Two dreadful votes happened in the House of Commons in Britain last week. The Bills a majority of MPs voted in favour of must now go to the House of Lords. If that hurdle is cleared, the first Bill will mean that women in England and Wales will be able to abort their babies at…
You are probably accustomed to talking about the world being ‘overpopulated’. This has been a theme in public discussions going back to the 1960s, just as climate change is now. But if there was concern in the past that people were having too many babies, today there is a growing concern that they are having…
Senior representatives from RTÉ appeared before the Oireachtas Committee on Communications last week, including the head of news and current affairs, Deirdre McCarthy, and Kevin Bakhurst, the Director General. Much of the time recently, RTÉ has found itself embroiled in controversies over expenses, or the amount of money paid to presenters, or presenters doing ‘nixers’,…
Juniour Certificate students are to be taught all about the institutions run by the country’s religious orders including the mother and baby homes, the industrial schools and the Magdalen laundries. Thus, they will be acquainted with what is often called a ‘dark chapter’ from our past. And yes, there are dark chapters in our past…
What does the Irish public think of the Catholic Church after all the scandals and all the reports about those same scandals down to the present day? It will probably not surprise you to discover that public attitudes are deeply split. Amarach Research has carried out a major poll on the matter which was commissioned…
It is extremely early, impossible in fact, to make any real predictions about the direction in which our new pope, Leo XIV, will lead the Church, but we are all allowed to say what our first impressions are, and mine are that he seems like a calm, gentle, intelligent and deeply prayerful man. This last…
The first pope I ever saw in the flesh was Paul VI, indeed he is the first pope I can remember. My parents had somehow won a package holiday and that included a day in Rome. It was 1975 and a Jubilee Year. I can’t remember exactly what time of year it was, probably spring…
Catholic marriages and civil marriages are now almost neck and neck, according to the latest figures from the CSO. Soon enough, there will be more civil wedding ceremonies than Catholic ones. In addition, Ireland’s marriage rate has now dropped to the lowest level ever recorded, outside of the Covid years when we were locked down…
When Jorge Mario Bergoglio first appeared on the balcony of St Peter’s in March, 2013, we knew we were going to be dealing with a different style of papacy. He appeared before the world in simple white, rather than the more ornate vestments of his predecessors and gave the crowd below a simple wave. He…
A major new survey from Britain shows there is a mini-religious revival underway in that country. For the first time since anyone can remember, the survey shows that the number of young people attending church on a regular basis, that is, monthly or more, is on the increase. This challenges the long-standing idea that eventually…