Pope Francis called laws legalising abortion “murderous” and “criminal” during a visit to the tomb of the Belgian King Baudouin.

The King chose to temporarily abdicate the throne rather than sign a law legalising abortion in 1990. He ruled from 1951 until his death in 1993 at the age of 63.

On his flight back to Rome, Pope Francis repeated that the choice of King Baudouin to abdicate for three days in order not to sign a “law of death” was “courageous” and exceptional, adding that the Catholic king was able to do this because he was holy. “The process of beatification will go forward because they gave me proof of this,” he said.

“Women have a right to life, to their life, and to the life of their children. Let’s not forget to say this,” the pontiff continued.

“An abortion is a homicide. … it kills a human being. The doctors who carry this out are hitmen … And on this there is no debate.”

Pope Francis’ comments on abortion come as Belgium discusses whether to extend the country’s legal limit of abortion, which is up to the 12th week of pregnancy for any reason.

For the first time in modern American history, young men are now more religious than their female peers, reports the New York Times.

They attend services more often, with a 3pc increase over 25 years ago, and they are more likely to identify as religious than young women.

“We’ve never seen it before,” Ryan Burge, an associate professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University, said referring to young men surpassing young women in religiosity.

Almost 40 percent of female Gen Z’s (born between 1997 and 2012) describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, compared with 34 percent of males, according to a survey last year.

Ryan Burge cites research where among those born between 1940 and 1970 women are 2-4 points more likely to be attending weekly religious services than men.

But that changes for those born around 1970-1975 as female weekly attendance bottoms out, but male attendance increases. The weekly rates for men born around 2000 is 25% – about three points higher than men who were born twenty-five years earlier and 2-3 points higher than young adult women.

Young adult men who never attend religious services is 32%. A decline of four points from middle-aged men and about two points lower than younger women.

A new study confirms a strong correlation between parental divorce and a wide range of negative child outcomes.

The authors from Austria, Germany and the UK published their work in the Journal of Public Economics.

They found that boys have lower levels of educational attainment, worse labour market outcomes and are more likely to die early.

They reported that girls also have lower levels of educational attainment, and they are also more likely to have children at an early age, but lose less in terms of employment.

A quarter of all weddings that took place in Ireland last year were broadly ‘New Age’ in character, while Christian ceremonies declined to just over a third of the total.

That’s according to research published by the Iona Institute using findings culled from CSO data.

The paper shows that Catholic weddings accounted for 91.4pc of the total in 1994 and last year this had fallen to just 34.3pc of all ceremonies

Church of Ireland weddings fell in that time from 2.6pc of the total to 1.1pc

Weddings performed by ‘Entheos Ireland’, the ‘Spiritualist Union of Ireland’, and other, similar organisations account for almost a quarter of the total and rising.

The author of the paper, Breda O’Brien said unless the Churches find a way to respond, “the present trends will probably worsen from their point of view and will very likely extend to funerals as well in due course.”

Noting that many couples still want “a spiritual dimension” to their weddings, she said this “provides an opportunity for the Churches”.

She recommended a rethink of practices, such as rules regarding venues.

Sinn Féin’s ruling body will have to call a special conference to determine the party’s position on future referendums in the wake of its support for the failed family and care votes earlier this year.

Delegates at the party’s ardfheis in Athlone raised concerns over how the party came to support the Government in the contentious referendums that were heavily defeated.

Sinn Féin TD Martin Browne said: “We got a call on the referendum wrong” and he said the party’s decision to back a Yes-Yes vote was “taken without adequate consultation with the members and members felt that their views weren’t taken on board”.

Dublin West TD Paul Donnelly also spoke in favour of an ardfheis motion calling on the party’s ard comhairle to hold a special delegate conference to determine Sinn Féin’s position on any future constitutional referendums.

He said the party’s “core principle is the voice of the membership” and he argued that “we give that voice back to the membership.”

The motion was passed by delegates.

The scaled down version of the Hate Crime Bill still has controversial elements that would introduce radical notions of gender into Irish law, according to two independent Senators.

Speaking to the Irish Times, Senator Michael McDowell said: “The Bill suggests that there are genders (plural) other than male or female”, though it does not enumerate what those might be.

Mr McDowell said that even the Gender Recognition Act, which allows people to legally change their gender, recognised only two genders, male and female.

A provision that recognises additional genders would raise questions “over statutory provisions providing for gender balance in judicial appointments, board compositions, etc”.

“There is no case for legislating for an open-ended multiplicity of subjective genders the meaning of which is obscure,” he said.

Meanwhile, speaking to the Irish Catholic, Senator Ronan Mullen said the Government’s amended plan is still problematic because that it uses a notion of gender “that’s from an NGO, that’s full of ideology and denies the basic realities of the gender of male and female. It would be more than nonsense to put that into law in any shape or form – harmful nonsense”.

The birth rate in Canada reached an all time low of 1.26 children per woman last year, according to new data from the country’s office for vital statistics.

A total fertility rate of 2.1 is considered the minimum for a population to sustain itself.

Canada’s rate has been generally declining for over 15 years and has now joined the group of “lowest-low” fertility countries, including South Korea, Spain, Italy and Japan, with 1.3 children per woman or less.

In comparison, the total fertility rate for the United States was 1.62 per woman in 2023.

A record-low was registered in 10 of the 13 provinces and territories, with the lowest fertility rate in British Columbia at 1.00 child per woman.

Delaware Gov. John Carney has vetoed a bill aimed at making assisted suicide available in the state.

Delaware is a reliably Democrat state which President Joe Biden represented for decades.

“Although I understand not everyone shares my views, I am fundamentally and morally opposed to state law enabling someone, even under tragic and painful circumstances, to take their own life,” Carney, a Democrat, said in a statement.

“Last year, the American Medical Association reaffirmed its view that physician-assisted suicide is ‘fundamentally incompatible with a physician’s role as healer.’”

House Bill 140 would have allowed terminally ill Delaware residents to end their own lives with the help of a medical professional.

A similar proposal was defeated in the neighbouring Democrat-controlled state of Maryland earlier this year. Other Democrat-run states such as California and Oregon permit assisted suicide.

A mother of four has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for sharing allegedly blasphemous messages on WhatsApp.

Legal advocates, supported by the leading Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), have vowed to appeal the conviction.

Former nurse Shagufta Kiran, 40, received the death sentence on 18 September from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) court in Islamabad. She was also fined 300,000 Pakistani Rupees (more than €960).

The sentencing came more than three years after FIA representatives stormed her home in Rawalpindi and arrested her, acting on a complaint that alleged she had shared comments in a WhatsApp discussion group that were disrespectful to Islam’s Prophet Mohammad.

Surrogacy is one of the most concerning, novel and emerging forms of human trafficking, according to a scathing new report from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.

The Government recently passed one of the most permissive surrogacy laws in Europe which recognises surrogacy contracts entered into overseas, which cost tens of thousands of euro, and which critics have called ‘baby-buying‘.

The report, ‘Trafficking in Human Beings in Ireland’, from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) examines all forms of human trafficking and the State’s actions to combat it.

Its third chapter examines “Exploitative Surrogacy” as a new form of trafficking, recently condemned by a legally enforceable EU Directive.

Regarding the Irish legislation, the Commission expressed concern that provisions relating to international surrogacy “may not have been sufficiently examined against the recast EU Anti-Trafficking Directive, which represents a binding legal framework”.

They also raised a red flag regarding the “haste” with which the bill proceeded to enactment.