The View   The appointment of Paolo Ruffini as head of the Vatican Dicastery for Communications should be an occasion for rejoicing, as the respected 62-year-old journalist is the first layperson to be appointed as prefect of a Vatican department. The historic nature of the appointment may be overshadowed because the post has not gone…

The View   Anyone with the slightest concern for democracy in our country should be worried by Google’s decision to ban all online advertisements for both sides two and a half weeks before the Referendum. Banning foreign ads is one thing. Giant corporate entities with no accountability deciding what Irish voters can hear and see…

The View   The role of the loyal critic is a vital one in the Church. Many times in its history, the Church has lost its way and been recalled to it through the action of the Holy Spirit working through women and men. President emeritus Mary McAleese clearly sees herself as part of that…

The View   Trust is much easier to maintain than to re-establish after it has been lost. The scandals engulfing Oxfam illustrate this clearly. Serious allegations have been made regarding Oxfam personnel making use of women in prostitution during an aid operation in earthquake-hit Haiti. Worse, allegations appear to involve not just women working as…

The View   It is easy to become despondent given that our political system is contemplating removing rights for the vulnerable and helpless from our Constitution. A clause that protects both mother and baby is now somehow re-classified as discriminatory in a way that is reminiscent of Orwell’s dark masterpiece, Animal Farm, where Squealer can…

The View   T.S. Eliot is one of my favourite poets, and I particularly love parts of the ‘Four Quartets’, although I don’t pretend to understand fully his work. ‘Burnt Norton’, the first of the ‘Four Quartets’, contains references to summer and autumn, but for some reason, I often think of parts of it as…

The View   In a significant development, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD Committee) has challenged its sister body, the Committee on Human Rights. Or perhaps the latter should instead be called the Committee on Human Rights for some, because it has been pushing a ‘right’ to abortion on…

Four years ago, I was asked to accompany a group of sixth-year girls to Lourdes as part of the Dublin Diocesan Pilgrimage. A whole world unfolded for me, and every year since, I have discovered different aspects. This year, there were 130 sixth-year volunteers, known as blueshirts, including two new schools – Coláiste Chill Mhantáin…

In the wake of the London attacks by radical Islamists, Theresa May has said, “enough is enough”. But how does one counter a movement so loosely organised that it scarcely even deserves the term? Or an ideology which relies on lone agents or small numbers of attackers and on the use of vehicles and knives as…