England’s Catholic bishops have told the UK government they “have not yet seen any evidence whatsoever that would make the banning of communal worship” necessary in the battle against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, as England prepares to enter its second coronavirus lockdown on Thursday.
Under the government’s proposals all pubs, restaurants, gyms, non-essential shops and places of worship in England will close, although private prayer in places of worship can continue. However, unlike the previous lockdown in the spring, schools will remain open. The government will also allow funerals to take place.
In a letter signed by Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster and Archbishop Malcolm McMahon of Liverpool – the president and vice president of the conference – the bishops said the new national lockdown in England will “bring hardship, distress and suffering to many.”
“Our communities have done a great deal to make our churches safe places in which all have been able to gather in supervised and disciplined ways. It is thus a source of deep anguish now that the Government is requiring, once again, the cessation of public communal worship,” the bishops’ letter reads.
Meanwhile, numerous Bishops have asked Catholics to lobby their MPs that public worship be exempted from the planned legislation.
In the ten years up to 2018, the number of births in Ireland had fallen by 18.8pc, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office, with the age of first-time mothers rising.
The Vital Statistics Annual Report 2018 also shows the average age of mothers continues to rise with it being 32.9 years in 2018. Mothers under the age of 30 accounted for 27.1pc of births in 2018 compared with ten years previous when mothers under 30 accounted for 39.3pc of births.
Mothers giving birth over the age of 40 in 2018 had risen by 42pc since 2008.
The number of births from teenage mothers has dramatically decreased in the past ten years with a 60.2pc decrease from 2008 to 2018. There were 956 births to mothers under 20 years of age in 2018 which is down from 2,402 in 2008.
There were 61,022 live births in Ireland in 2018, and 31,140 deaths. The natural increase in population (births minus deaths) in 2018 was 29,882, which is a decrease of 4.9pc on the 2017 figure. overall population of the country. The natural increase in 2008 was 46,899, 36.3% more than the 2018 figure.
A Greek Orthodox priest has been seriously wounded in a shooting in the French city of Lyon on Saturday, officials say.
The incident came days after three people were killed in a knife attack at a church in the southern city of Nice.
French President Emmanuel Macron called the killings an “Islamist terrorist attack” and deployed thousands of extra soldiers to protect public sites, including places of worship.
In Lyon, the gunman fled the scene, sparking a manhunt.
Authorities have opened an investigation of attempted murder.
A suspect resembling witness descriptions was later taken into custody, but has since been released. The prosecutor’s office said it found no evidence of the man’s involvement, suggesting the gunman could still be at large.
New Zealand has voted in a referendum to legalise euthanasia. A concurrent vote to allow the recreational use of marijuana looks set to be rejected.
The vote on assisted suicide has already secured enough “yes” ballots – 65.2% – to become law, meaning New Zealand will become the seventh country in the world to legalise euthanasia. In Ireland, a vote recently moved a Private Member’s Bill that would permit assisted suicide to second stage.
As a result of the New Zealand vote, from November 2021 terminally ill patients deemed likely to have less than six months to live will be able to avail of assisted suicide.
They must be 18 and have the approval of two doctors, newly passed legislation states.
The final results of both referendums will be formally announced on 6 November.
The French Government have ordered that public worship cease during the latest coronavirus restrictions. Churches will not close until Monday November 2nd to allow traditional religious celebrations for All-Saints Day over the weekend.
The president of the Bishops’ Conference had written to President Macron asking to keep public worship in case of a new lockdown but after a meeting with religious representatives on Wednesday, the Minister for Internal Affair announced that religious celebrations would stop.
In Germany, Italy, Spain and many other European countries by contrast, churches will stay open.
Some Bishops have publicly contested the new rule.
Mgr Dominique Rey, the Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon, tweeted that freedom of worship is not negotiable. “If shops and schools remain open, Catholics must have the right to attend mass.”
The Geneva Consensus Declaration rejects claims that abortion is a human right.
It also defends countries from having gender ideologies imposed on them through UN agencies.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops welcomed the move.
Kansas Archbishop, Joseph Naumann, said he hopes it will help nations to stand against powerful international forces that promote abortion and undermine the family.
An attacker killed three people at a church in Nice, police in the French city said Thursday.
The incident took place at the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Nice Oct. 29 at around 9am local time, according to French media.
The French newspaper Le Figaro reported that one of the victims, an elderly woman, was found “nearly beheaded” inside the church. It said that a man, identified as the sacristan, was also found dead inside of the basilica. A third victim, a woman, is said to have taken refuge in a nearby cafe, where she died from stab wounds.
Bishop André Marceau of Nice said that all churches in Nice had been closed and would remain under police protection until further notice.
Cardinal Robert Sarah wrote on Twitter: “Islamism is a monstrous fanaticism which must be fought with force and determination … Unfortunately, we Africans know this too well. The barbarians are always the enemies of peace. The West, today France, must understand this.”
Freedom of conscience’ is on trial’ at an upcoming case before the European Court of Human Rights.
The litigant who took Asher’s Bakery to court for refusing to furnish him with a cake that said “Support Gay Marriage” lost his case in the UK Supreme Court. Now he has appealed to Europe.
In support of the Bakery, Legal Counsel for ADF International, Lorcán Price, said nobody should be forced to act against their deeply held beliefs, or to choose between their conscience and their profession.
“The right to freedom of religion and conscience contains the right to act accordingly, including in a professional setting. In its judgment in 2018 the UK Supreme Court rightly upheld the religious rights of service providers.”
The UK Supreme Court drew attention to the fact that the Ashers Baking Company declined to create a particular message; they did not decline to serve the customer.
“If creative professionals are forced to create messages with which they profoundly disagree, the implications are wide-ranging for many others in society,” said Robert Clarke, Deputy Director of ADF International.
As protests against a ban on abortions for babies with disabilities gripped Poland, Pope Francis urged the people of the country to defend life.
Addressing Polish pilgrims during his weekly general audience Oct. 28, the pope invoked the memory of St. John Paul II, who “always urged a privileged love for the least and the defenseless and for the protection of every human being, from conception to natural death.”
The Pope prayed that God would “arouse in everyone’s hearts respect for the life of our brothers and sisters, especially of the most fragile and defenseless, and would give strength to those who welcome and take care of them, even when it requires a heroic love.”
Poland’s Constitutional Court ruled Oct. 22 that a clause in Poland’s 1993 abortion law allowing pregnancy terminations in cases of “severe and irreparable fetal damage” was unconstitutional.
The decision provoked outrage from some, prompting demonstrators to enter churches in protest during Masses Oct. 25 in Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan and other cities. They also sprayed graffiti on the walls of churches and blocked traffic in cities all over the country.
Archbishop Stanislaw Gadecki of Poznan, conference president, said that “the vulgarities, abusive daubings, service disruptions and profanations seen in recent days are not a proper form of action in a democratic state, however much they may help certain people relieve their emotions.”
Rates of births, marriages and adoptions continue to fall in Ireland while the death rate increases.
The 2019 annual report of the Civil Registration Service, published on Tuesday, says there were 60,173 births in 2019, a drop of 1,728 on the 61,901 births registered during 2018, itself a decrease of 2.8 per cent on the 2017 figure. This steady decrease has continued from a peak in 2008, when more than 75,000 births were registered. Births registered in 2019 were a fifth less than in 2008.
In 2019, 20,335 marriages were registered in Ireland, a drop of 3.4 per cent on the 2018 figure and 7.7 per cent lower that the average for 2016-2018.
Meanwhile, Irish death rates continue to increase, with 32,084 registered in 2019. Of these, 52.5 per cent were male and 47.5 per cent female. Numbers dying in Ireland have shown a slight increase every year since 2016. In 2018 the figure was 31,232, in 2017 it was 31,385 and in 2016 it was 32,029.
