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Milwaukee, Wis., Aug 17, 2016 / 04:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After riots last weekend in Milwaukee brought long-standing social tensions to the surface, Catholic leaders are calling for prayer first and foremost, but also action to promote justice.

A prayer service scheduled for Thursday at All Saints Catholic Church in Milwaukee’s center city hopes to “envelop the city in prayer,” Fr. Tim Kitzke, the vicar for urban ministry for the archdiocese, told CNA. Fr. Kitzke ministers to four parishes in the city.

It will be “just a time for us to open up the doors and have people come and pray,” he said, and “it’s the only thing in the long run that’s going to set our feet in the right direction.”

After Sylville K. Smith, a 23 year-old black man, was shot and killed by police last Saturday while fleeing a traffic stop in Milwaukee, riots in the city ensued. City police reported more than 40 arrests made Saturday night through Tuesday morning, with several businesses set on fire and 11 police officers injured. Multiple journalists were reportedly attacked or threatened by protesters.

Archbishop Jerome Listecki responded that the outrage over the killing was “understandable” but the violence committed against police officers and businesses was “never justified.” He exhorted everyone to “awaken our confidence, together, in Jesus Christ and the Gospel.”

Catholic leaders in the city say that the riots are manifestations of long-standing social tensions that have not been resolved.

A city health assessment states that the Milwaukee metropolitan area is “the most racially segregated” in the U.S. and the fifth poorest city in the country. Poverty is concentrated especially among the city’s African-American population, where 40 percent are at or below the poverty line.

The problems of racism, poverty, and inequality “are as old as the city” Fr. Kitzke told CNA.

Fifty years ago, African-Americans marched for fair housing. Two priests, Fr. Matthew Gottschalk and Fr. James Groppi, were among those Catholics accompanying the civil rights marchers. Since then, problems like “redlining” – where lenders discriminate against residents of certain ethnic neighborhoods by deeming them high-risk and refusing them loans – have persisted, while poverty has grown worse.

Gun violence is also a huge problem in the city, with gun homicides rising by 40 percent in 2015, according to Wisconsin Public Radio.

All the problems, taken together, show a still-segregated city with poverty, poor education, violence, and lack of affordable housing all disproportionately affecting its African-African community.

Archbishop Listecki appointed Fr. Kitzke last year to head urban ministry, a move that has been hailed as a significant and important step for the archdiocese to address problems. Meetings were immediately convened to start resolving the problems amidst a “record number of murders” and “levels of homelessness,” Fr. Kitzke said.

“People really wanted the Church to kind of be at the forefront,” he explained, “shining the light on some of the social issues that are especially endemic to us in the urban areas.”

The employment rate in Milwaukee’s African-American community used to be the highest among U.S. cities in the 1970s, but its unemployment rate is now over 50 percent, noted Rev. Steve Jerbi, senior pastor at All Peoples Church in the city. “It’s a radical shift of the Milwaukee reality,” he said.

Many of the manufacturing jobs that once existed left the downtown; many remaining jobs are in the suburbs, which are largely inaccessible from the downtown via public transit. There is reportedly a lack of affordable housing in the suburbs for low-income families.

Also, there have been “systematic cuts in education funding” and “systematic cuts in social services,” Fr. Michael McNulty said of Milwaukee’s poorer neighborhoods. A poor education system has resulted in only about 6 in 10 students graduating high school in four years.

African-American communities that are “economically depressed” and “educationally deprived,” have an experience of “indifference on the part of government” and “oppression on the part of the police,” he said.

There is “essentially no hope,” he added.

Existing tensions between the police and these communities haven’t helped the situation. “We’ve had members who were harassed by police officers,” Rev. Jerbi told CNA. “We’ve had folks in our congregation area who have been assaulted by local police officers.”

“Community leaders and elected officials have been asking for the Department of Justice to do a ‘pattern of practice’ investigation since at least 2012.”

Thus, frustration boiled over in the “perfect storm” of last weekend’s riots, Fr. Kitzke said.

“These issues have been simmering for a while,” he said, “and I think that the eruption this past weekend of the rioting was the result of not just one occasion of something that happened but a combination of factors.”

“They’re making rather unfortunate decisions about reacting to anger,” he continued, “with violence instead of proper ways of dealing with it.”

Although the closing of Catholic parishes in the city center hasn’t helped the outreach to troubled communities, religious groups have been fighting indifference to bring these issues to the forefront.

“We have some wonderful parishes in the central city of Milwaukee, and we’re working hard now to shore them up so they can serve the neighborhoods,” Fr. Kitzke said.

The Catholic response to the city’s ills has been “getting better,” he said, but added that “the problems are so overwhelming.”

Andrew Musgrave, who directs the social justice ministries for three parishes on the east side of the city, said that some parishes in the city have been “responding really well” to nearby neighborhoods, but many parishes outside the city are either unaware of the magnitude of the problems or are not helping to resolve them.

They don’t have “that same ease of relationship” to the neighborhoods with problems, he said, and are not necessarily “making the effort to do so.”

One parish in the western suburbs, for instance, is bringing young parishioners into the city to serve and be exposed to the struggles there, Musgrave said, but most parishes are “not making the effort.”

The split among Catholics isn’t new, he said. While priests took part in the civil rights marches 50 years ago, other Catholics actively opposed the marchers. Even recently, minorities on the west side of the city were “facing issues of overt racism in the Churches” where white parishioners refused to serve minorities or have black parishioners sing in the choir, he said.

However, Musgrave praised the “initial steps” the archdiocese made to address Milwaukee’s problems in appointing Fr. Kitzke to head the urban ministry, and noted that a “wide swath of people” gathered last year “to talk about what’s going on in the city.”

A group of Catholics also began meeting to take a course on the history of racism, both nationally and in Milwaukee, Musgrave said. Several members of Catholic groups “continued to meet” after the course and discuss topics like racism, white privilege, and reconciliation, he added.

Ultimately, for the problems to be resolved, everyone – including those from more affluent neighborhoods – must take responsibility for each other, Fr. McNulty insisted.

“Unless there is a concerted commitment on the part of everybody in Southeast Wisconsin, nothing is going to change,” he said. “Our faith says we are our neighbor’s keeper.”

Catholics must place their hope in God, Fr. Kitzke said, because “there’s a certain hopelessness that I find to be probably even more oppressive than anything.”

“There’s just fear of what’s going to happen next,” he said. “And we have to be stationed in our faith and move forward with that sense of faith that God will be with us and help us, especially if we’re working for the good of others.”

 

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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Aug 17, 2016 / 04:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An Olympic runner whose sportsmanship drew headlines this week says that her faith in God helps her to find joy in her sport.

Abbey D’Agostino, who was raised in a Catholic family, spoke to Julia Hanlon’s “Running On Om” podcast, published November 18, 2015. She discussed her fears and anxieties about running, her injuries, and her prayer life.

“I ended up just accepting Jesus and recognizing what that meant in my life,” she told Hanlon. “I felt the peace that comes with acknowledging that I’m not going to run this race with my own strength. And I think that acknowledging those fears before God is what allowed me to feel that peace and I was drawn to it and I wanted to know a God who would work that way in my life.”

“That’s when I started to rekindle more the sheer joy of the sport,” said D’Agostino, who is now 24.

During the Women’s 5,000-meter run on Tuesday, D’Agostino and New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin collided, both tripping and tumbling to the ground.  

After picking herself up, D’Agostino did not immediately continue to run, but instead turned back to help Hamblin. Then, in tremendous pain, D’Agostino was unable to go on, and Hamblin remained with her for a few moments, offering to help her up.

The two finished the race, but D’Agostino was visibly limping for the last five laps. At the finish line she shared a hug with Hamblin, then left the track in a wheelchair.

Although the fall meant that both runners failed to advance to the final race, Olympic judges ruled that they would be allowed to compete in the finals, due to their show of sportsmanship.

However, it was later announced that D’Agostino would be unable to compete, due to a torn ACL.

D’Agostino issued a statement on the race Wednesday: “Although my actions were instinctual at that moment, the only way I can and have rationalized it is that God prepared my heart to respond that way. This whole time here he’s made clear to me that my experience in Rio was going to be about more than my race performance – and as soon as Nikki got up I knew that was it.”

She had previously recounted how her reliance on God helped calm her anxiety before a big race.

“Whatever the outcome of the race is, I’m going to accept it,” she would say to herself. “I was so thankful and just drawn to what I felt like was a real manifestation of God’s work in my life.”

She told Hanlon that previous injuries forced her “to depend on God in a way that I’ve never been open to before.”

“In theory I’ve known that trusting God and giving my whole self to him is the only way in which you can feel that peace and joy and satisfaction that he offers. But it’s another thing to experience that and to be caught up in a situation where what you believe is exposed.”

“The depths of injuries, for me, exposed what’s in my heart,” she said.

After her injuries, the feelings of loneliness and loss of self-assurance have made her examine whether she really relies on God and really aims to give God control and glorify him through sport.

The runner also spoke of her spiritual life. She uses her prayer time to reflect on “what God has done in my life.”  She will listen to worship music, read Scripture, and write in her journal.

“It brings me to a place of humility, where I’m acknowledging my place before God,” D’Agostino told Hanlon.

When she runs, she thinks that reliance on God and the presence of the Holy Spirit will “fuel me either consciously or subconsciously.”

D’Agostino also spoke of her fears about speaking about her faith in a public way.

“I don’t want to feel that I’m proselytizing and shoving it in people’s faces. But at the same time it’s authentic, when I do speak of it,” she said. “That’s been a real journey for me in the past year. How do I find my own voice within the social media realm and really just own it?”

“I think people feel like I’m trying to sell it,” she added. “That’s my fear. I wouldn’t want to be sold Christianity. That’s not what it’s about. God’s truth can stand on its own. It doesn’t need to be sold, it’s true in my mind.”

“But it’s hard to present your beliefs in a way that is inspiring and encouraging and gentle, and that’s how I would want to receive it. That’s how I did receive it.”

In a December 2013 interview with GaryCohenRunning.com, D’Agostino answered a hypothetical question about who she’d meet if she had a time machine.

“I would love to meet Mother Theresa. That would be it,” she said. “That would be special to talk to her.”

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Washington D.C., Aug 17, 2016 / 05:43 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has claimed to be a defender of religious freedom. But does it match the facts?

Georgetown University professor Thomas Farr has his doubts.

“Anyone who believes that a President Hillary Clinton will support the religious freedom of Catholic elementary and high schools, colleges, refugee services, adoption agencies, homes for the aged poor, or any other private organization, is making a mistake,” Farr told CNA. “Her own words suggest that even churches will not evade her understanding of the kind of ‘compelling government interest’ that she considers abortion and same-sex marriage to be.”

Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, addressed religious freedom in an exclusive editorial in the Utah newspaper The Deseret News.

“As Americans, we hold fast to the belief that everyone has the right to worship however he or she sees fit,” Clinton said in the Aug. 10 essay. “I’ve been fighting to defend religious freedom for years.”

“Americans don’t have to agree on everything. We never have,” she added. “But when it comes to religion, we strive to be accepting of everyone around us. That’s because we need each other.”

Clinton, in her essay written largely for a Mormon audience, linked Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s proposal to ban Muslim immigration to the U.S. to 19th century efforts to expel Mormons from the state of Missouri and to limit Mormon immigration to the U.S.

But Brian Burch, president of CatholicVote.org, charged that Clinton “favors extremist policies that would punish charities like the Little Sisters of the Poor along with thousands of similar Catholic-inspired charities.”

Clinton’s words come during a long legal fight against the Obama administration’s mandate that Catholic and other organizations provide employee health coverage of sterilization and contraception, including some drugs that can cause abortions. There are also continuing controversies over the freedom of adoption agencies, relief agencies and religious schools to have policies in line with their beliefs.

Both Burch and Farr noted Clinton’s use of the phrase “right to worship.”

“She publicly opposes the long understood definition of religious freedom by hiding behind the euphemism of ‘freedom of worship’,” Burch said. “What this means is she supports the freedom of Catholics to pray inside of our churches, at least for now. But once outside we must embrace the orthodoxy of secular anti-Catholic progressives.”

Farr, who directs the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown’s Berkley Center, said that Clinton’s focus on the “right to worship” relegates religion to the private sphere “with no capacity to influence public matters.”

“Her use of the term, and its deeper meaning, are quite consistent with her attacks on churches and religious organizations that oppose the progressive agenda of abortion on demand and same-sex marriage,” he said. “Last year she told an international conference that religious groups who oppose abortion are going to have to change. Some commitment to religious freedom.”

Clinton’s editorial in the Utah newspaper has deeper significance in 2016. The state is a traditional Republican bastion and most of its residents are adherents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, colloquially known as Mormons.

However, Mormons’ lack of support for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump may provide an opening for Clinton.

In her editorial, Clinton said when she was Secretary of State she made protection of religious minorities a “cornerstone” of foreign policy, including Coptic Christians in Egypt, Buddhists in Tibet and Chinese Christians.

“We stood up for these oppressed communities because Americans know that democracy ceases to exist when a leader or ruling faction can impose a particular faith on everyone else,” she said.

Farr, however, questioned this evaluation of U.S. foreign policy.

“Their approach was highly rhetorical and program-poor. Under her watch, the National Security Strategy’s discussion of fundamental American values virtually ignored religious freedom,” he said.

He pointed to the years-long vacancy in the Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom position, charging that it was ultimately filled by someone “without the qualifications to do the job.”

For Farr, Clinton’s narrow understanding of religious freedom helps explain why the Clinton State Department “accomplished virtually nothing (other than a few fine speeches and reports) in the arena of religious freedom.”

“While there are other reasons for State’s ineffectiveness under Secretary Clinton, one is quite clear: it is difficult to sell to others a product which you no longer understand, and in which you do not believe,” Farr said.

 

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