Dear Editor, Minister Katherine Zappone’s childcare scheme unfairly discriminates against stay-at-home parents. This is both unfair financially and disastrously flawed socially. The scheme sees parents who are both earning the median industrial wage, with two children in daycare, increase their previous yearly net income of €32,542 by €1920 (after tax and childcare costs). Meanwhile, a…
Category: Opinion
Cold erudition supported by complex arguments
Dear Editor, What are we going to do about the huge gulf that exists between the more erudite members of the Church and the ordinary people who are not being taught to meet Jesus Christ in the world of today? The teaching Church in the Vatican seems to have become an increasingly unwieldy bureaucracy. Words…
We have a responsibility to 100m persecuted Christians
“Only by raising awareness can we end the silence that has left many struggling Christians feeling that they are abandoned”, writes Michael Kelly
Few told why the Church is as it is
Dear Editor, I was amazed to read Gerard Gallagher in your ‘Notebook’ section (IC 13/10/2016) say that commentators have described Ireland’s young Catholics as “over-catechised and under-evangelised”. Any commentator who truly believes that could usefully spend half an hour in the company of Catholics in their teens, twenties, or even thirties and forties: one thing…
Is Katherine Zappone fit for her Government job?
“a Government Minister surely makes a major political error if she seems to have little feeling or respect for mothers who raise their children at home”, writes Mary Kenny
Some priests are openly at odds with Church teaching
Dear Editor, Over the last month several Irish Catholic clergy have expressed in public opinions on abortion that are clearly at odds with the teaching of the Church. Last month Fr Brian D’Arcy of the Passionist order was reported as saying that in counselling women on the subject of pregnancy he always took the view…
The world that produced Playboy also produced Donald Trump
The presidential candidate is a symptom of a wider malaise, writes David Quinn
On not cultivating restlessness
Thirty-four years ago when I launched this column, I would never have said this: restlessness is not something to be cultivated, no matter how romantic that might seem. Don’t get Jesus confused with Hamlet, peace with disquiet, depth with dissatisfaction or genuine happiness with the existential anxiety of the artist. Restlessness inside us doesn’t need…
Mark November properly
Dear Editor, With the approach of Hallowe’en, we see lots of ugly masks, witch outfits, vampire costumes etc. in the shops. Perhaps we could do something to counteract the superstition and occult association with Hallowe’en, the eve of All Saints. Last year some people placed Rosary beads on their front door for the month of…
Iraqi Christians both fearful and optimistic
Immediate aid is needed for thousands facing grave danger in Mosul, writes Dale Gavlak