Europe

Bucharest, Romania, May 31, 2019 / 11:18 am (CNA).- Pope Francis celebrated Mass in Bucharest for the feast of the Visitation Friday, encouraging Catholics in Romania to imitate Mary’s humble joy in the little things in life.

“Mary journeys, encounters, and rejoices because she carries something greater than herself: she is the bearer of a blessing. Like her, may we too be unafraid to bear the blessing that Romania needs,” Pope Francis said May 31 in Bucharest’s St. Joseph Cathedral.

“This is the secret of every Christian: God is in our midst as a powerful saviour. Our certainty of this enables us, like Mary, to sing and exult with joy,” he said.

Pope Francis said that contemplating Mary can help one realize the quiet sacrifices, devotion, and self-denial made by so many mothers and grandmothers who are unafraid to ‘roll up their sleeves’ and shoulder difficulties for the sake of their children and families.

“As a good mother, Mary knows that love grows daily amid the little things of life,” he said. “A mother’s love and ingenuity was able to turn a stable into a home for Jesus, with poor swaddling clothes and an abundance of love.”

“Mary, lowly and humble, starts from God’s greatness and despite her problems – which were not few – she is filled with joy, for she entrusts herself to the Lord in all things. She reminds us that God can always work wonders if we open our hearts to him and to our brothers and sisters,” he explained.

The feast of the Visitation celebrates the Virgin Mary’s journey to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who recognizes the unborn Messiah in Mary’s womb.

“Mary journeys from Nazareth to the house of Zechariah and Elizabeth. It is the first of Mary’s journeys, as related by the Scriptures. The first of many,” Pope Francis said in his homily.

“She will journey from Galilee to Bethlehem, where Jesus will be born; she will go down to Egypt to save her Child from Herod; she will go up again every year to Jerusalem for the Passover, and ultimately she will follow Jesus to Calvary,” he said.

Pope Francis explained that these journeys all have one thing in common: “they were never easy; they always required courage and patience.”

“They tell us that Our Lady knows what it means to walk uphill … She knows what it is to be weary of walking and she can take us by the hand amid our difficulties, in the most perilous twists and turns in our life’s journey,” he said.

The Holy Spirit “urges us as Christians to experience the miraculous motherhood of the Church, as she seeks out, protects and gathers her children,” Pope Francis said.

“Let us think of the great witnesses of these lands: simple persons who trusted in God in the midst of persecution. They did not put their hope in the world, but in the Lord, and thus they persevered,” he urged.

The Mass concluded the first day of Pope Francis’ May 31- June 2 apostolic visit to Romania. On Saturday Pope Francis will travel to northeastern Romania to visit the Cathedral of Our Lady Queen of Iași, ahead of the beatification of seven martyred Greek-Catholic bishops in Transylvania on Sunday.

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Rome, Italy, May 30, 2019 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.

These martyrs “have given all to defend the Church. … […]

Murcia, Spain, May 30, 2019 / 02:59 pm (CNA).- In one his first acts following his ordination as bishop, a prelate in Spain confirmed 62 inmates at the Murcia II Penitentiary Center in the town of Campos del Río.

The Sacrament of Confirmation w… […]

Dundee, Scotland, May 29, 2019 / 11:40 am (CNA).- The Bishop of Dunkeld has met with local government officials to discuss the council area’s decision to strip voting rights from religious representatives on education committees.

“The outcome of the meeting was both cordial and fruitful,” Bishop Stephen Robson said May 28, according to The Courier, a Dundee daily. “Both parties are moving forwards to engage in a meaningful collaboration, working to strengthen our mutual partnership in support of Catholic education.”

Earlier this month, Perth and Kinross Council became Scotland’s first council area to withdraw religious representatives’ voting rights on education committees. The Scottish government had decided that while religious representatives must be appointed to council areas’ education committees, they do not have to be afforded voting rights on those committees.

The Humanist Society Scotland has urged that the rest of Scotland’s 32 council areas also deny religious representatives a vote on education committees.

Perth and Kinross has four Catholic schools, and the Scottish Catholic Education Service “said the Church now has a diminished say” on their future, The Courier reported.

Catholic schools in Scotland are part of the state system, and are not owned by the Church. The Church does have rights over the content of religious and moral education at its schools.

Barbara Coupar, director of the Scottish Catholic Education Service, said, “our representatives do not vote on matters that will not impact on Catholic schools. We believe there was a disproportionate response from the council on this issue and there were better alternatives to resolve the issue. The Church representative on the education committee has an invaluable role in articulating the official response of the Catholic Church on these matters.”

After meeting with Bishop Robson, Perth and Kinross council leader Murray Lyle said that “senior elected members and council officials met with representatives of the local Diocese of the Scottish Catholic Church, and would endorse the view expressed by Bishop Stephen. We look forward to continuing to work closely with our colleagues in the Catholic Church.”

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Warsaw, Poland, May 28, 2019 / 06:44 pm (CNA).- May is ordination month in many dioceses, but the ordination of Fr. Michal Los, FDP, a member of the Orionine Fathers, was far from your typical ordination.

On May 24, Los was ordained a priest in his Wa… […]

Paris, France, May 28, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- The French Senate on Monday passed a bill on the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris, the city’s cathedral, adding a clause that it must be rebuilt as it was before last month’s fire which destroyed its roof and spire.

The Senate approved the bill May 27, mandating that the rebuilding be faithful to Notre-Dame’s “last known visual state.”

The government of president Emmanuel Macron had begun an architectural competition to submit a variety of suggestions for the restoration. Macron had called for “an inventive reconstruction” of the cathedral.

The Senate also removed from the bill a clause allowing the government to override planning, environmental and heritage protection, and public tenders regulations, which would have hastened the rebuilding.

It modified a tax break, allowing donations for reconstruction made from April 15, the day of the fire, to be tax-deductible. An earlier version of the bill had allowed only donations made from April 16.

The modifications of the bill made by the Senate mean that it must be reconciled with a version passed earlier by the National Assembly before it can become law.

Since the adoption of the 1905 law on separation of church and state, which formalized laïcité, a strict form of public secularism, religious buildings in France have been property of the state.

A fire broke out in the cathedral shortly before 7 pm April 15. The roof and the spire, which dated to the 19th century, were destroyed. Shortly after midnight April 16, firefighters announced that the cathedral’s main structure had been preserved from collapse.

The major religious and artistic treasures of the cathedral were removed as the fire began, including a relic of the crown of thorns.

Originally built between the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, the landmark cathedral in the French capital is one of the most recognizable churches in the world, receiving more than 12 million visitors each year.

The cathedral was undergoing some restorative work at the time the fire broke out, though it is unknown if the fire originated in the area of the work.

Officials had been in the process of a massive fundraising effort to renovate the cathedral against centuries of decay, pollution, and an inundation of visitors. French conservationists and the archdiocese announced in 2017 that the renovations needed for the building’s structural integrity could cost as much as $112 million to complete.

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Derry, Northern Ireland, May 28, 2019 / 12:01 pm (CNA).- The pastor of Holy Family parish in Derry had led prayers for the young people who committed an arson attack at the church last week. No one was harmed, but both the church and parochial house were damaged.

CCTV showed a group of young people starting a fire in a shed on the parish property the night of May 24. The Police Service of Northern Ireland have said, “we believe two males may have been involved in starting this fire and we are keen to identify them.”

An event was being held at the time in the parochial house, and those in attendance were evacuated to safety.

Fr. Patrick O’Kane told the Belfast Telegraph that “nobody was injured, and that’s the main thing, but there is quite a lot of damage.”

“The people who did it – they did it deliberately. We could see them on the cameras deliberately setting the fire. It wasn’t accidental,” he reflected.

“But we prayed for them at Mass today. I told them I had forgiven them, and we prayed for the young people, because anybody who does things like that has obviously a very disturbed mind.”

Gary Middleton, a Member of the Legislative Assembly from the Democratic Unionist Party and a Presbyterian, commented that “it’s just such a sad act. How can people stoop so low? Never mind targeting any premises, but a church I think is particularly low.”

“So many people from all faiths and backgrounds have been united in saying that what happened at Holy Family was absolutely dreadful,” Middleton added.

Last year, St. Mary’s parish in Limavady, within 20 miles of Derry, was vandalized with sectarian graffiti.

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Warsaw, Poland, May 24, 2019 / 11:34 am (CNA).- The bishops of Poland are speaking out against sexual abuse, pledging to continue to “eliminate factors conducive to crime” as well as to adopt a more sensitive attitude toward victims than in the past.

“We admit that as shepherds of the Church we have not done everything to prevent these harms,” the bishop’s conference of Poland wrote in a May 22 letter to be read at Masses May 26.

“For many believers, especially for young people sincerely seeking God, sexual scandals involving clergy become a hard test of faith and a reason for great scandal. Disappointment and indignation is all the bigger and more painful that children, instead of caring love and accompaniment in seeking the nearness of Jesus, experienced violence and brutal depravation [sic] of the dignity of the child.”

The bishops’ May 22 letter was prompted, in part, by a documentary released on YouTube earlier this month which presents allegations that abusive priests were shifted between parishes, and shows people confronting elderly priests alleged to have abused them as children. The film has nearly 21 million views.

The motion picture has prompted a nationak conversation in Poland, with Jaroslaw Kaczynski, head of the ruling Law and Justice party, promising harsher punishment for child abusers in reaction to the film, floating the idea of 30-year prison sentences.

“The film, taking into account the perspective of the victims, made us all aware of the magnitude of their suffering,” the bishops wrote.

“Anyone who is sensitive, learning the fate of the victims, experiences pain, emotion and sadness for their suffering. We thank to everyone who had the courage to tell about their suffering. We are aware of the fact that no word is able to reward them for the harms they have suffered.”

A study commissioned by the Polish bishops’ conference and released this March revealed nearly 400 Polish priests were accused of sexual abuse of more than 600 people from 1990 until 2018. Just over half of reported victims were under the age of 15. Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan, president of the Polish bishops’ conference, called the report’s findings “tragic.”

The bishops urged victims of abuse by clergy to report their experience to both Church and state authorities, and a delegate has been appointed for each Polish diocese and most religious provinces to receive reports of abuse and “to help in obtaining psychological, legal and pastoral support.”

The bishops also stressed a need for greater sensitivity for victims and their suffering, citing lessons they learned from hearing the confessions of victims, whom they said need “great sensitivity and support to find the balance of life.”

They expressed support for Pope Francis’ May 7 motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi, which mandates the reporting of sexual abuse and provides for punishment for Church authories who fail to do so. The motu proprio also puts the metropolitan archbishop in charge of investigations of accusations against suffragan bishops.

The bishops also laid out some of the measures they are taking in Poland to address the problem of abuse, including abuse prevention training programs for dioceses and religious congregations.

“Let us not let the good, that is done in the Church through their ministry, be obscured by the sins of particular persons,” the bishops urged.

“On the principle of collective responsibility, let us not also convey the guilt of particular people in cassocks to all priests. These people committed these acts and they should be punished for their actions. Let us support in these difficult times the priests who work with sacrifice so that they don’t lose their enthusiasm and receive encouragement from the lay faithful.”

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Aberdeen, Scotland, May 24, 2019 / 01:01 am (CNA).- A pro-life group at the University of Aberdeen has been granted affiliation by the school’s student association, a month after filing a lawsuit charging unlawful discrimination.

“This week, the Aberdeen University Students’ Association (AUSA) informed us that our society application has been approved, which means we have officially received affiliation,” the Aberdeen Life Ethics Society said May 17. “This is a long-awaited result to a seemingly endless battle, but we could not be more pleased to have won affiliation.”

In October Ausa had prevented the affiliation of Ales, citing its own pro-choice policy. The move limited Ale’s access to funds and venues at the university.

After failing to have the policy changed, Ales filed a lawsuit April 12 against Ausa and the university, “alleging unlawful discrimination against the society and the violation of rights protected by UK law.” The suit will continue.

In its statement announcing its affiliation, Ales welcomed the assistance of both “free speech enthusiasts and pro-life advocates”, naming in particular Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre.

“We are grateful for the numerous pro-life students at Aberdeen who have reached out to us over the last several months because they are interested in getting involved with the society,” the group added. “Our ranks have swelled with students who are passionately committed to the pro-life cause and who will lead this society in the years to come.”

Ales stated: “We look forward to actively engaging with the student body and working to foster a civil yet honest conversation about the vitally important ethical issues surrounding human life. While there are some intolerant students who wanted our society to fail … we truly believe that there are many more students on this campus who are willing to take a fair-minded approach to this debate. These are the students we’ve heard from all along the way – they may not agree with our position, but they adamantly believe that we should be free to espouse our beliefs on campus.”

Ausa had adopted a pro-choice policy in 2017, on which basis Ales’ affiliation was rejected in October 2018. The policy says, in part, that “Ausa should oppose the unreasonable display of pro-life material within campus and at Ausa events.”

The pro-life group said that the pro-choice policy was “being used as political cover to ban student speech on campus, it also treats the student body as undivided on the issue of abortion.”

In its lawsuit last month, Ales charged that the no platform policy violates the Equality Act 2010 and the Human Rights Act 1998 by restricting “the freedoms of association and belief for certain students on the basis of an ideological litmus test.”

A spokesperson for the the University of Aberdeen has commented that it is “an inclusive community and recognises different beliefs, values and cultures.”

Pro-life groups at other Scottish universities have faced similar problems.

Last year the the University of Strathclyde (in Glasgow) lifted a ban on pro-life groups following legal pressure. Strathclyde Sudents for Life argued that the student associaton’s no platforming policy violated the Equality Act 2010 “by directly discriminating against a group of students based on their beliefs.”

Glasgow Students for Life were barred from affiliation by the Glasgow University’s Students’ Representative Council last November.

In March 2018 a joint committee on human rights of the UK parliament noted troubling barriers to free speech at the nation’s universities, writing: “Whilst the original intention behind safe space policies may have been to ensure that minority or vulnerable groups can feel secure, in practice the concept of safe spaces has proved problematic, often marginalising the views of minority groups.”

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Edinburgh, Scotland, May 23, 2019 / 05:01 pm (CNA).- A pro-life group in Scotland has, for a second time, lost a legal challenge against the government’s decision last year to allow women to self-administer abortion pills at home.

“We are greatly saddened by this decision. We have been convinced all along that the policy decision by the Chief Medical Officer and Scottish Government was illegal, as well as detrimental to the well-being of women in our country,” said John Deighan, chief executive of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Scotland.

“Women should not be facing the mental anguish that accompanies DIY abortions, nor any abortion for that matter. However, those concerns have not been upheld by the judges,” he said.

A three-judge panel ruled against the pro-life group’s appeal May 22, stating that a registered medical practitioner is still responsible for the treatment, whether it takes place in a clinic or in the home, and that even at home “control in the appropriate sense is maintained.”

The Scottish Parliament secured the legal right to govern abortion issues in 2016, and in October 2017 the country’s chief medical officer, Dr Catherine Calderwood, told Scottish health boards that misoprostol could be taken outside a clinical setting.

Misoprostol is the second in a two-drug combination used in early abortions; women who have suffered an early miscarriage can take the drug at home to induce labor, while previously women seeking abortions had to take both drugs in a clinical setting.

With the new rules in place, women can take the first of the two drugs, mifepristone, at a clinic, and then 24 to 48 hours later take misoprostol at home.

In November 2017, when plans to permit at-home abortion pill administration were first announced, the Scottish bishops objected that “making abortion easier ignores the disturbing reality that an innocent human life is ended,” the U.K. newspaper The Catholic Herald reports.

SPUC lost its first appeal against the government’s decision in August 2018, but challenged it again this April, arguing in court that the Abortion Act 1967 requires the presence of doctors, nurse, and medical staff.

In addition, the act lays out specific rules for approved places where abortions can take place, and did not intend to allow abortions at home, they said.

Pro-abortion groups backed the change, including Abortion Rights, the Family Planning Association and the Scottish Humanist Society, arguing that “abortion should be treated no differently” than other medical procedures that allow self-administration of drugs at home.

“The move to trivialize abortion is one that harms women and creates an environment where some women are even urged to have an abortion because it does not suit others,” Deighan said, saying the government plan amounts to approving “backstreet abortions.”

Ultimately, the court agreed with the abortion-rights groups’ arguments, endorsing the previous ruling against the appeal.

“We do not accept that the doctor’s control or supervision over the treatment differs in any material way between the situation of taking the tablet within the clinic and then leaving; and that of delaying the taking of the tablet to allow the woman to travel home. Both result in the termination of the pregnancy taking place outside of the clinic,” the three-judge panel wrote, according to the Scottish newspaper The National.

“The reclaimer has been unable convincingly to explain why an outpatient clinic or [general practitioner’s office] would necessarily be a ‘safer’ or more suitable place to take a tablet or pessary than the woman’s home.”

Deighan thanked SPUC’s supporters for making the appeal possible, and reiterated that “women deserve better than abortion.”

“We have always been motivated by concern for the women who undergo abortion as well as our concern for the right to life. But we had hoped that the rule of law would at least hold the aspirations of pro-abortion forces at bay,” Deighan commented.

“It is difficult for us to see how having an abortion at home can possibly satisfy the legal requirement for medical supervision.”

In terms of next steps, taking the case to the UK Supreme Court could be an option, he told reporters.

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