Analysis: In new pastoral plan, Cardinal Wuerl shares a missionary mandate

Maryland House of Delegates Speaker Adrienne A. Jones, a Democrat, at a MD Dems Women’s Diversity Leadership Council event, Dec. 4, 2019. / Edward Kimmel via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Annapolis, Md., Apr 11, 2022 / 17:00 pm (CNA).

A Maryland law set to take effect July 1 will allow non-physicans to perform abortions, and allot $3.5 million per year for “abortion care” training in the state.

“By enacting this law, Democrat lawmakers have now de-medicalized abortion and removed abortion from the spectrum of health care,” Laura Bogley, the director of legislation for Maryland Right to Life, told CNA. “As a result, many more women will be injured or killed by substandard abortion practices without any protection under Maryland law.”

Maryland House and Senate members, the majority of whom are Democrats, voted April 9 to override Republican Gov. Larry Hogan’s veto of House Bill 937, the Abortion Care Access Act. 

Among other things, the act establishes an “Abortion Care Clinical Training Program” to “protect access to abortion care by ensuring that there are a sufficient number of health professionals to provide abortion care.” 

Maryland’s Department of Health, the bill reads, will contract with a nonprofit coordinating organization to administer the program and grants for “abortion care training programs” at at least two community-based provider sites.

This organization will support “abortion care clinicial training” to “qualified providers” — providers who are broadly defined as any physician, nurse practitioner, nurse-midwife, licensed certified midwife, physician assistant, or any other individual who is “licensed, certified, or authorwise authorized by law to practice in the state” and “for whom the performance of an abortion is within the scope of the individuals’ license or certification.”

Each fiscal year, the act reads, the governor must allot $3.5 million in the state’s budget to this program.

The legislation comes as the Supreme Court prepares to issue a ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case that directly challenges Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. If Roe is overturned, abortion law could be left up to each state.

“Abortion activists in the Maryland Democrat Caucuses are no longer pretending that they want abortion to be safe, legal and rare. They only care that abortion is legal and lucrative,” Bogley told CNA, before later adding, “So the question for Maryland voters is why should we be forced to pay for abortions under Medicaid or through higher health insurance premiums?”

Abortion insurance coverage 

The act instructs insurers, nonprofit health service plans, and health maintanence organizations providing labor and delivery coverage under state policies or contracts to cover “abortion care services” without “a deductible, co-insurance, co-payment, or any other cost-sharing requirement.”

Abortion for minors

The act states that a “qualified provider” may not perform an abortion on an unmarried minor unless the provider gives notice to the parent or guardian, with broad exceptions. The provider is not required to give notice if the minor does not live with the parent or guardian, or if “a reasonable effort to give notice to a parent or guardian is unsuccessful.”

A qualified provider may also refrain from giving notice if it might lead to physical or emotional abuse of the minor, if the minor is “mature and and capable of giving informed consent to an abortion,” or if such notice would “not be in the best interest of the minor.”

Unborn viability 

The act defines “viable” as “that stage when, in the best clinic judgment of the qualified provider . . . there is a reasonable likelihood” that an unborn baby could survive outside the womb.

The state cannot prohibit a woman from obtaining an abortion before her unborn baby reaches viability, or at any point in pregnancy if it is necesary for her life or health or if her baby “is affected by genetic defect or serious deformity or abnormality,” the act says.

How many states are doing this?

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive research organization once associated with Planned Parenthood, 36 states currently require abortion to be performed by a licensed pysician. 

That includes four states where abortion must be performed by a licensed physician, but only for surgical abortion (versus abortion by pill): New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Rhode Island. In Mississippi, the law limits abortion provision to OB/GYNs.

The group listed Washington, D.C. and 14 states as not requiring a licensed physician: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Oregon, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia. 

Beginning in July, that list will include Maryland.

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Washington D.C., Feb 14, 2019 / 03:26 am (CNA).- Imagine being woken up in the middle of the night by a dark figure in your room. He presses a gun to your head and demands that you get up. You and your family are dragged out of bed and led to a mining field, where you are forced to dig for hours on end.

They may be the proverbial “girl’s best friend,” but diamonds are far from friendly for many of those involved in the mining process.

With abuses ranging from forced labor to the funding of child soldiers, many diamonds still carry the shadow of blood and conflict, even decades after the first attempts to address some of the more troubling practices in getting the stones from their rocky deposits to a glittering setting.

What – if anything – can Catholics do to counter the immense human cost still attached to some of these gems?

Plenty, according to Max Torres, director of management and professor at The Catholic University of America’s business school.

“In this economy, the consumer is king,” he told CNA. “The day that consumers want to get worked up over diamonds, this will stop, whatever abuse it is we’re trying to eradicate, it will stop.”

While there are many steps in the process and levels of moral responsibility from consumers to the diamond exporters themselves, Torres maintained that ordinary people can still work to change large-scale moral problems in the industry.

“Do not underestimate the power of the consumer to move supply-chain decisions throughout the economy,” he stressed.

Clear stones; Blood-red controversies

Despite the 2006 hit film “Blood Diamond,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio, many consumers are still unaware of the controversy surrounding the diamond industry. Meanwhile, the need for accountability and higher ethical standards is still sorely felt by many working to mine the precious gems.

In recent decades, the conversation surrounding diamond mining has focused on the so-called “blood diamonds” – those mined in conflict areas whose profits are used to fund the bloody war efforts.  Also called “conflict diamonds,” these previous stones are most associated with the illicit industries backing of civil wars in Angola, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and Liberia.

These countries all now have, at least in theory, legitimate diamond mining industries subject to international standards.

The most well-known international standard, the Kimberley Process, was set up in 2003 following a United Nations resolution against the sale of blood diamonds, to ensure that any given shipment of diamonds does not finance rebel groups. Certified shipments of rough diamonds must be transported in tamper-resistant containers and must be accompanied by a government certificate verifying their compliance.

But many advocates say the process is inadequate at addressing the problems underlying the diamond industry. For starters, there is no guarantee beside the exporting government’s assurance that a given shipment of diamonds is, in fact, conflict-free. Issues of corruption and bribery surrounding some governments’ certification, and a lack of transparency has led some key groups to pull out of the process altogether.

The 2003 National Geographic special “Diamonds of War” found that despite the early efforts of the Kimberley Process to regulate the industry, illegal transactions at the time were still rampant in some areas. A Sierra Leone official said that some 60 percent of the diamonds exported from the country were smuggled rather than going through officially regulated channels. One expert in the documentary estimated that 20-40 percent of the global rough diamond trade at the time was done illicitly.

Another complaint about the Kimberley Process is that while it works to combat funding of conflicts, it does not deal with other issues in the diamond industry, including forced labor and violence against workers, substandard and exploitative working conditions, the use of child labor and environmental concerns.

These problems show that the current definition of “conflict-free” is “far too limited in scope,” said Jaimie Herrmann, director of marketing for Brilliant Earth, a San Francisco-based jeweler that focuses specifically on providing ethically-sourced diamonds, gemstones and metals.

What the Kimberley Process “doesn’t include is human rights abuses, violence, sexual abuses, and severe environmental degradation, as well as corruption,” Herrmann continued.

“For that reason, we go above and beyond the Kimberley Process’s definition of conflict free,” she said. Brilliant Earth gets its diamonds from select sources in Canada, Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Russia. “We feel like those diamonds really do go above and beyond that guarantee and they are untainted by human rights abuses.”

The chance to establish a legitimate and ethical source of diamonds has also been an economic opportunity for some countries. In Botsawna, the government and DeBeers diamond company each own half of the Debswana mining company, and the nation has seen a rapidly growing economy and increasing economic freedom thanks in part to its booming mining industry and trusted industry standards.

Canada too has invested heavily in its mining infrastructure and increased production, quickly becoming a key diamond-producing country since the discovery of large diamond deposits in the 1990s.

Synthetic diamonds too offer promise for more ethically-produced diamonds, though currently the lab-produced stones comprise only two percent of the diamond gemstone market, with the remainder of the synthetic stones used in industrial settings.

The Ethics of Luxury and Necessity

Dr. Christopher Brugger, professor of moral theology at St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, Colorado, told CNA that in the diamond industry, as in any other work, Catholic social teaching instructs employers that “people come before profit.”

For businesses, he said, this means “pay employees a fair wage; respect the integrity of the marriages and families of employees; respect the faith of employees; permit labor to organize in socially constructive ways; work for fair access for all to goods and services necessary to living a dignified life.”

“Do producers who use their profits to fund conflicts or who use forced labor fulfill those duties?” he asked. “Emphatically no.”

Sustained abuses ranging from the funding of bloody conflicts to mining practices that exploit and demean workers not only fail to fulfill the moral duties of employers, Brugger said. The unjust practices also affirm that the high profits coupled with neglect for moral obligations have been “attracting scoundrels” to the industry.

But business leaders are not the only people with moral stakes in the diamond industry, he continued.

“It seems to me that morally conscientious people have an increasing responsibility to ‘shop ethically,’ i.e., to keep in mind where things come from, the conditions of those who supply things, the processes by which they are supplied,” Brugger suggested.

While it may not be possible to know the sourcing behind every product in every store, he said, it could be easier to find information on larger suppliers and specific industries.

Furthermore, he elaborated, there is a “greater responsibility on a person who is buying luxury items not to cooperate in the immoral actions of suppliers than there is on persons who are purchasing products for basic subsistence.”

“Ordinarily I do not need diamonds or chocolate,” Brugger said. “If we are dealing with luxuries, I think our obligations are still pretty strong to avoid purchasing from sources that do really bad things.”

“As one becomes aware of the ethical conditions surrounding an industry, one’s duty to factor that knowledge into one’s moral decision making becomes greater,” he added, noting that not everyone has the same access to the facts on abuses in a given industry.

“As knowledge of the ethical deficiencies become more widely known and the knowledge becomes easily available, our responsibility to use that knowledge in our shopping becomes greater,” he said. Knowledgeable customers should “inquire into the origins of the diamond they purchase; if shopkeepers are coy and not forthcoming about their sources, consumers ordinarily should look elsewhere.”

A Good Place to Start

Lack of information is “a big part of the problem,” according to Herrmann. She recommended that jewelers seek to trace the origin of their diamonds to countries and mines known for more ethical practices.

“Most jewelers know that their diamond is certified as conflict-free by the Kimberley Process, but do not know any more information about where their diamond is coming from,” she said.

Stephen Hilbert, a foreign policy adviser specializing in Africa and Global Development for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, seconded the suggestion that people looking at diamonds ask where they come from. He added that customers should also ask electronics dealers to check for conflict minerals, which face many of the same concerns as the diamond mining industry. 

“Dealers may not be able to tell you whether their devices have been checked, but at least this raises the profile of the issue and this may trickle up,” he told CNA.

Consumer instance could be the force that leads to tighter standards and improved processes aimed at preventing abuse.

Still, Torres insisted, “no process is perfect.”

The Kimberley Process is a reputable starting point that could “be broadened and be brought more into line with human rights,” he said, and asking about the origin of diamonds “seems to be a rather painless method of at least garnering some amount of accountability.”

But in the end, the moral issues surrounding the industry are fundamentally a problem of human sin, which no process or regulations can erase.

“The only thing that can ensure moral behavior is the heart is human beings,” Torres said. Ultimately, “Jesus Christ is the answer.”

This article was originally published on CNA July 5, 2015.

[…]

Arlington, Va., Jun 6, 2019 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- Sgt. Carl Mann, Sr. died March 30 at the age of 96, almost a month after his son, Fr. Gordon Mann, died of leukemia at the age of 59.

Both of the Manns’ lives were changed forever on June 6, decades apart.

For the patriarch of the Mann family, his life-altering June 6 came in 1944, when he was part of the second wave of soldiers who stormed Omaha Beach as part of the D-Day invasion. Gordon’s was in 1992, when he was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Evansville.

According to Miles and Carl Mann II, two of Carl Sr.’s sons, nobody realized the significance of the overlapped dates until they began planning their father’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery – which was also held June 6.

The brothers do not believe this happened by chance.

“It’s not a coincidence, I promise you,” Miles told CNA. “I’m not good enough to try to coordinate anything like this and put all these pieces together. But God’s perfect and that’s how it happens.”

Their father lived his life by a simple motto: “God, country, and family.”

While in the army, Mann would take time to pray and evangelize, even in the face of death and in the midst of bloodshed.

Mann would baptize soldiers in the middle of battle. Miles said he “was basically just the hands and feet of Jesus to do that.”

Carl II said that his father was willing and able to baptize on the battlefield as he knew that he was “spiritually ready” to die, and wanted to make sure others were as well.

“He just knew there was nothing in the world more important than (baptism),” said Miles. “Not even his own life.”

Some soldiers came to know Christ in their dying moments because of Mann’s battlefield prayers.

“His buddies would ask him was he was doing because they saw him kneeling down praying in the middle of the battle. And, a lot of those men didn’t know who Jesus was,” said Miles. They would ask Mann to teach them how to pray, and he would reply, “just listen.”

“He’d finish the prayer and then they would finish whatever skirmish or battle or event they were in the middle of. Some of them made it, some of them didn’t, but the ones that did not make it, they got to meet Jesus through him.”

Initially, Sgt. Mann was reluctant to discuss his military experience, and would often make jokes relating to his service.

“He would say, ‘Boy, I couldn’t wait to get off that (Omaha) beach. We were out of hotdogs and the ice cream was melting,’” said Miles. That all changed about a decade ago, after he was asked by a grandchild on which side of World War II he had fought.

Realizing that history was at risk of being forgotten, he began to open up more about his service, and shared his story at high schools and to his family. In addition to Normandy, Mann also served in the Battle of the Bulge and assisted in the liberation of two concentration camps. He was awarded three Purple Hearts and seven Bronze Stars, which enabled him to be buried at Arlington.

Sgt. Mann’s priorities of God, country, and family will leave a lasting legacy after his death.

“I think that I could give one perspective on it. It’s Dad’s statement was this: You know, my brother is him,” said Carl II, gesturing around.

“My brothers were willing to die for freedom. He said, ‘but there was only one who died for our sins.’ And that was his faith.”

[…]