US Catholic leaders join LGBTQ group to condemn discrimination against transgender people

‘It is our Catholic duty to affirm the dignity of transgender people and to defend them from harm,’ the statement reads.

Archbishop John Wester, of Santa Fe. (AP Photo/Sid Hastings, File)
March 31, 2021

By Jack Jenkins

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Two Roman Catholic bishops and other church leaders have teamed up with the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, to condemn discrimination against transgender people, the groups announced Wednesday (March 31).

In a statement provided to Religion News Service, Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico; Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky; and the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests as well as the presidents of two Jesuit organizations declared that, “we, Bishops, religious and lay leaders of the Roman Catholic Church join with the Human Rights Campaign in calling for an end to the epidemic of violence against transgender individuals.”

March 31 has been celebrated as Transgender Day of Visibility since 2009.

RELATED: Pope Francis encourages nun helping trans community in Argentina

The statement, which cites the words of St. John Paul II, notes that the Catechism of the Catholic Church insists “every sign of unjust discrimination” against LGBTQ people “should be avoided” and condemns violent acts perpetrated against transgender people in recent years that have been documented by HRC.

“It is our Catholic duty to affirm the dignity of transgender people and to defend them from harm,” the statement reads.

The statement invokes St. Bonaventure — “we are led to contemplate God in (all creation)” — before adding “this is no less true of our transgender siblings.”

It concludes: “Transgender people have always been members of our local parishes and the witness of their lives … leads us to greater contemplation of God and the mystery of our faith. To our transgender siblings, may you always know that the Image of God resides in you, and that God loves you.”

In addition to the bishops, signers include the Rev. Michael Garanzini, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities; Tom Chabolla, president of the Jesuit Volunteer Corps; the Rev. Bob Bonnot and the Rev. Louis Arceneaux, who serve as executive director and secretary, respectively, of the Association of United States Catholic Priests; and the Rev. Neil Pezzulo.

HRC President Alphonso David celebrated the statement.

“The life-threatening violence against the transgender community, spurred by discrimination and hate, is a moral issue and one in which the voices of Catholic leaders are critical to the safety of our transgender siblings,” he said in a press release. “This is a critical moment to come together united, propelled by our faith, and lift our voices to unequivocally say that transgender rights are human rights, and they must be protected.”

The statement comes less than a week after Stowe publicly endorsed the Equality Act, a bill that would amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to offer anti-discrimination protection for LGBTQ Americans in an array of areas, including housing, education, lending and civic affairs.

“LGBTQ people reflect the image of likeness of God, just as anyone else, and so it is our duty to love and defend them,” Stowe wrote in a March 19 letter to Sens. Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley, according to America Magazine. “As a Catholic bishop, I hate to see any form of harmful discrimination protected by law and it is consistent with our teaching to ensure that LGBTQ people have the protection they need.”

Stowe’s support for the bill came in direct opposition to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has campaigned against the Equality Act and argued that it “discriminates against people of faith precisely because of those beliefs.”

The Kentucky cleric was also among 14 active and retired Catholic bishops who signed a statement in January that called on “all people of goodwill” to “help, support, and defend LGBT youth” who have been bullied, harassed and fallen victim to violent attacks. More than 20 priests in Stowe’s diocese followed suit a month later, signing a statement arguing that religious people have a duty to “help, support, and defend LGBT youth who attempt suicide at much higher rates than their straight counterparts.”

None of the statements directly challenges church teaching such as the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which, among other things, refers to “homosexual tendencies” as “objectively disordered.” Earlier this month, the Vatican released a statement declaring that LGBTQ couples cannot receive a blessing by a priest.

RELATED: What’s in store for the Equality Act, and why do some religions want a revision?

“Since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit,” read the statement, which was signed by the prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Even so, the Vatican document is widely seen as evidence of growing discontent among some Catholics — including bishops — regarding the church’s approach to LGBTQ people and relationships: When German bishops met earlier this year, among the conversations with lay Catholics was the possibility of priests blessing same-sex couples.

Vatican makes moral case for supporting people displaced by climate change

Local Catholic groups are invited in a new Vatical document to establish ‘solidarity networks’ to ensure migrants’ dignity ‘in all phases of displacement.’

Rescue boats fill a flooded street as flood victims are evacuated as floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey rise on Aug. 28, 2017, in Houston. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)

March 30, 2021
By Claire Giangravé

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Pope Francis and other Vatican leaders reiterated the Catholic Church’s commitment to “eco-justice” in a new document on Tuesday (March 30) addressing the growing number of people being displaced by climate change and calling on the church to take an active role in this “profoundly moral issue.”

“We are one planet, one human family and as brothers and sisters we must look out for each other. I don’t think a moral argument needs to be much more complicated than that,” said Cardinal Michael Czerny, who heads the section on migrants and refugees at the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The cardinal’s remarks came during the presentation of “Pastoral Orientations on Climate Displaced People,” which offers data and insights for Catholic communities and dioceses on how to address the growing challenges of the climate crisis.

The document, which includes a preface from the pope, lays out ways to support migrants and integrate them in their countries of arrival.

“Besides the accompaniment of the church, we very much hope for and seek a response from the international community to recognize the shared responsibility for those brothers and sisters forced to flee because of the climate crisis,” Czerny said.

In the first half of 2020, of the 14.6 million displaced people globally, 9.8 million were displaced by droughts, floods and other cataclysmic events, according to the document. It also reports that 253.7 million people were displaced by climate disasters between 2008 and 2018, suggesting that the number will grow in the next 10 to 40 years.

The climate crisis is not just a matter of data; it has a “human face,” said the Rev. Fabio Baggio, undersecretary at the Vatican’s migrants and refugees task force.

The document presented Tuesday was written with input from local churches and religious organizations, and some clergy and lay Catholics were included in the news conference to talk about their experiences.

“Climate change isn’t a hypothetical threat,” said Archbishop Claudio Dalla Zuanna, speaking at the news conference from the Archdiocese of Beira in Mozambique, whose long coastline has been hit by cyclones, flooding and heat waves in recent years. “It’s already a reality that requires immediate action also in creating the conditions to welcome people who are displaced by the growing number of catastrophes.”

Thirty-two-year-old Mozambican Maria Madalena Issau spoke about her grueling experience in camps for the displaced not far from the city of Beira, having lost her home to the 2020 cyclones.

RELATED: Pope’s new book speaks to Americans on racism, immigration and gender equity

Local Catholic groups are invited in the document to accompany and support displaced people and establish “solidarity networks” to ensure their dignity “in all phases of displacement,” while young people are charged with being “protagonists” of the global efforts to counter climate change.

“This is the work the Lord asks now of us, and there is great joy in it,” Francis wrote. “We are not going to get out of crises like climate or COVID-19 by hunkering down in individualism but only by ‘being many together’, by encounter and dialogue and cooperation.”

Pope Francis honors Dante Alighieri on 7th centenary of ‘prophetic’ poet’s death

Francis paid homage to Dante in an apostolic letter, citing the poet's hope for reform in the church.

In Philipp Veit’s painting about Paradiso, Dante and Beatrice speak to the teachers of wisdom Thomas Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, Peter Lombard and Siger of Brabant in the Sphere of the Sun, Canto 10. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons

March 25, 2021

By 

Claire Giangravé

VATICAN CITY (RNS) — Dante Alighieri, the medieval Italian poet, didn’t spare popes and other Catholic prelates in “Divine Comedy,” his 14th-century masterwork detailing his imaginary journey from hell to heaven via purgatory. No fewer than four pontiffs, including the then-reigning pope, Boniface VIII, are pictured in various circles of hell in the book’s “Inferno” cantos, victims of their own greed.

(Full disclosure: Dante had a personal grudge against Boniface, whom he blamed in part for his exile from the city of Florence in 1302.)

Seven centuries later, Pope Francis paid homage to Dante in an apostolic letter released Thursday (March 25), citing the poet’s criticism of “those believers — whether Popes or the ordinary faithful — who betray Christ and turn the Church into a means for advancing their own interests.”

These believers, Francis added, are accused by Dante of “ignoring the duty of charity towards the defenseless and poor, and instead idolizing power and riches.”

In “Paradiso,” the section of Dante’s poem set in heaven, popes are outnumbered by the saints who made a commitment to the poor the cornerstone of their faith. Among them is St. Francis of Assisi, Pope Francis’ namesake, who left riches and titles aside to preach to the humblest of his countrymen and founded the Franciscan order.

“Saint Francis and Dante had much in common,” Pope Francis wrote in the letter, pointing to their common efforts to make the gospel accessible to the poor and unlearned. While Francis chose to preach “among the people, in small towns and the streets of the cities,” the pope wrote, Dante chose to write his works in the vernacular, an unorthodox choice for a time when poets preferred Latin to the language spoken by the commoners.

“Another feature common to the two was their sensitivity to the beauty and worth of creation as the reflection and imprint of its Creator,” said Pope Francis, who in 2016 released an encyclical on the care of creation titled “Laudato Si’.”

Portrait of Dante, painting from 1495 by Sandro Botticelli. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons

Born in the historic city of Florence in 1265, Dante was an astute and active political observer. As the papacy confronted the temporal authority of emperors, Dante sided with the popes by joining the political faction known as the Guelphs.

But despite his loyalty to the papacy, Dante belonged to a splinter group that longed for a renewal of the Catholic Church, rooted in its origins and distanced from the lavishness and fanfare of the church of his time. This group would be known as the White Guelphs, as opposed to the Black Guelphs, who instead supported the Catholic hierarchy.

Scholars still debate the Catholic identity of Dante and whether he should be considered a reactionary or progressive. In 1921 Pope Benedict XV wished to emphasize “the intimate union of Dante with this Chair of Peter.”

In Francis’ letter, Dante emerges as “a prophet of hope and a witness to the innate yearning for the infinite present in the human heart.” This doesn’t exempt the church, Francis writes, “from accepting also the prophetic criticisms uttered by the poet with regard to those charged with proclaiming the Gospel and representing, not themselves, but Christ.”

At different times and anniversaries, popes have deployed the memory of Dante to address the struggles facing the Catholic Church. Pope Paul VI, fresh from his experience of the two world wars and whose pontificate saw the beginning of the Vietnam War, saw Dante’s ideal of the unity of heaven as a message of peace.

For St. Pope John Paul II and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Dante incarnated humanity’s thirst for transcendence and meaning in a world that was increasingly besotted with consumerism, materialism and secularism. Drawing from his predecessors, Francis hails the Italian poet as representative of the church’s pilgrim voyage toward faith.

That includes many pagan individuals — be they emperors or commoners — placed in Dante’s heaven, showing, according to Francis, “that no one on earth is precluded from this path.”

The pope’s letter on Dante coincides with the Feast of the Annunciation, when the Archangel Gabriel told the Virgin Mary that she would give birth to Jesus. Women, Francis pointed out, are the guiding light of “Divine Comedy.” Beatrice, Dante’s long-lost love, St. Lucy and Mary the Mother of God guide the poet in his journey. 

Pope Francis encouraged teachers, scholars and especially artists to continue “to give voice, face and heart, form, color and sound to Dante’s poetry.”

The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Culture, led by Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, will promote a series of events, art shows and conferences to share the message and beauty of Dante’s forever relevant masterpiece.

REST IN POWER

Barack Obama’s beloved step-grandmother, a Muslim and philanthropist, dies in Kenya at 99

The family matriarch and celebrated philanthropist was open to all faiths, religious leaders here have said.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012, file photo, Sarah Obama, center, step-grandmother of then U.S. President Barack Obama, walks back to her house after speaking to the media in the garden of her home in the village of Kogelo, western Kenya. Sarah Obama, the matriarch of Barack Obama's Kenyan family, has died, relatives and officials confirmed Monday, March 29, 2021 but did not disclose the cause of death. She was at least 99 years old. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, File)

March 29, 2021

By 

Fredrick Nzwili

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Sarah Onyango Obama, the step-grandmother of former U.S. President Barack Obama, died Monday (March 29) at the age of 99, only 23 days away from her 100th birthday. The family matriarch and celebrated philanthropist was a Muslim but open to all faiths, religious leaders here have said.

“I had visited her several times in Kogelo. She was always open to us and encouraged the faiths to work for peace and unity. Although she was a Muslim, she was very welcoming,” said the Rev. Joachim Omollo, a Roman Catholic priest in the archdiocese of Kisumu where she lived all her life. Despite not having formal schooling herself or being able to read, the cleric said Mrs. Obama had a vision to educate and feed the less fortunate children in society. 

Fondly known as Mama Sarah, she suffered a stroke in September and died while undergoing treatment at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital in the lakeside city of Kisumu. She was the last living grandparent of former President Obama.

“My family and I are mourning the loss of our beloved grandmother,” the former president tweeted along with a younger picture of himself with Mrs. Obama. “We will miss her dearly, but we’ll celebrate with gratitude her long and remarkable life.”

 

Sheikh Musa Ismail Haji, the chairman of Kisumu Muslim Association, said Mrs. Obama, the third wife of President Obama’s paternal grandfather, will be buried tomorrow morning (March 30) according to Muslim rites.

“She did not die of COVID-19 related issues. We want to clarify that she has been ailing for some time,” Haji told journalists. This had followed speculations after some people were seen disinfecting a ward and a room where the body had been kept in the hospital.

Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, mourned Mrs. Obama as an icon of family values and a philanthropist.

“We have lost a strong virtuous woman. A matriarch who held together the Obama family,” said Kenyatta. “She was a loving and celebrated philanthropist who graciously shared the little she had with the less fortunate.”

From her home in Nyang’oma Kogelo in Siaya County, Mrs. Obama carried out charity work, helping feed and educate hundreds of orphans. She also took care of widows through the California-headquartered Mama Sarah Obama Foundation. Through a non-governmental organization known as the Safeguard Orphans and Widows Organization (SAWO), she supported groups mainly of women and children orphaned by HIV and AIDS.

Her Sarah Obama Community Library recently went digital and partnered with Worldreader to deliver 7,000 e-books to the rural area.

Mrs. Obama became famous in 2006 after President Obama, then a U.S. senator for the state of Illinois and celebrity in Kenya, visited her in her rural home. During his second visit to Kenya as a sitting U.S. president, Obama met her in Nairobi. He later visited again during the summer of 2018. Obama’s election sent hundreds of tourists to her home village.

During 2008 election campaigns, Mrs. Obama defended President Obama against allegations that he was a Muslim and was born in Kenya, according to the BBC.

Mrs. Obama was born in 1922 in a village near Lake Victoria.

Georgia faith leaders to leave water bottles around Capitol in protest of new voter laws

Faith leaders also joined in a lawsuit charging that provisions of Georgia's new law are unconstitutional and violate the Voting Rights Act.

Hundreds of people wait in line for early voting in Marietta, Georgia, on Oct. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Ron Harris, File)

March 30, 2021

By 

Jack Jenkins, Adelle M. Banks

(RNS) — Faith leaders in Georgia are fighting back against a new law that bans offering food and water to people waiting in line to vote, with many voicing opposition or planning protests against a statute they say targets people of color.

Religious leaders were quick to criticize the sweeping new elections bill, known as SB 202, signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp on Thursday (March 25). A group of Black faith leaders gathered at the Statehouse that same day to voice opposition and call for a boycott of certain corporations, such as Coca-Cola, they argued did not do enough to resist the bill.

The group briefly met with Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan and, according to The New York Times, African Methodist Episcopal Bishop Reginald T. Jackson told Duncan during the meeting the bill’s various provisions were racist and constituted “an attempt to turn back time to Jim Crow.”

Now other faith leaders say they plan to protest the law’s passage by marching from an Atlanta church and leaving water bottles for legislators at the Georgia Capitol on Wednesday (March 31). The leaders, who believe the new legislation will adversely affect the voting rights of Black, Latino and elderly voters, also plan to leave water at Kemp’s door.

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RELATED: Faith leaders push back against proposed ‘Souls to the Polls’ voting restrictions

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“We’re going to share water with our legislators and elected officials, the very act that is criminalized by SB202,” Graham Younger, Georgia director for Faith in Public Life, told Religion News Service. “We’ve spent several election cycles working for everyone to have the freedom to vote. We are showing them the fairness and hospitality they are not showing to Georgia.”

African Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Reginald T. Jackson, center right, announces a boycott of Coca-Cola Co. products outside the Georgia Capitol in Atlanta on March 25, 2021. Jackson says Coca-Cola and other large Georgia companies haven’t done enough to oppose restrictive voting bills that Georgia lawmakers were debating as Jackson spoke. (AP Photo/Jeff Amy)

Faith leaders also have joined in a suit filed Wednesday in an Atlanta federal court charging that various provisions of the new law are unconstitutional and violate a section of the Voting Rights Act that prohibits denying or abridging the rights of voters on the basis of their race or color.

“Countless Black Georgians waited for hours in needlessly long lines, where they were comforted and sustained by free water and refreshments offered by an array of civic and religious organizations, including parishioners of Plaintiff Sixth District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church,” notes the suit filed Wednesday by civil rights groups on behalf of the AME Church, Georgia Muslim Voter Project, and other organizations.

The suit also cites the First Amendment rights of the church — namely, its right to political speech and expression — as it conducted “line warming” practices of providing food and water, describing it “as part of conveying their message of the importance of staying in line, the value of each individual’s vote, and their inherent value as a person.”

Earlier in the month, Faith in Public Life collected more than 500 signatures on a petition delivered to Kemp that condemned proposed changes in voting policies they said would particularly harm people of color. Fair Fight Action, another group that supported the petition, had received reports of people fainting as they stood in long lines outside polling places during the 2020 election.

U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock, who also serves as pastor of Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, railed against the provision during a Senate floor speech earlier this month.

“They want to make it a crime to bring grandma some water as she is waiting in a line they are making longer,” he said. “Make no mistake: This is democracy in reverse.”

Meanwhile, other faith leaders have declared on social media their willingness to openly defy the ban on offering food and water to voters. One pastor, Abby Norman, has set up a form for white women to volunteer to get arrested handing out water to Georgia voters.

And then there are legal questions as to whether the law violates the rights of faith leaders who see offering food and water to voters as a religious act. In the 2020 election, several groups organized “poll chaplains” in states across the country — including hundreds who were trained in Georgia — to assist voters stuck in long lines. Participants included Catholic nuns, rabbis and other faith leaders who handed out food and water while seeking to offer a peaceful presence at the ballot box.

There is precedent for courts siding with religiously rooted activists who see offering sustenance as a spiritual act. In February 2020, a federal judge reversed the convictions in United States v. Hoffman of four faith-based volunteers who were fined and put on probation for leaving out water for migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border. The judge argued that the activists, whose group No More Deaths/No Más Muertes is an official ministry of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Tucson, were exercising their “sincerely held religious beliefs” and prosecuting them violated the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Elizabeth Reiner Platt, director of Columbia Law School’s Law, Rights, and Religion Project, said faith leaders in Georgia could take a similar route.

“Certainly there could be a similar religious challenge that folks have a religious obligation to provide food and water to folks exercising their constitutional right to vote,” she said.

She was echoed by Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University who also filed an amicus brief in United States v. Hoffman highlighting the religious liberty claims.

Religious opponents of the Georgia law, she said, could “certainly try to raise religious liberty grounds for avoiding responsibility under the statute.”

But Franke and Platt both noted the law doesn’t just impact religious leaders, and the potential legal challenges extend far beyond religious concerns.

Instead, Platt suggested religious opponents of the law are more likely to utilize the strategy of Faith in Public Life and its allies: the power of protest.

“Beyond the question of other legal challenges to the law, are progressive faith activists even going to be interested in bringing a religious exemption claim — which really would only apply to people who have a faith motivation for giving out food and water — or might they be more inclined to engage in a campaign of civil disobedience?”

GOOD NEWS

Gallup: Fewer than half of Americans belong to a church or other house of worship

While Americans still believe in God, a growing number have dropped out of organized religion.

Photo by Andrew Seaman/Unsplash/Creative Commons

March 29, 2021
By Bob Smietana

(RNS) — Ask Americans if they believe in God and most will say yes. But a growing number have lost faith in organized religion.

For the first time since the late 1930s, fewer than half of Americans say they belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, according to a new report from Gallup.

Forty-seven percent of Americans now say they belong to a house of worship, down from 70% in the mid-1990s and 50% in 2019. The decline is part of a continued drop in membership over the past 20 years, according to Gallup data.

The polling giant has been measuring church membership since 1937 when nearly three-quarters of the population (73%) reported membership in a house of worship. For much of that time, membership remained at about 70% but began to decline after 1999. By the late 2000s, membership had dropped to about 62% and has continued to fall.

Pollsters at Gallup looked at survey data from more than 6,000 Americans and compared data from 2018 to 2020 with two other time frames: 2008 to 2020 and 1998 to 2000.

RELATED: ‘Nones’ as big as Catholics or evangelicals in United States

The decline in membership coincides with the rise of the so-called “Nones” — those who claim no religious affiliation. Gallup reports about one in five Americans (21%) is a None — making them as large a group as evangelicals or Catholics. Other polls put the number at closer to 30%.

Few Nones belong to a house of worship, Gallup found.

“As would be expected, Americans without a religious preference are highly unlikely to belong to a church, synagogue or mosque, although a small proportion — 4% in the 2018-2020 (survey) — say they do,” the report from Gallup states. “That figure is down from 10% between 1998 and 2000.”

“Church Membership Among U.S. Adults Now Below 50%” Graphic courtesy Gallup

Gallup also found a decline in membership at churches, synagogues and mosques among religious Americans, who make up about 76% of the population. In the time frame from 1998 to 2000, about three-quarters (73%) of religious Americans were members of a house of worship. That number has fallen to 60%.

Younger Americans are increasingly disconnected from organized religion, according to the report from Gallup. But the number of older Americans who are members of a house of worship has also declined in recent years.

In the time from 2008 to 2010, 73% of “traditionalists” — Gallup’s term for Americans born before 1945, were church members. That number has dropped to 66% in 2018 to 2020. Membership among Baby Boomers dropped from 63% to 58% during that same time frame, as did membership among Generation X (57% to 50%) and millennials (51% to 36%).

The gap between those who believe in a specific religion and those who participate in the life of a specific congregation is likely to prove a challenge for houses of worship. And the decline in church membership is likely to continue, according to Gallup.

“Churches are only as strong as their membership and are dependent on their members for financial support and service to keep operating,” said the report. “Because it is unlikely that people who do not have a religious preference will become church members, the challenge for church leaders is to encourage those who do affiliate with a specific faith to become formal, and active, church members.”

Measuring church membership and religious affiliation remains a challenge for researchers. From 1850 to 1950, the U.S. Census Bureau collected data on religious congregations in the United States and from 1906 to 1936 published a “Census of Religious Bodies.”

“The Census of Religious Bodies was conducted every 10 years until 1946,” Pew Research noted in a 2010 article on religion and the Census. “The 1936 Census of Religio”us Bodies was the last one published, however, because the U.S. Congress failed to appropriate money either to tabulate or to publish the information collected in the 1946 census. By 1956, Congress had discontinued the funding for this census altogether.

Trump advisor Peter Navarro went on a wild rant on Fox News, calling Fauci the 'father' of the coronavirus

Sinéad Baker
16 hours ago

Peter Navarro at a coronavirus briefing during the Trump presidency.

 Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Ex-trade advisor Peter Navarro spread baseless claims about the coronavirus on Fox News on Tuesday.

He called Dr. Anthony Fauci the virus' "father" in response to one of Fauci's vaccine remarks.

He also said former President Donald Trump should get more credit for the vaccine.

The former White House trade advisor Peter Navarro delivered a wild rant on Fox News in which he called Dr. Anthony Fauci the "father" of the coronavirus.

Navarro, who served in President Donald Trump's White House, was asked by the Fox News host Rachel Campos-Duffy on Tuesday night for his thoughts on Fauci's saying recently that the decision to start trying to make a coronavirus vaccine in January 2020 "may have been the best decision that I've ever made."

Navarro responded: "Fauci is a sociopath and a liar. He had nothing to do with the vaccine. The father of the vaccine is Donald J. Trump."

"What is Fauci the father of?" he continued. "Fauci is the father of the actual virus."

He then repeated an unproven theory that the coronavirus came from a lab in Wuhan, China, and went on to link Fauci to the lab, claims that Campos-Duffy did not challenge on the air.

Trump has repeatedly complained that he isn't getting credit for administration's role in vaccine creation and distribution.

President Joe Biden's White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, has repeatedly refused to give Trump credit for the vaccine development and rollout that took place during his presidency, instead calling it a "Herculean incredible effort by science and by medical experts."

Trump said earlier this month that he had ignored advice from Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, about how to handle the pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic

Charts show the US on the brink of a 4th coronavirus surge as variants spread and states relax restrictions.

LA Buddhist temple seeking balance between security and welcome after attack

'It’s a balance of maintaining security, but at the same time being welcoming,' said the Rev. Noriaki Ito.

Recent vandalism at Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles. 

Photos via Facebook/Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple

March 29, 2021
By Alejandra Molina


LOS ANGELES (RNS) — A month after the Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple was vandalized and set aflame, a shattered window and toppled lanterns have been fixed. But the temple’s wooden lantern stands and lamps still need to be rebuilt and replaced, and its leaders are contemplating additional security.

As leaders of the temple seek to make their place of worship safer, the Rev. Noriaki Ito said they are being careful not to turn the temple into a fortress.

“It’s a balance of maintaining security, but at the same time being welcoming,” said Ito, head minister of Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Little Tokyo, as its downtown neighborhood is known.

RELATED: More than $60,000 raised for vandalized Los Angeles Buddhist temple

“If we are the only ones here and speak only in Buddhist terms, the temple will be like an exclusive club of people who speak a language only we can understand,” Ito said. “We need to acknowledge and coexist with everyone we live together with.”

On Feb. 25, an invader climbed the temple’s fence and set fire to chōchin lantern stands, knocking over two metal lanterns at the stairs leading to the temple’s front door. The person threw a rock at the temple’s entrance, shattering a glass panel in the building’s foyer. No one was injured.

The vandalism occurred amid a rise of incidents against Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in Los Angeles County and across the country in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. More than $90,000 was raised through a GoFundMe page set up for the temple.

Two weeks later, eight people, including six women who were of Asian descent, were killed in a mass shooting in Atlanta.

“We continue to be shocked by all the things that are happening,” Ito said. “We’re just hoping that things will get better.”

Ito said the temple will honor the victims of the Atlanta shooting, one of whom is believed to have been Buddhist, in a ceremony on May 4, the 49th day after the shooting. In many Buddhist traditions, rebirth takes place within 49 days after death.

Ito said it was overwhelming and encouraging to see so much support for the temple after the vandalism made nationwide headlines. The temple received calls and messages from across the country and from Japan. Ito noted that many donations came from people who are not of Asian descent.

“They all consider our temple to be one of the mainstays of the Little Tokyo community, and so when they hear something like that happened, they automatically want to support us,” Ito said.

“That was amazing,” Ito added. “We’re trying to figure out how we’re going to thank all of these people and show our appreciation.”

RELATED: Let the church declare: Asian Lives Matter

Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple has a rich history that traces its roots back to 1904. Ito said a house was converted into a temple back when Little Tokyo was still a tiny downtown community with many Japanese immigrants.

As membership grew, the congregation moved to nearby Boyle Heights, now a working-class Latino neighborhood on the east side of L.A. that was once a thriving Jewish enclave. The temple remained there for about 50 years.

“We moved out to Boyle Heights … which was the area where Japanese Americans could live before the war, and so we were there from 1925 until 1975,” said Ito.

Leaders of the temple grappled over moving to a more central location in Little Tokyo or relocating to the suburbs like Alhambra and Monterey Park as their members moved out of the city.

But during the 1970s redevelopment of downtown L.A., Ito said they were offered the lot where the temple is currently located at a reasonable price. Born in Japan and raised in Boyle Heights, Ito became a full-time minister at the temple after finishing his studies in Japan.

Over the years, Ito has seen a decline in membership, as have other houses of faith across the nation. Through the pandemic, the temple has streamed services and has been able to reach older people who can no longer drive, as well as families who have moved to Northern California or even Japan, Ito said.

Now, as Ito considers the safety of the temple’s members, including its preschool of about 25 students, he said they’re looking into added security guard hours.

Ito said the temple is also looking at partnering with other houses of faith, including a Christian church across the street, to have a car patrol drive around Little Tokyo to check on the spaces of worship in the vicinity.

As Ito has participated in a number of events condemning anti-Asian hate crimes, he said it’s important to condemn those who commit hate crimes, but, he added, “we can’t just say it’s us against them.

“I just hope that people learn that we’re all human beings,” Ito said.

Long work hours raise odds for second heart attack, study says

"The magnitude of the effect of working long hours after a heart attack is comparable to the burden of current smoking,"

By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay News

HEALTH NEWS

 

MARCH 31, 2021 

After surviving a heart attack, working too hard or too long may increase the risk for a repeat. Photo by Pexels/Pixabay

Sometimes it's best to say no to overtime: A new Canadian study finds that working too hard after a heart attack could boost your odds for a repeat.

Their new study found that people who work more than 55 hours a week after a heart attack are twice as likely to have another, compared with those who work 35 to 40 hours a week."The magnitude of the effect of working long hours after a heart attack is comparable to the burden of current smoking," said senior researcher Dr. Alain Milot, a professor of medicine at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada.

"Interventions to reduce long working hours should be part of public health and enterprise efforts to adapt the working environment of coronary patients," he added.

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An estimated 20% of workers worldwide put in more than 48 hours a week, according to the International Labour Office.

For the study, Milot's team collected data on nearly 1,000 men and women who in the mid-1990s were under 60 years of age, had a history of heart attack and were working.

The participants were interviewed and filled out questionnaires over six years to study cases of heart disease, lifestyle risk factors and hospital readmission rates.

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The questionnaires also asked about on-the-job exposure to smoking; chemicals; pollution; noise; excessive heat, cold or physical exertion; and the number of hours worked each week.

The researchers also measured participants' levels of stress, job strain, and social support during and outside work.

Over six years, 22% of the study participants had a second heart attack. Working long hours doubled their risk of a second one, the investigators found.

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Men and younger workers were more likely to work long hours, as were those who smoked, drank alcohol and were physically inactive. Workers whose jobs were stressful were also more likely to work longer hours, the questionnaires revealed.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow is interim chief of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

He reviewed the study findings and said that "men and women who report having long hours working have been shown in prior research to be at higher risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke and premature cardiovascular death."

Fonarow, however, said too few patients studied had second heart attacks to draw any decisive conclusions.

"As there were only 95 individuals in this long work-hour group, further larger studies are needed [to determine] whether or not alteration of work hours alone would directly influence recurrent event risk," he said.

Fonarow said the best way to prevent a repeat heart attack is with proven medical care.

"There are a number of effective medications, participation in cardiac rehabilitation and lifestyle modifications that can effectively reduce the risk of recurrent cardiovascular events," he said. "Intensive application of these evidence-based, guideline-recommended, cardiovascular event-reducing interventions are needed."

Dr. Jian Li of UCLA's Fielding School of Public Health co-authored an editorial that accompanied the findings.

The editorial suggested heart attack patients complete a standard questionnaire about their work hours and job stress to help doctors address their specific treatment needs. Li also noted that cardiac rehab programs that already provide healthy lifestyle training also show patients ways to relax and be more resilient.

The findings were published online this week in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.More information

For more about heart attacks, head to the American Heart Association.

Copyright 2021 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Report: Black patients often treated at hospitals with worse safety records

By Alan Mozes, HealthDay News
3/30/2021

Black people are more likely to receive care at hospitals with worse safety records, and less likely to be admitted to those with better records, according to new research. File Photo by Kzenon/Shutterstock

Compared with White patients, Black adults are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to hospital safety in the United States, a new report warns.

Black patients are significantly less likely to gain access to "high-quality" hospitals, an Urban Institute analysis found.

As a result, they're much more likely to undergo surgical procedures in facilities with relatively poor safety records.

"We've known that Black and White adult patients experience differences in hospital patient safety measures for several decades," said study author Anuj Gangopadhyaya. He is a senior research associate at the institute's Health Policy Center.

RELATED Study: Black patients get worse care after cardiac arrest

"This study's focus was to ask whether these differences are, in part, driven by differences in the quality of hospitals that Black and White patients are able to access," he said.

The answer: yes.

For the study, researchers for the institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., analyzed 2017 patient data gathered by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality from 26 states. The report, released Monday, looked at 11 safety measures.
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Four concerned general medical safety issues, such as pressure ulcer rates and in-hospital falls with hip fractures. The other seven involved surgical safety, including hemorrhage, post-op infections and respiratory failure rates.

"On nine of 11 patient safety measures, White patients were significantly more likely to be admitted into high-quality hospitals," said Gangopadhyaya. High-quality hospitals were defined as those with the best safety track records.

Some of the highest-quality hospitals essentially present zero safety risk to patients, which indicates "there are clearly protocols in place that can virtually eliminate some of these patient safety risks," he noted.

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"Put simply," Gangopadhyaya said, "the payoff in being admitted into a high-quality hospital relative to a low-quality one is extremely large."

The report revealed that Black patients are nearly 8 percentage points more likely than White patients to get admitted to hospitals that rank as "low-quality" by all seven measures used to assess surgery-related patient safety.

Seen in reverse, Black patients were also found to be 5 percentage points less likely to gain access to facilities ranking "high-quality" on every measure of surgical safety.

Differences in insurance coverage didn't explain the racial divide, the report found.

Even when solely looking at White and Black patients who sought care with the same type of coverage -- Medicare -- the findings of a racial gap held up. In terms of overall patient safety, Blacks fared worse.

The analysis did not explore why Black people are at such a safety disadvantage.

But Delmonte Jefferson, executive director of the Center for Black Health & Equity in Durham, N.C., said the findings reflect a longstanding racial care divide.

"The underlying reason for the gaps that are identified stem from elements of systemic racism and institutional oppression that restricts access to quality health care," he said.

"We've battled these elements since The Freedmen's Bureau Act -- the nation's first federal health care program -- was established in the War Department by an act of Congress in 1865 to provide relief, educational activities, food, clothing and medicine to newly freed slaves," Jefferson said.

"Even then, lawmakers removed language from the act that would provide quality access to medical care for all," he noted.

So what can be done?

Gangopadhyaya said current efforts aimed at penalizing low-quality hospitals or cutting off Medicare reimbursements in the face of poor safety records are "ineffective" at rectifying racial safety gaps.

"An alternative approach may be to provide resources to low-quality institutions to enable them to adopt and implement protocols that have been successful at high-quality hospitals," he said.

But Jefferson rounded back to what he described as the root of the problem.

"If the root is systemic racism and institutional oppression, then we must root out the cancerous and infected systems," he said. "In some cases, a complete overhaul of systems is required. In other cases, enforcement of existing health care policies and practices could alleviate the problem."

As Jefferson sees it, "hospital systems are not penalized for not providing access to quality care for all. Not only should substantial consequences be enacted, they should be strenuously enforced."

More information
There's more about racial health disparities at the Center for Black Health & Equity.


Copyright 2021 HealthDay.