“In a remarkable move,” tweeted Chicago-based campus minister @richraho, “+Anthony Taylor boycotts local March for Life because keynote speaker, the State’s AG, is pro-death penalty.” A link to an article from arkansas-catholic.org detailed how Little Rock’s Bishop encouraged Catholics to join him in one of two pro-life Masses he would celebrate on Sunday January 21,…
Medical Matters The government has set forth its intention to have a referendum on the Eight Amendment to the Constitution later this year. As it currently stands, the Protection of Life in Pregnancy Act (2013) allows for the termination of pregnancy in cases where there is a real and substantial risk of loss of…
News In Brief The Knights of St Columbanus have asked that Pope Francis send a letter to all Irish Catholics calling for them to “defend the humanity if the unborn”. A motion to make such a request was put forward at a September meeting of the order, with Grand Knight Richard Greene saying that…
As I predicted in this newspaper some time ago, Fine Gael is increasingly trying to frame the debate around legalising abortion in all circumstances up to 12-weeks as a moderate position. The reality, of course, is that there is nothing moderate about the state-sanctioned killing of children – whatever the Taoiseach’s spin doctors try to…
Catholics and people of goodwill should be “missionaries for the cause of life”, Armagh’s Archbishop Eamon Martin has said in a new year pastoral message that has been seen as the Church’s first major intervention ahead of next year’s expected referendum on abortion. “To serve human life is to serve God,” he said, quoting Pope…
A prominent Belfast-based priest has rejected attempts to turn an open letter he signed on the issue of Brexit into a push for abortion in the North. Passionist Fr Gary Donegan was one of 200 leading figures in the broader nationalist community who signed the letter to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar expressing “frustration and growing concern…
Unrestricted access to abortion within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is likely to become law if a referendum next year sees the removal of Ireland’s constitutional protections for the unborn, The Irish Catholic understands. Following the recommendation from the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution that article 40.3.3 of Bunreacht…
Amnesty Ireland has refused a demand to return €137,000 donated by an American billionaire so it could campaign against Ireland’s pro-life laws. The November 17 instruction from the Standards in Public Office Commission (SIPO) comes almost exactly a year after the ethics watchdog directed the Abortion Rights Campaign to return its grant, originally worth almost…
Luke Silke and Greg Daly Former residents of the Tuam Mother and Baby Home have rejected what they see as attempts to use controversy surrounding the home to promote legislation permitting wider access to abortion in Ireland. One former resident, a prominent campaigner for the full story of Tuam to emerge, told The Irish Catholic that he…
Sinn Féin’s new party line on abortion does not reflect the views of ordinary voters, the Sinn Féin MP for Mid-Ulster has said. Francie Molloy, who succeeded Martin McGuinness as MP for the area in 2013, said the policy adopted at the party’s Ard Fheis was both “progressive and hysterical”, and cautioned against the triumphalism…
Greg Daly
Dr Kevin McCarroll
Michael Kelly
Susan Gately