1. Cardinal Dolan Makes Surprise Visit to Ukraine While on European Mission, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, has been in Eastern Europe since last week meeting refugees and Catholic aid agencies, By NBC New York, May 2, 2022
New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan has made a surprise visit to Ukraine while in Europe on a relief mission to help refugees from the war.
Dolan has been in the region since late last week, mostly in Poland, meeting with Catholic aid agencies trying to help the millions of people fleeing the Russian invasion.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/cardinal-dolan-makes-surprise-visit-to-ukraine-while-on-european-mission/3670976/
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2. Protecting Orthodox Jewish Schools, By Rabbi Moshe Hauer and Michael A. Helfand, First Things, May 2, 2022, Opinion
In the 1972 Supreme Court case Wisconsin v. Yoder, Amish Americans challenged Wisconsin’s compulsory education law, which required children to attend public or private school until the age of sixteen. They argued that the law threatened their religious way of life, as traditional Amish families typically remove children from school after eighth grade. In their view, Amish vocational instruction at home could prepare minors for a full and productive life as democratic citizens while still adhering to Amish religious principles. At the time, the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America—along with a wide range of other Jewish organizations from across the denominational spectrum—joined a brief in support of the Amish that echoed these two core principles. “American Jewry,” the brief explained, “has a strong interest in universal secular education for children,” but also a “strong interest in religious freedom and in a religiously and culturally pluralistic America.” To balance the two would require “resolv[ing] a clash of competing interests, all occupying high levels in our democratic scales of justice.”
This clash remains as salient today as it was fifty years ago. For the third time in five years, the New York State Education Department (NYSED) is proposing new rules for evaluating nonpublic schools. The state alleges that a small group of Orthodox Jewish schools are providing substandard instruction in core general studies courses. For over a century, New York law has required students in nonpublic schools to receive an education that is “substantially equivalent” to a public school education. Orthodox Jewish schools, or yeshivas, overwhelmingly meet this standard through a dual curriculum—including both Jewish studies and general studies. By and large, these schools have an excellent history of educating their students to become responsible and productive citizens dedicated to family and community.
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Some Jewish schools, as well as the people who teach and learn in them, don’t conform to the images of education in the minds of most twenty-first-century Americans. But our society should support these minority communities in their pursuit of their way of life. Majoritarian notions can all too easily, without a proper check, produce assessments that fail to acknowledge the benefits of an integrated educational program. In 1972, navigating very similar concerns in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Supreme Court found in favor of the Amish, noting “[t]he States have had a long history of amicable and effective relationships with church-sponsored schools, and there is no basis for assuming that, in this related context, reasonable standards cannot be established.” What was true then remains true now. The proposed regulations have a ways to go to best protect the religious commitments at the heart of the Orthodox Jewish community.
Rabbi Moshe Hauer is the executive vice president of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.
Michael A. Helfand is the Brenden Mann Foundation Chair in Law and Religion at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law and Visiting Professor at Yale Law School.
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2022/05/protecting-orthodox-jewish-schools
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3. Conn. likely to be ‘place of refuge’ for abortion patients, State Senate passes bill that governor has promised to sign, By Caroline Kitchener, The Washington Post, May 1, 2022, Pg. A12
The Connecticut state Senate gave final approval late Friday to a novel plan to turn the state into an abortion safe haven for patients who live in conservative states that are moving rapidly to restrict access to the procedure.
The bill, which Gov. Ned Lamont (D) has promised to sign, was designed to shield patients and abortion providers against some of the most controversial elements of recent state-level antiabortion laws — including provisions allowing private citizens to sue anyone who helps facilitate an abortion and measures seeking to prevent residents from receiving abortions across state lines.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/30/connecticut-abortion-rights/
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4. ‘Trial of the Century’ points to long overdue reform in separation of powers, By John L. Allen Jr., Crux, May 1, 2022
Veteran Italian journalist Massimo Franco has a new book out called The Monastery: Benedict XVI and Nine Years of a Shadow Pope. The core thesis, unobjectionable so far as it goes, is that without Benedict ever desiring it, the Mater Ecclesiae monastery where he resides in the Vatican has become a rival center of power to the Santa Marta residence of Pope Francis.
Without getting into the heart of Franco’s argument, there’s one point in the book that deserves to be unpacked lest it create exactly the wrong impression.
Franco quotes from an interview with German Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the Vatican’s former doctrinal czar, who was removed in 2017 by Pope Francis in favor of his fellow Jesuit, Spanish Cardinal Luis Ladaria.
Among other things, Müller comments on the current Vatican trial centering on a failed $400 million London property deal, with Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu, a former papal chief of staff, as the star defendant. Müller questions how the trial can be fair when, he says, Francis effectively pre-judged the outcome by stripping Becciu of his privileges as a cardinal before it even began.
“It seems to me that the European juridical standard has been distorted by a Latin American mentality,” Müller is quoted as saying. “We in Europe have studied Montesquieu and the division of powers; they haven’t.”
There are two problems with that assertion.
First is the implication that Latin Americans don’t understand the concept of the separation of powers and, thus, an independent judiciary. In truth, most Latin American constitutions explicitly require a separation of powers, and in some Latin American countries – Brazil and Colombia come to mind – powerful politicians, including ex-presidents, have been investigated and sentenced by judges for various alleged crimes.
Let’s face it … Montesquieu is easily available in Spanish translation, and anyway, it’s not as if the administration of justice in Europe is completely free of political pressure either.
The second, and far more serious, issue is that Müller implies that the problem of separation of powers in the Vatican is somehow unique to Pope Francis and his Latin American background. In fact, it’s a structural problem that dates back to 1870, and all Francis has done is expose it because of his boldness in trying to use the Vatican’s civil justice system to achieve a new degree of accountability.
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To repeat, Pope Francis didn’t create this problem, and, frankly, were it not for the fact that he actually wants the system to do its job, holding people accountable no matter their rank, we might never have noticed it.
Francis could, however, be the pope to resolve the problem. If so, that could become a cornerstone of his legacy. If nothing else, it would ensure that the current trial, whatever its eventual findings, would signify a real turning point.
https://cruxnow.com/news-analysis/2022/05/trial-of-the-century-points-to-long-overdue-reform-in-separation-of-powers
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5. Top Vatican diplomat says ‘Christian values’ no excuse for ‘sacrilegious’ war, By Elise Ann Allen, Crux, May 1, 2022
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin has stressed the Holy See’s ongoing willingness to assist in negotiations in the war in Ukraine and has condemned any justification of the conflict on the basis of Christian values.
“Every war, as an act of aggression, is an action against human life and is therefore a sacrilegious act,” Parolin said, speaking in an interview with Italian newspaper La Stampa published Saturday.
“Consequently, no justification can be found in the word of God, which is always the word of life, not of death,” he said.
The comment was in reference to remarks made by Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill appearing to use scripture to defend Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war.
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2022/05/top-vatican-diplomat-says-christian-values-no-excuse-for-sacrilegious-war
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6. Black Catholic nuns: A compelling, long-overlooked history, By David Crary, Associated Press, April 30, 2022
Even as a young adult, Shannen Dee Williams – who grew up Black and Catholic in Memphis, Tennessee – knew of only one Black nun, and a fake one at that: Sister Mary Clarence, as played by Whoopi Goldberg in the comic film “Sister Act.”
After 14 years of tenacious research, Williams – a history professor at the University of Dayton — arguably now knows more about America’s Black nuns than anyone in the world. Her comprehensive and compelling history of them, “Subversive Habits,” will be published May 17.
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The story is told chronologically, yet always in the context of a theme Williams forcefully outlines in her preface: that the nearly 200-year history of these nuns in the U.S. has been overlooked or suppressed by those who resented or disrespected them.
“For far too long, scholars of the American, Catholic, and Black pasts have unconsciously or consciously declared — by virtue of misrepresentation, marginalization, and outright erasure — that the history of Black Catholic nuns does not matter,” Williams writes, depicting her book as proof that their history “has always mattered.”
https://apnews.com/article/Black-Catholic-nuns-history-50a3322de1a7164ece5f47acb267e159
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7. Spanish bishops say they won’t participate in national clerical abuse inquiry, By Inés San Martín, Crux, April 30, 2022
Spain’s bishops announced Friday that they will not take part in an independent commission into clerical sexual abuse created by the national legislature, alleging, among other things, that the commission won’t look into all sexual abuse of minors but only those committed by members of the Catholic Church.
“We want to state that to carry out an investigation of abuses only in the church, when it is clear that out of 15,000 open cases in Spain, only 69 refer to the church, is a surprising decision,” said Bishop Luis Argüello, spokesman of the Spanish bishops’ conference.
Argüello argued that a different investigation opened by the regional government of Catalonia makes more sense since, despite naming the church specifically among the institutions being investigated, it will look into all cases of abuse of minors.
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2022/04/spanish-bishops-say-they-wont-participate-in-national-clerical-abuse-inquiry
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8. Cardinal O’Malley defends the independence of the Vatican’s safeguarding commission, By Courtney Mares, Catholic News Agency, April 29, 2022, 9:20 AM
Cardinal Seán O’Malley defended the independence of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors on Friday as the commission prepares to occupy a new position within the Roman Curia.
“One of the things that people obviously were concerned about and wanted to know about is what’s the independence of the commission now that it becomes part of the Curia,” he said at a press conference near the Vatican on April 29.
The American cardinal, who serves as the president of the safeguarding commission, underlined that Pope Francis “has assured us that … the commission will be independent.”
After the publication of the pope’s new apostolic constitution, Praedicate evangelium, which places the pontifical council within the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), abuse survivor Marie Collins expressed concern that the reform could lead to the body losing its independence.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251095/cardinal-o-malley-defends-independence-of-vatican-s-safeguarding-commission
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9. Bishop Pfeifer: Catholic bishops must hold Biden accountable for ‘pro-abortion extremism’, By Katie Yoder, Catholic News Agency, April 29, 2022, 4:55 PM
An emeritus Texas bishop has called on his fellow bishops to take action after President Biden’s proposed 2023 budget removed protections that prohibit federal funding for abortion.
“If abortion is really the preeminent life issues as we bishops say it is, then we must hold President Biden accountable for his pro-abortion extremism, calling out Biden in a proper pastoral manner, for his anti-Catholic pro-abortion policies,” Bishop Michael D. Pfeifer, O.M.I., Bishop Emeritus of San Angelo, wrote in a response to the Biden administration’s 2023 proposed budget, which does not include the Hyde Amendment.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251099/bishop-pfeifer-catholic-bishops-must-hold-biden-accountable-for-pro-abortion-extremism
___________________________________________________________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. |
