California bishops rally Catholics to stop college campus abortion pill mandate

Tucson, Ariz., Oct 1, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- At Easter, Jessica Rider entered the Church through an avenue with which most Catholics are unfamiliar – she became a member of the Ruthenian Catholic Church.

Rider, 33, was welcomed into St Melany’s Byzantine Catholic Church in Tucson, Arizona at Easter. She described the experience as both intimate and engaging.

“It set a fire in me when I became a part of the Byzantine church. I never experienced so much longing to want to know as much as I possibly can,” she told CNA.

“I fell in love with Jesus Christ when I went to the Byzantine church.”

Some background: Most people think of the Catholic Church as a singular structure and institution. The reality is a little more complicated. The universal Catholic Church is actually a union of 24 different Churches, each of which is in communion with one another and with the pope, who is the visible head of the Church. The largest of those 24 Churches is the Latin Catholic Church, which has more than 1 billion members. The other Churches are much smaller; the second largest, the Ukranian Greek Catholic Church, has 4.4 million members.

The Ruthenian Catholic Church, the one Rider encountered in Arizona, has almost 500,000 members. It is sometimes referred to as the Byzantine Catholic Church, although that term can also be used to describe some of the other Churches in the Catholic communion.

Rider didn’t know most of that when she first stepped into St. Melany’s. But by Easter 2019, she had learned a lot about Byzantine rite Catholicism. It was then that she became a Catholic.

During the Divine Liturgy at the Easter Vigil, she stood with her pastor, Fr. Robert Rankin. They were surrounded by beautiful icons, an eastern tradition of gold leaf and painted wood which often depict biblical stories or images of Christ and the saints.

Rider received the sacraments of baptism, confirmation, which Byzantine Catholics call “chrismation”, and holy communion. She was anointed with chrism on her forehead, her hands, feet, chest, mouth, nose, and eyes.

While her parents had shied away from their Catholic faith when they were young, Rider said she grew up attending Christian services.

Her parents had “experienced something traumatic” in the Church, Rider said. Though their experience led them away from the Catholic faith, they were cautiously supportive of her decision to become Catholic, she explained

“My mom was exposed to the Roman Catholic Church at a very young age and she kind of steered away from it,” she said. “My father also was raised Roman Catholic as well.”

Before she became Catholic, Rider attended Calvary Chapel, an association of evangelical Christian communities.

But when she experienced a trial of suffering, she began looking for answers. The search led her to St. Melany’s.

Two years ago, her brother died in a motorcycle accident. Around the same time, Rider was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a disease involving fatigue and musculoskeletal pain.

Before those hardships, Rider said, she had begun drifting away from Christianity. But once she started experiencing loss, she began to look at her priorities.

“I made a choice that day when it happened, either fall prey to sin or change your life and go back to Jesus, [my] first love. I chose Jesus and my whole life transformed after that,” she said.

It was after her brother’s accident that Rider met Jacob, the man who last month became her husband. Jacob himself had converted from Protestantism to the Byzantine Catholic faith before he met Jessica.

When they met, Jessica said, she was awakened to something beautiful and mysterious. She told CNA that Jacob did not push his Byzantine faith on her, she said, but politely encouraged her to join him at Divine Liturgy. 

“There was something different about him that I have never seen in anybody else. I was intrigued by that,” she said.

“There was something about him that was just a lot of wisdom. He was also very patient and he wasn’t anxious. He wasn’t an anxious or stressed person at all. So I was just really curious on what happened in his life.”

She said meeting Fr. Rankin was also an inspiration for her conversion. Not only did he speak with wisdom, she said, but the priest had an incredible zeal for Christ.

“I love Fr. Rankin. The way he talks about Lord and the saints, he talks smiling through his eyes…I have never seen anybody talk about God or anything in this manner. So it was kind of hypnotizing to listen to him talk about it.”

The choice she made to follow Christ more closely after her brother’s death has changed everything in her life, Rider said.

“I mean, literally, I got a new job, I have a husband, I have a faith and a church,” she said.

Rider chose St. Faustina Kowalska as her confirmation saint. She said she related to Faustina’s trials and felt connected to the Divine Mercy Chaplet. She said Faustina, who trusted in Christ despite pains, helped her find a purpose in her illness, which still gives her chronic pain.

“The picture of Divine Mercy…was important because it’s my path. Without his mercy, I wouldn’t be here right now,” she said. “[It] truly hit home for me when I was making the choice because I was going through [my trial] …When I saw the image and when I heard her story, there was just no way that she wouldn’t be a part of what I would choose because I felt like that was me.”

“I’ve had to learn that everything comes from his hands and trusting in that there’s a purpose. If I am going to suffer as Christ suffers, then I will do so,” Rider added.

When she heard about the Church’s sexual scandals, Rider said, the crimes, though disturbing, did not dissuade her from entering the Church. She said her faith relies on Christ.

The scandals, she said, are opportunities to pray for Church leaders who have “fallen away, because there’s so much responsibility and authority they have in Church.”

Coming from a Protestant background, Rider said the idea of praying to Mary and the saints was a difficult concept to grasp. But the Byzantine community was a source of information for all her questions, she said. Rider added Catholics should not “sugar coat” the faith for new converts.

“I felt supported in a lot of ways. Any questions that I had, I didn’t feel that I was inconveniencing anyone to explain [it] to me or that it may have been a silly question.”

“I don’t feel like we need to change [Church teaching]…because that’s not what Jesus Christ is about. Sometimes being obedient, it’s hard and it hurts,” she added.

Rider said she fell in love with the Ruthenian Church’s beautiful traditions, songs, icons and community. She described the experience as intimate and captivating. She also mentioned that her parish community was welcoming to her, which has made her feel like she belongs.

“When I came in, I was welcomed,” she said. “It’s always been really important since I’ve come in the church, that we all support each other.”

“It’s very intimate. Everybody that is with you, we’re worshiping and praising, and we’re all holding fast and true to scripture.”

Since she became a Catholic, she said, the Holy Spirit has prompted her to share Christ with her coworkers, who have asked her about an image of St. Padre Pio she wears as a necklace. Although her friends do not fully understand her decision to convert, she said, they are inspired by her faith.

“My coworkers don’t get it. They don’t understand,” she said. “[But,] I have a lot of people ask me because I wear the icon of Padre Pio. It kind of opens up conversation. So it’s an opportunity for me to talk about it.”

“Every day I print out words of wisdom and then I connect the scripture to it and I hand them out to my coworkers … They love it. I mean, if I don’t give it to them by lunchtime, people are asking me where is that? So … he must be moving in a way that I could never.”

[…]

Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, is monitored by police in early August 2022. / Photo credit: Diocese of Matagalpa

St. Louis, Mo., Dec 15, 2022 / 15:45 pm (CNA).
In testimony to a U.S. congressional human rights commission, two p… […]

Detroit, Mich., Mar 20, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- A dissenting Catholic LGBT advocacy group rejects Church teaching and confuses the Christian path to holiness, Auxiliary Bishop Gerard Battersby of Detroit has said.

While the bishop’s March 9 letter to the Detroit archdiocese’s priests forbids Mass for Dignity Detroit members, it stresses that the Dignity Detroit members are invited to join the Catholic faithful to affirm Church teaching and “missionary transformation.”

A Mass for the group and its members is not possible “in any parish church, chapel, or diocesan facility,” said the bishop. “This will no doubt be difficult for some to hear, but it arises from heartfelt pastoral concern for members of Dignity Detroit.”

“As you know, Dignity Detroit has long operated its ministry in the Archdiocese of Detroit while rejecting some of the Church’s teachings on sexual morality,” said Bishop Battersby. “These teachings, though challenging, promote human flourishing and bring joy when received with open hearts. This situation is thus a source of sadness, for those who reject the teachings deprive themselves of the blessings that come with living a life in Christ.”

The Dignity Detroit group on its website describes itself as “a faith community of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Catholics, their families and friends who unite to celebrate God’s love for all persons.” It is a chapter of Dignity USA, which is headquartered in Massachusetts.

Dignity USA put out a March 18 statement including responses from both national and chapter leaders.

Dignity Detroit’s leadership council said that Bishop Battersby had contacted the chapter leaders in mid-January and asked to meet with them to discuss the pastoral letter and the archdiocese’s initiatives for people with same-sex attraction. The meeting was set for late March.

Frank D’Amore, President of Dignity Detroit, said it was “extremely disappointing” that the measures were sent out before the meeting.

“We truly believe that it is impossible to learn anything about our community and not be moved by the love our members have for the Catholic faith, and the integrity with which they live their lives,” he said, according to Dignity USA. “It is hard to understand why church officials would cast out people struggling to remain connected with the Church while so many are leaving.”

“Archdiocesan officials clearly do not understand the truth of what it means to be gay or transgender, and how integral these components of our identities are,” D’Amore continued. “For many of us, it took years of struggle with what we’d been taught to be able to embrace our identities as grace, as blessings from our loving God. Dignity Detroit’s work helps save many people from shame, and many families from the kinds of divisions that used to be the rule among Catholics. Our ministry literally saves lives.”

For Battersby, however, the possibility of confusion about holiness is also a paramount issue.

“As we endeavor to provide a culture of empathy and understanding throughout the Archdiocese according to the light of the Gospel, it is essential that the Church not seem to condone Dignity Detroit’s competing vision for growth in holiness,” he said in his letter to priests.

He asked the priests to refrain from offering Mass for Dignity Detroit members anywhere in the archdiocese “lest we confuse the faithful by seeming to endorse an alternative and contradictory path to sanctity.”

While the bishop did not go into detail about the history of Dignity Detroit chapter or its national organization, Dignity USA has called for major changes in the Church and has been backed by major, politically powerful LGBT organizations.

In 2015 Dignity USA called for same-sex unions to be blessed as sacramental marriages in the Catholic Church, a position far at the fringes of historic Christianity. It also advocated for the ordination to the priesthood of women, those of same-sex sexual orientation, and those of variant gender identity. The Church has never recognized the ordination of women as valid and has explicitly barred the ordination of men with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.

Dignity USA’s annual convention in 2015 included as a keynote speaker the pornographic sex columnist Dan Savage, a critic of monogamy and of Benedict XVI.

As of March 20 the Dignity Detroit website publicized a Mass held every Sunday night at Sacred Heart Chapel of Marygrove College. The private graduate college was run by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary until December 2019, when it announced its closure.

Dignity Detroit said that the chapel is still open despite the college’s closure, though it is unclear whether this information has been updated in light of new closures and other precautions since the coronavirus pandemic began to dominate U.S. life.

The bishop commended Dignity Detroit’s outreach to the poor. However, he said the group’s rejection of Church teaching on chastity is “incompatible with the path of sanctification on which Christ bids his Church to travel and is at odds with the important work of the Courage and EnCourage apostolates.”

Courage is a Catholic apostolate intended for people with same-sex attraction who want to live according to Church teaching. EnCourage is a partner apostolate for parents and families of Courage members.

Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of Dignity USA, said almost all Dignity chapters have been expelled from Catholic space. As far back as the 1970s and 1980s Catholic priests were barred from serving Dignity chapters.

“There are few experiences as devastating as being kicked out of your family home and being told you are not worthy of being fed,” she said.

Duddy-Burke said Dignity USA is supporting the Detroit chapter during the controversy.

Bishop Battersby said he has communicated the problems with Dignity with “respect and genuine affection” for the membership. He has extended to them a “heartfelt invitation” to “join us in our missionary efforts to promote the New Evangelization and to participate in a ministry to the same-sex attracted that is faithful to the teachings of Christ’s Church.”
He said such a step is needed as part of the “missionary pivot” underway in the Archdiocese of Detroit, following its 2016 archdiocesan synod and Archbishop Allen Vigneron’s pastoral letter “Unleash the Gospel.”

“As we seek to leave no one behind in our missionary transformation and to help everyone entrusted to our care find salvation, please know that your support for the Courage and EnCourage apostolates, your prayers, and your pastoral concern for the men and women of Dignity Detroit, are greatly appreciated and will surely bear fruit for the kingdom of God.”

Bishop Battersby, who has been an auxiliary bishop since January 2017, discussed why the matter wasn’t previously addressed. He said he presumed it was addressed in a pastoral approach applying the principle of the “law of graduality.”

While Bishop Battersby did not expand on his meaning, such approaches generally refer to accommodating individuals’ or groups’ gradual growth towards the fullness of morality and living a more consistent Christian life.

“No matter how you view that earlier approach, I pray that you recognize the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the present decision,” he told the archdiocese’s priests.

Bishop Battersby spoke in his role as the archbishop’s delegate for the pastoral implementation of the synod action step dedicated to providing “resources for developing a culture of empathy and understanding throughout the Archdiocese, according to the light of the Gospel” so that people who experience “the challenges of gender identity and same sex attraction will find support for growing as a human person in the virtue of Christ–like chastity.” The action step is numbered 3.3B2 in Vigneron’s pastoral letter.

As CNA has previously reported, Dignity USA has received hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants from wealthy LGBT funders to support the Equally Blessed Coalition, which currently includes the dissenting Catholic groups Dignity USA, New Ways Ministry, and Call to Action.

Funding has come from the Arcus Foundation, founded by the billionaire heir Jon Stryker, who is not Catholic. Its U.S. strategy includes funding Christian groups which work for pro-LGBT doctrinal change within their denominations. It has funded groups in other Christian communities, including Episcopalian groups and Methodist groups, before and during their churches’ global fracturing over issues such as ecclesial authority and homosexuality.

Darren Walker, president of the deeply influential Ford Foundation, was a longtime board member of the foundation.

A 2014 grant of $200,000 supported Dignity USA and the Equally Blessed Coalition “to support pro-LGBT faith advocates to influence and counter the narrative of the Catholic Church and its ultra-conservative affiliates,” grant listings from the foundation showed. The effort was linked to the Catholic Church’s Synod on the Family and World Youth Day

In 2012 the Equally Blessed Coalition issued a report attacking the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Knights of Columbus for their work to maintain the legal definition of marriage as a union of one man and one woman. The report’s funders included the LGBT advocacy leader the Human Rights Campaign.

[…]