Washington D.C., Jan 3, 2019 / 04:10 pm (CNA).- The 116th Congress was gavelled into session on January 3, bringing almost 100 new lawmakers into office, and with Catholics making up nearly 30 percent of the congressional freshman class.
Cath… […]
Dublin, Ireland, Jan 3, 2019 / 04:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- January 1, 2019 marked the beginning of legalized abortion in Ireland, drawing dismay from Irish pro-life groups, who campaigned extensively against the reform.
Once a majority-Catholic and pro… […]
Savannakhet, Laos, Jan 3, 2019 / 03:19 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Seven Christians in a Laotian village were arrested and detained for several days for holding a church service deemed illegal.
They were arrested Dec. 29 and released Jan. 2, according to Radio Free Asia, which aims “to provide accurate and timely news and information to Asian countries whose governments prohibit access to a free press.”
The detainees are from Nakanong village in the Phine District of Savannakhet Province. Three of those arrested were church leaders, and the rest were members of the church.
Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom told BosNewsLife that local authorities “demolished the [church’s] stage, cut off the power line, destroyed the sound system, and seized three mobile phones.”
Laos is a communist country of southeast Asia. Its constitution provides citizens the freedom to believe in religion, but religious groups must register with the government. The US State Department’s 2017 International Religious Freedom Report said that “freedom of religion tended to decline in the rural areas.”
It added that “government restrictions on registered or unregistered minority religious groups, particularly Protestant groups, remained disproportionately limiting in certain remote regions. Reports continued of authorities, especially in isolated villages, arresting, detaining, and exiling followers of minority religions, particularly Christians.”
Laos is a majority-Buddhist country, and less than two percent of the population is Christian.
The Ministry of Home Affairs must give permission for religious practice, and it can order the cessation of any religious activities or beliefs not in agreement with policies, traditional customs, or laws.
The International Religious Freedom Report also said that the decentralization of Laotian government contributes “to abuses by local officials, some of whom reportedly were unaware of laws and policies protecting religious freedom or unwilling to implement them. Religious groups stated that most, if not all, instances of abuse occurred in remote villages.”
RFA reported that four Christians were detained for a week in November in Savannakhet’s Viraboury District for holding services without permission.
Washington D.C., Jan 3, 2019 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis has written to the bishops of the United States calling for a “change of mindset” to restore the Church’s credibility and trust among the faithful.
“Clearly … […]
The year 2019 marks 190 years since Britain’s Parliament passed the Catholic Relief Act of 1829, commonly described as Catholic Emancipation. It removed the last traces of anti-Catholic laws which had been variously enforced since […]
Nashville, Tenn., Jan 3, 2019 / 10:00 am (CNA).- An Episcopalian priest set out to write a book on finding and understanding the Gospel’s truth. Now, after he and his family have converted to Catholicism, he says they have found it.
Andrew Petip… […]
New Haven, Conn., Jan 3, 2019 / 09:09 am (CNA).- Catholics can be good US citizens and honest public servants, the head of the Knights of Columbus wrote Thursday in a message to members of the Catholic charitable organization.
“There have been times in our country’s past when uninformed or prejudiced people questions whether Catholics could be good citizens or honest public servants,” Supreme Knight Carl Anderson wrote in the letter.
“Sadly, it seems that in some quarters, this prejudice remains.”
Anderson’s Jan. 3 letter was occasioned by two senators objecting last month to a federal judicial nominee’s membership in the Knights.
Senators Mazie Hirono (D-HI) and Kamala Harris (D-CA) asked whether his membership in the Knights of Columbus would prevent Brian C. Buescher from hearing cases “fairly and impartially.” Buescher is an Omaha-based lawyer nominated to sit on the US District Court for the District of Nebraska.
The Supreme Knight noted that Buescher’s “fitness for the federal bench” was questioned by Hirono and Harris “precisely because our Order holds firm to the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of life and marriage.”
Anderson said, “Such attacks on the basis of our Catholic faith are hardly new. The Knights of Columbus was formed amid a period of anti-Catholic bigotry.”
From the founding of the Knights of Columbus until the presidential election of John F. Kennedy, “many still held that Catholics were unfit for public office,” he added.
The Knights of Columbus has always adhered to Catholic teaching, Anderson said, adding that “our primary motivation” is Christ’s commandment “that we love God completely and our neighbor as ourselves.”
It is this commandment of love that compels the Knights’ charitable work, he noted.
“This love also motivates us to stand with the Church on the important issues of life and marriage, precisely because the Church’s teaching reflects and is based on that love. We stand with our Church because we believe that what our faith teaches is consistent with reason, is timeless and transcends the changing sentiments of any particular time or place.”
The Supreme Knight also noted that in his letter to the Knights’ 2013 convention, Pope Francis had asked that the organization “bear witness to the authentic nature of marriage and the family, the sanctity and inviolable dignity of human life, and the beauty and truth of human sexuality.”
Anderson pointed out the no religious test clause of Article VI of the US Constitution, and the free exercise clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment, saying, “any suggestion that the Order’s adherence to the beliefs of the Catholic Church makes a Brother Knight unfit for public office blatantly violates those constitutional guarantees.”
“Let us continue to express our love of God and neighbor by helping those in need and by standing with our Church, regardless of the popularity of doing so,” Anderson exhorted.
“Let us also remember that, from our founding, we have embodied the truth that a good Catholic is a good citizen who shows civility and dignity even in the face of prejudice.”
Buescher was nominated to serve on the U.S. District Court Nov. 3. The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Buescher’s nomination Nov. 28, sending him written questions Dec. 5.
Hirono had asked Buescher if he would end his membership with the Knights of Columbus if confirmed, so as “to avoid any appearance of bias,” saying the organization “has taken a number of extreme positions.”
And Harris described the Knights as “an all-male society”, and asked if Buescher was aware that the Knights of Columbus “opposed a woman’s right to choose” and were against “marriage equality” when he joined.
Harris raised a statement from Anderson saying abortion constituted “the killing of the innocent on a massive scale” and asked Buescher if he agreed with Anderson.
Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) noted the nominee’s previously outspoken opposition to abortion and asked, “why should a litigant in your courtroom expect to get a fair hearing from an impartial judge in a case involving abortion rights?”
Buescher ran in the Republican primary for Nebraska attorney general in 2014. During that campaign he described himself as “avidly pro-life” and said opposition to abortion was part of his “moral fabric.”
In his responses to the questions from the Senate Judiciary Committee, Buescher said if confirmed as a federal judge, he would follow established rules regarding conflicts of interest, and that he would not seek to advance personal opinions, but would make rulings in accord with the judicial precedents established by the US Supreme Court.
Anderson is not the only voice to raise objections to the senators’ line of questions.
A Jan. 2 Wall Street Journal editorial said that the senators’ “argument against Mr. Buescher fits a distressing pattern. No longer is it necessary to engage the political merits of a position, or—in the case of a judicial nominee—demonstrate he’d use personal views to override the law. Today it is enough to label a nominee’s religion or associations “extreme” and use that to try to banish him from public life.”
The editorial noted another recent instance in which a Catholic faced questions about her faith, mentioning the 2017 confirmation hearing for federal Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, in which Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Barrett “the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.” That comment sparked a groundswell of support for Barrett’s nomination.
Last month, a Washington, D.C. chapter of the Knights of Columbus invited Harris and Hirono to join in their charitable activities, including a February Polar Plunge raising money for the Special Olympics. Neither senator has responded to that invitation.
The Knights of Columbus is active in 17 countries. In 2017, some 2 million members carried out more than 75 million hours of volunteer work and raised more than $185 million for charitable purposes.
Washington D.C., Jan 2, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Pediatric endocrinologists are warning that despite a lack of medical tests to determine its safety, U.S. doctors are increasingly injecting children who have gender dysphoria with a powerful hormonal suppressant normally used to treat prostate cancer.
“[Parents] need to continue to love their children. They need to continue to affirm their human dignity. Yet they shouldn’t have to jettison biological reality to be able to put what they’re being told into practice, in terms of disrupting normally timed puberty,” Dr. Paul Hruz, an associate professor of pediatrics and endocrinology at Washington University in St. Louis, told The Christian Post.
Leuprorelin, sold under the brand name Lupron, has never been green-lighted by the Food and Drug Administration to treat gender dysphoria, nor have there been any peer-reviewed studies done on the drug’s long-term physical and psychological side effects on children, The Christian Post reports.
The Christian Post interviewed several doctors in a recent report who said synthetic hormones could put children on a pathway to permanent sterilization, and many other long-term repercussions which may not be felt for years.
Hormone blockers, like leuprorelin, are approved for use in children to treat precocious puberty— when a child experiences puberty at an abnormally early age— and pediatricians may administer them to children to help them handle hormone drives and avoid peer pressure related to their sexual maturity.
Doctors may diagnose children with central precocious puberty when signs of sexual maturity begin to develop in girls under the age of 8 or boys under the age of 9, according to the drug’s website.
When used normally, the drug suppresses hormonal signals from the pituitary gland which regulate testosterone or estrogen levels. This can aid in the treatment of prostate cancer for men and endometriosis in women.
When used to suppress normally-timed puberty, however, the drug can affect bone density, which increases during a child’s normal pubertal development, Hruz told The Christian Post.
“The reality is that there is no long-term data about treating children, and the only data that we have in adults indicates that medical interventions to align the appearance of the body to a transgendered identity does not fix the problem,” he said, adding that overwhelming evidence exists that most children will realign their gender identity with their biological sex if left alone.
Dr. Michael Laidlaw, a Rocklin, California-based board certified physician, told The Christian Post that a group called the World Professional Association for Transgender Health overhauled and “co-opted” the guidelines regarding gender transition therapy of the Endocrine Society, the largest global professional organization representing the field of endocrinology, to be overwhelmingly pro-transition.
Ladilaw also claimed that parents who change their minds about helping their children transition are often “strong-armed” or “bullied” into continuing the treatment by doctors, who warn that the child may commit suicide without the treatment.
“Gender dysphoria is not an endocrine condition, but is a psychological one, and should, therefore, be treated with proper psychological care,” Laidlaw told the The Christian Post.
“But it becomes an endocrine condition once you start using puberty blockers and giving cross-sex hormones to kids.”
Ladilaw also mentioned that he knows of no psychological condition that is treated by misaligning a patient’s hormones from their normal levels. He said he predicts that a few years down the road, when patients begin to realize the side effects of the treatment, there will likely be medical malpractice lawsuits filed against those who encouraged their transition.
Dr. Quentin Van Meter, a pediatric endocrinologist in private practice in Atlanta, said that doctors who oppose gender transition therapy today face barriers to getting published and are routinely dismissed by the scientific community at large.
“There is a core of very diabolical people who are filtering large sums of money into this and using mass social pressure,” Van Meter asserted.
California passed a law in September 2018 to provide resources for “gender-affirmative” treatment for foster children, despite strong opposition from doctors; a group of endocrinologists have co-authored a letter of protest to the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism regarding the guidelines. Between 2009 and the present, the number of transgender medical clinics in the U.S. has ballooned to 55.
The doctors cited by The Christian Post all recommended appropriate counseling to uncover the root cause of the child’s distress, rather than seeking a gender change.
Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jan 2, 2019 / 05:56 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is drawing attention to voting problems that could call into question the outcome of a p… […]
Santiago, Chile, Jan 2, 2019 / 04:03 pm (ACI Prensa).- At the Vatican summit to discuss sex abuse next month, the secretary general of the Chilean Bishops Conference will take the place of the conference president, who is embroiled in the nation’s current sex abuse crisis.
Bishop Fernando Ramos, apostolic administrator of Rancagua and secretary general of the conference, will represent the Chilean bishops at the meeting requested by Pope Francis, which will include the heads of bishops’ conferences from around the world.
The anti-abuse summit will be held at the Vatican Feb. 21-24. While the presidents of the national bishops’ conferences have been invited, Bishop Santiago Silva will not attend.
Silva, who serves as president of the Chilean Bishops’ Conference, has been subpoenaed on charges of covering up abuse within the Military Diocese, which he has headed since July 2015.
“Given that this is an important meeting called by the Holy Father,” Ramos told the La Tercera newspaper, Silva asked him to attend “in order to avoid shifting the focus to… the person of the president himself.”
Ramos told La Tercera that at the most recent Plenary Assembly of the bishops’ conference in November 2018, Silva said that he was willing to continue as the conference president or to step down.
“At that time, he was asked to continue in his position as president,” Ramos said. “Regarding the invitation that the Holy Father has made to the presidents of the bishops’ conferences of the world, for the February meeting, the president of the Chilean Bishops’ Conference asked me to attend.”
The Church in Chile is still reeling from revelations of a sex abuse scandal following an in-depth investigation by Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna and Msgr. Jordi Bertomeu of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which resulted in a 2,300-page report on the scandal.
Pope Francis initially dismissed some of the abuse cover up allegations as “calumny,” but later apologized and said he had been misinformed in judging the case, due to “a lack of truthful and balanced information.”
The pope then summoned all the Chilean bishops to Rome in May 2018 for a meeting in which he harshly criticized them for a systematic cover-up of abuse involving not only the destruction of documents, but superficial investigations that led to moving accused abusers to other schools or parishes where they had access to children.
Following that meeting, every bishop in the country submitted their resignation. The pope has accepted several of the resignations and is expected to accept several more in the coming months.
In his interview with La Tercera, published Dec. 29, Bishop Ramos acknowledged that the abuse crisis has contributed to an ongoing decrease in the size of the Chilean Church.
He pointed to a survey finding that Catholics made up 73 percent of the population 20 years ago, but now make up 55 percent. This trend is partly due to “a process of profound transformation of Chilean society where cultural forms of expression of greater individualism and materialism are emerging,” he said.
The bishop added that “the cases of abuse and mishandling that we have had as a Church have accelerated this process of disaffiliation. We must acknowledge our responsibility that we have not responded well to this kind of situation and that has affected Church affiliation.”
Regarding the response to the sex abuse crisis in the country, Ramos argued that the Church in Chile is not “the same Church that it was a year ago.”
“[S]everal bishops have been changed, [and] a very profound process of reflection by our communities has begun, with the aim of our having in 2020 an Ecclesiastical Assembly where a series of pastoral guidelines for the life of the Church can take their final form,” he said.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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