The very first #RedWednesday events in remembrance of persecuted Christians across the world were held in many churches throughout Ireland this week. Four cathedralsand 40 parish churches participated including St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, the national shrine of Knock, and the Cathedral churches of Waterford and Galway. Archbishop Eamon Martin, Catholic Primate of All Ireland, at a vigil ceremony held on Tuesday, spoke of how the island of Ireland was tragically familiar with religious persecution and violence from its history – but that Red Wednesday provides an opportunity for different Christian faith traditions to stand united with each other and for each other as an example of peace and reconciliation. Michael Kinsella, Director of Public Affairs and Religious Freedom, Aid to the Church in Need (Ireland), said the purpose of remembering the sacrifice and bravery of those martyred and persecuted Christians historically and presently was so that that “they may know that, even if the world forgets them, God will never forget them (Isaiah 49:15)”.
Pope Francis made another attack on what he calls ‘ideological colonisation’, this time decrying its tendency indoctrinate children in its ‘novel’ way of thinking. Drawing on the historical record of dictatorships in Europe, he said each one brought with it an ideological colonisation that included “indoctrination in schools”, where “freedom is taken away, history, people’s memory is deconstructed, and an educational system is imposed on young people”. Citing a contemporary example, he said “I know a country, a nation that asks for a loan, [and the answer is] ‘I will give you the loan, but [in return] you, in your schools, have to teach this, and this, and this,’; books that have erased all that God has created and how he has created it. They erase the differences, eliminate history: from today you have to start thinking in this way”. The Pope explained that such indoctrination is an attempt to “eliminate memory, reducing it to ‘fables’, ‘lies’, old things”. Moreover, he said those who do not think like this are cast aside, threatened, deprived of freedom, which then corresponds to “another form of torture” and “persecution”.
Members of the committee on the Eighth amendment have adamantly denied accusations that their work is biased toward a predetermined, pro-abortion outcome. Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy said the claim of bias was “utter nonsense” and the narrative that peddled it was “a lie”. People Before Profit TD Brid Smith said there had been a deliberate attempt to create a fake perception that the chair was biased. Sinn Féin’s Jonathan O’Brien denied there were only three anti-abortion members on the committee, adding that he considered himself to be neither “pro-choice or pro-life.” He said the conduct of Senator Rónán Mullen and Independent TD Mattie McGrath had been “disgraceful”. In response, Senator Mullen said he had tried to avoid criticism of the chair but her management of the committee had “failed to procure objectivity”. Deputy McGrath said the committee was a “stitch-up” for which the members were responsible. The committee’s work was unbalanced and there had been an “appallingly skewed line of speakers” before the committee, which had “already voted for abortion”, he claimed. The committee hearings had been “a charade from the start”, the Tipperary TD said.
The Prime Minister of France has ordered that so-called “inclusive writing” – an attempt to make French grammar politically correct and gender neutral – cannot be used in official government texts. Mr Edouard Philippe wrote a memo to his cabinet that “the masculine (form) is a neutral form which should be used for terms liable to apply to women,” and added, “State administrations must comply with grammatical and syntactic rules, especially for reasons of intelligibility and clarity”.
The move was in response to new spellings of French words that have been proposed for some masculine-gendered nouns. The new spellings include feminine forms rather than following the rule that plural masculine endings denote both women and men – a practice that the French ministry for gender equality has described as a form of sexual tyranny. The Prime Minister, however, has now firmly come down on the side of French language purists and has ordered all government ministries to follow suit.
Cultural and ideological colonisation does not tolerate differences and is intent upon making everything the same, resulting in the persecution of those who dissent, Pope Francis has said in a homily at Mass on Monday. The Pope has often condemned “gender theory” which says your ‘gender’ and biological sex can be completely different from each other. Reflecting on the book of Maccabees’ account of the martyrdom of Eleazar, the Pope said the genocides of the last century were an example of trying to make everyone equal so that there is no place for differences, no place for others and no place for God. He said: “Ideological and cultural colonisations only look to the present; they deny the past, and do not look to the future. They live in the moment, not in time, and so they can’t promise us anything. And with this attitude of making everyone equal and cancelling out differences, they commit, they make a particularly ugly blasphemy against God the Creator.” The Pope said that ideology attempts to change reality itself and contends with God to do so, and the only response of a people should be to resist, even to the point of martyrdom: “Every time a cultural and ideological colonisation comes along, it sins against God the Creator because it wants to change Creation as it was made by Him. And against this fact that has occurred so often in history, there is only one medicine: bearing witness; that is, martyrdom.” As an example he said that before, “it was a sin to kill children; but today it is not a problem, it is a perverse novelty”. Before, natural differences were clear, as God made them, creation was respected; but today, not so, as people have become modern. He said that the figure of Eleazar, by giving his life offered a great witness to others, especially the young and taught us not to stay faithful to the law of God: “I have lived thus. Yes, I dialogue with those who think otherwise, but my testimony is thus, according to the law of God.” The Pope concluded with the hope that that example “will help us in moments of confusion in the face of the cultural and spiritual colonisation that is being proposed to us.”
The Oireachtas Committee on the Eighth Amendment has met in private today to discuss the widespread allegations that the committee is operating with a pro-choice bias. The meeting was requested by Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy after two members of the committee, Mattie McGrath, TD, and Senator Ronan Mullen, claimed the outcome of their work was pre-determined to call for repeal of the Eighth Amendment. It has already voted in favour of doing so. According to The Irish Times, the meeting “will outline the efforts made to ensure a balance in the witness list and the distribution of time between members of the committee.”
A surrogate mother in the UK lost custody of the child she gave birth to and raised for 18 months with her husband when a Court ordered it be handed over to a gay couple who had contracted the surrogacy. In 2015, the woman signed a surrogacy agreement with the male couple, whom she had met online, and traveled to Cyprus to have an embryo transferred to her womb. During her pregnancy however, the woman and her husband fell out with the gay couple and changed their mind about giving up the child. Genetically, the child was conceived using sperm from one of the men of the gay couple and a donor egg from a Spanish woman. The male couple then began legal proceedings against the surrogate family and the Courts decided that, while the surrogate mother and her husband were the legal parents of the child, nonetheless the child should be handed over to the “intended parents” who had contracted the surrogacy as the baby’s “identity needs as a child of gay intended parents would be best met by living with a genetic parent”. The surrogate couple appealed the decision and last Friday an Appeals Court confirmed the original ruling that the child had to be handed over to the contracting, male couple.
A court in France has ruled that Christmas nativity scenes cannot be displayed in public buildings unless they are installed exclusively for cultural, artistic or festive purposes.
The ruling by the French Council of State relates to a Nativity scene installed in the Town Hall in Béziers in 2014 by its Mayor, Robert Ménard, against which a complaint had been filed for alleged violation of the country’s secularization laws. However, the Mayor has refused to back down and plans to continue displaying the nativity scene though with modifications to reflect local regional customs.
