Manchester, England, Apr 5, 2019 / 11:55 am (CNA).- The international federation L’Arche says that a British hospital’s mistreatment of a man with Down syndrome in the weeks leading up to his death point to systemic faults in the medical ca… […]
Vatican City, Apr 5, 2019 / 10:02 am (CNA).- The pope’s annual Good Friday Stations of the Cross, held at the Colosseum, will be written by a religious sister devoted to fighting human trafficking, it was announced Friday.
“The suffering o… […]
Vatican City, Apr 5, 2019 / 09:40 am (CNA).- Discussing current digital trends, from “influencers” to cyborgs to “zapping,” Pope Francis’ recent apostolic letter to young people contains both buzzwords and moral advice for… […]
Austin, Texas, Apr 5, 2019 / 12:17 am (CNA).- The state of Texas has banned all prison chaplains from its execution chamber, following a Supreme Court decision that halted the execution of a Buddist man who was denied the presence of his chaplain.
Pat… […]
By J.D. Flynn Washington D.C., Apr 4, 2019 / 04:12 pm (CNA).- Thursday morning, the Vatican announced the fates of two American archbishops: one has become the next Archbishop of Washington, and the other has […]
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) filed a new religious liberty lawsuit this week on behalf of a Catholic classical school, the Lyceum, against the city of South Euclid, Ohio, which recently passed an expanded nondiscrimination ordinance. […]
Although neither film drew the attention of Oscar voters, the films Eighth Grade and Leave No Trace were among the best-reviewed films of the last year. (Rotten Tomatoes has them at 99-100% fresh.) They make for an interesting […]
Nashville, Tenn., Apr 4, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- As other US states have defunded adoption agencies that won’t place children with same-sex couples, the Tennessee House on Monday passed a bill meant to ensure these agencies’ religious freedom.
HB 836 was passed in the lower house of the state legislature April 1 by a 67-22 vote.
The bill would grant legal protections to adoption organizations which uphold marriage as a union between a man and woman and provides its services accordingly.
It is sponsored by Rep. Tim Rudd and five other Republicans.
The bill now faces the GOP-controlled Senate. Governor Bill Lee, also a Republican, has not yet given his position on the bill.
The measure protects religious agencies from being subjected to lawsuits for not placing children with same-sex couples. It also states that the department of children’s services cannot withhold a license from agencies that do so.
“No private licensed child-placing agency shall be required to perform, assist, counsel, recommend, consent to, refer, or participate in any placement of a child for foster care or adoption when the proposed placement would violate the agency’s written religious or moral convictions or policies,” the bill states.
Although religious adoption agencies in Tennessee have not been prevented from acting out of their moral convictions, the bill comes at a time when Catholic agencies in other states have been shut down or denied access to funding.
Rudd said the bill is comparable to cautionary steps taken by Kansas and Oklahoma, who passed similar laws last year.
“We’re doing the same as nine other states have done,” said Rudd of Murfreesboro, according to the AP. “Throughout the country, these faith-based organizations have been sued to the point they’re being driven out of business due to costs.”
Critics of the bill have said the legislation would be used to permit LGBT discrimination. According to the AP, Democratic Rep. John Clemmons questioned the practicality of religious agencies turning away same-sex couples.
“We have children across this state looking for loving homes, why are we doing anything to prohibit a loving family or a couple from being able to care of a child and take it in and provide for it, why?” said Clemmons.
Laws barring discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or barring state funding from adoption agencies considered discriminatory have shut down Catholic adoption agencies in Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and Illinois, among others.
Last month, it was announced that Michigan state funds would be barred from adoption agencies for the same reason. It followed a settlement headed by the ACLU and same-sex couples against two Christian adoption agencies. The lawsuit ruled that non-discrimination provisions must be enforced within state contracts.
Washington D.C., Apr 4, 2019 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit against a pro-life group that conducted undercover investigations into possible lawbreaking in the abortion industry may proceed, after the U.S. Supreme Court declined t… […]
Mexico City, Mexico, Apr 4, 2019 / 02:10 pm (CNA).- Fr. Hugo Valdemar, the canon penitentiary of the Archdiocese of Mexico, said Monday that through Spanish missionaries we have received from Spain “the greatest thing we Mexicans have, the true faith.”
Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador wrote last month to Pope Francis and the King of Spain, Felipe VI, asking for an apology for the abuses committed during conquest of Mexico by Spanish Catholics in the 16th century.
Spain dismissed López Obrador’s request, while the Vatican recalled that Pope Francis, as well as his predecessors, have asked forgiveness for the “many and grave sins” committed during the conquest of the Americas.
In his April 1 column at the Mexican publication Contra Réplica, Fr. Valdemar noted that “we cannot fall into an historical Manecheism without doing ourselves profound harm: that the good ones were the original peoples, almost in the state of original grace, and the bad ones were the Spanish conquistadors who came to destroy great cultures.”
“The historic truth is very complex, the truth is that the Spaniards didn’t make the conquest but the indigenous did, the peoples subjugated by the Aztec empire, tired of the cruelty and exploitation they were subjected to.”
“This resulted in entire peoples such as the Tlaxcaltecas joining the handful of 200 Spaniards, along with other subjugated peoples joining together, to make possible what just the Spanish alone could never had done,” he said.
The priest acknowledged that “there is no doubt that there were also excesses in planting the faith, but in reality, the Church and the missionaries were the great protectors of the indigenous peoples.”
“Thanks to them, their dignity as persons was recognized, they were freed from slavery, their culture was protected and above all, thanks to the Spanish Catholic Church the greatest gift came to us, faith in Jesus Christ, the sole savior of men, and Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared, the model and star of evangelization, as John Paul II called her.”
Fr. Valdemar stressed that “it’s of no use to nurse and dwell on the wounds of the past, and the Nobel laureate in literature Octavio Paz has already spoken of the national trauma of not being able to properly integrate our dual origin: indigenous and Spanish.”
“From Spain we received through extraordinary missionaries such as Pedro de Gante, Motolinia, Fray Juan de Zumárraga, and Tata Vasco de Quiroga, the greatest thing we Mexicans have, the true faith, faith in Jesus Christ, and therefore access to eternal salvation, in addition to this very beautiful language we speak, Castilian Spanish, the suppression of the diabolical barbarism of human sacrifices and the darkness of idolatry, access to a superior culture, the occidental, of which we form a part today, and on the other hand we retain many of the values of the indigenous world, hospitality, a strong social sense and a sense of belonging, and the legacy of the monuments they left which today we show with pride to the millions of tourists who visit us.”
© Catholic World Report