Church in Fiji threatens to close all Catholic schools

Tagbilaran, Philippines, Nov 8, 2017 / 06:04 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Bishop Alberto Uy of Tagbilaran, on the Philippine island Bohol, was forced to warn his social media friends of online scams after his Facebook account was cloned to solicit donations in his name.

“ATTENTION ALL MY FB FRIENDS: Somebody is making a false FB account of myself under the name Abet Uy, asking for financial help or soliciting something. Don’t believe it,” the bishop said in a statement to his 26,000 followers on Facebook.

The 51-year-old bishop learned about the identity theft Monday, the day before he left to attend funeral rites for Bishop Juan de Dios Pueblos, who died Oct. 21. The fake account includes Bishop Uy in his vestments as a profile picture and him with a group of nuns for the background image.

Bishop Uy will frequently use Facebook to connect to his parishioners, offering them small spiritual insights. This time, he asked for help reporting the scam to Facebook and encouraged his followers not to be misled by the fake requests for financial assistance.

At the end of the same post, the bishop turned to prayer, saying, “Oh God, please forgive those people who scammed your people.”

Facebook cloning isn’t a new tactic by hackers to try and steal money, and recent chain messages have been circulating through the web warning Facebook friends about of virtual scandals.

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Sydney, Australia, Feb 19, 2020 / 04:58 pm (CNA).- Parents of persons with Down syndrome are pressed to procure abortion, and their healthcare is negatively affected throughout their life, Australia’s disability royal commission has heard.

The Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability began a hearing in Sydney Feb. 18. The two week hearing will listen to persons with cognitive disability and their loved ones, medical professionals, and advocacy groups about their experience with the health system in Australia.

Toni Mitchell told the commission Feb. 19 that when an ultrasound showed that her son, Joshua, would likely have Down syndrome and had a heart condition and was likely to miscarry, a doctor told her, “here’s your appointment for a termination”, handing her a piece of paper.

“In that moment they completely disallowed his life. They said he wasn’t worth living,” she reflected.

Joshua is now 19. He has Down syndrome, autism, and Hirschsprung’s disease.

Toni told the commission that she tossed the paper indicating the abortion appointment, and, “that was the moment I had to start justifying my son’s right to live and to be treated and I had to start justifying his value to be alive … They kept just judging us based on my decision to give him a chance at life.”

The commission’s chair, Ronald Sackville, told the inquiry during his Feb. 18 opening address that the consequences of poor healthcare for those with disabilities are “as disturbing as they are profound,” and that “they should shock the conscience of all Australians.”

Rebecca Kelly, whose son Ryan has Down syndrome, said that in the model of Australia’s health system “if you can’t cure it … then you eradicate it.”

“If you think that person’s life is a tragedy and that they suffer from this condition then you start to believe that it’s an act of kindness or that it’s a responsible act to do all you can to prevent that birth, and that becomes quite coercive,” she stated.

She added that the problems don’t end with pressure to procure abortion.

“If you have a doctor (who) thinks that possibly your life’s going to be a little bit better if your child doesn’t make it because they’re taking that burden away from you, that has horrible implications for the level of care that you don’t get.”

The disability royal commission was established in April 2019. It is to provide an interim report by October, and a final report by April 2022.

Such inquiries are provided for under the Royal Commissions Act 1902. They serve as independent public inquiries, initiated by the government, and can make recommendations on reforms to policy or legislation.

A 2013-17 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse urged a program to compensate the victims of institutional child sex abuse, which the Church in Australia established in July 2018.

It also proposed that priests be legally obligated to disclose sexual abuse sins which have been admitted in the confessional, or face criminal charges.

The Australian bishops’ conference responded positively to nearly all the sex abuse royal commission’s recommendations, but has defended the sanctity of the confessional seal.

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Adelaide, Australia, Jul 2, 2018 / 11:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archbishop of Adelaide was sentenced Tuesday to a 12-month sentence after being convicted in May of failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse disclosed to him in the 1970s.

The archbishop is likely to serve his sentence under house arrest, and be fitted with an electronic monitoring bracelet, according to media reports. A judge must confirm that arrangement at an August 14 hearing before it can be finalized.

Wilson, 67, has not resigned from his position as Archbishop of Adelaide.

Pope Francis appointed on June 3 Bishop Greg O’Kelly, SJ, bishop of Australia’s Diocese of Port Pirie, to serve as apostolic administrator of the archdiocese, entrusting him with day-to-day leadership responsibilities. O’Kelly, 76, is not expected to succeed Wilson, especially since he has already surpassed the age at which bishops customarily submit a resignation letter to the pope.

At Wilson’s sentencing hearing July 3, Magistrate Robert Stone said Wilson had shown “no remorse or contrition” before imposing the sentence.

Wilson was convicted of concealing child sexual abuse committed by a fellow parish priest in New South Wales in the 1970s. At the time, Wilson had been ordained a priest for only one year.

The victims of the scandal, Peter Creigh and another altar boy who is unnamed for legal reasons, said they both had told Wilson of their abusive experience with Fr. James Fletcher.

During the trial, Creigh said that he told Wilson in graphic detail of the abuse in 1976, five years after it had occurred. However, Wilson said the conversation never took place, noting in a court hearing April 11, “I don’t think I would have forgotten that.”

The second victim said he had told Wilson of the abuse in the confessional in 1976, but that Wilson had dismissed the boy with a penance, saying that he was lying. Wilson said he would never tell someone in the confessional that they were untruthful, and that he did not remember having seen the boy at all in 1976.

Fletcher was convicted of nine counts of sexual abuse and was jailed in 2006. He died of a stroke within the year. Wilson said he had no previous suspicions about the integrity of Fletcher’s character.

Wilson also told the court that if he had been notified of the scandal, he would have offered pastoral care to the victims and their families, and reported the event to his superiors.

Wilson’s legal team argued during the trial that child sexual abuse was not understood in the 1970s to be a crime that was required to be reported to authorities. Stone, however, said that protecting the Catholic Church was Wilson’s “primary motive” for failing to report the abuse allegations.

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