News Briefs

CNA Staff, Sep 26, 2020 / 04:23 pm (CNA).- The Spanish Conference of Religious (CONFER) has announced that September 29 will be observed as a day of prayer for the 357 religious who have died from the novel coronavirus during the pandemic in Spain.

The conference invited religious communities to participate in the day of prayer, which falls on the Feast of Holy Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael.

These religious men and women, the conference stated, “have been faithful to the end of their days…And so, amid the pain of their loss, we are grateful for their witness until the end!”

According to statistics from CONFER 357 religious from 73 religious congregations have died from COVID-19, as of September 25. The conference noted that they continue to receive data daily.

“The best way to honor our deceased is to dedicate one day this September to their memory,” CONFER said.

All religious communities are invited on September 29 “during their morning prayer, their Eucharist together, and in their afternoon prayer, to commemorate them all, naming them during a moment of prayer.”

The conference proposed putting “a sheet of paper on the altar with the names of each person” and suggested that communities give “thanks to God for their witness, their fidelity, their perseverance in adversity and their decision to follow God’s call until the end of their days.”

CONFER also suggested the congregations share that moment of prayer on social media so it can become “a small tribute to our brothers and sisters who departed but who are still very present among us in remembering them and their experience of the faith and the charism that they enriched.”

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CNA Staff, Sep 26, 2020 / 06:01 am (CNA).- Catholic leaders in Russia are expressing concern about a bill that would restrict the ability of Russian religious ministers who receive religious education abroad to teach or preach in Russia.

The bill calls for “recertification” in Russian educational institutions of pastors and “personnel of religious organisations” who have received religious education abroad, ostensibly with the goal of preventing the spread of “extremist ideology” from abroad, the Barnabas Fund reports.

The bill was proposed in the Federal Assembly and approved for first reading Sept. 22, but the reading has been postponed.

Father Kirill Gorbunov, vicar general for the Archdiocese of the Mother of God at Moscow, told RIA Novosti, according to Asia News, that priests ministering from Russia who were educated elsewhere should be informed about the history, culture and religious traditions of Russia, and should not disseminate extremist ideas in their preaching.

However, he said it is the Church’s responsibility to regulate this, not the state’s— and the Catholic Church has no tolerance for extremist ideas, he said.

The attempt by the Kremlin to regulate what is being taught to religious leaders “does not provide for effective solutions, rather it would lead to inextricable contradictions.”

In addition to Catholics, Russsian Buddhists typically study abroad as part of their formation, Asia News reported.

The bill comes amid several years of deteriorating religious freedom in Russia.

In 2016, Russian president Vladimir Putin approved a new set of laws that would restrict evangelization and missionary activity to officially registered Church buildings and worship areas.

Anti-terrorism measures, catalyzed by the 2002 Federal Law on Countering Extremist Activity, have given Russian police powers to disrupt private worship services, to arrest and detain individuals handing out unapproved religious materials, and to outlay any publish preaching without prior approval from Russian authorities.

In 2017, the country’s Supreme Court banned Jehovah’s Witnesses as an extremist group. Judges ordered the closure of the ecclesial community’s Russian headquarters and almost 400 local chapters, and the seizure of its property.

As of August 2020, over a thousand homes have been searched, nearly 400 Jehovah’s Witnesses have been charged, a few dozen convicted, and ten are currently serving time, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom reports.

Before Communism came to Russia, a majority of the country’s citizens were Eastern Orthodox Christians. During the reign of communism, the government attempted to destroy the Church by blowing up buildings and killing priests, religious sisters, and anyone who resisted them.

Once the government gained control of the Russian Orthodox Church, they appointed their own agents as hierarchy, who would then turn people in who came to the Church seeking baptism.

The seeds of distrust planted at that time still run deep, and the Russian Orthodox Church maintains its ties to the government today. 

On Sept. 16, USCIRF held a virtual hearing on the state of religious freedom in Russia and Central Asia, warning that “vague and problematic” definitions of “extremism” in Russian law give the authorities wide latitude to interfere in the religious sphere.

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CNA Staff, Sep 25, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- Northern Ireland’s Department of Health told a Belfast daily on Friday that women who self-administer medical abortions at home are at risk.

Home administration of medical abortions is not permitted in Northern Ireland.

“Women are at risk if they access unregulated abortion services,” the health department told The News Letter Sept. 25.

“The Department’s view is that services should be properly delivered through direct medical supervision within the health and social care system.”

The News Letter’s Adam Kula had asked the Department of Health about a online course being held Sept. 26 by Alliance for Choice. The course is meant to teach “the process of self-managed abortion with pills, how to look after yourself or help someone else using the medication.”

Northern Ireland law allows 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 fetal 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 region’s Health Minister, Robin Swann, is able to approve further locations for medical abortions. The Press Association reported earlier this year that approval of at-home medical abortions “will require the agreement” of the Northern Ireland Executive.

Home administration of medical abortions has been permitted in Scotland and Wales for some time, and it was approved in England in March.

In April, shortly after the law permitting elective abortion in Northern Ireland came into force, Michelle O’Neill, deputy First Minister and vice president of Sinn Féin, urged that women there be allowed to perform medical abortions at home.

Sinn Féin is an Irish nationalist party that has historically enjoyed significant Catholic support. It supported the liberalization of abortion laws in Northern Ireland imposed by the British parliament, and its party members endorsed the repeal of the Republic of Ireland’s Eighth Amendment, which protected unborn children.

In contrast, First Minister Arlene Foster, who is also leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, stated that “The health minister will bring papers forward and we will have discussions, but I don’t think it’s any secret that I don’t believe abortion on demand should be available in Northern Ireland.”

“I think it’s a very retrograde step for our society here in Northern Ireland. Instead of supporting people who find themselves in crisis pregnancies, we’re not even having any discussion around that and how we can support people in those circumstances, how we can provide perinatal care,” Foster added.

At-home medical abortions were discussed by the power-sharing Northern Ireland executive April 6, and the BBC reported that “Stormont sources said it had led to a row between the parties.”

Before March 31, 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.

In June the House of Lords backed the new abortion regulations for Northern Ireland by an overwhelming majority, and the British Minister of State for Northern Ireland 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.

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

The new framework was adopted to implement Westminster’s Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, which was passed while the Northern Ireland Assembly was suspended.

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.

The amendment to the NI EF Act 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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