How some Catholic schools approached the National School Walkout over guns

March 14, 2018 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Denver, Colo., Mar 14, 2018 / 03:09 pm (CNA).- On Wednesday, thousands of students throughout the United States walked out of classrooms as part of National School Walkout, a demonstration calling for safer schools and increased gun control, in the wake of the February high school shooting that left 17 Florida students dead.

Many of the walkouts were planned to last 17 minutes, in honor of each of the students who were shot and killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida on Feb. 14. Many Catholic schools used the day as a chance to call their students to prayer, either in addition to or instead of a walkout.

Schools in the Archdiocese of New Orleans were asked to hold 17 minutes of prayer in solidarity with shooting victims and the walkouts. The prayer services included the rosary, as well as the archdiocesan prayer against violence, murder and racism, which is recited regularly at Masses in the region.

“We didn’t hear of any schools or students participating (in the walk-out), but we were hearing from our school communities, ‘What could we do, what could we offer in support of lessening gun violence?’” Dr. RaeNell Houston, superintendent of Catholic Schools in New Orleans, told the Clarion Herald.

“Our children deserve to be safe in our school communities,” Houston added. “But we felt intentional, dedicated prayer would yield more fruitful results than a walkout. I am a witness to how God answers prayer. And we felt our time was best utilized and our statement would be bold if we dedicated that 17 minutes of prayer on behalf of the Florida victims and our country and for the safety of our children.”

Cardinal Ritter College Prep, a Catholic urban high school in St. Louis, participated in an organized school event.

Students left campus at 9:30 am and walked to nearby St. Francis Xavier Church on the campus of St. Louis University. Ronnie Robinson, the father of a recent graduate, was invited to participate in the march. Robinson and his family have lost two sons to gun violence in recent years.

After a period of prayer and silence, students returned to their classrooms to discuss the events of the day, to review the school’s active shooter policy, and to resume classes.

Elias Mendoza, principal of St. Francis Catholic High School in Sacramento, California sent a memo to parents in early March, in anticipation of the walkouts, noting that school officials recognized both the students concerns and as well as their own obligation as school employees to remain politically neutral.

Instead of a walkout, St. Francis offered a prayer service for peace and healing, noting safety concerns regarding students leaving campus in the middle of the school day.

“Together with students and school leaders, we’re working to provide students with an alternative avenue to express their viewpoints in a constructive and meaningful way, while remaining on campus, where safety measures are in place to ensure supervision and security,” Mendoza said in his letter.

“At St. Francis, we care about our (students), our families, and the faith-based community we represent.  Moving forward, I ask for your prayers and partnership in doing all that we can to reassure our students and to make them strong resilient young women,” he concluded.

The Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey said on Twitter that several of the schools participated in the national walk out, and held prayer services afterward.

 

 

Today, #Catholic Schools throughout the Archdiocese of Newark took a stand against gun violence by participating in the #NationalWalkoutDay. Several schools, including St. Mary of the Assumption and Saint Dominic Academy, held prayer services following the #Walkout. #Enough pic.twitter.com/sk9Xcf1Q14

— Newark Archdiocese (@NwkArchdiocese) March 14, 2018

 

 

 

Sister Brittany Harrison, FMA, is the Theology Department Chair at Mary Help of Christians Academy in New Jersey.

In an interview about the walkouts with Relevant Radio, Harrison said that she was inspired by the students throughout the country who were “deciding to rise up, make their voices heard, and make social change.”

“As a Salesian, that’s what I believe in, the power of young people. So to see them doing that is just an incredible thing for me,” she said.

Harrison said that while the official walkout, sponsored by the organizers of the national Women’s March, was focused on gun control legislation, her students wanted to make their event less political and more focused on school safety in general.

Rather than the walkout, the school held a prayer service and also gave students time to write government officials about the changes they’d like to see.

“As Catholics we can really model what it is to affect social change, and our young people really want to do that,” she said.

The Diocese of Peoria, Illinois encouraged its students to take part in some kind of alternative, prayerful show of solidarity rather than the walkout, citing concerns about some of the sponsors of the national walk-out as well as safety concerns.

“Unfortunately, some of the sponsors of the National School Walkout advocate for positions that are contrary to the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of human life in all of its stages,” the Office of Catholic Schools stated in a letter to diocesan Catholic school officials.

“Due to this fact, as well as concerns for student safety on this day of national attention, our schools are directed to not permit students to stage a walkout.”

Instead, the letter suggested that diocesan schools hold Masses or prayer services for the victims.

Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit held memorial services for the victims of the Parkland shooting, including posters with pictures and brief biographies of the victims.

 

Students and faculty at @Shrine_Schools gathered this morning for a memorial service in honor of the victims of the #ParklandSchoolShooting #NationalWalkoutDay pic.twitter.com/IR3ZIijecZ

— Detroit Archdiocese (@DetroitCatholic) March 14, 2018

 

 

 

Queen of Angels elementary school in the Archdiocese of Atlanta said on Twitter that they were hosting a “walk in” rather than a walkout, and used the day as a time to encourage their students to focus on ways they could be kinder and more inclusive.

 

 

#WalkIn-Today at 10 AM while students across the nation #walkout in protest of gun violence, QA students will spend 17 minutes reaching out to others that we don’t spend enough time getting to know, and praying that all young people feel included in their communities. pic.twitter.com/civ6qR3JTC

— QA Catholic School (@QASchool) March 14, 2018

 

 

 

In Erie, Pennsylvania, two Catholic schools – Cathedral Preparatory School and Villa Maria Academy – held school-wide Masses and prayer services for the victims and for peace. Father Scott Jabo, president of the schools, told Fox News that the schools considered how they could approach the walkout day differently as a Catholic school.

“By praying for the victims, we could bring a great focus to the victims in this situation, and by unified prayer, we could have a powerful impact,” Jabo said.

He added that at the prayer service, the names and a short biography of each of the 17 Parkland victims would be read aloud, “to make it real that these are real people who died.”

“(We’re) doing something that was a Catholic school we can and should do and that is pray, and unleash that power of prayer,” he said.

 

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Ethical concerns raised as human embryonic gene editing continues in US

February 1, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

New York City, N.Y., Feb 1, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A scientist in at Columbia University in New York is conducting controversial gene-editing experiments on human embryos, according to a recent report from NPR.

Dieter Egli, a developmental biologist, is experimenting with CRISPR technology to edit genes in order to prevent certain hereditary genetic diseases and mutations, such as blindness or cystic fibrosis.

In his lab, Egli uses human ova and sperm, along with the CRISPR tool, to create genetically edited embryos. He told NPR that the human embryos that he creates and edits are not allowed to develop beyond a day.

This kind of research is currently banned from receiving federal funding, but can be conducted using private funding. The Food and Drug Administration prohibits gene modification on viable human embryos, which means any genetically modified human embryos must be destroyed, rather than brought to term.

While Egli said that he wants to use the research to prevent diseases, some scientists worry about the ethical implications of such research if it were used haphazardly.

Already in China, a scientist has been condemned both by his university and by civil authorities for creating genetically modified babies, using CRISPR, for seven couples. Researcher He Jiankui claimed in November that these embryos had already resulted in the birth of a set of genetically modified twins, though there has been no independent confirmation of his claim.

In a letter signed by 120 Chinese scientists, He was condemned for ignoring ethical guidelines. The letter called the gene manipulation a “Pandora’s box,” and said “The biomedical ethics review for this so-called research exists in name only. Conducting direct human experiments can only be described as crazy.”

Fyodor Urnov, associate director of the Altius Institute for Biomedical Sciences in Seattle, told NPR that he found it “really disturbing” that gene-editing research was continuing in the United States.

“As we’ve learned from the events in China, it is no longer a hypothetical that somebody will just go ahead and go rogue and do something dangerous, reckless, unethical,” Urnov says.

One of the biggest ethical concerns of the medical community regarding gene editing is that it could lead to the creation of “designer babies” and a society in which genetically modified people are seen as superior to genetically unedited people.

“Anyone with a connection to the Internet will be able to download the recipe to make a designer baby,” Urnov says. “And then the question becomes: ‘What’s to prevent them from using it?’ As we learned in the past year: apparently nothing.”

Catholic bioethicists have previously raised serious concerns about gene-editing research and technology.

Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Director of Education for The National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA in 2017 that embryonic gene editing is morally objectionable because it treats “very young humans…not as ends, but as mere means or research fodder to achieve particular investigative goals.”

At the time, he was responding to news that a team of scientists at Oregon Health and Science University had used CRISPR to edit the genes of human embryos. While gene editing may have laudable goals, such as preventing diseases, the means of killing human embryos cannot justify those intrinsically evil ends, he said.

“Their value as human beings is profoundly denigrated every time they are created, experimented upon, and then killed. Moreover, if such embryos were to grow up, as will doubtless occur in the future, there are likely to be unintended effects from modifying their genes,” Fr. Pacholczyk added.

While gene editing research is beginning to be explored and discussed in various countries throughout the world, most places have urged extreme caution and have laws in place that thus far prohibit genetically edited pregnancies.

Urnov told NPR that the research should be stopped until every ethical dilemma can be addressed.

“We need to hit the pause button and keep it pressed until we understand how do we proceed in a way that minimizes the risk of people going rogue,” Urnov says.

J. Benjamin Hurlbut, an associate professor of biology and society at Arizona State University, told NPR that he would also urge extreme caution for gene editing technologies.

“If we’ve learned anything from what’s happened in China, it’s that the urge to race ahead pushes science to shoot first and ask questions later,” he told NPR. “But this is a domain where we should be asking questions first. And maybe never shooting. What’s the rush?”

 

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