Dear Editor, Over the past few years and especially during the ordination ‘season’ of June/July, you have covered the phenomenon which can only be described as a sort of clericalism (in the best sense of the word). By that your pictures show the newly ordained in full cottas, amices and bright gold Roman vestments; heightened…
Category: Opinion
Questions for Bishop Smith
Dear Editor, I can’t help but wonder what Bishop Smith, Fr Patrick Mulcahy and the rest of the ‘ban the eulogy and all traces of humanity from funerals’ wing of the Catholic Church made of the carry-on at the funeral of the late, great Seamus Heaney. There you had piper Liam O’Flynn celebrating with Port…
Fr Rolheiser and atheists
Dear Editor, Fr Rolheiser’s weekly column is always enlightening, but is he correct in saying recently (IC 05/09/2013) that atheists who criticise the Catholic Church “…do us a huge favour,” since they offer us a chance to hear the truth about ourselves? In fact, generally speaking, atheists who criticise the Catholic Church hate it…
Boycott call for media abortion bias
Dear Editor, The time has finally come to take a stand and organise a concerted campaign to boycott the ‘likes’ of The Irish Times and The Sunday Times due to their anti-Catholic editorial bias, journalistic imbalance, and their very obvious pro-abortion stance. The impetus for such a strategy could come from the various pro-life groups.…
The collapse of moral standards
Dear Editor, David Quinn writes about the ‘anything goes’ sexual morality of teenagers today. But it’s not just standards of sexual morality that have fallen. Irish moral standards in general have collapsed. I lost my mobile phone today, and I am distraught. It’s not just that the phone contained irreplaceable photographs of my…
Does science make us good?
A number of stories have emerged in recent times revealing misconduct in science. But, perhaps things are better than they seem. A new study has just been published – Does Science Make you More Moral? – by social psychology researchers Christine Ma-Kellams and Jim Blascovich of the University of California Santa Barbara in the online journal…
The survival of our Church
Dear Editor, This is a response to a general tendency I notice in much I read in The Irish Catholic. Many articles focus on the challenges to the Church, lack of vocations, the Faith not being passed onto our children, Church law not being upheld, what we do in the aftermath of the sexual abuse…
Clarity needed on politicians receiving Communion
Dear Editor, A Sunday news story said that anonymous reports claimed that parish priests had “pilloried” TDs from the pulpit and challenged others directly and refused Communion because they voted for the abortion law. Mr M Long, spokesman for the bishops’ conference, said there was no diktat issued. Unfortunate all round. The canon law on…
500% increase in broken marriages
David QuinnThe number of Irish adults who have been through a broken marriage has increased by a massive 500% in the last 25 years. Last week The Iona Institute (which I head) issued a report called Marriage Breakdown and Family Structure in Ireland. The figures in it are drawn from Census 2011 and compare today…
Speaking up for the Catholic viewpoint
Catholic Comment launched in time for last year’s International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin, with a mission to serve “both the Church and the media”: since then its speakers have taken part in over 90 radio and television interviews including on programmes such as Prime Time, The Frontline, Tonight with Vincent Browne, Ireland AM, Morning Edition,…