The return to public worship is welcome, but now is not the time for silence and inaction, writes Dr Philip Gonzales Are we now living in a health dictatorship and one that is targeting religious services and public worship? These questions can no longer be avoided. With the Primate of All-Ireland Archbishop Eamon Martin, I…
President Joe Biden announced on May 3 he was raising the historically low refugee cap of 15,000 left by the Trump administration, but also warned that his administration may not be able to meet the new number of refugees it is seeking to resettle in what remains of the fiscal year: 62,500. In a statement,…
For many people, their religious faith increased during Covid-19 restrictions, writes David Quinn We have been collectively living through the most unusual period of our lives since we went into the first lockdown in March of last year following the emergence in Wuhan, China, of Covid-19. Freedom All parts of life have been affected, including…
Mexican Church leaders offered prayers for the victims of a metro line collapse that left at least 23 dead and more than 70 people injured. Bishop Andrés Vargas Peña of Xochimilco – which serves three southern boroughs in Mexico City – offered condolences to the victims, while announcing each priest in the diocese would celebrate…
Letter from Rome Robert Duncan The neighbourhood of ivy-draped two-story buildings, cobblestoned streets and Marian shrines adjacent to St Peter’s Basilica is perhaps best-known today for serving gelato and pizza to tourists visiting the Vatican. History, however, knows the “Borgo” – as the zone is called by locals – as a village of ecclesiastical artisans…
There is a huge debt to Irish missionaries who have quietly ministered to Irish people incarcerated abroad, writes Chai Brady Pope Francis has often spoke of the need for reform in prison systems, to tackle the root cause of crime and to assist people in their efforts to reintegrate into society after serving their sentence.…
The Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, released on May 1, 2021 a pastoral letter in which he insisted that any Catholic cooperating with the evil of abortion should refrain from receiving the Eucharist. “It is fundamentally a question of integrity: to receive the Blessed Sacrament in the Catholic liturgy is to espouse publicly the…
Everyday Philosophy If you do something voluntarily, it must be because you wanted to do it, at least in some sense. This apparently innocent statement can in the hands of some philosophers have quite disturbing implications. First, let’s think about the statement itself. It is true as far as it goes. Even if you do…
China’s new regulations for religious personnel came into effect May 1, obliging those who hold any formal role in a religious group, among other things, to pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party and to resist foreign interference. Many Catholic observers have voiced fear the new rules not only violate China’s agreement with the Vatican…
Personal Profile In the 1970s, the then Superior General of the Jesuit’s – Fr Pedro Arrupe, called by some the second founder of the Jesuits – had what Fr John Guiney SJ calls “a tremendous insight”: in order for the Jesuits to promote and preach the Faith, they must also promote justice. It was this…
David Quinn
Chai Brady
Ben Conroy
Ruadhán Jones