A much greater threat to the unity of the Church is what is going on in the likes of Germany, writes David Quinn Personally, I do not attend the Latin Mass. I have been to three or four in my adult life, and one of them was a funeral. The others I attended mainly out…
It is doubtful whether a party with the word Christian in the title would even see the light of day in Ireland, writes David Quinn The new leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Germany is a man named Armin Laschet. He will be unfamiliar to the vast majority of Irish people, but he…
The day might not be far off when protesters invade Irish churches, writes David Quinn Eight Catholic churches in Canada have been burnt by arsonists in the last few weeks and in some cases totally destroyed. Ten churches were vandalised in the province of Alberta on one day alone last week. The attacks are almost…
Jesus instructed his followers to teach all nations, but what about the rest of the Universe, asks David Quinn The United States released a report at the weekend which didn’t attract anything like the attention I thought it would. Maybe because Covid-19 is still dominating the news, and here in Ireland we decided to have…
Irish bishops ignoring the issue of Holy Communion for pro-abortion politicians would be a failure of leadership, writes David Quinn In 1998, the Catholic bishops of Ireland, England and Wales issued a now mostly forgotten document called One Bread One Body. Its main subject matter was inter-communion, that is, whether or not non-Catholic Christians could…
Irish media make it appear simple and humane to give intended parents automatic legal rights, but surrogacy is complex, writes David Quinn A campaign in favour of the rights of Irish people who use international surrogacy to have children has been substantially stepped up in the last couple of weeks. As usual, the ethical pitfalls…
Our population is boosted by young migrants, but we are still aging rapidly and declining sharply, writes David Quinn Last year, almost 4,000 fewer babies were born in Ireland than in 2019. This is partly a Covid-effect. Countries around the world have experienced a bigger than usual fall in their birth rates, presumably because of…
A strict religious life that is highly regimented does not fit well with modern tastes, writes David Quinn ‘Was Mother Teresa a cult leader?’, ran the headline in The New York Times last week, and with that began yet another attack on the Catholic saint. St Teresa of Kolkata, as she is now known within…
By helping to weaken the clan system, Catholicism helped to pave the way for individual freedoms , writes David Quinn Western societies are ‘WEIRD’, that is to say, compared with almost everyone else who has ever lived, and is still alive today, we are much more individualistic and, in a certain way, non-conformist. Counter-intuitively, the…
There is a good reason to treat marriage differently than other family situations, writes David Quinn In the Dáil last week, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar described the current definition of the family in the Constitution as “out-of-date”. This might surprise you. Didn’t we have a referendum on marriage in 2015 precisely to ‘modernise’ our view of…