Appeals court: Navy service members requesting religious exemption to COVID vaccine should not be punished

Denver Newsroom, Oct 2, 2020 / 11:01 am (CNA).- The U.S. State Department informed Congress this week that the U.S. anticipates 15,000 refugees to be admitted and resettled during fiscal year 2021, the lowest number allowed since 1980. Catholic groups told CNA that they believe the U.S. can and should accept more refugees in 2021, rather than fewer.

In a media note posted Sept. 30, the State Department said the U.S. anticipates receiving more than 300,000 new refugee and asylum claims in fiscal year 2021, and that the department already has a backlog of 1.1 million claims.

About 9,000 refugees entered the US in fiscal year 2020. The administration had planned to allow 18,000, but the coronavirus pandemic led President Trump to suspend indefinitely the asylum system in March.

Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles, president of the USCCB, and Bishop Mario Dorsonville, auxiliary bishops of Washington and chair of the USCCB’s migration committee, said Oct. 2: “We continue to be disappointed by the Trump Administration’s diminishment of the U.S. refugee resettlement program, as these decisions have a tangible impact on those fleeing religious persecution and other vulnerable families in need of refuge. While refugees will thankfully be allowed to seek refuge here in the United States in 2021, the low number of admissions, given the global need and the capacity and wealth of the United States, is heartbreaking. We exhort Congress to seriously examine the Administration’s proposal and strongly encourage the President to increase the eventual presidential determination significantly.”

The bishops said that “welcoming refugees is an act of love and hope. By helping to resettle the most vulnerable, we are living out our Christian faith as Jesus has challenged us to do.”

“We urge the Administration to continue to offer welcome to refugees to our country. We can and must lead by example in the defense of all human life, including those fleeing persecution,” they concluded.

Sister Donna Markham, president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA, urged the administration to reconsider, given the refugee program’s humanitarian mission. Local Catholic Charities groups throughout the country are often very involved in the resettlement of refugees.

“The individuals and families who apply for this program aren’t doing so by choice. They have been forced to flee their homeland to avoid persecution, threats of violence, and death,” Markham said Oct. 1.

“These are real people with real stories of sacrifice and struggle many of us cannot begin to comprehend. They aren’t looking for a handout, rather they enhance our economy, culture, and communities every day.”

The department said the system will prioritize those who are already in the country seeking humanitarian protection, of which there are about 290,000. The number of people granted asylum will be decided by immigration courts.

Under previous administrations, the number of refugees admitted to the United States regularly exceeded 100,000 a year.

Bill O’Keefe, executive vice president for Mission, Mobilization and Advocacy for Catholic Relief Services, said that they have observed the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on displaced people around the world firsthand.

CRS helps displaced people outside the US, and works to improve conditions for them in their home countries, O’Keefe said, but also they recognize that sometimes fleeing is the only option.

“While we can support many to stay where they are, too many of the most vulnerable need a new home and the United States can and should provide that home to significantly more than 15,000 people,” O’Keefe told CNA.

“The number of the world’s displaced people exceeds the combined population of Texas, Florida, and New York, yet America is accepting the equivalent of a small village of 15,000 people. CRS itself is supporting 10 times that number of displaced people around the world. Surely our country can do more.”

The State Department said in its media note that this year’s proposed refugee resettlement program will include specific allocations for people who have suffered or fear persecution on the basis of religion, such as for Iraqis whose assistance to the United States has put them in danger; for refugees from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras; and for refugees from Hong Kong, Cuba, and Venezuela.

Some of the countries in which CRS is active, such as Uganda, Bangladesh, Lebanon, Iraq, Colombia, and Kenya, have had to shoulder much larger relative burdens in terms of refugees than the United States, O’Keefe said: “For other governments to mobilize support for these most vulnerable refugees, the United States must do more to welcome the stranger.”

Jesuit Refugee Services similarly decried the reduced number and appealed to Christians to be open to greater numbers of refugees.

“Reflective of our nation’s core values and Christian responsibility to ‘welcome the stranger,’ the refugee resettlement program demonstrates the best of who we are as a country,” said Joan Rosenhauer, JRS/USA Executive Director.

“It is deeply disappointing that this program will, again, be smaller, hampering in its ability to demonstrate these American values and disregarding this Christian responsibility.”

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Father Gabriel Romanelli (center), the Latin parish priest of Gaza, is among the celebrants at a Mass to celebrate the feast day of Our Lady, Queen of Palestine and the Holy Land at the shrine dedicated to her at Deir Rafat on Sunday, Oct. 29, 2… […]

The extraordinary consistory of cardinals meets at the Vatican’s Synod Hall, Aug. 29, 2022. / Credit: Vatican Media

CNA Staff, Sep 29, 2023 / 17:25 pm (CNA).

On Saturday, Sept. 30, Pope Francis will create 21 new cardinals at a consistory in Rome. 

Here’s everything you need to know:

What’s a consistory?

Cardinals are the pope’s closest assistants and advisers, from all around the world. A consistory is a formal meeting of the College of Cardinals. The pope can convene them for a number of reasons.

One of the most common reasons for a consistory, as is the case here, is to create new cardinals. The ceremony in which the pope makes cardinals is known as an ordinary public consistory. 

Another consistory the pope may convene is an ordinary consistory to vote on the causes of new saints, the last step before a formal canonization can take place.

There are also extraordinary consistories, in which every cardinal is expected to take part, barring a serious reason.

The last ordinary public consistory took place on Aug. 27, 2022. The new cardinals created then included Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego and Cardinal Arthur Roche, prefect of the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

Soon after, Pope Francis convened an extraordinary consistory, which took place Aug. 29–30, 2022, during which the world’s cardinals came to Rome to discuss the new constitution of the Roman Curia, Praedicate Evangelium.

Who is being made cardinal this weekend?

Twenty-one men from around the world will “receive the red hat” and become cardinals at the September consistory. 

Among them is Stephen Chow Sau-yan, SJ, bishop of Hong Kong; Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States; Pierbattista Pizzaballa, OFM, Latin patriarch of Jerusalem; and Víctor Manuel Fernández, the new prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. 

A list along with an analysis of each cardinal-elect’s spiritual motto can be found here. 

What will actually happen at this consistory?

In addition to giving each new cardinal their hat, or biretta, Pope Francis at the Sept. 30 liturgy at St. Peter’s Basilica will place a ring on the hand of each new cardinal while saying: “Receive this ring from the hand of Peter and know that, with the love of the Prince of the Apostles, your love for the Church is strengthened.” They will also each receive the formal decree (or papal bull) announcing their creation as a cardinal.

The scarlet biretta is, as the pope will recite, a “sign of the dignity of the cardinalate, signifying your readiness to act with courage, even to the shedding of your blood, for the increase of the Christian faith, for the peace and tranquility of the people of God and for the freedom and growth of the Holy Roman Church.”

Immediately before, the new cardinals will make a profession of faith by reciting the Creed. They then pronounce an oath of fidelity and obedience to the pope and his successors.

The pope will also assign each new cardinal a church in the Diocese of Rome, called a “titular church.” This further links the cardinal to Rome and to the pope, who is the bishop of Rome.

The other members of the College of Cardinals, clergy, Catholics, and members of the public may all attend a consistory to create cardinals.

So, how many cardinals will there be, and why does it matter?

St. Paul VI established in 1970 that cardinals aged 80 and over cannot participate in the process of electing a pope — thus, cardinals who are younger than 80 are known as “electors.” Paul VI also established a numerical limit for the number of electors, capping it at 120, but the number occasionally has risen above that number.   

The number of cardinal electors — and indeed the number of cardinals in general — in the college is always changing, since at any time cardinals may be celebrating their 80th birthday or may have died. 

According to the Vatican, as of Sept. 29, there were 119 cardinal electors ahead of the consistory and 102 non-electors. After the consistory, the number will rise to 105 non-electors and 136 electors. 

Francis has shaped the college greatly during his 10 years as pope, appointing 98, or 72%, of the current electors after the conclave on Sept. 30. The rest were appointed by St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. In all, he has named cardinals from 66 countries, including several first-time nations, such as South Sudan, Singapore, and Mongolia.

That percentage becomes important given the current requirement that a candidate needs a two-thirds majority of the cardinals’ votes to be elected pope. This, however, is a provision that Pope Francis could change at any time. 

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