Catholic News 2
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- Muhammad Ali crafted the plan for his final tribute years ago, long before he died. On Friday, his family will honor him just like he planned, with a global celebration in his hometown....
Quebec City, Canada, Jun 4, 2016 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Days before Canada’s assisted suicide bill was originally supposed to take effect, lawmakers’ stark disagreements on religious freedom protections and the inclusion of minors could stall the legislation.The bill, which the nation’s bishops describe as “an affront to human dignity, an erosion of human solidarity and a danger to all vulnerable persons,” passed the final reading in the House of Commons this week and was sent to the Senate for final approval.Members of the House voted 186-137 on Tuesday to pass Bill C-14 on to the Senate in hopes that the legislation could meet its June 6 deadline.However, delays are expected as many Senators have voiced concerns about the bill and hope to make amendments, which would send the bill back to the House for further approval.The bill as it currently stands would legalize medically-assisted suicide for mentally competent adults who have a serious and i...
Quebec City, Canada, Jun 4, 2016 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Days before Canada’s assisted suicide bill was originally supposed to take effect, lawmakers’ stark disagreements on religious freedom protections and the inclusion of minors could stall the legislation.
The bill, which the nation’s bishops describe as “an affront to human dignity, an erosion of human solidarity and a danger to all vulnerable persons,” passed the final reading in the House of Commons this week and was sent to the Senate for final approval.
Members of the House voted 186-137 on Tuesday to pass Bill C-14 on to the Senate in hopes that the legislation could meet its June 6 deadline.
However, delays are expected as many Senators have voiced concerns about the bill and hope to make amendments, which would send the bill back to the House for further approval.
The bill as it currently stands would legalize medically-assisted suicide for mentally competent adults who have a serious and incurable illness and are “suffering intolerably” and whose death is “reasonably foreseeable” even though they may not necessarily have received a terminal diagnosis.
The new legislation was required by a February 2015 Canadian Supreme Court decision. The ruling said that doctors may help patients who have severe and incurable suffering to kill themselves, and ordered Parliament to create a legislative response.
Conservative leader of the Senate Claude Carignan told reporters it would be “impossible” to have the bill finalized by the upcoming deadline because of the reservations of many in the Senate.
Part of the controversy surrounding the bill is that while it allows for conscience protections for individual doctors, it does not yet allow conscience protections for medical institutions that would be opposed to the procedure.
Another point of contention is that the bill promises the further study of whether “mature minors,” whose sole illness is a mental illness, would qualify for the procedure.
Conservative Senator Vern White, who was part of the Senate committee reviewing the bill, said he supports the addition of conscience protections and expects a contentious debate in the days ahead.
“We have almost 100 people in here, and I don’t think any two people agree on this piece of legislation,” he told Canadian news source The Globe and Mail.
The day after the bill passed the House, hundreds of people demonstrated against the bill on Parliament Hill in Ottowa by laying down wearing white trash bags, representing the body bags that will result should the legislation pass.
The protest was organized by the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, the Quebec grassroots organization Living with Dignity and the Physicians’ Alliance Against Euthanasia, and featured speakers from the disability rights group Not Dead Yet, the Coalition of Physicians for Social Justice and the Catholic Women’s League, as well as several Senators, reported The Catholic Register in Canada.
“They do not have to follow the (Supreme Court) decision,” Dr. Paul Saba of the Coalition of Physicians told The Catholic Register.
“Otherwise, get rid of Parliament and replace it with the Supreme Court.”
Since the announcement of the bill, the legislation has received strong opposition both from the Catholic Church and from secular groups.
In April, Cardinal Thomas Collins of Toronto told CNA that “the fundamental move towards implementing euthanasia or assisted suicide is itself troubling” and that the bill would threaten the vulnerable, hide killing with euphemisms, and threaten the consciences of those who oppose it.
The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops have continually voiced their concerns and opposition to the bill, and have urged members of Parliament to vote against it.
Together with The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, the Bishops have signed a declaration against euthanasia and assisted suicide, saying that such measures “treat the lives of disadvantaged, ill, disabled, or dying persons as less valuable than the lives of others. Such a message does not respect the equal dignity of our vulnerable brothers and sisters.”
“It is when we are willing to care for one another under the most dire of circumstances and at the cost of great inconvenience that human dignity and society’s fundamental goodness are best expressed and preserved,” the declaration states.
The Archdiocese of Edmonton responded to the bill by launching the Every Life Matters campaign, aims to reach those who are vulnerable to self-harm or suicide by telling the stories of people who have learned to live despite pain and suffering.
Doctors, lawyers, and family members of euthanized in Belgium - where euthanasia has been legal since 2002 - partnered with the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition and Dunn Media to produce a series of videos begging the Canadian government to reconsider the bill.
PALO ALTO, Calif. (AP) -- A six-month jail term for a former Stanford University swimmer convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman on campus after both attended a fraternity party is being decried as a slap on the wrist....
PARIS (AP) -- The Seine River peaked early Saturday around Paris, hitting its highest level in nearly 35 years - almost 4.5 meters (15 feet) above average - then began a slow descent. That drew a collective sigh of relief but authorities cautioned it could take up to 10 days for the river to return to normal....
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- With the primary season near its end, a defiant Bernie Sanders declared Saturday that the Democratic presidential process should not be decided by party leaders and elected officials, predicting a contested summer convention against rival Hillary Clinton....
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) -- In a funeral he planned years ago, Muhammad Ali will be coming home as a "citizen of the world" when he is buried Friday in Louisville....
NEW YORK (AP) -- During the Beatles' first visit to the United States in 1964, clever publicity agents arranged a meeting with Cassius Clay, then training for the bout that would make him heavyweight champion. The result was a memorable photo of a whooping Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali, standing astride four "knockout victims."...
Vatican City, Jun 4, 2016 / 11:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has approved the institution of a new Vatican department dedicated to the family, the laity, and life.According to a set of statutes released Saturday, the new department will promote “the pastoral care of the family, maintain the dignity and basic good of the Sacrament of marriage, favor the rights and responsibilities of the Church in civil society.”This will be so “that the family institution may always fulfill its proper functions both within the Church and society.”The Vatican department – which is also known as a dicastry – will also will pay “special attention to the particular mission of the lay faithful to permeate and perfect the order of temporal reality,” the statute continues.The new dicastry on the family, laity, and life will take effect Sept. 1, 2016, at which point both the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and the Pontifical Council for the Family wil...
Vatican City, Jun 4, 2016 / 11:43 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis has approved the institution of a new Vatican department dedicated to the family, the laity, and life.
According to a set of statutes released Saturday, the new department will promote “the pastoral care of the family, maintain the dignity and basic good of the Sacrament of marriage, favor the rights and responsibilities of the Church in civil society.”
This will be so “that the family institution may always fulfill its proper functions both within the Church and society.”
The Vatican department – which is also known as a dicastry – will also will pay “special attention to the particular mission of the lay faithful to permeate and perfect the order of temporal reality,” the statute continues.
The new dicastry on the family, laity, and life will take effect Sept. 1, 2016, at which point both the Pontifical Council for the Laity, and the Pontifical Council for the Family will be dissolved. The Pontifical Academy for Life will be connected to the new entity according to its competence. Last October, at the end of the Synod on the Family, the Holy Father announced his intent to create the new dicastery, and his creation of a special commission tasked with delineating canonically its competencies.
Francis approved the statues for the newest dicastry “ad experimentum” on the proposal of the Council of Cardinals in charge of the study of the reform of the Roman Curia, according to a June 4 statement from the Holy See press office.
The new Vatican body will be tasked with projects relating to the apostolate of the laity, the institution of marriage, and the family within the life of the Church.
It will deal with matters regarding the promotion of life, the apostolate of the laity, the pastoral care and of the family, and “its mission, according to God's design, to support human life,” according to statutes which the Pope approved Saturday.
The heads of the dicastry for family, laity, and life will include a prefect, who will be assisted by a secretary which, the statutes say, could be a lay person, along with three lay undersecretaries.
Members of the department will include lay persons, men and women, celibate and married, working in different fields of activity and coming from different parts of the world.
One of the tasks will be to promote the analysis of doctrine on themes and questions pertaining to lay persons.
The dicastry will also “establish aggregations of faithful and lay movements which have and an international character, and will approve their statutes, save the competence of the Secretary of State.”
Another focus will be the “deepening of the doctrine of the family,” and promoting it through catechesis, especially with regard to the spirituality of marriage and the family.
Other programs will include formation of engaged couples and young people, supporting adoption, and care for the elderly.
In addition, the department will support and coordinate “initiatives to encourage responsible procreation, as well as for protection of human life from its conception until its natural end, taking into account the needs the person in the different evolutionary phases.”
These initiatives will include efforts to offer support to women experiencing difficult pregnancies so they do not resort to abortion, as well as programs for post-abortive mothers.
The dicastry for family, laity, and life will be directly linked to the Pontifical John Paul II institute for Marriage and the Family.
PARIS (AP) -- The day before the French Open final, Serena Williams' coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, was discussing whether his player would need to lift her level to beat Garbine Muguruza and collect a record-equaling 22nd Grand Slam title....
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- When an active shooter alert spread across the UCLA campus Wednesday, some students found themselves in a frightening predicament: They were told to go into lockdown but couldn't lock their classroom doors....
