Wanderlust

Tag: Religion Belief

  • Carlo Maria Vigano claim of Theodore McCarrick cover-up by Pope Francis ‘blasphemous,’ Vatican says

    A top Vatican cardinal issued a scathing rebuke Sunday of the ambassador who accused Pope Francis of covering up the sexual misconduct of a prominent American cardinal, saying his claims were false, “

    VATICAN CITY — A top Vatican cardinal issued a scathing rebuke Sunday of the ambassador who accused Pope Francis of covering up the sexual misconduct of a prominent American cardinal, saying his claims were false, “blasphemous” and demanding that he repent.

    Six weeks after Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano threw the papacy into turmoil over his claims about ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the head of the Vatican’s bishops office said there was no evidence in his files backing Vigano’s claims that Francis annulled any sanctions against McCarrick.

    Cardinal Marc Ouellet’s letter was issued Sunday, a day after Francis authorized a “thorough study” of all Vatican archives into how McCarrick rose through the ranks of the Catholic Church despite allegations he sexually preyed on seminarians and young priests.

    The letter, addressed to Vigano but identified as an open letter to the faithful, marked an extraordinary and decisive end to the official Vatican silence about Vigano’s claims. In it, Ouellet both defended the pope and criticized Vigano, asserting that the conservative cleric had used the scandal over sexual abuse in the U.S. to score ideological points with Francis’ critics on the Catholic right.

    Ouellet said a review of his files showed there were no documents about any sanctions imposed on McCarrick and that it was “false” to suggest Francis had annulled any such measures.

    Ouellet did acknowledge that McCarrick had been “strongly exhorted” not to travel or appear in public, and to live a discreet life of prayer given rumors against him about his past behavior with young adult men.

    The McCarrick scandal has thrown the U.S. and Vatican hierarchy into turmoil, given it was apparently an open secret in some U.S. church circles that he would invite seminarians to his New Jersey beach house and into his bed. Two men received settlements starting in 2005 from two New Jersey dioceses after they alleged McCarrick sexually molested or harassed them.

    The Vatican was informed starting in at least 2000 about the seminarian complaints.

    Francis accepted McCarrick’s resignation as a cardinal in July after a U.S. church investigation determined that an allegation that he groped a teenage altar boy in the 1970s was credible. Since then, another man has come forward saying McCarrick molested him when he was a young teen and other men have said they were harassed by McCarrick as adult seminarians and young priests.

    Ouellet’s letter marked the Vatican’s first direct response to Vigano’s 11-page denunciation Aug. 26 in which he accused two dozen Vatican and U.S. church officials of covering up for McCarrick, and demanded Francis resign for his role in the scandal.

    In the document, Vigano claimed he told Francis during a June 23, 2013 meeting that Pope Benedict XVI had sanctioned McCarrick to a lifetime of penance and prayer for having “corrupted a generation of seminarians and priests.”

    Vigano implied that Francis still rehabilitated McCarrick from the “canonical sanctions” and made him a trusted counselor.

    Ouellet noted that the June 23 meeting occurred as Francis was meeting with all his ambassadors for the first time, and was gathering an “enormous quantity of verbal and written information” about the church around the world.

    “I strongly doubt that McCarrick concerned him to the degree you’d like to think, given he was an 82-year-old emeritus archbishop who had been out of a job for seven years,” Ouellet wrote.

    Ouellet said in all his meetings with Francis about bishop nominations, he never heard him refer once to McCarrick as a trusted counselor. He said he couldn’t believe Vigano had arrived at such a “monstrous” and “blasphemous” conclusion given that Francis had nothing to do with McCarrick’s career rise in the previous decades.

    He said he understood that Vigano might be bitter at the way his own career ended and his disagreement with Francis’ policies. But he wrote:

    “You cannot end your priestly life in an open and scandalous rebellion that inflicts a painful wound” on the church and divides its people. He urged Vigano: “Come out of your hiding place, repent for your revolt and return to better sentiments toward the Holy Father.”

  • Lauren Daigle wants to break down walls to Christian music

    Three years ago, Lauren Daigle took home three Dove Awards for her debut record, “How Can It Be,” and the Louisiana singer-songwriter got her first taste of the weight of genre’s expectations on her s

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Three years ago, Lauren Daigle took home three Dove Awards for her debut record, “How Can It Be,” and the Louisiana singer-songwriter got her first taste of the weight of genre’s expectations on her shoulders. The 2015 album, one of only a few Christian music albums to have been certified platinum in recent years, propelled her to the top of the Christian music charts.

    “You’re sitting there with these awards and it’s a beautiful moment,” Daigle said. “But everything that was happening in my ears was like, ‘Oh my gosh, how do I maintain this responsibility, how do I uphold this level of expectation?’”

    Since then, the 27-year-old has more than risen to the challenge of being an ambassador for contemporary Christian music. She sang a duet with Reba McEntire on the Academy of Country Music Awards, recorded a song for the “Blade Runner 2049” soundtrack, earned two Grammy nominations and toured relentlessly.

    Her follow up, “Look Up Child,” debuted this month at No. 3 on Billboard’s all-genre album chart and had the best first week sales of any Christian album in nearly nine years, according to Billboard. Daigle, who is performing at this year’s Dove Awards on Oct. 16 and is nominated for an American Music Award, talked with The Associated Press about why she likes Chance the Rapper and breaking down the walls to Christian music. The following remarks have been edited for brevity.

    AP: This new record has a lot of strings and orchestration on the songs. What was that like in the studio?

    Daigle: We got to go into the studio and listen to all of the sounds that can be created from an orchestra, from the strings. I remember this moment, they were in a semi-circle and I sat in the middle and I had some friends come in and sit there with me. And tears just started falling down their faces. It was so pure. Just that kind of sound was so pure and rich. I loved the complement to the lyric that strings bring.

    AP: You have a song called “Losing My Religion,” tell me about the meaning of that song.

    Daigle: I had realized there are so many moments where I let that expectation dictate my ability to perform, my perfectionism. And as much as we want to create a white picket fence, it’s not real. It’s a facade. And I think the sooner we realize that people can be messy and people are fragile, the more we actually start to see through the eyes of God, or the God that I know. We experience kindness for humanity. We experience joy for humanity. And we run toward them instead of building all these barriers. And so that’s what “Losing My Religion” is. It’s taking down all the boxes, taking down all the fences, and it’s living as pure and as whole as possible.

    AP: Has it always been your goal to reach people beyond the Christian music genre?

    Daigle: We have this saying in my team that’s called “Extend the tent pegs.” And it’s not to leave behind anybody that has listened to this music so far and that has been along this journey with me because I am 100 percent grateful. So I don’t want to leave anybody behind, but how to do I also make music that people who might not listen to Christian music they can also connect to? They can also relate to? That’s super-important to me to make music that permeates all the walls and just tear all the walls down. People need love, people need hope. People need joy anywhere in life.

    AP: Do you want to change people’s understanding of what Christian music can be?

    Daigle: Chance the Rapper got to do stuff with all these gospel artists. So profound. I love that, right? And that was something I wanted to bring in as well. Like elements where people who weren’t necessarily church people, or Christians, or whatever the title is, who don’t really dive into that kind of music can hear something and it be compelling enough and it be strong enough to where they are drawn in and feel welcomed and invited.

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    Online:

    http://laurendaigle.com/

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    Follow Kristin M. Hall at Twitter.com/kmhall

  • Sessions: Trump administration will defend religious freedoms

    Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday the Trump administration will not treat religious individuals as an “afterthought” and vowed that the Justice Department will get involved in more cases rega

    Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday the Trump administration will not treat religious individuals as an “afterthought” and vowed that the Justice Department will get involved in more cases regarding freedom of religion.

    Mr. Sessions’ remarks came at a meeting of the Council for National Policy, a conservative networking organization founded in 1981.

    “The threats to religious freedom are threats to our First Amendment right to freedom of speech,” Mr. Sessions told the group.

    In October, the Justice Department issued a directive to give religious organizations and individuals stronger protections to express their beliefs, even when they conflict with government regulations.

    The directive was criticized because it provided stronger protections for employers making hiring decisions based on their religious faith. Some claimed the directive would lead to discrimination against individuals whose sexual orientation clashed with their employers’ faith.

    The department directive came on the heels of the Trump administration announcing it would expand religious exemptions for employers who object to providing insurance coverage for birth control.

    Former Sen. Sam Brownback was confirmed in February as the United States’ ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Mr. Brownback is the first former politician and first Catholic to hold that position, which has existed through previous administrations.

    “The Trump administration understand the value of free religious expression,” Mr. Sessions told the crowd.

    The Justice Department has also become fairly active in defending religious liberty cases under the Trump administration. Earlier this year, the department filed court papers alleging that Georgia Gwinnett College violated the constitutional rights of a student who claimed he was told he couldn’t distribute fliers promoting his Christian faith in a campus open space. In its 26-page statement of interest, the department said the students’ right to free speech was violated.

    Mr. Sessions emphasized the link between freedom of speech and freedom of religion, two constitutional protections, in his speech Friday.

    “I would argue that free expression of religious views and values is doubly protected in the First Amendment,” he said.

  • Narendra Modi blamed in rise of India’s Christian persecution

    Religious clashes in the troubled northern Indian state of Jamma and Kashmir are nothing new, but the riot that broke in January targeted an unexpected group: Christians.

    NEW DELHI — Religious clashes in the troubled northern Indian state of Jamma and Kashmir are nothing new, but the riot that broke in January targeted an unexpected group: Christians.

    While most of the state’s problems pit an Islamist separatist movement against India’s Hindu majority, Christianity was at the heart of the violence this time as a mob of thousands interrupted a burial ceremony to seize the body of the deceased for a Hindu cremation.

    Local Christians and international religious rights groups say anti-Christian incidents are on the rise, particularly since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party assumed power in 2014. They contend that the government’s failure to censure local leaders for inflammatory rhetoric and sectarian persecution has encouraged a culture of impunity for anti-minority violence — a charge the BJP denies.

    SEE ALSO: Christianity in India

    The Evangelical Fellowship of India documented some 350 cases of violence and other forms of persecution against Christians last year. That is more than double the rate compared with the 140 annually before the BJP assumed power and the highest level of violence since an anti-Christian pogrom that resulted in dozens of rapes and killings and the burning of hundreds of churches in the state of Odisha in 2008, said EFI Executive Director Vijayesh Lal.

    High points of the Christian liturgical year, such as the coming Easter celebrations, are proving times of particular peril.

    “It is distressing to see even private worship being attacked by Hindu right-wing activists violating the privacy and sanctity of an individual or a family and trampling upon their constitutional rights,” Mr. Lal said on releasing the organization’s 2017 survey last month. “The instances of attacks on churches on Sundays and other important days of worship such as Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter and Christmas have increased.”

    Based on voluntary reporting and investigations by civil society organizations, the EFI report documented attacks on churches, the unlawful detentions of children on their way to Bible camp and homicides.

    Even so, police registered complaints in fewer than 50 cases last year.

    “There are many reasons,” Mr. Lal said. “Fear is the most common. Victims don’t want to get caught in the whole web of the police and the courts. Refusal to file an [information report] on the part of the police is also very common.”

    The Ministry of Home Affairs, which is responsible for law and order, did not respond to questions about the EFI report or associated data by the U.S.-based Save the Persecuted Christians Coalition. Indian authorities do not track such incidents.

    More broadly, clashes among various ethnic and religious communities rose 28 percent from 2014 to 2017, according to an analysis of Home Affairs Ministry data by IndiaSpend, a nonprofit journalism initiative. But the BJP Minority Morcha, the party’s wing devoted to courting minority voters, insisted that neither the Modi government nor BJP policy is to blame.

    Violence and other forms of persecution may occur, said BJP Minority Morcha head Abdul Rasheed Ansari, “but it is never sponsored by the government or the political party.”

    Clashes over conversions

    It’s a thorny issue, analysts say.

    Almost 80 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people are Hindu. While just 14 percent of the population is Muslim, India boasts the world’s third-largest Muslim population. Christians make up about 2.3 percent of the population — nearly 30 million believers — and there are smaller communities of Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains.

    The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in its 2017 global survey rated India as one of a dozen Tier-2 countries for religious restrictions, behind countries of top concern such as China, North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia but on par with Cuba, Iraq and Turkey.

    “While [Mr. Modi] spoke publicly about the importance of communal tolerance and religious freedom, members of the ruling party have ties to Hindu nationalist groups implicated in religious freedom violations, used religiously divisive language to inflame tensions, and called for additional laws that would restrict religious freedom,” the commission’s report noted.

    “Christian communities across many denominations reported numerous incidents of harassment and attacks in 2016, which they attribute to Hindu nationalist groups supported by the BJP.”

    The January incident in Jammu and Kashmir shined a spotlight on concerns across India about Christian proselytizing and religious conversion. In that case, the mob violence erupted over charges that the deceased, Seema Devi, had been forced to convert to Christianity by her husband and subsequently died from illness after he took her for “spiritual healing,” according to The Indian Express daily newspaper.

    Afterward, nearly 45 families from the village of Sehyal and the surrounding areas converted from Christianity to Hinduism as part of a “ghar wapsi” or “homecoming” program promoted by the local BJP member of the state legislative assembly. The few Christian holdouts are living under police protection.

    That assemblyman, Ravinder Raina, said Christian missionaries had converted “poor people through force and deceit,” echoing accusations that BJP legislators and others have used to introduce anti-conversion laws in nine of the country’s 29 states.

    Lawmakers in a 10th, the northern state of Uttarakhand, introduced a similar bill last week, suggesting a penalty of up to two years in prison for anyone seeking converts through force or “allurement” — which could include money, employment or any material benefit.

    Conversion is particularly contentious in India because the patronage-oriented political system courts voters based on their caste and religious identities, much the way American political parties target communities based on their race, income, gender or ethnic backgrounds. Hinduism over the centuries has faced a steady exodus of the erstwhile untouchables — now called Dalits — whom the tenets of the religion declare to be subhuman. The conversion of aboriginal tribes has also eroded Hindu dominance in some areas.

    Christian activists insist forcible conversions and allurement are myths invented by the Hindu nationalist right, and the associated push for anti-conversion laws has resulted in the rising climate of persecution.

    “When challenged in court, when challenged elsewhere, no government at the state level or the government in New Delhi has ever been able to accuse a single person of forced or induced conversion,” said John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council. “The most they can say is there has been a conversion. But conversions are not illegal. They are creating paranoia to develop a Hindu vote bank.”

    Mr. Ansari objected to that characterization and referred to an oft-repeated slogan of the prime minister, “Sabka saath, sabka vikas,” or “All together, all for development.”

    “All means all,” Mr. Ansari said, “including the minorities.”