As we watch hospitals all over the world cope with coronavirus, their existence is something we completely take for granted. We assume that every culture, left to its own devices, will naturally develop hospital systems in the course of time. But this is simply not true. They are chiefly a legacy of Christianity. They arose...
In a well-reasoned article in the Irish Times last Saturday, Maria Steen sets out what many would consider the self-evident truth that the feminist movement prioritises the empowerment of women in the workplace over motherhood. Hot-foot on the article’s heels came a self-important, hectoring, name-dropping letter to the paper, blusteringly denouncing Maria for visiting her...
In the middle of the current crisis, it is easy to miss other stories. One is that we have had a bad few days for freedom of conscience, speech and association in various parts of Europe. For example, on March 12th last week, both the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom and the European Court...
Do men and women seek the same kind of work/home balance? The answer is emphatically not, and public policy ought to take this into account. A new poll finds that 61pc of Irish mothers with children aged 18 or under want to work part-time, compared with just 29pc of Irish fathers. That is a difference...
A new U. N. report on freedom of religion is actually a headlong attack on that same freedom in the name of “reproductive and sexual rights”. It makes no mention of the persecution of religious believers, it attacks the conscience rights of pro-life medical workers, it references female genital multilation almost in the same breath...
Two national reports on abortion, one from the Netherlands and one from England and Wales, have confirmed that abortion rates do not decline with more liberal laws, as the pro-choice incorrectly repeated during the referendum campaign. The recently published official report from the Netherlands, which refers to the year 2018, shows that both the number...
Exit poll data from the recent General Election allow us to see which party has the most religious supporters and which one the least. The short answer is that Aontú has the most religious supporters – measured by regular church attendance – while the Greens and Social Democrats are neck and neck in having the...
The Iona Institute’s new video, ‘The Good the Church Does’, looks at the enormous good the Catholic Church does worldwide, something often forgotten in the midst of all the sometimes justified criticism of the Church. The video can be seen on our Twitter account, on our Facebook page, or here on YouTube. No voluntary organisation...
The Citizens’ Assembly on gender equality met again last weekend. Regrettably, the sessions on “The family in the constitution and law”, amounted to a prolonged attack on the special status of marriage in the Constitution. Prof. Siobhan Mullaly from NUI Galway explained how the special status of marriage appears to impinge on the rights of...
In 2018 more than 720,000 people, representing 33.6% of the electorate on the day, voted to keep the the pro-life Amendment in our Constitution. As a party, it would be the biggest in the Dáil, much bigger than Sinn Féin, which received 24.5% of first preferences. But such a party does not exist because pro-life...
