The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality and Defence wants the Government’s proposed Children and Family Relationships Bill to be made even more permissive than it already is. A report sent to the Minister for Justice, Frances Fitzgerald, by the Committee wants the law to permit posthumous conception (using the sperm of a dead person),...
The Catholic bishops are expected to discuss what happened in religious order-run mother and baby homes at their quarter meeting which is currently taking place. The Bishop of Cork and Ross, Dr John Buckley, has joined the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr Michael Neary, and the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Diarmuid Martin in call for a...
A new report from Child Trends seems to show that weekly church attendance is a significant ‘protective factor’ for young adults aged 18-29. People in this age group who reported attending a religious service every week were substantially less likely to be involved in criminal activity, substance abuse, or to suffer from financial hardship. The...
Britain’s most senior family court judge has ruled against a Slovakian Catholic couple seeking to block the adoption of two of their children by a same-sex couple. In a witness statement, the couple said that being placed with a same-sex couple would not be in the children’s best interests, as they would not be able...
British political leaders, including David Cameron, have spoken out against the impending execution of a Christian woman in Sudan. According to the Christian Institute, the Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, and leader of the Opposition, Ed Milibrand, have all condemned the death sentence given to Meriam Ibrahim for ‘apostasy’, and ‘adultery’. However, the...
Maire Geoghegan-Quinn, the European Commissioner for Research Innovation and Science has rejected the ‘One of Us’ Citizens’ Initiative, which called for an end to EU funding of of organisations that perform abortions and of embryonic stem cell research, which destroys the embryo. The initiative had gathered over 2 million signatures – more than double the...
The governor of New Jersey, Chris Christie, has signed a bill that will enable adoptees to obtain their original birth certificates and discover the identities of their birth parents. According to the New Jersey Star-Ledger, the New Jersey Adoptees’ Birthright Bill will enable adoptees 18 and older to gain vital family medical and genealogical information....
Catholic obstetricians and gynaecologists who follow Church teaching on sexual ethics would be better off leaving the UK, the Catholic Medical Association (CMA) conference has been told. Charlie O’Donnell, a consultant in emergency and intensive care medicine, said that any Catholic training to be an OB/GYN consultant would soon find they had conscientious objections to...
An organisation in Switzerland that assists people in taking their own lives has voted to extend its services to elderly people who are not terminally ill. According to The Guardian, Exit, Switzerland’s biggest “assisted dying organisation”, voted at their annual general meeting to add “suicide due to old age” to their list of services offered, allowing...
The Archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal Thomas Collins, has received an “overwhelmingly positive” reaction to his letter confronting Justin Trudeau, the Liberal party leader, over his insistence that all new Liberal candidates be “resolutely pro-choice.” According to LifeSiteNews, Cardinal Collins expressed his deep concern with Trudeau’s stand in a letter earlier this month, noting that had...
