Rome, Italy, Apr 2, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- Poor countries are suffering from the coronavirus because of the Chinese Communist Party’s negligence and repression, a cardinal from Burma said Thursday.
“The Chinese regime led by the all-power… […]
Washington D.C., Apr 1, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- Chinese authorities have been accused of forcing Muslim Uyghurs to work in factories as the coronavirus pandemic spread in the country. One religious freedom expert told CNA that the Communist government … […]
Manila, Philippines, Apr 1, 2020 / 03:11 pm (CNA).- In a recent blog post Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., S.T.D, Ph.D., said he sees reason to hope that the drug hydroxychloroquine could be used to treat the coronavirus, or COVID-19.
Austriaco is a profe… […]
CNA Staff, Mar 31, 2020 / 03:30 pm (CNA).- A bishop in India has condemned the spraying of migrant workers and their children with disinfectant, after a video posted to Twitter showed public health authorities doing exactly that.
The video was posted to Twitter Sunday. The Times of India reported that families at a bus stand in the northern Indian city of Bareilly were told to sit on the ground, and were then sprayed with a bleaching agent mixed with water.
In the video, parents and their children sat on the streets of Bareilly and are showered with a chemical solution of chlorine mixed with water. Men in hazmat suits can be heard telling the migrants to close their eyes and mouths.
Bishop Ignatius D’Souza of Bareilly said spraying migrant workers with disinfectant was inhumane.
“This is inhuman, because these people are poor and marginalized and desperate our migrants labourers and their families. Their dignity cannot be violated in this inhuman and shocking manner,” the bishop said, according to Asia News.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi placed the country on lockdown as cases of COVID-19 in India have reached 1,251. The lockdown has closed down borders and forced migrant workers in India’s largest cities to return home to their villages.
Ashok Gautam, an officer in charge of COVID-19 operations in northern India, told CNN that as many as 5,000 people have been similarly disinfected before being allowed to return home.
“We sprayed them here as part of the disinfection drive, we don’t want them to be carriers for the virus and it could be hanging on their clothes, now all borders have been sealed so this won’t happen again,” he said.
Other government officials said the disinfectant was really meant for the buses and that the incident was a mistake. Lav Agarwal, an official of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said Monday that workers involved in the incidents have been reprimanded.
“This is an overzealous action done by some employees at the field level, either out of ignorance or fear,” he said, according to CNN.
D’Souza emphasized the difficulties facing vulnerable people returning to their home villages, noting that the Church in Bareilly has been distributing food packets to those who arrive. He said they have delivered these packages to displaced people located at bus and train stations.
The bishop added that wealthy and well-known people with with COVID-19 have been treated differently than poor people in India, according to Asia News. He said everyone needs to be treated with human dignity.
“Each person has to be treated with human dignity, the celebrities who tested positive in India (who travelled to Lucknow), received best treatment, our poor people do not deserve this indignity, it’s an affront against the dignity of the human person.”
CNA Staff, Mar 30, 2020 / 02:45 pm (CNA).- Amid lockdowns responding to the coronavirus pandemic, at least three priests were arrested Sunday for celebrating Mass publicly, in alleged defiance of government orders banning religious gatherings during th… […]
Dhaka, Bangladesh, Mar 27, 2020 / 04:11 pm (CNA).- There are nearly 700,000 refugees living in close quarters in the world’s largest refugee settlements in Bangladesh, making them vulnerable as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic spreads.
Caroline Brennan, Catholc Relief Services’ emergency communications director, told CNA that in areas where CRS is serving refugees, such as in Bangladesh, they are adapting their programs as quickly as possible so they are still relevant and safe during the pandemic.
“In this case, when we’re looking at a virus like the coronavirus…there is such a heightened vulnerability in these settlements, where you have very large populations in extremely congested environments, and where multi-generational family members are living in really tight quarters,” Bennan said.
Many countries have adopted stay-at-home orders and strict social distancing measures in response to the virus. For the Rohingya refugee population in Bangladesh, Brennan said, and in many other areas where refugees are, it can be almost impossible for people to distance themselves from others in this way.
There may be up to ten people living in a small space with nowhere else to go, she said, which means access to safe space is a problem, as well as access to the means for refugees to keep clean.
In addition, Bangladeshi authorities fear that the coming cyclone season will cause sewage to overflow into flimsy shelters and possibly spread the coronavirus, the New York Times reported this week.
Brennan said CRS, along with local partners, has been providing hygiene and sanitation supplies to the camps, as well as training and materials for local health institutions.
One of the biggest priorities, Brennan said, is simply communicating information about how to protect oneself from the virus, but doing so in the camps in a safe way.
“Obviously, we don’t want to bring people together in large groups,” she said.
“And often times, that’s how you conduct programming— bringing people together for a training or bringing children together in a classroom.”
CRS has had to adapt to using large posters, printed in several languages, to get the word out rather than gathering people in groups to convey information about how to keep themselves safe from the virus, Brennan said.
Food in the refugee camps is often distributed in large groups, too, she said. CRS has adapted by doing more food distributions, but with smaller numbers of people, spread further apart, and with handwashing stations provided to lessen the chance of infection.
In some areas, refugees have regarded humanitarian workers with suspicion as possible carriers of the disease. Brennan said she is grateful that CRS has been present in many refugee areas for a while, which helps to build trust and allows CRS to communicate more effectively.
“We can convey information which can be received with credibility, and that’s crucial,” she said.
Jerusalem, Mar 20, 2020 / 11:30 am (CNA).- As Easter is approaching, the Holy Land is enduring tough times: the sacred sites are shut down because of the coronavirus pandemic, and pilgrimages have come to an end.
These events “meaningfully impac… […]
Sydney, Australia, Mar 19, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Catholic schools in Australia will remain open after pressure from the federal government and the intervention of the Archbishop of Sydney. The announcement on Wednesday came one day before the Ar… […]
Auckland, New Zealand, Mar 19, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- New Zealand’s bishops have sharply criticized a new abortion bill passed by the country’s legislature on Wednesday.
New Zealand’s House of Representatives passed the Abortion Legislation Bill on March 18, legalizing abortion throughout the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.
“There is no longer any recognition of the rights of the unborn child in this new law,” Cynthia Piper said on behalf of the Catholic bishops of New Zealand’s six dioceses.
“That is a travesty of human rights. To hold that the fetus is not a legal person ignores the reality that a genetically unique human life has begun which is neither that of the mother or the father,” Piper said.
“That the law fails to recognise this does not change what is a biological and human fact.”
The bill passed the legislature on its third reading by a vote of 68 to 51, and now only needs royal assent—the approval of the governor-general—to officially become law.
Abortion had previously been illegal in New Zealand except in cases where two doctors decided that a woman’s physical or mental health would be in “serious danger.” After 20 weeks in pregnancy, abortions were only allowed in cases where the mother’s life was at stake, or to prevent serious injury, according to Radio New Zealand.
The new bill removes legal restrictions on abortion before 20 weeks of pregnancy, decriminalizing it and treating it as a health issue.
The legislation also allows for abortions after 20 weeks, under certain circumstances. The bishops’ conference had previously argued these circumstances would “significantly widen” cases of abortion on basis of the child’s disability.
For cases later than 20 weeks in pregnancy, a “qualified health practitioner” must consult another practitioner, and deem an abortion to be “clinically appropriate” given the physical and mental health of the woman.
The bishops’ conference also said that “a host of sensible amendments” were rejected by members of the legislature, including protections for babies who survive abortion attempts and bans on sex-selection and disability discrimination abortions.
Canberra, Australia, Mar 12, 2020 / 12:05 am (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell has had his day in court, and now awaits a decision in his last possible appeal of his 2018 conviction for five counts of child sexual abuse. The proceedings took place over two days in the Australian capital of Canberra, while Pell awaited an outcome in his prison cell, nearly 500 miles away.
Prosecutors took their turn to present arguments to Australia’s High Court Thursday on the second and final day of the cardinal’s bid for special leave to appeal. The seven justice panel reserved its judgment at the close of the hearing, with no clear indication of when a decision will be released.
At issue in the appeal is whether the jury that convicted Pell in December 2018 of sexually abusing two choristers could have plausibly found Pell guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, having heard the case presented by the prosecutors and the defense mounted by Pell’s lawyers.
On March 12, the Australian state of Victoria’s chief prosecutor, Victoria Judd, was grilled by the justices, who took issue with decisions made in a prior appeal of the verdict, with the state’s handling of key pieces of evidence in the case against Pell, most especially the evidence of Monsignor Charles Portelli, an aide to Pell.
Portelli’s testimony placed the cardinal outside his Melbourne cathedral at the time he was alleged to be sexually abusing two boys in the cathedral’s sacristy, on the Sunday in 1996 when that crime is alleged to have taken place.
At one point during the hearing Thursday, Judd conceded the Portelli’s testimony undermined the allegations of the prosecution, but urged the High Court justices to look past that fact in its deliberations, citing some inconsistencies in Portelli’s recollection of the Sunday, now 24 years ago, in question.
As the High Court considers whether the jury could be certain of Pell’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, Judd told the justices that “just because some evidence pointed to innocence doesn’t mean the jury wasn’t entitled to convict.”
Asked more about Portelli’s testimony, Judd told justices that “I do accept that when you look at Monsignor Portelli on his own, we may not be able to negate this to the standard we need to. But in my submission, when you look at the whole of the evidence, it does.”
The justices also considered the actions of the three-judge panel of the Victoria Court of Appeals, which upheld Pell’s conviction August last year. The Victoria judges chose to watch a video of the single victim-accuser’s testimony instead of reading the transcript. Pell’s legal team argued that this made them to dispassionately weigh the “reasonableness” of the jury being able to exclude reasonable doubt on the basis of his evidence alone.
Although Judd insisted the Victoria judges had acted properly, Chief Justice Susan Kiefel said “It’s very difficult to say how [the video] affected an intermediate appellate court judge in terms of how they read the transcript.”
“That’s why you really shouldn’t do it [watch the video] … unless there is a forensic reason to do it. To what extent is this court to determine the extent to which the court of appeal was influenced by the video?” Kiefel asked.
At various points, the judges also appeared to take issue with the prosecutor’s presentation of her case, at times correcting her use of legal terms, noting as she repeatedly attributed evidence to the wrong people, and implying she was underprepared for the case.
At one point, Judd struggled to find a transcript as she referred to it and voiced her frustration at the volume of evidence. The chief justice told Judd that justices had the same frustration. “But you’re supposed to be taking us through [this] efficiently,” the chief justice observed.
Jeremy Gans, a professor of law at Melbourne Law School, tweeted during the hearing’s lunch break that the morning had been “a really bad session for the DPP [Judd],” adding that the morning had “a back foot feel for the prosecution.”
When the court reconvened for the afternoon session, Judd informed the judges that she did not feel it necessary to address several of the Crown’s points of argumentation, focusing instead on the the burden of proof, which Pell’s legal team have argued was effectively reversed during the trial, leaving the cardinal to prove his innocence beyond reasonable doubt.
Judd sought to address the defence’s charge that the place and manner of the first alleged assault, in the cathedral sacristy, were practically impossible in the busy circumstances
Referring to the defense’s presentation on Wednesday, Gans tweeted that “Pell absolutely did not have a bad day.”
On that day, Bret Walker, Pell’s lead barrister, faced questions from the justices over the course of five hours as he presented arguments in favor of Pell’s appeal, grounding his case in the findings of Victoria Justice Mark Weinberg, who made a dissenting opinion in Pell’s initial appeal, which upheld his conviction last year.
Weinberg found that the cardinal had been convicted on the evidence of a single alleged victim, despite the unchallenged exculpatory testimony of as many as 20 witnesses, and that the jury could not have found him guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
Walker outlined four different lines of argument, beginning with the logistics of Pell’s alleged 1996 sexual assault on two teenage choristers in Melbourne’s cathedral. Pell was convicted of committing acts of sexual assault on two choir boys simultaneously for five to six minutes in the cathedral sacristy, while he was fully vested after Mass. Walker suggested that would be practically impossible.
The lawyer then highlighted testimony from multiple witnesses offering an alibi for Pell during the time the assault is supposed to have taken place, and noted that the sacristy would have been a “hive of activity” at the time of the assault.
Finally, Walker pointed out changes and inconsistencies in the narrative of the sole witness-accuser to give evidence against Pell. The second alleged victim died in 2014, before the trial began; before his death he told his mother that he was not a victim of sexual abuse.
Pell’s case for appeal is that a single witness, even a highly credible one, set against the testimony of so many contradictory witnesses and the high degree of improbability that Pell could have committed the assaults as described, could not have allowed the original jury to find Pell guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
After Pell was briefed by his lawyers following Wednesday’s session, friends of the cardinal told CNA that Pell is in good spirits and that he has been told to be “cautiously optimistic.”
On Thursday, Judd attempted to dispel Walker’s arguments, but in the process appeared to concede even further grounds for doubt.
Attempting to argue against the defense that the sacristy was a “hive of activity” at the time of the alleged assault, Judd said that the timeline and circumstances were not so certain as to be open to that defense, suggesting at the same time that the prosecution’s entire narrative was itself doubtful.
Judd closed by telling the seven justices that if they found that the timeline of events showed that the assault could not have happened they would be in effect rejecting the victim’s testimony.
Walker, invited to make a closing response by the justices, rounded on Judd’s performance, saying that the prosecution was changing its case at every stage of appeal and even during the Thursday session.
“We should not have to deal with that kind of prosecution at this point,” Walker said.
Pell’s lawyer added that prosecutors convicted Pell with an “improvised and rickety construction of a Crown case,” that tried “to make something fit that will not fit.”
He urged the High Court to overturn Pell’s conviction.
Thursday’s session closed with the justices deferring their decision, inviting lawyers to submit answers within the next few days to a point raised by the judges on the defense’s request for an order quashing Pell’s convictions.
Whatever the final outcome of Pell’s criminal appeal, the cardinal will likely face a canonical proceeding, overseen by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, soon after the Australian case reaches a definitive resolution.
Pell has told friends he remains faithful to God’s providence and committed to living his time in prison in the spirit of a monastic retreat.
© Catholic World Report