The Irish prime minister, known as the Taoiseach, has conceded that his government was defeated “comprehensively” when voters rejected amendments to the constitution that the country’s bishops warned would have weakened support for marriage and undermined motherhood.
Despite opinion polls showing a clear majority in favour of the government’s plan to widen the definition of the family to include other “durable relationships” as well as marriage, when votes were counted on March 9, 67.7 percent of citizens rejected the amendment, while 32.3 percent supported it.
A second amendment proposed removing a provision from the 1937 document that said women should not be forced by economic necessity to take a job “to the neglect of their duties in the home.”
Again, polls showed it was likely to pass, but this proposal was rejected by an even wider margin, 73.9 percent to 26.1 percent. It is the highest-ever “no” vote in Irish referendum history.
The amendments had been supported by all political parties except the small Aontú party, which only has one member in the national parliament, known as the Oireachtas.
Speaking at the national count center in Dublin Castle on March 9, Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said he was disappointed by the results. However, he stated, “The people were asked questions, the debates happened, the arguments were heard.”

In the lead up to this year’s closing session of the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, the Belgian bishops have apparently opened a national discussion on allowing women deacons and ending the requirement of priestly celibacy.
According to Belgian Catholic news site Kerknet, the Belgian bishops’ conference ahead of the October 2-27 synod have sent a letter to all dioceses proposing, among other things, an openness to the women’s diaconate and an end to mandatory priestly celibacy.
In the draft text, apparently sent to various diocesan discussion groups and councils throughout Belgium, makes three basic points, the first of which is that “a synodal missionary Church requires open dialogue with the world around us.”
The Church, it says, cannot limit itself “to a one-way street” when it comes to sharing the Gospel with the world.
In a second point, the bishops ask that the Synod of Bishops “define our Church tradition(s) as dynamic and in constant development.”
They also asked for encouragement in pursuing “concrete form to the decentralization” of certain topics of discussion in the Church, “allowing us to work together in unity with more legitimate diversity.”
“We ask for a concretization of the ‘accountability’ of the bishops in a synodal Church,” they said.
The bishops then apparently called for a deeper reflection on the role of women in the Church, proposing that the decision regarding women deacons be left up to individual dioceses or national or continental bishops’ conferences.
Asking for “the green light to take certain steps per bishops’ conference or continental bishops’ meetings,” the bishops said that by doing this, “the giving of increasing pastoral responsibility to women and the ordination of women to the diaconate need not be universally obligatory or prohibited.”

Pope Francis on February 14 met with members of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, as they gathered for their plenary assembly.
The Holy Father opened his discourse by noting that, even sixty years after the pro-mulgation of the Sacrosanctum Concilium, it is still highly relevant. It contains, the Pope said, “a precise will to reform the Church in its fundamental dimensions: to make the Christian life of the faithful grow more and more every day; to adapt the institutions subject to change better to the needs of our time; to foster that which can contribute to the union of all believers in Christ; to reinvigorate that which serves to call all to the bosom of the Church.”
This is therefore a profound work of spiritual, pastoral, ecumenical and missionary renewal, said the Pope, adding that the Council Fathers were aware that “without a liturgical reform there is no reform of the Church.”
Pope Francis then went on to explain that Church reform depends on the Church’s love for Christ, like “spousal fidelity”, to the point of being fully conformed to him.
Speaking of the role of women in the Church, Pope Francis stressed the importance of the Church itself being a woman. “That is why I said that every instance of Church reform is always a matter of spousal fidelity, because she [the Church] is a woman”, he said.
The purpose of the liturgical reform – within the broader framework of the renewal of the Church – is precisely to “bring about that formation of the faithful and promote that pastoral action which has the sacred Liturgy as its summit and its source,” the Pope said.
Francis went on to note that although liturgical formation is necessary, “it does not exclude that there is a priority in the formation of those who, by virtue of the sacrament of Orders, are called Pope to be.

In a significant setback for the Synodal Way project in Germany, the German bishops will not be voting on a step toward a forbidden “Synodal Council” at their upcoming plenary assembly at the Vatican’s request.
German Bishops Conference (DBK) spokesman Matthias Kopp confirmed on February 17 that the bishops have removed a vote on endorsing a committee that is preparing the Synodal Council, a mixed body of laity and bishops that would govern the Church in Germany, from the agenda of their Feb. 19–22 meeting in Augsburg.
The development comes after the DBK received a letter from the Vatican on the same day.
“This letter requests that the General Assembly – also due to upcoming discussions between representatives of the Roman Curia and representatives of the German Bishops’ Conference – not vote on the statutes of the Synodal Committee,” Kopp told Germany’s Catholic News Agency (KNA).
Although it had not been explicitly on the publicly available agenda of the DBK assembly, a vote on approving the committee preparing the Synodal Council had been widely expected to take place in Augsburg.
The DBK’s co-sponsor of the Synodal Way, the Central Committee of German Catholics lay lobby (ZdK), had previously approved the statutes of the preparatory committee.

Nuns have been conned out of thousands of pounds after being targeted by artificial intelligence posing as fake Bishops.
The “brides of Christ” have been put on alert after a string of attempts by callous conmen to defraud the convents of cash.
They have been using artificial intelligence to alter their voices and faces to impersonate religious leaders and beg for money for operations in Spain. The Guardia Civil police force said that up to 15 convents in the southern province of Jaen have been targeted in the last few weeks.
One posing as the Bishop of Jaen, Sebastián Chico, telephoned several nuns asking them to transfer 5,000 euros (£4,260) to pay for surgery. A convent in Torredonjimeno fell for the trick and handed over £2500.
In the coastal town of Almeria, the bishop’s office warned that fraudsters are using artificial intelligence technology “to achieve almost perfect imitations of voices and, in the case of videos, even the face and gestures of the impersonated person.”
One nun said she told a fraudster who telephoned and introduced himself as the Bishop of Jaen: “You’re not Don Sebastián, your voice is very hoarse.”
But she said he replied and said: “Yes, I am. I need the money for an operation on my throat.”

Iranian Christians continued to face harassment, arrests and imprisonment last year for practicing their faith, according to a report.
The 35-page report, issued by four non-profit organizations ad-vocating for persecuted Christians across the world, found that Christians have been deprived of their right to freely practice their faith.
This lack of religious freedom, the report said, affected both “recognized” Christians of Armenian and Assyrian descent and converts.
The report, issued each year, was released on Feb. 19 to coincide with the 45th anniversary of the murder of the Rev. Arastoo Sayyah, the first Christian killed for his faith in the Islamic Re-public of Iran.
The 2024 joint annual report from Article 18, CSW, Open Doors and Middle East Concern focuses on the many victims whose names and faces remain unknown due to fear that publication of their cases may worsen their plight.
“Despite a comparable number of Christians being arrested in 2023 as in previous years – 166 arrests were documented in 2023, compared to 134 in 2022 – fewer names and faces could be publicized,” according to the report.
While it is not common for Iranian Christians to be killed for their faith, the report said that, contrary to the claims of the Islamic Republic, there is still no religious freedom in Iran, which is governed as a theocracy.
The report found that a notable trend detected in 2023 was “how arrests of Christians came in waves, with just a handful of arrests reported prior to June, then over 100 within the next three months, before a further rash of arrests during Christmas.”
The report added, “Very few of those arrested agreed to publicize their cases, leading to an increasing number of faceless victims. A similarly targeted approach was reported by the Baha’i religious minority, and, as with the arrested Christians, in many cases these individuals were not named.”

A Spanish nun who has participated in recent meetings of Pope Francis’s top advisory body has said that while women’s priestly ordination is currently off the table, the pontiff is supportive of the female diaconate.
Speaking to the news agency Europa Press, Spanish nun and theologian Linda Pocher said, “There is no reflection on the priestly ordination of women in the Catholic Church,” but the pope “is very much in favor of the female diaconate.”
Pocher was one of three women, including an Anglican bishop, who addressed the most recent meeting of the pope’s Council of Cardinals, a group of cardinals from around the world who advise the pope on matters of Church governance and reform.
For the past two sessions of his Council of Cardinals, called the “C9,” female theologians have been invited to offer input on the role of women in the church, which is among the primary issues the C9 is discussing which is also a key discussion point of the ongoing Synod of Bishops on Synodality, set to conclude this October.
During a Dec. 4-5 meeting of the C9, Pocher, a Salesian and professor of Christology and Mariology at the Pontifical Faculty of Education Auxilium run by her order, was joined by Lucia Vantini, a professor of theology, philosophy and religion, in addressing the council.
Father Luca Castiglioni, a professor of fundamental theology at the diocesan seminary of Milan, also participated in that meeting.
Pocher, Vantini, and Castiglioni published a book on January 24 titled, “Demasculinizing the Church? Critical comparisons on the ‘Principles’ of Hans Urs Von Balthasar,” the preface for which was written by Pope Francis.

“We bring to your attention a terrorist attack which the community of Essakane village was the victim of today, February 25, while they were gathered for Sunday prayer,” the vicar of the Dori diocese, Jean-Pierre Sawadogo, said in a statement sent to AFP.The provisional toll was 15 killed and two wounded, he added.
Calling for peace and security in Burkina Faso, Sawadogo denounced “those who continue to wreak death and desolation in our country”.
This is just the latest in a series of atrocities blamed on terrorist groups active in the region, some of which have targeted Christian churches while others have involved the abduction of clergy.
Burkina Faso is part of the vast Sahel region, which has been locked in a battle against rising violent extremism since Libya’s civil war in 2011, followed by an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012.
The jihadist insurgency spilled over into Burkina Faso and Niger from 2015.
When Captain Ibrahim Traore seized power in 2022, it was the country’s second coup in less than a year – both triggered in part by discontent at the government’s failures to quell the violence.

Indonesia’s Religious Affairs Office (Kantor Urusan Agama, KUA) is becoming more inclusive, offering its services to people all faiths, not only Muslims, Religious Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas announced last on February 26. Indonesia is the world most populous Muslim-majority country.
“We all agree in principle for a radical change in the (legal) status of the office,” Choumas said at a working meeting of the ministry’s Directorate General of Islamic Community Guidance.
The ministry’s decision is not surprising, since the head of the ministry comes from the country’s most moderate Islamic organisation, the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU). Before he was appointed by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo during the latter’s second term, Quomas headed the NU’s para-military wing, better known as Banser.
The minister also said that the KUA will be available to all Indonesian citizens, regardless of their religion. Hitherto, only Muslim couples could access their services to get married, register the marriage, or get divorced.
Now, “The KUA will also be the place where all couples could register their marriage certificates” whatever their faith.
Marriage in Indonesia is considered valid only if it is performed at a religious institution. For Catholics and other Christians, this means that marriages can take place only in a church, in front of a pastor or priest.
After the ceremony, the bride and groom must go to the Civil Registration Office (Kantor Cata-tan Sipil, KCS) to officially register their marriage.

Adani Defence & Aerospace is set to build South Asia’s largest complex to manufacture missiles and ammunition, the first by a private company, owned by Gautan Adani, an oligarch close to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The complex will include two state-of-the-art production facilities, which were inaugurated today in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, in the presence of the State’s Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath (a leading member of the Bharatiya Janata Party), the Chief of Staff of the Army Staff, General Manoj Pande, as well as other top military officials and poli-ticians.
The Adani Group will invest more 30 billion rupees (around US$ 362 million), claiming that it will create more than 4,000 jobs. The ammunition plant has already started rolling out small calibre ammunition, starting with 150 million rounds estimated at 25% of India’s annual require-ment.
Stressing the need for self-reliance in missiles and ammunition, General Pande said that recent geopolitical events have shown the need for a reliable su-pply of ammunition from domestic sources to prepare for a protracted conflict.
It is no coincidence that the official inauguration took place today, the fifth anniversary of Operation Bandar, when the Indian Air Force (IAF) hit Islamic terrorist training camps in Pakistan in the aftermath of an attack in Pulwama (India) that left 40 people dead. India is the world’s largest arms importer, but it is trying to boost its defence manufacturing industry.