London, England, Jun 14, 2019 / 06:32 pm (CNA).- More than 200,000 UK women received an abortion in 2018, setting an all-time high rate of abortion in England and Wales.
The UK Department of Health and Social Services released a study on Wednesday which revealed that last year, 200,608 UK residents and nearly 5,000 more non-residents received an abortion in the UK.
According to the survey, abortions in the country had decreased in 2009, but have steadily increased since 2010. The previous record high was in 2008.
In the last decade, the number of abortions have increased particularly for women who are over 29 and those who already have a family. Over half of the abortions in 2018 were performed on women who have had children or had a still-born birth.
“The rates for women aged 30-34 have increased from 15.6 per 1,000 women in 2008 to 19.9 in 2018, and rates for women aged 35 and over have also increased from 6.7 per 1,000 women in 2008 to 9.2 per 1,000 women in 2018,” the study states.
However, the rate of abortions for women under the age of 18 significantly decreased in the past decade. The 2018 rate reflected a decrease by more than half in the number of teens who received abortions, compared to the rate in 2008.
According to Daily Mail, abortion experts said the trends are complicated. Clare Murphy, director of external affairs for British Pregnancy Advisory Service, said contraception distribution and family planning have both played a part in the numbers.
“Accessible contraceptive services are often focused on the needs of younger women and women over the age of 25 can in particular find themselves excluded from schemes providing free, pharmacy access to emergency contraception,” she said.
“However, it is also possible that over the longer term couples are making different decisions about family size and the number of children they can afford and feel able to properly care for.”
Following budget cuts to health services, abortion advocates have called for more funding to be provided. Prof. Lesley Regan, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, told BBC that the under-funding needs to stop.
“We are calling for an end to fractured commissioning and greater accountability to stop the under-funding and fragmentation of these services which disproportionately affects women,” she said.
However, Clare McCarthy, spokesperson for the pro-life non-profit Right to Life, decried the recent record, calling it a “national tragedy.” According to the Telegraph, the pro-life leader said the issue will probably worsen.
“Every one of these abortions represents a failure of our society to protect the lives of babies in the womb and a failure to offer full support to women with unplanned pregnancies,” she said.
“Proposals from abortion campaigners to remove legal restrictions around abortion and introduce abortion right to birth would likely see these numbers get even worse.”
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Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner, after cutting the ribbon on a new “Pope’s Laundromat” for the homeless. / Credit: Holy See Press Office
Rome Newsroom, Nov 5, 2023 / 07:00 am (CNA).
Pope Francis opened two new laundromats for the homeless in the northern Italian city of Turin on Thursday, Nov. 2.
The new facilities are part of an initiative launched in collaboration with the international consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble and the consumer electronics company Haier Europe, with the assistance of the Community of Sant’Egidio and Apostolic Almsgiving, the papal office of charitable activity.
“With the two new laundries inaugurated in Turin we hope to be able to help many people in difficulty to improve their living conditions, starting from the possibility of taking care of their personal hygiene and that of their clothing,” said Riccardo Calvi, communications director for Procter & Gamble Italia.
The laundromats are located in the parish of San Giorgio Martire and the La Sosta welcome center in Turin’s city center and are operated by volunteers of Sant’Egidio.
The new facilities include washers and dryers donated by Haier as well as detergent. In addition to the laundry services, there are hot showers, and a full range of personal hygiene products will be available, such as shampoo, conditioners, body washes, razors, and shaving creams provided by Procter & Gamble.
These services are “offered free of charge to the poorest people, in particular those without a fixed abode,” Calvi said.
Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, papal almoner, joins future clients on the new papal laundromats for lunch. Credit: Holy See Press Office
This is not the first such project that the pope has launched in Italy. In 2015 Pope Francis launched a barbershop for the poor, a service run by volunteers, to help provide essential grooming services for Rome’s indigent and homeless.
This effort was followed by the first “Pope’s Laundromat,” which opened in Rome in 2017 and a second one in the Ligurian port city of Genoa in 2019.
This initiative was born out of Pope Francis’ apostolic letter Misericordia et Misera, which was released at the conclusion of the Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2016.
“The Church must always be vigilant and ready to identify new works of mercy and to practice them with generosity and enthusiasm,” the letter reads.
“Let us make every effort, then, to devise specific and insightful ways of practicing charity and the works of mercy. Mercy is inclusive and tends to spread like wildfire in a way that knows no limits. Hence we are called to give new expression to the traditional works of mercy,” it continues.
“[This initiative] is a concrete and tangible sign supported by the Apostolic Charity Office: A place and a service to give concrete form to charity and at the same time intelligence to the works of mercy to restore dignity to many people,” a press release said.
New washers and dryers at the recently opened papal laundromat in Torino, Italy. Credit: Holy See Press Office
Polish Cardinal Konrad Krajewski has been at the helm of the pope’s charitable initiatives since becoming papal almoner in 2013.
“When we help the poorest and most vulnerable, we are truly Christians, because we are the means of the Gospel,” Krajewski said.
“This initiative, which is repeated over time, is a source of joy for me because this is a further possibility of being close to wounded humanity, a way to demonstrate the presence and closeness of God to the last,” he said.
Press conference held by the Italian bishops’ conference on Nov. 17, 2022 to present a national report on the protection of minors within Italy’s 226 Catholic dioceses. / YouTube Screenshot
Rome Newsroom, Nov 17, 2022 / 05:40 am (CNA).
Catholic bishops in Italy released a national report on Thursday evaluating the recent implementation of diocesan services to aid victims of abuse across the country.
The report published on Nov. 17 provided data from 90 listening centers and on the establishment of other resources for the protection of minors within Italy’s 226 Catholic dioceses. Its scope was limited to the two-year period from 2020 to 2021, years when lockdowns in Italy restricted movement and in-person gatherings.
The report found that 70% of dioceses in Italy had set up counseling centers and that nearly 20,000 people participated in diocesan training sessions on child protection in 2020 and 2021.
The data from the diocesan listening centers included 13 reports of sexual harassment, 21 reports of “touching,” 4 reports of pornography, and 9 reports of “sexual relations” across Italy over the two-year period with a total of 89 people who reported the violations.
According to the report, 68 alleged offenders were defined as 30 clerics, 23 laypeople, and 15 religious and the alleged incidents took place mainly at the parish (33%), at the headquarters of a movement or association (21%), or in a seminary (11.9%).
The first national report on the protection of minors in the Catholic Church in Italy was prepared by the Piacenza branch of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.
It was released one day ahead of Italy’s National Day of Prayer for Victims and Survivors of Abuse. The Italian bishops established the day of prayer to align with the European Day for the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse established by the Council of ‘Europe on November 18, 2020.
Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, the president of the Italian bishops’ conference, has said that the bishops also plan to issue a separate national report on clerical sex abuse in the country that would cover abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy from the year 2000 to 2021. According to Reuters, Zuppi said that this future report will be carried out “in collaboration with independent research institutes.”
Zuppi said in May that the consequences for bishops found to have covered up abuse would be “very serious.”
Archbishop Zbigņevs Stankevičs of Riga, Latvia (left), speaking during a Catholic conference in Warsaw in May 2022 on the natural law legacy of John Paul II (right.) / Photos by Lisa Johnston and L’Osservatore Romano
Warsaw, Poland, Jun 9, 2022 / 09:17 am (CNA).
Constant cooperation and dialogue among Catholic, Lutherans, Orthodox, and other Christian denominations have been crucial to protect life and family in the Baltic nation of Latvia, Archbishop Zbigņevs Stankevičs of Riga, Latvia, said during a recent Catholic conference in Warsaw.
In his speech, Stankevičs shared his personal ecumenical experience in Latvia as an example of how the concept of natural law proposed by St. John Paul II can serve as the basis for ecumenical cooperation in defending human values.
The metropolitan archbishop, based in Latvia’s capital, is no stranger to ecumenical work and thought. In 2001, he became the first bishop consecrated in a Lutheran church since the split from Protestantism in the 1500s. The unusual move, which occurred in the church of Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral in Riga, formerly the Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary, signaled the beginning of Stankevičs’ cooperation with the Lutheran church in Latvia, a cooperation that would ultimately become a partnership in the cause of life and the family. Since 2012, the archbishop has served on the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.
“I would like to present this ecumenical cooperation in three experiences in my country: the abortion debate, the civil unions discussion, and the so-called Istanbul convention,” Stankevičs began.
Entering the abortion debate
Ordained as a priest in 1996, Stankevičs struggled to find proper consultation for Catholic couples on natural family planning. It was then that he decided to create a small center that provided natural family planning under the motto “let us protect the miracle [of fertility].”
This involvement in the world of natural family planning would lead him into the heart of the abortion debate in Latvian society, and, ultimately, to the conclusion that moral discussions in the public square benefit from a basis in natural law, something emphasized in the teachings of John Paul II.
“I knew that theological arguments would not work for a secular audience, so I wanted to show that Catholic arguments are not opposed to legal, scientific, and universal arguments, but rather are in harmony with them,” Stankevičs said.
“[A] few years later our parliament introduced the discussion to legalize abortion. No one was doing anything so I decided to do something. I consulted some experts and presented a proposal that was published in the most important secular newspaper in Latvia,” the archbishop said.
Stankevičs’ article, “Why I was Lucky,” used both biological and theological arguments to defend human life. He noted that his own mother, when pregnant with him, was under pressure to get an abortion; “but she was a believer, a Catholic, so she refused the pressure.”
After the Latvian parliament legalized abortion in 2002, the different Christian confessions decided to start working together to protect the right to life and the family.
In Latvia, Catholics comprise 25% of the population, Lutherans 34.2%, and Russian Orthodox 17%, with other smaller, mostly Christian denominations making up the remainder.
“We started to work together by the initiative of a businessman in Riga, a non-believer who wanted to promote awareness about the humanity of the unborn,” the archbishop recalled.
“Bringing all Christians together in a truly ecumenical effort ended up bearing good fruits because we worked together in promoting a culture of life: From more than 7,000 abortions per year in 2002, we were able to bring it down to 2,000 by 2020,” he said.
Map of Riga, the capital of Latvia. Shutterstock
Ecumenical defense of marriage, family
Regarding the legislation on civil unions, another area where Stankevičs has rallied ecumenical groups around natural law defense of marriage, the archbishop said that he has seen the tension surrounding LGBT issues mount in Latvian society as increased pressure is brought to bear to legalize same-sex unions.
Invited to a debate on a popular Latvian television show called “One vs. One” after Pope Francis’ remark “who am I to judge?” was widely interpreted in Latvian society as approving homosexual unions, Stankevičs “had the opportunity to explain the teachings of the Catholic Church and what was the real meaning of the Holy Father’s words.”
After that episode, in dialogue with other Christian leaders, Stankevičs proposed a law aimed at reducing political tensions in the country without jeopardizing the traditional concept of the family.
The legislation proposed by the ecumenical group of Christians would have created binding regulations aimed at protecting any kind of common household; “for example, two old persons living together to help one another, or one old and one young person who decide to live together.”
“The law would benefit any household, including homosexual couples, but would not affect the concept of [the] natural family,” Stankevičs explained. “Unfortunately the media manipulated my proposal, and the Agency France Presse presented me internationally as if I was in favor of gay marriage.”
In 2020, the Constitutional Court in Latvia decided a case in favor of legalizing homosexual couples and ordered the parliament to pass legislation according to this decision.
In response, the Latvian Men’s Association started a campaign to introduce an amendment to the Latvian constitution, to clarify the concept of family. The Latvian constitution in 2005 proclaimed that marriage is only between a man and a woman, but left a legal void regarding the definition of family, which the court wanted to interpret to include homosexual unions.
The Latvian bishops’ conference supported the amendment presented by the Men’s Association, “but most importantly,” Stankevičs explained, “we put together an ecumenical statement signed by the leaders of 10 different Christian denominations supporting the idea that the family should be based on the marriage between a man and a woman. The president of the Latvian Jewish community, a good friend, also joined the statement.”
The Freedom Monument in Riga, Latvia, honors soldiers who died during the Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920). Shutterstock
According to Stankevičs, something strange happened next. “The Minister of Justice created a committee to discuss the demand of the constitutional court, and it included several Christian representatives, including three from the Catholic Church, which worked for a year.” But ignoring all the discussions and proposals, the Minister of Justice ended up sending a proposal to parliament that was a full recognition of homosexual couples as marriage.
The response was also ecumenical: Christian leaders sent a letter encouraging the parliament to ignore the government’s proposal.
According to Stankevičs, the proposal has already passed one round of votes “and it is very likely that it will be approved in a second round of votes, with the support of the New Conservative party. But we Christians continue to work together.”
Preventing gender ideology
The third field of ecumenical cooperation mentioned by Stankevičs concerned the Istanbul Convention, a European treaty which the Latvian government signed but ultimately did not ratify.
The treaty was introduced as an international legal instrument that recognizes violence against women as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women.
The convention claims to cover various forms of gender-based violence against women, but Christian communities in Latvia have criticized the heavy use of gender ideology in both the framing and the language of the document.
The word “gender,” for instance, is defined as “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men,” a definition that allows gender to be defined independent of biological sex and therefore opens the document to the question of whether it really is aimed at the protection of women.
Christian communities also question the biased nature of the committee designated to enforce the convention.
The governments of Slovakia and Bulgaria refused to ratify the convention, while Poland, Lithuania, and Croatia expressed reservations about the convention though it was ultimately ratified in those countries, a move the government of Poland is attempting to reverse.
“When we found out that the Latvian parliament was going to ratify it, I went to the parliament and presented the common Christian position,” Stankevičs explained. As a consequence of that visit, the Latvian parliament decided not to ratify the convention, Stankevičs said, crediting the appeal to the unity provided by the common Christian position argued via natural law.
“In conclusion,” the archbishop said, “I can say that in Latvia we continue to defend the true nature of life and family. But if we Catholics would act alone, we would not have the impact that we have as one Christian majority. That unity is the reason why the government takes us seriously.”
I would say that the Lambeth Conference of 1930 was what failed women of the UK, when it broke with every Christian denomination’s constant condemnation of contraception (including the Church of England’s own emphatic statement of a decade before) and declared that contraception was acceptable. Granted that they hedged their approval about with phrases about “sound reasons” and “Christian principles” but they did approve it and they opened up the floodgates that eventually led to the acceptance of abortion.
I would say that the Lambeth Conference of 1930 was what failed women of the UK, when it broke with every Christian denomination’s constant condemnation of contraception (including the Church of England’s own emphatic statement of a decade before) and declared that contraception was acceptable. Granted that they hedged their approval about with phrases about “sound reasons” and “Christian principles” but they did approve it and they opened up the floodgates that eventually led to the acceptance of abortion.