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…
The View A thoughtful friend of mine asked me whether this pandemic had been sent for a reason. Was it, she wondered, some kind of message from God that we were getting things badly wrong and needed to change our ways? Did we need to return to basics, like loving others and praying? I see…
The View It really is a case of being careful what you wish for. When I wrote before the election that it was time to move away from the politics of Tweedledum and Tweedledee, I had no idea that the country would instead vote for Tweedledodge. In fairness, neither did Sinn Fein, which could have…
The View Gay Byrne, Marian Finucane and Larry Gogan were household names but the loss of the less-well known but very popular 2FM presenter Alan McQuillan at 37 was also a tragedy. At 69, Marian Finucane was the youngest of the older three, with Gay Byrne and Larry Gogan both in their mid-80s. They were all…
The View I love Christmas. No ‘bah, humbug’ for me. Of course, it is much easier to love Christmas when you have been greatly blessed by having a family, a roof over your head and enough to live on. So many people do not even have the basics of life. As a child, there was one…