Pro-lifers react with dismay to news that Irish government plans to fine for praying near abortion clinic

Jerrid Farnam, 32, has been charged with several felonies in connection with a violent vandalism at Subiaco Abbey in Subiaco, Arkansas, on Jan. 5, 2023. He said he was about to begin breaking open the tabernacle where the consecrated bread is kept, but something stopped him in his tracks: a statue of the Virgin Mary. / Credit: Logan County Sheriff’s Office / Suzanne Stratford YouTube screen shot

Boston, Mass., Feb 6, 2023 / 13:55 pm (CNA).

In early January, a man entered a Benedictine monastery in Arkansas and began smashing the altar with a sledgehammer.

He was about to begin breaking open the tabernacle where the consecrated bread is kept, but something stopped him in his tracks: a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Jerrid Farnam, 32, of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, was arrested for the crimes of property damage and theft committed at Subiaco Abbey in Subiaco, Arkansas, and is currently incarcerated awaiting trial.

Sheriff Jason Massey of the Logan County Sheriff’s Office told CNA that when they brought the suspect in he confessed to the crime. But, Farnam told the police, after he looked up and saw a statue of Mary, he couldn’t continue to break open the tabernacle as he had planned to do.

“He decided he just couldn’t do it,” Massey said. “I think he felt it was wrong at that point.”

Subiaco Abbey had reported that on Jan. 5, a man using “a regular hammer and sledgehammer/axe” began destroying the abbey’s marble altar by smashing it in different places. Founded in 1878, Subiaco is home to a community of 39 Benedictine monks.

The suspect left a gaping hole in the top of the altar and broke open stones that contain relics, the abbey said. Two reliquaries — small, brass-colored boxes that each contained three relics of saints from more than 1,500 years ago — were stolen, according to the Logan County Sheriff’s Office.

Father Elijah Owens, OSB, the abbot of the monastery, told CNA in January that the relics contained in one of the reliquaries were those of St. Boniface, St. Tiberius, and St. Benedict of Nursia.

The other reliquary contained the relics of St. Tiberius, St. Marcellus, and St. Justina, Owens said.

A video of the damage can be seen below.

The abbey said in its press release that the man approached the tabernacle and removed a cross located on top as well as the tabernacle’s veil before being “interrupted.”

Farnam was arrested the same day and three of the relics were found in his truck.

At the time, the reliquary containing the relics of St. Tiberius, St. Marcellus, and St. Justina was still missing. The sheriff’s office later discovered them in a trash can in Farnam’s father’s house. 

Farnam gave the reliquary to his father, who, unaware of the nature of the objects, threw the contents of the container in the trash, while keeping the container for himself, the sheriff said.

“Luckily there was no food or anything on them. They were found in great condition,” he added.

Massey said that one of the seven offenses Farnam was charged with was theft of property, a Class B felony, which is the highest classification of a felony in the state, he said.

“You can’t put a price on those relics. They’re 1,500 years old,” he said.

Farnam thought that Jesus’ bones were in the altar and that God was telling him to remove the bones, Massey told CNA. He added that Farnam has a history of substance abuse and was intoxicated during his arrest. 

The abbey is under repairs, and a portable altar will now be used until repairs are made, according to the abbey’s press release.

[…]

Vienna, Austria, Jun 23, 2019 / 08:10 am (CNA).- The international debut of the Vatican women’s football team, which was scheduled to play in a friendly against the Vienna FC Mariahilf Saturday, was cancelled after abortion and LGBT activists disrupted the game before it began, local media reported.

According to several local media reports, players of the Viennese soccer team Mariahilf lifted their jerseys whilst the Vatican anthem was playing, displaying painted ovaries and pro-abortion messages. Activists also displayed LGBT banners on the sidelines at the venue.

The Vatican team, who had been invited to Vienna by FCM, decided not to go ahead with the June 22 match.

The Apostolic Nuncio in Austria, Pedro Lopez Quintana, witnessed the protests but was not involved in the decision to cancel the game, local media reported.

The friendly was scheduled to kick off in the early afternoon in a sports arena in Wien-Simmering. Beforehand, both sides had participated in a prayer service and blessing of the pitch.

Austrian state broadcaster ORF quoted one of the FCM players involved in the protest as saying the activists were “not aware of the consequences of their action in any way and would have liked to play the football match”.

The activists also handed out leaflets to journalists attending the match. These stated that the activists did not assent to the Church’s teaching on abortion and same-sex marriage.

“They were not aware that the timing of the action during the playing of the Vatican anthem and in the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio could be detrimental to the idea of sport and ruin many weeks of preparation”, reported the ORF.

When announcing the upcoming game, the German section of Vatican News reported FCM founder Ernst Lackner as saying he had initially not expected that the Vatican team would really accept the invitation, but that the Archbishop of Vienna, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, had assured the Vatican team that FC Mariahilf was a serious team that was also strongly committed to charity.

The papal women’s football team had its first appearance in 2018 and immediately received an invitation from FCM, which is currently playing in the Wiener Landesliga, the third highest league in domestic women’s football. 

[…]

Ottawa, Canada, Mar 12, 2021 / 05:18 pm (CNA).- Canada’s vulnerable populations are at risk due to Bill C-7’s expansion of euthanasia and assisted suicide to those with disabling, non-terminal conditions including mental illness, a member of the Canadian parliament has said.

An amended version of Bill C-7 passed the Canadian House of Commons March 11 by a vote of 180-149. Should the bill be approved by the Senate, which is likely, Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide laws will become some of the most permissible in the world.

“Bill C-7 is legislation that was a purported response to a Quebec superior court decision called ‘Truchon'”, Conservative MP Michael Cooper told CNA March 12. 

“In the Truchon decision, the judge determined that the ‘reasonably foreseeable’ criteria–that death must be reasonably foreseeable in order to qualify for medical assistance in dying–contravened Canada’s charter of rights and freedoms,” he explained.

In the case, Jean Truchon, a Quebec man who had cerebral palsy, filed suit after his request to end his life was denied as his condition was not terminal.

A judge ruled that Truchon and his co-plaintiff Nicole Gladu, who has post-polio syndrome, could not be denied a euthanasia or assisted suicide if they wished to end their lives, and that MAiD should be available to Canadians without terminal conditions.

Truchon received MAiD in April 2020. Gladu is still alive.

Cooper told CNA that “the normal course of action” following a court’s action such as the Truchon decision, “would have been the attorney general to have appealed the decision.”

“This, after all, was a lower court decision of one judge that was not binding on any courts in any other provinces. Indeed, it’s not binding on any upper court in the province of Quebec,” he said. Given that the Truchon decision was made “a mere three and a half years” following the legalization of euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada, Cooper believes the attorney general should have appealed the decision.

“It’s the responsibility of the attorney general to defend the laws passed by parliament,” said Cooper. “And that would’ve meant appealing the decision, taking a decision if necessary all the way to the Supreme Court. That very least would have provided clarity in the law.”

Instead, the Canadian federal government announced that the decision would not be appealed, and new laws will take effect in Quebec in April. Parliament was instructed to write a law codifying the decision. Bill C-7 was introduced in parliament Feb. 23, 2020.

Initially, the bill would “remove the requirement for a person’s natural death to be reasonably foreseeable in order to be eligible” for euthanasia or assisted suicide and would “introduce a two-track approach to procedural safeguards” depending on if a person’s natural death is “reasonably foreseeable.”

The Senate, which has the ability to propose amendments to legislation, received the bill after it passed on a second reading in the House of Commons. The Senate introduced “radical” amendments to the bill, including one where euthanasia or assisted suicide would be permitted for people with mental illness as the sole underlying cause for ending their lives.

That amendment passed.

“The government has effectively rewritten the bill to something far more expansive than it was a year ago,” said Cooper.

Cooper was critical of the speed in which the legislation moved with the new amendments.
“I mean, this is a case where the government has proceeded with this radical expansion [of MAiD] absent a meaningful parliamentary study, absent a consensus amongst professionals, amongst experts and, in the face of leading mental health professionals who say the persons suffering from mental illness will prematurely end their lives,” he said. 

“It’s the height of recklessness on the part of the government,” said Cooper.

Once the bill has received Royal Assent, it will become law. Cooper said this is likely to happen before the end of the month, as a stay issued by the Quebec court will expire March 26.

Disability activists in Canada have been among the most vocally opposed to the passage of Bill C-7 and the expansion of euthanasia and assisted suicide. Over 120 disability groups have spoken out against the bill, saying that the bill amounts to coercion for people with disabilities to end their lives.

Disability Filibuster, an organization of Canadians with disabilities and their allies who are opposed to Bill C-7, noted that the day the bill was passed–March 11, 2021–was also the tenth anniversary of Canada ratifying the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

“Bill C-7 expands Medical Assistance in Dying beyond those who are actually dying, but only for persons with a disabling medical condition,” said Disability Filibuster’s website.

“The Bill, and its ableist subtext have already been harmful and traumatizing for a great many disabled people in Canada.”

[…]