Norwegian Christian Family Reunited With Children

Occasionally, there is a happy ending.  You may recall the case from last year of a Norwegian Christian (non-Catholic) family who had their children stolen from them by the state.  Government officials they were taking the children away primarily because they found the family’s Christian faith “excessive.”  There were claims of child abuse, as always, in the form of supposed corporal punishment of a mild type, but, all along, state officials were fairly open about the fact that they didn’t like the faith these people practiced and they were determined to break them of it.

Fortunately, even today, there was strong international outrage to this incident, especially given the very heavy-handed measures used by the Norwegian government (such as planning to place the children into foster care until age 18, adopting them out to other families against the parent’s wishes, and even denying the mother the ability to breastfeed her infant daughter for some time).  Finally, after over 6 months, the family is to be reunited shortly, and all charges dropped.   It is unclear whether the government managed to extract some promise of changed behavior (meaning, less visible practice of Christianity) from the parents, but indications at this time are that is not the case.

Brief summary below: