Pope Francis has described as “a martyr” Fr Jacques Hamel, the elderly French priest murdered in his church by Islamist terrorists. At a Mass offered for the late cleric, the Pontiff said: “Today there are Christians murdered, tortured, imprisoned, and slaughtered because they do not deny Jesus Christ. In this history, we come to our Père Jacques. He is part of this chain of martyrs…Father Jacques Hamel had his throat slit on the Cross, precisely as he was celebrating the Sacrifice of the Cross of Christ. A good man, meek, fraternal, who always sought to make peace, was murdered as if he were a criminal.” The Pope went on to state that “to kill in the name of God is satanic”. The Pope’s description of Fr Hamal as a martyr has strengthened the belief that the priest will ultimately be canonised.

Former sex workers have called for the Government to criminalise the purchase of sex. As part of the Turn Off the Red Light campaign, which sees 70 organisations lobbying for the passage of the Criminal Justice (Sexual Offences) Bill 2015, a group of women who had previously worked in prostitution met with legislators to explain how enforcement of the Bill would tackle the sex trade by penalising buyers, as is the practice in Sweden and other Nordic countries.

Turn Off The Red Light estimates that on any given day, between 800 and 1,000 women, men and children in Ireland are advertised online for sex. It says that between 87% and 98% of them are migrant women and many are from impoverished backgrounds.

Scientists in Britain have reportedly found a way to create ‘motherless children’ following experimentation involving DNA from two men. While the building blocks of life naturally arise from sperm and egg, researchers believe they have found a method by which embryos could be created from any cells in the human body. Thus far, scientists have created mice from early experiments and will now look to using human skin cells. The experiments raise the possibility of single men and gay couples having their own children through sharing DNA, though at this point a woman would still be required to act as a surrogate for the developing infant.

The Catholic Archdiocese of San Antonio in Texas has condemned the publication of a full-page ad in a daily newspaper claiming that “public funding for abortion is a Catholic social justice value”. In a statement reacting to the Catholics for Choice ad in the San Antonio Express-News, the archdiocese said it “misrepresents the truth and what the Catholic Church believes and teaches”. “This misrepresentation is demonstrated by their statement that ‘Public funding for abortion is a Catholic social justice value,’” the statement continued. “Nothing could be further from the truth…It is our hope that one day Catholics for Choice will take the time to acquaint themselves with basic Catholic teachings, and acknowledge the truth of the Catholic faith, and not choose to misrepresent her teachings with false and inaccurate information and ads that only work to confuse and mislead the public.”

Women in Britain are freezing their eggs as they take longer to find a suitable partner, new research has shown. In a study conducted among 31 women who have frozen their eggs, by Kylie Baldwin, a PhD student at De Montfort University, it was found that none of the women had undertaken the process due to career reasons but instead had pursued their careers as they had not yet found a man deemed suitable for starting a family. “It was the absence of this particular type of potential father, not just the absence of any partner, that led them to freeze the eggs,” Baldwin said. “It’s about having the right dad for their child.” Freezing ova for later fertilisation was first offered to cancer patients whose treatment caused permanent sterility to allow them to have children after treatment. Now it is most common among women simply choosing to delay motherhood.

Christians in Egypt have said they are “at breaking point” amid ongoing violent attacks on them by Muslim extremists. A report in the New York Times reveals that the Christian community faces regular house burnings, attacks on Christians in the streets and hate graffiti on church walls. “We are at a breaking point,” Bishop Makarios of the city of Minya said. “People can’t put up with any more of this.” Meanwhile, the government-appointed imam charged with maintaining peace between communities insists there is no problem. “No one has been killed,” Imam Mahmoud Gomaa said. “No one has even been wounded. There’s no conflict. The problem is really with the journalists writing about it.”