Catholics and people worldwide associate St Valentine’s feast day with love and romance. Here are five married couples who are saints today because they lived out a vocation of love for each other – and for God. 1. Sts Louis Martin and Marie-Azélie Guérin (Zélie) Pope Francis canonized the French couple Louis Martin (1823-94) and…
I’m getting married this year. As the day draws closer, amid all the preparations, we’ve found ourselves watching a run of wedding rom-coms. And a familiar pattern kept resurfacing. For example, in Runaway Bride, the problem isn’t that love is absent, but that it is perpetually deferred. Maggie (Julia Roberts), the titular runaway bride, repeatedly…
Baz Luhrmann directed an electrifying biopic of Elvis Presley, Elvis, in 2022. While researching it, he discovered a treasure trove of previously unseen footage of Elvis in concert. He couldn’t use this, obviously, since another person (Austin Butler) was playing Elvis in the film. All we saw of the ‘real’ Elvis was a few minutes…
Sometimes you get unexpected good stuff in unlikely places – always a positive experience! Abuse survivor David Ryan’s visit with Pope Leo received lots of coverage and what I heard was hugely positive. Initially, it was in the news programmes, but then on the Claire Byrne Show (Newstalk, Tuesday) the presenter got off to a…
Take a Priest Like You: A Long Journey Home, by Michael Barrington (MJB Imprints, £15. 82 through Amazon) Today author Michael Barrington lives with his French wife in a small town in California up in the hills east of San Francisco. This is quite a contrast to the Britain he was born and bred in,…
The Irish Annals, by Daniel P. Mc Carthy (Four Courts Press, €35.00 / £31.50) This is a new paperback edition at a cheaper price of a volume that will be, for many engaged in the task of deciphering what we think we know about early Christian and medieval Ireland, an essential vade mecum. The author…
A Place Where Ireland is Invisible, by James Harpur, woodcuts by Paul Ó Colmáin (The Eblana Press, €35.00 postage included, Ireland / €45.00 post included, worldwide) The allusion in the title is to the banishment of Columcille to Scotland: he had to go to a place from which the coast of his beloved Ireland could…
It’s a topical question, perhaps! Many years ago, when visiting a school in the days leading up to Ash Wednesday, I spoke with the children about making a sacrifice during Lent. I asked them what they were doing and the answers were understandably predictable. “I’m giving up sweets”, said one. “Fizzy Drinks”, said another, and…
What is a liveable life? What is needed in order to make life, if not perfect, then as decent and as tolerable as it can realistically be? Questions like these are at the very heart of our so-called culture wars. They are personal questions, but also deeply political since the way we answer them will…
The Rosary from the heart: the key to ending violence Dear Editor, The apparitions of Our Lady of Cuapa, Nicaragua in 1980 were fully approved by the local bishop in 1982. Our Lady appeared to a simple, poor, not very well educated 49 year old man called Bernardo Martinez. He served as a sacristan in…
Aubrey Malone
Brendan O’Regan
Peter Costello