Russia has shut down an evangelical Christian church in Ukraine, marking Moscow’s latest move in a “persecution campaign” against Ukrainian evangelicals, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

The U.S.-based think tank said in an assessment published on Tuesday that Russian forces reportedly seizing the Ukrainian Christian Evangelical Church of the Holy Trinity in Mariupol was likely “part of a wider systematic religious persecution campaign in occupied Ukraine.”

Petro Andryushchenko, adviser to Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko, said in a Telegram post on Monday that from 10 to 30 Russian troops were occupying the church after expelling clergy.

Andryushchenko said the Russian occupiers had targeted the church at least in part because it provided a “human shield” for troops, located only five meters from occupied residential buildings.

According to ISW, the “Russian occupation officials most commonly persecute members of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Protestants, particularly evangelical Baptists.” The think tank said two-thirds of “reported religious repression events in occupied Mariupol” targeted Protestants.

The Government have come under fire as more evidence was published last week showing the link between children watching porn and sexual violence.

The Children’s Commissioner for England said “frequent users of pornography were also more likely to have real-life experience of an aggressive or degrading sex act”.

Commissioner Rachel de Souza found “references to specific acts of sexual violence commonly seen in pornography in half of the interviews carried out following these cases of sexual abuse”.

“I am clear that children should not be able to access pornography, and my office’s work in this space continues to demonstrate the harm it can cause to children and young people”.

Commenting on the matter, Aontu’s Peader Toibin said the report is clear that pornography is fuelling sexual violence against women and the increase in children sexually abusing other children.

Aontú has introduced a Bill that would make it illegal for Internet Service Providers to provide hard core pornography to children. But, he said, the FF/FG/Green government refused to help the bill proceed through the Dáil.

“Indeed rather than any effort to stop the supply of hard core pornography to children the government seeks to deliver classes to children in school on the topic. While education is important, its reckless of the government to make no effort to protect children”.

Leading Israeli rabbis and Catholic Church leaders have signed a joint declaration on the ethics of treating the terminally ill, rejecting assisted suicide and euthanasia, while also advocating for improved palliative care.

“For both Jews and Christians, taking care of the terminally ill with belief, respect, and love means truly to light the lamp of faith and hope at a time shrouded in darkness and a sense of solitude and abandonment for both patient and dear ones,” they said in a joint declaration at the conclusion of a recent gathering in Jerusalem.

The delegations from the Chief Rabbinate of Israel and the Holy See’s Commission for Religious Relations with Jews met in Jerusalem May 2–4 for their 17th bilateral meeting.

A teacher in the UK was encouraged to share his Christian beliefs at a seminar – then dismissed for ‘hate speech’.

Ben Dybowski, 55, was urged to give his views during a training course delivered by a Left-wing charity to reduce ‘unconscious bias’ among teachers.

During the ‘diversity and inclusion’ discussion about how to avoid offending pupils, teaching assistant Mr Dybowski challenged the group over whether his Christian beliefs were considered discriminatory.

He told them that he believed marriage was between a man and a woman, that life began at conception and that he was opposed to some aspects of sharia law such as the stoning of men for homosexuality.

Next morning he said he was summoned before headmaster Marc Belli, then ejected from The Bishop of Llandaff Church in Wales school, near Cardiff.

He said this was despite Mr Belli saying privately he shared many of the same Christian values.

The Irish Catholic Bishops have released a pastoral letter encouraging a “change of narrative” about abortion as the Government seeks to further liberalise the already radical law.

They say they remain convinced that the 2018 Abortion Act will be repealed in due course and they promised “to encourage a greater political acceptance that abortion is not the solution to a crisis pregnancy”.

Regarding the recent Abortion Review, they “strongly oppose” dropping the 3-day waiting period and called on the Government to instead be “proactive in proposing alternatives to abortion, which would both support women and protect babies”.

They called attention to the Review’s controversial proposal that provision of abortion should feature as a mandatory requirement in contracts of employment, calling it a “shocking” proposal.

“Freedom of conscience is a fundamental human right and cannot simply be over-ridden in this way.  We totally reject the suggestion that healthcare professionals who respect the right to life would be excluded from practicing in maternity care, or from obstetrics and gynaecology generally”.

They finished by re-iterating their belief that all human life is sacred, and pledged to “change the narrative through dialogue and by testifying, in season and out of season, to the Gospel of Life.”

https://www.catholicbishops.ie/2023/05/14/bishops-message-encourages-parishioners-to-change-the-narrative-around-abortion/

Two independent Senators have sought clarification from Minister for Justice Simon Harris about the definition of gender in the new hate speech legislation.

The Bill says ‘Gender’ means the person’s preferred gender or that “with which the person identifies and includes transgender and a gender other than those of male and female…”

Senator and former attorney general Michael McDowell asked why it is different from the Gender Recognition Act, which he says has a binary definition of gender as either male or female.

“The purpose of this letter is, in advance of the second stage debate in the Seanad, to obtain absolute clarity as to what you as proposer of the Bill intend these terms to mean. In particular, I must ask the following questions: a) Is transgender a gender for the purposes of Irish law? And b) Can you specify what is meant, in addition to transgender, by ‘any gender other than those of male and female’?”, he wrote.

Meanwhile, Independent Senator Ronan Mullen accused the Government of “smuggling a radical new definition of gender into an already controversial hate speech law”.

The scale of the persecution of Catholics under the regime of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua has been laid bare by a new report chronicling 529 attacks in the last five years alone.

Jesuit Fr Kevin O’Higgins, who spent decades working in Latin America, told The Irish Catholic the report is “vital” in highlighting the crisis and urged Irish Catholics to keep the situation in the public eye. He also said the report could aid future prosecutions of the perpetrators.

Mr Ortega’s dictatorship is accused of 90 attacks this year alone in its crackdown on the Church – more than in any previous year since 2018.

Fr O’Higgins insisted that “it is vital that the names and faces of victims of the persecution should be known”.

Parents of children diagnosed with terminal conditions feel like the first thing that’s being offered to them is abortion, according to a spokesperson for Every Life Counts, which supports parents whose children have an ultimately fatal condition.

Vicky Wall of Every Life Counts said this can deprive parents of the opportunity to know and love their child, even for a short time after birth.

Regarding the recently published review of Ireland’s abortion law, she referred to babies who were aborted after being incorrectly diagnosed with a serious disability.

“It was horrifying to see that again there was no mention of the baby that was misdiagnosed, and before the review came out, we heard that there were two other people, plus baby Christopher’s parents, which makes three now in total, that had a case against the HSE for abortion after misdiagnosis, which is absolutely horrific,” Ms Wall said.

“There was no mention of that, no mention of safeguards.”

Criticising the review as “incredibly one-sided,” Ms Wall said that to her, the abortion review was “absolutely about increasing abortion numbers – how can we get more abortion?”

The Government’s hate crime bill has the potential to cause “immense damage” to free speech and democracy in Ireland, according to the former Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland.

Baroness Nuala O’Loan, a member of the House of Lords, has said the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022 will create great uncertainty about what constitutes a crime.

Writing in The Irish Catholic this week, Baroness O’Loan said: “For example, it appears that this bill will make it a crime to assert opinions which are likely to result in ‘hatred’ towards people who are biologically male, but who want access to women’s changing rooms and sports because they feel that whilst born male, they are in fact female.

“The maximum penalty for this offence is five years in jail. This bill may be well intentioned, it has a wider application, but it contains some very questionable provisions. It is described as a bill to protect, but it has the capacity to do immense damage to free speech and democracy Ireland,” she said.

The legalisation of euthanasia puts pressure on the elderly and people with disabilities to “simply dispose of themselves”, according to Aontú.

Regarding end of life care, it says: “Euthanasia is not the answer to investment failures in palliative care. Euthanasia is not the answer to the limitations on our capacity to treat and heal. Assisted suicide recommits elements of our healthcare service to ending life – not preserving and prolonging life.”

On abortion the party reiterated its pro-life stance and said that parents need economic supports to raise their children. The party said it opposes abortion because it “ends the lives of human beings. Abortion targets the poorest, those with disabilities and females in particular. You are far more likely to be aborted if you are female, have a disability or are from a poor socio-economic background”.