Catholic News 2

(Vatican Radio) The chief of Europe's top human rights body says laws in several European countries that prevent migrant children from reuniting with their families or force them to leave when they turn 18 create a "huge security risk". Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland made the comments amid international concern about the treatment of asylum seekers in countries such as Hungary. 

Listen to the report by Stefan Bos:

Jagland said in published remarks that several European countries are effectively forcing young people into crime and extremism by preventing them to reunite with their families. When they turn 18, he said, they are told to leave the country, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation from human traffickers who could push them into crime or the illicit sex trade.

The rights official called that a security risk for Europe and a self-inflicted wound many of them people will become in his words "criminals and maybe also terrorists."

He noted that governments in some European nations are under huge pressure from what he described as "right-wing extremist forces" to deal with an influx of migrants. 

Hungary, for instance, has come under European Union pressure to change recently adopted legislation that allows for the detention of all asylum seekers, including children, in container camps. 

URGING SHELTER

The Council of Europe has urged authorities to offer appropriate shelter and schooling to migrant children as a way to keep them from fleeing.

Jagland, who is from Norway, said he suspects there are many more migrant children unaccounted for in Europe than the 10,000 that has been estimated because they fear they will be expelled when they become 18-years-old.

The European Union's statistical agency, Eurostat, said last week that more than 63,000 children traveling without adult supervision applied for asylum last year in the European Union's 28 nations plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland.

Eurostat said more than half of the unaccompanied minors were Afghan and Syrian nationals and more than two-thirds were 16 and 17-year-old boys. Almost 6,300 were under age 14.

The agency says some 60 percent of the applicants sought asylum in Germany.

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Pressure is mounting from his coalition allies for Brazil`s President Michel Temer to resign amidst corruption allegations, which he denies.  

James Blears reports the opposition is demanding he step down and elections be brought forward. 

Listen: 

The most damning evidence against President Michel Temer comes from Joesley Batista the owner of meat packing company JBS, who`s dishing this up  a plea bargin for himself.  An audio tape of the two men allegedly discusses payments of bribes to Eduardo Cunha, the ex Speaker of the House of Representatives, who`s now serving 15 years for money laundering and tax evasion. 

Batista says huge payments were made to Temer starting in 2010 in the guise of election contributions.  Temer denies any wrong doing and in a national broadcast he says he`s definitely staying put.  The opposition says they`re pushing for his impeachment. 

Temer became President after Dilma Rousseff was impeached last year, casting a long shadow over the Rio Olympics. 

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Rome, Italy, May 20, 2017 / 11:15 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Held this year on May 20, Rome’s seventh annual March for Life was a chance for pro-life advocates of any faith to share their convictions about the sanctity of life and how it is founded in a love of life and family.

“It is the seventh edition of the March and as in the past years, we expect thousands of people to come and create a joyful atmosphere,” Alessandro Elia, one of the event’s organizers, told CNA ahead of Saturday’s event.

“In fact, we are against abortion because we love life and we love the family, a natural institution which is fundamental for every human society.”

This year was Rome’s sixth – and Italy’s seventh – annual March for Life. The event’s tagline was “For life without compromise.”

Pope Francis gave his apostolic blessing to participants in the pro-life event. In a written message signed by Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Pope Francis voiced his hope that the March for Life would promote the dignity of human life in Italy.

More than 6 million babies have been aborted in Italy since abortion on demand was legalized in the country in 1978.  Since that time, “it seems like being contrary to abortion is not permitted,” Elia said. 

“Many Catholics and non-Catholics are very determined to end abortion and the March for Life is an annual occasion to prove that we exist and that our requests need to be taken into account by the civil and political world.”

First held in Rome on Mother's Day in 2012 – previously held in another part of the country on one other occasion – the annual event was modeled after the U.S. March for Life held each year in Washington D.C.

Over the past four years, thousands of people have traveled from around the world to take part.

This year's March for Life began its peaceful demonstration at the Piazza della Repubblica, marching down Via Cavour, a major thoroughfare of the city, to arrive at the Piazza della Madonna di Loreto, located next to the busy Piazza Venezia of the well-known Altare della Patria national monument.

Thought open to people of all faiths, the night before the March Eucharistic Adoration was held at the Basilica of Sant’Andrea delle Fratte to pray for the reparation of the crime of abortion.

Though there were heavy rain showers off-and-on the morning and early afternoon of the day of the March, by the time it began in the afternoon blue skies and sunshine prevailed.

Euthanasia is a current pro-life issue in Italy at the moment, as the Italian Chamber has voted in favor of a bill that would effectively force doctors to follow directives from patients or their trustees – no matter made how many years earlier – to even include the withholding of food and water.

Next the bill to be passed by the Italian Senate. The law, on advanced healthcare directives (in Italian called DAT), “requires the doctor to be bound by an anticipated declaration of a patient who requests the suspension of nutrition and hydration,” Elia explained.

In this case, he said, the so-called “‘right to die’ for the patient equals the duty to kill for the doctor. This is unacceptable.”

Besides forcing doctors to participate in what is essentially a form of assisted suicide, “the death of patients by starvation and dehydration is extremely cruel,” he said.

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(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis will be the first Pope to participate personally and feature as protagonist in a documentary film.

The announcement was made at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival by film producer “Focus Features” that said it had acquired worldwide rights to “Pope Francis – A Man of His Word.”  

The film, directed by film director Wim Wenders, is a co-production with the Vatican. A press release reveals it’s only the second time the Vatican has collaborated with outside filmmakers and the first to grant direct access to a Pope.

Focus Features said the star film director is currently working the ‘historic non-fiction’ film, emphasizing that it is not a film about Pope Francis, but rather a film project with him.

It said it will feature Pope Francis in conversation, and discussing issues such as ecological responsibility, immigration, consumer behavior and social justice, addressing the audience directly.

The press release also said “it is a great exception in the history of the Vatican that the doors are opened to an external filmmaker so liberally. In addition to the privilege of talking to the Pope several times, Wim Wenders is given the opportunity to use exclusive material from the Vatican Archives”.

As the film is currently in production, there is still no date set for its release.

Wim Wenders is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, photographer, and a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature: for Buena Vista Social Club (1999), about Cuban music culture, Pina (2011), about the contemporary dance choreographer Pina Bausch, and The Salt of the Earth (2014), about Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado.

One of Wenders' earliest honors was a win for the BAFTA Award for Best Direction for his narrative drama Paris, Texas (1984), which also won the Palme d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. Many of his subsequent films have also been recognized at Cannes, including Wings of Desire (1987), for which Wenders won the Best Director Award at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.

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