The Vatican has used a diplomatic channel to protest some aspects of a draft Italian hate-crime bill.

The so-called “Zan bill” is meant to combat intolerance of homosexuality and transgenderism, but the Holy See has argued that the generic wording of the bill would violate the guarantee of religious freedom by essentially outlawing Church teaching on marriage and sexuality.

In an interview this week, Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican’s Secretary of State, stressed that in no way had they asked for the law to be blocked.

“We are against any attitude or gesture of intolerance of hatred towards people because of their sexual orientation, as well as their ethnicity or their beliefs,” he said, insisting that for the Vatican, the issue involves “problems that could arise if a test with vague and uncertain contents were adopted”.

Specifically, he said that without a proper definition, the concept of discrimination in the bill risks “making any possible distinction between man and woman punishable, with consequences that can prove to be paradoxical,” adding that, “the need for definition is particularly important because the legislation moves in an area of criminal relevance where, as is well noted, what is allowed and what is forbidden must be well determined”.

Italian jurist and professor Carlo Cardia, a former member of the joint commission tasked with revising the Holy See’s concordat with Italy, said he believes the bill as currently written is “unconstitutional,” and that freedom of expression is at stake.

The former Master of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) Dr Peter Boylan has again raised the coherence of the ethos of the various parties involved in the proposed relocation of the National Maternity Hospital.

He has claimed the Catholic Church could not give permission for a gift of land to build a hospital that would conduct abortion, even though abortions are currently taking place at St Vincent’s hospital which was founded by the Sisters of Charity and beside which the new NMH will be built under current plans.

In addition, the Vatican has already given the nuns permission to transfer to St Vincent’s Holdings, a charitable company, the site upon which the hospital would be built.

However, Dr Boylan told RTÉ’s DriveTime: “There is no way that the Sisters of Charity will be able to hand over ownership of the land without the permission of the Vatican. The Vatican will not give permission to build a hospital in which abortions will take place”.

St Vincent’s Holdings received a letter last year from law firm, McCann FitzGerald, which said nothing in the charity’s Constitution meant they were bound by canon law.

This is so despite the company’s documents pledging that they would uphold the values and vision of the founder of the Sisters of Charity, Sr Mary Aikenhead.

Archbishop Eamon Martin has previously rejected an argument that the Sisters were engaged in formal or proximate material cooperation with abortion as, he said, “the clear intention of the Sisters in transferring the land and property was for the purposes of a new and much-needed NMH, and that this intention dated back several years, predating the regrettable removal of the Eighth Amendment in the Constitution of Ireland which sadly has given way to a much more liberal abortion regime in this country”.

The National Maternity Hospital, five medical consultants, and a Glasgow laboratory have conceded liability in full in a wrongful abortion case.

Rebecca Price and Patrick Kiely were told in early 2019 that pre-natal tests showed their unborn baby certainly had Trisomy 18 and the pregnancy was not viable. They were advised “in no uncertain terms” that there was no point in waiting for the results of a more comprehensive chromosomal analysis.

Ms Price said she followed the advice of her consultant and had an abortion at the National Maternity Hospital.

Afterwards, it was discovered that the third test involving a fuller analysis of the baby’s chromosomes showed it did not have the condition.

Ms Price says she suffered intense nervous shock, realising that she had aborted a normal, healthy baby.

Ms Price says the management of her pregnancy was grossly substandard and displayed utter genetic illiteracy culminating in the tragic and unnecessary abortion of her son and incalculable loss to her and to Mr Kiely.

She said she had been left with a devastating sense of loss, which could not be filled.

The St Vincent’s Hospital Group (SVHG) has said it must retain ownership of the site that the new National Maternity Hospital is due to be built on even while reiterating that abortions and other procedures contrary to Catholic ethics would be carried out there.

In a statement the group said it is “more than willing” to meet the Government to discuss plans, but “for the delivery of integrated patient care on the Elm Park Campus, SVHG must retain ownership of the site”.

The Government has said it wants to buy the land that the new hospital will be located on amid concerns about ownership and religious ethos.

In a statement on Tuesday, the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group said it “remains committed” to the new hospital.

The group said that “for the avoidance of doubt” the “new National Maternity Hospital will be clinically independent.”

“There will be no religious or Vatican influence”.

The statement added: “All medical procedures, in accordance with the laws of the land, are available in SVHG hospitals, including pregnancy termination, tubal ligation and gender reassignment procedures.”

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.”