Pro-life activists protest the incarceration of nine activists charged with FACE Act violations. / Credit: Photo by Tyler Arnold
CNA Staff, May 31, 2024 / 18:40 pm (CNA).
Paulette Harlow, an elderly woman with a debilitating medical condition was sentenced to 24 months in jail Friday after being convicted last November of participating in a pro-life blockade of a Washington, D.C. abortion clinic in 2020.
Harlow of Kingston, Massachusetts, 75, was convicted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and of a civil rights conspiracy, a statute that prohibits the violation of someone’s rights guaranteed to them by the U.S. Constitution and law.
The FACE Act prohibits “violent, threatening, damaging, and obstructive conduct intended to injure, intimidate, or interfere with the right to seek, obtain, or provide reproductive health services.”
Harlow was sentenced by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sitting in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the same judge who presided over and sentenced each of the other eight protesters who were found guilty in the case.
Unlike some of her co-defendants, Harlow was allowed to remain on house arrest pending sentencing because of her health issues, her lawyer, Allen Orenberg, told CNA last November.
At the time, Orenberg declined to specify about Harlow’s health issues. Orenberg could not be reached for comment Friday.
The DC blockade
The blockade of the Washington Surgi-Clinic was filmed by 42-year-old Josh Darnel, one of the protesters who was also convicted and is serving 34 months in prison.
In the over one-hour and 30-minute video of the protest, some of those who sat inside the clinic can be seen chained together, praying the rosary and singing hymns to the Blessed Virgin Mary while refusing to leave when asked by police.
“Pro-life rescuers are entering the doors of an abortion clinic and saving babies from death. This is very risky for the rescuers, but it’s about time we got serious about ending abortion again,” a description of the video reads.
The DOJ released a statement Friday saying, “As the evidence at trial showed, the defendants engaged in a conspiracy to create a blockade at the reproductive health care clinic to prevent the clinic from providing, and patients from receiving, reproductive health services.”
“As part of the conspiracy, many of the defendants traveled to Washington, D.C. from various northeast and midwestern states, to meet with Lauren Handy and participate in a clinic blockade that was directed by Handy and was broadcast on Facebook,” the statement said.
The pro-life protesters “forcefully entered the clinic and set about blockading two clinic doors using their bodies, furniture, chains, and ropes,” the statement said.
In addition to Harlow and Darnel, Harlow’s sister Jean Marshall, 74, was sentenced to 24 months in prison. Also sentenced: Heather Idoni, 59 (24 months imprisonment); Lauren Handy, 30; John Hinshaw, 69; William Goodman, 54 (27 months imprisonment); Joan Bell, 76 (27 months imprisonment); and Herb Geraghty, 27 (27 months imprisonment).
Smith, 34, pleaded guilty to a felony FACE Act charge in March last year and was given ten months in prison.
Handy was given the most severe penalty of almost six years imprisonment. Hinshaw was given the least prison time. He pleaded not guilty and received a sentence of 21 months.
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Arlington, Va., Apr 24, 2019 / 05:19 pm (CNA).- At the request of Bishop Michael Burbidge, the Diocese of Arlington has launched a multifaceted program to get parishes involved with the healing of addicts and their families.
Organized by Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Arlington, the project is composed of five parts – clinician training, workshops, addiction resources, family support, and prayer.
Art Bennett, president of Catholic Charities, Diocese of Arlington, told CNA that the apostolate comes as the damages of opioid abuse have extended into the suburbs. Fairfax County, a generally well-off area, has the highest rate of opioid-related deaths in Virginia, he said.
“Bishop Burbidge has long been concerned about the opioid problem in our diocese; we cover 21 counties in the northern part of Virginia,” he said, noting that parishes have seen an increase in funerals for people who have overdosed.
After the bishop challenged the diocese to respond to the opioid crisis, a conference was held in September to gather interested parties and to brainstorm. A psychologist was brought in to speak on the challenges faced in addiction recovery.
There are four parishes involved: St. John the Evangelist in Warrenton, Good Shepherd in Alexandria, St. Bernadette in Springfield, and St. John Neumann in Reston.
As part of the program, 17 mental health clinicians have already been trained on the opioid crisis, its growing impact in the United States, and the best means to respond to it. These clinicians are now able to travel and run workshops for other parishes and Church staff.
Arlington’s Catholic Charities has also piled together a virtual collection of resources for immediate intervention, including crisis intervention hotlines, case management services, and evaluations for treatment.
The new ministry will seek to add resources for families of addicts, including Al-Anon, Nar-Anon, Families Anonymous, and parent support groups. It will also offer literature and the contact info of therapists.
“Catholic Charities has been asked to focus on providing clinical support to those secondarily impacted by the opioid crisis – providing counseling to the children, families, and loved ones of those struggling with addiction. This is a broadly under-served population in the current response to addiction,” Michael Horne, director of clinical services for Arlington’s Catholic Charities, told CNA.
Bennett said two of the major components of this apostolate are the prayer teams who intercede on behalf of addicts, and parish resource committees to support families. Both will be discussed in upcoming workshops, he said.
The next seminar will take place April 29 at St. John Neumann and will continue at a different parish every quarter. Here, Bennett will give an overview of the project, and former nurse Sandi Sale will discuss the boundaries volunteers should put in place.
Susan Infeld, a parent of an addict and a parish nurse in charge of the project at St. John Neumann, will also discuss both successful measures and those that have failed in the past.
Bennett said prayer, while a simple way to support the addicted and their families, is “also the most powerful thing that can be done.”
The apostolate may bring about new opportunities for prayer, but it could also be tacking on the intentions to already-established prayer groups.
“Any parish can have that; they might already have Eucharistic adoration or rosary groups and they just add on the intentions of the families suffering from the opioid crisis so that healing power in prayer and Christ can be involved with them,” he said.
The parish committee programs will provide opportunities for the laity to be supportive of the families of addicts. “That support could be encouragement, referrals, or someone to talk to if there kid is in jail or very sick,” he said.
Addiction is especially rough on the family, as young people are sometimes forced out of the house when they start supporting their addiction with thieving. The family of addicts is an untapped area for ministry, he said, noting that many parents feel ashamed and ostracized from the Church when a child is going through addiction.
“The families pretty much felt like they are hung out to dry,” he said. “They feel very harshly judged, they feel weak,” and he emphasized the importance of compassion in the situation.
At the Arlington Catholic Herald, Infeld gave insight into her own struggles as a parent of alcoholic. She said addiction ministry is an opportunity to share the message of God’s mercy and to promote healing.
“Families are being destroyed by this disease. Grandparents are raising their grandchildren in retirement because the parents are addicts. Parents are going into debt trying to pay for rehab not just once, but sometimes multiple times. Families most often suffer in silence, not getting the tremendous support and tools that a (ministry or support group) can offer,” she said.
University of Mary SURVE students Ethan Emineth (left), Grace Dahl (middle), and Mariapocs Ruiz Martinez (right). Mariapocs “Maria” is demonstrating how media is removed from a culture flask so that the number of cells in the culture can be meas… […]
An artist’s rendering of the affordable apartment complex soon to be built by Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance in Los Angeles. / Courtesy of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance
St. Louis, Mo., Aug 26, 2024 / 06:30 am (CNA).
Los Angeles is one of the most expensive cities in the United States, with an average home price almost touching a million dollars in 2024 — a landscape that crowds out not only the poor, but also young families with children. The high cost of housing is one of the primary reasons why tens of thousands of people live on the streets of LA, and most of those who are housed are “rent burdened,” which means they spend more than 30% of their income just keeping a roof over their heads.
In the face of such challenges, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles recently announced it will provide land for a new housing development dedicated to serving community college students and young people exiting the foster care system.
Amy Anderson, executive director of Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing alliance and a former chief of housing for the City of Los Angeles, told EWTN News that a group of Catholic lay leaders from the business and philanthropic community reached out to the archdiocese with a vision for creating an independent, nonprofit affordable housing development organization.
“Our vision is to really collaborate with the archdiocese and [use] the resources potentially available from the archdiocese to create homes that are affordable to a wide range of populations and incomes,” Anderson told “EWTN News Nightly” anchor Tracy Sabol.
She said they hope to break ground on the project, known as the Willowbrook development, “about a year from now.”
“The archdiocese is a fantastic partner. They are providing the land for our first development, which is already in process, and we’re working really closely with them to identify additional opportunities.”
The proposed building, which will be located steps from Los Angeles Community College, will feature 74 affordable housing units, as well as “on-site supportive services” for young people transitioning out of foster care — a population that often ends up experiencing homelessness.
The land, located at 4665 Willow Brook Ave just a few miles from the Hollywood Sign, currently hosts a Catholic Charities building, which will move its operations to another site to make way for the apartments.
“Through Catholic Charities and our ministries on Skid Row [an LA street where many unhoused people live] and elsewhere, we have been working for many years to provide shelter and services for our homeless brothers and sisters,” Archbishop Jose Gomez said in a statement to LAist.
“With this new initiative we see exciting possibilities to make more affordable housing available, especially for families and young people.”
Making land work for mission
The Catholic Church is often cited as the largest non-governmental owner of land in the entire world, with an estimated 177 million acres owned by Catholic entities.
Maddy Johnson, program manager for the Church Properties Initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate (FIRE), noted that the Church as a large landowner is not a new phenomenon, but there is a need today to adapt to modern challenges like regulations, zoning, and the importance of caring for the natural environment.
Many Catholic dioceses and religious orders have properties in their possession that aren’t fulfilling their original purpose, including disused natural land and parking lots, as well as shuttered convents and schools. Sometimes, Johnson said, a diocese or religious order doesn’t even realize the full extent of what they own.
“How can the Church make good strategic decisions, strategic and mission-aligned decisions, if it doesn’t know what properties it’s responsible for?” she said.
The Church of St. Agatha and St. James in Philadelphia, with The Chestnut in the foreground, a housing unit developed on property ground-leased from the church. Courtesy of Maddy Johnson/Church Properties Initiative
Since real estate management is not the Church’s core competency, FIRE aims to “provide a space for peer learning” to educate and equip Church leaders to make better use of their properties in service of the Church’s mission.
To this end, they offer an undergraduate minor at Notre Dame that aims to teach students how to help the Church make strategic real estate decisions that align with the Church’s mission. The Institute also organizes a quarterly networking call with diocesan real estate directors, as well as an annual conference to allow Catholic leaders to convene, share best practices, and learn from each other.
Fr. Patrick Reidy, C.S.C., a professor at Notre Dame Law School and faculty co-director of the Church Properties Initiative, conducts a workshop for diocesan leaders on Notre Dame’s campus in summer 2023. Courtesy of David J. Murphy/Church Properties Initiative
In many cases, Catholic entities that have worked with FIRE have been able to repurpose properties in a way that not only provides income for the church, but also fills a need in the community.
Johnson said the Church is called to respond to the modern problems society faces — one of which is a lack of housing options, especially for the poor.
“Throughout its history, there have been so many different iterations of how the Church expresses its mission…through education, healthcare — those are the ones that we’ve gotten really used to,” Johnson said.
“In our day and age, could it be the need for affordable housing?…that’s a charitable human need in the area that’s not being met.”
Unlocking potential in California
Queen of Angels Housing’s first development, which has been in the works for several years, is being made possible now by a newly-passed state law in California that aims to make it easier for churches to repurpose their land into housing.
California’s SB 4, the Affordable Housing on Faith Lands Act, was signed into law in October 2023. It streamlines some of the trickiest parts of the process of turning church-owned land into housing — the parts most people don’t really think about. These can include permitting and zoning restrictions, which restrict the types of buildings that can be built in a given area and can be difficult and time-consuming to overcome. SB 4 even includes a provision allowing for denser housing on church-owned property than the zoning ordinances would normally allow.
Yes in God’s Backyard
The law coming to fruition in California is part of a larger movement informally dubbed “Yes in God’s Backyard,” or YIGBY — a riff on the term “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY), a phenomenon whereby neighbors take issue with and oppose new developments.
Several Catholic real estate professionals with ties to California expressed excitement about the possibilities that SB 4 has created in the Golden State.
Steve Cameron, a Catholic real estate developer in Orange County, told CNA that he is currently working with the Diocese of Orange, which abuts the LA archdiocese, to inventory properties that could be repurposed for residential use.
He said their focus is on building apartment buildings and townhomes, primarily for rental rather than for sale, in an attempt to address the severe housing shortage and high costs in Southern California.
Unlike some dioceses, the Orange diocese has an electronic GIS (geographic information system) database showing all the properties it owns. Prepared by a civil engineering firm, the database includes details such as parcel numbers, acreage, title information, and demographic reports, which facilitate the planning and development process.
“Strategically, what we’re doing is we’re inventorying all of the property that the diocese and the parishes own, and trying to understand where there might be underutilized property that would make sense to develop some residential use,” Cameron said.
Cameron said he can’t yet share details about the housing projects they’re working on, but said they are looking to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Queen of Angels housing project as a model for how to take advantage of the new incentives created by SB 4.
“I think it’s great, and it’s exciting that they’re taking the lead and that they are able to find an opportunistic way to repurpose an underutilized property to meet the housing shortage in California,” he said.
“[We] look at them as a role model for what we’re trying to accomplish here in the Diocese of Orange.”
Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago with One Chicago Square in the background, a residential tower constructed on the former cathedral parking lot, which was sold in 2019. Courtesy of Maddy Johnson/Church Properties Initiative
John Meyer, a former president of the California-based Napa Institute who now works in real estate with J2 Development, emphasized the importance of viewing the Church’s vast real estate holdings as an asset rather than a liability.
Meyer said he is currently working with two Catholic entities on the East Coast on ground lease projects, one of which will fund the construction of a new Catholic Student Center at a university. He told CNA he often advises Catholic entities to lease the land they own rather than selling it, allowing the church to maintain ownership of the property while generating income.
Naturally, he noted, any real estate project the Church undertakes ought to align with the Church’s mission of spreading the Gospel, and not merely be a means of making money.
“Any time we look at the Church’s real estate decisions, it’s got to be intertwined with mission and values,” he said.
“We’re not just developing for the sake of developing. What we want to do is we want to create value for the Church, and we also want to create value for the community. So working closely with the municipality to make sure that needs are met, and to be a good neighbor, is important.”
He said Church leaders should strongly consider taking advantage of incentives in various states such as California for projects like affordable housing, which align with the Church’s mission and provide both social and financial benefits.
“Priests and bishops aren’t ordained to do these things, and sometimes they have people in their diocese that have these abilities, and sometimes they don’t,” Meyer said.
“This [new law] in California has created an incentive that we can take advantage of, so we need to take advantage of that incentive…it’s allowing us to unlock potential value in land while at the same time serving a social good that’s part of the mission of the Church.”
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