U.S. bishops applaud Biden’s actions on immigration

Chicago, Ill., Feb 5, 2019 / 08:15 pm (CNA).- Citing “rampant” drug use in modern society and a commitment to the common good, the six Catholic bishops of Illinois are speaking out against the the state’s efforts to legalize recreatio… […]

CNA Staff, Dec 2, 2020 / 02:20 pm (CNA).- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is defending his decision not to extend state funding for on-site coronavirus testing to students in Catholic schools, as he fights a court mandate that the state department of education provide testing to both private and public school students.

“We believe the law is clear that it is not the city’s obligation to provide the actual testing service,” de Blasio told the New York Post Dec. 1.

“Our obligation right now is to continue the process of having New York City public schools be open and healthy and safe.”

In a lawsuit filed Nov. 18, the Archdiocese of New York argued that the New York City Department of Education has a legal mandate to provide children attending nonpublic schools within their districts with “all of the health and welfare services” they provide to their public school students, including “the administration of health screening tests.”

The archdiocese cited burdensome costs associated with the increased testing requirements, which at public schools are covered by the state.

On Nov. 24, the New York State Supreme Court ruled in favor of the archdiocese. The DOE is appealing the ruling, and de Blasio said Dec. 1 that he interprets the state law in question, Section 912, differently.

The legal fight comes amid new public health measures from Gov. Andrew Cuomo, which included additional testing requirements for schools open for in-person learning in certain zones of the city with higher infection rates.

“Yellow zone” restrictions include a 25-person maximum capacity on gatherings, 4-person to a table maximum while dining, and weekly testing for at least 20% of in-person students and faculty in all schools.

If the results of the testing reveal that the positivity rate among the 20% of those tested is lower than the yellow zone’s current 7-day positivity rate, testing at that school will no longer be required to continue, the state said in a Nov. 14 guidance.

The 172 Catholic schools in the New York archdiocese have been open for in-person instruction since September.

According to a Nov. 30 op-ed by archdiocesan school superintendent Michael Deegan, their schools’ positivity rate is significantly ­below the 3 percent threshold, at 0.0046 percent.

“The mayor has been on the news lately, saying (rightly) that the key to reopening schools is testing and more testing,” Deegan wrote.

“That’s great to hear. Why, then, are he and [schools chancellor Richard] Carranza so dead-set against following state law, now backed by a court order, requiring public and nonpublic kids to receive the same testing resources?”

“Do Mayor de Blasio and his schools chancellor, Richard Carranza, really believe that children in nonpublic schools deserve inferior measures to protect their health? Apparently,” Deegan stated.

On Nov. 18, de Blasio announced that the city’s public schools would “temporarily” suspend in-person classes. He subsequently announced Nov. 29 that he would allow elementary school and pre-K students to return to in-person learning Dec. 7, with special education students returning Dec. 10.

The initial decision to suspend in-person learning in public schools was made after one set of data found that the city’s coronavirus test positivity rate was 3%. Metrics shared by Cuomo at a press conference following the decision to close, however, stated that the city’s positivity rate was 2.5%, not yet at the anticipated threshold for school closure. De Blasio also announced Nov. 29 that the 3% threshold would no longer be used.

de Blasio has faced criticism for his treatment of houses of worship during the coronavirus pandemic, threatening mass arrests or even permanent closure of churches and synagogues that did not comply with public orders.

De Blasio said in June that ongoing protests in the city merit exceptions to coronavirus regulations, while religious services do not, drawing criticism from the New York archdiocese.

The Supreme Court ruled in late November that New York state restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic are a violation of the First Amendment’s protection of free religious exercise.

The state’s restrictions forbade the attendance of more than 10 people at religious services in state designated “red zones, and 25 people in “orange zones.”

In a statement Nov. 26, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn said he is “gratified by the decision of the Justices of the United States Supreme Court, who have recognized the clear First Amendment violation and urgent need for relief in this case.”

The court’s ruling is temporary, as lawsuits filed by the Diocese of Brooklyn and by Orthodox Jewish synagogues in New York will continue, though the Supreme Court’s Nov. 26 decision is likely to weigh heavily in the outcome of those cases.

While cases of coronavirus have continued to spike throughout the country, schools have largely not been the sources of these infections.

Last month, Cuomo was part of a bipartisan group of governors from the northeast who signed a statement calling in-person learning the “best possible scenario” for children.

[…]

Denver, Colo., Jul 26, 2018 / 03:56 pm (CNA).- This week, CNA says farewell to our summer intern, Lizzy Joslyn. In her final week at CNA this summer, Lizzy offers “The Genius of Woman,” a four-part series of interviews and profiles, based on Pope St. John Paul II’s “Letter to Women,” and interviews with seven Catholic women from very different walks of life. This is the fourth piece in that series:

A sophomore college student studying political science, Miriam Miller, 18, dreams of becoming a strong and influential advocate for humanitarian causes.

Initially, Miller felt fear and doubt when considering a career in politics. Not wanting “to be mean, argue, tear people apart” in her future career, Miller’s was encouraged when she discovered, through an exploration of the Church teachings, that she “didn’t have to” embody those qualities in order to be successful and happy in her desired field. “That’s not who I am as a person,” she added.

“I don’t want to feel like I have to be this weird little mutant of myself,” Miller said. And, thanks to the feminine genius, she doesn’t have to.

A little refresher: John Paul II, in his 1995 “Letter to Women,” used the idea of the “feminine genius” to praise women for their unique abilities socially and emotionally: “Much more important is the social and ethical dimension, which deals with human relations and spiritual values. In this area, which often develops in an inconspicuous way beginning with the daily relationships between people, especially within the family, society certainly owes much to the ‘genius of women.’”

Miller told CNA that in her experiences attending seminars and events with political leaders, she has encountered some women who seem to avoid anything that might make their femininity stand out. There was a noticeable expectation for women to almost go out of their way to “not look cute,” she said.
 
Women shouldn’t have to feel like they should hide their feminine qualities out of the fear of harassment, she added.

“Women have kind of lost that feminine grace, which is a good thing… and it’s sad,” Miller said.

God made women with their own unique qualities–the feminine genius–and those should be celebrated and used to further his kingdom, Pope St. John Paul II taught.

Miller said that until she learned that, there were qualities “in myself that I hadn’t allowed to grow because I was told it wasn’t good,” she said. Until Miller realized she didn’t have to hide her femininity, or her perspective, she doubted her aspirations, and her ability to have the future she hoped for.
 
Embracing the feminine genius gives women power to positively influence the world, John Paul II wrote.

“Perhaps more than men,” wrote John Paul II in his Letter to Women, “women acknowledge the person, because they see persons with their hearts. They see them independently of various ideological or political systems. They see others in their greatness and limitations; they try to go out to them and help them.”

Women humanize the world–their talents socially and emotionally have the potential to create a “civilization of love,” as John Paul II said–a peaceful society that strives to imitate and exemplify God’s perfect love.

CNA’s Managing Editor Michelle La Rosa also sees the feminine genius at work in the workplace. Her interests began in political philosophy, and they translated easily to journalism when in 2011 she began working for CNA in Washington, D.C.

La Rosa, the only female editor at CNA, says she brings a unique contribution to “editorial discussions or in different viewpoints or working with people,” complementing the perspective of her male colleagues.

“There’s… this different perspective that women often bring.”

“Our editors here collaborate really well because we all have very different strengths and weaknesses and very different backgrounds. But I think part of that feminine genius is just kind of seeing the… more human side of things,” said La Rosa.

Women, as John Paul II wrote, “make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of ‘mystery’, to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity.”

By most modern standard, “progress,” he wrote, is “measured according to the criteria of science and technology.”

“Much more important,” the pope said, “is the social and ethical dimension, which deals with human relations and spiritual values.” This, he said, is where the feminine genius is uniquely important.

The differences between men and women“doesn’t mean we can’t do the same jobs,” Miller noted, “we just do them differently.”
“Womanhood expresses the “human” as much as manhood does, but in a different and complementary way,” wrote John Paul II. “It is only through the duality of the “masculine” and the “feminine” that the “human” finds full realization.”

“As a rational and free being, man is called to transform the face of the earth. In this task, which is essentially that of culture, man and woman alike share equal responsibility from the start,” he wrote.

“Recognizing the unique gifts and talents of what it means to be a woman is not to degrade men, but it’s to recognize that complementarity and the ways in which men and women can really build off of each other and work together to build up the church and society,” La Rosa said.

[…]