France to renew tight bioethics limits, critics hit Catholic lobbying
France’s parliament opened debate on revising its bioethics laws on Tuesday amid protests that Roman Catholic Church lobbying had thwarted plans to ease the existing curbs on embryonic stem cell research. The bill, originally meant to update a 2004 law in light of rapid advances in the science of procreation, would also uphold bans on surrogate motherhood and assisted procreation for gays.
The debate coincided with news of France’s first “saviour sibling,” a designer baby conceived in vitro to provide stem cells to treat a sibling suffering from a severe blood disorder.
Critics of the bill said last-minute changes by deputies of the governing conservative UMP party meant the revision would hardly change the restrictive law currently on the books. The text retains tight limits for research on embryonic stem cells, a technology the Church vigourously opposes because the in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) method used to produce them creates extra embryos that are later discarded.
“The Catholics have succeeded in imposing their view on embryos and seem to be succeeding in their attack on this method,” said François Olivennes, a leading fertility expert, told Europe 1 radio. “We already have a very retrograde law compared to those in Spain, Britain, Belgium, Netherlands and all of Scandinavia. Nothing is advancing.”
“We propose the authorisation” of this research, said Alain Claeys, a deputy from the opposition Socialist Party.
The French Catholic Church has made bioethics a priority issue and overseen reports, public meetings and lobbying efforts to oppose an easing and aim for a tightening of the current law. The bill does not meet all the Church’s demands, however. Among other things, it supports prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome, which if found usually leads to an abortion.
Paris Cardinal André Vingt-Trois kept up Catholic criticism of controversial new medical techniques, saying the “saviour baby” whose birth was announced on Tuesday was produced to be used to heal another child. “Are we going to become instruments? I’m completely opposed to that,” he said. Ten other bishops issued a statement calling the technique an ethical regression and asked: “What will the child say when it finds out it was a ‘designer baby’?”
Indonesia Muslims attack court, churches; mob kills Ahmadis
Hundreds of Muslim radicals set two churches ablaze and attacked a court in Indonesia’s central Java on Tuesday, calling for harsh punishment for a Christian on trial for blasphemy, police said.
The attacks come two days after a mob beat to death three followers of a minority Islamic sect considered heretical by mainstream Muslims, and at the start of so-called “Inter-faith week”, when the country is supposed to celebrate its pluralistic heritage.
Rights groups and some analysts say a decree passed in 2008 by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s cabinet as he sought the support of influential Muslim groups has actually weakened inter-faith harmony because the law is ambiguous.
On Tuesday, hundreds of men — many wearing Muslim prayer caps or scarves — hurled rocks at a court building in Temanggung, around 400 km (250 miles) from the capital, Jakarta, as it heard prosecutors demand a five-year jail term for a Catholic man accused of distributing blasphemous material.
They also pelted riot police with rocks and other missiles before attacking three churches, setting on fire two of them as well as a police truck, said Djihartono, a Central Java police spokesman.
Read the full story here. See also Indonesia says will act against brutal attacks on religious sect.
Bless me iPhone for I have sinned — an app for Catholic confession
An iPhone app aimed at helping Catholics through confession and encouraging lapsed followers back to the faith has been sanctioned by the Catholic Church in the United States.
Confession: A Roman Catholic app, thought to be the first to be approved by a church authority, walks Catholics through the sacrament and contains what the company behind the program describes as a “personalized examination of conscience for each user”.
“Our desire is to invite Catholics to engage in their faith through digital technology,” said Patrick Leinen of the three-man company Little iApps, based in South Bend, Indiana. “Taking to heart Pope Benedict XVI’s message from last years’ World Communications Address, our goal with this project is to offer a digital application that is truly ‘new media at the service of the word.”
The app is not designed to replace going to confession but to help Catholics through the act, which generally involves admitting sins to a priest in a confessional booth. Catholics still must go to a priest for absolution.
Read the full story by David Sheppard here.
For more on religion and smart phones, see Faith and smart phones commune in religion apps.
Church collection plates may go empty in U.S. as electronic giving rises
Brie Hall felt awkward the first few times she passed the collection basket at her Catholic church without tossing in a donation envelope. But it is more convenient to give her gift to God by direct debit from her checking account.
The tradition of passing the church plate in U.S. churches might become a relic of the past, as a majority of Americans pay bills electronically and move away from using cash or writing checks. Despite concerns about commercializing something so personal, electronic giving to churches is growing.
“You just kind of get over it … because you know you’ve donated,” said Hall, a communications manager for the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. At the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Washington, about half of the 1,600 congregants who give regular donations do so electronically, up from 20 percent four years ago.
Along with Catholic dioceses, religious organizations such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America have approved electronic giving as an option for their members.
Top Sunni Islam authority al-Azhar halts dialogue with Vatican
The highest authority of Sunni Islam, the Islamic University of al-Azhar in Cairo, has frozen all dialogue with the Roman Catholic Church over what it called Pope Benedict’s repeated insults towards Islam. Benedict this month condemned attacks on churches that killed dozens of people in Egypt, Iraq and Nigeria, saying they showed the need to adopt effective measures to protect religious minorities.
His remarks followed a New Year bombing outside a church in the Egyptian city of Alexandria that left 23 people dead and dozens injured and prompted demonstrations by both Christians and Muslims against sectarian violence. The pope urged Christian communities to persevere in a non-violent manner in the face of what he described as “a strategy of violence that has Christians as a target”.
Al-Azhar’s Islamic Research Council “reviewed in an emergency meeting on Thursday the repeatedly insulting remarks issued by the Vatican Pope towards Islam and his statement that Muslims are discriminating against others who live with them in the Middle East,” al-Azhar said in a statement. “The council decided to freeze dialogue between al-Azhar and the Vatican for an indefinite period,” it added.
Egypt’s government last week dismissed the pope’s remarks as “unacceptable interference” and summoned its Vatican ambassador back to Cairo for consultation.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said on Thursday that al-Azhar’s move would not change the Vatican’s “policy of openness and desire for dialogue” with Islam. The freeze came a few weeks before the next scheduled meeting of the Joint Committee for Dialogue of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Permanent Committee of al-Azhar for Dialogue among the Monotheistic Religions.
Christians, mostly Orthodox Copts, account for about 10 percent of Egypt’s 79 million population, which is mostly Sunni Muslim. Sectarian violence sometimes erupts over disputes on issues related to church building, religious conversions and interfaith relationships.
Reacting to al-Azhar’s decision, Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, wrote in an editoral on Friday: “The Council of the University of Cairo al-Azhar, (the highest religious authority in Sunni Islam) has shown that it has dramatically misunderstood the intervention of the Roman Pontiff who, in demanding protection for the Coptic community, has spoken for the whole of Christianity and not just for the Catholic Church.
French nun says Pope John Paul gave her ‘second birth’
The French Catholic nun who credits the late Pope John Paul with curing her of Parkinson’s disease said on Monday her sudden recovery came just as she was about to quit working because of her ailment.
Sister Marie Simon-Pierre, 49, said she woke up in June 2005, two months after the Polish-born pope had died, suddenly cured of the disease she had suffered from for four years.
“When I woke up, I felt I was not the same,” Sister Marie told a news conference at the bishop’s office in this southern French city. “There was no more heaviness in my muscles, I could move normally. For me it was a new birth, a second birth.”
Her superior said the nun had told her the previous evening that she could no longer work in their order’s maternity clinic because of her worsening health. “I asked her to take a pencil and write John Paul’s name,” Mother Marie Thomas told journalists. “I saw the writing was very messy and illegible. I said to myself there was nothing left to do but hope.”
John Paul’s successor, Pope Benedict, approved a decree last Friday declaring her healing a miracle and attributing it to the late pontiff, clearing the way for him to be beatified on May 1.
Read the full story here by Jean-François Rosnoblet or his original report in French Soeur Marie Simon-Pierre raconte sa “seconde naissance.”
New Catholic subdivision for ex-Anglicans will not be a ghetto
The new Roman Catholic Church body set up to house disaffected Anglicans would not become a ghetto within the Church, the priest appointed to lead the group said on Monday. The ordinariate, a special subdivision in the Church created by the Vatican to allow the converts to retain some of their Anglican customs, would also seek to evangelise while maintaining good relations with Anglicans, the former Church of England bishop Keith Newton told reporters.
The ordinariate, announced by Pope Benedict in 2009, allows those Anglicans opposed to women bishops, gay clergy and same-sex blessings to convert to Rome while keeping many of their traditions. Newton said there was a danger that people would think of it as an ex-Anglican ghetto within the Catholic Church, but “we want to make clear it is not.”
“There are no second-class Catholics,” he added.
Newton, who will be the ordinary or leader of the ordinariate, was ordained into the Catholic Church on Saturday along with two other former Church of England bishops, John Broadhurst and Andrew Burnham.
A number of practical issues, including finance, salaries and homes are expected to be settled by Pentecost, June 12, by which time former Anglican priests ready to convert are expected to have been ordained as Catholic clerics.
Read the full story here. See also Anglican bishops ordained as Catholic priests in London.
That’s the way it is. The Church allows for certain of the clergy to be married. Let the “millions” whine.
Christ didn’t miss His dissenters.
When Christ told the people about His body the Eucharist, some of them no longer walked with Him. He didn’t tell them come back.
Same with St. Augustine: God doesn’t compel us to be pure. He merely leaves those alone who deserve to be forgotten.
Attack fears cloud Christmas for Baghdad Christians
Normally on Christmas Eve, Ban Zaki puts on festive clothes and takes her family to Baghdad’s Our Lady of Salvation church for lively holiday celebrations.
Not this year.
Dressed in black and fighting back tears, she has brought her three children to the church to honour her late husband, who was killed along with 51 others when Iraqi forces stormed it after militants took hostages during Sunday mass on Oct 31.
“He died on this spot,” 49-year-old Zaki said, pointing to the marble floor of the Catholic church. “This year, there will be no festivities, no celebrations. The images of the attack and how they killed my husband here in this place are still in front of my eyes. Those were four hours I won’t forget for the rest of my life,” she said.
The attack triggered a fresh exodus of Christians from some Iraqi cities amid renewed fears that Sunni Islamist militants were trying to drive Christians out of their homeland. The U.N. refugee agency said last week that some 1,000 Christian families, roughly 6,000 people, had fled to Iraqi Kurdistan from Baghdad, Mosul and other areas.
Pope breaks tradition with BBC broadcast
Pope Benedict called for people to remember the significance of Christ’s birth in a Christmas message specially recorded for Britons and aired on the BBC on Friday. It was the first time the pope has addressed a Christmas message specifically to one of the countries visited during the year, the BBC said.
Pope Benedict XVI is seen during a recording session for BBC radio’s ”Thought for the Day” programme, at the Vatican December 24, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Osservatore Romano
Pope Benedict XVI is seen during a recording session for BBC radio’s ”Thought for the Day” programme, at the Vatican December 24, 2010.
Credit: Reuters/Osservatore Romano)
The pope recalled his four-day state visit to England and Scotland in September, and told the people of Britain and every part of the English-speaking world that they were in his prayers in the Holy season.
“Let us joyfully proclaim to those around us the good news that God offers us freedom from whatever weighs us down. He gives us hope, he brings us life,” he said in the message pre-recorded at the Vatican.
Condoms still banned for birth control: Vatican
Pope Benedict’s acknowledgement that using condoms may be justified to stop the spread of AIDS did not signify a change in the Catholic Church’s ban on their use as contraception, the Vatican said Tuesday.
In a statement, the Vatican’s doctrinal department said there had been “erroneous interpretations” of the pope’s words which had caused confusion concerning the Church’s views on sexual morality. In a book published last month entitled “Light of the World”, the pope used the example of a prostitute to say there were cases where using a condom to avoid transmitting HIV could be justified as a “first step” toward moralization, even though condoms were “not really the way to deal with the evil of HIV infection.”
Liberal Catholics welcomed the comments in the book but the conservative wing of the Church expressed concern and Tuesday’s statement appeared partly aimed at reassuring them.
The two-page statement from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (click here for full text in six languages) said the pope’s words on condoms had been “repeatedly manipulated for ends and interests which are entirely foreign to the meaning of his words.”
“The idea that anyone could deduce from the words of Benedict XVI that it is somehow legitimate, in certain situations, to use condoms to avoid an unwanted pregnancy is completely arbitrary and is in no way justified either by his words or in his thought.”
Read the full report here. For more on a debate among theologians about Benedict’s comments, see Sandro Magister’s “Sexual Ethics. Six Professors Discuss the Ratzinger Case.”
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