Professor Richard Rex of Queen’s College, Cambridge, addressed a packed University Church in Dublin last week on the topic: The Two Thomases, namely Thomas More and Thomas Cromwell. In particular, he examined the portrayal of both in Hilary Mantel’s best-selling and widely-praised novels, Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Professor Rex, who lectures in Reformation and Tudor...
The impression is often given that there is something very and unusual, not to mention undemocratic, about religious schools receiving public funds. In fact, it is absolutely normal. What is unusual is faith schools receiving no public funds. What is more, the Irish education system is one of the freest in the world, that is,...
Jordan Peterson recently interviewed Bishop Robert Barron of Word on Fire in the United States. Bishop Barron has built up a big online following as a defender of the reasonableness of the Catholic faith. Peterson is basically a defender of the Western moral tradition. There is obviously a big overlap between this tradition and Catholicism,...
We are well familiar with the hard cases our strict pro-life law produced, the X-case for example. They were massively publicised. Our new abortion law has already produced its own hard case, that of the baby who was aborted at Holles Street after being mistakenly diagnosed to have a ‘fatal foetal abnormality’. This has caused...
You might think that atheists and agnostics do not believe in the supernatural but you would be mistaken. Many believe in phenomena such as reincarnation, astrology and karma and many more continue to believe in objective good and evil, and that the universe has meaning and purpose. In other words, a minority are thorough-going naturalists....
When 17 year old Noa Pothoven died recently in the Netherlands following a long period of mental illness, it was initially and erroneously reported that she died by lethal injection under her country’s euthanasia law. In fact, she was allowed to refuse food and hydration. This is almost as disturbing and still shows a growing...
Both commercial and so-called ‘altruistic’ surrogacy could amount to the sale of children, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children has warned. Our Government normally likes to listen to the UN. Will it do so on this occasion? The report, presented to the UN Human Rights Council, by Ms...
By David Mullins Recent events involving the misdiagnosis of an unborn baby at Holles Street have thrust the issue of prenatal genetic testing and genetic testing in general into the public spotlight. This tragic scenario has also provided a platform for mothers and couples to share their experiences of the pressure that was placed on...
By Margaret Hickey The result of last Friday’s divorce referendum to remove the waiting time of four years from the Constitution was passed by a margin of just over four to one. Not a surprise to anyone on either side of the argument. Ireland has been cresting a liberal wave for a number of years....
Do marriages that end in separation or divorce share certain traits, risk factors that allow us to predict which couples will stay together and which ones will not? The answer is, yes. In my previous blog I referred to the studies of Paul Amato, a sociologist of marriage from Pennsylvania State University. He pointed out...
