By Ed Wilkinson Catholic News Service
BROOKLYN, N.Y. (CNS) — In what appears to be a contradiction in terms, silence as a means of communication was the theme of the Brooklyn Diocese’s 21st annual World Communications Day conference and luncheon May 18.

The topic came from the theme of Pope Benedict XVI’s message for World Communications Day, “Silence and Word: Path of Evangelization.”

Msgr. Kieran Harrington, Brooklyn’s vicar for communications, opened the program by saying, “There is a lot of noise in today’s world. The pope challenges us to be still so that we can have a personal encounter with God.”

Keynote speaker Kathryn Jean Lopez, editor-at-large of National Review Online, said she felt that “silence was disappearing” in the world. She called Pope Benedict’s message about silence” a great gift from a great teacher.”

“No one looks at one another anymore,” she said. “Everyone is tweeting and texting. We need to get over ourselves and to ask God to help us get outside ourselves.”

She pointed out that the pope says silence is necessary because it allows time for contemplation and time to listen to one another, without which no real dialogue or conversation can take place. She recommended that everyone commit to an hour of silence a day to listen to God and to one another.

“Silence is not an escape; it’s meant to be an integral part of our lives,” she said.

She used Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen as an example of a great communicator who took time out of every day to make a holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament.

“We’re living in this new media world and we’re trying to be good Catholics,” she said. “If we seek to be well integrated, God will use the opportunities to communicate with us.”

A second keynoter, Kellianne Conway, a national pollster and frequent TV commentator, explained that “we are living in a time when Catholics are under attack in the media. It’s open season on Catholics. Anti-Catholic rhetoric is part of the expected routine.”

But “people still agree with doctrinal precepts,” she said. “Even if they don’t admit it at times.”

For instance, she maintained that most Americans are opposed to abortion. Those who support keeping abortion legal use the argument of protecting the life of the mother but she explained that only 1 percent of abortions in the United States are performed to save the life of the mother.

She also said most abortion supporters do not want the general public to know that 3 percent of the abortions occur because of gender selection, which is usually anti-feminine.

She added that the nation is increasingly becoming pro-life because science and medicine have stepped up with information and images that are shifting the focus away from the woman and more toward the child in the womb.

“Catholic are seen as out of touch on social issues but facts and figures are on our side,” she said.

Conway, a Catholic and the mother of four, also urged the Catholic Church to embrace immigrants because the newly arrived Asians and Hispanics are “propping up our church, even in the suburbs.”

As a national pollster, she claimed that there is no monolithic Catholic vote because it usually breaks down between churchgoing and fallen-away Catholics.

“The behavior of churchgoing Catholics is much more based on faith,” she said. “If religion is central to you, your faith influences the rest of your life, including the way you vote.”

The Catholic Church, she said, needs to get back to basics and to use facts to communicate shock to the consciences of others.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio presented a St. Francis de Sales medal to Christopher Ruddy, founder and CEO of NewsMax, a multimedia publications company that publishes one of the country’s most popular news online services.

Ruddy, a graduate of Chaminade High School in Uniondale on Long Island and St. John’s University in Jamaica, N.Y., said he got into the media business because the country was suffering from a lack of diversity in news and that journalism was becoming one-sided.

He also echoed other speakers that “religious freedom is in the crosshairs” of an increasingly secular society.

Bishop DiMarzio also presented a St. Clare Award to Joe Campo, CEO and founding partner of Grassroots Film Co., a Brooklyn-based video production company.

Grassroots has been commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and also has produced national TV spots. Its recent feature film “The Human Experience” has been shown at 30 international film festivals.

In keeping with the theme of the conference, Campo pointed out that one of his poignant pro-life ads for CatholicVote.com was seen on national TV and didn’t have a word in it.

Bishop DiMarzio closed the session by saying that “we cannot pray in the midst of noise. Silence is necessary if we want to communicate with one another. There’s a lot of noise in our lives but God often speaks through silence.”

He used silence as part of his closing prayer. Msgr. Harrington called for a minute of silence during the program.

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By Ed Wilkinson, editor of The Tablet in Brooklyn.

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Forty-three Catholic dioceses, schools, hospitals, social service agencies and other institutions filed suit in federal court May 21 to stop three government agencies from implementing a mandate that would require them to cover contraceptives and sterilization in their health plans.

“Through this lawsuit, plaintiffs do not seek to impose their religious beliefs on others,” said one of the suits, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Indiana by the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, diocesan Catholic Charities, St. Anne Home and Retirement Community, Franciscan Alliance, University of St. Francis and Our Sunday Visitor.

“They simply ask that the government not impose its values and policies on plaintiffs, in direct violation of their religious beliefs,” it added.

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York, whose archdiocese is among the plaintiffs, said the lawsuits were “a compelling display of the unity of the church in defense of religious liberty” and “a great show of the diversity of the church’s ministries that serve the common good and that are jeopardized by the mandate.”

“We have tried negotiations with the administration and legislation with the Congress — and we’ll keep at it — but there’s still no fix,” the cardinal said. “Time is running out and our valuable ministries and fundamental rights hang in the balance, so we have to resort to the courts now.”

Cardinal Dolan also is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which is not a party to the lawsuits.

Catholic organizations have objected to the contraceptive mandate since it was announced last Aug. 1 by Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Unless they are subject to a narrow religious exemption or have a grandfathered health plan, employers will be required to pay for sterilizations and contraceptives, including some abortion-inducing drugs, as part of their health coverage beginning as soon as Aug. 1, 2012.

In all, 12 lawsuits were filed simultaneously May 21 in various U.S. district courts around the country. The defendants in each case were Sebelius; Labor Secretary Hilda Solis; and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, along with their departments.

The Diocese of Phoenix is not among the 43 Catholic entities which filed suit in federal court, but “fully agree with them and did not feel the need to add our names since we are confident that our concerns and positions will be adequately represented,” according to a statement issued today.

“This is not about preventing access to contraception, nor about preventing the government from providing such services,” according to the statement. “If the government wishes to provide such services, means are readily available that do not force religious organizations to serve as its agents. We do not seek to impose our religious beliefs on others, nor do we seek to force others to agree with those beliefs. We simply ask that the government not impose its values on us, nor force us to take actions that directly conflict with our deeply held beliefs.”

The government, according to diocesan leadership, does not have the right to “coerce the Church to cooperate with what we consider to be immoral practices, and its narrow religious exemption is a direct impingement on religious liberty for all people of faith.”

The statement also lauded the recently passed Arizona law, HB 2625, calling it “a model for achieving a resolution that respects the rights and consciences of all parties.”

Erin Shields, HHS director of communications for health care, told Catholic News Service May 21 that the department cannot comment on pending litigation.

In addition to the Archdiocese of New York and Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, the dioceses involved are the archdioceses of Washington and St. Louis and the dioceses of Rockville Centre, N.Y.; Erie, Pa.; Pittsburgh; Dallas; Fort Worth, Texas; Jackson, Miss.; Biloxi, Miss.; Springfield, Ill.; and Joliet, Ill. The Michigan Catholic Conference, which provides medical benefits to more than 1,100 Catholic institutions and approximately 10,000 employees in the state, also is a plaintiff.

“We need to go to the court and say we are a church institution, we are a provider of health care and, according to the U.S. Constitution, the laws must protect our religious freedom,” said Detroit Archbishop Allen H. Vigneron. “We have a very particular case to make.”

Catholic universities joining in the lawsuits included the University of Notre Dame, The Catholic University of America and Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio, as well as the University of St. Francis in Indiana.

Holy Cross Father John I. Jenkins, president of Notre Dame, said the decision to file the lawsuit “came after much deliberation, discussion and efforts to find a solution acceptable to the various parties.”

“This filing is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission, and its significance goes well beyond any debate about contraceptives,” he said. “For if we concede that the government can decide which religious organizations are sufficiently religious to be awarded the freedom to follow the principles that define their mission, then we have begun to walk down a path that ultimately leads to the undermining of those institutions.”

Others filing suit include a Catholic cemeteries association, an agency that serves the deaf, health care and social-services organizations, and Catholic elementary and secondary schools.

Our Sunday Visitor, a national Catholic newspaper based in Huntington, Ind., said in an editorial that it “stands proudly with our fellow Catholic apostolates and with our bishops in resisting this challenge.”

The newspaper asked readers “to stand with us — in charity, praying first and foremost for conversions of heart; in civility, arguing the facts of this case without recourse to bitter partisanship or political rhetoric; and in solidarity, knowing that whatever sacrifices we bear and whatever challenges we endure, we are only doing what is our responsibility as American citizens practicing our faith in the public square.”

Each of the lawsuits uses similar wording to make its case and each asks for a jury trial.

Noting that the Founding Fathers agreed “that the mixture of government and religion is destructive to both institutions and divisive to the social fabric upon which the country depends,” the lawsuits contend that the U.S. Constitution and federal law “stand as bulwarks against oppressive government actions even if supported by a majority of citizens.”

“Despite repeated requests from church leaders, the government has insisted that it will not change the core principle of the U.S. government mandate — that plaintiffs must subsidize and/or facilitate providing their employees free access to drugs and services that are contrary to plaintiffs’ religious beliefs,” the suits state. “If the government can force religious institutions to violate their beliefs in such a manner, there is no apparent limit to the government’s power.”

The suits were filed by Jones Day, an international law firm with more than 2,400 attorneys on five continents.

Jones Day said in a statement that the firm “looks forward to presenting its clients’ cases in court.”

The contraceptive mandate “unconstitutionally authorizes the federal government to determine which organizations are sufficiently ‘religious’ to warrant an exemption from the requirement,” the statement says. “This regulation is in violation of the religious liberties guaranteed by the First Amendment, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and other federal laws.”

— By Nancy Frazier O’Brien, Catholic News Service 

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Pope Benedict XVI urged American Catholics to strive for greater unity, especially among ethnic groups and between bishops and religious orders, in order to carry out the church’s mission in an increasingly hostile society.

The pope made his remarks May 18 in a speech to U.S. bishops from the Chaldean, Ruthenian, Maronite, Ukrainian, Armenian, Melkite, Syriac and Romanian Catholic churches, who were making their periodic “ad limina” visits to the Vatican.

They were the last of 15 groups of U.S. bishops to make to make “ad limina” visits since November 2011, reporting on the status of their dioceses to Pope Benedict and holding discussions with Vatican officials.

In his speech, Pope Benedict called for greater “Catholic unity” to counter the “forces of disaggregation within the church which increasingly represent a grave obstacle to her mission in the United States.”

The pope echoed his earlier warnings to other U.S. bishops about the dangers of secularization and state curbs on religious freedom.

“With the progressive weakening of traditional Christian values, and the threat of a season in which our fidelity to the Gospel may cost us dearly, the truth of Christ needs not only to be understood, articulated and defended, but to be proposed joyfully and confidently as the key to authentic human fulfillment and to the welfare of society as a whole,” he said.

Pope Benedict noted efforts by various lay movements in the U.S. to encourage Catholics “to move forward together, speaking with one voice in addressing the urgent problems of the present moment.”

He also encouraged bishops to strengthen their “communication and cooperation” with religious orders.

“The urgent need in our time for credible and attractive witnesses to the redemptive and transformative power of the Gospel makes it essential to recapture a sense of the sublime dignity and beauty of the consecrated life,” he said.

In an apparent reference to two recent investigations of American women religious, Pope Benedict thanked “many consecrated women in your country” for their “example of fidelity and self-sacrifice,” and said he prayed that “this moment of discernment will bear abundant spiritual fruit for the revitalization and strengthening of their communities in fidelity to Christ and the church, as well as to their founding charisms.”

In April, the Vatican announced that it had discovered “serious doctrinal problems” in the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, and appointed Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to lead a major reform of the group, whose members represent about 80 percent of America’s 57,000 religious women.

U.S. religious women are also awaiting results of an apostolic visitation of their communities, ordered by the Congregation for Religious in 2008, in light of the steep decline in numbers of American women in consecrated life. The visitation’s final report was submitted in December but has not been made public.

In his speech to the bishops, Pope Benedict noted the large proportion of immigrants among American Catholics, and celebrated them as a resource for evangelization, saying that the “immense promise and the vibrant energies of a new generation of Catholics are waiting to be tapped for the renewal of the church’s life and the rebuilding of the fabric of American society.”

But he cautioned that the ethnic diversity which immigration brings also poses the “demanding pastoral task of fostering a communion of cultures” within the church. That task requires a respect for linguistic differences and the provision of social services, the pope said, but also preaching and teaching “aimed at inspiring in all the faithful a deeper sense of their communion” in the faith and their responsibility for the church’s mission.

Pope Benedict also praised the U.S. bishops’ “long-standing commitment … to immigration reform,” as part of an effort to ensure the “just treatment and the defense of the human dignity of immigrants.”

— By Francis X. Rocca, Catholic News Service 

WASHINGTON (CNS) — More than three dozen U.S. and British faith-based investment firms have banded together to get the Summer Olympics’ major sponsors and tourist hotels to sign a pledge saying they will work to stop human trafficking around the Olympic Games.

So far, the campaign has had some success.

“The issue has taken hold and the hotels are doing training, and their staff is aware that there are issues that require the attention of management or police agencies and social services,” said Julie Tanner, assistant director of socially responsible investing for Christian Brothers Investment Services.

The work builds on efforts to combat human trafficking — sex trafficking, forced labor and child labor among them — at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and this year’s Super Bowl in Indianapolis.

One new wrinkle is that the 37 faith-based investment firms have not only approached hotels but also the major sponsors of the summer games.

Thirteen hotels and 19 sponsors were chosen. The Olympics has far more than 19 sponsors, but this particular group of 19 was picked because it was “where we felt the companies had risks from trafficking,” Tanner told Catholic News Service in a May 16 telephone interview from New York.

“We get into some of the consumer brands,” Tanner said, many of which have “huge supply chains in terms of their products. … All of these things that make up their products require them to have a number of factories, a number of suppliers.”

“While those companies, on the face of it, may not be apparent” in trafficking, according to Tanner, it is worth prodding companies, he said, to ask themselves, “Are you monitoring your factories? Are you auditing? Are you making sure there’s no forced labor, no slave labor, no child labor?”

One of the problems for the anti-trafficking campaign is “the lack of statistics and information and research,” Tanner said, adding that part of the reason is “it’s very difficult to count.” For example, a minor may be arrested on a prostitution charge, she added, but police do not label it as sex trafficking.

Carol Smolenski, executive director of ECPAT-USA, which works to eliminate child sex trafficking, agreed with Tanner. Precise numbers are hard to come by, she said, even in an age of increased awareness of the problem.

“It’s difficult to say we’ve reduced trafficking by 80 percent because we didn’t know what the numbers were to begin with,” she told CNS May 16 from ECPAT-USA headquarters in New York City. ECPAT, based in Thailand, is an acronym for End Child Prostitution and Trafficking.

The most reliable U.S. numbers, according to Smolenski, are from a decade-old study from the University of Pennsylvania, which estimated that 200,000-300,000 children were being used for sex trafficking. “Since then there has not been a study that has attempted to count them,” she added.

Abby Kuzma from the state of Indiana’s attorney general office, said arrests were made in conjunction with child trafficking at the Super Bowl, Four victims were identified. Two of those were “sent home right away,” Kuzma said in a telephone message left with CNS, while the other two were held pending further investigation.

Firms queried about their practices for the Olympics have given “a very good rate of return” in responding, Tanner told CNS, but what is revealing is the substance of their answers. “The companies are providing very substantive and thorough information. Some were less detailed, but overall it was interesting. There is significant awareness of the issue by companies. One of the things we’re going to do next month (June) is do an analysis of the responses.”

In addition to releasing the analysis, another thing the faith-based investment agencies will do at the end of June is reveal which companies and hotels gave their queries the cold shoulder.

— By Mark Pattison, Catholic News Service

CHICAGO (CNS) — With world leaders descending on Chicago for the May 20-21 NATO summit, some Catholic school teachers were incorporating lessons about the political-military alliance for their students.

And with thousands of people coming to the city to demonstrate and draw attention to focus on issues ranging from war to the environment to poverty, they included a lesson or two about the history of protests, too.

“Since the time of Christ, people have been protesting,” said Mary Lee Calihan, principal of Old St. Mary’s School. “What’s a useful form of protest? What have people done? What has been effective?”

Calihan’s school and a few others were closing for a couple days during the summit, which was to include the leaders of the 28 NATO countries as well as other world leaders. The meeting was taking place at McCormick Place convention center along the lakefront.

Security measures coupled with demonstrations promised to make getting around the downtown area and South Loop a nightmare. Churches in the area planned to stay open, but DePaul University’s downtown campus was closing.

Old St. Mary’s originally planned to be open May 18 and close May 21, but Calihan changed her plans after hearing that a local newscaster had announced the school would be closed both days.

“They made the decision for me,” she told the Catholic New World, newspaper of the Chicago Archdiocese.

More seriously, she said, “we’re on the path of everything happening between Grant Park and McCormick Place.”

That means that, at best, it will be difficult for parents and teachers to get to the school because of the security measures in place and road closures in the surrounding area, she said. Even peaceful protests could completely cut off access, not only for parents and staff but for emergency vehicles.

“School administrators have to plan for the worst and hope for the best,” she said.

The school closures didn’t necessarily mean students would have days to make up, as some extra days were built into the school year.

Old St. Mary’s Church planned to remain open for Masses despite the added commotion. The general thought was that parishioners are used to enduring Bears fans during football season and the Chicago Marathon in October, which goes right past its door, so they would be up for the NATO crowds.

Regarding the protesters, members of the Catholic Worker movement were holding nonviolence training for protesters, and on May 14 kicked off “a week without capitalism.”

On May 16 about 150 protesters marched to banks and government offices calling for a yearlong moratorium on evictions and foreclosures in the Chicago area.

As of May 17, 12 people had been arrested at NATO-related demonstrations, according to Chicago police.

Media reports quoted Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy as saying 10 arrestees had been taken into custody in “voluntary” fashion. The Chicago Tribune daily newspaper reported one protester, a Los Angeles man had been, charged with a felony “for physically attacking a police officer.”

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Michelle Martin is on the staff of the Catholic New World in Chicago.