No, ‘AI Jesus’ isn’t actually hearing confessions: fact check

Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the Italian bishops’ conference, at a press conference in Bari, Italy, on Jan. 22, 2020. / Daniel Ibáñez/CNA.

Rome Newsroom, May 28, 2021 / 03:20 am (CNA).
An Italian cardinal told journalists Thursday t… […]

Paris, France, May 28, 2019 / 06:01 pm (CNA).- The French Senate on Monday passed a bill on the restoration of Notre-Dame de Paris, the city’s cathedral, adding a clause that it must be rebuilt as it was before last month’s fire which destroyed its roof and spire.

The Senate approved the bill May 27, mandating that the rebuilding be faithful to Notre-Dame’s “last known visual state.”

The government of president Emmanuel Macron had begun an architectural competition to submit a variety of suggestions for the restoration. Macron had called for “an inventive reconstruction” of the cathedral.

The Senate also removed from the bill a clause allowing the government to override planning, environmental and heritage protection, and public tenders regulations, which would have hastened the rebuilding.

It modified a tax break, allowing donations for reconstruction made from April 15, the day of the fire, to be tax-deductible. An earlier version of the bill had allowed only donations made from April 16.

The modifications of the bill made by the Senate mean that it must be reconciled with a version passed earlier by the National Assembly before it can become law.

Since the adoption of the 1905 law on separation of church and state, which formalized laïcité, a strict form of public secularism, religious buildings in France have been property of the state.

A fire broke out in the cathedral shortly before 7 pm April 15. The roof and the spire, which dated to the 19th century, were destroyed. Shortly after midnight April 16, firefighters announced that the cathedral’s main structure had been preserved from collapse.

The major religious and artistic treasures of the cathedral were removed as the fire began, including a relic of the crown of thorns.

Originally built between the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, the landmark cathedral in the French capital is one of the most recognizable churches in the world, receiving more than 12 million visitors each year.

The cathedral was undergoing some restorative work at the time the fire broke out, though it is unknown if the fire originated in the area of the work.

Officials had been in the process of a massive fundraising effort to renovate the cathedral against centuries of decay, pollution, and an inundation of visitors. French conservationists and the archdiocese announced in 2017 that the renovations needed for the building’s structural integrity could cost as much as $112 million to complete.

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Glasgow, Scotland, Sep 4, 2018 / 05:21 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Archdiocese of Glasgow has welcomed the city council’s decision Monday to reroute a Protestant march which was to have passed by a Catholic parish where a priest was allegedly assaulted when a similar march passed by in July.

“We are grateful that common sense has prevailed,” a spokesman for the archdiocese said Sept. 3.

“The re-routing of the march will bring relief to the people of St Alphonsus parish and the surrounding area, who viewed with anxiety and fear the prospect of another march past the church so soon after the disgraceful scenes earlier this summer.”

The Glaswegian public processions committee imposed an alternate route on a proposed march by the Rising Star of Bridgeton Royal Black Preceptory No. 672.

The preceptory is a Protestant, loyalist fraternal order separate from, but closely linked to, the Orange Order.

Orange marches are organized by the Orange Order, largely in Northern Ireland and Scotland, to commemorate the defeat of James II by William of Orange at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. James had been deposed as king of England, Ireland, and Scotland in a 1688 revolution by the Parliament of England after he had expanded toleration of Catholics and Protestant nonconformists in the officially Protestant kingdoms.

A spokeswoman of the Glasgow City Council said the public processions committee “heard evidence from Police Scotland that disorder was likely should the march take place on the original route – requiring around 20 times the number of officers that would otherwise attend.”

John McBride, a Police Scotland Superintendent, told the city council that “this parade causes a serious concern for the police in terms of public order and disruption to the life of the community … because it can be reasonably expected that there will be a significant protest to the parade should it occur.”

“It is my view that the resources which would be required to police the parade would be disproportionate to the numbers involved in the parade,” McBride added.

The Orange walk is expected to include about 60 marchers.

The Royal Black Preceptory is considering appealing the council’s decision.

Opposition to Orange walks have increased since a July 7 incident.

Canon Tom White, 43, was greeting parishioners after Mass that day when an Orange march approached St. Alphonsus parish.

According to the Archdiocese of Glasgow, Canon White was spat at, verbally abused, and lunged at.

A 24-year-old man was later arrested and charged in connection with the alleged assault.

The Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland has denied any involvement in the assault on the priest.

Some subsequent Glaswegian Orange walks were cancelled after outcry over the attack on Canon White.

Police Scotland Superindendent Stephen Hazlett told the city council that “this is an area that needs to heal itself. It might take several years to de escalate back to where we were before July 7. We need to give the community time to reconcile themselves and return to normality. The feeling I get is that the time at this present moment is not right. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

A petition at change.org posted after the July 7 attack calling on Glasgow City Council to end the Orange walks has gained more than 83,000 signatures.

James McLean, spokesman for the  Rising Star of Bridgeton Royal Black Preceptory said, “We feel we are being marginalised and demonised and that Glasgow City Council are acting clearly at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church.”

Scotland has experienced significant sectarian division since the Scottish Reformation of the 16th century, which led to the formation of the Church of Scotland, an ecclesial community in the Calvinist and Presbyterian tradition which is the country’s largest religious community.

Sectarianism and crimes motivated by anti-Catholicism have been on the rise in Scotland in recent years.

An April poll of Catholics in Scotland found that 20 percent reported personally experiencing abuse of prejudice toward their faith; and a government report on religiously-motivated crime in 2016 and 2017 found a concentration of incidents in Glasgow.

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