Denver, Colo., Sep 4, 2017 / 03:54 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The American reporter who first brought news of Mother Teresa’s work to an international audience still remembers the day in 1966 when he met the nun serving the poor in the slums of Calcutt… […]
Washington D.C., Sep 3, 2017 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Which Christians face the most persecution around the globe, and how do they respond to it?
The Religious Freedom Institute teamed up with the University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University’s Religious Freedom Project to find out.
And what they ended up conducting was the world’s first systematic global investigation of the Christian response to persecution, called Under Caesar’s Sword.
This report, funded by the Templeton Religion Trust, was researched over the course of three years by a team of 14 scholars who analyzed more than 30 of the most threatened countries around the world. They examined the patterns of religious persecution, the varieties of responses to persecution, and made recommendations for action against persecution.
“’Under Caesar’s Sword’ is an effort to discover and draw attention to the ways in which Christian communities around the world respond to the severe violation of their religious freedom,” the project’s website said.
“One of the project’s signature features is its extensive efforts to disseminate its findings. This is part and parcel of its efforts to raise awareness of and be in solidarity with persecuted Christians.”
The study’s major findings were turned into a number of difference resources, including two different educational courses now offered online for free through the Satellite Theological Education Program (STEP) at the University of Notre Dame.
“We are now working to put the findings from the Under Caesar’s Sword project (produced together with Dan Philpott at Notre Dame) into the hands of churches and leaders to help them equip their people to understand and respond to persecution of Christians around the world,” Kent Hill, the executive director of the Religious Freedom Institute, said in a press release.
The first program is called Christians Confronting Persecution, which is intended for educators, minister, pastors and adults who are interested in actively encountering “the reality of persecution through the lens of faith.”
The six-week course includes lectures from experts such as Tom Farr, Tim Shah, Daniel Philpott and Kristen Haas, and takes about 3-4 hours of study each week. Those who complete the course will receive certificates of completion which will also prepare them to facilitate the course with others.
The second program is called We Respond, a seven-session lecture series for adult groups, high school students, parishes, and churches who “wish to engage both intellectually and reflectively with the reality of religious persecution today.”
Both of these resources explore how Christian communities respond to persecution, and include videos, Scripture passages, stories and information on how to cultivate solidarity.
According to the project’s website, 76 percent of the world’s population lived in a religiously oppressed country in 2012. Christians were reported to have been harassed in 102 countries in 2013.
“We at the Religious Freedom Institute are seeking to be very concrete in providing very specific ways for our churches, our Christian schools, and the members of our churches to both learn about the plight of Christians in harm’s way and to become aware of what they can do to be of help,” Hill said.
The programs will start online on Sept. 4 and are now open for registration.
Sacramento, Calif., Sep 2, 2017 / 05:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A new bill in California would punish the ‘misgendering’ of nursing home and long-term care patients with hefty fines and even jail time.
In February, state senator Scott Wiener introduced SB 219, the “Long-term care facilities: rights of residents” bill, which has already been passed by California’s state senate. After being recommended by the state assembly’s judiciary committee, the bill will now be considered by the California House of Representatives.
If passed into law, the policy would punish nursing home and long-term care workers who refuse to call patients by their preferred pronouns with fines of up to $1,000, or jail time for up to a year, or both.
Besides compelling workers to refer to residents by their preferred pronouns, the bill would also mandate that facilities allow residents room assignments and bathroom preferences based on gender identity rather than biological sex.
Ned Dolejsi, executive director of the California Catholic Conference, told CNA that the bill could unjustly target religious facilities and place excessive burden on an already-heavily regulated industry.
“It would potentially compromise some of the institutions that are religiously sponsored and would not want to be supportive” of gender identity room or bathroom assignments, he said.
He added that it seemed to be solving a problem that wasn’t there, since there haven’t been widespread reports of discrimination based on gender in the state’s nursing home and long-term care facilities.
“In many ways it seems to be a solution looking for a major problem,” he said.
“That’s certainly one of our concerns – is this just part of a larger ideological drill? Do we have examples of people being mistreated around the state because of their gender experience? It seems that this is more like – let’s fix something that we don’t even know needs fixing.”
Greg Burt, with the California Family Council, testified against SB 219 in July, noting that it would infringe on the First Amendment rights of workers by compelling them to use speech with which they might not agree.
“How can you believe in free speech, but think the government can compel people to use certain pronouns when talking to others?” Burt asked members of the Assembly Judiciary Committee during his testimony.
“Compelled speech is not free speech. Can the government compel a newspaper to use certain pronouns that aren’t even in the dictionary? Of course not, or is that coming next?”
Burt also denounced the bill for lacking any religious exemptions for religiously-affiliated institutions.
“Those proposing this bill are saying, ‘If you disagree with me about my view of gender, you are discriminating against me’,” Burt testified. “This is not tolerance. This is not love. This is not mutual respect… True tolerance, tolerates people with different views. We need to treat each other with respect, but respect is a two-way street. It is not respectful to threaten people with punishment for having sincerely held beliefs that differ from your own.”
Dolejsi said he anticipated that the bill would pass in the legislature sometime in the next week, and would head to the desk of the governor. At that point, the California Catholic Conference would advocate for a veto, based on the burden the bill would place on religious institutions and the industry of nursing and long-term care facilities.
“Our advocacy with the governor will be inviting his veto based on…(the fact that) it doesn’t seem to be sensitive to the many religious organizations that sponsor these particular homes and facilities, and there’s no (religious exemption). And, absent a strong experience out in society for rights being violated in this regard, it seems like this is burdening the state in an industry that’s already challenged.”
Understaffing and under-qualified personnel is a growing problem in nursing home and long-term care facilities throughout the nation, as baby boomers age and the industry struggles to keep up.
While this bill could pave the way for legislation that would apply more broadly, such legislation is already in the works, Dolejsi noted, including a bill that would mandate gender identity training for all state employees.
“That’s the nature of how we’re experiencing this in California,” he said. “It’s like every aspect of public life needs to salute and address concerns of the LGBT folks.”
Dolejsi encouraged concerned Catholics to keep up with the legislation that was being approved, and to contact their elected officials by email or phone to express their concerns. He also encouraged participation in town hall meetings, and persistency in raising their concerns.
“We need practical laws,” he added. “And if there is truly a case of discrimination, then let’s sit down and figure out how to…bring people together and solve it in a way that’s respectful of people’s religious values and expressions and experiences.”
New York City, N.Y., Sep 1, 2017 / 01:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Catholic outreach to LGBT individuals must always include the truth about Catholic teaching and chastity, Cardinal Robert Sarah said in an article responding to Jesuit priest Fr. James Marti… […]
Phoenix, Ariz., Sep 1, 2017 / 04:38 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic bishops of Arizona and New Mexico have joined the growing chorus of voices calling on President Donald Trump to maintain the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program (DACA).
&l… […]
South Bend, Ind., Sep 1, 2017 / 03:19 am (CNA).- With hopes of leading Catholics to a deeper search for Christ, a new puzzle book from Ave Maria Press challenges readers to expand their interaction with God’s mysteries.
“I open the book with a quote from Proverbs 25:2, ‘It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out’,” said Matt Swaim, author of Catholic Puzzles, Word Games, and Brainteasers: Volume 1.
“Properly understood, the idea of God as a mystery shouldn’t cause us to throw up our hands and stop searching him out; it should draw us to engage with him and get a window into his magnificence,” he told CNA.
Catholic Puzzles, which will go on sale Sept. 22, contains interactive word problems such as anagrams, code scrambles and crypto quizzes. The puzzles empower readers to learn more about saints, the mysteries of the rosary, Holy Scripture, and Church doctrine.
Swaim started developing fun interactive puzzles to aid his 8th grade CCD students with understanding Church teachings. After connecting with Ave Maria Press, a suggestion was made to put together a similar project for a broader adult audience.
“I think adults see their kids doing worksheets for religious ed classes and wish there were more of that kind of thing for their skill level out there.”
He said the puzzles are meant to be a challenge for older Catholics, but not so difficult as to deter anyone from giving it a try.
So far, he said, the response has been positive: “Most people are just excited to discover that something like this exists, and that it’s not at the elementary school level.”
Watching people wrestle with thought-provoking questions is one of his favorite things about the new book, Swaim said, noting that the struggle to solve a problem can help bring us to a deeper knowledge of it.
“Think about it – if you’re working on solving a particular encrypted saint quote for a half an hour, that’s 30 minutes for your brain to mull it over, let it sink in, and have it stay with you.”
He clarified that searching for truth and for Christ does not mean that we treat God like he is a Sherlock Holmes murder mystery. Rather, delving into the mystery of God’s creation gives us “a greater insight into just how wonderful and big and mind-blowing it is to be in relationship with him.”
Seeing God as a mystery doesn’t stop us from pursuing him, Swaim said, adding that growing in our relationship to God’s mystery is similar to the experience of getting to know another human person through friendship, marriage or parenting.
“If every person in this world is a unique, unrepeatable mystery to learn about and learn from, then how much more the God who created all of them?”
“God has hidden himself in his creation, in the faces of our neighbors, in the most minuscule aspects of our days. He’s constantly searching after us, but he also wants us to be searching after him.”
But we do not always search for God, he said. Instead, “we devote hours to studying the intricacies of the NFL” or memorizing quotes of “our favorite television shows.”
Swaim challenged Catholics: “What if we applied a fraction of that inquisitive fervor toward exploring our faith?”
Nashville, Tenn., Sep 1, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An Evangelical Christian coalition’s statement on marriage, sexuality, and gender identity is “largely consonant” with Catholic thought, according to one commentator.
“The language of the document is clearly Evangelical, but its articles are largely consonant with Catholic understandings of human sexuality and sexual morality,” Stephen P. White, a fellow in the Catholic Studies program at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, told CNA Aug. 30.
“I think Pope Francis would agree with virtually everything in the letter,” White continued. “When man forgets his Creator, he loses sight of himself as well. We see the result of this in the confusion over sexual morality, but in many other areas as well. It’s what most of Pope Francis’ last encyclical, Laudato si’, was about.”
The Nashville Statement was published by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood after endorsement in Nashville by more than 150 Evangelical Christian leaders Aug. 25.
“As Western culture has become increasingly post-Christian, it has embarked upon a massive revision of what it means to be a human being,” said the statement. “By and large the spirit of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God’s design for human life.”
“Many deny that God created human beings for his glory, and that his good purposes for us include our personal and physical design as male and female,” it continued. “It is common to think that human identity as male and female is not part of God’s beautiful plan, but is, rather, an expression of an individual’s autonomous preferences.”
Denny Burk, president of the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, said the statement aimed “to shine a light into the darkness – to declare the goodness of God’s design in our sexuality and in creating us as male and female.” He said the council prayed that the statement might provide churches and Christian organizations with “biblical guidance on how to address homosexuality and transgenderism.”
The council aims to foster a coalition of like-minded Evangelicals and influence a new generation of Evangelicals who are being pressured to abandon their vision of Christian teaching.
Signatories of the Nashville Statement include Russell Moore, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission; Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary; Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council; Marvin Olasky, editor-in-chief of World Magazine; K. Erik Thoennes, a theology professor at Biola University; and Jerry A. Johnson, president of National Religious Broadcasters.
The statement includes 14 articles which each include affirmations and denials. It affirms marriage as a lifelong union of a man and woman; sex differences and sexual equality as a part of God’s creation; “chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within marriage”; God’s forgiveness of sins; and salvation through Christ.
It rejects sexual immorality, whether heterosexual or homosexual. The statement affirms “our duty to speak the truth in love at all times, including when we speak to or about one another as male or female.” Another of its affirmations: it is sinful to approve of homosexual immorality or transgenderism, on the grounds that “such approval constitutes an essential departure from Christian faithfulness and witness.” It is not “a matter of moral indifference about which otherwise faithful Christians should agree to disagree.”
The Nashville Statement affirms the ability of people with same-sex attraction to live a life pleasing to God, encourages a self-conception as male or female “defined by God’s holy purposes in creation,” and rejects “a homosexual or transgender self-conception” as inconsistent with God’s purposes in creation.
For White, the statement’s language reflected “the absence of Catholic sacramental theology, for obvious reasons.” He also questioned an apparent failure to recognize that chastity is a virtue for both married and unmarried people.
“But the basic outline of Christian sexual morality is there: our sexuality is good and God-given, sexual intimacy belongs in marriage and nowhere else, marriage is between a man and a woman, no sin is insurmountable to God’s grace, etc.”
White predicted a mixed reaction, saying “many will be grateful for simple sanity in a time of widespread confusion; others will see the affirmation of orthodox Christian teaching on sex and marriage as disconcerting, perhaps even hateful.”
“The Gospel doesn’t please everyone,” he added.
White said that Americans’ views on sex and morality have undergone drastic change. These changes are more than a shift in morality, in his view. Rather, they reflect “a fundamental change in our understanding of human nature itself.”
“Whether it’s individualism, or affluence, our technological power, we often delude ourselves into thinking we can do as we please…and that doing as we please will make us happy,” White said, citing the Book of Genesis. “It’s the oldest temptation in the book, literally: to make ourselves like gods.”
“Unfortunately, when man forgets God, he loses sight of himself as well,” he said. “We see the result of this in the confusion over sexual morality, but in many other areas as well.”
Nashville mayor Megan Barry criticized the statement on Twitter, saying it “does not represent the inclusive values of the city & people of Nashville”.
Chicago, Ill., Aug 31, 2017 / 05:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Sept. 5, Saint Mark’s Parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago will receive a first class relic of Saint Teresa of Calcutta for public veneration, which will then be permanently kept in the church.
The relic, which consists of some of Mother Teresa’s hair, was requested from the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity by St. Mark’s pastor Father Martin Ibarra, and parishioner Fernando Iñiguez.
Iñiguez said that they had asked for the relic to help promote the life and virtues of the recently canonized saint.
“Also, so that the parishioners will be inspired with fervor and a new prospect of evangelization on the parish level and that the will same occur throughout the Archdiocese of Chicago,” Iñiguez told CNA.
On September 5, Fr. Ibarra will celebrate Mass at the parish at 7:00 p.m. to mark the one year anniversary of the canonization of Saint Teresa of Calcutta, and in thanksgiving for the arrival and installation of her relic. Missionaries of Charity sisters will be present at the celebration.
In the following days, the parish will organize pilgrimages, novenas, and other events at parishes that would like to have the relic visit.
Saint Mark’s Church will be the only parish with a relic of Mother Teresa in the archdiocese. It is also the only church that has a first class relic of Padre Pio, which consists of a vial of his blood.
“As the community of Saint Mark’s we feel blessed and happy to have the relic of such an important woman on the world level in every sense and aspect of life,” Fr. Ibarra said. “But especially in the power she conveys through her evangelization and humanitarian service to the most needy.”
Washington D.C., Aug 31, 2017 / 05:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Although the State Department plans to cut or consolidate certain senior positions as part of an ongoing reorganization, the international religious freedom office will reportedly be expanded.
“I am encouraged by this move,” Dr. Tom Farr, head of the Religious Freedom Institute, told CNA in a written statement on the agency moving religious “special envoy” positions into the Office of International Religious Freedom.
“Each of these religion-related envoys and offices are intimately connected to religious freedom,” he said.
“I believe that the Department will be able to better execute its mission by integrating certain envoys and special representative offices within the regional and functional bureaus,” Tillerson wrote in a letter to Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, “and eliminating those that have accomplished or outlived their original purpose.” CNN first reported the letter.
Of 66 senior positions at the department which Secretary of State Rex Tillerson discussed in his letter, 30 are planned to be kept in place, according to a department official. Nine will be cut, 21 will be consolidated into various bureaus within the agency, and five others will be “folded into existing positions.”
The moves are being made to consolidate positions within the agency in the name of efficiency, clarity, and concentration of resources, according to an official at State.
Certain senior religious positions at State – including their staff and functions — are now being assumed by the Office of International Religious Freedom, all of which will reportedly be expanded.
That office was created with the original International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRFA), sponsored by former Congressman Frank Wolf. It was meant to establish a place at the State Department where promoting religious freedom would be a lasting part of U.S. foreign policy.
Daniel Mark, the chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, a bipartisan federal commission that advises the State Department and promotes religious freedom abroad, did not take an official position on the re-organization.
However, he said that if it improved the effectiveness of the State Department’s mission of promoting religious freedom as part of U.S. foreign policy, then it obviously would be a sound move.
“For coordination purposes, it is helpful, we think, for the Ambassador for International Religious Freedom to be taking the lead and coordinating the activities of all those different groups and offices,” he said of the re-organization.
“The goal isn’t to have this many envoys or that many envoys. The goal, of course, is just to see all the issues that need to be addressed, addressed in an efficacious way.”
The end results may depend on how much of a voice the Office of International Religious Freedom is given within the State Department.
Some advocates have thought that the office was marginalized at the agency over the years, both in its physical presence within the building and in its diminished role in the hierarchy of offices.
However, the previous Ambassador at-Large for International Religious Freedom, David Saperstein, who served during the last two years of the Obama administration, played an important role in increasing the voice of the office within the agency, Wolf said.
President Donald Trump nominated Kansas Governor and former Senator Sam Brownback for the position in July. He has yet to be confirmed by the Senate.
And in the new State Department plan, the ambassador will report to “a higher-level official,” Mark told CNA.
The ambassador will now report to the Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, a change which is “a step in the right direction” and one which will hopefully gain the office a more prominent voice within the agency, Mark said.
However, “we would look to see it be elevated even further,” he said, “to be a direct report, involved in the senior-level staff meetings and that sort of thing.”
The Frank R. Wolf International Religious Freedom Act, which is the most recent version of IRFA, passed by Congress in 2016, calls for the ambassador to report directly to the Secretary of State.
And now the office will absorb other religious positions within State: the U.S. Special Representative for Religion and Global Affairs, the U.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities, and U.S. Special Envoy to the Organization of Islamic Conference, and Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South/Central Asia.
And by keeping the envoys and placing them within the International Religious Freedom office, State will be able to bring their expertise to the office’s mission of promoting religious freedom.
“For example, the Muslim-related envoys will strengthen the US capacity to advance religious freedom in Muslim-majority nations by, for example, presenting evidence that moving toward religious freedom will benefit Islam and their societies,” Dr. Farr said.
One of the positions – the Special Advisor for Religious Minorities in the Near East and South/Central Asia – has been hailed by advocates for Middle Eastern Christians as vital to the mission of protecting them.
Knox Thames is the current Special Advisor, but a State Department official could not provide information as to whether specific staff members would remain in positions. Wolf praised Thames’ work as Special Advisor.
The Special Advisor position was created through bills passed by the House in 2013 and by the Senate in 2014 as a way to ensure that an advocate for persecuted religious minorities in the region would exist at State as part of a “one-stop special place” for leaders of those communities to share their concerns and requests.
Initially a “Special Envoy” position, it was changed to be a “Special Adviser” role under the Obama administration. The position is extremely important, Wolf told CNA, because of the dire plight of many religious minorities in the region.
These persecuted communities, he said, would include Coptic Christians suffering deadly terror attacks in Egypt, Iraqi Christian refugees, and Yazidis who suffered genocide at the hands of Islamic State, Baha’is imprisoned in Iran, and Christians and Ahmadiyya Muslims in Pakistan.
“You can’t pick up the paper, and there’s not a story about persecution of religious minorities in the Middle East,” Wolf said. “You can’t get rid of the person who’s working on that issue at this very time. It would send a terrible message to the persecuted people in the Middle East.”
Not only must the position exist, he said, but the right person must fill it.
“Personnel is policy,” Wolf said. “You put the right person in, and things are going to happen. You put the wrong person in, and you can have nothing happen.”
The Special Envoy for anti-Semitism will reportedly be kept, but moved to the Bureau of Democracy, Rights and Labor. The Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan will be cut, with its functions and staff being transferred to the Bureau of African Affairs.
Manassas, Va., Aug 31, 2017 / 04:31 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Prayer. Sacrifice. Friendship. Charity. Could one Virginia community’s work to put basic Gospel tenets into action be a model for the future of the pro-life movement?
“I think it is … […]
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