A new Government strategy intends to “explore opportunities” for the inclusion of LGBTI+ lives in primary and secondary cycle curriculum as part of the review into content being taught.
The strategy also plans to include LGBTI+ matters in the review of relationship and sexual education curriculum.
National LGBTI+ Inclusion Strategy, launched by Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone and Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan on Thursday, contains over 100 actions which are aimed at promoting inclusion, protecting rights and improving the quality of life and wellbeing of LGBTI+ people.
Over 120 major churches and other buildings in Ireland and the UK were lit up in red yesterday, ‘Red Wednesday’. to call attention to the persecution of Christians worldwide. The event was part of the ‘Week of Witness’ organised by the Catholic charity ‘Aid to the Church in Need’. Here in Ireland, the bi-annual report detailing attacks on Christians, ‘Persecuted and Forgotten’ was launched on Monday in University Church, Dublin.
In Armagh, Archbishop Eamon Martin led a ‘Liturgy of Witness’, in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral for Red Wednesday. In a statement he said the ‘Week of Witness’ is an invitation to Christians across the island of Ireland to stand in solidarity with, and bear witness to, the heroic example of persecuted Christians across the world.
Archbishop Eamon said many churches and public buildings in Ireland and Britain “are being lit up in red this week, and people are encouraged to wear a red item of clothing to help shine a light on the reality of Christian persecution across the world, and to highlight the injustices perpetrated against other minority and faith groups”.
He added: “On this #RedWednesday I invite you to pray for the gift of courage, the grace of witness and loyalty to Christ for Christians all over the world and especially for those who continue to be challenged, attacked, displaced or even murdered for what they believe in.”
There was no money allocated in Budget 2020 for a free contraception scheme, the Joint Committee on Health heard yesterday. The programme is not likely to be rolled out until 2021 even though Minister for Health Simon Harris hoped to introduce the programme this year. The committee discussed the Report of the Working Group on Access to Contraception.
A recent report commissioned by Mr Harris questioned the value of free contraception which would cost the State up to €100 million annually and could be spent on other measures.
Independent Senator Collette Kelleher who was nominated by the Taoiseach said she was incredibly disappointed with the report, which she said moved away from its remit, and began to focus primarily on the cost issue.
“We need to get to back to principles, which is that contraception is fundamental to women, exercising their reproductive rights, throughout their lives, and it’s fundamental for the prevention of unwanted pregnancies.”
Fianna Fail’s Stephen Donnelly said the lack of funding was very disappointing. “I think many people in here support the idea that if abortion services are going to do it for free, then you must, of course, provide contraception for free,” he said.
An Afghani Christian who was a convert to Islam has won his fight against deportation from Switzerland back to Afghanistan. He won his case at the European Court of Human Rights. In his country, conversion from Islam to another religion is illegal “apostasy” with punishments ranging from lengthy imprisonment to death.
“Today, the Judges of the Strasbourg Court held that the applicant (identified only as ‘A.A.’) would be compelled to conceal their Christian faith and would in effect ‘be forced to live a lie’ if deported to Afghanistan by the Swiss authorities. The Court was critical of the Swiss authorities and their failure to properly conduct an assessment of the risks and consequences of deporting a Christian convert to Afghanistan. It concluded that this was in breach of Switzerland’s obligations to protect individuals from torture under the European Convention of Human Rights,” said Lorcán Price, Legal Counsel for ADF International in Strasbourg.
A primary school run by a Church of England trust has cancelled prayers at its daily assembly after a complaint from atheist parents.
The Daily Telegraph reports that “Lee Harris and his wife Lizanne bought a judicial review against Oxford Diocesan Schools Trust (ODST) after arguing that Burford Primary School is acting ‘unlawfully’.”
Burford Primary had been founded as non-religious ‘community’ school and in 2015 the ODST took over its running.
The ODST indicated that the cancelling of daily prayers is not long-term and will end once the couple’s child leaves the school.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/11/21/primary-school-backs-atheist-parents-claimed-daily-prayers-breached/
The UK’s advertising authority has rapped clinics for misleading claims that exaggerated the accuracy of their pre-natal testing and banned the offending advertisements.
Three clinics had marketed their screenings as 99% accurate for Downs syndrome. While the Advertising Standards Authority did find the tests provided false-negatives only 1% of the time, indicating no abnormality even when one is present, the ASA also found the tests provided false positives, indicating Downs syndrome is present even when it is not, up to 18% of the time.
The clinics also marketed a test for Patau’s syndrome as 93.8% accurate, even though it provided false positives up to 51% of the time.
Testing for Edwards’ syndrome provided false positives 63% of the time.
The ASA said: “We understood that a systematic review of the performance of non-invasive prenatal testing in general found that it had a Positive Predictive Value (PPV) of 82% for Down’s syndrome, 37% for Edwards’ syndrome and 49% for Patau’s syndrome, meaning out of all the foetuses with ‘positive’ results, 82% would ultimately have Down’s syndrome, as opposed to the 99% detection rate figure that consumers would understand from the ad.”
The Liberal Democrats in Britain have deselected one of their candidates in the British General Election because he has traditional Catholic views on issues like marriage and abortion.
According to The Tablet, “Robert Flello was ditched as for the Stoke-on-Trent South constituency just 36 hours after the party named his as the prospective parliamentary candidate.”
A party spokesperson said: “We do our best to screen candidates in our approval process. In this case it only really became clear over the past few hours how greatly his values diverge from ours.”
Two years ago Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, stepped down because his Evangelical Christians views had put him at odds with the party.
https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/12218/lib-dems-deselect-catholic-as-election-candidate
Almost half of abortions performed in Britain last year were repeat terminations, according to new figures obtained by Sky News. The figures also show that five teenagers had at least a sixth abortions in 2018 and that 140 women had at least eight terminations.
Each year in Britain, almost 200,000 abortions take place – amounting to one abortion for every four births- and 84,258 were repeat terminations, meaning women who have previously had an abortion.
Pro-life campaigners say the 7pc rise in the number of repeat abortions could be due to a change in the law permitting women to take the abortion pill at home.
New Zealand will hold a referendum next year on euthanasia. If it passes, the country will permit euthanasia when a patient is deemed to be terminally ill with less than six months left to live.
The New Zealand parliament voted by 69-51 in favour of the legislation which will be put to the people on the same day as a scheduled General Election next year.
The referendum is not required, strictly speaking and there will no nothing in the future to stop parliament passing more liberal legislation. The original form of the law would have permitted euthanasia/assisted suicide for ‘severe’ and ‘incurable’ conditions.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-50408033?ocid=socialflow_twitter
A Carmelite monastery in Malahide was vandalised in broad daylight this week while the Carmelite nuns were at prayer. The nuns were verbally attacked and insulted by the assailants.
The incident happened at Star of the Sea Monastery Center.
Fr. Jimmy McPartland, co-parish priest at the nearby St. Anne’s Church in Portmarnock, announced the incident to parishioners during a morning Mass, according to Catholic News Agency.
Fr McPartland said the vandals had “desecrated” the chapel. The gang had shouted “very horrible things” about the nuns after the vandalism.
The attack is only the latest in a series of similar attacks on churches in recent times.
