The Iona Blog

Divorce from the point of view of fathers

The Daily Telegraph ran a feature on Tuesday written by Tim Lott, a divorced dad about how lonely and bereft  fathers can be when they are forcibly separated from their children. The article is a response to remarks made by author Louis de Bernieres , whose partner left him last year, taking his two children...

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Aniston’s unhelpful remarks on family

Kathryn Jean Lopez, writing on National Review Online, takes a stance in this article against remarks made by Friends actress Jennifer Aniston (pictured). Aniston, promoting her latest movie The Switch, said: “The point of the movie is, what is it that defines family? It isn’t necessarily the traditional mother, father, two children, and a dog...

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When divorce is not the answer

Is divorce the answer? It probably depends on the question, but if the question is, will divorce make me happier, then the answer is, maybe not. A feature in yesterday’s Irish Independent dealt with the aftermath of divorce and quoted marriage counsellor, Sian Blore, who was an oasis of common sense. She points out that...

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Marriage and the ICCL’s straw-men

In its latest newsletter, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties, and its director, Mark Kelly, take The Iona Institute to task over its position on the Civil Partnership Act. In the course of his attack on us, Kelly sets up a whole series of straw-men which he naturally has no difficulty in toppling over. For...

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Catholic schools inclusive and successful-O’Brien

Breda O’Brien’s (pictured) Irish Times column on Saturday contained a useful analysis on the current state of the debate about school patronage. Among other things, it helps to clarify a number of misconceptions that have not helped the discussion to date. For example, she points out that there “has been a simplistic analysis of secular...

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Why children are in care

There are more than 5,000 children in the care of the State. Official figures from 2007 list the reasons why they are in care. The majority are in care because of ‘family-centred problems’ rather than abuse or neglect indicating children can already be taken into care for a wide range of reasons without a change...

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Why a conscience clause had a good constitutional claim

This blog by a PhD student contains a useful legal analysis of the demand that a conscience clause be included in the Civil Partnership Act. The author, Eoin Daly, appears to be unsympathetic to such a demand, but he nonetheless believes that it might have a strong constitutional basis and he cannot understand why this...

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Crushing opposition to ‘sexual liberation’

Here’s a blog on the US website First Things highlighting an increasing trend on US campuses whereby those who believe in traditional sexual morality are being subjected to intimidation and direct sanction, including dismissal. It instances the case of Ken Howell who was sacked from his university (he has been provisionally reinstated) for teaching Catholic...

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How radicals tried to sexually ‘liberate’ children

Derek Scally has written a revealing article in today’s Irish Times about what he calls “a little-known detour in the 1968 student revolution”, a project to sexually “liberate” children. Incredibly, as late as 1980 the German Green Party debated a motion aiming to “liberalise sex between children and adults”. The project of the ‘68ers’ was...

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Switched at birth, reunited as adults; how biology matters

Family diversity advocates insist that it really makes no difference to a child whether or not they are raised by their own biological parents so long as they are raised by at least one loving parent, whether that parent figure is biologically related to the child or not.   Among other things this view ignores...

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