Recently appointed Archbishop Dermot Farrell has condemned a spate of knife crime in the capital as “inhuman” in a homily delivered over the weekend. Dangerous road Speaking at Mass in the Church of the Holy Spirit in Ballymun, Archbishop Farrell said a person who carries a knife is “travelling down a dangerous road full of…
Many are struggling to process their grief without the rituals of death, writes Ruadhán Jones The funeral is a ubiquitous ritual in Irish society, envisioned in popular culture as a social gathering and a celebration of the deceased’s life. But under the conditions of a pandemic, we have come to recognise its primary importance as…
Letter from Rome In what’s being hailed as a demonstration that Pope Francis is in earnest about empowering women within ecclesiastical structures, last Friday, for the first time ever, the pontiff named a woman as the Promoter of Justice for the Appeals Court of the Vatican City State. In effect, the Promoter of Justice functions…
A challenge by businessman Declan Ganley over Covid-19 Level 5 restrictions on religious services has been adjourned at the High Court to mid-month, according to The Irish Independent. The Co Galway based businessman, a practising Catholic, claims that as a result of the restrictions, he cannot leave his home to attend Mass in breach of…
Role of youth, women and inter-diocesan relations are some of the focuses of the future, writes Chai Brady Changes are coming in the Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly and although some of them may be “painful” there will be discussion and dialogue, with everyone facing it together as a Church community. Following a statement in…
Living Laudato Si’ Our New Year resolutions this year may simply have been to get through lockdown as best we can. And that’s ok! Pope Francis does gives us a nudge however, in the address he gave on the World Day of Peace, January 1. He asks us to focus on one thing, to create…
Mary Hayden: Irish historian and feminist, 1862-1942 by Joyce Padbury (Arlen House, €25). Felix M. Larkin The older among us may remember the textbook A short history of the Irish people from the earliest times to 1920, by Mary Hayden and George A. Moonan. First published in 1921, it moulded the ideas of a generation and was…
A German Catholic bishop said last Wednesday that he detected an “authoritarian despotism” in the procedures of the country’s controversial “Synodal Way”. In an open letter issued February 3, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg criticised the format of an online conference of the Synodal Way. He also challenged the Synodal Way’s executive committee to show greater…
NFL star Harrison Butker initially thought the Faith wasn’t for him, saying during an interview with EWTN, “it pushed me away. I was like…ah this is just, this is just not me. It doesn’t go with the world”. However, it ended up attracting him to it, in his own words, “because it was so different…
Personal Profile The Philippines has one of the largest Catholic populations in the world – a country of more than 100 million people, of which 80% are Catholic and 90% are Christian. This is the legacy of missionaries from the 1500s down to today – missionaries such as Fr Donal Bennett of Omagh, who spent…
Ruadhán Jones
John L. Allen Jr.
Chai Brady