News Briefs

Raleigh, N.C., Feb 28, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Democratic presidential candidate Amy Klobuchar would not say when she believes life begins when asked during a townhall event on Thursday evening. While repeating her openness to pro-life support, the sen… […]

Washington D.C., Feb 28, 2020 / 11:00 am (CNA).- U.S. Ambassador at Large for Religious Freedom Sam Brownback has warned that religious persecution is spreading worldwide, and highlighted the examples of anti-Christian violence in Nigeria and a growing religious surveillance state in China.

Speaking to CNA on Thursday, Feb. 27, Ambassador Brownback highlighted the ongoing violence in Nigeria, where local Christians have been the victims of violent attacks and abductions.

Brownback said he is concerned the situation in Nigeria will spread to nearby countries if nothing is done to crack down on religious persecution. 

“There’s a lot of people getting killed in Nigeria, and we’re afraid it is going to spread a great deal in that region,” he told CNA. “It is one that’s really popped up on my radar screens — in the last couple of years, but particularly this past year.” 

In January, a Nigerian seminarian was abducted and murdered by militants, and several priests and seminarians have been abducted in the country. Brownback expressed frustration that the Nigerian government was not doing enough to protect religious groups. 

“I think we’ve got to prod the [Nigerian President Muhammadu] Buhari government more. They can do more,” he said. “They’re not bringing these people to justice that are killing religious adherents. They don’t seem to have the sense of urgency to act.” 

While he acknowledged that there had been “some pretty good meetings recently,” he predicted that religious persecution in Nigeria will continue to worsen unless the government takes concerted action. 

“We really think that they’ve got to act more,” he said, calling for dialogue between Muslims and Christians in the country, “really try to get them working together instead of killing each other.” 

“We need to engage the religious leaders more, to see if we can really start to tamp that down,” he said. 

Later in the day, Brownback spoke during a panel event titled “Without Religious Freedom, What’s Left?”  The event took place at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland. 

“The problem is that [religious persecution] still grows and grows,” said Brownback during the event. “Eighty percent of the world’s population is in a country that has religious persecution,” he said. 

“It’s the most deadly time in the history of Christendom for you to be a Christian. There’s more Christian persecution than any time in the history of mankind.”

“The future of oppression isn’t going to look like what it looks like now,” said Brownback, highlighting the crackdown on religious practice in China. 

“The past, you’d see people locked up, killed for being a minority faith or this or that. The future of oppression is you’re going to be marginalized in the society, that people are going to have your face, and they’re going to know your DNA and they’re gonna know who you are and you’re not going to be able to participate [in society].” 

He cited China’s development of a “social credit” system over the last 10 years; the system has been used to track and punish religious minorities. If a person has a low social credit score, said Brownback, they could be prohibited from obtaining an education or living in a certain area. 

“And it won’t just be you. It will be your friends with you, if anyone pings your cell phone, that will be tracked and they’ll get the same low social credit score that you get. And these are the systems being modeled and worked on and done now today in China,” he said. 

The ambassador said that Congressional action against China had established limits on what kind of technology can be sent from the United States to China, and that the Trump administration is “very concerned about the use of technology” in the country. 

“The technology is amoral; it’s neither good nor bad, it’s technology,” said Brownback. “But what you do with it has a big moral component to it. And these are things–this is why, on my radar screen, that area of oppression and that growth of oppression and that nature is one of the most fearful things I see coming in this space.”

“And we’ve got to be active and we are active. We just got to do more,” said Brownback. 

China, he said, is “best in the world” at religious persecution and surveillance of religious groups, and has been engaged in a “war with faith.”

In responde, he said, the Trump administration is defending religious freedom “more than any administration has previously.” 

“And we consider [religious freedom] a God-given human right, not one that’s given by governments,” he said. Brownback applauded the Trump administration for organizing two ministerials on religious freedom, held in 2018 and 2019, calling them the largest human rights events ever held at the State Department. The 2020 ministerial on religious freedom will be held in Poland.

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St. Paul, Minn., Feb 27, 2020 / 05:20 pm (CNA).- Catholic priests in Minnesota have been advised not to vote in the state’s March 3 Super Tuesday presidential primary, because there is no guarantee their partisan ballot choice will be kept private, and because primary voting in the state requires voters to express support for a party’s principles.

Minnesota Catholic Conference staff have told the state’s bishops that clerical participation in the primary election is “imprudent.”
 
“As priests are, generally, discouraged from participating in partisan political activities, Minnesota Catholic Conference staff advised the bishops of Minnesota that, in light of the possibility that the information related to a priest’s participation and ballot selection could be made public, that it would be imprudent to for them to participate in this particular primary process,” Catholic conference executive director Jason Adkins said in a statement sent to CNA Feb. 27.
 
Guidance from bishops to their priests on this matter is “within their purview,” said Adkins, whose organization represents the bishops of Minnesota on public policy initiatives.
 
Only ballots for the Republican Party and the Democratic-Farmer Labor Party, the state party affiliated with the national Democratic Party, are available for primary voters to choose from.
 
While the candidate a voter chooses in a Minnesota primary is secret, political party chairs are able to know which primary individual voters chose to vote in during the presidential primary.

Archbishop Bernie Hebda of St. Paul-Minneapolis warned in an email to priests and deacons that because of the state’s policies, “nothing prevents party affiliation from being made public.”
 
Hebda emphasized that there is no tax-related ban on clergy voting in primaries and clergy can endorse candidates in their individual capacities.
 
“But the possibility that the data may become public should discourage clergy from participating,” said Hebda. “If the law were different and protected privacy, maybe the calculus would change.”
 
“it could be seen as ‘partisan’ political activity to align oneself with a party and to vote in its primary, which the Church generally discourages clergy from doing for evangelical reasons, more so than tax ones,” said Hebda.
 
According to Adkins, “most of the clergy to whom we’ve spoken about the matter were grateful for the archbishop’s guidance because it apprised them about something to which they’d not given thought and also helpfully laid out important information and considerations.”
 
Katherine Cross, communications director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, told CNA that the state’s presidential primary process “requires participants to attest to a party’s principles” as a condition for voting.
 
This limits participation to “those who are willing to publicly attest general agreement with the platform of one of the major parties here in Minnesota,” Adkins’ statement said. The change aimed to separate the primary from the party caucus process and to protect both events’ integrity as partisan events.
 
Adkins noted that legislators are considering whether to change the process to ensure that a voter’s primary ballot choice remains private.
 
DFL Rep. Ray Dehn of Minneapolis has proposed a bill to restrict party access to voter data. The bill proposes that political parties may not use the data for any purposes beyond certifying that the primary elections are free of widespread interference.
 
“It absolutely is a legitimate concern,” Dehn told ABC News television affiliate KSTP. “We’ve heard from not just tax-exempt groups and nonprofits but clergy don’t want that information available.”
 
The bill passed the DFL-controlled House of Representatives late Wednesday night.
 
DFL Gov. Tim Walz has said there is time to act before data is shared after the election.
 
“There’s folks that work really hard in positions where they’re non-partisan judges, clergy and others that don’t want to be in this position and I am with them on that,” he told reporters Feb. 26.

It is not clear whether the Republican-controlled State Senate will pass a bill to change the law and Minnesota Republican Party chair Jennifer Carnahan has opposed changes because voting is already underway, KSTP reported.
 
On March 3, Minnesota joins thirteen other states and the U.S. territory of American Samoa in what is commonly called the Super Tuesday primary. Primary victories in the contested race for the Democratic presidential nomination will determine how candidates will split 1,357 party delegates, a key prize towards securing the majority of about 4,000 delegates needed to win the nomination.
 
The Minnesota primary for other elected offices will be held in August.
 
Adkins’ statement elaborated on concerns about partisan activity by priests.
 
“Counseling the avoidance of partisan political activity helps ensure that the priest retains an identity as a credible witness of the Gospel,” said Adkins.

“Especially in light of the political polarization and identity politics of today, the ability of a priest to form consciences for faithful citizenship in light of the appropriate principles depends, in part, on his ability to transcend the partisan divide and not have his catechesis tainted by the suspicion of partisanship.”
 
“Inevitably, addressing particular moral questions and public debates will strike some as partisan regardless of intent, but it remains important to cast the Church’s social teaching as principled, and never partisan,” said Adkins.
 
Minnesota Catholic Conference staff are also barred from participating in partisan political activity, Adkins said.
 
The 1983 Code of Canon Law bars Catholic clerics from assuming public offices which entail the exercise of civil power. It bars priests from “an active part in political parties and in governing labor unions” unless ecclesiastical authority judges it necessary to protect the rights of the Church or to promote the common good.”

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, in the February 2020 digital edition of their document “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship,” describes “complementary roles in public life” for clergy and lay people. Church leaders “avoid endorsing or opposing candidates” while fulfilling responsibilities to teach moral fundamentals, to help Catholics form their consciences, and to encourage the faithful to do their duties in political life.
 
“The Church is involved in the political process but is not partisan. The Church cannot champion any candidate or party. Our cause is the defense of human life and dignity and the protection of the weak and vulnerable,” the document said.
 
The U.S. bishops’ Office of General Counsel in August 2018 published guidelines for Catholic organizations on political activity and lobbying. The document runs to 45 pages.

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Denver, Colo., Feb 27, 2020 / 04:35 pm (CNA).- On the news that Jean Vanier, Catholic founder of L’Arche International, has been credibly accused of serially sexually abusing women, Professor Stanley Hauerwas said he is “devastated.”

“That is the way anyone must feel on hearing the news of Jean Vanier’s sexual misconduct,” Hauerwas said in comments to CNA. “Vanier was supposed to be different and in many ways he was. But the difference makes his behavior all the more devastating. He should have known better,” he added.

Hauerwas, a world renowned theologian with joint appointments at Duke Divinity School and Duke Law School, was a personal friend of Vanier, who died at the age of 90 on May 7, 2019.

Vanier was the once-revered founder of L’Arche, an international community of people with intellectual disabilities and their supporters, and of Faith and Light, an ecumenical Christian association of prayer and friendship for those with intellectual disabilities and their families.

Last April, L’Arche commissioned GCPS, an independent U.K. consultancy specializing in the reporting of exploitation and abuse to investigate allegations related to Fr. Thomas Philippe, an abusive Dominican priest sanctioned by Church authorities in 1956, whom Vanier described as his “spiritual mentor.”

On Feb. 22, 2020, L’Arche International published the results of the investigation, detailing “credible and consistent” accounts of sexual misconduct by Vanier against six adult women without disabilities in the context of spiritual direction.

Hauerwas said he considered Vanier a friend and mentor, and is “heartbroken by this revelation of his terrible misconduct and utterly condemn it as an abuse of power.”

Hauerwas noted that Vanier seems to have convinced himself the abuse was consensual, which he said was “some desperate attempt to justify his actions. Which is but a reminder that self-deception often is the result of trying to make sense of our lives and why we all need accountability, especially those held in high esteem.” 

“One suspects his gentleness allowed him to get away with anything but his actions involving the women were anything but gentle,” he said.

Still, Hauerwas said he is “indebted” to Vanier for what he taught him about how to love and care for disabled people, and he hopes that the good of L’Arche’s work will not be lost along with the revelations of abuse.

“So much of (Vanier’s) life was morally exemplary. That is one of the problems. How can we continue to learn from his witness with his intellectually disabled friends without excusing his predatory sexual behavior? At this time when we are trying to receive this devastating news the only advice I have is not to be in a hurry to answer that question,” he said.

Rather than rush to decisions, Hauerwas urged those effected by the report to pray.

“We must pray first for the women he betrayed,” he said. “We must pray for the members of the L’Arche movement. We must pray for ourselves that God will help us to carry on the work of L’Arche because that work is, in and of itself, independent of the actions of its founder.”

He added that the international L’Arche community “are proving to be quite extraordinary in terms of how they’re responding and how they have responded.”

L’Arche International has set up an additional centralized reporting procedure for any further information that people may wish to report. Any such information will be received by a task force composed of people outside of L’Arche.

“I continue to believe that in those homes the glory of God is manifest for all to see.”

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