Catholic bishop in NJ: Don’t be complacent in the face of legal assisted suicide

Boston, Mass., Aug 15, 2018 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Sean O’Malley, OFM Cap. of Boston will not be attending next week’s World Meeting of Families in Dublin due to the ongoing investigation into St. John’s Seminary, the Archdiocese of Boston announced on Wednesday.

Previously, O’Malley had been scheduled to moderate a panel and discussion in Ireland titled “Safeguarding Children and Vulnerable Adults.” O’Malley is President of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.

In a statement from the archdiocese, it was explained that “important matters pertaining to the pastoral care of St. John’s Seminary in the Archdiocese of Boston and the seminarians enrolled in the formation program there require the Cardinal’s personal attention and presence,” and he therefore would not be making the trip to Ireland.

After it became public that other dioceses had paid settlements to adult seminarians allegeing abuse against the former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, a handful of other, younger, former seminarians took to social media to share their own stories about what they experienced while in seminary. Several of these stories came from men who had studied at St. John’s.

St. John’s Seminary educates seminarians from most dioceses in New England, as well as those from the Dioceses of Oakland, Ca., and Rochester, NY.

In response to allegations of “activities which are directly contrary to the moral standards and requirements of formation for the Catholic priesthood” at St. John’s, last week O’Malley announceda “full, independent inquiery” of the seminary. As part of the invesitgation, the cardinal placed Msgr. James P. Moroney, the seminary rector, on “sabbatical” for the fall semester and installed an interim rector.

The inquiry will examine the culture at St. John’s “regarding the personal standards expected and required of candidates for the priesthood,” as well as issues related to sexual harassment, sexually intimidating behavior, and discrimination.

“The allegations made are a source of serious concern to me as Archbishop of Boston,” said O’Malley in a statement last week, recognizing that being a priest necessitates earning the trust of both people in the Church as well as in the community.

“I am determined that all our seminaries meet that standard of trust and provide the formation necessary for priests to live a demanding vocation of service in our contemporary society.”

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Nashville, Tenn., Oct 15, 2019 / 01:01 pm (CNA).- In a speech on Christian leadership Friday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo highlighted international religious freedom threats, especially in China, Iran, and Iraq.

Pompeo spoke Oct. 11 in Nashville to the American Association of Christian Counselors, discussing Christian leadership in disposition, dialogue, and decision making.

“Before you can help others, you need to have the right approach to yourself,” he began in speaking of disposition. “How you carry yourself is the first arena of Christian leadership.”

Pompeo noted he keeps an open Bible on his desk, and tries to read it each morning. “I need my mind renewed with truth each day. And part of that truth … is to be humble.”

He also noted the importance of forgiveness in one’s disposition.

Turning to dialogue, Pompeo emphasized the importance of listening carefully and not rushing to judgement, but especially truth telling.

He noted that as Secretary of State “I’m especially telling the truth about the dire condition of religious freedom around the world. America has a proud history of religious freedom, and we want jealously to guard it here. But around the world, more than 80% of mankind lives in areas where religious freedom is suppressed or denied in its entirety.”

He said the Chinese Communist Party “is detaining and abusing more than one million Uighur Muslims in internment camps in the Xinjiang” and “Christian pastors today are being unlawfully arrested, beaten, detained inside the Islamic Republic of Iran. We need to speak about this.”

“Christian areas in northern Iraq that I’ve had the privilege to visit have been ravaged by ISIS, part of a greater trend of Christian persecution all across the Middle East,” he added.

Pompeo spoke of the State Departments efforts in recent years to emphasize religious freedom, saying, “we’ve hosted ministerials. We bring leaders from all around the world called the Ministerial on Religious Freedom at the State Department. We’ve told the world about these shortfalls and the success of nations when individuals are given their basic human dignity to practice their conscience, their faith, or to choose no faith if they so choose all around the world.”

Finally, the state secretary addressed decision making, focusing on faithful stewardship and intentional use of time.

“Decisions are a question of priorities, often … I am grateful that my call as a Christian to protect human dignity overlaps with America’s centuries-old commitment to the same mission in our foreign policy all across the world.”

Pompeo noted that “international organizations will try, from time to time, to sneak language into their documents claiming that abortion is a human right. And we’ll never accept that. We’ve worked diligently to find every dollar that might be going to that and we have worked tirelessly and successfully now to bring it nearly to an end.”

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Pro-life and pro-abortion activists at a demonstration outside the U.S. Supreme Court as it hears arguments in the Moyle v. United States case, in Washington, D.C., on April 24, 2024. The case deals with whether an Idaho abortion law conflicts w… […]