Fr Vincent Twomey, Emeritus Professor of Moral Theology at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, addressed a packed University Church on Wednesday night. The event was co-hosted by The Iona Institute and the Notre Dame-Newman Centre for Faith and Reason. In his wide-ranging address, Fr Twomey surveyed the situation of the Church in Ireland, discussing in particular...
Yet another Citizens’ Assembly has been established, this time to discuss the issue of gender equality. It began in Dublin, on Saturday, and will run once a month for six months. But I wonder if the Assembly, which is focussing mainly on female equality, can even tell us what a woman is? For example, does...
In the current election campaign, the Churches have so far been mostly conspicuously silent. In Britain, the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales put out a statement ahead of the December election there, as did the Scottish bishops. The Catholic bishop of Elphin, Kevin Doran, has issued a comment on our election and the need...
A landmark ruling has recognised the right to German pharmacists to refuse to sell the so-called morning after pill (MAP) on grounds of conscience. No such right has ever been recognised in Ireland. The drug is used as a post-coital contraceptive but, when conception occurs, it also prevents implantation in the uterine wall, causing the...
On average one abortion is carried out every day at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin, one of the country’s leading maternity hospitals, in 2019, the first full year of operation of Ireland’s new abortion law. Master of the Rotunda, Fergal Malone told RTE recently: “In general, we see five patients a week before 12 weeks gestation...
Lyrical, beautiful, profound, meditative. These are only some of the words that come to mind after watching ‘A Hidden Life‘, the new movie from Terrence Malick, which tells the tale of Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian farmer who refused to swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler during World War II and suffered the consequences. It...
Over the New Year, the BBC ran a new three-part version of Dracula. It was unusual to say the least. Dracula was played as ironic, post-modern, cynical and smart-alecky. Van Helsing, his nemesis, was no longer a man but (wait for it), a nun. And not just any old nun, but an atheist nun, at...
Human rights arose because of Christianity. No, they arose despite Christianity. This debate has been given added impetus with the publication last year of ‘Dominion’, by the historian Tom Holland. Holland is a non-believer, but a sympathetic one. His book traces the ways in which Christian beliefs have shaped Western civilisation, including the development of...
Minister for Health Simon Harris has attacked a parish in Tullamore for a stating that IVF is incompatible with the Catholic faith. In doing so, he has stepped far outside his role as a Government Minister. He needs to mind his own business, which is precisely what some people have been telling the Church to...
Christmas comes around and our political leaders issue their Christmas messages and every Christmas they fail to mention the specifically religious and Christian meaning of the season. It is very peculiar, and childish. It is indicative of the stunted nature of Irish political development, a long and unhealthy reaction to the years of Catholic dominance...
