Archbishop Broglio: Human dignity, economy key to Catholic support for Trump

Stillwater, Oklahoma, Apr 4, 2019 / 12:28 am (CNA).- When a film crew arrived in the small college town of Stillwater, Oklahoma last spring, few residents realized exactly what kind of movie the crew was making.

The film, which residents soon learned was called “Redeemed,” was rather vaguely described as being “based on a true story of a woman’s journey and God’s redeeming love and forgiveness,” according to local media.

The most tightly-controlled and top secret film set in the town, however, offered some clues about the film’s subject matter. The film crew transformed a nondescript building on the edge of downtown into a replica of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic.

Father Brian O’Brien, pastor of St. Francis Xavier Church in Stillwater, told CNA that he noticed some changes in his congregation after the filming of “Redeemed” began.

“I started to notice a few more people at Sunday Mass, just some people I hadn’t seen before, and they were there all the time, coming to daily Mass,” he said.

“And so eventually I connected with them, and they told me they were in town for the movie. Some of them were in the movie, some of them were the producers, writers.”

What Fr. O’Brien already knew was that the film known as “Redeemed” was actually “Unplanned,” the true story of former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson, who eventually converted to Catholicism and became a leader in the pro-life movement.

Bishop David Konderla of the Diocese of Tulsa had called O’Brien last March to tell him that “Unplanned” was coming to Stillwater, and personally asked him to give any “spiritual support” that he could.

The filmmakers kept the film’s true subject matter— abortion— under wraps during filming, to allay any potential pro-abortion protests during the film’s production.

Did the people of Stillwater realize it was a pro-life movie?

“There was a general sense that that’s what it was. People did not know the full extent,” O’Brien said.

Although not everyone who worked on “Unplanned” was Catholic, O’Brien said he met one day with the group who had been coming to his parish, and they asked him not only if he would like to visit and bless the movie set, but also to celebrate Mass there. He agreed to all of it.

“And so what ended up happening over the course of April and May, spring of 2018, I would go over super early in the morning before they started filming for the day and celebrate Mass on the set,” he said.

“It was early, and the goal was to have Mass before what was typically a 12- or 14- hour filming session.”

He said the other thing he did was a simple blessing of each set every time the film crew moved to different locations around Stillwater.

The directors of “Unplanned” have been open about the fact that several bizarre incidents took place during filming involving cast and crew, including a near-death experience involving the film’s lead actress, Ashley Bratcher.

“What was interesting is that the cast and crew, all throughout filming, reported kind of strange happenings,” O’Brien said.

“The goal was to offer God’s blessings upon this project and see if we could prevent some of that.”

Though the time O’Brien spent on-site was not very long, he said he enjoyed sitting on the set while the crew was filming scenes for the movie, and to support two of the film’s co-directors, Cary Solomon and Chuck Konzelman, both Catholics.

“It was on the set where I met lots of the other pastors of other churches, so I think they put out a call to any church that was sympathetic to the pro-life cause and said, ‘come,’” O’Brien said.

The broader population, meanwhile, was told little about the movie until later in production.

“We only announced it here to our people at church when they needed extras for what I think is the final scene, kind of an aerial shot of a bunch of people at the park,” the priest said.

“They needed extras for that, so we invited all of our people to go, and a lot of people did.”

Now that “Unplanned” is out in theaters, O’Brien said his parish is doing a lot of promotion for the film. They have already bought out two theaters and expect about 200 people to come to see the movie all together.

Sheryl Lacy, operations manager for St. Francis Xavier Parish, told CNA that she helped to encourage people to come and be extras in the film, even those from communities outside Stillwater.

“It was exciting being able to say it was happening in my hometown, but it was quiet, no one talked about it because not a lot of people knew about it,” she said.

[…]

Denver, Colo., Dec 10, 2017 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- This week, TIME Magazine announced a group of women and men as their collective Person of the Year.

What do these people have in common? They are what TIME called “The Silence Breakers” – people who have blown the whistle on sexual assault and abuse within the workplace, largely in the industries of film, politics, and media.

In recent months an avalanche of abuse allegations have been brought to light against powerful figures, starting most notably with a piece in the New York Times in which several women accused Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. This sparked a flood of men and women coming forward with other allegations of abuse against numerous people in positions of power.

“These silence breakers have started a revolution of refusal, gathering strength by the day, and in the past two months alone, their collective anger has spurred immediate and shocking results: nearly every day, CEOs have been fired, moguls toppled, icons disgraced. In some cases, criminal charges have been brought,” TIME reported.

Not long ago, the Catholic Church in the United States was reeling from its own sex abuse crisis. In the early 2000s, reporters at the Boston Globe broke the story of a former priest who was accused of molesting more than 100 boys over 30 years, which led to a large-scale uncovering of thousands more allegations of abuse in dioceses throughout the country.

Since then, the Church has taken care to provide numerous resources to such victims, and develop robust child protection policies.

Edward Mechmann, director of public policy and the safe environment office for the Archdiocese of New York, told CNA that the “silence breakers” who came forward and continue to come forward with accusations of abuse by clergy and Church personnel are key in maintaining a safe environment in the Church.

“I think the one thing we have to make sure we understand is who the whistleblowers are, and for the most part, the whistleblowers are victims,” Mechmann said.

“As much as the outside observers like the Boston Globe and the media in general contributed to our awareness of the scope of the problem, we would really be nowhere unless we had some of these courageous victims coming forward, because without them, we would have many more men in service who are victimizers,” he added.

It is especially important that victims come forward in order to protect others from abuse, he noted, because in some cases, abusers have victimized numerous people over the span many years.

Recently, the Church has seen victims coming forward “much more willingly now, because they see that we’re serious, they see that we’re not going to victimize them again, and they see concrete results” such as accused persons being removed from ministry, he said.

“The first and most important thing we do is we listen to them, and I can’t tell you how important that is,” Mechmann said.

“So many people that come in to see us are afraid, they’ve been victimized, they’re afraid they’re going to be victimized again, and just the fact that we listen to them is just an enormously healing thing,” he said.

Besides listening to victims, Mechmann said the Church also provides support through counseling and through talking with victims about the Church’s internal processes for dealing with cases of abuse.

“And we stay in contact with them, if they want to stay in contact with us, we walk with them,” he added.

Dr. Benjamin Keyes, a Catholic psychologist and Director for the Center for Trauma and Resiliency Studies at Divine Mercy University, told CNA that supporting and encouraging victims who come forward is of the utmost importance.

“There’s a whole lot of relief that someone has finally heard the story…they’re no longer isolated with the information, and how well they fare afterwards really depends on what happens around them,” he said. “Are they supported, are there people in their network, whether it’s family, friends, or co-workers, that really understand and really support them in the courage that it takes to do this?”

Sometimes it can takes months or even years for victims of abuse to break the silence on what happened to them, Keyes said, because there is usually “a lot of embarrassment, a lot of shame involved, and most people, women in particular, don’t want to expose that to the public or to others, even to those who are close to (them),” he said.

The fear of retaliation or retribution is also something that can keep victims from coming forward, especially if the abuse came from someone who is in a position of power over the victim, Keyes noted.

For these reasons, victims need encouragement and support from the Church in order to feel comfortable coming forward.

“The Church can be supportive, especially in the parishes, (by) making it safe for (whistleblowers) to be who they are, by acknowledging the courage that it took for them to do that, and to be supportive vocally within the body of the Church so that people hear that the Church is supporting it,” he said.

Supporting victims also involves “making sure that they stay networked into not only the activities that they’ve been involved with, but that they stay networked into the body of the Church, so that they don’t walk away,” he added.

The parish priest, as well as members of the parish community, are especially key in making victims feel welcomed and supported, he noted, which can be done simply by including them and befriending them.

“We’re taught in the Bible to love and to love unconditionally, and this is part of that,” Keyes said.

“It’s embracing the broken places and binding up the suffering and reaching out to the broken-hearted, and we’re called as Christians, not just as counselors, to do that,” he added.

Since the sex abuse crisis in the Church in the United States, the bishops have put into place numerous policies and practices to protect victims, and especially children from sexual abuse, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Charter for Child and Youth Protection, which calls for an annual audit and report of all the dioceses in the country.

The Church has also implemented safe environment trainings that call for a zero-tolerance policy of abuse in Church environments.

“I think a lot of what’s happening is really good,” Mechmann said, regarding the silence breakers in media and politics who have recently come forward.

“Maybe the world as a whole could learn a little bit from the way that we have handled this, in terms of creating a clear corporate culture of zero tolerance. Transparency is at the heart of what we’ve done, and I hope that some of these other industries can do the same.”

[…]

CNA Staff, Apr 28, 2020 / 03:25 pm (CNA).- A lawsuit filed in a Manhattan federal court accuses the head of Catholic Charities of New York of sexual harassment and discrimination.

Sixty-three-year-old former employee Alice Kenny filed the lawsuit on S… […]