Christo Jivkov, the actor who portrayed St John the evangelist in Mel Gibson’s famous The Passion of the Christ, died March 31 age 48 following a struggle with lung cancer. “My dear friend Christo has lost his heroic battle with cancer. Right to the last moment, he was filled with hope and his spirit was…
The President of the Legion of Mary, Mary Murphy, has become the first Irish person appointed to the Pontifical Marian Academy International (PAMI). Ms Murphy said it was a “privilege and an honour” to accept the role, announced to her by theologian William Thomas on behalf of PAMI. “I hope I can do it justice,”…
Pope Francis has prayed that Christians would experience the joy of Easter and allow Christ’s resurrection to be “the light that illumines the darkness and the gloom in which, all too often, our world finds itself enveloped”. “In Jesus the decisive passage of humanity has been made: the passage from death to life, from sin…
After Jesus rose from the dead, his first appearances were to women. Why? One obvious reason might be that it was women who followed him to his death on Good Friday, while the men largely abandoned him. As well, it was women, not men, who set off for his tomb on Easter morning, hoping to…
Good Friday at 25 It is difficult for a new generation who have never experienced conflict at home to imagine the toll of the violence in lost lives, physical and mental injury and economic woe,writes Martin O’Brien After staying up late on Holy Thursday in case I missed anything I woke up to a news…
The Irish Defence Forces 1922-2022 by Eoin Kinsella (Four Courts Press/€30.00/£27.50) Defending Ireland over the past 100 years of independence has been the task of the Irish Defence Forces but their main struggle has often been to survive the neglect and parsimony of their political masters. For a new state that came out of a brief…
By the Books Editor Into Iraq by Michael Palin (Hutchinson-Heinemann/€19.99/ £16.99) Having abandoned the Python squadron, Michael Palin has created a new strand to his life making travel documentaries. In his new book, which deals with a long-intended journey through Iraq, he admits to feeling the effects of what we can kindly call his mature years, but…
Deacon Greg Kandra The Sunday Gospel April 16, 2023 2nd Sunday of Easter (Divine Mercy Sunday) Acts 2:42-47 Psalm 118:2-4, 13-15, 22-24 I Peter 1:3-9 John 20:19-31 This Sunday gives us one of my favourite Gospel readings — a story of doubt that turns into belief, of stubbornness that gives way to assent and conversion.…
The Church needs defenders who will acknowledge its sins while pointing out its many accomplishments, writes David Quinn It is gloves off time now for the critics of the Catholic Church in Ireland. They have gone from rightly attacking the leadership of the Church over their appalling failure to stop clerical sex abuse until the…
Armed bandits killed one person and kidnapped more than 100 others in a March 14 raid on a predominantly Catholic town in north-central Nigeria, according to a Catholic priest and other local sources. Fr Dauda Musa Bahago, a coordinator for the Justice, Development, and Peace Commission, a Catholic aid organisation, told CNA the attack took place…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Martin O'Brien
Peter Costello
David Quinn