Hundreds of letters have been sent to Education Minister Norma Foley by medical professionals, parents, teachers and school principals over plans to include lessons on pornography and gender ideology in sex education classes at primary and secondary school level.
The correspondence was seen by the Sunday Independent under the Freedom of Information Act. The tone of the letters ranges from concern to anger, with some threatening to remove their children from classes.
One primary school teacher questions teacher-training videos on “how to socially transition a primary school child from a girl to a boy”.
The same teacher complains that NCCA resources also include books such as The Boy in The Dress and My Princess Boy.
A post-primary teacher says she is “deeply concerned about the graphic content” of books on the curriculum.
She says she will “remove my children from any classroom” that teaches any theory “outside a solid and scientific basis”.
She also says “teachers who do not believe in ‘gender identity’ should have the right to express their views without being bullied or called trans- or homophobic”.
The Netherlands is to widen its euthanasia regulations to include the possibility of doctors assisting in the death of terminally ill children aged between one and 12.
They already allow infanticide, or euthanasia for infants, of those under 12 months of age.
The new rules would apply to between five and 10 children a year who “suffer unbearably” from their disease, have no hope of improvement and for whom palliative care cannot bring relief, the government said on Friday.
In a new attack against the Catholic Church, the dictatorship of President Daniel Ortega expelled from Nicaragua three nuns who were running a home for the elderly.
The authoritarian regime expelled Costa Rican siblings Sister Isabel and Sister Cecilia and Guatemalan Sister Teresa, who were given 72 hours to leave the country.
The Nicaraguan General Directorate for Migration and Foreigners began issuing summons to various religious and foreign missionaries in late February.
According to local news outlet, 100% Noticias, new requirements are being demanded of such religious to remain in the country.
The nuns were in charge of the López Carazo nursing home in the city of Rivas in the Diocese of Granada, whose bishop, Jorge Solórzano, was reportedly notified by the dictatorship of the expulsion.
The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) forbade a motion that expressed ‘serious concerns’ about the teaching of gender ideology to young children from being discussed at their recent annual congress.
The motion was put forward for consideration by the Gorey Branch of the INTO, but was ruled to be ‘out of order’ for breaching unspecified rules and for being ‘non-inclusive’.
The INTO Standing Orders Committee told the branch that the motion would not be considered as it breached the rules and objectives of the INTO and ‘did not uphold’ the ‘inclusive nature’ of the INTO. It’s understood that requests from Branch members, asking the INTO to tell them exactly which policies the motion was in contravention of, went unanswered.
The Gorey Branch wished to express ‘serious concerns in relation to the proposed changes to the RSE curriculum, with the introduction of Gender Ideology, as proposed by the NCCA.’
The members also called on the INTO to acknowledge that ‘Irish schools are already inclusive spaces,’ but that gender ideology has been deeply divisive in schools in both the US and the UK.
A US federal appeals court has reversed a series of Government decisions that had made abortion-inducing drugs ever more easily available over the last few years.
In its order, a three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit partly overruled Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas, who last week declared that the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone in 2000 was not valid, in essence saying that the drug should be pulled from the market.
But the appellate court did re-apply some restrictions on the drugs which had been lifted over the last few years, such as requiring that the pill be prescribed only by doctors, approving the pill for use only up to 7 weeks into pregnancy instead of ten, and requiring it to be picked up from a medical clinic or pharmacy in person rather than allowing it be mailed to patients.
The court’s ruling is an interim order until the full case is heard on its merits.
A California Court ruled that an Evangelical church must pay $1.2 million in fines, including interest, for violating public health orders during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.
Professor Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford University’s Medical School condemned the ruling. He said in a tweet: “Throughout the pandemic, California state courts have flouted the 1st amendment right to freedom of worship, & ignored evidence-based medicine. This punitive ruling is outrageous, which the church will certainly appeal”.
Judge Evette Pennypacker rejected the church’s argument that the public health officer’s orders prevented it from exercising its religious freedom or violated the Constitution.
The church routinely held large, indoor unmasked services during the coronavirus pandemic despite the health orders that applied to every entity in the county.
The Office of the County Counsel said that wearing a mask while worshiping is is “a simple, unobtrusive, giving way to protect others while still exercising your right to religious freedom”.
“Unfortunately, Defendants repeatedly refused to model, much less, enforce this gesture. Instead, they repeatedly flouted their refusal to comply with the Public Health Orders and urged others to do so ‘who cares what the cost,’ including death.”
Delegates at the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation (INTO) conference have characterised as “insensitive” the opposition by a Catholic school management body to teaching children about transgender ideology. The INTO has previously produced videos in support of such ideology.
The Catholic Primary School Management Association (CPSMA) said any move to teach primary pupils about transgenderism “would be counterproductive, generating unnecessary divisions in school communities where none now exists”. Gender ideology says that your ‘gender’ might be different from your biological sex. It can result in minors being given puberty blockers and sex hormones, and in some cases operations to remove organs such as breasts.
The CPSMA said that sometimes there is a ‘contagion’ effect as sometimes several children in the same classroom declare themselves to be transgender at the same time.
Delegates at the INTO’s annual congress in Killarney “condemned” these comments and welcomed the “timely review” of the 20-year-old relationships and sexual education curriculum which may result in gender ideology being taught.
INTO General Secretary John Boyle said, “Schools should and must be inclusive to all. As a union, we are, and will remain an unapologetic advocate for equality”.
https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/education/2023/04/12/union-criticises-insensitive-opposition-to-teaching-of-gender-identity-in-primary-schools/
A US federal appeals court has reversed a series of Government decisions that had made abortion drugs more easily available over the last few years.
In its order, a three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit partly overruled Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas, who last week declared that the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of mifepristone in 2000 was not valid, in essence saying that the drug should be pulled from the market.
But the appellate court did re-apply some restrictions on the drugs which had been lifted over the last few years, such as requiring that the pill be prescribed only by doctors, approving the pill for use only up to 7 weeks into pregnancy instead of ten, and requiring it to be picked up from a medical clinic or pharmacy in person rather than allowing it be mailed to patients.
The court’s ruling is an interim order until the full case was heard on its merits.
The White House has confirmed that President Joseph Biden will visit the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Knock, better known as the Knock Shrine, during his trip to Co Mayo later this week.
On Friday, Biden’s visit to the Knock Shrine will the first engagement of the final day of his four-day visit.
Fr Richard Gibbons, parish priest and rector of Knock Shrine, said Biden’s stop-off would “probably be the most private element of his visit to Ireland”. The priest said that because of the US president’s “commitment to his faith”, he wanted stop off at Knock and “say a private prayer”.
Biden will be gifted a stone from the gable wall of the Knock chapel where the apparition of Mary occurred in 1879, Fr Gibbons said.
The final engagement of Biden’s trip will be Friday evening’s public address in front of St Muredach’s Cathedral, the cathedral church of the Catholic Diocese of Killala, a church his ancestor Edward Blewitt sold 27,000 bricks to in the 1820s that helped fund the cost of his emigration to the US in 1851.
A new document revealed that an FBI office used at least one undercover agent to obtain information about traditionalist Catholics, said Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who chairs the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
In response to its inquiry, the committee announced it received from the FBI a heavily redacted 18-page document that uncovered limited information about the agency’s efforts to investigate a supposed link between traditionalist Catholics and “the far-right white nationalist movement.”
The committee had requested information following the leak of an internal memo dated Jan. 23 that originated from the FBI’s Richmond division. The memo, which the FBI later retracted, called for such investigations within traditionalist Catholic communities.
Titled “Interest of Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists in Radical-Traditionalist Catholic Ideology Almost Certainly Presents New Mitigation Opportunities,” the memo singles out Catholics who are interested in the Traditional Latin Mass as potentially linked to violent extremist groups.
