How can a global religion help us navigate a global world, asks David Quinn It’s fair to say we live in a time of big political turmoil. We don’t want to exaggerate, mind you. It is not anything like as turbulent as the years from World War I until the end of World War…
Ireland now backs abortion in the developing world, writes David Quinn Most readers of this paper will remember a time when we used to have collections for the ‘black babies’. As insensitive as that term is by today’s standards, the intention behind the collection was good. We wanted to help African children in war-torn…
A ‘Green Pledge’ could be an important step forward, writes David Quinn What should the Church itself do about climate change? Some parishes now have climate change committees and various religious orders have long had a strong commitment to preserving the environment. Pope Francis has made it a central theme of his pontificate. The…
The Pope has to be careful to give equal attention to the legitimate political concerns of all Catholics, writes David Quinn It is now over a year since Pope Francis visited Ireland. There has been remarkably little interest in that fact and almost no commentary about it. That’s not a good sign. On the…
Ireland is increasingly a cold house for people who hold values seen as out of step, writes David Quinn The American Vice-President, Mike Pence, was in Ireland last week and it is fair to say he did not receive a hundred thousand welcomes. Yes, he was met by President Higgins, and Leo Varadkar and…
Recent events don’t support the notion, writes David Quinn The constant refrain is that Ireland is becoming a more ‘compassionate’ place. This notion needs to be robustly challenged. The best that can be said is that we have become more compassionate in some ways and worse in others. Last week, Co Louth was witness…
Now there’s a way to quantify your victimhood, writes David Quinn Have you ever calculated your intersectionality score? Do you even know what intersectionality is? The answer to both questions is almost certainly ‘no’, but actually, if you want to understand political correctness and its demands it pays to be familiar with the concept.…
Woodstock wasn’t all peace and light, writes David Quinn It’s now 50 years since the high point of the 1960s counter-culture, namely the huge music festival that took place at Woodstock in New York state in mid-August 1969. It featured some of the biggest music acts of the day. Organisers originally estimated it would…
Too often a secular mindset is brought to bear upon the funeral which compromises the sacred character of the event writes David Quinn Three years ago, the Vatican issued a document reiterating that Catholics should not scatter the cremated ashes of their loved ones or keep them in an urn at home. The Congregation…
The world might be all about social media, but a good social network is worth considering, writes David Quinn Critics dismiss religion as pie in the sky at best, and an actively harmful, regressive force at worst. That is, they believe religion is a form of escapism, or else it unleashes fanaticism and violence…