Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday during his general audience greeted the participants the General Assembly of the World Conference of Secular Institutes.

A Secular Institutes is an “institute of consecrated life in which the Christian faithful living in the world strive for the perfection of charity and work for the sanctification of the world especially from within.” [CIC 710]

The General Assembly of the World Conference of Secular Institutes takes place every four years, and brings together the Presidents General of the member secular institutes, as well as the Presidents of national and international conferences of secular institutes.

Pope Francis said he “wishes this Jubilee of Mercy…is a time of grace and spiritual renewal.”

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Wednesday urged moral theologians to “break the bread of mercy” when teaching “this important discipline.”

The Holy Father was speaking during his weekly general audience in St. Peter’s Square.

Among those present were participants at a Congress celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Italian Theological Association for the Study of Morality.

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Marquette, Mich., Aug 24, 2016 / 03:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Diocese of Marquette in Michigan says it is already experiencing success in their process of adopting a Catholic liberal arts curriculum for all its schools, rather than using Common Core State Standards.

The schools in the diocese previously had no set curriculum. The adoption of a classical curriculum comes at a time when two bills that would repeal and replace the Common Core State Standards are being considered in Michigan’s state legislature.

In June, Marquette Bishop John Doerfler said in a statement that after serious consideration, the diocesan schools would not be adopting Common Core State Standards “which were developed for the public school system.”

“That said, we acknowledge that there is a base of adequate secular material in the Common Core State Standards that faith-based schools could reference as part of their educational programming,” he said.

“While we respectfully understand that other private and Catholic schools may discern to adapt or adopt the standards for these and other reasons, we do not believe that such actions would benefit the mission, Catholic identity or academic excellence of our schools.”

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a set of federal education standards in mathematics and English language arts and literacy, with learning goals that outline what a student should know and be able to do at the end of each grade. In 2011, 46 states and Washington DC adopted the standards, though since then, three states have officially repealed the standards, while 25 states have dropped the program that provides Common Core-aligned exams.

The debate about whether or not to implement of Common Core standards in Catholic schools, which represent the largest segment of private education in the United States, has been fraught with controversy.

In 2013, more than 130 leading Catholic scholars signed a letter to the U.S. bishops criticizing the CCSS for school curricula, warning that the core philosophy will “undermine Catholic education.” The signers argued that Common Core standards would undermine Catholic education, the goal of which is to “form men and women capable of discerning and pursuing their path in life and who stand ready to defend truth, their church, their families, and their country.”

By contrast, they said, Common Core is “a recipe for standardized workforce preparation” that “shortchanges” the goals of Catholic education.

In April 2014, the U.S. bishops published a guide to frequently asked questions about Common Core standards and Catholic education.

“CCSS should be neither adopted nor rejected without review, study, consultation, discussion and caution. Catholic schools must take into consideration the horizon of the local, state and national education landscape and the influence and application of the CCSS...The CCSS was developed for a public school audience. But the CCSS is of its nature incomplete as it pertains to the Catholic school. Our schools have resisted the need to adopt educational trends while addressing the ever changing needs of children in education. We have tried to integrate the best in education while leaving behind what is not appropriate to the Church’s educational mission,” the U.S. bishops wrote.

The National Catholic Educational Association appears to have removed their 2013 statement on Common Core from their website. However, the association does provide resources to educators on how to implement the standards in Catholic schools.

The Cardinal Newman Society, an organization whose mission is “promoting and defending faithful Catholic education” reported in a 2015 article that the CCSS “by themselves are insufficient and even potentially harmful for Catholic schools, which must keep Christ and the Catholic faith as the true core of education.”

Dan Guernsey, the Cardinal Newman Society’s director of K–12 programs, told The Heartland Institute that Common Core fails to provide a well-rounded education.

“Catholic schools can use parts of the Common Core, but the Common Core in and of itself is insufficient to guide education in Catholic schools,” Guernsey said. “The Common Core does college/career prep. We adopt this broader approach and vision toward education, and parents will run to that. Parents will pay, if they can afford it, to get an uncommon education and have their children’s depth of thought, compassion, humanity, and vision of man articulated. In the Common Core, we’ve lost this vision of humanity.”

The diocese began the implementation of a classical curriculum last school year, and in April 2016, Marquette Superintendent of Schools Mark Salisbury told the Cardinal Newman Society that the diocese was “enthusiastic about our early successes.”  

Zach Good, the head of Sacred Heart Academy, a classical Catholic school in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been working with Marquette Diocese education personnel on the transition to a new curriculum. Good told The Heartland Institute that since his school’s implementation of a classical curriculum, enrollment more than tripled, from 60 to 300 students. He said he largely credits the success of the program to the way it values parents as the primary educators of children, something that Common Core fails to do.

Andrew Seeley, executive director of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education (ICLE) told The Heartland Institute that the success of a classical Catholic education program is no surprise.

“The Catholic classical schools are deliberately immersing themselves in the Catholic tradition of education,” he said.

“The Catholic Church has much more experience in educating successfully than any contemporary education proposal out there.”

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Vatican City, Aug 24, 2016 / 03:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Instead of giving the usual catechesis during his Wednesday general audience, Pope Francis decided to postpone the speech, leading pilgrims in praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary for the victims of an earthquake that rocked central Italy earlier that morning.

“On hearing the news of the earthquake that has struck central Italy and which has devastated many areas and left many wounded, I cannot fail to express my heartfelt sorrow and spiritual closeness to all those present in the zones afflicted,” the Pope said Aug. 24.

He offered his condolences to all who have lost loved ones, and his expressed his spiritual closeness to those who are “anxious and afraid.”

At least 21 people have been killed and countless buried under rubble after an earthquake hit central Italy early Wednesday morning.

The original 6.2-magnitude quake hit the town of Norcia, about 65 miles northeast of Rome, at 3:36a.m. with several aftershocks following.

According to the BBC, the mayor of Amatrice, one of the worst-hit areas, said “the town is gone.” Officials warn that the death toll will likely continue to rise as rescue efforts move forward.

Pope Francis, hearing that the mayor of Amatrice said his town “no longer exists” and learning that many children are also among the dead, said “I am deeply saddened.”

“For this reason I want to assure all the people of Accumoli, Amatrice, the diocese of Rieti, Ascoli Piceno and all the people of Lazio, Umbria and Le Marche of the prayers and close solidarity of the entire Church,” he said.

The Pope then offered his thanks to all the volunteer and rescue workers assisting in the affected areas, asking Jesus, “who is always moved by compassion before the reality of human suffering, that he may console the broken hearted, and through the intercession of the Virgin Mary bring them peace.”

“With Jesus, let our hearts be moved with compassion,” he said, and invited the some 11,000 pilgrims present to join him in praying the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary.

In addition to Pope Francis’ appeal to prayer, the Italian Bishop’s Conference (CEI) has already decided to donate 1 million euros to the most urgent relief efforts, and have asked that a special collection take place to help raise more money for the affected areas.

In an Aug. 24 communique from the CEI, the bishops said the Church throughout Italy “gathers in prayer for all the victims and expresses her fraternal closeness to the people involved in this tragic event.”

The president of the bishop’s conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, launched a national collection for Sept. 18, set to coincide with Italy’s 26th National Eucharistic Congress, inviting all parishes, religious institutes and lay institutions in the country to participate.

The funds gathered from the collection will go toward relieving those who lost everything, and is “a fruit of the charity” that will flow from the Eucharistic congress and the participation of all “in the concrete needs of the affected populations.”

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Washington D.C., Aug 24, 2016 / 06:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked the Obama administration guidance that would require schools to comply with transgender bathroom policies or lose federal funding.

“Schools have a duty to protect the privacy, safety, and dignity of all students, and this order certainly helps them in fulfilling that duty,” said Matt Sharp, legal counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom.

“The Obama administration cannot unilaterally disregard and redefine federal law to accomplish its political agenda of forcing girls to share locker rooms and showers with boys.”

The religious freedom legal group Alliance Defending Freedom is litigating several cases involving the federal order in Illinois, North Carolina and Ohio.

Judge Reed O'Connor of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on Aug. 21 issued a preliminary injunction on the Obama administration's interpretation of Title IX, a federal law which bars discrimination on the basis of sex in schools, colleges and universities that receive federal money, CNN reports.

The judge said the law is “not ambiguous” and specifically allows schools to provide separate toilets, locker rooms, and showers on the basis of sex, as long as the facilities are comparable.

He said the response to the federal guidance “presents the difficult issue of balancing the protection of students' rights and that of personal privacy when using school bathrooms, locker rooms, showers, and other intimate facilities, while ensuring that no student is unnecessarily marginalized while attending school.”

The federal guidance from the Department of Justice and Department of Education was announced in a May 13 letter sent to all school districts. The guidance tells every public school in the country to allow students who identify as transgender to use the facilities – including restrooms and locker rooms – that match their “gender identity.” It says that a student's gender identity must be treated as his or her biological sex for the purposes of law.

The guidance included a 25-page document of emerging practices, which may also affect sex-segregated athletics.

Although the federal guidance does not have the force of law, it implicitly threatens schools that do not comply with lawsuits or a loss of federal aid, according to the New York Times.

A Department of Justice spokesperson expressed disappointment in the decision and said the department was reviewing its options.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the ruling countered “the Obama administration's latest illegal federal overreach.” He said opponents of the guidance took action “to protect states and school districts, who are charged under state law to establish a safe and disciplined environment conducive to student learning.”

LGBT advocacy groups like Lambda Legal, the ACLU and the National Center for Lesbian Rights said a ruling by a single judge “cannot and does not undo the years of clear legal precedent nationwide establishing that transgender students have the right to go to school without being singled out for discrimination.”

For Sharp, however, the ruling made clear that the administration “ignored the federally required public notice and comment process as well as the crystal clear meaning of Title IX in its attempt to force its will on the American people.”

In May the U.S. Catholic bishops said the guidance failed to address many important concerns and “contradicts a basic understanding of human formation so well expressed by Pope Francis: that 'the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created.'”

They also noted the need to show respect to students.

“Children, youth, and parents in these difficult situations deserve compassion, sensitivity, and respect,” the bishops said. “All of these can be expressed without infringing on legitimate concerns about privacy and security on the part of the other young students and parents.”

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