CNA Staff, Mar 16, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).- “The Catechism must not be turned into an instrument to shorten theological discussion and forestall magisterial decision.” That is the conviction of Stephan Kampowski, professor of philosophical a… […]
CNA Staff, Mar 15, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- A leading German Catholic bishop responded to the Vatican’s rejection of blessings for same-sex couples on Monday by saying that there were “no easy answers” to the issue.
Bishop Georg B&aum… […]
Fatima, Portugal, Mar 13, 2021 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- The Bishop of Leiria-Fátima, António Cardinal dos Santos Marto, announced that the 2021 pilgrimage to Fatima will take place virtually due to existing restrictions in Portugal because of t… […]
CNA Staff, Mar 12, 2021 / 06:30 pm (CNA).- The European Union has declared itself an “LGBT freedom zone,” prompting objections from the Polish government, which says it has a right to maintain traditional views on marriage and family.The EU resolution … […]
St. Helier, Jersey, Mar 12, 2021 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- Jersey has formed a citizens’ jury to determine whether assisted suicide should be allowed on the island.
Out of 477 people who applied to sit on the jury, 23 were “randomly selected to provide a broadly representative sample of the Island’, Channel 103 reported the government as saying.
An expert advisory team to the group includes several university professors from mainland universities such as Oxford and the University of Bristol.
The jury will meet virtually ten times over two months, starting March 18, to hear evidence and consider and debate the legal, ethical, and medical implications of legalizing assisted suicide.
Lawmakers in Jersey will ultimately make the decision whether to legalize assisted suicide, taking into account the jury’s recommendation, which is due in June.
Jersey is a British crown dependency, with its own government and legal system, though the British monarch remains head of state. It has a unicameral legislature called the States Assembly.
One of the expert advisors to the jury is Dr. David Jones, an Oxford bioethicist who is a member of the Healthcare Executive Group and the Department of Social Justice of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, as well as a corresponding member of the Pontifical Academy for life.
Jersey, along with Britain’s other channel islands, is part of the Diocese of Portsmouth. Bishop Philip Egan of Portsmouth has spoken out in recent years against proposals to legalize assisted suicide on another channel island, Guernsey.
In a 2018 Palm Sunday letter, Egan wrote that assisted suicide is “fundamentally incompatible with a doctor’s role as healer.”
“Someone near the end of life needs emotional support, comfort and care, good pain control, respect and loving communication – not suicide on prescription…Let us redouble our efforts to offer this support, not least to anyone tempted to suicide or a hurried death,” he wrote.
Guernsey’s parliament ultimately rejected the proposal to legalize assisted suicide during May 2018. Had the island passed the measure, Guernsey would have been the first place in the British Isles to allow assisted suicide.
During the early stages of the Guernsey bill’s proposal, a number of Christian leaders voiced their opposition to the measure in a joint letter signed by 53 pastoral ministers and 41 churches.
Assisted suicide and euthanasia are illegal in mainland Britain. Several countries in Europe, including Belgium and the Netherlands, have legalized the practice.
More than a half-dozen states in the U.S., including Oregon, have legalized assisted suicide, with New Mexico poised to be the latest. H.B. 47, which would legalize assisted suicide in New Mexico, is quickly moving through the legislature, drawing dismay from Santa Fe Archbishop John Wester.
The Australian island of Tasmania is expected to soon become the third Australian state to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, after a bill to do so passed the lower house of the state’s parliament in early March.
CNA Staff, Mar 12, 2021 / 03:00 am (CNA).- A third of all German Catholics are considering leaving the Church, according to a new survey published on Thursday.
The representative study, unveiled March 11, was conducted by the Erfurt-based opinion research institute INSA Consulere on behalf of the Catholic weekly newspaper Die Tagespost and the Protestant news agency Idea. It confirms a previous survey’s findings that indicated similar numbers.
Of those surveyed who belong to the Catholic Church, 33% are considering leaving the church because of the ongoing scandals over the handling of clerical sex abuse cases, while 44% said that they were not going to turn their back on the Church. A further 14% of respondents indicated that they “didn’t know.” Nine percent of those involved in the survey did not specify an answer.
CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, reported that the new survey also found that one in four members of the Protestant regional churches in Germany said they might be “leaving the church soon.”
In 2019, a total of 272,771 German Catholics formally left the Church — more than ever before. The figures for 2020 will not be published until the northern hemisphere’s summer.
The abuse crisis is not the only reason for the exodus. According to a study by the northern German diocese of Osnabrück, older Catholics in particular cite the Church’s handling of the abuse crisis as a reason for leaving, CNA Deutsch reported. Younger people, however, are more likely to deregister as Catholics to avoid paying the obligatory church tax.
In 2019, the Church in Germany received more money in church tax than ever before. According to official figures released in July 2020, the German Church received 6.76 billion euros ($7.75 billion) in 2019. This represented an increase of more than 100 million euros ($115 million) compared to 2018, when the Church gained 6.64 billion euros from the tax. The rise was believed to be due to the growth of Germany’s economy in 2019.
If an individual is registered as a Catholic in Germany, 8-9% of their income tax goes to the Church. The only way they can stop paying the tax is to make an official declaration renouncing their membership. They are no longer allowed to receive the sacraments or a Catholic burial.
This tax has come under increasing criticism, with several bishops questioning whether it needs to be reformed, CNA Deutsch said. As early as 2016, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, Benedict XVI’s private secretary, criticized the process, calling its handling of people opting out of the controversial system “a serious problem.”
According to research by the University of Freiburg published in 2019, the number of Christians paying church tax in Germany is projected to halve by the year 2060. Researchers said that the expected decline could be predicted given a dwindling number of baptisms in Germany, the number of Germans who have departed from formal religious enrollment, and a decrease in Germany’s overall population, which is expected to fall by 21% by 2060.
Last year, the German bishops announced plans for a two-year “Synodal Way,” bringing together lay people and bishops to discuss four major topics: the way power is exercised in the Church; sexual morality; the priesthood; and the role of women.
They said that the process would end with a series of “binding” votes — raising concerns at the Vatican that the resolutions might challenge Church teaching and discipline.
In June 2019, Pope Francis sent a 28-page letter to German Catholics urging them to focus on evangelization in the face of a “growing erosion and deterioration of faith.”
“Every time an ecclesial community has tried to get out of its problems alone, relying solely on its own strengths, methods, and intelligence, it has ended up multiplying and nurturing the evils it wanted to overcome,” he wrote.
In an address to the German bishops in 2015, he said that “one can truly speak of an erosion of the Catholic faith in Germany,” urging them to “overcome resignation which paralyzes.”
CNA Staff, Mar 11, 2021 / 02:00 pm (CNA).- Poland’s Catholic bishops strengthened their child protection system on Thursday with an agreement with the country’s male religious orders.
During the bishops’ plenary meeting in Warsaw on … […]
Rome Newsroom, Mar 11, 2021 / 01:00 pm (CNA).- Pope Francis will officially designate Knock Shrine in Ireland as an international Marian and Eucharistic shrine on the feast of St. Joseph next week.
The Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference announce… […]
Rome Newsroom, Mar 11, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).- Bulldozers have torn into a 135-year-old church dedicated to St. Joseph in northern France — the first of several church demolitions that could take place in the country in the coming months.
The Chapelle Saint-Joseph, built by the Jesuits in Lille between 1880 and 1886, is being bulldozed by the Catholic University of Lille to make way for a new student building. But the nearby Rameau Palace — designed by the same architect, Auguste Mourcou — is being preserved and restored.
A group appealed to the French Ministry of Culture to reclassify the church building as historical. But the ministry rejected the appeal, stressing that “giving up the demolition of the chapel would lead to the abandonment of an important project for the development of higher education, which represents an investment of 120 million euros [around $144 million].”
Voilà ce qu’il reste ce soir de NOTRE chapelle Saint-Joseph .@bernstephane @VSpillebout @Le_Figaro @Lille_actu @FChretienne @oprfrance @vmfpatrimoine @LaCroix @lavoixdunord @Infos_HDF @hautsdefrance @BFMGrandLille pic.twitter.com/A2r6LG2nB0
— La Gazette du Patrimoine (@gazettepatrim) March 3, 2021
Urgences patrimoine, an organization that seeks to preserve French cultural heritage, collected 12,400 signatures on a petition to save the St. Joseph chapel. But the demolition process, captured on video, began in late February regardless.
Meanwhile, discussions have been held to replace the Church of Sainte-Germaine-Cousin in Calais, an early 20th-century building in the Art Deco style, with an apartment complex, according to CNA’s Italian language news partner, ACI Stampa.
The Diocese of Arras announced in August 2020 that the church would no longer be used due to maintenance costs. The church’s 28 stained-glass windows, created by master glassmaker Louis Barillet, have been registered as protected historic architecture with the French government since 1997.
Another church facing potential demolition is the Saint-Èloi du Poirier church, built in 1902 in Trith-Saint-Léger. Local authorities have said that tearing down the church would be less expensive than renovating it, which it estimates would cost around $958,000.
Members of the local community have written letters, made phone calls to authorities, and organized a town hall meeting in an attempt to save the church.
According to French law, local authorities have the final word as to whether to renovate or demolish churches after the French government appropriated all church property in 1907.
CNA Staff, Mar 11, 2021 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Ireland’s Catholic bishops said on Thursday that a bill seeking to legalize assisted suicide is “fundamentally flawed.”
In a March 11 statement after their spring plenary meeting, the bishop… […]
© Catholic World Report