Organisers of Pope Francis’s ongoing Synod of Bishops on Synodality have announced that ten different working groups hadvebeen formed in the Roman Curia to address specific topics that came out of last year’s session. These topics, they said, are restricted to issues mentioned inside of the synod hall and include hot-button questions such as…
Fr John Harris OP Now that all the partying is over and the ‘Paddy’s’ day celebrations are litter, maybe we as Catholics can look more soberly at our patron saint and see what he has to say to us in our present situation. In this the second decade of the 21st Century of the Christian…
Last Saturday morning at 9am, the counting of votes began on the ‘family’ and ‘care’ referendums held the day before. Soon results started to trickle through from count centres around the country. By 10am political journalists were calling it: it was a No vote in both referendums. Following the announcement of the massive defeat, the…
There has been, obviously, much discussion about the role of women in the national sphere recently; but one of the groups drawing least attention is what we might call ‘the tribe of widows’. When I was involved, with others, in forming the Irish Women’s Liberation Movement in 1970, the position of widows was one of…
The Irish will never want to remove ‘mothers’ from the Constitution, writes David Quinn No-one expected such resounding defeats of the two referendums put before the Irish people by the Government, proposals that were backed by every party in the Dail aside from Aontu with its one TD, and Independent Ireland with its three. The…
The Government and the main opposition parties have a lot to think about. They should start by apologising to the people today, writes Rónán Mullen The people of Ireland have had their first chance in four years to give their view as an electorate on the way they are being governed. This referendum result is…
Taxpayer-funded lobbyists have had far too much influence for too long, writes Michael Kelly One of the standout moments for me in the national count centre in Dublin Castle on Saturday afternoon was a brief exchange between Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Aontú leader Peadar Tóibín. The referendum result hadn’t been called yet, but the mood…
I happened to be at one of the count centres last Saturday morning as ballot boxes opened and early tallies showed what was in store in the ‘family’ and ‘care’ referendums. Looking at the results rolling in, one ‘No’ voter remarked to me that he recently read about how much funding the National Women’s Council…
When he was elected Successor of Peter in 2013, Pope Francis asked the pontifical academies to study the phenomenon of human trafficking, making the fight against it one of the first and most enduring hallmarks of his papacy. Now, it appears the Pope has set a new topic in his sights: So-called “gender theory”, saying…
After Pope Francis made remarks in a recent interview implying that Ukraine ought to raise a “white flag” and open negotiations in its ongoing war with Russia, his remarks were met with fierce backlash from both Ukrainian civil and ecclesial authorities. Speaking while making a visit to the Ukrainian Greek Catholic parish of Saint George…
Maria Steen
Mary Kenny
David Quinn
Senator Ronan Mullen
Michael Kelly
Eilis Mulroy