Sarah (pictured), is head of the Vatican's liturgy office and is supposedly the highest-ranking signatory.

However, he claims he never signed the petition.

Sarah's claim is contradicted by the archbishop who spearheaded the petition, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano.

Vigano says Sarah was fully on board and he has the recorded phone conversations to prove it.

The virus petition was signed mostly by Italian clergy, academics and journalists.

It is the latest initiative conservatives have used to frame COVID-19 lockdowns as an assault on religious liberty, a threat to the global economy and a conspiracy to separate families.

The petition calls the pandemic a "pretext" by unnamed actors to manipulate and control people through panic and deprive them of their fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of worship.

The petition also says contact-tracing devices, required vaccinations and "criminalised" visits between grandparents and grandchildren are "a disturbing prelude to the realization of a world government beyond all control."

Vigano is the former Holy See diplomat who achieved notoriety with his 2018 j'accuse of a high-level Vatican cover-up of sex abuse.

He has since reacted negatively to everything from the Vatican's China policy to Pope Francis's outreach to Muslims and the Amazon synod.

Other prominent signatories include three other conservative cardinals who have been critical of Francis' papacy.

One is the ousted prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller and another is the retired archbishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen.

The petition was issued last Thursday, the same day the Italian government and the bishops conference reached an agreement to resume Masses from 18 May so long as strict protocols are followed.

Source

• US News
• Image: CruxNow

Stop transgender teaching in New Zealand schools was published on January 29 and has garnered 31,190 signatures as of last Wednesday evening.

The petition request: That the House of Representatives urge the Ministry of Education to remove learning intentions for teaching gender diversity in the sexuality education guide and to remove the gender diversity teaching resources on the Te Kete Ipurangi website.

The reason the petitioner, Helene Houghton, offers for her request is that she believes "that teachers are already required to create a safe environment for all students regardless of race, religion, language, disability and sexuality".

They do not have a separate requirement to teach the content of minority groups in the curriculum, therefore why should there be a new expectation to include the teaching of gender diversity.

Houghton believes that endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents.

Last year the Catholic National Centre for Religious Studies released a document that provides Catholic schools with guidance about how to navigate issues pertaining to gender diversity among young people today.

Gender Complexity in Schools, which is endorsed by the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference, acknowledged that gender dysphoria is real.

A statement released by the NZCBC explained that the document provides a point of reference for schools in the support and accompaniment of children and young people "who may be experiencing gender dysphoria in our schools".

Ellen MacGregor-Reid from the Ministry of Education told 1 NEWS: "Effective education in this area can equip students with the skills, attitudes and understanding necessary to support positive environments and relationships for themselves and their peers - including those with diverse cultures, genders or sexuality".

Source

• newshub.co.nz
• parliament.nz
• nzcatholic.org.nz
• tvnz.co.nz
• Image insidehr.com.au

He was speaking after a majority report from Parliament's justice and electoral committee rejected a petition seeking to change the law.

Read Right to Life press release

The petitioners wanted parental notification to be a requirement before some one under the age of 16 could have an abortion

At present, those aged under 16 are able to have information restricted from anyone if its deemed "The disclosure of that information would be contrary to that individual's interests", according to section 29 (1)(d) of the privacy act 1993.

The report says it was best if a young woman who seeks an abortion had the full support of her parents. But it should not be mandatory to tell them.

But McCroskie believes this decision goes against the wishes of most parents. He criticised the committee for refusing to hear submissions from parent or family groups such as Family First and instead relying only on medical and privacy experts.

NZ First and the Maori party had a minority view, saying parents should be informed unless a health professional decided there was a risk of harm to the child in disclosing it.

The abortion law reform association said it was the right decision not to make it mandatory. President Tony Bellamak said it would have put some young women at harm."

"Mandatory reporting would increase the fear and stress on young people who are already in a vulnerable position."

Read press release from Abortion Law Reform Assocaition

Stratford mother Hillary Kieft organised the petition. Her 15-year-old daughter had an abortion without her parents knowing.

Kieft told the justice and electoral select committee it was not until after her daughter attempted suicide a year later in 2010 that the Kiefts learned their daughter's boarding school arranged for her to have an abortion.

About 60 women under 16 had abortions each year and of those, only about 10 did not tell their parents.

Source

• newstalkzb.co.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: desiringgod.org

The priests, together with a lay group, say there are attacks "of every kind" against the Pope, Crux reported.

Local media and political leaders have either tried to claim Francis as their own or discredit his every word, it is alleged.

An inter-religious alliance signed a petition "ratifying our commitment to the Pope's intentions and our repudiation to the actions against him".

One attack against Francis was launched by a former president of Uruguay, Julio Maria Sanguinetti.

Writing in Argentina's La Nacion newspaper, Mr Sanguinetti praised the start of Francis's pontificate.

His "colloquial and open style, his austere life and his generalised combating against the horror of clerical sexual abuse surrounded him with hope".

He noted the Pope's compassionate attitude towards women who have had an abortion.

Also noted was Francis's call for priests to work in the slums, which "earned him applause of the liberal sectors of the Catholic world and gave him credit in public opinion".

Yet, according to Mr Sanguinetti, the last three years have shown a Pontiff who fails to be "universal" by constantly meddling in Argentina's political affairs.

The former president also described Francis's economic vision as "anachronistic" and even "anarchist".

He also criticised Francis's outlook on refugees and migrants in Europe.

Italian blog Il Sismografo, considered a semi-official voice of the Vatican's Secretariat of State, has repeatedly complained about newspaper coverage in Argentina.

These media outlets "do everything in their power to outdo each other in the amplification of falsehood, hypotheses, suppositions and insinuations" regarding Francis.

The blog stated that newspapers report people who wrongly appoint themselves as papal spokespersons.

Sources

• Crux
• Image: Times Union

The petition, launched by TFP Student Action, asks the Pope to take this action at the synod on the family in October.

Backed by 25 pro-family groups around the world, the petition is titled "Filial Appeal to His Holiness Pope Francis on the Future of the Family".

It was first posted on the TFP Student Action website in late January.

It has since been signed by five cardinals, 117 bishops and hundreds of civil leaders, in addition to the thousands of university students it was aimed at.

The cardinals who signed are Cardinal Raymond Burke, Cardinal Jorge Medina of Chile, Cardinal Ricardo Vidal of the Philippines, Cardinal Alexandre José Maria dos Santos of Mozambique, and Cardinal Janis Pujats of Latvia.

Other signatories include author Piers Paul Read, former US senator Rick Santorum and the Kigeli V, the exiled King of Rwanda.

John Ritchie, director of TFP Student Action, said: "This prayerful petition asks Pope Francis to clear up the moral confusion that's been spreading against natural and divine law."

Describing the Church as a "beacon of morality and stability in our godless culture", Mr Ritchie said that some statements from clergy that appeared to accept same-sex unions had caused confusion.

Mr Ritchie also urged the Church not to "go along with the liberal pressures to soften Church moral discipline".

If the Church stood by its view on traditional marriage and family, he said, "God's plan for marriage will win out against all attacks".

The goal is to hand deliver the petition to Pope Francis on September 29, the feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael.

By then, organisers hope to have 750,000 signatories for the petition.

Sources

• Catholic Herald
• TFP Student Action
• Image: TFP Student Action

According to a Breitbart report, their letter to the Pope focuses on the synod on the family in October.

It expresses the signatories' "fears and hopes regarding the future of the family".

Those who signed include princes and princesses, dukes and duchesses, counts and countesses, barons and baronesses, descendants of storied European royal families and one exiled African king.

Their numbers include Kigeli V, exiled King of Rawanda, the heads of the Imperial House of Portugal and Brazil, Prince Armand de Merode of Belgium, Duke and Duchess Antonello Del Balzo di Presenzano of Italy, Princess Monika of Lowenstein-Werthheim-Rosenberg, Baron Rudolf Pfyffer von Altishofen of France and many others.

The letter says: "Our fears arise from witnessing a decades-long sexual revolution promoted by an alliance of powerful organisations, political forces and the mass media that consistently work against the very existence of the family as the basic unit of society."

The signers trace the ongoing sexual revolution to the May 1968 "Sorbonne Revolution" in France and "morality opposed to both divine and natural law".

The letter "notes with anguish that, for millions of faithful Catholics, the beacon seems to have dimmed in the face of the onslaught of lifestyles spread by anti-Christian lobbies".

Specifically, the signers believe "a breach has been opened within the Church that would accept adultery-by permitting divorced and then civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion-and would virtually accept even homosexual unions".

The signers ask the Pope to clarify Church teaching ahead of the synod.

Among the signatories is American Cardinal Raymond Burke and English novelist, historian and biographer Piers Paul Read.

More than 100,000 people have added their signatures to the letter, using an online device, according to Breitbart.

Sources

• Breitbart
• Filial Appeal
• Image: The Guardian

The Jesuit university is Blatty's alma mater, and his best-selling book and the 1973 blockbuster film The Exorcist were set in Georgetown.

His petition argues that Georgetown has regularly flouted Church teaching and discipline, and failed to provide students with authentic Catholic instruction.

According to Blatty's legal counsel, Manuel Miranda, "Georgetown University has been captured by the ideology of radical autonomy. It pervades everything. Academic freedom is now prisoner to intolerant new orthodoxies, and Catholic moral teaching has surrendered to the dictatorship of moral relativism."

The petition, including 124 witness statements, has been submitted to the Vatican Secretariat of State and to the Congregations for Education and for Religious.

It asks the Vatican to require that Georgetown implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae, the papal constitution governing Catholic colleges, and, if that is now done, to prevent the university from calling itself Catholic.

Blatty and his supporters — more than 2000 of whom have signed the petition — are buoyed by the knowledge that Pope Francis, as chancellor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, successfully implemented Ex corde Ecclesiae, and also approved of Pope Benedict's 2012 decree removing consent from the University of Peru to call itself Catholic.

Asked to explain why he has backed a petition that could damage the reputation of his alma mater, Blatty said, "Today's Georgetown isn't Georgetown, but more like a living Picture of Dorian Gray."

A spokeswoman for the archdiocese of Washington said it "continues to work with Georgetown to implement Ex Corde Ecclesiae".

But last year an editorial in the archdiocesan newspaper, the Catholic Standard, said at the university "leadership and faculty find their inspiration in sources other than the Gospel and Catholic teaching" and "the vision guiding university choices does not clearly reflect the light of the Gospel and authentic Catholic teaching".

Sources:

National Catholic Register

The Father King Society

Image: Georgetown Clinical Society

Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell labelled protesters as a "predictable chorus" and a "minority."

However spokesperson for the group, Fr Ray Crowley denies both these labels.

"We want to show the Vatican that it needs to have a process that includes transparency in its actions. We can't afford, as a Local Church, to be losing people of Bishop Morris's calibre and standing," Fr Crowley said.

"We know that Bishop Morris has huge support across the community and we are incensed that there seems to have been such a lack of natural justice in the process that led to his taking early retirement."

"We are urging people to take part in a petition that can found at a special website we have set up for Bishop Morris at www.bishopbillstory.com.au and we urge people to add their names to it by July 24.

"The majority of people in our Diocese are distraught that the Vatican has not provided Bishop Morris with natural justice and that he has had to leave his post as a result. This is a real issue for every other Diocese in Australia and we urge people to get involved."

Former chair of the Diocesan Pastoral Council, Mr John Elish said, "When a bishop get dismissed, a lot of Catholics and the general community think there must be more (to the dismissal) than they're saying."

"We've set up this website and I think anyone who visits it won't be able to draw any conclusion other than the lack of natural justice."

Bishop Morris was 'sacked' following a 'visit' by Vatican appointed Charles Chaput. Chaput has recently been promoted as archbishop of the embattled Philadelphia diocese.

Fr Crowley said the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference has agreed to receive the petition on August 2.

Sources

• Toowooma Chronicle
• Westender
• Image: Warwick Daily News