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Kochi, India, Oct 28, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- Sister Lucy Kalapura, whose dismissal from religious life was upheld by the Congregation for the Oriental Churches last month, has sent a letter asking that her case be further appealed before the Aposotolic Signatura.

She was dismissed from the Franciscan Clarist Congregation in August for several acts of disobedience, including a protest of the handling of another nun’s accusation that Bishop Mulakkal of Jullundur serially raped her.

“I am deeply obliged for providing me the opportunity for a further appeal to the Supreme Tribunal of the Signatura Apostolica. It is desired, in this connection, that an opportunity be granted to me to appear in person before the Tribunal to enable me to present to its honourable members my side of the situation,” Sister Lucy wrote in an Oct. 25 letter to Cardinal Leonardo Sandri, prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches.

She also asked that she be able to present her case to Pope Francis.

According to the FCC, Sr. Lucy has led a life against the principles of religious life by disobeying a transfer order, publishing poems after having been denied permission to do so, buying a vehicle, withholding her salary from the congregation, and participating in a protest against Bishop Mulakkal, who has been charged with several instances of raping a nun of a different congregation.

Bishop Mulakkal was charged with rape in April, and his trial is due to begin Nov. 11. A nun of the Missionaries of Jesus alleged that the bishop sexually abused her more than a dozen times over two years.

In her letter to Cardinal Sandri, Sr. Lucy said, according to News 18, that “what purports to be ‘disciplinary action’, and what in reality are reprisals, against me commenced only after I stood by the sisters of the Missionaries of Jesus in their efforts to secure justice for the outraged nun.”

“I wish to urge strenuously that the actions initiated against me, and the vindictiveness it reeks of, cannot be understood aright, if they are seen in isolation from the Franco Mulakkal matter as the trigger,” she added.

Sr. Lucy wrote that she is “a collateral victim of this Franco Mulakkal scandal, in regard to which the mettle of the Church’s commitment to truth and justice is being tested in full public view.”

She charged that “it does not have to be argued that the Holy See being made to be seen as partisan in this case, or as hostile to justice being available to a rape victim, is sure to discredit the witness and integrity of the Catholic Church for the years to come.”
The community’s superior general, Sr. Ann Joseph, wrote in August that Sr. Lucy “did not show the needed remorse and you failed to give a satisfactory explanation for your lifestyle in violation of the proper law of the FCC.”
Sr. Lucy said that the FCC’s charges of disobedience are a “deliberate attempt to paint her in bad light”.
In a January letter of warning sent to Sr. Lucy, Sr. Ann wrote that the nun had joined a protest regarding Bishop Mulakkal “without the permission of your superior. You have published articles in some non-Christian newspapers and weeklies … gave interviews to ‘Samayam’ without seeking permission from the provincial superior. Through Facebook, channel discussions and the articles, you belittled the Catholic leadership by making false accusations against it and tried to bring down the sacraments. You tried to defame FCC also. Your performance through social media as a religious sister was culpable, arising grave scandal.”

The letter also said Sr. Lucy failed to obey a transfer order given her in 2015 by her provincial superior, and that she published a book of poems despite being denied permission to do so, and used 50,000 Indian rupees ($700) from the congregation’s account “without proper permission” to do so.

Sr. Lucy is also accused of buying a car for about $5,670 and learning to drive without permission, and failing to entrust her salary from December 2017.

Sr. Ann called these acts “a grave infringement of the vow of poverty.”
The superior general added that Sr. Lucy has been corrected and warned several times by her provincial over her “improper behaviour and violations of religious discipline.”

“Instead of correcting yourself, you are simply denying the allegations against you stating that you have to live your own beliefs, ideologies and conviction. You are repeatedly violating the vows of obedience and poverty. The evangelization and social work you do should be according to the FCC values, principles and rules. The present mode of your life is a grave violation of the profession you have made,” Sr. Ann wrote.

After the denial of Sr. Lucy’s initial appeal was communicated to her earlier this month, she told the BBC that “I don’t see any point” in further recourse to the Apostolic Signatura, “since they have made up their mind.”

She maintained: “I am not going to leave the convent. The lifestyle I lead is as per the rules and regulations.”

Sr. Lucy was sent a series of warnings from January through March. The first asked that she appear before Sr. Ann to explain her disobediences, or face expulsion from the congregation.

In January Sr. Lucy said that the congregation was trying to silence her, and denied any wrongdoing.

In May the FCC’s General Council voted unanimously to dismiss Sr. Lucy.

Another nun of the FCC, Sister Lissy Vadakkel, was transferred earlier this year from Muvattupuzha to Vijawada.

Sister Alphonas Abraham, superior of the FCC’s Nirmala Province, said in February that Sr. Lissy’s transfer was unrelated to her acting as a witness in the case against Bishop Mulakkal.

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Hobart, Australia, Mar 5, 2021 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- The Australian island of Tasmania is expected to become the third Australian state to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia, after a bill passed the lower house of the state’s parliament Thursday night.

The law would apply to people over 18 with an advanced, incurable, irreversible condition expected to cause death within six months, and patients can opt out of the decision at any time, the Australian Associated Press reported.

In a 16-6 vote March 4, the bill was passed by the House of Assembly. The governing Liberal Party members were given a conscience vote on the bill. All nine members of the opposition Australian Labor Party voted for the bill, as did both members of the Greens, who are crossbenchers.

Tasmanian lawmakers debated the bill, known as “End of Life Choices,” extensively this week. The state’s legislature has in the past rejected bills to legalize assisted suicide, most recently in 2013.

The bill will require approval from the parliament’s upper house before it can become law.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia have been legal in Victoria since June 2019, and in December 2019 Western Australia passed a law allowing the practices, which is expected to take effect in mid-2021.

Australia is currently considering legalizing euthanasia nationwide.

One of the Tasmanian bill’s provisions states that medical practitioners who object to assisted suicide and euthanasia must provide the patient seeking it with the contact information for the state’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Commission. 

Anther provision would allow assisted suicide to be prescribed via telemedicine— a provision hotly debated in Tasmania’s parliament.

The Tasmanian branch of the Australian Medical Association told ABC News last year that they do not support the bill, or assisted suicide in general. “The bill as it stands is really physician-assisted suicide and we don’t support that … we don’t agree that a doctor should ever do any action with a primary purpose of ending a person’s life,” AMA Tasmania President Helen McArdle told the ABC.

Live and Die Well, a Tasmanian group that advocates for palliative care rather than assisted suicide, has argued against the bill on the grounds that it does not provide enough safeguards for the vulnerable.

New South Wales rejected such a bill in 2017, as did the national parliament in 2016.

The Northern Territory legalized assisted suicide in 1995, but the Australian parliament overturned the law two years later.

Catholic bishops in Australia have repeatedly written in support of palliative care as an alternative to assisted suicide and euthaniasia.

The state of Victoria reported more than ten times the anticipated number of deaths from assisted suicide and euthanasia in its first legal year.

Victoria’s Voluntary Assisted Dying Review Board reported 124 deaths by assisted suicide and euthanasia since June 19, 2019, when the legalization of the precedure took effect, The Catholic Weekly reported. There were a total of 231 permits issued for the procedure that year. The state’s premier had publicly predicted only “a dozen” deaths by assisted suicide in the first year.

Last month, an Australian university found that the country has less than half the number of palliative care physicians needed to care for terminally-ill patients.

A study published by Australian Catholic University’s PM Glynn Institute revealed that the country only has 0.9 palliative care doctors per every 100,000 people. According to the ACU, health industry standards state there should be at least two doctors for this population.

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s September 2020 letter Samaritanus bonus reaffirmed the Church’s perennial teaching on the sinfulness of euthanasia and assisted suicide, and recalled the obligation of Catholics to accompany the sick and dying through prayer, physical presence, and the sacraments.

Samaritanus bonus also addressed the pastoral care of Catholics who request euthanasia or assisted suicide, explaining that a priest and others should avoid any active or passive gesture which might signal approval for the action, including remaining until the act is performed.

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Jimmy Lai and other demonstrators had been convicted in 2021 of taking part in what the Hong Kong government had argued was an “unauthorized assembly” at Victoria Park in Hong Kong’s Causeway Bay neighborhood. / Credit: 美国之音莉雅, Public domain, vi… […]