Category Archives: U.S. News

Abuse allegations down, but challenges remain,say US bishops in report

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By Gina Christian

(OSV News) – Abuse allegations against Catholic clergy and religious in the U.S. declined last year, but challenges remain regarding protecting vulnerable adults and ensuring online safety, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

On July 14, the USCCB’s Secretariat of Child and Youth Protection released the “2022 Annual Report – Findings and Recommendations on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.”

USCCB President Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of Military Services said in his preface the report was “a milestone accounting of the continued efforts in the ministry of protection, healing, and accompaniment.”

The document – covering the period July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022 – consists of a progress report from the secretariat; an audit report conducted by the Rochester, New York-based consultants StoneBridge Business Partners; and a survey of abuse allegations and costs by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University.

Now in its 12th year of performing the audit, StoneBridge visited 62 dioceses and eparchies, 48 in person and 14 virtually.

The report itself is the 20th of its kind since 2002, when the U.S. bishops established the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” as a number of clerical abuse scandals emerged.
Commonly called the “Dallas Charter” for the city in which the bishops met at the time of its ratification, the document lays out a comprehensive set of procedures for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy. The charter also includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability and prevention of abuse.

During the 2022 report period, 1,998 individuals came forward with 2,704 allegations of abuse, with claims down 399 from 2021 and 1,548 from 2020. The decrease was largely due to resolutions of allegations received through lawsuits, compensation programs and bankruptcies. Most allegations (83%) were initially brought to diocesan officials by an attorney.

Sixteen reports during the period involved current minors, with all other allegations made by adults citing abuse as minors.

The CARA portion of the report said that 194 responding dioceses and eparchies had judged 245 allegations of sexual abuse of a minor by a priest or deacon to be credible. Of those, 20 allegations involved children who were under the age of 18.

CARA also calculated that total costs incurred by dioceses and eparchies due to allegations were down 19% from the previous year, totaling over $157 million. (Costs for men’s religious communities, by contrast, rose 53%, approaching $45 million.)

The secretariat said in its assessment “the year-over-year trends are encouraging as the number of current minor allegations in the U.S. remains low.”

Many dioceses and eparchies “have taken certain measures that go beyond the specific requirements of the charter,” StoneBridge noted in its report.

Among the measures cited were recurring adult training, parish audits and background check renewals (which are not currently required by the charter).

However, StoneBridge found that more than 30% of diocese and eparchies it had visited during the report period struggled with “some dysfunction” in their review boards, including “lack of meetings, inadequate composition or membership, not following the by-laws of the board, members not confident in their duties (and) lack of rotation of members.”

Auditors pointed out an unevenness in the charter’s overall application, with “196 different implementations” of the document resulting from the various policies of dioceses and eparchies.
Another concern centers on the protection of “vulnerable adults,” a definition for which is not contained in the charter, said auditors.

A year after the charter’s most recent revision in 2018, Pope Francis issued the motu proprio “Vox Estis Lux Mundi” (“You are the light of the world”), outlining global legal procedures for how the church should deal with clergy sexual abuse, including procedures for investigating bishops.

The document, implemented for a three-year experimental period beginning June 1, 2019, included the term “vulnerable person,” defined as “any person in a state of infirmity, physical or mental deficiency, or deprivation of personal liberty which, in fact, even occasionally, limits their ability to understand or to want or otherwise resist the offense.”

On March 25, Pope Francis published an updated version with the specific term “vulnerable adults,” without altering the previous definition. The revised text also was broadened to include investigations of leaders of Vatican-recognized international Catholic lay associations and movements.

Yet Suzanne Healy, chairwomen of the lay-led USCCB National Review Board, highlighted findings by StoneBridge in her remarks in this report, saying that while the charter addresses clerical abuse of children, “there is confusion in reporting matters pertaining to “Vos Estis Lux Mundi” and canon law regarding penal sanctions.

The board “recommends the pursuit of a separate auditable resource with specific guidelines for these adult and lay matters of abuse,” she wrote.

The audit results represent 194 of the 196 dioceses and eparchies in the U.S., with the report listing the Chaldean Eparchy of St. Peter the Apostle and St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy as not participating.

Father Richard Janowicz, vicar general and safe environment coordinator for the Chicago-based St. Nicholas Eparchy, said in an email to OSV News he was “quite surprised” to learn the eparchy had been listed as such, since it had been audited by StoneBridge on April 17 of this year, and confirmed in a June 21 letter that the eparchy had remediated its initial lack of a children’s safe environment training program. It remains unclear as to why the eparchy was listed in the report as “not participating,” and OSV News has reached out to the USCCB for clarification.

Father Simon Esshaki, secretary to Bishop Emanuel Shaleta of the St. Peter Eparchy in El Cajon, California, said in an email to OSV News that the eparchy “did in fact have a full ‘Protecting God’s Children’ program for 2022,” but “unfortunately for some reason the statistics were not shared with the USCCB.”

The dioceses of Birmingham, Alabama, Lubbock, Texas, and St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands were each found noncompliant regarding Article 2 of the Dallas Charter, which in part specifies a required review board, comprised of mostly laypeople not employed by the diocese, that meets regularly and serves as a consultative body to the bishop. Each diocese subsequently corrected the deficiency.
For the Birmingham Diocese, the problem was one of timing, Donald Carson, director of communications and public relations, told OSV News.

Two resignations due to health concerns and the transfer of a religious sister left three vacancies on that review board during the audit period. The seats “have since all been filled, bringing the number of representatives not employed by the diocese back in compliance with the requirements of the charter,” he said in an email to OSV News.

In the Lubbock Diocese, COVID was at its height during the reporting period and had “stopped many areas of our work,” Lucas Flores, communications director, told OSV News in an email, adding that the diocese had resumed review board meetings.

OSV News was awaiting a response from the Diocese of St. Thomas.

(Gina Christian is a national reporter for OSV News. Follow her on Twitter at @GinaJesseReina.)

Mother Lange, who is now ‘venerable,’ is nation’s ‘greatest modelfor evangelization,’ says deacon

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By Gerry Jackson

BALTIMORE (OSV News) – When Deacon B. Curtis Turner received word that Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange had moved a step closer to sainthood June 22, he hoped to be the first to celebrate the good news with a visit to her room at St. Frances Academy.

He was delighted to see several of his students at the East Baltimore school had beaten him to it. A handful had already gathered to pray and celebrate at the site where the nun whom Pope Francis declared “venerable” resided, prayed and died.

“We couldn’t be more excited,” said Deacon Turner, the head of school at the academy Mother Lange co-founded in 1828. “Everything we do here is guided by her. It was heartwarming to see kids in her room talking about her cause.”

Sister Marcia Hall, vocations director for the Oblate Sisters of Providence, said it was somewhere between a celebration and business as usual at the motherhouse in Halethorpe, near Baltimore, since the sisters didn’t get official word until the afternoon of June 22.

“We’re very grateful and very excited,” Sister Marcia said. “We’re just going to continue to pray until she reaches sainthood, and we encourage everyone else to pray with us.”

Catholics throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore rejoiced at the prospects of one of their own moving closer to sainthood. Mother Lange, also the founder of the Baltimore-based Oblate Sisters of Providence, was declared venerable when Pope France signed a decree recognizing her as having “lived the Christian virtues in a heroic way.”

A painting depicts Mother Mary Elizabeth Lange, who founded the Oblate Sisters of Providence in Baltimore, the world’s first sustained women’s religious community for Black women. Pope Francis signed a decree June 22, 2023, recognizing the heroic virtues of Mother Lange and declaring her “venerable.” (OSV News photo/courtesy Catholic Review)

A miracle attributed to her intercession is still necessary before she can be beatified. Another miracle would be needed for her canonization.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore and the Oblate Sisters have championed the cause for the sainthood of the founder of the first Catholic order of African American nuns.

Archbishop William E. Lori said he was overjoyed by the news and noted that Baltimore still draws on Mother Lange’s grace.

“I am delighted that the Holy See has officially recognized the heroic virtues of Mother Mary Lange, for her virtues and example still enliven and grace this local Church,” Archbishop Lori said in a June 22 statement. “I am especially happy for the Oblates of Providence who have been praying and working fervently for the canonization of their beloved founder. Today’s news marks an important step forward in the path towards her beatification. Let us continue to pray for her cause and ask her intercession for our needs.”

In February, when the Vatican accepted the theological and historical record of Mother Lange, Archbishop Lori noted: “With each step forward, more people learn about the life and legacy of our beloved Mother Lange. She unlocked educational opportunities for children in Baltimore and beyond during her lifetime – and that impact continues today. The Oblate Sisters have worked very hard to help bring about this key development. Along with so many others, we are delighted.”

St. Frances Academy’s Deacon Turner, a deacon of the Archdiocese of Washington, called Mother Lange the greatest model for evangelization the nation has.

“She teaches us to love the church even when the church doesn’t seem like it loves us back,” Deacon Turner told the Catholic Review, Baltimore’s archdiocesan news outlet. “She is the ultimate model for us to learn about forgiveness.”

Adrienne Curry, director of the Archdiocese of Baltimore Office of Black Catholic Ministries, said it’s “an exciting time” for Baltimore.

“I am absolutely thrilled,” said Curry. “We are very excited that she is one step closer. It’s very moving. We need people to pray for her cause.”

She noted that four African Americans up for sainthood now have been declared venerable – Mother Lange, Mother Henrietta Delille, Father August Tolton and Pierre Toussaint. (Two other African Americans with canonization causes are Sister Thea Bowman and Julia Greeley.)

Auxiliary Bishop Bruce A. Lewandowski, urban vicar, is glad to see the Lange cause advancing as well.

“Patience in God’s providence pays off,” Bishop Lewandowski said. “This is wonderful news for so many who are praying and working for Mother Lange’s canonization. God is so good!”

Mother Lange helped establish in 1829 the Baltimore-based Oblate Sisters of Providence, the first religious order for women of color. Mother Lange, who also established the first Catholic school for children of color in the United States, was born in Cuba in 1784 and lived in Haiti before coming to Baltimore as a French-speaking immigrant in 1813.

She died Feb. 3, 1882, in Baltimore at St. Frances Academy.

The late Cardinal William H. Keeler began the canonization process for Mother Lange nearly three decades ago while he was archbishop of Baltimore when he submitted a report to the Vatican. Dr. Camille Brown Privette, president of the Mother Mary Lange Guild, wrote a six-page historical document about the history of African Americans from slavery through Reconstruction, Civil Rights Act and other changes that Cardinal Keeler submitted, along with other materials, to what was then called the the Congregation for Saints Causes at the Vatican.

“She was determined to respond to that need in spite of being a Black woman in a slave state long before the Emancipation Proclamation,” according to the official website of her sainthood cause. “She used her own money and home to educate children of color.”

With the encouragement and support of a priest and Archbishop James Whitfield of Baltimore, she and three other women made promises of poverty, chastity and obedience in 1829, founding the Oblate Sisters of Providence, an order that continues today.

The pope also recognized Sister Lucia dos Santos, who as a child reported seeing Mary with her cousins in Fatima, Portugal.

At the same meeting with Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, Pope Francis also recognized the martyrdom of Father Manuel González-Serna Rodríguez and 19 other diocesan priests, laymen and laywomen killed in 1939 during the Spanish Civil War. The recognition of martyrdom clears the way for their beatification without a miracle.

The other notable decree of heroic virtues involved a religious sister who died much more recently. Sister Lucia dos Santos died in Coimbra, Portugal, in 2005 at the age of 97. Pope Francis canonized her cousins, Francisco Marto and Jacinta Marto, in 2017.

(Gerry Jackson is on the staff of the Catholic Review, news outlet of the Archdiocese of Baltimore. Catholic News Service Rome contributed to this story.

NOTES: To read more about Mother Mary Lange’s cause for sainthood, visit https://catholicreview.org/mother-lange-cause-for-canonization-seeks-prayers and https://catholicreview.org/oblate-sisters-celebrate-10th-anniversary-of-transfer-of-mother-langes-remains. More about Mother Lange, her life and ministry, and her sainthood cause can be found at the website of the Mother Lange Guild, visit https://www.motherlange.org)

Supreme Court expands protections for workers

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By Kate Scanlon

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision June 29 in favor of a former postal worker who said he was denied a religious accommodation to observe Christian precepts on keeping holy the Lord’s Day by his former employer.

The case Groff v. DeJoy concerned Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian and former U.S. Postal Service worker, who was denied an accommodation to observe his Sunday Sabbath by not taking Sunday shifts that resulted in the loss of his job.

The Supreme Court’s ruling found that federal law requires workplaces to make appropriate accommodations for their employees’ religious practices unless those practices cannot be “reasonably” accommodated without “undue hardship.”

The court threw out its prior “de minimis” standard from its 1977 decision, Trans World Airlines v. Hardison, which had found that the “undue hardship” standard is met even at a minimal cost.
In Groff v. DeJoy, the court ruled an employer denying religious accommodations must show the burden of granting an accommodation would actually result in substantial increased costs.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote in his majority opinion that “diverse religious groups tell the Court that the ‘de minimis’ standard has been used to deny even minor accommodations.”

“Faced with an accommodation request like Groff’s, an employer must do more than conclude that forcing other employees to work overtime would constitute an undue hardship. Consideration of other options would also be necessary,” Alito wrote.

First Liberty Institute, which represented Groff, said the ruling strengthens legal protections for employees seeking religious accommodations, including schedule changes to observe holy days, is far-reaching and has an impact on employment rights at every workplace with at least 15 employees across the country.

“This is a landmark victory, not only for Gerald, but for every American. No American should be forced to choose between their faith and their job,” Kelly Shackelford, president, CEO, and chief counsel for First Liberty, said in a statement. “The Court’s decision today restores religious freedom to every American in the workplace. This decision will positively help millions and millions of Americans – those who work now and their children and grandchildren.”

Groff said in his own statement, “I am grateful to have had my case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court and that they have decided to uphold religious liberty. I hope this decision allows others to be able to maintain their convictions without living in fear of losing their jobs because of what they believe.”
Aaron Streett, partner at Baker Botts LLP, who argued Groff’s case before the high court, said,
“We are thrilled the Court today recognized that an America that values religious pluralism should respect the religious liberty rights of every employee.”

“Our nation has a long history of protecting its employees from being treated differently at work just because of their faith,” Streett said. “This decision is consistent with that history and is a tremendous win for all people of faith.”

Groff alleged in federal court that the U.S. Postal Service failed to provide him with reasonable accommodations for his religious practices. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Postal Service, arguing it would face “undue hardship” by accommodating Groff’s request to excuse him from Sunday shifts.

The Supreme Court’s ruling vacates that finding and sends Groff’s case back to the lower court for reconsideration.

However, Rachel Laser, president and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, cast the high court’s ruling for the lower court to reconsider Groff’s case as a victory, stating they “live to fight another day.”

“We’re facing an aggressive movement working to weaponize religious freedom, but religious freedom must never be a license to harm others, and that remains true in the workplace,” Laser said. She argued the court simply “clarified,” but did not overturn, its standard for granting religious accommodations.

Laser said “the court’s ‘clarified’ standard correctly allows employers to continue to consider the burdens an employee’s requested accommodation could impose on co-workers.”

The Supreme Court’s decision has religious liberty implications for working Catholics. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “On Sundays and other holy days of obligation, the faithful are to refrain from engaging in work or activities that hinder the worship owed to God, the joy proper to the Lord’s Day, the performance of the works of mercy, and the appropriate relaxation of mind and body.”

The Catholic Church also teaches this “requires a common effort” and both public authorities and employers are obliged to “ensure citizens a time intended for rest and divine worship.”
OSV News has reached out to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for comment on the decision.

NOTES: A link to the decision can be found here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-174_k536.pdf)

Briefs

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Eugene Boonie, a member of the Navajo Nation, fills up his water tank at the livestock water spigot in the Bodaway Chapter of the Navajo Nation, in Blue Gap, Ariz., Sept. 17, 2020. After a 5-4 Supreme Court decision struck a blow to the Navajo Nation’s request for federal assistance in securing water for the reservation June 22, 2023, Catholics who minister among Native Americans shared their thoughts on the historic water crisis facing the Southwest U.S. and the Indigenous populations who live there. (OSV News photo/Stephanie Keith, Reuters)

NATION
MELVILLE, La. (OSV News) – Father Stephen Ugwu, the pastor of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Melville, Louisiana, is stable and recovering following a July 13 attack with a machete. The priest is at a hospital being treated for lacerations to his head and body. According to local media reports, a man wielding a machete attacked the priest at the church’s campus after Father Ugwu declined the man’s request, leaving Father Ugwu with cuts on his head and body. Melville police arrested the attacker and assisted Father Ugwu, a priest from Nigeria serving the Diocese of Lafayette. The suspect, identified as Johnny Dwayne Neely, 58, of Palmetto, is in custody, according to St. Landry Parish Sheriff’s Office. He faces charges of attempted second-degree murder, hate crimes and home invasion and a bench warrant. Based on words used by the suspect, Melville Police Chief Phillip Lucas told local media that he believed the attack was racially motivated. Blue Rolfes, diocesan director of communications, told OSV News July 15 that Father Ugwu’s condition was improving. He has some “serious wounds,” she said, but he is receiving the care he needs, and doctors are optimistic about his recovery. “He feels blessed to be alive and that his God protected him during his time of need,” Rolfes said.

ST. MICHAELS, Ariz. (OSV News) – After a 5-4 Supreme Court decision struck a blow to the Navajo Nation’s request for federal assistance in securing water for the reservation June 22, Catholics who minister among Native Americans shared their thoughts on the historic water crisis facing the Southwest U.S. and the Indigenous populations who live there. “People line up at a community well and fill up their water containers to take out to their homesteads to be able to have water for their families for the week, sometimes for days. If it’s an older couple, it might last a little longer,” said Dot Teso, president of St. Michael Indian School in St. Michaels, Arizona – which was founded by St. Katharine Drexel in 1902. “You can imagine if you were going on a camping trip and you’re thinking about water for the trip – these people have to think of this every day.” Arizona v. Navajo Nation came before the Supreme Court when the Navajo Nation asked for the courts to require the federal government to identify the former’s water rights and needs and provide a way to meet those needs. Seeking to protect their own interest in access to the Colorado River, the states of Arizona, Colorado and Nevada intervened in the suit. While the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona dismissed the Navajos’ complaint, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in their favor. Navajo Nation Council Speaker Crystalyne Curley in a statement the ruling “will not deter the Navajo Nation from securing the water that our ancestors sacrificed and fought for – our right to life and the livelihood of future generations.”

ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) – An annual procession to Father Augustus Tolton’s gravesite in Illinois will be joined next year by pilgrims walking the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage en route to Indianapolis, the Diocese of Springfield’s worship director announced July 9. Father Daren Zehnle shared the news with more than 200 pilgrims who participated in this year’s procession from a parish in Quincy, Illinois, with ties to Father Tolton, to his gravesite almost a mile away. Father Tolton (1854-1897) is the first identifiable Black priest in the United States, and he was renowned not only for his holiness and preaching, but also for the considerable adversity he faced as a Black priest in the late 1800s. Pope Francis declared him “venerable” in 2019. Will Peterson, founder and president of Modern Catholic Pilgrim, the Minnesota-based nonprofit organizing the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage, said Father Tolton is the first of six Black American Catholics on the path to canonization officially to be linked geographically to the national pilgrimage. He hopes others will be as well, as the national pilgrimage’s four routes will pass through cities where several of these “Saintly Six” lived and ministered, as pilgrims make their way to Indianapolis for the National Eucharistic Congress in July 2024.

VATICAN
ROME (OSV News) – Venerable Lucia was only 10 years old when she and her two cousins told their friends and family that they had seen the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima in 1917. Mary first appeared to Lucia, 9-year-old Francisco Marto and 7-year-old Jacinta Marto May 13, and the apparitions continued once a month until October 1917. The church has ruled that the apparitions and the messages from Our Lady of Fatima were worthy of belief. On June 22, Pope Francis declared Sister Lucia “venerable,” with a decree recognizing the Fatima visionary’s heroic virtues. Pope Benedict XVI waived the standard waiting period for Sister Lucia’s cause, opening it in 2008. The Diocese of Coimbra, Portugal, completed its investigation and forwarded documentation to the Holy See’s Congregation (since renamed Dicastery) for the Causes of Saints in 2017, the apparitions’ centennial year.

WORLD
KYIV, Ukraine (OSV News) – With Russia’s war on Ukraine now approaching its 10th year – and the full-scale invasion surpassing the 500-day mark – OSV News traveled to Kyiv to meet with Bishop Vitalii Kryvytskyi of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kyiv-Zhytomyr, who shared his reflections on the war’s spiritual impact. Air raid sirens, soldiers’ funerals and endless work hours have become routine as Ukraine carries on with daily life while fighting a war for global values and security, said the bishop. Grief and confusion can break “even people really close to God,” he admitted. At the same time, “war takes off all the masks” and ultimately, the persecution inflicted by Russia against Ukrainian faithful mysteriously “crystallizes faith and faithfulness to the Gospel,” said Bishop Kryvytskyi, adding that he has learned to simply be present to those in the depths of wartime suffering. “People sometimes expect priests to have answers to all the questions,” he said. “And now we understand that our greater task is to be with our flock, even if we do not have answers for the questions, even in our hearts.”

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (OSV News) – A group of Brazilian missionaries announced July 3 they have left their post in Nicaragua, becoming the latest community of women religious to leave the country, where some Catholics are facing increasing persecution by the government of President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo. The Sisters Poor of Jesus Christ posted their statement on Facebook, announcing the community’s departure from Nicaragua and its arrival in El Salvador, along with photos showing sisters getting off a bus carrying a crucifix. “We want through this statement to express our gratitude for the seven years of mission in the lands of Nicaragua, we appreciate the welcome of the church and its people during that time in which our charism remained in the country serving the poor in their multiple facets,” said the statement posted in Spanish and Portuguese on the Fraternidade O Caminho page. The sisters’ announcement, reported by Global Sisters Report, came just ahead of Reuters reporting July 5 that Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua – sentenced in February to 26 years after being accused of treason – had been released from prison late July 4. But Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Baez of Managua, Nicaragua, who has been living in exile in Miami for some time, tweeted July 5 that he has received no information about Bishop Álvarez’s reported release. In news reports, Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes of Managua denied July 5 that the bishop had been freed.

U.S. bishops advance pastoral initiatives to strengthen church amid discussions on Eucharist, priesthood, synodality

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By Peter Jesserer Smith

ORLANDO, Fla. (OSV News) – Meeting in Orlando for their spring assembly, the U.S. bishops moved ahead on some efforts to advance the church’s mission in the U.S., including new pastoral initiatives aimed at activating Catholics as missionary disciples. The gathering’s June 15-16 plenary sessions proved relatively smooth, but featured moments of vigorous discussion at a few points, particularly around the formation of priests.

Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services gave his first address as U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops president presiding over the bishops’ plenary assembly. He covered a variety of issues of concern to Catholics, such as the need for Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration reform and for an end to Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

“We cannot fail to see the face of Christ in all of those who need our assistance, especially the poor and the vulnerable,” he said.

Bishops pray during morning prayer June 15, 2023, at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ spring plenary assembly in Orlando, Fla. Pictured are Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, USCCB vice president; Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, USCCB president; Father Michael J.K. Fuller, USCCB general secretary; and Bishop Patrick M. Neary of St. Cloud, Minn. (OSV News photo/Bob Roller)

The papal nuncio to the U.S., Archbishop Christophe Pierre, made his case to the U.S. bishops June 15 that synodality, oriented to Jesus Christ as their “true north,” unleashes missionary activity.

“The purpose of walking this synodal path is to make our evangelization more effective in the context of the precise challenges that we face today,” Archbishop Pierre said in his address at the U.S. bishops’ spring plenary assembly in Orlando.

The archbishop also singled out Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell of Los Angeles, who was shot to death earlier this year, as “a model of synodal service, combined with Eucharistic charity.”

The U.S. Catholic bishops gathered voiced their approval for the advancement of a cause to canonize five missionary priests from Brittany, France, known as the “Shreveport martyrs.”

“They demonstrated heroic charity during the third worst pandemic in U.S. history,” said Bishop Francis I. Malone of Shreveport, noting they were all young men who voluntarily sacrificed their own lives to journey with the dying and bring the Eucharist to the faithful.

In their message to Pope Francis, the bishops also strongly condemned an execution that the state of Florida carried out June 15 in the evening following their meeting.

Bishop Daniel E. Flores of Brownsville, Texas, updated the bishops on the progress of the 2023-2024 global Synod on Synodality. Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, presented on the National Eucharistic Revival, and outlined how the “small group initiative” in the parish year could help deepen people’s relationship to Christ in the Eucharist.

“We all know how much our church needs to move from maintenance to mission … this is really the heart of what we’re attempting to do,” he said.

Most votes taking place had near unanimous approval, such as the agenda items related to retranslating the Liturgy of the Hours into English, including having the future edition include some prayer texts in Latin.

The bishops approved the National Pastoral Plan for Hispanic Latino Ministry with 167 in favor and 2 against and 2 abstentions. The 62-page plan seeks to respond to the needs of about 30 million Hispanic/Latino Catholics in the U.S. and strengthen Hispanic/Latino ministries at the national, local and parish level.

Ahead of the vote, Bishop Oscar Cantú of San Jose, California, chairman of the bishops’ Subcommittee on Hispanic Affairs, told OSV News there was a great need to “get moving so that (the new pastoral plan) can be implemented in our dioceses and parishes.”

A day before the vote took place, Detroit Auxiliary Bishop J. Arturo Cepeda, who chairs the USCCB’s Committee on Cultural Diversity in the Church, called the plan a sign of the times that recognizes Hispanic/Latino Catholics – who account for more than 40% of U.S. Catholics – as “missionaries among us” that can reinvigorate the life of the church.

The most contentious discussion took place regarding the proposed second edition of the “Basic Plan for the Ongoing Formation of Priests.” Some bishops took to the floor to object they had not had time to read the document, or that it was so lengthy priests would likely not read it and dismiss its contents.

Other bishops expressed concern that the discussion on “spiritual fatherhood” needed to be fleshed out, expressing concern that otherwise it could fuel the “narcissistic tendencies” and “hubris” of some priests.
Bishop Steven R. Biegler of Cheyenne, Wyoming, said he appreciated the document’s beautiful description of the Christian relationship to God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. “What I find lacking is that communal relationship to the Body of Christ … that puts us in solidarity with one another as brother and sister,” he said.

However, other bishops pushed back against delaying the document, noting the hard work that went into developing it, and that the document was meant to be a guide adapted to the realities of local churches.
Bishop Juan Miguel Betancourt, ordained as a priest for the Servants of the Eucharist and Mary, who is an auxiliary for the Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, said the term “spiritual fatherhood” is “actually a term that is more familiar and clear for those who are younger in the priesthood.”

Ultimately, the bishops approved the formation document with 144 voting in favor, 24 against, and 8 abstentions.

The discussion and vote on priorities for the 2025-28 USCCB strategic plan were put on hold so that the bishops could reflect upon and, presumably, include some of the discussion from the synod conversations.

In a voice vote, the bishops approved beginning the process of consultation and revision of ethical directives for Catholic health care facilities to guide them in caring for people suffering from gender dysphoria and who identify as transgender.

Bishop Flores said potential changes would be “limited and very focused” in nature, and involve extensive consultation. He praised the calls from bishops on the floor for a “pastorally sensitive” approach to the complex topic.

The U.S. bishops also voiced approval for the Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth to move ahead on drafting a new pastoral statement for persons with disabilities.

“We do believe a new statement is needed to address disability concerns in the 21st century,” Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota, the committee’s chair, told the bishops June 16. The intended statement aims to emphasize the giftedness of persons with disabilities, eliminate outdated forms of referring to persons with disabilities, and would be inclusive of persons who have mental illnesses.

During the discussion, Cardinal Seán P. O’Malley of Boston joined Bishop John T. Folda of Fargo, North Dakota, in noting the importance of Catholics being allied with the disability community against assisted suicide, and the cardinal asked for more attention to support parents of children with autism.

The bishops also heard an update on the upcoming World Youth Day in Lisbon, Portugal, and were encouraged to have their own stateside events for youth and young adults “to form them as missionary disciples.”

Finally, just before the bishops concluded their assembly, Bishop Earl A. Boyea of Lansing, Michigan, chair of the bishops’ Committee on Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, discussed The Catholic Project’s 2022 study of 10,000 Catholic religious and diocesan priests that found most priests distrust their bishops with only 24% saying they had confidence in bishops in general.

Bishop Boyea encouraged the bishops to help priests “feel kinship and fraternity with us” through better personal communication, such as recognizing important moments in their lives, and better lines of communicating information to them.

“This is not the completion, but a beginning, to heal our relationship,” he said of the report.
At the conclusion of their assembly, recognizing it was the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the bishops prayed together the Litany of the Sacred Heart, invoking Jesus’ heart repeatedly to “have mercy on us.”

(Peter Jesserer Smith is the national news and features editor for OSV News. Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Contributing to this report were Jean Gonzalez, projects editor for The Florida Catholic Media in Orlando; Tony Gutiérrez, writing for OSV News from Arizona; and Maria-Pia Negro Chin, Spanish editor for OSV News.)

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WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Prior to the first anniversary of a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its prior abortion precedent, pro-life activists lauded legislation passed in multiple states while advocating for additional support services for women and families facing unplanned pregnancies. The Supreme Court issued its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24, 2022, undoing nearly a half-century of its own precedent on abortion as a constitutional right. The case involved a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks, in which the state directly challenged the high court’s previous abortion-related precedents in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Jeanne Mancini, March for Life president, told OSV News that the first post-Roe year has been “amazing in so many ways” in reducing abortion, but it also has introduced “an element of confusion.” The way forward, Mancini said, must be to “lean into this and do it with a lot of love” and also “emphasize the truth that pro-life is pro-woman, whether it’s the support of a pregnancy care center or funding support at the state level.”

GOWER, Mo. (OSV News) – Mother Abbess Cecilia Snell puts the number of pilgrims who in the past six weeks have flocked to her Benedictine abbey in rural Missouri between 10,000 and 15,000. It’s a conservative estimate, she said, of the droves of people who, at times, have waited hours in line to see the body of the community’s foundress, Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster. The Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles disinterred her remains April 28, four years after her death at age 95, and discovered a surprising lack of decay, leading to claims of her incorruptibility and potential for canonization. Most visitors are locals, or from Kansas City or St. Louis. Some, however, have traveled from Washington state, Maine, California and Florida, but also from as far as Canada, Colombia and India, Mother Cecilia said. “It was her relationship with Christ on the path (to) holiness that led her to greatness before him. She sends a message of the value of vocation, of charity and forgiveness, even through racial barriers, and that holiness is possible in our day. Quite a few people have said, ‘I knew her. This makes me realize that I can be holy too!’” Mother Cecilia said.

VATICAN
ROME (CNS) – Devotion to Marian apparitions should lead people to Jesus and not to a particular individual or community, Pope Francis said. In an interview with the Italian state television network, RAI, broadcast June 4, the pope said Marian apparitions are “an instrument of Marian devotion that is not always true” and may be used to focus on or promote an individual. “There have been true apparitions of Our Lady, but always with her finger like this, to Jesus” he said pointing outward, “never has Our Lady drawn (attention) toward herself when (the apparition) is true, she has always pointed to Jesus.” Pope Francis said that a Marian devotion that becomes “too centered on itself” and lacks guiding people to Jesus “is no good, be it in the person that has the devotion or those who carry it forward.” Through an observatory body overseen by the Pontifical International Marian Academy, the Vatican tracks alleged Marian apparitions around the world and studies their authenticity. During his upcoming trip to Portugal Aug. 2-6, Pope Francis will travel to a shrine honoring the apparitions at Fátima in which Mary appeared to three Portuguese children in 1917. Public devotion to Our Lady of Fátima was approved by the local bishop in 1930 and has since been promoted by the Vatican.

WORLD
BENIN CITY, Nigeria (OSV News) – The killing of Father Charles Igechi June 7 is further evidence of Christian persecution in Nigeria, church officials in the country say. The priest was on his way to St. Michael College, Ikhueniro, where he was assigned, when unidentified gunmen swooped in and shot him in the back. Archbishop Augustine Akubeze of Benin City said in a statement that the body of the priest was found in Ikpoba Hill, not far from Benin City, the capital and largest city of Edo state in southern Nigeria. In a June 8 condolence message, the archbishop reported “with deep sadness and sorrow in our hearts” the death of one of the priests of the archdiocese, Father Charles Onomhoale Igechi, who was ordained Aug. 13, 2022, and at the time of his death was vice principal of St. Michael College in Ikhueniro, Archbishop Akubeze asked for the faithful to pray “for the happy repose of his soul.” Josef Ishu, secretary of the Nigerian bishops’ conference Laity Office, told OSV News the killing of the priest is “the latest evidence of Christian persecution” in Nigeria.

KHERSON, Ukraine (OSV News) – Delivering aid in Ukraine’s flooded Kherson area has become a life-threatening task. Aid workers of Caritas and other organizations told OSV News they cannot go on rescue boats without bulletproof vests and military helmets, as Russian troops have continued to fire on civilian victims and rescuers. In some towns that are still under Russian occupation, sources say the situation is so dire that people die on their own rooftops. On June 6, damage to the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant in Kherson released some 4.3 cubic miles of water (a single cubic mile of water equals 1.1 trillion gallons) from the Kakhovka Reservoir, one of the world’s largest capacity reservoirs. Dozens of towns and villages along the Dnipro River have been flooded so far, with tens of thousands at flood risk, according to Ukrainian government officials. The Institute for the Study of War, based in Washington, has assessed that “the balance of evidence, reasoning, and rhetoric suggests that the Russians deliberately damaged the dam.” Father Piotr Rosochacki, director of Caritas-Spes Ukraine since 2015, told OSV News the flooded terrain is now being “regularly shelled” by Russian troops, lamenting the attacks as “never-ending.” He appealed to Catholics around the globe not to forget about Ukraine and not to become indifferent. “The water will go away and in a month, two, others will live their own lives and forget about the dam. But people here will remain without basics like drinking water,” he said, adding that long-term help is needed “so that those people can live again.”

Late singer-activist Harry Belafonte found inspiration in life of Sister Thea Bowman

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By OSV News
NEW YORK – Many are remembering how Harry Belafonte, who died April 25 in New York at age 96, was so inspired by the life and ministry of Sister Thea Bowman that he had planned to make a film about her.
In turn, the singer, actor and civil rights activist who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s, inspired others, including Chicago’s Father Michael Pfleger, senior pastor of the Faith Community of St. Sabina in Chicago, who is himself an outspoken advocate against gun violence, gangs, poverty and racism.

According to an April 25 posting on the website of The Catholic University of America in Washington, Belafonte first contacted Sister Bowman after he saw a profile of her on “60 Minutes” on CBS in 1987.
The religious sister, a noted educator and dynamic evangelist, had persuaded the TV news magazine’s lead reporter, Mike Wallace, to say, “Black is beautiful” during the primetime story on her ministry, said the university’s posting.

CANTON – Harry Belafonte visited Sister Thea Bowman at her bedside in her Canton home in 1989. Belafonte and a screenwriter conducted extensive interviews with Sister Thea and other Canton residents in preparation for a film that was never made. The Diocese of Jackson released a film on Sister Thea in fall of 2022, “Going Home Like a Shooting Star: Thea Bowman’s Journey to Sainthood.” The film is available on YouTube at https://bit.ly/SisterTheaFilm. (Photo by Fabvienen Taylor/Mississippi Catholic)

“Belafonte watched the broadcast and knew he wanted to bring her witness to hope and healing to wider audiences,” Catholic University said. “Belafonte contacted Sister Bowman to discuss his idea of a feature film about her life starring Whoopi Goldberg, both of whom she met during a visit to California.”

They first met in 1988. At the time, Belafonte was “a Hollywood icon who was widely respected for his social justice activism, so Sister Bowman trusted that he would do her life’s work justice,” Catholic University said, adding that Belafonte “went to great lengths to get personally involved in bringing her story to the big screen.”

According to the university, the Franciscan Sister of Perpetual Adoration, who was battling the cancer that would claim her life on March 30, 1990, invited Belafonte to her home in Canton, Mississippi, and to Xavier University of Louisiana’s Institute for Black Catholic Studies, of which she was founding member, in New Orleans.
Belafonte visited both places “to speak with Sister Bowman’s friends and students to learn about her impact on their lives,” Catholic University said. “Even though she was using a wheelchair due to a battle with cancer that took her life less than two years later, he saw that nothing kept her down. They became practically inseparable, and Belafonte was seen pushing her along in her wheelchair.”

When Sister Bowman’s “condition worsened,” Belafonte “traveled to visit her at her bedside,” the university added. But the film was never made. The actor-activist’s rights expired after the project was delayed because he and her Franciscan community had different opinions on who should “have final editorial control over her portrayal” – him or her community, the university said.

Some years later, a documentary on her life and ministry was written and produced by Franciscan Sister Judith Ann Zielinski. The film was released in 2022. Sister Bowman today is a candidate for sainthood along with five other prominent Black Catholics in the U.S.

Belafonte died at his home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The cause was congestive heart failure, according to his longtime spokesman, Ken Sunshine.

Born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. on March 1, 1927, at Lying-in Hospital in New York’s Harlem neighborhood, he was the son of immigrants from the Caribbean islands of Martinique and Jamaica. His father worked as a chef and his mother was a housekeeper.

Harry Jr. was baptized a Catholic and raised in the faith. He attended parochial school at St. Charles Borromeo in Harlem. He grew up in poverty, but spent much of his childhood living with his grandmother in Jamaica. After high school graduation, he joined the U.S. Navy and served during World War II.

He returned to New York after the war, enrolled in drama school and began performing. Belafonte first achieved fame in the 1950s with film and musical theater roles.

“Harry Belafonte was not the first Black entertainer to transcend racial boundaries, but none had made as much of a splash as he did,” The New York Times said in an April 25 obituary.

Harry Belafonte and Servant of God Thea Bowman in an undated archival photo. Balafonte met Bowman at Xavier University in 1988. (OSV News photo/courtesy Xavier University of Louisiana, Archives & Special Collections)

Belafonte is one of the few performers to have received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony (EGOT). He won the Oscar in a noncompetitive category – in 2014, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented him with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He earned his career breakthrough with the album “Calypso” (1956), which was the first million-selling LP record by a single artist.

Belafonte was best known for his recordings of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song),” “Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora),” “Jamaica Farewell” and “Mary’s Boy Child.” He recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes and American standards. He also starred in films such as “Carmen Jones” (1954), “Island in the Sun” (1957), “Odds Against Tomorrow “(1959), “Buck and the Preacher” (1972) and “Uptown Saturday Night” (1974). He made his final screen appearance in Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman” (2018).

Belafonte was a close confidant of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. He also helped organize the March on Washington in 1963.

His civil rights activism inspired Father Pfleger, the Chicago pastor and activist. In an interview with Chicago’s CBS News affiliate, Father Pfleger called Belafonte a hero and a friend who helped shape him.
“He stood in this pulpit. He stood in this church time after time after time,” Father Pfleger said about St. Sabina. “He had a major shaping of my life, and my formation of who I am today, because … I had such admiration for him.”

National Eucharistic Pilgrimage connects Catholics across U.S. to 2024 Congress

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By Maria Wiering

ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) – Mike Wavra thinks of the 2024 National Eucharistic Pilgrimage as “an opportunity to walk with the Lord.”

He and his wife, Cindi, both 65-year-old retirees, plan to join the pilgrimage at its northern launch point in Minnesota in May 2024, and then walk for about a week, before rejoining the pilgrims seven weeks later in Indianapolis for the 10th National Eucharistic Congress.

The Wavras are among thousands of Catholics from across the United States anticipated to participate in next year’s pilgrimage to the Congress, part of the U.S. bishops’ three-year National Eucharistic Revival that began in 2021. The pilgrimage has four routes, with one beginning in the north, south, east and west of the country.

This is the logo for the U.S. bishops’ three-year National Eucharistic Revival. The National Eucharistic Congress organizers describe the routes pilgrims will walk with the Eucharist to the NEC in 2024. The National Eucharistic Congress organizers have set the routes pilgrims will walk with the Eucharist to the NEC in 2024. (OSV News photo/courtesy USCCB)

Pilgrims traveling in the “Eucharistic caravans” on all four routes will begin their journeys with Pentecost weekend celebrations May 17-18, 2024, leaving May 19. They will all converge on Indianapolis July 16, 2024, the day before the five-day Congress opens.
The pilgrimage is an opportunity for prayer and evangelization, as well as a way to engage Catholics unable to attend the Congress, said Tim Glemkowski, the National Eucharistic Congress’ executive director.

“What the pilgrimage does is it builds us in prayerful anticipation for what God is going to do at the Congress,” he told OSV News May 5. “It’s two months of us pilgrimaging, fasting, praying, interceding, asking the Lord to renew his church, his bride, in those five days. … They’re not two different things. It’s one pilgrimage: five days of which happen in a stadium in Indianapolis, and two months of which happen across our country on the way there.”

Weekend stops in major cities will include special liturgies, Eucharistic adoration, processions and service opportunities, Glemkowski said.

The northern “Marian Route” that the Wavras plan to take begins in northern Minnesota at Lake Itasca, the headwaters of the Mississippi River. The route follows the river to St. Paul and Minneapolis, its first weekend stop. Then the route heads south to Rochester, Minnesota, and then east through La Crosse and Green Bay, Wisconsin. It continues through Milwaukee, Chicago and Notre Dame, Indiana, before arriving in Indianapolis.

The “Juan Diego Route” begins more than 1,600 miles south of Lake Itasca in Brownsville, Texas, at the U.S.-Mexico border. It will follow Texas’ eastern border through Corpus Christi and Houston, and continue through New Orleans; Mobile, Alabama; Atlanta; Nashville, Tennessee; and Louisville, Kentucky.

The “Seton Route” – named for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the first U.S.-born saint – begins in New Haven, Connecticut, and continues through New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Pittsburgh, and Steubenville, Columbus and Cincinnati, Ohio.

The “Junipero Serra Route” begins in San Francisco – with hope of walking over the Golden Gate Bridge – and continues through Reno, Nevada; Salt Lake City; Denver; North Platte and Omaha, Nebraska; Kansas City, Kansas and Missouri; and St. Louis.

At more than 2,200 miles long, the Junipero Serra Route is the longest and most rigorous route. Pilgrims will use transport to cross sections of their route, but the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains are expected to be crossed on foot. In an interview with Bishop Andrew H. Cozzens of Crookston, Minnesota, for a February episode of the popular podcast “Catholic Stuff You Should Know,” co-host Father John Nepil said he wanted to walk with the Eucharist and fellow priests over Colorado’s Vail Pass, which, at 10,541 feet above sea level, is the highest elevation the pilgrimage routes will reach.

Besides the thrill of the physical challenge, “there’s always been a close connection for me between thinking of the Eucharist as the source and summit of our faith, and the ways we reflect on the Eucharistic high points as a place of transcendence, and then the way it connects to the mountains,” Father Nepil, a priest of the Archdiocese of Denver and vice rector of St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver, told OSV News May 8. “We just kind of jumped at that as a cool prospect of leading some people and shepherding them over that pass as we make our way.”

Modern Catholic Pilgrim, a pilgrimage nonprofit with offices in Minnesota and California, is organizing the national pilgrimage. Its founder and president, Will Peterson, connects the pilgrimage to the scriptural journey from Jerusalem to Emmaus, where two of his disciples met Jesus after the Resurrection. Luke 24 recounts how Jesus comforted them, and then revealed himself in the breaking of the bread.

The routes include important Catholic sites in the United States, such the 18th-century ministry of St. Junipero Serra in what is now California, the Philadelphia tombs of St. John Neumann and St. Katharine Drexel, and in Wisconsin, the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, the only approved Marian apparition in the United States.

Pictured is a monstrance from a Eucharistic Revival event at St. Joseph parish in Gluckstadt in October of 2022. The National Eucharistic Revival will include a pilgrimage after Pentecost 2024 as an opportunity to “walk with the Lord” leading up to the Eucharistic Congress in mid-July 2024 in Indianapolis. (Photo by Joanna Puddister King)

“People are going to reach an ‘Emmaus point’ at these spots along the way, and we want to support the local church,” Peterson said May 9. “That’s where it’s such a great gift to coordinate with like 65 dioceses to say, ‘How can we really highlight the great sacred sites of your diocese?’”

Each pilgrimage route is expected to have 12 “perpetual pilgrims,” young adults, including two seminarians, committed to traveling the entire route, from their launch points to Indianapolis. Each route also will include priest chaplains who will carry the Eucharist, usually in a monstrance specially designed for the pilgrimage. While some chaplains may join the entire pilgrimage route, others may join for segments of the journey, Glemkowski said.

The faithful are invited to join the pilgrimage for hours, days or weeks. Each day of the pilgrimage will begin with Mass and a Eucharistic procession with the local community before pilgrims continue the trek to their next stopping point. Pilgrims joining the Eucharistic caravans for short stretches will be responsible for arranging their own food and overnight accommodations, although some parishes along the routes may provide meals and lodging.

Parishioners of St. Bernard Parish in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, the Wavras have worked out their own logistics: They plan to take their truck with a camper and two motorized bicycles, and “hopscotch” their way along the route, taking their truck each morning to drop off their bikes at that evening’s stop, driving back, walking the pilgrimage route, and then taking their bikes to pick up their truck.

The Wavras expect the pilgrimage to include comradery with fellow Catholics and their bishop, Bishop Cozzens, whose Diocese of Crookston is home to Lake Itasca and the first stretch of the Marian Route. Bishop Cozzens is chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, which is overseeing the revival.

The pilgrimage “brings Jesus out of our churches and out into the public,” Mike Wavra told OSV News May 4. “This is just an opportunity for people to see the Jesus that we know and love.”

Wavra also expects the pilgrimage to attract interest and curiosity from non-Catholics. “They wonder what some crazy Catholics are doing, following a piece of bread,” he said. “It’s not a piece of bread, it’s the Lord himself. What an opportunity for us to share that.”

(Maria Wiering is senior writer for OSV News.)

Mississippi enacts legislative package praised by advocates as ‘pro-life safety net’

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By Kate Scanlon
(OSV News) – After its defense of a state law limiting abortion made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, resulting in the court’s subsequent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June, Mississippi passed a package of bills that state officials said demonstrate creating a safety net for both mothers and babies.
The package introduces an income tax credit for qualified adoption expenses, as well as amends the state’s Safe Haven law to increase the amount of time in which an infant can be safely surrendered to qualified personnel at designated Safe Haven locations, among other measures.

The Mississippi State Capitol is pictured in Jackson May 23, 2021. Mississippi has passed eight bills that supporters say are part of the state’s efforts to build a better pro-life social safety net. (OSV News photo/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, abortion advocates would sometimes point to statistics showing states that restricted abortion often have smaller safety nets for women facing unplanned pregnancies. But proponents of Mississippi’s package argued that the state can support mothers and children with what the office of Gov. Tate Reeves, R-Miss., called “Pro-Mom, Pro-Life Legislation.”

Reeves said in a statement that “Mississippi will always protect life.”

“Our state will continue to be a beacon on the hill, a symbol of hope for the country, and a model for the nation,” Reeves said. “Mississippi will be relentless in its commitment to life. We will be relentless in our support of mothers and children. And we will be relentless in our efforts to advance the New Pro-life Agenda. The legislation I signed today is further proof that when it comes to protecting life, Mississippi isn’t just talking the talk – we’re walking the walk.”

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who defended the state’s law restricting abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy that was at issue in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, where the high court reversed its jurisprudence since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, returning the matter of regulating abortion to the legislature, said in a statement, “I applaud Mississippi for adopting legislation that supports pregnant women and new mothers, streamlines and reforms adoption and foster care systems, enhances child support enforcement, and expands tax credits for employers providing childcare for their employees.”

“These initiatives will help build healthy families and, as a result, healthy communities,” Fitch said.
Measures passed by the state also increase resources for foster parents and children, and grant what the governor’s office said was the largest budget in the Mississippi Department of Child Protection Services’ history.

Fitch, who published a post-Dobbs legislative agenda dubbed The Empowerment Project, celebrated some of the initiatives passed that were included in that legislative framework.

“Whether it is offering compassionate, life-affirming options to mothers in need or providing resources to those looking to upskill and grow, Mississippi is showing the nation that we can both empower women and promote life,” Fitch said.

“We are not done yet – we can and will do more to empower women and their families – but I am encouraged by the progress we’ve made in only a few short weeks and appreciate the hard work that the Mississippi Legislature has done to demonstrate that women and children are their priority, too.”

Caitlin Connors, southern regional director for SBA Pro-Life America, said in an April 19 statement that Mississippi “makes history again today, as Governor Reeves signs eight pro-life safety net measures into law.”

“Through its Gestational Age Act, the life at conception protection that is now in effect, and more policies and programs that help families, it’s incredible to see how much ground Mississippi has covered in the course of a year to protect the unborn and serve their mothers in the Dobbs era, Connors said. “We thank Gov. Reeves, Attorney General Lynn Fitch, and legislative leaders for boldly advocating measures that carry out the full-picture pro-life mission to support women during pregnancy and beyond. The impact of these policies will be felt for generations.”

(Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on Twitter @kgscanlon)

Briefs

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WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The U.S. Supreme Court said April 21 it would block a lower court’s restrictions on an abortion pill, leaving the drug on the market while litigation over the drug proceeds. The court’s order was an apparent 7-2 vote, with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito publicly dissenting. The decision froze a lower court’s ruling to stay the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the drug. The Justice Department and a pharmaceutical company that manufactures the abortion pill mifepristone previously asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the case after an appeals court allowed portions of the ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk to take effect. A coalition of pro-life opponents of mifepristone, the first of two drugs used in a medication or chemical abortion, had filed suit in an effort to revoke the FDA’s approval of the drug, arguing the government violated its own safety standards when it first approved the drug in 2000. However, proponents argued mifepristone poses statistically little risk to women using it for abortion early in pregnancy, and claim the drug is being singled out for political reasons. In an April 21 statement, President Joe Biden said he would continue “to stand by FDA’s evidence-based approval of mifepristone, and my Administration will continue to defend FDA’s independent, expert authority to review, approve, and regulate a wide range of prescription drugs.” On April 22, Bishop Michael F. Burbidge of Arlington, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Pro-Life Activities, called the Supreme Court’s interim order “a tremendous disappointment, both for the loss of innocent preborn life from chemical abortion, and for the danger that chemical abortion poses to women.”

SAN FRANCISCO (OSV News) – On the very day Elon Musk launched SpaceX rocket Starship on its ill-fated maiden voyage toward space, that final frontier, Musk’s company Twitter did boldly go purging blue verification check marks from users who had not signed up for its paid Twitter Blue service on April 20, including Pope Francis’ Twitter accounts. The nine papal Twitter accounts, first set up under Benedict XVI in 2012, tweet a daily message from the Holy Father in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Latin, French, Polish, Arabic and German. The Vatican press office, noting that the nine @Pontifex accounts have a total of more than 53 million followers, told CNS Rome April 21 it understood Twitter was changing some of its policies. But it added, “the Holy See trusts that they will include certification of the authenticity of accounts.” That same day, following the loss of its blue checkmark, each papal account received a new gray verification checkmark designating “a government or multilateral organization account.” Other religious entities and organizations that have lost their blue checkmark include the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Catholic Reporter, Catholic News Service Rome and Protestant televangelist Joel Osteen. There is now a triad of checkmark colors on Twitter. Blue marks mean an account has an active subscription to Twitter Blue, gold indicates an official business account through Twitter Verified Organizations, and gray indicates a government or multilateral organization. There also are affiliate account badges for each, as well as automated account labels for bots.

BALTIMORE (OSV News) – For every Dorothy Day – or St. Teresa of Kolkata, St. Oscar Romero or St. Pope John Paul II – there may be hundreds, even thousands, of anonymous potential saints who are not raised to the altars for a very simple reason: Their advocates just can not afford it. The sainthood process entails expenses for research, travel, translation and, if the cause progresses, beatification and canonization ceremonies. On average, costs total about $250,000 – with high-profile causes potentially topping $1 million. While ultimately conducted by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, causes are typically initiated by a diocese, religious order or nonprofit lay group. The intricacies of the canonization process – with stages marked by the titles servant of God, venerable, blessed and saint – also poses a challenge for under-resourced dioceses. In addition to undisputed holiness, there is intense research, reams of paperwork, continuous fundraising, potential discrimination – and sometimes, a few unanticipated roadblocks. Ralph E. Moore Jr., a lifelong Catholic and African-American parishioner of St. Ann Catholic Church in Baltimore and a member of its Social Justice Committee, has organized a canonization letter writing campaign to Pope Francis, urging him to advance the sainthood causes of six African Americans, noting that a lack of finances has played a role in denying Black Catholics their own recognized saints.

VATICAN
VATICAN CITY (CNS) – At least three dozen women will be voting members of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops in October, Pope Francis has decided. In a decision formalized April 17, “the Holy Father approved the extension of participation in the synodal assembly to ‘non-bishops’ – priests, deacons, consecrated men and women, lay men and women,” the synod office said in a statement April 26. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, relator general of the synod, told reporters that about 21% of the synod’s 370 members would not be bishops and at least half of that group would be women. Adding women and young people to the membership will make sure “the church is well represented” in the prayer and discussions scheduled for Oct. 4-29 at the Vatican, the cardinal said. “It will be a joy to have the whole church represented in Rome for the synod.” “As you can see, the space in the tent is being enlarged,” Cardinal Mario Grech, synod secretary-general, told reporters. “The Synod of Bishops will remain a synod of bishops,” Cardinal Grech said, but it will be “enriched” by representatives of the whole church.

The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Berdyansk, Ukraine, is seen in this undated photo. Ukrainian officials reported April 22, 2023, that Russian forces seized the church in occupied Berdyansk, part of what the Institute for the Study of War calls an ongoing persecution of Catholics. (OSV News photo/courtesy Primorka City)

WORLD
BERDYANSK, Ukraine (OSV News) – Russian forces have reportedly seized a Roman Catholic church in Ukraine, according to published accounts. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Institute for the Study of War (ISW) released an April 22 assessment stating that Viktoria Halitsina, head of the Ukrainian military administration of the port city of Berdyansk, wrote on her agency’s Telegram channel April 22 that Russian troops had seized the city’s Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In her post, Halitsina said that the church “was not only a religious community,” but a place where “the needy could receive support.” In November 2022, two priests based at the church, who served both Latin-rite Catholics and Ukrainian Catholics, were abducted, and their fates remain unknown. ISW noted April 9 that Russia has engaged in widespread religious persecution in Ukraine, targeting a number of Catholic, Christian and Islamic communities.

NAIROBI, Kenya (OSV News) – Catholic bishops in Kenya have expressed shock and strongly condemned the mass “starvation suicide” in Shakahola, a remote forest-ranch area in eastern Kenya, where a pastor led congregants to fast to death. Kenyan authorities still continue to retrieve bodies from shallow graves in the 800-acre ranch in Kilifi County near the town of Malindi. On April 27 the official death toll was 95. All victims were followers of the Good News International Church Pastor Paul Mackenzie. He told his followers to pray and fast to meet Jesus and that the world would end April 15. As families arrived in the town of Malindi in search of their relatives following the Shakahola tragedy, the Kenyan Red Cross Society in Kilifi County said April 26 that officials had recorded 322 missing persons. Some of the devastated families that arrived in Malindi had lost several relatives to the cult. “We condemn in the strongest terms possible, the cultic preaching orchestrated by (the) pastor … which induced his followers to fast to death,” said Archbishop Martin Kivuva Musonde of Mombasa, president of the Kenyan bishops’ conference, in a statement April 24.