Is our modern civilisation founded on the Enlightenment? Is our world the product of 18th-century agnostics throwing off the shackles of medieval superstition and church control? Or were there positive Christian forces at work as well?

There is a proposal afoot to celebrate 'family diversity' each May 15. Family diversity is a concept with a nice, soft ring about it. Diversity is a good thing, surely? Well, sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. For example, the various political parties currently vying for our vote are a fairly diverse bunch, but are they all equally good, or perhaps equally bad? If they are, then a vote for one is as good (or as bad) as a vote for another.

The fourth World Congress of Families, held this year in Warsaw, concluded on Sunday. Having attended the Congress as an observer, I thought it appropriate to share some musings on the weekend's events.

The CSO released more details the other day about marital status in Ireland. It repeated that divorce is up 70 per cent in just four years.

A mother writes to The London Times seeking advice. She works full-time but her three-year old son is exhibiting behavioural problems such as tantrums when she leaves the house each morning. She is wondering whether she should quit work.

Secularism, like religion, comes in many forms. In its mildest incarnation it is along the lines of what we currently have in Ireland, meaning the State does not impose its will upon the Church or vice versa.

Amongst the many debates that have exercised voters and politicians here over the past few years has been that of childcare. All sides seem to agree that childcare is good, and that we should have more of it. But in the UK, there seems to have been something of a rethink.

According to The New York Times the number of religious believers among university students in America is on the increase, including at mighty Harvard. Unless this is a fad, it will have a knock-on effect into American society at large, and because America is so powerful, into the rest of the world. Harvard, after all, is the most prestigious university on the planet, and its graduates matter.

The following comment comes from the 'Mirror of Justice' website and is worth a read because it deals directly with one of the issues of concern to The Iona Institute, namely the right of religious believers to take part in the political process as religious believers, that is, without having to leave their religiously-informed moral beliefs at home. It involves a clash between between Archbishop Raymond Burke of St Louis, and the singer, Sheryl Crow.

The argument between nature and nurture and their relative importance has been around since man has been scratching his head in a cave. Which is more important? Judith Rich Harris, a US psychologist, believes she has the answer. Along with Richard Dawkins and other determinists, she says, it's the genes, stupid.

The Catholic marriage agency, Accord, has just published a very useful survey on the attitude of young couples towards marriage and the family. Seven hundred couples who have got married since 1999 were surveyed and the survey found that, on the whole, they are very optimistic about marriage, would recommend it to others, believe that children benefit from fathers as much as from mothers etc.

Latest figures from the CSO show that the more affluent a woman is the longer she will delay having children, and the poorer she is, the sooner she will have children.

What should we make of the concept of the clean-break divorce? When a couple go their separate ways wouldn't it be better if the divorce settlement is a once and for all affair with no opportunity to come back and re-open the wound?

The teachers' unions are pressing hard for changes to the way religion is taught in our schools which remain overwhelmingly Catholic/Christian. In the light of the opinion poll released on Monday about levels of religious knowledge in the general population you might think he has a point. Obviously something's not getting through.

The poll on religious knowledge co-sponsored by The Iona Institute and the Evangelical Alliance of Ireland received as much coverage as we could have hoped for. In the various radio programmes I appeared on subsequent to its release the toughest question was this; so what? That is, so what if a growing number of young people know next to nothing about Christianity? So what if they don't know what Easter is about, so what if they don't know where Jesus was born, so what if they don't know the First Commandment?

A new study, already mentioned on this site, shows that day care in the region of 30-35 hours a week can be harmful to children. The study has been conducted by Sandra Mathers and Kathy Sylva of the University of Oxford and is called the National Evaluation of the Neighbourhood Nurseries Initiative.

A British teacher's union, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL), is the latest body to highlight the political salience of the quality of life agenda. The union, which is holding its conference in Bournemouth this week, has heard a number of speakers warn that longer working hours were harming the balance between life and labour.

Looking at the Census figures, a number of facts stand out. One is the huge increase in the rate of marital breakdown, which has received extensive treatment on this site. Among the other notable trends, however, were the significant increase in the number of people cohabiting and the huge increase in the number of immigrants.

Last night's debate in UCD on the Government's proposed referendum on children's rights saw some useful interventions, the most significant of which can be found on the news section of this site. The contributions of Professor Gerry Whyte and Justice Adrian Hardiman were especially illuminating.

Justice Hardiman downplayed the need for such a proposal, by insisting that the Constitution already protects children's rights. Professor Whyte critiqued each section of the proposal, especially section 2.2, and found them all deficient to some extent.

The most impressive performer to speak in favour of the referendum was the man who drafted the proposal, Minister for Children Brian Lenihan. He almost managed the unique feat of making the referendum seem more like a simple restatement of the Constitutional status quo as regards the family.

However, he failed to address concerns about section 2.2 of the proposed amendment. This section would permit children who are in foster care to be adopted by their foster parents without the explicit consent of the natural parents. It reads: “Provision may be made by law for the adoption of a child where the parents have failed for such a period of time as may be prescribed by law in their duty towards the child, and where the best interests of the child so require.” Both Professor Whyte and Professor William Binchy of Trinity College Dublin have expressed serious concerns about how this provision would operate in practice.

According to Minister Lenihan, this section would only operate where the natural parents had failed in their duty “for a considerable period of time” and where the child had bonded with the foster parents.

The problem is that the actual wording contains neither of these provisos. It leaves it up to the Oireachtas to specify the exact circumstances in which the courts can intervene in this way.

However, the two other speakers who spoke in favour of the referendum were far less impressive. Aoife Daly, of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, merely said that Ireland needed to recognise children as the holders of legal rights because international law said so, and because our economic status meant that we should be trail blazers in the sphere of children's rights. She didn't address any of the substantive objections to the proposal.

Fergus Finlay, Chief Executive of children's charity Barnardos was also present. His contribution was to recall the legislative and social triumphs of the liberal agenda. Amazingly, he claimed that, contrary to the predictions of anti-divorce campaigners, the rate of marital breakdown had not increased significantly. He said that the latest Census figures did not show a marked increase in the amount of divorce.

Yet the number of divorced people has increased by 70 per cent in the last four years. If this isn't a huge increase in the divorce figure, I don't know what is. What kind of increase in the figures would Mr Finlay consider as proving the point that marital breakdown has increased dramatically, one wonders?

The only substantive argument he mustered in favour of the amendment was to argue that children's rights were not adequately protected under the law as it stood. To illustrate his point, he gave the example of one three year old child of whom he was aware. The only solid food this child had ever had was bags of crisps. Undoubtedly, this is a disastrous state of affairs for that child. But it begged the question; exactly how is a children's rights amendment supposed to change that situation effectively?

The overriding impression generated by the event was the feeling that a lot of work remains to be done if the Government wishes to carry this proposal.

04/04/07