Ireland is ageing faster than anywhere else in Europe, placing growing pressure on the health service and posing challenges for planning its future, according to a new report by the Department of Health. A lot of this is due to a ‘catch-up’ with the older populations in other European countries.

There are currently five tax-contributing workers for every one person over 65, but in 20 years this ratio will drop to three to one, the Health in Ireland — Key Trends report says.

The over-65 population has grown by 35 per cent over the past decade — more than three times the rate of growth in the overall population and faster than elsewhere in Europe, according to the report.

Meanwhile, births are down by one-fifth, a fall that would have been even greater but for a 4.4 per cent uptick in 2021, the first rise in a decade. Because fertility continues to drop elsewhere, we still have the sixth-highest rate in Europe.

Religious schools in the US state of Vermont will now be allowed to make use of a tuition assistance program that previously excluded them, after the state settled two lawsuits on the matter Nov. 30.

The State is one of the most leftist in America.

Vermont’s Town Tuition Program helps pay the fees of students who live in towns without public schools, and it previously allowed payments to secular private schools but not religious ones. As part of the court-approved settlements, state and local government officials agreed that Vermont’s exclusion of religious private schools from the program is unconstitutional and unenforceable.

Vermont’s school choice program dates to 1869. The state had barred religious schools from the program since 1999, following a state Supreme Court ruling that held that public funds may not be used to “support any place of worship” under Vermont’s constitution. The lawsuits against the state were filed more than two decades later, in 2020.

The settlements in the present cases come in light of a landmark ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in June in the case Carson v. Makin. In that decision, the court ruled 6-3 that Maine’s policy barring students in a student-aid program from using their aid to attend “sectarian” schools violates the free exercise clause of the US Constitution’s First Amendment.

Faith-based schools should be forced to teach pro-choice and gender ideology, according to a report by a group of Irish NGOs submitted to the Council of Europe.

Published on Friday by the Irish Observatory on Violence Against Women, it says the lack of State control over school curriculums is perpetuating gender stereotypes and gender inequality.

The report says that with 90 per cent of national schools under Catholic patronage, the State lacks “full control” on the implementation of the national curriculum, which means “some schools may be excluding topics such as abortion, same sex relationships and gender identity”.

This is happening because of the “ethos” clause in the rules for national schools, it says. However, the national curriculum as it stands does not require teaching a pro-abortion or gender ideology views.

The report claims: “Such an ethos clause therefore violates Article 14 of the Istanbul Convention and must be removed to ensure that all students in Ireland have access to education on equality between women and men, non-stereotyped gender roles, mutual respect, non-violent conflict resolution in interpersonal relationships, domestic, sexual and gender-based violence against women and the right to personal integrity,” the report says.

The report makes 35 recommendations, including that the State: “remove the ethos clause from the Rules for National Schools and have full control over the curriculum.”

A special Dáil committee is to be convened to examine the issue of assisted suicide, with calls that it should begin work before the Christmas break.

The issue was last examined by the Justice Committee, which looked at a Private Members Bill from left-wing TD Gino Kenny last year.

It recommended a special Oireachtas committee be established to examine the entire topic in greater depth, and it is understood that the committee on standing orders and Dáil reform met Thursday night to approve a paper on the establishment of the committee.

The terms of reference were agreed, and nine TDs and five senators are to be selected to sit on the committee. Under the D’Hondt system used to decide which parties chair committees, the Rural Independent group will nominate a member who will become chair, if they wish to proceed.

President George Vella of Malta has told people close to him he is prepared to resign if parliament approves a sweeping liberalisation of abortion law proposed by the government.

The bill is currently going through a second reading in parliament but the wording could still be amended at the committee stage in the coming days.

Any bill needs to be signed by the president before it becomes law. If Vella resigns, he would be the first president in history to do so.

Parliament will likely take a vote on the bill by December 19, before the Christmas recess.

Vella, who is a doctor by profession, has been steadfast in his stance against abortion and, as president, he publicly insisted he would resign if parliament passed an abortion bill.

When, in May last year, former independent MP Marlene Farrugia tabled a private member’s bill to decriminalise abortion, Vella told Net News he opposed abortion without exceptions because there were “no half measures to murder”.

“You have either killed or not killed, there can be no half-death. I’m very clear, there are no ifs and buts,” he said at the time.

The stance taken by bodies like Dublin City Council and Fáilte Ireland of excluding Christian sentiments is “not only lacking in respect, but it’s distasteful”, former justice minister Charlie Flanagan told The Irish Catholic this week.

He believes the move is part of a “regrettable” trend towards increased political correctness among publicly-funded bodies.

“The reasoning seems to be not to give offence to non-Christians. I don’t accept that,” the Fine Gael TD said.

“I don’t know anyone who can be offended by Christmas. I have been a TD in rural Ireland for over 30 years, I know many Muslims and many non-Christians across my constituency and beyond who join in the Christmas festivities.”

The significance of a new order on religious symbols in hundreds of State-run schools has been downplayed, with an official saying its implementation will be decided on a case by case basis.

Where religious symbols are displayed, the document says, they should be “reflective of the religions and beliefs of the entire school community” and that the community be consulted on the identification of such symbols.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic newspaper, ETB Director of Schools Seamus Conboy said the new policy will be applied on a school by school basis, rather than unilaterally.

Schools that display religious symbols “need to take into account the religious beliefs of all children in that school community. You know, if not in the world, but in the school community at least.”

“It’s just that for example, some of our ETB schools might have been set up in a time or in a place where it used to be historically just Catholic, when it was fine just to have a crucifix on the wall, but now, in a more pluralist community, there should be representation of all the different religious beliefs, you know? So that’s all the framework is advising”, Mr Conboy said.

Two priests carrying out their ministry in the Russian-occupied city of Berdiansk, Ukraine have been imprisoned by military authorities, according to the international charity, Aid to the Church in Need.

Local Church officials fear they may be subjected to torture.

The two Redemptorist priests had been providing pastoral care to both Greek Catholic and Roman Catholic parishes and are among the few who still remained in the Russian-occupied territories.

According to the official statement sent to ACN, signed by Bishop Stepan Meniok of the Donetsk Exarchate of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, the detention was “groundless and unlawful”.

ACN expressed great concern “in view of the repeated news about the disregard for basic principles of human rights by Russian Special services, who have taken the clergymen into custody”.

Bishop Meniok called for “the widest possible dissemination of information, in order to free the imprisoned chaplains. We appeal to the authorities and all people of good will with a request to join the cause of the release of the priests, as well as for increased prayer”.

The live animal crib is set to return to Dublin in a new location from the 8th December, the feast of the Immaculate Conception.

The Summer House in St Stephen’s Green Park will house a donkey, a goat and two sheep as part of the annual Christmas tradition.

The crib had been located outside Dublin’s Mansion House since it began in 1995, until the Green Party Lord Mayor announced an end to the tradition.

In a statement today, the Irish Farmers Association said animal welfare is “paramount” and the shelter will be installed in line with the Farm Animal Welfare Advisory Council’s guidelines.

It said the animals will be tended to onsite every day by their owner and will return to their farm in Co Wicklow each afternoon.

Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, Patrick O’Donovan, welcomed the announcement and said he is “standing up for tradition”.

For the first time since brokering a controversial deal with China on the appointment of bishops four years ago, the Vatican Saturday called out Beijing for violating the terms of the accord by installing a bishop in a diocese not recognised by Rome.

John Peng Weizhao had been clandestinely appointed bishop of the papally recognized Diocese of Yujiang by Pope Francis in 2014, four years before the Vatican struck its provisional agreement with China in 2018.

However, on Nov. 24 he joined state-sanctioned Chinese Catholic organisations in a ceremony marking his installation as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Jiangxi, which is an ecclesiastic territory approved by Chinese authorities but not recognised by Rome.

In a Nov. 26 statement, the Vatican said they learned of Peng Weizhao’s installation with “with surprise and regret,” saying the Chinese diocese of Jiangxi is “not recognised by the Holy See.”

The Vatican said they had also received information stating that Peng Weizhao’s civil recognition was preceded “by long and heavy pressure from the local authorities”, and expressed hope that similar episodes will not be repeated.