News Briefing: global

Assisted dying hits the buffers
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Government has admitted that enacting legislation allowing medically assisted suicide by the Supreme Court deadline of 6 June is probably impossible. With parliament in recess until 30 May and the Senate insisting on its own debates, most observers believe that, come 7 June, Canada will have no laws regulating assisted suicide. At the end of last week, a motion by the Government to impose deadlines for debate and voting on the bill descended into chaos when Mr Trudeau (above) stormed across the Commons to force the Conservative Party whip to take his seat, elbowing a female MP in the chest.

Toronto Archbishop Cardinal Thomas Collins told a March for Life Mass that legalising euthanasia would “drive all of us onto the rocks, as happens in the Edgar Allen Poe story ‘A Descent into The Maelstrom’.”

The 100th bi-annual German Katholikentag, a congress organised by the Central Committee of German (lay) Catholics (ZdK) in cooperation with the diocese where it takes place, is being held in Leipzig in former East Germany from 25-29 May. In Leipzig, only 4.3 per cent of the population is Catholic, Katholikentag spokesman Theodor Bolzenius said. The German Church has been losing members for years. In 2005 it had 25.87 million members, but by 2014 that figure had shrunk to 23.9 million according to the German bishops’ conference. “Leipzig is a test to see how Catholics will be able to influence society in the coming 50 to 100 years,” Bolzenius said. Salafist Muslims and the anti-Muslim movement Legida are well represented in the city.

Poland’s Catholic Church has sought to deflect claims that it opposes the Pope’s reforming agenda by insisting its bishops maintain sympathetic ties and “often quote” him in their statements. “Poland and the Poles have a special place in the attention of Pope Francis, and the Polish bishops often mention his teaching,” said Fr Pawel Rytel-Adrianik, the bishops’ conference spokesman. “This is reflected in homilies, pastoral letters and conference communiques. It’s a sign of personal connection with St Peter’s successor, who will shortly visit Poland.” The priest published the weekend statement amid preparations for the 27-31 July pilgrimage by Pope Francis, who will celebrate World Youth Day at the southern see of Krakow.

Australia’s Catholic bishops have appealed to their compatriots to vote in the 2 July federal (general) election in the interests of people discarded by “a throwaway culture”, such as refugees and asylum seekers, survivors of sexual abuse, those in the womb and “those trapped in new forms of slavery”. In a statement on the election, “A Vote for the Voiceless”, the bishops quote Pope Francis.

“The economy of course is important and there does need to be sound management,” the bishops declare. “But, as Pope Francis has pointed out, there is also a danger that the economy can become a kind of false god to which even human beings have to be sacrificed.”

Pope Francis has publicly supported Cardinal Philippe Barbarin, Archbishop of Lyon, against accusations of covering up a case of clerical sexual abuse, drawing protests from a victims’ group that said he appeared to be misinformed. In a wide-ranging interview with the French Catholic daily La Croix last week, the Pope called the cardinal “a courageous and creative man, a missionary” and said he had taken all necessary steps to combat the abuse of minors. It would be wrong for him to resign, he added: “That would be an admission of guilt.” Three days later, the Pope received Barbarin at the Vatican at the latter’s request. The Lyon cardinal told the daily Le Figaro that Francis listened to him carefully, seemed well informed and reiterated his support. In both the interview and their meeting, however, the Pope was careful to stress that the Church must wait for the judicial authorities in Lyon to finish their inquiry into allegations that Barbarin left an abusive priest in ministry despite warnings about him before taking any action. A victims’ group said: “We are surprised that [Francis] praises a bishop who made such a mistake.”

Appeal to join forces
Russia’s Orthodox patriarch has warned that Christian life is being disrupted in Western Europe by “false philosophical and political beliefs”, and called on Catholics to work with Orthodox Churches to combat “liberal secularisation”. “We accept the new challenges our Church is facing with dignity – these challenges are formidable and global in nature, and the most difficult and important is the changing attitude to faith and Christianity in many countries of Europe and America,” said Kirill I (above). “There is now a clear understanding that Orthodox Christians and Catholics need to unite to defend traditional Christian values and counter liberal secularisation, discrimination against Christians, crisis in family relations and the undermining of moral foundations in personal and public life.”

The Orthodox leader was speaking during celebrations marking the seventieth anniversary of the Moscow Patriarchate’s external church relations department, currently headed by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev. He said his Church enjoyed “kind and constructive dialogue” with the Government of Vladimir Putin.

Protesters who have occupied a Catholic parish outside Boston for 12 years announced they were ending their vigil after the US Supreme Court refused to hear their case. Since the Archdiocese of Boston announced plans to close the church in 2004 as part of a parish restructuring, some 100 parishioners have occupied St Frances Cabrini church in Scituate, Massachusetts, two at a time, to protest over the closure and prevent destruction to the building. The round-the- clock vigil is the longest in US history. “The authorities have spoken,” said Pat McCarthy, one of the protesters. “We obey authority. The archdiocese can proceed to do whatever they want for getting money.”

In 2004, still reeling from the clergy sex abuse crisis, the archdiocese announced a restructuring that closed 65 parishes, one fifth of the total.

A former First Secretary of the Australian High Commission in London, Melissa Hitchman, is to be Australia’s Ambassador to the Holy See. Ms Hitchman (above), who has been Deputy Chief of Protocol in the Department of Foreign Affairs in Canberra since 2013, succeeds the Sydney Queen’s Counsel, John McCarthy.

Compiled by James Roberts