Marcello Pera is an interesting chap. He is a pro-Catholic atheist. A book of his called ‘Why we should call ourselves Christians’ has just been published in English with a foreword by Pope Benedict. Pera, former president of the Italian Senate, basically believes that without an identity, Europe will dissolve into a multi-cultural mess that...
Ever feel like critics of religion who like to parade their ‘tolerance’ in front of everyone are actually less tolerant than their political opponents, and less willing to try to understand them? Well, it turns out that there is compelling evidence that you’re right. Academic Jonathan Haidt has written a new book, “The Righteous Mind:...
The Irish Times can’t seem to get its lines straight on the state of family life in Ireland. On the one hand we get articles informing us that the family in Ireland is changing, that it is getting more diverse and we need to recognise this fact. On the other hand, we have Carl O’Brien reassuring...
It is not a truth, but unfortunately it is almost universally acknowledged, that the sexual revolution’s primary beneficiaries were women because it gave them the ‘right to choose’. Hence, any time anyone challenges even the tiniest aspect of it they are immediately smeared as being “anti-woman”. This is the current smear being propagated against those...
Recent days have rightly seen blanket coverage of the shooting of seven people including four at a Jewish school in France and the subsequent death of the man responsible. However, the tone of the coverage was in marked contrast to the reporting of the horrific incident of mass murder which took place last year in...
Jon Hamm is the actor who plays Don Draper, the central character in the cult TV series, Madmen, which is about a Manhattan advertising firm in the 1960s. Hamm has been living with his partner for the last fifteen years and is in no mood to marry. It turns out a big reason for this...
Denominational schools have a right to protect their ethos, and require legislative provisions to enable them to do so, Fr Michael Drumm (pictured), chairman of the Catholic Schools Partnership, told an Iona Institute conference on denominational schools yesterday. Fr Drumm told the conference, entitled “Denominational Education in a Pluralist Society” that proposals to amend rules which...
How did same-sex marriage become such a major issue so quickly? Only a decade ago, almost no-one thought it was an important topic. Now, to hear certain people tell it, it is a civil right as vital as the right to free speech or the right to vote. How did this happen? Brendan O’Neill (pictured),...
Representatives from The Iona Institute, or speakers at our events, have featured on a number of high profile radio and TV shows in the last few weeks to discuss issues ranging from surrogate motherhood, to the gender pay gap to anti-Catholicism. Here is a selection of them. Frontline: David Quinn, Ivan Bacik, Diarmuid Ferriter and...
Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly addressed the annual Accord conference in Belfast last weekend. O’Reilly, one of Ireland’s best known journalists in a previous life is probably best described as a conflicted liberal. She has supported most of the liberal causes down the years, but she’s smart enough to know that the liberal reforms have a downside...
