It’s official — the significance of Baptism in Irish parish life is the top ‘hot-button’ issue for readers of this page. In all my years of contributing here, nothing else has exercised readers in the way this topic did in the July 23 edition. Reactions have been flooding in (quoted below, with permission). My thesis that…

After the success of Alan Gilsenan’s documentary on the late Noel Browne, I’d like to suggest another person whose life would make a very fine subject for a screen documentary. Someone who deserves to be remembered in the annals of Irish life, although not now well known among younger generations. I’m thinking of Dr Cyril…

It’s always been a bit of a conundrum to me that those who shout loudest about women having a ‘right to choose’ also often seem most adamantly opposed to actually giving women real choices.  This is very evident in the debate around abortion pill reversal – a process by which doctors can prescribe progesterone to help a woman…

Cindy Wooden With the approach of the assembly of the Synod of Bishops, a major event in the pontificate of Pope Francis, it was surprising that the Pope did not use the word ‘synod’ or ‘synodality’ in any of his talks to the 1.5 million young people gathered in Portugal for World Youth Day. If…

The bigger job of synod organisers is to engage young people in the first place, writes Chris Altieri For an entire generation of young people – some of them misfits and some cool kids, some convinced Catholics but also plenty of folks on the fence and free-spirited seekers – Pope Francis at the recent World…

My apologies if the tone of my contribution this month is a little depressing, but I hope there might be a more positive ending! In recent weeks I have been very conscious of people being filled with fear. Our TV news bulletins have been filled with images of terrified people caught up in natural disasters.…

The Department of Foreign Affairs proudly tweeted recently how Ireland was celebrating fifty years of having lifted the “marriage bar” for women working in the public service – with the support of the EU and its march towards equality. Yes, I remember that situation well: women, on marriage, had been required to step down from…

Nobody should be forced to pay for a service they do not want. People should certainly not be required to fund obscene salaries and political activism under threat of imprisonment. There is no longer any need to force everyone with a television to pay for RTÉ. Instead, only those who wish to actually watch RTÉ…

At the end of the 2007 movie Charley Wilson’s War, about how covert American support for the mujahadeen in Afghanistan helped bring down the Soviet empire, a quote appears from the real Texas congressman played in the film by Tom Hanks: “All these things happened, and they were glorious and they changed the world.” “Then,…