An American academic who desecrated a consecrated Host in 2008 by driving a rusty nail through it and photographing the result, is addressing a gathering of European atheists in at a conference starting in Dublin today. P Z Myers, biology professor at the University of Minnesota Morris, who also descrated the Muslim holy book the...
Marriage commissioners in one district of Amsterdam will have to undergo a yearly evaluation to make sure their support for homosexual marriage has not changed. The draconian measure was introduced after two officials in the city’s Nieuw-West district refused to perform same-sex marriages. However, unlike in Ireland, the marriage commissioners cannot be jailed or fined....
Fewer couples in the US are getting married due to the economic slowdown that has prompted more couples to live together without tying the knot, according to new Census data. The new figures show that the rate of cohabitation has risen in many places but is highest in areas that offer many people grim prospects...
A US Catholic diocese has been forced to close its adoption agencies because of new legislation obliging them to refer same-sex couples as prospective adoptive parents. The diocese of Rockford, in the state of Illinois, currently handles nearly 350 foster family and adoption cases in 11 counties in northern Illinois with a state budget of...
More and more UK parents are becoming too busy to take their children on day trips, new research shows. The high price of such trips, with the average cost being £50, combined with the increasingly hectic work schedule of parents, mean that families are able to spend less time getting away than in the past....
A Canadian couple have touched off a firestorm of controversy by revealing that they have decided to keep the gender of their child a secret, even keeping it from the child. The couple, Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, say they want to allow the child to develop itsown gender identity. Critics, however have accused the...
Ideas and values which are vital to British society will be unsustainable without a Christian underpinning, the Anglican Bishop of London has warned. The Rt Revd Richard Chartres, who gave the sermon at last month’s Royal Wedding, said Britain’s culture and civilisation were founded on the Bible, and expressed concern at any undermining of that...
Malta has voted in a referendum to legalise divorce. It is the last country in Europe, apart from the Vatican, to do so. Outside Europe, the only other country which does not permit divorce is the Philippines. Last year Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando, an MP with the Nationalist party, presented a private member’s bill along with...
There is no such thing as a school with a “neutral” ethos, Fr Tony Mullins, the Chair of the Board of Mary Immaculate College in Limerick said yesterday at a conference attended by Education Minister, Ruairi Quinn (pictured). Mr Quinn said: “We must now build on the education system so that it is structured to...
Men are being hit much harder by the recession than women, according to Finola Bruton (pictured), and Irish men are being harder hit than their counterparts anywhere else in Europe. Mrs Bruton made the remarks in her closing comments at a conference she chaired yesterday on women, home and work organised by The Iona Institute....
