The French President has again postponed legislation to enable ‘assisted dying’ and euthanasia in France and will instead pursue a bill to radically improve palliative care.

On Monday, Emmanuel Macron received religious representatives at the Élysée Palace for the traditional New Year’s greetings ceremony. He announced two separate legislative processes, one for developing a palliative care plan by 2034, and a second, separate one paving the way for euthanasia and assisted suicide: “I have decided to present the ten-year palliative care strategy first, in the coming weeks, before presenting the principle of a forthcoming law.” In so doing, he is responding to a request made by Christian and Jewish leaders. He did not announce any timetable for the euthanasia law.

For pro-euthanasia campaigners, this is an unacceptable step backward, as their intention was to obtain a single law uniting the issues of euthanasia and end-of-life support. Pro-life associations had denounced this idea as a dangerous amalgamation: palliative care and active assistance in dying are not part of the same mentality and putting them together in a legislative project would inevitably have led to palliative care being sidelined in favour of euthanasia.

Parents’ rights advocates in Scotland are concerned parents who resist a child ‘changing’ sex could face up to seven years in prison if found to be attempting to “change or suppress” another person’s “gender identity,” including in a family setting.

In a vague and wide-reaching attempt to ban so-called “conversion therapy,” parents who are deemed “controlling” or considered to have “pressured” their child to “act in a particular way” when it comes to “gender identity” could be committing a crime. Criminal penalties could result if the actions cause “fear, alarm, and distress”.

There are defences and exceptions set out in the proposals, including a general defence of reasonableness, but it is unclear how these might be interpreted.

The legislative proposals, published this week for public consultation, give the example of “preventing someone from dressing in a way that reflects their sexual orientation or gender identity” as an action that could become illegal if repeated on two or more occasions.

The threshold for criminality could still be met regardless of whether a parent believed they were acting in their child’s best interests.

Penalties for such a crime include imprisonment for up to seven years, an unlimited fine, or both.

Dismissing the two upcoming Constitutional referendums as mere “ideological gesturing”, the former Justice Minister, Michael McDowell, has called for a ‘No’ vote in both of them on March 8, polling day.

Writing in the Irish Times, Senator McDowell said the existing article on mothers in no way diminishes choice for them, but casts an obligation on the State to amplify their free choices “by assisting those who freely choose to work in the home and would otherwise be forced against their wishes to engage in labour outside the home”.

As for the family referendum, he said the term “durable relationships” is not defined and will be decided by the courts, but they have already said “durable” means capable of lasting but is not the same as “enduring” or permanent.

He asks if the term is intended for polyamorous relations, extending beyond the household, and are such relationships then to constitute the “natural, primary and fundamental unit groups of society”?

He said the fact that a Citizens’ Assembly recommended change “does not justify us in engaging in a process of constitutional amendment by blindman’s-buff referendums”.

“Apart from ideological gesturing, these amendments appear to serve no positive purpose. Far from being retrograde, it would be entirely prudent to vote No”.

A woman who was born to a surrogate mother has slammed the practice and called for its abolition.

Olivia Maurel (31) said her experiences have led her to conclude that surrogacy is “nothing short of cruel — an immoral act that can cause lifelong damage”.

Becoming a parent herself reinforced her view that the sacred bond between mother and baby “should never be tampered with”.

Comparing the trauma adopted children are said to suffer after being taken from their birth mothers, she said she believes it’s the same for children born via surrogacy: “a profoundly painful experience that disrupts the innate connections between birthing mother and child”.

She also has been moved to tears by messages from women who deeply regret their decisions to be surrogates and how they pine for the babies they gave up.

“We can only protect women like them — and the babies they have — if we ban all forms of surrogacy, including so-called altruistic surrogacy, where the surrogate is not paid a fee for carrying a child, as is the case in Britain”.

There has been a major spike in gonorrhoea and other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) in Ireland in the past year, according to new figures from the Health Protection Surveillance Centre (HPSC).

Some 6,748 cases of gonorrhoea were reported up to 23 December 2023, a 70pc increase compared to the 3,976 cases recorded in 2022.

A number of other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) saw an increase last year too – including chlamydia, herpes and syphilis – but gonorrhoea cases saw the most drastic change in just 12 months.

Most cases were reported by men (5,200), in particular men who have sex with other men.

According to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), the continent is experiencing a “concerning rise” in STIs.

While there was a decrease in reported STI cases in Ireland and other European countries during the pandemic, latest figures reveal that Ireland has one of the highest incidence rates of gonorrhoea in Europe.

The US State Department’s decision to not designate Nigeria and India as having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom has been subject to sharp criticism.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government agency, said both countries repeatedly meet the legal standard to be designated as a Country of Particular Concern and there was “no justification” for omitting them from its annual religious freedom watchlist.

Other advocates of religious freedom expressed concerned that the Biden administration is turning a blind eye to the facts on the ground.

The situation of religious or belief communities in Nigeria has been dire for several years, with the focus on atrocities perpetrated by the Islamist Boko Haram and the Fulani militia.

The violations in India, on the other hand, has been receiving very little attention. This is despite concerning reports on atrocity crimes against Muslim and Christian communities.

At least 132 Catholic priests and religious were either arrested, kidnapped or murdered during 2023, according to Aid to the Church in Need (ACN).

This represents an increase from 124 in 2022. These are, however, the confirmed cases, the number could be higher since in some countries reliable information is difficult to obtain.

Of these, 86 were clergy arrested or detained at some point during 2023. Some of the priests and religious had already been arrested or abducted before the year began but remained in custody or were missing for some or all of 2023. This compares to 55 who were under arrest at some point during 2022.

Nicaragua and Belarus lead the list of authoritarian regimes that have resorted to detaining priests and religious in order to punish the Church for speaking out against injustices and human rights violations or merely for trying to operate freely.

A leading American Bishop is urging Catholics to oppose an effort to make ‘assisted dying’ legal in the state of Minnesota.

In an article on the website of Word on Fire, Winona-Rochester Bishop Robert Barron said the proposed law caused him to reflect on a billboard he saw in California when that state was considering legalising assisted suicide in the mid-2010s: “My life, my death, my choice.”

The bishop said the billboard caused him to think of St. Paul’s exhortation to the Romans: “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

“Did the billboard get it right, or did St. Paul? Does my life belong to me, or is it a gift from God? Is my death a matter of my personal choice, or is it under God’s providence and at his disposal?” Barron asked.

Barron wrote that the premium placed on bodily autonomy in modern society misses the point that the intentional taking of an innocent life is always wrong, no matter what the perceived benefits may be.

The Pope has called for a universal ban on the “despicable” practice of surrogate motherhood, as he included the “commercialisation” of pregnancy in an annual speech listing threats to global peace and human dignity.

Addressing ambassadors to the Holy See, Francis said the life of the unborn child must be protected and not “suppressed or turned into an object of trafficking”.

He added: “I consider despicable the practice of so-called surrogate motherhood, which represents a grave violation of the dignity of the woman and the child, based on the exploitation of situations of the mother’s material needs.”

Francis also called for the international community “to prohibit this practice universally”.

The Federation of Catholic Family Associations in Europe (FAFCE) echoed the Pope’s remarks.

FAFCE President, Vincenzo Bassi, said: “For many years, Catholic family associations in Europe have been at the forefront of efforts to protect children and women against any attempt to legitimise this practice, and we will continue to work with the many different people and organisations that support the Casablanca Declaration”.