Al Kresta's Blog, page 343

Illinois governor to abolish death penalty

By DEANNA BELLANDI, Associated Press

Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn has said he supports capital punishment if it's fairly applied, but one of his Republican predecessors felt so uneasy about the state's power to mete out the ultimate punishment that he placed a moratorium on executions that has lasted for the past 11 years.

On Wednesday, Quinn plans to abolish Illinois' death penalty at a signing ceremony in his capital offices, according to two sponsors of the legislation, State Rep. Karen Yarbrough and state Sen. Kwame Raoul, who said they were invited to witness the event.

"It's going to happen," Raoul said.

Quinn's signature would make Illinois the 16th state without capital punishment when it takes effect July 1. But a decision to sign has not come easily.

Quinn's office declined to comment Tuesday about his intentions, but he has said he personally supports the death penalty when properly implemented and would make a decision on the bill based on his conscience.

"I've heard from many, many people of good faith and good conscience on both sides of the issue. And I've tried to be very meticulous and writing down notes and studying those notes and books and e-mails. They've really spoken from the heart. I've been very proud of the people of Illinois," Quinn said recently.

Among those the governor consulted with were prosecutors, murder victims' families, death penalty opponents and religious leaders. Quinn even heard from retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and met with Sister Helen Prejean, the inspiration for the movie "Dead Man Walking."

Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan appealed directly to Quinn to veto the bill, as did several county prosecutors and victims' families. They said safeguards, including videotaped interrogations and easier access to DNA evidence, were in place to prevent innocent people from being wrongly executed.

But death penalty opponents argued that there was still no guarantee that an innocent person couldn't be put to death. Even Quinn's own lieutenant governor, Sheila Simon, a former southern Illinois prosecutor, asked him to abolish capital punishment.

Illinois' last execution was in 1999, a year before then-Gov. George Ryan imposed a moratorium on capital punishment after the death sentences of 13 men were overturned. Ryan cleared death row before leaving office in 2003 by commuting the death sentences of 167 inmates to life in prison.

If Quinn were to sign the bill, it is unclear how that would affect the 15 inmates currently on Illinois' death row.

New Mexico was the most recent state to repeal the death penalty, in 2009, but new Republican Gov. Susana Martinez wants to reinstate it. The District of Columbia also doesn't have the death penalty.

Prosecutors would still be able to seek the death penalty and juries could still impose it until the law took effect.

Members of US women religious visitation team share thoughts at final workshop

Hamden, Conn., Mar 9, 2011(CNA)
Vowed religious who assisted in the apostolic visitation of U.S. women religious congregations met for a concluding workshop March 4-6. They shared their personal impressions and observations of the common hopes, challenges and concerns of the numerous female religious communities.

Mother Mary Clare Millea, ASCJ, who headed the visitation, said that the examination of religious congregations gave American Catholics the opportunity to voice "their appreciation and esteem for our early sisters and for us who revere them as our models of courage and faith."

The workshop was "a great grace and joy" and provided her with material to enhance her final reports, she said. The event also deepened bonds of "mutual understanding" among participants and the Congregation for Consecrated Life.

Mother Millea predicted these bonds will do much to "promote the vitality of religious life in the context of respectful dialogue and ecclesial communion."

The Vatican's Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life announced the visitation in January 2009 to analyze the state of female religious life in the U.S. The announcement prompted surprise among U.S. women religious and some responded with public expressions of anger and skepticism.

The visitation's concluding workshop took place at the U.S. provincial headquarters of the Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Hamden, Conn. Its 58 participants included the core team and consultants for the visitation as well as more than half of the women and men religious who served as on-site visitors to selected religious congregations.

Also in attendance was Archbishop Joseph Tobin of Providence, a Redemptorist who is now the secretary of the Congregation for Consecrated Life. Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport was a concelebrant and homilist for one of the weekend's Masses.

Sr. Joan McGlinchey, MSC, facilitated the workshop sessions. Br. Paul Bednarczyk, CSC, executive director of the National Religious Vocation Conference, spoke to the gathering about the Moving Forward in Hope project which promotes vocations and charts a path to renewal for religious life.

Attendees offered suggestions about how to promote respectful dialogue and collaboration among religious congregations and within the Church.

Mother Millea said that Archbishop Tobin "listened attentively to the heartfelt sharing of the participants."

"He expressed his deep understanding of our reality and expressed the continued support of the Congregation for Consecrated Life in fostering the ongoing revitalization of religious life in the United States," she said.

Mother Millea's final reports will be submitted by the end of 2011. The website for the apostolic visitation is http://www.apostolicvisitation.org

600 Anglicans prepare to enter ordinariate

A first wave of about 600 Anglicans are officially leaving the Church of England in protest at the decision to ordain women as bishops among other things.

They will be enrolled as candidates to join a new branch of the Catholic Church - the Ordinariate - which has been specially created for them.

They will attend Catholic Mass marking Ash Wednesday before spending Lent preparing to convert.

The Ordinariate is led by three former Anglican bishops.

The group leaving the Church of England - which includes 20 members of the clergy - are unhappy about developments in Anglicanism they claim have led it away from traditions historically shared with Roman Catholics.

'Goalposts shifted'

Father Ed Tomlinson, who has stood down as a parish priest in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, said the Anglican Church had been "shifting the goalposts".

"We couldn't continue to be Christians in a normal sense when we were in a maverick Church that kept changing the rules to appease the common culture," he said.

He said changes to the rules on divorce and family had produced a "political Church where people campaign for things".

Parishioner Kay Abbey, who is leaving her church in Hockley, Essex, said the ordination of women bishops was the final straw.

"It just gets totally away from what we've been taught in the Bible that it comes through Jesus, through the male line," she told the BBC.

"The Catholic tradition gives us that and that's the way I want to continue to go."

The converts' first formal step on their journey towards becoming a Catholic - the right of election service - will take place in churches this weekend.

Then after several weeks of preparation, they will become Catholics just before Easter and will then join the Ordinariate, which was set up by Pope Benedict specifically for former Anglicans.

It is led by three former Anglican bishops - Andrew Burnham, Keith Newton and John Broadhurst - who themselves converted earlier this year.

The Ordinariate will be funded initially by donations but its priests will not receive a salary, as they did in the Anglican Church.

'Spaghetti junction'

The BBC's religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the numbers represent only a tiny proportion of the Church of England's clergy and membership, and are smaller than earlier estimates.

But he said other clergy on the traditionalist wing were waiting to see what provisions would be made to allow them to escape oversight by women bishops in the future before deciding whether to follow suit.

Church of England spokesman Steve Jenkins said that "movement between Churches is like a spaghetti junction".

He said that official figures showed 14 Roman Catholic priests had converted to the Church of England in the past five years.

The Catholic Church has described the establishment of the Ordinariate as "a unique and historic moment".

Archbishop Vincent Nichols, the Catholic Church's leader in England and Wales, said: "It is to contribute to the wider goal of visible unity between our two Churches by helping us to know in practice how our patrimonies of faith and living can strengthen each other in our mission today."

New York bishops will not deny Communion to pro-abortion politicians

By Phil LawlerMarch 08, 2011CWNews.com The bishops of New York met today with Governor Andrew Cuomo.
In light of the highly publicized flap recently over Cuomo's decision to receive Communion-- despite the scandals caused by his relationship with a live-in girlfriend and his support for legal abortion and same-sex marriage-- you might be wondering whether that topic came up in his conversation with the bishops.

No, it didn't.

Bishop Howard Hubbard of Albany, who administered the Eucharist to the governor, said that the Church does not comment "when it comes to judging the worthiness of Communion." (Presumably he meant worthiness for Communion.) Sorry, but that's just plain wrong. Speaking through the Code of Canon Law (915), the Church says that those "who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion."

"There is some disagreement among bishops about using the Communion line as a place for confrontation, and I don't think the bishops in New York State feel that's appropriate," Bishop Hubbard continued. You might rephrase that, to say that there's a disagreement among bishops about whether or not to carry out the clear duties imposed by Canon 915. But leave that aside. Today the bishops did not meet Cuomo in the Communion line; they met for a private conversation.

So again, did the topic arise? Bishop Edward Kmiec of Buffalo responded: "That kind of issue has to be discussed not at the altar rail." Right. Understood. But there was no altar rail in sight during the meeting today.

So let's try again. Did the bishops mention the topic? No, said Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York. You see, "this is probably not the best place to talk about something that pastorally sensitive."

OK. You can't talk to the governor about it when he presents himself for Communion. You can't talk to the governor about it when you're meeting to discuss legislative priorities. When can you talk to the governor about it?

And if Cuomo is scandalizing the faithful by receiving Communion, and jeopardizing his own salvation, what other topics are more important for bishops to discuss with him?

Philadelphia: reactions vary after 21 priests removed from ministry

CWNews.com

After the Archdiocese of Philadelphia announced that 21 priests had been placed on administrative leave, a prosecutor praised the move, while groups representing sex-abuse victims said the move was not enough.

"Cardinal Rigali's actions.. reflect his concern for the physical and spiritual well-being of those in his care," said Seth Williams, the district attorney who had guided a grand jury investigation that concluded with a scathing critique of archdiocesan policies.

But Joelle Casteix of the Survivor's Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP) disagreed, saying that cardinal's action was "outrageously reckless and callous" because the archdiocese had not immediately identified the 21 priests who were removed from ministry. In fact, the archdiocese plans to reveal the identity of the suspended clerics, beginning with disclosures at their parishes this weekend.

The simultaneous removal of 21 priests, coming in the wake of the critical grand-jury report, clearly indicated that the archdiocese was backpedaling in the face of public outrage.

Pope explains the purpose of fasting during Lent

Outrageous Statement of the Day

Joe Pagliarulo filling in as a Guest Host on the Glenn Beck Program: President Obama Wants $1,000 Per Barrel Of Oil To Force Us "All To Drive An Egg Car." Let's have productive conversations rather than making these ridiculous claims.

Cartoon of the Day - Pot of Gold

Today on Kresta - March 9, 2011

Talking about the "things that matter most" on March 9

4:00 – From the White House to Ave Maria University: Jim Towey Takes the Reins
The former head of the White House Office for Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and president of Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pa., has been named president and CEO of Ave Maria University. Jim Towey will begin his new position on July 1 and will succeed Nicholas Healy. Towey is also assuming the role of CEO, in the place of Ave Maria founder Tom Monaghan, who will continue as just the chancellor. Towey, who also served as the attorney for Mother Teresa of Calcutta for 12 years, joins us to talk about his accomplishments, his plans, and the future of Ave Maria University.

4:20 – Why Two Judgments? The Individual's Reckoning at Death Fulfills God's Justice Only in Part
Stretching out across the altar wall of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel is Michelangelo's magnificent fresco "The Last Judgment." Homilies about Judgment Day are rare these days, so even Catholic visitors to the Chapel may sometimes puzzle over the arresting images. In particular, Catholics often wonder why the Church teaches we will go through two judgments after death. We talk to apologist Paul Thigpen about why the two judgments.

4:40 – The Last Acceptable Prejudice Rides Again
Anti-Catholicism has long been a feature of both the high and the low culture in America. From the nineteenth-century to the middle of the twentieth-century, it was out in the open: many editorialists, cartoonists, politicians, and other shapers of popular opinion in that era were crudely explicit in their opposition to the Catholic Church. But then, in the latter half of the twentieth-century, anti-Catholicism went relatively underground. It still existed, to be sure, but it was considered bad form to be too obvious about it. However, in the last ten years or so, the old demon has re-surfaced. We talk about it with Fr. Robert Barron.

5:00 – Kresta Comments: Ash Wednesday and The Journey Through Lent

Militants kill Christian Cabinet Member in Pakistan