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.
Britain is at a population “turning point” as deaths will outnumber births for the first time this year, according to projections by the Office for National Statistics.
That trend is expected to continue into the future, the agency found, although small annual population increases will still occur up to 2034 due to net inward migration.
The present population predictions, however, are much lower than they were two years ago, reflecting the recent sharp fall in net migration, as well as lower fertility rates expected in the future.
Charlie McCurdy, a senior economist at the Resolution Foundation, said the latest projections put Britain at a “demographic turning point”.
“This slower population growth will also reduce the size of the workforce and consequently lower tax receipts, adding up to £3 billion a year to borrowing by 2030.”
The rate of marriage in Ireland has fallen to a new low of 3.6 adults per thousand people marrying annually which is also below the EU average of 3.9. It has fallen from 4.7 in 2015 and over 7 in the 1970s.
New figures from the Central Statistics Office show there were 19,274 opposite-sex marriages registered in Ireland last year, and 624 same-sex marriages.
The marriage rate was 3.8 in 2024.
The Irish rate first dipped below the EU average in 2020 during the outbreak of the covid pandemic. It has remained there every year since except for 2022.
In what has been hailed as a stunning victory for freedom of speech and common sense in Scotland, a judge has dismissed criminal charges against a 75-year-old grandmother, who was arrested for offering consensual conversation in an abortion “buffer zone”.
Rose Docherty was the first person to be criminally charged under Scotland’s 2024 abortion-exclusion zone law.
Her arrest sparked expressions of concern in the UK and around the world, including from the Scottish Catholic Bishops’ Conference and from the US State Department, who described it as “another egregious example of the tyrannical suppression of free speech happening across Europe”.
Reacting to the ruling, Rose Docherty commented: “This verdict is a major victory for free speech in Scotland and the UK. It shows that peacefully offering consensual conversation on a public street, which is all I have ever done, can never be a crime”.
There has been a surge in popularity in both explicitly religious books and other literary works that reference religious ideas and themes.
Last year, in Britain, there was a 10.5 per cent rise in the sales of books in the “Religion” category, according to figures from the publisher SPCK Group. Bible sales, in particular, are climbing to record highs – up 106 per cent since 2019.
TV personality Bear Grylls’s “The Greatest Story Ever Told” topped hardback bestseller lists last year.
Fiction writers are also more inclined to use religious themes into their stories: the retired priest Richard Coles is finding enormous success with his crime series, The Canon Clement Mysteries. Poet Martha Sprackland is about to release a new translation of writings by the 16th-century mystic John of the Cross.
Penguin Random House recently launched its first Christian imprint, Ebury Vine.
Three of its first four books have charted in the New York Times bestsellers list.
Commissioning editor Charisa Gunasekera believes sales are being driven by Gen Z readers, especially those “who haven’t been raised in religious environments, and are trying to find a deeper wisdom at a time that feels increasingly uncertain. They’re looking for comfort and guidance and peace.”
Religious belief, prayer and sacramental confession can serve as a powerful support for young people’s mental wellbeing, according to new research from Mary Immaculate College.
Dr Lydia Mannion, a Lecturer in Inclusive and Special Education, says that religion “can provide a sense of purpose, a framework for understanding life’s challenges, a source of comfort in times of distress, and a community of belonging”.
Her research involved questionnaires completed by over one hundred students in Transition Year, Fifth Year and Leaving Certificate classes and follow-up in-depth interviews with seven students.
The findings revealed that students who believed in God and held strong religious beliefs were more likely to report higher levels of wellbeing. Similarly, those who engaged in positive religious coping tended to report a stronger sense of purpose in life.
In contrast, students who relied more on negative religious coping methods were more likely to experience lower levels of wellbeing
Prayer, such as saying the rosary, emerged as one of the most significant ways that faith supports mental wellbeing. Many students described it as a calming and grounding practice during times of stress and anxiety.
Religious practices such as Confession were also highlighted as beneficial in terms of processing guilt and personal struggles.
A population decline of 11.7pc is expected to hit the countries of the European Union between 2025 and 2100, according to the latest projections from Eurostat.
This translates to a predicted decrease of 53.0 million people in the EU by the start of the next century. The decline would be steeper without immigration.
At the same time, the population will continue to age with those over-65 growing in number from about 95 million today to 109 million in 2100. The number under 18 is project to fall from about 80 million now, to 60 million at the end of the century. This means the over-65s will outnumber children by almost two-to-one.
In 2025, the EU population was estimated at 451.8 million, having resumed its growth trend in 2022, after the COVID-19 pandemic disruption in 2021. Looking ahead, the population is projected to continue to increase over the next three years, peaking at 453.3 million in 2029, before gradually declining to 398.8 million by 2100.
The projected change will not be uniformly distributed as some countries will have larger populations in 2100 compared to 2025, while most will see declines.
Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Greece are projected to record the largest declines, all above 30pc.
Meanwhile, the total fertility rate for 2024 was 1.34 live births per woman in the EU, down from 1.38 in 2023. This is the lowest rate since 2001, the first year for which the EU figure is available. Replacement level is 2.1.
In 2024, 3.55 million babies were born in the EU, a 3.3% decrease from the 3.67 million in 2023.
Rita Rubovszky has worked in teaching, school management and European-level policy work.
Her academic credentials include a degree in Hungarian–French comparative literature, followed by scholarship studies at the Sorbonne University in Paris.
She has taught in several Budapest secondary schools, served for a decade on a language examination board, and spent 12 years as vice-president of the European Association of Catholic Teachers.
She also worked in Brussels as an EU distance-learning specialist.
