Miami archbishop says Florida immigration bill criminalizes ‘empathy’ toward the undocumented

Washington D.C., Apr 3, 2017 / 05:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As Pope Francis and U.S. bishops insist upon helping ex-convicts re-enter society, advocates are pointing to a litany of obstacles – over 40,000 legal regulations – for such re-entry that need to be addressed.

“That’s what we want…(to give) attention to,” Craig DeRoche, senior vice president of advocacy and public policy with Prison Fellowship, told CNA, “the important principle of closure.”

“You ask somebody that has done something wrong to square their debt. They do that, that’s the right thing for that person,” he said of punishments for crime. “We should want that person to move forward up and away from their old life, and we’re doing too much to prevent that in America today.”

DeRoche spoke at a “Second Chance Month” press conference at the National Press Club on March 30, joined by other advocates for criminal justice reform from organizations like the NAACP, Heritage Foundation, ACLU, and Americans for Prosperity.

Prison Fellowship, an outreach to prisoners and their families, has declared April 2017 to be “Second Chance” month. A senate resolution introduced by Sens. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) calls for the same.

“With 95 percent of inmates set to be released one day and two-thirds of released inmates back behind bars within five years, too many Americans are caught up in a cycle of crime,” Portman said.

“I hope that we all can join together on a bipartisan basis during Second Chance Month and all year round to support those who are returning from prison and want a fair shot at living an honest and productive life.”

Pope Francis, in November, asked countries to consider clemency for “eligible” prisoners during the Year of Mercy. He asked for criminal justice “which isn’t just punitive, but open to hope and the re-insertion of the offender into society.”

The Pope’s visit to a Philadelphia, Pa. correctional facility in 2015 was inspiring, DeRoche admitted, and serves as an example for all Americans. “It was wonderful to see that Pope Francis went directly into a prison,” he said.

“Prison Fellowship believes that every American should take the opportunity…to visit a prison,” he said at the National Press Club, emphasizing that especially “elected leaders” should visit prisons.

“And many people who aren’t aware of how involved the Christian church is [in prison ministry], they often ask ‘why?’” DeRoche said. “And I say ‘well it’s one of the only things that Jesus actually commanded people to do.’”

Why are advocates pushing specifically for a “second chance” initiative? Former inmates face far too many barriers to living a normal life once they re-enter society, one former prisoner says, and such restrictions may well enhance their risks of re-entering prison.

Casey Irwin, who was convicted for bank fraud and drug-related offenses, now owns a million-dollar business. Yet for a while after her time spent in multiple prisons, she struggled to find her way in society.  

“I made poor choices,” Irwin said at the National Press Club. “I’m still a normal human being, and I need a place to eat, and I need a place to sleep, and I need a place to work. And so all those things have been difficult to obtain.”

“I can get a job, but it wasn’t going to pay me any money, and I wasn’t going to ever move up. So I think that’s a barrier for everybody,” Irwin told CNA of her efforts to find a job that would pay well and offer her career advancement opportunities.

She still faces “many barriers” including in housing and employment, she said, noting that the societal stigma against someone with a criminal record is quite real when she applied for housing or for jobs after she had served her prison sentence and, in her words, paid her “debt” to society.

Just “the way people look at you” when they hear about a criminal record, she explained, “you tell people you’re a felon and they think you killed five people.”

“That’s their automatic reaction,” she said, and societal change needs to happen through peoples’ minds, not legislation. “That comes from peoples’ mindsets being changed about ‘criminal people.’”

“I sold drugs to supplement my income for my rent, because I was in a place I couldn’t afford. And she [the landlord] knew it. I knew it. But I needed a place to stay, so I’m like ‘I’ll take it,’ knowing that I couldn’t pay for it,” Irwin said. She was caught selling drugs and sentenced to prison again.

“One of those things was like how do I get ahead without criminal behavior? How do I get ahead without trying to skirt the system?” she said. “And so I had to really push through that, and take a low-paying job, and just allow myself to develop, where a lot of people who are in that criminal mindset, they don’t think like that because they want it now, and right now.”

Her first big break came when a friend she had worked with referred her for a management position at Kentucky Fried Chicken. She was offered to be manager of a franchise.

“I was so excited,” she recalled, noting she had an opportunity for success “without having to look over my shoulder.”

Yet ex-convicts face tens of thousands of obstacles and restrictions – over 46,000 “collateral consequences” at the federal, state, and local level across the U.S., John Malcolm, a legal expert with the Heritage Foundation, noted at last Thursday’s event.

In a report he co-authored in March on “collateral consequences,” he noted how some states have hundreds of consequences for persons with criminal records including barriers to specific careers. Employment barriers make up most of the consequences, he noted – 60 to 70 percent, according to the American Bar Association.

And a dozen states “restrict voting rights even after a person has served his or her prison sentence and is no longer on probation or parole,” Udi Ofer, director of the ACLU’s Campaign for Smart Justice, noted at the event.

The disparity can fall sharply along racial lines, too, he added. “Black Americans of voting age are more than four times more likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the adult population, with one out of every 13 black adults disenfranchised nationally.”

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Relatives, friends and comrades of Ukrainian soldier Eduardo Trepilchenko, who was killed on the Eastern front battling the Russian invasion , attend his funeral at St Michael’s Cathedral on May 25, 2022 in Kyiv, Ukraine. / Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jun 5, 2022 / 07:04 am (CNA).

Pope Francis condemned the war in Ukraine after Russia’s ongoing invasion of that country reached the 100-day mark.

“On Pentecost, God’s dream for humanity becomes reality; fifty days after Easter, peoples who speak different languages encounter and understand one another,” the 85-year-old pontiff said. “But now, 100 days after the beginning of the armed aggression against Ukraine, the nightmare of war, which is the negation of God’s dream, has once again befallen humanity.”

He spoke to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square in Rome following the Regina Coeli, a Marian prayer said during the Easter season, on June 5. Thousands of faithful gathered on the feast of Pentecost with colorful banners and flags to pray with the pontiff on the hot, summer-like day. 

Every year, the feast of Pentecost marks the end of Easter and recalls when the Holy Spirit comes upon the apostles, Mary, and the first followers of Christ.

Before the Regina Coeli, Pope Francis asked the joyful crowd — young, elderly, religious, and families from around the world — to repeat the prayer: “Come Holy Spirit, remind me of Jesus, enlighten my heart.”

During his address, he urged world leaders to unite against war and work toward solutions.

“And while the fury of destruction and death rampages and the conflicts rage on, fuelling an escalation that is increasingly dangerous for all, I renew my appeal to the leaders of Nations: do not lead humanity into ruin, please!” he pleaded. “Let true negotiations take place, real talks for a ceasefire and for a sustainable solution.”

He added, “Let the desperate cry of the suffering people be heard — we see this every day in the media — have respect for human life and stop the macabre destruction of cities and villages in the east of Ukraine.”

June 3 marked 100 days since the beginning of Russia’s invasion that has left thousands dead. The United Nations estimates that nearly 7 million people have fled Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, with many more displaced or stranded within Ukraine.

Pope Francis, an outspoken advocate for the Ukrainian people, has expressed a desire to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and to travel to Ukraine when the “right time” comes.

His comments come after he consecrated Russia and Ukraine to the Immaculate Heart of Mary in March. At the end of May, he prayed the rosary for peace in Ukraine and around the world.

On Sunday, the pontiff encouraged, “Let us continue, please, to pray and to strive tirelessly for peace.” You can watch the pope’s full address in the video below.

At the end of his address, Pope Francis also recognized the recent beatification of two Lebanese priests martyred under the Ottoman Empire: Leonardo Melki and Thomas George Saleh. 

Pope Francis also thanked God for a recently renewed truce between the Government in Yemen and Houthi rebels in the Yemen conflict.

He prayed for the victims of the landslides caused by torrential rains in the metropolitan region of Recife, Brazil, that have left more than 100 dead. He also expressed his closeness to fishermen suffering from increased gas prices and to all workers affected by the conflict in Ukraine.

He concluded with one last request: “I pray for you; pray for me.”

[…]

Baltimore, Md., Jan 14, 2020 / 06:48 pm (CNA).- Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore joined two U.S. senators and several religious leaders this week in calling for additional federal funding for security measures at religious sites in the U.S.

U.S. Senators Benjamin Cardin and Christopher Van Hollen, both Democrats from Maryland, joined Lori and a group of other faith leaders at a Jan. 13 press conference outside the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation in Pikesville.

The senators have proposed to quadruple the funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program in next year’s federal budget. This increase in funding would offer an additional $360 million per year to strengthen security measures for religious and non-profit institutions.

“I commend our Senate leaders for calling us together today to condemn these acts, but also to take concrete and necessary measures to do everything we can to protect the rights of all people,” Lori, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

The proposal follows a rise in anti-Semitic violence throughout the country in recent months.

In October 2018, a gunman killed 11 people and injured several others at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagogue. In April 2019, a shooting at Poway Synagogue in Poway, California left one dead and three injured. Last month, three civilians and a police detective were killed in a shooting at a kosher market in Jersey City, New Jersey. Two weeks later, a stabbing left five people injured during a Hanukkah celebration at a rabbi’s home in New York.

Catholic leaders have repeatedly denounced the violence and called for respect for people of all faiths.

“We are deeply disturbed by the recent apparent rise in anti-Semitism, in particular, the violent attacks that took place last year during the Hanukkah celebration in New York and on the kosher market in Jersey City,” said Lori at the press conference.

Rabbi Shmuel Silber of Suburban Orthodox Toras Chaim Congregation vowed not to give in to fear amid the recent attacks on Jewish communities.

“We are emboldened and we will continue to shepherd our respective communities in our faith traditions and never bow to hate and bigotry,” Silber said, according to the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

At the press conference, Van Hollen cited FBI reports showing that anti-Semitic attacks have increased by 35% from 2014 to 2018. Cardin pointed to steps taken by European governments to protect religious institutions from being vulnerable to terrorism.

Speakers also pointed to recent attacks against mosques and churches, such as the shooting last month that killed two at West Freeway Church of Christ in Texas.

In addition to supporting legislative action, Lori said, “we also continue to put our faith in the simple act of coming together, standing side by side, to demonstrate that love will always be a greater power than evil.”

[…]