Hundreds gathered at the Avila Retreat Centre in Dublin to celebrate the centenary of the canonisation of St Thérèse of Lisieux, also known as the Little Flower. The event began with Mass at 12 pm and continued longer than expected due to the ongoing stream of people attending the exhibition. The Sweeney family organised the…
Well before the same-sex marriage referendum in Ireland– currently celebrating its tenth anniversary – I think I sensed that attitudes were changing. Back in the 1990s, after Mary Robinson held a soirée in Áras an Uachtaráin for gay citizens, I had a conversation with an entirely conventional Irish Catholic grandmother, who would then have been…
In the four short weeks since Pope Francis died, we have seen the gathering of the Cardinals from all the corners of the earth, the papal election, the inauguration on Sunday of Cardinal Robert Prevost as the new Pope, Leo XIV, and his first public Mass as Pope. It is quite extraordinary that the Catholic…
There is a poignant scene in the series The Chosen which, irrespective of our reaction to it, demands reflection. This is the scene: Just before curing Peter’s mother-in-law of a fever, Jesus has a private conversation with Peter’s wife. He begins by telling her that he knows how close they are to each other as…
It’s a truism to say that the News, as typically presented by the media, is depressing. After the euphoria of the papal election, it was particularly bad last week. Early in the week, on Sky News I saw news coming through of the Scottish Parliament voting in favour of ‘assisted dying’, just like the Parliament…
Bro. John Salvador Kenny, a Franciscan monk born in 1925, has devoted his life to service and recently marked his 100th birthday. Raised on a farm in Longford, he trained as a psychiatric nurse before joining the Franciscans in 1952, taking the name Salvador. Over the decades, he served in Dublin, Killarney, Galway, Belfast, and…
The parish of Graiguecullen/Killeshin recently commissioned 23 new Ministers of the Holy Eucharist, an event made all the more remarkable by the involvement of 15 teenagers. The new ministers were formally presented and blessed at a Mass over the weekend, having recently completed their training. They will now take their place on the parish rotas…
As people try to get the measure of Pope Leo XIV, it is natural to look to Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878 to 1903. Unsurprisingly, the focus has been primarily on Rerum Novarum, his groundbreaking encyclical on the rights of workers, the right to private property, and gospel values as opposed to the…
Celtic Christian blessings roll off his tongue with a gentle ease, as he recites an ancient prayer, capturing ‘the spirit of the Irish’. “I weave a silence on my lips,” prayed Fr Ephrem. “I weave a silence into my mind. I weave a silence within my heart…” With our eyes closed to distractions, the tumult…
How striking it was to hear the first words of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate. They surprised, in no small part of course, because the world had never heard before from a pontiff born in the United States. But even more significantly, the first words he spoke as pope were not his own. Stepping out onto…
Renata Milán Morales
Mary Kenny
Nuala O’Loan
Fr Ronald Rolheiser
Brendan O’Regan
Breda O'Brien
Martina Purdy