Pope stresses peace in unscheduled meeting with Burma’s religious leaders

Canberra, Australia, Feb 14, 2020 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Australia’s Catholic bishops have welcomed changes to a proposed religious discrimination bill to protect religious believers and institutions from discrimination and needless legal action, but they said more work is necessary for an Australia-wide law.

“The draft laws are an important way to help people of faith and the organizations they establish as communities of faith to manifest their religious belief in the service of others,” Archbishop Peter Comensoli of Melbourne, chairman of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference’s Commission for Life, Family and Public Engagement, said in his Jan. 31 submission to the Australian government on behalf of the bishops’ conference.

The bishops offered suggested changes but said they support the intent of the legislation because of their concern “to ensure that the rights of Catholics and other people who have a religious faith or none are not discriminated against because of their beliefs or activities.”

Australia’s ruling Liberal-National Coalition government wants to make religious belief and activity a protected class, like race or sex. It also wants to ensure that groups which reject same-sex marriage are not stripped of their charitable status. The bill’s provisions also aim to stop employers from policing employees’ expression of their religious views in their spare time.

The Catholic bishops of Australia had criticized the first version of the bill, saying it did not go far enough to protect religious freedom, a “crucial component of a free society.” They said this freedom includes worship but also public expression of beliefs in charitable work, hospitals, social services, education, and engagement in public life.

They faulted the second draft, in part, because it gives weaker protections to religious employees of small business than to employees of large companies, and no protections whatever to government employees.

Allowing religious discrimination to avoid “unjustifiable financial hardship” to employers, they said, would render religious freedom not a universal human right but “something which depends on where a person works.” The provision would allow boycotts, sponsorship withdrawals and similar pressure to create such financial hardships on employers that would then be used to justify discrimination against a religious employee.

Stronger federal protections are needed for healthcare workers and institutions with conscientious objections, the bishops said, especially in states or territories that do not recognize this “universal human right.”

“Catholic healthcare agencies decline to provide some particular services because of their religious ethos, but where services are offered they serve all people equally,” the bishops said, citing the record of Catholic institutions in the country.

More than 60% of Australians profess a religious faith and more than 20% are Catholic. The Catholic Church provides about 10% of the country’s health care services and is the largest non-government grouping of hospitals and elder services and community care services. Its social services help more than 450,000 Australians annually, while 1,700 schools educate 760,000 students and two Catholic universities serve 46,000 students.

Australia’s many organizations run by religious communities need assurance that they can continue to operate in accordance with their beliefs, the bishops said. The legislation has a complicated task to ensure it does not unintentionally curtail religious freedom, such as by requiring a religious organization to “employ a person who was opposed to its religious and ethical beliefs.”

“Religious schools, health services and welfare agencies need to be able to hire staff who support their religious mission and to set employee conduct stand,” said Australia’s bishops. They said it is “alarming” that some political parties seek to amend legislation to ensure that proposed protections will have “little effect” in their state. They backed a universally applicable law.

The bishops faulted the current law’s treatment of religious objections simply as exceptions or exemptions, which wrongly give the impression that “religious freedom rights are somehow subordinate to other concerns.” They praised the proposed legislation for putting forward “a positive expression of the right to religious freedom.”

Michael Stead, an assistant bishop in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney and chair of its religious freedom reference group, has also praised the bill but called for changes.

The Anglican Church sees the second draft as a “significant improvement.” However, it suggested that the bill’s definition of a religious body was “very clumsy” and should be defined as “a body which has the purpose of advancing religion” regardless of whether it is a charity. This would be a more satisfying way to determine which religious bodies may still prefer staff of the same religion.

At the same time, Stead said the definition is still limited to non-profit entities and would not protect commercial service providers such as Christians who bake cakes, the U.K. newspaper The Guardian reports.

The Australian Human Rights Commission, a government-funded but independent NGO, has said that while it supports the prohibition of religious discrimination, it objected that its provisions “provide protection to religious belief or activity at the expense of other rights.” The bill is not an appropriate way to apply international human rights law and its provisions limit other human rights in a way that is “unnecessary and disproportionate or otherwise inconsistent with international law.”

The commission backed religious protections in employment decisions only where it is an “inhterent requirement of the job,” like a religious minister. Where religious bodies provide a public service with government funding it should be done “in a non-discriminatory way.”

Ed Santow, the Australian Human Rights Commissioner, said the bill does not protect “the entire community equally.” The exemptions are too broad and protect “the right to religion for some at the expense of religious equality of others,” he objected.

Stead, the Anglican bishop, said there are precedents for many religious protections. He said criticisms of protections of religious speech put forward by the Australian Human Rights Commission and LGBT advocacy groups were “so extreme as to be laughable.”

“The kind of ‘right to be a bigot’ cited in some submissions is not the reason why religious communities are asking for these protections,” he said. “We want them to ensure religious people are not going to lose their job, be excluded from courses or professional bodies merely because of expressing religious beliefs.”

Stead characterized the proposal as “a sensible balance between the right of freedom of religion with other rights.”

The Australian Medical Association said the bill would allow some doctors to suffer employment discrimination on the basis of religious belief. Dr. Chris Moy, chair of the association’s ethics and medical-legal committee, said current law allows doctors to conscientiously object, including to matters like contraception provision, but changes could allow them to “just walk away” from patients.

Ghassan Kassisieh, legal director of the LGBT group Equality Australia, characterized protections for religious organizations as a “blanket exemption” in elder care, hospitals and charity services. He objected that the bill would ban only statements which “seriously intimidate,” while the current law bans “when degrading or humiliating things are said in the workplace, or in schools or during the provision of services.”

For Australian Attorney-General Christian Porter, the proposal would ensure that people “can’t be the subject of a discrimination act complaint for the mere statement of religious belief.” Employer conduct codes cannot constrain employees from making “non-malicious non-vilifying statements of religious belief in their spare time.”

“People of religion would, I think, rightly consider saying what they believe is a necessary part of their religiosity,” he said, according to The Guardian.

The proposed legislation follows controversy over the treatment of Israel Folau, a devout Christian and professional rugby star, who was fired by Rugby Australia in May 2019 after a post on Instagram. The post listed “drunks, homosexuals, adulterers, liars, fornicators, thieves, atheists and idolaters” above the statement “Hell awaits you.”

Folau cited the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression, saying he was expressing a Biblical idea. Upholding his religious beliefs, he said, “should not prevent my ability to work or play for my club or country.”

Some religious group opposed protections.

“We don’t discriminate and don’t believe others should have the right to discriminate or, in fact, engage in any bigotry in the name of religion,” said Bronwyn Pike, chief executive of the Uniting Church’s Victoria and Tasmania community services group Uniting Vic.Tas.

Pike told SBS News the bill is “a stalking horse for people who want to promulgate homophobic and misogynist views in the name of religion.”

There are strong signs that the opposition is unlikely to support the government’s bill, The Guardian reports.

In November, opposition leader Anthony Albanese told the Labor caucus, “we support freedom of religion but we don’t support increasing discrimination in other areas.”

However, Porter has claimed there are a variety of views inside the Labor Party. He said suggested changes can’t detract from the bill’s central purpose “to protect Australians of religion from real world circumstances … which detract from their ability to be free from discrimination based on their religion.”

In the United States, a strong push against religious freedom protections has drawn millions of dollars in grants to university programs, legal groups, and LGBT and pro-abortion rights groups. Catholic adoption agencies in some states have been shut down or barred from taxpayer funds because they cannot in good conscience place children with same-sex couples. Lawsuits and legal complaints have targeted professionals in the wedding industry whose religious beliefs bar them from serving same-sex ceremonies.

There have been few U.S. proposals to protect employees from hostile employment action based on their religious statements outside of work.

[…]

CNA Staff, Oct 7, 2020 / 04:45 pm (CNA).-  

A recently arrested Hong Kong entrepreneur and media executive said this week that he plans to stay in Hong Kong to face criminal charges stemming from his support for democracy on the island territory. The executive, Jimmy Lai, said that the Chinese Communist Party wants to supplant religion with government control.

“When you lift yourself above your own self-interest, you find the meaning of life. You find you’re doing the right thing, which is so wonderful. It changed my life into a different thing,” Jimmy Lai said in an Oct. 5 interview.

The interview was conducted by Fran Maier, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Network and senior research associate at the University of Notre Dame. It was produced and released by the Napa Institute, of which Maier is a board member.

Lai, a Catholic, said he has supported the Hong Kong pro-democracy movement for the past 30 years, because of “the Lord’s teaching that your life is not about yourself.”

“The way I look at it, if I suffer for the right cause, it only defines the person I am becoming. It can only be good for me to become a better person. If you believe in the Lord, if you believe that all suffering has a reason, and the Lord is suffering with me…I’m at peace with it.”

A band of nearly 200 police officers arrested Lai on Aug. 10, along with at least nine others connected to Apple Daily, the newspaper Lai founded in 1995, as part of an apparent crackdown on civil liberties in the island territory.

Apple Daily has distinguished itself over the years as a strongly pro-democracy publication critical of the Chinese government in Beijing.

Lai is out on bail, but faces charges under Hong Kong’s new national security law, which took effect July 1, when it was imposed on the territory by the Chinese Communist Party, bypassing the Hong Kong legislature.

Under the new law, a person who is convicted of secession, subversion, terrorism or collusion with foreign forces will receive a minimum of 10 years in prison, with the possibility of a life sentence.

Lai came to Hong Kong at age 12 as a stowaway, penniless, from mainland China. His mother spent the early years of Lai’s life in a labor camp. In Hong Kong, Lai saw a need for affordable, quality clothing for middle-class people, and founded a chain of clothing stores called Giordano’s— a venture which would make him rich, and allow him to launch pro-democracy magazines and newspapers in Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Lai is a British citizen, but he said he does not plan to leave Hong Kong. He said his family is very supportive of his decision to stay, but he fears for their safety.

“If I go away, I not only give up my destiny, I give up God, I give up my religion, I give up what I believe in,” he said. 

“I am what I am. I am what I believe. I cannot change it. And if I can’t change it, I have to accept my fate with praise.”

Lai said his wife has always been a pious Catholic, and even before his conversion he always went to church with her. But in 1997, he realized that he needed the protection and help of a higher power. He was baptized and received into the Church by Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has historically enjoyed freedom of religion, unlike mainland China, where religious believers of all stripes endure persecution. The Catholic Church in China has since 1951 been split between the so-called underground church, which is persecuted and loyal to Rome, and the state-sanctioned Chinese Patriotic Church.

Lai said China needs moral leadership from the Vatican, but he expressed disappointment in the Vatican’s negotiations with CCP, particularly the Sept. 2018 agreement between the Vatican and the CCP on the appointment of bishops, which the two parties are expected to renew later this month.

Cardinal Zen recently traveled to the Vatican to ask Pope Francis not to renew the Vatican-China deal, but Pope Francis did not grant Zen an audience.

The Vatican’s power is moral and virtuous rather than temporal, Lai said. The Vatican should uphold moral values when they need it the most, he added.

When the pope and the Vatican remain silent on the CCP’s actions, “that is very disappointing, very damaging, for a world that looks up to the Vatican for their moral leadership.”

Lai said in his opinion, the West erroneously thinks of China that “the richer they become, the more they will be like us.”

But values are important, Lai said, and the CCP’s behavior is threatening Christian values, extending their influence into international spheres like Hollywood and professional sports.

The COVID-19 pandemic, Lai said, is a “Pearl Harbor event” for the world, which ought to shake the world out of complacency.

“We should look at the facts. We should look at what they have done to the world, how they deal with the world,” Lai said. 

“The issue we are facing now is: China is going to be the most powerful, economically, in the world. Now is the time for us to change China’s attitude…otherwise they will change us to theirs.”

Morality and values are where the CCP are most vulnerable, Lai said, because the CCP does not just want to eliminate God, they want to “be” God.

Chinese President Xi Jinping wants to be respected as all-powerful, and that is why the CCP seeks to control religion, he said.

That the CCP wants to supplant religion is a “moral perversion,” Lai said, aiming to see people “suffer for [Jinping’s] sins.”

“Once you don’t have a religion, you can easily be dictated by their order,” he said.

Catholics have been strongly involved in pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, which came to a head during summer 2019.

“Our instinct urges us to stand up to injustice, to evil. I think this is just an instinct. Being a Catholic, you have the instinct to stand up [to] what is wrong, because that’s the way we walk in the way of the Lord,” Lai observed.

In Hong Kong and in mainland China, Christians are looking to the Vatican for moral leadership, Lai said.

“The Vatican can only depend on its virtue and moral power to convert the Chinese people from the dictatorship of atheism. Chinese people are looking for faith, in addition to their material life. Where they lack is not material, because China has certainly improved people’s wealth and livelihood in the last 40 years. The greater material success they have, the more of a void they feel in their heart,” Lai said.

The moral vacuum in China is an opportunity for Catholicism to fill in, Lai said, to teach people that “life is more than just bread.”

Chinese people, he said, “want religion, the more they want virtue and morals, to live a meaningful life— which the Vatican is not giving them. Which the Vatican is taking away from them when they align with the CCP, who has repressed them in their spiritual pursuit. This is really ridiculous. This is something very disappointing.”

Hong Kong is a “special administrative region” of China, meaning it has its own government but remains under Chinese control. It was a British colony until 1997, when it was returned to China under a “one country, two systems” principle, which allowed for its own legislature and economic system.

Hong Kong’s openness to the outside world, and transparency in business and banking regulation, in contrast to mainland China, has made it a center of global business, banking, and finance.

Pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong— in which many Christians and Catholics participated— successfully rebuffed the legislature’s efforts last year to pass a controversial bill that would have allowed mainland China to extradite alleged criminals from Hong Kong.

With the passage of the new security laws, the Communist Chinese government seized more power to suppress the protests in Hong Kong, which it sees as a direct challenge to its power.

Similar security rules have been proposed before; in 2003, the Communist government attempted to use Hong Kong’s own legislative and executive councils to pass the anti-sedition measures, but massive protests led lawmakers to abandon the proposal.

On May 27, the US Department of State announced that, in light of China’s actions, it no longer recognizes Hong Kong as politically autonomous from China— a designation the region has enjoyed under US law since 1992.

 

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Members of a rescue team search for victims at Klatanlo village in East Flores Regency, East Nusa Tenggara, on Nov. 4, 2024, after Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki erupted overnight. / Credit: RNOLD WELIANTO/AFP via Getty Images

CNA Staff, Nov 4, 2024 … […]