Trial of a euthanasia activist who helped a tetraplegic, blind DJ to die may lead to new law
Italy’s constitutional court has ruled it was not always a crime to help someone in “intolerable suffering” commit suicide, opening the way for a change of law in the Catholic country.
Parliament is now expected to debate the matter, which was highlighted by the Milan trial of an activist who helped a tetraplegic man die in Switzerland.
Continue reading...Minister says he wants to avoid having mothers in hijab as volunteers on school trips
A fresh political row has erupted over the Muslim headscarf in France after the education minister said he wanted to avoid having mothers in hijab as volunteers on school outings.
Jean-Michel Blanquer criticised the country’s largest parents association for using a picture of a mother in a headscarf on a pamphlet under the words: “Yes I go on school trips, so what? Secularism is about welcoming all parents without exception.”
Continue reading...Prime minister dismisses reports he lobbied unsuccessfully to have Brian Houston attend state dinner
Scott Morrison has sidestepped questions about whether he wanted the Hillsong Church pastor Brian Houston to be a guest at Friday night’s glittering black-tie state dinner hosted by Donald Trump, characterising the reports as “gossip”.
Asked whether it was true that he had lobbied to have Houston attend the dinner and been knocked back by the White House, the Australian prime minister told travelling reporters: “I don’t comment on gossip. It’s all gossip.”
Continue reading...Apparent climbdown follows wave of anger and criticism over draconian draft laws
Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, has ordered his government to postpone the ratification of a deeply controversial criminal code that would outlaw living together outside marriage, extramarital sex and insulting the president.
The apparent climbdown came in a surprise address at the state palace on Friday afternoon, and follows an outpouring of anger and criticism about the draconian draft laws.
Continue reading...Louise Casey says Birmingham demonstrations have been put in ‘all-too-difficult box’
The former integration tsar, Dame Louise Casey, has accused ministers of “radio silence” over protests against the teaching of LGBT equality at a Birmingham school.
Casey said the government had failed to act on what she described as homophobic demonstrations because it was in the “all-too-difficult box”.
Continue reading...Former PM and deputy PM deploy incendiary language to describe decriminalisation bill being considered by NSW parliament
The former prime minister and deputy prime minister of Australia have claimed at an anti-abortion rally in Sydney that a proposed decriminalisation bill has nothing to do with decriminalisation.
Tony Abbott described the bill as “infanticide on demand”, while Barnaby Joyce described it as “the slavery debate of our time” while also perpetuating a false claim about pro-choice protesters on Saturday.
Continue reading...Catholic priest Arthur Perrault convicted of ‘long-term’ abuse of altar boy in New Mexico in 1990s
A former Roman Catholic priest who fled to Morocco before he was returned to the United States and convicted of sexually abusing an altar boy in New Mexico in the 1990s, has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.
The US district judge, Martha Vazquez, imposed the sentence on Arthur Perrault, 81, a onetime Air Force chaplain and colonel.
Continue reading...Archbishop says sorry ‘in the name of Christ’ over killing of 379 unarmed protesters in 1919
The archbishop of Canterbury has apologised “in the name of Christ” for the 1919 massacre at Amritsar in India, when hundreds of people were shot dead by British forces.
Prostrating himself at the memorial to the Jallianwala Bagh killings, Justin Welby said: “The souls of those who were killed or wounded, of the bereaved, cry out to us from these stones and warn us about power and the misuse of power.
Continue reading...Salts used on Temple scroll are not common to Dead Sea region, researchers find
The Dead Sea scrolls have given up fresh secrets, with researchers saying they have identified a previously unknown technique used to prepare one of the most remarkable scrolls of the collection.
Scientists say the study poses a puzzle, as the salts used on the writing layer of the Temple scroll are not common to the Dead Sea region.
Continue reading...Erwin Kräutler says he expects next month’s papal synod to denounce destruction of rainforest
The fires in the Amazon are a “true apocalypse”, according to a Brazilian archbishop who expects next month’s papal synod at the Vatican to strongly denounce the destruction of the rainforest.
The comments by Erwin Kräutler will put fresh pressure on the Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, following criticism from G7 leaders last month over the surge of deforestation in the world’s biggest terrestrial carbon sink.
Continue reading...Pastor at St Edward junior school in Nashville says JK Rowling’s use of ‘actual spells’ risks conjuring evil spirits
A private Catholic school in Nashville has removed the Harry Potter books from its library, saying they include “actual curses and spells, which when read by a human being risk conjuring evil spirits”.
Local paper the Tennessean reported that the pastor at St Edward Catholic school, which teaches children of pre-kindergarten age through to 8th grade, had emailed parents about JK Rowling’s series to tell them that he had been in contact with “several” exorcists who had recommended removing the books from the library.
Continue reading...Next week Pope Francis is due to visit northern Mozambique, an area devastated by cyclones and riven by an Islamist insurgency. The photographer Marco Longari filed these images from the region
Continue reading...This documentary dared to do what politicians the world over would not, asking tough questions of Xi Jinping’s hardline rule
The drink Mihrigul Tursun’s captors offered her was strangely cloudy. It resembled, she said, water after washing rice. After drinking it, the young mother recalled in China: A New World Order (BBC Two), her period stopped. “It didn’t come back until five months after I left prison. So my period stopped seven months in total. Now it’s back, but it’s abnormal.”
We never learned why Tursun was detained – along with an estimated one million other Uighurs of Xinjiang province, in what the authorities euphemistically call re-education centres – but we heard clearly her claims of being tortured. “They cut off my hair and electrocuted my head,” Tursun said. “I couldn’t stand it any more. I can only say please just kill me.”
Continue reading...Lecarrow, Tahilla and Scoil an Ghleanna will reopen as multi-denominational schools
Three schools in Ireland are expected to make history this week by becoming the first to abandon their Catholic ethos and become multi-denominational state-run schools.
The transfer in patronage reflects an ebbing of the Catholic church’s dominance in education – it runs about 90% of primary schools – and efforts by small rural schools to attract more pupils to avoid closure.
Continue reading...Richard Braine accused of stoking tensions after also saying there are no ‘moderate Muslims’
Richard Braine, the new Ukip leader, has been accused of whipping up religious tensions and anti-Muslim prejudice after leaked emails showed he argued that people should no more want Muslims to settle in their country than Nazis.
Braine, who won the leadership after a campaign in which he expressed anti-Islam views, also suggested that non-Muslims needed to help Muslims to “cast out their demon” and argued there was no such thing as “moderate Muslims”.
Continue reading...The US president has renewed his attack on four Democratic congresswomen who have been critical of Israel, and reiterated a longstanding antisemitic trope implying that American Jews had divided loyalty to America and to Israel. Over almost 24 hours he has repeatedly described Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats as showing ‘either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty’
Jonathan Greenblatt said Trump’s charges of ‘disloyalty’ have ‘long been used to attack Jews’ while J Street called remarks ‘dangerous’
Prominent American Jews have reacted with dismay and disdain to Donald Trump’s renewed adoption of a longstanding antisemitic trope after he described Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats as showing “either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty”.
Accusing Jewish Americans of having dual loyalties to the US and Israel, as the president referred to in remarks from the Oval Office on Tuesday, prompted charges that he had embraced a slur long used against Jews. Jonathan Greenblatt, chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, pointed out on Twitter that charges of disloyalty “have long been used to attack Jews … It’s long overdue to stop using Jews as a political football”.
Continue reading...Former Vatican treasurer, and most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual assault, maintains innocence after losing appeal
The most senior Catholic cleric in the world to be convicted of child sexual abuse, Cardinal George Pell, has lost his appeal against his conviction, but maintains he is innocent.
In a brief statement issued after the decision the Vatican reiterated that Pell maintained his innocence, and that it was now “Pell’s right to appeal to the high court”.
Continue reading...Appeal dismissed by a majority of two to one for the 78-year-old who will remain in prison until October 2022. He was sentenced in March for sexually assaulting two choirboys in 1996
By the way - this is a huge testament to the value of the jury system. I will have so much to say about that. There is NO strong evidence judges alone are less biased or more correct than a jury of 12. #Pell.
Interesting that Morrison said the decision to strip Pell of his honours is independent to the government. Back In February my colleague Paul Karp was told that if Pell lost the appeal the prime minister would write to the Council of the Order of Australia recommending it review and revoke the honour, a decision made on its recommendation by the governor general.
Related: PM to strip George Pell of Order of Australia honour if cardinal loses appeal
Continue reading...Church offers guidance to avoid unintentional rule-breaking, such as ‘the word coffee isn’t always in the name of coffee drinks’
The Mormon church has renewed warnings to its younger members that there’s no grey area when it comes to the temptations of coffee – don’t drink it.
“The word coffee isn’t always in the name of coffee drinks,” warns an official guidance in the August issue of a youth magazine for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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