4 WWW.THERECORDNEWSPAPER.ORG COMMENTARY THE RECORD JUNE 25, 2020 Following is an unsigned edito- rial titled "We Christians are people of hope," which appeared online June 10 on the website of The Tablet, news- paper of the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York. To say that 2020 has been an "annus horribilis" (horrible year) is an understatement. Regardless of what the next few months will bring, there needs to be a reality sinking into our consciousness now - nothing will ever be the same again. It can't be and, hopefully, as much as we might want, it won't be. This is not meant to be another doom and gloom article. But we can- not think when the lockdown for New York City is over that life will go back to normal. We cannot think when the riots and the protests that we have seen occur over the past weeks cease that we can and will go back to nor- mal. There is the harsh reality that many people have died, and many people are still ill, and their recovery is slow and uncertain. There is the fact that so many people have lost their jobs and are struggling to make ends meet. The sad tragedy of racism reared its ugly head and we, as Amer- ican people, are forced to confront it yet again. Businesses are burned, the property has been destroyed, and, worst of all, lives have ended, all for something that many claimed was no longer affecting our "enlightened" so- ciety. The way we relate to people no doubt has changed - gone for now are the handshakes and the hugs; in are masks, hand sanitizers and social distancing. The way that learning oc- curs has changed - online learning, once thought a stop-gap measure, has proven to have to last longer than any educator would like (we have to wait to see what the results of online learn- ing will be for the students both aca- demically and interpersonally.) The list of woes could go on and fill up this entire newspaper. But this is not the point - we recognize the problems, the sorrow, and the diffi- culties. Fear has gripped so many of us, and with good reason. Remember Mark 5:36; "Fear is useless; what is needed is hope." What is hope? The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "Hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, plac- ing our trust in Christ's promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit. 'Let us hold fast the confes- sion of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. The Holy Spirit ... he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Sav- ior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.'" So, how can we as a Catholic Christian community act as people of hope? Hope means that we know that the battle is already won. Jesus is king! Have confidence in this fact. We as Christians are in the world and yet not of the world. We live in a fallen world, and yet it is redeemed. Ernest Hemingway, who sadly did not take his own advice, wrote: "The world is a fine place and worth fight- ing for." Let's fight for this world, to make it a better place, recalling the words of St. Teresa of Avila: "Hope, O my soul, hope. You know neither the day nor the hour. Watch carefully, for ev- erything passes quickly, even though your impatience makes doubtful what is certain, and turns a very short time into a long one. Dream that the more you struggle, the more you prove the love that you bear your God, and the more you will rejoice one day with your Beloved, in a happiness and rap- ture that can never end."
People of hope
By CAROL GLATZ
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY - The increased screen time and isolation due to quarantine measures or restrictions dur- ing the COVID-19 pandemic have put vulnerable minors at greater risk of grooming and abuse online, a Jesuit safeguarding expert said. Almost every nation that has had lockdowns or other restrictions has had similar consequences in which young people are spending a lot more time at home, "alone, online with no supervision or being checked on," said Jesuit Father Hans Zollner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protec- tion of Minors. With increased screen time and so many options available for interacting online with others, "porno- graphic material also be- comes more accessible" to predators and to children who have no limits on what they can access and no guid- ance on what they should do to protect themselves from people contacting them on- line, he told Vatican News June 18. "We have to educate about protecting the dignity and respect of vulnerable people, especially young people," he said. Father Zollner, who is also a professor of psychology and president of the Centre for Child Protection at the Pon- tifical Gregorian University in Rome, spoke to Vatican News about his presentation for a "Safeguarding Webinar Series" the same day. The series was organized by the women's International Union of Superiors General with the collaboration of the pontifical commission, the Centre for Child Protection and the "Telefono Azzurro" abuse hotline in Italy. Father Zollner's talk fo- cused on "safeguarding on- line in times of lockdown" and highlighted the kind of risks facing minors online. The FBI estimates that "at any one time, as many as 750,000 child predators are online over the internet seeking children to abuse on- line," his slideshow presenta- tion said, and "two-thirds of the world's countries have no specific laws to combat online grooming of children for sex exploitation." He said that police agen- cies worldwide were warning that perpetrators have been using the lockdown to target children. Some examples of how drastic the increase has been during the pandemic, he said, can be seen in Aus- tralia where downloading of images of abuse shot up by 86% in the three weeks after March 21. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Chil- dren in the U.S. "has reg- istered a 106% increase in reports of suspected (child sexual abuse) - rising from 983,734 reports in March 2019 to 2,027,520 in the very same month in 2020." Offenders may be more likely to act on their impulses because of the isolation dur- ing lockdown and their in- ability to travel makes them more likely to turn to abuse livestreamed or distributed online, Father Zollner said in his presentation. Restrictions during the pandemic also mean places - like schools - or social services for reporting abuse or harassment have been dis- rupted or reduced, he said. Also, governments and law enforcement are putting a lot of their focus on enforc- ing regulations for handling the pandemic, which has led to "lower prioritization of on- line child sexual exploitation in many jurisdictions," he said in his talk. He told Vatican News that unfortunately this lowered priority happens just when the risks and need to be vigi- lant are even more urgent. Some things parents and caregivers can do, he said, is use software that allows for parental controls on what people can do online even though kids sometimes find ways to circumvent it. Set time limits on devic- es, device-free areas of the house and be aware of and apply strict privacy settings to apps, games and messag- ing services minors are us- ing, he said. Adults can also go online or play online with their kids to help them see what they should and should not do, he said. Catholic schools also have an important role to play in educating kids about staying safe online, he added.
Lockdown has increased risk of abuse of minors, says expert
Sunday reading, June 28, 2020: Newness in Christ
JEM SULLIVAN
In this month of June, the church has returned to Or- dinary Time in the liturgi- cal calendar. Our return to Ordinary Time followed soon after the great solemnity of Pentecost when we celebrat- ed the gift of the Holy Spirit who inaugurates the age of the church. And we know that the mis- sion of the church, founded and sustained by Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, is anything but ordinary! The church exists to evan- gelize, to proclaim in love the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the path of reconciliation with God and peace in the human fam- ily. In truth, the age of the church is an extraordinary extension of Jesus' earthly ministry of healing that transformed his disciples and the world around them. In the church's sacra- mental life and mission in the world, the most extraor- dinary power of God con- tinues to work in our lives, in the world and in human history. As our country and na- tions around the world begin the gradual and uncertain entry into a post-pandemic world, one thing is certain. The experience of a pandemic has changed us at every level of human existence. Following the extraordi- nary experience of a pandem- ic we cautiously look for signs of the ordinariness of life. No one can escape the social, economic, medical and tech- nological impact felt across a post-pandemic planet. At one moment or another, we have each felt deeply the spiritual impact of living in physical isolation from the sacraments we receive in our communities of faith. It took a novel and deadly virus for us to learn that even in our social isolation, we are in- herently social beings whose lives unfold in a tightly wo- ven web of interconnected relationships. God's word reminds us today of the extraordinary reality of our deepest, most profound relationship, our relationship to God. St. Paul's words to the Romans are relevant now more than ever, "Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ... So that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life." And in the Gospel, Jesus reminds us of the primacy of our relationship with God when he says, "Whoever los- es his life for my sake will find it." Whatever short and long term impact of the pandemic we feel on our ordinary, daily existence one extraordinary truth remains constant - in Jesus Christ we have re- ceived newness of life, the dignity of being sons and daughters of God, loved by God into existence and sus- tained at every moment, es- pecially in times of trial and distress. This extraordinary truth of faith makes it possible for us to join the psalmist's praise saying, "For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord" as we pray, "speak to me, Lord." Reflection Question: How will you rejoice in the name of Jesus Christ today?
This moment of judgment
GREG ERLANDSON
I'd be willing to bet that not many of us have watched a man die. Those of us who don't go to war or work in intensive care units are not often witnesses to the last breath of another human being. We don't see a life- less body rolled over onto a stretcher, head dangling limply. George Floyd died before our eyes. He died while an expressionless policeman, his hand stuck in his pocket, a gesture that seemed night- marishly casual, pressed the life out of him with his knee. It was the juxtaposition of these images - murder and casualness - that most of us can't get out of our minds. It is that scene that will memo- rialize this death-drenched year and has ignited a short fuse to a long-standing pow- der keg of grievances. As much as we want to avert our eyes, we need to remember the particulars of this situation. We all want to rush to generalizations. All cops. All protesters. All demonstrations. All blacks. All whites. All liberals. All conservatives. In our horror or in our de- fensiveness, we paint with broad brushes what needs to be first and foremost a singu- lar moment. A man is dead. We watched him die. Yet at the same time, the outpouring rage and grief tells us that this was more than just one incident. And if half the nation may be mysti- fied at the reaction, the other half is not. How difficult it is for those of us who have not experi- enced the scourge of racism to understand its sting. How do we understand what it is like to have ev- ery eye on us when we en- ter a suburban restaurant in many states? How do we understand what it feels like to hear casual slurs from strangers? How do we un- derstand what it feels like to be viewed as a threat just going out bird-watching or for a jog? How do we understand what it feels like to fear the police more than the people they are supposed to protect us from? How do we under- stand the discomfort of driv- ing to work every day past a house with a Confederate flag on the garage door? How do we understand the urgency of having "the talk" with our sons about how to be careful in any encounters with police? And how do we understand the trauma of seeing George Floyd's lifeless body and thinking that that could be, not some stranger, but our son, our father? People say racism is America's original sin. That is not just a figure of speech. St. John Paul II and Pope Francis have both said that racism is a sin. It is a sin that haunts the human soul, and there is evidence of racism and deep ethnic prejudice across all continents and in all nations. But because America was founded on the loftiest of ideals - that all men and women are created equal - the sin stings more. This is a moment of judg- ment: The virus, the crashing economy and Floyd's murder have exposed the inequalities and flaws of our nation: in education, in health care, in civil rights. This is also our moment to take a stand to- gether. Yes, looting is terrible. Yes, militarizing a response to peaceful protests is wrong. But let us not avert our eyes from the challenge at hand. Let us recommit as a nation, as a church, to the be- lief that all are equal and all deserve equal opportunity, and that we must make this more than just talk. Let us address our short- comings. Let us commit to being strangers no more, lest at the Final Judgment, we have no excuse at all for what we tolerated on our watch.
Which day is the Sabbath?
FATHER KENNETH DOYLE
A.
Technically, it is not true that the Christian church changed the Sabbath day. The Sabbath is still on Saturday (or, more properly, from sundown on Friday), marking the fact that God rested from creation on the seventh day. In the very earliest days of Christianity, believers - who were mainly Jewish - observed the seventh-day Sabbath with prayer and rest; but very quickly (as Col 2:16 shows) Christians began to see this as no more obliga- tory than Jewish rules on food and drink. The followers of Jesus gathered instead to break the bread of the Eu- charist on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7) - the day on which Jesus, completing a New Covenant, had made sa- cred by rising from the dead. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains the relationship between Sunday and the Sabbath: "Sunday is expressly distinguished from the sabbath which it follows chronologically every week; for Christians its ceremo- nial observance replaces that of the sabbath. In Christ's Passover, Sunday fulfills the spiritual truth of the Jew- ish sabbath and announces man's eternal rest in God" (No. 2175).
Q.
Is it true that the church changed the day of the Sab- bath? I have always felt that the Sabbath occurred on Sat- urday, but I have learned that the early church decided to celebrate the breaking of bread on Sunday because that was the day of Christ's resurrection.
QUESTION CORNER AMID THE FRAY SPEAK TO ME LORD
EDITORIAL
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 1) 2 Kgs 4:8-11, 14-16 Psalm 89:2-3, 16-17, 18-19 2) Rom 6:3-4, 8-11 Gospel: Mt 10:37-42
Most Rev. Joseph E. Kurtz, D.D., Archbishop of Louisville Marnie McAllister Jennifer L. Jenkins Glenn O. Rutherford President Editor Advertising Director Editor Emeritus
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CNS Photo by Paul Haring
Jesuit Father Hans Zoll- ner, a member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Mi- nors, is pictured in a 2019 file photo.
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