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CNA Staff, Apr 21, 2021 / 16:03 pm (CNA).
The Australian Diocese of Parramatta has split with other Catholic leaders in responding to a new bill that would ban the discussion of “gender fluidity” in classrooms.&… […]
Rome Newsroom, Apr 10, 2021 / 08:26 am America/Denver (CNA). Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy, a longtime Vatican diplomat and official, has died in Newcastle, Australia, at the age of 96. Cassidy was president of the […]
Hobart, Australia, Mar 5, 2021 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- The Australian island of Tasmania is expected to become the third Australian state to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, after a bill passed the lower house of the state’s parliament Thursday night.
The law would apply to people over 18 with an advanced, incurable, irreversible condition expected to cause death within six months, and patients can opt out of the decision at any time, the Australian Associated Press reported.
In a 16-6 vote March 4, the bill was passed by the House of Assembly. The governing Liberal Party members were given a conscience vote on the bill. All nine members of the opposition Australian Labor Party voted for the bill, as did both members of the Greens, who are crossbenchers.
Tasmanian lawmakers debated the bill, known as “End of Life Choices,” extensively this week. The state’s legislature has in the past rejected bills to legalize assisted suicide, most recently in 2013.
The bill will require approval from the parliament’s upper house before it can become law.
Assisted suicide and euthanasia have been legal in Victoria since June 2019, and in December 2019 Western Australia passed a law allowing the practices, which is expected to take effect in mid-2021.
Australia is currently considering legalizing euthanasia nationwide.
One of the Tasmanian bill’s provisions states that medical practitioners who object to assisted suicide and euthanasia must provide the patient seeking it with the contact information for the state’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission.
Anther provision would allow assisted suicide to be prescribed via telemedicine— a provision hotly debated in Tasmania’s parliament.
The Tasmanian branch of the Australian Medical Association told ABC News last year that they do not support the bill, or assisted suicide in general. “The bill as it stands is really physician-assisted suicide and we don’t support that … we don’t agree that a doctor should ever do any action with a primary purpose of ending a person’s life,” AMA Tasmania President Helen McArdle told the ABC.
Live and Die Well, a Tasmanian group that advocates for palliative care rather than assisted suicide, has argued against the bill on the grounds that it does not provide enough safeguards for the vulnerable.
New South Wales rejected such a bill in 2017, as did the national parliament in 2016.
The Northern Territory legalized assisted suicide in 1995, but the Australian parliament overturned the law two years later.
Catholic bishops in Australia have repeatedly written in support of palliative care as an alternative to assisted suicide and euthaniasia.
The state of Victoria reported more than ten times the anticipated number of deaths from assisted suicide and euthanasia in its first legal year.
Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board reported 124 deaths by assisted suicide and euthanasia since June 19, 2019, when the legalization of the precedure took effect, The Catholic Weekly reported. There were a total of 231 permits issued for the procedure that year. The state’s premier had publicly predicted only “a dozen” deaths by assisted suicide in the first year.
Last month, an Australian university found that the country has less than half the number of palliative care physicians needed to care for terminally-ill patients.
A study published by Australian Catholic University’s PM Glynn Institute revealed that the country only has 0.9 palliative care doctors per every 100,000 people. According to the ACU, health industry standards state there should be at least two doctors for this population.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s September 2020 letter Samaritanus bonus reaffirmed the Church’s perennial teaching on the sinfulness of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and recalled the obligation of Catholics to accompany the sick and dying through prayer, physical presence, and the sacraments.
Samaritanus bonus also addressed the pastoral care of Catholics who request euthanasia or assisted suicide, explaining that a priest and others should avoid any active or passive gesture which might signal approval for the action, including remaining until the act is performed.
CNA Staff, Feb 26, 2021 / 06:05 am (CNA).- Australia’s Catholic bishops on Thursday issued a working document ahead of the first assembly of a landmark plenary council in October.
The text, released on Feb. 25, will inform discussions … […]
Washington D.C., Feb 24, 2021 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- An Australian university has found that the country has less than half the number of palliative care physicians needed to care for terminally-ill patients.
A study published by Australian Cathol… […]
CNA Staff, Feb 4, 2021 / 02:12 pm (CNA).- A proposed ban on “conversion therapy” for sexual orientation or gender identity in Australia’s Victoria state is far too broad and could target normal prayer and conversations between children and parents, Cat… […]
Rome Newsroom, Feb 3, 2021 / 05:00 am (CNA).- The Australian Federal Police said on Wednesday that it had found no evidence of criminal misconduct in its investigation into money transfers from the Vatican to Australia.
Australian authorities have bee… […]
CNA Staff, Feb 1, 2021 / 06:30 am (CNA).- Australian prosecutors announced on Monday that they were dropping charges against individual journalists accused of breaching a gag order over the trial of Cardinal George Pell.
Prosecutor Lisa De Ferrar… […]
Canberra, Australia, Jan 28, 2021 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- Starting in February, the Catholic Church in Australia will have a national protocol for responding to allegations of sexual abuse, the bishops of Australia announced this week.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, president of the Australian bishop’s conference, said the new protocol “demands an approach from the Church that is compassionate and just.”
“One of the strengths of the new protocol is that it provides a single national framework, which will ensure a consistent approach to the handling of concerns and allegations,” Coleridge said Jan. 28.
The National Response Protocol lays out principles that Church authorities must adhere to when responding to a child abuse allegation, as well as the concrete procedural steps that must be taken when an allegation is received.
These steps include mandatory reporting of criminal allegations of child abuse against current or former Church personnel to police.
The National Response Protocol will replace two protocols established in 1996, about which the Church had received criticism for their “inconsistent or incomplete application,” Coleridge said.
The existing protocols will continue to be in use until the end of the year, or the conclusion of matters currently being managed, Catholic Weekly reported.
A 2017 Royal Commission report on child sex abuse in the country’s institutions uncovered serious failings in the protection of children from abuse in institutions.
The Australian bishops’ conference responded positively to nearly all the Royal Commission’s recommendations, but has defended the sanctity of the confessional seal.
The new protocol was developed in response to recommendations in the Royal Commission report, and in two years of consultation with abuse survivors. The bishops’ conference of Australia adopted the new protocols at their November 2020 meeting.
The new protocols are based on National Catholic Safeguarding Standards which the Australian church adopted in May 2020.
The protocols also take into account Pope Francis’ motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi, which laid out universal norms on sex abuse reporting and took effect June 1, 2019, days after the adoption of the NCSS.
The norms of Vos estis lux mundi establish that clerics and religious are obliged to report sexual abuse accusations to the local ordinary where the abuse occurred. Every diocese must have a mechanism for reporting abuse. When a suffragan bishop is accused, the metropolitan archbishop is placed in charge of the investigation.
In December 2020, the Catholic bishops of Australia and two other Catholic entities launched Australian Catholic Safeguarding Limited, a company charged with the safeguarding of children against sexual abuse by clergy.
Catholic entities in Australia may— but will not be compelled to— “subscribe” to the ACSL. Those entities that subscribe will be expected to comply with its safeguarding standards, conduct reviews and audits of their abuse prevention systems at least every three years, and provide ACSL with a copy of their reviews, which will be published on the ACSL’s website.
The Church in Australia during July 2018 launched a compensation program for victims of institutional child sexual abuse, which is expected to run until June 30, 2027.
Rome Newsroom, Jan 21, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- As a self-proclaimed atheist in his early 20s, Private Dillon Beatson said that the only time he spoke of religion was with ridicule. But when his helicopter crashed during a training mission in the Middle… […]
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