UK government proposals to make Covid-19 vaccinations mandatory for care home workers and other healthcare professionals are ‘profoundly unethical’, according to a Catholic bioethics expert.

In a statement, David Albert Jones, Director of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, said threats to dismiss or redeploy staff “fails to show respect for those on whom society depends to deliver care, and who have also suffered disproportionate risk and hardship during this pandemic.”

“Such threats also undermine the freedom of the consent that is needed before administering vaccination, or any other medicine.”

Jones added: “Many people, including Pope Francis, have argued that in the current circumstance people have a prima facie duty to accept vaccination against COVID-19. However, insofar as there is such a duty this does not apply in the same way to all, but depends on people’s circumstances. Furthermore, such a duty is not something for public authorities to impose on its population, and especially not on those care workers to whom we, as a society, owe so much.”

Jones continues: “The question that needs to be asked is why people have been reluctant to accept vaccination when it is available. What is needed is an approach that builds trust and also maintains goodwill within the team. Good care depends above all on goodwill and happiness at work among the staff. Staff need to be listened to and to have their concerns addressed or their reasons understood.”

Leading psychiatrists have expressed concern at how quickly safeguards can be removed from assisted suicide legislation and questioned whether it can truly protect the most vulnerable.

In a letter to the Irish Times, Dr Eric Kelleher and Prof Anne Doherty of the College Of Psychiatrists said the experience of Canada demonstrated the reality of the ‘slippery slope’.

“Although those with mental illness alone were initially excluded from accessing physician assisted suicide and euthanasia in 2016, it was subsequently argued that this was discriminatory. Canadian legislators must now determine criteria for those with mental illness, and which suicides are to be assisted and which are to be prevented”.

They added that mental illness, primarily depression, is common in those with chronic illness and cancer, while certain mental disorders can lead to abnormal beliefs about one’s health or longevity. “If those with such disorders develop a terminal illness as set out in the Bill, they may be especially vulnerable to dying from assisted suicide or euthanasia as a consequence of their mental state,” they wrote.

Robert Schuman, a French statesman who was an early advocate for the bloc that evolved into the European Union, has moved ahead on the Catholic church’s path toward possible sainthood.

Pope Francis on Saturday approved a decree declaring the “heroic virtues″ of Schuman, a former prime minister and finance minister after the second world war. In 1950, as foreign minister, he developed a plan to promote European economic unity in hopes of furthering peace.

Schuman died in 1963 after serving as the first president of the forerunner of the European parliament.

The pope’s decision means Schuman can be called “venerable” by the Catholic faithful. It is one of several steps in a usually long process that can result in sainthood.

The Vatican described Schuman as a man of Catholic faith.

“Behind the action of the public man, there was the interiority of the man who lived the sacraments, who, when he could, would take to an abbey, who would reflect on the sacred Word before finding the shape of his political words,” it said.

The Catholic bishops in the US voted overwhelmingly to approve a proposal from their doctrinal committee to draft a document on Eucharistic coherence.

This is the idea that a person’s beliefs and behaviour should be consistent with core teachings on faith and morals.

Its been prompted in part by President Joe Biden taking communion at mass despite his public support for abortion.

Church law says those who ‘publicly’ and ‘obstinately’ persist in ‘grave’ sin should be denied communion, though in practice this discipline is rarely applied.

168 bishops voted in favour of the proposal, 55 voted against it, and there were six abstentions.

Now that the proposal has been approved, the doctrinal committee will draft the document for a vote at the next meeting in November, where it will need a two-thirds majority vote for approval.

Attempts to “demonise” the Sisters of Charity over the National Maternity Hospital are unfair because it agreed to gift the site on which the hospital will be built in a “selfless act”, the Tánaiste has said.

In 2020, the Religious Sisters of Charity announced their intention “to gift to the Irish people” 29 acres of land at the St Vincent’s Hospital site and 3.2 acres of land at St Michael’s Hospital, Dun Laoghaire. The value of those lands is approximately €200 million. The land is under a new independent charity, St Vincent’s Holdings.

The charity would then lease the land to the State for 99 years, with the option of a 50 year extension.

Nonetheless, criticisms have been that somehow the congregation will still try to maintain a pro-life ethos at the hospital.

“The Sisters of Charity have expressed a willingness to gift that site,” Leo Varadkar said. “Gifting it to a charity, I think that’s a very good and selfless act by them. They are withdrawing from healthcare.”

He added: “I think there is an attempt here by some people to demonise the religious here, and that is actually unfair. The archbishop [of Dublin] wants off the board of Holles Street.”

Varadkar said the Sisters of Charity had already removed themselves from the board of St Vincent’s Hospital. He added that the government would prefer to buy the land outright for the new hospital rather than lease it.

A proposed EU report’s characterisation of abortion as a ‘human right’ has been assailed by COMECE, the representative body of Catholic bishops to the European Union.

The Matic report which is scheduled for a vote tomorrow also claims that “a total ban on abortion care or denial of abortion care is a form of gender-based violence.”

In a statement, the secretariat of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union expressed serious concern about the Report’s “one-sided perspective throughout, particularly on the issue of abortion,” because nowhere does it acknowledge that the life of the unborn child is at stake.

In addition, the bishops said that classifying abortion as an ‘essential health service’ that should be available to everyone, “is ethically untenable”.

“A medical intervention of such magnitude cannot and must not become a normal practice; its qualification as an essential service degrades the unborn child.”

“As Church, we are convinced that human life from the beginning, including unborn life, possesses its own dignity and independent right to protection,” the bishops said. “In the church’s view, abortion is not a means of family planning or part of ordinary health care.”

The bishops also noted “with concern and regret that the draft resolution negates the fundamental right to conscientious objection, which is an emanation of freedom of conscience.”

Criticism over the Sisters of Charity gifting a site for the new National Maternity Hospital has reignited.

On Thursday, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar expressed concern in the Dáil about ownership of the land and the proposed new hospital’s governance. The land “has not been gifted to the State but to a private charity”, St Vincent’s Holdings with a 99-year lease to the State, he said.

“A hospital that is almost fully funded by the State should have a significant number, a majority appointed by the Government in my view.”

Mr Varadkar added that the “ideal scenario” would be for the State to own the site.

On Friday, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that in an “ideal world” the State should own hospitals such as the new National Maternity Hospital where “very, very substantial” funding is provided by the taxpayer.

He urged stakeholders – specifying he wasn’t talking about the State – in the hospital project to reflect that the “ultimate objective” is to “look after the women of Ireland, and not to be becoming overly obsessive about ownership”.

The final bill for the new hospital is now expected to reach €800 million.

Politicians were briefed on Thursday that several attempts had been made to purchase the site. Subsequently, the Religious Sisters of Charity said it had “never at any point been contacted by Government or the State to discuss purchasing the site”.

The order has said it will have no role in the operation or ethos of the hospital. The Government has said all procedures legal in the State, including abortion, will be carried out.

On Saturday, it was reported that The Campaign Against Church Ownership of Women’s Healthcare said it would be “unthinkable” for the State to fund a new maternity hospital which had a Catholic ethos.

Labour Senator Ivana Bacik said the new hospital should have a secular charter, unfettered by any religious doctrine. “I remain concerned that the governance arrangements currently proposed will still allow for the influence of Catholic ethos on the type of care provided to patients.

There is no evidence it will have a Catholic ethos.

Also on Saturday, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar said there is a “risk” that the long-planned relocation of the national maternity hospital to the new St Vincent’s site does not go ahead, due to difficulties agreeing a deal for the move,

The State “would be happy” to buy the site for the new hospital from St Vincent’s Hospital Group (SVHG) or the Religious Sisters of Charity.

“In terms of red lines for the Government and for us, this hospital has to be publicly owned, and it has to be the case that any obstetric or gynaecological service that is legal in this State has to be available in that hospital,” he said.

On Sunday, he guaranteed that abortions, IVF and other procedures contrary to Catholic ethos will be carried out in the new hospital.

On Monday, it was reported that the Government would make renewed efforts to explore the acquisition of lands where the new hospital is to be built.

A couple whose healthy unborn baby was aborted as a result of being wrongly advised of a fatal condition are very anxious their case proceeds this week, rather than be delayed by discovery matters, the High Court has heard.

The defendants – Merrion Fetal Health, five of its consultants, the National Maternity Hospital and a laboratory, the Greater Glasgow Health Board (GGHB) – have all offered mediation, the judge was also told.

Moving a discovery application on Thursday, Emily Egan SC, for the clinic defendants and the NMH, served a notice of indemnity and contribution on the GGHB.

Her side’s case centred on the laboratory’s reporting of the results of the testing but, depending on what is in material being sought from the laboratory, it may focus on the analysis carried out.

Her side’s expert had advised, if a particular category of result was identified from the foetal sample, the laboratory should have attached a caveat to its report to the effect, in the presence of a normal ultrasound, there would be no move to abortion without further confirmation.

Luán Ó Braonáin, for the GGHB, said it was very surprised to have received the notice of indemnity and contribution this week. It is too late in the day for Ms Egan’s side to possibly make a different case against the laboratory and this discovery was being sought just days before the hearing, he argued.

The failure to restart family visits and religious services in the State’s prisons, while the rest of society reopens, has been condemned in the Dáil.

Fianna Fáil TD Eamon Ó Cuív, noted that visits to nursing homes had successfully restarted “a considerable time ago” even though residents are “generally much more vulnerable than members of the prison population,” he said.

Minister of State Frankie Feighan announced that the Prison Service is developing a “new framework for the unwinding of prison restrictions”, which will be published later this month.

But Mr Ó Cuív angrily replied: “Don’t tell me, after all these months, that we are drawing up another plan. I don’t want to hear about another big master plan being drawn up. It is most frustrating,” he said.

He said prisoners want dates for when they’re going to be able to see their loved ones.

“Similarly, there’s no excuse for not facilitating religious services,” he said. “We all know how safe they have been in the general populace and how controlled that environment is.

“There’s no reason not to facilitate them. It is totally unfair to put an additional burden of caution on prisons when in society, we balance the other human needs of people in a much fairer way.”

The Children’s Minister has expressed support for criminalising so-called conversion therapy.

Roderic O’Gorman met with the cross-party Anti Conversion Therapy Coalition (ACTC) group, as well as Sinn Féin Senator Fintan Warfield on Tuesday.

The Senator’s Prohibition of Conversion Therapies Bill 2018 would apply to any practice that seeks to change or suppress a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. It would allow someone to legally change their gender, but prohibit anyone else from influencing that person against that change.

A spokesperson for the Minister said that his department has prepared an initial “scoping paper” on the practise, “and intends to move forward with further detailed research which will provide the necessary evidence base for legislative proposals to ban conversion therapy”.

After Tuesday’s meeting, the cross-party group said the Minister expressed an “eagerness” in working with Senator Warfield and his Bill.

While the Minister has not yet decided if the Sinn Féin Bill will be supported, it is understood that he shares the “same goal” of banning the practise.

“Minister O’Gorman highlighted some legal concerns regarding how any legislation could be worded but was optimistic that this could be ironed out with further research and a more holistic view of the shape this practice takes in Ireland,” said a spokesperson for the group.