Gabriel Fitzmaurice Questioning Ireland: Essays and Reviews, by Thomas McCarthy (Gallery Books, €17.50 / £14.50) Thomas McCarthy’s latest book, Questioning Ireland, is, like its predecessor, Poetry, Memory and the Party, magnificent. McCarthy, poet, novelist, essayist and critic is at once a Waterford man, a Munster man, an Irishman and a man of the world. A…
The beatification process for the former Jesuit General Pedro Arrupe (1907-1991) has taken an important step. The diocesan phase of the process will be completed on November 14, the Vicariate of Rome announced recently. The beatification process was formally opened in 2019 at the request of the Jesuits. Arrupe was born in 1907 in the…
There is something brewing amongst the youth in the Church says, James Tourish There are many things associated with modern university life in today’s world, parties, drinking culture and a broad range of activities that are better left undiscussed. As a student at Queen’s University in Belfast, you soon come to find that ‘the…
Fr Adrian Crowley Eve Lavalliere was born in France in 1866. She had the worst, most tragic beginning to life which any child could have. Her father, an alcoholic, in a drunken rage shot her mother and then himself… and she saw it happen. As a teenager she ran off to Paris in pursuit…
Christine Mako Many are familiar with the story of Judith. She is one of the well-known Biblical women, renowned for her courage in helping rescue the Israelites from the Assyrians. With her virtue and trust in God, she was able to deliver the head of Holofernes, the leader of the Assyrian army, to her people,…
Fr Joshua J. Whitfield Dt 6:2-6 Ps 18:2-3, 3-4, 47, 51 Heb 7:23-28 Mk 12:28b-34 The theology of this passage from Mark matters. Obviously so does its place within the extended debates of rabbis and theologians, arguments now millennia old. “Which is the first of all the commandments?” the scribe asks Jesus (Mk 12:28).…
D.D. Emmons In Church history, few lay people have had more positive effect on the success of Catholic worldwide missionary activities than a Frenchwoman named Pauline Jaricot. Born into an aristocratic family in 1799, she used her influence to not only help spread the Gospel but rejuvenate devotion to the rosary and highlight deplorable conditions…
I was very conscious that if I said ’yes’ my life would change in a radical way, says Bishop Paul Dempsey At the age of 18, I made the decision to enter the seminary. Some might think, “God, that was a very young time to become a priest.” Of course, I wasn’t becoming a priest…
Eduardo Campos Lima In its latest crackdown on religious groups, including the Catholic Church, the Nicaraguan government has shut down hundreds of nonprofits and declared that from now on religious bodies will have to declare income and pay taxes. Last week, the regime headed by President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo,…
Francesca Pollio Fenton Many are familiar with the story of Fr Edward J. Flanagan from the 1938 Oscar-winning film ‘Boys Town’ starring Spencer Tracy. Now a new documentary on the famous priest promises a deeper look into Flanagan’s life when it hits cinemas for one night only on October 8. ‘Heart of a Servant: The…