Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. / Credit: Albert H. Teich/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, May 7, 2024 / 15:30 pm (CNA).

A federal grant program that provides security funding for houses of worship and other nonprofits will receive $400 million more than it had the previous year amid rising threats, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“The fear, the trauma, when synagogues and other houses of worship have to be evacuated … stays with the congregants and people who go the next day wonder, ‘Is it going to happen again? Am I safe?’” Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said in a Sunday news conference announcing the increased funding.

“So this is vicious, aimed of course at synagogues above all, but also at mosques and churches and temples, and it has to stop,” he added. 

The Nonprofit Security Grant Program was created in 2004. Although all nonprofit organizations are eligible for funding, nearly all of the money is allocated to religious institutions.

The program received $305 million in federal funding last year, but with the $400 million addition it will receive more than $700 million in 2024.

The money can be used to set up security cameras, build fences, strengthen windows, and hire security guards, among other things. 

The deadline to apply is May 21.

“You don’t have to have been threatened [to apply for funding],” Schumer said on Sunday. “Just the fact that so many people who go to a house of worship are worried that that house of worship may be a target is enough.”

Schumer said applicants should receive funding “within a period of months” after they apply, with the senator noting that the money is already available for distribution. 

He also said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will assist small houses of worship with filling out the grant applications if they require assistance.

Schumer cited numbers from the Anti-Defamation League, which says there was a significant rise in antisemitic incidents in 2023, jumping to more than 8,800 from about 3,700 in 2022.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, meanwhile, says anti-Muslim incidents have been on the rise, citing more than 8,000 incidents in 2023, which it said constituted “a 56% jump over the previous year.”

In both cases, the organizations attribute the rise to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.

Catholic churches have also experienced security concerns ever since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, allowing states and the federal government to restrict abortion. 

Dozens of Catholic churches have been subject to vandalism, which has included the beheading of statues and satanic graffiti, among other attacks.

In December, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) urged lawmakers to include more funding for security for houses of worship. 

The USCCB says there have been more than 300 acts of destruction at Catholic churches since May 2020.

According to the USCCB’s annual religious liberty report published in January of this year, the top threat to religious liberty in the U.S. includes “attacks against houses of worship, especially in relation to the Israel-Hamas conflict.”

Bishop Robert Barron. CNA file photo. / null

CNA Staff, May 7, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).

The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis this week urged Catholics to join a rally to oppose a proposed constitutional amendment that they say “fails to protect Minnesotans from discrimination based on religion, could constitutionally mandate legal abortion up to the moment of birth, and promotes harmful gender ideology.”

The proposed amendment, sponsored by St. Paul Rep. Kaohly Her of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), adds several protected categories to the state’s constitution, in part saying the state cannot discriminate against a person on the basis of sex.

Within the category of sex, the proposal includes “making and effectuating decisions about all matters relating to one’s own pregnancy​ or decision whether to become or remain pregnant,” as well as “gender identity or gender expression” and “sexual orientation.”

Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, speaking in a May 6 video message on behalf of the state’s bishops, warned that the proposal constitutes “an imposition of the sexual revolution on the people of our state.”

The so-called right to abortion, which the Church has always opposed, would become in Minnesota law “so fundamental that we can’t even legislate against it,” Barron said. In addition, he noted that the proposal lacks the possibility of conscientious objection, meaning churches, schools, and health care institutions guided by faith could be mandated to endorse practices or speech that violate their beliefs. 

“All are welcome” to attend a rally in the Rotunda of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul on Wednesday, May 8, at 3 p.m. The rally will “feature inspiring speakers who will exhort those assembled to prayer and action, and offer prayers for unity, understanding, and religious freedom.” The St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocese asked those wanting to participate in the rally to register online.

“In a state where diversity is celebrated, we must stand united in safeguarding the rights of individuals to practice their beliefs freely and without fear,” the archdiocese said in an announcement. 

“Specifically, we will be coming together to pray for and urge legislators to oppose the so-called ‘Equal Rights Amendment’ that fails to protect Minnesotans from discrimination based on religion, could constitutionally mandate legal abortion up to the moment of birth, and promotes harmful gender ideology.”

The proposed language was passed by Minnesota’s House Rules and Legislative Administration committee on May 6, MPR News reported. The proposal heads next to a vote of the full House and, if approved, would need to be reconciled with a companion Senate bill, which does not include the language related to pregnancy.

The proposed amendment must be submitted to the people at the 2026 general election, and if ratified by a simple majority, the amendment will be effective Jan. 1, 2027. 

Abortion is already legal up to birth in Minnesota following the 2023 passage of the Protect Reproductive Options (PRO) Act, which enshrined a constitutional right to “reproductive freedom,” ensuring the right to abortion in Minnesota up to birth for any reason, as well as the right to contraception and sterilization.

Catholic bishops lead the faithful in prayer on the one-year anniversary of the May 3, 2023, violence in Manipur, India. / Credit: Anto Akkara

New Delhi, India, May 7, 2024 / 14:31 pm (CNA).

Several cities across India on May 3 observed the first anniversary of the mayhem and bloodshed that took place in Manipur state in northeast India, which left hundreds of Christians dead, with special prayer meetings, candlelight processions, seminars, and even protests.

According to the government’s estimate, as many as 230 died in the bloody ethnic conflict that engulfed Manipur beginning on May 3, 2023, while some observers estimate the actual figure to be much higher. 

Manipur, located east of Bangladesh and at the border with Myanmar, is home to 3.3 million people. For decades, members of the Meitei, Kuki, and Naga tribes have fought over land and religious differences. 

Beginning in May of last year, a protracted violent clash between the majority Meiteis, most of whom are Hindus, and the minority Christian Kukis took place. More than 60,000 Kuki refugees along with 10,000 Meiteis were driven out from Kuki strongholds.

Violence continues to simmer in the state, which is governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Protests marking the anniversary have been largely led by the Christian community along with secular action networks.

Half a dozen bishops representing different denominations led by Delhi Archbishop Anil J. Couto, who is also the secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India, took part in the hourlong interreligious prayer gathering. The event took place at the gate of the Sacred Heart Cathedral in downtown New Delhi on the evening of May 3.

Kuki refugees, dressed in black, began the somber service by singing poignant hymns. All of the other participants followed, holding lighted candles. Church leaders then offered prayers and appeals for peace while two dozen nuns from the Missionaries of Charity drew much attention at the televised event. 

“The Church, the civil society, and others are trying their best to offer consolation and relief to the affected. We pray that the displaced can go back to their [native] lands. Let the lights we hold dispel darkness and hatred from the minds and inspire all to live in peace, harmony, and brotherhood,” Couto said in his brief address, which was followed by those of other church leaders.

“As we join together in this solemn candlelight prayer, our hearts are heavy with the burden of suffering endured by the people of Manipur,” said Divine Word Missionary priest Father Norbert Herman, who organized the program as the dialogue commission secretary of the Delhi Archdiocese.

“For a year now, violence has marred their lives, casting shadows of fear and uncertainty in their path. In this hour of darkness, we stand in solidarity, offering our prayers as beacons of hope to illuminate their journey toward healing and peace,” Herman said.

“The irony of the tragedy afflicted on us is that all that has happened and continues to happen are taking place in our democratic country,” lamented a Kuki woman from Manipur in her address.

Earlier in the day, several well-known social activists under the banner of the National Federation of Indian Women, led by its chief, Annie Raja, organized a seminar at the Press Club of India on “Against Forced Amnesia, Remember Manipur.”

“After I led an investigation team to study and document the plight of the women, children, and others, Manipur police filed a criminal case charging us with stoking violence,” Raja said.

The seminar began with the premiere of this correspondent’s 23-minute investigative documentary “Manipur — a Blot on Indian Democracy.” 

Delhi police allowed hundreds of Meiteis to hold their protest on the evening of May 3, while nearly 2,000 Kukis wearing black clothes held a two-hour protest on the morning of May 4, under the protection of over 100 security personnel who limited entrance to Kukis and media personnel.

While several cities held processions to mark the anniversary, in the city of Shillong — known as the Vatican of northeast India — thousands took part in the candlelight procession organized by the Church and Christian groups.

However, in violence-hit Manipur, the anniversary was a day of protest. In Imphal, the capital of Manipur, without a single Kuki, Meiteis observed the anniversary with half a dozen Meiteis shaving their heads before marching to the historic Kangla Fort. In the Kuki heartland of Churuchandpur, a complete shutdown was observed to protest the targeting of the Kuki minority.

null / Credit: © Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk

ACI Africa, May 7, 2024 / 13:32 pm (CNA).

Catholic dioceses in Uganda have been notified of a limited stock of wine for Masses due to delays in shipping. 

In an April 30 letter to financial administrators of Uganda’s various episcopal sees, the leadership of J.W. Interservices Ltd., a company under the auspices of the Uganda Episcopal Conference that is involved in the procurement and shipment of wine alongside other goods and services, provided details of the altar wine shortage. 

“This is to inform you that due to the Middle East wars, the ship’s usual passage through the Mediterranean and the Red Sea were suspended and canceled,” wrote Father Asiku Alfred Tulu, the director of J.W. Interservices Ltd.

“The ships have been diverted to take longer and safer routes through the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, which has caused a major crisis and delays of their arrival to Mombasa Port [Kenya],” Tulu explained.

The diversion of the ships to longer and safer routes, he said, “has affected the arrival of Mass wine, which we had expected to be here at the beginning of April.”

“The information from our shippers indicates that wine will arrive in mid-May, and we hope to clear it through Uganda customs by the end of the month of May,” the priest said. 

Catholic priests in Ugandan parishes and institutions have been urged to “regulate the use of wine as much as possible.”

Tulu  apologized for “any inconveniences caused by this unforeseen situation.” 

According to canon law, Mass must be celebrated with the use of wheat bread and grape wine to which a small quantity of water is to be added.

The wine that is used in the liturgy must be natural, from the fruit of the grape, pure and incorrupt, and not mixed with other substances.

In an interview with the Ugandan Monitor news outlet, Father Ronnie Mubiru of St. Jude Wakiso Parish in the Kampala Archdiocese said he had received the notification regarding the possible altar wine shortage in the country.

In the report of the interview published Monday, May 6, Mubiru is quoted as saying that while the parish has some stock that can last several weeks, “if the wine we have in stock gets finished, we shall talk to the diocese; they know better how that issue will be resolved.”

This story was first published by ACI Africa, CNA’s news partner in Africa, and has been adapted by CNA.

Singer-songwriter Garth Brooks (left), former NFL quarterback Tom Brady (right), and other celebrity guests will meet Pope Francis in an audience at Apostolic Palace on May 11, 2024, as participants in the Vatican’s World Meeting on Human Fraternity. / Credit: SUZANNE CORDEIRO/AFP via Getty Images; Daniel Ibañez/CNA; TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images

Rome Newsroom, May 7, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

Garth Brooks may have friends in low places, but this Saturday he will perform at a high-level Vatican event with Nobel Peace Prize winners, business leaders, and professional athletes, including former NFL quarterback Tom Brady.

Brady, Brooks, and other celebrity guests will meet Pope Francis in an audience at the Apostolic Palace on the morning of May 11 as participants in the Vatican’s World Meeting on Human Fraternity.

It will be the second time that the longtime quarterback for the New England Patriots has met a pope. Brady met John Paul II in 2004 after winning the Super Bowl.

Brady will speak at a Vatican roundtable on sports titled “Competing in Mutual Esteem” on Saturday at 4 p.m. at the Italian National Olympic Committee’s Hall of Honor. 

It is one of 12 roundtables organized throughout Rome at the second annual World Meeting on Human Fraternity — called #BeHuman — on topics ranging from education to peace-building, with economist Jeffrey Sachs and New York Mayor Eric Adams among its speakers.

On Saturday night, Brooks will sing some of his country hits in St. Peter’s Square starting at 9:30 p.m. as the culminating concert of the two-day human fraternity event organized by the Fratelli Tutti Foundation.

When asked why Brooks was chosen to perform at the Vatican, Father Francesco Occhetta, the secretary general for the Fratelli Tutti Foundation organizing the event, told CNA that the foundation has built relationships in the United States, adding: “We did not have a lot of time to invite more artists.”

Last year, Grammy winner Andrea Bocelli performed at the World Meeting on Human Fraternity during which Pope Francis signed a document drafted by a dozen Nobel Peace Prize winners together with representatives of former Nobel Prize-winning organizations calling for a commitment to human fraternity.

Nobel Prize winners will return to the Vatican this year for a roundtable on peace on Friday, May 10. Cardinal Pietro Parolin will give the opening speech for the roundtable, which will include Russian journalist Dmitrji Muratov, American human rights activist Jody Williams, Yemeni activist Tawakkol Karman, Filipino journalist Maria Ressa, Liberian pacifist Leymah Gbowee, Guatemalan activist Rigoberta Menchù Tum, and Bangladeshi economist and banker Muhammad Yunus.

Other participants in the peace roundtable include the former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Mayaki, and Graça Machel Mandela, the widow of the late Nelson Mandela.

Pope Francis on May 7, 2024, appointed Father James Mark Beckman, 61, a priest of the Diocese of Nashville, as the fourth bishop of the Diocese of Knoxville. / Credit: Diocese of Nashville

Rome Newsroom, May 7, 2024 / 11:50 am (CNA).

Pope Francis on Tuesday appointed a new bishop to the Diocese of Knoxville, Tennessee, following former Bishop Richard Stika’s resignation last year. 

The Holy See Press Office announced that Father James Mark Beckman, 61, will be installed as the new bishop of the diocese. The installation will occur in July. 

The bishopric since June 2023 has been under the care of Louisville Archbishop Shelton Fabre, who has served as apostolic administrator following Stika’s departure that month.

Beckman, a Tennessee native, has been a priest with the Diocese of Nashville since his ordination on July 13, 1990. He received a bachelor’s degree in history from St. Ambrose College in 1984 and a master’s degree in religious studies from the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium in 1988. 

Since his ordination to the priesthood Beckman has served in a variety of pastoral and educational roles in the Nashville Diocese.

He was assigned as associate pastor of Holy Rosary Church near Nashville and taught at the city’s Father Ryan High School, where he served as associate principal for pastoral affairs.

He subsequently served at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Springfield and St. Michael Mission Church in Cedar Hill. For several years he also served as director of the Diocesean Youth Office. 

Beckman’s appointment comes after a tumultuous few years in the eastern Tennessee diocese.

Stika, who was appointed to the diocese in 2009, was at the center of a scandal over the purported cover-up of the alleged abuse of a seminarian. He was also criticized over his leadership of the diocese. 

According to Catholic outlet the Pillar, in 2021 nearly a dozen Knoxville priests sent a letter to Cardinal (then Archbishop) Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, asking for “merciful relief” from Stika’s leadership, arguing that it was “detrimental to priestly fraternity and even to our personal well-being.” 

Among other allegations, the priests alleged Stika had intimidated clergy in the diocese if he thought they spoke out publicly about misconduct.

In 2022 he was named in a lawsuit that accused him of protecting a seminarian accused of multiple counts of rape. The suit also claimed that the bishop attempted to intimidate an alleged victim, a parish organist, into keeping quiet about the alleged sexual assault and of having accused the alleged victim of being the perpetrator.

In November 2022 the Vatican sent two Virginia prelates — Arlington Bishop Michael Burbidge and Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout — for an apostolic visitation to the diocese. While the findings of the visitation were not made public, the Pillar reported that unnamed sources close to the Dicastery for Bishops said Pope Francis had decided to ask Stika for his resignation in light of the results of the investigation.

Pope Francis accepted Stika’s resignation on June 27, 2023. In a subsequent statement Stika expressed his gratitude to the pope for accepting his request, suggesting that he was resigning due to “life-threatening health issues.” 

Argentinian prelate Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández. / Credit: Tiziana Fabi/AFP via Getty Images

Rome Newsroom, May 7, 2024 / 09:02 am (CNA).

The Vatican’s doctrine office will publish a new document next week on discerning Marian apparitions and other supernatural events.

The Holy See Press Office announced on Tuesday that Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), will unveil new norms for discernment regarding “apparitions and other supernatural phenomena” on Friday, May 17.

In an interview with the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, last month, Fernandez said that the document will provide “clear guidelines and norms” for discernment.

The new norms will be the first time that the Vatican’s doctrinal office has issued a general document on apparitions in four decades. Pope Paul VI approved norms on “the discernment of presumed apparitions or revelations” in 1978.

Fernandez will speak at a livestreamed Vatican press conference at noon on the day of the document’s publication, along with Monsignor Armando Matteo, the secretary for the DDF’s doctrinal section.

The announcement comes after Fernández and Matteo met privately with Pope Francis on May 4, a meeting in which the pope likely reviewed the forthcoming document.

The Catholic Church calls for “great prudence” in examining the facts related to presumed apparitions of revelations. According to the 1978 norms, it is the Church’s responsibility to first judge the facts before permitting public devotion in the case of an alleged apparition.

Under Pope John Paul II, the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued a lengthy document on popular piety in 2001 that reiterated the Church’s teaching that private revelations do not belong to the deposit of faith.

“Throughout the ages, there have been so-called private revelations, some of which have been recognized by the authority of the Church. They do not belong, however, to the deposit of faith,” paragraph 67 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states.

“It is not their role to improve or complete Christ’s definitive revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history. Guided by the magisterium of the Church, the sensus fidelium knows how to discern and welcome in these revelations whatever constitutes an authentic call of Christ or his saints to the Church.”

U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito. / Credit; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

CNA Staff, May 7, 2024 / 08:00 am (CNA).

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is scheduled to give the commencement address on May 11 to the record-breaking 896 students in the class of 2024 at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

On the occasion, Alito will also receive an honorary doctorate in Christian ethics “for his decades of exemplary public service and tireless efforts to protect and uphold justice and the rule of law,” according to Franciscan’s May 6 press release. 

Alito is known for his majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 decision that reversed Roe v. Wade and determined that the Constitution could not confer a right to abortion. Alito is also known for backing religious liberty and gun rights. 

Prior to the graduation ceremony, Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, is set to preside at the baccalaureate Mass and give a homily. In recognition of his distinguished service to the Church, Franciscan also announced it will confer upon Caggiano an honorary doctorate in catechetics and evangelization.

For the fourth year in a row, the graduating class at Fransiscan, a Catholic liberal arts university in Steubenville, Ohio, is larger than ever.

“We are deeply grateful and humbled by God’s continued blessings on Franciscan University as we look forward to celebrating the graduation of almost 900 incredible young men and women of faith,” said Father Dave Pivonka, TOR, a 1989 graduate and current president of Franciscan University. 

“The education they have received has prepared them well to tackle the challenges ahead and to be successful in every facet of their personal and professional lives,” he continued. “As mature disciples of Jesus Christ, they will bring the light of joy, hope, and truth to all they encounter.”

Home to the largest undergraduate theology program in the U.S., Franciscan has been endorsed by the Cardinal Newman Society for being faithfully Catholic. 

The university has taken a strong stance against the Biden administration’s use of Title IX for “gender identity” politics and last year invited Jewish students who feared for their safety on other college campuses to transfer to Steubenville.

Franciscan also offers a “Crossroads Pro-Life Scholarship” to undergraduate students who volunteer for pro-life organizations or life-affirming pregnancy centers. Last year’s commencement speaker, Lila Rose, heads the pro-life activist organization LiveAction.

With 2,500 on-campus students and 1,300 online students currently, the college has been growing, adding new academic programs including mechanical engineering, software engineering, and a criminal justice program. The first Franciscan students to major in software engineering will graduate this year. 

Franciscan’s class of 2024 hail from 38 different states and 14 different countries. The top 10 majors are theology, business, psychology, nursing, communication arts, philosophy, education, English, catechetics, and history.

Father Mike Depcik offer Mass at the Seton Shrine Basilica in Emmitsburg, Maryland, during a recent retreat at the shrine. / Credit: Courtesy of the Seton Shrine

CNA Staff, May 7, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).

One of the few Deaf Catholic priests in the United States is working to renew the Church’s ministry to the Deaf in Maryland and beyond through signed Masses, retreats, and an upcoming Eucharistic congress for the Deaf. 

Father Michael Depcik, who last year became the chaplain for the Deaf Ministry in the Archdiocese of Baltimore, was born deaf and grew up in a Deaf Catholic family in Chicago. According to Depcik, being “culturally Deaf” (a culture signified by the uppercase Deaf) is vastly different than losing hearing later in life. The distinction is important, Depcik explained, because the Deaf community is its own culture, with its own language. 

“We’re proud to be Deaf, and we identify as Deaf people, and we use American Sign Language as the primary language,” Depcik explained through sign language to an interpreter in a phone call with CNA.

While an estimated 11 million Americans are deaf, about 3.6% of the population, many Deaf Catholics go unreached. Some were never fully catechized when they were young and taught to attend a Mass that they didn’t understand. With just 10 Deaf priests and four Deaf permanent deacons in the U.S., going to confession and attending Mass is just one of many barriers for an estimated 2 million Deaf Catholics, and another 7.5 million Catholics with hearing loss, according to an estimate by the National Catholic Office for the Deaf (NCOD).  

As chaplain, Depcik serves the “unique needs” of the Deaf community through serving in Deaf parishes. Being Deaf is a “linguistic difference,” meaning that creating accessibility requires a different approach than a disability such as blindness or mobility, he explained. 

“The language is the problem, and so there is no access for [Deaf Catholics] because unfortunately, many churches do not provide [for] their needs appropriately,” he said. “So most of the time, they do not go to church. And so that’s always been my worry and my concern.”

Having an interpreter isn’t enough for most Deaf people — attending Mass in their first language, ASL, is essential, Depcik explained.

“There’s a void between the Deaf and the hearing,” he continued. “And so it’s the same idea as Spanish-speaking people; they prefer to go to a Spanish-speaking church for Mass. Vietnamese people prefer to go to Vietnamese church with a Vietnamese Mass, because of the language, the culture.”

“And so that’s the same idea with the Deaf,” Depcik continued. “But the problem is many [Church leaders] do not understand and think that it will save a lot of money by providing an interpreter, and that’s it. But that is not the case — and it doesn’t work.”

But the Deaf Catholic community is growing in Maryland, where there are more than 1.2 million Deaf or hard-of-hearing Marylanders, according to a 2021 survey. Meanwhile, a number of hearing priests and religious are learning ASL, while organizations like NCOD and Ascension Press are developing ASL catechetical resources.

“We try to do what other churches do,” he noted. “We have Bible study classes, we have RCIA classes for people who want to become Catholic. We have visitations in the hospitals, visiting senior citizens, encouraging people to get leadership in their churches, serving the church [on] council meetings, taking the commission and the religious education classes.” 

It’s “starting to build up,” Depcik said. Baltimore was the first archdiocese in the country to ordain a Deaf priest — Trinitarian Father Thomas Coughlin in 1977. 

While past bishops emphasized having interpreters at Masses, the ministry has grown since Depcik joined.

“In the past, the Deaf typically went to interpreted Masses, and it was very wonderful for the hearing Church to provide a sign language interpreter, but the Deaf always felt like outsiders,” he said. “They weren’t really a part of a full Church life. And so now that our community, our people can take a role in doing readings and usher[ing] and Christmas parties, things like that, they can be further a part of it, and I’m happy to see the progress that we’re making so far.”

Challenges facing Deaf Catholics 

Even though ASL is the third most commonly used language in the U.S. after English and Spanish, fewer than 8 in 100 Deaf people attend church, suggesting that the population is underreached and under-evangelized.

Though a growing number of catechetical resources are being made available for Deaf Catholics, Catholic evangelism for the Deaf falls behind other Christian denominations.

Depcik said that many Deaf people will become Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses because they have more outreach to Deaf communities, while in the Catholic Church, budget cuts following the sexual abuse crisis have impacted smaller ministries such as the Deaf community the most, he explained. 

Because of this, many Deaf Catholics will leave for a church where the pastor is learning sign language and “meeting their spiritual needs,” Depcik said. 

In addition, most Deaf children are born to a hearing family that does not have an in-depth understanding of ASL. 

“So, many of them grow up having no understanding of religion. They go to a hearing church, but they’re not understanding what’s happening,” Depcik explained. 

“Ninety-eight percent of Deaf people do not go to church … because there is not accessibl[ity],” he explained. “Oftentimes, they are overlooked by the Church. And I always like to say, the people in the Church are the deaf to Deaf people, because the communication, there is no link there with other groups.”

In response, Depcik is organizing a Eucharistic Congress for the Deaf in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in April 2025. While the National Eucharistic Congress has partnered with NCOD to have interpreters and accessibility for Deaf Catholics, the Eucharistic Congress for the Deaf will “be spoken in sign language for people to come pray together,” Depcik said. 

‘Inspiring’ retreat for the Deaf at Seton Shrine

Just a half hour away from the K-8 Maryland School for the Deaf is the small town of Emmitsburg, which is home to the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton. The Seton Shrine hosts retreats, including a Lenten retreat for the Deaf in March.

Initially, the retreat organizer, Sarah Heil, and Depcik thought the retreat would draw about 30-35 people. But as the date approached, the attendees became closer to 100, with attendees traveling from Virginia, D.C., New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and West Virginia for the one-day retreat. 

“We couldn’t get the group out of our visitor center because they were just so excited to see each other and to meet new people. … It was like the community formed up so quickly,” Heil told CNA in a phone call.

Depcik said it’s “always inspiring” to come together with Deaf Catholics from different areas because they share “the same faith, the same language, the same culture.”

“And it’s a good experience for local Deaf Catholic communities to be surprised that there [are] more deaf Catholic[s] out there,” he said. “And they always feel alone because the Church is in their own world, and when they see other groups getting together, they feel proud.”

Following the call of Pope Francis, the Seton Shrine is reaching out to the margins through its retreat program “Seeds of Hope,” which recently hosted a retreat for men recovering from drug addiction, and will host a mental health and wellness retreat this May.  

Depcik said that the people at the shrine “really make us feel very welcomed and inspired to pray there and celebrate Mass there as well.”

“We take it for granted that we can hear Mass in our home language,” Heil said, “and we take for granted that we have the opportunity to go to confession with somebody that can understand us in the way that confession should be administered. [Deaf Catholics] don’t have that opportunity. And that was incredibly striking.”

Several hearing seminarians who were serving at the event were inspired after attending a Deaf Mass, Heil said. They “saw what an impact it had to have a priest who could sign” and were inspired to learn some sign language, she added. 

“So this literally could have a life-changing impact on not only those gentlemen, but then the people that they will be serving, which I think long term, that is fantastic,” she said. “If that were the only thing that came out of this, that would be wonderful.”

null / Credit: txking/Shutterstock

CNA Staff, May 7, 2024 / 06:00 am (CNA).

As global fertility rates continue to decline, even majority-Catholic and historically Catholic countries aren’t free from the demographic collapse, which increasingly threatens to shrink the populations of countries below the necessary rate of replacement. 

Global fertility has been falling for decades, with the problem often most acute in industrialized nations with higher standards of living, even while the fertility rates in many developing nations with strained resources, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to climb. Many of the world’s most developed countries are well below the “replacement rate” of fertility — generally about 2.1 births per woman over her lifetime — needed to keep a population stable, according to data gathered by the World Bank.

In the U.S. the overall fertility rate in 2021 was about 1.7, falling to 1.6 two years later; in the U.K. in 2021 it was about 1.6; in Greece about 1.4. Japan and South Korea have some of the lowest birth rates in the world at 1.3 and 0.81 respectively. 

Catholic populations have for years been associated with high fertility rates, owing in part to the Church’s forbiddance of artificial contraception and its long-held teaching that children are, in the words of the Second Vatican Council, “the supreme gift of marriage.”

And yet fertility numbers below the replacement level can be seen even in countries with a majority Catholic population or with historically high levels of Catholics. A recent panel that took place at the Catholic University of America moderated by New York Times columnist Ross Douthat looked at the variety of reasons for this, which includes loss of religious faith and changing cultural values.

Some countries with high levels of Catholics are still reporting high levels of fertility: Angola, for instance, is more than 50% Catholic and reports a fertility rate of 5.6 — well above the global average. Paraguay, meanwhile, is about 90% Catholic and has a fertility rate of 2.5, which is above replacement level.

Yet other countries long known for high levels of Catholicism are nevertheless well below replacement levels: Poland, at more than 90% Catholic, has a fertility rate of 1.3; while Spain, at 75% Catholic, is even lower at 1.2. Mexico is more than 80% Catholic yet still falls below replacement level, at 1.8.

A National Bureau of Economic Research study from 2012 found that “strongly Catholic countries” in Europe at the start of the 1970s “had fertility almost a half child per woman higher” than surveyed non-Catholic countries. Yet by the end of the 20th century, those same Catholic countries had fertility rates considerably lower than non-Catholic countries.

The 2012 study argued that the decline could be attributed to the fact that the Catholic Church “retreated in the mid 1960s from providing a variety of family-friendly services,” including “education, health, welfare, and other social services,” thus making it more expensive to have children. Additionally, polling shows that large majorities of Catholics believe birth control is acceptable, while other data indicate large majorities of Catholic women are using some form of artificial contraception. 

Church leaders, meanwhile, have been sounding the alarm bell of declining fertility rates in recent years. 

The Vatican announced on Thursday that Pope Francis will speak at an event on Italy’s demographic crisis as the country’s birth rate sits at a historic low.

The Holy Father has in the past described the low number of births as “a figure that reveals a great concern for tomorrow.” He has criticized what he describes as the “social climate in which starting a family has turned into a titanic effort, instead of being a shared value that everyone recognizes and supports.”

Francis in 2022 also described cratering fertility rates as a “social emergency,” arguing that while the crisis was “not immediately perceptible, like other problems that occupy the news,” it is nevertheless “very urgent” insofar as low birth rates are “impoverishing everyone’s future.”

At a United Nations event this month, meanwhile, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia argued that contraception and population control are “not the key to sustainable development,” stating rather that it is “essential to guarantee that all men, women, and children are afforded the opportunity to actualize their full potential.”

In 2019, San Sebastián Bishop José Ignacio Munilla Aguirre warned of Spain’s “desolate panorama in terms of the birth rate,” a figure he said constituted “one of the most obvious signs of the crisis of values the West is suffering.”

Provisional data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month, meanwhile, showed that the fertility rate in the United States hit a record low in 2023, falling to just over 1.6 births per woman, a 2% decline from the previous year.