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Pope updates Catholic Church rules for dealing with sexual abuse
Pope updates Catholic Church rules for dealing with sexual abuse
The Pope has updated the church's rules for dealing with sexual abuse, expanding its scope to include lay Catholic leaders and spelling out that both minors and adults can be victims.
It follows a landmark decree in 2019 that made it obligatory for all priests and members of religious orders to report any suspicions of abuse. It also holds bishops directly accountable for any abuse they commit themselves or cover-up.
The provisions were initially introduced on a temporary basis, but on Saturday the Vatican said they would become definitive from April 30 and include additional elements aimed at strengthening the fight against abuse within the church.
Abuse scandals have shredded the Vatican's reputation in the last ten years, and Pope Francis has passed a series of measures aimed at holding the institution's hierarchy accountable.
But he himself came under huge scrutiny in 2018 after the global church sex abuse scandal made headlines again, and was even accused of having known about certain allegations and helping to cover them up.
Speaking in 2019, he vowed to confront the "destructive evil" of child sex abuse within the Catholic church.
But critics say the results have been mixed and have accused Francis of being reluctant to defrock abusive prelates.
Fresh allegations of sexual abuse
Just a month ago the Roman Catholic religious order of Jesuits said accusations of sexual, psychological and spiritual abuse against one of its most prominent members were "highly credible".
About 25 people, mostly former nuns, have accused Father Marko Ivan Rupnik, 69, a well-known religious artist of various forms of abuse, either when he was a spiritual director of a community of nuns in his native Slovenia about 30 years ago, or after he moved to Rome to pursue his career as an artist.
Rupnik has not spoken publicly of the accusations.
Pope Francis hints at end of 1,000-year-old celibacy rule after calling ban 'temporary'
Pope Francis hints at end of 1,000-year-old celibacy rule after calling ban 'temporary'
Pope Francis has suggested that the Catholic Church could greenlight a review of its 1,000-year-old celibacy tradition. In a wide-ranging interview the Pope said the union of a priest and a woman is not in conflict with religion. He described the 11-century-old ban as a "temporary description" and said there was no "contradiction" for a priest to marry.
He told Infobae: "There is no contradiction for a priest to marry. Celibacy in the western Church is a temporary prescription.
"It is not eternal like priestly ordination, which is forever, whether you like it or not. On the other hand, celibacy is a discipline."
The Roman Catholic Church only made celibacy a necessity in the 11th century because clerics without children were more likely to favour riches over the Church.
Pope Francis said that the Vatican will reconsider the practice when requested, citing the Eastern Church as an example.
He said: "In fact, everyone in the Eastern Church is married. Or those who want to. There they make a choice. Before ordination, there is the choice to marry or to be celibate."
His comments mark a shift from his stance in 2019 when he said he disagreed with "allowing optional celibacy" and claimed celibacy was a "gift" to the Church.
He also discussed the rising divorce rate and made the argument that young people sometimes rush into marriage.
Pope Francis said: "Sometimes one goes to a wedding and it seems more like it's a social reception and not a sacrament. When young people say forever, who knows what they mean by forever."
In another progressive move, the head of the Catholic Church also declared he is "no one to judge" anyone when it comes to gay people and that everyone - whether they're "good", "old", "young", "guys" - is welcome inside the church.
His latest statements come as Germany's Catholic Church has agreed on a slew of reforms, including blessing same-sex marriages and allowing female deacons - at the risk of heightening tensions with the Vatican.
A majority of 176 participations out of the 200 delegates voted in favour of same-sex blessings starting from March 2026. German church leaders have vowed the process won't lead to a schism in an effort to allay Rome's anxieties.
The progressive movement is also moving ahead with the end of celibacy for priests in a bid to counter an exodus of Christians in Germany.nal decision on whether to allow female deacons remains with Pope Francis.
Who is responsible for the hatred against Jews in Barcelona? - Opinion
Who is responsible for the hatred against Jews in Barcelona? - Opinion
Afriend asked me last week why the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, had suspended relations with Israel and canceled the twin city agreement with the most liberal city in the Middle East, Tel Aviv. What does she gain by this?
Apart from how pathetic it is that she exceeds her authority in such a way, my friend did not understand that in the nature of fanatics, there are no reasons, only the blindness of their agenda of resentment and prejudice.
And there is no hatred more obsessive, compulsive and sick than antisemitism. Antisemites blame Jews for all evils, and they judge the Jewish people with a clear double standard.
Of all the cities with which Barcelona is paired, the mayor didn't decide to break relations with Gaza, a lair of Islamist terrorism. Nor Isfahan, in the hands of the mullahs, who murder their people while continually threatening Israel's existence. Nor Havana, converted into the great brothel of tropical communism. Barcelona continues to be twinned with all of them. Instead, the mayor broke off relations with a vibrant, tolerant, diverse and prosperous city in full cultural and technological bloom. A city that Barcelona should look to emulate in many ways.
But was it only her Jew-hatred that led Colau to override the traditional decision-making process, circumventing a vote in Barcelona's city council on this issue, or was she motivated by other factors? With an upcoming mayoral election in May, many believe that Colau made this hateful decision to please the extreme left in Barcelona at the expense of the Jews.
This resolution is not the first; it just culminates a long process of harassment, coercion and incitement against Jews in Barcelona and the whole of Catalonia, which has found the passivity and silence of many, thus encouraging the agents of hatred. But it is important to remember two key factors.
The first is that this decision of the city of Barcelona is not an isolated event. It attempts to make the second most important city in Spain an openly hostile territory, not only to Israelis, but to all Jews who visit it, and, more evidently, to the local Jewish community.
In these last few years, the city has approved at least two resolutions that harassed only one state: the democratic state of the Jews, the only Jewish state. In dozens of Catalonian cities, far more severe resolutions have been approved, effectively excluding Jews and friends of Israel from civil life. And they have even glorified terrorism, inviting with all honors, terrorists from Palestinian groups who have carried out murders against Jews, in Israel and around the world.
The second key factor is the mistake we would make if we limited the responsibility to a single person, mayor Colau and her party, Podemos, which is an extreme left party, financed since its inception by the Iranian regime and the Chavist dictatorship in Venezuela.
Colau governs, thanks to the Socialist Party of Spain's President Pedro Sánchez. Likewise, Sánchez governs thanks to Podemos. Also, the leading party in the opposition in the city of Barcelona, the independentist party Esquerra Republicana, which is in power in the whole region of Catalonia, is deeply antisemitic. All of them have competed to lead this Jew-hating action in the Catalonian institutions. Don't take my word for it – just look at their votes in each municipal meeting and in the Regional Parliament of Catalonia. Only the Spanish constitutionalist parties, with the exception of the Socialist Party, have resisted this discriminatory tide.
The lynching that has occurred against Israelis and Jews in Barcelona, Catalonia and the whole of Spain during these years when the coalition of the left, extreme left and separatism has been in power would have been impossible without the collusion, support and occasionally, the enthusiastic and decisive direction of the socialists. In every vote, in each of the motions, in each of the initiatives, the party of the President of the Spanish government was there.
Fortunately, we don't have to go far to find the opposite of this situation in the region of Madrid, the capital of Spain, where the conservative party Partido Popular is in power. Beginning with its regional President, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, who has promoted a pioneering legal initiative worldwide in the fight against antisemitism, and extending to the Mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez Almeida, who has recently offered to make Madrid a twin city of Tel Aviv, replacing Barcelona. These two leaders show the way Barcelona should proceed, as well as the rest of Europe.
On the recent Holocaust Remembrance Day, regional President Díaz Ayuso reminded us that the Final Solution did not start in the Nazi gas chambers, nor in the extermination camps, but in the singling out and the discrimination of Jews by using the power of the state.
Angel Mas is the President of Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM), a leading group in Spain in the fight against antisemitism and in favor of the relationship between Spain and Israel, on the basis of shared values and common interests.
This op-ed is published in partnership with a coalition of organizations that fight antisemitism across the world. Read the previous article by Yoseph Haddad.
Reference: Jerusalem Post: Opinion by By Angel Mas
Satanic Temple opens online abortion clinic named after Samuel Alito’s mother
Satanic Temple opens online abortion clinic named after Samuel Alito’s mother
The Satanic Temple has announced the launch of an online abortion clinic, offering telehealth screenings and appointments and prescribing abortion medication for patients who want to take part in its “religious abortion ritual.”
The group, which describes itself as a “non-theistic religious organisation” and is not to be confused with the Church of Satan, said it hopes to expand the clinics into states that have restricted abortions in the aftermath of a Supreme Court ruling that ended Roe v Wade.
The Temple has named the initiative “The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic,” in reference to the conservative Justice who wrote the majority opinion that overturned the abortion rights case that had been the law of the land since 1973.
“In 1950, Samuel Alito’s mother did not have options, and look what happened,” said Malcolm Jarry, co-founder of The Satanic Temple.
“Prior to 1973, doctors who performed abortions could lose their licenses and go to jail. The clinic’s name serves to remind people just how important it is to have the right to control one’s body and the potential ramifications of losing that right,” he added.
The Temple, which claims to have over 700,000 members, described the programme as the “world’s first religious abortion clinic.” Patients pay a pharmacy for the medication, but medical and religious services are free, it added. The patients must be in New Mexico at the time of the visit and have a New Mexico mailing address.
The clinic currently has five registered nurses on staff each week, all registered in New Mexico, and an advanced nurse practitioner who prescribes medication.
Based in Salem, Massachusetts, the Temple deploys irony-laced legal action and publicity stunts to highlight the intrusion of religion into public life, using religious laws in the United States to fight against restrictions on access to abortion.
Last year, it sued Indiana and Idaho in federal court, arguing that the state’s abortion bans infringe on the rights of members.
The lawsuit contends that a pregnant woman is entitled to terminate her pregnancy in accordance with the temple’s Tenet III — “One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone” — and its “Satanic Abortion Ritual,” which includes “a personal affirmation that is ceremoniously intertwined with the abortion,” it explains on its website.
The Temple cites the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to argue that the ritual exempts its members “from enduring medically unnecessary and unscientific regulations when seeking to terminate their pregnancy.”
The Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic drew condemnation from Catholic groups even before its launch. In a joint statement issued on 7 February, the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops said: The last thing we need in our state is a Satanic temple from Massachusetts to offer free ‘reproductive health’ services (read abortion).”
“We shudder to think what the ‘Religious Abortion Ritual’ that they require is all about,” the statement, which was signed by Archbishop John Wester of Santa Fe, Bishop Peter Baldacchino of Las Cruces and Bishop James Wall of Gallup, among others.
Speaking to The Independent on the morning of its launch, Chalice Blythe, minister of Satan at the Temple, said the clinic is part of a long tradition of using existing statutes to ensure the equal application of religious laws.
”It’s how we’ve done things historically, whether it’s bodily autonomy or abortion access. We are simply utilising religious protection for us to have free exercise of our religion,” she told The Independent. ”There are laws and restrictions that are constantly passed that deny us the ability to free exercise,” she added. “Any legal action we take is to protect our ability to practice our faith.”
Erin Helian, the Temple’s religious reproductive rights director, told The Independent that the naming of Samuel Alito’s Mom’s Satanic Abortion Clinic was “pretty deliberate.”
“It was something we had been considering for some time in order to highlight the injustices that came from Justice Alito’s decisions and how it impacts our bodily autonomy,” she said.
Despite the humour in the name, she said that the Temple’s work is deeply serious.
“There's always a concern that our humour is mistaken for a lack of seriousness. However, when it comes to things like the clinic, I know that our work is going to speak for itself. I know the number of people we're going to be able to help with this, especially when we move into other states. Eventually, the work will speak for itself,” she said.
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