New book aims to help Catholics find Christ in the coronavirus pandemic

Santiago, Chile, Mar 4, 2019 / 04:58 pm (CNA).- The Vicariate for Social Pastoral Care of Caritas in the Archdiocese of Santiago takes in every year hundreds of women and their children, victims of domestic violence who find in their shelters comprehensive care to be able to get on with their lives.  

According to figures from the Center for the Study and Analysis of Crime of the Undersecretariat for Crime Prevention, in 2018 there were 64,361 complaints in Chile related to domestic violence, and of these, 76 percent were against women.

That same year, Caritas’ Social Pastoral Care took into its two shelters in Santiago 86 women and 115 children. Today, 30 percent of its residents are immigrants.

“The women come in as referrals from the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Family Courts, and Sernameg (National Service for Women and Gender Equality), the Carbineros [national police] and the unified risk assessment guidelines,” said Loreto Rebolledo, head of Caritas’ Solidarity Outreach, told the Archdiocese of Santiago’s communications office.

Robelledo explained that that is a Sernameg program run by the Archdiocese of Santiago which consists in providing a quality temporary residence for women over 18, with or without children, who are experiencing violence from their partner, husband, or ex.

In the shelters the women are taught about  the risks and consequences of violence and strategies for self-care and for developing autonomy. The children are given psychological help and given tools for self-knowledge and awareness of their environment, as well as crisis intervention. They are also made to understand that they in no way deserved the violence they were subjected to and are taught how to incorporate strategies to protect themselves.

According to Rebolledo “one of the hardest things to work on and overcome is changing their understanding of affective relationships and the concept of the ideal family, since their learned interrelationships are characterized by following patterns of dependence, submission, and subordination, causing, in the majority of cases, the women to treat their sons and daughters with the same kind of violence they have experienced.”

Caritas’ pastoral ministry endeavors to have people question the roots of violence and commit to building a “more just and equitable society.”

“It emphasizes the expression of a just, fraternal and solidary society where every man and woman has the right to a full and abundant life,” Rebolledo said.

The victims “need to understand why they were experiencing a violent situation and how they got there,” so their sense of guilt is lessened and they put an end to the mistreatment, she noted.

“Networks of family and friends play a key role. Active listening, empathy, support, not judgeing and information are fundamental. That they know and feel they are not alone,” the social worker pointed out.

One of the people who has benefited from from the homes is Sandra, 41, who for years was mistreated by her ex-partner and the father of her three children. In 2014, she asked for asylum with the pastoral ministry and after eight months was able to resume her life without violence.

“Drugs, alcohol and machismo had a played a big part. I put up with so much violence because he was the breadwinner. The episode that I remember the most and that triggered my leaving was once when I was cooking beans he didn’t like them. He threw all the food in my face, then he knocked me up against the stove and began to shoot, in the air, because he had a pistol,” she related.

“They asked my daughter at school what gift that money cannot buy she would like to have. She replied: ‘That my dad would never hit my mom again.’ After that the school called me and I let it all come out. For the first time, I let go of my fear and I told everything I had gone through for five years and then I came to the shelter,” she recalled.

Sandra acknowledged that “it was hard at first, but they helped me here and especially my children. After the eight months that I was here at the home, I was afraid to leave and live elsewhere  with my children, but I got up the courage to do so and thanks be to God it went well for me. I managed to get a job as a waitress and was able to pay the rent.”

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Toronto, Canada, Jan 26, 2018 / 03:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Interreligious leaders from across Canada came together Thursday to sign a statement urging the national government to respect their freedom of conscience by changing controversial new requirements to qualify for federal funding of youth summer jobs.

“The changes to the Canada Summer Jobs guidelines and application not only violate the fundamental freedoms of faith-based organizations, they also significantly impact the broader communities served by their programs, often the most vulnerable in Canadian Society,” reads the interreligious statement signed Jan. 25 by 87 religious leaders, organizations, and institutions.

Signatories included representatives of the Catholic Church and Orthodox Churches, as well as the Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim communities of Canada.

Federal funding requirements for the Canada Summer Jobs program were added Dec. 19, 2017 stipulating that “both the job and the organization’s core mandate respect individual human rights in Canada,” including “reproductive rights,” or the right to abortion access.

“An organization that has the explicit purpose of restricting women’s rights by removing rights to abortion and the rights of women to control their own bodies is not in line with where we are as a government, and quite frankly, where we are as a society,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when he discussed the Canada Summer Jobs program Jan. 10.

Trudeau continued, “Women have fought for generations for the right to control their own bodies, to be able to choose for themselves what to do with their bodies … There are organizations that couch themselves in freedom of speech and freedom of conscience … when those beliefs lead to actions aimed to restrict a women’s right on what to do with her body, that’s where we draw the line.”

Diverse religious leaders came together in Toronto the afternoon of Jan. 25 and released the following statement:

“We … call on the Prime Minister and the Government of Canada to amend the Canada Summer Jobs guidelines and application process so that it does not compel agreement or belief, and allows religious organization to stay true to their communal identity and beliefs. The new application requires each organization to give non-negotiable and unqualified affirmation of certain beliefs held by the government.”

Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto was among the speakers at the statement’s release.

“Many organizations will be deemed ineligible because they are unable to or unwilling to attest that their core mandate and beliefs align with the current government’s self-identified values. These groups, though their views and actions are accepted by law and by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms are being denied access to a government benefit solely because of their religious beliefs or conscientious objection,” said Cardinal Collins.

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops originally raised objections to changes in the federal funding requirements for the Canada Summer Jobs program in a Jan. 11 statement.

In response, the Canadian government issued “supplementary information” Jan. 23 about what situations would warrant a denial of funds. This clarification of the new policy emphasizes a distinction between the activities and the beliefs of an organization when the government determines who will receive funding.

The statement also includes five example of how eligibility is determined, with a hypothetical “faith-based organization with anti-abortion beliefs” among its examples.

“Example 1: An organization whose primary activities are focused on removing, or actively undermining existing women’s reproductive rights, applies for funding. This organization would not be eligible to apply,” begins the list.

The next example differentiates a situation in which “a faith-based organization with anti-abortion beliefs applies for funding to hire students to serve meals to the homeless. The organization provides numerous programs in support of their community. The students would be responsible for meal planning, buying groceries, serving meals, etc. This organization would be eligible to apply,” according to the Employment and Social Development department of Canada.

However, a summer camp that “does not welcome LGBTQ2 young people” would not be eligible to apply for funding to hire students as camp counselors, while “a faith-based organization that embraces a traditional definition of marriage” could hire students for the primary purpose of assisting the elderly “regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity or expression,” according to other examples.

The examples thus hinge on whether the core mandate, which is defined as the “the primary activities undertaken by the organization,” respect the “established individual human rights of Canada,” rather than the beliefs or values of the organization.

Father Raymond de Souza, a priest of the Archdiocese of Kingston, commented on this distinction saying, “It is embarrassing that the employment minister seems unaware a basic element of political liberty, freedom of expression and religious liberty is that the state does not determine what the “core mandate” of a citizen is,” in an opinion piece at the National Post.

Patty Hajdu, the Canadian Minister of Employment, Workforce, and Labour, wrote on Twitter Jan. 23 that “Canadians expect us to defend their hard-won rights. Canada Summer Jobs funding will no longer support activities that seek to remove individual rights, like a woman’s right to choose or LGBTQ2 rights.”

The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops told CNA Jan. 24 that they remain “seriously concerned that the beliefs and practices of Catholics and other faith traditions will exclude them from receiving funding through the Canada Summer Jobs Program.”

“The attestation and examples still amount to the government’s coercion on matters of conscience and religious belief. They foreclose the possibility of wide ranging views and even healthy disagreement,” the bishops explained.

“In the Archdiocese of Toronto alone, we know that at least 150 summer jobs will be impacted by the new application requirements,” Cardinal Collins said at the interreligious press conference.

[…]

CNA Staff, Dec 18, 2020 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- The coronavirus pandemic has inspired many people in the Czech Republic to rediscover the Catholic Church, according to Cardinal Dominik Duka. In an email interview with […]