In Brief

Argentina: Bishop recommends “throwing a minister into the sea”
The bishop to the armed forces, Mgr. Antonio Juan Baseotto, is facing legal action for having recommended “throwing into the sea with a millstone tied round his neck”, a minister publicly in favor of abortion. The Minister of Health, Gines Gonzales Garcia has, in fact, declared himself on numerous occasions to be in favor of the liberalization of abortion. The voluntary interruption of pregnancy is currently allowed in Argentina only if the life of the mother is in danger, or in case of the rape of a woman who is mentally deficient. The prelate could face the penalty of a year imprisonment.
France: Bishops seek legal ban on advertisement
On February 25, the French Bishops Conference has sought legal action to prevent a publicity campaign by fashion designers Marithé and François Girbaud. Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper has been altered “for mercenary ends” and shows women in “the most provocative lascivious” poses. Maitre Thierry Massis, lawyer of the association “Croyance et libertés”, whose president is Mgr. Jean-Pierre Ricard, asked for a ban on this campaign which presents “erotic and blasphemous behavior with regard to what constitutes the essence of Christianity (the institution of the Eucharist), while we are right in the middle of Lent”. On March 10, the Tribunal of Paris pronounced the banning of this advertising operation with a “poster of imposing dimensions, which could not be missed”, and which “constituted an aggressive and gratuitous act of intrusion into the innermost depths of our beliefs.” “The injury done to Catholics seems disproportionate to the sought after financial ends,” said the Tribunal. This condemnation was accompanied by a daily penalty of 100,000 euros for delay in complying with this ruling.