Last month I commented on Catholicism and nationality. My basic point was that the existence of particular peoples is a natural and beneficial part of human life that should be respected. That point is often […]
Canberra, Australia, Oct 1, 2019 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- Freedom for Faith, a Christian legal think tank, expressed concerns last week over unintended consequences of the Australian government’s religious discrimination bill, urging that it be re-drafted before it is passed.
“Freedom for Faith welcomes the considerable efforts that the Government has made to consult on the drafting of this Bill. Many features of it are very good, including general provisions for protection of people of faith from discrimination in Commonwealth law; but Freedom for Faith also has significant concerns about certain provisions which have consequences that are probably unintended,” the group said in its Sept. 25 submission in consultation on the bill.
The most prominent concerns of the think tank, which says it “exists to see religious freedom protected and promoted in Australia”, relate to staffing policies in faith-based institutions; use of property inconsistent with a religious purpose or religious beliefs; and enrolment of students in faith-based educational institutions.
The religious discrimination bill is intended make it unlawful to discriminate against people on the ground of their religious belief or activity; establish a religious freedom commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission; and amend existing laws regarding religious freedom, including marriage and charities law, and objects clauses in anti-discrimination law.
The coalition government wants to make religious belief and activity a protected class, like race or sex. It also hopes to ensure that groups rejecting same-sex marriage are not stripped of their charitable status.
In its current version, the bill would not protect religious statements that are “malicious, would harass, vilify or incite hatred or violence against a person or group or which advocate for the commission of a serious criminal offence”.
Freedom for Faith maintains that as it is written, the bill could “suggest a very limited scope for religious organisations to retain their ethos and identity, and conversely an expansive scope for suppression of free speech. It is difficult to reconcile these Notes, at various points, with government policy as expressed by the Prime Minister and Attorney-General.”
Freedom for Faith said that “the overwhelming concern of faith-based organisations across the country with whom we have spoken is about the effect of the Bill on their religious mission, with particular reference to their staffing policies.”
Prime minister Scott Morrison has promised the bill will not take religious freedom backward, but the think tank stated that “the difficulty is that this Bill does, in relation to staffing of faith-based organisations … If the issues are not resolved, this may lead us to conclude that the Bill is better not being enacted. That said, we have every confidence that the Attorney-General will be able to sort the drafting problems out.”
Freedom for Faith said it is important that faith-based groups be able to appoint adherents of their religion, as their programs are part of their mission and ministry.
“This Bill, in its present form, will make it very difficult indeed for faith-based organisations to preserve their identity and ethos, although the Explanatory Notes to s.10 say that it is the Government’s intention to support the rights of faith-based organisations to retain their culture and ethos in their staffing policies,” the legal group wrote.
It warned that the bill supports “the view that only faith-based organisations with a policy of requiring all staff and volunteers to be adherents to the faith will be protected,” while many such organizations in fact only prefer that that staff be adherents, or that there be a “critical mass” of adherents so as to preserve its character as a religious ministry.
“Even if a Catholic school or other charity did have a policy of only employing Catholic staff, it would only be lawful if this could reasonably be regarded as in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs and teachings of Catholicism,” the think tank warned, as an example.
“That may be a difficult test to satisfy in the eyes of a court,” it continued. “The court may find it hard to see how the Catholic school’s preference in terms of employment may reasonably be regarded as being in accordance with the doctrines, tenets, beliefs or teachings of the religion. The school, however, may take the view that it is a necessary implication of their doctrines that they want to maintain a Catholic ethos by having a ‘critical mass’ of believing staff. Whether or not this policy does flow from religious doctrines – it is really about the purpose of having a Catholic school – it would be best if the legislation made it clear that such a policy was not unlawful.”
Another problem in the bill identified by Freedom for Faith is that its definition of a “religious body” excludes hospitals, aged care providers, publishing houses, and youth campsites run by religious groups.
As written, the bill would “prevent Christian publishers and Christian youth campsites advertising for Christian staff. This would be a bizarre and profoundly damaging outcome of laws ostensibly designed to bolster religious freedom,” the legal group noted.
Freedom for Faith urged that the bill “make a positive statement … that it is lawful for a religious body, a faith-based educational institution or a charity established for religious purposes, to appoint, or prefer to appoint, staff who practise the religion with which the organisation is associated.”
It said this is preferable to the bill creating exemptions so as “to get away from the language of having a ‘right to discriminate’”; because “there is a lot of opposition from the left of politics to any exemptions under anti-discrimination laws,” and there would be campaigns for repeal; and because, since the government has asked the Australian Law Reform Commission to report on how to balance competing claims of religious freedom rights and LGBT rights, “it does not make much sense to create new exemptions in legislation at the same time as two organisations that report to the Attorney are busily working to reduce or eliminate them.”
The second main objection of Freedom for Faith is that the bill could make some religious groups “act contrary to their beliefs if they were never permitted to rely on good faith religious objections to the use of their premises.” For example, a Catholic hospital could be made to provide euthanasia on its premises.
Thirdly, the legal think tank said the bill’s current form “may not allow schools to preference students of a particular faith. So for example, Catholic schools may not be allowed to give preference for admission” to the Catholic children.
Freedom for Faith suggested a number of other, minor improvements to the bill, and provided a suggested draft for a new section on employment.
Similarly, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, which has reportedly worked closely in the past with the local Catholic diocese, has said the religious discrimination bill is so flawed that it cannot be supported in its current form.
Some conservative members of parliament have asked instead for a religious freedom bill. Senator Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, of the Liberal Party, voiced concerns July 9 that the bill does not go far enough, saying it “would be defensive in nature and limited to protecting against acts and practices by others which are discriminatory on the grounds of religion.”
She said that “quiet Australians now expect the Coalition to legislate to protect their religious freedom.”
Australia has seen debate over religious freedom in recent years with respect to the seal of the confessional, hiring decisions, and same-sex marriage.
Archbishop Anthony Fisher of Sydney noted last year that “we cannot take the freedom to hold and practice our beliefs for granted, even here in Australia,” and that “powerful interests now seek to marginalize religious believers and beliefs, especially Christian ones, and exclude them from public life. They would end funding to faith-based schools, hospitals and welfare agencies, strip us of charitable status and protections.”
Lansing, Mich., Oct 1, 2019 / 06:34 pm (CNA).- Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer has line-item vetoed from the state’s budget $700,000 in funding for the Michigan Pregnancy and Parenting Support Services Program, to the consternation of the Michigan Catholic Conference and a pro-life group active in the state.
“The process that led to these vetoes has been disappointing,” said Tom Hickson, Michigan Catholic Conference (MCC) vice president for public policy.
“It is the hope of this organization that in forthcoming negotiations the Governor and legislature can work together to restore this critical funding.”
The funding in the Michigan budget for pregnancy and parenting support went to Real Alternatives, a Pennsylvania-based nonprofit that has since 1996 provided counseling for pregnant woman on alternatives to abortion, as well as material help such as baby formula and diapers to mothers up to 12 months after they give birth.
The program expanded its operations to Michigan beginning in June 2014, working mainly through local Catholic Charities affiliates, with the backing of the Michigan Catholic Conference.
According to Real Alternatives’ estimates, the Michigan program has served 8,240 women at 31,958 support visits since 2014. The state has appropriated $3.3 million to the program since its inception.
“This year the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania allocated $7.3 million in funding for the same program in that state; Governor Whitmer’s line-item veto of a meager $700,000 will have a negative impact on low-income women in Michigan and should have been avoided,” said MCC’s Policy Advocate Rebecca Mastee.
“Women deserve better than this veto, and we look forward to working with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to reinsert this funding into the state budget.”
Whitmer issued 147 line-item vetoes Oct. 1, amounting to nearly $1 billion in cuts to the budget she received from the Republican-controlled legislature, mlive.com reported.
Real Alternatives’ founding CEO Kevin Bagatta told CNA in August that if a woman is alone and poor, she may struggle with the pressures of an unexpected pregnancy. What the Real Alternatives program does is provide a counselor, who helps the woman from conception until 12 months after the baby’s birth, training her how to take care of the baby and herself.
He noted that it is primarily a counseling program, not a medical program, although the program offers referrals for medical needs, and saves the state of Michigan money that it might have otherwise spent on additional medical care for pregnant women.
“Real Alternatives is perplexed to hear…that against the wishes of Michiganders, Governor Whitmer has line item vetoed the successful Michigan Pregnancy and Parenting Support Services Program,” Bagatta said in an Oct. 1 statement.
“Not only did Michiganders reach-out to their fellow citizens in need through the program, but it also saved taxpayer monies.”
Bagatta told CNA that research done in the 1980s found that about 80% of surveyed women who had procured an abortion said that they would not have gone through with the procedure if just one person had taken the time to help them.
Today, Real Alternatives runs the Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Michigan programs from their base in Harrisburg. They helped to start a similar program in Texas.
In 2013, the Michigan Catholic Conference asked Real Alternatives to help to explain the program to then-Governor Rick Snyder, who put money in the budget to start the state’s program.
Catholic Charities affiliates in the various states are staffed with licensed social workers and trained counselors.
Under the George W. Bush administration, the program was accepted as meeting the requirements to use Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) money from the federal government, which states may use as they see fit. This means many of the state programs are funded with federal dollars; Pennsylvania’s program, like Michigan’s, also is funded by some state revenue. Usually the program is accepted in a state with a pro-life governor, Bagatta said.
“Every state gets TANF money. So if you’re a pro-life governor, you can have this program and use your TANF money to do a program like [this],” he explained.
Catholic Charities affiliates are able to dedicate staff specifically for this program as a result of the funding received, Bagatta said, and the funding model provides an incentive for the centers to serve more clients and open specific pregnancy resource programs.
David Maluchnik, communications vice president for the MCC, reiterated in August that Real Alternatives provides needed care for women who would otherwise choose abortion.
“[The program] not only provides support and care, it provides formula and [referrals for] pre- and post-natal meds; it gets clothing and shelter to mom and baby where there may otherwise be none; it helps with parenting tips when there’s no one to talk to; it offsets threats to infant mortality and gives young children and mothers a healthy start and a brighter future.”
“In the end, pulling the rug from under low-income women and her unborn or infant child at a time when they’re most vulnerable would constitute a heartless, calculated political maneuver,” he said.
Rabat, Morocco, Oct 1, 2019 / 05:22 pm (CNA).- A Moroccan journalist, her fiance, and a doctor were sentenced to prison Monday for procuring and performing an abortion. The country’s penal code bars abortion except in cases when the mother’s life is endangered.
Hajar Raissouni, 28, was sentenced Sept. 30 to a year imprisonment for procuring an abortion and for fornication.
Her fiance, Rifaat al-Amin, was also given a years’ imprisonment, and her doctor was given two years in prison and a two-year ban on practising medicine.
An anaesthetist and a medical assistant were given suspended sentences of one year, and eight months, respectively.
Raissouni writes for Akhbar Al-Yaoum, which is critical of the Moroccan government.
Prosecutors have said her arrest has “nothing to do with her profession as a journalist,” but some worry it is politically motivated.
Abdelmoula El Marouri, Raissouni’s lawyer, told Reuters, “we’re shocked by this verdict,” and said he will appeal.
Raissouni was arrested Aug. 31 as she left the clinic.
Saad Sahli, a lawyer for Raissouni and al-Amin, said that Raissouni had been receiving treatment for internal bleeding at the clinic where she was arrested.
After her arrest, Raissouni was taken to hospital where she was given a gynecological exam.
Prosecutors say there were indications of pregnancy and that she had received a “late voluntary abortion.”
Rabat officials have also indicated the clinic where the five were arrested if being surveilled, after reports that abortions are regularly procured there.
Raissouni and al-Amin have been religiously, but not legally, married.
Sunni Islam is the established religion of Morocco. The country has strict rules on moral behavior and has criminalized debauchery and adultery.
According to a group that support abortion rights, most abortion-related arrests in the country involve medical officials, and only rarely do they include the women who procure abortions.
In 2018, Moroccan courts tried more than 14,500 people for debauchery; 3,048 for adultery; 170 for homosexuality; and 73 for abortions, AFP reported.
Beijing, China, Oct 1, 2019 / 04:32 pm (CNA).- On Tuesday, the People’s Republic of China marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the country’s communist regime. While some world leaders offered congratulations, others reflected on t… […]
I just finished my second dive into the Reddit AMA world. One of the most popular websites in the world, Reddit is a forum for all sorts of online conversations and presentations. The AMA (for Ask […]
Richmond, Va., Oct 1, 2019 / 04:13 pm (CNA).- A federal judge on Monday overturned two Virginia restrictions on abortion, while upholding several others, saying, “the right to choose to have an abortion is not unfettered.”
“In addition to a woman’s personal liberty interest, the state has profound interests in protecting potential life and protecting the health and safety of women,” wrote U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson, citing Supreme Court precedent.
“The state, therefore, may take measures to further these interests so long as it does not create a substantial obstacle that unduly burdens a woman’s right to choose.”
Hudson ruled Sept. 30 in a case filed last year by abortion advocacy groups including the Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and the Falls Church Healthcare Center. The suit challenged a series of abortion regulations enacted in Virginia.
Hudson upheld a state law requiring an ultrasound and a 24-hour waiting period before an abortion, calling the legislation “a persuasive measure by the State to encourage women to choose childbirth rather than abortion, which is a valid basis upon which to regulate abortion so long as the measure does not amount to a substantial obstacle to access.”
The judge also upheld unannounced inspections of abortion clinics, as well as a law mandating that only physicians may perform abortions. He noted that the state has a legitimate interest in ensuring the safety of abortion procedures.
“Given the potential risk that can arise in the later stages of second trimester abortions, limiting such procedures to physicians only is well-justified, even though it may impose an increased burden on rural residents, especially those who are living at or near the poverty line,” he said.
Hudson overturned a state law requiring clinics that perform first-trimester abortions to meet the health and safety standards of hospitals, saying that safe conditions could be ensured without this requirement, and pointing to previous Supreme Court rulings invalidating similar restrictions.
He also rejected a rule that second-trimester abortions take place in a hospital, saying that medical advancements render this requirement unnecessary for nonsurgical abortions taking place before the baby is viable outside the womb.
“The evidence has revealed minimal medical necessity for requiring non-surgical second trimester abortion procedures to be performed in licensed hospitals. On the other hand, the burden is significant, particularly with respect to costs and availability,” he ruled.
Victoria Cobb, president of the Family Foundation of Virginia, applauded the ruling, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, saying, “Once again the abortion industry failed in their zealous attempt to use the courts to do their bidding.”
Rosemary Codding, head of the Falls Church Healthcare Center, said she was “disappointed that our patients did not get their constitutionally-protected right to accessing health care without legislative interference that they are entitled to and that they deserve,” the Times-Dispatch reported.
Virginia is one of several states with abortion regulations being challenged in court. More than a dozen lawsuits have been filed this year against state laws restricting abortion.
Olivia Gans Turner, president of Virginia’s National Right to Life state affiliate, argued in May that raising safety standards surrounding abortion procedures protects the health of women, noting, “Laws requiring that ‘physicians only’ perform abortions exist in 40 states.”
Belfast, Northern Ireland, Oct 1, 2019 / 03:04 pm (CNA).- Religious leaders are calling on Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith to reconvene the region’s legislative assembly, in order to avoid new liberalizing abortion laws which are set to take effect later this month.
“Our Northern Ireland political parties have it in their own hands to do something about this,” the religious leaders said in a Monday joint statement.
The British parliament voted in July to add same-sex marriage and a loosening of abortion restrictions as amendments to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill, which is designed to keep the region running amid a protracted deadlock in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
If Northern Ireland Assembly is not reconvened by Oct. 21, the expansion of abortion rights and the legalization of same-sex marriage will take effect. Secretary Smith would be mandated to put the laws into effect by March 31, 2020.
The Northern Ireland Catholic bishops’ conference has previously condemned the legislation’s “unprecedented” use of authority to legalize abortion in the region.
Leaders of the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, Methodist Church in Ireland, Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and the Irish Council of Churches, in a joint statement Monday called on their congregations to lobby their locally elected representatives, and ask them to reconvene the assembly before the deadline.
“There is no evidence that these [legal] changes reflect the will of the people affected by them, as they were not consulted. They go far beyond the ‘hard cases’ some have been talking about,” the statement reads.
“We are, along with others, gravely concerned that the imposition of this Westminster legislation,” the leaders wrote, calling for two special days of prayer over the weekend of October 12-13 for the unborn and for women facing difficult pregnancies and their families.
The Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended for the past two years due to a dispute between the two major governing parties. The DUP, the largest party, is opposed to changing the law. Sinn Féin, another prominent party in Northern Ireland, backs a liberalization of the abortion law.
The DUP has said it is ready to return to the Assembly “immediately without pre-conditions,” according to the Belfast Telegraph.
Last year, the Republic of Ireland held a referendum in which voters repealed the country’s pro-life protections, which had recognized the life of both mothers and their babies. Irish legislators then enacted legislation allowing legal abortion in what had long been a Catholic and pro-life stronghold.
Elective abortion is legal in the rest of the United Kingdom up to 24 weeks, while currently it is legally permitted in Northern Ireland only if the mother’s life is at risk or if there is risk of permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.
Northern Irish women have been able to procure free National Health Service abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales since November 2017.
The UK government’s plans to decriminalize abortion in Northern Ireland has garnered opposition from hundreds of health professionals in the region, who the BBC reports have written to Secretary Smith expressing opposition and calling for reassurance that as “conscientious objectors,” they will not have to perform or assist abortions.
The Northern Ireland Office, the department of the UK government which oversees the region’s affairs, is launching an “awareness campaign” in November to educate “women and healthcare professionals” on the likely changes to abortion law, the BBC reports.
An estimated 20,000 people marched in Belfast on Sept. 7, in opposition to the loosening of abortion restrictions, in a demonstration organized by the pro-life group Precious Life.
The people of Northern Ireland made “a strong stand against the extreme and undemocratic legislation that Westminster is forcing on Northern Ireland,” Bernadette Smyth, founder of Precious Life, told CNA.
In June 2018, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission challenged the region’s abortion laws in the UK Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court concluded that the laws violated human rights law by banning abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, and incest, it threw out the case saying it had not been brought forward by a person who had been wrongfully harmed by the law.
Vatican City, Oct 1, 2019 / 02:35 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis opened the Extraordinary Missionary Month Tuesday invoking St. Therese of Liseux, the patron saint of missionaries.
“Saint Therese of the Child Jesus shows us the way: she made prayer the fuel for missionary activity in the world,” Pope Francis said Oct. 1 during his homily at Vespers in St. Peter’s Basilica.
“This is also the Month of the Rosary: how much are we praying for the spread of the Gospel and our conversion from omission to mission?” the pope asked.
October is dedicated to reflection and prayer for the missionary work of the Church. Pope Francis chose October 2019 to be an Extraordinary Missionary Month for the Church to mark the centenary of Benedict XV’s apostolic letter Maximum illud, on the propagation of the faith throught the world.
Fr. Fabrizio Meroni of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions told CNA that “when Pope Francis entrusted to us the preparation and implementation of the Extraordinary Missionary Month … he stated: ‘do not forget that prayer is the real soul, the beating heart, of all missionary work of the Church.’”
“If the missio ad gentes, if the missionary life of the Church, the evangelization, is really facing a serious crisis, it is because faith and Church and structures are less and less interested in the salvation of the world,” Meroni said.
“The Church is meant to be the sacramental beginning of the salvation of the world,” he said.
Fr. Meroni said that his advice to local churches who seek to renew their missionary approach to the pastoral work of their communities, parishes, and diocese is to take into serious consideration the central key role of cloistered contemplative life, which can “rekindle their missionary passion and zeal for the salvation for the world.”
Pius XI declared St. Therese of Liseux, a 19th century cloistered Carmelite sister, the patroness of missions in 1927. The saint, who died at the age of 23, offered prayer and sacrifice for the sake of missionaries and wrote of her burning desire to save many souls in her spiritual autobiography The Story of a Soul.
Pope Francis led Vespers in St. Peter’s Basilica to begin the Extraordinary Missionary Month on the feast of St. Therese of Liseux.
Frédéric Fornos Fornos, the director of the Pope’s World Prayer Network, said at a Vatican press conference: “On this day when we celebrate St. Therese of Lisieux, patron of missions, who learned to pray for the mission of the church with the apostolate of prayer, it is beautiful to remember that prayer is a way to love.”
Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, said, “October is traditionally considered the month of missionaries; we proposed that [this year] it would be an Extraordinary Missionary Month, extraordinary in its intensity and extraordinary in its vision.”
Filoni explained that this month is not about doing philanthropy because philanthropy is “not the first dimension of missionary life.” The first dimension of missionary life is “a passion for Jesus” and “a passion for people,” he said.
The theme of the Extraordinary Missionary Month is “Baptized and sent: the Church of Christ on mission in the world.” Pope Francis stressed that this means that “no one is excluded from the Church’s mission.”
“In this month the Lord is also calling you, because you, fathers and mothers of families; you, young people who dream great things; you, who work in a factory, a store, a bank or a restaurant; you who are unemployed; you are in a hospital bed… The Lord is asking you to be a gift wherever you are, and just as you are, with everyone around you,” the pope said.
Pope Francis pointed to the example of two other missionaries as exemplars of zeal for the Gospel. The first was St. Francis Xavier, whom the pope said is “perhaps, after St. Paul, the greatest missionary of all time.”
The other was Venerable Pauline Jaricot, a 19th century French lay woman who helped to found the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and supported the Church’s missionary work with the offerings she made from her wages.
“This extraordinary Missionary Month should jolt us and motivate us to be active in doing good,” Pope Francis said.
“Can we, who have discovered that we are children of the heavenly Father, keep silent about the joy of being loved, the certainty of being ever precious in God’s eyes? That is a message that so many people are waiting to hear. And it is our responsibility,” he said.
Anchorage, Alaska, Oct 1, 2019 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- The city of Anchorage has dropped a complaint filed with the city’s Equal Rights Commission after a women’s shelter in the city refused to allow a biological man to stay the night, it was an… […]
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