Catholic News 2

Miami, Fla., Sep 1, 2016 / 03:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With Zika virus reaching the continental U.S. in recent weeks, scientists are scrambling to find a cure and a vaccine. Meanwhile, the local Church is stepping up to help protect the most vulnerable populations.

“This is a public health crisis and we are working with people,” Richard Turcotte, CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami, told CNA.

Within the Archdiocese of Miami – an area that now contains two local Zika transmission zones – Catholic Charities serves nearly 4,000 people a year, through 14 different social service programs that include counseling, elderly services, substance abuse recovery and homeless shelters.

The organization is focusing on prevention by working to reduce the likelihood of mosquito bites, particularly among the homeless population and children.

In the areas specifically affected by Zika, Catholic Charities runs a child development center and a homelessness center. The organization has already made changes to its day-to-day operations aimed at protecting the people it serves from the mosquitoes that carry the virus.

First, Catholic Charities has installed mosquito traps and initiated daily inspections of both facilities to make sure there’s no standing water where mosquitoes can breed.

As an added layer of protection, the childcare center has altered its schedule so that children do not need to go outside during the daytime, when the mosquito species that spreads Zika virus is most active.

Catholic Charities is also offering its clients information from the CDC about the disease’s symptoms and prevention.

The Zika virus garnered international attention in 2015 after areas of Brazil noted a spike in cases of the birth defect microcephaly – a condition marked by abnormally small heads, brains, and developmental delays – following a recent outbreak of the virus in areas of northeastern Brazil. By early 2016, the virus had spread to other areas of South America, Central America, the Caribbean, Mexico and the United States.

Research on the virus has confirmed the link between Zika virus infection during pregnancy and severe neurological birth defects, including microcephaly and incomplete brain development. Recent studies have also suggested that adult brain cells may be susceptible to Zika virus as well. Possible connections have been found between Zika virus and two autoimmune disorders: ADEM and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

Health officials recently found evidence of local Zika virus transmission in two separate areas around Miami, Florida. The discovery of the local transmission of the virus prompted a federal health advisory that pregnant women not visit the affected areas of Miami, the first such travel warning ever issued to an area in the continental United States due to an infectious disease.

Officials are worried that the outbreak could get worse. The Center for Disease Control estimates that by the end of 2016, Zika may infect as much as a quarter of the population of Puerto Rico, the United States’ most populous territory, with over 3 million inhabitants.

Steps focused on prevention and eradication of the virus – such as those being implemented by Catholic Charities – are not only sound public health policy, but also help to respect the dignity of the human person and the good of society, said John DiCamillo, ethicist for the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

DiCamillo applauded efforts such as the removal of mosquito breeding sites, targeting the breeds that spread Zika, and other prevention measures such as screens, air conditioning nets, bug repellant and public health education. These actions, he said, can help restrict the transmission of mosquito-borne illnesses for the entire population, which is particularly important as the danger of Zika among adults is becoming more known.

He criticized efforts to promote abortion as a solution to the spread of the disease, saying that this approach misses the point. “If we’re going about directly killing people who are part of a society as a means of protecting a society, then we’re doing something that’s fundamentally self-contradictory.”

“It’s important to remember that in each of these cases we’re dealing with a human life, a human person, who is being impacted by the disease, and at no point does that give us the right as a society, much less as a parent, to directly intend the destruction of that individual,” he said.

He added that while it may be “perfectly legitimate for public health authorities to encourage the avoidance of pregnancy,” contraception should not be advocated as a legitimate means of halting the disease. Contraption does nothing to stop the spread of Zika, he noted, and the Church teaches that its use is immoral because it violates the nature of the sexual act. “We can’t do evil that good may come of it,” DiCamillo stressed.

As the Zika outbreak continues in the United States and in the Western Hemisphere more broadly, DiCamillo hopes that prevention methods will follow the lead of Catholic Charities and center around evidence-based strategies of mosquito control and eradication.

“I’d love to see a much greater focus or emphasis on the prevention of the spread of the disease through the prevention of mosquito bites,” he told CNA.

“That’s I think universally acknowledged by anyone in the scientific community or medical community as being the best way to prevent the disease and any of its harmful consequences – to go to the root and prevent the bites of mosquitoes.”

 

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Vatican City, Sep 1, 2016 / 04:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- On Thursday Pope Francis yet again showed his knack for surprises and his openness to “newness” by adding the care of creation to the traditional sets of both the corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

“We usually think of the works of mercy individually and in relation to a specific initiative: hospitals for the sick, soup kitchens for the hungry, shelters for the homeless, schools for those to be educated, the confessional and spiritual direction for those needing counsel and forgiveness.”

However, when we look at the works of mercy as a whole, “we see that the object of mercy is human life itself and everything it embraces,” the Pope said in his message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, published Sept. 1.

Since human life itself and all that it entails naturally includes caring for creation, Francis proposed “a complement” to the two traditional sets of seven corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

“May the works of mercy also include care for our common home,” he said, explaining that as a spiritual work of mercy, care for creation “calls for a grateful contemplation of God’s world which allows us to discover in each thing a teaching which God wishes to hand on to us.”

As a corporal work of mercy, he said, it “requires simple daily gestures which break with the logic of violence, exploitation and selfishness and makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world.”

Instituted by Pope Francis in 2015 shortly after the release of his environmental encyclical “Laudato Si,” the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation takes place each year on Sept. 1.

Francis’ decision to implement the event is in keeping with themes expressed in the encyclical, and is also seen as a sign of unity with the Orthodox Church, which established September 1 as a day to celebrate creation in 1989.

The seven traditional corporal works of mercy include concrete acts of charity such as feeding the hungry; giving drink to the thirsty; clothing the naked; sheltering the homeless; visiting the imprisoned; visiting the sick and burying the dead.

The spiritual works, on the other hand, entail actions like instructing the ignorant; counseling the doubtful; admonishing the sinner; bearing wrongs patiently; forgiving offenses willingly; comforting the sorrowful and praying for the living and the dead.

Caring for creation, then, marks a new opportunity not only to get a green thumb, but to practice mercy while doing so.

At a Sept. 1 news conference announcing Pope Francis’ message for the 2016 event, Cardinal Peter Turkson, President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace and president-elect for the newly established dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, said a new work of mercy dedicated to creation reflects Pope Francis’ intentions in writing Laudato Si.

After evaluating and amending our own lives in terms of how we personally care for creation, “Pope Francis is calling us toward a new work of mercy.”

“Nothing unites us to God more than an act of mercy, for it is by mercy that the Lord forgives our sins and gives us the grace to practice acts of mercy in his name,” the cardinal said, quoting the Pope’s environmental encyclical.

“This is really the final step of ecological conversion, a true internalization of an ecological sensibility,” he said, echoing Pope Francis’ own words that that caring for creation is truly a “complement (to) both the spiritual and corporal works of mercy.”

Francis’ message “is the next logical step” after writing Laudato Si, Cardinal Turkson said, because “it is showing us how to internalize its teaching in our lives and in our world.”

The Pope, he said, “is asking us to live Laudato Si. Are we ready to respond to the Holy Father’s invitation – and challenge?”

In comments to journalists, Terence Ward, author of the book “The Guardian of Mercy” on famous Renaissance painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s work “The Seven Works of Mercy,” and who was also present at the Sept. 1 news conference, said the new work of mercy is meant to be a concrete action that “helps you change your way of thinking.”

“It's not about changing the world tomorrow, it's about changing ourselves and how we look at the world,” he said, explaining that for Pope Francis, care for creation is “it's an overarching work of mercy from which all others follow.”

To give tainted water or food to the thirsty of hungry “doesn't make sense,” nor does sheltering someone in a house about to fall apart, he said, noting that the Pope is inviting us “to reflect” on the new work and how it can be put to action in our daily lives.

In his message, divided into 6 points, Pope Francis noted the frequent remarks of Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople on the need to care for our common home, drawing attention “to the moral and spiritual crisis at the root of environmental problems.”

Quoting his encyclical Laudato Si, Francis cautioned that “God gave us a bountiful garden, but we have turned it into a polluted wasteland of debris, desolation and filth.”

“We must not be indifferent or resigned to the loss of biodiversity and the destruction of ecosystems, often caused by our irresponsible and selfish behavior,” he said, adding that “2015 was the warmest year on record, and 2016 will likely be warmer still.”

Mankind is called to “till and keep” the earth in “a balanced and respectful way,” he said, noting that “to till too much, to keep too little, is to sin.”

He encouraged Christians to make an examination of conscience, evaluating the ways in they have contributed to “the disfigurement and destruction of creation,” given that “we all generate small ecological damage.”

After doing a sincere examination of conscience, “we can confess our sins against the Creator, against creation, and against our brothers and sisters,” he said, explaining that we confess sins against the environment because “we are penitent and desire to change.”

The grace received from confession must them be put into action with concrete ways of thinking and acting that are more respectful of creation, he said, suggesting the reduction of water use, recycling, carpooling, turning off unused lights and limiting the amount of food cooked to only what will be consumed as ideas to start with.

Care of creation should also contribute “to shaping the culture and society in which we live,” Pope Francis said, adding that economics, politics, society and culture “cannot be dominated by thinking only of the short-term and immediate financial or electoral gains.”

“Instead, they urgently need to be redirected to the common good, which includes sustainability and care for creation.”

Francis concluded his message by stressing that despite our faults and the daunting challenges posed by caring for the environment, “we never lose heart.”

The Creator, he said, “does not abandon us; he never forsakes his loving plan or repents of having created us…for he has united himself definitively to our earth, and his love constantly impels us to find new ways forward.”

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(Vatican Radio) Thursday, September 1st marks a worldwide day of prayer for the care of creation, an initiative started back in 1989 by the Orthodox Churches to celebrate the beginning of their liturgical year. Last year, after the publication of his encyclical Laudato Si’, Pope Francis established the day as an observance for the Catholic Church as well.

Listen to Philippa Hitchen's report:

Speaking to pilgrims and visitors gathered in St Peter’s Square on Sunday, Pope Francis looked forward to Thursday’s day of prayer for the care of creation, describing the event as, “an opportunity to strengthen our common commitment to safeguard life, respecting the environment and nature.”   

Christians of all different denominations will be marking the initiative, not just on September 1st but throughout the following weeks until October 4th, feast day of St Francis of Assisi for the Western Churches.

In a message for this year’s event, Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew stressed the importance of education to highlight the links between the environmental crisis and the spiritual crisis of our world driven by greed, gluttony and selfish desires. We must be careful to consider the possibilities of rapid technological progress in terms of the damage it can cause to our natural environment, he said.

In a video message, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, Rev Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, also warned that in a world obsessed by economic growth, we must radically rethink our ways of producing, trading and consuming our natural resources.

“In a world where nearly everything has a price tag, it’s time for us to affirm once again that creation is not for sale…”

And in a joint statement the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences and the Conference of European Churches, together with Europe’s Christian Environmental Network called on all people to strengthen ecumenical prayers and practical action to care for both our neighbours in need and for the ‘common home’ in which we live. 

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Montgomery, Ala., Sep 1, 2016 / 12:29 am (CNA).- A devout Christian woman has said Alabama county officials violated her rights by forcing her to remove her headscarf for her driver’s license photo when she considers it part of her religious practice to cover her hair.

Yvonne Allen of Tuskegee, Ala. said the Lee County clerk told her only Muslim women are allowed to cover their hair.

“I was devastated when they forced me to remove my headscarf to take my driver license photo,” Allen said in a statement. “Revealing my hair to others is disobedient to God. I should have the same right as people of other faiths to be accommodated for my religious beliefs.”

The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in Montgomery federal court, names as plaintiffs Becky Frayer, the chief clerk of the Lee County Probate Judge's office, and Probate Judge Bill English, her supervisor.

The lawsuit says that the officials violated Allen’s rights under the Alabama constitution and the U.S. Constitution’s establishment clause and free exercise clauses of the First Amendment.

Allen says that the practice of covering her hair is rooted in her reading of St. Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians Chapter 11 regarding women and head coverings.

“I have followed this command every day since and believe that removing my headscarf in public is extremely shameful and dishonors God,” she said.

In an April 25 statement at the ACLU website, Allen said she was treated in a way that was “humiliating and demeaning.”

The Alabama Department of Motor Vehicles clerk spoke to her “in a smug and condescending tone” and said that Christian women don’t cover their hair, she charged.

Alabama law enforcement rules allow a headscarf to be worn as long as it does not cover the face, the Associated Press reports.

Susan Watson, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, said the government “cannot discriminate between faiths in granting religious accommodations,” the Alabama news site AL.com reports.
 
The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a court order allowing Allen to re-take her photo with her head covered.

The ACLU, the legal group representing Allen, has in the past been a frequent opponent of religious freedom. It has filed lawsuits that seek to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions and sterilizations at their facilities.

It is also a player in a well-funded campaign against religious exemptions which it considers discriminatory.

Grant listings show that the Arcus Foundation, founded by billionaire heir Jon Stryker, has given the ACLU’s foundation $600,000 for its campaign to “end the use of religion to discriminate” and another $100,000 to support “communications strategies to convince conservative Americans that religious exemptions are ‘un-American’.”

 

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