1. Church Investigates Boarding Schools, By Dan Frosch and Ian Lovett, The Wall Street Journal, January 3, 2022, Pg. A3 Catholic dioceses across the U.S. are beginning to investigate their role in operating boarding schools for Native American children in the late 1800s and 1900s, including searching for evidence of students who might have died at the institutions. The inquiries under way at numerous dioceses follow an Interior Department investigation launched in June into the institutions, which were set up by the federal government to assimilate young Native Americans. Native students sometimes faced physical and emotional abuse, and thousands might have died from accidents, disease and other causes. Most of the schools were shut down by the 1970s. https://www.wsj.com/articles/catholic-dioceses-investigate-their-role-in-boarding-schools-for-native-americans-11641033001?___________________________________________________________ 2. Students for Life Releases Report Featuring Catholic Schools with Ties to Planned Parenthood, By Lauretta Brown, National Catholic Register, January 3, 2022 When Catholic institutions of higher learning publicly associate with Planned Parenthood despite the Church’s clear teaching on the grave evil of abortion, faithful students and alumni should take note. A recent report from Students for Life can help them do just that. The group investigated 784 Christian institutions, including 237 Catholic schools, and initially found that 103 Christian schools, including 22 Catholic schools, were connected with Planned Parenthood. After Students for Life reached out to schools with links to the abortion giant, a third of them cut those ties and the number dropped to 69 schools total, including eight Catholic institutions. … The seven Catholic schools that the Register found still had links to the abortion provider on their websites were St. Michael’s College in Vermont, Sacred Heart University of Connecticut, The College of St. John Fisher in New York, Marymount University in Virginia, The College of St. Rose in New York, St. Joseph’s University of Pennsylvania, and Felician University in New Jersey. None of the schools returned the Register’s request for comments on the report’s findings. Another Catholic school listed at the time of the report’s release, Trinity Washington University in D.C., had a link to Planned Parenthood as a women’s health resource, according to screenshots from the report, but the link is no longer publicly visible and now requires a Trinity access login. The university did not return the Register’s query as to whether Planned Parenthood was still provided as a resource for students in some way, or if the information had been removed entirely. https://www.ncregister.com/news/students-for-life-releases-report-featuring-catholic-schools-with-ties-to-planned-parenthood___________________________________________________________ 3. Papal representative tells Mexican Church leaders to listen to abuse victims, By Inés San Martín, Crux, January 3, 2022 Hours before boarding the plane towards his new post, the papal representative in Mexico called the land of Our Lady of Guadalupe a “faithful” place, but also “scourged by violence, by death.” Archbishop Franco Coppola, Apostolic Nuncio in Mexico, expressed his gratitude for having represented Pope Francis for a little more than five years as he celebrated Mass for the World Day of Peace, commemorated by the Catholic Church every January 1st, in Latin America’s most famous shrine, dedicated to La Morenita. The Italian diplomat stressed that Mexico is a “rich country”, because it has “many material and human resources,” but warned that peace will not be achieved here as long as there is so much inequality. … Coppola said the church has been deaf to the claims of many victims of abuse by Catholic ministers. “We cannot forget in particular the suffering experienced by minors and vulnerable adults due to sexual abuses of power and conscience committed by a notable number of clergy and consecrated persons,” the archbishop said. https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2022/01/papal-representative-tells-mexican-church-leaders-to-listen-to-abuse-victims___________________________________________________________ 4. A Global Effort to Bring Rare Books In Rome to an Online Audience, By Elisabetta Povoledo, The New York Times, January 2, 2022, Pg. A8 Some of the texts at the Rome institute, which over the years swelled to some 200,000 works, have just been digitized, and will soon be at the fingertips of a global audience — no voyages or ladders needed. The first digitized versions will be available to the public in mid-2022, the product of a charitable initiative that connected the institute with technology companies in the United States and Germany. “You know, like a Mickey Rooney film: I got the costumes, I know a guy who has a barn, and we can put the play on there,” said the Rev. David Nazar, the institute’s rector. The companies, he said, immediately understood the value of the project. Many of the books come from countries like Syria, Lebanon or Iraq, where war or other turmoil put entire collections at risk. Others come from countries where authoritarian censorship was equally threatening. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/01/world/europe/pontifical-oriental-institute-digital-texts.html___________________________________________________________ 5. Tests Predicting Rare Disorders In Fetuses Are Usually Wrong, By Sarah Kliff and Aatish Bhatia, The New York Times, January 2, 2022, Pg. A1 Ms. Geller had been misled by a wondrous promise that Silicon Valley has made to expectant mothers: that a few vials of their blood, drawn in the first trimester, can allow companies to detect serious developmental problems in the DNA of the fetus with remarkable accuracy. … The grave predictions made by those newer tests are usually wrong, an examination by The New York Times has found. … To evaluate the newer tests, The Times interviewed researchers and then combined data from multiple studies to produce the best estimates available of how well the five most common microdeletion tests perform. The analysis showed that positive results on those tests are incorrect about 85 percent of the time. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/01/upshot/pregnancy-birth-genetic-testing.html___________________________________________________________ 6. Pope on new year: Pandemic is hard, but focus on the good, By Frances D’Emilio, Associated Press, January 1, 2022, 7:58 AM In his New Year’s wishes to the world, Pope Francis encouraged people Saturday to focus on the good which unites them and decried violence against women while acknowledging that the coronavirus pandemic has left many scared and struggling amid economic inequality. “We are still living in uncertain and difficult times due to the pandemic,” Francis said. “Many are frightened about the future and burdened by social problems, personal problems, dangers stemming from the ecological crisis, injustices and by global economic imbalances.” … Peace, the pope said, “demands concrete actions. It is built by being attentive to the least, by promoting justice, with the courage to forgive, thus extinguishing the fire of hatred.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-in-new-years-homily-praises-women-as-peacemakers/2022/01/01/9a666aa0-6af0-11ec-9390-eae241f4c8b1_story.html___________________________________________________________ 7. Leader of Washington’s Catholic Archdiocese has COVID-19, By Associated Press, January 1, 2022 The cardinal who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington has tested positive for the coronavirus. The archdiocese said in a statement Friday that Cardinal Wilton Gregory is canceling his appearances at this weekend’s services. “I am fully vaccinated and boosted,” the cardinal said in a statement. “I am experiencing no symptoms at this time and overall I feel quite well. Following my doctor’s guidance, I will now quarantine at home.” https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-religion-c2a7a298632f6ae0a59e0038afa58c5f___________________________________________________________ 8. Historic conclave: Chinese bishops, priests brief Hong Kong clerics on Xi’s religious views, By Greg Torode, Reuters, December 30, 2021, 5:05 AM Chinese bishops and religious leaders briefed senior Hong Kong Catholic clergymen on President Xi Jinping’s vision of religion with “Chinese characteristics” in an unprecedented meeting organised by the mainland’s representative office in the city, according to four clerics. The clerics who attended or had knowledge of the Oct 31 meeting described it as Beijing’s most assertive move yet in its attempts to influence Hong Kong’s diocese, which is answerable to the Vatican and includes some high-ranking leaders who have long been defenders of democracy and human rights in the semi-autonomous territory. … Xi has been an active proponent of sinicization, setting out policies to foster religions with what he calls “Chinese characteristics” and closer ties to the party and state. It includes tying religions more closely to Chinese culture, patriotism and goals of the ruling Communist Party and state to achieve Xi’s “Chinese dream”. https://www.reuters.com/world/china/exclusive-historic-conclave-chinese-bishops-priests-brief-hong-kong-clerics-xis-2021-12-30/___________________________________________________________ 9. Christians still face persecution but there are signs of hope, Catholic charity says, By Catholic News Agency, December 30, 2021, 10:23 AM Christians continue to face persecution across the globe but there are many signs of hope, according to the Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN). “The year 2021 has been marked by gratitude and concern,” wrote Thomas Heine-Geldern, executive president of ACN, in a Dec. 27 statement. Heine-Geldern expressed gratitude for the success of ACN’s annual report on religious freedom, as well as the Red Week initiative, which involves the illumination of tens of thousands of churches and institutions in red to raise awareness about the ongoing persecution of Christians. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/249993/catholic-charity-aid-to-the-church-in-need-releases-statement-on-christian-persecution-in-2021___________________________________________________________ 10. Vatican agency reveals number of missionaries murdered around the world during 2021, By Alejandro Bermudez, Catholic News Agency, December 30, 2021, 2:24 PM 22 Catholic missionaries were killed around the world in 2021, half of them in Africa, according to a report released by the Fides News Agency and distributed Thursday by the Vatican press office. Fides, the news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, reported that of the 22 missionaries killed in 2021, 13 were priests, two were women religious, one was a male religious, and six were lay people. Half of the total were killed in Africa: seven priests, two religious sisters, and two lay people. In its report, Fides explains that their annual list “has not only included missionaries ad gentes in the strict sense, but has tried to register all Catholic Christians engaged in some way in a pastoral activity who died violently, not expressly ‘in hatred of the faith’.” According to the report, seven missionaries were murdered in Latin America, three in Asia, and one in Europe. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/249997/vatican-agency-reveals-number-of-missionaries-murdered-around-the-world-during-2021___________________________________________________________ 11. The Jesuit Reform That Never Happened, Forty years later, the papal correction Pope St. John Paul II directed at the Society of Jesus still hasn’t taken hold., By Father Raymond J. de Souza, National Catholic Register, December 31, 2021, Opinion Forty years ago on New Year’s Eve there was heightened anticipation in Rome, even tension, for the singing of the Te Deum — the Church’s traditional hymn of thanksgiving to God — at the conclusion of the civil year. … Those tragic topics were not the source of tension. The issue that had everyone on tenterhooks was the turmoil in the deeply troubled Society of Jesus. … By 1980, the superior general of the Jesuits, Father Pedro Arrupe, was contemplating retirement and the calling of a general congregation of the Society of Jesus. John Paul was deeply concerned about the direction of the society, its high number of priestly defections, internal divisions, doctrinal confusion, liturgical abuses and moral turpitude. The Holy Father did not want a congregation called until some sort of correction was in place. At the Te Deum at the end of 1980, Father Arrupe’s assistants cornered John Paul at Il Gesù, demanding progress on their desire to move ahead with a general meeting and election of a new superior general. John Paul demurred. A few months later he was shot, and in August 1981 Father Arrupe had a stroke that made his continuing as superior general impossible. John Paul had to act. In October 1981 he gave his decision. It was an earthquake. The Holy Father suspended the ordinary governance of the Society of Jesus. Father Arrupe’s authority was given to a papal delegate, Father Paolo Dezza, who would govern until the Holy Father gave permission for a general congregation and election of a new superior. It was the greatest blow to the Jesuits since the order was supressed in 1773 by Pope Clement XIV. … There were no fireworks at the Te Deum. John Paul did not speak about the Jesuits. He restricted himself to general comments on the passage of time, only alluding to the assassination attempt and the declaration of martial law. … The anti-climactic Te Deum at the end of 1981 would presage the eventual resolution of John Paul’s intervention. He had acted with boldness, even severity, but he would leave it to the Jesuits to follow through on the path of reform. … At the general congregation eventually convoked in 1983, the Jesuits did not markedly change direction. They would continue to hemorrhage members and their orthodoxy and discipline did not markedly improve. … Forty years after the shock therapy, under a Jesuit pope, the humiliation continues as the Jesuits shrink and shed apostolates. Though the Jesuits are led now by Father Arturo Sosa, their most prominent member is Father Antonio Spadaro and their most notable English-language personality is Father James Martin. The reform St. John Paul II had in mind did not take hold. … The great papal correction of October 1981 was a failure. One of John Paul’s great papal successes would follow the next month, with the appointment of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Nov. 25, 1981. Correcting errors would turn out to be less fruitful than proposing instead the splendor of the truth. In hindsight, another seed planted in 1981 did bear fruit. Mother Angelica launched the Eternal Word Television Network in August 1981. Forty years on, Jesuits and their collaborators in the media made attacks on EWTN something of a favored theme in 2021. Who would have thought in 1981 that EWTN might do more to strengthen the faith of ordinary Catholics than the once-mighty, now humiliated, Jesuit order? https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/the-jesuit-reform-that-never-happened___________________________________________________________

TCA Media Monitoring provides a snapshot from national newspapers and major Catholic press outlets of coverage regarding significant Catholic Church news and current issues with which the Catholic Church is traditionally or prominently engaged. The opinions and views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Catholic Association.
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