The Taoiseach’s announcement of a possible easing of the blanket ban on public worship in May, subject to public health advice, means that the practice of the Christian religion remains effectively criminalised, according to the Pastor of Howth & Malahide Presbyterian Church.
Reaction elsewhere was more positive with the Catholic Archbishop of Armagh telling EWTN News in the US that the Taoiseach’s announcement came as “great news”.
The announcement followed numerous pleas from church leaders. In February, the Catholic Bishops had asked the Government to ease the ban on worship in time for Easter.
A week ago, Archbishop Martin told the Times Ireland he considered the latest change in covid law–a statutory instrument that confirmed public mass was a criminal offence—to be “formally enacting a potential infringement of religious freedom and of constitutional rights”, and he called for it to be suspended.
The following day, in a meeting with Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly, he asked that the pastoral work of priests and other ministers be deemed “essential”.
Last week two different groupings of Evangelical churches asked for the prohibition to be ended.
The Taoiseach rebuffed these requests and instead re-iterated what he had already announced on March 30th—that an easing of restrictions would be considered in May.
In response, the Pastor of Howth & Malahide Presbyterian Church told Spirit Radio he didn’t know what comfort is meant to be derived from the Taoiseach’s announcement, “other than, I think a few more people are able to attend a funeral, from Monday. And they’re going to ‘consider’ reopening places of worship, because apparently they understand how important gathered worship is to people”.
Rev. Alastair Dunlop added: “But, the fact is this [past] Sunday in Dublin is week 44 of the church being effectively banned from practicing the Christian religion, and if we were to gather, safely, to do what we demonstrated over 14 weeks [last summer] that we can do safely, it would be a criminal offence, and that has not changed.”
The Taoiseach was wrong to say a recent change to covid laws did not target religious events, according to a professor of constitutional law at Trinity College Dublin.
Micheal Martin told the Dail Thursday that the latest criminal sanctions, introduced last week, for breaking covid restrictions covered all indoor events.
Oran Doyle however said the only gatherings affected by it are religious, and it catches both indoor and outdoor faith-events, even socially distanced hearing of confession.
He added that the convoluted wording of the ministerial order appeared to be an attempt to deliberately conceal its true purpose, which was to criminalise all religious events.
“But obfuscation a damning indictment of Gov’s respect for citizens’ autonomy. Suggests preference for vaguely articulating standards, then tricking citizens into compliance through calculated ambiguity about the dividing line between legal obligations and public health advice,” he added.
Gender neutral toilets in schools could lead to girls avoiding the restrooms or taking days off, according to a women’s group.
Laoise Uí Aodha de Brún of the grassroots human rights and advocacy group, ‘The Countess Didn’t Fight For This’ was reacting to Department of Education guidelines for new schools and retrofitting of older schools to install mixed sex toilets in secondary schools.
She told Liveline Thursday that gender neutral toilets could lead to girls not going to school due to “period shaming” or getting a UTI from holding their pee.
“Even in a single sex school I would be very nervous as a teenage girl having my period. This is not a progressive move on the Department of Education”.
“I believe it would impact on the privacy, the dignity and the safety of school children.”
Presenter Joe Duffy was forced to apologise to her on air after another contributor launched a string of insults and slurs at her.
Meanwhile, a radical feminist group has accused the Department of depriving school girls of a “sex-based right”.
Radicailín issued a statement saying: “The reason we have single sex spaces is to protect the privacy and safety of women and girls. The new School Design Guide proposals will deprive Ireland’s school girls of this sex-based right.”
A number of prominent Catholic voices have rejected a claim by President Michael D. Higgins that denominational education abandons children “to parcels of hate and memory”.
Mr Higgins’ claim that schools in the region are segregated has also been rebuked as an attempt to offer a “superficial analysis” on the debate on education.
Speaking on The Late Late Show on Friday, President Higgins said that faith-based schools in the North can no longer be justified.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Baroness Nuala O’Loan said she didn’t accept the president’s analysis. “I don’t know of any Catholic – or indeed any Protestant – who has ever told me that they were taught to hate the other people – the other side if you like – in school,” she said.
She described it as a “surprisingly political statement for a president to make”.
She said the comments were not respectful “of the rights of the people of Northern Ireland to make their own decisions about the type of education they wish to provide for the children of Northern Ireland”.
The Minister for Education is appealing a ruling in favour of the constitutional rights of home-schooled students who were excluded from the Leaving Cert calculated grades process.
A panel of three Supreme Court judges will decide later whether the grounds of appeal merit being hear by the Court.
The case concerns a Court of Appeal (COA) judgment last month dismissing the Minister’s appeals over High Court findings in separate cases by two students.
The COA found it was “unreasonable and disproportionate”, and an unlawful breach of the students’ constitutional rights to exclude them entirely from the calculated grades scheme.
The Minister, however, has argued the COA had identified a “new constitutional right” of a home-schooled child to have reasonable account taken of their situation when education policies are being formulated and implemented and not to be excluded from the Leaving Cert.
This is the first time such rights and duties have been identified, and no such right is specified in the Article 42.2 which merely references parents’ rights, the Minister contends.
Persecution of faith groups has drastically increased in more than 95 percent of the world’s worst-offending countries, according to the latest Religious Freedom in the World report.
The report, by international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, shows how the latest technologies are being used to crush religious freedom.
Over the past two years, oppression against vulnerable faith communities has increased in all but one of the 26 countries listed in the survey’s worst or “red” category.
The report, which covers all 196 countries worldwide, traces the rise of transnational Islamist networks, including an online “cyber-caliphate” which is expanding globally is now a tool of online recruitment and radicalisation.
It goes on to describe how Islamist terrorists employ sophisticated digital technologies to recruit, radicalise and attack.
The report also describes how digital technology, cyber networks, surveillance including artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology has increased persecution.
The Chinese Communist Party is keeping religious groups in line with the help of 626 million AI-enhanced surveillance cameras and smartphone scanners.
The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland have upheld a complaint against RTE and ruled that its New Year’s Eve show “effectively accused God of sexual violence and sexual crimes”, according to Gript.ie.
The Times, Ireland, reported that the ruling was considered a “serious rebuke” of RTE.
The BAI has directed RTE to broadcast its decision to viewers and that is expected to be aired on Saturday before the 9 o’clock news.
The BAI’s Compliance Committee maintained that the Waterford Whispers sketch, in which God was accused of having raped a Middle Eastern woman, did not comply with the provisions of Principle 5 of the Code of Programme Standards that allow for “critical scrutiny of religion, while also requiring broadcasters to show due respect for religious views, images, practices and beliefs in programme content.”
Mr. Ciarán Ó’Comain brought the complaint to the BAI saying the sketch was “highly offensive” and “predictably so.”
He also said that RTÉ’s apology following the broadcast was “ham-fisted and very qualified”, leaving the sketch on it’s “Player” and only removing it after receiving “thousands of complaints.”
Large numbers of evangelical churches in Ireland have called for the immediate ending of the blanket ban and criminalisation of public worship.
Christian Voice Ireland, a group of over 80 Christian Churches and ministries, released a statement Tuesday that said, given the essential nature and work of the church, they “cannot in good conscience continue under these restrictions”.
Should they not be lifted, they called on churches, if their circumstances permit, “to gather for the public worship of the Lord Jesus Christ—safely and with all appropriate Covid precautions in place”.
The pastor of one church, John Ahern, told Premier Radio on Monday that he would organise an outdoor worship event at the Phoenix Park this coming Sunday morning, even at the risk of arrest and imprisonment.
Meanwhile, the Church leaders of The Dublin Gospel Partnership released a statement on Tuesday saying the criminalising of gathered church worship is disproportionate and exceeds the limits of government authority.
They added that Christian worship is intrinsically corporate – an act of the gathered Church – and some aspects of it, such as baptism and communion, simply cannot be replicated online.
Therefore, they conclude, “to criminalise gathered worship is effectively to criminalise the practise of the Christian religion”.
The Taoiseach has said that the easing of Covid restrictions in May might include a lifting of the blanket ban on public worship, one of only two in Europe.
This reiterates the Government’s plan announced on March 30th.
The Taoiseach made his remarks to media after a cabinet meeting yesterday, to the Dáil, and in a letter to church leaders. The Government’s decision will however be subject to the advice of NPHET.
While giving no date for the move, Micheal Martin said a more detailed plan would be published next week.
In a statement last Sunday, Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin said he considered a recent statutory instrument confirming religious gatherings are a criminal offence to be “formally enacting a potential infringement of religious freedom and of constitutional rights”, and he called for its “suspension”.
In a meeting with the Health Minister Monday, he called for the pastoral work of priests and religious ministers to be deemed essential.
The threat to religious freedom remains strong worldwide, according to the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its annual report published this week.
The report identifies 14 countries of particular concern for their “systematic, ongoing, and egregious” violations of religious freedom, and recommends another 12 as needing special monitoring for their severe violations.
Many countries used the pretext of the COVID-19 pandemic to aggravate religious discrimination. USCIRF noted that China, Nigeria, and India were some of the worst violators of religious freedom.
In recent years, USCIRF has strongly criticized the Chinese government’s atrocities committed against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province. In retaliation, China earlier this year sanctioned Gayle Manchin and Tony Perkins, the current Chair and Vice-Chair of USCIRF.
Kelsey Zorzi, Director of Advocacy for Global Religious Freedom for ADF International said the USCIRF’s Annual Report continues to shed light on “the worst abusers against people of faith and even no faith, and stands as a key resource for advocates and governments”.
“We welcome the new report and hope the United States Government will heed the voices of the persecuted in developing its foreign policy priorities,” she said.
