CNA Staff, May 15, 2020 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- The Senate approved a bill on Thursday to sanction Chinese leaders complicit in the persecution of Uyghur Muslims.
The Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, authored by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and co-sponsored by… […]
Denver Newsroom, May 15, 2020 / 11:02 am (CNA).- Public health orders to limit the spread of the new coronavirus raise important questions about the U.S. Constitution and religious freedom, and Stanford Law School professor Michael J. McConnell has pro… […]
Denver, Colo., May 15, 2020 / 11:01 am (CNA).- A coalition of volunteers in Colorado hopes to gather enough signatures in the next two weeks on a petition to put a late-term abortion ban on the November ballot – an effort complicated by restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic.
The Coalition for Women and Children, a Christian group led by Giuliana Day, filed the petition during July 2019 with the Colorado Secretary of State. The initiative would ban abortions in the state after 22 weeks, with an exception to save the life of the mother.
Colorado remains one of the only states where late-term abortion is not, under law, explicitly protected or restricted. As a result, abortions can take place up until birth. Notably, the Boulder Abortion Clinic is one of just a handful of clinics in the U.S. that publicly accept patients seeking late-term abortions from anywhere in the world.
The organization of volunteers supporting the petition – known as Due Date Too Late – was originally tasked with collecting nearly 125,000 signatures within a six-month time limit in order to have the question appear on the ballot in November 2020.
The original deadline to submit the signatures was March 4. When the Colorado Secretary of State’s office counted the 137,624 signatures that the group submitted, it ruled only 114,647 of them valid— about 10,000 too few for the initiative to make it onto the ballot.
Now, the volunteers have two weeks, what is known as a “cure period,” to make up the signature deficit by gathering new signatures and encouraging those whose signatures were ruled invalid to re-sign.
The Archdiocese of Denver is encouraging Catholics to sign the petition.
“Our efforts are really focused on getting new signatures, and then whatever can be ruled valid that was previously invalid is going to be helpful, but we don’t want to count on that. So we want to make sure we get the new ones,” Deacon Geoff Bennett, vice president of parish and community relations for Catholic Charities of Denver, told CNA.
The cure period was originally set to begin April 27, but a district court judge granted Due Date Too Late a delay until May 15 because of the continued restrictions related to the coronavirus.
Governor Jared Polis’ statewide stay-at-home order ended April 26, but the state remains under a “safer-at-home” policy, whereby all are encouraged to stay at home and avoid unnecessary interactions whenever possible, and to comply with social distancing requirements.
Beginning May 15, there will be approximately 100 signing locations throughout the state staffed by over 400 volunteers from Due Date Too Late. Many of the original signers of the petition were Catholic or Evangelical Christian, and as a result most of the signing locations are places of worship.
Because Colorado is a large state and coronavirus restrictions and recommendations vary, the organizers are asking all signature collectors to check on the most current social distancing guidelines with their county, rather than issuing their own guidelines.
The organizers have, however, offered suggestions to volunteers such as offering a new, clean pen to every signer, as well as offering hand sanitizer to each signer.
All public and private gatherings remain limited, by the governor’s order, to no more than ten people.
The organizers used geomapping based on the data they collected about the original signers of the petition to determine the best locations to send volunteers to collect signatures.
The group will be collecting signatures through May 28, since the signatures need to be submitted by May 29. The plan is to collect about 15,000 signatures in the next two weeks.
In an April 24 statement, Due Date Too Late stated that a sample of 40,000 signees showed “broad-based, bipartisan support,” with 40% of those sampled members of the Democratic Party or unaffiliated.
Bennett encouraged anyone who has already signed the petition to check whether their signature was accepted; the Secretary of State rejected many of the signatures, he said, because the signers’ information did not exactly match their voter registration.
There are other potential issues other than voter registration mismatches. For example, the petition circulator may have filled out their affidavit incorrectly, which in some cases invalidated entire packets of signatures.
While signers whose signatures were previously ruled invalid will have the opportunity to re-sign, new signatures are preferable, organizers have told CNA.
If the late-term abortion ban passes in November, it would mark the first time since 1967 that Colorado would impose voter-approved restrictions on abortion.
Lauren Castillo, director of church relations for Students for Life of America and spokesperson for Due Date Too Late, told the press in February that in Colorado in 2019, at least 323 abortions were performed on babies after 21 weeks gestation.
“The vast majority of these late term abortions are done on babies without adverse late-term fetal diagnoses, or serious health risks in the pregnancy, and without life threatening circumstances for the mother,” Castillo said.
“They’re done electively, and are not necessary. And in an emergency situation that would be life threatening to the mother, a c-section is a far safe procedure than a late-term abortion.”
Bennett noted that abortion-rights groups in Colorado touted the fact that for a time during the pandemic, many women from other states were traveling to Colorado to take advantage of the state’s permissive abortion laws.
Abortion clinics in states like Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, which did not introduce any pandemic-related restrictions on abortion, saw increases in patients traveling from other states, such as Texas, to undergo the procedure.
“We want to encourage people to make a stand for life, especially in the environment that we’re in [the pandemic] where we’re so concerned about life,” Bennett said.
Colorado was the first state in the nation to decriminalize abortion. The initial legislation, signed into law April 25, 1967, allowed abortion in certain limited cases: rape, incest, or a prediction of permanent mental or physical disability of either the child or mother. Six years later, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade declared abortion a constitutional right nationwide.
CNA Staff, May 14, 2020 / 06:31 pm (CNA).- The coronavirus pandemic is exacerbating health disparities and long-standing social inequalities facing Native and Indigenous communities, the bishops of the United States said this week.
They called on gove… […]
Denver Newsroom, May 14, 2020 / 03:09 pm (CNA).- Although some people have raised objections to wearing masks as the U.S. continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic, doing so can be an act of charity for one’s neighbor, a Catholic doctor said.
“The simple reason [to wear a mask] is primarily to protect others, the secondary reason is to protect oneself. Masks are a barrier to the airborne droplets that can carry the virus and infect anyone who breathes them in,” said Dr. Barbara Golder, a physician, lawyer and bioethicist with a background in pathology.
Golder told CNA that wearing a mask while in public is “a small thing to do, and it may well save lives.”
The United States has seen more than 1.3 million confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, with more than 82,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. Most people who contract the highly contagious virus show mild or no symptoms, but in some cases, it can result in severe complications or death, particularly for those who are elderly or have underlying health conditions.
With much of the country under quarantine restrictions in recent weeks to slow the spread of the virus, the question of when and how to reopen continues to be a source of controversy.
Public health officials have advised wearing masks in public, in order to reduce the risk of unknowingly transmitting the virus through droplets emitted from one’s mouth when speaking, coughing or sneezing. Many individuals who are infected with the virus do not develop symptoms, meaning that even people who do not feel sick could spread the virus to others.
Based on this federal guidance, many local authorities have issued regulations recommending or requiring that people wear masks in public settings.
These regulations have received a mixed response. Some critics argue that the mandatory regulations – and the fines and other punishments that accompany them – in some states are too harsh, infringing upon essential freedoms. Others worry that the use of masks may be ineffective or even harmful, claims which public health experts dispute.
Others have criticized the wearing of masks as a sign of weakness.
R. R. Reno, editor of the Catholic journal First Things, has been outspoken in his criticism of quarantine measures enacted in New York and other parts of the country. In a series of tweets this week – which were later deleted – Reno encouraged people to eschew masks, which he described as caving to a culture of fear.
“Masks=enforced cowardice,” Reno said in one tweet.
“The mask culture if (sic) fear driven,” he said in another, adding, “It’s a regime dominate (sic) by fear of infection and fear of causing of infection. Both are species of cowardice.”
However, Dr. Golder objected to the claim that following the guidance of public health officials is succumbing to fear or weakness.
“It isn’t fear to exercise prudent care for ourselves and others,” she told CNA. “This is a serious situation…When 60% of the population falls into a risk group because of age or an underlying medical condition such as obesity, diabetes, heart disease, or lung disease, it’s prudent to try to avoid infection.”
Golder acknowledged that conflicting advice early in the pandemic may be confusing, but explained that federal guidance has changed as scientists have learned more about the new virus and how it is spread.
“We now know that it is communicable by aerosol droplets that are expelled by coughing, sneezing, and even, to a certain extent, by breathing,” she said. “We also know that this happens even in patients who are infected and shedding virus but who do not have symptoms.”
For this reason, masks – along with social distancing – are an important tool in fighting the spread of the disease, she said.
“Wearing a mask limits the possibility of dispersing infective particles in the air, as well as reducing the risk of inhaling them,” she said.
Golder noted that small children, those who have breathing difficulties, and those who are physically unable to put on a mask need not wear one, but added that they may want to significantly limit contact with others.
But for most Americans, she said, “wearing a mask is a way of exercising our care for the other, who could be harmed if we do not.”
Leah Libresco Sargeant, author of “Building the Benedict Option,” echoed the idea that wearing a mask is a way of showing love for one’s neighbors.
“It’s much more a question of care than of fear,” she told CNA.
While masks may be somewhat uncomfortable, they are a small inconvenience that can be embraced out of charity for others, Sargeant suggested.
“Mask wearing is a small, humdrum discipline. It’s harder to romanticize than a big gesture,” she said.
“Think about the difference between going on a big pilgrimage and keeping up a habit of daily prayer, including in times of spiritual dryness. We have to do it out of love—there’s no other way to sustain the dull parts of caring for others.”
Dr. Golder acknowledged there are legitimate concerns about government overreach with some of the mandates surrounding masks and other pandemic limitations.
“[I]t’s absolutely true that there has been some overreach of government officials in imposing restrictions in various places,” she said.
“There is a real possibility of infringement of our constitutional rights and those charged with protecting our rights are hard at work to prevent that,” she added, pointing to court rulings blocking some of these regulations as signs that the American system is working.
But ultimately, Golder said, Catholics may want to consider the question of public health not solely from a perspective of rights, but from the viewpoint of service and friendship to which Christ calls us.
“God as man never once asserted his many ‘rights’ against us, maintaining to the last his role as servant and friend,” she said. “I think that might be the model here—How do I as friend and servant act in the presence of others? Wearing a mask might be a good start these days.”
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 14, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- A protestant church in California is suing the state for ordering churches to remain closed while some businesses can reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.
South Bay United Pentecostal Churc… […]
CNA Staff, May 14, 2020 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- A judge ruled Wednesday that New York’s Child Victims Act is constitutional, rejecting a suit filed by the Diocese of Rockville Centre that claimed the law is barred by the due process clause in the state constitution.
The act opened a one-year window for adults in the state who were sexually abused as children to file lawsuits against their abusers. It also adjusted the statute of limitations for both pursuing criminal charges and civil suits against sexual abusers or institutions where the abuse took place.
“The court finds the Child Victims Act is a reasonable response to remedy the injustice of past child sexual abuse,” Justice Steven Jaeger of the New York Supreme Court in Nassau County wrote in his May 13 decision. “Accordingly, it does not violate defendant diocese’s right to due process under the New York State Constitution.”
Newsday, a Long Island daily, reported that Jaeger “said New York courts have upheld suspensions of time limitations as a remedy in extraordinary cases,” and on this basis he held the law to be a reasonable response.
Sean Dolan, spokesman for the Rockville Centre diocese, said that “We disagree with the court’s ruling on the due process challenge to the Child Victims Act and we are analyzing our options with respect to appeal of this and other issues.”
The law’s one-year window opened in August 2019. It was to have expired Aug. 13, 2020, but was extended by governor Andrew Cuomo this week by five months, to Jan. 14, 2021, due to court delays caused by the coronavirus.
According to Newsday, 44 suits have been filed against the Rockville Centre diocese under the the Child Victims Act. Across the state, more than 1,700 have been filed.
The diocese had filed its motion in November 2019. It said the Due Process clause “allows the legislature to revive formerly time-barred claims only where they could not have been raised earlier,” which it adds “is not so here.”
“The formerly time-barred claims revived by the legislature pursuant to the Child Victims Act all could have been brought within the then-applicable three- or five-year period, after plaintiffs attained the age of majority,” according to the diocese.
The diocese added that the state Court of Appeals “has held that the Due Process Clause allows for the exercise of what it has characterized as an exceptional legislative power ‘to remedy an injustice’ created by circumstances that prevented the assertion of a timely claim.”
It said claims under the Child Victims Act “do not fit within the scope of this narrowly circumscribed legislative authority.”
The Child Victims Act was signed into law in February 2019. In addition to opening a one-year window for suits, it allows child abuse victims to file criminal charges up to age 28, and lawsuits up to age 55. Previously, they had until the age of 23 to file charges or a civil claim.
Dolan said the diocese is committed to providing “pastoral care and equitable compensation” to child sex abuse victims through its independent reconciliation and compensation program.
As of August 2019 that program had paid a little more than $50 million to 277 claimants since its 2017 institution. Between 75 and 80 claims were still being processed, and 370 people had filed claims with the program.
The day the one-year lookback was opened, Bishop Robert Guglielmone of Charleston was named in a lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing a young man while he was a priest of the Rockville Centre diocese, starting in 1978. The bishop has said he is innocent of the accusation.
In January 2019 Dennis Poust, director of the New York Catholic Conference, told CNA the conference had not opposed the final version of the act, which provided the same protections for child abuse victims in public insitutions, including schools, as it did for private institutions.
Earlier versions discriminated between public and private institutions, but once that was amended “the conference dropped any opposition to its passage,” he said.
When the bill was passed, the New York bishops issued a joint statement saying, “We pray that the passage of the Child Victims Act brings some measure of healing to all survivors by offering them a path of recourse and reconciliation.”
Earlier this month the Diocese of Buffalo asked a federal court to halt all outstanding clergy sex abuse litigation against it as it navigates bankruptcy proceedings.
CNA Staff, May 14, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- A group of senators want to allow larger non-profits access to emergency loans during the coronavirus pandemic—with an exception to exclude abortion providers.
New legislation introduced on Wednesday by… […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 14, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- Catholics have a critical role in bridging the divides of today’s polarized society, one outgoing Catholic congressman says.
“We live in a very polarized society, and I think that&… […]
Denver Newsroom, May 13, 2020 / 05:42 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has assembled a team of 30 priests ready to administer last rites— confession, communion, and anointing of the sick— to COVID-19 patients.
All the priest-volunteers on the “Anointing Corps,” which launched early this month, are under 50, and most are parochial vicars. The team has anointed at least a dozen patients so far, the archdiocese said May 12.
Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens, who is spearheading the initiative, told CNA that priests from the Anointing Corps have been called to several nursing homes already.
“The nursing homes, I think, have just been happy that we’re handling it professionally,” Cozzens said.
On some occasions, he said, the anointing priest has been able to “live-stream” the anointing of the sick person to their family outside the nursing home, since they are not able to be there in person.
The Archdiocese of Chicago in early April assembled a team of 24 priest volunteers— all under age 60, and without pre-existing medical conditions— to administer anointing of the sick to Catholics with COVID-19 during the coronavirus pandemic.
Cozzens said he looked to Chicago for guidance on how to assemble their own team.
The key for the St. Paul and Minneapolis “Anointing Corps”, he said, has been their training and professionalism. In addition to the priests, their archdiocesan team has triage nurses working on it, he said— people who know how to communicate effectively with hospital staff.
“We haven’t been able to get into every nursing home— nor every hospital— because of the protocols, but we’ve been making a lot of progress,” Cozzens said.
The priests on the team have received the same personal protective equipment training as the doctors and nurses, he said.
“The key for us has been convincing the hospitals and nursing homes that we have a really good protocol, and that our priests are trained and know what they’re doing.”
Several of the hospitals and nursing homes where priests have performed anointing, Cozzens said, have been especially welcoming of and grateful for the priests’ ministry.
Most care centers have been helpful in providing the PPE that the priests need in order safely to enter the room and physically touch the patient when anointing them.
“The ones that are really helpful understand the importance of care at the time of death, and have been understanding that for us as Catholics, actual sacramental contact at the time of death is really important. And they’ve been understanding of that reality, and have provided us what we need to be able to do that.”
Cozzens encouraged other local Churches wanting to create their own anointing teams to consult with medical experts and make sure the priests are well trained in what they are being asked to do.
“Having a professional and consistent approach has been the key to hospitals letting us in,” he said.
Father Joseph Gifford, associate pastor of Church of All Saints in Lakeville typically serves as a nursing home chaplain.
His ministry as a chaplain normally would consist of celebrating Mass for the Catholic residents at four or five area nursing homes once or twice a month. In addition, Father Gifford would normally often be called to hear confessions and administer the anointing of the sick to residents.
Father Gifford said he is glad that it is he— as All Saints’ parochial vicar— who is tasked with anointing COVID-positive patients, and not his pastor.
“That way, my pastor can see the non-COVID-19 patients who are still in danger of death for all the other reasons,” he said.
“In my short experience as a priest, I can always look forward to going and saying Mass at the nursing home, and it’s going to be the same people,” adding that he looks forward to “getting to know them better, and share life and share God with them.”
Father Gifford was a trained singer before he entered the seminary, and told CNA he has used his gift of singing to entertain residents at the nursing homes he serves at by singing to them outside their windows.
In addition, since no one currently can visit the area nursing homes in person, All Saints parish has set up a “calling tree” of staff members and volunteers in order to regularly check on parishioners over 65.
He says he most misses the in-person interaction with the residents, and looks forward to the opportunity once more to talk with the residents in person.
The archdiocese has also set up a site where Catholics can commit to daily prayer for health care workers.
The Archdiocese of Boston also has assembled anointing teams of priests. In that local Church, the priests are housed together in strategic locations close to hospitals.
Throughout the country, chaplains at hospitals and nursing homes have had to adapt their ministry to protect the elderly and those at greatest risk of contracting COVID-19.
Father Hugh Vincent Dyer, a Dominican priest in New York, took up residence in the nursing home where he has served as chaplain since December 2019. There are about 360 elderly residents at the nursing home, not all of them Catholic, the Federalist reports.
To continue to minister while keeping his distance, Father Dyer has been broadcasting Mass, the rosary, and meditations from the facility’s chapel via closed-circuit television.
He also has been using the CCTV system to screen films, some of which he has found “can trigger forgotten memories and fascinating stories.”
In addition, he has been broadcasting a weekly “Cultural Miscellany,” during which he reads poetry— some of which are favorites that the residents have specifically requested— and offers reflections on them.
© Catholic World Report