New research shows that the full benefits of religion are experienced more by those who actively engage in home-centred practices, in addition to regularly attending public worship. Home-worshippers report higher levels of meaning in their lives, personal happiness and intimate satisfaction with their relationships. Many previous studies have shown the positive effect that religious practice...
There has been little reaction to the news that 95pc of babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome before birth at the Rotunda hospital are subsequently aborted in England. The response to these horrendous figures has been silence or fatalism. For some, it is an individual “choice” to be respected. There is nothing to be worried about...
It is now commonplace in Ireland to present the Catholic Church in the most negative terms. Sometimes this is deserved, but on its own it leads to an unbalanced view of the Church in Ireland and in the world more generally. In practice, very few people are well informed about the history of Irish Catholicism....
In 2016, comedian Sally Phillips presented the BBC documentary, ‘A World Without Down Syndrome’. Phillips, who has a son with the condition, showed how a growing number of couples are using ever more sophisticated pregnancy screening tests to discover if the child they are expecting has the genetic abnormality and are often opting for terminations...
Canada is giving us a glimpse into what is probably our own near future, namely a society in which suicidal ideation, and the act itself, are totally normalised for those facing very difficult circumstances, and who are turning in growing numbers to assisted suicide providers. This is starkly revealed by a very disturbing article carried...
The Government has approved a legislative proposal to recognise and facilitate what amounts to commercial surrogacy abroad, a practice banned almost everywhere in Europe because it commodifies babies and exploits low-income women. The Government denies it will recognise overseas commercial surrogacy, but this simply isn’t true. Once drafted, the new provisions will be part of...
The centenary of the foundation of the Irish State took place last week. Ireland in the first decades after independence is constantly demonised by commentators today for its ‘backwardness’, ‘repression’, ‘insularity’, and above all because of the influence of the Catholic Church. In this clip from ‘The Week that Really Was’ podcast, Iona Institute director,...
Canada only introduced assisted suicide in 2016, but already we see that the grounds to avail of it are widening and the country now has one of the most permissive euthanasia and assisted suicide laws in the world. Increasingly, assisted suicide is being seen an alternative to a lack of proper health care or welfare...
Numerically speaking, Christians are the most persecuted religious group in the world and a new report by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), says things are getting worse. The document, titled “Persecuted and Forgotten? A Report on Christians oppressed for their Faith 2020–22”, was presented last week on Red Wednesday, the annual day when...
The Master of the Rotunda, Professor Fergal Malone, has revealed that up to 95pc of parents who are informed by the hospital that their unborn babies have Down Syndrome (DS) opt for abortion. This is a horrifying figure that appears to have soared since the abortion referendum even though the terminations in these instances are...
