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…

Barring Christian taxpayers’ taxes from being spent on Christian institutions attacks civil society, writes David Quinn   Will Catholic hospitals soon be prevented from putting religious symbols such as crosses on public display? That appeared to be the suggestion of a report commissioned by the Government. The Government asked Catherine Day, former secretary general of…

The Irish health budget comes to some €17 billion per annum. That is an astounding sum of money. We believe we have an underfunded health system, but actually, compared with the size of our population, we spend more on health than most industrialised countries. This is despite the fact that our population is younger on…

The Government is set to erode the status of marriage even more, writes David Quinn   Ireland is set to have another divorce referendum this year. It is to take place on May 24, the same day as the Local and European Elections. You might be surprised that we are to vote on divorce again.…

The Church in Ireland badly needs a public affairs office, writes David Quinn   The Catholic Church in Ireland needs a full-time public affairs office. At the moment, the response of the Church to issues of the moment is far too hit-and-miss and there is an almost total lack of ‘joined up thinking’ and ‘joined…

Today’s young people follow the crowd as much as their predecessors did, writes David Quinn   We should beware of romanticising any particular generation of people. At the end of the day, people are simply people, a mixture of good and bad, no matter how old or young they are. Nonetheless, people are shaped by…

The Church may need a serious theology of masculinity, writes David Quinn   Men have been receiving a very bad press lately, and not just specific men, but men in general. The words ‘toxic’ and ‘masculinity’ are commonly and routinely joined together in a way ‘toxic’ and ‘femininity’ rarely are. The current round of attacks…

The State, backed up by the national broadcaster, is now trying to throttle the life out of the pro-life movement, writes David Quinn   RTÉ has evidently decided that abortion is a settled issue. The matter was decided in favour of abortion by a two-to-one margin last May, and those who run the show at…