After the Year of Mercy, it’s time to pray, writes Elizabeth Scalia St Philip Neri once had a penitent confess to indulging in gossip. He advised the contrite soul to bring him a chicken, and to pluck its feathers as he walked the streets of Rome. When the man showed up with the chicken,…
Dr Toni Pyke Gerard Gallagher On Saturday March 2, a coalition of national and local organisations that form ‘Le Chéile’, organised a ‘Stand Together’ march in Dublin city centre. This was their second such march, seeking solidarity, unity and acceptance of diversity in an increasingly divided Ireland. The march that Saturday wasn’t about any one…
Thomas McCarthy Few poets have written with the intensity and seriousness of Aidan Mathews; and fewer still have sustained that intensity over a career of five collections, six books of prose and six plays. This heroic, wide ranging and always engaged achievement belies the poet’s character which has seemed at all times evasive, ironic…
Sr Anne Marie Walsh It is hard to fathom that today’s world does not want God. It mirrors the fundamental struggle of our individual souls, the battle between being self-centred and being centred in God and his presence in our lives and the life of the world. Scott Barry Hoffman reported in the Scientific American…
Dear Editor, When I first read the proposed amendments to our Constitution, I was enraged as I remembered by own lovely mother and the wonderful women who have gone before us. To try and remove the word ‘mother’ completely and the word ‘women’ in this instance, is an insult to us all. The male of…
Frank Litton We learn two things from history. Assumptions quite different from those that frame our world shaped the actions of our predecessors. The second follows from this. World views do change. They are human constructions that endure for long periods. We might think of them as buildings, but if we do, they are buildings…
Joseph D. White A child’s First Communion is an important and exciting milestone in the life of a Catholic family. As the first and most important teachers of their children, parents present their children for baptism and guide them toward Christ as they are initiated into the church community. Handing on our faith to the…
Susan Korah When St John Paul II arrived in Ottawa in 1984, the first pontiff to visit this country, greeting him in Ottawa was Canada’s 18th prime minister, Brian Mulroney, one of 10 Catholics who have held that office since 1867. The “little guy from Baie Comeau,” raised by Irish Catholic working-class parents, had come…
Dear Editor, The Synod on Synodality is occupying the centre stage in the Catholic media at present, so it is important not to miss matters relating to day-to-day problems needing swift resolution. In this context the ‘Notebook’ on the back page of The Irish Catholic is always worth reading. Fr Martin Delaney’s contribution ‘Poorly proclaimed…
Laura Kelly Fanucci The first thing I noticed about our parish was the music. Everyone sang. From the moment the opening hymn began, the sanctuary was filled with a robust chorus. I looked around and couldn’t believe my eyes (or ears) – adults, children, women and men were all singing at full voice.I grew up…