The Iona Blog

Society ‘must decide if it wants children with Down Syndrome in it’

The father of a man with Down Syndrome has said Irish society needs to decide whether it wants to have children with Down Syndrome in it. He made the remarks in an interview with The Hard Shoulder on Newstalk. Michael O’Dowd (pictured with his son. Conor) was speaking after Iona Institute CEO and Sunday Independent...

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The key facts of life left out of new RSE courses

Major and radical reforms are currently underway in how Relationship and Sexuality Education (RSE) is being taught in secondary schools. Most of the attention has been given to how gender ideology will be taught, but amazingly the programmes have nothing to say about marriage, commitment, pregnancy (except unplanned pregnancy), or the possibility of having children in...

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Catholic hospitals under pressure to allow ‘assisted dying’

By David Quinn

What Pope John Paul II called ‘the culture of death’ is steadily working its way through our societies and healthcare systems. Yet another example comes from Canada, now the world’s leading exponent of so-called ‘assisted dying’. It involves a Catholic hospital in the city of Vancouver, in British Columbia, which refused to permit a patient...

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Why men stay at home to mind children

By Dr Angelo Bottone

The ‘housewife’, which is a woman who stayed at home to raise her children and look after the home, used to be a very common figure. The ‘househusband’ was extremely rare, and still is. New American figures show that today 26pc of mothers and 7pc of fathers are stay-at-home parents. The number of stay-at-home mothers...

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More Americans are unhappy because fewer are married

By Dr Angelo Bottone

Happiness levels are declining in the United States, according to a new study, and one big factor seems to explain this, namely falling marriage rates. Conversely, married people are significantly happier than the unmarried.  Sam Peltzman, professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, has studied trends and differences in happiness among the US population...

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How family breakdown is contributing to homelessness

By Dr Angelo Bottone

We rightly hear a lot in the media about rising levels of homelessness. What we hear less often is that the single biggest cause of homelessness in the case of families is what a new report calls ‘relationship breakdowns/family circumstances’ rather than termination notices. It is the second biggest cause for single households. The ‘Homeless...

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How should SPHE class teach gender ideology?

David Quinn was interviewed on Niall Boylan’s podcast about how gender ideology should be taught in schools, in particular in Social, Personal and Health Education. He debated Irish Times contributor, Derek Byrne. David said the key is for schools to teach pupils that everyone should be treated with full respect regardless of their religion, ethnicity,...

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Committee hears ‘assisted dying’ should be available to the mentally ill

By Dr Angelo Bottone

The hearing of the Oireachtas committee on the legalisation of euthanasia and assisted suicide (EAS) in Ireland has probably revealed a lot more of the agenda of some of its proponents than they intended. For example, at one of the sessions, Senator Lynn Ruane suggested that so called “assisted dying” should be offered to those...

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The problems with the draft SPHE syllabus

David Quinn of the Iona Institute was interviewed on Premier Christian Radio in the UK about the draft of a new Social Personal and Health Education programme for Leaving Certificate students. He expresses concerns about what it will teach about abortion, sexual consent, gender ideology, “allyship” and “privilege”. He says if denominational schools are forced...

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Social trends in Ireland

Introduction: Ireland has witnessed some very dramatic social changes in the last decades and we see these strongly at work in the area of family life. We have witnessed a decline in the rate of marriage, a huge growth in the number of people who are divorced or separated, a decline in the fertility rate...

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