Yesterday, the Catholic Church’s marriage counselling agency, Accord, released figures which they say demonstrate that there are increasing strains being place upon marriage. The figures show that the number of people using their marriage counselling services increased and that the number of people reporting financial difficulties, communication issues and stress and anxiety overall had gone...
On Tuesday night the House of Commons voted by 400 to 175 in favour of same-sex marriage. Interestingly, among the 175 who voted against were 22 Labour MPs. This was unexpected in that Labour is committed to equality, and same-sex marriage is normally argued for in the name of equality. So why would 22 Labour...
Some of the speakers at the Dublin Castle conference on vulnerable families in Europe, surprisingly admitted that the trends towards more single parent families, more cohabitation, fewer, later and more unstable families were not positive. Unfortunately they were fatalistic as to whether anything could be done about this. The conference was sponsored by EU organisation...
Is standing up for conscience now a criminal offence in the West? The term “prisoner of conscience” may not have been invented by Amnesty International, but that organisation probably did more than any other to popularise it. Formed in 1961, it was notable for encouraging its members to write to governments on both sides of...
In case you didn’t know, Mary O’Rourke is an ‘agony aunt’ for The Irish Independent weekend magazine. This weekend, she was giving advice to a woman who had an abortion after a one-night stand. The woman describes how she had her abortion five years ago. She says she “already feels guilty” about it and the...
There is increasing concern in the US that marriage is becoming an exclusively upper middle class phenomenon. In Ireland it is certainly increasing a middle class phenomenon. A recent paper by the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia showed that 44 percent of children of ‘moderately educated’ women are now born outside of...
When Irish commentators turn their attention to the family they like to assure us that the Irish family is basically in good shape and we have little to worry about, especially when compared with other Western countries. However, a new international study released last week suggests otherwise. It cites figures from our 2006 Census showing...
I came into work this morning only to discover that the Iona Institute’s YouTube account had been terminated. Yes, that was the word used, ‘terminated’. Yikes. An email from YouTube told us the reason was that we had violated YouTube’s ‘Terms of Service’. What in the world had we done to suffer such a fate?...
Paris witnessed what must have been the biggest and most extraordinary demonstration ever in favour of the traditional family on Sunday. The best estimate is that 800,000 people took part. It was superbly well organised. People were given pink and blue balloons, pink and blue banners, pink and blue sweat shirts to emphasise that the...
Defenders of religious freedom suffered a qualified defeat at the European Court of Human Rights today. Basically, the court found in favour of one person’s right to wear a cross to work, against another worker’s right to do so, and against two workers who have a conscientious objection to homosexual behaviour. The reason the defeat...
