WASHINGTON (CNS): Catholic groups in the United States of America (US) hailed an April 24 ruling by Judge John Bates, of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, saying that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme that benefits young adults who came into the country without legal permission as minors, can still accept new and renewed applications and must maintain protections that prevent those who are enrolled in it from being deported.
 

DUBLIN (CNS): Pro-life advocates in Ireland have launched a campaign urging citizens to vote no in a forthcoming referendum to remove the Eighth Amendment to the Irish Constitution. The amendment provides legal protection for unborn children “with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother.”
 

WASHINGTON (CNS): A recent editorial in the April 22 issue of Orientacion, the weekly publication of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, proposed that the canonisation of Blessed Oscar Romero should be held in El Salvador around World Youth Day, which will take place in January 2019 in nearby Panama.
 

**UPDATE**
The BBC reported on April 28 that 23-month-old Alfie Evans died almost a weeek after his life support was withdrawn. His father, Tom Evans, wrote on his Facebook page: "My gladiator lay down his shield and gained his wings... absolutely heartbroken."

MEXICO CITY (CNS): The Mexican Bishops’ Conference has criticised a plan floated on April 4 by the president of the United States of America (US), Donald Trump, to deploy National Guard troops along the border with Mexico and issued a strong defence of migrants, saying the Catholic Church could not stand by “in the face of suffering by our brother migrants as they seek better conditions by crossing the border to work and contribute to the common good.”
 

LOURDES (CNS): To permit euthanasia would be to “inscribe in the heart of our society the transgression of the civilizing imperative: ‘You shall not kill,’” said a statement from 118 French bishops opposing the country’s drift toward legal euthanasia.
 
At the end of meeting at the Marian shrine of Lourdes, the bishops—an overwhelming majority of the French Bishops’ Conference—declared that euthanasia would damage the sense of fraternity that held their society together.
 

QARAQOSH (CNS): During a pastoral visit to Iraq, Patriarch Ignace Joseph III Younan, the Syriac Catholic patriarch, celebrated Passion Sunday Mass at the damaged Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Qaraqosh, and praised Catholics for keeping the faith during more than three years of displacement.
 
“We will remain faithful to our Christian call, and we will remain lovers of our Church despite all the horrors that have afflicted us,” the patriarch said on March 25.
 

LAGOS (CNS): While Catholic and Muslim leaders welcomed the release of 104 schoolgirls captured by Boko Haram, they urged the government to work for the release of the remaining girl, a Christian who reportedly refused to denounce her faith. 
 
The schoolgirls, who were kidnapped on February 19, were released on March 21. Five of them were killed during captivity.