1. In China, New Evidence That Surgeons Became Executioners, By Jacob Lavee and Matthew P. Robertson, The Wall Street Journal, June 1, 2022, Pg. A17, Opinion Eight doctors at the Tongji Medical College hospital in Wuhan, China, traveled 40 miles on March 18, 1994, to procure a heart from a death-row prisoner. But rather than wait until the judicial authorities had executed the prisoner, the doctors carried out the execution themselves—by heart extraction. In a large-scale review we conducted of nearly 3,000 Chinese-language clinical reports and published in the American Journal of Transplantation, we find surgeons acknowledging such actions again and again. … Yet the global transplant community has largely accepted China’s claims of reform and ignored evidence to the contrary. Comparisons to the medical atrocities of the Nazis haven’t galvanized a response, perhaps having lost all potency due to overuse. Western political leaders have likewise shown little interest in investigating the abuse. We hope this will begin to change with these most recent revelations. It is now known that highly trained surgeons have for decades been killing prisoners with their scalpels on the operating table. This is a novel and extreme deviation from global norms. With the publication of these findings in the leading transplant journal, perhaps the issue will no longer be so easy to ignore. Dr. Lavee is the director of the Heart Transplantation Unit at Tel Aviv’s Sheba Medical Center and a professor of surgery at Tel Aviv University. Mr. Robertson is a research fellow with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and a doctoral candidate in political science at the Australian National University. https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-new-evidence-surgeon-doctor-execution-murder-prisoner-organ-harvesting-donor-uyghur-falun-gong-genocide-human-rights-world-health-organization-who-11654012796?___________________________________________________________ 2. Southern Baptists Trample the Rights of the Accused, America’s Catholic bishops also employed a self-serving standard, deeming nearly all sex-abuse claims credible., By Matthew Schmitz, The Wall Street Journal, May 31, 2022, 4:22 PM, Opinion Southern Baptists received a warning in 2007 from Fr. Thomas Doyle, a priest who had spent years drawing attention to claims of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. … Inaction would lead to the same “incredible harm to your Church that the Catholic Church did not avoid.” … Last week a 288-page report on sex abuse commissioned by the convention charged its leaders with myriad failures over the past 20 years. Among other things, the report faults the convention’s leadership for dismissing Fr. Doyle’s invitation to “learn from Catholic mistakes.” This is ironic. For if Southern Baptists follow the report’s recommendations, they will repeat one of the most grave mistakes that Catholic leaders made: ignoring the rights of the accused in a rush to restore their public image and minimize their liability.On May 26, the convention made public an initial list of people it regards as credibly accused of sex abuse. … The report defines as credible any accusation that is “not manifestly false or frivolous.” … Once again, the Catholic experience provides a warning. After clergy sex abuse became a national story in 2002, Catholic bishops adopted the Dallas Charter, which promoted a “zero-tolerance” approach to sex abuse. … Accusations were treated as credible as long as they weren’t “manifestly groundless.” … If once the Catholic Church had been too reluctant to address claims of abuse, it now was too quick to assume the guilt of the accused. Despite the apparent reversal, there was a deep continuity between the two approaches. Both served the interests of the bureaucracy. Both were intended to reduce work and minimize liability. Both sought to relieve Catholic bishops of the awful burden of judgment. …  Deeming men “credibly accused” simply because the accusation is not “manifestly false or frivolous” is no better than dismissing all claims of abuse. If the Southern Baptist Convention isn’t careful, it will soon have more to apologize for. https://www.wsj.com/articles/southern-baptist-trample-rights-of-the-accused-catholic-sex-abuse-sexual-scandal-11654012954?___________________________________________________________ 3. Pope may meet Patriarch Kirill at September Kazakh meeting, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, May 31, 2022, 1:11 PM The Vatican said Tuesday that Pope Francis will travel to Kazakhstan in September for an interfaith conference, a meeting that may give him a chance to meet with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church. The meeting with Patriarch Kirill would be significant given Kirill’s justification for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Francis called off a planned encounter with Kirill in June in Jerusalem because of the diplomatic fallout it would have created. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/pope-may-meet-patriarch-kirill-at-september-kazakh-meeting/2022/05/31/b4284a8c-e104-11ec-ae64-6b23e5155b62_story.html___________________________________________________________ 4. Vatican official describes frenzy to turn London deal around, By Nicole Winfield, Associated Press, May 31, 2022, 3:15 PM A former Vatican official testified Tuesday that he was under intense “psychological pressure” to finalize a deal over the Holy See’s troubled investment in a London property, but entered into the negotiations without a lawyer and didn’t realize the deal got the Vatican nothing in return. Fabrizio Tirabassi testified for some seven hours about the frenzied meetings he attended in London Nov. 20-22, 2018 that the Holy See had thought would salvage its 350-million-euro investment in the former Harrod’s warehouse and stem its losses. Instead, the contracts negotiated in those days ended up turning control of the London property over to an Italian broker, Gianluigi Torzi, who was unknown to the Vatican only a month prior but got in the door because he was recommended by acquaintances of Pope Francis. The perfect storm of incompetence, alleged criminality and blind trust in people presented as friends of Francis are at the heart of the Vatican’s big fraud and embezzlement trial. … Tirabassi was the No. 2 in the secretariat of state’s administrative office, which managed some 600 million euros in assets, including donations from the faithful to the pope for charity. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/vatican-official-describes-frenzy-to-turn-london-deal-around/2022/05/31/17a48416-e116-11ec-ae64-6b23e5155b62_story.html___________________________________________________________ 5. My Governor Can Pass Bad Abortion Laws. But I Won’t Enforce Them., By Steve Descano, The New York Times, May 31, 2022, Opinion Almost two and a half years ago, I took my oath of office as prosecutor, and swore to protect my community from those who broke the law. The real threat, I now realize, may stem from those who write the law. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, the rights of thousands of Virginian women will be thrown into question. While the commonwealth does not have an abortion ban on the books, our governor has said that he is “staunchly, unabashedly” against abortion and fully committed to “going on the offense” against abortion rights in our legislature.  … So when the court’s draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade was leaked earlier this month, I committed to never prosecute a woman for making her own health care decisions. That means that no matter what the law in Virginia says, I will not prosecute a woman for having an abortion, or for being suspected of inducing one. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/31/opinion/prosecutor-abortion-virginia.html___________________________________________________________ 6. Australian plenary council proposals call for lay homilies amid evangelization push, By The Pillar, May 31, 2022 Draft proposals circulated by officials of a plenary council underway in Australia include a call to increase lay participation in Church life and governance, in part by petitioning the Vatican to allow lay people to preach the homily in Mass. Proposed measures also include a call to more frequent use of a communal form of the sacrament of penance, despite strict canonical limitations of its use. If adopted by the plenary council, those proposals would see the Church in Australia asking the Vatican for dispensations from canon law governing the liturgical discipline of the universal Latin Church. https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/australian-plenary-council-committee?s=r___________________________________________________________ 7. Analysis: Catholic church attacks multiply following Supreme Court leak, By Katie Yoder, Catholic News Agency, May 31, 2022, 5:49 PM The U.S. bishops first began noticing — and tracking — a growing number of attacks targeting Catholic churches in 2020. In recent weeks, following the leak of a Supreme Court draft in a highly-anticipated abortion case, that number has accelerated. The May 2 leak of a Supreme Court draft opinion in the abortion case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization suggests that justices are preparing to overturn Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide in 1973. Abortion supporters and groups have long criticized the Catholic Church’s teaching that abortion kills an unborn human person with inherent dignity and worth. At the same time, pro-abortion groups such as Ruth Sent Us — which has called for disrupting churches following the leak — has complained that a majority of the justices are Catholic. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which tracks arson, vandalism, and other destruction occurring at U.S. Catholic churches, there have been at least 134 incidents across 35 states and Washington, D.C., since May 2020.  https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251421/analysis-catholic-church-attacks-multiply-following-supreme-court-leak___________________________________________________________ 8. Muslim and Protestant politicians receive Communion at German Catholic event, By Catholic News Agency, June 1, 2022, 2:45 AM A Muslim politician and at least one Protestant politician have received Communion at Masses celebrated by bishops during a multi-day Catholic event in Germany. The same event, held on May 25-29, reportedly barred organizers of the German March for Life from holding a stall. Muhterem Aras, a Turkish-born Muslim and prominent state parliamentarian of Germany’s environmentalist Greens, received Communion at the opening Mass in Stuttgart, southern Germany, celebrated by local Bishop Gebhard Fürst, reported CNA Deutsch, CNA’s German-language news partner. … Another well-known Protestant politician received Communion personally from Bishop Georg Bätzing, chairman of the German bishops’ conference, at the same event. … Bätzing has repeatedly expressed qualified support for intercommunion with Protestants, telling journalists in February 2021 that it was necessary to respect the “personal decision of conscience” of those seeking to receive Communion. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251423/muslim-and-protestant-politicians-receive-communion-at-german-catholic-event___________________________________________________________ 9. Pope Francis names Cardinal Cupich a member of Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship, By Catholic News Agency, June 1, 2022, 5:25 AM Pope Francis on Wednesday named Cardinal Blase Cupich as a member of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.The archbishop of Chicago’s appointment was announced by the Holy See press office on June 1. In 2021, Cupich welcomed the publication of the motu proprio Traditionis custodes, restricting celebrations of the Traditional Latin Mass. Other churchmen named as members of the congregation include the Irish-American Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life, and the Bronx-born Archbishop Joseph Augustine Di Noia, adjunct secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251425/cardinal-cupich-among-new-members-of-vatican-congregation-for-divine-worship___________________________________________________________

TCA Media Monitoring provides a snapshot from national newspapers and major Catholic press outlets of coverage regarding significant Catholic Church news and current issues with which the Catholic Church is traditionally or prominently engaged. The opinions and views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Catholic Association.
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