The Government’s new abortion law came into effect yesterday. The law permits termination of pregnancy through all nine months of pregnancy where a woman threatens suicide. It compels named Catholic hospitals to perform abortions under the terms of the law and doctors who are pro-life must refer patients seeking abortions to doctors who are pro-choice....
Islam will become Ireland’s second religion within the next 30 years because of dramatic population growth and immigration. Statistics compiled by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show that Islam is now Ireland’s fastest-growing religion, the Irish Independent reports. According to the CSO, at its current rate of expansion, Islam is set to become the second...
Pope Francis is “shocked” by Malta’s proposed new civil unions bill that will permit adoption by same-sex couples, according to the auxiliary bishop of Malta. Bishop Charles Scicluna has told The Sunday Times of Malta that Pope Francis encouraged him to speak out against the Maltese Civil Unions Bill that aims to legalise gay adoption....
The number of pupils attending Catholic schools has risen by almost three million between 2008 and 2011, while the number of Church-run schools increased by over 6,000 over the same period, according to new official Vatican figures. The figures are contained in the document “Educating in intercultural dialogue in the Catholic school. Living together for...
A new report on the effects of family structure on children shows that children raised outside marriage still do worse on a range of measures than children raised within marriage even after various factors such as poverty are taken into account. However, it found that the effects of family structure are reduced when factors like...
Children’s Minister Frances Fitzgerald has said she is personally opposed to lowering the age of consent from 17 to 16. However, she added that there may be specific legal reasons for lowering the age, the Irish Times reports. Earlier this week, the Cabinet discussed proposals to lower the age of consent. However, no decision was...
Only limited religious freedom protections will be offered under the Government’s proposed same-sex marriage referendum, Justice Minister Alan Shatter has said. Speaking on Tuesday night in a debate on the issue, Mr Shatter said that the referendum would protect denominations from being required to carry out same-sex marriages. No protection was offered to marriage counsellors,...
Denominational schools exist in response to the Constitutional right of parents to choose the sort of education their children receive, and do not engage in “discrimination” the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin (pictured), Michael Jackson, has said. He was responding to a submission made by the Ombudsman for Children, Emily Logan to the Department...
Accord, the Catholic bishops’ marriage counselling agency, has been attacked for adhering to the Church’s teaching on marriage. A spokesperson for Glen, the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network said that the group’s refusal to offer its services to same-sex couples could be in breach of the Equal Status Act, the Sunday Times reports. ...
Big regional differences have been found in the number of children being taken from their families into State care in different parts of the country, according to new figures. For example, the report states that there were almost 230 childcare applications in Letterkenny during 2012 compared with 10 in Carlow and nine in Tullamore. Other...
