A convent of nuns caring for dying cancer patients has been threatened with sanctions for not implementing a series of transgender directives stemming from a 2023 New York State law.
The Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer run a 42-bed nursing facility in Hawthorne, New York offering palliative services free of charge. They accept neither government funding nor insurance.
Yet, the new law stipulates that long-term care facilities must use patients’ ‘preferred gender pronouns’, even when they’re not present; defer to their choice of bathroom; and refuse to assign rooms based on biological sex. Staff must also undergo “cultural competency” training.
An editorial in the Washington Post newspaper noted that all of this would violate the sisters’ consciences, yet failure to do so could cost them thousands of dollars in fines, loss of licensure and even imprisonment.
In response, they have sued the state in US federal court.
They have now been joined by the Federal Government, with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon saying: “States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology”.
Pope Leo XIV issued a forceful defense of human life and the ends of medicine in an address last week on a pioneer of modern genetics, Jérôme Lejeune.
Dr Lejeune was a French pediatrician who discovered the genetic cause of Down Syndrome – Trisomy 21 – in 1958.
The Pope said he soon realised that his scientific discovery would be used “to eliminate people with Down syndrome before they were born”.
“He did not hesitate to become their defender, denouncing the violation of the Hippocratic Oath and what he called the new eugenics, describing it as ‘chromosomal racism’.”
It was a struggle that brought him harsh criticism in certain scientific circles.
The Pope quoted Professor Lejeune that “Medicine is the hatred of disease and the love of the patient” and that technology should never be used against the ends of medicine.
“For this reason, a physician should never be allowed to decide of the life of a particular embryo or a particular elderly person, on the basis of laboratory algorithms! Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death!”.
In some countries over 90pc of babies with Down Syndrome are aborted if a prenatal test reveals their condition.
The results of a Department of Education Survey showing limited desire for changing catholic school patronage has been welcomed by the Irish bishops’ education agency.
While school-specific results were shared privately with individual primary schools in early June, all school-level reports were published on Tuesday alongside a national summary report.
Catholic Education Partnership (CEP) Chief Executive, Alan Hynes-Cendrzak, said, “A simple reading of the results shows majority support for change in a little over 14% of schools. However, this figure falls to just under 7% once schools with a low response rate (below 40%) are excluded”.
He added that only 77 schools nationally meet the Department’s own criteria for signalling a likely majority of parents being in favour of change of which 51 are in Dublin or Cork. If you exclude schools with a response rate under 40%, that figure falls to around 40 schools.
The survey assessed parental preference on school patronage, language and co-educational provision in over 3,000 primary schools nationwide.
A seriously ill child under the age of 12 has been euthanised in the Netherlands. Since the practice was first introduced in the Netherlands the grounds on which it is available have widened greatly and the numbers availing of it have soared.
A medical review committee has referred the case to the Office of Public Prosecution for a criminal law review.
This is the first case of its kind under a 2023 law that extended ‘assisted dying’ to incurably sick children aged one to 12. Before the change, it was an option only for newborns and those over 12.
Under Dutch law, parents must be consulted, the child must be ‘suffering unbearably’ and there can be no hope of recovery.
After euthanasia, a review committee examines each case. If it is found to have not fully complied with the law, it is referred to the prosecution service for further investigation.
It is rare for such referrals to be made, and rarer still for them to result in a criminal trial.
In this instance, the child’s death and the referral to the public prosecution services was revealed in a letter to the Dutch parliament from Sophie Hermans, the Health minister. The euthanasia was carried out at the end of last year.
A group of states has launched a political declaration calling for an international moratorium on surrogacy, as a first step to its global abolition. Ireland has one of the most permissive surrogacy laws in Europe.
Spearheaded by the governments of Italy and Chile, the declaration highlights the severe human rights violations and abuses inherent in the practice, such as the commodification of human life and women’s reproductive capabilities, and the harm to the children caused by their deliberate separation from the women who carried and gave birth to them.
The signatories warn that women and girls involved in surrogacy arrangements face wide-ranging harms, including serious medical risks, coercion, exploitation and loss of agency – risks that fall disproportionately on vulnerable women and children with limited access to effective remedies.
The document was presented on the sidelines of the 62nd session of the UN Human Rights Council.
It preceded the presentation of a new report on violence against mothers by a UN Special Rapporteur, which identifies surrogate mothers as being at particular risk.
The benefits of marriage have been systematically underestimated in academic research and public policy, according to a groundbreaking new study.
This comes as the UK is experiencing record levels of family breakdown, with far-reaching consequences for children, public finances, and inequality. Understanding whether marriage itself contributes to stability is therefore a critical policy question.
He adds: “If marriage itself contributes to stability, then policies that are neutral on marriage are not neutral in effect. Reducing social and fiscal barriers to marriage could therefore play a meaningful role in strengthening family stability and reducing the long-run social and economic costs of family breakdown”.
An archbishop has expressed his deep disappointment that an ‘assisted dying’ bill that failed in Parliament last term will be reintroduced by a Labour MP in the upcoming term.
In a statement, Archbishop John Sherrington of Liverpool, called the proposed legislation “flawed and full of unresolved matters.”
“I am deeply disappointed that the previously unsuccessful Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is being reintroduced in the House of Commons. It is likely to be debated in September. The Catholic Church opposes this Bill in principle and joins with many other people of faith and none in arguing that we should not cross this watershed,” Sherrington said.
The bill by Kim Leadbeater, MP, originally passed in the House of Commons by 25 votes in June 2025 but not the House of Lords after over 1200 proposed amendments delayed its progress and it ran out of time.
If MPs pass the legislation again, then there is the chance that supporters of the bill could use the Parliament Act to overcome potential opposition in the House of Lords.
Ireland will double the amount of development aid funding that it gives to the world’s largest provider of abortion, known in particular for pushing abortion on developing countries.
Such work was often condemned by the late Pope Francis as “ideological colonialism”.
In the Dáil last Tuesday, Neale Richmond, Minister of State for International Development, was advocating for the removal of the three day wait before abortion when he revealed that he had addressed an International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) meeting in Dublin the night before, calling it a “distinct honour”.
He also said he was “delighted” to announce that he had signed off on a doubling of funding for the group.
This comes on top of over fifty million euros given to the pro-abortion, UN Population Fund (UNFPA) over a five-year period.
In response, the Pro-Life Campaign said it was “shocking” that so much was spent on abortion while the Government “doesn’t donate a cent to funding positive alternatives”.
“In one breath, he proudly celebrated a major increase in funding for one of the world’s leading pro-abortion organisations; in the next, he supported the dismantling of the life-saving three-day reflection period”.
A Sinn Féin Bill to end the mandatory three-day wait before accessing an abortion has passed an early hurdle in the Dáil by 86 votes to 70.
It now goes to committee stage to be scrutinised in greater detail.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Simon Harris, and Ministers Jennifer Carroll MacNeill, Jack Chambers and Darragh O’Brien supported the legislation.
Other Ministers including James Lawless, Helen McEntee, Hildegarde Naughton and Patrick O’Donovan were missing for the vote.
In response, the Pro Life Campaign said it was “unconscionable” that so many members of the Oireachtas voted to remove a provision when it has been shown that thousands of women who attended an initial abortion appointment did not proceed to abortion after the three-day waiting period.
Spokesperson Eilís Mulroy said their fight against the proposed change is “far from over”.
“Tonight’s vote only takes the bill to committee stage. It will take a mammoth effort to protect it, but we are ready to face that challenge head on,” she added.
How Your TDs Voted on Sinn Fein Bill to Remove Three-Day Wait
The Taoiseach and Tánaiste’s support for a Sinn Féin bill to abolish the three-day wait before an abortion, has been described as a massive ‘breach of trust’ with voters.
The bill would end the mandatory three day period between an appointment requesting an abortion and going for the procedure—a time which gives a woman ‘breathing space’ to give more consideration to her decision.
Eilís Mulroy of the Pro Life Campaign said many people who voted Yes in 2018 following assurances from people like Micheál Martin and Simon Harris that the three-day wait would be an integral part of any new law.
“Their decision today to renege on that assurance – particularly so soon after the referendum – represents a massive breach of trust with voters”.
In the Dail last night, opposition to the proposal was voiced by Aontu’s Peadar Toibin, and by independent deputies Carol Nolan, and Michael and Danny Healy-Rae.
Deputy Toibin pointed to the effectiveness of the 3-day wait in actually saving lives, noting that 10,000 mothers who attended their first abortion meeting did not attend the second. “There are 10,000 children alive today as a result of the three-day wait”.
