Mags Gargan visits the Sanctuary meditation and mindfulness centre, to learn about a programme helping struggling teens to find peace “I’m bored.” Two words any parent dreads, whether your offspring is a young child or a teenager. However, according to Caitriona McColgan, young people need to sit in their own boredom for the world to…
To understand Good Friday we need to separate what was happening on the surface from at some deeper place Good Friday was bad long before it was good, at least from outward appearances. God was being crucified by all that can go bad in the world: pride, jealousy, distrust, wound, self-interest, sin. It’s no accident…
Felix M. Larkin The Irish Parliamentary Party at Westminster, 1900-18 by Conor Mulvagh (Manchester University Press, £75.00) The centenary commemoration of the 1916 Rising last year was marred by the curious incident of the banners on the facade of the Bank of Ireland building in College Green. These banners were a minimalist attempt to commemorate…
Iraqi Christians driven from the Nineven Plains by the so-called Islamic State are looking forward to moving home, with Church leaders having assembled a taskforce to spearhead a vast rebuilding programme. The Nineveh Reconstruction Committee, formed from bishops from the Syriac Catholic, Syriac Orthodox and Chaldean Catholic Churches, will oversee the planning and rebuilding of…
Venezuela’s bishops have described a Supreme Court decision to eliminate the country’s National Assembly as “morally unacceptable”. Saying Venezuela’s Catholics cannot remain “passive, frightened, or hopeless”, they have called for peaceful protests and civil disobedience to the government of President Nicholas Maduro. The abolition of the assembly, which opposition parties have dominated for over a…
Modern Masses have caused disaster, devastation and schism in the Church, the head of the Vatican’s liturgy department has said. In an address sent to a conference in Germany, Cardinal Robert Sarah, who heads the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, said the Church is currently undergoing a “serious crisis” underestimated by…
Dear Editor, I was delighted to read that Minister Frances Fitzgerald will not be lifting the ban on the sale of alcohol on Good Friday (IC 30/03/2017). Every year publicans bring up this issue as if it is some kind of religious persecution to deny them one day’s profit in a country that has a…
On the eve of his departure Archbishop Charles Brown sat down with Mags Gargan to reflect on his time as Papal Nuncio of Ireland Since arriving in Ireland in January 2012 as Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Charles Brown has become a very familiar face to Irish Catholics. He has travelled the length and breadth of this…
Unfounded claims of abuse remain a grave fear for many Irish priests, while clergy often distrust their bishops, according to the minutes of two meetings of the Association of Catholic priests last month. Safeguarding was a central issue at the ACP South meeting, which considered the rights of clergy when faced with allegations. “Solicitors feel…
Young adults aged between 16 and 29 are being asked to take part in a survey to gather information on youth attitudes towards faith and the Church. The ‘Big April Ask’, an online survey open until April 30, is an Irish youth ministry initiative in response to Pope Francis’ announcement that in October 2018 a…
Mags Gargan
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Greg Daly