Only a well-formed conscience can decide: Cardinal Marx on sexual morality

Archbishop Domenico Battaglia leads a procession in honor of St. Januarius in Naples, Italy, on April 30, 2022. / Jacob Stein’s Instagram account Crux Stationalis.

Rome Newsroom, May 3, 2022 / 08:10 am (CNA).

For the first time in three years, Catholics held a solemn procession through the streets of Naples on the first weekend of May after the blood of St. Januarius was found liquefied.

Archbishop Domenico Battaglia of Naples opened the safe holding the relic of St. Januarius’ blood in Naples Cathedral on April 30 and found that the blood had already liquefied.

The reputed miracle usually occurs up to three times a year when the archbishop holds up and rotates the ampoules containing blood, revealing that the dried blood has liquified.

In Neapolitan lore, the failure of the blood to liquefy signals war, famine, disease, or other disaster.

Local Catholics gathered at the cathedral after 5 p.m. on April 30 and exclaimed: “The miracle has happened!”

A bust of St. Januarius and the ampoules holding the saint’s blood were then carried in a traditional procession through the narrow streets of Naples from the cathedral to the Basilica of St. Clare.

Jacob Stein, an American, and a friend were visiting Naples when they stumbled upon the procession with the relic of St. Januarius, who is known in Italian as San Gennaro.

“My friend and I looked at each other and said, ‘I guess we are processing with San Gennaro tonight,’” Stein told CNA.

“Shoulder to shoulder, we processed behind San Gennaro who had come from the Duomo [cathedral] and ended at the Monastery of Santa Chiara with Holy Mass. On the streets, many were looking from the windows and balconies. You could hear ‘Alleluia’ and ‘Viva, San Gennaro!’ as we passed the piazzas.”

“The occasional confetti gun went off above our heads, as Neapolitans joined the procession in the many-layered, chaotic yet full expression of their religious procession throughout the small streets of Naples.”

Januarius’ blood also liquefied in May 2020 and 2021, but the celebratory processions were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The May 2019 procession was canceled due to adverse weather conditions.

During the Mass to mark the liquefaction, Archbishop Battaglia highlighted St. Januarius’ faithfulness to the Gospel by following Jesus to the point of martyrdom.

St. Januarius, the patron saint of Naples, was a bishop in the third century who is believed to have been martyred during the Christian persecution of Emperor Diocletian.

“If we are here tonight it is because Bishop Januarius took this Word seriously, following the Lord Jesus to the end, even to the point of shedding his blood, even to the point of giving his life, knowing that there is no greater love than one who gives his life for his friends,” Battaglia said in his homily.

The archbishop also condemned the violence he has witnessed in the city of Naples since his installation in 2020.

“Too many times in this still short time I have lived here in Naples have I had to caress the faces of young mothers wounded by the unprecedented pain of the loss of their child, killed through no fault of their own, perhaps in the context of an argument between boys,” he said.

The 59-year-old archbishop said that the sign of the liquefaction of Januarius’ blood was an invitation to the people of Naples to work to “stop the flow of innocent blood, the hands of brothers who hurl themselves against brothers, the wounds that tear the social, educational, economic fabric of our city and the whole world.”

He asked for St. Januarius’ intercession to stop not only the violence in his archdiocese, but also to bring an end to the “blood still flowing” in the war in Ukraine.

“How important is all this in such a complex, difficult, heavy time in which the blood of our martyr Januarius, a luminous sign of the blood of the One who loved us by offering Himself for us on the cross, continually reminds us of the blood of so many small, innocent victims of evil, violence, malfeasance, and war,” Battaglia said.

Stein and his friend experienced some of the crime in the city of Naples on a small scale when they were mugged the day after the procession.

“After we recovered, we were walking to the police station to make the formal declaration of the theft. We passed a group of teenagers preparing a processional float with lilies for the Madonna dell’Arco at the start of May. They called out to us, there will be a procession at 4:30 p.m., beginning just around the corner from where we were accosted,” he said.

A local couple also invited Stein and his friend into their home for a few hours and offered them coffee, cigarettes, bruschetta, pasta, and wine.

The liquefaction of St. Januarius’ blood traditionally happens three times a year: the first Saturday of May, Sept. 19, the saint’s feast day, and Dec. 16, the anniversary of the 1631 eruption of nearby Mount Vesuvius.

[…]

CNA Staff, Apr 1, 2020 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- As the British Parliament’s permissive abortion law takes effect in Northern Ireland, pro-life leaders strongly criticized the law, pointing to the coronavirus response as proof of the need to protect the lives of the most vulnerable.

“Every unborn baby matters regardless of age or ability, gender or background. He or she has the right to be protected in a community where everyone belongs and deserves our respect,” the Catholic bishops of Northern Ireland said March 31. “Every woman faced with an unplanned pregnancy matters too. She has a right to be cared for within a community where she is protected from any pressure to abort her baby.”

“As the number of deaths caused by Coronavirus continues to rise, news reporters frequently remind us that behind the statistics are real people. Their lives matter regardless of age or ability, gender or background,” said the bishops, noting the heavy government investment in treating patients and protecting medical staff.

“Against this background, we are saddened and dismayed at the Government’s decision to introduce extreme regulations for the delivery of abortion services in Northern Ireland,” they said, citing an “overwhelming will” among the people of the region to “protect the life of every human being.’

Previously, Northern Ireland’s laws only permitted abortion in cases where a woman’s life is at risk, or where there is a permanent or serious risk to her mental or physical health. Backers of the law said it had saved over 100,000 lives by avoiding the permissive law that took effect in other parts of the United Kingdom in 1967.

The new law and accompanying regulations took effect March 31. They mean no explicit legal protections for unborn children up to 12 weeks into pregnancy, compared to legal abortion allowed up to 24 weeks in other parts of the U.K. In some respects the law is more permissive than the rest of the U.K.

Doctors, registered nurses, and registered midwives may perform abortions under the rules. In situations where pregnancy is believed to risk a woman’s physical or mental health, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks. There is no time limit where the pregnancy is deemed a risk to the life of the mother or in cases where the unborn child is deemed to have a fatal abnormality or a substantial risk of severe mental or physical impairment.

The Northern Ireland pro-life group Precious Life has focused on the responses to the government’s late 2019 consultation on the new abortion law. About 79% of respondents voiced opposition to any abortion in Northern Ireland.

Bernadette Smyth, director of Precious Life, said, “thousands of pro-life people throughout Northern Ireland responded in total opposition to a change in the law.”

“Yet, we have seen this week, that the U.K. Government are willing to ignore the results of its own consultation because they are so bloodthirsty and devoted to destroying and killing human lives through abortion in Northern Ireland, even at a time of unprecedented national crisis,” Smyth continued. “People are outraged, upset and hugely frustrated that their democratic voice has been ignored.”

“It is horrifying to learn that one of the most permissive, extreme and inhumane abortion regimes in Europe will be introduced to Northern Ireland by the British Government,” she said. “This is in spite of the fact that our elected representatives returned to Stormont in January and at a time when the U.K. has been brought to its knees by the Coronavirus pandemic.”

“And right in the middle of a national crisis, when people in Northern Ireland and across the world are uniting under the shared understanding that all human life is precious and must be protected, the British Government are still intent on killing and destroying innocent and vulnerable human life in Northern Ireland,” she said.

The Catholic bishops too said the consultation process had been “utterly ignored.”

While Precious Life is circulating petitions asking legislators to repeal the abortion provisions, the bishops said members of the Northern Ireland assembly have some influence. However, their remarks suggested repeal would be very difficult.

Politicians and others opposed to the regulations should not “meekly acquiesce to their promulgation,” they said. Where the regulations exceed the 2019 Act of Parliament, legislators can repeal them.

The traditionally Protestant and pro-U.K. Democratic Unionist Party also criticized the new abortion law.

Paul Givan, DUP Member of the Northern Ireland Assembly said they were “the most extreme, radical, abortion laws anywhere in Europe.”

“It is a travesty that this has been allowed to happen,” he said, objecting that the laws were introduced despite the return of devolved government to Stormont.

While abortion is typically a devolved issue of local control, the British Parliament legislation was passed during an absence of a local government. The parties of the Northern Ireland Assembly could have blocked the law from taking effect, but failed to reach any governing agreement due to a dispute between the two leading governing parties, the DUP and the second-largest party, the nationalist Sinn Fein. The nationalist Social Democratic Labour Party also walked out of a final critical meeting.

Besides the Catholic bishops, leaders in the Church of Ireland, the Methodist Church in Ireland, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and the Irish Council of Churches had called on the Northern Ireland Assembly to reconvene to block the abortion legislation.

The nationalist parties traditionally draw support from Northern Ireland’s Catholics. Sinn Fein has turned towards backing legal abortion, while some SDLP leaders have made comments welcoming the changes.

Caoimhe Archibald, a Sinn Féin MLA, said it was “only right and proper that woman can access abortion services without having to travel, that they are free to be able to have healthcare in a modern and compassionate way”.

Among the nationalist critics of the new regime is Peadar Tóibín, leader of the new political party Aontú.

“The right to life is a human right. It is the most important human right that anyone of us have. With out the right to life no other human right can be guaranteed,” he said April 1.

“The current crisis has seen society radically change its behavior, to protect the lives of the most vulnerable. This is something that we in Aontú have always understood,” he said. Sometimes we all have to limit our personal choice and autonomy to protect the lives of others. The slogan ‘my body, my choice’ rings particularly hollow now when we realize that in reality we are all in this together.”

Tóibín cited the Sinn Féin Mayor of Belfast’s statement in response to the coronavirus pandemic that “Every Life Matters.”

“The hypocrisy is breathtaking,” he said. “The abortion law that Sinn Féin helped introduce will directly end thousands of live.”

Tóibín was deputy whip of Sinn Fein’s delegation to the Republic of Ireland legislative body known as the Dail, and still holds a seat in that body. However, he was pushed out from the party over his support for the unborn and opposition to legal abortion. Like the nationalist party Sinn Fein, Aontú competes in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom.

He charged that the Westminster-based Parliament, Sinn Féin and the SDLP leadership had “forced abortion on demand into the north of Ireland against the wishes of the people.”

“I say forced, because every opinion poll in the north stated that the majority of men and women sought that the issue of abortion would be decided, not in London but in the north of Ireland. It was not just public opinion that held this view. Legally it was a devolved matter. It was for the elected representatives of the north to decide,” he said.

He objected that Sinn Féin had rejected its nationalist stand against British legislation in Ireland and had instead “openly lobbied for Westminster to legislate for abortion on demand in the north.”

“For the first time in 200 years of republicanism, its leadership went cap in hand to London and demanded that it legislate for Ireland over the heads and against the will of the people,” he charged.

Across all Ireland, pro-life advocates have voiced concern about possible changes to government policy to allow at-home abortions using abortion pills during the coronavirus pandemic.

Pressure to legalize abortion in Northern Ireland increased after a 2018 referendum effectively legalized abortion in the Republic of Ireland by a vote of over 66% in favor of removing constitutional protections recognizing the unborn baby’s right to life as equal to the mother’s.

The new law also requires the recognition of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland.

[…]

London, England, Jul 18, 2019 / 05:30 pm (CNA).- A new study suggests a link between autism, autistic traits, and identifying as transgender or non-binary, raising new questions about the growing use of so-called “gender transition” procedures as a treatment for gender dysphoria.

The study, which was released July 14 and will appear in the September issue of the academic journal European Psychiatry, was led by Dr. Steven Stagg of Anglia Ruskin University in the United Kingdom. The study examined 177 people who identify as transgender, non-binary, or as the gender of their biological sex. 

A person who identifies as “non-binary,” which is also referred to as “genderqueer,” identifies as neither male nor female or on the male/female binary. A person who identifies as transgender identifies as the opposite sex than their biological sex. A transgender person may opt to undergo cross-sex hormonal or surgical treatments in order to better resemble the gender with which they identify.

Of the 177 people studied, four percent of those identifying their gender with their biological sex were diagnosed with autism. For the transgender or non-binary group, that figure rose to 14%. An additional 28% of the transgender or non-binary group exhibited traits that would result in an autism diagnosis, which the authors of the study say could mean that autism is potentially being underdiagnosed, particularly among girls.

Among the autistic traits identified by Stagg were a difficulty in empathizing, as well as “an overreliance on systematic, rule-based reasoning.”

“One of the striking findings was the number of individuals born female who met the cut off for autism spectrum disorder. This is particularly important given that individuals born female are twice as likely to be referred to gender identity clinics,” said Stagg. 

In England, girls make up 74% patients at the country’s only gender clinic for minors, Tavistock. In 2019, more than half the patients referred to Tavistock were under the age of 14. Data has shown that 2.8 girls are referred to Tavistock for every boy.

“People with autism are also more likely to seek unequivocal answers to the complex issues surrounding gender identity,” said Stagg. Given that the study also suggested that autism is underdiagnosed in girls, this could be contributed to the percentage of girls seeking gender reassignment.

The number of minor girls who have been referred to Tavistock has jumped from 32 in 2008-2009 to 1,740 in 2018-2019. In July, the UK government announced an inquiry into why so many young girls were seeking to change their gender. 

“The statistics we have been made aware of show that more and more young people, particularly girls, are using health services to explore changing their gender,” said Penny Mordaunt, Minister for Women & Equalities. 

“It is vitally important that we prioritize finding out why this is the case, making sure we gain an understanding of the driving factors behind this whilst doing everything we can to support these individuals and their families,” she said. 

Stagg suggested that gender clinics screen for autism before performing any sort of treatment, and then adapt their approach as necessary. 

While the Stagg study was small, it is not the first time that a link between autism and identifying as transgendered has been identified. A 2018 report from Slate noted that researchers began in the 1990s to study the co-occurence between gender dysphoria and autism spectrum disorder.

Slate reported a “growing consensus” in the medical community that there is a disproprortionate correlation between the two.

Ryan Anderson, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and the author of “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment” told CNA that this study is further proof of how little understanding there is about the best means of treating cases of gender dysphoria.

“This is another in an ever-growing list of studies which reveal just how little we know about the underlying causes of gender dysphoria,” said Anderson. 

“It should prompt people to exercise great caution before making any life-altering medical interventions on the bodies of young people,” he added.

In June, the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education released a document warning against the “radical separation between gender and sex, with the former having priority over the later,” and the damage it was doing to society and individuals. 

“In all such [gender] theories, from the most moderate to the most radical, there is agreement that one’s gender ends up being viewed as more important than being of male or female sex,” the document stated.

[…]