A recent survey that reveals a mixed-bag of Catholic perceptions on immigration, including responses that don’t align with Church teaching, brings Bishop Mark Seitz back to the question that Church leaders often grapple with in this age of secularisation: How can they form the conscience of their members, and shape them according to Christ’s message?…
Hungary’s current Ambassador to the Holy See is a descendant of the Catholic European Royal House the Habsburgs. Eduard Karl Joseph Michael Marcus Koloman Volkhold Maria Habsburg-Lothringen or Eduard Habsburg for short recently released a new book entitled The Habsburg Way in which he provides seven principles, or what he calls rules for turbulent times,…
Fr Shay Cullen The shocking testimonies of 2,300 victim-survivors of childhood physical, psychological and sexual abuse representing 200,000 children that suffered in government care centres and Church orphanages and institutions over the past 70 years have just been released in a New Zealand report that took six years to compile. The investigative report, Abuse in…
In a section of her poem The Leaf and the Cloud, Mary Oliver describes her feelings as she stands by the gravesite of her father and mother. She reflects on how both their virtues and faults influenced her life. Then she ends the reflection with these words: I give them – one, two, three, four…
The History of the Church of Christ by Pierre Daniel-Rops (Cluny Media, in ten volumes, priced from $US 27.95/€25.50) Back in the post-war decades in Ireland, for many Catholics two authors stood out. One was the Jesuit Fr Frederick Copleston with his volumes of A History of Philosophy, which was perhaps a little too academic for…
In 2018, Ireland ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities after over a decade of procrastination. The argument was that the Government did not want to make international commitments until it was ready to do so. Since then, progress on disability rights has been, to say the least, miserable. On January…
Letter of the week ETB schools neglecting faith formation Dear Editor, The article by Fr Martin Delaney in the July 4 edition of The Irish Catholic was very apt, articulate and welcome. It was most timely for many of us: pastoral leaders, concerned parents and board of school management members, who are trying our best,…
man goes to a concert with his teenage daughter. It looks like the formula for a fun night – right? Wrong. Trap (12A) is an M Night Shyamalan film so you won’t be surprised to learn that it morphs into something of a Kafkaesque nightmare. Josh Hartnett plays the main role. Shyamalan’s daughter Saleka is…
Q: I’ve heard that a Catholic who is involved in an abortion is automatically excommunicated. But where do you draw the line in terms of what makes a person involved? Like if a person drove a woman to the abortion clinic because he wanted to try to talk her out of it at the last minute, would…
Notebook I think it was former Taoiseach, Albert Reynolds who said in his resignation speech; “it is the little things that can trip you up”. I’m sure President Biden might agree. He mixed up the names of a few world leaders and it cost him his chance of a second term. But perhaps the incident…
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Peter Costello
Aubrey Malone