Posted on 08/12/2022 12:05 PM (CNA Daily News)
European Court of Human Rights. / CherryX/wikmedia. CC BY-SA 3.0
CNA Newsroom, Aug 12, 2022 / 04:05 am (CNA).
The European Court of Human Rights has dismissed the case of an Iranian convert to Christianity, who is appealing his deportation from Germany back to Iran, on the grounds of religious freedom.
Campaigners fear that the court’s decision means that the 44 year-old, will likely face prison or death, on account of his religious conversion.
Hassan – whose name has been changed to protect his identity and is recorded only as “H.H” in public records – is a cabinet maker who applied for asylum in 2018 and is currently residing in Germany where he can freely practice his faith.
After he, his wife and his family converted to Christianity, security forces in Iran stormed their house confiscated their books, computer, passports and Bible. He then fled to Germany with his family via Turkey.
In a statement released August 11, Lidia Rieder, Legal Officer at ADF International, warned that Iran was one of the most dangerous places in the world for Christians. She said: “No one should be persecuted for their faith. Iran is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for Christians, and converts are particularly at risk. In the last year, religious persecution has greatly worsened. So-called “religious deviants” can be given prison sentences, national security charges are continuously used to target religious minorities. The courts in Germany must take this into account when processing asylum applications.”
Hassan’s conversion to Christianity was inspired by the witness of his brother-in-law who was imprisoned for his practicing his Christian faith and subsequently killed. His brother-in-law’s wife was also abused.
“My wife’s brother had become a different person by becoming a Christian. We wanted to see if we would get this feeling when we became Christians,” H.H. said in his application to the German authorities.
But the Greifswald Administrative Court, which heard Hassan’s case after it was rejected by the German authorities, said it was “not particularly likely” that a Muslim would convert to Christianity given what had happened to his brother in-law and his wife, following their conversions.
This week, the European Court of Human Rights then refused to hear arguments in Hassan’s defence, which campaigners claim leave him at significant risk of deportation.
In a statement prepared by ADF International, Hassan explained: “I had had many problems in Iran…I had many questions, but I was not allowed to ask them. When I asked questions, I was beaten at school. This led me to want to know which God I was facing. One day my brother-in-law said to me and my wife that he had good news. There is a treasure, there is a living God, Jesus Christ, we are His children and not His slaves…He said there is a free salvation available…In Germany I share the Gospel, I organize prayer circles here in the accommodation. I want to be a good example, to win the others to faith in Jesus Christ. My greatest goal would be for my children to be able to find Christ in freedom, and to do good.”
In August 11 statement, Kelsey Zorzi, Director of Global Religious Freedom at ADF International, said: “Iran systematically fails to protect its citizens’ right to religious freedom. Iranian law must be amended to be brought into accordance with international human rights law, which protects the right of every individual to choose and freely practice their faith. Until this happens, countries like Germany have a responsibility to help to protect vulnerable religious minorities when they have an opportunity to do so. Ignoring that responsibility can have fatal consequences.”
Posted on 08/12/2022 12:00 PM (CNA Daily News)
Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, Nicaragua, is monitored by police in early August 2022. / Photo credit: Diocese of Matagalpa
Denver Newsroom, Aug 12, 2022 / 04:00 am (CNA).
A bishop under house arrest, priests harassed by the police, the Missionaries of Charity expelled, and numerous restrictions on worship: this is the situation that the Catholic Church in Nicaragua is experiencing today under the current government of President Daniel Ortega.
But how did the Central American country come to such a crisis?
This story begins in 1979 with the overthrow of the dictatorship of the Somoza dynasty and the first Sandinista government that led Nicaragua from then until 1990. And 40 years later, the hostilities and persecutions repeat themselves.
On July 19, 1979, the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), a leftist guerrilla group, overthrew Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the third and last member of the so-called Somocista dynasty — following his father, Anastasio Somoza García, and his brother, Luis Somoza Debayle — who had ruled the country since 1937.
In November 1979, the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference published a pastoral letter titled “Christian Commitment for a New Nicaragua” that, among other things, saw this “revolutionary process” as an opportunity for the country and called on the population to make the necessary sacrifices and to experience a “profound conversion of heart.”
The bishops also called for “ample space for freedom allowing it (the Church) to carry out its apostolic work without interference.”
Shortly after Somoza’s fall, a five-member National Reconstruction Governing Junta was established: three from the FSLN and two independents, including Violeta Chamorro (widow of Pedro Chamorro, director of the newspaper La Prensa, who was assassinated by Somoza) and Alfonso Robelo. The coordinator was Daniel Ortega.
Violeta Chamorro resigned from the Junta in April 1980 due to the socialist direction the FSLN was taking and the influence of Cuba in the government. Robelo resigned for the same reasons and later joined the political directorate of the Nicaraguan Resistance (called the “Contras” for “counterrevolutionaries”) that, financed by the United States, fought a civil war with the Sandinistas throughout the decade.
The Junta governed Nicaragua until 1985 and handed over power to Ortega, who had won the 1984 presidential elections with the FSLN, which had become a political party.
With the inauguration of the Junta, three well-known priests who promoted Marxist liberation theology assumed positions in the Sandinista government: Miguel D’Escoto was minister of foreign affairs (1979-1990); Ernesto Cardenal was minister of culture (1979-1987); and Edgar Parrales was vice minister deputy director general of the Nicaraguan Social Security Institute (1979-1980), minister of social welfare (1980-1982) and Nicaraguan ambassador to the Organization of American States (1982-1986).
The participation of these priests in the government caused tensions with the bishops. Although the episcopate initially authorized this participation, in January 1980 the bishops’ conference decided that they could no longer be part of the Sandinista government.
In April of that year, Pope John Paul II received the Nicaraguan bishops at the Vatican and told them in an address that “an atheist ideology cannot be the guiding instrument of the effort to promote social justice, because it deprives man of his freedom, of spiritual inspiration, and of the strength to love his brother, which has its most solid and operative foundation in the love of God.”
A few weeks later, the bishops asked the priests to resign from their positions in the Sandinista government, but they refused.
In February 1984, John Paul II suspended ad divinis the three priests and Father Fernando Cardenal, Ernesto’s brother, who also participated in the Ortega regime. From that year until 1990, Fernando Cardenal was minister of education.
During the first Sandinista period, one of the members of the Catholic Church who stood out for his denunciations of human-rights violations was the archbishop of Managua, Miguel Obando y Bravo (1926-2018), whom John Paul II made a cardinal in 1985.
The archbishop was already known for denouncing human-rights violations during the Somoza dictatorship and didn’t remain silent in the face of the abuses of the Ortega regime.
In addition, his role was decisive in preventing the spread of the so-called “people’s church” promoted by priests and religious subscribing to Marxist liberation theology.
The FSLN government retaliated and targeted prominent pastors. In August 1982, agents from the regime dressed as police officers arrested Father Bismarck Carballo, who was then a spokesman for the Church and the director of a Catholic radio station.
The agents entered a house where the priest was and fabricated an alleged sexual scandal with a woman. They stripped him naked, took him out on the street, and published the false story in all the official media.
In February 1986, the U.S. secretary of state published the testimony of former Sandinista lieutenant Álvaro Baldizón Avilés, a defector who stated that the scandal involving Carballo was staged by the Ortega regime.
Another of Ortega’s outrages against the Church was the expulsion of 10 foreign priests in July 1984. The priests were accused of violating national laws and participating in anti-government activities for attending a march called by Obando y Bravo in solidarity with Father Luis Amado Peña, a priest accused of terrorism by the regime.
In the 1980s, clashes between the FSLN and the resistance or the “Contras” left tens of thousands dead. On Aug. 7, 1987, the Esquipulas II Peace Accord was signed in Guatemala to end the civil war in Nicaragua and achieve a “lasting peace” in Central America. The document called for free multiparty elections and the establishment of a National Reconciliation Commission.
Obando y Bravo and the then auxiliary bishop of Managua, Bosco Vivas Robelo, participated in this commission.
Ortega ran for president in the February 1990 elections and was defeated by Violeta Chamorro. Ortega ran again unsuccessfully in 1996 and 2001.
On Oct. 18, 1996, two days before the elections, Obando y Bravo told a story — which the press called “the parable of the viper” — exhorting Nicaraguans to be prudent and think about what is best for the country.
After losing the elections, Ortega — who was then leading the opposition — apparently made peace with the Catholic Church. In July 2003, the former guerrilla apologized for the “excesses” and “errors” of his government against Catholics in the 1980s.
In June 2004, Ortega proposed nominating Obando y Bravo for the Nobel Peace Prize, “in recognition of his struggle for national reconciliation” and the signing of the peace accords that ended the civil war.
That month, Obando y Bravo accepted Ortega’s request to offer the Sandinista-sponsored Mass for the thousands of dead in the civil war.
In July 2004, as part of the 25th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, Ortega publicly apologized for the abuses against the Catholic Church during his first government and explicitly referred to Carballo.
Ortega won the 2006 elections with 38% of the vote thanks to an electoral reform that lowered the percentage to win the presidency to 35% of the vote if there is a 5% margin over second place.
In February 2007, Ortega invited Obando y Bravo, then archbishop emeritus of Managua and 81 years old, to preside over the National Council for Reconciliation and Peace created by his new government. The cardinal accepted the position on a “personal basis” and had the support of the episcopate.
However, in September 2008, the bishop of Matagalpa, Jorge Solórzano, warned that while relations with the government seemed friendly, measures against the work of the Church were anticipated, such as the elimination of state subsidies for Catholic schools.
In November of that year, violence broke out again in the country after allegations of fraud in the municipal elections that gave 62% of the mayor’s offices throughout the country to the FSLN. The bishops made a strong call for peace.
In early 2009, tensions resumed between the Sandinista government and the Catholic Church. At the end of April, an email from the Nicaraguan presidency sent a document to the media that described the Nicaraguan bishops as corrupt, prompting a formal reaction from the episcopate.
In June, Ortega tried to silence the criticism that several bishops made about his government by calling them to pray instead of commenting on politics. The prelates responded that it’s not enough to pray if one doesn’t work for justice.
In April 2010, when the possibility of Ortega running for re-election in 2011 was being debated, the bishops called on the country to dialogue and denounced the “acts of transgression” against the constitution that specifically prohibited successive presidential terms.
However, the Supreme Court of Justice, with Sandinista members, allowed Ortega to run in the elections held on Nov. 6, 2011.
In this context, the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio José Báez, warned that Nicaragua was on the way “to a visible or covert totalitarianism” and requested the presence of international observers.
The secretary of the bishops’ conference, Bishop Sócrates René Sandigo, said that with this candidacy, the country lacked the rule of law and that distrust among the population had grown.
Almost a month before the elections, several bishops reported receiving threats.
The Sandinista leader won the elections with more than 62% of the votes cast, amid allegations of fraud. The Carter Center report said that, according to the assessments of national and international observers, the elections “were not transparent.”
In a statement, the bishops said that the legitimacy of the results was “totally questionable.”
After his third term, in which there was also friction with the bishops, Ortega decided to run for a fourth term.
In January 2014, the Sandinista majority in the National Assembly approved the constitutional amendment to allow Ortega’s indefinite re-election, which the bishops criticized. The legislature also gave the presidency the power to issue decrees with the force of law.
In June 2016, the episcopate called on Ortega to guarantee that the Nov. 6 elections would be transparent and with the presence of national and foreign observers.
However, Ortega won the elections again under allegations of fraud.
The current crisis in Nicaragua began in April 2018, during Ortega’s fourth term. The reform of the health and pension system triggered numerous protests throughout the country, which were violently repressed by the police and during which numerous bishops and priests received death threats.
In this context, the archbishop of Managua, Cardinal Leopoldo José Brenes; his auxiliary, Bishop Silvio José Báez; and the apostolic nuncio, Archbishop Waldemar Somertag, were beaten by a pro-government mob while making a pastoral visit to the Minor Basilica of St. Sebastian in Diriamba, 25 miles from the capital.
On July 13, 2018, police and paramilitaries shot up Divine Mercy parish in Managua, where young people who had protested against the regime had taken refuge.
Báez condemned the “criminal repression” of civilians on Twitter and asked the international community not to be indifferent. The prelate said that “we are already beginning to be a persecuted Church.”
Shortly after, the Catholic Church agreed to participate once again as a mediator in the national talks to resolve the crisis that had already left hundreds dead, but the negotiations were suspended.
In 2019 there was another attempt at talks between the government and the opposition, but this time the Nicaraguan Bishops’ Conference declined to participate and asked that “the laity be the ones who directly assume responsibility” for this process.
In March 2019, Pope Francis received Báez in a private audience at the Vatican. Two weeks later, Brenes reported that the pontiff asked Báez to move to Rome. Currently the bishop resides in the United States.
A year later, on July 31, 2020, one of the most symbolic attacks against the Church occurred. An unidentified individual entered one of the chapels inside the Managua Cathedral and threw a firebomb that destroyed the famous image of the Blood of Christ, a 382-year-old crucifix beloved by Nicaraguans.
When the presidential elections were held on Nov. 7, 2021, the main opposition candidates had already been imprisoned. Days before, the bishops’ conference said that each citizen should act considering what was the most just and best for the country.
It is estimated that absenteeism was 81.5%. The bishop of León, René Sándigo, was the only prelate who went to the polls. Ortega was re-elected for the fourth consecutive time with 75% of the votes.
After ordering the dissolution of 100 NGOs, the expulsion of the Missionaries of Charity and the closure of several Catholic media outlets, the government now has the bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, one of its strongest critics, in its sights.
Since Aug. 4, the prelate has been kept under house arrest at the chancery along with five priests, two seminarians, and three lay people.
That day, when the Church celebrated the feast of St. John Mary Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests, Álvarez came outside the chancery with the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance and denounced that the police sent by Ortega wouldn’t let his priests and collaborators enter his chapel to celebrate Mass.
After almost an hour of calling for dialogue and respect for the Catholic Church, the prelate returned inside the chancery and celebrated the Eucharist with his assistants.
However, that same afternoon, riot police blocked access to the chancery and would not let Álvarez, who had invited the faithful to go to the Matagalpa cathedral to celebrate the holy hour and Mass, leave the building.
The Sandinista regime has threatened to imprison the bishop, who has received expressions of solidarity only from the local episcopate and from a few other countries.
Attorney Martha Patricia Molina Montenegro, a member of the Pro-Transparency and Anti-Corruption Observatory, recently published an investigation titled “Nicaragua: a Persecuted Church? (2018-2022),” which documents 190 attacks and desecrations committed against the Catholic Church up to May of this year.
For experts like Molina, there is no doubt that the “dictatorship” of Ortega “has a frontal war against the Catholic Church of Nicaragua and its objective is to completely eliminate all those institutions related to the Church."
In the past, Ortega has called the bishops “terrorists” and “devils in cassocks.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 08/12/2022 09:32 AM (CNA Daily News)
The cross in the Valley of the Fallen is erected over a granite outcrop, 150 meters over the basilica. / Estefanía Aguirre
Madrid, Spain, Aug 12, 2022 / 01:32 am (CNA).
In a move that could destroy the largest cross in the world, Spain’s government wants to turn the world’s longest basilica into a “museum of the horrors of Franco.”
The Basilica of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen lies at the center of a memorial site, about 45 km (28 miles) northwest of Madrid.
The landmark under the towering cross includes an abbey and the basilica. The Spanish dictator Francisco Franco ordered its construction to honor the fallen of both sides during the Spanish Civil War. The bodies of more than 30,000 victims are buried in the complex.
A new law aimed at "the removal of Francoist symbols" could not only result in the removal of the cross at the memorial site — other public crosses in Spain have already been removed — but also force the Benedictine monks, the site’s custodians since 1958, out of the basilica’s adjacent abbey.
The final resting place of martyrs and victims of both sides of the Spanish Civil War is equally at risk: Their graves are expected to be exhumed as part of the government’s plans.
The Catholic Church has already recognized 66 of the dead buried at the memorial site as martyrs and will recognize three more in November.
There are also over 40 Servants of God whose beatification process is underway. The walls of the basilica’s side chapels, leading up to the main altar, hold relics of numerous saints.
In an interview with CNA, the prior administrator of the Valley’s Benedictine community, Father Santiago Cantera, said that “the problem is people’s great indifference and ignorance, but I think there are more people who are opposed to destroying this place than people who favor such a move.”
“Many people are fed up with [the government] stirring up issues about the war because what we really have in Spain are economic, social, and employment concerns,” he added on Aug. 3.
According to the prior, a former university professor with a Ph.D. in medieval history and author of 21 books, society needs to become aware of the Valley of the Fallen’s artistic, cultural, and religious values. To Father Cantera, these values are more important than political agendas.
“We cannot continue to use the Civil War of almost a century ago to argue in favor of political groups that do not have a project for the future and want to use the past to back up a Constitution for a new Republic,” the Benedictine said.
The ‘Democratic Memory Law’ was approved in July by the Congress of Deputies. It will be debated by the Senate this September.
The new law would enable the exhumation of the more than 33,000 victims from both sides of the Civil War. Some estimates believe the numbers to be as high as 50,000-70,000. The exhumation would also mean the destruction of about half of the basilica.
The Asociación para la Defensa del Valle de los Caídos (Association for the Defense of the Valley of the Fallen) is composed of 212 families who have relatives buried at the site. They come from both sides of the Civil War. Still, they are united in their firm opposition to any exhumation of their deceased family members.
The Association’s president and fierce defender of the Valley, Pablo Linares, hails from the family of a Communist who worked at the Valley under Franco after the Civil War.
The father, sister, and uncle of the monastery’s abbot emeritus, Father Anselmo Álvarez Navarrete, are also buried there.
The law will mandate the creation of a ‘National DNA data bank of victims of the Civil War’ and the eradication of foundations that “exalt” Franco’s regime – including the Foundation of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen.
The law will prohibit teachers from speaking positively about Franco.
The site’s name will also be changed from “Valley of the Fallen” to “Cuelgamuros Valley,” the area’s geographic name.
About the Valley of the Fallen
The basilica is an underground church carved inside a mountain within a precinct that covers 3,360 acres of woodland. The site also contains a Benedictine abbey and guesthouse adjacent to the basilica.
Franco ordered the construction of the basilica and the abbey to heal the wounds of the Civil War. The monks offer daily Masses at the basilica for the souls buried there and for Spain’s unity.
The services are accompanied by the Gregorian chants of the Escolanía, a boarding choir school for boys operated by the Benedictines.
The Escolanía is the only place in the world that teaches children how to read Gregorian chant in its oldest form, Gregorian paleography. They learn to sing by reading the tetragram and two even older pneumatic scripts. It currently has about 50 students aged between 8 and 18.
According to historian Alberto Bárcena Pérez, Franco wanted to bury as many victims as possible within the basilica and obtained the help of town halls and written authorization from the victims’ families.
Franco was buried behind the altar, although he is said to have never requested it. The government exhumed his body, despite opposition from Franco’s family and the monks, on 24 October 2019. Bárcena claims the exhumation was part of a Freemasonic Scottish rite due to how the authorities positioned themselves at the event. The monks privately celebrated numerous Masses and acts of reparation afterward.
Once the law is passed, the government would exhume the body of José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Falange, who is buried in front of the altar. He was shot to death by the Republicans, aged 33.
Franco and Primo de Rivera died on November 20, though decades apart.
Earlier this year, the Guinness World Records recognized the basilica’s cross as the world’s largest free-standing cross. It was measured to be 152.4 meters (500 ft) tall.
The book of records also features the basilica, 260 meters (853 ft) in length, the world’s longest. Built between 1940 and 1958, the church cost about $229 million to complete. Under Pope John XXIII, the church was elevated “to the honor and dignity of a minor basilica” in April 1960.
Due to the area’s excellent geological stability and isolation, it also has an underground laboratory of gravimetry and tides in two of its basements. Researchers from around the world use it to study earth tides, gravimetry, and absolute gravity.
The whole precinct operates through the Fundación de la Santa Cruz del Valle de los Caídos (Foundation of the Holy Cross of the Valley of the Fallen). The Foundation is owned by both the Government of Spain, managed previously by the Head of State but now by the government’s Patrimonio Nacional (National Patrimony) — and the Benedictine monks.
Patrimonio is in charge of obtaining finance, mainly by selling entrance tickets at the main entrance gate at the bottom of the Valley. The law states that it has to give part of this money to the monks to maintain the employees of the Escolanía and the guesthouse.
However, Patrimonio stopped paying the monks four years ago, creating economic pressure on the abbey, which is now maintaining the precinct with the help of private donations and other funds.
Architects have estimated the damages to the abbey and basilica would cost several million dollars to repair.
Patrimonio also blocks any maintenance works paid through private donations. The complex is entirely run down.
Fifteen years of “ferocious harassment”
Ever since the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero passed the ‘Historical Memory Law’ in 2007, tensions have been rising between the government and the religious community.
“We've been ferociously harassed,” said Fr Cantera.
“I had a tough time four years ago, but I took it as a purification from which I came out strengthened,” he said.
“It was all because of the media harassment, the attempt to make a public mockery of me in the Senate when they summoned me on the subject of exhumations.”
“Since there were families who opposed the exhumation of the remains of other fallen, as is currently the case, at that time, we (the monks) were forced to intervene and present an appeal, and the courts decreed a series of precautionary measures suspending the procedure,” he continued.
“From then on, as they had judicially lost the first battle, they began harassing me in the media and denigrating me as a person.”
Despite the struggles, the community has been receiving numerous young vocations. There are six monks under 30 years of age: three who have professed temporary vows, two with solemn vows, and one postulant soon joining.
The Benedictines take a vow of stability added to those of poverty, chastity, and obedience. When they go to a place, they usually remain there for life. Many have been martyred for this very reason throughout history.
Posted on 08/12/2022 00:50 AM (CNA Daily News)
null / Inked Pixels/Shutterstock.
Washington D.C., Aug 11, 2022 / 16:50 pm (CNA).
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops pressed the U.S. Senate to make the penalty for distributing crack cocaine the same as that imposed on those caught dealing powder cocaine.
In an Aug. 1 letter to Congress, the bishops announced their support for legislation passed in the House of Representatives that would eliminate a disparity in federal sentencing the bishops say has a disproportionate effect on Black people.
“Although crack and powder cocaine are simply two forms of the same drug, crack cocaine is cheaper; therefore, it is more accessible than powder cocaine to persons experiencing poverty, many of whom are persons of color,” the letter read.
“We cannot ignore the racial impact of current federal cocaine sentences when Blacks are more than three times as likely to be convicted for crack cocaine trafficking as for powder cocaine trafficking,” wrote Bishops Paul S. Coakley and Shelton J. Fabre of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development and Ad Hoc Committee Against Racism.
An amendment to add the Eliminating a Quantifiably Unjust Application of the Law (EQUAL) Act to the defense authorization bill passed the House of Representatives on July 19 with bipartisan support.
If approved by the Senate the EQUAL act would impose the same penalty on both forms of cocaine. In 1986 Congress passed the Anti-Drug Abuse Act which established separate sentences for cocaine and crack cocaine offenses. If two individuals were caught with the same amount of cocaine, the one with crack cocaine would receive a sentence 100 times as severe as the person convicted of distributing powder cocaine.
In 2010, Congress passed reforms to reduce that disparity to 18:1. Today, the penalty for 500 grams of powder cocaine is the same as for 28 grams of crack cocaine. The EQUAL Act would eliminate the disparity altogether.
In their letter, the bishops called for an end to long sentences for drug offenses and a focus on rehabilitation and treatment of offenders.
“As pastors, the Catholic bishops understand concerns regarding recidivism, substance abuse, and overdoses; yet public safety is not served by excessively long sentences. We believe these concerns would more effectively be addressed through programs that focus on root causes of crime through rehabilitation, treatment, education, literacy, and job-placement,” they wrote.
The EQUAL act has an uncertain future in the Senate. Since it has 11 Republican co-sponsors, it could pass as a stand-alone bill. However, the ranking Republican member of the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Charles Grassley, has his own bill to address disparities in drug sentencing. His legislation would reduce but not eliminate the disparity.
The prospect of the legislation's passage as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is far from guaranteed even though the legislation enjoys bipartisan support. Unrelated amendments attached to the NDAA often get removed in the process of reconciling the House and Senate bills.
Posted on 08/11/2022 22:12 PM (CNA Daily News)
Cardinal Joseph Zen, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong. / Yung Chi Wai Derek/Shutterstock.
Denver Newsroom, Aug 11, 2022 / 14:12 pm (CNA).
Cardinal Joseph Zen is set to stand trial next month, along with four other people, in connection to his role as a trustee of a pro-democracy legal fund. It appears he has not been indicted under Hong Kong’s national security law, which would have carried with it much more serious penalties.
Zen, 90, is the bishop emeritus of Hong Kong and an outspoken advocate for religious freedom and democracy, and a sharp critic of the Vatican’s 2018 agreement with Beijing on the appointment of bishops.
Hong Kong authorities arrested Zen on May 11, and he was reportedly released on bail from Chai Wan Police Station later that day. At the time it appeared he would be charged under Hong Kong’s national security law, the Beijing-imposed measure which criminalizes broad definitions of sedition and collusion with foreign forces. Zen was arrested alongside several other prominent pro-democracy figures, including lawyer Margaret Ng and singer-activist Denise Ho.
All were later charged in connection with a failure to register the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which helped pro-democracy protesters to pay their legal fees until it dissolved itself in October 2021. The defendants’ lawyers are arguing that they had the right to associate under Hong Kong’s Basic Law — essentially the constitution.
In addition to Zen, Ho, and Ng, cultural studies scholar Hui Po-keung and ex-legislator Cyd Ho are accused of failing to apply for local society registration for the fund between July 16, 2019, and October 31, 2021, the Hong Kong Free Press reported. All the defendants have pleaded not guilty; Cyd Ho is already jailed for a different charge.
The Sept. 19-23 trial will be conducted in Chinese with the closing arguments in English, HKFP reported. Without the national security law indictment, the defendants could face only a fine.
Cardinal Zen offered Mass after his court appearance in May and prayed for Catholics in mainland China who are facing persecution. “Martyrdom is normal in our Church,” Zen said. “We may not have to do that, but we may have to bear some pain and steel ourselves for our loyalty to our faith.”
Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China with its own government, and its citizens have historically enjoyed greater freedom of religion than on the Chinese mainland, where religious believers of all stripes are routinely surveilled and restricted by the communist government. But in recent years, Beijing has sought to tighten control over religious practices in Hong Kong under the guise of protecting national security. In 2020, a sweeping National Security Law came into force, criminalizing previously protected civil liberties under the headings of “sedition“ and “foreign collusion.”
Millions of citizens of Hong Kong, including many Catholics, have in recent years participated in large-scale pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong, which came to a head in summer 2019. Catholic pro-democracy figures such as Cardinal Zen, media tycoon Jimmy Lai, and lawyer Martin Lee have all garnered media attention for their arrests at the hands of Chinese authorities.
A Hong Kong priest told EWTN in April that the CCP is using ideological tactics such as re-education and propaganda to chip away at the freedom of religion in Hong Kong. A Reuters report from late December documented an October 2021 meeting at which Chinese bishops and religious leaders briefed senior Hong Kong Catholic clergymen on President Xi Jinping's vision of religion with "Chinese characteristics.”
The Vatican has shied away from public criticism of the crackdown on democracy protests in Hong Kong since it first entered into a provisional agreement with China in 2018. That deal was meant to unify the country's 12 million Catholics, divided between the underground Church and the Communist-administered Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, and clear a path for the appointment of bishops for Chinese dioceses. Despite the deal, persecution of the underground Church has continued and, according to some, intensified.
Posted on 08/11/2022 21:51 PM (CNA Daily News)
Olivia Newton-John arrives for G'Day USA Los Angeles Black Tie Gala Jan. 27, 2018, in Los Angeles. The singer and actress died Monday, Aug. 8, 2022, at age 73 after a decades-long struggle with breast cancer. / Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 11, 2022 / 13:51 pm (CNA).
Singer and actress Olivia Newton-John, perhaps best known for her role as Sandy Olsson in the 1978 film “Grease,” shared her favorite prayer last year. She passed away Monday at age 73.
The prayer was, she revealed in a 2021 interview, the Lord’s Prayer.
She began reciting it daily after she became pregnant with her only child, Chloe, she said on the podcast “A Life of Greatness.”
“I was close to losing her at one point,” she recalled. “I asked God to please save Chloe and, if he did, I would say the Lord’s Prayer every night for the rest of my life.”
“So I have,” she said. “I think it’s a beautiful prayer. It’s a powerful prayer. I believe in prayer, I think prayer is very powerful.” Chloe was born in 1986.
Newton-John learned the Lord’s Prayer as a child, she said, adding that her family attended church while her father served as the head of a Presbyterian college — Ormond College at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
“I believe all the beliefs have validity and meaning to a lot of people,” she added, “but I find that prayer a very powerful one.”
In response to her death, which came after a decades-long struggle with breast cancer, Capuchin friar and deacon Brother Vince Mary remembered Newton-John on Twitter. He shared that Newton-John attended Catholic Mass.
“She was a frequent visitor to our Capuchin Novitiate in Santa Ynez for masses,” Brother Vince Mary tweeted. “God grant her eternal rest!”
Rest In Peace to Olivia Newton John! She was a frequent visitor to our Capuchin Novitiate in Santa Ynez for masses.
— Fray Chente OFMCap (@BrVinMary) August 9, 2022
God grant her eternal rest!
He told CNA that Newton-John attended Mass frequently at the novitiate that has attracted other celebrity visitors — San Lorenzo Seminary in Santa Ynez, California.
Newton-John lived near the friars. According to the Santa Barbara Independent, she passed away at her 12-acre residence in Santa Ynez Valley.
In March 2020, she publicly shared her appreciation for one Capuchin Franciscan. Newton-John posted a poem on Instagram written by a Capuchin Franciscan in Ireland, Brother Richard Hendrick, where he wrote about responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was sent this poem by a friend and it said many things I was thinking — because I also believe that good things are coming out of this difficult time — which too will pass,” she commented. “Father Richard Hendricks says it so beautifully here.”
It is unclear what faith or religion Newton-John practiced before her death. During the 2021 podcast interview, she spoke about praying and chanting with her friends who are Buddhist and about experiencing spirits.
She also talked about life after death.
“Most humans, we want to believe that we go on,” she said. “I don’t know if that is so and I hope that I can let people know when it happens if it is.”
Posted on 08/11/2022 21:39 PM (CNA Daily News)
null / Gorodenkoff via Shutterstock.
Denver Newsroom, Aug 11, 2022 / 13:39 pm (CNA).
Religious freedom violations are among the claims of a federal lawsuit challenging mandatory “preventive care” coverage in employee health plans. But the lawsuit’s other challenges to federal rule-making could have far-reaching consequences.
Though the Texas-based plaintiffs echo previous challengers in objecting to abortifacient contraceptives as mandatory “preventive care,” they also object to mandatory no-cost coverage of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), a drug regimen intended to reduce the risk of HIV infection; STD tests and STD counseling; and drug use counseling.
“The government cannot possibly show that forcing private insurers to provide PrEP drugs, the HPV vaccine, and screenings and behavioral counseling for STDs and drug use free of charge is a policy of such overriding importance that it can trump religious-freedom objections,” said the lawsuit in Kelley v. Becerra.
The lawsuit was filed in 2020, but argued only last month before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor.
John A. Di Camillo, an ethicist and director of personal consultations with the National Catholic Bioethics Center, told CNA that the objections raise valid moral questions.
“It certainly is an important moral consideration to know whether or not funding this kind of drug or this kind of procedure may actually incentivize or encourage or enable your employees to engage in immoral behaviors,” he said Aug. 9.
Alleged religious freedom violations constitute one of the eight claims made in the lawsuit. This claim charges violations of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which requires that the federal government may not “substantially burden” the free exercise of religion, unless there is a “compelling government interest” in doing so, and it is carried out in the “least-restrictive” manner possible.
A narrow court ruling on the issue of religious freedom could avoid a broader ruling about administrative law. A broad court ruling, however, could eliminate all requirements that insurers provide preventive care coverage at no cost, Bloomberg Law reported in April.
The lawsuit describes one plaintiff, orthodontist John Kelley of Tarrant County, Texas, as a Christian with religious objections to purchasing some health plans that subsidize abortifacient contraception or PrEP drugs that “encourage homosexual behavior and intravenous drug use.” He does not need or want health insurance that covers Truvada or PrEP drugs “because neither he nor any of his family members is engaged in behavior that transmits HIV.” He has no desire for contraceptive coverage “because his wife is past her child-bearing years.”
The other plaintiffs are Kelley Orthodontics, Joel Starnes, and Braidwood Management, Inc. Some plaintiffs, like Braidwood owner Steven F. Hotze, also object to mandatory coverage of STD screenings and counseling for those engaged in non-marital sexual behavior.
The plaintiffs claim a grounds for class action because the mandates still limit their options for health insurance that excludes or limits coverage as they desire.
Di Camillo, who has worked on ethics reviews of Catholic health insurance programs, told CNA that self-insured plans mean the employer is “actually directly paying out of pocket for the medical expenses.” This is in contrast to standard insurance programs where a large outside company pays for expenses.
“There's a more direct relationship, and so there's a heightened level of moral concern or responsibility for the employer in those situations,” he said.
Other claims in the lawsuit involve aspects of administrative law known as the non-delegation doctrine, which requires Congress to provide agencies with sufficient principles, policy, and standards to guide their action. The Supreme Court has not sided with claims of excessive delegation since two cases in 1935. The lawsuit charges that Congress wrongly delegated the definition of “preventive care” to regulators under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had ruled that mandatory preventive care in employee health plans must include contraception, including drugs that can cause abortion. It did not provide exemptions for those with objections to the coverage. In 2014, the Supreme Court ruled against this mandate in favor of Hobby Lobby, a closely-held company whose Christian owners had a religious objection to abortifacients. In 2020, the high court ruled in favor of the Little Sisters of the Poor, who objected to providing contraceptive coverage in their employee health plans.
If the Kelley v. Becerra case results in a broad ruling against the regulatory mandates, it would eliminate mandatory no-cost coverage of cancer screenings, vaccines, counseling for alcohol abuse, diet counseling for those at risk of chronic disease, and other preventive services, National Public Radio reports. The American Medical Association has led a coalition of more than 60 medical organizations in warning against a broad ruling.
Di Camillo considered the ethical questions involved in health care plan coverage and employers’ moral objections.
“We don't want to be forcing a company to have to subsidize all of the consequences of immoral behaviors,” he said. “On the other hand, we can take the approach of a Christian mercy that sees we’re all sinners and sometimes people make bad decisions.”
“Certainly, in a Catholic perspective, we often look not to just whether something is tied to immoral behavior, but whether there are grounds for helping an individual in need, even if that need arises from immoral choices,” he said.
There are questions about whether the exclusions in the case would mean no coverage for those at risk of disease, such as a dependent minor, or no coverage for an employee at risk of disease because of an adulterous spouse.
There are also questions about whether a moral objection is too rigorous, but Di Camillo cautioned that objections should be taken seriously.
“I think there is a tendency to quickly assume someone else is misapplying or misunderstanding (ethics), (but) sometimes we ourselves may be the ones who are misapplying or misunderstanding.”
Di Camillo emphasized that employers do have a duty to make clear to prospective and current employees any conscientious objection exclusions in their health coverage so that “this is not sprung on them as a surprise.”
Posted on 08/11/2022 14:58 PM (CNA Daily News)
The 2021 March for Life in Berlin, Germany. / Rudolf Gehrig/CNA Deutsch.
CNA Newsroom, Aug 11, 2022 / 06:58 am (CNA).
According to a new representative poll, 58% of German Catholics do not like "the fact that the Pope and the Church speak out against abortions."
The Catholic weekly newspaper Die Tagespost commissioned the survey from the opinion research institute INSA Consulere, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner.
"Among Lutheran respondents, the opinion picture is even clearer: 67% do not support the position of the pope and the church on the protection of life," the Tagespost reported on Aug. 8.
The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is a grave evil and is never acceptable at any stage of pregnancy.
Pope Francis has repeatedly and strongly condemned abortion.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “Since the first century, the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.”
“Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law: You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.”
In July, a leading laywoman and co-president of the German "Synodal Way" demanded a "nationwide provision of abortion" across the European Union's most populous country.
Irme Stetter-Karp, president of the Central Committee of German Catholics (ZdK), acknowledged that abortion should not be considered a "regular medical service," adding, however, that the committee advocated for "ethically responsible action on the part of all those involved."
The Central Committee of German Catholics is the organizer of the controversial "Synodal Way," together with the German Bishops' Conference. As serving president of the lay committee, Stetter-Karp is also co-president of the German process.
In an open letter launched by the initiative “Maria 1.0,” several well-known German signatories criticize Stetter-Karp and call on the president of the German Bishops' Conference to cut ties with her, reported CNA Deutsch on Aug. 11.
Germany currently permits abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, with mandatory counseling at a state-approved center, as well as later abortions in certain circumstances.
The country of 83 million people recorded approximately 100,000 abortions in the pandemic year 2020.
Following the German federal government’s decision in March, the German bishops’ conference published a statement expressing cautious criticism of the government’s plans to lift the ban on abortion advertising.
Posted on 08/11/2022 12:00 PM (CNA Daily News)
Sister Lucia, seer of Fatima (left); detail of the sanctuary of Pontevedra (right) / Photo credits: Facebook, Virgin of Fatima / www.santuariodelasapariciones.org
ACI Prensa Staff, Aug 11, 2022 / 04:00 am (CNA).
The Shrine of the Apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima in Pontevedra, Spain, is in a dilapidated state. The place where Our Lady called for the first Saturday devotion — to make reparation to her Immaculate Heart on the first Saturday of the month for five consecutive months — needs urgent reconstruction work to avoid total ruin.
“It’s a shame that such a special place is in this state,” said Father Luis Manuel Romero, the delegate of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference for the Shrine of the Apparitions of Pontevedra.
The architects who have planned the restoration project for the shrine said that the wood supporting the roofing has been damaged by fungi and rotting due to humidity and water leaks so “the structure must be changed and waterproofed.”
In addition, in a substructure “the supports on the stone walls are deteriorated,” which is why it “has rained inside the shrine,” the priest lamented.
To address the situation, the Spanish Bishops’ Conference has acquired ownership of the place, which until a year ago was owned by the World Apostolate of Fatima in Spain.
Romero told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language sister news agency, that it is hoped the first phase of the restoration work “will be completed in October.” This includes the most pressing task, which is “to put the new roof on and to redo the floor in the cell of the apparitions.”
“A chapel will be built larger” than the existing one, he said, which will include the cell where one can venerate the exact place where, on Dec. 10, 1925, the Virgin Mary with the Child Jesus appeared to Sister Lucía.
The repair project has an estimated cost of about $900,000, of which only about $200,000 has been collected, an amount that won’t cover even the first phase of the work needed to be done. In addition, another $200,000 must be raised to pay for taxes not foreseen in the first estimate.
According to ACI Prensa, if funding is not obtained for this first phase, the project will be terminated.
Currently, funding is being sought through various foundations as well as public institutions such as the regional government of Galicia, but there is also the support of private benefactors.
The majority of the voluntary contributions are being collected through a crowdfunding website for the shrine in Pontevedra, www.santuariodelasapariciones.org, launched by a group of lay people encouraged by Father Javier Siegrist, the pastor of Holy Christ of Mercy parish in Boadilla del Monte in the Diocese of Getafe, Spain.
The Fatima message was revealed through various apparitions, most of them in Portugal. But not all of the apparitions occurred there.
First, an angel appeared in Aljustrel, Portugal, three times in 1916. Later, the Virgin visited the seers Francisco, Jacinta, and Lucía in the Cova da Iria and Valinhos between May and October 1917.
It was in the apparition of July 13, 1917, that the children were entrusted with the devotion of reparation to the Immaculate Heart of Mary on the first Saturdays of five consecutive months.
After the death of Francisco in 1919 and Jacinta in 1920, Lucia came under the protection of the bishop. The Virgin had already announced to her that she would survive the death of her cousins “some time longer” to be an instrument of the Lord.
“Jesus wants to use you to make me known and loved. He wants to establish devotion to my Immaculate Heart in the world,” Our Lady told her in 1917.
All this remained secret until a few years later.
The bishop arranged for Lucía to study at the Sisters of St. Dorothy school in Porto, Portugal, using the name Dolores to conceal her identity. When she turned 18, she sensed a vocation to the Carmelites, but the nuns convinced her to go to their novitiate in Tuy, near Pontevedra, Spain.
The novitiate of the sisters was in Spain due to the anticlerical laws in force in Portugal at the time.
There the sisters discovered that she didn’t have the school certificate, since taking the exam in Porto would have meant revealing who she was. So they couldn’t admit her to be trained as a teacher.
This is the reason why she was sent to Pontevedra to take care of manual tasks. Lucía’s vocation as a Carmelite nun seemed like a distant dream then. It was in that moment of desolation that the Virgin appeared to her with the Child Jesus.
It was Dec. 10, 1925, and Lucía’s cell was illuminated.
“Our Lady, as if wanting to instill courage in me, gently puts her maternal hand on her right shoulder, showing me at the same time her Immaculate Heart that she holds in her other hand, surrounded by thorns,” the visionary related.
At that moment, the Child Jesus spoke and said, “Have compassion on the heart of your Most Holy Mother, covered with thorns, with which ungrateful men pierce it at every moment, and there is no one to make an act of reparation to remove them.”
Next, the Virgin urged Lucía to reveal the devotion of the five first Saturdays that had already been communicated to the visionaries in 1917: “Announce that all those who for five months, on the first Saturdays, go to confession, receive Communion, say five decades of the rosary and keep me company for 15 minutes meditating on the mysteries of the rosary, with the purpose of making reparation to me, I promise to assist them at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for the salvation of their souls.”
Lucía recounted that on Dec. 15, “I hardly even remembered that” and that, while doing her tasks, she met a boy whom she tried to teach the Hail Mary and urged him to go to a nearby chapel to say a short prayer.
Two months later, in February 1926, she met the boy again and asked him if he had asked the Heavenly Mother for Jesus, as she suggested. The boy turned and said, “And have you spread throughout the world what the Heavenly Mother asked you to do?”
Then, at once, Lucía said, the little boy was transformed “into a resplendent Child.”
The Child insisted that the first Saturday devotion be disclosed because “many souls begin them, but few finish them” and only in order to receive the promised graces.
“The souls who make the five first Saturdays with fervor and make reparation to the heart of your Heavenly Mother please me more than those who make 15 but are lukewarm and indifferent,” the Child said.
Sister Lucía told the Child Jesus that many people find it hard to go to confession on Saturdays and asked if it could be done later. The Child Jesus replied, “Yes. It can even be made later on, provided that the souls are in the state of grace when they receive me on the first Saturday and that they have the intention of making reparation to the Sacred Heart of Mary.”
All this was revealed by Lucía in 1927, after she went to the tabernacle on Dec. 17 to ask how to reveal this devotion if it was part of the secret.
Lucía recounted that Jesus told her in a clear voice: “My daughter, write what they ask of you; and all that the Most Holy Virgin revealed in the apparition in which she spoke of this devotion, write it also.” The rest should remain secret, he said.
The Shrine of the Apparitions of Pontevedra also contains the altar where Lucía witnessed a vision of the Holy Trinity and received the message in which the Virgin requested the consecration of Russia.
This apparition took place in the city of Tuy on June 13, 1929, where the novitiate of the Sisters of St. Dorothy had been.
Both the apparitions of Pontevedra and Tuy are part of those approved by the Catholic Church regarding the message of Fatima.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Posted on 08/11/2022 02:00 AM (CNA Daily News)
null / Shutterstock
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 10, 2022 / 18:00 pm (CNA).
Catholic school leaders need to be aware that their schools could be cut off from the federal government's free and subsidized lunch program if their policies don't comply with the Biden administration's revised rules against LGBTQ discrimination, experts warn.
Earlier this year the administration re-interpreted Title IX's federal ban on sex discrimination to include “sexual orientation or gender identity.” Religious freedom and free speech advocates warn that the proposed rule change could be used to enforce mandates on hiring, bathrooms, using preferred pronouns, and dress codes.
The broadened definition now also applies to the National School Lunch Program, a federally funded meal assistance program administered by the Department of Agriculture that provides subsidized or free lunches to more than 30 million public and private school students from low-income households.
That change promises to put pressure on religious schools not aligned with the Biden administration’s LGBTQ agenda, especially those serving low-income populations that rely heavily on the federal funds.
Fifty-two percent of U.S. Catholic schools participate in the federal lunch program, said Sister Dale McDonald, vice president of public policy at the National Catholic Educational Association, which represents nearly 150,000 educators serving 1.6 million students in Catholic schools, universities, and religious education programs.
One private school, Grant Park Christian Academy in Tampa, Florida, managed to secure a religious exemption last week from the state's agriculture department — but the school had to file a lawsuit first to get it.
And Grant Park Christian’s religious exemption “was the only one approved by the federal and state government,” said Erica Steinmiller-Perdomo, legal counsel with the nonprofit Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented the school in court.
“Other religious schools are not protected and will need to seek their own religious exemption in writing," she told CNA.
"There is no telling how long it will take for the government to respond to them without a pending lawsuit," she added, "and they have no idea if they need to comply with the unlawful mandates in the meantime.”
Until then, the lawyer stressed, “All schools will continue to be injured by the Biden administration’s overreach in redefining Title IX without going through the proper processes."
The Tampa private school filed a lawsuit in July against Biden and Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried after Fried threatened to cut off the school's lunch money.
On Friday — just over a week after the lawsuit was filed — Fried informed the academy that the school’s application for a religious exemption would be approved, restoring the funds.
Patrick Reilly, president of the Cardinal Newman Society, a nonprofit organization that promotes and defends Catholic education, warned that although the lawsuit was a win for one school, religious schools that participate in the lunch program should be warned.
“The fact remains that a religious school was forced to sue the government to protect its constitutional rights, and every Catholic school needs to be ready to do the same,” Reilly told CNA.
“This was blatant bullying by the Biden administration to advance its radical agenda," he added.
"Moreover, they exploited the fact that many schools, including Catholic schools, felt compelled during the COVID pandemic to greatly expand their participation in the federal school lunch program," Reilly said. "You try to help needy families using federal money, and your religious freedom is endangered."
Several archdioceses contacted by CNA Wednesday did not respond for comment prior to publication time.
In a statement to CNA, the Archdiocese of New York said that it was "studying the applicability of the USDA’s Title IX regulations, and their potential impact on our Catholic schools.”
