News that the Government is to reopen the Irish embassy to the Holy See has been welcomed by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. The embassy was closed in 2011 for ‘financial reasons’. A new one-person embassy will replace it. The embassy will ifocus on development aid which is a key concern of the Holy See and many...
Some of the ethical pitfalls of surrogacy have been revealed in a RTE documentary broadcast this week called “Her body, our babies”. It examined the story of an Irish couple who paid a woman in India to carry a baby for them. The woman became pregnant with three babies and...
Only a quarter of couples who move in together in the UK actively see it as a step towards getting married, according to a new study. And a fifth of such couples have actively ruled marriage out. According to polling by the Co-operative Legal Services, a British legal firm, one in seven of cohabiting couples,...
Serious concern has been voiced about the safety of troubled children in a a State-run care home. Inspectors for the State’s health watchdog, the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) said that the care unit, Crannóg Nua locked children in for up to 12 hours a day, the Irish Times reports. In a highly critical...
People with religious faith tend to have less work-related stress, according to new research. The study, carried out in the UK, found those with a faith are less anxious in the work place, healthier and less likely to take sick days, the Daily Telegraph reports. According to the research, religion rovides a “buffer against strains”...
The suggestion that psychiatrsts who hold a particular view on abortion could be bypassed by GPs is “deeply insulting to psychiatrists working at the coalface of psychiatry,” Professor Patricia Casey has said. She was responding to remarks made by Dr Anthony McCarthy, former president of the Irish College of Psychiatry in an interview with the...
The Irish Defence Forces should not have apologised for a homily delivered by its head chaplain, Msgr Eoin Thynne, in response to this year’s Christmas message from the Irish President, a prominent former army officer has said. Dr Tom Clonan, who writes for the Irish Times and who lectures lectures in political communication in the...
Divorcing parents are often in denial about the effect of their break-up on their children, according to a new UK survey. The survey of adults and children who have experienced a divorce found that youngsters are far more likely to have seen their parents fighting than the adults realised, the Daily Telegraph reports. Children were...
A religious order in the US has won a temporary injunction against a new requirement that it provide insurance cover for abortifacient and contraceptive pills, which are in direct contravention of Catholic teaching. The injunction against the Obama Administration mandate was granted by Supreme Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor. The Little Sisters of the Poor, who...
President Michael Higgins has refused to comment on why his Christmas address to the nation contained no mention of Christ or Christianity for the third year in a row. A spokesperson at Aras an Uachtarain said that any questioning of President Higgins’ religious views would be “inappropriate”, the Sunday Independent reports. Taoiseach Enda Kenny...
