Children’s Corner If you don’t know what invisible ink is, or how to make it, you are missing out. It can be a great way to send secret messages to your friends that won’t be intercepted by anyone else. It’s a method that can be tracked back for thousands of years and has been used…
Month: September 2022
Vatican Roundup
Editor says renewal of Vatican agreement with China on the horizon As the October deadline approaches for the extension of the Vatican’s agreement with the Chinese government, the newly appointed editor of the news agency of the Dicastery for Evangelisation said the deal has been instrumental in allowing Catholics to practice their faith openly and…
In Short
Demand increasing for Crosscare’s Food Poverty Service Some 600 families and individuals, including 800 children, have come forward to a new food poverty service in Dublin seeking help with food supplies. Crosscare’s Food Poverty Service was established nine months ago, and demand has steadily increased, with many people presenting in food poverty for the first…
The perils of counting Catholics
Editor’s Comment The long-anticipated results of the census in the North (see page 6) have demonstrated what has been obvious for some time: Catholics now make up a plurality in the region. The news has been greeted in some quarters in the extreme. Some unionist commentators have deemed the results “meaningless” in the context of…
Slow burning search for a lost childhood
It Is In Us All (15) begins with London-based Hamish (Cosmo Jarvis) travelling to his native Donegal to prepare his deceased aunt’s house for sale. On the way he has a car accident. A boy from the other car is killed. Another one, Evan (Rhys Mannion), survives. Hamish self-treats his injuries like a Buncrana Rambo.…
Our role in sharing the blessing
My aunt Mary Margaret will be 99 in November, please God. I visited her recently in her home in Richmond, Virginia. This has become an almost annual event as I spend some time in a parish on Long Island, New York each year. Whilst there, I do a little parish work but enjoy a fair…
Contributors have a gift for interpreting the Gospel
Dear Editor, Every week The Irish Catholic supplies us with words of wisdom, but your September 15 issue surpassed itself when I found two paragraphs on Pages 34 and 35, which were worth the €2.50 price of the paper on their own. The first was written by Fr Silvester O’Flynn OFM Cap, and read: “Forget…
Streaming often brings more to disappoint than to interest
I’d suspect most people’s experience of TV dramas, especially on the streaming services, includes a long list of disappointments – especially series that were started but then abandoned after one or two episodes. These thoughts were prompted by my lack of enthusiasm for the new Star Wars series Andor (Disney+). This is a prequel to…
Keeping going when there are no signs of gratitude
The Sunday Gospel There are 10 meals in Luke’s Gospel and each one is not only a table of food but also a table of the Word…just as we have in the liturgy of the Eucharist. Each meal is the setting for some important teaching. We are familiar with the Last Supper, the revelation of the Risen…
A manual for church crawling
If These Stones Could Talk: the History of Christianity in Britain and Ireland Through Twenty-One Buildings by Peter Stanford Hodder and Stoughton, €12.99/£10.99 Published two years ago in hardback, this book aimed at a popular readership now appears as a paperback and so becomes accessible to many who might have missed it. It runs from…

Chai Brady


Ruadhán Jones
Michael Kelly
Aubrey Malone


Brendan O’Regan

Peter Costello