The UK’s Education Secretary has urged Britons to have more children because of the “worrying repercussions” of a plummeting birth rate.

Bridget Phillipson said too many young people were put off having families because of the huge cost of housing and childcare.

She said her childcare plans would encourage people to have children who otherwise would have rejected the idea.

This stands in stark contrast to PM, Sir Keir Starmer, who last year said it was not his place to tell people how many children to have, or to set out a national “birth plan”.

In an article for The Telegraph, Ms Phillipson wrote: “I want more young people to have children, if they so choose.”

Several European leaders have called for their citizens to have bigger families to help grow their economies and deal with the pressures of ageing populations.

The fertility rate in England and Wales went down to 1.44 babies per woman in 2023 , its lowest value since records began in 1938 and well below the 2.1 needed to keep a population steady.

The lower birth rate means there will be fewer workers to care for the elderly and to keep public services adequately funded through their taxes.

The number of long-term residential care beds and home support hours for older people will need to increase by at least 60pc and maybe as much as 94pc, in the next fifteen years, according to the Economic and Social Research Institute.

The projected rise in requirements is driven by both decreasing births and inward migration causing rapid populating ageing.

The research considered three scenarios based on varying assumptions about population growth and ageing.

Nonetheless, under the assumed scenarios, short stay bed requirements are projected to grow between 72 to 94pc; long stay bed requirements, between 61 to 80pc; and home support hours to grow between 57 to 91pc.

The European Parliament has voted for robust age verification tools to prevent children from accessing online pornographic content.

The measure was part of an update to EU-wide definitions of the crimes linked to child sexual abuse (CSA).

Negotiations will now begin between the Parliament, the Council of the EU, which represents national governments, and the European Commission to determine the final shape of the law.

The proposed new Directive on Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) would put an onus on pornographic websites to prevent children from accessing them.

It reads: “Disseminating pornographic content online without putting in place robust and effective age verification tools to effectively prevent children from accessing pornographic content online shall be punishable by a maximum term of imprisonment of at least 1 year.” (AM 186)

The move was welcomed by the Federation of Catholic Family Association in Europe (FAFCE), calling it “a major victory to protect children from pornographic platforms, that profit from suffering and violence”.

Vincenzo Bassi, President of FAFCE declared : “We welcome everything that supports the role of parents in their primary responsibility of educators: this proposal goes in that direction.”

Pope Leo XIV has called Natural Law “an essential reference point” for international relations.

Speaking to a group of legislators, he said that a shared point of reference in political activity is the natural law, “written not by human hands, but acknowledged as valid in all times and places, and finding its most plausible and convincing argument in nature itself.”

He quoted Cicero’s words on this in De Re Publica: “Natural law is right reason, in accordance with nature, universal, constant and eternal, which with its commands, invites us to do what is right and with its prohibitions deters us from evil”

The Pope added that natural law is universally valid, apart from and above other more debatable beliefs, and it constitutes “the compass by which to take our bearings in legislating and acting, particularly on the delicate and pressing ethical issues that, today more than in the past, regard personal life and privacy.”

The last remaining Christian town in the West Bank was attacked by Israeli settlers last Wednesday.

Taybeh is a village of about 1,500 people with three churches, located some 30 km north of Jerusalem and east of Ramallah. More than 600 residents are Latin Catholics, while the rest are Greek Orthodox or Greek Melkite Catholics. It is a frequent stop for Irish pilgrims to the Holy Land who visit the local Taybeh Brewing Company.

“Yesterday evening, settlers attacked homes in the Karamelo roundabout, an area at the eastern entrance to the village,” said local parish priest Fr Bashar Fawadleh.

The incident “coincided with an attack by dozens of settlers on the village of Kafr Malik, which is near us, and which led to the death of three martyrs and the burning of many vehicles and homes.”

The deadly clash in Kafr Malik was the latest instance of armed settlers carrying out violent raids against Palestinian villages in the West Bank, often with impunity in the presence of Israeli soldiers or directly with their help.

There has also been an ongoing campaign of harassment with arson attacks on crops, theft of equipment, and deliberately releasing cattle into the fields to destroy harvests.

Taybeh resident Nadim Khoury, owner of the well-known Taybeh Brewery and Winery, told OSV News that earlier in June settlers entered land belonging to his cousin and let the sheep eat all the new crops he had planted and took his water tank so he would not be able to water any new crops.

Violence against Christians “seems to be raging … with a diabolical intensity previously unknown,” according to Pope Leo XIV.

He was speaking in the Vatican today with members of Aid Agencies for the Eastern Churches (ROACO), and cited Ukraine, Gaza, the Middle East and the recent “terrible attack” on the Church of Saint Elias in Damascus.

The pontiff said the lands of the Christian East are, as never before, “devastated by wars, plundered by special interests, and covered by a cloud of hatred that renders the air unbreathable and toxic”.

He added: “It is truly distressing to see the principle of ‘might makes right’ prevailing in so many situations today, all for the sake of legitimising the pursuit of self-interest. It is troubling to see that the force of international law and humanitarian law seems no longer to be binding, replaced by the alleged right to coerce others. This is unworthy of our humanity, shameful for all mankind and for the leaders of nations”.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a state law that stops minors being given puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or body surgeries as part of procedures to enable them to live in their preferred ‘gender’.

The ruling in United States v. Skrmetti has been described as a landmark victory for children’s health medicine that will help protect 26 similar state laws.

The Court held that Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1, a bipartisan law passed in 2023, is constitutional.

The ruling signals that American states have broad constitutional authority to ban dangerous so-called “gender transition” procedures and interventions for minors, and it aligns the U.S. with a growing international movement to protect youth from gender ideology.

At least 25 people were killed and 63 injured in an attack on a Greek Orthodox Church in Syria during a Sunday evening Divine Liturgy attended by nearly 400 faithful.

The atrocity has been blamed on the Islamic State terrorist group and is the first deadly, religiously motivated attack on Christians since the toppling of the Assad regime in December.

Eyewitnesses reported that one attacker fired at worshippers from outside the Church while another entered to detonate a grenade.

Two parishioners, Jiris and Boutros Bishara, intervened and wrestled the explosive device away from the second man, preventing an immediate detonation. However, while being dragged outside, the attacker activated his suicide belt, resulting in a massive explosion that killed and wounded dozens and caused extensive destruction.

The attack has been condemned by the Country’s Islamic leadership with President Ahmad al-Sharaa calling it a “heinous crime” and vowing to bring the perpetrators “to face their just punishment.

French President Emmanuel Macron also denounced the “horrible” attack while Greece’s Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed anger and called on the authorities “to take concrete measures to protect all ethnic and religious minorities”.

A growing chorus of voices have decried the progress of assisted suicide legislation through the House of Commons on Friday.

The bill which would enable terminally ill adults with six months to live to request medical help to kill themselves, passed its third reading by a vote of 314 to 291 and now passes to the House of Lords.

Speaking on behalf of the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales, Archbishop John Sherrington said that allowing the medical profession “to help patients end their lives will change the culture of healthcare and cause legitimate fears amongst those with disabilities or who are especially vulnerable in other ways”.

Archbishop of Westminster Cardinal Vincent Nichols described the vote as “a watershed moment in the history of our country” that “fundamentally changes society’s long held values and relationships on matters of life and death”.

Professor David Jones, director of the Anscombe Centre, said the “encouragement of suicide” violated the right to life of people with serious illness and contradicted the principles of care on which the NHS and hospice movement were founded.

Robert Clarke, director of advocacy for ADF International, said the vote was a “grave and chilling development for the United Kingdom”.

One in three women cannot afford to have a baby, or another child, while a quarter will delay having children until they’ve reached certain financial or career goals. In addition, only 51pc said they would like to start a family and 20pc said they definitely do not want children.

That’s according to The Irish Examiner Women’s Health Survey of 1,078 women over 16, carried out by Ipsos B+A.

This is occurring while Ireland’s fertility rate is just 1.5, well below the replacement level of 2.1.

The survey found that a third of women feel they cannot afford to have a baby, or another child, with younger women in particular putting family plans on hold.

To the statement, “Financially I don’t feel I am in a position to have a child/another-child”, 20pc of respondents said they agree strongly; 15pc agree somewhat; 13pc neither agree nor disagree; 6pc disagree somewhat; 5pc strongly disagree; 40pc don’t-know/not-applicable.

A quarter of women surveyed will delay having children until they’ve reached certain financial or career goals. This jumps to 65pc of women aged between 18-24.

The survey also found that just under half of mums would like to have more children. Younger mums and those from less affluent backgrounds were most keen to extend their families.

Moreover, 20pc of women have difficulty getting pregnant, with half of those considering fertility treatment.

Family sizes continue to fall, with just half of mothers with a single child saying they would like to have a second. The average Irish family is now 2.29 children, reflecting falling fertility rates worldwide.

Meanwhile, a poll in the US shows those in their 20s and 30s plan to have fewer children than in the past. The desired number of children averages out at 1.8 per couple.