Author: Eric Deabill

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to consider a case April 18 that could have broad implications for employees seeking religious accommodations from their employers.

The high court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in Groff v. DeJoy, a case concerning Gerald Groff, an evangelical Christian and former U.S. Postal Service worker, who was denied an accommodation to observe his Sunday Sabbath by not taking Sunday shifts.

Federal law prohibits employers from firing employees for who request religious accommodations unless the employer can show that the worker’s religious practice cannot be “reasonably” accommodated without “undue hardship.” The Supreme Court issued a 1977 decision in Trans World Airlines v. Hardison finding that the “undue hardship” standard is met even at a minimal cost.

Groff alleged in federal court that USPS failed to provide him with reasonable accommodations for his religious practices. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit ruled in favor of USPS, arguing the post office would face “undue hardship” by accommodating Groff’s request to excuse him from Sunday shifts.

But the U.S. Supreme Court agreed earlier this year to take up the case.

Randy Wenger, chief counsel of the Independence Law Center, a group representing Groff, told OSV News that Groff “has a very strong conviction about Sunday being the Lord’s Day,” which caused him to seek employment at a place that was closed on Sundays.

“In a pluralistic society, it’s really important to be able to find those ways to accommodate so that we can all work together effectively,” he said.

Wenger said when the post office reached an agreement to deliver some Amazon packages on Sundays, Groff sought accommodations to not work those shifts. He was initially accommodated, then disciplined for his refusal to work Sundays. He later resigned to avoid violating his convictions.

“If we’re committed to protecting religious conscience, we need to make sure employees don’t lose their jobs for following their faith,” Wegner said. “It’s kind of like freedom of speech, you might not like what somebody has to say, but their ability to say what they say helps you say what you want to say.”

In a court filing, attorneys for USPS argued that “simply skipping (Groff) in the rotation for Sunday work would have violated both a collectively bargained (memorandum of understanding) and a specific settlement.” USPS attorneys added the accommodation would have created “morale problems” among his colleagues.

Mark Rienzi, president and CEO of Becket, a religious liberty law firm that has filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, told OSV News the Supreme Court’s previous ruling on the minimum standard in Hardison is not in keeping with the intention of the federal law.

“So essentially, if it costs the employer anything at all to accommodate, the employer doesn’t have to accommodate,” he said of the previous ruling. “The whole point of the law was to actually protect the employees unless it was some real hardship on the employer. And instead of requiring hardship, what the court said was actually it doesn’t really have to be a hardship.”

Rienzi said he is optimistic the court will fix its previous interpretation.

“I strongly suspect they’re going to fix it and acknowledge it made no sense,” he said.

(OSV News) – Among Catholics, the sacrament of matrimony is in freefall. Over 50 years between 1969 and 2019, Catholic marriages declined 69% even as the Catholic population increased by nearly 20 million, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate.

In 2021, as U.S. Catholics largely emerged from the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, weddings were still down more than 30,000 from 2019’s pre-pandemic number of nearly 132,000 marriages celebrated.

However, fueling the decline is a broader cultural crisis of dating that is also leaving single Catholics struggling to meet each other in person, or even online.

A 2021 survey by the Institute for Family Studies asked people under 55 who desired marriage why they were not married: 58% said, “It is hard to find the right person to marry.”

When Roxane, 23, logged onto CatholicMatch, she found very few matches near her home in Maryland. To broaden her scope, Roxane tried the dating app Hinge, and found two men who claimed to be Catholic, “but sitting in church for one hour a week was too much for them,” she told OSV News.

Some in her situation form long-distance relationships; the CatholicMatch Instagram account regularly posts success stories, many about long-distance couples. But that doesn’t appeal to Roxane.

“I feel a connection more when I’m with the person physically so that I can see the expression, the body language, and how he treats other people,” she said.

Matt, 23, also struggles to meet fellow single Catholics in-person. He said the dating scene was pretty good at his Catholic university, but following graduation, it’s hard to find like-minded Catholic women.

“Most of the people I meet in Chicago aren’t interested in having a family anytime soon, let alone having a relationship or life centered around faith,” Matt told OSV News.

He also suspects that many women don’t feel the need for a man, at least until they’re older and financially established. In his experience so far, Matt said, “I’d say a lot of women wouldn’t ever put something like that above their career in this age range: early to mid 20s.”

Elizabeth, 31, established her career in her 20s, but also actively searched for a spouse.

“I didn’t think it would be that difficult since I knew a lot of women who met their husbands very young,” she told OSV News.

She tried online dating, joined a local Catholic young adult group, and told friends and family she was open to meeting anyone they knew. She even employed a matchmaker. While Elizabeth succeeded in meeting people – Catholic and non-Catholic – nothing panned out.

“Most of the Catholic men were initially attracted to me, but lost interest when they learned that I planned to have a career,” she said. “The non-Catholics (and some of the Catholics) stopped seeing me when they realized that I wasn’t going to have sex with them (before marriage).”

She also found that most of the Catholic men she encountered were “rather uninteresting.”

“They didn’t seem to have much to talk about. There was no joking or flirting,” she said. “They tended to have few hobbies and interests, when compared to other men I tried to date.”

Other young Catholics told OSV News the Catholic young adult scene is also posing a challenge to form real connections — including problematic dynamics they do not typically find in non-Catholic peer groups.

“When you walk into an event with evangelicals, someone will say ‘hello’ to you right away, and draw you into their group conversation if they are in one,” Sara Perla, 40, told OSV News.

“I have been invited to things with Catholics in which I walk into the room, not knowing anyone but the host, and no one even looks up … and when you try to start a conversation, you hit a brick wall,” said Perla.

Jacob, a software engineer in his mid-20s, says he’s found a friend group and a few dates through a young adult program run by his archdiocese in the Midwest. But he also notices a lack of conversation skills among his peers at these events.

“Some of the men tend to steer towards intense intellectual, deep, theological discussions, which makes it harder for people who aren’t interested in that to participate. … There are a lot of people who are very political, and everyone’s got vastly different opinions,” said Jacob.

Many single Catholics say they struggle to find anyone “in the middle”: someone with genuine faith and a commitment to chastity, but without a super-strict approach to Catholicism that goes beyond Church teaching.

There’s confusion, too, about how to show interest in a potential partner, and even how dating works.

“Sometimes girls drop hints or act interested but guys completely have no idea about this, because they’re overthinking: ‘Is she dropping a hint or just being friendly?’ At the same time, guys don’t tell girls how they feel and tend to beat around the bush because they’re afraid of rejection,” said Jacob.

If single Catholics do manage to start dating, other problems arise along the way. One is what Daniel, 39, calls a “shopping mindset.”

He sees most Catholics coming into dating with checklists of criteria for their future spouse and a reluctance to share their true selves. “Dating seems like job interviews until you reach a certain threshold where you are finally real with each other,” said Daniel.

Daniel said he had never experienced this “incredibly awkward and stilted social climate” with non-Catholics: “You certainly had anxieties and people using each other, but not this high fear of sharing oneself preventing connection and relationship.”

Even when a relationship is finally established, addiction, psychological wounds, and abuse can still ruin it.

Elizabeth did get married at age 30 — later than she had hoped — to a non-Catholic man. He professed to be religious and supportive of her goals, but turned out to be deceptive and abusive. He divorced her six months later.

When asked if the church could have helped prevent this situation, Elizabeth told OSV News, “Yes, absolutely.” She describes the premarital counseling offered through the church as “woefully inadequate.”

“There was no discussion of warning signs of domestic abuse, of which there were many. There was no discussion of what would make a marriage valid or invalid. … Now that I’m trying to prepare for an annulment, I have a much clearer understanding of the Catholic definition of marriage than I ever did as part of my wedding prep,” said Elizabeth.

If her marriage is declared null, Elizabeth can attempt a valid Catholic marriage again. But given today’s dating landscape for Catholics, that might be a long road.

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – Tom Lyman, director of Family Rosary, hopes that especially during Lent — which calls Catholics to commit more time to the Lord in prayer — families will pray the rosary together and take part in the ministry’s “At the Foot of the Cross” Lenten campaign.

Family Rosary is part of Holy Cross Family Ministries, which continues the mission of Holy Cross Father Patrick Peyton, known for the adage “The family that prays together stays together.” Because he urged families to say the rosary together, he was aptly dubbed “The Rosary Priest.”

The Holy Cross organization also includes Family Theater Productions, Catholic Mom, the Museum of Family Prayer, Father Peyton Family Institutes and the Peyton Institute for Domestic Church Life.

“The rosary is really an ideal family prayer and a way to fortify the domestic church,” which is the family, Lyman told OSV News.

He suggested family members gather together at a routine time when they can reflect on the mysteries of the rosary, which is divided into five decades. Each decade represents a mystery or event in the life of Jesus. There are four sets of “mysteries” — joyful, luminous, sorrowful, and glorious — in which Christ’s work of redemption, from his incarnation to the coronation of Mary as queen of heaven and earth, are contemplated.

Through these mysteries, “we are walking through the important moments in the life of Jesus and Mary. By doing this we are attending the ‘school’ of Mary’ as (St.) John Paul II said,” Lyman added.

Details of the “At the Foot of the Cross” Lenten campaign can be found at familyrosary.org. The site has a link to prayers for families and other prayers and a link to sign up to receive a daily family prayer. Other links connect visitors to a “How to Pray the Rosary” guide and additional resources. Parents can sign up for a weekly e-blast and find free ebooks, videos, prayer cards, a Lenten calendar and other materials.

Family Rosary said in a news release all of its ministry centers around the world are participating in the campaign, with materials offered in English and Spanish; some countries are offering other languages as well.

Father Peyton felt prayer “was very important for the family to remain grounded in its relationship with God,” Lyman said.

The priest knew from his experience “of his big family praying the rosary together” that this “formed each member of the family and formed their hearts to love God and love one another and reflecting on those mysteries day after day gave them a language and a way also to see God’s action in their own lives,” Lyman added.

Father Peyton, who is a candidate for sainthood, wanted people to see “the good things and the bad things” that happen “in a context of life lived for God,” he told OSV News. “Once we lose our connection in our relationship with God as his children … we suffer and while suffering is a part of life, God wants to give us a way through it and through to the Easter Sunday that awaits.”

Through the rosary, Lyman added, we are “accompanied by Our Lady. … Just as she walked with her Son along the Way of the Cross and stood with him at the foot of the cross, she stands with us in our sufferings and strengthens us to suffer well and we know Christ’s sufferings bear fruit in his Resurrection.”

WASHINGTON (OSV News) – The recently formed Institute on the Catechism will carry out the U.S. bishops’ vision of the importance of “connecting evangelization and catechesis,” according to Father Daniel J. Mahan, an Indianapolis archdiocesan priest just named as the institute’s director.

The institute is housed within the Secretariat for Evangelization and Catechesis at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ headquarters in Washington.

Father Michael J.K. Fuller, USCCB general secretary, appointed Father Mahan Feb. 27 to the post, effective July 1.

This “evangelizing catechesis,” a focus of the church as a whole, aims to teach the beliefs of the Catholic faith in a “compelling and inviting” way to help young Catholics foster a “deeper relationship with the Lord and help them see their place within the body of Christ, the church, and in turn, reach out to others to share the Good News,” Father Mahan told OSV News.

Bishop Frank J. Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut, chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee on the Catechism, which reviews catechetical texts and provides consultation to the bishops’ Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis, presented a proposal to create an Institute for the Catechism at the bishops’ spring meeting in June 2021, which was held virtually because of the pandemic.

The Institute on the Catechism was created “to reimplement and reinvigorate the mandate of the subcommittee in responding to the changing catechetical landscape,” said USCCB news release announcing Father Mahan’s appointment.

Through the institute, catechetical publishers and developers of catechetical content will work directly with the USCCB subcommittee in new ways to pass on the faith using digital tools while aiming to reach a more diverse church. The institute will help them address today’s challenges to catechesis, such as young people’s disaffiliation with organized religion, the growing secularism in society and the influences of social media.

The institute also will provide resources to dioceses and yearly, in-person training conferences and retreats for diocesan catechetical leaders.

Father Mahan has reviewed catechetical texts since the late 1990s and has worked as a core team member for the institute since its November 2022 launch. A graduate of the former St. Meinrad College in Indiana, Father Mahan holds a licentiate in sacred theology from the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome.

Ordained a priest in 1988, Father Mahan has served in parishes throughout the Indianapolis Archdiocese. Currently, he serves with Father Jonathan Meyer as pastor with a team of priests serving four parishes in southern Indiana’s Dearborn County.

Bishop Caggiano said Father Mahan brings to the position “a deep understanding” of the Catechism of the Catholic Church “along with the invaluable, longtime expertise of teaching it to the faithful in a meaningful way.”

“At a time when there is wide-spread disaffiliation with the faith, and yet a deep desire and hunger being expressed by many to fill the void in their lives, we must take new, bold approaches to help the bishops to equip their catechists with ways to invite people to an encounter with the Lord,” the bishop said in a Feb. 27 statement about the priest’s appointment.

Bishop Caggiano thanked Indianapolis Archbishop Charles C. Thompson “for allowing Father Mahan to serve the greater church with the unique talents he brings to the institute.”

“Evangelizing catechesis” draws inspiration from Pope Francis’ 2021 document “Antiquum Ministerium” (“Ancient Ministry”) that described catechesis as an official church ministry. It also builds on the Vatican’s Directory for Catechesis, issued in 2020, that gives guidelines for catechists and pastors, particularly in the role of evangelization.

 

The institute launched its inaugural meeting Nov. 10-12, 2022, in Baltimore ahead of the U.S. bishops’ Nov. 14-17 general assembly.

Father Mahan told OSV News the gathering drew over 130 church leaders, including bishops, other diocesan officials, staff of the USCCB subcommittee, priests and others currently helping review catechetical texts as well as representatives from various publishers of catechetical materials.

He called it a “beautiful opportunity” for all involved in catechesis “to be together. We are in this together. The institute is meant to keep us together and help us work together for the same goal — to form young people in the faith, help them live the faith for a lifetime.”

“We know we have a lot of young Catholics who are leaving the church, some at a very early age. Some kids will make that decision in middle school … opting out even if they are still going to Mass and religious ed. They’re already out the door,” he said.

The bishops want to make sure “we’re doing the best we can in catechesis” and help those called in that direction “to produce high quality, doctrinally sound, compelling materials for our young people that grab them by the heart.”

He paid tribute to the late Indianapolis Archbishop Daniel M. Buechlein for playing a significant role in the renewal of catechesis in the U.S. while he was chairman of the U.S. bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on the Use of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In spite of the great efforts by catechists and publishers of catechetical materials to date, “we are still losing young people,” Father Mahan said, due in part to the many “powerful influences in our culture that are sort of like tentacles that can wrap around and not let go.”

The “‘isms’ are rampant — individualism, materialisms, narcissism that leads to nihilism,” Father Mahan told OSV news. “When we look at how saturated many young people are in media — whether watching TV, music, movies, engrossed in social media — there are a lot of influences that mitigate against a solid formation in the faith.”

“I’m not sure we can do a whole lot to change what’s out there. That may be someone else’s calling,” he said. “But the church can make sure what we are offering is top-notch, innovative … We know we are one screen away from anyone else in the world and that can present some great opportunities for us in using media in ways that glorify God.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Pope Francis will travel to Hungary April 28-30 where he will meet with government officials, refugees, academic scholars and young people in Budapest, the Vatican announced Feb. 27.

The pope will arrive in Budapest April 28 and will meet with Katalin Novák, president of Hungary, and the country’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, as well as local bishops, priests and other members of Hungary’s Catholic community.

Novák, who is Hungary’s first female head of state, invited Pope Francis to visit Hungary during her visit to the Vatican Aug. 26, 2022.

The pope will only spend one full day in the country April 29, during which he will meet privately with children from a local school, speak with refugees and people in need, address young people in Hungary and meet with the local Jesuit community.

Before returning to Rome late afternoon April 30, he will celebrate Mass before the Hungarian Parliament building and meet with scholars from Budapest’s Pázmány Péter Catholic University.

Pope Francis previously traveled to Budapest to celebrate the closing Mass of the 52nd International Eucharistic Congress which was held in the city ahead of a four-day visit to Slovakia in 2021. The pope specified that his trip to Budapest in 2021 was not part of an apostolic visit to Hungary, although he met with Hungary’s then-president, János Áder, and Orbán.

The Hungarian prime minister traveled to Rome Jan. 3 to pay his respects to the late Pope Benedict XVI, who was then lying in repose in St. Peter’s Basilica.

In a statement published Feb. 27, Cardinal Péter Erdo of Esztergom-Budapest said that the pope’s visit to Budapest is a “particular joy” for everyone in his archdiocese as well as those who will travel to the city from throughout Hungary and abroad.

“May our meeting with the successor of St. Peter be a decisive step on the path we walk together toward Christ,” he wrote.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – Everyone must engage in politics, which is simply what it means to take part constructively in the life of a nation or society, Pope Francis said in a new book of interviews.

Even the Gospel has “a political dimension” in that it seeks to convert “the social, including religious, mindset of the people,” he said, according to a series of excerpts published by Vatican News and other outlets Feb. 26.

Marking the 10th anniversary of the pope’s election, journalists Sergio Rubin and Francesca Ambrogetti will release a book-length compilation of a decade of interviews with the pope in Spanish March 1.

Titled “El Pastor” (“The Shepherd”), the book covers the “challenges, reasons and reflections” of Pope Francis over the course of his pontificate. Rubin and Ambrogetti had previously compiled two years of interviews with then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires for their 2010 book “The Jesuit,” which became a bestseller after the cardinal was elected pontiff, and retitled “Pope Francis. Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words.”

In “The Shepherd,” the authors pick up where they left off to cover his papacy and the path he has followed.

He said his plan has always been “to carry out what the cardinals expressed in the general congregations on the eve of the conclave,” which was to “revitalize the proclamation of the Gospel, reduce centralization in the Vatican,” eradicate the abuse of minors and fight economic corruption.

When asked what he would say to those who accuse him of “doing politics,” the pope said, “Yes, I am doing politics. Because everybody has to do politics. Christian people have to do politics. When we read what Jesus said we see that he was doing politics.”

The pope then explained what he meant by “politics,” saying it is “a way of life for the ‘polis,’ for the city.”

“What I do not do, nor should the church do, is party (or partisan) politics. But the Gospel has a political dimension, which is to transform the social, including religious, mindset of the people,” he said.

Speaking about the increasing polarization in the world, the pope said, “we are not water and oil, we are brothers and sisters.”

Humanity must rise above this “category of water and oil and move toward fraternity,” which is precisely what people have a hard time seeing when there is a conflict, that their vocation is fraternity, he said.

“When we ignore this, divisions begin and it’s like that everywhere,” he said.

When it comes to economic activity, Pope Francis said he does not “condemn” capitalism or the market economy, but that there needs to be what St. John Paul II advocated for, that is, a new “social economy of the market,” which would balance competition and social progress.

Today, the world of finance prevails, he said, and “where we can all agree is that the concentration of wealth and inequalities have increased and many people die of hunger.” If he focuses so much on the poor and those in need, “that’s because that is what Jesus did and what the Gospel says.”

VATICAN CITY (CNS) — The call to make sacrifices for others out of love remains urgent as so many people continue to suffer from war, violence, exclusion and poverty, Pope Francis said.

“Let us put into practice the call to do good to everyone, taking the time to love the least and most defenseless, the abandoned and despised, those who are discriminated against and marginalized,” he said during an audience with members of the “Pro Petri Sede” Association Feb. 24 at the Vatican.

The group, founded more than 150 years ago, is active in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, and collects donations for the pope’s initiatives and charitable efforts by the Holy See.

“Today the call to give yourselves for love of our brothers and sisters is no less urgent: so many of them suffer from war, violence, exclusion, material and spiritual poverty,” he said in his address.

Lent is also an opportune time for responding to this call because the season “calls us to conversion in order to move from the slavery of selfishness to the freedom to love and serve God and our brothers and sisters,” he said.

Pope Francis recalled the generosity and solidarity of the early Christians described in the Acts of the Apostles and how “they were able to put everything in common to support their more fragile brothers and sisters.”

“They understood that they were the temporary stewards of their goods: indeed, all that we possess is a gift from God and we must let ourselves be enlightened by him in the stewardship of the goods we receive,” the pope said.

The Holy Spirit, he said, “will always impel us to give to those in need, to fight poverty with what he gives us. For the Lord gives abundantly to us so that we in turn can give ourselves.”