Changing attitudes to sex, extramarital childbearing and the expectations of marriage are driving down America’s marriage rates, according to a report from a leading think-tank.
This contradicts the narrative that declining male wages is primarily the fault.
Rachel Sheffield of the Heritage Foundation said that in the past, “owning a home or having a particular size of home was less of a prerequisite to entering marriage than it is today.”
Moreover, nowadays people have less expectation that marriage will last, so are more likely to want material security before entering marriage.
Furthermore, cultural norms about sex and childbearing have shifted, meaning far more children are born outside marriage, but this has impacted the working classes the most. The middle class still tend to marry before having children.
“While the college-educated are most likely to promote the cultural messages that marriage is unnecessary, outdated, and even oppressive, they do not practice what they preach.”
On a policy level, Sheffield called for funds to be used for “strengthening marriages,” including through high school marriage education programs and a reorientation of cultural messages in the media, TV shows, and advertisements.
The lack of family-sized housing is one of the single biggest barriers to family formation in Britain according to both new academic research and a major new poll of public attitudes.
Britain’s fertility rate is now at 1.41 which will lead to an historic population decline over time. A rate of 2.1 is needed for a population to simply remain stable without immigration.
The report by the demographer Lyman Stone of the Institute for Family Studies finds that Britons still want families of around two children, but that the housing market offers them small flats instead of family homes, and that the gap between the families Britons want and the families Britons get has never been wider.
Alongside the report, a new public-attitudes polling confirms the country is overwhelmingly behind the family-housing agenda.
Across eight areas covering family-sized homes, family-friendly planning and the experience of housing pressure, the public agrees by margins ranging from 30 to 72 points.
The National Assembly – France’s lower house – had already approved the bill twice, and could yet pass the bill into law without the Senate’s approval. To avert that outcome, a leading Republican Senator called for the issue to be put to the people in a referendum.
The matter will be considered again, in both houses of the French Parliament, in June and July before a final decision will be made.
The proposed bill would allow someone with a terminal or incurable illness to request lethal medication, usually to administer themselves, although if they are not capable it can be administered by a medical professional, which is euthanasia.
Five conditions must be met: Legal adulthood, free and informed consent, an incurable illness with a life-threatening prognosis, suffering resistant to treatment, and stable residence in France to prevent “death tourism.” Elsewhere when euthanasia and assisted suicide are introduced, the number availing of the procedures almost always increases rapidly and the eligibility grounds expand.
More than €50 million in Irish taxpayer funding was channelled to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) between 2019 and 2024, a parliamentary reply has revealed, prompting calls for greater scrutiny of how that money is spent.
€2.3 million was also given to the International Planned Parenthood Federation and €3.185 million to the Clinton Foundation.
All three are known for their worldwide support of abortion, in particular the IPPF.
The figures were given to Independent Ireland TD Ken O’Flynn, who sought details of overseas aid allocated to “sexual and reproductive health”, and separately to “abortion”.
Minister of State Neale Richmond said no funding is earmarked specifically for abortion. However, he acknowledged the funding includes “family planning” and the “prevention and management of consequences of unsafe abortion”.
Eilís Mulroy of the Pro Life Campaign (PLC) said the UNFPA was a “controversial ideological organisation”, at the forefront of exporting abortion to developing countries, and called for called for greater transparency on what the money was being spent on.
Senator Rónán Mullen accused the Government of “doublespeak” in denying money was earmarked for abortion, even as they know right well “that our money is going towards abortion promotion as part of the mix”.
A retired pastor has been convicted for preaching a sermon on divine love within one of Northern Ireland’s controversial abortion ‘safety’ zones.
The former President of the Association of Baptist Churches in Ireland, Clive Johnston, 78, was arrested last year as he was holding an open-air service on the fringes of a buffer zone opposite Coleraine’s Causeway Hospital which conducts abortions. He did not mention the abortion law but his presence was still deemed a violation of the law leading to his arrest.
The grandfather of seven – who had never been in trouble with the police – now faces a criminal record and £450 in fines
After being found guilty at Coleraine Magistrates court, Pastor Johnston called it a “dark day for Christian freedom”.
Director of the Christian Institute, Ciarán Kelly, called the verdict “creeping censorship”.
“If the ruling stands it will represent a shocking new restriction on freedom of religion and freedom of speech so we will be helping Clive to consider the options for appeal.”
The French Senate is debating a bill to legalise assisted suicide after having rejected an earlier version of the same legislation in January.
The proposal would allow someone with a terminal or incurable illness to request lethal medication, usually to administer themselves, although if they are not capable it can be administered by a medical professional, which is euthanasia.
Five conditions must be met: Legal adulthood, free and informed consent, an incurable illness with a life-threatening prognosis, suffering resistant to treatment, and stable residence in France to prevent “death tourism.” Elsewhere when euthanasia and assisted suicide are introduced, the number availing of the procedures almost always increases rapidly and the eligibility grounds expand.
Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne, Lescar, and Oloron sent a letter to his diocese, calling on Catholics to oppose the legislation, saying it is “extremely serious” and seeks to “abolish the prohibition against killing upon which life in society has always rested.”
“[T]he final adoption of this bill could only encourage the poorest or most vulnerable patients who lack access to palliative care, or so-called ‘eligible’ individuals who fear being a burden on their families, the medical community, or the social security budget, to resort to assisted suicide or euthanasia,” he said.
The number of young Spaniards who identify as Catholic has surged by almost 50% in a mere five years, according to a new report.
This increase coincides with a reduction in explicitly non-religious positions.
The Young Spaniards 2026 report, which analyses the main trends among young people in areas such as values, education, and politics, confirms a trend seen in many other countries around the world: the increased importance of religion and spirituality among the youth.
The report also found that 38.4% of young people consider religion “quite or very important” in their lives, the highest figure in the entire historical series.
A new report by Amnesty International details brutal attacks on Christians by Islamic militants in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Incidents of terrorism perpetrated against Christians in the area have also long been documented by the Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need.
Published Tuesday, Amnesty’s report begins by detailing a massacre of over 60 mourners at a funeral wake in Ntoyo, the province of North Kivu, in September 2025. One eye-witness told researchers: “I had never seen so many bodies”.
It also highlighted an attack on a church in Komanda, Ituri on July 27th 2025 where at least 40 people were murdered during a prayer vigil.
The report says a large part of the militant group’s messaging and propaganda frames its attacks as targeting Christians, and the vast majority of victims are Christian, reflecting the composition of the local population, but they have also attacked Muslims they consider unfaithful to Islam.
The author’s of the report called for more action from both the DRC Government and the international community.
Pope Leo XIV has convened bishops from around the world for an October summit in Rome to address the global crisis in marriage, the Holy See confirmed.
The high-level meeting will bring together the presidents of bishops’ conferences to examine declining marriage rates, rising cohabitation and growing reluctance among young people to form families.
These are issues that the Pope has identified as a matter of urgent concern for both Church and society.
Meanwhile, the lead Irish Bishop on Marriage and the Family said the latest CSO data, showing fewer couples getting married in Ireland year-on-year, is a “worrying trend” and everyone, including policymakers in Government, “ought to be seriously concerned”.
Bishop Denis Nulty said marriage “is positively correlated with stability in families and that of wider society in general”.
He noted the work done by the Catholic Agency, Accord, to prepare couples for married life, but said more help is needed.
“No doubt but that the decline in marriage numbers is a policy area meriting immediate State intervention, and investment, in the interest of the common good.”
Pro Life leaders have slammed the Social Democrats for introducing a radical abortion bill to remove the last remaining protections for unborn children.
The bill takes aim at the three-day wait which allows a woman time to think through her request for an abortion. It also removes time limits on what qualifies as a so-called ‘fatal-foetal abnormality’, removes conscience protections, and removes the threat of prosecution against medics for illegal abortions.
In a statement, Senator Sarah O’Reilly, of pro-life party Aontú, said the three-day wait provides a “vital space for reflection at a time of immense pressure and vulnerability”.
“The reality is that some women are unsure, some feel overwhelmed, and some feel they have no real alternative. That short pause can be the only moment they have to breathe, to think, and to reconsider,” she said.
Eilís Mulroy of the Pro Life Campaign called the bill “not only sad but disgraceful”.
Meanwhile, thousands attended the annual March for Life in Dublin on Monday.
Speakers voiced their alarm at the rising figures—10,852 abortions were carried out in Ireland in 2024 alone—and called for alternative ”life affirming” supports to be made available to women.
