Where Faith Abides, Employees Have Few Rights

By DIANA B. HENRIQUES
October 9, 2006, New York Times

J. Jeffrey Heck, a lawyer in Mansfield, Ohio, usually sits on management’s side of the table. “The only employee cases I take are those that poke my buttons,” he said. “And this one really did.”

His client was a middle-aged novice training to become a nun in a Roman Catholic religious order in Toledo. She said she had been dismissed by the order after she became seriously ill — including a diagnosis of breast cancer.

In her complaint, the novice, Mary Rosati, said she had visited her doctor with her immediate supervisor and the mother superior. After the doctor explained her treatment options for breast cancer, the complaint continued, the mother superior announced: “We will have to let her go. I don’t think we can take care of her.”

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Crimen Sollicitationis

VATICAN CITY, Oct 2 (Reuters) - The Vatican on Monday threw its full support behind British bishops who attacked a BBC documentary alleging there had been a cover-up of child sexual abuse under a system Pope Benedict enforced in his previous job.Roman Catholic bishops from England and Wales condemned the documentary, which was aired on Sunday night, as "false and misleading". The Vatican said it would have no comment of its own for the time being but said it fully endorsed a sternly worded statement by Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Birmingham written on behalf of the British bishops.

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Sexual Reform?

The NVSH (Dutch Society for Sexual Reform) aims to contribute to the sexual emancipation of individual and social life. Our main activity is the promotion of knowledge and understanding of sexual behaviour in the widest possible sense.

Holland is the only country in the world which has an association specifically dedicated to sexual reform. We started out as a Neo-Malthusian League, which opened the first birth control clinic in the world in 1881. In 1946 the present name was adopted and a broader range of targets was formulated. Up to the sixties, a great deal of energy went into building up the organisation, which ran 60 clinics and reached a membership high of 220,000 in 1966. Also much work was put into improving the quality of contraceptives (condom, diaphragm and spermicidal jelly) and introducing the contraceptive pill.

Read more about them here.