The Malian presidency on Thursday confirmed the release of Italian Priest, Fr. Pier Luigi Maccalli kidnapped two years ago by jihadist insurgents, alongside three other hostages.
Media reports say the release was part of a hundred-prisoner swap mediated by the recently-constituted government in Mali.
The other three people released alongside Fr. Maccalli are Nicola Chiacchio, an Italian, Frenchwoman Sophie Petronin and Malian politician Soumaïla Cissé.
Reacting to the news, the Conference of Italian Bishops (CEI), in a Twitter post, said it welcomes with joy the news of the liberation of Fr. Pier Luigi and Nicola Chiacchio. The Bishops also express their gratitude to God and to all those who worked for their liberation, and continue to pray for others who are still missing.
Fr. Pierluigi Maccalli, a missionary of the Society of African Missions (SMA) was kidnapped in Niger, at the border with Burkina Faso on the night of 17 to 18 September 2018 by jihadist militants. He was working in the parish of Bomoanga in the diocese of Niamey.
59-year-old Fr. Maccalli’s kidnap took place a week after his return from a period of vacation in Italy.
Before his release, he was last seen in a video earlier this year in which he appeared with Nicola Chacchio, an engineer who was captured while visiting Mali as a tourist in 2019. They were both seated next to each other in the video, beards unkempt and visibly emaciated.
Other hostages freed
Soumaïla Cissé, one of the other three hostages freed, is a former opposition leader, finance minister and three-time presidential candidate in Mali. He was seized on 25 March 2020 in his home region of Niafounké.
Sophie Petronin was kidnapped on 24 December 2014 in Gao, northern Mali where she ran a children’s aid organization.
The global virus has turned many things inside-out in the world. This change has also played itself out along the lines of production and solidarity. Monsignor Robert Vitillo, Secretary General of the International Catholic Migration Commission, picks up on a theme that, even if often silent and invisible, is now history. “While big busines and big government” he observes, “shut down during the peak situations of the pandemic, many effective responses were initiated at the local community level” – from the volunteers who distributed food to the sick and elderly, to the “university engineering students fashioning ventilators from machines we would never even have considered in pre-COVID days”. Msgr. Vitillo is now hopeful that, as Pope Francis has often expressed, that every institution at any level might “awaken to the need for greater social and spiritual cooperation as well”.
You are part of the Vatican COVID 19 Commission, Pope Francis’ response mechanism to an unprecedented virus. What do you personally hope to learn from this experience? In what way do you think society as a whole can be inspired by the work of the Commission?
R. – My participation in the Vatican’s COVID 19 Commission calls me to respond more fully and more respectfully to the suffering of those directly affected by the pandemic and to those who are more vulnerable to being infected with this disease and are subjected to more harmful social and economic impacts of this public health emergency. The whole world has faced many challenges from this pandemic but those who are poor, marginalized, already suffering from serious health conditions, struggle much more than most of us. We must reach out in Christian solidarity to all our sisters and brothers in the human family. And, as Pope Francis tells us, since we all are in the same boat, we must learn to row together.
Pope Francis asked the COVID 19 Commission to prepare the future instead of prepare for it. What should be the role of the Catholic Church as an institution in this endeavor?
R. – In asking us to prepare the future, I believe that Pope Francis is urging us never to return to the “old normal” which gave way to deep gaps between the rich and the poor, serious ecological damage and violence within our own families and in all of society. God now invites us to co-create with Him a new world built on love, justice, equality, and access to decent and dignified work, education for all, and health care for everyone in need regardless of their ability to pay for such care. Through its moral leadership and universal outreach, the Catholic Church should inspire change of policies, practices, and behavior at all levels, from heads of government to key decision-makers, to religious leaders and people of faith, to grassroots communities.
What personal lessons (if any) have you derived from the experience of the pandemic? What concrete changes do you hope to see after this crisis both personally and globally?
R. – I have learned to listen more carefully to the needs of my work colleagues at the International Catholic Migration Commission and to be more sensitive to the plight of the migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons whom we serve in all parts of the world. As a priest, I suffered with my fellow parishioners at St. John XXIII parish in Geneva when they were not allowed to come to church and to receive Christ in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. I hope that this crisis has helped me to grow spiritually and to never forget my total dependence on God and to feel His love and mercy each day. Finally, I hope that I have learned to thank God more sincerely for all His gifts and to comfort those who have suffered as a result of COVID 19.
What is the coronavirus crisis revealing about current political systems? Are we seeing that there are serious difficulties in managing the pandemic in every countries, in every system?
R. – While big busines and big government shut down during the peak situations of the pandemic, many effective responses were initiated at the local community level. Volunteers delivering food to the sick and elderly; religious Sisters producing home-made masks; university engineering students fashioning ventilators from machines we would never even have considered in pre-COVID days. Front-line workers, many of whom were migrants and refugees and who previously had faced much stigma and discrimination, risked their own lives to save the lives of people whom they had never met. This tells us that big business and big government must change their values and focus more on persons than money or power.
“No one will be saved alone,” the Holy Father has said several times. It seems glaringly obvious, but many countries are falling back on hypothetical, individual, almost selfish, solutions. Are current models of governance still adequate? On what values could a new model be based?
R. – I think the fractured and unequal responses to COVID 19 reveal the great danger of increasing nationalistic tendencies and the false notion that we can avoid global problems if we simply close or borders and our communities to so-called “foreigners”. Globalization has made us interdependent at every level of life and economic activity; clear evidence of this was shown when many countries could not even produce the medical products to keep people alive during this pandemic. The basic values and principles at the foundation of almost every major religious tradition are more needed now than ever: solidarity and subsidiarity, justice and charity, love for all, and global cooperation at every level of society.
The European Union itself runs the risk of a deep fracture in post-Covid management. The divisions that have emerged among the 27 member states seem to highlight the lack of creativity and foresight. Can a union built on the ruins of the Second World War forget the lessons of its own history?
R. – Hopefully, the experience of COVID 19 will help people remember the reasons why they established the European Union and the fact that much of this Union was built on the values handed down by Christianity for many centuries. I pray that the European Union will not only respond with economic aid, although that, too, is sorely needed by some countries in Europe and in many other places in the world. I hope that Europeans also will awaken to the need for greater social and spiritual cooperation as well.
What role is the United Nations playing in the worldwide economic and political reconstruction? Since this is a crisis that truly spares no country, shouldn’t it occupy a privileged place, that of the world’s laboratory which will be handed over to future generations?
R. – As a member of two World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Working Groups in Response to COVID 19, I have been struck by the acknowledgement of many scientists and public health experts that people place much more credibility in religious leaders and faith-inspired organizations that in the UN and in governments. For that reason, these UN officials invited my participation in these Expert Working Groups and requested religious leaders to disseminate information and guidance on how to prevent further spread of COVID 19. A joint response at every level of society, of government, and of multi-lateral organizations is needed to end the threat of COVID 19 and to prepare for future pandemics that might be on the horizon. And, as Pope Francis has taught any medicines and vaccines must be made available to all members of the human family.
The history of the world is marked by epochal crises, moments in which humanity finds itself at a crossroads and has had to make truly historical choices. Are we at before such an epochal crossroads today?
R. – We certainly have been staring an epochal crossroads in the face with the coming of COVID 19 – who ever thought that an invisible virus would be able to bring the entire world to a halt within a matter of weeks? Who could ever have predicted that the mega-cities of New York, Sao Paulo, Paris, and even our beloved Roma, would seem lifeless and empty for several months? But now, even while we still struggle with beginning and/or second waves of COVID 19, we already face another crossroads. Will we try to restore the “old normal” that put us in such a precarious situation in the first place or will we be more serious about cooperating with God to build His Kingdom also during this life, in order to be better prepared for the next life in heaven?
What is at stake? What could we be losing out on due to selfishness and individualism?
R. – Not only our lives are at stake but even more so are the lives and dignity and happiness of future generations. Selfishness and individualism did not work for our first parents Adam and Eve or their son, Cain who murdered his brother, Abel. They never have worked for those who wage war and violence on each other. The most successful man who ever walked this earth was our Emmanuel, God-with-us, Jesus Christ who laid down His life for His friends and thereby saved us from the evils of sin and death forevermore. We must avail ourselves of His love and mercy, in addition to the scientific evidence that we continue to acquire, in order to develop together the best strategies and action against COVID 19 and many more public health and other emergencies.
The nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative Catholic, to the U.S. Supreme Court has ignited an uncomfortable debate about the intersection of religious faith, public policy and the federal courts that is likely to hang like a shadow over her confirmation hearings.
Republicans have preemptively attacked Democrats ahead of the Senate hearings, which are scheduled to begin Monday, accusing them of religious bigotry for questioning in the past Barrett’s ability to separate her faith from her work as a justice.
“This is the exact form that religious discrimination has taken in America for decades, especially when it’s come to public service,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said this week.
Democrats, meanwhile, have mostly taken pains to avoid talking publicly about Barrett’s Catholicism, having been bruised for doing so during her 2017 confirmation hearing to an appeals court judgeship. Instead, they intend to press her about her views on abortion and gay rights, as well as the Affordable Care Act.
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If Barrett wins, her confirmation would mark the culmination of a decades-long push by conservatives to tilt the court to the right — an effort in which traditionalist Catholics have played a major role, providing much of the movement’s energy and strategy as well as its personnel. All five of the Republican nominees currently on the court are Catholic or, in the case of Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, received a Catholic education.
“It is important to understand that the Catholic element is deeply wrapped up with the conservative movement to reshape the courts,” said Amanda Hollis-Brusky, a political science professor at Pomona College in Claremont and co-author of “Separate But Faithful: The Christian Right’s Radical Struggle to Transform Law and Legal Culture.”
“Amy Barrett represents that move to the right,” she said. “The conservative movement knows her very well.”
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In part because Barrett has been more open about her positions than previous nominees, her beliefs have attracted extensive attention.
The key question, said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, which will consider Barrett, is whether a nominee passes what he terms the “robing rule.”
“You’re entitled to your own beliefs, you’re entitled to your own faith, and it’s nobody’s business but your own unless you can’t leave it in the robing room, and you’re going to start making judicial decisions not on the law, but based on your personal views,” he said.
This week, Democrats asked the Trump administration for more information about a 2006 open letter in her local newspaper that Barrett signed that urged the abolition of abortion. The advertisement called the Supreme Court’s 1973 landmark Roe vs. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide “barbaric.” She has also said she believes life begins at conception.
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The group that sponsored the ad had also criticized in vitro fertilization because the process can involve the discarding of unused embryos. The advertisement did not mention that issue. But the possibility that Barrett might share that view prompted Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), who has two children conceived by in vitro fertilization, to write a letter last week saying she felt “dread and anguish” over the possibility that Barrett “likely doesn’t believe my little Maile and my growing Abigail should have ever been born in the first place.”
Much of the attention to Barrett’s religion has focused on her involvement with People of Praise, a Christian group that some former members have likened to a cult. Founded by Catholics in 1971, the People of Praise was formed as evangelical-style ecumenical community. Members were encouraged to attend Mass and services at their local churches but later gather to conduct intense prayer services that could include speaking in tongues.
Critics of the group, including some former members, liken it to a cult, and accuse it of being controlling and say it espoused conservative views of women and sexuality.
Friends of Barrett and members of People of Praise said its structure was not unlike the male-dominated Roman Catholic Church, and it has a surprisingly ideologically diverse membership. They also noted that if the group’s aim was to subjugate women, Barrett didn’t get the memo — she has risen to the top of the legal world.
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In more than a dozen interviews, friends and associates described Barrett as a devoted Catholic. The judge, her husband and seven children are members of St. Joseph Catholic Church in South Bend, Ind. They are often spotted attending its 10 a.m. Mass., one preferred by families. Barrett served on the parish’s pastoral council and sent her kids to the parish school, where she also volunteers.
“It is clear that faith is something that has been a constant and central part of her life,” said Paolo Carozza, a fellow law professor at Notre Dame whose family also attends St. Joseph. “She is very ordinary. Her religious life and faith play out in the context of what is a very busy and demanding life.”
Barrett was raised in New Orleans, where her family’s life revolved around the church. She attended an all-girls Catholic school. At Rhodes College in Tennessee, she debated whether to become an English professor or an attorney. She settled on the law, in part, because it would “allow me to be involved in real world things, in real world policy and shaping society,” Barrett told a group of Notre Dame alumni last year.
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As she mulled over law schools, she quickly settled on Notre Dame, a conservative Catholic university. Like many Catholics in the 1980s, she had grown up “loving Notre Dame,” she told the alumni, and admired that it took seriously a mission to turn out lawyers who served others.
“I really wanted to choose a place where I would not just be educated as a lawyer,” she told the alumni, “but I wanted to be in a place where I would be developed and inspired as a whole person.”
After graduating, she clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, also a devout Catholic and legal hero among conservatives, who died in 2016. Nicole Garnett was clerking for Justice Clarence Thomas, another Catholic justice, and recalled Barrett seeking her help the next morning in cleaning the kitchen of the Missionaries of Charity after they served meals to AIDS patients.
“It struck me that everyone else was so wrapped up in their clerkships and working all the time, and she took this day off to serve people,” said Garnett, who has been friends with Barrett ever since and is also a law professor at Notre Dame. “That is just how she is, how her faith is reflected in her life. She has been that way since I met her.”
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Barrett took a job as a professor at Notre Dame in 2002 and served as a full-time faculty member until being confirmed to the Chicago-based 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2017. Barrett, who still teaches classes at the college as an adjunct professor, is described by students and fellow teachers as an exacting educator.
“In class, she was focused on the legal question,” said Laura Wolk, a former Notre Dame student. “She was very rigorous in that way. She never let her faith enter into the conversation.”
Wolk said the professor was approachable and, in a one-on-one setting, willing to offer spiritual mentoring.
“When there were times I was really struggling with something, I would go to her, and faith would come up, and she knew I spoke the language of faith, so she did, too,” said Wolk, who like other friends of Barrett’s declined to discuss details of her conversations with the judge.
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Her friends were also reticent about Barrett’s ties to People of Praise, which go back to her childhood in New Orleans. Her father, Mike Coney, served on the group’s board, and her mother was a female leader of its branch in New Orleans. The parents believed so deeply in the group’s mission that Mike Coney resigned from the Shell Oil Co. because he had been promoted to a job that required him to move his family to Houston.
“Our life was in a covenant community in New Orleans,” Coney told People of Praise’s internal magazine, Vine and Branches, in 2006. “For the sake of our children and ourselves, we needed committed relationships with other Christians who were serious about their faith.”
Barrett and her husband, Jesse, became members of the People of Praise in South Bend when she joined the Notre Dame faculty. The group has a strong local presence and runs one of the city’s leading private schools, where the Barretts have sent some of their children.
Photographs of Barrett and her children have been featured in the People of Praise magazine reviewed by the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post reported that a directory in 2010 listed her as being a “handmaid,” a female spiritual leader.
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The term is derived from Mary’s description of herself in the Bible as “the handmaid of the Lord,” but has taken on a more sinister connotation since the airing in 2017 of Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” an adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel of the same title. People of Praise have since replaced the title with “women leaders.”
Adrian Reimers, a founding member, became disenchanted with People of Praise and was dismissed from the group in the 1980s. A philosophy professor at Notre Dame, Reimers wrote a 1997 book that criticized the community’s practices.
“Women play a decidedly secondary role to men,” wrote Reimers, who did not respond to emails seeking comment. He added that the People of Praise expects a married woman “to reflect the fact that she is under her husband’s authority.”
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Barrett has described her marriage as a team effort and attributed much of her professional success to help from her husband, a busy lawyer in private practice. They share household duties, and friends say they both are constantly scrambling to shuttle their kids to practices, recitals and other events.
“At the start of our marriage, I imagined that we would run our household as partners,” Barrett said at the White House when President Trump announced her nomination on Sept. 26. “As it has turned out, Jesse does far more than his share of the work. To my chagrin, I learned at dinner recently that my children consider him to be the better cook.”
“Every decision and policy on economic or financial issues impacts the lives of individuals, families and the well-being of society as a whole.” With this premise, the Holy See is encouraging debt restructuring, and ultimately debt cancellation for the most vulnerable countries, to address the growing economic imbalances and the other crises they face as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, made this call on Thursday during the 75th Session of the UN General Assembly.
He pointed out in a statement that due to the demands imposed on the poorer countries by debt servicing and the economic impact of the pandemic, many of them are obliged to “divert scarce national resources from fundamental programs of education, health and infrastructure to debt payments.”
Archbishop Caccia reminded the UN, addressing the committee on macroeconomic policy in particular, that its work should ponder the “ethical implications to achieve economic prosperity for all in order to allow every person to thrive, and for countries to live in peace and stability.” As such, decisions and policies on economic or financial issues that impact the lives of individuals, families and the well-being of society as a whole “must be considered in a much broader light than only immediate financial gain or success.”
Archbishop Caccia highlighted that financial inclusion and sustainable development have been affected by the Covid-19 health crisis due to its devastating impact on employment, production and international and national trade. No one, he notes – from States to families and individuals – has escaped the economic hardships caused by the pandemic.
However, some have felt the impact more than others. Developing countries, he says, are being hit with “a triple economic shock of collapsing export demand, falling commodity prices and unprecedented capital flight,” in addition to handling the pandemic with often inadequate health systems.
Recovering together
To address these hardships, Archbishop Caccia proposes working together to ensure that the economic “recovery packages” and “regeneration packages” are serving the common good. In particular, he highlights two sectors that need special attention in the recovery efforts.
The first according to the Archbishop, is micro, small and medium businesses. He points out that to revive the economy, funding should reach a large number of medium and small business enterprises that “comprise the backbone of economies” in both developed and developing nations.
The second sector concerns workers in “informal” employment. He explained that we have a “particular responsibility” towards these people – men and women – who are being laid off their jobs in areas like construction, catering, hospitality, domestic service and retail among others, and as such, find it hard to provide for themselves and their families. Many of them, he notes, turn to charitable organizations and religious institutions for help. Some others, especially the migrants and those without proper documentation, are unable to file for benefits.
Debt restructuring/cancellation
Archbishop Caccia said there is extensive evidence that developing nations, faced with the obligation of diverting scarce resources towards debt repayment, risk undermining “integral development, weaken healthcare and education systems, as well as reduce the capacity of States to create conditions for the realization of fundamental human rights.”
The Archbishop, therefore, urged the international community to address the economic imbalances between nations by debt restructuring and ultimately cancellation “in recognition of the severe impacts of the medical, social and economic crises” faced by the most vulnerable countries as a result of the ongoing pandemic.
He also called on the international community to combat Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) which, by diverting resources from public spending and cutting the capital available for private investment, “deprive countries of the desperately needed resources to provide public services, fund poverty-reduction programs and improve infrastructure.”
Concluding, Archbishop Caccia encouraged the UN to “find ways to stress the broader and ethical implications of economic activity in the years to come” and emphasized the need to transform the economy to be “genuinely at the service of the human person.”
Pope Francis
The Pope has repeatedly stressed the need for a new economic model especially as countries restart after the Covid-19 pandemic. He has often said that the “only way out of the current crisis is together.”
During his Urbi et orbi for Easter, he specifically addressed the topic of debt relief. “In light of the present circumstances,” Pope Francis said, “may international sanctions be relaxed, since these make it difficult for countries on which they have been imposed to provide adequate support to their citizens, and may all nations be put in a position to meet the greatest needs of the moment through the reduction, if not the forgiveness, of the debt burdening the balance sheets of the poorest nations.”
In his latest Encyclical Fratelli tutti, he spoke about debt relief within the context of the fundamental right of peoples to subsist and grow. This right, he said, is at times “severely restricted by the pressure created by foreign debt.” That debt stifles and severely limits development, he continued. “While respecting the principle that all legitimately acquired debt must be repaid, the way in which many poor countries fulfil this obligation should not end up compromising their very existence and growth.”
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<figure class=""><a href="/data/cache/noticias/78355/0x0/parliament.jpg" class="gallery" title="Results of the vote released on Thursday confirm their preliminary votes earlier this week on a landmark law to make the EU's climate targets legally binding"><img src="/data/cache/noticias/78355/760x480/parliament.jpg" alt="Results of the vote released on Thursday confirm their preliminary votes earlier this week on a landmark law to make the EU's climate targets legally binding"/></a>
<span>Results of the vote released on Thursday confirm their preliminary votes earlier this week on a landmark law to make the EU's climate targets legally binding</span> </figure><div class="img-container">
<figure class="small"><a class="gallery" href="/data/cache/noticias/78355/0x0/emissions-de.jpg" title="Groups representing investors with €62 trillion in assets under management, urged EU leaders to agree an emissions-cutting target of at least 55% for 2030"><img src="/data/cache/noticias/78355/300x190/emissions-de.jpg" alt="Groups representing investors with €62 trillion in assets under management, urged EU leaders to agree an emissions-cutting target of at least 55% for 2030"/></a>
<span>Groups representing investors with €62 trillion in assets under management, urged EU leaders to agree an emissions-cutting target of at least 55% for 2030</span> </figure></div>
European Union lawmakers have backed a plan to cut greenhouse gases by 60% from 1990 levels by 2030, hoping member states will not try to water the target down during upcoming negotiations.
Results of the vote released on Thursday confirm their preliminary votes earlier this week on a landmark law to make the EU's climate targets legally binding. The law, which contains the new EU emissions-cutting goal for 2030, passed by a large majority of 231 votes.
Parliament must now agree the final law with the EU’s 27 member countries, only a few of whom have said they would support a 60% emissions-cutting target. Lawmakers want to avoid countries whittling it away to below the level of emissions cuts proposed by the EU executive of at least 55%. The EU’s current 2030 target is a 40% emissions cut.
Parliament also supported a proposal to launch an independent scientific council to advise on climate policy – a system already in place in Britain and Sweden – and a carbon budget, setting out the emissions the EU could produce without scuppering its climate commitments.
In the same vein on Wednesday the European Parliament symbolically rejected the European Union-Mercosur free-trade agreement due to what several parliamentarians have called “deep concern about the environmental policy of Jair Bolsonaro.”
In an unprecedented move, Parliament’s plenary approved an amendment in a report on the application of European trade policy, emphasizing that the “EU-Mercosur agreement cannot be ratified in its current form.”
This amendment received 345 votes in favor, 295 against, and 56 abstentions. It is highly symbolic and not mandatory, but it reflects the extremely difficult environment to implement the bi-regional agreement which has been negotiated over the past 20 years.
In practice, the need for additional guarantees by the Bolsonaro government in the environmental area will be essential for Europeans to decide whether or not to move to ratify the bi-regional agreement.
With climate-related impacts such as more intense heat waves and wildfires already felt across Europe, and thousands of young people taking to the streets last month to demand tougher action, the EU is under pressure to ramp up its climate policies.
Groups representing investors with €62 trillion in assets under management, plus hundreds of businesses and non-governmental organizations on Thursday wrote to EU leaders urging them to agree an emissions-cutting target of at least 55% for 2030.
Scientists say this target, which has been proposed by the European Commission, is the minimum effort needed to give the EU a realistic shot at becoming climate neutral by 2050. The commission wants the new 2030 goal finalized by the end of the year.
However, the climate law will require compromise from member countries. Wealthier states with large renewable energy resources are pushing for deeper emissions cuts, but coal-heavy countries including Poland and Czech Republic fear the economic fallout of tougher targets.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo has imposed new restrictions on businesses, mass gatherings and places of worship in towns and New York City neighborhoods with high rates of coronavirus infections — some of which also have large populations of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews. An Orthodox advocacy group, Agudath Israel of America, has filed a federal lawsuit against the new regulations on the grounds that they violate the right to free exercise of religion.
I have devoted much of my career to protecting the free exercise of religion. It is a rare thing for me to side with a government that seeks to restrict anyone’s religious practices. But this time, the government is on stronger ground.
Few constitutional rights are absolute. Free speech can be censored in extreme cases, as when it incites imminent violence. The right to freely exercise religion includes the right to take religiously motivated actions — engaging in worship and rituals and following moral rules. Very occasionally, such actions do serious harm. They cannot be absolutely protected.
No one reasonably believes that free exercise of religion protects a right to conduct human sacrifice. Faith-healing parents are prosecuted when they withhold medical care from a child, and the child dies. There is no constitutional right to refuse vaccinations for religious reasons.
With respect to both vaccinations and withholding medical care, legislatures have enacted protections for religious objectors. But no court has ever protected such conduct under the Constitution.
Pandemic restrictions are like these examples. Covid-19 kills some and permanently injures others; the threat to human life is real and immediate. Those who flout the rules endanger everyone around them, and this is sufficient reason for regulating even a worship service.
Whether a particular regulation is justified depends on its facts. How widespread is the virus in these neighborhoods? Do the regulated zones closely correspond to places where the infection rate is significantly higher? What regulation is actually needed to save lives?
The governor should have to prove his factual claims in the Agudath Israel lawsuit. But assuming that he has the facts approximately right, then the new regulations are mostly justified. The devil is in the details.
Under the Supreme Court’s current constitutional interpretation, the right to free exercise of religion is a special form of protection against discrimination. Religious exercise can be regulated only if it falls under generally applicable rules. If a restriction has secular exceptions, it must also have religious exceptions. These requirements are a challenge to governments writing Covid rules, which must be deployed quickly, adapted to rapidly changing conditions and applied to a multitude of human activities.
Lawyers for religious groups objecting to restrictions can focus on any arguably analogous secular activity that is regulated less intensively than religious activity. But the secular activities comparable to worship services are not retail stores, where few customers linger, but movie theaters, concert halls and other places where people gather in significant numbers and remain for long periods.
Nevada had trouble explaining why churches were more tightly regulated than casinos, another place where people come and stay for hours at a time. But in a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court refused to interfere even with Nevada’s regulation, and this decision may imply an unusual degree of judicial deference in the face of medical emergency.
So Governor Cuomo has wide discretion, but he does need to make sure that any rules are truly nondiscriminatory. And it’s unclear if New York’s new rules are.
The governor’s website says that the rules prohibit all mass gatherings in red zones. There is no discrimination in that. But the actual executive order applies only to “nonessential gatherings of any size.” What gatherings are “essential” is not defined. And that is a problem.
As compared to a total prohibition, houses of worship in red zones benefit from an exception — they are limited to 25 percent of capacity or 10 people, but at least they can meet. In orange and yellow zones, houses of worship can admit larger numbers than other types of gatherings.
But some of these other gatherings can claim to be essential, and houses of worship, it seems, cannot. This is a form of discrimination that would normally require compelling justification.
In yellow zones, schools and restaurants can open without capacity limits; houses of worship are restricted to 50 percent of capacity. People linger in restaurants, and students stay in school all day; it is hard to see how the governor can defend these distinctions.
Political attacks on the new rules have emphasized that the state did not restrict the Black Lives Matter protests over the summer. Those were also mass gatherings, although they were outside, and it appears that more people wore masks, but that was hardly uniform. No large outbreak has been linked to the marches, but that could not have been predicted at the time. Both political free speech and free exercise of religion are at the heart of the First Amendment; speech is not constitutionally more important than religion.
The state’s failure to regulate the Black Lives Matters rallies was a mistake. But the state is not forever limited to the least restrictive regulation it has ever indulged in. It can restrict both political rallies and worship services if that is truly necessary to protect public health.
At the same time, the governor must define, and try to defend, the exception for “essential” gatherings. And he will struggle to rationalize the unequal treatment of schools, restaurants and houses of worship in yellow zones.
The lesson here can be briefly stated: Nondiscriminatory rules to protect human life can be applied to the exercise of religion. But the rules must really be nondiscriminatory.
Douglas Laycock is a law professor at the University of Virginia.
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PUBLISHED: 08:56 09 October 2020 | UPDATED: 08:56 09 October 2020
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<a class="email" href="mailto:[email protected]"> <!-- Author Start -->John Elworthy<!-- Author End -->
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<div> <img alt="Campaigners against a No Deal Brexit protest in Cambridge and Ely" class="img-responsive lazyload" data-srcset="/polopoly_fs/1.6876049.1602230150!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_75/image.jpg 75w, /polopoly_fs/1.6876049.1602230150!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_145/image.jpg 145w, /polopoly_fs/1.6876049.1602230150!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_225/image.jpg 225w, /polopoly_fs/1.6876049.1602230150!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_300/image.jpg 300w, /polopoly_fs/1.6876049.1602230150!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_490/image.jpg 490w, /polopoly_fs/1.6876049.1602230150!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/image.jpg 630w " src=""/></div>
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<p class="article-image-caption">Campaigners against a No Deal Brexit protest in Cambridge and Ely</p>
<p class="article-image-copyright">Archant</p>
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<!--PSTYLE=TX Standard Intro--><h2>Campaigners against a No Deal Brexit protested in Cambridge and Ely. </h2>
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<div id="1.6876050" class="object-465"><img alt="Campaigners against a No Deal Brexit protest in Cambridge and Ely" data-src="/polopoly_fs/1.6876050!/image/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/landscape_630/image.jpg" class="lazyload"/><em>Campaigners against a No Deal Brexit protest in Cambridge and Ely</em></div>The protest groups formed of residents stood outside Ely Cathedral and Cambridge Guildhall for a symbolic gesture, less than three months before the end
of the transition period.
It was part of the European Movement’s #No2NoDeal virtual action day, where they joined others across the UK who emailed their MP or arranged meetings with them to press for a trade deal with the EU.
Paul Browne, chair of the European Movement branch Cambridge for Europe, said: “As the UK faces a second wave of Covid-19, the last thing our economy
Campaigners against a No Deal Brexit protest in Cambridge and Ely
needs are the disruption, extra red tape and added costs of a no-deal exit from the European Single Market.
“Our manufacturers, exporters and importers need to be free to focus on recovering from the impact of the
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<!-- JWPlayer CAM: End Config > Contextual Article Video Code -->pandemic, and not on preparing for another, this time self-inflicted, crisis.”
Campaigners against a No Deal Brexit protest in Cambridge and Ely
Mr Browne added: “We know that any trade deal agreed between the UK and EU this year won’t come close to the frictionless access to the Single Market we had as
members of the European Union, but it will lessen the economic damage of Brexit and help our employers recover and rebuild in 2021.
“More importantly, a trade deal will lay the foundation for a close future relationship with the EU, helping us to join popular and valuable initiatives such as the Horizon Europe scientific programme, the Erasmus+ educational programme, and the EHIC scheme which provides
access to medical treatment to UK citizens traveling to 31 countries in Europe.”
He said the group was calling on local MPs Anthony Browne, Daniel Zeichner and Lucy Frazer “to act in the interests of their constituents, say no to no deal, and tell
the Government that it must agree a good and close trade deal with the EU that protects and supports our economy through this time of crisis
and into the future.”
Cambridge for Europe is a branch of the European Movement UK and says that “we hope that in the future the UK will re-join the EU, and work towards that goal”.
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The Archbishop made the call recently as Nigeria commemorated its Diamond Jubilee of independence from British colonial rule. The Archbishop also said that the year of the country’s Diamond Jubilee, 2020, has been the most challenging for all Nigerians due to COVID-19 and the high cost of living.
We all need to be on a path to peaceful coexistence
Addressing himself to the state of the nation, Archbishop Martins noted that “not enough has been done in practical terms by successive (Nigerian) leaders to foster a deep sense of patriotism and oneness among the various nationalities that make up the country.” He said that it was shameful that sixty years after gaining independence from the British, the country was yet to get its act together. “We still lack quality leadership needed to guide the country on the path of peaceful coexistence, economic prosperity and security of life and property,” said the prelate of Lagos.
Military governments distorted the growth of the country
Archbishop Martins advocated that the Diamond Jubilee year be used, by all, to reflect soberly on the reality and challenges facing Nigeria.
“A cursory reflection shows that we are far below where we ought to be if we take into consideration the human and natural resources with which the country is blessed.” He added, “The advent of the military into governance has remained an obstacle to the growth of the nation.“
Federal states reduced to begging from central govt
Archbishop Martins pointed out that in its current structure, governance in Nigeria gives too much power to the centre. At the same time, the states and local governments have been reduced to appendages that go cap in hand to Abuja to seek for their survival from the Federal Government. “We must return to true federalism in order to become the nation that we want to be,” he said.
Selfishness and disregard for the common good have made it impossible for the Federal Republic to function as it was meant to at independence, declared the Archbishop. He appealed for selfless leadership and patriotism.
The Grace of God has kept us together
Notwithstanding challenges, Archbishop Martins attributed the fact that the country has held together, for the past 60 years, to the grace of God and the resilience of its people. The people, said the Archbishop, have persevered under successive government leaders that have not had the best interests of the nation at heart.
“We thank God that we are alive to mark the Diamond Jubilee of our country’s independence. We are an independent country still searching for how to become a nation, where no one is oppressed, and everyone feels a sense of belonging. In spite of all odds, we have survived for 60 years, and so we must thank God and praise the resilience of Nigerians. However, this year of our Diamond Jubilee has turned out to be one of the most challenging for most Nigerians,” said the Archbishop as he alluded to the COVID-19 pandemic and economic hardships.
COVID-19 pandemic
Archbishop Martins noted that the country was still battling with the effects of insecurity in the country when COVID-19 struck and made life impossible for ordinary Nigerians. He called on the Government to ease the burdens on the people in the face of rising prices for food and essential commodities.
The Social Innovation Tournament, the flagship initiative of the EIB Group Institute’s Social Programme, recognises and supports the best European social entrepreneurs. 15 finalists had been selected for the 2020 edition out of an outstanding group of 216 candidates in 31 countries. SIT is normally organised in a different country every year and rewards European entrepreneurs whose primary purpose is to generate a social, ethical or environmental impact. This year’s tournament was scheduled to take place in Lisbon but – due to the COVID-19 pandemic spreading across the world – it had to be moved online.
EIB Vice-PresidentEmma Navarro, responsible for the EIB Institute and for the Bank’s operations in Portugal stated: “We are proud to reward Europe’s best social entrepreneurs and, by doing so, to promote innovative startups in an early stage of development. The SIT tournament shows the EU bank’s firm commitment to improving their competitiveness and access to finance with a view to turning good ideas into meaningful social and environmental projects. Moreover, at the EIB, the EU climate bank and world’s largest multilateral provider of climate finance, we are particularly pleased to see so many amazing and disruptive ideas that aim to improve biodiversity and ecosystem conservation.”
General Category – Winners
Navilens, from Spain, wants to make cities smarter and more inclusive by empowering visually impaired people with a cutting-edge technology based on a proprietary computer vision algorithm. It replicates the concept of using the camera of any mobile phone to read signage information for visually impaired people and its technology is much more powerful than a QR code. Available in 24 languages, it helps visually impaired users to be more independent in unknown spaces.
BeeOmonitoring (BeeOdiversity), from Belgium, combines nature (bees acting as drones to collect billions of environmental samples on large surfaces) and technology (software processing the data). Through the analysis of samples, BeeOmonitoring can monitor industrial and agricultural pollution, assess the quality/diversity of plants, make targeted improvement decisions and involve local communities to enhance biodiversity.
Special Category – Winners
Sponsh, from the Netherlands, developed a temperature-sensitive smart material that produces water from air, using the natural cycles of day and night. Launched in 2018, Sponsh’s first products are water-producing tree guards for reforestation projects, to help young trees survive their first harsh summers. After 10 years, Sponsh will have planted 80 million trees, turned 174 000 ha of degraded land into forests and absorbed 68 million tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere.
PlasticFri, from Sweden, is a CleanTech startup with the vision to end the plastic pollution catastrophe. PlasticFri’s mission is to change that reality by transforming renewable resources (agricultural waste and specific non-edible plants) into a biomaterial that looks and works like conventional plastics, but it is 100% biodegradable, compostable and non-toxic. PlasticFri’s impact is not limited to saving CO2, but also contributes to reducing the impact of climate change, ocean toxicity, ecosystem disruption and habitat disruption while improving food chain quality and biodiversity.
Audience Choice Award – Winners
HeraMobileApp, from Turkey, aims to increase access to preventative health services, related to vaccine-preventable diseases and maternal health among Syrian refugees in Turkey. Before using the application, women are given a tutorial on recommended services and are taught about the risks and conditions during and after the pregnancy, the importance of vaccination for children and the situations that will occur if a child is not vaccinated according to guidelines. HERA currently serves 300 women between the ages of 20 and 49.
Background information
About the Social Innovation Tournament
The Social Innovation Tournament recognises and supports the best European social entrepreneurs. It promotes innovative ideas and rewards initiatives that contribute to creating social, ethical or environmental impact. Typically, it covers projects in the areas of education, healthcare, the environment, the circular economy, inclusion, job creation, ageing and many more.
All projects compete for the General Category and Special Category first and second Prizes of €50 000 and €20 000 respectively, as well as the Audience Choice Award of €10 000 for the project with the most audience votes. In 2020, the Special Category Prizes will go to projects focusing on the environment (with a special emphasis on biodiversity and ecosystem conservation). Two projects will be selected to attend INSEAD’s Social Entrepreneurship programme in Fontainebleau, France.
The prizes are awarded by a jury of specialists from the academic and business worlds. The Audience Choice is awarded by the audience, based on their votes.
About the EIB Institute
The EIB Institute was set up within the EIB Group (European Investment Bank and European Investment Fund) to promote and support social, cultural, and academic initiatives with European stakeholders and the public at large. It is a key pillar of the EIB Group’s community and citizenship engagement.
The EIB Institute supports social innovation and entrepreneurs who target social, ethical or environmental goals or seek to create and sustain social value. This is typically related to unemployment, equal opportunities, the marginalisation of disadvantaged groups and access to education and other basic social services.
