A member of Cork City Council has called for an end to saying a prayer at the start of council meetings, appealing to the principle of the ‘separation of Church and State’. Cllr Pádraig Rice noted that more than 50 years ago, the people of Ireland voted to remove the special position of the Catholic...
In an era where digital content is accessible at the click of a button, the exposure of children to inappropriate material, particularly pornography, has become a pressing issue. In response to these concerns, Senator Rónán Mullen, along with a bipartisan group of co-sponsors, has introduced the “Protection of Children (Online Age Verification) Bill” in Seanad...
In some good news, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has recently ruled that there is no right to assisted suicide under the European Convention on Human Rights, allowing individual signatory States such as Ireland to continue banning euthanasia and similar practices. Last month, the ECHR ruled on the case of Dániel Karsai, a...
The Assisted Human Reproduction (AHR) Bill, currently under consideration in the Seanad, has sparked some debate primarily around the issue of surrogacy. However, the Bill raises numerous other ethical issues that merit urgent attention, particularly with regard to embryo research and screening. Although the AHR Bill prohibits the creation of embryos specifically for research purposes,...
Liberalism has an extremely transactional approach to human relationships. By this I mean that a relationship lasts only as long as we get a net benefit from it over time. We treat others as a means to an end, ultimately speaking. This nullifies the idea of self-sacrificial love, and therefore of love itself in the...
A Bill that will allow surrogacy is currently being debated in the Seanad as it reaches the final stages of approval. The Government tells us it will not recognise commercial surrogacy, but in fact it will do so by allowing big payments to surrogate mothers under the heading “reasonable expenses”. The Assisted Human Reproduction Bill...
The number of abortions carried out in England and Wales in 2022 rose to its highest ever, according to new data, while births continued to decline. More than a quarter of pregnancies are now terminated before birth. According to the latest official statistics, there were 251,377 abortions in 2022, reflecting a huge 17pc increase over...
David Quinn was on Newstalk Breakfast on June 6th discussing proposed changes to the primary school curriculum including the new emphasis on what amounts to political activism and also the removal of the aim of “fostering a sense of Irish identity”. You can listen to the item here.
A General Election is due to take place in the UK on July 4. The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) have issued comprehensive guidance for voters ahead of the election. It applies Catholic social teachings to the issues of the day. The guidance emphasises the need to prioritise gospel values and the...
The National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA), an advisory body for the Minister of Education, is currently tasked with reviewing the 1999 Primary School Curriculum. One of the proposed changes is the almost complete removal of spirituality and religion as an aspect of human existence from the ‘wellbeing’ course. In this blog I will...
