Caritas launches Ukraine fund drive, warning of a ‘colossal humanitarian catastrophe’

Washington D.C., Oct 26, 2017 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- A pro-marriage student group at Georgetown University has drawn support from prominent Catholic scholars, after a student petition accused the group of promoting intolerance.

Love Saxa is a pro-marriage student group at Georgetown, which faces an Oct. 30 hearing before the Student Activities Commission, an advisory body to the university’s Vice President of Student Affairs.  

Fr. James Martin, SJ, author of “Building a Bridge,” a book on dialogue between the Catholic Church and LGBT groups, said that he supports the right of “Love Saxa,” to promote its views at Georgetown.

“Why should a student group that espouses Catholic teaching respectfully be defunded by a Catholic university?” Martin told CNA. “As long as Love Saxa treats LGBT people (both on campus and off campus) with ‘respect, compassion and sensitivity,’ as the Catechism requires, then they should be able to have their say on campus.”

The group, which says it “exists to promote healthy relationships on campus through cultivating a proper understanding of sex, gender, marriage, and family among Georgetown students,” has been accused by a student petition of violating university standards for student organizations by “fostering hatred and intolerance.”  

Robert P. George, a professor of constitutional law at Princeton University and noted scholar of marriage and religious liberty, also voiced support for Love Saxa.

“The illiberal – even authoritarian – spirit infusing the effort to defund Love Saxa at Georgetown ought to be a matter of grave concern for honorable people across the ideological spectrum,” he said.

“And on top of that, as Fr. Martin suggests, there is something approaching absurdity in the idea that at a Catholic university a group ought to be defunded for upholding and teaching the idea of marriage and the principles of sexual morality upheld and taught by the Catholic Church.”

If Love Saxa is found to be in violation of university standards, as the student petition alleges, the commission could recommend that the university impose sanctions, including a loss of funding and access to university facilities.

A spokesperson for Georgetown University told CNA that such sanctions are only used as a last resort, and that groups in violation of university standards are first given opportunities to rectify violations.

“We strongly support a climate that continues to provide students with new and deeper contexts for engaging with our Catholic tradition and identity. Love Saxa is one of many groups operating on campus with positions that affirm the teachings of the Catholic Church. We also support a climate that is welcoming to all students and supporting of our LGBTQ communities,” the spokesperson added.

As the complaint is reviewed by the Student Advisory Commission, Georgetown’s spokesperson told CNA that “we encourage all students to follow our community commitment to open dialogue and mutual respect.”

Martin also encouraged respectful dialogue, rather than conflict, at Georgetown.  

“Groups that oppose the point of view of Love Saxa should also be able to have their say,” he told CNA. “For a true dialogue to happen around LGBT issues, especially at Catholic universities, all participants should be willing to, first, treat one another respectfully and lovingly; second, listen to one another with open minds; and third, be willing to learn from one another.”

George also called for respectful conversation on the matter.

“The sheer, brute, undeniable fact is that reasonable people of goodwill disagree today about fundamental questions having to do with the nature and social purposes of marriage and with sexuality and sexual morality,” he said.

“When reasonable people of goodwill find themselves in disagreement, even on issues of profound social importance and deep personal meaning, they engage each other in robust but civil and respectful discourse – they do not attempt to win cheap victories by smearing those who disagree with them as ‘bigots’ or ‘haters’,” he continued. “They recognize their own fallibility and do not try to immunize their beliefs from responsible criticism. They acknowledge that their deepest, most cherished, even identity-forming beliefs could be wrong. That motivates them to listen to critics, rather than trying to banish them.”

George added that as a Catholic university, Georgetown “does not present itself as a non-sectarian institution that maintains a stance of neutrality on moral questions currently in dispute among reasonable citizens.”

“So it would be fully within its rights in declining to fund a group that promoted values contrary to its own,” he said. “But, as Fr. Martin observed, it is Love Saxa that is upholding the values of Georgetown as a Catholic institution. It is those who are pressing Georgetown to defund Love Saxa who teach doctrines concerning marriage and sexual morality that are contrary to those of the Catholic Church.”

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Alfred Magero, Matthew Njogu, and Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi are three Catholic fathers from Africa who recently shared insights about being a present dad, protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and being a model of family values for their children with ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa. / Credit: Photos courtesy of ACI Africa

ACI Africa, Jun 17, 2024 / 12:37 pm (CNA).

On the occasion of Father’s Day 2024, a day focused on the celebration of fatherhood, four Catholic men from different African countries recently shared their experiences of impacting the lives of their children.

The Catholic fathers — who hail from Cameroon, Kenya, and Nigeria — talk about the importance of “being present,” of protecting their families amid threats to the African family, and of being a model of family values for their children, who they believe someday will become parents as well.

Tony Nnachetta, 68: Fatherhood is a full-time enterprise

Tony Nnachetta is a married father of four who attends the Church of the Assumption Parish in Nigeria’s Archdiocese of Lagos. Nnachetta has been a parishioner there for 40 years, and he was wed there 38 years ago. A member of the Grand Knights of St. Mulumba, he originally hails from the Archdiocese of Onitsha.

I got married to my friend after we dated for four years. I was looking forward to fatherhood and I was mentally prepared for it. Here are the lessons I have learned along my fatherhood journey.

First, being a father means you watch your children grow and become independent. You watch them get to a point in their lives where they can engage in a debate with you and even disagree with you.

Fatherhood is a long process. You would be fortunate to go through the entire process and maybe see your children’s children. I have seen mine achieve excellence in school and even leave home and go across the world as they sought to become independent.

Wherever your children go, what is important for them is what they take away from home — what they take from mommy and daddy. I have always told mine to “remember the child of who you are.” This means that they are not allowed to break the Christian values in our family. 

I taught them to always stand for the truth and never to flow with the tide. We have encouraged them to always say what they mean. These days, they have jokingly turned around the statement and they tell me, “Remember the dad of who you are,” and we laugh about it.

You can’t always be there to take the bullet for them, but you can support them through prayers. Our family relies a lot on the intercession of the saints. We call ourselves a family of Jesuits because the school my children went to is under the patronage of St. Ignatius of Loyola.

My own patron saint is St. Anthony of Padua and my wife’s is St. Rita of Cascia. All the years, these saints have kept us well protected.

Fatherhood is a full-time engagement. It is not like you can be a father in the morning and take a break in the evening. You worry about your children even when they are grown and have left your home. They preoccupy you everywhere. You wonder whether they are warm and if they have had their meal. But all this brings a father immense joy.

Young fathers in Africa are overburdened by poverty. Because of poverty they don’t have a way to help their families. Others are scared to enter the marriage institution. Poverty has made young men weak and helpless. Some are leaving their young families and going to faraway places outside the continent to make a living. 

Poverty is eroding family values because some fathers do what they do, including stealing, for their children to survive. In doing so, they are setting a bad example for their children …

It is important for our leaders to confront this situation. They must accept that they have let us down.

Matthew Njogu, 75: Tips on being a present dad

Njogu is the moderator of the Catholic Men Association at St. Austin’s Msongari Parish in Kenya’s Archdiocese of Nairobi. His children are now grown up and he offers the following insights on being a present father.

Fathers need to be present in the lives of their children. For a long time, it was assumed that it was the mother’s responsibility to take care of the young children; fathers kept off. But being absent in the lives of your children hurts your relationship with them. They end up growing up without you having any impact on their lives.

Unfortunately, some fathers assume that fatherhood ends at providing material things… They don’t pay attention to their children’s growth milestones. And when they eventually try to establish a connection, they find that the children are already all grown without knowing anything about their fathers.

Simple things like dropping your children off at school help you connect with them. While stuck in traffic on the way to school, you can talk about things that will help you understand your child and for him to know you.

Always try as much as possible to have dinner with your children and help them with schoolwork. And always try to make up for the time you don’t spend with them.

Edward Chaleh Nkamanyi, 53: Raising a Christ-like family

Nkamanyi runs a medical college in Doula, Cameroon. He is a father of two children ages 16 and 20. He tells ACI Africa that he is “a father of many,” as he takes care of several orphans and other vulnerable children. Here are his insights into nurturing a Christ-like family.

It is the joy of every responsible young man to be called “daddy” or “papa.” Having a Christ-like family is the greatest gift for a father; a family like that of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus.

My appeal for Catholic fathers is to hold their families firmly, to provide for them, and to protect them from all dangers in the contemporary society, where values are being eroded.

I don’t believe that being a father is a challenging task. God already gave us the innate potential to be fathers. I believe that God can’t give you a role that you can’t perform.

It is unfortunate that many young men are choosing to be absentee fathers. From what I have seen, many children raised by a single parent end up adopting wayward behaviors.

Alfred Magero, 48: Being a present dad in a low-income setting

Magero belongs to the Catholic Men’s Association group of St. Joseph the Worker Kangemi Parish of the Archdiocese of Nairobi. The father of three has been married for 29 years and shares his experience and that of other Catholic dads raising their children in a low-income neighborhood.

I am raising my children to become God-fearing adults. This is not an easy task in the community in which we live, where there is a lot of poverty, drunkenness, and other characteristics typical of a low-income [neighborhood].

Many fathers rarely interact with their children since their main focus is to provide for their families. They leave for work before their children wake up and come back at night when the children have already gone to bed.

The young men and boys we are raising are experiencing a different environment from ours when we were growing up. With the whole world brought to them on the palm of their hand by a simple tap on the phone, this generation is dangerously exposed. They need us, their fathers, to constantly give them direction. They need us to be their role models. 

They need us to constantly remind them that they are in Africa and that they should not adopt alien cultures, especially those bound to destroy the family.

As fathers, we must remind our young ones to uphold African values that kept the family unit and the society glued together. Africans knew the importance of loving and caring for each other. Unfortunately, this value is being eroded, and in its place, now we have individualism. Older men in families would educate young men to be responsible adults. Unfortunately, we no longer have this kind of education.

This article was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s Africa news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA. 

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CNA Staff, Apr 16, 2020 / 11:57 am (CNA).- Catholic Health Services of Long Island is taking part in two Mayo Clinic trials designed to develop treatments for the new coronavirus (COVID-19).

“Our clinical teams have spent several weeks caring fo… […]