Polish Bishops launch #ThankYouJohnPaul2 campaign for pope’s centenary 

Rome, Italy, Jun 18, 2018 / 03:15 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Most Western Europeans identify as Christian, but say they do not, or seldom, attend church services – outnumbering those Christians who do attend church, a survey from the Pew Research Center has reported.

Released May 29, results found in 12 of the 15 surveyed Western European countries, non-practicing Christians (defined as those who self-identify as Christian but report attending church services less than once per month) made up the largest religious group, beating out both religious “nones” and churchgoing Christians.

The telephone survey was conducted in mid-2017 with more than 24,000 participants from Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.

The median percentage of the population of Western Europe identifying as Christian was 71 percent, though only 22 percent of Western Europeans attend church at least monthly. Across all 15 countries surveyed, the median percent of those who had been baptized was 91, and 81 percent reported they were raised Christian.  

Median percentages were analyzed across the 15 surveyed countries to gain a view of the region overall, though countries varied in total Christian identification by as much as 42 percentage points.

Countries such as Italy, Portugal, and Ireland reported total Christian identification around 80 percent, while Norway and Sweden reported Christian identification at slightly above 50 percent.

In every country surveyed except the Netherlands and Norway, where the religiously unaffiliated are the largest religious group, non-practicing Christians make up the majority of Europe’s Christians. Italy is also an exception, where non-practicing Christians and church-attending Christians are split.

Non-practicing Christians in Western Europe were also found to outnumber people of all other religions combined.

The 71 percent Christian identification of Western Europe matches up with Christian identification in the United States. Western Europe also parallels the United States’ declining rates of Christians overall and the increase in “nones.”

Particularly in Belgium, Norway, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden, the difference in the percentage of the population raised Christian versus the percentage of the population who still practices Christianity is a difference of 22 to 28 percent.

In the same countries, the percentage of people who now identify as religiously unaffiliated is between 21 and 28 percentage points higher than those raised without a religion.

In comparison to the U.S., however, religious fervor overall in Western Europe is significantly lower. While close to half of Americans say religion is “very important” in their lives, the median percentage of Western European adults who say the same is 11.

This difference becomes even more marked between American Christians and European Christians. Sixty eight percent of American Christians report religion is very important to them, compared with only 14 percent of Western European Christians.

The Pew survey on Western Europe also compared the attitudes of non-practicing Christians, church attending Christians, and the religiously unaffiliated on certain political, cultural, and religious issues, such as views toward immigrants, religious minorities, nationalist sentiment, abortion, and same-sex marriage.

On some issues, the views of non-practicing Christians were found to align more closely with religious “nones,” while on others they aligned more closely with church attending Christians.

Most non-churchgoing Christians reported belief in God or a higher power and had favorable views toward churches and other religious organizations.

On abortion, same-sex marriage, and the role of religion in government, a majority of both non-practicing Christians and the non-religious said they support legal abortion in all or most cases and support legalizing same-sex marriage. They also think religion should be kept out of government policies.

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Belfast, Northern Ireland, Mar 20, 2021 / 01:01 pm (CNA).- The British government may push to legislate further on the provision of abortion in Northern Ireland, as it holds that the region’s devolved government has not fully implemented regulations imposed by Westminster.

“We remain disappointed that the Department of Health and Northern Ireland executive have failed to commission full abortion services, following the change to the law last March,” a British government spokesperson said, according to the Press Association.

“We are continuing to monitor the situation closely, including considering further legislative action at Westminster, given the nature of the legal duties on the secretary of state for Northern Ireland in this context.”

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but abortion law is considered a devolved issue to be under the control of the Northern Ireland Assembly. However, due to the suspension of the  regional government, the British parliament in October 2019 decriminalized abortion in Northern Ireland and obliged the UK government to create legal access to abortion in the region.

The regulations from Westminster, which came into force March 31, 2020, allow elective abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy; abortions up to 24 weeks in cases of risk to the mother’s physical or mental health; and abortion without time limit in cases of severe fetal impairment or fatal fetal abnormality.

Abortions may be performed at General Practitioners premises, and Health and Social Care clinics and hospitals. Medical abortions are permitted up to 10 weeks, and the first medication, mifepristone, must be taken at a clinic.

The Guardian reported a source in the British government as saying the Northern Ireland Executive “has not commissioned abortion services consistent with the regulations originally set out by the UK government nearly a year ago.”

Between March 31 and Oct. 14, 719 abortions were procured in Northern Ireland.

According to the Press Association, medical abortions have been arranged at individual health trusts, but the Department of Health has not commissioned abortion provision across the region.

Brandon Lewis, the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is “reportedly prompted by concerns many women are still travelling to Great Britain” to procure abortion, the Press Association wrote.

Northern Irish women have been able to procure free National Health Service abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales since November 2017.

The Guardian reported that “more than 100 women have still sought abortions in England from Northern Ireland.”

Throughout 2019, 1,014 Northern Ireland women are known to have traveled to England or Wales for an abortion, and fewer than 10 traveled to Scotland for an abortion, according to the U.K. Department of Social Care and Scotland’s Information Services.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has filed a judicial review in the region’s High Court over what it maintains is a lack of commission and funding for abortion. The human rights group cites Lewis, the Northern Ireland Executive, and the Northern Ireland Department of Health in its complaint.

Lewis seeks to have the British parliament allow him to direct the Northern Ireland health department to commission more widespread abortion provision.

The health department holds that it needs the agreement of the regional government in order to act.

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster, who is also leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, and Jeffrey Donaldson, the party’s leader in Westminster, met with Lewis about his plans March 18.

Donaldson recalled that “abortion is a devolved matter,” adding that “any move by an NIO minister to legislate over the head of the Northern Ireland Executive would raise serious questions about when and in what areas the government can make interventions in a devolved administration. The DUP would warn the Northern Ireland Office against legislating on a matter which is wholly devolved and we will vigorously oppose such steps.”

The Northern Ireland Assembly is a power-sharing legislature dominated by the DUP and Sinn Féin.

The Irish nationalist party has said it will call on the health department to make full provision for abortion.

The Severe Fetal Impairment Abortion (Amendment) Bill, introduced by a DUP Member of the Legislative Assembly, passed its second reading in the Assembly March 15, by a vote of 48 to 12. The bill would remove severe fetal impairment as a ground for abortion.

Sinn Féin MLAs abstained from the vote, while MLAs from the Social Democrat and Labour Party, the Ulster Unionist Party, and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland were allowed a conscience vote.

Disability rights campaigners — including the group Don’t Screen Us Out and Heidi Crowter, an Irish woman with Down syndrome — have welcomed the bill, calling the current law “downright discrimination” toward persons with disabilities.

Before March 31, 2020, abortion was legally permitted in Northern Ireland only if the mother’s life was at risk or if there was risk of long term or permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.

Northern Ireland rejected the Abortion Act 1967, which legalized abortion in England, Wales, and Scotland; and bills to legalize abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, or incest failed in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2016.

In June 2020 the British Minister of State for Northern Ireland, Lewis’ deputy, said that while abortion regulation is a devolved issue, any local changes to Northern Ireland’s abortion law would have to comply with human rights conventions.

The Northern Ireland Assembly had shortly before passed a non-binding motion rejecting the imposition of the abortion regulations by the Westminster parliament.

The amendment to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 obliging the government to provide for legal abortion in Northern Ireland was introduced by Stella Creasy, a Labour MP who represents a London constituency.

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London, England, Jan 14, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- U.K. Minister of Defense Johnny Mercer has issued an apology to lesbian, gay, and bisexual servicemembers who were reportedly outed by military chaplains. He issued the apology at an event recognizing the anniversary of the repeal of the United Kingdom’s ban on homosexual members of the military.

“Our policy regarding LGB members in the military was unacceptable then, and as a defense minister, I personally apologize for those experiences,” said Mercer at an event held Jan. 9 and again in a statement to CNA Jan. 14. 

“Pastoral encounters between service chaplains and personnel should be strictly confidential.”

LGBT campaigners have alleged that over a period of years Catholic military chaplains, as well as Church of England chaplains, regularly violated the seal of confession and informed military superiors of the identities of lesbian, gay, or bisexual members of the military. These servicemembers were then discharged as homosexuality was not permitted in the military until January 2000. 

LGBT activist Edmund Hall, a former Royal Navy sub-lieutenant, claims that he has spoken to over 100 self-identified lesbian, gay, and bisexual members of the military who were dismissed due to their sexuality. 

Hall told The Sunday Times Jan. 12 that while these former servicemembers “were dismissed in all sorts of circumstances,” confessing homosexual behavior to chaplains “was certainly one of those circumstances.”

Elaine Chambers, who co-founded a group advocating for the inclusion of homosexual men and women in the military, told The Sunday Times saying that it was “absolutely shocking” that priests “used to break the rules of the confessional.”

“[Our members] told somebody, thinking, ‘I am just getting it off my chest,’ and the next thing you know, that has led to the military police knocking on your door and that could only have come from the padres,” she said.

Breaking the sacramental seal of confession is a grave crime in the Catholic Church, and incurs a latae sententiae (automatic) excommunication. Priests are expected to keep the secrets of their penitents confidential, even if the penitent confesses to a serious crime or treason. 

Patrick Lyster-Todd, another “gay rights” activist, told The Sunday Times that a letter was allegedly sent by Cardinal Basil Hume, then Archbishop of Westminster and head of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, to military chaplains in 1994. This letter allegedly emphasized that the seal of confession was sacrosanct and could not be violated.

Lyster-Todd claimed that once this letter was written, the outings stopped.

A secretary for the Catholic Bishopric of the Armed Forces for the U.K. told CNA Jan. 14 that it could not comment on that claim, because officials are checking archives in an attempt to locate any such letter, and then confirm what specifically was written, and to whom it was addressed.

“Knowledge of the information is for the priest, the penitent and God,” Bishop Paul Mason of the Armed Forces said to The Sunday Times.

“Information gained in the context of sacramental confession may not be used in any other forum.”

CNA contacted the Archdiocese of Westminster and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales for comment on the allegations of violation of the seal, and to confirm the alleged letter from Cardinal Hume, but has not yet received a response.

Hall stated that the Ministry of Defense instructed the chaplains to put military efficiency above their spiritual duties. 

“Would you expect a chaplain to withhold the fact that someone was giving away their location to a Russian submarine? At the time, the [Ministry of Defense’]s view was that homosexuality was in the same category–that it would damage the efficacy of the units,” he told The Times.

While Hall suggested that a priest would be obliged to report acts of espionage confessed to him, Church law admits no exception to the secrecy of the confessional.

In 2001, former FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested and pled guilty to 15 counts of espionage. Hanssen, a practicing Catholic, repeatedly confessed his crimes to a priest, who did not report what he did to the authorities. 

Conversations that occur outside of the context of a sacramental confession, even if they occur in the context of counseling or mentorship, do not fall under the seal of confession. If a servicemember went to a chaplain seeking advice and revealed, inadvertently or purposefully, a same-sex relationship, the chaplain would not be bound to keep that a secret as though it were made in confession. 

Despite focus on sacramental confession in the allegations of LGB activists, Hall’s comments to the press are actually ambiguous as to whether priests may, in fact, have violated the seal of confession. Some remarks from Hall suggest that the context of “confessions” may have been pastoral or other guidance, but not sacramental confession.

He said that chaplains were “welfare officers” who heard “issues of a highly personal nature” about a person’s marriage, family, and faith life, but did not offer specific allegations concerning violations of the sacramental seal.

“What was more damaging was not any particular case where it may or may not have happened,” said Hall. “It was the fact that the threat of it happening removes the key pastoral support option for people going through the toughest time of their life. Because you knew you couldn’t talk to a chaplain, so who the hell could you talk to?”

[…]