Passing opioid bill an important first step in addressing crisis, bishop says

Albany, N.Y., Aug 6, 2018 / 04:45 pm (CNA).- The Bishop of Albany said Monday that a commission of lay Catholics should be formed to investigate claims of abuse or misconduct made against bishops.

“What is needed now is an independent commission led by well-respected, faithful lay leaders who are beyond reproach, people whose role on such a panel will not serve to benefit them financially, politically, or personally,” Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of Albany wrote in a statement released Aug. 6.

“I think we have reached a point where bishops alone investigating bishops is not the answer. To have credibility, a panel would have to be separated from any source of power whose trustworthiness might potentially be compromised,” he added.

The statement was Scharfenberger’s second public comment on the scandal in the U.S. Church that began when the Archdiocese of New York announced June 20 that it had concluded an investigation into an allegation that then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had sexually abused a teenager, finding the claim to be “credible and substantiated.”

Since that time, media reports have detailed additional allegations, charging that McCarrick sexually abused, assaulted, or coerced seminarians and young priests during his time as a bishop. McCarrick’s resignation from the college of cardinals was eventually accepted by Pope Francis.

“Let me be clear in stating my firm conviction that this is, at heart, much more than a crisis of policies and procedures. We can – and I am confident that we will – strengthen the rules and regulations and sanctions against any trying to fly under the radar or to ‘get away with’ such evil and destructive behaviors. But, at its heart, this is much more than a challenge of law enforcement; it is a profoundly spiritual crisis,” the bishop wrote in a July 29 letter to priests and deacons of his diocese.

In his Aug. 6 statement, Scharfenberger wrote that “it is time for us, I believe, to call forth the talents and charisms of our lay faithful, by virtue of their baptismal priesthood. Our lay people are not only willing to take on this much-needed role, but they are eager to help us make lasting reforms that will restore a level of trust that has been shattered yet again. In speaking with them, we all hear their passion for our universal Church, their devotion to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and their hunger for the truth. They are essential to the solution we seek.”

“We bishops want to rise to this challenge, which may well be our last opportunity considering all that has happened. We must get this right. I am confident we can find a way to look outside ourselves, to put this in the hands of the Holy Spirit, and to entrust our very capable lay people, who have stood with us through very difficult times, to help us do the right thing. We need an investigation — the scope of which is not yet defined but must be defined — and it must be timely, transparent and credible.”

[…]

Boston, Mass., Sep 27, 2017 / 06:03 am (CNA).- Boys’ choirs have been a tradition in the Catholic Church since the Middle Ages, when men and women did not sing together in public, and boys’ higher-pitched voices were needed to round out the sound of sacred music used at Mass.

Today, the United States is home to just one Catholic boys’ choir school – St. Paul’s choir school in Cambridge, Mass. The school is open to boys in 4th-8th grade, who must audition to earn a spot in the renowned and rigorous program.

Having celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2013, and having produced their first CD, “Christmas in Harvard Square” in 2014, the school has enjoyed a recent uptick in interest and awareness of both their program and music.

Given the success of their first CD, the group decided to produce another CD entitled “Ave Maria,” with a wide variety of sacred music centered on the theme of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was released on Sept. 8, the feast of the Nativity of Mary.

“(We) wanted to do something that would be ‘in season’ all year round, so something that honors Our Lady seemed like the perfect choice,” choirmaster John Robinson told CNA in e-mail comments.

“There is such an amazing richness of music that honors Our Lady,” he said. “Because Mary is so central to everything we believe, we felt that music that honors her can also show certain devotional aspects of other themes as well, so the recording has a wide range of subject matter.”

The 18 tracks selected for the CD cover a range of lesser-known as well as more popular pieces of sacred music, from Gregorian chant written in the 7th century to works written as recently as the 19th and 20th centuries.

The boys in the choir school have a small window of time to capitalize on their young voices – the younger boys in 4th and 5th grade go through a practice phase before joining the older choristers, usually around 6th grade.

Each piece in “Ave Maria” is meant to highlight the pitch range of the boys in the choir school, and each selection has its own story to tell in the context of both music and Church history.

“It’s always great to get behind each piece and learn about its context, especially some of the great stories in Church Music, like the creation of the Papae Marcellus Mass by Palestrina,” he said. “This piece was written to prove that polyphony (music in many parts) can still have clear words, and the piece actually influenced the direction of the Council of Trent.”  

The Council of Trent was called by the Catholic Church to examine possible adjustments of Church practices in light of the Protestant Reformation. One adjustment considered by the council was that all sacred music be clear and readily understandable, and not obscured by complex musical techniques. Palestrina’s Mass helped prove that polyphonic sacred music could be both beautiful and clearly understood.

Robinson said he has been encouraged by an increased awareness of boys’ choral music and sacred music, and he added that he hoped that the CD would appeal to a wide audience and foster a greater appreciation for Church music.

“We want everyone to hear this recording. Of course there are those who already love and know this kind of music, and it’s certainly great that they should listen to it, and hear that this tradition is alive and well,” he said. “It’s also really important that people who really haven’t had access to hearing this unique traditional sound should be able to hear it, and to realise that they can hear it every day of the week at St. Paul’s as well.”

The rich history of sacred music and its beautiful sound is something that has the power to unite people both to those who came before them, and to God himself, Robinson added.

“Traditional Sacred music is like a collection of beautiful prayers that we can pull out and join ourselves to. Whenever we sing this music at Mass there’s a real sense of togetherness with those who have gone before. There’s also a great sense of beauty, and appreciation of the gift of beauty. There’s a feeling of learning from those great composers, so honed in their Art, and of being part of something much bigger than us,” he said.

“It’s great to lose ourselves in the wonderful sounds that have been prayed in Church for hundreds and in some cases well over a thousand years. I hope that this shared heritage can be something that unites everyone, and points to Him who gave it to us.”

“Ave Maria” was released by AimHigher Recordings through their international distribution collaboration with Sony Classical. In addition to Robinson, some of the other people behind the album include multiple Grammy Award-winning Producer Christopher Alder, and Brad Michel, also a Grammy Award-winner.

[…]

Washington D.C., Jul 12, 2019 / 02:10 pm (CNA).- The lay head of the U.S. bishops’ Catholic education secretariat has decried the decision of nation’s largest teachers union to recognize abortion as a fundamental right.

“It’s an appalling development,” Mary Pat Donoghue, Executive Director of the Secretariat for Catholic Education at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told CNA, Thursday. “Here you have the largest union of educators in the country, basically affirming the destruction of those they claim to serve.”

The National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly last weekend adopted agenda items recognizing the “fundamental right to abortion under Roe v. Wade” and supporting the controversial Equality Act, at the NEA’s annual meeting in Houston from July 4-7.

“The NEA vigorously opposes all attacks on the right to choose and stands on the fundamental right to abortion under Roe v. Wade,” stated New Business Item 56, adopted by the Representative Assembly at the NEA Annual Meeting in Houston, attended by more than 6,000 delegates representing state and local affiliates, student members, retired members and others.

Composed of around 8,000 delegates in total, the NEA’s Representative Assembly calls itself “the largest democratic deliberative assembly in the world, which at the Annual Meeting determines NEA yearly policy priorities and a strategic plan, among other items.”

The statement in support of abortion was included in a business item honoring survivors of abuse in the #MeToo movement. The NEA did not respond to repeated requests for comment, but according to the NEA website, the rationale given for the item was that “the most misogynistic forces, under Trump, want to abolish the gains of the women’s right movement [sic].”

While the Assembly adopted the abortion resolution, it defeated a business item declaring that the NEA “will re-dedicate itself to the pursuit of increased student learning” by making it the “lens through which we will assess every NEA program and initiative.”

“That tells me that the child is not truly the focus of NEA,” Donoghue said to CNA, noting that the move to support abortion is a mirror for society, “that we no longer have an understanding of the human person that begins with the Creator.”

“When God is separated out from the human person, then this is where these types of ideologies really take root and develop and grow,” she said.

However, Donoghue drew a distinction between the NEA’s Annual Meeting of several thousand delegates and the millions of public school teachers in the U.S. who were not present at the meeting, and may not be members of the NEA.

“We can’t look at this as reflective of the way that the average public school teacher would approach his or her job,” she said, noting that many teachers have “the desire to serve and to help and support children.”

The NEA Representative Assembly also voted to adopt a business item saying the NEA would “organize and mobilize” in support of the Equality Act as a “top legislative priority.”

The Equality Act establishes anti-discrimination protections for sexual orientation and gender identity in areas including education, housing, employment, jury duty, and credit. The 2019 legislation was introduced in Congress as H.R. 5 by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and as S. 788 by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR).

While U.S. bishops supported the goal of ending unjust discrimination against persons, they have signaled their opposition to the bill because it would “impose sweeping regulations” that would promote redefinitions of the human person, using state coercion to threaten freedoms of thought and religion.

Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, and Bishop Frank Dewayne of Venice, Florida wrote a letter to U.S. Senators in March outlining the problematic aspects of the legislation.

The bishops pointed out that it would “remove women and girls from protected legal existence,” mandate “uniform assent to new beliefs about human identity that are contrary to those held by many,” and be exempt from the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, thus bypassing fundamental protections for religious freedom that were enacted by a broad bipartisan majority.

[…]