Archbishop Eamon Martin has encouraged all Catholics to make contact with their TDs to express their pain at being separated from Mass and the sacraments.
Writing in the Irish Catholic newspaper, he asked that they remind TDs that the absence affects them spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically.
He cited the Taoiseach’s wish that Ireland will have a “meaningful Christmas”, but he added: ”For Christians the true meaning of Christmas is in the celebration of the Incarnation – the Word Made Flesh Who lived among us.”
“Christmas without public worship would be emptied of much of its meaning. No virtual gathering over webcam can replace the joy and consolation that comes when the Church – as a family of families – is able to physically meet to welcome Christ our Saviour”.
The UK’s Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, has hinted that the current ban on public worship would be reviewed.
On Wednesday, the House of Commons approved a new four week lockdown for England.
Numerous MPs voiced opposition to the banning of public mass and religious services.
Former Prime Minister, Teresa May said it set a dangerous precedent which could be misused by a future Government.
At the end of the debate, the Health Secretary offered hope that the blanket ban might be eased.
“I can tell the House that Ministers are talking to faith leaders to do everything we can to reach an accommodation as soon as possible,” he said. “I understand the impact of this infringement on liberties.”
The Minister for Health has not offered direct evidence to justify the closing of churches for mass and other religious services.
Independent TD, Carol Nolan asked the Minister for the specific evidentiary basis for the restrictions on public worship, and if he would reconsider permitting physical attendance at religious services.
Steven Donnelly replied that the number of people allowed to gather in different scenarios in the Government Framework are “based on a review of international practice and the judgment of public health experts”. However, he gave no detail as to what the international practice was regarding churches, or the elements weighed up by the public health experts. Most countries in Europe still permit public worship despite increased restrictions.
In the US state of Louisiana, a pro-life amendment has passed by a margin of 2 to 1.
It says that state courts cannot interpret any part of Louisiana’s constitution to declare a right to abortion, or mandate public funding for the procedure.
This means that the legislature alone will decide the legality of abortion.
Louisiana already has a “trigger law” that would ban almost all abortions in the state, if the US Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.
Meanwhile, Pro-life leaders in the US have welcomed the results of the elections to the US Senate.
While the Presidential race is likely won by the Democratic candidate Joe Biden, the Republicans look likely to hold a majority of the Senate.
This means Democratic plans to codify the Roe v Wade abortion regime in statute law would be vetoed.
Likewise, proposals to create extra seats on the Supreme Court to install a majority of pro-abortion judges would also fail.
Leaders of numerous English faith communities wrote to the Prime Minister on Tuesday challenging a ban on public worship as having ‘no scientific justification’.
The letter protesting the ban on public worship was signed by Justin Welby, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, and other Anglican leaders, Catholic Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster, as well as representatives of Pentecostal Protestant, Jewish, Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu communities.
“We have demonstrated, by our action, that places of worship and public worship can be made safe from Covid transmission. Given the significant work we have already done, we consider there to be, now, no scientific justification for the wholesale suspension of public worship,” read the letter to Boris Johnson.
They added that “the scientific evidence shows that social solidarity and connectedness are key to people maintaining motivation to comply with COVID secure measures and to maintain good mental health. And there is good scientific evidence of the importance of faith and faith communities for positive mental health and coping, especially for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic people.”
The Equality for Children group want to greatly expand the Children and Family Relationships Act which, they say, leaves out 60pc of LGBT families.
The Act, passed in 2015, downgraded the importance of biological parenthood in Irish law, replacing it with the notion of ‘intentional’ parent.
The group, however, says that the 2015 legislation does not cover LGBT parents who have children via at-home insemination, from a known or an anonymous donor, if they were born abroad and all male LGBT couples, as the legislation does not cover surrogacy.
Parents who fit the above criteria cannot name both intentional parents on their children’s birth certs. Under the law at present, two women can be named as the parents of the same child on the birth cert, leaving out the name of the father.
The group has been campaigning for a year and has met with Minister McEntee and Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman.
“While huge progress has been made over the past year and there has been great engagement with the government, there has been a huge level of communication there which has not been there in previous years but there still is a huge amount left to do, so our campaign has only really started,” said Ranae Von Meding, CEO of Children for Equality.
Pope Francis’ Secretary of State has encouraged bishops in Europe to evaluate legislative proposals in light of their impact on human life and the wellbeing of the family founded on marriage.
“The recognition of the sacred and inviolable dignity of every human life from conception until its natural end is of particular importance, and to this should be linked the defense and promotion of the family, the true cell of society, founded on the stable union of a man and a woman,” Cardinal Pietro Parolin said in his address to the plenary assembly of European bishops.
Parolin spoke to the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community (COMECE) Speaking via livestream, he said that Europe today needed to return to some of the basic principles of Catholic social teaching that were “at the heart of the European Project.” This includes understanding people not as radical individuals, but as social beings with responsibilities to others.
“The prevailing concept of person here, as in other more worrying recent developments in state legislation like, for example, those linked to euthanasia or those which put marriage on the same level as other types of unions, is a solitary or monadic one, detached from the idea of belonging to a community, composed of a plurality of subjects who do, indeed, have rights, but also duties.”
A Czech cardinal has criticised online censorship after his Twitter account was suspended.
Cardinal Dominik Duka of Prague announced the reactivation of his account, but said that he had received no explanation for its suspension.
The cardinal, who was imprisoned by the communist authorities in 1981-82, compared present-day censorship to that of the 1980s. “Now, however, on the basis of fictitious statements, it is not man who punishes, but artificial intelligence, led by the crowd to suppress ‘wrong’ ideas,” he wrote on Twitter.
Czech media said a possible reason for the suspension was a tweet that Duka posted last month linking to an article about the confirmation of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The article had criticised the Czech media’s portrayal of Barrett as a member of a “Catholic sect.”
As a young priest Duka clashed with the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. Arrested for ministering covertly, he was sent to Bory Prison in Plzeň where fellow inmates included future Czech President Václav Havel. While there, Duka celebrated Mass for the prisoners under the guise of a chess club.
The President of the Conference of Bishops of France has filed a case with the country’s top Constitutional Court to challenge coronavirus restrictions that would cease public worship.
The petition to the Council of State, says that the restrictions “undermine the freedom of worship which is one of the fundamental freedoms in our country”. Writing on behalf of all the French bishops, Monsignor Éric de Moulins-Beaufort, archbishop de Reims, says the measures are disproportionate. He adds: “For the faithful, these celebrations are vital because they are an encounter with the Lord and with their brothers”.
There has been a lack of uniformity across Europe in general regarding whether mass and other religious services should be banned during enhanced covid restrictions. Ireland, France and England are stopping public worship, but it is still permitted in countries such as Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain.
Austria’s Catholic bishops have appealed for prayers for the victims of Monday night’s Islamist terror attack in Vienna.
Gunmen opened fire at six different locations in the Austrian capital, killing at least four people and injuring 17 others.
Archbishop Franz Lackner, president of the Austrian bishops’ conference, said that the attack was the result of a “misguided, inhuman ideology.”
“Believers must condemn this act in the name of God, and inwardly resist it with all their strength of spirit and faith,” the archbishop of Salzburg told Kathpress.
The shootings came after several days of Islamist attacks and demonstrations against Catholics and Catholic churches in Austria.
A 19-year-old Afghan was arrested Monday, and has confessed to striking a religious sister, 76, in the face on Saturday afternoon as she rode a bus in the Austrian city of Graz.
Between 30 and 50 young people also attacked a church in Vienna-Favoriten on Thursday evening, shouting “Allahu Akbar,” and kicking pews and other furnishing in the church.
Another Afghan was arrested over the weekend while shouting “Islamic slogans” in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna police confirmed.
