Colm O’Gorman spoke at the last meeting of the Citizens’ Assembly and made some remarkable comments about abortion rates and Ireland. Will they stand a close scrutiny? The short answer is, no. He said: “Countries with more liberal abortion laws generally have a lower rate of abortions. If you look at the European standards, one...
The Catholic Church is rightly excoriated for its past failure to properly protect children from sexual abuse by clergy. Its moral authority has been severely damaged by these scandals. The United Nations is another organisation that is often placed on a pedestal. When a UN committee accuses Ireland of a human rights violation, we take...
Iona Institute Director, David Quinn, appeared on RTE’s Prime Time last week to debate Census figures showing a decline in the number of Irish people who consider themselves to be Catholic. He debated what this means with Una Mullally of The Irish Times. In particular they discussed whether faith schools should continue to received public...
Census 2016 data, released last week, shows that the number of people in Ireland who say they don’t belong to any given religion has risen to just under 10pc of the population (the so-called ‘nones’), while the number saying they are Catholics has dropped back to 78pc. David Quinn of The Iona Institute, and Michael...
The shocking murder of several dozen Coptic Christians in Egypt as they worshipped in their churches on Palm Sunday ought to shake other Christians to the core and draw far more attention to the violent persecution of Christians in many parts of the world – chiefly in the Muslim world – but it won’t. Why...
Evidence keeps accumulating about the importance of marriage, and the importance of being raised by your biological parents. This should matter to us if we want to live in a society that is truly pro-child and is not in reality organised around the wishes of adults first and foremost. Three articles have just been published...
Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Nils Muižnieks, said in a report this week that we should introduce a British-style abortion law here. No, we shouldn’t and we don’t have to. The opinion has about as much legal weight as a feather. Muižnieks, a former director of the Soros Foundation (George Soros being well...
On Saturday the Iona Institute Northern Ireland was launched with an inaugural conference based on the theme, ‘Faith in the Public Square’. In the keynote address, the Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin, urged Christians to not be afraid of speaking out in the public square, and appealed to all others to not be afraid of...
Banning the wearing of religious symbols and garb in a place of work, like a cross or a headscarf, is not discrimination the EU’s highest court, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has found in a ruling issued last week. This is a bad decision, but fortunately it does not directly affect national law. If...
Iona Institute Director, David Quinn, appeared on RTE’s Claire Byrne Live on Monday night. In this short clip, he points out that public funding of Church schools exists in countries where Church and State are firmly separated and should continue in Ireland also. He instances the examples of Australia and the Netherlands. The item can...
