Facebook and Twitter can’t make hate go away, and we shouldn’t ask them to, writes John McGuirk “Hatred,” The Sunday Business Post declared this week, “is still having its say”. The paper’s eye-catching headline referred to a story by its reporter, Aaron Rogan, that Facebook and Twitter were still, as he put it, failing to…

“I remember when you used to visit the school, and we had such good times and fun there, but I never thought that the future would ever be like this.” I knew what he meant. His mother had just died following an accident – a young woman, with so much left to live and to…

The Government deserves no credit for Ireland’s energy policy, writes John McGuirk   By the time you are reading this, a litre of diesel or unleaded will cost much more than it does as I write this, on the Sunday evening before the budget. The fact that it costs more will have no impact whatsoever…

It was my good fortune to discover that my Dublin neighbour, in Stillorgan, is Dr Teresa Iglesias, the much admired scholar, academic and specialist on John Henry Newman. She edited with a new preface Newman’s famous text The Idea of a University and has been closely involved in preparations for the canonisation in Rome later…

How can a global religion help us navigate a global world, asks David Quinn   It’s fair to say we live in a time of big political turmoil. We don’t want to exaggerate, mind you. It is not anything like as turbulent as the years from World War I until the end of World War…

Notebook Is your priest punctual; does he start Mass on time? If he does, have you arrived by then? This issue arises in every parish in Ireland, where Mass can begin in one of three ways; a little early, bang on time, or a little (or a lot) late. There is a fourth possibility, which…

The View When The Irish Catholic is published this week, there will be just 18 days before abortion is imposed on Northern Ireland by the Westminster Parliament, unless the Northern Ireland Assembly is reformed by October 22. This will happen against the wishes of the elected MPs who take their seats in the House of…

We shall be hearing more about the euthanasia issue over the coming times, and the case for legalising what is euphemistically called ‘assisted dying’. Actually, every human being should be ‘assisted’ in their dying hours, in that they should be surrounded by comfort, care – both spiritual and physical – pain relief, and fellowship on…

Ireland now backs abortion in the developing world, writes David Quinn   Most readers of this paper will remember a time when we used to have collections for the ‘black babies’. As insensitive as that term is by today’s standards, the intention behind the collection was good. We wanted to help African children in war-torn…