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Vatican City, Feb 3, 2017 / 03:27 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On behalf of Pope Francis, the Vatican's Secretary of State sent a message encouraging the participants of XVI World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates to peaceful and effective communication.

“As the participants reflect on the many challenges to peace in the modern world, His Holiness encourages them in their efforts to promote understanding and dialogue among peoples,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, with greetings from the Pope.

The XVI World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates is being hosted Feb. 2-5 by Bogotá Columbia's Chamber of Commerce.

The Summit gathers noble peace laureates, political leaders, organizations, as well as students and professors to share experiences and ideas for building a better platform of peace. About 20 laureates and several world leaders will be attending. After the conference, Bogotá will be designated as the City of Peace, and humanitarian and peace projects will be initiated by the organization and the participants.

Cardinal Parolin said that the Pope trusts “the efforts in Colombia to build bridges of peace and reconciliation can inspire all communities to rise above animosity and division,” addressing the recent resolution to Columbia's conflict.

Bogotá had been in an over 50 year conflict, which ended in 2016. President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Noble Peace Prize for helping resolve the violence between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia or FARC. Cease fire began in June 2016, and a revised peace deal was signed by both parties and approved by congress in November.  

Pope Francis specifically mentioned the power of non-violence during oppression and maltreatment. He said, “When victims of violence are able to resist the temptation to retaliate, they become the most credible promoters of nonviolent peacemaking.”

The letter ended with the Holy Father's promise to pray for divine wisdom and strength for all participants.

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Washington D.C., Feb 3, 2017 / 04:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- President Donald Trump’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court wrote a book on “the future of assisted suicide” in 2006 – and he came to some strong pro-life conclusions.

Judge Neil Gorsuch, in his 2006 book “The Future of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia,” argues that “human life is fundamentally and inherently valuable, and that the intentional taking of human life by private persons is always wrong.”

Gorsuch was tapped by President Trump on Tuesday night to fill the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court after the death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year. The almost year-long vacancy on the Court was the longest in decades.

Religious liberty advocates hailed his selection, citing his previous opinions upholding the freedom of businesses and non-profits to operate according to their sincerely-held religious beliefs.

Pro-life leaders also applauded his selection, admitting that he had not specifically ruled on the Roe v. Wade decision but pointing to his defense of human life in his 2006 book on assisted suicide.

In that book, Gorsuch makes strong statements in defense of protecting all human life, from disabled persons to depressed, terminally-ill patients. Rather than relying on religious reasoning, he takes a secular approach in his arguments.

He states that his book has two purposes: to examine the views of assisted suicide advocates – from utilitarian arguments to defenses of autonomy – and to provide his own views on why current prohibitions on assisted suicide and euthanasia should stand.

In Chapter 9 of the book, he lays out a defense of prohibitions of assisted suicide. His argument is “based on secular moral theory,” he says, and “is consistent with the common law and long-standing medical ethics.”

Life is a “basic good,” he argues, “inherently worthwhile” and which can be enjoyed by many and has been seen as a good throughout “human history.”

Aristotle defined goods this way, and “argued from life’s experiences and observations of human nature” rather than from “hypothetical construct.”

We see life as a good simply from our observation of fellow human beings, Gorsuch explains, noting that “people every day and in countless ways do something to protect human life.”

Laws prohibiting murder, traffic laws, and government health departments are all based in protections of human life, he argues.

“We have all witnessed, as well, family, friends, or medical workers who have chosen to provide years of loving care to persons who may suffer from Alzheimer’s or other debilitating illnesses precisely because they are human persons, not because doing so instrumentally advances some other hidden objective,” he continues.

“This is not to say that all persons would always make a similar choice, but the fact that some people have made such a choice is some evidence that life itself is a basic good.”

The founding documents of the United States, the Constitution, and foreign political documents express that life is a basic good and argue from pragmatic experience and history, he says:

“The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees equal protection of the laws to all persons; this guarantee is replicated in Article 14 of the European Convention and in the constitutions and declarations of rights of many other countries. This profound social and political commitment to human equality is grounded on, and an expression of, the belief that all persons innately have dignity and are worthy of respect without regard to their perceived value based on some instrumental scale of usefulness or merit. We treat people as worthy of equal respect because of their status as human beings and without regard to their looks, gender, race, creed, or any other incidental trait – because, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, we hold it as ‘self-evident’ that ‘all men [and women] are created equal’ and enjoy ‘certain unalienable Rights,’ and ‘that among these are Life.’”

To say that some persons don’t have a right to life is a clear violation of “equal protection,” and undermines it at its core, he adds.

Furthermore, Gorsuch says, to create distinctions on a person’s right to life based on their “currently exercisable abilities for self-creation and self-expression” leads to “arbitrary” and “subjective” judgments of whose life should be protected – like determining the rights of “those with low IQs,” “the autistic,” and “infants with Down syndrome.”

Yet those who argue that some persons do not have the same rights as others “ask us to accept, judge, and decree that certain persons with certain (rather arbitrarily chosen) instrumental capacities are worth our total respect – inviolable under law – while other persons who lack those capacities do not merit such esteem, respect, and protection,” he writes.

“In the name of progressive policy, they would create a second class of citizens.”

Thus, Gorsuch concludes, “if, as I have argued, human life qualifies as a basic good it follows that we can and should refrain from actions intended to do it harm.” And this will “rule out cases where the doctor intends to kill his or her patient.”

And so, he determines, “current laws against assisted suicide and euthanasia largely should be retained.”    

 

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By Carol Zimmermann

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Saying "religious freedom in America has suffered years of unprecedented erosion," the U.S. Catholic bishops have posted an online letter for Catholics to send to President Donald Trump urging him to sign an executive order promoting religious freedom.

The letter, found at www.votervoice.net/USCCB/Campaigns, says the president can "restore the federal government's respect for the religious freedom of individuals and organizations" with an executive order that establishes a "government-wide initiative to respect religious freedom." Individuals can sign the letter and hit a link to submit it to Trump.

A leaked draft version of a potential religious freedom order was circulating in the media and among federal staff and advocacy groups at the end of January. When White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was asked about the draft Jan. 30, he said he would not get "ahead of the executive orders that we may or may not issue." He noted that there have been a lot of executive actions and "a lot of things that the president has talked about and will continue to fulfill, but we have nothing on that front now."

A White House official told ABC News that the leaked draft on religious freedom is one of hundreds of circulating orders that were either written by the transition team or the White House.

Although Spicer did not elaborate on the leaked document, he told reporters that freedom of religion in the U.S. should mean "people should be able to practice their religion, express their religion, express areas of their faith without reprisal."

"And I think that pendulum sometimes swings the other way in the name of political correctness," he added.

The four-page draft has raised concerns among those who said it would legalize discrimination and was too far-reaching, but University of Notre Dame law professor Richard Garnett said in an email to Catholic News Service that the "critics are dramatically overstating" what the order can do.

The draft states that "Americans and their religious organizations will not be coerced by the federal government into participating in activities that violate their consciences." It also notes that people and organizations do not "forfeit their religious freedom when providing social services, education or health care." It cites the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which states that government "shall not substantially burden a person's exercise of religion" unless that burden "is the least restrictive means to further a compelling governmental interest."

The U.S. bishops, who have made religious liberty a priority, have not released a statement on potential executive action on religious freedom by Trump but in the online letter available for Catholics to sign stressed such an order should include some of the following measures:

-- Relief from the Affordable Care Act's contraceptive mandate. Currently, the mandate -- issued by the federal Department of Health and Human Services as part of the implementation of the health care law -- requires most religious employers to provide coverage of artificial birth control for their employees even if the employer is morally opposed to such coverage. There is a very narrow exemption for churches.

-- Preservation of tax-exempt status for nonprofit groups that hold beliefs based on marriage and human sexuality.

-- The ability of religious organizations that partner with the federal government to act according to their beliefs regarding marriage, human sexuality and the protection of human life at all stages.

-- The ability of religiously affiliated child welfare providers to provide adoption, foster or family support services for children that coincide with their religious beliefs.

-- Conscience protections about abortion in the individual health insurance market.

The bishops' letter said any executive order on religious freedom should make it clear that this freedom should not just be about a person's ability to freely worship but should include "the ability to act on one's beliefs."

"It should also protect individuals and families who run closely held businesses in accordance with their faith to the greatest extent possible," the letter said.

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Follow Zimmermann on Twitter: @carolmaczim.

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