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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 / 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 7, 2020 / 08:19 pm (CNA).- A Christian ethic of service and solidarity must be an important feature of the business response to the coronavirus epidemic and its economic impact, Catholic business educators have said.

For Karel Sovak, associate professor in the University of Mary’s Gary Tharaldson School of Business, two of the biggest skills that business can bring to recovery efforts are self-awareness and empathy.

“A business needs to help the community identify who they are, which may have been lost during this time of stay at home,” he told CNA. “Businesses need to help communities focus on what makes it viable in the first place, which are the people. Business can be used as a force for good only if they understand what that ‘good’ means. Being aware of those strengths can help transform a community as they seek to overcome any devastating tragedy, natural or otherwise.”

He cited the symbolic unity and mutual support shown by individuals and businesses, whether by showing hearts in windows, purchasing gift cards for businesses, or taking meals to essential personnel.

Over 75,000 deaths are attributed to Covid-19 in the U.S., with over 1.25 million confirmed cases, John Hopkins University said Thursday. Efforts to prevent the spread of infection led to public officials’ orders to close businesses, with the exception of some businesses deemed essential services.

Millions of people have been left unemployed due to the closures, while those with essential jobs worry that their places of employment are newly dangerous.

Sovak emphasized the importance of trust as a business skill, but noted that low trust and polarization were problems even before the epidemic. Community is about bringing people into communion, and business has a role to play in that community building.

“Business can reassure families, non-profits and churches that they are there for them. Solidarity is the word that comes to mind when determining how to establish trust,” he said. The social and spiritual nature of the human being means people will need to come together once again “to use the gifts God gave to each person to meet the needs of others.”

Laura Munoz, associate professor of marketing at the University of Dallas’ Satish and Yasmin Gupta College of Business, said her business school emphasizes both a skill-based and a virtue-based education that can help respond to the crisis.

Business professors aim to help students become resilient and adaptable. They must become critical thinkers “aware of multiple stakeholder perceptions in an ethical way,” she told CNA. These skills can also help in the service of others, as in the case of a business student who used her business skills to fund raise for an Argentine orphanage on social media.

“Yes, skills are needed but they cannot come if the ‘business person’ is not aware of the needs of the environment and does not have love, charity, for others,” said Munoz. “Businesses that acknowledge that serving a community is give and take, not just take, will probably receive more community support as well.”

For Sovak, Catholic business education focuses on virtues, “servant-leadership,” and upholding the tenets of Catholic social teaching.

“There is no proof that any instruction can adequately prepare anyone, let alone young minds, for such a large-scale disruption as this pandemic has caused,” he said. However, teaching students the cardinal virtues of prudence, courage, justice and temperance is a good path in both strong economies and in economic downturns.

Such an education helps students “to understand that life is not about them; it is about serving others who are in need, which is what we are called to do.” Students should be prepared “to recognize their vocation is more than a job and they are called to greatness, ‘magnanimity,’ especially in dire times.” This helps them to “focus less on self and more on the situation at hand” and to bring about “true humility.” This path helps students be optimistic and trusting in innovative ways and help contribute to solutions

“Life is full of disruptions, simply because we can’t predict the future,” Jay Wesley Richards, assistant research professor at the Catholic University of America’s Busch School of Business, told CNA. “I think two of the most important business skills are simply virtues. One is courage—which means you’ll act even if you might fail. The other is resilience or anti-fragility—which means you learn from disruption and failure. The pandemic, and more precisely, the shutdown in response to it, is a historic and massive disruption. But disruption itself is part of life.”

Richards said one of his classes this semester had been discussing looming disruptions from technology and “the need to develop virtues and skills that humans will always do better than machines.”

“The discussion was mostly abstract until spring break, when the semester itself was disrupted by the pandemic shutdown, and we had to move online,” he said. “Suddenly, we were using disruptive (if imperfect) video-conferencing technology! At that point, students started asking more questions about disruption in the economy.”

Economic downturns in the business cycle are a standard topic in business education. Munoz said a pandemic is one of many possibilities taught through case studies, role playing, business planning, and discussions.

“We focus on going beyond a disruption and thinking ‘so what? How do we continue?’”

“Instead of the business coming to a stop, we think: ‘and what else can we do? How else can we do it?’” she said.

Michael Welker, an economics professor at Franciscan University of Steubenville, reflected on the need for creativity given the conditions of a pandemic event.

“Such an event, in our lifetimes, is one that is unprecedented, complex, and so widespread, that there is a need for courage, openness to failure, iteration of ideas and experiments, and a need for management decisions to frame their enterprise cultures to engender this powerful way that human beings image the Creator,” Welker said.

Efforts to re-open businesses and other social venues, including places of worship, have come to be the focus of debate, planning, and activity.

Welker said the focus on “restarting the economy” means a focus on “a critical aspect of human life--a prudent and wise engagement with the world in many dimensions.” These dimensions include work, leisure, community, worship, and recreation. He suggested any approach to “restarting” the economy should take place in a context that recognizes “the great dignity of work” with the added sense of “the essential things, which are beyond just ‘making a living’.”

“This disruption has brought much multi-dimensional damage to people,” he said. “I believe authorities are attempting to walk the fine line between a serious and known risk and the need to get people into ‘normal’ living and acting, with the heightened concerns for safety and health.”

Sovak said that while there was indeed economic disruption, in part the economy “never really stopped.” Consumers continued to purchase, many people found different ways to trade, and the government infused additional money seeking a positive impact.

“If we are discussing how to get people back into the mix of work, travel, or play, again, much of that never stopped with work at home, it just got more creative,” he said.

At the same time, Sovak said that a too cautious approach to re-opening business will mean many businesses close, unable to adapt to the coronavirus epidemic.

There is also another risk.

“The risk of being too reckless means this thing (the epidemic) will come back around in a couple of months and bring about an even more devastating grind to the economy,” he added. “Again, the virtue of prudence comes to mind on how to tell what the times call for.”

“This isn’t a one-size fits all solution – what is controllable and what is predictable will be two ways to view the danger,” Sovak continued. “How much certainty does one have in the situation? The more certainty there is, the less risk and easier the decision that can be made.”

Richards similarly said there is no one right answer for a business response.

“Every business will have specific, even unique challenges, depending on where it is and what it does,” he said. “But the same general rules apply for businesses as for everyone else: Treat every person with respect and dignity, and that includes employees and customers.”

“It’s a serious mistake to present the current debate as if it were between the ‘economy’ on one side, and ‘lives’ on the other,” Richards said. “We should care about the economy precisely because we care about human lives and well-being. Really families, real companies, employers, and employees. Real lives.”

Richards cited the massive unemployment in recent weeks. The unemployment rate was at an historic low of 3.5% in February. Since mid-March, 33.3 million people have filed unemployment claims, making the unemployment rate higher than 20%, BBC News reports.

“There’s no such thing as a zero-risk option this side of the kingdom of God,” Richards continued. “Any challenge, like the coronavirus, involves a multi-side risk: Lives were at stake no matter what path we took,” he said. “The path of wisdom lies in understanding what the real risks are, and how likely various outcomes are. Only then do we have much chance of responding so that the benefits are greater than the costs.”

In the coronavirus epidemic, policymakers face the challenge of making “far-reaching decisions without having very good information to work with.”

“A response that puts 30 million people out of work isn’t just an economic inconvenience. It leads, and will lead, to loss of life and well-being,” said Richards. “The president understood this from the beginning. This is why he worried on Twitter that the ‘cure’ not be worse than the ‘disease’.”

“The question we will be asking for the next several years is this: Did the government response, and in particular, the shutdown of businesses and shelter-in-place orders for healthy people, save more lives than, in the long run, it will have cost?”

Sovak told CNA there are signs that tell whether a business mentality is dominating a discussion or or being neglected. When there is “negativity, pessimism or placing blame,” a conversation is likely headed in a wrong direction, whether a business community is being criticized or is offering criticism.

“Business certainly can’t solve every issue or does it have all the answers; however, there can be many benefits in taking a business approach to address any situation,” he said.

At the same time, a business analysis may not appeal to many, given the human cost.

“People are acting on emotion more today than facts and reason. Thirty million people are unemployed – putting a business touch on that doesn’t help that situation,” Sovak said. “Supply and demand means prices will rise, and inflation will come about but that doesn’t mean we have to bring that approach into the conversation when many people’s lives have been disrupted both financially and health-wise. This is where empathy has to come into play.”

CNA Staff, May 8, 2020 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- A federal judge in Arkansas on Thursday upheld the state’s requirement that women obtain a negative coronavirus test before having an abortion.

Calling the decision “agonizingly difficult,” Judge Brian Miller for the Eastern District Court of Arkansas said the state’s testing mandate—which applies to all elective surgeries and not just abortions—is “reasonable” during the public health emergency and was not done “with an eye toward limiting abortions.

The judge noted that “it is undisputed that surgical abortions have still taken place.”

The abortion clinic Little Rock Family Planning Services had requested a temporary injunction on the state health department’s requirement that elective surgery patients obtain a negative new coronavirus (COVID-19) test result within 48 hours before the procedure.

Previously, the health department ordered a halt to non-essential surgeries on April 3 to preserve resources for treating COVID-19.

The Little Rock abortion clinic performed abortions while claiming they were offering “essential” procedures, and after the health department ordered them to stop on April 10, the clinic challenged the state in court. The diocese’s Respect Life Office noted that women were traveling to the clinic for abortions from nearby states such as Texas and Louisiana.

The clinic won its case for a temporary restraining order at the district court level, but the Eighth Circuit appeals court subsequently overruled that decision and sided with the state.

The April 3 directive was updated April 24 to allow for some elective surgeries provided certain conditions were met. Elective abortions were included in the “non-essential” surgeries that were allowed to continue on April 24.

These conditions included no overnight stays, no contact with COVID-19 patients in the previous 14 days, and a negative COVID-19 test for patients within 48 hours of the surgery.

According to the clinic, which asked for a temporary injunction, three women were seeking to obtain “dilation and evacuation” abortions but were prevented from meeting the state’s testing requirmenet. One woman said she was unable to get a COVID-19 test; another said the lab could not guarantee she would receive results in 48 hours. The third woman was unable to get an abortion in Texas, and drove to the Little Rock clinic; she was told the results of her test would not be available for several days.

In response, the state’s health department said that four surgical abortions had still been performed at the clinic between April 27 and May 1, with COVID-19 test results having been obtained within 48 hours of the abortions, and thus the directive was not an “undue burden” on women seeking abortion.

In his decision on Thursday, Judge Miller said that the pandemic is a serious threat, noting that at the time of the opinion more than 70,000 people had died in the U.S. from the virus including more than 3,500 people in Arkansas.

He said the case “presents the tug-of-war between individual liberty and the state’s police power to protect the public during the existing, grave health crisis,” and noted that the three women as well as others “are very troubled. There is a strong urge to rule for them because they are extremely sympathetic figures, but that would be unjust.”

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.”

Learn how Kirby Downey, a user creator in our community, made a red lightsaber from scratch in honor of the latest Star Wars movie, "The Rise of Skywalker" - designing all the components in SOLIDWORKS before making it come to life!

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This helpful #TechTip is brought to you by our Training Manager John Setzer, and covers using the smart dimension tool when sketching arcs and circles. Find more options available to you, when you want to create a dimension and don’t

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In SOLIDWORKS Electrical, we have the capability to create symbols with defined circuits on the fly, or for use with connectors that entail many, many pins. These are traditionally called Black Boxes. See figure 1 & 2.    Figure 1

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CNA Staff, Apr 17, 2020 / 07:00 pm (CNA).- Reports of an Indian hospital's segregated wards for Hindu and Muslim coronavirus patients drew concern from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, though Indian authorities strongly disputed the allegation.

"USCIRF is concerned with reports of Hindu and Muslim patients separated into separate hospital wards in Gujarat,” the commission said on Twitter and Facebook April 15. “Such actions only help to further increase ongoing stigmatization of Muslims in India and exacerbate false rumors of Muslims spreading COVID-19.”

The bipartisan U.S. federal government commission linked to a story in the Indian Express newspaper that cites a hospital official and a patient in the city of Ahmedabad in the western coastal Indian state of Gujarat.

India's Ministry for External Affairs opposed the commission, saying it was spreading “misguided reports” and “adding religious color” that distracts from India's efforts to combat the novel coronavirus.

“No segregation is being done in civil hospitals on the basis of religion, as clarified by the Gujarat government,” the ministry said April 15.

The reports concern Ahmedabad Civil Hospital, where there are some 1,200 beds prepared for patients suffering from the novel coronavirus.

Medical Superintendent Dr. Gunvant. H. Rathod described the hospital division to the Indian Express, saying “generally, there are separate wards for male and female patients. But here, we have made separate wards for Hindu and Muslim patients.”

“It is a decision of the government and you can ask them,” he said.

Deputy Chief Minister and Health Minister Nitin Patel said he was not aware of the situation and would make inquiries. Ahmedabad's district magistrate, K.K. Nirala, also was not aware of any decision, the Indian Express reports.

However, the Indian Express cited a hospital patient who said the names of 28 men in a ward were called out, and they were moved to another ward.

“While we were not told why we were being shifted, all the names that were called out belonged to one community. We spoke to one staff member in our ward today and he said this had been done for ‘the comfort of both communities’,” the patient said.

The Gujarat Health and Family Welfare Department said the reports were “absolutely baseless.” Rather, it said, patients are treated based on symptoms and severity and “according to treating doctors' recommendations.

As of Wednesday, new known cases of coronavirus in Gujarat rose by 127 to 766, with 88 cases in Ahmedabad. The death toll there totals 33, the Times of India reports.

The Indian newspaper The Week reported that the commission had previously criticized India's Citizenship Amendment Act, which became effective in January 2020.

In December 2019 the commission expressed concern about the legislation, which enshrined a pathway to citizenship for immigrants but specifically excluded Muslims. The commission recommended U.S. sanctions on India as a possible response.

The U.S. Commission on Religious Freedom reviews alleged religious freedom violations and makes policy recommendations to the U.S. president, Secretary of State, and Congress.

The commission’s 2019 report said that religious freedom conditions in India “continued a downward trend” in 2018. It said India’s “history of religious freedom has come under attack in recent years with the growth of exclusionary extremist narratives—including, at times, the government’s allowance and encouragement of mob violence against religious minorities—that have facilitated an egregious and ongoing campaign of violence, intimidation, and harassment against non-Hindu and lower-caste Hindu minorities. Both public and private actors have engaged in this campaign.”

Mob violence against Christians by Hindus has been particularly acute.

In August 2019, six suspected members of a radical Hindu group were arrested after dozens of Catholics were attacked on a Marian pilgrimage from Karnataka to the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health in Velankanni, a coastal town in south east India.

In September, around 500 armed Hindu extremists attacked a Jesuit mission in the Archdiocese of Ranchi. Armed with sticks, chains, iron bars, knives, and pistols, the mob beat tribal students including two who were seriously injured, and also seriously damaged the school’s facilities.

Archbishop Leo Cornelio of Bhopal has said numerous mob lynchings of Christians have occurred in which the victims are accused of eating beef or otherwise harming cattle, which are considered sacred in Hinduism.

Karnataka state suffered a wave of anti-Christian violence in 2008, when Hindu extremist groups led attacks on churches, schools and homes of Christians and physically beat hundreds of people. A 2011 independent report on the violence, known as the Saldhana Report, charged that attacks were pre-planned and backed by the state’s highest government authorities.

 

CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2020 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- Iran has sentenced a 21 year-old Christian woman to prison and lashing for “disturbing public order,” after she protested the destruction of a passenger jet by the military.

Mary (Fatemeh) Mohammadi, a 21 year-old Iranian convert to Christianity, was arrested on Jan. 12 after taking part in anti-government protests that followed the shooting down of a passenger jet, Ukrainian Air Flight 752, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard (IRG).  Iran announced several days after the incident that the IRG mistakenly shot the plane down, resulting in the deaths of all 176 people on board the flight.

In an Instagram post on Wednesday, Mohammadi said her sentence of three months and one day in prison is suspended for one year. She was also sentenced to 10 lashes.

Mohammadi said she has been tortured in prison and suffered “terrible conditions” for “protesting against the slaughter of human beings.” She said she did not appeal her sentence “because the appeal courts have turned into affirmative tribunals.” 

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) tweeted a condemnation of Mohammadi’s sentencing on Wednesday, saying that “No peaceful activist should be targeted on the basis of their religious beliefs.”

President Trump highlighted her case in his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 6, saying that she “was seized and imprisoned in Iran because she converted to Christianity and shared the Gospel with others.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also discussed Mohammadi’s case in a Feb. 12 interview with Tony Perkins on Washington Watch. Perkins is also the chair of USCIRF.

Pompeo said the U.S. was “deeply concerned” of reports of Mohammadi’s arrest, and said she was “targeted by the regime because she made the choice to convert to Christianity.”

According to the All Party Parliamentary Group for International Freedom of Religion or Belief, Mohammadi was “physically and emotionally abused during her arrest and transfer to Qarchak prison,” and was questioned about her faith at her hearing.

Correction: This article originally stated that Mohammadi was one of a group of survivors of religious persecution who met with President Trump last July at the White House, as reported in the Christian Post. It was a different Iranian Christian, Dabrina Bet Tamraz, who met with Trump, not Mohammadi.

CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2020 / 05:13 pm (CNA).- A Catholic youth organization in Indonesia has instituted a movement to provide assistance to families struggling during the coronavirus pandemic.

Orang Muda Katolik, or Catholic Young People, recently began the initiative “Adopt One Brother,” which encourages youth to volunteer time and money to support poorer families, many of whom are now unemployed.

Indonesia has over 7,500 cases of COVID-19, and 647 deaths. According to data from the country’s Ministry of Labour, Aljazeera reported, 2.8 million Indonesians have lost their jobs because of the pandemic.

Stefanus Gusma, who leads OMK’s COVID-19 task force, said the initiative has spread to 26 of the country’s 34 provinces and involved thousands of OMK members. He said volunteers are encouraged to donate 200,000 to 500,000 rupiah ($12-32) per week.

"First, we mobilized our own members to help our fellow brothers and sisters who are experiencing difficulties. Then we extended our reach to anyone who was willing to help others,” Gusma told UCA News.

"After we receive their data, we contact them about where they would like their donations to go,” he said. “If a donor wants to donate to a family in East Nusa Tenggara province, we will coordinate with our members there to seek a family in need.”

With help from the local dioceses and governments, the organization has also distributed about 2,000 aid packages, electricity vouchers, and hygienic products.

According to UCA News, other OMK members said the organization has not only provided aid to families but to hospitals and orphanages as well. Maskendari, an OMK member in Pontianak, said the organization has distributed “hundreds of aid packages and thousands of personal protection items such as masks and bottles of hand sanitizer.”

“We want others to act, not only through our organization but also individually or with other groups,” Gusma told UCA News. "We want to show the importance of showing human solidarity in the midst of this current crisis," he added.

Orang Muda Katolik seeks to mentor young Catholics, aged between 15 and 35, by providing educational resources, coaching, and volunteer opportunities.

Bishop Pius Prapdi of Ketapang issued a letter to OMK at the end of March. He encouraged young Catholics to follow social distancing rules and other safety precautions. However, he also challenged the youth to find creative ways to help the community, like investigating free food assistance for those in need and checking-in on neighbors through social media.

“Catholic Young People can also help others in a safe way,” he wrote. “With creativity, young people can become leaders in this situation and go through critical times together.”

“Pope Francis invites young people to become the main actors (protagonists) in renewing the world, let us in this crisis period stop for a moment to reflect back on what we have made for ourselves, the environment, the Church and the citizens of the world.”

Washington D.C., Apr 24, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) covered up the spread of the new coronavirus within the country, suppressing the real rate of infection and violating the rights of its citizens as it did so, a Chinese human rights activist told a forum at The Catholic University of America on Friday.

“It is time to recognize the threat the Chinese Communist Party poses to all humanity. The CCP represses and manipulates information to strengthen its hold on power, regardless of the toll on human lives,” human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng said April 24 during an online forum on the CCP and the new coronavirus.

The forum was hosted by Faith & Law in partnership with the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. Guanchen is Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Catholic University’s Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies.

Guangcheng is a blind human rights lawyer from China, who received sanctuary in the U.S. in 2012 after he was targeted by the CCP for his advocacy work. Guangcheng has sharply criticized the party for its human rights abuses, including from its one-child family planning policy.

He was sent to prison and subject to house arrest, during which he claims he and his family were repeatedly beaten and denied medical treatment.

On Friday, the lawyer warned audience members against suggestions that other countries should emulate China’s authoritarian response to the new coronavirus (COVID-19).

There are currently more than 2.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world.

The city of Wuhan is recognized as the epicenter of the global pandemic, and the government on Jan. 23 instituted a strict lockdown in the city of 11 million people. Guangchang cited reports of Chinese families being barricaded inside their own homes, and the group Human Rights Watch compiled stories of residents reportedly dying from lack of access to care during the lockdown.

“Whole families have been found dead in their apartments because they could not get out,” he said, noting that despite the CCP’s claim that it has the virus under control, lockdowns are currently in force in the city of Harbin.

“This is despite the authorities ordering everyone back to work and telling the outside world that they have the virus under control,” Guangcheng said. “The resurgence is directly related to the CCP hiding the truth, and cracking down on people who tried to share information on the virus.”

He also claimed that the CCP has been using the crisis caused by the pandemic to crack down on dissent, detaining human rights activists at separate “so-called quarantine sites.”

The wife of one human rights lawyer—who had just been released from prison told The Guardian that she feared the government was putting her husband under house arrest near where he was imprisoned, 400 kilometers away from her, under the guise of a quarantine.

According to World Health Organization (WHO) statistics, China’s number of COVID-19 cases rose considerably through January and February to 79,389 on Feb. 29 with 2,838 deaths, before its daily increase in case numbers slowed to a trickle in March including just one new reported case on March 22 in the country of more than 1.4 billion people.

Just 3,352 deaths were reported on April 16 before the reported number jumped to 4,642 the next day.

“There is nothing about the CCP’s numbers that are believable,” Guangcheng said. “What people are calculating is that roughly 700,000 may have died in China—in terms of people who have been infected, no one knows the numbers.”

For instance, he said, during the Wuhan lockdown citizen journalists claimed that the situation was far worse than the CCP was reporting; they recorded people collapsing in the streets and hearses and vans carrying body bags at all hours of the day.

“In summary, the CCP is the biggest and most serious virus of all, with over 193,000 people dead worldwide from the coronavirus,” the lawyer said. “There should be no question of the regime’s threat.”

CNA Staff, May 5, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- At least 51 workers have been infected with the novel coronavirus at the Grasberg mine in Indonesia, the world’s largest gold mine.

Nine employees of Freeport McMoRan, the organization who operates the mine, have been hospitalized due to COVID-19 and another 42 have been forced into quarantine, UCA News reported May 5.

The mine is located in Papua and is known for its production of gold and copper. The operation includes around 20,000 employees.

Riza Pratama, vice president of Freeport, said the company will fully cooperate with the government's coronavirus task force but will continue mining operations to support the national economy. He said the company will prioritize the health and safety of workers and will conduct regular health screenings, implement social distancing, provide a quarantine area for employees, according to UCA News.

Father Ansel Amo, who heads the Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation Commission for the Archdiocese of Merauke, said these measures are not enough to protect workers.

“Freeport management should limit workers’ activities so that they don’t transmit the disease to other people, including local people. They should stop its operations temporarily,” he told UCA News.

Indonesia has seen more than 12,000 cases from the coronavirus, leading to 872 reported deaths as of May 5. Globally, more than 3.7 million cases of the virus have been reported, and a quarter of a million deaths.

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on April 22, 2020.

For the full text of this advisory, please click here.

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 04/22/2020.

Click here for the full text of the advisory

20-170

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 4/23/2020.

For the full text of this advisory, please click here.

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 4/23/2020.

Click here for the full text of the advisory

20-174

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 4/24/2020.

Click here for the full text of the advisory

20-175

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory in the link below. Please email any questions to Clearing.RiskManagement@cmegroup.com

The rates will be effective after the close of business on Friday, April 24, 2020.

For the full text of this advisory, please click here.

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 4/28/2020.

Click here for the full text of the advisory

20-178

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 04/28/2020.

For the full text of this advisory, please click here.

CME will be updating liquidity parameters for Interest Rate Swap contracts denominated in BRL and MXN. These changes only impact portfolios with larger BRL or MXN exposures. For MXN, the impact to liquidity add-on is approx. 5-10% for portfolios with aggregated DV01 above 100M+ DV01 in local currency. For BRL, the impact to liquidity add-on is 30%+ for portfolios with aggregated DV01 above 10M+ in local currency. Based on current exposures, CME Clearing expects that there will be no impact to existing portfolios at this time. These changes will be available for testing in our New Release environment April 29, 2020, with a production date of May 4, 2020.

Click here for the full text of the advisory

20-181

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 04/30/2020.

Click here for the full text of the advisory

20-182

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 05/01/2020.

Click here for the full text of the advisory

20-183

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below. Please email any questions to Clearing.RiskManagement@cmegroup.com

The rates will be effective after the close of business on Friday, May 1, 2020.

For the full text of this advisory, please click here.

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 5/6/2020.

For the full text of this advisory, please click here.

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on May 06, 2020.

Click here for the full text of the advisory

20-187

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below.

The rates will be effective after the close of business on 05/08/2020.

For the full text of this advisory, please click here.

As per the normal review of market volatility to ensure adequate collateral coverage, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., Clearing House Risk Management staff approved the performance bond requirements for the following products listed in the advisory at the link below. Please email any questions to Clearing.RiskManagement@cmegroup.com

The rates will be effective after the close of business on Friday, May 8, 2020.

For the full text of this advisory, please click here.

Jonathan Mahler’s piece on the Osama bin Laden raid is as much about the nature of journalism as it is about the facts surrounding the event.

A village builds their own school - a big first for the area and a step in transforming the community.

German translation of the Annual Economic Report 2018 of the BIS, June 2018 - Die politischen Entscheidungsträger können dem gegenwärtigen Wirtschaftsaufschwung eine nachhaltige Basis verleihen, schreibt die BIZ in ihrem Wirtschaftsbericht. Dazu sollten sie strukturpolitische Maßnahmen ergreifen, mit Blick auf künftige Risiken wieder für größeren Handlungsspielraum in der Geld- und Fiskalpolitik sorgen und die Umsetzung der Regulierungsreformen vorantreiben. ...

German translation of the BIS press release on the presentation of the Annual Economic Report 2019, 30 June 2019.

OMers help Hungarian children uncover their gifts through drama camp.

The United Nations on Thursday issued a new appeal for $4.7 billion in funding to "protect millions of lives and stem the spread of coronavirus in fragile countries."

The South African government is seeking a $4.2 billion loan from the IMF to support its response to the Covid-19 crisis.

The post The Value of a “Body Double” During the Coronavirus Pandemic appeared first on The SOLIDWORKS Blog.

A weekend camp provides young believers a chance to relax and rededicate themselves to the Lord.

An OM short-term team worships God and engages in conversations about God in the public square of a city with an Arab majority in Israel.

A Muslim man believes Jesus is the Son of God.

On 20 February, the OM Guatemala team offered a programme on life values and shared the Gospel with nearly 600 children attending a school in Quiché, an indigenous village that was heavily affected by the guerrilla.

God answers the prayers of OM Guatemala and a partnering church with a Christmas celebration for children and families with OM’s Project Rescue.

Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala :: Guatemala's First Lady visits Logos Hope and thanks the crewmembers for sharing knowledge, help and hope to the nations.