Four Israeli municipalities have sought to levy municipal taxes on church properties in violation of “centuries” of historical agreements in a move denounced by local Church leaders as a “coordinated attack” against Christians in the Holy Land.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Catholic patriarch of Jerusalem and Franciscan Fr Francesco Patton, custos of the Holy Land, in a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, stated: “At this time when the entire world, and in particular the Christian world, is constantly following the events in Israel, we find ourselves once again faced with an attempt by the authorities to expel the Christian presence from the Holy Land”.

They added: “It is an outrage that, specifically during such sensitive and complicated times when patience, compassion, unity in prayer and hope should prevail, municipalities are opening cases against churches in courts and making threats. This constitutes contempt of our customs and that which is dear to us, while trampling the mutual respect that existed between us until this time”.

A Belgian civil court has fined two Catholic bishops in a direct attack on religious freedom after they denied a woman entry into a diaconate formation program.

The woman, Veer Dusauchoit, asked the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels to register for training as a deacon in June 2023 and again in October 2023.

Ms Dusauchoit made her first request to Cardinal Jozef De Kesel and her second to Archbishop Luc Terlinden after De Kesel’s 2023 resignation at age 76. Both times, her request to join the four-year diaconal training program was denied. The two prelates will have to pay  €1,500 euro each, the court ordered.

The Catholic Church teaches that holy orders –  diaconate, priesthood, and episcopate – is reserved to baptised men.

Pope Francis has reiterated numerous times that holy orders are “reserved to men”, though he has also called for “study” into whether women could become deacons.

In a mixed judgement, a German Court has acquitted a pharmacist of breach of professional duty for refusing to stock and sell abortifacient drugs.

However, the judge warned him that if he can’t dispense certain drugs for reasons of conscience, he would have to give up the profession.

Andreas Kersten was charged in 2018 when he exercised his freedom of conscience to refrain from selling a potentially abortifacient drug, the “morning-after pill,” in his pharmacy. The Court held that Kersten was relying on a letter from the federal Ministry for Health, which stated that pharmacists may exercise their conscience in such situations.

However, the presiding judge explained that the duty to provide drugs (including the morning-after-pill) overrides the freedom of conscience – a stance at odds with international human rights law protecting conscience. He noted that a pharmacist who could not reconcile the dispensing of certain drugs with his conscience would have to give up his profession.

Dr Felix Böllmann of ADF International, which has supported Kersten’s case for six years welcomed his client’s exoneration but called the reasoning behind the judgment “egregious” as it is “in direct contradiction to international law”.

The controversial hate crime Bill is now not expected to return to the Oireachtas before the summer recess, casting doubt on whether it will be enacted at all, reports the Irish Times.

Citing unnamed sources, the report says the incomplete Bill will not be taken up again until the autumn at the earliest, which leaves little time for it to be passed before the legislative session breaks for the general election.

The Bill passed in the Dáil but stalled a year ago in the Seanad after Senators raised several significant questions about it, not least its failure to define hatred. Mr McDowell also asked the Department of Justice to explain “what is intended by the term ‘transgender’ and the phrase ‘a gender other than those of male and female’” in the definitions of the Bill. He did not receive an explanation.

The Department of Justice has previously declined to give examples of speech which is legal but will be criminalised by the Bill if it is passed

A retired married couple died side by side in what is the latest case of double euthanasia in the Netherlands.

In the moments before their deaths, the pair were surrounded by friends and family, including their son, who had found his parents’ decision to end their lives hard to take.

Jan, who worked as a cargo boat operator, had been suffering from severe back pain for over 20 years, while his wife was diagnosed with dementia in 2022 and it was getting progressively worse.

‘I’ve lived my life, I don’t want pain anymore,’ Jan told the BBC. ‘The life we’ve lived, we’re getting old [for it]. We think it has to be stopped.’

In 2023, 9,068 people died by euthanasia in the Netherlands – up 348 on 2022.

29 couples died that way in 2022, up from 16 couples in 2021. In 2018, there were nine.

Japan’s top court has ruled that a defunct eugenics law, under which thousands of people were forcibly sterilised between 1948 and 1996, is unconstitutional.

Eugenics was practiced in the US and Sweden, from the early part of the 20th century, and inspired similar programs in Nazi-Germany from the mid-1930s.

Japan’s government acknowledges that around 16,500 people were forcibly sterilised under the law that aimed to “prevent the generation of poor quality descendants”.

An additional 8,500 people were sterilised with their consent, although lawyers say even those cases were likely “de facto forced” because of the pressure individuals faced.

The Supreme Court also declared that a 20-year statute of limitations could not be applied, paving the way for compensation claims from victims after years of legal battles.

The biggest threat to humanity isn’t climate change, the next pandemic, or a nuclear apocalypse but rather a lack of babies.

That’s according to author and demographer Paul Morland. The fertility rate in Ireland is now 1.5, which is well below the replacement level fertility rate of 2.1 babies per couple.

He told Claire Byrne on RTE Radio 1 that global birth rates are plummeting so much there soon won’t be enough young people to take care of the aging population.

Referencing his new book “No One Left: Why the World Needs More Children” he laid out his case for pro-natalism: that a healthy society has a reasonable number of children where people are having babies by choice—not because they cannot control their fertility.

He denied it is a “right-wing” concern, citing numerous left-wing thinkers and centrist politicians who share it. Regardless of politics or ideology, he said, “people matter”.

Fears of a ‘population bomb’ are “fifty years out of date”, with even quite poor countries such as Jamaica and Thailand now also not having enough children to replace themselves.

He said societies need to move forward to the 2030s not back to the 1950s to give couples the support they need to have more children.

But, he added, policy changes alone won’t cut it – cultural change is necessary as well.

The State-paid “free” contraception scheme has been expanded to include women aged 32 to 35. Despite the roll-over of free contraception to different age groups, the abortion rate in Ireland keeps climbing. Last year, over 10,000 took place.

Launched in September 2022, the scheme now covers all women aged 17 to 35 inclusive.

It comes despite a 2019 Working Group on Access to Contraception, under the then Health Minister, Simon Harris, say the proposal would probably be a waste of public funds.

There has not been a corresponding scheme to help women achieve the number of children they want.

Health Minister Stephen Donnelly announced that from today, women who are ordinarily resident in Ireland and aged between their 17th birthday and the day before their 36th birthday will be eligible for fully-state-funded contraception.

The service covers the cost of consultations and prescriptions for a range of chemical contraceptive options.

These include long-acting contraception (Larcs) such as injections, implants and hormonal and copper intra-uterine devices and systems (coils).

The scheme also includes emergency contraception in addition to the oral contraceptive pill, patch and ring, but it does not cover condoms or surgical sterilization.

Two disappeared Ukrainian Greek Catholic priests seized by Russian forces from their church in southern coastal city of Berdyansk in November 2022 have been released from captivity.

Despite the danger, following the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Redemptorist Fathers Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta chose to stay in the occupied territories, ministering to both Greek and Roman Catholic communities and providing hope under occupation.

According to the Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), the priests were accused of illegal possession of weapons, “charges fabricated to justify their imprisonment”.

“Their prolonged detention was marked by a lack of concrete information about their whereabouts and wellbeing, despite reports of torture and abuse. Despite this, their faith and hope persisted”, said a spokesperson.

The head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC), Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, expressed profound gratitude to the Holy See, particularly to Pope Francis, for their efforts in securing the priests’ release.

Despite the joy of this news, ACN recalls that many innocent civilians remain in custody, and invites friends and benefactors to continue to pray for their release, and for peace in Ukraine.