The Notebook Fr Bernard Healy   Near London’s Marble Arch, at the junction of Bayswater Road and Edgeware Road, there is a triangular traffic island. On the island are planted three oak saplings, and on the ground between them sits a stone plaque that reads ‘The Site of Tyburn Tree’. This marks the spot of…

The economic boffins are now saying that a united Ireland is an entirely realistic proposition in the wake of Brexit. Indeed, that it could be the most sensible solution to the problem of the United Kingdom planning to leave the European Union while the island of Ireland, as a whole, wishes to remain within the…

The View   The United Kingdom is in a very strange place. The approach to Brexit has been muddled, uninformed and chaotic. It seems that nobody can quite work out what is happening or what should happen. For Ireland there is equal chaos – there is fear that Brexit will result in huge damage to…

The State can’t protect families if we can’t even agree on the definition, writes David Quinn   The Government’s liberal push shows no sign of abating. On the contrary, its victories in the likes of the abortion and same-sex marriage referenda have only spurred them on. It now has in mind for us referenda on divorce,…

Some arguments for removing Ireland’s blasphemy law are dubious at best, writes Greg Daly   The Constitution’s provisions concerning blasphemy are an embarrassment to Irish diplomats and would-be statesmen. Such, at least, seems to be the import of comments last month from Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan on plans to hold a referendum in October on…

Inés San Martín   An already noticeable edge to Argentina’s mounting abortion debate turned even nastier in mid-July with the release of a ‘Doom’-inspired video game called ‘Doom Fetito’ in which players scramble to procure an abortion-inducing drug by battling Catholic priests, Nazi-like police and pro-life women, and then ultimately kill ‘the boss’, meaning an…

Recently, reading Commonweal magazine, I was struck by this line by Jerry Ryan, a Little Brother of Jesus: “I have lost contact with so many people who meant a lot to me at different stages of my life, people I loved dearly and really cared for and who had given me so much and made…

The Notebook   Before I was ordained, pastoral priests gave us retreats. They helped alert us to future pastoral dilemmas, or potential ones. One retreat giver asked that on ordination day, each of us should decide whether we wanted to be a priest or a bishop. (Who in their right mind would want to be…

I’ve been invited to participate in an American television programme on Pope Francis’s forthcoming visit, which will focus on “how the evolution of the women’s movement in Ireland changed aspects of society and culture”. To be sure, the development of women’s rights and the women’s movement did contribute to changed aspects of Irish society and…

The View   July 25th is the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Humane Vitae – meaning “Of Human Life” – the papal encyclical known for its teaching on the regulation of birth. What many fail to appreciate is that it is about so much more than that. For all the controversy it generated at…