A symposium taking place at the Vatican has challenged society to accompany the weak, the ill and the elderly in the face of a growing “culture of euthanasia”, and has called proper palliative care a “human right”.

Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, President of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said that the “terminally ill and elderly, especially those affected by mental health issues, are being pushed to the margins of society” as if “they have nothing more to offer, they are not necessary, they are a burden on society”, and added, “This is a cruel society”.

The Archbishop made the comments in an address to open a two-day symposium on religion and medical ethics at the Vatican organised by Qatar’s World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), the British Journal of Medical Ethics, and the Pontifical Academy for Life.

While pro-euthanasia campaigners have championed the so-called ‘right to die’, Archbishop Paglia countered this notion by saying that every man and every woman had a right to live in the human family. “Palliative care is a human right,” he said.

He went on to call for a renewed understanding of medicine that does not regard it as a failure if a patient cannot be healed. “It is not true that there is nothing more to do,” he said.

“Presence is important, accompanying is important, relieving people from suffering, showing love, holding the person’s hand,” he said.

Children at a primary school in Britain have been told not to sing the word ‘Lord’ in the Christmas carol ‘Away In A Manger’ – so that no pupils feel offended.

The move has left Christian parents appalled, after the head teacher ruled that children should sing ‘baby boy Jesus’ rather than ‘little Lord Jesus’.

The word ‘Lord’ features five times in the most common version of ‘Away In A Manger’ and expresses the belief that Jesus was not just the Jewish Messiah, but also the divine Son of God.

Youngsters at Whitehall Primary School in Chingford, Essex, have also been told to sing edited versions of two modern hymns when they attend a carol service and nativity play at a nearby church on Tuesday.

The words ‘Jesus the saviour’ in the carol Love Shone Down have been replaced with ‘Jesus the baby’, while the words ‘new King born today’ in the carol Come And Join The Celebration have been replaced with ‘a baby born today’.

One furious mother, a former Metropolitan Police officer, said the changes were utterly unacceptable and likened it to taking ‘Christ’ out of Christmas.

The mother, 36, said: ‘If he was just a baby boy named Jesus, there wouldn’t be a celebration in the first place. He is our Lord and Saviour and King of all Kings – that’s the whole point.

A group of cross-community politicians have criticised the UK Government’s proposals to legalise abortion in Northern Ireland. In an open letter to the Belfast Telegraph, the group which includes widely respected human rights expert Baroness Nuala O’Loan and DUP chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, as well as figures from the SDLP and Aontu, say that the current proposals undermine devolution as they go far beyond what is legally required of the Government.

“Northern Ireland was treated with contempt by the Westminster Parliament in July and is now in danger of being treated with even greater contempt by the British Government,” they write. They point to the fact that it was English, Welsh and Scottish MPs who imposed the legislation while every single sitting MP from the North voted against it.

The letter comes after the Government launched a consultation on a new legal framework for abortion in Northern Ireland on 4 November.

Christians in the Gaza Strip will not be allowed to visit holy sites such as Bethlehem to celebrate Christmas this year, Israeli authorities said on Thursday.

Church leaders in Jerusalem are appealing to Israeli authorities to reverse the decision to prohibit the Christmastime travel permits that usually allow a few hundred Christians from the Gaza Strip to visit Bethlehem, Nazareth and Jerusalem.

Gaza Christians are allowed travel abroad but not to Israel and the West Bank.

Wadie Abu Nassar, an adviser to local church leaders, criticized the policy.

“Other people around the world are allowed to travel to Bethlehem. We think Gaza’s Christians should have that right, too,” he told Reuters.

One Gaza woman lamented the decision.

“Every year I pray they will give me a permit so I can celebrate Christmas and see my family,” Randa El-Amash, 50, told Reuters. “It will be more joyful to celebrate in Bethlehem and in Jerusalem.”

Slovak parliamentarians have rejected legislation, the first of its kind in the European Union, requiring women seeking abortions to see images and hear the heartbeat of their unborn child first via ultrasound, after vigorous opposition from pro-choice EU politicians and lobby groups.

The bill, an amendment to Slovakia’s Healthcare Act, was tabled by three female MPs from the Slovak National Party (a participant in the ruling coalition), and would also have banned abortion advertising and obliged doctors to notify unwilling mothers of available state support, as well as doubling the mandatory waiting period from two to four days and providing sickness benefit for women wishing to conceal their pregnancies.The bill had the backing of the country’s influential Catholic Church.

However, it failed to secure a majority in the 150-seat lower house, winning just 59 votes to 24, with 40 abstentions, after vigorous opposition from pro-choice EU politicians and human rights groups, including Amnesty International.

Dunja Mijatovic, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, who said it could reduce “safe and legal abortions”.

The Minister for Health has been called upon to initiate a national conversation on the dangers of pre-natal genetic testing.

The call was made after it was revealed that earlier screening for foetal abnormalities in some hospitals in the UK has resulted in 30% fewer down-syndrome births.

Eilish Mulroy of the Pro-Life Campaign said that a conversation on the realities, limitations and dangers of such screening is long overdue.

“The British experience should alarm us all. We are witnessing the gradual but definite elimination of an entire group of human beings in the context of an abortion culture that pays lip service to respecting difference,” she said.

“We are again urging the Minister for Health to initiate a long over due conversation on the realities, limitations and dangers of pre-natal genetic testing. If we do not have that conversation, then the English findings this week will eventually be reflected here.

“Let’s work towards a society that values difference and welcomes everyone in life and protects everyone in law,” concluded Ms Mulroy.

The Liberal Democrats in the UK are being sued for religious discrimination after allegedly rejecting a candidate because of his Catholic views.

Robert Flello, who was the Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent South until losing the seat in the 2017 election, defected to the Lib Dems last month after disagreeing with the hard-Left politics of Jeremy Corbyn.

On November 9, he was selected to stand in Thursday’s general election for the Lib Dems in the same seat. But just days later he was told by party officials that his views on abortion and same sex marriage were “not those that would be expected of a liberal” and it was therefore “not appropriate” for him to represent them. He is now suing them in court.