The following briefs were recently published by Catholic News Service:
Nuns on the Bus 21-state tour stirs support for ‘responsible programs’
CLEVELAND — Franciscan Sister Janice Cebula isn’t one to turn down a chance to learn and be inspired. So when Network, the Catholic social justice lobby, decided to take its Nuns on the Bus campaign on the road again beginning Oct. 8 to call attention to the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act and its impact on social services and local communities, she readily agreed to join one leg of the trip.
Sister Cebula, president of the Sisters of St. Francis of Clinton, Iowa, told a rally at a ministry center in Cleveland Oct. 20 that she has not been disappointed since joining the Tax Justice Truth Tour five days earlier in Omaha, Nebraska.
“You meet a lot of people who understand that we are all sisters and brothers,” she said to applause from about 100 people. “And they act like it. We saw a lot of on-the-ground, really innovative programs that are integrative in addressing the whole person.”
But she said she feared some programs and families may be endangered by possible future cuts in federal spending in response to the tax law. Beginning in Santa Monica, California, the tour was to wind through 21 states before ending near President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, Nov. 2.
Benedictines help secure funds for water project that’s changing lives
WESTON, Vt. —References to water flow through the Scriptures. “And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded” (Mt 10:42). “Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink'” (Jn 7:37). “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal” (Rev 22:1).
This connection is what spurred the Benedictine brothers of the Weston Priory to help secure funds for a clean water project that is transforming lives. “We immediately saw the connection to our life and faith,” said Brother Placid Gaunay about the brothers assisting this project of Rutland-based Pure Water for the World.
The priory was the fiscal agent for a successful grant of about $50,000, awarded by Raskob Foundation for Catholic Activities to Pure Water that included the installation of 148 biosand filters in homes in Trojes, Honduras.
A biosand filter is a point-of-use water treatment system. These filters remove pathogens and suspended solids from water using biological and physical processes that take place in a sand column covered with a biofilm.
“We are so honored the brothers said ‘yes’ to be the fiscal agent and for their trust in the program,” commented Carolyn Meub, executive director of Pure Water for the World.
Court hears arguments in suit aiming to take mandate exemption from nuns
SAN FRANCISCO — The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals based in San Francisco heard oral arguments Oct. 19 in a lawsuit that aims to overturn a 2017 federal regulation expanding the exemption to the federal contraceptive mandate to include the Little Sisters of the Poor and other religious employers.
“We pray that the court will protect our ability to continue serving the elderly poor as we have for over 175 years without being forced to violate our faith,” Sister Theresa Gertrude, a member of the Little Sisters, said in a statement.
The religious order is being represented by Becket, a religious liberty law firm, in the State of California v. Little Sisters of the Poor. The sister’s lawyers argue that the states have no right to challenge the regulation. A decision from the 9th Circuit is expected sometime next year.
The religious order has been in the spotlight for the past several years because of the sisters’ moral objection to the Department of Health and Human Services’ requirement that most religious employers cover contraceptives, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health plan. The mandate was put in place by HHS under the Affordable Care Act during the Obama administration.
Catholic Charities USA funds help Georgia diocese aid hurricane victims
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Assistance is on the way for residents of the Diocese of Savannah still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Michael, thanks to a financial gift of $250,000 from Catholic Charities USA.
Though the 155-mph, Category-4 storm, which made landfall Oct. 10 near Mexico Beach, Florida, exited Georgia by the end of the next day as a weakened tropical storm, many residents of South Georgia and beyond could not return to their normal routines for days, in some cases a week afterward.
Others are still struggling. Students at St. Teresa School in Albany did not return to classes until Oct. 16, while students at other diocesan schools returned Oct. 12 after schools closed the previous day. In some areas, like Blakely and Cordele, churches did not regain electricity until at least Oct. 18, compelling priests to celebrate Mass by candlelight or outside, respectively, the weekend after the storm. Even as far north as Macon and Augusta, buildings and grounds sustained roof leaks, downed trees and power lines, and/or other damages.
Judge orders arrest of longtime suspect in St. Romero’s 1980 killing
WASHINGTON — Days after the Catholic Church declared Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero a saint, a judge in El Salvador issued a capture order for a former military captain suspected of killing the religious leader in 1980 as he celebrated Mass.
Judge Rigoberto Chicas issued the order Oct. 23 for national and international authorities to apprehend Alvaro Rafael Saravia, who has for years been a suspect in the killing. He remains at large and is believed to be in hiding.
It’s not the first time such an order has been issued against Saravia. He was arrested in 1987 in Miami and has faced a variety of legal proceedings in El Salvador for years that proved fruitless in any meaningful prosecution because of an amnesty law that prevented prosecution of human rights violations by the military tied to the country’s 1980-1992 civil war. However, the 1993 law was thrown out by the country’s highest court in 2016 and the case involving the killing of the archbishop was reopened the following year.
Catholics have divine imperative to stand with all migrants, says priest
PORTLAND, Ore. —God crossed the border from divinity to humanity, sparking a divine imperative that we stand in solidarity with those migrating in the world, a theologian said in a couple of talks he delivered in Portland.
Holy Cross Father Daniel Groody, associate professor of theology and global affairs at the University of Notre Dame, visited the Portland Archdiocese in early October as part of an effort by Catholic Charities of Oregon to change society’s thinking on immigration.
“God migrated into our existence and was nailed to a cross so we could make our long migration back into our homeland,” Father Groody told a large crowd at the University of Portland, which was founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross. “Communion and reconciliation are our destiny.”
Deacon Rick Birkel, executive director of Catholic Charities of Oregon, realizes that the agency’s work with immigrants is controversial. “How do we change hearts and minds in a very divided Church?” he asked, setting the stage for Father Groody’s Oct. 3 talk.
“Jesus was born outside the law,” the priest said the next day at a workshop at Catholic Charities offices in Portland, explaining that Mary’s pregnancy seemed to be a serious legal violation among the Jews. “That opened things up for everyone who was outside the law. Think about it. That’s the kind of God we have.”
Catholic agency hopes to reach 70,000 needy children with ‘Box of Joy’
BOCA RATON, Fla. —When an individual, a family, a group or a church wants to pack a small box of Christmas joy for a needy child, “we tell them ‘welcome to the world of joy,’ because everyone who gives joy receives joy in return,” said the president of Cross Catholic Outreach in Boca Raton.
Jim Cavnar spoke about the agency’s “Box of Joy” program, now in its fifth year, in a Q-and-A provided to news media.
Those who get involved in the program choose a recipient by age (from 2-14) and by gender, and then pack small items for that child in a shoebox-size box. Items can include small toys like dolls and race cars, essentials like soap, pencils, toothpaste and toothbrushes, as well as a few treats like hard candy and coloring books. Participants include $9 in each box to cover $7 shipping and $2 to support the ministries of those working with the children, who are in Haiti, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic and, as of this year, El Salvador.
Pennsylvania order asks Supreme Court to uphold its religious rights
WASHINGTON — The Adorers of the Blood of Christ have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether their religious freedom rights were violated by the construction and pending use of a natural gas pipeline through its land.
In a filing with the court Oct. 19, attorney Dwight Yoder, representing the congregation, argued that the sisters’ rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act were disregarded by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit.
The petition to the Supreme Court asks the justices to determine how widely government agencies must regard claims under RFRA and whether a circuit court’s review of an agency’s order satisfy the religious freedom guarantees under the law.
Yoder said outside the court Oct. 22 during a media conference announcing the filing that the appeals court decision guts the intent of RFRA. In July, a three-judge appeals court panel agreed with a lower court ruling that the congregation had not made their religious objections known during the federal administrative process that led to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approval of the 183-mile Atlantic Sunrise pipeline.