We have a name! (Or, Habemus nomen as the cardinal who announces a new pope might put it). At last, our family of parishes has a name of its very own. Since last September, when I took up my new West Cork coastal appointment, our pastoral unit has had the somewhat unwieldy title of “The…
The legendary French feminist Simone de Beauvoir has been removed from a list of female candidates to be honoured in sculpture at Trinity College Dublin’s Old Library. When it emerged that De Beauvoir, who died in 1986, was accused of grooming young female students as lovers – whom she apparently passed on to her veteran…
In barrister Marie O’Shea’s independent review of the abortion legislation, abortion is taken as an unqualified good. Therefore, anything standing in the way has to be removed. The three-day waiting period is framed as dispensable. And yet the review acknowledges elsewhere in a section on consent, that “there are risks that women may regret their…
Parents will have to fight back if gender ideology is imposed on schools, writes David Quinn A major review into how Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) is taught in the country’s schools has been underway for some time now with demands that it be brought ‘up to date’. This is often code for ditching from…
Dear Editor, It is wonderful to have people like Niamh Uí Bhriain call pro-abortion politicians out for their hypocrisy and undemocratic agendas [The Irish Catholic – April 27, 2022]. Some 400,000 people voted ‘No’ in the 2018 abortion referendum because they believed an unborn child deserves the right to life. That figure would have been…
Kieran O’Sullivan died on Saturday 16, April 2023. He was the local undertaker in Rathdowney, Co. Laois. Dear Kieran, I write this letter to you just two weeks after you have gone to the Father’s house where no doubt you have had a wonderful reunion with your parents Michael and Mai. Mind you, I presume…
One of the key planks of the Good Friday Agreement, the 25th anniversary of which we celebrate this month, was the idea of parity of esteem. In short, that no identity would be exaggerated in the region at the expense of another. We don’t need to rehearse the history, but the first 50 years or…
Health experts have, in the past, had ambiguous approaches to sexually transmitted infections (STIs) – once called “venereal disease”, (after Venus, Roman love goddess). Some thought prevention could be assisted by shame and stigma, discouraging people from risking infection by promiscuous relationships. And undoubtedly some preachers portrayed “VD” as a punishment for sexual sins. Yet…
Earlier this month, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said that 8,500 women had availed of abortion services in Ireland in 2022. He sounded pretty pleased about the numbers, even though, if he is correct, it would represent an enormous jump in the number of babies being killed by abortion. In fact, it would represent a…
In their young lives, adolescents are far more likely to have suffered the worst kind of sexual assault than much older women who have seen far more of life, writes David Quinn There is a widespread idea that as Ireland becomes more liberal, it is almost becoming a kinder, gentler place. The evidence in favour…
Mary Kenny
Breda O'Brien
David Quinn
Michael Kelly