The Iona Institute ~ for Religion and Society
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The Iona Blog
Opinions contained in The Iona Blog are not necessarily those of The Iona Institute. The Iona Blog is open to anyone who broadly shares the views of The Iona Institute. If you wish to post a comment on a relevant topic please email 200 – 400 words to info@ionainstitute.ie and it will be considered for inclusion in the blog.
Why Gen-X and Gen-Y aren’t getting married
~We're all familiar with the fact that people are waiting longer and longer to get married, and that cohabitation is more and more common among young people. However, this doesn’t mean most young people no longer want to get married, even though a growing number don’t. Read more...
RTE's 'Gay Daddy' programme misses all the big ethical issues
~On Tuesday, RTE aired a documentary in which a gay man examined his options as to how to become a father. The programme, Gay Daddy, followed TV presenter Darren Kennedy as he examined the possible routes by which he could become a father. But it is fair to say that it did not really examine any of the profound ethical issues raised by the subject. Read more...
David Quinn and Fergus Finlay debate the proposed children's referendum
~On Sunday, David Quinn and Fergus Finlay of children's charity Barnardos debated the Government's proposed children's rights referendum on RTE Radio's This Week programme. You can listen to the debate here. Read more...
A Government Minister’s defence of religion in the public square
~It's a rare thing, these days for a West European politician to “do God”. It's rarer still when the politician in question does so in a thoughtful, considered way. That's what makes Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles' (pictured) article in the Daily Telegraph the other day so interesting. Read more...
Do the maths, Minister, religious education isn’t to blame
~This week the OECD produced figures showing Ireland devotes less time on average to teaching science and maths than other countries, and more time teaching RE. We’re rightly worried about falling literacy and numeracy skills here and some people have concluded that the answer is to spend less time teaching RE. Read more...
Do the maths, Minister, religious education isn’t to blame
~This week the OECD produced figures showing Ireland devotes less time on average to teaching science and maths than other countries, and more time teaching RE. We’re rightly worried about falling literacy and numeracy skills here and some people have concluded that the answer is to spend less time teaching RE. Read more...
The reason you’re not married is because ‘you’re a b*tch’
~An article called ‘Why you’re not married’ has gone viral on the internet. It’s written by a TV scriptwriter named Tracy McMillan, who has been married three times herself. It is aimed at women who want to be married but aren’t married and wonder why. Pulling absolutely no punches, she tells them. Read more...
Why a former Supreme Court judge thinks we don't need a children's referendum
~Yesterday, writing in the Irish Independent, former Supreme Court judge Hugh O'Flaherty said that he didn't think that the Government's proposed referendum on children's rights was necessary. He said that the aims of the wording, such as making the welfare of children a paramount consideration, extending the right to adoption where child's welfare requires, providing education, including free education at primary level and making sure the State's laws and services match the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child were "laudable". Read more...
It’s not just the children of married parents who aren’t placed for adoption, Minister
~Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald was on Today with Pat Kenny this morning (Monday) talking about the forthcoming children right’s referendum. She said that one reason we need the referendum is because it is so hard to adopt the children of married parents who therefore languish in the legal limbo of foster care system for years. Read more...
Surrogacy is very unlikely to be upheld by international law
~Some months ago, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie vetoed a bill which would have allowed virtually unlimited surrogacy in his state. Surrogacy is banned in one European country after another. Here, Justice Minister Alan Shatter appears to be contemplating one of the most liberal surrogacy regimes in the world. Surrogacy is, of course, a process by which a woman who may or may not be the genetic mother carries a child only to surrender it to a contracting couple upon it birth. Read more...
The conflict between gender ideology and science exposed again
~We hear a lot about the conflict between science and religion. However, as I’ve argued before, the real conflict these days is between science and various forms of political correctness, including feminism. This conflict is starkly highlighted in a recent Norwegian documentary about the absurdities of gender ideology. Read more...
How an unimaginative penal system damages families
~This blog has recently commented on the fact that there is an increasing marriage gap between the middle class and those from poorer areas. In the article concerned, Eve Tushnet, an American crisis-pregnancy counsellor, argued that the US's ineffective and harmful penal policy is a major contributor to the breakdown of families from lower socio-economic groups. Read more...
Church and State and Pat Rabbitte
~Pat Rabbitte got himself into a bit of hot water when he told RTE last weekend that he thought it would be a regressive step if the Church started ‘dictating’ to politicians again. He had been ask to comment on Cardinal Sean Brady’s remark on the same programme that the Church might lobby politicians on the abortion issue. Read more...
Putting Humpty Dumpty back together again
~There is a growing marriage gap between the middle class and many of those who live in our poorest areas. Basically, the middle class still aspire to marry and get married. In the poorest areas the aspiration to marry is still there – to an extent – but a growing number of people think it’s an unrealistic aspiration. This article by Eve Tushnet, a woman who has spent ten years doing counselling work at a pro-life crisis pregnancy agency, offers some insight into why this is so. Read more...
What's that beam sticking out of your eye Mr Hefner?
~Ok, attacking Hugh Hefner for saying it is traditionalists, and not the likes of him, who reduce the meaning of sex is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but let’s do it anyway. The website Politico reports that in the current issue of Playboy Hefner editorialises against traditionalists who are seeking, he reckons, to strip sex of its proper meaning and rob people of their rights. Hef thunders: “Today, in every instance of sexual rights falling under attack, you’ll find legislation forced into place by people who practice discrimination disguised as religious freedom. Read more...
The latest cause of relationship conflict; video games!
~We know that severe financial difficulties, terrible communication and infidelity can lead to marital breakdown, but video games? According to a study, conflict over video games, and media generally, can indeed play a significant role in relationship conflict. Read more...
Could children have more than two legal parents in the near future?
~There are tentative moves in Ireland to change the law so that more than two people can be recognised as the legal parents of a child. The Law Reform Commission, for example, has made a recommendation to this effect. There are similar moves in the US to break ‘the rule of two’. The ‘rule of two’ arises, of course, from a fact, namely the very basic fact that a child has two and only two biological parents. It can’t have more than two or less than two. Read more...
Big Brother now looking to censor how we pray
~Freedom of religion used to be understood by one and all as the freedom to worship privately, and the freedom, within reason, to manifest that faith in the public square. It was taken for granted that one's work should not compromise one’s deeply held religious convictions. In recent times, this notion of religious freedom has become more and more contested. Read more...
A look into the murky world of surrogate motherhood
~One of the best blogs around is the Public Discourse by the Witherspoon Institute in the US. Its latest entry deals with the often very murky world of surrogate motherhood. It cites the case of a couple who had commissioned a woman to have a child for them, but who divorced and then told the woman, who was 27 months pregnant at the time, that they had no more need for the child. It also cites the case of a couple who, having taking delivery of their child from the surrogate mother, left her to foot a medical bill of over $200,000 back in Austria. Read more...
The irreducible core of of same-sex marriage debate
~At this stage I have read quite a few books and innumerable articles about the same-sex marriage debate. One of the best of the books is a new one called simply, Debating Same-Sex Marriage. It is co-authored by John Corvino, a lecturer in philosophy at Wayne State University in America, and Maggie Gallagher of the National Organisation for Marriage. Corvino argues in favour of same-sex marriage and Gallagher against and both authors put their case well. Read more...
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