The steady decline of birthrates across Europe and the West are signs of a new form of poverty that deprives humanity of a future, Pope Francis said. Births all across Europe, including Ireland, are well below replacement level.
Families unable to have children and young people who struggle with having a family due to economic hardship or the allure of “mediocre substitutes” risk turning the “beauty of a family full of children” into a “utopia, a dream that is difficult to fulfill,” the pope said in a message to participants of a conference on low birthrates in Italy.
“This is a new poverty that scares me,” he said. “It is the generative poverty of those who discount the desire for happiness in their hearts, of those who resign themselves to watering down their greatest aspirations, of those who are content with little and stop hoping for something great.”
According to the national statistics agency, ISTAT, Italy’s birthrate hit an all-time low with 399,431 births in 2021 compared to 404,892 in 2020. Italy, Malta, Spain, Greece and Luxembourg have the lowest fertility rates in Europe.
The 90-year-old former Catholic bishop of Hong Kong is believed to have been detained in his role as a trustee of the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which helped pro-democracy protesters to pay their legal fees.
Zen, who stood down as Hong Kong’s Catholic bishop in 2009, is a supporter of the pro-democracy movement in the territory.
In 2020, a sweeping National Security Law came into force, criminalising previously protected civil liberties under the headings of “sedition“ and “foreign collusion.”
Before the law’s implementation, many Catholics, including Zen, warned that it could be used to silence the Church in Hong Kong.
Soon after the news broke, Matteo Bruni, spokesman for the Vatican, said that “the Holy See has learned with concern the news of Cardinal Zen’s arrest and is following the development of the situation with extreme attention.”
The U.S. State Department condemned the arrest as the latest example that the city’s authorities “will pursue all means necessary to stifle dissent and undercut protected rights and freedoms.”
A group of parents are taking the Welsh Government to the High Court over concerns that mandatory Relationship and Sex Education (RSE) lessons as part of the new curriculum will be ‘sexualising children’. The mandatory nature of the lessons is seen as an attack on parental rights.
The Public Child Protection Wales group say children as young as three will be taught about “sensitive and arguably inappropriate topics”, including gender ideology, and that parents are being disenfranchised by being denied the right to remove their child from sex education.
Kim Isherwood says the “new mandatory element also means that every child, aged three-16, must take part. It cannot be avoided by anyone, and there are no rights for parents to request information on what will be taught, at what age, or to ask that their child sit out.”
Another parent, Lucia Thomas, said: “We are deeply concerned that in our current culture, there is a progressive, aggressive lobby which is seeking to push onto children and young people ideologies which parents would find inappropriate.
“School is a place to learn about vital biology, learn how to develop relationships (with both sexes) and to develop respect. But, as parents, we believe what is happening here is the sexualisation of children, not the education of children,” she said.
A Catholic bishop has warned that, “If we dismiss our past as a source of shame and embarrassment only, we risk depriving a new generation of connection with deep wells of spirituality.” He believed that attacks on the Church had now gone too far.
Bishop William Crean of Cloyne made the remarks at Knock Shrine in Sunday.
He said, “The odium of the nation has been poured out on virtually all religious women and men from previous generations.” He indicated that this overlooked the fact that “All who responded to a vocation did so with generosity and humility and having expended their lives in nursing, teaching or social outreach they left the world without a cent in the pockets of their shrouds. They gave of their all for others.”
He told the congregation: “We need a vision for the 21st century that acknowledges both the light and shadow of our religious legacy, appreciate its richness, learn from its failures and take forward all that was best in forging a shared future”.
“We need to come to accept our religious heritage as part of what we are. Memory can be both painful and powerful. It should never be dismissed. If we dismiss our past as a source of shame and embarrassment only, we risk depriving a new generation of connection with deep wells of spirituality and inspiration for living. Without these riches we risk walking headlong into the arms of a sterile secularity where political correctness robs us of genuine colour and sense of joy and humour,” he added.
The daily Dáil prayer “sends a bad signal” by promoting a religious outlook that many Irish citizens are totally opposed to, according to far-left TD, Richard Boyd Barrett.
Every Dáil session begins with a short prayer, in English and as Gaeilge, before deputies take part in a 20-second moment of reflection. This happens in other parliaments as well, including in America.
In a tweet on May 10, Labour TD Aodhán Ó Ríordáin said that rather than being a trivial matter, the issue “goes to the heart of what a Republic is”.
Speaking on Newstalk, Dún Laoghaire TD Richard Boyd Barrett said religion is a private matter that has no place in Dáil Éireann.
“It sends a bad signal, to my mind, that at the beginning of the day, when we are discussing the welfare of all of our citizens and the services and representation we have to deliver that we are giving pre-eminence to a particular religious outlook – often when that outlook would be at variance with the views, feelings and beliefs of many of our citizens,” he said.
“Right across the board we need a complete separation of Church and State so that religious views or the lack of them is a private matter. The institutions of the State or democracy and indeed the State agencies that deal with health, education, welfare and housing should be completely separate from any particular religious outlook on things.”
The US Senate voted against an abortion rights bill yesterday as some pro-choice legislators objected to the lack of conscience protections for institutions such as Catholic hospitals.
In a largely symbolic effort in response to the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, the Senate voted 51-49 against a bill that would have gone far beyond the current abortion regime and made the procedure largely available throughout nine months of pregnancy.
Pro-choice Republicans, Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, had proposed their own narrower legislation that would have codified the current Roe v Wade regime.
They objected to Wednesday’s bill put forward by Democrats as too broad and raised concerns about the bill not including a so-called conscience clause, which would allow providers to refuse to perform abortions for religious or moral reasons.
“It supersedes all other federal and state laws, including the conscience protections that are in the Affordable Care Act,” said Collins. She added, “It doesn’t protect the right of a Catholic hospital to not perform abortions. That right has been enshrined in law for a long time.”
The Minister for Children has been criticised for supporting the use of inaccurate birth documents in surrogacy and donor IVF, even as he made an apology on behalf of the Government to people affected by historic illegal birth registrations connected with adoption.
In the Seanad, Minister Roderic O’Gorman said he was “truly sorry” for the “deep hurt and anguish” experienced by people affected by the illegal birth registrations.
He told Senators that what happened “was a historic wrong with deep and enduring impacts.
“Those who were knowingly involved in the illegal registration of births, committed a grave offence which robbed children of their identity and their right to an accurate birth registration.
“I can only imagine the deep hurt and anguish that people must have experienced on learning of their illegal birth registration, on learning that the foundations upon which their entire identity is based are false.”
Responding on social media, Senator Sharon Keogan said, “Wrongs have been done but I fear we will continue to deny those born through surrogacy their true identity”.
She added: “Identity is very important, all data must be on birth certs even if it involves up to 5 different parties. We must learn from our past pain. #tracing #birthcertificates”.
Groups organized protests outside the homes of three pro-life Supreme Court justices: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Brett Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito.
The Biden administration initially refused to condemn the protests. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that protests should be peaceful and respect privacy but that she didn’t “have an official U.S. government position on where people should protest.”
On Monday morning, she tweeted that President Joe Biden supports the right to protest without “violence, threats or vandalism.”
“Judges perform an incredibly important function in our society, and they must be able to do their jobs without concern for their personal safety,” she said.
Meanwhile, protestors also engaged in a wave of protests and acts of vandalism and violence targeting Catholic churches and pro-life organizations.
This included disrupting a Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, California.
Catholic bishops have told worshippers to return to church because “virtual viewing of Mass does not fulfil the Sunday obligation”.
The leaders of the English and Welsh Catholic church want worshippers to return to the pews in time for Pentecost on the first Sunday in June.
The obligation had been suspended for almost 26 months since March 2020 because of the pandemic. Those who are unable to attend in person due to ill health or because they are caring for the sick will continue to have bishops’ blessing to tune in remotely.
However, the lifting of Covid restrictions means that for other worshippers “the reasons which have prevented Catholics from attending Mass on Sundays and holy days of obligation no longer apply”.
By contrast, the Church of England has encouraged its parishes to continue streaming services. While it is hoping to nudge worshippers to return to church for worship, no decree has been issued telling them that they are obliged to attend services in church rather than watch online.
The European Parliament has condemned the reproductive exploitation of Ukrainian women by surrogacy companies.
In a non-binding resolution last week on the impact of the war against Ukraine on women, it cites human trafficking for sexual exploitation and other purposes as among the biggest risks for women and children fleeing the country.
In particular § 12 recalls that “sexual exploitation for surrogacy and reproduction is unacceptable and a violation of human dignity and human rights”.
It continues in § 13 by condemning “the practice of surrogacy, which can expose women around the world to exploitation, in particular those who are poorer and are in situations of vulnerability, such as in the context of war”.
In § 14 the resolution “Underlines the serious impact of surrogacy on women, their rights and their health, the negative consequences for gender equality and the challenges stemming from the crossborder implications of this practice, as has been the case for the women and children affected by the war against Ukraine”.
In point V., the role played by some private companies is recognised, noting that “some surrogacy agencies have asked surrogate mothers not to flee Ukraine before the birth”.
