Every four years, Catholics face an intense dilemma in regard to the vote. There are ardently Catholic Democrats who wonder how their co-religionists could possibly choose a Republican candidate, and there are ardently Catholic Republicans […]
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 03:55 pm (CNA).- A historical cathedral in Nagorno-Karabakh was attacked this week, and Armenia is accusing Azerbaijan of carrying out the attack.
Holy Savior Cathedral in Shusha, Nagorno-Karabakh – a disputed territory – was shelled on October 8 amid increasing violence between the two countries.
Artsrun Hovhannisyan, spokesman for Armenia’s defense ministry, blamed “enemy Azerbaijan” for the attack, the BBC said.
According to reports, a section of the cathedral’s roof was destroyed in the attack, while limestone walls were damaged and pews knocked over.
One local resident told AFP news agency that “it is a very important cathedral for Armenians.” He noted that the city of Shusha contains no military operations and questioned the reason for the attack.
Holy Savior Cathedral was consecrated in 1888 and later damaged in 1920 in the Shusa massacre of Armenians by Azerbaijanis. During the Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azerbaijan used the cathedral as a missile armory.
The cathedral was restored after the war and reconsecrated in 1998. The building is 35 meters high, making it one of the largest Armenian churches in the world, and an important symbol for the Armenian people.
Nagorno-Karabakh is an area internationally recognized as belonging to Azerbaijan, a predominately Muslim country, but controlled by ethnic Armenians, who mostly belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church, one of six churches belonging to the Oriental Orthodox communion.
The dispute over the territory has been ongoing since the collapse of the Soviet Union, with a war breaking out from 1988 to 1994.
Fighting has reignited in recent months, with Turkey declaring support for Azerbaijan and other states calling for a diplomatic resolution.
Since the fighting picked up on September 27, thousands of people have been displaced from their homes and over 300 people have died, the BBC reported.
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 03:19 pm (CNA).- As Hurricane Delta approaches Louisiana, two southern Catholic Charities are preparing for the impact of another hurricane landfall this season.
Tropical storm level winds hit Texas and southwestern Louisiana … […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 9, 2020 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- A federal court ruled on Friday that Florida State University (FSU) must pay the Catholic former leader of the student senate who was removed in June for comments he made about Church teaching a… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- A Vatican representative called Wednesday for the cancelation of the debt of poor countries facing a “triple economic shock” as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
Archbishop Gabriele Ca… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- The US Supreme Court on Thursday refused to reverse a lower court’s order preventing the FDA from requiring in-person dispensation of the abortion pill during the coronavirus pandemic.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote a dissent, in which he was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, which focused on “the inconsistency in the Court’s rulings on COVID–19-related public safety measures,” especially regarding First Amendment rights.
The court voted 6-2 Oct. 8 to postpone considering the Trump administration’s appeal that seeks a stay of an injunction that prevents the FDA from enforcing its regulation of mifepristone, the first of the two drugs taken in a medical abortion.
In July, Judge Theodore Chuang of the US District Court for the District of Maryland ruled that the FDA listing of the abortion pill regimen alongside higher-risk procedures and drugs posed an undue burden on women seeking abortions during the pandemic, because it required them to travel to a medical facility to obtain mifepristone. Chuang, and a federal circuit court which upheld his ruling in August, said that women should be able to take mifepristone without a visit to a doctor’s office.
The Supreme Court noted that the FDA “argues that, at a minimum, the injunction is overly broad in scope, given that it applies nationwide and for an indefinite duration regardless of the improving conditions in any individual State. Without indicating this Court’s views on the merits of the District Court’s order or injunction, a more comprehensive record would aid this Court’s review.”
Because of this, the court said the district court should “promptly consider a motion by the Government to dissolve, modify, or stay the injunction, including on the ground that relevant circumstances have changed,” giving it 40 days to rule after having received the government motion.
Alito wrote in his dissent that “there is no legally sound reason” for the court’s refusal to rule on the injunction.
“For all practical purposes, there is little difference between what the Court has done and an express denial of the Government’s application. In both situations, the FDA rule may not be enforced, and in both situations, the Government is able to move the District Court to modify the injunction based on changed circumstances.”
“There is, however, one difference (but not a legally significant one) between what the Court has done and the express denial of the Government’s application. Expressly denying a stay would highlight the inconsistency in the Court’s rulings on COVID–19-related public safety measures,” he noted.
“In response to the pandemic, state and local officials have imposed unprecedented rest rictions on personal liberty, including severe limitations on First Amendment rights. Officials have drastically limited speech, banning or restricting public speeches, lectures, meetings, and rallies. The free exercise of religion also has suffered previously unimaginable restraints, and this Court has stood by while that has occurred.”
He pointed to the court’s decisions in May and July upholding coronavirus limitations on religious services in California and Nevada, noting that “the Court deferred to the judgment of the Governor of Nevada that attendance at worship services presented a greater threat to public health than engaging in the diversions offered by the State’s casinos. The possibility that this dubious conclusion might have been based less on science than on the influence of the State’s powerful gaming industry and its employees was not enough to move the Court. Near-total deference was the rule of the day.”
“In the present case, however, the District Court took a strikingly different approach. While COVID–19 has provided the ground for restrictions on First Amendment rights, the District Court saw the pandemic as a ground for expanding the abortion right recognized in Roe v. Wade.”
Alito noted that the FDA adopted the regulation at issue in 2000, it has been enforced over the course of four administrations, and the agency “evidently decided that the mifepristone requirement should remain in force” during the pandemic.
“Nevertheless, a District Court Judge in Maryland took it upon himself to overrule the FDA on a question of drug safety. Disregarding THE CHIEF JUSTICE’s admonition against judicial second-guessing of officials with public health responsibilities, the judge concluded that requiring women seeking a medication abortion to pick up mifepristone in person during the COVID–19 pandemic constitutes an ‘undue burden’ on the abortion right, and he therefore issued a nationwide injunction against enforcement of the FDA’s requirement. The judge apparently was not troubled by the fact that those responsible for public health in Maryland thought it safe for women (and men) to leave the house and engage in numerous activities that present at least as much risk as visiting a clinic—such as indoor restaurant dining, visiting hair salons and barber shops, all sorts of retail establishments, gyms and other indoor exercise facilities, nail salons, youth sports events, and, of course, the State’s casinos.”
Alito wrote that “Under the approach recently taken by the Court in cases involving restrictions on First Amendment rights, the proper disposition of the Government’s stay application should be clear: grant. But the Court is not willing to do that. Nor is it willing to deny the application. I see no reason for refusing to rule.”
He concluded that the case “presents important issues that richly merit review. The District Court’s decision, if reviewed, is likely to be reversed. And if the FDA is right in its assessment of mifepristone, non-enforcement of the requirement risks irreparable harm. A stay is amply warranted.”
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 11:10 am (CNA).- A priest in the Archdiocese of New Orleans has been arrested along with two women and charged with obscenity after he was discovered filming a pornographic video on a parish church altar.
Fr. Travis Clark, 37, the pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul in Pearl River, Louisiana, was arrested together with Mindy Dixon, 41, and Melissa Cheng, 23, on September 30.
A local resident told police they noticed the lights were on in the parish church, and upon looking in the windows, saw the three engaged in sexual activity on the altar. According to reports, the altar of the church had been outfitted with stage lighting.
The Archdiocese of New Orleans announced the following day, Oct. 1, that Clark had been arrested and removed from ministry. Initially, no details were given for the cause of his removal, other than to confirm that he was not accused of any offences related to abuse of minors.
Details were not revealed until Oct. 8, when public records were released.
Dixon is a pornagraphic performer and “dominatrix.” According to Nola.com, she had posted on her social media the day before her arrest that she was headed to New Orleans to “defile a house of God” alongside another “dominatrix,” presumably Cheng.
Police believe the sexual encounter to have been consensual, and have not filed charges related to sexual assault. The obscenity charge stemmed from the fact that the sex act was visible from a window.
Clark is expected to face canonical sanctions for violations of clerical continence, and for the profanation of an altar, which is constituted a crime in canon 1376 of the Code of Canon Law, which provides that “a person who profanes a movable or immovable sacred object is to be punished with a just penalty.”
Clark was ordained a priest in 2013, and became the pastor of Sts. Peter and Paul in 2019. He had recently been named the chaplain of Pope John Paul II High School in Slidell, Louisiana, replacing another priest who resigned this summer. That priest, Fr. Paul Wattingly, was also suspended from public ministry Oct 1, after he admitted to abusing a minor in 2013.
“Both of these situations are very troubling to me. When a priest does not live out his vocation faithfully he suffers consequences and I must notify the parishioners, school families, and public in general,” said Archbishop Gregory Aymond of New Orleans in an Oct. 1 statement announcing the suspensions.
“Please pray for all those affected, especially the parishioners of the parishes and school communities where they have served,” he added.
Aymond has since performed a penitential liturgy of atonement and re-consecration of the altar at Sts. Peter and Paul church following the act of profanation.
As news of the story spread Friday, one priest on Twitter urged Catholics to pray prayers of reparation, “consoling the heart of Jesus.”
I just heard about a priest who did something truly diabolical recently. I won’t share the details because it’s very upsetting. But please, PLEASE, spend some time in prayer today consoling the heart of Jesus in reparation for this sin, and all sins. You can pray this chaplet. pic.twitter.com/G6KhX9xmXw
— Fr. Tom Bombadil, Ring Wraith? (@calix517) October 9, 2020
Clark, Dixon, and Cheng have all been released on bail.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 9, 2020 / 09:10 am (CNA).- When the Vatican purchased a London luxury apartment building from its investment manager in 2018, the building owner and the deal’s broker may have had a conflict of interest during negot… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 08:15 am (CNA).- Archbishop Eamon Martin had been thinking about the rosary ever since the pandemic broke out. In previous times of adversity, Irish Catholics had turned to the devotion. Could that tradition be revived now… […]
CNA Staff, Oct 9, 2020 / 06:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has expressed “dramatic concern” about the Catholic Church in Germany, according to a bishop who met him this week.
Bishop Heinz-Josef Algermissen said that the pope addressed the situ… […]
© Catholic World Report