Vatican archbishop expresses ‘grave concern’ at rise in attacks on believers at prayer

CNA Staff, Jan 5, 2021 / 03:31 pm (CNA).- The number of babies with Down syndrome who were born in Europe fell by half between 2011 and 2015— confirming the fears of pro-life campaigners in the UK, who have long argued that increased prenatal testing for Down syndrome has led many women to abort their children.

A study published during December 2020 in the European Journal of Human Genetics examined the years 2011-2015 to determine the number of babies born with Down syndrome across all countries in Europe, and compared those numbers to estimates of how many babies would have been born with Down syndrome had they not been aborted.

The study found that 54% fewer babies with Down syndrome were born during that period in the United Kingdom than estimates would have expected— a figure roughly in line with the European average.

Notably, in the UK, non-invasive prenatal testing for Down syndrome has been available since 2012 to any woman willing to pay the £500 bill, the BBC reports.

In Spain and Italy, the percentage of reduction was 83% and 71%, respectively.

Abortion is legal in the United Kingdom until the 24th week of pregnancy, except when continuing the pregnancy is dangerous to the physical or mental health of the mother, as well as in cases where the baby will “suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.”

For these disabilities, which can include Down syndrome, cleft lip, and club foot, abortion is legal up to birth. Most of the country’s 200,000 or so annual abortions take place before 13 weeks.

Right to Life UK, a pro-life group active in the country, has documented several instances of women being pressured to abort their children as a result of the prenatal test, with one mother reporting that she had been “offered about 15 terminations,” including when she was 38 weeks pregnant. By some estimates, nine out of ten women in the UK who receive a diagnosis of Down syndrome abort their child.

Increased use of NIPT have prompted several medical professional organizations in the UK, including The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, to issue guidelines urging doctors not apply pressure for abortion based on the results of the tests.

An investigation last summer found that the number of births of Down syndrome babies has fallen by 30% in National Health Service hospitals that offer NIPT.

The “Don’t Screen Us Out” campaign in the United Kingdom has, for the past four years, been drawing awareness to and seeking to change the UK’s abortion laws, seeking to amend the Abortion Act 1967 so that abortions for non-fatal disabilities are outlawed in the third trimester, which starts around 28 weeks of pregnancy.

Lynn Murray, a spokesperson for the group, told CNA in an interview last year that the campaign began in response to the government’s proposal of a relatively new screening method for Down syndrome— known as “cell-free DNA” tests— that, according to the government, would find an additional 102 cases of Down syndrome a year.

Given the high rate of termination for babies in the UK found to have Down syndrome, the campaign formed in order to try to get the government to assess the impact that the non-invasive prenatal testing technique— which is already being offered at NHS hospitals— would have on the Down syndrome community. The campaign attracted attention among Britons with similar concerns, she said.

Early last year, a 25-year-old British woman with Down syndrome, Heidi Crowter, launched a lawsuit against the UK government seeking to change the laws.

Crowter is joined in the lawsuit by Cheryl Bilsborrow, the mother of a two-year-old with Down syndrome, who has said that she was strongly encouraged to have an abortion after doctors performed the screening test on her unborn child. Máire Lea-Wilson, mother of nearly two-year-old son Aiden, who has Down syndrome, also has joined the lawsuit.

In October, the High Court of England and Wales agreed to hear the legal challenge.

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has consistently criticized countries which provide for abortion on the basis of disability. In some countries, such as Iceland, the abortion rate for babies believed to have Down syndrome is close to 100%.

Servant of God Jerome Lejeune discovered the genetic cause for Down syndrome— an extra copy of chromosome 21— in 1958. He spent the rest of his life researching treatments and cures for the condition, advocating against the use of prenatal testing and the abortion of unborn children who were found to have Down syndrome.

Berthe Lejeune, Dr. Lejeune’s widow, has said her husband was heartbroken that many doctors and governments have since used his discovery to “screen out” babies with Down syndrome, targeting them for abortion.

“He thought that all doctors would be happy to find research to cure them,” Lejeune told EWTN Pro-Life Weekly in 2017.

“But sadly, all government[s], not only in France, said: oh, it’s a wonderful discovery. You can detect these little sick children before they are born, and so take them away with an abortion.”

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Fr. Hans Zollner, S.J. / Rebecski CC 4.0

Rome, Italy, Apr 30, 2021 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
A safeguarding expert said that the Catholic Church could do more to take responsibility for the failures of the past, and to reform power structures which allo… […]

Bishop Franz Josef Bode of the Diocese of Osnabrück served as vice president of the German bishops’ conference from 2017 to 2023. / Courtesy of Synodaler Weg/Maximilian von Lachner

CNA Newsroom, Mar 25, 2023 / 08:56 am (CNA).

Pope Francis accepted the resignation of a German bishop on Saturday who played a key role in the German Synodal Way and had come under pressure over his handling of clerical sexual abuse in his diocese. 

Bishop Franz Josef Bode had previously refused to step down, despite an abuse report finding he had mishandled cases in his diocese in northwestern Germany. 

The Holy See announced March 25 that Pope Francis had accepted the bishop of Osnabrück’s request to resign, CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner, reported. There was no indication prior to Saturday’s announcement that Bode had offered to resign.

The 72-year-old bishop had been vice president of the German bishops’ conference since 2017. 

Reacting to the news, Bishop Georg Bätzing — the conference president — said on Mar. 25: “Today I lose my closest companion on the Synodal Way, which still has many stages ahead of us.”

Only two weeks ago, Bode made headlines when he announced he would implement resolutions passed by the controversial process, including the introduction of liturgical blessings of same-sex unions. He previously publicly supported women deacons. 

In a statement published Saturday, Bode said: “In the almost 32 years of my episcopal ministry, almost 28 of them as bishop of Osnabrück, I have borne responsibility in a church that has not only brought blessings but also guilt.” 

“Especially in dealing with cases of sexualized violence by clergy, for a long time I myself tended to focus more on the perpetrators and the institution than on the victims,” Bode admitted. “I misjudged cases, often acted hesitantly, made many wrong decisions, and failed to live up to my responsibility as a bishop.”

Until two months ago, Bode repeatedly refused to resign, despite an interim abuse report published Sept. 20, 2022, finding he had mishandled abuse cases in the diocese he led since 1995.

The 600-page interim report was titled “Sexual violence against minors and vulnerable by clergy in the Diocese of Osnabrück since 1945.”

The report said in the first decades of his term, Bode “repeatedly” kept people accused of abuse in office or appointed them to other positions, including management tasks in youth pastoral care.

In December, an advisory body of sexual abuse survivors called for canonical procedures against Bode.

The victims’ council said it had filed an official complaint in Rome and referred to the decree Vos estis lux mundi, issued in 2019 by Pope Francis, which is aimed at providing norms and procedures for addressing the handling of clerical sexual abuse. The Vatican on Saturday announced that the pope has approved an updated version of those norms, which are now part of canon law.

In a statement accompanying their complaint, the council called on Archbishop Stefan Heße of Hamburg, head of the metropolitan archdiocese, to take “steps of action” against Bode.

In addition to Bode, several other prominent German bishops have been accused of mishandling cases of sexual abuse. They include Synodal Way initiator Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Synodal Way president Bishop Georg Bätzing — the successor to Marx as president of the bishops’ conference — and Hamburg’s Archbishop Heße.

All of them have so far remained in office.

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