Month: December 2022

The feast of the Immaculate Conception, which celebrates Mary having been conceived without original sin, is a good time to remember that “we sinners, too, have received an initial gift that has filled our life, a good greater than anything, an original grace, of which often, however, we are unaware.”

The feast day is a time to listen to God who says, “‘Son, daughter, I love you and I am with you always, you are important for me, your life is precious,'” the pope said. “When things do not go well and we are discouraged, when we are downcast and risk feeling useless or wrong, let us think about this, about this original grace.”

And, he said, it is a perfect day to remember that Mary will be with each person as he or she tries to fight temptation and to live in the fullness of their baptismal “original grace.”

“We who struggle to choose what is good, we can entrust ourselves to her,” the pope said. “Entrusting ourselves, consecrating ourselves to Mary, we say to her: ‘Take me by the hand, lead me: with you I will have more strength in the battle against evil, with you I will rediscover my original beauty.'”

Ukraine was still on the pope’s mind four hours later when he went to the Spanish Steps in the middle of Rome’s major shopping district, where he was joined by thousands and thousands of tourists and Romans enjoying the feast day public holiday.

Instead of making a speech at the foot of the Marian statue, Pope Francis always recites a prayer he has written for the occasion, summarizing the prayers and needs of the city and its residents, especially those who, like him, leave flowers.

The pope asked Mary also to “see and welcome those invisible flowers” representing “so many invocations, so many silent supplications, sometimes stifled, hidden but not from you, who are mother.”

But the pope started crying and had to pause for a moment after he prayed, “Immaculate Virgin, today I would have liked to bring you the thanksgiving of the Ukrainian people for the peace we have long asked the Lord for.”

Encouraged by the crowed to go on, the pope, sniffling, told Mary, “Instead, again I must present to you the supplication of the children, of the elderly, of the fathers and mothers, of the young people of that martyred land.”

Just as Mary was at the foot of the cross when Jesus was dying, “we all know that you are with them” in Ukraine and everywhere people suffer because of war, Pope Francis said.

Looking to Mary conceived without sin, he said, Christians continue “to believe and hope that hatred will be vanquished by love; that over lies, the truth may prevail; that over offense, forgiveness will win; (and) that over war, peace will be victorious.”

Twenty years later, at their assembly in Baltimore Nov. 14-17, the bishops acknowledged the charter’s anniversary and said that they have made steps in addressing clergy sexual abuse and would continue to listen, care for and walk with survivors.

Over the past 20 years, the fallout from the Boston revelations has touched nearly every diocese. Dozens of dioceses have filed for bankruptcy protection to reach a group settlement on claims filed by abuse survivors. Many of those dioceses, though, have now emerged from bankruptcy.

The most recent diocese to announce it would file for bankruptcy protection was the Diocese of Santa Rosa, California, which said Dec. 5 it would file for Chapter 11 protection between Dec. 31 and March 1.

High-profile clergy also have been accused of abuse. The latest was Father Michael Pfleger, a firebrand priest who is outspoken about gun violence, gangs, poverty and racism. He serves the Faith Community of St. Sabina in Chicago, a historically African American parish.

But the 73-year-old priest in an Oct. 15 letter to parishioners said: “Let me be clear — I am completely innocent of this accusation.”

It is the second time the Chicago Archdiocese has asked him to step aside from ministry over an abuse claim. In January 2021, he was accused of abuse that allegedly occurred 40 years ago. He was restored to ministry after the accusation was determined to be not credible.

In November, retired Bishop Howard J. Hubbard of Albany, New York, announced he has asked the Vatican that he be “returned to the lay state.” He has long been criticized for his handling of abuse cases in the diocese. And because he himself has been accused of abuse, he said, he is forbidden to function as a priest — a policy he noted he backs.

The 84-year-old bishop stated Nov. 18 that he had made the request because of his age and the fact he is retired from active ministry. He also repeated his denial that he abused anyone.

The problem of sexual abuse of children, young people and vulnerable adults is not of course just the sole province of the Catholic Church.

The Boy Scouts of America had to declare bankruptcy in 2020 after accusations of abuse roiled the organization.

Abuse has seeped into sports, in particular gymnastics. Former physician Larry Nassar is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison following his conviction five years ago on multiple charges of abuse of young gymnasts. This year, youth hockey was in the headlines about abuse cases.

On Nov. 11, a doctor who spent two decades providing medical care to youth hockey teams in Michigan and Minnesota was charged in multiple sex assault cases.

High-ranking churchmen in other parts of the world have either had to face accusations of abuse or have admitted to abusive acts. In August of this year, the Southern Baptist Convention acknowledged a federal investigation had begun into how it treated abuse accusations. And this just scratches the surface.

In an interview earlier this year with Catholic News Service, Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory of Washington recalled when he was president of the U.S. bishops’ conference in 2002, when the Boston scandal broke, and his first of 13 visits to the Vatican regarding the charter.

“I was told that this was an American problem. And then it was suggested that it was an English-speaking problem,” he said.

“Well, now it doesn’t just speak English. It speaks Polish, it speaks German, it speaks Spanish,” he said, referring to abuse crises that have emerged in other countries. “The world has come to a much clearer awareness that this is an issue that has touched the church globally. Praise be God, Pope Francis has taken a much more direct, active and, I hope, effective response to these issues.”

The U.S. bishops have revised the original charter three times since its adoption — in 2005, 2011 and 2018.

In 2019, Pope Francis issued the “motu proprio” “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” (“You are the light of the world”), which revises and clarifies norms and procedures for holding bishops and religious superiors accountable for protecting abusers worldwide.

At a June meeting that year, the U.S. bishops passed three new bishop accountability reforms, and they establish a third-party reporting system for allegations of violations by bishops.

The abuse crisis has few, if any winners. A survivor may feel cheered at having his or her story acknowledged and believed, but it hardly wipes away the original abuse.

“We have suffered serious loss of credibility” as bishops, Cardinal Gregory said in a second CNS interview. “We have many wonderfully generous, honest, open, transparent and believable bishops. But it only takes one or two to undermine all of the hard work they have done.”

“I think one thing that was really great this past year was the information that came forward from all these governmental reports” such as Germany, France and England, said Zach Hiner, executive director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

“I think it’s a good sign that governments across the world that stopping sexual abuse is something they have to be involved in, and not shunting off the burdens to the institution,” he told CNS, adding his hopes the United States will conduct an investigation.

But Hiner said he considered as “one particular black mark” on church response to abuse the election in November of Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services as president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

According to SNAP, Archbishop Broglio leads one of the three archdioceses that haven’t published a list of clergy and other church workers credibly accused of abuse.

Hiner called that “unconscionable” and feels “the USCCB sent a message that they don’t really care about that (releasing lists of those credibly accused) anymore, and I find that problematic.”

The military archdiocese, like all U.S. dioceses, has in place a policy to address allegations of sexual abuse of a minor. Archbishop Broglio has expressed his shame “for the mistakes that we, the bishops of the U.S. have made in the past” in addressing abuse.

Despite SNAP’s reputation as a confrontational organization, “church officials want to work with SNAP,” but most survivors come to SNAP because it is independent, Hiner said. “Most of our members want that arm’s length relationship.”

“The church will always have to be dealing with issues of abuse in general. The charter from 20 years ago opened a door for folks to be able to address and bring up their memories,” said Deacon Bernie Nojadera, now in his 12th year as executive director of the bishops’ Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection.

Regarding the strain on diocesan operations and budgets due to abuse payouts, Deacon Nojadera said: “I’ve had bishops report to me, tell me that because of the economy, because of monetary shortcomings, bankruptcy, they tell me they’ve had to shut down ministries.”

“But they tell me their ministry for protection is going to be the last ministry to be shut down,” he added.

Deacon Nojadera said he is “eternally grateful for the survivor-victims telling their story and making their reports. That’s the saving grace. They brought to the light what was in the dark. And thank God for the Boston Globe and that movie ‘Spotlight’ and any other opportunity for survivors to feel strengthened.”

The deacon said, “It’s bad the abuse took place. I have every sorrow and apology; that hurts to the core. … to have to hold that in silence out of fear or perhaps thinking they may be the only one.”

“The miracle of that Boston Globe headline is for those survivors who think they were alone, (it) gave power, gave strength to all those other survivors who thought they were alone,” he said.

Today, he added, “every diocese in the United States has a victims assistance office and safe environment coordinator, and a consistent, reliable relationship with law enforcement and elected officials.”

And that, Deacon Nojadera said, is because of “that reality that abuse happens. Abuse is in society, and what the church is doing is providing an example to other segments of the society.”

“O Come All Ye Faithful” and “Silent Night” ranked second and third, respectively.

The list was compiled by Pushpay, which offers electronic giving options for churches and their congregants.

It asked its 15,000 subscribing churches last December what hymns they used that month, and released the results this Dec. 1. A Pushpay spokeswoman, Katie Griffin, could not supply a breakdown of Catholic parishes among those churches.

The top-10 list is filled with carols familiar to Catholics. Following the top three choices are, in order, “The First Noel,” “Joy To The World” and “Angels We Have Heard On High.”

Following those are two songs featured more in the repertoire of non-Catholic churches.

“Glorious Day,” which ranked seventh overall, was recorded by the contemporary Christian group Passion, featuring Kristian Stanfill on vocals. It is more of a salvation narrative without any lyrics taking note of the birth or infancy of Jesus. Still, the song’s official music and lyrics video has received 6.6 million views on YouTube.

There are several versions of the eighth-ranked song, “Goodness of God.” One video of the song has climbed up to 7 million YouTube views. The song is another in the Christian contemporary genre which focuses more on a first-person-singular, personal relationship with Jesus than a first-person plural voice found more often in Catholic hymnody.

Ninth is the gospel melody “Go Tell It On the Mountain,” which has found a home in many Catholic hymnals and parishes.

And, to prove that the list took into account all of December and not just the week beginning Dec. 25, winding up in the 10th spot was “O Come O Come Emmanuel,” an Advent song based on a chant melody familiar to Catholics not only in the United States but throughout the world.

Griffin told Catholic News Service it’s conducting the poll again this December. The top five songs from the 2020 poll were, in order, “Joy To The World,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Silent Night,” “O Come O Come Emmanuel” and “O Holy Night.”

WASHINGTON (CNS) – In a case examining the scope of free speech protected by the First Amendment, the Supreme Court Dec. 5 ultimately seemed to favor a broad view of free speech.

And in this case, the speech involved what a graphic designer who creates websites should not have to say.

Colorado designer Lorie Smith, who runs a web design company called 303 Creative, has said she should not be required to create wedding websites for same-sex couples based on her Christian beliefs about marriage.

Colorado state law forbids businesses from discriminating based on sexual orientation. Smith contends her First Amendment right to free speech exempts her from the law.

But she lost her case in the lower court when the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the state has a compelling interest to protect its citizens “from the harms of discrimination.”

Kristen Waggoner, the Alliance Defending Freedom attorney representing Smith, before the Supreme Court, specifically argued that companies whose work centers around expression have First Amendment protections from being compelled to say things that go against their personal beliefs.

If Smith’s case sounds familiar, that’s because it is very similar to a recent case involving a Colorado baker who refused to make a custom wedding cake for a same-sex couple based on his religious beliefs.

In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the baker’s refusal to make a wedding cake did not violate Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.

In its ruling, the court did not specifically deal with First Amendment protections  allowing businesses to refuse clients’ requests based on the owners’ religious convictions.

A ruling in favor of the web designer in this case could give broad leeway to business owners to deny services based on their own beliefs and would trump anti-discrimination laws.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, joined by the Colorado Catholic Conference and other religious groups, sided with the designer as they did with the baker five years ago. In their amicus brief they said this case gives the court the chance to clarify free speech issues it said the court fell short of doing in the previous case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.

In the current case, Smith, has not denied a service as the baker did in refusing to bake a custom cake for the same-sex couple. Smith is asking the court to weigh in before she even begins designing wedding websites, saying she has been worried that her refusal to design a same-sex wedding website would violate Colorado’s public accommodations law.

Some of the justices brought up hypothetical cases that could come up if they ruled in the state’s favor asking Colorado Solicitor General Eric Olson if people could be forced to write news releases for the Church of Scientology or a Black Santa actor could be forced to pose with a child in a Ku Klux Klan outfit — incidents that Olson said would not apply under the state’s law.

Conversely, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked if a ruling in favor of the designer would mean web designers could refuse to work with interracial couples or disabled couples.

A majority of the justices seemed willing to carve out narrow exemptions to discrimination laws.

Justice Clarence Thomas emphasized that this case was distinct from other public accommodations cases because of the speech aspect, pointing out: “This is not a hotel, this is not a restaurant, this is not a riverboat or a train.” Similarly, Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked about how one would determine even within the wedding industry what types of services count as speech.

In response, Waggoner told the court she wouldn’t be in front of them today representing a caterer, for example, but she would likely represent a custom wedding cake designer, bringing the previous court case to mind.

The USCCB’s brief said there is a “pressing need for the court to clarify how the compelled speech doctrine applies to wedding-vendor cases and other disputes.” It urged the justices to do what they have done in the past: “Apply the Free Speech Clause to protect religious speech, thereby strengthening liberty not just for the religious but for all society.”

It also said the current case “provides an appropriate and especially important opportunity to invoke free speech protections again to address the ongoing tensions in wedding-vendor cases and in the current cultural context more broadly” and implored the court to “protect individuals from compelled speech and to provide space in the public square for minority voices.”

Other groups that filed briefs on behalf of the wedding vendor included Catholicvote.org, the Thomas More Society, the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the Becket Fund.

DignityUSA, an unofficial Catholic support group for gay Catholics and their families, and New Ways Ministry, a Catholic pastoral outreach to LGBTQ people and their families, joined a brief filed by 30 religious and civil rights groups opposing the graphic artist’s case.

“Carving out this broad exemption would allow public businesses to legally exclude customers based on their identities,” it said, adding that “instead of safeguarding every citizen’s right to buy goods and services from businesses open to the public,” the proposed exemption “would further hurt the very people these civil rights laws were designed to protect.”

Twenty states supported Smith in friend of the court briefs. They say that they have public accommodation laws on the books, but their laws exempt those businesspeople who make their living creating custom art. Twenty-two states support Colorado and have similar laws in place protecting people from discrimination, which is also backed by the Justice Department.

A decision in the case is expected in late June.

“In its genuine poverty,” the pope said, “the creche helps us to rediscover the true richness of Christmas and to purify ourselves of so many aspects that pollute the Christmas landscape.”

Pope Francis met Dec. 3 with the artisans who carved the 18-piece Nativity scene in St. Peter’s Square; the donors of the white pine Christmas tree; the residents of a psychiatric rehabilitation center who, along with a group of students and grandparents, created the ornaments; and with representatives of the government of Guatemala, which set up another Nativity scene in the Vatican audience hall.

“Simple and familiar, the Nativity scene recalls a Christmas that is different from the consumerist and commercial Christmas. It is something else. It reminds us how good it is for us to cherish moments of silence and prayer in our days, often overwhelmed by frenzy,” Pope Francis told them during a midday gathering.

The group was scheduled to gather in St. Peter’s Square in the evening for the official unveiling of the Nativity scene and the lighting of the Christmas tree. But a major rainstorm with a forecast for more caused the Vatican to move the evening festivities indoors, although hundreds of people still were in the square for the lighting.

Meeting with the donors, Pope Francis encouraged everyone to find some quiet time to spend before a creche at Christmas.

“Silence encourages contemplation of the child Jesus,” the pope said, and “helps us to become intimate with God, with the fragile simplicity of a tiny newborn baby, with the meekness of his being laid down, with the tender affection of the swaddling clothes that envelop him.”

“If we really want to celebrate Christmas,” he said, “let us rediscover through the crib the surprise and amazement of littleness, the littleness of God, who makes himself small, who is not born in the splendor of appearances, but in the poverty of a stable.”

To truly encounter Jesus, the pope said, people must meet him in the manger, leaving their own vanity and pretense behind.

“Prayer is the best way to say thank you before this gift of free love, to say thank you to Jesus who desires to enter our homes and our hearts,” he said. “Yes, God loves us so much that he shares our humanity and our lives.”

“Even in the worst moments,” the pope said, “he is there, because he is the Emmanuel, the God with us, the light that illuminates the darkness and the tender presence that accompanies us on our journey.”

The lights on the Christmas tree, he said, are a reminder that Jesus came “to lighten our darkness, our existence often enclosed in the shadow of sin, fear, pain.”

But, the pope said, the tree also should make people think about the importance of roots.

Like a tree, he said, only a person who is “rooted in good soil remains firm, grows, matures, resists the winds that shake him and becomes a point of reference for those who look upon him.”

The Christmas tree, Pope Francis said, is a reminder of the need to remain rooted in Christ.