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Report: Slovenian authorities charge Vatican ‘security consultant’ with money laundering

March 24, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Rome Newsroom, Mar 24, 2021 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Slovenian authorities have reportedly filed preliminary charges against an Italian woman on suspicion of laundering funds illegally obtained from the Vatican through Slovenian-registered companies.

According to Slovenian daily Večer, criminal investigators in the capital city of Ljubljana have filed the preliminary charges against Marogna and a Slovenian citizen they think may have been working with her.

Marogna is expected to face a Vatican trial for alleged embezzlement after she was accused of misappropriating Vatican funds from payments of more than 500,000 euros (around $600,000) she received from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State through her Slovenia-registered company in 2018 and 2019.

The accusation is that funds intended for humanitarian purposes were used for personal expenses, including stays at luxury hotels and purchases of designer label handbags.

According to Večer, Slovenian investigators have found that Marogna in 2019 transferred up to 575,000 euros to several Slovenia-based companies before spending it or transferring it to other accounts.

Večer reported March 22 that Slovenian police, in cooperation with the Office for the Prevention of Money Laundering and foreign security authorities, froze 175,000 euros in one company’s account and carried out a house search on a Slovenian citizen suspected of cooperating with Marogna in laundering money.

Marogna has claimed that she worked for the Secretariat of State as a security consultant and strategist. She acknowledged receiving hundreds of thousands of euros from the Vatican but insisted that the money was for her Vatican consultancy work and salary.

Media have claimed that the payments were made under the direction of Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the former sostituto of the Secretariat of State and a fellow Sardinian. He has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Marogna was arrested in Milan last year on an international warrant issued by the Vatican through Interpol. She was released from jail 17 days later and in January the Vatican announced it had dropped its request for Marogna’s extradition from Italy just as Italian judges were due to rule on it.

The Vatican also said in January that the trial against Marogna for alleged embezzlement would begin soon.

According to the Sardinia Post, in February Marogna lodged a complaint in the Brescia prosecutor’s office for alleged crimes committed against her in connection with her arrest.

She reportedly claimed that she was “deprived of freedom unjustly” from the day of her arrest until the lifting of the obligation to register her presence with Milan police in mid-January.

Marogna submitted the complaint through her new legal representation, after her previous lawyers, who specialize in corporate criminal law, parted ways with her in early February.

She also appealed to the Court of Review of Milan last month against the seizure of her cellphone as part of the Vatican investigation against her.

The smartphone is reported to have been recently sent to Vatican investigators after being in the possession of Italian investigators since October.


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Catholic bishop speaks out after mother loses appeal over life support for 5-year-old girl

March 23, 2021 CNA Daily News 1

CNA Staff, Mar 23, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).- A Catholic bishop has lamented an English appeal court ruling that life-sustaining treatment can be withdrawn from a five-year-old girl against her mother’s wishes.

The Court of Appeal upheld a High Court ruling March 19 concerning Pippa Knight, who is in a vegetative state after suffering brain damage.

Bishop John Sherrington said: “Pippa is living in a seriously disabled way due to her complex and rare medical condition. The Catholic Church teaches that every person has worth and dignity which is independent of their condition. Lack of awareness does not diminish worth.”

“The ruling to allow medics to cease Pippa’s treatment based on her quality of life or worth does not acknowledge or afford her the inherent human dignity with which she was born.”

Sherrington, a Westminster diocese auxiliary bishop and the English and Welsh bishops’ spokesman for life issues, said that he was praying for the girl’s mother, Paula Parfitt, as well as the healthcare professionals caring for her.

“We must uncompromisingly ensure that proper care is given where there is still life, despite serious illness or disability,” he commented.

“We are reminded that such care must include the provision of nutrition and hydration, by whatever means, which is neither treatment nor medicine, unless this itself becomes overly burdensome.”

Pippa was born in 2015. In December 2016, she fell ill and began experiencing seizures. Doctors diagnosed her as suffering from acute necrotizing encephalopathy, a rare form of brain damage marked by multiple bilateral lesions.

After specialists at Evelina London Children’s Hospital said they wished to end life-support treatment, the case went to the High Court, which issued its ruling on Jan. 8.

In a Feb. 4 statement, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford, England, described the ethical reasoning behind the High Court decision as “deeply flawed.”

In a detailed analysis of the judgment, the center’s director David Albert Jones said that the case had similarities with those of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans, in which ventilation was withdrawn against their parents’ wishes.

He said that withdrawing life-sustaining treatment could be justified if it no longer serves its purpose or is “excessively burdensome.”

“On the other hand, withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment when treatment would have been beneficial and not unduly burdensome is nothing less than abandonment,” he wrote.

“Furthermore, even if withdrawal of treatment is justifiable, it is important that the decision is made for the right reasons. In the case of Pippa Knight, as in the two former cases, the ethical reasoning is deeply flawed.”

In February, Pippa’s mother asked appeal judges to overturn the ruling, arguing that her daughter should be allowed to leave the hospital and be treated at home on a portable ventilator.

Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Baker said in a written ruling: “I am entirely satisfied that the judge was entitled to conclude and declare that it was lawful and in Pippa’s best interests that life-sustaining treatment be withdrawn for the reasons he gave in his judgment.”

The two other judges who heard the appeal — Lady Justice King and Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing — expressed their agreement.

Parfitt, who is supported by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), expressed her dismay at the appeal court’s verdict.

“I am once again devastated as a result of the judgment of the Court of Appeal today, to uphold the decision that it is not in Pippa’s best interests to have a two-week trial of portable ventilation to find out whether she could come home,” she said.

“I find it inexplicable that the court and [hospital] trust will not allow Pippa to trial portable ventilation for two weeks to see if she can return home when the hospital allows Pippa to go outside for long periods on portable ventilation with no issue.”

She continued: “I will be seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. I want Pippa to have every possible chance to come home and be with her family.”

Concluding his March 19 statement, Sherrington said: “The intentional ending of the life of a critically ill patient because of a judgment made of its quality is never in the patient’s best interests. At the heart of humanity must be a call to show love and solidarity with the most vulnerable in society, and to defend the lives of our more fragile brothers and sisters who are unable to do so themselves.”

“My heartfelt prayers are with little Pippa and her mother Paula during this difficult time of suffering, as well as with those caring for Pippa. I hope that everything possible will now be done to accompany and support Pippa and her family following today’s ruling.”


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UK government may push to legislate again on abortion in N Ireland

March 20, 2021 CNA Daily News 0

Belfast, Northern Ireland, Mar 20, 2021 / 01:01 pm (CNA).- The British government may push to legislate further on the provision of abortion in Northern Ireland, as it holds that the region’s devolved government has not fully implemented regulations imposed by Westminster.

“We remain disappointed that the Department of Health and Northern Ireland executive have failed to commission full abortion services, following the change to the law last March,” a British government spokesperson said, according to the Press Association.

“We are continuing to monitor the situation closely, including considering further legislative action at Westminster, given the nature of the legal duties on the secretary of state for Northern Ireland in this context.”

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but abortion law is considered a devolved issue to be under the control of the Northern Ireland Assembly. However, due to the suspension of the  regional government, the British parliament in October 2019 decriminalized abortion in Northern Ireland and obliged the UK government to create legal access to abortion in the region.

The regulations from Westminster, which came into force March 31, 2020, allow elective abortions up to 12 weeks of pregnancy; abortions up to 24 weeks in cases of risk to the mother’s physical or mental health; and abortion without time limit in cases of severe fetal impairment or fatal fetal abnormality.

Abortions may be performed at General Practitioners premises, and Health and Social Care clinics and hospitals. Medical abortions are permitted up to 10 weeks, and the first medication, mifepristone, must be taken at a clinic.

The Guardian reported a source in the British government as saying the Northern Ireland Executive “has not commissioned abortion services consistent with the regulations originally set out by the UK government nearly a year ago.”

Between March 31 and Oct. 14, 719 abortions were procured in Northern Ireland.

According to the Press Association, medical abortions have been arranged at individual health trusts, but the Department of Health has not commissioned abortion provision across the region.

Brandon Lewis, the UK Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, is “reportedly prompted by concerns many women are still travelling to Great Britain” to procure abortion, the Press Association wrote.

Northern Irish women have been able to procure free National Health Service abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales since November 2017.

The Guardian reported that “more than 100 women have still sought abortions in England from Northern Ireland.”

Throughout 2019, 1,014 Northern Ireland women are known to have traveled to England or Wales for an abortion, and fewer than 10 traveled to Scotland for an abortion, according to the U.K. Department of Social Care and Scotland’s Information Services.

The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission has filed a judicial review in the region’s High Court over what it maintains is a lack of commission and funding for abortion. The human rights group cites Lewis, the Northern Ireland Executive, and the Northern Ireland Department of Health in its complaint.

Lewis seeks to have the British parliament allow him to direct the Northern Ireland health department to commission more widespread abortion provision.

The health department holds that it needs the agreement of the regional government in order to act.

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Arlene Foster, who is also leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, and Jeffrey Donaldson, the party’s leader in Westminster, met with Lewis about his plans March 18.

Donaldson recalled that “abortion is a devolved matter,” adding that “any move by an NIO minister to legislate over the head of the Northern Ireland Executive would raise serious questions about when and in what areas the government can make interventions in a devolved administration. The DUP would warn the Northern Ireland Office against legislating on a matter which is wholly devolved and we will vigorously oppose such steps.”

The Northern Ireland Assembly is a power-sharing legislature dominated by the DUP and Sinn Féin.

The Irish nationalist party has said it will call on the health department to make full provision for abortion.

The Severe Fetal Impairment Abortion (Amendment) Bill, introduced by a DUP Member of the Legislative Assembly, passed its second reading in the Assembly March 15, by a vote of 48 to 12. The bill would remove severe fetal impairment as a ground for abortion.

Sinn Féin MLAs abstained from the vote, while MLAs from the Social Democrat and Labour Party, the Ulster Unionist Party, and the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland were allowed a conscience vote.

Disability rights campaigners — including the group Don’t Screen Us Out and Heidi Crowter, an Irish woman with Down syndrome — have welcomed the bill, calling the current law “downright discrimination” toward persons with disabilities.

Before March 31, 2020, abortion was legally permitted in Northern Ireland only if the mother’s life was at risk or if there was risk of long term or permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.

Northern Ireland rejected the Abortion Act 1967, which legalized abortion in England, Wales, and Scotland; and bills to legalize abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, or incest failed in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2016.

In June 2020 the British Minister of State for Northern Ireland, Lewis’ deputy, said that while abortion regulation is a devolved issue, any local changes to Northern Ireland’s abortion law would have to comply with human rights conventions.

The Northern Ireland Assembly had shortly before passed a non-binding motion rejecting the imposition of the abortion regulations by the Westminster parliament.

The amendment to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 obliging the government to provide for legal abortion in Northern Ireland was introduced by Stella Creasy, a Labour MP who represents a London constituency.


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