A 290-pupil Catholic primary school is changing ethos to turn multi-denominational as part of the Department of Education’s diversity process and with the approval of the local diocese.

It follows months of discussions within the school community, with the assistance of a department-appointed facilitator.

Following engagement with the school community, it is up to the bishop formally to decide whether or not to go ahead with a proposed transfer and to advise the Department.

The department announced Thursday that the local bishop had notified the department of his intention to transfer patronage of the school under the Schools Reconfiguration for Diversity Process.

Education Minister Norma Foley said she was “delighted that this transfer of patronage will increase diversity of provision in the area and that there will be a multi-denominational primary school option for parents in Athlone.”

Pope Francis has warned again about a coming ‘demographic winter’ in Europe.

Speaking yesterday to the Vatican’s Diplomatic Corps, he stated: “Tragically, we increasingly witness the emergence of a ‘fear’ of life, which translates in many places into a fear of the future and a difficulty in creating families and bringing children into the world. In some contexts, I think for example of Italy, there is a dangerous fall in the birth-rate, a veritable demographic winter, which endangers the very future of society.”

Responding to his comments, Vincenzo Bassi, President of the Federation of Catholic Family Associations. said: “The demographic issue concerns all, and it is appropriate, as well as necessary, to create institutional exchanges at the European and international level with the aim of promoting a new demographic spring”.

He added: “Family policies are a direct competence of every State. But this does not prevent them from taking initiatives by mutual agreement, across political alignments, for the exchange of good practices and for the promotion of family-friendly policies”.

Ireland’s Franciscans have closed two of their oldest friaries in Ireland, each founded in the 13th century. Due to ageing membership and a lack of vocations, friaries at Athlone, Co Westmeath, and Clonmel, Co Tipperary, marked their departures from both towns last Sunday with Masses of thanksgiving.

The move follows an announcement by the Dominicans last September of the closure of their friary on Bridge St in Waterford city, where it has had a presence for 796 years, since 1226.

On September 5th last year Fr Aidan McGrath OFM, described as a “sad and difficult decision for us” to withdraw from Clonmel where there had been a Franciscan friary since 1269.

On October 17th Fr McGrath told friars and staff in Athlone that “regretfully we must now face our present day reality and leave a town where we have enjoyed and valued such support and friendship for close to 800 years.”

As with the friary buildings in Clonmel, he said, “we have not made a final decision on the future of the Athlone Friary and Church at this time, however, we will be exploring various possibilities in this regard in the coming months. When we have reached a decision on the future use of the buildings, I will make a further announcement.”

A majority of Norway’s parliament wants to wait for the results of an investigation before considering a push to create a third legal gender.

The Liberal Party had presented a proposal that would enable people to change their legal gender to something other than male or female.

However, there is a government investigation ongoing into the matter and the Labour Party, the Conservative Party, the Centre Party, the Progress Party, the Christian People’s Party and Patient Focus prefer to wait for its conclusion before making a decision on the issue.

The Christian Democrats are the only party that will say no to a third gender, regardless of the outcome of the investigation.

“I think it is logical to assign gender categories according to biology. We should not undermine the fact that there are people who do not recognise themselves in those categories. Still, we have to find solutions within the current structures”, Christian Democrat leader Hadle Rasmus Bjuland says.

In December 2022, the Swiss government rejected a proposal to introduce a third gender, saying that “the binary gender model is still strongly anchored in Swiss society.”

The government said a national ethics commission found in a 2020 report that the time wasn’t yet right for a change to the system.

The chair of the review into Ireland’s abortion laws has said it is “vitally important” that key research on how conscientious objection rights have operated since the State’s laws were changed is completed before her work is submitted to Government.

Some pro-choice campaigners have called for such rights to be curtailed in case they limit the availability of abortion.

Barrister Marie O’Shea was last year appointed as the independent chair of the review into the State’s abortion laws. Coalition sources said in December that her work was on track to be delivered by the end of 2022.

While “a very substantial amount of work” has been completed, the review is not yet ready as the chair wants to see imminent research on conscientious objection before she submits her much-anticipated report.

A Canadian doctor who’s personally euthanised more than 400 people said she helped kill a man who was previously deemed unsuitable for assisted suicide.

Ellen Wiebe, a doctor who works with Dying With Dignity Canada, told a seminar for physicians working in assisted suicide about the time she dealt with patient who had previously failed to qualify for the life-ending procedure.

A Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) assessor had rejected the unnamed man because he did not have a serious illness or ‘the capacity to make informed decisions about his own personal health.’

But the man eventually made his way to Wiebe, who cleared him, flew him out to Vancouver, and euthanised him, The New Atlantic reports.

‘It’s the most rewarding work we’ve ever done,’ Wiebe said of MAID during a 2020 event in a video that’s since been shared online.

A Ukrainian Bishop has described as a ‘miracle’ the failure of two Russian rockets to explode inside a church after they had penetrated the roof of the building during an artillery bombardment.

The incident occurred at a Latin-rite parish in the city of Kherson a day before Christmas amid shelling that reports say killed 10 people and injured 55 across the city.

Latin-rite Bishop of Odessa-Simferopol, Monsignor Stanislav Szyrokoradiuk, cited the occurrence in his homily at Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve saying it was one of many different miraculous cases that had taken place that day.

“God is in charge. One person shoots, and God controls that rocket”, the bishop noted.

“There are many Catholics who fast every Friday on bread and water for victory, for their soldiers. Kherson was heavily shelled on Friday. After that, our priest calls and says: imagine, 2 rockets flew into the temple. Everyone was there – people were cleaning: children, women, two priests. They were preparing for Christmas and… none of these rockets exploded, leaving only holes in the roof. One fell and split in two, and the other got stuck in the wall. None exploded. Isn’t this the grace of God?”, he said.

Community meetings last month were marked by anger and confusion over charges that schools were being “railroaded” into a change of patronage from Catholic to secular management.

It is part of a pilot initiative to provide greater choice for parents.

However, parents at one of the Catholic schools in the area — Scoil Áine — said a survey found that 83 per cent of parents were opposed to divesting or reconfiguring the patronage of the school.

Meanwhile, unpublished data collected by the Department of Education show multidenominational primary schools are much more likely to be oversubscribed than Catholic schools.

More than a quarter (25.9 per cent) of multidenominational primary schools are oversubscribed compared to just 5.8 per cent of Catholic schools. As a result, the inability of Catholic schools to prioritise children of their faith when offering places affects a very small minority of schools, the survey notes.

In the case of these oversubscribed Catholic schools, records indicate that in 90 per cent of cases there was another school with a Catholic ethos in “close proximity” which had spare places. Close proximity was defined as within 2km in urban areas and 5km in rural locations.

Allowing doctors to help vulnerable patients kill themselves would be an assault on human dignity, experts on the issue have warned.

In recent days palliative care experts and ethicists have spoken out against those seeking to liberalise the law on assisted suicide in Britain.

A Bill to remove protections for vulnerable people is currently before the Scottish Parliament, and Westminster’s Health and Social Care Select Committee has called for evidence on assisted suicide in England and Wales.

Writing in The Times on behalf of the Scottish Council on Human Bioethics, Katie Breckenridge challenged arguments from supporters of MSP Liam McArthur’s Bill that it would lift ‘the burden of care’ from the family, “benefit the economy” by not ‘wasting resources’ on nursing the dying, and increase organs available for transplantation.

A recent law prohibiting Catholic schools from prioritising the enrolment of local children of the same faith is emerging as a “stumbling block” for parents as schools consider changing their patronage.

That’s according to the body representing Catholic schools in the process.

The Catholic Education Partnership (CSP) – established as a single voice for Catholic schools – said the Government’s decision in 2018 to remove the right of Catholic schools to give preference on the basis of religion in their admission policies is a “discriminatory law, solely directed at Catholics, and no other faiths”.

The group said Catholic parents believe keeping the “status quo” in relation to the patronage of schools is their best option unless they can be guaranteed priority access to a school of their faith.

The CSP said that, as part of that process, Catholic parents have expressed a concern that if their community consents to the transfer of a Catholic school to another patron, they cannot be sure that they can secure enrolment for their child in the remaining Catholic schools.