Catholic schools set a high standard when it comes to providing education and contributing significantly as ‘Communities of Service’ in our society, according to Bishop Tom Deenihan, Bishop of Meath, who chairs the Council for Education of the Irish Bishops’ Conference.
He was speaking in the run up to the all-Ireland, annual celebration of Catholic Schools Week from 21 to 27 January.
“Generations of people have benefited from Catholic schools and our society is all the better for their contribution to the common good,” he said.
“Our schools, following the example of Jesus, serve every person regardless of creed, background, faith, social status or age. Jesus showed those around Him how our Heavenly Father is compassionate, courageous and forgiving by His own actions”
A just-released WHO FAQ Sheet on the “development of a guideline on the health of trans and gender diverse people said: “The scope [of the guidance] will cover adults only and not address the needs of children and adolescents, because on review, the evidence base for children and adolescents is limited and variable regarding the longer-term outcomes of gender affirming care for children and adolescents”.
Commenting on the move, Wesley J. Smith National Review said it shows that the science is not settled, and is in fact moving away from so-called “gender-affirming care” that uncritically moves a child along a path to sex-change, upon request.
He said that WHO had been preparing to push this model as the standard of care for treating dysphoric children, but after getting intense pushback, it backed down.
It also made a crucial admission that the evidence for that model of treatment simply isn’t there, contradicting what is public policy in some US states and in the Biden administration.
Expanding family recognition to include those based on ‘durable relationships’ will not include those based on ‘polygamous relationships,’ said Minister Roderic O’Gorman in the Dáil yesterday.
The Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth made the claim in response to repeated questioning from Independent TD, Michael McNamara.
The Clare TD envisaged it being an issue regarding people in polygamous marriages coming to Ireland from other States and seeking to bring family members with them.
However, the Minister replied that, “polygamous relationships have never been recognised under Irish law and, secondly, because a polygamous relationship is not one that represents a fundamental unit group of society. It is not one that represents a moral institution in Irish law and it is not durable”.
Mr McNamara responded that polygamous marriages have existed for centuries and are durable.
He added: “The reality is that we have absolutely no idea how this will be interpreted by the courts. We are making a change for the sake of it”.
After another denial by the Minister, the deputy asked if ‘durable’, “will mean ‘durable’ unless the ‘durable relationship’ is a ‘polygamous’ one, in which case it is ‘durable’ but we are not going to recognise it because we do not like its ‘durability’?”
The Minister replied that “durability” is not sufficient as a family also has to be “a natural and fundamental unit group of society and a moral institution”.
Deputy McNamara then asked: “Are we saying that some marriages are moral institutions and some are not? Are we saying that those that are monogamous are, and those that are polygamous are not, even though they are, of course, moral institutions in other countries . . . ?”
Emmanuel Macron has pledged to “re-arm French fertility” and boost falling birth rates.
The French president announced a plan to introduce a six-month parental leave, one of many policies he said was meant to promote having children and strengthen the longterm economic outlook.
“France will also be stronger by boosting its birth rate,” Mr Macron insisted. “Until recently, we were a country where this was the strength, not the uniqueness in Europe, when we compared ourselves with our neighbours. This has become less true in recent years.”
A demographic report for 2023 shows the fewest births since the end of the Second World War. Less than 700,000 births were recorded, down 20% from 2010. The fertility rate fell to 1.68 children per woman of childbearing age, moving further away from the replacement rate of 2.1.
France still has one of the highest birthrates in Europe but it has been below replacement level for many years. .
“Habits are changing, and people are having children later and later,” said the president. “Infertility, both male and female, has risen sharply in recent years and is causing many couples to suffer. A major plan to combat this scourge will be launched to bring about this demographic rearmament.”
The upcoming referendum on the family will form “part of the reparation process” for single mothers and their children, the chief executive of One Family has said.
Voters are being asked to amend the definition of the family, from being based on marriage, to being founded on marriage “or on other durable relationships”.
At the unveiling of its campaign, Karen Kiernan, chief executive of the organisation for one-parent families and people sharing parenting or separating, highlighted the suffering of women who “could not keep and raise their own children” and were “incarcerated” in mother and baby homes” where they were “sometimes forced into the adoption of their children, where they were shamed, mistreated and punished”.
Ms Kiernan said although there was now broad acceptance that their mistreatment was “very wrong” the vote on broadening the definition of the family in the referendum could be “part of this reparation process for what was done to the children and their parents”.
The number of relatives a person has will decrease by more than 35% worldwide as the structure of families change, according to a study projecting the evolution of human kinship.
Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research predicts the number of cousins, nieces, nephews and grandchildren will decline sharply, while the number of great-grandparents and grandparents will increase significantly.
In 1950, a 65-year-old woman had an average of 41 living relatives. By 2095, a woman of the same age will have an average of only 25.
For the study, the researchers analyzed historical and projected data from the 2022 revision of the United Nation’s World Population Prospects.
The biggest fall will be in developing world countries because developed countries have already seen dramatic falls in family size.
“We expect the overall size of families to decline permanently in all regions of the world. We expect the largest declines in South America and the Caribbean,” says lead researcher Diego Alburez-Gutierrez.
A new medical code of practice that removes the prohibition on deliberately ending a patient’s life and weakens freedom of conscience has alarmed hundreds of doctors, according to Hope Ireland. The move is seen as paving the way for euthanasia.
The human rights group, which opposes euthanasia, has called for the issue “to be reviewed by the Medical Council, and for a public debate on the deeply concerning practical implications of these new guidelines.”
“Doctors across the country have voiced their worry by the removal of the guideline preventing doctors from participating in the deliberate ending of a patient’s life,” Hope Ireland spokesperson Siobhán Traynor said.
“It is widely suspected that this section has been deleted due to an expectation on the part of the Medical Council that Ireland will soon introduce a form of euthanasia and assisted suicide. An Oireachtas Special Committee is currently deliberating on whether to introduce such a law. Hope Ireland has campaigned strongly against these proposals, which would inevitably set a precedent for an ever-expanding law (as has been in the case in the vast majority of jurisdictions which initially introduced a limited form of euthanasia) whilst undermining investment in palliative care”.
A fertility clinic was ordered to discontinue its embryo screening procedures after an inspection found a series of critical faults in its laboratory management, training and use of equipment that included using a device for egg collection that was known to be defective, reports the Irish Independent.
Embyro screening more generally is seen by critics as a form of eugenics.
‘First IVF’, based in Clane, Co Kildare, was the subject of a heightened inspection regime from the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) from June 2022 up to last October after inspection reports in April 2021 and July 2022 found a series of major problems.
An inspection report on First IVF finalised in July 2022 by the HPRA, obtained under Freedom of Information Act, found 35 critical deficiencies in its management and handling of embryo biopsies. The report is by far the most serious released by the HPRA since the Independent began publishing fertility clinic inspection reports completed since 2018.
The Free Legal Aid Centres (FLAC) have called on the Government to change the wording of the two referendums proposed for March 8th. The Bills setting up the votes will be considered by the Oireachtas in the coming weeks.
The NGO has provided specific recommendations to strengthen and clarify the ‘family’ and ‘care’ amendments.
In particular, they say expanding the constitutional definition of the family to include to “durable relationships”, “raises many questions about what the amendment will mean in practical terms”.
Noting the use of the term in the Constitution is novel, they advise amending the proposed new wording so that after “durable relationships”, the words “such as that which exists between parents and children” should be added.
The Finnish state prosecutor will appeal a second unanimous court decision which exonerated a Finnish MP and bishop of “hate speech” allegations for sharing their faith-based beliefs.
The prosecution is demanding tens of thousands of Euros in fines and insisting that the two defendants’ publications be censored.
“The state’s insistence on continuing this prosecution despite such a clear and unanimous ruling by both the Helsinki District Court and Court of Appeal is alarming,” said Paul Coleman, Executive Director of ADF International.
“Dragging people through the courts for years, subjecting them to hour-long police interrogations, and wasting taxpayer money in order to police people’s deeply held beliefs has no place in a democratic society. As is so often the case in “hate speech” trials, the process has become of the punishment”.
