News Briefs

UN Human Rights Office condemns US border separation of families

June 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Washington D.C., Jun 7, 2018 / 03:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Maria had been a victim of sex trafficking and abuse by a local gang when she fled Guatemala. Taking her 3-year-old son, Jose, she made the trek to the U.S. border, seeking asylum in the United States.

But when she arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border, she was apprehended by Customs and Border Protection. Agents separate her from her son, who was grouped together with “unaccompanied minors” by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, while Maria was transferred to adult detention.

Maria’s story, as related by the Migration and Refugees Services of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, is not unique.

At least 700 migrant children have been separated from adults claiming to be their parents since October 2017, according to data from the Office of Refugee Resettlement, which takes custody of the children. More than 100 of these children were under the age of 4.

Katie Kuennen is the associate director of children’s services for the U.S. bishops’ migration and refugee services, which operates a shelter for unaccompanied children in Texas.

“The vast majority of the kids coming into our residential programs are experiencing the trauma of family separation,” said Kuennen, who has observed increasing numbers of family separations at the border in recent months.

“We know from our work here in child welfare and social work that the impact of such a separation … can be extremely devastating both developmentally and psychologically on the child,” Kuennen explained in an online webinar on family separation on May 30.

On June 5, the United Nations human rights office condemned the U.S. practice of separating migrant children from their parents at the border as “a serious violation of the rights of the child.”

“The practice of separating families amounts to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life,” said UN spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani, who called on the U.S. to “ immediately halt this practice of separating families.”

Prior to the UN condemnation, the U.S. bishops released a statement on June 1, urging the U.S. government to keep migrant families together.

“My brother bishops and I understand the need for the security of our borders and country, but separating arriving families at the U.S./Mexico border does not allay security concerns,” wrote Bishop Joe S. Vásquez of Austin.

“Rupturing the bond between parent and child causes scientifically-proven trauma that often leads to irreparable emotional scarring,” continued Bishop Vasquez, who chairs the U.S. bishops’ committee on migration.

“Children are not instruments of deterrence but a blessing from God,” said the bishop.

On May 4, the Department of Homeland Security began referring all people crossing the border illegally to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.

This “zero-tolerance policy” was implemented in response to a report that there had been a 203 percent increase in unauthorized border crossings in the past year. The majority of people arriving at the U.S. border had fled Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, according to the UN.

The goal of the policy is prosecuting 100 percent of the people who cross the border illegally, said Melissa Hastings, a policy advisor for the U.S. bishops’ migration and refugee services.

While adults over the age of 18 await prosecution in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service, any children who had been traveling with them will be designated as “unaccompanied” and transferred to the Department of Health and Human Services.

The policy “does not have any exceptions for families who are coming in and willingly turning themselves over to border patrol seeking protection” by applying for legal asylum, said Hastings.

“In the majority of these cases it is noted that CBP had never asked the parent if they could verify the relationship at the time of apprehension,” added Kuennen, who said that parents are not being asked for documentation or evidence of their kinship before separation.

Once a child is separated and their parent detained, Kuennen has found it to be very challenging to facilitate communication between family members because the shelters caring for the children have to identify where the separated parent has been detained and establish contact.

“We recently had a 5-year-old girl from El Salvador who was separated from her biological mother. In this particular case, it took over 30 days to establish initial contact with the mother,” said Kuennen, noting that the child had been extremely traumatized by the initial separation.

“We’ve heard also some cases of extremely young children, infants, nursing babies who have been separated from their parents and caregivers,” said Kuennen.

For young children, this traumatic separation can lead to long-term physical and mental health consequences, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics, which released a statement condemning family separation in May.

“[H]ighly stressful experiences, like family separation, can cause irreparable harm, disrupting a child’s brain architecture and affecting his or her short- and long-term health. This type of prolonged exposure to serious stress – known as toxic stress – can carry lifelong consequences for children,” the academy warned.

There is also an issue of judicial efficiency, added Ashley Feasley, director of policy for the U.S. bishops’ migration and refugee services.

Previously, a mother could claim her children as derivatives on one asylum application and court claim. The family separation policy forces each individual to have their own claim, multiplying the number of court cases at a time when “our judicial immigration system is already overrun,” Feasley said.

She encouraged Catholics to help by contacting Congress, volunteering with immigrants through their local Catholic Charities, or even volunteering to foster a separated or unaccompanied child.

“Right now, in this initial phase, given the strong statements by DHS and the fact that Congress does have a small, but important oversight role, we are really pushing Congress to push back on this issue at this time,” she said. “We think it is crucial.”

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Congressmen call for investigation into Planned Parenthood abuse cover-ups

June 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Jun 7, 2018 / 02:04 pm (CNA).- Several members of Congress have asked the federal government to investigate allegations that Planned Parenthood has covered-up acts of sexual abuse.

At a press conference held Thursday outside the Capitol Building, the members of Congress, along with pro-life group Live Action, asked the Department of Health and Human Services to investigate Planned Parenthood and other Title X fund recipients to determine if there is a widespread practice of covering up sexual abuse.

Planned Parenthood is the largest recipient of Title X family planning funds, and is required by law to report any suspected abuse.

Last week, Live Action released the first videos of its ongoing docuseries “Aiding Abusers: Planned Parenthood’s Cover-Up of Child Sexual Abuse,” as well as a report containing decades worth of examples of Planned Parenthood acting negligently in failing to report sexual abuse. Many of the stories detailed in the report were re-told on Thursday by members of Congress.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) was blunt in his criticism of Planned Parenthood, saying that he thinks the organization has shown “gross negligence” in not only failing to report abuse, but in many cases returning the abuse victim to their abuser. Smith, who authored a bill in 2000 to protect victims of human trafficking, said that he finds the purported complicity with abuse to be “appalling.”  

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States, and performs about 900 abortions each day. It receives over half a billion dollars in taxpayer funding, about 10 percent of which are Title X funds.

The Trump Administration announced a new rule in late May that would prohibit Title X funds from going to organizations that perform abortion. In order for Planned Parenthood to remain eligible for Title X funds, it would need to discontinue offering abortions, or create a stand-alone, financially segregated organization exclusively providing abortion.

“This is something we have been working on and I applaud the administration for taking that step,” said Rep. Diane Black (R-TN).

“The integrity of our tax dollars should never be in question, especially those intended for actual family planning and women’s healthcare.”

Lila Rose, founder of Live Action, shared stories of her own undercover visits to two Planned Parenthood locations in the Los Angeles area, posing as an abuse victim. In neither case was her abuse reported to law enforcement authorities, and instead, she was encouraged to lie about her age. Rose believes that Planned Parenthood uses abortion as a tool to destroy physical evidence.
“Abortion is something that is then used to enable the abuse of young girls and cover up their abuse,” said Rose.

In one case cited in the report, a young teen girl who said she was being raped by her father received two abortions at Planned Parenthood. She was also given an IUD after the second abortion to prevent additional pregnancies. In neither case was her abuse reported to the authorities, despite being far below the age of consent.

“Planned Parenthood’s failure to report these heinous crimes does not empower women or our children. It empowers their abusers,” said Black.

“These stories are sickening, and we’re calling on HHS to investigate Planned Parenthood and every Title X funding recipient to determine how widespread this reporting failure is.”

 

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Lay rector a first at the ‘Pope’s university’

June 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Rome, Italy, Jun 7, 2018 / 01:58 pm (CNA).- For the first time in its 245-year history, a lay professor has been appointed rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, also known as the “Pope’s university.”
 
Vincenzo Buonomo, a professor of international law and a consultant to the Holy See since the 1980s, was appointed rector of the Pontifical Lateran University by Pope Francis.
 
He will begin the position July 1, succeeding Archbishop Enrico dal Covolo, who has been rector of the university for 8 years and two consecutive mandates.
 
Born April 16, 1961 in the southern Italian city of Gaeta, Professor Buonomo is married with two children.
 
He earned from the Pontifical Lateran University a doctorate juris utriusque- an academic doctorate in both canon and civil law, and began teaching there in 1984.
 
He became a full professor of the university in 2001, he was from 2006–2012 dean of the civil law department, and presently serves as coordinator of the university’s doctorates. He is also the scientific director of the Masters in New Horizons of Cooperation and International Law program, which the Lateran University manages with the NGO FOCSIV.
 
Although his career has been mostly linked to the Pontifical Lateran University, Buonomo is also a professor of international organization at the Catholic-inspired LUMSA University in Rome and visiting professor of international law at the Sophia University Institute of Loppiano.
 
Beyond his academic career, Buonomo has has long-term involvement with the Holy See.
 
He has been the chief of office for the Holy See’s Representation to Food and Agriculture Organization and related UN bodies (namely, FAO, IFAD and World Food Program). He also represents the Holy See on the UN Human Rights Council’s advisory committee, and has twice been a part of the Vatican’s delegation to present reports before the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
 
Under Pope Francis, Buonomo provided advice for the Comprehensive Agreement signed by the Holy See an Palestine in June 2015.

On Jan. 25, 2014, he was also appointed an advisor to the Vatican City State’s administration.
 
Buonomo began collaborating with the Vatican in the 1980s, when Cardinal Casaroli was Secretary of State.
 
He was was also a close collaborator with former Secretary of State Tarcisio Bertone, and edited a book of speeches Cardinal Bertone delivered in his capacity of Secretary of State.

His appointment as rector of the Pope’s university is a sign of continuity, and, at the same time, a break from tradition.
 
Buonomo has made his career in the Lateran and Vatican ranks without being linked to any particular ideological group, and so he will be able to carry on the tradition linking the Lateran Pontifical University directly to the pope himself. The Pope’s university will also keep its special bond with the pope through Cardinal-elect Angelo De Donatis, the pope’s vicar for the Diocese of Rome, who serves as the Lateran’s Grand Chancellor.  
 
At the same time, Buonomo is the first lay person to be named for the post.
 
The appointment of a lay person signals that the Pope wants the Lateran University to make improvements: following his curriculum, it is likely Professor Buonomo will lead the Pontifical Lateran University in a more international direction, and increase the caliber and standards of academic offerings.
 
Any new approach must be made according to the university’s storied traditions. The Pontifical Lateran University is formally a university since 1959, but its origins date back to 1773. The university has four departments (philosophy, theology, civil law and canon law) and two Institutes (Redemptor Hominis and Utriusque Iuris), plus a post-graduate specialization center. Teachers and students come from five continents.

 

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Pope Francis sends liberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez a birthday greeting

June 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Jun 7, 2018 / 10:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has sent a birthday greeting to Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez, widely considered the father of liberation theology, thanking him for his service to the Church and his dedication to the poor.

In a letter dated May 28, Pope Francis assured the Dominican priest of his prayers as he reaches the landmark age of 90, and said he thanked God “for what you have contributed to the Church and to humanity through your theological service and from your preferential love for the poor and discarded in society.”

“Thank you for your efforts and for your way of challenging the conscience of each person, so that no one can be indifferent faced with the drama of poverty and exclusion.”

Francis closed the letter encouraging Gutierrez to “continue with your prayer and your service to others, giving witness to the joy of the Gospel.”

Fr. Gustavo Gutierrez Merino, who will turn 90 June 8, was born in Lima and is considered by many to be the father of the liberation theology movement, which sprung up in Latin America in the 1950s.

Gutierrez is the John Cardinal O’Hara Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.

In a 2015, Gutierrez, wrote an article in the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, saying there are two schools of thought on poverty, both of which are rooted in the Gospel.

The first form of poverty, he said, is focused on Christ’s sensitivity toward the poor and their suffering, while the second is that Christ himself “had lived a life of poverty, and so Christians, from their origin, understood that in order to be his disciples they also had to live a life of poverty.”

The Peruvian said that both “poverty as scandal and poverty of spirit” can be useful, however, their meaning must be interpreted in the modern historical and global context.

Gutierrez said “a new notion of poverty” has emerged over the past century, and that “poverty, in bible and in our times, is not a merely economic issue. Poverty is very much more than this. The economic dimension is important, perhaps primary, but it is is not the only one.”

Liberation theology is often criticized for offering a Marxist interpretation of the Gospel, focusing on freedom from material poverty and injustice rather than giving primacy to spiritual freedom.

Gutierrez himself has never been censured by the Vatican, though the Vatican has warned about the implications of liberation theology and its excesses.

Under Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith twice issued instructions regarding liberation theology, the first being 1984’s Libertatis nuntius, which drew attention to “the deviations, and risks of deviation, damaging to the faith and to Christian living, that are brought about by certain forms of liberation theology which use, in an insufficiently critical manner, concepts borrowed from various currents of Marxist thought.”

That document was followed in 1986 by Libertatis conscientia, which presented Christian doctrine on freedom and liberation.

“Through his Cross and Resurrection, Christ has brought about our Redemption, which is liberation in the strongest sense of the word, since it has freed us from the most radical evil, namely sin and the power of death,” the congregation said.

Truth beginning with the truth about redemption, which is at the heart of the mystery of faith, is thus the root and the rule of freedom, the foundation and the measure of all liberating action.

 

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Global campaign urges greater involvement to help migrants, refugees

June 7, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Vatican City, Jun 7, 2018 / 10:10 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Organizers of the international “Share the Journey” campaign are urging Catholics to step up and interact with migrants and refugees through shared meals or other activities as part of a global action week.

“We invite you to sit down together with migrants and refugees in your community, to look into their eyes, listen to their stories and to share your own,” Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle said in a press release on the initiative.

The cardinal, who serves as archbishop of Manila and is also the president of papal charity organization Caritas Internationalis, said each person’s journey starts “with a moment of sharing which helps us recognize the bonds which bind the whole of humanity together.”

“We are invited to have compassion and courage to open our hearts and minds to the people we don’t yet know and to share the journey with them.”

The Global Action Week will take place June 17-24 and is part of the wider, two-year Share the Journey campaign, which was launched by Caritas Internationalis in September 2017 with the goal of encouraging a “culture of encounter” and bolstering efforts to warmly welcome immigrants and refugees.

The project also aims to shed light on both the challenges and effects of migration at every stage of the journey in order to promote a “shift in thinking” on the issue. It has the support of the ACT Alliance, which is a network of 145 Christian agencies and a variety of other religious congregations and civil society groups worldwide.

As part of the action week, Caritas branches in all regions of the world will organize shared meals with immigrants and refugees, as well as other events aimed at providing opportunities for interaction.

In Rome, the Caritas soup kitchen at Termini, the city’s main train station, will host a meal with migrants and refugees June 19.

They have also promoted other activities, like the “My Mirror” social experiment promoted by Caritas Ambrosiana in Milan, which encourages strangers to look into each other’s eyes as a means of breaking down barriers.

Caritas Cyprus also organized a handbag event for women, giving each woman who came a handbag full of basic toiletries.

In the U.S., the bishops’ conference as well as Caritas organizations like Catholic Relief Services and Catholic Charities USA have promoted the campaign as a way for Catholics to pray for migrants and refugees and make concrete acts to help them.

In one activity, Catholic Relief Services partnered with a local clothing store, which agreed to donate 20 percent of all sock sales to the organization’s work with migrants and refugees.

The official website for the Share the Journey campaign in the U.S. is: www.sharethejourney.org.

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Analysis: Cardinal Parolin at the elite Bilderberg meeting

June 6, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Vatican City, Jun 6, 2018 / 04:26 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, will take part in the Bilderberg Conference, an annual private gathering of global political, business and media leaders, set to take place this year in Turin, Italy, June 7 – 10.
 
Cardinal Parolin’s name is included in the list of 131 participants in this year’s Bilderberg meeting.
 
His participation in the meeting has not been officially announced by the Vatican, though sources within the Secretariat of State have confirmed that he is scheduled to take part in the meeting.
 
If his participation were confirmed, it would be the first time high-ranking Vatican official has taken part in the Bilderberg Conferences.
 
Started in 1954 the Hotel de Bilderberg in Oosterbeek, The Netherlands, and named after the same hotel, the Bilderberg Conference gathers each year some 120 – 150 participants, among them European and North American political élites, along with industrial, financial, academic and media figures.
 
The first meeting took place at the invitation of Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. Co-founders of the meeting were Polish politician Jozef Retinger, former Belgian prime minister Paul van Zeeland and Paul Rijkens, who was then the head of Unilever.
 
The success of the first meeting brought the organizers to stage an annual meeting.
 
According to the groups’ official website, about two-thirds of the participants come from Europe, and the rest from North America, and one-third are political figures or government officials.
 
The original meeting objective was to strengthen US – European relations. Over the years, the annual meetings became a forum for discussion on a wider range of topics, from ecology to trade and monetary policies.
 
This year’s meeting is set to discuss populism in Europe, the challenges of inequality, the future of work, artificial intelligence, US midterm elections, free trade, US global leadership, Russia, quantum computing, Saudi Arabia and Iran, the post-truth world, and other current events.
 
The Bilderberg meeting’s official website stresses that discussions are private, no minutes are taken and no reports are written.

The meetings are held under the so-called “Chatham House Rules,” an agreement typical of off-record meetings among academics or political leaders. According to that agreement, participants are free to use the information received, but they cannot disclose the identity nor the affiliation of speakers, nor can they disclose the other participants taking part in the conversation.
 
Dubbed by critics to be a kind of “global shadow government”, and targeted by protesters who picket the meeting, the Bilderberg meeting has has an official website since 2011, and publishes the names of participants in the annual meeting the day before the gathering begins.
 
Cardinal Parolin’s participation may be an expression of the “culture of the encounter” encouraged by Pope Francis. The pope has often asked officials to engage a dialogue with the world.
 
Receiving the Charlemagne Prize May 6, 2016, Pope Francis stressed that ”today we urgently need to engage all the members of society in building ‘a culture which privileges dialogue as a form of encounter’ and in creating ‘a means for building consensus and agreement while seeking the goal of a just, responsive and inclusive society.’”
 
The cardinal’s participation in the Bilderberg Group could be part of a strategy of dialogue the Holy See is engaging with small influential élite group.
 
It is noteworthy that last year, Cardinal Pietro Parolin took part in the World Economic Forum in Davos, and there he delivered Jan. 19 a speech in which he listed the aims of pontifical diplomacy.

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