Churches unite to defend faith schools Michael Kelly The main Christian churches are united in their determination to resist any moves by the Government that would dilute the ethos of faith-based schools. The Irish Catholic has learned that Church of Ireland, Presbyterian and Methodist leaders are standing firm with Catholic leaders in their resolve to…

The unseemly and seemly unstoppable rush to zeroism At the weekend I spoke in Rimini at a gathering of nearly 6,000 students from Catholic universities all over Italy. Aged between late-teens and (a few) mid-twenties, they were members of the Catholic movement Comunione e Liberazione, which was founded in 1954, following an intuition by Fr…

Marie Keenan’s new book on abuse raises some challenging questions, writes Phil Garland ”One bad event is followed by another”: this comment is on the opening page of the introduction of this extremely detailed and scholarly work by Dr Marie Keenan on clerical child sexual abuse. There are many State reports, books and media coverage…

Sr Deirdre Mullan reflects on her experience of humanity when visiting a maximum security prison   I first met Tim, in a high-security US prison in 1999. He was 29 years old and was one of 2.3 million men and women housed in prisons throughout the United States – the highest rate of incarceration in…

Parents must stand up for religious education, writes Rik Van Nieuwenhove The proposals of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism, set up by the Minister for Education, if implemented, will have a devastating effect on the Catholic identity of primary schools throughout Ireland. An advisory group, headed by Professor Coolahan, is preparing a report for…

Changes in family life A new study of Irish family life has disclosed how family patterns have changed over the years, with more couples co-habiting, more children born out of wedlock, and almost one child in five growing up with a single parent. We should never have too rigid an attitude to family structure in…

Co-operatives are often the children of crisis, writes Fr Dermot McKenna The United Nations (UN) has declared this coming year, 2012, the Year of the Co-operatives. This is a very exciting development for all those involved in the co-op movement. Despite the fact that co-operatives are widespread in many countries of the world, they tend…

Praying   One of the reasons we need to pray is so that we don’t lose heart. We all do sometimes. We lose heart whenever frustration, tiredness, fear and helplessness in the face of life’s humiliations conspire together to paralyse our energies, deaden our resiliency, drain our courage and leave us feeling weak in depression.…

  Is Scotland unwilling to face its sectarianism, asks Paul Keenan Next week, the Scottish parliament will vote on the proposed offensive behaviour at football and threatening communications (Scotland) bill, following a month-long debate on the best legislative response to the issue of sectarianism in the country. Backed by the majority Scottish National Party, which…

  Is it wise to genetically tamper with the crops we grow, asks Prof. William Reville It is quite likely that Roundup is the herbicide that is best known to readers of this column. Roundup is widely used worldwide in agriculture and gardening to control weeds. But weeds are far from helpless in the face…