Filipino women fight for the right to divorce in a deeply Catholic country

Considering that marriage is a passport to Heaven, divorce is forbidden in the Philippines. Even if you are married to a person who beats you up every day.

You have a Catholic priest claiming that the Church doesn't interfere with the laws of the land, but then you see him visiting the parliament on the regular basis to make sure that politicians follow church teachings on voting for the laws.

But it's not just the Catholic Church that is forbidding divorce, the Baptists also claim that divorce will destroy the sanctity of marriage. And that the people pushing for divorce laws do it because they want immorality and adultery, so they also want to destroy the family and thus the whole society.

The Philippines is the only country in the world, apart from the Vatican, where divorce is illegal.

In this predominantly Catholic nation, there is intense pressure to uphold the sanctity of marriage.

This leaves many women trapped in violent and abusive relationships.

But a growing number of Filipinas are fighting to change the law.

101 East travels to the Philippines and follows these fearless women as they battle for the right to divorce.

https://www.aljazeera.com/program/101-ea...ic-country

Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes are a stain on the Catholic church - but this latest refusal to atone is a new low

There are some stories so horrifying that their details embed themselves in your flesh and haunt you for the rest of your days. The suffering of the women and babies – an estimated 170,000 of them – who were incarcerated and abused in the Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes that housed “fallen women” is one such story: from the testimonies of abuse and forced adoption, to the mass grave at the former St Mary’s mother-and-baby home near Tuam, County Galway, which contained 796 bodies of babies and children. The nuns put many of them in a septic tank. There were no burial records.

This week, it was reported that, of the eight religious organisations linked to Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes, only two have offered to contribute to a survivor redress scheme.

The other five – the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy, the Legion of Mary and the (Anglican) Church of Ireland – made no offer. They gave various reasons – or excuses, depending on your viewpoint. Ireland’s children’s minister, Norma Foley, expressed her disappointment, saying that, while the state had admitted its role in the scandal, more should have been done by the church and the religious organisations.

The Good Shepherd Sisters, as they are now known, have made particularly impressive use of grammatical gymnastics over the years (“We sincerely regret that women could have experienced hurt and hardship”). Perhaps most shocking was this: “It was part of the system and the culture of the time.”

Yet the church wasn’t just part of that culture. It was the culture, saturating every aspect of life in Ireland, shaping public attitudes towards women and their babies, encouraging their shaming and ostracising. Some campaigners have called for church assets to be seized unless the institution contributes to a state-run redress scheme.

Nothing from the nuns, or the Catholic church, has really come close to expressing true remorse. Without a true acknowledgment of the pain that has been caused, how do you begin to move on from something so traumatic?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...lic-church

The church in general, and the Catholic church in particular never ceases to disgust me, I wish I believed in a hell for them to burn in

(April 13, 2025 at 12:18 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote: Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes are a stain on the Catholic church - but this latest refusal to atone is a new low

There are some stories so horrifying that their details embed themselves in your flesh and haunt you for the rest of your days. The suffering of the women and babies – an estimated 170,000 of them – who were incarcerated and abused in the Magdalene laundries and mother-and-baby homes that housed “fallen women” is one such story: from the testimonies of abuse and forced adoption, to the mass grave at the former St Mary’s mother-and-baby home near Tuam, County Galway, which contained 796 bodies of babies and children. The nuns put many of them in a septic tank. There were no burial records.

This week, it was reported that, of the eight religious organisations linked to Ireland’s mother-and-baby homes, only two have offered to contribute to a survivor redress scheme.

The other five – the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd, the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy, the Legion of Mary and the (Anglican) Church of Ireland – made no offer. They gave various reasons – or excuses, depending on your viewpoint. Ireland’s children’s minister, Norma Foley, expressed her disappointment, saying that, while the state had admitted its role in the scandal, more should have been done by the church and the religious organisations.

The Good Shepherd Sisters, as they are now known, have made particularly impressive use of grammatical gymnastics over the years (“We sincerely regret that women could have experienced hurt and hardship”). Perhaps most shocking was this: “It was part of the system and the culture of the time.”

Yet the church wasn’t just part of that culture. It was the culture, saturating every aspect of life in Ireland, shaping public attitudes towards women and their babies, encouraging their shaming and ostracising. Some campaigners have called for church assets to be seized unless the institution contributes to a state-run redress scheme.

Nothing from the nuns, or the Catholic church, has really come close to expressing true remorse. Without a true acknowledgment of the pain that has been caused, how do you begin to move on from something so traumatic?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...lic-church

This is some truly fucked up shit, all in the name of god.

‘I became like a slave’: why 43 women are suing the secretive Opus Dei Catholic group in Argentina

Dozens of women in Argentina, have accused Opus Dei – which has a presence in more than 70 countries but is strongest in Spain, Italy and Latin America – of coercing them as children and adolescents into a life of domestic servitude.

They say they were forced into working up to 12-hour days, cooking and cleaning for the elite members, without pay.

The women also say they faced extreme control, their letters were censored, and they were banned from reading anything but children’s books or religious texts. When they eventually escaped, the women say they were left without money, clothes or qualifications.

After a two-year investigation, Argentinian federal prosecutors have taken on their case, accusing senior leaders of Opus Dei in South America of overseeing the exploitation and trafficking of girls, adolescents and women between 1972 and 2015. The prosecutors’ report is now before a judge, who will decide whether to proceed to trial.

The prosecutors have alleged that Opus Dei (“Work of God” in Latin) established a structure dedicated to recruiting girls from poor rural families, which they said took “advantage of their extreme vulnerability”.

“Opus Dei said that if I came to the school, I would learn about hotel management and that I would get to travel. I was excited, but they did not take me there to study,” she says, “but to work.”

The school Martínez was sent to was several hours from her parents’ house. She remembers being put to work the day she arrived, along with dozens of other children. “My mother left and I was given my schedule.

“We worked nine hours a day, seven days a week, washing the clothes and preparing the food of senior male members. We only had three hours of school a day.”

The organisation succeeded, the women say, because the girls were kept isolated and docile, allowed only one phone call and letter home a month.

“From the very beginning, I was told that I couldn’t say anything about Opus Dei, or what was happening, to my parents. We were told, always, to be obedient and docile,” she says.

“They would only send my letters if they thought what I had written was acceptable. I was cut off from the outside world,” she adds.

Sebastián Sal, the women’s lawyer, alleges that the “vocational schools” were a “seedbed” for Opus Dei. “They tried to keep them like little children,” Sal says. “They justify all of this by saying that it is ‘a decision from God’.”

After four years at the “school”, Martínez says she was forced to become a numerary assistant – essentially, Opus Dei’s domestic servants, who had to devote themselves to cooking and cleaning for the senior members and priests, while living a life of celibacy.

Despite wanting to study psychology, she says she was told that: “There was no other option for me, that I was too poor, that I had no man to marry; that if I didn’t join, my family would be condemned to hell.”

Afterwards, Martínez says her work increased to upwards of 12 hours a day, and she was given a cilice to wear around her upper thigh for two hours a day as a penance, and a small whip made of rope with which to flagellate herself while praying.

Martínez says she spent 10 years with Opus Dei before escaping. When she left, she had only 10 pesos (equivalent to a few dollars), no normal clothes and discovered that the educational certificates she had been issued by Opus Dei were not recognised.

“I had never received a salary. I didn’t know how to use money, how to speak to people. I was 23 but acted like a child of 12,” she says.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-devel...llegations

Judge blocks worker protections for abortion and fertility care for Catholic employers

More than 9,000 Catholic employers do not need to abide by federal regulations protecting workers who seek abortions and fertility treatments under a ruling issued this week by a federal judge in North Dakota.

Last year, the Catholic Benefits Association and the Bismarck Diocese sued the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, saying it issued regulations and guidelines that “ran roughshod” over their religious rights.

On Tuesday, Judge Daniel Traynor issued a permanent block on the regulations, finding the association and the diocese succeeded on the merits of their claim that the Pregnant Worker Fairness Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act took effect in 2023. The law requires covered employers make reasonable accommodations for workers' pregnancy or childbirth-related needs. In 2024, the EEOC issued the rule implementing the law and the harassment enforcement guidance.

The association and the diocese said, “The combined effect of EEOC’s pronouncements is that they require CBA Members, contrary to their Catholic faith, to accommodate their employees’ abortions and immoral fertility treatments, to use false pronouns when requested by transitioning employees, to abstain from expressing Catholic teaching regarding sexual issues, and to give employees of one sex access to private spaces reserved to those of the other sex.”

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judg...-120884316

Catholic Church quickly changes its ideology when it's their money at stake

Quote:Catholic Hospital Lawyers Denying Fetus Is 'Baby'

A Catholic hospital is arguing in court that a fetus is not legally a person, a claim aimed at limiting financial damages in a malpractice case that has ignited backlash and drawn scrutiny over the tension between religious doctrine and legal defense.

Catholic Health Initiatives-Iowa, which operates MercyOne Medical Center in Des Moines, is facing a wrongful death lawsuit from Miranda and Landen Anderson. The couple alleges that MercyOne failed to act on signs of preeclampsia during Miranda's pregnancy, leading to the stillbirth of their daughter, Eloise, at 34 weeks gestation.

In legal filings, the hospital argues that because the child was not born alive, the death should not qualify as the loss of a "person" under Iowa law — a strategy intended to invoke the state's $250,000 cap on noneconomic malpractice damages, according to the Iowa State Dispatch.

CHI's ethics guidelines state that it is committed to "respect the sacredness of every human life from the moment of conception until death." Yet its current legal defense appears to contradict that principle — a conflict that has surfaced before on the national stage.

Given the Catholic Church's belief that life begins at conception, defense attorneys for the hospital and doctors made an unusual argument: that legally recognizing a fetus as a "person" could carry serious consequences in other areas of the law. They also noted that no statute or binding case law currently defines an unborn child as a "patient."

https://www.newsweek.com/catholic-hospit...ch-2060637

They are hoping for another Hitler's pope

Quote:The Maga Catholics trying to take back control of the church

Jesse Romero, a Catholic podcaster based in Phoenix, Arizona, says the time has come for a “Trump-like pope” who will restore traditional Christian values in the wake of Pope Francis’s death.

“Anyone who’s soft on abortion, who has Marxist tendencies, who’s pro-homosexual — we’ve got to get rid of them,” the conservative influencer and author said. “There are bishops who have marched on Pride parades . . . they’ve got to be fired.”

Romero is one of a growing cohort of conservative Catholics in the US who hope that Francis’s death will mark a decisive shift away from the reformism he personified, towards a more doctrinaire, traditionalist approach to the faith.

“They will definitely be hoping to see a rejection of the Francis pontificate at the next conclave,” said David Deane, who teaches Christian doctrine at the Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Canada. “A lot of them were fundamentally opposed to Francis.”

The mood in the hardline camp was summed up by Roger Stone, a Catholic and longtime ally of President Donald Trump, who denounced on X the posthumous paeans to Francis on US network TV as “nauseating”.

“His papacy was never legitimate and his teachings regularly violated both the Bible and church dogma,” he wrote. “I rather think it’s warm where he is right now.”

The mood has spread throughout the clergy and energised conservatives who have been empowered since Trump returned to the White House.

“There is a significant range of American Catholic opinion that would have preferred someone who was a little less doctrinally adventurous, a little more traditional and — as they would see it — someone who was a little less anti-American,” said John Allen Jr, editor of Crux, a Catholic news website, and author of several books on the church and the papacy.

“Trump has boosted Catholicism by reaffirming some essential things, such as border protection, the defence of human life and the fact there are only two genders,” said John Yep, leader of Catholics for Catholics, a political campaign group. “That was good for Catholics and that’s why 58 per cent of Catholics voted Republican in November.”

According to a survey published in 2023 by the Catholic Project, a research group at the Catholic University of America, more than 80 per cent of priests ordained since 2020 described themselves as theologically “conservative/orthodox” or “very conservative/orthodox”.

It is no surprise, then, that Pope Francis became such an irritant to many American Catholics. Traditionalists were particularly angered by Amoris Laetitia, his 2016 apostolic exhortation, which raised the possibility of allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments.

They also denounced his 2023 decision to approve blessings for same-sex couples, his advocacy of action against climate change and his welcoming approach to migrants.

They have become increasingly influential in recent years, thanks in part to institutions such as EWTN, the world’s largest Catholic media network, which has amplified hardline views. Based in Alabama, EWTN has raised millions of dollars in donations, with the money going in part towards “creat[ing] more programming and content that gives glory to God”, the network’s website says.

“Francis was a great gift to them, because it’s an industry that thrives on a spirit of opposition,” said Millies. “One must have an enemy in order to outrage people into opening their wallets.”

https://www.ft.com/content/8f3ed248-a27b...be37af10ed

Most cardinals at the Vatican are gay, says Catholic academic

Most of the Roman Catholic cardinals who will choose the new pope are gay, despite the church’s doctrine that homosexuality is sinful, a Belgian expert has said.

Rik Torfs, a professor of canon law at the Catholic University on Leuven, has started debate with his claims, made on a popular Belgian news analysis programme after Pope Francis’s death was announced on Monday.

“A paradoxical situation remains,” Torfs said about Francis’s legacy. “On the one hand, homosexual relations are considered sinful but on the other, a significant percentage — probably the majority — of cardinals are homosexual.”

Asked about the statement, Torfs, a former Christian Democrat senator and a Catholic who is also a critic of conservative clerics in the Holy See, said: “People I know in the Vatican think it’s a large majority.”

Francis last year caused controversy when, during a private meeting, he used extremely derogatory language towards gay men. He criticised what he described as an “atmosphere of faggotry”, using the Italian word frociaggine, at the Vatican. He used the term, not for the first time, when asked during a meeting of clerics about arguments he had made about keeping gay men out of seminaries.

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/ar...-x2vq2p8zq

Yet another case of "do as I say, not as I do"