The world is sleepwalking towards certain social upheaval precipitated by decades-long falling birth rates, unless urgent action is taken, according to a leading scientist.

Writing in the Irish Times, Dr William Reville, emeritus professor of biochemistry at UCC, cited a recent McKinsey Global Institute report that details how falling fertility rates are reshaping global population. He also noted Ireland’s declining rates from 4.1 children per woman in 1960 to 1.54 and falling in 2022. A figure of 2.1 is needed for a population to simply remain stable.

If unchecked, the decline will cause the existing social contract to be drastically revised as the retired population grows and the working-age population declines rapidly.

One way to at least ameliorate the problem would be to increase low fertility rates but, he says, “hardly anyone sees this solution as even remotely likely to happen”.

“Very few think women who have grown accustomed to having one or no children will ever return to a higher birth rate. But, I believe this mindset could be changed by making changes to ensure the division of labour necessary to care for and raise children from birth onwards is divided strictly evenly between fathers and mothers”.

There is a systematic religious persecution and targeted harassment of Christians in Pakistan through the abuse of the National Identity Card system.

That’s according to the international human rights law firm, Alliance Defending Freedom.

They were commenting after a judge ruled in favour of a 24-year-old Christian brick kiln worker, Sufyan Masih, who had been fraudulently registered by his employer as a Muslim on his National Identity Card. His boss did this in an apparent attempt to enslave Sufyan, including withholding pay and prohibiting him from returning to his family.

Reversing the registration risked exposing Mr Masih to the charge of apostasy or being criminally prosecuted under Pakistan’s blasphemy statutes which could result even in a death penalty.

However, a judge ruled in March that Sufyan was a victim of fake “conversion”, and that his Muslim employers had fraudulently registered him as a Muslim in the national database.

Tehmina Arora, ADF International, commented that his is yet another example of how laws in Pakistan are “weaponized to punish and target Christians”.

Doctors have accused the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) of “grossly misrepresenting” the views of its members by softening its stance on assisted suicide/euthanasia. A vote by the governing body overrode the wishes of rank and file GPs by changing the College’s stance to one of neutrality rather than of opposition.

The organisation announced last week that it was no longer formally opposed to euthanasia, instead adopting a “neutral” position.

But critics say this shift is “baffling”, given that a poll of Royal College of GPs (RCGP) members shows support for euthanasia among GPs has fallen sharply in recent years.

More than 250 GPs have signed a letter to The London Times expressing their disappointment in the college’s leadership

A recent survey of members showed that 47.5 per cent believed the RCGP should remain opposed to so-called ‘assisted dying’, while only 13.6 per cent supporting the idea of a neutral position.

Meanwhile, 33.7 per cent wanted their organisation to support the legalisation of assisted suicide — down from 40 per cent in 2019, the last time members were surveyed on the issue.

A Spanish court has rejected an appeal by a man against the authorisation of euthanasia for his 24-year-old daughter.

The woman had attempted suicide several times, the last of which left her in a wheelchair, and in April 2024, she formally requested euthanasia.

A 2021 law allows adults with “serious and incurable” diseases that cause “unbearable suffering” to end their lives.

That was scheduled for August 2nd this year, but the court suspended it the day before at the request of the father.

In the recent hearing, seven doctors who treated the young woman, specializing in psychiatry, neurorehabilitation, and neurology, testified that she met the requirements for ‘assisted death’.

In addition, forensic experts from the justice system said that the young woman’s decision-making capacity remains intact.

The court ruled that the woman’s father is not entitled to appeal her euthanasia as the case does not involve minors or incapacitated individuals.

Senator Sharon Keogan has revealed that the Government has given a summer deadline to enact a law which would ensure the right of unmarried fathers to be named on their children’s birth certificates.

Senator Keogan said that after more than a decade of delays and repeated inquiries last week the Minister for Social Protection, Dara Calleary, “told us that he expects that the law will be put into action ‘before the end of quarter two this year’”.

In 2014, the law regarding Civil Registration was updated. It required that unmarried mothers would be obliged to provide the details of the child’s biological father if he was not present.

The Senator said: “To date, however, the government and the HSE have not put this law into practice.

“This has meant that for the past decade, in the case of unmarried parents, the registration of the child’s father was near-totally at the discretion of the mother. Unmarried fathers who were not registered on their children’s birth certs could only be included if they pursued court action,” she said.

“The application of this law will help to safeguard the rights of unmarried fathers and ensure that children will be aware of their parentage.”

An Post’s latest St Patrick’s Day stamp design featuring cartoon snakes is a troubling sign of the country’s increasing secularisation, according to one Irish priest expert in stamps.

In a letter to The Irish Catholic, Fr Patrick Moore PP of Castlepollard, Co. Westmeath, lamented that despite St Patrick “driving out the snakes of pre-Christian paganism, here, they reappear, in the form of our annual An Post contribution for the feast—or rather now, the festival—of St Patrick’s Day, as they call it.”

A longtime member of An Post’s Philatelic section—the division dedicated to the study of stamps—Fr Moore expressed disappointment that major Catholic figures like St Oliver Plunkett, Ven. Matt Talbot, and St Laurence O’Toole have been overlooked in recent commemorative stamp releases.

Fr Moore pointed to what he sees as a broader cultural shift, similar to the recent push to equate St Brigid with a pre-Christian Celtic goddess. “The very valuable stamp commemorations should be holistic and not narrow-minded,” he urged, calling for a more balanced representation of Ireland’s history.

Opponents of a euthanasia/assisted suicide bill going through the UK parliament have strongly criticised the scrapping of a substantial safeguard that required a High Court judge to approve applications for the procedure.

While the proposed legislation would enable terminally ill adults in England and Wales, deemed to have less than six months to live, to be legally helped to kill themselves, some critics say the law would be expanded as it has in countries such as Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada to include categories other than the terminally ill.

The judicial oversight of applications in the original bill has now been scaled back to an ‘assisted dying commissioner’ and expert panel featuring a senior legal figure, a psychiatrist and a social worker.

A group of 26 Labour MPs opposed to the Bill expressed their anger yesterday at the removal of the safeguard, saying it, “breaks the promises made by the proponents of the Bill”.

“It fundamentally weakens the protections for the vulnerable and shows just how haphazard this whole process has become”, they added.

“It does not increase judicial safeguards but instead creates an unaccountable quango and to claim otherwise misrepresents what is being proposed”.

An event exposing the harms of internet pornography is being hosted by The Holy See’s delegation to the United Nations on the sidelines of the 69th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

This event, “The Scourge of Pornography in the Digital Age”, will address the social impact resulting from the widespread availability of graphic content on the internet and will take place at the U.N. headquarters in New York.

The conference will feature experts in law, psychology, and pastoral care who will analyze the social consequences of pornography, especially for women and children.

The event coincides with the 30th anniversary of the publication of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, a resolution adopted by the United Nations on Sept. 15, 1995.

That document recognised the harmful effects of pornography on women and girls: fostering violence and reinforcing degrading portrayals.

However, the event organizers lamented that despite international efforts pornography is proliferating.

Pope Francis has described pornography as a “brutality” that requires urgent attention.

Numerous Catholic cathedrals and churches in Mexico were vandalised during marches to commemorate International Women’s Day last weekend.

In the state of Jalisco, the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of Most Holy Mary in Guadalajara was tagged with graffiti on its walls with slogans in favour of abortion and attacking the Catholic Church.

In central Mexico, San José Cathedral in Toluca was another of the churches attacked by feminist groups, who placed a green cloth — the colour adopted by the abortion movement — on its exterior gate. Some of the statues in niches in the cathedral’s outside walls were also vandalised.

In Morelos, also in the central region, videos were posted on social media showing people trying, without success, to tear down the protective fencing in front of the Cuernavaca Cathedral.

In Oaxaca, in the country’s southeast, participants in the march sprayed graffiti on the walls of the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption. A video posted on social media shows an attempt to set fire to the main door.

An Israeli court has decided that a baby who was implanted in the wrong woman after an embryo mix-up should remain with her birth-mother and partner, rather than be returned to its biological parents.

The incident originally came to light after tests showed that a pregnant woman who underwent IVF was carrying a baby that was not genetically related to her or her husband.

While a lower court ruled the baby should be returned to its genetic parents, subject to appeal, a higher court has now reversed that decision.

The court also ruled that the child’s best interest requires recognising the birth mother’s partner as her legal father.

The judges claimed that maintaining a secure attachment with her current caregivers is of critical importance for the baby and separating her from them could cause irreversible harm.

Nonetheless, they also said it is critical to ensure the child maintains a relationship with her genetic parents.

The baby’s genetic parents responded to the verdict calling it unbearable and unjust.