Gun Background Checks

New Yorkers Against Gun Violence has prepared a document entitled “Gun Background Checks: Myths and Facts.” Among the eight “myths” listed are:

MYTH #3: The background check system doesn't prevent criminals from obtaining weapons. Criminals won't submit to background checks, so the system will not prevent shootings. 

FACT: Even the current weak federal background check system has prevented the sale of almost 2 million firearms, largely to criminals and the mentally ill. 

• Requiring background checks for private sales at gun shows and sales via the Internet would further curb access to firearms by criminals and those with serious mental illness.

You can read more here.

USCCB shows solidarity with Congolese

American Catholic bishops have sent a letter of support to Congolese Bishop Nicolas Djomo Lola announcing their support of a policy that helps prevent armed groups from financing violence and human rights abuses by selling "Conflict Minerals." The policy currently is being challenged in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. From the letter:

Dear Bishop Djomo: 

At this time of continuing suffering and crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), I write to reiterate the solidarity of the U.S. bishops with the Church and people of your country Your tireless efforts, along with those of your brother bishops and the entire Church community have long exemplified courageous leadership in the face of violent conflict. We send our ongoing prayers as innocent people in your country suffer and die at the hands of militias who control illegal mines, divide up your country and eliminate the rule of law. 

Let me assure you that the U.S. bishops have welcomed a rule promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), implementing Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act ("Dodd-Frank Act"). This rule ensures that investors have access to information essential to making socially responsible decisions and would help prevent armed groups from financing violence and human rights abuses by selling "Conflict Minerals The U.S. bishops, through USCCB, submitted official comments to the SEC supporting the rule The rule is consistent with Catholic teaching on protection of human life and dignity. It takes into account the lived experience of the Church in your country and that of our colleagues at Catholic Relief Services and other development and relief agencies in the region. It also meets our concern of providing appropriate coverage of issuers and products, and insuring information submitted to the SEC is accurate, verifiable and easily available to investors and consumers.

You can read more here.

Pope decries unemployment

During his weekly audience marking the May 1 feast of St. Joseph the Worker, Pope Francis called for greater efforts to create dignified work for more people. According to a report from Catholic News Service:

The problem of unemployment is "very often caused by a purely economic view of society, which seeks self-centered profit, outside the bounds of social justice," he said . . ..  

"I wish to extend an invitation to everyone to greater solidarity and to encourage those in public office to spare no effort to give new impetus to employment," he said. "This means caring for the dignity of the person."  

. . .  

In his homily, the pope said unemployment "is a burden on our conscience" because when society is organized in such a way that it cannot offer people an opportunity to work, "there is something wrong with that society: It is not right!"  

"It goes against God himself, who wanted our dignity to begin with (work)."  

"Power, money, culture do not give us dignity," he said. "Work, honest work, gives us dignity."  

However, he said, "today many social, political and economic systems have chosen to exploit the human person" in the workplace, by "not paying a just (wage), not offering work, focusing solely on the balance sheets, the company's balance sheets, only looking at how much I can profit. This goes against God!"  

"People are less important than the things that give profit to those who have political, social, economic power. What point have we come to?" he asked.  

The pope recalled a recent "tragedy" in Bangladesh, where more than 400 garment workers were killed when the building they were working in collapsed. The workers reportedly earned just $38 a month.  

"This is what you call slave labor," the pope said.  

Today, "we can no longer say what St. Paul said, 'Who will not work, should not eat,' but we have to say, 'He who does not work has lost his dignity' because he cannot find any opportunities for work."  

A society that cannot offer a person the possibility of work is a society that "has stripped this person of dignity," he said.

You can read more here.

Spring Enrichment

The 40th annual Spring Enrichment will be held at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, from Monday, May 13 through Thursday, May 16th. A total of 136 separate 2-hour workshops and classes are being offered. For schedule, full brochure, registration and other information go to www.rcda.org/springenrichment or call the Office of Evangelization, Catechesis & Family Life at 518-453-6630.

While regular registration will close on Wednesday, May 8, when possible we will accommodate walk-in registrations at St. Rose during the program itself. The fee is $12 per class, with a maximum of $108 for 9 or more sessions.

For forty years the Albany Diocese has had an annual gathering each spring which provided attendees with a wide variety of opportunities to find out more about their faith and, if they were engaged in a church ministry, to deepen their skills and understanding of that ministry. With the Year of Faith’s call for Catholics to study and reflect on the work of the Second Vatican Council and the Catechism of the Catholic Church in order to deepen their knowledge of the faith and renew their relationship with Jesus and his Church, this year’s Spring Enrichment is a wonderful opportunity to do just that with its 136 different workshops and courses spread out over the four days of the conference.

The theme of the 40th Spring Enrichment is "Filled with the Spirit", which is the theme of the third and final year of our Diocese’s three year evangelization initiative, Amazing God. As such the program’s schedule includes a variety of sessions dealing with the Holy Spirit, Vatican II, evangelization and both basic and advanced theological and scriptural topics. There will also be numerous opportunities for spiritual renewal, culminating with a concert Thursday evening, May 16. For most of the four days participants will be able to visit our "Marketplace" and check out the products and services available from various publishers, artists, service providers, crafters, retreat/spiritual centers as well as diocesan offices and programs.

Denying the science of climate change

Reporter Carolyn Lochead of The San Francisco Chronicle has written a fascinating article about how we went from a nation in which most people believed in climate change to one in which it is a partisan issue that divides the electorate:

In 1990, "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher, the conservative hero, scientist and former leader of Britain who died April 8, called for swift action to combat climate change.
She said scientists knew enough that governments should proceed with an "insurance policy" against catastrophe. 

Thatcher borrowed the insurance idea from former President Ronald Reagan, who led negotiation of the 1987 Montreal Protocol to protect the ozone layer.
Eight days after Thatcher died, talk radio host Rush Limbaugh said, "There is no science in global warming." What science there is, he said, "is not settled. Besides that, we all know that it's a hoax now." 

On a chilly day this past March, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Tex., stood outside the Capitol calling for more global warming and denouncing efforts to set a price on carbon as "recycled liberal policy that raises taxes and kills jobs." 

Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz insisted last month on removing the word "climate" from a resolution celebrating International Women's Day. 

How did the conservative movement travel so far, so fast? How did a party that prided itself on reason become a hotbed of scientific denial? 

The transformation has paralyzed U.S. policymaking and squandered decades that could have been spent weaning the world from fossil fuels. Twenty-three years after Thatcher urged action, the United States has no policy on climate change, even as its effects are evident and the window for action is closing. 

In 1997, "There was no difference between the way Democrats and Republicans across America viewed the issue," said Ed Maibach, executive director of George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication, a research center. Two out of three Democrats and two out of three Republicans believed that climate change was both real and serious. 

"Somewhere along the way, conservatism became, 'I've got a God-given right to drive my SUV wherever I want to go and we'll send somebody else's kids to the Middle East to fight for it," said former South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, who lost his 2010 primary election over global warming and now runs the Energy and Enterprise Initiative, where he is pushing for a price on carbon pollution. 

A growing trove of scholarly studies, interviews with former Republican politicians and with leaders of the denial camp show a concerted public relations campaign to cast doubt on climate science. 

That campaign is funded by fossil fuel interests, nursed by a network of think tanks and amplified by conservative media. 

The think tanks rely on a tiny cadre of scientists who dispute mainstream climate science; some also questioned the science of tobacco, acid rain and ozone depletion.

. . .
Naomi Oreskes, a science historian at UC San Diego, whose 2010 book, "Merchants of Doubt" with historian Erik Conway traced climate denial's origins to the tobacco industry's efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to muddy the science on smoking, said raising doubt about science has proven extremely effective. 

"You don't actually have to lie, you just have to ask questions," Oreskes said. "The problem is the questions actually have answers. Scientists have actually answered them. So by posing the question, it gives the public the impression that these questions have not been answered, even though in fact they really have."

You can read more here.

Immigration and today's readings

Sister Maryann Mueller, CSSF, Justice and Peace Coordinator of the Felician Sisters of North America, notes that today’s reading “provide us with a glimpse of the transforming power of love. The night before he would die, Jesus taught us a lesson that may be the most life-giving for us and for the world: ‘I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.’ (John 13: 34)”

Jesus knew that acting with love is the essential element that gives life meaning. Acting with love has the power to transform us as individuals and is vital to empower us to live to our God given potential. In the early Church, Paul and Barnabas proclaimed to the people of Antioch the gifts and blessings of "what God had done with them" (Acts 14:27) as they experienced the transforming power of love.

However, it is not merely the individual who changes in light of God's love. The person's perspective of "other," of how the person sees the world and all with whom we share our world, is also transformed. "This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13: 35) God promises that whenever we seek to act with love out of a desire to follow his example we will see with new eyes, "...the old order will pass away...Behold, I make all things new." (Rev. 21: 4-5A)

Almost 20 years ago, the U. S. Catholic Bishops issued a statement on immigration under the title reflected in today's Gospel, "This is my commandment: Love one another as I love you." Debate about humane and comprehensive immigration reform continues. Viewpoints and conversation at times disregard or diminish the basic dignity of other human beings made in the image and likeness of God. As Christians, we follow One who as a child resided as a refugee in a foreign country. How are we called as Christians to act with love towards our brothers and sisters born in other lands?

Jesus understood that there would be times when we would all find it difficult to live up to the commission to love one another. He assures us that as we seek to love as He loves "God's dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them..." (Rev. 21: 3) Only by prayer and by staying focused on the One who loves us can we recognize our God given dignity and treat all our brothers and sisters with the same dignity.

You can learn more here.

The rich get richer . . .

An analysis of newly released data from the Census Bureau shows the current truth of that old saying, "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer."

During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net worth of households in the upper 7% of the wealth distribution rose by an estimated 28%, while the mean net worth of households in the lower 93% dropped by 4%, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly released Census Bureau data.

From 2009 to 2011, the mean wealth of the 8 million households in the more affluent group rose to an estimated $3,173,895 from an estimated $2,476,244, while the mean wealth of the 111 million households in the less affluent group fell to an estimated $133,817 from an estimated $139,896.

These wide variances were driven by the fact that the stock and bond market rallied during the 2009 to 2011 period while the housing market remained flat.

The rest of the report is here.