St. Mary's Church

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 10, 2024 / 14:20 pm (CNA).

Ethel Kennedy, the wife of the late U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and a mainstay in American politics for decades, died on Thursday at age 96, her family said on Thursday. 

Kennedy passed away in her sleep on Thursday morning due to “complications related to a stroke [she] suffered last week,” according to a statement on behalf of the Kennedy family posted on X by her grandson Joe Kennedy III.

“She was a devout Catholic and a daily communicant,” the statement reads, adding: “We are comforted in knowing she is reunited with the love of her life, our father, Robert F. Kennedy; her children David and Michael; her daughter-in-law Mary; her grandchildren Maeve and Saoirse; and her great-grandchildren Gideon and Josie.”

Born Ethel Skakel on April 11, 1928, Kennedy was the daughter of wealthy Protestant coal magnate George Skakel and his wife, a faithful Catholic, Ann Brannack Skakel. Both of her parents died tragically in a plane accident in 1955, according to the John F. Kennedy Library. 

Kennedy met her future husband, Robert F. Kennedy, at a ski resort in Canada in 1945 when she was 17 years old. The two eventually married in June 1950 at St. Mary Catholic Church in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Deeply interested in politics, Kennedy was a staunch supporter of her husband’s career and also campaigned on behalf of her brother-in-law, John F. Kennedy, during his presidential campaigns. 

Kennedy’s husband, Robert, successfully campaigned for and won a seat in the U.S. Senate representing New York in 1964. He was assassinated on June 6, 1968, less than 24 hours after announcing that he had won two presidential primaries in California and South Dakota.

Ethel Kennedy, who was by Robert’s side as he died, gave birth to their 11th and last child six months later.

Immediately after her husband’s death in 1968, Kennedy founded the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights center, dedicated to continuing his work in the human rights and journalistic spheres. 

She never remarried but instead dedicated the rest of her life to public service, both through the RFK Human Rights center and the Bedford Stuyvesant Restoration Project, a community development organization in Brooklyn, New York. She was a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. 

The center issued a statement after she passed, highlighting her extensive record as a human rights activist as well as her perseverance and strength, which she maintained despite suffering loss throughout her life.

“Few would have blamed her for giving up,” the center wrote. “Yet, she steadfastly raised 11 children alone, instilling in them all a firm sense of faith, empathy, ebullience, and above all, courage.”

Kennedy is survived by nine of her 11 children — including 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — 34 grandchildren, 24 great-grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews. 

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 10, 2024 / 13:50 pm (CNA).

A first-of-its-kind study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that 3.3% of all U.S. high schoolers identify as transgender.

The study, taken in 2023 and published by the CDC this month, also suggests that an additional 2.2% of high schoolers are “questioning” their gender identity, meaning that 5.5% of all U.S. high schoolers consider themselves transgender or are questioning their sex.  

If accurate, the study means that of the nearly 17 million estimated high schoolers in the U.S., more than 550,000 identify as the opposite sex that they were born as, while over 370,000 are questioning their sex.

While the CDC claims the study indicates a need for “gender-affirming care” and greater social acceptance of transgenderism, an expert told CNA that the promotion of gender ideology in schools has already contributed to what has become a “social contagion.” 

‘Social contagion’ and gender ideology

Mary Rice Hasson, an attorney and policy expert who directs the Catholic Person and Identity Project, which is devoted to promoting Catholic teaching on sex and gender, told CNA that the dramatic rise in transgender-identifying youth is “unprecedented.”

Hasson believes the study may undercount the true number of trans-identifying youth in the U.S. She said that “social contagion,” correlated with the widespread use of smartphones and social media, plays a major factor in the rise of transgenderism among youth.

In addition to this, she said public schools in the U.S. are already aggressively promoting gender ideology to children, “telling them that they have the power to self-define their own identity, regardless of sex (male or female) and that if they don’t feel comfortable in their bodies that it’s a ‘sign’ that they are ‘transgender’ and should change their bodies.”

Suicide rates soaring among trans-identifying youth

The study draws on data gathered by the Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), which collected information from a nationally representative group of 20,103 high school students in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. YRBS has been gathering data since 1991.

The 2023 YRBS study presents the first nationally representative estimate of transgender identity among high school students.

According to the study, high school students who identify as transgender also suffer from the highest level of feelings of isolation and poor mental health. The study said that nearly 3 out of 4 — 72% — of those identifying as transgender suffer from persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.

Meanwhile, 1 out of 4 — 26% — of transgender-identifying and questioning high schoolers have attempted suicide within the past year. This is significantly higher than the 5% of boys and 11% of girls who have attempted suicide within the past year.

According to the study, over half — 52.9% — of transgender-identifying students have seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year; this is over double the level of suicidal ideation among girls — 24% — and over four times higher than that of boys — 12.1%.

The study also said that 40% of transgender-identifying students have been bullied at school and 26.4% have skipped school due to feeling unsafe.

Based on this data the CDC concluded that “when schools implement LGBTQ+ supportive policies and practices, all students experience better mental health.”

The researchers behind the study claimed that their findings demonstrate “the need for interventions to create safe and supportive environments for transgender and questioning students.”

“Having supportive families and peers, feeling connected to family and school, having affirmed name and pronouns used consistently by others, and having a sense of pride of identity are protective factors for transgender students that buffer the effects of minority stressors and promote better mental health,” the researchers said.

Skepticism about CDC’s conclusions

Hasson pointed out several problems with the CDC’s conclusion that affirming transgender identity is the solution to the high suicide rate among transgender students.

She said the researchers left out several important questions about youth’s mental health background, ignoring many factors that are important to understanding the true causes of depression and suicide among transgender-identifying youth.

“The YRBS did not cross-reference transgender identification with other important questions, such as the new questions on ‘adverse childhood experiences’ or experiences of forced sex or early sex,” she said. “Other research demonstrates that trans-identified youth suffer high rates of mental health issues that explain their suicidality.”

Instead, Hasson said the study “showed its ideological bias” and “obscured likely reasons why trans-identified students reported greater suicidality and more depression than other students.”

“Although the YRBS is a snapshot in time — it does not show causality — the YRBS report speculated that trans-identified students reported poor mental health because of stigma and feeling ‘unsafe’ at school — and suggested this requires greater efforts by schools to be inclusive,” she said.

What is the Catholic response?

The Catholic Church teaches that there are innate physical, moral, and spiritual differences and complementarity between the sexes male and female.

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the “harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out” (No. 1603).

“By creating the human being man and woman,” the catechism teaches, “God gives personal dignity equally to the one and the other. Each of them, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity” (No. 2393).

Hasson said the study showing the widespread prevalence of transgenderism among the nation’s youth is “a reminder that transgender ideology is a dangerous, evil lie — and too many children have begun to believe it, reinforced by activist teachers, ideologically-driven clinicians, and confused parents.”

In response, she said, “Catholics need to be bold and share the truth about the human person — we are created male or female. And that’s God’s gift to us, something to receive and celebrate, not reject.”

CNA Staff, Oct 10, 2024 / 13:20 pm (CNA).

A Louisiana Catholic diocese is preparing to file for bankruptcy as it moves to settle numerous claims brought against it by victims of sexual abuse.

The Diocese of Alexandria will conduct a “mediated resolution” with abuse victims before filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, diocesan lawyers said in a letter last month. 

In 2019 then-Alexandria Bishop David Talley released a list of 27 priests who had served in the diocese and who had been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The majority of those claims stemmed from allegations of abuse before 1970. 

Additions to the list have ultimately brought the number of credibly accused priests to 32. Talley in 2019 said there had been “no standard response on the part of our past bishops and clergy to the allegations made.” 

It is not clear exactly how many abuse claims have been filed against the diocese. The Sept. 24 letter from the law firm Gold Weems Bruser Sues & Rundell, a copy of which was obtained by CNA, said the diocese has retained Louisiana-based mediator John Perry to oversee mediation “in order to address the claims in a global way and to attempt to provide as much parity as possible among the claimants.”

“The diocese’s goal is to negotiate a global resolution with all claimants which would then be filed as a prearranged Chapter 11 bankruptcy,” the letter said. 

The attorneys wrote that “no detailed agenda has been set,” but “the discussion will include the mediation process, potential insurance coverage, and available diocesan assets,” after which future meetings would be scheduled. 

Adam Horowitz, an attorney representing several claimants against the diocese, told CNA on Thursday that “if this pre-bankruptcy settlement approach is to be successful, the diocese must provide a comprehensive disclosure of its financials and insurance information — just as it would be required to do if the diocese were in bankruptcy court.”  

“Anything short of full transparency will result in an unsuccessful negotiation,” he said.

The letter, meanwhile, expressed hope that “the mediation will resolve all claims without the lengthy delays and huge professional fees incurred as has happened in the Archdiocese of New Orleans’ bankruptcy.” 

The New Orleans Archdiocese has been embroiled in a yearslong bankruptcy process over abuse claims; the archdiocese recently made a $62 million settlement offer to victims, though abuse survivors there are asking for approximately $1 billion in compensation. 

The archdiocese said in September of last year that it would ask “parishes, schools, and ministries” for monetary contributions in order to protect their assets during the archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings.

In 2021 Louisiana passed a “lookback” law allowing victims of abuse a three-year window to file lawsuits addressing abuse that may otherwise have been outside the statute of limitations.

The state Supreme Court upheld that law in June, reversing a decision earlier in the year that struck the law down as unconstitutional.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 10, 2024 / 11:50 am (CNA).

Nearly 150 Catholic hospitals across the United States provided children with transgender drugs or performed gender-transition surgeries on them between 2019 and 2023, contradicting Church teaching and the U.S. bishops’ prohibition on Catholic health care providers offering such interventions, according to data published this week by a medical watchdog group.

In all, more than 520 minors received treatments in Catholic hospitals in about 40 states over the five-year period, an analysis of the data by EWTN News shows.

Of those patients, more than 150 had surgeries to alter their appearances to resemble the opposite sex, while more than 380 children were given puberty blockers or hormone therapies.

Puberty blockers stop a child’s natural developments during puberty and hormone therapies provide testosterone to girls who want to resemble boys and estrogen to boys who want to resemble girls. Based on the records in the database, EWTN News found that doctors at Catholic hospitals wrote more than 1,850 prescriptions for minors to facilitate a gender transition.

Catholic health care providers contacted by EWTN News criticized the watchdog group’s methodology and motives without contradicting any of its specific data.

In 2023, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) published guidelines stating that any attempt to alter one’s physical sex characteristics to facilitate a gender transition is “not morally justified” because it does not “respect the fundamental order of the human person as an intrinsic unity of body and soul, with a body that is sexually differentiated.”

“Catholic health care services must not perform interventions, whether surgical or chemical, that aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex or take part in the development of such procedures,” adds the document prepared by the USCCB’s Committee on Doctrine, titled “Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body.”

The document quotes Pope Francis several times, including his 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia: “Beyond the understandable difficulties which individuals may experience, the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created.”

Yet despite the bishops’ directive, the watchdog group Do No Harm found gender transition interventions to be widespread among U.S. hospitals affiliated with the Catholic Church.

The group’s “Stop the Harm Database” is based on publicly available insurance claims generated by U.S. hospitals and health care facilities. These numbers do not include children who were born with intersex disorders.

Based in Glen Allen, Virginia, Do No Harm states on its website that it “seeks to highlight and counteract divisive trends in medicine, such as “‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ and youth-focused gender ideology.”

Most of the nearly 150 Catholic hospitals listed in the database — including six children’s hospitals — offered only minimal services, such as filling a single prescription, the records show. But 33 Catholic hospitals performed at least one gender transition surgery on a minor for a total of 152 surgeries.

Half of the children who received such surgeries — 76 in all — were patients at five facilities operated by Providence, a nonprofit Catholic health care system encompassing 51 hospitals in five states: Washington, Montana, Oregon, California, and Alaska. Two of the system’s hospitals provided the lion’s share of these surgeries: Providence Milwaukie Hospital in Oregon operated on 46 children, according to the database, while Providence St. Joseph Hospital Orange in California provided surgeries to 18 children.

Six other Catholic hospitals performed gender transition surgeries on at least five minors. This includes eight children who received surgery at St. Anne Hospital in Burien, Washington. St. Anne Hospital is operated by Virginia Mason Franciscan Health, which runs 10 hospitals in Washington state.

Other hospitals that performed several gender transition surgeries, according to the database, include Ascension SE Wisconsin Hospital-St. Joseph Campus in Milwaukee and Ascension NE Wisconsin-St. Elizabeth Campus in Appleton, Wisconsin, both of which performed surgeries on six minors.

Across Catholic, secular, and other hospitals, the database found nearly 14,000 minors undergoing gender transitions in the United States across the time span. This includes more than 5,700 surgeries and more than 8,500 minors receiving puberty blockers or hormone therapies. Doctors wrote more than 62,600 gender transition prescriptions.

Catholic Health Association pushes back

When EWTN News reached out to several Catholic health networks and hospitals that are listed in the report, most referred to a statement issued by the Catholic Health Association (CHA), which criticized Do No Harm.

Comprising more than 600 hospitals and 1,600 long-term care and other health facilities in all 50 states, CHA is the largest group of nonprofit health care providers in the United States, according to its website. The organization has clashed with the U.S. bishops in the past on health care issues, such as the Affordable Care Act.

“A preliminary review of the data gathered by Do No Harm indicates they are irresponsibly presenting claims data without necessary clinical context,” CHA said in its statement. “This harmful report makes dangerous assumptions that seek to disparage health care providers and the patients they treat.”

CHA added that Catholic hospitals provide “ethical, evidence-based medical care that recognizes and upholds the human dignity of each person” and accused Do No Harm of stigmatizing “LGBTQ communities.” It also stated “there are certain procedures we do not perform based on our values and faith.”

CHA did not respond to EWTN News’ request for clarification about which procedures are not in line with its values and whether Catholic hospitals provide transgender surgeries or drugs to minors or adults.

Beth Serio, the external relations manager at Do No Harm, told EWTN News the group stands by its findings, adding that the group has published the methodology so that “anyone could look at our paper and exactly replicate our study and get the same results.”

She said the records in the group’s database represent “the minimum [number of gender transitions] we know occurred in these hospitals.” Because the database could not account for cash payments or insurance claims that are not accessible to the public, she said, “we’re quite confident it’s an undercount.”

Serio expressed disappointment in CHA’s response, telling EWTN: “It is very sad that the Catholic Health Association is choosing to attack [Do No Harm’s] character as an organization rather than focusing on the real issue, [which is that] … thousands of children are being harmed across the country.”

She said the report could be an “opportunity [for CHA] to be an advocate for change” and urged the association to “truly read our methodology and study it and point to exactly where [they think] the methodology is flawed.”

Serio told EWTN News that Do No Harm’s “primary motivation and interest in releasing this database is the protection of children.”

A spokesperson for Providence — the network responsible for half of the transgender surgeries by Catholic hospitals listed in the report — said the health network has “concerns about the motivation for this report and the risk it poses to the privacy of a vulnerable patient population” but could not “speak to the validity of its report content, data, or methodology.”

“Transgender patients come to us for many health care needs,” the statement read. “We are committed to providing them with quality, compassionate health care, and helping them to feel welcome, safe, and included. … [We] provide all patients with the full range of care available at our facilities.”

When asked for clarification about its policies regarding transgender surgeries, a spokesperson referred EWTN News back to Providence’s original statement.

What can the bishops do?

It remains to be seen what, if any, action the USCCB or individual U.S. bishops will take in response to Do No Harm’s report.

In a statement to EWTN News, Chieko Noguchi, a spokesperson for the USCCB, said that Church teaching “is clear … about the inherent dignity of each person as created in the image and likeness of God.”

Noguchi added that “we are always called to accompany those who are struggling, and this certainly includes people who struggle with his or her God-given identity as male or female,” but emphasized that both the bishops and the Holy See “have been clear as to what is morally acceptable.”

“Let us pray that we may all find the compassion and wisdom to better help our brothers and sisters accept who God created them to be,” she added.

EWTN News followed up on the statement to ask what action bishops could take if hospitals violate the USCCB guidelines but did not receive a response by the time of publication. EWTN News also asked CHA whether Catholic hospitals listed in the report intend to follow USCCB guidelines but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, a senior ethicist at The National Catholic Bioethics Center, told EWTN News: “Catholic hospitals clearly must hold to a higher standard than that of their secular counterparts” and they “may not condone or participate in these unethical practices.”

“Reports indicating that Catholic hospitals, including some Catholic children’s hospitals, may be involved in sex reassignment procedures remind us of the need for continued vigilance on the part of diocesan bishops and Catholic health care leaders,” Pacholczyk said.

“There may also be a need for more thoroughgoing ethical formation for employees and administrators to help them counter the pro-transgender ideological messaging that has become commonplace in recent years,” he added.

“To treat our human maleness or femaleness as malleable or re-assignable is to invite serious harm into the lives of those who may be facing genuine and deep-seated psychological struggles over their own ‘gender identity,’” Pacholczyk said. “Catholic health care entities best serve their patients by directing them towards supportive psychotherapy that works to address any underlying psychiatric issues that may be prompting the desire to gender transition.”

The issue of transgender drugs and surgeries for minors has become a heated political topic in the United States and worldwide in recent years.

Most Republican-led states have restricted or banned doctors from providing those medical interventions to minors. Many Democrat-led states have done the opposite — changing state law to ensure doctors can continue with those interventions.

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 10, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

As a record number of Hispanic Americans will be eligible to vote this November, many are asking what impact Latinos — and Latino Catholics in particular — will have on the 2024 election.

Several Hispanic Catholic experts explored this question Monday night at a panel discussion hosted by Georgetown University’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life in Washington, D.C.

Though acknowledging the great diversity in culture and thought among American Hispanic communities, the panelists posited that the overarching values of family, faith, and care for the poor will factor largely into Latinos’ decisions at the ballot box this November.

“We are big on family, family values … We want to be welcoming and be very attentive to the needs of others,” said Lia Garcia, one of the panelists and the director of Hispanic ministry at the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

“We throw big parties, we eat a lot of food,” she added, laughing. “Everybody is invited to our gatherings, so our faith teaches us that we are built to be in communion in relationship with God and in relationship with one another.”

Hispanics don’t fit into a box

Speaking with CNA after the panel, Garcia said that in her work with Hispanic Catholics, she has heard “a lot of anxiety about what is going to happen” and “about who is going to win” the presidency.

She said that many Hispanic voters “feel pinned” between conflicting priorities held by Trump and Harris.

“They feel that they have to choose between the issue of abortion and defending immigrants,” she said. “Latino Catholics are very much for life. You can see that in our big families. But they also have a concern about the immigration issues. Even if immigration doesn’t directly affect them because now they’re documented, but they know someone, they know a family member, they know a colleague … it’s really scary to people how Latinos are portrayed to the rest of the world as criminals.”

Hispanic voters have historically favored Democrats in national and local elections. The panelists noted, however, that Republicans have been faring better with Latinos in recent elections and polls, giving credence to predictions that the Hispanic vote is no longer a monolith.

Recent polling on Hispanics backs up this theory. Newsweek reported this week that while Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris is still leading among Hispanics by a wide margin, 56% to 38%, her lead has shrunk from the 59% Joe Biden held in 2020 and even further from the 66% held by Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Instead of loyalty to a party, panelists said Hispanics appear motivated mostly by their family values and concern for the poor and downtrodden.

Father Agustino Torres, a priest with the New York-based Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, said that in his ministry to young Latinos he has witnessed that Hispanic youth “have this fire” for caring for the downtrodden, especially for poor migrants.

“Sometimes we’re American Catholics rather than Catholic Americans. We allow our politics to inform our faith rather than our faith informing our politics,” Torres said. “But this is the reality: I’m responsible for you and you’re responsible for me. If I see someone falling down on the sidewalk, like, I am obligated because of my baptism, and this is a good thing … This is the Gospel.”

 “When we teach this, they are just like, ‘yes,’ and it unites their worlds, family, faith, outreach,” he said.

To be clear, like most Americans, U.S. Hispanics are most concerned with the economy. EWTN published a poll of U.S. Catholics in September that found that most of the country’s Hispanic Catholics — 56.8% — said the economy (including jobs, inflation, and interest rates) is the most important issue deciding their vote this election cycle.

The next-highest priorities were border security/immigration at 10.5%, abortion at 9.7%, health care at 5.3%, and climate change at 5%.

Yet, according to panelist Santiago Ramos, a Catholic philosopher at the Aspen Institute, even when it comes to their approach to economic issues, Hispanics do not easily fit into the political right or left.

Ramos said Hispanics challenge the “nationalist, right-wing” as well as progressivist categorizations.

“There is a community aspect to our existence, family-oriented, dare I call it socially conservative aspect to our existence that doesn’t always mesh with mainstream liberal institutions,” he explained. “So, there are all sorts of ways that we pop up in American politics and force people to see things they don’t want to see.”

Among new voters, Hispanics loom large

Aleja Hertzler-McCain, a reporter on Latino faith and American Catholicism for Religion News Service, pointed out that half of the new voters who have become eligible to vote since 2020 are Hispanic.

According to the Pew Research Center, there will be 36.2 million eligible Hispanic voters this year, up almost 4 million from 2020. While noting that U.S. Hispanics historically have low voter turnout, Hertzler said the sheer volume of new Hispanic voters could have a “big impact” on the election.

Whatever the outcome of the election, Garcia said she is “really excited” to see the Hispanic community have its voice heard in the democratic process.

“I can’t wait to see that. I’m really excited about the election for that particular reason,” she said.

“The beauty of our culture,” Garcia went on, “is we can draw from our own experiences growing up with big families, big celebrations, and also with our faith that draws us to relationship with one another. And I think that is where we can sense how [concern for] the common good is not only something that comes from God but comes from our culture as well.”

Con motivo del Día Mundial contra la Pena de Muerte, que se celebra este 10 de octubre, recordamos algunas de las ocasiones en las que el Papa Francisco ha condenado esta “inadmisible” pena.

El arzobispo brasileño Jaime Spengler OFM, uno de los 21 elegidos por el Papa Francisco para convertirse en cardenal el 8 de diciembre, instó a la “apertura” a la idea de sacerdotes casados para servir a comunidades con escasez de presbíteros.

Cada 10 de octubre la Iglesia Católica celebra a San Daniel Comboni (1831-1881), misionero y fundador de la “Compañía Hijos del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús”, instituto que adoptaría más tarde el nombre de “Misioneros Combonianos del Corazón de Jesús” en honor a su fundador.

Dado que un número récord de hispanoamericanos serán elegibles para votar este noviembre, muchos se preguntan qué impacto tendrán los latinos, y los católicos latinos en particular, en las elecciones de 2024 en Estados Unidos.

El Papa Francisco invitó a rezar el Rosario por la paz en el mundo y la unidad de la Iglesia cada día durante el mes de octubre.