Americas

Sao Paulo, Brazil, Dec 5, 2018 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Researchers from Brazil announced Tuesday that a baby had been born to a mother who had received a transplanted uterus from a deceased woman.

While uterine transplant is ethical, the use of in-vitro fertilization to produce a child, as was done in this case, is morally illicit.

Though 11 babies have been born worldwide to mothers who received a transplanted uterus from a living donor, this is thought to be the first baby born alive from a uterus taken from a deceased woman.

This follows at least 10 other attempted uterus transplants from deceased donors in the United States, Turkey, and the Czech Republic.

The 32-year-old mother, who has a condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, was born without a uterus. In September 2016, she underwent uterine transplantation at the Hospital das Clínicas at the University of São Paulo in Brazil.

The deceased donor of the uterus, a 45-year-old mother of three, had died of bleeding in her brain.

The mother’s doctors gave her drugs to suppress her immune system so her body would not reject the new uterus. She began to menstruate 37 days after the operation, and after seven months her doctors implanted a single embryo. The doctors had previously removed the mother’s eggs and fertilized them artificially.

The healthy baby girl was born by cesarean section Dec. 15, 2017, near gestational week 36. In the same procedure, the doctors removed the woman’s uterus.

“The results establish proof-of-concept for treating uterine infertility by transplantation from a deceased donor, opening a path to healthy pregnancy for all women with uterine factor infertility, without need of living donors or live donor surgery,” the researchers wrote.

The first successful womb transplant from a living donor raised questions among Catholic bioethicists when it took place in 2014.

Fr. Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., director of education for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA in 2014 that the transplantation of a healthy womb to a woman who lacks a womb because of birth defects or disease can be licit, and “would be analogous to a situation where a kidney fails to function” and a donor provides a healthy organ to someone in need.

Transplanting the uterus alone could be morally acceptable, he said, as long as the transplant of ovaries and sex cells were not also done, respecting the uniqueness of each person’s genetic information.

For such a womb transplant to be completely licit, Pacholczyk said, in-vitro fertilization could not be used, and children would need to be conceived naturally, “through the marital act.”

The use of IVF, as was done in the case of the mother who received the deceased donor’s uterus, violates Catholic teaching because it separates the creation of life from the marital act, Pacholczyk explained.

Despite this, he said the transplant itself opens the possibility for a new morally acceptable therapy, especially since the use of uteri from deceased women does not prevent the donor from being able to bear life while she is still biologically capable of doing so.

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Lima, Peru, Dec 5, 2018 / 12:58 am (ACI Prensa).- The Salesian founder of Operation Mato Grosso, a ministry of service and job training for low-income people in South America, died December 3 at the age of 94.

Fr. Ugo de Censi had been bedridden for s… […]

Bogotá, Colombia, Dec 4, 2018 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The Diocese of  Cúcuta, Colombia, has been awarded a Portafolio Award, an annual recognition in the country given to organizations and people promoting economic and social development.

The a… […]

Santiago, Chile, Nov 29, 2018 / 12:48 pm (ACI Prensa).- Chilean president Sebastián Piñera signed into law Wednesday a bill permitting people aged 14 or older to change their name and gender in the civil registry.

The law signed Nov. 28 defines gender identity as “the personal or internal conviction of being a man or woman, in the person’s self-perception, which may or may not correspond with the sex and name verified on the birth registration certificate.”

It was first introduced in 2013 during the administration of Michelle Bachelet under the name “Recognizing and Giving Protection to the Right of Gender Identity.”

Although some legislators filed an appeal with the Constitutional Court to declare the measure unconstitutional, this was rejected Oct. 25.

From 18 years of age, a person will be able twice to “obtain the rectification of the name and sex” in the registry.

Minors between 14 and 18 years of age will have to process the request in family court and have the approval of at least one of their parents or guardians.

Lacking that, the minor must ask a judge to intervene to proceed with the change of name and sex in the civil registry.

Once the minor makes the change they will not be able to retract it until turning 18.

Minors under 14 were finally not included in the law.

The law is part of the “Friendly Settlement Agreement” signed  in 2016 between the Homosexual Integration and Liberation Movement and the Chilean state, with the mediation of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

In this agreement, the state committed to “continue to perfect institutions on the foundational level ” and to “improve and adapt” public policies and legislation to prevent discrimination and guarantee the rights of the LGBTI population.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Tijuana, Mexico, Nov 28, 2018 / 03:01 pm (ACI Prensa).- Archbishop Francisco Moreno Barrón of Tijuana encouraged the faithful Sunday to share “from our poverty” with the Central American migrants arriving in the city.

In his Nov. 25 homily, Archbishop Moreno encouraged sharing “not out of what we have left over but from our poverty. Let us continue to show that solidarity of our peoples.”

Thousands of Central American migrants have reached Tijuana in their attempt to cross the border to the United States. The first migrant caravan, which left Honduras Oct. 13, numbers more than 5,600 people.

Archbishop Moreno said the large number of migrants “took us by surprise” since “we don’t have the conditions to receive them as we have done on other occasions.”

The Archbishop of Tijuana asked Mexican federal authorities to allocate resources to the area “so that we can attend to this extraordinary human emergency,” as well as “international aid, particularly from those humanitarian agencies who always are on scene in these particularly difficult moments.”

The prelate asked the United States to “take the initiative to invest” in Central American countries “so that in the future these disorganized human exoduses that cause so much suffering will not continue.”

Meanwhile, he said, “we as people of faith, only want to recognize the face of Jesus, a migrant face, and give these brothers an response of love.”

“We have a migrant face, we are a migrant Church, a border, a migrant Tijuana and that is why we are more sensitive to giving a hand to these brothers,” he said.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Maracaibo, Venezuela, Nov 28, 2018 / 02:07 pm (ACI Prensa).- Archbishop José Luis Azuaje Ayala of Maracaibo on Wednesday condemned the abuse of a female minor by Fr. Iván Marino Padial, for which the priest has been arrested.

According to local media the priest, a member of the Order of Augustinian Recollects and parochial vicar of Most Holy Trinity parish, was arrested Nov. 24 having been caught in the act in his car with a 12-year-old girl.

The case is in the hands of prosecutor’s department for the protection of children.

Archbishop Azuaje and his auxiliary bishop, Ángel Francisco Caraballo Fermin, asked “forgiveness of the minor girl, her relatives, and the entire ecclesial community for the harm they have suffered in our very midst, which could lead them to doubt their faith because of the sin of someone who is called to care for them and encourage them on the path of faithfully following Jesus Christ.”

In a Nov. 28 statement they also expressed their “vigorous and outright condemnation of this lascivious act and of all sexual abuse, especially if such an act is committed by a priest.”

They said the Augustinian Recollects have already begun “the process provided by the Code of Canon Law … so that justice is restored, the scandal repaired, and the guilty cleric reformed.”

This is done “in compliance with and respecting” Venezuelan law, they said.

The statement added that Fr. Marino is prohibited from “the exercise of the priestly ministry in the Archdiocese of Maracaibo.”

The archdiocese reiterated its commitment that these cases would not happen again. After noting that the majority of priests “give their lives out of love,” the prelates encouraged prayer that “the Holy Spirit grant us a Church that ‘would be a living witness of truth and freedom, of peace and justice so all men would be encouraged with new hope.’”

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Santiago, Chile, Nov 27, 2018 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- The Schönstatt movement confirmed Monday that Francisco José Cox Huneeus, a former bishop who was dismissed from the clerical state last month, will return to Chile to face the civil justice system for his abuse of minors.

Cox, 84, was ordained a priest of the Schönstatt Fathers in 1961, and he has lived at the movement’s headquarters in Germany since 2002, at the request of the Congregation for Bishops.

Cox’s return was confirmed Nov. 26 by Fr. Patricio Moore, Chilean vice provincial superior of the institute, who also reported on Cox’ health: he suffers from diabetes, controlled prostate cancer, and senile dementia.

“He underwent tests, there are 42 pages of a quite exhaustive reports. Although he has quite a few illnesses, the doctor says that he can travel to Chile and therefore we have also decided to take him back to Chile to make him available to the courts and for whatever may be required,” Moore told El Día.

“The exam says that he has senile dementia syndrome,” Moore indicated. “Not impediments, but I don’t know if he’s going to be able to help so much, but it’s not an impediment, he can be interrogated perfectly well.”

Cox’s return trip may take place in January or February 2019, after a micro-surgery on his brain. It is expected that he will be accompanied on the trip for health reasons.

Cox was born in Santiago de Chile in 1933. He was appointed Bishop of Chillán in 1974, and consecrated the following year. He served there until 1981, when he was appointed secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family.

In 1985 he was appointed Coadjutor Archbishop of La Serena in 1985, succeeding as ordinary in 1990.

He remained Archbishop of La Serena until 1997, when he resigned at the age of 63. The explanation given at the time “was that Cox had mental health problems,” Crux reported last month.

From 1997 to 2002, Cox exercised several administrative tasks in Rome and in Colombia, according to an Oct. 5 statement of  Fr. Juan Pablo Catoggio, superior general of the Schönstatt Fathers.

In 2002 Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz Ossa, then-Archbishop of Santiago, acknowledged that Cox had resigned on account of improper conduct. Cardinal Errazuriz retired in 2010. He, too, is a member of the Schönstatt Fathers. He was made a member of Pope Francis’ Council of Cardinals in 2013, but said earlier this month he was leaving the advisory body,

In 2002 Cox retired from all public activity and left Chile.

“In the year 2002, at our suggestion and with the formal approbation of the Congregation for Bishops, in response to comments of various kinds about innappropriate comportment with youths, Bishop Cox was made to see that it it best for him to leave his work in the diocese of La Serena,” Fr. Fernando Baeza, Chilean superior provincial of the Schönstatt Fathers, said in an Oct. 4 statement.

Fr. Baeza said Cox has not had any pastoral assignment since then.

Cox was removed from the clerical state Oct. 11 “as a consequence of manifest abuse of minors,” but continues to be a member of the Institute of Schönstatt Fathers. His dismissal from the clerical state may not be appealed.

In an Oct. 13 statement, Fr. Catoggio announced that Cox’ dismissal from the clerical state was the result of his sexual abuse of minors reported in recent months, which were investigated by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Fr. Baeza had said that the institute received, at the end of 2017, a complaint of abuse by Cox that had occurred in Germany in 2004. That complaint was sent directly to the CDF, Fr. Baeza said. It was also sent to Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office, Fr. Catoggio said.

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Santiago, Chile, Nov 19, 2018 / 01:34 pm (ACI Prensa).- The Chilean  bishops’ conference has announced the signing of a collaboration agreement with the prosecutor’s office for the investigation of sex crimes within the Catholic Church.

Bishop Luis Fernando Ramos Perez, auxiliary bishop of Santiago and secretary general of the bishops’ conference,  made the announcement at the conclusion of the bishops’ Nov. 12-16 plenary assembly in Lo Cañas, a Santiago suburb.

“We studied the draft agreement on mutual collaboration between the National Prosecutor’s Office and the Church for the investigation of crimes of abuse of minors by clerics,” Bishop Ramos said, reading a declaration by the bishops.

He emphasized that “the issue has been fully discussed with the authorities from the Prosecutor’s Office and their representatives” and that “in the coming weeks we hope to formalize an agreement by signing the respective document and its subsequent application.”

According to the data from the Prosecutor’s Office furnished to the Efe new agency, up to Nov. 5 there were 139 ongoing investigations against 190 members of the Church in Chile, involving 245 victims, of whom 102 were minors.

Bishop Ramos explained that the plenary assembly served to address this problem and said that with the National Council for the Prevention of Abuse, they analyzed the progress and follow up of the resolutions adopted in the bishops’ Aug. 3 Declaration, Decisions and Commitments statement.

The bishops also initiated the study of the essential elements of the standards of conduct necessary for all pastoral workers, especially clerics and religious, in order to have this instruction completed during 2019.

According to the press conference communiqué, the assembly approved a “roadmap  for the process of discernment to make progress on the way to becoming a Church ever more synodical, prophetic, and full of hope, which seeks to place Jesus Christ at the center.”

A milestone on this roadmap will be the Third National Ecclesial Assembly to be held in May 2020 which “will lay the foundations for new pastoral guidelines for the Church in Chile.”

The assembly elected as vice president of the bishops’ conference Archbishop René Osvaldo Rebolledo Salinas of La Serena, following the resignation for health reasons presented by Bishop Cristián Contreras Villarroel of Melipilla.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Mexico City, Mexico, Nov 16, 2018 / 03:33 pm (ACI Prensa).- As part of their work at the 106th Plenary Assembly, the Mexican Bishops’ Conference (CEM) is discussing and could approve a commission for the protection of minors, to deal with cases of sexual abuse in all the dioceses of the country.

The CEM Plenary Assembly is taking place Nov. 12-16 at Casa Lago, Cuautitlán Izcalli, a church facility on the outskirts of Mexico City.

At a Nov. 15 press conference, Bishop Alfonso Miranda, Secretary General of the CEM, noted that “the proposal for the creation of a commission for the protection of minors in the Catholic Church in Mexico will be presented this afternoon.”

This proposal for a commission, he explained, “is to make official what we are already doing in practice at the General Secretariat.”

However, he added, currently “there does not exist a body within the structure” of the Church in Mexico to address abuse accusations.

“It does not exist, rather each bishop in his diocese deals with this situation and this issue, but on the national level it hasn’t yet existed.”

“What we intend is that there be a regulatory body which would oversee, which would serve in an advisory capacity to address not only “the issue of the bishop but also what they have to do with the victim, the perpetrators, with the regulations under Mexican law and also under canon law, in complete liaison with the Vatican, with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors.”

He said that this body would also work in coordination with other bishops’ conferences. “We want to be a step forward, we want to be proactive in such a crucial issue for the Catholic Church worldwide and also of course in Mexico.”

In February 2019, the presidents of national bishops’ conferences around the world will gather in Rome to meet with Pope Francis to address the issue of sexual abuse in the Church.

Bishop Miranda said the Mexican bishops will prepare “something more specific for the coming meeting in Rome which our new president of the CEM,” Archbishop Rogelio Cabrera of Monterrey, is scheduled to attend.

This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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Edmonton, Canada, Nov 16, 2018 / 03:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A member for Canadian Physicians for Life says requiring provision of assisted suicide by Catholic hospitals and by hospices will have disastrous results for palliative care throughout the country.

Karol Boschung, a second year medical student at University of British Columbia, wrote an opinion piece in the Edmonton Journal Nov. 15 expressing concern for the effects of forcing out Catholic healthcare providers.

“Bullying Catholic health-care providers into compliance will not result in expanded access to medical care for all Canadians. If forced to perform procedures which compromise its morals, the Catholic Church may be pressed into withdrawing from the administration of organizations like Covenant Health,” she said.

Covenant Health is one of the major health care administers for Alberta, she said, noting the Catholic health service provides over one-third of palliative-care beds for this province.

According to Covenant Health’s figures in 2008, the organization had more than 8,800 staff across 11 sites. The report states that the budget for 2008 was $514 million, which helped served more than 2,300 beds.

“What might happen to these beds if the government found itself on the hook for purchasing these facilities?” she asked.

“Indeed, attempting to push the Catholic Church out of the administration of Covenant Health would reduce, not improve, access to palliative care and other essential services.”

Boschung spoke on the recent media attention around Doreen Nowicki, who had ALS and committed physician-assisted suicide in 2017. On Covenant Health property, Nowicki had been denied access to the exams to determine the patient’s eligibility for assisted suicide

While sympathizing with the struggle of ALS, Boschung said assisted suicide is not an intrinsic human right as argued by the ethicist Arthur Schafer, who supported Nowicki in a story last month by the CBC.

“We are talking about a fundamental human right, not a privilege to be bestowed at the discretion of a Catholic or religious bureaucrat,” Schafer told the CBC, noting that Covenant’s position was morally inexcusable.

Boschung said that since assisted suicide was decriminalized by the Supreme Court of Canada’s Carter v Canada decision in 2015, assisted suicide “has gone from a criminal offence to a broadly-accepted practice — even a ‘fundamental human right,’ even though legally it is nothing of the sort.”

She added that pressure to provide assisted suicide has affected not only Catholic organizations.

“For example, the Delta Hospice Society, a secular hospice in B.C., was embroiled in controversy earlier this year when the local health authority attempted to bully them into making physician-assisted suicide available on their premises, despite strenuous objections by hospice founders and operators.”

“The operators correctly maintained that PAS was incompatible with the philosophy of hospice palliative care, and that to force them to provide this service was incompatible with the mission of the hospice itself,” Boschung wrote.

Boschung said enforcing PAS is a shorted-sighted solution – a move which will reduce palliative care to ensure the availability of assisted suicide.

“If we really care about the sick and dying, the last thing we need is an approach that leads to a reduction in the availability and diversity of end-of-life care,” she said.

“To push for such an outcome would be a triumph of ideology over practicality.”

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