Phoenix, Ariz., May 1, 2019 / 02:59 pm (CNA).- An extensive fire destroyed St. Joseph Catholic Church in north Phoenix during the early morning hours of May 1. The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
No one was injured in the blaze, which b… […]
Eugene, Oregon, Apr 30, 2019 / 03:46 pm (CNA).- A federal judge in Oregon has issued a temporary nationwide injunction against the Trump administration’s requirement that recipients of Title X family planning funds be separate from abortion facil… […]
Scranton, Pa., Apr 30, 2019 / 03:30 pm (CNA).- Religious intolerance and violence are being fueled by a polarized society and fanned by social media, Bishop Joseph Bambera of Scranton told CNA.
Bambera, who is the chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, told CNA that he is worried about the state of interreligious dialogue and ecumenical work.
“Certainly, our world, our country, our people, seem more polarized than ever before,” said Bambera. “There seems to be less of a tolerance for those who are ‘different’–and I use different in quotes–from those who are looking at them and passing judgment.”
The bishop told CNA that increased understanding and dialogue has suffered a backslide over the last few decades.
“The last half of the last century was so focused on ecumenical and interreligious dialogue,” said Bambera. This was not because dialogue was a “novel thing,” but “because it really helped us to recognize that which was similar, that which is different, and come to a much more harmonious sense of relationship and rapport with one another.”
Now, Bambera thinks that there is a need to “re-energize” interreligious cooperation for the present generation, citing Pope Francis’ recent call for increased dialogue.
This dialogue is especially needed in light of recent events.
In the last six weeks, there have been acts of violence targeting the three major Abrahamic faiths. The March 15 shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand killed 50 muslims. On Easter Sunday, bombings at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka killed 253. On Saturday, a shooting at a synagogue near San Diego, CA killed one and injured three.
The shooters in the mosque and synagogue attacks both engaged in online forums and released “manifestos” prior to their arrests. The prevalent use of social media worries Bambera.
Despite being a “wonderful tool” for individuals and organizations to spread positive messages, the bishops warned that this is by no means always the case.
“As much as it can lead to good, it also has the potential (…) at times to be misused,” he said. “And I certainly think that has been the case related to many of these unfortunate situations.”
On social media, a person can be exposed to “erroneous information” about a particular faith or group of people. Constant online reenforcement of misinformation and stereotypes can lead to people blindly accepting what they are being told without doing any further research, he explained. Predjudice and hate, Bambera said, are often rooted in untruths; increased dialogue between actual members of religious faiths, he explained, can be a crucial part in combatting the rise of violence and hate.
Despite the current climate, Bambera said there is cause for hope in the coming generation, pointing to the universal anger and pain in response to recent attacks on houses of worship, which he said “captured the attention of the entire world.”
Leaders around the world condemned the attacks as assaults on “basic human values.”
Bambera told CNA that a presence by law enforcement was now a sad fact of annual Eastertide celebrations in Scranton, something he called unthinkable a decade ago.
He said that many of his parishioners expressed gratitude for the increased security, confiding to him there fears that attacks on religious celebration was becoming a fact of life.
While the security may be “unsettling” reminder of current dangers, he said, “we can’t live without fear” and that American Catholics had to rely on each other in facing a common fear in the name of God and of peace.
“We have a right to freely worship as we want to, and we ought not let extremists prevent us in any way from doing that, because then they win,” he said.
Battle Creek, Mich., Apr 30, 2019 / 02:47 pm (CNA).- When two Michigan high school students were planning for a community service project, they decided they wanted to help younger children learn to pray. So, they fundraised, designed, and managed the c… […]
Washington D.C., Apr 30, 2019 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- States that require some form of marriage preparation see lower rates of divorce, a new study has shown.
About half of all first marriages in the United States end in divorce, a figure which only climbs… […]
Sacramento, Calif., Apr 30, 2019 / 12:02 am (CNA).- If California moves forward with its proposed law trying to force priests to violate the seal of Confession, it is not just Catholicism but all religions that will suffer, said a Dominican priest in a… […]
Buffalo, N.Y., Apr 29, 2019 / 08:54 pm (CNA).- Three priests have been temporarily removed from ministry in the Diocese of Buffalo, after seminarians say they engaged in salacious and inappropriate conversation during a party at a parish rectory. Offic… […]
Washington D.C., Apr 29, 2019 / 05:02 pm (CNA).- The majority of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom are found in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, according to a report from the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom released Monday. The report’s introduction focused on abuses against China’s Uyghur Muslims.
USCIRF released April 29 its 20th annual report documenting the world’s worst violators of religious freedom. With the exception of Cuba— the only majority Chirstian country listed, other than Russia— all the countries identified as the worst offenders are located in the eastern hemisphere.
“Our goal is not only to call out the offenders, but to provide concrete actions for the U.S. government to take in working with these countries to get off our lists,” USCIRF Chair Tenzin Dorjee said in a release accompanying the report.
Each year the group identifies “countries of particular concern” using the criteria of “systematic, ongoing, egregious violations” of religious freedom.
Non-state actors are given the designation “entities of particular concern” using similar criteria.
Some of these violations include torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; prolonged detention without charges; causing the disappearance of persons by the abduction or clandestine detention of those persons; or other flagrant denial of the right to life, liberty, or the security of persons, the report says.
Among the 16 countries designated as CPCs for 2019 are ten flagged by the state department in November 2018: Myanmar, China, Eritrea, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. The list also includes six other countries: Central African Republic, Nigeria, Russia, Syria, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam.
In addition the group identified 12 countries that meet either one or two of the three criteria for a CPC, placing them on the “Tier 2” list. These include Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Cuba, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Laos, Malaysia, and Turkey.
Among the non-state entities of concern this year, USCIRF identified the Islamic State, the Taliban in Afghanistan, al-Shabaab in Somalia, and, making their first appearance on the list this year, the Houthis in Yemen and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist militant group in Syria.
The Houthis are a Shiite Muslim tribe that took control of a key territory and chased the president from the capital city in 2015, and Saudi Arabia and some Arab allies intervened on behalf of the opposing faction. Iran continues to back the Houthis, who are battling the Saudi-led coalition for control of the country, especially the strategically important port city of Hodeidah.
The resulting three-year long Yemeni civil war has left between 13,500 and 80,000 people dead and millions displaced, with an estimated 14 million or so people facing pre-famine conditions.
The report particularly highlights the plight of the Uyghur Muslim minority in China. To date, between 800,000 to 2 million Uighurs— or about 10% of their population— have been detained and sent to “re-education camps” to be subjected to abuse and political indoctrination.
The report calls on the US government to sanction those in the Chinese government responsible for the detention of the Uyghurs. It also recommends the appointment of a special advisor to the president on international religious freedom.
The commission noted that while the Vatican reached a provisional agreement with China on the appointment of bishops in September, “nevertheless, repression of the underground Catholic Church increased during the latter half of the year.”
Among the report’s inclusion of commissioners’ “individual views” were those of Johnnie Moore, who called the Vatican-China deal “one of the most alarming incidents as it relates to religious freedom in the entire year.”
“Within days of the Vatican negotiating its deal, the Chinese used it as cover to embark upon the closure of several of the nation’s largest and most prominent unregistered church communities,” Moore wrote.
He believes the Vatican “now bears a significant moral and legal responsibility to help solve the problem which it helped created—albeit inadvertently—by providing China license to viciously crack down on Christian communities (as cited in this report), and by providing the Chinese government further cover to continue its incomprehensible, inexcusable and inhumane abuses of Muslim citizens in the western part of the country.”
“While I am entirely for direct engagement on these issues, including with the most severe violators in the world, that engagement must not result in these types of unintended consequences, as has been the case in China. The Vatican made a terrible mistake, which it must take seriously. This debacle must be dealt with urgently and seriously.”
USCIRF is a bipartisan commission that advises the President, Congress, and the Secretary of State on international religious freedom issues.
Spokane, Wash., Apr 29, 2019 / 03:20 pm (CNA).- Gonzaga University students were hired to serve as aides at an on-campus retirement home in which lived several priests accused of sexual abuse.
Between 2000 and 2015, students at the university were hir… […]
Seattle, Wash., Apr 29, 2019 / 02:30 pm (CNA).- The new coadjutor archbishop of Seattle promised Monday to be a pastoral leader to Catholics in Washington state, noting that his ministry will focus on the principles of dialogue and accompaniment, in im… […]
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