Pope Leo XIV has described how he was physically attacked because he was a priest while on a visit to Ireland. He was twice here when he was the head of the Augustinian order worldwide, once in 2005 and again in 2007.
He recounted the incident at a conference in Peru in 2019, when he was a bishop there and a video of his comments has just resurfaced online.
In his comments, he says: “Never in my life, anywhere in the world, have I been physically attacked as I was in Ireland, just for this [pointing to his clerical collar], for just going out on the street.
“A man passes by, he looks at me [and says] ‘you’re a priest’ – and he starts attacking me. Fortunately, another Augustinian, who is twice as big as me, came to defend me.”
He added: “I don’t know if he was a victim or had lost faith in the church, I have no idea what happened to him. But I truly believe it is a very important factor in the experience here in the church as well.”
A recent Amarach opinion poll, commissioned by The Iona Institute, reveals that Irish people overestimate the number of Catholic clergy guilty of child abuse by around four to one, and in addition, a quarter of people would like if the Church disappeared from Ireland completely.
The poll also found that a third of people have a favourable view of priests, a third have an unfavourable view, with the rest in between.
The HSE has said that 12 babies were born alive, after abortions, in 2022 alone.
Of the 12 cases, one was under 22 weeks, nine were at 22-27 weeks and two were at 28-31 weeks.
In Ireland, premature babies born as early as the 23rd week of pregnancy have been known to survive with proper medical care.
However, in some jurisdictions, babies born alive after abortion are left to die, while in others, doctors are obliged to give life-saving treatment.
The HSE said it does not collate specific national data on the care of babies born alive after termination of pregnancy, but all infants delivered with a diagnosis of a life-limiting condition, including those delivered following abortion, are provided with “comfort care”.
In response to the figures, Pro Life Campaign spokesperson Eilís Mulroy said it was a deeply concerning humanitarian issue and that it raises questions about the standard of medical care the babies subsequently received.
Independent Ireland TD, Ken O’Flynn, said there needs to be a lot more openness surrounding the medical care given to or withheld from the babies in these situations.
Ireland’s population could grow to between 6 million and 7.59 million by the year 2065, according to projections released by the Department of Finance. The vast majority will be immigration-driven, especially in the case of the upper scenarios. By the 2040s, the CSO has estimated that deaths in Ireland will outnumber births. In the first quarter of this year, births to Irish citizens were already outnumbered by deaths of Irish citizens. Over 30 percent of births were to non-nationals.
The Department’s ‘Future Forty’ paper looks at potential demographic changes over the next forty years, “given certain assumptions regarding migration, fertility and mortality rates”.
The latest CSO data put the population of the Republic at 5.6 million.
Ireland’s Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has fallen from close to 2.6 births per woman 40 years ago, to 1.9 births per woman 20 years ago, to 1.53 births per woman in 2023. A level of 2.1 is needed for a population to sustain itself.
This analysis presents three separate fertility scenarios over the time horizon, using the CSO’s baseline fertility projections as a central scenario according to which TFR is projected to gradually fall to 1.3 births per woman by 2038, before stabilising.
A higher scenario (where the TFR stabilises at 1.53 births per woman), and a lower scenario (where the TFR declines further to 1.2 births per woman) are also considered.
However, since 2023, the TFR has already fallen to 1.50 in 2024.
The fertility rates – which means the number of children born per woman – for both England and Wales and for Scotland have fallen to historic lows.
In 2024, the total fertility rate (TFR) was 1.41 children per woman for England and Wales compared to 1.42 in 2023.
Scotland’s total fertility rate fell to 1.25, down from 1.27 in 2023.
A figure of 2.1 is needed for a population to naturally sustain itself.
Last year, Ireland’s was 1.50.
Greece has announced drastic measures worth up to €1.6bn, to address a demographic crisis of unprecedented scale which the Greek prime minister has called one of the biggest challenges facing the Mediterranean nation.
The news comes as the country announced the closure of 700 schools due to falling pupil numbers.
“We know that the cost of living is one thing if you don’t have a child and another if you have two or three children,” Kyriakos Mitsotakis said on Sunday after announcing the policies. “So, as a state we should find a way to reward our citizens who make the choice [of having children].”
The measures, which range from a 2 percentage point reduction for all tax brackets to a zero rate for low-income families with four children, will be rolled out in 2026, said Mitsotakis.
With fertility rates in Greece among the lowest in Europe – at 1.4 children a woman, the reproduction rate is well below the replacement level of 2.1 – Mitsotakis has called the problem a “national threat”.
Acknowledging the decline had assumed existential proportions, finance minister Kyriakos Pierrakakis said fertility rates had halved since the start of the country’s economic crisis 15 years ago.
In her pitch to the council, Ms Steen said that as the mother of a young family, she was highly motivated to build up the pro-family values on which Irish society was founded, “and which are given a place of honour in the constitution, and which I know from personal experience to be essential to real human flourishing”.
This, she said, was in contrast to “the NGO-and media-driven consensus that seems to afflict so much of our politics, and which was rejected by the people in the 2024 referenda”.
The council will vote next Monday. Of its 33 members, 9 are Fianna Fail, 6 Fine Gael, 4 Sinn Fein, 2 Labour, 11 independents and one Independent Alliance.
Meanwhile, Irish Times columnist, Fintan O’Toole, has complimented Ms Steen for having “performed a vital democratic function in the equal marriage, abortion and care referendums by being an able, articulate and patently sincere advocate for the conservative side”.
In supporting her bid to be nominated, he said, “Those of us who are secular liberals have always stood against the silencing of minorities and we should do so now. The political system has a duty to let a variety of voices be heard in this contest”.
Up to 20 US states are considering a law to make equally shared custody the default arrangement in divorces and separations, after pioneering legislation in Kentucky was followed by a large drop in divorces.
The southern state passed its law in 2018 and Four other states—Arkansas, West Virginia, Florida and Missouri—have since passed their own versions of the bill, not least because of its effect on marriage.
Between 2016 and 2023 Kentucky’s divorce rate fell 25%, compared with a nationwide decline of 18%, according to an analysis by the National Center for Family & Marriage Research at Bowling Green State University. They say the additional effect is because mothers and fathers gain equal custody over the children, whereas usually the mother gains custody. Most divorces are initiated by women.
Matt Hale, vice chair of the National Parents Organization, said “Giving kids equal access to both their parents is just common sense.”
The drop in the divorce rate is, he said, an unintended bonus of the custody law.
He suggested that parents are increasingly likely to stay together because they realise they’ll be in regular touch regardless, so “they might as well work it out.”
He added that he’s heard stories of couples who decided not to break up because of the presumption of shared custody, and years later are glad they stayed together.
Pro-family groups opposed to making Northern Ireland’s divorce law far more permissive are appealing to members to make their views known to an open consultation before Sept 26th.
Northern Ireland’s current legislation on divorce, introduced in 1978, is hybrid, allowing for divorce on grounds of fault (unreasonable behaviour, adultery and desertion) or no-fault (evidenced by separation).
The mooted changes include moving the NI system toward full “no fault” or even an administrative model like England and Wales, where applications bypass the courts altogether and cannot normally be contested.
The Coalition for Marriage (C4M) want to keep the mixed system, saying it better reflects the seriousness of marriage, allows the truth to be recognised where there is serious misconduct and promotes fairness in financial and child arrangements.
The are particularly opposed to an administrative, unilateral route that cannot normally be contested as they say marriage is a public commitment and the law should not treat ending it as a simple process.
The virtue of caritas (God’s divine love), given in baptism, is a force that can inspire the Christian politician’s work to better society, but its effectiveness depends on his fidelity to Christ.
That’s according to Pope Leo who spoke to elected officials and civil servants visiting Rome last week on a jubilee year pilgrimage from France.
Drawing on his Augustinian roots, the Pontiff urged the group to not try to separate their work from their deeper identity as Christians, but encouraged them instead to draw strength from their faith, and knowledge from the social doctrine of the Church.
“Its foundations”, he said “are fundamentally in harmony with human nature, with the natural law that all can recognize, even non-Christians, even non-believers. You must not therefore fear to propose it and to defend it with conviction”.
The Pope acknowledged the difficulties this could present for his interlocutors, as France has a very strong form of secularism that stridently excludes appeals to faith.
He said he was also aware “of the pressures, the party directives, the ‘ideological colonization’—to borrow an expression of Pope Francis—to which politicians are subjected”.
“They need courage: the courage at times to say, ‘No, I cannot!’ when the truth is at stake”.
Women postponing their first child is resulting in many not having the number of children they want, according to a leading sociologist. Ireland’s birth rate is now well below replacement level.
Carmel Hannan, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Limerick, said many reasons underlie “postponement”, and are often due to wanting to feel economically secure, she said. The higher the risks in people’s lives, the less likely they are to make long-term decisions.
“So, if you are in education or in a precarious job, or you don’t have a house, it is likely that having children will be delayed,” she said.
“On the other hand, we are facilitating people to have children at later ages because there is so much access to IVF treatments and other measures such as surrogacy.
She added that the more people postpone having children, “the less likely they will have their ideal family size.
“Sociologists have looked at the number of children people wanted to have versus what they had. The more educated you are and postpone, the more likely you won’t have the number of kids you wanted to have. You wanted three, but you ended up having one or two”.
