Mommy Wars Are Soooo 1990s

by Jennifer Fulwiler

Last week I came across a blog debate about moms who work. I can't find the link now (I think it was one of the countless discussions that erupted after Hilary Rosen's now-infamous comment), but you can imagine how it went: A blogger made the statement that mothers need to stay home with young children, working moms took offense, and combox insanity ensued. I've been following debates like this for years, but as I scanned through this one, I noticed that something felt different. At first I couldn't put my finger on what it was, but then I realized:

The whole discussion seemed outdated.

And I don't think I was the only one who sensed that. Even the most vocal, caps-lock-using anonymous commenters didn't display the same amount of scorn for their fellow moms that you would have seen even three years ago. People hardly seemed to mean it when they said "UR NEGLECTING UR KIDZ," and the finger-pointing at other mothers' lifestyle choices seemed to lack energy or sincere conviction. When I thought about it, it realized that there's been a decline in the intensity and frequency of these kind of debates in recent years. And now I'm starting to think that five, certainly ten, years from now, we'll hardly be having them at all.

As Simcha Fisher recently pointed out, it's impossible to put mothers into neat categories that perfectly encapsulate what "type" of parents they are. This has always been the case, but I think that that statement it is getting more and more true by the day when it comes to the labels of "working mom" vs. "stay-at-home mom." With the popularity of telecommuting, many working moms end up spending most of their time at home; whereas many stay-at-home moms now have online stores or websites that bring in some extra income, or they might do occasional freelance work from home in fields where they have career experience. With all the options we have in terms of where we live, what kind of homes we live in, what kind of cars we drive, etc., even the lines between moms who work because they "want to" and those who work because they "have to" have become fuzzy.

This isn't to say that it doesn't matter at all what choices moms make with their lifestyles; it is certainly possible to take selfish actions that could deeply wound your kids. But it's like the debates about what constitutes grave and serious reasons for avoiding pregnancy: while there are moral absolutes in this area, it's almost always impossible to tell if others are violating them. We just can't know those kinds of things from observing someone else's life -- and this is especially true when it comes to modern mothers and their work.

I think that if we could fast forward ten years and ask a young woman what she thinks of working moms, she'd be confused by the question. Is a "working mom" someone like her friend Jane, who has a full-time job but works mostly out of her house? Or is a working mom someone like Jill, who works in an office but has a flexible schedule that allows her to be home a lot? What about Sally, who has an online store that requires that she puts in eighty hours one week, then none for the rest of the month? Or Jessica, who teaches at a homeschool co-op but doesn't receive a paycheck? I think that this woman of the future would find that she ultimately doesn't know how to answer the question, "What do you think of working moms?", because she simply doesn't see that as being a clear, definable category of parenthood in the first place.

I suppose there will always be something for parents to argue about, and the "mommy wars" may continue to erupt about other areas of motherhood. But thanks to all the ways that new technology has blurred the lines between those who have jobs and those who don't, I think that the working moms vs. stay-at-home moms debates have finally become passé.

Judging another mom for working or not working? That's sooooo 1990s.

Doctrinal Assessment of the LCWR: Safeguarding the Integrity of Consecrated Life

BY MOTHER MARY ASSUMPTA LONG, OP
4/24/12
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith situates the introduction of its doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in the section of Pope John Paul II’s post-synodal apostolic exhortation Vita Consecrata entitled “Sentire Cum Ecclesia” (To Think With the Church).

The eight-page document, published April 18, summarizes the findings of a careful investigation of the LCWR begun in 2008 and has renewal as its primary purpose:

The renewal of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, which is the goal of this doctrinal assessment, is in support of this essential charism of religious which has been so obvious in the life and growth of the Catholic Church in the United States.

Recent media coverage has displayed a variety of responses to the doctrinal assessment, and members of the LCWR have issued public responses.

A timely consideration in the midst of these diverse reactions is the perspective of why the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would even undertake such a serious look at the LCWR.

Why spend three years assessing the state of the LCWR and then subsequently mandate a five-year plan of change going forward? This intensive mandate seeking to initiate renewal within the LCWR reflects the Church’s love for consecrated life and is in continuity with the Church’s conciliar and post-conciliar call for renewal of religious life, according to the charism of her founders.

The CDF’s assessment states that it has a “sincere concern for the life of faith” in the various institutes represented by the LCWR. The document identifies that the doctrinal issues of the LCWR reflect a deeper crisis of identity among her members, both in terms of the very essentials of consecrated life and the inseparable communion of consecrated life with the Church.

Such an assessment reflects the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s proper regard and reverence for consecrated life as a gift to the Church and determination to rekindle in the members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious the “lively sense of the Church.”

The CDF, in both investigating and implementing a clear mandate for renewal of the LCWR, bears clear witness to the Church’s responsibility to safeguard religious life in its integrity — for the love of her members and the good of the whole Church. Various conciliar and post-conciliar documents on religious life echo this same ideal.

Lumen Gentium, the dogmatic constitution on the Church, relates that religious life “belongs undeniably” to the Church’s life and holiness:

Being means to and instruments of love, the evangelical counsels unite those who practice them to the Church and her mystery in a special way. It follows that the spiritual life of such Christians should be dedicated also to the welfare of the entire Church (44).

Evangelica Testificatio, the apostolic exhortation on the renewal of religious life issued during the pontificate of Paul VI, highlights the value of religious life in the Church’s tradition and the danger that threats to the integrity of religious life would bear on the Church as a whole:

Without this concrete sign [religious life], there would be a danger that the charity which animates the entire Church would grow cold, that the salvific paradox of the Gospel would be blunted, and that the “salt” of faith would lose its favor in a world undergoing secularization (3).

Pope Paul VI underscores the indispensable relationship between religious life and the Church and how the vitality of religious life is essential to the Church’s mission.

Religious life is thus inseparable from the life of the Church. In continuity with the above conciliar and post-conciliar documents, Pope John Paul II related:

Its universal presence and the evangelical nature of its witness are clear evidence — if any were needed — that the consecrated life is not something isolated and marginal, but a reality which affects the whole Church. … In effect, the consecrated life is at the very heart of the Church as a decisive element for her mission (Vita Consecrata, 36).

Appreciating the Church’s affirmation, love and reverence for the gift of consecrated life is the proper framework for understanding the very purpose of the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious undertaken by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

It is the Church’s responsibility, assumed in love, to safeguard the beauty and gift of consecrated life at all times. This responsibility is most acute when the integrity of consecrated life begins to diminish, evidenced in this case by clear examples of dissent from the hierarchy and lack of authentic ecclesial communion.

The CDF hopes that, through this mandate, members of the LCWR will awaken to once again “think with the Church.” In so doing, it is the sincere hope that these consecrated religious will rediscover and wholly embrace their vocation in its integrity at the heart of the Church.

Mother Mary Assumpta Long is superior of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Will the Whistle-Blower Whistle?

WORLD Magazine
By Marvin Olasky

(WNS)--The New York Times has a “public editor,” Arthur S. Brisbane, with the task of listening to readers’ concerns and bringing them to the attention of editors and reporters when he thinks those concerns are warranted. Brisbane is the great grandson of utopian socialist Albert Brisbane and the grandson of Arthur Brisbane (1864-1936), a Hearst editor described by biographer W.A. Swanberg (Citizen Hearst, 1961) as “a one-time socialist who had drifted pleasantly into the profit system.”

Brisbane noted in his Apr. 22 column, “Many critics view The Times as constitutionally unable to address the [2012] election in an unbiased fashion.” He reported the results of a study conducted by media scholars Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter that showed that Times coverage of President Obama’s first year in office “was significantly more favorable than its first-year coverage of three predecessors who also brought a new party to power in the White House: George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Ronald Reagan.”

Brisbane quoted the authors’ question: “Did The Times, perhaps in response to the aggressive efforts by [Rupert] Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal to seize market share, decide to tilt more to the left than it had in the past?” His response: “I strongly doubt that. Based on conversations with Times reporters and editors who cover the campaign and Washington, I think they see themselves as aggressive journalists who don’t play favorites.”

Good thing Brisbane cleared that up. But he did quote other criticism of his newspaper, and suggested that Times reporters should now “shift to a campaign coverage paradigm that compares promises with execution, sheds light on campaign operations, and assesses the president’s promises for a second term.” The value in Brisbane’s article is that he quotes a promise from Times political editor Richard Stevenson to target the Obama campaign’s use of his powers of incumbency, along with Obama’s “political style, character, and learning curve.”

I’ll believe that when I see it. Brisbane ends his column by writing, “I applaud The Times’ stated commitment to doing these kinds of stories. Readers deserve to know: Who is the real Barack Obama? And The Times needs to show that it can address the question in a hard-nosed, unbiased way.”

If The Times does not—when The Times does not, judging from its recent decades—will Brisbane blow the whistle?

Marvin Olasky is editor-in-chief of WORLD News Group, which includes WORLD Magazine.

Of Rosa DeLauro and Other Disoriented Catholics

BY GEORGE WEIGEL
4/25/12

One does wonder, sometimes, just what goes on at Catholic News Service (CNS), an agency that wouldn’t exist were it not for the U.S. bishops and the bishops’ conference. This past April 16, CNS distributed a lengthy interview with Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., giving her a platform to blast the 2013 federal budget proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and to badger Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York (the president of the USCCB) to pay as much attention to “the poor, the hungry, the middle class, the people who are going to be eviscerated by the Ryan budget” as Cardinal Dolan and the bishops he leads are paying to the defense of religious freedom.

The congresswoman’s appeal was specifically Catholic — “my Church, the Catholic Church, needs to speak out loud on this issue” — which involved an irony left wholly unexamined by CNS. For DeLauro’s voting record is in some tension, to put it gently, with Catholic understandings of justice.

The Church teaches the inalienable right to life of the unborn and insists that that obvious moral truth be acknowledged in law; DeLauro is a consistent pro-abortion vote in the House. According to statistics from National Right to Life, DeLauro’s pro-life voting record is 0% (compared to 100% for Ryan, for instance).

The Catholic Church worked with the District of Columbia education authorities to provide “opportunity scholarships” to Catholic inner-city schools for poor children; DeLauro supported the Obama administration’s cruel refusal to fund that program. The bishops have declared that religious freedom is under serious assault in the United States today; the gentlewoman from Connecticut has been notably AWOL in defending the first of American liberties.

How, then, does DeLauro imagine herself as someone who speaks for “my Church, the Catholic Church?”

My hunch is that she imagines herself a spokeswoman for authentic Catholicism because she, like many other Catholics on the port side of both American politics and the Church, have long thought that they alone hold the high ground at the intersection of Catholic social teaching and public policy.

Memo to Congresswoman DeLauro and friends: Those days are over.

They’re over because four decades of intellectual and political work, coupled with extensive care for women in crisis pregnancies, have made the pro-life cause the cultural marker of serious Catholicism in the United States.

They’re over because much of the “Catholic left” has obstinately refused to promote religious freedom in full and the inalienable right to life as priority social-justice issues.

And they’re over because contemporary history has vindicated Catholicism’s anti-statist social-justice principle, subsidiarity.

The impending fiscal meltdown of European welfare states vindicates subsidiarity by making clear that providing necessary aid to those in genuine need means, among other measures, developing the associational and charitable instincts of civil society. The alternative is state bankruptcy and social chaos.

Then there is Obamacare, which flatly contradicts subsidiarity and its principled rejection of vast concentrations of state power — the dangers of which are amply demonstrated by the coercive HHS “contraceptive mandate.”

The universal health care the Church rightly seeks must be accomplished by means other than handing over one-sixth of the economy (and critical medical decisions) to unregulated regulators.

These home truths are bad news for Rosa DeLauro and those of her persuasion.

Now, to make matters worse, here is Paul Ryan, a congressman of uncommon intelligence who can ably argue the public-policy implications of Catholic social doctrine and who understands that what the Church asks of a just society is the empowerment of the poor: breaking the cycle of welfare dependency and unleashing the creativity the Church believes God builds into every human soul.

Ryan is the dissenting Catholic’s worst nightmare, and his demonization from that quarter has just begun. Ryan is a big boy, though, and he’ll fight his corner well. That argument might even lead to some consensus about empowerment-based anti-poverty strategies and fiscally responsible social-welfare policies among serious Catholics of both political parties.

Rather than being a megaphone for dissenting Catholics posing as authentic representatives of the Church and hyperventilating about people being “eviscerated” by a budget, might CNS help provide a level playing field for the debate?

George Weigel is distinguished senior fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C. Weigel’s column is distributed by the Denver Catholic Register, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver.

Georgetown's Catholicity

Catholic League
April 25, 2012

Nearly 90 faculty members and priests at Georgetown University have signed a letter criticizing Rep. Paul Ryan’s visit to the campus tomorrow. They say his budget plan represents a “continuing misuse of Catholic teaching” because it allegedly hurts the poor.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on this issue:

In 1999, hard-core pornographer Larry Flynt spoke at Georgetown. There was no letter of protest from the faculty. But the Archdiocese of Washington was not pleased, saying the decision provided “a platform which furthers the degradation of women, immoral behavior and the anti-religious opinions Mr. Flynt represents.” In 2003, 70 faculty members signed a letter protesting a speech by Cardinal Francis Arinze when he defended the traditional family at his commencement address; they were angry that he cited abortion, euthanasia, infanticide, fornication, adultery, divorce, pornography, and homosexuality as negative elements.

In 1997, the Washington Archdiocese publicly criticized Georgetown for refusing to put crucifixes in the classrooms. In 2010, years after the crucifixes were restored, the university hid them, as well as other religious symbols, at the request of the Obama administration; Obama’s advance team did not want the president to speak with Catholic symbols in the background.

Georgetown welcomes pro-abortion clubs on campus. There is “Hoyas for Choice,” and “Georgetown University Law Students for Reproductive Justice” (formerly run by Sandra Fluke). There have been no letters of protest from the faculty about the “misuse of Catholic teaching.”

Georgetown obviously has a curious understanding of what constitutes a “misuse of Catholic teaching.” It’s time they held a campus forum on their identity, inviting representatives from the Washington Archdiocese, alumni, and non-Catholics to participate. They can begin by stating what makes Georgetown University different from George Washington University.

Applying Our Enduring Truths to Our Defining Challenge

National Catholic Register
BY REP. PAUL RYAN

4/25/12
The Catholic Church offers a rich overview of its thought, summarized in the Compendium of Social Doctrine, to guide Catholics in bringing truth to society’s problems. In his introduction, Cardinal Renato Martino, then president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, wrote, “This area belongs in a particular way” to those lay faithful who are active “in the social sector.”

As a congressman and Catholic layman, I am persuaded that Catholic social truths are in accord with the “self-evident truths” our Founders bequeathed to us in the founding ideas of America: independence, limited government and the dignity and freedom of every human person. As chairman of the House Budget Committee, I am tasked with applying these enduring principles to the urgent social problems of our time: an economy that is not providing enough opportunities for our citizens, a safety net that is failing our most vulnerable populations, and a crushing burden of debt that is threatening our children and grandchildren with a diminished future.

These problems are related: The debt is weighing on job creation today, closing off the most promising avenues for the poor to rise. As a result, more and more of society’s most vulnerable remain mired in public-assistance programs whose outdated structures often act as a trap that hinders upward mobility. And this economic stagnation and growing dependence fuels the growing national debt — a vicious cycle that calls for bold reforms equal to the challenge.

We cannot continue to ignore this problem. The Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, has rightly termed this attitude “living in untruth … at the expense of future generations.” In approaching this problem as a lay Catholic in public life, I have found it useful to apply the twin principles of solidarity (recognition of the common ties that unite all human beings in equal dignity) and subsidiarity (respect for the relationships between individuals and intermediate social groups such as families, businesses, schools, local communities and state governments).

When applied in equal measure, these principles complete and balance each other. But when one is applied exclusively, the result can be harmful. For example, in a misapplication of solidarity, politicians in both parties expanded big government for decades. These policies have had dismal results. One out of every six people in the United States is now living below the poverty level — the largest number of poor people on record.

We need a better approach to restore the balance, and the House-passed budget offers one by reintroducing subsidiarity, which the Holy Father has called “the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state.” Our budget builds on the successful welfare reforms of the 1990s, using federal subsidium to empower state and local governments, communities and individuals — those closest to the problems of society. Our budget promotes opportunity and upward mobility by strengthening job-training programs to help those who have fallen on hard times.

Our budget ends welfare for those who don’t need it, but strengthens welfare programs for those who do. Government safety-net programs have been stretched to the breaking point in recent years, failing the very citizens who need help the most. When solidarity and subsidiarity are in balance, civil society is revitalized, not displaced. We rightly pride ourselves on looking out for one another — and government has an important role to play in that. But relying on distant government bureaucracies to lead this effort just hasn’t worked.

Instead of letting critical health and retirement programs go bankrupt, our budget saves and strengthens them so they can fulfill their missions in the 21st century. President Barack Obama’s health-care law puts a board of 15 unelected bureaucrats in charge of cutting Medicare. This is wrong. I do not believe we should turn the fate of our parents and grandparents over to an unaccountable board and let it make decisions that could deny them access to their care.

Our budget keeps the protections that have made Medicare a guaranteed promise for the elderly. It makes no changes for those in or near retirement. Our proposed reforms restore subsidiarity by putting seniors themselves in charge of their personal health-care decisions. In solidarity with the elderly, our budget empowers them to choose the coverage that works best for them, with a guarantee of high-quality care at an affordable price. And it allows seniors to choose a traditional Medicare option if they prefer.

Our budget averts the looming debt-fueled economic crisis, which would hurt the poor the first and the worst. It lifts the debt and frees the nation from the constraints of ever-expanding government. And it promotes economic growth and opportunity, with bold reforms to make the tax code fair and equitable and a credible, principled plan to prevent a debt crisis from ever happening.

Our budget has been criticized for giving tax cuts to the wealthy at the expense of the poor. It does no such thing. Instead of taking more and more from the paychecks of working Americans, the House budget proposes a comprehensive reform of the tax code to make it fair, simple and competitive. We would lower rates for everyone across the board. But revenue would still rise every year under our budget because our economy grows and because our budget proposes to eliminate special-interest loopholes that go primarily to the influential and well-off. Washington should not micromanage people’s decisions through the tax code. Basic economics and basic morality both tell us that people have a right to keep and decide how to spend their hard-earned dollars.

I have been making a serious effort to explain how the truths of Catholic social thought impact our budget, claiming neither a monopoly on the social teachings nor that persons of good faith must agree with my practical answers. I have invited those with different views to dialogue about the facts. Pope Benedict’s example of charitable debate with politicians, philosophers, scholars and clergy outside of the faith should inspire our own Catholic dialogue on how the social magisterium furthers the common good and well-being of all Americans.

Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., represents Wisconsin’s First Congressional District and serves as chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Today on "Kresta in the Afternoon" - April 25, 2012

Talking about the "things that matter most" on April 25

4:00 – Vatican Demands Reform of Leadership Conference of Women Religious
The Vatican has called for a thorough reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), the umbrella group that represents most of the women’s religious orders in the US. After a thorough investigation of the LCWR, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) concluded that “the current doctrinal and pastoral situation of LCWR is grave and a matter of serious concern.” The CDF concluded that a Vatican intervention was necessary to reform the group. Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle has been appointed as the Vatican’s delegate to supervise the reform of the LCWR. The archbishop has been charged with helping LCWR leaders to revise the group’s statues, plan its programs, review liturgical texts, and reconsider the group’s affiliations with other organizations. We talk with Sr. Johannah Paruch, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George.

4:20 – Army’s ‘chilling trend’ puts women at risk
The Army is pushing more women closer to the front lines and in closer contact with men even as the number of sexual attacks on female soldiers has surged during the past six years. Army figures show that reports of violent sex crimes have nearly doubled, from 665 in 2006 to 1,313 last year. Nearly all the victims were women. Most were young soldiers moving from one post to another, a time when they were most vulnerable, according to “Generating Health and Discipline in the Force,” a comprehensive study into the Army’s mind and body. We talk to Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness.

4:40 – Kresta Comments – Bishop Daniel Jenky: Bold Leadership
Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria told the 500 men who attended the diocese’s annual men’s march and Mass that “the days in which we live now require heroic Catholicism, not casual Catholicism.” But what is raising eyebrows is the following: “The Church will survive the entrenched corruption and sheer incompetence of our Illinois state government, and even the calculated disdain of the President of the United States, his appointed bureaucrats in HHS, and of the current majority of the federal Senate. May God have mercy on the souls of those politicians who pretend to be Catholic in church, but in their public lives, rather like Judas Iscariot, betray Jesus Christ by how they vote and how they willingly cooperate with intrinsic evil…Hitler and Stalin, at their better moments, would just barely tolerate some churches remaining open, but would not tolerate any competition with the state in education, social services, and health care. In clear violation of our First Amendment rights, Barack Obama--with his radical, pro-abortion and extreme secularist agenda--now seems intent on following a similar path.” Al has reaction.

5:00 – Did Muhammad Exist?: An Inquiry into Islam's Obscure Origins
Did Muhammad exist? It is a question that few have thought—or dared—to ask. Virtually everyone, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, takes for granted that the prophet of Islam lived and led in seventh-century Arabia. But now, Robert Spencer reveals the shocking contents of the earliest Islamic biographical material about the prophet of Islam. Now he uncovers that material’s surprisingly shaky historical foundations. Spencer meticulously examines historical records, archaeological findings, and pioneering new scholarship to reconstruct what we can know about Muhammad, the Qur’an, and the early days of Islam. The evidence he presents challenges the most fundamental assumptions about Islam’s origins.

Sally Quinn’s War on Catholicism

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Sally Quinn’s “On Faith” blog at the Washington Post:

It’s no secret that Sally Quinn (who is not Catholic) has a problem with the Catholic Church (save for soup-kitchen Catholics). But today she outdid herself: Of the three lead stories on her Washington Post blog, three are on Catholicism. One is positive, and two are decidedly negative.

The one positive piece doesn’t count. Why? Because it’s about Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy, a Catholic, who is about to sign into law a bill to outlaw capital punishment. The reason this issue doesn’t count is because it’s all window-dressing: exactly one person has been executed in Connecticut in the past 37 years. Now if Malloy were to outlaw abortion in Connecticut, that would be big news.

Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo raises the question, “Is the Church Corrupt?” You already know the answer. He ends by saying, “Catholics are loyal enough to Jesus and to each other to prevail against the Gates of Hell that now besmirch the institutional church.” Then they are no longer Catholic. Being Catholic means belonging to, and faithfully participating in, the Catholic Church. Even a fraternity insists on fidelity.

Sally herself contributes the other rap. Entitled, “A Catholic ‘War on Women,’” she begins with this startling insight: “The Roman Catholic Church is a hierarchical institution if there ever was one.” Perhaps she knows of an institution that is flat. And is she not the hierarchical leader of her blog post? Then she accuses the Vatican of “condemning nuns, including those among the 55,000 members of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR).” But the Vatican condemned no one and only 3% of nuns belong to the LCWR. She also says the nuns were punished for supporting ObamaCare. As I pointed out earlier today, this is another sham: the reform initiative began before Obama even became president.

Get it straight: There is not a single media outlet in the nation, or university, that deals so gently with dissent as does the Catholic Church.

Contact: onfaith@washingtonpost.com

Today on "Kresta in the Afternoon" - April 24, 2012

Talking about the "things that matter most" on April 24

4:00 – Redeemed: Stumbling Toward God, Sanity, and the Peace That Passes All Understanding

After decades of living on the edge, Heather King settled into sobriety, marriage, and a financially lucrative but unfulfilling career as an upwardly mobile lawyer. As someone who had reached middle age “never believing in much of anything,” she found herself in the last place she thought she’d end up: the Catholic Church. She tells us her unforgettable, fervent, funny tale of an ongoing, stumbling conversion.

5:00 – Kresta Comments – Andrew Sullivan’s Jesus

The most recent Newsweek magazine cover story (published during Holy Week) is entitled “Forget the Church: Follow Jesus,” by pseudo-Catholic pseudo-conservative homosexual commentator Andrew Sullivan. His basic argument is that because of scandal, politics, and other social factors Christianity is on the brink of extinction and we need to embrace HIS version of Jesus to save the faith. Not unlike Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle who each have recently presented their own new definitions of Jesus. Al analyzes this trend. 

5:20 – Traditional (Orthodox) Catholicism Is Winning

In his Holy Thursday homily at St. Peter's Basilica on April 5, Pope Benedict XVI denounced calls from some Catholics for optional celibacy among priests and for women's ordination. The pope said that "true renewal" comes only through the "joy of faith" and "radicalism of obedience." And renewal is coming. After the 2002 scandal about sexual abuse by clergy, progressive Catholics were predicting the end of the celibate male priesthood in books like "Full Pews and Empty Altars" and "The Death of Priesthood." Yet today the number of priestly ordinations is steadily increasing. We look at the trends and data which indicates that fidelity is a recipe for growth. Anne Hendershott has done the research and she joins us today.

'Now that's justice for Trayvon'

American Thinker

By Rick Moran

Al Sharpton and the entire leadership of the New Black Panther party should be arrested and charged as accessories in this horrific beating of a white man by about 20 black adults in Mobile, AL.

WKRG News 5:

According to police, Owens fussed at some kids playing basketball in the middle of Delmar Drive about 8:30 Saturday night. They say the kids left and a group of adults returned, armed with everything but the kitchen sink.

Police canvassed the area, but did not find any suspects.

"Justice" for Trayvon Martin is meaningless if those who purport to seek it incite injustices against others. The whole rabble of race baiters, racialists, and race hustlers who are hanging around Sanford, FL looking to grab face time on TV and pump up their street cred with the black community by speaking wildly about "injustice," should think twice about the words they utter that so inflame the situation.

What Parker says happened next could make the fallout from the brutal beating even worse. As the attackers walked away, leaving Owen bleeding on the ground, Parker says one of them said "Now thats justice for Trayvon." Trayvon Martin is the unarmed teenager police say was shot and killed February 26 by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in Samford, Florida.Police will only say "multiple people" are involved.Owens' sister, Ashley Parker, saw the attack. "It was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed." Parker says 20 people, all African American, attacked her brother on the front porch of his home, using "brass buckles, paint cans and anything they could get their hands on."Police tell News 5 the suspects used chairs, pipes and paint cans to beat Owens.One thug was heard to say when walking away from putting Matthew Owens in intensive care; ""Now thats justice for Trayvon."

Mitt Romney’s campaign stop with Rubio fuels speculation about running mate

April 24 (Bloomberg) -- Mitt Romney promotes himself as a chief executive fit for the White House. He has now begun the process of making his most consequential management decision yet: choosing a vice president.


Romney’s search for a running mate is officially under way. His campaign appearance yesterday with Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American whose popularity with Republican voters and Hispanics has earned him a top spot on the list of prospective picks, only drew attention to a process that is as secretive as it is closely watched.


What is known is that Romney, who was vetted for the No. 2 spot in 2008 by party nominee Senator John McCain’s campaign, has named longtime aide Beth Myers to head the process, tapping a trusted adviser whose experience assisting the former Massachusetts governor four years ago will inform her effort this time.


“Beth Myers has begun to put together a number of the names and criteria and so forth that would be associated with that process,” Romney told reporters in a joint question-and- answer session with Rubio yesterday outside Philadelphia. “But we really haven’t had a discussion yet of putting together a list or evaluating various candidates.”


Romney said he and Myers have begun looking for the people -- including those well-versed in examining financial records -- who will help scrub potential candidates’ backgrounds for any impropriety, political liability or other problems.


‘Very Early Stages’


“We’re looking at various people, resources to help with that process, accounting staff and so forth, to take a look at tax returns and things of that nature,” Romney said. “It’s just at the very early stages.”


Vice presidential nominees typically debut at the party’s national convention, giving Romney several months to make his decision before it gets under way on Aug. 27.


Among the many unknowns is what Romney will try to achieve with his selection.


The choice typically mixes intangible factors, including personal rapport and personality type with straightforward political considerations such as appeal in a competitive state or with a certain element of the party base.


“There’s a well-developed set of criteria, and no one person ever scores a 10 on each criteria; so then it becomes a judgment call made by the candidate and his team,” said Whit Ayres, a Republican polling specialist with Virginia-based North Star Opinion Research.


Personal Chemistry


“Personal comfort with the nominee is a very important criterion -- comfort and chemistry,” Ayres said. “And then the political criteria of can someone bring a state that Romney might not otherwise get, or can you generate excitement for the ticket because you are trusted among a part of the coalition that doesn’t particularly trust him.”


Romney’s advisers wouldn’t speak publicly about the selection process and the campaign declined through spokeswoman Andrea Saul to comment. Still, some people close to the candidate say privately that they expect to see his disciplined, data-driven decision-making approach prevail in his search for a running mate.

Syrian Army Presses Attack Amid UN Cease-Fire Monitoring

(Bloomberg) Syrian security forces attacked anti-government neighborhoods with sniper fire and heavy machine guns as unarmed United Nations monitors sought to end more than a year of violence in the country.


Units loyal to President Bashar al-Assad killed 55 people yesterday, including 31 in Hama, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in an e-mailed statement. The army attacked the al-Arbaeen neighborhood of Hama with heavy weapons after protesters took to the streets, the group said. Damascus was hit by a large blast today in the Marjeh district, Al Jazeera television reported, citing the Syrian Revolution General Commission, an anti-government group.


On April 21, the UN unanimously backed sending observers to monitor a cease-fire aimed at ending more than a year of clashes. The agreement came into effect April 12. Since then, 254 civilians and more than 80 members of the security forces have been killed, Rami Abdel Rahman, London-based head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said by phone today. Syrian security forces killed 11 people today, al Jazeera reported.


“This hasn’t been a cease-fire from the beginning,” Andrew Tabler, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies and author of a report on U.S.-Syrian relations, said in response to e-mailed questions. “At first it helped lessen conflict, but given the regime’s use of live fire and shelling, violence has flared again. Perhaps the monitors, when they are fully in place, can help peaceful protesters return to the streets.”

Car Bombing

Resolution 2043, sponsored by Russia and China, nations that objected to tougher U.S.-backed measures against Syria, will allow 300 unarmed monitors to be deployed for an initial period of 90 days. Russia opposes military intervention in Syria, saying the North Atlantic Treaty Organization misused a UN mandate, intended to protect civilians, to bring about regime change in Libya last year, resulting in the killing of leader Muammar Qaddafi.


The car bombing in Damascus near the Iranian cultural office in Syria’s capital wounded three Syrians, Iran’s state- run Press TV reported. The blast in Marjeh Square in old Damascus left one of the Syrians in critical condition, the channel said on its website. The cultural office wasn’t the target of the attack, Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Mohammad-Reza Raouf Sheibani, was cited as saying by Press TV.

Videos of Casualties

Videos posted on YouTube yesterday showed bodies on the streets of al-Arbaeen and children weeping after their relatives were killed in the violence. The authenticity of the videos couldn’t be verified.
Hama was the scene of a violent military campaign to crush an uprising in 1982 against the rule of the late President Hafez al-Assad. Syrian rebels are now fighting to oust his son in a conflict that the UN estimates has killed more than 9,000 people since March last year.


“The international community keeps walking up to the Syrian precipice, stares down at the ramifications of diplomatic failure, then backs away,” Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai-based Institute for Near East and Gulf Military Analysis, said today in a phone interview. “Currently the spasms of violence coincide with diplomatic failure. We are going to go through this cycle several more times.”


European Union governments stiffened sanctions against Syria, seeking to crimp the lifestyle of Assad and his family by banning the export of luxury goods to Syria. EU foreign ministers also put more products on a list of banned technologies that could be used by the government to suppress dissent, the EU said in an e-mailed statement yesterday after the ministers met in Luxembourg.


“The repression in Syria must stop,” EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said in the statement. “We are working with the international community to ensure that we enforce sanctions as effectively as possible.”

Miami archbishop laments pressures against religious liberty

Archbishop Thomas Wenski

Miami, Fla., Apr 24, 2012 / 12:08 am (CNA) — Efforts to restrict religious liberty break with American traditions and seek to “delegitimize” the Catholic Church’s participation in public debate, said Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski of Miami.


“America's ‘first freedom,’ the freedom of religion, is under great stress if not under outright assault – and not just for Catholics,” Archbishop Wenski wrote in the Miami Herald April 23.


He said the Health and Human Services mandate requiring insurance coverage for contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can cause abortion represents “an unprecedented intrusion by the federal government.”

The mandate not only forces religious institutions to “facilitate and fund” products and procedures “contrary to their own moral teaching,” he noted, but also defines which institutions are religious enough to meet an exemption.


Archbishop Wenski said the fundamental issue in the mandate debate is “whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs.”


“The Church cannot not oppose this unjust (and we believe unconstitutional) mandate,” he said.


The archbishop said the Catholic bishops will seek remedies from both Congress and the courts “rather than facing the shuttering of our schools, universities and hospitals by the federal government.”
Despite the present difficulties, he praised U.S. constitutional guarantees for religious freedom.


“America's first freedom, the freedom of religion, has honored America's diversity by permitting the inclusion of all its citizens in contributing to the common good of all,” he said.


“Separation of church and state does not require the exclusion of religion from society. To exclude people of faith from making their contributions and their proposals in the public square would impoverish us all.”


He suggested the new restrictions are evidence of a “reductive secularism” that has more in common with the French Revolution than with American traditions.


Archbishop Wenski warned of various other threats to religious liberty, including a “draconian” anti-immigrant law in Alabama that he said “criminalizes” Bible classes for undocumented immigrants; the exclusion of Catholic Charities from foster care and adoption services in several states; the State Department’s apparent revision of religious liberty to mean “merely freedom to worship”; and a recent court decision that barred conscience accommodations for federal contractors opposed to abortion.


Such efforts “seek to delegitimize the Church's participation in public debate about issues that will determine the future of American society,” he charged.


The archbishop said the Catholic Church does not seek privileges for herself but seeks the freedom to advocate her views in the public square and “to witness to them coherently so as to contribute to human flourishing in society.”


He noted that in November Florida voters can vote to approve the Florida ballot initiative Amendment 8 to protect faith-based agencies and organizations from state-level laws and regulations that affect religious freedom.

Pope asks US donors to pray for religious freedom

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Meeting a group of major U.S. donors to Catholic charitable works, Pope Benedict XVI asked them to pray "for the freedom of Christians to proclaim the Gospel and bring its light to the urgent moral issues of our time."


The pope met April 21 with about 80 members of the Papal Foundation, who presented him with an $8.5-million donation that will be used to fund scholarships and 105 Catholic projects in close to 50 countries.


The projects include the construction of five schools in Egypt, where Christian leaders and human rights activists have been concerned about ensuring religious freedom as the country transitions to a democratic government.


While the pope did not refer to any specific conflicts involving religious freedom, his remarks to the American group also may have alluded to current tensions in the United States over the right of Catholic bishops and institutions to act according to Catholic teaching in matters of adoption and health insurance coverage.


Pope Benedict also paid tribute to the "historic role played by women in building up the church in America," as exemplified by Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha and Blessed Marianne Cope, two North Americans who will be canonized in October.


The pope spoke just three days after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith announced that it had ordered the reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main U.S. organization of heads of religious congregations. In the announcement, the congregation said, "the Holy See acknowledges with gratitude the great contributions of women religious to the church in the United States as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor which have been founded and staffed by religious over the years."


Pope Benedict thanked members of the Papal Foundation for their support for the church's work in evangelization, education and development.


Bishop Joseph A. Pepe of Las Vegas, secretary of the foundation's executive board, told Catholic News Service that the idea behind the foundation, which was established in 1988, was to help the pope in his support of Catholics in poor countries. "Every year the pope gives a list of what he'd be interested in" and the foundation evaluates requests it receives in accordance with that list.


Most of the foundation members are "leaders in their communities," and give generously to their parishes and dioceses, but they also want to assist with the universal work of the church, he said.


Bishop Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas, a member of the board of trustees, said the foundation's Stewards of St. Peter each pledge $1 million to the foundation and promise to pay it within 10 years.


"It is admirable to see how many people are involved in this, helping the church promote programs of evangelization all over the world. I do believe it is one of the great unwritten stories of charity in our day, especially in the United States," Bishop Farrell said.

Gingrich hints he may quit race

(ABC) Newt Gingrich suggested Monday that the end may be near for his struggling presidential campaign.


In an interview with NBC News, the former House speaker acknowledged that he would have to "reassess" his bid if he fares poorly in Tuesday's Republican primary in Delaware, a state where he has spent considerable time campaigning.


"I think we need to take a deep look at what we are doing," Gingrich said. "We will be in North Carolina tomorrow night and we will look and see what the results are."


He told NBC, "I would hope we would do well here — either carry it or come very, very close."


Gingrich has won only two states so far — South Carolina and his home state of Georgia — and his campaign is $4.3 million in debt, according to FEC filings.


And he has garnered more attention lately for being bitten by a penguin in St. Louis and bouncing a check in Utah.


Still, Gingrich has refused to bow out. Even after Rick Santorum suspended his campaign two weeks ago, Gingrich insisted that he was "committed to staying in this race all the way to Tampa so that the conservative movement has a real choice."


In Delaware, he also had some words of caution for presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney.


"Gov. Romney is clearly the frontrunner but that doesn't mean he is inevitable," Gingrich told a small crowd at GOP headquarters in Wilmington. "It is very dangerous for frontrunners to start behaving like they are inevitable because the voters might decide that's not so true."

VATICAN CRITICS GET LOOPY

Catholic League

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the way some are reacting to the Vatican’s decision to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR):

Over the years, I have met many nuns who have been distraught over the way some in their ranks have lost their way. Now that the Vatican is seeking reforms, these nuns feel vindicated. That is why it is disturbing to read the way some of the Vatican’s critics are trying to defend the indefensible. Keep in mind that only 3% of the 55,000 nuns in the U.S. actually belong to the LCWR, though one would never know this by reading the secular press. But facts don’t matter to those gone loopy.

Joan Vennochi of the Boston Globe wants to know why the pope doesn’t “crack down on protectors of pedophile priests” instead of nuns. But there is nothing to crack down about. As the latest report on priestly sexual abuse shows, no credible accusations were made in 2011 against 99.98% of the priests. Besides, the problem has been homosexuality, not pedophilia (less than 5% of the old cases dealt with pedophilia).

Monica Yant Kinney in the Philadelphia Inquirer says the Vatican “slammed nuns for devoting their lives to educating the poor, treating the sick, and feeding the ravenous.” That she still has her job after writing such drivel is the real story here.

Melinda Henneberger of the Washington Post says the LCWR got in trouble for supporting ObamaCare. A little research would have disclosed that legitimate concerns about this group extend back many years, having nothing to do with ObamaCare.

Pat Buchanan was fired from MSNBC because his bosses didn’t like a book he wrote. By contrast, the Vatican doesn’t fire anyone for breaking ranks. So tell me which of these two organizations really can’t tolerate dissent? One more thing: we await a column by these voyeurs on the sex segregation that is commonplace in Orthodox Judaism and Islam.

SNAP Gets A Taste Of Its Own Medicine

A Missouri court has ordered the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to turn over records to lawyers representing priests who have been charged with sexual abuse.

Jackson County Judge Ann Mesle said that she would restrict the scope of the information to be released, but said that defendants had the right to learn whether SNAP had coached witnesses on bringing charges against priests. “I believe they are entitled to have information on repressed memory,” the judge said.

The legal arguments over “repressed memory” are crucial to Missouri lawsuits, where plaintiffs have invoked that psychological claim in order to bring suit in cases that would ordinarily be beyond the statute of limitations. The state’s top court has ruled that if victims are able to demonstrate that they repressed memories of abuse, the statue of limitations begins to run only when they recover those memories.

The effort by defendants’ lawyers to force release of the SNAP files has provided some an ironic reversal of roles. In scores of other cases, SNAP has demanded complete disclosure of confidential personnel files by Catholic dioceses. But the group has fought stubbornly to prevent disclosure of its own internal records. Judge Mesle said that she expected her order would be appealed.

Pope notes key role of women in building American Catholicism

Vatican City, 21 April 2012 (VIS) - At midday today Benedict XVI received members of the Papal Foundation on their annual visit to Rome. The agency is a Catholic association founded in Philadelphia, U.S.A., in 1990 by the now-deceased Cardinal John Krol, which every year finances the needs of the Church around the world.

Speaking to the group in English, the Pope thanked them for their support for "a wide variety of apostolates". He also noted that later this year he will canonise two new saints from North America, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha and Blessed Mother Marianne Cope, "striking examples of sanctity and heroic charity" who "also remind us of the historic role played by women in the building up of the Church in America. By their example and intercession, may all of you be confirmed in the pursuit of holiness and in your efforts to contribute to the growth of God’s Kingdom in the hearts of people today".

"In these days I ask your continued prayers for the needs of the universal Church and in particular for the freedom of Christians to proclaim the Gospel and bring its light to the urgent moral issues of our time", the Pope concluded.

Assignments Given to New Cardinals

New York's Cardinal Dolan Named to Evangelization and Communications Councils, Others

VATICAN CITY, APRIL 23, 2012 (Zenit.org).- Those who entered the College of Cardinals last Feb. 18 have gotten their job lists. The Vatican on Saturday published appointments Benedict XVI has made for offices of the Roman Curia.

1. Cardinal George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly of the Syro-Malabars, India; Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, and Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, as members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

2. Cardinal George Alencherry of Ernakulam-Angamaly of the Syro-Malabars, India; Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, archbishop of New York, U.S.A.; Cardinal Lucian Muresan, major archbishop of Fagaras and Alba Julia of the Romanians, Romania; Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples, and Cardinal Edwin Frederick O'Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, as members of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

3. Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, as member of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

4. Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro, penitentiary major, and Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello, archpriest of the papal basilica of St. Mary Major, as members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

5. Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro, penitentiary major; Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello, archpriest of the papal basilica of St. Mary Major; Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and of the Governorate of Vatican City State, and Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, as members of the Congregation for Bishops.

6. Cardinal John Tong Hon, bishop of Hong Kong, China; Cardinal Santos Abril y Castello, archpriest of the papal basilica of St. Mary Major; Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and of the Governorate of Vatican City State, and Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, as members of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples.

7. Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, Netherlands, and Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, as members of the Congregation for the Clergy.

8. Cardinal Dominik Jaroslav Duka O.P., archbishop of Prague, Czech Republic, and Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, as members of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

9. Cardinal Thomas Christopher Collins, archbishop of Toronto, Canada; Cardinal Willem Jacobus Eijk, archbishop of Utrecht, Netherlands; Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, archbishop of Florence, Italy; Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, archbishop of Berlin, Germany; Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelisation of Peoples; Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, and Cardinal Edwin Frederick O'Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, as members of the Congregation for Catholic Education.

10. Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, and Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, president of the Prefecture for the Economic Affairs of the Holy See, as members of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

11. Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, as member of the Pontifical Council for the Laity.

12. Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, archbishop of Berlin, Germany, and Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, president of the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, as members of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

13. Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio, president of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples, as member of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

14. Cardinal Dominik Jaroslav Duka O.P., archbishop of Prague, Czech Republic, and Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and of the Governorate of Vatican City State, as members of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace.

15. Cardinal Edwin Frederick O'Brien, grand master of the Equestrian Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, as member of the Pontifical Council "Cor Unum".

16. Cardinal Manuel Monteiro de Castro, penitentiary major, as member of the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples.

17. Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, as member of the Pontifical Council for Health Pastoral Care.

18. Cardinal John Tong Hon, bishop of Hong Kong, China, as member of the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue.

19. Cardinal Giuseppe Betori, archbishop of Florence, Italy, as member of the Pontifical Council for Culture.

20. Cardinal Thomas Christopher Collins, archbishop of Toronto, Canada, and Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, archbishop of New York, U.S.A., as members of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

21. Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, archbishop of New York, U.S.A., as member of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation.

22. Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, as member of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.

On Saturday 21 April it was also made public that the Holy Father appointed:

- As members of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Cardinal Angelo Scola, archbishop of Milan, Italy, and Cardinal Donald William Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, U.S.A.

- Archbishop Lorenzo Balisseri, secretary of the Congregation for Bishops, as a consultor of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

- Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, president of the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, as member of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State.

- Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and of the Governorate of Vatican City State, as his special envoy to celebrations marking the millennium of the foundation of the Holy Hermitage of Camaldoli, Italy, due to take place on 19 June.

Church's Annual Audit Shows Decrease in Current Cases of Abuse

NCRegister

Number of allegations by minors today can be counted on two hands. Majority of reported cases are decades old.

BY TIM DRAKE

WASHINGTON — While allegations of child sexual abuse by Catholic priests continue to surface from decades ago, a new report shows a decrease in accusations by current minors.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops released its 2011 annual audit on abuse reports and costs April 10. The “Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” is the USCCB’s ninth consecutive external audit.

In the report’s preface, New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the USCCB, said it “supports the conclusion of both studies done by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, that the majority of allegations are way in the past.”

“The Church must do all she can never to let abuse happen again,” said Cardinal Dolan. “And we must all continue to work with full resolve toward the healing and reconciliation of the victims/survivors.”

Dioceses reported receiving 594 credible claims of clergy sexual abuse last year. Over 90% of all abuse accusations last year allege incidents from at least two decades ago — cases in which 75% of the priests who were accused are either deceased, already removed from ministry, laicized or missing.

Three percent of allegations made during the 2011 audit period were  made by current minors. Of the allegations made by current minors, seven were considered credible by law enforcement, three were determined to be false, five were determined to be boundary violations, and three are still under investigation.

“The number of credible accusations alleging abuse by a Catholic priest against a current minor went down,” said David Pierre, author of Double Standard: Abuse Scandals and the Attack on the Catholic Church. “In 2010, the number of such allegations was eight. In 2011, the number went down to seven.”

Misrepresentation by Media

In spite of the decrease in reported abuse by current minors, secular reports from outlets such as The Associated Press and Reuters seized on the overall number of claims to say that the number of child abuse cases reported rose in 2011. The total number of credible claims received in 2010 was 505, compared to 594 in 2011.

“To say that the accusation numbers are up doesn’t give an accurate portrayal of what’s really going on today,” said Pierre. “The numbers of current abuse are very low.”

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, added, “I’ve had it. I’ve been fighting this war for years to get the media to report honestly about what the report has said. … When they look at the report they tease out the worst possible data and highlight it. It’s outrageous and it’s intentional.

The Catholic League, in its press statement about the report, said, “The headlines should read, ‘Abuse Problem Near Zero Among Priests.’” Looking at the numbers a different way, the Catholic League stated that “99.98% of priests nationwide had no such accusation made against them last year. Nowhere is this being reported.”

“I’ve never seen an organization that was able to get a positive response for their good work on sexual abuse,” said Monica Applewhite, an expert on the dynamics of sexual abuse in educational and religious environments.

“The Church doesn’t hire the media to tell us what the reports say. To learn if we’re doing enough, we should be reading the report ourselves.”

Applewhite noted that a recent study conducted by the Public Health Institute looked at media reporting on child sexual abuse. It found what Applewhite described as “superficial treatment” in news stories about sexual abuse, seldom reporting the nature of the relationship between the accuser and the accused.

“Most of these cases are relationship-based sexual abuse, but the media fails to say what the relationship was,” said Applewhite.

Other Missing Information

That’s not the only detail often left out of secular media reports. The vast majority of cases are not pedophilia. Few secular media reports cite the preponderance of abuse being perpetrated by adult males on post-pubescent males.

The 2011 audit shows that 82% of alleged diocesan victims and 94% of alleged religious order alleged victims were male.

“The John Jay study found that four-fifths of victims were post-pubescent males,” said Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, director of the Philadelphia Institute for Marital Healing. “That study showed that adult males with same-sex attraction are the most likely to become involved with adolescent males. Let’s look at the true causes of the crisis. Criminologists lack the professional training and expertise to explain why adult males homosexually abuse adolescent males.”

Not everyone agrees on this explanation, though. Karen Terry, a researcher who conducted the John Jay study, cautioned bishops in 2009 not to link the sexual abuse crisis with homosexuality, explaining that heterosexual men sometimes engage in homosexual acts.

Annual Costs

The audit also summarized the amount spent by dioceses and religious orders on legal settlements, therapy for victims, support for offenders, attorneys’ fees and other abuse-related costs.

In 2011, the nearly $74 million spent on settlements represented a 17% decrease from what was spent in 2010, while the amount spent on attorneys’ fees and other costs increased.

In total, settlement-related spending decreased from $150 million in 2010 to $144 million last year.
“There are positives to take out of the report,” added Pierre. “What other organization puts out a report annually? It’s a testament that the Church is working aggressively on the problem in a way that no other organization is doing.”

“The annual audits show that we are clearly continuing in our commitment to educate our families, protect children in our institutions, and receive with compassion those who have been harmed,” said Applewhite. “We’re really moving in the right direction, but we can never say that we are finished in this work.”

 Register Senior Writer Tim Drake is based in St. Joseph, Minnesota.