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 WASHINGTON-The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' (USCCB) Subcommittee on the Church in Africa announced the approval of 42 grants totaling $1 million to support pastoral projects in 18 countries in Africa.

Grants from the Subcommittee focus on providing support to dioceses and episcopal conferences to help build their capacity for pastoral ministry. Projects include organizing bible courses, formation of catechists, support for seminarian formation, and support for the structures needed for growth. The Catholic population in Africa has more than tripled to more than 200 million since 1980, according to Georgetown University's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA).

"The growth of the church in Africa is a gift to the Church as a whole," said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop Emeritus of Washington and chairman of the Subcommittee on the Church in Africa during the meeting at which the grants were approved, "and it is through the work of the Subcommittee that we will continue elevate the spiritual well-being of our brothers and sisters on the African continent."

The Catholic Bishops' Conference of Ethiopia received a grant to support their pastoral care of refugees from Eritrea. The program will offer a place for refugees from Eritrea to gather, pray, and be renewed spiritually. The Chaplaincy for Refugees facilitates weekly bible studies, monthly Mass, retreats twice per year, and marriage preparation. Each year over 150 people participate in the program, and over 500 people have been served since 2011 when the program began.

The Uganda Episcopal Conference will use a grant from the Subcommittee to strengthen youth ministry through capacity building of youth leaders and chaplains in the Diocese of Hoima. The program includes conducting seminars and training sessions for youth leaders and chaplains, hosting radio talk shows, and monitoring and evaluating the results of the project to understand how it can become self-supporting. Through this training, youth ministry will be more sustainable and better coordinated across the diocese. This program will serve 38 parishes and two pastoral centers.

The grants were approved during the November 2015 USCCB General Assembly in Baltimore. Grants from the Subcommittee are funded by donations to the annual collection for the Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa. The Subcommittee on the Church in Africa oversees the Solidarity Fund as part of the USCCB Committee on National Collections.

More information on the work of the Subcommittee on the Church in Africa can be found online at www.usccb.org/africa.

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Keywords: Solidarity Fund for the Church in Africa, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Subcommittee on the Church in Africa, national collection, Catholic Bishops' Conference of Ethiopia, pastoral, youth ministry, Uganda Episcopal Conference, grants

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Washington D.C., Jan 12, 2016 / 03:41 pm (CNA).- Since its first introduction, the federal contraception mandate has drawn controversy, with hundreds of employers saying it forces them to violate their sincerely-held religious beliefs.   

Now, one lawyer is arguing that the Obama administration unfairly relied on tax law to determine which institutions were religious enough to get an exemption from the mandate.

“The distinction they ended up making was simply whether you file a 990 [tax form] or not. That’s an absurd distinction to make,” Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network told CNA.

“At the end of the day, it’s really a matter of whether we’re going to make religious freedom rights depend on arbitrary details of the tax law, or whether they should really be based on someone’s sincere religious beliefs,” she added.

According to internal e-mails obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, the administration used tax law – and not religious mission or affiliation – to determine which religious groups would be exempt from the contraception mandate, Severino said.

Therefore, some organizations that were not direct auxiliaries of churches – such as Catholic universities and hospitals – were required to follow the mandate simply because of their tax status.

The administration gave these religious non-profits “second-class status,” Severino argued.

“The problem is that they [the administration] distinguish and give lesser treatment, kind of second-class religion status to groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor, like Catholic Charities, like religious universities,” she said. “If they were really concerned about protecting religious freedom, then they would have made the distinction…based on something about their religious practice.”

The Little Sisters of the Poor’s case before the Supreme Court is joined with six other cases against the contraception mandate from various religious non-profits, including the Archdiocese of Washington and Christian colleges.

Severino filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Little Sisters of the Poor in their case.

At issue is the administration’s mandate that employers provide coverage for sterilizations and contraceptives, including some that could cause early abortions, in employee health plans.

The religious exemptions to the mandate are narrow, covering mostly houses of worship and their auxiliaries like parish groups and parochial schools that file certain tax forms.

Non-exempt parties who do not comply with the mandate face steep fines; the Little Sisters have said the fines would amount to about 40 percent of their annual donations used to run their houses to care for the elderly poor.

Faced with initial backlash, the administration also offered an “accommodation” to objecting non-profits. They are instructed to notify their insurer or the government of their opposition to providing contraception coverage. The insurer must then provide the necessary coverage independently.

Many non-profits, including the Little Sisters of the Poor, have argued that this still requires complicity in morally-objectionable actions to provide access to contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs. Some critics have charged that the cost of the drugs would still be passed on to the objecting non-profits through the cost of their health plans.

The Little Sisters lost their case against the mandate at the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in July, as the ruling stated that the administration’s accommodation for non-profits did not “substantially burden” their religious beliefs. The sisters applied for and received an injunction against the mandate and its fines from the Supreme Court, and the Court agreed in November to hear the case.

Constitutional law scholars, theologians, religious leaders, and more than 200 members of Congress filed amicus briefs Monday supporting the sisters before the Supreme Court.

In one brief, 50 theologians and ethicists argued that the accommodation still requires groups like the Little Sisters to both formally and materially cooperate with evil. The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals had denied the sisters’ claim that the accommodation substantially burdened their religious beliefs.

“Many theologians in the Catholic tradition have concluded that one who knowingly obeys a command to act in furtherance of a wrongful objective typically shares thereby in the intention to achieve the wrongful objective, even if the cooperation is performed reluctantly or under duress,” the brief stated.

“On this view,” compliance with the mandate would be “formal cooperation” with evil, they continued.

Through any of the avenues offered in the government’s accommodation for objecting non-profits – sending the “Form 700” to their insurer which would then provide the contraceptive coverage; notifying the government of their objection so that the government would then direct the insurer to provide the coverage; or keeping a contract with their insurer that the government has ordered to provide the contraceptive coverage – these groups would still be furthering the “government’s intention” of providing access to contraception, the brief argued.

“Petitioners may reasonably infer from the Catholic tradition that submitting information whose sole purpose and function is to facilitate the Government’s execution of a forbidden action would necessarily involve sharing in the intention to perform the action. Again, this would constitute formal cooperation with wrongdoing.”

In another brief, filed by the grassroots organization Women Speak for Themselves, George Mason law professor Helen Alvare argued that the mandate does not meet the “compelling interest” test of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Under that law, when the state substantially burdens a person’s exercise of religion, it must prove that the burden fulfills a compelling government interest and is the least-restrictive means of doing so. However, Alvare rejected the government’s claim that it was furthering a “compelling interest” by requiring religious employers to pay for their employees’ contraception.

“The government is asking this Court to accept its intuition that free contraception and ECs [emergency contraceptives] will lower rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion and thereby improve women’s health. On its face, this seems plausible, even likely, but relevant data and the history of contraception’s dynamic effects in the United States do not bear it out,” she said.

 

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Dale Gavlak

By Dale Gavlak

AMMAN, Jordan (CNS) -- With crises in Syria and Iraq deepening, Catholic bishops on a solidarity visit with the "forgotten" Christians of the Middle East are urging stepped-up peace efforts to resolve conflicts tearing apart the troubled region.

Highlighting the ongoing plight of Iraqi Christian refugees who face another winter of displacement, 18 months after fleeing persecution by Islamic State militants, is also their top concern.

"They want a future which is full of peace," Bishop Declan Lang of Bristol, England, said of the Iraqi Christians who attended a packed, solemn Mass at Our Lady of Peace Center on the hilly, tree-lined outskirts of the Jordanian capital.

"These people are of tremendous faith, and that's where they find their identity. What we are trying to say to them is that you are not forgotten," Bishop Lang told Catholic News Service.

Bishop Lang has been leading 12 bishops from Europe, South Africa and North America on the third and final leg of a pilgrimage to encourage Christians in the Holy Land. Known as the Holy Land Coordination, the annual event was set up at the invitation of the Holy See at the end of the last century to offer support to local Christian communities of the Holy Land.

The bishops earlier traveled to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank to encourage a Palestinian Christian population increasingly dwindling in the land of Jesus' birth.

But the bishops told Catholic News Service that it also was important to hear from Iraqi Christians and other refugees, so the wider Christian community can effectively help them.

"It's important that we remind our governments and the general population of the situation of Iraqi Christians," Bishop Lang said of the some 8,000 Iraqi Christians currently sheltering in neighboring Jordan.

They fled their ancient homeland of more than 14 centuries after Islamic State militants told them to convert to Islam, be killed or leave. Tens of thousands are internally displaced in northern Iraq.

"So one of the responsibilities and obligations that we have is to keep reminding people of the stress and distress of the Iraqi refugees," Bishop Lang said.

One Iraqi Christian, identified only as Bashar, said after the Mass, "My family and I sadly feel that we can never go back to our home in Mosul." A mechanical engineer, the man had once owned his own telecom company in Iraq's second-biggest city, which is currently in the hands of Islamic State.

"The military didn't protect us, and our Muslim neighbors betrayed us, even robbing us of our personal possessions. So we believe that the only future for us is somewhere in the West," said the man, who now shelters with his family of four at the center's compound because he has lost his savings.

Bishop Lionel Gendron of St. Jean-Longueuil, Quebec, told CNS that one of the first things he plans to do is talk to the new Canadian government about the issue of opening more resettlement opportunities to Iraqi Christians.

"I will insist on the fact. Iraqis are practically not allowed to go back to their country," the Canadian bishop said. "Many Syrians left (their country) because of the war and the political situation, while the Iraqis left mainly because of their faith."

Bishop Oscar Cantu of Las Cruces, New Mexico, told CNS that "the time for peace is now."

While praising the work of the international Catholic charity, Caritas, which aids more than 1 million Syrian and Iraqi refugees and the other humanitarian efforts in Jordan, he called them "a band-aid."

"It's not sustainable in the long run," said Bishop Cantu, who serves as chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on International Justice and Peace. "We have to look at the root causes of these issues. It's in everyone's interest to build peace, so we will certainly be advocating for that as we return."

"It's also important that the U.S. take in its fair share of refugees," Bishop Cantu said of the increasingly divisive issue in the United States.

Stephen Colecchi, director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office of International Justice and Peace, accompanied Bishop Cantu on the visit. He said the office's work on behalf of "all the peoples of the Middle East" has involved supporting a resolution in Congress declaring that Iraqi Christians and Yezidis have suffered genocide at the hands of Islamic State militants. He said his office also has worked to encourage the U.S. to accept its "fair share of refugees" and "invest in more resources for countries, like Jordan, to cope with the refugee influx, so they are not destabilized."

Colecchi emphasized the need for active international peace efforts that recognize the rights of religious minorities in the Middle East.

"We've got to work for peace and ultimately stop the atrocities of Islamic State and the flow of refugees," he said.

"A more united and effective response is needed to that kind of extremism from which Muslims are suffering and particularly, Christians and Yezidis, are targeted by," Colecchi added.

Among the other bishops who took part in the Holy Land Coordination were Bishop Stephen Brislin of Cape Town, South Africa; Auxiliary Bishop William Kenney of Birmingham, England; Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore, Ireland; and Bishop William Nolan of Galloway, Scotland.

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