A poll commissioned by the Association of Catholic Priests has found that the vast majority of people – three quarters – believe the Church’s teachings on sex are irrelevant both to them personally and to their families. But what do they actually mean by this? Do they mean it is totally irrelevant in every respect,...
On Tuesday, the Advisory Group to the Government’s Forum on Patronage and Pluralism published their recommendations. Some of their proposals pose a very significant threat to the distinctive ethos of denominational schools. Dr John Murray of the Iona Institute and Mater Dei, and Paul Rowe of Educate Together debated the proposals on the RTE Radio’s Today...
A story has emerged from Holland that should make anyone’s toes curl . It involves a married couple in their early 30s who discovered they could not have a child because the husband produced no sperm. But instead of adopting they decided they wanted a child that was a close a match to them genetically...
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...
