Countries like Ireland will look very different from now in a 100 years’ time writes David Quinn If you feel unsettled about the times we are living through, then you are right, because they are unsettling. Tectonic plates seem to be shifting beneath our feet and it is uncertain where and how they will reassemble…
It is no good saying we ought to cut carbon emissions when we are doing little or nothing in our own lives to help the cause along, writes David Quinn What is a ‘sin against the environment’ that is in need of confession? Last year, the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton in England launched a…
If Irish bishops believe in a strong pro-life witness they should look to the US for leadership, writes David Quinn The Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, has written a letter telling one of America’s most powerful politicians, Nancy Pelosi, that she cannot receive Holy Communion in his archdiocese. Ms Pelosi, a Democratic Congresswoman, is…
The Vatican response to the arrest of Cardinal Joseph Zen should concern us all, writes David Quinn In February 1949, the head of the Catholic Church in Hungary, Cardinal József Mindszenty, was sentenced to life in prison by the country’s communist government, one that had been put into power by Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union’s communist dictator.…
No organisation in history has made a more systematic or bigger contribution to healthcare worldwide than the Catholic Church, writes David Quinn In the row about the future of the National Maternity Hospital (NMH), Catholic healthcare has been unfairly demonised. The spectre has been raised that the Church will somehow exercise influence over the new…
The institution on which the family is based is in trouble and no-one cares, writes David Quinn Marriage in Ireland is changing rapidly. Fewer marry at all. We marry later. We are more likely to break up, and same-sex couples as well as opposite sex couples can legally wed. There are far more civil ceremonies…
The term ‘far-right’ obscures more than it reveals writes David Quinn Politics has probably become confusing for a lot of people. I follow politics obsessively, and I find it hard to keep track of the rise of new parties across Europe. The breakdown of the traditional left/right divide has made it more difficult to work…
The Church in Germany’s synodal pathway is the biggest threat to Church unity since the Reformation, writes David Quinn The Catholic Church in Germany has embarked on what it calls a ‘synodal pathway’ to re-examine teachings and practices of the Church in light of the abuse scandals. But the path it appears to wish to…
It is time to step up and embrace the call to prophetic witness, writes David Quinn A strange thing has happened since the abortion referendum of 2018, namely the Church in Ireland has almost completely stopped talking about the issue. Church leaders rarely preach about marriage and the family either, or more accurately, about why…
Catholics must support a swift peaceful resolution in Ukraine to avoid further catastrophe, writes David Quinn It still seems hard to believe that a major war is taking place again on European soil. It is not the first since the Second World War, of course. Long-running conflicts took place when Yugoslavia broke up in the…