judgment

Egypt executes convicted killer of Coptic Orthodox priest #Catholic A crime that deeply shocked Egypt’s Coptic community and broader public has reached its legal conclusion after the family of Father Arsanios Wadid confirmed that Egyptian authorities have executed the man convicted of murdering him.The sentence was carried out after all stages of litigation were completed and the defendant had exhausted his available legal appeals, bringing to an end a case that lasted more than four years from the killing to the execution of the final judgment.According to the attorney representing the priest’s family, Egyptian authorities carried out the death sentence, the most severe punishment under the country’s law, after investigators and the courts found the defendant responsible for intentional murder.The execution followed the Egyptian Court of Cassation’s rejection of the defendant’s final appeal and its affirmation of an earlier ruling by the Alexandria Criminal Court, making the sentence final and enforceable.The case dates back to April 7, 2022, when Wadid, a priest of the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary and St. Paul the Apostle in Alexandria’s Karmouz-Moharam Bek district, was participating in a weekly parish gathering at one of the city’s beaches. As participants were boarding buses following the gathering, Wadid, who was wearing clerical attire and helping organize their departure, was attacked from behind and fatally stabbed. Those present restrained the assailant and handed him over to security forces. Wadid was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.Although the legal proceedings initially moved quickly, with the defendant referred to the criminal court within weeks of the killing and sentenced to death by hanging, the ruling was not final at the time and remained pending while the Court of Cassation considered his appeals.In January 2025, the Court of Cassation rejected the defendant’s appeal and upheld the death sentence, making the judgment final. The sentence, however, was not carried out until approximately a year and a half later, making it more than four years from the killing to the execution and leaving a profound mark on the Coptic Orthodox Church and the people of Alexandria.This story was first published by ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
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Egypt executes convicted killer of Coptic Orthodox priest #Catholic A crime that deeply shocked Egypt’s Coptic community and broader public has reached its legal conclusion after the family of Father Arsanios Wadid confirmed that Egyptian authorities have executed the man convicted of murdering him.The sentence was carried out after all stages of litigation were completed and the defendant had exhausted his available legal appeals, bringing to an end a case that lasted more than four years from the killing to the execution of the final judgment.According to the attorney representing the priest’s family, Egyptian authorities carried out the death sentence, the most severe punishment under the country’s law, after investigators and the courts found the defendant responsible for intentional murder.The execution followed the Egyptian Court of Cassation’s rejection of the defendant’s final appeal and its affirmation of an earlier ruling by the Alexandria Criminal Court, making the sentence final and enforceable.The case dates back to April 7, 2022, when Wadid, a priest of the Coptic Orthodox Church of the Virgin Mary and St. Paul the Apostle in Alexandria’s Karmouz-Moharam Bek district, was participating in a weekly parish gathering at one of the city’s beaches. As participants were boarding buses following the gathering, Wadid, who was wearing clerical attire and helping organize their departure, was attacked from behind and fatally stabbed. Those present restrained the assailant and handed him over to security forces. Wadid was taken to a hospital, where he died from his injuries.Although the legal proceedings initially moved quickly, with the defendant referred to the criminal court within weeks of the killing and sentenced to death by hanging, the ruling was not final at the time and remained pending while the Court of Cassation considered his appeals.In January 2025, the Court of Cassation rejected the defendant’s appeal and upheld the death sentence, making the judgment final. The sentence, however, was not carried out until approximately a year and a half later, making it more than four years from the killing to the execution and leaving a profound mark on the Coptic Orthodox Church and the people of Alexandria.This story was first published by ACI MENA, the Arabic-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.

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The family of Father Arsanios Wadid, who was murdered in April 2022, confirmed that the man found guilty of the crime has been put to death.

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Massachusetts lawmakers pass bill removing all restrictions from abortion throughout pregnancy #Catholic The Massachusetts government this week moved to strip all restrictions from abortion and allow the procedure up until birth so long as a doctor approves of it.The state Senate passed Bill H.5595 on July 31, a little over a week after the state House passed the same measure. The bill now awaits Democratic Gov. Maura Healey’s signature. The legislation removes all of the state’s current restrictions on abortion after 24 weeks, instead dictating that a late-term abortion may be done based upon “the professional judgment of the physician” performing it. Current state law, which H.5595 would change, only allows late-term abortions if they are necessary to preserve the life or “physical or mental health” of the mother, or if the baby has been diagnosed with a fatal condition. Abortions are also allowed to be performed in the state if a baby would require “extraordinary medical interventions” to survive after birth. If signed into law, the bill would make Massachusetts the 11th state to impose no limits whatsoever on abortion. Healey, who has served as the state’s governor since 2023, is an outspoken supporter of abortion. The passage of the bill drew rebuke from SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, who said in a July 31 statement that the state’s already-generous abortion policy “isn’t enough for Democrats whose party holds the position of no limits on abortion whatsoever.”“These extreme laws that only 10% of Americans support are enabled by the ‘states-only’ philosophy on abortion,” she argued. “The GOP must abandon the failed ‘leave it to the states’ position and move the country toward a national protection for unborn children across this nation,” she said. Ahead of the July 31 vote, the state’s Catholic bishops had also criticized the measure. “The proposed elimination of any legal restraint on late-term abortion is, in our judgement, a radical measure which is gravely immoral,” the bishops’ July 29 statement read. The bishops urged Catholics “to pray for a renewal of reverence for all human life.”
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Massachusetts lawmakers pass bill removing all restrictions from abortion throughout pregnancy #Catholic The Massachusetts government this week moved to strip all restrictions from abortion and allow the procedure up until birth so long as a doctor approves of it.The state Senate passed Bill H.5595 on July 31, a little over a week after the state House passed the same measure. The bill now awaits Democratic Gov. Maura Healey’s signature. The legislation removes all of the state’s current restrictions on abortion after 24 weeks, instead dictating that a late-term abortion may be done based upon “the professional judgment of the physician” performing it. Current state law, which H.5595 would change, only allows late-term abortions if they are necessary to preserve the life or “physical or mental health” of the mother, or if the baby has been diagnosed with a fatal condition. Abortions are also allowed to be performed in the state if a baby would require “extraordinary medical interventions” to survive after birth. If signed into law, the bill would make Massachusetts the 11th state to impose no limits whatsoever on abortion. Healey, who has served as the state’s governor since 2023, is an outspoken supporter of abortion. The passage of the bill drew rebuke from SBA Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser, who said in a July 31 statement that the state’s already-generous abortion policy “isn’t enough for Democrats whose party holds the position of no limits on abortion whatsoever.”“These extreme laws that only 10% of Americans support are enabled by the ‘states-only’ philosophy on abortion,” she argued. “The GOP must abandon the failed ‘leave it to the states’ position and move the country toward a national protection for unborn children across this nation,” she said. Ahead of the July 31 vote, the state’s Catholic bishops had also criticized the measure. “The proposed elimination of any legal restraint on late-term abortion is, in our judgement, a radical measure which is gravely immoral,” the bishops’ July 29 statement read. The bishops urged Catholics “to pray for a renewal of reverence for all human life.”

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The measure, if signed by Democratic Gov. Maura Healey, will remove the last few restrictions on abortion in the state and replace them with “the professional judgment of the physician.”

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France legalizes euthanasia after forceful push through Parliament #Catholic The French National Assembly gave final approval on July 15 to a bill legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide, making France one of the few European countries to legalize the practice along with Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Spain. The 291-241 vote came three years after President Emmanuel Macron, who had made it one of his key campaign promises, first opened the question to national debate.The vote ended an unusual parliamentary stalemate between the National Assembly and the Senate. Members of the National Assembly passed the bill three times over the course of 14 months — most recently on June 30 by a vote of 295 to 232 — and senators rejected it just as many times. On July 7, the Senate passed, by a narrow majority of 169 to 164, with 11 abstentions, a preliminary motion to outright reject the bill rather than debate it, and this motion itself called on the government to end the legislative process. Rather than heeding this call, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu invoked Article 45 of the Constitution, which allows the government to give the National Assembly the final say when repeated readings fail to produce an agreement between the two chambers. He then referred the bill back to the National Assembly for a fourth and final vote instead of a fourth reading in the Senate.The July 15 vote, however, did not close the matter. On July 14, Lecornu announced he would refer part of the text to the Constitutional Council, a step Senate President Gérard Larcher had also urged, citing in particular how the billʼs conscience clause would interact with health and social care facilities built around end-of-life accompaniment that exclude assisted dying. The council must rule within a month, or eight days if the government asks for an expedited review, meaning the law cannot be promulgated until that review is complete even though the Assembly has now adopted it.The end-of-life law covers both euthanasia, administered by a doctor or nurse, and assisted suicide, in which the patient self-administers a lethal substance, under five cumulative conditions: A person must be an adult, a stable resident of France, diagnosed with a serious and incurable condition, in an advanced or terminal phase of that condition, and suffering in a way current treatment cannot relieve, while remaining able to express a free and informed decision. Self-administration is supposed to be the default rule, with the law providing for intervention by a healthcare professional only when the patient is physically unable to act.A supporting measure aimed at expanding access to palliative care was adopted with much broader support, passing its first reading in the Senate by a vote of 307 to 17. To date, more than 20% of French departments still lack a palliative care unit, according to figures cited repeatedly by the Bishops’ Conference of France during the debate.The push to legalize assisted dying traces back to September 2022, when the National Consultative Ethics Committee reversed its earlier opposition to assisted dying and endorsed an “ethical” application of the practice. A citizens’ panel Macron had convened spent the following winter weighing the question and backed legalization.The French president unveiled the outline of a bill in March 2024, but the initiative stalled when he dissolved the Assembly in June the same year. Deputy Olivier Falorni, who had filed an earlier and unsuccessful end-of-life bill, revived it in 2025.Critics argue the newly adopted framework is among the most permissive of its kind in the world. Grégor Puppinck, a Catholic lawyer and director general of the European Centre for Law and Justice, has published a point-by-point analysis contending that the entire process rests on the judgment of a single physician, who may meet the patient for the first time on the day of the request and need not be the one already treating them.The two additional professionals that physician must consult are chosen by the same person, are not required to examine the patient in person, and may be consulted by videoconference. Puppinck noted the statute sets no minimum interval between the decision and the act itself beyond a two-day reflection window, relatives have no guaranteed right to be informed beforehand, and they cannot challenge the outcome in court. Doctors who object in conscience must still refer patients to a colleague willing to proceed, and private and religious institutions, including nursing homes, must accommodate mobile euthanasia teams under threat of administrative penalties. Oversight, in Puppinck’s account, comes only after death, based on a report filed by the same clinician who carried it out.The founders of the ethics collective Democracy, Ethics, and Solidarity, Laurent Frémont and Emmanuel Hirsch, wrote in Le Journal du Dimanche that the law’s eligibility criteria — primarily a “serious and incurable condition” causing “unbearable suffering,” are defined vaguely enough that a strict medical interpretation could make more than 1 million people eligible, including patients with chronic illnesses, psychiatric disorders, or advanced age, without requiring a prior written request, a peer review by medical colleagues, or a psychiatric evaluation.A 2025 study by the Fondation pour l’innovation politique estimated the measure could save the state around 1.4 billion euros (.6 billion) a year in health, eldercare, and pension spending, a projection critics have cited as evidence of the pressures vulnerable and elderly patients could face once the law takes effect.The French bishops’ conference called the text a threat to “the most fragile” among French citizens in a statement issued in May 2025 ahead of the Assembly’s first vote on the bill. The archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich, has repeatedly urged lawmakers to reconsider their position, asserting that true solidarity is built through caring for others rather than through death. “More than assistance in dying, our society needs assistance in living,” he has repeatedly stated.In a video appeal to lawmakers released before the vote, Archbishop Vincent Jordy of Tours invoked François Rabelais’ centuries-old warning that “science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul.” What is underway, he said, is “an anthropological shift,” a new way of viewing life and its end that will gradually reshape the country, touching caregivers, families, people with disabilities, and the relationship between generations. He pointed to the Netherlands, where regulators had layered on safeguards for two decades and where health officials confirmed in June that a child under 12 had been euthanized for the first time, under a 2024 expansion of the law to children between the ages of 1 and 12. Making a law, Jordy said, is also opening doors toward things “one had perhaps not imagined” when it was written.
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France legalizes euthanasia after forceful push through Parliament #Catholic The French National Assembly gave final approval on July 15 to a bill legalizing euthanasia and assisted suicide, making France one of the few European countries to legalize the practice along with Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Spain. The 291-241 vote came three years after President Emmanuel Macron, who had made it one of his key campaign promises, first opened the question to national debate.The vote ended an unusual parliamentary stalemate between the National Assembly and the Senate. Members of the National Assembly passed the bill three times over the course of 14 months — most recently on June 30 by a vote of 295 to 232 — and senators rejected it just as many times. On July 7, the Senate passed, by a narrow majority of 169 to 164, with 11 abstentions, a preliminary motion to outright reject the bill rather than debate it, and this motion itself called on the government to end the legislative process. Rather than heeding this call, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu invoked Article 45 of the Constitution, which allows the government to give the National Assembly the final say when repeated readings fail to produce an agreement between the two chambers. He then referred the bill back to the National Assembly for a fourth and final vote instead of a fourth reading in the Senate.The July 15 vote, however, did not close the matter. On July 14, Lecornu announced he would refer part of the text to the Constitutional Council, a step Senate President Gérard Larcher had also urged, citing in particular how the billʼs conscience clause would interact with health and social care facilities built around end-of-life accompaniment that exclude assisted dying. The council must rule within a month, or eight days if the government asks for an expedited review, meaning the law cannot be promulgated until that review is complete even though the Assembly has now adopted it.The end-of-life law covers both euthanasia, administered by a doctor or nurse, and assisted suicide, in which the patient self-administers a lethal substance, under five cumulative conditions: A person must be an adult, a stable resident of France, diagnosed with a serious and incurable condition, in an advanced or terminal phase of that condition, and suffering in a way current treatment cannot relieve, while remaining able to express a free and informed decision. Self-administration is supposed to be the default rule, with the law providing for intervention by a healthcare professional only when the patient is physically unable to act.A supporting measure aimed at expanding access to palliative care was adopted with much broader support, passing its first reading in the Senate by a vote of 307 to 17. To date, more than 20% of French departments still lack a palliative care unit, according to figures cited repeatedly by the Bishops’ Conference of France during the debate.The push to legalize assisted dying traces back to September 2022, when the National Consultative Ethics Committee reversed its earlier opposition to assisted dying and endorsed an “ethical” application of the practice. A citizens’ panel Macron had convened spent the following winter weighing the question and backed legalization.The French president unveiled the outline of a bill in March 2024, but the initiative stalled when he dissolved the Assembly in June the same year. Deputy Olivier Falorni, who had filed an earlier and unsuccessful end-of-life bill, revived it in 2025.Critics argue the newly adopted framework is among the most permissive of its kind in the world. Grégor Puppinck, a Catholic lawyer and director general of the European Centre for Law and Justice, has published a point-by-point analysis contending that the entire process rests on the judgment of a single physician, who may meet the patient for the first time on the day of the request and need not be the one already treating them.The two additional professionals that physician must consult are chosen by the same person, are not required to examine the patient in person, and may be consulted by videoconference. Puppinck noted the statute sets no minimum interval between the decision and the act itself beyond a two-day reflection window, relatives have no guaranteed right to be informed beforehand, and they cannot challenge the outcome in court. Doctors who object in conscience must still refer patients to a colleague willing to proceed, and private and religious institutions, including nursing homes, must accommodate mobile euthanasia teams under threat of administrative penalties. Oversight, in Puppinck’s account, comes only after death, based on a report filed by the same clinician who carried it out.The founders of the ethics collective Democracy, Ethics, and Solidarity, Laurent Frémont and Emmanuel Hirsch, wrote in Le Journal du Dimanche that the law’s eligibility criteria — primarily a “serious and incurable condition” causing “unbearable suffering,” are defined vaguely enough that a strict medical interpretation could make more than 1 million people eligible, including patients with chronic illnesses, psychiatric disorders, or advanced age, without requiring a prior written request, a peer review by medical colleagues, or a psychiatric evaluation.A 2025 study by the Fondation pour l’innovation politique estimated the measure could save the state around 1.4 billion euros ($1.6 billion) a year in health, eldercare, and pension spending, a projection critics have cited as evidence of the pressures vulnerable and elderly patients could face once the law takes effect.The French bishops’ conference called the text a threat to “the most fragile” among French citizens in a statement issued in May 2025 ahead of the Assembly’s first vote on the bill. The archbishop of Paris, Laurent Ulrich, has repeatedly urged lawmakers to reconsider their position, asserting that true solidarity is built through caring for others rather than through death. “More than assistance in dying, our society needs assistance in living,” he has repeatedly stated.In a video appeal to lawmakers released before the vote, Archbishop Vincent Jordy of Tours invoked François Rabelais’ centuries-old warning that “science without conscience is but the ruin of the soul.” What is underway, he said, is “an anthropological shift,” a new way of viewing life and its end that will gradually reshape the country, touching caregivers, families, people with disabilities, and the relationship between generations. He pointed to the Netherlands, where regulators had layered on safeguards for two decades and where health officials confirmed in June that a child under 12 had been euthanized for the first time, under a 2024 expansion of the law to children between the ages of 1 and 12. Making a law, Jordy said, is also opening doors toward things “one had perhaps not imagined” when it was written.

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The vote, ending an unusual parliamentary stalemate between the National Assembly and the Senate, came three years after President Emmanuel Macron first opened the question to national debate.

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