MASS media, the communications explosion, unemployment and divorce are haunting and pressurising many families in Ireland, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr Connell, has said.
Speaking on Sunday at a Mass in Castleknock to mark the Feast of the Holy Family, Dr Connell said Ireland had undergone profound change in the last 20 years which, in other industrialised European countries, had taken nearly 150 years to happen.
"We are experiencing a revolution of values within our country. The intrusion of the mass media, the impact of mass global tourism, the communications explosion, unemployment or fear of losing a job, divorce - all these things affect and haunt many families today. Not all families are pressured to the same degree, but some are damaged by forces beyond their control."
It was a time for "sorting out our values". Was "fidelity in marriage" one value people were not prepared to compromise on?
In his New Year message, the Presbyterian moderator, Dr John Ross, said: "We have an opportunity to create a lasting peace and a new kind of society built on an ungrudging affirmation of diversity and a generous accommodation of it. A return to violence is unthinkable. There would be no winners."
The Dungannon priest, Mgr Denis Faul, said the effort to make peace in Northern Ireland "depends on the development of trust and respect and love" between the two communities.
Speaking at a World Day of Peace Mass in Glasnevin, Dublin, yesterday, Mgr Faul added: "Only when each side is sure of its security and equally anxious to preserve and protect the security of the other side, can there be peace.
Mgr Faul said the future of peace everywhere depended on "the religious and spiritual quality of the education we give to our children in the home and in the school. Education is only worth while if it trains people in the principles of virtue".
The Bishop of Down and Con.nor, Dr Patrick Walsh, praised the North's schools and teachers for their role over the past 25 years Speaking in Bangor, Co Down, Dr Walsh said: "For so many children during the years of our conflict the only place of normal living outside their own homes was in school and in the face of bullet and bomb schools remained open and teachers remained at their posts, often in the face off personal distress and intimidation. When the history of the years of conflict are written a glorious chapter should be devoted to schools and teachers."
He promised that in the present conditions of non violence and he trusted, a lasting peace, he was confident Catholic teachers would be "in the forefront of this work for peace". He commended the peace education programme jointly sponsored in many schools by the Irish Commission for Justice and Peace and the Irish Council for Churches.