An obsession with autonomy is driving up Ireland’s abortion rate, writes David Quinn   It was a classic case of ‘burying the lede’, that is to say, the real lead was not what the report highlighted. Instead the headline on the RTÉ website read: “Concerns raised about implementing new abortion laws.” The story was about…

One minority is consistently ignored in today’s Ireland, writes David Quinn   Minorities today often receive preferential status. This is to compensate in many cases for a past in which minorities were often discriminated against or rendered invisible. The compensation takes many forms. One is protection from criticism, hence politically correct policing of the things…

Mothers and fathers are different and we shouldn’t be afraid to say so, writes David Quinn   This is a very strange and contradictory Government. On the one hand it is preparing a new law that will allow a couple not to record themselves on a birth certificate as the mother and father of their…

The latest Tuam interim report invites a host of questions, writes David Quinn   The latest interim report by the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes was issued last week. This new report is concerned mainly with finding out what happened to the dead infants and children in the various institutions under investigation.…

RTÉ documentary came from a strange place, writes David Quinn   It is hard to know what the point of Rome v Republic was. The programme aired last week on RTÉ and was presented by former Justice Minister Michael McDowell. It repeated talking points about the Church and its relationship to Irish society and the…

A former Government minister’s take on Humanae Vitae is too simple, writes David Quinn   Pope Benedict XVI once memorably spoke of a “dictatorship of relativism”. Just prior to becoming Pope in 2005 he said: “Today, having a clear Faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labelled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that…

Archbishop Martin would have nothing to lose by speaking up, writes David Quinn   In an address last week, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin criticised the “euphoria” that greeted the fall of communism in Europe some 30 years ago. He was quoting the recently deceased Belgian cardinal, Godfried Danneels. Archbishop Martin said Cardinal Danneels had been troubled…

Irish people must start having children in their 20s, writes David Quinn   Almost half of women aged 18 to 24 would consider freezing their eggs according to a new survey from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists in the UK. They would do so in order to ‘preserve their fertility’ in the hope…

Good and evil are things we actively choose, writes David Quinn   Fr Pat Collins wants us to confront a very uncomfortable thought: evil is real. In the West, we often like to pretend that evil does not exist, or if it does, can be reduced to psychological categories. In his new book, Freedom from…