Catholic Church
13 May 2012
The EHF has written to the Ombudsman with firm comments on the EU Commission’s response to our complaint about their approach to the Article 17 dialogue with us and in particular their treatment of our request for a dialogue seminar. Our covering letter is here. It attaches our detailed comments, which have three enclosures: a letter from BEPA to the EHF dated 16 November 2011; an email from BEPA to the EHFdated 5 May 2011 and a letter… read more »
27 April 2012
Carsten Frerk has written especially for EHF an article about trends in religious belief and behaviour in Germany. He is a social scientist and founder of the Forschungsgruppe Weltanschauungen in Deutschland – a group of non-university scientists sponsored by the Giordano-Bruno-Stiftung to study and publish empirical studies on religion and belief in Germany. The article is available here in the original German version and here in an English version. (27 April 2012)
19 December 2011
Massimo Redaelli writes: “With 6 billion Euro per year, Italy could accomplish miracles.” This is the slogan on the maxi-posters of the new campaign by UAAR that earlier today were posted around Genova, and that tomorrow will cover the streets of Venice, too. After the notoriety gained by the website “The Cost of the Church” (the first detailed list of the fiscal privileges and the economic contributions the Church enjoys), the association decided to… read more »
29 November 2011
The EHF has called for religious influence on EU-funded research to be eliminated. At present, funding of research using embryonic stem cells is banned – the result of religious lobbying when the current framework was agreed. The Catholic church, in its response to a new and wide-ranging EU consultation on the framework for future scientific research, has said the ban should be maintained and even extended. It has even called for research to be commissioned specially designed… read more »
9 November 2011
Anti-clerical party wins 10% of vote in general election An anti-clerical party named Palikot’s Movement after its founder won third place with just over 10% of the vote in the election on 9 October. See Reuter’s report here and a Guardian (UK) feature article by Aleksandra Szyllo, the online editor of Gazeta Wyborczathe, here. Commenting on the latter article, Andrzej Dominiczak of the Polish Humanist Association writes: Despite the propaganda by the right wing media, Palikot’s party… read more »
6 November 2011
Bill introduced defining ‘family’ in narrow terms This comes from a correspondent in Hungary: The bill on family protection was submitted to the Parliament on Friday [December 2]. It was submitted by four Chirstian Democratic MPs and not the government. This way they could submit the bill without any social consultation about it. Also, the bill was submitted on Friday, and Monday morning the relevant Parliamentary committee decided to debate the bill the same day… read more »
1 October 2011
The EHF was represented at the 2011 conference in Warsaw (left, general view from the NGO seats) by its President, David Pollock, by its OSCE representatives Hans Christian Cars and (from member organisations) by Vera Pegna of the Unione degli Atei e degli Agnostici Razionalisti (UAAR) and Pierre-Arnaud Perrouty of the Centre d’Action Laique in Brussels. We made three interventions in the session on 27 September on “Freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief”. David… read more »
15 September 2011
The OSCE held a meeting on combating hate crimes against Christians in Rome on 12 September 2011. Vera Pegna represented the EHF and reports: There were a couple of hundred delegates, mostly Catholic bishops, archbishops, but also representatives of other Christian religions, and Jews and Moslems and a number of ambassadors to the Holy See and government representatives. Plus a number of NGOs, mostly Catholic. The first half of the morning went by with… read more »
3 August 2011
The churches’ determination to exert influence over the European Union and its member states dates from long before the debate of the last few years over a constitution for Europe. Stage One In March 1996, during the preparation of the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) in Turin, a note was given to the ambassadors of EU countries accredited to the State of the Holy See. It said: The Holy See declares that the following objectives should be… read more »
2 March 2011
The chair of the European Parliamentary Platform for Secularism in Politics, Sophie in’t Veld MEP, has written to the President of the Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, to protest at his invitation to the Pope to address a plenary session of the Parliament. She makes the point of her complaint that “It is wholly inappropriate for plenary meetings to be used as a podium for religious messages”, drawing a distinction between plenary sessions of the Parliament and the… read more »