US

Chicago, Ill., Jun 9, 2018 / 04:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A U.S. appellate court has ruled against a self-described Satanist from Chicago who had filed a lawsuit seeking to remove the motto “In God We Trust” from U.S. currency.

The ruling, r… […]

New York City, N.Y., Jun 9, 2018 / 12:33 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Superior Court of New York ruled Friday in favor of Joan Sheen Cunningham, who had petitioned to move the body of her uncle, Venerable Fulton Sheen, to the Cathedral of St. Mary in Peoria. The body of the late archbishop is currently in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.

The Diocese of Peoria welcomed the decision.

“This is the second time that the Superior Court of New York has ruled in favor of Joan Sheen Cunningham’s petition,” read a June 8 statement from the Peoria diocese.

The judge, Arlene Bluth, ruled that “the location of Archbishop Sheen’s final resting place would not have been his primary concern” and that “it makes no sense, given his lifelong devotion to the Catholic Church, that he would choose a location over the chance to become a saint.”

The Peoria diocese opened the cause for Sheen’s canonization in 2002 after Archdiocese of New York said it would not explore the case. In 2012, Benedict XVI recognized the heroic virtues of the archbishop.
 
However, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria suspended the beatification cause in September 2014 on the grounds that the Holy See expected Sheen’s remains to be in the Peoria diocese.
 
The Archdiocese of New York, however, has said that Vatican officials have said the Peoria diocese can pursue Sheen’s canonization regardless of whether his body is at rest there.

Sheen was born in Illinois in 1895, and was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria at the age of 24. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of New York in 1951, and he remained there until his appointment as Bishop of Rochester in 1966. He retired in 1969 and moved back to New York City until his death in 1979.

Sheen’s will had declared his wish to be buried in the Archdiocese of New York Calvary Cemetery. Soon after Sheen died, Cardinal Terence Cooke of New York asked Cunningham, Sheen’s closest living relative, if his remains could be placed in the New York cathedral’s crypt, and she consented.

Cunningham has said that Sheen would have wanted to have been interred in Peoria if he knew that he would be considered for sainthood. In 2016, she filed a legal complaint seeking to have her uncle’s remains moved to Peoria.

An initial court ruling had sided with Cunningham, but a state appeals court overturned that ruling, saying it had failed to give sufficient attention to a sworn statement from a colleague of Archbishop Sheen, Monsignor Hilary C. Franco, a witness for the New York archdiocese.
 
Msgr. Franco had said that Sheen told him he wanted to be buried in New York and that Cardinal Cooke had offered him a space in the crypt of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

The appeals court ordered “a full exploration” of the archbishop’s desires.

The Diocese of Peoria said that the New York superior court ruled this week that Msgr. Franco “testified completely in line with the testimony of Joan Sheen Cunningham. Therefore, both supported their understanding that above all else Archbishop Sheen would not have objected to his remains being transferred to Peoria.”

“Furthermore, the Archdiocese of New York could not supply any further testimony against Joan Sheen Cunningham’s petition. The court ruled that their testimony was fundamentally the same,” the Peoria diocese said.

Bluth ruled that “Mrs. Cunningham has offered a sound reason and a laudable purpose for her petition” and that Sheen “would care much less about the location of his earthly remains than his ability … to continue to serve man and God on a grand scale after his earthly demise.”

The Peoria diocese expressed their hope that the Archdiocese of New York “will cease their legal resistance and respect the ruling of the Superior Court. Bishop Jenky hopes that the New York Archdiocese will cooperate with … the practical matters as to moving the remains of Venerable Archbishop Sheen to Peoria, Illinois. It is the hope that this process will begin immediately.”

The Diocese of Peoria said that moving Sheen’s body to Peoria will be the next step towards bringing his beatification to completion.

“Bishop Jenky encourages everyone to pray for a renewed spirit of cooperation in the effort to beatify Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen.”

Sheen served as host of the “Catholic Hour” radio show and the television show “Life is Worth Living”.
 
In addition to his pioneering radio and television shows, Archbishop Sheen authored many books, with proceeds supporting foreign missions. He headed the Society for the Propagation of the Faith at one point in his life, and continued to be a leading figure in U.S. Catholicism until his death.
 
Archbishop Sheen’s intercession is credited with the miraculous recovery of a pronounced stillborn American baby from the Peoria area.
 
In June 2014, a panel of theologians that advises the Congregation for the Causes of Saints ruled that the baby’s recovery was miraculous.
 
The baby, later named James Fulton Engstrom, was born in September 2010 showing no signs of life. As medical professionals tried to revive him, his parents prayed for his recovery through the intercession of Fulton Sheen.
 
Although the baby showed no pulse for an hour after his birth, his heart started beating again and he escaped serious medical problems.

[…]

Washington D.C., Jun 7, 2018 / 05:08 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- While the month of June is marked by LGBT pride events, some Catholic critics have voiced wariness and concern that the events draw people away from God’s plan for humankind.

“Pride Month fills me with sadness, for gay pride parades are events that ultimately show how much man has forgotten God and how much he loves us, as a loving Father who created us in his image, solely as male and female,” Daniel Mattson, author of the book “Why I Don’t Call Myself Gay,” told CNA.

“Gay Pride Parades are masquerades that obscure man’s dignity, rather than honor it,” he said.

Mattson voiced gratitude for the opening words of the Catechism of the Catholic Church’s section on Life in Christ, a passage from a sermon of St. Leo the Great, which says “Christian, recognize your dignity.” Mattson also voiced gratitude that the Church “points the path away from pride in what are ultimately socially constructed identities to the truth of our nature.”

Mattson suggested that parade marchers will find true happiness only through “humility before God, their creator, recognizing the inherent dignity he gave them, as his sons and daughters, created male and female.”

LGBT pride parades and other observances are held in June to commemorate the June 1969 riots and protests against a police raid at the Stonewall Inn bar in New York City. This month’s events range from low-key events, marches and advocacy, major corporate-backed events, and events that include public nudity and immorality.

Bishop Thomas J. Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island has also commented on the observances.

“Catholics should be very wary of events in the June LGBTQ month. It’s not a fun-filled, family-friendly celebration of respect,” Tobin said in a June 1 Twitter post. “It promotes a lifestyle and agenda that, in the extreme, is morally offensive.”

Mattson said he was grateful for Bishop Tobin’s “clarity and warning” about attending the events.

“I pray that many will heed his words of caution,” he said.

Pride events also drew comment from Father James Martin, S.J., editor-at-large of America Magazine. In several June 2 Twitter posts that seemed to counter Bishop Tobin’s remarks, Father Martin said: “Catholics need not be wary of June’s Pride Month. It’s a way for LGBT people to be proud that they are beloved children of God, they have families who love them as they are, and they have a right to be treated with ‘respect, compassion and sensitivity’ after years of persecution.”

Father Martin received an award from the dissenting Catholic group New Ways Ministry and his speech to the group became the basis for his 2017 book “Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity.” The book drew praise from Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life, as well as Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark.

However, the Guinean-born Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, criticized the book in a September 2017 editorial in the Wall Street Journal, saying that Catholic outreach to LGBT individuals must always include the truth about Catholic teaching and chastity.

“As a mother, the Church seeks to protect her children from the harm of sin, as an expression of her pastoral charity,” the cardinal said.
 
Mattson, who did not comment on Martin’s tweets specifically, suggested that the Church’s message for those who self-identify as LGBT should be “Recognize your dignity and reject the limiting reductionist sexual labels of the world.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that those who experience same-sex attraction “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity,” while explaining that LGBT individuals, like all Catholics, are called to the virtue of chastity with regard to the sexual expression.

“You were called into being by God the Father who knit you in the womb, made male and female, in His likeness. Claim your true nature, in humility, recognizing that you are a creature, made by God,” Mattson said. “Humility, not pride, is the only path to peace and true human freedom.”

He suggested another appropriate response to pride parades is “sorrow, bowed heads, and prayers for all those who march around the world.” These prayers should be “guided by the confident hope that through the grace of God, they might one day come to know the Father’s love for them, and in his tender gaze, finally understand who they truly are.”

“Such has been the gift the Church has given to me,” Mattson told CNA.

[…]

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.”

[…]

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.”

[…]

Cleveland, Ohio, Jun 7, 2018 / 01:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. immigration system is broken and in need of reform, said the Bishop of Cleveland after more than 100 immigrants were arrested by authorities on Tuesday.

“This latest event in Eri… […]

Wichita, Kan., Jun 7, 2018 / 05:00 am (CNA).- Father Chad Arnold, vocations director in the Diocese of Wichita, Kansas, is hesitant to dole out advice about how a diocese can increase its priestly vocations.

He recognizes that he’s been blessed…. […]

Albany, N.Y., Jun 6, 2018 / 05:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Backers of a New York bill to open a lawsuit window for civil action from victims of past sexual abuse are wrong to say it would apply to public institutions, a former judge has said.

In a May 21 … […]

Denver, Colo., Jun 6, 2018 / 04:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As ongoing wildfires rage through the southwest region of the United States, local dioceses are offering their prayers and support for victims.

“I pray for all those in harm’s way and… […]

Baltimore, Md., Jun 6, 2018 / 02:27 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Perched on a hill overlooking the rivers and railroad tracks in Ellicott City, Maryland, stands St. Paul’s Catholic Church – a place where many Catholics in the Archdiocese of Baltimo… […]