CNA Staff, Oct 1, 2020 / 09:30 am (CNA).- The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has condemned a proposed COVID-19 relief bill that excludes support for children and families enrolled in non-public schools.
“The COVID-19 pandemic… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 1, 2020 / 12:00 am (CNA).-
Federal officials announced on Tuesday a new policy that will make it possible for undocumented teenage immigrants in federal custody to procure abortions, after nearly three years of litigation regardi… […]
CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2020 / 05:43 pm (CNA).- A temporary injunction has halted the Madison School District from following gender identity guidance that critics said concealed from parents whether teachers and staff were affirming students in transgenderi… […]
CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).-
Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel told local news this week that she plans to announce new charges against “a dozen or more” priests in the state, as part of a now two-year long investigation into abuse by Catholic clergy.
Nessel had most recently announced on Sept. 29 charges against a 78-year-old laicized priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Gary Berthiaume, who is accused of abusing a 14-year-old victim.
Nessel announced one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct against Berthiaume, which could lead to a 15-year prison sentence if he’s convicted, the Detroit News reported.
Spurred by the release of a grand jury report out of Pennsylvania in 2018, which documented hundreds of cases of clergy sex abuse that took place over several decades in almost every diocese in the state, Michigan’s then-Attorney General Bill Schuette launched the state’s own investigation in August that year.
So far, the state’s investigation has led to charges against 11 people, and Nessel says she hopes to complete the investigation within the next six months, WoodTV reports. Nessel has in the past suggested the investigation could uncover as many as 1,000 sex abuse victims, though she has not discussed how her office estimated that number.
In May 2019, Nessel announced that five priests would be charged with 21 counts of sex abuse for abusing a total of five victims. None of the priests were in active ministry and one had already been removed from the clerical state.
After the announcement of the state’s investigation, Michigan’s dioceses said they welcomed the investigation and pledged their full cooperation. In Oct. 2018, police executed search warrants at all seven of the state’s dioceses.
To date, the Michigan investigation team has reviewed hundreds of tips, as well as 1.5 million paper documents and 3.5 million electronic documents seized the raids. Most of the tips have come through a hotline established specifically for abuse.
Early in 2019, Nessel claimed that the state’s dioceses are “self-policing,” using non-disclosure agreements to quiet allegations, and “failing to deliver” on their promises to cooperate with law enforcement authorities.
In response, the Archdiocese of Detroit reaffirmed its commitment to reporting sex abuse allegations to authorities.
In 2018 Michigan extended the statue of limitations in sexual assault cases to 15 years in criminal cases, and 10 in civil. Indictments for abuse of minor victims can be filed within 15 years of the crime or by the victim’s 28th birthday.
In March of last year, Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer asked the state’s legislature for an additional $2 million in funding for the abuse investigation, which is expected to last two years.
Similar clergy sex abuse investigations have been launched in multiple states throughout the country, including in Georgia, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Nebraska.
CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2020 / 03:28 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles will lead a ‘virtual rosary’ Oct. 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, to seek Mary’s intercession for the United States.
“Our hope is to unite Catholic people from across the country in a moment of prayer for our nation, at a time when there is so much unrest and uncertainty,” Gomez said in a Sept. 30 column.
Gomez said Mary offers Catholics maternal care, and Catholics should seek to understand “her way of seeing and her way of living.”
“Everything that Mary does points us to her Son — to his commandments, to the mysteries of his life, to giving up our own will to follow him and share in his mission,” he wrote.
“As we seek our Blessed Mother’s intercession for our nation, I hope that we will also make this a moment to deepen our own commitments to Mary — to dedicate ourselves to her and to let her teach us how to offer our hearts to serve Christ and his beautiful plan of salvation history. Let us live all for Jesus through the heart of Mary!”
Gomez noted that the Franciscan missionaries who evangelized California— including St. Junipero Serra— were deeply devoted to Mary, particularly to Our Lady of Guadalupe, who since 1999 has been formally recognized as Patroness of all America.
“[Our Lady of Guadalupe] was sent by God to the people of Mexico at a time of great uncertainty and political unrest. Plague and earthquakes were devastating the population, and there was violence and racial conflict, and widespread suffering and injustice,” Gomez said.
“Into this historical and cultural moment, Our Lady came as a mother bearing a message of hope.”
Gomez earlier this year led the bishops of the United States in reconsecrating the nation to Mary.
Reconsecrating the country, the US bishops said in an April 23 announcement, is meant to serve as a reminder to the faithful of Mary’s witness to the Gospel, and as a way of asking for Mary’s intercession before Christ on behalf of those in need.
The act of consecration to Mary, Archbishop Gomez said at the time, “will give the Church the occasion to pray for Our Lady’s continued protection of the vulnerable, healing of the unwell, and wisdom for those who work to cure this terrible virus.”
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 30, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).-
A federal court heard arguments on Tuesday in the case of Jack Denton, the Catholic student ousted from Florida State University’s student senate in June.
Denton, the former head… […]
CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- The future of Roe v. Wade and the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court were raised in Tuesday night’s presidential debate between President Donald Trump and former vice president Jo… […]
CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2020 / 12:03 am (CNA).- A group of public, private, and faith-based school officials, as well as physicians and parents, are arguing for a return to in-person learning in Los Angeles schools after seven months of only virtual instruc… […]
Denver Newsroom, Sep 29, 2020 / 08:50 pm (CNA).-
Days before Judge Amy Coney Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court, the website of the People of Praise was hacked, CNA has learned. The hack breached the membership database of the charismatic community, in which Barrett and her family are reportedly members.
“On September 23, 2020, our security staff identified an incident via our website involving unauthorized access to contact information in our membership directory,” Sean Connolly, a spokesman for the group, said Tuesday night in response to questions from CNA about the hack.
“No further details, such as parties that may have initiated this incursion, are known, and we have provided our members with resources should they notice suspicious activity,” Connolly added.
Barrett was nominated to the Supreme Court Sept. 26.
By Sept. 23, the federal judge had emerged as a front-runner for the Supreme Court seat that was vacated when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died Sept. 18.
Amid speculation regarding Barrett’s possible appointment, numerous media reports focused on the People of Praise, the Indiana-based ecumenical charismatic community to which Barrett reportedly belongs.
The group was characterized by some pundits as a cult, falsely reported to be the inspiration for a dystopian novel, and erroneously reported to require members to adhere to a secret agreement, which is in fact posted on its website.
People of Praise was also criticized by some pundits because it does not disclose its membership, which defenders say is a common policy among religious organizations.
In that context, sources told CNA that the group’s membership database was hacked, which Connolly confirmed Tuesday night.
While the People of Praise declined to speculate about who might have been responsible for the hack, a source with knowledge of the situation told CNA that some “community members were contacted by national media outlets within 36 hours of the [database] incursion,” which the source called an “alarming coincidence.”
Connolly told CNA that “steps were immediately taken to address the incident, including notifying appropriate federal law enforcement and our members.”
“We take the security and privacy of all members of our community seriously,” he emphasized.
People of Praise was founded in 1971 as part of the era’s “great emergence of lay ministries and lay movements in the Catholic Church,” Bishop Peter Smith, who belongs to an affiliated association of Catholic priests, told CNA in 2018.
The group began with 29 members who formed a “covenant”- an agreement, not an oath, to follow common principles, to give five percent of annual income to the group, and to meet regularly for spiritual, social, and service projects.
Covenant communities- Protestant and Catholic- emerged across the country in the 1970s, as a part of the Charismatic Renewal movement in American Christianity.
While most People of Praise members are Catholic, the group is officially ecumenical; people from a variety of Christian denominations can join. Members of the group are free to attend the church of their choosing, including different Catholic parishes, Smith explained.
“We’re a lay movement in the Church,” Smith told CNA. “There are plenty of these. We continue to try and live out life and our calling as Catholics, as baptized Christians, in this particular way, as other people do in other callings or ways that God may lead them into the Church.”
Barrett’s Senate confirmation hearing and a Senate vote on her nomination to the Supreme Court are expected to take place later this month, shortly before the Nov. 3 presidential election.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 29, 2020 / 03:30 pm (CNA).- Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is a “consensus-builder” who applies the law as written without consulting her own religious beliefs, according to her colleagues and fe… […]
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