The View   Sometimes in politics, it is not the things you expect that cause a reaction. When the last Government proposed restrictions on the use of the medical card it was probably inevitable that it would cause a major backlash. When a hospital ward is closed a backlash will be absolutely inevitable. But…

  Attacks on the Catholic Church have gone too far and people are starting to notice, writes David Quinn   It is now 20 years since the Bishop Eamon Casey/Annie Murphy scandal first came to light, and 18 years since the Albert Reynolds/Dick Spring government fell, ostensibly as a result of the Fr Brendan Smyth…

  Irish law must change to criminalise those who purchase sex, writes Sr Stan Kennedy   RTÉ’s Prime Time programme ‘Profiting from Prostitution’, broadcast last week, exposed the shocking and tragic reality of abuse and enslavement endured by many women throughout this country. The broadcast exposed the ugly reality of the Irish sex trade: shedding…

Can markets ever be ‘moral’ and can they act ‘morally’? The banking and debt crises which are reaching into every corner of Europe are prompting this question with ever more urgency. Recently, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron called for a ‘moralised’ form of capitalism, and the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales have long…

John Waters   By any normal intuitive or rational criteria, I think you would have to observe that the prospect of a papal visit to coincide with the International Eucharistic Congress in June is, at this stage, unlikely. The question is: should we be thinking about such a matter on the basis of normal intuitive…

Niamh Harley describes her experience of Medjugorje     At the start of last year, I was picked to go on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje as part of a school group. We decided to go as we had heard very good reports. Medjugorje was described as ”a place like nowhere else”; not sure what this…

  Henri Nouwen used to publish some of his diaries under the title, On Mourning and Dancing. The title was wholly appropriate since those diaries chronicled much of his own struggle to give public expression to what was bubbling up inside of him and, at the same time, respect a highly sensitive self-consciousness and reticence…

Some of us are to blame for the crash, some are not, writes David Quinn   When was Enda Kenny correct? Was it when he told us during his State of the Nation address last year that we were not to blame for our current economic woes, or was he correct when he said last…

  Are there not more important issues than the Embassy to the Holy See, asks Margaret Hickey   I find it strange that the first public re-grouping of the Catholic faithful in the aftermath of the Dublin, Ferns and Cloyne Reports should be centered on a campaign to restore Ireland’s embassy to the Holy See.…