Vatican City, Dec 4, 2020 / 05:30 am (CNA).- Pope Francis accepted Friday the resignation of 76-year-old Canadian Archbishop Terrence Prendergast, S.J.
The pope confirmed Dec. 4 that Archbishop Marcel Damphousse, 57, would succeed Prendergast&nb… […]
Vatican City, Dec 4, 2020 / 04:00 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has established the global network that promotes his monthly prayer intentions as a Vatican body.
The Holy See press office announced Dec. 3 that he had elevated the status of the Pope&rsq… […]
I was reading an article the other day about an ongoing miracle in Italy that dates back to 1336. In December of that year a young, pregnant woman named Egidia Mathis was walking home at night […]
CNA Staff, Dec 4, 2020 / 12:23 am (CNA).- On Thursday, 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.
The launch of the agency comes three years after the release of a 2017 Royal Commission report on child sex abuse in the country’s institutions. The new agency was created by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Catholic Religious Australia (CRA) and the Association of Ministerial PJPs (Public Juridic Persons).
“We have discerned what was working well and what needed to change, and we are convinced this new national agency will make the Church’s work more coordinated, accountable and best prepared to ensure the safety of people in Catholic settings,” CRA president Br. Peter Carroll FMS said in a December 3 statement marking the launch.
The new agency, also known as ACSL, “will reduce duplication and consolidate work previously undertaken by Catholic Professional Standards Limited, the Implementation Advisory Group and the Australian Catholic Centre for Professional Standards,” the statement noted.
According to a fact sheet on the ACSL, while it is “hoped” that all Australian Catholic entities will subscribe to the new group, it will not be mandatory. Those entities that subscribe to the ACSL 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 establishment of the ACSL is one of many reforms being made by the Church in Australia after the release of the Royal Commission report, which found serious failings in the protection of children from abuse in the Catholic Church and other major secular and religious institutions.
Other changes made in the wake of the report include a program to compensate victims, and an obligation on the part of clergy and religious to report abuse accusations to their local ordinary or metropolitan archbishop.
The Australian bishops’ conference responded positively to nearly all the Royal Commission’s recommendations, but has defended the sanctity of the confessional seal.
Archbishop Mark Coleridge, president of the Australian Catholic bishop’s conference, said that the safeguarding agency was established after an extensive consultation process with people both inside and outside of the Church, including abuse survivors and their advocates.
“Australian Catholic Safeguarding Limited will build on the strong work of the previous bodies, including in demanding accountability of Catholic entities and in requiring independent audits and reviews of adherence to the National Catholic Safeguarding Standards,” he said.
Eva Skira is the chair of Association of Ministerial PJPs, a group whose members include canonical stewards of Church ministries in areas such as education, health care, disability and social services.
Skira said the group supported the creation of the new agency and is “deeply committed to child protection and safeguarding in our various contexts.”
“We are very pleased to be collaborators with the Bishops Conference and CRA, which have made significant progress in recent years,” Skira added.
Carroll said the inclusion of the Association of Ministerial PJPs in the creation of the safeguarding agency would help to extend its impact into more broadly Catholic contexts.
“Our focus must always be on the safety of all those who come into contact with the Church,” he said.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 3, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- Two months since his fall from grace, Cardinal Angelo Becciu remains in the news, and out of any future papal conclave. And despite the disgraced […]
CNA Staff, Dec 3, 2020 / 07:01 pm (CNA).- Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has ordered an investigation into the forced conversion of women and girls from the country’s religious minorities, drawing praise from Christian aid groups.
International Christian Concern, a group that advocates for persecuted Christians, said Dec. 3 that many of the victims of forced marriages in Pakistan are minors, and that sexual assaults and fraudulent marriages are used by perpetrators to entrap victims, with authorities often complicit.
Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, the Pakistani Prime Minister’s Special Representative on Religious Harmony, stated at a Nov. 30 joint press conference that Kahn had “ordered an investigation on a case-by-case basis of incidents of forced conversions of minor girls belonging to minority communities, particularly Christian and Hindu, to find reasons for this issue.”
ICC cited a 2014 study by the Movement for Solidarity and Peace Pakistan, which found that an estimated 1,000 Christian and Hindu women are abducted, forcefully married, and forcefully converted in Pakistan every year.
In a high-profile case this fall, a 44-year-old man kidnapped Arzoo Raja, a 13-year-old Catholic girl from Karachi, before forcing her to convert to Islam and marrying her.
Child marriage is technically illegal in Pakistan, but courts typically do not enforce these laws. Sharia, which is used in some judicial decisions in Pakistan, permits a child to be married after her first menstrual period. Pakistan’s state religion is Islam.
Ali Azhar kidnapped Raja in broad daylight Oct. 13. Raja’s parents were informed days later by the police that their daughter had converted to Islam and had married Azhar, allegedly of her own free will.
Two weeks after her abduction, on Oct. 27, the Sindh High Court, based on statements the girl gave saying she was 18, ruled the marriage was valid and that Azhar would not be arrested.
The High Court reversed itself and ordered police to find the teenager Nov. 2, the BBC reported. She was recovered later that day and Azhar has subsequently been charged with rape.
During August 2019, Catholic and other religious leaders signed a joint resolution asking the Pakistani government to adopt safeguards protecting religious minorities, a move that they said is much needed in the 97% Muslim nation.
The first point adopted in the joint resolution urges that the minimum age for marriage be made 18 years; the current marriage age for women is now 16.
The religious leaders also noted that “there is no forced conversion according to the Holy Quran.” On that basis, they urged legislation against abduction, sexual violence, and subsequent forced conversion to Islam, which acts they said do not propagate “the true spirit of Islam.”
The Center for Social Justice (CSJ), a Pakistani Catholic rights organization, plans on Dec. 8 to present a resolution to the government calling for an urgent response to protect the rights of religious minorities, particularly regarding forced conversions.
The country was designated, for the first time, a “Country of Particular Concern” in December 2018 for its religious freedom record by the US Department of State.
Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, introduced between 1980 and 1986, impose strict punishment on those who desecrate the Quran or who defame or insult Muhammad. Although the government has never executed a person under the blasphemy law, accusations alone have inspired mob and vigilante violence.
Blasphemy laws are reportedly used to settle scores or to persecute religious minorities; while non-Muslims constitute only 3 percent of the Pakistani population, 14 percent of blasphemy cases have been levied against them.
Many of those accused of blasphemy are murdered, and advocates of changing the law are also targeted by violence.
Last year, an EU official told CNA that the acquittal and release of Asia Bibi – a Catholic woman who spent nearly a decade on death row for blasphemy charges – showed promise for the development of religious freedom in Pakistan. Her conviction was overturned in October 2018.
CNA Staff, Dec 3, 2020 / 06:48 pm (CNA).- Abortions are again being performed in South Dakota, following a seven-month hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sioux Falls Planned Parenthood, the state’s only abortion clinic, halted procedures in March.
Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, a small group of out-of-state doctors would fly into Sioux Falls from St. Paul. They would see clients and perform abortions a couple of days a week. When the pandemic hit, travel restrictions prevented the doctors from visiting the clinic, and the clinic stopped performing abortions.
Beginning in October, the clinic has resumed performing abortion, but only one day per month. The head of the clinic told CBS News that it is questionable if the clinic will remain financially viable.
Brad Lindwurm, director and vice president of Sioux Falls Area Right to Life, said the pro-life movement has been successful in enacting significant pro-life legislation in the state. Abortion is prohibited after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and the state requires a 72-hour waiting period following a woman’s requests for an abortion.
Last year, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem signed into law several new pro-life bills. Among other requirements, these laws mandate that women be provided with an ultrasound image of their baby and sign a consent form before an abortion.
According to the South Dakota Department of Health’s annual report, the number of abortions in South Dakota has decreased from 848 in 2008 to 414 in 2019.
In March, Lindwurm expressed hope that South Dakota would be the first state to ban abortion in America.
“When I stepped out in faith to lead the 40 Days for Life campaign last fall, I had a strong belief that God was going to use South Dakota to be the first state in the nation to end abortion in America (within a year),” Lindwurm told Live Action.
“I had no idea how that would be possible,” he continued, “but we are starting to see it come to fruition as Planned Parenthood simply cannot get their doctor flown into Sioux Falls from St. Paul and are inadvertently having to comply with our Governor’s recommendation to end elective surgery at this time.”
There exists a stereotypical image of the American South as a militantly Protestant and strongly anti-Catholic environment. Gracjan Kraszewski’s fascinating book Catholic Confederates: Faith and Duty in the Civil War South should do much to […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 3, 2020 / 05:00 pm (CNA).- As public officials debate whether prison populations should be among the first or last to receive a COVID vaccine, ethicists say that incarceration should not be the deciding factor.
“Wh… […]
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 3, 2020 / 04:00 pm (CNA).- The growing number of pro-life women in Congress demonstrates the growing consensus that opposition to abortion is part of a holistic platform to support women, Representative-elect Michell… […]
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