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 WASHINGTON- The United States has a moral obligation to protect unaccompanied children and families from persecution in Central America, said Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, Texas, in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, October 21. Bishop Seitz is an advisor to the USCCB Committee on Migration and a member of the board of the Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC).

The humanitarian outflow, driven by organized crime in the northern triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, continues, with nearly 40,000 unaccompanied children and an equal number of mothers with children having arrived in the United States in Fiscal Year 2015.

"If we do not respond justly and humanely to this challenge in our own backyard, then we will relinquish our moral leadership and moral influence globally," Bishop Seitz said.

Bishop Seitz pointed to the human consequences of U.S. policies which are designed to deter migration from the region, including U.S. support for Mexican interdiction efforts which are intercepting children and families in Mexico and sending them back to danger, in violation of international law.

Bishop Seitz recommended an end to these interdictions and the introduction of a regional system which would screen children and families for asylum in Mexico and other parts of the region. He also called for Congress to approve and increase a $1 billion aid package proposed by the Administration.

"If we export enforcement," Bishop Seitz said, "we also must export protection."

Bishop Seitz recalled the words of Pope Francis before Congress in September, when he invoked the golden rule in guiding our nation's actions toward those seeking safety in our land.

Quoting the Holy Father, Bishop Seitz repeated to the committee, "'The yardstick we use for others will be the yardstick which time will use for us.'"

"Mr. Chairman, I pray that time, and history, will conclude that we honored this rule in meeting this humanitarian challenge," Bishop Seitz concluded.

Bishop Seitz' testimony can be found at http://www.usccb.org//about/migration-policy/congressional-testimony/upload/seitz-ongoing-migration.pdf

Keywords: Bishop Mark J. Seitz, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, USCCB, Congress, Senate, Committee on Migration, migration, unaccompanied children, violence, Pope Francis
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Denver, Colo., Dec 28, 2015 / 12:02 pm (CNA).- When Amendment 64 legalized the sale of recreational marijuana to anyone over the age of 21 in Colorado, Dr. Christopher Thurstone’s work became even more complex.

A child psychiatrist and medical director of one of Colorado’s largest youth substance abuse treatment clinics, he has seen first hand marijuana’s detrimental effect on young people.

And in the past two, post-legalization years, he’s noticed some concerning spikes: in number of patients, in levels of marijuana in their systems, and in marijuana addiction among his young patients.

“It’s made things much more difficult,” Dr. Thurstone told CNA. “Treatment is much more difficult than it used to be, just because the attitudes are more relaxed about marijuana use, and it’s so much more prevalent and easy to get.”

Currently, recreational marijuana is only available for purchase in three other states – Washington, Alaska and Oregon – and in Washington, D.C. But with the 2016 elections on the horizon, both medical and recreational marijuana bills will be showing up on ballots in states across the country, most of whom are looking to places like Colorado to determine best practices.

While the legalization of marijuana brings with it some economic benefits, many professionals who work with young people are concerned the increasing acceptance of marijuana and the minimizing of the risks and negative side effects of the drug.

The shifting perceptions of pot

As the social acceptance of marijuana increases, the laws change to reflect those attitudes, and vice versa. The legalization of marijuana is both a reflection of and a catalyst for more accepting attitudes toward marijuana.

As the perceived harmfulness of marijuana falls among teens, use goes up – or, at the very least, remains stable. A recent survey from the National Institute on Drug Abuse found that for the first time ever, daily marijuana use has surpassed daily cigarette use among high school seniors.

In an interview with The Atlantic, the NIDA director Nora Volkow said that on the one hand, the findings prove the success of anti-tobacco campaigns that target adolescents.

On the other hand, the growing acceptance of pot among adolescents is concerning, especially given its impact on the developing brain, she said.

We’re seeing teenagers who are telling me, ‘Why would I stop using marijuana? I don’t believe it’s addictive, I don’t believe it has any bad effects, in fact it’s my medicine for my anger, depression, anxiety or ADHD.’

Dr. Thurstone has also found that teens today are more accepting of pot – a shift that began with the legalization of medical marijuana and was further solidified by the green light on recreational marijuana.

“Pre-legalization about 54 percent of 12-17 year-olds in Colorado reported great harm with regular marijuana use, and now post-legalization that’s dropped to about 34 percent,” he said.

“We’re clearly seeing a significant decrease in the perceived harmfulness of marijuana, especially among young people.”

And the data seems to match what he’s seen among the real live teens in his clinic as well.

“We’re seeing teenagers who are telling me, ‘Why would I stop using marijuana? I don’t believe it’s addictive, I don’t believe it has any bad effects, in fact it’s my medicine for my anger, depression, anxiety or ADHD.’”

This year, Denver Public Schools (DPS) created a position for substance prevention. Michel Holien, the new supervisor, said that while DPS hasn’t necessarily seen a sharp increase in marijuana use, they have noticed the shifting perceptions towards more accepting attitudes, and are working to combat them as early as the middle school level.

In the notoriously more-hippie-than-Denver city of Boulder, Colo., marijuana has long been entrenched in the culture, even before its legalization.

Father Peter Mussett, who serves as pastor at the Catholic Church on the campus of CU Boulder, said that even before legalization, 40 percent of incoming freshman were reporting use of marijuana on at least a monthly basis.  

And while legalization has opened up more opportunities for conversations about marijuana, Fr. Mussett said it’s also sparked more curiosity about the drug in more people than when it was still illegal.

“The curiosity is something that I find is one of the most poisonous parts of the legalization of marijuana because I think ultimately it’s a toxic experience,” he said.  

“(Legalization) just encourages the culture to say getting high is a great thing, and getting high is not a great thing. Getting high is destructive, and you can come in with all the best intentions, and on the other side of it, it always ruins people’s lives, continuously. It makes them dependent in worldy ways, and it does not actually encourage a good spiritual life surrendered to God.”

Health risks of marijuana

The biggest health concern for young people using marijuana is its harmful effect on the brain, which continues its development well into a person’s 20s, Dr. Thurstone said.

The main active ingredient in marijuana, THC, binds to receptors in the brain and can cause a significant decrease in IQ over time. A 2012 study published in the National Academy of Sciences found that adolescent exposure to marijuana can lead to an 8-point drop in IQ, on par with the drop seen in children exposed to lead.

Another concerning impact is the relationship between adolescent marijuana use and schizophrenia. A study repeated by multiple research groups has found that adolescent marijuana use can quadruple a teen’s risk of developing schizophrenia, Dr. Thurstone said.  

Marijuana can also be addictive, with one in six adolescent users developing a dependence over time, despite the perceptions to the contrary.

“In the scientific and medical community there’s not debate about that anymore,” he said. “Marijuana is not just psychologically addictive but physically addictive.”

A secondary health risk of marijuana use in adolescents is car accidents. The leading cause of death of 15-20 year-olds is automobile accidents, and the number traffic fatalities in which adolescents testing positive for marijuana spiked in Colo. after the surge of medical marijuana in the state after 2009.

Part of the problem, Dr. Thurstone said, is that people don’t understand how marijuana influences driving differently than alcohol. Marijuana is fat soluble, and its effects on the body last much longer than water-soluble alcohol.  

“That’s a myth, that it’s safe to drive under the influence of marijuana, we have to get good information out there around that,” he said.

Adolescent marijuana use is also associated with a lack of success in school, a major determining factor in quality of life over time.

“Everybody pretty much agrees it’s not a healthy thing in adolescents,” he said.

Motivating young people to avoid marijuana

The best way to talk to students about marijuana is to get personal, Holien said.

In her work with five Denver area middle schools on prevention tactics, she said she’s found the messaging that most resonates with students is how marijuana use could affect their various goals.

“It’s really understanding for each individual youth...what is really important to them,” she said.

“Is it getting into college? Is it staying on the team? Is it making sure their academics are up to par? But just understanding that marijuana, or really any substance use can get in the way of those goals, especially when you think about the ways that it does impact the brain.”

When Fr. Mussett talks to his students about marijuana, he says he always approaches it from the traditional moral lens – which looks at the intention, object of choice, and circumstances of use. As for motivating students to not use marijuana, he’s found that most helpful conversation is to focus especially on an individual’s intentionality behind their use.

Marijuana is unfortunately a synthetic spiritual life. It doesn’t actually help people get in touch with God and to contemplate the world and be in touch with the real.

“People don’t want to feel pain, people want to have a contemplative act, they want to be in touch, they want to be one with the universe, they want a transcendent experience, they want to have communion with others, which are all good things,” he said.

“So when I’m talking to people, I’m always walking them through ‘Ok, how does marijuana accomplish that? Is that’s something that’s a sustainable, valuable reality? Or is it an artificial simulation of that?’”

He said he then tries to help students find ways to accomplish those things without the use of marijuana or drugs – especially if it’s a true spiritual life they’re looking for.

“Marijuana is unfortunately a synthetic spiritual life. It doesn’t actually help people get in touch with God and to contemplate the world and be in touch with the real,” he said.

“And so the only counteraction to it I really see is to live an authentic spiritual life, and to seek whole ways rather than synthetic ways to experience communion, to understand your pain, to contemplate the real. I really think a life in Christ is the best solution for those people who are looking for these things.”

Photo credit: www.shutterstock.com.

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By Zoey Di Mauro

BURKE, Va. (CNS) -- Mary Susan Burnett-Miller was reading a magazine in a laundromat while on vacation in July when she read about the desires of a homeless man named T-Bone.

The story she was reading originated in Ventura, California, where years earlier a group of people asked T-Bone how they could serve him.

"If I had clean clothes, I think people would treat me like a human being," T-Bone responded.

Out of that came Laundry Love, an organization providing free laundry services to people in need.

Burnett-Miller, a longtime parishioner of Church of the Nativity in Burke, returned home and knew she had to start the ministry.

With the support of her pastor, Father Robert Cilinski, and a template from Laundry Love, she began to research laundromats that might host the group. Only Charlie Johnson and his son Blair, co-owners of a chain of northern Virginia laundromats, answered her inquiry.

The elder Johnson was ecstatic to get her call, said Burnett-Miller, and knew just the place that would work: Laundry World in Falls Church, a facility that serves many people who could use a little help.

Support came pouring in when Burnett-Miller announced the group at the church's ministry fair and at Sunday Masses.

"I thought we were going to get like 15 people signed up, but we had 75," said Sydney Grace Miller, Burnett-Miller's daughter who is a senior at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria.

"When we had the detergent drive, we ended up with over 100 bottles of detergent. We calculated and (that's) 7,000 loads," she said. "We're not going to need detergent for a long time."

As a bonus, the detergent bottles and dryer sheets, which are stored in the family's basement, make the house smell great.

The next step was to advertise in the laundromat so that customers would understand their mission. When volunteers from the parish arrived the first Saturday of October, the lines were out the door, Burnett-Miller said. Volunteers set out coloring books and toys for the children and a table of snacks and hot chocolate. Then they got to work on the laundry.

Men and women loaded their own clothes after which volunteers came by with several detergents from which they could choose and swiped the money card that started the machines. After their third laundry day, Dec. 5, Nativity's Laundry Love had provided 1,145 free loads of laundry to the community.

"We are so blessed to be able to help them in this small way," Burnett-Miller said.

In addition to helping people with their laundry, the group hopes to be able to befriend the people they serve. On one Saturday, a mother came in with two children and a baby. The volunteers held the baby and played with the children to give the mother a chance to fold her laundry.

"It's nice to make their day a little easier," Burnett-Miller said.

The simplicity and impact of the project is what first attracted Burnett-Miller to Laundry Love. The laundromat is a safe, warm environment where entire families can come to volunteer, she said.

Her daughter added, "People mostly think people need food (and) clothes, but they don't think people need clean laundry. If you think about the less fortunate kids in school, they're maybe embarrassed because their clothes smell bad or their sheets are dirty," Miller said.

"Also, (with Laundry Love) it's not just donating to a random cause; you actually get to come out here and help everybody out."

Amy Smith, an eighth-grader at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, first heard the announcement for Laundry Love at Mass and immediately asked her mother if they could volunteer.

"I needed service hours for school and also it sounded like a cool thing to do because I want to fix poverty and this seemed like a good thing to do to help that," she said. Her mother, Diane, added, "I'm here because she wanted to be here. It's a lovely thing to be able to help these people."

Nativity parishioner Barbara Olson also came because her 13-year-old daughter asked to volunteer.

"This time of year, how can you not want to give back to the community?" she said. "Clean clothes on your back does make a difference."

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Di Mauro is a staff writer at the Arlington Catholic Herald, newspaper of the Diocese of Arlington.

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IMAGE: CNS photo/Debbie Hill

By Judith Sudilovsky

JERUSALEM (CNS) -- On Christmas Eve, the entrance to the West Jerusalem YMCA was decked out in colorful lights against the night sky, and a Christmas tree sparkling with ornaments stood in the lobby. Jewish Israelis and international visitors, guests at the YMCA's popular restaurant, stopped to take pictures in front of the tree.

Nearby, the YMCA's auditorium was packed with mainly Jewish Israelis who had come to listen to a concert of Christmas music.

A group of secular rabbinical students from the center of the country who had come to experience Christmas in Jerusalem followed their guide through the building to hear about Christmas traditions. A little later, a smaller group of Jewish teen nature Scouts took a quick glimpse at the tree as they rushed to be on time the Christmas Mass at the nearby Italian Consulate.

"It is interesting to see different customs," said 15-year-old Dvir Sagury of Jerusalem.

His friend, Harel Guttel, 15, said Israelis have some inkling about the Muslim Arabs living among them, but with Christians a tiny minority in Israel, there is very little opportunity to come in contact with their traditions.

"I'd like to see what (are) the traditions are of another religion, see the prayers," he said.

The scene was a far cry from the one a few weeks earlier when a handful of members of the group, Lehava, led by Bentzi Gopstein, demonstrated against a Christmas bazaar held at the YMCA, calling it a "murder of Jewish souls." They held signs demanding the "impure ones" to leave the country. In an op-ed piece in a religious newspaper, Gopstein later called Christians "blood-sucking vampires."

From the West Jerusalem restaurant displaying a Christmas tree to Jewish children cajoling their parents to decorate at Christmastime, to groups like Lehava, Jewish Israelis are extremely divided when it comes to Christmas, said Father David Neuhaus, patriarchal vicar for Hebrew-speaking Catholics in Israel.

"Israeli society is becoming more and more divided on every single issue, including this issue," he said. "Some people are terrified of a kind of obscuring of the boundaries, and we have Rabbi Gopstein saying terrible things, which elicits a contrary reaction. We had a number of rabbis and Israeli Jews coming to Mass at our parishes and who are open (to seeing symbols and learning about Christmas)."

He said others are happy to embrace the outward trappings of the holidays with the tree and the decorations because they are pretty, but they are not very interested in learning about the significance of the holiday.

"What interests us more are the people who are open to learning about the other without losing their own identity," he said. "I don't know where this is going or who will have the upper hand, but there is a large majority (of people) who have good will or really don't care. (But) in an atmosphere of fear, a lot of power is given to the marginal groups. If the right political leader came along, they would find a lot of support."

Rabbi Sivan Maas, 57, who was heading the group of secular rabbis for the evening, said she felt there is increasing interest and acceptance of seeing the symbols of Christmas in public spaces. With their wide exposure now to Christmas on the Internet and in the media, Israelis like the feeling of being cosmopolitan and fashionable, she said. Many even like to travel abroad specifically at this time to see the decorations in their full glory and hit some of the Christmas sales.

"It is more the fun of (Christmas), not so much the message," she said.

"I think it is a very beautiful holiday, and I think that as a country we don't give enough room for the holidays of the other traditions that live here," said Yuval Moran, 21, who accompanied her mother on the rabbi's tour. Moran, from the almost completely Jewish city of Kfar Saba, she did not even know when Christmas was until two years ago.

"In mixed cities like Jerusalem and Haifa, people are more exposed to it. I didn't know what the tree symbolized. It's not that I am celebrating their holiday, I am joining them in their celebration," she said.

Her mother, Galit Oren, 49, said that although she had always loved the decorations and lights of Christmas, she felt the need to delve deeper into the significance of the holiday.

"It's important to know about the traditions of the people who live with us," she said.

In their Jerusalem living room, Ella and Emily Bolton-Laor adjusted the lights on their small Christmas tree. It was the second year Ella, 15, spearheaded the Christmas decorating, including in her bedroom. A classmate is the daughter of a foreign worker from the Philippines and celebrates Christmas, so she and another friend decided to put up decorations in their own homes. Bolton-Laor's father took her to Jerusalem's Old City to buy Christmas ornaments.

"I like the way it looks with all the lights and smells, and it is my mom's birthday. It's winter time," she said.

Emily, 11, said she first started getting interested in Christmas from YouTube, where families posted their Christmas videos.

"I wanted to see what kids really get for Christmas. It looked like kind of fun, and (the decorations) give me a feeling of having my family all around me," she said. Her interest led her to doing a school project on the significance of Christmas two years ago.

Tamar Herman, 63, traveled to Jerusalem from the coastal town of Netanya over the Christmas weekend. She said attending the YMCA concerns was about making a statements against the increasing extremism she has noticed.

"I came here especially to hear the bells (at the end of the concert)," she said. "The whole world is becoming more fanatical, and I hope that in my own little radius, in my own way, I am doing something to counter that."

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Copyright © 2015 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.

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