Kids in a time of climate change – what's a Catholic to do?
By Mary Rezac
Washington D.C., Oct 27, 2016 / 03:31 am (CNA) - Travis Rieder and his wife Sadiye have one child.
She wanted a big family, but he’s a philosopher who studies climate change with the Berman Institute of Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. One child of their own was all the world could environmentally afford, they decided.
In his college classes, Rieder asks his students to consider how old their children will be by 2036, when he expects dangerous climate change to be a reality. Do they want to raise a family in the midst of that crisis?
Many scientists concur that the earth is currently in a warming phase - and that if the earth’s average temperatures rise by more than 2 degrees Celsius, the effects would be disastrous.
The 2015 Paris Agreement, signed by nearly 200 countries within the United Nations, aims to address just that. Signatory countries agreed to work to keep the global temperature from increasing by two degrees through lowering their greenhouse gas emissions, and to work together on adapting to the effects of climate change that are already a reality.
But reproductive solutions, such as the ones proposed by Rieder, are wildly controversial for the ethical and moral questions they raise.
Penalizing parents
In his new book “Toward a Small Family Ethic,” Rieder and two of his peers advocate for limited family size because of what they believe is an impending climate change catastrophe.
They suggest a “carrots for the poor, sticks for the rich” population control policy, which they insist is not like China’s harsh one-child policy.
For poor developing nations, they suggest paying women to fill their birth control and widespread media campaigns about smaller families and family planning. For wealthier nations, they suggest a type of “child tax”, which would penalize new parents with a progressive tax based on income that would increase with each new child.
“(C)hildren, in a kind of cold way of looking at it, are an externality,” Rieder recently told NPR. “We as parents, we as family members, we get the good. And the world, the community, pays the cost.”
While it might sound strange, the idea that climate change and overpopulation morally necessitate couples to limit their family size (or to have no children at all) is not new.
Since the 1960s, some scientists have been advocating for smaller families for various reasons – overpopulation, climate cooling, the development of Africa – and now, global warming and climate change.
And while the idea isn’t new, neither are the moral and ethical concerns associated with asking parents to limit their family size for the sake of the planet.
Should Catholics limit their family size?
Ultimately, Catholics ethicists said, while environmental concerns can certainly factor into lifestyle choices, those who would ask people to completely forego children simply due to their carbon footprint are approaching the topic from the wrong perspective, not realizing the immeasurable worth and dignity of every human person.
“The proposals (on limited family size)...need to be assessed with a perspective as to the very nature of the human person, marital relationships, and society,” Dr. Marie T. Hilliard told CNA.
Hilliard serves as the director of bioethics and public policy The National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), a center designed specifically to answer the moral bioethical dilemmas that Catholics face in the modern world.
What’s problematic about the policies proposed by Rieder and other scientists is that they ask married couples to frustrate one of the purposes of their sexuality, Hilliard said.
“(T)he procreative end of marriage must be respective. Couples cannot enter into a valid marriage with the intent of frustrating that critical end, and one of the purposes of marriage,” she said. If couples are not open to the possibility of a child, “it frustrates at least one of the two critical ends of marriage: procreation and the wellbeing of the spouses.”
Dr. Christian Brugger is a Catholic moral theologian and professor with St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. He clarified that while the Church asks couples to be open to life, it does not ask that they practice “unlimited procreation.”
“The Catholic Church has never held – and has many times denied – that responsible parenthood means ‘unlimited procreation’ or the encouragement of blind leaps into the grave responsibilities of child raising,” he said.
“It does mean respecting marriage, respecting the moral principles in the transmission of human life, respecting developing human life from conception to natural death, and promoting and defending a social order manifestly dedicated to the common good.”
Considering the common good can include considering the environment, as well as a host of other factors that pertain to the flourishing of the human person, when couples are considering parenting another child, Brugger said.
But he cautioned Catholics against the moral conclusions of scientists whose views on life and human sexuality differ greatly from Church teaching.
“Catholics should not make decisions about family size based upon the urgings of these activists,” he said.
“Why? Because they hold radically different values about human life, marriage, sex, procreation, and family, and therefore their moral conclusions about the transmission of human life are untrustworthy.”
“(P)opulation scare-mongering has been going on in a globally organized fashion for 70 years. The issues that population activists use to promote their anti-natalist agendas change over time...But the urgent conclusion is always the same: the world needs less people; couples should stop having children,” he said.
And many worry that legislated policies encouraging and rewarding smaller families could open up a host of ethical and moral problems.
Rebecca Kukla of Georgetown University told NPR that she worries about the stigma such policies would unleash on larger families. She also worried that while a “child tax” might not be high enough to be considered coercive, it would be unfair, and would favor the wealthy.
Hilliard agreed.
“(A) carte blanche imperative to limit family size can lead us to the dangers the (NPR article) cites, as discrimination and bias and government mandates can, and have, ensued,” Hilliard said.
Women in particular would bear the brunt of the resulting stigmas of such policies, Brugger noted.
“(W)omen will and already do suffer the greatest burden from this type of social coercion. Women have always been the guardians of the transmission of human life. They share both the godlike privilege of bearing life within them and the most weighty burdens of that privilege. Anti-natalist demagoguery is always anti-woman, always,” Brugger said.
All things considered, the Catholic Church would never take away the right and responsibility of parents to determine their family size by supporting a policy that would ask families to limit their size because of climate change, he said.
It’s not people, it’s your lifestyle
William Patenaude is a Catholic ecologist, engineer and longtime employee with Rhode Island's Department of Environmental Management. He frequently blogs about ecology from a Catholic perspective at catholicecology.net.
The idea that we must choose between the planet or people, he told CNA, is a “false choice.” The problem isn’t numbers of people – it’s the amount each person is consuming.
“The US Environmental Protection Agency reports that in 1960 the United States produced some 88 million tons of municipal waste. In 2010 that number climbed to just under 250 million tons—and it may have been higher had a recession not slowed consumption. This jump reflects an almost 184 percent increase in what Americans throw out even though our population increased by only 60 percent,” he wrote in a blog post about the topic.
There is a similar trend in carbon emissions, which increase at a faster rate than the population.
“We can infer from this that individuals (especially in places like the USA) are consuming and wasting more today than we ever have, which gets to what Pope Francis has been telling us about lifestyles, which is consistent with his predecessors,” Patenaude told CNA.
Climate change has been one of the primary concerns of Pope Francis’ pontificate. While not the first Pope to address such issues, his persistence in addressing the environment has brought a new awareness of the urgency of the issue to other Church leaders.
In May 2015, Pope Francis published “Laudato Si,” the first encyclical devoted primarily to care for creation.
In it, the Holy Father wrote that the earth “now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will.”
But never does the Pope ask families to have fewer children. Instead, he urges Catholics to address pollution and climate change, to make simple lifestyle changes that better care for “our common home” and to work toward a better human ecology.
“It seems that voices that urge fewer children aren’t interested in new and temperate lifestyles. In fact, they are implicitly demanding that modern consumption levels be allowed to stay as they are – or even to rise. This seems selfish and gluttonous, and not at all grounded in a concern for life, nature, or the common good,” Patenaude said.
Furthermore, the good of any individual person outweighs the damage of their potential carbon footprint, he said.
“The good and dignity and worth of every human person is superseded by nothing else on this planet. If we don’t affirm that first, we can never hope to be good stewards of creation, because we will never really be able to appreciate all life,” he said.
“On the other hand, one way to affirm the dignity of human life – collectively and individually – is to care for creation. Because as I noted earlier, creation is our physical life-support system, and so to authentically care for it is to care for human life.”
Dan Misleh is the executive director of Catholic Climate Covenant, which was formed in 2006 by the United States Catholic Bishops in order to help implement Church social teaching regarding climate change.
Misleh agreed that while reducing the consumption of fossil fuels is “imperative” to reducing negative effects of climate change like droughts and rising sea levels, that does not mean mandated population engineering and smaller families.
“As for population, places like the U.S., Japan and many European countries have both high carbon emissions and relatively low population growth and birth rates. So there is not a direct correlation between low-birth rates and fewer emissions. In fact, the opposite often seems to be true: countries with the highest birthrates are often the poorest countries with very low per-capita emissions,” he told CNA.
What is needed is a true “ecological conversion,” like Pope Francis called for in Laudato Si, Misleh said.
“(P)erhaps we Catholics need to view a commitment to a simple lifestyle not as a sacrifice but as an opportunity to live more in keeping with the biblical mandate to both care for and cultivate the earth, to spend more time on relationships than accumulating things, and to step back to appreciate the good things we have rather than all the things we desire.”
END
Just how important are presidential Supreme Court picks?
By Matt Hadro
Washington D.C., Oct 27, 2016 / 06:18 am (CNA/EWTN News) - Both major presidential candidates say that the future of the Supreme Court depends on this election – but how important is the Court to Catholics, and will the next president really shape it?
“It is certainly one of the most important things that a president does,” said Professor Michael McConnell, a law professor at Stanford University and director of the school’s Constitutional Law Center. “And because the Supreme Court has been so closely divided with so many 5-4 decisions, even one justice can make a very big difference.”
After the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia in February, President Barack Obama nominated Merrick Garland, chief judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, to take his place. However, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to confirm the nominee, saying the Senate would wait until next year to consider confirming nominees.
Thus, the Supreme Court – normally composed of nine justices – is operating with an empty seat, leading to outcomes like a 4-4 split in United States v. Texas, the case involving President Obama’s executive action on immigration. The even split allowed the lower court’s decision to stand.
Advocates of both major presidential candidates say the next president’s nomination of a justice will be one of the most important reasons to vote in the coming presidential election. And, given the age of some of the justices on the bench, several more could retire in the next few years, giving the next president the opportunity to nominate several of their hand-picked justices to the Court.
Has a president been able to shape the Court in the past? Yes, McConnell said, there are historical examples of this.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt at first saw his “New Deal” policies declared unconstitutional by an unfriendly Court; however, “by the end [of his presidency] he had named all nine” justices and “the Court was completely in congenial hands,” McConnell told CNA.
“President Nixon had the opportunity to name four justices, which marked the end of the liberal activist Warren court and ushered in an entirely new jurisprudence,” he added.
The next justice could very well determine future jurisprudence on the constitutionality of state abortion bans, abortion regulations, and religious freedom cases where, for example, businesses are sued for conscientiously declining to serve a same-sex wedding or conscientiously declining to have birth control covered in employee health plans.
Pro-life and pro-choice advocates have both touted the importance of the Court in this election.
For instance, after the Supreme Court struck down Texas’ regulations of abortions clinics in a 5-3 decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, the president of the pro-life group Susan B. Anthony List Marjorie Dannenfelser said “the stakes for the 2016 election could not be higher.”
“The next president will be tasked with selecting Justice Antonin Scalia’s replacement and up to three others,” Dannenfelser said. “We must elect a pro-life president and safeguard today’s pro-life majorities in the House and Senate.”
Meanwhile, the political arm of Planned Parenthood praised the Court’s decision. “Our next president – and the new Supreme Court justices they’ll appoint – will determine whether women continue to have a constitutional right to safe and legal abortion,” Planned Parenthood Action stated.
At the final presidential debate, when asked what kind of Supreme Court justices they would appoint, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump gave different answers.
Clinton insisted that “we need a Supreme Court that will stand up on behalf of women’s rights, on behalf of the rights of the LGBT community,” adding that “it is important that we not reverse marriage equality, that we not reverse Roe v. Wade.”
Trump, meanwhile answered that “I am pro-life and I will be appointing pro-life justices,” along with justices that “will be protecting the Second Amendment.” He stopped short of saying that he wanted Roe v. Wade overturned.
With the Court closely divided on important cases, the impact of even one Supreme Court justice cannot be overlooked, McConnell emphasized.
For instance, in a 2014 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that the craft chain Hobby Lobby and other “closely-held for-profit” businesses were protected from the federal government’s birth control mandate by a religious freedom law, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
That was a 5-4 decision with Justice Scalia in the majority, which meant that if just one justice in his place ruled differently, the Green family who owns Hobby Lobby – and other business owners claiming to run their business based on their religious beliefs – would have lost a key religious freedom case.
“The Court is very divided on questions of vital importance to believing and practicing Catholics,” said Professor David Upham, attorney-at-law and professor of politics at the University of Dallas.
On one side, four justices have been appointed by Democratic presidents and have ruled consistently together. “They vote in virtual lockstep over 90 percent of the time” and “very rarely file separate opinions,” McConnell noted.
They have voted to uphold legal abortion and same-sex marriage and have opposed the religious freedom of Catholics who don’t want to cooperate with “the evils of the sexual revolution” like “contraception, abortifacients, and the public celebration of homosexuality,” Upham told CNA.
On the other hand, three justices have voted the opposite way on these issues.
They “have repeatedly voted to affirm, and not invalidate state and federal laws designed to secure the right of the child to his life and his parents,” Upham said, and “they have voted consistently to affirm and preserve the immunity of Catholics and others against compulsory participation in the practices and celebrations of the sexual revolution.”
And the remaining justice – Justice Anthony Kennedy – “has been less than consistent on these questions,” Upham added.
And how closely do the justices on the bench resemble the politics of the president who nominated them to the Court?
Historically, the justices are pretty consistent with the party politics of the president who appointed them, McConnell said. “Presidents don’t make mistakes all that often.”
“It’s certainly true that justices sometimes vote contrary to what you might think are the political leanings of the party who appointed him or her, and that’s a good thing,” he explained, but added that “it doesn’t happen very often.”
One example he gave of a justice defying the trend was Justice David Souter – nominated by Republican President George H. W. Bush – who “turned out to be a fairly reliable member of the liberal wing of the court. It’s unlikely that that’s what President Bush was looking for.”
Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Upham agreed that justices nominated and confirmed by a president and senators all of the same party are more consistent with a President’s views.
“In the past 30 years, every justice nominated by a Democratic President and confirmed primarily by Democratic Senators has been hostile to the rights of life, marriage, and religious freedom affirmed by the Church,” Upham said.
“In that same time, every justice nominated by a Republican President and confirmed primarily by Republican Senators has been friendly – or at least not hostile – to those same principles,” he added. “The only exceptions – Justices Souter and Kennedy – were appointed by a Republican President but confirmed primarily by Democratic Senators.”
Pope Francis announces new consistory to coincide with close of Jubilee
by Elise Harris
Vatican City, Oct 9, 2016 / 04:39 am (CNA/EWTN News) - On Sunday Pope Francis announced that he will hold a consistory of cardinals on the Nov. 19 vigil of the close of the Jubilee of Mercy, during which he will elevate 17 new cardinals – including three Americans.
“Dear brothers and sisters I am happy to announce that Saturday, Nov. 19 at the vigil for the closing of the Holy Door of mercy, a consistory will take place for the nomination of 13 cardinals from 5 continents,” the Pope said Oct. 9.
“The fact that they come from 11 nations expresses the universality of the Church, which announces and bears witness to the good news of the mercy of God in every corner of the earth.”
Opened Dec. 8, 2015 – the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception – the Jubilee is set to close Nov. 20, with the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.
Among the 17 new cardinal-elects are three Americans: Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago, Archbishop Joseph Tobin of Indianapolis and Bishop Kevin Farrell, prefect of the new Congregation for Laity, Family and Life.
Others of voting age include: Archbishop Mario Zenari, who is and will remain apostolic nuncio to the “beloved and martyred” Syria; Archbishop Dieudonné Nzapalainga of Bangui; Archbishop Carlos Osoro Sierra of Madrid; Archbishop Sergio da Rocha of Brazil; Archbishop Patrick D’Rozario of Dakha, Bangladesh; Archbishop Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo of Merida, Venezuela; Archbishop Joseph de Kesel of Malines Brussels; Bishop Maurice Piat of Port-Louis, Mauritius Island; Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Tlalnepantla, Mexico and Archbishop John Ribat of Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
In addition to the 13 new electoral cardinals, Francis has nominated four others who are of non-voting age due to their notable service to the Church: Anthony Soter Fernandez, Archbishop Emeritus of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Renato Corti, Archbishop Emeritus of Novara and Sebastian Koto Khoarai, O.M.I, Bishop Emeritus of Mohale’s Hoek, Lesotho.
Additionally, he nominated Fr Ernest Simoni, an Albanian priest from the diocese of Shkodra, whose testimony of the persecution of the Albanian Church under the communist regime the Pope cried at during his 2014 daytrip to the country.
The consistory will be the third of Pope Francis’ pontificate, the most recent of which took place last year on Valentines Days.
Francis has, as in previous years, stuck close to his vision of having a broader, more universal representation of the Church in the College of Cardinals, elevating many bishops who come from small countries or islands that have never before had a cardinal, as well as from countries which present particular challenges in terms of pastoral outreach, such as those stricken with violence or persecution.
Out of the Pope’s new nominations, seven come from countries that have previously never had a cardinal, including: the Central African Republic, Bangladesh, Mauritius Island, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Lesotho and Albania.
With the 17 new cardinal-elects included, the number of voting cardinals comes to 121, and the number of non-voters to 107, for a grand total of 228.
Religious Christmas carols to be allowed in veterans' hospitals
Washington D.C., Sep 23, 2016 / 06:56 am (CNA/EWTN News) - New clarifications about Department of Veterans Affairs rules have resolved a dispute about religious Christmas carols, gifts and displays in veterans’ hospitals, a chaplains’ group has said.
“No one should try to water down Christmas for our veterans just because they object to any religious references or items. I am most grateful that the VA has clarified their policy prior to the upcoming holidays,” Chaplain Ron Crews, a retired Army Reserve colonel, said Sept. 21.
The chaplain is executive director of Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty, a group of Protestant Christian organizations and ministries that provide over 2,600 chaplains for the U.S. military.
“This should make clear that churches may sing Christmas carols and distribute Christmas cards at VA hospitals,” Chaplain Crews continued. “The guidelines state that hospital administrators may allow this and provide reasonable guidance as to where displays may be set up and where and how long a church choir may sing.”
He said the new policy “should put a stop to those organizations that complain without basis about any mention of faith in VA facilities.”
The Veterans Affairs department had attracted controversy for some hospital policies applied at Christmastime.
In December 2013, A Veterans’ Affairs hospital in Georgia barred high school Christmas carolers from singing religious songs. The hospital required them to sing from a list of 12 Christmas songs its pastoral service deemed appropriate. The ban was enacted on the grounds that each veteran had the right to be protected from unwelcomed religious material.
The new guidance says that once a director allows holiday singing in a designated location, the department “must remain neutral regarding the views expressed by the group or individual generally or in its holiday songs.”
The guidance says that Veterans Health Administration facilities may receive cards and gifts with religious messages for distributions to patients and residence in accordance with their individual preferences.
It also allows veterans’ groups to set up displays with religious items on VA property.
Body of third priest kidnapped in Mexico found
by Elise Harris
Vatican City, Sep 26, 2016 / 07:21 am (CNA/EWTN News) - Less than a week after two Catholic priests in Mexico were found murdered after having been abducted from their parishes, the body of a third slain priest, Fr. José Alfredo López Guillén, has been found.
Fr. López Guillén, pastor of Janamuato in Mexico’s central state of Michoacan, was taken from the rectory of his parish by unknown persons Monday, Sept. 19. His car had been found overturned on a road nearby.
According to a message written on the archdiocese’s Facebook page, the priest had been killed several days before his lifeless body was found near the town of near Puruandiro.
His abduction occurred on the same day that authorities found the lifeless bodies of previously-kidnapped Fathers Alejo Nabor Jiménez Juárez and José Alfredo Juárez de la Cruz, in the Diocese of Papantla, in Veracruz state.
According to the Catholic Multi Media Center, 15 priests have been killed in Mexico in less than four years. The majority of the killings have taken place in areas plagued by drug violence, which continues to terrorize country and frequently targets priests, since the Catholic Church is one of the most vocal in speaking out against cartel crimes and activities.
Pope Francis, who has often condemned drug related crime and violence in Mexico, voiced his closeness to the country’s bishops in his Sunday Angelus address.
He offered his support to the commitment of the Church and of civil society in Mexico to “in favor of the family and of life, which in this time require special pastoral and cultural attention throughout the world.”
“I also assure of my prayer for the dear Mexican people, so that the violence which has in these days also affected some priests, ceases.”
In a video posted on YouTube Sept. 22, Cardinal Alberto Suárez Inda of Morelia, capital of Michoacan and one of the most troubled cities in Mexico, said that “after sharing in the enormous pain over the murder of two young priests in the Diocese of Papantla in Veracruz, today we are suffering anguish firsthand over the disappearance, the kidnapping of one of our priests.”
The cardinal offered prayers for the kidnapped priest and asked that the captors would “respect his person and his life, so that he can return soon to the exercise of his ministry.”
“We join in prayer for his family members and parishioners who are going through this distressing time,” he said, and prayed for peace, for respect for life, and for the conversion “of those who dedicate themselves to doing evil.”
“Our community suffers the death, the anguish of any one of our faithful. In this case, it's a good man, dedicated to doing good and who is peaceful. This barbarity is in no way justifiable, I ask for your prayers.”
A priest and his love for Syrian refugees
By Casey McCorry / Angelus News
Los Angeles, Calif., Sep 27, 2016 / 03:11 am (CNA) - The needs of Father David Bedrossian’s parish are unique.
While many priests grapple with budgetary concerns and a desire to fill pews, Father Bedrossian is wondering where he’s going to find the resources to house the next Syrian refugee who shows up on the church steps.
Father Bedrossian’s parish, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Armenian Catholic Church, has a long history of sheltering displaced persons. From the Armenian refugees escaping genocide and communism through the 1900s to the present-day Christian Syrian refugees, the parish has been a sanctuary for a generation of persecuted persons.
Each month, Syrian refugees show up at the church with their last penny to meet the man everyone calls “abouna,” (Arabic for father) Father Bedrossian. He is their job coach, landlord, translator, teacher and priest. And to many Father Bedrossian is their last hope.
Seventeen years ago, Father Bedrossian had to flee Syria, leaving his home, his brothers and sisters and his parishioners. Since leaving, six of his family members were killed and his beloved church was ransacked.
“I remember our church. They destroyed everything,” Father Bedrossian said. “They got rid of the crosses, the altars and turned it into ISIS headquarters with offices.”
He now lovingly tends to the wounds of his Syrian family in Los Angeles by making Our Lady Queen of Martyrs a true refuge, an elegant respite, a church resurrected far from home.
A labor of love
There is not a corner of the church that doesn’t have Father Bedrossian’s devoted and loving hand scrawled all over it. With few resources, he has imbued the church with all the ethnic charm and sacred beauty a few dollars and calloused hands can muster. The candles and sconces he bought from Ross’ Dress for Less. The crosses in the sacristy he bought from Hobby Lobby. The pews and roof of the church were artfully refurbished and hand-painted by Father Bedrossian himself.
But the tireless devotion he shows to his physical church is just a shadow of the attention he offers to each and every person in need that crosses his path: Muslim, and Christian, citizen or non, destitute or rich, he is “abouna” to all.
“I have no idea how they find me,” Father Bedrossian said. “I don’t find them, people send them to me. They show up here looking for help and I help them.”
A disappearing generation
In the last 10 years, the Christian community in Syria has gone from 10 percent of the population to less than 2 percent. Hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes or kidnapped and held at ransom. Those who stayed were given three options — convert to Islam, pay the minority tax or face death. Thousands of Christians have been killed, entire villages have been cleared and hundreds of churches have been damaged or destroyed.
“We will disappear in the Middle East,” Father Bedrossian explains. “Before the war started, Christians were over 1.3 million. Now there are 200,000. You think we’ll survive there? I don’t think so.” And in spite of the terror in his home, Father Bedrossian sees little to no acknowledgment here.
“Everybody who is silent is ISIS. Everybody who is silent is killing Christians. Nobody is raising a voice.”
Father Bedrossian says the five main obstacles for refugees are language, paperwork, unemployment, housing and transportation.
“How are they supposed to get a job when they only speak Arabic? They have no papers, no social security number. Are they going to pay their last penny on a lawyer to help them with papers they don’t understand? And without welfare, food stamps, how will they eat? People come here with enough to survive for three months. After that they will be homeless. What do you want these people to do?”
One refugee at a time
The number of refugees and the needs are insurmountable, but Father Bedrossian does what he can one person at a time. Last month, he picked up a Syrian refugee from a homeless shelter and found her temporary housing and meals. He checks in on her daily and is job-hunting for her and many others.
Vaskin Rashdouni, a friend from his hometown, came to the U.S. a few months ago after being kidnapped by ISIS and escaping. Finding work has been near impossible with the language barrier and his health issues. Ever since leaving Syria he has been suffering PTSD and type 1 diabetes. But this doesn’t stop Father Bedrossian from searching.
And Syrian soldier Yousef Hakim Hassake, one of Father Bedrossian’s former altar servers in Syria, is slowly rebuilding a life in the U.S. He has learned English and has found work in a manufacturing company. He has made enough money to take care of his mother. Any spare time he offers to Father Bedrossian and the church in gratitude, doing everything from cleaning and making meals to feeding doves in the garden.
Father Bedrossian explains, “If you choose to help these people, they will never stop repaying you. They will give you everything they have.”
Despite immeasurable obstacles for refugees, and unknown futures, there is no silencing the gnawing realization that being a refugee in the U.S. makes you one of the “lucky ones.”
Father Bedrossian continues to hear word from his family and friends in the Middle East — the escape of his sister to Greece on broken legs, his nephew killed by ISIS, his friend beheaded in a CNN video — these are the things that haunt him.
“I want to go and fight and protect them,” he says. But it seems God has other plans. There is a fight to be fought here.
Doing what you can
The burdens Father Bedrossian bears seem insurmountable: the livelihood of a forgotten nation, the survival of the persecuted in a new nation. Each morning brings the promise of a new refugee at his office door. A new family who needs food and housing. Another man suffering PTSD. Another woman from the homeless shelter. Each morning promises more news reports tallying the lives of his former parishioners like numbers and not lives he shepherded. But it does no good to focus on that, Father Bedrossian explains,
“We must do what we can. It’s the little things that will help a lot.” And he doesn’t work alone.
Strength lies in numbers
He and his parishioners work together. There’s a rolodex of parishioner lawyers he calls upon to help with legal issues. Parishioners “adopt” families financially, or house them until they get on their feet. Collection baskets continually finance a refugee’s month of rent, or a babysitter, or a week’s groceries. Volunteers offer English classes in a tiny classroom off the rectory.
Father Bedrossian has inspired this ragtag grassroots ministry in a way only a priest who stubbornly paints his own church can.
“You teach by doing. If you work they will come to help.”
This parish is unique in their shared history of persecution. Their community has consistently grappled with questions of survival and the worth of one’s faith. Their strength lies in uniting a community of broken people, in selfless charity when it hurts, and a rigorous love for Christ that was worth leaving home for.
For Father Bedrossian, this is everything. “I am tired. Very tired. Never tired of praying, only tired of thinking. What gets me out of bed each morning is my belief in God. It’s what keeps me alive. And even if I stop believing in him, he won’t stop believing in me.”
In a church named for the thousands of Christians who lost their lives protecting the belief in Christ they held so sacredly, the gift of faith is all too known. And Father Bedrossian will continue to wake up, and fight for that gift, and protect his people. It will just be in a little adobe church off of Cesar Chavez Avenue in L.A. It will be in the “little things.”
This article originally appeared in Angelus News, publication of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
Two priests murdered in Mexico
Mexico City, Mexico, Sep 20, 2016 / 11:28 am (CNA/EWTN News) - One day after they were kidnapped from their parish, Mexican priests Alejo Nabor Jiménez Juárez and José Alfredo Suárez de la Cruz were found murdered in a field.
The Mexican Bishops Conference confirmed the priests’ deaths and extended their condolences and prayers to the Diocese of Papantla, Mexico, where the priests served, and to the families of the two slain priests.
“We extend our pain and indignation at the violence exercised against them,” the bishops’ conference said.
“In these moment of pain, impotence and tragedy provoked by violence, we raise our prayers to the heavens for the eternal rest of these our brothers, and implore the Lord for the conversion of their aggressors,” the statement continued. “From the authorities we await an investigation to clear up what happened and the enforcement of justice against those responsible.”
“We pray to the Lord that he blesses our beloved homeland, and we ask for the intercession of Blessed Mary of Guadalupe, Queen of Peace, that united we search for integrity and the progress of our people,” the statement closed.
The Diocese of Papantla also offered its prayers “for the eternal rest of their souls and that we may be united in prayer as a Church, so that Christ the King of Peace may bring harmony to our homeland.”
The two priests were kidnapped Sept. 18 from Our Lady of Fatima Parish in the city of Poza Rica, a town located in the north of the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz. The bodies of the two priests were found the following day in a field in the nearby city of Papantla.
A third man, identified by Veracruz authorities, was kidnapped alongside the two priests, but escaped and was found alive. Veracruz officials said that he had been placed under protection.
Poza Rica and surrounding areas in Veracruz have been the locus of drug and associated cartel violence for years, but it is yet unclear why the priests were targeted. Priests have also been the target of violence elsewhere in Mexico.
What is the 'beating heart' of the Church? The Eucharist
Genoa, Italy, Sep 21, 2016 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News) - The Eucharist is the source of mercy and the beating heart of the Church, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa has said.
He was appointed Pope Francis’ special envoy for the Italian National Eucharistic Congress, held in Genoa Sept. 15-18.
“I would say that this congress is the response to a world order without God. It is also a testimony – for the city of Genoa and for the country - that living a good and peaceful life is really possible when we are on Jesus’ side,” Cardinal Bagnasco told CNA.
The Archbishop of Genoa is also president of the Italian bishops' conference. His envoy role was unusual, as for the first time since the Second Vatican Council, the Pope did not attend a Eucharistic Congress held in Italy.
From all over Italy, 900 delegates and bishops gathered for the congress, the theme of which was “Eucharist as the source of mission.”
“This congress renewed the love for Jesus in the Eucharist,” said Cardinal Bagnasco. “The Eucharist is the beating heart of the Church and of the People of God. Charity, missions, and works of mercy are born out of the Eucharist.”
Referring to the “world order without God,” Cardinal Bagnasco reiterated what he said Aug. 10, during the homily for the feast of St. Laurence, to whom the Genoa cathedral is dedicated.
In that homily, the cardinal noted that “even today, Christians experience martyrdom,” not only in the bloody, “classical” way, but also in new forms, “refined, but not less cruel; legalized, but not less unjust.”
He pointed his finger at a Europe that considers Christianity as “divisive” and at the world that “in the name of values like equality, tolerance and rights” claims to “marginalize Christianity” and establish “a world order without God.”
The cardinal told CNA that the euthanasia recently performed on a minor in Belgium – a terminally ill boy of 17 years – is “definitely one of the outcomes of a world order without God.”
“Only without God do we reach this point, as we have no more criteria for love and for living together, for loving others. Without God, we do not follow the rationale of love, but we rather follow the different rationale of effectiveness and of well being at all costs.”
Former Southern Baptist to become next head of Louisiana diocese
Alexandria, La., Sep 21, 2016 / 11:46 am (CNA/EWTN News) - The Vatican announced Wednesday that Pope Francis has appointed Bishop David Prescott Talley, currently auxiliary bishop of Atlanta and a former Baptist, to serve as the coadjutor bishop of the Diocese of Alexandria.
As coadjutor, Bishop Talley possesses the right of succession as head of the Diocese of Alexandria upon the resignation of its current ordinary, Bishop Ronald Herzog. Bishop Herzog will celebrate his 75th birthday – 'mandatory retirement' age for bishops – on April 22, 2017.
Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta said Sept. 21 that Bishop Talley “is a servant minister of our Church, who is graced with extraordinary wisdom, patience, kindness and dedication.”
The bishop, he said, “developed these gifts as a priest and bishop here in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, where he always cared for our people as a true minister of mercy and kindness. Thus, he now begins this new appointment with exceptional credentials.”
Serving as an auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Atlanta since 2012, Bishop Talley, 66, was the first native-born Georgian to serve the Archdiocese of Atlanta as a bishop.
Born in Columbus, Georgia, Sept. 11, 1950, he was raised as a Southern Baptist, but left that ecclesial community as a teenager over the issue of racial segregation, he said. He then joined the Catholic Church when he was 24, after meeting Catholics and reading the writings of Thomas Merton while he was studying at Auburn University.
He was ordained a priest of the Atlanta archdiocese June 3, 1989, and earned a doctorate in canon law from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He has served as pastor at three Atlanta area parishes, as the archdiocesan vocations director, as chancellor of the archdiocese, and as judicial vicar of the metropolitan tribunal. He was made a monsignor in 2001, and appointed auxiliary bishop of Atlanta in 2013.
As director of vocations, Bishop Talley, who speaks Spanish, helped the archdiocese to initiate a cross-cultural immersion program for seminarians to spend time living in El Paso and Ciudad Juarez so that they could learn Spanish and be more knowledgeable about the Hispanic culture and community.
He currently serves as chaplain to the disabilities ministry in Atlanta. Serving in this ministry has been key to his spiritual life: “all they do is ask the Lord for help. That simplicity and humility is where I think the Church should be – humble before God,” he told the Atlanta archdiocesan newspaper, the Georgia Bulletin.
Archbishop Gregory said, “We will sorely miss him in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, even as we thank him sincerely for sharing himself with us over these years, but we will gladly accompany him with our prayers and warmest best wishes.”
In Bishop Talley, the Pope has given the people of Louisiana a “tremendous gift,” he said.
Bishop Talley met with the priests of the Alexandria diocese Wednesday morning, saying, “I'm happy, I'm excited to be here in the Diocese of Alexandria. I pray that I will be the bishop that I need to be for this diocese.”
Located in central Louisiana, the Diocese of Alexandria serves 12 of the state's parishes, where nearly 10 percent of the population is Catholic.
These friends with Down syndrome are dominating the Argentina pizza market
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Sep 19, 2016 / 04:32 pm (CNA) - Mateo studied baking and Leandro pastry making. Franco and Mauricio wanted to be waiters. These overlapping interests led the four friends with Down syndrome to start a successful pizza service in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
With more than 10,000 followers on Facebook, this group of friends has held nearly 30 events in just two months. Wherever they are called, they always arrive with their own oven and outfits. The offer pizza and empanadas, and they even have a menu for those who are gluten intolerant.
Each one knows his role in the undertaking, which is coordinated by Leandro López, president of the Crecer Sumando (Growing Together) association, which is dedicated to serving young people with Down syndrome.
López told CNA that “the idea was to try to change a little bit the paradigm regarding persons with Down syndrome,” in order to help normalize their inclusion in society's workforce.
It all started in 2015, when López began working with efforts to help integrate Mauricio, Franco and Leandro into society.
“When that year was over, the guys were eager to work but there was this void.”
“In early 2016, when Mateo had already joined them, we began to work with their parents in the area of jobs, to see what kind of work they would like to do,” recalled the physical education teacher.
“One day I suggested cooking pizza, and I dove into the whole process, from buying all the materials to when we sat down at the table to eat,” López said.
The idea took off, and in June this year, the group began to work with the idea of having a pizza service whose name – “Los Perejiles” – was proposed by Leandro.
They had their first event on July 9. It became “a revolution on social media,” prompting them to “create an account, choose a logo and work on all their outfits.”
“They're my teachers and I'm learning with them what the needs are,” López said regarding managing the project.
“These young people can really be included in society, and they have a whole lot to teach us. I'm learning something new from them every day: the goodness of being human, the essence of the human being. There is no envy or selfishness among them, instead there is friendly collaboration.”
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López said that “at present there are no real job opportunities for people with Downs” in Buenos Aires. There are several training schools, but the chances of graduates being able to move beyond them and find other jobs is low.
“It seems to me that we all have a right to two fundamental things, to life and be taken into account. These two premises can make a person live happily their whole life,” López said.