US

Denver Newsroom, Oct 4, 2020 / 05:11 pm (CNA).- The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court would make her, if confirmed, the sixth Roman Catholic on the nine-person court.

While this is deeply concerning to some – and a reason to celebrate for others – both canon and civil lawyers told CNA that the Catholic legal tradition has much to offer the United States.

The Catholic Church has already contributed much to the United States’ legal system – including “the whole idea of law in general,” Fr. Pius Pietrzyk, OP, told CNA.

Fr. Pietrzyk practiced corporate and securities law in a large Chicago law firm before joining religious life, and he currently serves as a member of the board of directors of the Legal Services Corporation. He is also a canon lawyer and professor at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University in Menlo Park, California.

“It’s the development of canon law (the law that governs the Church) that gives both the United States and Europe their modern notions of law,” he said.

While aspects of canon law were present since the early days of the Church, the use of the term ‘canon law’, as rules and laws governing ecclesial matters rather than civil ones, started around the 12th century, according to New Advent. While the code of canon law has been updated numerous times, it is the longest still-functioning rule of law in the West.

“Even the idea of a professional legal class, that is of lawyers, finds its root in the professionalization of law and the development of the Church’s canon law, in the 12th century. Just the fact that there is a legal profession is something that is owed to the Church,” Pietrzyk said.

More generally, he added, the Catholic tradition has always understood that faith and reason work together. They are, as Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”

Stephen Payne, dean of the Columbus School of Law at The Catholic University of America, said it is this emphasis of reason in the Catholic tradition that makes Catholics good lawyers and judges.

“God is the creator of reason and law is an important field in which human beings seek to apply reason for the common good,” he said.

“It’s that commitment to reason that is an especially important contribution Catholic judges and lawyers…can make in today’s environment, in which many people on both sides of the political spectrum seem to prefer to decide important questions by sheer force of power guided by appetite, or emotional sentiment, through a process that involves attacking other people and attempting to undermine their God-given dignity,” Payne added.

Pietryzk said that the Catholic Church has also always strongly prized education, because of its understanding of how faith and reason work together.

“Education is something that’s very important, particularly the United States. When a new group would come from whatever country to America as Catholics, they built the church and built the school, usually together,” he said.

There are many aspects of the U.S. law and the legal process that also find their roots in canon law, Pietrzyk said, such as the idea in corporate law that entities sometimes have rights like persons would, or the idea of due process.

“People condemn the Inquisition, but the Inquisition was a step above the civil courts because there was real, procedural due process with the Inquisition that just didn’t exist in secular law,” he said.

Payne said he sees a Catholic influence in U.S. law with respect to some issues of social justice, especially as they are treated in Pope Leo XII’s encyclical, “Rerum Novarum” and other works by the three most recent popes.

Their writings on social justice have had “a significant influence on how many people, at least in our country, think about social justice, especially in such arenas as helping the poor, healthcare, immigration, abortion, end of life, workers’ rights, the death penalty, and so on,” he said.

Payne added that the U.S. legal system also includes ideas that come from natural law, a concept emphasized in the Catholic tradition that has roots in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas and even further back to Aristotle.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, natural law is “present in the heart of each man and established by reason….It expresses the dignity of the human person and forms the basis of his fundamental rights and duties.”

“Our break with King George III was justified on natural law grounds, and many of our constitutional rights and much of our common law was founded in and flows from natural law and natural rights,” Payne said.

Furthermore, Payne said, “the Catholic intellectual tradition and Catholic social teaching have a great deal to say about the common good and the dignity of the human person. And a significant part of that focuses on the natural law, and how seeking the common good enables individual human beings to flourish in community.”

In a way, Pietrzyk said, the Catholic understanding of human dignity is reflected “in the Declaration of Independence. ‘We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal and they’re endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.’”

“This is a very Christian idea,” he said. “As much as we talk about the common good, there’s still a reality to the individual value and the dignity of the person and that the person has rights. Not simply because he’s a citizen of a particular country, but simply because he’s human and that human nature itself, whether born or unborn, endows that person with rights. Modern progressivism in some ways assumes that without understanding it.”

Modern progressivism “collapses” as a philosophy, Pietrzyk said, because it lacks “a coherent sense of a human person. It’s really just this sort of naked kind of freedom, or I would say autonomy.”

Conor Dugan is a Catholic attorney who practices in Michigan. He said the conflict between the Catholic understanding of the human person and the modern progressive understanding of the individual is due to the U.S. founding fathers, who mostly held Enlightenment principles and ideas, such as those from English philosopher John Locke.

The American legal system takes a Lockean view of people as individuals with rights, “which doesn’t necessarily nestle the person in a community,” Dugan told CNA.

On the other hand, Catholics understand the human person as someone who is always in relationship – to God, to others, to himself – and therefore while a person has rights, he also has responsibilities, Dugan said.

“It’s almost like the individual becomes atomized” in the U.S. legal system, he said, and “an individual who is cut off from all those things just has a packet of rights and no responsibility.”

Pietrzyk said an example of this Lockean understanding of the individual can be seen in U.S. law under the 2015 Supreme Court case, Obergefell v. Hodges, which effectively legalized same-sex marriage nationwide.

That decision demonstrated “a strong belief in an individual’s rights to marry whomever he wants, regardless of the nature of the institution or the nature of the person. It’s this raw exercise of will, but disconnected from any reality or any nature or anything like that,” he said. “It has no rational core to it.”

The concept of the common good, while mentioned in passing by some U.S. lawmakers, is another area where Catholic lawyers and judges may be able to have an impact, Dugan noted.

“I wonder if that’s something that Catholics can do, is try to bring about a deeper understanding of the common good,” he said.

“None of the Constitution makes sense, unless we have (human dignity and the common good) as a background assumption. And maybe we should make it more explicit at times so that people understand that that’s what the law is for – it’s to protect and to foster the common good, and to protect and ensure the dignity of human persons.”

Pietrzyk noted that it is law that makes a common good possible.

“Pope Francis has talked about this…the importance of the common good, which law helps to preserve. We don’t define our individual good over and against the common good as if the two are in opposition to each other, but our individual good is able to flourish…is only able to reach its fullness with the common good, and that includes the law,” he said.

“We as human beings cannot flourish outside of a society with the common good. And we cannot flourish outside of society that does not have law. It’s law that makes freedom possible. It’s law that makes liberty possible. And it’s precisely within the Church’s legal tradition, that the charismatic side, that is the side of grace, can really flourish.”

Because the United States was not founded explicitly on Catholic principles, Dugan said it makes sense that Catholic lawyers and judges would feel a tension between their religious beliefs and the law of the land.

“I think Catholics in America, and especially Catholic lawyers should feel a tension at times between their faith and the law,” he said.

“And that that’s not necessarily a bad tension. It can help us to offer the contribution [of the Catholic legal tradition] to the world. Because I think we can fill out and make more robust, the good things that are there in the American Constitution, or we can help [them] serve and fulfill their promise,” he said.

Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholicism has been a point of criticism since her 7th Circuit Court of Appeals nomination hearing in 2017, when she was accused of “the dogma living loudly” within her, to recent articles debating – and debunking – whether People of Praise, the charismatic movement to which Barrett belongs, was the inspiration behind the dystopian novel and T.V. series, The Handmaid’s Tale.

Payne said he was not sure why there has been such a sharp focus on Barrett’s religious convictions as a possible problem, since everyone in the field of law brings their own personal views or values to the table.

“I’m not sure why, from an objective point of view, there should be such a focus on the religious commitments of the candidates, especially in a country whose constitution is so clear about the human value of religious liberty,” Payne said.

“Belief in God is well supported by reason, though many in our culture think it’s contradicted by it. In any event, many people who are not religious hold the values they do have very securely and apply them to important decisions in their lives and in their work.”

Pietryzk said that rather than recusing themselves from pertinent cases, it should be the role of  Catholic judges or lawyers to bring their understanding of the human person and the common good into their work.

“As Catholics, we understand that human beings are created with a nature, created by God with a nature,” he said. “And discerning what the proper rules are for human beings given that nature is historically part of the work of judges.”

He added that while he does not know Barrett personally, they have many friends in common.

“I do know lots of people who know her and every good thing you hear about her reputation, I’ve heard for a long time,” he said. “She is just an extraordinary woman by everybody’s account.”

Dugan, a former student of Barrett’s, said he thinks that as Catholics and as Americans, “we’ve hit the jackpot” with her nomination to the Supreme Court.

“It’s hard for me to imagine anyone having a negative thing to say about her,” he said.

“I went back and looked at some emails we exchanged over the years, giving me career and family advice, how to navigate the tensions of a busy practice with family and things like that…I just think we’ve gotten a real gift in this nomination. I hope she’s confirmed.”

[…]

CNA Staff, Oct 4, 2020 / 03:06 am (CNA).- Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, has formed an advisory council on racism, the diocese announced this week.

The Bishop’s Advisory Council on Racism includes 14 members – both clergy … […]

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 3, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Could car seat mandates have caused a decline in births in the U.S. in recent decades? A recent working paper claims that they have.

According to the working paper “Car Seats as Contracep… […]

CNA Staff, Oct 3, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).-  

The American Medical Association on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to review an appeals court decision that upheld a ban on federal family planning funds for abortion providers.

Last year, the Trump … […]

Denver Newsroom, Oct 3, 2020 / 06:26 am (CNA).- The canonization cause is progressing for Father Patrick Ryan, a priest who sacrificed his life in a nineteenth century yellow fever epidemic to serve the sick. Bishop Richard Stika of Nashville, Tenn., has launched an official tribunal to continue the inquiry into whether he should be declared ‘venerable.’

“Father Patrick Ryan did not abandon Chattanooga when the yellow fever struck her and leave town as so many did,” Deacon Gaspar DeGaetano, diocesan postulator for Ryan’s cause, said in a Sept. 27 homily.

“May we through the intercession of the Servant of God Patrick Ryan, ‘the brave and faithful priest’ of the yellow fever epidemic of 1878 see a quick end to the pandemic of our own time,” DeGaetano said.

Servant of God Patrick Ryan was born in 1845 near Nenagh in County Tipperary, Ireland. His family was forced to emigrate to the United States after suffering eviction from their home, and they settled in New York.

Ryan later studied for the priesthood at St. Vincent’s College in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. In 1869, he was ordained a priest at Nashville’s Catholic cathedral. Later, he was sent to Chattanooga, where he opened the town’s oldest private school.

During a yellow fever epidemic in 1878, some 80% of Chattanooga residents fled the city. Ryan did not.

An eyewitness said that the priest would go “from house to house in the worst-infected section of the city to find what he could do for the sick and needy,” according to a biography of Ryan on the website of Sts. Peter and Paul Basilica.

After Ryan died of yellow fever on Sept. 28, 1878, the priest was first buried among his flock, as he had desired. In 1886, his remains were transferred to Olivet Cemetery in a horse and buggy procession.

The description of Ryan as a “brave and faithful priest” comes from a Nov. 12, 1886 Chattanooga Times editorial by Jewish journalist Adolf Ochs, who reflected on Ryan’s life, according to Deacon DeGaetano’s homily.

Since 2016, the diocese’s historical commission on Ryan’s cause for canonization has been investigating his life, with a view towards evaluating his possible beatification and canonization.

On Sept. 28 Bishop Stika officially began an inquiry phase, headed by a tribunal with members he had appointed. The tribunal’s episcopal delegate is Father J. David Carter, while Father John Orr, Ph.D is promoter of justice. The notary is Deacon Hicks Armor, with adjunct notaries Rebecca Dempsey and Jennifer Morris.

Jim Wogan, director of communications for the Diocese of Knoxville, told CNA Oct. 1 that the official diocesan tribunal can now begin its investigation. This includes in-depth interviews with witnesses, including “members of the historical commission, those who feel they may have been aided by the intercessory power of Father Ryan, and those who know of, or might be connected in some way, to Father Ryan.

“The tribunal hopes to conclude its work within a year and turn its findings over to the Vatican which will then make a determination if Father Ryan can receive the designation and title as venerable,” Wogan told CNA.

The tribunal held its first session of inquiry on Sept. 28. There, chancellor of the Knoxville diocese Deacon Sean Smith presented various documents required to proceed, including the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ vote on the cause’s advisability and the declaration from the Holy See that nothing obstructed the cause, Wogan said.

Bishop Stika then celebrated a Memorial Mass for Father Ryan at Chattanooga’s Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul. In attendance were Cardinal Justin Rigali, Archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, and Bishop J. Mark Spalding of Nashville. U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, (R-Tenn.) also attended.

Father Carter told the Chattanooga Times Free Press that the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020 made the priest’s life and death seem much more relevant.

“All of a sudden we get hit with a global pandemic that affects our every moment,” Carter said. “It shut downs our society. It isolates people. People start to hurt. Then we see this great witness of this priest that ministered and served during the times of greatest need.”

“It is amazing how God in a time of crisis reminds us of how good he has been in the past and how he works through us as human beings so that his grace may be concrete and help people in need,” Carter said.

 

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Denver Newsroom, Oct 2, 2020 / 05:26 pm (CNA).- As change on the US Supreme Court puts the future of legal abortion in doubt, some political leaders in New Jersey are seeking to strengthen and expand legal abortion through proposed state legislation.

… […]

CNA Staff, Oct 2, 2020 / 04:09 pm (CNA).- Father John Jenkins, president of the University of Notre Dame, has tested positive for coronavirus, the university said in an email to students Oct. 2.

Jenkins had been voluntarily self-quarantining since att… […]

CNA Staff, Oct 2, 2020 / 03:30 pm (CNA).-  

The campaign of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will launch an ad campaign in swing states this month touting the candidate’s Catholic faith in both television commercials and a spot that will run on Catholic radio stations.

The ads do not mention the candidate’s support for pro-abortion legislation and abortion funding, even while bishops in those states have emphasized that abortion policy is a preeminent issue in the presidential contest.

A radio ad that will run on Catholic radio stations features a woman who is a parishioner at the parish to which Biden belongs in Delaware. The woman, Bernadette, notes that Biden is a long-time parishioner, and that she has known the former vice president for years and sees him at Sunday Mass when he is in Delaware.

“You can tell how important Joe’s faith is to him. It’s what motivates everything: Joe’s beliefs, his values, the kind of president Joe would be.” Bernadette says in the ad.

“Joe Biden knows what it means to be your brother’s keeper….to care for those around you, and lift up those who are suffering,” she adds.

Biden has made his Catholic faith a part of his campaign messaging in recent weeks, as the candidate tries to reach Catholic voters in swing states, whose votes could be crucial for either candidate in close states. The candidate has mentioned on the campaign trail his having met the pope, relying on his faith in times of crisis, and having been formed by Catholic education.

The former vice president has not discussed aspects of his policy agenda that are out of step with Catholic doctrine, most especially his support for federally funding abortion, providing foreign aid to abortion providing organizations, and for legislation that would codify protections for abortion into federal law. This week Biden lamented the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, expressing concern that abortion rights could be at risk if Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court.

The U.S. bishops have said that ending legal protection for abortion is the “preeminent priority” in politics because of the gravity of abortion. Pope Francis has argued that legal protection for the unborn is a necessary predicate to a just society.

The radio ads are expected to run in Wisconsin and Florida, two states Biden’s opponent, President Donald Trump, won narrowly in 2016.

They will reportedly be carried on affiliates of the Relevant Radio Network, which could not be reached for comment.

The network’s website says that while the station does not endorse political candidates, “under federal law, Relevant Radio must accept political advertising from all legally qualified candidates for Federal office. This includes all candidates for President, Vice-President, U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate who meet certain benchmarks. We reject advertising from candidates for all other offices, including gubernatorial and state house, state senate and/or general assembly candidates, regardless of political affiliation or stance on issues.”

The network also rejects “all political advertising requests coming from any individual or group outside of a federal candidate or his/her authorized committee and all political ‘issue’ advertisements,” the site says.

In Wisconsin, Bishop Donald Hying wrote last month that with regard to voting “procured abortion surpasses all other moral issues in its urgency, but clearly is not the only issue we face.”

“Some 62,237,640 human lives have been snuffed out in the United States since the Supreme Court made abortion the law of the land in 1973,” Hying wrote.

“The United States bishops have declared abortion as the preeminent moral issue because no other fundamental moral evil has destroyed more human lives. There is no other evil extolled in either party’s platform or candidate’s policies that matches a party’s or candidate’s promotion of the intrinsic evil of the direct and deliberate taking of so many human lives — now nearly a million each year in the United States alone,” the bishop added.

“I cannot ignore that disturbing fact and so, personally, I cannot vote for a presidential candidate who advocates for the continued legalization of abortion,” Hying wrote.

“If a candidate is fundamentally wrong on such a basic and preeminent human rights issue of grave consequence to the most innocent in our society and to our own future, how can I trust the candidate to make moral and prudent decisions on many other important social justice issues pertaining to the common good?” he asked.

In Florida, Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami wrote last month that “abortion is a grave violation of the most fundamental human right — the right to life that is inherent in all human beings, and that grounds every other right we possess. That some Catholics in public life promote positions on human life that are not coherent with their Catholic faith is a scandal and while they may claim to be ‘practicing’ Catholics, it is obvious that they need to practice a whole lot more — until they get it right.”

Political advocacy group CatholicVote said Thursday it plans to run ads on Catholic radio stations raising objections to Biden’s record on religious liberty, Catholic education, abortion, and other issues.

“This ad campaign treats Catholics as chumps, and has all the makings of a massive swindle that will dramatically backfire.  We’re already getting calls from Catholics outraged that a pro-abortion Catholic like Joe Biden has the gall to go on Catholic radio and brag about his faith,” CatholicVote president Brian Burch told CNA.

“Joe Biden has pledged to gut religious schools, strip away fundamental religious freedoms, and for the first time in American history, force taxpayers to directly pay for abortion. Look no further than the unprecedented assault on the Little Sisters of the Poor that Joe Biden has pledged to restart if elected,” Burch added.

Biden is also planning a television ad aimed at Catholics, which will air in swing states and features Biden speaking about his faith to America magazine editor Fr. Matt Malone, SJ.

 

 

[…]

CNA Staff, Oct 2, 2020 / 03:13 pm (CNA).- Though there are many affronts to life, from conception to death, the violence of abortion is the most direct attack on life, Bishop Joseph Hanefeldt of Grand Island wrote on Thursday.

“Abortion is a direct attack on human life, and its permanence in our culture is destroying our society. The litmus test for one’s participation in public office in this country is now determined by their position on abortion. Anyone who stands in the way of unlimited and unregulated taxpayer funded access to abortion is now being silenced and systematically persecuted,” the bishop wrote in his Oct. 1 statement on Respect Life Month.

“While there are many issues that merit our attention and support, abortion most directly attacks life itself. Abortion on demand has been the preeminent evil in our culture since it was legalized in 1973. To support those who champion abortion rights is to now blindly open the door for advancing widespread religious persecution.”

“There are those who prioritize unlimited, unregulated, taxpayer funded abortion on demand … To support such people because one agrees with them on other issues is to disregard the deepest flaw of moral character: the willful affront to the sovereignty of God as the Lord and giver of life,” Bishop Hanefeldt taught.

“When Catholics who are hailed as ‘devout’ members of the Church do everything in their power to perpetuate the evil of abortion and support those who champion it, what kind of moral integrity is that? The priority of the inviolable right to life from the moment of conception must never be compromised. The availability of every other human right presumes first the right to exist,” he reflected.

The Church in the US observes October as Respect Life Month, highlighting the teaching of St. John Paul II in his 1995 encyclical on the value and inviolability of human life, Evangelium vitae.

Bishop Hanefeldt offered his statement “regarding this challenge to live the Gospel of Life” because of “the great unrest in our society in these days.”

“There are many challenges to the dignity of the human person in our society today … Violence seems to be the common answer for everything: the violence of abortion, the violence of human trafficking, violence against immigrants, the violence of racism, the violence of suicide and assisted suicide, the violence of rioting and the destruction of property, the violence of Planned Parenthood selling aborted fetal body parts for profit, violence from those who will not tolerate the freedom of religion. Living the Gospel of Life challenges us to present a different way of living to our violent, broken world.”

To live consistently the gospel of life “requires a deeper conversion, beginning within our own hearts. We must repent of any disregard we may have had for the dignity of others. We must adhere to the gospel of life at all times,” he emphasized.

“We must advocate for the dignity of the human person in the culture in which we live, whenever it is violated. This advocacy takes place when we get involved. It happens when we step up to offer our own talents and resources for the poor, the homeless, the marginalized, the immigrant, the weak and defenseless, and the unborn. This advocacy fosters the good ordering of society,” he taught.

While “no violation of human dignity can be disregarded … Catholics must know that not all issues are weighted equally,” he said.

One must follow one’s conscience, “but our consciences must be properly formed. Setting aside the wisdom of the Church’s teachings cannot simply be claimed as a matter of personal conscience.”

The bishop noted that he and his fellows in the American episcopate wrote in their new introductory letter to Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship that “The threat of abortion remains our preeminent priority because it directly attacks life itself, because it takes place within the sanctuary of the family, and because of the number of lives destroyed. At the same time, we cannot dismiss or ignore other serious threats to human life and dignity such as racism, the environmental crisis, poverty and the death penalty.”

He said that “Recently, there has been some objection to this language that ‘abortion remains our preeminent priority,’ arguing that it places too much emphasis on this one particular issue. My response to this objection is this: While Catholics debate where abortion should be ranked in the hierarchy of issues, there is NO dispute among those who oppose God’s design for marriage and family life. Abortion is THE preeminent non-negotiable issue for those in this country who are attacking traditional family values. If you do not think it should be the Church’s preeminent priority, watch what proponents of abortion on demand will do to ensure that this evil never goes away!”

The legalization of abortion is “an unspeakable offense against the ‘Lord and giver of life,’ yet we have grown numb to the magnitude of this evil,” Bishop Hanefeldt lamented.

He added that “abortion is so essential to the agenda of those who oppose traditional family values that they force taxpayers to pay for this evil act, which is an affront to their religious liberty. This is anything but the just ordering of society!”

The bishop affirmed that “Our world is suffering from so many evils. Our salvation is in Jesus Christ and not in politics, yet as citizens we must participate in the political process.”

“Forces in opposition to traditional family values have one unrelenting goal that will not be compromised. Legalized abortion is bringing about the fall of this nation! Far from being ‘one nation under God,’ we have become a nation in chaos. In this time of chastisement, let us live the gospel of life by entering into fasting and prayer, doing penance for God’s mercy upon this land!”

Bishop Hanefeldt concluded: “If you are tired of the abortion debate, its supporters are not! Evil triumphs while we argue about moral exigency.”

“Turn off the blogs, the social media, the news and Twitter,” he exhorted. “Instead, as a Church and as a nation, let us get on our knees and pray for God’s mercy to save our souls, guilty of the tragic disregard for his sovereignty and the sanctity of human life, made in his image and likeness!”

Bishop Hanefeldt has company among the US bishops in emphasizing the preeminence of the right to life in recent weeks.

Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas, chair of the US bishops’ pro-life committee, made the same observation last month, and Bishop Alfred Schlert of Allentown wrote in a Sept. 9 pastoral letter that “a Catholic voter is to approach the ballot box with the defense of innocent human life uppermost in his/her mind and conscience,” and that Catholic voters should consider whether their vote would constitute cooperation “with a candidate’s promotion of the grave sins of abortion and euthanasia.”

[…]

Denver Newsroom, Oct 2, 2020 / 11:01 am (CNA).- The U.S. State Department informed Congress this week that the U.S. anticipates 15,000 refugees to be admitted and resettled during fiscal year 2021, the lowest number allowed since 1980. Catholic groups told CNA that they believe the U.S. can and should accept more refugees in 2021, rather than fewer.

In a media note posted Sept. 30, the State Department said the U.S. anticipates receiving more than 300,000 new refugee and asylum claims in fiscal year 2021, and that the department already has a backlog of 1.1 million claims.

About 9,000 refugees entered the US in fiscal year 2020. The administration had planned to allow 18,000, but the coronavirus pandemic led President Trump to suspend indefinitely the asylum system in March.

Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the USCCB, and Bishop Mario Dorsonville, auxiliary bishops of Washington and chair of the USCCB’s migration committee, said Oct. 2: “We continue to be disappointed by the Trump Administration’s diminishment of the U.S. refugee resettlement program, as these decisions have a tangible impact on those fleeing religious persecution and other vulnerable families in need of refuge. While refugees will thankfully be allowed to seek refuge here in the United States in 2021, the low number of admissions, given the global need and the capacity and wealth of the United States, is heartbreaking. We exhort Congress to seriously examine the Administration’s proposal and strongly encourage the President to increase the eventual presidential determination significantly.”

The bishops said that “welcoming refugees is an act of love and hope. By helping to resettle the most vulnerable, we are living out our Christian faith as Jesus has challenged us to do.”

“We urge the Administration to continue to offer welcome to refugees to our country. We can and must lead by example in the defense of all human life, including those fleeing persecution,” they concluded.

Sister Donna Markham, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, urged the administration to reconsider, given the refugee program’s humanitarian mission. Local Catholic Charities groups throughout the country are often very involved in the resettlement of refugees.

“The individuals and families who apply for this program aren’t doing so by choice. They have been forced to flee their homeland to avoid persecution, threats of violence, and death,” Markham said Oct. 1.

“These are real people with real stories of sacrifice and struggle many of us cannot begin to comprehend. They aren’t looking for a handout, rather they enhance our economy, culture, and communities every day.”

The department said the system will prioritize those who are already in the country seeking humanitarian protection, of which there are about 290,000. The number of people granted asylum will be decided by immigration courts.

Under previous administrations, the number of refugees admitted to the United States regularly exceeded 100,000 a year.

Bill O’Keefe, executive vice president for Mission, Mobilization and Advocacy for Catholic Relief Services, said that they have observed the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on displaced people around the world firsthand.

CRS helps displaced people outside the US, and works to improve conditions for them in their home countries, O’Keefe said, but also they recognize that sometimes fleeing is the only option.

“While we can support many to stay where they are, too many of the most vulnerable need a new home and the United States can and should provide that home to significantly more than 15,000 people,” O’Keefe told CNA.

“The number of the world’s displaced people exceeds the combined population of Texas, Florida, and New York, yet America is accepting the equivalent of a small village of 15,000 people. CRS itself is supporting 10 times that number of displaced people around the world. Surely our country can do more.”

The State Department said in its media note that this year’s proposed refugee resettlement program will include specific allocations for people who have suffered or fear persecution on the basis of religion, such as for Iraqis whose assistance to the United States has put them in danger; for refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras; and for refugees from Hong Kong, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Some of the countries in which CRS is active, such as Uganda, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Iraq, Colombia, and Kenya, have had to shoulder much larger relative burdens in terms of refugees than the United States, O’Keefe said: “For other governments to mobilize support for these most vulnerable refugees, the United States must do more to welcome the stranger.”

Jesuit Refugee Services similarly decried the reduced number and appealed to Christians to be open to greater numbers of refugees.

“Reflective of our nation’s core values and Christian responsibility to ‘welcome the stranger,’ the refugee resettlement program demonstrates the best of who we are as a country,” said Joan Rosenhauer, JRS/USA Executive Director.

“It is deeply disappointing that this program will, again, be smaller, hampering in its ability to demonstrate these American values and disregarding this Christian responsibility.”

[…]