Mois : octobre 2022

Miami — The world heard about Hurricane Ian’s devastation along coastal southwest Florida, but the Catholic Charities network of agencies also will focus on lesser known but equally stricken communities and devastated farmworker enclaves in the region.

That was the reassurance given by Miami’s director of Catholic Charities following a fact-finding mission he made Oct. 1-2 to the greater Fort Myers region, and following preliminary conversations with seven Catholic Charities agency heads in Florida.

« As we continue to do these assessments in all these pockets of low-lying areas that are 6 to 8 feet under water — in places like Bonita Springs, Arcadia and Wauchula — that is where Catholic Charities will help: in these pockets you are not hearing anything about, » said Peter Routsis-Arroyo.

He served as CEO of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Venice before moving to Miami. He also still owns a home in the greater Fort Myers region, which is in that diocese.

Hurricane Ian plowed into southwest Florida on the afternoon of Sept. 28 as a strong Category 4 storm. The top gust recorded by a National Weather Service station was 155 mph at Punta Gorda airport north of Fort Myers.

Gusts in the suburban area of Cape Coral, north of Fort Myers, reportedly reached 140 mph.

Although Tampa and Sarasota were expected to suffer the greatest impact from Ian, the storm came ashore further south and dealt its most powerful blow near Port Charlotte, north of Fort Myers.

Winds and storm surge wreaked havoc on coastal island communities such as Sanibel and Pine Island and all the way south to Naples, all within the Diocese of Venice.

Flooding and coastal surge also were reported in the Lower Florida Keys in the Archdiocese of Miami, and most every diocese in the state to a lesser extent experienced some flooding and tornadoes, according to Routsis-Arroyo.

The reported water level overall in Fort Myers was about 8 feet above normal. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called Ian « basically a 500-year flood event. »

By late Oct. 3, the Florida death toll had reached at least 100. It was expected to climb higher as door-to-door rescue operations continued, including in coastal islands such as Sanibel that are now only accessible by boat or helicopter.

With its statewide network of hurricane and disaster response experience, Catholic Charities is positioned to help Ian’s survivors who find themselves desperate at this time, including migrant farmer communities further inland, where search and rescue operations were still underway.

« Even if you have a few feet of water in your house and everything on the floor is damaged and you are dealing without water or electricity, you are traumatized, » Routsis-Arroyo told the Florida Catholic, Miami’s archdiocesan newspaper.

He noted that the Florida governor’s Volunteer Florida office has committed $1 million in funding to Hurricane Ian relief, with $75,000 going to local Catholic Charities agencies. Financial assistance drives following Ian also have been set up around the region.

Routsis-Arroyo spent the weekend of Oct. 1-2 assessing damage, making stops in downtown Fort Myers, Port Charlotte, Cape Coral and North Port, all hard-hit regions.

He also joined conversations aimed at helping Catholic Charities and civic authorities, including the National Guard, establish distribution stations in what will become a patchwork of 17 sites for food and supplies throughout southwest Florida.

Those will include some Catholic parishes, Catholic Charities locations and community centers, he said.

It remained unclear how or when some 10,000 permanent residents of Pine Island, and more on Sanibel Island, will be able to access their homes after bridges linking the islands were destroyed by Ian.

« We ask for people to be as generous as they can be and for a lot of prayers; there will be a lot of pain over the next month and a lot of suffering, » Routsis-Arroyo said.

« There are so many pockets of low-lying residential areas and trailer parks that have been destroyed or inundated with 8 to 10 feet of water; and then you have the whole Peace River flooding problem in the town of Arcadia, and the Myakka River in the town of North Port, which is why you have the National Guard there. »

« Where Catholic Charities shines is by being right there as a trusted presence in migrant communities and at Catholic Charities sites, » he added.

The Tallahassee-based Florida Catholic Conference’s disaster response office, along with the Knights of Columbus and myriad other individual parish and charitable efforts, will help fill needs in concert with the Diocese of Venice’s recovery plans, he added.

Transportation efforts were hampered over the Oct. 1-2 weekend by flooded highways. Prepositioned emergency supplies had been staged further north since Hurricane Ian made landfall further south than expected.

« When it’s a disaster of this magnitude, everybody is doing something, » Routsis-Arroyo said, adding that he estimates he has personally been involved in some 15 major hurricane or disaster response efforts in over 30 years with Catholic Charities, including 2004’s Hurricane Charley and 2017’s Hurricane Irma, both impacting southwest Florida.

Thankfully, Routsis-Arroyo said, the home he still owns in the Diocese of Venice suffered only minor damages.

The church in downtown Fort Myers was not so lucky, he added. St. Francis Xavier Church suffered extensive roofing and water damage, and it is believed that Catholic churches on Sanibel and Pine Island suffered catastrophic damages.

Meanwhile, all the local airports remain closed and large swaths of communities from Naples to Port Charlotte and beyond remain without power and water.

Most of the material aid is expected to come in through the Tampa-St. Petersburg, Orlando and Miami areas for the short term.

Catholic Charities USA is likely to begin planning a response that will include logistical support, distribution sites, case management and on-site sanitation and laundry services made possible through mobile units that have been deployed following similar floods and tropical storms around the country.

Vatican City — The Vatican hosted the global premiere of a new documentary on the urgent need to address climate change on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the same day the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change and the 2015 Paris Agreement entered into force for the Holy See.

The two events Oct. 4 helped mark the feast of the patron saint of animals and ecology, and the namesake of Pope Francis.

The Vatican became a formal party to the U.N. convention in July and declared at the same time that it intended also to formally join the 2015 Paris Agreement.

« Both documents will enter into force for the Holy See, in the name and on behalf of the Vatican City State, on 4 October 2022, the Solemnity of St. Francis, » said a joint statement by the pontifical academies of Sciences and Social Sciences and the Vatican Secretariat of State’s section for relations with states.

It was the same day a new film was launched at the Vatican for the world premiere of « The Letter: A Message For Our Earth, » based on Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical letter, « Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home. »

Presented by YouTube Originals, the film was written and directed by Emmy-winner Nicolas Brown and produced by the Oscar-winning production company « Off the Fence. » It was made in partnership with the Laudato Si’ Movement, the Vatican Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and the Dicastery for Communication.

In the seven years since the pope’s landmark encyclical was published, « the environmental crisis of our common home has worsened drastically, » Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the integral development dicastery, said at a Vatican news conference Oct. 4.

« Clearly, the great treasure of Laudato Si’‘s wisdom needs to become far more deeply known and effectively put into practice, » he said.

Czerny said that the documentary shows how « the ecological crisis is happening now. »

« The time is over for speculation, skepticism and denial, and certainly for irresponsible populism. Apocalyptic floods, mega droughts, disastrous heat waves, catastrophic cyclones and hurricanes have become the new normal. They continue today. Tomorrow, they will get worse, » the cardinal said. 

Czerny said « The Letter » presents a new opportunity for all people, especially those on the peripheries represented by the film’s main protagonists who are typically ignored in global environmental summits, to engage in a dialogue about the environmental challenges facing the planet and possible solutions to them. 

« This beautiful film, heartbreaking yet hopeful, is a clarion cry to people everywhere. Wake up. Get serious. Meet. Act together. Act now, » Czerny said.

At the news conference, Hoesung Lee, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, called the day « a special day for the alliance between science and faith. »

He praised the pope’s letter, both the encyclical and the film, as being in dialogue with science and emphasized action was urgently needed.

« The scientific community welcomes the opportunity to engage with artists and the people of faith. Both faith and art hold a great convening power and can inspire genuine collective climate action, » he said.

Lee added that he welcomed the Holy See’s entry into the Paris Agreement, an action he said « injects new momentum into the global race to implement solutions to the climate crisis. »

« The IPCC assessments clearly point out that climate impacts and risks are becoming increasingly complex and more difficult to manage, and that accelerated and equitable climate action in mitigating and adapting to climate change is critical to sustainable development, » he said. 

« The next few years will be critical. There are ways to improve our chances of success, » with international cooperation key to achieving the climate goals under the Paris Agreement, Lee said. « The stakes have never been higher, and we should be the source of the solution to this crisis. »

The film « The Letter » features activists representing wildlife, Indigenous peoples, young people and the poor — the voices of those who are least listened to, but are the most impacted by the consequences of climate change, Brown said at the news conference. The film includes their meeting with Pope Francis last year to talk about their national and personal challenges and what needs to be done.

The activists included: Chief Cacique Odair « Dadá » Borari from the Amazon rainforest in Brazil; Ridhima Pandey, a 13-year-old climate activist from India; Arouna Kandé, a climate refugee from Senegal; U.S. scientists Greg Asner and Robin Martin; and Lorna Gold, president of Laudato Si’ Movement.

The film is streaming for free at theletterfilm.org and YouTube Originals. People were encouraged to host viewings on a large screen at their parish, school or local community in order to encourage dialogue and action.

During the press conference, Gold said a key message in the film is the need « to develop and rediscover the capacity to care for each other to be able to dream that we can build a society in a world where we care for each other and care for the planet. »

Asked about the encyclical’s « patchy » reception within the church in the seven years since its release, Czerny said that « maybe one of the enemies of Laudato Si’ is the word green, » in that categorizing the document in such a way allows people to cast it aside due to preconceived beliefs. He also challenged journalists to report more on the encyclical and the ecological crises facing the world.

« I’m very hopeful that the film will bring Laudato Si’ into places and amongst people who haven’t, as Lorna said, opened the book, » the cardinal said. « But I also hope that the many different factors will come together so that we start taking this more seriously and more deeply and more universally. »

[NCR environment correspondent Brian Roewe contributed to this report.]

Washington — During their fall general assembly in Baltimore Nov. 14-17, the U.S. bishops will elect the next president and vice president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from a slate of 10 candidates nominated by their fellow bishops.

They also will vote on chairmen-elect for six standing USCCB committees.

The president and vice president are elected to three-year terms, which begin at the conclusion of this year’s general assembly. At that time, Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles and Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit will complete their terms as president and vice president, respectively.

The candidates for president and vice president are, in alphabetical order:

• Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services.
• Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia.
• Bishop Frank Caggiano of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
• Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City.
• Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco.
• Archbishop Paul Etienne of Seattle.
• Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas.
• Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller of San Antonio.
• Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore.
• Bishop Kevin Rhoades of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana.

According to the USCCB bylaws, the president is elected first by a simple majority vote of members present and voting. The vice president is then elected from the remaining nine candidates.

In either election, if a candidate does not receive more than half of the votes cast on the first ballot, a second vote is taken. If a third round of voting is necessary, that ballot is a runoff between the two bishops who received the most votes on the second ballot.

During the meeting, the bishops also will vote for chairmen-elect of six USCCB standing committees on: Canonical Affairs and Church Governance; Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs; Evangelization and Catechesis; International Justice and Peace; Protection of Children and Young People; and Religious Liberty.

The six bishops will each serve for one year as chairman-elect of their respective committee before beginning a three-year term as chairman at the conclusion of the bishops’ 2023 Fall General Assembly.

The nominees are, in alphabetical order:

• Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance: Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, and Bishop Alfred A. Schlert of Allentown, Pennsylvania.
• Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs: Bishop Joseph Bambera of Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Auxiliary Bishop Peter L. Smith of Portland, Oregon.
• Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis: Archbishop Charles Thompson of Indianapolis and Bishop William D. Byrne of Springfield, Massachusetts.
• Committee on International Justice and Peace: Archbishop Nelson Pérez of Philadelphia and Bishop Abdallah Elias Zaidan of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon.
• Committee on the Protection of Children and Young People: Bishop Barry Knestout of Richmond, Virginia, and Auxiliary Bishop Elias R. Lorenzo of Newark, New Jersey.
• Committee for Religious Liberty: Archbishop Cordileone and Bishop Rhoades.

Because the elections for USCCB president and vice president are also taking place at the general assembly, if any of the candidates for committee chairmanship are elected to fill either of those higher offices, the USCCB’s Committee on Priorities and Plans will convene to nominate a new candidate for that committee.

Last November, the bishops voted for chairmen-elect for five standing committees. At the end of this year’s fall assembly, they will take over as chairmen of their respective committees on:

• Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations: Bishop Earl Boyea of Lansing, Michigan.
• Divine Worship: Bishop Steven Lopes, who heads the Houston-based Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter.
• Domestic Justice and Human Development: Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia.
• Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth: then-Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles, who now heads the Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota.
• Migration: Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso.