Excelentes declarações do Bispo D. Nuno Brás

In RR

Fim do Euro preocupa. E o fim dos europeus?

D. Nuno Brás lamenta que os europeus se preocupem mais com a possibilidade de acabar a moeda única do que com a sua própria existência e futuro. Só assim entende que em vários países se esteja a liberalizar cada vez mais quer o aborto quer a eutanásia.

"Não deixa de ser interessante quando estamos muito aflitos que o euro vai desaparecer, ou que a União Europeia vai desaparecer, depois não ficamos nada aflitos, antes pelo contrário, fazemos estas leis e estas normas. Eu creio que aqui se vê muito bem o que é que conta para a Europa neste momento - é o dinheiro, é o ter, os valores estão completamente invertidos", refere o bispo-auxiliar de Lisboa.

Para D. Nuno Brás a Europa tem de alterar o rumo porque corre o risco de desaparecer: "Eu espero que Portugal e a Europa toda, a dada altura, ponham a mão na consciência e percebam que assim caminhamos para o desaparecimento da Europa. Agora, não me parece que seja inevitável. Espero eu, quando chegar aos 70 anos, que já existam leis que proíbam claramente a eutanásia e o aborto. Espero que sim, que a humanidade seja capaz de caminhar para uma viragem de razoabilidade. Temos de ser pessoas de esperança".

Já a jornalista Aura Miguel considerou particularmente alarmante, e um sinal evidente da decadência da Europa, o caso holandês onde a legislação desvaloriza cada vez mais a vida na sua fase final: "na Holanda, como sabem, agora é de tal maneira liberalizada a eutanásia que muitos idosos estão a fugir para lares na Alemanha porque têm medo de entrar no Hospital e matarem-nos. Andam com cartões a dizer: por favor não me matem".

A questão do aborto e da eutanásia foi levantada no debate desta quarta-feira à noite, na Renascença, a propósito da "Cimeira Global Pró-Vida" que sexta-feira e sábado vai reunir, em Lisboa, responsáveis de vários países. Portugal estará representado no encontro pela Comissão Nacional Pró-Referendo à Vida que já reuniu quase metade das 75 mil assinaturas necessárias para convocar uma consulta popular visando o "reconhecimento da inviolabilidade da vida humana, desde a concepção até à morte natural".

O juíz Pedro Vaz Patto, outro dos participantes no debate, admitiu que Portugal até possa vir a referendar de novo o aborto, mas para isso são necessárias algumas garantias ... “ ... parece-me que para além de requerer o referendo é necessário que haja garantias de que o resultado não seja igual ao último, a começar pela indiferença das pessoas que levou muitos a nem sequer votar”.

“Garantir que o resultado seja diferente supõe uma mudança de mentalidade que infelizmente eu ainda não vejo na sociedade portuguesa", acrescentou.

O Juiz Vaz Patto recorreu, ainda, ao exemplo da Polónia para mostrar que não há leis irreversíveis: "Neste âmbito da legislação relativa ao aborto tem-se um bocadinho a ideia de que há uma irreversibilidade, quando há uma alteração no sentido da liberalização não se volta atrás, mas não tem sido assim em todos os países. A Polónia, por exemplo, onde no tempo do comunismo o aborto foi banalizado ao extremo, hoje tem uma lei bastante restritiva e ainda recentemente foi feita uma proposta no sentido da proibição total do aborto que por muito pouco não foi aprovada".

Aprende Cavaco - Prince of Liechtenstein threatens to quit

In The Raw Story

The tiny principality of Liechtenstein has been rattled by a war of words between activists who want to revoke the royal veto and the hereditary prince, who has threatened to quit if they do.

Liechtenstein owes its very existence as a principality to its royal family and their princes, who have ruled it as an autonomous monarchy since the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.

But the current ruler, Hereditary Prince Alois von und zu Liechtenstein, has threatened that his 900-year-old family will drop its royal duties if Liechtenstein passes a referendum eliminating the prince’s veto, a power enshrined in the constitution.

“The royal family is not willing to undertake its political responsibilities unless the prince… has the necessary tools at his disposal,” Alois said in a speech to parliament on March 1.

“But if the people are no longer open to that, then the royal family will not want to undertake its political responsibilities and… will completely withdraw from political life.”

With some 36,000 inhabitants and a surface area of 160.5 square kilometres (62 square miles), the bucolic monarchy sandwiched between Austria and Switzerland enjoys one of the highest living standards in the world thanks to its industrial and financial sectors.

Long considered a tax haven, Liechtenstein has an average annual income of $137,070 (104,062 euros), according to the World Bank — the second-highest per capita in the world after Monaco.

Alois’ father Hans-Adam II, who transferred sovereignty to his eldest son in 2004 but officially remains head of state, is worth nearly $4.0 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

But the family, which still lives in its ancestral castle towering over the capital Vaduz has run into an attack on its power in the form of a petition drive dubbed “Yes, for your voice to count”.

The slogan refers to plans by a citizens’ committee to launch a referendum that would repeal the prince’s veto power.

The movement first gained steam last year, when Alois, a 43-year-old father of four, threatened to veto a referendum legalising abortion if citizens passed it.

After an acrimonious campaign, the referendum failed. Proponents blamed the prince’s veto threat.

“The referendum was doomed to fail,” Sigvard Wohlwend, a spokesman for the movement, told AFP. He said the veto threat had “torpedoed” its chances in a monarchy where the royal family is still treated with reverence.

Wohlwend, who said the current campaign grew out of the abortion referendum, insisted the activists’ goal is not to do away with the monarchy but to give more power to Liechtenstein’s people.

But it is an uphill battle.

The campaign must gather 1,500 signatures by May 10 to call a referendum — not so easy in the fourth-smallest country in Europe, after the Vatican, Monaco and San Marino.

“It’s like a village here, and everyone knows everyone else. People don’t want anyone to know they’re voting for the referendum,” Wohlwend said.

Campaigners are trying to assuage residents’ fears.

“The prince would retain all his rights and the monarchy would remain in place,” Paul Vogt, a committee member, explained in the local press.

Wilfried Marxer, a political scientist and director of the Liechtenstein Institute, said other small states such as San Marino manage to survive without monarchies.

But in Liechtenstein, he said, the monarchy is a “deeply anchored tradition”.

“People are afraid they would lose their identity and their quality of life if the monarchy disappeared,” he said.

On top of that, “The prince has not shown any willingness to compromise,” he added.

A final obstacle: even if the referendum passed, the prince would have the power to veto it — though analysts say it’s more likely he would resign his duties and retire from politics.

“One of the most outrageous bills ever” - Measure would make it virtually impossible to get therapy for unwanted same-sex attraction in California

In California Catholic Daily

Suffering from unwanted same-sex attraction and want psychological help? Better hurry if you live in California. A bill currently being considered in the state legislature would make “sexual orientation change efforts” almost impossible to get for adults -- and illegal altogether for minors. 

“Senate bill 1172 would ban children under 18 from undergoing so-called sexual orientation-change efforts and would require adults seeking such treatment to sign informed consent forms indicating they understand the potential dangers, including depression and suicide, of reparative therapy and that it has no medical basis,” the measure’s sponsor, state Sen. Ted Lieu, D-Torrance, said in a press release.

Lieu’s bill would also create a new cause of action in civil law, permitting lawsuits to be brought against therapists offering “sexual orientation change efforts” if the treatment occurred “without first obtaining informed consent or by means of therapeutic deception, or if the sexual orientation change efforts were conducted on a patient who was under 18 years of age at any point during the use of the sexual orientation change efforts.”

“To obtain informed consent,” says Lieu’s bill, “a treating psychotherapist shall provide a patient with a form to be signed by the patient that provides informed consent. The form shall include the following statement:

Having a lesbian, gay, or bisexual sexual orientation is not a mental disorder. There is no scientific evidence that any types of therapies are effective in changing a person's sexual orientation. Sexual orientation change efforts can be harmful. The risks include, but are not limited to, depression, anxiety, and self-destructive behavior.

Medical and mental health associations that oppose the use of sexual orientation change efforts include the American Medical Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Counseling Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy.

In addition, says SB 1172, “Under no circumstances shall a patient under 18 years of age undergo sexual orientation change efforts, regardless of the willingness of a patient's parent, guardian, conservator, or other person to authorize such efforts.”

Lieu, a self-identified Catholic, introduced the bill at the request of Equality California, a pro-homosexual lobbying group.

“I can honestly say this is one of the most outrageous, speech-chilling bills we have ever seen in California -- and that’s saying a lot,” said Brad Dacus, president of Pacific Justice Institute, a conservative legal group that strongly opposes the bill.

“SB 1172 blames those who believe change is possible for gay suicides, guilt, substance abuse, relationship problems, and a host of other ills,” said Pacific Justice Institute staff attorney Matthew McReynolds, who attended an April 23 hearing on the bill before the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee. “As if all that were not enough, the bill claims that sexually-confused youth who experience ‘family rejection… face especially serious health risks’ and the state has a ‘compelling interest’ to protect their health. The logical implication from these two assertions is that the state is giving itself the power to take kids away from parents who do not affirm the kids’ sexual confusion.”

Lieu’s bill cleared the Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee on a 5-3 vote along party lines, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed. It is now scheduled to be considered by the Senate Judiciary Committee, possibly as soon as May 8.

“For many years gay activists have been trying to convince the public that homosexual attractions cannot be changed,” said the National Association For Research & Therapy Of Homosexuality (NARTH) in a statement opposing SB 1172. “Since the evidence proves otherwise, they then moved on to trying to convince us that change therapies are ‘dangerous,’ but once again even the American Psychological Association agrees that no such evidence is available. Now in what is apparently a move of desperation they are trying to accomplish through fines and sanctions aimed directly at individual clients and their therapists what they could not accomplish through misinformation.”

NARTH is a 1000-member international association of psychology professionals who offer counseling to those with same-sex attraction who seek help.

“NARTH seeks to support the many homosexual men and women who are profoundly distressed by their condition,” says NARTH. “Homosexuality is experienced by them as completely contrary to their value system and their conviction that all men and women would normally be heterosexual were it not for disturbances in their early lives.”

“We acknowledge that many homosexual men and women do not wish to change their psychosexual adaptation, and we respect their wishes not to seek therapy,” the statement continues. “Furthermore we do not wish to diminish the rights of homosexually oriented people in society. However, we believe that treatment should be offered to those who voluntarily seek it.”

But Lieu calls such treatment “junk science” that must be stopped. “Under the guise of a California license, some therapists are taking advantage of vulnerable people by pushing dangerous sexual orientation-change efforts,” he said.

According to a legislative analyst’s review of the bill for the Senate Business, Professions and Economic Development Committee, the following organizations issued a joint letter opposing SB 1172:

California Psychological Association
California Association for Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors
California Psychiatric Association
California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists

Among other things, the professional organizations noted that, under SB 1172, the state is trying to “micromanage the work of individual therapists.”

Practitioners, they said in the joint letter, are already subject to regulation by licensing agencies that determine guidelines for appropriate professional and ethical conduct, and a “statutory ban on types of therapy is not the right venue and there is very little precedent in state law to make an outright ban on a specific type of therapy."

Científicos británicos defienden que hay «pruebas textuales» de la Sábana Santa desde el siglo II

In Religión en Libertad

Más de 400 investigadores, científicos y estudiosos se dan cita en Valencia para aportar nuevas pruebas sobre la veracidad de la Síndone. 

 ¿Es la Sábana Santa de Turín la que envolvió el cuerpo de Jesucristo cuando lo crucificaron? Esa es la pregunta que se están haciendo durante todo el fin de semana más de 400 investigadores y estudiosos de todo el mundo en Valencia, dentro del marco del Congreso Internacional sobre la Sábana Santa que organiza el Centro Español de Sindonología (CES), cuyo presidente es Jorge Manuel Rodríguez.

Durante el congreso los profesores Ian Wilson, de la Universidad de Oxford, y Marc Guscin, de la de Manchester, han explicado los nuevos descubrimientos de la historia de la Síndone.

Pruebas textuales sobre la veracidad de la Sábana
En sus intervenciones han citado que hay "numerosas pruebas textuales" de la conservación de la Sábana Santa, entre ellas el llamado "evangelio apócrifo hebreo", del siglo II. También existen la liturgia mozárabe del siglo VIII en España, en lo relativo al Sábado de Pascua, que fue abolida por Alfonso VI, y una carta del obispo de Zaragoza Braulio del año 632.

"Hay muchos testimonios de que la Síndone se conservó y, si bien en los primeros siglos no se evidencian datos concretos que puedan identificarla con la que hoy se venera en Turín, lo cierto es que a partir del siglo VII todos los datos ya conducen a ello", han indicado a Efe.

Así, el códice de Pray, del siglo XII que se conserva en la Biblioteca Nacional de Budapest, en el que se incluye el primer vocablo en húngaro, reproduce una miniatura en la que se representa el cuerpo de Cristo "cuando es amortajado, siendo colocado, exactamente, en la misma posición que el hombre cuya imagen se refleja en la Sábana Santa".

"Los brazos doblados en la misma forma, las mismas manchas de sangre, y los dedos pulgares de las manos doblados hacia el interior, al igual que en la Síndone de Turín", ha señalado Guscin.

Aunque el rastro histórico de la Sábana Santa en Europa está documentado desde el siglo XIV, estas y otras pruebas confirman que hay pruebas textuales que evidencian su presencia desde el siglo II, ha insistido Guscin.

Revelar la verdad
"Queremos clarificar las cosas y si es posible marcar una línea de estudio que ayude a revelar el misterio que envuelve la Síndone", manifestó el presidente del CES.

Procedencia de la Síndone
"El presidente del Equipo de Investigación del CES, el doctor en Ciencias Biológicas Alfonso Muñoz-Cobo, dijo por la mañana: "no somos gente rara ni fanáticos religiosos, sólo queremos llegar a la verdad", ha señalado a Europa Press.

Durante el fin de semana una veintena de ingenieros, físicos, licenciados en derecho, en bellas artes, biólogos e historiadores, todos ellos expertos en la Síndone, nombre que recibe la Sábana Santa, tratarán temas como la procedencia de la reliquia y plantearán el panorama que ha dejado tras de sí cerca de 30 años de investigaciones científicas, una de las principales realizadas por el Shroud of Turin Research Project (Sturp).