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Muslim woman who declined handshake wins labor case in Sweden

August 16, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Stockholm, Sweden, Aug 16, 2018 / 12:17 pm (CNA).- A labor court in Sweden has sided with a Muslim woman whose job interview was cut short when she refused a handshake for religious reasons.

The court, in a 3-2 vote, ordered the company to pay the woman 40,000 kronor – or $4,350 – on the grounds of discrimination against her, the BBC reports.

Farah Alhajeh was applying for a job with an interpreting company in Uppsala. During the interview, she would not shake her male interviewer’s hand. Instead, she placed her hand over her heart, later saying she was trying to avoid offending the interviewer.

The 24-year-old says her Muslim faith prohibits her from physical contact with members of the opposite sex, outside of her family.

The company argued that Alhejah’s refusal to shake hands could hamper her effectiveness as an interpreter. However, the court disagreed. According to The Local, Alhajeh was applying for a job doing video and phone interpretation, where she would not have to interact in-person with clients.

Company policy and anti-discrimination laws prohibit treating people differently because of sex, the employer said. It said it could not have staff members refusing a handshake because they are women. The company does allow staff members to decline handshakes due to germophobia and autism.

The Swedish labor court said the company could rightly demand equal treatment for men and women, but not by insisting upon a handshake. Doing so, it said, is discrimination against Muslims.

The court said that the European Convention on Human Rights protects the refusal to shake hands on religious grounds.

Sweden’s discrimination ombudsman’s office, which represented Alhajeh in the case, applauded the ruling, saying that it had balanced “the employer’s interests, the individual’s right to bodily integrity, and the importance of the state to maintain protection for religious freedom.”

“I believe in God, which is very rare in Sweden… and I should be able to do that and be accepted as long as I’m not hurting anyone,” Alhajah told the BBC.

Handshakes, a traditional greeting in some parts of Europe, have been the center of other controversies in recent years as well.

In both France and Switzerland, Muslim individuals who refused to shake hands with opposite-sex officials had their citizenship processes suspended or denied.

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Life of Spanish chemistry professor shows ‘holiness is in the ordinary’

August 15, 2018 CNA Daily News 1

Madrid, Spain, Aug 15, 2018 / 10:33 am (ACI Prensa).- Guadalupe Ortiz de Landázuri, a Spanish member of Opus Dei who is moving toward beatification, teaches us that sanctity can be found amidst chemistry books and classrooms, said a priest leading her cause.

Spanish priest Fr. José Carlos Martinez de la Hoz, who is responsible for the canonization causes of Opus Dei members in Spain, said that Guadalupe’s life contains a simple message: “Holiness is in the ordinary.”

“She became holy giving chemistry classes, being a good professor, and this tells the rest of us that we can achieve the same in an ordinary life,” he reflected.

“Guadalupe lived dedicated to her chemistry students, dedicated to souls and especially her mother who died a half hour after her. She lived dedicated to God and others, despite her serious heart disease which at the end of her life really slowed her down.”

In June, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to publish the decree approving on a miracle attributed to Guadalupe’s intercession.

The miracle involved a 76-year-old man suffering from a malignant skin tumor near his eye. After praying to Guadalupe in 2002, the tumor instantaneously and inexplicably disappeared.

In addition to this recognized miracle, Martinez de la Hoz said “there are many favors from people who start to lose hope and Guadalupe has given them back peace, thanks to the patience that she had.”

Guadalupe was born in Madrid in 1916. She studied chemical sciences and was one of five women in her graduating class.

She met St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, in early 1944. According to Martinez de la Hoz, “one Sunday in 1944 when she was at Mass in the church of the Conception on Goya Street in Madrid, she became distracted and heard the voice of God inside telling her that although she had a boyfriend, he had something else prepared for her. She left Mass impacted by this and knew that was God’s call.”

“On the tram going back home after Mass, she met Jesús Hernando de Pablos, a family friend, and she asked him if he knew of any priest she could talk with. He gave her St. Josemaría’s contacts and she started to go to him for spiritual direction,” the priest said.

St. Josemaría Escrivá taught her that Christ can be found in professional work and ordinary life.

“I had the clear sensation that God was speaking to me through that priest,” Guadalupe would later say.

Martinez de la Hoz noted that “when Guadalupe discovered her vocation at 23, she had a boyfriend, was a chemistry teacher and lived with her mother. From that time on, she was in good spirits because of the intimate conviction of doing what God wants.”

On March 19, 1944, Guadalupe joined Opus Dei as a numerary, committing to celibacy and complete availability for the work of the prelature. Numeraries normally live in an Opus Dei center. However, she did not go to live at a center, but settled into an apartment with her mother, who needed care due to her advanced age.

During her first years as an Opus Dei member, Guadalupe worked primarily in the Christian formation of young people in Madrid and Bilbao. She was later sent to Mexico to begin the apostolic work of Opus Dei there.

In 1956, she settled in Rome, where she worked with St. Josemaría in the administration of Opus Dei. After two years, because of health reasons, she moved back to Spain, where she again took up teaching and scientific research. She then finished her doctoral thesis in chemistry.

Martinez de la Hoz said that what stood out about Guadalupe was “her smile, her good humor, her laughter…She was a woman who preferred to not dwell on the negative, and who completely trusted in God.”

The priest emphasized that what really brought Guadalupe to sanctity was her patience as a chemistry professor.

At the same time, she continued to work in Christian formation in Opus Dei. In all her actions, she reflected her strong desire to love God in her work, her friendship and with a deep joy that radiated peace and serenity, he said.

Guadalupe died of heart disease in Pamplona, Spain on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in 1975. She was 59 years old and at the time of her death held a reputation of sanctity. Favors attributed to her intercession were quickly reported.

Her beatification cause was begun in the Archdiocese of Madrid in 2001, and was sent on to Rome in 2006.
 
 
This article was originally published by our sister agency, ACI Prensa.  It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

 

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Tyburn Nuns to open chapel at foundress’ birthplace

August 3, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

London, England, Aug 3, 2018 / 10:30 am (CNA/EWTN News).- An order of Benedictine nuns based near the site in London where Catholics were martyred during the Reformation announced Friday they will soon open a house at the childhood home of their foundress, whose cause for canonization was opened in 2016.

The Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre, OSB, will formally open a chapel in Grancey-le-Chateau, 25 miles southest of Langres, France, Aug. 15, at the property where their foundress, Mother Marie-Adèle Garnier, was born in 1838.

“We give thanks to the Sacred Heart for this historic moment for our Congregation. Our sisters from all over the world are gathered here together to remember the birth of our foundress – the birth of our Monastic Family,” Mother Marilla Aw, OSB, superior general of the order, said Aug. 3.

“We hope that the opening of this house will be an impetus for many people to come to know the charism of our Mother Foundress who is now a Servant of God. Her teachings are profound, and she has already led many souls to the adoration of the Heart of Jesus hidden in the Eucharist.”

The chapel at the site, Maison Garnier, is dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption. The nuns hope the site will become a pilgrimage destination for those devoted to Mother Marie-Adèle. The property includes a museum and a conference and retreat center.

Mother Marie-Adèle founded the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus of Montmartre in 1898. The order is dedicated to perpetual adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

In 1901, the anti-clerical French government passed the Law of Associations, which greatly expanded the state’s authority over religious orders and regulated their educational work. As a result, the sisters went into exile in London, where they were able to freely wear a habit for the first time.

They eventually settled at Tyburn, the London site where in the 16th and 17th centuries several hundred martyrs – priests, religious, and lay men and women – were executed by the Protestant state for their refusal to give up their Catholic faith.

Throughout her life as a religious, Mother Garnier, who now went by Mother Mary of St. Peter, experienced intense physical suffering, so much so that when she went more than two hours without suffering, she wondered if Christ had forgotten her.

Despite her sufferings, which included debilitating migraines, her sisters say she remained cheerful and gentle with everyone, and counseled other sisters through their trials.

The order as a whole also suffered financial problems and strange demonic attacks, including instances of possession or objects being picked up and thrown across the room. But Christ promised Mother Mary of St. Peter that he would not let the order dissolve.

In 1922, Christ appeared to Mother Mary of St. Peter and told her that she would suffer and die soon. For the next two years, she suffered intense chest pains and congestion problems, until she became bedridden.

On November 15, 1923, on a Host a priest brought her, she saw the Heart of Jesus, alive in the Eucharist. She died June 17, 1924 at the Tyburn convent.

Her cause for canonization was opened Dec. 3, 2016 by Bishop Joseph-Marie-Edouard de Metz-Noblat of Langres.

Today, the contemplative order has spread throughout the world, with convents in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Italy, and France.

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Catholic church in Northern Ireland hit with sectarian graffiti

August 1, 2018 CNA Daily News 0

Derry, Northern Ireland, Aug 1, 2018 / 04:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A Catholic church in Northern Ireland was vandalized Tuesday morning with sectarian graffiti, upsetting parishioners and local leaders.

“We never had a problem like this before. There was something very minor about five or six years ago but this is completely new to us,” Msgr. Bryan McCanny, pastor of St. Mary’s in Limavady, fewer than 20 miles east of Derry, told BBC News NI.

“Parishioners are very upset about it. It’s depressing that things like this should happen when we are enjoying peace.”

“The two police officers who arrived this morning helped to clean the paint off the door,” he added.

Paramilitary slogans from an anti-Catholic group marked a door and some of the walls of St Mary’s July 31. A large crucifix outside of the church was also painted on.

The graffiti read UDA and UFF. The Ulster Defence Association is an Ulster loyalist vigilante group founded in 1971 whose paramilitary front organization is the Ulster Freedom Fighters.

The UDA is considered a terrorist organization by the United Kingdom, and between the late 1960s and 2007 it carried out more than 250 killings, with most of the victims Catholic civilians.

Msgr. McCanny said recent weeks have seen an increase in graffiti, and that “it needs nipped in the bud. Limavady has always been a respectful town. We don’t want the peace disturbed.”

The Northern Irish police are treating the incident as a sectarian hate crime.

Caoimhe Archibald, Member of the Legislative Assembly for East Londonderry, called the incident a “disgraceful attack.”

Archibald, a member of the Irish republican party Sinn Féin, said the attack “ comes after an increase in the number of paramilitary flags being flown and a surge in kerb painting in the town.”

“I would urge all elected and community leaders within unionism to show leadership in order to bring an end to the tensions in the area caused by marking territory in this way.”

Aaron Callan, a concillor of the Democratic Unionist Party, said the incident was “disgusting and vile and should be rightly condemned by everyone. There is no place for this kind of behaviour in our society, be it an attack on a chapel, church or an orange hall.”

And Ulster Unionist Party councillor Darryl Wilson told BBC News NI that “I’m saddened and angered to see another attack on a community building within my borough.”

Religious disputes have long been part of the history of Northern Ireland, which is predominantly Protestant and is part of the United Kingdom, while the majority-Catholic Republic of Ireland gained its independence in 1916.

The region has had ongoing religiously and politically based conflicts, most notably “the Troubles”, which included violent clashes that lasted from the late ‘60s until 1998, when the Good Friday Agreement was struck.

Since 1998, there has been only sporadic sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

In October 2017, the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Volunteer Force made threats which forced four Catholic families to flee their homes at a social housing project in Belfast.

Recent demographic figures have suggested that Catholics will likely outnumber Protestants in Northern Ireland by 2021. According to the last census, in 2011, Protestants outnumbered Catholics in Northern Ireland by just three percent.

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