Call for compassion, understanding and end to practices that create fear

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – “In recognition of the rights and dignity of children and families frightened and separated during the ICE raids on Aug. 7,” the leadership of the Dominican Sisters of Springfield, Illinois, “cry out” in solidarity compassion, and support.
The sisters offer their solidarity to all those affected by the raids and “those who are living in fear,” the statement says. “We hope that you and your families can feel the support of our prayers.
Springfield Dominican Sisters have ministered in Mississippi for more than 70 years. Their ministry, St. Dominic Health Services, was recently transferred July 1, 2019, to the sponsorship of Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Eight Dominican sisters continue to live and serve in Jackson.

The statement, issued from the congregation’s Illinois-based leadership, asks that “all people of good will in Mississippi” acknowledge that the trauma created by a broken immigration system “unravels the bond of our common humanity and weakens the foundation of trust” essential to every Mississippian’s well-being and safety.
“At the foundation of our desire for a more just immigration policy is gospel-based Catholic Social Teaching,” said Sister Rebecca Ann Gemma, prioress general of the Springfield Dominican Sisters. “The United States Catholic Bishops have very clear guidelines on this.”
For access to resources from the bishops and other helpful materials for those accompanying immigrants anywhere in the U.S., visit springfieldop.org/immigration-resources.
The sisters encourage donations of time, expertise and financial assistance to one of two Mississippi-based organizations. Donations may be made through Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Jackson or through a coalition of Mississippi organizations responding to the needs of immigrant families, which includes the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA), and the MacArthur Center for Justice at the University of Mississippi.
The coalition includes the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA), and the MacArthur Center for Justice at the University of Mississippi.
For more than 800 years, Dominicans have preached the Gospel in word and deed. The Dominican Sisters of Springfield, established in 1873, are part of a worldwide Dominican family, the Order of Preachers. Today, thousands of Dominican sisters, nuns, priests, brothers, associates and laity minister in more than 100 countries around the world. To learn more about the Dominican Sisters of Springfield visit springfieldop.org.

By Elizabeth Bachmann
WASHINGTON (CNS) – This fall, five graduate students will embark on a unique, one-year journey back to the origins of thought on human nature.
They will study natural law and natural rights, anthropology, international law, religious liberty, global politics and papal encyclicals, emerging from the program with a fully formed, Catholic understanding of human rights and a zeal to defend and explain these rights.
The Institute for Human Ecology at The Catholic University of America is offering this master of arts degree in human rights for the first time in the fall of 2019. The program, headed and organized by William Saunders, lawyer and longtime human rights scholar and activist, is interdisciplinary, drawing classes from five of Catholic University’s schools.
“Now is the time for this, because we need people who can help us think clearly about human rights to be part of this conversation,” Saunders told Catholic News Service. “Any ordinary person on the street would be in favor of human rights, but if you ask, ‘What are human rights?’ they don’t know.”
According to Saunders, the master’s program will provide students with a holistic understanding of the underlying philosophy that governing the accepted lists of human rights, and explaining their purpose.
For Saunders, documents such as the 1948 U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other assertions of rights are mere laundry lists without the Catholic understanding. Without a unifying understanding, Saunders says that it becomes easy to tack “rights” on like a wish list, without any consideration of whether they fit the definition of a true human right.
“What’s missing is a coherent philosophical understanding of why these rights are recognized. Catholic tradition supplies that, and helps you to think about it in a way that will be congruent to Catholicism,” Saunders said. “Because the Catholic perspective is not just a theological thing. It is a hard tradition of reason as well.”
The program will prepare students for any number of careers, from nonprofit relief organizations, to nongovernmental organizations, to Capitol Hill committees, to the private sector, according to Saunders.
“So far as we know, there is no other university offering (a masters of arts in human rights) from the uniquely Catholic perspective,” Saunders said. “Things like natural law, papal encyclicals, human anthropology, and theological anthropology are a part of it. There are a number of masters of arts in human rights, but not from this perspective, and certainly not in the nation’s capital, where you can so easily get involved.”
Some of the central courses include philosophy of natural right and natural law, Christian anthropology, public international law, international human rights and religious liberty.
Saunders emphasized that the program is neither exclusively for Catholics, nor any kind of Catholic conversion machine. He cited St. John Paul II’s encyclicals, in which he often engaged with people of goodwill who were not Catholic, but desired to understand the rich Catholic teaching on human rights issues.
“Natural rights are not disguised Catholic theology,” Saunders said. “They are just based on the idea that we share some things as human beings, and if we find those things out, we can figure out an answer to Aristotle’s question: How can we order our lives?”
Bradley Lewis, associate professor of philosophy at Catholic University, will teach two of the foundational classes for the program: “The Philosophy of Natural Rights and Natural Law” and “Morality and Law.”
He explained that Catholic thought is historically enmeshed in human rights decisions.
“If you go to the beginning of modern human rights projects, a lot of people involved in promoting human rights in the late 1940s and 1950s were Christians and, in many cases, Catholic,” Lewis said. “This approach is something that we have had within the Catholic world, and, at a certain point, it was lost and fell out of discussion. We want to put it back in.”

By Cardinal Daniel N. Dinardo, Archbishop José H. Gomez and Bishop Joe S. Vásquez
We mourn the deaths of 23-month-old Angie Valeria and her father, Oscar Martinez, who died last month while fleeing El Salvador in search of safety in the United States. This young family embarked on a journey of over 1,400 miles, through some of the most dangerous parts of the world, which ended with a father paying the ultimate price — his life — to keep his daughter from harm’s way. Angie was still scared after she was left safely on the river bank and she jumped back in the water to be with her dad, her security.
Unfortunately, the deaths of Angie and her father are not the first we have seen during this ongoing humanitarian crisis. In December, we saw the face of Jakelin Caal Maquin, a 7-year-old from Guatemala who died from sepsis while in custody of the Border Patrol. These are just two of the deaths that we know about. Countless others, all precious children of God, do not make it to the border, finding their final resting place somewhere along a journey that began with hope but quickly turned into despair.

These deaths are occurring because the United States is closing off access to asylum protection through policies and enforcement that send the clear and strong signal that you are not welcome.
As a nation, we must learn the harsh lessons from our past about closing doors to U.S. asylum. One of the more unfortunate chapters of our great nation’s history was our experience during World War II, when we turned away the S.S. St. Louis, a ship carrying nearly 1,000 Jewish refugees fleeing persecution in Nazi Germany. In the aftermath of that experience and that war, the United States helped lead the world in establishing international protocols to ensure that refugees fleeing persecution in their country of nationality or habitual residence would receive protection when they present themselves at another country’s borders.
The United States went on to enshrine those protocols into U.S. refugee and asylum law, creating a body of laws that has been embraced over the ensuing decades on a bipartisan basis by presidents and Congress alike.
Sadly, the current administration recently announced that over the next week, it will conduct a series of broad enforcement actions to round up thousands of Angie’s and her father’s countrymen, as well as other Central American families, who managed to make it to safety inside the United States.
The announced goal is to detain and then deport them, consigning them to a frightening and uncertain fate in the country from which they fled. The president has suggested that his administration will refrain from engaging in this unfortunate enforcement action only if Congress repeals the asylum protections that it helped lead the world to establish.
We all know the dangers associated with migrating from the Northern Triangle countries of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. The situation is so dire in these countries due to gang violence, corrupt governments and poverty that people are willing to risk their lives to walk through Central America and Mexico in the hope for asylum in the United States. The death of young Jakelin put a face on the crisis for a while, but unfortunately, for many it has faded and been forgotten. This new image of Angie and Mr. Martinez has been seared into our minds much like the photo of Alan Kurdi, the 2-year-old Syrian boy who died in 2015. The image of his lifeless body on the beach highlighted the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean.
For the second straight summer, asylum seekers, most of them children and families, are caught in the middle of a stalemated political battle as they endure the brunt of life-altering scenarios and poor conditions. Last year, as part of the zero-tolerance policy implemented to slow the migration of people to our country and deny them the right to seek the protection of asylum, we saw heartbreaking scenes of children being ripped away from their parents.
This year, many are forced to remain in Mexico as they risk dangers on the border to await their uncertain future. Those who are able to cross the border are put in facilities with reported conditions that are substandard for a facility run by the United States Government.
Congress has, for years, been unable to find the solution so that we can be a nation that welcomes and embraces the immigrant. It is imperative that the administration and Congress come up with a solution to these tragic realities and pass a comprehensive immigration reform plan that will include offer immediate humanitarian relief.
We recognize the right of nations to control their borders and provide safety for citizens. We also believe that, in the best of our nation’s traditions, it is within our capability as a nation to honor the humanity and basic needs of migrants in a way that does not compromise our nation’s security.
One of God’s greatest commandments is to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Following this commandment, we must remain a country that provides refuge for children and families fleeing violence and persecution or we have lost our core values as a nation. Perhaps the memory of our turning away of asylum seekers on the S.S. St. Louis and the image of Angie and Oscar’s lifeless bodies, face down on the river bank, will motivate Congress and the administration to work together to reach a rapid and just solution to this crisis that does not involve eviscerating U.S. refugee and asylum law.

(Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo is the archbishop of Galveston-Houston and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Archbishop José H. Gomez is the archbishop of Los Angeles and vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Bishop Joe S. Vásquez is the bishop of Austin and the chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration. )

By Carol Zimmermann
BALTIMORE (CNS) – The gathering of U.S. bishops June 11-13 in Baltimore was anything but business as usual.
“The spring meetings are usually more pastoral, and the November meeting has a heavier agenda,” said Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, who said this meeting had a “sense of urgency” and momentum to it, both in the smaller group gatherings and when the bishops were all together.
“We were here for specific task … and by God’s grace we will move forward,” he said during a June 12 news conference.
The bishops typically meet twice a year as a body. The spring meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is usually in June at different locations each year, and sometimes it is a retreat. The fall meeting in recent years has always been in Baltimore. This year’s spring meeting was switched somewhat last minute to the Baltimore location where the bishops were not the only ones in the hotel space but were adjacent to other conference gatherings.
The other time a spring bishops’ meeting was almost entirely devoted to the church crisis was the 2002 meeting in Dallas, just months after the church was reeling from a clergy sexual abuse crisis that made headlines in The Boston Globe.
But where that meeting focused on misconduct by priests, this year’s meeting looked at responding to the misconduct of some bishops and the failure of some bishops to properly address abuse.
Since their two general assemblies last year, the bishops have been confronted with an overwhelming need to prove to U.S. Catholics that abuse within their own ranks won’t be tolerated. They were hit with allegations last summer that one of their own, former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, had committed abuses over decades. Then just a week before the spring meeting, details emerged from the Vatican-ordered investigation of retired Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia, highlighting financial and sexual improprieties.
Names of both bishops came up during the assembly at different points, when the bishops spoke about protocols to put in place to make sure these incidents wouldn’t happen again.
Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, opened the meeting June 11 by saying: “We begin the sacred work this week of purging the evil of sexual abuse from our church.”
But just the week before, he had faced his own accusation, which he strongly denied, of having mishandled an accusation of sexual misconduct case against his former vicar general.
The bishops also had the weight of unfinished business upon them in this spring’s gathering: policies and procedures in response to the abuse crisis that they had put aside at last year’s fall general assembly at the Vatican’s request. They also had a new, but related, item: their plan to implement Pope Francis’ norms issued May 9 to help the church safeguard its members from abuse and hold its leaders accountable.
Although the bishops passed all the abuse measures before them, none of them said these actions would hit the reset button for the church. In closing remarks, Cardinal DiNardo acknowledged that the steps they had taken were a “work in progress.”
They voted to implement the norms contained in the pope’s “motu proprio” on responding to sexual abuse in the church and they also approved all of their own measures including a promise to hold themselves accountable to the commitments of their “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” including a zero-tolerance policy for abuse.
“We, the bishops of the U.S., have heard the anger expressed by so many within and outside the church over these failures,” that document said, adding: “The anger is justified; it has humbled us, prompting us into self-examination, repentance and a desire to do better, much better. We will continue to listen.”
In other votes, the bishops approved actions they can take when a retired bishop resigns or is removed “due to sexual misconduct with adults or grave negligence of office, or where subsequent to his resignation he was found to have so acted or failed to act.” They also approved the implementation of an independent third-party system that would allow people to make confidential reports of abuse complaints against bishops through a toll-free number and online.
“It’s right we give attention to this,” Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, said at the closing news conference. He said the collateral damage from the church abuse scandal is how it is “costing people their faith.”
He also stressed that the possibility of “proceeding with what we passed today” without laypeople would be impossible and “highly irresponsible.”
Bishop Robert P. Deeley of Portland, Maine, chairman of the bishops’ Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, which oversaw the all of the abuse documents the bishops voted on, except for the third-party system, told reporters at the close of the meeting that bishops are already collaborating with the laity. We are not in a church where the laypeople are here, and the bishops are there, he said, gesturing a gap.
Although some bishops had voiced hope on the floor June 13 that there be mandatory lay participation in church abuse monitoring, Bishop Deeley said the bishops couldn’t “go beyond what the Holy Father has given” in the norms he issued, but that doesn’t mean laity are or will be excluded, he said.
That was precisely the point Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City, Missouri, hoped to bring home near the meeting’s close when he emphasized the need to involve laypeople because “it’s the Catholic thing to do.”
He said when bishops go home from this meeting, they should be able to tell people they did everything they were able to do to respond to this crisis.
He told Catholic News Service during a break in the meeting June 13 that the church needs to get back to its origins and the Second Vatican Council’s vision of lay collaboration with clergy, adding: “Perhaps God is utilizing this crisis in a way to get us back on track again.”

(Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim)

(Editor’s note: Bishop Joseph Kopacz is at the USCCB meeting in Baltimore this week and was thus unable to contribute a column. His regular column will return in the next paper.)

By Julie Asher
WASHINGTON (CNS) – When the bishops gather in Baltimore starting June 11, Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of Jefferson City, Missouri, said he’s “hopeful we will have some progress made in moving the football” on the church’s response to the abuse crisis by approving several proposals to hold the bishops accountable.
“I think the recent new norms from Holy Father will make it more possible, but I am waiting to see and I will be fully involved in the debate,” he told Catholic News Service June 7.
The centerpiece of the bishops’ agenda will be four action items dealing with the investigation of abuse claims against bishops themselves or accusations they have been negligent in handling or covering up cases of wayward priests and other church workers.
These proposals were before the bishops at the fall general assembly last November, but the Vatican requested they delay action on them until after the Vatican held a February meeting for presidents of bishops’ conferences worldwide to discuss the abuse crisis.
The norms Bishop McKnight referenced are contained in Pope Francis’ “motu proprio,” released May 9 and in effect as of June 1. The document, titled “Vos estis lux mundi” (“You are the light of the world”), is a new universal law from the pope to safeguard its members from abuse and hold its leaders accountable. It governs complaints against clergy or church leaders regarding the sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable persons. The U.S. bishops will vote on directives for implementing this church law.
The full texts of the pope’s “motu proprio” and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People,” as well as the new reforms to be discussed in Baltimore, are available on a new website the USCCB launched June 7: www.usccbprevention.org.
The pope’s new juridical instrument calls for a “public, stable and easily accessible” reporting system for allegations; clear standards for the pastoral support of victims and their families; timeliness and thoroughness of investigations; whistleblower protection for those making allegations; and the use of “proven experts from among the laity;” and the oversight of the metropolitan (archbishop) for such investigations in his province. The U.S. Catholic Church has 32 metropolitans.
Under each archdiocese are dioceses, also called suffragan sees, for which a metropolitan is responsible.
“For me the critical element in the effort to respond to the crisis is the necessity of lay involvement,” Bishop McKnight told CNS. “I am grateful the document allows for the metropolitan to use lay experts.”
Just as dioceses have a lay board to assess allegations against priests and other church workers, the same lay-led review is needed for bishops for two reasons, Bishop McKnight said. “First, for transparency to build credibility in the process so people know it is not just miters and collars but mothers and fathers (looking at these allegations) as well.”
“Second, as a bishop myself, if there was ever a false allegation made against me, I would want an independent lay assessment of the investigation to build credibility (in the finding) that the claim is not credible.”
Two other prelates interviewed by CNS ahead of the bishops’ spring assembly, Bishop Edward J. Weisenburger of Tucson, Arizona, and Archbishop Alexander K. Sample of Portland, Oregon, also strongly emphasized the need for lay involvement in reviewing claims against bishops.
“I cannot imagine there not being a majority of lay involvement,” Bishop Weisenburger said June 7. “The current model of diocesan review boards owes a substantial part of their success to the fact that they are lay-led and lay-driven. That fact is not lost on any bishop.”
In the Tucson Diocese, “we have had tremendous success in working with our Diocesan Review Board,” he noted.
“I feel certain that my brother bishops will strive to create regional lists of experts that are composed in majority of lay experts in the fields of law, law enforcement, psychology, education, canon law and social work,” Bishop Weisenburger added.
Said Archbishop Sample: “Clearly the cry for more lay involvement is not just among laity but priests and bishops (too). … For my part, I will do everything I can – and I am just one bishop among many – to ensure that there will be an adequate role for the laity to be involved in these investigations within these church processes. The ‘motu proprio’ certainly opens the door (to this).”
“Quite honestly I hope this is one of the areas we can strengthen. … I hope we will be able to enshrine within our own (structures) an active and significant role for the laity,” he said.
Going into the assembly, “my hopes and expectations are optimistic,” the archbishop added, “I wouldn’t say super-high but I’m very optimistic the bishops will be able to complete next week what we tried to begin at our November meeting in light of the new ‘motu proprio,’ (which is) further guidance on what we should be doing to take responsibility for this crisis in the church and respond to it.”
“I hope that there will be some good modifications and amendments to the documents” he said, to strengthen them especially with regard to “transparency and accountability, the two words that resonate most with me right now going into this meeting.”
The bishops must have effective protocols that enable them to hold each accountable, which is “really what Christ asks of us as shepherds of the church,” Archbishop Sample said. “We also need accountability before the people of God.”
As for the proposal for metropolitan oversight, the archbishop said that as metropolitan himself, he takes this charge “extremely seriously.”
“I think the Holy Father’s intention in the ‘motu proprio’ he issued is that the church use her own structures which are already in place to really address these issues in a significant way, and the role of the metropolitan archbishops is a grave responsibility,” he said.
Since the November meeting, when the metropolitan “option” surfaced, “I’ve given it a lot of reflection and I’m overwhelmed a little bit to receive this responsibility … and I pledge that I will do everything I can do to ensure there is full accountability in my realm of influence,” Archbishop Sample said.
“To the eyes of some it looks like the bishops are investigating themselves again and that this is what has gotten us into this mess in the first place,” he remarked.
However, it is important for people “to know and understand” that “using the church’s own structures is what the Holy Father intends,” he explained, and the church’s way of dealing with allegations – “within the church law and structures” – is carried out “without any prejudice” to civil authorities doing their own investigation.
“Both of these tracks have to run parallel, because in the end the church still has to deal with the status” of its own members, he said. “We need our own structure to deal with them” but this does not “hamper” what civil authorities must do on these abuse cases.
Bishop Weisenburger called the metropolitan option “an excellent model.”
“On the one hand it’s true to our history, who we are as a hierarchic church,” he said. “On the other hand, it’s a somewhat new adaptation which I think will allow general principles of investigation to be applied in a healthy local manner. The time limits related to the various steps are especially helpful as it prevents a critical investigation from being delayed.”
When he looks at his region, whose metropolitan is the archbishop of Santa Fe, New Mexico, he said: “I trust that we have a wealth of experts who could come together and undertake an investigation in a timely and professional manner. I think something good for the church is unfolding before us.”
Last fall, when the Vatican asked the bishops’ to postpone voting on these critical abuse protocols, many felt the church was just stalling on the need to address issues of the hierarchy’s accountability, but Bishop Weisenburger feels “the November delay proved beneficial.”
“There was tremendous pressure for the bishops to create an immediate response to the situation – I felt that pressure myself – but in retrospect I’m not sure we make the best decisions when we move that fast,” he told CNS. “I think the Vatican summit helped clarify some of the critical issues. I now think it’s time for the U.S. bishops to come to a consensus on a procedure that can be undertaken easily when a report needs to be made about an allegation against a bishop.”
Bishop McKnight told CNS the laity in his diocese have given him “a consistent message” about the abuse scandal in listening sessions he has held, both this spring in preparation for his “ad limina” report to Rome and last fall ahead of the bishops’ November meeting: That message is to “get it all out now,” rather than this piecemeal approach to revelations about abuse, past or present.
One of his big questions about the McCarrick scandal, he said, is why haven’t members of the hierarchy “who were knowledgeable and complicit in his promotion” just come forward on their own and take responsibility?
“This does not require an investigation or special adjustment of canon law,” Bishop McKnight said. “I understand and feel the frustration of the laity.”

(Follow Asher on Twitter: @jlasher)