Cebu, Philippines, Jan 23, 2020 / 04:20 pm (CNA).- Filipino Church leaders have urged parishioners to be extra cautious amidst a deadly outbreak of coronavirus, which has affected hundreds of people in China and spread to other countries as well.
Bish… […]
Douglas, Isle of Man, Jan 23, 2020 / 04:09 pm (CNA).- Legislators on the Isle of Man voted Wednesday to note a debate on assisted suicide, instead of supporting further inquiry into whether the crown dependency’s legislation on the matter should be reformed.
An amendment from David Ashford to note the debate “received unanimous support from both branches” of Tynwald Jan. 22, Manx Radio reported.
“This is a sensible decision that will bring relief to those with terminal and chronic conditions on the Isle of Man and who fear changing the law on assisted suicide and euthanasia,” Dr. Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, said Jan. 23.
Care Not Killing is a coalition which includes disability and human rights advocacy groups, healthcare providers, and faith-based groups. It opposes the weakening or repeal of laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide, while promoting better palliative care.
“Laws such as the Isle of Man’s Criminal Law Act which prohibit assisted suicide and euthanasia are essential to protect vulnerable people. The operation of the Suicide Act and murder legislation in other parts of the British Isles, covering assisted suicide and euthanasia has been reviewed dozens of times by MPs, MSPs, peers, other elected officials, judges even the former Director of Public Prosecution. Every time, they have rejected introducing a law that would discriminate against the terminally ill and disabled people by removing long held universal protections,” Macdonald stated.
He added that “current laws ensure all people are treated equally and deters vulnerable people at risk of abuse and of coming under pressure, real or perceived to end their lives prematurely, which is what the evidence from around the world shows.”
The motion to inquire into the legalization of assisted suicide was made by Dr. Alex Allinson, a member of the House of Keys.
Among those to speak against the proposal during the five-hour debate was Chris Robertshaw, deputy speaker of the House of Keys.
Allinson, who sponsored the Abortion Reform Bill 2018, which resulted in the one of the most permissive abortion laws in the British isles, has said that allowing assisted suicide “would allow for more compassion and personal choice when a person’s death is inevitable and imminent.”
He has also claimed that “there are clear examples around the world where this has been managed successfully.”
Allinson’s assisted suicide proposal was opposed by the Catholic Church and both pro-life and medical groups.
Msgr. John Devine, dean of the Catholic Church on the Isle of Man, wrote to the Chief Minister of the House of Keys saying that the Church opposes “any liberalisation of current legislation” and “condemns the deliberate taking of life”.
Liz Parsons, advocacy director of Life Charity, said: “We need to concentrate on any gaps in palliative care rather than offering assisted dying, such as providing counselling, physiotherapy, services that help to relieve pain and provides support.”
“Assisted dying could really put vulnerable people in the Isle of Man at risk … using the words ‘dying with dignity’ makes you assume people cannot die with dignity without euthanasia, but they can,” he said. “There are plenty of ways to have a good death without it.”
Dr. David Randall, spokesman for Our Duty of Care, said the Isle of Man has “superb palliative care services” which allow for “a comfortable and dignified death.”
Briefing Tynwald members Jan. 21, he said legalizing assisted suicide could put “vulnerable people at risk of suffering real or imagined pressure from others to end their lives prematurely.”
Not Dead Yet UK, a disabled persons’ advocacy group, said that “there is no safe system of assisted suicide and disabled people want help to live, not to die.”
The group noted that the motion in favor of assisted suicide was listed below a Tynwald agenda item to receive a committee report on suicide and to approve 13 recommendations for suicide prevention and for psychological support of people experiencing “moderate to severe emotional reactions to illnesses.”
“These should serve as reminders that no group should be excluded from efforts to prevent suicide, including those influenced by serious illness,” the coalition said Jan. 13. Any proposal to legalize assisted suicide, it warned, tries to separate “those suicides which should be discouraged, and those which should be brought to fruition.”
“Members of Tynwald Court should focus on suicide prevention for all, and access to high quality palliative and social care for all, rather than settling for assisted suicide’s counsel of despair,” said Care Not Killing.
The group warned that there is no evidence that assisted suicide has become safer or easier to regulate, nor is there evidence that the Isle of Man’s provision of end-of-life care is so great “that no one could be driven to seek their own death for fear of being a care burden or financial drain.”
Both the Isle of Man Medical Society and the Association of Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland oppose legalization of assisted suicide.
Backers of legal assisted suicide include the group Isle of Man Freethinkers, which holds it a matter of personal autonomy “to make decisions about their life and death” and says debate should be “based on science and compassion”.
Efforts to legalize assisted suicide have repeatedly failed to pass. The last vote, held in 2015, failed 17-5 in the House of Keys.
Austin, Texas, Jan 23, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- A Texas women’s health program that bars funding for health care providers that perform abortions has been approved for federal funding by the Trump administration, making it the first program to rec… […]
London, England, Jan 23, 2020 / 02:05 pm (CNA).- Sex is reserved for married heterosexual couples, new pastoral guidance from the Church of England has affirmed. The new guidance also draws a clear distinction between marriage and civil partnerships, noting that sexual relations are not proper to the latter.
The guidance, titled “Civil Partnerships – for same sex and opposite sex couples. A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England,” was issued last month in response to a 2019 change to UK law, broadening access to civil partnerships by making them available for heterosexual couples for the first time.
Civil partnerships were created in 2004 for same-sex couples but are legally distinct from marriage. Same-sex couples were given the legal right to marry in the England and Wales in 2013, but civil partnerships remained available to same-sex couples only.
“Sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings,” says the guidance on the issue. “The introduction of same sex marriage, through the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, has not changed the church’s teaching on marriage or same sex relationships.”
Although the Church of England acknowledges that “many of the provisions in the legislation on civil partnerships are, however, similar to, or identical with, those in marriage law,” the nature of the commitment in a civil partnership is different than that of a marriage.
“In particular, [civil partnerships are] not predicated on the intention to engage in a sexual relationship,” says the guidance.
“There is likely to be a range of circumstances in which people of the same sex or opposite sex choose to register a partnership, including some where there is no intention for the relationship to be expressed through sexual activity.”
The guidance applies only to the Church of England, and not to other branches of the worldwide protestant Anglican Communion.
Since the law’s original passage, some pairs of people who are not romantically involved have entered civil partnerships for tax or benefit purposes.
In the guidance, the Church of England states that because of the “ambiguity” regarding sexual activity in civil partnerships, combined with its teaching on the nature of marriage, it does “not believe that it is possible for the church unconditionally to accept civil partnerships as unequivocally reflecting the teaching of the church.”
The Church of England has previously published policies that seem intended to accommodate modern sexual ethos and gender theory without directly contradicting Scripture and Christian history. The results have sometimes seemed gymnastic.
Although the Church of England accepts both married men and women for ordination to the priesthood and as bishops, it does not conduct or recognize same-sex marriages as marriage. In December 2012, the Church of England permited gay clergy in civil partnernships to become bishops, provided they were living in continence with their partners, that is abstaining from sexual relations.
“The House [of Bishops] believed it would be unjust to exclude from consideration for the episcopate anyone seeking to live fully in conformity with the Church’s teaching on sexual ethics or other areas of personal life and discipline,” Graham James, Anglican bishop of Norwich, stated in January 2013.
“All candidates for the episcopate undergo a searching examination of personal and family circumstances, given the level of public scrutiny associated with being a bishop in the Church of England.”
In 2018, the denomination published pastoral guidelines for liturgies concerning the so-called “gender transition” of church members. These new liturgies are intended to affirm and celebrate a person’s shift to a chosen gender identity, and to “to recognize liturgically a person’s gender transition.”
The guidelines, titled Pastoral Guidance for use in conjunction with the Affirmation of Baptismal Faith in the context of gender transition, were approved by the Church of England’s House of Bishops in December 2018, and published shortly afterwards.
Philadelphia, Pa., Jan 23, 2020 / 01:35 pm (CNA).- The next Archbishop of Philadelphia said Thursday that he is glad for a homecoming to his native archdiocese, that he is inspired by the example of his predecessor, and that he aims to make pastoral pr… […]
Vatican City, Jan 23, 2020 / 10:28 am (CNA).- The relics of St. Timothy are in Rome this week for veneration during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
The relics of St. Paul’s “beloved disciple” will remain in a side altar of th… […]
New York City, N.Y., Jan 23, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis is concerned about the worsening situation in the Middle East, and is urging a continued commitment to dialogue in the region, a senior Vatican diplomat told the United Nations Security … […]
Washington D.C., Jan 23, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- The Supreme Court considered arguments on Wednesday on whether a state bar on public funding for religious groups is discriminatory, or protects them from state interference. At issue during the arguments was the anti-Catholic bigotry which informed the Montana law’s passage
Oral arguments were heard Jan. 22 on the case of Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, which involves the 1972 Montana state constitution’s prohibition on public funding of religious institutions.
At issue is a clause in Montana’s 1972 state constitution that goes back to its original constitution of 1889—forbidding public funding “for any sectarian purpose or to aid any church, school, academy, seminary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled in whole or in part by any church, sect, or denomination.”
In 2015, the Montana state legislature approved a scholarship program for low-income students where tax credits could be claimed for donations to a scholarship fund. The fund would help students attend private schools, including religious schools.
The state’s revenue department blocked the program, saying the state’s constitution barred public funding of schools of a “church, sect, or denomination” and ruling that the scholarships could only be used for secular schools.
In response, several parents sued the state to use the scholarships for religious schools and a Montana trial court ruled in their favor. The state supreme court reversed that decision in 2018, and struck down the program altogether. The case will be decided by the Supreme Court this term.
Opponents of the law say it violates the “Free Exercise” clause of the U.S. Constitution, unlawfully shutting religious groups out of neutral public benefits. They also say the original 1889 clause was passed during a time of anti-Catholic bigotry, to bar Catholic schools from funding that the largely Protestant public school system benefitted from.
During oral arguments on Wednesday, multiple exchanges focused on the Montana law’s roots in the anti-religious bigotry of the 1800s, and whether its inclusion in Montana’s 1972 constitution was a continuation of that bigotry.
“I mean, I think that in the 1880s, there was undoubtedly grotesque religious bigotry against — against Catholics,” said Adam Unikowsky, arguing on behalf of the Montana Department of Revenue.
“That was the clear motivation for this,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh replied.
“In the 1972 Constitution, which is where this provision was enacted, I don’t think there’s any evidence whatsoever of any anti-religious bigotry,” Unikowsky said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor had earlier noted a “long history” of people opposing public funding of religious groups. She implied that Montana in 1972 no longer exercised the anti-Catholic bigotry of the 1800s but still chose to bar public funding of religion in line with the U.S. Constitution’s “Establishment Clause.”
Justice Samuel Alito asked how it wasn’t merely coincidental that laws such as Montana’s occurred in a time of anti-Catholic bigotry.
“I’m not going to get into an argument with you about what happened in 1972, but do you really want to argue that the reason why a lot of this popped up beginning, coincidentally, in the 1840s, at the time of the Irish potato famine, that had nothing to do with discrimination based on religion?” Alito asked.
The brief of the parents before the Supreme Court argued that three separate clauses of the U.S. Constitution—“[t]he Free Exercise, Establishment, and Equal Protection Clauses—all provide that government should be neutral, not hostile, toward religion.
“Prohibiting all religious options in otherwise generally available student-aid programs rejects that neutrality and shows inherent hostility toward religion,” the brief states.
On Wednesday, two leading U.S. bishops said the Espinoza case could decide the legitimacy of anti-religious discrimination in the U.S., and continue historic anti-Catholic bigotry.
Amendments such as Montana’s “were the product of nativism,” read a joint statement of Bishop George Murry of Youngstown, Ohio, the chair of the U.S. bishops’ religious freedom committee, and Bishop Michael Barber, S.J. of Oakland, California, the chair of the U.S. bishops’ education committee.
“They were never meant to ensure government neutrality towards religion, but were expressions of hostility toward the Catholic Church. We hope that the Supreme Court will take this opportunity to bring an end to this shameful legacy,” the bishops said.
After Wednesday’s oral arguments, Eric Baxter, senior counsel at Becket, tweeted that “the justices seemed to agree that excluding students just because they are religious is a clear violation of the Free Exercise Clause.”
Montana’s clause is one of 37 “Blaine Amendments” passed by states in the late 19th century. They are named for James Blaine, a former Speaker of the House (1869-1875), Senator (1876-1881) and Secretary of State (1889-1892) from Maine who pushed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution barring funding of “sectarian” causes and organizations.
At that time, opponents of the law say, Blaine’s effort mainly targeted Catholic schools and institutions. His amendment failed at the federal level but many states including Montana inserted similar language in their constitutions.
In a 2017 case, the Supreme Court in Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer ruled that Missouri’s Blaine Amendment could not block a church-owned playground from applying for state renovation grants, simply on account of its religious status.
However, a concurring opinion from Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch warned that the Court’s language implied a very narrow ruling on “playground resurfacing” cases, and not on general cases of religious groups accessing public funds.
On Wednesday, Justice Elena Kagan distinguished between the Court’s Trinity Lutheran case—regarding access to a “completely secular public benefit” like playground resurfacing grants—and Montana’s case where the scholarship program could be considered by the state to “subsidize religious activity.”
Justice Stephen Breyer asked if government could provide police protection for all schools but not religious schools, to which Unikowsky answered that it would be unconstitutional to do so, under the Trinity Lutheran decision. However, he said, there was a difference between government “distinguishing among religions”—such as allowing access to benefits for Catholic schools but not Jewish schools—and simply removing itself “out of religion altogether.”
In 1972, religious leaders were some of the supporters of the “no-aid” clause, Unikowsky said, because they warned about “using government leverage to influence religious education.”
Kavanaugh replied that “a religious school that doesn’t want to be part of a neutral program doesn’t have to be.”
Vatican City, Jan 23, 2020 / 07:30 am (CNA).- The new head of the Vatican Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF) announced Thursday that the Vatican’s internal financial watchdog’s suspension from an international group has been revoked, an… […]
Vatican City, Jan 23, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- “Follow me.”
Angelo Ciappelloni heard those words while he stood in Rome’s Piazza del Popolo on April 8, 2005.
With hundreds of thousands of people in the Eternal City, and millions more… […]
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