Why hundreds are still drawn to the powerful legacy of the ‘Rosary Priest’

CNA Staff, Oct 19, 2020 / 08:00 pm (CNA).- Abortion-advocacy groups have called for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) to step down as ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee after the confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett. 

In an Oct. 16, statement, Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL, called for “new leadership” for Democrats on the committee following Feinstein’s polite tone in remarks at the conclusion of the four days of Senate hearings last week. 

During the hearing on Thursday, Feinstein thanked Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, for presiding over “one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in.” 

“I want to thank you for your fairness and the opportunity of going back and forth,” she said.

“It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions, and even some ideas–perhaps some good bipartisan legislation we can put together to make this great country even better,” said Feinstein, who is pro-choice, has not supported the nomination of Barrett to the Supreme Court, and has in the past criticized the judge’s Catholicism.

The two senators then shook hands and embraced. 

Feinstein’s remarks to Graham, Hogue alleged, lent an “appearance of credibility to the proceedings,” one that is “widely out of step with the American people.” 

“As such, we believe the committee needs new leadership,” she said, calling Barrett’s confirmation process “illegitimate” and “a sham.” 

Hogue said that Barrett, a Catholic, an appeals court judge, law professor, and mother of seven, poses “a grave threat to every freedom and right we hold dear and tears the very fabric of our democracy.” 

“Americans–whose lives hang in the balance–deserve leadership that underscores how unprecedented, shameful and wrong this process is.”

Barrett was nominated to the position of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court on September 26, eight days after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. 

Feinstein has served as ranking member of the committee since January 2017. During hearings that year for Barrett’s confirmation to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, Feinstein challenged Barrett over her Catholic faith, observing to Barrett that “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.”

NARAL has consistently endorsed Feinstein during her time in the Senate, saying in 2018 that she is “at the forefront of the movement to safeguard our rights.” 

“We need leaders in the Senate like Senator Feinstein who will stand up for the rights of women and families across California,” said NARAL in their 2018 endorsement. 

NARAL was not the only organization calling for Feinstein to step down from her position. The group Demand Justice started a petition drive calling for Feinstein to resign from the committee, stating that the senator’s “behavior during Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings demonstrates that she is only standing in our way of fighting to protect our courts.”

“Sen. Feinstein has undercut Democrats’ position at every step of this process, from undermining calls for filibuster and Court reform straight through to thanking Republicans for the most egregious partisan power grab in the modern history of the Supreme Court,” said the petition.

Justice Democrats, which aims to elect progressive candidates to Congress, echoed the calls for Feinstein to depart from the Judiciary Committee, tweeting “Dianne Feinstein must step down.”

Feinstein, who has consistently supported pro-abortion policy in the Senate, opposed Barrett’s nomination since the president announced it, calling it “unprecedented” and criticizing the speed at which it was happening. 

“The rush to confirm Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court is unprecedented in my time on the committee,” said Feinstein on October 15. 

“The process exists for a reason, so we can adequately question and evaluate a nominee. There’s absolutely no need to jam this nominee through before a consequential election.”

While NARAL says Feinstein has not done enough, the senator has indicated repeatedly that she will not be voting to confirm Barrett to the Supreme Court. 

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Baltimore, Md., Nov 11, 2019 / 11:35 am (CNA).- Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, outgoing president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, highlighted Monday his experience leading the conference and detailing his personal growth over the last three years as his presidential term comes to an end.

“My service as president has been a continual reminder that, indeed, ‘the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it,’” DiNardo said at the US bishops’ autumn general assembly in Baltimore Nov. 11. While “our present culture can seem overtaken by various ideological or political divisions,” bishops and other followers of Christ need to be different, he affirmed.

“Follow a simple truth: ‘God is always courteous,’” said DiNardo. “Let us be courteous.”

DiNardo remarked that while his tenure was during the “difficult times within our own Church,” that the bishops must continue to seek justice and to work for “relationships that are ordered in the right way–that is, towards the salvation of souls, including our own.”

DiNardo presided over the USCCB after it came to light that former cardinal Theodore McCarrick sexually abused minors and seminarians on many occasions, as well as during the release of a grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania. Other states have since begun grand jury investigations.

Properly ordered relationships, said the cardinal, exclude any trace of clericalism. An ordained man cannot act “as if he is a lord and master” over others, he said.

“The privilege of a cleric is to be a humble servant to all,” he said. “Justice demands that those who are shepherds should lead from in front, as courage requires, and from behind, as humility requires, going to those who are lost.”

The cardinal said that his experience meeting with victims of sexual abuse as president of the conference was one that “forever changed” his life.

“When too many within the Church sought to keep them in the darkness, they refused to be relegated to the shadows,” said DiNardo. “Their witness brought help to countless fellow survivors. It fueled the resolve of my brother bishops to respond with pastoral support and prevention programs.”

Sexual abuse victims empowered the bishops “with the knowledge needed to respond,” said DiNardo.

“We must never stop striving for justice and working unceasingly to prevent any future abuse from happening,” he said. “The measures we approved last June are a beginning of this renewed striving, but they are only a beginning – more needs to and will be done.”

“Traveling on your behalf these past three years, it was a privilege to learn from so many people along the way,” said DiNardo.

He spoke about his time visiting the border detention centers, and witnessing the faith of the children who were detained and separated from their parents, as well as his experience with other bishops visiting refugees and volunteers at respite centers.

“I met dozens of children who called upon their Catholic faith and the firm knowledge that Christ and His Church would be present with them. Along with my brother bishops, we went because Jesus was already there. We followed our shepherd,” said DiNardo. He extended an invitation to all present to “share our journey of solidarity with migrants and refugees.”

DiNardo said that workers at respite centers, who provided medical care and other needs for people at the border, were “doing God’s work,” as were people who worked at pregnancy centers. He praised the work of pregnancy centers, as well as public policy advocates seeking to change the country’s healthcare system.

“The continued fight to defend unborn children is one of the most significant things we do,” said DiNardo. “And it will remain so as long as the most innocent lives are left unprotected.”

The cardinal’s successor as USCCB president will be elected Nov. 12. The bishops are almost certain to choose Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, who is currently vice president of the conference.

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Denver, Colo., Aug 5, 2017 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With awareness of mental health conditions on the rise, how is the Church called to respond to those who do not simply wish to end their lives, but push for the right to do so legally?

Adam Maier-Clayton was a young Canadian activist who suffered from a variety of mental health issues and began campaigning for just such a law after his symptoms worsened.

The 27-year-old, who spent the final years of his life promoting such activism, from childhood had suffered from anxiety, depression, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. He had been to therapy and tried medication.

However, his symptoms worsened drastically at age 23, when he experimented with marijuana. He spent about a week in and out of the hospital, his father told the BBC, and began suffering severe physical pain. Any cognitive activity, such as reading, writing, or even sustained conversation, would trigger the pain, which had no evident physical cause.

Adam’s new symptoms were ultimately attributed to a somatic symptom disorder. The condition is little understood, but the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5) notes that it is often co-morbid with depressive disorders.

As a result of this condition, Adam developed suicidal thoughts, according to the BBC piece. For someone in his situation, this is far from unusual, according to the DSM-5.

“Our first response to somebody who is suicidal really needs to be compassion,” Dr. Jim Langley of St. Raphael’s Counseling in Denver told CNA of suicidal tendencies. “For someone to want to take their own life, they must be suffering to a large degree. The drive for survival is very, very strong in us.”

In June of last year, Canada passed Bill C-14, the country’s right to die legislation. The law allows adult persons perceived to be at the end of their life whose deterioration has been deemed irreversible to request euthanization. The Church is opposed to all forms of euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide.

Adam began campaigning for a change to the law, so that its provisions would be extended to people with mental disorders. He expressed frustration with the crippling nature of the disease.

However, finding a new way of life accommodated for the illness is key to finding meaning amid the suffering, Langley emphasized. That meaning is important in recovery and developing the ability to bear the suffering and thus continue living.

“Somatoform disorder can take all sorts of different forms,” he said, “but when it happens it definitely can incapacitate people in things that mean a lot to them… I’d be working with him to find more useful things that he could do with himself, whatever that is. It might even be raising awareness about somatoform disorder.”

According to Langley, “People who in general have meaningful relationships can overcome all sorts of different pain. My guess is, even if he had parents who were supportive of him taking his own life, he must have felt like he had fallen out of his community.”

Adam, however, became devoted to advocating the legalization of physician-assisted suicide for those with mental conditions perceived to be unbearable. His parents supported him in this effort.

“The legislation literally forces people to kill themselves in an undignified manner,” he said on his YouTube channel.

However, the logic of a “death with dignity” by suicide is flawed, according to Dr. Greg Battaro of the CatholicPsych Institute.

“Where they’re claiming the right to choose to die, based on the dignity of the person, is an error in their logic. It’s because precisely of the dignity of the person that we don’t have the right to choose how we’re born or die. The dignity of the person is greater than what they presume it to be.”

Adam ultimately took his life using an illegally imported drug mixture April 13, 2017, after checking into a motel room that morning.

“My son deserved to die with dignity, with his family and his friends beside him, in his own, comfy bed,” his mother, Maggie Maier, says in her closing remarks in a YouTube video, having just read the letter he had written her before taking his life.

In that eulogy, she noted that had she and Adam’s father been present, they could have been criminally prosecuted. She characterized her son as having been forced to take his own life by himself by Canada’s law.

Battaro also described the legalization of euthanasia as a “complete and utter failure of the medical system and of the government in providing the hope that people would need to actually get better.”

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) refused to comment for this story. Both the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the U.S. and the KidsHelpPhone in Canada did not respond to CNA’s request for comment.

The Center for Disease Control’s guidelines on media coverage of suicide warn against “(p)resenting suicide as a tool for accomplishing certain ends” or “(g)lorifying suicide or persons who complete suicide,” as such coverage is “likely to contribute to suicide contagion.”

“Such actions may contribute to suicide contagion by suggesting to susceptible persons that society is honoring the suicidal behavior of the deceased person, rather than mourning the person’s death,” the guidelines state.

A video accompanying the BBC piece contains speakers who suggest that the exclusion of mental health cases from the Canadian law stems from a stigma around psychiatric issues.

However, legalizing suicide will not serve to fight existing stigmas around mental issues, as the advocacy of Adam and his parents suggested, but will only legitimize that aversion to mental issues further, said Battaro.

“It’s taking that avoidance to the extreme,” according to Battaro. “We’re just going to make these people disappear.”

Additionally, the “moral stigma,” as Langley described, around suicide can often save lives.

“Sometimes, it’s just the desire to not want to make an immoral decision that keeps people alive, if they’re suffering from a mental illness,” he said, although we must also keep in mind that their pain is often so great that moral decision-making is impaired.

How can suffering be redemptive?

In Adam’s case, Battaro said, “(t)here was a total absence of understanding of anything good coming from suffering. Helping somebody process the meaning of their suffering would help move towards a different conclusion. There’s really almost nothing as unbearable as suffering without meaning, or purposeless suffering.”

Both Battaro and Langley emphasized the need to find purpose, meaning, and redemption amid the suffering of our lives.

First, as Christians, we believe that our suffering is redemptive as it is joined to Christ’s suffering on the cross, Langley said.

“If you look at the cross, that is the perfect answer to the problem of suffering. Jesus is up there on the cross, and he’s saying, ‘Me too. I suffer too.’”

But what does this purpose, this meaning of suffering look like? How do we lift our view past the notion that pain is meaningless and to be avoided at all costs?

According to Battaro, “we’re talking about the invitation to join to the suffering of Christ, and to be united to him in his suffering. We see that our human concept of fulfillment is really limited unless we open it up to the Resurrection, that understanding that death is not the end, and there’s something past it, but it’s only through the doorway of suffering that we enter into the Resurrection.”

But communicating this redemptive image of our mental and physical anguish to those who do not share our beliefs requires conviction on the part of Christians, Battaro said.

“The first thing we need to do is work on ourselves, change our own understanding and pray for the grace of faith so that we can really believe in the hope of redemptive suffering ourselves, and not live lives which are catered to avoiding every ounce of suffering we can,” said Battaro.

This redemption of suffering can be found in even the hardest of cases, according to Battaro.

“For most disorders, even the one that Adam suffered from, there’s hope.”

Mental illness and euthanasia – what’s it like where it is legal?

The proposal to include mental illness in the criteria for euthanasia and assisted suicide is not new. Such provisions already exist both in Belgium and the Netherlands.

In the Netherlands, from 2010 to 2015, euthanasia in the case of psychiatric disorders grew from just two cases to 56.

From 2014 to 2015, 124 cases of euthanasia in Belgium involved patients with a “mental and behavioral disorder.” Five persons diagnosed with autism were killed.

According to a piece from February 2016 in the New York Times, most of those euthanized in Belgium for psychiatric reasons suffered from depression or, even more prevalent, loneliness. The depression cases were often co-morbid with issues such as substance abuse, dementia, or physical pain.

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