Sunday, November 1, 2020

Amid protests, Polish president backs abortion for fatal fetal abnormalities October 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs

Amid protests, Polish president backs abortion for fatal fetal abnormalities

October 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 4Print

CNA Staff, Oct 30, 2020 / 01:01 pm (CNA).- Facing protests across the country after a court ruling prohibiting abortion for fetal abnormalities, the Polish president said Friday he would propose a bill permitting abortion in cases of fatal fetal abnormality.

Andrzej Duda said Oct. 30 he would introduce a bill to allow abortion “when prenatal tests or other medical indications show a high probability that the child will be stillborn or have an incurable disease or defect that will lead to the death of the child inevitably and directly, regardless of the therapeutic measures used,” Reuters reported.

Protests across Poland began after the constitutional court ruled Oct. 22 that a law permitting abortion for fetal abnormalities was unconstitutional. The Polish constitution says that the state “shall ensure the legal protection of the life of every human being”.

The court was asked to examine the law last year by a group of 119 MPs belonging to the ruling Law and Justice party, as well as two smaller parties.

About 1,000 abortions are legally procured in the country annually, the vast majority of them on the basis of fetal abnormality.

Abortion will continue to remain legal in cases of rape, incest, and risk to the mother’s life.

Duda initially welcomed the court ruling, telling the Warsaw daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna Oct. 23 “that abortion for so-called eugenic reasons should not be allowed in Poland. I believed and believe that every child has a right to life.”

The AP reported Oct. 29 that Duda had told RMF FM that abortion should be prohibited for non-fatal fetal conditions such as Down syndrome, but permitted for fatal abnormalities: “it cannot be that the law requires this kind of heroism from a woman.”

He said: “I believe that there should be a regulation which, in case of lethal defects, will unequivocally guarantee the rights on the side of the woman.”

Protesters have been blocking roads and bridges, and disrupting churches, across Poland. A mass protest is occurring Friday evening in Warsaw.

Supporters of abortion rights disrupted Sunday Masses across Poland this weekend. They have also left graffiti on church property, vandalized a statue of St. John Paul II, and chanted slogans at clergy. Roads and bridges have been blocked, and some workers were on strike Oct. 28.

Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski has said 76 people have been detained in connection with protests at churches, and 101 cases are being prosecuted.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has warned the protests will contribute to the spread of the coronavirus. Poland has had more than 299,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, and 4,851 deaths.

Five people have been charged with organizing an illegal protest attended by 850 on Oct. 29 in Police, about 10 miles north of Szczecin.

And the national public prosecutor has said protest organizers will be charged with “causing an epidemiological threat”.

Internationally, protests have been held outside Polish embassies, ranging from tens gathered in Rome, to more than a thousand in Stockholm.

The permanent council of the Polish bishops’ conference said Oct. 28 that the Church makes a “constant call for protection, including legal protection, of the life of every human being, including the unborn.”

“The commandment of love imposes on us an important duty of caring, helping, and giving mothers and families who receive and raise sick children the protection they need,” the bishops reflected. “We thank all communities and institutions that have been doing this for years, and we appeal to parishes, Catholic movements, and other church organizations to undertake specific initiatives to meet those who need and will need both individual and institutional help.”

“The Church will always stand for life and support initiatives that protect it,” they added.

The bishops spoke of their “great pain” at “the escalation of social tension and aggression” during the protests.

“The vulgar language used by some of the protesters, the destruction of social property, the devastation of churches, the profanation of sacred places, or prevention of the liturgy there are also disturbing.”

“We call on everyone to engage in meaningful social dialogue, to express their views without resorting to violence, and to respect the dignity of every human being,” they said.

The bishops commented that “we ask politicians and all participants of the social debate, at this dramatic time, to thoroughly analyze the causes of the situation and look for ways out, in the spirit of truth and for the common good, without instrumentalizing matters regarding the faith and the Church.”

The bishops thanked the pastors and laity “who are courageously defending their churches,” as well as the security services. “The Church wants to remain open to all people, regardless of their social and political affiliation,” they noted.

Reflecting on the impositions due to the coronavirus pandemic, they appealed for “solidarity and compliance with the sanitary safety regulations.”

“We also ask all believers to fast, to give alms, and to pray for social peace, with the intention of protecting life, putting an end to the ongoing crisis, and ending the developing pandemic,” they concluded.

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Catholic school in Michigan sues over mask mandate for elementary children October 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs

Catholic school in Michigan sues over mask mandate for elementary children

October 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0Print

CNA Staff, Oct 30, 2020 / 02:01 pm (CNA).- A Catholic elementary school in Michigan is suing the state’s health department over a mandate that masks be worn continually during the school day, calling the requirement unnecessary, and harmful to its younger students.

Resurrection School in Lansing, along with two parents of children at the school, are suing Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Robert Gordon and several other public officials over an Oct. 9 mandate that students wear masks at school all day, even if their desks are spaced six feet apart in the classroom.

“In accordance with the teachings of the Catholic faith, Resurrection School believes that every human has dignity and is made in God’s image and likeness. Unfortunately, a mask shields our humanity. And because God created us in His image, we are masking that image,” the lawsuit, filed Oct. 22 in the Western District Court of Michigan, reads.

“Wearing a mask conveys the message that the wearer has surrendered his or her freedom to the government…a mask has become a symbol. And because a mask has become a political symbol, the wearing of a mask is a form of symbolic speech,” the plaintiffs argued.

“Consequently, via the mask mandates, Defendants are compelling Plaintiffs to engage in a form of expression and to convey a message with which they disagree.”

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has issued nearly 200 executive orders since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Her order mandating masks in the classroom for elementary school students, announced Sept. 25, was set to go into effect Oct. 5.

The state Supreme Court invalidated all of Whitmer’s executive orders Oct. 12, but the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services subsequently revived some, including the elementary school mask mandate, as emergency epidemic orders.

Father Steven Mattson, pastor of the parish church to which the school belongs, and principal Jacob Allstot, sent a letter Oct. 27 to school parents explaining the rationale for the lawsuit.

Resurrection has taken steps to space students’ desks six feet apart in the classroom and is taking measures to disinfect common areas and install UV lights and filtration systems in each room.

The school leaders argued that data from the state shows that young children are unlikely to carry and contract the virus. Mattson and Allstot noted that Michigan has documented 5,816 cases of COVID-19 associated with a school population, only 151 of which arose from preschools and elementary schools.

Resurrection serves students aged kindergarten through eighth grade. As of Oct. 20, Mattson and Allstot wrote, approximately 98% of documented COVID-19 cases associated with a school outbreak in Michigan occurred in children aged sixth grade through college.

Mattson and Allstot related the story of an anonymous kindergartener at Resurrection, who is shy and has a speech impediment. “Wearing a facial covering exacerbates her struggles with speech,” they said.

Students have been back at Resurrection School since August, and the school has not had any cases of coronavirus among students or staff since reopening, the letter reads.

The school has clarified that they are only “contesting masks for younger children when socially distanced in their own classrooms,” and not for teachers, older students, or younger students when they are in mixed groups, Fox News reported.

Under an earlier executive order by Whitmer, elementary students didn’t have to wear masks while seated in class, only during transition periods. Whitmer’s later order and the MDHHS order made it mandatory for students to wear masks at all times while learning.

According to state data, no elementary schools in Michigan have experienced an outbreak of coronavirus with more than 10 people infected.

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French police make second arrest in Nice attack October 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs

French police make second arrest in Nice attack

October 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 2Print

CNA Staff, Oct 30, 2020 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- An unnamed French official told the New York Times on Friday that police have arrested a 47-year-old man in connection with a deadly terrorist attack inside Notre-Dame de Nice.

The attacker on Oct. 29 killed three people in the church, including a 44-year-old mother of three; a 60 year old woman who had come to the church to pray; and the church’s 55 year old sacristan.

The attacker used a knife to carry out the killings and reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he did so.

French police shot and arrested the perpetrator, who has been identified as Brahim Aouissaoui, 21. Aouissaoui reportedly arrived in Europe in late September, first at the Italian island Lampedusa before traveling to France.

The second man arrested is reportedly suspected of being in contact with the assailant, the New York Times reported Oct. 30.

The French bishops asked churches across the country to toll their bells Thursday in memory the three people killed.

The attack in Nice follows the beheading of Samuel Paty, a Paris school teacher, in an Islamist terror attack earlier this month. The attacker in that incident reportedly was angered that Paty had shown cartoons of Muhammad during his classes.

Other attacks took place in France Oct. 29. In Montfavet, near Avignon, a man waving a handgun made threats and was killed by the police two hours after the Nice attack. Radio station Europe 1 said the man was also shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

Reuters also reported a knife attack on a guard at the French consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed Moussaoui, president of French Council of Muslim Faith, condemned the terrorist attack and asked French Muslims to cancel their festivities for Mawlid, the Oct. 29 celebration of Muhammad’s birthday, “as a sign of mourning and solidarity with the victims and their loved ones.”

Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, responded to the news of the attack on the basilica, writing on Twitter: “Islamism is a monstrous fanaticism which must be fought with force and determination … Unfortunately, we Africans know this too well. The barbarians are always the enemies of peace. The West, today France, must understand this.”

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Despite concerned raised, New Zealand voters back assisted suicide October 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs

Despite concerned raised, New Zealand voters back assisted suicide

October 30, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 1Print

CNA Staff, Oct 30, 2020 / 04:21 pm (CNA).- A strong majority of New Zealand voters approved the legalization of assisted suicide and euthanasia for the terminally ill Oct. 30. Foes of legalization said many voters appeared confused about the measure’s far-reaching effects and warned that the move will have consequences for the vulnerable.

The nationwide referendum passed with support from 65% of voters on Friday. It allows terminally ill persons who are believed to have six months or fewer to live to be euthanized or to take a lethal dose of prescribed drugs themselves, on the condition that two doctors agree the person is well-informed. Patients are eligible if they show significant, ongoing decline in physical ability and experience “unbearable suffering that cannot be eased.” The law will take effect Nov. 6, 2021.

Legalization opponent Euthanasia-Free NZ said some 80% of adult New Zealanders appeared to misunderstand the referendum. Only 20% knew the act would not make it legal to turn off life support machines. Such a practice is not illegal under current law.

“It seems that most New Zealanders voted for an end-of-life choice that is in fact already legal,” Renée Joubert, executive officer of Euthanasia-Free NZ, said Oct. 30.

Surveys indicated similar confusion about eligibility criteria. Only 29% knew that terminally ill people who have depression or another mental illness would be allowed to seek euthanasia. Only 13% of adults knew that the act does not require an independent witness.

The New Zealand law does not require a waiting period before a lethal dose is prescribed, nor does it require a competency test.

In November 2019 the New Zealand Parliament approved the bill, officially called “The End of Life Choice Bill,” by a vote of 69-51. The bill had the backing of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of the ruling New Zealand Labour Party and her main rival, Judith Collins of the center-right National Party, the New York Times reports. Voters had to approve the act in referendum in order for it to become law.

An earlier version of the bill would have allowed those with severe or incurable conditions who were not terminally ill to seek euthanasia or assisted suicide as well.

Joubert objected that parliament voted down more than 100 amendments that “could have made this law safer” and said the law lacks safeguards that have been standard in U.S. law.

“It’s disappointing that the New Zealand public were generally uninformed about the details of the End of Life Choice Act,” she said.

When New Zealand’s National Party was governing the country, a parliamentary study on assisted suicide and euthanasia proposals concluded that “the public would be endangered” by legalization of the practices.

In 2017, the National Party-controlled Parliament’s health committee said submissions on the proposal “cited concern for vulnerable people, such as the elderly and the disabled, those with mental illnesses, and those susceptible to coercion.”

“Others argued that life has an innate value and that introducing assisted dying and euthanasia would explicitly undermine that idea. To do so would suggest that some lives are worth more than others. There were also concerns that, once introduced, eligibility for assisted dying would rapidly expand well beyond what was first intended,” the committee said.

In 2018 the Catholic bishops of New Zealand published resources against assisted suicide legislation and encouraged Catholics to oppose legalization. The Nathaniel Centre, the New Zealand bishops-founded Catholic bioethics center, posted resources on Church teaching on euthanasia and assisted suicide to their website and social media pages ahead of the referendum.

Ahead of the election, the Nathaniel Centre said the act is “badly drafted and seriously flawed.”

“It will expose many New Zealanders to the risk of a premature death at a time when they are most vulnerable. Whatever one’s views about the idea of euthanasia, it is not compassion to vote for a dangerous law,” the center said. “The group most at risk if we legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide are those vulnerable to the suggestion they would be ‘better off dead’ – our elders, disabled people, and people with depression and mental illness who find themselves fitting the eligibility criteria.”

The center cited the Lawyers for Vulnerable New Zealanders, a group of over 200 lawyers, including some supporters of euthanasia, opposed the act on the grounds it is too broadly drafted, “dangerous,” and “broader in its scope and riskier than comparable laws overseas.”

Other opponents of the act included the New Zealand Medical Association, Hospice New Zealand, Palliative Care Nurses and Palliative Medicine Doctors.

David Seymour, the lawmaker who sponsored the act, praised its passage as “a great day,” the New York Times reports. In his view, the vote made New Zealand “a kinder, more compassionate, more humane society.”

Pope Francis has on multiple occasions spoken out against assisted suicide and euthanasia, both of which are “morally unacceptable” according to Church teaching. In 2016, Pope Francis told medical professionals that assisted suicide and euthanasia are part of the “throwaway culture” that offers people “false compassion” and treats human persons like a problem.

Euthanasia is legal in the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada and Colombia. Doctor-assisted suicide is legal in Switzerland. Some U.S. states have legalized assisted suicide.

Also on New Zealand’s ballot was a proposal to legalize recreational marijuana use, allow adults age 20 and over to buy cannabis from licensed outlets, and allow adults to grow the plant at home. Advertising and smoking the drug in public would be banned. That proposal failed by a vote of 53% to 46%, according to preliminary results.

The country already has legalized medical marijuana.

Critics of the recreational use legalization warned that it would make the drug more accessible to children, Bloomberg News reports. They said cannabis is a serious drug harmful to mental health, especially among adolescents.

For their part, advocates said legalization would weaken the power of drug trafficking gangs, regulate quality and raise awareness of health risk through the use of warning labels. They said indigenous Maori people are disproportionately arrested and convicted for the drug.

Some figures suggest that New Zealanders are among the biggest users of marijuana in the world, with 80% having tried the drug by age 20 and 12% reporting use of the drug in the past year.

Pope Francis criticized drug use and legalization in a 2014 address to the International Drug Enforcement Conference in Rome.

“Let me state this in the clearest terms possible: the problem of drug use is not solved with drugs! Drug addiction is an evil, and with evil there can be no yielding or compromise,” the pope said. “To think that harm can be reduced by permitting drug addicts to use narcotics in no way resolves the problem. Attempts, however limited, to legalize so-called ‘recreational drugs’, are not only highly questionable from a legislative standpoint, but they fail to produce the desired effects.”

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The New Under Ground Church-THE TRUTH MUST BE TOLD

Sunday, November 1, 2020