Eucharistic
spirituality
During
a June 19 meeting with the bishops of Pakistan,
who were making their ad limina visit to Rome,
Pope Benedict XVI emphasized the central importance
of Eucharistic spirituality in the life of the
Catholic Church. The Eucharist 'reorients the
way Christians think, speak, and act in the world,'
the Pope told the Pakistani bishops. The Pope
said that the spiritual perspective nourished
by the celebration and adoration of the Eucharist
is particularly important in Pakistan, where the
seeds of faith have grown despite 'conditions
that sometimes hinder their capacity to take root.'
For Christians who face the threat of violence,
the Pope said, the Eucharist furnishes a constant
reminder that 'the absurdity of violence never
has the last word, for Christ has conquered sin
and death through His glorious resurrection.'
Although
the Pope's words hinted at a recognition of the
problems that the Christian minority faces in
an overwhelmingly Islamic country, where threats
and intimidation against Christians have become
increasingly common, the Holy Father encouraged
the Pakistani Church leaders to cultivate inter-religious
ties. The Catholic people, he said, should 'foster
genuine fellowship and create ever expanding networks
of charitable solicitude for their neighbors.'
Pope Benedict went on to observe that Catholic
schools, hospitals, and charitable institutions
continue to make important contributions to the
welfare of Pakistani society. These efforts, the
Pontiff said, 'reveal the human face of God's
love for each and every person.' [CWNews] 1458.2
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Politics
as a form of charity
The
Vatican is proposing politics as a form of charity,
but affirming that the Church has an essential
contribution to make to the political world. Cardinal
Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council
for Justice and Peace, opened a two-day Vatican
conference this morning focused on 'Politics,
a Demanding Form of Charity.' The meeting, being
held at the headquarters of that dicastery, will
offer guidelines for a politics based on a Christian
perspective, in areas such as life and the family,
taxes, international cooperation and biotechnologies.
In his opening address, Cardinal Martino said
that 'in Christ's message, proclaimed by the Church,
the human community can find the strength to love
one's neighbor as oneself, to combat everything
that is opposed to life, to acknowledge the fundamental
equality of all, to struggle against every form
of discrimination, and to overcome a merely individualist
ethics.'
Referring
to the topic of laicism, sometimes understood
as the exclusion of religion from public life,
the president of the Vatican council expressed
the conviction that Catholicism will never turn
its back on faith's public role. 'If politics
pretends to act as if God did not exist, in the
end it dries up and loses the very awareness of
intangible human dignity,' he said. Cardinal Martino
defended democratic pluralism, but stressed that
there are values that cannot be negotiated, such
as respect for human life, the family, and the
right to education. 'When rights are claimed in
an individualist way, removing them from a reference
to truth, solidarity and responsibility, democracy
itself is corroded and elements of opposition
are introduced,' he warned. The cardinal concluded
by proposing that genuine democracy needs a soul:
a conviction about the unconditional value of
the human person, open to others and to God, in
truth and goodness. [Zenit] 1458.3
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Christian
communities of the Middle East
The
ancient Christian communities of the Middle East
must be ' supported by the entire Catholic Church,'
Pope Benedict XVI said in a June 19 talk to participants
in an annual conference of ROACO, the Aid Agencies
for the Oriental Churches. The Holy Father mentioned
his concern for the Chaldean Catholics of Iraq,
where Archbishop Paulos Faraj Raho died in February
after being kidnapped outside his cathedral in
Mosul. The Christian minority in Iraq has been
subjected to frequent violence and intimidation.
The Pope also mentioned Lebanon, where a recent
political accord suggests that the country may
have 'found the path of dialogue and understanding.'
Christians there still need help as they strive
to be 'a sign of the real possibility for peaceful
and constructive coexistence,' he said.
Pope Benedict said that he hopes the beatification
of Father Jacques Ghazir Haddad in Lebanon this
Sunday, June 22, would 'touch the hearts of young
Lebanese.' Even in countries where the Christian
presence is very small, activities supported by
ROACO can bear witness to 'the communion of love
proper to the universal Catholic Church,' the
Holy Father said. He pointed to the examples of
Armenia and Georgia, countries that were 'among
the first to receive the light of Christ.' Pope
Benedict reminded the ROACO group that Cardinal
Leonardo Sandri, the prefect of the Congregation
for Eastern Churches, had recently visited the
Holy Land to tell Catholics there that their welfare
is 'vital for the entire Church.' The Pope concluded
his talk with a appeal to the world's political
leaders 'that the Middle East-- in particular
the Holy Land, Lebanon, and Iraq-- may be offered
its longed-for peace and social stability, while
respecting the fundamental rights of the person,
including that of real religious freedom.' [CWNews]
1458.4
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Constantinople
and Rome 'dual unity'
The
Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople has responded
favorably to a suggestion by the head of the Ukrainian
Catholic Church for a system of 'dual unity' in
which Byzantine Catholic churches would be in
full communion with both Constantinople and Rome.
Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople welcomed
the proposal in an interview with the magazine
Cyril and Methodius, the RISU news service
reports. The acknowledged leader of the Orthodox
world suggested that the 'dual unity' approach
would produce something akin to the situation
of the Christian world in the 1st millennium,
before the split between Rome and Constantinople.
Cardinal
Lubomyr Husar of Kiev, the Major Archbishop of
the Ukrainian Catholic Church-- the largest of
the Eastern Catholic churches-- had offered the
possibility that Byzantine Catholics might seek
communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, without
giving up their communion with the Holy See. Patriarch
Bartholomew expressed distinct interest in the
idea, saying that 'the mother Church in Constantinople
holds the doors open for the return of all her
former sons and daughters.' Patriarch Bartholomew
acknowledged that a restoration of unity would
require study, and important differences would
have to be overcome. However, he observed that
major steps have already been taken to resolve
disagreements-- most importantly the revocation
of the mutual decrees of excommunication issued
by Rome and Constantinople against each other
in 1054.
While Catholic and Orthodox theologians continue
their efforts to reach agreement on doctrinal
questions, Patriarch Bartholomew said, 'the people
at the grass roots have to come together again.'
He pointed to the 'dual unity' idea as a possible
step toward practical unity. Cardinal Husar, the
Ukrainian Catholic leader, has suggested in the
past that the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholics
of Ukraine should unite under the leadership of
a single patriarch. That provocative suggestion
is particularly interesting for two reasons. First,
Byzantine Catholics in Ukraine argued for years--
particularly since emerging vigorously from the
shadow of Communist repression-- that the Ukrainian
Catholic Church should be accorded the status
of a patriarchate. Both the late Pope John Paul
II and Pope Benedict XVI have expressed some sympathy
for that suggestion.
The Byzantine-rite Ukrainian Catholic Church is
substantially larger than other Catholic churches
that are recognized as patriarchates, including
the Maronite, Melkite, Chaldean, Syrian, Armenian
and Coptic Catholic churches. However, Kiev is
not a historical patriarchal see like Antioch
or Alexandria. And the recognition of a Ukrainian
Catholic patriarchate would be sure to provoke
outrage from the Russian Orthodox Church, which
has complained frequently and bitterly about the
activities of Byzantine Catholics in Ukraine.
Second, the Orthodox Church in Ukraine is badly
split, with three different groups competing for
recognition as leaders of the Byzantine faithful.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church- Kiev Patriarchate
is led by Patriarch Filaret, who was once acknowledged
by Moscow but broke with the Russian Orthodox
Church after Ukraine gained political independence.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church- Moscow Patriarchate
retains ties to Russian Orthodoxy. The Autocephalous
Orthodox Church of Ukraine, smaller than the other
two, has frequently sided with the Kiev patriarchate
in efforts to form a single, unified Orthodox
Church in Ukraine, independent from Moscow. [CWNews]
1458.5
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The
Family
Humanae
Vitae
Pope Paul VI's reassertion of Catholic doctrine
on artificial contraception, the encyclical Humanae
Vitae, was a 'defence of the dignity of woman'
said a senior curial cardinal.
'The
encyclical is not simply a 'no' to contraception
but also a defence of the dignity of woman against
whatever might degrade her greatness as a person,
wife and mother, reducing her to an object of
pleasure,' said Giovanni Cardinal Re, speaking
to a meeting in Rome of the American Academy of
Fertility Care Professionals. The conference theme
was this year's 40th anniversary of Humanae Vitae,
CNS, the news service of the US Bishops' conference,
reports.
Cardinal
Re has been a member of the Roman Curia since
1963 and currently serves as Prefect of the Congregation
for Bishops, one of the most important positions
in the Catholic Church. He said that the encyclical
defended the value and sacred character of human
love against a dehumanising modernistic technological
approach to sexuality.
When
it was published in 1968, the encyclical was in
many cases indignantly rejected and ultimately
ignored, even by some Catholic bishops. In the
same year, the bishops of Canada laid the template
for other national episcopal reactions when they
rejected it at their meeting at Winnipeg in the
now-infamous 'Winnipeg Statement'. Since then,
while abortion, sexually transmitted diseases
and divorce rates continue to soar, Canadian Catholics
hear little about the social, moral and physical
dangers of artificial contraception from the pulpit.
Cardinal
Re said that pastoral experience has shown that
'the encyclical, which at first appeared to be
restrictive, in reality has actually safeguarded
the unity and fullness of conjugal love.'
Cardinal
Re's has not been the only voice that has decried
the abuse of women that was greatly aided by freely
available contraception.
Pro-family
opponents of artificial contraception point out
that while there were a number of reasons for
the general breakdown of marriage after the 1960s,
the hormonal contraceptive pill significantly
contributed. The pill, they maintain, turns premarital
sex into a recreational activity like any other,
creating a mentality in which couples enter marriage
with a consumerist mentality that effectively
makes a commodity of the spouse. The pill has
removed the 'problem' of pregnancy, which has
also allowed ever younger girls to be exploited
by older men, a result that is often carried over
into the abortion industry when contraceptive
devices or chemicals fail.
Until
1930, not only did every Christian denomination
teach that contraception is a grave moral wrong,
but even the mainstream media and politicians
disapproved. The US had laws in every state forbidding
selling birth control devices. Through the early
part of the 20th century, efforts to legalise
contraception, pioneered in the US by Planned
Parenthood foundress and racial eugenicist Margaret
Sanger, were met with stony disapproval from the
public.
However,
with the Anglican Church's guarded approval of
contraception at the 1930 Lambeth Conference,
a process of widespread acceptance of contraception
was initiated, with numerous other donominations
and churches following suit. Paul VI's 1968 encylical,
Humanae Vitae, came as a shock to many
in the Catholic Church, who had expected the Church
to give its blessing to artificial contraception.
Instead the Holy Father issued an uncompromising
condemnation of all artificial contraception.
[LifeSiteNews] 1458.6
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United Nations
'Reproductive
health', abortion, homosexuality
The
Catholic Family Institute (C-Fam) reports from
New York on repeated efforts by the UN Population
Fund (UNFPA) and others to insist that there is
a new Millennium Development Goal on reproductive
health. There isn't one but they continue to insist
that there is. The MDGs were created by heads
of state many years ago and they chose not to
include a goal or target on reproductive health.
It was tried again a few years ago and failed.
Still the pro-abortion radicals insist. We report
on their latest efforts. We also report on a new
regional international treaty that has been ratified
by seven countries and that is circulating in
Latin American that promotes abortion and homosexuality
for adolescents.
New Youth Convention threatens to promote homosexuality,
abortion
Piero A. Tozzi writes : 'With the recent
addition of Bolivia, seven counties have now ratified
a treaty called the Ibero-American Convention
on the Rights of Youth (ICRY), a document that
worries Latin American social conservatives for
its not-so-veiled promotion of radical social
policies. The document includes references to
'sexual and reproductive health' as well as 'sexual
orientation.'
Representatives from 14 Latin countries and the
two major Iberian nations, Spain and Portugal,
signed the Convention in Badajoz, Spain, in October
2005. The Organización Iberoamericana de
Juventud (OIJ) spearheaded the drafting of the
ICRY, with backing from the United Nations Population
Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Department of
Economic and Social Affairs, and Spain's socialist
government.
In accordance with its provisions, the treaty
went into effect on March 1 after Costa Rica became
the fifth country to adopt the document. In addition
to Costa Rica, the other countries that have formally
ratified the ICRY are Bolivia, Ecuador, the Dominican
Republic, Honduras, Spain, and Uruguay.
The Convention has met some resistance, however.
The Peruvian Congress rejected the treaty over
concerns that 'sexual orientation' language was
a backdoor attempt to soften resistance to homosexual
'marriage.' Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
El Salvador and Andorra have thus far refrained
from signing ICRY, and Mexican pro-family groups
are running a campaign urging Mexican President
Felipe Calderón that the government not
ratify it.
The Madrid Declaration, a separate document issued
in November 2005 to promote 'sexual and reproductive
health rights' signed by the OIJ, specifically
referenced implementing ICRY's sexual education
provision. Article 23 of the ICRY states that
sex education will be imparted at 'all educational
levels,' oriented 'to full acceptance and identity
[of sexuality], as well as the prevention of sexually-transmitted
diseases.'
Latin American pro-lifers are wary of inclusion
of a right to 'sexual and reproductive health.'
The term has been used by UN agencies and powerful
non-governmental organizations as a stalking horse
for promoting abortion, even though no international
treaty has defined reproductive health synonymously
with abortion.
Under the ICRY, countries are required to report
every two years to OIJ's Secretary General. There
is, however, no formal compliance monitoring mechanism,
and ICRY's juridical scope is not clearly defined.
Supporters nevertheless see it as a 'legal tool'
for young people whose rights under the Convention
have been breached. On the eve of the Convention's
entry into force, Costa Rica's ambassador to Spain,
Melvin Alfredo Saenz, reportedly told OIJ's Secretary
General Eugenio Ravinet Muñoz that his
nation was fulfilling both an 'ethical obligation'
and a 'juridical duty' in ratifying the ICRY.
An upcoming July Andean region youth and human
rights gathering in Cartagena de Indias, Colombia,
sponsored by the Comisión Andina de Juristas
and the Agencia Española de Cooperación
Internacional, is expected to focus on how to
utilize ICRY as a juridical instrument. According
to the Inter-American Development Bank, representatives
from government, civil society and academia will
obtain specialized training in human rights implementation
using the ICRY.
Stealth Strategy
Samantha Singson writes : 'The United Nations
Population Fund (UNFPA) and other United Nations
(UN) agencies and officials over the last several
months have been boasting of a 'new target' of
'universal access to reproductive health by 2015'
under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)
adopted with much fanfare eight years ago.
Given that the MDGs were developed and passed
by a meeting of heads of state after months of
negotiations, a new target would have to have
been passed by explicit agreement of the General
Assembly. UNFPA claims that there is a new target
based on a single sentence buried in Annex II
on page 73 of a 76 page Secretary General's Report
(A/62/1) which was adopted by the General Assembly
last year.
More than 150 heads of state, the largest gathering
of its sort in history, negotiated the MDGs in
2000. Their agreement consisted of eight broad,
largely non-controversial goals such as eradicating
poverty and hunger, achieving universal primary
education, and reducing child mortality. None
of the MDGs makes any mention of 'reproductive
health' and neither does the Millennium Declaration
upon which they are based.
The reason UNFPA and other groups are eager to
adopt a new MDG on 'reproductive health' is that
the term is then used to promote abortion, even
though the General Assembly has never agreed to
such a definition.
In the lead up to the five year review of the
MDGs three years ago, pro-abortion advocates,
including the International Planned Parenthood
Federation and UNFPA, launched aggressive campaigns
to get governments to agree to a new goal on 'reproductive
health.' Their efforts were defeated.
The 2005 meeting of national leaders decided against
issuing new MDGs and instead issued a political
declaration that did endorse 'reproductive health,'
but it is considered a non-binding, aspirational
document that has no force in international law.
Since those failed attempts to create a new and
separate MDG on 'reproductive health,' abortion
proponents have tried to attach 'reproductive
health' to the existing MDGs.
The United States (US) consistently asserts that
a target on 'reproductive health' has never been
agreed to by member states. At the board meeting
of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
earlier this month, the US delegation took issue
with the latest UNICEF report which includes a
reference to a 'reproductive health' target under
the MDGs.
US Representative to UNICEF Bill Brisben stated
that while the US is committed to achieving the
core MDGs as agreed to in the Millennium Declaration
and reaffirmed in the 2005 Outcome Document of
the World Summit, the US 'does not support the
addition of new goals, targets, or indicators
to the internationally-agreed Millennium Development
Goals,' and that 'neither we nor other UN Member
States have agreed to the creation by the UN Secretariat
of a new MDG target on reproductive health.' [C-FAM]
1458.7
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Europe
Child
abandonment
The
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) will debate a draft resolution entitled
'Preventing the first form of violence against
children: abandonment at birth'(here).
The Council of Europe (which is distinct from
the European Union) has a Parliamentary Assembly
consisting of representatives who already sit
in the legislatures of the Council's 47 member-states.
Although the Parliamentary Assembly cannot pass
laws, it does pass resolutions which may have
significant influence on law, in particular human
rights law.
Although
it contains some good aspects (e.g. support in
crisis pregnancies), the draft resolution and
its accompanying report also promotes 'legal and
easier access to sexual rights and reproductive
health services' (article 9.4.) such as 'contraception
and abortion' (article 33.6). It is clear that
the resolution's message is that it is better
for women to kill their babies by abortion than
to abandon them, even than abandoning them to
institutions that will care for them and place
them for adoption. Even the resolution's title
('Preventing the first form of violence against
children: abandonment at birth') implies support
for abortion - an earlier form of violence against
children is in fact killing them before birth.
This fact is the reason why the United Nations
Convention on the Rights of the Child says, 'The
child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity,
needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate
legal protection, before as well as after birth.'
The
hijacking of the issue of child abandonment by
pro-abortion extremism is shocking, but unsurprising
considering that the resolution has been drafted
by the strongly pro-abortion British MP Mike Hancock,
under the chairmanship of Christine McCafferty,
a leader of the abortion lobby in the British
parliament.
Please
contact the representatives of your country in
the Assembly immediately, urging them to vote
to remove all anti-life language from the draft
resolution, and to vote against the draft resolution
if the anti-life langauge is not removed. Assembly
members should be asked to oppose articles 7,
9.4, 10.3, 17, 18, 19, 33.6, 33.7 and any other
articles which could be interpreted as support
for abortion or other anti-life/anti-family practices
(e.g. mass provision of contraception; value-free
sex education; attacks upon the work of faith
communities to save children; etc).
You
may also wish to remind Assembly members of the
words of the late Nobel Prize-winner, Mother Teresa:
'These concerns (for orphan children in India
and elsewhere in the world) are very good, but
often these same people are not concerned with
the millions that are killed by the deliberate
decision of their own mothers. And this is what
is the greatest destroyer of peace today, Abortion...For
the pregnant women who don't want their children,
give them to me.'
Contact
details for Assembly members can be found here.
Please remember to email any replies you receive
to political@spuc.org.uk [SPUC] 1458.8
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International news
Argentina
National sex-education programme
Argentina's
Episcopal Committee for Catholic Education has
denounced the nation's new national sexual education
programme for teaching that gender is a social
construct, promoting contraception and ignoring
abstinence, neglecting the ethical and moral dimensions
of sexuality, and circumventing parental authority.
Echoing similar concerns that have been raised
regarding sexual education programs in North America
and Europe, the bishops blasted the plan for omitting
'the ordering of human sexuality to love, obscuring
the sense of physical, spiritual, and moral complementarity
of men and women' and neglecting the importance
of marriage. In an apparent response to the program's
embrace of homosexual 'gender identity' ideology,
which teaches that one's true gender may be different
than one's physical gender, the bishops condemned
the program for conceiving 'sexual identity as
a socio-historico-cultural construct, ignoring
the fact that the human person is sexually differentiated
as a man or woman from biological conception.'
Countering the program's claim that 'the condom
is the only existing method for preventing (transmission
of) the AIDS virus', the bishops criticized the
fact that the document 'emphasizes and obligates
only the use of methods of prevention to avoid
contracting HIV-AIDS, which, besides being morally
objectionable, have produced negative and insufficient
results throughout the world.' 'At the same time,
abstinence and mutual fidelity are omitted completely
as forms of conduct that prevent the spread of
HIV-AIDS, despite the fact that they currently
are prioritized by the most outstanding medical
specialists, as is public knowledge.' The bishops
also decry the document's ommission of 'the role
of the family as the natural and primary agent
of the education of its children and its consequent
rights,' and its overemphasis 'on the biological-hygenic
model as the primary basis of promoting health
in general and reproductive health in particular.'
The
new sexual education program, which was approved
by the nation's Federal Education Council earlier
this month, appears in a document entitled 'Curricular
Outlines for Integral Sexual Education' The
bishops note that they are announcing their opposition
to the program after their attempts to cooperate
in the creation of a program that would 'consolidate
the harmonious and balanced education of the person'
were rejected. Adrián Dall Asta, Director
of the Parents Project Foundation, told La Nacion
that 'we're not against the law, but this document
does not acknowledge that parents are the primary
educators, and that there exist as many visions
regarding sexuality as there are parents.' Representatives
of RedFamilias (the Family Network) and Interpadres
(Interparents) also voiced concerns.[LifeSiteNews]
1458.9
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Congo
Papal visit?
President
Joseph Kabila Kabange of the Democratic Republic
of Congo met with Pope Benedict XVI in a private
audience on June 19, and invited the Pontiff to
visit his African country. During his conversation
with the visiting African leader, the Pope focused
on the violence in the eastern Kivu provinces,
emphasizing the need for protection of fundamental
human rights, and calling for 'an end to the suffering
of the civilian population' there. The Pope also
spoke about efforts to bring a lasting peace to
the Great Lakes region of Africa, the need to
provide adequate education for the country's young
people, and the status of Church properties that
were nationalized by past regimes. After his meeting
with the Holy Father, Kabila met separately with
Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, the Secretary for
Relations with States. [CWNews] 1458.10
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Ecuador
Abortion-boat runs aground
In 1999, abortion advocates devised a new strategy
to bring abortion to nations that protect women
and unborn children. After upsetting residents
of Ireland, Poland and Portugal, the Dutch-based
abortion boat recently arrived in the South American
nation of Ecuador, where abortions are illegal.
The pro-abortion group Women on Waves is behind
the abortion boat and the group said it received
an invitation from local abortion advocates to
head across the Atlantic. The organization recently
traded in its converted tugboat, or trawler, for
a high-end sailing vessel, but the group may be
regretting its decision. On its way to Ecuador,
the Women on Waves ship, Harmony, ran aground
in a tropical storm. The incident occurred two
week ago and WOW said it is 'almost sure it will
not be able to arrive in Ecuador for the planned
campaign.' The group tried to put a good face
on the predicament in a press release and said
its officials would spend their time in Ecuador
promoting the dangerous RU 486 abortion drug.
'To do a safe abortion with pills, there is no
need for a Dutch ship, as this is the age of worldwide
communication, Internet and mobile phones,' WOW
said. 'Women from Ecuador can be free to decide
themselves and take their lives in their own hands
with the support of local organizations.' [LifeNews]
1458.11
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Germany
Homeschoolers' prison sentence
The parents of a homeschooling family in the German
state of Hesse have each been sentenced to three
months in prison for the crime of homeschooling
their seven children. According to a staff attorney
for the Home School Legal Defense Association
(HSLDA), the sentence was issued to Juergen and
Rosemarie Dudek after the federal prosecutor,
Herwig Muller, said last year that he was dissatisfied
with the fines the couple had already paid for
homeschooling their children. As reported by WorldNetDaily
(WND), staff attorney for the Home School Legal
Defense Association, Mike Donnelly, was appalled
by the decision. 'Words escape me, it's unconscionable,
incredible, shocking.' He then affirmed, 'They
will appeal of course.' He concluded by summarizing
the actions of the prosecutor: 'You guys are rebelling
against the state. We're going to punish you.'
Homeschooling is illegal in Germany under a law
dating back to the Hitler era.
Homeschooling
families in the country have faced increasing
persecution in recent years, with police in several
cases physically transporting children to school
and even removing one teenager from her parent's
care. A spokesperson for the German homeschool
advocacy group, Netzwork-Bildungsfreiheit, commented
on the mandatory public school attendance laws,
which deem homeschooling families to be in breach
of the state's criminal code. 'It is embarrassing
the German officials put parents into jail whose
children are well educated and where the family
is in good order,' wrote Joerg Grosseleumern.
'We personally know the Dudeks as such a family.'
WND also reported that Judge Peter Hobbel, who
originally imposed the fines on the parents, criticized
the school system for denying the requests of
the parents to have their 'private school' recognized.
In a previous WND article, it was noted that the
Dudek's wrote a letter to the HSLDA regarding
a new law that gives German authorities the right
of 'withdrawal of parental custody as one of the
methods for punishing 'uncooperative' parents.'
The
law is essentially enacted when 'child abuse'
is suspected. Conveniently, German courts have
consistently deemed homeschooling a form of child
abuse. 'The new law is seen as a logical step
in carving up family rights after a federal court
had decided that homeschooling was an abuse of
custody,' read the letter signed by Juergen Dudek.
In a blog, Wolfgang Drautz, consul general for
the Federal Republic of Germany, attempted to
defend these new developments, saying the government
'has a legitimate interest in countering the rise
of parallel societies that are based on religion.'
Arno Meissner, the chief of the government's local
education department, has also promulgated the
government's intolerance of homeschooling families,
confirming they will continually rely upon the
mandatory school attendance law. [LifeSiteNews]
1458.12
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Ireland
Abortion statistics
The
number of Irish women traveling to England to
procure abortions decline in 2007, for the 6th
consecutive year, the Irish government's Crisis
Pregnancy Agency (CPA) reports. In 2007, 4,686
women gave Irish addresses when they checked into
abortion clinics in England. That number is down
from 5,042 in the previous year, and substantially
down from the 6,673 reported in 2001. Although
the statistics are imprecise, since woman may
give false addresses, officials at the CPA welcomed
the trend. The CPA suggested that pregnancy counseling
was cutting down the abortion rate among Irish
women. CPA statistics showed that 445 Irish women
traveled to the Netherlands for abortions in 2007.
That figure, too, was slightly down from the previous
year, when abortion clinics in the Netherlands
registered 461 Irish addresses. No other European
country reported a significant number of women
from Ireland obtaining abortions. [CWNews] 1458.13
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Italy
Sacred art
Sacred
art is in crisis, but a master's program at the
European University of Rome aims to help, says
one of the program's directors. Father Uwe Lang,
a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship
and the Sacraments and the new scientific director
of the program, spoke with ZENIT about the 'architecture,
sacred arts and liturgy' master's program. 'Today
more than ever, the Church needs to proclaim to
the world the beauty of God that shines in the
works of art that the faith has generated,' Father
Lang affirmed. 'Great masterpieces of sacred art
and music have been born in the Church, which
have the power to raise our hearts and lead us
beyond ourselves to God, who is beauty itself.'
Father Lang, who authored 'Turning Towards the
Lord: Orientation in Liturgical Prayer' (Ignatius
Press, 2005), said, 'Sacred art is directed to
the praise and glory of God and, at the same time,
is popular, because it must and can be understood
and touch the hearts of the faithful, also of
the simple faithful.'
Referring
to the importance that the Compendium of the
Catechism of the Catholic Church gives to
sacred art and to the use of the many works of
art as a vehicle of the mysteries of the faith,
Father Lang stressed that 'today more than ever,
in the civilization of image, the sacred image
can express much more than the word itself, given
that its dynamism of communication and transmission
of the Gospel message is exceedingly effective.'
However, Father Lang lamented, sacred art is in
crisis: 'a crisis of the deepest roots, a crisis
that has swept away, even before art, beauty itself,
of which it should be the bearer. The very concept
of 'fine arts,' of which the conciliar Constitution
on Sacred Liturgy speaks, is debated.'
Quoting
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Father Lang stressed that
'together with the loss of the beautiful, the
good and the true have also been lost.' 'On one
hand,' he said, 'there is a false kind of beauty
that does not raise us to God and his Kingdom,
but instead drags us down and awakens disordered
desires.' And on the other there is a need to
oppose what Remo Bodei has called 'the apotheosis
of the ugly,' which affirms that 'everything that
is beautiful is deceitful and that only the representation
of what is raw is the truth.' 'This cult to the
ugly does no less damage to the Catholic faith
than false beauty,' Father Lang observed. Recalling
the words of Fyodor Dostoevsky, according to whom
'the world will be saved by beauty,' the priest
specified that the author did not refer to just
any beauty but instead to 'the redeeming beauty
of Christ.'
In that context, the master's program aims to
'give answers to questions coming from many ecclesial
and artistic environments,' Father Lang noted.
'The perspective of the master's is to go beyond
a solely 'normative' vision of the plan toward
greater awareness of and devotion to that in which
one is engaged, when acting in the realm of architecture
and the sacred arts.' [Zenit] 1458.14
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Poland
Lech Walesa charge draws ire
A
new book, charging that Poland's former president
Lech Walesa collaborated with the Communist secret
police, has drawn the ire of Church leaders there.
The book, produced by staff members of the Institute
of National Remembrance-- an organization dedicated
to preserving the historical record of the Communist
era-- charges that Walesa was the agent known
as 'Bolek' in secret-police files, who worked
with the regime before the rise of the Solidarity
movement. Walesa has heatedly denied the charge.
Poland's
current President Lech Kaczynski, who has clashed
with Walesa in the past, has alluded to the charges
in public. Walesa responded by demanding a public
apology, saying that Kaczynski has 'disgraced
his name' by repeating the charges and threatening
a lawsuit to clear his reputation. Retired Archbishop
Tadeusz Goclowski of Gdansk has come strongly
to Walesa's defense, saying that the new book
'offends the entire nation' and 'damages Poland's
image.' The archbishop pointed out that he can
recall the years when Walesa suffered under the
Communist regime because of his activism in the
labor movement. [CWNews] 1458.15
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UK
(Northern Ireland)
Law 'breaches human rights'
Unmarried couples in Northern Ireland will be
allowed to jointly adopt children following a
ruling announced by Law Lords. The Adoption (Northern
Ireland) Order 1987 does not allow a couple to
jointly adopt a child if they are not married.
But this week judges in the House of Lords - the
highest court in the land - have said the law
breaches the Human Rights Act. An appeal was brought
to the Lords by an unmarried couple from Northern
Ireland. The woman, who cannot be named for legal
reasons, has a daughter from a previous relationship.
The man she lives with wants to adopt the girl
together with her mother. If the couple got married
they could lawfully adopt the girl, but they have
refused to do so. Adoption by unmarried couples
- including homosexual couples - was legalised
in England and Wales in 2002. However, critics
said this was more to do with adults' rights than
the best interests of children. The average length
of cohabitation is two years, at which point a
couple tends to marry or split up. Some 60 per
cent of cohabiting couples go on to marry, but
of those who do not 83 per cent will break up
within 10 years. If cohabiting couples have a
child, they are at least six times more likely
to split up than married couples. Historically,
this is why adoption law has required couples
to make a legal commitment to each other before
making a joint legal commitment to a child. [Christian
Institute] 1458.16
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UK
Animal-human hybrids
Creating human/cow hybrid cloned embryos has turned
out to be easier than researchers expected, said
a U.K. team. Scientists from Newcastle University
announced their findings during the May BIO biotechnology
conference in San Diego. The Financial Times
has reported that Lyle Armstrong, leader of the
human/animal hybrid embryo project explained to
the conference that the process of putting human
skin cell DNA in the place of the nuclei of a
cow's ovum has already produced roughly 270 hybrid
embryos. Dr. Armstrong told the FT that the project
was intended to remedy the shortage of human ova,
which he said are needed for stem cell research.
The
news service also said that no other research
team has communicated intent to produce hybrid
embryos on such a large scale. 'We might be able
to get eight to 10 human oocytes (ova) of sufficient
quality per month,' he said. 'We can get 200 cow
ova a day from the local meat industry.' Dr. Armstrong
also tried to convince listeners that the creation
of the cloned embryos is ethically sound. 'The
embryos are mostly self-regulating, because they
arrest naturally at 32 cells - which is quite
good from the ethical point of view,' said the
doctor. 'There is no way these embryos could develop
into a foetus.'
The
U.K.'s Human Fertilization and Embryology Act
has not been updated or amended since its institution
in 1990. As a result, over the last ten years,
the UK's Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority
(HFEA) has granted permissions on a case-by-case
basis for the creation of human embryos for research.
Currently, a controversial bill is working its
way through the legal system that would ratify
a host of anti-life decisions made over the years
by the HFEA, widely seen as the most permissive
government regulatory agency in the world.
This
past March a number of the U.K.'s most prominent
clergy, including Cardinal Keith O'Brien, denounced
the proposed bill. Bishop Patrick O'Donohue told
his congregation, 'As your bishop, I want to join
my voice to that of Cardinal Keith O'Brien and
others, in protesting in the strongest terms against
the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill'.
He said, 'It is not the defenceless, human-animal
embryo that is 'monstrous'; it is we ourselves
who have become 'monsters' for allowing the exploitation
of the unborn for our economic and medical gain.'
In January, despite pressure from pro-life activists,
the House of Lords refused to reject clauses in
the Human Fertilization and Embryology bill that
allow for the creation of and experimentation
on human/animal hybrid embryos. [LifeSiteNews]
1458.17
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UK
Enforced
sex lessons from the age of five
