The Irish Catholic Bishops have called for a culture of life in this year’s Day for Life celebration.

Taking place this Sunday, the annual event is dedicated to raising awareness about the meaning and value of human life at every stage, and in every condition.

In their Day for Life pastoral message, the bishops grieve the loss of life due to abortion and seek a change of hearts and minds about the innate dignity of the child in the womb and the care of women for whom pregnancy presents particular challenges.

Bishop Kevin Doran, Chair of the Bishops’ Council for Life said, “In 2019 there were 6,666 abortions in the Republic of Ireland and in the vast majority of cases, no reason was either asked or given. The tragedy of this is not just the loss of so many young lives, but the grief that so many women suffer in silence and the extent to which society itself loses its fruitfulness.”

Two healthcare facilities founded as Catholic ministries took legal steps yesterday to close down.

The Health Service Executive is to assume responsibility for disability and mental health services run by the St John of God charity, due to an “intolerable” financial deficit facing the organisation.

The charity is funded by the HSE to provide services to 8,000 children and adults on behalf of the State.

Nonetheless, it has been grappling with a mounting financial deficit in recent years, citing underfunding from the HSE.

On Wednesday the organisation decided to cease running the majority of its healthcare services, due to the funding crisis, and would transfer responsibility to the HSE over a 12-month period.

Meanwhile, The High Court has made orders formally winding up the operator of a south Dublin care facility, which caters for vulnerable adults, and a nursing home.

The company sought to wind up the facility, which is owned by the Sisters of Charity order of nuns, because it would be unable to meet redundancy payments of €950,000 arising from the liquidation.

The firm also cited regulatory difficulties, concerns over future funding from the HSE and an inability to comply with HIQA recommendations to modernise its facilities as reasons why it should be wound up.

The Minister for Health has affirmed that there are measures in place to protect women seeking abortions.

He was replying to a question from Laois Offaly TD, Carol Nolan.

She asked him to comment on the status of commitments to introduce ‘exclusion zones’, which would stop even prayer vigils near abortion facilities, and if he had further consultation with the Garda Commissioner on the matter.

Yesterday, he replied that the Programme for Government contains a commitment to “Establish exclusion zones around medical facilities”.

He said it was originally intended to provide for “safe access” to abortion facilities in the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act 2018. However, a number of legal issues were identified which necessitated further consideration and advice.

“Women and healthcare staff should be assured that there is existing legislation in place to protect them and to protect patients.  My Department has communicated with the HSE to advise on this legislation, and I understand that a communication issued to hospitals and GPs in this regard.”

The Minister for Health has failed to say whether the Government would be receiving any advice from a State advisory body on bioethics.

Laois Offaly TD, Carol Nolan had asked him whether he would direct the National Advisory Bioethics Committee (NACB) to investigate the ethical implications of assisted suicide, assisted dying and physician-assisted suicide.

The NACB was established by the former Minister for Health, Dr. James Reilly, in March 2012 to advise on the ethical and social implications of scientific developments in human medicine and healthcare.

The Minister said the multi-disciplinary group has met on a number of occasions since its establishment and considered various complex and sensitive issues that society in general, and the healthcare system in particular, confront.

He added that the most recent work published by the NACB, entitled “Nudging in Public Health – An Ethical Framework”, was published in April 2016.

“No decision has been made regarding the next topic on the work programme for the NACB”.

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/questions/?member=%2Fie%2Foireachtas%2Fmember%2Fid%2FCarol-Nolan.D.2016-10-03

The Government have proposed setting up a special Oireachtas committee to examine legalising assisted suicide.

The move is designed to delay by 12 months Gino Kenny’s “Dying with Dignity bill”. The socialist TD’s proposal is due for a Dail debate on Thursday, and a vote to send it for pre-legislative scrutiny on Wednesday of next week.

A special Oireachtas committee would instead allow a far wider scrutiny of the issue than a legislative committee.

Nonetheless, the Government may allow non-Cabinet members a free vote on the Kenny bill so it may yet pass.

Aontú TD for Meath West Peadar Tóibín said he is opposed to the bill, and if the law is going to change in this direction, it needs to be scrutinised so TDs know exactly what they are dealing with.

He said “this is a radical change in Irish law, which seeks to legalise one adult ending the life of another adult”, which he said he understood under the law currently to be manslaughter.

Mr Tóibín said he has invited the Irish Palliative Medicine Consultants’ Association to the Dáil to discuss this and he said the association is opposed to the bill.

He said there are a number of wide open gaps in the legislation, such as not giving a time limit to a terminal illness.

Mr Tóibín said it is important that people do not underestimate the pressure that can be brought to bear on older people who are in very vulnerable situations, where their value changes within society and they can come under strong pressure.

He said: “Palliative care and the weakness in palliative care in this country should not be short-circuited by introducing assisted suicide into this country and we need to invest in end of life.”

The Aontu leader opposes the change and said TDs need to know exactly what’s being proposed.

Women seeking support after abortion increased significantly in Cork last year.

According to the 2019 annual report from the Cork Sexual Health Centre, it provided some 236 counselling sessions in 2019 to women who had abortions – a 50 per cent increase on the 2018 figure when it provided 157 counselling sessions. Over 7000 Irish women had abortions last year (6,666 domestic, 375 abroad), an estimated 40% increase in the number of abortions in previous years.

The Centre’s executive director Dr Martin Davoren said he felt the increase reflected changing attitudes in Irish society—that it may have encouraged people who had abortions in the past to talk about them now.

The Centre saw a growing demand for all of its services throughout 2019, including a rise in the number of people engaging with services for sexual health, post-termination, crisis pregnancy, HIV, sexuality and relationship advice.

In recent months, media outlets have increasingly covered stories of young girls in Pakistan who have been abducted, forcibly converted to Islam, and subjected to rape and sexual abuse.

That’s according to Ewelina Ochab, a human rights advocate, author and co-founder of the Coalition for Genocide Response.

Writing for Forbes, she said while all these stories are tragic, these cases are not isolated occurrences. They are part of a larger problem that continues to be neglected – the issue of ideologically motivated sexual abuse that targets women from religious minorities.

“Indeed, recent cases from Pakistan show how religious minority women and girls are abducted, forcibly converted, forcibly married and abused, but also how their families are unsuccessful in their attempts to challenge these crimes using legal avenues. While the abductions, forced conversions, forced marriages and abuse are perpetrated by individuals, the fate of religious minority women and girls is often sealed as the existing laws or handling such cases deem any legal recourse unavailable or ineffective”.

Nearly 700 Christian ministers in the UK have called on political leaders warning about the side-effects of “unnecessary and authoritarian restrictions” imposed on society to stop the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The signatories said they are “troubled by policies which prioritize bare existence at the expense of those things that give quality, meaning and purpose to life.”

The letter was sent to UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson; First Minister Mark Drakeford of Wales; First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of Scotland; and First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Michelle O’Neill in Northern Ireland.

The Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation has donated €500,000 to help six Catholic charities in the Republic with their work helping the poor and vulnerable through the Covid-19 pandemic.

It has approved €360,000 for Crosscare, the Dublin archdiocese’s social care agency; €70,000 for the St Vincent de Paul; €50,000 for parishes in Dundalk and on the Cooley Peninsula in Co Louth; €10,000 to Little Flower Penny Dinners, based in Dublin’s south inner city; and €9,600 to the Irish Council for Prisoners Overseas.

Born in Wales of an Iraqi-Jewish father and a devout Catholic mother from Co Clare, Mr Gubay, who died in 2016, founded the Kwik Save Discount chain in the UK during the 1960s and the 3 Guys chain in Ireland in the late 1970s as well as Total Fitness some years later.

In interviews later in life he said he had made a promise to God when young and penniless that if he became wealthy he would give half his fortune to the Catholic Church.

In 2010, when he was 82 and living in the Isle of Man, he set up the Albert Gubay Charitable Foundation and donated almost all his €500 million fortune to it, retaining £10 million for personal use.

In February 2011, Pope Benedict XVI bestowed on Mr Gubay the title Knight Commander with Star of the Order of St Gregory the Great for his philanthropic work.

A Muslim man in northern India beheaded his Hindu wife one-and-a-half months after their marriage because she refused to convert to Islam, a local newspaper reported.

Police this week found the beheaded body of the 23-year-old victim, identified as Priya Soni, in a forest area near Preet Nagar area of Sonbhadra district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, according to The Tribune.

The suspect, Soni’s husband who was identified as Ejaz Ahmed, and his friend, identified only as Shoaib, have been arrested. Police said they recovered the mobile phone of the victim, a knife and an iron rod from the suspects.

The district’s police chief, Ashish Srivastava, was quoted as saying that officers used social media to identify the woman’s body. Her father, Laxminarayan, identified her from her shoes and clothes.

Priya married Ahmed against the wishes of the family and was being pressured to convert to Islam, police said, adding that they were considering charging the accused under the stringent National Security Act.