THE CONCHO PADRE POST

Pope Benedict XVI has signed decrees of heroic virtue for 2 Americans, thereby advancing them on the road to possible sainthood.

The Servant of God Frederic Baraga, who was the first Bishop of Marquetts. The Slovenian came to the US in 1830 as a missionary to Native Americans. He was known as the “snowshoe priest” and became the area’s first bishop in 1853. He died in 1868.

The Servant of God Sister Miriam Teresa Demjanovich was born in 1901 and died in 1927. She was a member of the Sisters of Charity so Saint Elizabeth in New Jersey. In her teachings, writings and conferences she always stressed the call to holiness for people in all walks of life.

The two new “Venerables” will require two documented and proven miracles through their intercession before advancing to the next level of “Blessed.”

The Concho Padre

It’s raining in San Angelo and its environs. Thank you, Lord, for this much-needed gift.

The Concho Padre

Washington D.C., May 2, 2012 / 12:01 am (CNA).- A federal report on national family growth found that many young adults in the U.S. are postponing marriage and instead choosing “to cohabit with a partner,” despite the fact that doing so increases the likelihood of a later divorce.

“People are marrying for the first time at older ages, and many adults cohabit with a partner before ever marrying,” said a March 2012 National Health Statistics report.

Using data based on the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth, the report analyzed current trends in marriage.

It discovered that in recent years, “women and men married for the first time at older ages than in previous years.”

From 2006 to 2010, the median age for a first marriage was 25.8 for women and 28.3 for men, the report found.

In 1995, women had a 59 percent chance of being married by age 25. In 2006-2010, that probability had dropped to 44 percent.

While the delay in marriage may be partly due to a struggling economy, the report found that premarital cohabitation – or living together in a sexual relationship without being married – has also contributed to the phenomenon.

The percentage of currently cohabiting women rose from 3 percent in 1982 to 11 percent in 2006-2010, said the report.

It found that many couples are now entering into cohabiting relationships at about the same point as couples entered into marriages in the past.

“Among women, 68% of unions formed in 1997–2001 began as a cohabitation rather than as a marriage,” it added.

This is true despite the fact that studies show cohabitation to be a significant risk factor for divorce.

“It has been well documented that women and men who cohabit with their future spouse before first marriage are more likely to divorce than those who do not cohabit,” the report explained.

It pointed to statistics showing that women who cohabit with their first husband – regardless of whether they were already engaged when they moved in together – have a lower chance of having their marriage last 20 years than women who did not cohabit first.

In general, first marriages in 2006-2010 had a slightly more than 50 percent chance of surviving for 20 years, the report said.

“These levels are virtually identical to estimates based on vital statistics from the early 1970s,” it observed.

The National Center for Health Statistics also found that couples are increasingly likely to have children while they are cohabiting instead of waiting until they are married.

While the average age at first birth has not changed since 2002, first births to cohabiting women increased by 83 percent from 2002 to 2006-2010, it said.

Acknowledging that marriage has “changed dramatically” in recent decades, the report expressed hope that its findings will lead to studies that “yield new insights into marriage and cohabitation and their effect on adults and children in the United States.”

Catholic News Agency

CATHOLIC priests will defy a new law that requires them to report sexual abuse disclosed to them in the confession box — despite the threat of 10-year jail sentences.

It came after Justice Minister Alan Shatter confirmed the mandatory reporting requirement would apply to priests hearing confession.

Fr Sean McDonagh of the Association of Catholic Priests, which represents 800 clergymen, warned last night: “I certainly wouldn’t be willing to break the seal of confession for anyone — Alan Shatter particularly.”

And Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Raymond Field said: “The seal of the confessional is inviolable as far as I am concerned, and that’s the end of the matter.”

It puts the clergy on a direct collision course with Mr Shatter because new laws oblige every person to report suspected sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults to gardai.

Mr Shatter said last night: “I would expect that if there was someone going to confession who was a serial sex abuser, I don’t know how anyone could live with their conscience if they didn’t refer that to the gardai.”

His draft legislation, which is due to be introduced later this year, has already drawn a strong response from the church.

It has excommunicated priests in the past for revealing details of confessions.

The Catholic Church has always insisted it has no problem with the reporting of child physical and sexual abuse allegations to the authorities — except when the information is given during confession.

The auxiliary bishop of Dublin was just one leading church figure who moved to stress that priests would not be co-operating with the requirement to report sexual abuse information given during confession.

The Association of Catholic Priests said the legislation was a foolish move that could not be enforced.

Its spokesman, Fr McDonagh, recalled how a New Zealand Columban priest, Francis Douglas, was tortured to death by the Japanese during World War Two because he refused to reveal information received in confession about the Filipino guerrillas.

“He is held up to us as a model of how you deal with this extraordinary sacrament. You shouldn’t put into legislation something that cannot be enforced.

“It makes a mockery of the legislation,” he said.

Fr McDonagh pointed out that confessions were held in private so that priests did not know who was in the confessional box.

And he questioned whether the mandatory reporting requirement would stop even one case of child sexual abuse.

It is the latest flashpoint between the Government and the Catholic Church, following the highly publicised row over Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s criticism of the Vatican for failing to co-operate with clerical sexual abuse inquiries last year.

He declared that canon law would not be allowed to supersede state law. The Irish Embassy to the Vatican was subsequently closed “for budgetary reasons”.

Warnings

Mr Shatter said the controversy over the confessional was a “side issue” because the Murphy and Cloyne reports into clerical sex abuse had never mentioned it as the cause of the problem.

He pointed out that the main issue had been the failure of the Catholic Church authorities to act on warnings from victims — and the movement of priests accused of abuse from parish to parish.

“As someone who doesn’t frequent confession, I don’t know what information people share in confessions.

“But I don’t think anyone has a substantial knowledge about numbers of paedophiles sharing their exploits through the confessional and being given absolution for it,” he said.

Mr Shatter pointed out that there was also no exemption for the confessional in legislation passed back in 1998 requiring mandatory reporting of offences such as murder, kidnapping and bank robberies.

He said he was not aware of any priest being prosecuted under this legislation.

Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald also added that criminal justice legislation passed last year required anyone with knowledge of white-collar crime to report it.

“And there’s no exemptions in relation to the confessional,” she said.

The Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference said it welcomed the fact that the State was putting the ‘Children First’ child protection guidelines into law — which it had been following since 1996.

– Michael Brennan Deputy Political Editor

from The Irish Independent

WASHINGTON D.C., April 27 (CNA) .- Pro-life leaders see the Obama administration’s recent decision to hire a Planned Parenthood media specialist as an intentional move to make its abortion policies appealing to the American people.

“I’m not surprised at all,” said Dr. Janice Crouse, senior fellow at the Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute.

Crouse told CNA on April 25 that the Obama administration is following its well-established pattern of offering positions of strong influence to abortion supporters.

“It’s going to be disastrous,” she said. “Here you’ve got someone with a definite agenda.”

On April 20, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that it was hiring Tait Sye, former media director of Planned Parenthood, as its deputy assistant secretary for public affairs.

The Department of Health and Human Services has been under fire in recent months for issuing a controversial mandate that will require employers to offer health plans that cover contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, even if doing so violates their consciences.

Sye defended the mandate amid widespread protest, calling contraception “basic health care” and saying, “It should not be left up to a boss’s personal beliefs whether his employees should be allowed birth control coverage.”

According to Reuters, he also chided groups such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops who opposed the 2010 health care reform law over concerns that it would provide funding for abortion. Sye accusing these groups of “launching misleading attacks,” despite the fact that the law does provide for the collection of mandatory insurance premiums to fund abortions.

Crouse believes the decision to hire someone with experience in the abortion industry was intentional.

“This is someone who is very skilled at shaping public opinion,” she said.

Moving into an election year, it is important for the president to have people in public relations who can make his abortion policies “palatable to the public,” she explained.

Crouse said that Americans should find it “unconscionable” that the administration would put its abortion ideology before the well-being of women.

With this decision, she said, it is pushing the sexual revolution forward and encouraging promiscuity, which research clearly shows to have negative results.

“In the long run, it’s going to hurt women,” she warned.

Controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood has grown in recent months. The organization is currently the subject of a Congressional investigation due to allegations of fraud and illegal failure to report cases of sexual abuse. Such allegations have also led several states to initiate efforts to defund the organization.

But in spite of this controversy, Dr. Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, believes that “the ties between the abortion industry and this administration grew stronger with this appointment.”

Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, agreed, saying that Planned Parenthood and the Department of Health and Human Services “have practically become synonymous.”

“We’ve seen repeatedly that as soon as a state defunds Planned Parenthood, HHS steps in and threatens to take funding away from vulnerable populations,” she added.

Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-Life Action League, noted that “Americans should be horrified” by the close relationship between the Obama administration and Planned Parenthood.

He told CNA that he’s disappointed to see the administration partner with Planned Parenthood in health care issues rather than with the Catholic Church, which has a rich legacy of the caring for the sick and needy.

The decision is particularly troubling, he added, because “Planned Parenthood is a lightning rod of controversy.” The allegations surrounding the organization should prohibit its top employees from holding positions of government authority, he said.

However, Scheidler explained, the administration realizes that people are not happy with its policies, such as the contraception mandate.

Planned Parenthood has a great track record with public relations and maintaining a “positive public image,” he observed, so hiring someone like Sye is a huge step to “sell the American people” on the administration’s proposed health care policies.

“It makes perfect sense,” he said.

from Catholic News Agency