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Atheist condemns anti-Catholicism at Iona Institute meeting
~An atheist writer condemned the “current fashion” for anti-Catholicism before an audience of over 150 people at a meeting last night organised by The Iona Institute. Brendan O’Neill, who is editor on the UK-based on-line magazine Spiked, said the driving forces behind the rise of anti-Catholicism were the emergence of the ‘New Atheism’, the scandals, moral relativism, and in Britain the notion that Catholics cannot be fully loyal to their State. Read more...
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Seanad debates human rights ahead of Ireland’s UN appearance
~Parents have a right to choose denominational schools and that right needs to be guaranteed by the State, Independent Senator Ronan Mullen (pictured) has said in the Seanad just days before Ireland appears before the UN Human Rights Council. Fianna Fail’s Jim Walsh reminded that Seanad that some of the UN treaties to which we are signatories uphold the traditional definition of marriage. Read more...
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New Council of Europe document downgrades marriage
~A draft document on the family prepared by a committee of the Council of Europe downgrades the importance of both marriage and biological parenthood. The document allows member-states of the Council of Europe, including Ireland, to define anyone as a parent legally speaking. It gives no special status or recognition to the biological parents of a child, nor does it indicate that the relationship between a child and his or her biological parents is of any special importance. Read more...
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Primary schools being forced to teach “permissive” sex education
~Primary schools in the UK are being forced by some local authorities to teach sex education, leading family charity, the Family Education Trust, has claimed in a new report. Education bodies in parts of the country are using an awards scheme called Healthy Schools introduced by Tony Blair, designed to promote healthy behaviour in schools, to impose “liberal and permissive” teaching on pupils, they warn. Read more...
Catholic schools’ admissions decisions overturned by Department of Education
~Two Catholic secondary schools in Dublin have been accused of bias by four Muslim families for admitting Catholic children ahead of non-Catholic children. The two schools, St Benildus and Oatlands Colleges, elected not to enrol the children of the Muslim parents due to a shortage of places. Read more...
BBC asks presenters to drop ‘AD’ and ‘BC’ to ‘avoid offence’
~The BBC has told presenters that they should use “religiously neutral” terms instead of “BC" or “AD” to avoid causing non-Christians offence. However they are facing opposition from leading presenters over the move. Ethics specialists for the corporation suggested that the modern phrases “Common Era” and “Before Common Era” should be considered as alternative terms for Anno Domini and Before Christ. Read more...
Police tell café owners to remove Bible quotes from view
~Police in the English county of Lancashire have told the owner of a Christian café to stop displaying Bible texts on a video screen, because it ‘breaches’ public order laws. Officers attended the Salt & Light Coffee House on Layton Road, Blackpool, on Monday 19 September, following a complaint about “insulting” and “homophobic” material. Read more...
Church of Ireland cleric stands by decision not to allow gay man to work with youth group
~A Church of Ireland minister who decided that an openly gay man was not suitable as a volunteer for a local youth group is standing by his decision after being attacked by a gay rights group within the Church of Ireland. Rev Kenneth Lindsay, of the Methodist and Church of Ireland churches in Ballinamallard, Co Fermanagh, said: “I feel that such people are inappropriate role models.” Read more...
US bishops clash with President Obama over marriage
~The Obama Administration's decision to challenge the constitutionality of the Defence of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the courts could create “a national conflict between Church and State of enormous proportions” the president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has warned. In an open letter to President Barack Obama, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York has attacked the decision by the Justice Department to challenge the constitutionality of DOMA, which was signed into law in 1996 by then Democratic President Bill Clinton. Read more...
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Half of children in lone parent families see their fathers less than once a week
~Almost half of children (48pc) whose fathers do not live with them see their dads less than once a week, according to the latest report from the Government's longitudinal study on the progress of Ireland's children. Parental separation is having “a considerable impact” on children's routines, and leading to relationships with non-resident parents which are “challenging to sustain” the Growing Up in Ireland study says. Read more...
Pope addresses German MPs on the origin of law
~Pope Benedict has asked Germany’s MPs to reflect on whether the moral law has its origin in a Creator, or whether it is an invention of Man. The Pope, who is on a State Visit to his native country, was given a two-minute standing ovation by parliamentarians following his 20 minute address. Read more...
Proposed transgender law attacked for not being radical enough
~Proposed changes to recognise “transgendered persons” are offensive and dehumanising, a leading transgender campaigner has said. This is despite the fact that the Irish law looks set to be based on the UK’s, which is one of the most radical in Europe. Writing in yesterday's Irish Times, campaigner Leslie Sherlock said that government proposals to recognise transgender persons “offends by referring to transgender people as 'lonely, distressed, passive', making recommendations which dehumanise transgender experiences”. Read more...
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One in five Irish births are to cohabiting couples
~Nearly one out of every five births in the first quarter of this year was to a cohabiting couple, according to the latest figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). According to its quarterly Vital Statistics report, 3,622 births were to unmarried parents with the same address, which amounted to 18.2pc of all births. Read more...
Catholic university threatened with legal action over single-sex dorms
~One of the most prestigious Catholic universities in America has been threatened with a law suit for seeking to revert to single-sex dormitories. John Banzhaf, a professor at George Washington University Law School, has filed a complaint against the President of Catholic University of America (CUA), Mr John Garvey, alleging that the university's plan violates D.C.’s Human Rights Act. Read more...
Couple "too old" to raise their child, Italian court rules
~An Italian court has ruled that the 70 and 57-year-old parents of a toddler are too old to raise her and have recommended she be put up for adoption. The 18-month-old girl, known as Viola, was conceived with the help of artificial insemination after the couple's repeated applications to adopt a child were turned down on the basis that they were too old, RTE reports. Read more...
Scottish Government doesn’t deserve support of Catholics says bishop
~The Scottish Government does not deserve the support of Scotland’s 800,000 Catholics because of its proposal to permit same-sex marriage, a leading bishop has said. The Bishop of Paisley, Philip Tartaglia, responding to a proposal of the Scottish Government to change the definition of marriage. Read more...
Males whose parents divorce at greater risk of suicide
~Men whose parents divorced before they were 18 are two to three times as likely to seriously consider taking their own lives as men whose parents were not divorced by that age, but daughters are not affected as badly, a new study says. According to the research women whose parents divorced by age 18 did think about suicide more often than other women, but any suicidal thoughts they did have were explained by other traumatic experiences they had experienced, such as childhood abuse. Read more...
Internet providers in UK will be forced to offer anti-porn filters
~Internet providers in the UK will be forced to automatically offer new customers the option of blocking pornographic and violent material, according to a prominent Cabinet minister. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said this week that he is lining up a clampdown to protect children by obliging internet service providers to make sure all customers have an ‘active choice’ about using parental controls as part of his forthcoming Communications Act. Read more...
Europe growing hostile to Christians says Russian Orthodox leader
~Europe is currently experiencing “an atmosphere of intolerance in relation to Christians, as well as to representatives of other traditional religions” according to one of the most influential figures in the Russian Orthodox Church. Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate's department for external Church relations also said that Europe needs to “discuss openly the violation of the rights of Christians”. Read more...
Almost 5,000 couples granted a divorce or judicial separation in 2008
~There were almost 5,000 divorces and judicial separations granted in Ireland in 2008 according to figures released by the CSO today. This compares with 22,187 marriages in the same year. However, the actual marriage breakdown rate is believed to be considerably higher than official figures indicate because the official figures do not include couples who separate and reach legal agreements which are not registered with the court. Read more...
School agrees to treat boy as a girl in transgender case
~A school in the UK has allowed a ten-year-old boy to return after the summer holidays as a girl because he believes he was born in the wrong sex. The boy’s mother is supporting his decision and has allowed him to dress as a girl and says he will start hormone blocker therapy, the first step to a full sex change, when he is twelve. Read more...
Family breakdown harming the lives of Australian children says expert
~The lives of Australia's most at-risk children “is deteriorating at an extraordinarily rapid pace,” according to a leading family law expert. Professor Patrick Parkinson of Sydney University, in a report entitled “For Kid's Sake”, has said that the issue of family breakdown is one of the major causes of “ a large range of adverse consequences for many children and young people”. Read more...
Lone parent families up nearly a third in 10 years
~The number of families headed by a single parent has increased by nearly 30 per cent in the past 10 years, according to new figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The figures, contained in the CSO's Measuring Ireland's Progress document, released on Tuesday, showed the number of lone parent families whose youngest child was less than 20 went from 113,900 in 2001 to 148,000 in 2010. Read more...
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New research shows how children benefit from their fathers
~Fathers who actively engage in raising their children can help their children do better in school and behave better, according to new research. Published in the Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, the long-term study, which was conducted by Concordia University in Montreal, examined how fathers can positively influence the development of their kids through hands-on parenting. Read more...
Government’s Seal of Confession proposal slammed by leading barrister
~The proposal by the Government to force priests to break the Seal of Confession is “one of the daftest ideas to come out in recent years”, according to one of the country’s leading barristers. Mr Paul Anthony McDermott, an expert on criminal law said on RTE’s Frontline last night that the idea of breaking the seal of confession made little sense when confession was “anonymous; you don't have to give your name, you don't give your address, you don't give your PPS number”. Read more...
Day care could affect children’s brain development says new study
~The brain structure and function of children who are placed in child care may change due to higher levels of stress, a new study has claimed. In an article published in The Biologist, a journal of the Society of Biology, Dr Aric Sigman proposes that the biological impact of day care now needs to be considered in child care decisions, especially when some research has shown that child care can trigger stress in young children. Read more...
Man sacked from two jobs over same-sex marriage stance
~A leadership and training consultant who was fired from Cisco Systems in California because of a book he wrote opposing same-sex marriage has now been let go by Bank of America. Dr Frank Turek, who conducts training courses for a wide range of corporations told US radio station American Family Radio that he gets “”a lot of flak for just actually agreeing with what a majority of Americans agree on and that is that marriage is between one man and one woman". Read more...
Couple banned from fostering for smoking two cigars in a year
~A UK couple have been banned them from fostering a child by their local county council because the husband had smoked two celebratory cigars in 18 months. Clare Baker, 34, and her husband, Paul, were 10 months into the application process when they were asked if they were smokers, according to The Daily Telegraph. Read more...
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Irish media dismissive of religion, says Fintan O'Toole
~One of Ireland's most influential columnists, and a long time critic of the the Catholic Church, has admitted that there is a culture of hostility in the Irish media towards religion. In an interview with the Irish Catholic, Fintan O'Toole, assistant editor for the Irish Times, said that the media's coverage of religion was “snobbish and dismissive”. Read more...
School defends itself in dispute with couple over religion class
~The chairman of a national school being sued over the teaching of religion by parents of a former pupil at the school has described the actions of the couple as “unreasonable”. The couple, who are being assisted in their case by Senator Ivana Bacik (pictured) have claimed that the school did not exclude their child from Catholic religion class, as agreed, but Fr James Hamill, chairman of the board of management of Annacurra National School in Aughrim, Co. Wicklow, said the school made a series of efforts to accommodate the parents wishes. Read more...
Minister for Justice plays down Seal of Confession issue
~Minister for Justice Alan Shatter (pictured) has attempted to play down controversy over controversial legislation which could force priests to break the seal of confession by saying that the new law will not contain any reference to confession. Mr Shatter described the controversy over confession as “an entirely bogus issue” adding that he did not believe it would be referred to in the bill, the Irish Times has reported. Read more...
Children’s rights wording with AG says Fitzgerald
~A wording for the proposed children's rights referendum is being examined by the Attorney General, the Minister for Children, Frances Fitzgerald (pictured) has said. Speaking yesterday to reporters at the Fine Gael think in Galway she said she expected to see substantial progress in the next few weeks, the Irish Times reported. Read more...
Couple take constitutional case against Catholic school
~A couple is taking a constitutional case against a Catholic school and the Department of Education in a bid to ensure that children of non-Catholic and non-religious parents can be properly accommodated in the education system. Read more...
Quinn denies asking parents to take control of schools from Church
~Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has denied a claim in the Irish Daily Mail that he was asking parents to take control of schools from the Catholic Church. The paper had claimed that Mr Quinn had called on parents to stand for election to school boards to combat the “historical legacy” of dominance by the Catholic Church. Read more...
Council threatens to remove obese children from their parents
~A couple from Dundee in Scotland face having their children put up for adoption after social services ruled they had not lost enough weight, according to a report in The Daily Telegraph. If Dundee City Council acts on its threat to remove their children, the mother and father face the "unbearable" prospect of never seeing their four youngest children again. The couple have seven children and cannot be named for legal reasons. Read more...
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