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Côte d’Ivoire, a West African nation of 27.5 million (map), is 44% Muslim, 18% Catholic, and 16% Protestant, with 22% adhering to ethnic religions. Cardinal Jean-Pierre Kutwa preached the French-language homily at the outdoor Mass (video), …
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 28, 2021 | Featured, News, Politics, Weekly Headlines |
The new Biden administration can disrupt the second Cold War by disengaging Russia from China. First, a mea culpa. Heck, mea maxima culpa. I apologize for the current state of relations between the United States and Communist China. I am guilty of an offense that occurred maybe 50 years ago. As a young know-it-all with […]
CNA Staff, Jan 28, 2021 / 03:00 am (CNA).- Poland’s constitutional court published on Wednesday the rationale for its declaration that abortion for fetal abnormalities is unconstitutional three months after it made the ruling.
In the highly anticipated ruling on Oct. 22, the Constitutional Tribunal in Warsaw said that the law introduced in 1993 was incompatible with Poland’s constitution.
But the law did not come into effect until the ruling was published in the country’s Journal of Laws on Jan. 27.
The 154-page ruling said: “In the opinion of the Tribunal, an unborn child is, as a human being — a person who enjoys innate and inalienable dignity, a subject who has the right to life; and the legal system must, according to Article 38 of the Constitution, must guarantee due protection for this central good, without which this subjectivity would be deleted.”
The court’s verdict prompted a wave of demonstrations across Poland. Protesters directed their anger at the ruling Law and Justice party (PiS), but also at the Catholic Church, which welcomed the decision.
Demonstrators disrupted Masses while holding signs supporting abortion, left graffiti on Church property, vandalized statues of St. John Paul II, and chanted slogans at clergy.
The ruling, which cannot be appealed, could lead to a significant reduction in the number of abortions in the country.
Until now, Polish law permitted abortion only in cases of rape or incest, a risk to the mother’s life, or fetal abnormality.
Approximately 1,000 legal abortions take place in Poland each year. The majority are carried out in cases where the unborn child has a severe and irreversible disability or a life-threatening incurable disease.
Polish pro-life campaigners describe the legal provision as “eugenic.” Data from the Ministry of Health shows that in 2019, the likelihood of Down syndrome accounted for 40% of abortions.
Jerzy Kwasniewski, president of the Ordo Iuris Institute, said: “The justification of the judgment strongly emphasizes that, if the mother’s life and health are not endangered, the legal protection of the child’s life is complete. This is a step forward, firmly removing purely eugenic abortion from Polish law.”
Bartłomiej Wróblewski, a Law and Justice MP who was among those who asked the tribunal to review the law, wrote on Twitter: “Selecting people based on illness and disability is unconstitutional. I am glad that the justification for the court’s judgment in this case has been published.”
The constitutional court was asked to examine the law in 2019 by a group of 119 MPs belonging to the Law and Justice party, as well the smaller parties Konfederacja and PSL-Kukiz’15.
Oct. 22 — the day the court made the ruling — is the feast day of the Polish pope St. John Paul II, who led the Church from 1978 to 2005 and galvanized the pro-life movement in Poland and around the world.
Posted by bcadmin | Jan 28, 2021 | Archdiocese of Chicago, Black churches, Catholic Church, Catholic News Service, Chicago, Chicago Archdiocese, Church in the US, clerical sexual abuse, clerical sexual abuse survivors, News |
Father Michael Pfleger, senior pastor of St. Sabina Church in Chicago, faces a second sexual abuse allegation, from the brother of the first alleged victim who came forward in early January.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 28, 2021 | Ambassador Sam Brownback, Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom, Associated Press, Catholic Church, Catholic politicians, Catholics and politics, Church in the US, faith and politics, News, Racial justice, Religious Freedom, Sam Brownback |
Former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said he plans to make promoting racial reconciliation a focus of his life as a private citizen after more than a quarter century in politics.
Read MoreWASHINGTON – Today, President Joe Biden signed an executive order allowing U.S. taxpayer funds to be sent to organizations that both promote and provide abortions in developing countries. The policy which he overturned, known as both the Mexico City an…
Read MoreReadings for the Memorial of Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest and doctor of the Church
Reading I Heb 10:19-25
Brothers and sisters:
Since through the Blood of Jesus
we have confidence of entrance into the sanctuary
by the new and living…
Posted by bcadmin | Jan 28, 2021 | Church in the US, Coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID-19 pandemic, Faith, News, Pew Research Center, Poll, Survey |
According to a new poll by the Pew Research Center, more Americans say the coronavirus pandemic has strengthened their religious faith than those in 13 other nations that possess what Pew called “advanced economies.”
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 28, 2021 | Abortion, Associated Press, Catholic Church, Church in Europe, News, Poland |
New anti-government protests broke out in Polish cities Wednesday, shortly after the country’s top court confirmed its highly divisive ruling that will further tighten the predominantly Catholic nation’s strict anti-abortion law.
Read MoreBENEDICT XVI GENERAL AUDIENCE Saint Peter’s Square Wednesday, 2 June 2010 Saint Thomas Aquinas Dear Brothers and Sisters, After several Catecheses on the priesthood and on my latest Journeys, today we return to our main theme: meditation on some of the great thinkers of the Middle Ages. We recently looked at the great figure[…]
The post Pope Benedict and Saint Thomas – Part I appeared first on Catholic Insight.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 28, 2021 | Brazil, Brazilian Conference of National Bishops, Catholic Church, Catholic News Service, Church in the Americas, Jair Bolsonaro, News |
Stating that Brazil’s federal government displayed contempt for protecting the health of the population and showed criminal conduct, 380 Brazilian Christian religious leaders filed an impeachment request against President Jair Bolsonaro for the crime of shirking his responsibilities.
Read MoreNorman C. Francis, now 89, was president of Xavier University of Louisiana from 1968 to 2015.
Read More“Today, the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Extermination Camp of Auschwitz, we celebrate International Holocaust Remembrance Day,” Pope Francis said at the conclusion of his January 27 general audience. “We commemorate the …
Read MoreThe initiative is sponsored by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Christlicher Kirchen in Deutschland (Working Group of Christian Churches in Germany), led by an Eastern Orthodox priest (German-language link).
Read More“We need to speak for every person in our society who cannot defend themselves,” said Archbishop José Gomez, the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, who over the past week has repeatedly spoken out on behalf of unborn …
Read MoreArchbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, the Primate of All Ireland, lamented “the way we stigmatized and harshly judged many vulnerable pregnant women in crisis and treated them and their children in such a cold and uncaring manner.” His comment…
Read MoreArchbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, deplored the spate of kidnappings in Africa’s most populous nation.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Jan 28, 2021 | Associated Press, Catholic Church, Church in the US, Coronavirus, Coronavirus pandemic, covid, COVID-19, COVID-19 coronavirus, COVID-19 pandemic, News, Nuns, Religious Sisters |
A western Indiana order of nuns is facing a COVID-19 outbreak that has killed two sisters and two residents at a long-term care unit on the order’s campus, a spokesman says.
Read MoreThe pandemic has led the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines to modify its plans for the celebration of the 500th anniversary of the arrival of the Gospel there. “We might wake up one day, like other peoples have, no longer able…
Read MoreThe central Indian state (map) is 91% Hindu, 7% Muslim, and 0.3% Christian.
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