It’s never slow at the USCCB, but spring seems really busy.

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh 
 

I’m working on one of my favorite projects, the Class of 2013 ordination report.  A few weeks at North American College during the recent papal transition has left me high on seminarians. As I review data on the almost 500 U.S. men to be ordained soon. I’m impressed. A few years ago we started to ask the ordination class to complete the sentence “People would be surprised to know….” One seminarian said he keeps bees, another was a golf pro, another can make a saddle. Several studied for the priesthood after their wives died. LaFayette, Louisiana seminarian Mark Miley, father of Catherine and Alex, spoke about his joy contemplating his new vocation: “It is the same feeling that one feels when your child is born.”

Yesterday I watched the Medal of Honor ceremony for the late Korean War Chaplain Father Emil Kapaun, from the Diocese of Wichita livestream from the White House. President Obama moved people to tears as he read of the heroism of the priest who died at 35 in a prisoner-of-war camp. Major General Donald Rutherford, a priest of the Diocese of Albany and chief of chaplains at the Pentagon, led the ceremony with prayer. I saw Father Shawn McKnight, a Wichita priest and head of the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat for Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations, in the crowd. The cause for the canonization of Father Kapaun, who carries the title “Servant of God,” is in process.

The annual report for 2012 on clergy sexual abuse of children soon comes out. Finally there is a decline in allegations, offenders and victims. I’d dance for joy were it not for the fact that there were six credible cases of abuse of minors in 2012. Even with 56,000 priests and permanent deacons in this country and 77.7 million Catholics, that there were six instances of abuse of a minor is horrific. The six make a good case for vigilance and safe environment programs. Child sexual abuse is a human problem, a crime and a sin. It means all have to take the steps needed to keep individuals with such problems away from children. The estimated $26 million put into parish and school safe environment programs last year was money well spent.

Immigration reform is front and center. On April 19, at least 14 Catholic organizations, USCCB included, will sponsor congressional briefings on “Catholic Social Teaching: Re-Framing Immigration Reform.” Presenters will be Kristin Heyer, Ph.D., professor of theological ethics at Santa Clare University and author of Kinship Across the Borders: A Christian Ethic of Immigration; and Kevin Appleby, director of Migration Policy and Public Affairs at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services called for comments on its mandate to coerce businesses, religious or otherwise, to pay through employee insurance policies for contraceptives, including abortion-causing drugs, and female sterilization. It got well over 350,000. The Sunlight Foundation, which monitors government transparency, reports that the second-most remarked upon regulation got 4,600 comments.

World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro, when Pope Francis meets with young people, will be July 23-28. Paul Jarzembowski, just hired by the bishops’ Secretariat for Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth, carries the WYD portfolio. He may be seeing the “Francis effect,” with the number of participants growing since the election of the pope, the first ever Latin American pope, who hails from Brazil’s neighbor Argentina.

Five Things To Remember On April 11

1. Francesco C. Cesareo, Ph.D., president of Assumption College, Worcester, Massachusetts, has been named the next chair of the National Review Board (NRB) by Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the USCCB. He succeeds Al Notzon III, who concludes his term as chair after the June 2013 meeting of the USCCB.
The NRB advises the bishops' Secretariat for Child and Youth Protection and was established by the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People, which the bishops adopted in 2002. For more information, visit: http://www.usccb.org/news/2013/13-065.cfm

2. President Obama awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to Father Emil Kaupan today, nearly 62 years after his death in a prison camp during the Korean War. Catholic News Service offered a fascinating look back at the 1951 dispatch about the priest.

3. As the country's leaders continue to debate the future of gun regulation, the USCCB's leadership continues to call for leglislation that builds up a culture of life. 

4. A week ago, Sister Mary Ann Walsh blogged about how the Catholic Church is a place for everyone. Even punk rocker Patti Smith found that as she met Pope Francis Wednesday, as you can see in this photo.

5. God loves you.

Five Things To Remember On April 10

1.  Tomorrow is a day long-awaited for many Catholics and Americans. Father Emil Kapaun will be award the Medal of Honor by President Obama at the White House. Father Kapaun died during Korean War in a prison camp. The Wichita Eagle has done a great job chronicling how this honor came to happen.

2. Pope Francis tweeted twice today, saying, "Being a Christian is not just about following commandments: it is about letting Christ take possession of our lives and transform them." He also said, "If we act like children of God, knowing that he loves us, our lives will be made new, filled with serenity and joy." Follow him at @Pontifex.

3. The second Fortnight for Freedom will happen June 21-July 4. The campaign was successful in drawing attention to many religious liberty struggles happening across the country. The challenges remain this year, especially on the HHS mandate front. Learn more about the Fortnight.

4. Each day the USCCB shares the daily readings. Today's Gospel offers a reminder of what Catholics believe and it's a hopeful message. "God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life."

5. God loves you.

Five Things To Remember On April 9

1. Pope Francis isn't a big fan of gossip. A Catholic News Service piece said the pope was talking during a Mass earlier today and said that "Christians need to recover the value of meekness, particularly when they are tempted to speak ill of one of another or gossip about each other."

2. Annette Funicello, the famed Mousketeer, died Monday. She suffered complications with multiple sclerosis for decades. During her struggle, she once told People Magazine, "I'm a Catholic and I've always been a religious person, and having MS reminds me that there's a higher power up there who knows what HE's doing. MS has brought my family closer together, if that's possible." 

3. Across the U.S., many churches are unable to offer their people the basic pastoral ministries of word, worship and service without help. The Catholic Home Missions Appeal, which will take place April 27-28 across the country gives them grants that fund seminaries, catechesis programs and Catholic schools.

4. Asian and Pacific Catholics will hold an annual Marian Pilgrimage May 11 in a celebration of their faith and heritage at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington. It's open to everyone. For more information, check out: http://www.usccb.org/news/2013/13-063.cfm

5. God loves you.

Five Things To Remember On April 8

1. The fight over the HHS mandate continues and Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, who heads up the USCCB's religious liberty committee, saying that the Church continues to support litigants challenging a requirement to cover contraceptives in insurance plans. He said, "Their goal is nothing less than securing the freedom of the Church to continue to obey the Lord's command - and, in turn, to serve the common good - by providing charitable ministries in health care, education, and service to the poor, all with compromising Catholic beliefs. We continue to pray for the success of all these lawsuits."


2. Today is the solemnity of the Annunciation of Our Lord for Catholics and Bishop Joseph P. McFadden of Harrisburg, PA reflects in this video on what it means to follow God's will, just as Mary did.

3. The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People calls for annual audits of dioceses to ascertain compliance with the Charter by the bishop and his diocese. Annual Audits have been conducted since 2003. For more information, please see: http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/child-and-youth-protection/audits.cfm

4. Pope Francis has been as busy on Twitter as Pope Benedict XVI. His messages on @Pontifex have been hopeful, compassionate and challenging.

5. God loves you.

Five Things To Remember On April 5

1. Catholics will celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord, which marks when the Blessed Virgin Mary was told by the Angel Gabriel that she would be the mother of Jesus. It is typically on March 25, but was moved to April 8 because it would have been during Holy Week.

2. The role of women in church was certainly a hot topic during the papal transition. In this video, you'll see that Pope Francis has already made it a priority.

3. Earlier this week, it was announced that Dreamworks was going to produce a movie on the Boston Globe's staff's work in uncovering the pedophilia scandal. Sister Mary Ann Walsh, media relations director for the USCCB, writes in a blog that she hopes the movie uncovers the heroes on all sides of that sad time in the country.

4. Pope Francis said earlier Friday that he is stressing to doctrine officials in the Catholic Church to "act decisively" against sex abuse.


5. God loves you.

May Dreamworks Get It Right

By Sister Mary Ann Walsh

Word is that Dreamworks, a sub-studio of Disney, is about to make a movie on The Boston Globe’s January 2002 investigative report on pedophilia and the Archdiocese of Boston. The series marked a tipping point in the Catholic Church’s dealing with the problem of clergy sexual abuse of minors. The U.S. bishops had published a series of protocols on how to deal with such criminal and sinful behavior in the early nineties. This was a decade before the Globe series began, but the extensive coverage of the scandal by a major newspaper raised awareness to a new level.

The Globe’s spotlight intensified concern of bishops, clergy and laity and drew more allegations of abuse to church attention. In June 2002, six months after the series ran, the full body of U.S. bishops met in Dallas and adopted the unprecedented Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. The document stressed a zero tolerance of sexual abuse of a minor by a cleric, demanded referral to civil authorities as required and called for prevention programs to protect minors in church care. It has been revised since then and is still in effect.

To see what followed the 2002 newspaper series, you can look at church statistics from a decade later, in 2012. Last year there were 4,684,009 children in the Catholic Church who underwent child safety programs. At the same time, there were 2,362,813 priests, deacons, seminarians, educators, church employees and volunteers who underwent background checks and training in child protection programs.

This past year, researchers from the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) found 11 allegations of abuse of children under the age of 18 reported in 2012. It is discouraging to find any, but for perspective, this occurred in a church of 77.7 million people in the United States. Reports of allegations of abuse from years, even decades, before, continue to decline as well.

The Globe series likely led other institutions, including Boy Scouts, sports groups, public schools and other churches and synagogues to look into their own organizations to see how they have dealt with the human tragedy.

As Dreamworks pursues its tale of journalism and a societal problem writ large because of church involvement, one hopes for a movie that enhances protection of children. There is no need to magnify, Hollywood-style, the problem of sexual abuse by clergy. Any instance is huge in itself.

The movie might highlight unsung heroes. The late Bishop John D’Arcy is one. As an auxiliary bishop in Boston, he spoke out against transferring alleged pedophiles to other parishes. The late Sister Catherine Mulkerrin, a Sister of St. Joseph, is another. She lobbied fellow archdiocesan officials to warn parishes that abusers had served there. Neither set out to be a hero. Their actions came to light through discovery of documents in court cases. Cardinal Seán O’Malley, who bore the responsibility to heal a broken archdiocese he inherited in 2003, is one more reluctant hero.

To make a thoughtful movie on this sensational topic will challenge Dreamworks. Sister Mary Ellen Dougherty, SSND, a poet, often notes that nothing is pure but grace is everywhere. If Dreamworks practices moviemaking artfully, then grace might shine through.