The View This column is being written as we begin to be able to return to worship the Risen Lord as a real and not just a virtual community. What a shame the Government has flip-flopped so often on numbers. Of course, not everybody will be able to or should return. People with medical conditions…
Month: July 2020
Don’t ‘blackmail’ kids into coming to church, archbishop says
Although he said “I would never go to war” over the proper age to administer the sacrament of Confirmation, Archbishop Rino Fisichella has said too often it seems that the Sacrament is delayed to “blackmail” young people into continuing to come to church. The archbishop, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting New Evangelisation, made…
I believe in a ‘merciful God’ says Seán O’Rourke
Famous Irish presenter Seán O’Rourke said his Faith is important to him and that he believes in the hereafter, including Hell. Speaking to Ivan Yates, Mr O’Rourke explained that both his parents were “practising Catholics and quite devout”. O’Rourke went to Mass every weekend during college and still believes Faith is an important part of…
Islamic views of Jesus explored
Jesus Through Muslim Eyes by Richard Shumack (SPCK, £12.99) The other day, before I started on Jesus Through Muslim Eyes, I read in a 1957 book of travels through North Africa from Tunis to Cairo that in Beja, a remote village near the Libyan-Tunisian border, the mosque was dedicated to Jesus Christ. It surprised the author…
Music and faith two poles of life for Piano Man Tom
Personal Profile Music and faith are the two passions of Tom Conroy’s life, who believes firmly in St Augustine’s teaching “he who sings, prays twice”. Though as a child, Tom wasn’t too interested in music, it was something that was always in the background. “Music is in my family – all of them play, my…
Don’t deny disabled people the sacraments, says Vatican
The Church’s sacraments are a gift and cannot be denied to disabled people, according to new Church guidelines for catechesis. Irish theologian Liam Waldron, who has long campaigned on this topic, was “delighted” by the announcement. “I welcome this greatly,” he said. “It has been a long time coming and a lot of us have…
The Church and the fight against racism
We cannot expect perfection from all of those who went before us writes David Quinn You’ll have noticed in the last few weeks that statues of certain historical figures are under attack and have even being pulled down because of an association between those figures and racism. The most dramatic example took place in Bristol…
UAE sends aid to Peru as part of Catholic-Muslim cooperation
An ongoing dialogue between Catholic and Muslim educators took a very concrete turn on June 25 when the United Arab Emirates sent a plane carrying 50 tons of humanitarian aid to a Peruvian city overwhelmed by the Covid-19 pandemic. According to Vatican News, the plane carried masks, gloves, medical oxygen and food aid that will…
A hidden treasure of Dublin architecture in the city’s heart
The Museum Building of Trinity College: A Model of Victorian Craftsmanship by Christine Casey and Patrick Wyse Jackson (Four Courts Press, €45) Christopher Moriarty Now is a fitting time to browse an extraordinary book about an extraordinary building. Created in 1857, the Museum Building of Trinity College, Dublin has been a familiar object to generations of…
Italian financier at heart of Vatican scandal appeals in court
According to a recent report in Corriere della Sera, Italy’s paper of record, an Italian financier now based in London named Raffaele Mincione has filed two civil suits against the Vatican’s Secretariat of State before Britain’s High Court of Justice, both related to a now-infamous land deal in London’s Chelsea neighbourhood he brokered in 2013.…

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Ruadhán Jones
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David Quinn


