The J&B ad in which a grandfather learns to put on makeup to receive his trans granddaughter for Christmas

A hand that takes the lipstick in an oversight of its owner. The first make-up tests in front of the mirror, a trembling hand and a smear of lipstick on her mouth. Thus begins the announcement of a J&B advertising campaign that marks the beginning of the Christmas commercials. But neither the beginning, nor the end, resembles those we have seen before.

The protagonist is a grandfather who learns to put on makeup. He stares at the store owner who keeps an eye on him while she charges him for an eyeshadow set. He notices, but doesn’t care, when he is caught studying the makeup on a model’s face at the bus stop. At home, he cherishes the moments when he can learn to paint himself —and remove his make-up— in the bathroom, without his wife finding out.

The effect of seeing grandfather with clippings from magazines and catalogs to secretly learn to put on makeup has the initial sad tone of Christmas stories. The song ‘She’, by Elvis Costello, which gives the story its title, plays in the background. And like so many stories, it has a twist, but this one had not been told to us before in a Christmas campaign. We do not reveal it so that you can enjoy the end.

Lucas Paulino, founder and executive creative director of the agency responsible for the ad, El Ruso de Rocky, explains that his Christmas story takes over from last summer’s campaign, “Hay ganas de Orgullo de pueblo”, with which the brand supported the rights of the LGTBQ+ collective in rural areas. “We wanted to bring pride not to Madrid, but where it is needed, to the towns of Spain.” The creative manager affirms that once they knew the repercussion of the campaign, “we were clear that we had to continue”.

That “people’s pride” helped make visible “sexile”, the journey of LGTBQ+ people from towns to cities, driven by discrimination and lack of acceptance, and attracted by the possibility of living in freedom and being themselves. . With the Christmas story, J&B wants to contribute its grain of sand against “Christmas homosexuality”, the pain and isolation of those who feel that on these dates they cannot come to the family table to celebrate with their loved ones.

“We don’t want anyone to be left out of the celebration,” says Úrsula Mejia-Melgar, Marketing Director of Diageo (the company that owns J&B) for Southern Europe. After this summer’s campaign, the director assures that the brand discovered the importance of “celebrating the growth” of those who learn to understand people from the group in their family environment. “There is no more beautiful way to tell this reality than a Christmas story”, says Mejia-Melgar.

That Christmas story coincides, according to Diageo’s directive, with the principles of a brand that believes in “inclusion and diversity” and whose intention, he says, is “to promote moments of coexistence where everyone fits at the table.” But like any ad campaign planned months in advance, none anticipated the ad’s release to coincide with the political debate over transgender rights.

“We do not have a political agenda,” defends Mejia-Melgar, who prefers to speak of courage. “With any different announcement, that addresses topics that are not usually talked about, it is bravery.” Paulino adds that, even if they could have known that the announcement would coincide with this context, “we would have done the same.” The ad, he explains, was conceived “from respect and affection.” Like grandfather’s makeup practices for his granddaughter.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

December 13, 2022December 13, 2022

Excommunicated

— The women fighting to be priests

By Valeria Perasso and Georgina Pearc

Anne Tropeano is ironing her clothes in preparation for a busy day ahead. She gets out her white alb and her ornately embroidered chasuble, garments worn by Catholic priests around the world. On a calendar on her wall, bold red pen marks that tomorrow is “Ordination day”.

But she is also on the phone hiring a security guard for the service in a church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she lives – as she anticipates there could be hostility.

“It’s a tense issue, not everybody is open to even considering the possibility of women being called to priesthood,” she says. It’s not only harassment in person that Tropeano is concerned about. Since sharing her hopes of becoming a Catholic priest, she says she’s experienced “breath-taking” online harassment.

Tropeano is one of over 250 women across the world who are part of the Roman Catholic woman priest movement, a group who are taking part in unauthorised ordination services to become priests, in an act of defiance against the Roman Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church does not allow women to be priests. In fact, the Vatican sees it as a serious crime in canon law that is punishable by excommunication. This means the women, once they’ve taken part in an ‘ordination’, are unable to receive the sacraments, including communion, or have a church funeral.

Anne Tropeano campaigns to ‘expand the symbol of the Roman Catholic priest to include the body of a woman’

“Excommunication was the reason I wasn’t able to entertain becoming a priest for a long time,” she says. “I was going to mass every single day. I worked for a parish, my whole life was in the church. So to think about giving that up, I couldn’t even really imagine it.”

Tropeano is a devout Catholic, who after years of doing other jobs including managing a rock band, felt the call to priesthood: “I would hear this. You are my priest, you are a priest. I want you to be a priest.”

The only option open to her as a woman was to serve the Church in another role – such as a nun or as a lay contributor to her diocese. Or she could walk away from Catholicism entirely, to another Christian denomination that would welcome her as a priest.

After years of personal discernment, she realised the limitations of the Vatican rules were not going to let her live out this call: “Once I recognised that this was the next step, the excommunication was just part of the journey.”

Tropeano, and other women like her, are also seeing their choice to be ‘ordained’ as a way to campaign against what they consider a sexist rule by the Church.

Olga Lucía Álvarez in her ordination as a bishop — These ordinations are considered illicit and not recognised by the Vatican

From Reform Judaism to many Protestant denominations, other faiths are open to the ordination of women. Yet for the Catholic Church the ban on women’s access to priesthood is based, among other arguments, on Biblical records that Christ chose his 12 Apostles only from among men, and the Church has gone on to imitate Christ ever since.

For Tropeano, the impact of this rule is far-reaching.

“By the Church teaching through its actions of excluding women from [priestly] ordination, it’s teaching that women are inferior. Women learn this, little kids learn this, men learn this… So they go out into the world and they live that way.”

Ceremony on a cruise

The movement for women priesthood gained visibility in 2002. A group of seven women took part in an illicit ordination service aboard a ship on the Danube River, on international waters to avoid conflict with any ecclesiastical region.

Yet there were reports of previous secret ‘ordinations’, such as Ludmila Javarova’s, who during the Communist rule of Czechoslovakia in the 1970s took part in a service led by a Roman Catholic bishop.

The women’s ordination movement is now mostly a European and US group, but it has expanded its representation in other parts of the world.

Colombian Olga Lucía Álvarez Benjumea was the first female ‘priest’ in Latin America, a bastion for the Catholic Church with more than 40% of the 1.3 billion global Catholic population.

Olga Lucía Álvarez at the altar holding a chalice in her hands — Olga Lucía Álvarez says mass in community centers in Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city

Her ceremony in 2010 was a secret, but she says she has got support from the Church’s local hierarchy: “There was a bishop… a Roman Catholic whose name we do not say so as not to get him in trouble with the Vatican.”

“I was very afraid that people would suddenly start insulting me or throwing things at me at the altar, in this very conservative society I live in.

“So the support I received from people was a great surprise, and that strengthened and reinforced my mission,” says Álvarez. She has now been promoted to bishop within the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP), which is not recognised by the Vatican.

Álvarez comes from a very devout Catholic family but had the support of her mother, a former nun. Her brother, a priest, gave her a gift of a chalice which she sees as a form of silent support.

Álvarez is insistent that there is nothing in Scripture to exclude women from the priesthood: “It’s a human law, a Church law, and an unjust law need not be adhered to.”

This is a sentiment shared by the Women’s Ordination Conference (WOC), a group that lobbies the Vatican for women’s access to the priesthood through calls for dialogue and demonstrations.

Women hold a sign saying Ordain Women — The Women’s Ordination Conference lobbies to change Vatican rules

Executive director Kate McElwee says her favourite work is what they call the Ministry of Irritation – which has seen supporters doing everything from releasing pink smoke during the Conclave to lying in the road as the Pope’s motorcade came through the city. For their actions, they have been detained by Vatican Police.

“We walk with these women in their vocation and they’re waiting for the Vatican to open its doors and really confront its sins of sexism,” says McElwee. “But meanwhile for other women it would be impossible to wait, the call is so loud and so clear from God that they have no choice but to break an unjust law.”

A ‘closed door’

The Church sees these ordinations not just as illicit but also invalid.

After the Danube Seven story became public, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict, declared that since the women gave no indication of repentance, “for the most serious offense they have committed, they have incurred excommunication”.

Pope Francis has himself ruled out a woman ever serving as a priest. In 2016, when asked about any chance this could change, he referenced a 1994 document from John Paul II that said that the “door is closed” to women’s ordination, which the Pope said “stands”.

Cathedral in Medellin during mass — The Catholic Church reserves most of its hierarchical roles solely for men

Sister Nathalie Becquart works from an office in Vatican City, with a picture of her and Pope Francis behind her. In February 2021, she was the first woman to ever be appointed as an Under Secretary to the Synod of Bishops, a body which advises the Pope.

She puts the current position on women priests simply: “For the Catholic Church at this moment, from an official point of view, it’s not an open question.”

“It’s not just a matter of you feeling you are called to priesthood, it’s always a recognition that the Church will call you to be a priest. So your personal feeling or decision is not enough,” says the French nun.

Sister Becquart is one of a few women given key senior roles under Pope Francis’ pontificate. Her position makes her the first woman in the Vatican with voting rights.

She believes there is an evolution happening, allowing more women to take up leadership roles, yet roles that are “disconnected from ordination.”

“I think we need to broaden our vision of the Church. There are many, many ways for women to serve the Church,” Sister Becquart says.

But she also notes that change is never easy, and always faces “fears and resistance”.

What does the Catholic Church say?

Catholic doctrine, or its legal interpretation, reference priesthood as being a prerogative of men – stating that “a baptized male alone receives sacred ordination validly” (Canon 1024).
A 2021 revised version of Church law (Canon 1379) explicitly criminalized conferring sacred orders on women latae sententiae – a legal term which means that the penalty is incurred automatically, without the need for a judgment.
Pope Francis previously appeared to open the possibility of ordaining women as deacons, who cannot celebrate mass but can officiate funerals, baptise and witness marriages.
In an unprecedented move, Pope Francis has asked ordinary Catholics for their views on the future of the Church, in a two-year consultation process called the Synod on Synodality. And in a move that made headlines, the Vatican included resources from the Women’s Ordination Conference on the Synod’s website.
A recent working document suggests women’s role in the Church will be high on the agenda when bishops gather in Rome next October to discuss the results of the consultation.
Sister Nathalie Becquart told BBC 100 Women that “through the Synod on Synodality, we will continue to discern and the Pope will see what will be the next step.”

A different way

In a hushed Cathedral Anne Tropeano approaches the nave, faces her bishop and proclaims full of emotion, “Here I am, I am ready.”

It’s a day she has waited for for 14 years. The ‘ordination’ ceremony follows a similar liturgy to that which men becoming Catholic priests would experience – including the laying on of hands and prayer of consecration.

During the ceremony, Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan lifted Tropeano’s arms and presented her to the clapping congregation. The newly ‘ordained’ Anne said she felt “embraced”.

Tropeano prides herself on being the face of a different ministry, one with more participation and less hierarchy. As well as one that is open to groups traditionally questioned by the Church.

“Nobody is turned away from communion. Whether or not you’ve been divorced, none of that matters. Everybody is welcome, LGBTQ people are welcome at the table,” she says.

Anne Tropeano at her ordination, October 2021 — Anne Tropeano

Anne Tropeano was ordained in a church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in the US

Olga Lucía Álvarez also sees female priesthood as an opportunity to redefine the relationship of lay Catholics with their altar representatives.

There is an opportunity in the current state of the Church, says the Colombian woman ‘bishop’, given the dwindling number of vocations and the clerical sex abuse scandals that have severely damaged trust in priests.

“How can they say they are the sole representatives of God on Earth? They have no shame,” she says about the series of abuse allegations worldwide.

Pope Francis has apologised to the victims of sexual abuse committed by clerics, and has condemned the Church’s “complicity” in hiding the “grave crimes”.

Álvarez sees women’s ministry as an answer. At 80, she spends her time mentoring younger women who are hoping to become priests.

“It is urgent to show another face of the priesthood. We cannot let history repeat itself.”

Pope Francis at the meeting on the protection of minors in the Church in 2019 — Pope Francis has apologised to victims of sexual abuse committed by clerics

The movement for women’s ordination wants an open debate on the ban, as they are confident to have the support of lay Catholics.

In Brazil, the country with the largest Catholic population in Latin America, almost eight-in-ten Catholics said they were supportive of women priests. In the US, the figure was six-in-10, according to a 2014 survey. Yet the movement for women’s ordination has not yet taken off in Africa, the region with the fastest-growing Catholic population.

When it comes to the possibility of change, Tropeano appeals to the Pope himself to open up a dialogue.

“You need to have an audience with women who are called to priesthood. Whether they have been ‘ordained’ as part of this movement or not, you need to hear our experience and take that into your prayer.”

While the fight for women’s ordination to priesthood still looks as though it could be a long one, Tropeano thinks it is vital for the future of the Church.

“The Church will not be able to fulfil its mission unless there’s equal participation. At the moment there is nothing more important.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

December 12, 2022December 12, 2022

Wide rift on Christian views of LGBTQ community continues

By DEBBIE KELLEY

As Congress decided last week to codify federal protection of same-sex marriage, a high wall continues to divide the debate on religion and LGBTQ issues.

Some Christians consider same-sex relationships and gender fluidity to be sinful and contrary to biblical teachings.

Other Christians affirm LGBTQ distinctions and support same-sex unions and ordination of gay and transgender clergy.

The theological weeds are thorny.

While a 2019 Pew Research Center survey showed that 66% of religiously affiliated Americans thought “homosexuality should be accepted by society,” disputes over sexual orientation and gender identity have led to schisms among United Methodists, Anglicans and American Baptists.

Believers on both the conservative and liberal sides point to the other as despising one another, but one thing they agree on is that the dichotomy is a shame.

“It’s a major divisive issue, and it’s very unfortunate,” said Jeffrey Scholes, Ph.D., who heads the Center for Religious Diversity and Public Life at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where he’s also an associate professor of religious studies.

The Nov. 19 shooting at Club Q, a LGBTQ+ bar, which left five people dead and 17 others injured by gunshot, has heightened the rift “much more profoundly than otherwise,” Scholes said.

There’s no question that a few biblical passages in the Old and New Testaments are “prescriptions against sexual acts of people of the same gender,” he said.

Jesus, however, never mentions a word about it, Scholes said.

Which leaves room for extensive and divergent biblical interpretation.

“It’s completely unclear what the Bible says about homosexuality,” Scholes said.

But the Bible is very clear to clergy like the Rev. Kelly Williams, founder and pastor of Vanguard Church in Colorado Springs, a congregation of the Southern Baptist Convention.

“We believe that the Bible teaches that homosexuality is a sin,” he said.

But it’s not THE sin.

“It’s really important that we not single it out as ‘This is worse than …’” Williams said. “Sin is sin.”

Jesus didn’t speak of many things in the New Testament, Williams said, including affirming a same-sex lifestyle or marriage, or saying whether people are born gay.

“We live in a world and a country where you can make a choice,” he said. “The need to make everyone agree with you is unhealthy. If you ask me the question, ‘Are people born gay?’ the answer is ‘I don’t know, the Bible doesn’t address it.’

“You cannot go to the Bible and find an answer to that question, so where the Bible is silent, we have to be silent.”

That same silence in the Bible leaves room for determining the meaning of text not just by words but also by who wrote it, when it was written and in what context, Scholes said.

“For people whose beliefs are set on a literal interpretation of the Bible, there is no such thing,” he said. “The Bible was written in Hebrew and Greek, and by the time we get it into English, there is no such thing as a literal meaning.”

To clergy like the Rev. Dr. Joanne Sanders, a gay priest who’s assisting at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, same-gender relationships are not a sin.

“I’ve been called to ministry to educate and teach from a critical theological perspective that counters some of the misguided theology that’s out there and causing serious harm to the LGBTQ+ community,” she said on a recent day in front of the memorial outside Club Q.

Progressive clergy have been taking shifts at the site to provide spiritual support and act as a watchdog, as they said there was concern that Christians who oppose LGBTQ+ people would harass memorial onlookers.

Protests at funerals, memorial sites and other locations around the nation have occurred in the past, including by such notorious groups as the Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kan. The church has been labeled an official hate group for its vilification of not only gays and transgenders but also some religious denominations.

But that’s not how the majority of Christians treat LGBTQ+ people, say conservatives such as Jim Daly, president of Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family, an evangelical Christian communications ministry.

“As a Christian leader in Colorado Springs, I’m never in a conversation that’s denigrating the LGBTQ community or the movements,” he said.

“Most Christians that I know and interact with, we’re big believers that everybody’s created in the image of God, and everybody’s due respect — even if we disagree,” Daly said.

Focus on the Family publicly opposes same-sex marriage, transgenderism and related issues and has offered “conversion therapy” to restore people to heterosexuality, a controversial practice.

“We’re Christian folks following Scripture that indicates how we should behave and treat people, how marriage is defined by God in our opinion,” Daly said. “When we express opinions in a constitutional republic, we feel we’ve done it with no ill will or meanness toward anyone.”

Scholes, the UCCS professor, disagrees.

“By challenging something so deep-seeded as sexual attraction and promoting gay conversion therapy, they may not say that’s hate, but what they’re saying is it’s wrong, and if it’s not hate, it comes across as animosity, and is at the very least a serious level of disrespect,” Scholes said.

Said Daly, “We’re the first to say we’re sinners and saved by grace. We’re trying to espouse what we believe as Christians, and it’s gotten to the point where you get beaten down for just expressing that.

“We’re the ones receiving the ridicule.”

Bible as a weapon

Sanders spent a significant amount of her life enmeshed in evangelical communities before she “was able to come out (as lesbian) and see myself in the image of God.”

During that process, the priest said, her faith deepened and became “more authentic and real.”

“One of the most heart-breaking things is how the Bible is used as a weapon,” Sanders said.

“It’s irresponsible to say, ‘love the sinner, hate the sin,’” she said. “What that says to me is a lack of willingness to go to a deeper place together as humanity and recognize what those kinds of things are doing to people, and how it’s so much the antithesis — if we really are willing to look honestly at the life of Jesus.”

Sanders said she’ll spend the rest of her life “working to be a voice and always being willing to be in conversation with others that may have a different point of view.”

Williams, the Southern Baptist pastor, said, he, too, is willing to speak with anyone who wants to talk. His church hosted community conversations following blowback against conservative Christians, who led a 1992 voter-approved constitutional amendment banning rights for gays, lesbians and bisexual people, which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned.

“I have no animosity or hard feelings toward the homosexual community,” he said. “I want our church to be in relationship with people who are wrestling with this issue; we want to create an environment where we add a name and a face so we can show love and respect to one another.”

Said Williams, “The Bible teaches the rejection of Jesus is what sends you to hell; it’s not sin.”

Everyone’s a sinner, said The Rev. Gary Darress, a deacon at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, who also recently was offering support at the Club Q memorial.

He points to Jesus’ admonitions to his followers not to judge others, to examine one’s own sins before disparaging actions of others and to love your neighbor as yourself.

“So why are we as Christians pointing fingers at another person’s so-called sins?” he said. “In the Gospels, Christ met people where they were at. Jesus opened his heart to the Israelites, Gentiles, Romans, Samarians — why are we having such a hard time opening our hearts to the people who identify as LGBTQIA?”

Darress said he knows that people who criticize LGBTQ people may be scared by the way someone looks or acts or has an alternative lifestyle.

“But, why does it have to be, ‘You have to change, you’re acting differently from how God made you’? Do we really know how God made you? Why do we have to confine God to a box and say what God’s love is?”

‘Everybody’s on a journey’

In daily life, as LGBTQ people seek acceptance and understanding, some Christians struggle with inner spiritual conflict.

“We’re all in one way trying to wrestle through this painful and delicate issue because we do have loved ones we care about, whether friends or relatives, that identify as same-sex,” said Williams, the Southern Baptist pastor.

Gayle Rappold started an LGBTQ support group eight years ago at Holy Apostles Catholic Church and then moved it to her home. One year ago, it relocated to Sacred Heart Catholic Church under the name “Journey.”

“Because we know everybody’s on a journey with this,” the 82-year-old mother of five said.

A dozen or more parents and loved ones of LGBTQ people show up monthly, not to debate religious doctrine or beliefs but to share stories and lean on each other on what can be a difficult path to walk.

“There’s a conflict between our faith, when we’ve been taught homosexuality is wrong, it says so in the Scriptures, yet I love my child and don’t want to reject my child,” Rappold said. “There’s also a shock that comes when your child comes out and you don’t expect it.”

As per its mission, the group is a safe place, a nonjudgmental atmosphere where people bond and “primacy of conscience” is understood.

While Rappold, who has a gay son, is a practicing Catholic, a denomination that accepts LGBTQ+ people but does not allow for same-sex marriage and promotes chastity regarding same-sex attraction, she said her personal conscience dictates that she love and accept her gay child.

“And if that gay child falls in love and gets married, then I accept that,” she said. “I love and welcome gay people without questioning the life or lifestyle.”

Rappold said she does not speak for the Catholic Church.

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, has reaffirmed primacy of conscience, the belief that God reveals himself to followers while they navigate tough moral questions.

But some Catholics have criticized the Pope for doing so, and some bishops do not permit such groups as Journey under their leadership, Rappold said.

Rappold said she learned years ago not to try to change anyone’s opinion.

“My response is, ‘I’m sorry, but I feel differently than you do — I love my child and don’t judge my child,’” she said.

The Bible’s ‘consistent message’

Respect is part of what it’s going to take to bridge the disunity, religious leaders say.

“In this debate and discussion, I say don’t be so quick to villainize everybody who disagrees with you — you might find they have more compassion for you than those who agree with you,” said Williams, the Southern Baptist pastor.

Williams said while he doesn’t personally force his views on anyone, he can’t stop speaking about or change what he believes the Bible teaches, because then he wouldn’t be faithful to what he believes God has asked him to do.

“I know that I will be perceived because of my stance as hateful or unloving,” he said, “and all I can say to that is I’m trying to be faithful to my understanding of what Scripture teaches, and I’d love the opportunity to demonstrate love to anyone who disagrees with me.”

Love, the most-preached topic that appears throughout the Bible, is what potentially could bring both sides closer together, said Scholes, the UCCS professor.

“Loving one another is the consistent message that is always applauded in the biblical texts,” he said. “Jesus would be all in favor of two men or two women in love. There’s no question in my mind about that.”

Sometimes people change their minds, Scholes said, pointing to the family of former Vice President Dick Cheney, some of whom opposed same-sex marriage until the youngest daughter said she was a lesbian. Former President Barack Obama also was against gay marriage but then reversed course, Scholes noted.

Sanders, the lesbian Episcopalian priest, said willingness and humility must be employed for religious factions to come together.

“Stop causing the human pain and suffering that religion and people who speak in the name of Christianity in particularly hateful ways do, which is so destructive,” she said.

Fear of the body and of sexual relationships is “propelling so much of this hate speech,” Sanders said.

Both sides call for civility.

“It’s sad to think we can’t have different opinions on how we should live,” said Focus on the Family’s Daly.

“If they’re saying there will be no more violence if conservatives shut up and simply stop criticizing the world, I don’t think that’s an equation that works,” Daly said. “They rarely have the shoe on the other foot …

What do we do as a culture?”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

December 11, 2022December 11, 2022

Old sex-abuse claims bankrupt a Bay Area Catholic diocese. Will others follow?

— Bishop cited an “insurmountable number of claims”

A composite photograph of 20 Catholic priests that have been identified by the Oakland Diocese as priests who has been credibly accused of sexual abuse of minors going back to Jan. 13, 1962.

By John Woolfolk

Payouts for childhood sexual abuse claims have taken a financial toll on a host of venerable American institutions that provided youth programs where predators lurked, from the Boy Scouts of America to Penn State, Michigan State and numerous church organizations.

With a three-year window for new claims of decades-old abuse closing at the end of this month, the Diocese of Santa Rosa, one of five Roman Catholic dioceses serving the Bay Area, has announced it will file for bankruptcy protection early next year.

“It is the inevitable result of an insurmountable number of claims,” Bishop Robert F. Vasa wrote in an announcement last Friday that said the diocese is facing more than 130 abuse claims dating back to its establishment in 1962, mostly from the 1970s and 1980s.

The claims are made possible by AB 218, a California law that made it easier to file claims of decades-old sex abuse otherwise barred by the statute of limitations from 2020 through 2022. Attorneys representing the now middle-aged claimants said they expected more than 1,000 fresh lawsuits and that some dioceses would seek bankruptcy protection.

Vasa, whose diocese oversees parishes in Sonoma, Napa, Mendocino, Lake, Humboldt and Del Norte counties, said Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection will “bring all parties together in one place to resolve difficult claims fairly and finally, with the supervision of the bankruptcy court.” At the same time, he said, it “will provide a way for the Diocese to continue the various charitable ministries in which it is engaged.”

But SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said that dioceses across the country have used bankruptcy “to protect secrets, not assets.” Bankruptcy, they said, limits the claimants’ “discovery” process of seeking records and sworn testimony about the handling of reported abuse.

“It is a sad day for transparency and justice,” SNAP said in a statement. While acknowledging the Diocese of Santa Rosa is “one of California’s most impacted dioceses” by abuse claims, SNAP also questioned its insolvency, noting its charitable organization just reported its biggest year in donations.

The Diocese of Santa Rosa had no comment beyond the bishop’s statement.

What impact a bankruptcy might have on worshippers is unclear. Bishop Vasa in his statement said that “the parishes and Catholic schools within our Diocese are separate civil corporations or separate ecclesial entities and should not be parties to this filing.”

But he added that “there are many matters to be discerned by the bankruptcy court and so absolute certainty about the degree of participation by any other entities such as parishes and schools will be determined in the course of the proceedings.”

Whether other dioceses will follow Santa Rosa into bankruptcy court remains unclear. It is not the first California Catholic diocese to do so. The Diocese of Stockton filed for bankruptcy protection in 2014, citing $14 million in legal expenses over sex abuse claims. The Diocese of San Diego filed for bankruptcy protection in 2007 before reaching a nearly $200 million settlement with 144 alleged abuse victims.

The Catholic Church in the U.S. has paid more than $2 billion in legal expenses from the clergy sex abuse scandal that emerged in lawsuits, investigations and news reports back to the 1980s. Claims largely ended after U.S. Catholic churches adopted a zero-tolerance policy toward abusers two decades ago. But lawmakers in California, New York, Arizona and New Jersey recently allowed new claims to be filed by people who said they were abused by priests decades ago. In many cases those priests have since died.

The Bay Area’s other dioceses are the Archdiocese of San Francisco, covering San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties; the Diocese of Oakland, spanning Alameda and Contra Costa counties; the Diocese of San Jose in Santa Clara County; and the Diocese of Sacramento, which includes Solano County.

So far, none have indicated plans to seek bankruptcy protection, though they have not ruled it out.

The Diocese of San Jose said it isn’t considering bankruptcy “at this time.” The Diocese of Oakland said claims are still being processed and “it’s premature . . . to make a determination on future actions.”

The Archdiocese of San Francisco said “litigation-related issues, whether individual or in the aggregate, would be addressed through appropriate legal channels and not through speculation in media outlets.” The Diocese of Sacramento said “no decision or filing has been made.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

December 10, 2022December 10, 2022

Crisis of confidence over cardinal shakes Cologne Catholics

by KIRSTEN GRIESHABER

An unprecedented crisis of confidence is shaking a historic center of Catholicism in Germany — the Archdiocese of Cologne. Catholic believers have protested their deeply divisive archbishop and are leaving in droves over allegations that he may have covered up clergy sexual abuse reports.

While Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki’s personal fate is in the hands of Pope Francis, the drama has reverberations nationwide, given that the Cologne archdiocese has more Catholics than any other in Germany — about 1.8 million. Its double-domed cathedral is an iconic tourist attraction and one of the oldest, most important pilgrimage sites of Northern Europe.

And the crisis in Cologne, in which many thousands of Catholics in the region have left the church, is in some ways a microcosm of the issues playing out in the German Catholic Church as a whole as it undergoes a profound and controversial reform process precisely to respond to complaints by rank-and-file Catholics about the hierarchy’s responsibility for the clergy abuse crisis.

Some archdiocese employees have refused to attend meetings with the archbishop. Congregants of a Duesseldorf parish in the archdiocese raised red cards in protest when he visited last year, objecting to him administering the sacrament of confirmation to their children.

Dozens of altar boys and girls from the archdiocese turned their backs in protest to Woelki when he celebrated Mass with them during a trip to Rome in October. The choirs in the archdiocese recently reported a loss of 30% of their members, which they say is partially related to the coronavirus pandemic but also a clear repudiation of Woelki.

In the latest escalation, Cologne prosecutors last month opened an investigation against the powerful conservative cardinal in two cases on suspicion of making false affidavits. In each case, the question is whether Woelki, 66, had been informed earlier than he stated about allegations of abuse against certain clergymen. The cardinal rejects all accusations against him.

Even influential German politicians who normally steer clear of church politics have spoken out.

The minister for youth and family in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where Cologne is located, said she viewed the situation with bewilderment.

“Especially those in positions of responsibility must not look the other way and they must certainly not deny or cover up,” Josefine Paul said last month in a speech in the state parliament.

The church is expected to be a preeminent model of morality, and it has “set the highest moral standards for all kinds of people in society — does all this no longer apply to a bishop?” Tim Kurzbach, chairman of the diocesan council of Catholics in the archdiocese, told The Associated Press.

Kurzbach, mayor of the town of Solingen in the archdiocese, said he knows of several long-time parishioners who are leaving the church because they can no longer bear “the moral decay” in Cologne.

The crisis of confidence began in 2020, when Woelki, citing legal concerns, kept under wraps a report he commissioned on how local church officials reacted when priests were accused of sexual abuse. That infuriated many Cologne Catholics. A second report, published in March 2021, found 75 cases in which high-ranking officials neglected their duties.

The report absolved Woelki of any neglect of his legal duty with respect to abuse victims. He subsequently said he made mistakes in past cases involving sexual abuse allegations but insisted he had no intention of resigning.

Two papal envoys were dispatched to Cologne a few months later to investigate possible mistakes by senior officials in handling cases. Their report led Pope Francis to give Woelki a “ spiritual timeout ” of several months for making major communication errors.

In March, after his return from the timeout, the cardinal submitted his offer to resign but so far Francis has not acted on it.

“I don’t think it got through to Rome how much the people here are suffering,” Kurzbach said. “Without a decision on the Cologne cardinal question, we will not get out of the crisis. The question must finally be resolved.”

The issue was raised when Germany’s bishops visited with the pope last month. The head of the German Bishops Conference, Limburg Bishop Georg Baetzing, told reporters that “it was made very clear that the situation in the archdiocese is increasingly unbearable, even for the archbishop.” The wait for a papal decision also is burdensome for German Catholics, he said.

In the interim, they are exiting the church in record numbers. Some 44,772 Catholics in the Cologne archdiocese left in 2021, up from 17,281 in 2020, according to church figures.

Nationally, the number of Catholics leaving the church has also risen dramatically. Some 359,338 left in 2021, up from 221,390 in 2020. It is still the largest faith group in the country. About 21.6 million Catholics live in Germany, which has an overall population of 84 million.

“It’s clear that this is a difficult situation,” Cologne archdiocese spokesman, Juergen Kleikamp, told the AP last week. “But that’s just the way it is. In the Catholic Church, the pope has to decide and no one else.”

Meanwhile, Woelki is “doing his work to the best of his knowledge and also with great commitment,” Kleikamp said, adding that while some Catholics “are angry and quarrel with their church, there are others who applaud and rejoice when the bishop comes.”

Many Catholics, however, doubt the crisis can be easily fixed any time soon — even if the cardinal resigns.

Lay leader Regina Oediger-Spinrath, 61, called it “an absolute crisis of trust and credibility.” She is a spokeswoman for the professional association of pastoral assistants in the archdiocese, and thinks the crisis goes beyond the Cologne situation. Oediger-Spinrath said fundamental changes are needed, including more equality for women and LGBTQ people.

“Leadership needs to be rethought,” she said. “The way it is in the Catholic Church, that is absolutely hierarchical, some also say authoritarian from the top down — I believe, that many people no longer want to go along with that.”

Those demands are in line with the reform process, known as the “ Synodal Path,” the German church launched with the country’s influential lay group, the Central Committee of German Catholics, to respond to the clergy sexual abuse scandals after a 2018 report found at least 3,677 people were abused by clergy between 1946 and 2014.

Preliminary assemblies have already approved calls to allow same-sex couple blessings, married priests and the ordination of women deacons. The movement, however, also sparked fierce opposition from the Vatican and conservative clergy in Germany and elsewhere.

While Oediger-Spinrath says she is ready to fight for changes, others have lost patience.

“I will leave the church,” says Peter Barzel, 65, a member of the St. Margareta parish in Duesseldorf. He helped organize last year’s red card protest during Woelki’s visit.

Barzel, an active parishioner for decades, also tried to bring more attention to recent sexual abuse allegations lodged against two former St. Margareta pastors that have roiled the parish. Eventually, he gave up.

“I will certainly miss something when I leave the church, because the Christian faith is something you share with other people,” he said. “But I can no longer support this system.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!