CNA Staff, Oct 1, 2020 / 12:00 am (CNA).-
Federal officials announced on Tuesday a new policy that will make it possible for undocumented teenage immigrants in federal custody to procure abortions, after nearly three years of litigation regardi… […]
CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2020 / 05:43 pm (CNA).- A temporary injunction has halted the Madison School District from following gender identity guidance that critics said concealed from parents whether teachers and staff were affirming students in transgenderi… […]
With the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court the indispensable interpretive methods of original understanding in construing the Constitution and textualism in reading statutes are precisely where they belong: […]
CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).-
Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel told local news this week that she plans to announce new charges against “a dozen or more” priests in the state, as part of a now two-year long investigation into abuse by Catholic clergy.
Nessel had most recently announced on Sept. 29 charges against a 78-year-old laicized priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Gary Berthiaume, who is accused of abusing a 14-year-old victim.
Nessel announced one count of second-degree criminal sexual conduct against Berthiaume, which could lead to a 15-year prison sentence if he’s convicted, the Detroit News reported.
Spurred by the release of a grand jury report out of Pennsylvania in 2018, which documented hundreds of cases of clergy sex abuse that took place over several decades in almost every diocese in the state, Michigan’s then-Attorney General Bill Schuette launched the state’s own investigation in August that year.
So far, the state’s investigation has led to charges against 11 people, and Nessel says she hopes to complete the investigation within the next six months, WoodTV reports. Nessel has in the past suggested the investigation could uncover as many as 1,000 sex abuse victims, though she has not discussed how her office estimated that number.
In May 2019, Nessel announced that five priests would be charged with 21 counts of sex abuse for abusing a total of five victims. None of the priests were in active ministry and one had already been removed from the clerical state.
After the announcement of the state’s investigation, Michigan’s dioceses said they welcomed the investigation and pledged their full cooperation. In Oct. 2018, police executed search warrants at all seven of the state’s dioceses.
To date, the Michigan investigation team has reviewed hundreds of tips, as well as 1.5 million paper documents and 3.5 million electronic documents seized the raids. Most of the tips have come through a hotline established specifically for abuse.
Early in 2019, Nessel claimed that the state’s dioceses are “self-policing,” using non-disclosure agreements to quiet allegations, and “failing to deliver” on their promises to cooperate with law enforcement authorities.
In response, the Archdiocese of Detroit reaffirmed its commitment to reporting sex abuse allegations to authorities.
In 2018 Michigan extended the statue of limitations in sexual assault cases to 15 years in criminal cases, and 10 in civil. Indictments for abuse of minor victims can be filed within 15 years of the crime or by the victim’s 28th birthday.
In March of last year, Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Whitmer asked the state’s legislature for an additional $2 million in funding for the abuse investigation, which is expected to last two years.
Similar clergy sex abuse investigations have been launched in multiple states throughout the country, including in Georgia, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Nebraska.
CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2020 / 03:28 pm (CNA).- Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles will lead a ‘virtual rosary’ Oct. 7, the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, to seek Mary’s intercession for the United States.
“Our hope is to unite Catholic people from across the country in a moment of prayer for our nation, at a time when there is so much unrest and uncertainty,” Gomez said in a Sept. 30 column.
Gomez said Mary offers Catholics maternal care, and Catholics should seek to understand “her way of seeing and her way of living.”
“Everything that Mary does points us to her Son — to his commandments, to the mysteries of his life, to giving up our own will to follow him and share in his mission,” he wrote.
“As we seek our Blessed Mother’s intercession for our nation, I hope that we will also make this a moment to deepen our own commitments to Mary — to dedicate ourselves to her and to let her teach us how to offer our hearts to serve Christ and his beautiful plan of salvation history. Let us live all for Jesus through the heart of Mary!”
Gomez noted that the Franciscan missionaries who evangelized California— including St. Junipero Serra— were deeply devoted to Mary, particularly to Our Lady of Guadalupe, who since 1999 has been formally recognized as Patroness of all America.
“[Our Lady of Guadalupe] was sent by God to the people of Mexico at a time of great uncertainty and political unrest. Plague and earthquakes were devastating the population, and there was violence and racial conflict, and widespread suffering and injustice,” Gomez said.
“Into this historical and cultural moment, Our Lady came as a mother bearing a message of hope.”
Gomez earlier this year led the bishops of the United States in reconsecrating the nation to Mary.
Reconsecrating the country, the US bishops said in an April 23 announcement, is meant to serve as a reminder to the faithful of Mary’s witness to the Gospel, and as a way of asking for Mary’s intercession before Christ on behalf of those in need.
The act of consecration to Mary, Archbishop Gomez said at the time, “will give the Church the occasion to pray for Our Lady’s continued protection of the vulnerable, healing of the unwell, and wisdom for those who work to cure this terrible virus.”
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Sep 30, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).-
A federal court heard arguments on Tuesday in the case of Jack Denton, the Catholic student ousted from Florida State University’s student senate in June.
Denton, the former head… […]
Three U.S. Navy officers look out at me from a small, black-and-white snapshot, taken in Sasebo, Japan, on September 26, 1945: three and a half weeks after the Japanese Empire’s formal surrender aboard USS Missouri. […]
CNA Staff, Sep 30, 2020 / 12:03 pm (CNA).- The Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Minsk-Mohilev on Tuesday denied reports from Russia’s foreign intelligence agency that the Church in Belarus is being used by the US, calling them “complete nonsense, fake information.”
“Some media outlets published information provided by the head of Russia’s foreign intelligence service Sergey Naryshkin. This is a fake, this is nonsense. He spoke about some provocations, about the fact that the United States, the CIA and other organizations are trying to use the Catholic Church to undermine the state system in our country. This is complete nonsense, fake information, lies that have nothing to do with the truth … This is information that should be treated with a touch of irony,” Bishop Yury Kasabutski said during his homily at a Sept. 29 Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Minsk.
Naryshkin is director of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service. The Russian news agency Interfax reported Sept. 29 that Naryshkin had said, “the United States is also unceremoniously interfering in the religious situation in Belarus … The clergy of the Roman Catholic Church are being asked to openly criticize the Belarusian authorities and to use religious events, including sermons, prayers, religious processions, to conduct opposition political propaganda among believers.”
The Russian foreign intelligence director added that “According to the plan of the Americans, this should force Minsk to take harsh retaliatory measures against the Roman Catholic Church.”
Naryshkin said the Belarusian opposition is planning a “resonant provocation” during which a high-ranking cleric “would be arrested or even wounded or killed,” with the intention of increasing opposition sentiment among Catholics in the country.
Belarus has seen widespread protests in recent weeks following a disputed presidential election. Protests began Aug. 9 after president Alexander Lukashenko was declared to have won that day’s election with 80% of the vote. Lukashenko has been president of Belarus since the position was created in 1994.
The US and the EU no longer recognize Lukashenko as the Belarusian president. Canada and the UK placed sanctions on Belarus Sept. 29.
Lukashenko secured a $1.5 billion loan from Russian president Vladimir Putin earlier this month, and Putin has denounced “external pressure” on Belarus.
The president of the Belarusian bishops’ conference, Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz of Minsk-Mohilev, has been exiled. His passport was invalidated, and he was blocked from returning from Poland by border guards Aug. 31. The archbishop has spoken in defense of protests following last month’s presidential election.
Lukashenko has suggested the archbishop might be a citizen of more than one country. The archbishop told CNA Sept. 1 that “today I was accused that I received from Warsaw some instructions, or something, but I didn’t visit Warsaw.” He said he had visited eastern Poland to celebrate the First Communion of a relative.
Bishop Kasabutski told Catholic.by Sept. 29 that “Our clergy do not receive any instructions from anyone, and not only of a political nature … No one makes any calls to the priests for an open statement during the divine services of one or another attitude to the authorities. This information has no real basis.”
He added that the claim the US or other states are trying to influence the Church “sounds completely unrealistic.”
“Perhaps these statements have something to do with the Church’s position. Today the Church in Belarus speaks the truth about the situation in the country, opposes violence, encourages people to solidarity, unity, harmony, peace, and forgiveness,” the bishop reflected.
Bishop Kasabutski continued: “Maybe in this way we are preventing someone from implementing certain scenarios aimed at division in society, at the bloody development of events. Maybe someone is trying to use this situation to divide people on the principle of religion to accuse us of what we are trying to avoid by praying to God for peace and harmony in our society. But we do not succumb to such ‘brainwashing’ and remain faithful to the commandments of love left to us by Christ.”
He added that relations between Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox in Belarus are warm, and that “we now see a very strong solidarity of people regardless of religion.”
Protests have taken place across Belarus since the August election, and thousands of protesters have been detained. At least four people have died in the unrest.
Electoral officials said that the opposition candidate, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, earned 10% of the vote. The opposition claims that she actually garned at least 60% of votes.
Tsikhanouskaya was detained for several hours after complaining to the electoral committee. She and several other opposition leaders are now in self-imposed exile in Lithuania or other nearby countries.
Vatican City, Sep 30, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis Wednesday highlighted the life and figure of St. Jerome in an apostolic letter for the 1,600th anniversary of the Doctor of the Church’s death.
St. Jerome “emerges as a model of un… […]
Rome, Italy, Sep 30, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in Rome Wednesday that the Chinese government is the world’s worst persecutor of religious believers and that the Church is in a unique position to stand up for… […]
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