Month: November 2010

Troubled Catholic resettlement office to restart Virginia program

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Back in March and early April Fredericksburg, VA area churches had said ‘no more!’—no more refugees should be resettled until the hundreds recently brought to the Fredericksburg area were properly resettled and their needs met.  Now comes news that the troubled Catholic Diocese of Arlington refugee office has reformed itself somehow and more refugees will be coming to this region of Virginia.

From Fredericksburg.com:

As many as 100 refugees could come to the Fredericksburg area in the next year.

Officials with the Catholic Diocese of Arlington’s Office of Migration and Refugee Services announced the expected arrivals seven months after area church leaders asked the federal government to stop the flow of refugees here.

But refugee services officials also announced different leadership and more staff in the local resettlement office.

And area volunteers hope that this time around, refugees will be resettled successfully, thanks to the shakeup in the refugee services office.

“I believe we can do this in a much better way than we experienced last March,” said the Rev. Ted Snow, pastor of Regester United Methodist Church in Stafford County. Snow said he is “a staunch supporter” of resettlement, but in March he joined area local leaders criticizing the local process.

Over the past five years, more than 500 refugees have resettled in the Fredericksburg area.

Federal government drops off refugees and promptly forgets them!

I’ve heard that many times before, as well as the complaint that there is little communication with the federal contractors, like the Catholic one here in Fredericksburg. 

In the past three years, local officials have criticized the resettlement process, saying it seemed that the federal government invited the refugees in, dropped them into the area and promptly forgot about them.

They also complained that the local resettlement office was understaffed and failed to communicate with groups offering to help refugees get on their feet here.

Tensions rose as church leaders, social workers, educators and volunteers struggled to meet the demands of an often needy population. They provided transportation, English classes, summer camps, jobs and financial help.

In March, about 20 volunteers, clergy, social workers and educators met with resettlement leaders and state and federal government officials.

That meeting did little to smooth tensions, but the refugees services officials promised to communicate more with the community.

One local church leader says ‘no thanks,’ we will take care of the still struggling refugees previously brought to the area.

Other church leaders said they are going to give the new leadership a chance, but they aren’t sure things will improve.

Some who have helped with resettlement efforts in the past have said they won’t attend the meeting. They plan to concentrate on helping the refugees who are already here.

The Rev. Larry Haun, one of the most vocal leaders calling for a halt in local resettlements, will not attend. His congregation, Fredericksburg Baptist Church, still helps dozens of newcomer families with transportation, money, tutoring, school supplies, clothes and more.

“I wish them well. I hope it goes well, but we’ve got more than we can do with what we have now,” Haun said.

Catholic Bishops aim to bring their flocks around on global warming

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

…..and gotta save those climate refugees!

In a book review on climate refugees, Todd Scribner, employed by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, says the Bishops are working on changing the minds of skeptical Catholics on global warming (aka climate change, when the warming didn’t pan out).  This climate refugee book just might help do the trick, he says!

The review of‘Climate Refugee’ at National Catholic Reporter begins:

This book argues that the legal definition of a refugee should be expanded to cover those severely affected by the environmental consequences of climate change.

Some estimates predict that as climate change continues, as many 200 million people will be displaced worldwide by the end of the century. Collectif Argos is a group of 10 France-based journalists, writers and photographers who have documented the effects of environmental change in photo and essay format.

The authors focus on nine sites around the world, including the United States, Bangladesh, Chad, Nepal and a small island in the Pacific Ocean, Tuvalu.

[….]

Given the reality of global warming, this book is timely, as is rethinking the definition of “refugee.” [Some in the refugee industry do not want the definition changed, here—-ed]

Catholics, like other Americans, are skeptical of the proposition that global warming (aka climate change) is induced by human activity especially after “Climategate.”

Recognizing “climate refugees” as a legal category faces obstacles. The recent “Climategate” controversy raised hackles in some circles regarding the validity of human-induced climate change. If these objections were restricted to a handful of talking heads, there would be little reason for concern. Unfortunately, there is evidence that skepticism over the science of human-induced climate change has broad appeal. The results of a March Gallup poll revealed that only half of Americans agree to the proposition that climate change is caused by human activity, down from 61 percent just seven years earlier.

American Catholics are not exempt from this tendency. Although slightly dated, the results from a Pew Forum poll published in April 2009 showed that Catholics in the United States are wary of the issue, with only 44 percent of those polled in agreement with the claim that we are experiencing human-induced global warming.

Skeptics beware:  The Catholic Bishops are working hard with your tax dollars to convince you that you are wrong!

While many Catholics may be skeptical, my work at the U.S. bishops’ conference demonstrates that the bishops take this issue seriously. This is particularly apparent through their establishment of the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change.  This coalition, comprised of approximately a dozen national Catholic organizations, recognizes the devastating effect of climate change, particularly on the world’s poor, and the likelihood of displacement that will come with it. Through this coalition the bishops seek to educate the Catholic public and convince them of the peril of human-induced climate change.

Climate Refugees [this book] could provide a useful resource to achieve this objective.

By the way, when you visit the ‘coalition’ note that the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, is a branch of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.  For new readers these are socialist political activists discussed recently in another book—this one on President Obama’s early years, here, in an interview at National Review Online:

Author Stanley Kurtz on ‘Radical-in-chief:’

…. the community organizing I discuss in the book is a self-consciously radical tradition that flows from the early achievements of Saul Alinsky, along with the work of Students for a Democratic Society and the National Welfare Rights Organization in the early-to-mid 1960s. The leadership of these groups was largely socialist, and remained so as they moved into community organizing in the 1970s and beyond. More to the point, the community organizers who trained and worked with Obama were largely socialist, although they made a point of not advertising that fact. Even the Catholic Campaign for Human Development, a faith-based group that has done much to support community organizing (including Obama’s own early work), is an effectively socialist group, although it doesn’t say so directly. My book carefully unpacks a great deal of archival evidence to substantiate these claims.

Also for new readers, I showed you here last month how much of your tax dollars go to funding the political activities (supposedly to help refugees resettle) of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

So, it’s no surprise that the USCCB is busy trying to change the definition of refugee to include those forced to move due to environmental factors—refugees are their cash cow and the refugees themselves will be their reliable Left-leaning (socialist!) voters of tomorrow.

Endnote:  It’s been 20 years since I first learned about the big foundations with atheist strategists, particularly Pew Charitable Trusts, coming up with the idea of infiltrating church groups with a project called —Greening the Churches.  Now we see their fruits.