Washington D.C., Sep 10, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Five months after first attempting to force a vote on legislation to protect babies who survive botched abortions, pro-life Members in the House are still at a standstill.
“This is not even a pro-… […]
Washington D.C., Sep 10, 2019 / 12:08 pm (CNA).- A Catholic group is suing the Trump administration over the restriction of protections granted to asylum seekers in the U.S.
The Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. (CLINIC), Democracy Forward, and… […]
Washington D.C., Sep 10, 2019 / 10:05 am (CNA).- Democratic presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) has publicly opposed third trimester abortions, in a break with the rest of the Democratic field who all appear to support abortion access … […]
Memphis, Tenn., Sep 9, 2019 / 05:07 pm (CNA).- After being included several months ago on a Virginia list of priests credibly accused of sexual abuse, the first Catholic bishop of Memphis was removed from a mural in the city over the weekend.
On Satur… […]
Parma, Ohio, Sep 9, 2019 / 04:23 pm (CNA).- In many ways the Ruthenian Eparchy of Parma, a local Church of the Byzantine rite in the midwestern United States, faces the same problems as the Church throughout the world: shrinking and aging parishes, fal… […]
Los Angeles, Calif., Sep 9, 2019 / 04:18 pm (CNA).- At a Sept. 7 Mass in Recognition of All Immigrants, Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles called migrants to witness to America the healing love of Christ, which has the power to restore unity to … […]
San Antonio, Texas, Sep 9, 2019 / 09:02 am (CNA).- A court ruled Thursday against a Texas high school that was barring two Catholic students from extracurricular activities due to their refusal to cut their hair, which they had grown out for religious … […]
Denver, Colo., Sep 6, 2019 / 05:09 pm (CNA).- A Colorado man with cancer and his doctor filed a suit last month against a health system run by the Catholic Church that alleges its policy barring its doctors from participating in assisted suicide violates state law.
Cornelius “Neil” Mahoney, 64, was told July 16 that his cancer was incurable and he would be expected to die within 4-14 months, depending on his treatment, according to a suit filed Aug. 21 in the Arapahoe County District Court by Mahoney and his doctor.
Mahoney quickly inquired about assisted suicide, having anxiety about facing death from cancer and wanting to control the place and time of his death.
According to the AP Mahoney is childless, “and does not want his siblings to have to take care of him.”
He first asked about assisted suicide at Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers the day he was told his cancer was uncurable; his physician there said neither he nor anyone else at RMCC would provide assisted suicide.
Mahoney spoke the same day to a nurse practitioner at Centura Health Physician Group about his desire for assisted suicide, who referred his request to his primary physician, Dr. Barbara Morris.
He asked a social worker assigned to his case at RMCC about assisted suicide July 24, who also told him he would be unable to access it through RMCC.
Morris, Mahoney’s primary physician, was employed at CHPG, which is jointly run by the Catholic Church and the Seventh-day Adventists through Centura Health Corporation.
Abiding by the U.S. bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives, Centura Health does not permit its employees to participate in assisted suicide.
Morris “would provide [aid-in-dying] to qualified patients but for Centura’s Policy,” the suit says. She told him July 22 that Centura bars its physicians from providing assiste suicide, and she suggested that Mahoney transfer his care to a provider who would be permitted to provide assisted suicide.
Mahoney then inquired with another provider, the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, who said that to obtain assisted suicide he would have to tranfer his care and have his condition re-evaluated.
“Neil does not want to transfer his care to a different facility and endure additional testing,” and likes the convenience of CHPG, which is close to his home.
Mahoney began chemotherapy treatment in July “in the hopes that he responds favorably and can handle the side effects,” and is uncertain whether he wants to receive additional chemotherapy.
Colorado voters legalized assisted suicide in a 2016 ballot measure. The law allows an adult with a terminal illness to request a lethal prescription from their physician. The person must be deemed mentally competent, and two physicians must diagnosis the person as having six months or fewer to live. The measure requires self-administration of secobarbital.
The AP reported Sept. 4 that Jason Spitalnick, who is among the attorneys for Mahoney and Morris, “pointed out that that the law says helping a patient get life-ending drugs does not constitute euthanasia or assisted suicide under the state’s criminal code.”
The law requires the official cause of death to be listed as a patient’s underlying condition, not as an assisted suicide.
A facility may not subject its physicians, nurses, and pharmacists to disciplinary action, suspension, or recovation of privileges or licenses related to conduct taken in good faith reliance on the assisted suicide law.
The law allows health care facilities to prohibit its physicians from prescribing assisted suicide when the patient intends to use the medication on the facility’s premises; the facilities must notify its physicians and patients in advance of its policy.
Centura issued a policy in February 2017 noting that it prohibits its employees from prescribing or dispensing medication for assisted suicides, or engaging in qualifying a patient for assisted suicide.
The policy does allow Centura physicians or providers to assist patients who request assisted suicide in transferring their care to a non-Centura facility.
The suit seeks a declaration that Centura may not prohibit Morris from providing assisted suicide, nor penalize her should she do so.
Morris’ employment was terminated by Centura Aug. 26.
Kaiser Health News reported Aug. 30 that Morris “had planned to help her patient … end his life at his home.”
Centura Health filed a request Aug. 30 that the suit be removed from the Arapahoe district court to the US District Court for the District of Colorado.
Centura requested the transfer to federal court because the suit raises federal questions involving the First Amendment and federal statutes.
It noted that it is a religious organization, and that the doctrines of is sponsors, the Catholic and Seventh-day Adventist healthcare ministries, “govern, direct and inform” its activities.
The group added that when Morris signed an employment agreement with Centura Health-St. Anthony Hospital in 2017, “she expressly agreed that she would not provide any services ‘that are in violation of the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.’”
Morris told Kaiser Health News she was “shellshocked” at being fired, saying, “it seemed so obvious that they can’t do it.”
JoNel Aleccia wrote at KHN that “Morris said she understood that Centura was religiously affiliated when she was hired but didn’t anticipate a problem.”
Morris said that “I didn’t think it was going to affect my general family practice. Until these conversations about medical aid-in-dying, I hadn’t felt any interference.”
Centura Health’s request for removal stated that “rather than encouraging patient Cornelius Mahoney to receive care consistent with … Catholic doctrine or transferring care to other providers, Dr. Morris has, within her employment, encouraged an option that she knew was morally unacceptable to her employer. It was her employer’s religious judgment that her conduct in relation to Mr. Mahoney violated the religious principles upon which the Hospital operates and warranted the termination of her employment.”
Centura said Aug. 29 that it “expects all our caregivers to act in a manner consistent with our Mission and Core Values,” Kaiser Health News reported.
Wendy Forbes, a Centura spokeswoman, told Kaiser Health News: “We believe the freedom of religion doctrine at the heart of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution supports our policies as a Christian health-care ministry. We will vigorously defend our Constitutional rights.”
Archdiocese of Denver spokesman Mark Haas said that “asking a Christian hospital to play any role in violating the dignity of human life is asking the Christian hospital to compromise its values and core mission. This is not the hospital forcing its beliefs upon others, but rather having outside views forced upon it.”
Buffalo, N.Y., Sep 6, 2019 / 04:40 pm (CNA).- New allegations have surfaced that the second whistleblower reporting a cover-up of clerical sexual abuse by the Diocese of Buffalo, Fr. Ryszard Biernat, was sexually abused as a seminarian in the diocese by a priest who was later removed from ministry for other credible accusations of abuse.
A new report by the Buffalo-area news station WKBW reveals allegations by Fr. Biernat that when Biernat was a seminarian he was assaulted by a Buffalo priest at St. Thomas Aquinas parish.
Biernat said in an interview with WKBW that he was assaulted by Fr. Art Smith, a diocesan priest whom Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo asked to be kept in ministry in 2015 in a letter to Vatican officials, despite the bishop admitting in that same letter that Smith had groomed a young boy, had been accused of inappropriate touching of at least four young men, had faced boundary problems, and refused to stay in a treatment center.
Fr. Smith was suspended in 2018, after the diocese received a new substantiated allegation of sexual abuse of a minor. He denied the accusation that he assaulted Biernat, but told WKBW that he simply told Biernat that he “liked him more than he would ever know.”
WKBW reported that a letter sent by Bishop Malone to the Vatican included Biernat’s allegations.
After Biernat told Bishop Edward Grosz, then-auxiliary bishop of Buffalo, his allegations of assault by Fr. Smith, Grosz allegedly responded by threatening Biernat’s vocation if he kept talking about it.
“He said [it] was my fault because I [didn’t] lock the door,” Biernat quoted Bishop Grosz, as reported by WKBW. “And then he said, ‘and Ryszard, if you don’t stop talking about this, you will not become a priest. You understand me? You understand me?’” Biernat said.
The Diocese of Buffalo did not respond to CNA’s request for comment.
Biernat—currently on a personal leave of absence—eventually became the vice chancellor of the diocese and Bishop Malone’s secretary. On Sept. 4, WKBW reported conversations of Biernat with Malone and others that the priest secretly taped.
The conversations from Aug. 2, 2019 and March 2019 appeared to show that Malone not only knew of allegations made against Fr. Jeffrey Nowak, then-pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians parish in Cheektowaga, but that Malone believed the allegations—months before Fr. Nowak was reportedly removed from ministry.
The allegations were raised by then-seminarian Matthew Bojanowski; the seminarian sent a letter to Bishop Malone detailing his allegations against Fr. Nowak that was dated Jan. 24; Bishop Malone reported on Wednesday that the diocese’s receipt of the letter was on Jan. 28, 2019.
WKBW reported Aug. 7 that the Diocese of Buffalo had removed Fr. Nowak from ministry. At a Wednesday press conference, Bishop Malone said Nowak “was removed from ministry until he would go for that assessment,” but did not say when. On Aug. 28, the diocese announced that Fr. Nowak had been placed on “administrative leave.”
In the conversations, Malone appears to instruct Biernat not to say anything about Nowak, telling him, “[y]ou’re an American citizen you’re free to do what you want. I think we’re gonna blow this story up into something like an atom bomb if we start talking about that.”
Biernat’s lawyer told WKBW that Malone’s comments constituted blackmail, “directly or at a minimum indirectly.” His lawyer Barry Covert did not respond to CNA’s interview request by the time of publication.
Back in March, Malone considered sending Fr. Nowak to an institute for mental health treatment, but acknowledged the difficulty of doing so, saying he could “go ballistic” at the request.
In the recorded conversation on Aug. 2, Malone appeared to acknowledge that it was a “crisis” for the diocese, and that if the news was made public it could spell the end of his tenure as bishop.
“We are in a true crisis situation. True crisis. And everyone in the office is convinced this could be the end for me as bishop,” Malone said in the recorded conversation.
Malone held a press conference Sept. 4 for local reporters selected by the diocese. The bishop said the scandal is a “convoluted matter,” according to WIVB4.
“I’m not a masochist—I’m here because I feel an obligation…to carry on,” the bishop told reporters.
In the press conference, Bishop Malone said that Fr. Nowak first agreed in July to go to St. Luke’s Institute in Maryland for an assessment, but “did not comply.”
In the beginning of August, Nowak again said he would go for an assessment, according to Malone, but again did not go; after the diocese gave Nowak a third opportunity on Aug. 25, he “did not go,” Malone said, “and that is when I put him on administrative leave.”
In the taped Aug. 2 conversation, Malone allegedly said that Fr. Nowak “has agreed by the way to go to Southdown,” an institute for religious and clergy that specializes in mental health and addiction problems. “Cause I told him it’s that or leave of absence,” Malone said according to abridged transcripts of the conversation reported by WKBW.
“I think if we bring Jeff [Nowak] in, that gets very, who knows what he’s gonna do,” Malone said. “Even I know he’s a loose cannon.”
Bishop Malone has been the center of controversy in the diocese for almost a year; in November 2018, his former executive assistant Siobahn O’Connor leaked confidential diocesan documents related to the handling of claims of clerical sexual abuse.
Last month, a RICO lawsuit was filed against the diocese and the bishop, alleging that the response of the diocese was comparable to an organized crime syndicate.
In the Aug. 2 conversation, Malone also referenced his fear of Biernat going public with the news because of the existence of a letter between Biernat and Bojanowski. Nowak, he said in the taped conversations, was jealous of a supposed relationship between Biernat and Bojanowski. Malone called it “a very complex, convoluted matter,” in his Wednesday press conference.
A letter between the Biernat and Bojanowski dated from 2016 was reportedly found by Fr. Nowak in Bojanowski’s apartment, the Buffalo News reported. The letter was reported to be a love letter, which Biernat’s lawyer has denied.
Crux also reported a 2018 real estate transaction under both Biernat’s and Bojanowski’s names.
O’Connor, the 2018 whistleblower, said she believes the letter was between friends and not a love letter, and that it has been circulated to distract from the Fr. Nowak scandal.
“I do not believe it is a love letter. I genuinely believe that it was a letter of friendship, which is a form of love and a very important one at that,” she wrote on her blog on Friday.
Fr. Biernat was counseling Bojanowski on how to get out of an abusive, grooming relationship, O’Connor argued, noting that she talked to Bojanowski directly about the letter and the house transaction, and that he responded without guile.
“Fr. Ryszard recognized a young man was being groomed by a priest, and he recognized it because it happened to him,” she said, adding that both Biernat and Bojanowski have shared that with her.
Regarding one line in the letter where Biernat wrote Bojanowski, “I am afraid that all that you know about me may compromise your freedom to love or to leave,” he was simply telling the seminarian that he would not stalk Bojanowski if he left the seminary, and would not use his position of influence to do so, O’Connor said.
Biernat shared the news of his house purchase with O’Connor last year, she said, and he was not secretive about it and even conducted the transaction with the help of the diocese’s lawyer. The house had been owned by a family member of Bojanowski’s, she said, and as Bishop Malone was moving to a new residence, Biernat did not want to move with all his belongings with the knowledge that Malone might be retiring soon and he would then have to move again, so he decided to purchase the home with Bojanowski.
Washington D.C., Sep 6, 2019 / 10:30 am (CNA).- The debate over competing culturally conservative visions for the future of the U.S. continued Thursday night at the Catholic University of America, as Sohrab Ahmari and David French offered their prescri… […]
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