Pope Francis announced he will create 21 new cardinals August 27. The Pope made the announcement at the end of his “Regina Coeli” address May 29, telling the crowd in St Peter’s Square the names of the 16 cardinals under the age of 80, who will be eligible to vote in a conclave, and the…
We didn’t talk a lot about the British royal family when I was growing up in Dublin – those far-off days were before the era of mass media and talking about royalty wasn’t considered, understandably, a republican virtue. But I do recall, aged six, the occasion when Elizabeth II became Queen of England, in 1952,…
The renewal and revival of the Church in Ireland needs to acknowledge the dying of the former model, writes Garry O’Sullivan Synodality and its listening process has been like following a prescribed cocktail of drugs. There’s all the ‘uppers’ of openness, listening, hopes and joys but then there’s the ‘downers’ of “we’ve been here before”,…
Native American tribal representatives are partnering with Catholic dioceses and religious congregations in uncovering vast amounts of information about the Church’s role in operating residential schools that for more than a century worked to assimilate Indigenous children into white society. Known as the Catholic Native Boarding School Accountability and Healing Project, or AHP, the effort…
Pentecost is one of the major feasts of the Church and we should open ourselves up to all the Holy Spirit wants to give us, writes Jason Osborne Sunday, June 5 is the day the Church will celebrate the great feast of Pentecost this year. Ranking alongside Christmas and Easter as one of the biggest…
A former Anglican bishop of Rochester who converted to Catholicism late last year has warned against the danger of viewing the synod as a “democratic process”. Speaking to The Irish Catholic newspaper, Dr Michael Nazir-Ali said that the Anglican communion has sometimes been “misled” by this kind of thinking and that while consulting laity and…
Everyday philosophy The study of philosophy is supposed to get you to question beliefs that you take entirely for granted, to get you to overturn your ordinary assumptions. But one could be forgiven for thinking that some of the revolutions of thought that philosophy is supposed to bring about don’t amount to much. Sceptics about…
Some US bishops spoke out against the easy accessibility to guns in the country following a May 24 rampage that left at least 19 children and two of their elementary school teachers dead in Uvalde, Texas. “Don’t tell me that guns aren’t the problem, people are. I’m sick of hearing it,” Bishop Daniel Flores of…
It is no good saying we ought to cut carbon emissions when we are doing little or nothing in our own lives to help the cause along, writes David Quinn What is a ‘sin against the environment’ that is in need of confession? Last year, the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton in England launched a…
There will be a difficult period of transition ahead for the Church in Ireland, as numbers of clergy decline, Bishop Michael Router warned recently. However, this provides “a wonderful opportunity for all the Faithful to realise that they have a crucial role to play”, the auxiliary bishop of Armagh said May 27. Bishop Router was…
Mary Kenny
Ben Conroy
David Quinn
Ruadhán Jones