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Budget amendment on forced abortion fails in European Parliament
~Amendments to the EU Budget which would have explicitly prevented projects funded by the EU going towards coercive abortion and sex-selective abortion failed to secure enough votes to be approved yesterday. There were 316 votes against Amendment 733, which would have explicitly prevented funding of coercive abortion, with 305 MEPs voting for the amendment. Read more...
Bishops "very worried" over Civil Partnership Bill
~The Conference of Catholic Bishops has said that it is “very worried” about the conscience implications of the Civil Partnership Bill, and have criticised the substance of the Bill, suggesting that it will undermine marriage. At a press conference following their spring meeting, Bishop Christopher Jones, of Elphin said that the bishops were also considering whether to take a Constitutional action should the Bill become law. Read more...
Church of Ireland delegation presses Government for conscience clause: report
~A delegation from the Church of Ireland is to met Department of Justice officials yesterday to urge the Government to accept a freedom of conscience clause in the Civil Partnership Bill, according to a report in the Sunday Business Post. Under the Bill as currently written, Church organisations may be forced to allow Church properties to be used for same-sex civil union celebrations or face being sued. Read more...
Bishops "surprised" at Minister's statement on Catholic schools
~Bishop Leo O'Reilly, the chairman of the Catholic bishops commission on education, has expressed surprise at a speech by Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe last Friday in which he said his department “will shortly be providing an initial list of about 10 urban areas that can be used to test the concept of reducing the number of Catholic schools”. Read more...
Same-sex marriage push "not about rights", says academic
~The movement to legalise same-sex marriage is not about obtaining benefits and rights for same-sex couples, but obtaining public approval for different forms of sexual conduct and relationships, a leading US legal academic has said. Read more...
Catholic school numbers to be cut in 10 areas
~Officials at the Department of Education are looking at ten urban areas where the number of Catholic primary schools will be cut, it has been revealed. But under arrangements announced by the Minister for Education, Batt O'Keefe earlier this year, it will be the patrons of the schools, normally the local bishop, and local communities who will decide on the need for Church-run schools and whether closures will take place. Read more...
Church of England clergy may be forced to conduct same-sex unions: warning
~A leading Church of England bishop has warned that Anglican clergy may be sued for discrimination if they refuse to “marry” homosexuals under a proposed law. Other religious leaders fear that the proposal may force churches that refuse to bless civil partnerships to close. Read more...
Social welfare system "encourages fraud" by cohabiting couples
~The current social welfare system is encouraging fraud by cohabiting parents, a joint Oireachtas committee was told yesterday in reference to the social welfare payment for one-parent families. Treoir, a support organisation for unmarried single parents, was responding to a report commissioned by the Social and Family Affairs Committee on financial disincentives to cohabitation and marriage. Read more...
English bishops issue election guide
~Society has a vested interest in supporting marriage as the surest basis for family life, the Catholic bishops of England and Wales have said. In their pre-election document, Choosing the Common Good, the bishops write that the family is "the first school of life and love, where the capacity to relate to others, to develop moral character, is founded". Read more...
Social services criticised over handling of abuse case
~Social workers of the Western Health Board have been criticised for their handling of a case in Roscommon in which a father has been found guilty of 47 counts rape and sexual assault when his son was aged between 12 and 15. The family’s mother was jailed last year for similar offences. At the hearing, the lawyer for the father, David Goldberg, told the court that the health board “had put a course of action in progress for putting the children into care”. Read more...
Militant atheist charged with religious harassment over cartoon leaflets
~A militant atheist who left obscene leaflets mocking Jesus Christ, the Pope and the Koran in the prayer room of an international airport has gone on trial charged with religious harassment. Harry Taylor, a 59-year-old self-styled philosophy tutor left leaflets with "sexually abusive and sexually unpleasant cartoons", in the prayer room at Liverpool's John Lennon airport, a jury heard yesterday. Read more...
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Martin Mansergh defends religious freedom
~Voluntary religious organisations such as pregnancy counselling agencies and adoption agencies should not be forced by the State to act against their ethos, according to Minister of State, Martin Mansergh. Minister Mansergh was speaking at Trinity College Chapel on Sunday. He also said that republics such as Ireland are not required by republican ideology to adopt a radically secular view of society based on “the post-1789 French model”. This relegated religion to the private sphere and in its most militant phase violently persecuted the Church. Read more...
Anger at home-school abuse link claim
~Supporters of home-schooling have reacted angrily to attempts to link home-schooling with the death by starvation in Birmingham of seven year old Khyra Ishaq. Khrya was imprisoned in her home by her mother and step-father and died of starvation in May 2008. She had been withdrawn from her school the previous December. Read more...
UK teen pregnancy strategy fails
~A ten-year UK strategy costing millions of pounds to cut the “shameful” number of teenage pregnancies in Britain has failed to make any serious impact. pregnant Labour Ministers accept that they cannot meet Tony Blair’s target, set in 1999, of halving pregnancies among under-18s by 2012. Figures today will show that Britain still has the highest teenage pregnancy rate in Western Europe. Read more...
Parents have rights to see children educated in their religion says Cardinal
~All parents, whatever their denominational background, have the right to have their children educated in accordance with their religious convictions, the head of the Catholic Church in Ireland, Cardinal Sean Brady, has said. Speaking to the annual conference of the Northern Ireland Catholic Principals’ Association, Cardinal Brady said that this right was “recognised in international instruments of human rights, including the European Convention on Human Rights”. Read more...
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Senator Mullen questions children’s rights amendment
~Independent Senator, Ronan Mullen, has questioned aspects of the proposed children’s rights amendment, especially its reference to ‘children of the State’ and a child’s ‘best interests’. He was speaking yesterday in the Seanad debate on the proposed amendment. Read more...
Scottish Labour MP in row over Catholic vote
~Attempts by the Labour Party in Scotland to attract religious voters backfired spectacularly this week when the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, condemned the party for an "unrelenting attack on family values" during its time in government. In an stinging rebuke that could significantly damage Labour's prospects in Scotland at the forthcoming general election, Cardinal O'Brien said he could not think of a "tangible example" of the party embracing the views of the Catholic Church in the past decade. Read more...
Bishops call for churches to hold same-sex ceremonies
~A number of Church of England bishops have called for homosexual couples to be allowed to enter civil partnerships in churches. A proposed amendment to the Equality Bill to allow, as distinct from require, civil partnerships to be conducted in religious premises is believed to have gained the backing of some bishops in the House of Lords. Read more...
Current lone parent benefit “not in best interests of society”, says Minister
~The situation whereby parents can obtain the Lone Parent Allowance until their child reaches 22 if the child is in full time education, is “not in the best interests of the recipient, their children or society,” the Minister for Social Welfare, Mary Hanafin, has said. Minister Hanafin was responding to a Dáil question from Fine Gael TD, Olwyn Enright, about her plans to reform the Lone Parent payment. Read more...
Legal expert expresses doubts about children’s rights referendum
~A leading constitutional lawyer has expressed scepticism about the need for a children's rights referendum. Speaking on the RTE radio programme, This Week, Dr Gerard Hogan, the co-author of a text book on the Constitution, and a prominent barrister, said that the current Constitution acknowledged the rights of children, although it did so in "a sort of indirect way". Read more...
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