‘Hate speech’ charges dismissed for Finnish lawmaker who defended traditional marriage

Rome, Italy, Jul 14, 2017 / 12:08 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Just days after Iraqi forces completed their recapture of Mosul from the Islamic State, the nation’s ambassador to the Holy See has said that they are eager to rebuild the city and have people return home, but it will require help to do so.

“We reiterate our need for greater cooperation and greater help for the reconstruction and stability of the freed areas, including Mosul, because there is no complete victory until the displaced are returned to their homes and guaranteed essential services,” Omer Ahmed Karim Berzinji said July 13.

“The most important challenge now is the effort for the reconstruction and the stability of the city through the construction of infrastructures in order for the displaced to return. We have need of international support to bring back stability and to prevent the return of the terrorists.”

Berzinji spoke to journalists at a press conference in Rome July 13.

The presser was held in response to the July 9 declaration that Mosul had been recaptured. The government operation to free Mosul, one of the Islamic State’s remaining key strongholds, had been underway for nine months. The group still controls areas around the Iraqi cities of Tal Afar, Hawija, and Al-Qa’im, as well as portions of Syria.

During this time, thousands were killed and nearly 1 million residents fled the city, the major part of it destroyed.

Fr. Ghazwan Baho, a parish priest in Alqosh – the last major Christian city on the Plain of Nineveh not taken by the Islamic State – told CNA they are thankful Mosul has been freed, but the future of the city is still uncertain.

“We thank God that the evil was overcome, but Mosul is a city almost 80 percent destroyed. The future is dark. There isn’t much hope of reconstruction.”

“It’s not enough to win the war, but we need to rebuild,” he said. “We are afraid of the future, of revenge; our area is a land of conflict. Let’s hope for the best.”

The Islamic State had controlled Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, since June 2014. It has imposed a rigid version of sharia in territory it controls, but its rule also features arbitrary violence, including killing and enslavement.

A 2016 U.N. report said that 800 to 900 children in Mosul have been abducted and put through Islamic State religious and military training. There have been accounts of child soldiers who were killed for fleeing fighting on the front lines of Iraq’s Anbar province.

The U.N. also estimates that as of Jan. 2016 the group held about 3,500 slaves, mainly women and children of the Yazidi religion. Some of the women are killed for trying to escape or for refusing sexual relations with Islamic State fighters.

The Iraq ambassador couldn’t give specifics on the government’s plan for how to free the women, but told CNA that it will certainly be one of their top objectives. Regarding the Islamic State, he said he considers the victory in Mosul the “beginning of their end.”

“I am very enthusiastic to take all of that (remaining) occupied territory,” he continued.

Another result of the battle, he told journalists, has been the unification of the various “factions” of the Iraqi army who “joined together for the liberation of Mosul.”

The ambassador emphasized that Iraqis worldwide are celebrating the victory, saying that “the first thing after the liberation of Mosul, the most important thing, was that all Iraqis were united.”

Berzinji also noted the help from outside forces, saying “friends and allies have played a distinct role in supporting the efforts of the Iraqi government in this battle through the intervention of the international coalition or outside it.”

“That is why victory in Mosul is a victory for all those who have helped and have collaborated with us in the fight against this criminal organization.”

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Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, described Claudia Sheinbaum’s victory as “very bad news for life, family, and freedoms.” / Credit: EWTN Noticias/Screenshot

ACI Prensa Staff, Jun 5, 2024 / 18:50 pm (CNA).

Various pro-life, pro-family, and lay leaders of the Catholic Church in Mexico have reacted with concern to the election of Claudia Sheinbaum as president of the country.

Rodrigo Iván Cortés, president of the National Front for the Family, described Sheinbaum’s victory as “very bad news for life, family, and freedoms.”

For the pro-family leader, Sheinbaum represents continuity with the same progressive agenda of the outgoing administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Citing the growing legalization of abortion and use of gender ideology throughout the country, Cortés explained that “the López Obrador regime culminated in a culture of death, of ideology, not only of gender confusion but also of socialist populist indoctrination.”

However, in an interview with “EWTN Noticias,” EWTN’s Spanish-language news program, Cortés emphasized that just as people didn’t vote for López Obrador because of his position on abortion, gender ideology, or for freedoms to be canceled, people didn’t vote for Sheinbaum for those same reasons. What happens, he indicated, is that “when they come to power, they implement [that agenda].”

For Juan Dabdoub, president of the Mexican Family Council (ConFamilia), there are “two important factors” that would explain Sheinbaum’s victory in the presidential elections.

The first, he told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, is that in Mexico there is “a poor political culture, which makes a large majority of the people manipulable.”

A second factor, Dabdoub noted, is that “Mexican Catholicism has failed in something extremely important that Pope St. John Paul II already pointed out: ‘A faith that does not create culture is a useless faith.’”

In a Jan. 16, 1982, speech, John Paul II said: “A faith that does not become culture is a faith that is not fully accepted, not entirely thought out, not faithfully lived.”

For the president of ConFamilia, “Mexico has stopped being a country of practicing Catholics and has become one of simply baptized people; and when a Catholic doesn’t live his faith in the outside world, that is, outside his home and his parish, those who dominate the world take control.”

Dabdoub considered Sheinbaum’s victory to be “a brutal threat” to the defense of life, family, and freedoms, since she has “a radical progressive agenda.”

‘Formation and serious work are needed’

For Father Hugo Valdemar, who for 15 years headed the communications office of the Primatial Archdiocese of Mexico when Cardinal Norberto Rivera led the archdiocese, “Catholics must learn that social media are not enough to really influence; serious formation and work are needed, otherwise everything remains up in the air.”

“The big problem is that we haven’t been seriously forming the laity, and nothing is being done to do so,” he told ACI Prensa. However, he noted that with a Sheinbaum administration, “the Church is not in danger. I don’t see an adverse climate, much less persecutory, and Christian values ​​have been violated for a long time.”

What’s next in the battle for life and family?

Pilar Rebollo, director of the Steps for Life platform, pointed out that Sheinbaum’s election “means much more work” for pro-lifers: “It requires us to be united, it requires us to be coordinated,” anticipating possible “frontal attacks on what we know as our values ​​that are foundational.”

Rebollo also emphasized the importance of serving underserved and vulnerable populations, which, she considered, were key to Sheinbaum’s victory. This, she said, must be done “not out of a desire for numbers but zeal for souls, a desire to [heal] wounds, zeal for humanity, to see Christ in others.”

It should be noted that all three candidates for president — Sheinbaum, Xóchitl Gálvez, and Jorge Álvarez Máynez — backed the legalization of abortion and the LGBTQ policy agenda, so Mexican voters had no real alternative to vote for a pro-life and pro-family candidate.

Sheinbaum is the first person of Jewish ancestry to be elected to Mexico’s presidency. In February of this year, she visited Pope Francis at the Vatican, where she asked him to bless a rose wrought in silver by a Mexican artisan. She later presented it to the rector of the Basilica Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City.

Sheinbaum has said that despite her heritage she is “not Catholic, not religious.” According to Jewish News Syndicate, Sheinbaum is not a product of the Jewish community in Mexico and has not had any adult involvement or affiliation.

During her campaign, Sheinbaum was seen wearing a skirt bearing the image of the revered Virgin of Guadalupe. According to Jason Poblete of the Global Liberty Alliance, Sheinbaum also wore a rosary around her neck at a public event. He and others suggested that this was an act of demagoguery intended to appeal to Catholics, who comprise approximately 78% of the country’s population.

Sheinbaum, 61, holds a doctorate in physics specializing in energy and taught at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. Her political militancy began during her student years, joining a group that became the founding youth movement of the socialist Party of Democratic Revolution. She later joined the ruling Morena party. She has been described as a climate activist, having been part of a Nobel Prize-winning commission advising the United Nations on climate change.

Sheinbaum’s tenure as Mexico City mayor was marked by progressive initiatives. For example, the World Economic Forum, led by Klaus Schwab, noted that as mayor she ended public school policy requiring gender-appropriate uniforms for children. Sheinbaum said: “The era when girls had to wear a skirt and boys had to wear trousers has been left behind; I think that’s passed into history,” and added: “Boys can wear skirts if they want and girls can wear pants if they want.”

While she did not raise the issue during her campaign, Sheinbaum’s Morena party is a firm supporter of abortion. The newly-elected congress will be seated in September, one month before Sheinbaum’s inauguration, thus allowing incumbent president López Obrador an opportunity to push through his legislative initiatives. 

Poblete told “EWTN News Nightly” that the 2024 election may have led to a Morena majority in Mexico’s Congress, which has vowed to amend the constitution in order for Mexican Supreme Court justices to be elected by popular ballot, thereby confirming partisan control of the heretofore independent judiciary, which would rule on issues such as abortion and matters of gender ideology. He fears that Sheinbaum will govern under the shadow of the current president and his leftist party.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

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U.S. Supreme Court building. / Credit: Steven Frame/Shutterstock

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 4, 2024 / 12:33 pm (CNA).
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled on Monday that states cannot remove former President Donald Trump from the ballot ahea… […]