Category: Comment & Analysis

Introducing intersectionality politics

Now there’s a way to quantify your victimhood, writes David Quinn   Have you ever calculated your intersectionality score? Do you even know what intersectionality is? The answer to both questions is almost certainly ‘no’, but actually, if you want to understand political correctness and its demands it pays to be familiar with the concept.…

A doubtful conviction

Cardinal Pell is bound to be found innocent in a Church trial, writes Greg Daly It’s long been a point made by the Church’s more measured defenders that canon law allows the Church to take disciplinary action against its members when the State – for whatever reason – cannot act. Sometimes, as in the case…

Hong Kong govt reaction escalates as protests rage

Chai Brady discusses Hong Kong’s mass protests and fears of military intervention   Large-scale protests have caused massive disruption in Hong Kong with the unpredictable situation continuing to draw the gaze of international communities. Speculation that an imminent military intervention from Beijing continues to grow. Protestors have used several forms of civil disobedience to highlight…

Listening to those who might hear God’s call

A workshop on priestly vocation was an eye-opening experience, writes Bishop Phonsie Cullinan   At the Youth 2000 Summer Retreat in Clongowes Wood College this month 39 young people gathered for a lunchtime conversation workshop on vocations to the diocesan priesthood.  The gathering was initiated by the Vocations Council of the Bishops’ Conference which I…

A lesson in aging

We live in a culture that idealises youth and marginalises the old. And, as James Hillman says, the old don’t let go easily either of the throne or the drive that took them there. I know; I’m aging. For most of my life, I’ve been able to think of myself as young. Because I was…

The mixed legacy of the 60s Hippie Movement

Woodstock wasn’t all peace and light, writes David Quinn   It’s now 50 years since the high point of the 1960s counter-culture, namely the huge music festival that took place at Woodstock in New York state in mid-August 1969. It featured some of the biggest music acts of the day. Organisers originally estimated it would…