Washington D.C., Mar 10, 2017 / 02:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The divorce rate has doubled for Americans over age 50, and tripled among Americans over 65, a new survey shows.
“At a time when divorce is becoming less common for younger adults, so-ca… […]
New York City, N.Y., Mar 9, 2017 / 08:40 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of New York argued before a federal circuit court this week that it should have the freedom to make employment decisions about Catholic school principals without government i… […]
Washington D.C., Mar 9, 2017 / 04:45 pm (CNA).- Family members of boxing great Muhammed Ali say they were detained at an airport for their religion and have linked the incident President Donald Trump’s travel ban, which they are challenging on religious freedom grounds.
“There shouldn’t be a travel ban,” said Khalilah Camacho Ali, the boxer’s former wife. “If I don’t speak up now, they’re going to keep harassing us.”
She said Muhammed Ali’s family has been fighting for religious rights “for a very long time,” adding “We are going to continue to fight for religious justice.”
Muhammed Ali, Jr. and his mother Khalilah Camacho Ali, were detained and questioned Feb. 7 at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport as they returned from a Black History Month event in Jamaica, the Associated Press reports. They said they were asked if they were Muslim and a family spokesman charged they were flagged for their Arabic-sounding names.
While Ali’s former wife could produce a photo of herself with her famous ex-husband, her son could not. They were separated and he was detained by immigration officials for about two hours, the family spokesman said, according to the Washington Post.
Ali Jr. was born in Philadelphia and has a U.S. passport.
Customs officials, however, rejected claims it had discriminated on the basis of religion or ethnicity. “We accomplish our mission with vigilance and in accordance with the law,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection said Feb. 26, adding “We treat all travelers with respect and sensitivity.”
Khalilah Camacho Ali said the incident at the Florida airport has affected her.
“I’m paranoid. I’m just waiting for somebody to mess with me. That’s not a good feeling when you have to travel,” she said.
The ban on new visas for travelers from six predominantly Muslim countries and temporarily halted the United States’ refugee program was revised after facing court challenges. The latest version will take effect March 16 and has removed Iraq from the list of countries, which originally numbered seven.
Ali Jr. and Khalilah Camacho Ali visited Washington, D.C. on Thursday to meet with lawmakers and discuss their experience. Democratic members of the House Subcommittee on border security invited them to a forum on the topic.
They have launched a campaign against the travel restrictions with support of former boxing stars Evander Holyfield, Larry Holmes and Roberto Duran.
They are framing the effort as a conflict with the president, using the hashtag “#AlivsTrump.”
The three-time boxing heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali also advocated for civil rights. He converted to Islam in 1964 and refused to join the military draft, citing conscientious objections as a Muslim. He was stripped of his heavyweight title and convicted of draft evasion, though the Supreme Court would rule in his favor.
He died in 2016.
Washington D.C., Mar 9, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie – being able to “upload” our minds to computers to live on after we die, to freeze our bodies only to bring them back in the future, or to pop pills to enhance our mood and intelligence.
While these may seem like impossible notions, these are the kinds of things the transhumanism and posthumanism movements are hoping for and working toward.
However, as with most technological advancements, these proposals have bioethicists and theologians questioning: just because we can, does that mean we should?
Transhumanism is a loosely-defined cultural, intellectual and technical movement that describes itself as seeking to “to overcome fundamental human limitations” including death, aging, and natural physical, mental and psychological limitations, says humanity+, a transhumanist online community.
The movement overlaps greatly with posthumanism, which posits that a new, biologically superior race is on the horizon, and could replace the human race as we know it. Posthumanists support technologies such as cryogenic freezing, mood-and-intelligence-enhancing drugs, genetic engineering, nanotechnology, bionics and “uploading” a mind to an artificial intelligence.
These movements stem from the idea that human limitations are just “technical problems” that need to be overcome, said history professor Yuval Noah Harari in a 2015 interview in “Edge,” a non-profit website devoted to the advancement of technology.
“Once you really solve a problem like direct brain-computer interface … when brains and computers can interact directly, to take just one example, that’s it, that’s the end of history, that’s the end of biology as we know it,” he said. “Nobody has a clue what will happen once you solve this.”
But is human nature a problem to be solved? Will treading into this territory completely change the way man relates to God, to their own bodies, and to one another? These are the questions many bioethicists are grappling with as they consider the morality of such technologies.
For Catholics, escaping suffering and trials by escaping human nature itself is a morally unacceptable option, according to Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., Director of Education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
“Catholics cannot accept a vision of man which presupposes an outright ‘unacceptability’ of his basic human nature, nor a vision that labors to replace it with an alternate bodily structure that is engineered to be ‘post-human,’” Fr. Pacholczyk told CNA.
Instead, the “integral vision of man” accepts that man is incarnate – that humans have a body –and that “we are meant to embrace and grow through the limitations of our human nature,” he said.
“Even if our nature were to be radically re-engineered and modified,” he elaborated, “our innermost self would retain fundamental shards of incompleteness.”
The human experience is a struggle between a longing for the infinite, and learning to accept and embrace human’s finite nature, Fr. Pacholczyk explained. This longing would still exist even if technology were to significantly advance man’s material reality, because the longing for the infinite transcends the material world, he added.
Christ’s life provides the road map to transcendence – rather than transhumanism – for man’s life, “achieved through repentance, discipleship, self-denial, committed love, and generous self-giving,” said Fr. Pacholczyk. The infinite that man longs for “is effected from above through grace, rather than through the mere machinations of human cleverness or willfulness.”
Only by accepting their nature can humans re-orient themselves to “the only authentic source of redemption compatible with his essence,” which is Jesus, he added.
Peter Lawler, a bioethicist and government professor at Berry College, said while he did not think transhumanism is possible, the movement’s ideology alone can impact society.
The mindset of detaching humanity from biology contributes to a “paranoia about existence” which sees the natural world as the enemy of man, and views the body as a mere machine rather than as an integral part of a person, Lawler said.
“We’re living longer than ever,” he said. Improvements in healthcare, life expectancy and other technologies have changed the way people think about many things such as sexual morality, desired family size, and the integration of elderly people into society.
Charles Rubin, a professor of political science at Dusquenes University and author on the transhumanist movement, also takes issue with the transhumanist or posthumanist ideology. The idea of “a superior version” of human beings implies that humans are poorly-designed “creatures of evolutionary chance,” Rubin said.
“They have the very ‘thin’ understanding of what it means to be human that is in many ways characteristic of our contemporary thin ideas about self-hood,” he said. The movement also makes the assumption that “material circumstances can solve all our problems.”
“Building as they do on a thin sense of self, they risk encouraging those tendencies of contemporary thought that treat human beings instrumentally or that otherwise diminish human dignity.”
But it’s not all necessarily bad.
Some technologies that improve and even extend human life can be beneficial, so long as they don’t violate morality, Lawler noted.
“The consistent pro-life position is that we are for life,” he said, referencing Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical, “Caritas in Veritate” (Charity in Truth).
“Technology is highly attractive because it draws us out of our physical limitations and broadens our horizon,” the Pope wrote.
Still, he cautioned, technological advancements can never trump the good of the human person – they must always be done in an ethically responsible way.
“Human freedom is authentic only when it responds to the fascination of technology with decisions that are the fruit of moral responsibility,” Pope Benedict XVI wrote.
While extending life can be acceptable, the promises of transhumanism should be critiqued, Rubin said.
What should be combated, he continued, is those who “dogmatically assert the benefits of a longer life without having ever having asked seriously the question of what constitutes a good human life.”
This article was originally published on CNA April 9, 2015.
Denver, Colo., Mar 9, 2017 / 03:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- If you’re an Irish Catholic (or any Catholic) living in the United States, you will need to check with your local diocese before indulging in corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s D… […]
Phoenix, Ariz., Mar 9, 2017 / 02:56 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Students for Life Group at Arizona State University is planning the nation’s first Pregnant on Campus Week to offer resources, support and information for parents on campus this March 1… […]
Hollywood, Calif., Mar 9, 2017 / 02:36 pm (CNA).- The path to priesthood doesn’t often include stops on the sets of soap operas. But for Father Don Woznicki, a stint as a production assistant for the NBC soap “Sunset Beach” in 1998 (the same year he entered the Mundelein Seminary to begin his formation as a priest) was a pivotal part of his exploration of his “calling within a calling” – his deep-seated desire to evangelize through the entertainment industry.
“While I was in my pretheological studies at Loyola University in Chicago, I sensed the Holy Spirit moving me to somehow be involved in an outreach ministry as a priest to Hollywood,” recalled Father Woznicki. “I always loved entertainment, and it was at that point in my life, as I discerned the priesthood, that I had a deep conviction that somehow the Church needs to be more present because of that influence it can have on people and cultures.”
As the South Bend, Indiana-born Father Woznicki assumed an associate pastor role at a Chicago-area parish, he (with the permission of then-Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Francis George) proceeded to trek to Los Angeles three or four times a year, for one week at a time during his spring and summer breaks, to continue his PA job with “Sunset Beach,” work with Act One (a mentorship program for aspiring Christian screenwriters) and soak up as much additional exposure to the entertainment industry that he could get.
Twenty years and a handful of IMDB credits later, Father Woznicki is now not only the pastor at Christ the King Church in Hollywood (where he began serving last July), but also the director of New Ethos, an advocacy effort that strives to drum up support throughout the Catholic community for films that, as St. Pope John Paul II (who was an actor in his youth) once put it, “bring us to a personal encounter with truth, goodness and beauty.”
<blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” data-lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>LOS ANGELES I Holy-wood: How one priest supports films that ‘promote truth, beauty and goodness.’ <a href=”https://t.co/1dMBdAymxd”>https://t.co/1dMBdAymxd</a> <a href=”https://t.co/4ml5D1CdML”>pic.twitter.com/4ml5D1CdML</a></p>— Angelus News (@AngelusNews) <a href=”https://twitter.com/AngelusNews/status/839957753082736640″>March 9, 2017</a></blockquote>
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“There is great power in film and television, because much of our senses are acted upon through visuals (cinematography, special effects, movement), hearing (screenplay, musical score, sound) and a personal connection with the actors,” explained Father Woznicki. “Our celebration of the Mass and sacraments carry through its beauty the ultimate power to act on our senses, to have a personal encounter with our Lord and Savior and transform our minds and hearts. When one encounters an overarching spirit of the true, good and beautiful in entertainment, one also is encountering Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth and the life.”
And while many on the outside looking in have a preconceived notion of Hollywood being a spiritual wasteland, Father Woznicki has found that Hollywood is, in fact, inhabited by its fair share of faith-filled industry professionals who, though they may not agree with all of the Church’s teachings, have an “attraction to, and appreciation for, the Church’s age-old and sophisticated approach to the arts through the holy Mass, in sacred art and in the various other traditional and progressive mystical expressions of faith.”
In order to support filmmakers and screenwriters who share his passion for truthful, beautiful storytelling, Father Woznicki and his core team of film reviewers collaborate with studio marketing executives in a number of capacities to galvanize support throughout the Catholic community for films that fit the bill. His ultimate goal is for New Ethos to become an esteemed, respected voice for the films it wants to promote, and has not only a hand in production and development, but also “a place at the table of major studios and independent production companies to have a meaningful influence on developing entertainment.”
To this end, New Ethos is in the planning stages of working with the Pontifical Council for Social Communications to coordinate a two-day retreat at the Vatican for accomplished industry artists and establishing a “New Ethos Film Festival,” a Sundance-esque event to be held annually in Los Angeles. For the time being, however, New Ethos’ primary efforts involve recognizing quality films and awarding them the New Ethos “Logo of Excellence,” which promoters can in turn use for marketing purposes.
New Ethos’ two most prestigious awards, the “New Ethos Excellence Award” and the “New Ethos Selection” are awarded to films that excel in the categories of religion, values and art. Father Woznicki hopes that, by recognizing films that succeed as much in their efforts to explore universal human truths and propel the craft of filmmaking forward as they do in telling stories concerning matters of faith, that New Ethos will help shake the filmgoing public’s tendency to equate “Catholic” with “G-rated” and/or “hokey.”
“New Ethos is not about just supporting films and entertainment media because a Catholic made it,” stated Father Woznicki. “Would you get on an airplane just because you heard a Catholic made it? Quality is the rule. Christ is constantly calling us to conversion, hope and to be transformed into his image, and the reality is that a vast majority of us are works in progress, made holy in Christ’s mercy, but with many rough and hard edges to be smoothed out.
“New Ethos films are not about promoting sanitized Christian propaganda, rather to that conversion, hope and transformation,” he continued.
Just as we are all works in progress, so is New Ethos in its early stages. But Father Woznicki firmly believes that New Ethos’ earnest intention to focus on promoting the best attributes of Hollywood, the goodness waiting to emerge in films hidden beneath the slog, will lead to a flourishing, symbiotic relationship between New Ethos and the entertainment industry.
“The mission’s philosophy was founded on transforming Hollywood not through a self-righteous ‘Hollywood takeover’ to form a ‘Catholic Hollywood,’ but rather encouraging and supporting and uplifting the true, good and beautiful in secular Hollywood productions, where much of God’s talent operates,” said Father Woznicki.
“[It’s not] about going to Hollywood yielding a stick to point out where they are leading our children into hell,” he continued. “Rather, [it’s] to form positive collaborative relationships, where the Church lets Hollywood be who they are: the most talented and creative storytellers in the world, which the Church needs, while Hollywood can use the Church not only for its large market potential, but also to tap into the Church’s wisdom to help guide the art-making process. It’s is a win-win mission!”
This article originally appeared in Angelus News. Reprinted with permission.
Washington D.C., Mar 8, 2017 / 03:29 pm (CNA).- As Congress considers a new health care law, the U.S. bishops are calling for a plan that does not fund abortion, but respects conscience rights, while also ensuring universal access to affordable health … […]
Mountain View, Calif., Mar 8, 2017 / 06:06 am (Church Pop).- St. Francis Catholic High School in Mountain View, California recently revealed that it invested just $15,000 in a very early seed round of funding for Snapchat (now known as Snap) back in 20… […]
Austin, Texas, Mar 7, 2017 / 02:50 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Austin, Texas, like any hipster city worth its organic, non-GMO salt, is known for its food trucks.
There are about 1,000 food trucks that roam the streets of the Texas capital, offering barbecue, breakfast tacos, and gourmet grilled cheese to the masses of Pabst Blue Ribbon-swilling millennials who have recently flocked to the city.
But among them, and before them, there was Alan Graham and Mobile Loaves and Fishes.
Mobile Loaves and Fishes is a Christian non-profit founded by Graham and five other men that delivers about 1,200 meals and essentials from 12 food trucks to homeless people on the streets of Austin every night.
The ministry also recently started a village called Community First!, a place where the formerly homeless, volunteers and those desiring a simpler life live together in a village of tiny homes and recreational vehicles in what Graham calls “an RV park on steroids.”
In his newly released book Welcome Homeless, Graham recalls the story and the people behind his ministries, in his raw, straight-shooting, and often humorous voice.
In October 1996, Graham, a convert to Catholicism, had gone tentatively on a men’s retreat. At first, he was counting down the hours until the “hugs and hand-holding” were over. The retreat was too emotional for his then-very intellectual faith.
But by the end, he experienced a profound change of heart and adopted a philosophy of “just say yes.”
Several yesses and a couple of years later, Graham and his wife, Tricia, found themselves having coffee with a friend who was telling them about an initiative in Corpus Christi, Texas, where multiple churches would pool their resources to provide food for the homeless on cold winter nights.
An entrepreneur at heart, Graham immediately envisioned a catering truck that could deliver meals to the homeless (this was before the food truck boom; at the time ,Graham called them “roach coaches”).
“I woke up the next morning knowing we could franchise it, and bring it to every church, every city, and every state to feed the homeless,” he recalls in his book. “This is how entrepreneurs think: one truck becomes a thousand.”
Through his church group, he recruited six more men to join him and invest in a food truck for the homeless (they started calling themselves “The Six Pack”). One of these men turned out to be an especially key player: Houston Flake.
Socks and popsicles
Houston, who met Graham through the men’s group at St. John Neumann Catholic Church, was poorly educated and illiterate, but understood the Gospel like no one Graham had ever met.
Houston had experienced chronic homelessness throughout his life, and became a key tour guide for Graham and his crew, who were “clueless” about life on the streets as they began their ministry.
During one meeting, the group had discussed how great it would be if they could get phone cards (pre-cellphone times) to hand out to the homeless whom they would meet.
“Houston looked at us and said, ‘That is the dumbest idea on the face of the planet. They don’t need phone cards. No one wants to talk to them. They don’t want to talk to anybody. You need to put socks on that truck,’” Graham recalled.
To this day, socks are the most desired item on the trucks.
Houston also took Graham out to his “conference room” – to meet some of the homeless who were his friends. It changed Graham’s whole perspective on the population he was about to serve.
Not long after Mobile Loaves and Fishes began, Houston was diagnosed with bladder cancer and given mere weeks to live.
For his dying wish, Houston didn’t want to travel or eat a fancy steak dinner – he wanted to deliver 400 popsicles to homeless children on a hot summer day, a treat those kids rarely experienced.
“He wanted them to choose: Pink? Red? Blue? Purple? Green? He wanted to give that which they did not need but might want. He wanted to give them abundance in fruity, tasty, frozen form,” Graham wrote.
That philosophy carried over to the food trucks. The people they serve are given options – PB&J, ham and cheese, tacos? Milk, coffee, orange juice? Oranges or apples? It’s a shift from the scarcity mentality found in soup kitchens founded in the Great Depression, to an abundance mentality that is possible in the most abundant country in the world, Graham explained. They are “the little bitty choices that people who live a life in extreme poverty don’t get to make often.”
The solution to homelessness is not just housing
Since the first truck run, the ministry quickly grew. Hungry people would chase down the food trucks as they saw them making their way through the streets of Austin.
The ministry has now expanded to the cities of San Antonio, Texas; Providence, Rhode Island; New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Minneapolis, Minnesota. To date, Mobile Loaves & Fishes has served over 4 million meals, and with more than 18,000 volunteers, it is the largest prepared feeding program to the homeless and working poor in Austin.
But it didn’t stop there. A little over 5 years into the ministry, Graham envisioned an “RV park on steroids”, with the philosophy of “housing first”, which holds that the homeless need housing before they can solve any of their other problems.
However, Graham knew that mere houses were not enough. What these people need and desire, like everyone, is to be known and loved – they needed community. He envisioned a place where people lived life together, knew and cared for each other, sharing kitchens and gardens and conversation.
“It developed from this idea back in 2004, where we went out and bought a gently used RV and lifted one guy off the streets into a privately owned RV park,” he said.
Because of zoning laws and other issues, it took awhile to get the idea off the ground, but the Community First! Village project was finally able to break ground in 2014.
Today, 110 people, most of them formerly homeless, call the village home. Soon, there will be enough housing for 250 people. There are brightly colored tiny homes that would give HG-TV a run for their money, as well as recreational vehicles and “canvas-sided” homes (sturdy tents with concrete foundations).
The homes provide the basics – they are essentially bedrooms – while everything else is communal. There is a communal kitchen and garden and bonfire, and places everywhere to sit and have a conversation.
A post shared by Mobile Loaves & Fishes (@mobileloaves) on Apr 2, 2016 at 2:21pm PDT
“It’s all centered on Genesis 2:15,” Graham said. “Just after God created the Garden of Eden, he took the man, and centered him in the garden to cultivate and care for it. And so the foundation for our entire philosophy of the community is centered on God’s original plan for us, to be settled, to be at peace with each other, to live in community, to be cultivating with the gifts that he has given us, and to serve him by caring for each other.”
What needs to change
The solution to homelessness, Graham said, is not going to be found in new government policies or agencies, but rather in Christians and other people who choose to take care of each other.
“I believe it’s like the old African adage ‘it takes a village to raise a child,’” Graham said. “We have to step in, the village should step in and care for its own. What we’re doing right now is abdicating that responsibility to our government, which … tries to resolve this issue transactionally, but I believe it’s a relationship issue. Our Kingdom desire is to be wanted by each other, not ‘if you buy me a house I’m going to be happy.’ That’s not where our happiness comes from.”
One of the foundational goals of the ministry is to change the stereotypes that people have about the homeless, so that they are seen as brothers and sisters rather than as other, Graham added.
He recommended that anyone who wants to help the homeless start building relationships with them – say hello, ask their name, shake their hand, give them a sandwich or a gift card to Chick-fil-A. And then find an organization to volunteer with in your city.
“There’s a giant stereotype around the homeless, and we’re very good as Americans at stereotyping, and so the homeless population (is projected) to be drug addicts, mentally ill, criminals; they’re usually depicted as unkempt or that they don’t pay attention to hygiene, so we develop these preconceived notions that won’t even allow us to roll down our windows anymore to say ‘Hello’ or ‘God Bless,’” he said.
“Those things just aren’t true,” Graham said.
“We have five major corporate goals, and goal number one is to transform the paradigm of how people view the stereotype of the homeless. When we change that paradigm, it changes our culture so as to be able to go and love on our brothers and sisters.”
That’s one of his hopes for the book, and the reason he made sure to tell the stories of so many homeless men and women who have directly touched his life.
“What we want to do is spread the kingdom message of a better way to love on our neighbors, so I’m hoping the book will go broad and deep, and people will be inspired to go out there and begin doing what it is that we’re doing, that’s what I hope.”
Because “what’s happening here in Austin, Texas is nothing short of a miracle.”
© Catholic World Report