Only the Irish political system makes 100% agreement on everything a condition of full membership, writes Larry Donnelly Last month, the Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy Bill was passed by the Dáil by a margin of 90 votes in favour and 15 against. Twelve TDs abstained. The bill has also passed in the Seanad…
In a landmark eight-page letter to US bishops who are on retreat in response to the clergy sexual abuse crisis that has engulfed the American Church, Pope Francis called for a “new ecclesial season” led by bishops who are more than administrators interested in “pointing fingers” and instead, leadership marked by “collegial spiritual fatherhood”, rooted…
Schools are increasingly faced with the challenge of understanding how adversity affects children’s growth, writes Bronagh Starrs Several generations ago, the school environment was a compartmentalised space where children carried their books and a simple lunch to each day – and even maybe a clod or two of turf for the fire. The world…
German Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich and Freising has called for change in long-standing Church tradition as the German bishops’ conference prepares for a workshop debate to “review” the issue of celibacy for priests. In his homily at New Year’s Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady in Munich, Cardinal Marx said the Church must,…
A Nigerian priest who was kidnapped and held ransom on Christmas Eve recalled his experience at Mass last week, saying prayer is what saved him. Fr Cajetan Apeh, a recently ordained priest assigned to St Theresa’s Parish in Anam, was kidnapped along with the church’s pastor on December 24. The two priests were ambushed while…
Irish Parliamentarians: deputies and senators, 1918-2018 by Anthony White (Institute of Public Administration, €60.00) Felix M. Larkin It is axiomatic that we get the politicians we deserve. We elect them, so we have nobody to blame but ourselves. However, while our politicians generally get a bad press, we in Ireland have been reasonably well served by them.…
A former head of the Philippines’ Catholic bishop’s conference has called on people to ignore President Rodrigo Duterte’s repeated rants against the Church. In his New Year message, Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan said those who call God stupid and teach that it is useless to go to Church are “anti-Christ”. “Do not listen to…
Heroic Failure: Brexit and the Politics of Pain by Fintan O’Toole (Head of Zeus, £11.99) Peter Hegarty In writing his latest book, leading commentator Fintan O’Toole set himself a task: “What I have attempted here is simply one possible answer to the most obvious question: how did a great nation bring itself to the point of…
Vatican news paper publishes articles on women equality Too often in the Catholic Church, “the sacrifices of women are used only to reinforce the power of those who already have it,” the editor of the Vatican newspaper’s monthly section on women in the Church has written. In the ‘Woman-Church-World’ supplement to L’Osservatore Romano published last week, editor Lucetta Scaraffia wrote: “A…
Developments in Artificial Intelligence pose challenges which the Church can help us answer, writes David Mullins It is probably fair to say that for most people, Artificial Intelligence is a concept whose meaning and relevance is still firmly located within the pages of dystopian fiction or vaguely remembered plot lines from half-baked – if…