Rome, Italy, Oct 2, 2019 / 12:30 pm (CNA).- The Italian bishops conference have condemned a proposal from Italy’s education minister that crucifixes should be removed from public school classrooms.
“I believe schools should… […]
Belfast, Northern Ireland, Oct 1, 2019 / 03:04 pm (CNA).- Religious leaders are calling on Northern Ireland Secretary Julian Smith to reconvene the region’s legislative assembly, in order to avoid new liberalizing abortion laws which are set to take effect later this month.
“Our Northern Ireland political parties have it in their own hands to do something about this,” the religious leaders said in a Monday joint statement.
The British parliament voted in July to add same-sex marriage and a loosening of abortion restrictions as amendments to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill, which is designed to keep the region running amid a protracted deadlock in the Northern Ireland Assembly.
If Northern Ireland Assembly is not reconvened by Oct. 21, the expansion of abortion rights and the legalization of same-sex marriage will take effect. Secretary Smith would be mandated to put the laws into effect by March 31, 2020.
The Northern Ireland Catholic bishops’ conference has previously condemned the legislation’s “unprecedented” use of authority to legalize abortion in the region.
Leaders of the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland, Methodist Church in Ireland, Presbyterian Church in Ireland, and the Irish Council of Churches, in a joint statement Monday called on their congregations to lobby their locally elected representatives, and ask them to reconvene the assembly before the deadline.
“There is no evidence that these [legal] changes reflect the will of the people affected by them, as they were not consulted. They go far beyond the ‘hard cases’ some have been talking about,” the statement reads.
“We are, along with others, gravely concerned that the imposition of this Westminster legislation,” the leaders wrote, calling for two special days of prayer over the weekend of October 12-13 for the unborn and for women facing difficult pregnancies and their families.
The Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended for the past two years due to a dispute between the two major governing parties. The DUP, the largest party, is opposed to changing the law. Sinn Féin, another prominent party in Northern Ireland, backs a liberalization of the abortion law.
The DUP has said it is ready to return to the Assembly “immediately without pre-conditions,” according to the Belfast Telegraph.
Last year, the Republic of Ireland held a referendum in which voters repealed the country’s pro-life protections, which had recognized the life of both mothers and their babies. Irish legislators then enacted legislation allowing legal abortion in what had long been a Catholic and pro-life stronghold.
Elective abortion is legal in the rest of the United Kingdom up to 24 weeks, while currently it is legally permitted in Northern Ireland only if the mother’s life is at risk or if there is risk of permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.
Northern Irish women have been able to procure free National Health Service abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales since November 2017.
The UK government’s plans to decriminalize abortion in Northern Ireland has garnered opposition from hundreds of health professionals in the region, who the BBC reports have written to Secretary Smith expressing opposition and calling for reassurance that as “conscientious objectors,” they will not have to perform or assist abortions.
The Northern Ireland Office, the department of the UK government which oversees the region’s affairs, is launching an “awareness campaign” in November to educate “women and healthcare professionals” on the likely changes to abortion law, the BBC reports.
An estimated 20,000 people marched in Belfast on Sept. 7, in opposition to the loosening of abortion restrictions, in a demonstration organized by the pro-life group Precious Life.
The people of Northern Ireland made “a strong stand against the extreme and undemocratic legislation that Westminster is forcing on Northern Ireland,” Bernadette Smyth, founder of Precious Life, told CNA.
In June 2018, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission challenged the region’s abortion laws in the UK Supreme Court. While the Supreme Court concluded that the laws violated human rights law by banning abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, and incest, it threw out the case saying it had not been brought forward by a person who had been wrongfully harmed by the law.
London, England, Sep 30, 2019 / 10:25 am (CNA).- The leading English bishop said Sunday that Blessed John Henry Newman offers an important witness for the Catholic Church in England during difficult times, and is a patron for the call of every Catholic… […]
Rome, Italy, Sep 27, 2019 / 03:41 pm (CNA).- Pro-life advocates are decrying the ruling of an Italian court this week that decriminalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in the cases of patients who have an “irreversible” condition and are experiencing “intolerable suffering.”
According to the court’s ruling, anyone who “facilitates the suicidal intention… of a patient kept alive by life-support treatments and suffering from an irreversible pathology” will not be penalized, The Telegraph reported.
The ruling made in the majority-Catholic country was met with strong opposition from the country’s Catholic bishops’ conference and other opponents of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
The ruling creates “the preconditions for a culture of death, in which society loses the light of reason,” Bishop Stefano Russo, Bishop Emeritus of Fabriano-Matelica and secretary-general of the conference, said after the decision, according to the AP.
The decision came after the court considered the case of Fabiano Antoniani, known as DJ Fabo, who in 2017 died at the age of 40 at a euthanasia clinic in Switzerland. The DJ had quadriplegia and was left blind after a serious car accident in 2014, and required assistance for eating and breathing.
Marco Cappato, an activist for euthanasia and assisted suicide, had been accused of assisting in DJ Fabo’s death, but was effectively cleared by the court. Under the previous law, he would have faced a possible 12 years in prison for participating in an assisted suicide.
“…as of today, all of us in Italy are freer,” Cappato said after the ruling, The Telegraph reported.
A week prior to the ruling, Pope Francis told an audience of Italian doctors that euthanasia and assisted suicide offer “false compassion.”
“It is important that the doctor does not lose sight of the singularity of each patient, with his dignity and fragility. A man or a woman to accompany with conscience, with intelligence and heart, especially in the most serious situations,” he said Sept. 20.
“With this attitude, one can and must reject the temptation – induced also by legislative changes – to use medicine to support a possible desire for death by the patient, providing assistance to suicide or causing death directly with euthanasia,” Francis added.
Euthanasia differs from assisted suicide in that it occurs when someone else is the one diretly to kill the patient, typically through a lethal dose of medication. Assisted suicide occurs when a patient administers a lethal dose of medication or some other lethal medical intervention to kill themselves.
Care Not Killing, a UK-based organization that promotes palliative care instead of euthanasia or assisted suicide, expressed “concern and disappointment” at the decision of the Italian court in a statement.
“Alarmingly, this ruling seems to allow for those with chronic, non-life threatening conditions, which in the UK would apply to around 11 million people,” Dr. Gordon Macdonald, Chief Executive of Care Not Killing, said in the statement.
“The current law exists to protect the terminally ill, disabled people and the vulnerable from feeling pressure, real or perceived from ending their lives as we often see in those places that made this change,” he said.
Concerns about coercion and discrimination against the elderly, the disabled, and the mentally ill are common among opponents of assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Macdonald noted that in the states of Oregon and Washington, where assisted suicide is legal, terminally ill patients who choose to die often cite fears of being a “burden” on family or caretakers as the reason for their decision.
He also noted that cancer patients or others with serious illnesses in these states have been “refused potentially life-saving and life-extending treatments, while being offered the poison to kill themselves.”
Macdonald also noted that in Canada, which legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2016, promises of improved palliative care have “not materialized” and any safeguarding measures originally put in place have already been removed. In the Netherlands and Belgium, such laws have expanded to allow non-mentally competent adults and “even children” to choose euthanasia or assisted suicide, he added.
“This is why Parliamentarians across the UK have repeatedly rejected attempts to introduce assisted suicide and euthanasia, more than ten times since 2003, out of concern for public safety, including in 2015 when the House of Commons overwhelmingly voted against any change in the law by 330 votes to 118,” he noted.
“It also explains why not a single doctors group or major disability rights organization supports changing the law, including the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Physicians, the British Geriatric Society and the Association for Palliative Medicine. Our current law does not need changing.”
Simone Pillon, an Italian legislator, told The Telegraph that human life is “sacred and inviolable” and that the ruling would “weigh on (the judges’) consciences for life.”
A Catholic association of doctors told The Telegraph that they would not comply with the new ruling.
Berlin, Germany, Sep 24, 2019 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- The apostolic nuncio to Germany has written to the country’s bishops, comparing a recent letter from Pope Francis to German Catholics with a historic Nazi-era encyclical of Pius XI.
In a letter to mark the opening of the German bishops’ conference’s plenary session on Monday, Archbishop Nicola Eterovic reiterated the appeal of Pope Francis to the bishops that they focus on evangelization and maintain unity with the universal Church during their “binding synodal process.”
In June, Francis wrote to German Catholics about the state of the Church in their country, and to offer his own priorities and methodology for the syndoal path being undertaken there.
The German bishops’ plenary meeting runs from Sept. 23-25, at the end of which they will vote on draft statutes for the creation of a “Synodal Assembly.”
“The letter of the Holy Father deserves special attention,” Archbishop Nicola Eterovic wrote in his welcoming address to the German bishops on Monday, Sept. 23.
“It is indeed the first time since the encyclical of Pius XI, Mit brennender sorge — ‘With burning concern’ — that the pope has dedicated a letter to the members of the Catholic Church in Germany in particular.”
Eterovic – originally from Croatia – pointed out that while “the encyclical of 14 March 1937 denounces the inadmissible interventions of the National Socialist regime in the affairs of the Catholic Church, the current letter deals with issues within the Church.”
“As the representative of the Holy Father in Germany, I am pleased that the contents of the papal letter will be the subject of the study day during this assembly. I do not doubt that the pope’s letter will positively influence the so-called Synodal Path.”
In his own letter, the archbishop repeatedly stressed the need for unity with the universal Church, as expressed by the pope.
“Unity between the universal Church and particular Churches is essential for the effectiveness of evangelization,” Eterovic wrote, quoting Francis’ June letter.
“It is especially in these times of ‘strong fragmentation and polarization to ensure that the Sensus Ecclesiae actually lives in every decision we make and that it nourishes and permeates all levels… The universal Church lives in and from the particular Churches, just as the particular Churches live and flourish in and from the universal Church; if they were separated from the universal Church, they would weaken, perish and die. Hence the need to maintain communion with the whole Body of the Church always alive and effective.”
The nuncio said the pope wanted to remind the German bishops that communion “helps us to overcome the fear which isolates us in ourselves and in our particularities, so that we can look into the eyes and listen to those who are there, or so that we can renounce needs and thus accompany those who have remained on the roadside.”
The archbishop concluded by warning the German bishops against the temptation to seek easy solutions in the face of the crisis of faith in the country.
Citing Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Protestant theologian murdered by the Nazis, Eterovic said that relying on the “cheap grace” cannot be the basis for renewal, and is the “mortal enemy of our Church.” Instead, he urged the bishops to “struggle” for the “expensive grace” that is found through focusing on evangelization, as called for by the pope.
Eterovic concluded his letter by underlining the essential link between people, faith, and evangelization in the communion of the Church.
“As a community of believers, as a communion of lived and preached hope, as a community of fraternal love, the Church must unceasingly hear for herself what she must believe, what are the reasons for her hope, and what the new commandment of love is.”
CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language partner, contributed to this story
Fulda, Germany, Sep 24, 2019 / 12:10 pm (CNA).- The Church in Germany must revise its synodal plans in line with the pope’s leadership and the universal Church, Cardinal Rainer Woelki told the plenary session of the German Episcopal Conference Tuesday morning.
Speaking on the second day of the three-day meeting, Woelki, who is the Archbishop of Cologne, told the bishops that Pope Francis had offered them essential “fatherly advice” in his June letter to the Church in Germany.
“Let us take the pope very seriously!” Woelki told the bishops, as he called for key changes to be made to the synodal plans in order to bring them in line with Francis’ recommendations.
The bishops are meeting in Fulda from Sept. 23-25. Tomorrow they are expected to vote on the adoption of draft statutes for the “binding synodal process” announced by Cardinal Reinhard Marx earlier this year.
Woelki outlined several key themes in the pope’s letter which, he said, the bishops must honor, especially noting Pope Francis’ call for a focus on evangelization and communion with the wider Church.
The Church in Germany must begin by “re-evangelizing itself” is an “indispensable prerequisite” for its wider mission, Woelki said, noting that Francis’ letter made clear that this required the bishops to remain rooted in the essential unity of faith, in Christ, and with the whole Church.
“This is the indispensable sign for our Synodal Way, which has to run like a thread through it, so that the Synodal Way can bear true fruit. The Pope’s letter leaves no doubt about that.”
The pope’s letter has become a focal point for debate as the German bishops continue their deliberations on the creation of a Synodal Assembly in partnership with the Central Committee of German Catholics. Yesterday, the Apostolic Nuncio in Germany, Archbishop Nikola Eterovic, wrote to the German bishops, reminding them that the June letter was the first time a pope had written to all the German faithful since the rise of Nazism, and that it is essential that they listen to Francis.
Woekli said that the pope’s warning against a synod inspired by a “new Pelagianism,” focused on structural reform and bringing the Church into conformity with the zeitgeist, is an important exhortation.
“It is no coincidence that the Holy Father warns against a tendency that seems to me to be typical for Germany,” Woekli said, quoting the pope as he described “this old and ever new temptation of the promoters of Gnosticism […] who, in order to make their own name and reputation, to increase their doctrine and glory, have tried to say something always new and different from what the Word of God has given them.”
While it is important to enable the broad participation of believers in the life of the Church, Woelki said, this cannot be conflated or confused with the legitimate teaching and governing authority of the bishops, “the guarantor of apostolicity and catholicity.”
Referencing the recent Vatican assessment of the draft statutes for the Synodal Assembly, the cardinal reminded the bishops that there is a crucial difference between a parliamentary approach to Church governance and the proper role of discussion and consultation before the exercise of legitimate decision-making authority.
“The Synodal Way must not be walked without the universal Church. The [pope’s] letter urges this perspective when it says: ‘It is about living and feeling with the Church and in the Church[…] The universal church lives in and out of the particular churches, just as the particular churches live and flourish in and out of the universal church; if they were separated from the universal Church, they would weaken, corrupt and die.’”
The German synodal plans include the formation of working groups, called synodal fora, which are considering the themes of increasing women’s participation in Church ministries and offices, reforming Church teaching on sexual morality, and revising discipline in priestly life.
Several of these groups, formed in partnership with the Central Committee of German Catholics, have already begun work and are expected to advance proposals at odds with universal Church teaching, something Woelki said would go against the pope’s clear instructions.
“Pope Francis reminds us that the faith of the particular Churches is always located in the faith of the whole Church and must be found there,” he said. “In the long run, there cannot and should not be different ways of dealing with fundamental issues of faith and morality that would not only jeopardize, but possibly violate, the high good of unity that we profess in the Creed as an attribute of the Church.”
“The stipulations of the faith, which belong to the unchangeable existence of doctrine of the Church, cannot and therefore must not be put up for debate in the Synodal Way. The impression must not be conveyed that there would be a quasi-parliamentary vote on the faith,” Woelki insisted.
Vatican criticism of the German plans, put forward in a Sept. 4 letter to Cardinal Reinhard Marx from Cardinal Marc Ouellet, prefect of the Congregation for Bishops, raised a number of concerns. Foremost of these is the plan to invest the Synodal Assembly with “deliberative power” to pass resolutions on issues touching Church teaching and governance.
Woelki also said that listening to the pope’s instructions does not mean halting the synodal process.
“The Pope’s letter emphasizes that this does not mean ‘not going forward, not changing anything, and perhaps even not debating or arguing.’ But this must be done with the consciousness, as the pope says, ‘that we are essentially part of a larger body that claims us, that waits for us and needs us, and that we claim, expect and need.’”
He concluded by urging the other German bishops to make necessary changes to the synodal structures and topics for consideration, pointing to the alternative version he presented in August, which made explicit that the synodal body had a strictly consultative role and suggested alternative topics for consideration, centered on the evangelization.
“Together with the Holy Father, I again warn against taking a substantial and formal path that would take us out of the worldwide body of Christ. Our involvement in the faith of the universal Church, whose integrity we serve not least in the episcopal ministry, excludes any negotiation or a vote on matters of faith. This also applies to ecclesiastical discipline, insofar as it is embedded in the overall church context.”
“Let’s take the pope really seriously,” Woelki concluded. “We do not need agitated activism, but the serenity of all who are fully committed to Christ.”
“It is crucial that the Church in Germany shows with words and deeds how beautiful it is to live in the presence of the Lord, to know that He accompanies and surrounds us: For the joy of the Lord is our strength.”
Frosinone, Italy, Sep 24, 2019 / 09:53 am (CNA).- Pope Francis and Andrea Bocelli made a surprise visit Tuesday to a rehabilitation center outside of Rome.
Arriving in a blue Ford Focus, the pope visited the headquarters of the “Nuovi Orizzonti,” or “New Horizons,” community, in Frosinone, Italy, Vatican News reported Sept. 24.
New Horizons is an Italian non-profit organization recognized by the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life, that provides support through a faith-based “rehabilitative therapeutic program” for the poor and destitute on the streets.
For 25 years, the organization founded by Chiara Amirante has served the poor with a faith-centered appraoch to rehabilitation from substance abuse, while also providing sheter for homeless youth, aid to women in prostitution, and a ministry of street evangelization. With its headquarters in Frosinone, the organization has grown to have 200 training centers.
“I knew that Christ could bring life back where I saw death. They asked me to take them away with me, to know that Jesus I was talking about. What happened next went beyond my imagination,” Amirante said of her ministry in the streets before the founding of New Horizons, according to Italian media.
Pope Francis visited the New Horizons’ headquarters and site of the “Cittadella Cielo,” or Heavenly Citadel project, an initiative to construct a “small village” to house single mothers and their children, teach vocational skills to homeless, assist people with AIDS, and train evangelization teams to volunteer in prisons or with at-risk youth.
The Italian newspaper Avvenire posted photos of Pope Francis celebrating Mass at the New Horizons headquarters with Andrea Bocelli and other Italian celebrities present.
Bocelli has been a supporter of New Horizons for a number of years. The celebrity singer attended the inauguration of the Heavenly Citadel project in 2018 and is called a “Knight of Light of New Horizons.”
Bocelli told Avvenire why he supports New Horizons: “Because I love the truth and I have decided to always be in the forefront of bringing it to others.”
“Holy Father, his first words after the white smoke were ‘Pray for me’. I don’t know why, but I cried a lot that night. And again this morning,” Bocelli said Sept. 24 during the visit to Frosinone with the pope.
Throughout his pontificate, Pope Francis has made surprise visits, customarily on Fridays, to organizations practicing the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. Originally planned once per month during the Church’s Jubilee of Mercy in 2016 as “Mercy Fridays,” the pope continued these surprise visits, meeting with refugees, the terminally ill, and women freed from sex trafficking, among others.
Madrid, Spain, Sep 24, 2019 / 12:00 am (CNA).- The Spanish bishops’ conference said that the “mindfulness” movement and other eastern meditation techniques cannot be considered a “properly Christian” practice of prayer.
The Spanish bishops’ commission on doctrine approved April 3 “’My soul thirsts for God, for the living God’: A doctrinal orientation on Christian prayer. ” The document was officially published Sept. 3.
The bishops’ document discusses the “nature and richness of prayer, and the spiritual experience rooted in Christian Revelation and Tradition.”
The document also aims to offer “criteria to discern which elements of other widespread religious traditions can be integrated into a Christian praxis of prayer.”
In particular, the bishops noted that “the thirst for God accompanies each and every human being,” while “today’s culture and society, characterized by a secularized mentality, hinder the cultivation of spirituality and everything that leads to the encounter with God.”
“Our rhythm of life, marked by activism, competitiveness, and consumerism, generates emptiness, stress, anguish, frustration, and multiple concerns that fail to alleviate the means that the world offers to achieve happiness,” the bishops wrote.
In this context, “not a few feel a pressing desire for silence, serenity, and inner peace.”
The bishops warned, however, that “we are witnessing the resurgence of a spirituality that is presented in response to the growing ‘demand’ for emotional well-being, personal balance, enjoyment of life or serenity to face challenges.”
That spirituality, they said, is too often “understood as the cultivation of one’s own interiority so that man finds himself, and which often does not lead to God.”
“To this effect, many people—even those who grew up in a Christian environment—resort to meditation, prayer techniques and methods that have their origin in religious traditions outside Christianity and the rich spiritual heritage of the Church.”
“In some cases, this is accompanied by the abandonment of the Catholic faith, even inadvertently. In other cases, people try to incorporate these methods as a ‘supplement’ of their faith to achieve a more intense experience of it. This assimilation is frequently done without proper discernment about its compatibility with the Christian faith, the anthropology that derives from it and with the Christian message of salvation,” the bishops warned.
The bishops warned that “in many spheres of our society, the desire to find inner peace has favored the diffusion of meditation inspired by Zen Buddhism.”
“The reduction of prayer to meditation and the absence of a you as its end, turn meditation into a monologue that begins and ends in the subject itself,” the bishops said.
“The Zen technique consists in observing the movements of one’s own mind in order to pacify the person and bring them into union with their own being.”
The meditation technique described by the bishops is often referred to as “mindfulness” in the West.
But techniques focused on the self “can hardly be compatible with Christian prayer, in which the most important thing is the divine You revealed in Christ,” the bishops said.
“Many times these meditation techniques, such as mindfulness, try to hide their religious origin and spread in movements that could be described as ‘new age,’ because they are proposed as an alternative to the Christian faith,” the bishops said.
They also explained that such techniques often disregard the difference “between the self and what is outside, between the sacred and the profane, between the divine and the created” and “the personal face of the Christian God cannot be recognized.”
“When the divine and the world are conflated, and there is no orientation towards another, any kind of prayer is useless.”
A version of this story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Foggia, Italy, Sep 23, 2019 / 04:18 pm (CNA).- Padre Pio, who had the physical marks of Christ’s passion on his body, showed Christ crucified to the world, Minister General Fr. Roberto Guerin, OFM Cap., said during a Mass for the saint’s fe… […]
Belfast, Northern Ireland, Sep 23, 2019 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- Arlene Foster, the leader of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, wrote Saturday that the party is ‘resolute’ in its opposition to abortion, and she called for the restoration of devolved government in the region.
“The DUP’s position on abortion remains resolute and unchanged since the Party’s inception,” Foster wrote in a Sept. 21 opinion piece at The News Letter, a Belfast daily. “We are a pro-life party and will continue to support the rights of both the mother and the unborn child.”
“We will continue to devote our energies to finding a resolution on both abortion and the restoration of a Northern Ireland Government, preferably before the 21st October.”
The Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 and its amendments legalizing abortion and same-sex marriage, a law passed by the British parliament, will take effect only if the Northern Ireland Assembly, which has been suspended the past two years due to a dispute between the two major governing parties, is not functional by Oct. 21.
Abortion is legal in both the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Elective abortion is legal in the rest of the United Kingdom up to 24 weeks, while currently it is legally permitted in Northern Ireland only if the mother’s life is at risk or if there is risk of permanent, serious damage to her mental or physical health.
Foster noted her participation in a Sept. 7 demonstration protesting the impending legalization of abortion in Northern Ireland. Tens of thousands joined in the protest; she said that “the law on abortion is a devolved matter. It should be decided upon by the Northern Ireland Assembly.”
Devolution refers to legislative reforms passed in 1999 which introduced levels of legislative autonomy for the different countries of the United Kingdom and created the Scottish Parliament and national Assemblies for Wales and Northern Ireland.
Foster said that while the Northern Ireland bill was being debated in Westminster, the DUP’s 10 MPs “were ridiculed both inside and outside Parliament for their pro-life stand.”
“The Act will not come into force if the Northern Ireland Executive is restored by October 21, but for some, this is now being portrayed as a false choice between ‘language or life’,” she stated.
Among the problems that led to the suspension of the Northern Ireland Assembly was the Irish Language Act, which would give Irish equal status to English in the region. It is supported by the nationalist parties Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party, and opposed by the unionist DUP and Ulster Unionist Party.
Sinn Fein has said that it will not participate in the formation of a Northern Irish government without an Irish Language Act.
Foster commented that “it is a mistake to think there is a simple trade-off between” the Irish Language Act and the region’s abortion law.
“Language or life,” she said, “is an over-simplification and conveys a belief that if the DUP were to agree to every Sinn Fein demand, including an Irish Language Act, then devolution would be restored immediately and Northern Ireland’s abortion laws would remain unchanged.”
Foster said the DUP strongly desires “an immediate return of devolution,” and that its restoration does not lie “only in the hands of the Democratic Unionist Party.”
“We have put down no preconditions or ‘red lines’ ahead of the restoration of the Executive. We would nominate Ministers today,” she noted.
The DUP leader said she offered in August 2017 to seek “a reasonable and balanced accommodation for the Irish Language,” but that “that offer was rejected by both Sinn Fein and the SDLP within 90 minutes.”
She also noted that even were devolution restored, it would not of itself be “an absolute safeguard against abortion liberalisation.”
“The DUP is the only pro-life party in the [Northern Ireland] Assembly” besides Jim Allister, the Traditional Unionist Voice’s sole member of the legislative assembly, she said. “We have 28 seats out of 90.”
Sinn Fein supports the liberalization of abortion law, while the remaining parties allow their MLAs a conscience vote on the topic.
Foster said that while abortion law “would come before the Assembly quickly after devolution is restored,” the change effected by the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation etc) Act 2019 “is far beyond anything any NI Assembly would ever have endorsed. Having the NI Assembly back up and running before the 21stOctober would give all MLAs the opportunity to shape any future laws.”
Bills to legalize abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality, rape, or incest failed in the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2016.
“Anyone who cares about the legislative framework governing abortion in Northern Ireland must also look beyond 21st October and ask all MLAs what they believe the law should say,” Foster said.
The DUP “want to see the Assembly restored so that local elected representatives can frame the laws for the people of Northern Ireland,” the party leader stated.
“Both getting devolution back and defending a pro-life policy have been and will continue to be, fundamental priorities for the Democratic Unionist Party, but it is unfortunately simplistic and mistaken to assume progress on one will resolve the other in the manner we all require.”
Northern Irish women have been able to procure free National Health Service abortions in England, Scotland, and Wales since November 2017.
The Northern Ireland bill was passed by the British parliament in July.
The abortion amendment was introduced by Stella Creasy, a Labour MP who represents a London constituency. Earlier this year Creasy intended to propose an amendment to a draft Domestic Abuse Bill that would give the British parliament jurisdiction over abortion laws throughout the United Kingdom. However, the bill’s scope was restricted to England and Wales by the Conservative government.
Creasy also introduced an amendment to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Act 2018 to repeal Northern Irish law on abortion and gay marriage, which was defeated.
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