New York City, N.Y., May 21, 2013 / 02:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Global Rosary Relay for Priests’ fourth annual event will take place this June 7, providing an opportunity for worldwide prayer to support priests in their ministry.
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Study shows undocumented immigrants largely Christian
Posted by CNA Daily News - US on May 18th, 2013
Washington D.C., May 18, 2013 / 01:01 pm (CNA).- A new study says that undocumented immigrants to the U.S. tend to be more Christian than the general population, while new legal permanent residents tend to be less Christian.
The Pew Research Center …
Donohue says IRS probe triggered by Catholics United
Posted by CNA Daily News - US on May 18th, 2013
New York City, N.Y., May 18, 2013 / 06:02 am (CNA).- Bill Donohue of the Catholic League said he was “stunned” that the IRS investigated his organization in 2008, charging that the Democrat-leaning group Catholics United filed the complaint…
Marriage advocates plan to sue IRS over leaks
Posted by CNA Daily News - US on May 17th, 2013
Washington D.C., May 17, 2013 / 05:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The National Organization for Marriage is filing a lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service, after its confidential tax return was leaked from the agency to the group’s chief political opposition.
“In March 2012 Human Rights Campaign posted a copy of our confidential tax return on its website…and we know for a fact that the source for this was within the IRS,” National Organization for Marriage chairman John Eastman told CNA May 17.
The National Organization for Marriage qualifies as a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization. They are obliged to make public their tax returns, “ but there are parts of those tax returns that are explicitly confidential, including schedule B, our list of donors and their addresses.”
On or about March 30, 2012, the Human Rights Campaign posted National Organization for Marriage’s 2008 Schedule B on its website as a PDF.
“It had some redactions on it, and our computer guys were able to unlayer the PDF to get beyond the redactions and look at the original document, which is stamped with internal IRS markings,” Eastman said.
Human Rights Campaign posted a version with retractions, showing a white bar diagonally across the pages. When this layer is removed, it reveals an Internal Revenue Service tracking number, as well as statements at the bottom and top of each page reading, “This is a copy of a live return from SMIPS. Official use only.”
SMIPS is the tax agency’s internal computer system. It is a felony offense for Internal Revenue Service officials to disclose private tax returns.
Eastman offered the three possible ways that the Human Rights Campaign obtained National Organization for Marriage’s tax return from the tax agency.
“Either someone hacked into the IRS computer system…or someone fraudulently impersonated an officer of the NOM…or someone at the IRS disclosed this.”
“Of those three, the one that’s clearly the most plausible is the latter,” Eastman said.
The tax return was quickly republished by the Huffington Post and other media outlets and blogs.
On April 11, the National Organization for Marriage requested that both the Treasury department’s inspector general and the Department of Justice investigate the leak of their private documents.
When both departments, and the Internal Revenue Service, proved to be uncooperative, the nonprofit began filing requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
“Frankly we’ve been stonewalled…and they didn’t give us any of the actually relevant information,” said Eastman.
Having exhausted their means of recourse regarding investigations and requests for information, the National Organization for Marriage decided on May 6 to begin pursuing a civil suit against the Internal Revenue Service.
“Our final round of having to go through hurdles of FOIA requests is now concluded, and we’re teeing up that lawsuit now,” Eastman said.
Human Rights Campaign is an LGBT advocacy group promoting same-sex marriage. The group “had been trying to get our donor list for a long time, because then they can publish it on the internet and then people start harassing our donors and boycotting their businesses.”
Eastman finds its significant that Human Rights Campaign’s president in March 2012 was Joe Solmonese, who the month before had been named a co-chair of the campaign to re-elect President Obama.
“What a coincidence,” Eastman said, that shortly after Solmonese was given a prominent position in Obama’s re-election campaign, “somebody at the IRS discloses to that very same person our confidential tax returns, and commits a felony in doing so.”
Eastman considers the idea risible that a low-level employee at the Internal Revenue Service would have taken the risk of committing such a felony without direction from a highly-placed supervisor.
“Given who was involved in this that we know, it seems pretty implausible,” Eastman stated, that there wasn’t “some involvement” from “high level political appointees at the Department of Justice or the Treasury department, as well as with the campaign folks.”
The news of the pro-marriage organization’s lawsuit comes as the tax agency is embroiled in scandal. On May 10, the government agency apologized for subjecting politically conservative “tea party” groups to additional scrutiny beginning in 2010. The agency asked some groups for donor lists, violating its own policies.
Since then, several nonprofit pro-life groups have also come forward with allegations of harassment and intimidation at the hands of Internal Revenue Service employees.
On May 15, Internal Revenue Service commissioner Steve Miller submitted his resignation to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, who had requested it, becoming the first official to resign over “IRS-gate.”
Joseph Grant, the commissioner for the tax agency’s tax-exempt division, announced his resignation May 16.
At a Congressional hearing May 17, Miller told representatives of the House ways and means committee that the additional scrutiny given to politically and socially conservative groups was neither partisan nor politically motivated.
Gay adoption bill could downsize Catholic agencies
Posted by CNA Daily News - US on May 17th, 2013
Chicago, Ill., May 17, 2013 / 02:04 am (CNA).- As a new bill aims to bar federal funding of adoption services that do not place children with gay couples, an Illinois Catholic leader warned a similar law there downsized faith-based agencies.
The Every Child Deserves a Family Act was introduced May 7 in the U.S. House, with bi-partisan backers. Under the bill, adoption agencies receiving federal funding may not delay or deny foster parenthood on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or marital status.
Nor would federally-funded agencies be able to require “different or additional screenings, processes, or procedures” for same-sex couples or individuals seeking to adopt a child.
A similar measure was enacted in July 2011 in Illinois. At that time, the state children and families department ended its contracts with Illinois Catholic Charities because the agencies’ practice of placing children only with married couples discriminated against unmarried and homosexual couples.
As a result, “the nature of all the Catholic Charities agencies have changed, and obviously the biggest thing you’d notice is the smaller number of employees,” Robert Gilligan, executive director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois, told CNA May 16.
“They all had significant numbers of people that were being funded by state contracts to do foster care and adoption,” he explained. “In some ways, the presence of Catholic Charities is reduced, in that obviously there are fewer employees working.”
“But on the other hand…what happened now is they’re doing things they didn’t do in the past. They’re engaged in more creative service delivery, they’re doing it with less money, and with more volunteers, and I think you could say there’s a move back towards the community and to parishes.”
Gilligan said that prior to the de-funding in Illinois, Catholic agencies were “beholden” to “the state’s way” of providing social services.
He added, however, that “ it’s a sad commentary that an organization can’t abide by what everybody knows to be true – that children are best raised in a home with a mother and a father – and get state funding to supplement those activities.”
The Every Child Deserves a Family Act is meant to “decrease the length of time that children wait” to be placed in a foster home “by preventing discrimination” of prospective parents, enlarging the pool of potential foster parents.
The bill notes that in 2007, 51,000 children were adopted, but another 25,000 “aged out” of the foster care system, which put them at a high risk for poverty and incarceration.
It also states that “professional organizations in the fields of medicine, psychology, law, and child welfare have taken official positions in support of the ability of qualified gay, lesbian, bisexual, and unmarried couples to foster and adopt.”
In Illinois, Catholic adoption agencies either closed altogether, or became non-affiliated with the Church.
Gilligan called it unfortunate that American society is experiencing “a movement away from policies that prioritize children being at home with a mother and a father.”
He found, however, a silver lining in the de-funding of Catholic Charities in Illinois.
“The fact of the matter is there are a lot of needs in our communities, and Catholic Charities and the Catholic Church has always sought, and will continue to seek, ways to provide comfort and services to people in need. Whether its through the state or individuals or some other means, we’ll try to meet those needs as best we can.”
Since the loss of public funding in Illinois, Gilligan has noticed “a movement back towards what Dorothy Day was espousing – good works done by individuals.”
Day was a social activist, tireless advocate for the poor, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. The sanctity of her life is under investigation as part of her cause for canonization.
Gilligan noted that “that’s how we experience the poor, on an individual basis.”
“Maybe sometimes when we create these bureaucracies we distance ourselves from serving the poor, and maybe this is the Holy Spirit working through the Church: we have an obligation to know the poor personally.”
“Bigger is not always better,” he reflected. “The way we serve the poor is noteworthy, and to the degree that an individual can personally experience serving the poor, I think it helps that individual truly understand what that other person is experiencing.”
“Sometimes when we create those larger bureaucracies we lose that personal appeal, and I think at least in Illinois, that is what’s going on.”
Cardinal ‘deeply’ troubled by human cloning development
Posted by CNA Daily News - US on May 15th, 2013
Boston, Mass., May 15, 2013 / 02:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley called the successful production of embryonic stem cells by cloning human embryos an “abuse” which ignores the dignity and value of the human person.
“The news that researchers have developed a technique for human cloning is deeply troubling on many levels,” the archbishop of Boston, who chairs U.S. bishops’ pro-life activities committee, said May 15.
“Creating new human lives in the laboratory solely to destroy them is an abuse denounced even by many who do not share the Catholic Church’s convictions on human life.”
The May issue of the journal “Cell” included a paper from scientists at Oregon Health and Science University announcing they have produced embryonic stem cells by transferring the DNA of human skin cells into human eggs to produce embryos.
The aim of the research is to produce stem cells for therapies to treat diseases which will not be rejected by patients’ bodies, because they will be genetically identical.
Such cloning has been done before in mice and monkeys, but this is the first time human embryos have been successfully grown past an eight-cell stage from cloned cells.
The eggs were derived from women who were “financially compensated for the time, effort, discomfort, and inconvenience associated with the donation process.” They were given hormones to induce ovulation and to facilitate the retrieval of their eggs.
After the nucleus was removed from the eggs, genes from other person’s skin cells was added into the eggs, and with electricity and caffeine, the researchers were able to induce embryos to grow. The embryos were thus genetic copies – clones – of the persons whose DNA was inserted into the eggs.
The stem cells from these embryos, which were destroyed in the process, were shown to be pluripotent – able to develop into many different kinds of cells.
“Over 120 human embryos were created and destroyed, to produce six embryonic stem cell lines. Creating the embryos involved subjecting healthy women to procedures that put their health and fertility at risk,” Cardinal O’Malley stated.
He pointed out that the stated goal of the research, producing genetically matched stem cells for therapies, “is already being addressed by scientific advances that do not pose these grave moral wrongs.”
Adult stem cells, which do not prose the same ethical concerns as human embryonic stem cells, are already being used to treat and cure diseases, making it unnecessary to do such research on human embryonic stem cells.
These adult stem cells are taken from a person’s existing stem cells or from the placenta or umbilical cord at birth. They can also be found throughout the body in all human tissues, including bone marrow, fat, and teeth.
Cardinal O’Malley said that the techniques of the new cloning research “will be taken up by those who want to produce cloned children as ‘copies’ of other people.”
The study’s head, Shoukhrat Mitalipov, has said that the technique will not be used to produce babies because they have not been able to do so with monkey embryos made in the same way.
He also dismissed ethical concerns about the embryos they had made, saying they aren’t the equivalent of a human being because they were not fertilized naturally, according to NPR.
Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said the researchers “created many human embryos, male and female, and allowed them to grow for up to seven days, for the sole purpose of killing them and harvesting their stem cells.”
Cardinal O’Malley concluded his statement by saying that “whether used for one purpose or the other, human cloning treats human beings as products, manufactured to order to suit other people’s wishes. It is inconsistent with our moral responsibility to treat each member of the human family as a unique gift of God, as a person with his or her own inherent dignity.”
Posted in Catholic US News 
Tags: embryonic stem cell, embryonic stem cells, human cloning, US 
No Comments »Catholic aid organization seeks to transform lives
Posted by CNA Daily News - US on May 15th, 2013
Boca Raton, Fla., May 15, 2013 / 02:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic foreign aid organization aims to advance the “integral development” of people it helps around the world by serving both their physical and spiritual needs.
Jim Cavnar…
Vatican II helped the world ‘see Jesus,’ says cardinal
Posted by CNA Daily News - US on May 15th, 2013
Washington D.C., May 15, 2013 / 12:11 am (CNA).- Cardinal Justin F. Rigali, archbishop emeritus of Philadelphia, said that the five Popes involved in the Second Vatican Council shared a common vision of protecting and spreading the Catholic faith. …
Legion priest seeks to leave ministry to care for child
Posted by CNA Daily News - US on May 14th, 2013
Washington D.C., May 14, 2013 / 01:56 pm (CNA).- Prominent U.S. priest Father Thomas Williams has asked Pope Francis to dispense him from his priestly obligations in order to care for the child he fathered and the child’s mother.
Fr. Williams wrote Fr. John Connor, assistant for apostolate for the North American Territory of Regnum Christi, the lay branch of the Legion of Christ. He said that he had come to “the serene conviction that what God expects of me now is to devote myself to caring for my child and his mother.”
“By responsibly and lovingly accepting the consequences of my actions, I will continue to serve God and his Church. I know I should be with my son and try to be the kind of father he needs,” Fr. Williams said, according to a May 10 blog post by Fr. Connor.
The priest had served as a theology and ethics professor at the Legion of Christ’s Regina Apostolorum University in Rome. He authored many books and came to prominence as a faith and religion analyst for CBS News and a Vatican analyst for NBC News and Sky News. He served as theological adviser for Mel Gibson’s 2004 film “The Passion of the Christ.”
In May 2012 Fr. Williams admitted a relationship with a woman “a number of years ago” in which he fathered a child. He said he was “deeply sorry for this grave transgression.” The Legion of Christ asked Fr. Williams to leave public ministry for a year for prayer and penance to discern his future.
Legion of Christ leaders had learned of the priest’s situation in the mid-2000s. In May 2012, the Legion apologized for not acting more quickly in response.
In his blog post, Fr. Connor said Fr. Williams’ kind of decision is “not easy.”
“We all balance success and failure, joy and sorrow in our lives. None of us escapes sin and the need to ask forgiveness,” he said.
Fr. Connor voiced appreciation for Fr. Williams’ “friendship … wisdom and counsel.”
Jim Fair, communications director of the Legion of Christ and Regnum Christi, said both associations are “grateful for the many contributions” the priest made in his time with the congregation.
“We continue to accompany him with our prayers and fraternal support wishing him the best in the years ahead,” Fair said May 10.
Priests’ requests to leave the priesthood are rarely approved.
However, Pope Francis in a book authored before he became Pope said that he encourages priests who have fathered a child to leave their ministry and take care of the child, even if they do not marry the woman.
“Because just as the child has a right to have a mother, the child also has the right to the face of a father,” he said in his 2010 book “On Heaven and Earth,” which was released in an English translation last month.
The Legion of Christ is presently under the oversight of Vatican officials in the aftermath of revelations in 2009 that its founder Fr. Marciel Maciel fathered a child out of wedlock and had sexually abused children.
Posted in Catholic US News Tags: John Connor, Legion of Christ, Regnum Christi, Thomas Williams, US No Comments »Second Fortnight for Freedom to highlight marriage, mandate
Posted by CNA Daily News - US on May 14th, 2013
Washington D.C., May 14, 2013 / 04:10 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. bishops’ conference has announced a second Fortnight for Freedom, scheduled for the two weeks leading up to Independence Day, to raise awareness and support for the right to religious liberty.
“The need for prayer, education, and action in defense of religious liberty has never been greater,” said Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore. “The Fortnight for Freedom exists to meet that need.”
The pastoral initiative will begin with a June 21 Mass celebrated by Archbishop Lori at the Baltimore basilica. It will conclude at noon on July 4 with a Mass at the Washington, D.C., basilica celebrated by Cardinal Donald W. Wuerl.
The first Fortnight for Freedom, held last year, included Masses, prayer rallies and other events aimed at prayer, education and action in order to promote and defend religious freedom.
Members of other religions joined in the fortnight, hosting events or ringing church bells in a sign of solidarity.
The two-week event is designed to “emphasize the need for conscience protection” and general religious liberty both at home and overseas. It will focus on a broad variety of recent threats to religious freedom, including those in the realms of immigration, humanitarian aid, adoption and health care.
Among the major religious liberty concerns in the U.S. is a federal mandate, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services, that requires employers to offer health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and some drugs that can cause early abortions.
While the mandate includes a religious exemption, it applies only to churches and their conventions, auxiliaries and religious orders.
Most non-profit religious organizations, including Catholic hospitals, schools and charitable agencies, do not qualify for the exemption. After a one-year reprieve, which ends this August, they will subject to a government “accommodation,” under which the objectionable products will be included free of charge in the health care plans they offer. Critics argue that the objecting religious employers will still end up paying for the coverage that they consider immoral through increased premiums.
Archbishop Lori noted in his May 13 statement that the 2013 fortnight “occurs just weeks before August 1, when the administration’s mandate coercing us to violate our deeply-held beliefs will be enforced against most religious non-profits.”
He added that during this year’s fortnight, “the Supreme Court’s decisions on the definition of marriage will likely be handed down as well.”
“Those decisions could have a profound impact on religious freedom for generations to come,” he said.
In March, the Supreme Court heard arguments in two gay marriage cases, Hollingsworth v. Perry and U.S. v. Windsor. One challenges California’s Proposition 8, a state measure which recognizes marriage as existing solely between a man and a woman, and the other challenges the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law which defines marriage as the union of one man and one woman.
Decisions in both cases are expected in late June.
In addition to the contraception mandate, the second fortnight will place a special emphasis on faith and marriage due to the Supreme Court rulings and their potential to impact religious freedom in a significant way, according to a statement from the bishops’ conference in December 2012.
A web page created by the bishops’ conference to offer resources for the pastoral strategy described the upcoming fortnight as “a visible, vibrant reminder of the God-given nature of religious liberty” as well as the right to live out one’s faith in the public square and the professional world.
Modern threats to the Church “call for increased awareness and formation, as well as spiritual stamina and fortitude among the faithful, so that we may all be effective and joyful witnesses of faith, hope and charity,” it explained.
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