MEXICO CITY (CNS): The Argentine Senate voted 38-31 against a bill that would have decriminalised abortion during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. Senators voted against the measure early August 9 following a 15-hour debate. The measure had been approved in June by the lower house of Congress.
 
The Bishops’ Conference of Argentina hailed the vote, saying the debate in the country opened an opportunity for dialogue and a chance to focus more on social ministry.
 

MEXICO CITY (CNS): “This decision hurts us as Argentines,” the Argentinian Bishops’ Conference said in a statement expressing with the June 14 approval of an initiative that moves the South American country closer to legalising abortion. 
 
“But the pain for the abandonment and the exclusion of innocents must be transformed into strength and hope, to continue fighting for the dignity of all human life,” the bishops said.
 

VATICAN (CNS): Argentina’s bishops announced they would release 127 baptism certificates archived in a chapel at a naval facility that was used as a place of torture during the country’s military dictatorship.
 
Some human rights groups believe these documents may be instrumental in finding out what happened to the children who were baptised in the chapel and subsequently kidnapped. 
 

VATICAN (SE): Cricket is not a sport normally associated with Argentina, but a team from Pope Francis’ hometown of Buenos Aires was on his list of people to greet at his general audience for October 11.
 
Although not a cricketing country, a project called Cricket Sin Fronteras (Cricket Without Borders) began operating almost a decade ago in the poorest parts of the capital where the Church is engaged in offering constructive past times to young people as a choice to violence and crime.
 

BUENOS AIRES (SE): An angry mob descended on the cathedral in Tucman, Argentina, on International Women’s Day, March 8, in what was described as a blatant attack on the image of the person of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The group staged a mock abortion on a woman dressed as the Blessed Virgin in the street outside the cathedral, using look-alike blood and baby parts coming from under the woman’s dress, local media reported.