Washington D.C., Feb 15, 2019 / 03:11 pm (CNA).- Ahead of an expected decision in the case of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick, new details have emerged about his likely financial status in the event that he is laicized.

Sources close to the former cardinal told CNA that McCarrick has previously declined an income from the Church, and that he has private means of support in place.

McCarrick’s conviction and possible laicization have been the subject of consistent media speculation and expectation in recent days. He faces numerous charges of sexual abuse against minors and adults over a period of decades. A decision in the case is widely predicted to be announced ahead of a Vatican summit on child sexual abuse, which begins Feb. 21.

While no decision or penalty has yet been announced, sources close to the archbishop told CNA Friday that, in the event he were defrocked, he would still have a personal income.

This could prove significant, as clerical offenders of advanced age or poor health are often kept in a penitential assignment, in recognition that they might otherwise have no means of support. If McCarrick were known to be able to provide for his own living outside of Church support, it could weigh against him in any deliberation about imposing a penalty of laicization.

As a cleric and former archbishop of Washington and Newark, and former bishop of Metuchen, McCarrick currently has a right to financial support from the Church. At present, expenses at the Kansas monastery where McCarrick is living in “prayer and penance” are being met by the Archdiocese of Washington which, as the last diocese of his assignment, has an ongoing obligation to provide basic “sustenance” under canon law.

That right would cease, along with many others, if he were expelled from the clerical state - laicized - following a conviction for sexual abuse.

But sources close to the former cardinal told CNA that he never drew either a salary or a pension from any of the three dioceses he led. They said that he declined to take remuneration from his former dioceses, but that he does have a private income from savings and monthly annuities.

“While he is not without resources, they are modest, in keeping with what one might expect of a parish priest,” one source close to McCarrick told CNA.

The same source told CNA that the annuities had been privately purchased over a period of years.

Questions remain, however, about the scale and sources of McCarrick’s private income. If, as those close to him have indicated, he declined any formal remuneration from the dioceses he led as a bishop, what was the source for any savings he might have, and how did he come to purchase the annuities to give himself a private income in retirement?

One source close to McCarrick speculated that the annuities could have come from “friends or benefactors” of the archbishop before his fall from grace.

The web of formal and informal financial networks around him remains hard to untangle, but what is known gives a strong indication of his access to funds.

In 2001, McCarrick established the Archbishop’s Fund, which he continued to personally oversee during his retirement, only ceding control to Cardinal Donald Wuerl in June last year.

According to the Archdiocese of Washington, that fund was designated for McCarrick’s personal “works of charity and other miscellaneous expenses.”

McCarrick also sat on the board of numerous grant-making bodies during his time in office, at least two of which combined to donate more than $500,000 to his personal charitable fund. These included nine grants of $25,000 each from the Minnesota-based GHR Foundation designated for the “former archbishop’s fund” or the “former archbishop’s special fund,” according to tax records.

The Virginia-based Loyola Foundation made grants of $20,000 - $40,000 per year to the archbishop’s fund for at least a decade. According to the foundation, the sums were “specifically designated by Archbishop McCarrick” who as a trustee could allocate “limited discretionary grants” to qualified 501(c)(3) organizations.

While the archdiocese told CNA in August 2018 that the fund was audited annually and that “no irregularities were ever noticed,” it would not confirm the balance of the fund at the time McCarrick turned over control, or how much money had passed through the fund over the years, or where it had gone.

McCarrick was known for producing sizable donations for projects and funds with which he was associated, including the Papal Foundation, as well as individual projects in dioceses around the world. At the same time, he was also well known for his more personal acts of generosity.

In September 2018, a cardinal who formerly served as a curial official recalled McCarrick’s habit of doling out large sums, in cash, to senior officials in Rome.

“When he would visit Rome, Cardinal McCarrick was well-known for handing out envelopes of money to different bishops and cardinals around the curia to thank them for their work,” the cardinal told CNA.

“Where these ‘honoraria’ came from or what they were for, exactly, was never clear – but many accepted them anyway.”

Given that McCarrick has access to a private income, unconnected to the Church, it is unlikely that any of the three dioceses which he once led would put themselves forward to offer him additional support in the event he were laicized.

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Metuchen confirmed to CNA that McCarrick had not received a pension from the diocese but could not confirm if he drew a salary as bishop, citing diocesan files on salaries which only date back seven years.

Both the Archdiocese of Newark and the Archdiocese of Washington declined to comment on McCarrick’s private financial circumstances. A spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington referred CNA to the archbishop’s personal attorney.

Washington D.C., Feb 15, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement Feb. 15 opposing President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency on the southern border. Trump made the declaration as part of an attempt to secure full funding for the construction of a border wall.

 

“We are deeply concerned about the President’s action to fund the construction of a wall along the U.S./Mexico border, which circumvents the clear intent of Congress to limit funding of a wall,” said the statement, which was jointly written by USCCB President Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston and Bishop Joe S. Vasquez of Austin, who leads the USCCB’s migration committee.

 

The two bishops said they were against the use of additional funds for the construction of a border wall. In the latest appropriations bill, Congress allocated $1.3 billion to erect barriers along parts of the southern border, but included several exceptions for locations where the funding may not be used to construct barriers.

 

Trump had requested $5.7 billion to fund the entire project.

 

On Friday, in an effort to supplement the funding allocated by Congress, the president declared a national emergency on the southern border. By invoking the National Emergencies Act, the president can gain access to sources of funding otherwise unavailable to him. The 1976 act does not contain a specific definition of what constitutes a “national emergency.”

 

“The current situation at the southern border presents a border security and humanitarian crisis that threatens core national security interests and constitutes a national emergency,” said Trump in a declaration announcing the state of emergency.

 

“The southern border is a major entry point for criminals, gang members, and illicit narcotics,” Trump said.

 

The president asserted that illegal immigration is a worsening problem on the border, and therefore action must be taken to address this issue.

 

The bishops disagreed with the president's assessment of the situation at the border, and on the suitability of a border wall.

 

In their statement, DiNardo and Vasquez said the wall was a “symbol of division and animosity” between the United States and Mexico.

 

“We remain steadfast and resolute in the vision articulated by Pope Francis that at this time we need to be building bridges and not walls,” they added.

 

On Feb. 14, the House of Representatives and Senate both passed a bill to provide $1.3 billion in funding for the construction of barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, but which contained a list of five specific places where these funds cannot be used to build a wall. One of these was the site of La Lomita Chapel in Mission, TX, in the Diocese of Brownsville.

 

The Brownsville diocese has been contesting government attempts to survey public land around the chapel ahead of a border wall being erected.

 

The diocese filed suit against the federal government arguing that the construction of a border wall restricting access to the chapel would be a violation of religious freedom.

 

On Feb. 6, U.S. District Court Judge Randy Crane ruled that allowing the federal government to survey the land surrounding the chapel to determine if a wall could be built would not interfere with the exercise of religious freedom rights.

Vatican City, Feb 15, 2019 / 10:05 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis said Friday that people need to overcome their fear of migrants and refugees, and look for the face of Christ in each immigrant arriving in their countries.

“The Lord speaks to us today and asks us to let Him free us from our fears,” Pope Francis said in a homily Feb. 15 at the Fraterna Domus di Sacrofano, a Catholic retreat center north of Rome.

In fear, we tend to become closed off, Pope Francis explained. “This withdrawal into ourselves, a sign of defeat, increases our fear of ‘others,’ the unknown, the marginalized, the strangers.”

“It is not easy to enter the culture of others, put yourself in the shoes of people so different from us, understand their thoughts and experiences. And so often we give up the meeting with the other and raise barriers to defend ourselves,” he continued.

“Faced with the wickedness and ugliness of our time, we … are tempted to abandon our dream of freedom. We feel legitimate fear in front of situations that seem to us with no way out. And the human words of a leader or prophet are not enough to reassure us,” he said.

However, when fear holds one back from encountering the stranger, it is a missed opportunity to practice charity, the pope explained.

“The meeting with the other, then, is also an encounter with Christ. He told us himself. It is He who knocks on our door hungry, thirsty, stranger, naked, sick and imprisoned, asking to be met and assisted,” he said.

“It is really Him, even if our eyes [struggle] to recognize Him: with broken clothes, with dirty feet, with a deformed face, with a wounded body, unable to speak our language,” Pope Francis added.

Pope Francis celebrated the opening Mass for a Feb. 15-17 gathering called, “Freedom from Fear,” a meeting of people and organizations dedicated to welcoming migrants. The event was organized by the Italian bishops conference and Caritas Italiana.

In the Mass, Pope Francis prayed that all pastors “know how to train all the baptized to welcome to migrants and refugees.”

Paris, France, Feb 15, 2019 / 08:26 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop Luigi Ventura, apostolic nuncio to France since 2009 and a long-time Vatican diplomat, is under investigation for alleged sexual assault.

The French newspaper Le Monde reported Friday that Ventura, 74, is being investigated by Paris authorities after he was accused late last month of having inappropriately touched a young male staffer of Paris City Hall.

A Vatican statement Feb. 15 said that it was made aware of the French authorities’ investigation of the envoy through the press and is “awaiting the outcome of the investigations.”

The alleged assault is said to have taken place in Paris’ City Hall Jan. 17, during a reception for the annual New Year address of Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo. The address is usually given to diplomats, religious leaders, and civil society members, with a role by the apostolic nuncio.

The claim against Ventura was brought to French authorities by Paris City Hall six days after it allegedly took place. The alleged victim has not been identified.

Ventura, who comes from the northern Italian region of Lombardy, was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Brescia in 1969.

He entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See in 1978 and was stationed in Brazil, Bolivia, and the UK. From 1984 to 1995 he was appointed to serve at the Secretariat of State in the Section for Relations with States.

After his episcopal ordination in 1995, Ventura served as nuncio to the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chile, and Canada. He was appointed apostolic nuncio to France by Benedict XVI in September 2009.

The allegation comes just days before a special summit convened by Pope Francis at the Vatican to discuss the sexual abuse crisis facing the Church worldwide.

While organizers of that meeting, which will include the heads of the world’s bishops’ conferences, have stressed that the agenda will focus on the specific issue of the sexual abuse of minors, some bishops and commentators have suggested it should also treat allegations of sexual misconduct or abuse of adults by clerics.

The investigation against Ventura also comes amid expectations that the Vatican is soon to announce a decision in the canonical process handling the case of Archbishop Theodore McCarrick. McCarrick is accused of sexually abusing a number of minors and adults, including seminarians, over a period of decades.

Vatican City, Feb 15, 2019 / 06:13 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis spoke out about inequality, the environment, sustainable development and the elimination of poverty during his visit to the United Nations’ agricultural development agency in Rome Thursday.

“Few have too much and too many have little, this is the logic of today. Many have no food and go adrift, while a few drown in the superfluous,” Pope Francis told staff members of the UN International Fund for Agricultural Development, or IFAD.

“This perverse current of inequality is disastrous for the future of humanity,” he said.

The International Fund for Agricultural Development is specialized agency of the United Nations based in Rome and dedicated to improving rural food security and fighting poverty through grants and low-interest loans to rural farmers and indigenous peoples around the world.

“The poorest of the earth” are people who live mostly “in rural areas, in regions far from big cities, often in difficult and painful conditions,” Pope Francis said.

“They live in precarious situations: the air is stale, the natural resources are depleted, the rivers polluted, the soils acidified; they do not have enough water for themselves or their crops; their sanitary infrastructures are very deficient, their houses scarce and defective,” he said.

Francis added, “the exodus from the countryside to the city is a global trend that we can not ignore in our considerations.”

Three quarters of the poorest people in the world live in rural areas, according to IFAD, which has a particular focus on supporting indigenous communities in their traditional food systems and livelihoods.

After his formal UN address, the pope met with delegates from 31 different indigenous peoples from America, Africa, Asia and the Pacific region.  

“The presence of all of you here shows that environmental issues are extremely important and invites us to once again look at our planet, hurt in many regions by human greed, by warlike conflicts that engender a wealth of evils and misfortunes, as well as for the natural catastrophes that leave in their wake poverty and devastation,” the pope said in Spanish.

“Native peoples … become for everyone a wake-up call that emphasizes that man is not the owner of nature, but only the manager, the one that has as vocation to watch over it with care, so that its biodiversity is not lost, and the water can remain healthy and crystal clear, the air pure, the forests leafy, and the soil fertile,” he continued.

“The earth suffers and the native peoples know of the dialogue with the earth, they know what it is to listen to the earth, to see the earth, to touch the earth. They know the art of living well in harmony with the earth. And we have to learn that,” he continued.

Pope Francis warned the UN agency of the danger posed by a humanitarian aid culture that “can end up generating dependencies” and hinder development.

Instead, he asserted, “The aim is always to affirm the centrality of the human person, remembering that the new processes that are being developed cannot always be incorporated into schemes established from the outside, but must start from the same culture.”

Pope Francis also acknowledged the potential of technology and sustainable development to aid the poor in meeting their daily needs.

“It is necessary to bet on innovation, entrepreneurial capacity, the protagonism of local actors and the efficiency of productive processes to achieve rural transformation in order to eradicate malnutrition and to develop in a sustainable way the rural environment,” he said.

“Put technology really at the service of the poor,” Pope Francis said, and exhorted the IFAD staff to always utilize the creative power of love.

“Those who love have the imagination to find solutions where others only see problems. Those who love help others according to their needs and creativity, not according to pre-established ideas or common places … love leads you to create, it is always ahead.”

Paris, France, Feb 15, 2019 / 12:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- At least 10 incidents of vandalism and desecration of Catholic churches have been reported in France since the beginning of February, according to French news sources and watch groups.

Vandals in Catholic churches throughout the country have smashed statues, knocked down tabernacles, scattered or destroyed the Eucharist, burnt altar cloths and torn down crosses, among other acts of desecration of religious items.

According to La Croix International, one of the earliest incidents occurred February 4 at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Houilles, Yvelines, where a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary was found smashed on the ground. The church had experienced earlier incidents of vandalism just weeks prior, when the altar cross was found thrown to the ground and the celebrant’s chair was damaged.

The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, a Christian watchdog group, documented another attack at St. Nicholas Church on February 10, when the tabernacle was found thrown to the ground. A 35 year-old man later confessed to committing the act to police.

On February 5, an altar cloth was found burnt and crosses and statues torn down or disfigured at Saint-Alain Cathedral in Lavaur, in south-central France. The fire was found early by a parish secretary and did not spread, though the smoke damaged the altar and adjacent walls.

The 800 year-old building had also recently undergone renovations, local sources reported.

“I strongly condemn the vandalism of Lavaur Cathedral and I share the outrage aroused by this intolerable act,” Jean Terlier, a local district deputy, said in a statement following the incident, according to La Croix.

“God will forgive. Not me,” the city's mayor Bernard Carayon said of the vandalism, La Croix reported.

On February 6, just a day after the Saint-Alain Cathedral incident, vandals at a Catholic Church in Nimes broke into the tabernacle and scattered the hosts on the ground, drew a cross on the wall with excrement and damaged other religious items in the church, according to local reports.

In a statement posted to the Diocesan website, Bishop Robert Wattebled of Nimes denounced the desecration, which “greatly affects our diocesan community. The sign of the cross and the Blessed Sacrament have been the subject of serious injurious actions. This act of profanation hurts us all in our deepest convictions,” he said.

The Bishop also announced that a Mass of reparation must be said in the church before regular Masses can continue, and noted that local religious orders of the diocese had already offered to observe days of fasting and prayer in reparation for the act. He encouraged lay Catholics to join in acts of prayer and reparation.

The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe documented another incident on February 9 at the Church of Notre-Dame de Dijon in Côte-d'Or, about 175 miles to the south and east of Paris.

Again in this incident, the tabernacle was opened and the Eucharist scattered. An altar cloth was also stained and a missle book was torn.

Father Emmanuel Pic from Notre-Dame parish told La Bien Public news that since nothing of great monetary value was damaged, it seems the vandals wanted to attack the “heart of the Catholic faith.”

“Nothing of value has been broken, but it is the intent that is very shocking. This is what characterizes profanation,” Pic said.

The vandals seemed to have known that attacking the altar and the Eucharist would be “a very strong symbol for (parishioners), since the hosts consecrated during the previous Mass are no longer just a piece of bread in the eyes of Christians” but the body of Christ, he added. The priest also posted photos of the desecration to his Twitter account. Mass resumed at the parish after a Mass of reparation was said by the local archbishop.

In a statement posted to the group’s newsletter, Ellen Fantini, executive director of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, joined local priests, bishops and civil authorities in condemning the “shocking” acts of vandalism.

“It is our sincere hope that the perpetrators are brought to justice and that awareness of increasing anti-Christian hostility in France reaches the public square,” she said.

In a statement posted to Twitter on February 13, Prime Minister of France Edouard Philippe also condemned the acts ahead of a meeting with the country’s bishops.

“In one week, in France, 5 degraded churches. In our secular Republic, places of worship are respected. Such acts shock me and must be unanimously condemned. I will tell the bishops of France at the meeting of the forum of dialogue with the Catholic Church,” he said.

Besides the confession in the incident at St. Nicholas Church, investigations are ongoing as to the perpetrators of these acts of vandalism.

While it is yet unclear if the incidents are at all related, they recall the series of attacks and vandalism that the Catholic Church in France and Belgium experienced in 2016 by the Islamic State. The worst of those attacks included the murder of Fr. Jacques Hamel, who was killed by jihadists while celebrating Mass at a church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray in Normandy. The assailants entered the church and took the priest and four others hostage. Local law enforcement reported that the priest’s throat was slit in the attack, and that both of the hostage takers were shot dead by police.

 

Vatican City, Feb 14, 2019 / 06:00 pm (CNA).- As Pope Francis prepares for his long-awaited Vatican summit on sexual abuse, Catholic commentators and U.S. bishops are waiting to see what it can accomplish. But just as eagerly, they are waiting to see what will become of “Uncle Ted” McCarrick.

The two events have become, by dint of timing, linked in a way that many in Rome would rather have avoided.

To many, McCarrick’s case is an obstacle to be cleared ahead of a successful summit. But it seems increasingly likely that a verdict on McCarrick will serve only to highlight the issues that won’t be addressed next week.

While the pope has discussed “deflating expectations,” and said that next week’s meeting will focus on calling for sexual abuse policies concerning minors in the parts of the world that do not yet have them, some bishops have told CNA they fear that the Rome meeting will focus less on presenting solutions and more on defining the problem – or even defining parts of the problem away.

Rome has laid out a tentative itinerary involving listening sessions with abuse victims and has made it clear the pope wants attendees to understand the grave reality of sexual abuse, and to engage in discussions on the principles of accountability, rather than to expect a coherent response to emerge.

Indeed, for many observers, expectations have been tempered, and the stage does not seem set for a meaningful outcome that addresses the problems faced in recent months in the U.S., in Chile, and in Argentina- problems related to episcopal accountability and sexual coercion.

Leading reform advocates like Marie Collins, an abuse survivor and former member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, have been outspoken and consistent about what they think would constitute real results, including serious mechanisms for holding bishops accountable for negligence, and a redefinition of the category of “vulnerable adult” in canon law. Neither of these appears to be on the docket for next week.

Cardinal Séan O’Malley of Boston, head of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, has himself called for a broadening of the term “vulnerable adult” in law, citing the need to protect those who have suffered from sexualized abuse of authority, like seminarians.

Although he is widely recognized the Church’s most visible and credible advocate for abuse reforms, O’Malley was left off of the organizing committee for next week’s meeting. Meanwhile, it seems unlikely that the definition “vulnerable adults” will even feature in the conversation in Rome.

Several members of the planning committee for the summit, including Fr. Hans Zollner, SJ, and Cardinal Blase Cupich, have indicated that the meeting will treat the abuse of minors only, leaving abusive behavior with adults off the table.

To some observers, this deliberate narrowing of the agenda overshadows the applicability of the summit to the situation of the Church in the U.S., and in countries that have already developed comprehensive policies related to safeguarding minors.

While there is certainly great need to convey the seriousness of the abuse crisis to bishops from other parts of the world, it is questionable how well that can be achieved by a few days’ discussion in Rome.

Meanwhile, in places like the U.S., there is an urgent need to address problems beyond the creation of basic reporting structures.

U.S. bishops are standing by the effectiveness of the Dallas Charter, but looking for a way to address a new set of problems involving bishops’ accountability and the abuse of adults. After being told in Baltimore to wait for Rome to take the lead, some now wonder why their concerns seem not to have made it to the agenda.

At the same time that Rome has been eager to downplay expectations around the abuse summit, curial officials (though not, it must be said, in the CDF) have been talking up a McCarrick conviction and laicization.

It is no secret that, whatever else they may disagree on, bishops in the United States and Rome are unified in understanding McCarrick’s departure as a necessary turning-of-the-page on the scandals of last year and a clearing of the deck before next week’s summit.

But, despite feverish speculation about the timing of an announcement, no decision has yet been published. Moreover, there is no clear indication that any guilty verdict would explicitly include reference to the accusations that McCarrick preyed upon seminarians.

Those victims, to say nothing of seminarians and the faithful across the United States, are waiting anxiously for some sign that their suffering, too, has been addressed. Yet the indications coming out of Rome appear, at best, not to have heard their concerns.

There is no disagreement, anywhere, that a priest (or any adult) who sexually abuses a child has committed one of the worst crimes imaginable. In the context of the U.S. Church, there is no shortage of consensus about how seriously such cases should be dealt with. Where consensus breaks down is at the other end of the age spectrum during adolescence.

Figures from both the United States and other countries indicate that the vast majority of clerical sexual abuse cases concern homosexual relations with teenagers.

While McCarrick faces multiple charges of sexually abusing minors as well as adults, the first accusation made public by the Archdiocese of New York underscores the problematic line between sexual abuse of a minor and an illicit encounter with an adult.

The accusation announced by New York in June concerned a former altar server who alleged he had been abused by McCarrick when he was 17 in the early 1970s.

While this announcement had the effect of prompting additional accusations against the then-cardinal, it was quietly noted by astute canon lawyers that, under the operative canon law of the time, the alleged victim was not – strictly speaking – a minor.

In civil and canon law, the necessity of an age of consent creates a kind of moral-legal disconnect. A relationship between a man and a boy a day before his eighteenth birthday is a grave crime; twenty-four hours later it becomes categorized in law only as a regrettable moral lapse – even if the victim was a seminarian coerced by his bishop.

It would be a bitter irony for many of McCarrick’s alleged victims if the implicit lesson of his conviction - reinforced by the limited agenda for next week’s summit - was that only abuse of legally defined minors merits the Church’s discipline.

While the potential for grave harm and injustice has become abundantly clear in recent months, engaging with the messy facts of cases at the upper end of the age spectrum is something for which Rome seems to have little interest or appetite.

Until that changes, it seems clear that, whenever an announcement is made about whatever fate awaits McCarrick, the former cardinal’s shadow will still fall over next week’s summit, and much of what follows for some time yet.
________

As many watch and wait for a McCarrick verdict, Rome instead announced that his most successful protégé, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, had been named cardinal camerlengo, regent of the Vatican during any future papal interregnum.

Farrell was for years one of McCarrick’s closest advisors in Washington, serving as his vicar general and even sharing an apartment with him.

For his part, the new camerlengo insisted last summer that he never had any reason to suspect the apparently well-known rumors concerning his mentor.

What Farrell suspected or didn’t in Washington to one side, promoting McCarrick’s most famous collaborator, at this of all times, suggests to many that Rome may be as oblivious to the signal it sends as Farrell himself claims to have been about McCarrick.

The announcement is even more baffling for Catholics in Washington, who are still waiting for an eventual successor to both McCarrick and Cardinal Donald Wuerl.

Sources in both Washington and Rome have told CNA that a final list of candidates for the capital see has been on the pope’s desk at least since his return from the United Arab Emirates. The same sources have said that any announcement will be delayed until after McCarrick’s fate is decided, allowing the new archbishop to mark a new chapter in Washington, rather than begin under his shadow.

Jefferson City, Mo., Feb 14, 2019 / 04:51 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Missouri Supreme Court has rejected a legal challenge against an informed consent abortion law from a self-described Satanic Temple adherent who claimed the state violated her religious beliefs.

Chief Justice Zell M. Fischer, writing in a concurring opinion, said that the U.S. Supreme Court “has made it clear that state speech is not religious speech solely because it ‘happens to coincide’ with a religious tenet,” St. Louis Public Radio reports.

State law requires abortion providers to distribute a booklet from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services which includes the statement: “The life of each human being begins at conception. Abortion will terminate the life of a separate, unique, living human being.”

The plaintiff, who goes by the name Mary Doe in the lawsuit, became pregnant in February 2015. In May 2015 she traveled from southeast Missouri to a St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic for the abortion.

She told her doctors that she held religious beliefs contrary to those of the booklet. She claimed her religious beliefs meant they did not need to follow the informed consent requirements. Planned Parenthood declined to ignore the law’s provisions, which include a mandatory 72-hour waiting period and offering an ultrasound.

Doe’s lawsuit, filed during the waiting period, claimed the law violated the U.S. Constitution’s establishment clause barring the government establishment of an official religion. The woman also claimed her free exercise of religion had been restricted, in violation of the Missouri Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

According to St. Louis Public Radio, the plaintiff’s complaint cited Satanic Temple tenets professing a belief that a woman’s body is “inviolable and subject to her will alone” and a belief that health decisions are made “based on the best scientific understanding of the world, even if the science does not comport with the religious or political beliefs of others.” The complaint said a pregnancy is “human tissue” and “part of her body and not a separate, unique, living human being.”

The state’s Supreme Court rejected the claim that the informed consent law adopted a religious tenet. It noted the law did not require the woman to read the booklet, have an ultrasound, or listen to the fetal heartbeat, because the statute “imposes no such requirements,” Judge Laura Denver Stith said in the decision.

W. James MacNaughton, a New Jersey lawyer representing Doe, said that the court “really avoided dealing with the issues.”

In January 2018 MacNaughton had told the Washington Post the lawsuit was prompted by the Hobby Lobby decision which sided with the art-and-craft company owners whose Christian beliefs conflicted with federal mandates to provide abortifacient contraceptives in their employee health plans.

The attorney thought religion was the defining issue in the case.

“Are you committing murder when you have an abortion? That’s a religious question,” he said.

A Cole County judge had dismissed the case, but on appeal the Missouri Court of Appeals sent it to the state Supreme Court, saying the case raised “real and substantial constitutional claims.”

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt praised the state Supreme Court’s decision, saying the law is “a commonsense measure designed to protect women from undue pressure and coercion during the sensitive decision of whether or not to have an abortion.”

“Judy Doe,” another self-professed adherent of the Satanic Temple, has filed a different challenge to Missouri’s informed consent requirement for abortion in a case pending in federal court. She is also represented by McNaughton.

The temple, based in Salem, Mass., was founded by self-described atheists who profess disbelief in a literal Satan.

While the Satanic Temple currently appears to support legal abortion, a previous version of its beliefs lacked the relevant tenet. According to a March 2013 cache of its website at the Internet Archive, it previously claimed “all life is precious in the eyes of Satan” and “the Circle of Compassion should extend to all species, not just humans.”

At present the Satanic Temple website rejects claims that media attention is its primary object, or that it is a hoax or trolling. At its origins, however, are credible reports indicating it was launched for a mockumentary, with several of its founders having a background in film and entertainment.

In a July 22, 2014 Village Voice article, former Satanic Temple collaborator Shane Bugbee said he at first saw the group as a prank and “a joke on the public at large and, in general, the grossly inept media.”

He said the group’s purpose seemed to shift quickly, from an initial effort to make a mockumentary about satanism to “a real religious sect.” He contended that the group was exploiting Satanism while engaging in social climbing and “slick psychological marketing tricks.”

Satanic Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves, whose real name is Douglas Mesner, contended that Bugbee had quit working for the group over a financial dispute. He said that his effort is “a mission… especially for me.” Mesner said the group planned to leverage the Supreme Court’s 2014 Hobby Lobby religious freedom decision to advance “a women’s rights initiative.”

In a 2013 interview with Vice, Mesner said a friend had conceived the Satanic Temple as “a ‘poison pill’ in the Church-State debate” to help expand the idea of religious agendas in public life.

“So at the inception, the political message was primary,” he said, contending that the group has “moved well beyond being a simple political ploy and into being a very sincere movement that seeks to separate religion from superstition and to contribute positively to our cultural dialogue.”

Other initiatives by the Satanic Temple include efforts to place satanic statues on the grounds of government buildings and claims of planning black mass re-enactments.

The Satanic Temple has crowdfunded expenses to help pay for a Missouri woman’s abortion, though it is unclear whether this was linked to the legal cases. It has also crowdfunded its “reproductive rights” campaign, gathering over $45,000 by July 2015.

 

London, England, Feb 14, 2019 / 03:34 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Doctors in the United Kingdom performed surgery Jan. 8 on an unborn baby, before successfully returning the child, Elouise, to her mother’s womb.

The mother, 26-year-old Bethan Simpson, learned during a routine 20-week scan late last year that Elouise had spina bifida, a condition that affects the spinal cord and backbone and can lead to many complications, including an inability to walk.

Her doctors spoke with her about her options; abortion was one of them.

“I physically couldn’t bring myself to consider termination,” Simpson told The Washington Post. “I feel her kick, kick, kick, and everything else was perfectly normal.”

Simpson ultimately decided to push ahead with the surgery, during which a team of British and Belgian doctors at University College Hospital in London would cut open her uterus, repair a lesion on the Elouise’s spine, and then close the womb up again.

Spina bifida surgery in the womb gives the baby a better chance at life compared to postnatal surgery, as a baby born with the condition is often incapable of walking and may require a series of operations to drain fluid from the brain later in life, according to the National Health Service (NHS).

Doctors have been performing fetal surgery to repair spina bifida since the 1990s, the New York Times reports. Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia has performed over 300 surgeries of this kind in the United States, but the NHS in the UK only just started performing spina bifida surgery on unborn babies in October 2018.

Simpson is the fourth mother in the UK to undergo the procedure, according to Yahoo! UK.

Doctors performed the operation at 24 weeks of pregnancy and it proved to be a success. Elouise is due to be born in April.

“Sadly, 80% of babies in England are terminated when their parents get told their baby has this condition. It’s not a death sentence. She has the same potential as every one of us,” Simpson was quoted as saying in Yahoo! UK.

“Yes, there are risks of things going wrong but please think more about spina bifida, it’s not what it used to be. I feel our baby kick me day in and day out, that’s never changed. She’s extra special, she’s part of history and our daughter has shown just how much she deserves this life,” she said.

Caracas, Venezuela, Feb 14, 2019 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- The bishop of San Cristóbal has exhorted Nicolas Maduro to consider the suffering of the Venezuelan people amid the ongoing political and humanitarian crisis in the country.

“Open your eyes to see the suffering of the people. Hear the cry of the people who want not only freedom and democracy but to be considered in their dignity,” Bishop Moronta said in an interview this week with ACI Prensa, CNA's Spanish language sister agency.

Moronta, who is also the vice president of the Venezuelan bishops' conference said that “for several years the Venezuelan people have been asking for a change in the social-political and even economic orientation” of the country.

“The Church has insisted that it is the people who must be listened to. The political, social and economic leadership must be on the side of the people,” the bishop said.

Regarding Juan Guaidó. President of the National Assembly and recognized as interim president of Venezuela by the United States, member states of the European Union and more than 50 countries, the bishop positively characterized his “leading role” taken up on behalf of the nation’s citizens.

He said that it is the Venezuelan people themselves “who can and should make the changes” in the country.

The bishop said it is the Church’s role to “build bridges” adding that the Church is ready “to do everything that is necessary to have a just and peaceful transition.”

He likewise noted that the Church promotes “not just actions but awareness of the need to improve the situation and the promotion of social leaders who aim at the integral development of the country.”

Moronta also said that the Church has carried out “concrete actions in each diocese in the interest of the people being able to attain a better quality of life,” and highlighted “the communion that has existed between the various Churches in Latin America, especially Cúcuta in Colombia with the Church in Venezuela.”

Finally, he said that with the help of the Church in Colombia and in other countries, aid centers have been created throughout the Diocese of San Cristóbal, which borders the Diocese of Cúcuta in Colombia.

“There are soup kitchens, centers for food, medicine, and pastoral care. We sustain ourselves here with the solidarity of those same people, from Cúcuta, of many church agencies which to allow us to receive food from the community soup kitchens,” he added.

Nicolas Maduro was sworn in for a second term as president Jan. 10, after winning a contested election in which oppositon candidates were barred from running, or imprisoned. Venezuela's bishops have called his new term illegitimate, and Guaidó, head of the National Assembly, declared himself interim president Jan. 23.
Guaidó has been recognized as Venezuelan president by the US, Canada, much of the European Union, and several Latin American nations.

Since Jan. 21, at least 40 people have died and hundreds have been arrested amid protests against Maduro.

Since Maduro succeeded Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela in 2013, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval. Under the socialist government, the country has seen severe shortages and hyperinflation, and millions have emigrated.