EU judges should strike down a Belgian law requiring all animals to be stunned prior to their death, which has effectively outlawed slaughter according to Jewish and Muslim rites, an EU court adviser said on Thursday.
Gerard Hogan, an advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, said an EU law of 2009 set out that animals should normally be stunned before they are slaughtered, but made a clear exception for slaughter prescribed by religious rites.
EU judges typically follow the opinions of advocate generals although are not bound to do so. They would normally deliver their ruling in two to four months.
The case came to the EU court in Luxembourg after a 2017 decree in the Belgian region of Flanders to amend its law on protection and welfare of animals by requiring that all animals be first stunned.
Jewish and Muslim association challenged the decree and Belgium’s Constitutional Court referred the case to the EU Court of Justice.
Hogan said the religious exception reflected the European Union’s desire to respect freedom of religion and the right to manifest religious belief in practice and observance despite avoidable suffering caused to animals.
Jewish and Muslim methods of slaughter involve the animals’ throats being cut with a sharp knife, which advocates say results in death almost immediately. Traditionally, prior stunning is not permitted.
Belgian campaign group Global Action in the Interest of Animals (GAIA), whose representatives were present at the court on Thursday, said it was disappointed and perplexed by the opinion, but noted the judges might rule differently.
“How will the court deal with [EU] members that have for years had general bans on slaughter without stunning: Denmark, parts of Finland, Slovenia and Sweden?” asked GAIA lawyer Anthony Godfroid.
The European Union is reportedly considering taking legal action against the UK after the announced plans of Prime Minister Boris Johnson to override parts of the Withdrawal Agreement, The Telegraph reports.
The UK government is seeking to rewrite sections of the Northern Ireland Protocol, part of the legally-binding Withdrawal Agreement signed with the EU and designed to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland, at the cost of creating a customs border in the Irish Sea.
Brussels is said to be under the impression that it may mount a successful challenge before the UK Government passes legislation that will revisit some areas of the deal reached with the bloc last year relating to Northern Ireland.
Brussels is said to have drafted a document circulated to member states that warns the UK Internal Market Bill represents a “clear breach” of the original 2019 agreement, and might “open the way to legal remedies”, according to Bloomberg.
After the end of the current transition period on 31 December 2020, which went into force after the UK exited the bloc on 31 January, the EU could also trigger the dispute settlement mechanism envisioned in the deal.
This might ultimately lay open the UK to financial sanctions.
After Boris Johnson’s government published legislation on Wednesday allowing it to re-write parts of the Brexit divorce deal penned with the European Union in 2019, the move triggered consternation in Brussels. The EU called for emergency talks on Thursday in London, seeking to salvage the negotiations aimed at securing a key trade agreement between the two sides.
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks during question period at the House of Commons in London, Britain September 2, 2020
Eric Mamer, chief spokesman of the EU Commission, tweeted that Brussels was seeking “clarifications” from London.
???? Following today’s announcement by the UK, @MarosSefcovic will travel to London tomorrow to meet @michaelgove for an extraordinary meeting of the Joint Committee. The EU seeks clarifications from the UK on the full and timely implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement.
​Michael Gove’s counterpart on the UK-EU joint Brexit committee, Maros Sefcovic, intimated that the extraordinary meeting would address the bloc’s “strong concerns”.
“The Withdrawal Agreement is not open for renegotiation and we expect the letter and the spirit of the Withdrawal Agreement will be fully respected. I think on that we have to be very, very clear.”
We expect the letter and spirit of the #WithdrawalAgreement to be fully respected. I have called for an extraordinary EU-UK Joint Committee to be held as soon as possible – so that our UK partners elaborate and respond to our strong concerns regarding their announcement. pic.twitter.com/MhhWj9MUnC
​Concerns were earlier voiced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who warned that the UK-published Internal Market Bill “breaks international law and undermines trust”.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, arrived in London earlier for a crunch round of talks on the bloc’s relations with the UK post-Brexit.
As the outlet cites sources indicating Barnier plans to confront his counterpart Lord Frost over the current turn of events, an EU diplomat was quoted as saying:
“A quick reading of the relevant articles of the Internal Market Bill suggest the UK Government is launching a frontal assault on the Protocol and its obligations. Notwithstanding the consequences for the negotiations, this must be the absolute nadir of four years of negotiations by a country known as the cradle of democracy.”
British officials are expected to allay the concerns of EU officials, underscoring their adherence to commitments and explicit promises made in the joint committee, writes The Telegraph.
After the announcement, Boris Johnson faced further criticism on the home front from John Major, the second former prime minister after Theresa May to warn against undermining trust in the UK by revisiting the original withdrawal agreement.
Washington chimed in with its own dire warnings, as senior Democrats suggested the US-UK trade deal might be jeopardised by the United Kingdom’s failure to uphold the terms of the withdrawal agreement.
House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi was quoted by the Irish Times as saying:
“If the UK violates that international treaty and Brexit undermines the Good Friday accord, there will be absolutely no chance of a US-UK trade agreement passing the Congress.”
The Good Friday Agreement is the bedrock of peace in Northern Ireland. If the U.K. violates its international agreements & Brexit undermines the Good Friday accord, there will be absolutely no chance of a U.S.-U.K. trade agreement passing the Congress. https://t.co/n7E4GHTJcI
Downing Street sought to fend off criticism over the announced changes to the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement on 9 September, saying the accord had been signed “at pace”, under the assumption that its “grey areas” could be clarified later.
The Prime Minister’s spokesman insisted that protecting the Northern Ireland peace process was “exactly” why the UK was making the changes.
“We are absolutely committed to no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland,” he added.
Speaking earlier at Prime Minister’s Questions, Boris Johnson said:
“We need a legal safety net to protect our country against extreme or irrational interpretations of the protocol which could lead to a border down the Irish Sea, which I believe…would be prejudicial to the interests of the Good Friday Agreement and prejudicial to the interests of peace in our country.”
The European Union, EU, has said China must make big improvements if it is to finalise an investment deal with European companies.
“The European side has made it very clear that it cannot meet China in the middle,” Joerg Wuttke, President of the European Union Chamber of Commerce said on Thursday.
According to Wuttke, fair competitive conditions already apply in Europe – both for domestic and Chinese companies.
In China, however, this is still not the case and therefore it is up to Beijing to “close the gap,” he said.
Wuttke’s comments come ahead of summit talks between the EU and Beijing planned for next week.
The chamber president said he was not very confident that a comprehensive deal satisfying EU companies could be made.
According to Wuttke, the window of opportunity for an agreement with China is also closing and the deal must come this year.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, EU Council President Charles Michel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen intend to join forces with China’s President Xi Jinping for the talks next Monday via video conference.
One of the topics will be the planned investment deal, which has been under negotiation for six years.
The Holy Bible is the word of God speaking to us. It is not one book but a whole library of books. There are two main parts the Old Testament and the New Testament. For Christians, the Old Testament was the preparation for the coming of the Redeemer. It predicted the coming of the Messiah who would redeem the world from its sins. We also learn a lot from its stories. The books of the Bible are of different genre. They must be read according to their genre; otherwise they would be possibly misunderstood. The Old Testament was put down in writing about 500 years before Christ. Before that it was all recited from memory. The New Testament was written about fifty to a hundred years after the Ascension of Our Lord to heaven. Our oldest Bible now dates to about the year 400 AD until the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls. These were probably hidden about a hundred years before Christ.
Before the coming of Martin Luther in the 15th century, there was no problem about the books that were accepted as canonical or inspired books. Luther rejected some of the books in the Old Testament books that did not agree with his doctrines. But with the Dead Sea scrolls this controversy has been corrected. Martin Luther was a young man who was caught in frightening storm where he vowed to become a priest. He was an excellent theologian and wrote convincingly about abuses in the Church in a time when many leaders of their countries in northern Europe wanted to revolt against the Catholic Church. In the ensuing polemics and wars the solution was to consider that in every country the citizens of a country would have the religion of its leader. Many northern European states followed Luther out of the Catholic Church. The followers of Luther and other theologians against the Catholic Church were called Protestants. They did away with the Sacrifice of the Mass and concentrated on the pulpit. So we have the Protestants having no altars but only a podium in their churches. Another problem that they encountered since rejecting the teachings of the Church was they had no one to define for them what the meaning of the passages of the Bible was. Each one therefor interpreted the Bible as he saw it. This has resulted in having thirty thousand Protestant churches.
At Mass the first part is the reading of the Bible. On Sunday Masses the first reading is from the Old Testament and the second reading from the New Testament. On other days there is only one reading from the Gospels. Then there is the offering that represents the people. This is followed by the Consecration and Communion. After the Mass and the rosary the reading of the Bible is important. After these three are confession and fasting. These are the five important duties of the Christian. The problem with the reading the Bible is the possibility of misreading it. It is therefore important to read the Bible with the Church. People who made it a habit to read the Bible daily find it very consoling and enlightening. The reading of the Bible allows God to speak to us. The four Gospels are especially important since they tell us of the teachings and life of Our Lord. They also tell us of the miracles Jesus performed to show the people that He was from the Father who loves all of us. And all He is asking of us is to love Him with all our heart and all our strength and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
2-2020 Call for Contributions European Union Capacity Building Mission in Somalia (EUCAP Somalia)- Deadline for applications: Tuesday, 29 September 2020 at 17:00 (Brussels time)
The Irish Data Protection Commission has sent a preliminary order to Facebook requesting suspension of data transfers of European Union users’ data to the US, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Nick Clegg Facebook V-P, Global Affairs and Communications confirmed that the privacy regulator had suggested Facebook halt its EU-US data transfers using a widely used type of contract.
“A lack of safe, secure and legal international data transfers would damage the economy and prevent the emergence of data-driven businesses from the EU, just as we seek recovery from Covid-19,” Clegg said as quoted by WSJ.
The order comes along the heels of a recent ruling by an EU Court to strike down the EU Commissions’ flagship EU-US data flow arrangement called Privacy Shield.
The court, in July, suggested limiting data transfers to the US stating that the EU has no control over the US’ surveillance systems. It struck down the Privacy Shield stating that the US does not have enough safety and privacy measures in place as required under the General Data Protection Regulation.
The measures “are not circumscribed in a way that satisfies requirements that are essentially equivalent to those required under EU law, by the principle of proportionality, in so far as the surveillance programmes based on those provisions are not limited to what is strictly necessary,” the Court said in an official release.
“ In respect of certain surveillance programmes, those provisions do not indicate any limitations on the power they confer to implement those programmes or the existence of guarantees for potentially targeted non-US persons,” it said.
The decision was criticised by the US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross who said that he was “deeply disappointed” with the ruling.
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — By Barbe Fraze – Hours after a fire or fires sent thousands of migrants and refugees fleeing their tents and makeshift container homes at the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, a close aide to Pope Francis called for the permanent resettlement of all the residents.
“Since the time of the visit of the Holy Father (in 2016), we have been asking them to empty these concentration camps, but they let us take only the small groups that we have brought to Italy at the Vatican’s expense in collaboration with the Community of Sant’Egidio,” said Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the papal almoner.
Asked about the fire, the cardinal, who has visited the Moria camp several times and accompanied small groups of asylum-seekers to Rome, told Catholic News Service that “sooner or later it was bound to happen.”
“The refugees who entered Europe” by arriving in Greece, but have been stuck in overcrowded camps there, “are at the limit of supporting such an inhuman situation,” the cardinal said. “It’s like their hope is being killed.”
While government officials said they were investigating the cause of the fire, the Greek news agency ANA said it broke out “at 2 a.m. after clashes began when some of the 35 refugees who tested positive for COVID-19 refused to move into isolation with their families.”
The Moria camp was built to house just over 2,000 asylum-seekers, but according to the U.N. Refugee Agency, when the fire broke out, the camp housed more than 12,000 asylum-seekers, “including more than 4,000 children as well as other vulnerable groups, including 407 unaccompanied children, pregnant women and elderly people.”
While many were given shelter in portable containers, thousands of others lived in tents on a hillside olive grove.
Daniela Pompei, who coordinates the refugee-resettlement program of the Sant’Egidio Community, told CNS Sept. 9 that she had been in contact that morning with many of the asylum-seekers at the camp.
“The situation is dramatic,” she said. “Our refugee friends in Moria are desperate” as most of the 12,000 people who were in the camp are now on the road leading to the sea. Local media were reporting that the Greek police and nearby residents were preventing the asylum seekers from moving into town.
Pompei said it is necessary to find immediate housing at least for the families with children and other vulnerable people and to feed all of them.
“They must set up structures quickly with military tents or use hotels if possible,” she said. “But even more importantly, they must transfer people to the mainland.”
As Pope Francis has said repeatedly, as part of the European Union, Greece — and Italy and Malta as well — cannot be expected to enforce Europe’s borders and its refugee policies alone.
Other nations must “accept the transfer of family groups and unaccompanied minors,” Pompei said. “It is necessary to help Greece and, particularly, to help the asylum seekers who are mainly Syrians, Afghans, Congolese and Cameroonians.”
VATICAN CITY (RNS) — In a world marked by religious persecution and mounting secularism, being a missionary priest has never been easy.
Add closed frontiers and social distancing caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and the already tough job may seem impossible. But according to one missionary, Salesian priest Martin Lasarte, there is opportunity beyond the challenges.
“Being a missionary priest has always been hard, and it will forever be,” Lasarte told reporters during an online meeting Monday (Sept. 7).
“But in the various dark moments in history, the Lord always found a way,” he added.
Lasarte, who has been working as a missionary in Angola since the 1990s, is a member of the Department for Missions at the Salesian General House in Rome. He trains and prepares Catholic missionaries to travel all over the world.
The COVID-19 pandemic saw a “large reduction” in the realm of missionary work, aggravating an ongoing decline in the number of vocations and priests seeking to become missionaries. But while Catholicism may be waning in many Western countries, new communities are emerging in other parts of the world, especially in the Eastern Hemisphere, Lasarte said.
The Rev. Martin Lasarte. Photo via Salesians.org
“When it seems that the light is about to fade in some places, faith emerges once again somewhere else,” he said.
Korea, India and Vietnam have witnessed a significant surge in the number of Catholic faithful, the missionary said. But even in Asia, missionary work faces mounting challenges; he noted China’s authoritarian hold on the life of the faithful within its borders.
“In the past few years the situation in China has gotten much worse,” Lasarte said, adding that Beijing “looks at Catholicism and human rights with a certain preoccupation.”
Lasarte’s comments on religious persecution in China come at a time when Pope Francis and the Vatican are attempting to broker a deal with the up-and-coming superpower in an attempt to reconcile decade-long tensions.
The upcoming deal has come under fire from those who fear that the Catholic Church will, in the name of diplomacy, be unwilling to hold China accountable for its actions.
In his experience as a missionary in Angola, Lasarte pointed out “the new colonization of China in Africa,” which has been occurring economically and politically in the country amid what he called “the silence of the world, the silence of Europe especially.”
It’s in Europe that Lasarte finds “the most preoccupying areas.” Once the home of missionary zeal and hot-blooded Catholics, the Old Continent has become residence to a tepid and secularized faith, with dwindling vocations and empty pews, said the missionary.
With more than 2 million cases of the coronavirus and almost 200,000 COVID-19 related deaths, Europe has been dealt a heavy blow by the pandemic — and so has its faith. Churches, confessionals and many sacraments were banned during the months of lockdown in many European countries.
Speaking to the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich said the pandemic set the Catholic Church back a decade in terms of faithful numbers and religious culture. The archbishop of Luxembourg said that Catholics in his own country “will be reduced in number” once they find that “life is very comfortable” without having to go to church.
According to Lasarte, the COVID-19 pandemic “has purified the church,” separating those who were “culture Catholics” attending Mass out of inertia from those who cannot live without it. The answer, according to the missionary, is not in demographics.
“We don’t have to seek large numbers,” he said, “but the authenticity of the gospel.”
Like many priests coming to terms with the declining state of religion in the west, Lasarte finds comfort in the “few, but good” approach.
This is the not the first time the Catholic priest attempted to switch the narrative amid a global crisis. In 2017, he wrote a letter to The New York Times that, while commending the publication for shedding light on the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, asked that reporters also take an interest in the positive work done by priests and laypeople.
He was also invited by Pope Francis to attend the 2019 summit of bishops on the Amazon region at the Vatican, focused on promoting the sustainable development of its inhabitants and their habitat, where he experienced the profound divisions underscoring the Catholic Church firsthand.
At the time, Lasarte accused bishops of clericalism and losing sight of the real needs of the faithful. Today, Salesian missionaries are hard at work trying to cure and prevent the spread of COVID-19 among Indigenous peoples.
Despite challenges from within and without, the missionary continues to have faith that even in reduced numbers “Catholics can be a significant minority.”
