The Chinese government’s campaign to develop “religion with Chinese characteristics” has increased persecution of the country’s Christians, the human rights watchdog ChinaAid has said.
A 53-page report by the Texas-based NGO accuses Chinese officials of destroying churches, imposing strict regulations on religion, and encouraging both non-religious people and officially recognized churches to inform on illegal house churches.
Government policies “encourage reports of illegal religious activities, mainly targeting house churches,” it said.
“Encouraging snitching is a common method applied by the Chinese Communist Party to reinforce its rule,” said ChinaAid. “Authorities used money incentives to motivate non-believers to report house churches’ so-called ‘illegal religious activities’, attempting to produce conflicts and tension between non-Christians and Christians and increase the mistrust between the two people groups.”
A large majority of Irish mothers would prefer to work part-time, rather than full time, according to a major new survey study of family trends and attitudes. It also reveals a big difference between the sexes in terms of the sort of work/home life balance they want.
The Global Family and Gender Survey is a major international study that looks at family trends and attitudes in 11 different countries, including Ireland. It surveyed 2,500 Irish people aged 18-50 in 2018, among them 1,253 parents. The survey was overseen by the Institute for Family Studies in the United States and the Irish end was partly funded by The Iona Institute.
The survey finds 61 per cent of mothers with children under the age of 18 would work part-time if given the chance; but only 29 per cent of fathers would do the same.
It also finds that when parents have children aged under 4, there is a marked preference for looking after them at home, and that young parents want flexibility so they can come to the child-care arrangement that suits them best.
Stay-at-home father and spokesperson for the Iona Institute, Brendan Conroy, says the results show the need for a change Government policy:
“Government child-care policy must be more suited to what parents want, rather than prioritise the demands of employers, as it seems to do at present. For example, in terms of resources, the Government is currently discriminating in favour of day-care over other forms of child-care, especially minding a child at home. Tax individualisation strongly favours two-income couples over one-income couples.”
An elder in a Christian evangelical Church was violently attacked last week by Hindu extremists in India who accused him of ‘converting people’.
Isaac Paulose, 48, was attacked shortly after dropping his 5-year-old son off at school.
Paulose was in his car when a Hindu nationalist on a motorcycle stopped him and told him to get out.
Armed with bamboo rods and a thick metal chain with a heavy lock on it, 10 Hindu nationalists in beat him and then ran their five motorcycles over him, fracturing one of his ribs.
Paulose’s wife, Elizabeth Isaac, said: “Accusing him of ‘converting people,’ they beat him with bamboo logs and a thick metal chain with a lock attached to its end. They scorned and ridiculed him, daring him to continue to convert people.”
Hindu extremists routinely attack Christians for “conversion,” though conversion is legal in India, and also routinely raise false accusations against them of illegal “forcible conversion.” They frequently make no distinction between the two.
The assailants threatened to kill the pastor before leaving, Pastor Deep said.
The UK’s International Ambassador for Human Rights, Rita French, has told the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) that freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) is a “key UK human rights priority”.
UNHRC heard concerns during a two-day dialogue on religious freedom held on Monday and Tuesday.
In a statement, Ms French said that over the past nine months, the UK had been working to implement the recommendations of the Bishop of Truro’s review into persecution, published last summer.
The review, commissioned by then Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, found that levels of persecution against Christians were reaching genocidal levels and called on the UK Government to take a number of steps to uphold FoRB for all faiths.
These included initiating a UN Security Council resolution calling on North African and Middle Eastern countries to protect Christians and other persecuted minorities, and imposing sanctions on the worst offenders.
“We remain deeply concerned about global levels of intolerance, discrimination, and persecution of, and violence against, people because of their religion or belief, or for not having a faith,” said Ms French.
“The UK has stepped up its focus on this issue over the last few years and it is a key UK human rights priority.”
She added: “Freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief must be defended, and we believe that working together is the best way to achieve real, positive impact in guaranteeing the rights of all faith or belief communities around the world.”
A Vancouver-based bicycling charity broke a long-standing partnership with a local branch of the Knights of Columbus last week and rejected their donations of bikes due to its traditional beliefs about marriage and sexuality.
“I’m sad that religious intolerance seems to be getting in the way of getting bikes to poor people,” said Graham Darling, the spokesman for the local council of the Knights of Columbus.
The PEDAL Society is a non-profit that recycles and refurbishes used bicycles, and also provides education in bike mechanics to the community. Darling said the society called to let him know that the organization would no longer accept bikes donated by the Knights because it said the group is “anti-LGBTQ+”.
The Knights had been donating bicycles in partnership with the organization since 2006, and Darling said that “no issues have ever arisen” in that time.
Darling told The B.C. Catholic that “(t)he first principle of the Knights of Columbus is charity, and I’m sure that’s been a priority for PEDAL Society/Our Community Bikes. It’s a shame when people with moral differences elsewhere can’t still work together in a common cause.”
A record rate of abortions in England and Wales in 2018 has been described as a ‘national tragedy’ by a pro-life group. It now means one in four pregnancies end in abortion.
Figures from the Office of National Statistics showed that 24% of recorded pregnancies in England and Wales were legally terminated, the highest proportion since records began in 1990. Specifically in 2018, the records report there were 839,043 conceptions for English and Welsh residents and 200,608 abortions.
This means that for every three babies who were born, one was aborted.
Spokesperson for Right to Life UK, Catherine Robinson, called the figures alarming and said they reveal a national tragedy. “Every one of these abortions represents a failure of our society to protect the lives of babies in the womb and a failure to offer full support to women with unplanned pregnancies,” she said
“Polling shows large majorities of women in the UK support changes to our abortion laws that would have a positive impact on lowering the number of abortions.
“We are calling on the Government to urgently bring forward sensible new restrictions and increased support for women with unplanned pregnancies. This would ensure we were working together as a society to reduce the tragic number of abortions that happen each year”.
The head of the US Supreme Court has publicly chastised the leader of the Democratic Party in the US Senate for making threatening remarks against two sitting justices as they consider ruling on an abortion related case.
In a highly unusual move, Chief Justice John Roberts released a statement calling the comments not only inappropriate, but “dangerous”.
Democratic Senate Minority Leader, Chuck Schumer, had spoken at a pro-abortion protest outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, as the Justices mulled over whether to uphold a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital.
Senator Schumer named two newly appointed Justices specifically, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, and warned them that they would “pay the price” and would “not know what hit them” if they were to vote to uphold the modest restrictions on abortion.
The Holy See has attacked the latest UN report on religious freedom. Decrying particularly the document’s many references to gender ideology, the Holy See called it a kind of “ideological colonisation” by some States and the UN. The Holy See also said the Report is an “attack to religious freedom”, including the right of doctors to conscientiously object to abortion.
“Particularly unacceptable and offensive are the numerous references that recommend that freedom of religion or belief and the conscientious objection must be surrendered for the promotion of other so-called ‘human rights’, which certainly do not enjoy consensus;” the Holy See statement remarked.
The Report of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief was discussed this week at the 43rd session of the Human Rights Council.
The Report advocates a concept of freedom “from” and within” religion to protect the so-called new human rights; questions the existence of a right to conscientious objection; and also implicitly pushes doctrinal changes in religions on the basis of alleged international law requirements.
Religious persecution is gender-specific with sexual violence against women so widespread as to be a global calamity.
That’s according to the Christian persecution watchdog organisation Open Doors who just released the 2020 Gender-Specific Religious Persecution Report.
“No demographic is spared from religious persecution,” said Open Doors CEO David Curry. “The research shows that women are specifically targeted by efforts to hijack their faith through forced marriage to a spouse of another faith. Most frequently, however, Christian women are routinely victimised by sexual assault. These egregious abuses are rooted in the belief that a Christian woman is of inherently lesser value than a man or woman of another faith. It’s all in a concentrated effort to take away a woman’s right to make up her own mind.”
The report says that religious persecution faced by Christian men can be characterised as focused, severe and visible, evidenced by the prevalence of violent physical beatings and attacks on homes and businesses. In contrast, religious persecution targeting women is most characterised as complex, violent and hidden.
“Though every abuse for the sake of one’s faith is problematic, women and girls are facing the most difficult circumstances because they are often forced to suffer silently. They are hidden in forced marriages or isolated by the lifelong effects of sexual abuse,” said Curry.
Women who change their mind within 72 hours of taking the first dose of the abortion pill can still reverse the process and save their baby.
That’s according to Obstetrician, Dr William Lile, who spoke at a medical conference in Dublin at the weekend hosted by Doctors for Life Ireland.
The abortion pill, which causes a chemical abortion, consists of two separate pills; the first, mifepristone, blocks the effects of progesterone, the natural hormone in a pregnant mother’s body necessary for her pregnancy to thrive. The drug then causes the uterine lining to break down and the placenta to fail, thus starving the growing baby of oxygen and nutrients.
The second pill, misoprostol, normally taken one to two days later, completes the abortion, by causing contractions and the expulsion of the deceased baby.
The Abortion Pill Reversal protocol works by giving the mother extra progesterone up to 72 hours after she takes the first chemical abortion drug, mifepristone. The treatment has the best chance for success when begun within 24 hours, according to practitioners.
One Irish doctor at the conference reported having already successfully used the medication with one of his patients.
Niamh ui Bhriain of the Life Institute welcomed the availability of this treatment in Ireland and said it gives hope to Irish women who immediately regret taking the abortion pill.
