Following is a compilation of recent briefs published by Catholic News Service on these topics: British doctors and abortion; Migrants crossing Mediterranean; Kidnapped priest in Philippines; Pope on labor unions; Pope on fighting evil.
British doctors’ union supports campaign to decriminalize abortion
MANCHESTER, England (CNS) — British doctors have put their support behind a campaign to strip criminal sanctions from the country’s abortion laws, prompting warnings from Catholic bishops that liberalization might “put more vulnerable women at risk.” The British Medical Association, the doctors’ union, voted for decriminalization in a series of motions by a consistent majority of two-thirds in favor. The outcome of the vote at the annual representative meeting in Bournemouth, England, means that a political campaign to allow abortion up to birth for any reason will now be seen to have the approval of Britain’s doctors. After the June 27 vote, the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales issued a statement by email to Catholic News Service and expressed concern about some of the possible implications of decriminalization. “We all depend upon doctors to protect the vulnerable,” it said. “We are concerned that decriminalization of abortion may put more vulnerable women at risk. “We are also concerned that this step could open the door to sex-selective abortions,” the statement added. Abortion is technically illegal in Britain unless requests meet criteria defined under the 1967 Abortion Act.
Caritas Palermo: First stop for many migrants who cross Mediterranean
PALERMO, Italy (CNS) — Young African men crowded the courtyard, while others squatted on the cool, gray marble floor inside the Caritas diocesan facility near the gritty central train station of the Sicilian capital. These 150 were the latest survivors of the dangerous sea voyage across the Mediterranean from Libya as European Union leaders expressed alarm at the rising numbers of migrants flooding into Italy. The U.N.’s migration organization, the International Organization for Migration, reports that more than 1,850 migrants have lost their lives so far this year crossing between continents. Yahya, a Muslim auto mechanic who only gave his first name, said difficulties at home in the Ivory Coast forced him to flee to Libya, where he was beaten and could barely find food to eat before his sea passage to Europe. “I know God protected us. The sea was treacherous, huge waves rolled, tossing our boat like a toy. I thought I was going to drown,” he told the Catholic News Service, still shell-shocked from the trauma. “We’re in the midst of an emergency,” Caritas staffer Nadia Sabatino told CNS. “A huge number of mainly men came ashore, and we are caring for them,” she said. “Our facilities are overwhelmed.” She said Caritas Palermo is the “primary stop Italian authorities use for providing housing and hospitality to migrants in their first days reaching Sicily.”
Military says priest kidnapped in southern Philippines was seen alive
MANILA, Philippines (CNS) — The Philippine military said a Catholic priest abducted by terrorist gunmen in the southern Philippines was seen alive June 25, during a “humanitarian pause” in the conflict. Father Teresito Soganub, vicar general of the Prelature of Marawi, was taken hostage May 23 by terrorist gunmen who attacked the city of Marawi. Ucanews.com reported that Lt. Col. Jo-Ar Herrera, army spokesman, said the priest was seen alive in a part of the city that is still in the hands of the terrorists, who claim to have links with the Islamic State groups. “We’ve got a lot of reports, especially from rescued civilians,” said Herrera, adding that the priest was last seen by hostages before they were rescued June 25. “We don’t have details of his health. We were just told that he was sighted alive,” the military official told reporters in the provincial capital of Lanao del Sur.
Pope: Society needs labor unions and needs them to be inclusive
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Labor unions that protect and defend the dignity of work and the rights of workers continue to have an essential role in society, especially in promoting inclusion, Pope Francis said. “There is no good society without a good union, and there is no good union that isn’t reborn every day in the peripheries, that doesn’t transform the rejected stones of the economy into corner stones,” the Pope said June 28 during an audience with Italian union leaders. “There is no justice together if it isn’t together with today’s excluded ones,” he told members of the Italian Confederation of Union Workers. Unions, he said, risk losing their “prophetic nature” when they mimic the very institutions they are called to challenge, he said. “Unions over time have ended up resembling politicians too much, or rather political parties, their language, their style.” Labor unions must guard and protect workers, but also defend the rights of those “outside the walls,” particularly those who are retired and the excluded who are “also excluded from rights and democracy.”
Pope: Christians fight evil with love, sacrifice, never with violence
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Christians are called to detach themselves from power, reject violence and sacrifice themselves for God and others out of love, Pope Francis said. Christians must live the way Christ chose to: not as “persecutors, but persecuted; not arrogant, but meek; not as snake-oil salesmen, but subservient to the truth; not impostors, but honest,” he said June 28 during his weekly general audience. In fact, “Christians find repugnant the idea that suicide attackers might be called ‘martyrs’ because there is nothing in their purpose that can come close to the behavior of children of God,” who are called always to act out of love, he told the estimated 12,000 pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square. High temperatures and scattered sprinkles prompted the Pope to tell guests in the Vatican audience hall that he was about to head outside to a “Turkish bath.” In his weekly catechesis, the Pope continued his series on Christian hope by focusing on what gives Christians strength and perseverance in the face of opposition, hatred and persecution.