Lincoln, Neb., Sep 11, 2015 / 07:31 am (CNA).- The Diocese of Lincoln will now take part in the U.S. bishops' audit of the implementation of the youth protection charter – a move it says adds to a well-functioning system of safeguards against abuse. “I believe it will demonstrate clearly that the Diocese of Lincoln does an excellent job creating safe environments for children,” Bishop James Conley said in his Sept. 11 column. Bishop Conley said his diocese already complies with all church laws and civil laws on child abuse reporting and child protection. He said the audit can help bishops hold themselves accountable and provide transparency as “an assurance that the Church takes child protection seriously.” In 2002, in response to the scandal of sexual abuse by clergy dating back decades, the U.S. bishops adopted the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. The charter made voluntary recommendations to bishops, including an audit to ensure compliance. The Lincoln diocese participated in the first audit in 2003, but then-Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz declined to participate again. According to Bishop Conley, the audit process was “still being worked out” and needed refinements. “Legitimate questions were raised about its purpose, practices, and methodology. For that reason, the Diocese of Lincoln declined to participate in subsequent audits,” he said. Bishop Conley said he believes it was “a prudent decision.” He said the audit process has improved since 2003 and appears to offer “some clear benefit” to dioceses that follow it. The process also has minimal interference in Church ministry. The Diocese of Lincoln said it requires background checks and training for employees and volunteers, while its policies are reviewed by a lay-led Diocesan Review Board. The board is also consulted on allegations of child abuse. “Allegations of child abuse are reported to law enforcement in accord with state law, and Catholics are regularly encouraged to report any suspicion of abuse to law enforcement authorities,” the Lincoln diocese said Sept. 11. Professor Kurt Martens of Catholic University of America’s School of Canon Law said the audit is a “helpful instrument” to help bishops protect young people from abuse, but is not mandatory under ecclesiastical law. “The audit is not a goal in itself. It’s a tool, but not the only tool. You have other tools like formation of clergy, good policy in place, and above all, supervision,” he told CNA. “By the time an audit catches a lack of supervision, the harm has already been done,” he said. He noted that the charter is not a legal document. Ecclesial law, rather, requires bishops and dioceses to follow the essential norms on clergy abuse which were first approved by the U.S. bishops in 2002. These norms were later revised and then approved by the Congregation of Bishops during Benedict XVI’s pontificate. Martens said an individual bishop might decline to use the charter audit process due to the size or location of his diocese, or other reasons, such as the expense of the audit or the availability of another process to ensure the policies are implemented. “The bishop has to make a prudent judgment,” Martens continued. “He might even say ‘the audit doesn’t add anything to what we are already doing’.” A bishop’s successor could decide the opposite and adopt the audit process. Martens said that sexual abuse by clergy can happen whether or not a diocese performs the audit process. “Taking part in the audit doesn’t give you a guarantee that nothing is going to happen,” he said. “You might come out of the audit, and still something happens.” He compared the audit to a doctor’s clean bill of health for a patient at check-up, only to see the patient drop dead of a heart attack in the waiting room. The Diocese of Lincoln has about 100,000 Catholics. It was the only Roman Catholic U.S. diocese to decline to participate in the charter audit in 2014. That year, five Eastern Catholic eparchies also declined to participate, according to the 2014 annual report on the charter implementation. The diocese said it will undergo a consultative process after the 2016 audit cycle to consider its future use of the audit. Bishop Edward Burns of Juneau, Alaska, who chairs the U.S. bishops’ Committee for the Protection of Children and Young People, said the audit process is a “valuable tool” to protect children and young people. “I am very pleased to learn that the Diocese of Lincoln will participate in the audit process for the protection of children and young people,” Bishop Burns said. “I think that in the case of Lincoln, the audit will demonstrate a Church committed to the safety and welfare of the children.” Read more

Washington D.C., Sep 11, 2015 / 04:02 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As Pope Francis' trip to the U.S. nears, the LGBT advocacy organization GLAAD has released a media guide encouraging journalists to favor its narrative. But one media critic is calling it spin. “It's important to remember that GLAAD doesn’t determine Church teaching, no matter how much it might wish it,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of business and culture at the Media Research Center. The group “seeks to redefine what the Church is,” he told CNA. “Journalists should understand that GLAAD is trying to make the Pope's visit all about its extreme agenda, not what the Pope wants to discuss.” Pope Francis will visit the United States Sept. 22-27, where he will canonize Blessed Junipero Serra, visit an inner-city school, address a joint session of Congress, meet with President Barack Obama, visit the United Nations, and close with a Mass for the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia. GLAAD CEO and president Sarah Kate Ellis, who said she grew up Catholic, introduced the media guide as an exploration of “attitudes within the Catholic Church towards the LGBT community.” She claimed that Catholic pundits and decision-makers espouse “harmful rhetoric and policies.” She also charged that the Catholic hierarchy and the media often misrepresent Catholics who identify as LGBT. Gainor, however, warned that in his view the organization is anti-Catholic, and is “using the Pope's visit to push its own LGBT agenda.” He said that the organization has significant support in the media. “Readers need to grasp that many of those reporting are huge GLAAD supporters,” he said. “Many of the journalists who cover the news have even received awards from the organization. They aren’t journalists. They are activists.” He noted that the Washington Post, MSNBC and the CNN show Anderson Cooper 360 had been nominated for GLAAD media awards in 2014. The GLAAD media guide depicts Pope Francis in different ways. Initially, it portrays him as representing a “change in tone” that may lead to other changes on LGBT issues. The guide presented its interpretations of various papal statements it considers positive. At a later point, the guide characterized some of Pope Francis' comments as “significantly negative,” such as his words on gender ideology. The media guide contended that there is a “stark contrast” between the Catholic hierarchy and the laity. It claimed Catholic bishops are “greatly out of step” with Catholics in the U.S. It cited several poll results from the Public Religion Research Institute, whose backers include major LGBT activist funders like the Arcus and Ford foundations. The guide also criticized Catholics who reject same-sex behaviors or LGBT political goals like anti-discrimination laws. It additionally called out Catholic groups like Courage, which supports Catholics with same-sex attraction in chaste living. The guide also claimed that Catholic teachings that reject same-sex relationships or attraction can be “extremely harmful” to young people who identify as LGBT. GLAAD listed bishops it depicted as “anti-LGBT” and bishops it thought made “mixed, neutral or positive statements.” It presented in an unfavorable light bishops such as Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia, who will host the World Meeting of Families; Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco; Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York; Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore; and Archbishop Joseph Kurtz of Louisville, Ky., the president of the U.S. bishops' conference. The organization’s guide tried to favor bishops like Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston; Archbishop Blase Cupich of Chicago; and Bishop Christopher Coyne of Burlington, Vermont. GLAAD's media guide recommended news media use commentators from the National Catholic Reporter or from GLAAD itself. It also promoted the LGBT advocacy media project “Owning Our Faith,” and specifically encouraged coverage of Latino Catholics who identify as LGBT. The organization's board members include several leaders in news media and the entertainment industry. GLAAD’s vice-chair of governance is Kevin J. Oldis, vice president of human resources for CBS Television Networks. Board members include Hernan Lopez, president and CEO of FOX International Channels, and Meghan McCain, political commentator and daughter of former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Its corporate partners include Delta Airlines, Wells Fargo and the Hilton Worldwide hotel company. GLAAD recommended stories that promote or cite for comment Catholic dissenting groups like New Ways Ministry, Dignity USA, Call to Action, members of the Equally Blessed Coalition. The coalition received $200,000 from the Arcus Foundation to “influence and counter the narrative of the Catholic Church and its ultra-conservative affiliates” related to events like the Synod on the Family, according to a 2014 foundation grant listing. The media guide encouraged journalists to scrutinize several leading Catholics and other commentators, claiming they were “anti-LGBT activists” who present inaccuracies and make extreme statements. These include Princeton Law School professor Robert P. George, author and commentator Ryan T. Anderson, professor and, and commentators Bill Donohue, Jennifer Roback Morse and Thomas Peters. GLAAD said journalists should cover Catholic support for religious liberty bills, which the activist group claimed constitute “anti-LGBT discrimination.” The group’s media guide objected to the bishops’ role in religious freedom events like the Fortnight for Freedom. The LGBT advocacy group also encouraged journalists to cover stories about employees of Catholic institutions who are fired for violating morals standards, such as contracting a same-sex “marriage” or voicing support for such unions. Gainor was cynical about media coverage of the papal visit. “Catholics can’t count on the supposedly neutral media to cover the Church in any fair way,” he said. “The real narrative of the Pope’s visit is the world’s most important religious leader is coming to the U.S. at a time when the media undercut faith at every turn. Perhaps they will report on everything he says, not just the things they agree with.” Read more

Richmond, Va., Sep 10, 2015 / 06:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a new column for CNA, “The Common Good with Deacon Keith Fournier”, the author has set out to restore a fuller understanding to the meaning of conscience and how it should shape the way Christians live their faith in the public square, the marketplace, and the entirety of culture. “The phrase common good is at the heart of the social teaching of the Catholic Church. However, many Christians do not even know there is such a body of teaching,” Deacon Fournier, of the Dicoese of Richmond, said in his first post exclusively for CNA. “We need a re-formation of how we view Christian citizenship and our participation in the economic order, the political arena and our full participation in society," he explained. "There has been some poor teaching in the area of moral theology which has exacerbated this confusion." One of the most common mistakes Catholics make in regards to understanding the common good is in the area of moral conscience, he said. Unfortunately, many people “speak as though ‘conscience’ equates with ‘feelings’ or is an aspect of our opinion.” But this is certainly not the case, Deacon Fournier said. Drawing on the Church’s teaching on the formation of moral conscience, he said Catholics are instructed to “educate our consciences to ensure they conform to the truth revealed in Natural Law and expounded upon in Revelation.” This mistake is plain to see in the way some Catholics and other Christians engage in politics, commerce, and public life, he said. Rather than keeping our faith private, and separate from areas such as work and politics, we need to make it a personal, yet properly public matter. “Social truths such as the dignity of every human life, the nature and ends of marriage, the moral foundation of freedom and primacy of religious freedom, our obligations in solidarity to one another – all provide a framework for structuring our social life,” he said, noting that these ideas are not solely religious, but meant to inform the entire social order. For Deacon Fournier, serving at the intersection of faith, culture and public life has long been his passionate interest and life vocation. Along with being a Catholic deacon in the Diocese of Richmond, Va. for almost twenty years, he is a constitutional and human rights lawyer and public policy advocate who served as the founding Executive Director of the American Center for Law and Justice. Currently, he serves as Special Counsel to Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit litigation and policy organization that provides free legal assistance and representation for issues related to religious freedom, family, and the sanctity of human life. Another endeavor for the deacon, founding and serving as chairman of Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance, has now become the primary base out of which he engages in a national apostolate in the broader Christian community. Both organizations are dedicated to the conversion of culture through four pillars of social participation, life, family, freedom and solidarity. Deacon Fournier is a published author and served for years as the Editor in Chief of Catholic Online where he still regularly contributes articles and insights. He is also a senior contributing writer for The Stream. Long active in efforts to bring Christians together across the confessional spectrum, Deacon Fournier is currently writing a new book entitled “May We Be One: A Call to Christian Solidarity” for Worthy Publishing. It should be released in the Spring. To read Deacon Fournier’s first exclusive column for CNA, “Rescuing the Real Common Good”, click here. Read more

Richmond, Va., Sep 10, 2015 / 06:12 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In a new column for CNA, “The Common Good with Deacon Keith Fournier”, the author has set out to restore a fuller understanding to the meaning of conscience and how it should shape the way Christians live their faith in the public square, the marketplace, and the entirety of culture. “The phrase common good is at the heart of the social teaching of the Catholic Church. However, many Christians do not even know there is such a body of teaching,” Deacon Fournier, of the Diocese of Richmond, said in his first post exclusively for CNA. “We need a re-formation of how we view Christian citizenship and our participation in the economic order, the political arena and our full participation in society," he explained. "There has been some poor teaching in the area of moral theology which has exacerbated this confusion." One of the most common mistakes Catholics make in regards to understanding the common good is in the area of moral conscience, he said. Unfortunately, many people “speak as though ‘conscience’ equates with ‘feelings’ or is an aspect of our opinion.” But this is certainly not the case, Deacon Fournier said. Drawing on the Church’s teaching on the formation of moral conscience, he said Catholics are instructed to “educate our consciences to ensure they conform to the truth revealed in Natural Law and expounded upon in Revelation.” This mistake is plain to see in the way some Catholics and other Christians engage in politics, commerce, and public life, he said. Rather than keeping our faith private, and separate from areas such as work and politics, we need to make it a personal, yet properly public matter. “Social truths such as the dignity of every human life, the nature and ends of marriage, the moral foundation of freedom and primacy of religious freedom, our obligations in solidarity to one another – all provide a framework for structuring our social life,” he said, noting that these ideas are not solely religious, but meant to inform the entire social order. Deacon Fournier has been ordained nearly 20 years, and is a constitutional and human rights lawyer who served as the founding executive director of the American Center for Law and Justice. He currently serves as a special counsel to Liberty Counsel, and chairs the Common Good Foundation and Common Good Alliance. Read more

Sacramento, Calif., Sep 10, 2015 / 04:58 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In the second attempt this year to establish a 'right-to-die' in the state of California, state Assembly lawmakers passed an assisted suicide bill on Wednesday, by a vote of 42-33. The bill now faces a vote in the state Senate. The bill, AB X2-15, would allow physicians to prescibe lethal medication to terminally ill patients who have requested it. Some of those opposing the bill, also called the End of Life Option Act, called a recent legislative hearing “a well-orchestrated stage play designed to minimize the voices of those opposed to the bill.” "Although many 'concerns' were raised by committee members, the softball questions were directed at proponents of the bill instead of the expert witnesses in opposition," the California Catholic Conference said Sept. 4. "Even when supporting arguments were misleading and inaccurate, there was no opportunity to refute the misinformation.” California had abandoned efforts to pass a right-to-die bill this July, after the Assembly Health Committee fell short of votes. Only two months later, the movement has resurfaced with more momentum, and the bill revisited the state Assembly this week, under the pretext of a special legislative session on health care financing convened by governor Jerry Brown. However, opposers found this move suspicious, saying that the bill really has nothing to do with health care financing at all. "The hearing was part of a special session designed to address health care financing, but the only financing question in the debate dealt with how inexpensive the suicide drugs would be compared to other costs," noted the California Catholic Conference. The new version of the bill includes additional safeguards, including that the patients be able to take the medication themselves, that two doctors approve, that the patient submit two oral requests at least 15 days apart, plus a written request, and that there will be two witnesses. It also expires in 10 years, at which time it could be reviewed and extended. The push toward the legalization of physician assisted suicide has been accelerating since the highly-publicized case of Brittany Maynard, a Californian, late last year. Maynard's mother and husband have been working to legalize the right-to-die in California ever since Maynard's death in Oregon. Other supporters of AB X2-15 include Assemblywoman Catharine Baker, R-Pleasanton, who is advocating for the ability to choose death in a terminal circumstance, calling the denial of this "nothing short of cruel." Although Brown remains hesitant toward the passing of the bill, saying other health care topics should take priority, he has not been vocal about his stance on the issue. Opposers of the bill, such as Assemblyman Mike Gipson, D-Carson, challenged the passage of ABX2-15 with the argument that many terminally-ill diagnoses turn around into miraculous recoveries. A six-month terminal diagnosis, which is what the bill requires to qualify for the right-to-die, is not long enough to determine an individual's improvement, Gipson argued. Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown, D-Rialto, opposed the bill on the same grounds. Her son was near death with an infection, but when doctors suggested she let him go, she refused. He remained on life support and eventually came off of it, and is now married and a father. Brown commented, “Doctor's don't know everything.” Other groups of opposition include Marilyn Golden, who fights for the rights of persons with disabilities. Golden believes better palliative care should be the topic of discussion, rather than seeking means to obtain death. The bill, having passed in the state Assembly, will now make its way to the state Senate, which had passed the earlier version of the legislation. The deadline for the bill to be passed in session is Sept. 11. Physician-assisted suicide is already legal in the states of Oregon, Washington, Vermont, and Montana. Photo credit: www.shutterstock.com.  Read more