Pain and loss allow us to connect with others who are suffering and to love more deeply, a well-known US comedian and chat show host has said. Interviewed on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360°, Stephen Colbert, the Catholic host of The Late Show talked about the deaths of his father and brothers Peter and Paul in…
Woodstock wasn’t all peace and light, writes David Quinn It’s now 50 years since the high point of the 1960s counter-culture, namely the huge music festival that took place at Woodstock in New York state in mid-August 1969. It featured some of the biggest music acts of the day. Organisers originally estimated it would…
In advance of a mandated national third-party reporting system for allegations or complaints regarding bishops, the Catholic dioceses of four New England states have launched a third-party, independent system to report abuse by Catholic bishops. The dioceses in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine make up the Boston Province, led by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley,…
‘Bad companions’ – how often did I hear that expression in my schooldays. Warnings came from many quarters, including our catechism text, that ‘bad companions’ could lead us astray. Parents and guardians were often on the lookout for ‘bad companions’. I was discouraged from a friendship with a girl a couple of years older because…
Thousands of pro-lifers from all corners of Ireland are expected to take to the streets of Belfast next month to send a clear message to London that MPs should not interfere and force abortion on the North. Westminster has voted to force abortion up to at least seven months’ gestation on the North unless the…
Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light, an exhibition Beit Wing (Rooms 6-10), National Gallery of Ireland, Merrion Square Dublin 2 Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light by Gabriele Finaldi and others, published to accompany the exhibition (National Gallery Company London /distributed by Yale University Press, £30.00/€35.00) This exhibition is the first ever mounted in Ireland, so…
Questions of Faith It’s becoming more and more popular nowadays for people to opt for cremation instead of burial. There are plenty of reasons why this has become the norm: it’s cheaper than a traditional funeral; non-religious don’t want to be buried in a graveyard; some choose it because of their phobia of waking up…
Letter from Scotland A motion to remove the voting rights of religious representatives on education boards is “a serious threat to the identity” of Catholic schools in the Scottish capital, according to a spokesperson of the Archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh. Scottish law mandates that three religious representatives serve on each school board.…
Are we Bodies or Souls? by Richard Swinburne (Oxford University Press, £14.99) Christopher Moriarty The author, Emeritus Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford, has an impressive number of previous titles. Like this one, some end with question marks and include Is There a God? and Was Jesus God?…
Catholic leaders in Congo have gathered more than 1.5 million signatures on a petition that demands local elections to curb corruption and strengthen democracy. “Democracy must have roots right down to (the) local level, and people must be allowed to designate who governs them,” said Msgr Andre Massinganda, deputy secretary-general of the Congolese bishops’ conference.…
Greg Daly
David Quinn
Mary Kenny
Peter Costello
Colm Fitzpatrick