Even the right to baptise your child is now being questioned, writes David Quinn We are definitely in a radically new cultural moment when even the practice of infant baptism is called into question and by no less a person than our former president, Mary McAleese. If the right of Catholics to baptise their…
Catholic hospitals must stand their ground on abortion, writes David Quinn In the Dáil last week, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar confirmed that Catholic hospitals will have to perform abortions under the terms of the upcoming abortion law. Let that sink in for a moment. Very few countries require such a thing because they know abortion…
If the Church tries to be too accommodating of cultural Catholicism, it starts to lack coherence, writes David Quinn In Ireland, most people still seem content to call themselves ‘Catholic’. Census data for 2016 put the figure at 78%. The RTÉ exit poll on the day of the abortion referendum came up with a…
A double standard lies at the heart of reaction to the adoption scandal, writes David Quinn In November 2016, ITV aired a programme called Breaking the Silence: Britain’s Adoption Scandal. It interviewed seven women who became pregnant decades ago while unmarried and were forced by the state, the churches, their families and their GPs…
True compassion helps someone carry their burden until the time hopefully comes when it doesn’t feel like a burden anymore, writes David Quinn A friend who is good at number-crunching tells me that 37% of weekly Mass-goers voted for abortion on May 25. He gleaned that figure from exit poll data. It is a horrifying…
Ireland is facing the most momentous vote in its history, writes David Quinn These are the closing days of a referendum debate on the most momentous vote ever to face the Irish people; do we believe that unborn members of the human family have a right to life or not? It is not at…
The referendum is in reality about abortion on demand, writes David Quinn This abortion referendum is not primarily about the hard cases such as rape and ‘fatal foetal abnormality’. Under the planned law, the vast majority of abortions will take place on the healthy babies or healthy women. That is what we are really…
Far from being a fallacy, the ‘slippery slope’ is all too often all too real, writes David Quinn I sometimes wonder what it would take to persuade liberals that the ‘slippery slope’ is a reality. I’ve come across various articles lately claiming it is a myth and that whenever traditionalists claim a certain dire consequence…
Maintaining a religious ethos in a secular culture is a serious challenge, writes David Quinn If the Fine Gael party were run by people who do not believe in Fine Gael policy, would it still be Fine Gael? Most people would say the answer to this question is No. Likewise, with the Catholic Church.…
Politicians are forcing their views on the Church, writes David Quinn Liberalism is an extremely aggressive and domineering ideology. In the name of ‘tolerance’ and ‘inclusion’, it intimidates opponents into submission by denouncing them as ‘bigots’ and ‘haters’. Like Christianity when it was politically and socially very powerful, liberalism will brook no rivals. It…