Attacks on Christians and their places of worship in India continued to escalate in both number and severity in the early months of 2020, with 27 violent incidents reported in March alone.

United Christian Forum in India, a Christian organization that advocates on behalf of Christians in India, documented 56 threats against Christians as well as 78 incidents of violence between January and March of 2020.

According to UCF, the attacks were perpetrated by mobs objecting to Christians holding worship services.

Persecution watchdog International Christian Concern warns that while India’s national lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down the number of attacks on Christians, such attacks will likely return when the lockdown is eventually lifted.

“More must be done in India to secure the rights of the country’s Christian minority and bring the perpetrators of these attacks to justice,” says ICC.

India is ranked 10th on Open Doors USA’s World Watch List of countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. The organization says that Christians in the country face “horrific” levels of violence from extremists, with thousands of attacks taking place every year.

Priests and lay chaplains in the Archdiocese of Dublin have recounted some of their experiences in ministering to the sick and the bereaved during the coronavirus pandemic.

36 ordained and 40 lay chaplains provide this service across a wide range of healthcare facilities.

Fr. Damian O Reilly at St. Vincent’s Hospital called it one of the most challenging experiences of his priestly life. “To be working alongside health care professionals and all the staff of the hospital is truly a very humbling experience – one of care, kindness and compassion from all the staff and departments who are working very closely together to ensure that the best possible patient care of the highest standard is provided to each patient”.

The hospital chaplaincy team is made up of two ordained chaplains and four lay chaplains who provide a 24/7 chaplaincy service to the patients their families and to staff.

“Trained for the use of PPE we attend to the pastoral and sacramental needs of each patient when requested by either the patient themselves or by a member of the family or next of kin. We are available to support the families for whom this a particularly difficult time – because of the restrictions, families are unable to be with their loved ones and this is particularly difficult if the loved one is dying. To be a pastoral and spiritual support especially to the family is vital,” he said.

An Irish nun, aged 103 years old, has become Ireland’s oldest coronavirus survivor.

Sister Martha Hickey was born in 1917 and joined the Sisters of the Infant Jesus aged 19.

The order had founded a school for girls in Drishane, Millstreet in 1909, and soon added a saw mill, a brush factory, a knitting factory as well as running a farm.

The centenarian, who has devoted over 80 years of her life to the Church, first fell ill at her nursing home in Co. Cork over three weeks ago and was admitted to hospital.

Suffering with a high temperature and respiratory problems, a hospital test later confirmed that the Limerick native was coronavirus positive.

Despite her notable age, the brave pensioner’s recovery was helped by her having no underlying health conditions.

Martha’s overjoyed family are now eager to share her story. “We are just so proud of her,” said Anne Linehan, who is one of the devout nun’s many nieces.

“We really didn’t know what to expect when we heard that it was Covid-19 but the doctors and nurses couldn’t be more delighted with her progress. Right now, she is up out of the bed and walking with her walking aid and eating and in great spirits. The doctors are hoping she will be back in the nursing home early this week.”

A leading doctor has issued a warning that the response to the coronavirus in the UK should not lead to the acceptance of eugenics.

Writing in the Huffington Post, the CEO of Care not Killing, Dr Gordan MacDonald said that while very difficult decisions have to be taken about who to treat in a context of grossly overstretched healthcare resources, we must be aware of the danger of changing medicine in a way which would be detrimental to the most vulnerable in society.

“In responding to the Covid-19 virus, we must ensure no back door is left open to the dangerous philosophy of eugenics”.

He cited former BBC Today presenter John Humphrys, who wrote in the Daily Mail: “I know I’m among the vulnerable group for coronavirus, but I just don’t believe all lives are equal.”

Similarly, Max Hastings, speaking on BBC World at One, stated that the elderly are “becoming a dead weight on the NHS”.

While such examples do not constitute euthanasia or assisting suicide because doctors are not actively hastening the end of patients’ lives, he said, “there is a danger that the same eugenicist thinking can feature”.

There were 3,864 applications to the circuit court for divorce that year while another 1,238 couples looked for a judicial separation, according to the latest figures from the Courts Service.

In terms of divorce applications, the rate per 100,000 nationally was just over 81.

Ten counties exceeded that figure with the rate in Waterford highest of all at 102 divorces per 100,000 of population. Second was Carlow (97), followed by Dublin (92). The lowest rate was in Co Cavan where there were 54 divorce applications for every 100,000.

Dublin had by far the highest number of applications for divorce with a total of 1,233 couples looking to split.

Women were considerably more likely than men to apply for divorce. Some 55.8pc of applications – or 2,155 in total – came from wives.

Judicial separation remained an option for many couples with 861 women and 377 men applying in 2018.

The outcome of divorce settlements were most likely to include “extinguishing succession rights” with that a feature of 3,174 cases decided last year.

The next most likely outcome of a divorce was a pension adjustment order (1,869), custody or access orders (1,365), or a periodic payment to a child (1,208).

A small number of applications were also made for “nullity” nationwide with 20 such cases recorded.

Among the reasons allowed for a “nullity” declaration are mental incapacity, lack of consent, or that one or other of the couple is “incapable of sexual intercourse”.

Six children and a pregnant woman were among nine people that Muslim Fulani herdsmen killed in north-central Nigeria last Tuesday, sources said.

About a dozen herdsmen armed with rifles and machetes raided Hura-Maiyanga village, in the Miango area of Kwall District in Plateau state’s Bassa County, shouting jihadist slogans.

“They were armed with machetes and AK-47 rifles as they attacked us,” Hanatu John, a woman who survived the attack, told Morning Star News. “They attacked our village at about 8 p.m., and they were shouting, ‘Allahu Akbar!’ as they shot into our houses.”

Dalyop Solomon Mwantiri, director of the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria (ECCVN), confirmed the attack.

“Hura hamlet of Maiyanga village in Kwall District, Miango Chiefdom in Bassa Local Government Area, Plateau state was invaded last night on April 14th by suspected armed Fulani herdsmen, who surrounded the entire area and unleashed mayhem on the unsuspecting natives,” Mwantiri told Morning Star News by text message. “As a result, nine persons were gruesomely killed and two injured while 33 houses were completely torched by fire. Most of the persons killed were children.”

Chinese officials demolished a government-run church on Easter Sunday after persecuting it for a long period of time.

Donghu Church, located in Xining, Qinghai province, could host up to 300 people at once and was one of the largest churches in the area.

The church was registered as a Three-Self, or state-run, church in 2003. In China, all religious institutions must, by law, register with the government and submit to its censorship and oversight.

Over the past few years, officials made several attempts to close the church but failed to follow through when the attendees protested. On the morning of April 12, the Chengxi District Urban Construction Bureau spent about two hours tearing the church down. Li Zhennan, the director of the local religious affairs bureau, and Wang Xiao, secretary of the Xining Municipal Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, oversaw the project.

Immediate action is needed to save the lives of residents in nursing homes, according to the Pro-Life Campaign.

The group were responding to the news that more than half of all deaths to date from Covid-19 in Ireland have occurred in nursing and residential homes.

PLC spokesperson, Maeve O’Hanlon called the figure “devastating” and said a clear picture is starting to emerge that protecting residents of nursing homes was not given the priority it deserved.

“There was the baffling HSE decision on 10th March to relax restrictions on visiting nursing homes, undoing the restrictions put in place by nursing home managers, followed by a clinical directive from the HSE to nursing home staff not to wear PPE equipment.

“The claim from nursing home representatives that the HSE were also actively poaching frontline staff from nursing homes to reassign to hospital settings as the Covid-19 crisis started, is very troubling. So too is the claim that acute hospital beds were freed up by moving patients to nursing homes, which in turn likely contributed to the spread of Covid-19 in these homes.

Ms O’Hanlon said the Government and National Public Health Emergency Team (Nphet) must be held more accountable for their actions.

“That accountability needs to happen immediately. With each passing day more and more lives are being lost. No stone should be left unturned to assemble the expertise needed to protect the lives of our beautiful and beloved elder and dependent citizens, who deserve nothing but the very best care and protection from this State.”

Hospitals are using a points system heavily weighted against the elderly to determine which patients should be sent to intensive care during the pandemic, according to the Irish Sun.

The patient evaluation process at major hospitals along the west coast ranks patients by age and medical conditions and sometimes even by gender.

Guidelines established by the Saolta Hospital Group show that anyone who scores more than eight points in the system should not be sent to ICU during the Covid-19 crisis.

Patients are given points for their age with people over 80 hit with seven points –two shy of the exclusion total – despite government ethical guidelines advising that patients should not be excluded from treatment because of their age.

Men also on occasion receive more points than women in the scoring system with one point given to males aged between 50 and 60 and no points given to females in the same age bracket.

A spokesperson for the HSE said: “All patients are given treatment based on their clinical need and the potential benefit of the treatment to the patient. These are the same principles that are used prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“In a pandemic, while the ethical principles are the same, it is necessary to switch from a strictly medical ethics approach to decision-making (aimed at the individual level) towards a public health approach (population level) and this ethical framework takes cognisance of this.”

Chemical abortions are to be provided in Northern Ireland in an emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic, a pro-choice group has said.

The provision of lethal abortion drugs within the first nine weeks and six days of pregnancy will be arranged through existing sexual and reproductive health services in the Belfast, Northern and Western health and social care trusts.

Informing Choices NI launched what it termed a central access point to offer a pathway to obtaining an abortion.

The process will involve attending a local clinic to take the first abortion pill while the second set of pills can be taken at home.

In response, Bernadette Smyth, Director of Precious Life in Belfast, said: “The news that this horrific abortion pill is set to become available is devastating for unborn children and their mothers.”

She continued, “In response to the coronavirus crisis, instead of directing the focus towards saving lives, this so-called ‘charity’ has capitalised on the fear and crisis of abortion-vulnerable women to introduce the killing of their unborn children. This is about making money, and about pushing a radical abortion agenda at a time of crisis.”