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CNA Staff, May 7, 2020 / 11:50 am (CNA).- Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend said Thursday that the alleged visions and revelations known as “Our Lady of America” cannot be said to be of supernatural origin, and that public devotion to “Our Lady of America” is not permitted for Catholics.

Sister Mary Ephrem Neuzil of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Most Precious Blood of Jesus began having what seemed like mystical experiences, including inner locutions and visions of the spirit, around 1938. She revealed these to her confessor in 1948, and they became a devotion to Mary as “Our Lady of America” in 1954.

Sr. Neuzil said the Blessed Virgin began appearing to her in 1956 in Rome City, Ind., about 40 miles northwest of Fort Wayne.

The alleged visions and messages from Mary and from St. Joseph continued through 1959, in a number of locations. After 1959, she said Our Lady communicated with her primarily by locutions, until her death in 2000.

Bishop Rhoades agreed in 2017 to conduct an investigation into the alleged apparitions. The bishop issued to other U.S. bishops a statement May 7 on the investigation, which was obtained by CNA, along with a July 2019 decree on the matter.

In the statement, Rhoades said that Sr. Neuzil “was honest, morally upright, psychologically balanced, devoted to religious life and without guile.” He added that she had “signs of imperfection, but no evidence that she was the perpetrator of a hoax or the victim of delusion.”

“What she communicated about her alleged experiences, she believed to be true, and her communication of those experiences are filled with humility and forthrightness,” he added.

The bishop noted there are numerous reports of conversions, spiritual refreshments and consolations, and even some physical healings related to the alleged apparition. He added, though, that “we cannot conclude that any of these events are conclusive enough to warrant certification as miracles. It seems likely that in such personal contexts of faith and prayer, God's graces were received.”

While “much of what is expressed” in the alleged revelations “does not contain any doctrinal error,” Bishop Rhoades wrote that there is a claim of St. Joseph as “'co-redeemer' with Christ for the salvation of the world … which has never been expressed as Catholic doctrine and must be seen as an error.”

He reported that Sr. Neuzil's spiritual director, Archbishop Paul Leibold, wrote in 1970 that he was unable to make a judgement on the supernatural nature of her visions, and that while he had helped her in promoting them as a “private devotion,” he had never acted “to promote her devotion publicly.”

“Looking at the nature and quality of the experiences themselves, we find that they are more to be described as subjective inner religious experiences rather than objective external visions and revelations,” Bishop Rhoades wrote.

“Thus, while it may be said that there is possibly an authenticity to Sister Neuzil's subjective religious experience, we do not find evidence pointing to her experience as being in the category of objective private revelation.”

The bishop and his investigatory commission found that “her experiences were of a type where her own imagination and intellect were involved in the formation of the events. It seems that these were authentically graced moments, even perhaps of a spiritual quality beyond what most people experience, but subjective ones in which her own imagination and intellect were constitutively engaged, putting form to inner spiritual movements. However, we do not find evidence that these were objective visions and revelations of the type seen at Guadalupe, Fatima and Lourdes.”

Bishop Rhoades' judgement was issued in the July 29, 2019 decree, which was signed also by Fr. Mark Gurtner, then-chancellor of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.

The five other bishops where the purported visions were said to have occurred – Archbishop Dennis Schnurr of Cincinnati, Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit, Bishop Timothy Doherty of Lafayette in Indiana, Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix, and Bishop Daneil Thomas of Toledo in Ohio – each concur with Bishop Rhoades' findings and conclusions.

The six bishops had in 2017 asked the US bishops' conference to investigate the alleged apparitions, considering that inquiries were being received about the alleged apparition and its purported request for a procession of the nation's bishops and that a statue of Our Lady of America be placed in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith advised that it be conducted by one of the bishops, and Bishop Rhoades agreed to do so.

He received documentation of Sr. Neuzil's correspondence the following year, and he conducted the evaluation with a commission of theological and canonical experts. They also gathered personal interviews with witnesses who knew Sr. Neuzil.

The procedure for the investigation was carried out in accordance with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's 1978 "Norms regarding the manner of proceeding in the discernment of presumed apparitions or revelations."

Some bishops have permitted the public display of statues of Our Lady of America, and then-Msgr. Liebold had given an imprimatur to a prayer attached to the devotion in 1963.

The six bishops wrote May 7 that “given this history of prayers and religious articles being given approval by competent ecclesiastical authority, the use of such prayers religious articles may continue as a matter of private devotion, but not as a public devotion of the Church.”

“Indeed, such private devotion would be consistent with the history of the United States of America being dedicated to Our Lady,” they added.

However, “such private devotion should in no way imply approval or acceptance of purported revelations, visions, or locutions attributed to Sister Mary Ephrem (Mildred) Neuzil other than as her own subjective inner religious experiences.”

A spokesperson for the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend told CNA that “the conclusion of Bishop Rhoades and the other five bishops pertains to the entire Church. The same would have been true if the decision were in the affirmative.”

 

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 7, 2020 / 02:40 pm (CNA).- The governor of Illinois has said he will continue to ban public gatherings of more than 50 people—including religious services—until a vaccine or treatment for coronavirus is available.

The announcement comes as the White House is reported to have shelved guidance from the Centers for Disease Control on gradually reopening sections of the American economy and society.

Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday that gatherings of more than 50 people in the state would not be allowed until a coronavirus vaccine “or highly effective treatment” is “widely available.”

Public health officials, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, have cautioned that a COVID-19 vaccine is at least 12 to 18 months from being developed and made available.

According to Pritzker’s five-part plan for reopening the state, gatherings of ten or fewer people are not even allowed until phase 3, the “recovery” phase that can begin, at earliest, May 29. However, following a lawsuit last week, the governor has allowed citizens to leave their homes for religious services as long as ten or fewer people are gathered for worship.

Previously, religious services of any kind in the state—including drive-in and in-person services—were curtailed during the pandemic, and even other forms of sacramental practice such as drive-in confessions were not allowed.

The Archdiocese of Chicago announced on May 1 that public Masses with 10 or fewer people would resume.

Other dioceses across the United States have already begun rolling back total suspensions on the public celebration of Mass. 

Last week, CNA reported that the White House Domestic Policy Council held a series of conference calls with bishops who had begun the process of reopening churches in line with local public health orders.

During the calls, administration officials expressed their hope to be able to support faith communities with “sensitive and respectful guidance” to help restore public worship “as soon as it is feasible.”

The bishops were told that the Centers for Disease Control hoped that issuing guidance could help inform state and local leaders about the “essential” nature of religious practice, while still allowing for localized responses to the coronavirus and provide “helpful parameters” for state and local governments who are trying to safeguard public health. But, on Thursday, AP reported that the Trump administration had shelved a 17-page report titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework.”

That document included a section on “Interim Guidance for Communities of Faith.”

According to AP, CDC officials expected the guidance to be released at the end of last week but were instead told it “would never see the light of day.” 

Peter Breen, executive director of the Thomas More Society,  told CNA that “policymakers that are making plans based on the development of a vaccine or other cure to this coronavirus are engaging in magical thinking.”

“While there is always a possibility that some miracle cure may emerge, that is entirely uncertain and should not be the basis for setting policy, especially policy in relation to our communities of faith,” Breen stated.

On April 30, the Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit on behalf of The Beloved Church in Lena, Illinois, and by that night, attorney Peter Breen told CNA, a paragraph had been added to an executive order of Pritzker’s allowing for people to leave their home for religious services.

“He [Pritzker] has at least brought churches out of the abyss of ‘non-essential,’ but he has not fully elevated them to the heights of being an ‘essential’ business or operation,” Breen told CNA on Wednesday, noting that businesses deemed “essential” to remain open were not subject to the 10-person rule.

Denver Newsroom, May 7, 2020 / 03:48 pm (CNA).- For the first time in over a century, the annual May 13 celebrations at the Fatima shrine will take place without the physical presence of pilgrims, the bishop of Fatima confirmed this week.

Cardinal Antonio Marto said in a May 3 statement that the celebrations for the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima “will take place as was announced April 6, without the physical presence of pilgrims, in the name of prudence to avoid the risk of spreading the novel coronavirus.”

“As planned in conjunction with the civil authorities, the May 12 and 13 celebrations for this year cannot have the physical presence of the pilgrims and will be transmitted by broadcast and digital media,” he continued.

The cardinal explained that hosting “an unpredictable multitude of people” gathering at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is still a serious threat would go against the efforts of health authorities to gradually lift restrictions imposed to slow the spread of the virus.

“We therefore respect, in an attitude of collaboration with the competent civil authorities, the guidelines for these celebrations to be held with a symbolic presence of participants,” Marto said.

The clarification over the Fatima feast day came as the Portuguese government gradually begins to ease restrictions that had been put in place in response to the pandemic, prompting speculation over whether the May 13 celebrations would be able to take place as normal. The annual event typically draws hundreds of thousands from around the world to the shrine.

The Portuguese Bishops’ Conference had announced earlier this month that public Masses could tentatively resume the weekend of Pentecost, May 30-31, in accordance with guidelines to be established by the country’s health department and the Catholic Church.

Cardinal Marto stressed that the decision to suspend public religious celebrations was based in a sense of responsibility toward the public health, as a way of loving one’s neighbor.

“[A]s much as our hearts would like to be in Fatima celebrating together in the same place, as has been the case since 1917, prudence counsels us not to do so this time,” he said, adding that Catholics can look forward to an end to the pandemic and an opportunity to gather together joyfully in the future.

Fr. Carlos Cabecinhas, rector of the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima, encouraged pilgrims who are unable to physically attend the events to make an interior pilgrimage, participating in the events of the Solemnity of Our Lady of Fatima through the internet or social media.

“This is a painful time: the shrine exists to welcome the pilgrims and we cannot do so, this is a cause for great sadness; but this decision is also an act of responsibility toward the pilgrims, protecting their health and welfare,” the priest said.

The shrine’s website offers four steps to guide people on this interior pilgrimage.

According to the website, “the celebrations of May 12 and 13 will maintain the usual schedule with recitation of the Rosary at 9:30 p.m. followed by the Candlelight Procession. On the 13th the Rosary will be prayed at 9:00 a.m. followed by the International Mass and the Farewell Procession.”

In March, 24 countries were consecrated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.

At that ceremony, Cardinal Marto recalled that Saints Francisco and Jacinto Marto, shepherd children to whom an angel, and then the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in 1916 and 1917 at Fatima, both died amid the victims of the Spanish flu pandemic.

To date, Johns Hopkins University has reported 26,182 cases of novel coronavirus in Portugal, with 1089 deaths.

 

Denver Newsroom, May 7, 2020 / 05:29 pm (CNA).- A Notre Dame sociologist is using data to challenge a Harvard Law professor’s assertions that homeschooling is “dangerous”, and detrimental to society.

The controversy stems from a recent paper by professor Elizabeth Bartholet in which she calls for a presumptive ban on homeschooling in the United States.

Bartholet, as quoted in a Harvard Magazine piece based on her paper, points to unspecified “surveys of homeschoolers” to assert that “up to 90 percent” of homeschooling families are “driven by conservative Christian beliefs, and seek to remove their children from mainstream culture.”

“Some” homeschooling parents are “‘extreme religious ideologues’ who question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy,” she writes.

David Sikkink, associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame, analyzed surveys of homeschooling families— including a 2016 government survey—  and found that these families are not overwhelmingly Christian nor religious, and are not as universally closed-off to the outside world as Bartholet asserts.

In the analysis Sikkink conducted, just 16% of homeschooling parents said they were homeschooling primarily for religious reasons. The number one reason homeschooling parents cited was a concern about school environment, such as safety, drugs, or negative peer pressure.

Eleven percent of parents reported homeschooling because their child has special needs.

While approximately half of the homeschooling parents surveyed mentioned religion as a factor in their decision to homeschool, Sikkink notes that the parents who cited religion as a reason were, on the whole, more highly educated than those parents who did not.

In terms of Bartholet’s assertion that some homeschooling parents “believe that women should be totally subservient to men and educated in ways that promote such subservience,” Sikkink’s analysis did not find evidence that religious households oppose higher education for girls.

Among the homeschooling families in the survey who use a religious curriculum, there was no difference in their self-reported educational expectations— i.e., what education level they expected their children to reach—  for their male children vs. their female children.

Several past studies have shown that homeschool students typically outperform their public and private school counterparts on things like standardized tests and college performance. A 2016 study from the National Council on Measurement in Education showed that, when adjusted for demographic factors, homeschool students were on par academically with their demographically-similar peers.

Moreover, the data Sikkink analyzed suggests that after family background and demographic controls are accounted for, about 64% of homeschoolers “completely agree” that they have much in life to be thankful for, compared to 53% of public schoolers.

On feelings of helplessness, or lack or goals or direction in life, homeschoolers do not substantially differ from their public school counterparts, the analysis suggests.

In the Arizona Law Review, Bartholet argues that while homeschool children may perform as well as their peers on standardized tests or in college, they are also often isolated from their peers and denied experiences and exposures that would make them more productive citizens.

Bartholet claims in her article that “a very large proportion of homeschooling parents are ideologically committed to isolating their children from the majority culture and indoctrinating them in views and values that are in serious conflict with that culture.”

“Isolated families,” she asserts, “constitute a significant part of the homeschooling world.”

In contrast, Sikkink’s analysis found that among the schooling groups surveyed, homeschooling families had the highest level of “community involvement” of all school sectors.

“Community involvement” activities included attending sporting events, attending concerts, going to the zoo or aquarium, going to a museum, going to a library, visiting a bookstore, or attending an event sponsored by a community, religious, or ethnic group.

Homeschooling graduates are almost identical to their public school counterparts in likelihood to vote in federal and local elections, Sikkink found.

Furthermore, the total number of volunteer and community service hours for homeschooling graduates is very similar to or slightly higher than public school graduates, the analysis found.

Bartholet asserts that some homeschoolers “engage in homeschooling to promote racist ideologies and avoid racial intermingling.”

In contrast: “The reality is that about 41% of homeschooled children are racial and ethnic minorities,” Sikkink writes.

“When asked about four closest friends, about 37% of young adult homeschoolers...mention someone of a different race or ethnicity—exactly the same as public schoolers.”

This diversity also extends to schooling practices— increasingly, Sikkink says, homeschooling adopts new forms, including “hybrids” that combine the benefits of home and institutional schooling.

“About 57 percent of homeschoolers are using some form of instruction outside the family,” Sikkink told CNA in an email.

“That includes using tutors, private or public schools, colleges or universities, or homeschooling coops. That percentage would be higher if we included those who reported obtaining curriculum from formal institutions, such as public schools.”

Moreover, about a third of homeschooling parents obtain their curriculum or books from a public school or school district.

“Altogether, 46% of homeschoolers have some pedagogical relationship with public schools,” Sikkink asserts.

Bartholet argues that homeschooling puts children at risk of abuse by their parents, while if children were in public schools, they would be among teachers who are mandatory reporters of any suspected abuse that may be taking place.

“The issue is, do we think that parents should have 24/7, essentially authoritarian control over their children from ages zero to 18? I think that’s dangerous,” Bartholet asserts in the Harvard Magazine piece.

“I think it’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and to give the powerful ones total authority.”

Sikkink says Bartholet’s image of a child confined to the home “24/7...from ages zero to 18” is not consistent with the data.

“When we look at the use of homeschooling for each year of the child's upbringing, we only find a small percentage that report that the child was homeschooled for all their years of schooling,” Sikkink told CNA in an email.

Many of these students are part-time public schoolers— about 25% of homeschoolers receive some instruction in public schools during their school-age careers, he wrote.

Homeschooling regulations vary widely by state. Sikkink told CNA he hopes future studies will examine the effects of state-level variation in regulation on homeschooling quality.

“The question of schooling oversight remains, of course, but it would be short-sighted not to keep homeschooling and other creative schooling options in the mix, including the hybrid models that cross sector boundaries,” Sikkink concludes.

 

Subsequent to the publication of this story, Sikkink told CNA he had revised his assessment of the percentage of homeschoolers using instruction outside the family, from 64% to 57%. The story has been updated to reflect that assessment.

Denver Newsroom, May 7, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- A young Catholic artist has drawn an image of the Blessed Virgin Mary on her parents' driveway bringing religious art to her local community during the quarantine.

The Diocese of Fargo posted on Facebook May 4 an image of Our Lady of Lourdes drawn by Maria Loh, a 17-year old who grew up in Fargo. She said it was an enjoyable experience to share her faith and art with her neighborhood.

“Being able to interact with people when they walked by was very moving in a way because a lot of people have never really seen sidewalk art done like that locally. So being able to share in that kind of experience, it was very, very good,” she told CNA.

Loh has recently been inspired by chalk art and pastels, which, she said, have vibrant and beautiful colors. She has drawn on the sidewalks a few times, including two images of Mary - Madonna of the Lillies and the Pieta by William Adolphe-Bouguereau.

Her most recent chalk drawing was Our Lady of Lourdes by Hector Garrido - an image she had seen as a magnet on her grandparents' refrigerator growing up. The picture has always been an inspiration, she said, noting that she decided to replicate it after Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine in France had temporarily closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“I heard that the shrine had been temporarily closed off to the public, and I remember … thinking that's really sad because especially in this time, we’re really looking for healing in more ways than one, like physically and mentally and spiritually,” she said.

“It really felt like people wouldn't be able to go to experience that. So I felt like drawing this image of Our Lady of Lourdes would be a good way to remind people that Our Lady is still with us even if we can’t go to her shrine.”

Loh, the oldest of five, has been involved with art projects and drawing for her entire life. She said, growing up in a Catholic family, she has been inspired by her faith and the religious art in churches.

“I see our faith as so precious... Especially in the form of the Eucharist - the actual body and blood of Christ, I've seen that we are very blessed to have that in our faith. It's something that has impacted a lot of my life growing up,” she said.

While she was working on the piece, Loh said, a majority of passersby did not know who the lady in the image was. She expressed hope that the picture would help remind people of Mary and the beauty of the Church, which, she said, is a powerful attraction to the faith.

“One thing that I hope this kind of art and image will evoke is a desire to come to know who Mary is and how rich our faith is. … All the beautiful art that can be seen in Catholic churches, especially like in Rome, there's almost a transcendental beauty to them that draws people into the faith to come to know things that they've never dreamed of before,” she said.

As Loh finishes her junior year of high school, she expressed the possibility of art school after graduation, but, while she is still uncertain of the future, said art will not be dropped anytime soon.

“I can definitely see [art school] being a possibility. I’ll have to spend some time, especially with God trying to figure out what he wants me to do. But, I don't think art is going out of my life anytime soon,” she said.

Denver Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 02:59 am (CNA).- On Sunday, March 15, Nebraskans in the Diocese of Lincoln still had a choice of whether or not they wanted to attend Mass and risk possible exposure to coronavirus.

By the next day, they didn’t. Public Masses in the diocese were canceled, as they soon were throughout the country due to the pandemic.

Now that curves of infection are “flattening” and hospitals have had a chance to ramp up their capacity and supplies, many dioceses, including Lincoln, are slowly reopening Masses to the public. What exactly that will look like varies a lot depending on each parish's unique spaces and limitations. 

Archbishop George Lucas, currently serving as acting bishop of Lincoln, has followed guidelines from Governor Pete Ricketts in issuing some general guidance for re-starting public Masses. Ultimately, however, he left the decision to reopen up to each individual parish.

One place that has been offering public Masses as of Monday, May 4, is St. Wenceslaus parish in Wahoo, Nebraska, a town of 4,500 people located in the Diocese of Lincoln.

Fr. Joseph Faulkner, the pastor of St. Wenceslaus in Wahoo, said he decided to reopen public Masses at his parish after meeting virtually with the other priests in his area. The Masses, of course, will look quite different than normal - with limited capacity, social distancing, and precautions like no holy water, no hymnals, and no sign of peace.

And in many ways, Faulkner said he is encouraging his parishioners to act like it’s the weekend of March 14-15 again.

“From the get-go, we're telling people - you need to make a decision. I even put in my message (to parishioners), think back to - it's March 14th and you're trying to make a decision. Whatever decision you made then is probably still the right decision. If you need to be extra careful for yourself, for your family, for your parents, for your coworkers, for your patients you see in the nursing home, stay away,” he said.

Parishes in the cities of Lincoln and Omaha decided to wait to reopen, Faulkner said. Lincoln has a re-opening date of May 11 for non-essential businesses, and the size of Omaha parishes made re-opening at this point very difficult. Although Wahoo sees a lot of traffic from Lincoln and Omaha and other surrounding towns, Faulkner said he thought he could use appropriate precautions to make reopening safe at his parish.

“St. Wenceslaus specifically is lucky. We've got a nice big basement, so that gets you another 30%-40% seating room. We've got three priests, which is really lucky. So from five weekend Masses, we're going up to eight, so we can do more to spread our people out.”

Faulkner said he has even offered to other parishes with just one priest that he can send someone to help them out if they are offering extra Masses for social distancing and are feeling burned out.

For attendance and seating, Faulkner said he is blocking off every other pew and is going to stagger families in order to maintain six feet of distance. Instead of having people call or sign up online, Faulkner said he is hoping that the extra Mass times, the use of the basement space, as well as the people who choose to stay home, will be enough to maintain an appropriately staggered congregation.

Faulkner said he has been grateful to have public weekday Masses before the weekend to work out some of the kinks of the new restrictions. For example, he’s still working on his communion line protocol, he said. He tried a method using the side aisles and then the center aisle at his first Mass on May 4th, and “it was horrible. So I'm going to fix that tomorrow.”

Masks during communion have also been tricky.

“It's really hard to say Mass with a mask on, and then I have to make my Communion, I have to receive,” Faulkner said. The priests were donated some N95 masks, which Faulkner tried to use on Monday, but the straps made it hard to quickly receive communion and readjust the mask without touching his face or his glasses, he said, so he’s hoping to find a different kind of mask by the weekend.

From his parishioners, Faulkner said he has seen a variety of attitudes toward the closing, and now re-opening, of public Masses.

“There's really three camps,” he said. “There's the, yes, amen, be safe, meditate-on-the-saints-who-didn't-have-the-Eucharist-for-years group.”

“Then there's definitely the middle group, which is like, I don't want to take any risks, but I want the first available ‘okay’ to go to Mass,” he said.

“And then there's the, ‘I'm 85. If I die because I went to Mass, thank God’ crowd. Literally the people who are most cavalier are the older ones,” Faulkner said.

A bishop’s perspective: Oklahoma

Archbishop Paul Coakley, the bishop of Oklahoma City, told CNA that Catholic parishes throughout the state will start celebrating public Masses again on May 18th, with their first public weekend Masses on May 23-24, the Feast of the Ascension.

In a May 7 letter to Oklahoma Catholics posted on the archdiocese’s website, Coakley recognized that while the past two months without Mass have been a painful time for many, God never abandoned his people.

“The gift of the Holy Spirit assures us of God's continued presence in our lives. No matter the circumstance, he is with us. Perhaps the greatest sacrifice for the lay faithful these past few months has been fasting from Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity given to us in his real presence in the Eucharist. We pray that in this time of Eucharistic fasting, God has graced you with a profound hunger for this communion with Jesus and the members of his Body, the Church,” he stated.
 
The timing of reopening public Masses was chosen just before the feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost “to remind us of God’s faithfulness and to prepare to celebrate the birth of our beloved Church on Pentecost,” he added.

The decision was reached through consultations with Bishop David Konderla of Tulsa, priest councils in the state, and medical experts, “including a prominent infectious disease specialist,” Coakley said.

“It won't be business as usual,” he said.  “We will be celebrating public Mass and people will be able to come and they will be able to receive Holy communion, but the churches won't be full. In fact, we're limiting it to 33% of the occupancy capacity,” he noted.

“We've been very cautious watching the numbers and putting in place pretty strict guidelines to ensure that we were able to maintain social distances and practice the appropriate kind of hygiene,” he added.

A five page document released by the state’s Catholic dioceses details the exact guidelines, such as including 6-foot social distancing between pews, the recommendation that all attendees wear masks, and the recommendation that priests have plenty of hand sanitizer readily available throughout the church.

Coakley said the document offers guidelines for pastors while still giving them the flexibility to implement the recommendations and requirements in the way that works best for their unique parishes.

“If the church fills beyond capacity, we’re asking them to consider using other space in the parish, perhaps the parish hall, to be able to put overflow crowds and continuing to social distance properly, parking lots, things of that sort,” he said. “We're going to have to rely upon the creativity of our pastors and they have been demonstrating a great deal of creativity up to now, so I'm sure they'll continue to do so.”

Coakley said he is asking priests to also continue offering livestream Masses for people who will choose not to come to the public Masses at this time. He noted in his May 7 message that the dispensation from the Sunday obligation still stands for all Oklahoma Catholics at this time.

“We are dealing with an invisible threat to people’s lives, a virus that our brightest doctors and scientists are still figuring out. The ever-present temptation in our American culture is to want solutions immediately and to act quickly, because we want what we want, and we want it now. As a Church, we must proceed more deliberatively,” he said.

Coakley told CNA that while he understands Catholics’ fear, anger and frustration during these past two months of suspended Masses, he also encouraged them to think of their time away as a way of serving others.

“We’re really living through a health crisis, a time of severe challenges, and it's impacting us in so many ways economically, and in terms of social isolation, loneliness, the liturgy also. But I think we need to think beyond individual rights and consider also our responsibilities toward one another, especially the responsibility to love and serve one another, to be mindful of one another's needs.”

Wichita, Kansas

On May 3, Bishop Carl Kemme of the Diocese of Wichita announced plans to reopen public Masses starting on Wednesday, May 6, following recommendations of the county’s local public health authorities.

Phase one of the guidelines will last until May 20, and they stipulate that parishes may hold Masses at no more than 33% capacity. Churches will use only one entrance, so that the number of people coming may be properly counted and seated, and six foot spacing should be clearly marked so that people can maintain social distance.

Mass attendees are encouraged to wear masks, and priests are required to wear them while distributing communion. Parishes are also encouraged to keep hand sanitizer available at entrances, and parishioners are “strongly encouraged” to receive communion in the hand.

Fr. Clay Kimbro is the parochial vicar at St. Anne’s parish in Wichita. Kimbro said he and the other priests of the diocese have been having weekly virtual talks with the bishop about when to re-open Masses and what that might look like, and so priests were able to give feedback as to what guidelines they thought would work well.

At St. Anne’s, which has 1,200 families, Kimbro and his leadership team have been meeting and working on logistical things, like roping off every other pew so that Mass attendees can maintain proper distancing.

He said he has also had extra meetings with his ushers, who on the weekends will “seat everyone so that they can make sure that the distance is maintained. That's a lot more responsibility than our ushers are normally given.”

Kimbro said the parish is not having parishioners sign up for Masses online. Instead, if more people show up than the allowed 33%, the overflow congregation will be directed to the school’s auditorium, where a second priest - either Kimbro or his pastor - will celebrate a concurrent Mass, also with social distancing protocols in place.

“We were a little leery of (adding Mass times), because when you add Mass times, it's hard to take them back,” Kimbro said. “Also, it's hard to turn people away. They come to the door at 10 a.m. for Mass, and we say, ‘Come back at 1:00 p.m.’ Well, it's a lot easier to say, ‘Go over to the auditorium.’”

Kimbro said the parish is working on decorating the auditorium to make it an appropriate place to have Mass, and they are also putting down tape lines to direct traffic and to mark distances.

“There's a lot of work in planning, and it can be a little overwhelming, but we're overall just really excited to see people again,” he said.

St. Anne’s parishioners have been “all over the map” in terms of their eagerness to return to Mass at this time, Kimbro said. Some have been signing up to read at Mass, or to usher or distribute communion, because they miss Mass so much and they want to be involved.

Others are a bit more anxious, Kimbro said, and he has encouraged those people to attend weekday Masses, where there are likely to be fewer people.

He also added that the Sunday obligation continues to be dispensed for everyone, as Bishop Kemme made clear in his May 3 announcement.

“I do want to emphasize that the current pandemic is far from over. Medical experts tell us that this health crisis remains a very serious threat to the lives of many people,” Kemme stated.

“Because of this, I want to urge all those in the high risk population and others who so choose to continue to use the general dispensation I am giving from the obligation to attend the Sunday celebration of the Mass, which continues indefinitely during this crisis. Please do not put yourself or others at risk by attending the Masses once they resume. This is my urgent appeal to all in our Catholic Community: use extraordinary caution and good judgment in determining if you should attend Mass. No mortal sin is committed if you decide that you and your family should not attend.”

Kimbro said that he is looking forward to having parishioners come back to Mass, even though it might not be the triumphant return that some may have envisioned just yet, with everyone packing in the pews like normal.

“I think everybody was hoping it would kind of be like this post-9/11 experience, where churches are packed and everybody recognizes that need (for God), but we're tempering that, and it's kind of like everything in this virus, right? Our expectations versus our reality - having to live in the reality of the moment and what we're given and just go with that,” he said. 

“But then I looked at the Gospel for this Sunday that we're back, and the first line is: ‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’ So that's perfect.”

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, said that the Church must return to “normal life” after the governor announced plans to ban large gatherings until a COVID-19 vaccine or treatment is available.

Earlier in the week, the state’s Governor JB Pritzker unveiled a five-phase “Restore Illinois” plan that bans gatherings of more than 50 people until a vaccine or treatment is available, or the virus has stopped spreading for a sustained period of time. Health officials have said that a vaccine for the new coronavirus (COVID-19) might not be available for 12 to 18 months. 

Currently, people in the state are allowed to attend religious services of 10 or fewer people, but no gatherings of more than 10 people are permitted until phase 4 of Pritzker’s plan, and the state wouldn’t even be able to “advance” to phase 3 until May 29.

“The Church has certainly done her part in making great sacrifices to slow the spread of this virus,” Andrew Hansen, director of communications for the diocese of Springfield, Illinois, told CNA on Friday.

“That said, the Church must return to her normal life of liturgy and communal worship,” Hansen said, while emphasizing precautions such as social distancing “will likely be the appropriate path longer term for the return to some version of normalcy for the Church.”

Previously, in-person or drive-in religious services were banned in the state. The Thomas More Society filed a lawsuit on behalf of a church in Lena, Ill., on April 30. Later that evening a paragraph was added to the governor’s executive order allowing for people to leave their homes to attend religious services of ten or fewer people, the society’s president Peter Breen told CNA.

The next day, May 1, the archdiocese of Chicago announced it would be resuming public Masses with 10 or fewer people.

According to the “Restore Illinois” plan, there could not be any gathering of between 11 and 50 people in size until phase 4 of the plan—“Revitalization.”

That phase can start only when certain conditions have been met: the positivity rate of COVID tests is at or under 20% and doesn’t rise by more than 10 points over 14 days; hospital admissions don’t increase for 28 days; and hospitals have at least 14% “surge capacity” in ICU beds, medical and surgical beds, and ventilators.

Pitzker clarified in a Wednesday press conference that religious services would be part of this 50-person limit in phase 4, and schools would not be allowed to reopen until then, raising questions of how tuition-dependent Catholic schools might fare in the fall if remote learning is still widely utilized.

The state’s superintendent of education has said that at least some schools might have to begin the new school year with remote learning, or with students attending classes in-person only on certain days.

“So we continue to hope and pray schools will reopen next school year. Certainly, when our schools reopen, new measures and precautions will be in place,” Hansen told CNA.

The president of DePaul University, located in Chicago, announced earlier this week that the university already plans to “minimize our footprint on campus this fall,” and that an announcement of the fall plans could happen by June 15.

CNA Staff, May 8, 2020 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- As parishes and dioceses across the country deal with a drop in collections and the prospects of layoffs amid the pandemic, many parishes have managed to avail themselves of government loans designed to cover eight weeks of payroll expenses.

CBS News reported Friday that an estimated 12,000-13,000 of the 17,000 Catholic parishes in the U.S. had applied for Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) payroll loans from the Small Business Administration (SBA), and 9,000 so far had received them.

Guidance from the SBA on eligibility for the loans states that “no otherwise eligible organization will be disqualified from receiving a loan because of the religious nature, religious identity, or religious speech of the organization.”

Religious organizations are eligible for the loans as long as they meet the requirements of Section 501(c)(3) nonprofit and employ 500 or fewer people, the SBA said.

“The PPP isn't about the federal government assisting houses of worship or churches,” Pat Markey, the executive director of the Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference, told CBS News.

“PPP is about keeping people on payrolls, and a large segment of our society [in] the not for profit world...are churches and houses of worship. And they have people on payrolls too. So, if what this is about is keeping people on payrolls, then we all should have availability to do that.”

The Diocesan Fiscal Management Conference did not reply by press time to CNA’s request for additional comment.

Congress passed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act March 27 to help relieve the economy during the coronavirus pandemic.

The CARES Act initially authorized some $350 billion in loans to small businesses, intended to allow them to continue to pay their employees. The loans were given on a first come, first serve basis.

The second round of funding, with some $310 billion in additional funds available, began April 27.

The loans were capped at $10 million, were open to businesses with fewer than 500 employees per location, and were intended to cover two months of payroll costs.

The federal government promised to forgive the loans if a business used at least 75% of the funds to maintain its payroll at “pre-pandemic levels” for eight weeks after the loan is disbursed, the New York Times reports.

The remaining money could be used only to pay for certain expenses, such as a mortgage, rent, and utilities, according to the Times.

A survey of Protestant pastors by LifeWay Research found that about 40% had applied for PPP loans with more than half of them reporting being approved.

NPR reports that synagogues have also applied for government funding, though in a smaller proportion— of nearly 4,000 synagogues in the United States, about 250 were approved for PPP loans in the first round of lending, according to surveys by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America.

The PPP has been subject to some criticism since its launch, including from those who say business owners with criminal records have been excluded from the program thus far.

In addition, several large companies, such as Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, have received multi-million dollar loans through the program. Some of these large companies, such as Shake Shack, have since returned their loans.

Two New York dioceses— Rochester and Buffalo— are suing the Small Business Administration for access to PPP funds, after they were denied loans because of their bankruptcy status.

An SBA rule stipulated that the funds would not go to bankruptcy debtors. Both the dioceses of Rochester and Buffalo have filed for bankruptcy in the past several months, after being named in hundreds of clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed under New York Child Victims Protection Act.

 

Denver Newsroom, May 8, 2020 / 05:29 pm (CNA).- Mother’s Day is going to look different for most families this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic.

For Catholics, some churches are in the process of slowly re-opening public Masses, but the dispensation from the Sunday obligation continues to stand, as the virus has not gone away and a cure or vaccine has yet to be found.

While most Catholics are eager to return to Mass, a small group of Catholics are relieved that they will not be sitting in a public pew this Mother’s Day.

“We actually heard from one woman who said, ‘I kind of feel badly about saying this, but I'm sort of glad that we won't be in the pews this year for Mother's Day,’” Ann Koshute, founder of Springs in the Desert Catholic ministry, told CNA.


“That's something that we hear and that everybody I think on the team has experienced at one point in this journey,” she said - the desire to avoid Mass on Mother’s Day. That’s because Koshute, along with other members of her ministry, have had painful experiences with infertility, and the customary Mother’s Day blessing given to mothers at many parishes that day can bring their grief and sense of loss poignantly to the fore.


“I think that so often people in our own families, our friends, and even our pastors don't really understand the full extent of the pain and the grief or even the full extent of the issue of infertility, of how many couples are really dealing with it,” she said.


The pain of infertility, and the lack of resources available to Catholics on the subject, was why Koshute and her friend, Kimberly Henkel, founded Springs in the Desert, a Catholic ministry to spiritually and emotionally support women and couples experiencing infertility and infant loss. Originally, Henkel and Koshute, who have both experienced infertility, thought they might write a book. But they decided to start with a ministry website and a blog that could bring people together and allow for other women and couples to share their experiences. The group is relatively new, and held its first retreat in Philadelphia in December. They were set to hold a second one this weekend - Mother’s Day weekend - in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, when, well, the pandemic hit.

Now, they’ve moved the retreat online and opened it up to Catholics across the country - and they’ve been overwhelmed by the response.

“We thought that we would be really excited if maybe a couple dozen people found out about it and came. We are over 100 participants now. And it's free and it's going to be available all weekend,” Koshute said. The retreat is trying to address the emotional and spiritual experience of infertility and loss for a broad range of people, Henkel said - from mothers who have miscarried, to women who are past child-bearing years and still grieving the loss of infertility, to women “who feel like their biological clocks are ticking and just haven’t met the right guy.” But now that it's a virtual, pre-recorded, watch-at-your-leisure retreat, it also has the potential to reach a population that is often more reluctant to gather in groups and talk about their experiences of infertility: men. “It's mostly women who are emailing us (about the retreat), although we know that many of their husbands will watch with them. But we've also had a few men email us,” Koshute said.


“One in particular, it just really touched my heart. And he said that he was searching the web for help for his wife on Mother's Day. And I was just so filled with praise and thanksgiving to God for that, for a husband to see that hurt in his wife and to want to find a way to help her,” she added. Men and women typically experience the grief of infertility quite differently, Koshute noted. “For us women, it's so visceral because life is conceived within us and we carry that life. But for a man, it's so different,” she said.

“(Men are) kind of distant from that experience until the child is actually born. And so I think many times men, the grief and the burden that they carry is their wife's. They really carry her sadness and I think feel at a loss because they want to make everything right. They want to fix this, and they want to make her whole. And the mystery of infertility is that it's not that simple. And that's one of the things that makes it so difficult,” she said. Henkel said she experienced her own difficulties in trying to discuss infertility with her husband. Now that they’ve experienced the joy of growing their family through adoption, she said, he is much more open to inviting other men to share their experiences. Henkel said she is hoping that an additional benefit of this retreat being online is that it will facilitate discussions between couples watching the videos together. Both Henkel and Koshute said that while the experience of infertility and loss is painful, and they want to help couples acknowledge and accept that pain, they also want Springs in the Desert to be a positive and supportive experience for couples and women, where they can find hope and redemption even in their suffering. One of the topics they focus on is how all women are called to motherhood in their lives, whether it is spiritual or biological.

“My experience has shown me that my motherhood is really engaged in so many ways that I never considered before,” Koshute said.

“Not just with my godson or with other children in my family, but with women who are older than I who are friends and who might come to me with a difficulty or problem and I can help them,” or by helping family members in need or through charitable works, she added. “That's one of the messages that we try to get across to women and to couples as well, that those kinds of things, what we would maybe refer to as spiritual motherhood, is not illegitimate,” she said.

“It's not second-place. It's a real way of engaging and living out our motherhood. It's also not a replacement for a baby. So it's not as if you go out and volunteer in your community and now you won't have this longing for a child anymore. But we've really found through our own experience and through talking with other women that the more we kind of put ourselves out there and give ourselves to others, the more that we can begin to see that motherhood enacted in us.”

Henkel said she also likes to encourage couples to look at the ways God is calling them to be fruitful in their marriages outside of biological children.

“We really encourage these couples that they are not forgotten, they're not being punished. That God loves them so much and that he has something amazing for them. He's using this to draw them near to him and to allow them to cry out to him and ask for him to guide them, to lead them, to give them his love and show them what fruitfulness he has for them, what place in ministry and mission he has for them.” Henkel and her husband in particular like to share with couples their experience of foster care as one example of where God might be calling them to be fruitful. After a frustrating and expensive experience with some adoption agencies, Henkel and her husband decided to look into giving a home to children through foster care.

“Here is a situation where these children really need families,” she said. “It's hard because there's no guarantee you're going to get to keep this child, so there's a sense of this new greater level of having to learn how to trust God.” “I think that with a couple discerning that fruitfulness, it's also discerning - where is God really calling you? There's so much need in this world. And he wants to use us.”

Couples interested in the Springs in the Desert Mother’s Day weekend retreat can sign up for free online at the Springs in the Desert website. Content will be uploaded and available for anyone who registers, Henkel said, even if they register late. The retreat team will also be hosting a live talk on Sunday, May 10 at 2 p.m. Eastern on the ministry’s Facebook page.

“There's a place for you in Springs of the Desert,” Henkel added. “There's so many women who have reached out to us in Philly. We added several more women to our group, to our team, our official team, women who came to the retreat. One woman had come there and she said she had had a miscarriage, and neither one of us has experienced that. So we said, please join us. We want your voice.”

“We're trying to really bring the voices of many different women to our team so that people will feel there is somebody that is talking they can really relate to. Because there are all of these different situations, but they've got obviously a very similar undercurrent.”

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Larry Shover, Efficient Advisors

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Larry Shover, Efficient Advisors

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Larry Shover, Efficient Advisors

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Larry Shover, Efficient Advisors

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Larry Shover, Efficient Advisors

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Larry Shover, Efficient Advisors

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Dan Deming, KKM Financial

Todd Colvin, Ambrosino Brothers

Purifying and culturing cells from the central nervous system (CNS) has proved to be an incredibly powerful tool for dissecting fundamental neuron and glial properties, and especially powerful in understanding neuronal–glial interactions. In a series of detailed protocols, we have provided step-by-step instructions for purifying and culturing specific types of neurons, glia, and vascular cells from the CNS by immunopanning. This article discusses common pitfalls and errors as well as important design considerations for the immunopanning procedure.

Portugal Field Leader Givas shares about the May 2017 outreach to religious pilgrims in Fatima.

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