Catholic News 2

Vatican City, Jun 28, 2017 / 07:47 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- After years of fighting allegations of sexual abuse and negligence in handling abuse cases, Cardinal George Pell, the Vatican's top finance man, will be charged on multiple counts of abuse, Australian police announced Wednesday.

Pell, who has fervently denied the allegations, will be charged on summons, and will be required to return to Melbourne in July order to answer the charges. 

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Victoria police were the ones who decided to charge the cardinal. In a June 29 statement, Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said Pell is facing "multiple charges in respect to historic sexual offenses," which multiple complaints in each of the charges.

Due to heavy media speculation surrounding the investigation, Patton clarified that "the process and the procedures that have been followed in the charging of Cardinal Pell have been the same that have been applied in a whole range of historical sex offenses whenever we investigate them."

"There has been no change in any procedures whatsoever," he said, noting that Pell has been treated the same as anyone else.

The deputy commissioner stressed the importance of remembering that "none of the allegations that have been made against Cardinal Pell have, obviously, been tested in any court yet."

"Cardinal Pell, like any other defendant, has a right to due process and so therefore it's important that the process is allowed to run its natural course," he said.

"Preserving the integrity of that process is essential to all of us, so for Victoria police it's important that it's allowed to go through unhindered, and its allowed to see natural justice is afforded to all the parties involved, including Cardinal Pell and the complainants in this matter."

Pell has been summoned to appear before the Melbourne Maginstrate's court July 18 for a filing hearing to face the charges, which were served to his legal team Wednesday (Thursday Australian time).

The charging of Cardinal Pell, who in 2013 was tapped to oversee the Vatican's Secretariat for the Economy and is a member of the Council of Cardinals advising Pope Francis, makes him the most senior Vatican official to ever be charged with abuse.

Cardinal Pell was ordained in the diocese of Ballarat in 1966, where he served as a priest and later as a consulter to Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who oversaw the diocese from 1971-1997. Pell was appointed auxiliary bishop for the archdiocese of Melbourne in 1987, and was named archbishop in 1996.

In February 2016, he testified for the third time before Australia's Royal Commission regarding claims that surfaced in 2015 accusing the cardinal of moving “known pedophile” Gerald Ridsdale, of bribing a victim of the later-defrocked priest, and of ignoring a victim’s complaint.

Established in 2013, the Royal Commission is dedicated to investigating institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

Despite having testified before the commission twice before on the same charges, Pell was again summoned to return to Australia for deposition in December. However, the cardinal’s doctor advised against the long flight, due to health issues.

As a result, Cardinal Pell volunteered to appear by way of video conference from Rome. His proposal for the video conference was accepted, and he gave his testimony again with abuse survivors present, who crowd-funded in order to attend the hearing in person.

Shortly before the hearing, abuse allegations surfaced accusing the cardinal of multiple counts of child sexual abuse dating as far back as 1961, which he fervently denied at the time.

In a statement released after the accusations arose, Pell said "the allegations are without foundation and utterly false."

At the close of the hearing, the cardinal admitted that he should have done more to protect the children of Australia during his time as a bishop.

"One of the things I regret as a Catholic priest is the damage that these crimes do to the faith of survivors, of the victims, and their friends and family, and generally throughout the society,” he said, and voiced his willingness to work with authorities.

In a June 29 statement following the announcement of the Victoria police department's decision to charge him, Cardinal Pell's office said he has "again strenuously denied all allegations."

The statement said Pell would return to Australia as soon as possible "to clear his name" after consulting with his doctors, who will advise him on his travel arrangements, and that he looks forward to "vigorously" opposing the charges in court

Pell is set to give a statement to journalists in Rome at 8:30a.m. local time in the Holy See Press Office regarding the announcement of the charges.

 

This article was updated at 9:12p.m. MST with the official statement from Cardinal Pell's office.

 

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London, England, Jun 28, 2017 / 03:36 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A final appeal to allow continued life support for a U.K. baby whose parents want to seek experimental treatment in the U.S. has been rejected by the European Court of Human Rights.

According to the BBC, the European Court judges agreed on the decision to withdraw life support, stating that the experimental treatment would only expose the baby, Charlie Gard, to “continued pain, suffering and distress,” while adding “no prospects of success.”

A legal battle has been ongoing since early March, after Charlie was diagnosed with Mitochondrial Depletion Syndrome – an extremely rare disease which progressively weakens muscles and causes brain damage.

Specialists in the U.S. offered Charlie nucleoside therapy, an experimental treatment, which his parents were hoping would be a second chance for their son, and asked the court to keep him on life support.

Charlie’s parents – Chris Gard and Connie Yates – had raised nearly $1.6 million on GoFundMe, an online fundraising site, to cover the experimental treatment in the U.S.

The nearly 11-month-old baby is thought to be one of only 16 people in the world who suffer from Mitochondrial Depletion Syndrome. He has thus far suffered severe brain damage and is only able to survive by a feeding tube and an artificial ventilator.

Charlie’s life support machine is expected to be turned off within the next few days. His parents have said that the money they raised will be donated to a charity to help other children with their son’s condition.

Charlie’s case was initially taken up by the Family Division of the High Court at the beginning of March.

A decision was reached in April, with the judge, Justice Francis, saying, “There is unanimity among the experts from whom I have heard that nucleoside therapy cannot reverse structural brain damage. I dare say that medical science may benefit, objectively, from the experiment, but experimentation cannot be in Charlie’s best interests unless there is a prospect of benefit for him.”

The judge applauded the efforts of Charlie’s parents, praising “their absolute dedication to their wonderful boy, from the day that he was born,” but still made the decision to pull life support from the child.

An appeals court agreed with the lower court in a May ruling.

However, the lawyer for Charlie’s parents maintained that the experimental treatment would not cause further harm or suffering. And the young boy’s mother Connie told the BBC that even if the experimental treatment did not help her son, she would like to be a stepping stone in developing a treatment that might save the lives of other babies with similar diseases.

“We just want to have our chance. It would never be a cure but it could help him live. If it saves him, amazing. I want to save others. Even if Charlie doesn’t make it through this, I don’t ever want another mum and their child to go through this,” she said.

 

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Stockholm, Sweden, Jun 28, 2017 / 04:24 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- When thinking of the “peripheries” of the Church, many think of places such as Latin America, Africa, or maybe Asia. However, in Wednesday's consistory Pope Francis sought out a periphery that slips the minds of many: Sweden.

Cardinal Anders Arborelius of Stockholm told Vatican Insider he was “somewhat shocked” to get the news of his elevation, saying that “(w)e must also be happy that Sweden and all Scandinavia can be said to have entered the map of world Catholicism, as the gates of the Catholic Church open more to our land.”

“The last become first!” he told CNA while in Rome to receive his red biretta June 28.

Catholics number only about 150,000 in the largely secular and Lutheran country, whose sole diocese is led by the new cardinal. His time as bishop has been dominated by building connections with others, both of different creeds and those who come from different lands.

Cardinal Arborelius was born in Switzerland to Swedish parents in 1949, making him the first Swedish-origin bishop of Sweden since the Protestant Reformation. A historic shortage of priests in the country led to the need to appoint bishops from Germany or the United States to head the Diocese of Stockholm.

However, he was born into a Lutheran family; he converted to Catholicism at age 20 after coming into contact with the Bridgettine sisters. Two years later he entered the Discalced Carmelites, under the influence of the writings of St. Therese of Lisieux. He has since written a biography of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

He took perpetual vows in 1977, and was ordained in 1979 after receiving his doctorate in Rome.

Cardinal Arborelius was appointed Bishop of Stockholm in 1998 by St. John Paul II.

With his elevation to cardinal, Arborelius is also the first Swede in history to wear the red hat.

In a country dominated by secular culture and with a strong Protestant population, ecumenism has been at the forefront of Cardinal Arborelius’ ministry. In 2016, Pope Francis visited the country to mark the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, speaking on the need for unity.

Cardinal Arborelius, 67, has been on the Ecumenical Council of Sweden for more than 15 years and has participated in conversations with a broad range of ecclesial communities and Churches, not only Lutheran, but also Orthodox and Pentecostal.

“Naturally, the Catholic Church and the Orthodox have a particular importance because we share a heritage and a tradition which go back to the origins of Christianity,” the newly minted cardinal told CNA.

“But we must do what is possible to involve the Lutheran Church and the evangelical communities in the common work of rendering Christ and his message alive for the greatest possible number of people in Sweden.”

In an interview with the National Catholic Register regarding the 2016 meeting, he described how “(a)ctually, Catholics and Lutherans have already come to an agreement that the Reformation should not be celebrated. Instead, we have agreed that it should be remembered in a spirit of prayer and reconciliation in order to heal.”

Cardinal Arborelius pastors a flock who come from many countries: he estimates the true Catholic population of Sweden is double the official count due to a strong immigrant presence, coming from the Middle East and Asia. This has given the Church there a deep appreciation for migrant peoples, a forefront issue of Francis’ pontificate.

The Church in Sweden is also seeing steady growth due to converts.

“In reality, the number of converts is rather constant, around a hundred every year,” he told CNA. “Their provenance is very mixed. Always more numerous are those who come from evangelical communities. Some come because they are attracted by more traditional groups, others are more engaged by the media, but often they are very different between themselves.”

The appointment comes at a time of increasing attention given to Sweden by the Vatican in recent decades. In 2002, the papal nuncio for Scandinavia was moved from Denmark to Sweden, and the country received its first papal visit from St. John Paul II in 1989.

 

Angela Ambrogetti contributed to this report.

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Washington D.C., Jun 28, 2017 / 04:51 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- With an estimated 20 million victims of human trafficking today, all governments must step up their enforcement efforts, a new report by the State Department insists.

“We are all confronted with a choice: Do nothing or do something,” Ambassador Susan Coppedge of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons said Tuesday at a press conference launching the 2017 Trafficking in Persons report.

“When it comes to human trafficking, everyone has a role to play and an obligation to act,” she added. “We must choose to do something to end modern slavery.”

The annual Trafficking in Persons report was released by the State Department on Wednesday, over 400 pages in length and detailing the state of human trafficking around the world.

There are an estimated 20 million persons being trafficked today, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson noted on Tuesday at the launch of the report. This number includes children. Trafficking takes many forms, including sex slavery, debt bondage, forced marriage, and involuntary servitude.

“Human trafficking is as old as humankind. Regrettably, it’s been with us for centuries and centuries,” Secretary Tillerson stated. However, he added, “it is our hope that the 21st century will be the last century of human trafficking, and that’s what we are all committed to.”

Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Donald Trump and senior advisor to the president, was present at the launch of the TIP report on Tuesday. “On a personal level, as a mother, this is much more than a policy priority. It is a clarion call to action in defense of the vulnerable, the abused, and the exploited,” she said.

“Last month, while in Rome, I had an opportunity to talk firsthand with human trafficking survivors,” she said, recalling her meeting with trafficking victims at the Community of Sant’Egidio in Rome after President Trump met with Pope Francis on May 24.

“They told me their harrowing stories, how they were trapped in this ugly, dark web, how they survived, how they escaped, and how they are very slowly reconstructing their lives,” she said.

Pope Francis, during a November audience with RENATE, a network of European religious who fight trafficking and exploitation, emphasized that “much more needs to be done on the level of raising public consciousness and effecting a better coordination of efforts by governments, the judiciary, law enforcement officials and social workers.”

The TIP report is required to be compiled and released annually by the State Department to document how foreign governments are “prosecuting traffickers, protecting victims, and preventing the crime.” It was mandated by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000, of which Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who chairs the House global human rights subcommittee, was the prime author.

The 2000 law also set up a tier ranking system for foreign countries based on their commitment and success in fighting human trafficking. Tier 1 countries are those that are abiding by “the minimum standards” of fighting trafficking, which were set by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).

Meanwhile, Tier 2 countries do not meet those minimum standards “but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards,” the TIP report explained. A Tier 2 Watch List is for countries with more serious trafficking problems which are nonetheless making sufficient efforts to curb trafficking and meet the minimum standards of the TVPA.

Tier 3 countries are the worst trafficking offenders, because they have been determined to be not even working to meet the minimum standards for fighting trafficking.

To hold these countries accountable for their poor records on trafficking, the U.S. can take actions against these countries as allowed by the TVPA, like withholding non-humanitarian, non-trade related assistance or voting to bar them from loans by the International Monetary Fund.

China was downgraded to Tier 3 status in the most recent report, and Rep. Smith had “high praise” for the administration for recognizing China’s “shameful complicity in sex and labor trafficking.”

“They turn women into commodities for sale,” Smith said of trafficking of women from nearby Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam for commercial sex or forced marriages in China. Goods made from Chinese slave labor are also in the supply chains of U.S. businesses, he insisted.

During a Tuesday press conference at the State Department, Ambassador Coppedge outlined some other concerns with China’s record on trafficking. According to reports from NGOs, trafficking victims have not been cared for sufficiently.

Rep. Smith stated his desire for the designation to be utilized in the future to push China toward reform of its notorious trafficking record.

“Hopefully, the new tier ranking coupled with robust diplomacy – including the imposition of sanctions authorized under Tier 3 – will lead to systemic reforms that will save women and children’s lives and ensure that Chinese exports are not made with slave labor.”

Also, many North Koreans are also working in China in slavery, with their wages effectively going to the North Korean government, Smith noted.

“The North Korean regime receives hundreds of millions of dollars per year from the fruits of forced labor,” Secretary Tillerson stated on Tuesday. “Responsible nations simply cannot allow this to go on, and we continue to call on any nation that is hosting workers from North Korea in a forced labor arrangement to send those people home.”

Of the 187 countries considered for the tier system, 40 were listed as Tier 1 countries, 80 as Tier 2, 45 were placed on the Tier 2 Watch List, and 23 were designated as Tier 3 countries, Coppedge said. Twenty-one of the countries were downgraded in status in the 2017 report, while 27 countries were upgraded.

Many countries do not prosecute trafficking as they should, Ambassador Coppedge noted, and this leads to greater impunity for traffickers to continue working. This was the theme of the 2017 TIP report, the need for governments to more strongly enforce laws against human trafficking.

“In addition to protecting victims from retribution or re-victimization, an effective criminal justice response brings traffickers to justice both to punish them for their crimes and to deter others,” the report stated.

Yet, at times, governments can be actively colluding with traffickers, Ambassador Coppedge said.

“We still see instances of government officials protecting brothels, taking bribes from traffickers, and obstructing investigations for profit, and while we still see governments criminalize and penalize victims for crimes their traffickers force them to commit,” she said.

“Trafficking in persons is a hidden crime rooted in deception,” she added. “Victims are coerced or intimidated into silence, and they often fear that if they do come forward they will be punished. When governments enact and enforce strong, comprehensive anti-trafficking laws, they send an unmistakable message to criminals: We will not tolerate this.”

The report also quoted Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, as saying that today, “wars and conflicts have become the prime driver of trafficking in persons.”

“They provide an enabling environment for traffickers to operate, as persons fleeing persecutions and conflicts are particularly vulnerable to being trafficked,” the archbishop said. “Conflicts have created conditions for terrorists, armed groups and transnational organized crime networks to thrive in exploiting individuals and populations reduced to extreme vulnerability by persecution and multiple forms of violence.”

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Kevin Lamarque, Reuter

By Julie Asher

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- The U.S. Senate must reject any health care reform bill that will "fundamentally alter the social safety net for millions of people," said the chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

"Removing vital coverage for those most in need is not the answer to our nation's health care problems, and doing so will not help us build toward the common good," Bishop Frank J. Dewane of Venice, Florida, said in a letter to U.S. senators released late June 27.

He urged senators to reject such changes "for the sake of persons living on the margins of our health care system."

A day earlier, Bishop Dewane issued a statement saying that the loss of affordable health care under the Republicans' proposal was "simply unacceptable."

The Senate released its Better Care Reconciliation Act in "discussion draft" form June 22. In an analysis of the proposal aimed at replacing the Obama administration's Affordable Care Act, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the measure would leave 22 million more people without insurance.

In response to that report, Bishop Dewane said June 26 that "this moment cannot pass without comment. ... As the USCCB has consistently said, the loss of affordable access for millions of people is simply unacceptable. These are real families who need and deserve health care."

On the afternoon of June 27, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, announced senators will not act on the bill until much later in July. News reports said McConnell and others determined they did not even have enough votes to begin debate on the measure. Senate leaders had hoped to vote on it before the July 4 recess.

In his letter to senators, Bishop Dewane reiterated initial concerns outlined by the USCCB when the draft was first released, namely that any health care reform bill must uphold several moral principles: affordability; access for all; respect for life; and protection of conscience rights. The bishops also have stressed the need for U.S. health care policy "to improve real access" to health care for immigrants.

Loss of coverage "will be devastating" to the people who can least afford it at a time "when tax cuts would seem to benefit the wealthy" and when increases in defense spending are being contemplated, he said in the June 27 letter.

The U.S. bishops do "value the language" in the Senate bill that recognizes "abortion is not health care," he continued, and it at least partially succeeds on conscience rights. But he said it needs to be strengthened to fully apply "the long-standing and widely supported Hyde Amendment protections. Full Hyde protections are essential and must be included in the final bill."

Bishop Dewane said the Senate's Better Care Reconciliation Act "is a slight improvement in limited ways" over the House version passed in May, called the American Health Care Act. "Overall, however, those enhancements do not overcome the BCRA's failure to address the needs of the poor," he said.

One part of the bill cuts the federal government's share of funding for Medicaid to 57 percent of its cost over the next seven years. States have picked up the balance of the funding to date.

Under the Affordable Care Act, the government had guaranteed that its funding for adults newly eligible for Medicaid would fall to no lower than 90 percent of their costs. Many states expanded Medicaid coverage for all adults ages 18-65 with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level.

The bill also would defund Planned Parenthood for one year under the bill.

In his earlier statement, Bishop Dewane criticized the "per-capita cap" on Medicaid funding, which would no longer be an entitlement but have its own budget line item under the Better Care Reconciliation Act. The effect, he said, "would provide even less to those in need than the House bill. These changes will wreak havoc on low-income families and struggling communities, and must not be supported."

In other reaction to the Senate measure, 300 Sisters of Mercy voiced their strong opposition to the Senate proposal in a statement issued June 27 from Buffalo, New York, where they gathered for the religious congregation's chapter meeting.

"Health care for all, especially the most vulnerable is one of our enduring concerns," said Sister Patricia McDermott, president of the Institute of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas. "The Sisters of Mercy have a legacy of advocacy for health care as a right, as well as providing care to generations of people. If the proposed legislation passes, health care ministries, social service agencies, and services for the elderly and family members will be impacted and suffer."

The Senate measure also drew opposition from the president and CEO of Catholic Charities USA. In a letter to senators June 26, Dominican Sister Donna Markham urged senators to reject the bill and "craft a health care bill which truly expands coverage, reduces costs and respect human life and dignity."

The bill in its current form "will have a devastating impact on the poor, marginalized and vulnerable in our country," Sister Markham wrote.

While welcoming provisions in the bill to protect human life and increase flexibility to states in paying for health care, "a bill that rolls back gains in health care for the poor and vulnerable is deeply regretful," her letter said.

"It is deeply shameful that instead of improving our health care system, the bill provides tax cuts for people making over $200,000 per year while at the same time demanding dramatic cuts or eliminating programs which help those most in need and most unlikely to afford health care," it added.

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