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Anti-death penalty activists, including members of MoveOn.org and other advocacy groups, rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court to prevent the execution of Oklahoma inmate Richard Glossip on Sept. 29, 2015, in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Larry French/Getty Images for MoveOn.org

CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2024 / 15:05 pm (CNA).

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Wednesday in the case of an Oklahoma man on death row who may have been wrongfully convicted — a case the Oklahoma City archbishop has said could help further respect for “the dignity of life.”

This is the second time Richard Glossip’s contentious death sentence has come before the Supreme Court. According to news reports, Glossip has lived through nine execution dates and at least three “last meals.”

Glossip was convicted in 1998 for allegedly ordering a handyman at a motel Glossip managed to murder the motel owner, who was found bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat. Justin Sneed, the handyman, confessed to killing the man while on meth and is currently serving a life sentence. 

Glossip, who has maintained that he had no involvement in the murder, was convicted for the murder for hire chiefly on Sneed’s testimony, which Sneed had agreed to give in order to avoid the death penalty himself. 

Since his initial conviction, two independent investigations uncovered serious problems with his trial, including allegations of police misconduct and what were reportedly incorrect instructions given to the jury in the case.

The state of Oklahoma, via Oklahoma’s Republican Attorney General Gentner Drummond, has admitted that it had erred in sentencing Glossip to death. 

The state asked the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals (OCCA) to overturn Glossip’s conviction and grant him a new trial. That court in April 2023 refused to do so, however, and ordered Glossip’s execution to proceed. Drummond called that decision “remarkable and remarkably flawed.”

Writing to the Supreme Court justices in May 2023, Drummond said that “based on careful review of new information that has come to light, including a report by an independent counsel appointed by the state, Glossip’s capital sentence cannot be sustained.”

The Supreme Court subsequently granted a stay of Glossip’s execution that same month, overruling the OCCA.

In an order announced in January, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether the state of Oklahoma violated Glossip’s constitutional rights when prosecutors suppressed evidence that their key witness, Sneed, was under a psychiatrist’s care, and also that prosecutors failed to correct Sneed’s false testimony, SCOTUSBlog reported. The Supreme Court will also consider the question of whether it has the power to review the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals’ decision at all, or whether it is a state matter.

A decision in the case isn’t expected until June 2025. Justice Neil Gorsuch has recused himself from the case because he sat on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals when that court decided one of Glossip’s earlier appeals, NPR reported. 

In January, when the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case, Archbishop Paul Coakley of Oklahoma City, who often speaks out against the death penalty, said in a statement to CNA that the Supreme Court’s agreement to review Glossip’s case “offers hope in furthering the cause toward one day abolishing the death penalty.”

“With new evidence and the state of Oklahoma’s admission of errors in the case prompting the Supreme Court review — issues that seem to be more and more prevalent — we can clearly see reason to reconsider institutionalized violence against the incarcerated as we hopefully move to respect the dignity of life for all human persons,” Coakley told CNA. 

Since 1976, Oklahoma has carried out the highest number of executions per capita of any state, according to Catholic Mobilizing Network (CMN), a national advocacy organization that demonstrates against the death penalty.

Glossip was party to a previous lawsuit that made it to the Supreme Court in 2015, wherein the court ultimately ruled in favor of the continued use of the sedative midazolam, a drug that critics contended had caused excruciating pain in several controversial state executions in Ohio, Arizona, and Oklahoma. Glossip had argued along with two other inmates that midazolam was not certain to work properly and could result in a painful execution that violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, reflecting an update promulgated by Pope Francis in 2018, describes the death penalty as “inadmissible” and an “attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person” (No. 2267). The change reflects a development in Catholic doctrine in recent years. 

St. John Paul II, calling the death penalty “cruel and unnecessary,” encouraged Christians to be “unconditionally pro-life” and said that “the dignity of human life must never be taken away, even in the case of someone who has done great evil.” The bishops of the United States have spoken frequently in favor of life sentences for convicted murderers, even those who have committed heinous crimes.

The Vatican has announced that the completed restorations on the soaring baldacchino over the central altar of St. Peter’s Basilica designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini will be unveiled on Oct. 27, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2024 / 14:35 pm (CNA).

The Vatican has announced that the completed restorations on the soaring baldacchino over the central altar of St. Peter’s Basilica designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini will be unveiled on Oct. 27.

Journalists donned hard hats on Tuesday to get a sneak peek of the nearly finished restorations, climbing the scaffolding all the way to the top of the 94-foot-tall canopy.

The lofty vantage point revealed how the baldacchino’s intricately decorated Baroque angels, cherubs, bees, and golden laurel branches — formerly darkened by centuries of dust and grime — have now been restored to their bright gilded glory.

While the cherubs holding the St. Peter’s keys and the papal tiara at the top of the structure may appear as small details from the ground 94 feet below, up close the chubby cherubs are actually colossal in size, standing nearly as tall as a full-grown adult.

Pope Urban VIII commissioned Bernini in 1624 to design and build the enormous canopy over the Papal Altar of the Confession, located directly over the tomb of St. Peter the Apostle. The  construction took Bernini nine years with considerable help from his architectural rival, Francesco Borromini.

The public will be able to see the 400-year-old twisting bronze columns of the large canopy for the first time since the restoration when Pope Francis presides over the closing Mass for the Synod on Synodality on Oct. 27.

At that time, the scaffolding that has surrounded the central altar for the past eight months will finally be removed.

Cardinal Mauro Gambetti, the archpriest of St. Peter’s Basilica, said the restorations manifest “the beauty and glory that the Church should reflect.” He added that revealing the restorations at the Mass is an opportunity to “announce hope as we walk toward a Jubilee of hope.”

An art restorer’s perspective

Giorgio Capriotti is one of the Vatican Museums’ art restorers who meticulously worked on these details on the massive canopy.

Capriotti said that despite more than a century since the last restoration, the restorers found that the baldacchino is in overall good shape. He explained that his task was largely removing the materials, like oil, waxes, and resins, that art restorers had used that unintentionally altered the hue of the historic gold leaf on the baldacchino.

In some places the baldacchino’s gold leaf became “dark and then almost black” because of oxidation due to the humidity, pollution, and dust in the air.

“So we had to remove these substances using solvents … area by area,” Capriotti said.

“Now we will see it as it was when it was built between 1624 and 1635,” he added.

While working atop the canopy, Capriotti and the other restorationists found objects left by the artists and workers who preceded them from past centuries, including old coins, small drawings, and even a 17th-century shopping list, a collection of items he described as almost “a small museum of cultural anthropology.”

“Everything will be archived and studied and set aside as a testimony of the life, the real life of generations of restorers who have followed one another,” Capriotti said.

Restorers also found places where previous workers had signed their names, including signatures from 1685 and 1725.

After visiting St. Peter’s Basilica in 1873, novelist Henry James described his encounter with the baldacchino: “You have only to stroll and stroll and gaze and gaze; to watch the glorious altar-canopy lift its bronze architecture, its colossal embroidered contortions, like a temple within a temple, and feel yourself, at the bottom of the abysmal shaft of the dome dwindle to a crawling dot.”

The Knights of Columbus funded the baldacchino restoration, which was originally estimated to cost 700,000 euro (about $768,000).

“It’s Bernini’s baldacchino … It’s a singular masterpiece of sacred art — one which is instantly recognizable and impressive,” Patrick Kelly, the head of the Knights of Columbus, said at a press conference when the restoration was first announced.

“But, if that weren’t enough, this project also fits very well with our mission and with our history of service to the Church, and, especially, the successors of St. Peter.”

Restoration of the ‘Cathedra of St. Peter’

Restoration work is also being carried out on Bernini’s massive bronze monument at the Altar of the Chair in St. Peter’s Basilica, called the “Cathedra of St. Peter.”

The massive sculpture depicts four doctors of the Church holding up the throne of St. Peter with gilded angels high above the petrine throne surrounding the oval stained-glass window of the “Dove of the Holy Spirit.”

Art restorers have also been cleaning the massive statues of St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Athanasius, and St. John Chrysostom, which are currently covered by scaffolding. 

Bernini built the monument over the course of 10 years in the mid-17th century to protect a historic relic — a wooden throne symbolizing Petrine primacy with ivory plaques dating back to the Carolingian age in the ninth century. 

The restorations are also providing the chance for the public to see the historic relic of St. Peter’s chair up close. The relic will be on display for visitors to St. Peter’s Basilica from Oct. 27 to Dec. 8.

Bishop Michael Martin prays with victims of Hurricane Helene while surveying storm damage at Swannanoa, North Carolina, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. / Credit: Diocese of Charlotte

CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2024 / 14:05 pm (CNA).

Charlotte Bishop Michael Martin recently toured several locations in his diocese ravaged by last month’s Hurricane Helene, offering spiritual and material aid to the “stunned” population working to rebuild after the devastating storm.

Western North Carolina over the last few weeks has been dealing with the aftermath of devastating flooding caused by the remnants of the hurricane, which dumped torrential rain on mountain communities there, leaving serious damage and dozens dead.

Catholic agencies have been mobilizing to help with relief efforts as many major roads remain impassable and residents remain stranded in mountain homes and rural areas.

Immaculata Catholic School in Hendersonville — about half an hour south of Asheville — has become a “distribution center” for aid supplies, with volunteers working around the clock to route critical supplies to those without power and drinking water.

The state government on Tuesday reported that there have been 89 confirmed storm-related deaths in the state, with the number expected to rise in the coming days.

‘The sheer power of the storm’

Martin told CNA that he and diocesan staff recently took a trip to several of the harder-hit areas in the Charlotte Diocese to survey the destruction and offer aid to stricken residents, including in Hendersonville and Swannanoa.

The bishop said he was struck by “the sheer power of the storm.”

“One particular thing we saw spoke volumes,” he said. “We saw large rolls from a warehouse, rolls of carpet, up on a hill. It was just so out of place — how did they get where they are?”

“We turned a corner, drove up a little further, and there was a carpet warehouse. It still had its roof and I-beams and still had the concrete slab, but all the walls were totally ripped away. The concrete slab was completely clear. It had taken every roll of carpet out of the building along with the walls.”

“Imagine how heavy those rolls are, even more so when they’re waterlogged — that’s how powerful the water was,” he said.

The bishop said that “people are stunned” in the wake of the tragedy.

“They’re just stunned,” he said, noting “the stunning nature of, one day everything’s fine, and the next day, your town is gone, and your home is gone.”

Yet Martin noted that the population responded by reaching out and helping each other. He said that many people were fortunate enough not to lose their homes and that “those folks are working at the distribution center,” helping others who had lost more.

It was wonderful “just seeing that community connection,” the bishop said. Also affecting, he said, was how so many people flocked to their churches amid the crisis.

“One of the beautiful things is realizing how people come to their parish as a locus for healing and meaning and to be empowered to go out,” he said.

The bishop said the diocese itself has been “remarkably blessed in that, for the most part, our properties suffered relatively minor damages.” 

“Obviously, there have been downed trees, roof issues,” he said. “But all of them are still standing.” 

“We feel tremendously blessed in that, OK, this we can repair,” he said. “The cost to do that, obviously, is going to be considerable. But we’re more focused on rebuilding the lives of the folks in these communities.” 

The bishop encouraged the faithful to donate to Catholic Charities Diocese of Charlotte. He said there is a great need for resources, particularly for local undocumented immigrants who may be fearful of approaching official government sources for help.

The bishop noted that others are still suffering from the effects of extreme weather, including Florida, which as of Wednesday was on the verge of being hit by the extremely dangerous Hurricane Milton. “No one has cornered the market on misery,” Martin said. 

Yet “just as God transformed Jesus’ death on the cross into the Resurrection, he transforms our misery into something greater, if we allow his grace to be at work,” the bishop said. 

null / Credit: Billy Hathorn, Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0

CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2024 / 13:35 pm (CNA).

The Vatican has authorized the Diocese of Scranton, Pennsylvania, to remove a priest from the clerical state after an investigation found he sexually assaulted two children years ago.

Martin Boylan “has been dismissed from the clerical state at the conclusion of a disciplinary process authorized by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) at the Holy See,” the Diocese of Scranton said in a press statement on Tuesday.

Boylan, 76, was removed from priestly ministry in 2016 after he was accused of sexual assault of a minor. The diocese would subsequently receive four more allegations against the priest, all of which were investigated and submitted to the DDF.

The Holy See authorized the Scranton Diocese to adjudicate the matter. The priest was ultimately found guilty of two instances of sexual abuse of a minor. The DDF “reviewed the findings and authorized the Diocese of Scranton to impose the permanent penalty of dismissal from the clerical state on Boylan,” the diocese said.

The priest appealed twice to the Vatican, which in both cases upheld the diocese’s findings.

Scranton Bishop Joseph Bambera said in the release that there is “no place in our Church for such heinous acts.”

“We must ensure that our Church is a safe haven for all, and it is our collective duty to protect, to listen, and to stand against any form of abuse,” the prelate said.

“I ask all people to join me in praying for the victims and their families,” the bishop said. “No one should ever have to endure such trauma, and it is our responsibility to ensure that all survivors are heard, supported, and empowered to heal.”

Boylan, who was ordained in 1980 and served at numerous parishes and schools, was among the priests identified as sexual abusers in the bombshell 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report on sexual abuse in most of the state’s Catholic dioceses. No criminal charges have been filed against him regarding the allegations.

Dismissal from the clerical state is “the most severe penalty that the Catholic Church can impose on a cleric,” the Scranton Diocese noted.

As a laicized priest, Boylan “will never again exercise priestly ministry in any capacity,” the diocese said.

“He may no longer celebrate Mass, hear confessions, or administer any of the Church’s sacraments,” it said. “His relationship with the Diocese of Scranton in any official capacity is now permanently ended.”

Pope Francis during the weekly general audience at St. Peter's Square on Oct. 9, 2024. / Credit: Vatican Media

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2024 / 13:05 pm (CNA).

In the first general audience since the opening of the second session of the Synod on Synodality, Pope Francis on Wednesday told pilgrims that Catholics should be aware of the “prohibitions of the Holy Spirit” to ensure the unity and universality of the Church is not compromised.

Continuing his catechesis on the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the Church, the pope emphasized that unity cannot be “achieved on the drawing board” but only through the will and action of the Holy Spirit.

“The unity of Pentecost, according to the Spirit, is achieved when one makes the effort to put God, not oneself, as the center,” the pope said at the end of his address. “Christian unity is also built in this way.”

Addressing hundreds of pilgrims gathered in St. Peter’s Square, the Holy Father encouraged his listeners to become “instruments of unity and peace” moved by the Holy Spirit instead of being driven by “one’s own point of view.”

“We all want unity. We all desire it from the depths of our heart and yet it is so difficult to attain that,” he said. “Unity and concord are among one of the most difficult things to achieve, and even harder to maintain. The reason is that, yes, everyone wants unity but based on one’s own point of view.”

In order to achieve unity within the Catholic Church, Pope Francis said it is necessary to also consider the “surprising prohibitions of the Spirit.”

Holy Father cites experience of St. Paul

Referring to the Acts of the Apostles, the Holy Father spoke about how even St. Paul and his disciples had to listen to the “prohibitions” of the Holy Spirit about where to preach the Gospel.

“Paul, we read again in Acts, wanted to proclaim the Gospel in a new region of Asia Minor, but it is written that they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit,” the pope said. “The following night, the apostle received in a dream the order to pass into Macedonia. Thus the Gospel left its native Asia and entered into Europe.”

Pope Francis also spoke about the synodal “movement of the Holy Spirit” at the Council of Jerusalem, which discussed whether pagan converts to Christianity needed to adopt customs of the Mosaic Law such as circumcision.

“The Holy Spirit does not always create unity suddenly, with miraculous and decisive actions, as at Pentecost. He also does so — and in the majority of cases — with discrete work, respecting human time and differences, passing through people and institutions, prayer and confrontation. In, we would say today, a synodal manner,” the Holy Father said.

Following the catechesis, the Holy Father greeted the crowds of international pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square and encouraged them to continue to pray for peace and unity in the world.

Before concluding the audience with the prayer of the Our Father in Latin, Pope Francis asked his listeners to also turn to Our Lady and pray the rosary during the month of October.

Maureen McKinley helps her children through some study exercises in her family's dining room in Phoenix. McKinley and her husband, Matt, home-school their five children and offer the older children a curriculum that includes Latin. / Credit: Jake Kelly

CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2024 / 12:35 pm (CNA).

Home schooling continues to grow even as the pandemic is no longer a contributing factor, according to a September study that found multiple states reaching all-time-high numbers of home-schooled students.  

The Johns Hopkins School of Education’s Homeschool Research Lab in its 2023-2024 report on home school growth found that 90% of states that shared numbers with the institute reported that home schooling had increased since the previous school year. 

The report, published in September, found that while the total number of students is declining nationwide in part due to declining birth rates, the number of home-schooling students is increasing.

The increase can no longer be attributed to the pandemic, according to researcher Angela Watson. 

“While home schooling grew rapidly during the pandemic, most people thought that students would return to more traditional schools when the pandemic disruptions abated,” Watson wrote. 

“Some states did show a decline, but few have returned to normal, even four years after the onset of the pandemic,” she said. “What we see with the most recent increases in state-reported home school participation is something new — these numbers are not driven by the pandemic.”

Several states reported record-high numbers of home-schoolers in the 2023-2024 school year. North Dakota had a 24% increase in home-schooled students from the prior year, while Rhode Island reported a 67% increase and Wyoming had an 8% increase.

Louisiana, South Carolina, and South Dakota have had continued growth since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. Home schooling has grown without interruption in these three states with no “post-pandemic decline.”

Sixteen states had a “rebounding trend,” according to the report. This means that after the pandemic was over, the number of home-schoolers decreased before experiencing a renewed surge in home schooling numbers.

Only two states in the study — New Hampshire and Vermont — reported a decline in the number of home-schooled students in 2023-2024, which in New Hampshire could be attributed to changing methods of categorizing home-schooled students. 

New Hampshire’s state Education Freedom Account (EFA) allows home-schooled students to receive public funding, but students receiving this public funding are not considered part of the total home schooling number, the report noted. 

The program launched in 2021, with the state subsequently reporting a lower number of home-school students than its pre-pandemic count. 

Home schooling models may include microschools, hybrid schools, and home schooling cooperatives, according to the report. Twenty-one states responded to the study and the group is set to publish more data in the coming months, though only 30 states record home schooling participation.

Last October, the Washington Post called home schooling the “fastest-growing form of education” in the United States, with double-digit increases in home school enrollment seen in a majority of U.S. states over roughly the past five years.

“While there is a clear growth trend in home schooling, the reason for that growth is unknown,” Watson noted.

“What is clear is that this time, the growth is not driven by a global pandemic or sudden disruptions to traditional schooling. Something else is driving this growth.”

Cardinal John Henry Newman. / Credit: John Everett Millais, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

CNA Newsroom, Oct 9, 2024 / 11:15 am (CNA).

Differing from the traditional practice, the feast day of Cardinal John Henry Newman is not celebrated on the day of his death. Instead, in his memory the Church celebrates his feast on the day he converted to Catholicism.

Newman died in 1890 and was canonized a saint on Oct. 13, 2019.

During the Eucharist celebration at Birmingham’s Cofton Park when he was beatified on Sept. 19, 2010, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed that Newman’s feast is to be celebrated on Oct. 9.

In general the feast days of blesseds and saints are marked on their “dies natalis” — the day they died. In his case, despite the fact that he died on Aug. 11, 1890, the Church decided to select the day he converted to Catholicism, Oct. 9, 1845, as the day to celebrate his feast.

At the time of the announcement, the Vatican spokesman at the time, Father Federico Lombardi, joked that the Church already celebrates too many great saints in August so placing the date in October seemed like a good idea to him.

The Church also celebrates Sts. Denis and John Leonardi on Oct. 9, while Aug. 11 is the feast of St. Clare of Assisi.

This article was originally published on Sept. 10, 2010, and has been updated.

Rome Bishop Baldassare Reina presides at the closing of the diocesan phase of the investigation into the life and virtues of Chiara Corbella Petrillo in Rome on Friday, June 21, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA

Vatican City, Oct 9, 2024 / 10:30 am (CNA).

When Pope Francis announced on Oct. 6 that he would create 21 new cardinals later this year, he also gave the Rome Diocese its new vicar general.

As he listed the names of the new cardinals, the pope named “His Excellency Monsignor Baldassare Reina, who will be, from today on, vicar general for the Diocese of Rome.”

From May 2022, Reina has gone from a priest of Agrigento, Sicily, serving in the Dicastery for the Clergy at the Vatican, to an archbishop and cardinal in charge of the diocese of the bishop of Rome — the pope.

Cardinal-designate Bishop Baldassare Reina has been temporarily in charge of the Diocese of Rome in the absence of a vicar general after Pope Francis transferred Cardinal Angelo De Donatis to a post as head of the Vatican’s apostolic penitentiary in April.

Reina, 53, was Rome’s vice regent, the second in command, from January 2023, when the diocese was restructured under a new constitution.

The promotion came less than one year after Reina had been appointed an auxiliary bishop of Rome with responsibility over the “western sector” of the city.

Reina’s background also includes nine years as rector of the major seminary of Agrigento in the southern part of the Italian island of Sicily.

He also taught classes on sacred Scripture at several educational institutions after receiving a master’s-level degree in biblical theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome in 1998.

The archbishop has been a priest for 29 years. He will be made a cardinal on Dec. 8.

In an Oct. 7 letter to Catholics in Rome, Reina wrote that Pope Francis’ “dedication to the universal Church and the prophecy he has given us in these years of pontificate urge me to work for a transparent and poor Church, capable of releasing and spreading the fragrance of the Gospel.”

Now, Pope Francis will need to nominate a vice regent, the figure who assists the cardinal vicar in the management of the diocese, which he has also recently reconfigured.

In an Oct. 1 document published Tuesday by the Diocese of Rome, the pontiff said he had decided to incorporate the central sector of the diocese into the other four sectors.

Francis explained in the motu proprio La Vera Bellezza (“The True Beauty”) that with the exodus of residents from the historic center, the number of Catholic parishes in that geographic zone has dwindled to 35, many with few parishioners. The high influx of tourists has also had an impact on the pastoral needs of the area.

The Diocese of Rome was divided into five sectors with each of the five sectors being divided into prefectures. Now, the five prefectures of the central sector will be part of the northern, eastern, southern, and western sectors.

“In this view, there is no longer an isolated center and a periphery divided into separate parts but, in a dynamic vision that envisions not walls but bridges, the Diocese of Rome will be conceived as a single center expanding through the four cardinal points,” he said.

The pope added that he hopes this change will dissolve “the bilateral tension that has been ingrained in social and ecclesial perception over time between the historic center and the peripheries” of Rome.

He said the Jubilee Year in 2025, more than just an occasion to welcome pilgrims from around the world, should also be a time of pilgrimage for Romans themselves and an opportunity to rediscover the spiritual riches found in the churches and religious traditions in Rome’s city center. 

“I wish to strengthen the unitary and synodal perception of the Diocese of Rome starting from its geographical configuration, so that it can better explicate the authentic sense of its centrality and beauty,” Pope Francis said.