Amidst the unfolding religious freedom crisis in Afghanistan, the position of “Special Envoy for the promotion of freedom of religion or belief outside the EU” has, again, been left vacant. Christos Stylianides has accepted a different position after less than five months in the role.

“Nobody should be persecuted because of their faith. The current plight of Christians, Shia Muslims, and other religious minorities in Afghanistan highlights the need for a Special Envoy to quickly get to work, focusing on the needs of the most persecuted worldwide. A swift reappointment is crucial in showing real commitment to improving the precarious situations religious minorities are facing worldwide,” said Adina Portaru, Senior Counsel for ADF International in Brussels.

The European Commission had appointed Stylianides this May after the position had been left vacant for two years. Human rights experts had raised concern over the poor resourcing and staffing provided to carry out the mandate.

Sunday Masses remain suspended in some dioceses in New Zealand by order of their Bishops after Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern threw a “curveball” by announcing that indoor gatherings would be limited to 50 people as one of the measures for a new “Delta” alert level 2. Other parts of the country, such as Auckland, are under a level four alert.

Hamilton Bishop Stephen Lowe, at a livestreamed Mass on September 7, said this revised restriction created “an issue for our celebration of the Eucharist”.

“This was a real curveball. We were all set up for our parishes for the previous restriction for level 2. We thought there will be some changes, but the number of restrictions caught us unaware. To that end, I’ve made the difficult decision that Masses in the diocese of Hamilton will remain suspended, with the exception of funerals and those weddings that are already booked in,” the bishop announced towards the end of the livestreamed Mass.

He said this decision will be reviewed next week as he called on people to watch out for further announcements on the diocesan website.

An abortion referendum will take place in the small Republic of San Marino on the 26th of September, one of the few States in Europe that still protects pre-born life.

The plebiscite will ask citizens if they want to make abortion legal up to 12 weeks – and beyond this term “in case of risks for the life of the woman or if there are serious malformations of the foetus” No quorum is required for the validity of the referendum, and due to the local rules, campaigning can only start 15 days before the date of the vote (on the 10th of September).

Nicola Speranza, Secretary General of the pro-family group FAFCE said the result is very uncertain. “I’m not informed on any survey available, but the atmosphere is very negative, as you can imagine. All political parties are in favour of the change, besides the biggest ruling party, the Sammarinese Christian Democratic Party” he said.

The National Academy of Medicine in Argentina has warned that the abortion law passed with the support of President Alberto Fernández’ administration violates the fundamental principles of medical ethics and the defense of life.

Argentina’s law legalizing elective abortion up to 14 weeks of pregnancy was passed by the country’s legislature Dec. 30, 2020 and was published in the government’s Official Bulletin Jan. 15, 2021. The decree that regulates the law was published in the Official Bulletin August 15.

In response, the National Academy of Medicine said that it has an obligation “to alert society, institutions and professionals about resolutions that are against the fundamental principles of medical practice, ethics and the defense of life.”

The academy reiterated “its respect for life from the moment of fertilization,” and criticized the euphemistic definition of abortion as “as access to the voluntary interruption of pregnancy.”

Calling abortion “the most pressing human-rights challenge of our time,” Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone on Sunday invoked the excommunication of prominent Catholic segregationists in the early 1960s as an example of a legitimate response to pro-abortion Catholics politicians who support “a great moral evil.”

In an op-ed published in The Washington Post, the leader of the Archdiocese of San Francisco pushed back against recent statements by Catholic politicians who have denounced a new state law in Texas that prohibits abortions after six weeks of pregnancy.

The op-ed doesn’t mention any politicians by name, and it stops short of advocating that any specific pro-abortion politicians be excommunicated. President Joseph Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, both professed Catholics, have been among those who have come out strongly against the Texas law.

The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has raised concerns about radical Islamism across the region, particularly amongst Christians.

In neighbouring Pakistan, Church leaders are concerned about the threat of terrorist attacks on churches. At a meeting between senior Catholic and Protestant leaders in Pakistan it was agreed that security at churches on Sundays would be increased. It is feared that the Taliban-affiliated Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other militant groups will be emboldened by the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan and launch attacks on churches.

Meanwhile the situation for Christians in Afghanistan itself is worrying. Many Christians were unable to be evacuated on the US-led airlift. The former US religious freedom ambassador, Sam Brown, warned about a genocide being carried out against Christians and other religious minorities in Afghanistan:

“It’s a deadly and catastrophic situation and could easily lead to genocide.”

There have been reports of members of the Taliban going door-to-door in Afghanistan looking for religious minorities, including Christians.

It has also been alleged that the Taliban have been checking people’s phones for digital copies of the Bible and have threatened to kill those who they do find with Bibles on their phones.

The communist President of China has argued that “human rights,” “freedom,” and “democracy” are bourgeois, Western values that the Marxist country will never accept.

On September 2, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s daily newspaper People’s Daily offered Xi Jinping’s answer to the question “Why should we take a clear stand against the so-called ‘universal values’ of the West?”

The “universal values” Xi Jinping is talking about are “the values ​​of ‘freedom,’ ‘democracy,’ and ‘human rights’ advocated by the modern western bourgeoisie.”

It is a “clever” strategy of the international bourgeoisie, led by “the United States and other Western countries,” continues Xi Jinping, to “package these values as ‘universal values’ and promote them globally, which confuses many people.” The truth for the Chinese president is that, if one adheres as he does to Marxist dialectical materialism, there are no “universal values” valid for all stages of history. Democracy, freedom, and human rights were useful, valid tools used by the bourgeoisie to defeat the “feudal autocracy.” In the next stage of history, they are reactionary weapons to “maintain the rule of the capital” over the proletarians, and should be liquidated by socialism .

Promoting freedom, democracy, and human rights as “universal values” creates an “ideological fog” whose “essence and harm” should be exposed.

A bishop in the UK is warning an attempt to legalize assisted dying working its way through the House of Lords sends the message “that some lives are no longer worth fighting for.”

Baroness Molly Meacher’s private member’s Assisted Dying Bill is set to get its second reading – where it will be debated in the House of Lords – in the autumn.

The proposed legislation would allow terminally ill patients in their last six months of life to commit medically assisted suicide with the permission of two doctors and a judge.

Bishop Patrick McKinney of Nottingham said it is “one of the most pressing moral issues of our time.”

“What this means in practice is that seriously ill people, across England and Wales, can be supplied with lethal drugs by NHS healthcare professionals, with the deliberate intention of helping the patient to end their life. Enthusiasts for a change in the law like to euphemistically label this controversial proposal as ‘assisted dying’, when in fact what they are demanding is assisted suicide for seriously unwell, vulnerable people,” the bishop said in a video statement.

Scotland’s decision to ignore public opposition and push forward with a home abortion regime is “deeply concerning,” according to a Catholic Church spokesperson.

Anthony Horan, the head of the Catholic Parliamentary Office of the Scottish bishops’ conference, said the government’s decision “rides roughshod over democratic convention” by deliberately setting out “to diminish the views of thousands of individuals who responded to a consultation on home abortions.”

“The Scottish Government shockingly sought to downplay those individuals who raised concerns, labelling a significant number of the responses as ‘organized by pro-life or faith groups’ as if to downgrade their importance. The same treatment was not given to pro-abortion groups,” he said in a Sept. 1 statement.

“Not only is the Scottish Government risking the health and wellbeing of vulnerable women and their unborn children, for whom abortion is always fatal, it also rides roughshod over democratic convention. It is dangerous for women, and it is dangerous for democracy,” he said.

Pope Francis has denounced the modern “throwaway culture” that discards unwanted human beings through abortion and euthanasia.

In a wide-ranging interview with Spain’s COPE radio station, the pope once again compared the practice of abortion to hiring a hit man to assassinate somebody who stands in your way.

Regarding Europe’s demographic winter, the pope pointed to abortion as a root cause.

“This throwaway culture has marked us. And it marks the young and the old,” he said. “It has a strong influence on one of the dramas of today’s European culture.”

“In Italy, the average age is 47 years old. In Spain, I think it is older,” he continued. “That is to say, the pyramid has been inverted. It is the demographic winter of births, in which there are more cases of abortion.”

He also defended the Vatican deal with China’s communist government on the appointment of Catholic bishops, saying an uneasy dialogue is better than no dialogue at all.

He compared it to the Vatican’s dialogue with East European countries during the Cold War which, he said, eventually resulted in many freedoms for the Church there.