Notebook If you pray the Angelus on a Sunday evening while watching RTÉ you will be familiar with the Abbey of Ballindoon. Each Sunday this wonderful structure acts as the backdrop to the ringing of the bells calling us to prayers. Recently I was invited by Fr Cullen and the parish of Geevagh in Co.…
Hundreds of young legionaries gathered at De Montfort House in Dublin, to take part in the annual Legion of Mary Youth Conference on August 24. Attendees were treated to talks, workshops and given the opportunity to socialise with members of different praesidia from all around the country. Speakers touched upon the significance of the Legion’s…
Our readers are likely, by now, to be familiar with the offensive, and some may say, racist, section in a Junior Certificate textbook that depicted a ‘traditional’ Irish family as a plastic Paddy-type trope in contrast to a multi-cultural uber-progressive family. The publishers, EdCo – the Educational Company of Ireland – has apologised for this…
One of the great religious stories in history is the biblical story of the Exodus, the story of a people being set free from slavery, passing miraculously through the Red Sea, and finding themselves standing in freedom, on a new shore. Most of us are familiar with this story. A nation of people, Israel, was…
This month commemorates the bicentenary of the birth of the Austrian organist/composer Anton Bruckner. The anniversary was celebrated at the NCH last week through his 4th Symphony (Romantic) played by the visiting Bavarian Radio Orchestra, one of Europe’s finest broadcasting ensembles, under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle. Born in Ansfelden in Upper Austria, Bruckner…
There are some stories you just can’t ignore, even if you want to because they are so repulsive. And so it was with the release last week of the O’Toole Report into child sexual abuse at schools run by religious orders, effectively Catholic schools. It should be immediately clear that something is wrong here –…
“This year, in homage and gratitude to you, I am going to decree that the Christmas season [begins] on October 1,” declared Nicolás Maduro, leader of the ruling socialist regime in Venezuela, September 2 on national television. “For everyone, Christmas has arrived with peace, happiness, and security,” Maduro added. According to the Spanish newspaper El Mundo,…
Letter of the week Left with uncompromising ideologies… Dear Editor, I find it disturbing that a Junior Cert school book presenting a course that aims at promoting inclusion, has had a cartoon and write-up depicting traditional Irish families as boring, wearing Aran jumpers, red heads, knowing nothing of the world outside their immediate surroundings or…
Q: What is the criteria determining who can wear a ‘clerical collar’? I’m not sure if it varies from one seminary/diocese to another, but I’m curious why seminary students would wear a collar since they are not a member of the clergy just yet? It’s caused a bit of confusion for adults and children alike…
The Sunday Gospel Is 50:5-9a Ps 116:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9 Jas 2:14-18 Mk 8:27-35 I can still remember the priest who taught us Scripture during diaconate formation talking about the passage from the Gospel that we hear this Sunday, and then asking us what seemed an irrelevant question. “Where does it come in?” he asked…
Brandon Scott
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Brendan O’Regan