The View Martin Mansergh Shortly, the people of the Irish State will be celebrating 100 years of independence, mostly with pride, despite the difficult circumstances of its birth. This will be done without trying to hide subsequent disappointments, failures and betrayals, or ignoring basic work that still has to be done. Commemoration will…
Catholic Olympic gold-medallist Yuna Kim lit the torch at the Opening Ceremony for the 2018 Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. The Korean skating sensation has long expressed a desire to use her public role to share the light of Christ by witnessing to her Catholic faith in international competitions and performances. Kim was honoured…
You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living Henri Nouwen (Hodder & Stoughton, £14.99) Anthony Redmond I have read quite a few of Henri Nouwen’s books and he never fails to move and inspire me. I never seem to tire of him. He was a profoundly spiritual, prayerful man, but he always struck me as lonely,…
Even though the Church has all the necessary norms and laws in place to safeguard minors from abuse by clergy, the problem continues to be a lack in understanding or caring about those rules and guidelines and applying them effectively, said one Jesuit expert. What must change “without a doubt” are Church procedures for handling…
Leabhar Urnaí an Timire níl aon eagarthóir ainmnithe (Foilseacháin Ábhar Spioradálta, €5) Tadhg Ó Dúshláine This slim volume of less than 50 pages will come as a godsend to the increasing number of teachers in Gaelscoileanna, under the trusteeship of the Church, charged with the transmission of the faith in a broken culture, where the rich heritage…
Pope Francis’ marriage exhortation is a rich source of advice for families, writes Julie Kavanagh In the coming weeks, many parishes across the country and beyond will begin to host a series of parish conversations as part of their preparations for the World Meeting of Families 2018. This series will give anybody who wants to…
The Iona Institute has launched a new national billboard campaign to promote the right to life of the unborn. The billboards show an image of the unborn baby at 11 weeks with the simple message ‘one of us’. Speaking on behalf of The Iona Institute, Maria Steen said that neither the Citizens’ Assembly nor the…
As the Church celebrated the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, a French bishop announced the 70th officially recognised miraculous cure of a pilgrim to the Lourdes grotto where Mary appeared 160 years ago. Bishop Jacques Benoit-Gonnin of Beauvais formally declared this week “the prodigious, miraculous character” of the healing of Sr Bernadette Moriau, a…
The Notebook Fr Conor McDonough Among the noble efforts to resist the Nazi regime was that of Sophie Scholl and the other members of Munich’s ‘White Rose’ group. This small group of friends printed and distributed thousands of copies of anti-Nazi leaflets, even, with incredible courage, throwing huge bundles of them down the staircase…
Over 600 people gathered in Dún Laoghaire last weekend to celebrate the value of unborn children, with the aim of keeping Ireland’s constitutional protections for the unborn. The event, ‘Loving the 8th’, took place on Saturday, 10 February and was organised by Dún Laoghaire Life Canvass and Cherish All the Children Equally as part of…