Ebubekir Ozture, director of the Muslim umbrella group Contact Organ Muslims and Government, called Wilders comments "reprehensible."

"Moroccans and Muslims are accustomed to such outbursts from Wilders, whose Party for Freedom is riding high in opinion polls less than a month from the election," he said.

Wilders received what he calls a "political" conviction last year for inciting discrimination and insulting a group for anti-Moroccan. He had made the comments around the time of local elections in 2014.

He now says Moroccan youths are making the Netherlands unsafe.

He then qualified the comments, saying they didn't apply to all Moroccans.

"Dutch values are based on Christianity, on Judaism, on humanism.

He said he sees Islam as an ideology that poses an existential threat to core European values.

In his view, the Dutch have tolerated high levels of immigration without demanding cultural assimilation for too long.

"It is not the first time and probably won't be the last time," that Wilders has used such language, Ozture said.

"He has said worse things about Moroccans and Muslims. As crazy as it sounds, people are a bit used to it from him."

Source

• National Catholic Reporter
• The Philadelphia Tribune
• Image: Snopes.com

Islam is an ideology that "poses an existential threat to core European values", he says.

Wilders wants to close all mosques, ban the Quran and seal the Dutch borders to asylum seekers and immigrants from Islamic countries.

He said they make the country unsafe, referring to Moroccans as "scum" though he said this didn't apply to all Moroccans.

"Dutch values are based on Christianity, on Judaism, on humanism. Islam and freedom are not compatible," he said.

Wildres thinks a populist wave against free-flowing immigration and rules set by the European Union will continue to affect Europe regardless of what happens in the election.

Many Dutch voters find Wilders' views repugnant.

He has been convicted of inciting discrimination through hate speech.

"Even if I lose this election, the genie will not go back in the bottle again," he said.

"People are fed up with the combination of mass immigration, Islamization and austerity measures that require us to cut pensions and support for health care and the elderly while giving (debt bailout) money to Greece and the euro zone."

Source:

• National Catholic Reporter
• The Philadelphia Tribune
• Image: Dr Rich Swier

The Dutch parliament approved the ban by a majority of 132 out of the 150-seat house. Read more

Both Catholic and Protestant Christian ranks have shrunk dramatically across Europe in recent decades, and hundreds of churches have been sold off to be turned into apartments, shops, bars or warehouses.

In the Netherlands, churches have been closing at a rate of one or two a week. The bishops told the pope in Rome on Monday that about two-thirds of all Roman Catholic churches in the Netherlands would have to be shut or sold by 2025, and many parishes merged, because congregations and finances were "in a long-term shrinking process".

Their five-yearly report blamed a "drastic secularization" of society, although a critical group of Dutch lay Catholics said the scandal of sexual abuse of minors by priests, which has afflicted many Catholic dioceses around the world, had also driven many people away, as had the closures themselves.

The only bright spot for the Dutch church was the finding that the election of the popular Pope Francis in March appeared to have slowed the exodus this year. Continue reading

A ban on Muslim face veils, such as the Arabic-style niqabs that leave the eyes uncovered and Afghan-style burqas that cover the face with a cloth grid, is less likely to go ahead after the government collapsed at the weekend.

The minority Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition's alliance with Geert Wilders' Freedom Party (PVV) fell apart when they could not reach agreement on crucial budget cuts. An election has been called for September 12. Continue reading

Bert Elbertse, spokesman for the Dutch Catholic bishops' conference, said the bishops found the reports "shocking and appalling" and that they "condemn and regret such practices in the strongest possible terms."

"Our church has been badly damaged by accusations of sexual abuse. The fact that people were unsurprised by these latest claims suggests our image couldn't get any worse," he said.

Evidence of the castrations has emerged amid controversy that it was not included in the findings of an official investigation into sexual abuse within the church last year.

The NRC Handelsblad newspaper identified Henk Heithuis who was castrated in 1956, while a minor, after reporting priests to the police for abusing him in a Catholic boarding home.

Joep Dohmen, the investigative journalist who uncovered the Heithuis case, also found evidence of at least nine other castrations. "These cases are anonymous and can no longer be traced," he said. "There will be many more. But the question is whether those boys, now old men, will want to tell their story."

Mr Heithuis died in a car crash in 1958, two years after being castrated at the age of 20, while under the age of majority, which was then 21.

In 1956 he had accused Catholic clergy of sexually abusing him in his Church run care home.

Two clergymen were convicted of abuse but Mr Heithuis, a victim, was nonetheless transferred by police to a Catholic psychiatric hospital before being admitted to the St. Joseph Hospital in Veghel later that year.

There, court papers confirm, he was castrated "at his own request", despite no submission of his written consent. Sources told Mr Dohmen that the surgical removal of testicles was regarded as a treatment for homosexuality and also as a punishment for those who accused clergy of sexual abuse.

The Dutch Catholic Church is still reeling from a damning government inquiry into sex abuse.

Source

• ucanews.com
• NY Times
• Image: ucanews.com

The scheme, which started on Thursday , will send teams of specially trained doctors and nurses to the homes of people whose own doctors have refused to carry out patients' requests to end their lives.

The launch of the so-called Levenseinde, or "Life End", house-call units - whose services are being offered to Dutch citizens free of charge - coincides with the opening of a clinic of the same name in The Hague, which will take patients with incurable illnesses as well as others who do not want to die at home.

Archbishop of Utrecht Wim Eijk apologised to victims on behalf of the entire Dutch Catholic church.

He said the report "fills us with shame and sorrow."

"It's terrible."

Eijk's apology comes after a damning report into sexual abuse was released on Saturday which confirmed more than 800 priests, brothers and lay people in Catholic organizations abused as many as 20,000 children in their care between 1945 and 1985.

Based on a survey among more than 34,000 people, the commission estimated that one in 10 Dutch children suffered some form of abuse "broadly in society" and the number doubled if they spent time in a youth institution such as a school or orphanage, whether Catholic or not.

The Deetman Commission concluded knowledge of the abuse was widespread and it accused dioceses, religious orders and local church communities of failing to help victims and take action against the abusers.

The report

• names 800 alleged abusers
• identifies 105 who are still alive
• says some 2,000 victims came forward to make official complaints
• 1,800 of the complains could be classed as "very serious".

According to report author, former education minister Wim Deetman, nothing was done to prevent the scandal, church authorities preferring a "culture of silence".

Deetman said there was an unwillingness to "hang out their dirty washing".

With lay people also identified as having offended, Deetman told a press conference in the Hague that celibacy was not a critical element in the abuse, rather labeling it "an additional risk factor".

"The idea that people did not now there was a risk ... is untenable," Deetman said.

The abuse continued in part because the Catholic church in the Netherlands was splintered, so bishops and religious orders sometimes worked autonomously to deal with abuse.

Victims' organization Klook said the Deetman Commission report was even more shocking than they had expected.

Deetman told the ABC that he did not know how many of the accused were still working for the Church and it was up to prosecutors to decide if the surviving alleged abusers should face criminal charges.

Sources

• Dutch News
• Yorkshire Post
• LA Times
• Irish Times
• ABC
• Image: Irish Times

The New Year is ushered in by Father Time, who derives from the Greek God Chronos, more commonly known as the Grim Reaper. A fitting moment, you might think, for the publication of the findings of Lord Falconer's Commission on Assisted Dying.

Hopelessly biased and distorted the Falconer Commission is stacked full of euthanasia sympathisers and was suggested by Dignity in Dying (formerly The Voluntary Euthanasia Society). Note the change in name, and never concede that, to die with dignity, you need a doctor to kill you.

The Funding for the Commission was provided by Bernard Lewis and Terry Pratchett, the latter a patron of Dignity in Dying. It is entirely wedded to introducing legalisation for assisted suicide for those who are terminally ill.

On 30 November 2010 it was revealed that nine of the twelve commissioners were well-known names in the pro-legalisation lobby. The remaining three are certainly not against euthanasia. The euthanasia lobby decided to take the 'independent' route because when two genuinely independent Parliamentary Select Committees carefully examined the issue they did not recommend a change of law.

When votes were then taken in the House of Lords it resulted in large defeats for their proposals (148-100 and 194-141). The last attempt at legalization in Scotland also resulted in a heavy defeat (85-16) for Margo Macdonald's Bill in 2010.

Over 50 organizations refused to give evidence to the Commission when they saw its composition. Instead, Dignity in Dying contacted its own members asking them to give evidence to the Commission. The British Medical Association (BMA) passed a five point resolution that undermined the Commission credibility by questioning its impartiality and independence. On the BBC's Sunday Programme the BBC commentator, Edward Stourton, laughed derisively at the suggestion that the group could be independent if it was so overwhelmingly full of those wanting change.

Continue reading Lord Alton's article on euthanasia in Independent Catholic News.

Image: ProLife NZ

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