The Government is expected to approve a plan to remove the vast majority of remaining Covid-19 restrictions over the autumn months, including restrictions on special sacramental occasions. In some parishes, they have already been taking place.

First Holy communion and Confirmation ceremonies can resume from 6 September under the plan being drawn up.

Religious ceremonies can proceed at 50 per cent venue capacity, regardless of immunity status of attendees.

All remaining restrictions on religious ceremonies are due to end on October 22nd, such as requirements for physical distancing; private indoor mask wearing; and limits on numbers attending indoor and outdoor events.

The measures being announced today will mark the most significant change to how the pandemic is managed since March of last year, shifting responsibility to people to use their own judgment and personal responsibility rather than the Government exhaustively regulating social interactions.

A Catholic priest, five Religious sisters from the Missionaries of Charity, the order founded by Mother Theresa, and 14 disabled children from an orphanage were safely evacuated from Kabul last week.

Father Giovanni Scalese had spent eight years in Kabul, offering daily Mass for foreign residents in the city at the only Catholic church in Afghanistan, located inside the Italian embassy.

“I would never have returned to Italy without these children,” Father Scalese told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

The children were residents of an orphanage founded in 2006 by the Missionaries of Charity, which has now been forced to close due to the Taliban’s takeover.

Sister Bhatti Shahnaz, another Catholic religious sister who arrived in Rome on the evacuation flight, also worked with disabled children in Afghanistan with her community, the Sisters of Charity of St. Jeanne Antide.

“The 50 intellectually disabled children we looked after are still there,” she said with tears in her eyes.

Italy has welcomed 2,659 evacuated Afghans, about a third of them children, according to the Italian Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini.

Father Matteo Sanavio, the president of the NGO For the Children of Kabul, said: “We really must thank the Italian forces for their work and dedication, for everything … They managed to bring the nuns to safety, these little seeds of Christian charity present in Afghanistan, and above all, we must thank them for having brought our children, those of the Missionaries of Charity, who have severe disabilities.”

The long-time partner of a woman who died is suing the Minister for Social Protection to grant him the Widower’s Pension despite him not having been married.

The action has been taken by John O’Meara, whose partner of over twenty years Ms Michelle Batey died on January 31 last as a result of contacting Covid-19.

He claims that sections of the 2005 Social Welfare Consolidation Act which excludes him from receiving the pension, because he was not married to nor had entered into a formal civil partnership with his late partner, despite their long relationship together amounts to a discrimination.

The couple, who never married, have three children together, all of whom are minors. The court heard that Mr O’Meara had planned to marry Ms Batey but they couple were unable to go through with their plans.

The Italian State rescued a Christian Afghan family from Kabul last week.

They were brought out on an airlift organised by the Italian government to rescue Italian nationals and Afghans at risk.

A Catholic charity, the Fondazione Meet Human, accepted responsibility for the group of people once in Italy, which includes eight minors.

The Italian military helped solve the problem of getting them to the Kabul airport, an operation that was successful on Thursday of last week.

“We are grateful to Italian civilian and military authorities for this complicated and demanding rescue operation, not to mention the many people who worked for its success. It might be a drop in the ocean, but the ocean is made up of drops,” President of the charity, Daniele Nembrini, told AsiaNews.

A large and varied group of human rights experts and advocates for religious freedom have urged U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to re-designate Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern. The State Department is currently preparing a list of Countries of Particular Concern (CPC) for nations who have “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom”. The list will be released in December.

“Now is not the time for the United States to pull back its pressure on a regime whose ham-fisted overreach is exacerbating its country’s human rights problems. The pressure must remain, not only because of religious freedom concerns, but because of all the human rights concerns facing Nigeria. Any let up by the U.S. and the international community will signal to the people of Nigeria that they have been abandoned. We cannot stand by while the Nigerian government allows terrorists and criminals to attack faith communities and commit gross human rights violations with impunity. Nigeria must remain a Country of Particular Concern,” said Kelsey Zorzi, Director of Global Religious Freedom for ADF International.

A majority of Irish prisoners abroad identified prayer and spirituality as “the most helpful” means of managing stress and anxiety.

That’s according to a survey conducted by the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas (ICPO), an agency of the Catholic bishops.

Of the 1,100 Irish prisoners surveyed in 30 countries, almost 70 per cent were in UK prisons with the remainder in jails in the US, Europe, and Australia.

The unprecedented survey was conducted in the final quarter of last year by the ICPO, which was set up by the Catholic bishops in 1985 to work with Irish prisoners overseas regardless of faith, conviction or prisoner status.

Commenting on the survey findings, Bishop Denis Brennan, chair of the ICPO said, “Our survey highlights the mental health difficulties experienced by Irish people who are in prison abroad.  While it is widely accepted that such problems are a reality for many in prison at home, in the case of a citizen in prison in a foreign country these are exacerbated by time; distance, especially from loved ones and family; finance; isolation; language, and a myriad of potential cultural barriers.”

Bishop Brennan continued, “I am concerned by the relatively high number of survey respondents indicating an absence of a clear sense of direction after their release from prison.  It seems that such uncertainty is a consequence of resettlement supports being withheld from foreign national prisoners in a number of countries and the inability for many to access educational, resettlement and offender behaviour courses during the pandemic”.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/one-in-four-irish-prisoners-abroad-experience-racism-survey-finds-1.4656861

https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2021/08/26/icpo-survey-60-of-irish-prisoners-abroad-experience-mental-health-difficulties/

A sexual consent education programme for students in second level was launched on Tuesday, which includes workshops for teenagers and seminars for parents.

The programme was developed by Active Consent researchers at NUI Galway over the last two years and is aimed at 15- to 17-year-olds. The programme does not say whether anything more than consent is morally necessary before a couple has sex.

It also includes seminars for parents and resources to increase ‘critical skills’ about topics such as body image, pornography and consent. One of the researchers is Kate Dawson who believes in ‘ethical’ pornography.

The programme aims to teach young people how to be knowledgeable and confident about consent, that consent should be “ongoing, mutual and freely given”.

It aims to help young people recognise the impact of gender, alcohol and drugs on sex and to teach the legal meaning of consent.

The programme will offer a 10-credit professional development module from September, as well as consent workshop training for teachers.

The experience of working from home during the pandemic has given many parents in the US the desire to continue with the arrangement.

More than half of American parents with children under age 18 said that COVID-19 has made them more likely to prefer working from home for a significant portion of time.

That’s according to a new survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of the Institute of Family Studies (IFS) and the Wheatley Institution in the US.

33% of the parents said they would work at home most of the time, while an additional 20% said they would prefer to work at home half of the time.

The respondents also chose “both parents work flexible hours and share child care” as the best child care arrangement for families with kids ages 0-4.

Mothers were more likely than fathers to prefer that option (37% vs. 25%).

Pro-life prayer vigils and protests have taken place across at least 10 counties, according to research currently being carried out by Maynooth University in collaboration with the activist ‘Together for Safety Campaign‘.

They found that pro-life campaigners have gathered outside GP surgeries and clinics in Cork, Donegal, Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Louth, Roscommon, Tipperary, Waterford, and Wicklow.

There have also been a pro-life presence outside maternity hospitals in Galway, Cork, Drogheda, and Dublin since January 2019 when the abortion regime was rolled out.

Protests were reported outside Limerick Hospital on 17 days in February and March, when the country was under level 5 lockdown.

Camilla Fitzsimons of NUI Maynooth said she has received reports of demonstrators praying loudly, holding up graphic placards, and distributing leaflets outside healthcare facilities.

She added that a number of respondents raised concerns about the impact so called “safe access zones” could have on the right to protest.

Lord David Alton is urging UK politicians to defend religious freedom around the world and shine a light on the “horrendous atrocities” being perpetrated against people of faith.

The crossbench peer said solutions needed to be found for minorities in Afghanistan after the Taliban seized control last week.

“The last few days have been dominated by the appalling news from Afghanistan and the ever-growing fear of what this will mean for women and girls, religious minorities and countless others,” he said.

“That fear is grounded in our knowledge of what they have done before – by the horrific legacy of the atrocities perpetrated by the Taliban. We need to find solutions to help all those at risk.”

Lord Alton made the comments in his capacity as vice chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Freedom of Religion or Belief.