Suffer little children

Before Mike Nesbitt entered politics, he was an accomplished journalist, respected for his forensic skills on live radio. “He was a rottweiler,” recalled one former colleague. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be interrogated by him.”

Now it is Nesbitt, the Health Minister, who must come up with the answers.And it would appear he is more comfortable asking the questions when it comes to funding for services involving gender identity.

Nesbitt nervously stumbled over his words in a BBC interview the other day, when asked about £800,000 in fresh funding for this service.

Little wonder. In the culture wars, transgender ideology is a minefield. Indeed, Sinn Fein recently announced it was reviewing its policy after yet another row over the issue.

While adults are free to make these decisions, trans activists aggressively promote the idea that children who identify as the opposite sex (from their biological birth) should be “affirmed” in their view. And it’s now been reported that at least three children as young as five have been admitted to gender identity services in Belfast in the past ten years. Some child patients have received Triptorelin, as a puberty blocker – a drug that has been used elsewhere on sex offenders and referred to as “chemical castration”. These drugs, which suppress sexual development, come with risks such as infertility.

“Affirming” children is controversial.

Impact

Chloe Cole has made headlines after she was transitioned as a child “gender affirming care” as a 12-year-old girl in California. Cole, who is on the autism spectrum was given puberty blockers (now banned in Northern Ireland and Great Britain), and testosterone. By the age of 15 Cole had undergone a double mastectomy.

But within two years, she sought to reverse the process – but the damage has been done. Cole, who has become a Christian and an activist – said she will never have a normal life. And, in 2022 she filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against medical professionals at Kaiser Permanente, alleging she has been left with “deep physical and emotional wounds”.

It promised the service would be “individualised” and “clinically appropriate” in line with national guidelines”

Nesbitt and other Executive ministers, including Sinn Fein and Alliance, incurred the wrath of the trans lobby by banning puberty blockers last year. There are close to 50 children on a waiting list to access the gender service, compared to 1,100 adults.

Some have been waiting seven years and Nesbitt is arguing that the best way to regulate the gender services is to fund them. He pointed to concerns over people accessing “puberty blockers” through “international providers” over which the Department of Health has no control, though just what is changed with the funding is not entirely clear. “We are putting a huge emphasis on psychological and psychiatric help,” said Mr Nesbitt. “Don’t be thinking that because someone comes in and joins this service that it is going to be affirming them in terms of what they want.”

But the Belfast Trust, which runs the service, according to the Belfast Newsletter, declined to say these services would not be “affirmative”. Rather, it promised the service would be “individualised” and “clinically appropriate” in line with national guidelines.

Clarity

The ban on puberty blockers came after the British Cass Review concluded there was a lack of robust evidence to support medical intervention of this kind.

Notably the  fresh funding was revealed by the Rainbow Project, a trans lobby group which regards gender services as “life-saving” in some cases.

Was this funding the price paid for the puberty blocker ban? It was made clear to Nesbitt by “other elected representatives” that the ban should be introduced alongside more funding to improve services and waiting lists.

Thanks to a probe by the Belfast Newsletter we now know a little more about the little children accessing the services between 2014 and 2024.

There were at least three children as young as five, possibly as many as 12.

The Health Minister says he will be “asking questions” about gender services. Some of his unionist party colleagues have raised concerns, among them assembly member Jon Burrows who is very clear that  these services should not be “affirming” the child’s view that he or she is the opposite gender.

The Department of Health has assured me that at all times the Safeguarding Board NI safeguarding policy will be followed and a search of health records dating back to 2011 shows no patient under 18 has ever gone to Great Britain for gender reassignment surgery.

But concerned parents and the rest of us need to wake up.

A child could consent to their own medical treatment regardless of parental consent if they were deemed competent to do so”

While parental consent would be required for surgery – and good practice is to ensure the involvement of parents and carers, there’s something called Gillick Competence/Fraser guidelines. These were originally introduced to allow young people to access birth control without parental consent. But the Department of Health spokesman said a child could consent to their own medical treatment regardless of parental consent if they were deemed competent to do so.

I am of course not accusing any professionals in Northern Ireland of setting out to deliberately damage a child.

But frankly, this ideology is dangerous and children are vulnerable.  The case of Chloe Cole and indeed others should remind us that Christ warned us about harming little children.

 

Lady of Knock

When my local primary school decided to create a Marian shrine in the garden, a little girl, aged 8, was brought outside to sing, Lady of Knock. Naimh McConville’s life had been preparing for her First Holy Communion and her rendition of the hymn was striking.  “It was just beautiful,” said Chris Donnelly, principal of John the Baptist School who then asked her to sing at the opening of the little shrine.

Niamh’s pure and poignant version of the song delighted the gathering and when she sang the Irish hymn again at the school’s First Communion ceremony at St Michael the Archangel Parish Church, spontaneous applause erupted. Soon Naimh was recording the song in Conway Mill studio in West Belfast, with support from the school principal, as well as religion teacher, Lisa McCrystal.

Jarlath Mervyn, an accomplished teenage musician from Rathmore Grammar, played guitar,  while teacher Fiona Garvey accompanied on the violin.

Over the summer, the recording has raised more than £1,600 on Just Giving for the charity, Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Dana and her husband Damien Scallon penned Lady of Knock in 1981, inspired by a visit to the shrine, a place she once had no notion of visiting. But her husband Damien, determined to get Dana there, had convinced her it was ‘on the way’ to their destination. It was not.

Dana laughs now at the memory.

The song filled streets of Rome days ago when Irish youths sang the hymn in the streets of Rome”

It is a hymn that will certainly be featured this week at the annual Our Lady of Knock novena at the shrine. It was in Knock that American tourists picked up the single and brought it home, spreading the song across the United States. “It was the most requested Irish song in the US since the 1980s,” said Dana. “It was recorded by multiple artists and a massive hit for the famous Irish tenor, Frank Patterson, but no one knew we wrote it. They thought it was a traditional Irish hymn.”

It was only when  the Scallon family moved in the 1990s to Alabama, where Damien took a job with EWTN, and  Dana began to appear on the network with Mother Angelica that people began to know its origin.

“It has spread all over the world now,” said Dana.

Indeed it has. The song filled streets of Rome days ago when Irish youths sang the hymn in the streets of Rome, during the Jubilee of Youth 2025.

And even more amazing, to hear it sung as the recessional hymn at the mass in St Peter’s Basilica.

 

Pray for Canon John Murray and his attacker

When Canon John Murray was interviewed for this column two weeks ago, he was in good form, looking forward to a new chapter in his priestly ministry. Having had to retire as parish priest, aged 75, due to a recent illness, he was determined to continue a life of prayer and sacraments. Indeed, he wanted to focus on the “much under-rated sacrament” of confession. This priest knows its power to free. And so it was particularly shocking to hear that this gentle, holy man was so brutally attacked before mass last Sunday by a man who asked him for confession.

Let us join the parishioners of St Patrick’s Church Downpatrick, the place that our patron saint began his mission, in praying for all involved. First and foremost Fr John would want prayers for the soul of Stephen Brannigan who lost his life in a linked tragic set of events last Sunday. As a church, we pray for his family and for the recovery of Fr John, a much loved and much needed priest. Knowing Fr John, he offers his own suffering for all involved – and would want us to pray, as he would, for the man who attacked him.  Only Jesus Christ can bring poetic grace from this evil.