Fr Adrian Crowley St Josephine Bakhita was born in 1869, in Sudan. Her village was surrounded by palms, banana trees, fields, shrubs. Her tribe lived peacefully, working the fields. Her father was an important man in the village. As a child she was full of life and joyful, loved her brothers and helped her…
As I was saying at the end of last week’s article, the turnout in the General Election was disappointing – 59.7%? Do we value our democracy enough? On Morning Ireland (RTÉ Radio 1, Tuesday) we heard from Art O’Leary, CEO of the Electoral Commission, pointing that one of the problems outlined was inaccuracy in the…
I am grateful to Finghin Collins for keeping me up to date about the next Dublin International Piano Competition taking place from May 9 to 16 2025. The Irish preliminary rounds are scheduled for Friday December 20 at the RIAM’s Whyte Recital Hall beginning at 09.15am and concluding at approximately 5.30pm with the results expected around 6pm. Twelve competitors – Adam…
Walter Sánchez Silva (CNA) The Nicaraguan dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his “co-president” and wife, Rosario Murillo, this week kidnapped and expelled from the country Fr Floriano Ceferino Vargas, a priest of the Diocese of Bluefields. Medardo Mairena, a former peasant leader now in exile, stated on X that “Fr Floriano Ceferino Vargas, parish priest of the…
Dear Editor, As I sit here tonight my wife is in the next room being treated by the palliative care team. She was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumour and her life expectancy was estimated to be 3 or 4 months. I struggled for a few weeks trying to help her as she needed to…
The selected choices of our reviewers Joe Carroll My choice is tripartite: Patrick Kavanagh: Collected Poems, Tarry Flynn and the biography of the poet by Antoinette Quinn, none of them new, but still to be found in the shops. On a visit to the Patrick Kavanagh Centre in Inniskeen I picked up a new…
KNA Archbishop Scicluna of Malta has warned against using the methods of the World Synod’s spiritual dialogue – an alternation of speaking and meditation without direct discussion – everywhere in the Church: “If, for example, I have to deal with financial experts for the audit of the Archdiocese of Malta, I don’t need to have…
KNA The signals are positive: the Pope’s ambassador to Syria reports that the rebels are respecting religious diversity in the country. The Pope’s ambassador to Syria is relieved about the largely peaceful change of power in the country so far. In an interview with Vatican News, Cardinal Mario Zenari made an urgent appeal to the…
Fr Alan Hilliard The book of Job is an amazingly insightful work which tries to understand the human condition and the possibility of God. He presents insights into friendship, family, property, money and death. In Scripture, we see him being stripped of all he owns and all he knows and is left with nothing.…
Amid the jubilation unleashed inside Syria and around the world by the fall of the Assad regime last Saturday night, one community in the country that probably isn’t in such a festive mood right now would be Syria’s Christian minority. Prior to the outbreak of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, Christians represented roughly 10%…
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello
John L. Allen Jr.