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The secretary of the German bishops’ conference says that it is “unacceptable” for doctrinal issued to be decided in Rome “without the participation of the local churches.” Father Hans Langendörfer told the German new…
Read MoreArchbishop John Myers, the retired head of the Newark, New Jersey archdiocese, has announced plans to move to Illinois, to live close to his family as his health declines. The archdiocese quickly said that the residence Archbishop Myers has occupied— w…
Read MorePope Francis met on January 31 with President Alberto Fernandez of Argentina. The Vatican reported that their conversation centered on the nation’s economic crisis. There was no indication of whether Fernandez had invited the Pontiff to visit Arg…
Read MoreVirginia’s Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, who identifies himself as Catholic, cast the deciding vote in the state’s higher chamber on January 29, to guarantee approval of legislation with will eliminate legal restrictions on abortion.
Read MoreThe Diocese of Buffalo, New York, has disclosed that a bankruptcy filing is “imminent” in the light of heavy payments to settle sex-abuse cases. Twenty American Catholic dioceses have already sought bankruptcy protection.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 31, 2020 | News, Nota in Brevis |
The German episcopacy begins its tortured synodal path today, with the intent, according to reports, to approve contraception, homosexuality and female ordination, any one of which would put them outside the visible, hierarchical Church founded by Jesus Christ, continuing in the world unto the end of time. So be it, for, like Judas, perhaps ‘tis[…]
The post The Bad and the Good appeared first on Catholic Insight.
Read MoreBy Alexandra Greeley | Blogging about Catholic liturgical recipes must attract a devout crowd of Catholic foodies. Imagine, for example, logging on to the website, Catholic Cuisine, on the feast day of Saint Anthony of Egypt and…
Read MoreBy Patti Armstrong | A picture maybe be worth a thousand words, but there is one that is worth far more—the image of the face of Jesus from the Shroud of Turin. If Jesus left his image on a burial cloth that still exists and…
Read MoreBy John Grondelski | The Jan. 3 announcement that a panel had come up with terms for a divorce of the United Methodist Church (UMC) into a “traditionalist” spinoff from presumably mainstream Methodists who endorse homosexual…
Read MoreBy Sr. Mary Catharine of Jesus Perry, OP | On Feb. 2, the Church marks the World Day for Consecrated Life. St. John Paul II established this celebration in 1997 to ask the whole…
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Havana, Cuba, Jan 30, 2020 / 04:50 pm (CNA).- A pro-democracy group in Cuba says its members are continuing to experience repression and harassment from police and government officials under the presidency of Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Eduardo Cardet, the national coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement (CLM), says he was blocked Jan. 25 from traveling to the United States from Cuba, despite having his recently renewed passport and the appropriate visa.
According to the CLM, an immigration official at the Havana airport told Cardet he was prohibited from traveling. Asked why, the official reportedly told Cardet that “he ought to know the reason” and gave no further details.
Cardet was arrested Nov. 30, 2016, outside his home on charges of attacking law enforcement, scandal, and disorderly conduct. He was sentenced to three years in prison in 2017. The CLM contends, however, that the real reason for Cardet’s arrest was his criticism of the legacy of Fidel Castro and for his pro-democracy activism.
Cardet was released from prison under certain conditions in May 2019 and completed his sentence in September that year.
He was consequently “totally free and had no restrictions imposed on him,” Carlos Payá, CLM’s representative in Spain, told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language new partner. Payá called the government’s refusal to let Cardet travel Jan. 25 “an arbitrary decision by the regime.”
Regis Iglesia, the CLM’s spokesman, says he was similarly blocked Jan. 1 from boarding an American Airlines plane departing from Miami International Airport for Havana because the Cuban government had notified the airlines that Iglesias was prohibited from entering the country. The Cuban dissident leader was exiled to Spain in 2010 by the Fidel Castro regime.
The CLM blasted the travel ban as a discriminatory violation of international law and a total disregard for the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Cuba has signed.
The organization has reported that other members had been given citations by State Security agents and threatened with prison if they continued their activism, been called terrorists by police officials, and been accused of vandalism.
The group said on its website last December that Cuban State Security issued a citation to Eduardo Cardet on Christmas Day, warning him that “the expansion of this organization will not be permitted” and that it would have “zero tolerance for the opposition.”
The Christian Liberation Movement was founded in 1988 by Oswaldo Payá and four other founders to achieve “peaceful and democratic change and respect for human dignity.” It advocates for free, fair, multiparty elections and other democratic reforms.
By Catholic News Agency | RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a Catholic, cast the tie-breaking vote on Wednesday to pass a bill to liberalize abortion access in the…
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 30, 2020 | News, Sunday Readings |
With the invitation to do as the Virgin Mary who presented Jesus in the Temple to consecrate him to his mission of salvation, also delivering herself to this mission
The post Archbishop Follo: Feast of the Presentation of the Lord appeared first on ZENIT – English.
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Washington D.C., Jan 30, 2020 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Longstanding court precedent has recognized religious schools’ right to pursue their mission in faculty employment decisions, and so the National Labor Relations Board wrongly claimed jurisdiction over Duquesne University, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has said in a decision vacating the board’s recognition of a labor union for adjunct faculty.
“Just like churches, schools may pursue a religious mission. Indeed, education is at the core of religious activity for many Americans,” Judge Thomas Griffith said in the 2-1 decision issued Jan. 28. Court precedent has recognized teachers’ “critical and unique role” in “fulfilling the mission of a church-operated school,” he said.
“This holds true regardless of whether the teacher provides instruction in religious or secular subjects,” Griffith continued. “Given this vital role played by teachers, exercising jurisdiction over disputes involving teachers at any church-operated school presented a ‘significant risk that the First Amendment will be infringed’.”
He cited the NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago 1979 Supreme Court decision, which sided with the Catholic schools’ refusal to recognize a teachers’ union. The Supreme Court held that the labor board lacked jurisdiction over all teachers at church-operated schools.
Similar cases said this reasoning applied to religious colleges and universities, according to Griffith. Various precedents deny the labor board the ability to inquire about the relationship of faculty to religious mission for fear of chilling effect on the free exercise of religion and disrupting a community’s ability to define itself.
Duquesne is a Catholic school of about 6,000 undergraduates and 3,000 graduate students. It is the only U.S.-based university affiliated with the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.
Adjunct faculty organizing efforts formalized in 2012, when a majority of about 88 adjuncts at Duquesne’s McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts sought to unionize through the United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Allied-Industrial and Service Workers International Union. At present they teach 44 percent of all credit hours in the university’s core curriculum, including math, science, writing, philosophy, theology, and ethics, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports.
Duquesne asked the national labor relations board to vacate the election, but the board’s regional officials asserted jurisdiction on the grounds Duquesne did not hold out to the public that its adjunct faculty performed specific religious roles at the school.
In 2018, the university challenged the labor board’s ruling in federal court.
Gabriel Welsch, a spokesman for Duquesne University, welcomed the Jan. 28 decision.
“The university is grateful that the court recognized the importance of our religious mission in rendering this significant decision,” Welsch said. “The Constitution’s First Amendment protection of religious freedom from government intrusion and regulation is one of America’s most important rights, and we are pleased that the court upheld the religious rights of Duquesne University of the Holy Spirit.”
Welsch said the university has deep respect and appreciation for unions, citing its long-term relationships with four unions which represent several hundred non-faculty employees.
“The university looks forward to continuing those positive and fruitful relationships in every way,” the spokesman said.
United Steelworkers spokeswoman Jess Kamm Broomell said the union is “disappointed with the court’s decision and even more concerned that Duquesne’s administration would fight this hard to keep their workers from having a voice on the job.”
“Unlike other Catholic universities that recognized adjunct faculty unions, the Duquesne administration decided to invoke its status as a religiously affiliated institution in an effort to stop adjuncts from joining together to improve their working conditions and the university community,” Kamm Broomell said.
It is unknown whether the national labor board will appeal the ruling, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports.
Catholicism in America has had a long tradition of supporting labor unions. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issues a statement every Labor Day. The U.S. bishops were critical of a major 2018 Supreme Court ruling striking down mandatory fees paid to public-sector unions undermines workers. They cited Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical Caritas in veritate, which defends labor unions and objects to limits on their freedom.
In her dissent from the appellate court ruling, Judge Cornelia Pillard argued that the ban on unionization under national labor board rules applies only to full-time faculty, not part-time adjuncts who “often have a very different role.”
“It is not at all apparent that temporary, part-time adjuncts whom the school does not even hold out as agents of its religious mission necessarily fall within an exemption from the National Labor Relations Act that was drawn to account for the ‘critical and unique role’ of faculty in ‘fulfilling the mission of a church-operated school’,” she said.
Welsch said that in the wake of the court decision, Duquesne president Ken Gormley is “committed to taking a fresh look” at the university’s engagement with adjunct faculty.
“The university looks forward to working with our adjuncts, and indeed with all of our faculty and staff, to identify the right solutions for our wonderful community of scholars, teachers, and learners in the context of our unique mission,” Welsh said. “Our Catholic and Spiritan mission requires nothing less.”
The court also recognized the Catholic identity of the school.
“Duquesne holds itself out as providing a religious educational environment by publicly identifying itself as a Catholic institution guided by Catholic principles, providing regular Catholic religious services on campus, and encouraging students to participate in religious study groups, lectures, and projects,” the appellate court’s ruling said.
The court cited the danger of labor board intervention if a school took action against teachers for failing to comply with religious principles and of entanglement in questions like judging the content or application of religious principles.
The lack of jurisdiction similarly means the labor board “will not get involved in disputes between churches and their employees for fear of interfering with the churches’ religious missions.”
The court faulted the labor board’s framing of the issue, saying it pitted academic freedom against religious mission, both because this view entangled the board in adjudicating religious claims, and because it excluded the possibility that the faculty’s exercise of academic freedom might be understood as serving a religious mission.
The Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, which filed an amicus brief in support of Duquesne, said the case was about how the government decides to recognize faith-based institutions. The labor board, in the association’s view, “chose to limit the designation of ‘Catholic’ strictly to the work that is done by professors teaching religion or other narrow corners of our institutions to be decided, institution-by-institution, by the NLRB itself.”
“No government office should ever have the power to decide, department-by-department, course-by-course, which ones are doing the Church’s work and which ones are not,” the association said.
Court precedents articulate “the problems that can arise when a government office decides what activity is religious and what is not.” While acknowledging that a number of its Catholic campuses welcome labor unions, the association said that “empowering government offices to decide which components of a university are faith-based is simply the wrong way to protect faculty.”
The appellate court ruling said that because the court has established that the labor board does not have jurisdiction over religious schools and faculty, it did not need to address the plaintiff’s claims that the board lacks jurisdiction for other reasons and claims that the board violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Callers choose the topics during Open Forum, peppering our guests with questions on every aspect of Catholic life and faith, the moral life, and even philosophical topics that touch on general religious belief.
Questions Covered:
03:04 – How do…
Read MoreCallers choose the topics during Open Forum, peppering our guests with questions on every aspect of Catholic life and faith, the moral life, and even philosophical topics that touch on general religious belief.
Questions Covered:
02:25 – What f…
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 30, 2020 | Austere, Austerity, Donation, fasting, News, Picks, Your Heart His Home |
A colleague of mine recently returned to the U.S. after serving along with his family as missionaries in some of the poorest parts of the world. Their commitment to give away everything they had and follow Jesus into a life of poverty and service was a sincere and moving one.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 30, 2020 | Jesus, News, Pharisees, Presentation, Presentation in the Temple, Sadducees, Son of Israel, Sunday Scriptures |
We are accustomed to thinking of our Catholic religion as the “fulfillment” of the Judaism that came before it, and rightly so. But it would be a one-sided interpretation of the idea of “fulfillment” to mean by it simply “superiority” with respect to Judaism. In a very real sense Christianity is in fact a different religion from Judaism as it was practiced in the time of Jesus.
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Pierre, S.D., Jan 30, 2020 / 03:32 pm (CNA).- A bill aiming to ban sex-reassignment surgery and puberty-blocking medication for minors passed the South Dakota House of Representatives by a vote of 46-23 on Wednesday.
Christopher Motz, executive director of the South Dakota Catholic Conference, praised the vote.
“Given the moral and ethical issues at stake, which are fundamental to the integral good of the human person, it’s great to see such a strong vote in the House,” he told CNA Thursday.
“The voices of faithful citizens encouraging their elected leaders no doubt contributed to this positive result,” he continued. “As the bill advances to the Senate, the voices of faithful citizens will be crucial to securing another strong vote.”
HB 1057 would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor for doctors to dispense puberty-blocking drugs to those under the age of 16 for the purpose of changing or affirming the perception of their sex, and lists a number of surgical procedures including castration, vasectomy, and hysterectomy that doctors would not be allowed to perform on minors.
The South Dakota Catholic Conference supports the measure and is encouraging Catholics to contact their lawmakers about the bill.
“HB 1057 would protect boys and girls from harmful medicalization with unknown, potentially life-long consequences,” the conference wrote Jan. 16.
“With deep compassion for the experience of suffering that marks those with gender dysphoria, the Church firmly insists on the dignity of all human persons as created and loved by God, and further expresses special affection for the marginalized and suffering.”
“HB 1057 would ensure children, especially those experiencing distress concerning their sex, are given the chance to develop and grow in understanding the gift of their created nature without pressures towards harmful medicalization,” the conference concluded.
Just a few Republicans voted against the bill, the Associated Press reported. The legislation will now be considered in the Senate.
The provisions of the bill do not apply to “the good faith medical decision of a parent or guardian of a minor born with a medically-verifiable genetic disorder of sex development.”
The South Dakota bill comes in the wake of an October 2019 decision by a federal judge to strike down an Obama-era requirement that doctors perform gender-transition surgeries upon request.
The regulation stemmed from Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination in health care on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, or disability. HHS interpreted “sex discrimination” under this rule to include gender identity, thus mandating the provision of gender-transition surgeries.
In response to the rule, an alliance of more than 19,000 health care professionals, nine states, and several religious organizations combined in two lawsuits against the mandate, saying that it unlawfully required doctors who objected to the procedures to violate their religious beliefs or the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm to the patient.
Similar bills to the one proposed in South Dakota are under consideration in other states, including ones introduced during the 2020 session in Florida and Colorado that, like the South Dakota bill, would impose criminal penalties for transgender surgery performed on minor.
In other states, like Illinois, Oklahoma and South Carolina, bills are under consideration that provide for the loss of a doctor’s medical license if they perform transgender surgery on a minor.
A bill under consideration in Missouri would revoke a doctor’s medical license if they administer gender-reassignment treatment, and parents who consent to such treatment would be reported to child-welfare officials for child abuse, the AP reports.
State lawmakers in Kentucky and Texas also have announced plans to file similar bills, the Washington Post reports.
A state representative in Georgia during November 2019 proposed a law that would make it a felony for medical professionals to attempt to change a minor’s gender either through surgery or medication.
The “Trump Plan” was pieced together without any meaningful participation from the Palestinian people, they say
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