Johnny Young: Arizona decision knocking down contentious law 'good and right'

Ambassador Johnny Young, who heads the U.S. bishops’ Department of Migration and Refugee Services, hailed the July 28 federal court decision that knocked down the two most contentious aspects of the controversial Arizona law SB 1070. These objectionable points called for Az. police officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws and required immigrants to carry their residency documents at all times.
Young made his comments to Kevin Clarke of America Magazine, who posted them on the magazine’s blog “In All Things” http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=3147
"Pleased, we are," was John Young’s reaction to the decision. "This is a good and rightful decision," he said.
"Our bishops made it very clear some weeks ago that we were not at all satisfied with this law . . . We would have been happy if the whole thing had been vitiated, but it was not," said Young, who was content to see that the most controversial aspects of the law had been thrown out. He called the decision a good outcome which suggests, whatever legal appeals may lie ahead, that the most potentially discriminatory components of SB 1070 will not survive further court scrutiny. Young said he would not be surprised to see the matter eventually end up before the U.S. Supreme Court before it is ultimately resolved.
Speaking as an African American who is old enough to remember America’s segregation era, Young compared the Arizona law, copycat state initiatives it inspired and the hundreds of municipal ordinances and laws on immigration to the hodgepodge of state and local Jim Crow laws that once enforced discrimination against African Americans. During segregation, "We had laws at every level," he said, laws that were respected by other states until the Jim Crow era was upended by a U.S. Supreme Court decision. Would he like to see a contemporary court similarly make straight the hundreds of localized laws and rulings on undocumented immigrants today? "That would be wonderful," Young said.

Faltó poco para que fondos federales financiaran abortos en algunos estados

The following is the Spanish version of the July 22 post by Sr. Mary Ann Walsh, "A Close Call on Abortion."

Por Hna. Mary Ann Walsh, RSM

Los grupos pro vida andan secándose el sudor de la frente en estos días, después de que Estados Unidos estuviera cerca de ver el dinero de sus impuestos federales destinado a pagar abortos.
A mediados del mes de julio, niños aún por nacer en varios estados de la Unión Americana —Pennsylvania, Nuevo México y Maryland—escaparon al bisturí solamente cuando el Departamento de Salud y Servicios Humanos (HHS, por sus siglas en inglés) recordó a los estados en la tarde del 14 de julio que éstos no podían usar nuevos fondos disponibles para el cuidado de la salud para pagar por abortos.

La clarificación hecha por HHS reiteró lo que el presidente Obama dijo anteriormente en su orden ejecutiva declarando que los fondos destinados a la reforma del sistema de salud no serían usados para financiar abortos electivos.

Sin embargo, el hecho de que se estuviera tan cerca hace que nos hagamos preguntas importantes. ¿Es posible que aquellos que se opusieron a la ley de reforma del sistema de salud (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act o “PPACA” por sus siglas en inglés) porque temían que se canalizaran fondos públicos para financiar abortos tuvieran algo de razón?

Hasta que HHS tomó cartas en el asunto, Nuevo México, por ejemplo, estaba presumiendo despreocupadamente en su sitio Web que los abortos electivos (es decir, de embarazos que no son resultado de una violación, de incesto o que pongan en serio peligro la salud de la madre) serían financiados mediante cinco mil millones de dólares federales que la PPACA ha destinado a “seguros médicos para grupos de alto riesgo”. Si la PPACA prohíbe tan claramente dicha financiación, según afirmaban los proponentes de la legislación durante los debates que llevaron a su aprobación, ¿cómo pudieron estos estados (y sus abogados) no darse cuenta?

Al parecer, Planned Parenthood tampoco piensa que la PPACA prohíbe la financiación del aborto en estos nuevos programas, como lo demuestra su reciente campaña para que la gente escriba cartas. En un perturbador e-mail masivo, apelan a la gente a que digan que están “indignados” y a Obama que levante la prohibición de dicha financiación, explicando que: “Nada en la nueva legislación de reforma del sistema de salud requiere una prohibición de ofrecer cobertura de procedimientos de aborto a grupos de alto riesgo. La ley aprobada por el Congreso no forzó a tomar esta decisión.”

Quizá también ellos tengan un argumento válido.

Afortunadamente, existe una manera muy directa de resolver estas dudas: aprobar el proyecto de ley bipartidista denominado Protect Life Act (Acta para la Protección de la Vida). Ésta alinearía la PPACA con la Enmienda Hyde, una ley federal que ha estado en vigor desde 1976, al prohibir sin lugar a dudas el uso de fondos federales para la financiación de abortos electivos o planes de seguro médico que cubren el aborto. Ya basta de regulaciones confusas, esperando que la comunidad pro vida detecte todos y cada uno de los intentos de redirigir fondos de PPACA para el aborto. Ya basta de debates divisivos e innecesarios sobre si PPACA (o las regulaciones de HHS, o la orden ejecutiva del Presidente) realmente prohíben la financiación del aborto en nuestro recién reformado sistema de salud.

Este país necesita la reforma de salud. Ningún programa cuyos fondos hayan sido destinados a mantener el bienestar de las personas y a salvar vidas puede tratar un embarazo inconveniente como si fuera una enfermedad a erradicar. Necesitamos el Protect Life Act para dejar establecido, de una vez por todas, que los fondos para el cuidado de la salud realmente financian eso, el cuidado de la salud —y no la ya bien financiada industria del aborto.
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La hermana Mary Ann Walsh, RSM, es directora de relaciones públicas con los medios de comunicación en la Conferencia de Obispos Católicos de los Estados Unidos

Close Call With Abortion

Pro-lifers are wiping their brows these days, after America came close to seeing its federal tax dollars spent on funding abortions. Earlier this month, unborn children in several states – Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Maryland – dodged a scalpel only when the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) stressed late on July 14, that the states could not use newly available health care funds to pay for abortions.
HHS’s clarification reiterated what President Obama had said in his executive order stating the health care reform funds would not be used for elective abortions.
However, the close call raises some important questions. Could it be that those who opposed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act health reform bill because they feared it would funnel government money into abortions were on to something? Until HHS stepped in, New Mexico, for example, was blithely boasting on its website that elective abortions (for pregnancies not the result of rape or incest or endangering the health of the mother) would be funded through five billion federal dollars from the PPACA’s “high risk insurance pools.” If PPACA banned this funding so clearly, as proponents of the bill had argued leading up to its passage, how could these states (and their lawyers) all miss it?
Planned Parenthood also thinks PPACA doesn’t ban funding abortion in these new programs, as their recent letter-writing campaign reflects. In a dyspeptic blast email it urges people to say they were “outraged” and to tell Obama to undo the abortion coverage ban, explaining that:
"Nothing in the new health care reform law requires a ban on abortion coverage in the high-risk pools. No law passed by Congress forced this decision."
Maybe they’re onto something, too.
Fortunately, there is a straight-forward way to resolve these doubts: Pass the bi-partisan Protect Life Act. It would bring PPACA into line with the Hyde Amendment, a long-standing federal law first passed in 1976, by unmistakably banning federal money from being used for elective abortions or plans that cover abortion. No more regulatory whack-a-mole, hoping that the pro-life community will catch each and every attempt to redirect PPACA funds toward abortion. No more divisive and unnecessary debates over whether PPACA (or HHS regulations, or the President’s Executive Order) really do ban abortion funding in our newly reformed health system.
This country needs healthcare reform. Any program with funds earmarked to maintain wellness and save lives has no business treating an inconvenient pregnancy as a disease to be eradicated. We need the Protect Life Act to establish, once and for all, that health care funds actually fund health care—not the already-too-well-funded abortion industry.

Abortion Returns to the Health Care Reform Debate

Pro-lifers' fear almost came true when three states tried to use health care reform money to pay for elective abortion. He addresses the issue in the column below now circulating in the Catholic press. Richard Doerflinger is Associate Director of the Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Congress passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in March, amidst an unresolved debate about the legislation’s impact on abortion and conscience protection. As president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George explained then that the bishops had to oppose the final bill despite their strong support for health care reform, because (among other things) it “appropriates billions of dollars in new funding without explicitly prohibiting the use of these funds for abortion.” Others dismissed this charge, saying that legislative intent and a last-minute executive order from President Obama prevented abortion funding.
Fast-forward to July, when one of those PPACA provisions appropriating billions of dollars was about to take effect. Section 1101 of the Act provides $5 billion for “high-risk insurance pools,” providing much-needed health coverage for people with “pre-existing conditions” who cannot otherwise get coverage. This program ends in January 2014, when these patients can join others in purchasing qualified health plans on the new state insurance exchanges. State governments can propose the benefits list and other details for covering their residents in these pools, but the federal government makes final decisions and provides all government funds for subsidizing this coverage.
Pro-life groups found that several states - beginning with Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Maryland - had announced on their web sites that their statewide plans would include elective abortions. (New Mexico used the phrase openly; Pennsylvania said its plan would not cover “elective abortions,” but would cover abortions that are legal under the Supreme Court’s decisions - meaning any abortion an abortionist sees as needed for a woman’s social or emotional “well-being.”) These plans were described as already approved, and New Mexico had already begun signing up enrollees.
Public criticism of this development prompted immediate denials and evasive responses. An initial response from the Department of Health and Human Services insisted that “federal funds” would not cover these abortions - leaving open the prospect that everyone who enrolls could be forced to fund other people’s abortions with their premium dollars. Late on July 14, however, HHS issued a new and more welcome response, saying that abortions simply “will not be covered” in these plans except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the mother’s life, as has long been true in federally subsidized health plans for federal employees.
Now pro-abortion groups are crying foul, with the interesting complaint that this pro-life outcome goes beyond anything in PPACA or the executive order. In other words, they are saying the bishops’ analysis of loopholes in these documents is right.
The high-risk pool program is just one funding stream left open to abortion by PPACA. For now it seems pro-life forces have won the first round, through careful research and a prompt public response. But PPACA needs a legislative fix to close such loopholes once and for all. That fix is offered by the “Protect Life Act” (H.R. 5111) sponsored by Rep. Joe Pitts (R-PA) and 115 other House members, including 13 Democrats. Whether these or other billions of dollars in taxpayers’ funds are used to help kill unborn children is not a matter we should leave to shifting politics or to chance.

Legalization has many perceived benefits

Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas, of Tucson, Arizona, and vice-president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, recently testified before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, citizenship, refugees, border security and international law.

The bishop did not shy away from controversy. Among other things, he said that those who break the law should be held accountable. “The rule of law is paramount,” he said, and he added that as a country that prides itself on upholding the rule of law, we also believe the penalty must be proportionate for the offense.

He also touched upon the issue of recently passed SB 1070 in Arizona, saying “It is my belief that the passage of this law reflects the frustration of Arizonans and the American public with Congress for not addressing the issue of immigration reform. The message is to break the partisan paralysis and act now.”

As the bishop of a diocese that extends along the Arizona-Mexico border, Bishop Kicanas is a firsthand witness to the daily tragedies in that area. He said border security and enforcement are not enough. Comprehensive immigration reform is needed. He defended the merits and “perceived benefits” of a legalization process with conditions for unauthorized immigrants already in the United States.

Here is a snippet of Bishop Kicanas’ testimony on legalization of the undocumented:

“With regard to immigration policy reform, it is vital that Congress and the Administration address a legalization program with a path to permanent residency for the undocumented currently in the United States; employment-based immigration through a new worker visa program; and family-based immigration reform. Without addressing reform in each leg of this “three-legged stool,” any proposal will eventually fail to reform our immigration system adequately.”

“In our view, an earned legalization and a path to permanent residency would provide many benefits, as follows:

• Legalization would keep families together and improve the well-being of U.S.-citizen children. Legalization would help stabilize immigrant families and would protect U.S.-citizen children in “mixed” status families. A 2009 study by the Pew Hispanic Center found that 47 percent of unauthorized immigrant households were couples with children. 3.1 million U.S.-citizen children live with one or more undocumented parents. Undocumented immigrants are more likely than either U.S. born residents or legal immigrants to live in a household with children, a growing share of whom—73 percent—are U.S. born citizens.
• Legalization would recognize and maintain the economic contributions of the undocumented. Undocumented workers are an integral part of many industries across the country, including agriculture, service, construction, meatpacking, and poultry processing. For example, undocumented workers make up more than 13 percent of the labor force in agriculture, and 25 percent of the labor force in farming. Of the roughly 8.3 million undocumented workers in the U.S. labor force, the Pew Hispanic Center estimates that more than 1 million are in manufacturing, 1.7 million in construction, 1.4 million in the leisure and hospitality industries, and over 300,000 in agriculture. In addition, undocumented workers contribute billions to the tax and Social Security systems, paying $520 billion into the Social Security system since 1975.
• Legalization would improve wages and working conditions for all workers. By legalizing the labor force in a way that allows immigrants to become permanent residents, wages and working conditions would improve for all workers. According to a North American Integration and Development Center study, a new legalization program would increase the wages of immigrant workers by 15 percent, similar to the effect of passage of the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act. Legalization also would allow workers to organize and assert their rights, leading to better working conditions and wages for all workers.
• Legalization would help create new job opportunities for Americans.
  Increased legal and illegal immigration in the past fifteen years has not increased the number of people living in poverty in the United States. In fact, the number of people living in poverty decreased during this period as U.S. economic growth expanded, and native-born Americans attained higher levels of education and new job skills. Legalization combined with a new worker program would likely continue this trend, creating additional middle-class job opportunities for native-born workers.
• Legalization would help bring U.S. immigration policy in line with U.S. economic policy. The United States, Mexico, and Central America are more integrated than ever. U.S. immigration policy has yet to adjust to the fact that U.S. economic policies such as NAFTA have facilitated rapid interdependence between Mexico and the United States. As economic policies are integrated, so, too, must be bilateral migration policies. We live in a globalized region and world, and the movement of labor must be regularized to protect basic rights.
• Legalization would make us more secure. By legalizing the 11 million undocumented and requiring that they register with the U.S. government, law enforcement will be able to focus on others who are in the United States to harm us, not those who are here to work and contribute to their communities.
  
  Despite the dire warnings of opponents of legalization for undocumented workers, evidence suggests that legalization would yield benefits at many levels by preserving family unity, securing the economic contributions of migrants, and raising the wages and working conditions of all workers. It would also ensure the participation of all undocumented workers because of the opportunity for permanent residency and eventual citizenship.”

Can Child Protection Efforts Go Too Far?

I got that question last week from a reporter in Las Vegas who was writing about a new church policy in the Diocese of Las Vegas that requires anyone volunteering in a parish to be fingerprinted. The policy applied not just to Scout leaders and religious education teachers, who work closely with children, but also to bazaar volunteers, ushers and even the people who read the Scriptures at Mass.

The policy might be overbroad, I opined to the reporter, but in today’s world I’d rather go too far to guarantee safety than not far enough. Indeed, I’ve since heard of other dioceses that require all staff and volunteers to go through background checks. Child sexual molestation exists – there’s plenty of evidence of that on the evening news, recently the account (this time, with a happy ending for the child) of a four-year-old girl snatched by a registered sex offender from her front yard in Missouri.

Polling by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) suggests most Catholics think the church should do more to protect youth from abuse. Asked if they believe the church’s policies to deal with allegations and prevent abuse “do enough” to protect children, only three in ten Catholics nationally say the church is doing enough. Seventy percent say the policies should go further.

Part of the problem is that most Catholics have no idea how much the Church has done. For example, CARA notes that “less than three in ten Catholics are aware of” all the Church is doing to prevent child sexual abuse.

More than 1.8 million adult employees and volunteers in the church have had training in how to identify and report suspicious activity by an adult with a child, but only 29 percent of adult Catholics know that.

Dioceses report annually on their adherence to the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, but only 18 percent know that.

The Church has an independent organization that conducts audits to determine whether each diocese and its bishop are enforcing the new sexual abuse policies yet only 16 percent of adult Catholics know it.

The Church has commissioned the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to conduct a scientific study of the causes and context of abuse, yet a mere 11 percent of adult Catholics know that.

Yet even when people have such information, I imagine many people will want the church to do even more to guarantee that children are safe from sexual predators.

Sexual abuse of children is a problem well beyond the Catholic Church. There’s data galore on that.

Safe environment programs have much more to offer than many realize. People who participate in them not only are cleared to be with children through fingerprinting and background checks, they also learn how to recognize steps leading to child sexual abuse and how to protect children from it.

It’s unfortunate that we need such education, but we do. We drive slowly around schools and parks and hit the brakes when a ball rolls into the road because children need more than the usual protection. Going through fingerprinting may be just one more thing we do as part of a commitment to keep youngsters safe. The church in Las Vegas wisely bets that it is.

Bishops Appointing Bishops

As we head into the Fourth of July holiday weekend here in the states, the Vatican approaches what is essentially its summer down time, beginning in August. As a result, various offices and congregations of the Holy See clear their desks in anticipation of being closed until sometime in September.

For the U.S. bishops, one of the signs that Rome is preparing for summer vacation is a late flurry of appointments -- bishops either being named, reassigned or retired -- all over the country. The last several weeks have brought with them new appointments, culminating in this week's retirements of a couple auxiliary bishops, the appointment of a couple new auxiliaries, and the announced transition in Spokane, Washington.

While the deck may not be completely cleared, the current state of vacant dioceses and dioceses with bishops serving past retirment age breaks down as ...

Four vacant dioceses, all of which have come vacant since April: San Antonio (since Archbishop Jose Gomez's April 6 appointment as coadjutor of Los Angeles), Orlando (since the April 20 appointment of Archbishop Thomas Wenski to Miami), the Ruthenian Archeparchy in Pittsburgh (since the June 10 death of Archbishop Basil Schott) and Rapid City, South Dakota (since this week's appointment of Bishop Blase Cupich to Spokane).

Five dioceses with bishops serving past retirement age: Seattle, Oklahoma City, Philadelphia, Savannah and Trenton. It's worth noting that the bishop of Trenton, John M. Smith, has already been assigned a coadjutor, Bishop-elect David O'Connell, to succeed him automatically upon his retirement.

Amid all of these late-breaking U.S. appointments, another bishop's appointment came out this week that, while it didn't involve any U.S. bishops directly, will have a direct impact on future bishops' appointments, both in the U.S. and globally. This was the appointment of Cardinal Marc Ouellet of Quebec as Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops.

The Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops is the head of the Vatican office that oversees the appointments of all bishops in the Catholic Church. This post has been filled by Italian Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re since 2000.

The process of appointing a bishop is a long and complicated one. In short, bishops of various regions meet from time to time and throw out names of priests who might make good bishops. These names are given to the Apostolic Nuncio, the pope's personal representative to a country, who shares them with the Congregation for Bishops. When it's time to appoint a new bishop to a diocese, priests and others in the diocese are quietly consulted, the needs of the diocese are assessed, and the Congregation for Bishops draws up a list, called a terna, of three candidates that goes to the pope with the Congregation's recommendation noted. The pope has final say as to who is appointed. He can accept the Congregation's recommendation. He can also reject the terna in its entirety.

In order to submit and receive these bishops' appointments, the Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops has a standing weekly audience with the pope. He is one of only three Vatican department heads to do so. The other two are the Vatican Secretary of State and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Pope Benedict's old job). Taken together, these posts are referred to by some Vatican watchers as the "Big Three," essentially the highest ranking posts in the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. To phrase it glibly, they are responsible for 1. who we talk to (State), 2. what we believe (Doctrine of the Faith) and 3. who's in charge (Bishops).

From this perspective, the appointment of Cardinal Ouellet to the Congregation for Bishops takes on several layers of significance. First, Pope Benedict has put his own man in place for the selection and appointment of the world's bishops. This not only solidifies any personal "stamp" Benedict might put on these appointments. It also means he's now appointed all of the "Big Three," the other two being Cardinal William Levada, whom Benedict appointed to replace himself at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 2005, and Cardinal Tarciscio Bertone, whom Benedict appointed Vatican Secretary of State in 2006. Both Levada and Bertone served at some point with then-Cardinal Ratzinger in the Doctrine Congregation.

Also significant is Cardinal Ouellet's nationality. While the Congregation for Bishops was served from 1984-1998 and 1998-2000 by an African and a Latin American, respectively, this is the first time the post has gone to a North American.

Cardinal Ouellet's nationality reflects the ongoing trend of the internationalization of the curia (the Vatican bureaucracy), which began after Vatican II and has steadily continued, with posts that have traditionally gone almost exclusively to Italians going to bishops from elsewhere in Europe and even from around the world. The most dramatic example of this shift, of course, came in October of 1978 with the election of the first non-Italian pope in 400 years (and first Polish pope ever), John Paul II.

With Cardinal Ouellet's appointment, as voices in the Catholic blogosphere have already pointed out, this is the first time in the Church's history that two of the Big Three have been occupied by non-Europeans, let alone North Americans. And this shift has occurred in just over five years. To illustrate, in 2005, the top leadership in Rome was:

Pope John Paul II (Polish)
Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano (Italian)
Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (German)
Prefect of Bishops, Cardinal Giovanni Re (Italian)

Now it looks like this:

Pope Benedict XVI (German)
Secretary of State Cardinal Tarciscio Bertone (Italian)
Prefect of the CDF, Cardinal William Levada (American)
Prefect of Bishops, Cardinal Marc Ouellet (Canadian)

The difference five years can make is astounding.