www.ronrolheiser.com More than 50 years ago Philip Rieff wrote a book entitled The Triumph of the Therapeutic. In it, he argued that widespread reliance upon private therapy today arose in the secularised world largely because community has broken down. In societies where there are strong families and strong communities, he contends, there is less need…
400-year-old church emerges from the waters in Mexico Due to an intense heat wave and drought that has spread throughout various parts of Mexico, a more than 400-year-old Catholic church has completely emerged from the waters in the state of Chiapas. The church of the disappeared town of San Juan Quechula, dedicated to the apostle…
The Diocese of Down and Connor, Co. Antrim, celebrated the centenary of Apostolic Work on June 17, marking their 100 years of supporting missionary priests, sisters and lay people in many countries around the world including Albania, Botswana, El Salvador, Malawi, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Zimbabwe to name just a few.…
Barb Fraze A bishop in north central India urged Catholics throughout the nation to spend time before the Blessed Sacrament for seven days to help end the worsening ethnic violence in Manipur, a state in the country’s northeast, bordering Myanmar. The situation “is worsening day by day in Manipur … it’s literally burning,” Bishop Chacko…
In George Orwell’s masterful novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four – which I read every summer, and eerily seems more prescient each and every year, ‘doublethink’ and ‘newspeak’ are used to describe how the establishment uses intentionally ambiguous speech to distort and obscure reality. It came to mind as I watched the hearings of the Oireachtas committee on…
Dear Notebookers! I am not exactly sure who you are. Well, that is not altogether accurate, since I spoke with a priest friend in Raphoe last week with whom I had not been in contact for a while. “The only place I see you”, he told me “is on the back page of The Irish…
Targeting asylum seekers ‘unacceptable’ The Irish Inter-Church Committee has spoken out against “the targeting of people seeking protection in Ireland” in a statement released on World Refugee Day. Following multiple incidents of protests aimed to intimidate of asylum seekers, the committee, which represents 16 Churches in Ireland, made an appeal calling for an end to…
The Douai Martyrs, by Gerard Skinner (Gracewing Publishing, £14.99/ €17.99) Gerard Skinner, who once studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and later at the Venerable English College in Rome. He is the author of many books, including the valuable Newman the Priest. Here, however, he turns to a theme which should perhaps…
Pope Francis and Brazil’s President Lula embrace during visit Pope Francis said a meeting with Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at the Vatican June 21 took place in an atmosphere of “great sympathy and friendship,” the Vatican said. The two can be seen embracing in photos shared by the Brazilian president’s photographer. Pope…
Media stories go through several phases – at first a story can make a minor impact (the slow-burn phase); then it gets legs (the leggy phase); then the controversy gets intense and finally there’s the fizzling out phase. Other stories just blow up unexpectedly scattering news shards all over the place. Controversy The controversy over…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Michael Kelly
Peter Costello
Brendan O’Regan