Over 400 people gathered at St Finian’s Church in Swords on Sunday, July 3, to celebrate the church’s 25th anniversary. Community groups including scouts, guides and sports clubs took part in a Mass celebrated by Bishop Ray Field to mark the silver jubilee of the River Valley church. In his homily, Dr Field spoke about…
“Violence in the name of religion is always wrong ” – this was the message of the Catholic bishops of Bangladesh this week as they condemned the slaughter of diners at a restaurant in the capital, Dhaka on July 1. In a message of sympathy issued after 20 people, mainly Italian and Japanese citizens, were…
A Catholic nursing home in Belgium has been fined for refusing to euthanise a resident in its care. The Huize Sint-Augustinus home was fined a nominal €6 by the court in Louvain after the family of an elderly woman took a case against the home’s opposition to their request for euthanasia under Belgian law. While…
Indian Archbishop rejects accusations against Mother Teresa An Indian archbishop has rejected a recent verbal attack on the memory of Mother Teresa launched by a radical politician and cleric. Archbishop Thomas Menamparampil of Jowai described as “rash comments” the denunciation of the famed nun by Gorakhpur Yogi Adityanath, a member of parliament representing the hardline Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). During a…
The breakaway Society of St Pius X appears to have abandoned hopes of reuniting with the Vatican with a statement rejecting the need for recognition from Rome for its existence while voicing criticism of the Pope for “errors” in Church teaching. The statement, made in the name of Bishop Bernard Fellay, the current superior general…
In his 1975 ballad Thunder Road, Bruce Springsteen tells his imaginary paramour that she can either waste her summer “praying in vain for a saviour to rise from these streets,” or seize the realistic if flawed option in front of her, i.e. him. While no one probably would tout the Boss as an expert on the Middle…
The new presidency bodes ill for the Church, writes Paul Keenan
Signatories edited by Lucy Collins (UCD Press, € 20.00)
Books over the centuries have taken many forms. Indeed some kinds of books do not have to have any narrative to be most revealing. I came across one of these a little while ago in an Oxfam shop, a green cloth-bound item for which I see I paid 39 cents. The title page revealed that…
“each and every story of a difficulty experienced during pregnancy is heart-wrenching, precisely because the gift of a new child is such a beautiful thing”, writes Michael Kelly
Greg Daly
Paul Keenan
John L. Allen Jr.
Peter Costello
Michael Kelly