Europe

London, England, Jan 31, 2020 / 02:04 pm (CNA).- The Church of England will not be withdrawing its recent pastoral guidance affirming that sex is reserved for married, heterosexual partners, despite an apology over the statement from two of the ecclesial community’s bishops.

The guidance, “Civil Partnerships – for same sex and opposite sex couples. A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England”, was issued last month after civil partnerships were first made available to heterosexual couples.

The guidance draws a clear distinction between marriage and civil partnerships, noting that sexual relations are not proper to the latter.

“Sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings,” says the guidance on the issue. “The introduction of same sex marriage, through the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, has not changed the church’s teaching on marriage or same sex relationships.”

Civil partnerships were created in 2004 for same-sex couples but are legally distinct from marriage. Same-sex couples were given the legal right to marry in the England and Wales in 2013, but civil partnerships had been available to same-sex couples only.

In the guidance, the Church of England states that because of the “ambiguity” regarding sexual activity in civil partnerships, combined with its teaching on the nature of marriage, it does “not believe that it is possible for the church unconditionally to accept civil partnerships as unequivocally reflecting the teaching of the church.”

Although the Church of England acknowledges that “many of the provisions in the legislation on civil partnerships are, however, similar to, or identical with, those in marriage law,” the nature of the commitment in a civil partnership is different than that of a marriage.

“In particular, [civil partnerships are] not predicated on the intention to engage in a sexual relationship,” says the guidance.

“There is likely to be a range of circumstances in which people of the same sex or opposite sex choose to register a partnership, including some where there is no intention for the relationship to be expressed through sexual activity.”

Some pairs of people who are not romantically involved have entered civil partnerships for tax or benefit purposes.

The Church of England does not conduct or recognize same-sex marriages as marriage. In December 2012, the Church of England permited same-sex attracted clergy in civil partnerships to become bishops, provided they observe continence.

Justin Welby and John Sentamu, the Anglican archbishops of Canterbury and York, said Jan. 30: “We as archbishops, alongside the bishops of the Church of England, apologise and take responsibility for releasing a statement last week which we acknowledge has jeopardised trust. We are very sorry and recognise the division and hurt this has caused.”

They added that the Church of England’s College of Bishops is continuing its study on human sexuality, which they said “is intended to help us all to build bridges that will enable the difficult conversations that are necessary as, together, we discern the way forward for the Church of England.”

The College of Bishops have voted against a proposal to withdraw the guidance.

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Lyon, France, Jan 30, 2020 / 07:45 am (CNA).- Cardinal Philipe Barbarin has been acquitted by a French appeals court of failing to report sexual abuse by a diocesan priest. The Archbishop of Lyon was convicted in March, 2019, of “of non-denunciat… […]

Armagh, Northern Ireland, Jan 27, 2020 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- A pastor in Northern Ireland barred earlier this month the Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin from holding a meeting at a church-owned hall over its support for abortion rights.

The party has historically enjoyed significant Catholic support.

The Irish News reported Jan. 17 that Fr. Eugene O’Neill, parish priest in Coalisland, 15 miles north of Armagh, cancelled a Sinn Féin meeting at St. Patrick’s Hall “after being contacted by pro-life campaigners.”

In 2018 party members endorsed the repeal of the Eighth Amendment in the Republic of Ireland, which protected unborn children. The party has endorsed legalized abortion in cases of rape, fetal abnormality, and where a woman’s mental or physical health faces serious threat, and it supported the liberalization of abortion laws in Northern Ireland imposed by the British parliament.

The party also demanded the recognition of same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland in 2017.

According to The Irish News, Fr. O’Neill wrote to pro-lifers saying that he had not been involved in the hall’s booking by Sinn Féin, but that he contacted the party “to cancel it immediately” once he learned of it.

“In light of their recent behaviour regarding the abortion debate and due to their long-running policy on pro-life matters I would not entertain the use of church property for any such meeting,” he stated.

The priest was lauded by pro-lifers for his decision.

Bernadette Smyth, spokeswoman for Precious Life, said that “Fr. Eugene O’Neill has stood up for the faithful and strongly reaffirmed church teaching. He has informed us he was not aware of this meeting, but that he contacted Sinn Fein, who have a radical pro-abortion position, to cancel this meeting as soon as people responded to our action alert.”

“Fr Eugene must be commended for taking a strong stand for life, and standing up against Sinn Féin’s radical and cruel abortion agenda,” she told The Catholic Universe.

Francie Brolly, a former Sinn Féin politician who resigned the party in 2018 for its abortion support, said Fr. O’Neill had “led the way” by his decision.

According to Mid-Ulster Mail, he said that “all the churches should be more vocal in supporting the right of the unborn to live.”

Brolly added that he anticipates that Catholics in Northern Ireland will “go against their religious beliefs to vote for Sinn Fein for various other reasons… fundamentally to keep the [Democratic Unionist Party] down.”

Catherine Sewell, spokeswoman for Tyrone Pro-Life Network, said: “No pro-abortion outfit should be allowed to use Catholic Church property. We determined to stop them and immediately began a mobilisation of activists.”

Sinn Féin’s abortion policy has allowed for some political realignments among Catholics in Ireland.

Michael Kelly, editor of The Irish Catholic, told CNA in 2018 that pro-life voters “have been left unrepresented by the mainstream political establishment” and that “Ireland is crying out for a new political movement.”

Kelly noted that “many pro-life voters remain reluctant voters for their traditional political party,” but that “there is some evidence that this is changing and that people are willing to set aside old tribal loyalties.”

In the Republic of Ireland, the legislator Carol Nolan resigned from Sinn Féin in June 2018 over the party’s abortion policy. She had earlier been suspended from the party for voting against a bill allowing a referendum to be held on repealing the Eighth Amendment. She now sits as an independent in Dáil Éireann.

Peadar Tóibín, another deputy to the Dáil, was twice suspended from Sinn Féin for breaking with the party’s platform on legalized abortion. He resigned the party in 2018, and launched Aontú as a pro-life, nationalist party last year. He is Aontú’s sole member in the Dáil.

“Aontú want to make sure that there is a real voice and a real alternative for many people who feel that they have no-one to vote for,” Tóibín said at the party’s launch. “We are simply saying that this is a core value for ourselves, and we won’t let you down on this issue.”

Aontú members are standing for 26 constituencies in the 2020 Irish general election, being held Feb 8. The party contested seven of the 18 Northern Irelands seats in last year’s UK general election, but won none.

In October 2019, ahead of the 2019 UK general election, a parish priest in Northern Ireland exhorted pro-choice politicians not to receive Holy Communion, and Catholic voters not to vote for pro-choice candidates or parties.

Legislation expanding abortion access in Northern Ireland had taken effect shortly before because the Northern Ireland Assembly, which had been suspended the prior two years due to a dispute between the two major governing parties, was not able to do business by Oct. 21.

Pro-life members of the Northern Ireland Assembly, largely comprised of members of the DUP, recalled the assembly in order to block the relaxed abortion restrictions, but members of the assembly from Sinn Fein, the Green Party, and People Before Profit did not participate.

“For Catholics and nationalists/republicans, in particular, Sinn Féin and the SDLP have betrayed us in a most hideous fashion,” Fr. Patrick McCafferty, parish priest at Corpus Christi in Belfast, wrote on Facebook Oct. 21, noting that “Sinn Féin is avowedly pro abortion.”

“The collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly, due to the RHI Scandal, has left the door wide open for a phalanx of determined and fanatical pro abortion MPs in Westminster, led by Stella Creasy – unelected by the people of Northern Ireland – but aided and abetted by pro abortion-choice politicians in Sinn Féin, the SDLP, Alliance, PBP and the Green Party – to railroad through, at Midnight last night, one of the most extreme abortion regimes in the world,” the priest lamented.

The DUP have emerged as a leading pro-life party in Northern Ireland. However, the unionist party has had links to a the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, an ecclesial community particularly hostile to the Catholic Church; the community’s website lauds the leaders of the Protestant reformation for “their militant witness against the antichristian system of the Papacy.”

Arlene Foster, the leader of the DUP, wrote in September 2019 that the party’s “position on abortion remains resolute and unchanged since the Party’s inception. We are a pro-life party and will continue to support the rights of both the mother and the unborn child.”

She noted that “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 body.

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Paris, France, Jan 25, 2020 / 04:43 pm (CNA).- The French Senate this week passed a bill that would allow access to in-vitro fertilization (IVF) for single women and lesbian couples.

The bill passed 160-116 on Wednesday and is part of a larger bioethi… […]

Krakow, Poland, Jan 25, 2020 / 09:00 am (CNA).- Seventy-five years after the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the Catholic bishops of Europe condemned racism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism, calling for a renewed human commitment… […]

Douglas, Isle of Man, Jan 23, 2020 / 04:09 pm (CNA).- Legislators on the Isle of Man voted Wednesday to note a debate on assisted suicide, instead of supporting further inquiry into whether the crown dependency’s legislation on the matter should be reformed.

An amendment from David Ashford to note the debate “received unanimous support from both branches” of Tynwald Jan. 22, Manx Radio reported.

“This is a sensible decision that will bring relief to those with terminal and chronic conditions on the Isle of Man and who fear changing the law on assisted suicide and euthanasia,” Dr. Gordon Macdonald, chief executive of Care Not Killing, said Jan. 23.

Care Not Killing is a coalition which includes disability and human rights advocacy groups, healthcare providers, and faith-based groups. It opposes the weakening or repeal of laws against euthanasia and assisted suicide, while promoting better palliative care.

“Laws such as the Isle of Man’s Criminal Law Act which prohibit assisted suicide and euthanasia are essential to protect vulnerable people. The operation of the Suicide Act and murder legislation in other parts of the British Isles, covering assisted suicide and euthanasia has been reviewed dozens of times by MPs, MSPs, peers, other elected officials, judges even the former Director of Public Prosecution. Every time, they have rejected introducing a law that would discriminate against the terminally ill and disabled people by removing long held universal protections,” Macdonald stated.

He added that “current laws ensure all people are treated equally and deters vulnerable people at risk of abuse and of coming under pressure, real or perceived to end their lives prematurely, which is what the evidence from around the world shows.”

The motion to inquire into the legalization of assisted suicide was made by Dr. Alex Allinson, a member of the House of Keys.

Among those to speak against the proposal during the five-hour debate was Chris Robertshaw, deputy speaker of the House of Keys.

Allinson, who sponsored the Abortion Reform Bill 2018, which resulted in the one of the most permissive abortion laws in the British isles, has said that allowing assisted suicide “would allow for more compassion and personal choice when a person’s death is inevitable and imminent.”

He has also claimed that “there are clear examples around the world where this has been managed successfully.”

Allinson’s assisted suicide proposal was opposed by the Catholic Church and both pro-life and medical groups.

Msgr. John Devine, dean of the Catholic Church on the Isle of Man, wrote to the Chief Minister of the House of Keys saying that the Church opposes “any liberalisation of current legislation” and “condemns the deliberate taking of life”.

Liz Parsons, advocacy director of Life Charity, said: “We need to concentrate on any gaps in palliative care rather than offering assisted dying, such as providing counselling, physiotherapy, services that help to relieve pain and provides support.”

“Assisted dying could really put vulnerable people in the Isle of Man at risk … using the words ‘dying with dignity’ makes you assume people cannot die with dignity without euthanasia, but they can,” he said. “There are plenty of ways to have a good death without it.”

Dr. David Randall, spokesman for Our Duty of Care, said the Isle of Man has “superb palliative care services” which allow for “a comfortable and dignified death.”

Briefing Tynwald members Jan. 21, he said legalizing assisted suicide could put “vulnerable people at risk of suffering real or imagined pressure from others to end their lives prematurely.”

Not Dead Yet UK, a disabled persons’ advocacy group, said that “there is no safe system of assisted suicide and disabled people want help to live, not to die.”

The group noted that the motion in favor of assisted suicide was listed below a Tynwald agenda item to receive a committee report on suicide and to approve 13 recommendations for suicide prevention and for psychological support of people experiencing “moderate to severe emotional reactions to illnesses.”

“These should serve as reminders that no group should be excluded from efforts to prevent suicide, including those influenced by serious illness,” the coalition said Jan. 13. Any proposal to legalize assisted suicide, it warned, tries to separate “those suicides which should be discouraged, and those which should be brought to fruition.”  

“Members of Tynwald Court should focus on suicide prevention for all, and access to high quality palliative and social care for all, rather than settling for assisted suicide’s counsel of despair,” said Care Not Killing.

The group warned that there is no evidence that assisted suicide has become safer or easier to regulate, nor is there evidence that the Isle of Man’s provision of end-of-life care is so great “that no one could be driven to seek their own death for fear of being a care burden or financial drain.”

Both the Isle of Man Medical Society and the Association of Palliative Medicine of Great Britain and Ireland oppose legalization of assisted suicide.

Backers of legal assisted suicide include the group Isle of Man Freethinkers, which holds it a matter of personal autonomy “to make decisions about their life and death” and says debate should be “based on science and compassion”.

Efforts to legalize assisted suicide have repeatedly failed to pass. The last vote, held in 2015, failed 17-5 in the House of Keys.

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London, England, Jan 23, 2020 / 02:05 pm (CNA).- Sex is reserved for married heterosexual couples, new pastoral guidance from the Church of England has affirmed. The new guidance also draws a clear distinction between marriage and civil partnerships, noting that sexual relations are not proper to the latter. 

The guidance, titled “Civil Partnerships – for same sex and opposite sex couples. A pastoral statement from the House of Bishops of the Church of England,” was issued last month in response to a 2019 change to UK law, broadening access to civil partnerships by making them available for heterosexual couples for the first time.

Civil partnerships were created in 2004 for same-sex couples but are legally distinct from marriage. Same-sex couples were given the legal right to marry in the England and Wales in 2013, but civil partnerships remained available to same-sex couples only.

“Sexual relationships outside heterosexual marriage are regarded as falling short of God’s purposes for human beings,” says the guidance on the issue. “The introduction of same sex marriage, through the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, has not changed the church’s teaching on marriage or same sex relationships.” 

Although the Church of England acknowledges that “many of the provisions in the legislation on civil partnerships are, however, similar to, or identical with, those in marriage law,” the nature of the commitment in a civil partnership is different than that of a marriage.

“In particular, [civil partnerships are] not predicated on the intention to engage in a sexual relationship,” says the guidance.

“There is likely to be a range of circumstances in which people of the same sex or opposite sex choose to register a partnership, including some where there is no intention for the relationship to be expressed through sexual activity.”

The guidance applies only to the Church of England, and not to other branches of the worldwide protestant Anglican Communion.

Since the law’s original passage, some pairs of people who are not romantically involved have entered civil partnerships for tax or benefit purposes.

In the guidance, the Church of England states that because of the “ambiguity” regarding sexual activity in civil partnerships, combined with its teaching on the nature of marriage, it does “not believe that it is possible for the church unconditionally to accept civil partnerships as unequivocally reflecting the teaching of the church.”

The Church of England has previously published policies that seem intended to accommodate modern sexual ethos and gender theory without directly contradicting Scripture and Christian history. The results have sometimes seemed gymnastic.

Although the Church of England accepts both married men and women for ordination to the priesthood and as bishops, it does not conduct or recognize same-sex marriages as marriage. In December 2012, the Church of England permited gay clergy in civil partnernships to become bishops, provided they were living in continence with their partners, that is abstaining from sexual relations. 

“The House [of Bishops] believed it would be unjust to exclude from consideration for the episcopate anyone seeking to live fully in conformity with the Church’s teaching on sexual ethics or other areas of personal life and discipline,” Graham James, Anglican bishop of Norwich, stated in January 2013. 

“All candidates for the episcopate undergo a searching examination of personal and family circumstances, given the level of public scrutiny associated with being a bishop in the Church of England.”

In 2018, the denomination published pastoral guidelines for liturgies concerning the so-called “gender transition” of church members. These new liturgies are intended to affirm and celebrate a person’s shift to a chosen gender identity, and to “to recognize liturgically a person’s gender transition.”

The guidelines, titled Pastoral Guidance for use in conjunction with the Affirmation of Baptismal Faith in the context of gender transition, were approved by the Church of England’s House of Bishops in December 2018, and published shortly afterwards. 

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London, England, Jan 21, 2020 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- An undergraduate student in a midwife program was barred from placement in a hospital, reportedly due to her pro-life beliefs. The decision was overturned last week, but free speech advocates say the case is troubling.

According to The Telegraph, Julia Rynkiewicz, a 24-year-old student at the University of Nottingham in the U.K., was blocked from entering her program’s hospital placement phase, after the university learned of her pro-life beliefs and her leadership in a pro-life student group.

Rynkiewicz underwent a “fitness to practice” hearing by the school last Monday.

While the university overturned its decision and will allow Rynkiewicz to continue as a midwife student, the investigation and temporary ban from the placement set her back a year in her studies.

Concerns were raised by school officials about Rynkiewicz’s fitness to practice as a midwife after they saw her tending a booth at a school fair in her position as president for Nottingham Students for Life (NSFL), an approved pro-life student group that supports life from conception to natural death.

Just days after the fair last September, Rynkiewicz said she received a letter from officials at her Midwifery School saying that a formal complaint had been filed against her due to her pro-life activities.

The complaint alleged that she had “provided reproductive health advice without the support of a registered midwife and…expressed personal beliefs regarding reproductive sexual health in the public domain (including the press and social media) to the effect that it may create the perception of an impact on patient care,” The Telegraph reported.

“I think it’s important to remember that being pro-life isn’t incompatible with being a midwife,” Rynkiewicz, who is a Catholic, told The Telegraph.

The Abortion Act of 1967 in the UK allows for conscientious objection to abortions for healthcare providers.

Rynkiewicz said she is concerned about what her case could mean for freedom of speech on university campuses. “But (universities) should be a place where we can speak up about your beliefs and debate with people in a civilized way so I’m shocked that this happened,” she told The Telegraph.

Pro-life advocacy and legal groups spoke out on behalf of Rynkiewicz, arguing for her freedom of speech and right to conscientious objection.

“What has happened to Ms. Rynkiewicz is a flagrant violation of her moral and legal right to freedom of expression,” Mark Bhagwandin, senior education and media officer at pro-life group Life Charity, told The Telegraph.

Laurence Wilkinson, legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom International, told The Telegraph that this case “represents a very chilling prospect for freedom of speech on campus.”

“Despite the allegations being dismissed, the practical effect of this investigation is that Julia is now forced to graduate one year later than her classmates. It is to Julia’s credit that she remains absolutely committed to completing her training, caring for women and bringing life into the world,” he added.

“She is now considering her options, as no student should have to go through this kind of daunting process in the absence of clear and compelling reasons.”

Rynkiewicz told The Telegraph that she is demanding an apology from the school, and that she has filed a formal complaint about her case against the school. She added that she is seeking compensation for the stress and inconvenience caused to her, and that she is willing to take her case to court if necessary.

“It all felt a bit ridiculous and I have had to put my life on hold for a year and that’s been frustrating.  I have been suspended for almost four months as a result of not being able to attend my placement and been forced to take year-long interruption to my studies. I won’t be back until September and will now be graduating a year later than I wanted to,” she told The Telegraph.

“I would quite like an apology for everything they have put me through. I feel fine about it all now but I would still like them to apologize as a matter of justice. I suppose that they have realized they have done wrong and (I hope they) will change it so no one else has to go through what I have,” she said.

A spokesperson for the University of Nottingham told The Telegraph that it takes fitness to practice investigations seriously, “to ensure they can provide appropriate and professional advice and care to patients.”

The university added that it would be considering ways to help Rynkiewicz reconvene her studies without further delay.

“The student’s complaint will be carefully considered while their School is actively considering how they can recommence their studies without delay,” the school said.

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Rome, Italy, Jan 21, 2020 / 03:48 pm (CNA).- The Legionaries of Christ on Jan. 20 opened its 2020 Ordinary General Chapter in Rome, which convenes every six years with the duty to elect the general government for the order and to address the most impor… […]

Madrid, Spain, Jan 21, 2020 / 02:58 pm (CNA).- The Association of Christian Lawyers in Spain filed a complaint last week with the Prosecutor’s Office against the newly appointed director of the Institute for Women and Equal Opportunity, Beatriz Gimeno. The group says Gimeno committed a hate crime by authoring a 2013 article in Eldiario.es justifying the burning of churches.

Hundreds of churches were burned and priests were killed in Spain during the 1930s, as the Church faced a period of violent persecution.

Gimeno referenced church burnings in her article, saying, “In those countries where the Church (or churches) are on an equal footing with everyone else’s freedoms, no one feels the need to burn them. But that’s not our case. The deep loathing that many people feel here for the Catholic Church has been earned.”

“Here religion has never been a personal option that is lived freely and peacefully, but it has always been an imposition that falls upon us from above in all the structures of the State,” she said.

“The Church was an institution so hated by the working class, by the peasantry, by the majority of the intellectuals that, as soon as the spark was lit, people ran to burn churches.”

In the October 2013 article, entitled “The Church: a new twist,” Gimeno accused the Church of being an insatiable monster that seeks to dominate society and impose strict sexual rules, while failing to address problems of poverty and inequality.

“The Church in Spain has always been one of the main allies of economic power and an economic power in itself,” she said.

The president of Christian Lawyers, Polonia Castellanos, is confident the complaint will be successful, saying, “the Prosecutor’s Office would have to act in view of the hate speech.”

Gimeno was president of the Spanish LGBT Federation from 2003 to 2007 and was in charge of equality advocacy for the left-wing populist Podemos party in the Madrid autonomous region.

She was named director of the Institute for Women and Equal Opportunity, a government post, by Equality Minister Irene Montero, also of the Podemos party, who in turn was recently appointed to her position by the newly formed left-wing coalition government.

The new coalition government was formed in Spain Jan. 7, with the Podemos party and the Spanish Socialist Workers Party signing on to a 10-point pre-agreement, a type of platform.

The Spanish bishops have expressed serious concern about the direction the new government will take the country.

When the announcement of the pre-agreement was made, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares of Valencia said that with it, “a cultural change is established, a way of thinking is imposed, with a vision of man intended to be spread to everyone – the approval of euthanasia, the extension of new rights, gender ideology, radical feminism, bringing up historical memories that foment hatred and aversion.”

In a Jan. 4, a few days before Pedro Sánchez of the Spanish Socialist Workers Party took office as Spain’s new prime minister, the cardinal said in a letter that the country is in “a critical situation, a true emergency in face of the future.” He called all the faithful to pray for the country.

In a letter also published in early January, Bishop Ginés García Beltrán of Getafe also asked for prayers for the country and said that Spain was entered a “new political era.” The prelate said he had received numerous questions about whether the Spanish bishops were concerned.

Given the talking points “repeated in all the campaigns and government proposals about an exclusive secularism, or against religious freedom – which is not only to profess my faith, but to live according to it – the conception of man and life contrary to natural law, or the real defense of the poorest, without forgetting the role of churches and religions in a democratic society, we can say that there is expectant concern,” the bishop said.

However, he added, “if we’re talking about worry as fear of (the Church being) insignificant or invisible, rejected or held in contempt, in my case, frankly, no.”

“The Church belongs to the Lord, and the barque will be weak and poor, but in the storm it becomes strong because the sail that drives it is the power of the Risen One,” the bishop said.
 

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