A House of Commons vote on legalising euthanasia and assisted suicide will take place one day after the marking of World Suicide Prevention Day.

The close juxtaposition of the two has been labelled “ironic” by commentators.

Yet, tomorrow, MPs will vote on a bill to enable terminally ill adults, deemed to have six months or less to live, to avail of assisted suicide or euthanasia.

The country’s Catholic Bishops have described the bill as an indefensible attack on human life and fails even to provide adequate safeguards to the most vulnerable.

The EU’s data protection laws may require a church to delete a baptismal record, say the bloc’s Catholic Bishops, and are appealing against such a requirement on religious freedom grounds. EU data protection rules have often been criticised for being too far-reaching.

The Bishops’ agency in Brussels, COMECE, just published a position paper on the subject and submitted it to the EU’s Court of Justice (ECJ).

This is in response to a case in Belgium where an individual informed a parish that he was renouncing his membership of the Church and asked that all records be deleted, including the record of his baptism.

The parish agreed to amend the baptismal register, to note his formal departure, but not scrub the original record.

A civil court, however, ordered that the record be deleted and the Church has appealed the case to the EU level to clarify the GDPR directive.

In the paper, the Bishops say the register is not a list of members, but rather a record of a historical event, sealing an indelible mark of faith on the person.

“Requiring the Catholic Church to erase the data contained in it, thereby intervening directly in its organisation, would constitute a serious infringement upon Church autonomy and institutional freedom of religion.”

In one, suspicion falls on jihadist militants, whereas in another the perpetrators are believed to be armed gangs of ethnic Fulani herdsmen.

“The recent barbaric abduction of over 60 worshippers from a Mosque in Borgu, Niger State, and the horrific massacre of 47 innocent citizens, with 17 others critically wounded, in Ukum, Benue State, represent a worsened breakdown of security. Whether in a mosque, a church, a marketplace, or the quiet of their homes, Nigerians are still being slaughtered, traumatised, and displaced with impunity”, the bishops wrote in their statement to ACN. ACN is a Catholic charity that assists persecuted Christians worldwide.

Although the violence in Nigeria is often spoken of in terms of clashes between Muslims and Christians, in the case of Borgu both attackers and victims were Muslim. In their statement, the bishops made a point of expressing solidarity with all the victims.

Pope Leo XIV has received rock star welcomes from large crowds of young people worldwide since his election in May 2025.

Vast numbers streamed through Rome last September, to witness the historic canonization of the Catholic Church’s first millennial saint, 15-year-old Carlo Acutis.

The event was symbolic of a church transitioning into a digital era and providing new role models for the young.

And Pope Leo is at the helm of it all.

“At 70, Pope Leo is obviously not himself a young man,” says Ruth Gledhill of The Tablet.

“Yet he has an air of youthful vigour around him, he is sporty and fit. He also seems genuinely bereft of any ego.”

Earlier this month, tickets to see the US-born Pope in the 80,000-seat Stade de France near Paris in September were snapped up in less than an hour.

Among them was 21-year-old Allan, who had 10 members of his family on hand trying to secure a ticket online. It was much the same approach many music fans take when trying to get into hugely popular music festivals.

“[It was] like it was Beyonce,” he told Le Parisien of the challenge to secure a spot for the event.

The human race has likely fallen below replacement fertility for the first time in recorded history, according to a new paper in the Annual Review of Economics.

This is a far cry from stark warnings from the 1970s onwards that the world was facing a devastating overpopulation crisis. Those warnings caused a paradigm shift in cultural and political attitudes away from child-bearing and prompted states and transnational organisations to adopt a host of anti-natal policies.

Now however, economists Jesús Fernández-Villaverde and Patrick Norrick say there is an “astonishing” demographic shift: “As of 2026, humanity is likely to be below replacement level: we are having fewer births than we need to keep population constant in the long run,” the authors wrote.

They add that while global populations will continue to grow for another three decades due to momentum, a rapid and accelerating decline in worldwide births is firmly underway.

“As far as we can tell, this has never happened before in our history as a species, not even during wars or pandemics.”

There is an “urgent need” to address Ireland’s population issues, according to the Irish Examiner.

In an editorial in Monday’s paper, the leader writer noted the new CSO population figures reveal that we, “are ageing faster than most of our European neighbours, largely as a result of a falling birth rate”.

It adds that, worryingly, during the 12 months to the end of April, the number of people aged under 14 fell to under 1m (992,400) for the first time since 2014. And since 2010, the number of births has dropped by some 27pc.

The editorial said the problem is not one for the future, but for now; and, while an aging populace has been well flagged, “fertility rates have fallen much more quickly than was ever anticipated”.

It suggests the Government might look at the example of Singapore, “where they recently incentivised having children to the tune of €47,000 per newborn”.

Although it also noted that cash alone will not solve the problem; “more family-friendly policies will also have to be adopted”.

It concluded that the CSO figures make clear that the Government has “urgent problems to tackle”, though it also laments that no one in Cabinet seems likely to act.

New rules governing the scheduling of religious education are marginalising the subject and are unfair to students, according to both parents and bishops in Poland.

Speaking to Vatican News, Bishop Wojciech Osial explained that if even one student in a class does not attend religion, the religious classes must be scheduled before or after regular classes. As a result, those students must come to school earlier or stay later.

Bishop Osial said Church representatives had proposed a different solution during talks with the Ministry: every student would choose between religion and ethics and attend one of the two subjects.

“Today, especially when we see a crisis of values among young people, such a solution would benefit both believers and non-believers,” he said.

However, the Ministry refused.

Bishop Osial who is chairman of the Catholic Education Commission of the Polish Bishops’ Conference called the decision “unfair” and said: “We do not accept the marginalisation of religion classes.”

Bishop Marek Mendyk added: “There is an attempt, at all costs — including through deceptive means and violations of the law — to remove religion from schools”.

Singapore has approved a massive expansion of financial supports for children in hopes of averting a looming demographic catastrophe.

The Asian city-state’s fertility rate is just 0.86 and falling, well below the replacement figure of 2.1 that is needed for a population to simply sustain itself.

The new scheme will direct 70,000 Singapore dollars (about 47,000 euros) worth of aid over the course of a child’s lifetime.

Parents will receive a lump sum upon the birth of each child; annual payments for expenses; contributions to health and education schemes, and to a children’s savings account; and a lump sum for higher education costs, upon reaching 17.

There will also be more parental leave, cheaper nurseries and extra advantages in the public housing lotteries.

Unlike previous schemes, this new one will be available to all children, regardless of the parents’ marital status. Nonetheless, the Government affirmed that the traditional family unit “remains the prevailing social norm in Singapore”.

“The government’s longstanding position has been to support parenthood within marriage. This continues to be the case and there is no shift in thinking on this”.

He said the Irish State’s claim to a pluralist education system is false as “its policy has become internally contradictory and has narrowed the real exercise of parental choice while claiming to promote diversity”.

He also noted that the State’s use of the designation “multi-denominational” [i.e., no faith ethos] is ambiguous and may mislead families as to the actual character of such schools.

This affects parental freedom of choice and “the cultural and religious identity of children, including the protections recognised in international human rights law”.

Mr Hynes-Cendrzak recommended that it be affirmed in law, policy and administrative practice that “parents are the primary educators of their children and that the State’s role in education is supportive and facilitative rather than monopolistic”.

Three Catholic families have filed a lawsuit challenging the eligibility requirements of the US State of Georgia’s school scholarship program, claiming the rules violate their religious freedom.

Passed in 2024, the program grants up to $6,500 (~€5,500) per child annually. The state funds can be used for private school tuition, homeschooling expenses or therapy services.

However, it requires that students must have first attended a state (secular) school for at least two semesters before they can apply.

Exemptions are offered for military families, pre-school children who have not started ‘big school’ and recent adoptees. No exemption is offered for religious reasons.

The lawsuit contends that religious families have a religious obligation to give a religious education to their child, but forcing them to attend a secular state school for a year would be unduly burdensome against the free practice of their religion.

Lead attorney, Nathan Loyd, said the children’s schooling would have no catechism, no access to sacraments, no prayer, no learning about their faith’s history or saints.

One mother who enrolled her daughter in a state school said it caused her to hide her faith and become isolated and withdrawn. A change to a mixed Catholic homeschool network led to her flourishing again. She said she does not want to put her son through the same experience just to access state funding.