Parents wanting to prepare their children for the modern world need to let their kids get out and explore it — sometimes without them.

That is the message visiting psychologist and TED talker Kathryn Berkett shared with Taranaki parents and teachers at her latest public talk this month.

Parents were conscientious around their kids' physical safety, but needed to be more aware of the dangers that lurk online, the Wellington-based psychologist said.

Developing resilience

Allowing your kids to go to the neighbourhood park, walk to school on their own and play outside uninterrupted were simple ways to increase resilience, she said.

"Resilience is only grown through experiencing tolerable stress.

"Which means kids need to tolerably lose, they need to get teased and experience the frustration of not getting a certificate."

Berkett spoke at a Raising Resilient Children evening for New Plymouth parents at Mangorei School last week, and held sessions with teachers from the region.

It goes against parents natural instincts to allow their children to experience hurts and disappointments, but kids need these experiences to cope as they grow, she said.

"It hurts us, but our kids are not being resilient," Berkett said. "They're getting angry, anxious and frustrated because they can't regulate their emotions.

"We're seeing a significant increase in our inability to regulate our emotions."

Berkett has a TEDx talk, The Neuroscience of Device Zombies, which delves into the effects of a device on the developing brain, the dopamine hits — and the stresses.

The brain's reward centre lights up from using devices and social media, but is negatively impacted through sudden and ongoing high levels of stress.

She referred to American social psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt who linked increases in anxiety to excessive social media use in kids and teenagers.

"Social media and device use activates the stress response but it happens way bigger and way faster," Berkett said. "You're not having the normal increase in stress."

Her antidote: "Get them off the phone."

Kids learn from making mistakes and they need to be able to do this in a controlled and supported way, Berkett said. Read more

• Michelle Robinson is a Columnist at Taranaki Daily News.

French Jews and Muslims, he pointed out, are a lot more public about demonstrating their religious identity.

But if you ask a Catholic about their affiliation, he said, you're likely to get a more evasive response like this:

"So... it's a bit complicated. How should I say it? Umm... Mum's a Catholic. Sis is an atheist... And Dad.. Dad, where are you on this?"

Religious indifference

That skit humorously illustrates the crisis Catholics face in transmitting their faith.

It is further supported by a study that the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) published in March, which showed that the Catholic population in France continues to fall.

While Catholics represented 29% of the people aged 18 to 59 who were polled in 2020, that is a significant drop from the 43% of the same age group polled ten years ago.

The authors say the decline is due to the low rate of handing down the Catholic faith from one generation to the next.

While the family transmission is strong in Islam and Judaism - 91% of those raised in Muslim families and 84% in Jewish families continue to claim their parents' religion - Christian families are less likely to pass their beliefs on to their children.

Only 67% of those raised by Catholic parents kept their religion.

Regular religious practice - prayer, pilgrimages, Mass attendance - appears to be a key element for passing down the faith.

"If nothing has been done in families to pass on the value of religious practice, particularly going to Mass, within three generations practicing Catholics will produce non-practicing children who will, in turn, have non-Christian children," observes Yann Raison du Cleuziou, a sociologist who studies trends in Catholicism.

Families that actively pass on their faith

Leaving the Church is all the simpler because, unlike Islam or Judaism, Catholicism has a minimal influence on social life.

"Dropping out of religion then occurs undramatically, almost in indifference, when children leave their parents' home," says Pierre Bréchon, professor emeritus of political science at Sciences Po Grenoble.

But the researcher, who conducted a study on the values of the French, observes an effective transmission of faith "in families that adopt a form of impermeability with regard to other surrounding cultures".

These practicing and rather conservative Catholic families successfully manage to pass on the faith by carefully selecting the religious socialisation of their children (through Catholic schools, youth movements, friendship circles, and so on).

Is this the winning formula?

Raison du Cleuziou says the successful transmission of the faith from one generation to the next is actually the result of the combination of two dimensions: the valuing of rituals and the "totalising" dimension of the faith that a child receives and that permeates all aspects of his or her life.

On the other hand, "Catholic families who delegate the transmission of the faith structures (catechism class, youth group, etc.) - as an aspect of education - have a much lower rate of religious transmission".

Becoming a minority religion could actually help

In fact, La Croix spoke to a number of Catholics with adult children in their thirties who admitted, with regret, that they did not succeed in passing on their faith.

Some questioned whether it was a good idea "to let children decide whether or not to be interested in religion once they become adults".

"We haven't given them enough for them to make an informed choice," said one of them.

"To reject the religion of one's parents, one must still have received it," noted this person, who is involved in catechesis at the national level.

The figures leave little room for doubt: only 2% of adults who grew up in a non-practicing Catholic family experienced a religious conversion as adults.

The fact that Catholicism is becoming a minority religion in France could paradoxically change the situation.

"When it is in the minority, a religion tends to restructure itself in order not to disappear. This reconfiguration leads to an intensification of the 'entre-soi' around significant practices," notes the sociologist Raison du Cleuziou.

But in matters of religion, the law of large numbers always coexists with the mystery of intimate experiences.

Transmission often remains an enigma even for those who have placed faith at the heart of their family life.

Catherine, the mother of seven children, describes her experience.

"The first four have a deep faith and the last three can take or leave religion," says this stay-at-home mom from Dijon.

"I don't know why some of them believe and the others don't, because we didn't do anything differently."

"Lack of authenticity"

But she points out two things that seem essential to her.

The first is having a family prayer after supper.

"To be honest, there were no great mystical flights of fancy during these prayer times, but they had the merit of being there," Catherine says.

"Looking back, I realise that we were able to cultivate gratitude as a family for all that's beautiful and good."

The second key point is the importance of taking ownership.

For this to happen, she says, the ritual must be able to open up to the message of love inscribed in the Catholic faith and find its way to the heart.

The figure of the parent, a transmitter of faith but also a figure of authority, can be ambivalent.

"There can be difficulties in the parent-child relationship that prevent passing on the faith if the relationship with the parents is conflicted, or if the children think they see a lack of authenticity in us," says Frédéric, a 67-year-old retired stock trader.

Only two of his children now feel close enough to the Church to talk to their children about Jesus.

"I think the first two were lucky enough to meet Catholics around them who really lived a relationship with Christ, while the last two were more subjected to Catholic education as a place of social replication for economic success," he says.

This example shows that the destiny of a religion certainly depends on its logic of social transmission but also on the personal experience of coherence and authentically following the Gospel.

• Héloïse de Neuville
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

He said the relationship between education and the family is declining.

"The educational pact is declining. The family no longer appreciates the work of teachers as they did at one time," Francis says.

"To change this situation, someone must take the first step, conquering the fear of the other and holding out a hand in generosity.

"This is why I invite you to always cultivate and nourish trust in the school and teachers. Without them, you risk remaining alone in your education."

Naughty little Jorge Bergoglio

Francis then shared a personal story from when he was a 10-year old and spoke poorly to his teacher at school.

His teacher called his mother to tell her what he had said.

"The next day my mother came and the teacher went to greet her.

"They spoke, then my mother called me, and in front of the teacher she reproached me and said to me, 'Ask the teacher for forgiveness.' I did it. 'Give the teacher a kiss,' my mother told me. I did it.

"Then I went back to the classroom, happy, and the story is over... No, it was not over.

"The second chapter is when I returned home. This is called 'collaboration' in the education of a child: between the family and teachers."

Pope Francis said this collaboration is the key to becoming allies in education.

He encouraged the parents' organisation to continue spreading the strong sense of civic spirit and a great passion for the family, the school and education.

Source

• Rome Reports
• Image: Odyssey

During the recent King's High School senior prizegiving, rector Dan Reddiex praised his present cohort of pupils for their outstanding achievements during the year but went on to express deep concern about the future of education in New Zealand. Continue reading. Continue reading

After watching our friends' two grown kids go off to college and stop going to Mass and the disappointment it's caused their parents, I was wondering if you had some advice for me and my own son, who will be leaving for college in two years.

He's already grown disinterested in coming to Mass with us and I imagine once he's on his own he'll probably stop going, too.

What should we be doing as his parents to minimize the chance that he'll stray from the Church?

M. in Wichita

Dear M. in Wichita,

There are a few things I always like to suggest to parents who express these concerns about their older children.

While there is no surefire guarantee, I tell folks the main objective is to build a solid foundation of faith that our adult children can come "home" to, similar to having a balanced and functional family life.

An analogy would be children who come from dysfunctional families may have severed relationships with their parents and as a result have little interaction with their families as an adult.

Children from stable homes will continue to have healthy relationships with their families well into adulthood. The Church then is our spiritual family.

So while I say there is no guarantee, there still are some things we can do as parents to help establish these roots of faith in our children.

Don't disparage the Church

I have a rule in my house that we don't criticize the Church or disparage our priests in front of my son.

It's a vocation killer and a spiritual cancer spreader when speaking negatively of the Church. If a conflict arises it's important for your children to see it resolved in a mature and respectful manner.

Priests are people too and not immune from error, but also by their role in the priesthood they are are deserving of our utmost respect. It's important that we instill in our children this sense of respect for the Church and her servants. Continue reading

• Katrina Fernandez has a PhD in being single, and a master's in single parenting with a concentration in Catholic guilt.

Furthermore, nearly one in five said it was not their role "as a parent to pass on my beliefs to my children".

The poll was commissioned by the British religious and social affairs think tank "Theos".

Of the parents surveyed, 458 identified as Christian. A further 113 said they were from other religions and 423 said they were not religious.

About 250 of those surveyed say they are concerned their children may put them put on the spot with unanswerable questions about religion.

Still others - around a third - feel social media will have a greater impact on their children's beliefs than they will.

Interestingly, although over half of the parents surveyed feel comfortable about talking about religion with their children, only 40 per cent have done so.

Around 36 per cent of parents who identified in the poll as Christian are concerned their children won't grow up to share their faith. Fewer parents practising other faiths - 31 per cent - share this concern.

Theos head of research, Nick Spencer, said parents have "the greatest influence on their children's faith, not least through the integrity and authenticity of their own beliefs."

A 2015 poll showed Britain is one of the least religious countries in the world, coming sixth from the bottom in a global study of belief carried out across 65 countries.

Source

• The Telegraph
• RT Question More
• Image: Liturgy

We buy them a toy rather than spend more time with them; we lose our temper rather than practice patience; we put on the TV at dinnertime instead of having a conversation.

That's why this article from Time Magazine really stood out to me - because it's a reminder that tiny parenting moments, which seem so trivial at the time, can add up and have a lasting impact on our kids. Here are the five things kids will remember of you:

When you made them feel safe

My baby is not yet four months, but I can already sense how she feels safe when held by my husband or myself, especially when she's in an unfamiliar environment. Kids are vulnerable; they have an innate need to be protected.

When you think about how reckless children can be, it shows that they subconsciously put all their trust in their parents. But by the same token, they'll remember the times they felt unsafe - something to think about when we lose our temper with them or show anger in their presence.

When you gave them your undivided attention

So simple, yet so often not done! I read an article recently about how 10-15 minutes a day of undivided attention for your child - no phone, no TV in the background, nothing else on your mind - is so beneficial.

Talking with them, reading them a book, colouring with them or anything like that will do the trick. As the article put it, "What that gives them? The essentials to feel loved, safe, secure, self-assured, and valued. What it gives you? Much of the same and so much more."

Not to mention that it will help you create a relationship with your child that will last through to when they are adults. Continue reading

• Tamara El-Rahi lives in Australia and is a Journalism graduate from the University of Technology, Sydney.

You'd think that those negotiating and persuasion skills I'd acquired on the job would have equipped me for parenting.

Have you ever tried negotiating with a toddler? It becomes very clear who's in charge pretty quickly.

I thought all you needed to be a good parent was to love your kids, and I could do that. I did love my kids but that didn't help me with the nitty gritty detail of family life. I needed many more skills and strategies.

My middle son Christian came into the world in a dramatic way with the umbilical cord round his neck, blue and needing to be rushed away for resuscitation.

Although he was alright, nothing was quiet in our family after that.

Christian tested all my parenting abilities - and they were found wanting.

He was rough and mean with his brother, he irritated his sister, he got into scrapes with other kids, he broke things and didn't do as he was told.

His early childhood was characterised by him doing one thing or another that got him into trouble, both at home and at school.

Once he started "big school" my husband and I spent quite a bit of time in the principal's office.

We sat on the sofa and were made to feel like we had a uniquely awful child, and we thought we were uniquely deficient parents.

When Christian did something terrible I'd think, I'm supposed to punish now. So I'd do that.

But the behaviour continued.

We tried all the things that parents were "supposed to do". We tried ignoring and distracting only to be met with greater persistence.

We sent him to his room, we withdrew privileges and he got told off, lectured and scolded.

A few times, when my buttons had really been pushed, I smacked.

I certainly tried cajoling, pleading and bribing too.

None of it worked. We felt quite powerless. Continue reading

• Melissa Hood is a former lawyer turned parenting class facilitator who works in both London and Sydney. She is the author of Real Parenting for Real Kids.

A flood of new research offers explanations for some of these mysteries. Brain imaging adds another kind of data that can help test hypotheses and corroborate teens' own accounts of their behavior and emotions.

Dozens of recent multiyear studies have traced adolescent development through time, rather than comparing sets of adolescents at a single point.

The new longitudinal research is changing scientists' views on the role parents play in helping children navigate a volatile decade. Once seen as a time for parents to step back, adolescence is increasingly viewed as an opportunity to stay tuned in and emotionally connected.

The research makes it possible to identify four important phases in the development of intellectual, social and emotional skills that most teens will experience at certain ages. Here is a guide to the latest findings:

Ages 11 to 12
As puberty takes center stage, tweens can actually slip backward in some basic skills. Spatial learning and certain kinds of reasoning may decline at this stage, studies show.

Parts of the brain responsible for prospective memory, or remembering what you are supposed to do in the future, are still maturing. This may be why a teen may seem clueless if asked to give the teacher a note before school.

Coaching tweens in organizational skills can help. Parents can help build memory cues into daily routines, such as placing a gym bag by the front door, or helping set reminders on a cellphone. They can share helpful tools, such as task-manager apps.

Parents can help foster sound decision-making, thinking through pros and cons and considering other viewpoints.

Children who know by age 10 or 11 how to make sound decisions tend to exhibit less anxiety and sadness, get in fewer fights and have fewer problems with friends at ages 12 and 13, according to a 2014 study of 76 participants published in the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making. Continue reading

Sources

• Article by Sue Shellenbarger, the creator and writer of the The Wall Street Journal's "Work & Family" column, in The Wall Street Journal.
• Image: Free Printable Behavior Charts

The Bible is a written testimony to the persistence of God's grace throughout centuries as experienced by a particular people, in particular times and places. Scripture presents ancient families doing things that ancient families did and presuming things that ancient families presumed.

Viewing Scripture as a direct source of parenting advice disregards the complexity of the biblical witness as well as that of our own lives. Such an approach leads to sentiments that are comforting on the surface but lacking in depth and substance.

Coming to terms with the distance between Scripture and our own experience is an important first step in recognizing the parallels that may actually exist.

Values, knowledge and beliefs change significantly over time and across cultures. Yet some basic experiences still unite human families. Family members are generally marked by affection for one another, new caregivers are often deeply anxious about their duties, and parents must negotiate childrearing within the constraints of external forces and their own abilities.

Encountering the biblical testimony with an honest and critical eye to both its complexity and our own experiences permits encounter with the counsel it may offer.

1. Families are complicated. Even the most cursory review of families in Scripture reveals their complexity. In the first family, Cain's jealousy provokes him to murder his brother, Abel (Gn 4:8).

A few chapters on, Noah curses his own grandson, condemning him to slavery (Gn 9:25). Later, Abraham fathers Ishmael with the concubine Hagar (Gn 16) and eventually abandons both in the desert (Gn 21:14). Abraham's grandson, Jacob, marries the wrong sister (Gn 29:25) and eventually fathers children with four separate women (Gn 30). This list could be much longer. Continue reading

Sources

• America, from an article by Jake Kohlhaase, an assistant professor of moral theology at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa.
• Image: Defenders of the Catholic Faith

Asking a parent to feel comfortable enough to ask hard questions of teachers, or understand all the information about their child, in just 10 minutes was not feasible any more, Holy Family School principal Chris Theobald said.

That is why he is introducing a programme in which support worker Metua Tengaru will visit each of the school's 120 families in their own homes for an hour, three times a year. Read more

He said the inclusion of religious education in schools continues to raise debates in certain quarters within the education system.

Chong was speaking during his recent visit to a Napuka Secondary School.

"All churches want to bring their religious ethics and teachings into the schools and for us Catholics it is a challenge because we do not have the number," he said.

"The challenge for the parishes like here (Napuka) is that we have to offer it in another way and that is to offer this through parish based teachings instead of having to run this in the school.

"We have to find alternative ways and the Catholic education system is going through an important transitional period."

Source

• fijitimes.com
• Image: fijisun.com.fj

But critics say such compulsion is contrary to moral advice given by a pontifical academy.

The Church has moral difficulties with certain vaccines, the cell lines for which were originally derived from the cells of aborted foetuses several decades ago.

The moral situation of use of such vaccines was covered by the Pontifical Academy for Life in a 2005 response.

The response stated that parents could be justified in allowing use of such vaccines if there was no other way to protect their children from serious disease.

However, the Vatican document said that parents who chose vaccination would have a moral duty "to make a conscientious objection with regard to those which have moral problems".

Continue reading

As a parent of teenagers myself, I feel ‘in the thick' of it every day; the emotions of their stage of life, the joy and pain, the confusion and the hormones, the importance of friends, of belonging, of boundaries, and the influence of peer pressure.

Some days my teenage kids come home with stories of friends who are involved in self-harm, disordered eating, thoughts of suicide, bullying, ‘sexting', pornography and more.

On days like these I am grateful for my training in youth ministry and experience in counselling to be able to guide my own children and provide answers in such full-on and often confusing times.

I also realise that not all parents are youth counsellors or specialists and can often feel lost with how to respond when topics like these come up.

Below are two key principles that will put the power back in your court as the parent of a teenager.

1) Stay engaged!
If there is anything we can do as parents, it is to not disengage!

There is often a strong temptation around the ages of 8-12 to start to disengage. This is because now that they can feed themselves, dress themselves and go to the toilet by themselves, it seems like they don't need us as much.

This couldn't be further from the truth. They still need you! Just not in the same way as a toddler or pre-schooler. They now need you more emotionally, to help them make sense of the world, to interpret what happens to them at school, to tell them it's going to be OK.

This is a crucial time when our voices as parents are still louder than that of the media and society, so don't lose this opportunity to speak to them about all you value and believe. Continue reading

• Kym Keady in Restless Press

Kym Keady shares from her own personal experience and draws upon Church teaching to speak to young people about God's amazing plan for their lives.

Bishop Kevin Doran of Elphin said in a media interview that a redefinition of marriage was also a redefinition of parenthood.

When asked about gay people who are already parents, the bishop replied: "They're not parents."

"You see the point about it is . . . they may have children, but that's the difference."

Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin subsequently said this was "an unfortunate phrase".

Bishop Doran later said he realised some people were hurt "by either what I said or what they thought I had said and I very much regret that".

He said in pressure situations like the interview his words might not have been chosen as carefully as they would have been in a statement.

Continue reading

Archdiocese Catholic education director Pio Bosco said Archbishop Peter Loy Chong changed the duration of the celebration.

Instead of having it in July, the timing of the celebration was also changed to be in the last week in February.

"Archbishop Chong now wishes that Education Sunday in the Fiji Catholic Archdiocese calendar be moved from the month of July to February and March with effect from the 2015 academic year, and celebrated over the period of a week instead of one day," Mr Bosco said.

"The expectation of His Grace Archbishop Chong is for all teachers and children in Catholic schools, together with parishes and Catholic communities, to celebrate this important occasion.

"It is also viewed as an opportune time for Catholic schools to reaffirm their faith and teachings early in the school year."

Mr Bosco said the week-long celebration would also involve parents who would reflect on their roles as the first teachers of the faith and life skills.

"Catholic parents must not relax nor relegate this responsibility to other persons, groups, organisations or governments," he said.

The theme for this year's Catholic Education Week was "Children - Precious Gifts from God".

Students of Catholic schools in Macuata marched through Labasa Town on February 23, to mark the beginning of the week.

Sources

• Fiji Times
• Image: Fiji Live

It analyzed 512 children of same-sex parents, drawn from a pool of over 207,000 respondents who participated in the (US) National Health Interview Survey(NHIS) at some point between 1997 and 2013.

Results reveal that, on eight out of twelve psychometric measures, the risk of clinical emotional problems, developmental problems, or use of mental health treatment services is nearly double among those with same-sex parents when contrasted with children of opposite-sex parents.

The estimate of serious child emotional problems in children with same-sex parents is 17 percent, compared with 7 percent among opposite-sex parents, after adjusting for age, race, gender, and parent's education and income.

Rates of ADHD were higher as well—15.5 compared to 7.1 percent. The same is true for learning disabilities: 14.1 vs. 8 percent.

The study's author, sociologist Paul Sullins, assessed a variety of different hypotheses about the differences, including comparative residential stability, experience of stigma or bullying, parental emotional problems (6.1 percent among same-sex parents vs. 3.4 percent among opposite-sex ones), and biological attachment.

Each of these factors predictably aggravated children's emotional health, but only the last of these—biological parentage—accounted for nearly all of the variation in emotional problems.

While adopted children are at higher risk of emotional problems overall, being adopted did not account for the differences between children in same-sex and opposite-sex households.

It's also worth noting that while being bullied clearly aggravates emotional health, there was no difference in self-reported experience of having been bullied between the children of same-sex and opposite-sex parents. Continue reading

Sources

• The Witherspoon Institute, Public Discourse
• Image: Parent Society

After their separation in 2010, the mother became an adherent of the Jehovah Witness faith.

Without the father's knowledge, she introduced the children, then aged 4 and 6, to the religion.

Justice Brendan Brown said his ruling would "dilute" the two young children's exposure to their mother's faith.

He said he recognised the order was "at odds" with the children's wishes.

The children told Brown that if they were not allowed to worship Jehovah by attending services, they would be "angry" and "sad".

He said the children had a right to be exposed to each of their parents' religious beliefs and it would be "impractical" to prevent their involvement in their mother's faith.

However, he felt that involvement should be curtailed.

The children could engage in Bible study, watch videos and read passages from the Watchtower while they were with their mother in her home, Brown said.

He also ruled the children could attend birthday parties, and Easter and Christmas celebrations — all of which are prohibited in the Jehovah's Witness faith.

The "real cause for concern" was the intensity of instruction they appeared to have received as a consequence of their level of participation in the faith, the judgment said.

Source

• The New Zealand Herald
• Stuff.co.nz
• Image: i.telegraph.co.uk

When I was about eight, a friend and I would play spies on our council estate.

We'd use the poorly designed walkways as our lookout posts, and the labyrinth of corridors were the motorways for our high-speed chases.

The fun we were having was obviously lost on the angry older lady who lived on the corridor we raced down.

She opened her door and shouted at us to stop running and making so much noise.

My friend shouted back colourfully, suggesting she go back into her flat and leave us alone.

We ran off laughing and I felt like a gangster.

I got home to find my mum waiting and angry. She knew what I'd done, who I'd been with and what had been said.

At the time I had no idea how she had become so well informed so quickly, but in later years she explained that she'd been informed by the estate's internal communications system - her network of other mothers and friends who picked up the phone and let her know what I was up to.

Now, almost 40 years later, a lot has changed. For many children their playground is digital.

Alice Phillips, president of the Girls' Schools Association, warned at a conference recently that some parents had grown afraid of chastising their children in case the little cherubs embarrassed them on social media.

She went on to claim that parents were becoming less bold and intuitive and instead were constantly second-guessing themselves.

"I find myself increasingly wanting to reach out to them as I believe that parenting has never been as difficult as it is today," Phillips said.

"Why? Because one's instincts are constantly challenged and spontaneous confidence dissolves. Today, social media means they are conscious that their every action is the subject of global scrutiny."

I'm not sure what sort of people send their children to St Catherine's school in Surrey, where Phillips is head, but parents need to be immune to embarrassment.

The job of a parent is to bring up a well-adjusted, balanced young member of society, not to be "down with the kids".

• Maurice Mcleod in The Guardian

Maurice Mcleod is a London-based journalist.

Bishop Kieran Conroy, who chairs the England and Wales bishops' evangelisation committee, said he "strongly discouraged" priests from intervening to prevent children talking during Mass.

Bishop Conry, the bishop of Arundel and Brighton, said it was "dreadful" that in some cases children had been ejected from services for being too noisy.

His comments came after an incident during a Mass at the London Oratory in 2010, when Fr Ignatius Harrison, the provost, said there was "no point" in him preaching against the noise of babies.

At the time, some Church figures defended his actions, saying parents should simply exert more discipline over their children during services.

Bishop Conroy's comments came as the Church in England and Wales published research showing that "trivial obstacles" were preventing Catholics "reconnecting" with church.

He said interviews with dozens of baptised parents had shown that there were "clear and everyday things" that could be done to encourage people to attend services.

One of those factors was recognising that the sound of children was a "really good noise" to hear in church.

Bishop Conry suggested that tolerating noisy children in church was in line with Pope Francis's emphasis on the importance of families.

"Pope Francis is saying that the family is at the heart of the Church. The family is children - that's what families are for."

"Church is not for my generation, it's for all generations, and I would never comment on children's noise in church and would discourage any priest to make any comment.

"I've heard awful stories of priests stopping the service and saying, in effect, remove that child. That's a dreadful message to give out."

Bishop Conroy said it is important that children don't associate church with discipline and fear.

The research cited other factors which put parents off going to church such as non-family friendly Mass times and the impression that parishes are run for older, regular church-goers only.

Many of the 146 respondents said they were more likely to go to Mass regularly if there was a good children's liturgy and if they were personally invited.

Many also said they felt they had a connection to Pope Francis, and appreciated the Church's "spiritual benefits".

Sources

• The Telegraph
• The Tablet
• Image: Catholic Key