Fr Raphael Gallagher There will be a lot of opportunities to vote in the coming 12 months. Dates for Constitutional amendments, local elections, European parliament are already set in place. Dáil and Seanad elections are at most a year away. There are many issues to think through when we vote. One question worth considering at…
Dear Editor, In the upcoming referendums we are being asked to delete reference to the ‘home’ and to hand over to the courts a hot potato, that of redefining the ‘family’; as they interpret the phrase “other durable relationships”. The human rights implications of cutting our understanding of family adrift from being founded upon marriage…
Many of you will remember the name of Eamon Andrews. He was an Irish broadcaster who became very successful in Britain and was perhaps best known as the first presenter of This is Your Life. Eamon was also an active member of his parish community. Preparation I recently came across a response he gave to…
Most parents and grandparents will be horrified at the recent headlines declaring that almost a quarter of six-year-olds have their own smartphones. Given the prevalence and ease of access to internet porn, this seems crazy. Some 30 years ago, a friend was horrified when her daughter was conducting an internet search for pictures of the…
Ireland is not full, but public services are creaking and the political elite will fuel community strife if it doesn’t listen, writes Michael Kelly There’s a now iconic scene in the 1990s hit sitcom Father Ted where, after a series of mishaps and misunderstandings, the eponymous Fr Ted Crilly finds himself accused of being hostile towards newcomers…
As local and European elections loom, pro-life supporters can play a part in influencing the outcome writes Eilís Mulroy A recent Sunday Independent poll asked members of the public what were the issues of most concern to them and which will influence how they vote at election time. Issues like immigration, health and housing were top…
Concern for a baby’s development at the heart of ‘woman in the home’ clause, writes Fr Brian Kavanagh Paragraph 1 of article 41.2.1 of Bunreacht na hÉireann states a truth that needs to be acknowledged, re-iterated and emphasised. In 1937 when the Irish Constitution was ratified, it was the woman who stayed at home to…
When I arrived on the Vatican beat more than 25 years ago, a bitter cross controversy at Auschwitz and tensions over the passion play in Oberammergau both were making global headlines. It was shortly before the release of John Cornwall’s Hitler’s Pope, reviving debates over Pius XII’s alleged “silence” on the Holocaust, as well as Pope…
In a sense, it was more than John Bruton who was being laid to rest last Saturday following his sad death. It was also the remains of Irish Christian Democracy because John Bruton was a proud Christian Democrat and the last properly Christian Democratic leader of Fine Gael, and our last Christian Democratic Taoiseach. I…
Caroline de Sury The reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral, scheduled for December 8, will be “six months of celebration and praise,” the archbishop of Paris said in a pastoral letter. The iconic cathedral will reopen five years and 10 months after the devastating fire in April 2019. Archbishop Laurent Ulrich gave some details in his…
Breda O'Brien
Michael Kelly
John L. Allen Jr.
David Quinn