Euthanasia deaths soared last year in Canada The number of Canadians who ended their lives by euthanasia and assisted suicide increased by 17% in 2020, the country’s health department announced on June 7. According to Abby Hoffman, assistant deputy minister of Health Canada, 7,595 people received “medically assisted deaths” last year, a figure which amounts…
Jesus is always praying for each and every person, desiring that his word would help people in their lives and that they never would feel alone, Pope Francis said
Pope Francis declined on Thursday the resignation of Cardinal Reinhard Marx, offered to him last month. In a June 10 letter, the Pope asked the influential German cardinal to continue as archbishop of Munich and Freising. Writing in Spanish, Francis told Cardinal Marx: “If you are tempted to think that, by confirming your mission and not…
Archbishop Michael Miller of Vancouver said he was “filled with deep sadness” after learning of the discovery of the bodies of more than 200 children buried on the site of what was once Canada’s largest indigenous residential school. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation May 30 reported an “unthinkable loss” that was “never documented” at…
The recent arrest of a Vatican-approved bishop, priests and seminarians in north-central China came as a shocking development, as religious persecution has intensified in the communist-led country under President Xi Jingping. Police arrested Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu of Xinxiang May 21, a day after authorities detained seven priests and an unspecified number of seminarians. They…
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, 2020 registered the highest number of land conflict incidents in Brazil since 1985, the Catholic-affiliated Pastoral Land Commission reported. The commission said in a report released May 31 that the country saw an average of more than four conflicts over land daily throughout the year. The report tallied 1,576 conflicts, an…
The chairman of the US bishops’ pro-life committee Archbishop Joseph Naumann called on Congress May 28 to preserve the Hyde Amendment in any federal budget proposal and “to work toward a budget that truly builds up the common good of all”. The head of the Catholic Health Association of the United States, Mercy Sister Mary…
Bioethicists criticised June 3 the relaxation of a 14-day limit on human embryo experimentation. In a statement, the Anscombe Bioethics Centre in Oxford, England, lamented the decision by the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) to lift the limit on lab-grown embryo experimentation. “Once the 14-day rule falls away, the only real limit, it…
Revised canon law on crimes, punishments published A series of laws and procedures promulgated by now-retired Pope Benedict XVI and, especially, by Pope Francis to protect children, promote the investigation of allegations of clerical sexual abuse and punish offenders are included in a heavily revised section of the Code of Canon Law. The revision of…
Austrian bishops oppose assisted suicide ruling Austria’s Catholic bishops urged the authorities on June 1 to offer people “assistance to live”, rather than assistance to suicide. The bishops issued a statement in the wake of a ruling by the country’s top court that assisted suicide should no longer be a criminal offense. “Dying is a…