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.

Leaders in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh are proposing the death penalty for those who allegedly force people into religious conversion — a change that could harm the state’s Christians, who already are persecuted under the law through false accusations.

Mohan Yadav, chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, said March 8 that he plans to amend the state’s anti-conversion law to capitally punish those found to be fraudulently forcing people to convert, adding that “religious conversion will not be tolerated”. Christians make up just 0.27% of the 72 million population of Madhya Pradesh,

Since 2021, the state’s anti-conversion law has already resulted in sentences of 10 years in jail for violators.

Though religious freedom is provided for in the Indian Constitution, anti-conversion laws have been an increasing problem for adherents of minority faiths. In recent years, at least a dozen of India’s 28 states passed laws to criminalize “forced” conversions, most of them in Hindu nationalist party-ruled states from the early 2000s onward.

The CSO has reported a 60pc decline in the number of women “engaged in home duties” since 2010.

This comes despite an Iona Institute/Amarach poll last year showing that 69pc of mothers would prefer to stay at home with their children if they could.

Additionally, the State is bound to ensure mothers are not forced by “economic necessity” to work outside the home, with the electorate solidly opposing a referendum last year to delete that provision from the constitution.

The CSO figures are contained in the latest Women in the Labour Market 2023-2024 published last Friday.

A key finding is that women who reported their Principal Economic Status as “engaged in home duties” decreased by 60% from 520,500 in 2010 to 208,200 in 2024.

Escalating sectarian violence in Syria has prompted an urgent appeal for prayer from a global charity dedicated to protecting minority Christian communities. Last year, the Assad Government was overthrown by an organisation that was once an Al-Qaeda affiliate but is currently presenting itself to the West as having changed its ways.

Reports from the coastal region in the Middle East country say hundreds of civilians have been killed in clashes, many in indiscriminate attacks.

According to sources in Latakia close to Aid to the Church in Need, last Friday was described as “a very black and painful day” in the cities of Tartus, Banias, Jabla, and Latakia, and the surrounding villages.

“Massacres against many Alawites, often indiscriminately, in response to an ambush by some Alawite militants that killed about 20 members of the new security forces.”

The same source stated: “The number of victims is very sad; the majority were civilians, more than 600, who lost their lives, including young people, women, university doctors, and pharmacists. Some families with their children were killed in cold blood.” Among the deceased were also members of Christian communities, such as “a father and son from an evangelical church in Latakia, who were stopped in their car and killed, as well as the father of a priest in Banias.”

New independent guidelines in the UK to produce ‘equitable sentencing’ of minority faith, ethic, and cultural communities has been slammed by both the Government and the opposition. The guidelines say that if an offender comes from a historically discriminated against minority, this could be a reason to hand down a more lenient sentence. However, critics say this means those who are not from such backgrounds, including Christians and straight, white men will receive heavier sentences which is a form of “two-tier justice”.

The Justice Secretary, Labour MP Shabana Mahmood, has said she will be registering her “displeasure” and will be recommending the guidance is reversed – however, as the Sentencing Council is independent, she cannot order them to do so.

The Tory justice spokesperson, Robert Jenrick, said the guidelines show a “blatant bias”.

Mr Jenrick told Wilfred Frost on Sky News Breakfast it was evidence of “two-tier justice” and will be “very corrosive to public trust and confidence in the criminal justice system”.

“To me, this seems like blatant bias, particularly against Christians, and against straight white men,” he said.