Italian bishop bans mobsters from being godfathers

Armenians protest to urge the government to respond to the Azerbaijani military operation launched against the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region outside the government building in central Yerevan on Sept. 19, 2023. / Credit: Karenn Minasyan/AFP … […]

Krakow, Poland, Aug 14, 2019 / 02:31 pm (CNA).- On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland, a German archbishop has called for a stand against hubris and arrogance of those in political power.

Speaking on the occasion of a Mass in the former Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz/Oświęcim on Aug. 14, Archbishop Ludwig Schick of Bamberg recalled the witness of the Polish martyr and saint Fr. Maximilian Kolbe.

“On the anniversary of the beginning of the Second World War, Maximilian Kolbe reminds us to profess that God is the Almighty to whom all must submit for peace and unity in our world today,” Archbishop Schick said.

“No person can put themselves above God, and no nation can put itself above another, the German prelate stressed, adding that the most important contribution of Christians to peace and unity among peoples and nations was “to profess the one and only benevolent God, the Father of all creation.”

God gives equal dignity and rights to all people, peoples and nations, and imposes the same duties of charity on all, Schick said, adding that St. Maximilian Kolbe had deeply committed himself to the obligation of charity.

The Polish priest resisted the totalitarian terror of Nazi ideology and was incarcerated in Auschwitz concentration camp. In 1941, he gave his life for a fellow prisoner. He was brutally executed after suffering starvation in a hunger bunker.

Today, St. Maximilian Kolbe is a patron saint of Europe, reminding Catholics to stand against war, abuse of power and arrogance on the part of politicians, powerful men and leaders who presume to take God’s place, Schick continued.

Archbishop Schick is Chairman of the Contact Group of the German and Polish bishops’ conferences. He is taking part in the 10th workshop of the Maximilian Kolbe Foundation, of which he is Chairman of the Board of Directors, on St. Maximilian Kolbe’s Day of Remembrance at Oświęcim/Auschwitz. Since last Sunday, 45 participants from twelve European countries have been meeting there to discuss the topic “Dealing with the violent past.”

This article was first published by CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language sister agency. It has been adapted by CNA.

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London, England, Jun 21, 2019 / 11:15 am (CNA).- A British judge has authorized doctors to perform an abortion on a pregnant Catholic woman with developmental disabilities and a mood disorder, despite the objections of the woman’s mother and the woman herself. The woman is 22 weeks pregnant.

“I am acutely conscious of the fact that for the State to order a woman to have a termination where it appears that she doesn’t want it is an immense intrusion,” said Justice Nathalie Lieven in her ruling in the Court of Protection, June 21.

The Court of Protection handles cases involving individuals judged to lack the mental capacity to make decisions for themselves.

Lieven claimed the abortion would be beneficial for the woman, saying that “I have to operate in [her] best interests, not on society’s views of termination.”

The woman, who cannot been publicly identified, has been described as “in her twenties,” and is under the care of an NHS trust, part of the UK’s National Health Service. Doctors at the trust wished to abort her pregnancy and argued that, due to her diminished mental capacity, the abortion would be less truamatic for the woman than either giving birth or being separated from the child.

The woman’s mother made clear to doctors and the court that she would assume care of her grandchild.

The woman is believed to have the mental capacity of a grade school-age child. She is reportedly Catholic, and her mother is Nigerian.

It is unknown if the pregnancy was conceived consensually, and police are investigating the circumstances of conception.

The woman’s mother, reported to be a former midwife, registered her absolute opposition to the abortion citing the Catholic faith of herself and her daughter. A social worker who cares for the woman also disagreed that she should be forced to have an abortion.

The judge said she did not believe the woman understood what it meant to have a baby, and said that “I think she would like to have a baby in the same way she would like to have a nice doll.”

Lieven also said that she did not believe the woman’s ongoing mental health care needs would permit her mother to assist in raising the child.

Allowing the child to be born and then removed from the woman’s home and placed into foster care or adoption would be against the woman’s own interests, the judge concluded.

“I think [the woman] would suffer greater trauma from having a baby removed [from her care],” Lieven said, because “it would at that stage be a real baby.”

Lieven clarified that the pregnancy “although real to [the woman], doesn’t have a baby outside her body she can touch.”

As a lawyer, Lieven has appeared in court before in cases concerning abortion. In 2011, while representing the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, an abortion provider, she argued that British women should be permitted to medically abort their pregnancies at their own homes instead of in a hospital.

Five years later, Lieven argued in court that Northern Ireland’s abortion laws were a violation of the United Kingdom’s Human Rights Act.

In 2017, she said that Northern Ireland’s abortion laws were akin to torture and were discriminatory.

Unrestricted abortion is legal in the UK until 24 weeks of pregnancy, after which doctors must certify that the abortion is in the medical interests of the mother.

NHS statistics show babies born at 24 weeks have a 50% chance of survival on average, though the rate depends on the NHS trust providing care. Babies born in a University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust hospital in London at 23 weeks of gestation have a 70% chance of survival.

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