The right of religious organisations to remove employees on religious grounds has been upheld in a landmark ruling by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) which strengthens freedom across the Continent. In its ruling delivered this week, the Court decided, by six votes to one, that Catholic bishops in Spain could choose not to...
Young people need the presence of ‘One Good Adult’ if they are to avoid significant mental health problems, according to a comprehensive study of Irish people aged between 12-24. The study, a joint project of mental health charity Headstrong and UCD’s School of Psychology, looked at a sample 14,500 young people. It asked them to...
A new law which will allow pharmacists to refuse to provide abortion-causing drugs has been signed into law in the US state of Kansas. The Heath Care Rights of Conscience Act will bar anyone from being required to prescribe or administer a drug they “reasonably believe” might result in the termination of a pregnancy. The...
Constraints should not be put on Catholic schools on how they celebrate their faith, the leader of Fianna Fáil, Michéal Martin, has said. In an interview with this week’s Irish Catholic, Mr Martin said: “I don’t think any constraints should be put on Catholic schools on how they celebrate their Catholic faith. His statements come...
Canada’s Catholic bishops have warned that freedom of religion and conscience are in danger of disappearing from Canadian society. Canada has one of the most active networks of human rights commissions in the world which have targeted religious freedom in the name of ‘equality’. In a pastoral letter published on Monday, the Canadian Conference of...
Fathers will have to be named on the birth certificates of all children, whether the father is married or not, under new Government proposals. At present only the names of married fathers are automatically registered. The proposed changes were announced in the Dail yesterday by the Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton (pictured). ...
Secularism is trying to wipe Christianity out, the former Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy- O’Connor (pictured) has said. Speaking on Tuesday in Leicester Cathedral, the Cardinal said that distorted notions of equality, freedom and tolerance are “three monsters on our cultural landscape” that formed part of a new and “very, very dangerous” secular religion,...
The organisers of a marriage conference in the UK have been refused permission to hold the event on their regular hired premises because they support the traditional definition of marriage. The Law Society in England say they won’t allow “Christian Concern” to hold the conference on its premises saying that the event would breach its...
Members of the UK parliament are demanding a Government inquiry into the safety of the most popular form of IVF after it was reported that it was linked with a higher risk of birth defects. More than 20,000 couples in Britain last year used the intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) procedure. But an Australian study, which...
A motion upholding the traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman was passed by the General Synod of the Church of Ireland on Saturday. The Archbishop of Dublin Michael Jackson (pictured) and the Bishop of Down and Dromore Harold Miller proposed the motion, and it received the support...
