On Prime Time last night the seven presidential candidates were asked whether presidents should have to make reference to God when taking their oath of office. The question was, of course, extremely leading. Why ask them this at all? It is a total non-issue in the election campaign. Is anyone at all bringing it up...
So, Ireland, led by Justice Minister Alan Shatter (pictured) has appeared before the UN Human Rights Council to be advised on how to ‘improve’ our human rights record, and we have accepted some of what the Council members suggested to us, taken other recommendations under advisement, and rejected a number of others. One of the...
David Quinn was interviewed by George Hook last Tuesday on Newstalk about plans by the UK government to put ‘Parent A’ and ‘Parent B’ on passport forms. David explains how this is part of a much wider assault on the special value of motherhood and fatherhood. You can listen to the interview here. David points...
Elizabeth Scalia, who writes for US magazine First Things, has written a good piece on the dangers posed by the Obama Administration’s move to force insurers to cover contraception, sterilisation and abortofaecient drugs. In the US, many, if not most, people have their health insurance covered by their employer. This policy will force Catholic organisations...
Official figures from Britain published this week showed that, out of 3,660 babies under the age of one in care in the UK last year, only 60, or less than two per cent, were placed with adoptive parents. This feature in The Daily Telegraph shows that this is a remarkable fall even from 2007, when...
US Census data on poverty was released a few days ago. The prestigious Brookings Institute in Washington held a press conference to analyse the data, and Ron Haskins, a Senior Fellow of the Institute, drew attention to something that is equally relevant to Ireland, namely the link between poverty and female-headed households. He told journalists:...
The proposed Irish law recognising the rights of transgendered persons looks set to be based on the law in the UK, which is one of the most radical in Europe. But for some Irish activists, it’s not radical enough. The law in the UK is so radical it allows a person with male genitals to...
One of the big new findings from the latest report from the Government’s longtitudinal study on children, Growing Up in Ireland, was that children feel less close to their parents if their parents work long hours. This is hardly surprising but it is a reason for worry, especially if, as we hear our politicians continuously...
Anyone who has ever watched British comedian Frank Skinner would regard him as a very unlikely defender of religion. His humour, full of explicit sexual references, is usually euphemistically described as “laddish”. However, Skinner is a practicing Catholic, and isn’t shy about admitting it. He has written and spoken publicly before about his faith, so...
The Daily Telegraph’s website featured an article the other day about women who suddenly decide in middle age to divorce their “boring” husbands and “find themselves”. Call it the “Eat, Pray, Love” phenomenon, after the book of the same name. The story, based on real life, is about a woman who decides that her life...
