Four years of Pope Francis notwithstanding, it remains generally true in Europe that the more overtly Catholic a political party is, the more likely it is to advocate a restrictive line on immigration. That’s the case with the Law and Justice party in Poland, for instance, as well as Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party in Hungary,…

An announcement last Wednesday night, drowned in the saturation coverage of London’s appalling tower-block fire, deserved not just to make the news but to trigger a national examination of conscience. Sadly, it hasn’t. Tim Farron, an evangelical Christian, decided to stand down as leader of Britain’s third party, the Liberal Democrats, because “to be a…

Charity is about being good-hearted, but justice is about something more. Individual sympathy is good and virtuous, but it doesn’t necessarily change the social, economic and political structures that unfairly victimise some people and unduly privilege others. We need to be fair and good of heart, but we also need to have fair and good…

Bro. Conor McDonough Not all public voices in Ireland want to consign the Church to “the dustbin of history”, as at least one of our elected representatives apparently does, but many want it to stay behind the four walls of the church building. Many believers too, perhaps humiliated by very real scandals within the Church,…

I’m a great admirer of temperance movements and the positive message they have to impart: you can have the greatest fun without getting plastered. Not only can you enjoy life to the fullest – you can even remember what you enjoyed! And yet I also learned from a tolerant point made by Alcoholics Anonymous: most…

Bríd Smith The Irish Catholic (June 8, 2017) reports me speaking during Dáil statements on the Mother and Baby Homes on June 1 as saying that the Church should be put in the dustbin. This was taken from the official report of Dáil proceedings as published on the website of the Houses of the Oireachtas.…

Political rhetoric is becoming more and more divisive, more and more extreme. Mere disagreement is becoming rarer. What’s become commonplace is hurling anathema at those you disagree with. It’s not merely that a person is wrong, it’s that they must be wicked because they are wrong. In the field of religion, intense disagreements, sometimes turning…

Recently I found myself surprisingly grateful to Alison O’Connor, journalist and regular contributor to radio and television panels. Ms O’Connor was a member of the panel on Brendan O’Connor’s The Cutting Edge on RTÉ One. One of the items discussed was abortion. Ms O’Connor’s contribution was as follows: as a woman who found it particularly…