This is a battle coming soon to a Catholic school near you, namely the clash between demands that school introduce anti-gay bullying programmes and the insistence by the Church that such programmes would contradict the identity and ethos of Catholic (and other denominational) schools. This clash is particularly intense in Ontario, Canada at present where...
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development published their “Better Life Index” this week, and it had some rather interesting things to say about Ireland. In particular, it showed that we have one of the highest levels of volunteerism in the developed world. According to the report, on average, “people in Ireland spend 8 minutes...
The European Court of Human Rights issued another very important ruling last week. The decision upholds the right of the Spanish hierarchy to sack teachers of the Catholic religion who flout the teachings of that religion. If the ruling had gone the other way, the implications would have been far-reaching for obvious reasons. It would...
Last week, the Church of England Bishop of Rochester, Dr Michael Nazir Ali (pictured), gave a talk to the Iona Institute on aggressive secularism. You can listen to him debate the topic here with secularist David Robert Grimes on Today with Pat Kenny. Grimes, you might recall, wrote a piece in the Irish Times earlier...
We’re frequently told that the introduction of same-sex marriage is inevitable because young people overwhelmingly support it. As older, more traditional voters die, so the reasoning goes, younger voters will take over. As they tend to be far more supportive of same-sex marriage, and will either vote in politicians to pass such laws or vote...
On Wednesday, US President Barack Obama came out in favour of same-sex marriage. David Quinn and Brian Sheehan of GLEN the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network) discussed the subject on the Scott Williams show on Q102 on Thursday evening. You can listen to the discussion here. In addition, here are two worthwhile pieces briefly setting out why...
An article in yesterday’s Irish Times set out to disprove the existence of aggressive secularism but ended up going a long way towards doing the opposite. Entitled ‘Evil, militant anti-Christian secularism is simply a myth’, it was full of scorn and contempt towards religion. Its underlying message to religious believers was clear; know your place....
Justice Minister Alan Shatter and Education Minister Ruairi Quinn have both appeared before the Seanad this week to discuss issues to do with the rights of denominational schools. Both men showed an awareness of the need to not simply trample over religious freedom rights. Ruairi Quinn was commenting on the report of the Advisory Group...
Last week, one of Britain’s most senior judges, Sir Paul Coleridge launched a new project to tackle what he called “the scourge of divorce”. Maria Steen, barrister and a board member of the Iona Institute, appeared on Newstalk’s Breakfast Show to discuss the impact of divorce on society. You can listen to the discussion here.
A recent case came before the European Court of Human Rights involving a German brother and sister in an incestuous relationship who have had several children together. The couple are in breach of German law and the couple brought Germany before the court saying their rights to a private and family life had been violated....
