Archbishop Luis Javier Argüello Garcia of Valladolid criticized Spain’s Council of Ministers Tuesday for approving an abortion bill, stressing that abortion “is never a right” and that the bill’s content is “totally symptomatic of a way of governing.”
With the approval of the Council, the government’s primary decision-making body, the bill will now make its way through the legislative process.
In an Aug. 30 tweet, Archbishop Argüello, who is secretary general of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, pointed out as especially harmful the fact that reflection and information for women is eliminated.
“The new law eliminates information and reflection as something prior and indispensable to make such a serious decision about the life of another person,” the prelate underscored, emphasizing that “denying information and reflection” is “totally symptomatic of a way of governing.”
Abortar nunca es un derecho. Además, la nueva ley del aborto, suprime la información y la reflexión como algo previo e imprescindible para tomar una decisión tan grave para la vida de otra persona. NEGAR LA INFORMACIÓN Y LA REFLEXIÓN: Todo un síntoma de una manera de gobernar.
The prelate also elaborated on why the bill is open to criticism.
Speaking to the radio station owned by the Spanish Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Argüello stated that proposing abortion as a right is “awful,” more so in the context of the demographic winter in Spain.
“In a situation of demographic winter, where advances in science make it possible to say unequivocally that within a woman there is a new life, proposing abortion as a right, and trying to resolve the conflict, which I recognize can occur in certain situations, to think that the solution to that conflict is to annihilate, the one who is also the weakest, frankly, it is something awful.” he pointed out.
The Archbishop of Valladolid noted that “the imposition of the will to power and the right to decide of a person about someone so fragile and vulnerable, who is a person who is already in the womb of a pregnant woman” can’t be considered progressive.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Belfast, Northern Ireland, Oct 4, 2018 / 07:45 am (CNA).- A new legal challenge has been mounted to Northern Ireland’s abortion law calling it incompatible with human rights because it does not allow abortion in cases where the unborn baby has a fatal abnormality. Pro-life advocates are arguing that abortion is not the compassionate choice, even in the most difficult circumstances.
“We can and will do so much better for women and their children in Northern Ireland than offering them the barbaric violence, distress and heartbreak of abortion,” said Bernadette Smyth, director of the Northern Ireland group pro-life Precious Life.
“Those working to overturn our legal protections for the unborn are attempting to make abortion appear to be a compassionate response to a woman facing a poor diagnosis for her unborn baby,” she said Oct. 2.
The plaintiff is seeking a high court decision against the current restrictions. Sarah Ewart travelled from Belfast to England for an abortion after a 20-week ultrasound scan led to a diagnosis of anencephaly for her baby, the Irish Times reports. The condition means the baby’s brain and skull do not develop and causes death either before birth or shortly afterwards.
“Pregnancy should be a happy time, whereas it has been a scary time for me, every scan I went to, I feared,” Ewart told the Press Association.
“Five years ago, I didn’t think I would still be fighting now, but we are going to go all the way, we are part of the U.K., the same laws should apply here,” she said.
Ewart now has two children and would like to have more, but said this was daunting given that doctors have told her she faces a risk of a similar pregnancy.
Smyth, however, thought the case for legal abortion was misleading.
“People are being fooled into thinking that abortion is a humane answer for a baby who is not going to survive for long after birth,” she said. “The heart-breaking reality however is that these late term abortions for babies with life-limiting conditions literally tear these babies apart in the womb, and so often leave women suffering with long-term grief, regret, anxiety and other mental health problems caused by the abortion and their knowledge that their baby’s death was a chosen one.”
Abortion is allowed 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.
In June the U.K. Supreme Court threw out a previous challenge to Northern Ireland’s abortion law, saying the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, which brought the case, did not have standing to do so. However, a majority of the judges said that the Northern Ireland abortion law framework is incompatible with human rights laws insofar as it bars abortion in cases of pregnancy by rape or incest or in cases of fetal abnormality. The U.K. government has so far not legislated any change.
Grainne Teggart, Northern Ireland campaigns manager for Amnesty International, said that taking the case to the Belfast high court should secure the necessary declaration that Northern Ireland’s abortion law violate human rights as they are enshrined in national legislation for the U.K.
Teggart said Ewart and other women should not have to go through the courts.
“The U.K. government has the power to change the law now and bring an end to the suffering of women here,” she said.
Precious Life said that Ewart “should have been offered real care and options, such as the loving support system of perinatal hospice care.”
“This service gives families the precious time they need with their sick babies, and gives these babies the dignity and love they deserve, no matter how short their lives may be.”
The pro-life group said that at 20 weeks into pregnancy, babies are close to surviving outside the womb. “Babies do not deserve to be killed so barbarically for any reason, or simply because they have a disability,” said the group.
“We must work to inform the people of Northern Ireland about the reality of abortion and what happens in the abortion procedure.”
Precious Life stressed the need to educate Northern Ireland about “what really happens in the abortion procedure.” The organization said that during a late-term abortion – between 15 and 24 weeks – the unborn baby’s body parts are “pulled apart piece by piece with a long-toothed clamp and removed.”
“The baby’s head is grasped and crushed in order to remove through from the mother’s cervix,” it added.
In an induced labor abortion, potassium chloride is injected into the baby to stop its heartbeat before delivery.
“If aborted alive, the baby will be left to die,” said the group. It cited National Health Service statistics estimating that in Britain, 66 babies a year are “left to die after late-term abortions gone wrong.”
“This is not healthcare. This is not compassion. This is cold-blooded killing,” Precious Life said. It urged the people of Northern Ireland to “continue to stand with us as a light in the darkness and a voice for unborn babies and their mothers who deserve all the help, love and support we can offer to encourage them to choose life.”
Northern Ireland’s abortion law could be taken up by either the Northern Ireland Assembly or the Parliament of the United Kingdom, but the Northern Ireland government is currently suspended due to disagreements between the two major governing parties.
The Democratic Unionist Party, the largest party in Northern Ireland and a key member of the U.K.’s governing coalition, is opposed to changing the law. Sinn Féin, another prominent party in Northern Ireland, backs a law that permits abortion.
In the neighboring Republic of Ireland, constitutional protections for the unborn were repealed following a May referendum. Lawmakers there have said they will work to pass taxpayer-funded abortion and implement legislation that will prevent Catholic-run hospitals from objecting to performing abortions.
Mother Elvira, the founder of the Comunità Cenacolo, based her efforts to help young people struggling with addiction around the concept of radical trust in God’s mercy and providence. / Courtesy of the Comunità Cenacolo
National Catholic Register, Aug 5, 2023 / 13:00 pm (CNA).
Mother Elvira Petrozzi, who founded Comunità Cenacolo in 1983 to provide hope and healing to those suffering from addiction, died on Aug. 3 in the formation house and residence of her congregation in Saluzzo, Italy. She was 86.
Her death, following a long illness, came just weeks after thousands of people gathered in Saluzzo, a hilltop town in Italy’s northwest Piedmont region about an hour’s drive south of Turin, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Cenacolo Community’s founding there in an abandoned home on July 16, 1983.
In the decades since, the community has grown to encompass 72 Cenacolo houses in 20 countries, including four in the United States.
Mother Elvira called the Cenacolo a “School of Life” because it took people off the streets and gave them a “rebirth” that was “based on a simple, family-oriented, orderly life” with the foundation of prayer, physical labor, discipline, and fraternal sharing.
“How could I invent a story like this? Everything happened without me even realizing it,” she once remarked.
“I dove into God’s mercy and I rolled up my sleeves to love, love, love … and serve!” she said. “I am the first to surprise myself with what has happened and what is happening in the life of the Cenacolo Community. It’s a work of God, the Holy Spirit, and of Mary.”
Bishop Robert Baker, bishop emeritus of Birmingham, Alabama, first met Mother Elvira in 1991. The two developed a close friendship and together they co-founded four Comunità Cenacolos in the U.S. Southwest, including one near Hanceville, Alabama.
Baker was among Mother Elvira’s many friends, supporters, and community members who were able to visit with her in her final days.
“I had the blessing of being invited to come to be at her bedside,” he told the National Catholic Register, CNA’s partner news outlet. “I was with her and I was able to give her a blessing.”
Humble beginnings
Born Rita Petrozzi, Mother Elvira was born in Sora, Italy, in 1937 and grew up in a poor family, taking the name Elvira upon entering the Sisters of Charity of St. Jeanne Antide Thouret as a teenager.
It wasn’t until 27 years later that she felt inspired to help young addicts and other youth to change their lives. Rooted in her Catholic faith and God’s love for every person, her methods were so effective that they led to others wanting a Comunità Cenacolo established in their region.
Prior to meeting her, Baker founded a drug addiction center called Our Lady of Hope Community in St. Augustine, Florida. Then visiting Rome when he was rector of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, he learned of Mother Elvira, spoke with her, and at his invitation agreed to establish a Cenacolo community with her entire program at Our Lady of Hope in 1992. The two friends went on to co-found two other houses in the St. Augustine area and a fourth house in Alabama.
Baker celebrated one of the Masses for the thousands of people attending the 40th anniversary celebration in Saluzzo. In his homily, he reflected on the time when he arranged to use an ornamental nursery to raise funds for the Cenacolo program in Florida, but when community members arrived from Italy they explained that Mother Elvira had instructed them to rely instead on divine providence.
“It was the result of her own closeness to the Lord in the Eucharist, which enabled her to see the immensity of God’s love. And if God loves us so immensely, he will provide for us,” he said.
After 30 years, no one has gone hungry in that Florida house or any of the community’s houses. “The point being, she was right,” Baker said.
Mother Elvira, who died on Aug. 3, 2023, at age 86, was beloved for her infectious trust in God’s providence, her devotion to the Eucharist, and her burning desire to share God’s boundless love with those struggling in life. Courtesy of the Comunità Cenacolo
The daily schedule at these houses includes Mass, eucharistic adoration, Marian devotion with three rosaries minimum a day, and devotion to St. Joseph. Every day members pray simply: “St. Joseph, provide for us.”
“The heart of it is, of course, the Eucharist,” Baker explained.
“Part of Elvira’s training is to divest to get rid of the stuff you don’t need,” he said. “So, the divesting, the trust in divine providence, and then … the Eucharist, praying before the Lord. That’s where her greatest strength was — the Eucharist, where she had all these insights. [You] have to have the sense of God’s immense love, which she had from praying before the Eucharist. And then because you know God loves you immensely, he will provide for you.”
When Baker visited Mother Elvira shortly before her death, he noted upon entering the house a mosaic on the floor that spells out the words “Dio Provvede” (God Provides).
‘Consumed with God’s love’
Florida residents Sean and Elaine Corrigan, who met Mother Elvira in 2000, lived in her community for some time and served in its missions in Brazil.
The couple credits her for saving their marriage.
“She had an extraordinary impact on our lives and on our marriage,” Elaine Corrigan told the Register. “Mother Elvira was a person fully in love with her Savior. She knew, she accepted, and she believed completely in his merciful love, and her great desire was to share him with others.
“I wanted to run after her and soak up all that she had,” she continued. “When we met Mother Elvira, we knew we had encountered a woman completely consumed with the love of God. She knew in the core of her being that he could and would heal people. She shared this hope and mercy with everyone she met.”
Albino Aragno, who started with the Cenacolo more than 30 years ago and today is the director of Comunità Cenacolo America, said Mother Elvira taught him many valuable lessons.
“Mother Elvira always encouraged me. She reminded me that life is precious and that life needs to be lived fully … to never be afraid to do God’s will, and always trust in him,” he said.
“Because of this, I can say that in all these years I can see that our community has kept on going even through so many difficulties, because good always prevails!”
Albino’s wife, Joyce, said Mother Elvira had a profound effect on her from the very beginning.
“Mother Elvira said, ‘Lord, let me know your will in the moment you want me to do it.’ This pierced my heart the first time I heard it and moved me to try to live every moment of my life in surrender and abandonment to his will, as Jesus reveals it at that moment,” she explained.
“It’s so radically opposed to control and trusting ‘in my own understanding,’ as the Psalmist says — my own intellect, perception, and analysis. Jesus calls me to live totally in the moment, not depending on myself.”
Pope Francis paid tribute to the Comunità Cenacolo on its 40th anniversary following his July 16 Angelus reflection.
“I send my heartfelt greeting to the Cenacolo Community, which has been a place of hospitality and human promotion for 40 years,” the pope said. “I bless Mother Elvira, the bishop of Saluzzo, and all the fraternity and friends. What you do is good, and it is good that you exist! Thank you!”
Baker said he observed during a recent Mass how “in periods of the Church there are great saints that get us through the eras in which we live.”
He pointed to St. Benedict in the fourth century, the Dominicans and Franciscans in the 13th century during the Albigensian heresy, and St. Ignatius and the Jesuits in the 16th century at the time of the Reformation.
Joe Abdel Sater, a swimming instructor in the seaside town of Bouar, Lebanon, built the world’s largest rosary on the ocean. With the help of family and friends, his vision took shape and was launched on May 11, 2024, during the feast of Our Lady of the Seas. / Credit: Joe Abdel Sater
ACI MENA, May 16, 2024 / 05:00 am (CNA).
A Lebanese Catholic man has created a giant rosary that floats upon the Mediterranean waves.
Joe Abdel Sater, a swimming instructor in the seaside town of Bouar, built the world’s largest rosary on the ocean on May 11 — with the help of family and friends — on the feast of Our Lady of the Seas.
Joe Abdel Sater, a swimming instructor in the seaside town of Bouar, Lebanon, built the world’s largest rosary on the ocean. With the help of family and friends, his vision took shape and was launched on May 11, 2024, during the feast of Our Lady of the Seas. Credit: Joe Abdel Sater
The idea came to Abdel Sater during his daily contemplation of the sea.
For six months, he perceived the outlining of rosary beads on the water’s surface. Compelled to make this vision a reality, he received blessings from the local parish priest, Father Ferez Tawk, and from the mayor. However, executing such an ambitious undertaking was no easy feat.
“For a month, I puzzled over what materials to use — wood or foam?” Abdel Sater recalled. “How could I secure the rosary’s shape against the shifting currents?” But, as he put it, “divine providence facilitated things.”
An illuminated icon on the waves
Stretching 100 meters (about 330 feet) across the water, the finished rosary is comprised of white plastic gallon jugs representing the Hail Mary beads and larger blue ones for the Our Father prayers. The cross is made of wood.
“I dove down and tied the beads with rope, anchoring them to the rocks below,” Abdel Sater explained to ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner. “So despite the changing tides, the rosary’s form remained intact.”
Outfitted with lights, the installation casts a luminous glow at night.
Though forced to temporarily move it ashore due to rough waters, Abdel Sater hopes to soon re-float his unprecedented creation, which he has submitted for inclusion into the Guinness Book of World Records.
Joe Abdel Sater, a swimming instructor in the seaside town of Bouar, Lebanon, built the world’s largest rosary on the ocean. With the help of family and friends, his vision took shape and was launched on May 11, 2024, during the feast of Our Lady of the Seas. Credit: Joe Abdel Sater
A community united
For the Parish of Sts. Takla and John, the floating rosary provided a centerpiece for celebrating the feast of Our Lady of the Seas on May 11. As Tawk explained: “We gathered parishioners to offer a Mass giving thanks to Our Blessed Mother. This endeavor symbolizes our Eastern Catholic devotion to Mary.”
Reflecting on the profound symbolism, Tawk noted that “alone, rosary beads lose their meaning. As Catholic faithful, we’re those beads and our community binds us together through life’s crashing waves.”
Joe Abdel Sater, a swimming instructor in the seaside town of Bouar, Lebanon, built the world’s largest rosary on the ocean. With the help of family and friends, his vision took shape and was launched on May 11, 2024, during the feast of Our Lady of the Seas. Credit: Joe Abdel Sater
“Without that communion, even the strongest believer can be swept away,” Tawk said. “But by walking together with Jesus as our anchor, we can withstand any storm and find redemption. Thus, we become like Mary, who stood firm in her faith under the cross, understanding that Jesus’ sacrifice is the beginning of salvation.”
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This article was originally published by ACI Mena, CNA’s Arabic-language news partner, and has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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