Category Archives: U.S. News

Trump firma orden para detener separación de familias

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Por Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON (CNS) — El presidente Donald Trump firmó una orden ejecutiva el 20 de junio que suspende la práctica de separar a menores de edad del lado de sus padres, una política de su administración que se ha aplicado a familias que han estado cruzando la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México ilegalmente.
La orden ejecutiva enfrenta un obstáculo por un decreto de consentimiento de 1997 que prohíbe al gobierno federal mantener a los niños en detención dentro de un centro de inmigración más de 20 días, aunque estén con sus padres. La orden ejecutiva ordena al fiscal general que solicite  el permiso de una corte federal para modificar el decreto de consentimiento.
La crisis comenzó cuando el fiscal general de los Estados Unidos Jeff Sessions anunció una política de “tolerancia cero” para los que cruzan la frontera. Según la política, adultos que cruzan la frontera sin documentos se les acusará de un delito grave en lugar de un delito menor. Bajo ley federal, personas acusadas de delitos graves no pueden tener a sus hijos con ellos mientras están detenidos.
El gobierno dijo a principios de junio que 1,995 menores de edad habían sido separados de 1,940 adultos que habían cruzado la frontera entre Estados Unidos y México, aunque algunos menores habían cruzado sin sus padres o parientes adultos.
La política y su resultado provocaron algunas de las reacciones más hostiles de cualquier iniciativa de Trump.

Children of detained migrants play soccer at a tent encampment near Tornillo, Texas, June 18. Image taken from Guadelupe, Mexico. (CNS photo/Jose Luis Gonzalez, Reuters)

Horas antes de que se firmara la orden ejecutiva, el papa Francisco dijo que estaba de acuerdo con los obispos estadounidenses, quienes habían condenado la política de separación de familias, la cual ha llevado a que niños permanezcan en centros de detención del gobierno mientras que sus padres van a cárceles federales. Los obispos de México también criticaron la política.
Todas las primeras damas vivientes, incluso la primera dama, Melania Trump, una inmigrante de Eslovenia, expresaron su tristeza o una emoción más fuerte al ver imágenes de los niños separados de sus padres.
Trump dijo que su esposa, tal como él, tienen sentimientos “fuertes” al ver las imágenes.
“Creo que cualquiera con corazón lo sentiría con fuerza”, dijo Trump durante la ceremonia en la cual firmó el documento el 20 de junio en la Oficina Oval.
Trump dijo que no le gustaba ver a familias separadas, ni los sentimientos que le provocaba
“Esto resolverá ese problema y al mismo tiempo mantendremos una frontera muy fuerte”, dijo.
Aun así, la orden ejecutiva no es necesariamente un remedio. Le permite al Departamento de Seguridad Nacional detener a las familias juntas “bajo las actuales limitaciones de recursos”. La “política de detención temporal” también solo está vigente “en la medida permitida por la ley y sujeta a la disponibilidad de las asignaciones”

Hundreds of calls come in at USCCB HQ seeking to foster detained kids

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By Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON (CNS) – Maybe it was the request by the Pentagon for 20,000 mattresses as military bases become, at least partly, shelters for detained border crossers.
Maybe it was the federal government report that 2,342 children had been separated from 2,206 parents at the U.S.-Mexico border between May 5 and June 9.
Maybe it was the now-famous audio recording of children crying after being separated from their parents.

An immigrant entering the U.S. illegally is seen arriving in shackles for a court hearing in McAllen, Texas, June 22. (CNS photo/Loren Elliott, Reuters) See IMMIGRATION-BORDERS June 22, 2018.

Or maybe it was the pictures of kids in cages.
Whatever the reason, hundreds of American adults have called the Washington headquarters of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops seeking to provide foster care for the separated children.
At first report June 20, 300 calls had come in. And the calls keep coming. “We’re triaging the calls,” said Katie Kuennen, associate director for children’s services for the USCCB’s Migration and Refugee Services office.
“We’re getting flooded,” Kuennen added. “It’s not just Catholic Charities, but MRS-wide.”
The one hitch: Most of those who have called are not licensed or certified to be foster parents. That’s a process that varies from state to state, according to Kuennen. While most states can train and certify parents for foster care in two or three months, some states can take a lot longer.
Further, while many Catholic Charities USA affiliate agencies are set up to match foster families with children, not all are. MRS, Kuennen said, also partners with Bethany Christian Services in some areas of the country. Agencies wishing to add foster care to their portfolio of services can typically gain state licensing in a month or two, she added.
So what happens when the calls come in? “We’re able to direct them to the nearest ORR foster care program that we have available,” Kuennen told Catholic News Service June 22. ORR is the acronym for the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.
“The programs aren’t new, the process of bringing foster families on board isn’t new,” she said. “What’s new is the public awareness of the program and the seeing of these images on television to get engaged and to open their homes to these families.”
Even though President Donald Trump signed an executive order June 20 that essentially reversed that part of the administration’s “zero tolerance” policy that separated kids from their parents, it was silent on the fate of those 2,352 kids already torn from their folks, plus whatever additional children were separated from their parents after June 9.
Moreover, a policy enacted in 1997 sets a 20-day limit for detained children to be detained alongside their parents. A Trump administration request to exceed that limit is before a federal judge in California.
“For years there has not been sufficient capacity in the ORR residential network for foster care placement,” Kuennen told CNS. “Historically they (children) have been going into shelter settings.”
However, “our department is currently responding to a funding opportunity announcement from ORR. I’m sure others (agencies) are as well. We are actively seeking to increase our transitional foster care and our long-term foster care,” she added.
It could be coincidence that the ORR money is being freed up at this time, or it could be consequence.
“My sense is that it was initiated in May, released in May, so the timing does match up,” Kuennen said, “before the family separation issue got a lot of attention after the zero tolerance (policy) was put into effect.”
Although the money won’t be officially freed up until the start of the new federal fiscal year Oct. 1, Kuennen said there is precedent for ORR to retroactively reimburse groups it has funded for expenses incurred if the group can show the money was spent on the specific grant plan.

Follow Pattison on Twitter: @MeMarkPattison

Passing a farm bill in 2018’s political climate a hard row to hoe

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By Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON (CNS) – For rural advocates, there were a lot of things not to like in this year’s farm bill.
For starters, there was the zeroing out the Conservation Stewardship Program, which has a $1 billion price tag. There also was a rewrite to the federal Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program that would kick off 2 million Americas from its rolls, more than canceling out the indexing of benefits for those remaining in the program – not to mention the imposition of work requirements to qualify for the benefit.
When the House voted on the farm bill May 18, the measure’s merits were only partly considered. But what brought it down to a surprising defeat was not its content, but a vastly different subject: immigration.
Some Republicans rebelled against their outgoing House speaker, Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, and voted no on the bill in a bid to force a vote on immigration bills that they charge have been stymied by House leadership.
The turn of events left James Ennis, executive director of Catholic Rural Life, sounding shell-shocked.
“It’s a surprise, but at the same time there were flaws in the bill, so it was already vulnerable,” Ennis told Catholic News Service from Wisconsin, where he was conducting Catholic Rural Life business. “Then the division within the House made it that much more divisive.”
Ennis allowed how the thumbs-down on the farm bill could serve as a catalyst for change within it.
“There’s more time for conversations with representatives who are concerned about those kinds of questions. There will be opportunities that maybe convince some to make some revisions,” he said.
“But then again, that’s what myself, Catholic Rural Life, and Catholic Charities and the USCCB (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops) are trying to do by getting messages out to our constituents. We’ve got this window. So let’s continue to communicate these concerns. There may be some opportunities to get some changes in this version of the farm bill. We’re about a month out. So there is some opportunity. How much is still debatable.”

A truck travels along a dirt road near a grain farm in Hesper Township, Iowa. The 2018 farm bill was defeated on the floor of the House May 18. It could back for a second vote in late June, but Catholic and other rural life advocates see a need for improvements in the measure before then. (CNS photo/Bob Roller) See WASHINGTON-LETTER-FARM-BILL May 25, 2018.

Some lawmakers are collecting signatures from their colleagues for a discharge petition that would force the House to vote on immigration bills. Among them are:
– The DREAM Act, which would let immigrants who arrived as minors without legal permission to stay in the United States and give them a path to citizenship. These immigrants are known as “Dreamers,” the recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA.
– The Agricultural Guestworker Act sponsored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, that would grant temporary status for DACA recipients with renewable three-year visas and would include stronger border enforcement and legal immigration restrictions, including removing protections for immigrant farmworkers.
– The Securing America’s Future Act, which incorporates the Goodlatte bill, cuts lawful immigration by 40 percent, eliminates the ability of citizens to sponsor their siblings, parents or adult children, and offers no path to citizenship for “Dreamers.”
– The Uniting and Securing America Act, a bipartisan compromise that offers a path to citizenship, mandates security cost estimates for each mile of the U.S.-Mexico border, and funds more immigration judges and lawyers.
If the petition is successful, all four bills would be voted on, and the one receiving the most yes votes would be declared the winner. It would be then up to Senate to consider its own legislation. And President Donald Trump has already vowed a veto.
Susan Alan, associate director of the National Farm Worker Ministry, told CNS May 21 the organization was dead-set against the Goodlatte bill.
The bill, she said, would relieve employers from having to pay for transportation for guest workers or reimburse them for their costs as well as having to look for local workers to do the work, do away with the prevailing wage program based on the cost of living in different regions of the country, and take away guest workers’ right to sue for withheld wages.
“It’s reinstituting the ‘bracero’ program of the 1940s and its worst abuses. And it’s no way to treat a neighbor, and it’s no way to treat a guest worker. It would also displace more local workers,” Alan said. “The farmworker community right now is very frightened. What we see is: The more afraid, the more fearful the population is, the more exploitable it is.”
The National Farm Worker Ministry and a Washington-based group, Farmworker Justice, jointly urged members and supporters in a May 25 email to tell their congressional representative to reject the Goodlatte bill and the Securing America’s Future Act.
“There are significant improvements that need to be made to the bill,” said Andrew Jerome, a spokesman for the National Farmers Union. “We’ve been encouraging them to send it back to committee.”
Jerome’s list of improvements included more money for promotion programs that promote diverse markets for family farmers, which he called a big help “with the farm economy being where it’s at right now.” Improvements in the rural safety net and restoration of the Conservation Stewardship Program also rank high on his list.
Whether the House will send it back to committee “is another story,” he said. “They could just bring it up as is.” Jerome said he expects a new vote on a farm bill during the third week of June.
No farm bill? No problem – maybe, said Catholic Rural Life’s Ennis.
“They may pass a continuing a resolution. It depends how long that is,” he said. “The 2012 farm bill became the 2014 farm bill. That took two years to get agreement. I don’t think they don’t want to go down that road again, but that’s always a possibility because of the midterm elections.” The farm bill is supposed to have a five-year lifespan.
Ennis added, “Farmers need to know that certain programs are in place. They need some security. That’s really key. They could do a continuing resolution, kick the can down the road for another year, or pass a farm bill.”
“Maybe it’s better to wait a year,” he sighed. “Who knows their thinking?”

(Editor’s note: Bishop Joseph Kopacz sent a letter to Representative Trent Kelly in May asking him to consider an amendment to the Farm Bill in support of international food assistance programs supported by Catholic Relief Services.)

States bordering Gulf of Mexico rank at, near bottom of new index

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By Mark Pattison
WASHINGTON – Everything gets ranked these days, from burger joints to colleges. States are no different.
But the state of some states is quite different from their counterparts.
An area called the “Gulf South” – the five states bordering the Gulf of Mexico – rank at or near the bottom of the JustSouth Index issued by the Jesuit Social Research Institute at Loyola University New Orleans. Those states are Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
The index, which debuted last year, looks at poverty, racial disparity and immigrant exclusion – areas that the study’s originators saw as important from the viewpoint of Catholic social teaching. The index looked at three aspects of each area before arriving at its rankings.

VARDAMAN – Hispanic workers harvest sweet potatoes in October, 2016. Bishop John Manz, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago and then chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Subcommittee on Pastoral Care of Migrants, Refugees and Travelers, visited the community that fall as part of an effort to get a first-hand view of the issues facing immigrant workers in the region. This year's Just South Index examines these same issues throughout the nation. (Mississippi Catholic file photo)

“Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas earned spots in the bottom six rankings” overall, said the study, which was unveiled May 2 at the Capitol. This is an improvement over the first year of the rankings, when they were in the bottom four.
Florida, which had been 41st in the first index, moved up six spots to 35th. But the Sunshine State shouldn’t pat itself on the back quite yet; it finished dead last in poverty.
Louisiana finished 50th in racial disparity and 47th in immigrant exclusion; while Mississippi finished ahead of only Florida in poverty, and Texas wound up 50th in immigrant exclusion and 48th in poverty.
Jesuit Father Fred Kammer, director of the Jesuit Social Research Institute, said: “Sadly, the Gulf South states continue to lag far behind many others in promoting integral human development for their residents, even though there are some marginal changes in one indicator or another.”
Progress, though, need not be incremental or Sisyphus-like. From last year’s index to this year’s, big leaps were not impossible. Wyoming soared from 24th to second, while Alaska moved from 28th to seventh, and Wisconsin leapt from 33rd to 16th. Likewise, Connecticut dropped from fifth to 20th, Utah slid from 17th to 33rd, and South Dakota slumped from 15th to 43rd.
The three indicators for the poverty ranking were the average income of poor households, health insurance coverage for the poor and housing affordability. For racial disparity, the indicators were public school integration, white-minority wage equity and white-minority employment equity. The immigrant exclusion indicators were immigrant youth outcomes, immigrants’ English proficiency and health insurance coverage of immigrants.
“The Gulf South has an unmistakable legacy of discrimination and marginalization toward people of color. The disproportionate advantages for white Americans in relation to persons of color in virtually every sphere of life illustrate the deep divisions that exist despite the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the election of the first African-American president,” the study said.
Father Kammer said May 2 the region’s legacy of slavery and racial discrimination contributes to unequal outcomes for whites and nonwhites.
Lane Windham, associate director of Georgetown University’s Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor, added the region “has the lowest union density” in the country. “People with union jobs make better wages,” she declared, noting the history of employers who have moved production to the nonunion South to avoid unions and to pay workers less.
Poverty remains a grinding, draining issue in the region. “In 1996, 68 of every 100 poor families received TANF (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) benefits and in 2014, just 23 of every 100 poor families were receiving benefits,” the report said. “The maximum TANF monthly benefit for a single-parent family of three in Mississippi is $170 compared to $653 in Wisconsin and $789 in New York.”
The region also has fared poorly in adapting to growing numbers of immigrants.
“States in the Gulf South have experienced a significant influx of immigrants into their workforces in recent years and have not yet made adequate adjustments to their social, economic and political systems in order to promote justice and dignity for immigrant residents,” the report said. “In addition, the Gulf South’s treatment of immigrants is colored by a history of discrimination against Hispanics and African-Americans.”
Immigrants face other forms of discrimination as well, according to the report. “In Texas, schools districts that have experienced an influx of students with limited English proficiency have had difficulty providing effective services to students because the school finance system does not take into consideration the true costs of providing quality language services to immigrant children,” it said.
“Some businesses will attempt to reduce costs by classifying immigrants as contract, temporary, or part-time workers to avoid offering benefits,” it continued. “Not only are these practices harmful to immigrant workers and families but also are not in the long-term interest of the employer, because workers who have health insurance are more present, productive and committed to their jobs.”
On another score, “public school segregation contributes to second-class schools where quality is low and resources are scarce. Additionally, gaps in employment and earnings stemming from racial and ethnic differences embody discriminatory practices and limit the economic opportunities of people of color to the benefit of their white neighbors,” the report said, noting that after federal supervision of public-school districts was eased, more minority students were educated in schools that were predominantly minority-majority.
While the index pointed out flaws in states’ practices, it also offered policy prescriptions.
States and school districts, it said, “should increase the share of resources allocated to schools serving a large percentage of minority students. Additional funding would allow those schools to attract and retain high-quality teachers, and provide critical support services for at-risk students.”
It added, “States can create incentive housing zones in which developers could request a project-based subsidy from the state for a specified number of affordable rental units developed within the zone.”
Another relatively easy fix: expanding Medicaid.
“The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act provided an option for state leaders to expand the Medicaid program, largely funded with federal dollars, to provide coverage to the poorest persons in the state,” the report said. “Nineteen states, including four in the Gulf South region, have chosen not to do so.”

(Follow Pattison on Twitter: @MeMarkPattison)

Historians’ approval moves Father Tolton’s sainthood cause forward

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Father Augustus Tolton, the first recognized U.S. diocesan priest of African descent, is pictured in an undated photo. Father Tolton’s cause is moving forward after receiving positive news from the Vatican’s historical consultants. (CNS photo/courtesy of Archdiocese of Chicago Archives and Records Center)

By Joyce Duriga
CHICAGO (CNS) – The canonization cause of Father Augustus Tolton received important approval from the Vatican’s historical consultants earlier this year, moving the cause forward.
Father Tolton, a former slave, is the first recognized U.S. diocesan priest of African descent. Chicago Cardinal Francis E. George opened his cause for canonization in 2011, giving the priest the title “servant of God.”
The consultants in Rome ruled in March that the “positio” – a document equivalent to a doctoral dissertation on a person’s life – was acceptable and the research on Father Tolton’s life was finished, said Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Joseph N. Perry, postulator for the cause.
“They have a story on a life that they deem is credible, properly documented. It bodes well for the remaining steps of scrutiny – those remaining steps being the theological commission that will make a final determination on his virtues,” Bishop Perry explained.
It now goes to the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, he said. Once the congregation’s members “approve it, then the prefect of that congregation takes the case to the pope,” he added.
If the pope approves it, Father Tolton would be declared venerable, the next step on the way to canonization. The last two steps are beatification and canonization. In general, two approved miracles through Father Tolton’s intercession are needed for him to be beatified and canonized.
Six historical consultants ruled unanimously on the Tolton “positio,” compiled by a team in Rome led by Andrea Ambrosi, based on hundreds of pages of research completed in Chicago.
While working on the document, Ambrosi’s team asked Bishop Perry why it took so long to open a cause for Tolton, who died in 1897.
“We told them that African-Americans basically had no status in the church to be considered at that time. Some people didn’t think we had souls. They were hardly poised to recommend someone to be a saint,” Bishop Perry said. “And then in those days there were hardly any saints from the United States proposed.”
The fact that the historical consultants approved the “positio” unanimously is a positive sign, he said. The cause is scheduled to go before the theological commission in February 2019.
Two miracles through Father Tolton’s intercession have been sent to Rome.
“We’re hoping and our fingers are crossed and we’re praying that at least one of them might be acceptable for his beatification,” Bishop Perry said.
Born into slavery, young Augustus fled to freedom with his mother and two siblings through the woods of northern Missouri and across the Mississippi River while being pursued by bounty hunters and soldiers. He was only 9 years old.
The small family made their home in Quincy, Illinois, a sanctuary for runaway slaves.
Growing up in Quincy and serving at Mass, Augustus felt a call to the priesthood, but because of rampant racism, no seminary in the United States would accept him.
He headed to Rome, convinced he would become a missionary priest serving in Africa. However, after ordination he was sent back to his hometown to be a missionary to the community there.
He was such a good preacher that many white people filled the pews for his Masses, along with black people. This upset the white priests in the town, who made life very difficult for him as a result. After three years, Father Tolton moved north to Chicago to minister to the black community, at the request of Archbishop Patrick Feehan.
Father Tolton worked tirelessly for his congregation in Chicago, to the point of exhaustion. On July 9, 1897, he died of heat stroke while returning from a priests retreat. He was 43.
Since the cause was opened, Bishop Perry and his team have given more than 170 presentations on Father Tolton around the country. They also have received inquiries about the priest from Catholics in the Philippines, Germany, Australia, Italy, France and countries in Africa.
People receive Father Tolton’s story well, Bishop Perry said.
“There’s also the element of surprise. … People always presume that we had black priests,” he told the Chicago Catholic, the archdiocesan newspaper.
Father Tolton did not speak out publicly against the racist abuse he encountered from his fellow Catholics. Rather, throughout his ministry, he preached that the Catholic Church was the only true liberator of blacks in America.
“I think people generally are touched by his story, especially regarding his stamina and perseverance given what appears to be a different mood today. People don’t accept stuff thrown in their faces anymore,” Bishop Perry said.
(Duriga is editor of the Chicago Catholic, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Chicago.)

Fun and fresh book appeals to hipster Catholics with spiritual swagger

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By Regina Lordan
“The Catholic Hipster Handbook: Rediscovering Cool Saints, Forgotten Prayers and Other Weird but Sacred Stuff” by Tommy Tighe. Ave Maria Press (Notre Dame, Indiana, 2017). 206 pp., $15.95.
“Catholic Puzzles, Word Games and Brainteasers” by Matt Swaim. Ave Maria Press (Notre Dame, Indiana, 2017). 64 pp., $9.95.
“Christian Labyrinths: A Celtic Coloring Book” by Daniel Mitsui. Ave Maria Press (Notre Dame, Indiana, 2017). 64 pp., $10.95.
Are you a Catholic hipster? Are you a bespectacled foodie, black skinny jeans and Chucks-wearing Catholic “sneaking a peek at your breviary app during your work meeting,” as the book teases?

These are the covers of “The Catholic Hipster Handbook: Rediscovering Cool Saints, Forgotten Prayers and Other Weird but Sacred Stuff” by Tommy Tighe; “Catholic Puzzles, Word Games and Brainteasers” by Matt Swaim; and “Christian Labyrinths: A Celtic Coloring Book” by Daniel Mitsui. The books are reviewed by Regina Lordan. (CNS)

Then yes, you are a Catholic hipster, and yes, “The Catholic Hipster Handbook: Rediscovering Cool Saints, Forgotten Prayers, and Other Weird but Sacred Stuff” by Tommy Tighe is for you.
Does this stereotype annoy you and does the whole idea of a Catholic hipster seem odd? It doesn’t matter, this book is still for you.
Just as the world is saturated with stereotypes about hipsters and Catholics (and perhaps now Catholic hipsters?), the market is saturated with books for Catholic moms, grieving, spirituality, history, the saints and the Gospel. It is not exactly overflowing with literature that purposely identifies with Catholics with a certain type of spiritual swagger.
This book will speak to the Catholic who is ready to appreciate the absolute coolness of Catholicism: It is countercultural, it’s ancient (more ancient than those ancient grains on your avocado toast), and there is so much to celebrate, discover and explore within the faith to deepen spirituality and life.
“The Catholic Hipster Handbook” augments these glorious features of the church and organizes them into ways to rediscover the church’s attitude, stuff, life and the attraction. The aptly called rediscoveries are explained and unfolded by interesting laypeople, as well by a Salesian sister and diocesan priest. Each topic is given a saint, prayer and activity. Hipsters love homework, right? Well no one really does, but this homework is easy, meaningful and involves pilgrimages, simple matching games, art projects and praying.
With chapters like “Catholic Weird on Twitter,” “What About Beards,” “Taking Pope Francis to the Farmers Market” and “The Local Craft (Catholic?) Brewery Scene,” there is no wonder “The Catholic Hipster Handbook” appeared on several top books lists floating around the internet.
Fresh and original, fun and clever, the book is laden with authentic church teaching, beautiful prayers, meaningful reflections and spiritual refreshment. In “O Scapular, My Scapular,” Sarah Vabulas, author and podcast host, discusses the meaning behind her beloved scapular. On one side is the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, on the other is an image of Mary.
Vabulas said wearing the scapular almost daily has given her the opportunity to answer curious questioners about the relationship between Mary and Jesus. She notes the history of the scapular and its symbolism to live a life focused on Jesus through prayer and the sacrament of reconciliation.
Lisa Hendey’s contribution includes practical applications to keep Catholics focused on Catholicism by sharing her favorite Catholic apps. Author and founder of the popular CatholicMom.com, Hendey also reminds readers about the importance of silencing technology to “simply be in the astounding presence of the greatest designer the world has ever known.”
Her cool saint is St. Eligius, who “would have been an app designer had he lived in modern times.” This patron saint of gas station workers was a priest, bishop and skilled metalworker who used his access to royalty to help the poor. Her activity? Spend some time with an elderly person and help them learn something new about their technology.
Written by Tommy Tighe, founder of CatholicHipster.com, with the help of contributors including Leticia Ochoa Adams from Sirius XM, musician and comedian Matt Dunn and Salesian Sister Brittany Harrison, the voices are diverse and bring something very interesting to the (brunch?) table. Try it out and reinvigorate your faith life with a breath of fresh air.
In the mood for more alternative ways to engage your faith life? Try out “Catholic Puzzles, Word Games, and Brainteasers” by Matt Swaim and “Christian Labyrinths: A Celtic Coloring Book” by Daniel Mitsui, both published by Ava Maria Press.
“Catholic Puzzles” is collection of mind-bending but fun quizzes, code scrambles and letter games. The games will hone your Bible and Catholic fact skills as well as provide several hours of entertainment.
“Christian Labyrinths” is a coloring book that marries a love of coloring with intricate tile patterns and Bible verses and prayers. Interestingly, each page contains a hidden mistake adding to the challenge and intrigue of this unique collection of coloring pages for adults.
(Lordan has master’s degrees in education and political science and is a former assistant international editor of Catholic News Service. She is a digital editor at Peanut Butter & Grace, an online resource for Catholic family catechesis.)

Regional Encuentros gain momentum as national event looms

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Regional meetings are the latest phase of a multiyear preparation process for “V Encuentro,” or the Fifth National Encuentro, to be held Sept. 20-23 in Grapevine, Texas. Previous national encuentros were held in 1972, 1977, 1985 and 2000.
First came parish-level encuentros, then diocesan gatherings and now the regional meetings. A team from the Diocese of Jackson attended the regional meeting held in Miami, Florida, earlier this year and will also attend the national gathering. As the regional meetings progress, some common themes and messages are emerging. What follows are brief overviews of several other regional V Encuentro meetings.

Answer call to discipleship by addressing church’s needs, delegates told
SAN ANTONIO (CNS) – Answer the call to missionary discipleship by addressing the needs of your church. Meet young people where they are and just listen. Improve catechetical resources and prepare future leaders. These were some of the strategies discussed by more than 800 delegates representing 18 Catholic dioceses in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, as they participated in a bilingual three-day Region X encuentro in San Antonio April 13-15.
“What is the Holy Spirit calling us to at this moment as a region?” asked Ken Johnson-Mondragon, the Fifth National Encuentro’s research coordinator, as he presented to delegates in San Antonio a regional working document based on diocesan findings. He added that the conversations among participants while using the document as a discernment tool were most important.
The delegates worked in about 80 small groups to talk about challenges, opportunities and successful practices in areas like evangelization and mission, faith formation and catechesis, youth, family ministry, immigration and theology. Their recommendations will be presented before the national encuentro in Grapevine.
According to the working document, Hispanic Catholics make up 6 million of the estimated 8.4 million Catholics living in the U.S. church’s episcopal Region X. Some dioceses in the region, like Beaumont and Fort Worth, Texas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Little Rock, Arkansas, have seen their Hispanic population increase more than 100 percent between 2006 and 2016.

All Catholics have duty to ‘walk with’ their neighbors, bishop says
ALEXANDRIA, Minn. (CNS) – The energetic spirit of the 200-plus people who gathered in Alexandria April 13 and 14 for the Region VIII encuentro captured the heart of St. Cloud’s Bishop Donald J. Kettler. The event was one of the year’s highlights for him, he said during a presentation to the gathering. Later in an interview with The Visitor, St. Cloud’s diocesan newspaper, he said that he was impressed with the “willingness among the people to develop their faith and share their faith. That evangelization spirit is here. I like their enthusiasm and their interest. … There really is an energy here.”
The regional encuentro had seven areas of ministry focus drawn from input given at the diocesan level: leadership development and pastoral training, families, youth and young adults, evangelization and mission, faith formation and catechesis, liturgy and spirituality, and immigration.
In addition to Bishop Kettler, other bishops attending were Auxiliary Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of St. Paul and Minneapolis and Bishop Robert D. Gruss of Rapid City, South Dakota.

Hispanic Catholics seen as the emerging ‘voice, conscience’ of church
PHOENIX (CNS) – Hispanic Catholics are being called “to be the ecclesial voice and conscience of the church in the U.S.,” said Hosffman Ospino, a leading expert on the intersection of Catholicism and Latino culture. “When the Hispanic Catholic community speaks, the church speaks,” he told participants in Phoenix for the Southwestern Regional Encuentro.
The Colombian-born Ospino, the final keynote speaker at the gathering, is an associate professor of theology and religious education at Boston College. He is a member of the leadership team for the V Encuentro.
The Feb. 23-25 regional in Phoenix drew about 480 delegates from 10 Catholic dioceses in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming, which are in the U.S. church’s episcopal Region XIII. The delegates reviewed the diocesan reports and discussed recommendations for consideration in Grapevine in September. Ospino spoke only in Spanish; there was simultaneous translation of his remarks. His topic was “Bearing Fruit,” on the beneficial effects of the integration of Spanish-speaking Catholics into American church life.

Retired Bishop Foley, of Birmingham, dies at age 88

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BIRMINGHAM, Ala – (CNS) Bishop David E. Foley, retired bishop of the Diocese of Birmingham, died April 17 at the St. John Vianney Residence for Priests in Birmingham. He was 88.
News reports said he had been battling cancer.
His funeral Mass was elebrated April 23 by Mobile Archbishop Thomas J. Rodi at the Cathedral of St. Paul in Birmingham with burial immediately following in the cathedral’s courtyard.

Now-retired Pope Benedict XVI greets retired Bishop David E. Foley of Birmingham, Ala., during a 2012 meeting at the Vatican. Bishop Foley died April 17 at the St. John Vianney Residence for Priests in Birmingham. He was 88. (CNS photo/L’Osservatore Romano) See OBIT-FOLEY April 18, 2018.

Bishop Foley served 11 years as bishop of Birmingham. He submitted his resignation in 2005 at age 75 as required by canon law. He was then chosen by the diocesan consultors to serve for two and a half years as administrator of the diocese prior to the installation of Bishop Baker.
The bishop’s retirement was in name only: He never stopped being a priest. He would spend Christmas and Thanksgiving at prisons, would celebrate Mass at any parish when needed and would regularly help with confirmations.
Always humble, he quietly continued his ministry in recent years: visiting the sick at hospitals each week and celebrating Mass once a week for the elderly who were unable to travel.
The bishop was born Feb. 3, 1930, in Worcester, Massachusetts. He moved to Washington with his family when he was 4. His father was a special assistant to the U.S. attorney general from 1934 to 1962.
After studies at St. Charles College in Catonsville, Maryland, and St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore, Father Foley was ordained a priest of the Washington Archdiocese May 26, 1956.
Over the next three decades, he held a series of parish posts, including pastorates from 1970 to 1986, and served on various archdiocesan committees. He was made archdiocesan secretary for clergy in February 1986, shortly before he was named auxiliary bishop of Richmond, Virginia.
For many years, Bishop Foley was a regular guest on the “Pillars of Faith” program broadcast on the Eternal Word Television Network, or EWTN, based in the Birmingham Diocese.
In 2000, he issued new norms for televised Masses produced in his diocese – including most notably EWTN telecasts of the Mass, which air worldwide several times a day. One of the norms specified that when a priest stands at the altar during a televised Mass he is to face the people. Prior to the decree, EWTN regularly featured Mass telecasts in which the priest at the altar faced away from the people.
Warsaw said Bishop Foley was “always known for his keen intellect, pastoral sensitivity and powerful preaching.”
He said even though the bishop had occasionally disagreed with Mother Angelica, EWTN’s founder, he frequently visited her after she suffered a stroke and had brain hemorrhage to pray for her.
Less than two weeks before he died, the bishop issued a handwritten note to Catholics in the diocese that was published in parish bulletins the weekend of April 14-15.
The note said he had been blessed in the outpouring of love, cards, spiritual bouquets, phone calls and other greetings in recent days.
“I feel a great desire to respond individually to you. This is just not possible,” he wrote.
The bishop said his illness was progressing “with some suffering and inconvenience” and he appreciated the care he had been receiving.
A statement from the Diocese of Birmingham thanked Hope Hospice, caregivers, doctors, and St. John Vianney Residence for Priests staff for “the superb care given to Bishop Foley during his illness.”

Faith can help cleanse societal waters of racism, says Cardinal Wuerl

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By Mark Zimmermann
WASHINGTON (CNS) – With faith, people can confront and help overcome the evil of racism, Washington Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl said in an April 17 talk at The Catholic University of America.
“The elimination of racism may seem too great a task for any one of us or even for the whole church,” he said. “Yet we place our confidence in the Lord, because in Christ, we are brothers and sisters, one to the other. With Christ, we stand in the spirit of justice, peace and love.”
Cardinal Wuerl, who as the archbishop of Washington is Catholic University’s chancellor, was invited by its president, John Garvey, to speak on his recent pastoral letter, “The Challenge of Racism Today.”
Speaking at the university’s Pryzbyla Center to an audience consisting mostly of seminarians and other students, the cardinal compared racism to a residue that has contaminated streams that flow into the societal well from which people drink. He warned that the unhealthy contaminants causing racism in our culture can be subtle and ubiquitous. “We have the possibility to be that fresh stream of water flowing into the societal well,” he said.
Noting that the U.S. bishops in their 1979 pastoral letter “Brothers and Sisters to Us,” identified racism as a sin, the cardinal said that evil has spanned continents and centuries and continues in today’s world.
“In societies around the world, the social construct of race has been used to classify ‘us’ and ‘them,’ separating those who are seen as ‘different’ — those who come from a different place or look differently or speak a different language,” Cardinal Wuerl said. “This construct has then led to the assertion of innate superiority of one group over the other. This has real destructive effects in society and in the lives of individuals and families.”
He said the concept of race is not a biological reality, but a social construct. “Properly understood, there are not multiple races, but objectively there is only one race – the human race,” he explained. “We are all one species, one people, one human family, albeit manifested in diverse ethnic, cultural and societal ways.”
He added, “We are, all of us, brothers and sisters, children of the same God.”
Quoting from his pastoral letter on racism, Cardinal Wuerl said, “Today we need to acknowledge past sins of racism and, in a spirit of reconciliation, move toward a church and society where the wounds of racism are healed.”
Noting that African-Americans – because of their skin color – have borne “the social scars of denigration and a cultural classification rooted, fostered and experienced in slavery in this nation and the denial of their fundamental human dignity,” he said the societal impacts of racism endure today.
“The context in which our response to racism takes place,” the cardinal said, “must also include a recognition of the lingering effects of slavery and segregation and of the many social inequities that exist, including the disparate negative impact that certain policies have had, including the concentration of people by race in residential neighborhoods, de facto segregation in public schools, with many African-American children being consigned to poor quality schools, the inequities manifested in employment opportunities, health care and incarceration rates.”
In his pastoral letter, Cardinal Wuerl emphasized the importance of church efforts to foster social justice, opportunity and hope in facing those problems.
Speaking in the month that marked the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Cardinal Wuerl praised him as being first and foremost “a man of faith.”
“His Christian faith is what animated his life and kept him going day after day,” the cardinal said. “Always faithful to the Lord and his Gospel, he also insistently, forcefully, yet without violence, reminded this nation that we are all brothers and sisters, because we are all children of the same God.”
Cardinal Wuerl also praised Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle, the first resident archbishop of Washington in 1948. Immediately he began working to integrate the archdiocese’s schools, six years before the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision that outlawed segregation in public schools. Then-Archbishop O’Boyle also gave the invocation at the beginning of the 1963 March on Washington, which featured Rev. King’s immortal “I Have a Dream” speech.
In February, Cardinal Wuerl blessed commemorative bronze plaques honoring unknown enslaved men, women and children buried throughout the Archdiocese of Washington. The plaques will be installed this spring in the archdiocese’s five cemeteries, to prayerfully remember those enslaved people buried in unmarked graves.

(Zimmermann is editor of the Catholic Standard, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington.)

U.S. delegates say young people want mentors, a voice, unity

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By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Young people want trusted guides as they explore their faith and their vocation, said five young adults from the United States attending the Vatican’s pre-synod meeting.
The U.S. delegates to the Vatican meeting March 19-25 also said the 305 young adults from around the world want to see young people consulted more often in their parishes and dioceses. And, one said, in conversations with other delegates, he discovered that Catholics in other countries are not experiencing the sharp divisions that U.S. Catholics are.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sent three delegates to the meeting: De La Salle Christian Brother Javier Hansen, who teaches at Cathedral High School in El Paso, Texas; Nick Lopez, director of campus ministry for the University of Dallas; and Katie Prejean-McGrady, a wife, new mother, youth minister and a popular speaker from the Diocese of Lake Charles, Louisiana.
Chris Russo, a 23-year-old working in Boston, represented the Ruthenian Catholic Church. And Nicole Perone, director of adult faith formation for the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, represented Voices of Faith, an international group that highlights the contributions of women in the church.
A topic that came up consistently at the meeting, Prejean-McGrady said, was young people’s desire “to find companions on the journey, to look for people to walk with them.”
“When you have personal relationships with people who are vibrantly living their faith, then you yourself are inspired to live your faith,” she said. And the relationship also provides a trusted source for dealing with concerns about topics such as sexuality or church teachings that may be difficult to understand, she said.
“‘Here’s a book; believe it’ – that doesn’t work with young people anymore, and we know that because they are consuming far too much media to where they are not going to read that book,” Prejean-McGrady said. “You have to talk with them, you have to walk with them, you have to love them and really spend time with them.”
Lopez noted that Pope Francis opened the meeting March 19 by telling the delegates that the church wanted to hear their opinions and their questions, even those they thought might make church leaders uncomfortable.
In ministry to young people, they need to know they can ask those questions and that “we are going to discuss them. Nothing is too radical. Nothing is out of left field,” he said. If a young person is struggling with something, that is all the reason needed to discuss it.
“Young people seem to live in this age of anxiety, meaning that in a world of seemingly endless possibilities, they are almost paralyzed because they have all of these different options and they want to go forth, but they want to make the right decision, and they want to do so without the fear of failure,” Russo said.
The accompaniment discussion was key for Perone, who counts herself blessed to have had the guidance and friendship of “a number of people, but especially women, really bright, faithful women who love the church and have dedicated their lives in service to the church.”
The preparatory document for the synod, which will be held in October, talks about “role models, guides and mentors,” she said, but a lot of young people do not know how to ask for such accompaniment, and many people do not realize they can offer that to young people.
In formulating suggestions for the bishops, Lopez said, “one of the main ones was having things like this pre-synod gathering more common in the parishes,” for example, by including young adults on the parish or diocesan council or creating parish or diocesan advisory committees of youth and young adults “and having those councils meet often.”