Peter Kasko I was recently approached by a friend who asked me what is like to be a member of core/leadership team and the challenges that come with it. From the moment, it was like a flood of ideas coming to my mind and the flow was so quick that I just couldn’t keep track…
Andy Drozdziak (CNA) The bishops of England and Wales continue to urge Catholics to “raise their voices” in opposition to an assisted suicide bill, the text of which was published earlier last week. Late on November 11, English Labour Member of Parliament Kim Leadbeater published her Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill before Parliament members vote…
Praying with the Bible: An Ignatian Guide, by Nikolas Sintobin (Messenger Publications, €14.95 / £12.95) This book, written in a very accessible style, provides lessons in reading the scriptures from an Ignatian point of view and should find a wide readership. At the very start of the Spiritual Exercises Ignatius announces that the first step has to…
Kimberley Heatherington The answer – according to an Institute for Human Ecology panel convened at The Catholic University of America in Washington – is basically this: It depends. There are “two big questions that hang over human life in digital reality right now,” announced Ross Douthat, a media fellow with the institute and New…
Q: What scriptural basis is there for praying for the dead, for their repose, or for praying to the dead, for their intercessions? And in a related way, what scriptural basis is there for the Catholic practice of ‘relics’, such as saving a person’s bone fragments? My Protestant friends say these practices are not in the Bible…
President-elect Donald Trump has chosen several Catholics to serve in his cabinet and other parts of his administration, including environmental lawyer Robert F Kennedy Jr, three-term Senator Marco Rubio, and Representative Elise Stefanik. The 45th and soon-to-be 47th president made more than a dozen announcements within 10 days of his electoral victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. Many…
Saint of the week St Columbanus, also known as St Columban, was a prominent figure in early Irish monasticism who later became a missionary to continental Europe during the early Middle Ages. Born in 543 in Leinster, Ireland, Columbanus was well-educated from an early age. Being a handsome man, he was troubled by intense…
I’m always glad to give some recognition to our young musicians whether or not they are planning to make the art the basis of their careers. With the spotlight shining on them at this time of the year, Barbara Elliott of Touchstone Communications tells me that the 2024 Top Security/Frank Maher Classical Music Award –…
One of the challenges facing the Church in Ireland today is the tension between the fact that necessary Church reform requires patient discernment, but also the fact that this reform is urgently needed. Within a decade the Dublin Archdiocese – the country’s largest with over a million registered Catholics – will have only a couple…
Some years ago, a friend was facing the birth of her first child. While happy that she was soon to be a mother, she confessed openly her fears about the actual birth-process, the pain, the dangers, the unknown. But she consoled herself with the thought that hundreds of millions of women have experienced giving birth…
Peter Costello
Renata Milán Morales
Fr Ronald Rolheiser