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.
There are fears that a significant portion of people born in the US since the mid-1990s will not have married by the time they reach 40.
In a new paper for Demography, researchers Deirdre Bloome and Shannon Ang “project steep declines” in the probability of ever marrying.
They also predict declines that are larger among Black people than White people. If the most pessimistic models are correct, fewer than a quarter of blacks born in 1997 might get married by middle age.
The authors also offer some analysis of why the racial gap exists and why it matters. People from poorer backgrounds tend to marry less—a gap the authors also predict will grow—and blacks are disproportionately from poorer backgrounds; however, only a small share of the racial gap is explained by socioeconomic backgrounds.
More common explanations include a relative lack of employed “marriageable” males, higher rates of interracial marriage for black men, higher incarceration rates, and “exclusion from the physical spaces and social networks where many people find partners”.
England’s Catholic bishops have told the UK government they “have not yet seen any evidence whatsoever that would make the banning of communal worship” necessary in the battle against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, as England prepares to enter its second coronavirus lockdown on Thursday.
Under the government’s proposals all pubs, restaurants, gyms, non-essential shops and places of worship in England will close, although private prayer in places of worship can continue. However, unlike the previous lockdown in the spring, schools will remain open. The government will also allow funerals to take place.
In a letter signed by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster and Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool – the president and vice president of the conference – the bishops said the new national lockdown in England will “bring hardship, distress and suffering to many.”
“Our communities have done a great deal to make our churches safe places in which all have been able to gather in supervised and disciplined ways. It is thus a source of deep anguish now that the Government is requiring, once again, the cessation of public communal worship,” the bishops’ letter reads.
Meanwhile, numerous Bishops have asked Catholics to lobby their MPs that public worship be exempted from the planned legislation.
In the ten years up to 2018, the number of births in Ireland had fallen by 18.8pc, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office, with the age of first-time mothers rising.
The Vital Statistics Annual Report 2018 also shows the average age of mothers continues to rise with it being 32.9 years in 2018. Mothers under the age of 30 accounted for 27.1pc of births in 2018 compared with ten years previous when mothers under 30 accounted for 39.3pc of births.
Mothers giving birth over the age of 40 in 2018 had risen by 42pc since 2008.
The number of births from teenage mothers has dramatically decreased in the past ten years with a 60.2pc decrease from 2008 to 2018. There were 956 births to mothers under 20 years of age in 2018 which is down from 2,402 in 2008.
There were 61,022 live births in Ireland in 2018, and 31,140 deaths. The natural increase in population (births minus deaths) in 2018 was 29,882, which is a decrease of 4.9pc on the 2017 figure. overall population of the country. The natural increase in 2008 was 46,899, 36.3% more than the 2018 figure.
A Greek Orthodox priest has been seriously wounded in a shooting in the French city of Lyon on Saturday, officials say.
The incident came days after three people were killed in a knife attack at a church in the southern city of Nice.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the killings an “Islamist terrorist attack” and deployed thousands of extra soldiers to protect public sites, including places of worship.
In Lyon, the gunman fled the scene, sparking a manhunt.
Authorities have opened an investigation of attempted murder.
A suspect resembling witness descriptions was later taken into custody, but has since been released. The prosecutor’s office said it found no evidence of the man’s involvement, suggesting the gunman could still be at large.
New Zealand has voted in a referendum to legalise euthanasia. A concurrent vote to allow the recreational use of marijuana looks set to be rejected.
The vote on assisted suicide has already secured enough “yes” ballots – 65.2% – to become law, meaning New Zealand will become the seventh country in the world to legalise euthanasia. In Ireland, a vote recently moved a Private Member’s Bill that would permit assisted suicide to second stage.
As a result of the New Zealand vote, from November 2021 terminally ill patients deemed likely to have less than six months to live will be able to avail of assisted suicide.
They must be 18 and have the approval of two doctors, newly passed legislation states.
The final results of both referendums will be formally announced on 6 November.
The French Government have ordered that public worship cease during the latest coronavirus restrictions. Churches will not close until Monday November 2nd to allow traditional religious celebrations for All-Saints Day over the weekend.
The president of the Bishops’ Conference had written to President Macron asking to keep public worship in case of a new lockdown but after a meeting with religious representatives on Wednesday, the Minister for Internal Affair announced that religious celebrations would stop.
In Germany, Italy, Spain and many other European countries by contrast, churches will stay open.
Some Bishops have publicly contested the new rule.
Mgr Dominique Rey, the Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, tweeted that freedom of worship is not negotiable. “If shops and schools remain open, Catholics must have the right to attend mass.”
The Geneva Consensus Declaration rejects claims that abortion is a human right.
It also defends countries from having gender ideologies imposed on them through UN agencies.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops welcomed the move.
Kansas Archbishop, Joseph Naumann, said he hopes it will help nations to stand against powerful international forces that promote abortion and undermine the family.
