Loving People In Their Particularity: Making it Easier NOT to Receive Communion
Leah Libresco ran a symposium last week on “Loving Parishioners in their Particularity” about concrete ways that the Church can welcome people in unusual or difficult circumstances. There’ve been a...
View ArticleWhy We All Need Faith (The Argument From Zombies)
Apologies, all, for my prolonged abscence: I’m still figuring out this whole work/life/blog balance business. Fortunately I was recently reminded of one of the things I always wanted to write about in...
View ArticleFair play to Leo: quick thoughts on Ireland’s first gay minister
Ireland’s Minister for Health, Leo Varadkar, came out this morning in a radio interview, becoming Ireland’s first openly gay Cabinet Minister. Apparently Minister Varadkar was already out to people...
View ArticleStephen Fry and the Straw Man Theodicy
Stephen Fry recently had a bit of a go at God on Irish television, telling veteran broadcaster Gay Byrne that “The God who created this universe, if he created this universe, is quite clearly a maniac,...
View ArticleIrish Catholicism After Gay Marriage
As Samwise Gamgee once said: “I’m back.” For the past few months, I’ve been occupied – no, fairer to say “consumed by” – participating in the campaign for a No vote in Ireland’s referendum to legalise...
View ArticleThe Tuam Babies and the Golden Age of Children’s Rights
Does the modern west really put children first? Ross Douthat has just written a clear, powerful, and quite devastating analysis of the particular flavour of social liberalism that’s coming to...
View ArticleAbolishing Abortion: Why I fear the European Equilibrium
As the Planned Parenthood “fetal tissue resarch” videos were shining a spotlight on abortion in the US, putting abortion-rights organisations on the defensive and prompting queasiness and sometimes...
View ArticleAre pro-lifers sadder than pro-choicers?
I was blogging over at the Iona Institute, the think-tank at which I work, about euthanasia, and the tenor of the whole thing was rather sad. It ended like this: You can have a look through Anscombe’s...
View ArticleUnderstanding Pro-Lifers: An Open Letter to Una Mullally
I don’t want this to become just “Ben’s pro-life blog”, and I’ve got a post on the refugee crisis coming soon. But Una Mullally, a pro-choice Irish Times columnist who I’ve debated with several times...
View ArticleDo we need Philosophy when we have Science?
So, I’m on holidays from my first term at university (sorry blog, will do better once I’m doing less economics) and as I’m studying Philosophy (among other things), I have been ever more regularly...
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