It was great to see the plight of Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando Álvarez brought to public attention by The Irish Catholic recently. The story arose from a parliamentary question posed by Carol Nolan, TD. Deputy Nolan does sterling work drawing attention to unpopular causes, along with many of her fellow Independent and minority party TDs. Nonetheless,…
Irish-born Bishop David O’Connell was remembered as a man “gripped by grace” and “at ease with movers and shakers and also with the moved and shaken” as nearly 5,000 attended a funeral Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on March 3. The Mass was the conclusion of a three-day tribute to…
One way or another, we are going to be living in a future that is increasingly dominated by artificial intelligence, writes David Quinn Over the past couple of decades we have already seen how machines such as smartphones and tablets have become so all-pervasive. These are very different from the earlier sorts of machines that…
Best known for his work in healthcare, especially in Ireland where many healthcare sites bearing his name dot the land, the Portuguese saint John of God is celebrated by the Church March 8. Born in 1495, Joao Cidade had an unsettled and haphazard early life, being orphaned at a young age before finding employment as…
Jem Sullivan Throughout the seasons and feasts of the liturgical year, the Church pauses to give special honour to Mary, mother of Jesus, the son of God. As mother of the Church, we turn to Mary as our mother in the order of grace for she brings about the birth of all believers in…
Talk of Irish joy in Prague must have seemed strange to delegates given that the only voices represented were of hurt, anger and alienation, writes Fr Andrew McMahon While its ‘final document’ is — at time of writing — still awaited, the European stage of the Synod on Synodality effectively concluded with the widely…
The majority of people who don’t identify as unionist or nationalist in the North of Ireland believe there should be a return to 50:50 recruitment of Catholics and Protestants in the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI). The Patten Report paved the way for 50:50 recruitment to address the under-representation of Catholics, it was introduced…
Almost €1 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent advertising the Government’s My Options hotline, according to recently released figures. The figures were released by the HSE in response to a parliamentary question from TD Carol Nolan about the MyOptions agency, which links women experiencing an unplanned pregnancy with abortion providing GPs. Since 2019, in…
This is a common refrain in our times: I’m definitely spiritual, but I’m not religious. Or again, I personally believe in a higher power or a god, but I wouldn’t associate with a religion. I’ve heard this line personally on many occasions, and I think it expresses the fact that many people are aware that…
Ireland has never quite grasped the significance of the vision and thought of St John Henry Newman writes Deacon Brett Lockhart The death late last year of Fr Ian Ker, (1942-2022) the world’s leading authority on the life and thought of Cardinal John Henry Newman may have gone largely unnoticed in Ireland, but his definitive…
Breda O'Brien
Ruadhán Jones
David Quinn