POLAND
EU rejects bar on gay teachers
Jonathan Luxmoore In Warsaw
THE EUROPEAN Union’s governing com- mission has rejected claims by a Polish government minister that her country’s Catholic schools can refuse to employ gay and lesbian teachers. “The commission fails to see how a teacher’s
sexual orientation could reasonably constitute a genuine and determining occupational requirement,” said Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner. “Organisations whose ethos is based on religion or belief are allowed to take a person’s religion or belief into account, where necessary, when recruiting personnel, and to require their personnel to show loyalty to that ethos. It is made clear, however, that any difference in treatment should not justify discrimination
AUSTRALIA
Nazi-style eugenics ‘on the rise’ AN AUSTRALIANbishop has compared atti- tudes to abortion and euthanasia in his state to Nazi-style eugenics, writes Mark Brolly. Speaking ahead of Victoria’s state elections on 27 November, Bishop Peter Elliott, an aux- iliary bishop in Melbourne, complained of what he called a resurgent aggressive secu- larism that resorts to killing the unborn, the ill, the frail and the elderly. Bishop Elliott, who is director of the John
Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, defended the right of Victoria’s four diocesan bishops to issue their recent statement, “Your Vote, Your Values”, that includes questions Catholics are urged to put to candidates on topics such as life, families, religious freedom, aged care, criminal justice and drugs. Since 2008, Victoria has allowed abortion on demand up to 24 weeks, with the signa- tures of two doctors required for an abortion up to the point of birth. A bill to legalise euthanasia was defeated in the same year.
Bishop Elliott claimed that a “seek-and- destroy policy” was killing babies in the womb because they were “guilty” of Down’s syn- drome, dwarfism or other conditions. “They are deemed unfit to live for they do not come up to the standard of the ‘designer baby’ and a healthy, sport-loving race,” he said at the Solemn Pontifical Mass in Sacred Heart Cathedral in the Victorian city of Bendigo on 31 October. “It is no surprise that euthanasia is being strongly promoted today … Resurgent aggressive secularism resorts to killing as it strives to engineer, direct and control not only society but your life and mine.” Bishop Elliott is a former Anglican and the
Australian bishops’ deputy for the Australian Catholic Disability Council. More than 400 pilgrims from Australia and New Zealand attended the Mass, after completing the twen- tieth annual Christus Rex three-day pilgrimage from the state’s other great gold- fields city, Ballarat — a distance of 60 miles.
on grounds other than of religion or belief.” The Luxembourg-born official was responding to parliamentary requests from Michael Cashman and Raul Romeva i Rueda, MEPs respectively from the British Labour Party and Spanish Greens, for a ruling on employ- ment at religious schools, after claims by Elzbieta Radziszewska, Poland’s Plenipotentiary for Issues of Equal Treatment, that Catholic schools were entitled to bar gay or lesbian teachers. In a written statement, she said the issue had not yet been tested by the European Court of Justice, but added that the EU’s decade- old anti-discrimination Directive permitted “religion or belief, sexual orientation, age or disability” to be taken into account by employ- ers only when “legitimate and proportionate” and “essential for the job in question”. However, the commissioner’s ruling was
rejected by Ms Radziszewska, who said she believed “different treatment” was justified in the case of Catholic schools. The minister was backed in an open letter by 1,500 leading Poles, who urged Prime Minister Donald Tusk not to dismiss her, and vigorously supported by church leaders, including Cardinals Kazimierz Nycz of Warsaw and Stanislaw Dziwisz of Krakow, who praised her for stand- ing up for Catholic rights.
CUBA
Castro thanked at seminary opening
THE FIRST new seminary since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959 has been inaugurated. In a demonstration of the growing Church-State rapprochement, President Raúl Castro – Fidel’s brother – was present at the 3 November civic ceremony near Havana, writes Jon Stibbs. “In the name of the Church, I thank the former president as well as current President, Raúl Castro, who honours us with his presence, for the state’s support of this work, to its completion,” said Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Archbishop of Havana, at the ceremony. The papal nuncio, Archbishop Giovanni Becciu, and Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami were among the 300 guests at the opening of the San Carlos and San Ambrosio National Seminary. A message sent in the name of Pope Benedict XVI said he hoped the seminary’s inauguration would be “a sign and a stimulus for a renewed commitment to strive for careful human, spiritual and academic preparation” for priestly ministry. The seminary can house 100 people and will open to students next year on 54 acres of former farmland south-east of Havana.
KENYA
Rebellion against Njue denied
THE KENYAChurch has rejected as untrue allegations that Cardinal John Njue is facing an internal rebellion from priests, because of his style of leadership, writes Fredrick Nzwili. The Church issued a strong statement on 5 November to put the “facts straight”, a day after The Star, a local daily newspaper, reported that more than 100 priests from the Nairobi Archdiocese would challenge the cardinal this month, on the alleged grounds that he was dictatorial and disrespectful to priests and faithful. The priests were reportedly angry that Cardinal Njue planned to limit their earnings and control offerings from their parishes through finance committees.
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