Pro-life Democrat calls for ‘unity’ for life

Washington D.C., Sep 11, 2020 / 11:01 am (CNA).-  

At least two U.S. Senators have joined the chorus of outrage against The Walt Disney Company after the company revealed it worked with Chinese propaganda departments in the Xinjiang autonomous region during the filming of Mulan.

“The ancient Chinese folktale of Hua Mulan is inspiring,” said Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) in a Sept. 9 letter sent to Bob Chapek, the CEO of The Walt Disney Company. “Disney’s partnership with a genocidal dictatorship is appalling.”

In the closing credits for Mulan, a live-action remake of the 1998 animated film of the same name, Disney gave a “special thanks” to, among other entities, the “Publicity Department of CPC Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region Committee,” and the “Turpan Municipal Bureau of Public Security.” Parts of the movie were filmed in Xinjiang, which is located in northwestern China. The majority of the Uyghur population, a minority ethnic group that is mostly Muslim, resides in Xinjiang.

“The Publicity Department of the CPC Municipal Committee has pushed propaganda justifying the nature and purpose of the ‘re-education facilities,’” wrote Sasse, who noted that the Turpan Bureau of Public Safety is part of a larger entity that was recently sanctioned by the Department of the Treasury for its role in the operation of the detention camps in the region. The camps detain mostly Uyghur prisoners, who can be sent there for offenses such as “celebrating an Islamic holiday” and “wearing traditional religious clothing.”

The Chinese government claims the camps are for terrorism prevention purposes. Women who have been imprisoned in the camps have told stories of forced abortions and sterilizations.
Sasse stated that there needs to be a “deeper understanding of (Disney’s) production process” due to the company’s “willingness to partner with those committing genocide.” He requested additional information regarding when Disney was working in Xinjiang, as well as information regarding the agreements Disney made with the Chinese government when filming, and if the company raised concerns about human rights abuses in the region.

“Can Disney verify that the filming of Mulan did not benefit from Xinjiang-based forced labor,” asked Sasse, along with a request for information regarding any editorial requests made by the Chinese government.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), who was sanctioned by China earlier this year, wrote a similarly worded letter to Chapek on Wednesday, noting that China’s human rights abuses in Xinjiang were well-documented by the time Disney began production on Mulan in August 2018.

“Disney’s whitewashing of the ongoing Uighur genocide is contrary to all of your company’s supposed principles,” wrote Hawley.

“Just a few weeks ago, for instance, you wrote about the need to ‘confront the inscrutable idea that the lives of some are deemed less valuable—and less worthy of dignity, care and protection—than the lives of others,’” said Hawley. “Elsewhere, Disney has declared its commitment ‘to providing comfort, inspiration, and opportunity to children and families around the world’ and described its ‘commitment to respect human rights’ as a ‘core value.’”

Filming in Xinjiang and working with those committing human rights abuses is a violation of these values, said Hawley.

“How does glorifying the Chinese authorities perpetrating abuses in Xinjiang provide comfort, inspiration, and opportunity to Uighur children—including those who were never born because the CCP forced their mothers to abort them,” asked Hawley. “Disney’s actions here cross the line from complacency into complicity.”

Hawley requested that Disney donate the profits from Mulan to non-governmental organizations that are fighting human trafficking and “other atrocities underway in Xinjiang.”

The Walt Disney Company’s decision to work in Xinjiang and cooperate with Chinese Communist Party entities is interesting given that the company has been outspoken on what it perceives as human rights abuses in the United States.

In May 2018, Disney’s then-CEO Bob Iger said that it would be “difficult” for Disney to continue making movies in Georgia if the state moved to ban abortion after the detection of a heartbeat.
“Many people who work for us will not want to work there” should the law go into effect,” Iger told Reuters at the time. “We will have to heed their wishes.”
The law has repeatedly been blocked and cannot be enforced by the state of Georgia.

Jewher Ilham, a Uyghur Human Rights Fellow at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation whose father was abducted by the Chinese government, told CNA that she believes Disney needs to become more aware of what is happening around the world.

“Disney needs to better educate themselves about the human rights abuses committed around the globe, especially in China,” she said. “Egregious human rights violations take place there every day at the hands of the Chinese Communist government. It’s amazing to me to see how the same company has such firm stances stateside but is willing to give in to China in order to make a profit.”

“If Disney’s stance on abortion was enough to make them boycott filming in Georgia, then they should have boycotted filming in the Uighur region where some of the world’s worst human rights abuses are taking place,” she added.

Denise Harle, senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, told CNA that Disney choosing to film in Xinjiang was “hypocrisy,” and that she believes “consumers should take notice.”

“Disney threatened to halt all plans to film in the state of Georgia over its pro-life laws but does not hesitate to film in China, where egregious human rights abuses are consistently committed, including forced sterilizations and abortions,” said Harle.

“Mulan was filmed in Xinjiang, China, the very region where more than one million Muslims are being held in detention camps because of their beliefs. While some companies put profits over people, Americans should remember that all human life, born and unborn, is worthy of protection,” she said.

The film has also been criticized because its lead actress, Liu Yifei, has expressed support for police in Hong Kong cracking down on protests of the Hong Kong extradition bill last year.

The Chinese government admitted in October 2018 that “re-education camps” for members of the Uyghur population had been established. The camps were first spotted on satellite imagery in 2017.

The highest estimate sets the total number of inmates in the camps at 3 million, plus approximately half a million minor children in special boarding schools for “re-education” purposes.

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CNA Staff, Nov 20, 2023 / 12:45 pm (CNA).
An Ohio priest was sentenced to life in prison Friday after being convicted of multiple sexual abuse charges earlier this year. Parish priest Michael Zachari… […]

CNA Staff, Nov 4, 2020 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- Voters in Nebraska sided with efforts to limit payday loans, passing an initiative Tuesday that the Nebraska Catholic Conference had endorsed as a means to protect the poor from becoming trapped in debt.

Over 80% of Nebraskan voters backed Initiative 248, which caps payday loans at a 36% annual percentage rate, the Lincoln Journal-Star reports. Previously, the legal lending rate was set at 400%.

Sixteen other states have similar limits, or prohibit payday lending altogether.

The Nebraska Catholic Conference was among the supporters of the initiative.

“Payday lending too often exploits the poor and vulnerable by charging exorbitant interest rates and trapping them in endless debt cycles,” Archbishop George Lucas of Omaha said Oct. 7. “It’s time for Nebraska to implement reasonable payday lending interest rates. The Catholic bishops of Nebraska urge Nebraskans to vote for Initiative 428.”

Nebraskans for Responsible Lending was another backer of the ballot initiative, which was placed on the ballot after receiving over 120,000 signatures in support. Foes of high payday lending rates tried to pass similar limits through legislation, then turned to the ballot measure when that path proved unsuccessful.

Religious leaders, veterans groups, the American Association of Retired Persons, the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, and other social welfare groups backed the initiative, the Journal-Star reported.

Critics of the measure said the caps will block credit from people who cannot get loans anywhere else and put the businesses that serve them out of business.

Tom Venzor, executive director of the Nebraska Catholic Conference, explained the need to cap payday loans in an Oct. 9 statement.

“In 2019 alone, payday lenders have extracted more than $30 million in fees from borrowers,” Venzor said. Those who seek payday loans tend to lack a college degree, rent rather than own a home, earn under $40,000 a year, or are separated or divorced. African Americans also disproportionately seek payday loans.

“They turn to payday loans to cover basic living expenses like utilities, rent or mortgage payments, food, or credit card bills,” said Venzor.

The Nebraska Department of Banking and Finance’s 2019 annual report on payday lending practices said the average borrower was charged 405% at an annual percentage rate on a $362 loan, and took 10 loans in a single year.

“When borrowers are unable to repay their loan after two weeks, they usually have no choice but to take out a second loan to repay their first,” Venzor added. “This inability to repay a loan can lead to a vicious ‘debt cycle’ which can continue for years.”

Venzor explained that Catholic teaching rejects exploitative loans.

“Catholic social teaching is very clear on this issue,” he said. “It recognizes that it is both morally acceptable to earn reasonable and equitable profits in economic and financial activities, and morally reprehensible to lend money at unreasonably high rates of interest (a practice also known as usury).”

Venzor noted that the Catechism of the Catholic Church rejects usury as a violation of the commandment ‘Thou shall not steal’. St. John Paul II, in a Feb. 4, 2004 general audience, denounced usury as “a scourge that is also a reality in our time and has a stranglehold on many people’s lives.”

In February the Montana Catholic Conference backed federal limits on payday and car title loans. It encouraged voters to ask their Member of Congress to back the Veterans and Consumers Fair Credit Act of 2019. The bill that would limit the interest rate on payday and car title loans. The bill would expand the 2006 Military Lending Act rate cap – which only covers active military members and their families – to all consumers. It would cap all payday and car-title loans at a maximum of a 36% APR interest rate.

The U.S. Catholic bishops have backed the bill.

In July the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a government agency overseeing consumer protections, revoked federal restrictions on payday loans, drawing objections from the U.S. Conference of Catholic bishops. The rules were announced in 2017, but the bureau said their legal and evidentiary bases were “insufficient.” The bureau said removing the rules would help “ensure the continued availability of small dollar lending products for consumers who demand them.”

The industry collects between $7.3 and $7.7 billion dollars annually from the practices that would have been barred, the bureau said.

Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ domestic justice committee, objected in to the changes in a July 10 letter that characterized payday lending as “modern day usury.”

The Church has consistently taught that usury is evil, including in numerous ecumenical councils.

In Vix pervenit, his 1745 encyclical on usury and other dishonest profit, Benedict XIV taught that a loan contract demands “that one return to another only as much as he has received. The sin rests on the fact that sometimes the creditor desires more than he has given. Therefore he contends some gain is owed him beyond that which he loaned, but any gain which exceeds the amount he gave is illicit and usurious.”

In his General Audience address of Feb. 10, 2016, Pope Francis taught that “Scripture persistently exhorts a generous response to requests for loans, without making petty calculations and without demanding impossible interest rates,” citing Leviticus.

“This lesson is always timely,” he said. “How many families there are on the street, victims of profiteering … It is a grave sin, usury is a sin that cries out in the presence of God.”

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