Month: May 2018

Denver, Colo., May 18, 2018 / 05:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- It was a quiet Thanksgiving for Kerry.

She and her husband had just retired from the military, and they were home in Colorado Springs with Kerry’s mother-in-law, whom they were taking care of at the time. But the house, with two extra, empty bedrooms upstairs, felt just a little too quiet.

Kerry had no children of her own, but it was around that time that she felt God calling her to foster parenting.

“I just saw this article in the paper for a foster agency and it really spoke to me and I said ‘Ok God this is what you want me to do? Because I’m a little bit old for this.’ But…I felt I was just really made to do this and God said, you can do this!”

It’s something that many Catholic foster parents have in common – the feeling that God called them to open their homes and hearts to foster parenting.

Kerry and her husband began fostering through a local Christian agency called Hope and Home, and after meeting the licensing requirements, embarked on a six-year foster care journey, in which they fostered a total of 10 kids, adopted two, and provided respite care for several other “kiddos,” as Kerry affectionately calls them.

“Foster care is a learning experience, and is probably the hardest yet most rewarding thing I’ve ever done,” Kerry told CNA.

For foster care awareness month, CNA spoke with four Catholic foster parents about their stories, and the faith that inspired them along the way. Only first names have been used to protect the children who have been or are still in their care.

“The greatest of our foster-heartbreaks has become my life’s work” – Kerry, Colorado Springs

Kerry’s family learned a lot, the hard way, from their first foster care placement, a two-year-old named Alex.

“It was hard, as Alex had suffered abuse and neglect and was terrified of all things to do with bedtimes,” Kerry said. “We spent the first week sitting outside the door of his bedroom, because he was terrified to have us in there and yet terrified to be alone.”

About seven months after Alex had been placed in their care, he was returned back to his biological father. Kerry strongly objected to that plan, telling their caseworker that she believed the father was not ready to take his son back.  

Kerry’s objections were overruled, and Alex went home with his biological dad. Nine months later, Kerry learned that Alex had died of severe head trauma while in the care of his dad’s girlfriend. It was because of Alex that she began to research and advocate for the prevention of child abuse.

“The greatest of our foster-heartbreaks has become my life’s work,” Kerry said. “I am part of our county’s Not One More Child Coalition, the secretary for our local Safe Kids Colorado chapter, and the Chair of the Child Abuse Prevention Committee for our local chapter of the Exchange Club,” she said.

“We are also working to establish a child abuse prevention nonprofit called Kyndra’s Hope – named for another local foster girl who actually entered foster care in hospice, as she was not expected to live due to the severe physical abuse by her biological parents. Thanks to the prayers of her adopted mom, Kyndra is now a lively 10-year-old who, despite her disabilities, has beaten the odds.”

Kerry has adopted two of the 10 of her foster children, and provided respite care for numerous others.

Kerry said she felt relief and belonging in her local Catholic parish, because several other families have adopted children and blended families, “so to just go and sit and be a normal family with all the other people there was just really wonderful some days,” she said.

One of the main patron saints she leaned on as a foster parent was St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.

“I was always praying to him for myself and for my kiddos who were really lost, just to help us all find ourselves,” she said.

“What do my pro-life duties entail?” – Scott; Lincoln, Nebraska

Scott and his wife were newlywed “classic, orthodox Catholics” living in Lincoln, Nebraska. While they had no known medical issues, they tried for six years to get pregnant, but it just wasn’t happening.

After mourning the loss possible biological children, the couple began to talk about adoption. While the idea of foster care surfaced at the time, “It scared us a little bit,” Scott told CNA.

They knew that many of the children they would encounter would come from difficult situations, and as first-time parents, they weren’t sure they would be able to handle that.

They adopted a son, Anthony, but they still felt the desire for more children. When they considered a second adoption, they were encouraged to look more seriously into foster care.

They took the foster parent preparation class, but still felt some hesitation, and so they “kicked the can down the road” a little longer. But something happened at their city’s annual Walk for Life that stayed with Scott.

“We go to the Walk for Life every year, and there’s a lady there every year, she had this sign and it basically said ‘Foster, adopt or shut up.’ That was what she was saying as a counter-protest to a pro-life group,” Scott recalled.

“It’s something that stuck with me because I thought you know, what do my pro-life duties entail?”

Soon after, he and his wife felt called by God to open up their home to foster children. They told the agency, thinking they would wait another year or two before getting a placement.

Ten days later, a little two-year-old named Jonathan came to stay with them. Even though he was young, the family has had to work with him on some deep-seated anger issues and speech delay problems.  

“This is really pro-life,” Scott said of foster care and adoption.

“This birth mom chose life, but she can’t raise this child, and so my wife and I are going to take the ball and we’re going to do the hard work and we’re going to get through this.”

“I really feel like God called us to this, and called us to this little boy,” he added. “You can’t ignore the call – or you shouldn’t – it’s similar to a vocational call in my opinion.”

Something else that struck Scott throughout the process was how much foster parenting is promoted in Evangelical churches, including those sponsoring their family’s agency- and how infrequently he heard it mentioned in Catholic ones.

“I would say that [Evangelicals] do a fabulous job in their churches as far as promoting foster care and getting lots of families to participate,” Scott said. “And we’ve got the one true faith, so I want our families and couples to learn about this and possibly participate in it,” he added.

“I know it’s not for everybody, but there’s lots of different things other than taking a child that you can do,” he said, such as mentoring a child or offering support to other foster parents.

“We’ve always had a special spot in our heart for kids in foster care” – Jami; Omaha, Nebraska

Jami’s family, like Scott’s family, experienced a time of infertility before deciding to look into foster care or adoption as a way to grow their family.

But they were also drawn to it in other ways. Before they were married, Jami and her husband had volunteered at a summer camp that united foster care kids with siblings living in other foster homes.

“We volunteered for that as camp counselors, so we’ve always had a special spot in our heart for kids in foster care, so we wanted to try it out for that reason also,” Jami told CNA.

Jami had also grown up in Omaha, Nebraska, the home of Boystown, a temporary home for troubled boys and youth founded in 1917 by Servant of God Father Edward Flanagan.

“I have a special relationship with him, even when I was younger, I used to think he was so cool,” Jami said. “And all through us fostering, I would pray to him and through him because he knows, he helped these kids in trauma.”  

Jami and her husband took an infant, Bennett, into their home. His older sister was placed in a different foster home while they waited to see if the children could be reunited with their mother.

It was an “emotional rollercoaster,” Jami said, because she knew she needed to bond with Bennett, while she also had to be prepared to let him go at any moment.

“I would pray through Fr. Flanagan and tell him just ‘please.’ I trust God and his choice in whether this kid goes home or not, because that was also really hard – I was feeling guilty for wanting to keep the baby, because it’s not yours. We’re there to help the parents,” she said.

“So I really believe that (Fr. Flanagan) was holding this whole situation, he just took care of it,” she said.

“The most challenging thing is letting yourself go, letting yourself bond with the child and not trying to protect your own heart,” Jami said, “and then coping with the emotional roller coaster because that can put a lot of stress on yourself, your husband, the whole family.”

“But the most rewarding part is helping these families, helping the parents have the time they need to overcome whatever challenges they’re facing,” she said. “And getting to bond with the (child) is such a gift because literally if you don’t give it who will? And that is such a gift to give a child.”

“This is hardcore Gospel living” – Michaela; St. Louis, Missouri

Michaela’s foster parent journey differs from many others. She and her husband already had children – four of them, all in grade school or younger – when she felt God was calling her to consider adoption.

When the topic of adoption was brought up during her bible study, “my heart just started burning for adoption, the Spirit was moving within me, but I knew that was not something I could just impose on my family or my marriage,” Michaela, who lives in St. Louis, Missouri, told CNA.

She decided to keep the inspiration quiet, and told God that if this is something he really wanted from her family, then her husband would have to voice the same desires first.

So she never mentioned it to her husband. But one day, some time later, he came to breakfast and said out of the blue: “I think we’re being called to adoption.”

As their research into adoption began, they realized that they didn’t feel called to infant or international adoption – two of the most common routes. They realized that God was actually calling them to foster care.

“It was exactly the desire of our heart, it was where God was calling,” Michaela said.  

The prerequisites for foster care include classes that prepare foster parents for worst-case scenarios – children who come from broken, traumatic situations who will exhibit difficult behaviors.

But to Michaela’s surprise, “They come and they’re just the most innocent children, this pure innocence comes from a broken life, they don’t resemble the brokenness that they come from.”

Michaela’s family is relatively new to fostering – they started just six months ago – and already they’ve had four children between the ages of one and seven placed with their family.

One of the most rewarding things about foster parenting has been the lessons her biological children are learning from the experience, Michaela said.  

“These aspects of the Gospel we cannot teach our children – I cannot teach you how to lay down your life for someone else. But I can show you with this,” Michaela said.

“This is Gospel, this is hardcore Gospel living.”

The hardest part about foster parenting can be letting go – the goal of foster parenting is not to keep the children, but to provide them a temporary home while their biological family can get back on their feet, Michaela said.

Michaela said that’s a concern about foster parenting that she often hears: “What if I get too attached? Isn’t it too hard?”

“These children deserve to be attached to, so they deserve us to love them so that it hurts us when they leave,” she said.

For this reason, she asks case workers to let herself and her children accompany the foster child to their next home – whether that’s with their parents or with another foster or adoptive family.

“It’s super hard for us, but it’s really good for the kids to see us cry, to know that they are loved that much, that someone would cry over them,” she said.

Michaela said she found great support as a foster parent through the Catholic Church and also through other Christian denominations.

“Our own church totally opened their arms to us, and brings over clothes and car seats and was just hugely supportive and welcoming when new kids come to church,” she said.

“Other churches have provided meals – there’s just such a community within the church, within foster care. They’re all telling us they’re praying for us – so it’s the bigger body of Christ within the foster community,” she said.

Michaela encouraged couples who are considering becoming foster parents to trust God and lean on their faith, even when it may seem like a difficult or impossible task.

“When he calls us to those scary, unknown places he provides, he just shows up in ways that we could have never planned for or imagined,” she said. “He does, he makes a way.”

Adoption and foster care programs for Catholic families can be found through local Catholic Charities or Catholic Social Service branches.

 

 

 

 

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Washington D.C., May 17, 2018 / 07:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Trump administration on Friday will announce a plan to ensure that Title X family planning funding does not go to programs or facilities that promote or perform abortions, CNA has learned.

The measure would dramatically curtail federal funding to abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood.

According to a Trump administration official, the Health and Human Services Department will file a proposal with the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that abortion is not treated as a method of family planning under Title X.

While federal law currently prohibits money received through the Title X Family Planning Grant Program from being used for abortion, pro-life advocates have long voiced concern that this regulation is not always enforced.

The proposal will require a strict physical and financial line of separation between Title X programs and any program or facility that performs abortion, or supports or refers for abortion as a family planning method, the official said.

It will not decrease the amount of Title X funding, which annually provides $260 million for family planning purposes, including contraception, pregnancy testing, and infertility treatments.

The new rule is based off a regulation issued by President Ronald Reagan, which was upheld by the Supreme Court, but was later reversed by President Bill Clinton. The new regulation differs from that of the Reagan era in that it will not ban Title X recipients from counseling clients about abortion.

The Trump administration official said the proposal will aid in transparency and integrity, allowing better monitoring of Title X fund recipients. It will also require Title X recipients to document how they follow state laws on reporting suspected cases of sexual assault, incest and rape.

Planned Parenthood would not explicitly be defunded under the new proposal. However, it would be required to separate abortion from its services in order to continue receiving Title X funds.

Last year, Trump signed a repeal of an Obama-era regulation which had prohibited states from denying federal funds to health clinics solely on the grounds that they provided abortions.

Trump also reinstated and expanded the Mexico City Policy, which states that foreign non-governmental organizations may not receive federal funding if they perform or promote abortions as a method of family planning.

His administration has cut funding for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) over the agency’s support for Chinese coercive population control programs.

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Hilo, Hawaii, May 17, 2018 / 04:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With ongoing volcanic activity continuing to threaten the area surrounding Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, local Catholics are offering a helping hand to those who have been evacuated.

Fr. Ernest Juarez Jr. of Sacred Heart Parish in Pahoa said that the parish has “opened its doors to be a centralized location for the different government agencies, and for the [affected] public to come and get information, permission cards to enter the affected area, and other kinds of assistance.”

The parish said in a statement this week that it has worked “to contact members of the parish who live in affected neighborhoods to find out how we can help.”

Relief efforts have included sign-up sheets to offer temporary rooms or houses for those who have been evacuated, as well as transportation and assistance with other personal needs. The parish has been collecting pillows and blankets, preparing meals for distribution at the food pantry, and offering to talk and pray with those staying in a shelter.

“The main needs are housing, transportation, and money,” Fr. Juarez told CNA.  

Blankets, toiletries, and tents are also needed. Food has been abundant, thanks to the generosity of donors, he said.

In the early hours of May 17, the Kilauea volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island erupted for the second time in two weeks, shooting a plume of ash and smoke 12,000 feet into the air. The previous eruption, which took place May 3, was followed by earthquakes and the emergence of 21 fissures, some in residential neighborhoods. More than 117 acres of the island have been covered by lava.

According to the Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency, Kilauea has destroyed 36 structures, mostly homes, since the lava began spewing. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory also issued a hazardous fumes warning due to elevated levels of sulfur dioxide in the air.

Some 2,000 Hawaiians were evacuated in the days following the initial eruption.

Fr. Juarez said that “attitudes and emotions are everything you can imagine” – relief at being safe and hopefulness about returning home, frustration and heartbreak at damaged houses, worry for neighbors, and uncertainty over what will happen next.

While the situation is overwhelming for some, Fr. Juarez said, the people of Hawaii are in good hands with the state, local and national response teams.

“The people who are scared are those who don’t understand what is going on here and are scared for us,” he stressed, adding, “No one is in any danger as long as they heed the instructions put in place for safety.”

Although local schools were closed for the day and levels of sulfuric gas and volcanic smoke are high, the priest said that “lives are not in danger.”

“It is predicted that the trade[winds] will return tomorrow, and all of the bad air will blow out to the ocean,” he said. “If that happens, our air will be fine.”  

Fr Robert Stark, director of the Diocese of Honolulu’s Office for Social Ministry, said that the diocese is involved in relief efforts primarily through HOPE Services Hawaii, which was founded by his diocesan office and is located near the eruption area.

“HOPE is working closely with state and county government to respond to the most vulnerable affected by the eruptions,” Stark told CNA. “HOPE was asked by state and county to convene the service providers in the area to coordinate their response.”

In addition, he said, HOPE is helping with both fundraising and offering direct assistance to those affected by the volcano.

Catholic Charities of Hawaii will be working in the coming weeks and months to help those whose homes have been damaged or destroyed, aiding with temporary housing subsidies and emergency house repairs.

“We understand that certain agencies and first responders are there…to ensure the health and safety of those being affected,” said Terry Walsh, president and CEO of Catholic Charities Hawaii. “[Our] role is to assist those affected through recovery efforts during these disasters.”

The agency said in a statement that is also assisted in “long-term recovery efforts during the last lava flow through Puna in 2014 and following the 2006 Hawaii Island earthquake.”

The state agency has applied for $10,000 emergency seed grants through Catholic Charities USA.

Catholic Charities Hawaii is also asking for donations to assist those affected by the volcano, as well as continued recovery efforts in Kauai and Oahu, where severe flooding and landslides last month damaged hundreds of homes and causes some $20 million in damage to public property, according to Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency.

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Philadelphia, Pa., May 17, 2018 / 02:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A group of foster parents and social workers appeared in court on Wednesday, asking that the city of Philadelphia rescind its decision to ban a Catholic organization from placing children in foster homes.

The plaintiffs of Sharonell Fulton et al. v. City of Philadelphia told a US District Court May 16 that they are being discriminated against because of their agency’s deeply-held religious beliefs.

For over a century, Philadelphia has worked with Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (CSS) to facilitate the placement of children in foster care. Catholic Social Services has assisted with home visits, training of foster parents, and placements. At any given time CSS serves about 120 foster children in 100 foster homes. In 2017, the charity says it helped more than 2,200 children in the Philadelphia area.

In March, CSS was informed that the city would no longer be referring foster children to the agency for assistance. Philadelphia then passed a resolution calling for an investigation into religiously-based foster care services, after a same-sex couple claimed they were discriminated against by a different faith-based agency.

CSS has not been the subject of discrimination complaints by same-sex couples. The agency says that it assists all children in need, regardless of a child’s race, color, sex, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.

“Catholic Social Services will not stand in the way of anyone who wants to try and become a foster parent,” said Lori Windham, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Becket is providing counsel for the case.

“They’re simply asking that they can continue to serve the children of Philadelphia consistent with their faith.”

The suit’s lead plaintiff, Sharonell Fulton, has “fostered more than 40 children over 25-plus years as a foster parent. She has cared for children with significant medical needs and is currently caring for two special needs foster children,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit claims that Fulton “could not provide the extensive care that these special-needs children require without the support she receives from Catholic Social Services.”

Other plaintiffs include a foster parent recognized in 2015 as one Philadelphia’s “Foster Parents of the Year,” and a long-time social worker, herself a foster parent, who claims that she would likely discontinue providing foster care to children if she could not work with CSS. The agency itself is also a plaintiff in the lawsuit.

If the city declines to renew its current contract with CSS, which expires at the end of June, there’s a chance that children in CSS foster-care placements will be immediately removed from their homes. Windham, however, is hopeful that this will not be the case.

Since the policy went into place, Philadelphia has put out calls for new foster parents, as the city is facing a severe shortage. According to Windham, there are at least a dozen empty foster homes in the city–which are empty because they work with CSS.

Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s Chief Communications Officer Kenneth Gavin told CNA that the archdiocese is disappointed that the city decided to stop partnering with CSS, despite its history of providing care for children.

“Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia (CSS) recognizes the vital importance of the foster care program in our city and is proud to provide safe and nurturing foster environments to young people in need. We have been providing those environments for over a century. We were extremely disappointed when the City ceased new foster care child intakes with CSS in late March of this year,” said Gavin.
 
Gavin said the foster care program provides care “for all those in need with dignity, charity, and respect regardless of their background.” Given that the Philadelphia is in “a foster care crisis,” Gavin said he hopes that CSS will be permitted to continue providing care for needy children.
 
The lawsuit is expected to be heard later this year.
 

 

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