‘We need time,’ Synod on Synodality organizers tell German-language media

Archbishop Zbigņevs Stankevičs of Riga, Latvia (left), speaking during a Catholic conference in Warsaw in May 2022 on the natural law legacy of John Paul II (right.) / Photos by Lisa Johnston and L’Osservatore Romano

Warsaw, Poland, Jun 9, 2022 / 09:17 am (CNA).

Constant cooperation and dialogue among Catholic, Lutherans, Orthodox, and other Christian denominations have been crucial to protect life and family in the Baltic nation of Latvia, Archbishop Zbigņevs Stankevičs of Riga, Latvia, said during a recent Catholic conference in Warsaw.

Stankevičs spoke May 19 at the conference “St. John Paul II Natural Law Legacy,” organized by the Ave Maria School of Law and the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University in Warsaw.

In his speech, Stankevičs shared his personal ecumenical experience in Latvia as an example of how the concept of natural law proposed by St. John Paul II can serve as the basis for ecumenical cooperation in defending human values.

The metropolitan archbishop, based in Latvia’s capital, is no stranger to ecumenical work and thought. In 2001, he became the first bishop consecrated in a Lutheran church since the split from Protestantism in the 1500s. The unusual move, which occurred in the church of Evangelical Lutheran Cathedral in Riga, formerly the Catholic Cathedral of St. Mary, signaled the beginning of Stankevičs’ cooperation with the Lutheran church in Latvia, a cooperation that would ultimately become a partnership in the cause of life and the family. Since 2012, the archbishop has served on the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. 

“I would like to present this ecumenical cooperation in three experiences in my country: the abortion debate, the civil unions discussion, and the so-called Istanbul convention,” Stankevičs began. 

Entering the abortion debate

Ordained as a priest in 1996, Stankevičs struggled to find proper consultation for Catholic couples on natural family planning. It was then that he decided to create a small center that provided natural family planning under the motto “let us protect the miracle [of fertility].”

This involvement in the world of natural family planning would lead him into the heart of the abortion debate in Latvian society, and, ultimately, to the conclusion that moral discussions in the public square benefit from a basis in natural law, something emphasized in the teachings of John Paul II. 

“I knew that theological arguments would not work for a secular audience, so I wanted to show that Catholic arguments are not opposed to legal, scientific, and universal arguments, but rather are in harmony with them,” Stankevičs said. 

“[A] few years later our parliament introduced the discussion to legalize abortion. No one was doing anything so I decided to do something. I consulted some experts and presented a proposal that was published in the most important secular newspaper in Latvia,” the archbishop said.

Stankevičs’ article, “Why I was Lucky,” used both biological and theological arguments to defend human life. He noted that his own mother, when pregnant with him, was under pressure to get an abortion; “but she was a believer, a Catholic, so she refused the pressure.” 

After the Latvian parliament legalized abortion in 2002, the different Christian confessions decided to start working together to protect the right to life and the family.  

In Latvia, Catholics comprise 25% of the population, Lutherans 34.2%, and Russian Orthodox 17%, with other smaller, mostly Christian denominations making up the remainder.

“We started to work together by the initiative of a businessman in Riga, a non-believer who wanted to promote awareness about the humanity of the unborn,” the archbishop recalled.

“Bringing all Christians together in a truly ecumenical effort ended up bearing good fruits because we worked together in promoting a culture of life: From more than 7,000 abortions per year in 2002, we were able to bring it down to 2,000 by 2020,” he said. 

Ecumenical defense of marriage, family

Regarding the legislation on civil unions, another area where Stankevičs has rallied ecumenical groups around natural law defense of marriage, the archbishop said that he has seen the tension surrounding LGBT issues mount in Latvian society as increased pressure is brought to bear to legalize same-sex unions. 

Invited to a debate on a popular Latvian television show called “One vs. One” after Pope Francis’ remark “who am I to judge?” was widely interpreted in Latvian society as approving homosexual unions, Stankevičs “had the opportunity to explain the teachings of the Catholic Church and what was the real meaning of the Holy Father’s words.” 

After that episode, in dialogue with other Christian leaders, Stankevičs proposed a law aimed at reducing political tensions in the country without jeopardizing the traditional concept of the family. 

The legislation proposed by the ecumenical group of Christians would have created binding regulations aimed at protecting any kind of common household; “for example, two old persons living together to help one another, or one old and one young person who decide to live together.” 

“The law would benefit any household, including homosexual couples, but would not affect the concept of [the] natural family,” Stankevičs explained. “Unfortunately the media manipulated my proposal, and the Agency France Presse presented me internationally as if I was in favor of gay marriage.”  

In 2020, the Constitutional Court in Latvia decided a case in favor of legalizing homosexual couples and ordered the parliament to pass legislation according to this decision.

In response, the Latvian Men’s Association started a campaign to introduce an amendment to the Latvian constitution, to clarify the concept of family. The Latvian constitution in 2005 proclaimed that marriage is only between a man and a woman, but left a legal void regarding the definition of family, which the court wanted to interpret to include homosexual unions. 

The Latvian bishops’ conference supported the amendment presented by the Men’s Association, “but most importantly,” Stankevičs explained, “we put together an ecumenical statement signed by the leaders of 10 different Christian denominations supporting the idea that the family should be based on the marriage between a man and a woman. The president of the Latvian Jewish community, a good friend, also joined the statement.” 

According to Stankevičs, something strange happened next. “The Minister of Justice created a committee to discuss the demand of the constitutional court, and it included several Christian representatives, including three from the Catholic Church, which worked for a year.” But ignoring all the discussions and proposals, the Minister of Justice ended up sending a proposal to parliament that was a full recognition of homosexual couples as marriage.

The response was also ecumenical: Christian leaders sent a letter encouraging the parliament to ignore the government’s proposal. 

According to Stankevičs, the proposal has already passed one round of votes “and it is very likely that it will be approved in a second round of votes, with the support of the New Conservative party. But we Christians continue to work together.”

Preventing gender ideology 

The third field of ecumenical cooperation mentioned by Stankevičs concerned the Istanbul Convention, a European treaty which the Latvian government signed but ultimately did not ratify.

The treaty was introduced as an international legal instrument that recognizes violence against women as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women. 

The convention claims to cover various forms of gender-based violence against women, but Christian communities in Latvia have criticized the heavy use of gender ideology in both the framing and the language of the document. 

The word “gender,” for instance, is defined as “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for women and men,” a definition that allows gender to be defined independent of biological sex and therefore opens the document to the question of whether it really is aimed at the protection of women. 

Christian communities also question the biased nature of the committee designated to enforce the convention. 

The governments of Slovakia and Bulgaria refused to ratify the convention, while Poland, Lithuania, and Croatia expressed reservations about the convention though it was ultimately ratified in those countries, a move the government of Poland is attempting to reverse. 

“When we found out that the Latvian parliament was going to ratify it, I went to the parliament and presented the common Christian position,” Stankevičs explained. As a consequence of that visit, the Latvian parliament decided not to ratify the convention, Stankevičs said, crediting the appeal to the unity provided by the common Christian position argued via natural law. 

“In conclusion,” the archbishop said, “I can say that in Latvia we continue to defend the true nature of life and family. But if we Catholics would act alone, we would not have the impact that we have as one Christian majority. That unity is the reason why the government takes us seriously.”

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Pope Francis at the Wednesday general audience in St. Peter’s Square June 17, 2015. / Bohumil Petrik/CNA.

Vatican City, Oct 27, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).

The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis is considering an invitation to visit Canada in light of the Canadian bishops’ “pastoral process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples.”

A communique from the Holy See Press Office on Oct. 27 said that the pope has “indicated his willingness to visit” Canada on a future undetermined date.

The Canadian bishops’ conference welcomed the Vatican announcement stating that “Pope Francis has accepted their invitation to visit Canada on a pilgrimage of healing and reconciliation.”

“We pray that Pope Francis’ visit to Canada will be a significant milestone in the journey toward reconciliation and healing,” Bishop Raymond Poisson, the president bishops’ conference, said Oct. 27.

Pope Francis is already set to meet with delegations of different Indigenous tribes from Canada at the Vatican Dec. 17-20.

The papal meetings with First Nations, Métis, and Inuit delegations were scheduled following the discovery of unmarked graves of 215 Indigenous children at a former Catholic-run residential school in British Columbia and 751 unmarked graves at the site of the former Marieval Indian Residential School in Saskatchewan.

Canada’s residential school system was set up by the Canadian federal government, beginning in the 1870s, as a means of forcibly assimilating Indigenous children and stripping them of familial and cultural ties. Catholics and members of other Christian denominations ran the schools. The last remaining federally-run residential school closed in 1996.

According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, a Canadian body set up to investigate abuses in the schools, at least 4,100 children died from “disease or accident” at the residential schools.

One of the commission’s calls was for a formal papal apology for the Church’s role in the residential school system.

Pope Francis expressed sorrow at the discovery of Indigenous children’s graves in an Angelus address in June, but did not issue a formal apology.

“The sad discovery further increases our awareness of the pain and suffering of the past. May Canada’s political and religious authorities continue to work together with determination to shed light on this sad event and humbly commit themselves to a path of reconciliation and healing,” the pope said on June 6.

The Canadian bishops’ conference apologized for the Church’s role in the residential school system in September and said that it was working toward the possibility of papal visit to Canada “as part of this healing journey.”

The potential visit by Pope Francis would be the first papal trip to Canada since St. John Paul II visited Toronto nearly 20 years ago for World Youth Day 2002.

John Paul II visited Canada three times during his pontificate, making a stop to visit Indigenous people in the Northwest Territories in 1987 and visiting Quebec, Newfoundland, Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia during an 11-day trip in 1984.

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CNA Staff, Oct 14, 2020 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- The government of the Netherlands has announced it will allow the euthanization of terminally ill children between the ages of one and 12.

“There is a need for active termination of life among doctors and parents of incurably ill children, who are suffering hopelessly and unbearably and will die within the foreseeable future,” Health Minister Hugo de Jonge wrote in an Oct. 13 letter to parliament.

Euthanasia is already legal in the Netherlands for infants under one year, with parental consent, and of minors 12-15 with their consent and that of their parents. Voluntary euthanasia is available to those aged 16-17 without parental consent.

De Jonge said allowing euthanasia for children under 12 would prevent their “suffering hopelessly and unbearably”.

The Health Minister also emphasized “the great importance of the best possible care for this group of terminally ill children.”

Those with “unbearable and endless suffering” would be eligible for euthanasia; their parents would have to consent, as would two doctors.

Children between 1 and 12 who have such conditions may currently be given palliative care, or their nutrition may be withheld.

NL Times reported that the Dutch pediatrician association NVK has called for the change; De Jonge said to parliament, “I want to ensure more legal safeguards for doctors who, on the basis of their professional standard, proceed with life-ending actions of children aged 1 to 12 years.”

Rather than a law change, doctors who euthanize patients aged 1-12 will be exempted from prosecution, De Jonge stated.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte leads a coalition government formed by the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, the Christian Democratic Appeal, Democrats 66, and the Christian Union.

Both the Christian Democratic Appeal and the Christian Union have opposed the change, while the VVD and Democrats 66 support it.

The government expect between five and 10 children a year to be euthanized under the new rule.

The Netherlands legalized euthanasia and assisted suicide in 2002 for terminaly ill adults who were mentally competent.

It has since been expanded to allow the practices for persons with non-terminal chronic illnesses, disabilities, and mental health problems.

In 2019 there were 6,361 casese of euthanasia in the country, according to the Guardian.

Cardinal Willem Eijk of Utrecht told CNA last month that the Netherlands shows that once euthanasia is legalized safeguards are slowly but inevitably abandoned, with the criteria having been “ever more extended”.

“Once accepting the termination of life for a certain measure of suffering, one will always be confronted with the question of whether it should not also be allowed in suffering that is only a little bit less,” he said.

Though it was defeated, a bill was introduced by the government in 2016 permitting assisted suicide in cases where people were not suffering from a disease but considered their life“completed.”

And earlier this year a private members’ bill was introduced that would allow assisted suicide in people older than 75 years.

In April, the Dutch Supreme Court found that doctors could forcibly euthanize dementia patients if they had previously signed a document approving the procedure.

A criminal court had acquitted of murder charges Marinou Arends, a doctor who euthanized a patient with dementia in 2016. The patient had made a written euthanasia declaration four years earlier, but seemed to withdraw from the administration of euthanasia. An anesthesiologist argued the withdrawal was merely a reflex action.

The Supreme Court ruled April 22 that the acquittal was correct.

Cardinal Eijk suggested that Catholics could do more to clarify that, while they firmly oppose euthanasia, they do not believe life must always be prolonged with burdensome medical treatment.

“A patient deciding to forego non-proportionate treatment and who consequently dies does not do something that is ethically equivalent to suicide, but merely accepts that life must come to an end,” he said.

“A medical doctor, by not offering non-proportionate treatment to the patient or dissuading him to undergo such treatment, as a consequence of which the patient dies, does not do something ethically equal to terminating his life. When the collateral effects, the complications and expenses are not proportionate to the chance of saving life or restoring or preserving health, one is allowed to forego it, albeit that it might lead to a shortening of life. Letting someone die is not always ethically equal to actively making somebody die.”

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