Recent Catholic News

OTTAWA, July 11, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Recent statistics have revealed that Canada is suffering tremendously from the revolution in attitudes towards sexual relationships.  A July 11 report entitled “Changing conjugal life in Canada” based on new data from the 2001 General Social Survey (GSS), showed that close to 1.2 million couples were living in a common-law relationship, up 20% from 1995.  The statistics reveal that while the vast majority (90%) of Canadian men and women aged 50 to 69 had started their conjugal life through marriage, younger generations are opting for common-law marriage particularly in Quebec.  More than 40% of […]

WASHINGTON, July 11, 2002 (LSN.ca) – A subcommittee of the House of Representatives today approved, on a party-line vote, a new bill to place a national ban on partial-birth abortions.  Supporters of the bill hope for approval by the full House Judiciary Committee and by the full House later this month. Congress has approved such bans twice before, but they were vetoed by President Clinton in 1996 and 1997.  On each occasion, the House voted to override the vetoes, but supporters fell short of the necessary two-thirds majority in the Senate.  President Bush supports a ban on partial-birth abortion.  But […]

UNITED NATIONS, July 11, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Facing loud opposition, especially from Canada and Europe, the United States has altered its demand for permanent immunity from the International Criminal Court (ICC) to yearly renewable immunity.  U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Negroponte placed a resolution before the members of the UN Security Council yesterday requesting that they approve a 12 month deferral from prosecution for U.S. peacekeepers. A public meeting on the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina was held to allow the council and other U.N. member states to air positions on the stalemate over the ICC. The United States vetoed […]

ST. THOMAS, Ont., July 11, 2002 (LSN.ca) – In an attempt to deflect mounting negative publicity from their bungled Aylmer intervention/abduction, Child and Family Services of St. Thomas and Elgin County have begun harassing another practicing Christian family.  The social workers saw some local parents discuss, on TV, the use of “belts and sticks” to discipline their children—and seized on these “disclosures” as “sufficient to start a child-protection investigation,” according to Steve Bailey, the executive director of the discredited agency. “It is clear now that the social workers cannot find it within themselves to repent their previous mistake—even in the […]

NEWTON, Mass., July 11, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Doctors have told New Scientist magazine that competition to score a high ranking in published tables of in-vitro fertilization successes is driving some clinics “to select younger patients with a higher chance of getting pregnant, to implant more embryos than necessary, and even to recommend IVF to women who do not need it.”“Multiple pregnancies are more dangerous for both mothers and babies,” the New Scientist reports, and are not necessary to achieve success. Mothers are more likely to suffer from complications including high blood pressure, haemorrhage and pre-eclampsia. The babies are more likely […]

TORONTO, July 11, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Spokesmen for the abortion industry are pretending they “fear” that World Youth Day pilgrims “will block access to abortion clinics.” Carolyn Egan, with the Ontario Coalition for Abortion Clinics, says the term “direct action,” used by some pro-lifers planning activities during the event, “means intimidation, harassment and attempts to prevent women from gaining access to abortion clinics. We’re very afraid,” Egan claimed, “of what might happen.”  Paul Tuns, editor of The Interim newspaper, says: “There are, to my knowledge, pro-life individuals hoping to have legal, peaceful demonstrations outside the bubble zones of abortuaries in […]

TEL AVIV, July 11, 2002 (LSN.ca) – The Israeli parliament has voted to ban cable and satellite broadcasters from showing pornography. In a striking display of unity across cultural and religious lines, Muslim and Christian Arab members voted alongside conservative and religious Jewish members to get the bill through.  The measure adds cable and satellite pay-per-view channels to the law after ordinary channels were prohibited from transmitting pornography last year. The new law will, however, allow pornographic material to be shown “if it has a cultural, scientific or journalistic value, although it does not stipulate who would decide,” the BBC […]

LONDON, England, July 11, 2002 (LSN.ca) – A British transsexual has won his battle in the European Court of Human Rights to be recognised as a woman and be allowed to marry. The man, who is 64 and is respectfully referred to as “she” and “her” in news reports, underwent an operation in 1990 to have his male organs removed and mock-female organs attached in their place, calls himself “Christine” Goodwin. He took his case to the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that English law denies him the “right” to the sexual identity of his choice.  The unanimous judgment […]

ONTARIO COURT DECISION ON HOMOSEXUAL MARRIAGE EXPECTED FRIDAY Homosexual activists in Toronto who sued the province to recognize their homosexual “marriage” by a Metropolitan Community Church pastor have vowed to take their case to the Supreme Court if the Ontario ruling goes against them.  ANGLICANS FACE HOMOSEXUAL CLERGY BATTLE   Church of England bishops are heading for an early clash with Dr. Rowan Williams, who now looks certain to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury, over the bishops’ plans to defend the Church’s ban on the ordination of practicing homosexuals to the Anglican priesthood. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;?xml=/news/2002/07/11/nchuch11.xml&sSheet=/news/2002/07/11/ixnewstop.html&_requestid=528765

PRESIDENT’S BIOETHICS COUNCIL SUBMITS CLONING REPORT The President’s Council on Bioethics has endorsed a four-year moratorium on therapeutic cloning and a ban on reproductive cloning. See the full report:  http://www.bioethics.gov/cloningreport/  PRESIDENT BUSH NOMINEE TO FEDERAL APPEALS COURT FOUGHT BY PRO-ABORTS Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen was nominated by Bush for the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, which decides appeals from federal courts in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Abortion groups are attacking the nomination outraged that Owen ruled against young women seeking to bypass the state’s parental notification law for minors seeking abortions.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47887-2002Jul10.html   ASHCROFT’S […]