Retired archbishop disciplined after calling Pope Francis a ‘heretic’

CNA Staff, Oct 8, 2020 / 12:10 pm (CNA).- The Spanish Equality Minister said Wednesday it is “more than necessary” to repeal a law that requires parental consent for children aged 16 and 17 who want to procure an abortion.

Irene Montero said Oct. 7 in the Council of Ministers that “we demand, like so many [abortion advocates] from all corners of the world, the right of all women to decide about their bodies and we demand a freely decided motherhood and above all a full and free sexual life.”

The minority coalition government, formed by the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party and Unidas Podemos, also intends to promote sexual education and a right to the “newest forms” of contraception.

Abortion has been legal in Spain since 1985. The current abortion law, mandating parental consent for girls aged 16 and 17 to procure an abortion, was was adopted in 2015 when the People’s Party was in power. The People’s Party is now the largest group in the opposition.

Women in Spain can get state-paid abortion on demand during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, up to 22 weeks in cases of serious health risks to the mother or baby, and for all nine months if the fetus has anomalies incompatible with life, or an extremely serious and incurable disease.

According to the latest data from the Ministry of Health, during 2018 there were 95,917 abortions performed in Spain; 310 on girls under 15 years of age, and 9,518 on girls 15 to 19.

In the US, most states require minors to obtain parental consent before procuring an abortion.

Such a law was adopted in Florida in June. The state’s bishops commented that “this common-sense measure simply holds abortion to the same consent requirements as most every other medical decision involving a child, including simple interventions such as taking an aspirin or getting ears pierced.”

“As Catholics, we condemn abortion as a grave injustice that denies the fundamental human right to life. However, as long as abortion is legal, we support measures such as parental consent that will reduce the grave harm it inflicts,” they added.

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Sacred art under construction at Centro Aletti. / Credit: Vaticano/EWTN News

Rome Newsroom, Aug 1, 2024 / 16:16 pm (CNA).
As Church leaders and Catholic groups around the world increasingly call for the removal of sacred art created by Father M… […]

Copenhagen, Denmark, Jun 8, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Danish parliament has repealed an anti-blasphemy law at a time when such laws are still used around the world.

“I am glad they are dropping the law. But the law was almost never used in the last 46 years, so it is only a small step,” Paul Marshall, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, told CNA. He thought it significant that it had not been used in recent instances of blasphemy against Christians.

“Throughout the world blasphemy laws and accusations are misused, and they are bad even if used as intended,” Marshall said. “They are vague, and are frequently used against dissenters and critics of dominant religious and political views. Most of their use is against anyone accused of criticizing Islam.”

Bruno Jerup, a spokesman on church issues for the Denmark’s Red-Green Alliance political party, characterized the Danish law as “an unnecessary narrowing of freedom of speech” that “sends the wrong signal to the world that it is acceptable to be punished for criticizing God and religions,” the Copenhagen Post reports.

The Danish People’s Party had also supported repealing the law, while the Social Democrats were supportive of the legislation.

In the history of the law, only eight cases were brought under it. Only two sets of convictions have resulted. A 1938 conviction punished four people who hanged up public posters and printed in newspapers mockeries of Jewish belief. In 1946, two people were convicted for mock-baptizing a doll during a masked ball in Copenhagen.

The law was dropped in response to charges filed earlier this year against a man who in 2015 burned a copy of the Quran and posted the video to Facebook. The accused could have faced a sentence of up to four months in prison, but the prosecutor sought only a fine. His trial had been scheduled for June.

While Marshall said he would agree with some opposition to blasphemy, he opposed criminalization, saying that “dragging the modern state into the matter increases hostility and will not have the desired effect.”

He said the repeal of the Danish law would probably have little effect around the world. Some might take it as a sign that they should ease anti-blasphemy laws, while others “would be outraged that a man burned a Quran and was unpunished.”

In some countries such laws “tend to lead to mob and vigilante violence – which is a far greater threat to those accused than is state action.”

Marshall cited the case of Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, a Christian and former governor of Jakarta more commonly known as Ahok, who last month was sentenced to two years in jail for criminal blasphemy in Indonesia. Ahok denied the charge, saying Islamic hardliners’ edited version of his speech wrongly triggered the charges alongside mass protests.

Ahok’s speech accused some of his opponents for misusing a Quran verse to trick people into voting against him.

Marshall was also critical of hate speech laws in Denmark and elsewhere.  

One such law was used in the case against Lars Hedegaard, a Danish Marxist historian and journalist who has made strong criticisms of Islam. In 2011 he was fined on evidence of a recording of his remarks at home which criticized Islamic society, including claims of familial rape. The fine was thrown out in a 2013 decision by the Danish Supreme Court.

“In practice these function as quasi-blasphemy laws, or are ways of silencing unpopular views,” Marshall said.

“I would like to see these ‘hate speech’ laws repealed as well, for the reasons just mentioned, but also because they don’t work – they increase conflict and hatred, not diminish it.”

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