Animated Francis, Kung, Paul 6th a Saint? & Building Bridges
Here is the latest vomit coming from the Vatican II cult of man which is leading souls into the formalized one world religion...
There are many different ways of talking about the Catholic faith. That is why the website Catholic Link created cartoons to bring Pope Francis' words to young children.
"Hey! How many mothers did Jesus have?
-Hi there, Mary is Jesus' only mother, even if she holds many different devotions.
-Oh, like my wife, she uses a different dress for every place.”
The YouTube series "Pope Francis Minute” surfaces after the success of a four minute viral video about the life of the new Pope was made in 2013. It was translated in 20 different languages, even in Korean.
"But who is he? Where does he come from? How is he? Jorge Mario Bergoglio.”
MAURICIO ARTIEDA
Director 'Catholic Link'
"It's a place where we collect his words, try to be very faithful to what the Pope says in his homilies, in his speeches, and add characters to narrate how I believe the Pope would want to be narrated. It is closely linked to real life people, with many images of everyday life. The Pope's words have always provided that.”
Creatives from 16 different countries have collaborated to make these videos. Scripts are written by teams. The illustrations come from Costa Rica, and editing is completed in Ecuador. And the animation is a success that has even been noticed by the Vatican.
MAURICIO ARTIEDA
Director 'Catholic Link'
"I know that the videos are seen and sent to other members of the Curia. Some bishops and people from the Vatican Curia find the videos fun. They are entertaining, very lively.”
Besides getting praise from his peers, Pope Francis' videos have already been used as part of a religion curriculum in some schools.
Infallibility — Hans Küng appeals to Pope Francis
Next week, Hans Küng, the Catholic priest and Swiss theologian, will mark his 88th birthday. The fifth volume of his complete works, titled Infallibility, has just become available from the German publishing house Herder. In connection with the release of Infallibility, Küng has written the following “urgent appeal to Pope Francis to permit an open and impartial discussion on infallibility of pope and bishops.” The text of his urgent appeal is being released simultaneously by National Catholic Reporter and The Tablet.
It is hardly conceivable that Pope Francis would strive to define papal infallibility as Pius IX did with all the means at hand, whether good or less good, in the 19th century. It is also inconceivable that Francis would be interested in infallibly defining Marian dogmas as Pius XII did. It would, however, be far easier to imagine Pope Francis smilingly telling students, “Io non sono infallibile” — “I am not infallible” — as Pope John XXIII did in his time. When he saw how surprised the students were, John added, “I am only infallible when I speak ex cathedra, but that is something I will never do.”
I became acquainted with the subject very early in my life. Here are a few important historical dates as I personally experienced them and have faithfully documented in Volume 5 of my complete works:
1950: On Nov. 1, facing huge crowds in St. Peter’s Square and supported by numerous high church and political dignitaries, Pope Pius XII definitively proclaimed the Assumption of Mary as a dogma. “The immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” I was there in St. Peter’s Square at the time and must admit that I enthusiastically hailed the pope’s declaration.
That was the first infallible ex cathedra proclamation by the church’s senior shepherd and highest teaching authority, who had invoked the special support of the Holy Spirit, all according to the definition of papal infallibility laid down at the First Vatican Council of 1870. And it was to remain the last ex cathedra proclamation to date, as even John Paul II, who restored papal centralism and was always happy to seek publicity, did not dare to play to the gallery by proclaiming a new dogma. As it was, the 1950 dogma proclamation had been made despite protests from the Protestant and Orthodox churches and from many Catholics, who simply could not find any evidence in the Bible for this “truth of faith revealed by God.”
I remember German theology students, who were our guests in the Collegium Germanicum (German College) in Rome, discussing the problems they had with the dogma in the refectory at the time. Only a few weeks previously, an article by the then leading German patrologist, Professor Berthold Althaner, a highly regarded Catholic specialist in the theology of the Church Fathers, had been published in which Althaner, listing many examples, had shown that this dogma had did not even have a historical basis in the first centuries of the early church. It goes back to a legend in an apocryphal writing from the fifth century that is brimful of miracles.
We seminarians at the German College at the time thought that the students’ “rationalist” university teachers had kept the Pontifical Gregorian University’s general perception regarding this dogma from them. The general perception at the Gregorian was that the Assumption dogma had “developed” slowly and, as it were, “organically” in the course of dogma history, but that it was already ascertained in Bible passages such as “Hail (Mary) full of grace (blessed art thou),” “the Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28), and although not “explicitly” expressed, it was nevertheless “implicitly” incorporated.
1958: Pius XII’s death marked the end of a century of excessive Marian cults by the Pius popes that had begun with the definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1854. Pius XII’s successor, John XXIII, was disinclined toward new dogmas. At the Second Vatican Council, in a crucial vote, the majority of the council fathers rejected a special Marian decree and in fact cautioned against exaggerated Marian piety.
1965: Chapter III of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church is devoted to the hierarchy but, oddly enough, Paragraph 25, which is on infallibility, in no way actually goes into it. What is all the more surprising is that in actual fact the Second Vatican Council took a fatal step. Without giving reasons, it expressly extended infallibility, which was confined to the pope alone at the First Vatican Council, to the episcopacy. The council attributed infallibility not only to the assembled episcopacy at an ecumenical council (magisterium extraordinarium), but from then on also to the world episcopacy (magisterium ordinarium), that is, to bishops all over the world if they were agreed and decreed that a church teaching on faith or morals should permanently become mandatory.
1968: the year the encyclical Humanae Vitae on birth control was published. That the encyclical was released on July 25 of all times, which was not only during the summer holidays but, on top of that, in the middle of the Czechoslovak people’s fight for freedom, is generally interpreted as Roman tactics so that there would be less opposition to it. Perhaps, however, it was quite simply because work on this sensitive document had only just been finished. Whatever the reason for the timing, the encyclical hit the world “like a bomb.” The pope had obviously greatly underestimated the resistance to this teaching. Isolated as he was in the Vatican, he had not envisaged that the world public would react quite so negatively.
The encyclical Humanae Vitae, which not only forbade as grave sins the pill and all mechanical means of contraception but also the withdrawal method to avoid pregnancy, was universally regarded as an incredible challenge. Invoking the infallibility of papal, respectively episcopal teaching, the pope pitted himself against the entire civilized world. This alarmed me as a Catholic theologian. I had by then been professor of theology at the Catholic theological faculty of Tübingen University for eight years. Of course, formal protests and substantive objections were important, but had the time not now come to examine this claim to the infallibility of papal teaching in principle? I was convinced that theology — or, to be more precise, critical fundamental theological research — was called for. In 1970, I put the subject up for discussion in my book Infallible?: An Inquiry. I could not have foreseen at the time that this book and with it the problem of infallibility would crucially affect my personal destiny and would present theology and the church with key challenges. In the 1970s, my life and my work were more than ever intertwined with theology and the church.
1979-80: the withdrawal of my license to teach. In Volume 2 of my memoirs, Disputed Truth, I have described in detail how this was a secret campaign carried out with military precision, which has proved to be theologically unfounded and politically counterproductive. At the time, the debate about the withdrawal of my missio canonica and infallibility continued for a long time. It proved impossible to harm my standing with believers, however, and as I had prophesied, the controversies regarding large-scale church reform have not ceased. On the contrary, during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI they increased on a massive scale. That was when I went into the necessity of promoting understanding between the different denominations, of mutual recognition of church offices and celebrating the Lord’s Supper, the question of divorce, of women’s ordination, mandatory celibacy and the catastrophic lack of priests, but above all of the leadership of the Catholic church. My question was: “Where are you leading this church of ours?”
These questions are as relevant today as they were then. The decisive reason for this incapacity for reform at all levels is still the doctrine of infallibility of church teaching, which has bequeathed a long winter on our Catholic church. Like John XXIII, Francis is doing his utmost to blow fresh wind into the church today and is meeting with massive opposition as at the last episcopal synod in October 2015. But, make no mistake, without a constructive “re-vision” of the infallibility dogma, real renewal will hardly be possible.
What is all the more astonishing is that the discussion (of infallibility) has disappeared from the scene. Many Catholic theologians have no longer critically examined the infallibility ideology for fear of ominous sanctions as in my case, and the hierarchy tries as far as possible to avoid the subject, which is unpopular in the church and in society. When he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Joseph Ratzinger only expressly referred to it very few times. Despite the fact that it was left unsaid, the taboo of infallibility has blocked all reforms since the Second Vatican Council that would have required revising previous dogmatic definitions. That not only applies to the encyclical Humanae Vitae against contraception, but also to the sacraments and monopolized “authentic” church teaching, to the relationship between the ordained priesthood and the priesthood of all the faithful. And it applies likewise to a synodal church structure and the claim to absolute papal power, the relationship to other denominations and religions, and to the secular world in general. That is why the following question is more urgent than ever: Where is the church — which is still fixated on the infallibility dogma — heading at the beginning of the third millennium? The anti-modernist epoch that rang in the First Vatican Council has ended.
2016: I am in my 88th year and I may say that I have spared no effort to collect the relevant texts, order them factually and chronologically according to the various phases of the altercation and elucidate them by putting them in a biographical context for Volume 5 of my complete works. With his book in my hand, I would now like to repeat an appeal to the pope that I repeatedly made in vain several times during the decadelong theological and church-political altercation. I beg of Pope Francis — who has always replied to me in a brotherly manner:
“Receive this comprehensive documentation and allow a free, unprejudiced and open-ended discussion in our church of the all the unresolved and suppressed questions connected with the infallibility dogma. In this way, the problematic Vatican heritage of the past 150 years could be come to terms with honestly and adjusted in accordance with holy Scripture and ecumenical tradition. It is not a case of trivial relativism that undermines the ethical foundation of church and society. But it is also not about an unmerciful, mind-numbing dogmatism, which swears by the letter, prevents thorough renewal of the church’s life and teaching, and obstructs serious progress in ecumenism. It is certainly not the case of me personally wanting to be right. The well-being of the church and of ecumenism is at stake.
“I am very well aware of the fact that my appeal to you, who ‘lives among wolves,’ as a good Vatican connoisseur recently remarked, may possibly not be opportune. In your Christmas address of Dec. 21, 2015, however, confronted with curial ailments and even scandals, you confirmed your will for reform: ‘It seems necessary to state what has been — and ever shall be — the object of sincere reflection and decisive provisions. The reform will move forward with determination, clarity and firm resolve, since Ecclesia semper reformanda.’
“I would not like to raise the hopes of many in our church unrealistically. The question of infallibility cannot be solved overnight in our church. Fortunately, you (Pope Francis) are almost 10 years younger than I am and will hopefully survive me. You will, moreover, surely understand that as a theologian at the end of his days, buoyed by deep affection for you and your pastoral work, I wanted to convey this request to you in time for a free and serious discussion of infallibility that is well-substantiated in the volume at hand: non in destructionem, sed in aedificationem ecclesiae, ‘not in order to destroy but to build up the church.’ For me personally, this would be the fulfillment of a hope I have never given up.”
[Fr. Hans Küng, Swiss citizen, is professor emeritus of ecumenical theology at Tübingen University in Germany. He is the honorary president of the Global Ethic Foundation (www.weltethos.org). The sixth volume of his complete works, Church Reform, is expected later this year also from Herder. This article was translated from the German by Christa Pongratz-Lippitt.]
Pope Calls Migrant Crisis ‘Arab Invasion’, Says Europe Must ‘Rediscover Its Cultural Roots’
Pope Francis has described the European migration crisis as an “Arab invasion”
Francis has described the European migration crisis as an “Arab invasion”. He said that “Europe weakens” by “forgetting its own history”, but, because of its low birth rate and colonial history, the mass migration could be beneficial.
“Today we can talk about an Arab invasion”, the Roman Catholic leader told the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano this Thursday. “It is a social fact”.
“How many invasions has Europe experienced in the course of its history?” he asked. “But [Europe] has always been able to overcome herself… increased by the exchange between cultures”, he answered.
Millions of migrants from the Muslim world walked into Europe last year, and more than 131,000 have arrived via the Mediterranean in the first two moths of this year alone – more than the total number who made it in the first half of 2015.
“There’s something that bothers me,” added Pope Francis, who has been considered a relatively liberal Pontiff. “Of course, globalisation unites us and thus has positive aspects. But, I think there are good and less good [aspects of] globalisation”, he said.
In his view, a good version of globalisation would allow humanity to remain “united, but, every people, every nation, retains its identity, its culture, its wealth”.
Read more.
Seattle priest, a known pedophile, was moved parish to parish
The secret files on the Rev. Michael Cody show how the Seattle Catholic Archdiocese moved him from parish to parish, even after knowing he was a sick and dangerous pedophile.
They described his “deviant behavior,” recorded his “abnormal attraction toward young girls,” even warned “he will either blow his brains out or cause a major scandal in the parish.”
In letter after letter, supervising priests, the auxiliary bishop, even a noted psychiatrist alerted Seattle Archbishop Thomas Connolly that the Rev. Michael Cody was a sick and dangerous pedophile who posed grave threats to children and others in the Western Washington parishes he served during the 1960s.
“It is my diagnosis that he is suffering from a form of sexual deviation (Pedophilia) …,” Dr. Albert Hurley wrote in a letter to Connolly in March 1962. “It is my recommendation that he be removed from parish work as soon as possible.”
But instead of notifying police or removing Cody from his duties, Connolly’s response largely was to move him to unsuspecting parishes. First, within Seattle. Then, to Auburn. And finally, to Skagit and Whatcom counties, where Cody oversaw four different churches and a school into the mid-1970s.
When it placed him in Skagit County, the archdiocese provided Cody an isolated home where the unsupervised priest regularly brought youngsters, records and interviews show. All the while, he continued to prey on children.
The disturbing details about the archdiocese’s facilitation of the priest’s pedophilia are documented in internal correspondence, performance reviews and other records contained within what’s known as Cody’s “secret file.”
Portions of his decades-old file surfaced publicly last year in case filings for a lawsuit brought against the archdiocese by a Sedro-Woolley woman who, as a teenager, was sexually abused by Cody for two years.
Based on a consultant’s review of such secret files, the Seattle Archdiocese in January published a list identifying 77 clergy members who lived or worked in Western Washington and are known or believed to have sexually abused children.
When publicizing the list, Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain said in a statement he took the action “in the interest of further transparency and accountability,” but church officials offered no details about abuse incidents.
Since then, victims advocates, attorneys, even some prominent Catholics have called on Sartain to release the archdiocese’s secret files.
Archdiocese spokesman Greg Magnoni did not directly respond to questions about whether Sartain plans to disclose any files. In an email Friday, Magnoni said “we will continue to review our practices and protocols, including the published list, to determine if additional steps can be taken that will restore trust and promote healing.”
Secret archives on accused priests, which Roman Catholic Canon law directs bishops to keep under lock and key, can often detail a diocese’s wider, hidden complicity in clergy sexual abuse dating back decades, those familiar with such records say.
“These records illustrate a pattern of secrecy,” said Mary Dispenza, Northwest director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and herself a victim of clergy abuse. “Most bishops are still dragging their feet about releasing them because they’ll be embarrassed or ashamed, and past bishops might be implicated.”
Criminal investigations, lawsuits and legal settlements have forced public disclosure of large portions of confidential archives in “a couple dozen” of the more than 170 Catholic dioceses nationwide, said Terry McKiernan, president of the research group bishopaccountabilty.org, which is dedicated to tracking clergy abuse.
Cody’s secret file demonstrates the Seattle Archdiocese enabled his abuse for years. As late as 1988, Seattle Archdiocese officials were still trying to assess whether the retired priest posed threats in another state.
Exactly how many children he victimized “would only be a guess,” a then-82-year-old Cody said during a 2013 deposition. In 1988, Cody told mental-health evaluators in Florida that over 20 years, he’d sexually abused 20 to 40 girls between 8 and 12 years old, and one boy.
At least 10 known and alleged victims have claimed in lawsuits in Washington that Cody abused them years after Connolly and others knew the priest was a pedophile. The archdiocese has settled one case and faces trial in five others.
The archdiocese’s hand in Cody’s misdeeds might still be secret if Jeri Hubbard hadn’t broken her silence.
“Second to God”
Hubbard was a troubled 16-year-old runaway when her parents entrusted her to the care of a charismatic pastor at the St. Charles Parish in Burlington, Skagit County, in 1968.
Cody, in turn, groomed the physically immature teen for a sexual relationship that lasted two years.
“At a time when I didn’t feel special, he befriended me and made me feel special,” Hubbard, 63, said during an interview last week. “Instinctively, I kind of knew it wasn’t right. But I didn’t know what to do and I didn’t want him to get in trouble.”
The oldest of 12 children, the teenage Hubbard found refuge from a chaotic family life by walking to church to visit the 37-year-old priest. Hubbard’s father, retired from the Navy and a devout Catholic, agreed to let his daughter live at Cody’s rectory on rural Peterson Road.
“Father Cody was a godsend to me,” Hubbard’s father recalled in a June 2014 deposition. “I felt that the priest was second to God.”
At the home they shared for about a year, Cody plied Hubbard with wine, and sex became routine.
“What he had convinced me of was that God had made him a man first before he made him a priest, and that men have needs,” Hubbard recalled.
When Hubbard later became uncomfortable with their relationship, Cody “told me that I was an incorrigible child, that nobody would believe me over him. He was their priest and that they would always believe him first.”
Ashamed and afraid people would blame her, Hubbard kept silent about Cody for more than four decades. She suffered deep emotional trauma, marked by alcoholism, anxiety attacks, flashbacks, nightmares and suicide attempts.
In 2012, a friend who witnessed Hubbard paralyzed by a panic attack during a 12-step meeting arranged a surprise consultation between Hubbard and Mount Vernon attorney John Murphy. Hubbard reluctantly told her story.
Attorneys Michael Pfau of Seattle and Rand Jack of Bellingham joined the team, and Hubbard sued. As the case progressed, Hubbard learned about a confidential file kept on Cody.
“I was pissed,” she said. “The church knew he was a pedophile years before he ever came to Burlington. And they let that happen.”
Letters of alarm
The contents of Cody’s file provided a damning narrative that made Hubbard’s case.
By early 1962, just a few years into Cody’s career, the records show he told a psychiatrist about his perverse urges.
Dr. Hurley later informed Archbishop Connolly in a March 19, 1962, letter that Cody had “molested at least eight girls 12 years of age or younger.”
“He has sexual impulses which he fights against consciously and is unable to control voluntarily,” Hurley wrote.
Ten days later, Cody’s supervising priest at the Holy Family Parish in Seattle also warned Connolly that Cody was “mentally and emotionally sick.” In his letter, the Rev. Ailbe McGrath used Latin to cloak descriptions of Cody’s deviancy, referencing a violation of Catholicism’s Sixth Commandment: “Thou Shall Not Commit Adultery.”
“His de sexto abnormalities (which I will not mention here) may cause a major scandal in this parish, and if discovered, may result in a penitentiary sentence at Walla Walla,” McGrath wrote.
Less than two months later, McGrath wrote Connolly again, “urgently requesting” Cody be removed from the parish.
“I do not want a murder, a suicide, or a de sexto crime of violence in this rectory or in this parish,” McGrath wrote in the May 14, 1962, letter. “… When I read in the daily papers of crimes of murder and rape, I begin to wonder if Father Cody is involved.”
Three days later, Connolly responded that Cody would be sent to the Institute of Living, a psychiatric hospital in Connecticut.
“Personally, I do not hold out any great hopes for his improvement or that he will ever reassume his priestly career,” Connolly wrote.
Cody had been at the hospital for 10 months when a psychiatrist recommended in March 1963 that upon the priest’s return to Seattle, Connolly assign him to a position away from parishioners due to his mental state.
But when Cody returned in May 1963, Connolly put him to work as an assistant pastor at St. James Cathedral, and his problems resurfaced.
“It is not that he is not trying,” Bishop Thomas Gill wrote to Connolly, then in Rome, in October 1963. “There are manifest signs of deterioration in his mental health.”
For the next four and a half years, Gill supervised Cody and wrote annual reports about his work to Connolly, describing the priest’s problems. “The man is sick,” Gill wrote in a 1965 report. “ … While of superior intellectual capacity, he suffers from emotional states that make him unusable as an assistant.”
In September 1967, the archdiocese reassigned Cody to the Holy Family Parish in Auburn. Within three months, its pastor complained to Connolly about Cody’s “undue familiarity with the sixth and seventh grade girls.”
“His deviant behavior is a danger to the good of souls,” the Rev. John Duffy wrote in the December 1967 letter. “Before the people become involved in this priestly problem I consider it prudent to bring this matter to your attention.”
Nothing in Cody’s file indicates the priest received further mental-health treatment, behavioral monitoring or restrictions on his access to children, the archdiocese’s chancellor acknowledged in a deposition last year.
Six months after Duffy’s letter, the archdiocese moved Cody again — this time to Skagit County, where he would have no on-site supervision whatsoever.
Full story under wraps
From 1968 to 1972, Cody served as pastor of churches in La Conner, Burlington and on the Swinomish Indian Reservation.
Shortly after his arrival in Skagit County, the archdiocese also purchased the isolated rectory where Cody would live — and where he repeatedly abused Hubbard.
Last May, shortly after Hubbard took the witness stand to detail Cody’s abuse, the archdiocese settled her case for $1.2 million.
Before the trial, the archdiocese admitted negligence for “intentionally or recklessly” inflicting severe emotional damages on Hubbard by putting Cody in a position to abuse her. The admission prevented the secret records describing the archdiocese’s role in Cody’s abuse from being seen by a jury.
“I don’t think they wanted the jury to hear the full story, so they had to admit they acted both negligently and outrageously in order to keep out evidence regarding their fault,” Pfau said in a statement posted to his law firm’s website following the settlement.
After Hubbard sued, six more women accused Cody of abusing them as children while the priest served in Skagit County, and three people, including one man, claimed Cody abused them as kids while he served as pastor of Assumption Parish and School in Bellingham from 1972 to 1975. In all, the archdiocese now faces five lawsuits over Cody.
In 1975, after Connolly retired, new Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen brought Cody back to Seattle for an “in residence” assignment at St. Margaret Parish. He also arranged for Cody to be evaluated. Cody took a disability retirement and left Seattle in 1979.
He eventually moved to Florida and in 1988 helped with ministry in the Orlando Diocese. But Hunthausen declined to recommend Cody to that diocese’s leaders, and he paid for Cody to take another psychological evaluation.
During the exam, Cody admitted to victimizing up to 41 children and that he still fantasized about having sex with minors. Evaluators recommended Cody “not be allowed unsupervised contact with children.”
In 1989, Cody petitioned for laicization — or removal from the priesthood. The Catholic Church officially defrocked him in 2005.
Cody moved to Nevada in the 1990s to live with a brother. He volunteered at a national park. When lawyers deposed Cody for Hubbard’s case in 2013, he was still living there. Cody died at the age of 84, sometime after Hubbard’s trial last year.
In January, Cody’s name appeared on the archdiocese’s list of clergy offenders.
Without disclosing his or other offenders’ secret files, Hubbard calls the list meaningless.
“People should know the truth about what the church has done,” she said. “If they have nothing more to hide, then why aren’t they showing us?”
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/times-watchdog/priests-secret-file-details-trail-of-abuse/
"Catholic" Church in Michigan may expand health care to gay couples
Catholic Church in Michigan may expand health care to gay couples
[Michigan Catholic Conference capitulates to the culture of perversion; other dioceses may follow suit, because AmChurch’s National Catholic Bioethics Center has “blessed” the arrangement]
Niraj Warikoo
Detroit Free Press
March 4, 2016
www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2016/03/04/catholic-church-michigan-may-expand-health-care-gay-couples/81336744/
In a move praised by LGBT advocates, the Catholic Church in Michigan is making changes to its health care plan that could allow gays to get health care for their partners or spouses.
In a letter sent this week to pastors and employees of the Catholic Church in Michigan, the Michigan Catholic Conference said it is modifying its health care coverage to include legally domiciled adults (LDA), meaning those who are above 18, have lived with the employee for at least six months and are financially interdependent with the employee.
As long as the person meets those criteria, they will get health care coverage, regardless of their sexual orientation or activity, said a Michigan Catholic Conference official.
The move is being made to comply with changes in federal law, which now allows for same-sex marriage, and also to keep in line with the teachings of the Catholic Church, which opposes same-gender sexual acts and same-gender marriage. The Michigan Catholic Conference, based in Lansing, oversees the health care for Catholic employees in the state. A gay couple would not qualify under the current health insurance’s spousal coverage since the Catholic Church only defines a spouse as someone of the opposite gender.
The letter to employees from the Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC) reads: “Due to recent changes in federal law regarding the provision of health benefits, Michigan Catholic Conference has adopted a modification to MCC benefits to ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations. The inclusion of the LDA (Legally Domiciled Adults) benefit allows for the MCC health plan to be both legally compliant and consistent with Church teaching.”
The letters don’t mention gays or the issue of same-sex relationships, but state that the benefits will apply to anyone who meets the requirement of a legally domiciled adult. The changes effectively mean that someone who is in a sexual relationship with or married to someone of the same gender could get health benefits from the Church. It also would apply to a friend, cousin, sibling or parent who lives with the employee.
The Michigan Catholic Conference indicated that it will not investigate the sexual activities or behaviors of those applying for the new LDA coverage to find out whether someone is in a same-sex relationship.
“The Church’s teaching on marriage and human sexuality is not changing,” said Dave Maluchnik, director of communications for the Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC). “The only reason MCC is making this eligibility modification to its health benefit policy is to be consistent with Catholic teaching on marriage — one man and one woman. Going forward, relationship will not be an evaluative criterion for including another individual (LDA) as a recipient of MCC’s health benefit. And none of this changes Catholic teaching; it complies with federal law, as it is, in 2016. This is the world in which we now live.”
The only other options for the MCC to keep in line with the law as well as Catholic teachings would be to remove all health care coverage or remove spousal coverage, both of which would hurt employees, and so weren’t seen as viable.
The LDA option came about because the legalization of same-sex marriage last year put the views of the federal government in conflict with the Catholic Church.
“As such, sections of the IRS Tax Code, Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act and EEOC regulations all now have an impact upon the provision of health benefits,” Maluchnik said.
Currently, the health insurance plans for Catholic employees include coverage for spouses and children of marriages between one man and one woman, in accordance with Catholic teachings. By including the LDA coverage, the Catholic Church can keep in compliance with federal law, while not explicitly advocating same-sex relations.
For example, a gay employee of the Catholic Church in Michigan who is married to another man might be able to get health care coverage now under the LDA benefit. He would not be eligible to get it under the spousal benefit.
LGBT Catholic advocates praised the move by Catholic leaders in Michigan.
“This is a good step forward,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a group in Maryland near Washington, D.C., which promotes equality and justice for LGBT people in the Catholic Church and society.
However, DeBernardo said the changes stop short of what their group is hoping for, the acceptance of same-sex relations and marriage, which the Church opposes.
“It’s not ideal,” DeBernardo said. “I wish the Catholic Church would recognize they could do this by explicitly supporting same-sex couples.”
The changes by the Catholic Church in Michigan comes as Catholic universities and hospitals also adjust their health care policies. In some cases, there are reports of gay Catholic employees being denied benefits or removed from their positions.
DeBernardo said the move by the Michigan Catholic Conference echoes what happened in 1997 in the Archdiocese in San Francisco, which has a sizable LGBT community. The Archdiocese agreed to add the LDA benefit as a compromise after the city threatened to stop its contracts with them for social services over not including gay partners in their employee health care coverage.
Other dioceses across the U.S. are now considering similar changes, said Maluchnik.
The new LDA benefit might potentially upset some conservatives, but the letter to the pastors says : “The decision was made following an extensive analysis conducted by the National Catholic Bioethics Center and in consultation with attorneys responsible for the legality of the MCC health plan.”
Based in Philadelphia, the bioethics center’s board includes Catholic bishops and is currently chaired by the Archbishop of New Orleans.
Feminism and young Catholic women in the UK
Conversations with young Catholic women— married and single, graduates and professionals, cradle Catholics, and recent coverts— in the UK about feminism, marriage, and modernity.
There’s a serious crisis of Catholic masculinity andfemininity. Today’s men and women are pulled between an ideology which places men and women in hostile competition—the ‘battle of the sexes’—on the one hand, and the newer gender theory which claims sexuality is fluid and changeable, on the other. How are Catholics meant to navigate the world of finding someone to marry, or seeing the value of a life of celibacy? Is it any wonder long-term singleness and later marriage have become normal in Catholic circles?
The decline in men pursuing the priesthood and men and women entering religious life indicates a serious crisis among the Catholic laity from which vocations come. The decline in Catholic marriage reflects the prevailing trends of the secular societies of the Western world. It’s no wonder that Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, Arizona, felt the need to issue a recent apostolic exhortation to men, since many men need to be shown and taught, for the first time, what it means to be a Catholic man. “This crisis is evident,” notes Bishop Olmsted, “in the discouragement and disengagement of Catholic men like you and me.”
We’ve heard quite a bit about the dignity of woman, of motherhood, and the ‘feminine genius’ as Pope John Paul II called it. There is not nearly as much mention of men—no ‘masculine genius’, little or no ‘dignity of manhood and fatherhood’ writings or speeches. The Final Report of the 2015 Synod of Bishops, in a similar way, had much more to say about women, wives, and mothers than it did about men, husbands, and fathers.
I recently spent several weeks talking to a wide variety of young Catholic women here in the UK: married and single, graduates and professionals, cradle Catholics, and recent coverts. As Catholic women in 2016, their lives often straddle two conflicting worldviews and sets of expectations, not least over the issue of feminism and its impact on male-female relationships.
My essential question to these women was a simple one: “Are young Catholic women saying ‘No thanks’ to feminism?” Their answers were revealing, thought-provoking, and counter-cultural.
What does feminism mean?
I met Marie, 27, at a wine bar in central London. She works in the charity sector. I ask what feminism means to her. “I think typical feminists were old, single, frumpy and angry, but that’s changing,” she said. “There’s a new image with actress Emma Watson heading it up. Her ‘He for She’ campaign with the UN is starting a dialogue.
I’ve started to like Germaine Greer a bit too, she’s standing up for women in a movement that is cloudy and post-modern,” she says in reference to Greer’s comments about Bruce (now called “Caitlyn”) Jenner.
Emily, 23, is a graduate working for the family business. We chat over Skype. “Feminism is an ideology that says men and women are equal, but equality doesn’t mean sameness. I mean respect and equality of opportunity,” she explains.
There’s a type of feminism that’s like a religion with lots of rules, calling out people who disagree. Scholar Christiana Hoff Sommers calls them gender feminists. They think patriarchy is bad, and everywhere. They have a victimhood mentality. If you disagree, they say you’ve internalized your oppression—there’s no impartiality.”
But some say that’s real feminism,” I suggest.
“Former feminists wanted equality, legal protection, the right to vote. The new ones think women need privileges because they’re victims,” retorts Emily.
While not advocating special privileges, finance professional, Nicole, 27, tells me that employment schemes are needed to help women progress. “They help put legal changes into practice,” she says.
Later on, at a suburban home filled with children, I meet Zarah, 28, with two of her sisters-in-law. Growing up in a single parent home in Belgium, she was an ardent atheist and radical feminist. She’s now an ardent Catholic, wife, and mother of two. “Feminism started for a good cause, like the right of women to vote, but through the ages it has become what it wasn’t mean to be,” she says.
Her cradle Catholic sister-in-law, Giovanna, 35, continues: “Now it’s militant. Women are seen as superior to men, it’s about women’s power. A lot of extreme stuff has come through to us. We’re living in the aftermath.”
Is feminism compatible with Catholicism?
If today’s feminism is extreme, the straightforward answer is that young Catholic women are saying no to feminism. But things aren’t clear cut; there is, many indicate, a spectrum in what is called “feminism”.
I’m a new wave feminist,” enthuses Emily. “They’re a really fun group, very on point about the culture, uncompromisingly pro-life, pro-woman, and not anti-man. It’s popular among Catholics and those tired of modern feminism.”
Their website says they want to “Take feminism back from those who have corrupted it,” and advocates the “early American feminism of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, which was righteous, virtuous, intelligent and moral.”
(Stanton, who is not as well-known as Anthony, campaigned for liberalized divorce laws, had the word ‘obey’ removed her wedding vows, and blamed Christianity and the Bible for perceived sexism and female subjugation. In 1896 the National American Woman Suffrage Association disavowed itself of Stanton’s The Women’s Bible.)
Like Emily, Marie says she’s a “Catholic new school feminist,” but is wary of labels. “It’s a new feminism, moving on from fourth wave, leaving behind contraception, abortion, and man-hating.”
Gender and international law graduate, Julia, 24, says she’s definitely a feminist. “People think they’re not compatible, because of the Church’s pro-life teachings, but I think they’re pro-woman,” she says. “Being pro-abortion means women can be used for sex. Keeping babies in the picture makes people more respectful, but sexism by men and women is still with us,” she tells me over coffee. For Julia and the others, the word ‘respect’ crops up regularly.
Is ‘Catholic-friendly’ feminism the norm, coupled with long-term career plans, educational achievement, professional qualifications and promotion? Is delayed marriage, fewer children, and a strong sense of independence and preference for one’s freedom for leisure and lifestyle, the preferential option and result?
Yeah, I’d say so,” replies Marie. “I do that myself to a degree.”
Nicole states, “Society teaches you to be independent. To have marriage as a priority from a young age can be foolish. It can leave you unhappier then if you’d stayed single.”
But is it a proactive decision, or chosen in the absence of a much-wanted husband and children?
Chiara is 35. She married at the age of 19, and has five children. “I’m surrounded by Catholic and non-Catholic women in their 20s and 30s. We’ve grown up with the negative effects of feminism, and within them there’s that feminist element, it’s become the norm.
They think like the world does. They think that as women they shouldn’t be at home bearing children, they fight against this mentality. They don’t call themselves feminists, but their mentality is [feminist],” she says.
Are Catholic women finding good Catholic men?
I ask if feminism has affected men. “Absolutely, it’s negatively affected Catholic men, they’re less manly,” says Giovanna. “Women need to let men be men. Small things like letting them pay for a meal or pouring the wine at a dinner makes a difference. When you give them that space, they grow to be a man.
I think men are now more afraid to get laughed at. I feel for them. They lack the courage to ask you out.”
Nicole thinks men do still approach women, “But it’s not done in a very sensitive way, so they get the wrong reaction and don’t do it again.” She recently witnessed a man scolded by a woman for gently offering his seat to her on the train, yet she feels there’s been a loss of chivalry in society.
Marie adds that there are lots of Catholic women who are finding it difficult to find a man to commit to a relationship and marriage. “Men need more love and respect than we’re giving them. We need to let men feel manlier. We’ve suffocated them,” she argues.
Is that due to feminism? Have we trampled on men’s masculinity? It must partly be due to feminism, along with other factors. I find computer games a problem; they’re like a low commitment, low maintenance girlfriend that let men feel manly,” she says.
Other factors could be at work. “The newer type of feminism has coincided with individualism—not being tied to anyone. Women are interested in how they feel and what they want. Feminism has fostered mistrust,” adds Emily. I wonder if feminism has coincided, or has that individualism always been part of it?
I ask Emily if she sees a crisis of Catholic masculinity. “There is some truth to it, like how men approach dating. It’s less masculine and not effective. Lots of Catholic women lament that there aren’t many strong Catholic men. I’m sure that’s not true, men just need to know they can speak up.”
Is male headship a thing of the past?
The ups and downs of dating don’t end on the wedding day. Chiara and Giovanna say that for a wife to allow her husband to be the authority in the family leaves a woman “looking like an idiot, like it’s something that doesn’t belong in the modern world.”
My family and friends in Belgium see me as oppressed under my husband,” says Zarah. She says the situation becomes bad for mothers too. “They become very resentful. They think they can do everything and therefore they want, and have, to do everything.”
Having been to university and aspired to a career, she says she’s happy being a stay-at-home mum who sees great value in the humble work of raising young children.
Chiara also offers a different insight. “My upbringing in Italy was matriarchal. My mother, grandmother and aunt ran the house. The men kept a low profile.
When I married I recognised that my husband had to be the head of our family. I’ve experienced one version of family life, and found myself drawn to the alternative.
Now my mother can see how it works. There’s a natural life within the family that flows with the father being at the head, and the peace and stability that brings.”
I ask if that’s a popular view among Catholic women. “No, no it isn’t,” replies Chiara and Zarah. Giovanna adds that often it’s an economic necessity for mothers to work, but it doesn’t mean they want things that way.
Recent graduate and feminist, Joanne, 22, suggests the traditional roles of homemaker and breadwinner have broken down. “It’s more acceptable to be a stay-at-home father and take paternity leave. No doubt some men will feel short-changed,” she says. That short-changed feeling stings when a marriage breaks down.
Parental separation is a sad fact for many Catholic families. Student Maria, 19, felt appalled at the situation. “Men have been disadvantaged. Look at the number of divorced families where the mother gets full custody, even when the man has done nothing wrong, it’s unbelievable and extremely damaging.” Marie says she strongly rejects feminism, but would be more sympathetic if mainstream feminism wasn’t so obsessed with abortion.
What about the appeal of Islam?
Something I wasn’t expecting during our conversations was the issue of Islam, yet the Catholic women I spoke to spontaneously brought it up on several occasions.
Giovanna says women would love it if men would take more control. “That’s why there’s so many women converting to Islam. Muslim men know what they’re about, they are sure of themselves, they know what they believe.”
Zarah pitches in. “Yeah I agree, my sister in Belgium married a Muslim. She’s not converting, but she is with a Muslim. If you ask her why, it’s the family focus; there is structure. That’s what she liked.”
However, Nicole tells me about a Muslim friend who married a Muslim woman. “He has to do everything around the house, even though he works full-time. She just stays at home. They don’t have children yet. It’s changed his views on women for the worse.”
A 2011 study found that around 5,200 people convert to Islam annually in the UK, three quarters being women. The average age is 27. As of 2011, some 100,000 British people have converted to Islam. Again, three quarters are women. A similar pattern is found in the US.
Julia also had her own experience of Islamic relationships during her charity placement in Sierra Leone. “I saw women treated like fifth class citizens. Many of the women were one of three or four wives, because they were in polygamous Muslim marriages.” Nearly 80 percent of the population is Muslim, with around 40 percent of women in a polygamous marriage. “It made my feminist beliefs stronger,” she says.
Joanne’s perspective was also global. “We’re pretty good in the UK. It’s places like Somalia and Saudi Arabia we should be looking at, they have very deep problems. I’m more interested in what we can do for girls and women in other countries.”
Conclusion
The women I’ve spoken to seem to have reservations about modern feminism, and generally did not see as a path to happiness. Yet, rather than reject all feminism, some are opting for a ‘Catholic-friendly’ version, partly as a tool for speaking with non-religious women about abortion and related issues. These women reject abortion, contraception, and man-hating, and some have a global perspective on the relationship between men and women.
The issue of Islam was a surprising one, and perhaps an indication that the Church needs to consistently and firmly present what she has always taught about the family, the roles of husbands and wives, and the unique nature of the marriage relationship. What seems clear is that the difficult and often confusing relationship between Catholic belief and modern assertions about women will continue to present challenges which affect not only women, but men, children, and society as a whole.
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