statement, Pilarz announced that McCormick Hall will be renamed MacKillop Hall in honor of Saint Mary of the Cross MacKillop, an Australian nun “who publicly exposed the sexual abuse of children by a priest. In her life, she faced persecution and excommunication, during which she was assisted by the Jesuits until later being absolved.”

Another plaza named after Timlin will be renamed after Bl. Oscar Romero, who was killed while celebrating Mass in San Salvador, and is to be canonized Oct. 14.

A hall named after Hannan will be renamed to honor two former Scranton students who have died – Brendan J. Giblin, who was killed while on spring break his senior year, and William H. Kelly Jr., who died Sept. 11, 2001 in the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

“In choosing to honor St. MacKillop, Archbishop Romero, Brendan and Bill, we hold up the example of their lives as a reminder always to be a voice against abuse and violence no matter the cost, to champion the poor and oppressed, and to treasure the bonds of friendship and community that are at the heart of The University of Scranton,” Pilarz said.

DeSales University and Misericordia University, both in Pennsylvania, have said they are considering taking similar action in removing the names of accused bishops from campus facilities.

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