Washington D.C., Sep 4, 2018 / 04:36 pm (CNA).- As Cardinal Donald Wuerl spoke about the sex abuse crisis after Mass in Washington D.C. on Sunday, one man stood up and yelled, “Shame on you!” in protest.
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Chicago, Ill., Sep 4, 2018 / 03:30 pm (CNA).- Two priests from the Archdiocese of Chicago were arrested Monday in Miami, after the men were reportedly found engaged in a sex act within a parked car. At least one of them was a participant in a program for Hispanic seminarians that was suspended by the Archdiocese of Chicago.
One of the priests, Fr. Diego L. Berrio, is the pastor of Mision San Juan Diego in Arlington Heights, Illinois. He was also appointed this summer the interim “coordinator of the Office for Extern and International Priests.”
The other priest, Fr. Edwin Cortes listed the parish as his address when he was arrested. A Sept. 4 statement from the Archdiocese of Chicago said that Cortes is “an extern priest from Soacha, Colombia who served at St. Aloysius Parish in Chicago for one month, August 1 to August 31, 2018.”
The statement said that Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago “has removed Fr. Berrio from ministry and withdrawn his faculties to minister in the Archdiocese of Chicago, effective immediately. The archdiocese will appoint an administrator for the Misión San Juan Diego as soon as possible.”
“Archdiocese representatives have been in contact with Fr. Cortes’ home diocese of Soacha, Colombia and informed them that Fr. Cortes will not be granted additional faculties to minister in the Archdiocese of Chicago,” it said.
The priests were both charged with lewd conduct, and Cortes was also charged with indecent exposure.
Berrio was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Chicago in 2008. The priest, a native of Colombia, came to Chicago through the Casa Jesus program, a “house of discernment” in which prospective seminarians from Latin America were invited to consider the priesthood during a year-long program sponsored by the archdiocese. The program was founded in 1987.
The Casa Jesus program was suspended in 2016. In that year, NBC 5 Chicago reported homosexual activity among Casa Jesus participants, and said that in 2015 three participants had been dismissed after visiting a gay bar.
In September 2016, Fr. Octavio Munoz was arrested on child pornography charges. Munoz was the rector of Casa Jesus from 2008 to 2015, when he was transferred to a parish in the archdiocese.
On July 7, 2015, Fr. Kevin Hays, who had been appointed to replace Munoz as rector, toured the priest’s apartment with a Church employee, according to an ABC 7 report.
The employee claimed that a laptop belonging to Munoz was streaming child pornography while he and Hays were in the apartment. The employee reportedly contacted archdiocesan officials about the pornography more than a week later, and was surprised to learn that Hays had not yet reported the matter.
The archdiocese contacted private investigators after the matter was reported, but did not contact police until July 28, the same day Munoz was removed from ministry, according to the Chicago Tribune.
ABC 7 reported that Hays told archdiocesan officials he had not seen pornographic videos playing while visiting the apartment. Hays is now the pastor of Notre Dame de Chicago Parish in Chicago.
In a statement issued shortly after Munoz was charged, the Archdiocese of Chicago said that: “On July 28, 2015, Archbishop Blase J. Cupich removed Father Muñoz from ministry and withdrew his faculties, his authority to minister, after the archdiocese learned that the inappropriate material might involve minors. Given the nature of that material, the archdiocese reported it promptly to the civil authorities and have cooperated fully with their investigation.”
Another Chicago priest, Fr. Clovis Vilchez-Parra, was also arrested on child pornography charges in 2015. The priest had been serving as parochial vicar at Mision San Juan Diego, where Berrio is currently pastor. Vilchez-Parra was sentenced to four years in prison in 2017.
NBC 5 Chicago reported in 2016 that Vilchez-Parra had ties to Casa Jesus, but did not say whether he had been a participant in the program.
Also in 2015, the Archdiocese of Chicago removed Fr. Marco Mercado, who had been a Casa Jesus participant, from his position as pastor of the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines, Illinois. The archdiocese said that Mercado had had an “inappropriate relationship with an adult man.”
The Archdiocese of Chicago could not be reached for comment.
Editor’s note: This story was updated after a Sept. 4 statement from the Archdiocese of Chicago.
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Kottayam, India, Sep 4, 2018 / 11:40 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic priest in India spoke to a Muslim congregation on Friday to thank them for bringing food, water, and medicines for the more than 500 people who sought shelter in his church amid devastating flooding in Kerala in recent weeks.
Severe rains led to flash floods and landslides in Kerala in recent months, with some 400 people killed and more than 1 million displaced from their homes.
Press Trust of India reported that more than 580 people took refuge at Fr. Sanu Puthussery’s St. Antony’s parish in Achinakom, and the church soon ran out of food and water.
“I straightaway went to the Masjid, apprised the maulvi about our difficulty and requested his help. After the day’s prayers, Muslim brothers came to the church with a large quantity of food and water,” Fr. Puthussery told PTI.
“Pope Francis had said build bridges, not walls. The devastating floods has now given us an opportunity to destroy the walls and build the bridges of togetherness,” Fr. Puthussery told the 250 Muslims Aug. 31 at the Juma Masjid in Vechoor, about 15 miles northwest of Kottayam, during Friday prayers.
“I cannot express my gratitude to them in words,” the priest said, for the “help and support they had extended during the time of difficulties.”
He said youth of the mosque had also brought medicine to his parish.
Fr. Puthussery said he had gone to thank the Muslim leaders personally, but that “they invited me to their prayer hall and offered me their platform to speak. It was a rare gesture of togetherness.”
Those now returning to their flooded homes in the southwestern Indian state are encountering snakes and insects, contaminated water, and ruined crops.
Water-borne diseases are now a threat to Keralites. The state has declared a health alert, after 11 people died of leptospirosis, the BBC reported.
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Venice, Fla., Sep 3, 2018 / 04:06 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The provision of just wages for all workers is a critical component of a moral economy, said the head of the U.S. bishops’ Domestic Justice and Human Development committee in his Labor Day message.
“Today, there are many families who, even if they have technically escaped poverty, nevertheless face significant difficulties in meeting basic needs,” said Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice. “Wages for lower income workers are, by various accounts, insufficient to support a family and provide a secure future.”
In his 2018 Labor Day statement, the bishop emphasized that all Christians share the responsibility of building a human-centered economy.
“The economy must serve people, not the other way around,” he said. “Work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of participating in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected, including the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to organizing and joining unions, to private property, and to economic initiative.”
In recent years, Dewane noted, the economy has seen significant progress, with declines in poverty and unemployment, and record highs in production, stocks and profits.
However, he said, these statistics do not show the full story of the modern economy, specifically the daily struggles of many unemployed, underemployed, and low-wage workers.
“It is encouraging that poverty has gone down, but still almost one in three persons have a family income below 200 percent of the federal poverty line,” Dewane said.
He pointed to recent studies showing that an average two-bedroom apartment is out of reach for minimum wage earners in all 50 states, and that 40 percent of adults would be unable to cover a $400 emergency expense without borrowing or selling something.
Also concerning, the bishop said, are “the continuing disparities in median incomes between different racial and ethnic groups and between women and men.”
Faced with these challenges, Christians have an obligation to work for a more just society and to “stand in solidarity with our poor and vulnerable brothers and sisters,” Dewane said.
He called both business owners and workers to operate with integrity, recalling the words of Pope Francis in Gaudete et Exultate: “Do you work for a living? Be holy by laboring with integrity and skill in the service of your brothers and sisters…Are you in a position of authority? Be holy by working for the common good and renouncing personal gain.”
Business owners must pursue human flourishing rather than seeking profit alone, Dewane said. “[P]art of this obligation is to pay a just wage, which provides a dignified livelihood for workers and their families to meet their basic needs.”
The Church has traditionally taught that a worker’s willingness to work for a certain wage is not sufficient to make that wage just, the bishop noted. Rather, justice in wages must be evaluated “in the context of the well-being and flourishing of the individual, the family and society.”
“Every worker has a right to a just wage according to the criterion of justice, which St. John XXIII described as wages that, ‘give the worker and his family a standard of living in keeping with the dignity of the human person’.”
Implementing just wages in practice will require a change of heart, Dewane said. He suggested that politicians should address structural causes of low wages and unjust disparities, and society should give “due consideration for what justly ensures security for employees to establish and maintain all significant aspects of family life, and care for family members into the future.”
He also highlighted the rights of unions to advocate for just wages, health benefits, adequate rest, and protection against wage theft.
“[W]e live in the hope that our society can become ever more just when there is conversion of heart and mind so that people recognize the inherent dignity of all and work together for the common good.”
© Catholic World Report