The left-wing Mayor of the US city of Portland, Oregon, has announced the removal of gendered language from the city’s charter in a bid to become more inclusive.

The move will see terms including ‘she’, ‘he’, ‘herself’ and ‘himself’ purged from the progressive city’s founding document.

It follows similar action by the cities of Philadelphia, Tulsa and Oklahoma, all of which wiped gendered references from their charters last year.

Berkeley, California has also scrapped words such as manhole, brother and policeman from its law books.

In 2017, Oregon became the first state to allow residents to list their gender as ‘not specified’ when applying for driver’s licenses, learner’s permits and identity cards, Fox News reported.

Under that rule, the cards of those who select the ‘not specified’ option will be marked with an X, rather than an M or F to indicate their gender.

A priest in Co. Cork has been warned by Gardaí that the authorities would “apply the full rigours of the law”, after he celebrated Mass with a small congregation, according to a report in The Irish Catholic.

“I mean, the reality is that the priest can be arrested based on my understanding of what was signed into law,” the priest said, “and that people flaunting the rules can be fined €400 as far as I know. But he [the garda] didn’t define what the penalty would be.”

The Cork priest described himself as a “conscientious objector” with regard to the restrictions on public worship.

“The churches are spotlessly clean: there’s hand sanitiser everywhere, people are social distanced and they’re wearing masks, why can’t we have maybe 20 people coming into a church which has a capacity for 500?” he asked.

He explained that he and another priest had been celebrating Mass publicly for the last few weeks. On average, ten people attended the Masses, which were also streamed on the church’s webcam.

“Obviously someone saw it on the webcam and… they got onto the guards,” he said.

A Catholic student society at Trinity College Dublin has been warned they must stop organising prayer meetings, amid fears of suspension or funding cuts.

The Central Societies Committee has written to the Catholic Laurentian Society to inform them that they can no longer advertise or hold prayer meetings under the society’s banner, as the committee claims it is in breach of the society’s status as a “cultural” society.

The Irish Catholic reports that the society has held prayer meetings for years without issue, and that it is only now that a line has been drawn between worship and culture. A TCD student told the newspaper: “I think my first take on this is that it’s simply unjust.

“If it’s not equally applied, then this is discrimination. If it is evenly applied [to all religious societies], this is anti-religious discrimination. It’s either troubling anti-religious policy from a body that shouldn’t show discrimination to any group of students – their job is to promote college community. Or at best, it shows just a huge indifference and ignorance of what religious culture and Catholic culture specifically is,” the student said.

The Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn has asked the US Supreme Court to block covid19 limits on in-person church attendance.

The Supreme Court rebuffed similar challenges over the summer, but this comes after Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation last month, and the diocese could find more success before the now more conservative court.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) in October limited in-person attendance at church services to either 10 or 25 people, depending on the number of COVID-19 cases in the areas in which a particular church is located. As a practical matter, the diocese contends, the order “effectively bars in-person worship at affected churches – a ‘devastating’ and ‘spiritually harmful’ burden on the Catholic community.” By contrast, the diocese noted, many secular businesses, including “everything from supermarkets to pet stores,” are allowed to stay open.

The diocese went to federal district court in New York, where it argued that Cuomo’s order violates the Constitution’s free exercise clause. Both the district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit declined to block the limits, leading to Thursday’s appeal to the Supreme Court.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s aim for the end of the current lockdown would be a return to level three, which would still leave public worship banned, unless it is amended.

The opening up of mass and other religious services to the public is only allowed in levels 1 and 2 of the Covid-19 restrictions.

If level three continued throughout December, then there would be no public celebration of mass on Christmas day.

The Taoiseach has confirmed he would like to get back to Level 3 restrictions for December 1st. “That was a target,” he said.

Mr Martin did however say the Government was analysing the data and might look at certain sectors to see if they could “moderate” Level 3.

Meanwhile, at the At the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting, Cormac Devlin, the Dun-Laoghaire Rathdown TD, said that subject to public health advice, Level 2 “with tweaks” should be introduced, allowing people to travel home for Christmas, as well as indoor hospitality and religious services to be accommodated.

Cork North-Central TD Pádraig O’Sullivan also raised the issue of public worship.