“Your Word is a Lamp on my Path”: Reflections on the weekday readings for the liturgical year 2022-2023 by Martin Hogan (Messenger Publications, €19.95/£18.95) Martin Hogan is the curate at Finglas, Finglas West and Rivermount. Readers can imagine just how busy he must be in his pastoral work. The service to the city comes after…
The weight of tragedy was particularly heavy last week. Nine News (RTÉ One, Friday) led with the explosion at the filling station in Creeslough, Co. Donegal, and such a cloud hung over this small community. At that stage the enormity of the disaster was just filtering through, and though there were no casualty figures the…
Dear Editor, The ongoing three-year review of the Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Act, is most lamentable. There is a complete absence of media scrutiny. Similarly, there is no avenue to include consideration of the views of those horrified by the desperation, cruelty and ultimately the unsustainability of our country, due to our birth-rate having…
The Horse of Selene by Juanita Casey, with an afterword by Mary M. Burke (Tramp Press, €16.00/£12.99) We are so flooded these days with works of modern genius, that all too many books once admired, or widely read, or necessary in some way, are driven down into forgetfulness. These books from the past are the…
We’re in America. A singer stands before an audience. She looks like an extra-terrestrial with her shaven head. People start to cheer. Then they boo. She recently refused to sing at a venue if the American National Anthem was played. She’s also torn up a photograph of the Pope on live TV. The camera flashes…
Editor’s Comment A few years ago ‘clustering’ was a word largely unknown by Catholics across Ireland. Today, parish clustering is the order of the day as it has been embraced by people within the Church as a response to the declining number of priests. I’ve often thought that clustering – joining a group of parishes…
Tourist detained after toppling busts at Vatican Museums tourist who toppled two ancient Roman busts in the Vatican Museums has been handed over to Italian police, the Vatican said. The vandalism occurred October 5 when the tourist, identified by several Italian media outlets as an American man, threw down two marble busts from their pedestals…
The Sunday Gospel The message of today’s Gospel (Luke 18: 1-8) is clearly expressed in the opening line. Pray continually and never lose heart. We are prepared for this lesson by the First Reading which gives us a picture of Moses at prayer. A battle was being fought and as long as Moses kept his arms raised…
Fr Bernard Cotter “You’re getting very big in yourself”, said the senior cleric to me, a few years after I was ordained. I had been out in the car, and so had he, and he waved at me and I hadn’t waved back. So he was letting on to be offended: I had a “big…
I had the pleasure this week of attending the premier of a new movie about Laudato Si’ called The Letter – A Message for our Earth. Launched in the Vatican on the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, October 4, The Letter is a powerful movie which tells the story of four people from very different…
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan
Aubrey Malone
Michael Kelly