A total of 525 people committed suicide in Ireland last year, a seven per cent increase on the year before, according to new figures from the CSO. Of the 525, 439 were men and 86 were women with the majority being in the 15-44 age group. The figures show that Ireland has a suicide rate...
The percentage of children born outside marriage continues to increase, according to new figures from the Central Statistics office. The figures, contained in the Vital Statistics report for the fourth quarter of 2011, show that there were 5,866 births registered outside marriage, which accounted for 34.3pc of all births, an increase of 0.1pc on the...
One in ten children, some as young as nine, have looked at inappropriate sexual imagery online, according to a new EU survey. The report, Towards a Better Internet for Children, is part of a study looking at 25,000 families in 25 countries across Europe, and is funded by the European Commission’s Safer Internet Programme. It...
The Government has been attacked over its attitude towards religion by The Irish Catholic newspaper. In an editorial, the newspaper accused the Government of unleashing “a veritable double whammy” against people of faith, by coming out in favour of gay marriage and abortion. Citing the announcement by Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore that he supports same-sex marriage,...
The UK Government has no mandate to introduce same-sex marriage, the head of the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has said. In his strongest attack yet on Prime Minister David Cameron’s proposals to permit same-sex marriage, Dr Rowan Williams (pictured) pointed out that the measure had not been included in the Conservative or...
New laws must allow women to take maternity leave who have used surrogate mothers to have children, according to the Equality Authority. In its last annual report before its merger with the Human Rights Commission, the chair of authority Angela Kerins (pictured), said it had supported three women who, though genetically the mothers of their...
The Church of England has announced a new initiative aimed at preventing Christianity ‘sliding out of cultural memory’. The Bishop of Oxford, the Rt Revd John Pritchard, chairman of the Church’s board of education, said his Church will promote religion through its schools, the Daily Telegraph reports. At a meeting of the Church’s General Synod...
Parents who wish to adopt babies will be permitted to foster them under the age of one as part of new UK Government plans to reduce disruption the children suffer in early life. Infants aged less than a year will be fostered by families who hope to adopt them under plans by the Government to...
The legal group of the US House of Represenatives has asked the Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) after President Barack Obama (pictured) decided last year to stop defending the law in court. On Friday, the House appealed to the Court’s justices to weigh in on the...
U.S. Catholics must “speak out” for religious freedom in a time that calls for “sentinels and public witness”, Archbishop of Philadelphia, Rt Rev Charles Chaput has said. In a homily at a Mass in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, to mark the end of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops...
