News - August 2019 RSS Feed

On August 13, 2019 bishops from two committees at the United States Conference at Catholic Bishops (USCCB) expressed their strong opposition to a final rule on public charge put forth by the Department of Homeland Security. A rule on public charge would deny green cards to immigrants who receive public assistance, including food stamps, Medicaid, and housing vouchers. The rule was published on August 12, 2019 and would take effect sixty days after publication.

On August 8, 2019, Bishops from three committees at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) expressed deep concern about racism and xenophobia has apparently motivated the massacre in El Paso and that have motivated numerous other mass shootings in the United States. The Chairmen called on our elected officials to exert leadership in seeking to heal the wounds that these shootings have caused and to deal with the scourges of racism, xenophobia, and religious bigotry, including refraining from hurtful, painful, and divisive rhetoric that dehumanizes and polarizes people on the basis of their race, religion, ethnicity, or national origin.

I often write my column for the bulletin at least a week before it appears in the bulletin. I am sitting on a computer on Sunday afternoon (August 4) very sad because of the outbreak of violence that has happened in the last week or so. The sadness is compounded by the shootings that occurred yesterday (August 3) in El Paso, Texas and very early this morning (August 4) in Dayton, Ohio.

On Tuesday, July 23, 2019, the Holy See announced that the Most Reverend Mark E. Brennan, an auxiliary bishop in Baltimore, had been named the ninth bishop of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, West Virginia. Bishop Brennan is well known to many in the parish, particularly since he was the Pastor of St. Martin of Tours Parish in Gaithersburg, when he was named to be an auxiliary bishop in Baltimore.