Ireland’s bishops have urged voters to press candidates on life issues before the country’s general election on Friday.
In a statement, the four Irish archbishops said they “strongly oppose any weakening of the affirmation of the right to life of the unborn”.
In 1983, Ireland introduced a constitutional ban on abortion and gave an equal right to life to the mother and the child.But, in 2013, the government introduced the country’s first abortion law, the Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act, which allows abortion where there is a risk to the life of the mother, including a risk of suicide.
Last June, health minister Leo Varadkar reported that 26 abortions – including three based on the risk of suicide – were carried out in Irish hospitals in 2014. Some political parties and individual candidates are now pushing for a further liberalisation of the grounds for abortion.
The Labour Party is campaigning on a ticket of repealing the Eighth Amendment, the 1983 ban on abortion, and has said it will insist on an abortion referendum as a prerequisite to re-entering a coalition with Fine Gael.
The bishops’ statement was issued the day the Labour Party unveiled its plans for a referendum and the introduction of legislation similar to Britain’s 1967 Abortion Act.
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland radio that the right to life should be an important issue for voters because it was about ensuring that “the interests of all children are respected and nobody’s life is considered less valuable than others”. “Let politicians have the courage also to say where they stand up on this issue.”
He added: “You cannot pretend to be a Catholic and leave aside a very vital part of Catholic teaching.”
The archbishops’ statement followed other statements from individual bishops. Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin said he found it “very difficult to see how any Catholic could, in good conscience, vote for a candidate or a political party whose policy it is to legalise abortion”.
Referring to arguments favouring abortion for children diagnosed with a fatal fetal abnormality, Archbishop Michael Neary of Tuam dismissed it as “simplistic” and “an outright attack on the unborn” and an “affront to the charter of human rights enshrined in Ireland’s basic law”.
“If an unborn child has a life-limiting condition, it would be inhumane to withdraw the protection of the constitution to their right to life,” he said.
Ireland is currently governed by a coalition of Fine Gael and the Labour Party. This coalition is hoping to be re-elected. If so Enda Kenny, the Taoiseach, would be the first Fine Gael leader to win a successive term since 1933.
The Labour Party is only supported by six per cent of the electorate, according to an Ipsos MRBI poll earlier this week. Fine Gael is predicted to win 28 per cent of the vote, the same share as independent candidates, while Sinn Fein is polling at 15 per cent.
Two undiscovered Tolkien poems found at school
Two previously undiscovered poems by the Catholic author JRR Tolkien have been found at a school in Oxfordshire.
Stephen Oliver, the principal of Our Lady’s, Abingdon, found the poems when looking through a copy of an old school magazine, originally published in 1936. One of the poems, “The Shadow Man”, is an earlier version of a poem that The Lord of the Rings’s author eventually published in 1962 in his collection Adventures of Tom Bombadil. The other, “Noel”, is a Christmas poem celebrating the birth of Jesus.
Mr Oliver found the poems after being contacted by the American Tolkien scholar, Wayne Hammond. From a note made by Tolkien himself when making a list of his poetry,
Mr Hammond knew that Tolkien had published two poems in a magazine he called The Abingdon Chronicle. Further research revealed this to be the 1936 annual of Our Lady’s School, at that time run by the Sisters of Mercy. Hammond contacted the school, which then began a hunt for the poems.
“At first we couldn’t find the 1936 edition and referred Mr Hammond to the archives of the Sisters of Mercy in London,” said Mr Oliver. “Then, while preparing for an event for former pupils of the school, we uncovered our own copy and I saw the two poems Mr Hammond had been looking for. My excitement when I saw them was overwhelming. I am a great Tolkien fan and was thrilled to discover the connection with the school.”
It is thought that Tolkien, a Catholic, got to know Our Lady’s School while living at Northmoor Road in Oxford, when he was the university’s Professor of Anglo-Saxon. It was during his time at Oxford that he wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
Jesuit charity head dies aged 47
The former director of the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) has died, aged 47. Louise Zanre, who suffered from a rare form of arthritis, stepped down from her post at the start of the year. Sarah Teather, who succeeded Ms Zanre four weeks ago, said how much she was struck by the generosity of Louises’s “love and service”. She added: “She cared deeply for the refugees, volunteers and staff.”
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