‘I still wanted to make a difference’: Why pro-lifers came to D.C. to pray

CNA Staff, Jul 17, 2020 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Jackson has reached an agreement with federal prosecutors to improve its financial controls, in a case related to one of its priests who allegedly defrauded parishioners.

The priest, Fr. Lenin Vargas, has been indicted “on ten counts of wire fraud based on alleged fraudulent fundraising activities,” according to a July 13 statement from the office of the US Attorney for the Northern District of Mississippi.

Fr. Vargas allegedly collected tens of thousands of dollars from parishioners, which he used for personal expenses.

The attorney’s office added that it had “entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement” with the Jackson diocese “based on the alleged inaction of the Diocese, which allegedly contributed to parishioners continuing to donate money to Vargas.”

The DPA will be in effect for 12 months, and upon its successful completion, all charges against the diocese will be dismissed. The prosecutor’s office reminded the public that a DPA and indictment “are not evidence of guilt and that all individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty.”

The DPA “includes a number of remedial measures designed to help ensure that there are no future violations such as those alleged in the Affidavit,” the US attorney’s office stated.

The diocese specified July 15 that among the changes it is to undertake and maintain under the DPA are the “return of donations related to alleged fraudulent activities against parishioners”, making staff changes in the accounting and chancery offices, improvements in accounting for donations and priest spending, the formation of a new review board focusing on ethical conduct, establishing a fraud prevention hotline, revising collection policies, and initiating a penal process for Fr. Vargas.

The diocese added that it had already undertaken the enumerated changes during the investigation related to Fr. Vargas, excepting the penal process, which it said “will begin now.”

The prosecutor’s office also noted that the diocese “has reimbursed identified victims of the alleged fraudulent scheme.”

Bishop Joseph Kopacz of Jackson said July 15 that “there are still steps to be taken and certainly more changes ahead. As part of an agreed upon resolution of the federal investigation, the Diocese will welcome periodic review and oversight of its financial and management practices and protocols. As a result of the many steps we have already taken to tighten our internal controls, we are very comfortable with this resolution.”

He expressed “deep regret for all who have been hurt by Lenin Vargas’s actions” and added, “we still invite anyone to come forward with claims, and we will work to seek a just resolution with them.”

Fr. Vargas returned to his home country of Mexico while he was being investigated. The Jackson diocese has said he was barred from public ministry in November 2018, and by November 2019 it said he had been “stripped of his priestly facilities and authorities in the Catholic Church in Mexico were notified of his standing.”

Fr. Vargas was pastor of St. Joseph parish in Starkville, and its mission in Macon, until November 2018. The parish, as well as the chancery, were raided by federal agents that month following questions about Fr. Vargas’ financial activities.

According to the indictment of the priest, he told parishioners he had cancer, when he in fact had been diagnosed with HIV around September 2014. He solicited donations, saying they were to cover cancer treatments and to help build an orphanage and chapel in his home country of Mexico. His alleged scheme to defraud continued from about January 2015 through September 2018.

The indictment says that the money collected by Fr. Vargas was sent to Mexico to enrich himself and Sergio Picon, with whom he had a close personal relationship, as well as business ventures.

In April 2015, Fr. Vargas went to the Toronto-based Southdawn Institute, which treats priests and religious with addiction or mental health problems. He told parishioners it was for cancer treatment.

In a November 2018 statement, the Jackson diocese said that Bishop Kopacz ordered an internal accounting audit of the finances at St. Joseph, and that afterward the diocese placed constraints on Fr. Vargas’ spending. The diocese added that it had demanded that Fr. Vargas stop soliciting charitable donations and that he do no more charitable fundraising without informing it.

A year later, in November 2019, the diocese said that “neither Bishop Joseph Kopacz, nor any Diocesan Official, committed, condoned or covered up fraudulent activity,” and that “no Diocese official had any knowledge that Father Vargas was asking individuals for money until … November 2018.”

It also said that the audit of St. Joseph parish was ordered in late 2017.

While facts about the priest’s health are at issue, the diocese has said the federal privacy law HIPPA “prohibits our discussion of Father Vargas’ medical condition.” The diocese provides medical insurance for its priests, and has said that decisions about the discussion of the priest’s medical condition were made “on the advice of its health insurance experts and legal counsel.”

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Denver Newsroom, Sep 16, 2020 / 05:19 pm (CNA).- An advocacy group for Christians and other religious minorities living in the Middle East this week praised an agreement between Israel and Bahrain, which comes on the heels of a similar agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

“While there are many contentious issues left to be discussed in the Middle East Peace Process and many injustices that Christians in Bahrain, Israel, and across the Middle East continue to face, today’s peace agreement is a positive step for Christians in the Middle East,” Toufic Baaklini, president of In Defense of Christians, said when the deal was announced.

“Politics should not stand in the way of any Christian being able to visit the sites of the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

The foreign ministers of the UAE and Bahrain signed the deal to normalize relations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a ceremony at the White House Sept. 15.

President Donald Trump had announced the diplomatic accord between Israel and UAE Aug.13, releasing a statement on the normalization of relations which included a provision that Israel will “suspend declaring sovereignty” over some areas of the West Bank.

On Sept. 11, it was announced that Bahrain, too, would normalize relations with Israel.

Jeremy Barker, Director of the Religious Freedom Institute’s Middle East Action Team, told CNA that agreements between governments are an important first step toward peace, but must be followed by concrete action.

“An agreement that commits to the pursuit of living together in peace, despite deep differences, is important and should be commended,” Barker told CNA.

“We hope the steps taken by these Gulf States will encourage others to follow suit in a way that promotes peace for everyone in the Middle East whether Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or otherwise.”

In February last year, Pope Francis made an historic trip to the UAE, the first by a pope to the Arabian peninsula. While there, Francis signed a joint document on human fraternity with the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb. The document condemned “all forms of violence, especially those with religious motivation,” and committed the two leaders “to spreading authentic values and peace throughout the world.”

The UAE has strict laws governing religion, including the death penalty for Muslims who convert to another religion. While Bahrain provides freedom of conscience, the constitution declares Islam to be the official religion and sharia to be a principal source for legislation.

Barker added that the recent agreements between nations and the political, economic, and social relations that they encourage may provide a context that helps to cultivate greater religious freedom in the region.

“The absence of religious freedom, whether through government repression or social hostilities, hurts everyone in society. Any steps that Bahrain, the UAE, Israel, or any other country takes to provide greater respect for religious freedom will also prove to unleash other goods in society as well,” he said.

Trump has suggested that Saudi Arabia may be the next Middle Eastern nation to normalize relations with Israel, since analysts have suggested that Bahrain was unlikely to agree to normalize ties without the blessing of its ally, Saudi Arabia.

The US bishops have called gratifying Israel’s decision to suspend the annexation of parts of the West Bank, part of its normalization of relations with the UAE, but reiterated the need for Israel to negotiate directly with Palestine.

Other states in the region have criticized the accord between Israel and the UAE. Iran’s state news agency IRNA quoted the country’s foreign ministry calling the agreement a “strategic act of idiocy” and “dangerous.”

A spokesperson for Palestinian National Authority president Mahmoud Abbas said the Palestinian government “rejects and denounces” the agreement. The UAE, Bahrain, and other Arab countries broadly support Palestine.

“The Palestinian leadership rejects the actions of the Emirati government, considering it to be a betrayal of the Palestinian people and Jerusalem and al-Aqsa,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh.

During the White house ceremony Sept. 15, Palestinians expressed their anger over the agreements by launching rockets into Israel from Gaza, the New York Times reported.

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CNA Staff, Jun 11, 2020 / 04:50 pm (CNA).- India has barred U.S. representatives from investigating the county’s reported violations of religious freedom, continuing what critics call a trend of Hindu nationalism that threatens religious minorities in India.

The investigation, called for by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), followed reports of the abuse of Chistians, Muslims, and other religious minorities in India. The reports prompted USCIRF to delegate India a “country of particular concern” (CPC) in its 2020 annual report. India joined a list of 13 other CPCs in the report, including North Korea and China.

“We see no locus standi for a ‘foreign entity/government’ to pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights,” Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, according to a report by IndiaToday. He said India is a “pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion.”

Although India’s constitution protects the freedom of religion, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has manipulated the constitutional stipulation that religious freedom is “subject to public order,” using the clause to promote Hindu nationalism, according to the USCIRF report.

One such instance of Hindu nationalism is a new policy that would fast-track the citizenship of non-Muslim migrants by treating them as refugees fleeing religious persecution. The same status would not be conferred on 100 million other migrants, potentially making them illegal residents of India.

This policy incited violent riots in northeastern Delhi in February, killing 27 and injuring over 200, according to a CNA report. The riots saw Hindu mobs attacking unarmed people and especially targeting Muslims.

Reports indicate that Indian Hindus, who make up nearly 80% of India’s population, have systematically targeted Muslims in lynch mobs for slaughtering or eating beef– a practice that Hindus consider to be a religious offense. Since the BJP came to power in 2014, there have been over 100 lynch mob attacks in India, which often originate on social media. The law enforcement is known to arrest the victims, rather than the perpetrators, of these attacks.

Religious discrimination and violence has also been directed toward Christians in recent years.

In January, Hindu groups attempted to prevent the building of a huge statue of Jesus in Bangalore. They claimed a Hindu god lives on the hill where the local Catholic archdiocese was planning to erect the statue.

In 2008, Hindu nationalists organized attacks on Christian homes, schools, and churches in Karnataka, physically beating hundreds of Christians. The Saldhana Report, an independent report on the attacks released in 2011, revealed that the attacks were backed by India’s highest government authorities.

Dozens of Catholics in the same region were attacked in 2019 while conducting a Marian pilgrimage, resulting in the arrest of six Hindu Nationalists.

The USCIRF’s delegation of India as a CPC, which precipitated the investigation, was not unanimous. Gary Bauer, the president of American Values who serves as a USCIRF commissioner, dissented from the majority opinion, along with two other USCIRF commissioners.

“The trend line on religious freedom in India is not reassuring. But India is not the equivalent of communist China, which wages war on all faiths; nor of North Korea, a prison masquerading as a country; nor of Iran, whose Islamic extremist leaders regularly threaten to unleash a second Holocaust,” said Bauer. “I am confident that India will reject any authoritarian temptation and stand with the United States and other free nations in defense of liberty, including religious liberty.”

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