The View The rewriting of Ireland’s Constitution continues apace. We are now due to have as many as three constitutional referendums this November. These are being marketed as being about women’s rights and equality. However, they look set to change the definition of the family, while also inserting the concept of gender into the constitution.…

Politicians need to learn that it is voters not the Church leading resistance on schools, writes Ruadhán Jones Almost everyone seems to be in agreement that Ireland needs to have a more pluralist school system, giving parents a choice of multi-denominational and Catholic schools. Bishops are for it, politicians are for it and the general…

Healthy and well-adjusted societies do not see surges in the use of drugs, writes Jason Osborne According to a recent United Nations report, Irish people are the joint fourth-highest consumers of cocaine globally, relatively speaking. The report (based on data from 2019 – the most recently compiled) revealed that 2.4% of Irish people reported having…

Proposals seem designed to weaken the rights of parents in favour of the State, writes David Quinn We look set to have three more referendums later this year, probably in November. We have a Government that can’t get enough of them and is determined to completely recast Ireland in its image. The three come under…

Letter from Holy Land Tom Tracy The priest-director of the Cultural Heritage Office for the Custodia Terrae Sanctae, or Custody of the Holy Land, in Jerusalem opened a drawer of vestments and casually dropped an unexpected historical tidbit about a clerical chasuble he was showing a group of foreign guests. The chasuble was part of a…

A top aide to Pope Francis said there’s a need for dialogue with the German bishops after a recent vote in favour of blessing same-sex unions, insisting that the move does not align with official Catholic doctrine. “A local, particular Church cannot make a decision like that which involves the discipline of the universal Church,”…

Notebook Fr John Harris Greetings from Assisi. I am here with a group of priests from different parts of the world on a spiritual retreat. Assisi is a place like very few in the world. The spirit of the person of St Francis permeates the medieval streets and it allows a person while walking in…

Ivana Moral, aged 48, is a Spanish housewife who, earlier this month, made history in the Spanish courts. During the course of her divorce, Judge Laura Ruiz Alamino, awarded Senora Moral the sum of €204,624 in recognition of her having been a dutiful housewife for 25 years, and a mother of two who took care…

I wonder how women really feel, deep down, about their membership of the Church in Ireland. The synodal pathway process has challenged us all to discern how we live as Church in the future. The Pope was very clear that this was not intended to be a comprehensive review of doctrine, rather it is about how we…

When Pope Francis came to celebrate Mass in the Phoenix park, myself and my family were among the thousands who braved the elements to see him. I remember the Pope’s visit as being quite contentious. I was in college at the time and some of my classmates were sharing posts on social media threatening to…