With God You are Never Alone: The Great Papal Addresses, by Benedict XVI (Bloomsbury, £14,95 / €17.50) In this book, which is bound to secure a wide readership, the 10 most important speeches of the Pontificate of Benedict XVI, are collected by Fr Federico Lombardi, of the Ratzinger-Benedict Foundation in Rome. These speeches reveal the…
“Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings, they’re your best link to your past. And the people most likely to stick with you in the future”. So wrote essayist Mary Schmich. I buried my mother at the age of 65 four years ago…
Somebody should put up a statue of Ken Loach. For decades he’s been making great movies about little guys taking on the big institutions. In The Old Oak (15A) the enemy isn’t a conglomerate but a man’s own contemporaries. Refugees TJ Ballantine (Dave Turner) is the proprietor of the eponymous pub, a run-down establishment he’s…
Judging by the video footage, those protests outside Leinster House last week were intimidating and offensive. Yet sneering at the protestors only increases the alienation that gives fuel to these activities. The matter was debated widely, but an item on the Hard Shoulder (Newstalk, Thursday) captured the essence of it. Presenter Kieran Cuddihy’s opening comments…
The “destruction” of an enclave of 120,000 Armenian Christians in the Nagorno-Karabakh region is imminent, warns Siobhan Nash-Marshall, a US-based human rights advocate. “The impact of the recent attacks and subsequent disarmament will almost certainly result in the destruction of the people of Artsakh,” Ms Nash-Marshall told CNA. In 2011, Ms Nash-Marshall founded the Christians…
After 37 years as a priest, I realise there is one area of my life and ministry where I could be diagnosed with scruples. This scrupulosity occurs when it comes to what priest and parish have to offer and ensuring that every family and individual gets treated exactly the same. Whether they come to Mass…
We all share blame for road accidents – bishop All road users must accept their “collective responsibility” for road traffic accidents, Bishop of Killaloe Fintan Monahan has said. His comments come in the wake of a spate of deaths and injuries resulting from collisions and accidents on Irish roads. After our immediate reaction to the…
Church leaders are hopeful that more and more parishioners will step up and preside at funerals to ease the burden on overworked priests, with two dioceses already commissioning laypeople to take charge where there is no priest. More than 70 new lay leaders in Clogher and Down and Connor dioceses are undertaking training to preside…
A priest who has played a prominent role in peace-building efforts in the North has criticised as a “major oversight” the use of the phrase “both communities” in the announcement of the EU’s ‘Peace Plus’ funding. Fr Martin Magill of St John’s on Falls Road said that the €1bn peace fund came as a “relief”…
The Dominican Order in Ireland continues to see vocations’ success as it recently welcomed two new novices and saw the first profession of three new brothers. The Dominicans currently have 17 brothers in varying stages of formation with another man due to be ordained October 1. Speaking to The Irish Catholic newspaper, the order’s vocations…
Peter Costello
Michael Kelly
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Ruadhán Jones