Iran, China detain hundreds of Christians

Canberra, Australia, Jan 28, 2021 / 04:15 pm (CNA).- Starting in February, the Catholic Church in Australia will have a national protocol for responding to allegations of sexual abuse, the bishops of Australia announced this week.

Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane, president of the Australian bishop’s conference, said the new protocol “demands an approach from the Church that is compassionate and just.”

“One of the strengths of the new protocol is that it provides a single national framework, which will ensure a consistent approach to the handling of concerns and allegations,” Coleridge said Jan. 28.

The National Response Protocol lays out principles that Church authorities must adhere to when responding to a child abuse allegation, as well as the concrete procedural steps that must be taken when an allegation is received.

These steps include mandatory reporting of criminal allegations of child abuse against current or former Church personnel to police.

The National Response Protocol will replace two protocols established in 1996, about which the Church had received criticism for their “inconsistent or incomplete application,” Coleridge said.

The existing protocols will continue to be in use until the end of the year, or the conclusion of matters currently being managed, Catholic Weekly reported.

A 2017 Royal Commission report on child sex abuse in the country’s institutions uncovered serious failings in the protection of children from abuse in institutions.

The Australian bishops’ conference responded positively to nearly all the Royal Commission’s recommendations, but has defended the sanctity of the confessional seal.

The new protocol was developed in response to recommendations in the Royal Commission report, and in two years of consultation with abuse survivors. The bishops’ conference of Australia adopted the new protocols at their November 2020 meeting.

The new protocols are based on National Catholic Safeguarding Standards which the Australian church adopted in May 2020.

The protocols also take into account Pope Francis’ motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi, which laid out universal norms on sex abuse reporting and took effect June 1, 2019, days after the adoption of the NCSS.

The norms of Vos estis lux mundi establish that clerics and religious are obliged to report sexual abuse accusations to the local ordinary where the abuse occurred. Every diocese must have a mechanism for reporting abuse. When a suffragan bishop is accused, the metropolitan archbishop is placed in charge of the investigation.

In December 2020, the Catholic bishops of Australia and two other Catholic entities launched Australian Catholic Safeguarding Limited, a company charged with the safeguarding of children against sexual abuse by clergy.

Catholic entities in Australia may— but will not be compelled to— “subscribe” to the ACSL. Those entities that subscribe will be expected to comply with its safeguarding standards, conduct reviews and audits of their abuse prevention systems at least every three years, and provide ACSL with a copy of their reviews, which will be published on the ACSL’s website.

The Church in Australia during July 2018 launched a compensation program for victims of institutional child sexual abuse, which is expected to run until June 30, 2027.

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Seoul, South Korea, Apr 10, 2019 / 11:09 am (CNA).- A pro-life doctor in South Korea is asking the international community for prayers, as the country’s constituional court considers whether to overturn its national abortion ban April 11.

Around 1,000 South Koreans rallied April 6 at a March for Life in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square ahead of the Constitutional Court ruling on the country’s abortion law, which currently prohibits abortion except in the case of rape, incest, genetic disease, or risk to the mother’s health.

“We have done our best to protect the life of fetuses. Now we can only pray for life,” Brother James Shin told CNA following the march.

Shin is a doctor and religious brother who provides medical care to the the poor and is active in South Korea’s pro-life movement.

Abortion advocates are calling on the court to allow abortions within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and to add social and economic reasons to the exceptions allowing for abortion further into pregnancy, Shin said.

At least six judges on Korea’s nine-member Constitutional Court, due to rule April 11, are needed to declare the current law unconstitutional.

The Archbishop of Seoul, Cardinal Andrew Yeom Soojung, has been an outspoken advocate for the protection of unborn life in South Korea’s national debates.

“Human dignity cannot be decided by majority vote or judged by socioeconomic standards,” Cardinal Yeom said at a Mass for Catholic congressmen last month.

The cardinal also called for an end to the death penalty in Korea. “Human life is the most important and fundamental gift, which is a source of all human rights. The death penalty is a serious insult and sin against everyone’s right to life,” he said.

Abortion is known to be common in South Korea, despite being against the country’s criminal code. Women obtaining an illicit procedure can be sentenced to a year in prison or a fine of under $2,000, while doctors can be jailed for up to two years, but the law is rarely enforced.

About 340,000 abortions are performed annually in South Korea, while 440,000 child births are reported, according to a 2012 study published in the International Journal of Law, Policy and the Family.

“In high-income South Korea … safe but clandestine procedures are widely available, despite a fairly restrictive law,” said the Guttmacher Institute, which provides research and analysis to “advance sexual and reproductive health and rights,” in a 2018 report.

The current case being considered by Korea’s Constitutional Court was brought to court by an obstetrician prosecuted for performing 69 illegal abortions between 2013 and 2015.

At his confirmation last September, the Chief Justice of Korea’s Constitutional Court, Yoo Nam-seok, said, “I think we need to consider ways to allow women’s termination of pregnancies in early stages for social and economic reasons through consultations with doctors and professionals,” the Korea Herald reported.

Brother Shin characterized the current cultural atmosphere in South Korea as leaning towards “pro-choice.” He said that he wants to bring the movie “Unplanned” to Korea to raise awareness of the reality of abortion.

“We need people’s prayers for Korea,” he said.

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Vatican City, Feb 6, 2018 / 12:45 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences has said that China is exercising global moral leadership in the principles of Catholic social teaching and defense of human dignity.

Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, an Argentinian, is chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In an interview with Vatican Insider, he recently said that “at this moment, those who best realize the social doctrine of the Church are the Chinese.”

Sorondo told Vatican Insider that he had recently visited China, where he says he found that “they [the Chinese] seek the common good, subordinate things to the general good.”

“I found an extraordinary China; what people do not know is that the central Chinese principle is ‘work, work, work.’ …As Paul said: ‘he who does not work, who does not eat.’ You do not have shantytowns, you do not have drugs, young people do not have drugs. There is a positive national consciousness, they want to show that they have changed, they already accept private property,” he said of his trip.

The bishop said that the People’s Republic of China has “defended the dignity of the human person,” and, in the area of climate change, is “assuming a moral leadership that others have abandoned.”

Sorondo criticized the United States, where, he said, the economy dominates politics. “How is it possible that oil multinationals manage Trump,” he asked.

“Liberal thought has liquidated the concept of the common good, they do not even want to take it into account, it affirms that it is an empty idea, without any interest.” On the other hand, he said, the Chinese propose work and the common good.  

The bishop said that “China is evolving very well,” adding that “you can not think that the China of today is the China [during the pontificate of] John Paul II or the Russia of the Cold War.”

In October 2017, the US Congressional-Executive Commission on China criticized the country’s human rights practices.

The commission condemned “the Chinese government and Communist Party’s continued efforts to silence dissent, criminalize activities of human rights lawyers, control civil society, suppress religious activity, and restrict the operations of foreign media outlets, businesses, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) over the past 12 months”

“Nothing good happens in the dark,” Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) said in an October statement on China. “That is why the Administration should shine a light on the Chinese government’s failures to abide by universal standards, shine a light on the cases of tortured and abused political prisoners, shine a light on China’s unfair trade practices and still coercive population control policies.”

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