Culture, once our universal language and long considered a bridge between peoples, has become, in too many cases, a bully pulpit. What was once a conduit for exchange is now increasingly weaponized to divide.
The post Art or Ammunition? The Dangerous Weaponization of Culture in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict appeared first on Jewish Journal.
ROME (RNS) — An advocacy group of survivors of clerical abuse is raising concerns about several cardinals who are buzzed about as papabili, or potential popes.
Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests held a press conference Wednesday (April 30) in a hotel next to Pope Francis’ resting place at the Basilica of St. Mary Major to announce new information about prominent cardinals the group accuses of covering up or mishandling sexual abuse cases. In addition to compiling accusations and information for the public, SNAP has filed complaints with the Vatican under Pope Francis’ Vos Estis Lux Mundi (“You are the light of the world”) laws, intended to confront abuse.
Among those named in the group’s complaints are Cardinals Luis Antonio Tagle, Péter Erdő, Robert Prevost and Joseph Tobin. SNAP claimed there is evidence of their ignoring or covering up reports of abuse and seeks full investigations.
“ We’re not saying that these individuals are guilty,” Peter Isely, a founding member of SNAP and a clerical abuse survivor, said of SNAP’s list. “We are saying there is evidence, compelling evidence, that there should be a full investigation launched about the conduct of this particular cardinal.”
On its website, SNAP also accuses Cardinal Dominique Mamberti, another potential papabile who also has the role of announcing the next pope, of participating in the cover-up of abuse by both infamous ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and another prelate Mamberti supervised, although the group has not yet filed a Vos Estis report. Mamberti is one of six cardinals added to the SNAP list in the last two weeks.
“ When the white smoke comes out of the Sistine Chapel, we don’t want another survivor or family member or whistleblower to hear the name of the next pope and think, ‘That’s somebody who’s caused deep harm in my life. That’s somebody who’s been a source of terror and a source of pain,’” said Sarah Pearson, a survivor who leads SNAP’s media and communications.
Pearson referenced the story of an Argentine mother who allegedly went to then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio’s offices to speak about the abuse of her son by a priest and was refused a meeting with the cardinal and taken away by security. In addition to discussing Pope Francis, SNAP survivors at the meeting also brought up allegations that Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II covered up abuse.
The advocacy effort, titled Conclave Watch, also noted cover-up accusations against several men in key leadership roles during the papal transition, including Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the camerlengo, and Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who is assisting Farrell.
Survivors “meet an extraordinary wall of resistance and obfuscation and deceit and aggression around the world by bishops and church officials,” Isely said.
“Many survivors have dealt with what happened to them, that come to terms with the offender,” Isely said. “What they have not been able to come to terms with and heal is how their bishop or their cardinal” maintained or covered up child abuse.
In addition to sharing information about cardinals who were allegedly negligent about abuse claims, SNAP is pressing all cardinals to back its proposed zero-tolerance law requiring the Catholic Church to permanently remove all abusers from ministry. The proposed church law would also form an independent compliance agency to investigate those in positions of authority who concealed abuse, then require publishing investigations and penalties for church officials found guilty of concealing abuse.
Isely also expressed outrage that while women and married men are barred from being priests, “you can be a child molester and a priest — that you can do under church rules.”
The group also brought up the case of 81-year-old Cardinal Juan Luis Cipriani, who has participated in pre-conclave meetings even though he is ineligible to vote because of his age. But Cipriani was restricted by the Vatican because of accusations that he had sexually abused minors, yet he appears to be flouting those restrictions in his participation.
“This man has no place there, no place there,” said Pearson. “It’s wildly inappropriate, and this is an example of what happens when a person does not lose their rank and title, from what they have done.”
SNAP leaders said they believe they are being heard, however, because Cardinal Mario Grech rebutted the group’s accusations about him in response to a Times of Malta inquiry. SNAP said Grech’s claims are “provably false,” but his response demonstrates the group’s reach.
The survivors have also approached several cardinals in person, leading Cardinal Peter Turkson to invite the group to attend a presentation on artificial intelligence and child safety.
The 20 cardinal profiles that SNAP, which is U.S.-based, has on its website heavily feature U.S. cardinals, naming all 10 U.S. cardinal electors.
SNAP leaders said abuse survivors are just beginning the process of coming forward in other parts of the world.
“ Parts of Africa are by far the most dangerous for children in the Catholic Church, and the survivors who come forward there face enormous shunning, face enormous threats,” including to their lives, Isely said.
Pearson told RNS that laws in the U.S. have allowed for more transparency and a stronger paper trail, leading to the group’s ability to report “horrifying” allegations. She said she was particularly troubled to read about retired Washington Cardinal Wilton Gregory being held in contempt of court, when as Belleville, Illinois, bishop in 2004, he refused to release the mental health records of a retired priest accused of abuse.
Meanwhile, John Carr, a survivor of clerical abuse who led a major department at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for over two decades, spoke highly of several U.S. cardinals on SNAP’s list in an April 30 interview with RNS.
He particularly commended Gregory for his work in leading the conference as president in 2002 to institute the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People, calling him “a profile in courage in standing up for survivors and victims and insisting on the zero-tolerance program against enormous resistance.”
“Nobody did enough, but some people, including Cardinal Gregory, did more than most and showed courage in standing with survivors and families,” Carr said. Nevertheless, he said, clergy abuse “still haunts us and there’s more work to be done.”
(RNS) — The Supreme Court heard arguments on Wednesday (April 30) in St. Isidore v. Drummond, a case in which an online Catholic school in Oklahoma is claiming the right to be fully funded by the state as a charter school. The parochial school is challenging the Oklahoma Supreme Court’s ruling that public funds may not support a religious school.
After a series of cases in which the court has been laying the groundwork that could force tax dollars to support religious schools, the conservative justices appeared more than ready to abandon separation of church and state to allow such schools to get full taxpayer support so long as there is a charter school system that permits anyone else in.
If St. Isidore prevails, taxpayers will potentially have to foot the bill for Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and evangelical Christian schools, among others, alongside public schools. The ruling will then be pushed in other states. It will be a rejection of the nation’s founders’ beliefs in the separation of church and state and will open the door to endless demand for government dollars from religious entities.
Public schools have been funded by public funds for centuries. Private and religious schools have financed their decision to part ways with the public system. Now, St. Isidore is demanding a piece of the pie as it claims that it would be discriminatory to leave it out of taxpayer support.
While I agree religions can’t be targeted or discriminated against, the court and the religious right have inflated the notion of discrimination to wipe out the basic constitutional notion of separation of church and state. This case invites the court to end the core tenet.
Like many U.S. Supreme Court cases, St. Isidore’s is the vanguard for a movement — in this case a movement that has argued that it is discriminatory to permit charter schools for secular reasons but not religious ones. It has been encouraged by the conservative cast of the justices overall, who have recently departed from James Madison’s warning about forcing taxpayers to financially support believers’ religious education through taxation.
In his “Memorial and Remonstrance,” Madison — the author of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of religion and the establishment clause — argued that letting taxpayer dollars support religious education leads to division and religious establishments like those that enforced religious orthodoxy in Europe at the time. Our establishment clause doctrine was built on Madison’s caution that government-funded religion can corrupt both the government and religion.
In 1947’s Everson v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court held that a state could provide busing to all students, even those going to religious schools (primarily parochial schools), but warned that further support would violate the separation of church and state. But that case turned out to be just the beginning of religious lobbyists seeking government support for every aspect of their schools and missions.
For decades, the court employed the “Lemon test” — named after Alton Lemon, the lead plaintiff in another case — which again rested on the idea that uniting church and state is inherently dangerous. It required courts to examine government support of religion, including funding, under three categories: The government’s policy must serve a secular purpose, the primary effect must neither advance nor inhibit religion, and there can be no excessive entanglement. Essentially, it held Madison’s line.
Those days are over, as the conservative justices have replaced the Lemon test with an elastic “equality” doctrine they echoed at oral argument. The religious right’s Alliance Defending Freedom advocacy group explained its discrimination-centered position on St. Isidore as follows:
“Oklahoma parents and children are better off with more educational choices, not fewer,” said ADF chief legal counsel Jim Campbell. “The U.S. Constitution protects St. Isidore’s freedom to participate in Oklahoma’s charter-school program, and it supports the board’s decision to provide more high-quality, no-cost educational options for Oklahoma families. The government can’t invite a vast …. array of groups to participate in its charter-school program while singling out religious groups for exclusion.”
In other words, there are just two choices if the case is decided along the group’s “discrimination principles”: Religious schools get full taxpayer support, including for religious instruction, religious employees and worship, or the government has to eliminate charter schools altogether.
The court has created a pathway for religious entities to belly up to the government’s funding bar by reasoning that religious education is no different from secular or other religious uses. But is that true?
For Madison and the founders, when Protestants or Catholics shared power with governments in Europe, the result too often was vicious tyranny. The same was true when Puritans and Congregationalists in Massachusetts were established, and sidelined and persecuted Baptists and Quakers. Separation in the United States has long been intended to forestall the sticky, dangerous power-sharing that’s now part of the Christian nationalist vision encoded in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, which the Trump administration has been using as a playbook. This case is one front in the war on our religiously diverse society.
As history has proved, religion is more than capable of partnering with authoritarians. It’s simply a fact that religious schools will impose their beliefs on students with crucifixes in every room, worship from their canon and teachers preaching against abortion, contraception and LGBTQ rights.
There should be a constitutional difference between publicly funding a religious charter school and a drama charter school. That’s because the former drenches education in a single faith, while the latter brings a multitude of believers and nonbelievers together without reference to their faith. The latter is what makes our public school system the mortar that holds together a society of diverse religious groups.
Government support of the inherent coercion of religious schooling could be the end of the establishment clause discussion. A Supreme Court decision refusing to further the transmogrification of “equality” by religious actors could halt this American experiment in its tracks. But I heard only Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson stand up for the religious liberty and separation that support our religious diversity.
Buckle your seat belts for higher school taxes as religious schools line up to force taxpayers to support them in addition to public, secular school systems and charters. One alternative could be that states choose to eliminate charter schools altogether, though I’m not persuaded that will stop this drive to amass taxpayer-sourced wealth by religion. In the religious right’s universe, this is merely a step toward the ultimate goal of shifting school taxes away from public schools to their own coffers.
(Marci A. Hamilton is a constitutional law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a Fox Family Pavilion Senior Fellow in the Program for Research on Religion. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.)
President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House. / Credit: The White House
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Apr 30, 2025 / 17:43 pm (CNA).
President Donald Trump passed the 100-day mark of his second presidency on Tuesday, April 29, a period that has been packed with major policy shifts, more than 130 executive orders, and over 200 lawsuits.
Trump won the country’s Catholic vote by double digits last November and since then has received praise from Catholics on several issues but skepticism and even legal challenges on others.
Actions that have received the enthusiastic endorsement of many Catholics include the administration’s initial pro-life efforts, religious liberty protections, and moves to extricate gender ideology from the government. However, the president’s embrace of in vitro fertilization (IVF), his hard-line immigration policies, and his funding cuts to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have caused tensions with the bishops and Catholic groups.
“It’s pretty clear that [Trump] has done almost everything that he could to reverse the different pro-abortion policies of the [President Joe] Biden administration,” Joseph Meaney, a past president and senior fellow of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA.
Meaney noted that Trump reinstated the Mexico City Policy, which bans funding for overseas organizations that promote abortion, and backs the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits direct federal funding for abortion. The president also announced plans to freeze millions of taxpayer dollars for Planned Parenthood, which Meaney said is used “to subsidize their abortion business.”
He added that the administration is revising agency and departmental rules and regulations that are related to abortion, and much of the Biden-era policies have been rescinded or “are going to be reversed.” This includes the last administration dropping conscience protections for health care providers on abortion-related issues, instituting rules that employers must grant leave for an employee to obtain an abortion, and the Pentagon paying workers to travel for abortions, among other pro-abortion initiatives.
Trump also directed the United States to rejoin the Geneva Consensus Declaration, which is a coalition of countries that support pro-life and pro-woman policies.
Meaney praised Trump’s decision to pardon 23 “peaceful, nonviolent pro-lifers” who were convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, adding that many people in the pro-life movement believed “there had been a policy on the part of the previous administration to go after pro-lifers in an unreasonable way.”
However, Trump’s executive order to create a plan to boost IVF access is “highly objectionable [and] problematic from a pro-life perspective,” he said. Rather than the deregulation backed by Trump, he said “there needs to be a lot more health and safety and other restrictions.”
Trump also signed an executive order directing the nation’s attorney general to pursue the death penalty in federal cases, especially for murders of police officers. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) criticized this order.
Moving forward, Meaney said he hopes the administration will impose regulations on the abortion pill mifepristone, which he said is “probably the No. 1 issue” currently. It was deregulated in the last two Democratic administrations, but Meaney said reimposing the original safeguards is “very, very doable” for the Trump administration.
On religious liberty policies, “the Trump administration has done what you would hope it would do,” Peter Breen, the head of litigation at the Thomas More Society, told CNA.
“The speed and the vigor of these efforts is 10 times the speed of the first administration,” Breen said. ”They are moving at lightning speed.”
Trump created the White House Faith Office and established a task force on anti-Christian bias to review and revise federal policies throughout federal departments and agencies that threaten religious liberty. This includes a Biden-era rule on “gender identity” discrimination that could have barred Catholic institutions from federal contracts, according to the USCCB.
The bishops were concerned the rule would end contracts with Catholic hospitals if they did not perform transgender surgeries on children and end contracts with foster care providers that did not place children with same-sex couples.
Another Biden-era rule sought to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions in emergency rooms if the abortion is considered a “stabilizing treatment.”
The new office and the task force are specifically “dealing with some of the issues that we have been working on for our clients,” Breen said.
“The fact that he has so vigorously advanced the cause of religious liberty and the full inclusion of people of faith and their ministries in the government and regular life — that is a real achievement,” Breen added. “That is going to have a lasting impact.”
Moving forward, Breen said it’s important to look at “enforcement actions” to ensure officials are following through with the president’s directives to safeguard religious liberty.
In addition to Trump’s policies directly focused on religious liberty, Breen noted that federal promotion of gender ideology “has mostly come to a stop.” The president signed an executive order that defined a “woman” as an “adult human female” and rejected definitions based on a person’s “self-asserted gender identity” for the purpose of federal rules and regulations, which reversed the standard of the previous administration.
Trump further clarified Title IX protections for gender-related education policies with executive actions. Those policies prohibit biological men from participating in women’s sports and ensure that locker rooms, bathrooms, and other private facilities are separated on the basis of biological sex rather than self-asserted gender identity.
Susan Hanssen, a professor of American history at the University of Dallas (a Catholic institution), told CNA that in her estimation, Trump’s order to scale back and eventually eliminate the U.S. Department of Education is “the greatest triumph of Trump’s first 100 days in office from the point of view of Catholic social teaching.”
“Any action that will make it easier for parents to exert their authority over how their children are educated, bringing control over education down to the state and local levels, enabling charter schools, school voucher programs, etc., are fundamental to pro-family policy,” Hanssen said.
“The fact that the Department of Education has also been ideologically hijacked by progressive educational theories, the vested interests of teachers unions, LGBT ideology, and critical race theory makes it all the more urgent to liberate families to find and fund the education they want for their children,” she added.
Trump’s immigration policies over his first 100 days in office have created tensions with Catholic bishops, particularly over his plans to conduct mass deportations of immigrants who entered the country illegally and his actions to freeze federal funds for NGOs that resettle migrants.
In February, the USCCB sued the Trump administration after the freeze halted funds to several Catholic NGOs that received funds to provide these services. The USCCB is currently phasing out its migration programs, which were primarily funded with federal money. Catholic Charities agencies across the country cut programs and laid off employees after losing federal funding.
“For more than 100 years, the Catholic Church has consistently supported and advocated for immigrants and refugees arriving in the United States,” Julia Young, a historian and professor at The Catholic University of America, told CNA.
“The loss of funds related to refugee resettlement threatens to derail a very important element of that work,” she added. “Yet Catholic organizations and the Catholic hierarchy, which are driven by Catholic social teaching to minister to the poor and needy, will certainly continue to find ways to respond to the needs of migrants and refugees in the United States."
Trump froze most of the country’s foreign aid funding as well, which impacted several Catholic NGOs. Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) were both forced to cut programs and lay off staff as a result.
JRS spokeswoman Bridget Cusick told CNA the freeze “had immediate negative consequences for people who have fled persecution, oppression, abuse, insecurity, discrimination, and lack of opportunity.”
“JRS was compelled to suspend operations in nine countries, including those that provided critical, lifesaving care,” Cusick said.
“Two of our programs were later reinstated, but we estimate that the changes we were forced to make impacted more than 100,000 people, including unaccompanied children,” she continued. “Thanks to the support of the Jesuit network, our board, and others, we have found ways to keep impacted programs running, but in dramatically reduced fashion, leaving thousands at risk.”
Cusick said JRS “will continue its work, but we are deeply concerned that the U.S. and indeed, other countries cutting foreign aid, seem to be trying to deny the existence of a refugee crisis, even as more than 120 million people in the world remain displaced.”
Hanssen alternatively noted that some foreign aid programs were being used to promote gender ideology and population control in other parts of the world and praised the dismantling of such programs.
USAID had become “riddled with skewed grant programs that ‘ideologically colonize’ developing countries — many of them Catholic countries in Africa and Latin America — by tying economic assistance to population control, gender ideology, and leftist political agendas,” Hanssen pointed out.
The freeze in the international funding for NGOs has also been the subject of several lawsuits.
Israel’s enemies don’t just hate Jews when they’re alive; they also hate them when they’re happy.
The post As Israel Burns on Yom Haatzmaut, a Lesson on the Unbearable Burden of Jew-Hatred appeared first on Jewish Journal.
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The post Hope, High Seas, and Heartfelt Moments: Niver’s April News appeared first on Jewish Journal.
(RNS) — On April 22, tourists visiting the Indian side of the divided province of Kashmir were enjoying a spring afternoon in Baisaran, a lush mountain valley sometimes referred to as a “mini Switzerland,” when gunmen opened fire. The assailants “came at leisure,” said one survivor, shooting at families and young honeymooning couples, leaving 26 dead and injuring dozens.
And according to some survivors and Kashmiri locals, the assailants, suspected to be members of the pro-Pakistani Kashmir Resistance Front, singled out Hindus, who made up all but two of the victims, one of whom was reportedly made to recite Islamic sacred verses before he was shot.
The Kashmir Resistance Front is an alleged offshoot of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist organization dedicated to taking all of Kashmir for neighboring Pakistan. Since the shooting, Indian authorities have demolished the homes of suspected militants and deported Pakistani citizens living in Indian-controlled Kashmir. Pakistan has denied any ties with the terrorism, and the KRF has retracted initial claims of culpability.
In the United States, Hindu groups from Sacramento to Long Island to Washington have held vigils for the victims and protests against the terrorists. While some have expressed anger, not only at the loss of life but at what many see as a denial of Hindus’ long history in Kashmir, others at the vigils said the situation warrants increased advocacy for peace, urging empathy even toward the attackers.
But the most common reaction was a need to unite as Hindus. “It reminds us that we are one community, one family,” said Indu Viswanathan, a second-generation Hindu American born and raised in New York, at a vigil organized via group chat a few days after the shooting. “Even though we are 10,000 miles away, we have felt lost since the day happened. We feel the weight of the sadness of this violence in the land of Saraswati,” she told the small crowd of young people, referring to the Hindu goddess of knowledge, who is understood in Hindu lore to partially dwell in Kashmir.
“Let the light of Saraswati illuminate a path for the entire Hindu community towards healing, skillful action and greater awareness to make our world safer for Hindus,” Viswanathan added.
The group read the names of the victims and joined together in a Sanskrit peace prayer. Colorado native Lakshitha Nagesh, a 26-year old health care worker, read the names and backgrounds of the victims, some who had been married for just a few months and some who had been on a pilgrimage with their family. Several were described as “affable” and “loving.” Attendees left flowers and candles at the photos of the 26, adorned with the Om sign of Hinduism.
Nagesh said the shooting had brought together young Hindus, who often struggle to overcome divisions in the diaspora. “Some of them don’t want to be associated with Hinduism,” she told RNS. “It’s not just a spirituality or religion, but at this point, it’s also connected heavily with politics, with the current ruling party in India,” she said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has divided the Indian diaspora in his suppression of minorities, particularly Muslims, and his espousal of Hindu nationalism. On social media, the recent attack in Kashmir has amplified ideological splits on Kashmir, which some have called an act of resistance against the “Hindutva settler occupation,” echoing language used in defending Palestinians in the West Bank to object to India’s policies in divided Kashmir.
“There are many people that want to distance themselves from that identity as much as possible, because they believe in a very secular, broad view and therefore they don’t want to hurt somebody else’s sentiments,” said Nagesh.
But the attack also summoned feelings of resentment that Hindus have to answer for Modi’s actions. One 22-year-old student at the Washington Square Park vigil, who preferred to remain anonymous for fear of endangering her H-1B visa status, said she received messages from her Pakistani friends asking why she is against them.
“This attack has catalyzed a lot of 20-somethings to think critically about why we as Hindus never get our share of justice and our share of visibility in the media,” she said. “The fact that this isn’t a 300-person event, and there aren’t more spaces like these where we can process our grief, speaks volumes.”
Snehapriya Rao, a “1.5 generation” Hindu American who came to the U.S. at 13, said most Instagram and Twitter posts she has seen on the attack give a “one-sided narrative” that “erases the long history of persecution in Kashmir,” especially the mass exodus of Hindu Kashmiris fleeing violence in the late 20th century.
“If you do read about it, it’s like, ‘Oh, this is just yet another terrorist attack,'” said Rao, who runs a Facebook page called Hindus for Decolonization. “They’re not talking about the context that Kashmiri Hindus have been targeted for ethnic cleansing and genocide for nearly 700 years, since the Islamist colonial era.”
Nagesh said the complexities of Kashmir give second-generation Hindus a chance to do their “due diligence” in understanding and respecting the truth of their ancestors. “History as we know it now is being rewritten in so many different forms that it’s genuine for misunderstanding to arise,” she said.
Viswanathan, who teaches at the Hindu University of America, said the ideologically pluralistic tradition of Hinduism means that solidarity will always look different for her community than for other ethnic and religious groups. She is cautious, however, of solidarity based on fear.
“The easiest thing is to organize around fear, but it’s not good for people, and it’s not good for society, and it doesn’t last,” she said. “The really dharmic way to organize is around truth, and around our highest selves.”