Catholic bishops face clash with President Joe Biden after voting to commission a document that may call for him to be barred from Holy Communion.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) clashed online over whether to draw up a teaching document on politicians who support abortion.
Holy Communion is the most important ritual in the Catholic Christian faith.
The Catholic president regularly attends Mass.
Responding to news of the bishops’ vote, President Biden said: “That’s a private matter and I don’t think that’s gonna happen.”
The Vatican has already indicated its opposition to the bishops’ move.
After the debate on June 17, the Most Reverend Allen H. Vigneron, vice-president of the USCCB, announced the move had passed by 168 to 55, with six abstentions.
The US clergy is deeply divided on the issue. The Most Rev Robert McElroy, bishop of San Diego, warned such a document would lead to the “weaponization” of the Eucharist (the more formal name for Holy Communion).
However, the Most Rev Liam Cary, the bishop of Baker, Oregon, said the Church was in an “unprecedented situation”, with “a Catholic president who is opposed to the teaching” of the Church.
The document will now be drafted by the doctrine committee of US bishops.
However, although it will be a form of national policy, it will not be binding. Each individual bishop has the right to decide who should be blocked from the Mass in his diocese.
The document will return for debate at the next bi-annual US Catholic Bishops Conference in November.
The controversial issue of whether politicians who support abortion should receive Mass has become more prominent with the election of Joe Biden as president.
Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, warned most priests would be “puzzled to hear that bishops now want to talk about excluding people at a time when the real challenge before them is welcoming people back to the regular practice of the faith and rebuilding their communities”.
However, proposing the motion, Bishop Kevin Roades, of Fort Wayne-South Bend, said: “We weren’t targeting particular individuals or limited to one issue, but I think we need to accept the [Church’s] discipline that those who obstinately persist in grave sin are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.”
Cardinal Luis Ladaria – the prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s theological watchdog – urged the US Catholic Bishops Conference to delay the debate.
He wrote to the conference saying it would be “misleading” to suggest abortion and euthanasia were “the only grave matters of Catholic moral and social teaching that demand the fullest level of accountability on the part of Catholics”.
Catholics for Choice, an abortion rights group, said it was profoundly saddened by the move.
Duck Dynasty‘s Phil Robertson is not afraid to loudly proclaim his religious beliefs, including their stance against abortion.
A new video surfaced Tuesday of Phil Robertson delivering an impassioned speech slamming abortion.
“From the time you started inside your mother’s womb, Thomas Jefferson had it right,” he said.
“You have the God-given right to live, for crying out loud.”
Phil Robertson continued by holding out a finger.
“You’re this long! C’mon! You have a God-given right to live. And of all places, inside your mother – what in the world happened to us?”
Phil Robertson, a former standout football quarterback at Louisiana Tech, has been an ardent believer since the ’70s. During that time, the Duck Dynasty patriarch “was headed south” – drinking, fighting, mistreating his family. When his wife, Miss Kay, kicked him out, Phil Robertson turned to religion.
Phil Robertson is not afraid to loudly proclaim his religious beliefs, including their stance against abortion
Though Phil Robertson feels free to let loose his opinions in a speech, he told the Wall Street Journal in June that his family purposefully plays down their faith on Duck Dynasty.
“We can’t get into spiritual matters on the show too much,” he said.
“That’s a little much for the production company. They say, you know, it’s not the Pat Robertson show.”
The Robertson family doesn’t hide their beliefs and it’s possible religion will play a greater role this season, with oldest son Alan – a former minister – joining the cast. In fact, before the season began, Alan Robertson said he hoped to spread his message to a bigger audience thanks to the popularity of Duck Dynasty.
Alan Robertson said of leaving his pulpit: “What I do for our church – you see, it’s a pretty good-sized church – impacts a lot of people. But because of my association with the show, I’ll get to minister to a lot more people.”
A child-trafficking ring that sold 300 babies over three years has been broken up in Cairo, Egyptian police say.
Two nurses and a doctor at a Cairo hospital are among five people arrested and police say they are still searching for the hospital manager.
The babies were reportedly sold to childless couples after Caesarean sections were performed on women carrying unwanted children.
Babies were said to have been sold for up to 3,500 Egyptian pounds ($570).
According to Egyptian media reports, women who had come forward too late for an abortion were offered a Caesarean section and their babies were then sold on, apparently at a profit.
Abortions are lawful in Egypt if the mother’s health is at risk.
Only a limited form of adoption is allowed, to the extent that children cannot take the name of their adoptive families.
Trade in such a black market in babies would have enabled couples to avoid Egypt’s legal restrictions.
Although the details of the case provided by police are sketchy, it appears they have disrupted an extensive child-trafficking ring.
City officials in Ankang, China, have apologized to Feng Jianmei, the woman who was forced to have an abortion in the seventh month of pregnancy and suspended three people responsible, state media reports.
This came after photos showing a foetus and the mother, Feng Jianmei, shocked web users.
Feng Jianmei was made to undergo the procedure in Shaanxi province in the seventh month of pregnancy, local officials said after investigating.
Chinese law clearly prohibits abortions beyond six months.
The Ankang city government said it decided to suspend three officials in Zhenping county following initial investigations. It also urged the county government to conduct a thorough review of its family planning operations, said Xinhua news.
City officials in Ankang, China, have apologized to Feng Jianmei, the woman who was forced to have an abortion in the seventh month of pregnancy and suspended three people responsible
On Thursday night, the city officials apologized to Feng Jianmei, 27, and her family, the report said.
She was ”forced to terminate her pregnancy” at a hospital in Zhenping on 2 June, said Xinhua.
Officials in Zhenping county claimed she agreed to the abortion because she was not allowed to have a second child by law. She already has a daughter, born in 2007.
But activists said she was forced into the abortion as she could not pay the fine for having a second child.
Rights groups say China’s one-child policy has meant women being coerced into abortions, which Beijing denies.
“Feng Jianmei’s story demonstrates how the One-Child Policy continues to sanction violence against women every day,” said Chai Ling of the US-based activist group All Girls Allowed.
The group says it spoke to Feng Jianmei and her husband Deng Jiyuan after the incident.
Deng Jiyuan said his wife had been forcibly taken to hospital and restrained before the procedure.
Media reports from China say Feng Jianmei has been traumatized by what has happened.
The photos sparked outrage among Internet users.
“This is what they say the Japanese devils and Nazis did. But it’s happening in reality and it is by no means the only case… They [the officials] should be executed,” one reader on news website netease.com said, according to the AFP news agency.
Grisly photos of Chinese young woman Feng Jianmei as she was lying beside her baby which had been aborted by force in her seventh month of pregnancy have caused outrage in China.
Pictures purporting to show Feng Jianmei and her blood-covered baby have shocked anti-abortion groups in China – and fury is spreading around the world.
The mother told local media that she was forceably injected with a chemical to induce an abortion and her child was stillborn 36 hours later.
Because Feng Jianmei already had a child, she said, local birth-control authorities ordered her to pay a fine of $6,500.
She didn’t have the money, she said, so a team from the local family planning authority in Shannxi province came to collect her from her home and take her to hospital for the forced abortion.
Recounting the horror, Feng Jianmei said she told the family planning department she could not pay the fine because her mother-in-law needed money for cancer treatment.
It was then, she claimed, the authorities began their action against her.
Because Feng Jianmei already had a child, she said, local birth-control authorities ordered her to pay a fine of $6,500
Feng Jianmei said no less than 20 staff from the family planning department came to her home and placed her under arrest.
As they drove her to the hospital for a forced abortion, she began to resist – resulting in her being beaten.
At the hospital she was restrained and given an injection that would be lethal to the foetus. None of her family was allowed to be present during the traumatic time, she said.
Feng Jianmei said that her father-in-law heard about her being taken away but when he rushed to the hospital he was prevented from entering the obstetrics ward.
As outrage spread around anti-abortion groups in China, the authorities strenuously denied Feng Jianmei’s version of the events.
Li Yuongjou, deputy chief of Ankang’s family department, said the reality was that “Feng was not forced to abort”.
He said: “A lot of us tried for days to educate her. She agreed to the abortion herself.”
Li Yuongjou added that in China an abortion is allowed up to 28 weeks, saying: “It’s not illegal to conduct <<medium term>> induction of labor.”
And he admitted, however, that in his town the local target of enforcing the one-child policy had not been achieved for two consecutive years and the authorities were acting more strenuously to see that the target covering 95% of the population was reached.
Local media said it was most likely that Feng Jianmei had been injected with a chemical commonly known as Lifannuo – a powerful bactericide used in the late 1980s and early 1990s when China’s one-child policy was strongly pursued by authorities.
It is not known how Feng Jianmei managed to obtain photos of herself beside the aborted child, but anti-abortion groups said they were convinced the pictures were genuine.
A picture of a foetus whose mother Feng Jiamei was forced to have an abortion has shocked China web users.
Feng Jiamei, from Shaanxi province, was made to undergo the procedure in the seventh month of pregnancy, local officials said after investigating.
Feng Jiamei was forced into the abortion as she could not pay the fine for having a second child, US-based activists said.
Rights groups say China’s one-child policy has meant women being coerced into abortions, which Beijing denies.
“Feng Jianmei’s story demonstrates how the One-Child Policy continues to sanction violence against women every day,” said Chai Ling of the US-based activist group All Girls Allowed.
Feng Jiamei was forced into the abortion as she could not pay the fine for having a second child, US-based activists said
The group says it spoke to Feng Jiamei and her husband Deng Jiyuan after the incident.
Deng Jiyuan said his wife had been forcibly taken to hospital and restrained before the procedure.
Such allegations are nothing new in China, but what has made this one different is a widely circulated photo of the woman lying next to the baby’s corpse.
Media reports from China says Feng Jiamei has been traumatized by what has happened.
Unnamed local officials in Zhenping county – where the incident took place – denied forcing Feng Jiamei to have the abortion, local media reports say.
But a preliminary investigation by the Shaanxi Provincial Population and Family Planning Commission confirmed the forced abortion had taken place.
Without naming Feng Jiamei, it said in a statement that the woman had been seven months pregnant.
“Such practice has seriously violated the relevant policies set by national and provincial family planning commissions, which harmed the image of our family planning work, and caused extremely poor effects in society,” said the statement.
“Based on the findings, we have requested the local government to punish the relevant officers according to law,” it said.
Internet users expressed outrage.
“This is what they say the Japanese devils and Nazis did. But it’s happening in reality and it is by no means the only case… They [the officials] should be executed,” one reader on news website netease.com said, according to the AFP news agency.
Activist Chen Guangcheng, who was put under virtual house arrest for campaigning against forced abortions, fled China to the US last month.
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