Last week, Aid to the Church in Need Ireland launched the organisation’s new report ‘Persecuted and Forgotten’ which examines the persecution of Christians across large tracts of the planet including the Middle East, Nigeria, China, India, North Korea and Vietnam. It is estimated that 80pc of all acts of religious persecution or discrimination are conducted...
Is ‘porn literacy’ something we should be teaching in schools? If so, at what age? What is ‘porn literacy’? Is there such a thing as ‘ethical porn’? To what extent will these things be part of the planned new Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) course? For clues, we might look to Kate Dawson who is...
Minister Simon Harris and co are still seeking ways to justify banning pro-life activism outside hospitals and clinics. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service has just published a report called “The impact of anti-abortion protest on women accessing services. A Rapid Evidence Assessment”, intended to discover if the protests and vigils have any lasting psychological...
The central driving force of the sex revolution, namely the belief that anything goes between consenting adults, continues to work its remorseless logic, toppling taboo after taboo. It has now reached the next one, according to a report in the Irish Times; adult incest. Last week the Law Reform Commission held a major conference in...
Minister for Children Katherine Zappone, and a number of other Irish politicians, are currently attending a summit in Nairobi, Kenia, to mark the 25th anniversary of the 1994 Cairo Conference on Population and Development. The occasion was the first time ever that economic and social development had been linked to population, or as critics would...
Mary McAleese has been attacked for using an out-of-context quote from Saint John Paul II which, on its own, can easily give the impression that he condoned rape. Mrs McAleese and her defenders say her critics are the ones doing the misrepresenting. But there is an easy remedy for them; come out and say they do...
Former President and newly elected Chancellor of Trinity College Dublin, Mary McAleese, has trained her sights once again on infant baptism and the consequent rights and obligations of Christian parents to raise their baptised children as Christians. She did so while delivering the annual Edmund Burke lecture in Trinity the other night. Dr McAleese advances...
Health Minister Simon Harris has announced that he is ‘commencing’ sections of the Children and Family Relationships Act for the first time. This law, passed in 2015, governs, among other things, the legal relationships between children conceived via egg and sperm donation, and the ‘intended parents’. Harris is almost guaranteed soft questions from journalists on...
Every two years a major survey is published called the European Social Survey which investigates the attitudes of people from a range of countries, including Ireland, to issues like religion, politics, immigration, sexuality and so on. The latest findings are out, and faith in religion remains at a low ebb in most countries surveyed, but...
Health Minister Simon Harris has flagged up the possibility several times that the State might provide contraception for free as a way of tackling the number of unwanted pregnancies. He asked a working group to report back on the matter and it has done just that. Unfortunately for him, it has cast serious doubt on...
