Researchers in the US found that loneliness, or "social isolation", was a key motivation behind the euthanasia requests of 37 of 66 cases reviewed.

The study by the National Institute of Health looked at killings carried out between 2011 and 2014.

These were permitted even though a person can qualify for euthanasia under Dutch law only if they are suffering unbearably from an untreatable condition.

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The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, analysed 9000 Europeans who were older than 50.

Researchers looked at four areas: 1) volunteering or working with a charity; 2) taking educational courses; 3) participating in religious organsations; 4) participating in a political or community organisation.

Of the four, participating in a religious organisation was the only social activity associated with sustained happiness, the researchers found.

The researchers, from the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, said it is unclear whether the benefits of participating in a religious organisation are connected to being in the religious community, or to the faith itself.

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The Making Caring Common project at Harvard's Graduate School of Education surveyed 10,000 middle and high school students about what was more important to them, "achieving at a high level, happiness, or caring for others."

Almost 80 percent of students ranked achievement or happiness over caring for others.

Only 20 percent of students identified caring for others as their top priority.

In the study, "The Children We Mean to Raise: The Real Messages Adults are Sending About Values," the authors point to a "rhetoric/reality gap," an incongruity between what adults tell children they should value and the messages we grown-ups actually send through our behaviour.

We may pay lip service to character education and empathy, but our children report hearing a very different message.

While 96 percent of parents say they want to raise ethical, caring children, and cite the development of moral character as "very important, if not essential," 80 percent of the youths surveyed reported that their parents "are more concerned about achievement or happiness than caring for others."

Approximately the same percentage reported that their teachers prioritise student achievement over caring.

Surveyed students were three times as likely to agree as disagree with the statement "My parents are prouder if I get good grades in my class than if I'm a caring community member in class and school." Continue reading.

Source: The Atlantic

Image: Meadowbank

The cardinal strongly resisted inquiries by researchers from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, who had been commissioned by the United States bishops' conference to study how dioceses handled sex-abuse complaints.

Cardinal Mahony retired in 2011 and his successor, Archbishop José Gomez, has told him "he will no longer have any administrative or public duties" in the archdiocese.

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That's the upshot of a new study that finds the decline in church attendance since the 1970s among white Americans without college degrees is twice as high as for those with college degrees.