Senator Tim Scott responds to claim that abortion helps low-income Black women

Marquette, Mich., Jul 5, 2019 / 04:34 pm (CNA).- Irving “Francis” Houle was a Michigan father of five known for his holy life. He appeared to bear the stigmata, a physical manifestation of the wounds of Jesus Christ, and said he experienced… […]

An artist’s rendering of the affordable apartment complex soon to be built by Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance in Los Angeles. / Courtesy of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance

St. Louis, Mo., Aug 26, 2024 / 06:30 am (CNA).

Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, with an average home price almost touching a million dollars in 2024 — a landscape that crowds out not only the poor, but also young families with children. The high cost of housing is one of the primary reasons why tens of thousands of people live on the streets of LA, and most of those who are housed are “rent burdened,” which means they spend more than 30% of their income just keeping a roof over their heads. 

In the face of such challenges, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently announced it will provide land for a new housing development dedicated to serving community college students and young people exiting the foster care system.

Amy Anderson, executive director of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance and a former chief of housing for the City of Los Angeles, told EWTN News that a group of Catholic lay leaders from the business and philanthropic community reached out to the archdiocese with a vision for creating an independent, nonprofit affordable housing development organization.

“Our vision is to really collaborate with the archdiocese and [use] the resources potentially available from the archdiocese to create homes that are affordable to a wide range of populations and incomes,” Anderson told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol. 

She said they hope to break ground on the project, known as the Willowbrook development, “about a year from now.”

“The archdiocese is a fantastic partner. They are providing the land for our first development, which is already in process, and we’re working really closely with them to identify additional opportunities.”

The proposed building, which will be located steps from Los Angeles Community College, will feature 74 affordable housing units, as well as “on-site supportive services” for young people transitioning out of foster care — a population that often ends up experiencing homelessness. 

The land, located at 4665 Willow Brook Ave just a few miles from the Hollywood Sign, currently hosts a Catholic Charities building, which will move its operations to another site to make way for the apartments. 

“Through Catholic Charities and our ministries on Skid Row [an LA street where many unhoused people live] and elsewhere, we have been working for many years to provide shelter and services for our homeless brothers and sisters,” Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement to LAist.

“With this new initiative we see exciting possibilities to make more affordable housing available, especially for families and young people.”

Making land work for mission

The Catholic Church is often cited as the largest non-governmental owner of land in the entire world, with an estimated 177 million acres owned by Catholic entities. 

Maddy Johnson, program manager for the Church Properties Initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate (FIRE), noted that the Church as a large landowner is not a new phenomenon, but there is a need today to adapt to modern challenges like regulations, zoning, and the importance of caring for the natural environment. 

Many Catholic dioceses and religious orders have properties in their possession that aren’t fulfilling their original purpose, including disused natural land and parking lots, as well as shuttered convents and schools. Sometimes, Johnson said, a diocese or religious order doesn’t even realize the full extent of what they own. 

“How can the Church make good strategic decisions, strategic and mission-aligned decisions, if it doesn’t know what properties it’s responsible for?” she said. 

Since real estate management is not the Church’s core competency, FIRE aims to “provide a space for peer learning” to educate and equip Church leaders to make better use of their properties in service of the Church’s mission. 

To this end, they offer an undergraduate minor at Notre Dame that aims to teach students how to help the Church make strategic real estate decisions that align with the Church’s mission. The Institute also organizes a quarterly networking call with diocesan real estate directors, as well as an annual conference to allow Catholic leaders to convene, share best practices, and learn from each other. 

In many cases, Catholic entities that have worked with FIRE have been able to repurpose properties in a way that not only provides income for the church, but also fills a need in the community. 

Johnson said the Church is called to respond to the modern problems society faces — one of which is a lack of housing options, especially for the poor. 

“Throughout its history, there have been so many different iterations of how the Church expresses its mission…through education, healthcare — those are the ones that we’ve gotten really used to,” Johnson said.  

“In our day and age, could it be the need for affordable housing?…that’s a charitable human need in the area that’s not being met.”

Unlocking potential in California

Queen of Angels Housing’s first development, which has been in the works for several years, is being made possible now by a newly-passed state law in California that aims to make it easier for churches to repurpose their land into housing. 

California’s SB 4, the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, was signed into law in October 2023. It streamlines some of the trickiest parts of the process of turning church-owned land into housing — the parts most people don’t really think about. These can include permitting and zoning restrictions, which restrict the types of buildings that can be built in a given area and can be difficult and time-consuming to overcome. SB 4 even includes a provision allowing for denser housing on church-owned property than the zoning ordinances would normally allow. 

Yes in God’s Backyard

The law coming to fruition in California is part of a larger movement informally dubbed “Yes in God’s Backyard,” or YIGBY — a riff on the term “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY), a phenomenon whereby neighbors take issue with and oppose new developments. 

Proponents of the YIGBY movement, which include the co-director of the Fitzgerald Institute at Notre Dame, Father Patrick Reidy, believe the government should make it easier for churches of all denominations to create housing for those who need it. 

Several Catholic real estate professionals with ties to California expressed excitement about the possibilities that SB 4 has created in the Golden State. 

Steve Cameron, a Catholic real estate developer in Orange County, told CNA that he is currently working with the Diocese of Orange, which abuts the LA archdiocese, to inventory properties that could be repurposed for residential use. 

He said their focus is on building apartment buildings and townhomes, primarily for rental rather than for sale, in an attempt to address the severe housing shortage and high costs in Southern California.

Unlike some dioceses, the Orange diocese has an electronic GIS (geographic information system) database showing all the properties it owns. Prepared by a civil engineering firm, the database includes details such as parcel numbers, acreage, title information, and demographic reports, which facilitate the planning and development process.

“Strategically, what we’re doing is we’re inventorying all of the property that the diocese and the parishes own, and trying to understand where there might be underutilized property that would make sense to develop some residential use,” Cameron said. 

Cameron said he can’t yet share details about the housing projects they’re working on, but said they are looking to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Queen of Angels housing project as a model for how to take advantage of the new incentives created by SB 4. 

“I think it’s great, and it’s exciting that they’re taking the lead and that they are able to find an opportunistic way to repurpose an underutilized property to meet the housing shortage in California,” he said. 

“[We] look at them as a role model for what we’re trying to accomplish here in the Diocese of Orange.”

John Meyer, a former president of the California-based Napa Institute who now works in real estate with J2 Development, emphasized the importance of viewing the Church’s vast real estate holdings as an asset rather than a liability. 

Meyer said he is currently working with two Catholic entities on the East Coast on ground lease projects, one of which will fund the construction of a new Catholic Student Center at a university. He told CNA he often advises Catholic entities to lease the land they own rather than selling it, allowing the church to maintain ownership of the property while generating income. 

Naturally, he noted, any real estate project the Church undertakes ought to align with the Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel, and not merely be a means of making money. 

“Any time we look at the Church’s real estate decisions, it’s got to be intertwined with mission and values,” he said.

“We’re not just developing for the sake of developing. What we want to do is we want to create value for the Church, and we also want to create value for the community. So working closely with the municipality to make sure that needs are met, and to be a good neighbor, is important.”

He said Church leaders should strongly consider taking advantage of incentives in various states such as California for projects like affordable housing, which align with the Church’s mission and provide both social and financial benefits. 

“Priests and bishops aren’t ordained to do these things, and sometimes they have people in their diocese that have these abilities, and sometimes they don’t,” Meyer said. 

“This [new law] in California has created an incentive that we can take advantage of, so we need to take advantage of that incentive…it’s allowing us to unlock potential value in land while at the same time serving a social good that’s part of the mission of the Church.”

[…]

Denver Newsroom, Mar 5, 2021 / 05:27 pm (CNA).- Department of Defense investigators have identified the remains of U.S. Army chaplain and Servant of God Fr. Emil Kapaun among the unknown Korean War soldiers buried in a Hawaiian cemetery, much to the surprise and joy of the priest’s relatives and devotees in his home state of Kansas.
 
“I just hope everybody is as elated as we are. It’s awesome to know that Fr. Kapaun will be coming home after 70 years,” Fr. John Hotze of the Diocese of Wichita told CNA March 5. 
 
Ray Kapaun, the priest’s nephew, reflected on the news.
 
“There’s no words that can explain what the feelings are right now,” he said, according to KWCH News.
 
“I know there’s been a lot of miracles that have been attributed to him, or are in the investigation of being attributed to him, but I think everyone sees this as a miracle,” Ray said. “Because this is so unexpected. I mean, my family, we never thought we’d see this in our lifetime.”
 
The priest had been a chaplain during the Second World War and became known for his service in the Korean War with the U.S. Army’s Eighth Cavalry regiment. After he was taken prisoner, he served and ministered to other soldiers in a prison camp, where he died May 23, 1951.
 
The U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has determined that the priest’s remains were among unidentified soldiers buried at the National Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, the Wichita diocese said March 4. Many soldiers’ remains had been moved there from North Korea in the 1950s and again in the 1990s.
 
Bishop Carl Kemme of Wichita welcomed the discovery.
 
“It was a joyful and exciting surprise for the Diocese of Wichita that Fr. Kapaun’s mortal remains were recovered after so many years and we continue to look forward to his process of canonization in the future,” said the bishop.
 
Kapaun’s surviving family is helping to plan the transport of his remains and his final resting place.
 
Father Hotze, who serves as the episcopal delegate for Kapaun’s beatification cause, said the news of the identification of the priest’s remains was “easily one of the last things I expected.”
 
“We’ve always hoped that his remains would be found. It is something that has been on the back burner for everybody for so long. It is great news,” he said.

He reported that the chaplain’s cause for Catholic sainthood is in “a waiting phase” due to delays related to the coronavirus pandemic.
 
In 1993, Kapaun was named a “Servant of God,” the first step on the way to being declared a saint. To be declared “venerable” is the second step in the canonization process. A key meeting regarding his case had been scheduled at the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in March 2020, but that meeting was postponed due to the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic in Italy.
 
Hotze had high praise for the army chaplain, describing him as “an ordinary person who was able to do extraordinary things in service to his fellow men and women and ultimately that meant in service to God.”
 
“And that’s how he gave his life,” he said. “He truly followed the example of Christ. You can see Christ’s life, passion and death all rolled up into Fr. Kapaun.”
 
Kapaun was born in Pilsen, Kansas in 1916. He came of age during the Great Depression. He was ordained a priest in 1940 and began ministry as a parish priest in his hometown.
 
During World War II Kapaun would offer the sacraments at the nearby Harrington Army Air Field until he became a full-time army chaplain in 1944. He was stationed in India and Burma for the duration of the war. There, he ministered to soldiers and served his unit with a selfless attitude.
 
He also gained a reputation for courage. After Kapaun’s jeep had been damaged, he would often ride his bicycle to meet soldiers even at the front lines. He would follow the sound of gunshots to find them.
 
After World War II ended, Kapaun studied history and education at the Catholic University of America. He returned home for a brief time as pastor of his boyhood parish and served at several other parishes. In 1948, the United States issued a call for military chaplains to return to service. Kapaun responded. He was then sent to Texas, Washington, and Japan before deployment to Korea.
 
During the Battle of Unsan in November 1950, Kapaun worked tirelessly to comfort the suffering and retrieve the wounded from the battlefield. One of the soldiers he retrieved was a wounded Chinese soldier, who helped him negotiate a surrender after he was surrounded by enemy troops. Kapaun was taken captive as a prisoner of war.
 
Even then, he helped others. Kapaun carried a wounded American prisoner who could not walk some 30 miles to a prison camp, though the soldier weighed 20 pounds more than the priest. The man could have been killed by enemy soldiers if he could not keep up with the march.
 
The priest was taken to prison camp number five in Pyoktong, a bombed-out village that served as a detainment center. The soldiers at the camp were severely mistreated and suffered from malnourishment, dysentery, and a lack of warm clothing to counter an extremely cold winter. Kapaun would do all he could for the soldiers. He would wash their soiled clothes, retrieve fresh water, and attend to their wounds.
 
The priest helped his fellow prisoners solve problems and keep up morale. He would stay up at night to write letters home on behalf of wounded soldiers. Many returned prisoners of war said his efforts helped them to survive in a harsh winter. For those who did not survive, the priest helped to bury their corpses.
 
Fr. Kapaun would celebrate the sacraments for his fellow prisoners, hear their confessions, and say Mass. On Easter Sunday 1951, about two months before his death, he held a sunrise service for prisoners.
 
When he developed pneumonia and a blood clot in his leg, the chaplain was denied medical treatment, which led to his death.
 
For his bravery at Unsan, Kapaun was posthumously bestowed the Congressional Medal of Honor in a 2013 ceremony under President Barack Obama. The medal is the United States’ highest military award for bravery.
 
While the priest’s body was believed to have been buried in a mass grave on the Yalu River near the North Korea-China border, this was not the case. Instead, his remains had been returned to the U.S. in the 1950s along with hundreds of other unidentified soldiers, Hotze told CNA. He believes inquiry into his possible canonization led to information that Hotze helped lead to the identification of the chaplain’s remains.
 
“He was buried elsewhere in the prison camp,” said Hotze. “His remains were actually returned to the U.S. right after the Korean War, around 1954.”
 
A set of remains had initially been mislabeled as Fr. Kapaun’s, but investigators determined they instead belonged to a younger man in his late teens or early 20s, rather than to a 35-year-old priest. Further identification was difficult, in part to a lack of technology.
 
“He was interred at the national cemetery, as were many others, as an unknown soldier,” Hotze said. “Fortunately, the Department of Defense still actively tries to identify the remains of these unknown soldiers.”
 
Those involved in Kapaun’s canonization cause were told it could be a matter of time to identify his remains if they were indeed at the cemetery.
 
“And that’s exactly what happened,” said Hotze. “We’re thrilled.”
 
Every June pilgrims march from Wichita to Kapaun’s hometown of Pilsen. They make the 60-mile walk in commemoration of the priest and his march to the prison camps.
 
“People are inspired by what he was able to do,” Hotze said. “He was born shortly before the depression. He grew up during the depression as a poor Kansas farmer. The family had nothing. And he was able to make great things happen with nothing.”
 
“He used what he had, and put it in service to God and in service to others. I think he’s a perfect example for each and every one of us who strives to be a saint,” he said. “We can look at his example and realize even if we are poor, even if we are destitute, even if we have nothing in our own lives, we can still be a saintly person.”
 
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kansas, who had introduced legislation to award Kapaun the Medal of Honor, also commented on the identification of the priest’s remains.
 
“I am glad that his family has finally been granted closure after Father Kapaun’s selfless service to our nation,” said Moran, according to the Wichita Eagle newspaper.

[…]