News Roundup

Houses of Parliament in UK to be lit up in red for persecuted Christians

The Houses of Parliament in Westminster will be lit up in red this Wednesday in honour of the world’s persecuted Christians and all those who suffer for peacefully held beliefs. Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need and Christian Solidarity Worldwide are organising the event, called #Red Wednesday, at locations all over the UK. A spokesperson for Aid to the Church in Need said “Red is the Christian colour of martyrdom. Christians are the most persecuted faith group in today’s world and #RedWednesday will honour all Christians who suffer and die for their faithfulness to Christ’s message of peace and love”. He added: “#RedWednesday will shine a light on Christian persecution but also highlight the injustices perpetrated against other faith groups. Our campaign calls for respect and tolerance for people of faith and between different faith traditions.” So far this year, at least 10 cathedrals across the UK have pledged to go red including London’s Westminster Cathedral and others in Ayr, Edinburgh, Paisley, Birmingham, Norwich, Wrexham, Derry and Armagh. In total, nearly 50 public buildings are expected to get behind #RedWednesday – schools, colleges and churches including London’s Anglican St Martin-in-the-Fields and All Souls, Langham Place.

There will be a week of vigils and other events across the country from November 19 to 26. At 6pm on November 22 a solidarity service will take place outside Westminster Cathedral, with talks, witness testimonies, a video message by MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, music and speeches by Coptic Orthodox Bishop Angaelos, Neville Kyrke-Smith, national director of Aid to the Church in Need (UK), and Mervyn Thomas, chief executive of Christian Solidarity Worldwide. Throughout the day, a traditional London red bus emblazoned with #RedWednesday slogans will be criss-crossing the capital, stopping at London landmarks.

 

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Church’s stance on abortion, marriage will never change, Archbishop

The Church will never change its teaching on issues of life and marriage, the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin has said. Speaking at Saint Mary’s Church, Haddington Road, on where the Church will be in ten years time, Archbishop Martin said “Let me be very clear.  The Church will never change its teaching on marriage and on the right to life. The Church will never compromise in its teaching on marriage and the right to life.” Acknowledging that such a stance puts the Church at odds with contemporary culture regarding abortion and same-sex marriage, he said that a Christian involves being open to hostility and even to martyrdom, although Christians here are more likely to suffer marginalization rather than martyrdom.  Nonetheless, he said, marginalization should not lead Christians to fly from reality into a comfort zone and the safety of the likeminded.

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SIPO loophole exploited by abortion groups to raise unlimited foreign and domestic donations

Some of the most prominent groups campaigning for Repeal of the Eighth Amendment are dodging SIPO rules on foreign and domestic donations by claiming they are not engaged in political campaigning. The Standards in Public Office law requires any body which received a political donation of over €100 to register as a ‘third party’ and bans foreign donations outright. But, the head of ethics and lobbying regulation Sherry Perreault told the Sunday Business Post that it was sometimes difficult to say whether a donation to an organisation was intended for political activity. “This is a recommendation that the commission has made in every annual report for the last couple of years – to look again at what constitutes a third party. These are things for government to consider in due course,” she said. Yet, a Department of Housing spokesman said there were “no immediate plans” to make any such changes. The most prominent groups campaigning for repeal of the Eight Amendment are not registered with SIPO right now. Amnesty International, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and the Irish Family Planning Association have said they will register as third parties with SIPO if they decide to campaign in the forthcoming referendum while the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment said it had commenced the required process to register as a third party. On the pro-life side, the most prominent groups, the Pro-Life Campaign, the Iona Institute and Family and Life are registered with SIPO, while some smaller groups such as the Second Look project and Yes to Life Ireland are not.

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IFPA presenting as ‘Independent Experts’ brings Oireachtas abortion committee to new level of farce, says Pro-Life Campaign

The Pro Life Campaign has said yesterday’s session at the Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment descended to a new level of farce when representatives of the Irish Family Planning Association were invited to address committee members as “independent experts”. PLC spokesperson Cora Sherlock said the IFPA are neither experts in women’s health nor independent witnesses. As evidence of their “expertise”, she said in recent years, IFPA counselors advised women to lie to their doctors and say they had a miscarriage if medical complications arose after an abortion, advice that the then master of a Dublin maternity hospital described as “life-endangering”. The IFPA also coached women on how to illegally import abortion pills to self-administer without medical supervision. Ms Sherlock said such “very serious breaches of care are on the public record and are the actions of a rogue agency, not the practice of an organisation delivering genuine care to women.” She added that they could not be regarded as “Independent” when they are in receipt of funding from the largest abortion provider in the US, International Planned Parenthood Federation, and from the New York abortion lobby group, the Centre for Reproductive Rights. This is despite the fact that the chairperson of the Oireachtas committee, Senator Catherine Noone assured the public just a week ago that no advocacy groups would be invited as witnesses.

She continued: “Now that the vote not to retain the 8th Amendment has taken place, there is no point in pro-life groups attending the committee. As the committee clocks up yet another week of slanted testimony in favour of repeal from a long-standing pro-abortion campaigning organisation like the IFPA, its credibility is even more damaged. Thankfully the public are starting to see through the charade that’s going on.”

In a tweet the PLC summed up the unfolding farce as follows: “First, they invite 24 abortion advocates, just 4 pro-life. Then they vote for abortion after hearing from less than a third of their witnesses. Then they scramble to invite pro-life experts and attack them for not co-operating.  #8Committee credibility is in tatters @senatornoone”.

 

 

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UK Catholic school forced to remove ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from admissions form

A Government official has decided a Catholic primary school in London must remove the terms ‘mother’ and ‘father’ from its admissions application form lest they be seen as restricting the definition of ‘parent’. Peter Goringe, an official at the Office of the Schools Adjudicator, which settles admissions disputes on behalf of the government, made the ruling after a complaint by one person against the school who said the terms discriminated against “separated, step and gay parents”. The complaint was upheld despite the school having the backing of the local authority, Wandsworth Borough Council, on the matter. The adjudicator wrote in his report that “in the absence of any clarification of the term ‘parent’, the use of the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’ might, as the objector suggests, be taken to imply that the school is restricting its definition [of parent].”

In a further surprising move, the Catholic Education Service has said that it will be asking all Catholic schools to comply with a “unified approach” under which admissions forms would omit the words ‘mother’ and ‘father’. A spokesman said: “We expect all Catholic schools to comply with the school admissions code and we work closely with dioceses and the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) to ensure this happens.”

Chris McGovern, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, was scathing in his response. He told the Sunday Times: “To ensure fairness, we should not be placing ‘mother’ and ‘father’ on a list of forbidden words. We should, instead, be accommodating these cherished foundation stones of our civilisation within the admissions system. The decision to remove them is profoundly undemocratic and illiberal and is a capitulation to a form of politically correct fascism.”

 

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Archbishop Martin: Allegiance is to God, not the State or the prevailing culture

The Archbishop of Dublin has said that Christians owe absolute allegiance to God alone, and not to any State or political regime. Speaking yesterday at an ordination ceremony at the Pro-Catherdral of two deacons to the priesthood, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said the early Christian martyrs’ witness to love showed “they could live in any regime but they could never grant any State or regime absolute allegiance” as their love could never restrict them to being “unquestionably loyal just to a regime or in some way to treat Caesar as God”. Likewise today, that same absolute allegiance to God precludes “the many compromising allegiances within which lives can become trapped”, whether they be consumerism, human success, popularity, wealth or power.  Speaking to the Deacons directly, he said, “Your commitment to poverty, chastity and obedience is not an allegiance of restriction, but an allegiance to be free to love as God loves and will only be authentic if founded in love.”   At the same time, he cautioned that such a ministry of witnessing to the love of Jesus would inevitably at times “upset your human sensitivity, comfort, and security2, before adding: “Never allow human upset to impede your love of Jesus.”

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Health Minister preparing legislation for abortion on demand up to 12 weeks

Minister for Health Simon Harris is preparing legislation that would allow abortion on demand for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The legislation is being drafted in parallel with the work of the Oireachtas committee on the Eighth amendment so that, If the committee recommends repeal of the Eighth followed by abortion legislation, Minister Harris will have the statutes ready to be published soon after. The Times, Ireland edition, reported that the legislative options being drafted include 12-week abortion access, and another option allowing abortion in cases of rape where the woman would not have to “prove” her pregnancy was the result of a sexual crime. The Oireachtas committee is due to publish its findings by December 20th, and Minister Harris has set a deadline of February 14th next year for the draft legislative options to be completed. This would allow time for the Government to set a referendum for May or June and publish the bill that would follow upon a ‘yes’ vote.

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Australian public votes to redefine marriage

The Australian postal survey on same-sex marriage has been passed by a margin of 62% to 38%. This now paves the way for parliament to vote on a measure to redefine marriage laws in the country to enable same-sex unions to be recognised as marriage. The postal survey had been announced by the coalition Government as a means of gauging public support for the issue before any legislation might be introduced in parliament. The survey itself, a voluntary, non-binding postal vote, had a participation rate of 79.5%, one of the highest participation rates for any such referendum around the world. The Australian parliament is now expected to legalise same-sex marriage before Christmas, although legislators will have to decide the extent of conscience protections, if any, for those who do not want to participate in same-sex weddings.

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Persecution follows Christian migrants from asylum shelters to the streets

Christian migrants in German asylum shelters have reportedly been persecuted by their Muslim counterparts, and a local pastor says that believers are still hounded by the same experience out in the streets and in metro stations.

Berlin-based pastor Gottfried Martens noted that Christians in asylum homes have lived relatively safer lives in the last year. However, many believers — especially the converts from Islam — were still persecuted even though they already moved into private homes. Christians have been the target of several violent attacks across Germany, with some of these incidents taking place on the streets or in metro stations. Among the reported incidents were the deadly stabbing of an Afghan woman in Prien am Chiemsee and the beating of a young Afghan male convert in Berlin in September. According to Ado Greve of Christian charity Open Doors, Christians who were attacked usually lay low and do not want to draw attention to themselves. Some of them were also convinced that the authorities were not doing enough to help them.

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Former Student Union President urges pro-lifers: ‘be confident, brave and unafraid’

The former president of the UCD Students Union, who was impeached for her pro-life views, has issued a clarion call to all those with pro-life convictions to be brave and speak out fearlessly. In an op-ed in the Irish Times, Katie Ascough said her experience of impeachment should not serve as a warning to other pro-life people to keep quiet. On the contrary, she wrote, “the fact that some people do not want our voices heard should make us even more determined to speak out and share our viewpoint”.

“To those who are pro-life, I urge you to be confident, brave and unafraid. It can be scary – trust me, I know. But please, for the sake of our country, do not tiptoe around this issue because you’re concerned about what other people might think.”

Ms Ascough warned the climate of fear fostered by some pro-choice activists against open debate amounts to a kind of “thought policing” that would work only if pro-life people give in to it.

“Thought policing smothers true debate and is one of the biggest threats to a free democracy. We give in to it when we allow ourselves to be silenced”.

She concluded: “Be it in the home, out at coffee, in the workplace, or on the streets, do yourself and your country a favour: don’t sit in a box that has been designed to make you feel comfortable with being silent and that is intended to deflect open debate”.

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