Religious education has been found to make a real and positive contribution to wellbeing and can therefore be an integral part of the Junior cycle programme according to just published research.
Writing in the Journal of Irish Educational Studies, DCU academic Amalee Meehan argues that while it should never be the case that the rights of parents or their children regarding Religious Education are compromised, Religious Education can make a real and positive contribution to wellbeing in the Junior Cycle. Her paper reviews two recent international longitudinal studies to demonstrate the strong positive correlation between religion and wellbeing. It goes on to highlight the potential of Religious Education in helping schools to fulfil the Junior Cycle wellbeing requirements. It concludes that as a legitimate source of wellbeing, Religious Education with sound content and pedagogy, well taught by qualified and supported teachers, can be an integral part of a Junior Cycle programme.
A doctor accused of failing to verify consent before performing euthanasia on a dementia patient has been cleared of any wrongdoing by a Dutch court. It is the first such case since the country legalised euthanasia in 2002. In 2016, there was over 6,000 cases of euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Netherlands, up threefold since the law was introduced. Most of those killed are not suffering from a terminal illness.
The 74-year-old patient, who died in 2016, had expressed a wish to be euthanised if she became sufficiently demented. Her family decided the time had come to administer a lethal injection, but the woman struggled and was held down by her daughter and husband while the doctor administered the poison.
Judges cleared the doctor because they ruled that carrying out the process would have undermined the patient’s original wish.
Resistance to abortion among medical doctors continues as only 13pc of GPs have signed up to provide the procedure. There are now 337 GPs out of more than 2,500 in the country who have signed the contract with the HSE to provide medical abortions, the latest figures show.
They reveal an increase of only one doctor since July.
Meanwhile, in Carlow and Sligo no GPs offer abortions.
The Islamic Foundation of Ireland is seeking to become the patron body of a new State-funded secondary school due to open in west Dublin next year.
While there are two Muslim national schools in the Dublin area, there is no State-funded Muslim secondary school anywhere in the country.
The planned school is one of six new secondary schools due to open in the greater Dublin area next September where patronage is to be decided on foot of votes by parents.
The Islamic Foundation of Ireland is one of five patron bodies campaigning to run the new school to serve the Blanchardstown village and west Blanchardstown area of Dublin 15.
The other patrons vying for the new school include Educate Together, the Irish-medium An Foras Pátrúnachta , Dublin and Dún Laoghaire Education and Training Board and Scoil Sinéad Limited, a multidenominational patron.
Mothers, fathers and guardians of children who are due to enrol in secondary school from 2020-2024 in these areas are being invited to complete a new online survey (patronage.education.gov.ie). It will remain open until October 4th.
Parents can use the online survey to select which model of patronage they prefer and whether they want English or Irish as the language of instruction.
A Northern Ireland minister has said that preparations to make same-sex marriage the “law of the land” by 2020 are well underway, following a vote by the House of Commons to impose it directly on the North.
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Lord Duncan told Pink News: “What we have to ensure is that wherever the law mentions ‘husband and wife’ and ‘man and woman’ it has to be corrected to reflect the change,” he said.
“We’re working to identify all areas where legacy language exists. The legislation impacted by this covers pensions, benefits and so on.
“We want to make sure that on that date in January, we don’t miss something. So we’re working assiduously to ensure that absolute legal certainty is granted, exactly as you would be if you were marrying as a heterosexual couple.”
Lord Duncan said he was surprised there had not been more opposition to the introduction of same-sex marriage. The House of Commons has also voted to impose a liberal abortion law on the North and there has absorbed the energies of pro-life and pro-family groups.
Lord Duncan, who is openly gay, said he was torn on the issue as he wanted Stormont back up and running.
An Indian man who had organised the screening of a Christian movie in the Kodaila area of Jamalpur village, Siwan District, was besieged by an angry mob demanding his death.
Immanuel Tirkey and about 100 villagers were watching the film when a man interrupted the screening repeatedly, asking that the volume be lowered.
The man eventually left, but as the villagers were gathering their belongings to depart after the screening, at least 15 Hindu villagers arrived with swords, bamboo poles and wooden sticks. The family that had hosted the movie night immediately rushed Tirkey and the other four Christian organizers of the screening into their house and locked the doors.
“The batch of Hindu villagers abused them in filthy language, scattered the congregation and besieged the house,” Tirkey said. “It was midnight, and soon a mob of 250 angry, upper-caste Hindus showed up with lathis [heavy sticks bound with iron] and steel rods.”
Pelting the house with stones and vandalizing a motorbike and a van, they banged on the doors and badgered Anandi’s family to hand the Christians over to them, Tirkey said. He and the other four Christian organizers repeatedly requested that the family let them go outside, but they refused, saying they would face whatever came rather than turn them over to the mob, he said.
“They were shouting at the family that they are supporting in converting Hindus to a foreign faith, and that we must be killed – ‘Release them to us. We will see their end,’ they kept shouting,” Tirkey said.
DUP leader Arlene Foster joined an estimated 20,000 people who took part in a silent protest outside the North’s Parliament Buildings at Stormont to show their opposition to the planned legalisation of abortion in Northern Ireland.
The North’s former first minister said she was “joining thousands of people from across all backgrounds tonight, to stand together and defend the rights of the unborn child. Both lives matter”.
The protest was organised by NI Voiceless, a pro-life group which was set up to oppose legislation passed by the UK parliament which will permit a radical abortion regime in Northern Ireland.
The group said the people of Northern Ireland were not consulted about the change in the law, and that there was no support for the planned liberalisation of the abortion laws.
The HSE spent €380,541 last year referring children to the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service in the UK, figures released under freedom of information legislation show.
Irish children experiencing gender identity issues are frequently referred to Tavistock’s clinics in London and Leeds for psychological support under the HSE’s treatment abroad scheme. Last year 40 children from Ireland were referred to the specialised service in the UK. Twice as many girls as boys have been referred from Ireland over the past four years. Nine of those referred since the start of 2018 were girls aged between 12 and 14, the figures show.
The service was criticised earlier this year by Marcus Evans, a former governor of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust, who resigned over concerns that it was too quick to give young people gender reassignment treatment.
Evans’s resignation came shortly after a critical internal report by David Bell, the trust’s then governor, who suggested Tavistock’s services were “not fit for purpose” and that “children’s ends are being met in a woeful, inadequate manner and some will live on with the damaging consequences”.
Children as young as 11 in Tavistock have been treated with hormone blockers to stop puberty.
The forces of secularism can act to exclude people of faith from participating in political discussion of the common good. That’s according to Archbishop of Armagh, Dr Eamon Martin, who was speaking at the Kennedy Summer School in New Ross yesterday.
Archbishop Martin said the Church is not some kind of political agent and must not seek to supplant the State. He said the Church recognises the reality of secularisation and supports the rightful autonomy of earthly affairs. But, it sees this as being “very different from ‘secularism’, which at times quite aggressively seeks to exclude altogether the voice of faith and religion from the public square.” He added: “Clashes are likely to occur when culture is characterised by moral relativism – where little is considered to be definitive, where the absolute rights of individuals are held to be paramount, and where a so-called ‘illusion of self-sufficiency’ is perpetuated. In this context, people of faith who draw upon objective moral norms in certain matters, can be portrayed as unjust, prejudiced, and as a threat to individual freedom and autonomy.”
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders sparked outrage after linking abortion to population control during a discussion on how to combat climate change Wednesday night.
The Vermont Democrat was asked during CNN’s town hall on climate change whether he would make curbing population growth a “key feature” of his plan to address climate change.
Sanders said he would and added that he would support taxpayer-funded programs to provide abortions and birth control for women in developing countries as a measure to combat the climate crisis.
“The Mexico City agreement, which denies American aide to those organizations around the world that allow women to have abortions or even get involved in birth control to me is totally absurd,” Sanders continued. “So I think, especially in poor countries around the world where women do not necessarily want to have large numbers of babies, and where they can have the opportunity through birth control to control the number of kids they have, is something I very, very strongly support.”
Conservative CNN host S.E. Cupp, meanwhile, accused Sanders of referring to eugenics: “Let’s just state for the record: talking about needing ‘population control’ through ABORTION for the sake of CLIMATE is talking about EUGENICS,” Cupp tweeted. “The fact that @BernieSanders is willing to entertain this vile idea is not only disgusting, it should be disqualifying.”
