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Hilo, Hawaii, May 17, 2018 / 04:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With ongoing volcanic activity continuing to threaten the area surrounding Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, local Catholics are offering a helping hand to those who have been evacuated.

Fr. Ernest Juarez Jr. of Sacred Heart Parish in Pahoa said that the parish has “opened its doors to be a centralized location for the different government agencies, and for the [affected] public to come and get information, permission cards to enter the affected area, and other kinds of assistance.”

The parish said in a statement this week that it has worked “to contact members of the parish who live in affected neighborhoods to find out how we can help.”

Relief efforts have included sign-up sheets to offer temporary rooms or houses for those who have been evacuated, as well as transportation and assistance with other personal needs. The parish has been collecting pillows and blankets, preparing meals for distribution at the food pantry, and offering to talk and pray with those staying in a shelter.

“The main needs are housing, transportation, and money,” Fr. Juarez told CNA.  

Blankets, toiletries, and tents are also needed. Food has been abundant, thanks to the generosity of donors, he said.

In the early hours of May 17, the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island erupted for the second time in two weeks, shooting a plume of ash and smoke 12,000 feet into the air. The previous eruption, which took place May 3, was followed by earthquakes and the emergence of 21 fissures, some in residential neighborhoods. More than 117 acres of the island have been covered by lava.

According to the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency, Kilauea has destroyed 36 structures, mostly homes, since the lava began spewing. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory also issued a hazardous fumes warning due to elevated levels of sulfur dioxide in the air.

Some 2,000 Hawaiians were evacuated in the days following the initial eruption.

Fr. Juarez said that “attitudes and emotions are everything you can imagine” – relief at being safe and hopefulness about returning home, frustration and heartbreak at damaged houses, worry for neighbors, and uncertainty over what will happen next.

While the situation is overwhelming for some, Fr. Juarez said, the people of Hawaii are in good hands with the state, local and national response teams.

“The people who are scared are those who don’t understand what is going on here and are scared for us,” he stressed, adding, “No one is in any danger as long as they heed the instructions put in place for safety.”

Although local schools were closed for the day and levels of sulfuric gas and volcanic smoke are high, the priest said that “lives are not in danger.”

“It is predicted that the trade[winds] will return tomorrow, and all of the bad air will blow out to the ocean,” he said. “If that happens, our air will be fine.”  

Fr Robert Stark, director of the Diocese of Honolulu’s Office for Social Ministry, said that the diocese is involved in relief efforts primarily through HOPE Services Hawaii, which was founded by his diocesan office and is located near the eruption area.

“HOPE is working closely with state and county government to respond to the most vulnerable affected by the eruptions,” Stark told CNA. “HOPE was asked by state and county to convene the service providers in the area to coordinate their response.”

In addition, he said, HOPE is helping with both fundraising and offering direct assistance to those affected by the volcano.

Catholic Charities of Hawaii will be working in the coming weeks and months to help those whose homes have been damaged or destroyed, aiding with temporary housing subsidies and emergency house repairs.

“We understand that certain agencies and first responders are there…to ensure the health and safety of those being affected,” said Terry Walsh, president and CEO of Catholic Charities Hawaii. “[Our] role is to assist those affected through recovery efforts during these disasters.”

The agency said in a statement that is also assisted in “long-term recovery efforts during the last lava flow through Puna in 2014 and following the 2006 Hawaii Island earthquake.”

The state agency has applied for $10,000 emergency seed grants through Catholic Charities USA.

Catholic Charities Hawaii is also asking for donations to assist those affected by the volcano, as well as continued recovery efforts in Kauai and Oahu, where severe flooding and landslides last month damaged hundreds of homes and causes some $20 million in damage to public property, according to Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency.

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Philadelphia, Pa., May 17, 2018 / 02:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A group of foster parents and social workers appeared in court on Wednesday, asking that the city of Philadelphia rescind its decision to ban a Catholic organization from placing children in foster homes.

The plaintiffs of Sharonell Fulton et al. v. City of Philadelphia told a US District Court May 16 that they are being discriminated against because of their agency’s deeply-held religious beliefs.

For over a century, Philadelphia has worked with Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (CSS) to facilitate the placement of children in foster care. Catholic Social Services has assisted with home visits, training of foster parents, and placements. At any given time CSS serves about 120 foster children in 100 foster homes. In 2017, the charity says it helped more than 2,200 children in the Philadelphia area.

In March, CSS was informed that the city would no longer be referring foster children to the agency for assistance. Philadelphia then passed a resolution calling for an investigation into religiously-based foster care services, after a same-sex couple claimed they were discriminated against by a different faith-based agency.

CSS has not been the subject of discrimination complaints by same-sex couples. The agency says that it assists all children in need, regardless of a child’s race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Catholic Social Services will not stand in the way of anyone who wants to try and become a foster parent,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Becket is providing counsel for the case.

“They’re simply asking that they can continue to serve the children of Philadelphia consistent with their faith.”

The suit’s lead plaintiff, Sharonell Fulton, has “fostered more than 40 children over 25-plus years as a foster parent. She has cared for children with significant medical needs and is currently caring for two special needs foster children,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit claims that Fulton “could not provide the extensive care that these special-needs children require without the support she receives from Catholic Social Services.”

Other plaintiffs include a foster parent recognized in 2015 as one Philadelphia’s “Foster Parents of the Year,” and a long-time social worker, herself a foster parent, who claims that she would likely discontinue providing foster care to children if she could not work with CSS. The agency itself is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

If the city declines to renew its current contract with CSS, which expires at the end of June, there’s a chance that children in CSS foster-care placements will be immediately removed from their homes. Windham, however, is hopeful that this will not be the case.

Since the policy went into place, Philadelphia has put out calls for new foster parents, as the city is facing a severe shortage. According to Windham, there are at least a dozen empty foster homes in the city–which are empty because they work with CSS.

Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Chief Communications Officer Kenneth Gavin told CNA that the archdiocese is disappointed that the city decided to stop partnering with CSS, despite its history of providing care for children.

“Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (CSS) recognizes the vital importance of the foster care program in our city and is proud to provide safe and nurturing foster environments to young people in need. We have been providing those environments for over a century. We were extremely disappointed when the City ceased new foster care child intakes with CSS in late March of this year,” said Gavin.
 
Gavin said the foster care program provides care “for all those in need with dignity, charity, and respect regardless of their background.” Given that the Philadelphia is in “a foster care crisis,” Gavin said he hopes that CSS will be permitted to continue providing care for needy children.
 
The lawsuit is expected to be heard later this year.
 

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Sacramento, Calif., May 16, 2018 / 04:42 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- California’s assisted suicide law was wrongly passed in a special legislative session, ruled a California judge this week.

Though the ruling might only be temporary, one terminally ill woman at the May 15 hearing was grateful for it.

“The bill’s proponents tout dignity, choice, compassion, and painlessness. I am here to tell you that nothing could be further from the truth. Choice is really an illusion for a very few,” Stephanie Packer said, according to the Los Angeles archdiocese’s Angelus News. “For too many, assisted suicide will be the only affordable ‘treatment’ that is offered them.”

Packer said that her insurance company would not fund potentially life-saving chemotherapy treatments for her lung cancer, but instead offered her “aid-in-dying” drugs that would cost her $1.20. The action made the married mother of four a vocal opponent of assisted suicide laws, including California’s the End of Life Option Act.

Judge Daniel Ottolia of the Riverside County Superior Court ruled on Tuesday that lawmakers had unconstitutionally passed the law in a 2015 special session of the legislature dedicated to health care funding. The judge has postponed his judgment for five days to allow the state to file an emergency appeal.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra voiced strong disagreement with the ruling and said he plans to appeal it.

The judge’s decision drew support from other foes of the legislation.

“The act itself was rushed through the special session of the legislature, and it does not have any of the safeguards one would expect to see in a law like this,” Stephen G. Larson, head counsel for a group of doctors who filed a legal challenge to the law, told the Sacramento Bee.

The bill lacked an adequate definition of terminal illness and a provision exempting from legal liability the doctors who prescribe the drugs, according to Larson’s clients.

However, Larson challenged the bill specifically on the fact that the special session was called “to address funding shortages caused by Medi-Cal.”

“It was not called to address the issue of assisted suicide,” he said.

Under the law, lethal prescriptions may be given to adults who are able to make medical decisions if their attending physician and a consulting physician have diagnosed a terminal disease expected to end in death within six months.

The initial legislative effort to pass an assisted suicide bill failed in committee during the 2015 regular season, following months of media attention to the case of Brittany Maynard, a 29-year-old woman with an aggressive brain tumor who moved from California to Oregon in order to take advantage of legal physician-assisted suicide there.

Assemblywoman Susan Talamantes Eggman, who backed the bill, charged that the judge’s decision interfered with Californians in the process of securing the lethal drugs under the law.

“It’s a reminder for all of us that there are those out there who would like to take our rights away,” she said. “When we move forward, there are those who would like to drag us back.”

Harry Nelson, a healthcare attorney in Los Angeles who represents several doctors who have prescribed lethal prescriptions, told the Los Angeles Times he thinks it is unlikely the law will be permanently overturned. He believes the legislature will be able to reinstate the law with any changes the court believes to be necessary.

Matt Valliere, executive director of the New York-based Patients Rights Action Fund, applauded the ruling. He said it affirmed that assisted suicide advocates “circumvented the legislative process.”

“It represents a tremendous blow to the assisted suicide legalization movement and puts state legislatures on notice regarding the political trickery of groups like Compassion and Choices,” he said.

In the first seven months after the law took effect in June 2016, there were 111 people who chose to end their lives under it, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Including California, seven states and the District of Columbia have legal provisions allowing assisted suicide, National Public Radio reports.

In January 2018, the California Catholic Conference reiterated its opposition to assisted suicide and criticized the lack of data collected and the lack of transparency of the law’s implementation.

“There is far too much still not known about how this law is put into practice – especially as it pertains to disabled, elderly and other populations,” the conference said Jan. 24. “California is failing to properly investigate some very fundamental questions such as whether patients were coerced into the procedure or somehow influenced and, especially for Medi-Cal patients, whether they had the option of good, effective palliative care.”
 

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Philadelphia, Pa., May 16, 2018 / 02:54 pm (CNA).- The upcoming film, “Pope Francis: A Man of his Word,” has won praise from Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, who applauded the movie’s compelling portrayal of the Holy Father…. […]

Washington D.C., May 16, 2018 / 11:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Federal officials are evaluating U.S. military bases as temporary shelters for immigrant children who will be separated from their parents after crossing the border illegally under a new Trump administration policy.

While final decisions have not yet been made, the Washington Post reports that Department of Health and Human Services officials are visiting military bases in Texas and Arkansas to examine their suitability for housing children.

About 100 shelters currently exist, but they are close to capacity, and it is estimated that thousands of additional children could be placed in government care under the new immigration policy, the Wall Street Journal says.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a “zero tolerance” policy for illegal border crossings on May 7. The goal is for “100 percent” of those who cross the border illegally to face charges of “improper entry by an alien,” which can result in up to six months in prison.

“If you cross this border unlawfully, then we will prosecute you. It’s that simple,” Sessions said, according to National Public Radio. “If you smuggle illegal aliens across our border, then we will prosecute you. If you are smuggling a child, then we will prosecute you and that child will be separated from you as required by law. If you don’t like that, then don’t smuggle children over our border.”

Under previous practice, people caught illegally crossing the border were returned to Mexico after a guilty plea and a brief detention. The violation is a misdemeanor under federal law.

With parts of Central America plagued by drug and gang violence, illegal border crossings in the U.S. increasingly consist of families or unaccompanied minors. While adults can be detained in immigration jails, the federal government is prohibited from holding immigrant children in jails.

Military bases may be used to shelter children whom the government has separated from their families, as well as unaccompanied minors. The children will receive foster care through the Department of Health and Human Services.

A department official said that the average time of custody for children in HHS care is 45 days, and 85 percent of children are released to a parent of adult relative in the U.S., the Washington Post reports.

Military bases were previously used to house children for several months during the child migrant crisis of 2014, when other resources were exhausted.

Ashley Feasley, director of policy for Migration and Refugee Services at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told CNA May 10 that the policy change will “erode judicial efficiency, taking away resources to prosecute the most dangerous, in favor of prosecuting every parent.” The new policy could cost up to $620 per night to detain a family of one parent and two children.

Furthermore, she said, entering the border with one’s child is not automatically an instance of child smuggling.

“Many of these families are willingly turning themselves over to Border Patrol. They are not hiding. They are asking for protection, they are vulnerable and looking for safety,” she said.

Under the zero tolerance policy, immigrants detained at the border could receive federal criminal convictions even if they have valid asylum claims and are judged to have a right to stay in the U.S., CNN reports.

Intentionally increasing forced family separations at the border “is inhumane and goes against our Catholic values and the sanctity of the family,” Feasley said.

Family separation is “extremely traumatic” for children to experience, especially after a lengthy, stressful trip to the U.S. and possible traumatic experiences in Central America, she said. Very young children have been separated and left with strangers, many of whom do not speak their language.

“Then these children are put into shelter facilities which are confined spaces. The experience is doubly traumatizing,” she continued. “The American Academy of Pediatrics has cautioned against the long lasting emotional trauma and harm that separation can cause children.”

Feasley also warned that the new policy does not address “the pervasive root causes of migration,” such as state- or community-sanctioned violence, poverty, forced recruitment into gangs, lack of educational opportunity, and domestic abuse.

She said that policy solutions should consider those factors, and that Catholics in the pews should “remember the human dignity of all families and children who arrive, and look to assist these families in productive ways that help them comply with our immigration laws – ensuring that they know their rights and responsibilities in this country.”

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Chicago, Ill., May 16, 2018 / 12:09 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Conference of Illinois decried the governor’s call to re-establish the death penalty, which has not been used in the state in nearly 20 years.

“We are distressed and ala… […]

Washington D.C., May 15, 2018 / 12:03 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A bipartisan bill introduced in Congress last week would make it easier for Americans to receive tax deductions for charitable giving, regardless of whether they itemize on their tax returns.

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Oklahoma City, Okla., May 14, 2018 / 06:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With the signing of a bill preserving the religious freedom of adoption agencies in Oklahoma, Gov. Mary Fallin drew praise from the state’s Catholic bishops on Friday.

“We are… […]

Chicago, Ill., May 12, 2018 / 03:23 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The first African American priest in the U.S. could become the country’s first African American saint as his cause took another step forward this week.

A document summarizing the life, virtue, and alleged miracles of Servant of God Fr. Augustus Tolton, known as the positio, was unanimously approved as historically correct by a committee of six Vatican officials this week, clearing the way for the priest’s cause for canonization to continue moving forward.

Bishop Joseph N. Perry, auxiliary bishop of Chicago and diocesan postulator for the Tolton cause, called the approval a “very positive sign going forward” and noted its significance for the African American Catholic Community.

“Fr. Tolton lived during a particularly tumultuous time in American history especially for race relations,” Perry said in a statement.

“He was a pioneer of his era for inclusiveness drawing both blacks and whites to his parish in Quincy. However, due to his race, he suffered discrimination and condemnation. The beatification and canonization of Fr. Tolton will signal a significant milestone in the history of black Catholicism in the United States.”

Born in Missouri on April 1, 1854, John Augustine Tolton fled slavery with his mother and two siblings in 1862 by crossing the Mississippi River into Illinois.

“John, boy, you’re free. Never forget the goodness of the Lord,” Tolton’s mother told him after the crossing, according to the website of St. Elizabeth’s Church in Chicago.

The young Tolton entered St. Peter’s Catholic School with the help of the school’s pastor, Fr. Peter McGirr. Fr. McGirr would later baptize him and instruct him for his first Holy Communion. Tolton was serving as an altar boy by the next summer.

The priest asked Tolton if he would like to become a priest, saying it would take 12 years of hard study. The excited boy then said they should go to church and pray for his success.

After graduating from high school and Quincy College, he began his ecclesiastical studies in Rome, because no American seminary would accept him on account of his race.

On April 24, 1886 he was ordained in Rome by Cardinal Lucido Maria Parocchi, who was then the vicar general of Rome. Newspapers throughout the U.S. carried the story.

Fr. Tolton was ordained for the southern Illinois Diocese of Quincy. Upon his return in July 1886, he was greeted at the train station “like a conquering hero,” the website of St. Elizabeth’s Parish says.

“Thousands were there to greet him, led by Father McGirr. A brass band played church songs and Negro Spirituals. Thousands of blacks and whites lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the new priest wearing a black Prince Albert and a silk hat. People marched and cheered his flower-draped four-horse carriage. Children, priests and sisters left the school joining the procession heading towards the church.”

Hundreds waited at the local church where people of all races knelt at the communion rail.

Fr. Tolton served in Quincy before going to Chicago to start a parish for black Catholics. The new church was named for St. Monica and opened in 1893.

On July 9, 1897, Fr. Tolton collapsed during a hot day and died from sunstroke at the age of 43.

His cause for canonization was officially launched in 2010, and he was given the title “Servant of God” by the Vatican in February 2011. The research phase of his cause concluded on September 29, 2014.

The next step in his cause for canonization will be in February 2019, when a theological commission with the Congregation for Causes of Saints will further investigate his life and virtue, and consider granting him the title of “Venerable,” which must receive papal approval.

After that step, Tolton’s cause would move forward toward beatification, for which a miracle through his intercession must be approved.  

More information about Fr. Tolton can be found on the website for his cause: www.toltoncanonization.org

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Denver, Colo., May 11, 2018 / 11:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- After a New York judge said that courts must seriously consider whether animals deserve some legal protections afforded to people, Catholic philosophers say that human beings are unique, and that, when it comes to law and ethics, that matters.

“Chimps are amazing living beings… and it could be a big mistake to just think of the chimps as things or instruments,” said Dr. John Crosby, a philosophy professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.

“Undeniably, there is something there mysterious [about them]. There is something of worth, but there is not a person. And therefore, because they are not a person, there are no real rights the chimp has,” he told CNA.
 
Nonhuman Rights Project has sought to release two New York-based chimpanzees, Tommy and Kiko, from the cages of private owners, and into a wild animal sanctuary. Steven Wise is the lawyer in charge of the animals’ defense.

In March 2017, Wise filed for habeas corpus relief, citing the similarities between mankind and primates. The filing alleged that chimps’ captivity constituted a kind of unlawful imprisonment.

On May 8, New York’s highest court rejected an appeal from Wise aimed at freeing the chimpanzees. The Court of Appeals voted 5-0 in favor of an intermediate appellate court in Manhattan that denied the chimps’ legal status in June 2017. The appellate court ruled that chimps are not legal persons.

“The asserted cognitive and linguistic capabilities of chimpanzees do not translate to a chimpanzee’s capacity or ability, like humans, to bear legal duties, or to be held legally accountable for their actions,” wrote Justice Troy Webber last year, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Judge Eugene Fahey, who voted against the chimps’ rights to habeas relief on Tuesday, argued that while a chimp might not be considered a person, animals might have the right to legal redress.

“While it may be arguable that a chimpanzee is not a ‘person,’ there is no doubt that it is not merely a thing,” he said in an opinion statement. “In elevating our species, we should not lower the status of other highly intelligent species.”

“The Appellate Division’s conclusion that a chimpanzee cannot be considered a ‘person’ and is not entitled to habeas relief is in fact based on nothing more than the premise that a chimpanzee is not a member of the human species,” Fahey wrote.

There are a lot of similarities between chimps and people, Fahey said, drawing attention to chimps’ advanced cognitive skills, ability to self-recognize, and a high percentage of shared DNA with humans, at least 96 percent.

He asked whether some animals should have the right to readdress wrongs committed against them. Animals are not morally culpable or legally responsible, he said, but neither are infants and some ill people, and therefore they might enjoy similar legal rights.

“Even if it is correct, however, that nonhuman animals cannot bear duties, the same is true of human infants or comatose human adults, yet no one would suppose that it is improper to seek a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of one’s infant child.”

Dr. Crosby agreed that animals should not be treated poorly, and he lamented over the mistreatment of animals by farms and luxury product testing. However, he disagreed with the judge’s argument about babies and comatose adults, noting chimpanzees permanently lack moral culpability.

Babies grow into morally responsible adults and comatose patients may potentially get better, he said. Even if the patient does not get better, he added, people “are the kind of being that in the normal instance has moral agency and something is blocking exercise of it.”

Animals do not have moral agency or free will, he said, while highlighting a few major differences between chimpanzees and people.

“A person is a being that possesses himself and is capable of originating action, where he freely determines himself,” said Crosby. “It’s very difficult to claim that any chimp, however amazingly skilled, is a free agent.”

Cautioning against conferring upon them the status of persons, Crosby said people should instead remember their moral obligations towards animals.  

“These animals merit a certain reverence. We ought to think of ourselves not just as users of them, but somehow custodians of them,” he said. “There are right and wrong ways of acting towards chimps and other animals, but they are not the subject of rights since they are not persons.”

Father Brian Chrzastek, a philosophy professor at the Dominican House of Studies, also reflected on the difference between chimps and people. He said that humans have a higher potential for abstract thought and originality. While animals act by instinct, he said people engage rationally with the world.

“Humans are different in kind. It’s not like we are just smart chimpanzees or something. We’re an entirely different level of thought, an entirely different kind of species,” he told CNA.

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