Seattle, Wash., Oct 31, 2014 / 01:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Mark Miloscia, a candidate for Washington's state senate, has been attacked for his Catholic faith and adherence to Church teaching on a website belittling his faith as incompatible with representing his district. “'Mississippi Mark' has always worn his church on his sleeve. Rather than represent the people of Federal Way, he has best represented the people of The Vatican,” read an image which was posted on markmiloscia.info, a website erected by critics of Miloscia, the Republican senate candidate for Washington's 30th legislative district. The district is located off of Puget Sound, around 25 miles south of Seattle. It includes the communities of Federal Way, Des Moines, Milton, Auburn, Algona, and Pacific. The image, which has since been taken down from the website at the request of  Democratic candidate Shari Song, depicted Miloscia in cartoon form, wearing a mitre and clutching a rosary and a briefcase with the Mississippi flag. The image also targeted Miloscia’s positions, calling him a “Lobbyist for the Catholic Church,” and claiming he is “against women’s freedom over their own health choices” and “proposed a sin tax against Playboys and marital aids,” among other stances. The image also mocked Miloscia’s Southern heritage - the candidate was born and lived in Mississippi as a small child- reading that he “comes from the Deep South…with plenty of baggage.” The website’s author has not identified himself. According to SeattlePi's Joel Connelly, “a Democratic campaign strategist” said that “a couple of local Democratic legislative district members got together and did it on their own. I don’t know all the names of who’s involved . . . We’ve had to talk to them to try to get them to fix it.” Miloscia had previously served as a Democratic representative for Washington state, switching to the Republican party earlier this year after stating that the Democratic party no longer supported socially conservative views. Miloscia has come under fire from Democratic and other organizations for his defense of unborn life and the traditional view of marriage, as well as his opposition to the death penalty. He has also worked as a lobbyist for the Washington State Catholic Conference of Bishops. Song asked that the image be taken down, saying that the image “may have crossed the line of what is appropriate” and stated that she does not condone attacks on the basis of Miloscia’s religion. While the image has been removed, several condemnations of Miloscia’s Catholic faith remain on the website. One page entitled “Church Or State? The Dogmatic Public Policy of Mark Miloscia” details his voting record in support of issues outlined in Catholic social teaching, including opposition to euthanasia, abortion, and the death penalty, protection of traditional marriage, and expansion of contraceptive promotion in public schools. The page cites John F. Kennedy’s insistance that whatever "one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts -- including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state." Another post titled “Pope Francis vs. Mark Miloscia,” picks specific quotes of Pope Francis, such as "The Church has grown obsessed with... abortion and birth control,” and contrasts them with Miloscia’s voting record, implying that the candidate is opposing the Pope by voting in line with the Church’s teachings on same-sex marriage, abortion, and contraception. “It’s unconscionable that that website is up,” Miloscia told The Daily Caller on Oct. 25. “People say to me, ‘Didn’t they do this against Kennedy?’” The image which has since been removed has been likened to the anti-Catholic bigotry of the 1800s seen in the U.S. The cartoonist Thomas Nast produced a famous cartoon for an 1871 edition of Harper's Weekly depicting Catholic bishops in mitres as crocodiles coming onto America's shores. Mary Lane Strow, a Republican legislative aide who is also Catholic, commented on Facebook that “it reminds me of the crude anti-Catholic bigotry in this country from the 19th century … Imagine if they had gone after a Jewish candidate in this way.” Read more

Seattle, Wash., Oct 31, 2014 / 01:18 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Mark Miloscia, a candidate for Washington's state senate, has been attacked for his Catholic faith and adherence to Church teaching on a website belittling his faith as incompatible with representing his district. “'Mississippi Mark' has always worn his church on his sleeve. Rather than represent the people of Federal Way, he has best represented the people of The Vatican,” read an image which was posted on markmiloscia.info, a website erected by critics of Miloscia, the Republican senate candidate for Washington's 30th legislative district. The district is located off of Puget Sound, around 25 miles south of Seattle. It includes the communities of Federal Way, Des Moines, Milton, Auburn, Algona, and Pacific. The image, which has since been taken down from the website at the request of  Democratic candidate Shari Song, depicted Miloscia in cartoon form, wearing a mitre and clutching a rosary and a briefcase with the Mississippi flag. The image also targeted Miloscia’s positions, calling him a “Lobbyist for the Catholic Church,” and claiming he is “against women’s freedom over their own health choices” and “proposed a sin tax against Playboys and marital aids,” among other stances. The image also mocked Miloscia’s Southern heritage - the candidate was born and lived in Mississippi as a small child- reading that he “comes from the Deep South…with plenty of baggage.” The website’s author has not identified himself. According to SeattlePi's Joel Connelly, “a Democratic campaign strategist” said that “a couple of local Democratic legislative district members got together and did it on their own. I don’t know all the names of who’s involved . . . We’ve had to talk to them to try to get them to fix it.” Miloscia had previously served as a Democratic representative for Washington state, switching to the Republican party earlier this year after stating that the Democratic party no longer supported socially conservative views. Miloscia has come under fire from Democratic and other organizations for his defense of unborn life and the traditional view of marriage, as well as his opposition to the death penalty. He has also worked as a lobbyist for the Washington State Catholic Conference of Bishops. Song asked that the image be taken down, saying that the image “may have crossed the line of what is appropriate” and stated that she does not condone attacks on the basis of Miloscia’s religion. While the image has been removed, several condemnations of Miloscia’s Catholic faith remain on the website. One page entitled “Church Or State? The Dogmatic Public Policy of Mark Miloscia” details his voting record in support of issues outlined in Catholic social teaching, including opposition to euthanasia, abortion, and the death penalty, protection of traditional marriage, and expansion of contraceptive promotion in public schools. The page cites John F. Kennedy’s insistance that whatever "one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts -- including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state." Another post titled “Pope Francis vs. Mark Miloscia,” picks specific quotes of Pope Francis, such as "The Church has grown obsessed with... abortion and birth control,” and contrasts them with Miloscia’s voting record, implying that the candidate is opposing the Pope by voting in line with the Church’s teachings on same-sex marriage, abortion, and contraception. “It’s unconscionable that that website is up,” Miloscia told The Daily Caller on Oct. 25. “People say to me, ‘Didn’t they do this against Kennedy?’” The image which has since been removed has been likened to the anti-Catholic bigotry of the 1800s seen in the U.S. The cartoonist Thomas Nast produced a famous cartoon for an 1871 edition of Harper's Weekly depicting Catholic bishops in mitres as crocodiles coming onto America's shores. Mary Lane Strow, a Republican legislative aide who is also Catholic, commented on Facebook that “it reminds me of the crude anti-Catholic bigotry in this country from the 19th century … Imagine if they had gone after a Jewish candidate in this way.” Read more

Boston, Mass., Oct 29, 2017 / 03:32 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The last person hanged for witchcraft in Boston could be considered a Catholic martyr. In the 1650s, Ann Glover and her family, along with some 50,000 other native Irish people, were enslaved by Englishman Oliver Cromwell during the occupation of Ireland and shipped to the island of Barbados, where they were sold as indentured servants. What is known of her history is sporadic at best, though she was definitely Irish and definitely Catholic. According to an article in the Boston Globe, even Ann's real name remains a mystery, as indentured servants were often forced to take the names of their masters. While in Barbados, Ann's husband was reportedly killed for refusing to renounce his Catholic faith. By 1680, Ann and her daughter had moved to Boston where Ann worked as a “goodwife” (a housekeeper and nanny) for the John Goodwin family. Father Robert O'Grady, director of the Boston Catholic Directory for the Archdiocese of Boston, said that after working for the Goodwins for a few years, Ann Glover became sick, and the illness spread to four of the five Goodwin children. “She was, unsurprisingly, not well-educated, and in working with the family, apparently she got sick at some point and the kids for whom she was primarily responsible caught whatever it was,” Fr. O'Grady told CNA. A doctor allegedly concluded that “nothing but a hellish Witchcraft could be the origin of these maladies,” and one of the daughters confirmed the claim, saying she fell ill after an argument with Ann. The infamous Reverend Cotton Mather, a Harvard graduate and one of the main perpetrators of witch trial hysteria at the time, insisted Ann Glover was a witch and brought her to what would be the last witch trial in Boston in 1688. In the courtroom, Ann refused to speak English and instead answered questions in her native Irish Gaelic. In order to prove she was not a witch, Mather asked Ann to recite the Our Father, which she did, in a mix of Irish Gaelic and Latin because of her lack of education. “Cotton Mather would have recognized some of it, because of course that would have been part of your studies in those days, you studied classical languages when you were preparing to be a minister, especially Latin and Greek,” Father O'Grady said. “But because it was kind of mixed in with Irish Gaelic, it was then considered proof that she was possessed because she was mangling the Latin.” Allegedly, Boston merchant Robert Calef, who knew Ann when she was alive, said she “was a despised, crazy, poor old woman, an Irish Catholic who was tried for afflicting the Goodwin children. Her behavior at her trial was like that of one distracted. They did her cruel. The proof against her was wholly deficient. The jury brought her guilty. She was hung. She died a Catholic." Mather convicted Ann of being an “idolatrous Roman Catholick” and a witch, and she hung on Boston Common on November 16, 1688. Today, just a 15 minute walk away, the parish of Our Lady of Victories holds a plaque commemorating her martyrdom, which reads: “Not far from here on 16 November 1688, Goodwife Ann Glover an elderly Irish widow, was hanged as a witch because she had refused to renounce her Catholic faith. Having been deported from her native Ireland to the Barbados with her husband, who died there because of his own loyalty to the Catholic faith, she came to Boston where she was living for at least six years before she was unjustly condemned to death. This memorial is erected to commemorate “Goody” Glover as the first Catholic martyr in Massachusetts.” The plaque was placed at the Church on the tercentennial anniversary of her death in 1988 by the Order of Alhambra, a Catholic fraternity whose mission includes commemorating Catholic historical persons, places and events. The Boston City Council also declared November 16 as “Goody Glover Day,” in order to condemn the injustice brought against her.   Ann Glover has not yet been officially declared a martyr by a pope, nor has her cause for canonization been opened to date, partly because her story has faded into obscurity over time, Fr. O’Grady said. “Part of the dilemma here (too) is that when she was hanged, Catholics were a tiny, minuscule, minority in Boston, so picking up her ‘cause’ was not easy or ‘on top of the list’,” he said. Ann Glover's trial also set the tone for the infamous Salem Witch Trials in 1692, during which 19 men and women were hanged for witchcraft, and in which Reverend Cotton Mather and his anti-Catholic prejudices played a major role.  This article was originally published on CNA Oct. 31, 2014. Read more

Washington D.C., Oct 31, 2014 / 02:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Church must work to strengthen the family by helping couples practice Christian concepts of virtues if it wishes to “open wide the doors to Christ” in the vision of St. John Pau... Read more

Denver, Colo., Oct 30, 2014 / 05:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As a 29 year-old woman with terminal brain cancer reconsiders her resolve to end her life, one scholar says the change of heart indicates a more mature level of thinking. “That’s a... Read more

Washington D.C., Oct 30, 2014 / 03:50 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- According to the Archbishop of Washington, the recent Synod on the Family worked to address the challenge that many young people today don’t fully understand the nature of marriage. “There were a good number of us within the synod who felt, given the heavily secular climate today in which so many of our young people are living – what they see in media, television, electronic print, in movies, the music they listen to, the world they’re engaged in – (that) the idea of a permanent, enduring bond that would be life-giving and at the same time be indissoluble is not uppermost in their awareness of marriage,” Cardinal Donald Wuerl asserted in an Oct. 30 conference call. Cardinal Wuerl was speaking about the Oct. 5-19 extraordinary Synod of Bishops, which was held in anticipation of next year's World Meeting of Families and the ordinary Synod on the Family. After the 2015 synod, Pope Francis is expected to issue an apostolic exhortation. In his analysis of the synod, Cardinal Wuerl specifically discussed two negative outcomes of confusion about the nature of marriage: cohabitation, and the failure of some marriages.   “One of the increasing concerns is the number of people who aren’t even getting married today: the number of people who are simply living together without benefits of even civil marriage. And that says, to me, we have a long way to go in helping present as clearly as we can the beautiful gift that is marriage,” Cardinal Wuerl stated. Another area of concern among synod fathers was the process of marriage annulment. “The fact that there are Catholic couples and people who have re-married, and therefore can’t come to Communion, the fact that they would desperately like to do so, and the Church recognizes the good of that; the question is, 'how do we do that while being faithful to the teaching of the Church concerning the bond?' That brings us to the question of an annulment, the declaration that there never was a bond in the first place,” Cardinal Wuerl commented. It was in reference to this that he suggested that “so many of our young people” might not have a correct understanding of marriage, to the extent that they cannot validly contract a marriage. “Having said all that,” he continued, “there were many, many of us who felt (that) if we’re going to go the route of annulment, then that process can’t be so costly or so burdensome that it becomes a weight around the shoulders of the people trying to regularize their situation.” Cardinal Wuerl added that “there were a number of suggestions on how to do that,” and that “that’s probably going to be an area that there’ll be a lot of discussion (about) between now and the next synod.” One way to address the widespread confusion about the nature of marriage would be to properly catechize children and teenagers about the faith, the cardinal continued, beginning in Catholic schools. Regarding a term that received much attention in the synod’s mid-term report – causing media speculation and confusion – the principle of “graduality” was nowhere to be found in the final document, Cardinal Wuerl confirmed. “The whole concept of 'graduality' – that surfaced but you don’t find it in the final document,” he said. “And I think one of the reasons for that is it’s a theological concept. It’s not a concept that you find well-expounded, well-defined, well-developed. And so if there’s going to be any reference to that in the future, I think it’s going to require a lot more thought and a lot more theological penetration." "That doesn’t mean it won’t come back up again, but my thought is that ... it needs a lot more thought and a lot more theological development." Read more

Philadelphia, Pa., Oct 30, 2014 / 09:48 am (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has shrugged off a recent blog post that sought to pit Pope Francis against Archbishop Charles J. Chaput on the death penalty.   “Some blogs are like videogames; they invent their own reality,” Kenneth Gavin, a spokesman for the archdiocese, told CNA Oct. 28.   “Archbishop Chaput has been vocal and vigorous in opposing the death penalty for more than 40 years. That’s a matter of public record.”   Gavin’s comments came in response to an Oct. 24 blog post on Religion News Service by writer Mark Silk.   The blog post, entitled, “Pope Francis clarifies Archbishop Chaput’s confusion,” focused on Pope Francis’ recent call for the abolition of the death penalty.   Silk claimed that “What His Holiness has done is definitively reject the assertion of former Denver and current Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput,” alluding to an alleged conversation between the archbishop and Colorado gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez.  According to Silk, the archbishop reportedly advised Beauprez to pray about the matter in forming his views on it, telling him that Church doctrine is not anti-death penalty.   Gavin dismissed the Silk post as “ridiculous.”   Candidate Bob Beauprez is locked in a tight race with Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper.  Ironically, Gavin said, Hickenlooper is already on record thanking the archbishop for his past counsel against the death penalty.   In his blog post, Silk omitted comments that Gavin gave to members of the press who had inquired about the archbishop’s stance: “Scripture and long Church teaching uphold the basic legitimacy of the death penalty. But the Church also teaches that in the developed world, the circumstances requiring the death penalty for the purposes of justice and public safety rarely exist. Therefore the death penalty should not be used.”   As a result of this omission, Gavin said, the blog post misrepresented Archbishop Chaput by making it appear that he disagrees with the Pope on the death penalty, and portraying the Pope’s comments as if they were directed at Archbishop Chaput as a response.   In reality, Gavin stated, the archbishop has been forceful for years in explaining Church teaching on the death penalty. In the blogosphere, said Gavin, “inconvenient facts don’t seem to matter.”   Catholic teaching on the death penalty is laid out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which explains, “The traditional teaching of the Church does not exclude, presupposing full ascertainment of the identity and responsibility of the offender, recourse to the death penalty, when this is the only practicable way to defend the lives of human beings effectively against the aggressor.”   However, it adds, if “bloodless means are sufficient to defend against the aggressor and to protect the safety of persons, public authority should limit itself to such means, because they better correspond to the concrete conditions of the common good and are more in conformity to the dignity of the human person.”   Archbishop Chaput, Gavin said, has written dozens of articles and spoken frequently against the death penalty for decades.     In 1997, in a column entitled “The True Road to Justice,” the archbishop argued strongly against the death sentence for Oklahoma City bomber, Timothy McVeigh.  In 2002, he released a statement saying that in developed countries such as the U.S., the death penalty “should have no place in our public life.” He also wrote on the death penalty in columns written in 2004 and 2005 for the Denver Catholic Register. In 2012, Archbishop Chaput again raised the subject of capital punishment. In his Sept. 10 weekly column for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, he stressed that the death penalty does not effectively “deter crime, nor does it bring about true justice or closure for victims’ families.   “When we take a murderer's life we only add to the violence in an already violent culture, and we demean our own dignity in the process,” he said.   Read more