Poll suggests a majority of Buffalo Catholics want Bishop Malone to resign

San Francisco, Calif., Apr 9, 2019 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- Asylum seekers crossing the southern border may no longer have to return to Mexico while their cases are heard after a federal judge blocked the Department of Homeland Security’s Migrant Protection Protocols.

Judge Richard Seeborg of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled April 9 that Homeland Security’s new protocols, announced in December 2018, did not adequately protect the safety of asylum applicants.

Shortly after the Migrant Protection Protocols were announced, the American Civil Liberties Union and immigration advocacy organizations filed a suit on behalf of 11 people seeking asylum in the United States from Central America.

The suit alleged that preventing the asylum seekers from staying in the United States is a violation of international law regarding humanitarian protections.

The protocols would have kept those seeking asylum in the United States in Mexico while their cases were being decided. Asylum seekers were to remain in Tijuana, near the border with the United States, and would be bussed to San Diego for court appearances.

The policy was intended to prevent asylum seekers from missing court appearances in favor of remaining in the United States illegally.

“Aliens trying to game the system to get into our country illegally will no longer be able to disappear into the United States, where many skip their court dates,” Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in December.

“Instead, they will wait for an immigration court decision while they are in Mexico. ‘Catch and release’ will be replaced with ‘catch and return,'” she said.

Nielsen resigned from the Department of Homeland Security on April 7, but remains in post until Wednesday. Her replacement has not yet been announced. Kevin McAleenan, the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, will serve as acting secretary.

Seeborg said that the policy did not properly ensure the safety of asylum applicants while their cases were being decided. The decision does not have immediate effect and the administration has until Friday afternoon to decide if they will appeal.

In November 2018, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Migration issued a joint statement with the presidents of Catholic Relief Services, Catholic Charities USA and Catholic Legal Immigration Network stating they concern at the Trump administration’s policy about asylum-seekers.

“While our teaching acknowledges the right of each nation to regulate its borders, we find this action deeply concerning,” said the statement.

“It will restrict and slow access to protection for hundreds of children and families fleeing violence in Central America, potentially leaving them in unsafe conditions in Mexico or in indefinite detention situations at the U.S./Mexico border. We reiterate that it is not a crime to seek asylum and this right to seek refuge is codified in our laws and in our values.”

The signatories said they hoped the administration would “seek other solutions” to improve the integrity of the immigration system, as well as protect children and families.

“The Catholic Church will continue to serve, accompany and assist all those who flee persecution, regardless of where they seek such protection and where they are from,” they said.

[…]

Washington D.C., Jan 21, 2021 / 05:45 am (CNA).- While President Joe Biden has nominated a number of Catholics to serve in his cabinet, some of them have publicly contradicted Church teaching on abortion.

Joe Biden on Wednesday became the 46th president of the United States and only the second Catholic to hold that office. 

While U.S. bishops offered him their prayers and congratulations upon his inauguration, and noted areas of agreement such as immigration and protecting the environment, the bishops’ conference also noted that Biden had promoted “policies that would advance moral evils and threaten human life and dignity, most seriously in the areas of abortion, contraception, marriage, and gender.”

Like Biden himself, many of the Catholics he has nominated to cabinet roles have also publicly supported pro-abortion policies–and they could further these policies in their administrative roles. 

Xavier Becerra, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, was previously attorney general of California. In that role he defended the state’s law mandating that medically licensed pro-life pregnancy centers advertise where clients could obtain abortions. 

The Reproductive FACT Act was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2018. Kamala Harris, now the vice president, also defended the law as attorney general of California before she was elected to the U.S. Senate. 

Becerre also defended a state mandate of abortion coverage in employer-provided health plans; pro-life and Catholic groups, including the religious community Missionary Guadalupanas of the Holy Spirit, challenged the mandate.

Becerra previously served as a congressman from California, where the National Right to Life Committee gave him a 100 percent pro-abortion score. Politico reported in December that pro-abortion groups view their “pressure campaign” towards Biden as “wildly successful,” in part because of Becerra’s nomination. 

Should Becerra be confirmed as health secretary, his role at HHS would allow him to roll back certain pro-life rules and policies, as well as conscience protections for health care workers. 

Biden nominated Boston Mayor Marty Walsh to serve as Secretary of Labor. During his campaign for mayor in 2013, Walsh’s campaign website said that the disparity in the number of pro-life pregnancy centers to abortion clinics in Boston was detrimental to women’s health.

“In terms of reproductive choices, crisis pregnancy centers outnumber women’s health providers in Boston three to one, seriously undermining women’s access to quality family planning, appropriate counseling, and overall choice,” the website said. 

Walsh also recieved a “Men for Choice” award from NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts in 2016, according to the Boston Globe. Walsh stressed to that “I’m a pro-choice candidate, I’m a pro-choice mayor, I was a pro-choice legislator.

Three other cabinet nominees–Gina Raimondo, Tom Vilsack, and Jennifer Granholm–all backed pro-abortion measures in their roles as governor of Rhode Island, Iowa, and Michigan, respectively. Raimondo has been tapped to lead the Commerce Department, Vilsack the Agriculture Department, and Granholm the Department of Energy.

Denis McDonough, Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Veterans Affairs, served as White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama, who held pro-abortion policy positions. 

McDonough was reportedly among the administration staff who pushed Obama to soften the rules on the HHS contraceptive mandate in 2012, to accommodate objecting religious groups. However, many groups including the Little Sisters of the Poor and the USCCB still opposed that revised rule, saying it required unacceptable participation in the immoral provision of contraceptive coverage.

Gen. Lloyd Austin, Biden’s nominee to serve as defense secretary, has not taken a public policy position on the issue of abortion in his military roles. Austin is also a Catholic, and has ties to the Biden family through the president’s late son Beau Biden, with whom he served in Iraq.

[…]

Newark, N.J., Feb 12, 2019 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- The five Roman Catholic dioceses of New Jersey announced on Monday the creation of the Independent Victim Compensation Program (IVCP) for survivors of sexual abuse as minors by clerics in the state. The program will not handle claims of sexual abuse involving adults, including seminarians.

The IVCP will be administered by victims’ compensation experts Kenneth R. Feinberg and Camille S. Biros, according to a statement from the IVCP that was emailed to CNA and posted on the websites of the New Jersey dioceses.

Feinberg and Biros were involved in the creation of compensation programs for abuse survivors in New York and Pennsylvania, as well as in the administration of the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and the BP Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Fund.

“Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark and the Bishops throughout New Jersey have united in going further than any other state in establishing such a compensation program,” said the statement.

While dioceses in other states such as New York and Pennsylvania have created programs to compensate abuse survivors, the IVCP is unique in being statewide program that involves every diocese agreeing to follow the same compensation protocol.

“The program provides victims with an attractive alternative to litigation,” said the statement, and will give abuse survivors a “speedy and transparent process to resolve their claims with a significantly lower level of proof and corroboration than required in a court of law.”

After agreeing on and receiving a settlement, the abuse survivor will not be able to pursue additional legal action against the diocese. All settlements will be funded by the dioceses themselves.

The first phase of the program will give “priority” in compensation to those who have already filed a complaint about abuse committed by a member of the clergy.

The statement from the IVCP confirmed that abuse survivors who have not previously reported their abuse will be eligible to join phase II of the program. These claims will be reviewed by Feinberg and Biros, and survivors will be compensated if their claims are found eligible.

According to the IVCP, Feinberg and Biros will “act independently” in their administration when evaluating claims and deciding levels of compensation. The dioceses will not be able to appeal the decisions made by the administrators.

“[The participating dioceses] have assured us that we have complete discretion in deciding who is eligible to receive compensation and the amount to be paid to the individual victim,” Biros said in the statement.

The IVCP has been in the works since mid-November 2018. At that time, a statement was published by the Archdiocese of Newark announcing that some sort of compensation program would come together in the near future.

A draft of the IVCP protocol will be released on March 1, and a final version will be implemented after a 30-day comment period. After the final version is adopted, the IVCP will commence receiving claims.

All claims must be submitted before December 31, 2019.

The IVCP is limited to those who were abused as minors. According to (Amy Weiss, the PR lady for Feinberg and Biros? I don’t know how to phrase this) there are no plans at this time to create a similar fund for those who were abused as adults, including by Archbishop Theodore McCarrick.

McCarrick, who resigned from the College of Cardinals in July after being credibly accused of abusing two minor boys, was the Bishop of Metuchen from 1981 until 1986 and the Archbishop of Newark from 1986 until 2000.

In 2005, the Archdiocese of Newark and the Dioceses of Metuchen and Trenton paid an $80,000 settlement to Robert Ciolek, who was abused by McCarrick while he was a seminarian. A $100,000 settlement was paid in 2007 to a man who says he too was abused by McCarrick when he was in seminary.

Both of these settlements were first disclosed after McCarrick was accused of abusing a minor.

[…]