The persecution of Catholics in mainland China is increasing after prominent Catholic figures in Hong Kong continue to speak out against the communist regime, according to reports. The reports from Bitter Winter, a magazine covering religious liberty and human rights in China, come alongside allegations that the Chinese government has ignored requests to tolerate Catholic…
Less than two weeks before the Synod of Bishops for the Amazon is scheduled to begin at the Vatican, the Brazilian bishops’ Indigenous Missionary Council reported that the number of indigenous land invasions and indigenous murdered in Brazil in 2018 soared. The report, released last week, said the number of indigenous people murdered grew by…
A Catholic bishop in the Philippines has called for a strong response from the government to fight poliovirus, following an announcement last month from health officials that the once-eradicated disease has made a reappearance. “It is very sad that there is a re-emergence of polio after having eliminated it for many years,” Bishop Broderick Pabillo,…
Lawmakers in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca have approved a measure to decriminalise abortion, despite vocal Church opposition. The measure passed the Oaxaca state legislature, 24-10, amid shouts in the session from boisterous supporters and opponents. It allows for abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. Oaxaca becomes the second Mexican jurisdiction to…
Police in South Korea are investigating a doctor who mistakenly performed an abortion on the wrong woman in August. The mix-up was due to an inadvertent switch of medical charts and a failure to confirm the patient’s identity before the procedure, CNN reports. A Vietnamese woman pregnant with a 6-week-old baby entered a gynaecology clinic…
First US head of CDF group dies age 83 US Cardinal William Levada, former head of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation and retired archbishop of San Francisco and Portland, Oregon, died on September 26 in Rome. He was 83. When Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected Pope Benedict XVI in 2005, he named then-Archbishop Levada to replace…
China harvesting organs from minority groups, activists say The Chinese government is harvesting organs from religious and ethnic minorities, a human rights organisation told the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva last week. The China Tribunal, which calls itself an “independent, international people’s tribunal” that investigates allegations of organ harvesting in the country, said…
France’s Catholic bishops have opposed legislation to allow medically assisted procreation for single mothers and lesbian couples and urged citizens to help block its enactment. “We hear and understand the suffering of those who cannot have children from their union with a person of the opposite sex and of homosexual women who aspire to have…
Eritrean bishops protested the government’s seizure of Catholic schools and asked that the Church be enabled to continue its educational and health services. “If this is not hatred against the faith and against religion, what else can it be?” the bishops said in a letter to Eritrea’s minister of public education. “Our voice of protest”…
A bill to decriminalise abortion in all cases of rape failed in the Ecuadorian legislature last week, amid opposition from the Church and civil organisations. It would have allowed abortion also in cases of non-viable foetal deformity, incest, and non-consensual artificial insemination. Sixty-five members of the unicameral National Assembly voted in favour, five short of…