A new report detailing China’s crackdown on Christianity was launched in Dublin yesterday, followed by a call on the Irish Government to do more for those persecuted for their faith.
Complied by the advocacy group Church in Chains, it was launched by Dr Bob Fu, a former Christian prisoner in China.
The report documents President Xi Jinping’s “Sinicisation” policy – which aims at the creation of a Chinese version of every religion that conforms with and is subservient to the Chinese Communist Party.
Dr Fu said the persecution has increased dramatically in the last year such that it is now the worst since Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution.
He also called on the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, to specifically raise the matter of Christian persecution. Speaking to Spirit Radio, Dr Fu said: “We urge the Minister for Foreign Affairs to publicly express concern about the way Christians are being mistreated by the Chinese regime. And we also urge the Irish Government to raise the matter with the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland here. And the Irish Embassy to China to actively engage with the Chinese Government”.
The remains of more than 2,200 medically-preserved aborted foetuses have been discovered at the home of a former abortion doctor who died last week.
Police said they were contacted by an attorney for the family of Dr Ulrich Klopfer on Thursday after they discovered the remains at the former doctor’s home in northeastern Illinois.
Authorities found 2,246 preserved remains, according to a statement from the sheriff’s office, but there was no evidence that medical procedures had been performed at the property.
Klopfer, who died on 3 September, performed hundreds of abortion procedures at a clinic in South Bend, Indiana, over decades.
His license was suspended in 2016 for failing to exercise reasonable patient care and violating documentation requirements, according to local reports.
Indiana Right to Life President and CEO Mike Fichter issued a statement to say he was “horrified” when he learned about the discovery last Friday, September 13th.
“This gruesome news underscores that abortion is not an issue in theory, it is an issue of life and death for unborn baby girls and boys. To think of these children being preserved, for whatever purposes, is simply sickening. This discovery opens a flood of questions that must be answered.”
He added: “We cannot just shake our heads at the horror of this discovery, and then walk away. The time for investigation is now.”
A couple whose healthy baby was aborted because of an incorrect diagnosis of a fatal abnormality are in dispute with the National Maternity Hospital (NMH) over who should lead the inquiry into the incident.
The couple claim that Pranav Pandya, the proposed chairman of the inquiry team and a consultant in foetal medicine at University College London Hospitals, has a conflict of interest because he co-edited a medical book that contained a paper jointly written by one of the NMH doctors involved in their case, reports The Sunday Times.
Pandya, who is chair of England’s foetal anomaly screening programme, was recommended to the NMH by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in London.
New research suggests distinct but complementary roles for mothers and fathers in married and family life.
According to the research, a mother’s happiness is nearly twice as important as a father’s when it comes to family life and the chances of the couple staying together, according to a study by the UK’s Marriage Foundation.
The findings are based on the organisation’s analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study, which tracked 13,000 married and cohabiting couples, starting nine months after the birth of their child in 2000-1. They were interviewed again when the child was 14.
It found that if a mother was happy, she was more likely to have children who remained mentally well; more likely to remain close to her daughters when they were teenagers; and more likely to have a stable relationship with her partner. A father’s happiness had no bearing on his offspring’s mental health.
Sir Paul Coleridge, founder of the Marriage Foundation, which conducted the study with Lincoln University, said: “Despite all the social changes of the last 50 years, whether we like it or not, there is an ingredient for keeping the whole family happy, which is only available from the mother or mother figure.”
Norway violated the fundamental right to family life through the actions of its child welfare services, the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Tuesday.
Strand Lobben v. Norway was one of several cases appealed to the European Court of Human Rights in which parents complained that Norwegian authorities unlawfully removed their children from their homes. In Strand Lobben, a three-week-old child was taken away from his mother in 2008 based on doubts about her parenting abilities after she had requested support. The child was placed in foster care and his mother was ultimately allowed only eight hours of contact per year with her son. Eventually, all visitation rights were denied, the mother’s parental rights were removed, and the child was put up for adoption.
A concurring opinion by six judges stated, “the authorities in the present case failed from the outset to pursue the aim of reuniting the child with his mother, but rather immediately envisaged that he would grow up in the foster home. This underlying assumption runs like a thread through all stages of the proceedings, starting with the care order.”
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.
