CNA Staff, Mar 3, 2021 / 03:19 pm (CNA).- The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on Tuesday reiterated the Vatican’s teaching on COVID-19 vaccines produced with the help of abortion-derived cell lines, after a […]
CNA Staff, Mar 1, 2021 / 07:40 am (CNA).- Scotland’s Catholic bishops said on Monday that they plan to engage in “dialogue” with government officials over a cap on worshipers when public Masses resume in time for Easter.
In… […]
CNA Staff, Mar 1, 2021 / 06:00 am (CNA).- A body representing religious men and women has questioned the exclusion of elderly religious from the early stages of coronavirus vaccination programs in Belgium.
In a letter dated Feb. 19, Br. Robert Thunus,… […]
Madrid, Spain, Feb 26, 2021 / 03:11 pm (CNA).- While maintaining restrictions on transit, gatherings, and worship services amid the coronavirus pandemic, Spanish authorities will allow marches for International Women’s Day next month.
Various feminist organizations are already calling for demonstrations in various parts of Spain March 8. In Madrid, marches of up to 500 persons have been authorized.
The Minister of Health, Carolina Darias, advises against the marches, saying, “there’s no place” for them because “the epidemiological situation would not allow nor make sense to hold these events.”
However, Fernando Simón, director of the Health Emergencies and Alerts Coordination Center of the Spanish government, has been in favor of the feminist events and said that they’re less risky than Holy Week processions.
Simón said,”it’s not the same to be under a litter carried by many people during Holy Week, than to be in a demonstration of 500 where distances can be maintained.”
The delegate of the Spanish government in Madrid, José Manuel Franco, told Onda Madrid public radio that the requests for a permit to hold marches they have received in the Spanish capital “have not been prohibited because they maintain the parameters required right now in this pandemic situation.”
In various autonomous regional governments in Spain, restrictions have already been announced for Holy Week celebrations and other celebrations associated with the Church, such as the “Sanfermines” in Navarre, which will not be held this year.
In a statement to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner, Luis Losada, campaign director for CitizenGO in Latin America, said that “it’s outrageous that (while we have had to) give up the Fallas of Valencia and San Fermin festivals, as well as Holy Week, the feminists insist on their own celebration.”
Fr. Juan Manuel Góngora, a Spaniard, said, “these days we are watching with astonishment how in the middle of the pandemic, the Government Delegation in Madrid is going to authorize the 8M demonstrations with ridiculous measures.”
“Allowing these demonstrations is a farce for all of us citizens who are complying with the imposed measures and it constitutes a shameful double standard,” Góngora noted.
“At the same time we are already hearing 24/7 that this year we must act as if ‘Holy Week does not exist,'” he added.
The priest said that “if on Easter Sunday I go out through the door of the church that I administer holding the monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament while the parishioners accompany me duly separated, what authority does (the government) have to impose a fine on me?”
“We Catholics must stop being timid before sectarian rulers, we should act with courage and claim our right to express publicly our faith while respecting sanitary measures, those that truly respond to the requirements of healthcare but which others are using under that guise to restrict freedom,” Góngora said.
Fr. Francisco José Delgado, another Spaniard, charged that “all this time we have been enduring a real ‘demonization’ of Catholic worship, despite the fact that there is no known source of infection associated with worship activities in Spain.”
“At the same time, we see how the public events of the state religion, since the March 8 marches are nothing else, are shamelessly promoted by Podemos in the government,” he said.
Delgado said, that “the Ministry of Health advises against these marches, shows this is more about the political confrontation between the political parties in the government than from a real concern for the health of the people, which has been missing in the decisions that have been made since the pandemic started.”
“In our case, as a Church it is difficult to distinguish what part of our self-imposed restrictions belongs to prudence and what part corresponds to posturing before the world. We have to obey, and in most places we won’t have processions, obeying the bishops,” he said.
“But perhaps the task of spiritual reconstruction should be planned that must come after all this, because the world’s ideological agenda is not going to back off a millimeter, while we seem to be in retreat,” Delgado lamented.
Spain has had more than 3 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, and more than 68,000 deaths. Per 100,000 people, it has had 6,802 cases, and 147 deaths.
Rome Newsroom, Feb 23, 2021 / 07:05 am (CNA).- Catholic leaders in Europe have urged the European Union to be guided by solidarity, fraternity, and social justice as it distributes and administers the COVID-19 vaccine.
In a joint statement Feb. 2… […]
Vatican City, Feb 22, 2021 / 05:30 am (CNA).- The penance called for in the Christian life, and accentuated during Lent, can help us make sense of the sacrifices we have been called on to make during the coronavirus pandemic, a Vatican cardinal has sai… […]
Lima, Peru, Feb 19, 2021 / 03:55 pm (CNA).- The Peruvian bishops’ conference on Thursday condemned the country’s vaccine scandal, in which hundreds of prominent figures took advantage of their positions to receive coronavirus vaccination out of turn.
Among those who received early vaccination is Archbishop Nicolas Girasoli, apostolic nuncio to Peru.
In a Feb. 18 statement the Peruvian bishops censured the misuse “of the vaccines entrusted to our authorities for the sake of research and the health of all Peruvians.” The conference said that “this shows a new face of the monster of corruption and the crisis in ethics and values.”
“It’s inconceivable that doctors, nurses, police, public servants and so many other volunteers should continue to die while a callous group seeks its own interests,” the bishops said, demanding that “these actions be duly investigated and punished.”
This week a list was published of 487 people who were vaccinated early with doses from the Chinese company Sinopharm. These doses accompanied ones that were being used in clinical trials.
Among those who received the early doses from Sinopharm are former president Martín Vizcarra, his wife, and his brother. Vizcarra was removed from office by the parliament over unrelated corruption allegations in November 2020.
The former Minister of Foreign Relations, Elizabeth Astete, and the former director of Science and Technology of the same ministry, are on the list as well.
The list also includes the former Minister of Health, Pilar Mazzetti, who had said that she would be the last to be vaccinated in the healthcare sector; two former vice ministers; and Dr. Germán Málaga Rodríguez, who directed the Sinopharm vaccine trials at Cayetano Heredia University.
The scandal has led to the resignation of the principal authorities of the university, and the suspension of Malaga as coordinator of the vaccine project.
Others who have been vaccinated include Alejandro Aguinaga, a candidate for Congress and the doctor of former President Alberto Fujimori; the former Minister of Health Patricia García, as well as other officials from the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and some of their relatives.
The National Prosecutor’s Office has started a preliminary investigation in which Vizcarra and Mazzetti and Astete have been included so far.
In addition, the government has created an investigative commission in the Ministry of Health, and Francisco Sagasti, the current president, has promised to fire the officials who received the vaccine out of proper order, which was intended to be first administered to frontline healthcare personnel.
The list of those vaccinated was turned over by Cayetano Heredia University to Congress, the Comptroller General of the Republic, the Attorney General’s Office, and the investigative commission of the Ministry of Health, after Vizcarra admitted that he was vaccinated when he was president and long before the country had a contract with Sinopharm to purchase the vaccine.
Sinopharm began the clinical trials of its vaccine in Peru in September 2020 with 12,000 volunteers. One group received the vaccine, and another a placebo.
Additionally, the Chinese laboratory sent 3,200 doses of vaccine to be administered to healthcare personnel related to the clinical trial. However, the list presented by Cayetano Heredia University revealed that this lot was used in violation of the established priorities.
Archbishop José Antonio Eguren Anselmi of Piura, a member of the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, said during Mass Feb. 17, “Let us also do penance for the cases of corruption that we painfully see being discovered day by day in our country right in the midst of the epidemic, now with the shameful scandal of preferential vaccines.”
“Getting vaccinated first is an affront to the thousands of infected brothers and especially to the tens of thousands of deaths because of Covid-19 in our homeland, which has plunged so many Peruvian families into pain and mourning,” Archbishop Eguren said.
“It is an affront to all those who from day one are on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus. Corruption causes great harm in society and is like a cancer that infects and contaminates all sectors of social life,” he said.
Peru has had more than 1.25 million confirmed cases of Covid-19, and more than 44,000 deaths. The pandemic has overwhelmed the healthcare system in the country, and the crisis has been aggravated by the shortage of oxygen for patients.
Wau, South Sudan, Feb 19, 2021 / 10:45 am (CNA).- A Catholic health centre of the Diocese of Wau has temporarily shut down after all three doctors at the facility tested positive for Covid-19.
The administrator of Sika Hadid Primary Health Centre, Sr…. […]
CNA Staff, Feb 19, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Catholic bishops across Europe will join together in prayer throughout Lent for victims of the coronavirus pandemic.
Bishops belonging to the Council of European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE) will f… […]
Vatican City, Feb 18, 2021 / 08:30 am (CNA).- In a decree issued earlier this month, the cardinal who heads the Vatican City State said that employees who refuse to receive the COVID-19 vaccine when deemed necessary for their work could face penal… […]
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