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Barinas, Venezuela, Aug 8, 2017 / 03:40 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The crisis in Venezuela continues to deepen following elections for a Constituent Assembly promoted by President Nicolás Maduro. In its wake, the bishops of the country, supported by the Vatican, have continued to speak out against potential fraud in the elections and to demand an immediate solution.

Bishop José Luis Azuaje Ayala of Barinas, vice president of the Venezuelan bishops' conference, told CNA that "we are very concerned about the complexity of the situation,” above all "because of the moral degradation that has become present in the country".

“There is large number of murders that, according to the national prosecution, number 121 deaths. Of these, 25 percent have been murdered by state security agencies and 40 percent by groups of armed civilians sympathetic to the regime. There are more than 1,500 wounded, with more than thousands of detainees, in little more than three months, give us a hellish picture that would make any person or institution worried about the lives of citizens at stake," he said.

The United Nations Human Rights Office has warned the Venezuelan government over the use of excessive force against protesters.

This disorder and violence is compounded by the shortage of basic products such as food and medicines, which "is the result of dire governmental policies, of improvisation, of wanting to establish a socialism without humanist support, and in its place generating a permanent conflict plagued by corruption and violence,” Bishop Azuaje said.

Bishop Azuaje affirmed that all bishops of the country "hold the hope that every historical process has a beginning and an end" and “that what happens to us is not eternal, but is destroyed as time goes on.”

They hope this despite the fact that "every day we feel a greater repression of the government through different state agencies or feel the same because of fear of certain groups. It is forming anarchy in the national consciousness; that is to say, the government has lost its legitimacy and authority. "

Constituent Assembly and constraints

The prelate, like much of the international community, is convinced of fraud in the electoral process surrounding elections for a national Constituent Assembly. The process, initiated by president Maduro, will reform the constitution, which opposition members claim will allow Maduro to remain in power indefinitely.

The assembly has already removed from office attorney general Luisa Ortega Diaz, who had faulted the Supreme Court for stripping the National Assembly of its powers earlier this year.

Last week, the company Smartmatic, which is in charge of the electronic voting system for the election, confirmed manipulation of electoral results. The bishop said the revelation "did not surprise us."

"On Sunday, (July) 30 we could see with our eyes the small amount of participation of the people in the elections. In this way a direct, informal, but experiential audit was made,” Bishop Azuaje explained.

"Before six o'clock in the afternoon, which was the official time of the closing of the tables, they sent to speak to one of the observers of the National Electoral Council to announce that there was an immense number of people remaining still in lines to vote, and the vote was extended for another hour. I looked at the school that is close to the diocesan see where there were several polling stations and it looked like a desert. They tried to make people believe that there were voters at that time. There’s nothing more false. It was like the official announcement of fraud. "

After the election it was also revealed that “before and during the electoral process for the Constituent Assembly, many people were coerced and threatened to attend to vote,” the bishop alleged. "There are stories of people who are Catholic, are part of our parishes and almost confess as if it was an unforgivable sin. They feel humiliated because their freedom was restricted, because they were threatened that they would lose their jobs or benefits received in government social programs.”

Dialogue with the Vatican

The representative of the bishops' conference also addressed the Vatican-facilitated dialogue process that took place in Venezuela between the government and the opposition in 2016.

The bishop denounced the result, which, in his view, was "a feigned dialogue on the part of the government without any result.”

"Whenever this government has been at a disadvantage, it has asked to dialogue; but it is always the same script: dialogue is used to gain time and advance in the hegemonic project of totalitarianism and greater power of domination,” Bishop Azuaje stated.

“The Holy See has always been aware of what is happening in the country. Both Pope Francis and the Secretary of State, Cardinal Parolin, are well informed of the country's problems. They have always been willing to mediate, and we thank them for that. But experiences teach. The failed dialogue from October to December has taught that governments like this should have something more than goodwill,” he said categorically.

He also explained that the Vatican "has reminded the government that to return to the table, they must meet what was agreed in October of last year, and recorded by Cardinal Parolin in the letter addressed to President Maduro on December 1, 2016.”

This agreement states that the government must commit to “setting an electoral calendar, the release of political prisoners, the opening of a humanitarian channel to let food and medicines enter the country, and return power to the National Assembly.”

In the bishop’s view, the real solution involves a "total change of government through general elections," perhaps beginning with a "possible transitional national government."

However, he noted that "we can not forget justice" because "there has been a lot of corruption and violence" and "those responsible for this can not be left uninvestigated.”

Regardless of how the political situation in Venezuela ends, however, Catholics must live and react to the crisis facing the country.

"A Catholic in the circumstances in which we live must be a permanent promoter of the common good, solidarity, and justice," the bishop advised. "It is not a time of adornment, but of going to the essential, to what gives meaning to life."

"We know that nothing will be easy when working for the good of the community, but Christians have a fundamental belief that the power of the Holy Spirit  not only animates us, but enlightens us in walking the narrow way. It offers us challenges, but it gives us its strength, " Bishop Azuaje said.

"I want to go to the extreme of saying that a Catholic can not bend to exclusionary policies, much less the voracious corruption that exists in the country, nor raise his hand to strike the dignity of anyone,” he added.

"A committed Catholic should demand justice and work for the people with the sole interest of developing processes that lead to greater human development," the bishop urged.

 


Alvaro de Juana contributed to this report.

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Washington D.C., Aug 8, 2017 / 03:49 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Some U.S. evangelical Christian leaders want to talk with Pope Francis about a prominent Jesuit-run journal’s essay on Christianity and American politics that depicted some Catholic-Evangelical collaboration as an “ecumenism of hate.”

“Rather than being offended, we have chosen to attempt to make peace,” Johnnie Moore said, according to Time Magazine. “We would be willing to get on a plane tomorrow to Rome to meet with whoever, whenever to create a space for dialogue instead of conflict.”

Moore, a board member of the National Association of Evangelicals and past president of the Virginia-based Liberty University, requested the meeting with the Pope and other Vatican leaders on behalf of some U.S. Evangelical leaders, including some close to President Trump.

He is part of a group of evangelical Christian leaders who are informal advisors to President Trump. Only parts of the letter were made public.
 
Moore voiced surprise at the essay, considering the Pope's reputation as a “bridge-builder,” the Washington Post reports. His letter alluded to contemporary “ongoing persecution, political division and global conflict,” saying there are “efforts to divide Catholics and Evangelicals.”

“We think it would be of great benefit to sit together and to discuss these things,” said the letter. “Then, when we disagree we can do it within the context of friendship. Though, I'm sure we will find once again that we agree far more than we disagree, and we can work together with diligence on those areas of agreement.”

Moore sent the request to Pope Francis as well as to the Archdiocese of Washington and other possible intermediaries on Aug. 3.

The Rome-based Jesuit-run journal La Civilta Cattolica on July 13 published an analysis piece co-authored by its editor, Father Antonio Spadaro, S.J., and Rev. Marcelo Figueroa, a Presbyterian pastor who is editor-in-chief of the Argentine edition of L'Osservatore Romano, the daily newspaper of Vatican City.

The essay, titled “Evangelical Fundamentalism and Catholic Integralism in the USA: A Surprising Ecumenism” made a number of claims, alleging that many conservative Christians have united to promote an “ecumenism of hate” in policies that contradict Pope Francis' message of mercy. They claimed that that “Evangelical fundamenta lists” and “Catholic Integralists” are being brought together in a “surprising ecumenism” by a shared desire for religious influence in politics.

The piece's analysis of American Christianity listed various influences like Christian fundamentalism, the “dominionism” of Presbyterian thinker Pastor Rousas John Rushdoony, the Prosperity Gospel, inspirational writer Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, and the polemical lay Catholic site Church Militant. It attempted to link these figures and trends with political trends and figures like Republican strategist Steve Bannon and Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Donald Trump.

The essay did not mention by name any of President Trump’s religious advisers.

The essay noted the American trend of “values voters” whose political decisions prioritize abortion, same-sex marriage, religion in schools and other matters. Both of these Catholic and Evangelical factions, the authors claimed, “condemn traditional ecumenism and yet promote an ecumenism of conflict that unites them in the nostalgic dream of a theocratic type of state.” They charged that this collaboration also advances a “xenophobic and Islamophobic vision that wants walls and purifying deportations” and thus an “ecumenism of hate.”

However, the essay drew criticism from several quarters, including the editors of Commonweal Magazine, themselves unsympathetic to U.S. Catholic conservatism.

In a July 25 editorial, they described the essay as “a mishmash of wild and erroneous claims, made in a disjointed, almost impenetrable style,” whose authors “seem woefully ignorant of American religious history.” They said the essay was a “lost opportunity” to criticize the partisan use of religion in a way that might engage “those who do not yet have ears to hear.”

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia characterized the essay as “an exercise in dumbing down and inadequately presenting the nature of Catholic/Evangelical cooperation on religious freedom and other key issues.” He characterized this cooperation as “a function of shared concerns and principles, not ambition for political power.” The archbishop said it was surprising “when believers are attacked by their co-religionists merely for fighting for what their Churches have always held to be true.”

New York Times columnist Ross Douthat half-panned the essay as “bad but important.” Despite its apparent intention to warn about “the darker tendencies in Trumpism,” he said it reflected a superficial understanding of American religion and missed the fact that both Catholic-Evangelical alliances and liberal religious politics have failed. Douthat saw an increase in “disillusionment and homelessness” among Catholic thinkers, while the contradictions of political liberalism seem to make the moment “ripe for serious Catholic rethinking.”

For his part, Catholic commentator George Weigel suggested the publishing of the article reflected poorly on the competence of La Civilta Cattolica and the Vatican Secretariat of State, which vets its articles.

The essay drew support from Prof. Miguel H. Diaz, a U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See under the Obama administration. Writing at Crux, he said the essay rejects “human indifference” that is “politically manifested and religiously justified.”

Anthony Annett, a climate change and sustainable development advisor at the Center for Sustainable Development – Earth Institute at Columbia University, wrote in Commonweal July 28 that the essay showed a light on “the pathologies of a certain brand of American Catholicism.” Its basic point, he contended, was that “a small but vocal and influential segment of American Catholicism is now far more comfortable with the world of right-wing political evangelicalism than with global Catholicism.”

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Hagatna, Guam, Aug 8, 2017 / 04:55 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Nearly 100 lawsuits have accused Catholic clergy in Guam of sex abuse over a 50 year timespan, alleging assault, manipulation and intimidation of the alleged victims, according to a new report.

The accused include Archbishop Anthony Apuron, 13 Guam priests, a Catholic schoolteacher, a Catholic school janitor and a Boy Scout leader. The Archdiocese of Agana is a defendant in 96 lawsuits, which concern claims from 1955 to 1994, reports the USA Today Network’s Pacific Daily News.

“We care deeply about every person who steps forward and we look forward to a full resolution of all cases,” the archdiocese said July 28, saying it takes all allegations “very seriously.”

The large number of lawsuits is in part due to the actions of lawmakers in September 2016, when they retroactively eliminated the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits involving child sexual abuse. The criminal statute of limitations, which cannot be applied retroactively, was lifted in 2011.

About 85 percent of Guam’s population of 163,000 people is Catholic, served by 26 parishes. The island is only 30 miles long and about one-fifth the size of Rhode Island. All eight of Guam’s trial judges have recused themselves because they have family or business ties with either the plaintiffs or the defendants in the suits.

The charges against the archbishop allege sexual abuse of four altar boys in the 1970s. Archbishop Apuron, 71, has denied the charges and his attorney has filed motions to dismiss the lawsuits.

In June 2016, Pope Francis stripped the archbishop of his authority and named a temporary apostolic administrator, reportedly at Archbishop Apuron’s request.

The archbishop is facing a church trial that could dismiss him from the clergy. The presiding judge at the tribunal was Cardinal Raymond Burke, former prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

In October 2016 the Pope named Archbishop Michael Byrnes of Detroit to run the archdiocese. He is designated to succeed Archbishop Apuron eventually.

The archdiocese responded to abuse charges in a November 2016 statement, saying “The Church on Guam has a duty and desire to render pastoral care to all of its faithful, most especially those who have been severely wounded by those holding trusted positions in our Archdiocese. We are strengthening our work in this area and pledge to provide a safe environment for all children and all people entrusted in our care.”

The Boy Scouts of America is a co-defendant in 52 lawsuits. One accused priest served as a scoutmaster. Altar boys were sometimes required to join the Boy Scouts, and scouts were encouraged to serve in the church. The organization is accused of ignoring abuse and enabling clergy to exploit boys.

The elimination of the statute of limitations for lawsuits is facing challenge from attorneys representing  the archdiocese, Archbishop Apuron, the Boy Scouts, retired Bishop Thomas Camacho of Saipan, and Rev. David Anderson. The attorneys have argued the law is unconstitutional.

A federal judge temporarily halted most of the clergy abuse lawsuits to allow for a process for out-of-court settlements. Church-owned properties could be sold to finance any settlements.

Fr. Louis Brouillard, 96, now living in Minnesota, is accused of abuse in 55 lawsuits. He served on Guam from 1948 to 1981, including time as a scoutmaster. In October 2016, he admitted to sexually abusing 20 or more boys in an affidavit obtained by an investigator employed by attorney David Lujan. Lujan is representing 75 plaintiffs in the lawsuits.

In the affidavit the priest said that fellow clergy, including then-bishop Apollinaris Baumgarter, who passed away in 1970, knew of his actions. They told him to “try to do better” and to say prayers in penance, he claimed.

One of Fr. Brouillard’s accusers said that in 1975 the priest told him, “If you tell anyone, no one will believe you because I am a priest.”

According to some lawsuits, alleged victims said they were too scared to tell their parents, or reported the abuse to adults but weren’t believed. Two lawsuits said that accusers reported the abuse to police, but the Guam Police Department says it has no records of these reports.

Some lawsuits charge that alleged abusers told their victims the sexual acts were penance or needed to earn Boy Scout merit badges.

A Church-run counseling program, called “Hope and Healing Guam,” aims to provide help for victims.

Some lawsuits speak of the effect of the abuse on the alleged victims’ faith, with at least one victim reporting he has left the Church. Other alleged victims have not.

When the first group of former altar boys filed their lawsuit in 2016, their attorney Lujan said they “hope and pray that the Church flourishes for another 2,000 years.”

Guam resident Mae Reyes Ada, 74, told Pacific Daily News she sometimes feels embarrassed and guilty she did not speak out in the 1970s when she heard rumors of clergy abuse.

Ada has joined protests advocating Archbishop Apuron be permanently removed.

“The Church is going through purging and cleansing,” she said. “It takes somebody with a strong faith to fight this war.”

Another demonstrator at July 14 protests seeking the archbishop’s removal, 14-year-old Jaden Comon, said he was present “to help these people in their fight against the evils that have infiltrated our Church.”

Comon himself aspires to become a priest, saying, “It’s our responsibility, especially when we were baptized in the faith, to come and help.”

 

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Lourdes, France, Aug 8, 2017 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A government proposal in the United Kingdom to set up an anti-extremism commission could unjustly affect faithful Christians, Bishop Mark Davies of Shrewsbury has warned.

The present is “a time when our own country faces uncertainty about its calling and struggles to define arbitrary values which might preserve society now confronted by aggressive ideologies and homicidal terror,” Bishop Davies said during his homily at a July 31 Mass.

He was speaking to English pilgrims at Lourdes, and addressed the proposal by Prime Minister Theresa May's Consverative minority government to establish a Commission for Countering Extremism.

This commission, meant to counter Islamist extremism, is to “stamp out extremist ideology in all its forms” and identify extremisms which undermine British values.

May has said that “there is clearly a role for government in tackling extremism where it involves behaviour that is or ought to be criminal. But there is also a role for government to help people and build up organisations in society to promote and defend Britain’s pluralistic values.”

A similar effort by David Cameron's Conservative government to promote “British values” in schools was received by Catholic Voices UK as a potential harm to sincere religious believers and to Catholic schools. Bishop Davies at that time warned, “our values cannot be arbitrarily formulated by any passing generation of politicians even if they have the best intentions.”

In his homily at Lourdes, the bishop noted that there is confusion in the UK over what constitutes extremism, citing a recent poll that found “1 in 3 Britons now regard the claims of Christianity and even the person of Jesus Christ as representing extremism.”

“It is even possible that the very faith in Christ on which our nation was built, might become a focus of the Government’s counter-extremism agenda,” he lamented.

In the face of this, Christians are called to acknowledge that “we know of no moderation … in our following of Christ and in all that contributes to the good of society, recognising how we are all called to the extremes of charity; of virtue; of grace; of unswerving adherence to goodness and truth, to the high goal of holiness in which lies our ultimate happiness.”

This, he said, is the heart of the Second Vatican Council's teaching:”an utterly inclusive message, that we are all called to holiness which is the perfection of love, the complete happiness of becoming a saint.”

“This was the first calling of the English people and it is the divine vocation which can now shape our lives, our families and the whole future of our society.”

The bishop did warn against a “destructive extremism” which seeks to de-construct marriage, family, and human identity, and which “calls for medical experimentation with no reference to ethical boundaries; that decrees the unborn may live only to terms fixed by man, demands legal protections be removed from the sick and the aged.”

“It is such extremism which surely threatens the foundations of society.”

The “extreme agenda” of Christ and the Church is “the call to the perfection of charity and the fullness of the Christian life which today we share,” he concluded.

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By Rhina Guidos

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- After hearing about the plight of a cancer-stricken child whose mother was facing imminent deportation, a U.S. border bishop, Texas Bishop Mark J. Seitz of El Paso, decided to pay the pair a visit at the hospital.

On Aug. 7, he prayed at a Texas hospital with bed-ridden 8-year-old Alia Escobedo, suffering from bone cancer, and her mother Maria De Loera, the child's only caretaker, before heading to a meeting with immigration officials -- a hearing in which the mother was to report for deportation but one which the bishop attended in her place.

"I was informed about the situation over the weekend, I'd heard rumblings," said Bishop Seitz in an Aug. 7 phone interview with Catholic News Service. "As a parish priest, one of the most rewarding ministries was through the sick. I always felt close to children who were sick."

At the hospital, he said, he read Scriptures with the mother and daughter, who are Catholic, and prayed. He said he tried to reassure the mother that there were a lot of people trying to help.

"It was a pleasure to be able to meet them and hopefully bring a bit of a consolation to this young child," he said. "They're amazingly resilient. This mom had her husband killed in (Ciudad) Juarez, escaped to El Paso running for her life. When she came here, her youngest daughter was diagnosed with bone cancer."

The last two and half years have been filled, not just with treatments at the hospital, but also with the threat of deportation. An asylum request De Loera filed in 2014 was denied the following year, and since then, she has been in the process of being removed from the country by immigration officials.

Bishop Seitz, along with other clergy, accompanied De Loera's lawyer to see officials from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE, "to reconsider ' given the circumstances," he said.

He said he met with a case worker and a supervisor as well as other officials.

"I think they were relatively receptive," he said.

On Aug. 8, ICE officials granted De Loera a six-month stay to continue watching over her daughter during treatment, said Dylan Corbett, executive director of the Hope Border Institute, which also has been involved calling in attention to the case. At her daughter's bedside, De Loera wears an ICE-issued ankle monitor to track her location even though she has not committed a crime and arrived seeking asylum, Corbett said.

"Maria and Alia are the human face of a broken immigration system and militarized border enforcement," said the Hope Border Institute in an email statement. "They're the reason we're fighting for reform and a more human border."

"I'm concerned about the very fact that we had to intercede on behalf of this mother under these circumstances," Bishop Seitz said to CNS, because it shows that "even the most obvious humanitarian reasons for allowing a person to stay are no longer sufficient."

Bishop Seitz made headlines in July because of a pastoral letter in which he denounced the "demonization of immigrants" and pleaded with others for compassion and solidarity. He said he's aware that even among Catholics, the issue of immigration can spark disagreement.

"I just ask them to bring these issues to their prayer," he said. "And also, to get to know a recent immigrant and, especially, to get to know one who fled here without the opportunity to arrange documents because they were fleeing for their lives, before deciding what the proper resolution of these cases should be."

Jesus, he said, spoke to questions of law and recognized that there is the law of God and human laws, and human laws can be good or they can be bad.

"Bad laws need to be changed and sometimes bad laws cannot be followed," he said. "One example is the law that permits abortion. Just because the law says it's OK, it does not make it OK."

He also asked others to think about the circumstances that lead others to flee their native countries.

"If any of us lived in a situation, in a country where there is extreme violence, we would do whatever it took to find a situation of safety, even if it meant crossing a border," he said. "We would do it if our children were starving. We wouldn't say 'I guess we'll just stay here and watch our children die.' Nobody would do that. We would do whatever we needed to do."

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Follow Guidos on Twitter: @CNS_Rhina.

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