St. Louis, Mo., May 28, 2019 / 02:19 pm (CNA).- Banning abortion after eight weeks of pregnancy is a “giant step forward for the pro-life movement,” Archbishop Robert J. Carlson of St. Louis said in a statement on Friday, after Governor Mik… […]
Washington D.C., May 28, 2019 / 11:09 am (CNA).- The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld part of an Indiana law requiring aborted babies to be cremated or buried, while declining to take up another part of the law that banned abortions based solely on… […]
Omaha, Neb., May 27, 2019 / 04:05 pm (CNA).- A recent study in the UK found that taking progesterone supplements during pregnancy is associated with a decreased risk of miscarriage, at least in some cases. To Teresa Kenney, a women’s health nurse… […]
Washington D.C., May 27, 2019 / 03:01 am (CNA).- Ahead of Memorial Day in the United States, the Archbishop of Military Services commended fallen soldiers and emphasized sacrificial love.
“Certainly those we honor today served the Nation and put… […]
Hudson, Ohio, May 26, 2019 / 04:52 pm (CNA).- Starting in 2013, and every year since for the past seven years, one young man from the parish of St. Mary’s in Hudson, Ohio, has been ordained a priest of Jesus Christ for the Catholic Church.
It&rs… […]
Berlin, NJ, May 25, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Kelly Mantoan doesn’t have a lot of free time. Between mothering 5 children, homeschooling some of them, getting her two youngest sons on the school bus on time, and juggling a writing career and a successful blog, she has a full schedule.
Her days even look a little different from those of the typical mother to a large family, because the Mantoan family’s two youngest children, Fulton, 10, and Teddy, 8, were both born with a rare degenerative genetic disorder called Spinal Muscular Atrophy, or SMA.
Both boys use motorized wheelchairs full time for mobility, and require round-the-clock care to ensure their health needs are met. Kelly and her husband,Tony know something about the strain that can accompany such comprehensive care.
That’s where the idea of a day-long conference designed especially for caregiving, special needs parents called “Accepting the Gift” was born.
“There’s really nothing else out there like it for Catholics – there are Protestant ministries to support parents of special needs children, but we looked and couldn’t find anything that ministered to Catholic parents, whose needs can be really unique,” Mantoan explained.
“From a theological standpoint, the Catholic faith is so instrumental in how I deal with my struggles as a special needs parents, we have such a rich theology of suffering.” Mantoan said, explaining that her Catholic faith has uniquely equipped her to accept her sons’ diagnoses.
“As a Catholic, I’ve been able to see that there is nothing wrong with my child, and God can bring joy in this, and this is who he is.’
Mantoan wanted to bring that kind of spiritual and emotional support to other parents of children with special needs, too.
“Last summer I started looking around and couldn’t find anything like what I was envisioning. We asked our pastor in August of 2018 if he would be supportive – he has a brother with Down’s syndrome who is very involved in our parish life, so we thought he would – and we got permission, set the date, and went ahead and started asking other special needs parents, you know, ‘What kind of talks and things would you want?’”
“We just started throwing things together willy nilly, and I quickly realized realized I needed to fundraise, it was very haphazard, a couple at our church stepped up and did all food and meals and logistics.”
“I’d run a conference before, I’ve run a major homeschool conference, so I’m like, ‘Wow I’m totally qualified to plan something like this,’” Mantoan told CNA.
She called the conference’s inaugural installment a “trial by fire learning experience,”
“It didn’t totally squash my spirit,” she clarified. “It was hard for me at first to figure out how to get the word out reliably to everybody. I have an online presence, our keynote has an online presence, I just figured, well, if we get the word out…”
What Mantoan didn’t count on, however, was that she would find few diocesan offices had staff members responsible for ministry or formation with disabled Catholics.
Still, despite those initial difficulties, the first conference was an encouraging start, she said.
Several dozen parents came to Mater Ecclesiae Church in Berlin, NJ, for the April 27 conference, and a larger remote audience streamed online.
The conference featured a series of talks and expert panels by author Mary Lenaburg, David Rizzo, creator of the Adaptive First Eucharist Preparation Kit, and National Catholic Bioethics Center ethicist DiAnn Ecret, onhand to provide insight into complex ethical scenarios including adverse prenatal diagnoses and known genetic susceptibility.
Rev. Matthew Schneider, the priest behind the Twitter handle @AutisticPriest, was also in attendance. Since announcing his autism diagnosis this spring, he has started a YouTube channel where he speaks openly about his life and ministry through the lens of autism.
Mantoan called Schneider, who live-tweeted the event, “a real ray of hope to parents of autistic kids who are wondering what the future may hold. He advocates for those with autism, but also speaks from the perspective of a priest and offers a unique insight on how to make parishes more open to disabled people.”
Keynote speaker Mary Lenaburg reminded attendees “my daughter – your children – are heralds for a new world … our children show us the face of God every single day.”
Looking toward next year’s event, Mantoan said, “I have to work at getting the word out more in advance so it’s not such a surprise – logistics, not being well-known or established…it’s a work in progress, and there is no major network for Catholic special needs parents to connect – so we’re asking ourselves, how can we connect and share resources?”
“Many special needs parents are full time caregivers. They can’t leave. They can’t fly somewhere for multiple days of travel for an event. They are on 24/7. That’s who we most want to reach, and that’s why we streamed the content,” she said.
“This is for the frazzled stay-at-home caregiver who feels like they really can’t get out, for whom it’s so hard to get that face to face support.”
“I know what it’s like when you have a lot of little kids, a lot of special needs kids, you might feel isolated, might be the only special needs family in your parish,” she explained.
When asked whether other factors affect Catholic special needs parents uniquely, Mantoan pointed out that family planning can be a big difficulty and source of stress.
“In so many families, you have a special needs child – especially with a grave medical condition, and that’s it, you’re done. You get sterilized, you stop having kids.”
Mantoan continued, “If you’re a faithful Catholic and you have kids with genetic diseases or you are disabled with a genetic disease that makes childbirth dangerous, if you have a large family with disabilities, do you keep being open to life? How do you manage special needs parenting and continue living your life?”
“For us, for a long time, the whole family planning aspect was a huge struggle…When we got their diagnoses, it was like, oh, I have a 1 in 4 chance of having a child who also carries this disease.”
“It was difficult for a long time,” Mantoan admitted.
“Probably I can say within the last 3 years we’ve finally reached a point of peace. Basically up until that point, we were doing what the Church taught because we knew it was right, but we weren’t happy about it.”
“We’re still very, very prudent and very, very cautious with NFP, and I’m really excited we didn’t go ahead and do something drastic like get sterilized. Thankfully we hadn’t taken any permanent steps during all that difficulty.”
“I think that’s the thing, you get to a point where you say ‘thank goodness we were faithful;’ it strengthened us as a couple. And my feelings now are totally different. My heart is in a different place in terms of what I can accept. We were really angry, and now we’re really happy we were faithful. Because there is peace now, and our marriage is stronger.”
Online access to “Accepting the Gift” is still available at the Catholic Parents of Special Needs Children (CPSNC) website, and planning for next year’s event is underway.
“If you’re in the middle of nowhere and your parish is telling you, ‘We don’t know how to give your kids sacraments;’ if you don’t have support, if you feel isolated, we want to alleviate some of that for you, to help you understand what your rights are as Catholic parents, to help you navigate that,” Mantoan said.
“The message is that there is joy here; joy in accepting your kids and who they are, and joy even in the midst of suffering and hardship.”
Lansing, Mich., May 24, 2019 / 03:26 pm (CNA).- Five men who served in Michigan as Catholic priests have been charged with 21 counts of sex abuse, the state attorney general announced Friday.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said at May 24 press conference, reported by the New York Times. “We anticipate many more charges and arrests.”
She added: “Although we have charged these men with very serious crimes, I want to remind everyone that they are innocent until proven guilty by a court of law.”
The five men are accused of abusing five individuals: four of them male, and one of them female, M-Live in Michigan reported. Four of the alleged victims were minors.
Those charged are: Timothy Crowley, 69, and Vincent DeLorenzo, 80, of the Diocese of Lansing; Patrick Casey, 55, of the Archdiocese of Detroit; Jacob Vellian, 84, of the Syro-Malabar Archeparchy of Kottayam, who served in the Diocese of Kalamazoo for one year in the 1970s; and Neil Kalina, 63, of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions, who served in the Archdiocese of Detroit.
One of the men was arrested in Michigan, while three others were arrested in Arizona, California, and Florida. The fifth, Vellian, could be extradited from his home country of India.
Casey was removed from ministry in 2015, and faces an ongoing canonical process. Kalina left active ministry in 1993. DeLorenzo was removed from ministry after the Lansing diocese receiving a complaint against him in 2002, and the diocese is seeking to have him dismissed from the clerical state. Crowley was removed from ministry after an allegation was made against him in 1993, and he has been dismissed from the clerical state.
Vellian is retired and resides at Bethsleehe Seminary, according to the MSP Society at the website of his archeparchy.
The charges were made during the ongoing statewide investigation into clergy abuse in the Catholic Church.
Michigan launched an investigation into Catholic clergy in September 2018, following the release of a Grand Jury report in Pennsylvania which detailed decades of abuse allegations against 300 Catholic priests in that state. It also followed the suspension of the former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was accused of multiple counts of sexual abuse of minors and sexual misconduct with seminarians. McCarrick was suspended from public ministry in July 2018, and was dismissed from the clerical state in January 2019.
After the announcement of the investigation in the fall of 2018, the dioceses said they welcomed the investigation and pledged their full cooperation.
A statement from the Archdiocese of Detroit said at the time that they “looked forward” to cooperating with state officials and actively participating in the investigation. The archdiocese also emphasized its confidence in its safe environment practices already in place, but added that the investigation would be the next step toward healing.
So far, the Michigan investigation team has reviewed hundreds of tips, as well as hundreds of thousands of abuse-related documents that were seized in police raids of all seven Catholic dioceses in the state, M-Live reported. Most of the tips have come through a hotline established specifically for abuse.
Nessel said at the press conference that she believed only 5-10 percent of the documents had been reviewed thus far.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg…This is about taking on large-scale institutions that turn a blind eye to victims and making certain we hold all of them accountable – that includes unapologetically pursuing any and all individuals who abuse their power by victimizing our residents,” she said.
Ned McGrath, the public affairs director for the archdiocese, said at the news conference that the Archdiocese of Detroit continues to promise its full cooperation with authorities in the investigation.
In March of this 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.
In April of this year, Michigan State Rep. Beau LaFave told CNA that he was concerned that Nessel appeared to demonstrate an anti-Catholic bias over multiple previous statements made either in public or on social media.
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.
Last year Michigan extended the statue of limitations in sexual assault cases to 15 years after the incident in criminal cases and 10 in civil cases. Indictments for abuse of minor victims can be filed within 15 years of the crime or by the victim’s 28th birthday, whichever comes later. First-degree criminal sexual abuse, such as rape of a minor, has no statute of limitations in the state.
Newark, N.J., May 24, 2019 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- A Catholic church in the Archdiocese of Newark has instructed a charter school to cover a pro-LGBT mural painted on church property.
Fr. Paul Prevosto, pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Hackensack, instruct… […]
Washington D.C., May 24, 2019 / 01:35 pm (CNA).- A quarter of the Senate signed a letter on Wednesday seeking to keep pro-life and religious freedom protections intact during the drafting of upcoming appropriations bills.
The bills will be for th… […]
Sacramento, Calif., May 24, 2019 / 09:38 am (CNA).- State senators in California have voted to approve a law that would require priests to violate the seal of confession. Senate Bill 360 passed Thursday by an overwhelming margin, with legislators voting 30-2 in favor of the measure.
The bill would require priests to report any knowledge or suspicion of child abuse gained while hearing the confession of another priest or colleague.
In a statement released Friday, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez said he was “deeply disappointed” by the result and insisted that strong child protection measures did not require the violation of the sanctity of the sacrament of confession.
A previous draft of the law would have compelled the violation of the sacramental seal any time a priest came to suspect abuse from any penitent. In a statement released Monday, Gomez acknowledged the changes but said that “no government, for whatever reason, should violate the privacy and confidentiality of that sacred conversation.”
“SB 360 still denies the sanctity of confession to every priest in the state and to thousands of Catholics who work with priests in parishes and other Church agencies and ministries.”
The sacramental seal is covered by civil law in many jurisdictions around the world. The “clergy-penitent privilege” is widely regarded as a fundamental exercise of religious liberty.
The bill’s sponsor, California state Senator Jerry Hill (D-Calif. 13), has claimed that “the clergy-penitent privilege has been abused on a large scale, resulting in the unreported and systemic abuse of thousands of children across multiple denominations and faiths.”
The senator has claimed that such abuse has been revealed through “recent investigations by 14 attorneys general, the federal government, and other countries.”
Despite the volume of investigations into the clerical sexual abuse crisis no data exists establishing or indicating the use of sacramental confession either to facilitate or perpetuate the sexual abuse of minors.
Critics of the proposed legislation have noted that sacramental confession between accomplices is invalid unless in imminent danger of death, as is the absolution of a penitent who intends to reoffend.
Similar legislation is currently under consideration in Western Australia, following the recommendations of a Royal Commission report into clerical sexual abuse.
While the commission’s executive summary states that “the practice of the sacrament of reconciliation (confession) contributed… to inadequate institutional responses to abuse,” it does not provide data detailing the frequency of that contribution.
South Australia and the Northern Territory have already passed similar laws mandating that clergy report suspected abuse in violation of the seal of confession.
Despite the interventions of Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB, Western Australia’s Child Protection Minister, Simone McGurk, said the matter was non-negotiable.
“I’ve received calls from the Archbishop of Perth, as has the [Prime Minister], but we think the time for discussion about this has passed,” McGurk said.
“I understand that is the Catholic Church’s position, however as a Government we have an obligation to put in place laws and to implement those laws to make sure that children in our community are safe and that is what we are doing.”
Canon law describes the seal of the confessional to be “inviolable”, and priests are “absolutely forbidden” to disclose the sins of a penitent “in any way, for any reason.” Violation of the seal by a priest is a grave crime against the faith and is punished by an automatic excommunication which can be augmented with other penalties, including dismissal from the clerical state.
© Catholic World Report