When feelings of suffering, anxiety and loneliness bring young people to tears, Jesus cries with them and walks alongside them on the way of the cross, Pope Francis has said. After hundreds of thousands of young people spent hours singing, dancing and chanting under the sun waiting for the Pope to arrive in Lisbon’s Eduardo…
Jenna Marie Cooper Q: How do we reconcile the story of Adam and Eve and original sin with evolution? A: We can say the creation story in the Book of Genesis – while being true – was not meant as a literal or technical scientific account of how the material world was formed. Although…
Thousands of pilgrims swarmed to the Hill of Slane on World Youth Day for an event called ‘Light the Fire’ where they were asked to carry the “torch of Faith with courage and conviction”. Pilgrims of all ages gathered for praise and worship, rosary, Mass, and adoration, and prayed as Primate of All Ireland Archbishop…
World Youth Day is returning to Asia in 2027 and will be hosted in Seoul, South Korea. Pope Francis announced the location on August 6 to some 1.5 million pilgrims who attended the closing Mass of World Youth Day 2023 in Lisbon. “The next World Youth Day will take place in Asia. It will be…
Young people were going to Confession on street corners and park benches throughout Lisbon during World Youth Day, but in the 150 plywood confessionals set up in Vasco da Gama Garden three of them found themselves face to face with Pope Francis. Donning a purple stole, the Pope heard their confessions in the riverside garden,…
A number of years ago, I attended the funeral of a man who died at the age of ninety. From every indication, he had been a good man, solidly religious, the father of a large family, a man respected in the community, and a man with a generous heart. However, he had also been a…
Judith Sudilovsky The Stella Maris Carmelite monastery has seen destruction and banishment over its centuries’-old history, dating back to the mid-13th Century. The recent attempts by a group of Jewish religious extremists to declare the monastery a Jewish holy site has however, for the first time, led to the monks installing metal fencing around its…
Dear Editor, I was, like most people, horrified at the treatment of the young calves at marts around the country as portrayed on the national news and shown on the Prime Time Investigates programme aired on RTÉ, Monday, July 10. These young calves are going to slaughter (something that is not spoken about, the presenter…
Before a sea of waving flags representing countries large and small from across the globe, Pope Francis told some 500,000 singing, shouting and swaying young people that God has called each person to him by name, not their social media handle. “You are not here by mistake,” he told the mass of people in Lisbon’s…
This week we conclude our ‘Summer Series’ with a final group, this time of five apostles, with very varied if obscure lives. James the Less The profusion of persons named James surrounding Jesus in the years of his public life led in time to a sense of confusion, which the writings of the Fathers…
Michael Kelly
Chai Brady
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Peter Costello