Pope Francis opens two new laundromats for the homeless

Rome, Italy, Jul 29, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- Seven years after his kidnapping in Syria, Fr. Paolo Dall’Oglio was remembered in Rome Wednesday for his love of the Syrian people and his dedication to peace and justice.

Dall’Oglio was abducte… […]

CNA Staff, Mar 23, 2021 / 09:00 am (CNA).- A Catholic bishop has lamented an English appeal court ruling that life-sustaining treatment can be withdrawn from a five-year-old girl against her mother’s wishes.

The Court of Appeal upheld a High Court ruling March 19 concerning Pippa Knight, who is in a vegetative state after suffering brain damage.

Bishop John Sherrington said: “Pippa is living in a seriously disabled way due to her complex and rare medical condition. The Catholic Church teaches that every person has worth and dignity which is independent of their condition. Lack of awareness does not diminish worth.”

“The ruling to allow medics to cease Pippa’s treatment based on her quality of life or worth does not acknowledge or afford her the inherent human dignity with which she was born.”

Sherrington, a Westminster diocese auxiliary bishop and the English and Welsh bishops’ spokesman for life issues, said that he was praying for the girl’s mother, Paula Parfitt, as well as the healthcare professionals caring for her.

“We must uncompromisingly ensure that proper care is given where there is still life, despite serious illness or disability,” he commented.

“We are reminded that such care must include the provision of nutrition and hydration, by whatever means, which is neither treatment nor medicine, unless this itself becomes overly burdensome.”

Pippa was born in 2015. In December 2016, she fell ill and began experiencing seizures. Doctors diagnosed her as suffering from acute necrotizing encephalopathy, a rare form of brain damage marked by multiple bilateral lesions.

After specialists at Evelina London Children’s Hospital said they wished to end life-support treatment, the case went to the High Court, which issued its ruling on Jan. 8.

In a Feb. 4 statement, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford, England, described the ethical reasoning behind the High Court decision as “deeply flawed.”

In a detailed analysis of the judgment, the center’s director David Albert Jones said that the case had similarities with those of Charlie Gard and Alfie Evans, in which ventilation was withdrawn against their parents’ wishes.

He said that withdrawing life-sustaining treatment could be justified if it no longer serves its purpose or is “excessively burdensome.”

“On the other hand, withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment when treatment would have been beneficial and not unduly burdensome is nothing less than abandonment,” he wrote.

“Furthermore, even if withdrawal of treatment is justifiable, it is important that the decision is made for the right reasons. In the case of Pippa Knight, as in the two former cases, the ethical reasoning is deeply flawed.”

In February, Pippa’s mother asked appeal judges to overturn the ruling, arguing that her daughter should be allowed to leave the hospital and be treated at home on a portable ventilator.

Appeal Court judge Lord Justice Baker said in a written ruling: “I am entirely satisfied that the judge was entitled to conclude and declare that it was lawful and in Pippa’s best interests that life-sustaining treatment be withdrawn for the reasons he gave in his judgment.”

The two other judges who heard the appeal — Lady Justice King and Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing — expressed their agreement.

Parfitt, who is supported by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), expressed her dismay at the appeal court’s verdict.

“I am once again devastated as a result of the judgment of the Court of Appeal today, to uphold the decision that it is not in Pippa’s best interests to have a two-week trial of portable ventilation to find out whether she could come home,” she said.

“I find it inexplicable that the court and [hospital] trust will not allow Pippa to trial portable ventilation for two weeks to see if she can return home when the hospital allows Pippa to go outside for long periods on portable ventilation with no issue.”

She continued: “I will be seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. I want Pippa to have every possible chance to come home and be with her family.”

Concluding his March 19 statement, Sherrington said: “The intentional ending of the life of a critically ill patient because of a judgment made of its quality is never in the patient’s best interests. At the heart of humanity must be a call to show love and solidarity with the most vulnerable in society, and to defend the lives of our more fragile brothers and sisters who are unable to do so themselves.”

“My heartfelt prayers are with little Pippa and her mother Paula during this difficult time of suffering, as well as with those caring for Pippa. I hope that everything possible will now be done to accompany and support Pippa and her family following today’s ruling.”

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Rome, Italy, May 12, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- While a lot has changed since Mary’s appearances at Fatima 100 years ago, we can’t stop heeding Our Lady’s request to pray and offer sacrifices for the world, an expert on Marian theology has said.

“Fatima is a stepping-stone. But we shouldn’t be complacent. We have a very, very long way to go – in God’s time – and we do need to consecrate ourselves daily to this goal,” Fr. Paul Haffner told CNA May 8.

“This 100th anniversary of the apparitions teaches us that there has been a victory of Christ over sin and death, there has been a victory of his Mother within the Church, but we still have a very long way to go.”

A theology professor and author of more than 30 books, Fr. Haffner has also been a member of the Pontifical Academy of Mary since 2012.

One hundred years ago on May 13, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to three shepherd children in a field in Fatima, Portugal. She brought with her requests for the recitation of the rosary, for sacrifices on behalf of sinners, and a secret regarding the fate of the world.

Every local bishop since has approved the apparitions and deemed them worthy of belief, the highest recognition a Marian apparition can receive from the Church.

In her third apparition, Mary revealed to the shepherd children what came to be known as The Great Secret of Fatima. The first secret was a vision of hell which Mary allowed the children to see.

The second was a statement that World War I would end, and a prediction of another war that would start during the reign of Pius XI, if people continued to offend God and if Russia were not consecrated to her Immaculate Heart.
        
According to Sr. Lucia, one of the visionaries who lived until 2005, the consecration was completed during the pontificate of St. John Paul II, who several times attempted to fulfill the requirements of the Russia consecration.

It was finally considered fully complete after the consecration he made on March 25, 1984, as confirmed by Sr. Lucia.

“It’s true, the world has been consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Church has made this consecration,” Fr. Haffner said.

“However, this must not be a static thing, it must be an ongoing process.” The consecration must continue, he explained, because the world we live in is still filled with many false ideologies and many false gods, all “which tempt women and men away from their true goal.”

“Whether these false ideologies are in the political sphere, the social sphere, the family sphere, the personal sphere, or in the educational sphere, they’re there,” he said, and we must fight against them.

At the time of Mary’s appearance in Portugal, the country was at war, like most of the rest of the world. In addition to the hardships of war, Catholics in the country were also facing a strong wave of anti-clericalism.

Catholic churches and schools were seized by the government, and the wearing of clerics in public, the ringing of church bells, and the celebration of popular religious festivals were banned. From 1911-1916, nearly 2,000 priests, monks and nuns were killed by anti-Christian groups.

In one way, Mary’s appearance in 1917, Fr. Haffner noted, was “a remedy for these terrible evils.”

“So in that sense, Our Lady remains, as it says in the Book of Revelation or the Apocolypse, the woman who is fighting against the powers of evil, against the dragon, against Satan.”

And we get to be a part of that fight, he said. “She gives her sons and daughters a chance, also, to win that battle through Christ her Son. But they have to be dedicated to her, to the Church, and to Christ. And the way of dedication is the way of prayer and sacrifice.”

Throughout salvation history, Mary’s role is often “unfolded” in the history of mankind, Fr. Haffner pointed out.

“In the history of mankind her role is unfolded in the various quiet little miracles and in the big revelations, like Lourdes, Fatima and La Salette, Our Lady of Walsingham,” he said, naming several other Marian apparitions affirmed as worthy of belief by the Church.

“All these different revelations and apparitions teach us of her maternal presence. Mary is a mother to us, she cares for us very tenderly, especially when things seem to go wrong.”

“Now things seem often to not go very well for humanity, so Mary is there to pick us up. As Pope Francis often says, ‘you know when you fall, try to get up immediately,’ but sometimes you can’t get up! You have to have a motherly hand, a motherly arm, to help you up.”

“And so often in history that hand is found in Mary, he explained. “And that is the link between the apparitions of Our Lady: Mary’s motherly hand helping us along the way – a pilgrim way.”

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