I sense that there is rather more interest in electing (or re-electing) the President of Ireland on October 26 than there is in voting to repeal the single line in the Constitution which deals with blasphemy. This article (40.6.1.i) states that: “The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent matter is an offence which shall…
According to the Office of Public Works, just under 152,000 people attended the papal Mass in Dublin’s Phoenix Park on August 26. While organisers’ claims that over 180,000 Communion hosts were distributed suggest a counter-estimate of about 200,000 people, a respectable figure for a miserable day where Mass attendances held up around the country, one…
It is increasingly becoming heretical to say that there are differences between the sexes, writes David Quinn Not that you would think it from reading our newspapers, but one of the things that Pope Francis frequently criticises is so-called ‘gender ideology’. This is the belief that men and women are the same and if…
Letter from Rome Moments of great crisis generally affect institutions in multiple ways, some of which are immediately evident and others that take longer to discern. Amid the clerical abuse scandals currently rocking Catholicism, it’s worth asking if one such long-term result is playing out before our eyes. To wit, are we seeing a…
Michael W. Higgins One could be forgiven for thinking that it has never been as bad as this—Church authority assailed from within and from without, the episcopate in so many jurisdictions discredited, the papacy under siege from schismatic factions, the non-Catholic world appalled by a level of corruption the magnitude of which seems incomprehensible,…
If ever there was a baffling headline in Ireland’s self-proclaimed ‘newspaper of reference’, it was last week’s ‘Primary teachers disproportionately white, Irish and Catholic’, with its equally perplexing sub-head ‘NUI Galway finds Irish-nationality teachers “significantly overrepresented”’. For those inclined to skimming headlines and moving on, confusion about the Irish Times article will mainly have been…
In a book, 12 Rules for Life – An Antidote to Chaos, that’s justifiably making waves in many circles today, Jordan Peterson shares about his own journey towards truth and meaning. Here’s that story… At one point in his life, while still young and finding his own path, he reached a stage where he felt…
The Notebook I have a lot to answer for. As a young priest, I presided at numerous weddings, and often went along to the wedding reception too. I reflected on what I saw, and these reflections turned into an article in the diocesan magazine, which the national dailies took up. That was how I…
It is no idle boast – it is not a boast at all – but I think I know as much about the damage that alcohol can do as any man or woman alive. Alcohol abuse devastates lives – and afflicts every family member connected to the abuse. It can drag a man or a…
The View Martin Mansergh It used to be said that whenever the British came close to solving the Irish Question the Irish changed the question. The Good Friday Agreement addressed the causes of conflict in Northern Ireland, but now it is the British who have changed the question. A border poll post-Brexit would…
Mary Kenny
Greg Daly
David Quinn
John L. Allen Jr.
Fr Ronald Rolheiser