Less than half of young Dutch adults want children, according to a new survey.

The online poll by the media outlet RTL, conducted among over 19,000 panel members in February 2026, found that 53% of 18 to 35-year-olds either have no desire for children or remain undecided.

The Netherlands’ birth rate has already dropped from an average of 1.8 children per woman in 2010 to just 1.4 in 2024, far below the replacement rate. Ireland’s fertility rate is 1.47.

Respondents point to a mix of factors for not desiring children: no natural pull towards parenthood, worries about climate change, health problems, the absence of a stable partner and difficulties in finding a suitable place to live.

Economist Jona van Loenen warns that at the current pace the Dutch population could halve within 75 years.

The worker-to-retiree ratio, once seven to one, could fall as low as two to one, piling pressure on healthcare and the broader economy simultaneously.

Two Israeli soldiers have been pulled from combat duty and given 30-day jail sentences after one photographed the other hitting the head of a statue of the crucified Christ with a sledgehammer, the Israeli military said on Tuesday.

Other troops who stood by but did nothing to intervene have also been summoned and could face disciplinary action.

The military replaced the damaged statue with a new crucifix.

The swift administration of military justice by Israel was a tacit acknowledgment of the reputational damage done to the country.

The incident occurred in Debl, a Christian village in Lebanon a few miles from the Israeli border.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, had condemned the destruction of the statue as “a grave affront to the Christian faith” and said the action “adds to other reported incidents of desecration of Christian symbols by IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers in southern Lebanon.”

There has been a sharp rise in the share of men under 30 who say that religion is “very important” to them, from 28pc in 2023 to 42pc last year, according to a new Gallup poll.

The survey, which combined polling data across multiple years, adds more evidence to the claim that there is a religious revival among Gen-Z adults.

The poll also found a surprising gender gap: while 42pc of men aged 18 to 29 said religion is very important to them, this compared with 29pc of women of the same age cohort. This gap reverses what used to be a greater interest in religion among women.

The French government has said there is a “general mobilisation” against anti-abortion activism following a spate of attacks against premises belonging to pro-choice organisations,

The Minister Delegate for Gender Equality, Aurore Bergé, spoke in the National Assembly last week, denouncing groups that never accepted the ‘right’ to abortion enshrined in the constitution in 2024.

“They continue to vandalise, threaten, intimidate, fund, and attempt to mislead young women who simply wish to access their freedom, now constitutionally guaranteed,” she said.

There was, she added, a “general mobilisation” for “our freedoms, our rights, our choices, to access abortion everywhere in the territory, support for our associations and a very clear fight against those who prefer to disinform, disorient, manipulate and who in France must not be able to win.”

Alongside providing protection for facilities, Bergé also said that resources allocated to pro-abortion associations have more than tripled over the past ten years.

French MP Sandra Regol said that Family Planning centers had been attacked six times in the last five years, including a center in Strasbourg which was covered with graffiti saying “Planning assassin.”

Dana Rosemary Scallon said she felt she had beentreated with an “anti-Christian bias” by the media after she won a defamation settlement against the Irish Times and Facebook’s parent company, Meta.

The Eurovision winner and former MEP’s case arose from media coverage of the trial of her brother John Brown, who was acquitted in 2014 of sexual abuse charges dating back to the 1970s.

While the settlement terms are confidential, Dana said on Tuesday that it had been a long 14 years spent in courts dealing with cases which she said could have been settled many years ago.

“Sadly, I believe, over the past decades my beliefs and my personal faith were widely targeted, with a hostile and virulent anti-Catholic and anti-Christian bias,” she said.

A teenager with autism who suffered from mental illness was lethally injected in 2023, according to the latest annual report from the Netherlands’ regional euthanasia death review committees. More than 10,000 Dutch people died by euthanasia last year. This is up from 1,882 in 2002 and 6,091 in 2016. You do not have to be terminally ill to request euthanasia in the Netherlands.

The country’s laws provide for mental illness as a ground for assisted suicide and euthanasia and there are no age limits (including infanticide for disability) and last year 174 people with poor mental health requested euthanasia.

Four-and-a-half years after he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, the Dutch teen requested and was granted euthanasia.

The boy, aged between 16 and 18, had described his life as “joyless.” He’d struggled with anxiety and mood-related problems, and where he fit in, in the world. Oversensitive to stimuli, “every day was an ordeal he had to get through,” according to the official report.

 “In the final weeks before his death, he lay in bed the whole time.”

Despite his young age, his doctor had “no doubts whatsoever” that the youth had the mental capacity to appreciate what he was seeking, and that there was no prospect of improvement, according to the case report.

Faith formation should be removed from all schools, including denominational ones, according to Paddy Monahan, a councillor with Social Democrats who is also a policy officer with ‘Education Equality’, which is a strong critic of denominational education.

The Constitution protects the right of parents to educate children according to their wishes with the help of the State, which has always funded Church-run schools. A recent survey by the Department of Education showed 60pc of parents surveyed want such schools for their children.
Writing in the Irish Times, Paddy Monahan said religious faith formation should be moved outside of school hours.

This would mean “parents who want religious education and sacramental preparation for their children can still have it – by actively choosing it outside school. Equally, parents who do not wish their children to face daily exclusion and unwanted religious instruction, as is currently the case, will have this wish respected”.

Recently Social Democrats TD Jen Cummins made a similar call.

The head of the Catholic Church in Pakistan has expressed doubts about a government review of a court decision to confirm the ‘marriage’ of a Christian girl to an older man who had abducted her.

The case, one of a series of such incidents, dates back to July 2025, when 13-year-old Maria Shahbaz, a resident of Lahore, was taken by force, subjected to conversion to Islam, and married off to 30-year-old Shaheryar Ahmad.

Her parents reported the abduction to police, but a court deemed the girl was at least 18, despite evidence to the contrary, and validly married to the man.

Bishop Samson Shukardin of Hyderabad, president of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference (PCBC), voiced skepticism of the Government’s review.

“These issues often subside by the time such committees make their reports public. The process is deliberately delayed so that people forget,” he told EWTN News.

For decades, rights advocates have called for stronger measures to prevent the abduction and forced religious conversion of girls from minority communities.

At least 515 such cases were reported between 2021 and 2025, according to the Center for Social Justice. Hindu girls accounted for 69% (353 cases), followed by Christian girls at 31% (160 cases).

Professor David Albert Jones, research fellow in bioethics at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, and committee secretary of the new Augustine Bioethics Network, said, “There has never been a greater need for serious ethical reflection on healthcare: on issues such as assisted suicide, conscientious objection, resources allocation, gene editing, abortion and the use of artificial intelligence.

“Currently, the majority of academic bioethics mixes a focus on autonomy with utility. In contrast, the Augustine Bioethics Network has been established to discover and give voice to a more profound vision of bioethics that encompasses both the dignity and the vulnerability of every human person, a vision it finds in the great philosopher and theologian, Augustine of Hippo.”

France saw a record number of non-infant baptisms this Easter while Australia also saw a surge in both catechumens and candidates entering the Catholic Church.

The Archdiocese of Sydney saw 457 people joining the Church this Easter. In a February press release, Archbishop Anthony Fisher OP said the steep increase from 2025 – catechumens this year are up by 35% and candidates by 95% on last year’s figures – is “proof that the Holy Spirit is active and alive.”

Catechumens are seeking baptism into the Christian faith, while candidates are baptised Christians seeking full communion with the Catholic Church.

Official figures show similar trends in other dioceses across the country.

Meanwhile, in France, a record-breaking 21,386 people were baptised at Easter Vigils around the country, a significant rise from the 17,788 baptised in 2025, which was also a record. Ten years ago the number was just over 4,100.