In a new report for the Government, the Special Rapporteur on Child Protection has recommended legal recognition of domestic surrogacy arrangements even where the commissioning couple have no genetic connection the child. This gives the natural ties short shrift indeed. The recommendation would allow a given couple to use the sperm of one donor, the...
In many ways, atheism is based on the big bluff that you can have your cake and eat it too. In the latest paper from The Iona Institute, Dr Gerard Casey, former head of the Department of Philosophy at UCD, calls this bluff. The bluff is that you can deny the existence of God, and...
The practice of euthanasia in the Netherlands bares a disturbing comparison with the Nazi era in Germany because it is recreating the category of life ‘deemed unworthy of life’. This is a opinion of a writer in a leading medical journal, especially as the Netherlands allows people who are not dying to avail of assisted...
Public worship is currently banned in Ireland. For the second year, there will be no Easter celebrations due to the ban imposed by the Government. This is exceptional in Europe, where public worship is allowed in almost every country, albeit with various safety measures. (See details below) Since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis last...
A constant theme of The Iona Institute, indeed one of the chief reasons it was founded, is to point out that family structure matters, and specifically that when mothers and fathers raise their children together, the children are likely to do better in life. A major new report has just been published in the UK...
By Dr. John Murray Many think that God’s existence is something one can affirm only as a matter of “faith”. It is thought to be something subjective. Theism is often considered, even by Catholics, a leap in the dark. This is not the teaching of the Catholic Church. She teaches that the existence of...
The UK Government is moving to impose abortion in Northern Ireland, bypassing the local Assembly and Executive. In the meanwhile, a Bill to ban abortion in cases of non-fatal disability is progressing in Stormont. The UK Conservative Government has recently introduced regulations to Parliament to give Northern Ireland Secretary, Brandon Lewis, power to force the...
The Uyghur Muslim population of China is being savagely persecuted by the Chinese State, but an overall crackdown on religious believers, including Christians, is taking place, and has been intensifying. In its report, ‘Persecuted and Forgotten’, Aid to the Church in Need describes how President Xi Jinping has called Christianity “a foreign infiltration”. It refers...
By Dr. John Murray First of all, full disclosure: Mark Hamilton is a good friend of The Iona Institute. He only recently retired from its Board of Directors, having contributed wisely, bravely, and always very energetically to our work over the years. So, having seen Mark’s intelligence in action in many Board meetings, I was...
On a regular basis, there are calls for the Irish State to invest more in day-care so that parents can afford to go out to work. The underlying assumption all the time is that this is something most parents want. This is a highly dubious proposition. In 2013, The Iona Institute commissioned an opinion poll...
