Vaping acts as a replacement nicotine source which may precipitate a new public health crisis, writes Hannah Harn Cigarette smoking, which causes nearly 6,000 deaths in Ireland each year, is on the decline. The annual Healthy Ireland Survey found that the prevalence of smoking dropped from 23% in 2015 to 20% in 2018, and…
John Moriarty: Not the Whole Story by Mary McGillicuddy (Lilliput Press. €20.00) John Moriarty has published some fascinating books. Written in a baroque style, they are dotted with quotations from the classics of world literature. They also include numerous allusions and references to a wide variety of civilisations, cultures, mythologies, philosophies, religions and the great minds…
Ireland’s longest-serving diocesan bishop has hailed the appointment of his successor as “a new beginning” for the Diocese of Cork and Ross. Bishop John Buckley, who has headed the Diocese of Cork and Ross since 1998, welcomed the announcement that Dublin archdiocesan chancellor Fr Fintan Gavin [pictured] will succeed him as Bishop of Cork, saying…
The majority of people would reject the introduction of female deacons to their parish according to a survey conducted by this paper. Over 1,300 people responded to a social media survey with two-thirds saying they would not support their diocese if this was considered. Overall 979 people voted against the idea, while 361 approved. This…
White Elephants: The Country House and the State in Independent Ireland by Emer Crooke (UCD Press, €40.00) These days, when no couple ever seems to get married in their native parish anymore, a country house hotel often plays a more important role in any case than the church. With wedding celebrations now lasting three or four…
Brunei has implemented a sharia penal code that punishes such crimes as adultery, sodomy, rape and blasphemy of Muhammad with the death penalty. “Brunei Darussalam has always been practising a dual legal system, one that is based on the Syariah Law and the other on Common Law,” Brunei’s prime minister’s office said at the end of…
Letter from Rome Last Tuesday made official a transition that’s been quietly underway for a while in terms of the Vatican’s response to the clerical sexual abuse scandals: Pope Francis and his aides are rethinking, if not the substance of a ‘zero tolerance’ policy, at least the rhetoric of it, becoming increasingly unwilling to…
The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) this week launched #ThePowerofVote campaign, calling on citizens to use their vote in the upcoming European Parliament elections to protect the rights of asylum seekers and refugees. Recent practices in Europe, such as the absence of safe and legal pathways to protection; the extensive use of detention of asylum seekers;…
Mainly About Books By the books editor It is a truism to say that Lent these days is nothing like it was several centuries ago, indeed just several decades ago. In our era of immediate self-satisfaction the idea of going without is unpopular, unless one is on a fashionable diet. In the middle ages…
Dominican sisters tell Chai Brady about their new youth group Young people are longing to be “known and loved” says a Dominican sister based in Limerick, and that’s exactly what her order intend to let them know. Coming from Nashville, Tennessee, Sr Mara Grace and her three fellow sisters have been organising events and…
Greg Daly
Peter Costello
John L. Allen Jr.
Chai Brady