The View It is profoundly disappointing, not to mention scary if you are what the French call a ‘certain age’ to be once again in lockdown. It is heartbreaking to see it sweeping again through nursing homes, including places where it was successfully kept out in previous waves. Impacts Young people may not be as…
The View Recently, I was straightening a framed photograph of my mother which sits on my cluttered office desk at home. I noticed that the photo had slipped down in the frame and that something was visible behind it. Intrigued, I removed the backing and found an undated letter from my mother. I had absolutely…
The View What is religion for? We know that NPHET, or at least, Dr Ronan Glynn, then the acting Chief Medical Officer, did not think religion sufficiently important as a source of social contact to allow people to continue with public worship. In response to a question by David Quinn, he said that the aim…
The View Amy Coney Barrett’s life should be a role model for feminists. She has a marriage where her husband, Jesse, does more of the cooking and cleaning than she does. She manages to balance a busy household of seven children, including two adopted from Haiti, with working outside the home. She is the first…
The View Like all other Catholics in Dublin last weekend, I was unable to attend Mass due to the level three restrictions designed to lower the numbers of Covid-19 cases. Although during the original lockdown I was very grateful to have live streamed liturgies, nothing replaces worshipping in a real-life community. Still, it is amazing…
The View The US election poses yet another difficult choice for Catholics. Yes, Joe Biden plays on his Catholic heritage to the extent that he has featured his 2016 meeting with Pope Francis in campaign advertisements. However, in that same video, he also talked about meeting a group of nuns the same day, “lovely women”…
The View During the lockdown, many people turned to Amazon, Netflix and good old-fashioned DVD box sets for entertainment. But it is remarkably difficult to find series that are family-friendly, particularly if you have older children and teens. Family-friendly films or series with religious themes which are well-made are even rarer. As a result, I…
The View This column is being written as we begin to be able to return to worship the Risen Lord as a real and not just a virtual community. What a shame the Government has flip-flopped so often on numbers. Of course, not everybody will be able to or should return. People with medical conditions…
The View When the happy day comes when Covid-19 no longer constitutes an ongoing serious threat to human life, I hope that things will not go back to normal. I hope they can be better than they were and particularly in the area of the celebration of sacraments. For example, there is one Sacrament…
The View There was a tragic case recently in Mullingar when the wrong body was given to a family for burial. It was spotted by a mortician when a name on a body bag matched that of someone whose remains had allegedly already been collected by a funeral director. Imagine the distress of the…