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Denver, Colo., Sep 23, 2016 / 03:07 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- It’s a common sight in at a city intersection. A man or a woman holds a cardboard sign: “Homeless, Hungry. Please Give. Anything Helps.”

Most motorists, stopped at the light and eager to move on, just ignore the person.

But what should you to do before the light changes?

The Denver-based urban ministry Christ in the City offers some advice.

“Ask the person’s name,” said the group’s tip sheet. “One of our friends on the street told us he went four months without hearing his own name. Ask the person’s name and remember it.”

Those with a regular commute should remember that name and say hello the next time.

“You’ll be amazed how his or her face will light up that you remembered.”

“To love is to know and be known,” Christ in the City said. “And so, the chronically homeless become unknown, they become separated, not just from society but from the experience of love itself.”

The chronically homeless are the most resistant to social services and other help. They’re most likely to have substance abuse or mental health problems.

Erin McCrory, the ministry’s managing director, reflected on their situation.

“They’ve told us that once your reality becomes eating out of garbage cans and you don’t hear your name spoken for months at a time, you accept this is your reality,” McCrory told the Denver Catholic Register. “Their spirits are broken and they are lacking in hope and faith in people.”

There are other ways of making personal contact.

“Reach out and offer a handshake,” the group’s tip sheet advised. “This simple gesture breaks a barrier and expresses that you recognize their dignity. One moment of awkwardness for you can be the highlight of the day for him or her.”

Each year, a new team of Christ in the City missionaries gathers in Denver for efforts such as homeless outreach. About 25 young missionaries volunteer for two years, receiving spiritual and academic formation in their time of service.

The group says one missionary alone reaches 500 homeless and engages 80-100 volunteers to engage in more than 62,000 hours of service for the homeless.

The group advises people to give more practical items in lieu of money, like socks, water, Gatorade, or gloves. Those who give food should keep in mind that people who live on the street often have teeth problems and can’t eat hard granola bars or apples. Soft foods like bananas or soft-baked granola bars are more edible.

“Giving money is a personal decision that requires discernment. Gift cards can be a better alternative to cash,” Christ in the City said. Items showing personal care are more likely to keep a focus on friendship.

“Your love and compassion is more effective than five bucks,” the group added.

The group’s final piece of advice?

“Offer to pray for them, and mean it,” Christ in the City said. “We try to be another Christ to our friends on the street, but we accept that we can only do so much. The rest we leave up to God in prayer. He loves our friends more than we ever could.”

The organization has had requests to expand into five other dioceses.

It will host its annual celebration at Holy Name Church in Sheridan, a Denver suburb, on Oct. 6. Missionaries will emcee the event and sit at tables with attendees.

More information about Christ in the City and tickets for its celebration are available at the Christ in the City website, http://christinthecity.co.

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Washington D.C., Sep 23, 2016 / 03:46 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With ISIS continuing to threaten vulnerable populations in Iraq and Syria, more action is needed to protect victims and offer justice before it’s too late, said human rights leaders this week.

“The survivors of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Iraq and Syria merit the fullest possible assistance of our government, including consideration for admission of victim refugees to the United States,” said David Scheffer, former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues.

Without adequate aid and support, these communities face total eradication, warned other speakers.

Policies focused on individual aid instead of helping whole communities increase “the likelihood that the complete eradication of these groups from the region – which was the intent of the genocide – will succeed,” warned Carl Anderson, Supreme Knight of the Knights of Columbus.

Anderson and Scheffer spoke at a Sept. 22 hearing before the U.S. Helsinki Commission on Capitol Hill entitled “Atrocities in Iraq and Syria: Relief for Survivors and Accountability for Perpetrators.”

The hearing focused on the Iraq and Syria Genocide Relief and Accountability Act of 2016 (H.R. 5961), introduced by commission chairman Rep. Chris Smith (R- N.J.), which includes steps to protect religious and ethnic communities targeted by ISIS – both in their homelands and as refugees – and how to guarantee that perpetrators of human rights abuses will be prosecuted and punished.

Rep. Smith praised recent declarations by the United States and other organizations that acknowledge continued ISIS persecution of Christian, Yazidi and other religious and ethnic communities as “genocide.”

However, he criticized the lack of action, saying that “displaced genocide survivors cannot pay for food, medicine, or shelter with words from Washington.”

Christians, Yazidis, and other ethnic and religious minorities in areas of Iraq and Syria have been facing intense persecution, human trafficking and death since their territories fell under ISIS control. In late 2015, the U.S. State Department formally labeled ISIS’ persecution as a “genocide.”

While documentation of the human rights abuses is necessary and can help spread awareness of the horrors these populations face, Smith continued, “first and foremost, they are crimes committed by perpetrators who need to be investigated and prosecuted.”

“This requires collecting, preserving, and preparing evidence that is usable in criminal trials.”

Scheffer explained in his testimony that it is already possible to prosecute perpetrators of war crimes, under some circumstances, but added that Smith’s proposed legislation could help ensure that “perpetrators of crimes against humanity do not find sanctuary from prosecution in the United States,” by including their atrocities under the criminal code.

Chris Engels, deputy director of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, a non-profit that carries out investigations of human rights atrocities, also spoke. He too stressed the need for increased accountability and prosecution of perpetrators of human rights abuses, and to prevent these events from happening in the future: two goals which he described as connected.   

Noting again that some avenues for accountability and punishment of human rights abuses exist currently and do not depend on the creation of special tribunals and courts, Engels encouraged government leaders to start planning for accountability measures, pointing to their importance for rebuilding efforts after conflict.

Prosecution of ISIS members and the Assad regime can also help the region “evolve into stable, peaceful, and just societies,” in a way that a lack of fighting or political settlements alone cannot, Engles continued.

“These trials have the power to serve as tangible examples to all in the region that the rule of law is here, and here to stay,” he said, warning that without avenues for justice, “the seeds of future conflict, cataclysmic destabilization, unprecedented human displacement, and militant terrorism lay undisturbed and ready to grow.”

Prosecuting militant leaders for human rights abuses, as opposed to charges of terrorism, could also help to diffuse the “‘clash of cultures’ narrative” between the West and the Islamic world, by providing fact-based evidence of the horrific crimes they have committed against whole classes of people.

Anderson urged the commission that the communities facing the most horrific violence at the hands of ISIS are not receiving adequate public aid – an oversight which all but seals their extermination.

“On the one hand we have the unanimous policy of the elected branches of the United States government stating that a genocide is occurring. On the other hand we have an aid bureaucracy that is allowing the intended consequence of the genocide to continue, even though it is in our power to stop it,” he criticized.

The bureaucratic roadblocks threaten the survival of Christians and Yazidi communities, he said, asking the United States to expand aid to these populations more directly.

Anderson also urged the commission to focus on building structures that end the “system of religious apartheid” in the region and ensure that Christians and other religious minorities receive “equal rights and the equal protection of the laws as enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

Stephen Rasche, legal counsel and director of resettlement programs for the Archdiocese of Erbil provided an on-the-ground perspective of working with more than 10,000 displaced families fleeing violence in Northern Iraq, echoing Anderson’s critique of the lack of public funding for the diocese’s work. The care for the tens of thousands of Christian and non-Christian internally displaced persons has been accomplished mainly through private donors, Rasche testified.

“It is no exaggeration to say that without these private donors, the situation for Christians in Northern Iraq would have collapsed, and the vast majority of these families would without question have already joined the refugee diaspora now destabilizing the Middle East and Europe.”

He noted that the “individual needs” policy assessment imposed by the United States and other international organizations excluded these displaced persons, because the care they receive from the Church is better than that received in many refugee camps. Such an assessment fails to acknowledge that they are “threatened with extinction as a people, the victims of genocide and a cycle of historical violence which seeks to remove them permanently from their ancestral homes.”

Bill Canny, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Migration and Refugee Services, spoke of the need both to rebuild the societies in Iraq and Syria, and to address “the root causes of the forced migration,” as well as the need for the United States and other countries to “continue to protect and support internally displaced people and refugees from Syrian and Iraq.”

He pointed out that “return is the first choice and option most viable for most refugees,” but that in some cases, return is not possible. He suggested that in those cases, resettlement of refugees in new homes should be considered, particularly those who are most vulnerable if they return.

“We have urged the United States and other concerned countries, as well as countries in the region, to do more to protect them and others who are facing persecution at the hands of both state actors and non-state actors.”

However, he continued, the United States has resettled a concerningly low number of religious minorities in the past year, particularly Christians.

Whatever the causes for the low numbers of Christian resettlement, Canny said, it is clear “that Christians and other religious minorities have become a target for brutality at the hands of the non-state actor ISIS, and that they are fleeing for their lives, and that far too few of them have been attaining U.S. resettlement.”

 

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Chieti, Italy, Sep 23, 2016 / 04:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- At an ecumenical gathering held this week, representatives of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches signed a joint document regarding synodality and primacy during the first millennium.

The agreement can point to ways of “resolving problems still existing between Catholics and Orthodox today,” said Msgr. Andrea Palmieri, undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

The 14th plenary session of the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches was held in the Italian city of Chieti Sept. 15-22. Their agreement was subtitled “Towards a Common Understanding in Service to the Unity of the Church.”

The primacy of the Bishop of Rome is among the main points of disagreement between the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches.

In the west, Church unity was expressed through being in communion with the Bishop of Rome, as the successor of Saint Peter. Petrine primacy among the apostles was a cornerstone in the west, whereas the east regarded Saint Peter and his successors as Bishop of Rome as “first among equals.”

The Eastern Orthodox, on the other hand, have a conciliar or synodal model of the Church. For them, unity is through the common faith and communion in the sacraments, rather than a centralized authority. They do not recognize the authority of the Bishop of Rome over all Christians, but rather consider him equal to other bishops, though with a primacy of honor.

The understanding reached this week was approved despite a disagreement regarding particular paragraphs by the Georgian Orthodox Church. When the document is published, the Georgians' objection will be included as a footnote.

Moreover, the commission was unable to agree to a focus for the next plenary session, due to be held in two years in an Orthodox nation.

According to a statement of the Russian Orthodox Church, its Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk proposed synodality and primacy in the second millennium – with a stress on the place of the “uniate” Churches, or those which maintain Byzantine rites while having come into communion with the Bishop of Rome.

The Russian Orthodox Church says the phenomenon of Eastern Catholic Churches which broke communion with the Orthodox “still constitutes a stumbling stone in the Orthodox-Catholic relations.”

The statement noted that Metropolitan Hilarion “reminded the meeting that the Joint Commission was to discuss the issue of ecclesiological and canonical consequences of Uniatism at its plenary session in Baltimore, USA, as far back as the year 2000,” but that “the work in Baltimore was not completed because of disagreements that arose both between the Catholic and Orthodox sides of the dialogue and within each of the sides.”

The metropolitan said that the Russian Orthodox agreed to discuss synodality and primacy on the condition that within this context “the Commission will explore the canonical and ecclesiological consequences of Uniatism. However, for ten years from 2006 to 2015 the Commission has never revisited this theme.”

He maintained that having talked about primacy and synodality in the first millennium, these themes in the second millennium is the natural next step, and that “here we will have to deal with the issue of the 1054 schism and also the issue of Uniatism as one of the central ones in the second millennium. I can predict that there will be many divisive issues and that we will not agree on every point. However, the aim of our dialogue is not simply to agree on the points of which we agree anyhow, but we have to explore also the points of disagreement. And the issue of Uniatism is one such extremely burning issues.”

Metropolitan Hilarion drew attention to statements made by Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, who is head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church – one of the 'uniates'. He said the major archbishop's statements “go against the line of our dialogue, create obstacles on its way and sow distrust between the Orthodox and the Catholics … We have to understand that there are people in our Churches who create obstacles on our way, and we have to bear it in mind when we speak about the future of our dialogue.”

The Russian Orthodox statement also said that one member of its delegation, Archimandrite Irenaeus, “stressed that it would be difficult for the Russian Orthodox Church to continue working in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue if the problem of ecclesiological and canonical consequences of the unia remains unsolved.”

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