Every day at 11 o’clock outside Gangjeong village on the spectacular coastline of Jeju island, a long line of cement trucks, serving the construction site for a military naval base, grinds to a halt. For the next hour none will enter or leave the compound. Outside the six-metre high metal fence, their way is blocked…
Month: October 2013
Following the money
Paul KeenanA financial scandal in Germany has shocked the country’s faithful, writes Paul Keenan
Columban and Ireland’s Christian legacy
Dear Editor, Fr Sean McDonagh celebrated St Columban in your issue of October 10, and rightly so. This was the time when the Irish were the saviours of Europe, because of the great work our missionaries did in Scotland, and in western Europe as a whole. It was not just that they brought the Faith…
Mary Kenny and The Quiet Man
Dear Editor, I usually enjoy reading Mary Kenny’s weekly column. I was, however, disappointed to read her criticism of the classic film The Quiet Man (IC 10/10/13). She sounded a particularly discordant and sour note. It is a little late in the day for her to reveal that the ‘archaic’ story was not politically correct…
Misleading on mental health
Dear Editor, Mary Kenny’s article entitled ‘What liberal’s don’t report about mental health’ (IC 7/10/13) is not only inaccurate but unacceptably stigmatising and serves only to propagate the myths and mistruths that link violence to people with experience of mental health problems. It is hugely concerning how Mary Kenny bases her entire piece around two…
Attack on Pope Francis was disappointing
Dear Editor, I was shocked and disappointed on reading Dr John Murray’s letter (IC 3/10/13); shocked at the denigratory tone he adopted towards Pope Francis, and disappointed that a person in his position in the Mater Dei Institute of Education is forming opinions of Pope Francis through such a narrow lens of “his now-famous” interview,…
The academy and the pew – a strained relationship
There has always been an innate and healthy tension between theology and catechesis, between what’s happening in theology departments in universities and the church pew. Theologians and bishops are often not each other’s favourite people. And that’s understandable. Why? Theology and catechesis have different purposes, even as both are valid and both are needed. Catechesis,…
Adrift on a sea of terror
Aubrey Malone enjoys a tense sea-bound thriller
Looking on the lighter side
Brendan O’ReganBrendan O’Regan looks at comedy offerings of the week
Chronicles of an English town
Peter CostelloPam Rhodes will be familiar to many as the presenter for many years of Songs of Praise. One of the most genuinely popular religious programmes on television. But she is also the author of some five novels. This book however is the first in a new series, relating the chronicles of a small English town.…