Today, Pope Leo XIV has issued his first encyclical. Titled Magnifica Humanitas, it offers a broad sweep of Catholic social teaching, and in light of that, what the Catholic Church’s response to Artificial Intelligence should be. Three years ago, The Iona Institute hosted a talk by philosopher, Dr Gerard Casey on a very similar topic....
The Dáil last week rejected an attempt to make Ireland’s abortion legislation even more permissive than it already is. The failed Bill went far beyond simply removing the three-day waiting period before an abortion, which is the big ask of pro-choice organisations. It also sought to decriminalise doctors acting outside the law and substantially widen the...
A new curriculum for Leaving Certificate history is currently under development by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) and the signs are that the course will have a strong, and left-leaning ideological bias. The draft curriculum is broken into four strands. The first one seems straightforward enough. It looks at how history is...
Earlier this week we learnt that marriage rates in Ireland have hit a new record low. This trend is being repeated in many countries all over the world. Pope Leo XIV has now called a summit meeting on the global crisis in marriage. It will take place in Rome in October. The presidents of all...
New CSO data confirm a trend The Iona Institute first highlighted two years ago: the emergence of ‘New Age’ wedding ceremonies that take place overwhelmingly in hotels because it is so convenient. Both the wedding and the reception can happen in the same place. The alternative spiritual ceremonies are often offered as part of the...
Many boys today, especially those from working-class backgrounds, are caught in a downward spiral, according to a recent report by the UK Centre for Social Justice (CSJ). They are spending more time on screens, less time with other people, less time outdoors, are doing worse at school and are less likely to flourish later in...
Last year, Italy, my country, recorded just 355,000 births in a population of about 59 million. That corresponds to a fertility rate of 1.14 children per woman of childbearing age, one of the lowest in Europe and indeed in the world. Around 650,000 Italians are now dying each year. You can see the direction of...
Some months back the Department of Education invited all parents with children aged 12 or below to state what kind of school they would like to send their children to. The most important question was whether they wanted their local school to be denominational or ‘multi-denominational’ (whatever that means). Forty percent of parents took part...
The results of the Department of Education survey on the future of primary schools in Ireland show surprisingly strong continuing support for denominational education, despite church attendance now being relatively low and the percentage of people who say they are Christians falling. Although 40pc of parents who took part in the survey say they would...
Last year there was great excitement in Christian circles in Britain and elsewhere when a new report was published called ‘The Quiet Revival’. Based on a huge poll by YouGov, it seemed to show a very big increase in regular church attendance among young people in just a few years, from 4pc to 16pc. Unfortunately,...
