The North’s Humanists are engaging in a public campaign to raise the number of people who declare themselves to be of no religion.
They are encouraging people who are “not in any meaningful sense religious” to tick the “None” box when asked about their beliefs in this year’s census.
As a result of the pandemic, instead of adverts in public spaces, the community is focusing on online advertising, press adverts and distributing posters for members to display in their windows for the campaign.
Boyd Sleator, the Northern Ireland Humanists co-ordinator, believes many people tick a religious box because of their family history or cultural background. “But you should understand that if you do that then you will be counted as fully religious in the eyes of policymakers,” he says.
He offers a political argument for declaring otherwise.
Census results are used by government and local authorities to make policy decisions on the allocation of funding to state services such as education, health, social care and pastoral care, Sleator says.
Continuing religious segregation in state schools is “justified” based on census results, he adds, as is the requirement for Christian worship in state schools “and aspects of our constitutional settlement like, for example, the ongoing presence of 26 bishops voting in parliament”.
“If you don’t want this to happen, then you should tick ‘None’,” he says.
A 43-year-old woman has won the right to implant eggs fertilised with the sperm of her ex-husband against his will in a first for the Italian justice system.
Judges in the town of Santa Maria Capua Vetere, in the southern region of Campania, said that a 2004 law on medically assisted pregnancy allowed people to withdraw their consent up to, but not after, the moment that an egg was fertilised.
The woman said she hoped that her legal victory would help other women and children. “I believe in good conscience that I have done something useful for lots of other women in my situation and for the many individuals conceived in frozen test tubes, to whom until now the law did not offer an alternative,” she said.
About 20 years ago a court in Bologna gave an opposite ruling, upholding the right of the potential father not to have a child.
A lawyer said that this ruling could imply a significant economic burden for the reluctant father, who would be responsible for maintenance until the child was financially independent.
Speaking at their annual conference over the weekend, Co-leader, Catherine Murphy TD said social democracy strives for a Republic of equals, a real Republic which recognises that achieving equality is about more than just providing opportunities—its about ensuring fair outcomes.
“This Republic of equals must be rights based, modern and pluralistic. Civic society must exist separately. For that reason, a modern democracy has to include separating Church and State”.
She continued: “The Social Democrats respect the role of different faiths in the lives of many people, but the blurring of the lines between Church and State that led to so many abuses is still unfortunately part of modern Ireland. We are seeking an agreed approach and we are calling for a Citizens’ Assembly to be established to look at the role of religion in areas like health, and education, and in public life”.
“This would be done in a respectful, deliberative, and evidence-based way, which has been the hallmark of Citizens’ Assemblies to date.”
The Dutch parliament on Thursday became the first European legislature to call the Chinese treatment of its Uighur Muslim minority a “genocide.”
The vote to pass the motion, which is nonbinding, could encourage other European parliaments to advance similar statements. A genocide label can carry legal ramifications in international bodies, in addition to drawing attention to a situation.
Canada’s parliament did so the previous Monday, passing a non-binding motion. The Canadian parliament also wants the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing to be moved if China persists in its behaviour. The U.S. State Department, under previous President Donald Trump, has also stated that China is committing genocide.
Lawmakers in France and the U.K. have also been trying to take a stance against the treatment of Uighur people in China.
Meanwhile, in Ireland, Oireachtas members signed up to an international cross-party alliance of lawmakers who are trying to create a coordinated response to counter China on global trade, security and human rights.
Three senators and one TD have joined the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China (IPAC) in a bid to secure a tougher stance on China from the Irish government.
More than €20 million has been allocated for the rollout of abortion in hospital and community settings throughout the country since January 2019, according to official figures.
The HSE detailed the spending in a written reply to a Parliamentary Question from Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín. They confirm in the reply that €11.5 million was allocated in 2019 and a further €9.5 million in 2020.
Spokesperson for the Pro Life Campaign Eilís Mulroy said the funding was used to cover the costs of abortion provision and advertising, but “not a cent of the vast allocation of funding was spent on promoting positive alternatives to abortion, or on ensuring that women contemplating abortion are informed about these alternatives and the supports that are available”.
She added that in 2019, the first year of the rollout of abortion provision, there was a 60% increase in the number of abortions that took place. The figures for 2020 will be released later this year.
“It is a national scandal that the people who presided over a 60% increase in abortions in a single year are the very same people who are stonewalling women from getting access to information about positive alternatives to abortion. It is also a scandal that taxpayers’ money is being used to fund abortions and facilitate an extreme pro-abortion agenda.”
“We must continue to take every opportunity to challenge and expose what is taking place in the name of ‘choice’ and to find better solutions for women in unplanned pregnancy and their babies”, Ms. Mulroy concluded.
A challenge by entrepreneur Declan Ganley over the Level 5 ban on public worship has been adjourned again. Ireland and Slovenia are currently the only two countries in the EU banning public worship in the fight about Covid-19.
This is the fourth such adjournment.
The High Court has set a date for a new hearing on March 23rd.
The Co Galway based Chairman & CEO of Rivada Networks, a practising Catholic, says that as a result of the restrictions, he cannot leave his home to attend Mass in breach of the State’s guarantee of the free practice of religion in Article 44 of the Constitution.
Last November, he sought leave to bring judicial review proceedings against the Minister for Health, with Ireland and the Attorney General as notice parties. Similar cases have succeeded overseas.
The sides have since agreed the action can be dealt with via a “telescoped” hearing in which the leave application and full case are heard together.
China has reportedly betrayed its deal with the Vatican regarding the appointment of bishops.
That’s according to Nina Shea the director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom.
Writing in National Review, she said Beijing has quietly indicated that it will soon abrogate its “breakthrough” 2018 agreement with the Vatican, which was meant to settle a decades-long dispute over the appointment of bishops in China.
“In November, shortly after exchanging diplomatic notes verbales with Rome to renew the deal for another two years, China thoroughly negated it in a dry public posting by the state bureaucracy. Order No. 15, on new administrative rules for religious affairs, includes an article on establishing a process for the selection of Catholic bishops in China after May 1. The document makes no provision for any papal role in the process, not even a papal right to approve or veto episcopal appointments in China, which was supposed to be the single substantive concession to the Vatican in the agreement”.
She added, “it’s as if the deal never happened”.
The Council for Healthcare of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference has urged everyone to support the Covid-19 vaccination programmes currently in place in Ireland, north and south of the border.
In a statement released yesterday, they said the development and provision of the vaccines “is already providing reassurance for those who are most vulnerable to the virus and will help us to return to normality in terms of work, education, religious practice, and sporting and leisure activities as soon as possible”.
They encourage all parishes and Church personnel to promote the vaccination programmes and to encourage elderly parishioners, relatives and neighbours to avail of the opportunity to protect their health and the health of the whole community.
In addition, they also called on the Department of Health and public health authorities “to make vaccines available to carers in the Republic of Ireland as a matter of priority and to priests who are chaplains to nursing care facilities and who preside at funerals”.
Religious freedom is being eroded in the global response to the coronavirus pandemic, the Vatican’s foreign minister said in a video message to the United Nations Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
“The Holy See would like to reiterate the urgency of protecting the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. In particular, religious belief, and the expression thereof, lies at the core of the dignity of the human person, in his or her conscience,” Archbishop Paul Gallagher said.
Gallagher, the Holy See’s secretary for relations with states, said that “the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic reveals that this robust understanding of religious freedom is being eroded.”
“The Holy See would like to stress that, as is recognised in numerous human rights instruments, the freedom of religion also protects its public witness and expression — both individually and collectively, publicly and privately — in forms of worship, observance and teaching,” he said.
Church leaders in China in collaboration with the State will embark on a re-education of their members in communist party thinking in the run-up to the centenary of the CCP’s founding in July.
That’s according to a report by Fr. Bernardo Cervellera, head of the AsiaNews press agency and a missionary with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME) who previously lived in Beijing where he taught History of Western Civilisation at Peking University (Beida).
On July 23rd, the Church will hold a symposium “in memory of the centenary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party” and will deepen their understanding of “the moving events during the period of the Long March”, which laid the foundations for the definitive victory of Mao Zedong over Chiang Kai Shek.
The symposium and the study of the Long March are just some of the events that will characterize the program of ecclesial commitments drawn up by the Council of Bishops and the PA for this year.
There will also be “formation courses in collaboration with the Central Institute of Socialism”; preparatory courses for the national gathering of the “Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference” (held in March); the “construction of the Patriotic Association”, and much more.
