Australian bishop urges faithful to fight ‘radical’ abortion bill

Beijing, China, Dec 14, 2018 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Two underground bishops in China have agreed to step aside in favor of bishops of the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, in the wake of a deal signed between the Holy See and the Chinese government.

AsiaNews reported Dec. 13 that Bishop Vincent Guo Xijin of Mindong (Ningde) has agreed to become auxiliary bishop and that Bishop Vincent Zhan Silu will become Bishop of Mindong.

The agreement was made at a meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, in the presence of Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, president emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

At the same meeting, Archbishop Celli announced that Bishop Peter Zhuang Jianjian of Shantou will give way to Bishop Joseph Huang Bingzhang.

Both Bishop Zhan and Bishop Huang had been excommunicated, and were reconciled to the Holy See as part of a September agreement between the Holy See and the People’s Republic of China.

According to AsiaNews, at the meeting Archbishop Celli gave Bishop Guo a letter from Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican Secretary of State, and from Cardinal Fernando Filoni, prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, asking that he give up his role as Bishop of Mindong in favor of Bishop Zhan.

“Also according to the report of the priests of Mindong, Msgr. Celli would have told Msgr. Guo that Pope Francis himself asks for this gesture of obedience ‘and of sacrifice for the general situation of the Chinese Church’,” the news outlet reported.

AsiaNews also noted that in previous cases in which a bishop of the CPCA was reconciled to the Holy See, he would become auxiliary bishop to an existing bishop of the underground Church.

Bishop Guo, 59, was detained by the Chinese authorities overnight in March. While he was released after only a short detention, he was ordered not to officiate as a bishop while saying Mass because he is not recognized by the government.

He was taken away because he refused to concelebrate with Bishop Zhan at a Chrism Mass.

Bishop Guo was also detained ahead of Holy Week in 2017.

In January, Asia News reported that a Vatican delegation asked Bishop Guo voluntarily to accept a position as coadjutor bishop under Bishop Zhan. This was also among the conditions Chinese officials had proposed to Bishop Guo during his 2017 detention.

Bishop Guo told the New York Times in February that “we must obey Rome’s decision,” and that “our principle is that the Chinese Catholic Church must have a connection with the Vatican; the connection cannot be severed.”

But he also indicated that while “the Chinese government doesn’t say explicitly that we need to disconnect” from Rome, “in some circumstances it has such an implication.”

In March, at the Chinese Communist Party’s annual meeting, Bishop Zhan told China’s Sing Tao Daily: “There are no obstacles [to a China-Vatican deal] if everyone just thinks of the benefit of the church for the sake of peace.”

Bishop Zhuang, 88, was asked to retire in late 2017 by the Holy See, but he reportedly refused the request at that time. He was consecrated a bishop in 2006, with the approval of the Holy See.

In December 2017 Bishop Zhuang was reportedly escorted to Beijing, where he met separately with leaders of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association, officials from China’s State Administration for Religious Affairs, and the Vatican delegation.

If Bishop Zhuang resigned, the Holy See delegation reportedly said at that time, he could nominate three priests, one of whom Bishop Huang would choose as his vicar general. “Bishop Zhuang could not help his tears on hearing the demand,” Asia News’ source said, explaining “it was meaningless to appoint a vicar general, who is still a priest that Bishop Huang could remove him anytime.”

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Vatican City, Feb 6, 2018 / 03:01 pm (CNA).-  In the Vatican, there is a saying about China: “China has the sharp end of the stick. Any time the Holy See extends the hand to hold it, it gets the sharp end of the stick, and its hand bleeds.&r… […]

New Delhi, India, Sep 29, 2018 / 03:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- A study from the University of Essex has found a link between the global price of gold and the survival rate for Indian baby girls. Monthly increases in the price of gold between 1972-2005, the study argues, led to girls being more likely to be aborted, die in the first month of life, or suffer from stunted growth.

The study also concluded that dowries are a major contributing factor to India’s gender imbalance. Sex-selective abortion, though illegal since 2015, has been widely practiced since the 1980s, and nationwide men outnumber women by nearly 37 million. There are also an estimated 21 million “unwanted” girls who have been born in the country.

“Our contribution is to provide what we believe is the first clear evidence of causal effects of dowry costs on son preferring behaviours,” said Sonia Bhalotra, a professor of economics and the author of the study.

Dowries are a transfer of parental property upon marriage of a daughter, a practice still widely found in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, despite being illegal in India since 1961.

“While the original dowry payments acted as a pre-mortem bequest to daughters that afforded them post-marital financial protection, property rights over dowry are now often appropriated by the groom or his parents rather than retained by the bride,” the study states.

The study cites estimates that suggest a dowry may often be four to eight times a family’s annual household income, and that parents often have to start saving for a girl’s dowry as soon as she is born.

Gold, especially jewelry, is an integral part of Indian dowries. Gold prices are frequently reported in Indian media and are a regular topic of discussion, Bhalotra wrote in Quartz India.

The study found that from 1972 to 1985, an increase of approximately six percent in the monthly price of gold was accompanied by a six percent increase in deaths of baby girls, with no significant change in deaths of baby boys. Additionally women who survived to adulthood who were born during that time period were more likely to be less tall when they reach maturity, possibly due to nutritional deprivation early in life.

After 1985, when ultrasound scans became widely available, fewer girls were born in months of gold price inflation, suggesting that those children were being aborted rather than neglected at birth. Tests to determine the sex of a fetus have been illegal in India since 2015.

“We find that parents are consistently ‘eliminating’ girls early in life, but the pattern is that this is done soon after birth before 1985, and while the girl is in the womb after 1985,” Bhalotra said.

“[In 1994,] abortion clinics in Mumbai had posters with slogans such as ‘Better pay 500 [rupees] now than 50,000 [rupees] later.’ The 500 [rupees] is the cost of abortion and the 50,000 [rupees] refers to the future cost of dowry,” the author states.

The study found that after 1985, a 1 percent increase in the global price of gold led to an extra 33,000 “missing” female births each year.

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