Secular Sunday #61 – News Addition
Welcome to this week’s Secular Sunday. We have some real changes this week.
Most significantly we have a new contributor. Barbara Monea is a 30-year-old Italian who has recently joined Atheist Ireland. She is a long-time member of UAAR (Union of Atheists and Agnostics in Italy) and was a regular contributor to the news section of their website. She has kindly offered to take on a similar role here, providing a weekly digest of relevant news for this newsletter.
The email version of the newsletter is now powered by MailChimp, which allows more automation and flexibility. There will likely be some abrupt and unpopular changes in layout before I settle on a suitable format. Please be patient. Honest feedback is always appreciated.
– Derek Walsh, Editor
Atheist Ireland News
- Reminder: The conference “Empowering Women Through Secularism” will be taking place in Dublin on the weekend of 28 & 29 June. To reserve your place at the early-bird price of €100, please email wsconference@atheist.ie and you’ll be the first to know when tickets go on sale.
- Michael Nugent took part in a debate on Church and State as part of a Trinity College Dublin forum on “All Faiths and None”. See Michael’s contribution, and those of Ivana Bacik and John Waters.
- Last week we linked to a survey of atheists and other non-religious people The compiler of the survey is now specifically seeking more responses from Ireland because it has almost enough data for Irish responses to be identified at a statistically meaningful level and to be compared to global results and the results from certain other countries. If you haven’t already participated, you can do so here Participation in this survey is voluntary and anonymous. Your responses will be combined with others, and no personally identifying information will be recorded. Your honest and complete answers are crucial to making sure survey results accurately represent the experiences of atheists.
- Our Dublin Atheists in the Pub event is taking a hiatus this month but will be back towards the end of March. Our monthly nationwide brunches will be taking place on Sunday 10 March.
News Digest
compiled by Barbara Monea
IRELAND
- Kenny “deeply regrets and apologises unreservedly” to Magdalene women in emotional speech
- Demand for LGBT Helpline so high it needs more volunteers
- Finding a new place for women in our ‘fantasy’ Constitution
WORLD
- New Pope. Same church?
- Pope will have security, immunity by remaining in the Vatican
- Interview: The Church can’t move on from its abusive past until the pope is gone
- Catholics Urge Cardinal Tied to Sex Abuse to Skip Papal Vote
- Islamic group claims Nigerian kidnap
- Russian Theocracy Taking Shape
- Rabbi accused in France of not reporting sexual abuse in school (article in French)
- New study raises questions about religion as deterrent against criminal behaviour
- US has failed to pursue the church pedophilia: UN
- Women Killed as ‘Witches,’ in Papua New Guinea, in 2013
- Israeli Ethiopian Birth Control Ignites Debate
- Obama Seeking to Boost Study of Human Brain
- DNA Test for Rare Disorders Becomes More Routine
- Mississippi formally abolishes slavery
- Cancer group loses gene patent case
Calendar
- Saturday 2 March, 12:00 – 2:00 pm, outside the GPO, O’Connell St., Dublin 1 (map)
Brendan Maher will be promoting atheism, secularism and humanism once again outside the GPO. If you want to help, you can email Brendan or stop by to provide moral support. - Sunday 3 March, 12:00 noon, Quay Co-op meeting room, Cork (map)
Cork Humanists’ monthly meeting will feature Dr. Sandra McAvoy, course coordinator for the Masters in Women’s Studies in UCC, on the topic of abortion in Ireland. Facebook event page - Sunday 3 March, 4:00 pm, Buswell’s Hotel, Molesworth St., Dublin 2 (map)
Monthly meeting of the Humanist Association of Ireland. All are welcome. The speaker is Tom Curran, spokesperson for Exit International, and partner of Marie Fleming, who is fighting for the right to have a medically assisted death if her terminal illness becomes too much to bear. Facebook event page - Sunday 10 March, multiple locations
Second Secular Sunday Second Sunday Second Breakfasts. Details to be announced soon.
2 Comments
And the mud slinging starts already. Funny the Archbishop of Canterbury was elected this year Justin Welby and not one word appears on this website about him.
It’s the same old from Atheist Ireland Attack the Catholic Church. Never any balance on this website.
I would say you lot have Catholicphobia!
Emmanuel, to what “mud slinging” are you referring? I can only assume you mean our links to news items, as the Catholic Church isn’t mentioned anywhere else in the post, but I’m baffled as to why you would consider that “mud slinging”, or an “attack”.
While the Church of England wasn’t mentioned in that week’s news, you’ll notice there are items about Islam, Judaism, the Russian Orthodox Church and a Papua New Guinean tribal religion. So your claim of a lack of balance also seems quite odd.