Berlin, Germany, Jun 17, 2019 / 05:29 pm (CNA).- Two German doctors were fined Friday for abortion advertisements which described how the procedure is carried out.
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Hong Kong, China, Jun 17, 2019 / 04:17 pm (CNA).- Hundreds of thousands of protestors in Hong Kong are continuing to demonstrate against the government’s plans to allow extraditions to mainland China— a plan which as of Saturday has been indefinitely suspended.
Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, had introduced a bill that would allow for secret arrests and extraditions to mainland China, where Communist courts would try alleged criminals.
The legislation drew widespread protest and was placed on hold, but protests have continued, calling for Lam’s resignation.
Catholic leaders are speaking out in support of the protestors and calling for peace and dialogue.
“They are protesting an issue about an extradition rule promoted by the government,” Cardinal John Tong Hon, Apostolic Administrator of Hong Kong, told Vatican Radio.
“This is our concern too…we ask our Catholics to pray for this situation.”
A group of six religious leaders in Hong Kong have formed a coalition to appeal for an end to violent protests— the largest anti-government demonstrations since 2003— on the island.
The cardinal is part of the interreligious coalition, which includes leaders of Catholicism, Protestant Christianity, Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Islam, Vatican Radio reported.
The coalition, on a visit to the Vatican this week, called for the individual rights of the protestors to be respected; distanced themselves from the violent tactics of some; and urged the government and the protestors to sit down together to engage in dialogue.
Cardinal Joseph Zen, bishop emeritus of Hong Kong, held a Mass and prayer service on Sunday to pray for “the future of [Hong Kong].” He also posted a photo to Facebook of himself on stage with several protestors, with the caption “Hong Kong people, come on! Courage and force… Hong Kongers #withdrawextradictionbill.”
In addition, Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Ha Chi-shing of Hong Kong took part in a continuous ecumenical prayer meeting outside the Legislative Council building with thousands of Christians overnight after the latest rally on Sunday, The Union of Catholic Asian News reported.
The issue of extradition has been a contentious one in the region for a number of years, as Hong Kong has no formal extradition deal with Taiwan, Macao and mainland China, potentially creating legal loopholes in some circumstances.
Lam announced June 15 that she was putting the proposed legislation on indefinite hold, and she issued an apology via a government spokesperson. Despite this, protestors showed up June 16 in even greater numbers than the June 9 demonstrations, during which police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at protesters, injuring 72 members of the crowd; 21 police officers were also injured.
Many of the island’s Christians have been involved in the protests. Large groups of protestors have even adopted the hymn “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord” as an unofficial anthem for the movement.
“Regrettably the ‘Extradition Bill’ dispute has now come to a violence and bloodshed stage,” the diocese of Hong Kong said in a June 12 statement.
“Therefore, once more we make an urgent appeal, that the SAR Government and the general public exercise restraint and seek a solution to the current dilemma through peaceful, rational channels.”
The Civil Human Rights Front, a political group that organized the protests, reported that nearly 2 million people had taken to the streets in the most recent protest, held June 16. Police said they counted 338,000 people along the original procession route.
Last week the organizers said a little over 1 million participated, while police put their estimate at 240,000.
As a special administrative region, Hong Kong has a large degree of autonomy from mainland China, with its own political and economic system. The territory was a British colony from 1842 until 1997.
There are some 581,000 Catholics in Hong Kong, or about eight percent of the population.
Hong Kong also has a separate legal system from the mainland. Britain ceded sovereignty of the island to China in 1997; the agreement giving Hong Kong special rights and freedoms under Chinese rule ends in 2047.
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Paris, France, Jun 17, 2019 / 03:10 pm (CNA).- During Saturday’s Mass in a side chapel of Notre-Dame de Paris, the cathedral’s first since its April fire, Archbishop Michel Aupetit emphasized that the church is no mere cultural heritage of France, but is meant for the worship of God.
The June 15 Mass anticipated the June 16 feast of the dedication of Notre-Dame.
“Dedication comes from dedicatio which means consecration. The dedication is the consecration of a church to divine worship. What we celebrate by the dedication each year, is the profound reason why Notre-Dame cathedral was built: to manifest man’s inner impulse toward God,” Archbishop Aupetit said during his homily June 15.
About 30 people assisted in the Mass, including canons of the cathedral and other priests, wearing hard hats for safety. The Mass was said Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs, a side chapel that housed the crown of thorns.
“The cathedral was born of the faith of our ancestors,” the archbishop said. “It shows trust in the goodness of Christ, his love greater than hate, his life stronger than death as well as the tenderness of our forebears for the Virgin Mary, his mother, whom he entrusted to us as his most precious good just before dying on the cross.”
“This cathedral was born of the Christian hope which perceives well beyond a small, self-centered personal life to enter into a magnificent project at the service of all, in projecting itself well beyond a single generation.”
“It was also born of charity, since open to all, it is the refuge of the poor and excluded who find their protection there,” he added.
Alluding to reactions to the cathedral’s fire, Aupetit asked: “Are we ashamed of the faith of our ancestors? Are we ashamed of Christ?”
He affirmed that Notre-Dame “is a place of worship, this is its sole and proper end. There are no tourists at Notre Dame, because this term is often pejorative and doesn’t do right to the mystery which impels humanity to come to search for something beyond itself. This cultural good, this spiritual wealth, cannot be reduced to a patrimonial good. This cathedral, a communal work in the service of all, is but a reflection of the living stones that are all those who enter it.”
“Can one truly by ignorance or by ideology separate culture and cult? The etymology itself shows the strong link that exists between the two. I strongly emphasize: a culture without cult becomes a non-culture,” he stated.
“You only have to look at the abysmal religious ignorance of our contemporaries because of the exclusion of the divine notion of the very Name of God in the public sphere by invoking a laïcité which excludes any visible spiritual dimension.”
Notre-Dame’s cornerstone is Christ, he emphasized. “If we were to remove this stone, this cathedral would collapse. It would be an empty shell, a case without jewels, a skeleton without life, a body without a soul.”
While the cathedral, as “the fruit of human genius,” is “man’s masterpiece,” he said that “the human person is the fruit of the divine genius. It is God’s masterpiece.”
“When the two are joined together in the person of Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, the Covenant between the transcendent and the immanent (Heaven and earth) is truly accomplished. It is here and now in this cathedral at each one of the Eucharists that we celebrate, that this Covenant is realized, when the body of Christ shared by all, opens us to eternal life.”
Aupetit concluded: “We can’t say enough that we are happy to celebrate this Mass to render to God what is God’s and to Man his sublime vocation.”
A fire broke out in Notre-Dame April 15. The roof and the spire, which dated to the 19th century, were destroyed. 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.
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.
Last month the French Senate passed a bill mandating that Notre-Dame be rebuilt as it was before the fire. President Emmanuel Macron had called for “an inventive reconstruction” of the cathedral.
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.
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Hagatna, Guam, Jun 17, 2019 / 11:01 am (CNA).- Catholics in Guam have organized a prayer rally to protest the territorial governor’s plan to recruit a doctor willing to perform abortions, after the retirement of the island’s last abortion doctor.
“Say no to recruiting doctors who will kill our unborn children! Say yes to recruiting doctors who help us save lives,” read an invitation to the prayer rally sent by Patricia Perry, co-chair of the Catholic Pro-Life Committee, according to the Pacific Daily News, a Hagatna daily.
“We will not stop until all abortion is outlawed and all anti-life laws will be abolished,” Perry stated.
Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero, a former nurse who took office in January, recently expressed her wish to expand abortion access in the territory, but no doctors on the island are willing to perform abortions. The territory’s last abortion doctor retired in June 2018.
The island’s government is also offering waivers and discounts for contraception through a public health clinic.
According to the Pacific Daily News, the Archdiocese of Agaña said that “human life begins at conception and the Roman Catholic Church affirms and promotes this truth. There is no other moral or logical place to draw the line.”
Guam is predominantly Catholic, and Leon Guerrero has said that finding a doctor willing to perform abortions there “will take some work.” She said officials are trying to recruit doctors to come to the island and establish clinics.
Elective abortion is legal in Guam up to 13 weeks, and the procedure is legal up to 26 weeks in case of rape or incest; anyone who procures an abortion without help from a doctor can be charged with a felony. Doctors have the legal right to refuse to perform an abortion except in the case of a medical emergency.
Women in Guam seeking abortions fly thousands of miles from the island to seek abortions elsewhere, many in Hawaii.
There have only two or three Guam women given abortions in Hawaii since last year, and none was an elective procedure, an OB-GYN and University of Hawaii professor told the AP.
Guam’s public health department received reports of an average of 246 abortions annually between 2007 and 2017. Since the 2018 retirement of Dr. William Freeman, none have been reported.
The Pacific Daily News reported that the territory is in need of more foster families. It said a recent bill introduced to improve foster care noted that in May, there were 270 children in foster placement, and 37 licensed foster families.
“If you don’t do anything to help these kids, you’re not pro-life. You’re just pro-birth. I’m not saying that you should abort these children to avoid the system but if we’re not going to have an abortion clinic here on Guam, something needs to be fixed,” Kimmi Yee, a 20-year-old Guam resident and abortion rights supporter, told the Pacific Daily News.
U.S. federal law applies in Guam and its people are U.S. citizens; the island is home to about 170,000 residents.
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