The Government’s Civil Partnership Bill is “a direct attack upon freedom of conscience and religion”, Ireland’s top evangelical leaders have said. In a letter in yesterday’s Irish Times, 19 evangelical leaders across the country expressed profound concern about the Bill. In particular, they referred to the fact that the Bill imposes a €2,000 fine and...
The Government is planning to target stay-at-home mothers with a new Revenue charge that has been condemned as being like ‘a tax on mothers’, according to a report in the Irish Independent. This is on top of tax individualisation, which can cost single income families up to €6,240 more than a family with two incomes...
Lawyers for a Catholic nurse in New York who was forced to participate in an abortion under threat of disciplinary action filed a second lawsuit against the hospital on Friday. The lawyers, funded by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a US group which assists in cases where religious freedom is threatened, filed the lawsuit against...
Independent NUI Senator Rónán Mullen and colleagues in the EPP (European People’s Party) and ALDE (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe) have succeeded in attaching an amendment safeguarding freedom of conscience to a radical report on sexual orientation and gender identity. The EPP sponsored amendment, supported by both Rónán Mullen EPP and Terry...
The percentage of people who no longer have any trust in the Catholic Church has risen from 13 per cent in 2004 to 32 per cent, a new survey says. However, the survey found that even fewer people have any trust in the Government or the banks. The survey was carried out by market research...
A UK judge has launched an assault on attempts to protect the conscience rights of religious people in law as “irrational” and “capricious” and attacked religious belief dismissing it as “subjective” with no basis in fact. Lord Justice Laws said that laws aimed at protecting people of faith could turn Britain into “theocracy”. His critics...
A challenge by a father to the legality of the removal of his three children to the UK by his former partner has been rejected by the High Court because he did not have guardianship status over the child. The judge said he was following the decision of the Supreme Court that there was no...
Ogra Fianna Fail has come out in support of adoption by gay and lesbian couples in a new policy document called ‘Equality for same-sex couples and their families’. The document praises the Government’s Civil Partnership Bill but notes that no allowance is made in the Bill for adoption. It “calls on the Minister for Health...
The Church has a right to proclaim its teaching and message publicly, Pope Benedict has said. In an audience with the new Belgian ambassador to the Holy See, Benedict said that the Church finds it necessary “to stress that it has, as an institution, the right to express itself publicly.” “It shares this right with...
Marriage is a “gift of creation” which lawmakers should not tamper with, the Catholic bishops of Argentina have said. Speaking during their 99th plenary assembly last week which, they said that a bill currently being discussed in Argentina’s parliament would contradict natural law. In a statement, the bishops explain that marriage “is the state of...
