<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" > <channel> <title>Religion – NMPolitics.net</title> <atom:link href="https://nmpolitics.net/index/tag/religion/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" /> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index</link> <description>The real story</description> <lastBuildDate>Fri, 01 Feb 2019 02:34:29 +0000</lastBuildDate> <language>en-US</language> <sy:updatePeriod> hourly </sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency> 1 </sy:updateFrequency> <item> <title>Churches in southern NM offer shelter to migrant families</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2019/01/churches-in-southern-nm-offer-shelter-to-migrant-families/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 31 Jan 2019 12:42:12 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Border and immigration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Borderlands]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Doña Ana County]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=673317</guid> <description><![CDATA[The seven churches have sheltered more than 1,500 men, women and children since June.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_673347" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-673347" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/001-dju_20190110_Cruces_58-2-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Melani and her father Lucas Juan" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/001-dju_20190110_Cruces_58-2-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/001-dju_20190110_Cruces_58-2-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/001-dju_20190110_Cruces_58-2-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/001-dju_20190110_Cruces_58-2-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/001-dju_20190110_Cruces_58-2.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Don Usner / Searchlight New Mexico</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Nearly every week for the past six months, the Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral in Las Cruces has provided food, shelter and clothing for a dozen or more migrant families released from immigration detention. Many have fled violence and poverty in Central America in hopes of gaining asylum in the U.S. Melani and her father Lucas Juan came from Jacaltenango and were on their way to Phoenix.</p></div> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">ANTHONY, N.M. – Parents and children stumbled off the steps of an old charter bus to waves of applause and shouts of “Bienvendidos!” A small crowd of volunteers from St. Anthony’s Catholic Church had been waiting in the cold night air on a recent Monday, eager to welcome yet another wave of migrants just released from immigration detention in El Paso, Texas. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Inside, the parish hall was toasty, and volunteers were piling paper plates with fried chicken and mashed potatoes for the tired and hungry arrivals. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">“They need to see that even though they have been locked up, they are making a transition to where they finally feel free,” said Jorge Núñez, a volunteer in Anthony who himself was brought from Mexico to the U.S. as a child in the 1960s. “We start clapping. It gives them that welcome feeling: ‘Now we’re not just a number. We are individuals, and these people are showing us love.’”</span></p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article comes from <a href="http://searchlightnm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Searchlight New Mexico</a>, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to investigative journalism. Support its work <a href="https://www.newsmatch.org/organizations/searchlight-new-mexico" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by clicking here</a>.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <p><a href="https://nmpolitics.net/index/2019/01/answering-the-call/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Answering the call</a></p> </aside> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">It is a typical night for Project Oak Tree, a volunteer effort that began in 2014 during a surge of asylum seekers from Central American countries engulfed by violence, political instability and poverty. Seven churches across Doña Ana County of different denominations have been opening and closing their makeshift shelters as migration patterns shift.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Since June, they have sheltered more than 1,500 men, women and children, according to Lonnie Briseño, the Catholic deacon who heads the effort. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">When migrant families began arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border in earnest five years ago, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) provided a safety net for fragile families by vetting their sponsors and facilitating their travel to destinations far from the borderlands. But in October, Homeland Security Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen effectively ended that “safe release” protocol, telling Congress that her department, which houses ICE and the U.S. Border Patrol (among other agencies), was overwhelmed.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The situation has worsened in recent months, as a smuggling network operating out of Guatemala began regularly dumping groups of hundreds of Central Americans in the desert south of the remote Antelope Wells port of entry in southwest New Mexico. With the authorities overwhelmed, the families are being released from detention with no help – and no idea of how to get where they’re going.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Churches, charities and hospitals across southern New Mexico have stepped in to fill the gap. Their efforts come on the heels of the deaths of two Guatemalan children after they were taken into Border Patrol custody in December. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Each day, Briseño awaits a text message from El Paso’s Annunciation House shelter with the count of migrants being released, so volunteers in New Mexico know when to prepare. They are on call to do laundry, organize clothing donations, cook hot meals, set up and take down cots and clean showers – and they have kept at it week after week, for the past eight months.</span><span id="more-673317"></span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The project draws its name from an Old Testament story. “Abraham was sitting outside his tent,” Briseño recounted. “There were three strangers coming down the road. He brought them in to rest under an oak tree and provided them water and a meal to eat and rest. When you think about it, that’s what we do.”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Locals volunteer weekly in New Mexico’s most populous border county, from the dairy and pecan-farming community of Anthony to the state’s second-largest city – Las Cruces – and nearby Mesilla, a historic town that remained a disputed part of Mexico five years after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the rest of New Mexico to the U.S.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">These are places that are culturally imbued with the border, where Spanglish is spoken liberally and families have strong ties on both sides. But unlike nearby El Paso – a metropolis of 800,000 that is known as the Ellis Island of the Southwest – these southern New Mexico towns rarely face border crises head-on. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">“I just think we owe it to any child to make sure their health and well-being is being protected and addressed,” said Janis Gonzales, president of the New Mexico Pediatric Society. “Regardless of where they come from or what the ultimate decision is about whether they stay here or not, we need to make sure we are treating them right while they are here, so we are not making things even worse for them.”</span></p> <div id="attachment_673348" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-673348" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/012a-dju_20190110_Cruces_440-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Gadiel, Andres and Marlon" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/012a-dju_20190110_Cruces_440-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/012a-dju_20190110_Cruces_440-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/012a-dju_20190110_Cruces_440-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/012a-dju_20190110_Cruces_440-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/012a-dju_20190110_Cruces_440.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Don Usner / Searchlight New Mexico</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Gadiel, Andres and Marlon playing with donated toys provided by Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral in Las Cruces.</p></div> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">On one recent night, in the parish hall of Mesilla’s Basilica of San Albino, Ingrid López sucked on oranges as her 53-year-old father, Ovidio López-Tum, traced the scars of violence, extortion and poverty he sought to escape: the slice of a machete across his left cheekbone and left hand, the broken clavicle. He lifted his pants leg to reveal the electronic ankle monitor strapped there by ICE.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">The farmworker left his wife and four other young children in rural Guatemala and crossed the southern Mexican border at a place called Gracias a Dios – “Thanks to God” – in mid-December. With the aid of a smuggler, they headed north on a relentless route with few stops to eat or sleep. Ingrid became severely ill after two days on the road. </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">“</span><span class="s2">When we were in Mexico City, she had a fever; she was vomiting and had diarrhea,” her father said, shaking his head as the fear came back to him. “And I thought about going back. I really thought about going back. But thank God there was a woman who had some medicine. They saw how bad off she was.”</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">As he spoke, snow fell outside in fat flakes that neither of them had ever seen. Children gathered in the doorway, marveling.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Just then, a volunteer beckoned López-Tum to a side room, where Briseño and several volunteers had spent the last few hours contacting sponsors, booking plane reservations and buying bus tickets for families headed as far away as Massachusetts, Kentucky, Virginia and North Carolina.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">López-Tum held an official ICE document with the address of a woman who said she will receive him and his daughter, along with a date to appear at an immigration office nearby. More than 2,000 miles from home, they would leave the next morning for the Gulf Coast.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Another 1,300 miles to a new life.</span></p> <div id="attachment_673349" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-673349" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/014a-dju_20190110_Cruces_533-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Men" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/014a-dju_20190110_Cruces_533-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/014a-dju_20190110_Cruces_533-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/014a-dju_20190110_Cruces_533-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/014a-dju_20190110_Cruces_533-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/014a-dju_20190110_Cruces_533.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Don Usner / Searchlight New Mexico</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Men gathered on the men’s side of the shelter at Immaculate Heart of Mary Cathedral in Las Cruces chatting about their journeys and their destinations.</p></div> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Answering the call</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2019/01/answering-the-call/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Thu, 31 Jan 2019 12:41:36 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Border and immigration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Borderlands]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Doña Ana County]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=673331</guid> <description><![CDATA[A Q&A with the organizer of the effort that unites faith-based organizations to aid migrants in southern New Mexico.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_673338" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-673338" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/016a-dju_20190110_Cruces_379-3-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Lonnie Briseño" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/016a-dju_20190110_Cruces_379-3-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/016a-dju_20190110_Cruces_379-3-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/016a-dju_20190110_Cruces_379-3-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/016a-dju_20190110_Cruces_379-3-1170x780.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/016a-dju_20190110_Cruces_379-3.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Don Usner / Searchlight New Mexico</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Lonnie Briseño and immigrants praying for safe journeys when they leave the shelter.</p></div> <p>Nearly every day, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement releases asylum-seeking migrants “on their own recognizance,” strapped with GPS ankle monitors and a notice to appear at an ICE facility while their claims are processed.<b> </b>The migrants – mostly parents with children – have often made arduous journeys from Central America and spent days or weeks in detention. They are tired, hungry and disoriented and need shelter before they head to their next destination.</p> <p>Lonnie Briseño is a deacon in the Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces and organizer of Project Oak Tree, a three-year-old effort that unites faith-based organizations to provide food, clothing and shelter to migrants in southern New Mexico. He spoke with Searchlight New Mexico about the project.</p> <p><b>What are the origins of Project Oak Tree?</b></p> <p>Ruben [Garcia, of El Paso’s immigrant shelter Annunciation House] reached out to [the former Las Cruces] Bishop Oscar Cantu. Annunciation House was overwhelmed. We called it “Project Oak Tree” because the bishop didn’t want to offend any faith-based group. So we went to the Old Testament and found the story of the oak tree.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article comes from <a href="http://searchlightnm.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Searchlight New Mexico</a>, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to investigative journalism. Support its work <a href="https://www.newsmatch.org/organizations/searchlight-new-mexico" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by clicking here</a>.</p> <h3>Related</h3> <p><a href="https://nmpolitics.net/index/2019/01/churches-in-southern-nm-offer-shelter-to-migrant-families/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Churches in southern NM offer shelter to migrant families</a></p> </aside> <p><b>What’s the story?</b></p> <p>Abraham was sitting outside his tent. There were three strangers coming on the road. He brought them in to rest under an oak tree and provided them water, a meal to eat and rest. When you think about it, that’s what we do.</p> <p><b>You have also taken migrant families into your own home.</b></p> <p>In 2015 or 2016, we got the call again [from Annunciation House]. At that point, we could not find a church that was willing to do it. I thought, let’s use a different model. Let’s look at getting some host families who would be willing to take [migrants] into their home. So me and my wife did, and we loved it.</p> <p>I would rather do that than the shelter, because you get to know them. The stories move your heart. A lady who took a family home said that when she showed them their room, she had a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe and as soon as [the father] saw it, he fell on his knees and started crying. There was that connection – it was the same Mary in his country who was with him here.</p> <p><b>Who are the people you are helping?</b></p> <p>They are men and women, mostly from Central America, who have some connection to the United States. They are tired. They are hungry. They have been stripped of their human dignity.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>I was taking a man to the airport, and I asked him, “What was the most difficult part of your journey?” I thought, it’s going to definitely be something that happened in Mexico. He said, “When I was incarcerated [by ICE]. I have never been the kind of person to end up in a jail. I am a good man.”</p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Plans for a border wall ignite fight between church and state</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/12/plans-for-a-border-wall-ignite-fight-between-church-and-state/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Sun, 23 Dec 2018 15:00:47 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Border and immigration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=662059</guid> <description><![CDATA[The Catholic Diocese of Brownsville is resisting the government's efforts to take over the historic chapel that gave Mission its name.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_662069" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-662069" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/La_Lomita_Mission_Texas_3-771x564.jpg?x36058" alt="Father Roy Snipes" width="771" height="564" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/La_Lomita_Mission_Texas_3-771x564.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/La_Lomita_Mission_Texas_3-336x246.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/La_Lomita_Mission_Texas_3-768x562.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/La_Lomita_Mission_Texas_3-1170x856.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/La_Lomita_Mission_Texas_3.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Teo Armus / the Texas Tribune</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Father Roy Snipes inside La Lomita in October. Snipes has become a fierce defender of the chapel that gave Mission its name.</p></div> <p>MISSION, Texas — In these parts, Father Roy Snipes is known as the “cowboy priest.”</p> <p dir="ltr">It’s not a bad moniker for the 73-year-old clergyman, who wore a loose set of black clerical clothes as he wandered over with his two mutts on a recent afternoon to La Lomita, a historic adobe church on the banks of the Rio Grande.</p> <p dir="ltr">Sitting on the pews inside the tiny white chapel, where he made his final vows to the church nearly four decades ago, Snipes took off his Stetson hat and let out a sigh.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Everybody sees this as our mother church. It’s sacred in our memory,” he said. “But who knows — the spell could be broken. The atmosphere could be spoiled.”</p> <p dir="ltr">That’s because the government is moving to expand border fencing here in Hidalgo County, casting a shadow over the future of the chapel and threatening to leave its fate in the hands of government bureaucrats in Washington.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/19/church-and-state-fight-mission-texas-border-wall/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Texas Tribune</a>, a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.</p> </aside> <p dir="ltr">Customs and Border Protection awarded contracts earlier this fall to construct several dozen miles of border barriers, including a six-mile stretch of concrete and steel fencing that will cut through a nearby state park and the National Butterfly Center.</p> <p>A spokesperson for the federal agency said that this stretch of the wall will only go south to Conway Road in Mission, about half a mile short of La Lomita.</p> <p dir="ltr">But with federal authorities already trying to survey the land around the chapel, Snipes fears that they may try to permanently take over La Lomita and extend the wall on a levee road just north of it.</p> <p dir="ltr">That would leave the chapel cut off from the rest of town, instead stuck between the barricade and the Rio Grande.</p> <p dir="ltr">And that means that Snipes, who still uses a flip phone and spends his free time steering a decades-old motorboat, has emerged as an unlikely player in a national fight that locally is pitting two of the region’s most influential forces – the Catholic church and the U.S. immigration apparatus – against each other.</p> <p dir="ltr">Just before Thanksgiving, federal authorities moved to take control of about 67 acres around the chapel, arguing that they need “immediate possession” of the land in order to investigate it for future use — including, perhaps, permanently seizing it to build the wall.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Time is of the essence,” government lawyers said in a Nov. 20 court filing.</p> <p dir="ltr">But Snipes and his fellow clergy have so far resisted those efforts in court. It’s just one of several legal battles by religious groups in the area opposing the government’s attempts to beef up border security. An oratory and a local Catholic high school have both sought legal action to prevent the government from surveying plots of brush land on their properties.<span id="more-662059"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">The church argues the government doesn’t have the proper authority to take over the land, but its main opposition is deeply rooted in religion. A wall would keep people from accessing the chapel to practice their faith and violate freedom of religion under the First Amendment, religious leaders said. And using their land to build the wall would go against Catholic values.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The Church is not angry with anybody, just interested in remaining who she is,” said Bishop Daniel Flores, who leads the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville. “A wall is not an intrinsic evil, but it is a prudential social disaster.”</p> <p>Snipes, whose beat-up van is covered in stickers that say “no wall between amigos,” said that his opposition to the wall is not so much about politics as it is about the gospel.</p> <p dir="ltr">“Our message is ‘come on in, we’re trying to make you feel at home,’” he said. “Walling out our neighbors on the south side is just as sacrilegious as keeping us from our sacred shrine.”<cite></cite></p> <p dir="ltr">Federal authorities said in court filings that they want to use the land around La Lomita to “conduct surveying, testing, and other investigative work” over a 12-month period in order to plan for roads, fencing, vehicle barriers and cameras designed to help secure the border.</p> <p dir="ltr">To justify the taking, they cited President Donald Trump’s February 2017 executive order to “build the wall” as well as a 2006 congressional mandate. They also argued that their activity would not keep parishioners from their regular activity inside the church.</p> <p dir="ltr">A CBP spokesperson declined to comment because of ongoing litigation. And John A. Smith III, an assistant U.S. attorney representing the government, said that similar efforts to survey land along the border have met little opposition from ranchers and other private landowners.</p> <p dir="ltr">But the church wants to keep authorities from even stepping onto the chapel grounds.<cite></cite></p> <p dir="ltr">“This is the small fight before the big fight,” said Daniel Garza, a Brownsville lawyer representing the diocese. “Most people don’t fight the little fight, but we don’t believe in having anything related to a wall on our property, period.”</p> <h3 dir="ltr"><strong>‘Respite and worship, accessible to all’</strong></h3> <p dir="ltr">La Lomita was first established as a halfway point for members of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a sect founded in the 1800s that focused on marginalized or remote communities, said Friar Bob Wright, a professor at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio who has researched the group’s presence in Texas.</p> <p dir="ltr">Snipes calls the Oblates, who would ride around the area on horseback, the original “cowboy priests.”</p> <p dir="ltr">After an original chapel on the land was destroyed in a flood, the current building was erected in 1899 and served as the headquarters for missionary activity in Hidalgo County. The town of Mission got its name and its emblem from the chapel.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The mission became a place of worship and local devotion,” Wright said. “It’s historical for the whole Middle Valley community, one of the earliest sites there, and for the religious community, too.”</p> <p dir="ltr">That importance has led the Oblate’s leadership in Illinois to issue a strong rebuke against federal control over the chapel.</p> <p dir="ltr">“It has been and remains a true place of ‘sanctuary’ in every sense of that term — a place for safety, respite and worship, accessible to all, giving peace and security in human and spiritual form,” the Very Rev. Louis Studer, the group’s U.S. provincial, said in a statement.</p> <p dir="ltr">Just one year of surveying and inspection could cause “significant damage” to the park around the chapel, where parishioners regularly come to pray and host an annual mariachi mass, Garza said. The chapel has also been home to weddings, private confessions and the occasional retreat for priests in the Guadalupe parish.</p> <p>What might come after that could be more severe.</p> <p dir="ltr">“You’d have the wall, and you’d have this 150-foot enforcement zone basically right against the church,” Garza said. “They’d have to knock down some of the beautiful trees that have been there forever. You’d go from a green area to a gravel road.”</p> <p dir="ltr">The church’s main legal argument in court rests on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which Garza says requires authorities to demonstrate a “compelling interest” to obstruct local Catholics from practicing their religion at La Lomita.</p> <p dir="ltr">Snipes fears that even if authorities installed a gate to access the chapel if a wall is built nearby, parishioners would have to check in with Border Patrol every time they wanted to stop by.</p> <p dir="ltr">“What happens to the altar boys who are all dark-eyed and dark-skinned?” he said. “Who goes down to the chapel to pray with papers?”</p> <h3><strong>Devotion and cariño</strong></h3> <p dir="ltr">Among La Lomita’s most devoted parishioners is 82-year-old Andrea Chavez Garza, who travels to the chapel nearly every day in spite of a crippling arthritis that has limited her mobility since birth.</p> <p dir="ltr">Inside the peeling white walls of La Lomita, Chavez prays the rosary and recites sermons that she learned by heart as a toddler when her <em>abuela </em>would take her there to pray.</p> <p dir="ltr">“If I don’t go to the chapel, the day’s not complete,” she said. “That’s how I was raised. So for them to get rid of this beautiful, historic space? Over my dead body.”</p> <p dir="ltr">At times, those seeking out the chapel have been border-crossers themselves.</p> <p dir="ltr">Snipes, the “cowboy priest,” said he found three Central American migrants hiding out in the chapel last fall. He snuck them bread and soup as they stayed inside.</p> <p dir="ltr">He could have ignored their pleas for help. But it’s all part of his own mission, he said, to bring charity and humility back to the priesthood and carry on the Oblate tradition — the same force that compels him to stand against the wall, and in recent weeks, to lead mass at La Lomita every Friday before dawn to pray for the chapel’s protection.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We’re obsessed with correctness instead of <em>cariño</em>,” he said, using the Spanish word for affection. “And <em>cariño </em>is what people are dying for.”<script src="https://dot.texastribune.org/static/dist/dot.min.55eef7d282ec435600d1.js" integrity="sha384-kWHbWWrJHsBy04/FLYpSF8whX7iznTaWu7KCwxjA7qmPD3La29VFha61MJDfKQ+e" crossorigin="anonymous" data-tt-canonical="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/12/19/church-and-state-fight-mission-texas-border-wall/"></script></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Rape kids. Cover it up. Avoid responsibility. Lie. That’s the Catholic Church.</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/12/rape-kids-cover-it-up-avoid-responsibility-lie-thats-the-catholic-church/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 21 Dec 2018 19:00:15 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Haussamen Columns]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Children]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=661033</guid> <description><![CDATA[A religious organization that has destroyed countless people and families is now trying to avoid the full consequences of its sins — and Santa Fe’s archbishop is lying about it.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_661071" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-661071" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/981674_10100199796638221_1161461940_o-771x578.jpg?x36058" alt="Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi" width="771" height="578" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/981674_10100199796638221_1161461940_o-771x578.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/981674_10100199796638221_1161461940_o-336x252.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/981674_10100199796638221_1161461940_o-768x576.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/981674_10100199796638221_1161461940_o-800x600.jpg 800w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/981674_10100199796638221_1161461940_o.jpg 1136w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Heath Haussamen / NMPolitics.net</p><p class="wp-caption-text">The Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi in Santa Fe.</p></div> <p><em>Warning: This column plainly discusses sexual assault and related issues.</em></p> <p><strong>COMMENTARY:</strong> I remember a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congregation_of_Christian_Brothers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Christian Brother</a> who taught at my high school taking us outside to show off a mountain he identified as “Tetilla Peak.” He described, to a group of underage teens in the 1990s, how much he loved <em>tetas</em> — in English, breasts, or more crudely but accurately, tits.</p> <p>He often told us how much he loved women’s bodies. If he wasn’t a Christian Brother he would have 10 wives and 10 children with each wife, he said.</p> <p>I had many creepy experiences at St. Michael’s High School in Santa Fe. Another was the reverence with which basketball coaches spoke about the legendary coach <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/47381331/john-christenson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Brother Abdon</a>, with no mention of the <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news3/1995_05_19_Propp_AbuseAlleged_Brother_Abdon_ETC_2.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rape allegations</a>.</p> <div id="attachment_383420" class="wp-caption module image alignleft" style="max-width: 336px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-383420" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-336x252.jpg?x36058" alt="Heath Haussamen" width="336" height="252" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-336x252.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-768x576.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-771x578.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-800x600.jpg 800w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Heath Haussamen</p></div> <p>More than two decades later, I’m processing all we’ve learned in 2018 from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/catholic-church-sex-abuse-pennsylvania.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a grand jury investigation in Pennsylvania</a>, our attorney general’s <a href="http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/ag-serves-archdiocese-with-search-warrant-to-get-abuse-documents/article_51f57c28-7117-5c12-92d3-c52ed30bea4b.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">probe in New Mexico</a>, and <a href="https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/12/priests-abused-people-in-native-villages-for-years-then-retired-on-college-campus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigative journalism</a> about how the Roman Catholic Church has systematically enabled and intentionally covered up the sexual assault of countless children and adults worldwide by its clergy, then shielded its assets from victims to protect its land and money.</p> <p>This is the same material domination and psychological trauma Catholic colonizers have been inflicting <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_O%C3%B1ate" target="_blank" rel="noopener">since 1598</a> on the people of what we today call New Mexico.</p> <p>Some examples:</p> <p>• In Albuquerque, Father Sabine Griego allegedly vaginally, orally and anally raped a girl repeatedly starting at age 7. The victim says Griego smacked her when she choked during oral sex. He slammed her face into a table and broke her nose during one assault, then continued the rape, <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/1255522/new-legal-troubles-for-the-archdiocese-of-santa-fe.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Albuquerque Journal reported</a>. He threatened to kill her if she told anyone, so she told her mom she was injured during physical education class.</p> <p>• Father James Poole impregnated a 16-year-old Native American girl in Alaska, “then forced her to get an abortion and blame her father for raping her. Her father went to prison,” <a href="https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/12/priests-abused-people-in-native-villages-for-years-then-retired-on-college-campus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reveal News reported</a>.</p> <p>• Father John Feit murdered a female parishioner in Texas in the 1960s. Instead of going to prison, he was sent to Jemez Springs, N.M., where he allegedly oversaw the reassignment of pedophile priests to churches throughout the Santa Fe diocese without telling unsuspecting congregations, <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/1255522/new-legal-troubles-for-the-archdiocese-of-santa-fe.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the Journal reported</a>.</p> <p>• In Pennsylvania, the church had what the grand jury called a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/pennsylvania-child-abuse-catholic-church.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“playbook for concealing the truth.”</a><span id="more-661033"></span></p> <p>Today, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe is <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/1255234/former-abq-mayor-alleges-archdiocese-avoiding-responsibility-with-bankruptcy.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declaring bankruptcy</a> after transferring assets to separate entities. Protecting its money from victims is something the Catholic Church <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/02/us/dolan-sought-vatican-permission-to-shield-assets.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has done elsewhere</a>, including in the <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/331631/parishes-become-nonprofits.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Las Cruces diocese</a>. Former Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez has courageously called that out, <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/1255186/bankruptcy-just-latest-shield-for-rapist-priests.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writing in the Journal</a> that it’s “a way of avoiding responsibility” and “part of a continuing cover-up.”</p> <p>Sounding like a corporate lawyer, Santa Fe Archbishop John C. Wester responded by <a href="https://www.abqjournal.com/1255234/former-abq-mayor-alleges-archdiocese-avoiding-responsibility-with-bankruptcy.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">telling the Journal</a> the diocese is “being fully accountable to the survivors” and ensuring victims’ claims can be settled “fairly and equitably.”</p> <p>Jesus had no patience for such <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+23&version=NIV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">religious hypocrisy</a>. Chasing the money-changers <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleansing_of_the_Temple" target="_blank" rel="noopener">out of the temple</a> was the only time we saw him lose his temper.</p> <p>A religious organization with 1.2 billion members that claims to be the light of the world has destroyed countless people and families. Now it’s trying to avoid the full consequences of its sins — and Santa Fe’s archbishop is lying about it.</p> <p>Wester should be ashamed of himself — and, based on his proclaimed beliefs, fearful for his eternal soul. This so-called religious leader and his peers should be prostrate on the ground begging for forgiveness. They aren’t — and that’s all I need to know about them and their church.</p> <p><em><a href="http://www.nmpolitics.net/haussamen/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heath Haussamen</a> is NMPolitics.net’s editor and publisher. Agree with his opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary <a href="https://www.nmpolitics.net/index/commentary-submissions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</em></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Priests abused people in Native villages for years, then retired on college campus</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/12/priests-abused-people-in-native-villages-for-years-then-retired-on-college-campus/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Wed, 19 Dec 2018 14:00:43 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Children]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Crime]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">https://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=658579</guid> <description><![CDATA[Gonzaga University served as a retirement repository for Jesuit priests accused of sexual abuse in Alaska Native villages and on reservations.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-658595" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/jesuit-illo-v3-1200x640-771x411.jpg?x36058" alt="" width="771" height="411" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/jesuit-illo-v3-1200x640-771x411.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/jesuit-illo-v3-1200x640-336x179.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/jesuit-illo-v3-1200x640-768x410.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/jesuit-illo-v3-1200x640-1170x624.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/jesuit-illo-v3-1200x640.jpg 1200w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" />On the surface, Father James Poole seemed like the cool priest in Nome, Alaska. He founded a Catholic mission radio station that broadcast his Jesuit sermons alongside contemporary pop hits. A 1978 <a href="https://people.com/archive/western-alaskas-hippest-dj-is-jim-poole-s-j-comin-at-ya-with-rocknroll-n-religion-vol-10-no-25/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">story</a> in People magazine called Poole “Western Alaska’s Hippest DJ … Comin’ at Ya with Rock’n’Roll ’n’ Religion.”</p> <p>Behind the radio station’s closed doors, Poole was a serial sexual predator. He abused at least 20 women and girls, according to court documents. At least one was 6 years old. One Alaska Native woman says he impregnated her when she was 16, then forced her to get an abortion and blame her father for raping her. Her father went to prison.</p> <p>Like so many other Catholic priests around the country, Poole’s inappropriate conduct with young girls was well-known to his superiors. A Jesuit supervisor once warned a church official that Poole “has a fixation on sex; an obsession; some sort of mental aberration that makes him see sex everywhere.”</p> <p>But the last chapter in his story reveals a new twist in the Catholic abuse scandal: Poole was sent to live out his retirement years on Gonzaga University’s campus in Spokane, Washington.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This story was originally published by <a href="https://www.revealnews.org/article/these-priests-abused-in-native-villages-for-years-they-retired-on-gonzagas-campus/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reveal</a> from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more at <a href="https://www.revealnews.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealnews.org</a> and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at <a href="https://www.revealnews.org/podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealnews.org/podcast</a>. This story was produced in partnership with the <a href="http://www.nwnewsnetwork.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nwnewsnetwork.org/&source=gmail&ust=1544897988799000&usg=AFQjCNEfaXxouZZBClSjrLEvog-tI8vDIw">Northwest News Network</a>.</p> </aside> <p>For more than three decades, Cardinal Bea House on Gonzaga’s campus served as a retirement repository for at least 20 Jesuit priests accused of sexual misconduct that predominantly took place in small, isolated Alaska Native villages and on Indian reservations across the Northwest, an investigation by the <a href="http://www.nwnewsnetwork.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Northwest News Network</a> and Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.</p> <p>A trove of internal Jesuit correspondence shows a longstanding pattern of Jesuit officials in the Oregon Province — an administrative area that included Washington, Oregon, Montana, Idaho and Alaska — privately acknowledging issues of inappropriate sexual behavior, but not releasing that information to the public, which avoided scandal and protected the perpetrators from prosecution.</p> <p>When abuse was discovered, the priests would be reassigned, sometimes to another Native community.</p> <p>Once the abusive priests reached retirement age, the Jesuits moved them to Cardinal Bea House on Gonzaga’s campus or another Jesuit residence, to comfortably spend the rest of their lives in relative peace and safety. The university administration did not respond to requests for an interview to answer whether the administration or student body were aware of the presence of known sexual offenders on campus.</p> <p>The last known abusive priest was moved out of Cardinal Bea House in 2016, Jesuit records show.</p> <div id="attachment_658597" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-658597" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Cardinal-Bea-House-1024x683-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Cardinal Bea House" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Cardinal-Bea-House-1024x683-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Cardinal-Bea-House-1024x683-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Cardinal-Bea-House-1024x683-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Cardinal-Bea-House-1024x683.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Emily Schwing / for Reveal</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Situated on Gonzaga’s campus, between the university’s business school and the St. Aloysius Rectory, Cardinal Bea House played host to at least 20 Jesuit priests accused of sexual abuse.</p></div> <p>Father John Whitney, the former leader of the Oregon Province who ordered Poole to move into Cardinal Bea House, said the Jesuit order is obligated to provide for priests in retirement. He said it was the only facility in the province where past offenders like Poole, then in his 80s, could be contained effectively while also receiving necessary medical care.</p> <p>Poole resided at Cardinal Bea House from 2003 to 2015. If he had been allowed to live independently, without church oversight, he surely would have abused more people, even at his advanced age, Whitney said in an interview.</p> <p>The house, Whitney said, was “a retirement community where he could be monitored.”</p> <p>In a pair of depositions in 2005, Whitney said he did not inform Gonzaga administrators or police in Spokane about Poole’s history after moving him into Cardinal Bea House. A Spokane Police Department spokesperson said they had not received any reports, either from Gonzaga or the Jesuit order, about allegations against any residents of Cardinal Bea House.</p> <p>Non-abusing Jesuits also lived at Cardinal Bea House, but there were specific “safety plans” for abusers that banned sexually abusive priests from commingling with students. The Oregon Province would not release copies of the plans. While we learned of no reports of residents abusing Gonzaga students, the restrictions were not rigorously enforced.<span id="more-658579"></span></p> <p>In a deposition in one of the several lawsuits filed against him, Poole said he regularly went to the school library and basketball games. Poole said he met with a female student alone in the living room of Cardinal Bea House when she came to interview him for a report on Alaska. Student journalists and filmmakers in 2010 and 2011 were also permitted to interview residents, including Joseph Obersinner, who worked in Native communities in Montana, Washington and Idaho. He was <a href="http://diocesehelena.org/4850-2/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> of sexual misconduct against a minor.</p> <p>“We love being right in the middle of campus,” Obersinner <a href="https://www.gonzagabulletin.com/cardinal-bea-houses-former-jesuits/article_83b05553-4eb8-54b0-a804-1a50c20ddc08.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> the school’s student newspaper. “It’s a blessing to see the active energy and happiness of youth every day.”</p> <p>Cardinal Bea House is a modest low-rise brick building, with large windows in front and a small carport behind. It resembles an unremarkable office building, save for the white statue of an angel-winged saint standing guard over the front entrance. On a recent crisp autumn day, a prankster had slipped a hand-rolled cigarette between the statue’s fingers.</p> <p>While the building <a href="https://www.gonzaga.edu/-/media/Website/Documents/About/Our-Campus-and-Location/Maps-Directions/campus-map-2018-2019.ashx?la=en&hash=166CA39D883E41273BC06BF01937DCA7EC0B488B" target="_blank" rel="noopener">appears</a> on campus maps and is listed in the campus directory, it’s not officially part of the private Jesuit university. Cardinal Bea House is owned by the Jesuit order of the Catholic Church.</p> <p>Poole was joined at Cardinal Bea House by other priests whose abuse was known, often for years, by the Jesuit order.</p> <p>Father James Jacobson, sent there in the mid-2000s, was accused of sexual abuse by members of the Alaska Native community of Nelson Island. He claimed he never forced anyone to have sex, saying in a deposition that he had consensual sex with seven Native women. He admitted to fathering four children and using church funds to hire prostitutes in Anchorage and Fairbanks when he was principal of a Jesuit boarding school in Glennallen.</p> <p>Another priest, Henry Hargreaves, accused of sexually assaulting young boys, was sent to Cardinal Bea House by 2003, and subsequently allowed to lead prayer services in at least four Native American communities on two reservations in Washington state.</p> <p>The abusive Jesuits at Cardinal Bea House were part of the Oregon Province’s outsized problem with sexual misconduct. The province had 92 Jesuits accused of sexual abuse, by far the most of any province in the country, according to data we compiled from church records, a database maintained by <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">advocates</a> for sex abuse victims, and information released earlier this month by the Jesuits. In addition, about 80 percent of accused abusers worked in Native communities in the Oregon Province.</p> <p>Poole has been described as charismatic, outgoing and narcissistic, so he was perfectly suited for his role as the voice of KNOM, the radio station he founded in 1971. Elsie Boudreau, an Alaska Native, was a station volunteer and one of Poole’s victims. From the time she was 10 until she was 16, she volunteered at KNOM.</p> <p>Boudreau said in an interview that when she was 11 or 12, during a Saturday music request show in which they were alone in the studio, Poole would kiss her on the lips and fondle her, something she didn’t realize was wrong until she was much older. He also made her sit on his lap and lie on top of his body.</p> <p>For Boudreau, it was a slap in the face that Poole lived out his retirement comfortably until he died early this year. “To me, what that says is they are taken care of,” Boudreau said. “They are protected by the Catholic Church, when the victims were never protected.”</p> <h3>The Jesuits’ deep roots in Native communities</h3> <p>The Catholic Church was deeply embedded in the Native communities of Alaska and Indian reservations in the Northwest. In the early 1900s, the Jesuits had established a school and an orphanage in Elsie Boudreau’s hometown, the predominantly Alaska Native community of St. Mary’s in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.</p> <p>Jesuits, officially called the Society of Jesus, are a Catholic religious order founded in the 1500s. While Jesuits can work in various roles from parish priests to teachers, the order is known for its academic and socially conscious bent. There are more than 100 Jesuit high schools, colleges and universities in North America.</p> <p>Jesuit priests were formidable figures in small Native villages, presiding over daily life from Mass to marriages, baptisms to burials; even teaching catechism lessons, where some of the abuse of the youngest victims took place. Boudreau said she viewed her Catholicism as more central to her identity than being Yup’ik. That religious identity was shattered by her abuse.</p> <p>“The whole premise behind the Catholic Church and their mission with the Native people, with indigenous people, was to strip them of their identity,” Boudreau said. “And so sexual abuse was one way. I think it’s intentional when you have an institution that is aware of problem priests, perpetrator priests, and moves them to places where they believe that people are ‘less than,’ where they believed the people there would not speak out.”</p> <p>In 2002, two other abuse victims in Boudreau’s community filed a lawsuit against the church. Learning of the suit from a <a href="https://www.poynter.org/news/former-st-marys-altar-boys-suing-catholic-church" target="_blank" rel="noopener">news story</a>, Boudreau, then in her early 30s, had a shock of recognition. She, too, had suffered abuse, and no longer wanted to remain silent.</p> <div id="attachment_658598" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-658598" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Elsie-Speaks-at-AFN-2-1024x683-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Elsie Boudreau" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Elsie-Speaks-at-AFN-2-1024x683-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Elsie-Speaks-at-AFN-2-1024x683-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Elsie-Speaks-at-AFN-2-1024x683-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Elsie-Speaks-at-AFN-2-1024x683.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Emily Schwing / for Reveal</p><p class="wp-caption-text">After going public with her story of abuse, Elsie Boudreau (center) became an advocate for other survivors in Alaska Native communities through her nonprofit Arctic Winds Healing Winds.</p></div> <p>Boudreau reported her abuse and was deeply unsatisfied with the response. The region’s presiding bishop eventually invited her to a meeting, but Boudreau said he didn’t seem to understand how the abuse had affected her life.</p> <p>“It was very clear he didn’t care about what happened to me,” Boudreau said. “He didn’t acknowledge that little girl who was hurt and say, ‘I’m sorry this happened to you, what can I do?’ Instead, I became a liability.”</p> <p>Yet, Jesuit leadership had known about James Poole’s behavior for longer than Boudreau had been alive. In a 1960 <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5280692-Jim-Poole-Letter-One-Obsessed-With-Sex.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to a Jesuit official, local Jesuit leader Segundo Llorente fretted over Poole’s conduct. Poole regularly had long, one-on-one conversations with young girls about sex, Llorente wrote. Llorente’s letter speculated that Poole, “has a fixation on sex; an obsession; some sort of mental aberration that makes him see sex everywhere. Some think that may be (sic) he is projecting outwardly what is eating him inwardly … he is deliberately placing himself at all times in dangerous situations.”</p> <p>There might have been some personal insight in those words. The names of both Llorente and the Alaska church official with whom he was corresponding, Father Paul O’Connor, appeared on a <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news5/2009_12_21_Kettler_ThirdAmendedReorganizationPlan/Fairbanks_3_Ex_C_and_03_searchable.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">list</a> released by the Fairbanks Diocese in 2009 of priests accused of sexual misconduct.</p> <p>Despite Llorente’s warning, Poole’s abuse of minors and young women in Alaska went on for decades, according to attorneys who represented clients, as well as letters from church officials and other court documents. At least one victim accused him of rape.</p> <p>In another <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5433853-James-Poole-Letter-Nip-This-in-the-Bud.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> from 1986, which has not previously been made public, Bishop Michael Kaniecki of Fairbanks wrote to Archbishop Francis Thomas Hurley of Anchorage: “Hopefully, my letter will nip this mess in the bud. Tried to cover all bases, and yet not admit anything.”</p> <p>In 1988, Poole was removed from his position at KNOM after young women who had volunteered at the station wrote letters to the bishop in which they accused Poole of sexual misconduct.</p> <p>The following year, Father Frank Case, the head of the Oregon Province, endorsed Poole for a new position. Case is currently vice president at Gonzaga, an adviser to the school’s president, and chaplain for the school’s nationally ranked men’s basketball team, the Bulldogs.</p> <p>He wrote a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5280703-Jim-Poole-Letter-Three-Very-Good-Standing.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to the Catholic chaplains association backing Poole’s application to become a chaplain at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington.</p> <p>“(Poole) is a Jesuit priest in very good standing, and it is my strong expectation that he will serve in such a ministry in a manner that is both generous and effective,” Case wrote. Poole got the job, working at the hospital until 2003.</p> <p>In a 2008 deposition, Case said he did not review Poole’s personnel file before writing the letter because he had no indication of misconduct. In a statement through Gonzaga University’s public relations office, Case said he did not have access to Poole’s personnel file.</p> <p>It wasn’t until 1997, 37 years after Llorente’s letter of caution, that church officials finally came to see their Poole problem as critical. That December, the bishop of Fairbanks sent a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5448949-Poole-1997-Letter-Pdf.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to the head of the Oregon Province, at least the third provincial to deal with Poole’s sexual misconduct. “Unfortunately, more skeletons keep falling out of the closet … if we do not make a clean cut with Poole, it could jump up and bite us,” he wrote, noting a potential whistleblower was threatening to publicly expose the extent of Poole’s wrongdoings.</p> <p>The following year, the bishop sent another <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5280710-Jim-Poole-Letter-Four-if-the-Wrong-Person-Hears.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to the province head urging Poole’s old sermons and ministerial messages be removed from the KNOM’s airwaves entirely. “(We could) end up with a public scandal and a possible law suit (sic),” the letter reads. “It is my fear … that if the wrong person hears Jim’s voice anywhere, it might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”</p> <p>Those fears were prescient. In 2003, the same year Poole was forced to retire to Cardinal Bea House, Boudreau became the first person to sue Poole and the church and not withhold her name from the public.</p> <p>It was Boudreau’s only avenue of redress since the statute of limitations had run out on prosecuting her claim in criminal court. At the time, Alaska had a five-year time frame for prosecuting sexual abuse of minors. She’s one of over 300 Alaska Native victims of child sex abuse by clergy.</p> <p>In a deposition for the lawsuit, Poole admitted abusing Boudreau. He denied ever raping anyone. He justified his actions with Boudreau and other victims because they fell short of sexual intercourse. “I thought I was bringing love into the life of other persons,” he said.</p> <div id="attachment_658600" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-658600" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0802-1024x683-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Gravestones" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0802-1024x683-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0802-1024x683-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0802-1024x683-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0802-1024x683.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Emily Schwing / for Reveal</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Gravestones at the Mount St. Michael cemetery in Spokane, Washington, where James Poole is buried amid 54 other Jesuits also accused of sexual abuse.</p></div> <p>Boudreau’s suit was settled in 2005 for $1 million. It was <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2007/01_02/2007_02_27_AP_JesuitsSued.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">followed</a> <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/09_10/2006_09_12_AP_AnotherWoman.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by</a> <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/2005_11_03_Demer_NewAbuse.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">at least fi</a><a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news/2005_11_03_Demer_NewAbuse.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ve</a> <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2008/03_04/2008_03_03_Giago_SheSued.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">other</a> <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2013/03_04/2013_03_27_Gargas_WomanAlleges.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuits</a> specifically naming Poole and accusing him of widespread abuse.</p> <p>Hundreds of other suits followed, naming dozens of other sexually abusive priests active in the Oregon Province. The Jesuits <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-catholics-abuse/jesuits-to-pay-50-million-in-alaska-abuse-cases-idUSN1918914620071119" target="_blank" rel="noopener">settled</a> all of this litigation for a reported <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/nw-jesuits-to-pay-166-million-to-abuse-victims/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$166 million</a>, the costs of which forced the province to declare <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/accountability/jesuits-oregon-province-files-bankruptcy" target="_blank" rel="noopener">bankruptcy</a> in 2009. It was the third-largest <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/settlements/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">settlement</a> in Catholic Church history.</p> <p>Stories like Poole’s echo across Alaska Native communities. St. Mary’s has just 500 residents, but at least 15 priests accused of sexual abuse were stationed there between 1927 and 1998. It was so pervasive that Boudreau says at least two of her seven siblings and two of her cousins were also sexually assaulted by Jesuit clergy.</p> <p>The names of religious and lay people accused of abuse who lived in Alaska at some point in their tenure with the church must be listed and published every year by the Fairbanks Diocese as part of the 2010 bankruptcy settlement. As of late October, the diocese <a href="http://dioceseoffairbanks.org/joomla/index.php/safe-environment/survivors-information/list-of-perpetrators" target="_blank" rel="noopener">listed 46 people</a>.</p> <p>One man on the list is the aforementioned Father James Jacobson, accused of abuse in 1967 by members of the Alaska Native community of Nelson Island. In a <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5280719-Jim-Jacobson-Letter-One-Very-Serious-Moral-Charges.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> at the time, the Jesuit superior in Alaska, Jules Convert, said he wasn’t sure of the veracity of the allegations against Jacobson because the people of Nelson Island “are not yet advanced enough to give impartial and true testimony.”</p> <p>Jacobson was sent into retirement at Cardinal Bea House by 2005. Convert was also <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2004_07_12/2004_11_06_Smetzer_DioceseSued.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accused</a> of sexually abusing over a dozen young boys in Alaska.</p> <h3>‘I have to take responsibility for this’</h3> <p>In 2002, John Whitney was <a href="https://catholicsentinel.org/Content/News/Local/Article/Northwest-Jesuits-name-new-provincial/2/35/6820" target="_blank" rel="noopener">installed</a> as the leader of the Oregon Province. He had to deal with a flood of accusations against priests in the province, starting days after taking the position. It was a situation, he said, for which his prior training had not adequately prepared him.</p> <p>A year later, Elsie Boudreau filed her lawsuit, and Whitney took action against James Poole. He immediately <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5513789-Whitney-to-Poole-Letter-2003.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ordered</a> Poole to stop celebrating Mass and sent him directly to Cardinal Bea House. “You are not to have any unsupervised contact with any minors nor are you to meet alone with any women,” Whitney wrote.</p> <p>Whitney said Cardinal Bea House was the only place where Poole could be monitored, but Poole moved freely throughout campus and, at least on one occasion, met alone with a female student.</p> <p>Whitney told us in a recent interview that the order didn’t contact the local police department because Poole, and other priests with accusations against them, had not been criminally charged.</p> <p>Gonzaga University wouldn’t answer questions about whether top officials knew about abusive priests at Cardinal Bea House. University officials declined multiple requests for interviews over a six-week period. Several top university officials, however, held leadership roles in the Jesuits’ Oregon Province as the sex abuse scandal unfolded.</p> <p>Now a self-described “simple parish priest” in Seattle, Whitney is still processing his role in the crisis.</p> <p>“I think some of the people deserved to be in jail,” Whitney said. “We knew we couldn’t put them in jail. I felt we had a responsibility to watch over them and that’s what we tried to do. Now, were sometimes the jailers overly beneficent, overly kind? Maybe. I don’t know. It’s hard to be a jailer.”</p> <p>Whitney was candid about what he owed to survivors and their families. “I have to take responsibility for this, personally. It can’t be something that is delegated to someone else,” he said. “They deserved to confront me.”</p> <div id="attachment_658601" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-658601" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0801-1024x683-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="James Poole" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0801-1024x683-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0801-1024x683-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0801-1024x683-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/IMG_0801-1024x683.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Emily Schwing / for Reveal</p><p class="wp-caption-text">The marker for where James Poole’s remains are inurned at Mount St. Michael in Spokane, Washington. Over the course of his life, Poole was accused of sexually abusing at least 20 women.</p></div> <p>Asked if he thinks Poole is in hell, Whitney said he believes Poole is in a sort of purgatory. “What I believe purgatory to be is that we all have to be purged of the things we hold onto,” Whitney said. “In being purged of those things, we have to experience what we put others through.”</p> <p>Whitney said the church needs to come to a public reckoning, an opening up of the archives to show it is serious about stamping out abuse. The recent <a href="http://www2.philly.com/philly/news/catholic-church-clergy-sex-abuse-read-the-full-grand-jury-report-20180814.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">grand jury report</a> out of Pennsylvania, which showed decades of abuse kept hidden from public view by the church, is work that should have been done by the church itself, he said.</p> <p>Earlier this month, Jesuits West, the new province created with the 2017 merger of the Oregon and California provinces, <a href="http://jesuitswest.org/Assets/Publications/File/JW_List_1207_English.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voluntarily</a><a href="http://jesuitswest.org/Assets/Publications/File/JW_List_1207_English.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> released</a> the names of priests accused of sexual misconduct with minors or “vulnerable adults.” But the new list omits at least 13 priests previously accused publicly in lawsuits and bankruptcy documents.</p> <p>Tracey Primrose, a spokeswoman for Jesuits West, said more names could be added in the future after an external review due to be completed by spring, but did not explain the omissions.</p> <h3>The Jesuits have a new place to send abusers</h3> <p>There are no longer any known abusive priests at Cardinal Bea House. In the past couple of years, they have been relocated south to the Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, California.</p> <p>Sacred Heart is a former training school, where some of the abusive priests began their preparation for Jesuit life decades ago. The facility is hidden behind a hilltop winery, which also used to be owned by the Jesuits and was used to produce Communion wine. The order stopped its wine production in 1986 and the winery is now operated by a secular company.</p> <p>The goal of the reshuffling, John Whitney said, was to place the priests in a more secure and isolated location. Since many of the offending Jesuits are older and declining in health, Sacred Heart was also a place where they could receive better medical care.</p> <p>But Sacred Heart has problems of its own. By moving admitted sexual offenders into a facility that also services vulnerable people, it created an environment where predators had space to commit abuse.</p> <p>In 2002, two mentally disabled men working as dishwashers at the facility received a combined $7.5 million <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/06/us/jesuits-to-pay-7.5-million-to-men-who-contended-abuse.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">settlement</a> from the order for decades of sexual abuse by Jesuit priest Edward Thomas Burke and Brother Charles Leonard Connor. After a friend of one of the victims went to police, both men were convicted and required to register as sex offenders.</p> <div id="attachment_658602" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-658602" src="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Sacred-HEart2-1024x683-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Sacred Heart Jesuit Center" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Sacred-HEart2-1024x683-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Sacred-HEart2-1024x683-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Sacred-HEart2-1024x683-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Sacred-HEart2-1024x683.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Emily Schwing / for Reveal</p><p class="wp-caption-text">The abusive priests of Cardinal Bea House have been sent to Sacred Heart Jesuit Center in Los Gatos, California. But Sacred Heart has been the site of sexual misconduct.</p></div> <p>The Jesuits also settled a separate <a href="http://www.bishop-accountability.org/complaints/2005_05_17_Chevedden_v_CA_Jesuits.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">lawsuit</a> for $1.6 million after an abused priest, James Chevedden, killed himself.</p> <p>He, too, was sexually abused by Connor when he was sent to Sacred Heart after suffering a mental breakdown. When Chevedden learned Connor was returning to Sacred Heart, and that other abusive clergy were going to be sent there, he asked to be moved. When his request was denied, he killed himself, according to the lawsuit filed by Chevedden’s father.</p> <p>California’s database of sex offenders only lists one person residing at Sacred Heart, <a href="https://www.kxly.com/news/former-gonzaga-priest-and-professor-sentenced-for-child-porn-possession/742632415" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gary Uhlenkott</a>, a Jesuit priest and former Gonzaga University music professor who was sentenced to six months in jail in May after pleading guilty to possessing child pornography. However, <a href="http://jesuitswest.org/Assets/Publications/File/JW_List_1207_English.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the list released earlier this month</a> of priests accused of sexually abusing minors shows at least seven currently living at Sacred Heart.</p> <p>James Poole died in March at Sacred Heart. His remains were sent back to Spokane, where they were inurned at the Jesuits’ grassy cemetery on the outskirts of town.</p> <p>While he was stationed at Cardinal Bea House, Poole’s sole responsibility was to maintain the cemetery grounds.</p> <p>There, Poole’s remains rest amid 54 other Jesuits who were also accused of sexual abuse. They’re outside the gate of a K-12 school.</p> <p>The carefree voices of children the same age as Elsie Boudreau when she was abused float over the grounds during recess.<span class="ctx-article-root"><!-- --></span> <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" id="pixel-ping-tracker" src="https://pixel.revealnews.org/pixel.gif?key=pixel.3rdrevnews.these-priests-abused-in-native-villages-for-years-they-retired-on-gonzagas-campus.dotobn68rluovi1qp6jv" width="0" height="0" /></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Finding hope – and even faith – as society decays</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/09/finding-hope-and-even-faith-as-society-decays/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 28 Sep 2018 18:00:27 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Haussamen Columns]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=629881</guid> <description><![CDATA[History paints a clear picture of society evolving even through excruciating times like these.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>COMMENTARY:</strong> If you’re Catholic, there’s a good chance you’ve known clergy who abused children and adults. Even those who didn’t commit such crimes probably knew others who did – and aided a cover-up or at least kept quiet.</p> <p>The Catholic Church enabled serial abusers to repeatedly terrorize countless kids across the world for decades by using its power to silence victims and pressure police to look away.</p> <p>The scandal has touched institutions I’ve known, including St. Michael’s High School in Santa Fe, where I spent years under the watchful eye of the Christian Brothers.</p> <div id="attachment_383420" class="wp-caption module image alignleft" style="max-width: 336px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-383420" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-336x252.jpg?x36058" alt="Heath Haussamen" width="336" height="252" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-336x252.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-768x576.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-771x578.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-800x600.jpg 800w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Heath Haussamen</p></div> <p>I’ve been thinking about such religious institutions lately because of the recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/catholic-church-sex-abuse-pennsylvania.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">grand jury report</a> detailing the Catholic Church’s crimes in Pennsylvania, and the sky-high support among evangelicals for Donald Trump – a man who was recorded <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-recorded-having-extremely-lewd-conversation-about-women-in-2005/2016/10/07/3b9ce776-8cb4-11e6-bf8a-3d26847eeed4_story.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">describing sexually assaulting women</a>.</p> <p>I spent 15 years immersed in evangelical culture, from college until 2014. When 81 percent of white evangelicals <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/09/how-the-faithful-voted-a-preliminary-2016-analysis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voted for Trump in 2016</a>, the “truth” I heard preached from the pulpit so many times seemed expendable. The greatest commandment – love of God and neighbor – was sacrificed for political power.</p> <p>This week I can’t reconcile the way evangelical culture pounds chastity and purity into girls and women with its boys-will-be-boys attitude about sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh that date back to high school. “That’s not relevant,” Franklin Graham <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/evangelical-leaders-push-hard-for-kavanaugh-confirmation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has said</a>.</p> <p>While part of evangelical culture, I often wrestled with such inconsistencies. The pastor at a conservative church I attended for years asked me in 2008 to help lead a discussion aimed at letting members know they could vote for Barack Obama and still be Christians. I was relieved that my church allowed political disagreement.</p> <p>But when I wrote a column in 2012 <a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2012/06/taking-a-stand-in-one-of-the-great-civil-rights-battles/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in support of gay rights</a>, I told that pastor I wanted to discuss it with other church members. He said Christianity was incompatible with gay rights. And while he pledged to continue talking with me one-on-one, I was not to promote gay rights in the church.</p> <p>I have not returned to that church.</p> <p>Leaving it behind broke my heart. People there supported me through challenging times, and I loved that pastor dearly – just as I once looked up to Christian Brothers I knew in high school.<span id="more-629881"></span></p> <p>But I couldn’t reconcile their individual love and charity with the oppressive beliefs and culture they fostered. I left behind organized religion in 2014 feeling deeply wounded.</p> <p>In the years since, I’ve taken space to grieve and heal. Slowly, a deep faith has filled that void. Today it gives me hope.</p> <p>Society is decaying. Our government. Our religious institutions. Our planet’s climate. Common decency and morals. You can literally see it in crumbling public infrastructure that’s been ignored, like bridges and schools, while three consecutive presidents have pumped billions into a border barrier designed to keep out our neighbors.</p> <p>But history paints a clear picture of society evolving even through excruciating times like these. The Bible refers to people being refined by fire. It’s a painful, necessary process.</p> <p>That process played out <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/us/politics/kavanaugh-hearings-dr-ford.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">on live television</a> in front of a U.S. Senate committee on Thursday when Christine Blasey Ford, beneath at voice that was at times frail and cracking, revealed immense courage and perseverance.</p> <p>As Michelle Alexander wrote <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/opinion/sunday/resistance-kavanaugh-trump-protest.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in The New York Times last weekend</a>, “A new nation is struggling to be born, a multiracial, multiethnic, multifaith, egalitarian democracy in which every life and every voice truly matters.”</p> <p>I want to believe that. On my best days, I do. Thursday was one of those days.</p> <p><em><a href="http://www.nmpolitics.net/haussamen/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heath Haussamen</a> is NMPolitics.net’s editor and publisher. Agree with his opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary <a href="http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/commentary-submissions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</em></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Next to a shelter holding immigrant children, church’s congregants defend family separations</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/07/next-to-a-shelter-holding-immigrant-children-churchs-congregants-defend-family-separations/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 02 Jul 2018 21:11:42 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[News and Analysis]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Border and immigration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Children]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=599605</guid> <description><![CDATA[Congregants at Harlingen's Lighthouse Fellowship Church in Texas said the president was right to split up families that entered the country illegally.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_599615" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-599615" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Lighthouse_Harlingen_RL_TT-771x517.jpg?x36058" alt="Lighthouse Fellowship" width="771" height="517" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Lighthouse_Harlingen_RL_TT-771x517.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Lighthouse_Harlingen_RL_TT-336x225.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Lighthouse_Harlingen_RL_TT-768x515.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Lighthouse_Harlingen_RL_TT-1170x784.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Lighthouse_Harlingen_RL_TT.jpg 1250w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Reynaldo Leal / for The Texas Tribune</p><p class="wp-caption-text">The Lighthouse Fellowship church in Harlingen.</p></div> <p>HARLINGEN, Texas — It felt like any other Sunday.</p> <p>A line of congregants filed into church, flipping through hymnbooks and chatting with friends in the pews. On a stage decorated with stars and stripes, a pianist provided musical accompaniment to the congregants’ favorite songs: “Amazing Grace,” “His Name is Wonderful,” “God Bless America.”</p> <p>But in one key respect, the Lighthouse Fellowship Church in Harlingen is no ordinary house of worship.</p> <p>At a time when faith leaders across the country are condemning the separation of children and parents who entered the U.S. illegally, Lighthouse has an unusual perspective on the conflict. Its chapel is just yards from one of the largest shelters licensed in Texas to house unaccompanied immigrant minors and children taken from their parents under the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy.</p> <p>After splitting from another local congregation over a personnel dispute 18 months ago, leaders of the nondenominational church started a new religious community in a small red-brick chapel owned by the Valley Baptist Missions Education Center, which also <a href="https://www.brownsvilleherald.com/premium/bcfs-asks-baptist-center-to-renew-lease/article_242c9bc2-1475-11e4-889b-001a4bcf6878.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">leases an adjacent set of buildings to BCFS Health and Human Services</a>, the company that oversees the immigrant holding facility.</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this article</h3> <p>This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/02/border-church-community-defend-immigrant-family-separations/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Texas Tribune</a>, a nonpartisan, nonprofit media organization that informs Texans and engages with them about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.</p> </aside> <p>On Sunday, around 40 congregants sang along to popular hymns and dropped spare change into a collection bag. Despite their front-row seat to the immigration conflict, the Harlingen churchgoers, who are predominantly white, seem no more engaged with the political debate over the border than anyone else in the United States. The topic of immigration never came up during the hour-long service, even when one congregant stood up to lament the problems he believes bedevil the country, including political polarization and a lack of respect for the elderly. <strong><br /> </strong></p> <p>However, in interviews before the service, several congregants said they are fervent supporters of President Donald Trump, whose crackdown on illegal immigration led to the recent family separations. And in stark contrast with the criticism that Trump’s immigration policies have received in some corners of the Christian community, a number of parishioners said the president was right to split up families who entered the country illegally.</p> <p>“If you break the laws, there are consequences,” said church pianist Doug Cox, 66, who led this week’s service while the regular pastor recovered from the flu. “If someone slips into my home uninvited, they are guilty and going to jail.”</p> <p>“Right now, the government does not have the facilities to hold a family together,” added Bob Knight, 87. “So what can they do?”</p> <p>In early June, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/06/14/jeff-sessions-points-to-the-bible-in-defense-of-separating-immigrant-families/?utm_term=.9d4d81511131" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cited a Bible passage</a> to justify the crackdown at the southern border, which caused more than 2,000 children to be separated from their parents before <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-executive-end-family-separation-at-border-immigration-today-2018-06-20/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Trump ended the practice a week later</a>. Sessions’ words sparked a backlash from Christian leaders, who said the zero tolerance policy conflicted with their commitment to family values.</p> <p>In Richardson, the Arapaho United Methodist Church <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/06/17/sunday-sermons-texas-faith-leaders-rebuke-trump-administrations-zero-t/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">put up a road sign</a> saying, “Please don’t use scripture to justify policies that harm families.” And in an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network last month, Rev. Franklin Graham, a son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/14/us/trump-immigration-religion.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called the family separations “disgraceful” and “terrible.”</a><span id="more-599605"></span></p> <p>But not all religious communities have embraced that view. “One of the things we’re seeing is that lots of different Christian denominations are responding to this in really different ways,” said Sara Ronis, a theology professor at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. “It’s much more complicated than saying people who are religious feel one way or another.”</p> <p>Craig Mitchell, a Greyhound bus driver who attended Sunday’s Lighthouse service, said he often picks up immigrants wearing ankle monitors at bus stations in Brownsville and McAllen. He compared undocumented parents who object to being separated from their children to someone who robs a 7-Eleven and expects to bring his family with him to prison.</p> <p>“To see some of the people, you wonder if they’re actually their kids, because the kids look scared,” said Mitchell, 45. “They don’t know their names too well.”</p> <p>It is not clear whether the Harlingen shelter — the largest of six such facilities that BCFS runs in Texas — houses children who were separated from their parents at the border. The Texas Department of State Health Services keeps track of the number of immigrant minors held at each licensed facility. But those totals do not differentiate between children who crossed the border unaccompanied and minors the government separated from their parents as part of the zero tolerance policy.</p> <p>Regardless, the number of unaccompanied immigrant children in the Harlingen center has more than doubled since the zero tolerance policy went into effect in early April. In mid-March, the facility housed 277 children. By June 21, the date of the most recent count, that total had risen to 581, making the Harlingen campus the second-largest operation of its kind in Texas, behind Southwest Key’s facility in Brownsville.</p> <p>Some of the shelters in Texas that house immigrant children are surrounded by fences and security guards. But on Thursday morning, a Texas Tribune reporter initially walked unchallenged into the central administrative building on the BCFS campus, where children with wristbands and water bottles were lined up in the hallway. After two minutes, a BCFS official instructed the reporter to leave, referring questions to the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the facilities that house unaccompanied migrant children. An HHS spokesman said the department could provide only the total number of children housed at all its approved facilities across the country, which currently stands at 11,800.</p> <p>The BCFS shelter in Harlingen has a history of health and safety violations, according to state records. Earlier this year, children at the facility complained of raw and undercooked food. And in 2016, two staff members reported that other employees had struck up “inappropriate relationships” with children in their care.</p> <p>But the churchgoers at Lighthouse say they have had only positive experiences with their next-door neighbors. One congregant, Peggy Reeves, noting that the shelter building used to house a school, said she has seen children at the facility playing soccer and basketball outside.</p> <p>“It’s wonderful that they’re taking care of them,” said Dovie Dyer, 84, who has attended services at Lighthouse since its establishment. “It’s a wonderful facility.”</p> <p>Cox, the pastor for the day, opened his sermon with verses from Philippians and Chronicles, reminding parishioners that as long as they pray, God “will heal their land.” In recent weeks, the Lighthouse congregation has mourned the death of the church’s founder and lead pastor, Rev. Gene Horton, who suffered a heart attack last month. As Cox finished his sermon, he implored the congregants to put their trust in God, even in the face of sorrow.</p> <p>Then he asked them to pray for their country. “The hate needs to be changed to love,” he said. “You can’t love God and hate your neighbor.”</p> <p>The service concluded with the morning’s second rendition of “God Bless America.”</p> <p><em>Disclosure: St. Mary’s University has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/support-us/corporate-sponsors/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</em><script async src="https://cdn.texastribune.org/pixel/dot.min.29c708b3d0da5d17a725.js" integrity="sha384-8Xwf/TlQnmHiajg1t3dn8w4qlF1rmV33o5NAQVXYu0T2q3rHV5579zrSmRjh+XnM" crossorigin="anonymous" data-tt-canonical="https://www.texastribune.org/2018/07/02/border-church-community-defend-immigrant-family-separations/"></script></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>Trump’s dehumanizing rhetoric should be a wake-up call</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/05/trumps-dehumanizing-rhetoric-should-be-a-wake-up-call/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 25 May 2018 18:00:15 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Haussamen Columns]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Border and immigration]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Race and ethnicity]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=584760</guid> <description><![CDATA[I hope the energy to fight for equity continues regardless of which party is in control.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_72372" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/5440990018/in/photolist-9hNuLJ-9hKrun-9hHqDv-9hLwdw-9hNwso-9hHpJr-9hLx6s-9hLwSC-9hKpTt-9hKraP-9hNwi1-9hKp4g-9hNvWh-HkLZL-2oQiC-9KUYs-9hLxAs-9VjNra-9KD2oX-qu7Gu-9rmBGH-9VT6fh-uooUsi-5RhK99-9hNwCN-9hKpmZ-9hNvfQ-9hKrPH-9hNvzC-9hKoVK-9hKrkx-9u7qjZ-9rd77n-xRyc1-9rknN8-5KnqeT-9rphtQ-9wtCb2-9uayT3-9FTZtY-fNcrqH-vPTJzZ-6Rnrkd-5Dd1xc-bXt9R-4r8psj-vGv8u-uT5y6P-vMTbLN-9DncXb"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-72372" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Trump-Donald-771x494.jpg?x36058" alt="Donald Trump" width="771" height="494" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Trump-Donald-771x494.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Trump-Donald-336x215.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Trump-Donald-768x493.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Trump-Donald-1170x750.jpg 1170w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Trump-Donald-780x500.jpg 780w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Trump-Donald.jpg 1500w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /></a><p class="wp-media-credit">Gage Skidmore / Creative Commons</p><p class="wp-caption-text">President Donald Trump</p></div> <p><strong>COMMENTARY: </strong>Dehumanizing rhetoric, like President Donald Trump’s recent labeling of MS-13 gang members as animals, is a concerning move toward more explicit persecution of entire groups of people.</p> <p>We’ve been here before. Our U.S. government, and in New Mexico the Spanish before it, dehumanized Native Americans by calling them savages, then treated them as lesser beings to rape, rob, displace and murder.</p> <p>We enslaved people from Africa we viewed as animals. We put Japanese Americans in concentration camps during World War II. We called Mexicans dogs, and the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/gunar-olsen/how-the-supreme-court-aut_b_9061838.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">racial profiling by law enforcement</a> of people who look like they “live in Mexico” as long as that’s not the sole reason for stopping a vehicle – a practice that quite literally meets the definition of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">institutional racism</a>.</p> <div id="attachment_383420" class="wp-caption module image alignleft" style="max-width: 336px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-383420" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-336x252.jpg?x36058" alt="Heath Haussamen" width="336" height="252" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-336x252.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-768x576.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-771x578.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath-800x600.jpg 800w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Haussamen-Heath.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 336px) 100vw, 336px" /><p class="wp-caption-text">Heath Haussamen</p></div> <p>So Trump’s degrading comments about people of certain racial and religious groups are alarming. Last week <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/05/16/trumps-animals-comment-on-undocumented-immigrants-earn-backlash-historical-comparisons/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.93de04796692" target="_blank" rel="noopener">he said of MS-13 gang members</a>, “These aren’t people. These are animals.” He’s also called Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers.</p> <p>And he’s questioned why people come to the United States from “shithole countries” – El Salvador, Haiti and some African nations.</p> <p>Trump quickly calls out Islamic terrorism. He’s slower – or silent – when the perpetrator is white. He pledged during his campaign to ban Muslims from entering the United States.</p> <p>Society is full of museums, monuments and history books to teach us about our worst moments so we never repeat them. The Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. is a place that silences me. I feel as though I’m walking on corpses. I breathe more slowly and ponder the horror of genocide.</p> <p>Every person and society makes mistakes. We’re supposed to learn from them. We’re supposed to evolve.</p> <p>Today, Trump isn’t the problem. He’s a symptom of a societal cancer.</p> <p>That cancer is evident in the fact that some (not all) people who voted for Trump support his dehumanization of others. It’s evident in people who tolerate Trump’s rhetoric even if they don’t agree.<span id="more-584760"></span></p> <p>It’s also revealed in how some folks support oppressive systems when their political party is in power but oppose them when it’s not.</p> <p>Many who were silent when former President Barack Obama decided to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/12/07/obama-administration-decides-to-continue-racial-profiling-in-immigration-law-enforcement/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.d1087258de95" target="_blank" rel="noopener">continue to allow racial profiling</a> in the enforcement of immigration law are now outraged that a Trump-era Border Patrol agent detained two American women <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/05/20/a-border-patrol-agent-detained-two-u-s-citizens-at-a-gas-station-after-hearing-them-speak-spanish/?utm_term=.53f41ad663e9" target="_blank" rel="noopener">for speaking Spanish</a>. Many who took no issue with Obama building a massive fence on the border in Southern New Mexico are protesting Trump’s <a href="http://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/meet-the-new-border-wall-same-as-the-old-border-fence/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">extending the same fence</a>.</p> <p>Meanwhile, the cancer is spreading. The dehumanization of people is becoming more explicit.</p> <p>Even violent MS-13 gang members are humans. They were born into circumstances that have contributed to them becoming who they are. The United States has often played a role in the oppression of people in Latin America. Children form beliefs about the world in part from our colonizing role in their home nations.</p> <p>In other words, the world is complicated. The lesson we must learn from our mistakes is that seeing and treating all people as human beings is a critical step toward creating a more just and equitable world.</p> <p>Being consistent about fighting for justice, regardless of which political party is in power, is also critical.</p> <p>Trump’s rhetoric is hardly the first or only warning that the United States is headed down a dangerous road. I hope it serves as a wake-up call, and that the energy to fight for equity continues regardless of which party is in control.</p> <p><em><a href="http://www.nmpolitics.net/haussamen/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Heath Haussamen</a> is NMPolitics.net’s editor and publisher. Agree with his opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary <a href="http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/commentary-submissions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</em></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>If Congress must have a chaplain, hire me</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2018/04/if-congress-must-have-a-chaplain-hire-me/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Mon, 30 Apr 2018 15:43:37 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Guest columns]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Doña Ana County]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Washington]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=571406</guid> <description><![CDATA[Here is the main reason I am the right candidate: I have no intention, whatsoever, of showing up for work.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<div id="attachment_571412" class="wp-caption module image alignnone" style="max-width: 771px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-571412" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DAmmassa-Algernon-771x514.jpg?x36058" alt="Algernon D'Ammassa" width="771" height="514" srcset="https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DAmmassa-Algernon-771x514.jpg 771w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DAmmassa-Algernon-336x224.jpg 336w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DAmmassa-Algernon-768x512.jpg 768w, https://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DAmmassa-Algernon.jpg 960w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Matt Robinson</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Algernon D’Ammassa</p></div> <p><strong>COMMENTARY:</strong> To the Honorable Paul Davis Ryan Jr., Speaker of the United States House of Representatives;</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Dear Mr. Speaker,</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Today I write in humble nomination of myself for <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/27/house-chaplain-fired-patrick-conroy-557494" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/27/house-chaplain-fired-patrick-conroy-557494&source=gmail&ust=1525186828571000&usg=AFQjCNGyHl0HY162AAFiSm8MxbRGhm1Zrw">the recently vacated position of Chaplain for the U.S. House of Representatives</a>. An unusual candidate, I write to persuade you I am the right choice for a peculiar time.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">As the first Zen Buddhist chaplain to serve Congress, my appointment would be an historic gesture of inclusion during your closing days as speaker. However, regardless of my faith tradition, here is the main reason I am the right candidate: I have no intention, whatsoever, of showing up for work.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">You read that right, Mr. Speaker: if hired, I will refuse to serve.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">In fact, I will not even set foot in Washington. (Dreadful place, nothing would entice me.) If a member of Congress desires to meet with me, they can mimic the supplicants of Zen lore and come to the desert to find me.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Every Congress has had their House and Senate chaplains, opening legislative sessions with prayers for heavenly guidance unto these rascals who nevertheless shame their Creator, waging one war after another, leaving the poor in the dust, piling ash on the needy, and bowing to wealthy donors and foreign tyrants.<span id="more-571406"></span></p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Of what use, then, is a chaplain? It is necessary neither for genuine pastoral care nor pro forma displays of piety. The House floor is mostly empty for the morning prayer. Compared to 1789, members of Congress can easily travel to their home districts, where they may be photographed alongside the pastors whose advice they ignore and be seen bearing election-season witness to local congregations.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">A few weeks ago here in New Mexico, <a href="https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/local/2018/03/29/dona-ana-county-commission-meetings-allow-prayer/466353002/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.lcsun-news.com/story/news/local/2018/03/29/dona-ana-county-commission-meetings-allow-prayer/466353002/&source=gmail&ust=1525186828571000&usg=AFQjCNHNoOWo6CSkwy9ZTxAXYBVnPZt7rQ">the Doña Ana County commission voted to invite area faith organizations to offer prayers before their public meetings</a>. Chairman Ben Rawson said such prayers “seek peace for the nation, wisdom for its lawmakers, and justice for its people, thus appealing to universal values embodied not only in religious traditions but also in our founding documents and laws.”</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">This summoned, with requisite tenderness, the memory of Benjamin Franklin, he who recommended daily prayer to the Constitutional Convention when it was “groping, as it were, in the dark, to find Political Truth.”</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Franklin was a deist who believed a Christian framing would influence legislators toward virtue, as it would the rest of society. It was the belief of many in his generation – and, I suspect, of the first five presidents – that doctrinal belief and religious identity were less important than contributing to a beneficent and enlightened society.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Franklin believed in Providence until his final breath, yet what reading of history can testify to the benevolent influence of faith on domestic or, most certainly, foreign policy? Yet in memoriam to Franklin’s belief in the improvability of Congress, let there be a House chaplain.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">With me on the job, which is to say my absence, there will be no repeat of a controversy like the Jesuit Father Patrick Conroy’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/27/17290610/paul-ryan-fire-house-chaplain-tax-cuts-pat-conroy-priest" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.vox.com/2018/4/27/17290610/paul-ryan-fire-house-chaplain-tax-cuts-pat-conroy-priest&source=gmail&ust=1525186828571000&usg=AFQjCNHeGv5TO-lHlYeHtFF3zb85JVsy2A">references to economic inequality and social justice</a>. I promise not to embarrass you by calling on your colleagues to challenge such inequities, and flout the will of your earthly benefactors.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">That would be just as preposterous as me asking a predominantly Christian body to participate in a Buddhist prayer in the first place; and as one who has grown up playing along with theistic oaths at public events, I am well acquainted with the indignity.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Finally, appointing me chaplain would fit a motif of the present administration: placing agencies in the charge of people pledged to their destruction. As the State Department jettisoned diplomacy, as the Environmental Protection Agency dismissed science and deleted regulations, I believe as a matter of republican principle there should be no congressional chaplain.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">On this point I stand with James Madison. The fourth president called the provision of congressional chaplains “a palpable violation of equal rights, as well as of Constitutional principles.”</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing"><a href="https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/04-01-02-0549" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/04-01-02-0549&source=gmail&ust=1525186828571000&usg=AFQjCNEgke8-Lkh2vRwDvrNIfM8l__Do_g">In 1820, Madison wrote</a>, “The Constitution of the U.S. forbids every thing like an establishment of <i>a national</i> religion. The law appointing chaplains establishes a religious worship for the national representatives, to be performed by Ministers of religion, elected by a majority of them; and these are to be paid out of the national taxes.”</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">This, Madison called an establishment of religion “for the Constituent as well as of the representative Body,” and he was against it on First Amendment grounds.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">This chaplaincy, I would argue on the same grounds, should be abolished, but I know this will not happen; and what I am learning from the current president is that the way to destroy an institution is to get inside it and hollow it out from within.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Thus, I hope you will give my application serious consideration. I will require no travel funds, no expensive modifications for my office (as I will never see it), and a modest salary befitting this sinecure.</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Your most humble and obedient servant,</p> <p class="m_-6996133223220362605gmail-MsoNoSpacing">Desert Sage</p> <p><em>Algernon D’Ammassa is a reporter and columnist for the Deming Headlight. He also collaborates with Las Cruces musician Randy Granger, performing stories based on Greek and Asian mythology and indigenous American lore. Agree with his opinion? Disagree? NMPolitics.net welcomes your views. Learn about submitting your own commentary <a href="http://www.nmpolitics.net/index/commentary-submissions/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.</em></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> <item> <title>I cover hate. I didn’t expect it at my family’s Jewish cemetery.</title> <link>https://nmpolitics.net/index/2017/02/i-cover-hate-i-didnt-expect-it-at-my-familys-jewish-cemetery/</link> <dc:creator><![CDATA[Heath Haussamen, NMPolitics.net]]></dc:creator> <pubDate>Fri, 24 Feb 2017 04:55:58 +0000</pubDate> <category><![CDATA[Commentary]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Guest columns]]></category> <category><![CDATA[Religion]]></category> <guid isPermaLink="false">http://nmpolitics.net/index/?p=294338</guid> <description><![CDATA[The vandalizing of a Jewish graveyard in St. Louis becomes a very personal entry in ProPublica's “Documenting Hate” database.]]></description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>COMMENTARY:</strong> When it comes to death, my family honors all of the Ashkenazi Jewish traditions: We name our children after dead relatives, we sit shiva for a week, we gather around trays of fruit and lox and cream cheese, we cover the mirrors, we say the Kaddish prayer, we each toss three shovelfuls of dirt into the grave, and we wait a year to put a stone on top of it. When I got my driver’s license at 16, my mom asked me not to sign the organ donor card because Jews are supposed to be laid to rest in one piece. When I turned 18 and signed it anyway, I couldn’t stop imagining her face when she found out after I’d died in a car accident.</p> <div id="attachment_294341" class="wp-caption module image alignleft" style="max-width: 336px;"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-294341" src="http://nmpolitics.net/index/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Tobin-Ariana-336x245.jpg?x36058" alt="Ariana Tobin" width="336" height="245" /><p class="wp-media-credit">Courtesy photo</p><p class="wp-caption-text">Ariana Tobin</p></div> <p>But traditions don’t protect you from death, or the life of anxiety in preparation for it. When I told my grandmother — her mother called her Malka, her sisters called her Mollie — that I had an opportunity to teach English abroad, I knew what to expect in response: “That’s nice, baby, but why don’t you find a teaching job around here where it’s safe?” That, and a $20 bill she couldn’t necessarily afford to give.</p> <p>But when I added, “I’m going to a place in Belarus called Minsk; it’s a big city,” her reply took me by surprise. “Minsk!” she exclaimed. “That’s where my mother was from! I guess you could go. Maybe you’ll see where they lived?”</p> <p>I did go. I didn’t see where they lived because that place does not exist anymore, thanks to World War II and the Soviets. To identify the symbols of Judaism left in a city that <a href="http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Minsk" target="_blank">was about 37 percent Jewish in 1941</a>, you have to squint at the stone facades of buildings and say, “Yes, I think that might be a Hebrew character.” You have to stare hard, and wonder, “Hmm, is that Yiddish?”</p> <p>There are statues and plaques here and there. But look as one might, there are few relics of Jewish death. When you visit Khatyn, a memorial to the victims of “the Great War,” you learn about the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, but little to nothing about what religion they practiced. Nor are there signs marking <a href="http://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/kurapaty-1937-1941-nkvd-mass-killings-soviet-belarus" target="_blank">entire villages</a> of Belarussians, Jews and non-Jews, that became <a href="http://www.holocaustremembrance.com/sites/default/files/MMWG_Killing_Sites.pdf" target="_blank">unmarked mass graves</a>. When I would ask my students and co-workers and friends, “What happened to the Jews here?” all most of them would say was, “They left.”</p> <aside class="module align-left half type-aside"> <h3>About this commentary</h3> <p>This commentary comes from <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/i-cover-hate-i-didnt-expect-it-at-my-familys-jewish-cemetery" target="_blank">ProPublica</a>, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newsroom. Sign up for their <a href="http://www.propublica.org/forms/newsletter_daily_email" target="_blank">newsletter</a>. It was co-published with The New York Times.</p> </aside> <p>Here, of course, we know why they “left.” My relatives who stayed in Eastern Europe died. Those who moved to America lived. Every single one of my great-grandparents was a first- or second-generation Eastern European immigrant to St. Louis. If you’ve been following the news this week, you probably know where this story is going: Almost all of my immigrant ancestors are buried in the Chesed Shel Emeth cemetery, where <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/us/missouri-jewish-cemetery-chesed-shel-emeth.html" target="_blank">nearly 200 graves were vandalized</a> this past weekend.</p> <p>I’ve been to only one funeral at Chesed Shel Emeth, which is in University City, about 15 minutes from where I grew up. I certainly wasn’t there when they buried my grandmother’s mother, Alice, the immigrant from Minsk, more than 40 years ago. Her tombstone wasn’t among the ones vandalized. But I know the idea that it might have been desecrated — that it is even a possibility — is on Grandma Mollie’s mind today, and on my mother’s as well. I know because for the last several days all we’ve been talking about are relatives like “little Grandma Alice,” who never grew to 5 feet, who cooked elaborate noodle kugels, whose husband died young, who never really learned to drive or speak English and who was scared of strangers unless her family was around.</p> <p>I’m privileged to have grown up in St. Louis, a place where my grandparents wanted me to stay because it felt “safe” to them — a place they’d made their way to with the help of documents that we know weren’t entirely accurate or complete, and they became <a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3961470357421&set=a.2397359335623.2113023.1300170161&type=3&theater" target="_blank">citizens</a> anyway. So when a news link about my family’s Jewish cemetery popped up in the group chat for a reporting project on hate crimes that I’m involved in at ProPublica, I wasn’t prepared. Nor was I prepared when I called home and my mom told me that she was going to exchange cash for gold in case “things get worse” and that my dad — who has never considered shooting anything in his life — had wondered out loud about getting a gun.<span id="more-294338"></span></p> <p>I wanted to say, “You’re overreacting.” But I can’t, really, in part because it’s so hard to gauge the threat. Data on hate crimes — against Jews and everyone else — is miserably incomplete and poorly tracked. My job is about presenting facts to contextualize the news of the day, horrible as it may be. This time, I had to tell my family that I didn’t have them.</p> <p>We don’t know if the vandalism at Chesed Shel Emeth was technically a hate crime. The motives behind it may well be uncovered. What we do know is that there is a long tradition of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/02/21/the-disturbing-history-of-vandalizing-jewish-cemeteries/?utm_term=.0ae205d91a91" target="_blank">desecrating Jewish cemeteries</a>, from <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/08/world/for-germany-s-jews-the-night-hope-died.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">Nazi Germany</a> to present-day <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/17/world/europe/french-jews-cemetery-vandalism-latest-sign-of-anti-semitism.html?_r=0" target="_blank">France</a> and <a href="http://www.recordonline.com/news/20161010/community-saddened-by-anti-semitic-graffiti-at-jewish-cemetery" target="_blank">New York</a>. And whatever the particulars, the news hit at a time when the Jewish community has been put on edge by threats to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/opinion/a-place-for-water-aerobics-and-feeling-safe-as-american-jews.html" target="_blank">Jewish community centers</a> where kids go to preschool and their retired grandparents take Kabbalah-infused yoga classes.</p> <p>That’s why our project, “<a href="https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/hatecrimes" target="_blank">Documenting Hate</a>,” an attempt to create a reliable database of hate crimes and bias incidents, asks victims to submit their stories. When I read the submissions, it’s clear that defining “hate crimes” can be as elusive as reliable data tracking them. It’s just as clear that we need to make the attempt to define them, report them, investigate them — to gather enough, at least, for context.</p> <p>Yes, it’s about confronting the ugliness and comforting the scared. But it’s also about giving real answers, using actual numbers and telling true stories when our children ask questions like, “What happened to the Jews?”</p> <p><em><a href="https://www.propublica.org/site/author/ariana_tobin" target="_blank">Ariana Tobin</a> is an engagement reporter at ProPublica.<script type="text/javascript" src="http://pixel.propublica.org/pixel.js" async></script></em></p> ]]></content:encoded> </item> </channel> </rss> <!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: https://www.boldgrid.com/w3-total-cache/ Object Caching 147/192 objects using Disk Served from: nmpolitics.net @ 2025-01-12 08:31:31 by W3 Total Cache -->