Catholic colleges work together to help students hit by closure

Washington D.C., Mar 15, 2019 / 12:36 am (CNA).- A Catholic aid agency is asking Congress to maintain its commitment to international humanitarian funding, after the Trump administration proposed a federal budget that would cut foreign aid by 24 percen… […]

Denver, Colo., Dec 22, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- When John O’Brien was in high school, his father, while only in his forties, was admitted to an assisted living facility because of Pick’s disease, a rare disorder similar to Alzheimer’s.

“I spent many nights of my high school days and my college days spending time with him in the nursing home. And I realized that not only did my dad need accompaniment and love, but there were a lot of people there that I could tell were very lonely and down and out,” O’Brien told CNA.

“I found it was the simplest things they were looking for, whether it was my dad or other people— they’re just looking for some companionship, someone to talk to, someone to listen to them, someone who would be interested in them. These people are so lonely, but they’re only looking for the simplest things.”

O’Brien recently founded the Aquinas Forum, an initiative to strengthen faith through intellectual formation in the form of courses and lectures. Part of that initiative is a program called Works of Mercy, whereby on any given Sunday, a team of 10-15 people show up for an hour and a half to two hours at a local assisted living facility, Porter Place, to visit seniors.

O’Brien said people often bringing their kids with them, making it a family experience. And of course, he said, the seniors love seeing the children. He said he consulted with people who had done similar ministries in other places, such as in his hometown of Kansas City, and got tips on activities, board games, and other ways to connect with the seniors.

He said he asks team members to sign up for a six-week commitment to start out, and often the experience hooks them in for longer.

Kali Craig is one such participant, who had had a desire to do this kind of ministry for a while in the area where she lives, northwest of Denver, contacting her parish and various other organizations, but was never quite able to get connected until she heard about the Aquinas Forum through an archdiocesan young adult newsletter.

“It wasn’t easy for one person to figure out how to do this and start visiting regularly with seniors,” Craig told CNA.

“The Aquinas Forum opened the door to something I felt I was already called to do.”

Craig said she had helped to take care of her grandmother during her battle with cancer a few years ago, which had confined to her bed for months at a time.

“When [my grandmother] passed, I just felt this longing. I just wanted to reach out and comfort the elderly when they’re sick, or lonely, or whatever their case is,” Craig said.

“I had this longing to do this…but I could never find the way to do it.”

Craig said she was nervous the first time she went to the nursing home, worrying about how she would manage to carry on a conversation with strangers beyond small talk. She said before she went in she was thinking of questions in her head to ask the seniors in case she started to run out of things to say.

Having done the visitations for several weeks now, she said she recommends taking the leap and trying something like this regardless of whether you’re nervous.

“It’s a door that God is opening to you to show your love and be present, and He shows His love through you. You’re not only helping others, but it’s an incredible experience for yourself as well,” she commented.

“It’s transforming our lives just as much as the people we’re talking with.”

She said one of the seniors she and her husband have met on their visitations, Jeff, has only one close family member, who lives three states over. He’s a musician, an avid record collector, and a traveler.

“He is kind of the perfect person we were hoping to find,” she said, laughing.

“Every time we talk with him, it’s like a whole new part of his life that he shares with us. He definitely does most of the talking, we kind of just sit and take it all in and listen, which makes us feel good. That’s kind of our purpose of being there, when someone wants to talk and share their life experiences.”

O’Brien said he sees this apostolate as a fundamental part of the Christian life; sharing mercy with the broken, the lonely, and the oppressed, who are highlighted in the Gospels as people with whom Christians ought to share love.

O’Brien said he had often heard from people, like Kali, who wanted to get involved in an apostolate such as this— often sparked by an experience of a family member in a nursing home, like his father— but had no idea where to start.

“Being involved in faith formation for many years, I heard people say: ‘I love my faith, but I do want to give myself more, though, and serve more, and I’ve found that it’s hard to do that,’” he said.

When considering how he would start such an initiative, O’Brien contacted his friend Dorothy, whom he knew did a Communion service once a week for the elderly at the nursing home. He spent time with her, helping out with the Communion service.

He said he knew getting involved in an apostolate like that would be a wedge to start inviting other friends, so they could befriend some of those seniors that came to the Communion service.

Now, he encourages team members to “gently insert themselves into people’s presence.” The people who want to talk will do so, he said, and the people who don’t want to talk will “just keep moving.”

Spiritual and corporal works of mercy are about loving people through personal presence, he emphasized, and the main mode of evangelization with an initiative like this is giving God’s love through personal presence.

For those not in the Denver area, O’Brien recommended talking to the receptionist at the local nursing home and asking if you and friends can come over, and perhaps even lead a Communion service. He also recommended reading Father Michael Gaitley’s book “You Did it to Me: A Practical Guide to Mercy in Action,” which goes through all the works of mercy and offers practical suggestions.

O’Brien said one of his goals in starting the initiative was to remove as many of the bureaucratic barriers as possible for people who want to start practicing the works of mercy.

“In a bureaucratic society, we always think there’s going to be some method that’s given to us to just do it, and we think we have to learn the right method to do this— whereas the beautiful thing about works of mercy is it’s a lot simpler than that,” he said.

“It’s personal, focused attention. It’s listening. It’s sharing what you’re passionate about. It’s the mystery of personal presence, which actually isn’t bureaucratic at all. So whatever form that someone can take to share their person and God’s love through their person, whatever small humble wedge that is in their corner of the world…as Pope John Paul II said, when we give mercy, we receive mercy,” O’Brien concluded.

“To share God’s love through friendship and through personal presence, at the same time, we receive that.”

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Rockville Centre, N.Y., Nov 15, 2019 / 01:31 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Rockville Centre filed a suit challenging New York’s Child Victims Act on Tuesday, claiming it is barred by the due process clause in the state constitution.

The act opened a one-year window for adults in the state who were sexually abused as children to file lawsuits against their abusers. It also adjusted the statute of limitations for both pursuing criminal charges and civil suits against sexual abusers or institutions where the abuse took place.

The diocese’s motion, filed Nov. 12 in the New York Supreme Court in Nassau County, says that “the Due Process Clause allows the legislature to revive formerly time-barred claims only where they could not have been raised earlier,” which it adds “is not so here.”

“The formerly time-barred claims revived by the legislature pursuant to the Child Victims Act all could have been brought within the then-applicable three- or five-year period, after plaintiffs attained the age of majority,” according to the diocese.

The diocese added that the state Court of Appeals “has held that the Due Process Clause allows for the exercise of what it has characterized as an exceptional legislative power ‘to remedy an injustice’ created by circumstances that prevented the assertion of a timely claim.”

It said claims under the Child Victims Act “do not fit within the scope of this narrowly circumscribed legislative authority.”

The one-year window opened Aug. 14.

The Child Victims Act was signed into law Feb. 14 by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. In addition to opening a one-year window for suits, it allows child abuse victims to file criminal charges up to age 28, and lawsuits up to age 55. Previously, they had until the age of 23 to file charges or a civil claim.

Other New York dioceses have not indicated they would challenge the act.

Sean Dolan, spokesman for the Rockville Centre diocese, said the diocese is committed to providing “pastoral care and equitable compensation” to child sex abuse victims through its independent reconciliation and compensation program.

As of August, that program had paid a little more than $50 million to 277 claimants since its 2017 institution. Between 75 and 80 claims were still being processed, and 370 people had filed claims with the program.

The spokeman added that “the diocese supported the CVA as a mechanism for all survivors of sexual abuse to seek redress through the court system for sexual abuse – that took place in any organization, municipality or organization. At the same time, the diocese supports the rule of law and, in particular, the rights of all citizens of this state to have access to the courts and to invoke the protections afforded to all of them by our laws of civil procedure and the New York state Constitution. The diocese’s motion and its brief present these important issues to the judiciary for resolution.”

The Times Union reported Nov. 13 that nearly 1,100 cases have been filed under the Child Victims Act.

The day the one-year lookback was opened, Bishop Robert Guglielmone of Charleston was named in a lawsuit accusing him of sexually abusing a young man while he was a priest of the Rockville Centre diocese, starting in 1978. The bishop has said he is innocent of the accusation.

In January, Dennis Poust, director of the New York Catholic Conference, told CNA the conference had not opposed the final version of the act, which provided the same protections for child abuse victims in public insitutions, including schools, as it did for private institutions.

Earlier versions discriminated between public and private institutions, but once that was amended “the conference dropped any opposition to its passage,” he said.

When the bill was passed, the New York bishops issued a joint statement saying, “We pray that the passage of the Child Victims Act brings some measure of healing to all survivors by offering them a path of recourse and reconciliation.”

The Diocese of Rockville Centre said Aug. 14 that it “takes seriously and investigates all allegations of sexual abuse … While the ultimate effects of the Child Victims Act on the Diocese of Rockville Centre and its parishes are not yet known, and may not be known for some time, we expect the daily work of the diocese’s many ministries to continue uninterrupted. Bishop Barres and his leadership team at the Diocese of Rockville Centre have been working for months with financial and legal experts to prepare for this day.”

In preparing for the one-year window, the diocese created an independent advisory committee in May “to review its financial position and related party transactions.”

“The diocese has diligently prepared over the last several months to meet the challenges presented by the Child Victims Act, while ensuring it continues to meet its responsibilities to parishioners and its ministries. The diocese also continues its efforts to extend to survivors of abuse: pastoral care, healing and support services,” it stated.

Bishop John Barres of Rockville Centre said Aug. 11 that “we have worked diligently with our financial and legal advisors to assess our financial position and maximize the availability of insurance coverage to meet the demands that will likely be imposed by anticipated CVA litigation.”

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