The last entirely Christian town in the Holy Land is facing what its parish priest describes as an unprecedented threat to its land, its people and its historic Christian presence.

After months of appeals over repeated violence targeting Taybeh, in the occupied West Bank, Father Bashar Fawadleh says hardline Israeli settlers have begun constructing an illegal outpost.

Often a precursor to a permanent settlement, he argues that the move is intended to impose “a new reality” by force and to pressure the people of Taybeh into leaving their land.

Existing only a few metres from residential homes, Father Fawadleh says families fear living under constant intimidation as roving gangs of marauding settlers have harassed locals with impunity.

The town has spent months drawing international attention to its plight but, despite these efforts, threats, disruptions and sporadic violence has continued.

The Parish Priest has again appealed for concrete steps, not just rhetoric, warning that if Taybeh were to lose its people, the world would lose an ancient living Christian community.

A whole new mindset is needed to stop the devaluation of life in the womb, according to a leading Irish bishop.

Kevin Doran of Achonry and Elphin was speaking in advance of the Rally for Life in Belfast last weekend.

He told the assembled congregants there is a need to promote “a new way of thinking and speaking about pregnancy, not as a burden or a crisis, but as a gift from God and as a privilege”.

He said every single human being has “infinite dignity”.

It is “not given to us by the State, or by our parents.  Neither the State, nor our parents, nor anybody else can take it away.  It is inalienable.”.

Nonetheless, he lamented that, while holding firmly to their own rights, people have “found excuses to deny the fundamental rights of others, on the basis of their colour, their sex, their ability or disability, or simply because they live in their mother’s womb, awaiting birth”.

In response, he called upon Christians to speak the truth about life clearly and respectfully and “contribute to changing the mindset of society” so that life in the womb also is valued in accord with its great dignity.

The start of July has marked “Death Day” as a leading think tank warns that the number of babies born in England and Wales every year will now be outpaced by deaths.

The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) suggests that the threshold at which deaths first outnumbered births was crossed on July 1st.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) expect 2026/27 to see 584,000 babies born compared to 588,000 deaths.

The CSJ warns that while the nation begins a new demographic era, politicians are asleep at the wheel as the shift accelerates concerning trends in the economy, public services and the nation’s ability to pay the bills.

The think tank also highlights the “tragedy of missing parents” – those dreaming of starting a family and yet unable to do so because of the rising the costs of having children, decline in marriage and scant affordable housing.

The CSJ’s Baby Bust report found that around three million women aged 16 to 45 today are projected not to have children under current trends, translating to 600,000 fewer mothers than if Britain had maintained the fertility patterns of their grandparents’ generation.

This is despite demographers consistently finding that the two-child family remains the aspiration in Britain.

US states can prohibit biologically male athletes who identify as women or girls from competing against female athletes, the US Supreme Court ruled in a 6–3 decision on Tuesday.

In the majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that individual states did not violate federal US civil rights legislation prohibiting sex-discrimination, or the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution, by determining athletic eligibility based on biological sex, rather than “gender identity.”

He likewise ruled that schools need not make an exception for biological males who have taken puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones.

Even the three dissenting judges agreed in part with the ruling.

The result upholds the constitutionality of such restrictions in at least 27 of the fifty US States.

The International Olympic Committee in March announced a new policy under which men who believe themselves to be women will be forbidden from competing in the women’s category.

Bishop Denis Nulty has said Catholic education is “critical” and schools which remain under the Church’s patronage must be “unapologetically Catholic”.

A just completed, major survey of parents shows most school communities would remain Catholic, while a minority, clustered mainly around middle-class urban centers, would switch to a non-denominational ethos.

Catholic leaders support the divestment of schools where parents desire it, but want the remaining schools to wholeheartedly embrace their faith-based identity.

Speaking to The Irish Catholic about the primary school survey process, Bishop Nulty said some people “may consider whether they want to continue our patronage after the survey when the results come out and they’re disseminated and looked at and evaluated”.

“But I don’t see huge change. I don’t see demand for huge change at all. I think people are quite happy.”

However, Bishop Nulty said Catholic schools must ensure their identity is genuine and lived in practice. “The important thing is to make sure our schools are Catholic and live the faith and are not just tokens,” he said.

Asked how Catholic ethos can be maintained, he said prayer should be part of daily school life, and that teachers and staff should “feel supported in their faith”.

A Pakistani trial court has acquitted a blind Christian man who spent 10 months in jail after being charged with blasphemy, an offense that carries a mandatory death sentence under the country’s notorious laws.

The director of the UK-based Minority Concern Pakistan, Aftab Alexander Mughal, told Crux Now the acquittal is an encouraging development but warned that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, “have been widely misused to settle personal disputes and enmities.”

Moreover, Mughal said, Christians “have been disproportionately targeted.”

Authorities in Pakistan had charged 51-year-old Nadeem Masih – who has been blind since birth – under Section 295-C of Pakistan’s blasphemy law criminalizing acts of insult to Muhammad, and mandates the death penalty upon conviction.

The court in Lahore ruled that prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence to support the allegations.

Masih’s family had consistently denied the allegation, insisting that the case stemmed from a dispute with local contractors.

A convent of nuns caring for dying cancer patients has been threatened with sanctions for not implementing a series of transgender directives stemming from a 2023 New York State law.

The Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer run a 42-bed nursing facility in Hawthorne, New York offering palliative services free of charge. They accept neither government funding nor insurance.

Yet, the new law stipulates that long-term care facilities must use patients’ ‘preferred gender pronouns’, even when they’re not present; defer to their choice of bathroom; and refuse to assign rooms based on biological sex. Staff must also undergo “cultural competency” training.

An editorial in the Washington Post newspaper noted that all of this would violate the sisters’ consciences, yet failure to do so could cost them thousands of dollars in fines, loss of licensure and even imprisonment.

In response, they have sued the state in US federal court.

They have now been joined by the Federal Government, with Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon saying: “States should take notice that they cannot require Americans to abandon their religious beliefs in the name of woke gender ideology”.

Pope Leo XIV issued a forceful defense of human life and the ends of medicine in an address last week on a pioneer of modern genetics, Jérôme Lejeune.

Dr Lejeune was a French pediatrician who discovered the genetic cause of Down Syndrome – Trisomy 21 – in 1958.

The Pope said he soon realised that his scientific discovery would be used “to eliminate people with Down syndrome before they were born”.

“He did not hesitate to become their defender, denouncing the violation of the Hippocratic Oath and what he called the new eugenics, describing it as ‘chromosomal racism’.”

It was a struggle that brought him harsh criticism in certain scientific circles.

The Pope quoted Professor Lejeune that “Medicine is the hatred of disease and the love of the patient” and that technology should never be used against the ends of medicine.

“For this reason, a physician should never be allowed to decide of the life of a particular embryo or a particular elderly person, on the basis of laboratory algorithms! Medicine must never become the servant of programmed death!”.

In some countries over 90pc of babies with Down Syndrome are aborted if a prenatal test reveals their condition.

The results of a Department of Education Survey showing limited desire for changing catholic school patronage has been welcomed by the Irish bishops’ education agency.

While school-specific results were shared privately with individual primary schools in early June, all school-level reports were published on Tuesday alongside a national summary report.

Catholic Education Partnership (CEP) Chief Executive, Alan Hynes-Cendrzak, said, “A simple reading of the results shows majority support for change in a little over 14% of schools.  However, this figure falls to just under 7% once schools with a low response rate (below 40%) are excluded”.

He added that only 77 schools nationally meet the Department’s own criteria for signalling a likely majority of parents being in favour of change of which 51 are in Dublin or Cork.  If you exclude schools with a response rate under 40%, that figure falls to around 40 schools.

The survey assessed parental preference on school patronage, language and co-educational provision in over 3,000 primary schools nationwide.

A seriously ill child under the age of 12 has been euthanised in the Netherlands. Since the practice was first introduced in the Netherlands the grounds on which it is available have widened greatly and the numbers availing of it have soared.

A medical review committee has referred the case to the Office of Public Prosecution for a criminal law review.

This is the first case of its kind under a 2023 law that extended ‘assisted dying’ to incurably sick children aged one to 12. Before the change, it was an option only for newborns and those over 12.

Under Dutch law, parents must be consulted, the child must be ‘suffering unbearably’ and there can be no hope of recovery.

After euthanasia, a review committee examines each case. If it is found to have not fully complied with the law, it is referred to the prosecution service for further investigation.

It is rare for such referrals to be made, and rarer still for them to result in a criminal trial.

In this instance, the child’s death and the referral to the public prosecution services was revealed in a letter to the Dutch parliament from Sophie Hermans, the Health minister. The euthanasia was carried out at the end of last year.