The chairman of the US bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development has urged the US House of Representatives not to accept a proposed $40 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, California, called the programme “one of the most effective…
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Canadian Bishops meet
Canada’s bishops will be discussing charity, at home and abroad when they meet in Quebec for their annual plenary session next week. Within the past several months, floods in southern Alberta, a fire at Lac-Megantic, Quebec and the flash flooding in Toronto highlighted the fact that Canada’s bishops do not have an organised structure to…
Maeve Binchy: The Biography
Maeve Binchy, who died a year ago, will still be much missed by her countless readers. It seems very soon for any really full and deep searching account of her life to appear. Certainly this is not it. Indeed Piers Dudgeonís book reads more like a fanís notebook than a true biography. He has been…
Focus should be on future of diocese
Dear Editor, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin seems to have the Catholic press firmly in his sight given his recent criticism. It is odd that he didn’t reserve some of his criticism for The Irish Times – a newspaper which published a report on an ‘abortion’ that it was later grudgingly forced into accepting never actually happened.…
Abortion restrictions will be watered down
Dear Editor, In its enthusiasm to get The Protection of Life during Pregnancy Act 2013 off the ground, The Irish Times front page headline (First abortion carried out under new legislation, The Irish Times, August 23) proved to be previous resulting in an inner page apology. Despite the restrictive nature of the Act, over…
History Year by Year
It is a common complaint that children here and in England, where this book originates, have very confused ideas of history. This profusely illustrated large format book will go some way to remedying that. With a significant input from the Smithsonian in Washington DC, it begins some six and half millenniums ago and comes right…
Hardback books too pricey
Dear Editor, I read rave reports about this Poor Clares religious book Calm the Soul. It is available at Easons. I found it, in expensively printed paper at €21.95. Being an octogenarian religious, I couldn’t afford it. I wondered why it wasn’t printed on paper-back and made available at an affordable price to suit the…
Dancing sun a meteorological phenomena
Dear Editor, Fr McGillicuddy’s letter in last week’s Irish Catholic (IC 19/09/13) should provide useful food for thought for those who may have doubts about the existence of God. Similarly, an open-minded study of the Miracle of the Sun in Fatima on October 13, 1917 can help non-believers. In recent years Gunther Stolz, a German scientist who…
The Illustrated Story of Art
Though the text is compact, the range of art over time which some five scholars have put together gives a revealing appreciation of what art has been since earliest times, enhanced by many fine and often unusual illustrations. As a basic text, it covers a great deal, though one has qualms that fully a quarter of…
Renewal buried under red tape
Dear Editor, The letter from Seamus Flanagan (‘We need renewal, not reform’ IC 05/09/13), is tremendous, yet written in clear, simple language. I agree completely with him. That is the very heart of the matter. Over the centuries the Church has been gradually choked. Whatever good reform brought, through councils, canon law, etc., has been…