Saturday, November 30, 2013

The "J" word.

I know what you are saying.  What is the J word exactly?

Well, the J word is JESUS.

In this very short blog post, I am inviting you to use the J word more this year.  

I know that some of you are aware that we have begun Advent and that Advent is the beginning of the church's new year of grace, but remember, not everyone knows that.  Sometimes we Catholics, even with the best of intentions, make following Jesus a little more complicated than it needs to be.  We sometimes get ahead of ourselves when trying to make new followers of Jesus.  We presume that people know words like advent or liturgy or hierarchy, the list goes on and on.  Since many of us have grown up as Catholics, we use these words effortlessly.  But people who have not yet accepted Jesus or have not heard of his love need to hear the J word more from our lips.

So let this be your new year's resolution: use the J word more!


Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Black Friday -"Don't be that guy!"

A meaningful Black Friday?   Sure, why not??

Just because you are looking for a great deal on Black Friday doesn't mean you have to become one of THEM!


You know who I mean - those shallow, frenzied buyers so wrapped up in themselves that they are oblivious to everyone else. Don't be that guy! But really, does anyone think of themselves as "that guy?"

We just sort of end up that way if we're not careful about our Black Friday behavior.

So here are some practical suggestions for a fun, meaningful and holy Black Friday:

1. Be healthy - eat a good breakfast before heading out and stop for lunch too. A hungry, tired shopper makes for a mean person by noon!  Your body and your soul are one; each affects the other!

2. Be realistic - no, you don't need to get everything on Black Friday.  Be mentally prepared for sell outs and disappointments. Don't ruin your day (and everyone else's) with a nasty attitude because things didn't go your way.

3. Be concerned - don't walk by people as if they are invisible.  Say this blessing silently when you walk by a fellow shopper: "peace be with you!"  or "God bring peace to your life!"  Say an extra prayer of thanks for those who have to work on Black Friday, especially for cashiers!.

4. Be centered - you are so much more important than the stuff you buy!  You are already a gift to all the people in your life. Thank God he made you. Thankful people are centered people.

5. Be holy - see all those people???   Each is unique.  Each is a gift from God.  Each is your brother or sister.  Treat them that way. As Pope Francis recently wrote: "The joy of the Gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus." Jesus is with you, even on Black Friday!  Remember that and holiness is yours to share!

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Can you help us feed the poor Christmas Morning?

For the past couple of years, St. Benedict's has supported Little Portion Friary by serving breakfast to their guests on Thanksgiving and Christmas morning.
Parishioners generously donated their time and/or prepared breakfast items to help make a meal that much more special for those less fortunate. Denise Levy spearheaded this effort for many years and, as many of you know, Denise and her family have relocated to Dallas.

In keeping the tradition alive, Fred & Mimi Fadel have generously volunteered to coordinate the breakfast and to serve on Thanksgiving and Christmas mornings. 
We are currently all set for Thanksgiving but if you are interested in helping to serve and/or donate a prepared item for Christmas morning, we can certainly use your help!

If you would like to help serve, please email me at mattandag@mac.com. We can take up to 8 volunteers. 

If you are interested in providing food, here's the basic list of breakfast items we'd like to provide. If you're interested in sending something not listed, please email me.  
                    We would like to stay away from too many sugary baked goods as Little Portion 
                    receives many donated doughnuts and sweets. 

I've listed 4 egg items or egg bakes. If you want to provide one of them but don't have a recipe, I have an easy one I'd be glad to share.

General info: There are approximately 8 women and 18 men plus some volunteers on the premises. They eat in separate dining rooms so we try to divide the items among the two dining rooms accordingly. Breakfast is served at 9:00 am.

Fred & Mimi will meet folks in the Westfield parking lot at 8:15 Christmas morning. People providing the hot items should bring them hot. The Fadels will leave for Little Portion by 8:30, get there, set up and serve. The guests are responsible for clean up.
Breakfast items needed:

Eggs/Egg Bake:  
Eggs/Egg Bake:  
Eggs/Egg Bake:  
Eggs/Egg Bake:  
Bagels – dozen:  Megan Andrews, Strauss Family
Bagels – dozen:  Megan Andrews, Strauss Family
Bagels – dozen:  Strauss Family
Cream cheese – 3 bricks:  
Orange juice – 2 gallons:  
Orange juice – 2 gallons:  
Potatoes:  
Potatoes:  
Whole fruit (need 3 folks): David Croglio
Please email me back at mattandag@mac.com and let me know what you’re interested in providing for the breakfast and/or serving.

Thank you!

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Diocesan Campaign for Phillippines Relief

Parish collection to aid Philippines typhoon victims

Most Reverend Richard J. Malone, Bishop of Buffalo, has asked all parishes of the Diocese of Buffalo to take up a special collection the weekends of Nov. 30-Dec.1, to assist the work of Catholic Relief Services in aiding those affected by Super-Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. 

Proceeds will be forwarded to Catholic Relief Services, which is managing the U.S. Catholic Church's emergency response in the affected areas, to help typhoon victims begin to rebuild their lives.

“When it comes to responding to those in need, be it in Western New York or halfway around the world, the faithful of the diocese have a long history of tremendous generosity, and I fully expect that will be the case with this special collection as well,” said Bishop Malone, a member of the Catholic Relief Services Board of Directors.

Catholic Relief Services, in cooperation with its partners, will provide 100,000 families (500,000 people) with shelter, essential living supplies, and clean water and sanitation, and will continue to identify the most vulnerable communities that need assistance.   Catholic Relief Services said it hopes to raise $20 million for this vital emergency response.

Catholic Relief Services’ presence in the Philippines is its oldest continuously operating country program. Prompted by the mass destruction and loss of life in the Philippines during World War II, Catholic Relief Services, then called War Relief Services, first launched relief efforts in that country in 1945. Just one year later, the agency was providing supplies to more than 800,000 people.

Today, Catholic Relief Services focuses on agro-enterprise and peace building programs in Mindanao and has teams at the ready to respond to natural disasters. Catholic Relief Services’ agricultural programs in the Philippines lift small-scale farmers from poverty by linking them to more profitable markets.  The peace building programs lessen violence, improve livelihoods and help create tolerance in the south.
 

For more on Catholic Relief Services, visit
http://crs.org/

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Catholic Schools Survey - everyone welcome!

We need your help!

Please complete this survey about Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Buffalo:
http://surveys.questionpro.com/a/t/ACFTnZQUjV


Thanks for sharing your views!  We are grateful.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Help us help the Homeless on Thanksgiving!

For the past couple of years, St. Benedict's has supported Little Portion Friary by serving breakfast to their guests on Thanksgiving morning.

Parishioners generously donated their time and/or prepared breakfast items to help make Thanksgiving that much more special for those less fortunate. Denise Levy spearheaded this effort for many years and, as many of you know, Denise and her family have relocated to Dallas.

In keeping the tradition alive, Fred & Mimi Fadel have generously volunteered to coordinate the breakfast and to serve on Thanksgiving morning. If you are interested in helping to serve, please contact Fred at fadelfm@aol.com

If you are interested in providing breakfast items, we can sure use them! 

Here's the basic list of breakfast items we'd like to provide. If you're interested in sending something not listed, please email me and/or Fred & Mimi. We would like to stay away from too many sugary baked goods as Little Portion receives many donated doughnuts and sweets. 


 
I've listed 4 egg items or egg bakes. If you're interested in providing one of them but don't have a recipe, I have an easy one I'd be glad to share.

General info: There are approximately 8 women and 18 men plus some volunteers on the premises. They eat in separate dining rooms so we try to divide the items among the two dining rooms accordingly. Breakfast is served at 9:00 am.

Fred & Mimi will meet folks in the Westfield parking lot at 8:15 Thanksgiving morning. People providing the hot items should bring them hot. The Fadels will leave for Little Portion by 8:30, get there, set up and serve. The guests are responsible for cleaning.
Breakfast items needed:
Eggs/Egg Bake:
Eggs/Egg Bake:
Eggs/Egg Bake:
Eggs/Egg Bake:
Bagels – dozen:
Bagels – dozen:
Bagels – dozen:
Cream cheese – 3 bricks:
Orange juice – 2 gallons:
Orange juice – 2 gallons:
Potatoes:Potatoes:
Whole fruit:

Please email me back and let me know what you’re interested in providing for the breakfast. If I’ve left anything out, please don’t hesitate to contact me. mattandag@mac.com

Thank you,
Agnes Smith

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Affordable Care Act - health plans that exclude abortion coverage

October 25, 2013

MEMORANDUM

To:       Diocesan Pro-Life Coordinators
            State Catholic Conference Directors

From:  Associate Director, USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities

Re:       Finding a health plan on the state exchanges that excludes abortion coverage


The USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities has received a number of requests from concerned Catholics who are anxious to know how they can find a health plan without elective abortion coverage on the state exchanges authorized by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  I imagine some of you have received these requests as well.

At the outset, it is important to note that this memorandum is dealing with deliberately induced abortions performed after implantation – that is, the procedures recognized as abortions by state and federal laws, whether performed by surgery or by drugs such as RU-486.  We continue to seek recourse from the HHS “preventive services” rule requiring almost all health plans to cover drugs and devices approved by the FDA as contraceptives, including some that may act as abortifacients very early in pregnancy; but that threat to conscience is a distinct problem legally and is not addressed here.

The potential pool of Americans interested in the abortion coverage question is quite large.  When we polled Americans on issues relating to health care reform in 2009, 56% of respondents opposed (and only 32% supported) measures that would require people to pay for abortion coverage in their premiums.  An even larger majority of 68% said that if the choice was theirs, they would not want abortion covered in their own insurance policy (including 69% of women, and 62% of those who supported health care reform efforts).  Yet the reality in the new exchanges is complex, and it can be very difficult to find out whether a given plan covers elective abortions.

There are three ways we can help Catholics and other pro-life Americans find a health plan that does not violate their conscience on abortion.

First, we can help find out which health plans have chosen to exclude or restrict abortion coverage, and share that information with others.  Generally (with the notable exceptions listed below), each insurer on the exchanges is free to decide under what circumstances, if any, it will cover abortion (42 U.S.C. § 18023(b)(1)(A)).

Second, we can support federal legislation to make it easier for people to find out which plans include or exclude abortion.  Currently the Affordable Care Act forbids plans to reveal their policy on abortion coverage except as part of the “summary of benefits and coverage explanation, at the time of enrollment” when people are already signing up for a plan; it also forbids them to tell enrollees how much of their premium payment will go into a separate account to pay for abortions (42 U.S.C. § 18023(b)(3)). Recently Rep. Chris Smith introduced an “Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act” (HR 3279) to reverse these policies and require transparency on abortion coverage; we should urge all members of Congress to support this bill.

Third, we can help inform people about the abortion exclusions created by state or federal laws.  Some states have acted to exclude most abortions from all health plans on their exchanges; and in other states, the ACA itself requires at least one “multi-state plan” to exclude most abortions. These are explained below.  This information is provided as general background, and is not intended to take the place of more specific advice from your own diocesan counsel.  

A. State Abortion Opt-Outs

In 23 states, most abortions are excluded from all plans on the exchange by state law.  The states’ authority to enact such “abortion opt-outs,” without preemption by the federal ACA, is recognized in the ACA itself (42 U.S.C. § 18023(a) & (c)).  This exclusion governs the exchange regardless of whether the state established its own exchange, or left that task to the federal government.  The 23 states are:


Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas*
Florida
Idaho
Indiana*
Kansas*
Kentucky*
Louisiana*
Mississippi
Missouri*
Nebraska
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma*
Pennsylvania*
South Carolina*
South Dakota
Tennessee*
Utah
Virginia*
Wisconsin*


The 12 states with an asterisk (*) also have at least one multi-state plan that should exclude abortions except for cases of danger to the mother’s life or rape/incest.  That issue is discussed below.

Some of these states exclude abortion from all health plans sold in the state (not only plans on the exchange), usually allowing abortion coverage to be purchased only as an optional rider funded by those who choose the coverage.  Some also exclude abortion from health coverage for state employees.  And the states differ in the exceptions they make for limited circumstances, in which insurers may cover abortions as part of an overall health plan (which is not to say that they must offer such limited coverage). This is how the 23 states fare on exceptions: No exception, 2 states; life of the mother only, 6 states; life/rape/incest, 10 states; life and serious, long-lasting physical health damage (or equivalent words), 2 states; similar life and health exception, plus cases of rape and incest, 2 states; life/rape/incest/serious physical health/fetal defect, 1 state.  To see how your state handles these variables, see this chart from the National Right to Life Committee:
www.nrlc.org/uploads/ahc/InsuranceCoverageAbortionRegs.pdf

B. Federally Approved “Multi-State Plans”
 
ACA requires the federal Office of Personnel Management (OPM) to approve at least two “multi-state” health plans.  These plans are offered by private insurers, but screened and approved by the federal government to be offered across state lines and ultimately (by the fourth year that a given insurer contracts with OPM) in every one of the 50 states.  So far OPM has approved only one such multi-state plan, offered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield (BC/BS), which will be available in at least 30 states in 2014 (see OPM link provided below) and in all 50 states beginning in 2017. The ACA (42 U.S.C. § 18054(a)(6)) provides:

“In entering into contracts under this subsection [dealing with oversight by OPM], the Director [of OPM] shall ensure that with respect to multi-State qualified health plans offered in an Exchange, there is at least one such plan that does not provide coverage of services described in section 18023(b)(1)(B)(i)…” [that is, abortions ineligible for federal funding under the current Hyde amendment].

So in each of these 30 states, we believe there should be a multi-state plan that excludes abortion coverage except for cases of danger to the mother’s life, rape or incest.  Whether this is actually taking place in each state remains to be proved.

As noted above, 12 of these 30 states have their own law excluding most abortions from all plans on the exchange; the multi-state plan must obey that law if one exists.  But regardless of whether a given state has such a law or not, the multi-state plan must not cover abortions except for cases of life endangerment or rape/incest (with the caveat that even life endangerment and rape/incest abortions must be excluded in a particular state if that state’s law requires the exclusion).  In 18 states and the District of Columbia there is no state law limiting abortion coverage, so the only current legal requirement for a relatively abortion-free plan of which we are aware is that state’s multi-state plan (which should be BC/BS, as that is the only multi-state plan approved so far), though other plans may exclude abortion if the insurer chooses.  Those 18 states are:


Alaska
California
Colorado
Delaware
Georgia
Illinois
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Montana
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Mexico
New York
Texas
Washington
West Virginia


More details on the multi-state plans are available here:
www.opm.gov/healthcare-insurance/multi-state-plan-program/opm-multi-state-plan-program-fact-sheet/

A glance at this web site reveals one source of possible confusion: Across the 30 states, OPM says it has approved a grand total of 154 “plan options” (ranging from two options in a number of states, to 36 in Alaska). These seem to be variations by regional provider network, and/or by premium amount and deductible (e.g., “bronze” vs. “silver” or “gold” plans).  We believe that all these options should be treated as part of just one Blue Cross/Blue Shield multi-state plan, therefore excluding elective abortion under all options.  However, it is not yet clear whether that is the way OPM interprets its obligation to ensure that “at least one” plan in each state excludes elective abortions, so further research on this point is needed.  We will be researching this issue further at the federal level, and would greatly appreciate any information you can obtain about the way abortion is being treated by multi-state plans in your state.

Finally, some state exchanges may also have a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan that is not part of the multi-state plan program, and therefore may not be covered by the federal abortion exclusion.  Only plans marked as a BC/BS “multi-state plan” or “MSP” will qualify.

C. Other States
 
This leaves 9 states where it appears, from the information available to us, that neither state nor federal law currently guarantees the availability of even one relatively abortion-free plan (though insurers are free to offer such a plan if they choose):


Connecticut
Hawaii
Iowa
Minnesota
New Jersey
Oregon
Rhode Island
Vermont
Wyoming




These states could change their situation either by passing a state “abortion opt-out” law, or by encouraging a carrier like Blue Cross/Blue Shield to extend its multi-state plan to that state.  

We hope this information is helpful, and we would welcome hearing about any further clarification you learn about in your own state.