1. Pope says EU states should share responsibility for migrants, By Reuters, November 7, 2022, 7:54 AM Pope Francis said on Sunday European Union member states should share responsibility for taking in migrants and not just leave it to the countries where people arrive.He spoke as migration triggered fresh political tensions in Italy, where there has been a stand-off between the government and charity ships trying to disembark migrants. “The European Union has to take up a policy of collaboration and help. It can’t leave Cyprus, Greece, Italy and Spain with the responsibility of all the migrants that arrive on their shores,” he told reporters on the plane returning from a four-day trip to Bahrain. … https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/pope-says-eu-states-should-share-responsibility-migrants-2022-11-06/__________________________________________________________ 2. Pope calls female genital mutilation a crime that must stop, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, November 6, 2022, 12:08 PM Pope Francis called female genital mutilation a “crime” on Sunday and said the fight for women’s rights, equality and opportunity must continue for the good of society. “How is it that today in the world we cannot stop the tragedy of infibulation of young girls?” he asked, referring to the ritual cutting of a girls’ external genitalia. “This is terrible that today there is a practice that humanity isn’t able to stop. It’s a crime. It’s a criminal act!” … https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-calls-female-genital-mutilation-a-crime-that-must-stop/2022/11/06/dd8270fc-5df4-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html__________________________________________________________ 3. Pope in Bahrain: Treatment of prisoners a measure of society, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, November 6, 2022, 5:41 AM Pope Francis wrapped up the first-ever papal trip to Bahrain on Sunday by encouraging priests and nuns to keep ministering to the Gulf kingdom’s tiny Catholic flock. He specifically mentioned its prisoners, saying “the way in which these ‘least ones’ are treated is a measure of the dignity and the hope of a society.” Francis again raised the plight of prisoners in Bahrain in the final event of his four-day trip. Human rights groups had urged Francis to use his Bahrain visit to call for an end to capital punishment and to advocate for political prisoners, hundreds of whom have been detained since Bahrain violently crushed the 2011 Arab Spring protests with the help of neighboring Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. … https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-in-bahrain-treatment-of-prisoners-a-measure-of-society/2022/11/06/cb873914-5da9-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html__________________________________________________________ 4. Pope appeals for Lebanon leaders to put interests aside, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, November 6, 2022, 12:07 PM Pope Francis appealed Sunday for Lebanon’s politicians to put their personal interests aside and agree on a path to help the country emerge from years of economic meltdown and a new political vacuum. “Lebanon now is suffering,” Francis said when asked en route home from Bahrain if he might visit the country, which he had been considering earlier this year but had to postpone. Francis didn’t respond directly but said he was greatly “pained” by the country’s descent into chaos and begged for prayers and for the international community to help Lebanon. … https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pope-appeals-for-lebanon-leaders-to-put-interests-aside/2022/11/06/75dbd30c-5df5-11ed-a131-e900e4a6336b_story.html__________________________________________________________ 5. Pope Francis praises pro-abortion economist on papal commission in remarks about women, By Hannah Brockhaus, Catholic News Agency, November 6, 2022, 10:25 AM While speaking about the gifts of women during an in-flight press conference on Sunday, Pope Francis mentioned the recent appointment of a pro-abortion economist to the Pontifical Academy for Life. “I have seen that in the Vatican; every time a woman comes in to do work in the Vatican things get better,” the pope said Nov. 6 on the flight to Rome from Bahrain. He mentioned several positions now filled by women, also citing, by name, pro-abortion economist Mariana Mazzucato. “And now, I put on the family council Mazzucato, who is a great economist from the United States, to give a little more humanity to this,” he said. … Mazzucato’s appointment to the life academy drew criticism due to her outspoken advocacy for abortion rights, including the tweeting and re-tweeting of pro-abortion statements concerning the Supreme Court’s decision to return abortion law to the states.  … https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/252744/pope-francis-praises-pro-abortion-economist-on-papal-commission-in-remarks-about-women__________________________________________________________ 6. Private school vouchers open faith options for kids of color, By Giovanna Dell’Orto and Cheyanne Mumphrey, Associated Press, November 5, 2022, 9:24 AM … School choice is one of many education issues that have become a partisan battleground, bringing parents to the polls this fall. One core question is how widely, if at all, taxpayer money should pay for private school tuition, instead of only financing public schools. Critics say such programs weaken public schools, whose costs remain high even if students transfer, taking some state funding with them. The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated tensions. Public schools often were closed longer than private ones, and extended online learning has been linked to major learning losses. But many low-income parents in neighborhoods like Milwaukee’s predominantly African American north side or Latino south side say voucher programs — introduced here three decades ago — are the only way their children can attend faith-based institutions. They say those schools teach structure and values in ways public ones are often too overwhelmed to do. … Until the 1960s, urban parochial schools could count on financing from flourishing parishes and cheap payroll costs, since nuns often taught for free. Without those supports, schools started charging substantial tuition, now up to $8,000-$9,000 per academic year — unaffordable for most working-class families. … While urban, faith-based schools don’t necessarily outperform all public ones on test scores, their students enjoy better civic outcomes, from college graduation rates to lower drug use, said Patrick Wolf, a professor of education at the University of Arkansas. … Reliable public funds would keep the schools sustainable for parents who choose them “not because of political hot-button things. They simply want their kids in faith-based environments because they believe they’ll be better citizens,” Korth said. … https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/private-school-vouchers-open-faith-options-for-kids-of-color/2022/11/05/239bfe20-5d0d-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html__________________________________________________________ 7. Former Governor of Hong Kong Criticizes Vatican-China Agreement, Lord Christopher Patten spoke to the BBC shortly after the Vatican announced it had renewed for a second time its contested agreement with Beijing on the appointment of bishops in the communist country., By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register, November 4, 2022 Lord Christopher Patten, the last governor of the former British colony Hong Kong, has joined others in criticizing the Vatican for its dealings with the People’s Republic of China, saying the Vatican is guilty of “self-delusion” and should make public its recently renewed provisional agreement with Beijing.  In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Sunday program broadcast Oct. 30, Patten, who is Catholic, said the Vatican has been “guilty of what others have been guilty of in dealing with China, a degree of self-delusion.” … A trustee of the British Catholic magazine The Tablet, Patten said he is “a great supporter of most of what Pope Francis is trying to do, but I think the attitude to China and what he said recently about Ukraine are pretty unattractive.”  … He pointed out that at least two bishops are in prison and many priests have been driven out of the priesthood because they won’t sign a vow of loyalty to the Communist Party and are now “working as farmers or working in factories.”  “It’s all pretty unclear, pretty muddy about what the Vatican actually got out of [the agreement],” Patten said. Asked if he believed the Vatican had a policy of appeasement toward Beijing, he said “certainly, if not more.”  … He pointed out that at least two bishops are in prison and many priests have been driven out of the priesthood because they won’t sign a vow of loyalty to the Communist Party and are now “working as farmers or working in factories.”  “It’s all pretty unclear, pretty muddy about what the Vatican actually got out of [the agreement],” Patten said. Asked if he believed the Vatican had a policy of appeasement toward Beijing, he said “certainly, if not more.”  … He also questioned why the Vatican is being silent about other CCP crimes against, not only Christians, but the Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang — atrocities that are being condemned by the United Nations. “If they can be denounced by the U.N., why aren’t they denounced by the Catholic Church?” Patten asked.  https://www.ncregister.com/blog/lord-patten-criticizes-vatican-china-agreement__________________________________________________________ 8. How Vatican II Failed Catholics — and Catholicism, By Ross Douthat, The New York Times, November 4, 2022, Opinion The idea was not simply to make Catholicism easier, of course; the hope was that a truer Christianity would flourish once rote obedience diminished. But the policy and the results, not the hopes, are what we should be interested in three generations later. And in and of itself, a policy of easing burdens was hardly a crazy idea of how the church might adapt to modernity and keep Catholics in the pews. Spiritual issues aside, from an institutional perspective, you can see the logic of saying, the world is making it harder to be a Catholic, so let’s make it easier to practice the faith. … For most people, Catholic faith isn’t an idea you’ve chosen that then has corollaries in practice (like get to Mass on Sunday). It’s an inheritance that you get handed and have to decide what to do with. And the foundational problem with the keep-people-Catholic-by-making-it-easier-to-be-Catholic approach, it turns out, is that it removes too many of the signals indicating that this part of your inheritance is important — essential — rather than something you can keep without really investing in it, for yourself or, when the time comes, for your kids. From this perspective, a key obstacle to getting modern Catholics to actually practice their inherited Catholicism isn’t whether they disagree with church teachings or feel adequately welcomed (as much as those issues matter). It’s that the church is in competition with a million other urgent-seeming things, and in its post-Vatican II form it has often failed to establish the importance of its own rituals and obligations. … Right now, Catholic officialdom is engaged in a so-called synod on synodality, a series of listening sessions and bureaucratic confabs aimed at making the church more welcoming and inclusive — with a strong suspicion from conservatives that the endgame is further liberalizations of church doctrine. I’m one of those suspicious conservatives, but I think the analysis of Vatican II I’m offering here points to a slightly different set of questions for the liberal Catholics who are having their hour under Pope Francis. Namely, which of their reforms would make the church seem more important to the semi-lapsed? How do you reach someone who doesn’t feel unwelcome at Mass but also doesn’t feel any kind of urgency about attending? If progressive Catholicism is in the business of lifting what it sees as nonessential obligations, hastening toward a possible future where one need not even be Catholic to receive communion in the Catholic Church, what form of obligation can it then instill? The liberalizers don’t believe that a return to tradition suffices for the present challenge. Very well; as a non-traditionalist in my own practice, I’m evidence for their point. But what is the novel means, the welcoming and affirming 21st-century mechanism, whereby my friend from the party, the ancestral Catholic, can be persuaded that it really, truly matters whether he shows up to Sunday Mass? Any potential recovery of Catholic vitality under the Pope Francis model, any future where the revolution of Vatican II is somehow vindicated after all, hinges above all on the answer to that question. … Ultimately, the business of the Catholic Church is to save souls, to serve Jesus Christ and to manifest the presence of God through its holiness and beauty. And as I said in the column, and I’ll say again: What really breeds cynicism is when the church behaves like the Soviet empire in its dotage and demands constant encomiums to the wisdom and success of a now decades-old renewal project, when everyone can plainly see it’s presiding over crisis and decline. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/04/opinion/vatican-ii-catholics.html__________________________________________________________ 9. Rochester diocese to pay $55 million to sex abuse survivors, By Associated Press, November 4, 2022, 9:16 AM The Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester will pay $55 million to survivors of sexual abuse committed by clergy members under a settlement announced by church officials. The diocese, which declared bankruptcy in 2019 after hundreds of lawsuits were filed against it under the state’s Child Victims Act, will create a trust for abuse survivors, Rochester Bishop Salvatore Matano said Thursday. Survivors may also be able to pursue further claims with the diocese’s insurers, Matano said. The settlement was negotiated with abuse survivors and is subject to bankruptcy court approval. … https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/rochester-diocese-to-pay-55-million-to-sex-abuse-survivors/2022/11/04/e03826e2-5c42-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html__________________________________________________________ 10. Teacher asks court to restore suit on trans student pronouns, By Denise Lavoie, Associated Press, November 4, 2022, 5:18 PM Lawyers for a high school French teacher who was fired after he refused to use a transgender student’s pronouns argued before the Supreme Court of Virginia Friday that the school violated his constitutional right to speak freely and exercise his religion. An attorney for the school said the teacher violated the school’s anti-discrimination policy. Peter Vlaming sued the school board and administrators at West Point High School after he was fired in 2018. Vlaming appealed a lower court’s ruling dismissing the lawsuit and asked the Supreme Court to reinstate it. Vlaming’s lawsuit was brought by Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal advocacy group that has filed six similar lawsuits — three in Virginia, and one each in Ohio, Kansas and Indiana. … In another Virginia case filed by the ADF, the state Supreme Court last year affirmed a lower court ruling that required Loudoun County Public Schools to reinstate a teacher who was suspended after he spoke at a school board meeting in opposition to a proposed policy requiring teachers to use the pronouns used by transgender students. Litigation over the school district’s policy on pronouns is still pending. In a federal lawsuit filed by the ADF in Ohio, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last year that Shawnee State University violated the free speech rights of philosophy professor Nicholas Meriwether when they disciplined him for refusing to use a transgender student’s pronouns. In a settlement, the university agreed to pay $400,000 in damages and Meriwether’s legal fees. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/teacher-asks-court-to-restore-suit-on-trans-student-pronouns/2022/11/04/1c35cdf6-5c76-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html__________________________________________________________ 11. Like US, Mexico faces a state-by-state divide over abortion, By MarÍa Teresa HernÁndez, Associated Press, November 4, 2022, 12:50 PM Differences over abortion have pitted one large batch of U.S. states against another — one group imposing sweeping bans, the other intent on preserving access to abortion. To a remarkable extent, that’s also the case in America’s southern neighbor, Mexico. Ten of Mexico’s 32 states have decriminalized abortion — most of them in just the past three years. Even in some of those 10 states, for example Oaxaca, abortion-rights activists say they face persisting challenges in trying to make abortion safe, accessible and government-funded. Two other Latin American nations — Argentina and Colombia — recently legalized abortion nationwide. But in Mexico — a federal republic — each state has its own laws and criminal codes. … [T]he Catholic archbishop of Mexico City, Cardinal Carlos Aguiar Retes, has condemned moves to decriminalize abortion, declaring that they are tantamount to an attack on God. The National Front for the Family, a major anti-abortion group, has formed networks that offer economic and psychological support to women who are considering abortions because they lack the resources to continue their pregnancy. … Abortion is legal up to 12 weeks of pregnancy in Mexico City and nine states — Oaxaca, Hidalgo, Veracruz, Colima, Baja California, Guerrero, Baja California Sur and Quintana Roo — and up to 13 weeks in Sinaloa. It is allowed throughout the country in cases where a pregnancy results from rape, and in some jurisdictions when the life of the woman is in danger or there are severe fetal abnormalities. In an 11th state, Coahuila, it’s illegal to criminalize a woman who has an abortion, due to a 2021 ruling by Mexico’s Supreme Court. Abortion-rights supporters say the ruling should be applied to all other states, but most of them have not revised their laws to conform. … https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/like-us-mexico-faces-a-state-by-state-divide-over-abortion/2022/11/04/9647bfc6-5c3c-11ed-bc40-b5a130f95ee7_story.html__________________________________________________________ 12. Pope to French bishops: Care for people ‘disoriented’ by ‘Traditionis custodes’, His message was delivered to bishops by Cardinal Pietro Parolin on the first day of their plenary meeting in Lourdes., By Luke Coppen, The Pillar, November 4, 2022, 11:06 AM Pope Francis has encouraged French bishops to show special care for Catholics “disoriented” by his decision to severely restrict the celebration of Traditional Latin Masses. His message was delivered to the bishops on Thursday, the first day of their plenary meeting in Lourdes, by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. “Pope Francis … invites you to the greatest solicitude and paternity for those people ⁠— especially young people, priests, and laity ⁠— who are disoriented by the motu proprio Traditionis custodes, which you will be working to implement,” said the message released Nov. 3 and signed by Cardinal Parolin. “They are often wounded sheep who need to be accompanied, listened to, and given time.” … France, one of the world’s leading centers of Catholic traditionalism, has seen protests against the motu proprio. Regular demonstrations have taken place in front of the apostolic nunciature in Paris, with Catholics holding signs reading “Freedom for the traditional Mass” and “Freedom for Summorum Pontificum,” Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio lifting restrictions on the use of the 1962 Missal. An analysis published in September suggested that only one in five bishops in France had signed decrees implementing Traditionis custodes. It said that 20% of French priests were “ordained to celebrate the old missal, and the youth movements that are attached to it are the most fruitful in terms of vocations and commitment.” … In June, the Vatican suspended ordinations in the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, which is known for welcoming traditionalist groups. … https://www.pillarcatholic.com/pope-to-french-bishops-care-for-people-disoriented-by-traditionis-custodes/__________________________________________________________ 13. Cardinal Burke and Bishop Schneider Restate Concerns About Restrictions on Traditional Liturgy, The cardinal and the bishop offered their comments for a talk the author gave recently in London., By Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register, November 4, 2022 Cardinal Raymond Burke has questioned the basis of papal-led efforts to restrict and eventually eliminate the traditional Latin Mass, while Bishop Athanasius Schneider has said the “millennium-old treasure” cannot be destroyed, as it is the work of the Holy Spirit. … As concerns deepen over this pontificate’s new restrictions regarding the traditional liturgy, Cardinal Burke said that “to the degree that reason and sound theology prevail, the safeguarding and promotion of the Usus Antiquior [the ancient liturgy in use before the reforms of 1970] will continue.”  The prefect emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura said this is “despite the difficulties and even the persecution” inspired by Traditionis Custodes (Guardians of the Tradition), Pope Francis’ 2021 apostolic letter issued motu proprio (decree) restricting the ancient liturgy, and the Responsa ad Dubia, the guidelines on implementing the decree issued five months later. But Cardinal Burke stressed that as a “motu proprio,” Traditionis Custodes lacks sufficient force because it has authority only to the degree that it is founded on just grounds. He added that the grounds for the decree, and the letter Pope Francis wrote to bishops which accompanied it, “are not true and just” when taken together, and he gave his reasons. … https://www.ncregister.com/blog/cardinal-burke-bishop-schneider-oct-21-talk-remarks__________________________________________________________ 14. ‘Tis the Season, By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing, November 2, 2022, Opinion ‘Tis the season. . .for elections.  Again.  American politics has always had a toxic streak.  But once upon a time, before our mass media destroyed the escape hatch to solitude, we could find a way and a place – a mental bomb shelter – to ride out the cycle of partisan hysteria.  Not anymore.  Now the noise is everywhere, nonstop. … This year’s Emmy for most fallacious messaging in a campaign season, though, goes to the “pro-choice” movement.  Thanks to ugly economic news and geriatric White House bumbling, abortion is the only issue some candidates on the cultural left have at their disposal.  And in the wake of Roe’s demise earlier this year, abortion-friendly money has flooded in during the midterms to help with exquisitely melodramatic ads that portray any candidate with reservations about abortion as an enemy of women’s rights and bodies. So for Catholics who take their faith seriously, it can be useful to revisit how the Church thinks about political decision-making. The City of God and the City of Man overlap in this world.  And only God knows who finally belongs to which.  We need to remember that personal conscience is always, and rightly, the final arbiter of our actions.  But conscience is not some sort of free-floating opinion machine.  It’s the result of formation by teachers, and experiences outside oneself. … The best and clearest political guidance the U.S. bishops have ever issued is their 1998 pastoral statement Living the Gospel of Life.  In it, the bishops note that: Any politics of human dignity must seriously address issues of racism, poverty, hunger, employment, education, housing, and health care. Therefore, Catholics should eagerly involve themselves as advocates for the weak and marginalized in all these areas . . . But for citizens and elected officials alike, the basic principle is simple: We must begin with a commitment never to intentionally kill, or collude in the killing, of any innocent human life, no matter how broken, unformed, disabled or desperate that life may seem.  In other words, the choice of certain ways of acting is always and radically incompatible with the love of God and the dignity of the human person created in His image.  Direct abortion is never a morally tolerable option.  It is always a grave act of violence against a woman and her unborn child.  This is so even when a woman does not see the truth because of the pressures she may be subjected to, often by the child’s father, her parents or friends . . .  If we understand the human person as the “temple of the Holy Spirit” – the living house of God – then these latter issues fall logically into place as the crossbeams and walls of that house.  All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the house’s foundation. These directly and immediately violate the human person’s most fundamental right – the right to life.  Neglect of these issues is the equivalent of building our house on sand. There’s nothing we need to add to those words.  We just need to live them – this year, and every year. https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2022/11/02/tis-the-season/__________________________________________________________

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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