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Portland, Ore., Oct 10, 2016 / 06:23 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Christian couple has closed their Oregon bakery, which faced heavy fines after they declined to make a cake for a same-sex “wedding” ceremony.

“We have closed Sweet Cakes,” the bakery said on its Facebook page Sept. 29. “We appreciate everyone’s continued prayer and support!”

The announcement did not give further explanation for the closure. Its storefront in Gresham, Oregon was closed in 2013 but the owners, married couple Aaron and Melissa Klein, had continued to operate at home, Portland’s Q13 Fox News reports.

Hiram Sasser, deputy chief counsel for the First Liberty Institute, the legal group representing the couple, said they closed the bakery “months ago” but they still received inquiries about possible orders.

“Aaron and Melissa simply wanted to update their Facebook page to eliminate any confusion,” Sasser said. “We believe in tolerance and respect for the variety of beliefs we have in our society and are hopeful we can restore freedom of tolerance and belief in this case.”

At one point, the Kleins refused to pay a $135,000 fine ordered by the State of Oregon for declining to make a cake for a same-sex wedding in 2013. They later paid the money, but it is in an escrow account pending legal appeals.

“We lost our business,” Melissa Klein said in a February 2016 video produced by First Liberty Institute. “You work so hard to build something up, and something you've poured your heart into and was your passion, to lose that has been devastating for me.”

“We served these two women in the past, we had a great time,” Klein said. “When I do a cake, I feel a part of what these people are celebrating. For me to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding would fully go against what I believe.”

Supporters of the Kleins raised over $500,000 for them through an online campaign.

In 2013, Aaron Klein declined to make the cake for the same-sex couple who had previously patronized the bakery. He told the Oregonian newspaper he chose not to make the cake because he believes marriage is “a religious institution between a man and woman as stated in the Bible.”

Klein said his bakery sold its pastries and cakes to all customers, regardless of sexual orientation, but they turned down requests for cakes for same-sex ceremonies specifically. The bakery had crosses on its walls and the New Testament passage John 3:16 on its website.

Rachel Cryer, the woman who filed the complaint against the bakery, claimed Klein said she and her partner were “abominations to the Lord” and that their money was not equal to others.

Klein denied making those statements.

“I apologized for wasting their time and said we don’t do same-sex marriages,” he told the ABC television affiliate KATU in 2013. “I honestly did not mean to hurt anybody, didn’t mean to make anybody upset.”

Laura Bowman, whose partner filed the legal complaint, said Cryer was “reduced to tears” when she heard the bakery would not bake the cake.

The couple had previously bought a wedding cake at the store several years before for one of the women’s mothers and her husband.

The complaint was filed with the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. Same-sex “marriage” was not recognized in the state at the time, but there were strict anti-discrimination provisions in law like the Oregon Equality Act.

“It is unfortunate the state of Oregon cannot simply leave people alone when it disagrees with their beliefs,” Sasser said. “America is a multicultural society with people of many different beliefs. The government is demanding everyone believe the same thing rather than tolerating the diversity of ideas and lifestyles that represent American multiculturalism.”

 

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Bob Nichols, Catholic Moment

By Cindy Wooden

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Choosing new members of the College of Cardinals, Pope Francis once again looked to countries and particularly to dioceses that were not and never had been represented in the body that advises the pope and bears responsibility for electing his successor.

Announcing the names of 17 cardinals he will create Nov. 19, Pope Francis chose men from 14 nations, which will bring the total number of countries represented in the College of Cardinals to 79. When he announced the names Oct. 9, the college had members from 72 countries.

The cardinal electors -- the prelates under the age of 80 and therefore eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope -- currently represent 57 nations; after the consistory to create new cardinals, the group will bring together men from 60 countries.

The 115 cardinal electors who entered the conclave in 2013 that elected Pope Francis had come from 48 countries. Eight years earlier, the group that elected now-retired Pope Benedict XVI came from 53 nations.

Under Pope Francis, the idea that some large archdioceses are always led by a cardinal is fading, but is not altogether gone. His latest choices included the archbishops of Chicago, Malines-Brussels and Madrid. But other traditional cardinal sees like Venice and Turin in Italy or Baltimore and Philadelphia in the United States were not included in the pope's latest picks.

Not only did Pope Francis name the first ever cardinal electors from Bangladesh, Central African Republic and Papua New Guinea, he named Archbishop Joseph W. Tobin the first cardinal elector of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis; Archbishop Baltazar Porras Cardozo the first cardinal elector of Merida, Venezuela; and Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes the first archbishop of Tlalnepantla, Mexico, to be a cardinal elector. (The late Cardinal Joseph E. Ritter of St. Louis had been archbishop of Indianapolis 15 years before being named cardinal and the late Cardinal Adolfo Suarez Rivera of Monterrey had been archbishop of Tlalnepantla 14 years before being named a cardinal.)

The 2016 consistory will be the third called by Pope Francis to create new cardinals and, once again, members of the Roman Curia received just a nod. Irish-born U.S. Bishop Kevin J. Farrell, the prefect of the new Vatican office for laity, family and life, is the only member of the Curia chosen this time. Archbishop Mario Zenari, the pope's nuncio to Syria, also was tapped, but the pope made it clear that the Italian archbishop would remain in war-torn Syria.

After the distribution of red hats Nov. 19, members or retired members of the Curia will make up 28 percent of the cardinal electors. Just over 35 percent of the members of the group that elected Pope Francis in 2013 were Curia veterans, although only 24 percent of the cardinals in the conclave that elected Pope Benedict were.

After the consistory, the electors named cardinals by Pope Benedict will account for just over 46 percent of the total; just over 36 percent will have been named by Pope Francis; and just over 17 percent will be cardinals created by St. John Paul II.

St. John XXIII and Blessed Paul VI expanded the size of the College of Cardinals and began the modern internationalization of the body. In 1970, Blessed Paul decreed that cardinals over the age of 80 could not vote in a conclave, and in 1975 he set the limit of cardinal electors at 120 men.

Fifty-two percent of the members of the conclave that elected Pope Francis were European. In early October, 46.8 percent of the cardinal electors were from Europe, and after the consistory the group will make up 44.6 percent of the electors. The 24 Italian electors as of Oct. 10 account for 21.6 percent of those eligible to enter a conclave. With Cardinal-designate Zenari, the Italians will account for 20.6 percent of the electors after Nov. 19.

The second-largest group is and will be from North and South America. Currently 30 of the 111 electors, or 27 percent, are from the Americas. The percentage will grow to 28 percent when the new cardinals are inducted. With three new U.S. cardinals, the United States and Canada will account for 10.7 percent of the college.

After Nov. 19, the percentage of African electors will rise to 12.4 percent from its current 11.7 percent; the percentage from Asia will decline slightly to 11.5 percent from its current 11.7 percent; and the group from Oceania -- Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific -- will rise to 3.3 percent from its current 2.7 percent.

With 25 electors after the consistory, Italy will remain the nation with the most cardinals by far. The United States will be second with 10 electors. France and Brazil each will have five electors. Spain, Poland, Mexico and India each will have four.

At 49, Cardinal-designate Dieudonne Nzapalainga of Bangui, Central African Republic, will become the youngest member of the College of Cardinals. Only one other member of the body -- Cardinal Soane Mafi of Tonga, 54 -- was born in the 1960s.

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Follow Wooden on Twitter: @Cindy_Wooden.

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Carlos Garcia Rawlins, Reuters

By Dennis Sadowski

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Emergency aid slowly began to reach some of the thousands of Haitians displaced by Hurricane Matthew in the country's picturesque southwest as reports of casualties slowly trickled in from communities cut off by the storm.

The number of deaths reached 1,000 on Oct. 9, five days after the storm's 145-mile-an-hour winds and torrential rains slammed into the country, according to a tally by Reuters based on conversations with local officials.

However, Haiti's Civil Protection Agency reported that 336 people had died. The agency's accounting of casualties is lower because of a policy that requires emergency workers visit each village to confirm the number of casualties.

Health care workers were becoming increasingly concerned Oct. 9 that cholera would explode throughout the worst hit areas of Grand'Anse and South departments because of a lack of water and sanitation. The water-borne disease was introduced into Haiti in 2010 by U.N. peacekeeping troops. More than 800,000 cases and nearly 10,000 deaths have been attributed to the disease since then by Haiti's Department of Public Health and Population.

Reports of damage and casualties in Cuba and other nations affected by the storm were sporadic. In Cuba, the entire eastern tip of the island, from Baracoa to Punta de Maisi, was cut off from neighboring Guantanamo, said Father Jose Espino, pastor of San Lazaro Church in Hialeah, Florida, and the archdiocese's liaison to Caritas Cuba.

In Haiti, emergency supplies that had been stored in warehouses before the storm were being distributed to people whose homes were turned into matchsticks by Matthew, said Chris Bessey, Haiti country director for Catholic Relief Services.

CRS staff flew into Les Cayes, a city of 71,000 on the southwest coast. Bessey said thousands of people remained in shelters in the city.

"I don't know if that is decreasing. I imagine that won't decrease all that quickly because more than 80 percent of the houses were damaged or destroyed," he said.

Bessey expressed concern for outlying coastal communities on the far end of Haiti's southern peninsula, which took the brunt of Matthew's assault and have been cut off from communications.

"Time is of the essence and we want to keep going," Bessey told Catholic News Service from Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital.

In a telegram to Haitian Cardinal Chibly Langlois of Les Cayes, president of the Haitian bishops' conference, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state, said Pope Francis wanted the people of Haiti to know how sad he was to hear of the death and destruction brought by Hurricane Matthew.

Pope Francis offered condolences to "all those who lost a loved one" and assured "the injured and all those who have lost their homes and belongings" that he was close to them through prayer. "Welcoming and encouraging solidarity in facing the country's latest trial, the Holy Father entrusts all Haitians to the maternal protection of Our Lady of Perpetual Help," said the telegram, released Oct. 7 by the Vatican.

The U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency planned to send additional staff and vehicles into the region. Among the areas CRS was attempting to reach was Jeremie, a town northwest of Les Cayes. Initial reports said that little was left standing after the storm passed.

Meanwhile, CRS on Oct. 7 committed $5 million as an initial contribution to help Haiti and other Caribbean nations to recover from the storm, the strongest to hit the region in a decade.

"Haiti in particular has once again been struck by tragedy," Sean Callahan, chief operating officer of CRS, said in a statement announcing the aid package. "This commitment shows that we will continue to stand with its people, offering our hand in friendship to help and support them in this time of dire need."

Bessey said food, water and hygiene and kitchen kits stored in a warehouse in Les Cayes were undamaged when Matthew's fierce winds tore part of a roof off the facility. Workers planned to complete repairs Oct. 7 so that the facility could be fully operational again, he said.

Father Espino told the Florida Catholic, newspaper of the Archdiocese of Miami, Oct. 7 that in Cuba, a bridge and two main roads leading into Baracoa collapsed or buckled because of flooding and mudslides. He said it took Bishop Wilfredo Pino Estevez of Guantanamo-Baracoa 16 hours to make the trek from Guantanamo to Baracoa, a trip that normally takes about two hours.

Even then, the damage in coastal areas, such as Maisi, could only be assessed by helicopter, Father Espino said. About 90 percent of the dwellings in Baracoa have been destroyed although no deaths had been reported as of Oct. 7.

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Contributing to this report were Cindy Wooden in Rome and Ana Rodriguez-Soto in Miami.

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Follow Sadowski on Twitter: @DennisSadowski.

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Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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