The proposed Constitutional change on divorce might have the effect of further weakening the social commitment to marriage. That’s according to Bishop Kevin Doran of the Diocese of Elphin who released a pastoral message yesterday asking the people of his diocese to consider whether the liberalising of divorce law could have that effect.
He also expressed doubts about the State’s current commitment to marriage: “The important parallel question that we need to ask is whether society is living up to its responsibility to prioritise the family and to provide the human supports that might help couples to resolve difficulties that arise in their relationship, before their differences become irreconcilable.”
Meanwhile Bishop of Limerick Brendan Leahy has said that it would be shame to just tick a box for the upcoming referendum on divorce law without first considering the social context and challenges that marriages face today.
In a statement ahead of this weekend’s referendum, Bishop Leahy asked for consideration to be given to establishing a State agency specifically dedicated to marriage, the promotion of healthy marriages and support to marriages in trouble.
A French court has ordered doctors to resume life support for a quadriplegic man whose case has sparked a major debate on euthanasia in France.
Doctors had begun switching off life support for Vincent Lambert, 42, on Monday, before the court order. Mr Lambert has been in a vegetative state since a 2008 motorcycle accident. His family are divided on his care with his wife calling for his feeding tubes to be withdrawn, while his parents insist he be kept alive.
An earlier judicial ruling had said Mr Lambert should be removed from life support and that process had begun with doctors halting the nutrition and hydration Lambert receives before Monday evening’s dramatic reversal by the Paris Court of Appeal.
The case has been the subject of judicial rulings, going as far as the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Europe’s top court upheld the decision of a French court to allow Mr Lambert to be taken off life support. However, doctors then did not carry out the plan.
The UN’s Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities had called on France to intervene and delay the move to withdraw the life support while they investigated his case further. France’s ministry of health said it was not bound by the committee.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48344426
Faith is a global force for good in producing positive outcomes for family life according to a new report released Monday by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institution.
The 2019 World Family Map looked how religion is linked, on average, to four key family outcomes —relationship quality, fertility, domestic violence, and infidelity— in 11 countries across the globe: Argentina, Australia, Chile, Canada, Colombia, France, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Drawing on data from the World Values Survey (WVS) and the Global Family and Gender Survey (GFGS), the report found that faith is indeed a force for good in contemporary family life globally. Men and women who share an active religious life, for instance, enjoy higher levels of relationship quality and sexual satisfaction compared to their peers in secular or less/mixed religious relationships. They also have more children and are more likely to marry. At the same time, the researchers not find that faith protects women from domestic violence in married and cohabiting relationships. Overall, this report suggests the family-friendly norms and networks associated with religious communities reinforce the ties that bind. According to the authors of the report, the challenge facing those communities, however, is to build on these strengths to address families who are struggling—including the approximately one-in-five of their adherents who experience intimate partner violence.
The Democratic Governor of Louisiana, John Bel Edwards, has promised to sign legislation that would prohibit abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected which occurs as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
The bill is sponsored by Democratic state Sen. John Milkovich and has received little public opposition from lawmakers of any stripe as it steadily advances. The Louisiana bill includes an exception if the pregnant woman’s health is in “serious risk,” but not for pregnancies caused by rape or incest.
It is similar to laws passed in other states such as Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia, Ohio and Alabama that have been the focus of public protests.
The Governor has always been a public advocate of pro-life policies with his position based in part on personal experience. When his wife was 20 weeks pregnant with their first child, a doctor discovered their daughter had spina bifida and encouraged an abortion. The Edwardses refused. Now, daughter Samantha is married and working as a school counselor, and Edwards finds himself an outlier in polarized abortion politics.
“My position hasn’t changed. In eight years in the Legislature, I was a pro-life legislator,” he said. When he ran for governor, his view was the same. “I’m as consistent as I can be on that point.”
The Government should support marriage rather than liberalise our divorce laws. That’s according to Bishop Denis Nulty of Catholic Bishops’ Council for Marriage & Family in a statement on Friday’s divorce referendum. He said it is important to reflect on the implications of the referendum “which seeks to expedite the dissolution of marriage”.
“The common good would be better served by supporting and resourcing couples and families in preparation for, and during marriage,” he said.
He added: “We believe that the incidence of marriage breakdown and divorce could be reduced through the introduction of socio-economic policies which support the family and through long-term education strategies which promote values such as fidelity and commitment. While this would cost money, the human and economic cost of breakdown and divorce, both for the couple and for their children, is a far greater cost.
“Feedback from Accord indicates that the experience of couples who have undertaken a marriage preparation course has been very positive and this has benefits for their marriage and family life.
“The Government should recommit resources to marriage preparation and invest resources into marriage enrichment. Both initiatives will sustain marriages into the future and lead to great dividends for wider society.”
The parents of the misdiagnosed unborn child that was aborted at the National Maternity Hospital at Holles Street in March say they were told there was no point waiting for a second test result before proceeding with an abortion. The baby was thought at first to have Edward’s Syndrome. Most babies with the conditions live only a few days after birth.
The couple say the hospital told them that the matter was “black and white”, there was “no hope”, the initial test was “conclusive” and the next stage of testing “would make no difference”.
The mother raised specific concerns about the possibility of mosaicism, the cause of false-positives, but says her concerns were dismissed.
The couple say they were “actively” told not to wait for the second part of the CVS test and that there was no need for amniocentesis which tests cells directly from the foetus, rather than the placenta.
Meanwhile, the Irish Times reports the National Maternity Hospital says it follows standard practice in carrying out abortions where requested by parents following a single diagnostic test showing a fatal foetal anomaly. However, the paper notes, UK and international guidelines suggest confirmatory second-test results should first be obtained.
The parents of the aborted child said procedures followed by the hospital do not accord with those followed in the Rotunda and the Coombe in relation to awaiting the results of a second test.
It has emerged also that another woman received a false-positive that incorrectly diagnosed her unborn child with the same foetal anomaly as the Holles street baby.
After a non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT) in March of this year indicated her baby was at risk of trisomy 18, Kerry Fonseca, of Balgriffin, north Dublin, went for a chorionic villus sampling (CVS) diagnostic test in the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin and it came back positive for Edward’s Syndrome. However, she opted to have an amniocentesis three weeks later and it came back clear. [3]
The CVS test which also produced the false positive in the Holles Street case is alleged to produce an incorrect result in only 0.15% of cases.
The Church of Ireland passed a motion calling on the Department of Foreign Affairs to place the persecution of Christians on a par with all other human rights issues at its General Synod in Derry last Thursday.
Supporting the motion, Derek Neilson (Glendalough) said “if this General Synod is going to highlight persecution and to make a real stand, then we must start that somewhere and this motion seeks to do that in asking that concrete action be taken to support persecuted Christians around the world”.
Geoffrey McMaster (Glendalough) cited a recent article that said governments were slow to react to the persecution of Christians and churches were slow to let their people know of this persecution. He said the church had to show leadership.
The Revd Criag McAuley (Kilmore) referenced the Easter Morning, suicide bombings in Sri Lanka. He said his mood changed from sadness to anger at the thought that Christians and holiday makers were killed for celebrating the risen Christ. He was angry at the media and politicians, as there was no like for like response between the lack of reaction to Sri Lanka and the huge response to the shootings in Christ Church. He said that they had failed Christians. He said it was a disgrace that so many politicians did not acknowledge that it was Christians who were killed. He said that many were persecuted for their faith and the church had to say they stand alongside them where the politicians and media fail them.
The rise in marriage and family breakdown has prompted a call on the Church of Ireland to refocus its mission on the biblical values of marital indissolubility.
The call was made in a report by the chairperson of the Church’s Marriage Council, the Revd Jonathan Campbell–Smyth, at the COI’s General Synod in Derry last week.
He said that the rate of marriage in the UK and Ireland had reduced significantly over the previous fifty years, while the rate of divorce increased dramatically in the UK. He said it was a “startling statistic” that in 2017, 42% of marriages in England and Wales ended in divorce, and added, whilst this is out of the COI’s jurisdiction, it gives an unhealthy picture into the future.
He said this called for the Church to refocus its support and mission in favour of the indissolubility of marriage even as society considers such values to be outdated.
He added that marriage breakup has a dramatic impact on children, and suggested that different bodies within the Church work closely “to ensure children of divorced couples or those witnessing frightening disruption within the family home are supported properly by the Church”.
In the written report, the Council noted that Tusla’s financial support of marriage counselling had been reduced from a one time high of €40,000 to just €5,000 last year.
An unborn child has been aborted after screenings incorrectly indicated it was suffering from a fatal abnormality, in this case Edward’s Syndrome. Pro-life groups have said what happened is a result of the new abortion law.
The result of one final screening, which was not returned until after the abortion was completed showed that the child did not have the indicated abnormality and had been in good health.
The abortion was conducted at the National Maternity hospital in Holles street at 15 weeks into the pregnancy under the section of the abortion law that allows abortions where the child is expected to die before or shortly after birth.
The parents of the child are said to be ‘devastated’ and have made a complaint to both the hospital and the Minister for Health, Simon Harris.
In a statement, Holles Street said it does not comment on individual cases, but it confirmed that it has asked the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to review a recent case at the hospital, although the Royal College later told RTE news that it had not not received a formal approach to undertake a review.
A jump of 20pc in the number of low weight births in Ireland is mainly due to the use of IVF. That’s according to obstetrician Michael Turner, director of the UCD Centre for Human Reproduction at the Coombe Hospital.
While low weight births are decreasing across the world, a study just published in the Lancet shows Ireland has had a 20% increase since the year 2000, which is the second highest increase among higher income countries.
The increase comes despite a worldwide commitment to reduce such births by 30pc by the year 2025.
Professor Turner attributes the Irish increase to a 30pc rise in the birth of twins and triplets from IVF.
