Wall Street Journal
By Tamara Audi
March 26, 2014
In
anticipation of Pope Francis' Thursday meeting with President Barack
Obama, activist Judie Brown sent the pontiff an unsolicited 12-page memo
that detailed what she
said is the administration's hostility toward the church on issues such
as abortion and contraception.
The
meeting also spurred 10-year-old Jersey Vargas to travel to Rome from
Los Angeles to ask the pope to help her and other American children of
undocumented immigrants
by supporting changes to U.S. immigration law.
And
a group critical of the church's handling of priest sex-abuse cases
wants the president to push Pope Francis to get tougher on the issue.
As
this president and this pope meet for the first time, in Vatican City,
America's Roman Catholics are clamoring to influence the agenda,
lobbying both men on issues
from immigration to health care. While meetings between popes and
presidents are largely symbolic, some activists see this one as a chance
to gain traction on several issues that are coming to the fore, at a
time when the American church grapples with demographic
and social changes.
Groups
pushing to overhaul immigration laws in the U.S. see Pope Francis—the
first pontiff from Latin America and one who has largely emphasized
poverty and social justice
since he was chosen as pope last year—as a receptive audience. Church
membership in the U.S., home to an estimated 7% of the world's
Catholics, has been boosted largely by immigration from Latin America in
recent years. Next week, Cardinal Sean O'Malley of
Boston will lead a group of American bishops to the Arizona border with
Mexico to pray for migrants who have lost their lives crossing the
desert.
"We
feel that we finally have a true friend that understands what we're all
going through in America with this immigration crisis, and who
seriously believes that we urgently
need to do something about it," said Juan José Gutiérrez, an
immigration-rights activist who traveled to Rome with a group including
10-year-old Jersey.
On
Wednesday at the Vatican, Jersey, whose father was in the U.S.
illegally and was detained by immigration authorities, worked her way to
the front of the crowd after
the pope's general audience and asked him to help her family and others
like hers, according to a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Archdiocese,
which helped arrange access.
The
meeting also comes as the U.S. church clashes with the Obama
administration over a provision in the health-care law requiring
businesses to provide access to contraceptives
to employees, notwithstanding any religious objections that employers
might have. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments over the issue this
week and is expected to rule in late June.
Ms.
Brown, the president of the American Life League, a Catholic group that
advocates for church positions on contraceptives and abortion, said the
contraceptive mandate
in the health-care law "is imposed on Christian faith by a government
that holds faith in disdain." Ms. Brown, a former member of a pontifical
academy on bioethics, said she wasn't asking the pope to raise a
specific issue with the president but wanted the
pope to have her memo on the administration's stance on birth control
and abortion in light of the current debate in the U.S. Supreme Court.
Before
the meeting, the pope was to be briefed on the health-care law, both on
"positive aspects from the point of view of Catholic social teaching,
and the religious
freedom" aspect, a person familiar with the plans said. The pope, while
focusing on issues other than certain cultural ones, hasn't changed
traditional church teachings on those issues and is expected to defend
them.
The
Vatican said in a statement Wednesday that the meeting would "take
place in the context of a complex phase of the administration's
relations" with the U.S. church
on issues such as the health law and gay marriage. The White House said
the president would look "forward to discussing with Pope Francis their
shared commitment to fighting poverty and growing inequality."
A
liberal Catholic group, Catholics for Choice, took out a full-page ad
in the International New York Times to remind the president that the
pope "is not our political
leader," said Jon O'Brien, the group's president. "The majority of
Catholics believe Pope Francis is leading our church in a positive
direction, but the Vatican's draconian rules on sex and sexuality…still
do not reflect the real lives of lay Catholics."
Advocates
for victims of priest sex abuse are urging Mr. Obama to press the pope
for greater church accountability. Last week, the Vatican announced
appointments to a
new commission to help the church confront the problem.
BishopAccountability.org,
which documents sex-abuse cases in the church, sent a letter to Mr.
Obama asking him to push the pope to help federal officials track
abusive
priests who have fled the U.S. "Use your historic meeting…to achieve
something of substance," the group wrote in a letter to Mr. Obama.
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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