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Vatican halts German diocesan plan to turn 800 parishes into 35

June 10, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Jun 10, 2020 / 02:25 pm (CNA).- The Vatican has intervened to halt a controversial plan to reorganize a German diocese.
 
Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier met with the heads of the Congregation for Clergy and the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts in Rome June 5 to discuss the diocesan plans to restructure several hundred parishes into 35 “XXL parishes.”
 
On June 6, the diocese confirmed that the meeting took place between Ackermann and diocesan officials, and Cardinal Beniamino Stella and Archbishop Filippo Iannone, who lead the two curial departments. While the meeting was held in a “positive atmosphere,” CNA Deutsch reported Tuesday that the diocesan plans may not be implemented in their current form.
 
According to a statement from the diocese, “the Congregation for Clergy, like the Pontifical Council for Legislative Texts, has concerns about the proposed reform of the parishes, as described in the law on the implementation of the results of the diocesan synod.”
 
The diocese said that the concerns were “in particular as regards the role of the pastor in the leadership team of the parish, the service of other priests, the conception of the parish bodies, the size of the future parishes and the speed of implementation.”
 
The restructuring program was formally adopted by the diocese in October last year, following a three-year diocesan synod aimed at addressing declining Mass attendance, a shortage of vocations, and other challenges facing the Church in Germany.
 
After Bishop Ackermann announced the Law for the Implementation of the Results of the Diocesan Synod (2013-2016), several local Catholics, including some priests, voiced concerns about its provisions, and in November last year the Congregation for Clergy and PCLT asked that the plan be delayed while it was studied in Rome.
 
The plans included the merger of all of the diocese’s 887 parishes into 35 larger parishes, led by “pastoral teams” of laypeople and priest. Under the plans, a local lay group said, “the specific transmission of the preaching, especially the homily, to volunteers/lay people will lose the specific nature of the priestly office.” Other concerns included the centralization of parishes, meaning Catholics in some parts of the diocese would have to travel up to 50 miles for Mass.
 
Following the meeting in Rome last week, the diocese released a statement saying that “during the conversation, the bishop made it clear what challenges the diocese of Trier is currently facing.”
 
“In particular, these include: the reduction in the faithful’s commitment to church life over [several] years, the decline in [local] church involvement and the tremors caused by the discovery of sexual abuse by clerics in the people of God.”
 
“In addition,” the diocese said, “demographic change, declining financial resources and the lack of priests are limiting pastoral opportunities in the diocese.”
 
The diocese said that Bishop Ackermann would now work with staff and members of his diocesan curia to form a new plan that respects the “mandate” of the three-year diocesan synod and addresses Rome’s concerns.

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News Briefs

The policeman who might be a saint

June 9, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

Rome, Italy, Jun 9, 2020 / 02:05 pm (CNA).- With police brutality in focus around the world, one priest says it is important to remember a policeman who might one day be declared a saint: Vice-Sergeant Salvo D’Acquisto, an Italian policeman who gave his life for those he had sworn to protect.

During the Second World War, Salvo D’Acquisto was a member of Italy’s Carabinieri police force, and deputy commander of the rural police station of Torrimpietra, outside of Rome.

In September 1943, German soldiers were inspecting boxes of ammunition at a military base nearby. One box exploded, and two German soldiers died. German officials decided the explosion wasn’t an accident. For that, they rounded up and arrested 22 people.

As the local police official, D’Acquisto did an investigation into the explosion, questioning the 22 people who had been arrested.  After his interviews, he tried to explain to the Germans that the explosion was an accident, and that no one in the area was responsible.

But the Nazis were determined to exact revenge. They had the prisoners dig a mass grave, and announced they would be executed.

So Salvo D’Acquisto told the Nazis that he had arranged the explosion, and that he had acted alone.

The civilians were released. D’Acquisto was shot before a firing squad. He was 22 years old.
 
The Italian Military Ordinariate opened a cause for his canonization in 1983 in 1983.

Monsignor Gabriele Teti was the postulator of the policeman’s cause from 2014 to 2018. Himself a former member of the Carabiniere, Teti knows the story of Salvo D’Acquisto in depth.

Teti said that Salvo D’Acquisto considered his membership to Carabinieri a service for his countrymen.

The policeman “went so far as to demonstrate that his life was truly at the service of the people, even to self-sacrifice,” the priest said.

Before his death, said the former postulator, D’Acquisto met a friend who had attended Carabinieri training with him. By then, a large group of Carabinieri had gone underground to fight the Germans in Rome, and this  friend invited D’Acquisto to leave the uniform and join the resistance.

“And he replied that his duty was to protect order and safety, and that his task was not to leave.”

In 2001, Pope St. John Paul II told Italian national police officers that “The history of the Italian Carabinieri shows that the heights of holiness can be reached in the faithful and generous fulfillment of the duties of one’s state. I am thinking here of your colleague, Sergeant Salvo D’Acquisto, awarded a gold medal for military valor, whose cause of beatification is under way.”

The sacrifice of D’Acquisto should be seen in the context of his whole life, the priest said.

“Certainly, he grew up in a very religious family.”

“Since childhood, then, there are small episodes that make us understand the nature of Salvo D’Acquisto. As a child, returning from school, he donated his shoes to a child he always met when returning from school and who was barefoot. Another time, he rushed to save a child who was about to end up under a train.”

The policeman’s cause for beatification ran aground on “bureaucratic” issues, Teti said. A cause for his martyrdom was set up, but Salvo D’Acquisto’s sacrifice falls more easily into a new category of saints, those who have made a “gift of life,” the priest said. His cause continues to be considered at the Vatican.

In Italy, the priests said, “devotion to Salvo D’Acquisto is everywhere. So much so that some even say that there is no need to make him a saint, given that they already consider him a blessed servant of God.”

 

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News Briefs

Catholic Church receives $1.3 million donation to fight poverty amid pandemic

June 9, 2020 CNA Daily News 1

CNA Staff, Jun 9, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- The Catholic Church in England and Wales has received a 1 million pound ($1.3 million) donation to fight poverty caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

The money was donated by the Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation, founded by the late billionaire businessman Albert Gubay, who made a pact with God in his youth that if he became rich he would give half his money to the Church.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, president of the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, said June 9: “All of this remarkable gift will be spent on the immediate relief of hardship, and, I stress, its effects will be felt across the whole of England and Wales.”

Gubay, who died in 2016, amassed his fortune through Kwik Save, a British convenience store chain, Total Fitness, a chain of gyms, and property investments. Upon his death, his charitable foundation, which is based in the Isle of Man, was worth about 700 million pounds ($890 million). 

Nichols said the foundation had contacted him May 20 with the “startling news” that it would make an “immediate outright donation of £1 million” to the Church for poverty relief.

“I was taken aback by the sheer generosity of this single payment and agreed to cooperate in the distribution of this grant to Catholic charities,” he said.

After consulting with the other metropolitan archbishops of England and Wales, the cardinal invited charities to apply for emergency funding by May 31, which should be spent on the poor by the end of September.

Thirty-eight applicants applied for grants totalling more than £2 million.

The $1.3 million donation will be split into three parts with more than $508,000 going to local food banks and the direct provision of food, $317,000 to expand food voucher programs and more than $425,000 for immediate financial support for the needy.

Charities receiving money will compile reports on the impact of the funds by the end of October. 

Food banks have reported unprecedented levels of demand since the government imposed a lockdown in the U.K. in order to stem the spread of the coronavirus. The Trussell Trust, a leading food bank network, said that in the week after after the lockdown was introduced in March, it distributed 50,000 food parcels, almost twice as many as usual.

Albert Gubay was born in 1928 in the Welsh seaside resort of Rhyl to an Iraqi Jewish father and Irish Catholic mother.

In a 2011 interview with the BBC, he said that he turned to God while struggling to make ends meet as a young businessman.

“One Saturday, I didn’t know where the next penny was coming from and I lay on my bed and I had this conversation with God,” he recalled.

“I said: ‘God, help me and whatever I make over the years of my life, when I die, half will go to the Church.’”

In 2011, Nichols presented Gubay with a papal knighthood, conferred by Pope Benedict XVI, for his charitable work. 

In his June 9 statement, Nichols said: “I wish to express heartfelt thanks to the Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation for this exceptional and magnificent donation to such important work. In particular, I thank the Gubay family for their leadership in this remarkable gift which is in addition to the regular charitable giving of the foundation.” 

“I do so, not only on behalf of every bishop in England and Wales for the confidence it shows in the effectiveness of the charitable work of our Catholic charities, but much more importantly, on behalf of all those whose hardship will be alleviated by this outstanding generosity.” 

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News Briefs

UK government doubles down on N Ireland abortion regulations

June 5, 2020 CNA Daily News 0

CNA Staff, Jun 5, 2020 / 05:06 pm (CNA).- While saying that abortion regulation is a devolved issue, the British Minister of State for Northern Ireland emphasized at Westminster Thursday that any local changes to the region’s abortion law would have to comply with human rights conventions.

 
Earlier in the week the Northern Ireland Assembly passed a non-binding motion rejecting the imposition of abortion regulations by the Westminster parliament.

“We hope that the regulations provide a solid framework for abortion services to be provided within Northern Ireland, although I appreciate that this remains a devolved issue and the Assembly can amend the regulations in future, subject to the usual Assembly and other procedures, including compliance with the European convention on human rights,” Robin Walker, the Northern Ireland minister, said June 4 while answering questions from members of parliament.

“If the Executive and Assembly were to legislate for an alternative approach, it would still be required to be human rights and convention-compliant,” he added.

The Abortion (Northern Ireland) Regulations 2020, which came into force March 31, 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 fetal fetal abnormality.
 

Previously, abortion was legally permitted in the region 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.

The new framework was adopted to implement Westminster’s Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019, which decriminalized abortion in Northern Ireland and placed a moratorium on abortion-related criminal prosecutions, and obliged the UK government to create legal access to abortion in the region by March 31.

The NI EF Act required that the recommendations of a UN report on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women be implemented.

Walker maintained June 4 that “The Government are … under a clear statutory duty to allow for access to abortions in cases of both severe foetal impairment and fatal foetal abnormalities, and this is what we have delivered … We consider the regulations in this regard to be compatible with the requirements under the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities.”

The regulations will be debated in a House of Commons Committee June 8, and afterwards in the House of Lords.

Thursday’s questions about the regulations were opened by Jeffrey Donaldson, a member of the Democratic Unionist Party, Northern Ireland’s leading pro-life party.

Donaldson urged that “the Government should withdraw the regulations, respect the fact that devolution has been restored and, rather than seek to further undermine devolution, allow the Northern Ireland Assembly its rightful place to legislate on its own abortion law.”

He noted that the regulations’ provision for abortion in cases of severe fetal impairment “was not even required by CEDAW.”

MPs who participated in the discussion were divided over the regulations. Of the nine members of the governing Conservative Party who asked questions of Walker, six expressed support for the regulations, or a more liberal provision of abortion access.

Two members of the Labour Party expressed support for the regulations, as did one Liberal Democrat from a Scottish constituency, while one Labour Party member spoke in favor of devolution and handing the matter over to the Northern Ireland Assembly. Four DUP members voiced their opposition to the regulations.

Ian Paisley Jr commented that CEDAW does not require legislation for a full-term abortions, disability abortions, or sex-selection abortions, yet “that is that what is going to happen in Northern Ireland as a result of what has occurred in this place.”

Carla Lockhart, also a member of the DUP, commented that “the Government…continue to ride roughshod over the devolved Administration in Northern Ireland. They are discriminating against people who have non-fatal disabilities and going far beyond their legal requirement.”

“Will the Minister recognise the severe offence that the regulations cause to people with disabilities and also that the clear will of the devolved institutions is that the regulations are not wanted in Northern Ireland?” she asked. “What is the Minister’s message today to Heidi Crowter, who says that she feels she should not exist in this society if the regulations go ahead? … Both lives matter. It is not just about women’s health, but about both lives. It is not the Government’s right to impose such liberal abortion laws on Northern Ireland that will see abortion up to birth for disability.”

Walker responded that “nobody in the House wants to regulate or legislate in any way to the detriment of people with disabilities. We rightly have a huge body of legislation in this country to protect the rights of people with disabilities. It is not for the Government—and it is not the approach we take in the rest of the UK—to list specific conditions that it may or not be decided constitute severe foetal impairment.”

He maintained that “Addressing [severe foetal impairment] was a specific requirement of the CEDAW report, which is why it is included in the regulations.”

The Northern Ireland minister said that “this Government believe in supporting the rights of people with disabilities and do not in any way see these regulations as impinging on those. The regulations mirror the law in the rest of the UK, where abortions are permitted in cases of severe foetal impairment and fatal foetal abnormality, with no time limit. The Abortion Act does not define what conditions fit within this meaning, but similarly, it is an individual’s decision based on proper medical assessments and advice and other relevant provision of information and support.”

Walker also noted that the government had sought to conform Northern Ireland’s regulations to those in the rest of the UK, noting that it had used “the legal basis that has been established in England, Scotland, Wales for this process and [was] ensuring that we stick to it as closely as possible, particularly on issues such as conscientious objection…However, our approach throughout the design of this framework is to ensure that the outcomes are as consistent as possible.”

He also said that “it is important that wherever possible we make sure the outcomes of the regulations in Northern Ireland are aligned with the outcomes in the rest of [Great Britain]. ​It is important both because it is the right thing to do fundamentally—as a Unionist I believe it is the right thing to do—and because the approach in the rest of the UK has been legally tested and found to be compliant with the relevant human rights law.”

And when questioned about devolution and the possibility of the Northern Ireland Assembly legislating on the problem, Walker responded that “it is in the hands of the Assembly to propose reforms and a way forward on the regulations, so long as it can do so in a way that is CEDAW compliant. I would be very happy for it to take that opportunity. There is nothing to prohibit it doing so, and it is a matter of regret that, having been in place for a number of months before the regulations came into force, it has not.”

“However, my firm understanding of the advice that the Government have received is that the legal obligations on us to ensure a human rights-compliant model in every part of the UK, including Northern Ireland, remain in place,” he added.

A legislation scrutiny committee of the House of Lords published in April a report which noted that the regulations are more expansive than were required by law.

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.

Northern Irish women had been able to procure free National Health Service abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales since November 2017. They are allowed to travel to the rest of the UK to procure abortions during the coronavirus outbreak.

The amendment to the NI EF Act 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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