The Catholic bishops have called for the issue of Ireland's growing undocumented migrants to be dealt with "as a matter of urgency". Failure to do so caused "hardship for the immigrant and has a corrosive effect on Irish society", they said.
Concluding their three-day autumn meeting in Maynooth yesterday, they said "migrants who come to Ireland in good faith with the promise of work permits which subsequently do not materialise, or who find themselves exploited by their sponsors, are in need of protection".
This was "part of a worldwide phenomenon which is causing hardship and suffering to many people".
They criticised Amnesty International "for its failure to recognise life as the most fundamental of human rights", following the organisation's recent decision to support abortion in limited circumstances. They did so "while sensitive to the personal distress experienced by women in crisis pregnancy situations".
But they supported Amnesty International's Irish section "for not favouring this change in policy and for its continuing commitment not to campaign for abortion in any context".
Noting that next Sunday, October 7th, was Day for Life 2007 and that this year also marked the 30th anniversary of the church's pregnancy counselling agency Cura, they said the continuing demand for post-abortion counselling by both men and women was a reminder of its long-term effects.
Cura, they said, made "a unique contribution to crisis pregnancy counselling today because it has an equal care for the woman who experiences her pregnancy as a crisis and for her unborn child who, at that particular moment, has brought this element of alarm into her life".
They discussed the dissolution of the National Conference of Priests of Ireland last month and expressed concern at the current absence of a national representative body for priests. They decided that the chairman of each diocesan council of priests would be invited to a meeting to discuss the matter.
They encouraged all parents, teachers and children to join in the national day of prayer for children on Friday, October 12th, so it would be "a wonderful occasion to spur us all on to work for a world which will give all children the hope of a worthy future".
They supported the call by the Myanmar Episcopal Conference (in Burma) for a national prayer campaign, in the context of recent pro-democracy protests in that country.