Spokane Moves Toward the End of Bankruptcy

SPOKANE, Wash. – In what Bishop William S. Skylstad called “just one small step toward healing for the victims,” the Diocese of Spokane was to wire $5 million Oct. 1 to a trust account set up to pay the claims of those sexually abused by clergy in the diocese.

The payment to the Plan Trustee Trust Account, as stipulated by the bankruptcy reorganization plan approved in April, brings the diocese “one step closer to fulfilling the requirements of the plan and concluding the Chapter 11 reorganization,” Bishop Skylstad said.

A payment of $1 million remains and must be made by Oct. 1, 2009, he said.

Bishop Skylstad said the diocese “has incurred approximately $3.4 million in debt to date, which includes payment for trade creditors by January 2008.”

He said he would “continue fundraising to reduce the level of debt, so that ministry support in eastern Washington can continue.”

Under the terms of the settlement plan, the 176 childhood victims of abuse by priests or other church personnel in the diocese will receive compensation ranging from $15,000 to $1.5 million, depending on several factors, including the severity of the abuse and whether or not the statute of limitations had run out before the claim was made.

Connecticut Hospitals Agree To Administer Plan B Pill

HARTFORD, Conn. – Connecticut’s four Catholic hospitals will provide emergency contraception to rape victims without requiring an ovulation test, in compliance with a new state law that took effect Oct. 1.

The Catholic bishops and leaders of Catholic hospitals in the state said that, although they continue to believe that the law is flawed and should be changed, they would revise current protocols at the hospitals that call for both a pregnancy test and an ovulation test before the “morning-after” pill marketed as Plan B is administered.

“To administer Plan B pills in Catholic hospitals to victims of rape, a pregnancy test to determine that the woman has not conceived is sufficient,” the statement said.

“The administration of Plan B pills in this instance cannot be judged to be the commission of an abortion because of such doubt about how Plan B pills and similar drugs work and because of the current impossibility of knowing from the ovulation test whether a new life is present.”

Plan B, containing a high dose of birth control pills, usually prevents pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

Church Leaders Call for Peace in Myanmar

HONG KONG – Religious leaders in Asia have joined world leaders in calling for a peaceful solution to the crisis in Myanmar, where the military junta has launched a deadly crackdown on demonstrators.

In a message to the president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Myanmar, Archbishop Orlando Quevedo of Cotabato, Philippines, secretary-general of the Hong Kong-based Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, expressed his “deepest concern” over the “troubling events” in Myanmar.

Media reported Sept. 28 that soldiers violently dispersed demonstrations led by Buddhist monks in Yangon, Myanmar’s capital, killing at least 10 people and occupying or barricading Buddhist monasteries.

In the federation’s message to Archbishop Paul Zinghtung Grawng of Mandalay, Myanmar, Archbishop Quevedo said Asian bishops read with great sympathy and understanding the Myanmar bishops’ statement issued two days earlier, calling on Catholics to pray during the crisis.

Priest from Jesuit Refugee Service Killed in Sri Lanka

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka – Father Nicholas Pillai Pakiaranjith, 40, was killed in a blast from a claymore mine while he was driving food and supplies to displaced people near Kilinochchi, in an area under the control of Tamil rebels.

Father Pakiaranjith coordinated the work of Jesuit Refugee Service in Sri Lanka’s Mannar district, where control is divided between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam.

One of the priest’s assistants also was injured in the blast.

“We call upon the international community and all men and women of good will to condemn this killing and effectively voice their strong condemnation of the ongoing senseless war,” Bishop Rayappu Joseph of Mannar said.

Vatican Official Calls for Women’s Rights in Tourism

VATICAN CITY – More needs to be done to guarantee equal rights for women in the travel industry as well as tougher laws against their exploitation in sex tourism, said the Vatican secretary of state.

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone called for more attention in safeguarding women’s dignity and promoting their rights in a letter marking World Tourism Day, celebrated worldwide Sept. 27.

The cardinal urged the passage of national laws and international agreements to combat “every form of unjust exploitation (of women) and the indecent commercialization of their bodies.”

Bishops Express Alarm at Brutal Crimes in Namibia

CAPE TOWN, South Africa – The Namibian bishops have expressed alarm at crimes in the country, including “brutal and shocking murders” and the rape of infants, which they linked to excessive consumption of alcohol.

“Have we lost our moral compass” and “lost touch with our traditional cultures which could serve to guide us?” the bishops asked in a mid-September statement, signed by Archbishop Liborius Nashenda of Windhoek.

Mercy Brother Hermenegildus Beris, general secretary of the bishops’ conference, said the butchering of women and dumping of their body parts along Namibia’s main roads, thought by police to be the work of a serial killer, has horrified the nation.

The head and arms of the latest victim were found in Grootfontein, a city in northeast Namibia, Sept. 17.

Noting a United Nations report on the consumption of alcohol in Namibia, the bishops said, “The excessive consumption of alcohol is a symptom of a deep-seated malaise, a sense of emptiness in our society, a pervasive and explosive situation of poverty and unemployment.”

The report, released in June, said more than half of Namibian adults consumed an average of more than 2.5 gallons of alcohol a week.

Six Arkansas Nuns Are Part Of Excommunicated Group

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Six sisters from the Monastery of Our Lady of Charity and Refuge in Hot Springs were excommunicated by the Catholic Church for their involvement in a schismatic association based in Quebec.

The excommunicated sisters have been longtime members of the Community of the Lady of All Nations, also known as the Army of Mary.

They joined the association between 20 and 30 years ago and adopted the teachings of its founder, Marie-Paul Giguere, who believes she is the reincarnation of Mary.

The association is no longer considered a Catholic organization because of its false teachings on the Trinity and Mary, a Vatican official said.

“The Army of Mary has clearly and publicly become a schismatic community and, as such, a non-Catholic association. Its particular teachings are false and its activities are not able to be frequented nor supported by Catholics,” according to a formal declaration written July 11 by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear oral arguments on whether lethal injection violates the constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The case before the court directly involves only Kentucky death-row inmates Ralph Baze and Thomas Clyde Bowling Jr., but it could have far-reaching implications throughout the U.S.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 928 of the nearly 1,100 U.S. executions since 1976 have been by lethal injection.

Father Pat Delahanty, a priest of the Archdiocese of Louisville, Ky., who chairs the Kentucky Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, applauded the high court’s decision in a statement and said it was ironic that the announcement was made on the same day that Baze was to have been executed.

The Kentucky Supreme Court had stayed the execution Sept. 12. At issue is whether the three-drug cocktail used for lethal injections in Kentucky and other states violates the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Opponents of the method say the combination of an anesthetic, a muscle paralyzer and a drug to stop the heart can cause unbearable pain that the inmates are not able to signal because of their paralysis.

VATICAN CITY – Handouts to the poor are not enough; poverty must be tackled by overhauling social structures that deny people basic human rights, Pope Benedict XVI said at his weekly general audience.

“It is not enough to give alms and help the poor on a case-by-case basis,” he said, citing the teachings of St. John Chrysostom.