1. Invasion of Ukraine was barbaric, but war is complicated, pope tells Jesuits, By Cindy Wooden, Crux, September 29, 2022
Pope Francis said that while he has defined Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as “unacceptable, repugnant, senseless aggression, barbaric (and) sacrilegious,” he also said that too many people have taken a simplistic view of the war.
“There is a war underway, and I think it’s wrong to think of it like a cowboy movie where there are good guys and bad guys. And it’s wrong to think that this is a war between Russia and Ukraine and that’s it. No. This is a world war,” Pope Francis told a group of Jesuits, according to an Italian transcript of the conversation released Sept. 28.
The pope met Sept. 15 with 19 Jesuits working in Russia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan — the Jesuits’ “Russian Region” — during his Sept. 13-15 trip to Kazakhstan. As has become the practice when the pope meets Jesuits during a foreign trip, a transcript of his remarks was released later by the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica.
Pope Francis told his Jesuit confreres that while it is clear “the victim of this conflict is Ukraine,” one must try to understand the factors that contributed to the war.
“War is like a marriage, in a sense,” the pope said. “To understand, you have to investigate the dynamics that developed the conflict.”
As he has said in the past — and has been criticized for saying — Pope Francis told the Jesuits that “there are international factors that helped provoke the war,” repeating that an unnamed head of state had told him in December that he was worried because “NATO had gone barking at the doors of Russia without understanding that the Russians are imperial and fear insecurity on their borders.”
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2022/09/invasion-of-ukraine-was-barbaric-but-war-is-complicated-pope-tells-jesuits
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2. Judge: Indiana can’t enforce abortion burial, cremation law, By Associated Press, September 28, 2022, 12:07 AM
A federal judge has barred Indiana from enforcing a 2016 law’s provisions that require abortion clinics to either bury or cremate fetal remains, finding that they violate the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. District Judge Richard L. Young ruled that the law’s requirements infringe on the religious and free speech rights of people who do not believe aborted fetuses deserve the same treatment as deceased people.
“The Constitution prohibits ‘mechanisms, overt or disguised, designed to persecute or oppress a religion or its practices.’ The fetal disposition requirements are contrary to that principle,” Young wrote in Monday’s decision, which granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs who had sued the state.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judge-indiana-cant-enforce-abortion-burial-cremation-law/2022/09/28/aa84ab50-3f47-11ed-8c6e-9386bd7cd826_story.html
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3. Garbage Ruling Against Indiana Law on Disposition of Aborted Fetuses?, By Ed Whelan, National Review, September 28, 2022, 5:31 PM, Opinion
In an order yesterday (in Doe No. 1 v. Attorney General of Indiana), federal district judge Richard L. Young ruled that plaintiffs challenging an Indiana law on disposition of aborted fetuses established that the law violates their Free Exercise and Free Speech rights under the First Amendment. Young’s reasoning strikes me as farfetched.
Indiana law requires that an abortion clinic bury or cremate an aborted fetus or, upon the mother’s request, allow her to take the fetal remains with her to dispose of however she sees fit.
The plaintiffs in the case are three abortion providers (an abortion clinic, its director, and its nurse) and two women, Doe 1 and Doe 3, who had abortions at the clinic. The abortion clinic “is storing the tissue from the [two women’s] abortions until the final disposition of this case because both [women] believe that treating fetal tissue as anything other than medical waste violates their moral and religious beliefs.” (Young repeatedly uses “fetal tissue” as though it were a synonym for “aborted fetus.”) Doe 1 “holds a moral, rather than religious, belief that fetal tissue is not the remains of a person” and that the fetal remains therefore should not be buried or cremated. Doe 3 holds a religious belief that “life begins at the first breath,” and that belief, she maintains, requires that the aborted fetus be “disposed of by standard medical means.”
On the Free Exercise claim, Young concludes that the Indiana law isn’t “generally applicable” or “neutral” within the meaning of Employment Division v. Smith (1990) and thus is subject to strict scrutiny. I’m not persuaded by either conclusion, but I’ll limit myself here to neutrality. Young is simply wrong that the law “only impose[s] burdens on women who have religious or firmly held moral beliefs that aborted fetuses should be treated as medical waste rather than as a person.” The law applies equally to a woman who for any other reason would oppose cremation or burial.
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On the Free Speech claim, Young makes the remarkable assertion that “treating fetal tissue as medical waste is expressive conduct that receives First Amendment protection.” In his view, Doe 1 and Doe 3 have demonstrated both that they “intend to convey a message by treating their fetal tissue as medical waste” and that their message would be understood as such by onlookers. I don’t see how the latter proposition is remotely true. If Doe 1 and Doe 3 took the fetal remains with them and flushed them down the toilet or tossed them in the trash, what reason is there to think that onlookers (if there were any) would have any idea that they were intending any message? (You can of course imagine hypotheticals in which Doe 1 and Doe 3 would use accompanying speech to convey their message. By Young’s logic, would I have First Amendment protection for violating traffic laws if I had a loudspeaker blaring from my car the statement that I was violating traffic laws in order to protest police misconduct?)
https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/garbage-ruling-against-indiana-law-on-disposition-of-aborted-fetuses/
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4. Cardinal Zen trial adjourned to October, A magistrate ruled there was sufficient evidence to try the 90-year-old in connection with a relief fund for pro-democracy protesters., By The Pillar, September 28, 2022, 9:54 AM
The criminal trial of Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun will resume in October after a Hong Kong magistrate ruled that there was sufficient evidence to try the 90-year-old in connection with a relief fund for pro-democracy protesters.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/cardinal-zen-trial-adjourned-to-october/
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5. Pittsburgh diocese: ‘Catholic Identity Conference’ not endorsed by Catholic bishop, Does the controversial ‘Catholic Identity Conference’ have a Catholic identity? The Pittsburgh diocese weighs in., By The Pillar, September 28, 2022, 5:10 PM
The Diocese of Pittsburgh says it does not encourage Catholics to attend a Pittsburgh conference Saturday, which is slated to urge Catholics to “formal resistance” of Pope Francis.
The Oct. 1 “Catholic Identity Conference” at a Pittsburgh hotel will feature remarks from two Catholic bishops, including former apostolic nuncio Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, and its schedule includes Mass at a Pittsburgh parish.
But while the conference will take place within its territory, the Pittsburgh diocese said Wednesday it has nothing to do with the event.
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The conference – according to media accounts organized by traditionalist newspaper The Remnant – has been held annually in Pittsburgh since at least 2019, and has in years past featured speakers urging Catholics to “recognize and resist” perceived ecclesiastical failings during the pontificate of Pope Francis, or, from some speakers, embedded in the texts of the Second Vatican Council.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/pittsburgh-diocese-catholic-identity-conference-not-endorsed-by-catholic-bishop/
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6. Nobel Prize-winning Bishop Belo accused of sexual abuse, Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of East Timor won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996. Now he has been accused of sexually abusing several teenage boys., By The Pillar, September 28, 2022, 12:16 PM
Bishop Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo of East Timor has been accused of sexually abusing several teenage boys, according to a report published Wednesday in a Dutch news magazine.
Belo, 74, came to international attention in the 1990s for his outspoken role in opposing the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, which lasted from 1975 until 1999.
The bishop was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1996 for his work “towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor.” He shared the prize with José Ramos-Horta, who went on to become president of East Timor.
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According to the magazine’s report, the allegations against Belo were known to the Vatican at the time of his resignation, but the bishop was not publicly disciplined.
The magazine also reported that since 2002, Belo has been under a Vatican-ordered travel restriction and may not return to his home country. While a penalty of effective exile is rarely imposed by the Vatican, it has been used in cases of sexual abuse by a bishop.
https://www.pillarcatholic.com/nobel-prize-winning-bishop-belo-accused-of-sexual-abuse/
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7. Top Vatican diplomat calls Putin’s nuclear threat ‘repugnant’, By Catholic News Service, September 28, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings that he would consider using nuclear weapons is a “repugnant threat” that shows the urgency of moving to eliminate nuclear weapons from arsenals around the world, said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Vatican secretary of state.
Putin’s threat “illustrates just how close the world has come to the abyss of nuclear war. This looming threat, with devastating implications for all humanity, demonstrates that ‘nuclear weapons are a costly and dangerous liability,’ which undermines international security,” the cardinal said Sept. 26 at the U.N. high-level meeting to commemorate the International Day for the Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.
https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2022/09/top-vatican-diplomat-calls-putins-nuclear-threat-repugnant
__________________________________________________________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. |
