In its final newsletter for 2020, Asia Harvest said pastors have disconnected from their phones and computers so that government authorities can no longer use those devices to track their movements. These pastors have also reportedly destroyed the microchips inside their ID cards so authorities cannot track their locations using those devices either.

“Each person in China must have an ID card. It is impossible for a person to catch a flight or train, open a bank account, get a job, or rent an apartment without using their card. Each ID card contains a computer chip which is also used to track people’s movements,” the newsletter added.

The European Union’s highest court has upheld Belgium’s bans on slaughtering animals without first stunning them, a ruling that confirms the prohibition on the production of kosher and halal meat in parts of Belgium and clears a path for additional bans across Europe.

Israel’s ambassador to Belgium called the ruling “a blow to Jewish life in Europe.”

Two of Belgium’s three states last year banned the slaughter of animals without first stunning them, a key requirement of kosher meat production. The laws were passed over the vociferous objections of Jewish and Muslim community leaders, and several groups — including one representing French-speaking Jews in Belgium — filed a petition arguing that the bans illegally limit religious freedom.

A multidenominational secondary school discriminated against a Catholic girl on religious grounds by favouring the admission of Church of Ireland students from a local primary school.

That is the finding of the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) which has ordered the Dublin community school to admit the girl to second year next September.

WRC adjudication officer Brian Dalton has also ordered the school to cease giving Church of Ireland pupils from the nearby national school priority when it comes to enrolment in first year. In addition, it has been ordered to amend its admissions policy to ensure the prohibited conduct under the Equal Status Act ends.

The villa of a former communist dictator who heavily persecuted Christians has just been donated to the Church.

In 1956, after soviet tanks crushed the Hungarian uprising, János Kádár came to power and ruled the country for 32 years.

Last week, his plush residence in the hills outside Budapest was given to the Syriac Orthodox Church.

Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, personally handed over the keys to the Syriac Patriarch Mor Ignatius Aphrem II who thanked the Hungarian Government for the gift.

It will be used as a Syriac Centre to aid Christians fleeing persecution in the middle East.

The decision was made as part of the Hungary Helps program, which has been providing assistance to Christian communities persecuted for their faith for four years now. The program has funded humanitarian projects in Syria, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon; the renovation of homes damaged in the fighting in these areas; and the maintenance of one orphanage.

An 82-year-old Latino man with COVID-19 was beaten to death by a fellow patient with an oxygen tank at a hospital last week in Lancaster, California.

The victim, was being treated for a COVID-19 infection in a two-person room with suspect Jesse Martinez, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Martinez, 37, reportedly became upset when the victim, a Catholic, started to pray. He then struck his octogenarian roommate with an oxygen tank just before 10 a.m. Thursday.

The victim died the following morning from his injuries. According to the Sheriff’s Department, the two men did not know each other.

Martinez was arrested at the scene after hospital staff detained him, according to Lt. Brandon Dean, a spokesman with the Sheriff’s Department. Martinez was charged with murder, with an enhancement for elder abuse and religion-motivated hate crime.

Religious services will again be effectively banned as the Government announced the imminent return of lockdown on the whole country.

Christmas religious services may take place, but will move online after 25 December when places of worship may remain open for private prayer.

10 mourners at most are permitted at funerals. Under the highest level of restrictions in England, public worship can continue.

Up to and including 2 January 2020, weddings can have up to 25 guests. From 3 January, weddings can have up to 6 guests.

The adjustments to Level 5 will allow non-essential retail to remain open, although it is requested that January sales events be deferred.

Gyms, leisure centres and swimming pools may remain open for individual training only, while outdoor golf and tennis are permitted.

Minister for Education Norma Foley has announced a Catholic patron for one of the four new post-primary schools to be established in 2021.

Le Chéile Schools Trust, formed from fifteen Catholic religious congregations, will operate the new secondary school in Ballincollig, Cork.

The three other schools, in the Booterstown-Blackrock-Dún Laoghaire area of south Dublin, in Gorey, Co Wexford, and in Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, will be run by Educate Together or an Education and Training Board.

In all cases, the minister accepted the recommendations of the New Schools Establishment Group.

Minister Foley said: “Parental preference is a key factor in deciding the patronage of new schools and I’m delighted that despite the ongoing Covid-19 situation, engagement levels from parents for this patronage process is generally in line with engagement levels in previous patronage processes.

“The views of parents as expressed through the process are reflected in the decisions I have made on the patronage of these four new schools.”

The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (CDF) has stated that it is “morally acceptable” to receive COVID-19 vaccines produced using cell lines that date back to tissue taken from aborted fetuses from decades ago when no alternative is available.

This does not in any way imply a legitimation of the grave evil of the practice of abortion or that there is a moral endorsement of the use of cell lines proceeding from aborted fetuses, the Vatican congregation said.

The Vatican health service will begin a vaccination program against COVID-19 using the Pfizer vaccine, the director of the Vatican health service has said.

The vaccine will be made available to the 800 residents and nearly 3,000 workers of the small city-state starting in January. At the confirmatory stage of its development, it used a cell-line called HEK293 which derived from an aborted foetus dating back to 1972.

It will not be mandatory, but will be made available for anyone who wishes to receive it.

“Only through a widespread and capillary immunization of the population will it be possible to obtain real advantages in terms of public health to achieve control of the pandemic,” Dr. Andrea Arcangeli said earlier this month.

“Therefore, it is our duty to offer all residents, employees and their families the opportunity to be immunised against this dreaded disease,” he said.

“It is important to educate everyone that the vaccine is not only to protect one’s own health, but also that of other people,” the Vatican News story said.

Dr. Arcangeli said the Pfizer vaccine, developed in conjunction with BioNTech, was chosen because it is the leading candidate for both European and U.S. approval, is already being used in England and has tested at 95% effective.

“Other vaccines produced with different methods may be introduced after evaluating their efficacy and full safety,” he added.

More than 90 per cent of married parents in the UK will still be together in five years’ time compared with just three-quarters of cohabiting families, new research has found.

Pro-marriage campaigners say the study proves that an official commitment ‘boosts stability and acts as a buffer against problems for children’.

Figures compiled by the Marriage Foundation suggest that on average 1.5 per cent of married parents split annually, compared to five per cent who live together.

Based on these rates, taken from Office for National Statistics (ONS) data and a UK Household study, it calculated that over the next five years, 93 per cent of married couples with dependent children would stay together. By comparison, only 75 per cent of the relationships involving cohabiting parents would survive.

Report author Harry Benson, Research Director at the Marriage Foundation, suggested there was more ambiguity in a relationship without official vows, but marriage offered a ‘clear signal of commitment’.

‘Relationships thrive when there is clarity and a plan,’ he said. ‘Living together and having children together on their own is not sufficient evidence of a clearly decided and agreed plan to spend the rest of their lives together.

Mr Benson predicted that if all cohabiting parents married or entered into a civil partnership up to 227,000 more families would be together by 2025. He claimed that this would ‘avoid the unnecessary experience of family breakdown for between 134,000 and 382,000 children’.