Catholic News Headlines for Tuesday 11/29/22

Some Queens Catholic school students are in the giving spirit on this giving Tuesday. Our Lady of the Snows is raising money for The Tablet’s Bright Christmas Fund.

Students are buying and decorating Christmas ornaments. All the money raised will help ensure other kids have gifts on Christmas morning.

Reaching-Out Community Services Credits The Tablet’s Bright Christmas Campaign with Holiday Help

By Jessica Easthope

When Sandra Bazemore walks into Reaching-Out Community Services, she knows she’s going to be treated with dignity and respect.

They’ve given her family more than food. During the Christmas season, Reaching-Out Community Services has given her and her two sons hope.

“The community is definitely not forgetting about us unfortunate and I’m very thankful for it,” she said.

Sandra’s boys are two of hundreds of children that get toys during Reaching-Out Community Services’ Operation Christmas Smiles event every year.

“With the hard times that are going on now with me and my children I was able to see their eyes open and they had something to wake up to and they had a gift I was very thankful for it,” said Sandra.

“When we get something like Bright Christmas it makes a tremendous difference in the success of that event,” said executive director, Tom Neve.

The event wouldn’t be possible without the Tablet’s Bright Christmas Campaign. Founder and executive director, Tom Neve says this year he anticipates needing more toys because there’s been a 40 percent increase in people coming through their doors.

“It’s a blessing and we’re very fortunate we get support from that, we can’t handle that with our budget here because we need to handle the core of the program which is anti-hunger,” he said.

When people walk into Reaching Out Community Services, they shop for their food at a kiosk – but the bill never comes. A receipt pops out in the back and employees get to work gathering orders.

They have the resources to feed 125 people a day, but Tom says when they’re falling behind, Bright Christmas picks up the slack, and just like Santa – delivers on a promise to give every child a toy.

“Sometimes people don’t want to hear about God they want to see God in you and that’s the evidence and that’s why I love what I do it expresses the love of God and people need that tremendously,” said Tom.

Reaching-Out Community Services will hold its annual holiday event Operation Christmas Smiles this year on December 17.

Catholic News Headlines for Monday 11/28/22

 

Helping neighbors in need – that’s the focus of the Brooklyn non-profit “Reaching out Community Services.”

It’s a food pantry that offers much more than hot meals to families in need. Last year they received money from The Tablet’s Bright Christmas Fund to ensure their clients had a Merry Christmas. We’ll check in with them.

 

Cardinal Zen Convicted by Hong Kong Court, Ordered to Pay $500 Fine

By Elise Ann Allen

ROME (Crux) — In a highly anticipated ruling already making the rounds in international media, Chinese Cardinal Joseph Zen and five others were convicted Friday of failing to register a now-defunct relief fund that offered assistance to Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement.

Cardinal Zen, along with barrister Margaret Ng, ex-lawmaker Cyd Ho, scholar Hui Po-keung, singer-activist Denise Ho, and Sze Ching-wee, the fund’s former secretary, appeared in front of Permanent Magistrate Ada Yim Shun-yee at West Kowloon Magistrates’ Courts Friday to hear the court’s verdict.

At a Nov. 25 hearing, Yim said that after considering the size of the fund and the period over which it operated without proper registration, the defendants were found guilty, and all received fines.

Sze was ordered to pay HK$2,500 (US $320), while the rest, including Zen, were ordered to pay HK$ 4,000 (US $500).

Cardinal Zen, 90, is the former bishop of Hong Kong, and was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II and has long been one of the Catholic Church’s most influential figures in China. He has been a leading critic of Pope Francis’s China policy and his provisional agreement on the appointment of bishops, gaining international attention for his rebuke of the deal as ill-conceived and a “sellout” of Chinese Christians.

He was arrested in May along with Denise Ho, Cyd Ho, Ng, and Hui under a Beijing-imposed national security law for allegedly colluding with foreign forces, and all were released on bail. Sze was arrested in November on the same charge and was also granted bail.

The group was accused of failing to apply for local society registration for the now defunct 612 Humanitarian Fund between July 16, 2019, and Oct. 31, 2021, under Hong Kong’s Societies Ordinance law.

The fund, for which they all held leadership positions, provided financial and legal aid to pro-democracy protesters who took to the streets in 2019 to oppose a controversial bill allowing extradition to mainland China.

Hong Kong’s national security law, imposed by Beijing despite mass protests against it, went into effect June 30, 2020, and bans activities described as treason, secession, sedition, subversion, foreign interference and terrorism. It also stipulates that whenever it deems it necessary, the Chinese Central government in Beijing can establish agencies to help Hong Kong fulfill its security requirements.

A semi-autonomous region granted certain freedoms the rest of China is not afforded as part of China’s “one country, two systems” policy, Hong Kong was required to introduce security measures after the British returned the territory to China in 1997.

However, many pro-democracy activists and national leaders have criticized the law as stifling freedoms promised to Hong Kong when it came back under Chinese control, with some voicing fear that articles in Hong Kong’s Basic Law — a quasi-mini constitution in place in Hong Kong since the British returned the territory to China in 1997, and which protects freedom of speech, freedom of worship and freedom to assemble — would be dismissed.

The trial for Cardinal Zen and the other defendants was set to begin in September but was delayed after the presiding judge contracted COVID-19, and formally began in October.

According to local newspaper Hong Kong Free Press, at Friday’s hearing Yim noted that under the Societies Ordinance, an organization must apply for either registration or an exemption from registration within a month of its establishment.

Despite the defense’s attempts to dispute the ordinance, Yim said the 612 Humanitarian Fund did not meet any of the criteria for an exemption, and accused the defendants of establishing the organization for “political aims.”

Yim also ruled that each of the defendants could be regarded as “office-bearers” of the fund, since they were charged with administrative and financial management, and were therefore liable for failing to register it as a society.

In the trial, the defense team had argued that the Societies Ordinance was unconstitutional for “disproportionately” restricting peoples’ right to assembly. However, Yim dismissed this argument, saying Friday that the right to assembly was not absolute and could be curtailed in the interest of national security, public safety, and social order.

Yim also ruled that the information required for the registration of the fund was neither complex nor excessive, and that the public had a right to know basic information about the societies present in the territory, saying it is the government’s job to ensure that this data is available.

“The court, therefore, came to view that the purposes of the registration system were legitimate, and that the relevant requirements were reasonable,” Yim said.

In remarks to the press after the hearing, Margaret Ng said the case was “not just about the six of us,” since it marked the first such charge under the Societies Ordinance, and that the consequences of the case would be important going forward, especially in terms of freedom of assembly.

She said the defendants would now take some time to reflect and seek counsel on the judgment before deciding on their next move.

In comments to the press, Cardinal Zen told reporters not to place too much emphasis on his status within the Catholic Church, saying, “I am a Hong Kong citizen who supported this humanitarian work.”

Bishop Brennan: ‘A Lot of Work Still to Do’ Post-Roe

From the fall of Roe v Wade to the rise of a nationwide campaign about the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, it’s been a newsworthy year for the United States Catholic Church. And bishops from coast to coast got to discuss it all during their meetings in Baltimore.

Currents News Jessica Easthope spoke to Bishop Robert Brennan about the conference. In part two of her interview, she began by asking the bishop how the church has decided to move forward in a post-Roe country.

Catholic News Headlines for Tuesday 11/22/22

Thanksgiving is just two days away and a Brooklyn parish wants to make sure everyone has food on the table. Our Lady of Refuge is teaming up with firefighters to hand out turkeys and other food to families in need.

Our Lady of Refuge Food Pantry Feeds Hundreds Ahead of Thanksgiving

By Jessica Easthope

They made a promise to give back and on Tuesday they kept it. The Timothy Stackpole Foundation and firefighters from several houses across Brooklyn showed up with  hundreds of turkeys. Stackpole was a firefighter who died on September 11, 2001 and now his family carries on his legacy of service and faith.

“Timmy was very devoted to St. Francis, it is in giving that we receive, I think this means more to us that it does to the people, it helps us to give back,” said Stackpole’s wife, Tara.

“Timmy’s grandpa Timmy said the greatest high you can get in life is helping other people and that’s the spirit we try to carry on right? Yes, that’s right,” said Lt. Patrick Nash, vice president of the Timothy Stackpole Foundation.

According to No Kid Hungry, a national campaign working to end hunger and poverty, one-third of Brooklynites are food insecure. The food pantry’s weekly operation feeds nearly 400 people, but ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday, the need soared right along with the inflation that’s stopping people from picking up their turkeys in a store.

“It’s been rough between the pandemic and trying to get back on our feet it’s been a blessing to be able to get some food considering the inflation that we’re facing,” said Melissa Wu.

Our Lady of Refuge promised that if all their turkeys and chickens run out no one would leave empty-handed.