Ireland’s only pilgrimage expressly designed for fathers will take place on Sunday, March 21 in Knock. The event, which was launched in 2003, has attracted many thousands of families since it began, and involves fathers and mothers praying for each other, for children and for families. The organisers of the pilgrimage argue that the role...
Nearly a third of people in the UK believe that religious freedoms have been restricted over the past decade, a new survey shows. The poll, carried out by ComRes on behalf of the public theology think tank Theos, showed that 32 per cent of people believed that religious freedom had been weakened in the past 10...
A Constitutional amendment to delete the current prohibition on blasphemy is to be proposed by Minister for Justice, Dermot Ahern, when the children’s rights amendment is held, the Irish Times has reported. Mr Ahern proposed an amendment to the Defamation Bill last April, with the aim of defining the offence of blasphemy, which is referred...
A legal loophole intended to protect gay rights charities has enabled a Catholic adoption agency in the UK to continue to refuse to place children with homosexual couples. Catholic Care’s unexpected legal victory should allow similar adoption agencies forced to close or dissociate from the church to reopen as Catholic organisations. Campaigners for religious freedom...
A leading UK family lawyer has said the law in England and Wales no longer has a clear concept of marriage. Baroness Deech, the chairman of the Bar Standards Board, in a public lecture yesterday, said that some differences between civil partnerships and marriage should be preserved, and criticises recent Labour laws that allow lesbian...
A proposed EU equality directive may threaten liberty of conscience and freedom of speech, a leading advocate for religious freedom has warned. In testimony to the Social Affairs Committee of the Dutch Parliament, David Fieldsend of CARE for Europe, warned that the proposed EU Equal Treatment Directive may compromise religious liberties in the name of...
The Equality Authority has said that unmarried fathers should be given the rights of guardianship automatically on the birth of their children. They made the recommendation in a submission in response to the Law Reform Commission’s (LRC) consultation paper, Legal Aspects of Family Relationships, which is looking at the lack of rights attaching to unmarried...
The proposed children’s rights referendum, which will lower the threshold at which the State can intervene in the family to remove children will not give the State too much power, TDs have claimed. Speaking during a Dáil debate on the report of the Joint Committee Constitutional Amendment on Children, a range of TDs from different...
Stay-at-home mothers in the UK are deserting the Labour Party because of its policy focus on women who earn a wage according to a new study from a leading sociologist. Mr Geoff Dench, who revealed his findings at a seminar organised by influential centre-right think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies, said: “Women who value...
Amendments to the EU Budget which would have explicitly prevented projects funded by the EU going towards coercive abortion and sex-selective abortion failed to secure enough votes to be approved yesterday. There were 316 votes against Amendment 733, which would have explicitly prevented funding of coercive abortion, with 305 MEPs voting for the amendment. In...
