The three opposition parties willing to form a new Polish government after a recent election are working on a coalition deal that makes no mention of abortion.

The Governing party who lost the election had warned that the opposition would bring in a radical abortion regime if elected.

However, Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition (KO, EPP/Greens), the Third Way bloc (Renew/EPP) and the Left (S&D) are divided on how to tackle the controversial issue.

Abortion is legal in Poland only if the pregnancy endangers the life or health of the mother or is the result of rape or incest.

However, those categories account for a miniscule number of abortions meaning the health ground is strictly interpreteted.

According to statistics from Poland’s Ministry of Health, of the 1,110 abortions performed in Polish clinics in 2019, 1,074 were on eugenic grounds.

The Constitutional Tribunal’s decision effectively declared a near-total ban on abortion.

During their election campaign, the Left and KO promised to legalise abortion up until the 12th week, while the Third Way wants to return to the 1993 compromise under which abortion was legal only when a fetushas a severe genetic abnormality, when the mother’s life is in danger, and when the pregnancy happened as a result of rape.

According to MP Dariusz Wieczorek, who represents the Left in the negotiation team, the parties “all agree about the need to cancel the Constitutional Tribunal’s decision as soon as possible”.

While the coalition agreement does not mention abortion, he said a bill on abortion rights is likely to be introduced sometime in 2024 after discussion within the coalition.

Following those nations, ICC President Jeff King said in an interview, are India, Iran, China, Pakistan, Eritrea, Algeria, Azerbaijan and Indonesia. The report is online at www.persecution.org, and the group is calling for a day of prayer on Sunday.

Some of the nations are relatively new on the list, while others have had longstanding issues of religious freedom for Christians and others. In Nigeria alone, Mr. King said, 100,000 Christians have died as a result of religious persecution in the past 20 years.

“It’s the numbers of deaths,” he said about Nigeria’s ranking atop the list. In addition, he said an estimated 3.5 million Christian farmers in the country have been displaced or had their farms taken.

Mr. King said the split in Nigeria between a Muslim-dominated north and a Christian-dominated south could lead to a civil war and subsequent displacement of population that would “dwarf any refugee crisis we’ve had in modern history.”

A Carmelite convent in Dublin has become the second enclosed order to be targeted by a new tax on undeveloped land, after their appeal to An Bord Pleanala (ABP) was denied.

The news comes after the Poor Clares in Cork City were hit with a tax aimed at dealing with companies and individuals who hoard residential sites.

The Carmelite Monastery of St Joseph, Kilmacud, in South Dublin, home to nine Carmelite sisters, has been included on draft maps for the Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT).

This could see the order facing a bill in the thousands annually, as the RZLT is calculated at 3pc of the market value of lands.

The convent appealed the decision saying the new tax “would interfere with the sisters’ way of life” as, being an enclosed order, the grounds are vital to the contemplative nature of the community.

However, ABP denied their appeal after its inspector concluded that no reasons had been identified that would prevent development of the order’s lands for residential purposes.

Annual abortion rates in Northern Ireland have almost doubled since Westminster ordered the decriminalisation of abortion, according to an analysis of official figures.

A Freedom of Information request to the Department of Health by the pro-life advocacy group Both Lives Matter reported that, as of 23rd May 2023, 5,648 abortions have taken place in NI since the abortion law was changed at the end of March 2020.

Dawn McAvoy, Both Lives Matter lead said, “Nearly 6,000 abortions on average across the three years since the new abortion regulations were laid out at the end of March 2020, signals that annual abortion rates for NI have nearly doubled”.

She added that around 2,000 lives were being saved from abortion every year by the previous law’s protections for human life, which amounted to 100,000 lives for the duration of Northern Ireland’s exemption from England’s radical 1967 abortion regime.

Church leaders have called on Western governments to intervene and demand justice for the victims of the “worst incident of persecution against Christians” in Pakistan.

On one day in August, a mob of 7,000 people went on the rampage in Jaranwala, Pakistan and attacked a total of 26 churches and chapels, as well as a cemetery and hundreds of homes.

Father Abid Tanveer, vicar general of the Diocese of Faisalabad, was on the scene when the atrocity took place.

He says international pressure is vital to ensure the prosecution of the culprits behind the attacks.

In an interview with Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Father Tanveer said an economically faltering Pakistan would be open to calls made by Western powers on whom it depends for trade and aid.

The priest described encountering the “anger and hatred” of the mob as he entered Jaranwala on the day of the atrocity and said: “Unless justice is done, the victims of Jaranwala will never find closure. They will never feel safe. Governments in the West should call for justice. The Government in Pakistan will listen to the West because they need them in terms of aid and trade. The West should write to our government and ask why Christians in our country are being persecuted and what they are doing about it.”

Births rose in 2021 even as women are increasingly older when having children and the total fertility rate remains well below replacement level, according to new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The number of women giving birth aged 40 and over increased by more than one-third between 2011 and 2021, while the number giving birth under the age of 20 more than halved.

The average age of mothers at maternity rose to 33.3 years in 2021, the highest since the information was first recorded in 1995.

60,575 babies were born in Ireland in 2021, an increase of 6.6pc from the previous year. However, this is down from 74,033 in 2011, even though the overall population of the country has increased.

The birth rate per 1,000 population in 2021 was 11.9; in 2011, it was 16.2.

The total period fertility rate (TPFR) was 1.73 in 2021. A figure of 2.1 is considered to be the replacement rate.

Meanwhile, on mortality, there were 449 deaths from suicide in 2021, of which 359 were males and 90 were females.

Doctors who opt out of performing abortions will have to provide follow-up care for women who have had the procedure, under new ethics guidelines for the profession. However, in practice almost no pro-life doctors object to this because it is not regarded as assisting with abortion in any way.

Doctors “must provide care, support and follow-up for patients who have had a lawful procedure, treatment or form of care to which you have a conscientious objection”, according to the ninth edition of the Medical Council’s guide on ethics and professional conduct, to come into effect next January.

“Conscientious objection may arise in a number of different situations. The revised guide does not assume links to any one treatment, procedure or form of care,” a spokeswoman responded when asked if the change would affect doctors opting out of providing abortions.

The additional provision on conscientious objection is one of many changes to the guide, which was last updated in 2019.

The Catholic Church in Ukraine will face extermination if the Russian invasion is successful, leading Ukrainian Catholic bishops said this week.

The bishops spoke to media after a panel discussion titled “Faith Under Fire in Russia’s War on Ukraine” hosted by the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., on Monday.

Though Ukraine is majority Eastern Orthodox, there are nearly 5 million Catholics in the country. The bishops said that the Church in Ukraine could be facing severe repression and may once again be forced underground as in the days of the Soviet Union.

Archbishop Borys Gudziak, the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, told CNA that there “are many, many Catholics that are dying every day” and that there is a “danger for Catholics in particular in Ukraine.”

Under Russian occupation, Gudziak said that the Church “is eliminated as a visible body.”

“If the repression lasts a long time,” he added, “basically the Church is extinguished.”

Adherence to the Catholic faith is not a prerequisite for teaching in Catholic schools, according to an educational body of the Irish Bishops conference.

The statement was in response to an Irish Times article which asked whether religion is a barrier to getting a job as a primary teacher to the extent that “only Catholics need apply”.

The Catholic Education Partnership, an umbrella body for Catholic schools, confirms that a certificate in religious studies (CRS) is a necessary qualification to teach in a Catholic school, but not faith.

“A person does not need to be of the Catholic faith to gain the qualification and religious affiliation is not something asked of candidates in interviews,” says Alan Hynes, the partnership’s chief executive. But, he added, candidates “are asked to demonstrate a knowledge of the Catholic ethos” so they have the capacity to communicate the Catholic faith to children.

Many Church of Ireland schools also seek a Protestant version of the certificate. A separate certificate in “ethical and multi-denominational education” is available for teachers interested in teaching in multi-denominational schools such as Educate Together or Community National Schools managed by education and training boards.

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2023/10/31/only-catholics-need-apply-is-religion-a-barrier-to-getting-a-job-as-a-primary-teacher/

Italy’s government approved a new budget last week, setting aside 1 billion euros to support mothers and families, in an effort to boost the national birthrate.

The country’s fertility rate is currently one of the lowest in Europe.

Some of those measures include increased financial aid to working mothers with two or more children, increased government funding for day care facilities, and extended parental leave. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, herself a working mother, said, “We want to dismantle the narrative that birthrate is a disincentive to work. We want to incentivize those who give birth to children and want to work.”

She added: “We want to establish that a woman who gives birth to at least two children has already made an important contribution to society, and therefore, the state partly compensates by paying social security contributions”.