The Health Minister has been accused of supporting the option of assisted suicide for all who are terminally ill, while restricting medical cards for the dying to those in the final year of their life, according to Ógra Aontú.

Currently, it is possible for patients who are terminally ill to get an emergency medical card, but only those with 12 months to live qualify for them.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly had given assurances that reform would be forthcoming, but Budget 2021 included no such provisions.

Aontu’s Becky Kealy says the Minister recently voted for socialist TD, Gino Kenny’s assisted suicide bill which empowers doctors to administer a lethal substance to consenting, terminally ill patients. The bill contains no restriction on how long someone has left to live to qualify for the procedure.

However, she said the Minister has failed to extend medical cards to many of the same individuals.

The Royal College of Physicians of Ireland have updated their position paper on assisted suicide reaffirming their opposition to the measure.

Last published in December 2017, the College officially opposes the introduction of any legislation supportive of assisted suicide because it is contrary to best medical practice.

The RCPI says it promotes a considered and compassionate approach to caring for, and proactively meeting the needs and concerns of patients who may be approaching the end of their life.

That RCPI also commits itself as a body to promote adherence to the Medical Council’s current Guide on Professional Medical Conduct and Ethics for Registered Medical Practitioners guidance on End of Life Care.

Research into the paper brought together representatives from a range of medical specialities within RCPI, including Geriatric Medicine, Neurology, Palliative Medicine, Respiratory Medicine, Rehabilitation Medicine, and Psychiatry, to review the matter of Assisted Suicide. The group reviewed arguments on both sides of the debate and examined international evidence from jurisdictions where assisted suicide had been introduced. The group also looked at the positions of medical professional bodies throughout the world on this issue.

The group considered the arguments and the literature in the context of RCPI’s emphasis on principles of medical ethics in medical training and the Medical Council’s Guide on Professional Medical Conduct and Ethics for Registered Medical Practitioners.

The Archbishop of Dublin has appealed for people to be allowed to attend mass, saying they are being deprived of their worship.

Speaking to Pat Kenny on Newstalk, Diarmuid Martin said Ireland is the only country in Europe with a blanket ban on public worship from level three onwards.

On Thursday, while speaking at an online gathering of the Dublin Council of Churches, he said “There can be a justification for the closing of churches, especially at crucial moments or to protect vulnerable people”. But, he warned that “such measures should however be limited to the minimum period necessary”

“For Catholics, the celebration of Mass and the sacraments is at the very heart of what it means for us to be a Christian community. These are not simply ‘gatherings’ of people, but profound expressions of who we are as a Church.

“For parishes and individual Catholics the loss of these spiritual supports can be a source of great anxiety and fear and can have a detrimental impact on their overall health and well-being,” the archbishop said.

The four catholic Archbishops wrote to Taoiseach Micheál Martin last week expressing concern at the ban on public worship. They requested a meeting with the Taoiseach and are still awaiting a reply.

The latest coronavirus restrictions in Northern Ireland preserve the celebration of public mass and religious services.

For regularly scheduled worship, the only limit on numbers is that there be room for social distancing.

But weddings and funerals will be limited to 25 people.

The Catholic diocese of Clogher covers both sides of the border, with some parishes straddling the border itself.

Bishop Larry Duffy said the conflicting regulations means public mass can continue in the North, but is banned in the south:

The Seanad has passed a motion condemning China for human rights violations against Uighur Muslims and other minorities in Xinjiang province.

The resolution proposed by Senator Ronan Mullen noted the mass arrest and internment of at least one million Uighur men on arbitrary grounds without due process; physical and psychological abuse of those detained, including torture and forced labour; the forced separation of children from their families; forced re-education of children to compel them to abandon their language and culture; sustained surveillance and intimidation against the wider population; coercion of women to undergo abortions, sterilisations, and the insertion of intrauterine devices under threat of arrest and internment, as a means of controlling the population of the minority groups; and, sustained attacks upon the culture, language and religion of minority groups.

The motion, seconded by Senator Michael McDowell, called on the Government to condemn the practices unreservedly; and to call on China to bring to an immediate end to the measures and to allow United Nations human rights monitors to access detention centres in the region.

It also called for all available trade and diplomatic channels, including the United Nations Security Council, to insist on the observance of basic human rights protections for the Uyghur Muslim population and for all citizens of the People’s Republic of China.

While broadly supporting restrictions, Senator Ronan Mullen suggested a lack of discernment and refinement in the area of public worship.

“It is fair to say that the people who attend churches primarily are a demographic who are highly compliant and mainly, but not exclusively, older people. Most of us have probably been in churches and will have seen the remarkable attention to detail in terms of sanitising before and after services, and the stewarding of people to ensure that traffic is one-way.”

He continued: “If everybody was as good at observing the restrictions as churches across the board and those attending them have been, we would not be facing the challenges we currently face. That ought to be acknowledged. Many of the people who value their ability to go to church are among those facing the most restrictions otherwise.”

He concluded that there must be a rethink in that regard.

The Dutch government is considering allowing euthanasia for terminally-ill children aged one to 12 years old. Campaigners say it is another example of how quickly the grounds for euthanasia expand.

Children in the Netherlands can access euthanasia from the age of 12 and doctors are allowed to provide euthanasia to babies up to one year old in limited circumstances.

The country’s health minister Hugo de Jonge raised the issue of making it possible to help terminally-ill children and spoke about doctors having to give palliative sedation and terminating the children’s lives.

This is based on a report made by experts last year which said doctors are afraid of the consequences if they give lethal drugs to children.

The health minister added that he wants to ensure there would be legal guarantees for doctors and ‘protection of the children’s rights’.

The largest inter-denominational evangelical seminary in the United States will be able to uphold its religious standards for students, a judge in the State of California ruled.

The district court blocked a lawsuit from two LGBT students who were expelled from Fuller Theological Seminary (FTS) in 2018 and in 2017 for being in same-sex marriages. In so doing, they went against the seminary’s sexual standards policy. According to this policy, which all students agree to follow throughout their theological training, Fuller limits the definition of marriage to a heterosexual union and prohibits extramarital sex.

The judge said “the Court is not permitted to scrutinise the interpretation [the seminary] gives to its religious beliefs”.

State secondary schools must phase out a range of Catholic influences such as mandatory graduation masses, the display of exclusively Catholic symbols, and visits from diocesan inspectors. There is no indication that parents have been consulted about this.

The new rules will apply to more than 200 secondary schools run by the State’s Education and Training Boards (ETBs) – formerly vocational schools – which are officially categorised as multidenominational.

The “framework for the recognition of religious belief/identities of all students in ETB schools” outlines steps schools should follow to bring them into line with a multidenominational ethos. They include that any religious symbols on display must reflect the beliefs of the wider school community rather than one particular religion. It also means schools that symbolically represent religious celebrations should ensure balance, such as a school displaying a crib at Christmas but also Islamic symbols for Eid.”

A request by Ireland’s four Catholic Archbishops to ease Covid-19 restrictions on churches to allow public celebrations of the Mass has been described as unrealistic and inappropriate in an Irish Times editorial, even though the Republic is still the only place in Europe stopping public worship.

The paper argued against the request as the Archbishop of Dublin had said last month, when Level 3 restrictions were introduced in Dublin city and county, that the measures were “appropriate at this time.”

They likewise quoted him citing a Vatican document in his September 19 statement which he said “strongly supports the application of restrictive measures and ‘painful decisions even to the point of suspending the participation of the faithful in the celebration of the Eucharist for a long period’, when the need is great.”

The editorial also cited the age profile of congregants, and objected to the Catholic church receiving any special treatment.