Washington D.C., Feb 7, 2019 / 09:03 pm (CNA).- The Supreme Court has blocked from taking effect a Louisiana law requiring abortion doctors to hold admitting privileges at hospitals nearby to abortion clinics. The court issued a stay on Thursday evenin… […]
New York City, N.Y., Feb 7, 2019 / 05:04 pm (CNA).- More than two weeks after New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a law expanding legal protection for abortion, his battle with New York’s Cardinal Timothy Dolan continues in the op-ed pages of New York newspapers.
In a Feb. 6 op-ed in the New York Times, Cuomo accused President Donald Trump and the “religious right”, including Dolan, of “spreading falsehoods about abortion laws to inflame their base.”
“Activists on the far right continue to mislead with the ridiculous claim that the act will allow abortions up to a minute before birth,” he wrote.
According to the law’s wording, the Reproductive Health Act will allow for abortions “within 24 weeks from the commencement of pregnancy, or (when) there is an absence of fetal viability, or at any time when necessary to protect a patient’s life or health.” The bill also removes act of abortion from the criminal code, and instead places it in the public-health code, and strips most safeguards and regulations on the procedure. Non-doctors will now be permitted to perform abortions.
“While Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, and the Catholic Church are anti-choice, most Americans, including most Catholics, are pro-choice,” Cuomo said. “While governments may very well enact laws that are consistent with religious teaching, governments do not pass laws to be consistent with what any particular religion dictates.”
Cuomo, himself a Catholic, said he signed the Reproductive Health Act “to protect against” the “extreme conservatives” who want to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion in the U.S.
“The decisions I choose to make in my life, or in counseling my daughters, are based on my personal moral and religious beliefs,” Cuomo said, but the “oath of office is to the Constitutions of the United States and of the State of New York – not to the Catholic Church. My religion cannot demand favoritism as I execute my public duties.”
New York has consistently been one of the most pro-choice states, and was the first to legalize abortion in 1970, three years prior to the passing of Roe v. Wade. It currently has the highest abortion rate in the nation.
In a post to his personal blog, Dolan shot back, accusing Cuomo of “hiding behind labels” like the “religious right” to malign those opposed to abortion when it was convenient for him.
“This is something new from the governor,” Dolan wrote. “He did not consider me part of the ‘religious right’ when seeking my help with the minimum wage increase, prison reform, protection of migrant workers, a welcome of immigrants and refugees, and advocacy for college programs for the state’s inmate population, which we were happy to partner with him on, because they were our causes too. I guess I was part of the ‘religious left’ in those cases.”
Quoting former Democratic Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey, Dolan noted that abortion is not about “right versus left, but right versus wrong.” Dolan also rejected Cuomo’s attempt to cast abortion as a “Catholic issue” instead of a human rights issue.
“The governor also continues his attempt to reduce the advocacy for the human rights of the pre-born infant to a ‘Catholic issue,’ an insult to our allies of so many religions, or none at all. Governor Casey again: ‘I didn’t get my pro-life belief from my religion class in a Catholic school, but from my biology and U.S. Constitution classes,’” Dolan noted.
Responding to Cuomo’s remarks that religion is personal, Dolan said: “Yes, religion is personal; it’s hardly private, as the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and struggle for civil rights so eloquently showed. Governor Cuomo’s professed faith teaches discrimination against immigrants is immoral, too. Does that mean he cannot let that moral principle guide his public policy? Clearly not.”
“Debate abortion on what it is. Don’t hide behind labels like ‘right wing’ and ‘Catholic,’” the Cardinal concluded. It is not the first time Cuomo and Dolan have exchanged words over the Reproductive Health Act, as well as the Child Victim’s Act, which extended the statute of limitations for reporting childhood sexual abuse.
At a late January press conference, Cuomo slammed the Catholic Church over the sex abuse crisis: “Tell the truth. Jesus Christ teaches about truth and justice – social justice – and that’s not what the church did here,” he said.
In a January 28 op-ed in the New York Post, Dolan criticized Cuomo for insulting the Church and for signing the “ghoulish radical abortion-expansion law.”
“All this in a state that already had the most permissive abortion laws in the country,” the cardinal wrote. “Those who once told us that abortion had to remain safe, legal and rare now have made it dangerous, imposed and frequent.”
Responding to Dolan’s criticism, as well as calls from several other bishops for his excommunication, Cuomo doubled down on his defense of separating his religion from his politics in comments to reporters: “I have my own Catholic beliefs, how I live my life. … That is my business as a Catholic…I don’t govern as a Catholic. I don’t legislate as a Catholic.”
Merida, Venezuela, Feb 7, 2019 / 03:41 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Archbishop of Merida has ruled out Vatican mediation of the Venezuelan crisis after president Nicolas Maduro made public a letter to Pope Francis requesting intervention.
“I think the circumstances say no. Why? Because it’s a call with a blank sheet of paper, but to talk about what, there’s no prior agenda,” Cardinal Baltazar Enrique Porras Cardozo of Merida told Radio Continental, an Argentine news station, Feb. 6.
The cardinal, who is also serving as apostolic administrator of the Caracas archdiocese, noted that on prior occasions when the Vatican participated as a facilitator of dialogue, what the Vatican got from Maduro’s government was a “mockery.”
“That’s what you really have to call the times the Vatican has been called in,” Cardinal Porras said. “Out of good will the pope wanted to send someone, but it all came to naught.”
Additionally, the intention of Maduro’s government to seek “a cosmetic way out” makes Vatican mediation “non-viable,” he said.
During the in-flight press conference en route from Abu Dhabi to Rome Feb. 5, Pope Francis said that mediation “takes the will of both parties, it has to be both parties who ask for it.”
Opposition leader Juan Guaidó, who has declared himself interim president of Venezuela, has not requested the Vatican’s mediation. Guaidó has been recognized as Venezuelan president by the US, Canada, much of the European Union, and several Latin American nations.
Cardinal Porras said that “it’s already routine for the government, when it feels under pressure, up to its neck in water, to call on its friends,” which include “countries that cannot be trusted at all in the cause for democracy … that is not the way to go.”
Among the nations supporting Maduro are China and Russia.
When asked if there is any differences or distancing between the Venezuelan bishops and the Holy See, the cardinal explained that “there is a full and complete unity of criteria and action, a permanent relationship between the Holy See and us … We have the total and complete support of the Holy Father.”
“What’s going on is the following: everyone has to fulfill their role. We are the first ones who have to take responsibility. We’ve told the government through the spokesman for the bishops’ conference that it’s fine that they want to address the Holy Father, but first they should go through us because there is total harmony (between us) and there’s nothing they’re going to do there (with the Vatican) that’s different.”
“Those of us who have the first option (for dialogue) are the ones who are going through the situation we’re suffering from,” Cardinal Porras noted.
The cardinal commented that with this letter to the pope, Maduro is just looking to “buy time,” especially when the Venezuelan people are taking to the streets seeking “a peaceful way out” from the grave crisis in the country.
“The every day situation on the social level is getting worse because we’re in a process like a toboggan careening downward due not only to the prices of food and medicine, but also the absence of respect for human rights,” he lamented.
Inflation in Venezuela in 2018 was estimated by the National Assembly at 1.3 million percent.
In the interview, Cardinal Porras mentioned the ineffectiveness of the Vatican’s previous mediation with Maduro’s government.
In August 2017 the Holy See urged Venezuela’s government to refrain from its constitutional assembly and to respect the existing constitution. Maduro ignored this invitation and went ahead with the Constiuent Assembly, which has superseded the National Assembly, Venezuela’s opposition-controlled legislature.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, was apostolic nuncio to Venezuela from 2009 until his October 2013 appointment to the secretariat.
On Feb. 4 the Venezuelan bishops’ conference, the Confederation of Religious Men and Women of Venezuela, and the National Council of Laity issued a joint statement reiterating the call for free elections and to allow outside humanitarian aid to come into the country, which Caritas Venezuela has requested from the government for the last three years, as it does not have the resources to meet the people’s need.
Cardinal Porras said Feb. 1 that the actions taken by Guaidó as interim president have given the people confidence, and called for “a period of transition leading to free elections with international oversight.”
Guaidó has arranged for the delivery of aid shipments to the country, which Maduro is refusing.
A tanker truck and a cargo container are currently blocking the Tienditas bridge which connects Cucuta, Colombia, to Urena, Venezuela.
The Venezuelan military placed the obstacles to prevent aid shipments entering the country, as Maduro has said it would be the beginning of a US-led invasion.
Caritas Venezuela has been asking for three years that humanitarian aid be allowed into the country.
Since Maduro succeeded Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela in 2013, Venezuela has been marred by violence and social upheaval. Under the socialist government, the country has seen severe shortages and hyperinflation, and millions have emigrated.
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Washington D.C., Feb 7, 2019 / 01:30 pm (CNA).- The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-10 along party lines to advance attorney general nominee William Barr to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.
The full Senate will vote on Barr’s confirm… […]
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Washington D.C., Feb 7, 2019 / 11:45 am (CNA).- President Donald Trump reiterated his support for the unborn and religious liberty at the National Prayer Breakfast, held Thursday morning.
Repeating a line from his state of the union address earlier th… […]
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Abuja, Nigeria, Feb 6, 2019 / 10:01 pm (CNA).- In the face of Nigeria’s ongoing violence and political tensions, the country’s bishops have promoted a fair and faith-filled electoral process.
Nigeria will hold general elections Feb. 16. The country has continued to encounter violence from Muslim extremist groups and government brutality.
According to The Guardian, a Lagos daily, Bishop George Dodo of Zaria emphasized the importance of a Catholic’s civic duty at an interreligious press conference at the Catholic Pastoral Center in Zaria.
“Catholic social teaching encourages us as Catholics and patriotic citizens of this nation to be actively involved in civic and political activities,” he said.
The bishop said the electorate should acquire the proper Permanent Voters Card and refrain from buying or selling votes. He also warned citizens about the potential violence surrounding the elections and urged residents to vote according to their conscious.
He encouraged people “to vote for any candidate of your choice whom you think has good qualities and capacity to defend, improve and, or add value to your lives and dignity.”
He further added that it is the obligation of the Church to educate “the lay faithful on their civic responsibilities, but it didn’t direct Catholics on whom, or about who to vote for, because its membership is not made of any one political party, but cut across all the political parties.”
During a Christmas statement on behalf of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria, Archbishop Obiora Akubeze of Benin City challenged Nigerians to cling closer to Christ to confront the country’s recent violence.
Boko Haram is a jihadist military organization active in northern Nigeria. The group has been responsible for hundreds of kidnappings and tens of thousands of deaths and displacements. Last year, the militants burned 22 buildings, including a part of the Catechetical Training Centre in Kaya.
Fulani herdsman, a nomadic Islamic group, have created discord and strife in the middle states of the country. Clashes between the herdsmen and farmers have increased as climate issues have pushed herders to the south. In June, the herdsmen killed more than 80 people in Plateau State.
The country has also seen tensions in religious freedom. Peaceful demonstrations from the Islamic Movement of Nigeria began late last year and continued into this year, with the most recent taking place Feb. 5. The protesters called for the release of their leader, Ibrahim Zakzaky, who has been detained in prison despite court orders for his release in 2016.
During the protests in late October, Nigerian security forces used automatic weapons to disperse the crowds. Forty-five members of IMN were killed and another 100 members were wounded, according to the Washington Post.
Archbishop Obiora said the country is experiencing difficult times, pointing toward the damaging effects of Boko Haram and the Fulani herdsman. He urged Catholics to face these challenges with prayer, and trust in Christ.
“Let all Nigerians cry to God to transform Nigeria into a land where opportunities are actualized and where there is harmony and peace,” he said, according to Catholic News Service of Nigeria.
He further challenged politicians to fulfill their political promises and act in favor of the Nigerian people. He said politicians should not seek out prayers on behalf of their political success but instead pray for the “peace, justice, and prosperity to all Nigerians.”
“We hope for a Nigeria where our leaders will bring the dividends of democracy to all Nigeria irrespective of whether they voted for them or not,” he said.
“Our politicians should seek prayers from priests and pastors to get the grace to fulfil their electoral promises to the electorate. They should win the hearts of Nigerians through meaningful and substantial campaign rooted in realistic promises that will better the lives of Nigerians,” he said.
© Catholic World Report