Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jul 28, 2018 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Dozens of women clad in outfits reminiscent of “The Handmaid’s Tale” took to the streets of Buenos Aires Wednesday to protest for legalized abortion, the AP reported.
Abortion is currently illegal in Argentina except for in cases of rape or to save the life of the mother. Recently, however, the country’s Chamber of Deputies approved a bill that would legalize the procedure through the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. The bill would also allow people under the age of 16 to receive an abortion without notifying their parents.
Around the world, including in the United States, pro-abortion rights demonstrators have adopted regalia from The Handmaid’s Tale at their protests. The 1985 novel, which was recently adapted into a television series for the online network Hulu, tells the story of a dystopian future where women have no rights and some are forced to bear children for their masters.
The book’s author, Margaret Atwood, has publicly supported the Argentine protestors, and wrote them a letter that was read at the July 25 march. She has also criticized Argentine leadership for being against abortion.
The Argentine Senate will consider that bill Aug. 8, and President Mauricio Macri said he does not intend on vetoing the legislation if it passes the Senate. The bill passed the Chamber of Deputies by a vote of 129 to 125.
Both Macri and Vice President Gabriela Michetti have said publicly that they are opposed to abortion.
After the bill passed in the Chamber of Deputies, the country’s bishops lamented that they had much work to do with regards to the formation of their flock.
The vote exposed “weaknesses in our pastoral efforts: comprehensive sex education in our educational institutions, a fuller recognition of the common dignity of women and men, and the accompaniment of women at risk for abortion or who have gone through that trauma,” said the bishops in a statement.
“These are all calls from reality that call us to a response as a Church,” they added.
The country found in 2016 that an estimated 370,000 to 522,000 women in Argentina undergo an illegal abortion each year.
In March, hundreds of thousands of Argentines partook in a series of anti-abortion marches throughout the country on the Day of the Unborn Child. The biggest march, down the streets of Buenos Aires, saw about 150,000 people come out to show their support for life.
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San José, Costa Rica, Aug 13, 2018 / 05:34 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Costa Rican Bishops’ Conference lamented a ruling by the Constitutional Chamber of the nation’s Supreme Court which mandated legal same-sex marriage in the country.
“In a democratic and pluralistic society like ours, legal recognition can be given to persons of the same sex that live together,” the bishops said. However, they continued, it would be “unjust if such recognition would claim to equate same sex unions with marriage.”
“Wanting to not discriminate against homosexual people does not authorize the State to confound the natural order of marriage and the family,” the bishops warned.
In a 6-1 vote on August 8, Chamber IV of the Costa Rican Supreme Court struck down a provision prohibiting marriage “between persons of the same sex” and gave the National Assembly 18 months to adopt legislation recognizing same-sex unions.
The decision was issued in response to a legal petition challenging the constitutionality of Article 14, Subsection 6 in the Code on the Family. The legal challenge was filed by the former president of the Diversity Movement, Marco Castillo, and by the lesbian couple Laura Flores-Eztrada Pimentel and Jazmín Elizondo.
“We reiterate our respect for the Costa Rican legal order, but we deplore that the Constitutional Chamber did not dismiss the petition…thus calling into question the origin and natural function of the family,” the bishops’ conference said in an Aug. 9 statement.
The Costa Rican bishops’ conference recalled the words of Pope Francis, who said in his apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, “Same sex unions may not simply be equated with marriage. No union that is temporary or closed to the transmission of life can ensure the future of society.”
“No one can think that the weakening of the family as that natural society founded on marriage will prove beneficial to society as a whole. The contrary is true: it poses a threat to the mature growth of individuals, the cultivation of community values and the moral progress of cities and countries,” the pope said in that document.
In their statement, the bishops noted that “the Church maintains her conviction that the family continues to be, and always will be, the basic cell of society because in it the future citizens of all of society are procreated and brought up.”
“The family possesses a specific and original social dimension as a primary place of interpersonal relationships, the primary and vital cell of society: it is a natural institution, the foundation of people’s lives and the prototype of every social organization,” they stated.
Therefore, the bishops concluded, “it is clear in the natural order of things, that family, the basic cell of society, is founded on monogamous and heterosexual marriage from whose conjugal love are generated children, and therefore deserves the protection of the State.”
null / Credit: Manu Dias/AGECOM/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 25, 2023 / 16:30 pm (CNA).
The archbishop of Concepción in Chile, Fernando Chomali, shared a reflection on the crisis in the public health care system in the country, wher… […]
The President of the Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress, Father Livingston Olivares (left), accompanies EWTN Vice President for Programming and Production Peter Gagnon (center-right), EWTN Vice President for Spanish-language Production, Marketing, and Radio Enrique Duprat (center-left), EWTN Production Director Michael Holmes (far right), and IEC Quito 2024 Communications Coordinator Marcelo Mejía (front, kneeling) at the Monument to the Equator, the exact location of the Equator (from which the country of Ecuador takes its name) on the outskirts of the country’s capital city of Quito, site of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress. / Credit: Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress
ACI Prensa Staff, May 21, 2024 / 06:40 am (CNA).
The 53rd International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) has chosen EWTN as the official channel for providing live coverage of the event, which will take place from Sept. 8–15 in Quito, Ecuador.
“The 53rd International Eucharistic Congress, which will be held in Quito Sept. 8–15, has chosen EWTN as its official channel, which will broadcast everything related” to this great event, said Father Juan Carlos Garzón, secretary-general of the IEC Quito 2024, in a statement sent from Rome to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner.
The theme for this year’s International Eucharistic Congress is “Fraternity to Heal the World.” On Monday, the Vatican also announced that Pope Francis designated Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect for the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, as pontifical legate to the congress.
Garzón was in Rome last week as part of a delegation, chaired by Alfredo Espinoza Mateus, archbishop of Quito and primate of Ecuador, “to hold a series of meetings with the main papal authorities.”
Since the beginning of the preparations for IEC 2024, Garzón added: “EWTN has been present at the orientation and training for IEC 2024 communications personnel.”
Logo for the 53rd International Eucharistic Congress that will take place in Quito, Ecuador, from Sept. 8-15, 2024. Credit: Communications Commission of the 2024 International Eucharistic Congress
EWTN preparations for IEC Quito 2024
In tandem, to coordinate EWTN’s transmissions of IEC Quito 2024, a team from the network visited the Ecuadorian capital, including the Quito Metropolitan Convention Center, where the congress will be held.
The team was comprised of EWTN Vice President for Programming and Production Peter Gagnon, EWTN Director of Production Michael Holmes, and EWTN Vice President for Spanish-language Production, Marketing, and Radio Enrique Duprat.
Gagnon said EWTN transmissions of the event will be offered in Spanish, English, and German. “This will be a wonderful event for those attending and for those watching,” Gagnon said.
“For EWTN, it is an immense joy to be the channel for the Quito 2024 International Eucharistic Congress,” Duprat said. “It is essential for us to be the platform on which, no matter where our audience is, everyone can enjoy the most important Catholic events in the Church.”
As for coverage details, Duprat said: “The plan is to be able to offer this International Eucharistic Congress live and direct from Quito and in multiple languages [Spanish, English, and German] both through our television and radio signals, the internet, and through our digital app.”
The event coincides with the 150th anniversary of the 1874 consecration of Ecuador to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In 1886, Quito was also the site of the first National Eucharistic Congress.
During their preparatory visit, the EWTN team traveled the route of a procession that will take place on Sept. 14 in the historic center of Quito, which will begin with a Mass in San Francisco Plaza and then head to the Basilica of the National Vow, where benediction will be given.
They also visited the IEC offices, where they were received by Garzón, who explained how the organization of the event is progressing, including the schedule of a theological symposium to be held Sept. 4–7, just prior to the Sept. 8–15 congress.
The EWTN delegation also visited the Middle of the World Park and Monument to the Equator, marking the equator dividing the northern and southern hemispheres and where a Liturgy of the Word is planned with emphasis on care for creation.
Registration underway
Registration for the International Eucharistic Congress, both for the theological symposium and for the congress itself, is underway and available through the event website.
The largest Catholic media organization in the world, EWTN’s 11 global TV channels and numerous regional channels are broadcast in multiple languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week to over 425 million television households in more than 160 countries and territories. EWTN platforms also include radio services transmitted through SIRIUS/XM, iHeart Radio, and more than 600 domestic and international AM and FM radio affiliates and a worldwide shortwave radio service.
Headquartered in Washington, D.C., EWTN News operates multiple global news services, including Catholic News Agency; The National Catholic Register newspaper and digital platform; ACI Prensa in Spanish; ACI Digital in Portuguese; ACI Stampa in Italian; ACI Africa in English, French, and Portuguese; ACI Mena in Arabic; CNA Deutsch in German; and ChurchPop, a digital platform that creates content in several languages. It also produces numerous television news programs including “EWTN News Nightly,” “EWTN News In Depth,” “EWTN Pro-Life Weekly,” and “The World Over with Raymond Arroyo.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Dozens, eh….
And yet they’ll carry the day.