Catholic News 2

Washington D.C., Mar 12, 2016 / 02:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to uphold the Obama administration’s temporary relief for millions of undocumented persons in the U.S. eligible for deportation.

“Courts have repeatedly recognized that there is a public interest in maintaining stable families and communities,” stated an amicus brief filed March 8 by the USCCB and other faith-based groups.

At stake in United States v. Texas is Obama’s 2014 executive action, the Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents, that delayed the deportation of millions.

The action granted parents with children born in the U.S., and thus citizens or lawful permanent residents by birthright, a stay on their deportation if they met certain conditions like having lived in the U.S. for at least five years, passing a background check, and paying taxes. Up to 3.7 million persons could be eligible, the Migration Policy Institute estimated, as cited in the brief.

Certain persons were prioritized for deportation, including felons, terror suspects, and some gang members.

Combined with its expansion of the previous executive order, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals which applied to children of parents who illegally entered the U.S., up to 5.2 million could benefit from the whole policy.

Twenty-six states filed for an injunction on having to implement the program. A Texas district court judge in 2015 ruled that the state did not have to do so, and the Fifth Circuit upheld the injunction.

If the federal government loses at the court, it could mean that millions of persons in the U.S. are at risk of deportation. The action is “a measure of mercy,” the brief argued, “providing peace of mind to nearly nine million people, including 4.5 million children.”

The USCCB was joined by other Christian groups such as the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the Franciscan Action Network, the Mennonite Central Committee U.S., the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, and the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.

These groups work first-hand with immigrants, the brief claimed, so they “have unique and firsthand knowledge of the adverse impacts that family separation, immigration detention and deportation have on immigrant families in the U.S., particularly young children.”

The Secretary of Homeland Security has the legal authority to grant a stay of deportations under the Administrative Procedure Act, the brief argued, because splitting up families through deportation would harm both those families and the public interest.

“Family unification is an integral consideration in the application of immigration law,” amici stated.

Children can suffer “emotional and social harm” resulting from the deportation and even detention of their parents, the brief claimed. Families who lose the breadwinner can suffer from losing income and thus being unable to pay household bills or properly feed themselves. In “extreme cases,” families can break up entirely with the children going into foster care.

“The impact on children here could not be clearer,” the brief stated.

Fear of deportation also drives families away from public spaces, the brief insisted, and thus harms the public interest.

“Amici have thousands of immigrants within their congregations and have seen how a lack of lawful presence can prevent individuals from positively contributing to their social, religious, and local communities,” the brief stated.

For example, the brief noted, a Mennonite pastor in Iowa and father of four had resided there for over 20 years before he was deported in 2015. He had been convicted of a DUI and trying to obtain a false driver’s license 16 years earlier, but since that time he had become pastor of a church and had ministered to drug addicts.

“The Immigration Guidance provides important benefits to those most vulnerable in our society and to those who serve them,” the brief concluded. “Because the Immigration Guidance provides substantial humanitarian benefits, it represents a valid exercise of the Secretary’s prosecutorial discretion the review of which is not justiciable.”

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis offered lunch to the friends of a homeless man, following his funeral Mass celebrated at the Roman church of Santa Maria in Traspontina, just down the street from St. Peter’s Square on the Via della Conciliazione.

The luncheon was held at the Jesuit-run “Gift of Mercy” house in the nearby Via dei Penitenzieri.

The Director of the Press Office of the Holy See identified the deceased as a  57 year-old named Boris, who was of Polish extraction and who died some two weeks ago.

Bureaucratic complications kept the rites from being celebrated until Saturday.

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(Vatican Radio) A draft of the program of the trip that Pope Francis will make to Poland from July 27 to 31 in the context of the 31^st World Youth Day was presented in Krakow on Saturday.

According to the provisional schedule, the Pope is to arrive Wednesday, July 27, at Krakow-Balice airport. The first meetings are to be those with the President of the Republic and the Polish bishops. In the evening, the draft program sees the Pope with the archbishop of Krakow, and greeting people from the same window from which St. John Paul II used to speak to young people.

Thursday, July 28, Pope Francis is expected to stop in Czestochowa with a private prayer before the icon of the Black Madonna, and offer Mass on the occasion of 1,050^th anniversary of the Baptism of Poland.

Friday, July 29, the draft program contains a visit to the extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and in the afternoon the Via Crucis on the Esplanade of Krakow.

Saturday, July 30, there is to be a visit to the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Lagiewniki, with the Holy Father passing through the Holy Door and going on to visit the chapel where St. Faustina Kowalska is buried (the chapel is not in the Sanctuary, but next door). A Mass with priests, religious and seminarians is to follow. In the Sanctuary, it is expected that the Pope should confess some young people; then take lunch with some of them. In the evening, there is scheduled a prayer vigil for World Youth Day.

Sunday, July 31, Pope Francis is to celebrate Mass in the morning with the sending out of young people. In the afternoon, he is to meet with the volunteers, organizing committee, and benefactors of World Youth Day.

Finally, there is to be the farewell ceremony and departure for Rome.

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(Vatican Radio) Tens of thousands of Poles have protested in the capital Warsaw and other cities against the government, calling for constitutional order amid concerns over a perceived government crackdown on the constitutional court, known as the Constitutional Tribunal, and media. Saturday's protests came amid international concern over what critics view as a threat to Poland's young democracy.

Listen to Stefan Bos' report: 

As many as 50,000 people marched in Warsaw from the Constitutional Tribunal to the palace of the president who has placed a key role in what critics view as a constitutional crisis.

Noisy protesters at the front of the march carried a large banner saying "let's bring back the constitutional order."

Similar rallies have been held in other cities such as Poznan and Wroclaw. The opposition is furious that the ruling Law and Justice party has introduced measures that have undermined the court's ability to check on government power.

Venice Commission

The Venice Commission, which investigated the situation for the Council of Europe human rights body, expressed concern that the country's top court had been "crippled" by the government moves.

And earlier this week the Constitutional Court ruled that the new measures were unconstitutional. But the government says it will not recognize the ruling. It has even refused to publish it, which prevents the ruling from becoming binding.

The European Commission, the EU's executive, has launched a probe into the rule of law in the country. But the outcome of that investigation will take time.

Critics say the Polish government is taking similar actions as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán who has come under pressure for his perceived crackdown on previously independent institutions ranging from the constitutional court, the central bank, media and even churches.

Media crackdown?

Other measures launched by the recently elected Polish government included changing legislation so it can appoint key leaders at public broadcasters.

Demonstrators say attempts to neutralize the Constitutional Tribunal, which could independently check these and other controversial measures is an attack on democratic values.

They point out that Poland's democracy was won after years of sacrifice by famed leader Lech Walesa and his Solidarity Movement in the 1980s.

The government has denied wrongdoing. 

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Vatican City, Mar 12, 2016 / 08:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- With an eye toward divorced-and-remarried Catholics, Pope Francis has recently changed protocol for heads of state who are visiting the Pope at the Vatican.

Catholic heads of state who are in an irregular marital situation may now take part in an official visit to the Pope as a couple, accompanied by their irregular spouse.

The Pope made the change in February. By chance, the first to benefit from the new protocol was Argentina’s President Mauricio Macrì. He made an official visit to Pope Francis Feb. 27, accompanied by his third wife, Juliana Awada.
 
Before the change in protocol, the Catholic head of state in an irregular marital situation could not be accompanied by his or her irregular spouse during the visit.
 
The new spouse waited in another room and was not included in the official picture. The Pope later greeted the irregular spouse separately.
 
This protocol was observed only for Catholic heads of state. If a head of state was not a Catholic, there were no exceptions.

“The deep reason why a Catholic head of state could not be accompanied by an irregular spouse is because the Pope is not a mere head of state: he is a head of state because he is the Pope, and as a Pope he also leads the Vatican City State,” a source who is an expert in Vatican protocol told CNA March 8.
 
In this previous understanding, the source maintained, the Pope “could not silently approve an irregular marital situation by acknowledging it, though indirectly, in an official visit.”
 
The new protocol does not fully take this issue into consideration. Rather, it is aimed to emphasize the need to “integrate” divorced-and-remarried persons in the life of the Church.
 
The Prefecture of the Pontifical Household is the Vatican body in charge of organizing visits of heads of state for the Pope. According to CNA’s source, the prefecture was not consulted on the decision to change the protocol.
 
Following the change of protocol, Catholic heads of state will be accompanied by their spouse even if they are in an irregular marital situation. The irregular partner will be able to greet the Pope and will be included in the official photo of the event and in the exchange of gifts.
 
Sources maintain the protocol change was conceived within the Vatican Secretariat of State, though the rumor could not be confirmed.
 
The protocol change does not affect in any way the doctrine of the Church on marriage.

During the Feb. 18 inflight press conference coming back from Mexico, the Pope spoke about the need to integrate Catholics who have divorced and contracted a civil marriage. But the Pope also clearly stated that “integrating in the Church doesn’t mean receiving Communion.”

“I know married Catholics in a second union who go to church, who go to church once or twice a year and say ‘I want Communion,’ as if joining in Communion were an award. It’s a work towards integration. All doors are open, but we cannot say, ‘from here on they can have Communion.’ This would be an injury also to marriage, to the couple, because it wouldn’t allow them to proceed on this path of integration.”

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, recently spoke about the Church and couples in irregular unions.

“A second marriage or a second spouse, as long as the rightful spouse is still alive, is not possible according to the Catholic interpretation of the words of Jesus,” he said in a March 1 interview with a German newspaper.

“The Pope and all of us however want to carefully avoid people ‘drifting away’ from the Church as community of salvation.”

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