Catholic schools need an AI conscience check, not just a usage policy
Dear Editor, The Irish Catholic has repeatedly framed AI as a question about the human person, not just a new classroom tool. Its coverage of Magnifica Humanitas has stressed when educators should say no to AI, while another essay asked who remains responsible when AI begins to shape decisions.
As Catholic schools plan for another academic year, that concern should become a practical habit: an AI conscience check.
Before using AI for lesson plans, feedback, pastoral communication or student support, teachers and school leaders should ask three questions. Does this use strengthen or weaken a person’s responsibility? Could a student or parent reasonably understand how the decision was reached? Who is accountable when the system gets context wrong?
A policy that merely lists approved tools cannot answer those questions. Nor can a blanket ban teach discernment.
Catholic education has a distinctive reason to keep human judgment visible: technology should serve dignity, truth and relationships rather than replace them. The goal is not to reject useful tools. It is to make sure convenience never becomes an excuse to hand moral responsibility to a machine.
Yours etc,
Dr Gleb Tsipursky
Columbus, Ohio
Don’t be fooled by the ‘Catholic’ credentials of Andy Burnham
Dear Editor, The fact that the new British PM is not going to advance euthanasia until palliative care is adequately funded should not have the likes of the Archbishop of Liverpool rushing to praise (The Irish Catholic, August 6); after all, the French episcopacy was similarly offering confidences about Macron, when he was elected, and now France butchers their unwanted at a near industrial level!
Let us not be fooled by the many “Catholic” credentials lauded by so many about our Andy lad; his Catholicism is, as the editor of The Catholic Herald recently stated, as a politician, whose faith is like a wine bottle, who keeps the label but whose contents are empty, but is placed in a prominent place in the hope it will impress!
Andy Burnham has signed up as a card carrier of the usual unsavoury things that all politicos need to do if they’re to advance, being a faithful Catholic is not one of them.
Yours etc,
Fr John McCallion CC
Coalisland, Co. Tyrone
A letter to the Minister for Health, Taoiseach, and Tánaiste
Dear Editor, Many people are concerned at the State’s proposed plan to integrate abortion as a normal part of health care (Irish Times, July 4). There was another announcement by the Department of Health (Irish Times, July 14) to the effect that women who have miscarriages will be given a period of leave to recover. This leave will also be extended to women who have abortions.
Abortion can never be normalised: it is not medical care—it is intended to kill a baby. To deny this is a lie—the lie that abortion practice is built upon.
In 2018, over one million people from the Irish State’s Electoral Register were induced to vote for abortion, succumbing to the heavily biased propaganda in what was a fraudulent referendum, not conducted with fairness to the pro-life side. The Government (and secular media, together with George Soros, and his millions of free flowing dollars !) campaigned on one side—pro-abortion—contrary to practices in earlier referenda, such as the divorce referenda, and in direct conflict with the McKenna Judgement of the Irish Supreme Court (1995). This judgement states that a Government cannot spend money to support one side of a referendum (Wikipedia).
The people who were induced to vote ‘Yes’ to abortion by these corrupt means (ignoring the rules of a fair referendum) share a vicarious responsibility for the killing of about 65,000 nascent babies, whose lives were taken from them by cruel means—young lives badly needed by the State for a balanced growth of population.
Yours etc,
Donal Nunan
Address with editor
The boy who shared
Dear Editor, Many years ago, I had a Catholic Truth Society children’s book, kept in my grandparent’s house, which I looked at often when I visited, entitled The Boy Who Shared. It was about the feeding of the five thousand from the perspective of the boy; as I didn’t like reading much I followed the story by looking at the pictures.
All our actions do have a ripple effect; but when they are in union with Jesus that effect can be enormous and far reaching. When the boy bankrolled the miracle with five loaves and two fish, he could not have anticipated such ROI (return on investment). Five thousand men were fed; this story was etched in the minds of every believer across 20 centuries and around the world.
I read a more recent story from South Africa a few years ago, about a youth pastor, who after a long day decided to stop at a burger joint for a big dinner. Outside were a group of five street children begging and the Holy Spirit prompted him to get them each a hamburger. Whilst he realised this would reduce his anticipated feast, he submitted to the inspiration and bought six burgers including one for himself. He went outside to distribute them and as he did another crowd of street kids ran across the road towards him. There would not be enough. Anyway as he slipped his hand into the bag there was always one more there, he gave one to each of the newcomers and at the end there was still one left for him. The lesser known miracle of the multiplication of hamburgers!
Yours etc,
Stephen Clark
Manila, Philippines
Brittany Ferries sails away from live animal exports
Dear Editor, Brittany Ferries’ decision to end the live transportation of farm animals on their Rosslare to mainland Europe service is a victory for animal welfare over commercial interest.
Around Ireland, farm animals are rounded up for export to European countries and non-European countries.
Calves are loaded onto livestock trailers, which are then boarded onto ferries to mainland Europe.
Following their arrival on the European continent, the young animals endure long road journeys to their final destination.
Their removal from Irish dairy and beef farms operates within EU animal welfare regulations, a legal patina to a trade based on the exploitation of the young.
Spare a thought for Irish cattle with one-way tickets as they set sail for countries like Algeria, Turkey, Libya, and Egypt.
For Irish farm animals their path to hell is only starting once they are herded into the moribund embrace of a non-EU country bound livestock ship.
A snapshot of what our cattle will endure can be found in the fact that most animals in the Middle East are not stunned – rendered unconscious – before slaughter.
Their throats are cut while they are fully conscious and are left to bleed to death.
Irish farm animals dripping rubies on a foreign slaughterhouse floor.
The live farm animal export trade, in which profit is systematically being placed above animal welfare and respect for the law, should be consigned to farm animal trade history.
Yours etc,
John Tierney, Chairperson Waterford Animal Concern
Larchville, Co. Waterford
Social cohesion cannot be engineered
Dear Editor, History tells us that centuries of ethnic history cannot be changed into a “one size fits all” identity. It also tells us that time does not eliminate cultural differences. We only have to see the July 12 celebrations in Northern Ireland to recognise this.
Denmark, like Ireland, has a relatively small ethnic population of 5 million plus, with a distinct set of values which they are openly proud of and want to hold on to, so having the strictest pathways to Danish citizenship makes sense. Mette Frederiksen, the Prime Minister of Denmark, has set down a marker for the rest of the EU on how the left in other EU countries will have to deal with the mass immigration of culturally different peoples.
This dilemma is how to reconcile the values of a liberal and open society with a high-cost generous social welfare system, and the inevitable strains it puts on the host country’s economy when you have a relatively small country that depends on strong social cohesion for its economy to work.
The “open borders” policy supported by left political parties in EU countries ignores this economic cost of a generous welfare system in the post-manufacturing EU, where jobs from the service industries are the mainstays of employment, and various government-funded jobs in education, health and social support. They also ignore the uncertainty that AI will reduce the workforce; even those with university degrees will struggle to find employment.
Ireland is turning a blind eye to this dilemma; along with those who want to be generous with taxpayers’ money. But I guess the well-paid advisers to Government and CEOs of NGOs will be well cushioned from the inevitable effects of any economic downturn. “Ní hé lá na gaoithe lá na scolb”.
Yours etc,
Nuala Nolan
Bowling Green, Co. Galway
