Pope Francis said Monday that the COVID-19 restrictions must still respect freedom of religion.

In his annual speech to the diplomatic corps, he told the assembly that the need to halt the spread of the virus had implications for a number of fundamental freedoms, including religious freedom, restricting public worship and the educational and charitable activities of faith communities.

“It must be recognized, however, that religion is a fundamental aspect of the human person and of society, and cannot be eliminated. Even as we seek ways to protect human lives from the spread of the virus, we cannot view the spiritual and moral dimension of the human person as less important than physical health”, he said.

He added that freedom of worship is not a corollary of the freedom of assembly.

“It is in essence derived from the right to freedom of religion, which is the primary and fundamental human right. This right must therefore be respected, protected and defended by civil authorities, like the right to bodily and physical health. For that matter, sound care of the body can never ignore care of the soul.”

All parties to a surrogacy agreement will be obliged to sign contracts which would enforce the handing over of the baby, even if the surrogate or the intending parents had changed their mind, if proposals in the UK and the Netherlands become law.

The introduction of “pre-conception agreements” would make a baby’s intended parents its legal parents at birth.

According to a survey in 2018 by Surrogacy UK, 84% of surrogates supported the introduction of pre-conception agreements. These provide assurance for the surrogate that she will not be left legally responsible for a child that she doesn’t consider hers. But the problem with such agreements, says Britta van Beers of Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam, is that “legal certainty is bought at the cost of surrogate mothers”. Some fear that imposing any kind of legally enforceable contract on surrogates limits their rights of bodily autonomy, eg, if she wanted to keep the baby. In America, where surrogacy contracts are common, they detail the circumstances in which a woman can have an abortion. But whatever a woman agrees to in a contract, she may feel differently when she is actually pregnant and faces a conflict between her right to make decisions about her body and her contractual obligations.

The US Supreme Court has ordered that California’s total ban on indoor worship is unconstitutional. In a 6-3 decision, the Court said at most, the state may limit indoor capacity to 25% of normal.

California’s limits on religious services can vary by county, depending on infection rates. However, almost all of the state is in the Tier 1 ranking of viral spread, and this tier bars in-person worship indoors. Critics have said the ban wrongly singles out religious gatherings and is among the strictest in the country.

The Court was acting on emergency requests from two Christian evangelical churches.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that federal courts owe significant deference to politically accountable officials regarding public health, but it “has its limits.”

Roberts wrote that California’s determination “that the maximum number of adherents who can safely worship in the most cavernous cathedral is zero—appears to reflect not expertise or discretion, but instead insufficient appreciation or consideration of the interests at stake.”

Catholic Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone called the ruling “a breath of fresh air in dark times.”

“I want to thank all those who have worked tirelessly to affirm that the worship of God is the most essential service of all, especially the leaders of South Bay and Harvest Rock churches. I’d like also to thank warmly those Catholics who joined me in standing up against abuses of power by signing the petition at FreeTheMass.com,” he said.

The controversial claim had been made by the professional body for GPs in Ireland but was contrary to the findings of the UK court judgment in the case of Keira Bell.

The ICGP guide to providing care for transgender patients, written by Dr Des Crowley and Vanessa Lacey, also stated that cross-sex hormones were “partially reversible interventions”. Crowley is an assistant director of the ICGP addiction management programme, while Lacey is health and education manager with Transgender Equality Network Ireland (Teni), a group that lobbies for transgender rights.

The guide noted that adolescents can be prescribed puberty blockers at Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin, formerly Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital. “This treatment prevents sex steroid hormone release from gonadal tissue and its effect is reversible on discontinuing the treatment,” it stated.

Last week the guide was removed from the ICGP website and later republished with a series of amendments. It now omits any reference to the use of puberty blockers being reversible, and no longer says that oestrogen and testosterone therapy are “partially reversible”.

Pope Francis and Pope emeritus Benedict XVI have both received their second and final dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Pope Francis and Benedict had received the first dose of the vaccine last month, as confirmed by Matteo Bruni, director of the Holy See Press Office.

Vatican residents and employees and their families are receiving their doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine in the atrium of the Paul VI Hall.

Unlike other vaccines, the Pfizer jab was not developed or produced  using cell-lines derived from aborted foetuses, although it was tested on such a line.

Vatican City State, the world’s smallest independent nation-state, has a population of around 800 people. But together with the Holy See, the sovereign entity that predates it, it employs more than 4,000 people.

Vatican journalists traveling with Pope Francis on his trip to Iraq March 5-8 are required to get the vaccination against COVID-19.

The assisted suicide bill should not be progressed as it would do more harm than good, according to the Royal College of Surgeons.

In a submission to the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, they say Deputy Gino Kenny’s bill which grants a legal right to euthanise consenting terminally ill adults would create a precedent “to extend the practice to handicapped and sick individuals also, who do not suffer so much themselves, but rather are a perceived burden to society”.

They add: “Although many supporters of voluntary euthanasia base their case on respect for individual autonomy, it may well be that their understanding of who qualifies for the category of ‘human being’ depends on the quality of human life present. If this were so, it would be logical for them to regard the State as an institution whose duty it was to safeguard and promote the common good of ‘good quality human beings’ and dispose of those who do not meet the agreed criteria.”

The college also say the bill introduces “a fundamental reversal of a medical ethic that has sustained the welfare of patients for centuries”.

“It is at variance with the core values of the medical profession particularly in the area of patient protection. It has the potential to fundamentally damage the doctor/patient relationship. Instead of introducing euthanasia the State would be better employed in providing proper support to palliative care which has been developed largely through voluntary effort.”

One of Nigeria’s most powerful prelates has blasted the new US President’s move to recommence funding international abortions.

In an interview with Crux, Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Abuja said, “It is intriguing that one of Biden’s first official acts is to promote the destruction of human lives domestically and in developing nations.”

“This order does not stand to reason; it violates human dignity,” Kaigama said, adding, “The President should use his office to prioritize the most vulnerable, including unborn children.”

Noting that every pope since the Second Vatican Council down to Pope Francis have described the deliberate killing of a child before or after birth “as a most grievous violation of God’s commandments,” Kaigama insisted that life “must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception.”

Legislating for assisted suicide would undermine the absolute respect for life across society, according to the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland.

In a submission to the Oireachtas Committee on Justice, they say Gino Kenny’s Bill, by accepting the premise that some people are better off dead than alive, “fatally undermines the respect for human life that underpins a compassionate and caring society”.

“If passed into law, it will undercut the efforts of those who are trying to combat the epidemic of suicide among young people in Ireland. If we as a nation determine that killing yourself is an appropriate way to respond to suffering, then we should not be surprised if suicide increases in other contexts and among all age groups (as has happened in the Netherlands)”.

They add that respect for the value of every human life, regardless of physical or mental limitation or projected longevity, is at the core of our attitudes to many issues, including how we view capital punishment, care for the elderly, care for the disabled, palliative care, suicide prevention, homelessness, poverty, the treatment of migrants and refugees, and even military action.

“It would be extreme folly to imagine that we can unravel the value of a human life at one point in our society without undermining it at other points”.

Several former detainees from inside Uighur internment camps in China, and a guard, have told the BBC they experienced or saw evidence of an organised system of mass rape, sexual abuse and torture.

Tursunay Ziawudun, who fled Xinjiang after her release and is now in the US, said women were removed from the cells “every night” and raped by one or more masked Chinese men. She said she was tortured and later gang-raped on three occasions, each time by two or three men.

Another woman described being electrocuted as part of sexual torture: “The woman took me to the room next to where the other girl had been taken in. They had an electric stick, I didn’t know what it was, and it was pushed inside my genital tract, torturing me with an electric shock.”

A leading expert on China’s policies in Xinjiang, Adrian Zenz, told the BBC that the testimony gathered for their story was “some of the most horrendous evidence I have seen since the atrocity began”.

“This confirms the very worst of what we have heard before,” he said. “It provides authoritative and detailed evidence of sexual abuse and torture at a level clearly greater than what we had assumed.”

The Co Galway based Chairman & CEO of Rivada Networks says restrictions on public worship are 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.

When the matter was mentioned before Mr Justice Charles Meenan on Friday, Darren Lehane SC, for Mr Ganley, said his side were awaiting opposition parties from the respondents.

Catherine Donnelly SC, for the respondents, said those papers would be filed later that day.

The judge listed the case for further mention on February 9, when it is expected a hearing date will be sought.