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St. Josaphat Catholic Church is a Roman Catholic church in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago. / Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0

CNA Staff, Sep 12, 2024 / 14:30 pm (CNA).

A recently ordained priest in Chicago is denying accusations from Illinois state officials that he molested a child during a recent penance service that allegedly took place at a youth retreat.

A letter from Chicago archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich to St. Josaphat Parish, posted this month to the Archdiocese of Chicago’s website, said the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) “has opened an investigation into allegations they termed child exploitation and child molestation” allegedly committed by Father Martin Nyberg.

The incident allegedly occurred during a “public penance service,” according to the archbishop. Nyberg has served as an associate pastor at St. Josaphat in the city’s Sheffield neighborhood since July of this year, the prelate said.

The 28-year-old priest “strenuously denies the allegations,” Cupich wrote, though the archdiocese “reported the allegations to civil authorities and offered assistance to the accusers” in accordance with archdiocesan policy.

“I asked Father Nyberg to step aside from ministry until civil authorities have completed their investigations and our Independent Review Board has presented its recommendations to me,” Cupich wrote. 

“Father Nyberg agreed to cooperate fully with this process, and we will provide him with pastoral assistance as he awaits its outcome.”

The archbishop sent a similar letter to members of St. Paul of the Cross Parish, where Nyberg served as a deacon from 2023 to 2024.

The Archdiocese of Chicago did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday regarding the timeline of the independent review board’s investigation as well as a query about the nature of the “public penance service.”

But CBS News Chicago reported that the alleged incident reportedly took place at an “eighth-grade confirmation retreat” in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, in late August.

Students allegedly “said they were asked inappropriate sexual questions at the aforementioned confession service during the two-day overnight retreat,” while some said they were “touched inappropriately by Nyberg.” 

DCFS spokeswoman Heather Tarczan, meanwhile, told CNA on Thursday that the department’s investigation “just started and we are working with local law enforcement.”

“At this time, we cannot say exactly how long it will take,” she said.

According to the Chicago Catholic, Nyberg was born in Chicago and attended The Catholic University of America and the University of St. Mary of the Lake/Mundelein Seminary.

He was ordained on May 18 of this year and celebrated his first Mass at St. Edward Parish in Chicago.

This summer we spent some time in New York City, visiting the 9/11 memorial.

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Israeli culture and national service has given me a renewed understanding of American identity.

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Jennie Bradley Lichter is set to become the new president of the March for Life Education and Defense Fund. / Credit: Photo courtesy of March for Life Education and Defense Fund

CNA Staff, Sep 12, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).

The March for Life announced Thursday that longtime president Jeanne Mancini will pass the torch early next year to Jennie Bradley Lichter, a leading pro-life legal advocate and scholar.

“Leading the March for Life has been the honor and opportunity of a lifetime, one for which I will be forever grateful. There have been countless highlights during my time as president of March for Life, including the momentous overturn of Roe v. Wade,” said Mancini, who has led the pro-life organization for the past 12 years.

“I’m convinced that building a culture of life through compassionate public witness to the inherent dignity of the unborn and their mothers is as critically important today as it was the tragic day abortion was first legalized in the United States — or at any time since,” she said.

“I am more than delighted to watch how the organization will continue to grow under Jennie Bradley Lichter’s leadership.”

Catholic pro-life activist Nellie Gray founded the March for Life in Washington, D.C., in 1974 following the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide. 

The organization, which now bills its march as the world’s largest annual human rights demonstration, celebrated its 51st anniversary with this year’s gathering, which took place in late January and attracted tens of thousands.

Mancini was only the second person to serve as president of the March for Life, after Gray herself, who died in 2012. Mancini’s tenure of a dozen years was marked by “consistent and extraordinarily fruitful growth,” the group says, which includes the establishment of a “rapidly expanding” state march program, already present in 16 states. 

Other major milestones under Mancini’s leadership include hosting for the first time the sitting vice president and president of the United States at the national March in 2020 as well as the landmark 2022 Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which returned the power to legislate on abortion to the states. 

Mancini said the annual march remains a vital part of the pro-life movement for several reasons — as a participation in history, as a witness to the importance of caring for pregnant women through pro-life pregnancy centers and other means, and as a recognition that the pro-life movement still has work to do — especially in the 10 states with abortion on the ballot this year. 

“We have certainly had some tough [ballot box] losses in the past couple of years, but we are living in what I perceive to be the cultural earthquake of the overturn of Roe, which is a season and will pass,” Mancini noted.

“While this season shows the profound need to educate and change hearts and minds about the destructive nature of abortion to both mother and baby, it does not in any way mean that the overturn of Roe was a mistake,” she said.

“Consider that nearly half the states have enacted life protective laws prior to the time of viability — something that couldn’t happen under a Roe regime.”

‘The spirit of a longtime marcher’

Lichter, who most recently served as deputy general counsel at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., brings a broad range of legal and policy experience in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including at “the highest levels of the federal government,” the March for Life says. She also has served as senior legal fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute. 

In addition to being a “longtime marcher,” Lichter is a married mother of three and founded an initiative at The Catholic University of America — the Guadalupe Project — to provide tangible resources and support to expectant mothers and their children. 

She said this week she is “looking forward to leading the March for Life’s engagement in conversations about legal strategy.”

“When I first began attending the National March as a college student over 20 years ago, I never could have dreamed that someday I would have the honor of leading it,” Lichter said. 

“I have long loved the positive spirit of the March, the youthfulness, the energy, the esprit de corps, the doggedness that is required of those who show up in late January whatever the weather,” she said.

“Although my vantage point at the National March will be changing, I will be bringing the spirit of a longtime marcher into my new role. And I’m looking forward to continuing to march alongside so many others who are committed to witnessing to the dignity of every human life.”

Lichter’s tenure as president will begin in February 2025. Mancini will continue to serve on the March for Life’s board of directors, the group says.

“Political and cultural winds can and do change, but no matter what happens on the ballot or in the courts or the national conversation this year or any other year, there will still be many, many thousands of Americans who will be looking to the March for Life for guidance. For leadership. For hope. For joyful witness,” Lichter continued.

“And most of all, for an opportunity to be together — in D.C. in January, every single year, or in state capitals across the country — and to show that pro-life Americans are still here, we are still motivated, we will never, ever tire of witnessing together to the beauty and dignity and utter preciousness of human life. In my mind, that’s the most powerful thing about this organization.  It is such an honor to have an opportunity to lead it. I can’t wait to get started.”

(RNS) — No one is going to eat Rover.

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Pope Francis addresses leaders at the National University of Singapore on Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. / Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA

Rome Newsroom, Sep 12, 2024 / 12:05 pm (CNA).

Pope Francis on Thursday praised Singapore for its “shining example” in building a united country based on harmony and cooperation but highlighted risks rapid progress could have on the family, human relationships, and the weakest members of society.      

A day after landing in the wealthy Southeast Asian city-state, also known as “Lion City,” the Holy Father met with President Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in separate meetings at Parliament House on Sept. 12.

The pope expressed his admiration for the dedication of the country’s past and present leaders to build unity amid a diversity of ethnicities, religions, and cultures.

“Like the star that guided the Magi, so let the light of wisdom always guide Singapore in building a united society capable of conveying hope,” the pope wrote in Singapore’s honor book in Parliament House.

Home to approximately 5.9 million people, Singapore was ranked by Global Finance as the world’s fourth-richest nation in 2024 with a GDP of $133,737. Since becoming a republic in 1965, led by the country’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, for 25 years, the country experienced rapid growth and transformation. 

In a speech addressed to civil leaders and the diplomatic corp at the National University of Singapore (NUS), the pope said the county is a clear testimony of human ingenuity and entrepreneurial dynamism. 

The Holy Father expressed hope that the nation with the motto “Majulah Singapura” (“Onward Singapore”) will not forget the poor, elderly, and migrant workers.

“I would like to highlight the risk entailed in focusing solely on pragmatism or placing merit above all things, namely the unintended consequence of justifying the exclusion of those on the margins from benefiting from progress,” the pope said to the country’s leaders.

“I recognize and commend the various policies and initiatives put in place to support the most vulnerable, and I hope that special attention will be paid to the poor and the elderly — whose labors have laid the foundations for the Singapore we see today — as well as to protecting the dignity of migrant workers,” the pope said. 

“These workers contribute a great deal to society and should be guaranteed a fair wage.”

In light of Singapore’s rapidly-aging population and low fertility rates, the pope emphasized his concern for family life and the need for genuine human relationships in a technologically advanced world.

“The sophisticated technologies of the digital age and rapid developments in the use of artificial intelligence must not lead us to forget about the essential need to cultivate real and concrete human relationships,” he said to those gathered in the university theater. 

“We see that the foundations on which families are built are being challenged by current social conditions and run the risk of being weakened,” he continued.

“Families must be allowed to transmit the values that give meaning and shape to life and to teach young people how to form solid and healthy relationships.” 

Last year, NUS published “Singapore Aging: Issues and Challenges Ahead,” a book written by the university’s academics and launched by Singapore’s former prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, highlighting the country’s need to adapt to the needs of a senior population. In 2020, 1 in 6 Singaporeans were age 65 or older.

On Friday, the final day of his longest, four-country apostolic journey to Asia and Oceania, Pope Francis will visit the elderly at the Catholic nursing home St. Theresa’s Home and attend a youth-led interreligious meeting at Catholic Junior College as well as celebrate Mass privately and have a private meeting with clergy and religious.