cna

cna

cna

commentary

commentary

The president of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE) told the Vatican newspaper that the leadership of the EU is hostile to the family.

Commenting on the European Commission’s rejection of a FAFCE grant request, Vincenzo Bassi said that “when you propose the family as an irreplaceable subject to the European institutions, they do everything to exclude you.”

“They let us know that FAFCE’s approach is contrary to the principles of equality of the European Union,” he continued. “Now, our approach is nothing more than to indicate to European society the family as an example of a solution not only for social but also economic problems. So according to them, the family experience is contrary to the principles of equality because it does not respect gender equality.”

What the EU cannot tolerate, Bassi said, is that “we do not renounce the complementarity between man and woman, the maternal and paternal roles, and we consider the family as a socioeconomic unit in which the necessary collaboration between man and woman is crucial.”

The president of Gabon’s episcopal conference condemned the recent rise of ritual killings of children in the central African nation.

“My heart is filled with sorrow for the ritual murders that are staining our beloved country with blood,” Bishop Jean Vincent Ondo Éyéne of Oyem said on the recent National Day for Combating All Forms of Violence and Attacks on Life. “I think of those who have been taken from life, whose bodies have been desecrated, and whose innocence has been broken.”

The central African nation of 2.5 million (map) is 84% Christian (52% Catholic) and 11% Muslim, with 3% adhering to ethnic religions.

At the recent extraordinary consistory, Cardinal Joseph Zen denounced synodality under Pope Francis as “ironclad manipulation” and an “insult to the dignity of the bishops.”

“The ironclad manipulation of the process is an insult to the dignity of the bishops, and the continual reference to the Holy Spirit is ridiculous and almost blasphemous,” Cardinal Zen said in reference to the 2021-24 synod on synodality.

Cardinal Zen added, “They expect surprises from the Holy Spirit. What surprises? That he should repudiate what he inspired in the Church’s two-thousand-year tradition?”

With the prelate’s permission, the College of Cardinals Report published the full text of Cardinal Zen’s remarks at the consistory. Cardinal Zen strongly criticized “Bergoglian synodality,” a reference to Pope Francis.

The apostolic vicar of Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital and largest city, condemned Thai actions in the Cambodian–Thai border crisis.

“Thai bulldozers are razing the homes of Cambodian civilians for miles, and barbed wire and shipping containers block access to the villages,” said Bishop Olivier Schmitthaeusler, MEMP. “Temples, sacred places par excellence for the veneration of the gods and the memory of humanity, have been reduced to dust. And the world is silent.”

“Despite a ceasefire, hundreds of thousands of civilians and children remain in squalid camps,” he continued. “Today, Cambodia also wants its voice heard, demanding justice and reparation on the world stage, where the power of force seems to have become the new rule.”

Mary McAleese, Ireland’s president from 1997 to 2011, described infant baptism as “a long-standing, systemic and overlooked severe restriction on children’s rights with regard to religion.”

Writing in Ireland’s leading newspaper, McAleese charged that infant baptism violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989).