There is a palpable fear within the Indian community in Ireland today. As an Irish citizen of Indian origin, I hear it from friends, colleagues, and families who feel anxious, unsettled, and in some cases deeply frightened. The recent, abhorrent spate of racist attacks has shaken our confidence. As someone who was the victim of…
Last week, Pope Leo XIV proclaimed St John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Universal Church and co-patron of Catholic Education alongside St Thomas Aquinas. This marked the climax of an extraordinary week in Rome, during which Pope Leo XIV also published an Apostolic Letter entitled Drawing new maps of hope. The Letter commemorates and…
Simon Harris statement on the Asylum process is a significant U-turn from Fine Gael. It’s an admission that Government has gotten it wrong. Indeed, Fine Gael had held the Ministry for Justice in the last Government and during that time the asylum process was allowed to proceed in chaos. It is the actions of Helen…
Recently, I read a book, The Grieving Body. It mingles author Mary Frances O’Connor’s own experiences of death, particularly of her parents, with extensive research on the effect of grief on the human body. She also references other types of grief, including her own diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and the loss of her first spouse…
When I first entered religious life, letters would arrive at our Falls Road convent in Belfast, addressed to Phyllis Bishop. Who is Phyllis Bishop, I wondered? Is she on the run from the mob? I would muse to myself. Eventually, I worked out that she was in fact, the oldest sister in our community –…
It’s easy to forget just how long Limerick wandered through the barren hurling wilderness before the emergence of the modern-day team that has not only conquered the county’s demons but rewritten nearly every record in the book. For forty-five long years, Shannonside endured a famine. Entire lifetimes passed without a Limerick man climbing the steps…
There are souls who walk among us whose light quietly illuminates the world, leaving footprints long after they are gone. Sr Stan Kennedy, who just recently went home to God at the age of 86, was one such soul. She was fearless, tireless, compassionate and unwavering in her love for the poor, the marginalised, the…
For some Catholics, Mary as the mother of Jesus herself has an almost divine significance. The Vatican’s religious authority has now emphatically pointed out the limits of this veneration. The Vatican is warning Catholics and theologians to overstep the boundaries of the Christian faith when it comes to the veneration of Mary. A ‘Doctrinal Note’…
It seemed as though Pope Francis’s invitation to Todos! Todos! Todos! had been answered – and they were all in Rome. The crowds filling St Peter’s Square and spilling down Via della Conciliazione on Sunday were more suggestive of the election of a new Pope than Pope Leo’s weekly Angelus and blessing. In such crowds,…
We must explore our shared humanity before we lose it,” said Bishop Richard Clarke. Recognising Ireland’s growing diversity of traditions, Bishop Clarke, then Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath and Kildare, wrote in The Irish Times (October 10, 2005) of the need for “a seeking together to establish what it is to be human in…
Breda O'Brien
Martina Purdy