The freedom to shop affects other people’s freedom to be with their families on a day of rest, writes David Quinn It is like a blast from the past, or if you prefer, something from a more genteel age; the Croatian government has decided to impose heavy restrictions on Sunday trading. Shops will be allowed…
People of faith were subject to the harshest restrictions in Europe, we shouldn’t forget this, writes David Quinn It is now three years since the world got its first hint that something bad was brewing in a place in China almost none of us had heard of before, namely the commercial city of Wuhan on…
Criticisms of the over-dominance of the Church are valid, but they are also simplistic, writes David Quinn What was to become the Irish Republic marked its 100th birthday on Tuesday, but it has not been marked by big celebrations and perhaps that is partly because it wasn’t at the time either. The nascent Free State…
Politics should not be allowed to invade every sphere, writes David Quinn Perhaps we should be thankful that Ireland did not qualify for the World Cup after all, because if we had, our presence there would have surely unleashed an orgy of hypocritical moralising, virtue-signalling and hand-wringing by all the Irish ‘great and the good’…
The polarising effect of social media has heightened anti-Catholic sentiment, writes David Quinn Is anti-Catholicism a thing, and does it exist in Ireland? The answer to both questions is an emphatic yes. Just as it is possible to be anti-communist or anti-EU or anti-American, it is also possible to be anti-Catholic. How do you know…
Pro-lifers must fight cleverly to whittle away abortion laws, writes David Quinn The repeal of Roe vs Wade last summer by the US Supreme Court was a great moment for the pro-life movement everywhere. From 1973 until this year, the result of Roe vs Wade was that a very liberal abortion law was forced on…
Ireland must play its part in combatting global warming, even though anything we do will make no discernible difference because our population is so tiny, writes David Quinn The autumn has been exceptionally mild so far and we had a warm summer. Parts of Europe had extreme weather events, including droughts. China has experienced a…
It is not at all clear where this whole synodal process is going to end up, writes David Quinn The Vatican has just issued a new synodal working document that is now to be studied at a continental level by the Church in the coming months. This new document is a synthesis of the papers…
The death of Savita Halappanavar did not justify repeal of the Eighth Amendment, writes David Quinn The road to the repeal of the Eighth Amendment was paved by hard cases, often know by letters like ‘X’ or ‘C’ or ‘D’. The most famous was that of Savita Halappanavar who died in tragic circumstances in Galway…
Moral choiches are not always as clear-cut as we might like them to be, writes David Quinn I remember it very well. I was in junior school at the time and our teacher, Mrs O’Leary, was very excited when she told us the news that victims of a plane crash in the Andes had been found…